Displaying posts published in

February 2021

Palestinians: EU Facilitating Hamas Victory by Bassam Tawil

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/17055/eu-hamas-elections

It is important to note that Israel did not stop the Palestinians in the past from holding presidential and parliamentary elections in 1996, 2005 and 2006.

Israel did not even stop Arab residents of Jerusalem from running in the 2006 Palestinian Legislative Council election as candidates for Hamas, the Islamist movement that does not recognize Israel’s right to exist and seeks to replace it with an Islamic state.

Hamas ran under the slogan “Islam is the solution” and promised to end corruption and bring good governance to the Palestinians… [and] also promised voters that it would resort to an “armed struggle” against Israel.

[W]hen Hamas participated in the 2006 election, which was also encouraged by the EU, the Islamist movement was still on the EU’s list of terrorist organizations. The EU, however, did not try to stop the terrorist organization from running in that election.

The Quartet members should have set the conditions before, not after the election. They had every right to do so: the Hamas-led government was expecting the international community to continue providing financial aid to the Palestinians.

The Hamas-led government that was formed after the 2006 election was boycotted by the EU and most of the international community. Why? Because Hamas, in their eyes, is a terrorist organization. If so, why did the EU and other Western countries not object to Hamas’s participation in the elections before the vote? Did Hamas become a terrorist organization only after it won the election?

The EU and other international parties perfectly well see that Hamas will run in upcoming election and again promise Palestinians to continue the “armed struggle’ against Israel. They can perfectly well hear Hamas saying that its goal is to “liberate Palestine, from the [Jordan] river to the [Mediterranean] sea.” It seems that Hamas’s goal — finishing what Hitler started, annihilating the Jews — is precisely what the EU and the international community secretly, or unconsciously, want.

Facing pressure from the European Union, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas last month set dates for holding general elections for the first time in 15 years.

The EU was quick to welcome Abbas’s decision to hold elections for the Palestinian Legislative Council, the presidency and the PLO National Council.

Politicized ‘Science’ Is Not Science at All Science exists to assist in our understanding of the natural universe, but it has no answers whatsoever to life’s most existentially pressing questions. By Josh Hammer

https://amgreatness.com/2021/02/18/politicized-science-is-not-science-at-all/

Most middle schoolers or high schoolers in America are taught a mode of empirical inquiry and knowledge attainment usually referred to as the “scientific method.” Although the discipline has origins dating back to classical antiquity, the term emerged in the 19th century and took on sustained life in the 20th century. The multistep “scientific method,” as it is generally formulated, amounts to something along the lines of: 1) problem; 2) research; 3) hypothesis; 4) experiment; 5) data collection; 6) analysis; and 7) conclusion.

Rational empiricism and a skepticism of the status quo inhere in the very process; they are baked into the entire enterprise. The purpose of the scientific method is to constantly contest and, when necessary, disprove flawed hypotheses and mistaken conclusions previously deduced about the workings of the natural world. A basic thought experiment is instructive: Imagine what sort of world we might have today had Copernicus, Galileo and all subsequent astronomers blindly accepted the erroneous, then-dominant belief in a geocentric universe.

True, as the conservative icon Edmund Burke taught, epistemological humility is a defining trait of political statesmanship. But science is not, contra the Left’s frequent hysterical shrieks, synonymous with politics. On the contrary, any scientist worth his salt must approach his discipline with something resembling the opposite of epistemological humility—skepticism, that is, of the legitimacy of the inherited status quo and an insatiable desire to challenge the status quo’s underlying precepts. Only through such intellectually unconstrained, methodologically rigorous testing can we approach confidence in the validity of any claimed scientific knowledge.

Alas, the Democratic Party, America’s would-be “party of science,” whose leading lights bellow, “Trust the science!” as an authoritative command akin to the tablet-bearing Moses’ descent from Mount Sinai, missed the memo. Whether the issue is climate change, COVID-19 mask mandates, pandemic-era school reopenings or any other number of issues, the Left browbeats its political opponents with the faux mantle of science and accuses those who have the temerity to ask questions as science “deniers.” Flat-earthers no doubt nod with approval, but Isaac Newton and Albert Einstein scowl from the grave.

Elite Private Schools Go Woke “Social justice” indoctrination will continue to metastasize until parents wake up and act. The cement is hardening—the time to act is now.By Larry Sand

https://amgreatness.com/2021/02/18/elite-private-schools-go-woke/

Some parents are paying $50,000 a year for their kids to be indoctrinated.

Colleges have been fertile fields of woke craziness for years now. Just a few recent examples: Middlebury College Professor Jonathan Miller-Lane claims that “To preserve American democracy, Whiteness must be demilitarized so that bodies designated as ‘White’ might become human.” A Washington and Lee University law professor insists that votes of black Americans should be counted twice as a form of “voter reparations.” Not to be outdone, students, alumni, and faculty at Assumption University, a Catholic school in Massachusetts, have attacked the school’s promotion of Catholic teaching on marriage and abortion.

It’s no secret that the wacky world of woke has also made deep inroads into our nation’s K-12 public schools. But what about private K-12 schools? Like Covid-19, the woke pandemic does not stop at the schoolhouse door—not even at the gates of the chichi private ones. For example, Brentwood School is a top-rated private institution located in a tony part of West Los Angeles. Parents of the 1,000 K-12 students who attend the school fork over—depending on grade level—about $37,725 a year. The school boasts that all its students who graduate go on to attend a four-year college.

You might think that parents paying large sums of money to educate their kids would expect them to get something of a nonpoliticized education. But no. Brentwood School has gotten into bed with the diversicrats and the segregationists. The school’s “Community-Building Sessions” are right out of the Jim Crow South.

Covid Therapies versus Covid Vaccines: Who Benefits? By Carrie Lynn Caoili

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2021/02/covid_therapies_versus_covid_vaccines_who_benefits.html

“Yes, they were feverishly working on a vaccine. But why were they not as frantically looking for a cure or treatment? And why were they continuous knocking down every possible treatment that was suggested? ”

I knew something was amiss when the pandemic hit. I have four degrees in the field of psychology including a PhD. My years of training and experience were telling me something wasn’t right. My BS detector as all the best psychologists would call it kept going off. I just kept wondering why our National health leaders kept putting the burden of handling the spread on us? 

Yes, they were feverishly working on a vaccine. But why were they not as frantically looking for a cure or treatment? And why were they continuous knocking down every possible treatment that was suggested? 

So, I did what any good academic would do. I started trying to figure out the answer to my questions. In my search I uncovered a trail of corruption, monetary incentives, secrecy, and lies. 

In 2018 Congress questioned the NIH (Anthony Fauci leads the NIH’s infectious disease research institute) and the CDC about ethical issues with both the CDC and NIH Foundations between 2014 and 2018 with regard to their collection of money from anonymous donors. 

For the CDC one of the donors turned out to be Coca Cola. They gave money for research involving whether unhealthy foods caused type 2 diabetes and obesity.

Lying About Obama A new biography uncovers the facts behind the fake news. Bruce Bawer

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2021/02/lying-about-obama-bruce-bawer/

Jack Cashill has written over a dozen books, including two about the mysterious 1996 explosion of TWA Flight 800, one about the Trayvon Martin case, and two – now three – about Barack Obama. His new book, Unmasking Obama: The Fight to Tell the True Story of a Failed Presidency, is a definitive account not only of Obama’s eight years in office but also of the transformation of most mainstream American political journalists, largely during the Obama era, from relatively objective reporters of the facts – emphasis on “relatively” – to dedicated partisans of the left, ready and eager at every turn to cover up unpleasant truths (however important) about Democrats and to promote outrageous lies (however destructive) about Republicans.

Fortunately, in the age of the Internet, the mainstream media have competition. Yes, there are scads of people who purvey nonsense online. But there are also serious writers who are devoted not to the Democratic Party narrative but to the facts. Some of them have worked in the mainstream media only to lose their jobs because of their excessive curiosity about matters that their bosses considered off-limits. Ken Timmerman, a Clinton voter in 1992, was fired by Time when, in 1994, he “followed the facts on the China trade to the doors of the Oval Office.” Sharyl Attkisson’s interest in the Benghazi story forced her out of CBS News. Both kept writing, but for less prestigious – and less lucrative – outlets. Cashill calls these non-mainstream writers “Lilliputians” (for the teeny-weeny people, of course, in Gulliver’s Travels) and describes them as members of the new American samizdat, borrowing the Russian word used in Soviet times to denote, as he puts it, “the clandestine copying and distribution of literature banned by the state.”

Biden Pick for Human Rights Undersecretary Worked for Group That Claimed Jews Were Behind 9/11 Daniel Greenfield

https://www.frontpagemag.com/point/2021/02/biden-pick-human-rights-undersecretary-worked-daniel-greenfield/

Another day, another antisemitic Biden nominee.

Earlier this month, I reported on Biden’s choice of Hady “I was inspired by the Palestinian intifada” Amr a Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Israel-Palestine. Now, Alana Goodman at the Free Beacon digs into another problematic Biden nominee who has issues with Jews.

Uzra Zeya nominated for undersecretary of civilian security, democracy, and human rights compiled research for a book that argues that “the Israel lobby has subverted the American political process to take control of U.S. Middle East policy”

Zeya, a former U.S. diplomat who was nominated for undersecretary for civilian security, democracy, and human rights, worked for the Washington Report and its publishing group, the American Educational Trust, in 1989 and 1990. The news outlet is staunchly anti-Israel and has published articles questioning the national loyalty of American Jews and opposing taxpayer funding to the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum.

Sean Durns, a research analyst at the Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America, called the Washington Report a “fringe organization” that has “published content with anti-Semitic themes,” including claims that the Mossad was behind the JFK assassination and the Sept. 11 attacks…

Dems Introduce Bill Banning President Trump’s Burial at Arlington Daniel Greenfield

https://www.frontpagemag.com/point/2021/02/dems-introduce-bill-banning-president-trumps-daniel-greenfield/

Ugly. But ugly is Rep. Linda Sanchez’s middle name. 

Sanchez, whose husband was indicted on corruption charges, introduced H. R. 484 which she calls the No Glory for Hate Act which bars “the use of Federal funds for the commemoration of certain former Presidents”.

Which certain presidents? 

“any former President that has been twice impeached by the House of Representatives on or before the date of enactment of this Act ”

That’s convenient because it leaves out Bill Clinton and any Democrat that Republicans go on to impeach twice. But being impeached once is okay.

Sanchez, who found 13 Democrat co-sponsors for this vile ugliness, includes a ban on buying President Trump at Arlington, “the Secretary of Defense shall not approve a determination of eligibility for interment or inurnment in Arlington National Cemetery made by the Secretary of the Army that permits the interment or inurnment in Arlington National Cemetery of any former President that has been twice impeached by the House of Representatives.”

Co-sponsors for this include Rep. Schakowsky, Rep. Napolitano, Rep. Davis, Rep. Carson, Rep. Escobar, Rep. Lee, Barbara, Rep. Blumenauer, Rep. Hayes, 
Rep. Gallego, Rep. Connolly, Rep. Lowenthal, Rep. Williams, and Rep. Chu.

The War on Trump Racist Dems buy a ticket in the leftist lawsuit lottery. Matthew Vadum

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2021/02/war-trump-matthew-vadum/

The leftist NAACP, which never met a conservative it didn’t consider to be a racist hatemonger, is suing former President Donald Trump using an obscure law that was wielded against the Democratic Party-affiliated terrorists of the Ku Klux Klan who murdered blacks and their Republican enemies after the Civil War.

The Ku Klux Klan Act is an unusual tool to pull from a cobweb-covered chest of old laws nobody knew were still in existence. President Ulysses S. Grant (he’s the guy on the $50 bill, millennials!) used the statute to declare martial law, penalize terrorist organizations, and use military force to suppress the KKK after the Civil War.

Those who filed this baseless, pie-in-the-sky lawsuit don’t give a farthing’s cuss about justice. The Democratic National Committee needs a reason to keep squeezing its donors and Trump is the most impressive object of revilement Democrats have had to shriek at in decades.

This is just part of a long-running campaign of harassment aimed at destroying Florida’s own Trump, who was acquitted after an unprecedented two impeachment trials, besting the previous record-holding acquittees Andrew Johnson of Tennessee and Bill Clinton of Arkansas.

It comes after an armada of court-authorized fishing expeditions and emoluments lawsuits failed to take away the presidency that Hillary Clinton so devoutly wished had been hers.

We all know that The Left was fine with Trump until he got into politics on the Republican side. It bestowed a truckload of honors on him before he became president, including the Muhammad Ali Entrepreneur Award (2007) and alongside Rosa Parks, the Ellis Island Medal of Honor (1986). But these blindly hateful people need to keep busy and sewing quilts, downvoting disfavored books on Amazon, and throwing Molotov cocktails at cops and burns up so much of the day.

Tom Cotton’s Strategy to ‘Consign the Chinese Communists to the Ash Heap of History’ By Tyler O’Neil

https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/tyler-o-neil/2021/02/18/tom-cotton-lays-out-a-strategy-to-fight-the-new-cold-war-against-china-n1426674

On Thursday, Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) released a roadmap to counter the Chinese Communist Party and prevail in a new “Cold War” against this “Evil Empire.”

“This Evil Empire preys on—and spies on—Americans. It imprisons innocent people in concentration camps. It uses slave labor to fuel its factories. And it denies basic freedoms to all its 1.4 billion people,” Cotton declared in a speech at the Ronald Reagan Institute in Chicago. “We need to beat this Evil Empire—and consign the Chinese Communists, like the Bolsheviks, to the ash heap of history.”

He released a report entitled “Beat China: Targeted Decoupling and the Economic Long War” that laid out three central goals to combat China: decoupling, mitigating the effects of decoupling, and reorganizing the federal government to better respond to the CCP.

Cotton praised Reagan’s historic success at defeating the Soviet Union without firing a shot, but he warned that the “Cold War” against China “will be more complicated than the first. China is wealthier and more populous than any enemy America has ever faced. It’s also more entangled with us economically.”

Cotton acknowledged that America’s “deep dependence on China didn’t grow overnight.” Rather, Americans actively pursued a “strategic partnership” with the Chinese Communist Party on the grounds that open markets and open borders would make China rich and then lead China on the path to freedom. China indeed became rich, “but instead of reforming, the Communist Party began to exploit new connections between our free society and its totalitarian society.”

How Gone is He? Scott Johnson

https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2021/02/how-gone-is-he.php

President Biden claimed during his CNN town hall in Wisconsin on Tuesday that his administration came into office with no coronavirus vaccines available. Zachary Evans gives this helpful straight news account for NR (also published here at Yahoo! News):

Biden received his first dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine on December 21, and the second dose in January. While discussing the issue of vaccine supply during the town hall, Biden initially said there were 50 million doses available when he assumed office.

“We came into office, there were only 50 million doses that were available. By the end of July we’ll have over 600 million doses,” Biden told host Anderson Cooper.

However, Biden also said “we got into office and found out…there was nothing in the refrigerator, figuratively and literally speaking, and there were 10 million doses a day that were available.” (The Biden administration’s initial target was to administer 1 million vaccine doses per day, a pace already set by the time the president was sworn in.)

“It’s one thing to have the vaccine, which we didn’t have when we came into office, but” one also needs “a vaccinator,” Biden subsequently told Cooper, when asked about the logistics of getting shots to Americans.

Biden’s remarks are confused, confusing, and absurdly erroneous. How gone is he? Or aren’t we supposed to ask?

Exit question: Where have all the vaccinators gone?