NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

‘Woke’ medicine is coming to a hospital near you By Andrea Widburg

Posted By on June 4th, 2021

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2021/06/woke_medicine_is_coming_to_a_hospital_near_you.html

Following the Civil Rights movement, physicians took seriously their obligation to treat all patients. This principle separated them from the federal government’s grotesque 40-year-long Tuskegee Experiment that saw doctors refrain from treating syphilitic Black men in Alabama. Racist physicians were driven out of practice and all physicians were expected to treat racist patients. It’s different now. According to Katie Herzog, writing at Bari Weiss’s Substack blog, Critical Race Theory is aggressively intruding on physicians’ ability to treat patients, do research, or train the next generation of doctors.

Katie Herzog’s “What Happens When Doctors Can’t Tell the Truth?” examines a world in which doctors are silenced for fear that they will be destroyed professionally should they run afoul of the Critical Race Theory infecting medical care across America and in which young doctors, imbued with “anti-racist” zeal have the whip hand. Herzog begins her article by describing a super-secret Zoom group of a dozen physicians across America, who serve as a support group for each other as they navigate the totalitarian world of woke medicine:

This dogma goes by many imperfect names — wokeness, social justice, critical race theory, anti-racism — but whatever it’s called, the doctors say this ideology is stifling critical thinking and dissent in the name of progress. They say that it’s turning students against their teachers and patients and racializing even the smallest interpersonal interactions. Most concerning, they insist that it is threatening the foundations of patient care, of research, and of medicine itself.

The article acknowledges that some traditional healthcare protocols have not served minority patients well. However, that’s a small problem compared to the chilling effect wokeness is having on physician’s ability to provide good medical care and, just as importantly, to train rigorously the next generation of doctors:

I’ve heard from doctors who’ve been reported to their departments for criticizing residents for being late. (It was seen by their trainees as an act of racism.) I’ve heard from doctors who’ve stopped giving trainees honest feedback for fear of retaliation. I’ve spoken to those who have seen clinicians and residents refuse to treat patients based on their race or their perceived conservative politics.

MEDIA Comments turned off

The NYT vs. Israel By Lev Tsitrin

Posted By on June 4th, 2021

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2021/06/the_nyt_vs_israel.html

When I saw the title of an opinion piece by the New York Times’ Nicholas Kristof, “Were My Criticisms of Israel Fair?”  I did not hold my breath in expectation that his answer would be, “they were not, and I apologize.” He doubled down, yet again smearing Israel with the accusations of war crimes for forcefully responding to an attack from Gaza, in the best traditions of the New York Times.

Which is of course his right — as we well know, everyone is entitled to his opinion. The problem of course is that, as the second part of that same saying has it, no one (the New York Times, and Kristof including) is entitled to their own facts. 

And predictably, the facts Kristof adduces to support his argument that the fighting was Israel’s fault are not facts at all. His main source of facts and analysis is one Sari Bashi, “an Israeli human rights lawyer.” (the organization she leads, Gisha, “whose goal is to protect the freedom of movement of Palestinians, especially Gaza residents” is mostly funded (73.1%) by European governments and U.S. foundations like the Rockefeller Brothers Fund and George Soros’ Open Society Foundation. Calling her an Israeli lawyer is a 73.1% lie; “foreign agent” would be far more accurate. She called Gaza a “penal colony.” and compared the Trump peace plan to apartheid South Africa. You get the idea of her reliability as a source — though her views are undoubtedly music to Kristof’s ears, reinforcing his own anti-Israel bias. Birds of the feather flock together, after all.)

So what is the Bashi/Kristof theory of the cause of the Israel-Gaza conflict? “Israeli security forces, led by a prime minister desperate to stay in power to avoid jail on corruption charges, created a provocation by using violence and the threat of violence against Palestinians in Jerusalem. They stormed a sensitive religious site, used excessive force against demonstrators and threatened to forcibly transfer Palestinian families from their homes as part of an official policy to ‘Judaize’ occupied East Jerusalem, which is a war crime.”

MEDIA Comments turned off

The New York Times follows its historic pattern of blocking defense of Jewish lives By Rabbi Aryeh Spero

Posted By on June 4th, 2021

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2021/06/the_new_york_times_follows_its_h

Once again, the New York Times is acting to make it impossible for Jews to defend themselves against those who have announced their intention to exterminate the Jewish people.  The first time this happened was back in the ’30s and ’40s when the New York Times had knowledge of the impending plans for the Holocaust, as well as knowledge of the shipping of Jews to concentration camps in Europe.  For years it buried the story.  This is now well known.

Had the Times exposed the news that its correspondents had uncovered, many Jews could have been saved, and Jews and governments could have planned a defense against the perpetrators.  There would have been more Jewish resistance and partisans.  Instead, the New York Times buried these stories. 

Now the New York Times is once again doing what it can to demonize and prohibit the State of Israel from defending itself against those, such as Hamas, Islamic Jihad, and Abbas’s PLO, who daily announce their intention to destroy the State of Israel and the Jewish community.  In a front-page photo-job, conceived to mis-portray Israel as an aggressor hell-bent on killing children, the Times flashed a photo of Gazan children’s faces with a headline, “They Were Just Children.” 

WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

France Today / Interview with Nidra Poller by Jerome Gordon

Posted By on June 4th, 2021

https://www.newenglishreview.org/custpage.cfm?frm=190674&sec_id=190674

France is embroiled with protests over the court decision not to try the Muslim killer of the Orthodox Jewish retired teacher, Sarah Halimi, for alleged mental incapacity to stand trial. The decision gave rise to protests in France, Canada, UK, and Israel seeking justice. The Jerusalem Post reported in late May 2021, “Leaders and officials from France, Canada, Israel and the United Nations held a special digital rally demanding justice for Sarah Halimi, a French Jewish grandmother murdered by Kobili Traore.” France hosts Europe’s largest Jewish and Muslim Communities.

        This news came shortly after the cease fire ending the 11 day Fourth Israel-Hamas war during which more than 4,000 rockets and missiles were launched by the Gaza Muslim Brotherhood extremists and Iran-backed Palestinian Islamic Jihad. That reign of terror was thwarted by Israel’s Iron Dome rocket defense system in a nightly ‘Star Wars’ display with a 90 percent downing of incoming rockets fired indiscriminately by these Islamist extremists. Hamas aroused sectarian protests in the West Bank, Temple Mount, Jerusalem’s Sheikh Jarrah section—originally a Jewish area seized by Jordan during the 1948—over legal evictions of Arabs who lacked deeds of ownership. Add to the outbreak pogroms in joint Arab-Jewish towns in Israel like Lod, Jaffa, Acre, and others. Israel made ‘precision’ attacks on Hamas tunnels, command structures sparing as much as possible Gazan civilians. That was, admitted by the UNWRA director before being forced to recant by Hamas. Because the US and international media provocatively portrayed Israel’s defense as “excessive” the Jewish nation’s usual Democratic supporters in Congress were riven given calls by so-called progressives of “apartheid” and “occupation” insinuating a racist anti-Semitic toxic meme. That led to an outburst of Palestinian protesters attacking Jews in New York, Chicago and Los Angeles spiking anti-Semitic incidents. Concerns over existential threats to Israel and the American Jewish community were expressed by the Biden White House, major Jewish communal leaders, and condemned by the leaders of the Democratic majority and Republican opposition in Congress.

        France by contrast banned Palestinian protests given nightly protests and burnings during Ramadan among the Muslim banlieues suburbs. The French National Assembly had introduction legislation against “separatism” —a euphemism for dealing Islamic extremism. In late April, a French policewoman was killed by a Tunisian émigré. Those illegal Palestinian protests that did occur through France were relatively smaller than in prior outbursts. The National Police used tear gas and water cannons to disperse protesters in Paris and other major French cities. The separatism issue was the subject of an open letter from 1,000 French Servicemen, including 20 former generals raising the threat of insurrection, especially in the predominantly Muslim banlieues. The separatism issue will figure prominently in the upcoming 2022 Presidential election in France pitting President Macron against Marine Le Pen of the National Rally. There is also concerns about France commitment to combatting rising Islamist extremist threats to the G-5 countries in former French Equatorial Africa region of Sahel.

        Against this background we brought back very dear friend, Nidra Poller, long-term American expat in Paris, talented writer, author, and activist for her views. Nidra (right) has written extensively on Islamic Antisemitism, murders of French Jews, terrorist events in France and elsewhere. She is most noted for being one of the earliest investigators in the Muhammad al-Dura affair that involved a 12-year-old Palestinian boy who was allegedly killed by Israeli gunfire on September 30th, 2000, at the start of the second Intifada. That was a piece of classic Palestinian propaganda. It was made up. Unfortunately, it involved a French, Jewish producer for France 2 tv whose 54-second film clip triggered this entire investigation. I met Nidra Poller nearly 18 years ago in Boston to go over some of the original findings in that groundbreaking effort. Much of that has been captured in a book that she wrote, published in 2014, called Al Dura: Long-Range Ballistic Myth  Poller contributes commentary on English-speaking media for ELNET which is a strong international organization defending Israel and defending democracy.

EDUCATION Comments turned off

Texas Bars Protest Civics and CRT By Stanley Kurtz

Posted By on June 4th, 2021

https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/texas-bars-protest-civics-and-crt/?utm_source=recirc-desktop&utm_medium=homepage&utm_campaign=river&utm_content=featured-content-trending&utm_term=second

The Texas legislature has just passed House Bill 3979, a landmark education bill. It is the first law in the country barring not only the core concepts of Critical Race Theory (CRT) from K–12 schools, but “protest civics” as well. The practice of protest civics — mandatory student protests and lobbying after school (invariably for leftist causes) — is every bit as much a threat to K–12 schools as CRT. Even if every state legislature in the country were to bar CRT, the federal civics bills being considered right now in Congress could still force leftist indoctrination on the states via protest civics. That is why the passage of Texas H.B. 3979 is so important.

The momentum coming out of Texas is significant. Already, Ohio representative Don Jones has introduced a bill broadly similar to what just passed in Texas. Other states are considering legislation that also take on both protest civics and CRT. We may soon see a wave of expanded K–12 protections sweep over the states. That means the news out of Texas — and now Ohio as well — is very good.

That said, the Texas bill emerged from its legislative struggle a bit raggedy. Democrats fought the measure tooth and nail. While they failed to undo the protections against protest civics and CRT, Democrats did manage to weigh the bill down with a long, scattershot list of readings that inappropriately forces a detailed and highly debatable curriculum onto local districts. Quite apart from arguments about the readings themselves, states should not dictate curriculum to districts at this level of specificity. Democrats also managed to block a number of important technical fixes to the bill.

None of this is prohibitive. Governor Abbott should certainly sign H.B. 3979. Abbott would be well-advised, however, to pare down the vastly over-extended list of required readings and make some additional technical fixes during September’s special session.

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Journalist Andy Ngo Recounts Brutal Beating at the Hands of Portland Antifa By Caroline Downey

Posted By on June 4th, 2021

https://www.nationalreview.com/news/journalist-andy-ngo-recounts-brutal-beating-at-the-hands-of-portland-antifa/

Independent journalist Andy Ngo was brutally beaten late last month while reporting on an Antifa riot in Portland that was organized to commemorate the one-year anniversary of the group’s months-long courthouse siege. He described the incident in an exclusive interview with National Review.

The Friday demonstration organized by Antifa marked the one-year anniversary of the first outbreak of post-George Floyd violence in Portland, when activists stormed the local courthouse and set it on fire. After that first instance of violence, rioters dressed in Antifa’s tell-tale black bloc gear laid siege to the courthouse for more than 100 consecutive nights last spring, causing millions in property damage and hospitalizing dozens of police officers and federal agents dispatched to protect the property.

Ngo, who initially described the assault in a series of Tweets posted Thursday morning, has developed a reputation for going undercover to film leftist violence in the Antifa stronghold of Portland. He returned to the area the night he was assaulted to report on the commemorative chaos for a new chapter of his previously released book, “Unmasked: Inside Antifa’s Radical Plan to Destroy Democracy.”

Masked and dressed head to toe in black, Ngo marched with the protestors for several hours to observe the destruction he was sure they would unleash. He wasn’t wrong; they hurled projectiles at law enforcement and the police station and committed other acts of violence. After some time, Antifa grew suspicious of Ngo, who wasn’t engaging in criminal activities alongside them, and turned on him.

Ngo said that four other journalists were standing by, but only started photographing when police arrived at the scene and never recorded any evidence of Antifa wrongdoing. He argued that there’s a small cabal of journalists who comply with Antifa rules to avoid the repercussions, such as assault or property theft. Ngo himself knows first hand the consequences meted out to journalists who report on the group’s wanton destruction; he was hospitalized with a brain hemorrhage in 2019 after being attacked by an Antifa mob while reporting in Portland.

ISRAEL Comments turned off

What does a Bennett-Lapid government mean? David Isaac

Posted By on June 4th, 2021

https://www.jns.org/analysis-what-does-a-bennett-lapid-government-mean/

“This looks to me like a car with four different wheels, and every wheel is going in a different direction,” said Lt. Col. (res.) Dr. Mordechai Kedar. “The only thing they agree upon is the need to get rid of [Benjamin] Netanyahu. This objective will be achieved in the first minute of this government.”

(June 2, 2021 / JNS) Yesh Atid Party head Yair Lapid and Yamina Party head Naftali Bennett announced on Wednesday that they have secured an agreement to form Israel’s next government, thereby likely ending the 12-year consecutive term of Benjamin Netanyahu as the country’s prime minister.

The new government will be unprecedented in its composition, consisting of seven parties spanning the entire Israeli political spectrum, plus the backing of an Arab party for the first time. As such, questions remain over the ability to successfully govern such a disparate group of parties at a time when the country faces serious security threats stemming from Iran and its terror proxies, as well as internal social discord between Jews and Arabs.

Nevertheless, most analysts JNS spoke with were hopeful, especially when it comes to improving U.S.-Israel ties.

“It could certainly help the mood, initially,” Daniel Pipes, president of the Middle East Forum, told JNS, saying that the United States will be pleased with a government that includes left-wing members. Though he cautions, “I could well see the Biden administration disappointed if the right-wing parties—which are, in fact, more right than Netanyahu—have their way.”

Pipes expects the right-wing coalition partners to dominate, noting that in the negotiations on forming the coalition, the three right-wing parties—Yamina, New Hope and Yisrael Beiteinu—“have been in the driver’s seat,” and Yamina, with only seven seats, has been given the premiership.

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

The FBI’s Strange Anthrax Investigation Sheds Light on COVID Lab-Leak Theory and Fauci’s Emails Mainstream institutions doubted the FBI had solved the 2001 anthrax case. Either way, revelations that emerged about U.S. Government bio-labs have newfound relevance. Glenn Greenwald

Posted By on June 4th, 2021

https://greenwald.substack.com/p/the-fbis-strange-anthrax-investigation?token=ey

One of the most significant events of the last two decades has been largely memory-holed: the October, 2001 anthrax attacks in the U.S. Beginning just one week after 9/11 and extending for another three weeks, a highly weaponized and sophisticated strain of anthrax had been sent around the country through the U.S. Postal Service addressed to some of the country’s most prominent political and media figures. As Americans were still reeling from the devastation of 9/11, the anthrax killed five Americans and sickened another seventeen.

As part of the extensive reporting I did on the subsequent FBI investigation to find the perpetrator(s), I documented how significant these attacks were in the public consciousness. ABC News, led by investigative reporter Brian Ross, spent a full week claiming that unnamed government sources told them that government tests demonstrated a high likelihood that the anthrax came from Saddam Hussein’s biological weapons program. The Washington Post, in November, 2001, also raised “the possibility that [this weaponized strain of anthrax] may have slipped through an informal network of scientists to Iraq.” Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) appeared on The David Letterman Show on October 18, 2001, and said: “There is some indication, and I don’t have the conclusions, but some of this anthrax may — and I emphasize may — have come from Iraq.” Three days later, McCain appeared on Meet the Press with Sen. Joe Lieberman (D-CT) and said of the anthrax perpetrators: “perhaps this is an international organization and not one within the United States of America,” while Lieberman said the anthrax was so finely weaponized that “there’s either a significant amount of money behind this, or this is state-sponsored, or this is stuff that was stolen from the former Soviet program” (Lieberman added: “Dr. Fauci can tell you more detail on that”).

ISRAEL Comments turned off

A message for President-elect Isaac Herzog By Ruthie Blum  

Posted By on June 4th, 2021

https://www.jpost.com/opinion/a-message-for-president-elect-isaac-herzog-opinion-670080

Upon the election of Jewish Agency Chairman Isaac Herzog as Israel’s 11th president on Wednesday, letters of congratulations began to pour in from the leaders of organizations whose paths have frequently crossed with him in his current position, which he’s held for the past three years.

The heads of the American Jewish Committee, World Jewish Congress, Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations of America, American Jewish Congress and the Israeli-American Council all welcomed the news on the grounds that Herzog is just the right man for the job of unifying Israelis and strengthening bonds between the Jewish state and Jewish communities around the world.
Incumbent President Reuven Rivlin, too, extended felicitations. “I send you my warmest greetings, Mr. President,” Rivlin said in a phone call to his successor. “I can tell you that the responsibility of the role that you are about to assume is unlike anything you have done until now. The Jewish and democratic system we established here, in the land of our ancestors, has a body and soul. If the Knesset is a place of argument, as we have certainly seen recently, Beit Hanassi [the office and official residence of the president] is a place of discourse, partnership and statehood.”

Rivlin went on, “Beit HaNasi is the ‘neshama yetera,’ the additional soul of democracy. It is the home of the people, all the people of Israel. Its door is open and its ear is bent to all partners in building our home, their pains and their troubles, as well as to the fundamental issues of concern to Israeli society as a whole. The title of ‘first citizen’ and the task of guarding the character of the State of Israel, particularly at this point in time, are heavy responsibilities. I have no doubt that you will bear them superbly. I am proud to pass the baton on to you in a month’s time.”

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Fauci should drop the mask on Wuhan The nation needs to know the whole truth about the COVID-19 pandemic Tom Fitton

Posted By on June 4th, 2021

https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2021/jun/2/fauci-should-drop-the-mask-on-wuhan/

While our masks come off, Dr. Anthony Fauci still wears his mask of secrecy – one that cloaks the U.S. National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases’ response to COVID-19. The time for an honest discussion regarding Dr. Fauci’s leadership and actions during the pandemic is long overdue.

Scientists have learned a great deal about the coronavirus, including how it transmits and attacks the body and crucially, how to treat patients and create seemingly effective vaccines. However, scientists are requesting more information that they say is necessary to determine how COVID-19 originated and became a pandemic in order to develop strategies to prevent such a pandemic from ever again visiting such destruction upon humanity. But to this day, Dr. Fauci and NIAID have steadfastly refused to release documents that would help answer this and many other important questions. 

Over the past year, Judicial Watch has bird-dogged Dr. Fauci’s records through the Freedom of Information Act. And when FOIA requests were ignored, Judicial Watch filed lawsuits compelling NIAID to comply. Although the agency continues its unprecedented stonewalling, it has released at least some documents, some of which are deeply troubling. In one instance, Dr. Fauci approved a press release that was specifically designed to praise China’s initial response to the coronavirus. In an even more troubling case, officials from the NIH tailored confidentiality forms to China’s terms, and the World Health Organization (WHO) conducted an unreleased, “strictly confidential” COVID-19 epidemiological analysis in January 2020.