NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Prominent Putin Critic Dies under Mysterious Circumstances in D.C., Friends Suspect Foul Play By Diana Glebova

Posted By on August 19th, 2022

https://www.nationalreview.com/news/prominent-putin-critic-dies-under-mysterious-circumstances-in-d-c-friends-suspect-foul-play/

A fierce Latvian-American critic of Vladimir Putin living in exile in Washington, D.C., was found dead Sunday evening on the sidewalk outside his apartment building, police said.

Authorities told National Review they don’t suspect foul play, but those close to 52-year-old businessman Dan Rapoport are raising questions about the circumstances surrounding his death, which they doubt was the result of suicide.

“The stakes of getting to the bottom of [Rapoport’s death] are high,” prominent Russia historian and journalist David Satter, who was a friend of Rapoport, told National Review.

“So much in this doesn’t make sense, that clarifying this has got to be a very, very high priority,” Satter said, adding that his death could possibly be an “organized assignation” carried out by Russia in the streets of America’s capital, but that more information needed to be released to determine how Rapoport died.

The Metropolitan Police Department responded “in reference to a jumper,” and filed a police report about their discovery at 8:50 p.m. on Sunday.

Police officers found articles of clothing, a broken headphone, a cracked cellphone, $2,620 and a Florida driver’s license at the scene, according to the police report.

Rapoport was pronounced dead at the hospital.

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

On the Guilty Plea of Trump’s Finance Guy, Weisselberg By Andrew C. McCarthy

Posted By on August 19th, 2022

https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/on-the-guilty-plea-of-trumps-finance-guy-weisselberg/?utm_s

With all the violent crime that goes unaddressed in New York City, how great to see that Alvin Bragg has resources to prosecute septuagenarians for failing to report their grandchildren’s comped school tuition to the taxman. But, for whatever it’s worth to him, the Manhattan DA has gotten his man — or at least a man close to his man. To settle the case against him, Allen Weisselberg, longtime financial officer for Donald Trump’s real-estate organization, was made to plead guilty to 15 counts of behavior so serious that he’ll be looking at . . . yes . . . 100 days in prison.

As the New York Times put it, with surprising bluntness, Bragg will “gain a victory” here because “Mr. Weisselberg, an accountant who served a vital role as the company’s financial gatekeeper, will be branded as a felon.” So will Trump’s organization when the case against it comes up in October, unless there is a plea before then. This is an exercise in branding political enemies, and the media will speak about the dispositions in those terms. The fact, however, is that the DA is settling for a puny case against the company because it can’t hook the big fish.

MEDICINE AND HEALTH Comments turned off

The CDC’s Big Fail On COVID-19: Where’s The Real Accountability?

Posted By on August 19th, 2022

https://issuesinsights.com/2022/08/19/the-cdcs-big-fail-on-covid-19-wheres-the-real-accountability/

Americans, good natured as they are, often assume that government agencies deserve an implicit trust from the public that they’re sworn to serve, and that they will not violate that trust. When they do, there have to be consequences. That’s certainly the case after our two-and-a-half year COVID-19 nightmare.

It can no longer be denied that our government’s bureaucratic response to the dreaded Wuhan flu was inadequate at best, near-criminal at worst. And now the reckoning has begun.

That can be seen in the Centers for Disease Control’s new “guidance” on COVID, which is essentially an institutional mea culpa for mistakes that cost thousands of people their lives and sowed panic while doing little to halt the spread of the nasty virus.

“The new guidance, released Aug. 11, rescinds and alters a number of key recommendations, including treating unvaccinated and vaccinated people differently for many purposes, explicitly stating that people with previous infection have protection against severe illness, and removing 6-foot social distancing advice,” the Epoch Times reported in a summary the changes.

In short, it unwinds nearly all its previous COVID guidance.

MEDICINE AND HEALTH Comments turned off

Fauci and Walensky Double Down on Failed Covid Response Lockdowns were oppressive and deadly. But U.S. and WHO officials plan worse for the next pandemic. By John Tierney

Posted By on August 19th, 2022

https://www.wsj.com/articles/fauci-and-walensky-double-down-on-failure-covid-pandemic-evidence-data-lockdowns-mask-mandates-restrictions-public-health-experts-11660855180?mod=opinion_lead_pos5

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention belatedly admitted failure this week. “For 75 years, CDC and public health have been preparing for Covid-19, and in our big moment, our performance did not reliably meet expectations,” Director Rochelle Walensky said. She vowed to establish an “action-oriented culture.”

Lockdowns and mask mandates were the most radical experiment in the history of public health, but Dr. Walensky isn’t alone in thinking they failed because they didn’t go far enough. Anthony Fauci, chief medical adviser to the president, recently said there should have been “much, much more stringent restrictions” early in the pandemic. The World Health Organization is revising its official guidance to call for stricter lockdown measures in the next pandemic, and it is even seeking a new treaty that would compel nations to adopt them. The World Economic Forum hails the Covid lockdowns as the model for a “Great Reset” empowering technocrats to dictate policies world-wide.

Yet these oppressive measures were taken against the longstanding advice of public-health experts, who warned that they would lead to catastrophe and were proved right. For all the talk from officials like Dr. Fauci about following “the science,” these leaders ignored decades of research—as well as fresh data from the pandemic—when they set strict Covid regulations. The burden of proof was on them to justify their dangerous experiment, yet they failed to conduct rigorous analyses, preferring to tout badly flawed studies while refusing to confront obvious evidence of the policies’ failure.

U.S. states with more-restrictive policies fared no better, on average, than states with less-restrictive policies.

MEDICINE AND HEALTH Comments turned off

The Centers for Disease Politics The agency offers a mea minima culpa for its manifest Covid failures.

Posted By on August 19th, 2022

https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-centers-for-disease-politics-rochelle-walensky-center-for-disease-control-and-prevention-covid-vaccines-11660859044?mod=opinion_lead_pos1

Regrets, Rochelle Walensky has a few, though apparently too few to specify. Amid bipartisan criticism over her agency’s bumbling virus response, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention director said Wednesday she’ll reshuffle the bureaucratic deck with an emphasis on “action” and “equity.” Her diagnosis and prescription are both wrong.

Not much of the U.S. government works well these days, but the CDC once had a reputation for excellence. Covid blew that up. Its bureaucracy, with 11,000 employees and some two dozen divisions, impeded a rapid and effective response to the virus.

One problem is that bureaucracies always seek to expand their power and reach, often at the expense of their core mission. The CDC is no exception as it has sought to address social and environmental issues that are better left to the states or other agencies. Meantime, it has failed in its core responsibility, which is to track diseases, collect data to inform decision-making, and deploy resources to support local public-health responses.

At the start of the pandemic when public officials were blind to the virus spread, CDC employees failed to follow standard lab operating procedures and contaminated Covid tests. Even after the agency realized its blunders, it refused to share virus samples with private commercial labs to help develop and deploy tests.

EDUCATION Comments turned off

Democrats are woke, but parents are awake By Ronna McDaniel

Posted By on August 19th, 2022

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/restoring-america/community-family/democrats-are-woke-but-parents-are-awake

Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel became the second woman ever elected as the leader of the Republican National Committee in 2017.

As a mother of two, I’m well acquainted with the tradition of back-to-school shopping. But this time, preparations look different for many families. From invasive COVID-19 vaccine requirements and woke curricular materials to surging costs for school supplies, back-to-school season has parents peeved — and for good reason.

From the beginning, President Joe Biden and Democrats have put special interest groups over students. The Biden administration slow-walked school reopenings and prioritized teachers unions’ demands over parents’ needs, with Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Rochelle Walensky meeting with families just once while granting “instant access” to union bosses. In fact, Walensky even admitted that she changed the CDC’s school reopening guidance to give teachers unions “what they need.” Emails show she went so far as to recommend that schools keep their doors shut — just because the unions said so.

Children paid the price. Studies show students who learned remotely for the majority of the 2020-2021 school year “on average … lost the equivalent of about 50% of a typical school year’s math learning during that time.” The fallout was especially dramatic for low-income, black, and Latino students, leading to “the largest increase in educational inequity in a generation.”

Now, Democrats in Washington, D.C., have handed families in public, charter, and private schools an ultimatum: Get the COVID-19 vaccine or be expelled. This mandate disproportionately affects minority families. Roughly 40% of black school-age children in Washington, D.C., are unvaccinated, which means they could be banned from returning to school in person. The learning losses they will suffer as a result will have long-term consequences.

CHARLOTTE'S NEWS WEB, ENVIRONMENT AND JUNK SCIENCE Comments turned off

There Is No Climate Crisis: History Shows Us That The Earth Has Seen Far Worse Tyler Durden

Posted By on August 19th, 2022

https://www.zerohedge.com/weather/there-no-climate-crisis-history-shows-us-earth-has-seen-far-worse

Climate science has been so suffocated by ideological zealotry it’s becoming difficult just to find normal objective analysis these days.  Any piece of data that contradicts the man-made climate change narrative is surrounding by a spin machine that either dismisses the information or obscures it in a deluge of global warming propaganda, inoculating the reader well before they get a chance to digest the news that maybe climate change is not all it’s cracked up to be.

Whenever high temperatures are reported in the US or Europe the news is hyperinflated into wild theories of climate Apocalypse by the media, but weather history suggests that the panic is fabricated rather than justified.  In fact, any hot weather event you can pick out in recent years is likely overshadowed by a much worse event decades or centuries before “man-made carbon pollution” was ever a thing.    

For example, the media is frantic over the current drought and “record temps” in Europe this summer, warning that it could become the “worst drought” in 500 years.  Of course, this claim opens the door to a question that climate scientists and propagandists don’t want to answer:  What happened 500 years ago? 

A similar level of global warming hysteria was present during a heat wave in Europe in 2003, as well as in 2018.  The few climate scientists still not bought and paid for by governments and the UN have had to point out that these droughts are nothing compared to the living hell that was the drought of 1540.  This event is often termed a “mega-drought” because the region suffered historically hot temps while receiving almost no rain for a year.

CHARLOTTE'S NEWS WEB, NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

FBI Unit Leading Mar-a-Lago Probe Earlier Ran Discredited Trump-Russia Investigation By Paul Sperry

Posted By on August 18th, 2022

https://www.realclearinvestigations.com/articles/2022/08/18/fbi_unit_leading_mar-a-lago_probe_previously_led_russiagate_hoax_848582.html

The FBI division overseeing the investigation of former President Trump’s handling of classified material at his Mar-a-Lago residence is also a focus of Special Counsel John Durham’s investigation of the bureau’s alleged abuses of power and political bias during its years-long Russiagate probe of Trump.

The FBI’s nine-hour, 30-agent raid of the former president’s Florida estate is part of a counterintelligence case run out of Washington – not Miami, as has been widely reported – according to FBI case documents and sources with knowledge of the matter. The bureau’s counterintelligence division led the 2016-2017 Russia “collusion” investigation of Trump, codenamed “Crossfire Hurricane.”

Although the former head of Crossfire Hurricane, Peter Strzok, was fired after the disclosure of his vitriolic anti-Trump tweets, several members of his team remain working in the counterintelligence unit, the sources say, even though they are under active investigation by both Durham and the bureau’s disciplinary arm, the Office of Professional Responsibility. The FBI declined to respond to questions about any role they may be taking in the Mar-a-Lago case.

In addition, a key member of the Crossfire team – Supervisory Intelligence Analyst Brian Auten – has continued to be involved in politically sensitive investigations, including the ongoing federal probe of potentially incriminating content found on the abandoned laptop of President Biden’s son Hunter Biden, according to recent correspondence between the Senate Judiciary Committee and FBI Director Christopher Wray. FBI whistleblowers have alleged that Auten tried to falsely discredit derogatory evidence against Hunter Biden during the 2020 campaign by labeling it Russian “disinformation,” an assessment that caused investigative activity to cease.

Auten has been allowed to work on sensitive cases even though he has been under internal investigation since 2019, when Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz referred him for disciplinary review for his role in vetting a Hillary Clinton campaign-funded dossier used by the FBI to obtain a series of wiretap warrants to spy on former Trump campaign adviser Carter Page. Horowitz singled out Auten for cutting a number of corners in the verification process and even allowing information he knew to be incorrect slip into warrant affidavits and mislead the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act court.

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

The biggest threat to American support for Israel comes from the left “Top Story” with Jonathan Tobin and Matthew Continetti

Posted By on August 18th, 2022

https://www.jns.org/the-biggest-threat-to-american-support-for-israel-comes-from-the-left/?utm_source=Old+Daily+Syndicate&utm_

So long as liberals and their corporate media cheerleaders continue to treat conservatives as illegitimate “deplorables,” the polarization of American politics and public discourse will continue, says JNS editor-in-chief Jonathan Tobin. That’s why a dispassionate history and analysis of the conservative movement is important, he argues.

Speaking with Matthew Continetti, author of “The Right: The Hundred Year War for American Conservatism,” the two discussed how the rise of former President Donald Trump and his populist approach to politics can be traced to trends that have always been part of the arguments on the right dating back decades. As Continetti noted, “the leadership of a movement matters just as much, if not more, than what that movement stands for.”

They also discussed the role that conspiracy theories and anti-Semitism play in American politics.

“One of the strengths of American conservative thought in the 20th century was that the facts were on its side,” argues Continetti. He also notes that being supportive of Israel was a key part of Trump’s ability to win the GOP presidential nomination in 2016. That was, he says, “more of the party bringing Trump along than it was Trump moving the party. … The evangelical Christian community has been the bulwark of support for Israel in this country for about 40 years.”

According to Continetti, “The biggest threat to American support for Israel, to Israel’s legitimacy and I think to the success of the American Jewish community does come from the left today and not from the right.”

WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Biden Administration and Iran Empowering Rushdie’s Attackers by Khaled Abu Toameh

Posted By on August 18th, 2022

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/18812/biden-iran-rushdie

“Whenever they (Islamists) disagree with a woman, they accuse her of treason, threaten her with rape and torture, and bully her family.” — Ghada Oueiss, Lebanese journalist, to Lebanese television presenter Dima Sadek’s 1.1 million followers on Twitter, after she received death threats for criticizing the stabbing of author Salman Rushdie; Twitter, August 14, 2022.

“Get out of the Middle Ages and learn how to live with other people’s opinions.” — Antoine Haddad, Lebanese academic, to people threatening Sadek, Twitter, August 14, 2022.

Sadek has good reason to be worried for her life. Most of the threats she received came from supporters of Hezbollah, the terrorist group that effectively controls Lebanon and reports directly to the mullahs in Iran.

On the same day that Sadek was receiving threats of murder and rape, Taliban militiamen in Kabul beat women protesters and fired into the air. The women [were] chanting “Bread, work and freedom….”

It is the mullahs of Iran, whose media has welcomed and praised the stabbing attack on Rushdie, that are inspiring, funding and arming Hezbollah, Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, the Houthis (in Yemen) and other Islamist terrorist groups around the world.

In July, Iran executed at least 71 prisoners, including four women, according to the Iran Human Rights Monitor. Most of the women executed in Iran are themselves victims of domestic violence and commit murder in self-defense, the group noted.

Without the Biden administration’s support for the mullahs, these groups would not be threatening to rape and kill women. Without the Biden Administration’s support for of the mullahs, these groups would not be launching drone and missile attacks on America’s allies.

These are the same mullahs who are now hoping that the Biden administration will reward them with hundreds of billions of dollars as part of a new nuclear deal between Iran and the Western powers.

The mullahs will undoubtedly use the money to continue their campaign of murder and intimidation. They will also use the money to consolidate their occupation of four Arab countries – Syria, Iraq, Lebanon and Yemen – and continue their savage persecution not only of their own people, but also of women and journalists such as Dima Sadek and Hasan Shaaban.

Iran’s proxies and loyalists are threatening to murder renowned Lebanese media personality Dima Sadek because she dared to criticize the stabbing of Indian-born British-American novelist Salman Rushdie in Chautauqua, New York last week.

Since the stabbing attack, Sadek has been subjected to a campaign of incitement and threats of murder and rape through social media posts and text messages sent to her personal phone number.