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Benny Gantz’s cluelessness on US politics According to Gantz, it is Netanyahu’s fault that Israel has become a partisan issue in the US, and it is the mission of the “anybody-but-Bibi” faction to remedy the situation Ruthie Blum

Posted By on February 21st, 2020

https://www.jpost.com/Opinion/Benny-Gantzs-cluelessness-on-US-politics-618267

Addressing a large audience of English-speaking Israelis on Monday, Blue and White Party leader Benny Gantz made a promise that he cannot possibly keep. This isn’t what made his vow laughable, however. It’s par for political candidates to give utopian guarantees to prospective voters, particularly during the final countdown to an election – or, in this case, the last days leading up to a third round of Knesset elections on March 2, which are likely to result in the same impasse as the previous two.

Nor did the message that Gantz conveyed to the 1,000 people present at the Tel Aviv International Salon event get muddled as a result of his heavy Hebrew accent. No, the contender to the premiership that has been held for more than the past decade by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said what he meant and meant what he said, as did his running mate, Yair Lapid, who shared the podium and the sentiment that Netanyahu is to blame for the growing lack of support for Israel in America’s Democratic Party.

“It’s very important that we return to the bipartisan relationship between Israel and the United States,” Gantz said. “This is something that Netanyahu, unfortunately, neglected.”

Gantz assured the crowd that, unlike Netanyahu – who shows favoritism for the Republican Party – Blue and White “doesn’t care if the American president is a Republican or a Democrat. If he is a good president for the United States, by definition, he will be a good president for the State of Israel, as well.”

According to Gantz, it is Netanyahu’s fault that Israel has become a partisan issue in the US, and it is the mission of the “anybody-but-Bibi” faction, if elected to head the next Israeli government, to remedy the sorry situation.

“We have rehabilitation to do with the Democratic Party,” Lapid chimed in. “But we also need rehabilitation with American Jewry.”

WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Stab City No one dares speak the truth about young black men stabbing each other to death on the streets of London. Katie Hopkins

Posted By on February 21st, 2020

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2020/02/stab-city-katie-hopkins/

Four stabbings in four East London locations within ninety minutes and it doesn’t even make the news. That tells you a lot about the state of London (or Stab City, as it is increasingly known).

The British Capital is witness to daily violence that is as unrelenting as it is overwhelming. Under the Muslim mayor Sadiq Khan, homicides are the highest in a decade and knife crime offenses are at record highs.

It is against this backdrop that these horrific stabbings have become something of everyday life for Londoners, too mundane to trouble a newsdesk and too routine for a reader to care.

Sunday’s victims were all found in East London: Barking, Dagenham, Hackney and Ilford (shown on the map below). Not the sorts of places you’ll find tourists taking selfies, but all in the vice-like grip of powerful gangs, organized by postcode (zip code) controlling the supply and distribution of drugs on their patch.

Being part of a gang is a way of belonging for young lads brought up on inner-city estates, often without a father figure, desperate to find a way to belong. For many, being part of a gang is a tenuous means of survival.

Stabbings are meted out as a mechanism of initiation, retribution or control, as ubiquitous as the mopeds used to courier their drugs, or the drill music that forms a soundtrack to their lives.

One gang member said: “I don’t even know what this war is about anymore. All I know is if I step out of my territory people want to kill me, and if people come into mine, I want to kill them. It’s as simple as that.”

CHARLOTTE'S NEWS WEB Comments turned off

THE BLOOM IS OFF George Neumayr,

Posted By on February 20th, 2020

https://spectator.org/the-bloom-is-off/

The attacks on Michael Bloomberg came early and often at Wednesday’s debate in Las Vegas, but none of them, of course, touched on his infamous “kill it” comment to a pregnant subordinate. No, the party of abortion at all stages wasn’t going to touch that one. Instead, Elizabeth Warren focused on Bloomberg’s thoughts about “horse-faced lesbians” and “fat broads.”

Bloomberg has paid advisers millions of dollars to prepare him for just such moments, but he still acted like he was answering the challenges for the first time. He came off as cold and flat-footed — the unlikeable technocrat trying woodenly to make himself palatable to a left-wing audience with half-hearted answers.

It wasn’t until late in the debate that he seemed to loosen up a little bit and hit Sanders with a zinger about being a socialist millionaire with three homes. “What a country,” said Bloomberg. Of course, that didn’t go down well either, since the Democrats don’t think much of America. One would never know that the American economy is thriving from these Democratic gloomfests, where the candidates never feel slightest compunction to grapple with positive economic indices under Trump. Talk about an out-of-touch party — its rhetoric befits the Great Depression, not an economy in which the stock market spikes as unemployment plunges.

Bloomberg was the only candidate who came close to acknowledging how ridiculous the Democrats sound as they debate the virtues of socialism. But that comment elicited a groan, too.

Bloomberg would have done better had he continued to mock his opponents in that vein. But he couldn’t decide which direction to go in the debate. He spent much of it getting tangled up in half-baked apologies designed to improve his standing with progressives. His answer on stop-and-frisk lacked all coherence, because he didn’t have the guts to acknowledge that it actually worked and that it is not inherently racist.

POLITICS Comments turned off

Bloomberg Picks up 3 New Congressional Endorsements After Debate By Zachary Stieber

Posted By on February 20th, 2020

https://www.theepochtimes.com/bloomberg-picks-up-3-new-congressional-endorsements-after-debate_3244660.html

Three members of the House of Representatives announced their support for former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg the morning after a fiery primary debate in Nevada.

Rep. Nita Lowey (D-N.Y.), the chairwoman of the House Appropriations Committee, said she’s endorsing Bloomberg, 78, for the Democratic presidential nomination.

“Mike and I have worked together for years in New York, and whether it’s homeland security or gun safety, there’s no one you can depend on more to get important initiatives over the finish line,” Lowey said in a statement released by Bloomberg’s campaign.

“We need someone in the White House who will help secure a bright future for our children and families, free of gun violence, with opportunity for educational success and good jobs, and with access to affordable health care and prescription drugs. That person is Mike Bloomberg, and there’s no doubt about it, no matter how big the challenge, Mike will get it done.”

Rep. Nita Lowey (D-N.Y.) speaks onstage during Global Citizen: Movement Makers at NYU Skirball Center in New York City on Sept. 19, 2017. (Theo Wargo/Getty Images for Global Citizen)

Reps. Pete Aguilar (D-Calif.) and Josh Gottheimer (D-N.J.) also announced endorsements for the billionaire.

Aguilar, who Bloomberg said would serve as a co-chair for his campaign, cited Bloomberg’s efforts to restrict gun ownership and combat climate change in his statement of support. Gottheimer, co-chair of the bipartisan Problem Solvers Caucus, called the former mayor “an experienced, proven leader who has big ideas, will fight to get things done, and knows how to work with—and get votes from—Democrats, Republicans, and Independents.”

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

John Bolton Trashes Democrats’ ‘Grossly Partisan’ Impeachment, Downplays Impact of Would-Be Testimony By Matt Margolis

Posted By on February 20th, 2020

https://pjmedia.com/trending/john-bolton-trashes-democrats-grossly-partisan-impeachment-downplays-impact-of-his-potential-testimony/

On Wednesday, President Trump’s former national security advisor, John Bolton, made a public appearance alongside Obama’s former national security advisor, Susan Rice, at Vanderbilt University, where he blasted the Democrats’ ”grossly partisan” impeachment against Trump, and downplayed the impact of the testimony he would have had on the outcome of the impeachment vote.

According to Bolton, the House “committed impeachment malpractice.” He added that “the process drove Republicans who might have voted for impeachment away because it was so partisan.”

Bolton also revealed that he was surprised the Senate voted against him testifying, but dowplayed the impact his testimony would have had anyway. “People can argue about what I should have said and what I should have done. I would bet you a dollar right here and now, my testimony would have made no difference to the ultimate outcome.”

Susan Rice was critical of Bolton for his silence. “I can’t imagine withholding my testimony, with or without a subpoena,” she said. “I also can’t imagine, frankly, in the absence of being able to provide that information directly to Congress, not having exercised my First Amendment right to speak publicly at a time when my testimony or my experience would be relevant.”

Bolton still refused to divulge details about his forthcoming book, which perhaps suggests that the information he has is nothing new, and doesn’t contain any evidence of actual wrongdoing by President Trump. We still haven’t seen actual excerpts from the book, and since Bolton believes that his testimony wouldn’t have changed the outcome, it’s probably safe to say when the book does come out, a lot of people who pre-ordered it expecting it to be Trump’s downfall will be very disappointed.

CHARLOTTE'S NEWS WEB, POLITICS Comments turned off

Mike Bloomberg’s supremely materialistic, anti-human ideology Timothy P. Carney

Posted By on February 20th, 2020

www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/mike-bloombergs-supremely-materialistic-anti-human-ideology?

Mike Bloomberg’s supremely materialistic, anti-human ideology
Timothy P. Carney

Mike Bloomberg once pointed to the in utero child of an employee and said “kill it, kill it,” according to two witnesses.

According to another female employee, he would say of attractive women, “I’d like to do that piece of meat.”

“It’s a f—ing baby,” Bloomberg reportedly yelled at another female employee when she was scrambling to find a nanny for her child. “All it does is eat and shit! It doesn’t know the difference between you and anyone else! All you need is some black who doesn’t even have to speak English to rescue it from a burning building!”

It’s easy to assume that Bloomberg, like the man he wants to replace in the White House, is simply selfish, crude, and misogynistic. It’s tempting to see Bloomberg’s cutthroat capitalism as unrelated to, or even at odds with, his social liberalism. But there’s a bigger story here, a pattern that becomes clear when you consider Mike Bloomberg in full.

Bloomberg’s odd apology for China’s authoritarian communist regime is not some weird blind spot. His embrace of stop-and-frisk policing was not just some New York City thing. And his nanny-statism on sodas, cigarettes, and trans fats is not merely an over-enthusiasm for clean living.

Nor is Bloomberg an inconsistent thinker or some nonideological independent. He has a very clear view of the world that underlies his economic policies, his social policies, his personal life, and his behavior. Bloomberg’s ideology is neither left nor right. Instead, his worldview is supremely materialistic, and ultimately inhuman.

In Bloomberg’s eyes, any talk of the dignity of the human person is mawkish sentimentality. Mike Bloomberg doesn’t see people as ends in themselves, but instead as means to ends.

WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Only Wilders decries the Islam fueling Western European Jew-hatred Dr. Andrew Bostom

Posted By on February 20th, 2020

http://www.israelnationalnews.com/Articles/Article.aspx/25221

Comparative findings revealing disproportionate rates of extreme antisemitism, and antisemitic violence, or violent threats, among Western European Muslims.

The Dutch CIDI (Centrum Informatie En Documentatie Israel) annual report for 2019 just released Monday 2/17/20, recorded 182antisemitic incidents, its highest number ever registered since 1982, when monitoring began. This figure represented a 35% increase from 2018. 

Even the CIDI’s full 99 page Dutch language report, however, provided only limited anecdotal information about a select sample of the perpetrators, rendering a quantitative determination of major (and/or relative) group responsibility impossible to assess. This glaring lacuna was “enlarged” by the report’s absence of background discussion of previously published comparative findings revealing disproportionate rates of extreme antisemitism, and antisemitic violence, or violent threats, among Western European Muslims, including confirmatory data on antisemitic attitudes within the Netherlands itself.

Wilders: “[I]t is almost nauseating. We’ve been talking about antisemitism, here in the Lower House,,, for ten minutes now. And nobody, really nobody has discussed the biggest cause of antisemitism, which is of course Islam, and Islamization.”  
Dutch Parliamentarian Geert Wilders—the Netherland’s most informed and intellectually courageous politician on the subject of Islam—inveighed against the denial of what the report’s findings actually substantiated, during a floor debate on Tuesday 2/18/20. Eschewing the craven, vacuous platitudes of his colleagues, Wilders thundered,

“[I]t is almost nauseating. We’ve been talking about antisemitism, here in the Lower House (of the Dutch Parliament) for ten minutes now. And nobody, really nobody has discussed the biggest cause of antisemitism, which is of course Islam, and Islamization”  

Observing that, “we have a million Muslims in the Netherlands right now,” and “Islam is synonymous with Jew-hatred,” Wildersdemonstrated, accurately, how “intrinsic” Islamic antisemitism was redolent within Islam’s defining text, the Koran:

ANTI-SEMITISM Comments turned off

Thought of the Day “William Barr, 5G, China and the Threat of Cyber Attacks” Sydney Williams

Posted By on February 20th, 2020

http://swtotd.blogspot.com/

It is a given that war produces physical and psychological horrors that statistics do not describe, movies cannot portray, and fiction cannot illustrate. It is a maxim that the best way to avoid war is to be so strong and so vigilant that no rational nation or group will attack. Even then, there will always be attempts, for reason is too often absent and evil is always with us. 

The next major attack on the United States is less likely to come from missiles or suicide-intentioned terrorists, and more likely to emanate from disruption or corruption of technology systems that govern our lives. Any enemy state or terrorist organization could be the culprit, but high on the list of bad actors are the Chinese. As the internet and “smart” devices become more pervasive in our lives, our dependency grows. We have become more vulnerable, as our negligence has allowed China to take the lead in the development of next generation networks known as 5G and the superfast networks. These technologies will facilitate communications; financial institutions; transportation systems, including rail, autonomous vehicles and highways; energy and utilities. “For the first time in our history,” Attorney General William Barr was blunt in his keynote address to the Department of Justice’s China Initiative Conference on February 6, “the United States is not leading the next technology era.”

It is 5G that is of concern. David Goldman, an American economist who as “Spengler” writes in the Asia Times, recently wrote in PJ Media: “We sat on our hands while China’s Huawei took the lead in the game-changing technology that will usher in what the Chinese call the Fourth Industrial Revolution.” Everybody has heard of 5G, but few appreciate its ramifications. Reading the Attorney General’s speech[1] woke me like a rooster crowing at `dawn. Barr is not new to this subject. He focused on China studies at Columbia University in the early 1970s and then spent fifteen years at GTE and its successor firm Verizon, so knows something of the communication industry. He quoted one of his classmates: “Russia wants to conquer the world. We can deal with that. China wants to own the world. That is going to be more challenging…”

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Why Richard Grenell As Director Of National Intelligence Is A Loss For The Deep State Ben Weingarten

Posted By on February 20th, 2020

https://thefederalist.com/2020/02/20/why-richard-grenell-as-director-of-national-intelligence-is-a-loss-for-the-deep-state/

Richard Grenell has doggedly pursued the president’s agenda in the face of unrelenting defiance from the European Union’s most consequential power.

President Donald Trump’s pick of U.S. Ambassador to Germany Richard Grenell for acting director of national intelligence (DNI) is an inspired one of great symbolic and substantive significance.

In staffing another crucial position in the executive branch with someone who genuinely shares his worldview, instincts, and tenacity, President Trump is signaling to the Trump-haters of the administrative state, and its Deep State apotheosis, that those who reject or actively seek to undermine his America First agenda will no longer be welcome in meaningful positions.

This is no minor statement because the establishmentarian Resistance, knowing that personnel is policy, has sought to stymie the president’s agenda by seeking to undermine if not destroy like-minded individuals the president has considered for top-level posts.

Consider that the effect, if not intent, of the still-going effort to ruin Gen. Michael Flynn. It has gone beyond punishing him for sharing the president’s views, having directly challenged the national security and foreign policy establishment, and threatening its power and privilege. Its aim was to send a message from the very start of the administration that the president’s actual supporters need not apply.

Substantively, after eight years spent during the George W. Bush administration engaging in diplomatic combat with the “jackals” of the United Nations as the longest-serving spokesman and appointee in U.S. history, Grenell has doggedly pursued the president’s agenda in the face of unrelenting defiance from the European Union’s (EU) most consequential power.

MEDIA Comments turned off

Cheney blasts NYT for publishing op-ed by Taliban leader By Juliegrace Brufke –

Posted By on February 20th, 2020

https://thehill.com/homenews/media/483884-cheney-blasts-nyt-for-publishing-op-ed-by-taliban-leader

Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.), the No. 3 Republican in the House, slammed The New York Times for publishing an op-ed by Sirajuddin Haqqani, a deputy leader of the Taliban, arguing it was inappropriate to give the terrorist organization a platform.  

The Times published a piece by Haqqani on Thursday titled “What We, the Taliban, Want” in which the leader hails the organization’s ongoing peace talks with the United States.

Cheney took to social media to condemn the paper’s decision to publish the piece, questioning whether Haqqani was compensated for the piece, while bringing up the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks against the United States carried out by al-Qaeda, which was provided safe haven in Afghanistan by the Taliban.

“I have some questions for @nytimes since they decided to give the Taliban a forum to spew garbage, like, “We did not choose our war…We were forced to defend ourselves. 1. Remember 9/11?  2. The author is a designated global terrorist. Did you pay him for this piece?,” she tweeted on Thursday. 

The New York Times did not immediately reply to a request for comment from The Hill. 

Mujib Mashal, The New York Times senior correspondent in Afghanistan, cast doubts on Haqqani’s portrayal of himself and his organization.

“The piece by Siraj Haqqani in @nytopinion – which’s independent of our news operations & judgment – omits the most fundamental fact: that Siraj is no Taliban peace-maker as he paints himself, that he’s behind some of most ruthless attacks of this war with many civilian lives lost,” he tweeted.

Mashal also posted links to articles by the Times on Haqqani.

“I know people have strong views on this. Sorry, I can’t answer. But, as the bottom of the piece says, our Opinion editors appreciate hearing from, and are “committed to publishing a diversity of letters”. So feel free to write to them: letters@nytimes.com,” Mashal also tweeted.