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Ramadan: The public call to Muslim prayer for the sake of unity and diversity Diane Bederman

Posted By on May 3rd, 2020

https://dianebederman.com/ramadan-the-public-call-to-muslim-prayer-for-the-sake-of-unity-and-diversity/

Easter and Passover have come and gone and millions of people were unable to be together because of Covid 19-the Chinese virus.

But Ramadan is here and for 30 days Muslims fast and pray. New rules. There is a public call to Muslim prayer. In cities and towns in America and Canada our politicians decided for the sake of unity and diversity that we should all have the opportunity to hear the Call to Prayer for Muslims. It’s about creating a sense of unity and comfort and sharing the religion with others  which requires that noise laws be relaxed. Toronto Municipal Code, city spokesperson Tammy Robbinson explained:

“Spiritual, emotional, and mental well-being is important during these difficult times.”

In Hamilton, Ontario twice daily calls to prayer, the Adhaan are allowed until May 24. Imam Sayed Tora said he was “thrilled” council was open to the request from the downtown and Mountain mosques. The Mountain mosque leader said the pandemic lockdown is particularly hard on members forced to stay apart during Ramadan, a time when local mosques are normally “buzzing beehives” of activity.

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Howard Zinn’s Tendentious Mendacity William D. Rubinstein

Posted By on May 3rd, 2020

https://quadrant.org.au/magazine/2020/04/tendentious-mendacity/

In recent decades Howard Zinn (1922–2010) became probably the best-known radical historian of American history, almost exclusively through the book he published in 1980, A People’s History of the United States, 1492–Present. This gained for Zinn what Mary Grabar describes in her introduction as “Icon, Rock Star” status, making him nationally known outside narrow academic confines. He is also one of the few historians who has generated a comprehensive refutation of his errors and biases, which Mary Grabar ably sets out at length in Debunking Howard Zinn.

Debunking Howard Zinn: Exposing the Fake History That Turned a Generation Against America
by Mary Grabar

Since Zinn’s work is unlikely to be known to most Australian readers, something must be said about his background and historical methodology. He was born in New York in 1922 to Eastern European Jewish parents who were (literally) dirt poor, his father working as a ditch digger and window cleaner during the Depression, and later as a waiter. In his teens, Zinn attended a Communist Party rally in New York, where he was knocked unconscious by charging police, apparently a traumatic event for him. In 1940 he worked as an apprentice in the Brooklyn Navy Yard, where he and others lost no time in organising an Apprentice Association, already demonstrating his outsider’s propensity for radical activism. After the war (in which he was an Army Air Force bombardier, an experience which made him into a lifelong near-pacifist), Zinn attended New York University and Columbia University. He has been widely accused of being an active member of the American Communist Party (which he denied), the FBI taking him seriously enough to compile a 423-page dossier on his activities.

In 1956 Zinn landed a teaching job at Spelman College in Atlanta, Georgia, an institution established in the late nineteenth century for black women. Unsurprisingly, Zinn fails to discuss the college’s background in his autobiography You Can’t Be Neutral on a Moving Train (2002), since the college is named for its chief benefactor, Laura Spelman Rockefeller, whose husband was John D. Rockefeller, in real terms the richest capitalist in American history.

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Emperor Xi Has No Clothes Daryl McCann

Posted By on May 3rd, 2020

https://quadrant.org.au/magazine/2020/05/emperor-xi-has-no-clothes/

China’s celebrated billionaire property-developer Ren Chiqiang did not hold back in his response to the teleconferenced speech by President-for-life Xi Jinping on February 23 about the status of COVID-19: “I saw not an emperor standing there exhibiting his ‘new clothes’ but a clown prince who stripped naked and insisted on being emperor.” The late Dr Li Wenliang was arrested in Wuhan in December last year after alerting people on his microblog to the danger of the novel coronavirus. Dr Li’s crime, according to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), was spreading rumours to fellow medical practitioners. In reality, of course, Li was being truthful, not only about a new viral respiratory illness, but also the People’s Republic of China: “I think a healthy society should not just have one voice.”

How we respond to the pandemic of 2020 will tell us a lot about our long-held biases. The subject of our fury turns out to be, more often than not, what we already believed is wrong with the world. Gail Collins, an opinion columnist for the New York Times, decided on February 26 that her readers should call COVID-19 “the Trump virus”. A more helpful suggestion, perhaps, might be to rename Collins’s four-year-long malady Trump Derangement Virus (TDV). Elizabeth Lopatto, also suffering from TDV, had this to say in the Verge on March 12: “The best thing he can do for the country, to speed its response to the novel coronavirus, is to resign and let someone capable take over.” Peter Wehner, a day later in the Atlantic, announced the potential good news about the COVID-19 that those who have contracted TDV are so desperate to hear: “The Trump Presidency is over.”

For the rest of us, though, potential good news would be more along the lines of a medical cure. Various solutions have already been mooted, although the general availability of a single-purpose vaccine might be as much as eighteen months away. At his March 19 White House briefing, President Trump touted a promising, if not scientifically verified, medicine usually used in the treatment of malaria and severe cases of arthritis: “Now, a drug called … chloroquine or hydroxychloroquine. Now, this is a common malaria drug … it’s been around for a long time, so we know that … if things don’t go as planned, it’s not going to kill anybody.” Scientists and scientific journals were quick to note that hydroxychloroquine has not been subjected to “thorough rigorous clinical trials” with regards to COVID-19, even if anecdotal evidence points to its effectiveness as a cure and, conceivably, a preventive measure. Trump, pointedly, made his comment in the context of his support for the Right to Try Act, passed into law in May 2018. This law empowers patients in desperate straits and “unable to participate in a clinical trial” the right to “access certain unapproved treatments”. The widespread distribution of hydroxychloroquine, if properly monitored, is actually “beyond”—Trump’s word—the Right to Try Act, because chloroquine has been available for almost eighty years. There is the added factor that the supervised distribution of hydroxychloroquine, or a comparable undocumented treatment for COVID-19 such as HIV medication Kaletra, could in itself serve as a clinical trial.

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Who Invited The World To Infect America? Ilana Mercer

Posted By on May 3rd, 2020

https://amgreatness.com/2020/05/02/who-invited-the-world-to-infect-america/

Hate the Chinese government if you wish, but hold your own government responsible for hollowing America out like a husk.

On March 31, the number of Americans dead from the Chinese coronavirus stood at 3,900! A mere month on, at the time of writing, and 63,801 Americans have perished.

American deaths by COVID-19 account for a quarter of the world’s, including those in the undeveloped world. To ignore this Third-World-like specter is to dismiss the dead and the dying. It’s tantamount to cancel culture.

China sucks. But if the United States must rely on the Chinese government to keep its citizens safe, then what kind of a Mickey Mouse country are we?

If the American people can be convinced by their government to saddle a foreign power with the responsibility for their existential welfare—what kind of people are we?

China didn’t force the traitors of the American economy to shift crucial production lines to its country and strand Americans without surgical and N-95 masks and medication; homegrown turncoats made that decision, all by their lonesome.

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Kim Jong-Un Emerges After 20 Days Out of Public View By Rick Moran

Posted By on May 3rd, 2020

https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/rick-moran/2020/05/02/kim-jong-un-emerges-after-20-days-out-of-public-view-n387591

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un was seen in public for the first time in 20 days, ending speculation that he may have been seriously ill or dead.

Kim was seen cutting a ribbon and walking around a new fertilizer plant near Pyongyang. He was accompanied by his sister, Kim Yo-jong, who many North Korea watchers believe would take over for him in the event of his untimely demise.

State media showed videos and photos of Kim wearing a black Mao suit and constantly smiling, walking around facilities, applauding, cutting a huge red ribbon with a scissor handed by his sister, and smoking inside and outside of buildings while talking with other officials.

Seemingly thousands of workers, many of them masked, stood in lines at the massive complex, roaring in celebration and releasing balloons into the air. A sign installed on a stage where Kim sat with other senior officials read: “Sunchon Phosphatic Fertilizer Factory; Completion Ceremony; May 1, 2020.”

We’ll probably never know why Kim disappeared but the most logical explanation is that he was trying to avoid exposure to the coronavirus. After North Korea couldn’t hide the extent of the pandemic anymore, Kim disappeared.

There were no clear signs that Kim was in discomfort. He was shown moving without a walking stick, like the one he used in 2014 when he was recovering from a presumed ankle surgery. However, he was also seen riding a green electric cart, which appeared similar to a vehicle he used in 2014.

CHARLOTTE'S NEWS WEB Comments turned off

Gov. Andrew Cuomo Had the Worst Response to the Crisis of Any Governor in America Rick Moran

Posted By on May 3rd, 2020

https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/rick-moran/2020/05/02/gov-cuomo-had-the-worst-response-to-the-crisis-of-any-governor-in-america-n387642

The press has been gushing about the performance of New York Governor Andrew Cuomo for weeks. The media often compares Cuomo’s “decisive” response to the coronavirus pandemic to the president, and guess who always wins?

Whether it’s good PR from the governor’s office or just the media worshipping a liberal who says mean things about Donald Trump, it hardly matters. What matters is results. And in that department, Andrew Cuomo has been a miserable failure — using several metrics.

And it’s not just the numbers. The panicky, sometimes hysterical New York governor began whining about the federal government (specifically the president) not doing anything to help the states with getting medical supplies. Back in March, he kept saying he needed 30-40,000 ventilators. And when Trump pointed out that was silly, he accused the president of being an unfeeling monster.

National Review:

“I have a feeling that a lot of the numbers that are being said in some areas are just bigger than they’re going to be,” Trump said on March 27. “I don’t believe you need 40,000 or 30,000 ventilators,” he added, referring to Cuomo’s estimate for New York state. Cuomo and New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio and others said they had “facts” on their side.

By the middle of April, New York was sending ventilators to other states.

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GOOD NEWS FROM AMAZING ISRAEL FROM MICHAEL ORDMAN

Posted By on May 3rd, 2020

www.verygoodnewsisrael.blogspot.com 

 

In 1945 at the conclusion of World War 2, a dispirited and depressed Jewish community throughout the world, including the Jewish residents of Palestine, contemplated the devastating fact that one of every three Jews in the world had been killed in the Holocaust. Out of despair came the imperative for an independent Jewish state in the ancient homeland where the Patriarchs founded our faith. It seems almost miraculous that three years later, in May 1948 the President of the United States, Harry Truman declared official recognition of the new/ancient state. And, like the tale of Passover, this time the seas parted again when steel hulled ships brought survivors of Europe and oppressive existence in the Arab states to haven and an epic rescue.  There were wars, terrorism, the implacable hatred of neighboring nations, but Israel grew and prospered. Today, a nation of 8,655,535 people in Israel contributes to better lives for billions of people globally. The following, brought to us from my friend Michael Ordman every week is just an example. Happy 72nd birthday Israel! rsk

  

ISRAEL’S MEDICAL ACHIEVEMENTS
 
Israeli coronavirus treatment benefits six patients. Six moderate to severe Israeli coronavirus patients have shown clinical improvement with the new opaganib  treatment from Israel’s Redhill (see here previously). All required less supplemental oxygenation, had higher lymphocyte counts and less lung inflammation.
https://www.redhillbio.com/RedHill/Templates/showpage.asp?DBID=1&LNGID=1&TMID=178&FID=2432&PID=0&IID=15261
 
Startup funds coronavirus treatment. Israeli startup InnoCan is funding research at Tel Aviv University to develop a cannabinoid-based coronavirus treatment. Together with exosomes (particles derived from stem cell culture) it has been shown to be effective against inflammation in lung cells infected with the coronavirus.
https://www.calcalistech.com/ctech/articles/0,7340,L-3809431,00.html
 
Weizmann starts coronavirus testing. Israel’s Weizmann Institute has started conducting tests to diagnose coronavirus. Its world-class, cutting-edge lab facilities include advanced polymerase chain reaction (PCR) systems, which are capable of rapid and efficient gene identification.
https://wis-wander.weizmann.ac.il/life-sciences/weizmann-institute-science-began-conduct-coronavirus-testing-today
 
Transforming Israel’s ability to combat coronavirus. In just 4 weeks, Israel’s Defense Ministry’s Directorate of Production and Procurement (DOPP) set up of hotel recovery centers, acquired ventilators, testing equipment, and protective gear and then organized for local Israeli companies to take over their manufacture.
https://www.jns.org/an-inside-look-at-the-historic-efforts-by-israels-defense-ministry-to-combat-the-coronavirus/
 
Inside Sheba’s battle with COVID-19. (TY Stuart) Fascinating video of the coronavirus isolation compound at Sheba Medical Center. It focuses on Dr Galia Barkai, Head of Pediatrics and Tele-medicine and shows some of the major issues they have been facing.  Sheba also monitors patients in their own homes (see 2nd video).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jue3B5BReJk   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MkpO5CIk6i8
 
Identifying high risk patients. As reported here previously, Israel’s Medial EarlySign has partnered with Israeli health company Maccabi to identify its members with a high risk of influenza complications. The system will now be used to fast-track testing and treatment if these patients report coronavirus symptoms to Maccabi.
https://unitedwithisrael.org/new-israeli-tech-helps-identify-those-at-high-risk-for-covid-19/
 
Saving children’s lives in times of adversity. At the Schneider Center for Pediatrics, despite the coronavirus crisis, three life-saving transplant operations were performed on children: Two livers and one kidney. One very complex liver transplant was for an 8-month old infant. The other was the third sibling to receive a new liver.
https://unitedwithisrael.org/israeli-doctors-perform-3-lifesaving-transplants-on-children-despite-corona-crisis/
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/Flash.aspx/497324
 
More Israelis recovered than still infected. This week, for the first time, the number of Israelis that have recovered from the coronavirus exceeded those that still have the infection. On 2nd May, over 9,600 had recovered while under 6,500 are still infected (mostly mild or asymptomatic). 82 are on ventilators.
https://www.timesofisrael.com/for-first-time-israelis-recovered-from-coronavirus-outnumber-those-still-sick/
 
Ready for the next crisis. In case there is a resurgence of the coronavirus, Israel has acquired or manufactured thousands of respirators, some 61 million surgical masks, 930,000 advanced N95 masks, about 1.4 million protective outfits for medical teams, 403,000 disposable gowns, and a million coronavirus testing kits.
https://unitedwithisrael.org/israel-ready-for-next-crisis-61-million-masks-811-respirators-acquired-in-april/
 

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The Flynn Revelations Reveal A Criminal Conspiracy At The FBI

Posted By on May 3rd, 2020

https://issuesinsights.com/2020/05/01/now-we-know-there-was-an-anti-trump-conspiracy-at-the-fbi/

Recently unsealed notes show top FBI officials debated whether they should get President Donald Trump’s national security adviser Michael Flynn “to lie, so we can prosecute him or get him fired,” or “admit to breaking the Logan Act” for talking to former Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak during the presidential transition. As the deep-state onion gets peeled back layer by layer to its rotten core, it becomes clear this wasn’t mere government misconduct. It was a criminal conspiracy.

These are not mere procedural quibbles, but profound questions about the integrity and legality of the FBI’s investigations into key officials in the incoming Trump administration, including Trump himself. A pattern of collusive illegality on the part of the FBI and key Justice Department officials has become increasingly clear from these and other revelations.

The newly released notes contain shocking revelations of how the “Crossfire Hurricane” investigators and top FBI officials set their “perjury trap” for Flynn.

Flynn, you will recall, pleaded guilty to a charge of lying to federal officials. But he did so only after being forced to sell his home to fund his legal defense, and after threats to prosecute his son if he didn’t cop a plea.

It was coercion, plain and simple. The kind of thing a totalitarian or dictatorial regime would do. Yet such skullduggery was routine for the Crossfire Hurricane investigation, which tried to gin up false charges of Russian collusion first against the Trump campaign and later against the incoming Trump administration.

In questioning Flynn in January 2017, the FBI circumvented its own rules that require it to go through the White House counsel’s office. Instead, it brazenly barged in and questioned Flynn, a former Army lieutenant general, in his office just three days after Trump was sworn in.

Among the other illegalities, the FBI’s own notes of the meeting were later re-written – that is, tampered with – by both FBI special agent Peter Strzok and his paramour FBI lawyer Lisa Page. That tampered document was used as a pretense to overturn a decision in early January to close the case against Flynn. Instead, lacking any real evidence, the FBI chose to pursue an investigation it hoped would lead to a prosecution.

An honest mistake? Earlier emails released in the investigation of the FBI’s misconduct show that Strzok and Page loathed Trump and desperately wanted Hillary Clinton elected president. Yet, Strzok spearheaded the investigation into Trump, a clear conflict of interest. And he was one of the two FBI agents who interviewed Flynn in the White House.

ANTI-SEMITISM Comments turned off

Coronavirus, Flynn, and Epicureanism By Roger Kimball

Posted By on May 3rd, 2020

https://amgreatness.com/2020/05/02/coronavirus-flynn-and-epicureanism/

The prospect of death, Epicurus knew, upset many people. Hence he and his followers expended a great deal of effort trying to remove the sting, the fear, from the prospect of death.

I am weary, I confess, both of the CCP Virus—COVID-19 for all you budding epidemiologists out there—and the shameful case of General Michael Flynn (the shameful thing in his case being the Obama Administration’s effort to destroy him).

I am not sure how many pieces I have written about the former—probably a score—but by now it is clear that going forward there will be two main questions about the Chinese coronavirus crisis. The first is this: why did we commit social suicide for a virus whose hospitalization rates for those 65 years and older (as the CDC just admitted) are comparable to recent bad flu seasons, while the hospitalization for children for the Wuhan flu “are much lower than influenza hospitalization rates during recent influenza seasons”?

The second question is, what will our response be to the busybodies and bureaucrats whose policies destroyed trillions of dollars of wealth and put 30 million people out of work?

A friend of mine with a dark sense of humor speculates that the millions of face masks we’ve been saddled with might wind up repurposed as blindfolds. In any case, I suspect once the dust clears and people take note of the thousands of ventilators lining the doorways of businesses that have had to close their doors because of our insane overreaction, there will be a lot of anger abroad. Right now, Dr. Anthony Fauci seems to be riding high on a crest of public adulation. Look for that to come crashing down soon.

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“The Goal Was to Kill as Many People as Possible”: The Persecution of Christians, March 2020 by Raymond Ibrahim

Posted By on May 3rd, 2020

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/15969/persecution-of-christians-march

Two days ago, [the Saylani Welfare International Trust] refused to give ration cards to non-Muslims, saying that only Muslims are entitled to them. The reason for this is that Zakat, Islamic alms giving (one of Islam’s five pillars), is reserved for Muslims. The Christian man said he begged for food to no avail…. last Saturday, Abid Qadri, a member of Saylani Welfare,… handed out food cards in his area. But, when they got to Christian homes, they just moved on.” — Shafique Khokhar, AsiaNews.it, March 30, 2020, Pakistan.

The reason formerly simple Fulani herdsmen have managed to kill nearly twice as many Christians as the “professional” terrorists of Boko Haram, according to many Christian leaders in Nigeria, is because one of their fellow Fulani tribesmen, the president of the nation, Muhammadu Buhari, is enabling their jihad. Nigeria.

“The men who undertook the attack are so blinded by hate they are showing no evidence of remorse. Overcoming such hate will take a miracle as it is ingrained into every aspect of culture and society in Pakistan and is reinforced via a biased national curriculum….Nations such as the UK naively continue to send foreign aid to Pakistan despite the existing social malaise – this naive attitude contributes to Pak-Government apathy and perpetuates the status quo.” — Juliet Chowdhry, a Pakistani human rights activist in the UK, britishpakistanichristians.org, March 3, 2020, Pakistan.

“But this hateful environment did not emerge out of nowhere. The seeds of this hatred are spread, beginning at primary schools, through books printed by the Ministry of National Education portraying Christians as enemies and traitors. The indoctrination continues through newspapers and television channels in line with state policies. And of course, the sermons at mosques and talk at coffee houses further stir up this hatred.” — Uzay Bulut, Ahvalnews.com, March 13, 2020, Turkey.

The Kidnap, Rape, and Forced Conversion of Christians

Pakistan: A group of motorcycle-riding Muslim men kidnapped and gang-raped two 12-year-old Christian boys. The children were playing video games at a local arcade when a gang of Muslims approached and lured them to check out and eventually sit on their motorcycles. Once the boys were atop the vehicles, the men rode off to a remote field where “the young boys were beaten till they submitted to the demands of the Muslim men, at which point the 12 year olds were raped,” notes the March 23 report:

“After the ordeal Suneel and Harry [the two boys] were threatened not to say anything by the gang as they rode off … leaving the boys behind naked. Suneel and Harry then tearfully and in pain got dressed and walked for 3 hours till home. Suneel managed to stagger home at 3:30 am early the following morning and was received by his father Naeem (40 yrs) who had not slept all night. Naeem and other family members were praying for Suneel and were shocked when they found him crying and trembling with fear.”