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May 2020

Mullahs Threaten Trump with October Surprise by Amir Taheri

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/15968/iran-trump-october-surprise

“No War on Iran” placards are appearing where “No wars by Iran” would make more sense.

In other words, the Islamic Republic doesn’t need medical and technical help; it needs crisp greenbacks that could be spent on Hezbollah, Bashar al-Assad, the Popular Mobilization Forces, the Houthis, Hamas and other members of the “Resistance Front”. And, then, not to forget the $100 million Tehran has allocated for lobbyists in the US.

The reward they want, and people like Senator Feinstein seem ready to provide, is to get a free hand in building an ideological empire as a springboard for “exporting” revolution. In the end, either Iran must become like the rest of the Middle East or the rest of the Middle East must become like the Islamic Republic.

With the Khomeinist regime once again in deep trouble, the usual suspects launch a campaign to portray the Islamic Republic as victim and US President Donald Trump as oppressor.

Slowly the blame is shifting from the mullahs to the Trump administration as the debate is redirected to tackle the hypothetical question of US military action rather than the Islamic Republic’s real misdeeds.

“No War on Iran” placards are appearing where “No wars by Iran” would make more sense.

Against heavy odds, Trump rises 6 points in two weeks, according to Gallup poll By Monica Showalter

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2020/05/against_heavy_odds_trump_rises_6_points_in_two_weeks_according_to_gallup_poll.html

His face showing the strains of office, President Trump has obviously been on the job in the coronavirus pandemic.

Apparently the voters have noticed, and Fox News reports that Trump is rising with voters:

President Trump’s job approval soared 6 points in the last two weeks, according to the latest Gallup poll.

The new survey found 49 percent approve of the president’s job in office and 47 percent disapprove, a personal best with Gallup for Trump. Two weeks ago, 43 percent approved of the president’s job, according to the pollster.

Trump also had a 49 percent approval rating in mid-March, according to Gallup, before his rating took a 6-point plunge in the first half of April.

For us, that’s reason for ‘cautious optimism’ as the market guys like to say. Or better still ‘the trend is your friend.’

It comes against so many external negatives that would otherwise sink any other politician.

Trump Approval Rating Hits All-Time High in New Gallup Poll By Zachary Evans

https://www.nationalreview.com/news/trump-approval-rating-hits-all-time-high-in-new-gallup-poll/

President Trump’s approval rating hit an all-time high in a Gallup survey released on Friday, with 49 percent of respondents approving of his performance versus 47 percent disapproving.

The results continue a wide swing in polling for Trump, who garnered a 43 percent approval rating two weeks ago.

“Most of the variation in Trump’s recent job approval rating is among independents,” Gallup said. “In the current poll, 47% of independents approve of the job he is doing as president, the highest Gallup has measured for the group to date. 93% of Republicans and 8% of Democrats approve of the job Trump is doing.”

 

However, RealClearPolitics polling averages place the president at 44.3 percent approval versus 50.6 percent disapproval as of Friday. Averages of general election polls give Trump 42.1 percent to Joe Biden’s 47.4 percent.

Last week officials including Trump-campaign manager Brad Parscale, adviser Jared Kushner, and Republican National Committee chairwoman Ronna McDaniel presented the president with internal campaign polls showing him falling behind Biden in key swing states, the Washington Post reported. Advisers showed Trump the polls as part of an effort to convince him to stop or scale back his presence in the daily White House coronavirus briefings.

The FBI Set Flynn Up to Preserve the Trump–Russia Probe By Andrew C. McCarthy

https://www.nationalreview.com/2020/05/fbi-set-up-michael-flynn-to-preserve-trump-russia-probe/

Perjury trap was not score-settling. To investigate the president, it was a practical necessity to sideline his chosen national-security adviser.

Michael Flynn was not the objective. He was the obstacle.

Once you grasp that fundamental fact, it becomes easier to understand the latest disclosures the Justice Department made in the Flynn case on Thursday. They are the most important revelations to date about the FBI’s Trump–Russia investigation, code-named Crossfire Hurricane.

The new disclosures, in conjunction with all we have learned in the last week, answer the all-important why question: Why was Flynn set up?

The answer to the what question has been clear for a long time: The FBI set a perjury trap for Flynn, hoping to lure him into misstatements that the bureau could portray as lies. In the frenzied political climate of the time, that would have been enough to get him removed from his new position as national security adviser (NSA), perhaps even to prosecute him. On that score, the new disclosures, startling as they are to read, just elucidate what was already obvious.

But why did they do it? That has been the baffling question. Oh, there have been plenty of indications that the Obama administration could not abide Flynn. The White House and the intelligence agencies had their reasons, mostly vindictive. But while that may explain their gleefulness over his fall from grace, it has never been a satisfying explanation for the extraordinary measures the FBI took to orchestrate that fall.

Woodstock Occurred in the Middle of a Pandemic:Jeffrey A. Tucker

 https://www.aier.org/article/woodstock-occurred-in-the-middle-of-a-pandemic/
Thanks to Rachel Ehrenfeld

In my lifetime, there was another deadly flu epidemic in the United States. The flu spread from Hong Kong to the United States, arriving December 1968 and peaking a year later. It ultimately killed 100,000 people in the U.S., mostly over the age of 65, and one million worldwide. 

Lifespan in the US in those days was 70 whereas it is 78 today. Population was 200 million as compared with 328 million today. If it would be possible to extrapolate the death data based on population and demographics, we might be looking at a quarter million deaths today from this virus. So in terms of lethality, it was as deadly and scary as COVID-19 if not more so, though we shall have to wait to see. 

“In 1968,” says Nathaniel L. Moir in National Interest, “the H3N2 pandemic killed more individuals in the U.S. than the combined total number of American fatalities during both the Vietnam and Korean Wars.”

And this happened in the lifetimes of every American over 52 years of age. 

I was 5 years old and have no memory of this at all. My mother vaguely remembers being careful and washing surfaces, and encouraging her mom and dad to be careful. Otherwise, it’s mostly forgotten today. Why is that? 

Epstein had his own office, phone line at Harvard even after his 2008 conviction of soliciting sex from minors BY TAL AXELROD

https://thehill.com/homenews/news/495779-epstein-had-his-own-office-phone-line-at-harvard-even-after-his-2008-conviction

Harvard University admitted Friday that Jeffrey Epstein had his own office and phone line at the university and also made several visits there even after he was convicted in 2008 of soliciting sex from minors. 

According to a new report from the university, Epstein, the disgraced financier who killed himself in jail last year while awaiting sex crimes charges, visited Harvard more than 40 times after his 2008 conviction and unveiled deep ties between him and the university, with which he had no official affiliation.  

University President Lawrence Bacow said in a letter to the Harvard community that Harvard accepted $9.1 million from Epstein between 1998 and 2008 to support research and faculty activities. He also said the university donated $200,937 in unspent contributions from Epstein to organizations supporting human trafficking and sexual assault victims. 

While the hallowed institution did not accept donations from Epstein after 2008, the financier was allowed to make 40 visits between 2010 and 2018 to Harvard’s Program for Evolutionary Dynamics, which Epstein helped create with a $6.5 million donation. He was also granted access to the program’s office and given his own office space.

Potential VP Picks Thirsty For Higher Office Overlook Biden Sexual Assault Allegations Joe Biden’s list of potential running mates are showcasing blatant “Me Too” hypocrisy as they seek to stay in good graces to remain in the consideration.By Tristan Justice

https://thefederalist.com/2020/05/01/potential-vp-picks-thirsty-for-higher-office-overlook-biden-sexual-assault-allegations/

EXCERPTS:

Democrats are descending into disarray as their presumptive presidential nominee battles allegations of sexual assault far more credible than anything ever thrown at Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh, whose unsubstantiated allegations prompted calls for the Justice’s nomination to be withdrawn and subsequent pleas for impeachment.

As Biden searches for a running mate amid the accusations, here’s what the same people who praised Ford’s testimony are saying about Reade so not to spoil their chances in the veepstakes:

Stacey Abrams

Abrams is taking a break from her imaginary duties as governor of Georgia to break from tradition by publicly campaigning for the number two spot.

After Biden finally addressed the allegations head on, Abrams came out with a lackluster statement paling in comparison to what she said about Ford.

“I am pleased that the Vice President directly addressed these allegations and by how he addressed them. Women and all people should be heard, and they deserve a safe space and process through which they can come forward,” Abrams said.

On Tuesday, Abrams offered a more passionate defense on CNN.

“I believe Joe Biden,” Abrams said. “I believe that he is a person who has demonstrated his love of family, of our community, has been made perfectly clear through his work as a congressional leader and as an American leader. I know Joe Biden and I think he’s telling the truth and this did not happen.”

That’s a sharp turnaround from when Abrams said “I believe women,” in 2018.

Kamala Harris

California Democratic Sen. Kamala Harris fared no better in the sweepstakes of Me Too hypocrisy to land a top spot on the Democratic ticket.

“I believe her,” Harris said of Ford’s allegations in 2018. “Anybody who comes forward at this point to be prepared to testify in the United States Senate against someone who’s being nominated to one of the most powerful positions in the United States government, that takes an extraordinary amount of courage.”

According to Harris, simply testifying before Congress should make any allegations inherently truthful, no matter the evidence. Let’s not forget that Harris used to be the attorney general of California.

Funeral Directors Blow the Whistle on Deaths Falsely Attributed to Coronavirus By Megan Fox

https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/megan-fox/2020/04/30/nyc-funeral-directors-reveal-shocking-inflation-of-covid-19-deaths-n387013

“Basically, every death certificate that comes across our desk now has COVID on it,” said a funeral director in Williston Park, N.Y., on a recorded phone call with Project Veritas in a newly-released video. James O’Keefe has been asking for people inside the medical system to blow the whistle if they see corruption or inconsistencies in reports about the Chinese WuFlu known as COVID-19. In conversations with several funeral directors across New York City, O’Keefe uncovered a shocking narrative where, without fail, every director he spoke to expressed his or her concern that coronavirus deaths are being inflated and every death in NYC is being recorded as a COVID death with or without testing to confirm.

“They are putting COVID on a lot of death certificates because people who are going to their hospital with any kind of respiratory distress, respiratory problems, pneumonia, the flu — the flu-like symptoms lead into the COVID-19,” said Joseph Antioco of Schafer Funeral Home. “To me, all you’re doing is padding the statistics. You’re putting people on that have COVID-19 even if they didn’t have it. You’re making the death rate for New York City a lot higher than it should be.”

One funeral director talked about a family who is related to an unnamed Supreme Court Justice who insisted on a private autopsy that discovered their relative did not have COVID-19. “I had one that was autopsied because the sister was famous, and apparently, and I don’t know who the Supreme Court Justice is, but the Supreme Court Justice was related to this family, and she says I know my sister didn’t die of COVID-19,” said Josephine Dimiceli of Dimiceli & Sons Funeral Home. “She said she had Alzheimer’s and they didn’t suction her. You have to suction because they forget how to swallow. And right away they put down COVID-19 on her death certificate, and the Supreme Court justice, whoever it is, contacted the hospital. They did an independent autopsy; bingo. No COVID-19.”

As World Economic Crisis Worsens, Societies Begin to Fall Apart By Rick Moran

https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/rick-moran/2020/05/01/as-world-economic-crisis-worsens-societies-begin-to-fall-apart-n387379

The unprecedented world economic crisis will inevitably lead to social chaos and the breakdown of law and order and unknown consequences.

Lest you think this is an exaggeration, look at what’s happening in Lebanon.

Demonstrators in northern Lebanon have attacked banks and clashed with security forces for three consecutive nights, re-energizing a protest movement launched in October against a political class the activists deem inept and corrupt.

The government unanimously approved the economic plan after minor amendments, the presidency said on Twitter following a cabinet meeting in the presidential palace in Baabda.

Details were unclear but Prime Minister Hassan Diab was expected to reveal more during an address to the nation at 5:30 pm (1430 GMT).

President Michel Aoun called it a “historic day” for Lebanon.

Lebanon was in dire straits before the pandemic hit, with a serious economic crisis, rampant corruption, and political instability. But there are dozens of countries around the world where the same could be said of conditions prior to the coronavirus pandemic.

Since the recession/depression promises to deepen considerably, debtor nations will be holding out their hands for huge bailouts from the international community.

Germany Ends Its Relationship With Hezbollah Proving Money Matters Shoshana Bryen

https://www.jewishpolicycenter.org/insight/
The German government has pulled the plug on Hezbollah, labeling it a terrorist organization – its political “wing” as well as its military “wing” – and banning its activity on German soil; associated organizations will also be outlawed. What took so long? Surely there was no benefit to Germany in the relationship, except perhaps, to irritate Israel.

Or was there?

Some German politicians claimed relations with Hezbollah were necessary to maintain relations with Lebanon, where the party leads the government. A Foreign Ministry official had called it a “relevant factor in Lebanese society and part of the complex political landscape in the country.” But with the Beirut government in default on its debts and facing revolution in the streets, allowing terrorist cells to operate in Germany seems unduly sympathetic.

But Hezbollah is a subsidiary of Iran, and through a different prism, Germany’s decision may be the reordering of its relationship with Tehran under the stresses of U.S.-led sanctions, plus the Russia-Saudi oil price war, the Wuhan virus, and the not-often-mentioned rebellion that has been going on in the Islamic Republic since late 2017. In other words, through the prism of money and a distinct unconcern for the people who suffer under tyrannical rule.

The 2015 “Iran deal” made Germany Iran’s primary European trading partner and primary political defender. In 2016, according to the German government, Germany sold Iran 2.9 billion euros worth of machinery and equipment, cars, chemicals, pharmaceuticals, and medical products. Iran sold Germany 300 million euros worth of dried fruits, pistachios, rugs, and industrial raw materials. “Machinery and equipment” for fruit. Sounds safe.