NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

The Banality of Impeachment The hearings are a pro-forma march to a foregone conclusion.

Posted By on November 14th, 2019

https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-banality-of-impeachment-11573689793

House Democrats went public Wednesday with what the media are calling “historic” impeachment hearings, but what strikes us is the pre-cooked nature of the exercise. This isn’t a search for truth. It’s a set-piece production to promote a foregone conclusion. Democrats are turning impeachment into another partisan banality, and the country won’t be better for it.

House Intelligence Chairman Adam Schiff plans only five days of public hearings, and he has already heard the witnesses in secret. Mr. Schiff won’t allow most witnesses requested by Republicans, notably the whistleblower who started it all and Hunter Biden. Perhaps Democrats have some new bombshell they’ve uncovered, but that has not been the pattern. What they learn, they quickly leak to the impeachment press.

***

The impeachment case—after the failure of non-collusion with Russia and the non-obstruction of Robert Mueller —now boils down to President Trump’s dealings over a few weeks this summer with new Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky. Readers who want to save time should read Mr. Schiff’s opening statement Wednesday because it offers the most damning interpretation of events.

Mr. Schiff’s claim is that Mr. Trump sought to “condition, coerce, extort or bribe an ally into conducting investigations to aid his re-election campaign.” He did this by having his Administration threaten to withhold U.S. military aid and deny an Oval Office meeting until Mr. Zelensky publicly announced a corruption probe. That sums up the case.

ISRAEL Comments turned off

J Street Responds to JV Editorial & Blurs Lines

Posted By on November 13th, 2019

http://thejewishvoice.com/2019/11/13/j-street-responds-to-jv-editorial-blurs-lines/

Jeremy Ben-Ami, is described in the bio that accompanies his latest article on The Times of Israel website as “the executive director of J Street.” The J Street website describes him as the “president.” Just as it is unclear what exactly Ben-Ami’s true title is there are many other things about this Jewish organization created to advocate for the creation of a Palestinian Arab state in Judea-Samaria (which it calls the West Bank) that seem to be just as deliberately blurred.

In his Nov. 10 column Ben-Ami responds to The Jewish Voice’s Nov. 8 editorial (“The J Street Danger to Israel”). Ben-Ami argues “Those attacking J Street and presidential candidates for even examining the concept of restricting the use of US aid are in many cases people who have loudly called for restrictions on aid to the Palestinian Authority or the United Nations.” Elsewhere in the article he claims that J Street “supports the provision of security assistance.” Which is it? J Street can’t have it both ways.

The views of J Street’s critics on issues related to the PA or the UN have nothing to do with J Street’s new pledge to lobby to reduce U.S. aid to Israel unless the Israelis agree to Palestinian Authority demands.

The Jewish Voice is proud to be the only Jewish newspaper we see that challenged J Street on this with an editorial and we will continue to speak out against J Street when they side with Israel’s enemies.

ISRAEL Comments turned off

The Legality Of Israel’s Settlements

Posted By on November 13th, 2019

http://thejewishvoice.com/2019/11/13/the-legality-of-israels-settlements/

Next month will mark the third anniversary of the Obama Administration’s parting shot at Israel in the U.N. This was when Obama and company first failed to vote against the U.N. Security Council resolution demanding an end to Israeli settlement-building and followed up that slap in the face against Israel by sending Secretary of State John Kerry to give an anti-settlements tirade of a speech at the Dean Acheson Auditorium at the State Department headquarters in Foggy Bottom on December 28, 2016.

The Trump Administration has the opportunity to neutralize the nonsense that was at the foundation of Kerry’s attack on Israeli settlements just as it did the question of Israel’s rights to Jerusalem and the Golan Heights. The Administration seems unaware of the ease with which it can remove the stick that was used to hit Israel.

While the December 28 Obama Administration attack came from Secretary of State John Kerry, the ammunition came from Jimmy Carter’s State Department.

Here is what Kerry said “virtually every country in the world other than Israel opposes settlements. (…) In fact, this resolution simply reaffirms statements made by the Security Council on the legality of settlements over several decades. It does not break new ground. In 1978, the State Department Legal Adviser advised the Congress on his conclusion that Israel’s government, the Israeli Government’s program of establishing civilian settlements in the occupied territory is inconsistent with international law, and we see no change since then to affect that fundamental conclusion.”

P.C.-CULTURE Comments turned off

Lessons of ‘West Side Story’ (Harvard Gazette) see note please

Posted By on November 13th, 2019

https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2019/11/west-side-story-explores-racial-ethni

Puleez! what would these P.C. fools do with Frank Loesser’s wonderful “Guys and Dolls?” Or how about “South Pacific” and the song “There is Nothing Like a Dame”??? They are sucking the fun out entertainment and national culture…..rsk

Cast and crew of new production wrestle with the classic musical’s racial, ethnic, and political complications

More than 60 years after its Broadway debut, “West Side Story” remains a touchstone of modern American theater. A new Harvard-Radcliffe Dramatic Club production opening this week at Farkas Hall is confronting the cultural missteps associated with the classic musical, turning an ambitious theatrical project into a complex educational experience for cast and crew.

When the artistic team began planning the show, members focused on addressing chronic issues of Latinx representation in casting, a flaw illustrated early on by the Oscar-winning 1961 film adaptation in which the vast majority of Puerto Rican characters were played by white actors, such as Natalie Wood as the female lead, Maria. They also wanted to find a way to reckon with the real and underdeveloped histories of Latinx life in New York in the late 1950s, beyond the show’s stereotypical portrayals.

“‘West Side Story’ has left a big cultural footprint, so there is value in reclaiming the story and depicting it as accurately as possible,” said technical producer Amanda Gonzalez-Piloto ’21, noting that the script for the HRDC production cannot be changed due to copyright restrictions. “We’re working within a limited framework, so we have been asking: What can we do to make a more accurate and respectful cultural representation and also acknowledge there are some seeds of truth in this very flawed creative masterpiece?”

POLITICS Comments turned off

The Blexodus More black Americans are beginning to shed the shackles of the Democrat Party. Willie Richardson ·

Posted By on November 13th, 2019

https://patriotpost.us/articles/66740-the-blexodus-2019-11-13

This past weekend in Atlanta, I got the opportunity to experience my first BLEXIT event. In case you have been under a rock, BLEXIT is a movement of political renaissance as millions of Americans, primarily black, are exiting the Democrat Party. Candace Owens, founder of BLEXIT, is the modern-day version of Harriet Tubman as she brazenly has become the trailblazer for freedom. Freedom of thought. Freedom of voice. Freedom of vote. Freedom of common sense.

For so many years within the black community, the only political voice you could have without any “blacklash” was liberal. Our parents, grandparents, uncles, and aunts have made the Democrat Party a matter of birthright. It’s so deep that it’s an unspoken or unwritten rule. It’s just as engrained as the melanin within our skin. It’s like a Thanksgiving holiday tradition that only certain people make the macaroni and cheese, turkey and dressing, or the lemon, pecan, and sweet potato pies. You don’t have to say it, it’s just understood. This “vote or die” liberal mentality has been passed down from generation to generation like grandma’s recipes.

For many black Americans, you grow up, go to church, graduate high school, go to college, vote Democrat, get married, and have some grandchildren to start the whole process over again. Did I mention vote Democrat?

Said differently, a black family person has a better chance of being accepted as a homosexual by his family, church, and community than of being a Republican believing in Christian conservative ideas. Yes, it’s that serious. The saddest part is nobody can tell you why. It’s all emotionalism.

At BLEXIT, however, something was different. I felt comfortable being in my own skin. Not because of the color of my skin, but because I was not being judged intellectually or politically based on my skin. I declared my political independence before the entire world.

Standing in a long line waiting to enter the Buckhead Theatre, I didn’t have to explain myself to anyone. We all had like minds and it was refreshing. It was good to see two teenage black males being able to articulate why they believe what they believe, instead of getting emotional and calling others names. It was amazing to hear their 55-year-old mentor say, “People think these young guys don’t have a clue. I just stand back and fold my arms and watch them handle interview questions from the media. They know their stuff!” He was smiling from ear to ear. It was good to meet an older white couple in line that overheard me say I was from Chattanooga, Tennessee. The man said, “Hey, I’m from Rossville, Georgia, right next door to you.”

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Ukrainian Officials Release Records of 46 Payments to Hunter Biden from Burisma Holdings, 38 Payments were for $83,333 Totaling Over $3.1 Million by Jim Hoft

Posted By on November 13th, 2019

https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2019/11/ukrainian-officials-release-records-of-46-payments-to-hunter-biden-from-burisma-holdings-38-payments-were-for-83333-totaling-over-3-1-million/

New memos released last week reveal Burisma Holdings, Hunter Biden’s Ukrainian natural gas company, pressured the Obama State Department to help end the corruption investigation during the 2016 election cycle just one month before then-Vice President Joe Biden forced Ukraine to fire Viktor Shokin, the prosecutor probing his son Hunter.

Joe Biden bragged about getting Viktor Shokin fired during a 2018 speech to the Council on Foreign Relations.

The media immediately covered for Biden and said his targeting of Mr. Shokin was totally unrelated to the prosecutor’s corruption investigation into Hunter and Burisma Holdings.

New memos released because of a FOIA lawsuit filed by award-winning investigative reporter John Solomon show Burisma Holdings contacted the Obama State Department several times during the 2016 election to discuss ending the probe.

In fact, Burisma Holdings actually name-dropped Hunter Biden when requesting help from the State Department.

According to CD Media last week former Ukrainian official Oleksandr Onyshchenko said Hunter Biden was receiving “off the books” payments from Burisma in the millions.

On Tuesday CD Media posted leaked records of payments to Hunter Biden from Burisma Holdings totaling millions.

The documents show 46 payments to Hunter Biden’s company from Novembe 2014 to November 2015.

There were 38 payments for $83,333 totaling more than $3.1 million.

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Adam Schiff’s Star Witness Just Admitted Burisma Should Be Investigated For Corruption By Tristan Justice

Posted By on November 13th, 2019

https://thefederalist.com/2019/11/13/adam-schiffs-star-witness-just-admitted-burisma-should-be-investigated-for-corruption/

Deputy Assistant Secretary of State George Kent made the case for launching an investigation into the Bidens and their involvement in Ukraine related to the Ukrainian energy company Burisma.

Kent, the State Department’s top official on Ukraine, said during testimony before the House Intelligence Committee in the Democrats’ partisan impeachment proceedings Wednesday he was concerned about a, “perception of a conflict of interest,” related to Joe Biden’s son, Hunter, serving on the board of the energy company while his father oversaw the Obama administration’s policy towards Ukraine.

Hunter Biden served on the board of the company for $50,000 a month despite having no prior experience in the energy industry while his father served as vice president deeply involved U.S.-Ukrainian policy.

Kent also testified in a private deposition that he voiced his discomfort over the situation to the White House in 2015 where administration officials brushed off Kent’s concerns.

“I raised my concerns that I had heard that Hunter Biden was on the board of a company owned by somebody that the U.S. Government had spent money trying to get tens of millions of dollars back and that could create the perception of a conflict of interest,” Kent told lawmakers behind closed doors in October. “The message that I recall hearing back was that the vice president’s son Beau was dying of cancer and that there was no further bandwidth the deal with family related issues at that time… That was the end of that conversation.”

MOVIES AND TELEVISION, WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

China’s Holocaust of Children By Kyle Smith

Posted By on November 13th, 2019

https://www.nationalreview.com/2019/11/chinas-holocaust-of-children/

The ‘one-child policy’ involved slaughtering hundreds of millions of babies.

Using the aggressively bland term “one-child policy” is a bit like saying that 1942 Germany had restrictions on Jews. You may never have thought much about how a huge nation enforces a limit of one baby per family, but the horrifying details of China’s Holocaust of children emerge in a powerful documentary told by a woman whose family was one of the countless millions who suffered.

A girl born in 1985 in Jiangxi Province was named Nanfu, or man-pillar. The Wang family, like nearly all others in rural China, desperately wanted a boy, and when one didn’t arrive, her parents gave her the planned boy’s name anyway. After she was born, village authorities threatened to sterilize her mother, who wanted to try again for a boy, but instead struck a compromise. Some rural families were allowed a second child if the parents spaced the children apart by five years. While the mother was in labor, Nanfu Wang says in her documentary One Child Nation (streaming on Amazon Prime Video), her grandmother put a basket in the room and announced, “If it’s another girl, we’ll put her in the basket and leave her in the street.” Nanfu’s brother arrived instead.

It was no idle threat. As Wang discovers, this sort of thing happened all the time. And when you left your baby girl (it was nearly always a girl) in a market, or by the side of the road, here’s what happened: Nothing. No takers. Girls had no value whatsoever. When Wang’s uncle had a daughter, her mother recalls, he wanted to try again for the son. So the family climbed over mountains in the dark to take the infant to a market, where they left her on a meat counter with the equivalent of $20 in her clothes. The family would go back to check on her progress, of which there was none. Soon the baby was covered with mosquito bites. “For two days and two nights she was there,” recalls Wang’s mother. “She eventually died. Then we buried her.” Oh.

Chinese officials would use a variety of pressures to prevent women from giving birth. Sometimes sterilization would be presented simply as an option; you were free to refuse, but then the authorities would burn your house down or steal your pig. Other times women underwent sterilization by force, or suffered as their eight- and nine-month-old fetuses were aborted. A single “family planning” official recalls carrying out an estimated 50,000 to 60,000 sterilizations and abortions, sometimes inducing delivery and then killing the newborn. “I’d do over 20 [sterilizations and abortions] a day,” she recalls now. “Sterilization takes ten minutes.” In many cases the women had been abducted: “Tied up and dragged to us like pigs,” recalls another woman who served as a “family-planning official,” who says, “I initially thought forcing abortions was an atrocity.” But a Party official persuaded her that the more challenging a job was, the more willing she should be to take it on.” “Sometimes pregnant women ran away. We had to chase after them.” One woman “took off all her clothes and ran away naked.” But the “population war” had to be fought: “Our country prevented 338 million births,” notes a propaganda video. The word “prevent” is doing a lot of work there.

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Amb. Taylor’s Awkward Silence in Response to a Question About Hunter Biden Was Very Telling By Matt Margolis

Posted By on November 13th, 2019

https://pjmedia.com/trending/amb-taylors-awkward-silence-in-response-to-a-question-about-hunter-biden-was-very-telling/

During Wednesday’s impeachment hearings, Steve Castor, House Intelligence Committee counsel for the minority, asked Ambassador Taylor a rather simple question about Hunter Biden and his position at Burisma, that he couldn’t (or perhaps refused) to answer, resulting in perhaps the most awkward silence I’ve ever seen in such a hearing.

CASTOR: Ambassador Taylor, do you know whether Hunter Biden offers anything other than the fact that his dad’s the former vice president

AMB. TAYLOR: I don’t—

CASTOR: Or at the time was the vice president.

AMB. TAYLOR: I have no knowledge of Hunter Biden—

CASTOR: But you agree it raises questions?

AMB. TAYLOR: (five seconds of silence)

Here’s video of the exchange.

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Mandatory Shortages By John Stossel

Posted By on November 13th, 2019

https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/mandatory-shortages/

Governments create problems. Then they complain about them.

“A public health crisis exists,” says Kentucky’s government, citing a report that found “a shortage of ambulance providers.”

Local TV stations report on “people waiting hours for medical transportation.”

“Six-year-old Kyler Truesdell fell off his motorcycle,” reported Channel 12 news. “The local hospital told (his mother) he should be transported to Cincinnati Children’s to check for internal injuries.” But there was no ambulance available. Kyler had to wait two hours.

Yet Kyler’s cousin, Hannah Howe, runs an ambulance service in Ohio, just a few minutes away. “We would’ve (taken him) for free,” she says in my new video. “But it would’ve been illegal.”

It would be illegal because of something called certificate of need (CON) laws.

Kentucky and three other states require businesses to get a CON certificate before they are allowed to run an ambulance service. Certificates go only to businesses that bureaucrats deem “necessary.”

CON laws are supposed to prevent “oversupply” of essential services like, well, ambulances. If there are “too many” ambulance companies, some might cut corners or go out of business. Then patients would suffer, say the bureaucrats.

Of course, Kentucky patients already suffer, waiting.

It raises the question: If there’s demand, then who are politicians to say that a business is unnecessary?

Phillip Truesdell, Hannah’s father, often takes patients to hospitals in Kentucky, “I drop them off (but) I can’t go back and get them!” he told me. “Who gives the big man the right to say, ‘You can’t work here’?!”