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February 2020

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

ATTACKS ON TRUMP SUPPORTERS…..APPALLING

By on February 14th, 2020

Florida Man Attacks Trump Supporters With … a Cane Sword
By Tyler O’Neil

https://pjmedia.com/trending/florida-man-attacks-trump-supporters-with-a-cane-sword/

Peaceful Florida citizens holding Trump signs were minding their own business in Dunnellon, Fla., last Thursday when a man rushed at them with a cane sword.

Police arrested 49-year-old James L. Whitehurst II and charged him with 10 counts of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon and one count of disorderly conduct, the Ocala Star Banner reported.

Victims reportedly told police that Whitehurst had approached them during their peaceful assembly with what was described as a cane sword. The assailant allegedly pointed the sword in their faces and made threatening statements, holding the blade 6 inches from their faces.

Whitehurst confessed to having removed the sword from its holder and pointing it at the Trump supporters. He told police he meant no harm by the threatening action.

New Hampshire Man Assaults Pro-Trump Teenager at Polling Site, Leaving Him ‘Traumatized’
By Matt Margolis

https://pjmedia.com/trending/new-hampshire-man-assaults-pro-trump-teenager-at-polling-site-leaving-him-traumatized/

A New Hampshire man was arrested Thursday afternoon “after allegedly assaulting a 15-year-old Trump supporter and two adults at a polling site during the state’s first-in-the-nation primary earlier this week,” Fox News exclusively reports. The teen’s mother told Fox News that the assault left her son “traumatized.”

Patrick Bradley, 34, of Windham, N.H., was charged with simple assault and disorderly conduct.

Bradley reportedly got in the face of the teenage boy who was wearing a red MAGA hat and volunteering at the local high school, which was a polling place for the New Hampshire primary.

The boy’s mother described the incident involving her son in an interview with Fox News. “My son stayed home from school on Tuesday for a doctor’s appointment and we drove by the high school to go vote. When we got there, we saw Donald Trump Jr. and Kimberly Guilfoyle, and my son was over the moon,” she said. “My son is the most patriotic kid you’d ever meet in your life.”

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EDUCATION Comments turned off

‘Bears for Palestine’ Celebrates Terrorists at UC Berkeley By P. David Hornik

By on February 14th, 2020

https://pjmedia.com/trending/bears-for-palestine-celebrates-terrorists-at-uc-berkeley/

Algemeiner, a website for Jewish and Israel news, reports that a group at the University of California, Berkeley, called Bears for Palestine, “us[ed] its dedicated cubicle space to display photos” of Palestinian terrorists—namely Fatima Bernawi, Rasmea Odeh, and Leila Khaled, “the latter seen wielding an AK-47 assault rifle.”

Bernawi was reportedly “the first Palestinian woman to organize an attack in Israel, placing a bomb [which didn’t explode] in a Jerusalem cinema in 1967. Rasmea Odeh was involved in a 1969 terror bombing in a Jerusalem supermarket that killed two Israeli students, Leon Kanner and Eddie Joffe. Sentenced in Israel to life in prison, she was freed in a prisoner exchange; in 2017 she was deported from the U.S. to Jordan for lying on immigration forms.

As for Leila Khaled—who, like Rasmea Odeh, is affiliated with the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), designated by the U.S. as a terror organization and responsible for multiple suicide bombings—she was involved in the hijacking of a TWA plane in 1969 and an (Israeli) El Al plane in 1970 and is considered a Palestinian icon.

Back at UC Berkeley, on February 3, the student senate met to vote on a bill to condemn Bears for Palestine for the pro-terror display. “More than 200 people showed up…with many Jewish and Zionist students coming out to back the resolution, while Bears for Palestine members and supporters gathered to oppose it.”

Two hours later, “Jewish students collectively left the meeting” after deciding “that enough was enough and that [they] were not going to sit idly by as [their] members were threatened and harassed.”

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POLITICS Comments turned off

Comedy on the Campaign Trail By Jack Dunphy

By on February 14th, 2020

https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/comedy-on-the-campaign-trail/

As a spectator sport, politics has rarely been more entertaining. Put aside for the moment the stakes involved, with partisans on both sides claiming that the upcoming election is “the most important in history,” (as was the last one, and the one before that, but this time they really mean it), and take the time to enjoy the pure comedy of it all.

We were told by our educated betters in the media that with the installation of Donald Trump as president the country and the world would face certain decline, with unchecked chaos at home and even worse disorder abroad. Now, three years in, one casts an eye for evidence of such turmoil and finds little. Now those same educated betters inform us that their dire predictions did not come to pass because Mr. Trump has kept his totalitarian impulses largely in check under the burden of a reelection campaign and that if we are so foolish as to return him to office in November those impulses will be unleashed to the peril of civilization.

But consider: our friends on the left, having nominated a losing candidate in 2016, have had these intervening years to find a better one … and this is the group they have thus far settled on: an ancient socialist who has already suffered one heart attack, a youthful mayor of a small Midwestern city, a senator and former law professor who owes her early advancement in academia to a false claim of Native American heritage, a heretofore little-known Midwestern senator, and a doddering former vice president who failed spectacularly in two previous presidential campaigns. How can you not laugh?

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WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Boris Takes Charge The British PM sacks his Chancellor. It’s his economy now.

By on February 14th, 2020

https://www.wsj.com/articles/boris-takes-charge-11581621621?mod=opinion_lead_pos4

Boris Johnson doesn’t do things by halves, and his reshuffle of the U.K. cabinet on Thursday is a case in point. Having exiled Chancellor Sajid Javid, the Prime Minister now is solely responsible to voters for Britain’s economic performance after Brexit.

Mr. Javid jumped instead of being pushed, but Mr. Johnson won’t be unhappy. The two increasingly butted heads on economic and fiscal policy, and Mr. Javid also disagreed on many matters with Mr. Johnson’s senior adviser Dominic Cummings. The breaking point came Thursday when Mr. Johnson insisted that Mr. Javid fire most of his policy advisers and hand the economic reins to Mr. Johnson’s office. Mr. Javid couldn’t stay on as a matter of reputation and self-respect.

The new Chancellor, Rishi Sunak, has been a member of Parliament for fewer than five years and is a relative unknown on the public stage. This means Mr. Johnson is now effectively responsible for economic policy. It’s just as well. An oddity of British governance is the traditional division of responsibility between the prime minister and the chancellor, with chancellors wielding outsize power to chart their own course independent of their nominal political boss. Now voters will know exactly whom to credit or blame.

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P.C.-CULTURE Comments turned off

The Dangerous Denial of Sex Transgender ideology harms women, gays—and especially feminine boys and masculine girls. By Colin M. Wright and Emma N. Hilton

By on February 14th, 2020

https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-dangerous-denial-of-sex-11581638089?mod=opinion_lead_pos5

Transgender ideology can take on a comical character, as in a recent American Civil Liberties Union commentary objecting to sales tax on tampons and similar products while pondering: “How can we recognize that barriers to menstrual access are a form of sex discrimination without erasing the lived experiences of trans men and non-binary people who menstruate, as well as women who don’t?”

Yet it’s one thing to claim that a man can “identify” as a woman or vice versa. Increasingly we see a dangerous and antiscientific trend toward the outright denial of biological sex.

“The idea of two sexes is simplistic,” an article in the scientific journal Nature declared in 2015. “Biologists now think there is a wider spectrum than that.” A 2018 Scientific American piece asserted that “biologists now think there is a larger spectrum than just binary female and male.” And an October 2018 New York Times headline promised to explain “Why Sex Is Not Binary.”

The argument is that because some people are intersex—they have developmental conditions resulting in ambiguous sex characteristics—the categories male and female exist on a “spectrum,” and are therefore no more than “social constructs.” If male and female are merely arbitrary groupings, it follows that everyone, regardless of genetics or anatomy should be free to choose to identify as male or female, or to reject sex entirely in favor of a new bespoke “gender identity.”

To characterize this line of reasoning as having no basis in reality would be an egregious understatement. It is false at every conceivable scale of resolution.

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ANTI-SEMITISM Comments turned off

SYDNEY WILLIAMS; “YOU’RE A RACIST!”

By on February 14th, 2020

http://swtotd.blogspot.com/

“You’re a racist!” The words stung. At first, I was upset and mystified. The word racist is defined by Webster as “a belief that race is the primary determinant of human behavior and the racial differences produce an inherent superiority of a particular race.” I could not understand the vitriol that prompted the accusation. I do not (and did not) believe I am racist, nor do I think I am misogynistic, anti-Semitic or xenophobic. While this incident occurred three years ago, I had not belittled Blacks by urging them to be dependent on an all-caring government. I have never implied they could not make it on their own; in fact, I have suggested they could and would – that aspiration was half the battle. I have never denied Asian-Americans admission to America’s most prestigious universities, simply because they were Asians, nor have I ever supported Boycott and Divest Sanctions (BADS) against Israel, just because the Jewish people wish to defend a homeland that dates back 2000 years And I never persuaded a young intern to perform oral sex in my office.

 

I am certainly no paragon of virtue. But all I had done was to write words in support of Mr. Trump’s attempt to fulfill his campaign promise to “drain the swamp,” a quagmire of corrupt politicians, crony capitalists and bureaucratic administrators who feed off the public teat. I had had the temerity to defy teachers’ unions, when writing in support of school choice for inner-city children. I had provoked the anger of the “woke” by supporting the “stop, question and frisk” policy in cities where crime is a constant menace for minorities.

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ISRAEL Comments turned off

The real source of Abbas’s ‘Swiss cheese’ revulsion Former prime minister Ehud Olmert praised the very Palestinian leader who had snubbed his own generous-to-the-point-of-suicidal offer. By Ruthie Blum

By on February 14th, 2020

https://www.jpost.com/Opinion/Right-from-Wrong-The-real-source-of-Abbass-Swiss-cheese-revulsion-617528

At a session of the UN Security Council on Tuesday, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas held up the map of US President Donald Trump’s “Peace to Prosperity” plan and referred to the proposed borders of the state he has spent his career pretending to seek as “Swiss cheese.”

Abbas was altogether out of sorts that day, since he was forced to withdraw a resolution, introduced by Indonesia and Tunisia, to reject the “Deal of the Century” unveiled at the White House exactly two weeks earlier. Unfortunately for PA chief, who had grown accustomed to an American administration that bought his lies about Israel being to blame for his people’s plight, Team Trump entered the picture three years ago with an entirely different outlook.Suddenly, Abbas’s usual tricks were met with scorn from Washington. Even the new State Department was not engaging in diplomacy at all costs with the aging terror-master-in-a-tie. And when he made a public point of refusing to meet with Trump staffers, their response was not to coax and kowtow, but to shrug at his petulance and get on with the business of bolstering relations with Israel.

Yet despite the rebuffs – and proud “pay for slay” policy – Trump and his advisers were working arduously to craft a blueprint for a viable Palestinian state. That Abbas rejected the plan before having a clue what it contained was to be expected, which is why few people in Israel had faith in it either. Most Israelis were stunned, however, by Trump’s many measures to strengthen the security of the Jewish state and embrace its historical rights to its ancient homeland.

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WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Iran, Not Saudi Arabia, Is to Blame for Yemen’s Humanitarian Crisis by Con Coughlin

By on February 13th, 2020

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/15581/iran-not-saudi-arabia-is-to-blame-for-yem

Now, with the humanitarian crisis reaching a critical juncture with an estimated 80% of Yemen’s 24 million population in need of assistance, aid organisations are finally waking up to the central role the Iranian-backed Houthis have played in creating the disaster.

As humanitarian officials prepare to meet in Brussels this week — Thursday — to discuss the Yemeni aid crisis, the main topic of discussion will be what has been described as the unprecedented and unacceptable obstruction tactics being employed by the Houthis that are preventing vital aid supplies from reaching the country’s starving population.

In their latest bid to seize control of the aid distribution, the Houthis have recently imposed a 2 percent levy on all the international aid agencies operating in the country, prompting one aid worker to claim that the Houthis could be using the aid money to finance the war.

Whatever the outcome, no one will be in any doubt that it is the Iranian-backed Houthis, and not the Saudi-led coalition, who are primarily responsible for creating Yemen’s disastrous humanitarian crisis.

In the five years since Yemen was plunged into its bitter civil war, it has invariably been the Saudi-led coalition, which enjoys the support of the US, Britain and France, that has been blamed for causing what is widely regarded as the world’s greatest humanitarian disaster.

Throughout the conflict the main focus of coverage in most of the Western media has been on the role played by the Saudi military in intensifying the conflict, with Riyadh taking the lion’s share of the blame for the estimated 100,000 Yemenis that have died.

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EDUCATION Comments turned off

Harvard, Yale under investigation over foreign gifts totaling hundreds of millions of dollars

By on February 13th, 2020

https://www.foxnews.com/us/harvard-yale-under-investigation-foreign-donors

The U.S. Department of Education (DOE) announced an investigation into Harvard and Yale on Wednesday and accused both universities of failing to report foreign gifts and contracts worth hundreds of millions of dollars.

The federal agency claimed Yale failed to report at least $375 million in foreign transactions and hasn’t reported any gifts or contracts for the last four years. The DOE did not say how much Harvard might have failed to report.

Section 117 of the Higher Education Act requires American Title IV-eligible colleges and universities to report any foreign gifts or contracts that exceed $250,000 in value. Institutions must also disclose any foreign ownership or control, twice each year — something many schools have failed to do, according to federal officials.

A spokesperson from Yale’s office of public affairs and communications provided a statement to Fox News, saying: “Yesterday, Yale received a Department of Education request for records of certain gifts and contracts from foreign sources under Section 117 of the Higher Education Act of 1965. We are reviewing the request and preparing to respond to it.”

Education officials also highlighted concerns about Harvard’s lack of “institutional controls” over foreign funds and cited the case of Dr. Charlies Lieber.

“Dr. Charles Lieber, chair of Harvard University’s Chemistry and Chemical Biology Department, was indicted for lying about his involvement with the Chinese government’s Thousand Talents Plan and admitting that Harvard lacks adequate institutional controls for effective oversight and tracking of very large donations,” the DOE said.

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NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

The Russia Scare Stories about Kremlin trolls and Moscow hacking U.S. elections are useful scapegoats to avoid the reality of America’s deep political dysfunction By Michael Lind

By on February 13th, 2020

https://www.tabletmag.com/jewish-news-and-politics/298592/the-russia-scare

When a poorly designed app thwarted the tallying of results in last week’s Iowa Democratic caucus, it was only a matter of time before somebody blamed the chaos on Russian machinations. That somebody was Democratic Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee of Texas, at a House Judiciary Committee hearing on FBI oversight on Feb. 5. Lee told FBI Director Christopher Wray: “I hope that the Iowa Democrats will ask for an FBI investigation on the app. I believe that Russia has been engaged in and interfering with a number of our elections …”

The United States today is in the midst of a full-blown moral panic, which without exaggeration can be called the “Russia Scare.” After Al Gore won the popular vote but lost in the electoral college to George W. Bush in 2000, he and the Democratic Party did not spend years claiming that the election was stolen by American traitors working with a foreign power. But that is exactly the claim that Hillary Clinton and most Democratic leaders have made since Donald Trump’s electoral college victory in 2016. The assertion that Trump is an illegitimate president who was installed thanks to Russian interference has been the underlying theme behind the Mueller investigation and the subsequent impeachment of Trump by the Democrats in the House.

According to the Russia Scare narrative that is accepted by many if not most Democrats today, Vladimir Putin’s Russian regime altered the outcome of the 2016 election in one or more ways. That Russian trolls and hackers engaged in online mischief in 2016 is a fact. What has not been established is that their activities changed or suppressed a single vote in the 2016 election.

Russia, it is claimed, hacked Democratic National Committee files and released damaging emails to the news media that showed the Clinton campaign working with the DNC to rig the 2016 Democratic primary against Clinton’s opponent, Sen. Bernie Sanders. As a result, many angry former Sanders supporters either refused to vote for Clinton in the general election or cast a protest vote for third-party candidate Jill Stein, thus depriving the Democrats of the White House.

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