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January 2020

Iran’s Lobbyists and Agents in the West by Majid Rafizadeh

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/15496/iran-lobbyists

Recently, three Republican senators, Ted Cruz (TX), Tom Cotton (AK) and Mike Braun (IN) have called on the U.S. Department of Justice to open an investigation into the National Iranian American Council (NIAC).
According to the Iranian American Forum: “Some of these documents are posted here and reveal NIAC’s relation and collaboration with Iranian officials and business interests inside Iran. They show that NIAC coordinated its lobby with the Iranian ambassador to the UN to influence the US policy with Iran.”
Why do those who may lobby for the mullahs attempt to fly under the radar, act less conspicuously and fail to register?
Now is the time for the US and other Western governments to investigate and closely watch those who beat the drum for the anti-American and anti-Israeli Islamic Republic of Iran.

Iran’s leaders have freely admitted that they have lobby groups and operatives in the West, including the US, working hard to advance Tehran’s anti-Western, anti-American, fundamentalist ideas. Iran’s Intelligence Minister Mahmoud Alavi even boasted that Tehran runs a lobby group in Washington that promotes the hardline agenda of his country’s ruling mullahs. According to the Washington Examiner:

“A ‘lobby group for the Islamic Republic of Iran’ is actively bolstering Tehran’s status in the international stage and helping to sell and legitimize its nuclear ambitions as just causes to the globe, Alavi claimed.”

The chairman of “Oil Contracts Restructuring Committee” in Iran, Mehdi Hosseini, when asked whether there are Western entities that pressure their governments on behalf of the Islamic Republic, stated: “Yes. They have done this in the past.” These efforts, he added, “will help us and we should exploit these opportunities.”

Germany’s Selective Fight against Anti-Semitism by Judith Bergman

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/15291/germany-antisemitism-selective-fight

“[T]here is no reason to give the all-clear. The threat situation in Germany remains tense; it has stabilized on a high level…Germany continues to be a target of jihadist organizations such as ISIL or al-Qaeda. Consequently, Germany as well as German interests in various regions in the world are facing a constantly serious threat, which may any time manifest itself in terrorist attacks motivated by jihadism.” — 2018 Annual Report on the Protection of the Constitution, Germany.

The new governmental initiative, however, appears to be directed only against anti-Semitism committed by right-wing extremists.

The question, then, is why jihadi anti-Semitism does not appear to have been included in the German government’s package of initiatives to combat anti-Semitism?

Given the official threat scenario, the German government owes all its citizens an explanation as to why it is so “selective” in its response to anti-Semitism.

The German government recently announced that it would be cracking down on free speech, with Justice Minister Christine Lambrecht claiming that the German government “is confronting right-wing extremism and anti-Semitism by all means enabled by the rule of law.” The government presented a package of measures, including some that will limit free speech. According to German news outlet Deutsche Welle:

“[O]nline service providers, such as Facebook, YouTube and Twitter will be obliged to report hate speech to German authorities, and also pass on the IP address of the conspicuous user. Until now, such social media giants have only been required to delete hate speech within a certain time period.”

Germany’s controversial censorship law, known as NetzDG, which came into effect on October 1, 2017, requires social media platforms to delete or block any online “criminal offenses” such as libel, slander, defamation or incitement, within 24 hours of receipt of a user complaint. Social media companies receive seven days for more complicated cases. If they fail to do so, the German government can fine them up to 50 million euros for failing to comply.

CORONAVIRUS IN THE U.S. FIVE CONFIRMED CASES

http://click1.srnemail.com/ViewMessage.do;jsessionid=60866FAC807674FA7EDBB338DE9

The story notes they are “all among people who traveled to the city at the center of the outbreak” (Washington Times).  Some are urging Trump to declare a formal public health emergency (ABC News).  China’s death toll is at 80 and the disease is spreading to other parts of the country (NY Times).  From Hugh Hewitt: “According to the CDC, it’s likely that there will be more cases reported in the U.S. in the coming days and weeks, likely including person-to-person spread.” So don’t tell people on what flights/airports through infected patients traveled and times? (Twitter).  Orange County, California has a confirmed case (OC Health Info).  From former Senator Jim Talent: It’s been apparent for years that a global biological pandemic is the biggest single threat, other than a strategic nuclear war, to the health and economy of the United States. The pandemic could occur naturally, or it could be the product of a terrorist attack or even a laboratory accident. One of the worst-case scenarios involves a virus that is contagious through the air, which has a potentially deadly effect, and for which no vaccine or therapeutic can quickly be developed (National Review).  Why hospitals aren’t ready for this (WSJ). 

Palestinian Elections: How Abbas and Europe Are Trying to Blame Israel by Khaled Abu Toameh

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/15482/palestinian-elections-abbas

The last time there were Palestinian elections, Hamas won in a landslide. Even if Israel does agree to allow Arab residents of Jerusalem to take part in the Palestinian elections, Abbas will undoubtedly find another excuse to continue his policy of foot-dragging.

Abbas and his senior officials in Ramallah have, in fact, turned the PA into a private fiefdom. They have no functioning parliament, no free media, and no open debate. The only people Abbas consults with are his “yes-men” who appear to agree with every word he says. This is how Abbas likes matters, and he obviously sees no reason why Palestinians should waste money and energies on new elections as long as they have him as president for life.

As long as Abbas can use the issue of the elections to denounce Israel, why not do so? His friends in the European Union would be more than happy to join him in skewering Israel for not allowing Palestinian elections (if that turned out to be the case). Many EU representatives are Abbas’s useful idiots, gladly parroting his every anti-Israel pronouncement.

This month, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas entered the 16th year of his four-year-term in office. Abbas, who was elected to succeed Yasser Arafat in January 2005, has since avoided holding a Palestinian presidential election, each time using a different excuse. While in the past he used to blame his rivals in Hamas for the failure to hold a new election, Abbas is now trying to hold Israel responsible. His attempt seems to be supported by some Europeans.

Abbas’s four-year tenure ended in January 2009. Two years earlier, Hamas had violently seized control of the Gaza Strip, by ousting Abbas’s Palestinian Authority (PA) regime and throwing some of his loyalists from the top floors of tall buildings.

Turkey’s ‘Truthophobia’ by Burak Bekdil

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/15478/turkey-truthophobia

The ways through which the Turkish state silences dissent are typical of the unfree world.

A clear majority of Turks think that their rights are systematically violated and that they are not equal before law. Then half of them keep voting for Erdoğan (and his allies). These two facts point to a third, and unpleasant conclusion: Millions of Turks know that their country is not free and just, but they keep voting for the leader who is responsible for the gross democratic deficit…

This is a bad message to Erdoğan: You will keep winning votes no matter how maliciously you crush dissent. We are with you and your undemocratic rule.

In 2014 the government of Turkey’s strongman Recep Tayyip Erdoğan banned YouTube and Twitter, fearing that millions of young Turks could otherwise read “dangerous content” on social media. The Constitutional Court declared the bans unconstitutional. In 2017, the Turkish government banned Wikipedia. That ban was removed only recently, after two and a half years. It is not that Wikipedia is a reliable source of information. Banning it altogether is a rogue state behavior. It is not, however, only about Wikipedia: in Turkey, truth, regardless of its source, is feared and often banned.

Cruelty to Animals Gets More Media Coverage than Beheaded Christians by Giulio Meotti

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/15483/animal-cruelty-beheaded-christians

The Bishops’ Conference of Nigeria described the area as “killing fields”, like the ones the Khmer Rouge created in Cambodia to exterminate the population.

“We are Aramaic people and we don’t have this right to have anyone protect us? Look upon us as frogs, we’ll accept that — just protect us so we can stay in our land”. — Nicodemus Daoud Sharaf, the Syrian Orthodox Archbishop of Mosul the capital of Iraqi Kurdistan, home to many of the Christians who fled jihadis, National Catholic Register, April 7, 2017.

In an era of round-the-clock information… the abominations suffered by Christians have been left without images, while the brutality against the Chinese pig was streamed all over. Christians are an endangered species; pigs are not.

One of the last Nigerian Christians was executed by an Islamic State child soldier. Slaughterhouses’ workers go on trial in France for abuses to animals. But the same France has already repatriated more than 250 ISIS fighters, the same people who turn Iraqi churches into slaughterhouses.

First there was the beheading of 11 Nigerian Christians during the recent Christmas celebration. The next day, a Catholic woman, Martha Bulus, was beheaded in the Nigerian state of Borno with her bridesmaids, five days before the wedding. Then there was a raid on the village of Gora-Gan in the Nigerian state of Kaduna, where terrorists shot anyone they met in the square where the evangelical community had gathered, killing two young Christian women. There was also a Christian student killed by Islamic extremists who recorded his execution. Then pastor Lawan Andimi, a local leader of the Christian Association of Nigeria, was beheaded.

Target Trump Forever Destroying the president is not just the only viable trajectory for the Left, but it is also the only possible narrative given that focus on the current left-wing agenda is slow-motion suicide. Victor Davis Hanson

https://amgreatness.com/2020/01/26/target-trump-forever/

The Left has shown that the collusion exoneration last year by the heralded Robert Mueller investigation—all 22-months, the “dream team,” and $34 million of it—meant absolutely nothing.

Nor did it matter that Department of Justice Inspector General Michael Horowitz found no justification of “collusion” in the Steele dossier to justify the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act warrants it issued to spy on Carter Page.

Both the Mueller and Horowitz investigations confirmed that even the partisan and warped FBI “Crossfire Hurricane” intrigues could find no Russian-Trump collusion.

And yet the House impeachment managers cannot finish a sentence without exclaiming “Russian collusion,” as if it has now transmogrified into some exotic foundational myth.

Remember, no sooner had Mueller found no collusion between Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign and the Kremlin and no actionable obstruction than the progressives narrative was recalibrated into Ukrainian quid pro quo—albeit after brief detours in “Recession!” and “Racism!”

Yet it is now as if neither Mueller nor Horowitz ever existed, as if we have forgotten the thousands of hours of investigation that found no Russian collusion, but indeed discovered the systematic warping of the FISA court by allegations of such falsities. As if to prove that the Mueller investigation was never biased, Andrew Weissmann now appears on MSNBC as a legal analyst to continue what he once did for Mueller, in the manner of the post-Russian “collusion” careers of Andrew McCabe, James Comey, and James Clapper.

Coronavirus: How worried should we be? By James Gallagher

https://www.bbc.com/news/health-51048366?utm_source=pocket-newtab

A virus – previously unknown to science – is causing severe lung disease in China and has also been detected in other countries.

More than 80 people are known to have died from the virus, which appeared in the Chinese city of Wuhan in December.

There are already almost 3,000 confirmed cases, and experts expect the number will keep rising.

A new virus arriving on the scene, leaving patients with pneumonia, is always a worry and health officials around the world are on high alert.

Can this outbreak be contained or is this something far more dangerous?

Coronavirus: Your questions answered

Wuhan: The London-sized city where the virus began

China coronavirus: What we know so far

What is this virus?

Officials in China have confirmed the cases are caused by a coronavirus.

These are a broad family of viruses, but only six (the new one would make it seven) are known to infect people.

Severe acute respiratory syndrome (Sars), which is caused by a coronavirus, killed 774 of the 8,098 people infected in an outbreak that started in China in 2002.

“There is a strong memory of Sars, that’s where a lot of fear comes from, but we’re a lot more prepared to deal with those types of diseases,” says Dr Josie Golding, from the Wellcome Trust.

‘He Is a Dictator’ Nadler sums up the Democratic case for impeachment.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/he-is-a-dictator-11580075066?mod=opinion_lead_pos2

Rep. Jerrold Nadler rarely disappoints, and the always over-the-top impeachment manager came through again Friday as he summed up the Democratic case to remove President Trump from office: “This is a determination by President Trump that he wants to be all powerful. He does not have to respect the Congress—he does not have to respect the representatives of the people. Only his will goes. He is a dictator. This must not stand. That is another reason he must be moved from office.”

Let’s count the ways in which Mr. Trump is “all powerful.” Does he control elections? His party lost two governorships in 2017, the House and a net six governorships in 2018, and another governorship and the Virginia Legislature in 2019.

How about the courts? Mr. Trump’s policies were subject to some 40 national judicial injunctions in its first 32 months, compared to 20 for the Obama Administration in eight years. Mr. Trump often wins on appeal, but until he does his policy agenda has been blocked in the courts. Mr. Trump has not defied a judicial order.

Does he control or censor the press? Nearly every major media outlet spent two years promoting a false story of his collusion with Russia. The press overwhelmingly supports impeachment and opposes his agenda. His plea to change the libel laws has gone nowhere.

China’s Censorship Helps Spread the Virus Consider the Spanish flu, which killed 50 million in 1918-19 as governments at war suppressed the news. By Paul Wolfowitz and Max Frost

https://www.wsj.com/articles/chinas-censorship-helps-spread-the-virus-11580071968?mod=opinion_lead_pos5

Xi Jinping has acknowledged that the “accelerating spread” of a new coronavirus from the central Chinese city of Wuhan is a “grave situation.” To stop the virus’s spread, the Chinese government has barred residents of Wuhan and nearby cities from traveling and blocked outbound flights, trains, buses and ferries. But if this develops into a catastrophe, the cult of personality around Mr. Xi and the Communist regime’s efforts to control information will deserve much of the blame.

For a precedent, look back to 1918, when the Spanish flu broke out amid World War I. In the U.S., government officials and the press did all they could to play it down lest it hurt the war effort. While the Los Angeles health chief declared there was “no cause for alarm” and the Arkansas Gazette described the disease as the “same old fever and chills,” people were dying by the thousands.

The name “Spanish flu” was a misnomer. In the countries where it originally surfaced—France, China and the U.S.—the news was suppressed by censorship and self-censorship to maintain wartime morale. (China sent only civilian laborers to the battlefield, but it declared war on Germany in August 1917.) Not until King Alphonse XIII of neutral Spain fell ill did news of the virus spread widely.

Between the spring of 1918 and early 1919, three waves of Spanish flu tore across the planet, facilitated by censorship and secrecy. The results were catastrophic: 50 million people were killed world-wide, including nearly 700,000 Americans.