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December 2022

FOREIGN POLICY Comments turned off

Why Is Joe Biden Still Trying To Raise The Iran Nuclear Deal From The Dead? Struan Stevenson

By on December 13th, 2022

https://issuesinsights.com/2022/12/11/why-is-joe-biden-still-trying-to-raise-the-iran-nuclear-deal-from-the-dead/

After almost three months of incessant turmoil, the revolution in Iran has now engulfed more than 280 cities in each of the country’s 31 provinces.

The savage crackdown by the theocratic regime’s security forces has led to the deaths of at least 700 people and a demand for a full-scale independent inquiry by the UN. 30,000 protesters have been detained. In Tehran, a spokesman for the mullahs’ judiciary, Massoud Setayeshi, confirmed this week that another five people had been sentenced to death for their role in the uprising, bringing the total number of death penalties handed down to protesters so far to eight.

The mullahs’ regime has executed over 500 people this year, in a wave of killing designed to crush opposition. Many of those sentenced have been accused of “moharebeh” or “corruption on earth,” a charge which carries the mandatory death penalty in Iran.

Undeterred, industrial action and boycotts by shop owners, hospital staff, factory workers, truck drivers and university students, in solidarity with the uprising, have developed into a general strike which has paralyzed the nation.

The clerical regime, led by the elderly and fanatical Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has oppressed and brutalized the Iranian people for four decades, but is now at its weakest point since the 1979 revolution that brought the mullahs to power. The daily mass protests resonate with chants of “Death to Khamenei” as demonstrators demand the downfall of the regime.

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ANTI-SEMITISM Comments turned off

It’s the duty of both parties to correct the US antisemitism crisis by Douglas E. Schoen

By on December 13th, 2022

https://thehill.com/opinion/civil-rights/3771726-its-the-duty-of-both-parties-to-correct-the-us-antisemitism-crisis/

Though antisemitism may be considered the world’s oldest hate, it has taken on a dangerous new form in the United States in recent years. Prominent members of both political parties have — in distinct ways — taken actions that are inimical to the Jewish community and may be fairly characterized as antisemitic.

As a result, American Jews are increasingly at risk in their communities, including in cities, on college campuses and in synagogues. New York City — which has the highest Jewish population of all cities in the United States — recorded a 125 percent increase in antisemitic hate crimes this November compared to November 2021, and a 53 percent increase in hate crimes against Jews compared to this time last year.

While modern-day antisemitism manifests differently on the political left versus the political right, both forms put the Jewish community at risk. Antisemitism on the far-right is grounded in a dangerous embrace of nationalist and neo-Nazi viewpoints, while on the far-left, it is driven by — and arguably disguised as — anti-Zionism and a myopic focus on slandering the State of Israel.

Unfortunately, some high-ranking members in both parties have been quick to criticize antisemitism across the aisle, yet have allowed antisemitic rot to fester in their own ranks.

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MEDICINE AND HEALTH Comments turned off

The Exaggeration of Long Covid Lingering symptoms after a respiratory infection are common. Most cases are too mild to worry about. By Marty Makary

By on December 13th, 2022

https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-exaggeration-of-long-covid-overmedicalization-research-mortality-children-bivalent-restrictions-11670857268?mod=opinion_lead_pos5

Long Covid is real. I have reliable patients who describe lingering symptoms after Covid infection. But public-health officials have massively exaggerated long Covid to scare low-risk Americans as our government gives more than $1 billion to a long Covid medical-industrial complex.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention claims that 20% of Covid infections can result in long Covid. But a U.K. study found that only 3% of Covid patients had residual symptoms lasting 12 weeks. What explains the disparity? It’s often normal to experience mild fatigue or weakness for weeks after being sick and inactive and not eating well. Calling these cases long Covid is the medicalization of ordinary life.

Two studies published this month put long Covid in perspective. The first, in the Journal of the American Medical Association, looked at a spectrum of wellness indicators in 1,000 people who recovered from symptomatic Covid or another respiratory infection. It found that 40% of patients who had tested positive for Covid “reported persistently poor physical, mental, or social well-being at 3-month follow-up.” For Covid-negative patients who had other upper-respiratory infections, the figure was 54%. Covid patients did better than non-Covid patients. While there are certainly unique hallmark conditions of Covid, such as loss of smell, any respiratory infection—flu, RSV, other cold viruses—can knock you down for a while.

The second study, in Lancet Regional Health, looked for long Covid in 5,086 children 11 to 17 and found that symptoms present during infection rapidly declined over time. The researchers found that among children who tested positive and negative for Covid “prevalence patterns of poor well-being, fatigue and Long COVID”—defined by its symptoms without the need for a past diagnosis of the disease—“were broadly similar.” (The study also found that loneliness in children increased steadily in the year after Covid illness.)

The National Institutes for Health has been intensely focused on studying long Covid, spending nearly $1.2 billion on the condition. To date, the return on investment has been zero for the people suffering with it. But it’s been terrific for MRI centers, lab testing companies and hospitals that set up long Covid clinics. I’ve talked to the staff at some of these clinics and it’s unclear what they are actually offering to people beyond a myriad of tests.

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NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Elon Musk’s Twitter Files Dump by Peter Schweizer

By on December 13th, 2022

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/19211/elon-musk-twitter-files

It was not “Russian disinformation.” Nor was it “unsafe.” The executives running Twitter in the 20 days before the 2020 presidential election clearly knew that, and tried to find other justifications for what amounted to raw censorship.

Twitter’s bias in censoring or banning conservative accounts for “hate speech” while happily servicing accounts for Iran’s “Supreme Leader” and the Taliban is a running joke. In a series of secretly recorded interviews with Twitter employees, Project Veritas had already confirmed that “shadow-banning,” manipulating the number of followers shown by certain accounts, and selectively “de-boosting” certain tweets in its algorithms was a well-established, standard manipulation of the platform’s stated purpose: “We serve the public conversation. That’s why it matters to us that people have a free and safe space to talk.”

Kudos to Khanna for his lonely but principled stand for free speech. Taibbi also noted in his thread that Khanna was the only Democratic official to do so.

China’s enticements to the Biden family are but one example of this campaign. We learned through this research how insidious and effective the Chinese government has been at co-opting not just the families of senior elected officials, but captains of industry, financial behemoths, and the wealthiest American philanthropists and educational institutions.

The Biden story also showed the ingenuity of corrupt politicians who essentially “outsource” their corruption to family members rather than risk a possible paper trail leading back to themselves. The Bidens, even more than Bill and Hillary Clinton before them, were a family influence business.

We have all learned about other stories of political interference and foot-dragging within the FBI. The public is right to wonder whether federal prosecutors are as serious about pursuing this case as Twitter’s Democratic partisans were in squelching it.

Further, President Biden’s Attorney General, Merrick Garland, continues to task the FBI with investigating the January 6, 2021 riots as a deep conspiracy, while simultaneously ignoring what certainly appear to have been well-organized efforts by Antifa to foment violence during the 2020 George Floyd riots, and violence done by pro-abortion organizations after someone on Twitter publicized the home addresses of Supreme Court justices.

For more than two critical weeks, under secret pressure from the Biden campaign and Democrats who were desperate to bury a devastating story that implicated their presidential candidate in his son’s corruption by Chinese intelligence-connected businessmen. The Post’s story was factually accurate, legitimately reported, and was (belatedly) authenticated by other news outlets. In short, there was no reason to do what Twitter, Roth, and Gadde did, other than pleasing a political party with whom they agreed.

Elon Musk’s release of internal Twitter correspondence around the censoring of the New York Post’s blockbuster “Hunter Biden laptop” story merely confirms what most knew already — that Twitter under Jack Dorsey and Parag Agrawal was staffed with Democratic Party partisans who censored information they thought would damage their cause.

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WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Qatar’s World Cup: What Visitors Were Not Shown by Lawrence A. Franklin

By on December 13th, 2022

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/19230/qatar-migrant-workers-world-cup

Qatar claims that 37 workers died during the construction phase of its World Cup infrastructure projects. The organization Amnesty International asserts that authorities in Qatar failed to investigate the deaths of thousands of migrant workers who lost their lives working on construction projects associated with the World Cup. One UK press report puts the total number of victims at 6,750.

The workers often arrive in debt, due to extortionate fees charged by recruiters who facilitate the employment process. Qatar’s kafala (sponsorship) system is so fraught with abuse that it approaches the level of human trafficking.

Working conditions are medieval. Laborers have little to no access to health care: they cannot afford health insurance and there are no on-site clinics. They are also forced to work long hours, often seven days a week. Many migrants die from the extreme heat during Qatar’s summer: temperatures sometimes reach above 44 degrees Celsius (112 degrees Fahrenheit).

Despite the presence of a large US military base, Qatar’s ruling Al-Thani family is a huge financial supporter of various terrorist groups, including Hamas. This wealthy, conservative Sunni mini-state is also a sanctuary for several terrorist operatives.

The violation of migrant workers’ human rights in Qatar has been massive and woefully underreported by the Arab Gulf State and many others. Qatar’s dismal treatment of “guest workers” has become more pronounced and visible since its selection in 2010 by FIFA as the site of this year’s World Cup football (soccer) tournament.

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NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Who’s More Un-American: Oil Companies Or Joe Biden?

By on December 13th, 2022

https://issuesinsights.com/2022/12/13/whos-more-un-american-oil-companies-or-joe-biden/

When Biden administration officials aren’t promising to put them out of business, they’re calling oil companies “un-American” for not drilling more. They should look in a mirror.

Amos Hochstein, Joe Biden’s “senior adviser for energy security” at the State Department, complained to the Financial Times last week that oil companies were using profits to buy back stock rather than invest in oil production.

“It is not only un-American, it is so unfair to the American public,” he said. “You want to pay dividends, pay dividends. You want to pay shareholders, pay shareholders. You want to get bonuses, do that, too. You could do all of that and still invest more. We are asking you to increase production and seize the moment.”

This is the same guy, by the way, who just a few months ago said that oil output must be limited in order to “make sure that we’re in a better footing to accelerate the transition” away from fossil fuels.  

In any event, by Hochstein’s standard, Biden is the most un-American president in history, because his policies are behind both the industry’s increased profit margins and its decision to spend that money on stock buybacks rather than increase production.

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FOREIGN POLICY, ISRAEL Comments turned off

8-minute-video: State Department’s systematic failures in the Middle East: Yoram Ettinger

By on December 13th, 2022

https://bit.ly/3Wd2dZg

Synopsis:

*The State Department assumes that generous diplomatic and financial gestures could induce the violently volatile Middle East to embrace peaceful-coexistence, good-faith negotiation, democracy and human rights.  However, this policy has generated tailwinds to rogue entities and headwinds to the US and its Arab allies.

*Since 1979, the State Department has espoused the diplomatic option toward Iran, assuming that the Ayatollahs are amenable to moderation. However, the diplomatic option has bolstered the Ayatollahs’ anti-US rogue strategy, posing a lethal threat to every pro-US Arab regime, undermining the US posture in Latin America, and letting down most Iranians, who aspire for a regime-change in Tehran.  

*In 2010, the State Department welcomed the turbulence on the Arab Street as “the Arab Spring,” “Facebook and youth revolution” and a “March for peace and democracy.” However, it has been another tectonic Arab Tsunami, not an Arab Spring.

*The State Department extends to Palestinian leaders red carpet reception, contrary to the shabby doormat extended to Palestinians by all pro-US Arab leaders. Arabs are aware of the intra-Arab and anti-US rogue Palestinian track record.

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ISRAEL Comments turned off

The Apartheid Libel to Destroy Israel by Khaled Abu Toameh

By on December 12th, 2022

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/19218/israel-apartheid

Recently… however, with the UNHRC’s persistent allegations that Israel is an apartheid state, that label is being pushed even further in an apparent effort to make it stick. The complicity of recent reports from NGOs such as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch appear to be trying to ensure that their libel will be complete.

The campaign emboldens the radicals among the Palestinians, including the Iranian-backed Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ), whose declared goal is to eliminate Israel and replace it with an Islamist state.

Terrorist groups such as Hamas and PIJ are undoubtedly happy to see non-Arabs and non-Muslims — and even ostensible human rights organizations — join their effort to falsely depict Israel as an apartheid state.

Former UNHRC chief Navi Pillay, despite extensive evidence of massive anti-Israel bias, was recently appointed to chair the UNHRC’s first and only open-ended Commission of Inquiry.

Basically, [the New York Times] is saying that although the two countries cannot be equated, the comparison is being forced and twisted into place for the sake of furthering an alternate agenda which has little to do with the facts on the ground.

Israel’s founding charter pledges to safeguard the equal rights of all residents: “… It will ensure complete equality of social and political rights to all its inhabitants irrespective of religion, race or sex; it will guarantee freedom of religion, conscience, language, education and culture; it will safeguard the Holy Places of all religions; and it will be faithful to the principles of the Charter of the United Nations.”

Among many of South Africa’s Apartheid laws, the Bantu Homelands Citizenship Act effectively stripped all Blacks of their South African citizenship and of the right to vote.

Israeli Arabs, however, have full citizenship, including the right to vote and to public demonstration. They are represented in all levels of government, including positions as members of Knesset (parliament), in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and as Supreme Court justices. Israeli Arabs hold positions as high-ranking officers in the Israel Defense Forces, including that of major-general in the Central Command.

Israeli Arabs are deans, department heads, scientists, and professors at prestigious universities and hospitals. They are news anchors, journalists, actors, athletes, and are represented in every aspect of Israeli society.

The false allegations also come from incorrectly confusing the nearly two million Israeli Arabs — who make up about 21% of Israel’s population and are full citizens of Israel — with thousands of Arabs whose families left Israel when five Arab counties attacked Israel in 1948. After the Arab armies lost the war they had started, they were surprised to find that they were not welcomed back. They have since settled in other countries – such as Lebanon, Jordan, and the West — as “Palestinians,” but are not citizens of Israel and therefore, of course, not subject to Israeli laws… If all the Arabs in the area are called “Palestinians,” however, it makes it easier to claim grievances, merited or not.

Both [the West Bank and Gaza] are now disputed territories where the Arabs totally run their own affairs, and have officially committed to direct, bilateral negotiations with Israel about “final status” issues, including where the borders should be. Lately, the Palestinians have refused to negotiate, apparently in the hope that the international community will hand them a better deal. They have been offered their own Palestinian state three times, and each time have said no, without so much as a counteroffer.

As Navi Pillay herself conceded (in reference to the US, certainly not Israel), “There isn’t a country in the world which has a perfect human rights record…”. Israel is certainly no exception.

If you are looking for real apartheid against Arabs, try Lebanon or Jordan.

The “limitations” referred to above are actually the limitations of the facts. What is missing is that Israel does not fit the legal definition of apartheid; therefore, some are forcibly attempting to recreate the legal definition with an “alternative definition” to fit Israel, to ram a square peg into a round hole. The “alternative definition” is, sadly, just a political maneuver to gather unwarranted international cover for still another attempt to replace Israel.

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FOREIGN POLICY, ISRAEL Comments turned off

The Biden Administration’s Hostility to Israel by Guy Millière

By on December 12th, 2022

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/19181/biden-hostility-israel

The January 28, 2021 appointment as Deputy Assistant Secretary for Israeli and Palestinian Affairs of Hady Amr, a man who wrote “I was inspired by the Palestinian intifada” and who falsely accused Israel of “ethnic cleansing,” was a significant step that promised the worst.

Two days before that, the Biden administration not only restored relations with the Palestinian Authority, but resumed most of the financial aid that had been suspended by the Trump administration — but they failed to ask the Palestinian leaders to stop financing and supporting terrorism.

The Biden administration also announced its willingness to return to a basically fictitious “two-state solution.”

A speech by Deputy U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Richard Mills, announcing these decisions, defined the “settlements” as “an obstacle to peace”. He left out that many Palestinians regard the entire state of Israel as one big settlement to be dismantled.

Since then, any construction of homes in the existing Israeli suburbs has been condemned by the State Department in the strongest terms. By contrast, the Biden administration has never made the slightest remark concerning the massive illegal Palestinian construction intended to create “facts on the ground” or “land grabs” in both the West Bank and Israel’s Negev desert.

On a more deadly front, on July 14, 2022, Biden signed a Joint Declaration on the US-Israel Strategic Partnership, and promised he would “never allow Iran to acquire a nuclear weapon”. Since the first days of coming to power, however, on January 29, 2021, the Biden administration has done its utmost to reach a new “nuclear deal” with Iran’s mullahs that would enable them to have not only nuclear weapons, but up to $1 trillion dollars, which would quite certainly not be used for human rights.

America’s negotiators — led by Robert Malley and Russia, mediating supposedly on behalf of the US, as the Americans are not even allowed in the room — have not stopped making concessions.

For months, the Biden administration pressured Israel to accept an off-shore gas deal with Hezbollah-run Lebanon, now effectively a satrapy of Iran. The deal fundamentally alters Israel’s maritime borders, denies Israel tens of billions of dollars and allows Hezbollah, Iran’s terrorist proxy, to receive billions of dollars potentially to be used to further threaten Israel.

Lebanon expert Tony Badran explained in detail that the Biden administration wants to “give as much money as possible to Lebanon” — with full knowledge that it will be money given to Hezbollah. Hezbollah is believed to have 200,000 rockets and missiles pointed at Israel. “All land and sea targets of Israel are in the range of Hezbollah missiles, ” Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah said in July. Why is the Biden administration helping an Iranian proxy militia to get rich to destroy Israel?

The Biden administration — evidently unable to see that it was a new wave of Arab terrorism inside Israel that had most likely propelled voters to elect its new government — in a move perhaps unprecedented, then abruptly lobbied to keep some of Israel’s democratically-elected religious politicians out of government. Meanwhile, only last week, the Biden administration begged Venezuela’s illegitimate and brutal dictator, Nicolás Maduro, to sell the US its low-quality crude oil, while denying a loan to US ally Guyana, which is a producer of light, sweet oil.

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan hinted that if Itamar Ben Gvir becomes a minister in Israel’s new government, they would not work with him. US Ambassador to Israel Thomas Nides also made clear to Netanyahu that the Biden administration was opposed to the possible appointment of Bezalel Smotrich as defense minister.

Nides recently gave a speech suggesting that if the new Israeli government deviates from the positions of the Biden administration, the relationship between the United States and Israel could suffer: “I’m confident that these men and women [in the new government] understand the importance of this bilateral relationship and understand that we have shared values ​​and everyone wants to achieve the same thing”. Is that a threat?

Just as the launching of an FBI investigation against the army of a democratic ally of the US has no precedent, the attempt to interfere in the composition of a government of a democratic ally also has no precedent.

Biden last week said that he wanted to upgrade U.S. ties with the Palestinian Authority, and promoted Hady Amr to a new post: special envoy to the Palestinians. Amr met members of the outgoing Israeli government and said that his mission is to “strengthen the Palestinian Authority”. He did not say a single word about the increase of shootings, stabbings, firebombs, and stoning attacks against Israelis in Jerusalem and in the West Bank; on the recent Jerusalem bus stop bombings, or that the PA continues to finance terrorism and murdering Israeli Jews.

The time when support for Israel in the United States was bipartisan is unfortunately over. The Biden administration’s proclamations of friendship toward Israel cannot hide actions of relentless hostility. While the Republican Party now has pro-Israeli positions, the Democratic Party includes representatives who not only hate Israel but do not even try to deny it.

Ilhan Omar wrote tweets saying that “Israel has hypnotized the world”, and adding “may Allah awaken the people and help them see the evil doings of Israel”. Rashida Tlaib spoke of the “brutal apartheid government of Israel”. Their party did not disavow them.

That there are 57 Democratic house members to ask the FBI and the State Department to launch an investigation into Israel, apparently with a desire to harm Israel, is a reality that Israel must urgently take into account.

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NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

So Michelle Obama was behind Twitter’s ban of Trump all along By Monica Showalter

By on December 12th, 2022

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2022/12/so_michelle_obama_was_behind_twitters_ban_of_trump_all_along.html

Michelle Obama, wife of President Obama, was one of the Democrat outsiders who pressed Twitter to make the unprecedented move to ban President Trump, then a sitting United States president, from that company’s platform.

That’s the latest revelation from the latest installment of the Twitter files, done by independent journalist Michael Shellenberger.

According to Fox News:

Former President Donald Trump was banned from Twitter the day after former first lady Michelle Obama and others demanded the company “permanently” remove him, according to the newest “Twitter Files” installment.

On Saturday, CEO Elon Musk and journalist Michael Shellenberger released the fourth batch of Twitter documents that show internal communications by the company’s executives between Jan. 6-8, 2021, including and shortly after the riot at the Capitol Building.

Among the files, Shellenberger reported “internal and external pressure,” including from the former first lady, fell onto the company calling for Trump to be banned from using Twitter.

“Now is the time for Silicon Valley companies to stop enabling this monstrous behavior—and go even further than they have already by permanently banning this man from their platforms and putting in place policies to prevent their technologies from being used by the nation’s leaders to fuel insurrection,” Obama wrote in a lengthy statement posted to Twitter on Jan. 7.

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