ISRAEL Comments turned off

‘F’ for reading comprehension: EU study says PA textbooks promote peace European Union-sponsored study concludes that the Palestinian Authority does not incite against Israel, but examines Arabic-language textbooks used in the Israeli school system.By Ariel Kahana

Posted By on August 12th, 2020

https://www.israelhayom.com/2020/08/12/f-for-reading-comprehension-eu-study-says-pa-textbooks-promote-peace/

A European Union-sponsored study to examine whether textbooks used by schools in the Palestinian Authority incite against Israel actually examined textbooks in Arabic used in the Israeli school system.

The study concluded that PA textbooks not only do not incite against the Jewish state, but actually promote coexistence between Palestinians and Israelis.

The study was ordered by former EU Foreign Policy Chief Federica Mogherini following criticism from EU lawmakers and non-governmental organizations that the EU was essentially funding incitement against Israel rather than educating toward peace.

With that, IMPACT-Se, an international research and policy institute that analyzes school textbooks throughout the world and has a proven track record of examining PA textbooks, suspected from the outset that the EU study was unprofessional and intended to whitewash the facts.

To conduct the study, the EU hired the services of the Georg Eckert Institute for International Textbook Research. The study, portions of which were obtained by Israel Hayom, consists of incorrect translations from Arabic to English. Although the editing process for the study was completed some time ago, the EU has repeatedly delayed the publication of its conclusions.

It has now also become apparent that the study also failed to distinguish between Palestinian textbooks and Israeli Arabic-language textbooks used by schools in east Jerusalem. These are textbooks that were written in the PA but, before being approved for use by the Israeli Education Ministry, were heavily edited to replace anti-Israel content with messages of tolerance and peace.

WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

China: Military Experts Urge Beijing to Prepare for War with U.S. by Lawrence A. Franklin

Posted By on August 12th, 2020

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/16336/china-military-war

Wang further warns that U.S. President Donald J. Trump is likely to initiate a military conflict in the South China Sea region before the November 3 U.S. presidential election, speculating that “stirring up external frictions, especially military conflicts with China, will help the incumbent president for his re-election campaign.”

The leaders of China’s Communist Party (CCP) also see that nothing was done by anyone, including the U.S., to stop China’s grab of Hong Kong this year — 37 years early. This paralysis of the West must have looked to the CCP like a green light to keep on grabbing.

China, however, has been the party with the hostile intent, not only with Hong Kong, but also with an attack on northern India, an extensive military base build-up in the South China Sea, an attempted appropriation of the Japan-administered Senkaku Islands and a “fishing fleet” of 250 vessels showing up near the Galapagos Islands, off Ecuador. Another recent move from Beijing was to conduct live-fire targeting drills in the South China Sea from July 25 through August 2.

If China continues its aggressive posture toward the U.S.-allied free states of Asia, especially Taiwan, a direct confrontation between the Chinese and U.S. militaries in the South China may indeed be necessary.

Chinese military journalists are publicly urging the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) to prepare immediately for an attack by U.S. forces in the South China Sea. One expert at Zhejiang University’s National Institute for South China Sea Studies, Shi Xiaoqin, claims that the U.S. is deliberately trying to provoke China. They also suggest the regime reinforce Chinese installations on reefs claimed by China.

If this analysis gains traction by Chinese political and military leaders, U.S. military commanders in the South China Sea should plan for the possibility that China might initiate hostilities in keeping with its doctrine of preemptive retaliation, a seeming attempt falsely to claim “self-defense.”

One writer suggests that the PLA should immediately move fighter aircraft to Chinese air bases in the Spratly Islands at Fiery Cross, Subi Reef, and Mischief Reef. He also boldly claims that the augmented presence of U.S. naval and air assets in the South China Sea is no longer just a show of force by America.

Chen Hu, a Chinese military journalist, also asserts that the U.S. is now intent on provoking a conflict and is preparing for battle. Chen claims that the return of B1 bombers to Guam and continued deployment of two U.S. aircraft carrier groups in the South China Sea, despite the conclusion of military exercises, is supposedly a sign of Washington’s aggressive intent. Chen suggests that recent U.S. “Freedom of Navigation” maneuvers and the high number of U.S. surveillance collection missions along the Chinese coast is additional proof of American attack planning. Former PLA officer Wang Yunfei and naval equipment expert suggests that flights by American RC-135, E-8c, and RC-12X surveillance aircraft equate to “pre-battle strategic technical surveillance.” As the joke goes from the children’s playground: “It all started when he hit me back.”

WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

The Mullahs and Hezbollah, Lords of Drug Smuggling by Majid Rafizadeh

Posted By on August 12th, 2020

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/16332/iran-hezbollah-drug-smuggling

“Presumed to have been issued by Iranian religious leaders, the fatwa reportedly read: We are making drugs for Satan — America and the Jews. If we cannot kill them with guns, we will kill them with drugs.” — Matthew Levitt, Hezbollah: The Global Footprint of Lebanon’s Party of God, Hurst Publishers, 2013.

According to an FBI report, declassified in November 2008, “Hizbullah’s spiritual leader… has stated that narcotics trafficking is morally acceptable if the drugs are sold to Western infidels as part of the war against the enemies of Islam.”

The international community, the United Nations, and specifically its Office on Crimes and Drugs, remain totally silent on Hezbollah and Iran’s large-scale drug trafficking across the world.

When governments or organizations that operate under the legitimacy of a state engage in smuggling drugs, the negative consequences can be devastating for other nations. The Iranian regime and its proxy Hezbollah appear to be increasing their efforts to smuggle illicit drugs to other countries, particularly in the West.

A Lebanese man, Ghassan Diab, was recently extradited from Cyprus to the United States for charges linked to laundering drug money for the militant group Hezbollah. According to the US Department of Justice, Diab is alleged “to have conspired to engage in, and actually engaged, in the laundering of drug proceeds through the use of the black market peso exchange in support of Hezbollah’s global criminal-support network”.

Italian authorities announced on July 1, 2020 that they had seized 15.4 tons of counterfeit Captagon pills produced in Syria, a country reportedly the largest producer and exporter of the Captagon (fenethylline). The seized 15.4 tons of counterfeit Captagon pills are worth an estimated $1.3 billion. Captagon, a super-charged amphetamine, is banned in many countries due to its addictive nature. Reportedly, the seized drugs were so carefully hidden that the airport scanners did not detect them, according to Commander Domenico Napolitano of the Naples financial police. It was the interception of calls made by some criminals that assisted the local police in seizing the drugs.

Greek authorities, in July 2020, also seized a large haul of Captagon pills, also from Syria and worth more than half a billion dollars. The Greek financial crimes unit said:

“It is the largest quantity that has ever been seized globally, depriving organized crime of proceeds that would have exceeded $660 million (587.45 million euros).”

Why has Syria become the epicenter of producing illegal drugs and exporting them to other countries including the West? Possibly because Iran and Hezbollah exert significant influence in Syria and there is scarcely any credible international organization monitoring what is happening in Syria, a lapse that makes it difficult to these kinds of detect criminal activities.

ELECTIONS Comments turned off

A Vote For Biden Puts Far-Left Kamala Harris In Line To Be President — Scared Yet?

Posted By on August 12th, 2020

https://issuesinsights.com/2020/08/12/a-vote-for-biden-puts-far-left-kamala-harris-in-line-to-be-president-scared-yet/

No one should be at all surprised that the mentally fading Joe Biden selected California Sen. Kamala Harris as his running mate. He painted himself into a political corner by his own foolish decisions, and needed to do something to revive his moribund, basement-bound campaign. Sorry, Joe, we doubt this will do it. But we do worry about your health.

Biden, trying to pander to as many Democratic constituencies as possible, promised early on to pick a woman for his vice president. Why he would automatically exclude roughly half of humanity from the selection process tells you a lot.

Picking Harris was no surprise. The Democratic hard left, which today governs the party, likes to shove people in boxes. No one’s ever a mere human being, but a race, a gender, a religion, a political category. As such, Harris checked three big boxes for the Democrats: Woman, check. African-American, check. Far-left progressive, check.

And, unlike the other presumed leading veep candidate, Susan Rice, Harris has experience in electoral politics, serving as California’s attorney general and as a U.S. senator. That’s in contrast to the abrasive, F-bomb throwing Rice, whose career was dotted with appointments to key posts, but who never ran for public office.

ELECTIONS Comments turned off

5 Things to Know About Biden’s VP Pick, Kamala Harris By Tyler O’Neil

Posted By on August 12th, 2020

https://pjmedia.com/election/tyler-o-neil/2020/08/11/5-things-to-know-about-bidens-vp-pick-kamala-harris-n776833

On Tuesday, presumptive Democratic nominee Joe Biden announced his running mate, the Democrats’ Great Intersectional Black-Asian Female Hope, Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.). Harris ran against Biden in the 2020 Democratic primary but she dropped out last December after lackluster debate performances, citing insufficient funds to continue the campaign.

Here are five things to know about Kamala Harris.

1. Attorney General baggage

After serving as the district attorney of San Francisco (2004-2011), Harris won a close race to become California’s attorney general (2010-2017). In that position, she took a tough-on-crime stance that would become extremely controversial in the 2020 primary.

Harris attempted to run against many of the things she stood for while serving as attorney general. Both Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (D-Hawaii) and Biden himself attacked Harris for her tough-on-crime record during the second Democratic presidential debate last June.

In a shameful episode of pandering, Harris tried to craft a story about smoking marijuana in college. Last February, she told “The Breakfast Club” that she broke the law in college while listening to rappers whose music hadn’t come out by the time she graduated college — or even law school, for that matter.

On these issues, Harris came across as duplicitous and deceptive.

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Covert Covid Contact tracing America’s “medical CIA” and the white coat supremacists of the Deep State. Lloyd Billingsley

Posted By on August 12th, 2020

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2020/08/covert-covid-lloyd-billingsley/

“Is the Chinese government leveling with you? Are they telling you the truth?  Have they given you the straight dope, so to speak, as to what you need to know about the coronavirus?”

That was Craig Fiegener, a reporter with KNX radio in Los Angeles, in a February 25 telebriefing update on COVID-19 hosted by Dr. Nancy Messonnier, Director of the CDC’s National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases (NCIRD).

“In terms of the Chinese government,” Messonnier responded, “there has been a WHO team on the ground in China as well in Wuhan.  There are data coming out from those efforts.  We have a lot of information from China.” Reporters would not get any of that information, and they had good cause to wonder about Dr. Messonnier, who received her MD from the University of Chicago.

As the CDC explains, Messonnier began her career with the CDC in 1995 as “an Epidemic Intelligence Service Officer in the Deputy Director for Infectious Diseases (DDID).” Messonnier’s EIS connection was not publicly announced, and the EIS was also missing from the CDC organizational chart, along with its budget and the name of the official who runs it. 

As Diana Robeletto Scalera of the CDC Foundation explains, the EIS “works day and night domestically and globally to ensure epidemics in other countries do not hit American soil.” This same EIS failed to prevent the Wuhan virus from hitting American soil. No identified EIS veteran has publicly explained the failure, so Americans have a right to wonder. They can find insight from UC Berkeley molecular and cell biologist Peter Duesberg, and his inside knowledge of the government-medical complex

ANTI-SEMITISM Comments turned off

Is Racism in America Worse than in Nazi Germany? Oprah’s new favorite writer thinks so. Bruce Bawer

Posted By on August 12th, 2020

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2020/08/racism-america-worse-nazi-germany-bruce-bawer/

As Shelby Steele has famously pointed out, there are two basic approaches that black American public figures take when addressing whites. There are “challengers,” such as Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson, who “say you are racist until you prove otherwise.” Then there are “bargainers,” who send white Americans a message to the effect that “I won’t rub America’s racism in your face if you won’t hold my race against me.” Writing in 2007, Steele identified Oprah Winfrey and then presidential candidate Barack Obama as bargainers. Of course, after the election Obama flipped, transforming into a world-class racism scold. That left Oprah, who for a long time was America’s #1 bargainer, and who owes her popularity – and hence her status as the richest black person in America – largely to her longtime tendency to celebrate America for the opportunities it offers rather than to excoriate it for its sins.

Oprah remained a bargainer, more or less, until very recently, when, in a transparent effort to play catch-up with the Black Lives Matter movement, she put Breonna Taylor – who was shot to death on March 13 by Louisville police officers – on the cover of O Magazine and paid for 26 billboards demanding the perpetrators’ arrest. Continuing down the same path, Oprah has now glowingly endorsed Isabel Wilkerson’s Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents, the latest in the current wave of bestselling, poorly written jeremiads depicting America as a cesspit of race hatred. Announcing on August 5 that Caste was her new Book Club selection, Oprah gushed: “I don’t think that there has ever been another pick that has been as vital as this one. This book might well save us.”

Is Wilkerson’s book the key to America’s salvation? On the contrary, Wilkerson, a former Chicago bureau chief of the New York Times and author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America’s Great Migration, has written a truly execrable and genuinely dangerous tome which, along with Robin DiAngelo’s White Fragility and Ibram X. Kendi’s How to Be an Antiracist, seems destined to further Obama’s wicked work of sowing racial discord in the least racist county on earth.

ELECTIONS Comments turned off

Politico defames as ‘racist’ a Republican candidate for the House By Andrea Widburg

Posted By on August 12th, 2020

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2020/08/politico_defames_as_racist_a_republican_candidate_for_the_house.html

“Listen to Greene. You’ll discover she comes, not from a place of hate or racism, but from a belief in love for mankind, the equality of all people, and the Constitution.The same article describes how GOP House Members, instead of supporting Greene, fell over themselves to disavow her. Say the word “racist,” and every Republican other than Trump turns into a slimy, quivering mass of groveling, apologetic jelly. But voters know that Green, although perhaps tactless, is about 95% factually accurate (which is more than most politicians can say). That’s why she won. She has high expectations for every American in a constitutional system.

The leftist media’s so-called “objective” standards or absolute “values” always favor Democrats. When honest conservatives present accurate opposing views representing different values, the media slander them and, to their shame, the GOP spineless hacks grovel.”

…….Marjorie Taylor Greene won the GOP nomination for a Georgia seat in the House of Representatives. Politico paints this as a GOP disaster because it claims that Greene says racist, Islamophobic, and anti-Semitic things. House Republicans, who have learned nothing from Donald Trump about fighting back against media calumnies, dutifully piled on. In fact, Politico is defaming Greene, who is not racist, is not anti-Semitic, and is not unreasonably concerned about Sharia Islam in American politics.

Tuesday’s Politico article is entitled “New GOP headache as candidate condemned for racist videos wins Republican primary.” It relies on an earlier Politico article that purports to have discovered that Greene made “incendiary” comments against Muslims, Jews, and blacks.

In the earlier article, entitled “House Republican leaders condemn GOP candidate who made racist videos,” Politico offers up baseless leftist opinions. The following are a few examples of things that Greene said that are neither anti-Semitic, unreasonably Islamophobic, nor racist.

ELECTIONS Comments turned off

It says a lot that Biden chose Kamala, and none of what it says is good By Andrea Widburg

Posted By on August 12th, 2020

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2020/08/it_says_a_lot_that_biden_chose_kamala_and_none_of_what_it_says_is_good.html

Biden’s choice of Kamala Harris to be his running mate shows the shallowness of the Democrat’s talent pool. Biden handicapped himself by explicitly pledging to ignore men and then implicitly bowing to the demand that his female choice be black. However, it’s still somewhat shocking that, out of all the black, female, Democrat politicians in America, the best he could do was Kamala.

What’s most striking about Kamala is that, like Barack Obama, she has nothing in common with the American black experience. Despite her slamming the race card on the table, the only thing she shares with the generic “black vote” is skin color.

Kamala did not come from a family that has traveled through generations of the American black experience. There’s no history of Southern slavery, no Reconstruction, and no being part of the endless variety of post-Reconstruction stories. Some blacks struggled through the Jim Crow South, some reveled in the Harlem Renaissance, some roped cows in the Wild West, some were part of the single biggest American migration when they moved to the upper Midwest, some embraced the middle class, and some got sucked into the undertow of the underclass. Each is an American story.

CHARLOTTE'S NEWS WEB, NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

The Spies Who Hijacked America Steven P. Schrage, PhD – Reported by Matt Taibbi

Posted By on August 12th, 2020

Excerpted concluding segment of a very long, but fascinating report about the intrigue between British intelligence and our intel bureaucracy to bring down President Trump, using Michael Flynn as the ‘kill shot.’  Unbelievable information written by Matt Taibbi.Read it all when you have the time. Impossible to format on email.

Thanks to Jim O’Neill for the tip about this profoundly researched piece of genuine investigative journalism. C.B…

https://taibbi.substack.com/p/the-spies-who-hijacked-america

The Getaway

My former supervisor, using his booming voice and bold ideas, likes to be the center of attention. Yet for two years his allies with powerful intelligence, political, and media ties seem to have done the impossible. They made this massive figure almost completely disappear.

The Mueller and DOJ IG investigations of these scandals relied in large part on input from DOJ and FBI officials linked to potential abuses — including the FBI’s Comey, McCabe, Strzok, Lisa Page and DOJ’s Andrew Weisman. When Congress grilled long-time FBI leader Mueller about why he didn’t interview “Steven Schrage” or others who might expose DOJ or FBI improprieties, he stammered: “[i]n those areas, I am going to stay away from…I stand by that which is in the report and not so necessarily with that, which is – which is not in the report.” 

Given Mueller’s stated preference to “stay away” from those with information that might implicate members of his team and the DOJ IG’s reliance on DOJ insiders, it’s not surprising that people like me who were in a position to expose the Russiagate narrative were not interviewed.