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Russia/Ukraine…look over there…but wait: Shanghai! Diane Bederman

Posted By on April 28th, 2022

https://dianebederman.com/russia-ukraine-look-over-there-but-wait-shanghai/

While our attention has been drawn to Russia/Ukraine: look over there! 24/7, Covid is back.  Shanghai is under assault.  On China’s central coast, Shanghai is the country’s biggest city and a global financial hub. Let me repeat, Shanghai is a global financial hub and major port – as in supply chain. To put it simply, Shanghai is one of only four port-cities in the world to be categorized as a large-port Megacity, due to its high volumes of port traffic and large urban population. One would think it would be important to pay attention when a major port city…in China…is shut down. But we are overwhelmed by news from Ukraine. There are 44 million people in the entire country of Ukraine – or there were before the war. There is an expectation that 8 million Ukrainians will flee. There are 26 million people in the city of Shanghai. We care about the people in Ukraine but not in Shanghai – why is that? We are watching people starve and cruelty to animals and don’t seem to care.

Right now, anyone with a positive Covid result is held in an isolation centre, some of which have been newly created from converted gymnasiums and exhibition halls. Authorities have installed fences to restrict the population’s movement. Green barriers have appeared without warning outside buildings where those inside are forbidden from leaving.  There are metal barriers in multiple districts to block off small streets and entrances to apartment complexes

Oh, like a ghetto, but not.

If that isn’t good enough, Shanghai city officials said infected patients and close contacts will be transferred to government-run centralized quarantine. Can’t begin to imagine how Trudeau would handle this in Canada!

WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Turkey Escalating Aggression against Greece: 90 Overflights in One Day by Uzay Bulut

Posted By on April 27th, 2022

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/18434/turkey-aggression-greece-airspace

Turkish military aircraft violated Greek airspace 90 times in one day, on April 15, and conducted three overflights of inhabited Greek islands, according to Greek media.

Turkish aircraft have, in fact, been violating Greek airspace almost non-stop since the beginning of the year. In fact, Turkey — both its government and political opposition — has for years openly been threatening to capture Greek islands in the Aegean Sea…. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine seems to offer a convenient precedent for Turkey to increase its military aggression against Greece.

“Once again we wish to reiterate that sovereignty over the islands, islets and rocks of the Aegean was ceded to Greece definitively and unconditionally by the above Treaties and any interpretation against the letter or spirit of these fundamental Treaties would amount to an unauthorized attempt to unilaterally review and modify them.” — Greece’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations, Maria Theofili.

The legal status of the Greek islands in the Aegean is clear: The Treaty of Lausanne set the borders of Turkey and Greece, with the exception of the then-Italian occupied Dodecanese islands that reunited with Greece in 1947 following the signing of the Paris Peace Treaty between Italy and the World War II Allies.

Greek sovereignty over those islands is stipulated by international conventions: The 1923 Lausanne Treaty, the 1936 Montreux Treaty, and the 1947 Paris Treaty.

Sadly, Turkey appears to have an expansionist agenda that has a centuries-long history and that Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has articulated.

Greece does not have such an agenda. Greece has not been busy invading or threatening its neighbors or other nations in the Middle East.

Turkey, however, invaded northern Cyprus in 1974, forcibly displaced the Greek Christians living there, and has been maneuvering to acquire the rest. In 2018, Turkey also invaded northern Syria and, using jihadist paramilitary forces, has been occupying the region ever since.

While the world has been distracted by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Turkey, a member of the NATO alliance, has been busy harassing another NATO member, its Western neighbor, Greece.

Turkish military aircraft violated Greek airspace 90 times in one day, on April 15, and conducted three overflights of inhabited Greek islands, according to Greek media.

BOOKS Comments turned off

DOUGLAS MURRAY’S NEW BOOK-“THE WAR ON THE WEST”

Posted By on April 27th, 2022

China has concentration camps now. Why do Westerners claim our sins are unique?

It is now in vogue to celebrate non-Western cultures and disparage Western ones. Some of this is a much-needed reckoning, but much of it fatally undermines the very things that created the greatest, most humane civilization in the world.

In The War on the West, Douglas Murray shows how many well-meaning people have been fooled by hypocritical and inconsistent anti-West rhetoric. After all, if we must discard the ideas of Kant, Hume, and Mill for their opinions on race, shouldn’t we discard Marx, whose work is peppered with racial slurs and anti-Semitism? Embers of racism remain to be stamped out in America, but what about the raging racist inferno in the Middle East and Asia?

It’s not just dishonest scholars who benefit from this intellectual fraud but hostile nations and human rights abusers hoping to distract from their own ongoing villainy. Dictators who slaughter their own people are happy to jump on the “America is a racist country” bandwagon and mimic the language of antiracism and “pro-justice” movements as PR while making authoritarian conquests.

If the West is to survive, it must be defended.The War on the West is not only an incisive takedown of foolish anti-Western arguments but also a rigorous new apologetic for civilization itself.

MEDIA Comments turned off

MSNBC Host Frets About Musk Taking Over Twitter in Pathological Display of Liberal Projection Ari Melber’s embarrassing display was just a case of liberal projection on steroids. By Debra Heine

Posted By on April 27th, 2022

https://amgreatness.com/2022/04/26/msnbc-host-frets-about-musk-taking-over-twitter-in-pathological-display-of-liberal-projection/

A video of MSNBC host Ari Melber on Monday fretting that SpaceX and Tesla CEO Elon Musk could use Twitter to “secretly ban” or “turn down the reach” of a major party’s candidate has gone viral, and for good reason. Never has there been a more glaring and pathological example of liberal projection on display—and many conservatives are reacting with stunned disbelief.

The “Rubin Report’s” Dave Rubin tweeted, “This is exactly what the Machine\Left\Democrats have done to their opponents for years, you absolute [clown]@AriMelber. Enjoy the ride into irrelevance . . .”

“He’s merely reciting what Twitter did to conservatives. But he doesn’t realize it or convinced himself it didn’t happen,” wrote radio host Jason Rantz.

Former diplomat Richard Grenell, who served as Donald Trump’s acting director of national intelligence, tweeted: “Breaking: @AriMelber was born yesterday. Happy Belated Birthday, Ari.”

During the Monday evening episode of “The Beat with Ari Melber,” the host perfectly described what Twitter had become before Musk’s takeover—a mechanism for narrative control benefitting one political party.

Melber argued that as the owner of Twitter, Musk does not have to explain himself: “You don’t even have to be transparent. You could secretly ban one party’s candidate, or all of its candidates, all of its nominees!” he warned with wide-eyed horror. “Or you could just secretly turn down the reach of their stuff and turn up the reach of something else and the rest of us might not even find out about it til after the election.”

CHARLOTTE'S NEWS WEB, NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Under Biden, meritocracy is breathing its last gasps By Ed Brodow

Posted By on April 27th, 2022

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2022/04/under_biden_meritocracy_is_breathing_its_last_gasps.html

“If you want the best brain surgeon to operate on you, or the best pilot to fly your plane, too bad. You’ll get the most diverse one instead. ”

Joe Biden is overseeing massive sociological damage.  Meritocracy and competence, bulwarks of our society, are being replaced with diversity and equity.  Biden has surrendered to the extreme left wing of the Democrat party, which endorses the replacement of meritocracy with race-based criteria for advancement. “If you’re black or Pacific Islander or Hispanic, go to the head of the line for a job, a promotion, a place at Harvard,” said author David Horowitz.  “If you’re white, forget that place at Harvard, you’re screwed.”

Biden’s dislike of meritocracy is supported by current notions of diversity, equity, and Critical Race Theory.  Meritocracy and diversity are opposites.  Instead of promoting people based on competence, advocates for diversity want promotions to be based on race and sex.  Heather Mac Donald, author of The Diversity Delusion, has warned about the consequences of this trend.  Countries like China and Russia, she said, are meritocracies.  When you are a scientist in China, they don’t give a damn about your race or sex.  If the U.S. falls prey to identity politics, we will never be able to compete on the world stage.  Within twenty years, we could easily turn into a third-world country.

Evidence of the trend is everywhere.  Colleges and universities are using a quota system for admission based on race.  United Airlines announced last year that by 2030, 50 percent of its flight school students will be chosen from among minorities and women.  At 30,000 feet, who wants an affirmative action pilot sitting in the cockpit?

ISRAEL Comments turned off

Palestinians Find the Aid Cupboard is Bare The good times for the Palestinian Authority are over. Hugh Fitzgerald

Posted By on April 27th, 2022

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2022/04/palestinians-find-aid-cupboard-bare-hugh-fitzgerald/

The Palestinians were once the favored recipient of foreign aid, as billions of dollars were heaped upon them every year from so many the donors – the United States, Western European countries, and the Gulf Arab states. But since 2014, there has been a steady, precipitous drop in that aid, and now, so far in 2022, there has been no foreign aid coming in for the P.A at all. A report on the colossal drop in aid is here: “Foreign cash aid to Palestinian Authority so far this year: $0,” Elder of Ziyon, April 21, 2022:

Estephan Salameh, who is the advisor to Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas for aid coordination, says that no foreign countries have paid a red cent so far this year of their pledges to help the Palestinian budget.

He said, “We expect to receive 200 to 300 million dollars in international financial support for the Palestinian government treasury this year, but so far none of those financial pledges have arrived.”

Speaking to Voice of Palestine Radio, Salameh said that in 2021, the Palestinian Authority only received 10% of the amount it had gotten in 2013 and 2014. That was when the EU and Arab governments didn’t care about accountability or transparency.

In 2015, as the donor nations began to insist on an end to the colossal corruption in the PA, and made the momentous decision to cut their aid until “accountability and transparency” were instituted, they steadily turned down the spigot of aid until, with the PA still unable or unwilling to come clean about its finances, by 2021 the PA was receiving only 10% of what it had been getting just seven years before. And now, one-third of the way through 2021, the PA has received no aid from foreign donors.

EDUCATION, ISRAEL Comments turned off

The Anti-Israel Bias of the Middle East Studies Association Look who’s leading the boycotting of Israel. Joseph Puder

Posted By on April 27th, 2022

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2022/04/shameful-anti-israel-bias-middle-east-studies-joseph-puder/

The anti-Israel and antisemitic Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) Movement were given another win by an American academic association this time; it was the Middle East Studies Association (MESA). On March 23, 2022, its membership approved a resolution endorsing “the Palestinian call for solidarity in the form of Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS).” The vote was 768-167 in favor of the resolution, which held Israel accountable for alleged human rights violations as suggested by the pro-Palestinian-led organization. The resolution calls for an academic boycott of Israeli institutions and universities. 

It is rather ironic, if not extremely cynical that the actual founder of the BDS Movement, Omar Barghouti, a Palestinian-Arab who was born in Qatar, not in “Palestine,” received his Master’s degree in philosophy in the heartland of Zionist Israel, at Tel Aviv University. He and many of his fellow Palestinian students have enjoyed total academic freedom there, including participation in anti-Israel demonstrations, that they wouldn’t dare hold in Palestinian universities, where they would likely be beaten, arrested, banished, or even killed. 

The same Barghouti who incites against Israel worldwide, with charges of “apartheid,” declared in June 2013, “We have no faith in the so-called negotiations,” and rejected the idea of a two-state solution. He has likewise rejected peace between Israel and the Palestinians, and advocates the dissolution of the Jewish state. When asked by an Arab interviewer Ali Mustafa (Electronic Intifada, May 2009) to explain calling Israel “an apartheid state,” he claimed that “he doesn’t need to prove it…” 

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

A Tyranny of Moral Minorities When the will of 2% of the country is imposed on the other 98%. Daniel Greenfield

Posted By on April 27th, 2022

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2022/04/tyranny-moral-minorities-daniel-greenfield/

When pilots and flight attendants announced the end of the mask mandate in-flight, most passengers cheered. Everyone except the media which claimed the masked were the victims.

Biden, in an unexpected moment of sanity, said, “it’s up to them” whether people wear masks.

But since Biden has as much impact on the policy of his administration as the shoeshine guy at Union Station, the DOJ and the CDC have triggered a legal challenge to the federal court ruling.

Biden and the entire D.C. elite don’t like wearing masks. Most people don’t. Universal masking is mandated to accommodate a vocal minority, most of whom are not immunocompromised or otherwise especially vulnerable, but who still demand that everyone accommodate them.

This tyranny of minorities has long since come to define the Democrat coalition which knits together single-issue victimhood voters whose pet issue, whether it’s police shootings, green energy, racial justice, men pretending they’re women, or the right of teachers to sexually indoctrinate kindergartners against the wishes of their parents, must take precedence.

That is why the Biden administration will fight for an otherwise unpopular mask mandate.

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Diversity, Free Speech, and the ‘Woke’ Assault on America We are living in Orwellian times. Bruce Thornton

Posted By on April 27th, 2022

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2022/04/diversity-free-speech-and-woke-assault-america-bruce-thornton/

Tech plutocrat Elon Musk announces he is buying Twitter to liberate this “virtual town square” from one-sided political censorship – and he is met with hysterical charges that he is attacking free speech. A woman who reposts TikTok videos of “woke” teachers bragging about their sexualize of children in their classrooms, is attacked by a Washington Post reporter who harasses the woman’s family in order to silence an enemy of “free speech” and purveyor of “hate” – just days after the reporter appeared in a video and bursts into tears over getting the same treatment she later inflicts on the anonymous creator of Libs on TikTok.

We are clearly living in Orwellian times, when the ambitions of tyrannical power are camouflaged by debased language, incoherent thought, and patent double-standards. Like the Newspeak of 1984, our progressive media abuses words like “diversity” and “free speech” to make them mean their opposites: a uniform orthodoxy protected and enforced by censorship. As long ago as Thucydides, this abuse of language and thought was recognized as the enemy of freedom and the precursor of a tyranny that reduces the diversity of opinion and ideas into one monolithic, oppressive dogma.

Since its creation in the ancient Athenian democracy, free speech has been the sine qua non of a political order that includes a wide diversity of citizens, not just the rich and educated elites who monopolized power in oligarchic or autocratic regimes. Since political discussion and deliberation were conducted through public speeches, citizens had to be protected from reprisals for, or limitations on their diverse opinions and their particular ways of expressing them.

True diversity – the diversity of thought and opinion – is intimately connected to free speech, itself one of the most critical foundations of political freedom, and most important bulwarks against tyranny.

This freedom of speech given to social and economic inferiors was one of the major criticisms of democracy in arguments against politically enfranchising non-elites. Antidemocratic critics like Plato, an aristocrat and philosopher who favored rule by a technocratic elite, mocked the average Athenian who presumed to address his betters in the Assembly and the Council. Plato’s like-minded mentor Socrates mocked and slandered the masses as “dunces and weaklings,” the “fullers and the cobblers or the builders or the smiths or the farmers or the merchants or the traffickers in the market-place who think of nothing but buying cheap and selling dear.”

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Wikipedia Bias By John Stossel

Posted By on April 27th, 2022

https://pjmedia.com/columns/john-stossel/2022/04/27/wikipedia-bias-n1593132

“Look up “concentration and internment camps” and you’ll find, along with the Holocaust, “Mexico-United States border,” and under that, “Trump administration family separation policy.”

I love Wikipedia. I donated thousands of dollars to the Wikimedia Foundation. Before Wikipedia, all we had were printed encyclopedias — out of date by the time we bought them.

Then libertarian Jimmy Wales came up with a web-based, crowd-sourced encyclopedia.Crowd-sourced? A Britannica editor called Wikipedia “a public restroom.” But Wales won the battle. Britannica’s encyclopedias are no longer printed. 

Congratulations to Wales.But recently I learned that Wikipedia co-founder Larry Sanger now says Wikipedia’s political pages have turned into leftist “propaganda.”That’s upsetting. Leftists took over the editing?

Sadly, yes. I checked it out.