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Ruth King

Western intellectuals in a Soros-backed think tank are all in for promoting Iran’s interests By Hamid Enayat

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2024/02/western_intellectuals_in_a_sorosbacked_think_tank_are_all_in_for_promoting_irans_interests.html

The Iranian regime does not solely advance its warmongering through employing a radical force like Hamas, or Hezbollah in Lebanon, or the Houthis in Yemen, with millions of dollars in payments and logistical support.

It also tries to influence policymaking in various European and American media and decision-making institutions. Iran does this to prevent any effort to halt to its massacres of the Iranian people, and to stop any efforts to block its warmongering, and any effort to end its construction of a nuclear bomb.

These advocates of appeasement also push economic interests in trade with Iran, while at the same time strongly condemning the wave of executions!

Recently, in an interview with the French newspaper Le Monde, Ali Vaez, a so-called Iran expert, said that if we put too much pressure on the Iranian regime because of the devastating war in the Middle East, this regime would move farther towards building a nuclear bomb. Ali Vaez works within the Brussels-based, Soros-backed, International Crisis Group as its Iran Project Director, one of the few think tanks that have close relations with the Iranian Foreign Ministry. Alex Soros sits on its board of directors.

The Iran Influence Network

Recently, a large number of emails discovered by two media outlets, the American Semafor, and the Farsi-language Iran International TV broadcast, show that Tehran’s cooperation with the International Crisis Group was formed through the Center for Iranian Studies, which is affiliated with the Iranian Foreign Ministry.

These emails show that in the years 2013 and 2014, Crisis Group analysts were promoting the positions of the Iranian government, even when they contradicted the positions of the Obama administration. These emails reveal that the two had signed an agreement that was never made public. These documents well demonstrate that the International Crisis Group has played a significant role in nuclear negotiations and the lifting of sanctions on Iran for nearly a decade, consistently making recommendations to the Obama-, Biden-, and Trump administrations.

Release The Biden Transcripts Now

ttps://issuesinsights.com/2024/02/21/release-the-biden-transcripts-now/

“How in the hell dare he raise that.” — President Joe Biden, Feb. 8, 2024

In an effort to dismiss the claim that he couldn’t remember the year his son Beau died, President Joe Biden claimed he was simply angered because he was asked about it. Turns out, Biden lied.

“Frankly, when I was asked the question, I thought to myself it wasn’t any of their damn business,” Biden said at a hurriedly arranged press conference early in February.

Immediately, the media sprang into action attacking Special Counsel Robert Hur for bringing up Biden’s son.

“Beyond the pale,” they said. “A setup from the start.” “What does that have to do with the retention of classified documents?” “There is no legitimate answer for why he would do that … unless they were trying to trip him up, rattle him, gain oppo.” Etc., etc., etc.

Jill Biden even sent out a fundraising letter attacking Hur. “I can’t imagine someone would try to use our son’s death to score political points.”

Jill, who was not actually Beau’s mother, said that the day Beau Biden died from brain cancer was “forever etched” on her and Joe’s hearts.

But then last week, NBC News, to its undying credit, did something unusual for a mainstream media outlet. It tried to verify Biden’s account. And what did it find?

Biden lied, and Jill compounded the lie.

Hur didn’t bring up Beau, or ask when he died, NBC News reported. It was Biden who brought up his son – as he almost always does whenever he opens his mouth – and it was Biden who then tried to recall the year he died.

Here’s NBC News’ account of what actually happened:

Pro Hamas Protestors Deliver 300 Pounds of Poop to Nancy Pelosi’s House Matt Margolis

https://pjmedia.com/matt-margolis/2024/02/18/protestors-deliver-300-pounds-of-poop-to-nancy-pelosis-house-n4926537

San Francisco’s infamous poop map got a massive update last week after pro-Palestinian protesters dumped 300 pounds of cow manure outside Nancy Pelosi’s home. After the large delivery of bovine excrement was placed, the group held signs reading “NANCY PELOSI ENOUGH WITH THIS S—T” and “STOP ARMING ISRAEL. ARMS EMBARGO NOW.”

According to a report from the San Francisco Standard, Nancy Pelosi’s home has become a regular target of Code Pink protestors since the October 7 terrorist attacks on Israel. 

Last week, Code Pink protesters were charged with vandalizing Pelosi’s home and the surrounding area with red paint.

“An activist affiliated with the anti-war group Code Pink is facing felony charges for causing damage around Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi’s San Francisco residence during a Feb. 11 demonstration,” the San Francisco Standard reported Friday. “The activist, Heather Phipps, is accused of damaging Pelosi’s garage door along with city streets and sidewalks outside the Pacific Heights home she shares with her husband, Paul Pelosi. A spokesperson for the Department of Public Works said it incurred $5,648 in cleanup costs, largely involving paint on the sidewalk, roadway and street trees. Phipps is set to be arraigned on March 12.”

Tractors roll into downtown Prague as Czech farmers join protests By Eva Korinkova

https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/tractors-roll-into-downtown-prague-czech-farmers-join-protests-2024-02-19/

PRAGUE, Feb 19 (Reuters) – Hundreds of Czech farmers drove their tractors into downtown Prague on Monday, disrupting traffic outside the Agriculture Ministry, as they joined protests against high energy costs, stifling bureaucracy and the European Union’s Green Deal.
Farmers across Europe have taken to the streets this year, including in Poland, France, Germany, Spain and Italy, to fight low prices and high costs, cheap imports and EU climate change constraints.

Czech farmers are planning to join protests this week, although major agricultural associations distanced themselves from Monday’s action, in which tractors blocked one lane of a major road through Prague, slowing but not completely snarling traffic.
Several hundred whistling and jeering protesters gathered outside the Agriculture Ministry yelling “Shame” and “Resign”.
“We came today mainly because of the bureaucracy around farming, the paperwork is on the edge of what is bearable,” 28-year-old farmer Lukas Melichovsky said while in the line of tractors.

Another farmer, Vojtech Schwarz, said cheaper imports did not face the same scrutiny as domestic production: “They have a different starting line because we are overseen by a million officials,” he said.
The government has said the organisers of Monday’s demonstration have little to do with real farming.
“Today’s demonstration does not have much in common with the fight for better conditions for farmers,” Prime Minister Petr Fiala said on X social media platform, adding some of its organisers were pro-Russian or had other political aims.

Delusions, Alternate Realities, and the Biden Consortium The Biden apparat has tried to present the construct of a dynamic president promoting a traditional Democratic agenda, which has succeeded brilliantly. Sustaining that lie requires constant deception. Victor Davis Hanson

https://amgreatness.com/2024/02/19/delusions-alternate-realities-and-the-biden-consortium/

Hunter Biden has a train of a dozen lawyers defending him on felony indictments ranging from several counts of tax fraud to gun violations. From time to time, the contents of his laptop come up, both in these criminal trials and in civil suits. The information on the laptop is, of course, incriminating and useful to various prosecutors and litigants.

Yet Hunter himself is suing the computer repairman with whom he dropped off his laptop and never retrieved—and never paid—despite signing a waiver relinquishing ownership if and when in default of payment and claim.

But the weirdest element of the Biden labyrinth of illegality is that both Hunter and his attorneys footnote their writs and statements with the inexplicable notion that the laptop is not necessarily Hunter’s own—but then again, it could be.

In other words, they are not presenting evidence to show that either the photographs, texts, or emails are concocted, even while they are suing various parties for defamatory dissipation of the sort of true, sort of false contents. Translated: The surreal truth is that Hunter is very mad that what he did illegally in part is evidenced on his own laptop, and he wants that information either suppressed or disowned, but without perjuring himself by stating the material on his laptop is not his own—because of course it is his.

The same alternate universe surrounds Joe Biden’s cognitive decline. To prove that the Biden administration’s appointed special counsel was unprofessional and in error by referencing proof of Biden’s dementia, Biden gave a sudden and unusual press conference.

But almost immediately, he lost his temper. Biden lied numerous times in contradicting the evidence of the special counsel’s report, falsely claiming many files in question were not classified. He lied that the files were securely stored in locked cabinets when they were sloppily strewn around in boxes in a rickety garage. He falsely asserted that he had notified authorities once he discovered that he had classified files in his possession, although he did not do so for roughly another five years—just days before his administration was to appoint Jack Smith to investigate Donald Trump for many of the same alleged crimes that Biden might also have been guilty of. And inter alia, he referenced President Abd el-Fattah el–Sisi of Egypt as the president of Mexico—apparently as part of his public demonstration of his own mental cogency.

Biden further misled by damning the special counsel for supposedly prompting Biden about the date of the death of his son, the year of which Biden did not recall. But in truth, Biden himself, not Mr. Hur, brought up Beau Biden’s passing voluntarily to Mr. Hur—although again without the ability to cite the year in which he died.

The border crisis has brought chaos to America Joe Biden has shown how much can go wrong when a government gives up on enforcing its border. Sean Collins

https://www.spiked-online.com/2024/02/19/the-border-crisis-has-brought-chaos-to-america/

n 2023, the US reached a new milestone. Its foreign-born population reached 15 per cent, the highest-ever recorded percentage since the nation’s founding. This recent surge is driven primarily by illegal entry via the US-Mexico border, where the number of migrants continues to rise. In December 2023, we saw a new record monthly high in illegal entrants on the south-west border.

It is no exaggeration to say that the latest wave of migrants has caused a crisis. This unexpected influx has overwhelmed towns and cities across the country and left them straining to find the funds to house and feed these newcomers. Local news is full of stories of crimes being committed by newly arrived migrants.

Americans increasingly recognise that the situation is out of control. Some three-quarters say the condition of the south-west border is a ‘crisis’ or ‘very serious’. In fact, immigration has become the primary concern of American voters, recently overtaking even inflation and the economy.

Until recently, President Joe Biden and his fellow Democrats tried to argue that Republicans were exaggerating the border problem. But as the situation has deteriorated, that line has been harder to maintain.

This is a crisis of Biden’s own making. Biden, along with secretary of homeland security Alejandro Mayorkas and others in the administration, have systematically adopted measures that have encouraged a largely unrestrained inflow of migrants.

Having campaigned in 2020 on overturning Trump’s immigration policies, Biden got to work quickly. In his first 100 days in office, he signed 94 executive orders designed to dismantle the border protections installed by the Trump administration. He suspended the ‘remain in Mexico’ policy, which required applicants to stay in Mexico while they awaited an asylum interview. He also scrapped agreements with Central American nations to limit immigration to the US from those countries. And he tried to impose a moratorium on most deportations, though this was blocked by a federal judge. Biden did, however, manage to stop construction on the border wall.

When Journalism Dies :Sebastian Junger

https://www.nationalreview.com/magazine/2024/03/when-journalism-dies/

The truth dies with it

It’s hard to know what to make of the international press corps. Overwhelmingly white and college-educated, most have presumably ignored professional opportunities that pay orders of magnitude more money than journalism — and generally don’t get them killed. If you’re smart enough to tease the truth out of the confusion, nuance, and outright propaganda of most war zones — and most countries — you’re probably smart enough to do pretty well on Wall Street. Or in the restaurant business. Or flipping houses in Florida. And yet, every year, idealistic and ambitious young people troop off to make almost no money reporting on the world’s tragedies and failures. I hardly have a friend in the business who hasn’t been shot, kidnapped, blown up, detained, or threatened with execution. And yet they persist. I’ve lost one close friend and numerous acquaintances to war.

If you ask my fellow journalists why they do it, many will resort to the tired piety that someone must bear witness to the world’s horrors, but let’s have some honesty here. Journalism is one of the most important jobs in a democracy, and my involvement in the profession is a source of profound pride, but we don’t need to pretend selflessness to have merit. No other profession — lawyer, logger, preschool teacher — bothers to, so why should we? Journalists are some of the most ego-driven people I know, as well as some of the most principled, and they’re willing to risk their lives on both counts. Their supposed addiction to adrenaline can be thought of more accurately as an addiction to having a life of great meaning and consequence. What’s addictive is feeling different from everyone else, cut from a different cloth. Which indeed many of them are.

I’d now like to take a moment to get a semantic issue out of the way. Many people will tell you — or scream at you — that objectivity is a myth and journalists are just partisan hacks trying to advance their own agenda. Fair enough — some are. But such people aren’t actually journalists; they’re something else. News hosts who put on enormous amounts of make-up to make enormous amounts of money inflicting damage on our nation by lying about reality are (thankfully) outside the scope of this article. Now that that’s out of the way we can state that a journalist is a person who is willing to destroy his own opinions with facts. A journalist is a person who is willing to report the truth regardless of consequences to herself or others. A journalist is a person who is focused on reality rather than outcome.

Truth-tellers are everywhere in our society because we rely on them to survive. Trial judges, weather forecasters, safety inspectors, structural engineers, and radiologists all provide unvarnished opinions so that we can lead safer, better lives, and the press is no different.

Anti-Israeli Sentiment in Ireland Is Getting Worse By Barry O’Halloran

https://www.nationalreview.com/2024/02/anti-israeli-sentiment-in-ireland-is-getting-worse/

Recent cultural and political controversies in Ireland suggest a worrying — and growing — hostility to Israel.

In James Joyce’s Ulysses, Stephen Dedalus is asked why Ireland has “the honour of being the only country that has never persecuted the Jews.” When he can’t answer, he’s told it’s because Ireland “never let them in.” Despite the fact that the Jewish population there is very small, antisemitic prejudice in Ireland — and in the United Kingdom — has been a recurring issue.

Outside of the sports’ pages, Ireland’s international basketball games usually pass without much notice. Last Thursday’s Women’s EuroBasket 2025 qualifier game between Ireland and Israel was an exception. It was originally slated to take place last November in Israel, but, because of conflict in the region, it was rescheduled to a neutral venue in the Latvian capital, Riga. The venue may have been neutral, but everything else about this game quickly became toxic.

Basketball Ireland (BI), the sport’s governing body, had been under sustained pressure to boycott the game. However, as the organization noted, “FIBA Europe has not excluded Israel from competing internationally,” so a unilateral Irish boycott would be “an effective 5-year ban from competing at international level” for Ireland. The organization’s CEO said, “I’m not prepared to destroy my sport for a gesture that will have no impact.” There would be no boycott.

Unwittingly, the Israeli Basketball Association reignited the controversy. It posted on its website photos of IDF soldiers visiting a team practice session. Then, a U.S.-based Israeli team member, Dor Saar, told the website, “It’s known that they are quite antisemitic, and it’s no secret.” In the febrile anti-Israeli atmosphere in Ireland, this set the cat among the pigeons.

BI blasted the comments as “inflammatory and wholly inaccurate” and stated, “There would be no formal handshakes before or after the game, while our players will line up for the Irish national anthem by our bench, rather then [sic] the centre court.”

Hamas: Palestinian Civilians Are Also Terrorists by Khaled Abu Toameh

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/20400/hamas-palestinian-civilians-terrorists

When Hamas decided to drag the entire population of the Gaza Strip into another war with Israel on October 7, it did not care what would happen to Palestinian civilians.

If the hostages were indeed held in an apartment of a Palestinian family, this shows that Hamas has no problem placing Palestinian civilians in harm’s way.

Consequently, Hamas has no right to complain about the death of civilians in the war it initiated against Israel while it uses its own people to hold innocent kidnapped Israelis.

Hamas leaders leading lavish lives in Qatar and Lebanon do not care about the two million Palestinians of the Gaza Strip, nor do the leaders of the terrorist organization who are hiding in the vast network of sophisticated tunnels in the Gaza Strip. All they care about is their own survival

“The humanitarian aid is being stolen by those who call themselves resistance fighters. They claim they are defending us, but they are stealing all the aid coming into the Gaza Strip and then they sell it to the people for a very high price.” — Palestinian man in Gaza, X (twitter.com), February 16, 2024.

On February 15, sources in the Gaza Strip reported that Hamas terrorists killed Ahmed Abu al-Arja, a Palestinian boy, while he was trying to get food for his family.

[T]he participation of some Palestinian civilians in the October 7 massacre and the kidnapping of Israelis is extremely worrying: it illustrates that a large number of people in the Gaza Strip actually do support Hamas and its terrorism against Israel.

Since the October 7, 2023 Hamas attack on Israel, leaders of the Iran-backed terrorist group have been trying to distance themselves from the atrocities by holding Palestinian civilians responsible for some of the crimes, including the murder, beheading, rape, torture, kidnapping, mutilation and burning of hundreds of Israeli men, women, and children.

These are the same civilians that Hamas has long been using as human shields in its Jihad (holy war) to murder Jews and obliterate Israel.

First, Hamas uses Palestinian civilians as human shields, then it accuses them of perpetrating atrocities against Israelis.

Please Watch and Share “Juice: Power, Politics, and The Grid” by Robert Bryce-Jane Menton

https://www.manhattancontrarian.com/blog/2024-2-19-please-watch-and-share-juice-power-politics-and-the-grid-by-robert-bryce

Most of what Robert Bryce covers in his new documentary Juice won’t be news to you if you’re a regular reader of this blog. However, it is exactly the tool we need to bring everyone else into the fold.

It’s gripping, well produced, and covers a ton of ground in short, extremely digestible, 20 minute episodes. In 5 parts (so about an hour and a half total), Bryce and director/producer Tyson Culver cover: how the energy market developed; where we are now; the politics and profits driving decisions; why solar/wind energy will never work; and hope for a possible nuclear renaissance. And they do it all without ever getting too technical for the average viewer.

The first three episodes should be required viewing for everyone, in my opinion, and provide a thorough overview of the grid, the players, and the politics. The last two episodes are very focused on nuclear as our best option for reliable, carbon-free energy, which comes off as hopeful and solution oriented, but may be much further from realization than Bryce optimistically portrays.

If you read this blog, I can safely assume you already know a lot about energy and why current government policies towards energy are absurd at best and dangerous at worst. But it’s just as likely that you have several people in your life who struggle to understand your obsession with energy policy or can’t see why it’s so important, so fundamental to modern society, and on the cusp of turning into the biggest political issue of our time.

You can start with the first episode, linked here, and then send it to someone you think could be convinced.