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January 2020

WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Tears and cheers as EU lawmakers give final nod to Brexit Gabriela Baczynska, Jakub Riha

By on January 30th, 2020

https://www.reuters.com/article/uk-britain-eu-parliament/tears-and-cheers-as-eu-lawmakers-give-final-nod-to-brexit-idUSKBN1ZS1EE

BRUSSELS (Reuters) – The European Parliament gave final approval to Britain’s divorce from the European Union on Wednesday, paving the way for the country to quit the bloc on Friday after nearly half a century and delivering a major setback for European integration. After an emotional debate during which several speakers shed tears, EU lawmakers voted 621 for and 49 against the Brexit agreement sealed between Britain and the 27 other member states last October, more than three years since Britons voted out. 

Thirteen lawmakers abstained and the chamber then broke into a rendition of Auld Lang Syne, a traditional Scottish folk song of farewell. Britain’s 73 departing EU lawmakers headed for an “Au Revoir” party in the EU chamber after the vote.

Earlier on Wednesday, Britain’s ambassador to the EU handed documents formalising Brexit to a senior EU official. Against a backdrop of British and EU flags at the bloc’s Brussels headquarters, Tim Barrow, smiling, passed over a dark blue leather file embossed with the emblem of the United Kingdom.

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NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Feeling the Pain of High Drug Prices? We Prescribe Market Forces Henry I. Miller and Jeff Stier

By on January 30th, 2020

https://issuesinsights.com/2020/01/30/feeling-the-pain-of-high-drug-prices-we-prescribe-market-forces/

Trump administration officials keep searching for solutions to rising prescription drug prices, which are increasing faster than inflation. “Drug makers and companies are not living up to their commitments on pricing. Not being fair to the consumer, or to our Country!” President Donald Trump tweeted last year.  

However, it’s hard to know what “fair” prices are. After all, pharmaceutical research and development is expensive and high risk. Bringing a drug to market may take 10 or more years and costs, on average, more than $2.5 billion. Most of the administration’s suggested remedies have been threats of the imposition of various types of price controls. (Predictably, those proposed by the Democrat presidential hopefuls have been much more draconian.)

A conservative, reform-minded administration should know better than to go down the path of innovation-stifling, heavy-handed government intervention. Responsible regulatory reform is a better way to foster pharmaceutical innovation, drive prices down, and help patients.  

We suggest two ways to do that. 

The first would be to correct a glitch in patent laws. Patents are granted to inventors by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office if their product or process is judged to be useful, novel and non-obvious. The driver of pharmaceutical R&D investment is the promise that after a drug receives Food and Drug Administration approval, a manufacturer will be able to market it exclusively, without generic competition, for a period of time at the price it chooses. After the patent expires, the introduction of generic versions of the drug reduces drug prices dramatically.  

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ISRAEL Comments turned off

Palestinians: Abbas Chooses Hamas Over Peace with Israel by Khaled Abu Toameh

By on January 30th, 2020

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/15506/abbas-chooses-hamas-over-peace

Hamas and Iran have no plans to boost the economy in the Gaza Strip. They also have no intention of creating jobs for thousands of unemployed Palestinians.

“After years of no progress, the donor community is fatigued and reluctant to make additional investments so long as the governance structure in Gaza is run by terrorists who provoke confrontations that lead to more destruction and suffering.” — From the “Peace to Prosperity” plan.

In fact, the wording of Trump’s plan is quite compatible with the position of Abbas and his PA officials in the West Bank.

By forging an alliance with Hamas, a terror group that does not recognize Israel’s right to exist, Abbas is already signaling his readiness to join forces with those who oppose any peace process with Israel. Such an alliance effectively places Abbas on the side of Iran and its Hamas and PIJ proxies.

Abbas and Hamas may renew their relations in the near future, but it will be the Palestinians of the Gaza Strip who will suffer, condemned by their leaders to poverty and misery.

In their response to the “Peace to Prosperity” plan, Palestinian leaders have once again succeeded in what they do best: taking any hope for the wellbeing of their people and driving it straight into the ground.

US President Donald Trump’s “Peace to Prosperity” plan for peace between Israel and the Palestinians offers hope to the two million Palestinians of the Gaza Strip, which has been ruled by Hamas for more than a decade.

Instead of welcoming the plan, designed to give the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip a prosperous future, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas has rejected and denounced it as the “deal of shame” and “slap of the century.”

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WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

UK: Boris Johnson Must Decide between Washington and Beijing by Con Coughlin

By on January 30th, 2020

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/15504/boris-johnson-china-huawei

Mr Johnson would be well-advised to heed Mr Pompeo’s advice and reconsider allowing Huawei access to Britain’s telecoms systems, irrespective of the restrictions the British authorities claim they will impose on the firm’s access to sensitive installations.

In an age when the foremost challenge of the Western democracies is to defend their interests against Beijing’s long-term goal of achieving global dominance, it is vital that they present a united front against the Chinese threat.

Mr Johnson needs to understand that Britain’s interests are best served by maintaining strong ties with Washington, rather than by indulging in dubious business deals with Beijing.

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s decision to allow the Chinese telecoms giant Huawei access to Britain’s new 5G network has placed unnecessary strain on the transatlantic alliance at a time when it needs to show a united front against Beijing’s global ambitions.

Mr Johnson’s decision to allow Huawei to build parts of the 5G network has been taken in the face of fierce opposition from the Trump administration, which regards the Chinese company a security risk because of its historic links to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).

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EDUCATION Comments turned off

The Heckler’s Veto at Georgetown Law Students shut down a speech. Now they want impunity for disrupters.

By on January 30th, 2020

https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-hecklers-veto-at-georgetown-law-11580343235?mod=opinion_lead_pos3

Georgetown Law students shamed the university last semester when they exercised a heckler’s veto against a Trump Administration official. Now they’re claiming that disciplining those who disrupted the event “would have a chilling effect on free speech and expression across campus.”

The controversy began last fall when Georgetown Law invited Kevin McAleenan, then the acting secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, to speak on immigration law and policy. Hundreds of law students signed a petition accusing Mr. McAleenan of implementing a “white nationalist-inspired” agenda and demanding his disinvitation. When the event proceeded anyway, student protesters prevented Mr. McAleenan from speaking.

Georgetown’s speech and expression policy states that students can face discipline for “disrupting events to prohibit other students from hearing the views of an invited speaker,” but the law school won’t say whether the hecklers were punished.

Instead the law school has convened an advisory committee to consider, among other things, the “response to disruptive protests during an event, and follow-up disciplinary or other administrative actions,” the school said in a statement. Georgetown University Law Center Dean William Treanor also asked the committee to consider whether there should be “any constraints on which outside speakers may be invited to speak on the Law Center campus,” the co-chairs wrote in an email to students.

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NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

The ‘Corrupt Motives’ Doctrine Every President equates his re-election self-interest with the public interest. It isn’t grounds for impeachment.

By on January 30th, 2020

https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-corrupt-motives-doctrine-11580343258?mod=opinion_lead_pos2

The questions from Senators in the impeachment trial aren’t plowing much new ground, but they have been useful in underscoring some constitutional principles. To wit, it isn’t legitimate to toss a President from office because the House thinks otherwise legal acts were done with “corrupt motives.”

House managers concede that President Trump broke no laws with any specific actions. Instead, they claim that he abused his power because his motives for asking Ukraine’s President to investigate Joe and Hunter Biden were self-interested—to assist his re-election rather than as Mr. Trump claims to investigate corruption.

More than one Senator teed up the issue, and White House lawyers did an admirable job of explaining the constitutional point. “All elected officials, to some extent, have in mind how their conduct, how their decisions, their policy decisions, will affect the next election,” White House Deputy Counsel Pat Philbin said. “It can’t be a basis for removing a President from office.”

Alan Dershowitz, the Harvard professor and another defense lawyer, elaborated that every politician, every President, tends to equate his re-election interest with the public or national interest. If the House can impeach a President for what it claims are self-interested motives, then majorities will have cause to impeach any future President.

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EDUCATION Comments turned off

Civilization Is History at Yale Great art is too ‘white, straight, European and male,’ so it’ll have to give way to the latest agitprop. By Roger Kimball

By on January 30th, 2020

https://www.wsj.com/articles/civilization-is-history-at-yale-11580342259?mod=opinion_lead_pos5

Yale announced last week that it will stop teaching its famous survey course, “Introduction to Art History: Renaissance to the Present.” Taught for decades by Vincent Scully, one of Yale’s most celebrated professors, the course was a riveting introduction to pulse of humanism.

It is being cashiered for all the usual reasons. Its focus is too white, too European, too male, too “problematic,” as Tim Barringer, chairman of the art history department, puts it. Mr. Barringer will substitute a course that challenges such Eurocentrism and promises to be very up-to-date. Mr. Barrginer says he’ll introduce a “global” perspective. Naturally, he writes, the course will consider art in relation to “questions of gender, class and ‘race.’ ” (Why the scare quotes around “race”? Is today one of those days when race is only a social construct?) It will also ponder art’s “involvement with Western capitalism.”

Globalism, gender, class, race, capitalism. Has Mr. Barringer neglected any trendy concern? How about the Greta Thunberg gambit? On it! Art’s “relationship with climate change will be a ‘key theme,’ ” the Yale Daily News reports.

The Daily News adds that the removal of “Introduction to Art History” is “the latest response to student uneasiness over an idealized Western ‘canon’—a product of an overwhelmingly white, straight, European and male cadre of artists.”

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ISRAEL Comments turned off

Dion Nissenbaum Arab Leaders’ Support for Mideast Peace Plan Marks a Regional Shift Tentative backing of U.S. proposal reflects changing priorities, frustration with the Palestinians and more willingness to work with Israel

By on January 30th, 2020

https://www.wsj.com/articles/arab-leaders-support-for-mideast-peace-plan-marks-a-regional-shift-11580325868

BEIRUT—President Trump’s Middle East peace plan has jolted regional dynamics, with Israel preparing to quickly annex West Bank land once expected to be part of a Palestinian state and key Arab leaders tentatively backing the U.S. initiative.

For decades, Arab and Muslim leaders have held fast to the view that any deal with Israel should include a withdrawal of Israeli forces from Palestinian land, and the establishment of an independent Palestinian state with parts of East Jerusalem as its capital.

While many Middle East leaders still support those goals, officials in Arab capitals have been frustrated by Palestinian leaders’ reluctance to compromise on those points, which has prevented them from strengthening ties with Israel, officials in the region said.

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BOOKS Comments turned off

Understanding the World’s Greatest Source of Jew-Hatred A sober examination of Islam’s historical treatment of Jews. Allon Friedman

By on January 30th, 2020

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2020/01/understanding-worlds-greatest-source-jew-hatred-allon-friedman/

During a public U.S. Congressional hearing held in April 2019, data was presented from a worldwide survey performed between 2014 and 2017 by the Anti-Defamation League that found the 16 nations with the highest prevalence of extreme antisemitism to all be Muslim countries in the Middle East. In response to the presentation of these data, the ADL’s Senior Vice President for Policy Eileen Hershenov had this to say: “vulnerable, marginalized communities have bigotry within them.” 

If explaining away Muslim Jew-hatred as somehow a result of vulnerability and marginalization in societies that are overwhelmingly Muslim strikes one as troubling, well it should; especially if the person doing the explaining represents an organization that claims “its timeless mission is to protect the Jewish people.” Any person with a healthy sense of self-preservation might ponder other questions that arise from this case. Like, for instance: Why is extreme antisemitism so ubiquitous in the Arab Muslim world? Or: Why is a prominent Jewish advocacy organization so intent on apologizing for Islamic Jew hatred? 

Unfortunately, anyone searching for answers to these timely questions is not going to find them anywhere in the public arena. In fact, a conspiracy of sorts has prevailed on college campuses, in Hollywood, in the establishment media, in think tanks, and in other cultural institutions, both Left and Right, where honest and open discussion of Islamic anti-Semitism is taboo because of the fear of social ostracism and professional suicide.

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ISRAEL Comments turned off

Why the Palestinians Rejected Trump’s Peace Plan The one aspect of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict that no one wants to talk about. Robert Spencer

By on January 30th, 2020

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2020/01/why-palestinians-rejected-trumps-peace-plan-robert-spencer/

President Trump unveiled his long-awaited “Deal of the Century” plan Tuesday afternoon, offering Palestinians a state and fifty billion dollars. Predictably enough, the Palestinians and their supporters are enraged. The way they have expressed that rage is a new indication of why all peace plans up to now have failed, and why all future plans are doomed to fail.

An Islamic Republic press organ, the Tehran Times, reported that “Iranian Parliament Speaker Ali Larijani on Wed., in a letter sent to the Parliament speakers of the Islamic states, urged Islamic countries to counter US-proposed so-called ‘Deal of Century.’”’

According to the Jerusalem Post Tuesday, Islamic State (ISIS) caliph Abu Ibrahim al-Hashimi al-Quraishi “called on all Muslims worldwide to thwart US President Donald Trump’s peace plan, and added that ‘The Muslims who live in Palestine… will be at the forefront of the fight against the Jews [and] foiling the ‘Deal of the Century.’”

And in Turkey, according to Yeni Şafak, “Turkish demonstrators poured onto streets across the country on Tuesday to protest U.S. President Donald Trump’s long-awaited Middle East peace plan….Many protesters at the rally held placards bearing slogans reading, ‘Jerusalem belongs to Islam.’”

Even before the plan was announced, the official Palestinian Authority daily Al-Hayat Al-Jadida on Monday declared that the Palestinian National Council “again expressed its objection to every plan, project, deal, or attempt to harm the Palestinian people’s inalienable rights.” It called upon the PLO to “take all the necessary steps to encourage and escalate the resistance and the struggle against the occupation in all its forms and manners.” Jihad is “struggle” in Arabic.

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