Displaying posts published in

May 2020

Germany’s Partial Ban of Hezbollah: A Half-Measure by Soeren Kern

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/15964/germany-hezbollah-partial-ban

The ban is in fact a compromise measure between German lawmakers who want to take a harder line against Iran and those who do not. As a result, the ban falls far short of a complete prohibition on Hezbollah and appears aimed at providing the German government with political cover that allows Germany to claim that it has banned the group even if it has not.

According to the German Parliament, the Bundestag, a complete ban of Hezbollah is impossible because the group’s structures in Germany are “not currently ascertainable.”

It is utterly implausible that Germany, one of the wealthiest and most technologically advanced countries in Europe, is unable to ascertain the organizational structure of Hezbollah within its own borders. More plausible is that Germany wants to project a public appearance of cracking down on Hezbollah while maintaining direct access to its leadership.

“Your resolution has two central weaknesses. The first weakness is that you are asking for only an activity ban (Betätigungsverbot). We want a specific organizational ban (Organisationsverbot). According to the Crime Fighting Law (Verbrechensbekämpfungsgesetz) of 1994, the activity ban is the weaker legal means when compared to an organizational ban. There is no reason in the world why you would fight a terrorist organization with the weaker means and not the stronger.” — Beatrix von Storch, deputy chairwoman of the AfD parliamentary group in the German Bundestag.

“What is needed is the complete ban of Hezbollah. Hezbollah’s propaganda and terror financing in Germany must be stopped. The mosque associations that exist must be disbanded, and most importantly, Hezbollah supporters must be deported. This, by the way, is also demanded by the Bundestag’s Anti-Semitism Resolution, which expressly calls for the deportation of supporters of anti-Semitism. If this does not apply to supporters of Hezbollah, which wants to send Jews to the gas chambers, and wants to destroy Israel, then to whom could it apply?” — Beatrix von Storch.

“Today’s completely late action by the federal government is primarily a symbolic gesture. If the government were really serious about annihilating Hezbollah in Germany, it should have established a special commission and provided the security authorities with financial and human resources to identify and dismantle the group nationwide.” — Stefan Schubert, German security expert.

The German government, after years of equivocating, has announced what amounts to a partial ban on the Iran-backed Lebanese terrorist group Hezbollah — Arabic for “The Party of Allah” — in Germany.

The so-called ban — supported by the center-right Christian Democrats and the center-left Social Democrats, the two parties that make up Germany’s ruling coalition, and also by the classical liberal Free Democrats — has been hailed as “important,” “significant,” and “long overdue.”

Mystery in North Korea By Michael Curtis

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2020/05/mystery_in_north_korea.html

Since September 1987, millions of children, old as well as young, have amused themselves by searching in a series of puzzle books titled Where’s Waldo (Wally in England and Charlie in France) to find a young man, wearing a red and white striped shirt, decorated ski hat, and glasses, hidden in the group of people and surroundings in the text.  As the books continue, Waldo becomes smaller and harder to find.

Today, millions are looking for clues in the serious game of Where’s Kim Jong-un, the 36-year-old supreme leader of North Korea, who has not been seen publicly since April 11, 2020, when he chaired the meeting of the Workers’ Party politburo. He was conspicuously absent from the commemoration event at the Kumsusan Palace of the Sun, honoring his grandfather Kim Il-sung on April 15, the most important day in the Korean political calendar.  The international community is searching for him, or wondering where he is.  Commercial satellite images are being used.

In a speech and broadcast on October 1, 1939, Winston Churchill referred to the Soviet Union as a “riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma.”  North Korea may not be as difficult to discern as the Soviet Union under Joseph Stalin, though it does resemble the former country in a number of ways, especially by its misleading or deceptive state media reports and by giving clues of the existence of power struggles.  The deaths of the two preceding supreme rulers in 1994 and 2011 were not immediately reported, and the world was not informed until several days after.  Nevertheless, the non-appearance of Kim resembles the Churchillian riddle of the hidden ideological debates and power struggles that may be occurring in North Korea.  On the other hand, the fact that other senior N.K. personnel have also not been seen in public suggests a simple explanation: they may all be trying to escape COVID-19 by social distancing.

100 years since San Remo, when Israel became a sovereignty By Eugene Kontorovich

https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/100-years-since-san-remo-when-israel-became-a-sovereignty-626497

In San Remo, the League of Nations decided to turn much of the former Ottoman Empire into new nation-states: Syria, Iraq, Lebanon and Jordan all emerged from this process, along with Israel.
The 1920 international conference in San Remo, Italy, is finally getting some of the attention it deserves. That conference created Mandatory Palestine as a “national home” for the Jewish people, and promised Jewish migration and “settlement” throughout Palestine, including Judea and Samaria. Yet in the collective memory, the United Nations General Assembly vote in November 1947 to partition Palestine – essentially repudiating much of San Remo – is more closely linked with the establishment of the state.

It is important for Israel to use this centenary occasion to upgrade the memory of San Remo and its importance – putting it ahead of the UN vote that was at best meaningless.

In San Remo, the League of Nations decided to turn much of the former Ottoman Empire into new nation-states: Syria, Iraq, Lebanon and Jordan all emerged from this process, along with Israel. None of these previously existed as states, but today their legitimacy is unquestioned because they arose from the mandate process. More importantly, all the states that arose from mandates inherited the Mandatory borders: so San Remo explains why Israel’s borders include Judea and Samaria.

Israel: Back to the Future

https://www.nysun.com/editorials/israel-back-to-the-future/91113/

The centenary that has just been marked of the San Remo Conference reminds us that, among other things, the statecraft that produced the State of Israel way predates the United Nations. It is a moment to grasp that in partitioning Palestine after World War II, the United Nations took a step back. And set the stage for the war against the Jews that has sizzled in the Middle East ever since.

This is beautifully sketched this week by famed law professor E.V. Kontorovich, writing in the Jerusalem Post. He suggests that the parley that took place at the end of April, 1920, at San Remo, Italy, is finally getting the attention it deserves. San Remo had been attended by the main victorious allies of World War I — Britain, France, Italy, and Japan. America, which had just rejected the League of Nations Treaty, was there as an observer.

“In San Remo,” Mr. Kontorovich writes, “the League of Nations decided to turn much of the former Ottoman Empire into new nation-states: Syria, Iraq, Lebanon and Jordan all emerged from this process, along with Israel.” He notes that none of those previously existed as states and that today “their legitimacy is unquestioned” because “they arose from the mandate process” of the League itself.

The fall of Saigon By Silvio Canto, Jr.

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

45 years ago, I was in college trying to pass my classes and looking at some job offers in the local banks.  As I recall, the economy was okay for college graduates but the word “recession” was mentioned in some circles.  Watergate was behind us and the new President Gerald Ford was months away from facing a challenge from the former Governor Ronald Reagan of California.

During my time away from school work, I was dancing to Van McCoy’s “The hustle”, enjoying Elton John’s “Philadelphia Freedom” and laughing to tears watching “Monty Python and the Holy Grail”.

Over in Vietnam, the North Vietnamese and Viet Cong walked into Saigon and we’ve known it as “Ho Chi Minh City” ever since.

They walked in because the South Vietnam army, our ally, was totally overmatched by large and ruthless divisions pouring from the North. 

As a South Vietnamese soldier told me a few years later, they killed everybody that they suspected of supporting the government in Saigon. They didn’t care whether it was man, woman, or child.

The tragedy of Vietnam is that the USSR could not believe that we let South Vietnam collapse in 1975, as Stephen J. Morris wrote on the 30th anniversary of the disintegration of Saigon:

If the United States had provided that level of support in 1975, when South Vietnam collapsed in the face of another North Vietnamese offensive, the outcome might have been at least the same as in 1972. 

Joe Biden’s running mate will have to defend the indefensible By Anna L. Stark

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2020/05/joe_bidens_running_mate_will

Once Joe Biden emerges from his basement bunker as the presumptive Democrat party presidential nominee by default, he’s expected to name his vice presidential running mate.  He’s promised to choose a woman but has provided no clue as to whom he will tap to carry his water for the next six months.  One thing is for certain: she will be tasked to defend and run interference for a man exhibiting serious mental decline issues, a man who has been accused of sexual impropriety by a former female Senate staffer, and a man whose checkered career in politics is guaranteed to be fodder for President Trump.

Prior to the nationwide COVID-19 lockdown and before sequestering himself in his Delaware home, Joe Biden’s questionable behavior in public was already raising eyebrows.  Multiple incidents plagued his performance on the campaign trail, ranging from sudden bouts of anger and insulting audience members at campaign rallies to licking his wife’s fingers while she spoke at a campaign event.  His oftentimes awkward television interviews, coupled with an obvious inability to string together a coherent sentence, has left even the most casual observer wondering what’s wrong with Joe.

Testing Isn’t Everything It won’t banish the coronavirus, and it’s not an excuse for not opening.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/testing-isnt-everything-11588373448?mod=opinion_lead_pos3

Many states are starting to lift their shutdown orders, but some governors are still insisting they need more testing to do so. The Trump Administration on Monday responded by laying out all of the country’s testing capacity. But no amount of testing by itself will stop the virus from spreading. States will need a cocktail of strategies to limit the spread of infections.

***

Testing problems did hamper the initial U.S. response and allowed the coronavirus to spread undetected for weeks in Seattle and New York City. Testing was at first limited to people who had knowingly come into contact with infected individuals, and then it took days to get results. President Trump too often overpromised what the feds couldn’t deliver.

But testing has dramatically ramped up, and the Food and Drug Administration has now approved 70 coronavirus tests—about four times more than it approved for the H1N1 flu virus in 2009. More tests per capita have been performed in New York City than in Singapore, South Korea and Australia.

Hospitals and labs have performed about 1.6 million tests in the past week, according to the Covid Tracking Project. The White House coronavirus task force presentation shows that most states with the biggest risks have the capacity to test 60% to 80% of their population each month. Gov. Andrew Cuomo last week said tests would be available at some 5,000 pharmacies across New York.

“Chameleons Who Masquerade as the Media” Sydney Williams

www.swtotd.blogspot.com

Mainstream media spent the last three and a half years trying to destroy President Trump, or, if not him personally, his Presidency. He was accused of having had Russia interfere in the 2016 election on his behalf; a two-year, $35 million investigation by Robert Mueller exonerated him. Second, he was impeached and tried in the press for abuse of power and obstruction of justice. He was found innocent. Then, he was said to be responsible for thousands of deaths because of his slow response to COVID-19. One snarky reporter asked him if he deserved another term, as more people had died from the virus than had died in the Vietnam War. No mention was made of the 100,000 Americans who died in 1968 of the H3N2 virus. Mr. Trump has been accused of racism, misogyny and xenophobia. He is said to be scientifically illiterate with demagogic tendencies. Yet none of the charges have proved legitimate and none of them have caused him to change his behavior. The media remains undeterred. In Ground Hog Day fashion, they persist in their assassination of his character. Like chameleons, they change to suit the goal.

 

By the end of June, other concerns will face Mr. Trump’s opponents, among which will be the Durham report. His critics will be looking for other ways to expose his weaknesses. By the end of July, second quarter preliminary GDP estimates will be out and his critics will accuse him of causing a second Great Depression. The preliminary estimate for the first quarter, reported on Wednesday, showed an annualized decline of 4.8%, a quarter that included only two weeks of lockdown. Early estimates for the second quarter range from –20% to –30% by Kevin Hassett, former economic advisor to the President, to –40% by J.P. Morgan, with unemployment expected at 20%. In fact, in the past six weeks 30 million Americans have filed for unemployment, almost 20% of the 160 million labor force. These numbers rival or exceed what happened during the Great Depression. During that time, U.S. GDP declined 15% between 1929 and 1932 and unemployment reached 25 percent. For political purposes, the economy will supplant COVID-19 as the focus of the media. And who will be deemed responsible for that decline? Why, Mr. Trump, of course.

Mr. Trump is not a man without faults. But his critics are unprincipled. Consider the Steele dossier, paid for by the Clinton campaign in 2016, the politization of the IRS, FBI and the CIA by the Obama Administration, or the abuse of power by Representative Adam Schiff (D-CA) in his futile impeachment of the President. Consider the financial ties of the Bidens’ to Ukraine and China, and the Clinton’s financial dealings with Russia. Politics is a rough game, often played by the unprincipled whose sole goal is to win. With power as the objective, patronage is the lubricant with which loyalties are formed and votes are secured. The bureaucracy of the administrative state wields enormous influence and Trump, an outsider, was always a threat to the comfortable way of life of those who reside inside the beltway.

Sexual Assault Complaint Against Biden Is Now ‘Inactive:’ Police By Katabella Roberts

https://www.theepochtimes.com/washington-police-say-tara-reade-sexual-assault-complaint-against-biden-is-now-inactive_3333048.html#

The Washington, D.C., Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) are no longer investigating Tara Reade’s sexual assault complaint against Joe Biden, a spokesman for the agency told the Washington Examiner.

“This is an inactive case, and there are no additional details to provide,” a police spokesman said April 29, providing no further comment.

Reade, a former Biden staffer, filed a report on April 9, 2020 with police in which she said she was a victim of sexual assault but did not name Biden. The court filing stated, “Subject-1 disclosed that she was the victim of a sexual assault which was committed by Subject-2 in 1993.”

Pelosi’s Congress Should Shelter At Home For The Rest Of The Year Joy Pullman

https://thefederalist.com/2020/05/01/pelosis-congress-should-shelter-at-home-for-the-rest-of-the-year/

Earlier this week, House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer postponed lawmakers’ return to Washington DC, citing concerns about coronavirus transmission. Congress should stay out of Washington DC a lot longer. Even until next year.

The primary reason isn’t because they, like health-care workers or truckers or grocery store employees or pastors, might catch coronavirus doing their jobs. The primary reason is that when they “do something,” Congress usually hurts the country far worse than if they just took naps in the closet or played cards all day, like my husband’s coworkers at a union-run former workplace.

The nation should have learned this from activist responses to the Great Depression, which we now know made the depression longer and harder. It also created expectations, institutions, and ways of life that have upended our exceptional system of self-government. Yet House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is as determined as President Franklin D. Roosevelt to exploit this crisis for political gain, on the well-founded calculation that if Democrats ask Republicans to unleash a horde of locusts, they’ll agree to half the locusts. Maybe even three-quarters!

Despite failing so far to use the pandemic to get race and sex quotas for corporate boards, insane emissions requirements on airlines, more money for Democrat politicking funneled through unions, student loan bailouts, and bigger tax credits for solar panels, Democrats have already commandeered it to send pork to the Kennedy Center, bail out the U.S. Postal Service, get raises for Congress as 26 million Americans filed for unemployment, fund PBS stations, and upcharge for refugee resettlement.

And they’re just getting started. Pelosi has started talking about moving beyond blanketing the nation with deficit-funded checks into a “guaranteed income.” Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), Mark Warner (D-Va.), Doug Jones (D-Ala.), and Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn) propose to “fund a portion of a company’s payroll costs, up to $90,000 per worker who has been laid off or furloughed.”

Republican Sen. Josh Hawley has proposed a similar idea. “Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.) has proposed a bill that would cover 100 percent of salaries for at least three months.” Shifting American workers to federal welfare akin to the make-work Civilian Conservation Corps of Roosevelt’s day (but without the bridges) could cost another trillion dollars. At least, initially. Since the small business bailout fund has been replenished twice and counting, we shouldn’t expect Congress to turn off the firehose any time soon. It’s a national emergency, you see.