Displaying posts published in

July 2020

Museum Curator Resigns After He Is Accused of Racism for Saying He Would Still Collect Art From White Men Robby Soave

https://reason.com/2020/07/14/gary-garrels-san-francisco-museum-modern-art-racis

Irate employees of the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art said the removal of Gary Garrels was “non-negotiable.”

Until last week, Gary Garrels was senior curator of painting and sculpture at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA). He resigned his position after museum employees circulated a petition that accused him of racism and demanded his immediate ouster.

“Gary’s removal from SFMOMA is non-negotiable,” read the petition. “Considering his lengthy tenure at this institution, we ask just how long have his toxic white supremacist beliefs regarding race and equity directed his position curating the content of the museum?”

This accusation—that Garrels’ choices as an art curator are guided by white supremacist beliefs—is a very serious one. Unsurprisingly, it does not stand up to even minimal scrutiny.

The petitioners cite few examples of anything even approaching bad behavior from Garrels. Their sole complaint is that he allegedly concluded a presentation on how to diversify the museum’s holdings by saying, “don’t worry, we will definitely still continue to collect white artists.”

Modern Saudi Scholar, Islam’s Prophet Muhammad,  & The Jews of the Arabian Peninsula… by Gerald A. Honigman

Let’s begin by referring to the following excerpts from what appears to be a ground-breaking development in the link below:

“…In what is being hailed as an “unprecedented” event, a senior Saudi Arabian researcher has had an article published in an Israeli journal–in Hebrew.

The essay aims to correct what its author, Prof. Mohammed Ibrahim Alghbban, head of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations and Hebrew Studies at the Department of Modern Languages and Translation at King Saud University in Riyadh, calls ‘erroneous misperceptions about the origins of Islam and  distorted understanding of manuscripts’ written by the Prophet Muhammad…Alghbban writes that Islam’s founder did not clash with Jews on religious grounds, rather only on politics…” https://www.israel21c.org/in-first-saudi-academic-publishes-hebrew-essay-in-israeli-journal/

While it certainly is good news to hear about Arab scholars learning the Hebrew language, teaching it to others (for perhaps good and not-so-good reasons), and so forth, Alghbban’s assessment appears to be a whitewash of the actual Jihad waged against Medina’s (the second holiest city in Islam) founders–Jews–who fled the earlier Roman wars for their independence in Judea and escaping into the nearby Arabian Peninsula for refuge.

Jews had a long history in that Peninsula prior to the birth of Muhammad in the 7th century C. E.

Ilhan Omar’s Payments to Husband’s Firm Hit $1 Million in 2020 Cycle ‘Squad’ member has paid her new husband more than $1 million from campaign Joe Schoffstall 

https://freebeacon.com/democrats/ilhan-omar-funnels-228000-more-into-husbands-firm/

Rep. Ilhan Omar (D., Minn.) continues to dish out six-figure payments to her husband’s firm, which has now received more than $1 million from her campaign this cycle.

Federal Election Commission records released Tuesday afternoon show that Omar’s campaign funneled $228,384.93 last quarter to the E Street Group, a D.C.-based consulting firm run by the congresswoman’s husband, Tim Mynett. The payments, predominantly for digital and fundraising services, bring the total that Omar’s campaign has sent to Mynett’s firm to just over $1 million for the 2020 cycle.

Omar, a freshmen congresswoman, has faced scrutiny over numerous financial and personal issues since she was elected in 2018. She has drawn criticism for a lack of transparency about her previous marriages, over campaign finance violations, and for a potential violation of House ethics rules pertaining to the advance she received on a recently published memoir. Pressed for answers, she has routinely dismissed the inquiries as “smears” and “conspiracy theories.”

Mynett’s firm is the top vendor for Omar’s campaign, which doled out $521,000 between April 1 and June 30 with Mynett’s share accounting for 44 percent of that total.

The financial relationship between Mynett and Omar began before the two announced they were married this March, but it is unclear how long the two were romantically linked before they tied the knot. Omar denied the two were romantically involved, but Mynett’s then-wife alleged in divorce papers that the two were having an affair.

Omar refused to answer questions about her relationship with her campaign’s top vendor. “I have no interest in allowing the conversation about my personal life to continue and so I have no desire to discuss it,” she said last year. Her earliest payment to Mynett’s firm came in August 2018, during her first run for federal office.

The newly released filings also show that Omar’s Democratic primary opponent, Antone Melton-Meaux, drastically outraised her in the second quarter, bringing in $3.2 million to Omar’s $471,000.

Omar’s campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the payments.

Adam Schiff dreads criminal investigation led by federal prosecutor Daniel Chaitin

www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/adam-schiff-dreads-criminal-investigation-led-by-federal-prosecutor/

How Attorney General William Barr may yet unleash the power of the Justice Department has House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff unnerved.

The California Democrat invoked U.S. Attorney John Durham, who is conducting a criminal inquiry of the federal Russia investigation, as he discussed his dread that “more serious abuse” of federal law enforcement will happen in the coming days.

“One of the concerns I have with Bill Barr is that the worst is yet to come. I mean, he’s got a terrible, destructive track record as it is, and it may get worse in the coming days,” Schiff said in a recent episode of the Talking Feds podcast. “But what we have seen largely is Barr’s intervention to protect the president.”

As examples, Schiff mentioned Barr’s rollout of special counsel Robert Mueller’s report and “intervention” in cases spun off from the Russia investigation to “help Trump cronies” such as Roger Stone and former national security adviser Michael Flynn.

“What we have not yet had full visibility on is not Barr’s use of the shield to protect corruption writ large of his boss, Donald Trump, but the sword,” Schiff continued. “How he may be using the power of the Justice Department through Durham or others to go after the president’s enemies. And in many respects, that is a far greater, more serious abuse of the power of the Justice Department than his use of the shield.”

It’s a well-worn line of criticism for Schiff, who has complained since last year that the Justice Department has kept the Democratic-led House in the dark about its inquiries into whether there was inappropriate “spying” on Trump’s 2016 campaign and other misconduct.

But more recently, that anxiety has deepened as Trump accused former President Barack Obama and his vice president, Joe Biden, of committing crimes as part of the “Obamagate” scandal.

America’s Pravda Subsidiaries By Ned Ryun

https://amgreatness.com/2020/07/14/americas-pravda-subsidiaries/

By now, you’d think the Washington Post and the rest of the lefty media cohort—which is pretty much the entire American media sans Fox, talk radio, and a handful of online publications—would have learned their lesson. But no.

Each new dawn brings another farcical rant from the mainstream media. Facts be damned, hypocrisy ignored, truth summarily rejected—all in the name of “But Trump!” and “Orange Man bad!” Pravda veterans would be proud and perhaps, even a little jealous, as nobody in the MSM is being forced to propagandize at the point of a gun, with threats of a permanent vacation to sunny Siberia. No, the American news media does all of this of its  own volition.

President Trump gives a speech from the base of Mount Rushmore extolling the greatness of America and our shared history, imperfect though it is, of striving to recognize the equality that demands justice and liberty for all of our citizens. But the Washington Post, apparently with a straight face and zero shame, writes: “President Trump’s unyielding push to preserve Confederate symbols and the legacy of white domination, crystallized by his harsh denunciation of the racial justice movement . . . ” 

Of course, the president made no mention of the Confederacy or its symbols, not even one. Yet the broadcast networks minus Fox News and the rest of the mainstream media followed the Post’s unhinged fabrications as though they think we will favor them over our own eyes and ears.

The mainstream media, having exhausted any trace of objectivity after eight years of fawning coverage of Obama and three years of attacking Trump, now proudly spins leftist propaganda without even pretending to do anything else. When called on their left-leaning bias and their war on the truth, they cry “But Trump!” And if that’s not enough to justify their fabrications then perhaps you’ll get, “But Fox News!”  

Recently, the Washington Post Style section (and you’re thinking, “Who the hell in Washington has any style?”) ran a column headlined, “The data is in: Fox News May Have Kept Millions from Taking the Coronavirus Threat Seriously.” Seriously. The esteemed author reports on a study by Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Misinformation Review which makes all sorts of breathless claims wrapped in shiny academic nerd speak about Fox News and Sean Hannity in particular. 

NeverTrump Parasites Won’t Give Up on Destroying Their Host Julie Kelly

https://amgreatness.com/2020/07/14/nevertrump-parasites-wont-give-up-on-destroying-their-host/

“And yet without this president, NeverTrump will go back to the political wilderness, loathed by the Right and ignored by the Left.”

The past several days have been filled with accolades and attention for NeverTrump, the wee collection of self-proclaimed “conservatives” working against the president, in the corporate media. The Washington Post published a lengthy puff piece on two new nonprofits that are targeting not just President Trump but Trump-supporting Republican senators up for re-election. Post reporters, without evidence, referred to NeverTrump as a “sudden campaign force” that should make Team Trump shudder with fear.

Frank Bruni, far from a conservative or anything close to one, swooned over NeverTrumpers in his latest New York Times column. “That’s why, when I look at them, I see patriotism,” Bruni cooed.

That’s funny—most people on the Right, when they look at NeverTrump, see a sad collection of losing campaign managers, failed magazine editors, and third-rate pundits hanging on for dear life by giving the false impression a big chunk of Republicans oppose Donald Trump.

When President Trump looks at them, he sees “human scum.” And when Democrats see NeverTrump, they see useful idiots.

As I write in my new book, “Disloyal Opposition: How the NeverTrump Right Tried and Failed to Take Down the President,” NeverTrumpers have aided and abetted Democrats at every turn during the Trump era. From first seeding the imaginary Russian collusion ruse to backing impeachment, NeverTrump acts as the Democratic Party’s waterboys, cheering from the bench and wiping down sweaty brows hoping for a few atta boys on MSNBC.

How to End the COVID-19 Epidemic in the US By Leo Goldstein

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2020/07/how_to_end_the_covid19_epidemic_in_the_us.html

Hydroxychloroquine + Azithromycin (HCQ + AZ), with optional Zinc, given upon early symptoms, is a cure for COVID-19. This combination is a strong antiviral against the Wuhan coronavirus, quickly reducing the viral load and risk of transmission to other persons. It is a cure both for the treated patient and the epidemic in the country when it adopts this treatment widely, including middle age and young adult population.

Brazilian authorities are inclined to agree that early chloroquine / hydroxychloroquine treatment helps to “bend the curve”:

“There is evidence that in some cities and some states early drug treatment was applied and that was exactly what contributed to the decrease in this curve, in this evolution of the epidemic curve in these states,” he [Executive Secretary of the Ministry of Health, Élcio Franco] said at a news conference. The use of chloroquine in the treatment of covid-19 patients with mild symptoms has been recommended by the Ministry of Health since May 20.  [translation via Google Translate]

If a large fraction (30%–70%) of COVID-19 patients receive HCQ-based treatment early and isolate themselves for 5–7 days (until the viral loads drops to a reasonably safe level), the virus reproduction rate R drops below 1. The number of cases drops exponentially, and the epidemic ends. This has happened in Italy, Spain, and other countries that adopted this treatment when the infection was already widespread. When the epidemic ends, COVID-19 will likely remain endemic, but easily treated disease, like a common cold or flu. On the other hand, if presumed COVID-19 patients are not treated early, the coronavirus is free to replicate and spread as now, with the risk that it will mutate into something horrible.

Hagia Sophia: Turkish Propaganda vs. Documented History By Raymond Ibrahim

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2020/07/hagia_sophia_turkish_propaganda_vs_documented_history.html

Millions of Orthodox and other Christians around the world were either shocked, angered, and/or saddened to learn recently that Turkey has just approved of transforming the Hagia Sophia museum — which was originally built, and for a millennium functioned, as an Orthodox cathedral — into a mosque. 

In a long speech rationalizing this decision, which he personally spearheaded, Turkish president Erdogan said the following:

The conquest of Istanbul [Constantinople] and the conversion of the Hagia Sophia into a mosque are among the most glorious chapters of Turkish history. On May 29, 1453, [Ottoman] Sultan Muhammad II entered the city after a long siege and headed directly to the Hagia Sophia [Greek for “Holy Wisdom”]. As the Byzantines awaited their fate, fearful and curious, inside the Hagia Sophia, Muhammad entered the Hagia Sophia, giving assurances to the people regarding their lives and freedoms…  [He then] recited the first adhan [call to prayer].  Thus he registered his conquest.  Then, in a corner of the Hagia Sophia, he performed two prostrations out of gratitude.  With this move he demonstrated that he had transformed the Hagia Sophia into a mosque….  The domes and walls of this great place of worship have resonated with prayers and takbirs [shouts of “Allahu Akbar”] for 481 years since then.

Such a pious recounting is only slightly less hagiographical than the position of leading Turkish historians, such as Professor Selim Akdogan.  Recently on Al Jazeera he insisted that Sultan Muhammad had actually “purchased” the Hagia Sophia from its conquered Christian worshippers.

Are these rosy renderings accurate? Fortunately, we need not rely on Turkic propaganda; we have primary source documents describing exactly what the Turks and Sultan Muhammad did after conquering Constantinople and its Hagia Sophia in 1453.  (All quotes in the following narrative were derived from contemporary sources, mostly eyewitnesses, as documented in chapter 7 of Sword and Scimitar.)

An American’s Odyssey in Soviet Russia: Will We Heed His Warning? By Eileen F. Toplansky

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2020/07/an_americans_odyssey_in_soviet_russia_will_we_heed_his_warning.html

After I wrote the article titled “The Soviet Plan for ‘Ideological Subversion’ Describes Our Current Turmoil,” Charles Cole, author of In Russian Wonderland: An American’s Odyssey in Soviet Russia, contacted me.  His memoir recounts his time in 1972 as a Russian-speaking American “guide” in various Soviet cities where the “Research and Development in the USA” exhibit was on display. 

He chronicles the lives of average Soviet citizens at that period and describes how people lived under the tyranny of an omnipotent government.  He is exhorting Americans to perceive the lessons of the failed communist experience.  Like others who have reviewed the book, I was struck by the following anecdote, where an elderly man gave Cole a bag of ten freshly picked apples.  At the bottom of the bag, Cole found a piece of paper folded into a tiny cube. It read,  “We have a totalitarian regime. If we had a democratic republic, we would have progressed further and achieved more.  Nowadays the psychiatric hospitals are filled with dissidents[.]  You should take pride in having such a democratic country and not be overly tolerant in the face of those who have been blinded and deceived by propaganda.”

Also illuminating is the story that Cole recounts of when he and his fellow guides went to dinner.  They were approached by English-speaking black men from Africa.  Cole asked if their country sent a lot of exchange students to Moscow.

‘Oh, yes,’ replied one, ‘we send all of them here to the Soviet Union.’ He explained why: ‘We used to send quite a few of our students to Princeton, Columbia, and Berkeley, but they all came back Marxists. Now we send them here, and after three or four years in the USSR, they all return dedicated anti-communists.’

It’s a lesson that American parents still haven’t learned. They send their kids to Princeton, Columbia, Berkeley, and other universities, and they come back as radical leftists, and, yes, some of them flat-out Marxists.

How To Create A Pandemic Panic…And Keep It Going

https://issuesinsights.com/2020/07/15/covid-19-shows-how-to-create-a-pandemic-panicand-keep-it-going/

This week, California, which has a death rate that is less than half the national average, is rolling back its reopening amid an increase in coronavirus cases. Elsewhere, we’re awash in stories about how states have reopened “too soon.” Why the continued panic when we know that the disease is far less lethal than originally feared?

If nothing else, the coronavirus pandemic is a textbook example of how to create fear and anxiety that is out of proportion to the threat, and spur panic-induced policies that needlessly kill people (like seniors in New York nursing homes). It also demonstrates how to keep the panic going, even as evidence piles up that the initial fears were wildly exaggerated.

Before anyone accuses us of being indifferent to COVID-19 deaths, or of being conspiracy mongers, we feel the need to point out that we aren’t saying that the coronavirus isn’t a serious public health threat. It obviously is. The question is whether the risk is being exaggerated and whether public policies enacted in the wake of it are necessary or effective.

Here are five steps that the got the coronavirus panic started and why it continues to this day.

1. Wildly exaggerate the deadliness of the disease. Most perceptions of the coronavirus were formed when the World Health Organization announced that the fatality rate was above 3%. If true, there would be millions of people dead. But it wasn’t even close to accurate. Based on ever greater amounts of data, we know that that the death rate is more like a bad flu season than the plague. Then there was the report from the Imperial College of London in March that claimed that even with draconian lockdowns in place, a million people in the U.S. would die from the coronavirus. That model has since been debunked, but the combination of the two extremely dire forecasts set the public’s perception of the disease and acceptance of draconian control measures.

2. Overcount deaths and undercount cases. These perceptions have continued because of the way cases and deaths are counted. On the one hand, the number of “confirmed” cases is a fraction of the actual number of people who’ve contracted the disease. That’s because many have symptoms that are minor or nonexistent, and so they never bother to get tested. In fact, one reason for the increase in “confirmed” cases is the fact that testing is more routine, even for those who are asymptomatic.