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September 2020

ELECTIONS, ENVIRONMENT AND JUNK SCIENCE Comments turned off

Joe Biden’s China Dilemma: “Save the Planet” or Protect Taiwan? By Rupert Darwall

By on September 25th, 2020

https://www.realclearenergy.org/articles/2020/09/24/joe_bidens_china_dilemma_save_the_planet_or_protect_taiwan_578415.html

Is climate change an existential threat, one that overrides all other challenges? Or does an expansionist China pose a grave and growing danger to the strategic interests of the U.S.? Two questions with only one “Yes.” President Trump makes no secret of his views on China. He was one of the first public figures to realize China as an economic threat. He denounces the decision to admit China to the World Trade Organization (WTO), seeing it as a disaster for America, and especially for American workers. And it is not hard to guess where Trump resides on the continuum from climate-change-as-hoax to climate-change-as-existential threat.

By contrast, Joe Biden supported China’s accession to the WTO and has placed all his chips on the opposite end of the climate spectrum from Trump. Campaigning for the Democratic nomination, Biden tweeted his belief that climate change poses an existential threat. Since then, he has committed to implementing the most draconian greenhouse-emissions cuts ever proposed by a serious candidate for the presidency.

Global warming is, well, global. There is no point in cutting America’s carbon dioxide emissions unless the rest of the world follows suit. During his first year in the White House, Barack Obama attempted to get China to sign a treaty that included emissions targets. It ended in the fiasco of the Copenhagen climate conference in December 2009. The lesson Obama took away from Copenhagen was that Beijing held the keys to a new global climate compact. To justify the Obama administration’s Clean Power Plan to sharply cut power generation emissions, there had to be a realistic prospect of a new UN climate treaty—and that meant being friendly to Beijing.

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ANTI-SEMITISM Comments turned off

Woke Science Is an Experiment Certain to Fail Advancing knowledge, not imposing diversity, should be the goal of federal research funding.By Heather Mac Donald

By on September 25th, 2020

https://www.wsj.com/articles/woke-science-is-an-experiment-certain-to-fail-11600972161?mod=opinion_lead_pos6

President Trump has ordered an end to training on “white privilege” and “critical race theory” in the federal bureaucracy. The directive is a good first step toward removing identity politics from federal operations. Next up should be the millions of taxpayer dollars devoted annually to cultivating race- and sex-based grievance in the sciences. The National Science Foundation, the National Institutes of Health, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have all embraced the idea that science is pervaded by systemic bias that handicaps minorities and women. Those agencies have taken on the job of extirpating such inequity on the theory that scientific advancement depends on a “diverse” scientific workforce.

Earlier this year the NIH announced a new round of “Research Supplements to Promote Diversity in Health-Related Research.” Academic science labs could get additional federal money if they hire “diverse” researchers; no mention was made of relevant scientific qualifications. This latest grant solicitation expanded the agency’s social-justice agenda into novel territory. Besides the usual preferences for blacks, Hispanics and women, the NIH would fund student researchers who were or had been homeless, who were or had been in foster care, who had been eligible for free school lunches, or who had received WIC payments (a food program for low-income mothers) as a child or mother.

The federal science agencies have absorbed the vocabulary of academic victimology—from “intersectionality” to “heteronormativity” and “stereotype threat.” Intersectionality holds that people who can check off more than one victimhood box are particularly burdened by American bigotry. Science labs angling for the latest NIH diversity supplements will increase their chances of federal funding by hiring a woman who is also an underrepresented minority, disabled or from a “disadvantaged background.”

The National Science Foundation is currently doling out $29 million through its “Advance” program. Advance seeks to use “intersectional approaches in the design of systemic change strategies” to combat bias in the STEM fields. Successful applications will recognize that “gender, race and ethnicity do not exist in isolation from each other and from other categories of social identity.” The NSF funders are particularly concerned about policies that “do not mitigate implicit bias in hiring, tenure, and promotion” and that lead to “women and racial and ethnic minorities being evaluated less favorably.”

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BOOKS Comments turned off

Revealed: The Shocking Full Extent of Big Tech Censorship of Conservatives Pamela Geller

By on September 25th, 2020

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2020/09/revealed_the_shocking_full_extent_of_big_tech_censorship_of_conservatives.html

Allum Bokhari, the senior technology correspondent at Breitbart News, has performed an extraordinarily valuable service by giving us his new book #Deleted: Big Tech’s Battle to Erase the Trump Movement and Steal the Election. While the social media giants’ efforts to suppress all dissent from their far-left, anti-American agenda have been going on for years, few people are aware of the full depth and breadth of this sinister initiative, or of how it is much more than just a bias toward the left, but a carefully planned and coordinated endeavor that, if left unchecked, will do nothing less than relegate our First Amendment right of freedom of speech to the dustbin of history.

In #Deleted, Allum Bokhari tells the whole shocking story. For those who don’t realize the implications of what is going on, he includes a Prologue entitled “The Typewriter That Talked Back” that is as amusing as it is disturbing, and that makes abundantly clear even to the most technically challenged among us what is really happening to our foremost and most important freedom, right under our noses. Bokhari paints a vivid picture of a 1968 in which a typewriter refuses to type, typing instead its own message: “We regret to inform you that your last letter violated our terms of service (Rule 32: Abusive & Offensive Content). We have suspended access to your typewriter for 24 hours.” Newsstands remove from sale magazines that third-party “fact-checkers” have deemed to be “fake news.” The Post Office returns your mail because you told a joke in a letter that a censor found offensive.

It’s all funny until you realize that all this is exactly what email providers and big tech censors are doing to Americans today, every day on the Internet. In the pre-Internet world of 1968, it would have been preposterous. Americans would not have accepted it. But it has all happened gradually, as we gave away our freedom by clicking our agreement to dense and unreadable Terms of Service that turned over our right to say what we believe to shadowy, anonymous guardians of acceptable opinion. Most Americans today are only dimly aware, at best, that it is happening at all, and those that are approach it with grim resignation. After all, what are you going to do? Start your own Facebook?

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ELECTIONS Comments turned off

Stacks of Absentee Ballots Found in a Ditch in Wisconsin By Eric Lendrum

By on September 25th, 2020

https://amgreatness.com/2020/09/24/stacks-of-absentee-ballots-found-in-a-ditch-in-wisconsin/

An investigation is underway after three trays of mail, including stacks of discarded absentee ballots, were found in a ditch in Greenville, Wisconsin, according to the Washington Examiner.

The United States Postal Service confirmed that it would be investigating the matter after the ballots were discovered by the Outagamie County Sheriff’s Office, in a ditch near the Appleton International Airport. A spokesman from the sheriff’s office confirmed that the recovered mail had been “going to the post office” when it was abandoned.

The incident is just the latest of many examples of the high propensity for voter fraud and voter suppression as a result of “vote-by-mail” schemes. Most in the Democratic Party, using the now-subsiding coronavirus pandemic as an excuse, have rallied for vote-by-mail to be implemented, and for the ballot-counting deadline to be expanded to allow for more time to count “late” mail-in ballots.

As such, Democratic officials and far-left judges have been extending the deadlines to count votes in only the most crucial of battleground states, including Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, and Minnesota. President Donald Trump and others have repeatedly warned about the dangers of increased voting by mail, while the mainstream media has largely dismissed these concerns

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ANTI-SEMITISM Comments turned off

Complaining about the Transition Integrity Project’s Election Theft Plan Can Be Dangerous by Chris Farrell

By on September 25th, 2020

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/16542/transition-integrity-project-nils-gilman

It seems that criticizing the Transition Integrity Project (TIP) and their plan to disrupt and steal the 2020 presidential election can be dangerous.

So — the leadership of TIP has spoken. Now you know their thinking, their motives and their true objectives. It seems Nils Gilman wants Michael Anton executed.

The brutality and viciousness of Marxism and its adherents is on display. Those that may have held reservations or harbored some doubt on my analysis of what TIP really had in store for the election now have their answers.

If Gilman advocates executing someone by firing squad for daring to question TIP, what other penalties and extraordinary measures were discussed by the supposed bipartisan arbiters of the electoral process? How is this “normal?”

Are you disturbed by how your news information is “curated?”

It seems that criticizing the Transition Integrity Project (TIP) and their plan to disrupt and steal the 2020 presidential election can be dangerous. Michael Anton, a former Trump administration official and now of the Claremont Institute, published an article titled, “The Coming Coup” that seems to have caught the attention of TIP co-founder Nils Gilman. According to the journalist Natalie Winters:

“Gilman, who serves as Vice President of Programs at the Chinese Communist Party-linked Berggruen Institute, took to Twitter to express his desire that Anton be executed in the same fashion as Robert Brasillach.

“Specifically, he insisted ‘Michael Anton is the Robert Brasillach of our times and deserves the same fate.'”

I’ll save you the effort of searching for Brasillach — he was a French author and journalist who advocated for the fascists and was executed by firing squad in 1945. So — the leadership of TIP has spoken. Now you know their thinking, their motives and their true objectives. It seems Gilman wants Anton executed.

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WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Hezbollah’s Growing Terror Network in Europe by Con Coughlin

By on September 25th, 2020

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/16549/hezbollah-network-europe

According to Nathan Sales, the U.S. State Department’s counterterrorism coordinator, Hezbollah has been steadily building up its weapons stockpiles in Europe with the aim of preparing for any future acts of terrorism that may be ordered by Tehran.

Describing Hezbollah’s arms build-up in Europe as posing a “clear and present danger to the US” and its allies, Mr Sales said that US intelligence reports showed that Hezbollah had weapons based in Belgium, France, Greece, Italy, Spain and Switzerland, while “significant” ammonium nitrate caches had either been discovered or destroyed in France, Greece and Italy.

Further evidence of Hezbollah’s expanding terrorist presence in Europe has emerged in Ireland, where ten members of an Irish dissident group known as the New IRA (NIRA) were arrested on terrorism charges last month, following claims they met with Hezbollah officials at Iran’s embassy in Dublin.

At a time when tensions are increasing between Iran and the West over Tehran’s controversial nuclear programme, the expansion of Hezbollah’s terror operation in Europe should certainly be a major cause for concern. Iran, after all, has a long history of resorting to terrorism to put pressure on its adversaries, and Europe is an obvious target for future Iranian terror attacks.

The conviction in absentia of two terrorists with links to the Iranian-backed Hezbollah militia for murdering five Israeli tourists in Bulgaria in 2012 has shed new light on the organisation’s expanding terror network in Europe.

The convictions, which were announced earlier this week by the Specialised Criminal Court in Sofia, the Bulgarian capital, relate to a suicide bomb attack against a bus carrying Israeli tourists on July 18, 2012.

The attack took place at the airport in the Bulgarian Black Sea resort of Burgas, killing five Israelis, as well as the bus driver.

Bulgarian investigators subsequently identified two prime suspects in the case, Meliad Farah, a Lebanese-Australian, and Hassan El Hajj Hassan, a Lebanese-Canadian, whom they claimed carried out the attack on behalf of Hezbollah.

While Hezbollah has consistently denied any involvement in the murders, the court nevertheless found the two men guilty of the attack, and sentenced them to life imprisonment without parole.

As the whereabouts of the convicted men is unknown, they are unlikely ever to serve their sentences. The evidence uncovered by Bulgarian prosecutors, however, pointing to Hezbollah’s involvement in the attack has been sufficient to persuade European Union officials to place the organisation’s so-called military wing on its terrorism blacklist.

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FOREIGN POLICY, MEDIA Comments turned off

WaPo beclowns itself criticizing Trump’s Middle East peace deal By Michael Berenhaus

By on September 25th, 2020

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2020/09/wapo_beclowns_itself_criticizing_trumps_middle_east_peace_deal.html

In “A lopsided Middle East strategy” (9/19/20), The Washington Post editorial board is critical of the current administration for supporting our allies over those that want to do us harm.  If the Post calls that lopsided, I’ll take it!

Further, The Post says a “negative” of the recent “Abraham Accords” is the “reinforcement of harsh authoritarian rulers” in the region.  Those “authoritarian rulers,” our allies, have been “authoritarian” for decades.  Nary a word of objection about their dictatorship style in the past until Israel makes a deal with them, brokered by the president.

The Post postulates that “Mr. Biden would surely also resume US pressure on Israel to pursue a settlement with the Palestinians.”  But Mr. Biden has been around long enough to know that no amount of pressure on Israel has pushed the Palestinians to say yes to a multitude of generous peace offers.

The Washington Post missed the mark on pretty much every sentence in its comprehensive editorial, which is surprising, since even their columnists supported this deal and the outcome of it with fervor.

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ELECTIONS Comments turned off

Twenty-two Reasons Why American Jews Should Vote for President Trump By Janet Levy

By on September 25th, 2020

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2020/09/twentytwo_reasons_why_american_jews_should_vote_for_president_trump.html

Yair Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister’s son has called Trump “a rock star” in Israel and the “best friend that Israel and the Jewish people have ever had in the White House.” Curiously, at the same time, many American Jews have an unfavorable view of Trump’s policies and have been critical of his dealings with the Jewish State.

In reality, President Trump has taken several steps that are beneficial to Jews and the Jewish State in his first term.  A look at some of them should give American Jews sufficient reasons to reassess their opinion of the president and even motivate them to vote for his reelection in November. 

Trump denounced anti-Semitism in two State of the Union addresses. In his first address to Congress in February of 2017, he condemned threats against Jewish people and the vandalism of Jewish sites and communities. In a second address given after he withdrew from the Iran nuclear deal, Trump declared that anti-Semitism must be confronted “anywhere and everywhere it occurs.” He added, “We will not avert our eyes from a regime that chants death to America and threatens genocide against the Jewish people.” 
On December 6, 2017, President Trump fulfilled his campaign promise and moved the American Embassy to Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, Israel’s eternal capital. Seventy years from the day that President Truman recognized Israel as a sovereign nation, the U.S. became the first nation to open its new embassy to the holy city. Two days later, in solidarity with the U.S. decision, Guatemala moved its embassy to Jerusalem. Recently, Honduras announced it will follow suit by year’s end.  Meanwhile, Hungary became the first European nation to have a branch of its embassy in Jerusalem while Moldova and Romania disclosed that the matter is under serious consideration.
As part of his “Deal of the Century,” President Trump declared support for Israeli construction in Judea and Samaria and affirmed that any sanctions by the international community for doing so will be opposed by the United States.
He recognized Israel’s sovereignty over the Golan Heights, a major strategic asset that protects Israel from aggression from the northeast. He signed the historic document with Netanyahu at his side right before Israeli elections.
Trump increased U.S. military aid to Israel and offered a mutual defense treaty between the U.S. and Israel to further the alliance between the two countries.
Under Trump, the United states stopped funding the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), a UN relief agency for Arab-Palestinians marred by corruption, and abuse of power. The agency has been known to work with Hamas against Israel, even enabling the building of terror tunnels under its buildings.

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ELECTIONS Comments turned off

A Peaceful Transfer of Power Depends on a Peaceful Political System Daniel Greenfield

By on September 25th, 2020

https://www.frontpagemag.com/point/2020/09/peaceful-transfer-power-depends-peaceful-political-daniel-greenfield/

“Peaceful transfer of power” is the new Democrat media meme as of yesterday.

A peaceful transfer of power is of course important. But it’s a part of a peaceful political system. In the last five years, Democrat activists have violently threatened and harassed sitting members of the Senate, made violent threats to sitting members of the House, denied the legitimacy of the 2016 election, eavesdropped on Republican opponents using the NSA, have once again touched off and supported riots that are burning down parts of the country, and that’s hardly a full accounting.

Democrat elected officials and campaign officials have repeatedly threatened or talked about burning things down if they don’t get their way.

Even the term “peaceful transfer of power” is a farce after Democrat media has repeatedly spun violent riots as mostly peaceful protests.

On top of all that, the Democrats demanding a peaceful transfer of power refuse to commit to a normative election on the same terms as usual, and instead want to drag it on indefinitely until their operatives and activists harvest enough ballots to claim victory, while using social media to suppress any dissenting views.

None of this is peaceful. 

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ANTI-SEMITISM Comments turned off

Prager U Video: “I Love America Too Much to Stay Silent” Defending America against BLM in the face of real civil rights abuses in Africa.

By on September 25th, 2020

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2020/09/prager-u-video-i-love-america-too-much-stay-silent-prager-university/

Nestride Yumga experienced real corruption and civil rights abuses in Africa. Then she came to America, the land of opportunity, education, and freedom. So when Black Lives Matter protests declared America guilty of systemic racism and injustice, she knew she had to defend her adoptive country, and she did it with courage. Don’t miss this video!

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