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Soros Pours Record $50 Million Into 2020 Election
J. Schoffstall - Free Beacon
Liberal billionaire George Soros has flooded Democratic PACs and campaigns with $50 million this election cycle, shattering his personal record by tens of millions with four months to go before the elections. Soros ramped up his political spending this cycle through the Democracy PAC, which he created last year to pump large sums into the coffers of other left-wing groups. New filings to the Federal Election Commission show the PAC doled out nearly $17 million last quarter, bringing its total cash disbursements this cycle to $48 million. Soros gave another $4 million directly to Democratic campaigns and committees without first depositing the money into his PAC. The $52 million cash influx is more than double Soros’s previous high of $22 million, which came during the last presidential election.
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Massacre at No Gun Ri
Brett Wilkins
For nearly three days in late July 1950, US Army and Air Force troops bombed, strafed, shelled and shot hundreds of Korean men, women and children to death at and around a bridge in the hamlet of No Gun Ri. For nearly half a century, the US military denied any such massacre had occurred, although survivors and some of the GIs who took part in the atrocity had been fighting for the truth to be told for decades. Thanks to their persistence and the intrepid reporting of a team of investigative journalists, the world now knows that not only did a horrific massacre happen at No Gun Ri, but that the slaughter was part of a deliberate and official American policy of killing civilians.
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Is Racism Responsible for Today’s Black Problems?
Walter E. Williams
… The pretense is that police conduct stands as the root of black problems. According to the NAACP, from 1882-1968, there were 3,446 black people lynched at the hands of whites. Today, being murdered by whites or policemen should be the least of black worries. In recent times, there is an average of 9,252 black-on-black murders every year. Over the past 35 years, that translates into nearly 324,000 blacks murdered at the hands of other blacks. Only a tiny percentage of blacks are killed by police … The most devastating problem is the very weak black family structure. Less than a third of black children live in two-parent households and illegitimacy stands at 75%. The “legacy of slavery” is often blamed. Such an explanation turns out to be sheer nonsense when one examines black history.
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… In today’s America, where competing racial, cultural and linguistic claims now make it nearly impossible even to speak of national identity, questions about history have become a struggle for the possession of America’s past … Something that well-meaning whites did not understand is that an “inclusive” history — one that would be all things to all people — is impossible … How, for example, is a multicultural history to treat the discovery and settlement of North America by Europeans? The old history called it a triumphant advance for civilization. But for Indians, the same historical events are an unending sequence of defeats and disaster. Does a multicultural textbook call this a triumph or a disaster or both or neither?
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To Students and Teachers Targeted by Israel Lobby
Steven Salaita - CounterPunch
University students and instructors periodically drop into my inbox with stories of repression and reprisal for having criticized Israel – or merely for having spoken favorably of Palestinians. In some cases, faculty have been demoted or fired, or have been denied tenure. In other cases, they’ve lost funding or opportunities to publish. They’ve been threatened, if only implicitly (plenty of times the threat is explicit). Students have been profiled by websites aiming to destroy their careers (pro-Israel zealots are expert snitches), or subject to some kind of disciplinary action … Those campaigns are well-organized and find a receptive audience among administrators possessed of an impulse to capitulation. It’s possible to escape smear campaigns, likely even, but doing so requires fortitude and confidence.
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Jewish Group Calls for Online Sale of Nazi-Era Items to Be Stopped
CBC News (Canada)
An international Jewish group is calling on an Ontario auction house to stop the online sale of scores of German items from the Second World War, many adorned with swastikas and some bearing the image of Nazi leader Adolf Hitler. Shackelton Auctions, near Aylmer, Ont., posted an online sale this week of 1,200 items of military memorabilia from a private estate sale. But among the Royal Canadian Legion berets, ration cards and war bond posters are about 100 objects from Nazi-era Germany, including Hitler youth daggers and postcards with Hitler’s image – along with flags, medals and armbands, many emblazoned with swastikas. There are also cast-iron busts of Hitler, German officers’ swords and toys of German armour and soldiers. Most of the items already have bids in the auction, which is set to end on Aug. 18.
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A large bronze eagle with a swastika under its talons soon to be auctioned in Uruguay should go to a museum or educational institute, a US Holocaust research centre is urging. It should not be allowed to fall into the hands of white supremacists, the Simon Wiesenthal Center warns. The 350-400 kg eagle, salvaged from a German World War Two warship, could be worth about $26 million. It was recovered by private investors from the waters off Uruguay in 2006. The object was part of the stern of the Graf Spee, which was scuttled by its crew off the coast of Uruguay’s capital, Montevideo, in 1939. It now sits in a warehouse owned by the Uruguayan government after a long battle over who can claim ownership.
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Top Shoah Historian Says Israel 'Collaborated' With Holocaust Distortion
Jewish News (Britain) / The Times of Israel
The world’s most eminent Holocaust historian has criticised Israel as having “collaborated” with Holocaust distortion for geopolitical reasons. Yehuda Bauer, 94, professor of Holocaust studies at Hebrew University in Jerusalem … was speaking in a webinar for British educators organised … Referring to several European states such as Poland, Hungary and Lithuania, Bauer described how nationalists were now using Holocaust “distortion”, as opposed to denial, and that Israel was playing along with it … Addressing the causes of the Holocaust, he warned that the world was again seeing “a wave of nationalism, extreme nationalism, from China through Putin’s Russia to America,” adding: “It’s very strong, and it is no longer a question of right and left.”
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Germany Allocates 60 Million Euros for Auschwitz Preservation Project
JerusalemOnline (Israel)
Germany has authorized 60 million euros for the preservation of the remains of the Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp, drawing praise from a top Jewish group. German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas and Piotr M.A. Cywinski, director of the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum and president of the Auschwitz-Birkenau Foundation, announced the funding allocation at a ceremony in Warsaw … “I am extremely grateful to Germany for its recognition of the importance of the preservation of the memorial site of the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration and extermination camp, a cause I have been supporting for many years,” World Jewish Congress President Ronald S. Lauder said.
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… The United States has been named the second-worst wealthy nation in which to raise a family in 2020, according to new research by travel site Asher & Lyric … To determine the most and least family-friendly countries, the couple rated 35 OECD countries (part of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development forum) according to safety, happiness, cost, health, education and time. The US clocked in at an abysmal 34th place, just ahead of last-place finisher Mexico … Despite statistics showing that reported crimes have been on the decline nationwide, the US homicide rate is still eclipsed only by Mexico, per the research. And America reportedly tops the list in school shootings with a whopping 288 incidents from 2009 to 2018, with Mexico placing second at eight and all other countries recording zero, per the study.
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Christopher Columbus Statues Taken Down at Two Chicago Parks
Associated Press
Two statues of Christopher Columbus that stood in Chicago parks were taken down early Friday at the direction of Mayor Lori Lightfoot, a week after protesters trying to topple one of the monuments to the Italian explorer clashed with police. Crews used a large crane to remove the statue in downtown Chicago’s Grant Park from its pedestal. A small crowd cheered and passing cars honked as the statue came down about 3 a.m. The second statue was removed about 5:30 a.m. from Arrigo Park in Chicago’s Little Italy neighborhood … Both the Grant Park and Arrigo Park statues were vandalized last month. Statues of Columbus have also been toppled or vandalized in other U.S. cities as protesters have called for their removal, saying that Columbus is responsible for the genocide and exploitation of native peoples in the Americas.
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Google is the World’s Largest Censor and Its Power Must Be Regulated
Robert Epstein - US News
Google, Inc., isn’t just the world’s biggest purveyor of information; it is also the world’s biggest censor. The company maintains at least nine different blacklists that impact our lives, generally without input or authority from any outside advisory group, industry association or government agency. Google is not the only company suppressing content on the internet. Reddit has frequently been accused of banning postings on specific topics, and a recent report suggests that Facebook has been deleting conservative news stories from its newsfeed, a practice that might have a significant effect on public opinion – even on voting. Google, though, is currently the biggest bully on the block.
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Amazon, Google and Wish have removed neo-Nazi and white-supremacist products being sold on their platforms following an investigation by BBC Click. White-supremacist flags, neo-Nazi books and Ku Klux Klan merchandise were all available for sale. Algorithms on Amazon and Wish also recommended other white-supremacist items. All three companies told the BBC that racist products were prohibited on their platforms. Oren Segal from the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), an anti-hate [?] organisation, said the companies needed to “constantly be on top of what the algorithm is recommending”. He said algorithms had to be “taught to be responsible”. One of the items found for sale on Amazon was a white-supremacist flag featuring a Celtic Cross. The ADL said the image featured on the flag was “one of the most common white-supremacist symbols”
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Following its years-long effort to fight Holocaust denial on Facebook, the Anti-Defamation League has shifted gears – from working with the tech giant in combating hate speech to helping lead a campaign to force change on the world’s largest social media platform … The ADL, a Jewish organization founded in 1913 to combat antisemitism, partnered with Facebook (along with Google, Microsoft and Twitter) in 2017 to establish the Cyberhate Problem-Solving Lab to fight antisemitism and online hate. But as the ADL’s chief executive, Jonathan Greenblatt, told Haaretz, “Facebook has consistently refused to categorize Holocaust denial as a violation of its terms of service, or ‘Community Standards,’ which prohibit the use of its platform as a vehicle to demonize others or engage in hate speech.”
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Star of David Taken Down by Twitter, Citing 'Hateful Imagery'
The Jerusalem Post (Israel)
The Star of David has been deemed “hateful imagery” by Twitter, which is locking the accounts of users who display it in their profile pictures. The Campaign Against Antisemitism has reported that several Twitter users have contacted them in recent days to report that their accounts had been locked by the social media platform. The reason given? According to messages they received from Twitter: “We have determined that this account violated the Twitter Rules. Specifically for: Violating our rules against posting hateful imagery. You may not use hateful images or symbols in your profile image or profile header. As a result, we have locked your account.” The images in question ranged from a white Star of David in a graffiti style, to a … montage of yellow stars.
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Who Should Be Shot?
Linh Dinh
… Occupy Wall Street erupted in New York on September 17, 2011 … Their movement fizzled out, however, because it degenerated into an endless display of narcissistic posturing … It achieved literally nothing, predictably … Occupy Wall Street protesters were mostly under-35-year-old whites, with at least some college education. Now, the same demographic is back on the streets, but instead of chanting for economic justice and representing, at least in theory, the 99%, they’re fighting Fascism and racism. With their inclusive definitions of such sins, however, they’re warring against most of the country. It’s never been easier to be tagged as a Fascist. If you don’t think or feel correctly on all woke issues, you’re a Fascist, and of course, you’re a Fascist to the degree that you’re against antifa … If you’re not up-to-date woke, you’re a Fascist.
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Holocaust Deceit, 'Remembrance,' and Reality
Mark Weber – Podcast
Lurid falsehood and outright lies are routinely promoted, even by supposedly reputable media, as part of the seemingly endless campaign of “Holocaust Remembrance.” A recent item in Canada’s most prestigious daily newspaper about the wartime German concentration camp of Buchenwald is a good example. Specific falsehoods are cited, and discredited. Such historical deceit is a routine part of the relentless “Holocaust” campaign, which plays such an important role in our society because it’s an expression of Jewish-Zionist power, and is meant to further Jewish-Zionist interests.
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The Most Influential Figures on Wikipedia: Top Historical Figures Are Mostly White Men
S. Brownstone - Fast Company
Judging by Wikipedia popularity, who are the most important historical figures of all time? According to one algorithm, it’s 18th-century scientist Carl Linnaeus, followed by Jesus. According to a modified version of the algorithm, it’s Hitler, then Michael Jackson. In fact, the full lists of top influential figures compared among 24 different language editions of Wikipedia differ substantially, according to a recent study. The one thing they had in common? The top figures, averaged across all lists, were largely post-17th-century Western white guys. Women only made up an average 5% to 10% of the top 100 rankings. The research team, led by Young-Ho Eom of the University of Toulouse, used two popular page-ranking algorithms to determine the most important or famous historical figures on Wikipedia in different languages.
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Confederate Memorials Quietly Removed From Virginia Capitol Overnight
The Washington Post
Workers wielding power tools and huge rolls of bubble wrap carted a life-size statue of Robert E. Lee and busts of seven of his Confederate colleagues out of the Virginia Capitol late Thursday night and early Friday morning. House Speaker Eileen Filler-Corn (D-Fairfax) ordered them removed from the historic Capitol’s Old House Chamber, the room where rebel lawmakers met when Richmond served as the capital of the Confederacy … Richmond’s Capitol Square has been tightly guarded over the past month and a half as protesters have gathered in the streets, night after night, spray-painting statues around the city and toppling some with ropes.
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IOC Apologizes, Deletes Tweet About 1936 Berlin Olympics
Associated Press
The IOC apologized on Friday and deleted a Twitter message which some saw as celebrating Nazi Germany’s hosting of the 1936 Olympics. Joining a message thread on Thursday one year before the Olympic cauldron is lit at the postponed 2020 Tokyo Games, the International Olympic Committee used its official account to tweet a film about the first-ever torch relay entering the Berlin stadium. “This is turning out to be quite a #ThrowbackThursday already! Berlin 1936 marked the 1st Olympic torch relay to bring the flame to the cauldron. We can’t wait for the next one in (Japan),” the tweet said. “We apologize to those who feel offended by the film of the Olympic Games Berlin 1936,” the IOC wrote on Friday.
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A contemporary “British Pathé” newsreel report on the opening ceremonies of the 1936 Olympic games in Berlin. An enthusiastic crowd of 100,000 welcomes the national teams of countries around the world as they enter the impressive stadium that was built for the two weeks of games. As leader of the host country, Chancellor Hitler formally announces the opening of the event. A sprinting young man brings aloft into the stadium the flame that had been carried by a relay of runners from the site of the original Olympic games in Greece. English-language narration. Runtime: 2:42 mins.
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Hitler, Owens and the 1936 Olympics Myth
Rick Shenkman
Everyone knows that at the 1936 Olympics Hitler snubbed Jesse Owens. As the story goes, after Owens won one gold medal, Hitler, incensed, stormed out of Olympic Stadium so he wouldn’t have to congratulate Owens on his victory … Several other misconceptions about the 1936 Olympics are prevalent. Not only was Owens not rebuffed by Hitler, Owens wasn’t shunned by the German audience at the Berlin stadium either … It is forgotten that Germany managed to pick up more medals than all the other countries combined.
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Jesse Owens, Man and Myth at the 1936 Olympics
P. Ephross -- Forward (New York)
Hitler’s snub of sprinter Jesse Owens at the 1936 Berlin Olympics is well known: Unwilling to recognize a black runner’s prowess, the story goes, Hitler refused to acknowledge Owens after the American athlete won the 100-meter dash. Indeed, Owens himself repeatedly recounted the incident late in his life. There’s only one problem: The story is most likely apocryphal. As sports journalist Jeremy Schaap points out in his vividly written “Triumph: The Untold Story of Jesse Owens and Hitler’s Olympics,” American newspaper accounts filed by onsite journalists reported that Owens and Hitler exchanged waves after Owens won the 100-meter dash.
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Our Mission and Record
Institute for Historical Review
The IHR is an independent educational center and publisher that works to promote peace, understanding and justice through greater public awareness of the past, and especially socially-politically relevant aspects of modern history … We work to provide factual information and sound perspective on US foreign policy, World War Two, the Israel-Palestine conflict, war propaganda, Middle East history, the Jewish-Zionist role in cultural and political life, and much more. … Through books, booklets, leaflets, podcasts, videos, broadcast interviews, meetings, mailings, websites and e-mail, we reach students, activists, educators, journalists and decision-makers across the US and around the globe.
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Google said it has fixed a “bug” that led to several conservative websites disappearing from its search results on Tuesday, but a former engineer for the tech giant said the glitch may have inadvertently exposed an internal list that targeted certain news outlets. “It appears to have revealed the existence of another blacklist that disproportionately targets conservatives,” Mike Wacker said in a message to the website Mediaite. “The glitch is that sites on this blacklist disappeared from Google search results, but the existence of the list is very much by design. And that raises a major question: Why was this blacklist created in the first place, and what else is it used for?” Wacker questioned. For several hours Tuesday morning and early afternoon, users couldn’t access a number of websites on Google search …
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Key Witness in Epstein Case Made 'Anti-Semitic' Claims
Alan Dershowitz
The central witness in the Jeffrey Epstein investigation — the person relied on by Netflix in its documentary series “Filthy Rich” — is a 50-year-old woman named Maria Farmer. It now turns out that she may have been motivated by the anti-Semitic attitudes she has long harbored, to falsely accuse prominent Jews of sexual misconduct. This is some of the bigotry Maria Farmer spewed during a recorded two-hour interview that can be heard online, such as: “I had a hard time with all Jewish people.” “I think it’s all the Jews.” “They think Jewish DNA is better than the rest of us.” “These people truly believe they are chosen every one of them.” “All the Jewish people I met are pedophiles that run the world economy.” “They are ‘Jewish supremacists’” and they are “all connected” …
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House Votes to Remove Statues of Confederates and Some Other 'White Supremacists' From the U.S. Capitol
Associated Press
The House has approved a bill to remove statues of Gen. Robert E. Lee and other Confederate leaders from the U.S. Capitol, as a reckoning over racial injustice continues following the police killing of George Floyd, a Black man, in Minneapolis. The House vote also would remove a bust of Chief Justice Roger B. Taney, the author of the 1857 Dred Scott decision that declared African Americans couldn’t be citizens. The bill directs the Architect of the Capitol to identify and eventually remove from Statuary Hall at least ten statues honoring Confederate officials, including Lee, the commanding general of the Confederate Army, and Jefferson Davis, the Confederate president. Three statues honoring white supremacists — including former U.S. Vice President John C. Calhoun of South Carolina — would be immediately removed.
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Stress Test of a Straining Superpower
Patrick J. Buchanan
… Is America breaking under the burdens it has lately assumed and is attempting to carry? … The U.S. economy has been thrust into something approaching a second Depression. The 2020 deficit runs into the trillions of dollars. Our national debt is now far larger than our GDP and soaring. Tens of millions are unemployed. And the shutdowns are beginning anew. From the protests, riots, rampages and statue-smashing of the last two months, it is apparent that millions of Americans detest our history and heroes … If the trillions we have spent to address these inequalities since the Great Society days have failed to make greater progress, why should we believe that we even know how to succeed, absent the imposition of a rigid socialist egalitarianism of results?
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The Black-White Wage Gap Is As Big As It Was In 1950
D. Leonhardt - The New York Times
… The black-white wage gap shrunk substantially from 1950 to 1980, and especially during the 1960s … Since 1980, however, the wage gap has increased again, and is now back roughly to where it was in 1950. The same economic forces are at work, only in the opposite direction: The minimum wage has stagnated in some states, unions have shrunk, tax rates on the wealthy have fallen more than they have for anyone else and incomes for the bottom 90 percent — and especially the bottom half — have trailed economic growth. Black workers, again, are disproportionately in these lower-income groups … It’s possible that nothing would have a bigger impact than policies that lifted the pay of all working-class families, across races.
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Black-White Earnings Gap Returns to 1950 Levels
A. Jones - Duke Today (Duke University)
After years of progress, the median earnings gap between black and white men has returned to what it was in 1950, according to new research by economists from Duke University and the University of Chicago. The experience of African-American men is not uniform, though: The earnings gap between black men with a college education and those with less education is at an all-time high, the authors say. The research appears online this week in the National Bureau of Economic Research working paper series. The paper looks at earnings for working-age men across a span of 75 years, from 1940 to 2014. The earnings gap between black and white men narrowed during the civil rights era. Then, starting around 1970, the gap between black and white men’s wages started widening once again.
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What Is Behind the Persistence of the Racial Wealth Gap?
Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland
… While the existence of a racial wealth gap may not be altogether surprising, it may be surprising how little the racial wealth gap has changed over the past half century, even after the passage of civil rights legislation. In fact, the 2016 wealth gap is roughly the same as it was in 1962, two years before the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, according to data from the Survey of Consumer Finances (SCF). Average white wealth in 1962 was seven times that of average black wealth … Simply put, over the past 50 years, the distribution of black wealth has not even “caught up” to the distribution of white wealth in 1962.
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Racial Differences in Atlanta’s Median Household Income Are Widespread, Deeply Rooted
D. Sjoquist - Saporta Report
… The racial difference in income in the City of Atlanta is stark and depressing. According to the latest American Community Survey, released by the Census, median annual household income for Black households in the city of Atlanta is $35,048, while it is 2.93 times larger, or $102,693, for white households. These numbers explain why the poverty rate for Blacks in the city of Atlanta is 30.2 percent, while it is 8.1 percent for whites … In the City of Atlanta, there is a substantial racial difference in the education level … In Atlanta, 52 percent of white households are married couples, while it only 21 percent of Black households … Wealth of Black households is about 56 percent of that of white households, after controlling for income and other factors.
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What Matters for Student Achievement
E. A. Hanushek - Education Next (Harvard Kennedy School)
… The Coleman report [1966] failed to accomplish one of the key goals that led Congress to commission the report in the first place: a forward march toward equal educational opportunity across racial groups … After nearly a half century of supposed progress in race relations within the United States, the modest improvements in achievement gaps since 1965 can only be called a national embarrassment … If “Equality of Educational Opportunity” was expected to mobilize the resources of the nation’s schools in pursuit of racial equity, it undoubtedly failed to achieve its objective. Nor did it increase the overall level of performance of high school students on the eve of their graduation, despite the vast increase in resources that would be committed to education over the ensuing five decades.
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A 93-year-old former Nazi SS concentration camp guard has been found guilty of complicity in the murder of more than 5,000 prisoners. Bruno Dey was handed a two-year suspended prison sentence by a court in the German city of Hamburg. Dey had manned a tower at the Stutthof Camp in what was then occupied Poland. It is expected to be one of the last Nazi-era trials, as both survivors and perpetrators are now very old, and in some cases their memories are failing. Dey was tried in a juvenile court because he was 17 at the time the atrocities were carried out, between August 1944 and April 1945, according to the indictment. During the nine-month trial, Dey listened to witness statements but maintained he had been forced into his role as a guard at the camp and had not been involved in the killings.
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While Stutthof is not as well-known as other wartime German camps, a close look at the history of this important internment center actually tells more about the reality of the Third Reich’s “final solution” policy than studies of much better-known camps such as Dachau or Buchenwald. In particular, a dispassionate look at the pattern of Jewish deportations to and from this camp, and the treatment of the inmates there, simply cannot be reconciled with a wartime German program or policy to exterminate Jews.
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Has the U.S. Government Finally Spent Too Much?
V. de Rugy – Reason
When COVID-19 arrived in America, Uncle Sam was already deep in debt. The federal government was poised to have a permanent annual budget deficit of at least $1 trillion. Debt was already sky high thanks to demographic trends and a few entitlement programs that experts had warned us about for decades. But after the most recent three months of frenzied, bipartisan spending, those previous balances seem like small potatoes … This year’s deficit is estimated at 19.3 percent of gross domestic product (GDP), nearly double the peak deficits during the Great Recession and second only to the deficits during World War II … Continued Social Security and Medicare shortfalls will keep the current debt rising indefinitely. The numbers above assume no new additional spending. But, of course, such an assumption is utterly unrealistic.
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The national debt has increased by $5.2 trillion since President Donald Trump took office. According to the Peter G. Peterson Foundation, a non-partisan fiscal watchdog, the national debt rose from more than $19.9 trillion on January 20, 2017, to more than $25.2 trillion Wednesday. The increase follows Trump’s comments, highlighted in an interview the then-presidential candidate gave to the Washington Post [March 2016], that he would eliminate the United States’ national debt “over a period of eight years” … In the first three years of former President Barack Obama’s administration, the debt grew $5 trillion dollars, going from about $10.6 trillion on January 21, 2009, the day after he was inaugurated to his first term in office, to about $15.6 trillion on May 14, 2012, according to the Peterson Foundation.
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Israeli Impunity is Coming to an End
Maureen Clare Murphy
The days of Israel’s impunity are dwindling as the International Criminal Court inches closer towards opening a full investigation into war crimes in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. An Israeli diplomatic offensive and sanctions by the US have so far not bullied the court into submission. A pre-trial chamber’s determination on court jurisdiction in Palestine is expected soon (the ICC just adjourned for the summer holiday and will reconvene in mid-August), and the Israeli government doesn’t anticipate the judges will rule in its favor. The Tel Aviv daily Haaretz reported this week that Israel is compiling “a secret list of military and intelligence officials who might be subject to arrest abroad” should an ICC investigation proceed. The paper said it was told the list “now includes between 200 and 300 officials.”
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To Annex or Not To Annex – Is the Question Moot?
Sheldon Richman
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who remains under a cloud of personal corruption, had more or less promised to annex some of the West Bank in July. He’s let his deadline slip … So, who can say when and if a formal annexation will occur? I prefer to ask: does it matter? If the state of Israel does nothing, the Palestinians of the West Bank will remain without rights, ruled under an apartheid regime … Israel has already de facto annexed the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, which is just a big open-air prison … In 2004 the International Court of Justice reaffirmed this aspect of international law when it condemned Israel’s occupation of the West Bank, the Jewish-only settlements, and the wall of separation as illegal.
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Multi-Media 'Liberators’ Project Exposed As Fraud
M. Weber, G. Raven - Institute for Historical Review
Exposing historical and media fraud sometimes takes years or even decades. In the case of a recent heavily promoted and widely praised multi-media project – designed to promote the Holocaust story, condemn official racism against blacks in America during the Second World War, and encourage racial tolerance – debunking has come much more quickly. Liberators: Fighting on Two Fronts in World War II – a lavishly financed project that claims to tell the story of how black troops liberated Buchenwald and Dachau – was exposed as an error-packed fraud within weeks of its debut. Producers Nina Rosenblum and William Miles collaborated with author Lou Potter, on the slickly promoted project that includes a much-touted “documentary” film, a book, a high school workbook, a screenplay and a theatrical version.
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'It Is Doubtful If The Negro Loved Him'
David Cole
… From the early days of black American politics, when Jews co-founded and funded most of the prominent civil rights organizations and served as almost all of the early civil rights attorneys, to the current days of hateful, radicalized black politics, Jews have been the professors, publishers, editors, mentors, and philanthropists. One could argue that today’s black opinion leaders “owe” Jews, just as those sharecroppers did. And they’re defaulting on the debt. Which absolutely scares the hell out of Jews. Because it’s not just “doubtful” that today’s black race-hustlers love the Jews. It is, in fact, quite certain that they despise them … Leftist American Jews are getting a taste of the hate they helped engender against whites.
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AP Says It Will Capitalize Black But Not white
Associated Press
After changing its usage rules last month to capitalize the word “Black” when used in the context of race and culture, The Associated Press on Monday said it would not do the same for “white.” The AP said white people in general have much less shared history and culture, and don’t have the experience of being discriminated against because of skin color … The Associated Press, whose Stylebook is widely influential in the industry, announced June 19 it would make Black uppercase … Columbia Journalism Review, The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, USA Today, the Los Angeles Times, NBC News and Chicago Tribune are among the organizations that have recently said they would capitalize Black but have not done so for white.
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Rising Diversity Is Joe Biden's Worry, Too
Patrick J. Buchanan
Is her racial diversity America’s greatest strength? So we are told … According to Brookings Institution demographer William Frey, between 2010 and 2020, while America’s population grew by 20 million, our white population fell for the first time since the 1790 census. White Americans fell as a share of the population in all 50 states, in 358 of 364 metropolitan areas, in 3,012 of 3,141 counties. During that same decade, our Black population grew by 3 million, our Asian population by 4 million and our Hispanic population by 10 million … White folks, who made up 69% of the U.S. population in 2000 when George W. Bush was elected, have fallen today to 60%. For children under 16, the white share has fallen to less than half.
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Instead of Tearing Down Symbols of Past Slavery, Focus on the Millions Still Enslaved Today
J. Gornall - Times Now News
… For the Black Lives Matter movement, there is a straight line between the grotesque Atlantic slave trade and the lingering racism that still blights Black lives. But singling out white leaders and businessmen from Europe and America’s past as the slave-trading racists they undoubtedly were ignores two realities. The first is that until relatively recent times, racism was the default human setting … As we pull down the statues of men from the past whose lives we now abhor, we would do well also to consider the present. Slavery, after all, is not dead. According to the Walk Free Foundation’s Global Slavery Index, in 2016 more than 40 million people around the world were living in modern slavery, an “insidious crime that permeates national borders and global supply chains”.
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Amid the global debate about race relations, colonialism and slavery, some of the Europeans and Americans who made their fortunes in trading human beings have seen their legacies reassessed, their statues toppled and their names removed from public buildings. Nigerian journalist and novelist Adaobi Tricia Nwaubani writes that one of her ancestors sold slaves, but argues that he should not be judged by today’s standards or values. / … It would be unfair to judge a 19th Century man by 21st Century principles. Assessing the people of Africa’s past by today’s standards would compel us to cast the majority of our heroes as villains, denying us the right to fully celebrate anyone who was not influenced by Western ideology.
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Tear Down the Arch of Titus
Michael Weiner – Forward
… What should come down next? The Arch of Titus. The Arch of Titus is a 2,000-year-old monument that sits in the heart of ancient Rome, between the Roman Forum and the Colosseum, and is visited by millions of curious, selfie-taking tourists each year. Built in 81 C.E., it deifies the emperor Titus, who was recently deceased at the time of its construction, and celebrates his victory over Judea ten years earlier. Most famously, one of its panels depicts a triumphal procession of Roman soldiers proudly parading their spoils from the capture of Jerusalem … There is no excuse for Italy to maintain, fund, and proudly display a structure that celebrates the destruction of Jerusalem, the forced displacement of the Jews of Judea, and the burning of the Temple … It was enthusiastically supported by popes of the early modern period …
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“Five million non-Jews died in the Holocaust.” It’s a statement that shows up regularly in declarations about the Nazi era … It is, however, a number without any scholarly basis. Indeed, say those close to the late Nazi hunter Simon Wiesenthal, its progenitor, it is a number that was intended to increase sympathy for Jewish suffering but which now is more often used to obscure it … Yehuda Bauer, an Israeli Holocaust scholar who chairs the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance, said he warned his friend Wiesenthal, who died in 2005, about spreading the false notion that the Holocaust claimed 11 million victims – 6 million Jews and 5 million non-Jews. “I said to him, ‘Simon, you are telling a lie,’” Bauer recalled in an interview Tuesday. “He said, ‘Sometimes you need to do that to get the results for things you think are essential.’”
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In Austria, New 'Simon Wiesenthal’ Award for Work Fighting Anti-Semitism
The Jewish Chronicle (Britain)
Austria is to create an award recognising work to combat antisemitism and educate about the Holocaust, named after the Austrian Nazi hunter Simon Wiesenthal. The ‘Simon Wiesenthal Prize’ will have an endowment of 30,000 euros and honour up to three individuals or organisations every year for projects which have had an “exceptional” mark on Austrian society. A committee of the Austrian Parliament voted in favour of a draft law on Tuesday, paving the way for its ratification next week … Oskar Deutsch, the President of the Jewish Community of Vienna, welcomed the initiative saying that it would provide an “incentive” for Austrians to follow in the footsteps of Mr Wiesenthal.
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Deconstructing Simon Wiesenthal
Lawrence Swaim
… In any case, it is now known that Wiesenthal, a born story-teller, rarely let the facts get in the way of a good story — in fact many of the things he claimed to have done were fabrications. This recently came to light with the publication, in June of 2009, of Hunting Evil, by British Author Guy Walters, in which he characterizes Simon Wiesenthal as “a liar — and a bad one at that.” … Wiesenthal’s scant regard for the truth makes it possible to doubt everything he ever wrote or said.” … The Simon Wiesenthal Center is, rather, committed to using the Holocaust to raise money, and using the trauma associated with it to promote the Center’s extremist political perspectives.
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Simon Wiesenthal: Fraudulent 'Nazi Hunter'
Mark Weber
… Wiesenthal’s reputation as a moral authority is undeserved. The man whom The Washington Post has called the “Holocaust’s Avenging Angel” has a little known but well-documented record of reckless disregard for truth. He has lied about his own wartime experiences, misrepresented his postwar “Nazi-hunting” achievements, and has spread vile falsehoods about alleged German atrocities.
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In Canada, Police Apologize for Treating Vandalized Monument to `Nazi’ Collaborators as a Hate Crime
JTA
Police in Ontario, Canada, have apologized for treating the vandalism of a monument commemorating a World War II Ukrainian army unit that worked for the Nazis as a hate crime. On June 22, someone spray-painted the words “Nazi war monument” on a monument honoring the 1st Ukrainian Division of the Ukrainian National Army, known as the Waffen-SS “Galicia” Division, in a private Ukrainian cemetery in Oakville. The Halton Regional Police said at the time that the incident was being investigated as a “hate motivated offense.” But after an incredulous response, the police clarified their position, saying that they had been concerned that the graffiti represented a hate crime against Ukrainians, not Nazis, and the local police chief called for the monument to be taken down.
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Stop Pretending the BLM Protests Were Peaceful
Michael Tracey - Unherd
Having spent the past month traveling around the United States — from major cities to the countryside — the scale of the ‘movement’ which erupted in late May after the death of George Floyd is almost incomprehensible … Scan almost any of the popular media coverage over the past six weeks and you’ll find that journalists have been steadfast in their depiction of “protesters” as unassailably “peaceful.” … The term “peaceful protest” doesn’t seem to quite capture the impact of a society-wide upheaval that included, as a key component, mass riots — the magnitude of which have not been seen in the U.S. since at least the 1960s … Something extreme just happened in America. I could give dozens of additional examples of reportorial tidbits which don’t align with the prevailing media narrative that has flourished in the wake of this “movement”.
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In Washington, a Debate Over Conditioning US Aid To Israel Heats Up
E. Cortellessa - The Times of Israel
If Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu unilaterally annexes parts of the West Bank, he will do so knowing that virtually the entire United States Democratic Party opposes the move. The entire leadership has spoken out against it, including Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, and at least 210 of the 233 Democrats in Congress have sent or signed on to letters urging Jerusalem to drop the proposal. But now, some Democrats are no longer just stating their disapproval of annexation; they are now calling for a policy response should Netanyahu go through with it.
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H. L. Mencken: Misfit In 21st-Century America
Ilana Mercer
H.L. Mencken, a contrarian polemicist and the consummate critic, who wrote prolifically and prodigiously from 1899 until 1948, may no longer seem relevant, but the fault would not be his. Mencken was a well-read bon vivant with a taste for Teutonic philosophy and a fidelity to immutable truth. He was also a brilliant satirist and a writer whose facility with the English idiom and grasp of intellectual history are unsurpassed … Mencken shattered every conceivable totem and taboo of American life. It is this so-called anti-Americanism that would make Mencken unpalatable and unemployable in our times … Mencken was withering about a political dispensation which teaches that “all moral excellence, and with it all pure and unfettered sagacity, resided in the inferior four-fifths of mankind.”
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Alexander Hamilton Is Key To Understanding The Electoral College
Ron Elving - NPR
… He had promoted and defended the idea of the Electoral College, when he was a delegate to the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia and in the fight to ratify it … Hamilton’s construct of a new state reflected his deep distrust of popular voting … “The sense of the people” should be part of the process, Hamilton wrote. But it would be taken as an “advisement” by the Electoral College, composed of “men most capable of analyzing the qualities” needed for the supreme office, educated and discerning gentlemen who would meet “under circumstances favorable to deliberation.” A more elitist perspective is hard to imagine … In his vision, the ordinary voters — meaning, at that time, only males with property — would choose members of the House and vote for the first of two tiers of an Electoral College.
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Reality and Legacy of the 1944 'Valkyrie' Conspiracy to Kill Hitler
Mark Weber – Video
In July 1944 a group of German conspirators tried to kill Hitler and violently seize power in Berlin. In the US and Germany today, the anti-Hitler conspirators are portrayed as men of exemplary courage, conscience and principle. This prevailing, “politically correct” idealization, Weber explains, is a gross distortion of reality. By today’s standards, von Stauffenberg and the other leading conspirators were “Nazis.” They supported the policies and principles of the National Socialist government for at least five years, and only belatedly turned against the Hitler regime. Runtime: 50 mins.
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70 Shot, 10 Fatally, in Chicago This Weekend
Chicago Sun Times
Ten people were killed and 60 others, including 10 minors, were wounded in shootings across Chicago over the weekend. The numbers surpassed those of the same weekend last year, when 43 people were shot, three of them fatally. Last weekend, 64 people were shot across the city, 13 of them fatally. Six of those victims were teenagers and one teen was killed.
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If the US Poor Were a Nation, It Would Be One of World’s Richest
Walter E. Williams
… A recent study by Just Facts, an excellent source of factual information, shows that after accounting for income, charity, and noncash welfare benefits such as subsidized health care, housing, food stamps, and other assistance programs, “the poorest 20 percent of Americans consume more goods and services than the national averages for all people in the world’s most affluent countries.” … The Just Facts study concludes that if the U.S. “poor” were a nation, then it would be one of the world’s richest. As early as 2010, 43 percent of all poor households owned their own homes … The typical poor American has more living space than the average non-poor individual living in Paris, London, Vienna, Athens, and other cities throughout Europe. Ninety-seven percent of poor households have one or more color televisions …
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The Poorest 20% of Americans Are Richer on Average Than Most Nations of Europe
J. D. Agresti - Just Facts
A groundbreaking study by Just Facts has discovered that after accounting for all income, charity, and non-cash welfare benefits like subsidized housing and Food Stamps — the poorest 20 percent of Americans consume more goods and services than the national averages for all people in most affluent countries … In other words, if the U.S. “poor” were a nation, it would be one of the world’s richest … The high consumption of America’s “poor” doesn’t mean they live better than average people in the nations they outpace, like Spain, Denmark, Japan, Greece, and New Zealand. This is because people’s quality of life also depends on their communities and personal choices, like the local politicians they elect, the violent crimes they commit, and the spending decisions they make.
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… Concern over obsequious subservience to other governments and interests pervaded his famous 1796 Farewell Address. Applied today, his message indicts most of the policy currently made in the city ironically named after him. He would be appalled by what presidents and Congresses today do, supposedly for America … US foreign policy increasingly has been captured and manipulated for the benefit of other governments and interests … Read George Washington and you would think he had gained a supernatural glimpse into today’s policy debates … America may still formally be a republic, but its foreign policy long ago became imperial. As John Quincy Adams warned, the US is “no longer the ruler of her own spirit.”
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Is America Up for a Naval War With China?
Patrick J. Buchanan
Is the U.S., preoccupied with a pandemic and a depression that medical crisis created, prepared for a collision with China over Beijing’s claims to the rocks, reefs and resources of the South China Sea? For that is what Mike Pompeo appeared to threaten this week. “The world will not allow Beijing to treat the South China Sea as its maritime empire,” thundered the secretary of state. … While China lacks the strategic arsenal the USSR had in the latter years of the Cold War, economically, technologically and industrially, China is a far greater power than Soviet Russia ever was. And China’s population is four times as large … Have we considered where all our belated bellicosity toward Beijing must invariably lead, and how this all ends?
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Stimulating Videos: Informed Talks and Interviews
Institute for Historical Review
For convenient viewing, this recently refurbished webpage presents videos of stimulating, well-informed talks, lectures and interviews on a range of topics, including intriguing historical issues and important trends of our age.
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Investigation Into Last Russian Tsar and His Family’s Execution is Still Making Discoveries 102 Years On
J. Tickle – RT
It may have happened a century ago, but Russia’s Investigative Committee is still uncovering new details about the execution of the country’s last imperial family, the Romanovs. Marina Molodtsova, a senior investigator, explained to newspaper Izvestia that it is now possible to identify some of the participants involved in the killing. When the investigation is complete, their names will be revealed. On the night of July 16, 1918, Nicholas II, his wife Alexandra and five children, along with some members of their entourage, were shot and bayonetted to death by communist revolutionaries. While there are many known details about their execution and the aftermath of their death, the full picture is yet to be uncovered.
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Forest Bones Confirmed to Be Those of Last Tsar of Russia and the Romanov Family
Deutsche Welle (Germany)
Human remains discovered in a forest near the Russian city of Yekaterinburg belongs to the last Russian Tsar Nicholas II and members of his family, the Russian Investigative Committee announced on Friday in a statement. Since renewing investigations, the Committee has carried out about 37 different forensic examinations … Research is still ongoing, including investigations into how the Russian imperial family was killed. Nicholas II, his German-born wife Alexandra Feodorovna, and their five children, Anastasia, Maria, Tatiana, Olga and Alexei, were executed by the Bolsheviks in 1918 in the midst of the Russian Revolution. The Russian Orthodox Church had recognized the ex-tsar as a martyred saint in 1981.
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Was the Bolshevik Revolution a Jewish Plot?
A. Asa-El - The Jerusalem Post (Israel)
… Lenin’s deputies Lev Kamenev (originally Rozenfeld) and Grigory Zinoviev (born Hirsch Apfelbaum) and his treasurer Grigori Sokolnikov (Girsh Yankelevich Brilliant) were all Jews, as were Karl Radek (Sobelsohn), co-writer of the Soviet Constitution, Maxim Litvinov (Meir Henoch Wallach-Finkelstein), foreign minister of the USSR … Most proverbially, a Jew – Yakov Sverdlov – oversaw the nighttime execution of Czar Nikolai, Empress Alexandra, and their five children. Jewish revolutionaries were prominent beyond Russia as well … In Poland, two of the three Stalinists who led its transition to communism – Hilary Minc, who collectivized its economy, and Jakub Berman, who headed its secret police – were Jews. The revolution, in short, was so crowded with Jews that one had to wonder whether “the Jews” were inherently revolutionary.
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Communism’s Death Toll, and the Jewish Role in Bolshevism
Mark Weber – Podcast
We’re relentlessly told that we must “never forget” the “Six Million.” But we hear far less about the vastly greater number of victims of Lenin and Stalin, and the grim legacy of Soviet Communism. Some 20 million people perished as victims of the Soviet regime, historians acknowledge. Jews played a decisive role in founding and promoting the egalitarian-universalist ideology of Marxism, in developing the worldwide Marxist political movement, and in brutally imposing Bolshevik rule in Russia. With the notable exception of Lenin, who was one-quarter Jewish, most of the leading Marxists who took control of Russia in 1917-20 were Jews, including Trotsky, Sverdlov, Zinoviev, Kamenev and Radek.
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America and the Rise of the Chinese Century
David A. Schultz - Counterpunch
News of America’s global supremacy and victory as well as demise are often premature … The world in 2020 is different from 1945, 1956, or 1991, when the US economy was by far the largest in the world. In 1945 the US GDP was four times larger than the next closest country, with about 40% of the world GDP. Even in 1960 the US GDP was 40% of the world. No one else was close. Today in 2020 the US GDP is 14.9% of the world GDP, in 2024 it will be just 13.8%. China’s GDP in 1010 is 19.2% of the world, and in 2024 it will be 21.4%. The European Union in 2020 is 15.8% of the global GDP. The US just does not have the global economic dominance, and soon perhaps China will. Presently the US still dominates the world in its military budget, but China is growing … These two countries are locked in a new Cold War.
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The Undeclared War Against Iran
Paul R. Pillar
A series of violent attacks, involving explosions and fires, has been hitting Iran. The incidents have been too frequent and intense to be random accidents. They are part of an organized effort. Caution is always advisable in attributing responsibility for such unclaimed acts, especially for all of us outside the government channels that possibly have better information about what is going on. But circumstances point strongly, as some mainstream press reporting reflects, to either or both of two suspects: the Netanyahu government in Israel, and the Trump administration in the United States … The Israeli record of aggressive acts against Iran has included a series of assassinations of Iranian nuclear scientists. Those murders were part of a larger, longstanding Israeli campaign of assassinations throughout the Middle East.
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… Even though the United States is going through a devastating health care and national identity crisis, the Federal Government continues to grind out legislation that is favorable to Israel and to certain Jewish interests. “The Never Again (Holocaust) Education Act,” for example, passed through the House of Representatives by a 395-3 vote followed by a unanimous vote in the Senate on S.2085 on May 13. It will help to indoctrinate school children regarding an easily challengeable narrative of perpetual victimhood which in turn generates billions of dollars for the racist state of Israel, but it was described by Congressional supporters as merely an instrument to support the already existing educational resources at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum (USHMM), which is also taxpayer funded.
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Iran’s Defense Spending
Henry Rome - U.S. Institute of Peace
… Iran’s two main regional rivals have significantly different approaches to military spending. Saudi Arabia spends the most on defense in the region, and the third-most in the world, behind the United States and China … In numerical terms, Iran’s defense budget more closely resembles Israel’s expenditures. In 2019, Iran spent $17.4 billion — or 3.8 percent of its GDP — while Israel spent $19.3 billion — or five percent of its GDP — on defense, according to IISS data. Like Iran, Israel has a robust indigenous arms industry … The U.S. provides Israel more than $3 billion annually in additional military financing … In 2019, the U.S. military budget was more than 30 times larger than Iran’s.
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The Disgraceful Howard Zinn
M. Burlingame - Claremont Review
Despite many serious scholars’ denunciations, Howard Zinn’s A People’s History of the United States has enjoyed phenomenal success since its publication in 1980: 2.6 million (!) copies sold, incorporation into the curricula of innumerable schools, and the achievement of almost iconic status in popular culture. Mary Grabar’s Debunking Howard Zinn: Exposing the Fake History That Turned a Generation against America performs a valuable service by examining Zinn’s polemical volume and revealing “just how distorted, manipulative, and plain dishonest” it truly is. A tireless left-wing activist with a Ph.D. in history, Zinn (1922–2010) urged fellow historians, as Grabar relates, to eschew “disinterested scholarship” in order to bring about “a revolution in the academy.”
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What is the Least Credible History Book in Print?
David Austin Walsh - HNN
Readers of the History News Network have voted David Barton’s The Jefferson Lies: Exposing the Myths You’ve Always Believed About Thomas Jefferson the least credible history book in print in a week-long HNN poll. The book edged out Howard Zinn’s A People’s History of the United States by nine votes at the end of polling — 650 votes versus 641. Commentators criticized the book for its gross factual errors and political agenda … The most intense discussion — on HNN’s boards, at least — centered on the runner-up, Zinn’s A People’s History … Gavin Menzies’s 1421: The Year China Discovered America finished a distant third, with 370 votes, followed by Thomas DiLorenzo’s The Real Lincoln: A New Look at Abraham Lincoln, His Agenda, and an Unnecessary War at 334.
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Vilfredo Pareto: Influential 'Fascist' Sociologist and Philosopher
James Alexander – Institute for Historical Review
… One of the most widely respected Italian political theorists and sociologists in this century is Vilfredo Pareto. Indeed, so influential are his writings that “it is not possible to write the history of sociology without referring to Pareto.” Throughout all of the vicissitudes and convulsions of twentieth-century political life, Pareto remains “a scholar of universal reputation.” Pareto is additionally important for us today because he is a towering figure in one of Europe’s most distinguished, and yet widely suppressed, intellectual currents. This broad school of thought … stands in staunch opposition to rationalism, liberalism, egalitarianism, Marxism …
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… A Jewish activist group is demanding that Mayor de Blasio scrub all traces of the anti-Semitic Dutch governor from city property — even Stuyvesant High School — as part of his campaign to rid the city of “symbols or hate.” “Peter Stuyvesant was an extreme racist who targeted Jews and other minorities including Catholics and energetically tried to prohibit them from settling in then New Amsterdam,” said Nitsana Darshan-Leitner, the head of the Shurat HaDin-Israel Law Center [in Aug. 2017] … Stuyvesant did eventually allow the people he described as “deceitful,” “very repugnant” and “blasphemous” to settle at the order of the Dutch West India Company … Darshan-Leitner recommends replacing all traces of his name with that of Asher Levy, one of the first Jewish settlers in New Amsterdam.
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Jewish Groups Angry at Dutch National Railway Company Reparation
Associated Press
Jewish organizations criticized the Dutch national railway company Monday for not adequately consulting them in discussions to work out a form of recognition for Holocaust victims the company transported to camps in the Netherlands during World War II — from where they were sent to Nazi concentration camps. The anger came after the railway company, NS, announced several days earlier that it would donate 5 million euros ($5.6 million) to four Dutch memorial centers as a gesture of collective recognition … Gideon Taylor, chair of operations of the World Jewish Restitution Organization, called the decision a major disappointment for Jewish groups.
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When Europeans Were Slaves to Africans
SwaliAfrica
While black Africans were loaded on ships to Europe and the Americas in the 16th and 17th centuries, Africans also engaged in slave trade that involved the purchase and humiliating torture of white captives. During that time, it was common to have white slaves in the markets of the Barbary Coasts awaiting purchase. About 1.2 million whites were held captive on African shores during this era … The Barbary Coast, also known as the Berber Coast … was host to a multitude of Berber pirates and slave traders who held sway in the North Atlantic and Mediterranean Seas. They also engaged in raids of European coastal cities … These pirates caused terror in the seas, capturing sailors and seamen and selling them off into slavery.
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Inside the Despicable Behavior of Today’s Academicians
Walter E. Williams
The Michigan State University administration pressured professor Stephen Hsu to resign from his position as vice president of research and innovation because he touted research that found police are not more likely to shoot black Americans. The study found: “the race of a police officer did not predict the race of the citizen shot. In other words, black officers were just as likely to shoot black citizens as white officers were.” For political reasons, the authors of the study sought its retraction … Much of today’s totalitarianism, promotion of hate, and not to mention outright stupidity, has its roots on college campuses … As George Orwell said, “some ideas are so stupid that only intellectuals believe them.”
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Leftists Are in Firm Control at The New York Times
Michael Goodwin - New York Post
… The gradual metamorphosis of the [New York] Times from a great newspaper into a leftist propaganda sheet is complete … Her obituary is a sad day and not just for journalism. Because the Times is a singularly powerful institution in terms of shaping public opinion, its cult of conformity is a dark day for America … The idea that America was born out of racism and slavery is the centerpiece of the paper’s misbegotten 1619 Project. It has been roundly denounced by eminent historians, black and white, for presenting a simplistic and error-ridden version of the nation’s founding. But the Times is no longer restricted by facts and reality. Its oppression narrative guides front-to-back coverage on everything, from politics to business to sports to entertainment.
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New York Times Opinion Writer Bari Weiss Resigns, Citing Hostile Culture and Lack of Ideological Diversity
M. Cohen - Politico
New York Times Opinion staff editor and writer Bari Weiss announced her resignation on Tuesday, decrying the newspaper’s workplace culture as “hostile” toward staffers who hold anything other than left-of-center ideologies. Weiss’ resignation is the latest development in a tumultuous period for the Times. The media institution is grappling with increased internal dissent, especially over its opinion section, its coverage of communities of color and its newsroom culture. In a resignation letter posted to her website, Weiss described the Times as an institution where “intellectual curiosity — let alone risk-taking — is now a liability” … “The paper of record is, more and more, the record of those living in a distant galaxy, one whose concerns are profoundly removed from the lives of most people,” Weiss wrote in her resignation letter.
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Why the Obsession With Nazism?
Mark Weber - Podcast
There seems to be no end to the West’s obsession with Nazism, Hitler and the Third Reich, says prominent British journalist Simon Jenkins. What’s behind this? In spite of decades of hateful propaganda, this fascination seems to grow with time, and millions of people around the world even regard Hitler and the Third Reich positively. The dreaded “anti-Semite” label has been hurled so often and so recklessly in recent times that it’s lost much of its impact. Gertrude Stein was an influential, “modernistic,” twentieth-century Jewish-American writer. In spite of her background, in 1938 she nominated Hitler for the Nobel Peace Prize.
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Caltech Faces Reckoning Over Its Links to Eugenics and Sterilization Movement
M. Hiltzik - Los Angeles Times
To the ever-lengthening list of institutions facing a reckoning with their racist pasts, add the California Institute of Technology. A petition calling for the removal of the name of Robert A. Millikan from buildings, programs and open spaces on the Pasadena campus has gathered 862 signatures since June 28, according to its originator … The organizers aim to force Caltech to recognize Millikan’s role in promoting the openly racist doctrine of eugenics and policies of forced sterilization and segregation in schools and housing. Robert Millikan is the patron saint of Caltech … Millikan was Caltech’s first Nobel laureate — in physics in 1923 … His name adorns buildings, rooms and areas throughout the campus … During his reign at Caltech, from 1921-45, Millikan was one of the best known and most respected scientists in the country.
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Nikola Tesla the Eugenicist: Eliminating Undesirables by 2100
M. Novak - Smithsonian Magazine
Interest in the life of legendary inventor Nikola Tesla has seen a tremendous resurgence in the past two decades. And with good reason. The man was a genius who was able to take so many of the ideas swirling around in the 19th century ether and turn them into fantastic new inventions — both real and imagined … One of Tesla’s most disturbing ideas was his belief in using eugenics to purify the human race. In the 1930s, Tesla expressed his belief that the forced sterilization of criminals and the mentally ill — which was occurring in some European countries (most disturbingly Nazi German) and in many states in the U.S. — wasn’t going far enough. He believed that by the year 2100 eugenics would be “universally established” as a system of weeding out undesirable people from the population.
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On June 22nd, a group of anarchist hackers called DDoSecrets dumped 270 gigabytes worth of internal documents belonging to regional police fusion centers, the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). The documents provide interesting insight into state surveillance tactics, political bias and dynamics, and how “threats” are prioritized. The files — dated from 2015 to 2020 in the sample National Justice looked at — show a massive contradiction between the FBI’s ideologically selective priorities and the actual intelligence being provided to them by regional police centers, which often stress the role of “antifa” as instigators of violence … Both the FBI and to a lesser extent the Department of Homeland Security are far more concerned with political ideology and creating propaganda than upholding the law.
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… While caste discrimination has never been a major public issue in the US, the lawsuit comes at a moment when the country is confronting racial discrimination, giving the Cisco case a sharper edge. A number of Dalits [“untouchables”] in US tech companies point to the irony of their casteist colleagues supporting Black Lives Matter while continuing to suppress Indians from so-called lower castes. While caste discrimination among Indians in US workplaces is not new, tech companies largely ignored the practise, primarily because, in strictly legal terms, it is not unlawful … California’s lawsuit will now make it hard for companies to ignore caste as a discriminatory practice.
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Genghis Khan vs. Thomas Jefferson
Linh Dinh
… In Mongolia, Genghis Khan is back all right. Just outside the capital is a 131-foot equestrian statue of the man, and Mongolia’s highest honor is The Order of Genghis Khan, of which only one is awarded yearly … Internationally, the Great Khan is also enjoying a revival, though in 1992, Time Magazine still listed him as the worst villain of the last millennium, with Tamerlane coming in second … As Genghis Khan becomes a god again on his home turf, another historical giant has been knocked down with dizzying speed, and Thomas Jefferson is even denounced at the University of Virginia, which he didn’t just found, but lovingly designed … Sophomoric mobs are now howling for his scalp! … As Mongols embrace their founding father, Americans denounce theirs, so who do you think have a brighter future?
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The New 'Systemic Racism' That Is Coming
Patrick J. Buchanan
Before our Black Lives Matter moment, one had not thought of the NBC networks as shot through with “systemic racism.” Yet, what other explanation is there for this week’s draconian personnel decision of NBCUniversal chairman Cesar Conde. According to Conde, the white share of NBC’s workforce, now 74% and divided evenly between men and women, will be chopped to 50 percent … Practices that were regarded as race discrimination and supposedly outlawed in the Civil Rights Act of 1964 will henceforth be seen as commendable and mandatory. There will be racial and ethnic discrimination, as in the days of segregation. Only the color of the beneficiaries and the color of the victims will be reversed. And that is the meaning of the BLM revolution, which might be encapsulated: “It’s our turn now!”
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Our Mission and Record
Video - Institute for Historical Review
In this five-minute video presentation, IHR director Mark Weber explains the Institute’s mission and record. “We strive to provide factual information and sound perspective on US foreign policy, World War Two, the Israel-Palestine conflict, Middle East history, the Jewish-Zionist role in cultural and political life, the `Holocaust’ remembrance campaign, war propaganda, and much more.” The IHR, is also explains, is an “independent educational center and publisher that works to promote peace, understanding and justice through greater public awareness of the past, and especially socially-politically relevant aspects of modern history.”
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Why We're Capitalizing Black
The New York Times
The last time The New York Times made a sweeping call to capitalize how it referred to people of African ancestry was nearly a century ago … Decades later, a monthlong internal discussion at The Times led the paper on Tuesday to make, for similar reasons, its latest style change on race — capitalizing Black when describing people and cultures of African origin … Conversations about the change began in earnest at The Times and elsewhere after the death of George Floyd and subsequent protests, said Mike Abrams, senior editor for editing standards. Several major news media organizations have made the same call, including The Associated Press, whose stylebook has long been an influential guide for news organizations … The Times also looked at whether to capitalize white and brown in reference to race, but both will remain lowercase.
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I No Longer Believe in a Jewish State
Peter Beinart - The New York Times
… The dream of a two-state solution that would give Palestinians a country of their own let me hope that I could remain a liberal and a supporter of Jewish statehood at the same time. Events have now extinguished that hope … If Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu fulfills his pledge to impose Israeli sovereignty in parts of the West Bank, he will just formalize a decades-old reality: In practice, Israel annexed the West Bank long ago. Israel has all but made its decision: one country that includes millions of Palestinians who lack basic rights. Now liberal Zionists must make our decision, too. It’s time to abandon the traditional two-state solution and embrace the goal of equal rights for Jews and Palestinians. It’s time to imagine a Jewish home that is not a Jewish state.
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… Whether Israel’s illegal appropriation of Palestinian land takes place with massive media fanfare and a declaration of sovereignty, or whether it happens incrementally over the course of the coming days, weeks, and months, Israel has, in reality, already annexed the West Bank – not just 30 percent of it but, in fact, the whole area … It matters little whether the annexation will have a set date or will take place progressively through Israel’s declarations of sovereignty over smaller chunks of the West Bank in the future. The fact is, annexation is not a new Israeli political agenda dictated by political circumstances in Tel Aviv and Washington.
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Ashkenazi Jews Must Stop Identifying As White/European
Dani Ishai Behan - The Times of Israel
.. Our people were persecuted, tormented, slaughtered, and kept in a state of virtual captivity on the European continent for generations, and were driven to the point of near extinction less than 100 years ago – in our grandparents’ lifetimes. We still haven’t recovered from the damage wrought by the Holocaust, let alone everything else Europeans have done to us over the centuries. Anti-Semitism is and remains a pervasive part of all white-majority societies, along with any society touched by European colonialism. So the ‘white-European’ identity today carries all sorts of negative connotations as a result … We have absolutely nothing to gain from identifying as White or European, and everything to lose.
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Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey, whose extended family were victims of the Holocaust, has said he supports reparations for African-Americans. The youthful mayor, who is Jewish, revealed his support in an appearance on “All In with Chris Hayes” on MSNBC last week. A viewer asked Frey about the topic, citing both the growing bloc of mayors of Southern US cities who support reparations and the compensation that West Germany paid to Holocaust survivors and to Israel … Frey brought his Jewish identity into his response. “As a Jew who lost extended family during the Holocaust,” he said, “I have been told stories about the impact that this has had on our family and our lives, and yes, reparations need to take place.”
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Top Canadian Jewish Group Files Hate Crimes Complaint After High School Protesters Shout ‘Jews Are Our Dogs’
B. Kerstein - Algemeiner
A top Canadian Jewish group has filed a hate crimes complaint after an anti-Israel protest near Toronto was found to have been replete with antisemitic and pro-terrorist slogans. B’nai Brith Canada filed the complaint with the Peel Regional Police over a July 4 demonstration in the city of Mississauga against possible annexation of parts of the West Bank by Israel. A video of the event revealed that protesters shouted in Arabic, “Palestine is our country, and the Jews are our dogs.” They also pledged to “sacrifice our soul and blood for Palestine” and urged “martyrs by the millions” to “march to Jerusalem.”
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America’s Havana: Thousands Say Ciao to San Francisco
Michael Gibson - City Journal
… Even before the current Covid-19 pandemic, San Francisco was a deeply troubled city. It ranks first in the nation in theft, burglary, vandalism, shoplifting, and other property crime. On average, about 60 cars get broken into each day. Diseases arising from poor sanitation — typhoid, typhus, hepatitis A — are reappearing at an alarming rate … Each year the city hands out 4.5 million needles, which you can find used and tossed out like cigarette butts in parks and around bus stops. The city’s department of public works deploys feces cleaners daily — a “poop patrol” to wash the filth from the sidewalks … San Francisco is a city overwhelmed by its own stupidity, but painful adjustments are coming. For the seventh straight year, more people have left California than have moved in.
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The War on America’s Past Continues: Statues of Pioneers Could be Targeted Next
A. Adams - Spiked (Britain)
In the wake of recent attempts – some successful – to have Confederate statues removed from the US south, what is the future of colonialist statues in the US west? In Pioneer Mother Monuments: Constructing Cultural Memory, Cynthia Culver Prescott, a professor of history at the University of North Dakota, senses a reluctance to apply to pioneer monuments the ideological zeal that was turned on Confederate memorials … As university graduates steeped in identity politics become more prominent, activists will find more influential allies ready to accede to demands to remove statues. Statues of Columbus and other explorers have already been removed; eventually, ideologues will come for pioneer monuments, too.
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Anti-Slavery Zealot John Brown is No Hero
Jim Bovard
… In October 1859, [John] Brown led a band of zealots attacking Harper’s Ferry, Virginia, to seize the federal arsenal, part of his plan to end slavery via the mass killing of slaveowners across the South. … Most of the nation was horrified by Brown’s attack at Harper’s Ferry, which was speedily put down by federal troops … John Brown was the living embodiment of the 19th century quip: “A fanatic is someone who does what the Lord would do if He knew the facts of the matter.” Similarly, the mobs in many cities that are currently unleashing violence are convinced they are doing God’s work—or at least obeying the commandments they imbibed in college sociology classes. But the idiocy of the new saviors knows no bounds … Thoreau’s deification of John Brown should be a reminder of the perils of glorifying political violence in the name of any ideal.
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Dozens of Organizations Appeal to Joe Biden to Drop His 'Blind Support' for Israel
M. Benjamin, A. Gold - Middle East Eye
US presidential candidate Joe Biden wants you to believe that he is opposed to Israel’s likely annexation of parts of the occupied West Bank, which Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu plans to carry out this month … And yet, Biden’s senior foreign policy adviser, Antony Blinken, has insisted that under no circumstances – not even the annexation of the West Bank – would Biden consider reducing or withholding US military aid to Israel … A new Washington Post poll, 67 percent of respondents said that it is “acceptable” or actually the duty of elected representatives to question the Israel-US relationship. Among Democrats, that number was an overwhelming 81 percent.
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Joe Biden Opposes Withholding US Aid to Israel Under Any Circumstances
Palestine Chronicle
Presidential candidate Joe Biden would oppose cutting off US aid to Israel under any circumstances, a foreign policy advisor has said. Anthony Blinken, an advisor to the former vice president, reiterated on Monday Biden’s “complete” opposition to reducing or withholding military aid to the US ally, just a day after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu pledged to go forward with the annexation of large swathes of the occupied West Bank. “He completely opposes it, he would not tie military assistance to Israel to any political decisions Israel makes,” Blinken said in a call organized by lobby organization the Democratic Majority for Israel. Biden has previously stated that he believes conditioning US aid to Israel on its policies would be “outrageous” and “wrong”.
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'Zionist' Joe Biden: In His Own Words
Ramzy Baroud
“I am a Zionist. You don’t have to be a Jew to be a Zionist,” current Democratic Presidential candidate, Joe Biden, said in April 2007, soon before he was chosen to be Barack Obama’s running mate in the 2008 elections … At a packed AIPAC conference in March 2013, Biden elaborated on his ideological Zionist beliefs and his president’s commitment to ‘the Jewish state of Israel’ … Biden’s fiery speech before the pro-Israel lobby group, AIPAC, at their annual conference in March 2020, was a mere continuation of a long legacy that is predicated on his country’s blind support for Israel. Biden’s discourse on Israel – a mixture of confused ideological notions, religious ideas and political interests – culminated in a call for American support for Israel that is “above politics and beyond politics”.
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Joe Biden Didn’t Just Vote for the Iraq Invasion — He Helped Lead the March to War
B. Marcetic - In These Times
… To say the now-Democratic frontrunner voted for the Iraq War doesn’t fully describe his role in what has come to be widely acknowledged as the most disastrous foreign policy decision of the 21st century. A review of the historical record shows Biden didn’t just vote for the war — he was a leading Democratic voice in its favor, and played an important role in persuading the public of its necessity and, more broadly, laying the groundwork for Bush’s invasion. In the wake of September 11th, Biden stood as a leading Democratic voice on foreign policy, chairing the powerful Senate Foreign Relations Committee. As President Bush attempted to sell the U.S. public on the war, Biden became one of the administration’s steadfast allies in this cause …
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Biden's Basement Strategy: Just Say Nothing
Patrick J. Buchanan
Some polls now have Joe Biden running ahead of Donald Trump by 10 points … This [strategy] enables Biden to avoid the blazing questions that are dividing not only Democrats and Republicans but liberals and leftists. And most of these issues touch on the explosive subject of race … If Biden emerges, then he will have to answer why all these institutions where his party and people are predominant — the media, Hollywood, the academic community, public schools, big-city governments, the big foundations, the federal bureaucracy — are apparently shot through with systemic racism after decades of Democratic dominance. And, more precisely, what he intends to do about it. Perhaps it’s better to shelter in place in the basement.
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Hitler, we’re told over and over again, set out to conquer the world, or at least Europe. At the great postwar Nuremberg Tribunal the victorious Allies sought to prove that Hitler and his “henchmen” had engaged in a sinister “Conspiracy to Wage Aggressive War.” The most important piece of evidence produced to sustain this charge was and is a document known as the “Hossbach Protocol” or “Hossbach Memorandum.” … This important study leaves no doubt that the highly touted protocol is actually a forged revision of an uncertified copy of an unauthorized original, which has disappeared.
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Madeleine Albright Is Back, But She Is Still Living in the Past
Doug Bandow – The National Interest
Madeleine Albright is back with a new book to sell. Interviewed in by the New York Times magazine, she reminds us how she continues to live in the past. Unfortunately, that’s what made her advice as UN ambassador and secretary of state so uniformly bad … One of the disasters that she endorsed was the Iraq war … This mindset has made the U.S. government anathema to many around the globe. Why do “they” hate us? Because of officials like Albright. These days even the Europeans loath Washington … Nor does she appear to retreat from the hubris she constantly expressed in other forms … Albright is intelligent and has a fascinating family background. But she should be kept far away from American foreign policy.
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America’s Supernational Sovereignty
Philip Giraldi
One of the most disturbing aspects of American foreign policy since 9/11 has been the assumption that decisions made by the United States are binding on the rest of the world, best exemplified by President George W. Bush’s warning that “there was a new sheriff in town.” Apart from time of war, no other nation has ever sought to prevent other nations from trading with each other, nor has any government sought to punish foreigners using sanctions with the cynical arrogance demonstrated by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. The United States uniquely seeks to penalize other sovereign countries for alleged crimes that did not occur in the U.S. and that did not involve American citizens, while also insisting that all nations must comply with whatever penalties are meted out by Washington.
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The U.S. killing of Iranian Maj. Gen. Qassem Soleimani in January “was unlawful and arbitrary under international law,” a U.N. human rights investigator says, calling the drone strike in Baghdad a violation of Iraq’s sovereignty. The investigator also says the U.S. has not produced any proof to back its claim that the attack was justified by the need to stop an imminent attack … Agnes Callamard, the U.N. special rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions, says U.N. investigators found nothing to justify the U.S. rationale … Callamard says the U.S. attack in Iraq violated Article 2(4) of the U.N. Charter, which “prohibits the threat or use of force and calls on all Members to respect the sovereignty, territorial integrity and political independence of other States.”
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In a new official strategy of confrontation against the People’s Republic of China, the Trump administration has announced its intention “to compel Beijing to cease or reduce actions harmful to the United States’ vital, national interests and those of our allies and partners.” … Despite Washington’s fervent objections to Russian election meddling in 2016, the U.S. has intervened in more than 80 democratic elections in other nations, including the 1986 presidential contest in Russia. … The Trump administration has caused economic damage to many countries, yet its wrecking‐ball sanctions have so far failed in every case: Cuba, Iran, North Korea, Russia, Syria, and Venezuela all have refused to give into U.S. demands … This bizarre strategy is doomed to fail. Despite Washington’s presumption that it speaks for the world, its allies often disagree.
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The Past Marches On
George Morgenstern (1953)
… Add to these the operations of an organized propaganda capable, apparently, of doping Americans into belief in any myth, and there is formidable reason why public opinion should be so stupefied and stultified that the nation can be led from war to war in pursuit of ever retreating goals. Yet, despite the general numbness, Americans, surveying the results of half a century of intermeddling, dimly perceive that all is not well.
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Mountain Linked to 'Racist' Scientist to Keep Its Name
Swissinfo / SBC
New efforts to rename the Agassizhorn peak in the Swiss Alps have suffered a setback after the authorities of three towns bordering the peak rejected a request by campaigners. On Thursday, the towns of Guttannen and Grindelwald in canton Bern and Fieschertal in canton Valais jointly decided against renaming the Agassizhorn peak. The local council of the Grindelwald mountain resort dismissed a call for renaming the 3,946 meter peak on Tuesday as “far-fetched”. “History can’t be wiped out just like that,” said Grindelwald mayor … He argues it is wiser to deal with both the positive and negative aspects of history, including the Swiss-American 19th scientist Louis Agassiz and his racist views.
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Leaked Memo Details ADL’s Annexation Response
J. Leifer - Jewish Currents
As the Israeli government prepares to annex parts of the West Bank, Jewish establishment organizations are strategizing how best to shield Israel from political consequences … A leaked ADL [“Anti-Defamation League”] strategy memo obtained by Jewish Currents sheds light on how the nominal civil rights organization is preparing to address annexation’s critics … The ADL appears to recognize that annexation would violate Palestinians’ basic human rights, enforcing a codified regime of nationality-based discrimination subjugation — and that, as a group ostensibly concerned with civil rights, this is in tension with its stated values. Yet despite the seeming contradiction, the ADL has long devoted substantial time and energy to chilling criticism of Israeli policies and shielding the Israeli government from consequences.
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Recent visitors have left mounds of rubbish at public spaces and beauty spots across the UK and beyond. What’s driving this behaviour? “We fear a littering epidemic as lockdown eases,” warns the environmental charity Keep Britain Tidy … Littering has been reported to be more common among young people and people with a weaker attachment to their communities. For these people, feeling part of a small group is especially important, and one way to express that is through defiance of broader norms. And it’s especially awkward to hold onto an empty can for the recycling bin if mates have already thrown theirs to the ground. The pandemic may also be having a psychological effect. It’s natural that caring for the environment isn’t top of mind right now, says Palmer.
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Anti-Israel and Anti-Zionist Chants at BLM Events
Jewish Journal (California)
Last week, at least two separate BLM-related events descended into raw anti-Semitism and demonization of the Jewish collective, the state of Israel. At a BLM march in Washington, DC, on July 1, 2020, the crowd chanted things like: “Israel, we know you, you murder children, too”; and were treated to a poem about Israel’s purported crimes against Palestinian Arabs, a poem that referred to Israel as the “puppet master of continents,” bringing to mind age-old conspiracy theories about nefarious Jews controlling governments all over the world … That same day in Brooklyn, at a pro-BLM and anti-Israel demonstration, attendees were regaled with chants of “Death to Israel,” “Death to America” and “From Gaza to Minnesota, globalize the Intifada!”
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Enough With the Insults to Black History
Walter E. Williams
… If one totaled up the earnings and spending of black Americans and considered us as a separate nation with our own gross domestic product, we would rank well within the top 20 richest nations. A black American, Gen. Colin Powell, once headed the world’s mightiest military. Black Americans are among the world’s most famous personalities, and a few black Americans are among the world’s richest people … Plus, there was a black U.S. president. The significance of these achievements cannot be overstated … A major problem is that some public and private policies reward dependency and irresponsibility … Government should do its job of protecting constitutional rights. After that, black people should be simply left alone as opposed to being smothered by the paternalism inspired by white guilt.
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Remember the Red Guards Before You Cheer the Woke Mobs
Peter Van Buren – The American Conservative
… Is America on the edge of a cultural revolution? The historical namesake and obvious parallel is the Cultural Revolution in China, which lasted from 1966 to 1976. Its stated goal was to purge capitalist and traditional elements from society, and to substitute a new way of thinking based on Mao’s own beliefs. The epic struggle for control and power waged war against anybody on the wrong side of an idea. To set the mobs on somebody, one needed only to tie him to an official blacklist like the Four Olds (old customs, culture, habits, and ideas). China’s young people and urban workers formed Red Guard units to go after whomever was outed. … Red Guards destroyed historical relics, statues, and artifacts, and ransacked cultural and religious sites. Libraries were burned.
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Are Uncivil Protests and Mob Violence Winning?
Patrick J. Buchanan
… Hard to believe. Statues of Washington, Jefferson, Jackson, Lincoln, Grant and Theodore Roosevelt are dragged down, while the murals and graffiti of misfits who trashed downtown Seattle are to be preserved … Is the mob winning? The case can be made that the mob has won already. People have gotten away with massive demonstrations blocking roads, highways and parks. Shopping areas in elite and working-class sections of scores of cities have been torched and looted. Police have been insulted, taunted and showered with debris. Result: Mob demands to “Defund the Police” have been met by political concessions and capitulations … Consider what else the radicals and rioters have accomplished. They have made mass civil disobedience an acceptable and even praiseworthy form of protest, if you are justifiably outraged.
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The Fourth of July holiday weekend across the U.S. was marred by violence as more than 14 were killed and dozens were injured in shootings, including at a nightclub in South Carolina. In Chicago, a city known for its bloody gun violence, more than 67 people were shot over the holiday weekend, and at least 13 were killed, including a 7-year-old girl and a 14-year-old boy … In the nation’s largest city at least three people were killed in overnight shootings, police said Sunday morning. The New York Police Department said a 20-year-old man was found dead in front of a police precinct on Atkins Avenue just after midnight on Sunday … Several shootings in the city of Baltimore over the weekend left at least one person dead and eight injured.
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Facebook Appoints Israeli Censor to Oversight Board
Tamara Nassar
Facebook has hired the former director-general of Israel’s justice ministry as a member of its new oversight board. This body will effectively determine what content to censor or permit on the social media platform. Emi Palmor headed the justice ministry from 2014 until she was dismissed from her post last year. Under her direction, the Israeli justice ministry “petitioned Facebook to censor legitimate speech of human rights defenders and journalists because it was deemed politically undesirable,” Palestinian civil society groups stated this month.
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Dalia Shurrab, a content writer and translator based in Gaza, receives payment for her work through online money transfer platforms, like many freelancers around the world. But she can’t use PayPal. Despite serving nearly 200 million users in 203 countries, PayPal denies its service to Palestinians – though not Israeli settlers – in the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip. … PayPal’s policy involves discrimination. Israelis living in settlements in the West Bank can use PayPal, while Palestinians are unable to. All of Israel’s settlements are illegal under international law. The company did not respond to The Electronic Intifada’s repeated requests for comment. Shurrab, who lives in Beit Hanoun in the northern Gaza Strip, is – like Gaza’s two million other residents – subject to Israel’s ten-year blockade of the territory.
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What Google And Facebook Are Hiding
Ron Unz – Unz Review
After several months of record-breaking traffic our alternative media webzine suffered a sharp blow when it was suddenly purged by Facebook at the end of April … Our entire website had been banned … Our entire website and all its many millions of pages of serious content had been silently deranked by Google, thus eliminating nearly all our incoming traffic from search results … My article had now vanished from all such Google searches … The other pages of our website have been similarly blacklisted, effectively eliminated from all web searches courtesy of Google’s information monopoly … Now we have been almost simultaneously banned by both Google and Facebook, America’s leading gatekeepers to the Internet, such concerted action hardly seems likely to have been coincidental …
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Russia’s Putin Insists on Recognition of Soviet Role in World War II
Associated Press
In a lengthy article in a US journal, Russian President Vladimir Putin insists on recognition of the Soviet Union as the prime defeater of Nazi Germany, criticizes Poland’s actions before the war, and defends the annexation of Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia. The article, titled “The Real Lessons of the 75th Anniversary of World War II,” appeared in the National Interest journal six days before a huge military parade in Red Square to commemorate the end of World War II in Europe. The timing underlines how the war, in which the Soviet Union lost an estimated 27 million people, is a linchpin of Russia’s national identity and how officials bristle at any questioning of the USSR’s role.
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The Real Lessons of World War II
Vladimir Putin
… It is essential to pass on to future generations the memory of the fact that the Nazis were defeated first and foremost by the Soviet people … The root causes of World War II mainly stem from the decisions made after World War I. The Treaty of Versailles became a symbol of grave injustice for Germany. It basically implied that the country was to be robbed, being forced to pay enormous reparations to the Western allies that drained its economy … That was when the infamous Phony War started. What Britain and France did was a blatant betrayal of their obligations to Poland … During all these months [Sept. 1939-June 1941] there was an ongoing invisible diplomatic and politico-military struggle and intelligence work. Moscow understood that it was facing a fierce and cruel enemy, and that a covert war against Nazism was already going on.
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Who Started World War II?
Video - Viktor Suvorov
A Russian historian and former Soviet military intelligence presents evidence to show that the German attack against the Soviet Union in June 1941 was a preventive strike to counter an imminent Soviet assault against Germany and Europe. Viktor Suvorov (Vladimir Rezun) explains why Soviet dictator Stalin should be considered the “chief culprit” of World War II. This 50-minute lecture, given at the U.S. Naval Academy in October 2009, is based on years of research for several books. Stalin aligned the Soviet Union with Third Reich Germany from August 1939 to June 1941 because he planned and expected that Germany and other European countries would soon exhaust themselves in destructive war, thereby enabling Soviet forces to then overwhelm and sweep across a weakened continent.
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A Crash in the Dollar Is Coming
Stephen Roach – Bloomberg
The era of the U.S. dollar’s “exorbitant privilege” as the world’s primary reserve currency is coming to an end … For almost 60 years, the world complained but did nothing about it. Those days are over. Already stressed by the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic, U.S. living standards are about to be squeezed as never before. At the same time, the world is having serious doubts about the once widely accepted presumption of American exceptionalism. Currencies set the equilibrium between these two forces — domestic economic fundamentals and foreign perceptions of a nation’s strength or weakness. The balance is shifting, and a crash in the dollar could well be in the offing.
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Our Job in a Time of Crisis
Video - Institute for Historical Review
Mark Weber explains why the work of the IHR in countering the forces of historical deceit, bigotry and cultural distortion is vitally important. An awareness of factual history is essential to an understanding of ourselves and the great issues of our age, says the IHR director in this five-minute video presentation. Unless and until the interests that have gripped our nation are clearly identified and discredited, he says, there will be no change in basic policies or direction.
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Some Americans are calling for a new national anthem amid the nationwide trend of removing monuments, statues and other symbols that have ties to slavery. Francis Scott Key wrote the poem “Defence of Fort M’Henry” on September 14, 1814 when he saw the US flag flying over the fort at dawn’s early light … This poem later served as the lyrics for “The Star-Spangled Banner,” which became the official national anthem of the US in 1931. However, citizens are now asking for a new national anthem because of Key’s ties to slavery. The Smithsonian reports that Key was a slave owner and defended slave owners’ rights to own human property … The petition alleges that not only did Key own slaves, but also that the song itself “contains racism, elitism and even sexism embedded in its third and fourth stanzas.”
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How ‘Defund the Police’ Went From `Moonshot’ to Mainstream
Maya King – Politico
To many watching the historic protests against racism and police brutality unfold across the country, it was a call that came out of nowhere: Defund the Police … Those three words became the rallying cry of a movement that had suddenly won America’s undivided attention … Were the protesters really calling for no police whatsoever? But the demands to abolish the police didn’t spring from nowhere — they have deep roots among a group of activists and academics who have been arguing for years that merely reforming a system they see as fundamentally broken is futile … Perhaps most notably, many Americans who might have never imagined communities without police officers no longer see it as an impossible feat, though most still oppose the idea.
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Are African-Americans ‘Black’ or ‘black’?
The New York Times
It’s the difference between black and Black. A longtime push by African-American scholars and writers to capitalize the word black in the context of race has gained widespread acceptance in recent weeks and unleashed a deep debate over identity, race and power. Hundreds of news organizations over the past month have changed their style to Black in reference to the race of people, including The Associated Press, long considered an influential arbiter of journalism style. Far more than a typographical change, the move is part of a generations-old struggle over how best to refer to those who trace their ancestry to Africa … The move toward Black is not embraced by all African-Americans, and two of the country’s major news outlets, The New York Times and The Washington Post, are still wrestling over whether to make the change.
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Don't Worry About `Rewriting History’: It’s Literally What We Historians Do
Charlotte Lydia Riley - The Guardian (Britain)
People are suddenly very concerned about the perils of rewriting history. We must be vigilant, apparently, to the possibility that great swaths of the past will be forgotten or, worse, “erased” … Historians are not too worried at the threat posed by “rewriting history”. This is because rewriting history is our occupation, our professional endeavour. We are constantly engaged in a process of re-evaluating the past and reinterpreting stories that we thought we knew … As our ideas about the world change, it is natural that so too does our attitude to the heroes and victories that our ancestors chose to commemorate. When those heroes were anything but heroic, leaving their statues standing is an insult to the modern values we claim to hold. This isn’t a sinister erasure of history: this is re-evaluating our history based on new evidence and ideas.
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Learning From the Jews of the NAACP
B. Silverman – Forward
You may know that the NAACP was formed in the wake of the 1908 Springfield, Illinois, race riots … But you may not know that American Jews made several important contributions, lending organizational, legal, political and financial weight to this nascent enterprise … The first major Jewish leader to join the charge was Rabbi Stephen Wise, the head of the Reform movement in the U.S … Eventually, dozens of mainstream Jewish leaders followed suit, and by 1911 became founding members of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, the NAACP … One of these early members was Louis Marshall, founder of the American Jewish Committee … Another was Supreme Court Justice [Felix Frankfurter] who helped draft NAACP legal briefs. Then Jacob Schiff, banker and community leader, joined the NAACP board.
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Jewish Roots of Marvel Comic Book `Superheroes’
J. Hoffman - The Times of Israel
… Leibovitz describes the pivotal moment when Stan Lee (born Stanley Lieber) and Jack Kirby (Jacob Kurtzburg) argue their way into crafting the first flawed, human superheroes (later known as the Fantastic Four) by drawing a direct line to the origin of the Talmud. This singularity of Jewish history and modern popular myth-making is a colorful wash of energy worthy of Kirby’s bold images and Lee’s patented patter … The meat of this book is the well-researched and effectively argued analysis of comic book heroes in a Jewish context … “So he creates a new breed of superhero, animated by this very Jewish way of seeing the world.”
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… The ever more obvious symptoms of social decay are inevitable in a nation as unhealthy as today’s America. We understand that a nation guided by false principles, wishful thinking and unrealistic notions about society and history cannot and will not survive; that a society as inwardly sick as this one will not last … On this anniversary of American independence, it is altogether fitting that we recall the sacrifices and the outlook of the men who acted boldly out of principle, and risked everything in following the dictate of their conscience.
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When protesters first took over Seattle’s Capitol Hill district last month, supporters pitched it as something of socialist summer camp: movie nights under the stars, free food, a sidewalk library — and no cops. But the leaderless six-block zone — known as the CHAZ, or Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone, before it was renamed CHOP for Capitol Hill Occupation Protest — quickly spiraled into violence and chaos, culminating in a pair of shootings that killed two black teens. On Wednesday, Seattle Mayor Jenny Durkan finally issued an emergency order for police to take back the streets and clear out the protesters who had been camped out for nearly a month. It was a stunning reversal for Durkan — who originally compared the CHOP to a “block party atmosphere” and suggested the city could be in for a “summer of love.”
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Germany’s defense minister on Wednesday disbanded a unit of the country’s elite commando force, known as the KSK, following an official report earlier this year that found far-right extremism within its ranks. In January, a report by Germany’s Military Counterintelligence Service revealed that some 500 soldiers in the German military, or Bundeswehr, were being investigated for far-right extremism. It noted that 20 of those cases involved soldiers who were part of the Command Special Forces, or KSK – an anti-terrorism and hostage rescue unit with approximately 1,300 soldiers … According to Deutsche Welle, the extremism allegations date back to 2017, when KSK members at a party performed the Nazi salute and played right-wing extremist music.
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Before a markedly appreciative audience, the Tokyo Philharmonic Orchestra performs a spirited rendition of Third Reich Germany’s “Panzerlied” (“Tank Song”) at a 2015 concert. Runtime: 2:39 mins. Composed during the 1930s, it was a popular song of Germany’s Wehrmacht (armed forces) during World War II. It became internationally known through a major American motion picture of 1965, “Battle of the Bugle,” in which a unit of German soldiers rousingly sign it. In 2017, Germany’s Minister of Defense banned the publication of song books containing this and other songs associated with the Hitler era, as part of the government’s ongoing “denazification” campaign. Nonetheless, the Panzerlied” remains enduringly appreciated globally. It has been popular with soldiers of the armies of Chile, Sweden, Italy, and France.
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Israel Increases Secretive Nuclear Stockpile to 90 Warheads, Says Swedish Research Institute
Middle East Eye
Israel may have increased its nuclear stockpile from 80 warheads in 2019 to 90 in 2020, according to a new report by a leading global arms watchdog. The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (Sipri) said in its annual report on Monday that Israel, one of the world’s nine nuclear powers, could be in possession of up to 90 nuclear warheads … Israel is one of only three countries, along with India and Pakistan, not to sign the 1968 non-proliferation treaty (NPT), and is widely assumed to have the Middle East’s only atomic arsenal. Sipri said that it believes Israel has around 30 gravity bombs that can be delivered by F-16I aircraft, and up to 50 warheads that can be delivered by land-based ballistic missiles such as the Jericho III … Some groups have estimated that Israel has a higher amount of warheads.
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Middle East Pop Quiz
Charley Reese
It’s time for another pop quiz on America’s favorite region of the world — the Middle East. Let’s get started with the subject of nuclear weapons. Which country in the Middle East actually possesses nuclear weapons? Israel … Which country in the Middle East occupies land belonging to other people? Israel. Which occupies a piece of Lebanon, a larger piece of Syria, East Jerusalem, the West Bank and Gaza … Which country in the Middle East has the most powerful lobby in the U.S.? Israel. Which country in the Middle East are most American politicians, journalists and academics afraid to criticize? Israel.
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Israelis Are The Enemy, Muslims Should Fight Them, Says Former Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad
The Jerusalem Post (Israel)
Muslims should stop fighting among themselves or attacking the West, and should focus on “the enemy” – Israel, former Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad has said. In an English-language interview on Lebanon’s Al-Mayadeen TV aired on June 29, captured by The Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI), Mahathir said that Muslim in-fighting was helping Israel and her allies … Instead, he said, Muslims should turn their attention on Israel itself which he falsely [?] claimed was created through the displacement of a Palestinian state … Instead of attacking America and other Western states, Muslims should support the movement for black persons’ rights, Mahathir suggested, repeating a popular antisemitic trope claiming that Jews control the media in the West and use it to spread pro-Israel propaganda.
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It Sure Looks Like Trump and Adelson Have Cut a Deal on Annexation
P. Weiss, J. North – Mondoweiss
Sheldon Adelson, the Israel-loving, Iran-war-craving casino baron, talks to Donald Trump all the time, and for good reason, he and wife Miriam are the biggest Republican donors, poised to give as much as $200 million this year. Now that the White House appears to be lying down for the Israeli government as it moves to annex portions of the West Bank despite a growing chorus of international condemnation, the focus should be on Adelson. He has always been a strong supporter of Israeli expansion … So far, the Adelsons have gotten everything they’ve wanted from our transactional president … Look at it from Trump’s point of view. He doesn’t care about peace in the Middle East or Palestinian human rights. He wants one thing, to win in November, and he needs money.
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The Korean War Atrocities No One Wants to Talk About
Jim Bovard - American Conservative
June 25th was the 70th anniversary of the start of the Korean War. Hundreds of thousands of American soldiers fought bravely in that war, and almost 37,000 were killed … In 1999, forty-six years after the cease fire in Korea, the Associated Press exposed a 1950 massacre of Korean refugees at No Gun Ri. U.S. troops drove Koreans out of their village and forced them to remain on a railroad embankment. Beginning on July 25, 1950, the refugees were strafed by U.S. planes and machine guns over the following three days. Hundreds of people, mostly women and children, were killed … Slaughtering civilians en masse became routine procedure after the Chinese Army intervened in the Korean war in late 1950.
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Seattle saw a staggering 525 percent spike in crime as a result of the violence that swept through the Capitol Hill Occupied Protest zone, according to Mayor Jenny Durkan. Durkan’s emergency order booting protesters from the six-block cop-free zone makes mention of the “narcotics use and violent crime, including rape, robbery, assault, and increased gang activity” within the CHOP since it first emerged in early June. June 2 to June 30 saw the 525 percent jump in crime compared to the same period last year. It includes “22 additional incidents, in person-related crime in the area, to include two additional homicides, six additional robberies, and 16 additional aggravated assaults (to include two additional non-fatal shootings),” Durkan’s order on Tuesday says.
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It was long a rather surprising choice of imagery for Finland’s Air Force Command – a swastika and pair of wings. The symbol will always be intrinsically linked with Nazi Germany, even though its roots go back many thousands of years. But now it has been confirmed the Air Force Command has quietly stopped using this unit emblem … Until 1945 its planes bore a blue swastika on a white background – and this was not intended to show allegiance to Nazi Germany, though the two nations were aligned. While the symbol was left off planes after World War Two, a swastika still featured in some Air Force unit emblems, unit flags and decorations – including on uniforms …
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Hitler’s Historic Visit to Finland and Meeting With Finnish Leaders
Video – Finnish Newsreel
Finnish newsreel report on Hitler’s one-day visit to Finland on June 4, 1942, on the occasion of the 75th birthday of Carl Gustav Mannerheim, Finland’s premier military commander. After the arrival of Hitler’s Fw 200 Condor airplane at an airfield, President Risto Ryti greets the German leader. Not shown here is the meeting of Hitler, Mannerheim and Ryti, together with prime minister Rangell, over lunch in a railroad dining car, where they talked at length. Also, Mannerheim is shown with Hitler as he shakes hands with Finnish and German military officers. This report concludes with displays of the German and Finnish flags — an expression of the alliance of the two nations in their common struggle against the USSR. With some Finnish-language narration. Runtime: 6:44 mins.
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Can You Trust Historians?: Hitler Should Have Recorded Everything
Guillaume Durocher
… It’s striking that a whole generation of postwar Hitler historians got into the habit of using fraudulent or unreliable documents … In the one private recording of Hitler that we have, absolutely fascinating listening, he reduces the old Finnish gentleman Field Marshal Carl Gustaf Emil Mannerheim to silence for 10 minutes as he expounds, in a feverish stream, on the travails of his war with the Soviet on Union. Hitler goes into great and meandering detail on the background to his decision-making … Hitler’s speeches are quite different, being generally more structured and disciplined while still remarkably creative and emotional … [Historian John] Toland’s 1990 speech to the Institute for Historical Review is a classic, including the wonderful story of how he met the legendary Waffen-SS special-ops commander, Otto Skorzeny.
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Living History
John Toland -- Institute for Historical Review
A fascinating, insightful and inspiring talk by a great American historian. Among John Toland’s outstanding works was The Rising Sun, which was honored with the Pulitzer Prize, and a best-selling biography, Adolf Hitler. In this lecture at an IHR conference, he looks back at the experiences that made him an acclaimed author. He recalls, for example, his youthful travels across the country on rail freight cars, and his life-long love of the theater. Throughout his decades-long quest for objectivity and non-partisanship in writing real, “living” history, Toland says, he tried to present the past as a dramatic saga of human nobility, defect, triumph, foible, suffering and joy. He humorously relates how he was denounced as a “Nazi” for his efforts to write objectivity, and with understanding, about Hitler and Third Reich Germany.
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Recording, with English text translation, of Hitler speaking during a luncheon with Finnish leaders. This is the only recording of the German leader talking at length in his normal, conversational voice. Hitler visited Finland on June 4, 1942, to meet with that country’s military commander, Marshal Mannerheim, President Ryti, and Prime Minister Rangell. (Finland and Germany were World War II allies against the Soviet Union.) An engineer of the Finnish broadcasting company YLE had placed a microphone near where the men shared a meal in a railroad dining car, and thereby recorded a portion of their lengthy conversation. This is the only known recording of Hitler speaking in his “normal,” conversational voice. Here’s a portion, along with an English translation. Hitler talks about his fateful decision to strike against the USSR. Runtime: 11:22 mins.
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San Francisco Archbishop Salvadore Cordileone criticized the pulling down of the Junipero Serra statue in Golden Gate Park. “What is happening to our society? A renewed national movement to heal memories and correct the injustices of racism and police brutality in our country has been hijacked by some into a movement of violence, looting and vandalism,” he said in a statement Saturday night. Serra was an 18th century Catholic priest who founded nine of California’s 21 Spanish missions and is credited with bringing Catholicism to the Western United States … The Spanish embassy to the United States also weighed in on the destruction of the Serra statue, as well as the vandalism of a bust of writer Miguel de Cervantes.
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Scientists Around the World Are Striking Against Racism in Academia
New Scientist (UK)
Scientists around the world are striking to raise awareness of institutional and systemic racism against Black academics … The strike was organised by a group of academics, many of them physicists and astronomers based in the US, and promoted on social media with the hashtags #ShutDownAcademia, #ShutDownSTEM and #Strike4BlackLives. The organisers are encouraging academics across STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) fields to take the day away from their normal research and instead spend it educating themselves on racial disparities in their field and taking action against racial violence and discrimination. At least 5000 academics based at universities from around the world have joined the course.
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From Pandering to Putin to Abusing Allies and Ignoring His Own Advisers, Trump’s Phone Calls Alarm US Officials
Carl Bernstein - CNN
In hundreds of highly classified phone calls with foreign heads of state, President Donald Trump was so consistently unprepared for discussion of serious issues, so often outplayed in his conversations with powerful leaders like Russian President Vladimir Putin and Turkish President Recep Erdogan, and so abusive to leaders of America’s principal allies, that the calls helped convince some senior US officials — including his former secretaries of state and defense, two national security advisers and his longest-serving chief of staff — that the President himself posed a danger to the national security of the United States, according to White House and intelligence officials intimately familiar with the contents of the conversations.
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Public Officials and Black Communities Must Instill Law and Order
Walter E. Williams
… Peaceful protest in any cause is as American as apple pie, but what we saw in the wake of George Floyd’s murder is as despicable as anything recently seen in our nation. What makes it worse is the silence and seemly support in many quarters for anarchists who have hijacked the protests to promote their own ends. These are the white liberals and leftist groups like Antifa who could care less about the major problems that exist in black communities and made worse by the rioting and looting … That brings me to one of the most disturbing aspects of the rioting and looting. That is the seeming impotence of people whom we elect and pay to enforce the law. That includes governors, mayors, and police chiefs who refuse to use their law enforcement powers to protect citizens and their property from criminals.
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The Dutch national rail company said it would pay 5 million euros, or $5.6 million, to Holocaust commemoration institutions, including the museums at three former concentration camps, Westerbork, Vught and Amersfoort. Dutch Jews said the offer is disappointingly low and urged the company, NS, to reconsider. NS allocated more than $40 million last year toward compensating survivors. It has also spent millions of dollars on Holocaust commemoration projects. But the World Jewish Restitution Organization, or WJRO, and the Central Jewish Board of Dutch Jewish organizations said in a joint statement Friday that NS should also offer compensation directly to the families of the Jews it transported to their deaths.
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Activists Seek to Rename Montreal Metro Station That Honors 'Anti-Semitic' Catholic Priest
The Times of Israel
For more than half a century, a busy metro station in Montreal is named after an anti-Semitic admirer of fascism. Now, thousands of Quebecois have signed a petition to rename the station … [Lionel] Groulx was a Catholic priest who some say was the father of French Canadian nationalism in the 1920s and ’30s. But historian Esther Delisle, who wrote a book about far-right political movements in Quebec, says that he was also a vocal anti-Semite who opposed the immigration of Jewish refugees to Quebec during the Holocaust and called for a boycott of Jewish businesses in Montreal … There is also a Lionel Groulx college, as well as numerous streets named in his honor throughout the province … Some apologize for views by explaining that in the 1930s Jew-hatred was widely accepted.
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After more than 120 years of flying over the state of Mississippi, the Confederate battle flag is no longer a part of the state’s official flag. On Tuesday, Republican Gov. Tate Reeves signed into law a bill fast-tracked by the Mississippi legislature over the weekend that calls for a new design. In a somber ceremony Reeves said he was signing the law to turn a page in Mississippi. “A flag is a symbol of our present, of our people, and of our future,” Reeves said. “For those reasons, we need a new symbol.” … Since the civil rights movement, activists have been calling for its removal, arguing it’s an outdated banner in a state that has a 38% African American population.
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What Persuades White Southerners to Remove Confederate Flags and Monuments?
The Washington Post
… The Confederate battle flag reemerged in the mid-20th century as a symbol of white resistance … By contrast, after Germany’s military defeat in World War II, its postwar government systematically removed all public displays celebrating the Nazi regime, and focused its public history on remembering Nazi atrocities instead. In fact, Germany banned citizens from displaying Nazi symbols, too, arguing that those symbols’ implied violence outweighed the appeal of free speech. The government called this effort “de-Nazification.” … Our tests show that accurate history and an appeal to racial justice can persuade many white Southerners to oppose Confederate symbols. But comparing the Confederate South to Nazi Germany undid that persuasion. In sum, as social scientists have long known, the message’s framing matters.
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In California, Orange County Democrats Want Renaming of John Wayne Airport, Citing the Actor’s 'Racist' Views
Associated Press
In the latest move to change U.S. place names tied to racist groups and ideas, leaders of Orange County’s Democratic Party are pushing to drop film legend John Wayne’s name from the county’s airport because of his racist and bigoted comments. The party’s executive committee in Orange County adopted a resolution last week condemning Wayne’s “racist and bigoted statements” in a 1971 interview and called on the county’s board of supervisors to drop his “name and likeness” from the airport. The resolution asked the board to restore the name to Orange County Airport. “An international airport that serves millions of people each year should not be named for someone who, in real life, opposed our nation’s values of opportunity and justice for all,” Ada Briceño, chair of the Democratic Party of Orange County, said in a statement.
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A student group at the University of Wisconsin-Madison is calling for the school to remove its popular Abraham Lincoln statue, saying the president who is known as the “Great Emancipator” is a symbol of racism … “He was also very publicly anti-Black,” Nalah McWhorter, the president of UW-Madison’s black student union, said. “Just because he was anti-slavery doesn’t mean he was pro-black.” “He said a lot in his presidential campaigns. His fourth presidential campaign speech, he said that he believes there should be an inferior and superior, and he believes white people should be the superior race,” she added. It should be noted that Lincoln did in fact express those sentiments in a presidential campaign speech on Sept. 18, 1858 …
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U.S. Births Fall to a 35-Year Low
Associated Press
U.S. births continued to fall last year [2019], leading to the fewest number of newborns in 35 years. The decline is the latest sign of a prolonged national “baby bust” that’s been going on for more than a decade. Some experts believe the coronavirus pandemic and its impact on the economy will suppress the numbers further … The latest numbers were released May 20 by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention … Aside from a one-year uptick in 2014, U.S. births have been falling every year since 2007, when a recession hit the country. The drop continued even after the economy rebounded. Experts say there are a number of causes, but chief among them are shifting attitudes about motherhood: Many women and couples delay childbearing and have fewer kids once they start.
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Belgian Parliament Call for Sanctions Against Israel If Annexation Goes Ahead
The Times of Israel
The Belgian parliament on Friday morning passed with an overwhelming majority a resolution urging the government to act to prevent Israel from unilaterally annexing parts of the West Bank and to actively advocate for European-wide punitive measures against Jerusalem if it proceeds with its controversial plan … The resolution “concerning Israel’s annexation of occupied territories in Palestine,” proposed by three politicians from the Greens, passed with 101 ‘yes’ votes and 39 abstentions. No one voted against. The motion urges the government of Prime Minister Sophie Wilmès “to take the initiative with third countries, at European and multilateral levels, to prevent the annexation [by] Israel of the Palestinian territories, or parts of them.”
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Activists Call for St. Louis to Take Down Statue of Its Anti-Semitic Namesake, and Rename the City
B. Sales – JTA
On top of a hill in front of an art museum in the biggest park in St. Louis stands a statue of an anti-Semite. The monument to the Missouri city’s namesake, the medieval French king Louis IX, depicts the king astride a horse … It is one of the city’s best-known monuments. Now, a coalition of activists want it taken down because Louis IX persecuted Jews, presided over a notorious mass burning of the Talmud, issued an order of expulsion against his Jewish subjects, and led two Crusader armies in unsuccessful offensives in North Africa … A petition launched last week is calling on the city not only to take the statue down, but to change the city’s name. A group of local Catholics is defending the statue … The petition calls Louis a “rabid anti-Semite” who inspired Nazi Germany, and the call for the statue’s removal is drawing Jewish support.
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Eight American Monuments Celebrating Anti-Semites
Aiden Pink - Forward
… Activists have naturally focused on memorials to Confederate leaders or others who enacted racist policies, and associate monuments to anti-Semites with Europe, where they are common. The United States has its own such memorials: Gen. George S. Patton. Patton was one of the most important American military leaders during World War II, and the armies he commanded were crucial in winning the European theater of the war … His diary entries, posthumously published in 1996, reveal that his opinion of the Jewish prisoners he encountered was scarcely different than the Nazis he had just defeated … Henry Ford … Charles Lindbergh … Peter Stuyvesant … Martin Luther … Ulysses S. Grant … During his tenure as general, he also expelled all Jews from Tennessee … Mary Elizabeth Lease … Thomas E. Watson.
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Princeton University To Remove Woodrow Wilson’s Name From Public Policy School, Citing His 'Racist Thinking'
Associated Press
Princeton University has announced plans to remove the name of former President Woodrow Wilson from its public policy school because of his segregationist views, reversing a decision the Ivy League school made four years ago to retain the name. University president Christopher Eisgruber said in a letter to the school community Saturday that the board of trustees had concluded that “Wilson’s racist views and policies make him an inappropriate namesake” for Princeton’s School of Public and International Affairs and the residential college … The trustees said they had taken what they called “this extraordinary step” because Wilson’s name was not appropriate “for a school whose scholars, students, and alumni must be firmly committed to combatting the scourge of racism in all its forms.”
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Now It’s Woodrow Wilson's Turn
Patrick J. Buchanan
… If Wilson’s disbelief in equality is sufficient to get the most famous son Princeton produced from having his name on a public institute, this is likely just the beginning. The Wilson Center, chartered by Congress in 1968, a nonpartisan policy forum led today by ex-Congresswoman Jane Harman, is the official memorial to President Wilson in Washington, D.C … The Key Bridge connects Georgetown to Virginia’s Lee Highway, which was named for General Robert E. Lee in 1919. The bridge is named after Francis Scott Key, author of “The Star-Spangled Banner” and whose statue was lately toppled in Golden Gate Park … Where does the madness end?
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Jewicide Bombers
David Cole - Taki’s Mag
On Sept. 27, 1979, professional Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel presented his formal report to President Jimmy Carter regarding the establishment of a Holocaust memorial and museum in Washington, D.C … Having established American “guilt,” Wiesel proceeded to lay down the law, using, as he did throughout the report, capital-E “Event” to represent the Holocaust: “Like it or not, the Event must and will dominate future events.” … The Event’s “centrality in the creative endeavors of our contemporaries” must be undisputed … We must “not spare our children the weight of our collective burden and allow them to start their lives free of nocturnal obsessions and complexes, free of Auschwitz and its shadows.” American children must not “start their lives free of nocturnal obsessions and complexes.” Let that sink in.
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Wiesel Words
Christopher Hitchens
Is there a more contemptible poseur and windbag than Elie Wiesel? I suppose there may be. But not, surely, a poseur and windbag who receives (and takes as his due) such grotesque deference on moral questions … This claim is a cheap lie and is known by Wiesel to be a lie. It is furthermore an utterly discredited lie, and one that Israeli officialdom no longer cares to repeat. Israeli and Jewish historians have exposed it time and again: … And of course the lie is a Big Lie, because Expulsion-Denial lies at the root of the entire problem and helps poison the situation to this day.
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Truth and Fiction in Elie Wiesel’s 'Night'
Alexander Cockburn - CounterPunch
… The trouble here is that in its central, most crucial scene, [Elie Wiesel’s book] Night isn’t historically true, and at least two other important episodes are almost certainly fiction … Wiesel made things up, in a way that his many subsequent detractors could identify as not untypical of his modus operandi: grasping with deft assurance what people important to his future would want to hear and, by the same token, would not want to hear … In Wiesel’s eyes, as in the eyes of his disciples, Night assumed a level of sacrosanctity, next in importance to the giving of the Torah at Mt. Sinai … Although the Nobel committee extolled him as a “messenger to mankind” it is difficult to find examples of Wiesel sending any message on behalf of those victimized by the policies of the United States, and virtually impossible when it comes to victims of Israel.
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Epstein Accuser Claims Former Israeli PM Ehud Barak Sexually Assaulted Her
M. Boigon - Forward
Virginia Giuffre, a survivor of Jeffrey Epstein’s sex-trafficking ring, has accused former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak of sexual assault, according to court documents revealed Tuesday. Giuffre’s accusation, details of which had been sealed by a court, became known this week after attorney Alan Dershowitz issued a new filing refuting her claims. Dershowitz sued Giuffre for defamation after she claimed that she had been forced to have sex with him and other high-profile figures, including Barak and Prince Andrew of England. Dershowitz’s filing was first revealed publicly by reporter Julie Brown of the Miami Herald. Dershowitz’s document states that Giuffre alleges that she was forced to have sex with Barak.