NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Theater of the Absurd in J6 Courtrooms As judges hand down one absurd sentence after another, one might be inclined to laugh at the absurdity of it all except, of course, it’s not funny. By Julie Kelly

Posted By on February 4th, 2023

https://amgreatness.com/2023/02/03/theater-of-the-absurd-in-j6-courtrooms/

The Department of Justice carefully crafted the dramatic moment in court.

A federal prosecutor handed an enclosed paper bag to an FBI agent responsible for investigating members of the Proud Boys, now on trial for seditious conspiracy related to their participation in the events of January 6. The bag contained “evidence of the unlawful entry of the United States Capitol on January 6, 2021 and evidence of the disruption to the certification of the 2020 presidential election,” FBI Special Agent Elizabeth D’Angelo told assistant U.S. Attorney Nadia Moore on Wednesday.

D’Angelo cautiously pulled the evidence out of the bag to present to the jury.

Spectators in D.C. District Court Judge Timothy Kelly’s courtroom were on the edge of their seats. What would the mystery bag reveal?

Would it disclose the group’s intricate but failed plot to overthrow the government? A detailed list of weapons the “seditionists” planned to use in service of their dastardly deed? Names of targeted officials?

A nervous hush fell over the room; sweat beads formed on furrowed brows. Finally, the big moment arrived.

It was—a set of challenge coins.

Moore: Can you give a brief description of what they are?

D’Angelo: They are challenge coins. This one is black and gold—and this package contains four black and gold colored challenge coins.

Moore: Are these the same coins that were seized from Zachary Rehl’s home?

D’Angelo: Yes.

What?

WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

A pregnant Iranian woman is about to be executed By Andrea Widburg

Posted By on February 4th, 2023

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2023/02/a_pregnant_iranian_woman_is_about_to_be_executed.html

Not only will Iran also execute the innocent life within her, but you won’t believe what led to this dual death sentence.

Increasingly, indoctrinated American college students agree that life would be better without the First Amendment. After all, that pesky First Amendment means that they are routinely exposed to ideas that frighten them or with which they disagree. What they fail to understand is that, once the government has the power to dictate what is acceptable speech and what is not, you discover yourself in a world like Iran, where the government plans to execute a pregnant woman for daring to burn a picture of the Ayatollah Khomenei.

This appalling report originated with IranWire:

Iranian judicial officials have sentenced a pregnant woman in her early-20s to death, and her execution is imminent, IranWire understands.

Shahla Abdi, an ethic Kurd from the northwestern province of West Azerbaijan, was arrested in Urmia in mid-October at the peak of nationwide protests triggered by the September death of Mahsa Amini in the custody of morality police.

Abdi is said to have received capital punishment for setting fire to a portrait of Ruhollah Khomeini, the founding father of the Islamic Republic.

A fellow woman inmate told IranWire that Abdi was held in Urmia Central Prison for about a month. Some prisoners say the young woman was transferred to Tabriz Prison about three weeks ago; according to others, she was taken to the detention center of the Ministry of Intelligence.

“When I saw this woman, she looked very young but weak and abused, and I realized that she was four months pregnant,” the inmate said. 

Another inmate said that Abdi is 21 or 22 years old.

This story is so surreal that I double-checked to see whether it’s been confirmed anywhere else. Daily Tribune/News of Bahrain, a regional outlet in the Middle East, has relied on IranWire to report the same story. Likewise, The National, a Canadian Broadcast Corporation outlet published in the UAE, has the same report. In other words, those geographically closest to the story believe it’s true.

EDUCATION Comments turned off

American Students — Dumber and More Woke By Robert Weissberg

Posted By on February 4th, 2023

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2023/02/american_students__dumber_and_more_woke.html

Professors often complain about the current crop of students being less intellectually talented than when they began their careers decades back. Such griping is, of course, easy to dismiss — it has occurred for millennia. Unfortunately, this time around the grumbling may be true and not the usual nostalgia for “the good old days.”  The anecdotal evidence from textbook reading levels, shortened college syllabi, scrapbook-like research assignments, proliferating college remedial classes, grade inflation, and the popularity of “gut” college majors such as Gender Studies, is indisputable. We have also invested hundreds of millions in our schools yet test results such as the SAT are flat over the past half century. Add the countless stories of illiteracy among high school “graduates” despite falling class size and expensive reforms. Judged by the standards of evolution, Americans may be going backwards.

The best evidence of this decline are data from the highly respected General Social Survey on mean IQ by decade among graduate students, undergraduates, and high school students (a tip of the hat to Charles Murray on Twitter). This is a complicated subject given how America’s demography has altered, and measuring IQ via surveys might be iffy, but the numbers, even if a bit unsure, are alarming.

These data are divided into three groups: those with high school diplomas, undergraduate degrees, and graduate degrees. Then the data are then divided by decades beginning in the 1960s through to the 2010 onward decade. The overall pattern is a steady decline in IQ scores for each group from decade to decade. For example, high school graduates in the 1960s had an average IQ of 99.3 but this figure declined so by 2010 and onward, it was 93.5. A similar drop occurred among college graduates — from 113.3 in the 60s to 100.4 in the 2010 decade. For those with graduate degrees, the fall was from 114.0 to 105.8.          

These are depressing numbers. That in 2010 the average college student had an IQ of 100.4 (almost exactly our national average) signifies that we are miles away from trying to educate the brightest youngsters. Worse, with an average of about 100, many of those enrolled must score below 100 and thus suitable only for low-skill occupations. This picture may even be worse than these numbers suggest if we subtract out the many smart international students now enrolled in U.S. higher education.  

MEDIA Comments turned off

That Didn’t Age Well! Read The Most Clownish Takes About The Laptop Hunter Biden Admits Was His By: Tristan Justice

Posted By on February 4th, 2023

https://thefederalist.com/2023/02/03/that-didnt-age-well-read-the-most-clownish-takes-about-the-laptop-hunter-biden-admits-was-his/

Hunter Biden admitted, in a roundabout way through his lawyers, that the infamous laptop featuring a trove of explicit content that surfaced in 2020 was his. On Wednesday, his attorneys demanded that Biden allies in the Justice Department launch investigations of the people who found the computer.

Biden’s lawyers sent two 14-page letters to the Delaware attorney general and the Department of Justice this week calling on officials to probe whether the people who gave the laptop — which was abandoned property at a Delaware computer repair shop owned and operated by John Paul Mac Isaac — to the New York Post violated state or federal laws.

“There is considerable reason to believe” that the individuals involved “in accessing, copying, manipulating, and/or disseminating Mr. Biden’s personal computer data” may have committed crimes, the attorneys wrote. “Mr. Mac Isaac has admitted to copying that data without Mr. Biden’s consent, and Mr. Mac Isaac has admitted to distributing copies of that data from his place in Delaware.”

In other words, the laptop is undoubtedly Hunter Biden’s despite the remarkable spin from Democrats, the president, and the media who were desperate to dismiss the computer as Russian disinformation. Below are some of the statements that aged the worst.

FOREIGN POLICY Comments turned off

Blinken Stays Home to Avoid Confronting China Over Spy Balloon Cowardice in the face of the enemy. by Daniel Greenfield

Posted By on February 4th, 2023

https://www.frontpagemag.com/blinken-stays-home-to-avoid-confronting-china-over-spy-balloon/

“The Biden administration talks tough to Americans, but is gutless in the face of the enemy.”

“Should I stay or should I go?”

Blinken had been scheduled to meet with top officials in China Feb. 5-6 in a follow-up to President Joe Biden’s meeting with Chinese paramount leader Xi Jinping in Bali in November, in which Biden pledged to “maintain open lines of communication” with Beijing at a time of worsening bilateral tensions.

But that was scuttled after the Pentagon announced Thursday that it had discovered a Chinese airship hovering over Montana, saying it had “very high confidence” the balloon had been sent to the U.S. to collect sensitive information.

The balloon’s intrusion constituted a “clear violation of our sovereignty” and prompted the State Department to indefinitely delay Blinken’s visit until “conditions are right,” a senior State Department official said in a press briefing.

Conditions will be right when Americans forget about the spy balloon (and these days that takes about 24 hours) and then Secretary of State Blinken can make the trip to focus on “partnering with China” in the fight against the weather by buying garbage Chinese ‘green’ technology and taxing Americans to pay for it.

ANTI-SEMITISM, EDUCATION Comments turned off

George Washington University Prof Goes Berserk on Jewish Students By Kevin Downey Jr.

Posted By on February 4th, 2023

https://pjmedia.com/uncategorized/kevindowneyjr/2023/02/03/george-washington-univ-prof-goes-berserk-on-jewish-students-n1667306

Indoctrination 101
A George Washington University (GWU) commie professor allegedly went berserk on some Jewish students in her mandatory diversity class.

Clinical psychologist and professor Dr. Lara Sheehi—who is also part of the USA-Palestine Mental Health Network—is accused of verbally attacking a student who dared to use the phrase “terror attack.”

According to a complaint, Sheehi “took offense at the student’s use of the term ‘terrorist attack,” going so far as to say the phrase was “Islamophobic.”

The complainant also says Sheehi brought in a class speaker who “advocated violence against Israelies—and by extension, Jews.”

The complaint also states the speaker made a Jewish student feel “deeply unsettled and unsafe.” One student cried.

Sheehi responded by calling the student’s complaint “damaging, Islamophobic, anti-Palestinian.” She added, “a stone is nothing compared to an army.”

The trouble began on the first day of class when the Sheehi, who has a history of public antisemitism, asked students for their names and how they “identify.” Things got weird when a student said she was from Israel.

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Helium Supply-Chain Failure Worries Hospitals, Crime Labs, Welders, and Even Balloon Retailers By Greg Byrnes

Posted By on February 4th, 2023

https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/gregbyrnes/2023/02/03/helium-supply-chain-failure-worries-hospitals-crime-labs-welders-and-even-balloon-retailers-n1667789

The United States is beginning the third year of a helium supply-chain crisis. Some experts think it will last until at least 2024. Consumers may have noticed some party retailers going out of business, with helium prices in a few markets almost doubling. A Texas retailer reports tanks went from $195 to $365, and they can only get half tanks because of shortages. The Party City chain, where balloons were a key profit center, has filed for bankruptcy.

But helium shortages mean more than fewer fun diversions like blimps, party balloons, or Daffy Duck floating down Broadway.

Last year the Miami-Dade Police crime lab and the Medical Examiner’s Office had to pay $1,800 per tank for helium to run instruments to identify deadly drugs and complete autopsy blood tests. Helium is used by semiconductor manufacturers and welders, and of critical importance, it is used to cool MRI machines in hospitals.

Without a reliable supply of helium in medical care, the public may face hard choices: rationing, sky-high pricing, or limiting tests patients can get. All could be on the horizon. This may not represent a complete regression to third-world medical care, but the supply chain failure is not without consequences for public health and safety. That this is happening in one of the most natural resource-rich countries in the world is more than strange. If one consequence of Biden’s green energy policy is the collapse of this vital supply chain, what can Congress do to reverse course?

The U.S. is one of the world’s largest sources of helium, but with supply not meeting demand, prices are skyrocketing. Helium is captured as a byproduct of natural gas drilling, which has been targeted by the Biden administration as part of its war on fossil fuels. Currently, the United State’s helium reserve is in Amarillo, Texas, a state replete with natural gas.

ANTI-SEMITISM Comments turned off

The entrenchment of western Jew-hatred As the age of reason skids off the road, diaspora Jews are rabbits in the headlights Melanie Phillips

Posted By on February 4th, 2023

https://melaniephillips.substack.com/p/the-entrenchment-of-western-jew-hatred?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email

In Britain’s House of Commons this week, MP Kim Johnson launched an attack on the “fascist Israeli government” and its “apartheid” policies.

Johnson is a Labour Party MP. You know — the same Labour Party whose current moderate leader, Sir Keir Starmer, has reputedly cleansed it of the Jew-hatred that exploded under its previous hard-left leader, Jeremy Corbyn.

Following Johnson’s remarks, the Labour leadership leapt into immediate action. Within hours, Johnson was ordered to make a grovelling apology.

This is supposed to reassure us. True, Starmer now takes action against any expression of Jew-hatred. This includes the pathological demonisation of Israel that singles it out for lies designed to delegitimise and destroy it — an agenda applied to no other people or state in the world.

Any such eruption threatens Starmer’s strategy of suppressing the bigotry that previously threatened to destroy the party as the self-professed standard-bearer of conscience, enlightenment and all good things. So, he stamps down on it hard whenever it appears.

But Starmer is playing a game of whack-a-mole. Anti-Jewish bigotry still courses through the party. Anyone who thinks Labour’s antisemitism has gone away or is restricted to a tiny unrepresentative fringe is a fool.

FOREIGN POLICY Comments turned off

America Needs A Better Ukraine Strategy Shoshana Bryen

Posted By on February 4th, 2023

https://www.jewishpolicycenter.org/insight/

As Russia’s invasion of Ukraine heads into its second year, the American-led strategy of handing off weapons to Kyiv and hoping the underdog can defeat the overdog needs adjustment. Both US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley have expressed concerns about the US-German tank deal for Kyiv. But US F-16 fighter jets have been rumored as the next Ukrainian “ask.”

Supporters of the weapons-only strategy often cite Israel, usually with admiration. Israel doesn’t ask for, want, or have American forces fighting for it. With American weapons and outside support, Israel defeats its enemy and remains secure. This, they say, validates the Biden administration’s strategy.

It isn’t an exact analogy. Israel has an indigenous weapons and training capability and has spent its modern lifetime improving its ability to meet and defeat its enemies. Even so, it finds its ties, first to the US European Command (EUCOM) and now the US Central Command (USCENTCOM), a welcome source of allied cooperation. Israel isn’t asking for American troop support, but certainly sees itself as part of an integrated defense in the Red Sea and beyond.

Further, Israel’s state enemies have had battlefield doctrine, equipment, and outside political support that was manageable for Israel. Non-state actors represented challenges of a different, but not existential, nature. Iran in both its nuclear and terror-supporting modes presents a new threat and Israel’s doctrine has evolved accordingly.

Ukraine, on the other hand, faces Russia. And Russia’s military history is one of “grinding” until the enemy gives up. The number of Russians Moscow was willing to commit to battle has historically been endless, and the destruction of enemy infrastructure and civilian targets is part of the plan. Stalin’s war in Ukraine cost an estimated 3.9 million Ukrainian lives. An estimated 40,000 Soviet civilians died in a defensive battle at Stalingrad, along with 800,000 Axis troops and 1,100,000 Soviet forces killed, wounded, or captured. Overall, Russian figures show 8.6 million military casualties in WWII and 24-27 million casualties overall.

HOMELAND SECURITY Comments turned off

China Floats a Trial Balloon Over Montana Somehow a weather balloon ended up near U.S. missile bases. Sure.

Posted By on February 4th, 2023

https://www.wsj.com/articles/china-balloon-surveillance-montana-beijing-biden-administration-xi-jinping-antony-blinken-11675461302?mod=opinion_lead_pos1

Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Friday postponed his visit to Beijing scheduled for next week after a suspicious Chinese balloon was spotted over Montana. Good decision. But the public deserves to know more about this episode, and one uncomfortable lesson is that the U.S. homeland is increasingly vulnerable.

The Pentagon said Thursday night it had “detected and is tracking a high-altitude surveillance balloon” over the U.S. F-22 fighter jets and other assets were sent to examine the balloon, and one question is why the U.S. didn’t shoot it out of the sky. The Pentagon admits it’s been lurking in sovereign U.S. air space for “a couple of days,” notably near bases for U.S. nuclear missiles.

The military brass advised against shooting down the balloon, though the stated reason—risk of debris—seems manageable. No one doubts China would have shot down an American asset wandering over its bases. The Pentagon won’t say whether it may take out the balloon once it’s over water.

Beijing’s official explanation is that this is merely a hapless “civilian airship” that made a wrong turn and . . . ended up near U.S. intercontinental ballistic missile bases. “China regrets that the airship strayed into the United States,” the foreign ministry said.

So the balloon heads over the Aleutians, strays over Canada, but China acknowledges the balloon only after the U.S. announces it has been discovered over Montana? This isn’t believable, and the patent dishonesty will add to the U.S. public’s growing mistrust of China.