WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Turkey: A NATO Ally? by Burak Bekdil

Posted By on October 28th, 2022

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/19028/turkey-nato-ally

What do members, future members, dialogue partners and future dialogue partners of this exotic blend of nations [the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, SCO] have in common?

With their growing democratic deficits and authoritarian-to-dictatorship regimes, they are at cold war with the world’s democratic bloc of nations.

“I told Putin… Let us in so we’ll break up with the EU. The Shanghai Five is better [than the EU]. It is much more powerful. [With membership] we’ll have a chance to be together with the countries with which we share common values” — Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, January 2013.

And finally, in September 2022, Erdoğan became the first head of a NATO state attending an SCO summit, in Uzbekistan…. Erdoğan went to the summit upon Putin’s personal invitation.

This is the natural outcome of West’s deaf ears and blind eyes. When Erdoğan first spoke of SCO membership for Turkey a decade ago, Western capitals reacted with shy laughter and a misdiagnosis: that Erdoğan was just bluffing to win quicker membership accession to the European Union.

Western bigwigs did not even get the message when in 2013 Erdoğan spoke of Eurasian dictatorships as “countries with which we have common values.” He was just speaking what, to him, was the truth.

Funny, Erdoğan became the first NATO head of state attending an SCO summit while pressuring Congress for the delivery of U.S.-made F-16 Block 70 fighter aircraft for his air force. Behind closed doors in Washington, his envoys and back channels will be telling their U.S. audience that “Turkey’s future is in the Western bloc, that the SCO talk is for Turkey’s balancing act between its commitment to the West and its inevitable proximity with Russia.”

Turks are living in a totally different economic realm than the recent past. Turkey’s official annual inflation climbed to a fresh 24-year high of 80% in August — though ENAG, an independent research organization, estimated the true annual inflation rate at 181% for the same period. Worse may be yet to come.

Meanwhile, Turkey’s currency, the lira, has lost more than half of its value against the US dollar since 2021.

The Shanghai Five group, which later became the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO), was created on April 26, 1996 with the signing of the Treaty on Deepening Military Trust in Border Regions, in Shanghai by the heads of states of China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia and Tajikistan.

ISRAEL, MOVIES AND TELEVISION Comments turned off

Netanyahu trials horror film puts justice system in focus  By RUTHIE BLUM

Posted By on October 28th, 2022

https://www.jpost.com/opinion/article-720807

A new documentary examining the impetus for and preface to the trial of former prime minister (and current opposition leader) Benjamin “Bibi” Netanyahu is a must-watch. The 45-minute, Hebrew-language film focuses on Case 4000, which creators Gilad “Gili” Goldschmidt and screenwriter Yoad Ben Yosef identify as the most serious of the three indictments.

Case 1000 involves Netanyahu’s allegedly having been gifted cigars and champagne from Hollywood mogul Arnon Milchan and Australian businessman James Packer, in return for access and clout. Case 2000 is about Yediot Aharonot publisher Noni Mozes offering the prime minister favorable coverage, in exchange for help to curtail the circulation of the Israel Hayom newspaper.

Netanyahu never accepted the proposal. But he didn’t immediately reject it off hand. This, according to the indictment, enabled him to enjoy positive reportage during the time that Mozes believed such a deal was in the works.

You can’t make this stuff up – unless you’re the Israel Police and State Attorney’s Office, that is. Then you charge the “perpetrator” with fraud and breach of trust. And you add a bribery rap to the mix in Case 4000.

EDUCATION Comments turned off

The Supreme Court and Racial Preferences The Justices can reassert the principle that discriminating by race is illegal.

Posted By on October 28th, 2022

https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-supreme-court-and-racial-preferences-harvard-university-of-north-carolina-college-admissions-11666905779?mod=opinion_lead_pos1

A great triumph of 20th-century American government was the Civil Rights Act of 1964. It broke the back of Jim Crow and reasserted the principle that no one should be discriminated against for his race. The Supreme Court has a chance to reaffirm that vital American principle on Monday when it hears challenges to the admissions practices at Harvard and the University of North Carolina(Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard College and SFFA v. University of North Carolina).

The case is an important moment for American law but even more for the country’s social and political future. America is becoming increasingly diverse. Yet rather than assimilate this melting pot with race-neutral principles, many in our political class want to divide America into racial categories, allocating jobs, benefits and even elections based on race.

The Biden Administration is trying to embed this practice across the federal government and impose it on the private economy. This is a destructive trend that will inevitably lead to more racial balkanization and enmity.

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Elon Musk Twitter Deal Completed, CEO and CFO Immediately Fired Parag Agrawal and Ned Segal are out as takeover begins; billionaire visited headquarters this week By Lauren Thomas and Alexa Corse

Posted By on October 28th, 2022

https://www.wsj.com/articles/elon-musk-completes-twitter-takeover-11666918031?mod=hp_lead_pos1

Agrawal and Ned Segal are out as takeover begins; billionaire visited headquarters this week
Elon Musk fired several Twitter Inc. executives after completing his takeover of the company, according to people familiar with the matter, capping an unusual corporate battle and setting up one of the world’s most influential social-media platforms for potentially broad change.

Mr. Musk fired Chief Executive Parag Agrawal and Chief Financial Officer Ned Segal after the deal closed, the people said. Mr. Musk also fired Vijaya Gadde, Twitter’s top legal and policy executive, and Sean Edgett, general counsel. Spokespeople for Twitter didn’t comment.

Hours after those actions, Mr. Musk tweeted: “the bird is freed” in a seeming reference to Twitter, which has a blue bird as its logo.

ENVIRONMENT AND JUNK SCIENCE Comments turned off

With Their Attacks On David Malpass, Global Warming Hysterics Reveal Their Shallow Ways . By John Tamny

Posted By on October 28th, 2022

https://www.realclearmarkets.com/articles/2022/10/27/with_their_attacks_on_david_malpass_global_warming_hysterics_reveal_their_shallow_ways_861412.html

In 2008 Nigel Lawson published An Appeal To Reason: A Cool Look at Global Warming. The Tory radical who served as Margaret Thatcher’s Chancellor of the Exchequer was promptly attacked for having the temerity to write about the theory of global warming absent scientific credentials.

Lawson thankfully didn’t cower amid the arrows directed his way. Instead, Lawson responded that he would cease talking about global warming as soon as other non-scientists like Al Gore, Tony Blair, and other self-serious hysterics did the same. Brilliant!

As readers surely know, the Al Gores of the world never took Lawson up on his offer. The non-scientist in Gore continues to express alarm about “global warming,” and he continues to attack those who disagree with him.

Indeed, Gore recently went after David Malpass, president of the World Bank. Gore described Malpass as a “climate denier,” only for the World Bank head to be asked his views on whether or not human progress is the cause of a warming planet. Malpass’s response was, “I’m not a scientist.”

Please think about Malpass’s response, along with the vitriol directed at Lawson fourteen years ago. For writing a book about so-called “global warming” without scientific credentials, Lawson was demonized.

In which case, Malpass’s response to the question was seemingly the correct one for the warming nail-biters in our midst. Not a scientist, Malpass would leave the question of warming to the scientists. Gore et al should have been thrilled, except that Malpass’s response actually brought on more frothing at the mouth from warming’s religionists.

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Biden Tells an Absurd Whopper–Claims Average Price of Gas Was $5.00 When He Took Office By Debra Heine

Posted By on October 27th, 2022

https://amgreatness.com/2022/10/27/biden-tells-an-absurd-whopper-claims-average-price-of-gas-was-5-00-when-he-took-office/

Joe Biden was caught telling a ridiculous, easily disproven lie during a speech on the CHIPS Act in Syracuse, New York, on Thursday, claiming the price of gasoline was “over five dollars” when he took office, when it was actually only $2.39.

“The most common price of gas in America is $3.39 down from over five dollars when I took office,” Biden told the audience. “We need to keep making that progress by having energy companies bring down the cost of a gallon of gas that reflects the cost of paying for a barrel of oil.”

According to Fox Business, “the national average price for a gallon of regular gasoline in the week ending on Jan. 25, 2021, shortly after Biden took office, was $2.39,” and “the average price for a gallon of regular gasoline didn’t reach $5.00 until June 2022, well over a year after Biden took office.”

The current national average for a gallon of regular gasoline is actually $3.76, over 30 cents more than Biden claimed Thursday, Fox Business reported.

Upon taking office, Biden immediately halted construction of the Keystone XL pipeline, which would have delivered up to 700,000 barrels of oil per day into the U.S. from Canada. He also put hurdles in front of oil companies, increasing regulations for oil and gas leases, froze new drilling permits and stopped leases on federal lands.

He ran his whole campaign on destroying the energy industry, and prices started going up almost immediately after he entered office.

During the same speech, Biden also claimed  that “the price of inflation is down.”

MEDICINE AND HEALTH Comments turned off

The Updated mRNA COVID Boosters Are a Bust, Two New Studies Show By Debra Heine

Posted By on October 27th, 2022

https://amgreatness.com/2022/10/27/the-updated-mrna-covid-boosters-are-a-bust-two-new-studies-show/

The new, heavily promoted mRNA booster shots from Pfizer and Moderna are not all they’re cracked up to be, according to two new preprint studies.

The boosters perform no better against Omicron than the fourth jab with the original formulation,” a new study from scientists at Columbia University in New York City found. The updated Covid-19 booster shots have been advertised as “bivalent,” meaning they target the original coronavirus strain as well as the Omicron BA.4/BA.5 subvariants.

However, the Columbia paper found that the newer Omicron variants easily evade both types of boosters, Alex Berenson reported on Substack.

The report strongly suggests anyone who received mRNA shots should hope the next Sars-Cov-2 variants remain mild as the current Omicron variants, because those folks will have very little protection from future Sars-Cov-2 variants going forward.

In other words: immune imprinting and original mRNA vaccine antigenic sin are real, and they’re spectacular (spectacularly bad).

About the only good news in the study actually comes from vaccine failure. People who had three shots and then were infected with Omicron had markedly higher antibody levels than people who received either booster.

The boosters were reportedly authorized for human use based on data from eight baby mice.

ELECTIONS Comments turned off

Liz Peek: Democrats’ democracy alarmism flops with voters

Posted By on October 27th, 2022

https://thehill.com/opinion/campaign/3707603-democrats-democracy-alarmism-flops-with-voters/

Several months ago, Democrats rolled the dice. They chose the issues they thought would help them prevail in the midterm elections, and they chose badly. Some of their decisions were, to be fair, inescapable. When the Supreme Court handed down its startling decision on Roe v. Wade, Democrats grasped the opportunity to burrow in on a social issue they hoped would energize their base, and especially young women.

But their other picks were entirely voluntary and, ultimately, wrong-headed. They decided to continue hammering former President Trump for every conceivable misstep, and to prolong the Jan. 6 hearings to remind voters not only that Trump was a menace but that his attempts to overthrow the 2020 election proved our very democracy is in peril.

This proved a bust. Most voters made up their minds about the riots at the Capitol months ago; the endless partisan congressional hearings into the matter have attracted a dwindling audience. Millions of Americans considered the hearings a political show trial, with no due process and no balance. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) departed from 200 years of precedence by not allowing the minority party to choose its own panel members. That was a mistake.

Meanwhile, the Biden White House delivered such a disastrous performance on the economy, the border, crime and inflation that Trump, despite his misdeeds, began to look better in hindsight. Ironically, he looked especially appealing because his social media presence was severely curtailed. Many voters began to forget why they rejected him in 2020.

Approval of the former president has actually increased while Speaker Pelosi’s chosen few rail on about the “insurrection” on Jan. 6. In a recent New York Times/Siena poll, Trump beats Joe Biden. Oops.

CHARLOTTE'S NEWS WEB, ELECTIONS Comments turned off

A healthy Fetterman would have lost the debate too.His record and policies are indefensible. Teresa Mull

Posted By on October 27th, 2022

https://spectatorworld.com/topic/healthy-fetterman-would-have-lost-oz/

The debate between Pennsylvania US Senate candidates Republican Mehmet Oz and Democrat John Fetterman, was, as The Spectator’s own Ben Domenech described it, “political malpractice.” Watching Fetterman mumble, stumble, stutter, and glitch his way through answers made Joe Biden on a bad day sound like FDR delivering his stirring “Fear Itself” speech. But stroke or no stroke, Fetterman has no record to laud, and the policies he promotes are indefensible.

Fetterman showed why he is unfit to serve right off the bat when the moderators (the real stars of the show) asked the candidates, “What qualifies you to be a US senator?” Both Oz and Fetterman seemed to confuse this basic question with “Why are you running?” and “Why is your opponent not qualified to be a US senator?” Nonetheless, Fetterman made a particularly obvious pass at the question. Rather than leading with any mention of his dozen years as mayor of Braddock, Pennsylvania, or of his time as lieutenant governor of Pennsylvania, Fetterman introduced what he calls the “Dr. Oz rule,” which means “when Oz is on TV, he’s lying.” (The “Dr. Oz rule” is also a type of rhetorical device most liberals are fond of using — when you don’t have anything substantial to say, just call the other side a liar/racist/sexist/etc.) Fetterman resorted to the “Dr. Oz rule” many, many, many times throughout the course of the one-hour debate.

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Publishing Professionals: We Must Censor Amy Coney Barrett To Save Free Speech By: David Harsanyi

Posted By on October 27th, 2022

https://thefederalist.com/2022/10/27/publishing-professionals-we-must-censor-amy-coney-barrett-to-save-free-speech/

More than 350 literary workers—agents, editors, publicists, and writers—have signed an open letter demanding Penguin Random House drop publication of Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett’s upcoming book. It should be noted, that there are some legitimate editors on the list, but many signees –-“Leslie” and editorial interns and so on –- are not exactly Nan Talese. And yet, the document, brimming with nonsensical, contradictory, confusingly reasoned claims, is a useful window into the increasingly authoritarian mindset of the cultural American left.

The letter argues that Random House has a duty to stop the publication of ACB’s book to save free speech. “This is not just a book that we disagree with, and we are not calling for censorship,” says the letter, titled “We Dissent.” “We cannot stand idly by while our industry misuses free speech to destroy our rights.” It quotes British leftist David Puttnam, who contends that the media has a duty to “balance freedom of expression with wider moral and social responsibilities.”

That’s the rub, of course: who gets to decide the contours of the “wider moral and social responsibilities” and the “misuses” of free speech? Even if we formed a consensus on those alleged duties, one of the reasons (real) liberals treat speech as a neutral principle is to protect dissent and challenge conventional wisdom. Rationalizing censorship as a means of protecting people from harmful ideas is as old as censorship itself.