NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Obama Laments Flynn Dismissal . . . after Granting Clemency to FALN Terrorist Andrew McCarthy

Posted By on May 11th, 2020

https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/obama-laments-flynn-dismissal-after-granting

” He recruited and trained a small army of terrorists to murder his fellow Americans. He built bomb factories. He taught the young and impressionable how to make devices that would kill and maim. . . . When he was put on trial, he admitted to doing all he had been accused of — he showed no remorse.”

The best defense is a good offense. That was my first thought on learning that former president Barack Obama has decided to make himself heard on the dismissal of the prosecution of Michael Flynn. As I’ve been noting for years, notwithstanding his pretensions about never interfering in FBI investigations, Mr. Obama was smack in the middle of his administration’s investigation of the Trump campaign. This week, in the exhibits appended to the Justice Department’s Flynn dismissal motion, it was revealed that Obama was neck-deep in the investigation of Flynn, concocted into a collusion caper by his intel advisers and the FBI. It is not a spotlight the former president covets, so he’s lashing out . . . and the usual wagons are circling.

My friend Joe Connor, whose father was killed by FALN, reminds me that in one of his last official acts, Obama granted clemency to Oscar Lopez Rivera, one of that Marxist terrorist organization’s front-men. Ben Domenech put it well at the time:

” He recruited and trained a small army of terrorists to murder his fellow Americans. He built bomb factories. He taught the young and impressionable how to make devices that would kill and maim. . . . When he was put on trial, he admitted to doing all he had been accused of — he showed no remorse.”

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Why dismiss the Flynn case? Because the FBI can’t prove it Andrew McCarthy

Posted By on May 11th, 2020

https://thehill.com/opinion/white-house/497064-why-dismiss-the-flynn-case-because

The guiding tenet of the criminal justice system is that the government bears the burden of proving guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. All of the system’s rules are rooted in this principle. These include the prosecutor’s ethical obligation to dismiss a charge in the absence of a good-faith belief that a rational jury could convict the accused based on the government’s evidence.

The Department of Justice (DOJ) last week dismissed the prosecution of Michael Flynn, who fleetingly served as President Trump’s first national security adviser. In all the heated commentary over this decision, scant attention has been paid to the most compelling reason for vacating Flynn’s 2017 guilty plea to one count of making false statements to FBI agents: The government wouldn’t have a prayer of convicting Flynn at trial.

Allowing the conviction to stand would have been a travesty. This basic fact, this utter lack of sufficient evidence, is obscured by the DOJ’s heavy reliance on a legal rationale for dropping the case. In its 20-page memorandum in support of dismissal, the DOJ contends that any false statements by Flynn could not have been material because there was no legitimate basis to investigate or interview him. Federal law makes materiality an essential element of a false-statements charge.

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

The sky is falling, run for your life, shelter in place – you fools! Diane Bederman

Posted By on May 11th, 2020

https://dianebederman.com/the-sky-is-falling-run-for-your-life-shelter-in-place-you-fools/

This is the way the world ends, not with a bang, but a whimper. ~ T.S Eliot

Two men and one Global organization managed to accomplish what two world wars could not, the near destruction of Western culture and the end of freedom. With the flick of a switch, millions of people peacefully gave up their freedom; yes, sir, no sir, anything you say, sir, because of a paralyzing fear of an invisible enemy, an enemy not clearly understood nor defined.

Our actions demean, denigrate and disrespect the sacrifice of millions of men and women who sacrificed their lives for our right to live freely and free from government overreach.

There is a reason for the statement in the Bible “Do not fear, for I am with you,” because fear takes away individual moral agency; free will, allowing others to rule over us. And it can take years to recover from that fear.

We allowed two men, Ferguson and Fauci, aided and abetted by the WHO, the propaganda arm of the Chinese government, who brought forth the Chinese Virus, to frighten all of us, especially our leaders, to shut down our economies and end our freedom of movement. Except for one country, Sweden.

There had been predictions that 2.2 million would die in America, alone!  As of May 9, 2020, the GLOBAL death toll is 275,000. In a world of 7.8 billion.

Who are these two men?

CHARLOTTE'S NEWS WEB Comments turned off

New York has mismanaged COVID-19 from top to bottom Stephen L. Miller

Posted By on May 11th, 2020

https://spectator.us/new-york-mismanaged-covid-19-andrew-cuomo-bill-de-blasio/

Andrew Cuomo is having the time of his life. His approval ratings are through the roof and he’s being talked about as a replacement for Joe Biden should Joe wander off somewhere without his Visiting Angel, never to be found again. Hipster merchandise featuring his face is exploding on Etsy and he’s getting a nightly hour with his own brother on CNN to chat about oh, this and that, and whatever is happening in his day at the given moment. It’s quite the arrangement! Andrew doesn’t ask his brother why he broke quarantine, literally endangering lives and the younger Fredo doesn’t ask him about 1,700 previously uncounted COVID related deaths in New York nursing homes, or why he didn’t authorize disinfecting subway cars until early May, a full 90 days after the first cases were reported on March 1.

Governors in Florida, Texas and Georgia bear the brunt of media criticism for their handling of testing, shutdowns and hospitalizations. In each instance, no outbreak or death count in those states has come close to matching New York. National media went to plaid over Jacksonville’s reopened beaches, while glossing over the hordes of impatient hipsters grouping together throughout New York parks, the entire time lavishing praise on the governor of the moment.

MEDIA Comments turned off

Media Find In Coronavirus A Crisis They Can’t Waste

Posted By on May 11th, 2020

https://issuesinsights.com/2020/05/11/media-find-in-coronavirus-a-crisis-they-cant-waste/

Are we alone in feeling as if the media are enthusiastic cheerleaders of the coronavirus pandemic? We can’t be the only ones who sense the glee with which the news about the body count, the Democrats’ wailing over the president’s handling of the crisis, and the “new normal”  are delivered across our screens. Nor is it possible that no one else is noticing that the states that believe reopening is necessary to survival are being portrayed as communities of rubes who deserve to suffer the sting of mass death.

The coronavirus coverage goes beyond the “if it bleeds it leads” tenet of sensationalized media coverage. It’s a handy means for them to extend the cultural and political divides that have made the 50 states less united than they have been in any of our lifetimes. To paraphrase Col. Nathan R. Jessup, they want COVID-19 death, they need COVID-19 death.

The media elitists are culture warriors of the worst sort . After Georgia revealed in late April its plans to reopen, Dana Milbank’s Washington Post column was headlined “Georgia leads the race to become America’s No. 1 Death Destination.” A few days later, The Atlantic said the state was beginning an experiment in “human sacrifice.” The message is that the red states are lousy with hicks who don’t care about human lives, even their own.

Like all good crusaders, the media aren’t straying from the campaign. Shortly after some restrictions were lifted, The Hill reported: “More than 1,000 new coronavirus cases were diagnosed the day Gov. (Brian) Kemp reopened Georgia.” Other outlets took an Associated Press report and wrote similar headlines.

ANTI-SEMITISM Comments turned off

Unbearable Truths About Our Current Political Moment What happens to a people when it can’t handle the truth? By Victor Davis Hanson

Posted By on May 11th, 2020

https://amgreatness.com/2020/05/10/unbearable-truths-about-our-current-political-moment/

“You can’t handle the truth!”
—Col. Nathan R. Jessep, “A Few Good Men”

Sometimes the truth is like mythical kryptonite. It radiates power and yet promises great destruction. And so reality is to be left alone, encased in lead, and kept at bay.

Take the Chinese genesis of the COVID-19 epidemic. We started in February with the usual Chinese deceptions about their role in the birth, transmission, and worldwide spread of the virus.

No one, apparently except Mike Bloomberg and Bill Gates, was surprised by the accustomed politically correct prevarications of the Chinese-purchased World Health Organization, whose transparent lies were passed off as truth—and led to tens of thousands of deaths.

On cue, our own obsequious media accepted Chinese and globalist myths—their shared antipathy for President Trump meant whatever he is for or says, they are against and deny.

But by late March the bits and pieces of the truth had emerged. All that gobbledygook talk of a Chinese wet market, of patient-zero bats, snakes, pangolins and such, were likely ruses to deflect attention from a conveniently nearby level-4 Chinese virology lab.

We are beginning to learn that Chinese scientists were conducting research on—surprise, surprise—coronaviruses in general, and in particular, methods to enhance their lethality, all for the ostensibly exalted humanitarian aim of discovering cures and vaccinations, although how that was to be so was never quite disclosed.

China’s patient zero almost weekly was backdated by communist party officials from late January to mid-November. When the lying is exhausted, we may well learn the virus was known to the Chinese even earlier.

In addition, we learned that China variously threatened to cut off medical supplies in transit to the United States. It stopped all flights in and out of Wuhan on January 23, but called America racist for waiting a week until January 31 to issue a travel ban on China—including, but not limited to, ending direct flights to the United States from Wuhan. Consider the Chinese communist logic: running-dog American capitalists mimicked Beijing in forbidding Chinese from flying—but only after a week-long interlude of bourgeoise debate and puerile reflection.

Were the Chinese embarrassed that they had accused Washington of being racist for belatedly doing exactly what they had done earlier? Of course not. In their eyes, weak decadent Westerners welcome such help in aiding their own self-abnegation and debasement.

ISRAEL Comments turned off

Palestinian Leaders: A Policy of Piracy, Blackmail and Plunder by Khaled Abu Toameh

Posted By on May 11th, 2020

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/16005/palestinian-leaders-piracy-blackmail

The Palestinian leader’s critics and political rivals say that Abbas is the one engaged in piracy, political extortion and theft of Palestinian money.

Palestinian human rights organizations have strongly condemned Abbas for using the salaries and pensions as a means of extortion against his political rivals and critics.

Cutting salaries and pensions to political opponents for daring to speak out against corruption and the epic policy failures of the Palestinian leadership is doomed to drive these people into the open arms of terrorist groups such as Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad.

The next time Abbas accuses Israel of “piracy” and “theft” of Palestinian money, the international community might inquire into the Palestinian leader’s own practice of depriving his people of their livelihoods because of their political affiliations and resistance to his policy of plunder.

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas has spent the past few years accusing Israel of “piracy,” “theft” and “blackmail.” What is all the name-calling about?

Abbas, it seems, is furious about Israel’s decision to deduct millions of dollars from the Palestinian Authority’s tax revenue dues as a punishment for paying part of the money to families of Palestinian terrorists.

Under the terms of the Oslo Accords, signed between Israel and the PLO in 1993, Israel collects duties on imports that reach the West Bank and the Gaza Strip via Israeli ports, in addition to other taxes, and forwards a large sum of it to the Palestinian Authority, after deducting payments for water and electricity.

WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Coronavirus: The Mullahs Strengthen Ties with Venezuela by Majid Rafizadeh

Posted By on May 11th, 2020

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/16003/iran-venezuela-ties

Reports recently revealed that in the last week of April alone, the sanctioned Iranian airline, Mahan Air, with ties to Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), made several flights to Venezuela. Reportedly, the Iranian regime delivered “parts, technicians, and gasoline additives to fix a major refinery in Venezuela,” and received nine tons of gold bars in return.

The United Nations, as usual in regards to every country other than Israel, remained silent as Mahan Air reportedly violated the UN Security Council Resolution 2231, which calls upon Iran “not to undertake any activity related to ballistic missiles designed to be capable of delivering nuclear weapons, including launches using such ballistic missile technology.”

In addition, Venezuela has granted more than 173 passports to radical Islamists… The passports are able to be used for travel to North America and Europe.

Iran has been bypassing US sanctions amid the coronavirus crisis, and strengthening its ties with Venezuela.

Reports recently revealed that in the last week of April alone, the sanctioned Iranian airline, Mahan Air, with ties to Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), made several flights to the South American nation. Reportedly, the Iranian regime delivered “parts, technicians, and gasoline additives to fix a major refinery in Venezuela,” and received nine tons of gold bars in return.

HISTORY, ISRAEL Comments turned off

Unsung Jewish heroes who helped UK to victory in Battle of Britain finally heard As the battle’s 80th anniversary approaches, London’s Royal Air Force museum seeks to capture the stories of Jews who risked their lives to help repel the massive Nazi invasion By Robert Philpot

Posted By on May 11th, 2020

https://www.timesofisrael.com/unsung-jewish-heroes-who-helped-uk-to-victory-in-

 When British novelist Alan Fenton told a business acquaintance that his two much older brothers had died in World War II, he encountered a surprised response.

After what Fenton recalled as an “embarrassed pause,” his lunchtime companion said: “I didn’t think Jews fought in the war.”

As Fenton later wrote, “Those words were like a blow to the stomach.”

The twins, Basil and Gerald Felsenstein (as the family were then called), volunteered to join the Royal Air Force as aircrew at the war’s outbreak in September 1939. Their horrified father tried to talk them out of it and persuade them to opt for potentially less dangerous options, such as joining the army or RAF ground crew. But the teenagers were adamant and, as Jews, determined to get into the thick of the fight to defeat the Nazis as soon as they could.

Neither young man survived the war. Gerald — whose role was to lie flat in Halifax bombers and direct the pilot until its explosive cargo was released on enemy targets — died in a raid over Germany in March 1943. Just under two years later, Basil died in a patrol over Japanese-occupied Burma.

Basil Felsenstein. (Courtesy RAF Museum)

“They fought for a cause they believed passionately in. And they died for it. I am enormously proud of them,” said Fenton, who was born seven years after Basil’s death.

Their stories are among those being collected by London’s RAF Museum as part of its new Jewish “Hidden Heroes” project. As the UK prepares to mark the 80th anniversary of the “Battle of Britain” this summer — when the country’s air force successfully repelled a planned German invasion — the program aims to raise awareness about the role played by Jewish personnel in the RAF during WWII.

HISTORY, ISRAEL Comments turned off

The Pogrom That Started the Palestinian Arab-Israeli Conflict The opening shot – exactly one hundred years ago in 1920.

Posted By on May 11th, 2020

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2020/05/pogrom-started-palestinian-arab-israeli-conflict-joseph-puder/

Exactly one hundred years ago, in April, 1920, marked the opening shot of the Arab Israeli conflict. It was a pogrom against Jews in Jerusalem and its surrounding areas. The pogrom, also called by some the Nebi Musa riots, took place between Sunday, April 4, and Wednesday, April 7, 1920. It cost the lives of five Jews, and 200 others were injured. The violence was instigated by the British occupation administration and led by the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, Haj Amin el-Husseini, who later became Hitler’s ally. The Jaffa riots a year later (May 1-7, 1921) killed 47Jews and wounded 146. Much like these days, the Arab-Palestinian terrorists used knifes to kill vulnerable Jews, such as women, children, and the elderly. A British investigative commission called the pogrom “cowardly, and treacherous.” 

The pogrom was not a mere criminal affair, it was motivated by religious and nationalist sentiments that denied Jewish rights to sovereignty anywhere in the region. The Arab (the term Palestinians didn’t exist at the time, and Jews were actually called Palestinians) attackers carried such slogans as “Death to the Jews”(Atbach al-Yahud), “Palestine is our land, and the Jews are our dogs.” The Jaffa riot was proceeded by the August, 1929 riot, which wiped out the ancient Jewish community in Hebron, and killed 133 Jews. Known as the Arab Revolt of 1936-1939, it was led once again by Haj Amin el-Husseini, the Mufti of Jerusalem. This time the death toll was much greater, estimated by historian Benny Morris to be about 300 Jewish dead.

The pogrom of April 1920 occurred at a confluence of several historical and political events. In Syria, the Hashemite Emir Feisal, son of Hussein the Sharif of Mecca, was ensconced in Damascus, awaiting with his Arab tribesmen army for the fulfillment of British promises. Under the Mc Mahon-Hussein Correspondence, an Arab state in the Levant, including the native Arabia, was promised by the British to Hussein. At the same time, Britain and France, in 1916, concluded the Sykes-Picot Agreement which divided the former Ottoman Empire between them. The British government had also come out with the Balfour (at the time British Foreign secretary) Declaration in 1917, that promised a National Home for the Jewish people in their ancestral home – Palestine. The Balfour Declaration promises were confirmed at the San Remo conference in April, 1920.