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February 2019

ISRAEL Comments turned off

Israel’s attorney general decided to bring charges in all three investigations against Netanyahu. By David Isaac

By on February 28th, 2019

Israeli Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit announced on Thursday that he will file charges in all three criminal investigations against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The decision was expected throughout the day, and tension was high in political circles ahead of the long-awaited announcement.The charges came despite a last-minute Likud effort to convince Israel’s High Court of Justice on Thursday to stop the attorney general from making the announcement, arguing that it would cause “unprecedented interference” in the political system.

However, High Court justice Noam Sohlberg rejected the petition.Netanyahu faces charges in Cases 1000, 2000 and 4000.In Case 4000, (aka the Bezeq-Walla! Affair) Mandelblit charged Netanyahu with bribery. In Case 1000, (the Illegal Gifts Affair) Mandelblit brought lesser charges of fraud and breach of trust. In Case 2000, (the Yediot Ahronot-Israel Hayom Affair) Mandelblit will charge with breach of trust only.Case 4000Case 4000 is reportedly the strongest case against Netanyahu in the opinion of the State Attorney’s Office. In that case, Netanyahu is accused of driving through a merger for businessman Shaul Elovitch in return for favorable coverage on website Walla!Netanyahu maintains that the merger involving Bezeq, Israel’s largest telecommunications firm and Yes, a satellite TV provider, both owned by Elovitch, was carried out by the book.

Netanyahu also argues that coverage at Walla! was not positive toward him, undermining the case.

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POLITICS Comments turned off

Ilhan Omar Fears Her ‘Jewish Colleagues’ Are Using Anti-Semitism Charge to Shutdown Debate By Jack Crowe

By on February 28th, 2019

https://www.nationalreview.com/news/ilhan-omar-fears-her-jewish-colleagues-are-using-anti-semitism-charge-to-shutdown-debate/

Representative Ilhan Omar (D., Minn.) pushed back Wednesday against the rash of anti-Semitism accusations that have been leveled against her since she was elected, suggesting her “Jewish colleagues” and others may use accusations of bigotry to chill debate over U.S. policy toward Israel.

“What I’m fearful of — because Rashida and I are Muslim — that a lot of our Jewish colleagues, a lot of our constituents, a lot of our allies, go to thinking that everything we say about Israel to be anti-Semitic because we are Muslim,” said Omar, who was joined at the “Progressive Townhall” event in Washington, D.C. by fellow freshman representative Rashida Tlaib (D., Mich.).

“To me, it’s something that becomes designed to end the debate because you get in this space of – yes, I know what intolerance looks like and I’m sensitive when someone says, ‘The words you used Ilhan are resemblance of intolerance,’” [sic] Omar continued. “And I am cautious of that and I feel pained by that. But it’s almost as if, every single time we say something regardless of what it is we say . . . we get to be labeled something. And that ends the discussion. Because we end up defending that and nobody ever gets to have the broader debate of what is happening with Palestine.”

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P.C.-CULTURE Comments turned off

Bioethicists Urge Animal Research into Male Uterus Transplants By Wesley J. Smith ?????!!!!

By on February 28th, 2019

https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/bioethicists-urge-animal-research-into-male-uterus-transplants/

Years ago the crassly utilitarian Fletcher — who has been called the “patriarch of bioethics” –swooned at the prospect of males giving birth in his 1988 book The Ethics of Genetic Control:

[T]ransplant or replacement medicine foresees the day, after the automatic rejection of alien tissue is overcome, when a uterus can be implanted in a human male’s body—his abdomen has spaces—and gestation started by artificial fertilization and egg transfer.

Hypogonadism could be used to stimulate milk from the man’s rudimentary breasts—men too have mammary glands. If surgery could not construct a cervical canal the delivery could be effected by a Caesarean section and the male or transsexualized mother could nurse his own baby.

It was a classic “it will never happen” argument. Nobody took it seriously. But once again, we find that if radicals envision it, eventually we will try to go there.

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FOREIGN POLICY, WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

A Welcome Failure By The Editors

By on February 28th, 2019

https://www.nationalreview.com/2019/02/a-welcome-failure/

Donald Trump walked away from talks with North Korea, the best possible outcome given that he never should have walked into the talks to begin with.

In the unlikely event that North Korea wanted to give up its nuclear program, it could have demonstrated its commitment over time in low-level talks building toward an agreement. Instead, President Trump took the high-wire route of two direct meetings with Kim Jong-un, giving the North Korea dictator, if nothing else, an incalculable propaganda coup by enhancing his international standing.

Worse, Trump couldn’t help but make boosterish comments about the Supreme Leader, who enslaves and immiserates his people. In Hanoi, he even professed to take seriously Kim Jong-un’s denial that he had anything to do with Otto Warmbier’s murder, as if rogue security services are kidnapping and torturing Americans on their own initiative in the most tightly controlled society on Earth.

All signs were that the North Koreans were heading to a diplomatic win, getting sanctions relief — as well as a U.S. liaison office in Pyongyang and a formal end to the Korean War — in exchange for steps to dismantle its Yongbyon enrichment facility. This is a version of the sucker’s deal that the U.S. has fallen for time and again with the North. Pyongyang’s play is to pocket any economic relief and diplomatic recognition, and then cheat on its commitments. Indeed, President Trump revealed that we are aware of a second, heretofore unknown enrichment facility.

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FOREIGN POLICY, WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Trump Walks on Kim Give him credit for refusing to accept less than denuclearization.

By on February 28th, 2019

https://www.wsj.com/articles/trump-walks-on-kim-11551389478
President Trump’s critics are carping that his top-down negotiating model undermined his nuclear summit with Kim Jong Un because the details hadn’t been settled on at lower levels of diplomacy. We give Mr. Trump more credit for walking away from a deal that would not have required North Korea to give up its nuclear weapons.

Despite the long history of the North’s military threats, only recently has it developed and tested both nuclear bombs and the missiles to deliver them across the Pacific. The Hwasong-15 missile, successfully tested in late 2017, is theoretically able to reach deep into the U.S. mainland. For the current U.S. Presidency, which happens to be Donald Trump’s, that is the hard reality. Something has to be done about this threat, and Mr. Trump has thrown away diplomatic convention to address it.

One can quibble about Mr. Trump’s negotiating style—the over-the-top buttering up of the North Korean dictator, pushing the process to a summit before the principals on either side had arrived at a mutually agreed framework. But in the event, President Trump was willing to walk away without the deal Mr. Kim was offering. It was the right decision.

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WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Political Scandal Worsens for Canada’s Justin Trudeau Former justice minister says prime minister’s top aides repeatedly pressed her to drop the prosecution of SNC-Lavalin By Paul Vieira and Kim Mackrael

By on February 28th, 2019

https://www.wsj.com/articles/political-scandal-worsens-for-canadas-justin-trudeau-11551312209

OTTAWA—A political firestorm surrounding Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau became more damaging Wednesday, as his ex-justice minister accused his top aides of repeatedly pressuring her to drop the prosecution of a global engineering and construction firm.

The testimony delivered by Jody Wilson-Raybould to a parliamentary committee offered the most detailed version yet of events fueling a scandal that risks upending Mr. Trudeau’s re-election effort later this year. She said that between September and December, she and her staff had roughly 10 phone calls and 10 meetings about the matter involving SNC-Lavalin Group Inc. with Mr. Trudeau’s senior aides and other government officials, including staff from the finance minister’s office.

“I experienced a consistent and sustained effort by many people within the government to seek to politically interfere in the exercise of prosecutorial discretion,” Ms. Wilson-Raybould said.

The former justice minister recounted how senior government officials, mostly from Mr. Trudeau’s office, attempted to persuade her to order prosecutors to cut a plea deal with SNC-Lavalin, which is based in the politically important province of Quebec. A plea deal would have allowed SNC-Lavalin to avoid a decadelong ban on bidding on government contracts in Canada and elsewhere.

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MEDIA Comments turned off

Jonah Goldberg, Steve Hayes Team Up for New ‘Trump-Skeptical’ Media Company By John Ellis

By on February 28th, 2019

https://pjmedia.com/trending/jonah-goldberg-steve-hayes-team-up-for-new-trump-skeptical-media-company/

Many people would say that Jonah Goldberg’s current employer, National Review, is already anti-Trump. Known for his barrage of #NeverTrump articles (in the issue of full disclosure, I’ve written my own barrage of #NeverTrump articles), Goldberg is enemy number 1 for many of President Trump’s most ardent supporters. They view the writer as a traitor to the conservative cause. Well, it appears that Goldberg is doubling down on his #NeverTrump position because the news broke this morning that he is leaving National Review in the coming months to help create a new conservative media company that is “Trump-skeptical.”

First reported by Mike Allen for Axios, Jonah Goldberg is teaming up with Steve Hayes, who was the editor-in-chief of the now-defunct Weekly Standard. According to Allen, “Goldberg and Hayes tell me they plan a reporting-driven, Trump-skeptical company that will begin with newsletters as soon as this summer, then add a website in September, and perhaps ultimately a print magazine.”

The new company doesn’t have a name yet and is seeking investors. Jonah Goldberg will serve as its editor-in-chief with Hayes stepping into the CEO role. According to Hayes, “We believe there’s a great appetite on the center-right for an independent conservative media company that resists partisan boosterism and combines a focus on old-school reporting with interesting and provocative commentary and analysis.”

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FOREIGN POLICY Comments turned off

Gordon Chang :At Hanoi summit, China’s Xi saw a president willing to walk away Edmund DeMarche

By on February 28th, 2019

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/chinas-xi-was-watching-hanoi-summit-and-saw-a-president-willing-to-walk-away-expert-says

President Trump may have hit a roadblock when North Korea’s Kim Jong Un refused to meet his demands at Thursday’s Hanoi summit, but Trump’s decision to walk away could serve to rattle China’s Xi Jinping.

Gordon Chang, an expert on the region and author of “The Coming Collapse of China,” argued that what on the surface looked like a diplomatic stalemate could in fact be a diplomatic coup for Trump when it comes to North Korea’s neighbor.

“I think this is a moment of reassessment for China,” Chang said.

Trump announced overnight that there’d be no deal in Vietnam because Kim was “unprepared” to fully denuclearize in exchange for the full removal of U.S.-led sanctions. Trump held a press conference where he said, “Sometimes you have to walk.”

Chang told Fox News that Trump also showed Beijing that he is not afraid to walk away from a bad deal amid trade talks and, in doing so, put added pressure on Xi, whose popularity appears to be waning due to the country’s economic stagnation. Chang said Xi has found himself in a “no win” situation: either he agrees to abandon the country’s “selfish” model or he continues to watch the economy suffer.

Trump recently postponed increasing tariffs on $200 billion in Chinese goods that would have been effective March 2. He has not given a new date for higher tariffs if negotiations falter.

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NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Cohen’s best shots at Trump miss their mark By Mark Penn,

By on February 28th, 2019

https://thehill.com/opinion/white-house/431954-cohens-best-shots-at-trump-miss-their-mark

After bilking corporations out of millions of dollars for “insight” into his client, failing to pay his taxes, trying to entrap his client, and pleading guilty to lying to Congress, now-disbarred attorney Michael Cohen took his best shots at President Donald Trump, calling him a liar and a cheat. The testimony brought Congress to a new low after years of dead-end investigations of supposed Russia-Trump conspiracies.

Yes, Trump was behind payments to women who may have had stories to tell. He and his counselor, Rudy Giuliani, already admitted they reimbursed Cohen for any payments he made. The stories these women had to tell were embarrassing but were not about any illegal behavior. It was not a crime to pay for their stories at any time, in any way. They were personal, not campaign expenditures.

This legal point was litigated in the past with the trial of former Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards, and the FEC has ruled that the Edwards payments — even from donors — were not campaign contributions. His checks to his paramour were not campaign expenditures.

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WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Ocasio-Cortez: Trump’s Wall is Like The Berlin Wall Could the irony be any richer? Humberto Fontova

By on February 28th, 2019

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/273004/ocasio-cortez-trumps-wall-berlin-wall-humberto-fontova

“I think it’s [Trump’s proposed border wall] a moral abomination… I think it’s like the Berlin Wall. I think it’s like any other wall designed to separate human beings and block out people who are running away from the humanitarian disasters. I just think it’s wrong.” — Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, February 20, 2019.

Could the irony be any richer? Could AOC’s “powers of reasoning” be showcased any more starkly? To wit:

The Berlin Wall (which even die-hard leftists like AOC seem to recognize as a “moral abomination”) was designed to keep desperate suffering people from escaping en masse from what Ocasio-Cortez and Bernie Sanders prescribe to make people happy.

Trump’s proposed border wall is designed to keep people who would elect people like Ocasio-Cortez and Sanders to afflict us with their socio-economic prescriptions from becoming future U.S. voters.

Given the above, can you imagine a worthier project than the border wall?

And speaking of people (literally) dying to flee socialism, did many of my amigos realize that OVER TEN TIMES as many people (and counting) have died attempting to flee Communist Cuba (which liberals routinely praise) than died trying to flee Communist East Germany (which even liberals recognize as a horrible place, despite it’s “free healthcare and education”)?

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