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In Iran, stonings and beatings create a necropolis for the living By Nicole Sadighi

Posted By on November 1st, 2022

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2022/11/in_iran_stonings_and_beatings_create_a_necropolis_for_the_living.html

In 2007, a very disturbing video was smuggled out of the Islamic Republic in Iran, recording the stoning of a number of Iranians.

Watching the video is extremely upsetting.

The disturbing video begins with a lashing of one person. After that, Hojjatoleslam Ali Razini, who was the head of Tehran’s judiciary at the time, announced the verdict for the accused men on the amplifier. They were brought to the center of an arena like lambs to the slaughter, surrounded by a baying crowd of fanatics, who had scavenged rocks to use as weapons, and drooled like bloodthirsty wolves for their first kill. The condemned men were covered in white shrouds, as men with spades dug and filled their death pits around them.

ENVIRONMENT AND JUNK SCIENCE Comments turned off

John Murawski: ‘Zero Emissions’ From Electric Vehicles? Here’s Why That Claim Has Zero Basis

Posted By on November 1st, 2022

https://www.realclearinvestigations.com/authors/john_murawski/

As California, New York, and other states move to phase out the sale of gasoline-powered cars, public officials routinely echo the Biden administration’s claim that electric vehicles are a “zero emissions” solution that can significantly mitigate the effects of climate change. 

Car and energy experts, however, say there is no such thing as a zero-emissions vehicle: For now and the foreseeable future, the energy required to manufacture and power electric cars will leave a sizable carbon footprint. In some cases hybrids can be cleaner alternatives in states that depend on coal to generate electricity, and some suggest that it may be too rash to write off all internal combustion vehicles just yet. 

Ashley Nunes, Harvard Law researcher: Buy a Tesla? “If you care about the environment, keep the Kia,” he says.
ashley-nunes.com

“I have a friend who drives a Kia he’s had for about 15 years,” said Ashley Nunes, a research fellow at Harvard Law School. “He called me and said, ‘Hey, I’m thinking of buying a Tesla. What do you think?’” 

“I said, ‘If you care about the environment, keep the Kia,’” Nunes said. 

Nunes’ advice points to the subtle complexities and numerous variables that challenge the reassuringly simple yet overstated promise of electric vehicles. Few dispute that the complete transition to EVs powered by cleaner electricity from renewable energy sources will have a less dire environmental impact than today’s gas-powered automotive fleet. But that low-carbon landscape exists on a distant horizon that’s booby-trapped with obstacles and popular misconceptions. 

BOOKS Comments turned off

The General and Mrs. Hemingway (Martha Gellhorn) An Adaptation from “Taking Berlin: The Bloody Race to Defeat the Third Reich”

Posted By on November 1st, 2022

https://www.realclearbooks.com/articles/2022/11/01/the_general_and_mrs_hemingway_862199.html

The following is an adapted excerpt from “Taking Berlin: The Bloody Race to Defeat the Third Reich” by Martin Dugard.

General James Gavin was a dangerous man.

Tall, powerful, charismatic. Abandoned by his parents at age two and adopted by a coal miner. Dropped out of school in eighth grade, enlisted in the army at seventeen, went on to graduate West Point and rise through the ranks, becoming a two-star general at just thirty-seven. Paratrooper with four combat jumps to his credit, including the Normandy D-Day invasion. The “Jumping General” was always in the lead C-47 and first man leaping out the door: thirteen-inch Randall knife strapped to his rig, .45 holstered on the right hip, and M-1 carbine wedged into his parachute harness.  He used each of these weapons with deadly precision.

But on October 15, 1944, General James Gavin met his match.

The last year of World War II saw combat on an epic scale, from D-Day in June, Market Garden in September, and the grizzly winter fighting of Hurtgen Forest and Battle of the Bulge. To the east, the Soviet Union’s massive and now often overlooked Operation Bagration decimated Nazi Germany. Every day of fighting was focused around the eventual capture of the Nazi German capital of Berlin and bringing the war to a close.

Gavin and the unicorn who would become his unlikely lover and confidante could lay claim to playing vital roles in these pivotal months – for better and worse.

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

How The Surveillance State And Big Tech Colluded To Make Twitter ‘Disinformation’ The New Terrorism By: John Daniel Davidson

Posted By on November 1st, 2022

https://thefederalist.com/2022/11/01/how-the-surveillance-state-and-big-tech-colluded-to-make-twitter-disinformation-the-new-terrorism/

Federal law enforcement agencies originally created to protect us from terrorists are now being used to protect us from ourselves.

The late, great Angelo Codevilla maintained that America’s response to 9/11 was fundamentally flawed because it adopted a law enforcement approach to what is essentially a foreign policy problem. He argued that the law enforcement approach — the idea that we could detect and disrupt terrorist plots before they come to fruition, and arrest those responsible — required the construction of a vast state security and surveillance apparatus that would eventually, when the terrorist threat subsided, be turned on American citizens.

As in so much else, Codevilla was prophetic.

Earlier this week, a deeply reported piece by Ken Klippenstein and Lee Fang of The Intercept revealed an “expansive effort” by the Department of Homeland Security to curb speech it considers dangerous by pressuring tech platforms to engage in online censorship. Although DHS’s widely ridiculed “Disinformation Governance Board” was scaled back and then shut down earlier this year amid well-deserved criticism, “other initiatives are underway as DHS pivots to monitoring social media now that its original mandate — the war on terror — has been wound down.”

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

What Is Democracy? Roger Kimball Roger Kimball

Posted By on November 1st, 2022

https://www.theepochtimes.com/what-is-democracy_4831266.html?utm_source=ref_share&utm_campaign=copy&rs=0

Leaving aside the attack micro-drama involving Paul Pelosi, the Democrats seem to have two issues going into the midterm elections: abortion and democracy.

Neither seems to be getting much purchase with voters.

For reasons that seem puzzling to Democratic strategists, making the slaughter of the unborn (or, for some “make them comfortable” Dems, the recently born) a major plank on your platform just didn’t resonate with most women.

Or, rather, it resonated negatively, partly because it was transparently a cynical attempt at political manipulation, and partly because, for the vast majority of women, motherhood is an important part of their lives. The prospect of blighting that part of themselves doesn’t rally the troops.

Appeals to “democracy” is a little more complicated, but no less saturated with cynicism.

As attentive readers will have noticed, the word “democracy” is appealed to whenever it looks as though Democrats might lose.

One sign that this is about to happen is the promiscuous deployment of the phrase “our democracy.”

They really mean it. It’s not your democracy, peon.

If you voted for a Republican, you voted “against our democracy.”

As I have put it elsewhere, what “democracy” means to them is “rule by Democrats.”

WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Turkey: 243 Sleepless Nights for Erdoğan by Burak Bekdil

Posted By on November 1st, 2022

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/19026/erdogan-sleepless-nights

Yöneylem’s poll also found that 63% of respondents say Turkey is being “badly governed,” and 58.7% say that they “would never vote for Erdoğan.” Only 33.3% of the respondents said they would vote for Erdoğan while 55.6% said they would vote for the opposition candidate.

The numbers predict an easy win for the opposition and a historical defeat for Erdoğan. Clearly, 2023 will be the first election since 2022 in which Erdoğan is not the clear favorite. But a smooth, democratic transfer of power is unlikely.

Six opposition parties, CHP, IYI and four small groupings with different ideologies, have come together to pick a joint presidential candidate against Erdoğan. The most likely candidate will be CHP leader Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu, a social democrat…

In this complex picture, Turkey’s Kurdish minority, representing 11%-13% of the national electorate, will probably be the kingmaker. Erdoğan’s ultra-nationalist (and anti-Kurdish) policies have distanced Kurdish voters from his AKP, although Islamist Kurds still have a tendency to vote for him.

A new spiral of terror attacks may make Turks feel they must unite behind their president. Billions of dollars flowing unofficially into the Turkish economy, from friendly countries like Qatar and Russia, may make starving Turks feel like they will soon be better off.

Alternatively, Erdoğan could be tempted to manipulate the election result.

What happens if Erdoğan loses the presidential election by a narrow margin, and the AKP and MHP lose their parliamentary majority — a total end of the Erdoğan era, in other words? A near civil war.

Erdoğan’s violent loyalists will blame the defeat on a foreign plot, accusing the CIA, the Mossad, you name it.

In every post-June 2023 scenario, Turkey just looks like a slow-sinking ship.

Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, Turkey’s Islamist president, has been invincible since he burst on the political scene three decades ago. In 1994, he was elected mayor of Istanbul, Turkey’s biggest city. In 2002, he was elected prime minister and, in 2014, president of Turkey. Since 2002, he has not lost a single parliamentary, municipal or presidential election. The dream story, however, may be over in June 2023 when Turks will vote in twin presidential and parliamentary elections.

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Scandal-Ridden San Francisco FBI Field Office Involved in Pelosi Investigation Given the highly partisan nature of the FBI, and the San Francisco field office in particular, there is no reason to believe FBI brass will do anything more than run cover for the Pelosis. By Julie Kelly

Posted By on November 1st, 2022

https://amgreatness.com/2022/10/31/scandal-ridden-san-francisco-fbi-field-office-involved-in-pelosi-investigation/

No one should accept at face value the strange account of what happened to Paul Pelosi, husband of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), at their California home last week.

Plenty of factors—a wholly dishonest news media, unsubstantiated claims the attacker was a foiled assassin who planned to kill the speaker of the House, and Mr. Pelosi’s recent legal troubles, to name a few—feed justified skepticism surrounding the alleged break-in and hammer attack that occurred in the wee hours of October 28. Details continue to change while leading Democrats including Hillary Clinton blame the incident, without evidence, on Republicans and Donald Trump.

This situation is yet another example of how the public’s complete lack of faith in major institutions is fueling doubt and suspicion. Unfortunately, that level of distrust extends to the Federal Bureau of Investigation, a once-revered agency that has blown its reputation in service to the Democratic Party. And news that the San Francisco FBI field office is taking a lead role in the Pelosi investigation offers little comfort that the American people will ever find out the truth of the matter.

The San Francisco field office, like the bureau’s Washington, D.C. headquarters and many other offices across the country, is mired in scandal. It’s particularly true as it relates to the FBI’s cozy ties to Big Tech—and the San Francisco FBI office is ground zero for that quid pro quo relationship. Rather than investigate the nearly 300 Big Tech companies within its Silicon Valley jurisdiction for various offenses such as election interference, the San Francisco FBI office appears instead to be in cahoots with these powerful corporate interests to do the Democratic Party’s dirty work.

Few people benefit more than Nancy Pelosi, who of course happens to live in San Francisco. Democratic candidates and lawmakers are flush with campaign donations from Big Tech; in 2020 alone, Facebook and Twitter—the latter located in Pelosi’s congressional district and the former located just outside its boundaries—donated at least $5.5 million to Democrats and only a paltry $435,000 to Republicans, a 12-1 ratio in favor of Pelosi’s party. Conversely, threats made by leading Democrats to break up Big Tech or hold congressional hearings into alleged malfeasance have been slow-walked since Pelosi reclaimed the speaker’s gavel.

HOMELAND SECURITY Comments turned off

Democrats are systematically destroying our military By Andrea Widburg

Posted By on November 1st, 2022

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2022/10/democrats_are_systematically_destroying_our_military.html

A little over a week ago, the Heritage Foundation issued a report that did not get the attention it deserves. The report is entitled “2023 Index of U.S. Military Strength,” and it details how significantly the U.S. military has declined under the not-so-tender care of the leftists in charge of the White House and the Pentagon. Indeed, if one considers China to be our greatest geopolitical foe, it’s questionable whether our military has the ability to fight, let alone win.

The 2023 Index has an executive summary that pretty much says it all:

As currently postured, the U.S. military is at growing risk of not being able to meet the demands of defending America’s vital national interests. It is rated as weak relative to the force needed to defend national interests on a global stage against actual challenges in the world as it is rather than as we wish it were. This is the logical consequence of years of sustained use, underfunding, poorly defined priorities, wildly shifting security policies, exceedingly poor discipline in program execution, and a profound lack of seriousness across the national security establishment even as threats to U.S. interests have surged.

The summary explains that “The condition of America’s military power is measured in terms of its capability or modernity, capacity for operations, and readiness to handle assigned missions.” These metrics are measured against specific military objectives: defending American soil, successfully concluding a major war that poses a serious threat to America, and preserving “freedom of movement within the global commons (the sea, air, outer space, and cyberspace domains) through which the world conducts its business.” Except for the Marines, which have managed to resist the Pentagon’s “woke” obsessions, every one of America’s forces is in increasingly dire straits.

The threats are those you would expect: Russia, China, North Korea, Iran, and other bad actors. What’s depressing is the grades assigned to the various branches of the military.

ELECTIONS Comments turned off

The ‘Hands Off Our Kids!’ Election By J.B. Shurk

Posted By on November 1st, 2022

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2022/10/the_hands_off_our_kids_election.html

It is often said that good political campaigns are forward-looking.  Obama sold “hope and change.”  Trump promised to “Make America Great Again.”  With control of Congress and the presidency heading into the 2022 midterm elections, what future are Joe Biden and his fellow Democrats offering to lure voters toward their side?  It appears to be one in which boys are celebrated as girls, education is reduced to political indoctrination, and Green New Deal policies continue to exacerbate food and fuel costs.

What is the Democrats’ argument for re-election?  Despite staggering inflation, crime, and illegal immigration, things could be much worse?  If you loved masks and lockdowns, get ready for more?  You’ll forget about the pain at the pump once war with Russia officially begins?  Celebrate the future by mutilating and aborting the children of today?  Whatever future Democrats are selling voters, it is bereft of hope, is riddled with pain, steals from Americans’ depleted savings, and leaves those growing up today with little but spare change.

Should the midterm vote end up going decidedly in Republicans’ favor, perhaps it will be remembered as the “Save Our Kids” election.  More than any other issues, Democrats are enthusiastically vocal about their support for unrestricted abortion and gender reassignment surgeries for confused children.  Their rallying cry could be, “Vote for us, and we’ll help you dispose of unwanted children or at least redesign them according to taste.”  Those might feel like winning issues to a gaggle of champagne socialists imbibing w(h)ine spritzers over brunch, but to Americans who cherish marriage and family life, they seem downright ghoulish.  Once you throw in video footage of Creepy Joe Biden, whose senility remains unobservable only to the White House press corps, regularly invading the personal space of young girls squirming in distress, the Democrats’ midterm message looks like little more than a grim promise to sniff, maim, and murder America’s children on demand.  If you hate children, that’s some future!

WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

The Murder of Political Prisoners in Tehran An evil regime exhibits its barbarism. by Struan Stevenson

Posted By on November 1st, 2022

https://www.frontpagemag.com/the-murder-of-political-prisoners-in-tehran/

There is growing international concern at recent developments in Iran and in particular at the increasingly vicious tactics employed by the theocratic regime in its bid to crush nationwide protests. Media reports state that there have been more than 200 deaths so far as the uprising enters its fifth week. However, information provided by resistance units of the main opposition Mojahedin-e Khalq (MEK) inside Iran indicate that more than 400 people have been killed. The Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) and the paramilitary Basij have used batons, steel rods, tear gas, shotguns and live ammunition to kill and maim mostly young protesters, many of whom are women and young girls. More than 20,000 people have been arrested. The insurrection has now spread to 193 cities and involves all 31 provinces in Iran.

The latest outrage took place at the notorious Evin Prison in Tehran. Following widespread protests from political prisoners inside Evin, a fire was reported in the prison on the evening of October 15th. Spokesmen for the regime claimed an “accidental” fire had begun in a sewing room and according to state-run media reports, four prisoners died of smoke inhalation. They later revised that figure to eight. In fact, it now appears that the death toll was much higher and there is mounting evidence that the entire incident was pre-planned by the regime in order that they could mount a lethal assault on the protesting political prisoners. Witnesses said that up to sixty prisoners, mostly from Ward 7, were killed by prison guards and by the IRGC, Basij and Special Police Force (NOPO).