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Always Victims, Never Bullies By Bode Lang

Posted By on August 7th, 2020

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2020/08/always_victims_never_bullies.html

One of the best analogies I’ve ever heard came from Bill Whittle, who likened Democrats to a younger brother repeatedly poking his older brother.  After ignoring the first few pokes, the older brother eventually becomes agitated and slaps his younger brother’s hand away.  The younger brother cries to Mommy, demanding that his older brother be punished for his behavior.

We see this analogy routinely play out in politics, and while a seasoned mother may inquire about what preceded the hand-slapping, in our current political climate, that is a question we’re not supposed to ask. 

The Portland mayor cited Donald Trump sending in federal troops as the culprit for violence in Portland.  We are supposed to believe that before federal law enforcement arrived in Portland, “peaceful protesters” were holding hands, singing “Give Peace a Chance.”  We are not to ask what led to Trump sending in federal troops or make any mention of rampant violence and burning buildings prior to Trump’s actions.

When protesters tried to blockade a public road, a female driver attempted to maneuver past the crowd.  Aghast at the audacity of anyone unwilling to comply with their decision to ban any public street, at any time, the “peaceful protesters” miraculously transformed into a violent mob.  While jumping on the car, kicking, and hitting the vehicle, some rioters urged to get the “license plate and face” of the driver as they recorded the incident. 

Why do they tell others to get a view of the license plate number and driver’s face on camera?  To report her to the police. 

WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Help Lebanon: Remove Hezbollah’s Stranglehold — and Its Dangerous Missile Stockpiles By Seth J. Frantzman

Posted By on August 7th, 2020

https://www.nationalreview.com/2020/08/help-lebanon-remove-hezbollahs-stranglehold-and-its-dangerous-missile-stockpiles/#slide-1

If Hezbollah does capitalize on this disaster, it will only accelerate Lebanon’s economic collapse, and hold the country hostage in a future war with Israel.

Beirut has been ravaged by a massive explosion, likely caused by careless handling of ammonium nitrate stored in a warehouse at its port. As the city is still picking through the debris and thousands search for loved ones, countries such as Turkey, Iran, Qatar, France, and Israel are rushing to provide support. Yet looming over Beirut even now is the presence of the terrorist group Hezbollah with its network of 150,000 missiles, many stored in civilian areas throughout the country.

While Hezbollah has not been blamed for the August 4 warehouse fire that led to the massive explosion, it is alleged to have imported and stored similar stockpiles of dangerous munitions and chemicals, such as ammonium nitrate, used in explosives. Hezbollah also helped create the corrupt and negligent political system whose lack of accountability enabled the careless storage of these deadly chemicals for years. For instance, a new report by the Foundation for Defense of Democracies asserts that Hezbollah siphons off billions from around the world into a kind of black market. Money is laundered through Lebanon, allowing Hezbollah to function as a kind of parallel state, one with its own terror army, missiles, companies, financial services, and social services

The recent explosion in Lebanon must invite increased scrutiny of the role Hezbollah has played in eroding state institutions and enabling the kind of shoddy negligence that led to this disaster. To shield itself, Hezbollah will scramble to respond, likely either casting blame or portraying itself as riding to the rescue. It has done this before. After launching an attack on Israel in 2006, Hezbollah used the war’s devastation to entrench and enrich itself. It did the same with the Syrian civil war in 2011, using the war next door as an excuse to send fighters to Syria and essentially conduct Lebanon’s foreign policy in place of the government.

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Ex-Colleagues See Durham Dropping Bombshells Before Labor Day Paul Sperry

Posted By on August 7th, 2020

https://www.realclearinvestigations.com/articles/2020/08/06/ex-colleagues_see_durham_dropping_bombshells_before_labor_day_124753.html

While much speculation inside the Beltway says U.S. Attorney John Durham will punt the results of his so-called Spygate investigation past the election to avoid charges of political interference, sources who have worked with Durham on past public corruption cases doubt he’ll bend to political pressure — and they expect him to drop bombshells before Labor Day.

Durham’s boss, Attorney General Bill Barr, also pushed back on the notion his hand-picked investigator would defer action. Under Democratic questioning on Capitol Hill last week, he refused to rule out a pre-election release.

“Under oath, do you commit to not releasing any report by Mr. Durham before the November election?” Rep. Debbie Mucarsel-Powell (D-Fla.) asked Barr, citing longstanding Justice Department policy not to announce new developments in politically sensitive cases before an election.

“No,” the attorney general curtly replied.

WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Belarus on the Brink The country’s people are fed up with their dictator, and chaos could follow.

Posted By on August 7th, 2020

https://www.wsj.com/articles/belarus-on-the-brink-11596756409?mod=opinion_lead_pos3

Belarussian dictator Alexander Lukashenko is facing the most serious challenge to his quarter-century rule, but he won’t leave without a fight. Instability in the country of 9.5 million could open another front for Russian aggression along the European Union’s border.

Mr. Lukashenko prevented several rivals from running in this Sunday’s presidential election. But Svetlana Tikhanovskaya, the wife of a banned candidate, has presented a surprisingly robust challenge. Tens of thousands have attended rallies to support Ms. Tikhanovskaya, who is running on pro-democratic reforms that would bring Belarus closer to the West. She also promises to resign after six months and order a fresh election.

Like Russia’s Vladimir Putin, Mr. Lukashenko rules as an authoritarian but tries to derive legitimacy from unfair elections. Both men have seen their once genuine popularity decline thanks to economic mismanagement, frustration with curtailed political freedom, and especially a bungled response to the Covid-19 pandemic. Like his Russian counterpart, Mr. Lukashenko won’t accept any outcome but victory in rigged elections.

Independent observers have been detained while documenting thousands of election-law violations in early voting. If opposition supporters feel they’ve been robbed, as they almost certainly will, expect protests. Mr. Lukashenko won’t hesitate to violently suppress dissent, but the depth of public disdain means the demonstrators won’t back down easily.

ISRAEL, WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Israel Offers to Help Lebanon Recover From Explosion Disaster; Lebanon Tells Israel to Get Lost By P. David Hornik

Posted By on August 6th, 2020

https://pjmedia.com/columns/p-david-hornik/2020/08/06/israel-offers-to-help-lebanon-recover-from-explosion-disaster-lebanon-tells-israel-to-get-lost-n759265

On Tuesday evening 2,750 tons of apparently neglected ammonium nitrate exploded in a warehouse at Beirut’s port. The results include at least 135 dead, over 5,000 injured, and 300,000 left homeless. Even before the calamity, Lebanon was in a state of economic collapse with inflation running wild, over 30 percent unemployment, and the Lebanese pound pegged at about 1,500 to the dollar.

Since then Israel has been trying persistently to help, offering Lebanon medical and other humanitarian aid through UN channels. Considering that Lebanon is controlled by Hizballah, which sees Israel as a Little Satan with no claim to exist at all, that may seem to be a fool’s errand.

The Jerusalem Post reports that “the UN is considering opening up a field hospital in Cyprus” with an international medical team, and quotes an Israeli hospital director who says Israeli doctors could probably join that team: “If there is an international delegation then Lebanon won’t put any condition that there not be Israelis — that would be absurd.”

Absurd, yes — but this is the Middle East.

The Post adds that Israel is reportedly “negotiating sending equipment to detect missing people under collapsed buildings, medical equipment and to treat people who were injured who have foreign citizenship.”

In the Middle East, though, this is the sort of offer that can be refused.

HISTORY, NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

By Joshua Lawson:75 Years Later, It’s Clear Truman Was Right To Drop The Atomic Bomb

Posted By on August 6th, 2020

https://thefederalist.com/2020/08/06/75-years-later-its-clear-truman-was-rig

Ultimately, the decision to use atomic weapons against Japan hastened the end to WWII, halted further Soviet aggression, and saved millions of lives.

On August 6, 1945, 30-year-old U.S. Air Force pilot Col. Paul W. Tibbets Jr. took to the sky in the Enola Gay, his Boeing B-29 Superfortress heavy bomber. His destination, the Japanese city of Hiroshima, was not an especially notable target. His payload, however, a single bomb nicknamed “Little Boy,” would change the course of history.

True watershed moments in history are rare — the agricultural revolution is one such example, as was the Battle of Salamis, the advent of Jesus Christ, and the fall of Western Rome. Yet in the last 1,500 years, no two distinct epochs of time are as clear as the time before the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and all the time since.

‘Prompt and Utter Destruction’

Eleven days before Tibbets’s fateful flight, on July 26, 1945, U.S. President Harry S. Truman’s “Potsdam Declaration” gave the Empire of Japan one final chance to surrender unconditionally after more than three years of war in the Pacific. If they persisted in fighting, the Potsdam text promised “the full application” of U.S. military power, culminating in “the inevitable and complete destruction of the Japanese armed forces and just as inevitably the utter devastation of the Japanese homeland.” The closing of the ultimatum rings all the more forebodingly in hindsight: if the Japanese refused the terms, the alternative was “prompt and utter destruction.”

ELECTIONS Comments turned off

Over 80,000 mail-in ballots disqualified in NYC primary mess 1 out of 4 mail-in ballots were disqualified for arriving late, lacking a postmark or other defects

Posted By on August 6th, 2020

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/over-80000-mail-in-ballots-disqualified-in-nyc-primary-mess

The mail-in ballots of more than 84,000 New York City Democrats who sought to vote in the presidential primary were disqualified, according to new figures released by the Board of Elections.

The city BOE received 403,103 mail-in ballots for the June 23 Democratic presidential primary.

But the certified results released Wednesday revealed that only 318,995 mail-in ballots were counted.

That means 84,108 ballots were not counted or invalidated — 21 percent of the total.

One out of four mail-in ballots were disqualified for arriving late, lacking a postmark or failing to include a voter’s signature, or other defects. The New York Post reported Tuesday that roughly 30,000 mail-in ballots were invalidated in Brooklyn alone.

The high invalidation rate provides more proof that election officials and the Postal Service were woefully underprepared to handle and process the avalanche of mail-in ballots that voters were encouraged to fill out to avoid having to go to the polls during the coronavirus pandemic, critics said.

Gov. Andrew Cuomo signed an executive order to make it easier to vote by mail-in or absentee ballot. The state also footed the bill by providing pre-paid envelopes for voters to mail the ballots.

“A 26 percent invalidation rate is astounding. It’s very troubling,” said Arthur Schwartz, who represented several candidates in a federal lawsuit claiming voters were disenfranchised over the BOE and Postal Service’s handling of ballots.

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

An excerpt from Part 2 of “Unreported Truths” – a brief history of lockdowns by Alex Berenson

Posted By on August 6th, 2020

http://www.alexberenson.com/an-excerpt-from-part-2-of-unreported-truths-a-brief-history-of-lockdowns/

This is a condensed version of part of the second chapter, which focuses on the history of lockdowns and how they became government policy. Hope you enjoy it.

The entire booklet is available on Amazon at https://amzn.to/33reYrm and at iBooks at https://apple.co/2PoNhqI.

In March, as the Sars-Cov-2 epidemic jumped to Europe and the United States, epidemiologists and public health experts told governments to lock down – fast and hard. Not just mass gatherings, but schools, offices, malls, even parks and beaches. To do anything less would be to sentence millions of people to death, the experts said.

Most infamously, the Imperial College London report of March 16 – written by researchers who were working with the World Health Organization – predicted more than 2 million American coronavirus deaths without immediate action. It called for a policy of what Professor Neil Ferguson, the report’s lead author, termed “suppression”:

(https://www.imperial.ac.uk/media/imperial-college/medicine/sph/ide/gida-fellowships/Imperial-College-COVID19-NPI-modelling-16-03-2020.pdf)

(Of course, Professor Ferguson exempted himself from his mandate. Two weeks after the report came out, as the entire United Kingdom had locked down, and while Ferguson himself was still supposed to be self-isolating after contracting the coronavirus, he had an affair with a married woman who traveled across London to meet him.)

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Neither Trump nor His Campaign Ever Got a ‘Defensive Briefing’ By Andrew C. McCarthy

Posted By on August 6th, 2020

https://www.nationalreview.com/2020/08/russiagate-probe-neither-trump-nor-his-campaign-ever-got-a-defensive-briefing

New disclosure of an FBI report should put this absurd claim to rest.

My column over the weekend was about the Obama-Biden administration’s exploitation of the government’s intelligence and law-enforcement apparatus to investigate Donald Trump, who was then the opposition Republican Party’s presidential candidate. The essence of this investigation is palpable from an August 2016 incident: The FBI covertly surveilled Trump by capitalizing on the U.S. intelligence community’s practice of providing a counterintelligence and security briefing to the nominees of the two major political parties.

The exploitation of executive power to monitor the opposition party’s presidential candidate is a Watergate-level abuse of power. That is why Obama and FBI apologists have steadfastly refused to cop to it.

A major element of their story is that the faux briefing given to Trump was actually a defensive briefing. We are to believe its purpose was to warn Trump that his campaign could be infiltrated by covert agents working for Russia.

The significance of the “defensive briefing” canard, and the importance of refuting it, still seems lost on many of Trump’s Russiagate defenders.

WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Muslim Anti-Semitism in Modern Britain – New Research By Rakib Ehsan

Posted By on August 6th, 2020

https://henryjacksonsociety.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/HJS-British-Muslim-An

Dear friends,
 

I am delighted to launch HJS’ latest work on the scourge of anti-Semitism in the UK, authored by Dr Rakib Ehsan.  We have focussed specifically on anti-Semitism within the Muslim community.  Sadly, the results are by no means reassuring.
 
The research finds that 44% of British Muslims admit to believing that British Jews are more loyal to Israel than to the UK  – a common form of anti-Semitism.  Just 13% could bring themselves to say that Jews were more loyal to the UK than Israel.

These shocking findings are not limited to so-called ‘dual loyalty’.  More British Muslims believe that Jews have too much control over the global banking system (34%) than do not (23%).  The same is true for politics, entertainment, the arms industry, and the media.  

There is no category of enterprise, that we polled, in which more British Muslims disagreed with the statement that Jews had too much control than agreed with it.  Similar polling of the public at large reveals that these levels of belief are far in excess of the wider population’s views.