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Progressives to Cities: Drop Dead The ruin of major liberal cities by progressive policies is a significant political event. Daniel Henninger

Posted By on July 23rd, 2020

https://www.wsj.com/articles/progressives-to-cities-drop-dead-11595458490?mod=opinion_lead_pos8

On Tuesday the New York City sky was clear, blue and filled with sunshine. That’s it for this week’s good news. We turn now to Portland, Ore.; Seattle, Chicago, San Francisco and all of America’s other seemingly Godforsaken cities.

President Trump watches a lot of television, so he’s seeing the same daily urban nightmares we’re seeing. It’s hard not to sympathize with his instinct to send in federal authorities to restore civil order to cities like Portland, as he proposed Wednesday with the expansion of an urban anticrime initiative called Operation Legend to Chicago and Albuquerque.

It’s equally hard to disagree that, other than protecting federal facilities, Mr. Trump should let all of these smug Portlandia American cities stew in their own juices.

I loved it when Portland’s mayor, Ted Wheeler, said the federal presence “is actually leading to more violence and more vandalism.” Where’s Groucho Marx when we need him to make sense of nonsense?

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

A Vaccine Progress Report Private innovation and public money are betting on multiple candidates.

Posted By on July 23rd, 2020

https://www.wsj.com/articles/a-vaccine-progress-report-11595461075?mod=opinion_lead_pos1

Life probably won’t return to normal until we have a widely distributed Covid-19 vaccine, and the good news is this may happen sooner than expected thanks to years of private investment and new cooperation between the U.S. government and drug companies.

On Wednesday the Trump Administration announced a $1.95 billion advance order for 100 million doses of a promising vaccine candidate by Pfizer and Germany-based BioNTech that could be available by the end of the year. Dare to dream. The drug makers plan to begin the final phase of their clinical trials this month and seek regulatory approval as soon as October.

***

The Administration’s Operation Warp Speed is accelerating vaccine development as well as the manufacturing of ingredients and equipment with the aim of delivering 300 million doses by January 2021. That’s an ambitious target, but the Administration is placing several bets with vaccine makers with the hope that at least one or two will pay off.

Evidence from early-stage clinical trials so far has been promising. Pfizer and BioNTech this month reported preliminary results from 45 volunteers showing that their mRNA vaccine candidate generated levels of neutralizing antibodies 1.8- to 2.8-times higher than those in recovered patients. The vaccine programs cells to produce a viral protein that stimulates an immune response.

EDUCATION Comments turned off

Brown University Goes All in for Palestine by A.J. Caschetta

Posted By on July 23rd, 2020

https://spectator.org/brown-university-palestine-studies-chair-mahmoud-darwish/?u

They’ve created America’s first-ever chair in Palestinian Studies.

Brown University, the Ivy League college founded in 1764, is the latest high-profile academic institution to go all in for Palestine, a country that does not exist. Columbia University’s Center for Palestine Studies, a Ramallah on the Hudson, still occupies first place in excusing Palestinian violence, exaggerating Israeli responses to Palestinian terrorism, and inculcating new generations of BDS ideologues. But Brown has just upped the ante by endowing America’s first-ever chair in Palestinian Studies.

This is not merely a symbolic gesture, but a significant commitment, hailed in the press as a “milestone” and proclaimed as Palestinians “Finally getting a place at the academic table.” Brown’s Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs, its Center for Middle East Studies, and its New Directions in Palestinian Studies research initiative will now collaborate in a synergistic venture, spending money and hiring teachers to indoctrinate students and “inform the community” about the evils of Israeli colonialism, while stamping its imprimatur on the virtues of the Palestinian cause. Call it the Providence Front for the Liberation of Palestine.

The new position is named for Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish, whom Brown University calls “a towering and beloved figure of Palestinian and Arab literature and humanistic values.” Humanistic values?  Mahmoud Darwish was many things, but a humanist he was not. As a member of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), he wrote and edited its monthly journal and served as director of its research center. He was also the author of the Palestinian Declaration of Independence. In the picture below he is seated between two of the Palestinians’ arch-terrorists, Yasser Arafat, leader of the PLO, and George Habash, co-founder of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP).

WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Hopes Are Rising For No-Deal Brexit As Europe Dithers By Stephen MacLean

Posted By on July 23rd, 2020

https://www.nysun.com/foreign/hopes-are-rising-for-no-deal-brexit-as-europe/91198/

With weeks before the United Kingdom meets its self-imposed deadline to reach a midsummer trade deal with the European Union, Britain is on course for a “clean break” Brexit. “UK Close to Abandoning Brexit-EU Deal, Will Likely Leave Bloc Fully in December,” booms Breitbart London. “No deal Brexit likely,” begins a headline in the Express. “EU can’t even agree with themselves!” concludes a headline in the EuroWeekly.

It’s unlikely, though, that purist Brexiteers will be dancing in the streets just yet — never mind that government restrictions to prevent spreading the coronavirus curtail such public celebrations. Once bitten, twice shy. Prime Minister Theresa May and her supplicatory approach to Brussels disabused freedom-loving Conservatives that their party was with them. Even Boris Johnson, with better bonafides than Mrs. May on the Brexit file, has been known to wobble on the imperative of independence.

Even now, with Brexit the law of the land, our breath is bated. Britain, after all, remains under EU jurisdiction until the end of the year — paying membership dues and subject to the European Court of Justice until either a UK-EU trade deal is inked or the UK severs all links and trades with the EU according to World Trade Organization rules.

Still, there is light at the end of the tunnel. While the British negotiating team assembled following the 2016 referendum had a chequered reputation (seemingly taking its orders from Brussels and laying down the law to London), the current contingent is less in thrall to EU bureaucrats. Thus the chances are waxing for a “clean break.”

UK negotiator Oliver Lewis refuses to be played and is not afraid to speak out for his country’s sovereign rights, several times clashing with his EU counterpart, Michel Barnier. Likewise, Dominic Cummings, the PM’s principal advisor deep in Downing Street, cannot be cowed. At least not on the Brexit file. Mr. Cummings was a chief strategist for the successful “Vote Leave” campaign and has lost none of his combative spirit.

POLITICS Comments turned off

Nancy Pelosi Calls the Wuhan Coronavirus ‘the Trump Virus’ By Matt Margolis

Posted By on July 23rd, 2020

https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/matt-margolis/2020/07/22/nancy-pelosi-calls-the-wuhan-coronavirus-the-trump-virus-n670314

ILHAN OMAR’S NEW NANNY…RSK

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said during a Tuesday interview on CNN with Wolf Blitzer that the United States is suffering from the “Trump virus.”

“I think with the president’s comments today, he recognized the mistakes he has made by now embracing mask-wearing and the recognition this is not a hoax, it is a pandemic that has gotten worse before it will get better because of his inaction. And, in fact, clearly, it is the Trump virus,” Pelosi said.

“What do you mean when you say the Trump virus?” Blitzer asked.

“The Trump virus: If he had said months ago, let’s wear masks and let’s not – let’s socially distance instead of rallies and whatever they were, then more people would have followed his lead,” Pelosi replied. “He’s the president of the United States.”

There are a number of falsehoods in Pelosi’s claims.

For starters, Trump never called the coronavirus a hoax. In fact, while Pelosi was distracted by impeachment, the Trump administration was busy addressing the coronavirus outbreak, taking various measures to limit the spread of the virus in the United States, that were quickly politicized by the Democrats once impeachment was over. Trump’s travel ban with China, for example, was described as an overreaction, and Democrats accused him of trying to scare the public. “This is no time for Donald Trump’s record of hysteria and xenophobia — and fearmongering to lead the way instead of science,” said Joe Biden, who (like many others) has since flip-flopped on the travel ban.

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

List Of 183 Monuments Ruined Since Protests Began, And Counting By Jonah Gottschalk

Posted By on July 23rd, 2020

https://thefederalist.com/2020/07/22/list-of-183-monuments-ruined-since-protests-began-and-counting/

Most monuments torn down were not by protesters, but by city officials after pressure or threats from protesters.

Thirty-three statues of Columbus. Nine of the Founding Fathers. Eight of Saint Junipero Serra. With the frequency of the ongoing iconoclasm, it can be hard to gain a scale of the problem.

For each story that has breached the news cycle, at least a dozen went unreported outside of local media. This detailed list records each instance monuments have been defaced, vandalized, and or torn down since nationwide protests began, updated as more occur.

Some key takeaways include:

At least 183 monuments, memorials, statues, and major historical markers have been defaced or pulled down since protests began in May.
While Confederate monuments have taken the lion’s share of media coverage, they actually form a minority of the statues targeted.
By far the most popular target was Christopher Columbus, with 33 statues in total having been defaced and pulled down.
The next most popular targets were Robert E. Lee (9), Serra (8), and Thomas Jefferson (4).
The vast majority of the vandals were never charged, with 177 out of 183 instances having no arrests.
Most monuments torn down were not by protesters, but by city officials after pressure or threats from protesters.
By far the most common route for monuments being destroyed was for protesters to damage it, then the city quickly removing it as a “public safety” hazard, not to be returned.
For a majority of the statues removed, the fate of the artwork is currently unknown, while a minority have been moved to cemeteries and museums.

The list begins with the most recent instance of iconoclasm and continues backwards in time until the first instance connected with nationwide rioting, in late May.

HISTORY, ISRAEL Comments turned off

The Ben Gurion Legacy: Independent National Security Policy Ambassador (Ret.) Yoram Ettinger

Posted By on July 23rd, 2020

 https://bit.ly/39lOus0

The Ben Gurion legacy contradicts conventional wisdom. It rejects the assumption that a White House “green light” is a prerequisite for the application of Israeli law to the Jordan Valley and the mountain ridges of Judea and Samaria (West Bank).

Ben Gurion’s May 14, 1948 Declaration of Independence was not preconditioned upon a “green light” from President Truman. Ben Gurion demonstrated independence of national security action in defiance of the US State Department, the Pentagon, the CIA, the New York Times and the Washington Post. Furthermore, President Truman was irresolute until the day of the declaration, while the US Mission to the UN was preoccupied with rounding up votes for a UN Trusteeship in Palestine (instead of an independent Jewish State).

Moreover, Ben Gurion applied Israeli law to areas in the Galilee, coastal plain, the Negev and Jerusalem – which were acquired during Israel’s War of Independence, expanding Israel’s land by 30% – in defiance of a glaring “red light” from the White House and the entire foreign policy and national security establishment in Washington, DC.

According to James McDonald, the first US Ambassador to Israel: “[Ben Gurion] warned President Truman and the US Department of State that they would be gravely mistaken if they assumed that the threat, or even the use of sanctions, would force Israel to yield on issues considered vital to its independence and security…. Much as Israel desired friendship with the US, there were limits beyond which it could not go.  Israel could not yield at any point which, in its judgement, would threaten its independence or its security. 
The very fact that Israel was a small state made more necessary the scrupulous defense of its own interests; otherwise, it would be lost (My Mission in Israel 1948-1951, Simon and Schuster, p. 49)….

WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

How the Chinese Communist Party Has Botched Its Xinjiang Coverup By Jimmy Quinn •

Posted By on July 23rd, 2020

https://www.nationalreview.com/2020/07/chinese-communist-party-xinjiang-coverup/

S hocking drone video footage of blindfolded Uighur prisoners being herded onto trains went viral this past week. The clip, which originally surfaced in September 2019 and which analysts confirmed was filmed in China’s Xinjiang region, has elicited comparisons to the Holocaust and calls to boycott the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing. Similarly eerie incidents abound. On July 1, 2020, U.S. customs agents seized a 13-ton shipment of beauty products made of human hair that originated in Xinjiang. As evidence of the Chinese Communist Party’s conduct increasingly seems to meet the criteria for genocide set out in the Genocide Convention, CCP officials have attempted to deny clear-cut evidence, such as this video, in one case going as far as threatening to sue researchers. However, in an international environment increasingly wary of Beijing’s ambitions, this is a self-defeating strategy that has only galvanized international action.

While the U.S. government has spoken out against the “political re-education” camps in Xinjiang for a couple of years — imposing some visa restrictions in 2019 — and although knowledge of the camps has been commonplace outside of China for three years, minimal concrete action followed. But the tide started to shift this summer, as Beijing subjected itself to increased scrutiny with an increasingly assertive coronavirus-era grand strategy. The U.N.’s human-rights mechanisms started to turn its attention to China — a group of independent experts penned a letter calling for “renewed attention” to be directed to the situation in Xinjiang. A few days later, a top China scholar published a groundbreaking report showing that Uighur birthrates have plummeted in the past year — the result of government policy of forcibly administering birth control to Uighur women, in addition to injecting some with unknown substances that seem to have resulted in sterilization. Many observers have already applied the term “cultural genocide” to the situation in Xinjiang, but the June report added heft to the case for dropping that qualifier. The images circulating this week will add momentum to that push.

Earlier this month, the Trump administration announced a new set of sanctions on four CCP officials for their involvement in the Xinjiang human-rights abuses, an overdue move that had been delayed by trade negotiations. The Commerce Department followed that on Monday with sanctions on eleven companies for involvement in forced-labor supply chains. Meanwhile, an international coalition of legislators has vowed to push for action on Xinjiang, and just this past weekend, U.K. foreign minister Dominic Raab accused Beijing of “gross and egregious” human-rights abuses during a television interview. Raab’s comments follow a slate of other actions by the British government in a new, hawkish turn on its China relations. While Raab stopped short of a genocide accusation, these actions together mark a significant change in policy. No doubt, the U.K.’s souring attitudes toward Beijing are the result of the sharp downturn in China’s relations with liberal democracies that has been accelerated by the coronavirus, but the startling images out of Xinjiang have also created more public awareness and pressure to act.

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Alex Berenson rips teachers unions for opposing reopening schools: They hate Trump ‘more than they care about kids’

Posted By on July 23rd, 2020

https://www.foxnews.com/media/alex-berenson-teachers-unions-reopening-schools-hate-trump

Teachers unions are largely in favor of postponing the reopening of schools, due to COVID-19

Former New York Times reporter Alex Berenson slammed teachers unions for being against reopening schools in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic.

Across the country, teachers unions are largely in favor of postponing the reopening of schools, which have been closed since March as the pandemic was underway. In Wisconsin, the teachers unions of the state’s five biggest school districts are urging Democratic Gov. Tony Ivers to keep classes online at the beginning of the school year. In Florida, teachers unions even filed a lawsuit against Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis for pushing ahead in getting children in the classroom despite the rise in COVID cases.

Berenson has been an outspoken critic against what he calls “coronavirus alarmism.”

“I realize the teachers unions hate @realDonaldTrump far more than they care about kids, but they would be wise to consider the consequences of the game they’re playing here,” Berenson tweeted. “If parents believe the public schools can’t be trusted to run, they will find new options.”

President Trump and the White House have repeatedly urged schools across the nation to reopen in the fall, warning that the consequences for  children and parents may outweigh the risks of spreading the disease.

“The science should not stand in the way of this, but as Dr. Scott Atlas said — I thought this was a good quote, ‘Of course, we can do it. Everyone else in the Western world, our peer nations are doing it. We are the outlier here,'” White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany said last week, quoting the former Stanford Medical Center neurology chief.

However, other countries also brought their coronavirus outbreaks under control, unlike the United States. A major study out of South Korea found that children between the ages of 10 and 19 can actually spread coronavirus as well as adults do.

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

ON MASKS: EDWARD CLINE

Posted By on July 22nd, 2020

https://ruleofreason.blogspot.com/2020/07/no-masks.html

BRENDAN O’NEILL  

“The New Normal. These are the three most chilling words in public discussion right now. Masks, keeping our distance from each other, avoiding overseas travel, half-empty pubs, nods of the head taking the place of handshakes and hugs… these are all part of The New Normal….It’s clear now that the regime of social distancing has little to do with Covid-19. Rather, it’s the latest manifestation of contemporary society’s culture of distrust, suspicion and separation, where we’re always encouraged to see our fellow citizens as dangerous and diseased, liable to harm us with their words, their come-ons, their second-hand smoke, etc.”

Nor to mention the absence of masks, which if one is not wearing one will precipitate the instant deaths of customers at the neighboring table, even as they sip their latte. 

For relief from this insane totalitarian culture, I repair to several of my bought movies, such as: North by Northwest,, The Manchurian Candidate, Gladiator, and a dozen more, such as Shane and High Noon.

The big attraction for these and other films is the absence of face masks in any of the stories. They are the “Normal” for me, not “New,” or regurgitated assertions of “fighting” the virus to mandate obedience and “patriotism,” which are political impositions and aspirations, hiving on totalitarian opportunism if anything else..I need  to see these films as a relief from the constant threat of being punished for not wearing a mask (which I will not wear; I’ll starve first) and the incessant announcements  and reminders to wear masks and maintain one’s “social distance.”