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Redacted FBI Document Hints at Israeli Efforts to Help Trump in 2016 Campaign
The Times of Israel
Roger Stone, a longtime confidant of President Donald Trump who was convicted last year in Robert Mueller’s investigation into ties between Russia and the Trump campaign, was in contact with one or more apparently well-connected Israelis at the height of the 2016 US presidential campaign, one of whom warned Stone that Trump was “going to be defeated unless we intervene” and promised “we have critical intel [sic].” The exchange between Stone and this Jerusalem-based contact appears in FBI documents made public on Tuesday. The documents — FBI affidavits submitted to obtain search warrants in the criminal investigation into Stone — were released following a court case brought by The Associated Press and other media organizations.
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British Publisher Withdraws History Textbook Following Pressure By Pro-Israel Group
Middle East Monitor
Publisher Hodder Education has caved in to pressure from a pro-Israel lobby group and withdrawn a GCSE [secondary level] history textbook containing details of the conflict between Israel and Palestine. The book was intended for use with the Edexcel syllabus. Lobby group UK Lawyers For Israel (UKLFI), which was recently sued at the High Court of Justice in London for spreading misinformation, complained about what it called “misleading and confusing content” in Conflict in the Middle East 1945-95 … The group also took issue with the land being referred to as Palestine during the post-Roman era. The description of early 20th century Jewish immigrants to Palestine as “settlers” was another bone of contention … It is well-known that Jewish extremists were indeed responsible for some of the most heinous terrorist attacks during that period …
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Pompeo’s Cynical Attack on the Nuclear Deal
Daniel Larison - The American Conservative
The Trump administration has been desperately trying to kill the nuclear deal for the last two years after reneging on it. Now they will try to kill it by pretending to be part of it again … The administration’s latest destructive ploy won’t find any support on the Security Council. There is nothing “intricate” about this idea. It is a crude, heavy-handed attempt to employ the JCPOA’s own provisions to destroy it. It is just the latest in a series of administration moves that tries to have things both ways. They want to renege on U.S. commitments while still refusing to allow Iran to benefit from the agreement … It reeks of bad faith and contempt for international law … Leave it to someone as dishonest as Pompeo to try to claim that the U.S. belongs to a deal that it flatly rejected.
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A 'Nazi' Funeral in London
British newsreel 1936 - Video
The funeral ceremony in London honoring the German ambassador is shown in this April 1936 film report of “British Movietone News.” With high-ranking British officials in attendance, British Grenadier Guards in full dress escort the swastika-draped coffin of German diplomat Leopold von Hoesch, who had died at his post in the English capital. Respectful crowds line the roadside. The coffin is ceremoniously lowered on to a British destroyer for transport to the homeland, as British servicemen play solemn bagpipe music. Runtime: 46 secs.
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How You Raise Your Children is Less Important Than You Think, Geneticist Says
P. Watson – The Independent (Britain)
How children are raised and the schooling they receive matters a lot less than is generally thought, according to a leading geneticist. Robert Plomin from King’s College London believes parents need not worry about how their children will turn out because it is not something they can control … His research has previously indicated that up to 70 per cent of a child’s academic performance is genetically derived. It is contentious because educationalists have long held that any child, from whatever background, can achieve the highest academic ability … He said he believes cognitive skills such as learning to read, performing maths and understanding science are “some of the most heritable, the most genetically influenced traits that we have”. Similarly, he said, genetics played a major part in the intelligence of schoolchildren, rather than teaching.
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A lifetime ago, a Jewish girl confided in her diary, as she spent two years in isolation from the outside world, in a doomed attempt to escape mortal danger. Anne Frank, a teenager from Amsterdam, wrote of her hopes, fears, and dreams, as she and her family hid from the Nazis in a secret annex behind a canal-side house. Seventy-five years ago this year, after their hiding place was discovered, Anne died of typhus in the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp in Germany, aged 15. But the diary that her father published after World War II won a worldwide audience as a reminder of the horrors of the Holocaust, and remains more relevant than ever … The “Diary of a Young Girl” has become one of the world’s most-read books, selling 30 million copies and being translated into more than 70 languages.
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Prague authorities on Friday said they had removed a controversial Soviet-era statue, despite protests from Moscow, to make way for a World War II memorial. Plans to remove the bronze statue of Soviet general Ivan Konev triggered a sharp reaction from Moscow last year. While Konev is regarded as a hero in Russia, many Czechs see him as a symbol of Soviet-era oppression. He led Red Army troops that liberated Prague from the Nazis in 1945, but he was also in charge of Operation Whirlwind, which crushed the anti-Soviet Hungarian Uprising of 1956. Prague district 6 mayor Ondrej Kolar told the Czech CTK news agency that Konev’s statue would be placed in a “museum dedicated to the history of the 20th century in Czechoslovakia.”
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What the Coronavirus Means for Europe’s Future
S. Taladrid - The New Yorker
… Had Monnet lived to today, he surely would have been disappointed with the way that many E.U. members initially responded to the coronavirus pandemic. When the disease reached the Continent, it was almost as if countries became oblivious of their neighbors — the tenets of the union seemed to vanish when they were needed most. From Germany to Spain, governments treated the transnational health crisis as they would a terrorist threat: as a domestic issue. Borders across the Schengen Area closed, the single market was called into question, and each country adopted its own public-health measures.
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A federal appeals court has upheld a New Jersey school district’s firing of a teacher who allegedly taught his high school history students’ denial of the Holocaust and conspiracy theories linking the United States to the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. The teacher, Jason Mostafa Ali, alleged that his dismissal from Woodbridge (N.J.) High School in 2016 was discriminatory based on his race and his perceived religion … Ali began work as a history teacher at Woodbridge High in September 2015, and by the following May reports were trickling up to the school administration that the teacher was offering unorthodox views about the Holocaust and the 9/11 terrorist attacks. One student wrote in a paper submitted in Ali’s class that “Adolf Hitler … is looked at as a bad guy but in reality brought Germany out of its great depression.”
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New Jersey History Teacher Fired for Allowing Students to Question 'Holocaust' Loses Lawsuit on Appeal
E. Striker – National Justice
Jason Mostafa Ali, a New Jersey history teacher of Egyptian descent, had his appeal in a lawsuit alleging discrimination at the hands of the principal at his school tossed out of federal court. The dispute began in 2017, when Woodbridge High School’s Jewish principal Glenn Lottman lobbied local Superintendent Robert Zega to have him fired. Zega and Lottman terminated Ali after he allowed students in the class to question the Holocaust and whether the Mossad aided Al Qaeda during the 9/ 11 terror attacks. The students were questioning the Holocaust and the legacy of Hitler on their own. Ali only encouraged the students to engage in critical thinking without ideological input.
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What is 'Holocaust Denial'?
Barbara Kulaszka
In recent years, considerable attention has been devoted to the supposed danger of “Holocaust denial.” Politicians, newspapers and television warn about the growing influence of those who reject the Holocaust story that some six million European Jews were systematically exterminated during the Second World War, most of them in gas chambers. In several countries, including Israel, France, Germany and Austria, “Holocaust denial” is against the law, and “deniers” have been punished with stiff fines and prison sentences … Often overlooked in this controversy is the crucial question: Just what constitutes “Holocaust denial”?
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The Saar Region Returns to Germany After Referendum, 1935
Video - British Pathé
As this British newsreel report shows, joyful crowds in the Saar region of western Germany celebrate the results of the referendum by which the region rejoined the German Reich. Church bells ring in celebration. Homes, buildings, and streets packed with happy people are bedecked with swastika banners. Children sing the National Socialist anthem. In the aftermath of World War I, the victorious powers separated the region from the rest of the nation, and put it under international League of Nations administration. In a plebiscite on Jan. 13, 1935, Saarlanders voted 91 percent to return to Germany. The results, which indisputably reflected authentic popular opinion, was an expression not only of national solidarity, but also of confidence in the leadership of Hitler and the National Socialist Party. Runtime: 4:11 mins.
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US Government Blocks, Seizes Website of Iran Newspaper
Press TV (Iran)
The US Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) has, in an arbitrary move, blocked and seized the official domain name of Iranian state-run newspaper Iran, the paper’s managing director says … In the meantime, he said, the newspaper’s online version will be available via “irannewspaper.ir”. The newspaper’s .com domain is currently seized by the US Treasury Department, and its Florida-based “OFAC Holding” is now introduced as the registrant of the “iran-newspaper.com” … In January 2020, the website of Iran’s Fars News Agency was also blocked upon the US Treasury’s order … Previously, Google, YouTube, Facebook, Instagram and Twitter targeted Iranian accounts, including those belonging to broadcasters.
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‘Never in My Country’: COVID-19 and American Exceptionalism
Jeanne Morefield - Responsible Statecraft
.. The U.S.’s military hegemony is comprised of 800 bases in over 70 nations – more bases than any other nation or empire in history. The U.S. maintains drone bases, listening posts, “black sites,” aircraft carriers, a massive nuclear stockpile, and military personnel working in approximately 160 countries … This apparatus is built not for deterrence, but for primacy. The U.S.’s global primacy emerged from the wreckage of World War II … Since then, the United States has overthrown or attempted to overthrow the governments of approximately 50 countries … In fiscal terms, maintaining American hegemony requires spending more on “defense” than the next seven largest countries combined … Foreign policy is routinely the last issue Americans consider when they vote for presidents …
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Universities Breed Anger, Ignorance, and Ingratitude
Victor Davis Hanson - National Review
… An entire generation of Americans has costly degrees; many cannot use them to find well-paying jobs, and they increasingly forgo or delay marriage, child-rearing, and buying a car or home until their mid-twenties or thirties … Colleges are turning out woke and broke graduates. They are not up to ensuring the country that they will pass on to the next generation an America that’s as prosperous, secure, and ethical as what they inherited and have so often faulted. Ignorance, arrogance, and ingratitude are now the brands of the undergraduate experience. No wonder a once duly honored institution, higher education, is now either the butt of jokes or cynically seen as a credentialing factory.
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How Tyranny Came to America
Joseph Sobran
One of the great goals of education is to initiate the young into the conversation of their ancestors; to enable them to understand the language of that conversation, in all its subtlety, and maybe even, in their maturity, to add to it some wisdom of their own. The modern American educational system no longer teaches us the political language of our ancestors. In fact our schooling helps widen the gulf of time between our ancestors and ourselves, because much of what we are taught in the name of civics, political science, or American history is really modern liberal propaganda.
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China’s Diplomats Show Teeth in Defending Virus Response
Associated Press
From Asia to Africa, London to Berlin, Chinese envoys have set off diplomatic firestorms with a combative defense whenever their country is accused of not acting quickly enough to stem the spread of the coronavirus pandemic. They belong to a new generation of “Wolf Warrior” diplomats, named after patriotic blockbuster films starring a muscle-bound Chinese commando killing American bad guys in Africa and Southeast Asia with his bare hands. The tougher approach has been building for several years under President Xi Jinping … His government has urged its diplomats to pursue “major-country diplomacy with Chinese characteristics” — a call for China to reassert its historic status as a global power.
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China had no freeways at all in 1988, notes narrator Jeremy Clarkson while driving on a Chinese highway. Now the country has 84,000 miles of freeways, more than any other in the world. This vast, modern road network, he says, is fast becoming the “Eighth Wonder of the World.” And the dramatic building pace continues. Since 2011 China has been adding 6,000 miles of freeway each year. Clarkson, an English journalist, writer and world traveler, also cites the stunning bridges built in China in recent years, including one that is 34 miles long. He concludes the video with a gloomy comparison with his homeland. “In Britain, we’re doomed,” he says. Runtime: 1:47 mins.
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China’s Vast High-Speed Railway Network
Xinhua (China)
China’s vast and still growing high-speed rail network is not only the world’s largest, it’s larger than the networks of the rest of the world combined. The country’s high-speed rail service opened in 2008. Now (2020) it’s more than 30,000 kilometers (18,640 miles) in length. The network’s fastest trains are capable of speeds of 350 km/h (217 mph). Europe and Japan also have high-speed rail networks. The US has none. Runtime: 1:36 mins.
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Where Does the Six Million Figure Come From?
Haaretz (Israel)
One of the most well-known, if not iconic, facts known about the Holocaust is the number of Jewish victims killed by Nazi Germany up through the end of World War II. Perhaps not surprisingly, it is also this number – six million – that Holocaust deniers aim at when trying to discredit the essential nature of the Holocaust. Where did the number six million come from? … The number seems to have first been mentioned by Dr. Wilhelm Hoettl, an Austrian-born official in the Third Reich and a trained historian who served in a number of senior positions in the SS. In November 1945, Hoettl testified for the prosecution in the Nuremberg trials of accused Nazi war criminals … “Six million” is not, and was never intended to be, a precise accounting.
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Nazis Boasted About Six Million Holocaust Victims. But It Was a Jew Who First Cited That Figure
O. Aderet - Haaretz (Israel)
… Who was the first to mention the number 6 million, even before the historical studies were conducted and before the Pages of Testimony were collected by Yad Vashem … Yes, a year and a half before the end of World War II – and before hundreds of thousands of Hungarian Jews were murdered – it was a Jewish Zionist and not a Nazi officer who mentioned the number of Jews murdered in the Holocaust, which later became a symbol … About 15 years later, during Eichmann’s trial, chief prosecutor Gideon Hausner said that “In the consciousness of the nation the number 6 million has become sanctified.” But he added: “It’s not so simple to prove that. We did not use this number in any official document, but it became sanctified.”
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The Elusive 'Six Million'
Mark Weber
… The Six Million figure is hammered into the public consciousness, not only in newspapers, magazines, motion pictures, and television, but also routinely in our schools … Just what is the basis for this familiar figure? … This figure was not the result of any careful investigation, research, or calculation. The only specific evidence presented for it to the Nuremberg Tribunal was the hearsay testimony of former SS officer Wilhelm Höttl (sometimes spelled Hoettl), who said that he recalled it from a remark by Adolf Eichmann, the wartime head of the Jewish affairs section of Himmler’s Reich Security Main Office (RSHA).
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How Many People Were Killed by China’s Great Famine?
Mao Yushi - The Washington Post
There’s a mystery in China that’s decades old: how many people died during the Great Famine [1958-1961]? It’s almost impossible to say. Some historians call it the worst man-made disaster in human history, killing one out of every eight people in some places. But much about the time period is actively suppressed in China … It’s also important to understand because the Great Famine was caused by avoidable human mistakes, not inescapable natural disasters … Researchers debate the number of people killed, estimating it’s anywhere from 18 million to more than 42 million. The official Chinese government estimate hovers around 20 million … If this is right, the Great Famine killed about as many people as the Second World War.
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The One Certain Victor in the Pandemic War
Patrick J. Buchanan
… Even before the virus struck with full force in March, that [US federal budget] deficit was projected at or near $1 trillion — not only for fiscal year 2020 but for every year of the new decade … Hence a confident prediction: This generation will never again see a budget deficit smaller than $1 trillion. Indeed, the $2 trillion lately voted on to save businesses and keep paychecks going to workers will lift the deficit for 2020 above $3 trillion … Now, standing patiently in line for their bailouts, are the states — and America’s cities and counties. These governmental units are virtually all certain to face falling tax revenue and expanded social demands, leading to exploding deficits … The one certain victor in the coronavirus pandemic war will likely be Big Government.
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Nearly three-quarters of veterans surveyed and almost 70 percent of troops’ family members support a full withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan, according to a new poll from a conservative activist group released Wednesday. The results are an increase from identical questions in last year’s poll by Concerned Veterans for America, which has close ties to the conservative Koch network and the Trump administration … About 57 percent of veterans surveyed said they feel the United States should be less engaged in military conflicts overseas, an increase of about 9 percent from last year. Only 7 percent said they think the country should be more involved. In Afghanistan specifically, 73 percent of veterans surveyed support a full withdrawal of American military forces, and 69 percent of family members voiced the same opinion.
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Iran-US Tensions Rise on Trump Threat, Iran Satellite Launch
Associated Press
Tensions between Washington and Tehran flared anew Wednesday as Iran’s Revolutionary Guard conducted a space launch that could advance the country’s long-range missile program, and President Donald Trump threatened to “shoot down and destroy” any Iranian gunboats that harass Navy ships. The launch was a first for the Guard, revealing what experts described as a secret military space program … After Iran’s announcement, Trump wrote on Twitter, without citing any specific incident, “I have instructed the United States Navy to shoot down and destroy any and all Iranian gunboats if they harass our ships at sea.” Last Wednesday, the U.S. Navy reported that 11 Guard naval gunboats had carried out “dangerous and harassing approaches” to American Navy and Coast Guard vessels in the Persian Gulf.
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Violence Flares in Tense Paris Suburbs
France 24
Three nights of unrest in the French capital’s northern suburbs have stoked fears of a major flare-up in deprived neighbourhoods where weeks of lockdown have exacerbated the simmering tensions between restless youths and police … The skirmishes lasted into the early hours of Sunday before calm was restored, but unrest broke out again the following two nights, spreading to other suburbs north of Paris, including Asnières. Police said fireworks were aimed at them and several cars were torched while officers fired tear gas to disperse the troublemakers. Relations between police and residents have long been a fraught issue in France’s ethnically diverse suburbs, where men of African and North African origin complain about being routinely stopped and searched simply because of the colour of their skin.
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The Jewish Woman Who Entered a Nazi Camp to Marry a French Prime Minister
R. Tenorio - The Times of Israel
In an improbable wartime wedding at the infamous concentration camp of Buchenwald, two Jewish captives were united in matrimony: a Frenchwoman named Jeanne “Janot” Reichenbach and her longtime lover, Léon Blum, a former socialist prime minister of France. The ceremony was made possible because Reichenbach had voluntarily sought to join Blum at the camp after he was imprisoned there in 1943. Reichenbach’s courage is reflected in a new French feature film, “Je ne rêve que de vous,” with the English title “An Irrepressible Woman.” Directed by acclaimed French Jewish filmmaker Laurent Heynemann, it was recently screened at its Midwest premiere at the Chicago JCC Jewish Film Festival …
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The Liberation of the Camps: Facts vs. Lies
Theodore J. O'Keefe -- Institute for Historical Review
Nothing has been more effective in establishing the authenticity of the Holocaust story in the minds of Americans than the terrible scenes US troops discovered when they entered German concentration camps at the close of World War II. At Dachau, Buchenwald, Dora, Mauthausen, and other work and detention camps, horrified US infantrymen encountered heaps of dead and dying inmates, emaciated and diseased … But it is known today that, very soon after the liberation of the camps, American authorities were aware that the real story of the camps was quite different from the one in which they were coaching military public information officers, government spokesmen, politicians, journalists, and other mouthpieces.
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The Holocaust Museum's 'Black Liberators' Fraud
M. Weber – Institute for Historical Review
… In the film, two black veterans of the 761st “recalled” their role in liberating Dachau, ramming their tanks against the camp gates and encountering enemy machine gun fire from a burning barn. Also in the film, two elderly Jews who had been inmates in Buchenwald “recounted” their liberation by black GIs … Actually, this “moving reunion” is a staged fraud … No black troops participated in the liberation of either Buchenwald or Dachau … In spite of the 1993 revelations, the US Holocaust Museum — a federal government center operated by the taxpayer-funded United States Holocaust Memorial Council — has continued to propagate this fraud.
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Now is Not the Time for Another War in the Middle East
Dan Caldwell - Washington Examiner
… Some key policymakers have apparently failed to learn the lessons of the Iraq War and are pushing to start another major war in the Middle East. According to the New York Times, certain government officials have engaged in an effort to escalate military action against Iran significantly. One proposal supposedly involves sinking Iranian warships, an act of war that could lead to a major conflict … Instead of escalating military action against Iran and its proxies, Trump should withdraw all our troops from Iraq and end our involvement in a war that never should have been started in the first place. This move would be supported by two-thirds of people in the U.S. and many Iraq War veterans, the majority of whom no longer feel the war was worth fighting.
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America’s Little-Known ‘War’ Against Switzerland
Video - Mark Felton Productions
Conflict between the United States and Switzerland is a little-known chapter of World War II. In what the narrator calls an “undeclared war,” US war planes bombed Swiss towns and cities, and Swiss fighter planes fought US bombers. Runtime: 10:01 mins. On one occasion, US bombers killed 40 in the Swiss town of Schaffhausen. On Feb. 22, 1945, US aircraft hit 13 towns across Switzerland, killing 21. On another occasion, March 4, 1945, six US B-24 bombers hit the Swiss cities of Zurich and Basel. Later the US paid Switzerland millions in reparations for the destruction and loss of life.
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The Little-Known Allied WW2 Bombing of France
J. Laurenson - BBC News
It has been a taboo subject … the terrible civilian casualties suffered by the French due to Allied bombing up to and during the liberation of France. Historians believe Allied bombardments killed almost as many French people as German bombs killed Britons during the Blitz. According to research carried out by Andrew Knapp, history professor at the UK’s University of Reading, British, American and Canadian air raids resulted in 57,000 French civilian losses in World War Two … The most disturbing example is the bombing of Le Havre in September 1944. Nearly all of the city was reduced to ash and 5,000 French men, women and children were killed.
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Why the Shutdown Must End
David Deming
The shutdown of the American economy should end as soon as possible. We have reached the point where fear and panic have precluded logic and facts. The damage from our overreaction to the Covid-19 pandemic is likely to prove greater than the death toll from the disease itself. The virus is not containable, and our attempt to achieve the unachievable grows more costly every day.
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… No regime made greater “progress” in biological warfare than did the Soviet Union. From a unique insider’s perspective, a former high-level scientist in the Soviet biological warfare program tells the story in Biohazard: The Chilling Story of the Largest Covert Biological Weapons Program in the World … The revolutionary Soviet government early on put a high priority on diseases as a method of warfare. In 1928 it issued a secret decree ordering the development of typhus as a battlefield weapon. In the decades that followed, the USSR built and maintained a wide-ranging biological warfare program … While he was a graduate student at the Tomsk Medical Institute, Alibek studied Soviet wartime medical records that strongly suggested that the Red Army had used tularemia as a weapon against German troops outside Stalingrad in 1942.
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Thousands gather for this large outdoor celebration and festive parade in 1937, in front of the city hall of the northern German metropolis of Hamburg. Runtime: 8:22 mins. With sound. In the parade are floats and nationality groups from across Europe, including Poles, Spaniards and Romanians, who are heartily cheered by the crowds. Many hundreds of Germans in costumes also take part, celebrating their nation’s millennial history and heritage. This event was organized by the KdF, an important part of the “German Labor Front,” which arranged leisure time activities for workers, and generally defended and promoted workers’ interests in NS Germany. In the parade are large models of two KdF passenger ships, which provided inexpensive vacations cruises for German workers to Norway, Italy and other countries.
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The Normal Economy Is Never Coming Back
Adam Tooze
… The Western economies face a far deeper and more savage economic shock than they have ever previously experienced … An entire model of global economic development has been brought skidding to a halt … A protracted and halting recovery seems far more likely at this point than a vigorous V-shaped bounce back. And even once current production and employment have restarted, we will be dealing with the financial hangover for years to come … If radical uncertainty was a concern before, it will now be an ever present reality. Every flu season will be anxiously watched. To mix medical metaphors, how long will it be before we can declare ourselves in remission?
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Robert E. Lee and the Radical Rewriting of Our History
Audio – Mark Weber
With host James Edwards and co-host Keith Alexander, Mark Weber talks about the drastic rewriting of American history in recent years, pushed by the “politically correct” mass media, politicians and educators. Perhaps the most striking expression of this campaign has been the tearing down of statues of Robert E. Lee, the great Confederate commander. For more than a century, Weber notes, Lee was widely esteemed as a man of exemplary honor, courage and character. “A nation of men of Lee’s caliber would be unconquerable in spirit and soul,” wrote President Eisenhower in a 1960 letter explaining why “I proudly display a picture of this great American in on my office wall.” All healthy and enduring nations have regarded the traits that Lee personified as important virtues. That’s not at all the case in today’s America.
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The Truth About Lockdown in WW2 Leningrad
Anna Reid - UnHerd
… Starting in September 1941, when the Germans ringed the city, and ending in January 1944, when the Red Army finally smashed German lines and started pushing towards Berlin, the siege of Leningrad killed somewhere between 650,000 and 800,000 people. Some were killed by bombs or artillery, others by dysentery and typhus. But the large majority died of starvation … Even before it ended, the siege of Leningrad was being rewritten as a heroic victory story, a triumph of communal effort under the leadership of a wise and caring government. While the Soviet Union lasted, unexpurgated memoirs and diaries were unpublishable, and subjects such as family breakdown, ration fraud, feasting at the Smolny, mugging, looting and of course cannibalism remained taboo.
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In an address to the nation and the wider francophone world, the Franco-Cameroonian comedian Dieudonné M’bala M’bala called for peace and reconciliation in these anxious times … The fêted Dieudonné fell from grace from the French politico-media system in 2003, when he performed a comedy sketch on national television comparing Israeli settlers to Nazis. This was considered “anti-Semitic” and led to his blacklisting, as well as legal harassment by the Jewish-Zionist organizations … Urging “open-mindedness,” he added: “… Why not consider that Hitler was a man who thought he was doing good, but was simply mistaken? And he also paid for this with his life. He also made others pay, but has the time not come for the great reconciliation? … Could we not, on the contrary, rehabilitate Hitler? … Yes, he belongs to humanity whether you like it or not.”
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… Jewish dominated Hollywood and the entertainment media have helped to create the anti-Semitism frenzy, and continue to give the public regular doses of the holocaust story. Currently there are a number of television shows that depict in one form or another the persecution of Jews … Regularly exposing anti-Semitism is regarded as a good thing by many Jewish groups because the state of perpetual victimization that it supports enables them to obtain special benefits that might otherwise be considered excessive in a pluralistic democracy. Holocaust education in schools is now mandatory in many jurisdictions … Holocaust and anti-Semitism manufactured guilt are undoubtedly contributing factors to the subservient relationship that the United States enjoys with the state of Israel …
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How Jewish is Hollywood?
Joel Stein -- Los Angeles Times
… The Jews are so dominant, I had to scour the trades to come up with six Gentiles in high positions at entertainment companies. When I called them to talk about their incredible advancement, five of them refused to talk to me, apparently out of fear of insulting Jews … As a proud Jew, I want America to know about our accomplishment. Yes, we control Hollywood. Without us, you’d be flipping between “The 700 Club” and “Davey and Goliath” on TV all day … I don’t care if Americans think we’re running the news media, Hollywood, Wall Street or the government. I just care that we get to keep running them.
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Pres. Trump’s 2020 Holocaust Remembrance Proclamation
The White House
… Tragically, far too many Americans of Jewish faith still face persecution. That is why I issued an Executive Order in December of 2019 to further expand and strengthen my Administration’s ongoing efforts to combat racist and anti-Semitic discrimination. We must always condemn and confront all forms of racial, religious, and ethnic prejudice, discrimination, and hatred … I, Donald J. Trump, President of the United States of America, do hereby ask the people of the United States to observe the Days of Remembrance of Victims of the Holocaust, April 19 through April 26, 2020, and the solemn anniversary of the liberation of Nazi death camps, with appropriate study, prayers and commemoration …
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Fake News Starts in Washington: Perception Management and Influence Operations Manipulate Public Opinion
Philip Giraldi
… Lying and government have a long history … In more recent centuries, the British became masters of both spying and deception. Major influencing intelligence operations run against the United States can be credited with having led to American involvement in both world wars … The Pentagon has also been into the deception game, particularly in terms of justifying the Vietnam War by placing stories emphasizing the threat to the United States, which was largely an invention … Governing through lies does not make for good policy and it makes the government lack credibility even when it is telling the truth. American citizens who are taken in and fooled by what comes out of the influencing operations deserve much better.
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Britain’s Secret WW2 Propaganda War
Podcast - BBC News
How sex, jazz and ‘fake news’ were used to undermine the Nazis in World War Two. Runtime: nine minutes. In 1941, the UK created a top secret propaganda department, the Political Warfare Executive to wage psychological warfare on the German war machine. It was responsible for spreading rumours, generating fake news, leaflet drops and creating fake clandestine German radio stations to spread misinformation and erode enemy morale. We hear archive recordings of those involved and speak to professor Jo Fox of the Institute of Historical Research about the secret history of British “black propaganda”.
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FDR’s Confidential Crusader
Michael Williams - Warfare History Network
… During World War II [Ernest] Cuneo served as President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s liaison among British Intelligence, the FBI, and the OSS, the forerunner of today’s CIA. William Stephenson, head of British Security Coordination … Cuneo had a front row seat as the BSC “ran espionage agents, tampered with the mails, tapped telephones, smuggled propaganda into the country, disrupted public gatherings, covertly subsidized newspapers, radios, and organizations, perpetrated forgeries — even palming one off on the president of the United States (a map that out- lined Nazi plans to dominate Latin America) — violated the aliens registrations act, shanghaied sailors numerous times, and possibly murdered one or more persons in this country.”
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Collusion: Franklin Roosevelt, British Intelligence, and the Secret Campaign to Push the US Into War
Mark Weber - Institute for Historical Review
Secretive and unlawful collusion by an American leader with a foreign power that subverts the US political process is not new. The most far-reaching and flagrant case was by President Franklin Roosevelt in 1940-41. In the months before the US formally entered the war in the wake of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Roosevelt did everything he could to get America into the global conflict without actually declaring war. The cooperation with British intelligence by the President and other high-ranking US officials during that period was quite illegal. Such collusion by the nominally neutral US to further the war aims of a foreign government was contrary to both US law and universally accepted international norms.
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Will COVID-19 Retire the World’s Policeman?
Patrick J. Buchanan
… The Wuhan virus appears to have become the most effective means of disabling US hard and soft power that we have encountered in many a decade. Of those 10,000 Peace Corp volunteers, and scores of thousands of other Americans who have been repatriated home, how many of these “soft power” soldiers will be going back after they have been out of their host country for 18 months? Will this pandemic prove the decisive factor in America’s retreat from global hegemony? With the US budget deficit for 2020 originally set at $1 trillion, now triple that, there is going to be a hard reckoning for the allocation of our diminished resources after the nation reopens. And policing the planet is likely to be seen as yesterday’s priority, and a primary candidate for discard.
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Phyllis Schlafly: Godmother of America First
Michelle Malkin
Anti-patriot hatred never rests. Hollywood has launched a new character assassination vehicle targeting the late great Phyllis Schlafly. “Mrs. America” debuts on FX on Hulu this week with liberal actress Cate Blanchett starring as the traditionalist Catholic conservative activist who defeated the so-called Equal Rights Amendment in the 1970s and went on to helm the influential Eagle Forum until her death at 92 in 2016 … As a young conservative writer in the early 1990s, the Phyllis Schlafly Report greatly influenced my views on education, feminism, multiculturalism and immigration … I admired Schlafly’s intellect, vigilance, style, grace, prolific output and commitment to family … If Pat Buchanan is the godfather of “America First,” Phyllis Schlafly is its godmother.
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In Australia, Jewish Group Calls for Suppression of Mein Kampf Sales
Australian Jewish News
The lingering afterlife of Mein Kampf, Adolf Hitler’s sinister blueprint for Nazi world domination and the annihilation of Jewry [sic], is being prolonged by booksellers offering the dictator’s writings for sale in Australia, with Dymocks and online retail giant Amazon in the firing line. Executive Council of Australian Jewry (ECAJ) co-CEO Peter Wertheim has written to Dymocks chair John Forsyth asking the chain to withdraw a large number of the 60 editions of the book now on offer … Wertheim pointed out to Dymocks that of the 60 editions for sale, only six include commentary and annotations from recognised scholars … Meanwhile, the Anti-Defamation Commission has slammed Amazon for reinstating editions of Mein Kampf and other Nazi propaganda books it had already removed from stock.
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Higher Ed Is Crumbling
Scott Yenor - Law & Liberty
John M. Ellis’ new book, The Breakdown of Higher Education, argues that higher education is so corrupt that it can only be reformed from the outside … Universities graduate people “who know little and can’t think,” as Ellis relates in study after study … The National Center for Education Statistics sees a “sharp decline” in literacy between 1992 and 2003. The numbers are astounding: nearly 70 percent of college graduates cannot read reasonably complex materials … and explain what it means. Depending on the question wording, somewhere between 40 and 70 percent of college professors think their students are unprepared to think, write, and speak clearly … More than 80 percent of college seniors at the top 50 schools fail tests about basic facts on American history or American government.
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We Are All Homeschoolers Now
Jeremy Lott - American Spectator
What does education look like in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic? At the K-12 level, you’ve got problems. At the collegiate level, you’ve got existential problems … In short, we are all homeschoolers now. Expect that to be much more the case next school year … The pandemic quarantine is showing us that schooling is basically state- or parent-sponsored babysitting with some ABCs, 123s, dodgeball, and the prom thrown in. This highly credentialed child care costs taxpayers a lot of money … Public education will survive, of course, but in a reduced capacity. Fewer kids will go and school bonds will become a harder sell … The sector of education that is in real trouble is higher education.
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A brave U.S. army lieutenant general may be risking his career to resist Trump administration efforts to provoke war with Iran. Robert P. White, who commands American forces in Iraq, last week wrote what the New York Times called a “blunt memo,” in which he opposed a new plan by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and others to attack Iranian-allied militias inside Iraq. Most of the world is concentrating on fighting the coronavirus pandemic. But a small group of powerful men are taking advantage of the huge distraction to try and instigate Iran into a war, apparently hoping against all logic that a conflict will prompt regime change there that will neutralize Teheran’s influence in the Mideast.
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The US government has formally designated the Russian Imperial Movement (RIM) – a small Christian monarchist outfit based in St. Petersburg – as a terrorist organization, and has imposed sanctions on the group and its leaders. This characterization is groundless and hypocritical … Pompeo justifies the designation by claiming that the Russian group’s activities “threaten the national security and foreign policy of the United States.” He provides no evidence whatsoever to support this far-fetched assertion. Pompeo misrepresents the group’s principles and activities … The US government’s action against this little-known Russian group seems to be more a publicity gesture by a beleaguered administration than a serious effort to counter any real threat.
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He Could Have Seen What Was Coming: Behind Trump’s Failure on the Virus
The New York Times
… A week after the first coronavirus case had been identified in the United States, and six long weeks before President Trump finally took aggressive action to confront the danger the nation was facing — a pandemic that is now forecast to take tens of thousands of American lives — Dr. Mecher was urging the upper ranks of the nation’s public health bureaucracy to wake up and prepare for the possibility of far more drastic action … Throughout January, as Mr. Trump repeatedly played down the seriousness of the virus and focused on other issues, an array of figures inside his government — from top White House advisers to experts deep in the cabinet departments and intelligence agencies — identified the threat, sounded alarms and made clear the need for aggressive action.
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Germany held a minute’s silence on Wednesday to mark 75 years since the Bergen-Belsen Nazi concentration camp was liberated, after planned commemorations were cancelled because of the coronavirus pandemic. Stephan Weil, Lower Saxony state premier, called on residents to observe the silence to remember the liberation on April 15, 1945, urging them to set aside “all of our current worries.” More than 50,000 people died at the Bergen-Belsen camp, including the diarist Anne Frank, whose accounts of the Holocaust have become a symbol of the suffering inflicted by the Nazis during World War II. Commemorative events originally planned for Sunday have been postponed to April 2021 and the memorial site to the camp is closed because of restrictions imposed to slow the spread of COVID-19.
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Coronavirus Means No More Money for Forever Wars
Daniel L. Davis - The National Interest
For the better part of the past two decades, the United States has indulgently and counterproductively wasted over $6 trillion and thousands of lives on unnecessary wars abroad. The towering costs imposed on our country by coronavirus now exposes how Washington’s skewed priorities left the nation fragile internally and vulnerable to a crisis. For our own security, it is time to end these pointless drains on our resources and prioritize strengthening America. The most egregious examples of our expensive and unnecessary military deployments abroad are the combat operations in Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan, and Africa … There are no security threats to America in Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan or Africa that in any way justify such expenses. Up until now, these costs have had virtually no impact on the population at large.
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Virus Becomes Latest Battle Between Iran, US Amid Tensions
Associated Press
Even as both face the same invisible enemy in the coronavirus pandemic, Iran and the United States remain locked in retaliatory pressure campaigns that now view the outbreak as just the latest battleground … The risk of open conflict between the countries is overshadowed by the pandemic. Yet it persists — some say at levels as high as immediately after the January drone strike by the US that killed Iranian Gen. Qassem Soleimani in Iraq … Overall tensions remain extraordinarily high. Online video and Iranian media reports suggest Iran has deployed Fajr-5 missile batteries on beaches along the crucial Strait of Hormuz, the narrow mouth of the Persian Gulf through which a fifth of all oil traded in the world passes. There have been reported maritime incidents in and around the strait as well.
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History and Historians
Revilo P. Oliver
… The development of a working philosophy of history is the most urgent, as well as the most difficult, task of Twentieth Century thought … The future will always resemble the past because human nature does not change; men will always be actuated by the same basic desires and motives … The social and political questions of our day are all primarily historical problems. To think about them rationally, we must begin by consulting the record of human experience in the past. And we soon realize that if only we knew enough about history – and understood it – we should have the answers to all our questions.
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Israeli Police Called 'Nazis' While Dispersing Violent Protesters in Ultra-Orthodox Area
The Times of Israel
Some unrest was reported Monday night in the cloistered ultra-Orthodox Jerusalem neighborhood of Mea Shearim, with several dozen residents holding violent protests against police, and authorities reportedly dispersing the crowds with stun grenades. Videos published online showed people hooting, whistling and hollering “Nazi” at police patrolling the neighborhood. The neighborhood is considered one of the largest coronavirus hotspots in the country and has been put under quarantine by police, along with other ultra-Orthodox neighborhoods in the capital. Police forces enforcing coronavirus restrictions and closures in ultra-Orthodox communities have been called “Nazis” on multiple occasions by residents.
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How to Survive the Blitz: Lessons From 1940s Britain
David Brooks - The Atlantic
… Government censors found that morale was actually highest in the most badly hit places … One popular cinematic explanation for British resilience is that they had Winston Churchill, who gave rousing speeches that unified the nation … When public-opinion experts conducted a survey after one of Churchill’s radio addresses, they found that as many people were dispirited by it as were encouraged … A study by the Russell Sage Foundation found that what makes societies resilient during a crisis are high levels of faith in institutions, high social trust, high levels of patriotism and optimism, and high levels of social and racial integration. The United States that confronts the coronavirus pandemic has catastrophically low levels of all these things … The people of America are less psychologically and socially healthy than the British under the Blitz.
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What Price Victory -- in the Coronavirus War?
Patrick J. Buchanan
… What price victory in this good and necessary war to kill the virus? Is it unseemly or coldhearted to ask? At what point do we “declare victory and get out” … Economists at J.P. Morgan are forecasting that the U.S. gross domestic product will fall by 40% this spring and unemployment will reach 20% of the labor force this month. These are numbers not seen since the Great Depression. What does this deliberate decision to shut down the country and carpet-bomb our own economy, upon which we all depend, tell us about what we Americans value? … We Americans already live in a nation and world atop a mountain of debt. Student loan debt. Mortgage debt. Consumer debt. Corporate debt. Municipal, county and state debt. A national debt of $22 trillion now soaring into the stratosphere.
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How Jews Manufactured Corbyn 'Anti-Semitism' Hysteria In Quest for Power
Eric Striker – National Justice
UK Labour’s election of Keir Starmer, a self-described Zionist with close familial ties to Jewry, is a drastic establishment repudiation of Corbynism … A gargantuan internal party dossier detailing the conspiracy to undermine and destroy Corbyn goes back to 2016, with the founding of a group called “Labour Against Anti-Semitism” (LAAS) … One of the most shocking vignettes from the Jewish conspiracy against Corbyn was when Secretary of State Mike Pompeo spoke with British Jews at a secret meeting and promised American intervention in the immediate aftermath of a Corbyn victory … Any organization that expresses a strong and principled alternative to the plutocratic status quo, never-ending wars, globalization or mass immigration will be labeled anti-Semitic by Jews, whether that is their intent or not.
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The Arrogance of Zionist Power
Philip Giraldi
There are two recent stories that involve the arrogance of the Jewish community in the United States … Jewish power is the real deal in the United States. It is well known in political circles that Israel interferes in U.S. politics more than any other country, though it is not considered safe to mention that fact if one is running for office. And it is also true that American Jewish organizations are active in that process, in this case working to eliminate a candidate for office solely because his views on Israel are considered to be suspect.
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As far back as late November, U.S. intelligence officials were warning that a contagion was sweeping through China’s Wuhan region, changing the patterns of life and business and posing a threat to the population, according to four sources briefed on the secret reporting. Concerns about what is now known to be the novel coronavirus pandemic were detailed in a November intelligence report by the military’s National Center for Medical Intelligence (NCMI), according to two officials familiar with the document’s contents … And it paints a picture of an American government that could have ramped up mitigation and containment efforts far earlier to prepare for a crisis poised to come home.
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When COVID-19 Renders Your Job Obsolete
Peter Van Buren - The American Conservative
… The government ordered us to stop working and we did. Nobody is entirely sure if they can just do that, but they did. Now we wait like baby birds for that same government to drop checks into our mouths. Overnight we went from workers to dependent on handouts. The balance of power between Americans and their government just changed dramatically … Freedom of assembly is gone. No more questions about whether Milo can speak on campus … Politically, the progressive movement disappeared with a proverbial whisper, not a bang … Orwell was also an amateur, imagining some people would fight for freedom. He did not envision how easy it would be to manipulate fear into learned helplessness such that Americans would in the space of a week voluntarily give up most of their freedoms …
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Our Savaged 'Living' Constitution
Joseph Sobran
… Many of our moral and religious traditions are “unconstitutional” – in the eyes of our ruling elite. It seems to make no difference that most of us had no inkling that we were acting unconstitutionally until the modern Court announced the fact to us … Today the plain and original meaning of the Constitution exists only on paper, and in the minds of a shrinking number of Americans who still understand the heritage they have been robbed of. We live in what might be called post-constitutional America, where the arbitrary and purposeful misinterpretation of the Constitution has turned ours into a government of men, not laws. The doctrine of the “living document” really makes the Constitution a dead letter, a law without effect.
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The Constitution: How Important Is It?
Mark Weber – Podcast
Many Americans believe that the country’s problems can be solved by “restoring” the “constitutional republic” and by “returning” to the letter and spirit of the US Constitution. But no constitution, even the most brilliantly written one, can save a society from corruption, ignorance, disorder, and poverty. Few Americans realize just how undemocratic the “original” Constitution was, and how distrustful its authors were of power by “the people.” While the US Constitution is brilliantly conceived, it has major defects. Now it’s little more than an instrument of those in power to provide a veneer of legality in furthering their interests and agenda.
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Keynes on Eugenics, Race, and Population Control
Edward W. Fuller
The literature on John Maynard Keynes’s life and ideas is enormous. However, his defenders have neglected his views on population. Why? His ideas in this area are highly problematic. This article provides documentation that shows Keynes advocated extensive government controls on the size and quality of the population. Keynes was interested in eugenics from the very beginning of his academic career … He advocated the use of imperialistic government violence against Eastern races to protect the “white population.” … Keynes was vice president of the British Eugenics Society from 1937 to 1944. Just 66 days before his death in 1946, he endorsed “the most important, significant and, I would add, genuine branch of sociology which exists, namely eugenics.”
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It’s the ninth question on the census, and for many Jewish respondents, it’s a surprising — and sometimes unwelcome — invitation to consider who exactly they are. For the first time, the US Census question on race is asking white and African-American respondents to dig deeper and fill in more detailed origins. “Mark one or more boxes AND print origins,” the printed form says. For white, it adds, “Print, for example, German, Irish, English, Italian, Lebanese, Egyptian, etc.” … The question has launched countless Jewish conversations: “What did you list?” “What should I?” The answers reveal a community grappling with what it means to announce one’s Jewishness in the 21st century, and to consider the myriad paths that have brought American Jews to the present day.
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In late January, President Trump’s economic adviser Peter Navarro warned his White House colleagues the novel coronavirus could take more than half a million American lives and cost close to $6 trillion, according to memos obtained by Axios. By late February, Navarro was even more alarmed, and he warned his colleagues, in another memo, that up to two million Americans could die of the virus. Navarro’s grim estimates are set out in two memos — one dated Jan. 29 and addressed to the National Security Council, the other dated Feb. 23 and addressed to the president … But Trump was far slower to publicly acknowledge the sort of scenarios Navarro had put in writing … Flashback: “It’s going to have a very good ending for us,” Trump said of the coronavirus in a speech on Jan. 30. In a Feb. 24 tweet, he said it was “very much under control” …
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On Conservatism and Liberalism
Revilo P. Oliver
… I began as an American conservative: I wished to preserve the American society in which I grew up, not because I was unaware of its many and gross deficiencies, but because I saw it threatened by cunningly instigated agitation for changes that would inevitably destroy it and might ultimately result in a reversion to total barbarism … When I at last decided to involve myself in political effort and agitation, I began a painful and very expensive education in political realities … The doctrine of the “Liberal” cults is essentially Christianity divested of its belief in supernatural beings, but retaining its social superstitions, which were originally derived from, and necessarily depend on, the supposed wishes of a god … At present, the “Liberals” are limited to shrieking and spitting when they are confronted with inconvenient facts …
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Revilo P. Oliver
The Journal of Historical Review
Prof. Revilo Oliver – outstanding scholar, brilliant political commentator and good friend of the Institute for Historical Review … “We regret the loss of professor Oliver,” said James Dengate, current head of the department. “He was a scholar not only in Latin but in Sanskrit with quite a large reputation, an international one.” Miroslav Marcovich, who was head of the department when Oliver retired in 1977, was similarly laudatory: “He was an excellent teacher during 32 years of service, and a great scholar.” A man of towering intellect and strong convictions, Oliver played an important role in conservative organizations … A brilliant and meticulous stylist, Oliver’s writing could be elegant and erudite or sarcastic and scathing.
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Household debt surged in 2019, marking the biggest annual increase since just before the financial crisis, according to the New York Federal Reserve. Total household debt balances rose by $601 billion last year, topping $14 trillion for the first time, according to a new report [Feb. 2020] by the Fed branch. The last time the growth was that large was 2007, when household debt rose by just over $1 trillion … The data also show that transitions into delinquency among credit card borrowers have steadily risen since 2016, notably among younger borrowers,” Wilbert Van Der Klaauw, senior vice president at the New York Fed, said in a statement.”
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Inventing Victimhood: Universities Too Often Serve as ‘Hate-Crime Hoax’ Mills
Andy Ngo - City Journal
… Advocacy groups like the Southern Poverty Law Center make headlines by claiming that hate crimes have surged since Trump’s election, but the real surge is in hate-crime hoaxes, especially among university students. The day after the 2016 election, Eleesha Long, a student at Bowling Green State University – about 90 miles west of Oberlin — said that she was attacked by white Trump supporters, who threw rocks at her. Police concluded that she had fabricated the story … For weeks after Trump’s election, America was fed a series of outrageous stories of campus race hated that fell apart upon examination. This trend of student hate-crime hoaxes has continued … There are dozens of other examples.
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The Coronavirus Is the Worst Intelligence Failure in U.S. History
Micah Zenko - Foreign Policy
… The Trump administration has cumulatively failed, both in taking seriously the specific, repeated intelligence community warnings about a coronavirus outbreak and in vigorously pursuing the nationwide response initiatives commensurate with the predicted threat. The federal government alone has the resources and authorities to lead the relevant public and private stakeholders to confront the foreseeable harms posed by the virus. Unfortunately, Trump officials made a series of judgments (minimizing the hazards of COVID-19) and decisions (refusing to act with the urgency required) that have needlessly made Americans far less safe … The White House detachment and nonchalance during the early stages of the coronavirus outbreak will be among the most costly decisions of any modern presidency.
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Another Expensive War, Another Intelligence Failure?
Philip Giraldi
… The intelligence agencies were warning about information derived from medical sources in China that suggested viruses were developing that might become a pandemic, but the politicians, most particularly those in the White House, chose to take no action … Trump responded to the warnings in his characteristic fashion by praising his own efforts and dismissing the “fake news.” … The perception on Trump’s part that coronavirus did not pose a real threat unfortunately shaped the government response … So, an already heavily indebted federal government will now go even deeper down a fiscal hole, possibly beyond the point of any real recovery. And we now know that there was plenty of warning from the intelligence community regarding what might be coming, but the information was deliberately ignored.
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Sir Keir Starmer has “achieved more in four days” than Jeremy Corbyn did “in four years” on tackling anti-Semitism, Jewish community leaders have said. The new Labour leader and his deputy, Angela Rayner, held a video conference with four Jewish groups earlier. Sir Keir vowed to set up an independent complaints process and asked for a report on all outstanding cases within the week. The four groups said the new leadership had made a “good start”. Sir Keir apologised to the Jewish community for anti-Semitism in Labour’s ranks in his acceptance speech on Saturday, promising to “tear out this poison by its roots” … Labour has been plagued with allegations of anti-Semitism since 2016 …
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FBI Opened Terrorism Investigations Into Nonviolent Palestinian Solidarity Group, Documents Reveal
C. Gibbons – The Intercept
… The FBI conducted at least two major investigations into ISM [International Solidarity Movement]. In addition to the international terrorism investigation into the two St. Louis activists, the FBI’s Los Angeles Field Office initiated a domestic security investigation into ISM as an organization. “These cases demonstrate the FBI’s unwillingness to distinguish non-violent civil disobedience protesting government policy from terrorism.” Nothing in the documents suggests any of these investigations ever resulted in criminal charges … Throughout the documents, the political beliefs of ISM members and other Palestinian solidarity activist were treated as though they were synonymous with terrorism. The approach is of a piece with the FBI’s long history of using its intelligence and national security powers to track domestic dissent.
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Americans grappling with the rapidly-spreading coronavirus purchased more guns last month than at any other point since the FBI began collecting data over 20 years ago. Why? With US coronavirus death toll climbing every day, many Americans seem to be turning to guns to help them cope. And it’s not just about fears over social disorder, say experts. The FBI conducted 3.7 million background checks in March 2020, the highest total since the instant background check program began in 1998. The figure represents an increase of 1.1 million over March 2019. On 21 March alone, 210,000 checks were done, the largest one-day record ever. According to US media, the FBI data indicates that over two million guns were purchased in March alone. Illinois led with nearly a half million sales, followed by Texas, Kentucky, Florida, and California.
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Nearly 70% of Americans Have Less Than $1,000 in Savings
C. Huddleston - GOBankingRates
Despite a strong economy [Dec. 2019], a majority of Americans seem to be struggling to save money, according to GOBankingRates’ sixth annual savings survey … Compared with previous year’s findings, there’s a growing percentage of people with little to no savings. In 2019, 69% of respondents said they have less than $1,000 in a savings account compared with 58% in 2018. “It’s puzzling to me that if the economy is doing so well and that we’re so close to full employment, that consumer confidence is up … that we haven’t seen the numbers move much in people’s ability to save,” said Bruce McClary, spokesman for the National Foundation for Credit Counseling …
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Kissinger’s Call for a New World Order
Patrick J. Buchanan
… Observing governments thrashing about in the crisis, the phrase that comes to mind is not “public trust” as much as “every nation for itself.” On Monday, The Wall Street Journal described Europe’s recent behavior thus: “EU countries unilaterally shut borders and hoarded vital medical gear, leaving people stranded far from home, grocery stores struggling to stock shelves and hospitals desperate to save critically ill patients … Last week, the EU’s Court of Justice ruled that Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic broke EU law by refusing to relocate refugees during the migrant crisis in 2015. The three nations offered no apologies. Last month, Greece used force to stop Syrian refugees from entering its territory.
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President Donald Trump recently proclaimed April 3 “Education and Sharing Day, U.S.A,” a national day to “celebrate Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, the Lubavitcher Rebbe.” The proclamation called upon “all government officials, educators, volunteers, and all the people of the United States to observe this day with appropriate programs, ceremonies, and activities.” … Some of Schneerson’s lesser-known teachings are extremely problematic on a number of levels. Among other things, they help fuel some of the most violent attacks against Palestinians by extremist Israeli settlers and soldiers. For example, Schneerson taught that non-Jews were “created to serve the Jews.”
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Why is the US Honoring a Racist Rabbi?
Alison Weir
… Despite the innocuous name, this day honors the memory of a religious leader whose lesser-known teachings help fuel some of the most violent attacks against Palestinians by extremist Israeli settlers and soldiers. The leader being honored on this day is Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, charismatic head of a mystical/ fundamentalist version of Judaism. Every year since 1978, a Presidential Proclamation … has declared Schneerson’s birthday an official national day of observance … [His teachings have included:] “Two contrary types of soul exist, a non-Jewish soul comes from three satanic spheres, while the Jewish soul stems from holiness.” …”The entire creation [of a non-Jew] exists only for the sake of the Jews.”
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The Weight of Tradition: Ancient Roots of Modern Conflict
Mark Weber – Podcast
Israel’s inhumane treatment of non-Jews, as well as the often arrogant outlook of the organized Jewish community, reflect a centuries-old mindset that has roots in the Hebrew scriptures (the “Old Testament”). As Weber explains in this hard-hitting broadcast, Judaism is not just “another religion.” Its character and core values are markedly unlike those of Christianity and the other great world religions. Jews are encouraged to regard themselves as separate from the rest of humanity, and as members of a community with interests distinct from those of everyone else.
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On Thursday [April 2], New York state legislators passed a package of legislative measures introduced by Gov. Andrew Cuomo to combat antisemitism and domestic terrorism. The legislation includes a first-in-the-nation domestic terrorism law that classifies any attack on a group based on race or religion as an act of terror, gives $25 million to religious nonprofit organizations vulnerable to hate crimes, provides an additional $2 million to support the state police’s hate crimes task force, and creates a statewide education curriculum on diversity and tolerance for students.
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Germany ‘Must Do More’ to Fight Racism, Says Council of Europe
Deutsche Welle (Germany)
Germany must step up efforts to prevent and counter extremism and neo-Nazism, the Council of Europe’s European Commission against Racism and Intolerance (ECRI) said in a report published on Monday [March 16]. The report also stated there is strong evidence for extensive racial profiling by German police … The report commended Germany’s efforts to fight racism and discrimination, noting that “Germany warmly welcomed an extraordinarily large number of asylum seekers in 2015” and “invested many resources” in their inclusive integration.
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Virus Forces Europeans To Ask: How United Do We Want To Be?
Associated Press
Europe’s fractured union came under new pressure this weekend, as Italy and Spain pleaded for urgent European help to withstand the virus ordeal, but Germany showed reluctance to plunge into any radical new solutions. The north-south divide that has dogged the European Union for years has resurfaced as the virus has galloped across the continent, claiming more deaths than any other region in the world … In closing borders and retreating into nationalist policies against the spreading virus, European countries have flouted the whole idea of the EU, created in the wake of World War II to avoid future conflict via open trade, and eventually, open borders.
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We Are All Totalitarians Now
Guillaume Durocher
… Corona really does work miracles. Things that were declared “impossible” have become the norm … The fascist critique of liberal-democratic ethics basically boiled down to a denunciation of selfishness and hypocrisy … Many have warned of the dangers of making individual entitlement the moral yardstick of nations. Gandhi, Heinlein, Solzhenitsyn, to name only a few, all tried to make the point their own way … Many globalists are afraid of what is to come. Joseph Borrell, the EU’s top diplomat, is worried China’s authoritarian competence will make Europe look bad … This crisis may come to be seen as the moment in which a declining and incoherent liberal-globalist West was geopolitically overtaken by a confident and organized national-authoritarian China.
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… A particularly egregious and also unique example of a state’s economic policies being manipulated by a dedicated Israeli fifth column in government is the Virginia Israel Advisory Board … The VIAB is unique because it is actually part of the Virginia state government. It is funded by the Commonwealth of Virginia and is able to access funds from other government agencies to support Israeli businesses. It is staffed by Israelis and American Jews drawn from what has been described as the “Israel advocacy ecosystem” and is self-administered, appointing its own members and officers … The VIAB is little more than a mechanism set up to carry out licensed robbery of Virginia state resources being run by a cabal of local American Jews and Israelis to benefit their co-religionists in Israel.
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When Did TV Get So Jewish?
Lisa Liebman - Vanity Fair
The Plot Against America, Unorthodox, Hunters, and The Windermere Children are part of a recent wave of emphatically Jewish television programs … / … Simply look at a TV landscape that already includes much unapologetically Jewish fare – from Schitt’s Creek, Better Things, The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, The Goldbergs, and Curb Your Enthusiasm to the recently concluded Transparent, Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, and The Spy. There haven’t been this many Jewish-themed shows on the small screen since the late 1970s and ’80s … Entries in this newest wave of extremely Jewish shows seem to be focused even more closely on the Jewish experience … A more profound Jewish acculturation – one with real historical roots – is dramatized in the upcoming PBS film The Windermere Children …
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The True History Behind ‘The Plot Against America’
M. Solly - Smithsonian
… Seamlessly blending truth and imagination, The Plot Against America pits aviator Charles A. Lindbergh against incumbent Franklin Delano Roosevelt in the 1940 presidential election … Though Lindbergh is The Plot Against America’s clearest antagonist, his actual actions, according to Roth, matter less than what “American Jews suspect, rightly or wrongly, that he might be capable of doing” — and, conversely, how supporters interpret his words as permission to indulge their worst instincts. As Roth concludes, “Lindbergh … chose himself as the leading political figure in a novel where I wanted America’s Jews to feel the pressure of a genuine anti-Semitic threat.”
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Heil to the Chief: Roth’s 'Plot Against America'
Bill Kauffman - The American Conservative
… In Roth’s what-if world, we the people have an actual choice in 1940. Instead of a third term for President Franklin D. Roosevelt, America Firster Charles Lindbergh is elected president, whereupon all hell breaks loose — which is to say America is at peace, a condition never again to be permitted, apparently, in the United States of Armaments. The horrific consequences of electing an antiwar Midwesterner are seen through the eyes of young Philip Roth, son of an insurance agent, and his Jewish family in Newark, New Jersey. … This is a repellent novel, bigoted and libelous of the dead, dripping with hatred of rural America, of Catholics, of any Middle American who has ever dared stand against the war machine.
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… During his lifetime he made a mark not only as a pioneering global aviator, but also as a prize-winning author, environmentalist and anti-war activist. Given the scarcity of truly heroic Americans during the past century, he towers as a man of exemplary accomplishment and courage. He deserves to be remembered today not only as an authentic American hero, but also because much of what he wrote and said is relevant in our own age. Indeed, some of his remarks have proven to be prophetic.
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Israel is Developing 'Ethnic Bomb' for Growing Biological Weapons Arsenal
M. Weber – Institute for Historical Review
Israel is working on an “ethnically targeted” biological weapon that would kill or harm Arabs but not Jews, according to Israeli military and western intelligence sources cited in a front-page report in the London Sunday Times … In developing this “ethno-bomb,” the British paper went on, Israeli scientists are trying to exploit medical advances by identifying distinctive genes carried by some Arabs, and then create a genetically modified bacterium or virus … The secret Israel program is based at the Institute for Biological Research in Nes Tsiona, a small town southeast of Tel Aviv, the main research facility for Israel’s clandestine arsenal of chemical and biological weapons.
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Despite President Trump’s repeated assertions that the Covid-19 epidemic was “unforeseen” and “came out of nowhere,” the Pentagon was well aware of not just the threat of a novel influenza, but even anticipated the consequent scarcity of ventilators, face masks, and hospital beds, according to a 2017 Pentagon plan obtained by The Nation … Denis Kaufman, who served as head of the Infectious Diseases and Countermeasures Division at the Defense Intelligence Agency from 2014 to 2017, stressed that US intelligence had been well-aware of the dangers of coronaviruses for years.
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This week, as coronavirus deaths in the U.S. spiraled upward to surpass those killed on 9/11, the White House is conceding that an optimistic assessment of the coming death toll will leave between 100,000 and 240,000 Americans dead. But if the White House had heeded an Army warning nearly two months ago, it might have prompted earlier action to prevent an outbreak that threatens to kill more Americans than two to four Vietnam Wars. An unclassified briefing document on the novel coronavirus prepared on Feb. 3 by U.S. Army-North projected that “between 80,000 and 150,000 could die.” … On March 4, President Trump told Fox News host Sean Hannity that the World Health Organization’s coronavirus death estimate of 3.4 percent was a “false number,” since it contradicted a “hunch” he had. “It’s not that severe,” the president said.
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The United States and Iran appear prepared for an escalation in their common battlefield of Iraq, even as all three nations battle a pandemic that experts say may serve to only inflame tensions. President Donald Trump warned Wednesday that Iran was planning a “sneak attack on U.S. troops and/or assets in Iraq” and later cited unspecified intelligence he said indicated potential plots by local Tehran-aligned forces there. “Don’t do it,” the president warned at a press briefing that evening, threatening that his “response will be bigger” this time after U.S. airstrikes last month targeted Iran-backed Kataib Hezbollah positions but also reportedly killed Iraqi troops, police officers and a civilian.
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Will Rogers on American `Moral Leadership’
The Journal of Historical Review
… It has just become almost impossible for a country to have a nice, home-talent little revolution among themselves, without us butting into it. But here we go again. If we ever pass out as a great nation, we ought to put on our tombstone: “America died from a delusion that she had moral leadership.”; … America has a great habit of always talking about protecting American interests in some foreign country. Protect them here at home. There are more American interests right here than anywhere. What would we say if the Chinese was to send a gunboat up the Mississippi?; … Seven thousand miles is a long way to go to shoot somebody, especially if you are not right sure they need shooting, and you are not sure whether you are shooting the right side or not. You see, it’s their war and they have a right to fight it as they see fit, without any advice from us.
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When It’s Over, Will We Be the Same America?
Patrick J. Buchanan
… What a difference a month can make … Will America fully bounce back after the pandemic? The coronavirus crisis seems to be one of those epochal events that alter the character of the country and the course of the republic … The shattering events of March, followed by what is coming in April and May, will have lasting impacts on the hearts and minds of this generation … If March shocked this nation as severely as 9/11, what is coming may be even more sobering. Are millions of unemployed workers without the cash to pay for or to find medicine and groceries likely to stay indoors for weeks or months? All those criminals being given early release from virus-infested jails and prisons without the means to provide for themselves and their families, how will they react to weeks of mandatory sheltering in place?
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Visualizing the History of Pandemics, By Death Toll
Nicholas LePan
As humans have spread across the world, so have infectious diseases. Even in this modern era, outbreaks are nearly constant, though not every outbreak reaches pandemic level as the Novel Coronavirus (COVID-19) has. Today’s visualization outlines some of history’s most deadly pandemics, from the Antonine Plague to the current COVID-19 event. … Spanish Flu, 1918-1919, H1N1 virus, 40-50 million deaths; Asian Flu, 1957-1958, H2N2 virus, 1.1 million deaths; Hong Kong Flu, H3N2 virus, 1 million deaths …
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Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu shared with his Cabinet a video he claimed was evidence of Iran concealing coronavirus deaths by dropping bodies in garbage dumps, two Cabinet ministers tell me. Several hours later, Netanyahu’s office realized the video had nothing to do with Iran, or with the coronavirus crisis. It was a clip from “Pandemic,” a 2007 Hallmark Channel mini-series. Iran has been Netanyahu’s top foreign policy focus for 25 years. Israeli intelligence believes there have been up to five times more coronavirus deaths there than the 3,036 that have been officially acknowledged, an Israeli official tells me. Netanyahu thought he’d seen evidence of a cover-up.
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Coronavirus Is Not Even Close to America’s Biggest Problem
Bryce Buchanan - American Thinker
… The immediate reaction of our government to the virus threat was to spend massive amounts of money … Our country has unbelievable levels of debt, and our debt is rising rapidly. The numbers are staggering. The debt clock shows U.S. debt at $23 trillion (nearly 110% of the GDP) and unfunded liabilities of $77 trillion … We are on the Titantic, headed for the debt iceberg … It is immoral to ignore the burden of the deficit on future generations. We are digging a hole for them that they will never get out of. Government debt is a government claim on future incomes … Governments can create money, but creating money does not create wealth. Wealth comes from productivity … The debt explosion and the increasing dependence on government are much more dangerous to our Republic than the Wuhan virus.
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Donald Trump's Erratic Foreign Policy Is a Failure
Bonnie Kristian - The National Interest
… The president talks a good talk about ending “endless wars,” to use a phrase from last year’s SOTU [State of the Union address], but he has failed to extricate the United States from a single conflict. The incongruity is indefensible. Trump has promised, again and again, to finish these misadventures and bring American soldiers home. With three-quarters of this term complete, he is instead pursuing an erratic foreign policy lightly seasoned with the rhetoric of restraint, words belied by a wasteful military build-up and a stagnant prosecution of the very wars he campaigned against … The president has paid lip service to that desire for peace and reaped the political benefits, but he has steadily refused to match word to deed.
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The coronavirus pandemic is shaking up the world, but not US foreign policy. As billions hunker down to halt the spread of the virus, President Donald Trump has only ramped up sanctions and other pressure against frequent targets such as Iran and Venezuela. UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres has led calls for an “immediate global ceasefire” to refocus on fighting COVID-19 and on Friday appealed for the “waiving of sanctions that can undermine countries’ capacity to respond to the pandemic.” The appeals have fallen on deaf ears in Washington. The Trump administration has kept sweeping sanctions on Iran, one of the countries worst hit by the pandemic …
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US Beats War Drums in Middle East
Reese Erlich
While the world focuses on the coronavirus pandemic, tensions between the US and Iran are heating up. The two countries are engaging in tit-for-tat military attacks that threaten a wider war … The Iraqi parliament passed a resolution calling for the withdrawal of all foreign troops. Iraqi military leaders demanded that Washington get permission from top Iraqi leadership prior to launching another retaliatory raid. Trump responded to these assertions of Iraqi sovereignty by threatening to impose harsh sanctions and seize Iraq’s central bank reserves held by the Federal Reserve Bank in New York … The ball is in the US’ court. Trump can continue his “maximum pressure campaign” against Iran and face continued Iraqi attacks on US troops. Or he can back off to focus on domestic concerns and avoid a wider war.
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… Ironically, killing Soleimani and the consequences is unlikely to be a theme picked up on by the genial but muddled Biden as both major parties are firmly in the grip of the Israel Lobby and are unlikely to complain about killing a senior Iranian official … Both Trump and Biden might reasonably be described as Zionists, Trump by virtue of the made-in-Israel foreign policy positions he has delivered on since his election, and Biden by word and deed during his entire time in politics … To put it another way, no matter who is president the likelihood that the United States will change direction to get away from its interventionism and bullying on a global scale is virtually nonexistent. At least until the money runs out.
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Progressive Cities and Black Education
Walter E. Williams
… “The Secret Shame” reports that progressive cities, on average, have black/white achievement gaps in math and reading that are 15 and 13 percentage points higher than in conservative cities … Educational outcomes for most black youngsters is a national disgrace. As of 2016, in Philadelphia, only 19 percent of eighth-graders scored proficient in math, and 16 percent were proficient in reading. In Detroit, only 4 percent of its eighth-graders scored proficient in math, and 7 percent were proficient in reading. In 2016, in 13 of Baltimore’s 39 high schools, not a single student scored proficient on the state’s math exam … Only 15 percent of Baltimore students passed the state’s English test … Then there’s gross fraud practiced by the education establishment.
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Pope Pius XII in the Second World War
Mary Ball Martinez – Institute for Historical Review
The persistent myth of the Vatican’s indifference to the fate of Europe’s Jews during the Second World War had its origin in the 1960s … Responding to these accusations, Pope Paul VI opened the wartime records in the Vatican archives to study by four Jesuit historians, permitting them to select documents for publication. The American among them, Robert A. Graham, sorted out a great number that were eventually published in a series of volumes. These weighty documents clearly show that well before the outbreak of hostilities in 1939, Secretary of State Pacelli, the future Pope, was deeply involved in promoting the welfare of Europe’s Jews.
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Coronavirus Means America Is Really Broke. Trump Should Get Out of Syria.
Doug Bandow - The National Interest
The U.S. is broke. Before the coronavirus made its malign appearance, Washington was set to run trillion-dollar annual deficits this year and as far as we can see beyond. Now revenues will fall and expenses rise this year, at least, as a result of the sharply contracting economy. And Congress is preparing to pass a $1 trillion “stimulus” package on top. Yet America’s endless wars continue in the Middle East. If the U.S. stopped tomorrow it would end up spending an estimated $6.4 trillion on conflicts which by and large ended disastrously: Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria, and Yemen. Every day the Trump administration continues to pour good money after bad.
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The Coronavirus Crisis is an Opportunity to Finally Move Past the Post-WWII Era
Daniel Bessner - Responsible Statecraft
… Throughout modern history, crises have been key to engendering enormous political, economic, and social transformations. Indeed, the major institutions of our modern world were created during and shortly after World War II … The coronavirus, however, threatens to upend the post-World War II order. For the first time since that war, Americans are rethinking their relationship to both their state and the world itself.
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Chutzpah: The ADL Wants a Federal Bailout
Michelle Malkin
When I think of “essential” workers in America, the smear merchants of the Anti-Defamation League are at the bottom of the barrel. For decades, they’ve demonized conservatives and Christians as agents of “hate” and treated our very existence as incitements to violence. The ADL’s manufactured outrage machine has broadened its target list … Instead of fighting defamation, the ADL traffics in false accusations of anti-Semitism under the guise of “Never Again” repeating the Holocaust … Instead of refuting the facts, they just point, sputter and smear … ADL’s treachery should be reviled, not rewarded.
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Recalling the ADL Spying Case
Jeffrey Blankfort – CounterPunch
In 1993, the District of Attorney of San Francisco released 700 pages of documents implicating the Anti-Defamation League, an organization that claims to be a defender of civil rights, in a vast spying operation directed against American citizens who were opposed to Israel’s policies in the Occupied West Bank and Gaza and to the apartheid policies of the government of South Africa and passing on information to both governments. Under great political pressure, Smith later dropped the charges.
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Jon Basil Utley, RIP
Mark Weber
Jon Utley, a dedicated activist for a sane and peaceful US foreign policy, has died. Through his own work and many writings, and in his support for a range of groups – mostly conservative, anti-war and libertarian – he defended intellectual freedom and historical rigor, and promoted public awareness of the forces that push for war and oppression. During the last two decades of his life, this gracious and principled man was a friend and supporter of the Institute for Historical Review … His personality and worldview were indelibly shaped by his unusual background and upbringing … Those us who knew him will remember Jon Utley with gratitude and admiration. His personality and record of principled activism will long remain an inspiration.
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Jon Basil Utley, 1934-2020
E. Garris – Antiwar.com
… For the last several years, he served as Publisher of The American Conservative magazine and website. Last year, he wrote a brief history of trying to organize conservative opposition to US interventionism … He was so genuinely appalled by US wars and committed the latter part of his life to fighting them … He was born in Moscow. His father, a Russian trade official, was sent to the gulag and executed at the Brick Quarry in Vorkuta for being one of three leaders of a hunger strike. His mother, Freda Utley, became a prominent anti-communist author and activist.
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The New Lie About Iraq
Jon Basil Utley - The American Conservative
The newest lie about the Iraq war is that the truth about Iraq was not known before the American attack in 2003. One needs only to search for “lies about Iraq” to see all the many links explaining evidence from before the war started that showed the Bush/ Cheney/ neoconservative claims to be false. That false narrative is important to know because many of the same people are now promoting war with Iran, as they were before with Syria … All Americans should be reminded again and again that recent wars were based on lies … Today, when all the Republican candidates are being pressured by right-wing media and neoconservative money men to sound (and be) hawkish, Americans should recall how most of Washington’s establishment lied to promote past wars.
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A Foretaste of the Horror of Biological Warfare
Eric Margolis
… The British tech team told me they had been secretly sent to Saddam Hussein’s Iraq by Britain’s Ministry of Defense and Britain’s MI6 Secret Intelligence Service to help Iraq’s military develop and deploy biological weapons for use against numerically superior Iranian forces on the Central Front, Al-Faw Peninsula, and again Kurdish rebels in the north. The bio weapons included Anthrax, botulism, Q fever and tularemia that attacks the eyes, throat, skin and lymph nodes … The COVID-19 virus is merely a taste of what a real biological war would be like. Many around the world who bear us ill cannot help but take notice how the world’s richest, mightiest nation can be brought to its knees by some invisible bugs.
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In Australia, Former MP Slams Israel for 'Apartheid' Policies
Australian Jewish News – The Times of Israel
Former federal Labor MP Melissa Parke has been slammed over comments she made this week accusing Israel of apartheid. Writing in the Herald Sun newspaper, Parke said, “To say that Israel has become an apartheid state is not antisemitic; it is a simple statement of fact and international law.” She also accused the “pro-Israel lobby” of a “relentless vendetta against critics of Israeli state policy”. “They debase the true meaning of the term ‘antisemitism’ and they let real antisemites, mainly far-right white nationalists, off the hook,” Parke claimed. She added, “Calling for Israel’s compliance with international law and respect for Palestinian rights is not the same thing as hostility to or prejudice against Jews. Indeed, there are many Jews who believe Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians is illegal and immoral.