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… Reduced to its essentials, the choice at hand is stark: Either restore some overarching sense of purpose to continuing US military efforts in Afghanistan, Iraq, and other active theaters of war throughout the Middle East and Africa; or admit failure and bring the troops home. There is today no chance that the war to preserve American primacy will achieve any of the myriad objectives offered up since 2001 to justify its perpetuation … The truth is that far from shoring up American primacy, the war to preserve American primacy has accelerated American decline. Unable to achieve victory abroad, despite the prodigious expenditure of resources, the United States has been battered by an accumulation of crises at home. The two are related.

… But alas, the Trump administration’s Syria policy is not so much about fighting terrorism as it is about degrading Iran’s influence and pressuring Bashar al-Assad to resign, two objectives that are about as inconceivable as climbing Mt. Everest with a t-shirt and shorts. But don’t take my word for it. Listen to the words of former Syria envoy James Jeffrey, who admitted earlier this month that U.S. Syria policy is nothing but a subsection of its broader maximum pressure policy on Iran … The U.S. objective is not so much anti-ISIS as it is anti-Iran and anti-Assad, a policy shift that wasn’t debated openly and honestly in the Beltway, let alone authorized by the U.S. Congress.

As we enter the final week before Christmas, my thoughts turn to Bethlehem, its struggling people, and the shocking disregard for them displayed by many Christians in the West. This is not to say that that these same Christians don’t love Bethlehem. But the city they love is the one of the story that’s 2,000 years old … The reality of contemporary Bethlehem is ignored, as is suffering of its people. Today, Bethlehem is surrounded by dozens of Israeli settlements, many built on land confiscated from Bethlehemites. It is cut off from much of the West Bank by two Israeli bypass roads and a massive concrete wall … To most in the West, Palestinian Christians are simply invisible. To conservative Christians, they are at best a nuisance who stand in the way of their unquestioning ideological attachment to Israel.

… World War II remains the go-to conflict for commemoration almost 80 years after America entered the fray. It marks the last time the U.S. Congress did its constitutional duty and actually declared war before sending America’s young men off to kill and die on foreign fields. All subsequent “wars,” from Korea and Vietnam, to the Iraqs (1991, 2003, 2014), Somalia, Bosnia, Afghanistan, Libya, Syria, Yemen, and a host of military deployments on every continent around the world were waged at the pleasure of the sitting president, amply funded by the Congress, yet conveniently never rose to the level of a declared war … The imperial scam we’ve kept calling a republic these past 70 years is collapsing, and it will take all of us — veteran and civilian alike — to ensure a soft landing.

We regularly try to say it’s controversial that Israel receives nearly $4 billion in military aid from the United States every year. Well, when the Covid relief bill in the Congress began circulating today, many commentators including in the mainstream have jumped on the fact that the massive legislation is bundled alongside other appropriations that include $500 million in military aid to Israel. The Israel funds are evidently routine portions of a foreign aid bill that was linked to the Covid relief funds, but Israel aid began trending on Twitter and many expressed shock over it … Glenn Greenwald addresses the power of the Israel lobby: “Israel has universal health care while Americans — transferring yet more of your money to that foreign country — do not: (they also have an excellent Lobby that wields more power than you do in the halls of Congress).”

Late last month, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced that the U.S. government finds the boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) campaign to be inherently “anti-Semitic.” … Pompeo made no distinction between those who support a boycott of Israel itself and those who support more limited forms of BDS. … Throughout the country, both Democrat-controlled legislatures as well as Republican-led bodies with Democratic support have passed measures declaring that supporting BDS — even when just targeting the occupation and illegal settlements and not Israel itself — constitutes anti-Semitism … A number of prominent Democratic leaders have repeatedly insisted that the BDS campaign is rooted not in upholding human rights and international law but in prejudice against Jews.

The United Nations General Assembly on Monday [Dec. 21] adopted two resolutions criticizing Israel, bringing 2020’s total tally to 17 resolutions against the Jewish state versus six resolutions singling out any other country, according to a tally by pro-Israel watchdog UN Watch. Israel and activists have long slammed the UN for routinely adopting decision after decision directed against Israel, saying it exploits an overwhelming automatic majority that votes to censure Jerusalem no matter the subject. General Assembly resolutions are nonbinding, but are seen as carrying symbolic significance. The two motions were ratified this week after their drafts were adopted last month by the General Assembly’s Economic and Financial Committee, UN Watch said in a Monday statement.

… Suvorov presents overwhelming evidence to show that Stalin was preparing for a massive attack against Germany, to be launched in the summer of 1941. (Suvorov believes the attack was set for July 6, 1941.) In preparation for this, the Soviets had deployed enormous forces right on the German frontier, including paratroops, together with airfields and large caches of weapons, ammunition, fuel and other supplies … While Hitler succeeded in foiling Stalin’s great invasion plan, the German leader fatally underestimated the magnitude and aggressiveness of the Soviet threat … Stalin’s “secret mobilization had reached such an extent that it could no longer be disguised. For Hitler the only possibility left was a preventive strike. Hitler beat Stalin to it by two weeks.”

… What still holds this disputatious and divided people together? … The issues that divide us now go increasingly to the faith of what defines us as a nation and a people … Not only [Robert E.] Lee, but Columbus and Presidents Washington, Jefferson, Madison, Jackson, TR and Wilson are all racist white men whose disgraceful and even criminal conduct disqualifies them from a place of honor in the American pantheon of 2020. All statues of such men need to come down to cleanse us of the stain of having honored them. Pelosi says that such statues are “homages to hate.” … Can a republic as fractured and splintered as ours is — racially, ethnically, politically, culturally, morally — with a population who do not share the same belief about whether their nation is good and great or failed and evil, endure? And for how long?

A statue of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee that has represented Virginia in the U.S. Capitol for 111 years has been removed. Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam … had requested the removal, and a state commission decided that Lee was not a fitting symbol for the state. Lee’s statue had stood with George Washington’s statue since 1909 as Virginia’s representatives in the Capitol. Every state gets two statues. The state commission has recommended replacing Lee’s statue with a statue of Barbara Johns. She protested conditions at her all-Black high school in the town of Farmville in 1951 … U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi also hailed the removal, saying in a statement there “is no room for celebrating the bigotry of the Confederacy in the Capitol or any other place of honor in our country.”

The Israel and Palestine conflict has often been misrepresented as one between Jews and Muslims; sometimes more crudely propagated as a fight between “progressive, liberal, democratic Israel” and “Muslim fundamentalist terrorists.” Yet often forgotten or even unknown to many in the West are the Christian Palestinians, who have also been marginalized by the decades-long Israeli occupation … In the U.S., Evangelical Christian groups have played an important role in encouraging Western and American support for Israel, which ironically endangers the religious freedom of Christian Palestinians and allows Israeli repression to continue.

The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) is a self-proclaimed “worldwide leader in anti-bias education” and “a relentless advocate for vulnerable communities of all kinds.” The organization claims that it is “viewed as having unquestioned credibility.” As a self-identified watchdog for the world, this private institution has worked its way into schools, communities, and various levels of government … Does the Anti-Defamation League practice what it preaches? … In its efforts to protect Israel from criticism – despite that country’s long record of human rights violations and racism (more below) – the ADL has worked against various movements whose efforts actually lined up with the ADL’s own (non-Israel) proclaimed mission of bringing justice and equality to all … The ADL’s self-contradiction and duplicity are most visible when it is held to its own standards.

In our modern era, there are surely few organizations that so terrify powerful Americans as the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) of B’nai B’rith, a central organ of the organized Jewish community … In effect, the ADL seems to have long operated as our country’s privatized secret political police, monitoring and enforcing its ideological doctrines on behalf of Jewish groups much as the Stasi did for the Communist rulers of East Germany … Once I began reading the 500 pages of The Leo Frank Case: The Lynching of a Guilty Man I was tremendously impressed by the quality of the historical analysis … The case they [the authors] made for Frank’s guilt seemed absolutely overwhelming.

When congressional leaders released the text of the 5,593-page coronavirus relief package on Monday, many observers noted that the bill included “$500 million for Israeli cooperation,” with a large percentage of that dedicated to missile defense systems. This seemingly disparate allocation of funds – considering negotiators could only agree on $600 stimulus checks for individual Americans – triggered much outrage on social media, to the point where “$500,000,000 for Israel” was trending worldwide. However, the Covid-19 stimulus deal was actually included in a broader year-end spending package. This included the 2021 Pentagon spending bill, which covers foreign aid for a number of U.S. allies besides Israel.

The US Congress has passed an enormous $2.3 trillion spending bill containing a Covid-19 relief package to individuals and businesses as well as funds allocated for other areas of government spending in 2021, including foreign aid in the billions to Israel. Late on Monday, social media posts stating that Israel was receiving coronavirus stimulus money sparked outrage, especially since average Americans will only be getting a modest sum of $600. In reality, while assistance to Israel is included in the legislation, it’s part of the so-called omnibus spending bill, which covers Pentagon funds; it is not Covid-19 related. Still, the bill bestows a slew of political and financial gifts on Israel at a time of increased domestic and international scrutiny over Israel’s human rights record.

More people are leaving California than moving here, continuing a trend that coupled with fewer births has slowed the growth rate in the nation’s most populous state to a record low amid a pandemic that is reshaping its future. Officially, California added 21,200 people from July 1, 2019, to July 1, 2020, increasing the state’s population a paltry 0.05% to 39.78 million people – still by far the most of any state. But the bigger news from Wednesday’s new population estimate was that 135,600 more people left the state than moved here … California recorded its third consecutive year of net migration loss. The reasons why aren’t yet fully understood. In recent weeks, a string of high-profile business leaders have announced they are leaving California for states with lower taxes and fewer regulations …

… Apparently learning little or nothing from the futile record regarding North Korea and Cuba, US leaders adopted a similar, vengeful approach toward Iran following the Islamic revolution in that country, and browbeat US allies and clients to follow Washington’s lead. The outcome reflects a familiar pattern … In essence, US leaders demand that Tehran placidly accept Israeli and Saudi preeminence in the Middle East, and be content to occupy a vulnerable, thoroughly subordinate, status in the region at Washington’s sufferance. Not surprisingly, Iran refuses to accept such a humiliating outcome. Moreover, even when Tehran shows a willingness to compromise on some issues, the United States spurns such efforts … Economic sanctions have a long track record as an ineffective foreign policy tool.

Palestinian Christians are preparing to go ahead with Christmas celebrations in Bethlehem later this week despite a surge in Covid cases in the West Bank. Midnight mass at the Nativity Church on Christmas Eve will take place but with no congregation. Practice for the scout bands that lead festive processions has been disrupted by lockdowns but scouts say they still hope to bring a message of comfort and joy BBC Middle East Correspondent Yolande Knell reports. Runtime: 2:30 mins.

Hundreds of illegal Israeli colonialist settlers gathered Thursday near Mar Saba (St. Saba) Christian Monastery, east of the Palestinian city of Bethlehem, south of occupied Jerusalem, and attempted to disrupt prayers. The colonists descended to the ancient holy site, the oldest Christian Monastery in occupied Palestine, during the celebration of the feast of St. Saba, eyewitnesses said. They added that the Israeli assailants then attempted to intimidate the monks who gathered there to pray, in a deliberate attempt to stop the prayers. Palestinian Christian groups denounced the serious violation, especially since such violations continue to be ignored by countries around the world …

The Israeli private intelligence company Rayzone Group appears to have had access to the global telecommunications network via a mobile operator in the Channel Islands in the first half of 2018, potentially enabling its clients at that time to track the locations of mobile phones across the world. Invoices seen by the Guardian and the Bureau of Investigative Journalism suggest Rayzone, a corporate spy agency that provides its government clients with “geolocation tools”, used an intermediary in 2018 to lease an access point into the telecoms network via Sure Guernsey, a mobile operator in the Channel Islands.

President Donald Trump named three White House aides to the US Holocaust Memorial Council, including the son of his lawyer Rudy Giuliani, on Wednesday. Along with Andrew Giuliani, who works in the Office of Liaison, which interacts with interest groups, the others named to the voluntary posts are Mitchell Webber, a lawyer in the Office of the White House Counsel, and Nick Luna, Trump’s “body man,” or personal attendant. The five-year appointment to the council, which governs and funds the Holocaust museum on the National Mall, is considered one of the most thankless honors a president can confer. Its 55 members typically are close to a sitting president and have an interest in Jewish affairs or human rights.

In late November, the Holocaust Memorial Resource & Education Center of Florida sparked outrage when it opened its current exhibition, “Uprooting Prejudice: Faces of Change.” The bilingual exhibit, which runs through Jan. 31, consists of 45 large-format, black-and-white photo portraits … The exhibit, said the Center’s assistant director Lisa Bachman, was “right in line with our mission.” … Many of the captions respond to prejudice, convey pain, hurt and fear, as well as some anger … Linda Olmert, a former board member at Yad Vashem, told World Israel News that the Orlando exhibit, “is in fact nothing less than a false quest for universalism that criminally diminishes the intransigent uncompromising racism toward the Jewish people.”

For nearly 70 years Yad Vashem, the world-renowned Holocaust museum established in Jerusalem, has bolstered Israel’s claim to act as guardian and interpreter of the lessons of the Nazi genocide … There has been uproar in recent weeks from a mix of Holocaust survivors, historians and Jewish organizations at the preferred candidate to head the museum when the post becomes vacant at the end of this month. Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu has selected a former general turned far-right politician, Effi Eitam, for the role. Eitam, aged 68, lives in an illegal settlement in the Golan and has long advocated the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians from the occupied territories, as well as the crushing of basic civil rights for non-Jews inside Israel … He has called for ethnic cleansing – and even genocide – to become government policy.

… Holocaust remembrance is not, as its supporters claim, a noble effort motivated by sincere concern for humanity. Instead, this relentless campaign is an expression of Jewish-Zionist power, and is designed to further Jewish-Zionist interests … Jewish death and suffering do not deserve to be venerated more than the death and suffering of non-Jews. The Holocaust remembrance campaign deserves scorn, not support, because it is a one-sided effort that serves narrow Jewish and Israeli interests and bolsters Jewish-Zionist power.

The number of U.S. drug overdose deaths reached a record high as the coronavirus pandemic held the country in its grip last spring, new government data shows. For the 12 months ending in May, more than 81,000 people died from an overdose. That is the highest number ever recorded during a 12-month period, scientists from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said … The primary driver behind the record-breaking numbers appeared to be the use of synthetic opioids such as fentanyl, which increased 38.4% … While opioid overdose deaths were skyrocketing, overdose deaths involving cocaine also increased by 26.5% … Meanwhile, overdose deaths involving psychostimulants, such as methamphetamine, increased by 34.8%.

San Francisco may remove Abraham Lincoln’s name from a high school, because a district committee says the 16th president — who abolished slavery — did not demonstrate that “black lives mattered to him.” Lincoln is one of dozens of historical figures who the city school district’s renaming committee argued led lives so rife with racism, oppression or abuse that their names should not grace its buildings, the San Francisco Chronicle reported. “The discussion for Lincoln centered around his treatment of First Nation peoples, because that was offered first,” Jeremiah Jeffries, chairman of the renaming committee and a first-grade teacher, told the paper … “Lincoln, like the presidents before him and most after, did not show through policy or rhetoric that black lives ever mattered to them outside of human capital and as casualties of wealth building,” Jeffries said.

… The unpardonable heresy? Columbus, Washington, Jefferson, Madison, Monroe, Jackson, Polk, Lee, Teddy Roosevelt, Wilson and Lincoln disbelieved in the equality of all races, peoples, cultures and civilizations. And these men lived and acted in conformity with this disbelief. Lincoln detested slavery but did not believe in social and political equality between the races … Since Jamestown in 1607, we had been governed by men who disbelieved in equality and disregarded the suggestion that, “All men are created equal.” That proposition first appeared in a Declaration of Independence written by a member of Virginia’s landed aristocracy who owned scores of slaves and described the Indians against whom we fought as “merciless savages” in that same document signed on July 4, 1776.

With host James Edwards and co-host Keith Alexander, Mark Weber talks about the drastic rewriting of American history in recent years, pushed by the “politically correct” mass media, politicians and educators. Perhaps the most striking expression of this campaign has been the tearing down of statues of Robert E. Lee, the great Confederate commander. For more than a century, Weber notes, Lee was widely esteemed as a man of exemplary honor, courage and character. “A nation of men of Lee’s caliber would be unconquerable in spirit and soul,” wrote President Eisenhower in a 1960 letter explaining why “I proudly display a picture of this great American in on my office wall.” All healthy and enduring nations have regarded the traits that Lee personified as important virtues. That’s not at all the case in today’s America.

A recently discovered transcript of an interview with a British intelligence officer who played a leading role in the 1953 coup that restored powers to the shah of Iran claims that Britain was the driving force behind the overthrow of Iranian Prime Minister Mohammed Mossadegh. On the anniversary of the UK-US-led coup d’etat that removed Iran’s democratically elected leader, an interview with Norman Darbyshire – head of the MI6 spy agency’s “Persia” station in Cyprus at the time – was published … “The coup cost 700,000 pounds. I know because I spent it,” Darbyshire said … The coup that overthrew Mossadegh and his National Front cabinet “was carried out under CIA direction as an act of US foreign policy, conceived and approved at the highest levels of government” …

On Wednesday, the US sanctioned companies based in China and the UAE, accusing them of helping Iran export petrochemicals, as the Trump administration continues to ramp up the pressure on Tehran. The Treasury Department said in a statement that it blacklisted four companies for facilitating the export of petrochemicals produced by an entity in Iran that is already under US sanctions. The US also hit a Vietnam-based company with sanctions over its alleged connection with “significant transactions for the transport of petroleum products from Iran.” The sanctions seize any US assets the companies may have and block US citizens from doing business with them. The measures are the latest in the almost-daily Iran-related sanctions being implemented by the Trump administration in its final days.

Northwestern University scrubbed its website of references to a former professor who penned a controversial op-ed against Jill Biden — but it continues to feature a professor who denies the Holocaust … Yet the school still has a page for Arthur Butz, a tenured engineering professor who calls the Holocaust a “hoax” and a “legend.” Butz authored a book titled, The Hoax of the Twentieth Century: The Case Against the Presumed Extermination of European Jewry, which argues against the existence of the Holocaust. In the book, Butz claims that there is no substantial evidence to prove the Holocaust happened … Because Butz has tenure, the university cannot fire him.

… Things went from bad to worse, as the yearly monstrosity called the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) was passed with an amendment severely restricting the US president’s ability to remove troops from Afghanistan and Europe … The amendment all but guarantees that America’s longest war in history will continue pointlessly onward. A coalition of warmongering Democrats and Republicans have been furious with President Trump for his last minute effort to draw troops down from Afghanistan and elsewhere, and they appear to have a veto-proof majority to tie the president’s hands. Congress has for decades believed that the president can go to war whenever or wherever he pleases without a declaration, but if the president dares attempt to end a war their belief in a “unitary executive” is thrown out the window.

… [British prime minister] Johnson has announced a record increase of 16.5 billion pounds in so-called defence spending – a figure that would restore the under-resourced NHS many times over. But these billions are not for defence. Britain has no enemies other than those within who betray the trust of its ordinary people … How is such a lethal silence sustained in a sophisticated society? My answer is that propaganda is far more effective in societies that regard themselves as free than in dictatorships and autocracies. I include censorship by omission. Our propaganda industries – both political and cultural, including most of the media – are the most powerful, ubiquitous and refined on earth. Big lies can be repeated incessantly in comforting, credible BBC voices.

The sale or display of Confederate flags, swastikas and other “symbols of hate” on state property is banned in New York under a law signed by Gov. Andrew Cuomo despite concerns it may violate free speech protection under the U.S. Constitution. “This country faces a pervasive, growing attitude of intolerance and hate — what I have referred to in the body politic as an American cancer,” Cuomo said in his bill-signing memo on Tuesday. “By limiting the display and sale of the Confederate flag, Nazi swastika and other symbols of hatred from being displayed or sold on state property, including the state fairgrounds, this bill will help safeguard New Yorkers from the fear-instilling effects of these abhorrent symbols,” he said. Exceptions are made for images used in books, museum services or materials used for educational or historical purposes.

… The Jewish state retains the strictest miscegenation laws in the world. This is the subject of a new Press TV documentary on Israelis who are not allowed to marry by the country’s Rabbinate. Some couples use a loophole that allows them to marry abroad, but with COVID travel restrictions this has become impossible. The Zionist state does not allow its citizens to obtain a civil marriage. Jewish apologists will often assert that Israel’s marriage laws are primarily motivated by the population’s concern with religious tradition, but a Gallup survey has found that Israel is one of the least religious countries in the world. Under the rules set by the Rabbinate, a Jew who seeks to marry an individual who might be racially impure under Halakhic law must subject their spouse to DNA tests in order to prove their “genetic Jewishness.”

Israel does not permit civil marriage. Marriages involving Jews can take place only in accord with Jewish religious law, and with the approval of the country’s rabbinate courts. Many Israelis who are regarded as Jewish by civil authorities are not regarded as Jewish by the Chief Rabbinate. These “non-Jewish” Jews are not permitted to marry “real” Jews. Many of the “non-Jewish” Jews are migrants from the former Soviet Union, or their descendants. Younger Israeli Jews are increasingly less willing to accept the strictures of the rabbinate courts. Runtime: 25 mins.

Noted economist and bestselling author (How to Avoid Probate) Norman Dacey blows the whistle on the claim that Israel is “the only democracy in the Middle East” in this concise but thorough analysis of Israel’s very undemocratic institutions and practices. Dacey demonstrates systematic suppression of the Palestinians; second-class status for Christians and other non-Jews; inequality of women; the plight of the half-Jewish mamzerim (illegitimate in Israeli law even if their parents are married!); discrimination against black and Oriental Jews; police state powers; and many other features of Israeli law and Israeli policy that give the lie to the fiction that the Zionist state is a democracy.

Floridians can now ‘stand with Israel’ even while stuck in traffic. A graphic designer from Boca Raton has come up with the winning design in a contest to create a specialty license plate saying that “Florida Stands with Israel.” Daniel Ackerman’s blue, white and orange design was chosen among more than 100 submissions in a competition sponsored by the Israeli-American Council, the group said in a news release. The bipartisan slate of four lawmakers who initiated the law passed this year launching the competition served as the judges, along with Gabe Groisman, the mayor of Bal Harbour.

A Russian resolution condemning the “glorification of Nazism” was passed by the UN General Assembly, on Wednesday, with overwhelming support, though, remarkably. both the US and Ukraine made a point of voting against the motion. Equally noteworthy was the fact that all delegations from European Union member states, including Germany, abstained from the vote, with the United Kingdom following suit … The resolution called on member states to pass legislation to “eliminate all forms of racial discrimination,” and condemned the “glorification, in any form, of the Nazi movement, neo-Nazism and former members of the Waffen SS organization,” as well as “revisionism in respect to the Second World War.”

… In the wake of George Floyd’s death in Minneapolis, the summer of 2020 produced riots the extent of which rivaled the week after the murder of Martin Luther King in 1968. Also revealed by the BLM uprising of 2020 was an unknown depth of hatred many U.S. citizens have for their country’s history, as they pulled down and smashed statues of men once revered as the greatest leaders … By year’s end, tens of millions were denying the legitimacy of the designated president-elect, who was to take office on Jan. 20. Both parties were charging the other with trying to “steal” the presidency. Can a nation so distracted, so divided, so at war with itself continue to meet all of the duties, obligations and commitments that are ours as the self-proclaimed “leader of the free world”? Are we still the people and country we used to be?

… To the surprise of no one who understands human nature, many whites didn’t appreciate being told that they had to die off for “progress” to be achieved. They didn’t like being derided by their betters as “bitter clingers” with their guns and Bibles, and they especially didn’t like being termed “deplorables” unworthy of compassion or consideration … What commentators term “identity politics” has now become normative, thanks to the Democrats indulging in it, and Trump is now aping them. It would be more correct to term this what it actually is: nationalism. Ethno-racial nationalism is an enormously potent political force … Nationalism arouses genuine passion and is a political motivator like no other … The Republicans are now the White party, de facto, whether they want to be or not.

The National Statuary Hall Collection in the Capitol in Washington DC is crowded with embodiments of white supremacy … And then there’s Marcus Whitman, a nineteenth-century Protestant missionary, promoter of the colonization of the American West, and, inexplicably, the hunkiest denizen of Statuary Hall. Donated by Washington state in 1953, Whitman’s statue depicts him as a ripped, muscular frontiersman … The Whitmans were virtually canonized in the years after their deaths. Local historical societies and community boosters placed plaques, monuments, and roadside markers honoring the couple in ten states and the District of Columbia. Whitman himself became one of the most memorialized figures in the Northwest. A county, a college, a national forest, half a dozen public schools, and numerous other enterprises carry his name.

The story of the deceased pedophile and presumed Israeli spy Jeffrey Epstein continues to enthrall because so little of the truth regarding it has been revealed in spite of claims by the government that a thorough follow-up investigation has been initiated … According to Ari Ben-Menashe, the two had been working directly for the Israeli government since the 1980’s and their operation, which was funded by Mossad and also by prominent American Jews, was a classic “honey-trap” which used underage girls as bait to attract well-known politicians from around the world, a list that included Prince Andrew and Bill Clinton. The politicians would be photographed and video recorded when they were in bed with the girls.

The U.N. General Assembly targeted Israel on Thursday [Dec. 10] with seven different resolutions. The language condemns Israel for “repressive measures” against Syrian citizens in the Golan Heights and renews the mandates of the U.N. Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), as well as the United Nation’s “special committee to investigate Israeli practices affecting the human rights of the Palestinian people and other Arabs of the Occupied Territories.” … The first resolution, adopted with 169 votes in favor, two against and seven abstentions, was about “expressing grave concern at the especially difficult situation of the Palestine refugees under occupation, including with regard to their safety, well-being and socioeconomic living conditions … .”

The Fourth Committee of the UN General Assembly, which is dedicated to political and decolonization affairs, voted yesterday [Dec. 10] with overwhelming majorities in favor of seven resolutions critical of Israel. On the agenda were assistance to Palestinian refugees, Israeli settlements in the occupied territories (including East Jerusalem and the Golan Heights), and Israeli practices impacting the Palestinian populations’ human rights. The resolutions lambasted Israel for alleged human rights violations against Palestinians in the West Bank, Gaza, and East Jerusalem and repressive measures against Syrians in the Golan Heights … The United States and Israel were the only two countries that consistently voted against the resolutions. This event is the second blow that the Israeli regime has received at the UN this month.

To deal with the massive unemployment and economic paralysis of the Great Depression, both the US and German governments launched innovative and ambitious programs. Although President Franklin Roosevelt’s “New Deal” measures helped only marginally, the Third Reich’s much more focused and comprehensive policies proved remarkably effective. Within three years unemployment was banished and Germany’s economy was flourishing. And while Roosevelt’s record in dealing with the Depression is pretty well known, the remarkable story of how Hitler tackled the crisis is not widely understood or appreciated.

The basis for all government intervention in business in [Third Reich] Germany is to be found in the National-Socialist conception of the relation between business and the State … Business is subordinated to the State … The supreme value is the nation, which we call in German Volksgemeinschaft, the community of the nation … This means that the State is not concerned with economic conditions as long as they do not conflict with the welfare of the nation. The principle of private initiative has been maintained. However, where it seems necessary to bring business into line with the welfare of the nation, the State will not hesitate to intervene and direct business into the desired channels. In Germany, contrary to the usual belief, we have no “planned economy”, but rather a “directed” economy …

Joe Biden, the newly elected 46th president of the United States, is a true friend of the Jewish state, friends and even political adversaries of the emerging president-elect agree. “He has a deep feeling for Israel,” said Michael Oren, who served as Israel’s ambassador to the US when Biden was vice president. Oren … asserts that the former Delaware senator is genuinely concerned about Israel’s well-being … Maybe it was Begin’s forceful reaction that caused Biden to forever abandon the idea of threatening to cut assistance to the Jewish state. He has since been one of Washington’s most outspoken advocates for US aid to Israel.

Soon after taking office, President-elect Joe Biden will face the daunting task of restoring the 2015 nuclear deal and getting the United States and Iran back on speaking terms. The outgoing administration of President Donald Trump intends to make that job nearly impossible by spending its last ten weeks in office engineering a “flood” of sanctions to further squeeze Iran … Biden could clearly signal that beyond the nuclear deal, he is open to normalizing relations with Tehran … Putting the puzzle of U.S.-Iranian diplomacy back together will be tremendously difficult. But the last few years have shown that not trying will not make the difficulties go away.

One of America’s most influential political figures has expressed allegiance to Israel in language that’s extravagant even by the standards of rhetorical hype that often prevail today. At an important Zionist conference, Nancy Pelosi pledged: “I have said to people when they ask me if this Capitol crumbled to the ground, the one thing that would remain is our commitment to our aid … and I don’t even call it aid … our cooperation with Israel. That’s fundamental to who we are.” Pelosi, who is speaker of the US House of Representatives, was addressing the annual conference of the Israeli-American Council, Dec. 2, 2018. Together with her were two powerful Jewish-Zionist figures: US Senate Democratic Party leader Chuck Schumer, and Haim Saban, a billionaire Israeli-American businessman who has been the leading financial backer of Democratic Party candidates.

For a staunch Roman Catholic, President –Elect Joe Biden has a remarkably Jewish family. All three of his children married Jewish spouses. And the baby grandson that he cradled in his arms after his victory speech last week is halachically Jewish, as are the children of his late son Beau. Beau’s wife, Hallie Olivere was the Bidens’ first Jewish daughter-in law. Joe Biden had known her mother Joan since childhood, and once joked that he’d have liked to have married her …

The Nuremberg Tribunal of 1945-46 — the most spectacular judicial enterprise in history — was meant to prove that the defeated German regime had been one of unique and monstrous deceit, rapaciousness and evil. But in fact the Tribunal dispensed not justice, but injustice. The four Allied powers that organized and ran it were themselves guilty of some of the very same crimes they accused the German defendants of having committed. The Tribunal operated on the basis of “ex post facto” law created after the fact expressly for the occasion, and which the Allies applied only to the defeated. The hangings of German leaders ordered by the Tribunal were little more than murders glossed over with a veneer of makeshift, hypocritical pseudo-legality.

… There are three uncomfortable truths that those “in the know” generally accept about the Nuremberg trial, even if the news has yet to trickle down to those who get their World War II information from the History Channel … The third generally accepted truth (among historians) that probably contributes to the queering of anniversary festivities is the understanding that all of the main actors at the trial were foul … The “civilized” British and French charged the Germans with starting a war that was declared by…the British and French. At Nuremberg, everyone was a bad guy … Streicher should not have been executed at Nuremberg … Streicher was indeed a journalist (a reprehensible journalist is still a journalist), and nobody should ever be executed for mere words or cartoons.

… The hawks and neocons somehow want you to believe, in contrast to all logic, that the President of the United States has the unitary power to go to war anytime he wants, anywhere, free from interference from Congress. That’s their stated position anytime war comes up. Yet, they now say a President cannot leave a war without their permission. How absurd is that? It’s exactly the opposite of what both the constitution and logic would dictate … Then the promoters of a strong commander in chief suddenly jumped ship and began advocating that 535 members of Congress should indeed become generals and limit the President’s ability to remove troops from Afghanistan. Shouldn’t we call out hypocrisy? … This Defense Authorization Bill could more aptly be entitled A Bill to Prevent the President from Ending the Afghan War.

Of all the received ideas that clog America’s foreign-policy discourse, none is more at variance with reality than the threat of so-called isolationism. We have never been more engaged with every corner of the world, yet we have never been lectured more often about the consequences of “retreating within our borders.” … What does the historical record teach us? … New Left historian William Appleman Williams’s landmark 1959 study, The Tragedy of American Diplomacy, took apart the “legend” of interwar isolationism in great detail and laid the foundation for revisionist Cold War historiography as now practiced by libertarians, anti-interventionist conservatives, and radicals alike … With American grand strategy badly in need of recalibration, it is long past time to get rid of the ridiculous myth of isolationism.

… Was the decision to declare war on the United States, effectively relieving the Roosevelt administration of the responsibility of mobilizing American sentiment for war in Europe, among Hitler’s greatest blunders? Probably not. Washington and Berlin agreed that war was inevitable; the only question was who would fire the first shots. The United States and Germany were at war in all but name well before December 1941 … Germany declared war on the United States not out of a fit of pique, but rather because it believed that the United States was already effectively a belligerent, and that wider operations against the U.S. would help win the war. In particular, the Axis declaration of war enabled an operation that the Germans believed was key to driving Britain out of the conflict; a concerted submarine attack against U.S. commercial shipping.

Here is the complete text of Hitler’s historic address of Dec. 11, 1941, in which the German leader recounts the reasons for the outbreak of war in September 1939, explains why he decided to strike against the Soviet Union in June 1941, reviews the dramatic course of the war thus far, and deals at length with US President Roosevelt’s hostile policies toward Germany. Hitler details the US government’s increasingly belligerent actions against Germany and Italy, and concludes by announcing that Germany was now joining Japan in war against the United States.

On May 7, 1915, the British passenger ship Lusitania was hit by repeated torpedo attacks emanating from a German u-boat off the coast of Ireland. Of the 1,960 passengers and crew on board, only 767 survived. 128 of the deceased were American citizens. Europe was already in the midst of World War I, but the U.S. still hadn’t entered the fray … The sinking of the Lusitania and the propaganda campaign that resulted from the event quickly turned [American] public opinion in favor of war … The sinking of the Lusitania was, at the very least, a public relations nightmare for Germany. Despite arguments that the attack on the vessel was fully warranted, the grave loss to civilian lives on board provided fodder for propaganda machines in Great Britain and in the U.S.

This may be surprising, but Jews have a long and very influential history in the alcohol industry spanning Europe, Israel and North America. For most of the 1800s, Eastern European Jews held a virtual monopoly on the business in their regions. They produced much of the beer and hard alcohol, and ran nearly all the taverns where it was sold … Across the Atlantic, German Jewish immigrants to the United States were disproportionately represented in alcohol production … Many common Jewish surnames today indicate a connection to the alcohol profession … Plus, many of the alcohol businesses run by 19th-century Jews still exist, including the Israeli wineries, Loewenbrau Brewery, Herzog Winery and Fleischmann’s Spirits. While the legacy of Jews’ role in the alcohol business may be partly forgotten, the impact is far from gone.

… Few Iranians irrespective of their political persuasion trust Washington to fulfill any future agreements; China and Russia have increased cooperation with Tehran … Even friends of America, including the Europeans, have tired of Washington’s attempt to unilaterally impose its anti-Iran policy on the entire world, and refused to cooperate with the Trump administration … Biden should seek engagement and do so quickly. The opportunity to pull Iran back into the JCPOA may not last long. He should supplement his offer to return with opportunities for cooperation, trade, and additional sanctions relief. It is vital for Biden to extricate America and Iran from the potentially violent trap set by the outgoing administration and its self-interested Middle Eastern partners.

The top US intelligence official says China is the “greatest threat to democracy and freedom” since World War Two. Writing in the Wall St Journal, John Ratcliffe said China was growing its power by stealing US secrets and then replacing US firms in the market … Beijing was preparing for confrontation with the US and intended to dominate the world “economically, militarily and technologically”, Mr Ratcliffe warned. Some of Mr Ratcliffe’s comments echo previous interventions by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and FBI chief Christopher Wray … The Director of National Intelligence said China had replaced Russia and counter-terrorism as the main focus of US intelligence activities.

China has lifted 740 million of people out of poverty in the 40 years since its reform and opening-up policies were implemented in 1978; this is equivalent to the current, total population of Europe. On average, during this time-span, China helped roughly 50,000 people a day get rid of the shackles of poverty. Thanks to the adoption of the reform and opening-up measures, the poverty rate, the proportion of people living below the Chinese poverty line, fell from a high of 97.5 percent in 1978 to 3.1 percent at the end of 2017. Other policies like production development, poverty-stricken people relocation, eco-compensation, education development and social security have all aided in increasing the poor population’s income and providing them a better quality of life.

China’s economy is now the world’s second largest, and China is set to soon replace the US as the foremost economic and industrial nation. Over the past 30 years, real per capita income in China has grown by more than 1,300 percent. Over the last decade alone, China quadrupled its industrial output. It now produces more automobiles than the US and Japan combined. China — along with Hong Kong, Singapore, and, to a lesser extent, Taiwan and South Korea – has achieved dramatic economic growth with a social-political system that combines free enterprise and “state socialism.” What those countries have accomplished over the past half century proves that economic growth, technological progress and prosperity are possible without US-style democracy and capitalism.

Just weeks after finishing a two and a half year prison sentence for “Holocaust denial,” 92-year-old Ursula Haverbeck has been convicted again by German courts, this time for an interview she gave in 2018 that affirmed her view that Jews were not systematically killed during World War II and that the gas chambers at Auschwitz are a politically motivated lie. If the federal court’s sentence of one year in Haverbeck’s newest case holds up, Germany will have the dubious distinction of imprisoning the oldest female inmate in the world … One can only imagine the outcry from liberal NGOs if Iran, China or Russia imprisoned an elderly woman just for questioning the government’s line. Haverbeck’s powerful spirit has become an inspiration for patriots in Germany and around the world.

The different reactions of American and Israeli Jews to US President-elect Joe Biden’s early appointment of four Jews to top positions in his administration provide a telling peek into the different ways the two communities view reality. In this sense, the appointments of Antony Blinken as secretary of state, Janet Yellen as secretary of the Treasury, Alejandro Mayorkas as secretary of Homeland Security, and Ron Klain as Biden’s chief of staff are a Rorschach test of sorts.

The family of Roald Dahl, the author of several classic children’s books including “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory” and “The Witches,” issued an apology over the author’s past anti-Semitic comments … Dahl, who died 30 years ago, gave two interviews in 1983 and 1990 where he expressed anti-Semitic views and called himself “anti-Israel.” … Dahl was born in 1916 in Wales to Norwegian immigrants and served as a pilot in World War II … He authored novels and short stories that would become literary classics. Several of his stories, including “James and the Giant Peach,” “Matilda,” “Fantastic Mr. Fox” and “The Witches,” have been adapted into popular films. Dahl also penned several screenplays, including the 1967 James Bond film “You Only Live Twice.”

The family of beloved children’s author Roald Dahl has posted a brief apology for his antisemitic statements on his website … 3) In book review written by Dahl in the periodical “Literary Review,” he referred to “those powerful American Jewish bankers” and accused the United States government of being “utterly dominated by the great Jewish financial institutions over there.” 4) The Israeli military activity in Lebanon, he said, “was very much hushed up in the newspapers because they are primarily Jewish-owned … there aren’t any non-Jewish publishers anywhere.” 5) When further discussing the Lebanon War, he wrote: “makes one wonder in the end what sort of people these Israelis are. It is like the good old Hitler and Himmler times all over again.”

The Biden-Harris administration will confront “a pandemic, an economic crisis, calls for racial justice and climate change. The team being assembled will meet these challenges on Day One.” So declares the transition team of Joe Biden … As for racial inequality, the pandemic has exposed, deepened and widened it. The surge in shootings and killings in major cities during the pandemic is hitting the Black communities hardest. The decline in test scores at schools where kids have been kept away from formal classes since March is most pronounced among minorities … If half a century of social progress after the civil rights revolution of the ’60s and eight years of the first Black president have failed to reduce racial disparities in income, wealth, employment and incarcerations, does anyone believe Joe Biden has the solution?

… It is an interesting unambiguous admission from [Secretary of State designate Antony] Blinken that both he and Joe Biden put Israeli interests ahead of those of the United States … The indefatigable Israel-firster Tony Blinken has also served as a “conduit” to those in government for Israel advocacy groups like the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) … Blinken has come a long way with Biden, all the way back to the Clinton Administration. And he has always been there for the Jewish state … Tony believes in the Zionist cause and will do the Jewish state’s bidding with a malleable Joe Biden … Even though it’s early days, Blinken joins a number of other American Jews already tagged for senior positions …

… Like so many other targeted killings by Israeli intelligence agency Mossad on Iranian scientists over the last 10 years (Fakhrizadeh was the fifth), the attack unfurled like a spy movie thriller … Public discourse on these state-sponsored acts of terrorism (we wouldn’t hesitate to characterize these acts as terrorism if Iran assassinated an Israeli or U.S scientist, would we?) has historically been largely absent … The question has to be asked: Why does Israel always get a free pass? … Since Fakhrizadeh’s murder, multiple Iranians have reported seeing Instagram posts lamenting his death (note: no violent content) rigorously deleted after racking up thousands of likes and shares. It’s not particularly surprising, since Instagram and its parent company Facebook …

… Hitler considered Roosevelt’s speech [of Dec. 9, 1941] to be a de facto declaration of war. Since war with the United States was inevitable, Hitler felt he had no choice but to declare war on the United States … The truth is that Roosevelt did everything in his power to plunge the United States into war against Germany. Roosevelt eventually went so far as to order American vessels to shoot-on-sight German and Italian vessels — a flagrant act of war. However, Hitler wanted to avoid war with the United States at all costs … Hitler declared war on the United States only after the leaked Rainbow Five plan convinced him that war with the United States was inevitable.

… But if Hitler was out to conquer the world – Britain, Africa, the Middle East, the United States, Canada, South America, India, Asia, Australia – why did he spend three years building that hugely expensive Siegfried Line to protect Germany from France? Why did he start the war with no surface fleet, no troop transports and only 29 oceangoing submarines? … Why did he offer the British peace, twice, after Poland fell, and again after France fell? Why, when Paris fell, did Hitler not demand the French fleet, as the Allies demanded and got the Kaiser’s fleet? Why did he not demand bases in French-controlled Syria to attack Suez?

Germany’s enemies maintain today [1940] that Adolf Hitler is the greatest disturber of peace known to history, that he threatens every nation with sudden attack and oppression, that he has created a terrible war machine in order to bring misery and devastation everywhere. At the same time they intentionally conceal an all-important fact: they themselves drove the leader of the German people finally to draw the sword. They themselves compelled him to seek to obtain at last by the use of force that which he had been striving to gain by persuasion from the beginning: the security of his country. They did this not only by declaring war on him on Sept. 3, 1939, but also by blocking step by step for seven years the path to any peaceful discussion … A quick look at the most important events provides incontrovertible proof of this.

Roald Dahl’s legacy has long been tainted by his anti-Semitic views, and his family is now apologizing on the Matilda writer’s behalf … In 1983, Dahl garnered controversy for his review of a book about the Lebanon War in the Literary Review, which said never has “a race of people,” referring to Jews, “switched so rapidly from victims to barbarous murderers.” … “I’m certainly anti-Israeli, and I’ve become antisemitic in as much as that you get a Jewish person in another country like England strongly supporting Zionism. I think they should see both sides,” he told The Independent. “It’s the same old thing: we all know about Jews and the rest of it. There aren’t any non-Jewish publishers anywhere, they control the media – jolly clever thing to do – that’s why the president of the United States has to sell all this stuff to Israel.”

The American architect Philip Johnson may be best known for his “Glass House” … Another aspect of Johnson’s legacy, however, has remained comparatively opaque: his championing of racist and white supremacist ideologies. Artists and architects are now openly denouncing that legacy and calling on institutions such as the Museum of Modern Art and the Harvard Graduate School of Design to take down Johnson’s name from their spaces … The Johnson Study Group, a group of designers and architects documenting Johnson’s influence on the field, cite his “widely documented” support of and active contributions to white supremacy, including translating and disseminating Nazi propaganda … The architect openly praised Mein Kampf, Hitler’s manifesto.

A group of more than 30 artists and academics have signed an open letter requesting that public-facing institutions, including the Museum of Modern Art in New York and the Harvard Graduate School of Design in Cambridge, remove the architect Philip Johnson’s name from all leadership titles and public spaces … The architect, who died in 2005, loudly championed racist viewpoints throughout his younger years. In the 1930s, Johnson attended Nazi rallies in Germany and visited Hitler Youth Camps … , loudly made anti-Semitic comments, and spoke in support of eugenics. The Times also adds that, following the war, Johnson later rejected Naziism and publicly tried to distance himself from many of these past claims, although … later in life he still expressed admiration for Adolph Hitler.

Beset by high housing costs, crippling taxes, astronomical gas prices, wildfires, and rolling blackouts, Californians are heading for the exits. That’s sparking anxiety in places where these Golden State migrants are relocating … The election of increasingly progressive candidates in Colorado sparked talk there of the “Californication” of the Centennial State. Early last year, the Dallas News described the “California-ing” of North Texas, citing a study showing that 8,300 Californians move to the area yearly. Texas governor Greg Abbott launched a petition titled “Don’t California My Texas.” … A new survey … by the Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies, found that 52 percent of California residents are considering migrating.

… With taxes soaring, quality of life plunging as violent crime and homelessness surge, home prices out of reach, nonsensical government regulations spreading, an increasingly heavy-handed government and a slumping job market, California now ranks 47th out of 50 states on the widely followed Economic Freedom Index issued annually by Canada’s Fraser Institute. As their future prospects dim, many longtime and even native Californians are leaving for better times in neighboring states … From 2007 to 2016, some seven million Californians (gross total) left the state, most of them middle-class or upper-class in income. In 2018 alone, the number of economic and quality-of-life refugees surged by nearly 700,000, and the flood appears to be continuing today.

… Most American policymakers have misunderstood why the current Iranian government behaves the way it does, and that has led them to both overstate the threat from Iran as well as to make serious mistakes that have redounded to the benefit of their government. That is why Ariane Tabatabai’s No Conquest, No Defeat is such a timely and important contribution to the debate … While Iranian leaders continue to employ revolutionary rhetoric, the record of their actions shows a government that is much more concerned with protecting itself and its country rather than exporting its ideology abroad … The policies that the U.S. routinely condemns as aggressive and destabilizing are the result of Iran’s efforts to guard itself against attack and to achieve strategic depth in a region where they have very few allies.

… Israel is counting on the fact that Biden is unlikely to dare contest or reverse such [Israeli] policies due to the sensitivity of the subject of anti-Semitism – real or alleged – in US politics … The announcements are strategically timed, as they carry an unmistakable political message that Israel does not intend to reverse its settlement policies, regardless of who resides in the White House. The coming weeks are likely to witness even more coordinated Israeli-US moves, where the Trump administration will seek to fulfill Netanyahu’s political wish list, leaving Biden with little political margin to maneuver, thus denying his government the self-proclaimed, undeserved title of the “honest peace broker”.

… Among military men, isolationists, and FDR-haters, it became an article of faith that all along the president had been seeking a “back door” into World War II. He suppressed signs of the impending attack, it was claimed, because he reasoned that only a strike against American soil would unite the public behind his goal. This is the canard that so many books, in the decades since, have labored to prove … Those arguments, like most conspiracy theories, had a kernel of truth. FDR certainly favored American intervention in the war, as had been obvious at least since his support for Lend-Lease in 1940 … Most significant, no one ever produced credible evidence that Roosevelt knew the attack was coming. In fact, contemporaneous diaries and accounts show reactions of surprise among top officials.

… Today, 70 years after Pearl Harbor, a remarkable secret history, written from 1943 to 1963, has come to light. It is Hoover’s explanation of what happened before, during and after the world war that may prove yet the death knell of the West. Edited by historian George Nash, “Freedom Betrayed: Herbert Hoover’s History of the Second World War and Its Aftermath” is a searing indictment of FDR and the men around him as politicians who lied prodigiously about their desire to keep America out of war, even as they took one deliberate step after another to take us into war.

This classic work remains unsurpassed as the best one-volume treatment of the background to the Day of Infamy. Indispensable introduction to the question of who bears the blame for the Pearl Harbor surprise, and, more important, for America’s entry, through the “back door,” into World War II. In his introduction to this attractive IHR edition, Dr. James Martin writes: “Morgenstern’s book is … still the best about the December 7, 1941, Pearl Harbor attack, despite a formidable volume of subsequent writing by many others on the subject.”

… Several circumstances have helped to sustain the mythology surrounding this tragic clash [between Israelis and Arabs], including religious overtones that convert political demands into what some believe to be the will of God. The founding of the State of Israel in the aftermath of the Holocaust has invoked guilt and other emotions among a larger audience than the parties directly involved. The extraordinary role that Israel plays in the politics of the United States — Israel’s most important benefactor — has been another major impediment to clear-eyed understanding of the conflict and thus to its resolution.

The United Nations General Assembly approved five pro-Palestinian and anti-Israeli resolutions on Wednesday, but all texts passed with less support than in 2019 and Israel interpreted this as a small victory in an otherwise dismal situation … Five countries supported Israel on all five texts: Australia, Canada, Israel, Marshall Islands, Micronesia and the United States … Among the resolutions that showed clear support for the Palestinians was one entitled “Peaceful Settlement of the Question of Palestine,” which was approved 145-7, compared to 147-7 last year. Both times there were nine abstentions.

Experts, media elites, and other Iran observers lit into New York Times national security reporter David Sanger this week for his sloppy — and perhaps “Judith Miller bad” — reporting on Iran’s nuclear program following the assassination of one of the country’s top nuclear scientists last week. The offense in question involved the opening line of Sanger’s “News Analysis” which asserted that the scientist, Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, had “led Iran’s pursuit of a nuclear weapon for the past two decades.” Of course, as has been repeatedly documented by the U.S. intelligence community and the International Atomic Energy Agency, Iran ended its military nuclear program sometime in 2003, and has not been ongoing over the past two decades …

During a series of events here on November 28, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and First Lady Olena Zelenska paid tribute to the millions of victims who perished as a result of Stalin’s Famine-Genocide – the Holodomor of 1932-1933. In the morning, the president and first lady arrived at the memorial to the victims of the Holodomor in St. Michael’s Square, where the president and his wife put a composition of wheat ears and viburnum near the memorial and paid tribute to the Holodomor victims … “We honor our ancestors, remember the black pages of history and the years that scarred the hearts of our people,” Mr. Zelenskyy said during his address on Holodomor Victims Remembrance Day.

… Robert Proctor recently made the explosive discovery, however, that Nazi Germany was also decades ahead of other countries in promoting health reforms that we today regard as progressive and socially responsible … Hitler’s government passed a wide range of public health measures, including restrictions on asbestos, radiation, pesticides, and food dyes. Nazi health officials introduced strict occupational health and safety standards, and promoted such foods as whole-grain bread and soybeans … One can find innumerable other books in this vein: on the Nazis’ pioneering environmental and animal welfare programs, on the formidable philosophical foundations of the German critique of liberal democracy, on the Germans’ grand development plans for northern Europe …

Third Reich Germany was a world leader in public health policy and medical research. The regime’s “war on cancer,” for example, was the most vigorous anywhere, and included restrictions on the use of asbestos, bans on carcinogenic pesticides and food dyes, and restrictions on public smoking and cigarette advertising. Years ahead of their colleagues in the US, Third Reich researchers were the first to prove definitively that smoking was the major cause of lung cancer. Hitler’s Germany was also a pioneer in promoting healthier and better quality foods, environmentalism, holistic medicine, animal welfare, and healthier living generally.

… The Nazi government implemented a number of policies which were for the good of their people and those of the future; many of these policies are now implemented by our own governments … Nazi Germany was the first country to ban vivisection [medical research on live animals] in the world … High ranking Nazis … were very concerned about animal conservation, particularly pertaining as to how animals were butchered. Most current laws in Germany, and indeed the world, are derived from the laws put forth by the Nazi Party … When the Nazis came to power in 1933, their concerns not only laid with the people, but with the animals native to Germany … The Nazis banned smoking in restaurants and public transportation systems, citing public health, and severely regulated the advertising of smoking and cigarettes.

A Namibian politician named after Adolf Hitler says he has no plans for world domination after winning a sweeping victory in local elections. Adolf Hitler Uunona was elected last week as councillor for the Ompundja constituency. In an interview with German newspaper Bild, he insisted he had “nothing to do” with Nazi ideology. Adolf, like other Germanic first names, is not uncommon in the country, which was once a German colony. He was elected for the ruling Swapo party, which led the campaign against colonial and white-minority rule. Mr. Uunona admitted that his father had named him after the Nazi leader, but said “he probably didn’t understand what Adolf Hitler stood for”. “As a child I saw it as a totally normal name,” said Mr Uunona, who won his seat with 85% of the vote.

… Bringing the United States to the precipice of war with Iran is exactly what three of Trump’s biggest campaign backers — Casino magnates Sheldon and Miriam Adelson and Home Depot founder Bernie Marcus — have funded for years. Their role in bankrolling hawkish politicians and widely-quoted think tank scholars in Washington is unlikely to end with the defeat of their preferred presidential candidate. The influence of the Adelsons over Trump’s Middle East policy has been unmistakable … The Adelsons may have been Trump’s biggest enablers but their scale of support for the GOP is far greater … In short, they might be done with Trump, but they continue to form the backbone of the GOP’s campaign finance apparatus.

Jonathan Jay Pollard sold thousands of sensitive American secrets to Israel while employed as an intelligence analyst in the Naval Investigative Service Command. Pollard was ideologically committed to becoming a spy for Israel, and after he was captured claimed he considered himself “a frontline soldier forgotten deep in enemy territory.” Pollard pled guilty to espionage against the US in June of 1986 … As Jonathan Pollard finally leaves “enemy territory” to begin life anew in his adopted country, it is useful to pause and consider the many other individuals that committed massive, costly, highly damaging crimes on behalf of Israel against the United States. The orchestrated clemency drives – public and private – by Israel affinity organizations means that most remained above the law.

Los Angeles has hit the grim milestone of 300 homicides so far this year — a figure not seen since 2009. The city has seen a surge in killings in 2020 amid an increase in gang violence as well as the coronavirus pandemic and economic fallout. A 17-year-old boy became the 300th homicide victim on Sunday when he was fatally shot while riding his motorbike near his house. LAPD wrote on Twitter: “A number we have not seen in over a decade — 300 homicides in a year. Senseless violence & tragic loss of life. Our people are doing everything they can to stop the violence, but we need your help.”

Seattle Mayor Jenny Durkan plans to sign a new city budget that will reduce the police budget by 18% despite homicides reaching record highs not seen in a decade. Council members overwhelmingly voted last week to cut funds for police training and overtime and to eliminate dozens of vacant positions within the Seattle Police Department after months of contentious talks. The reductions fall short of the 50% that local activists demanded amid nationwide protests against police brutality and racial injustice … The new budget comes as the city marked its 55th murder of the year Monday … Like other big cities, Seattle is seeing a sharp rise in violent crime. The city recorded 28 homicide victims last year and 32 in 2018, according to police figures … Burglaries are also up.

… It was one WikiLeaks document that particularly caught my attention at first: a classified 2010 CIA “Red Cell Memorandum,” named after the highly secretive unit created by Bush/ Cheney CIA Director George Tenet in the wake of the 9/11 attack. What made this document so fascinating, so revealing, is the CIA’s discussion of how to manipulate public opinion to ensure it remains at least tolerant if not supportive of Endless War and, specifically, the vital role President Obama played for the CIA in packaging and selling U.S. wars around the world. In this classified analysis, one learns a great deal about how the “military industrial complex,” also known as the “Blob” or “Deep State,” reasons; how the Agency exploits humanitarian impulses to ensure continuation of its wars …

The Defense Department recently announced troop withdrawals by Jan. 15 that will reduce American forces in Iraq and Afghanistan to 2,500 each from their one-time highs of some 170,000 and 100,000 troops, respectively. This drawdown makes explicit what those of us who served in the military have long realized: We lost. War is evil even when it is necessary, but our inability to win has stolen even the possibility that the ends might justify the means … The cost of these wars has been astronomical: Roughly $6 trillion in government spending … Even more costly are the approximately 515,000 people killed in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan, including more than 260,000 civilians. And for what? … Sadly, my generation had to relearn the lessons of Vietnam in Iraq and Afghanistan.

… Liberals, Zionists, and “responsible” conservatives now occupy a rhetorically Hitlercentric universe, in which Nazism is the measure of all evil and Roosevelt is redeemed by his determination to crush Germany. The stain of guilt for Nazism constantly spreads – to ordinary Germans, allies of Germany, neutrals, isolationists, Swiss bankers, and Pius XII himself … Everyone and everything is measured on a single scale, which might be called the Hitler Continuum. But there is not corresponding Stalin Continuum. Those who aided and defended and celebrated Stalin at the height of his crimes incur no guilt or obloquy. To have dreamed the Communist dream is evidence of idealism, not guilt or even irresponsibility.

President-elect Joe Biden has named Tony Blinken, his long-time foreign policy and national security adviser, to be his secretary of state. Blinken and Biden both supported the 2003 US invasion of Iraq, perhaps the most catastrophic policy decision since the US war on Vietnam … I see no capacity in Blinken to stand up to Netanyahu or to tell the truth to Americans about the apartheid reality Israel has constructed for Palestinians … In May, Blinken told the lobby group Democratic Majority for Israel during an online event that Biden “would not tie military assistance to Israel to any political decisions that it makes, period, full stop.” There could not be a clearer signal to Netanyahu that he is dealing with an incoming administration that has no real intention to stop Israeli expansionism.

Germany is to revamp its phonetic alphabet to remove words added by the Nazis. Before the Nazi dictatorship some Jewish names were used in the phonetic alphabet – such as “D for David”, “N for Nathan” and “Z for Zacharias”. But the Nazis replaced these with Dora, North Pole and Zeppelin, and their use has since continued with most Germans unaware of their anti-Semitic origin. Experts are working on new terms, to be put to the public and adopted in 2022. The initiative sprang from Michael Blume, in charge of fighting anti-Semitism in the state of Baden-Württemberg, backed by the Central Council of Jews in Germany … The commonly-used equivalent in the UK is the Nato phonetic alphabet, with terms such as “F for Foxtrot, T for Tango”. But many English speakers also use terms like “D for Dennis, S for Sugar” on the phone.

Many major powers around the world and in the Middle East denounced the assassination of Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, a leading Iranian nuclear scientist on November 27. Five of the six world powers that brokered the 2015 nuclear deal – Britain, China, France, Germany and Russia – rebuked the murder and urged an immediate de-escalation of tensions to avoid a regional conflict. The United States, the sixth and most important negotiator, had no comment … A senior U.S. administration official told CNN that Israel was behind the assassination … The European Union labeled the killing a “criminal act” that violated respect for human rights … China called the assassination a “violent crime,” while Russia called it a “terrorist act” and demanded that the perpetrators “be held accountable.”

… Israel’s attacks on Iran’s nuclear activities are particularly galling given that Israel, not Iran, is the only country in the Middle East in possession of nuclear weapons, and Israel refuses to sign the International Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons. Iran, on the other hand, doesn’t have nuclear weapons and it has opened itself up to the most intrusive international inspections ever implemented. Adding to this absurd double standard is the intense pressure on Iran from the United States — a nation that has more nuclear weapons than any country on earth … Iran has responded to these intense provocations with extreme patience and reserve … The European Union, as well as some important US figures have already condemned the attack.

The killing of a top Iranian scientist on Friday could risk a major war in the region, with all signs pointing to Israel being responsible … Three intelligence officials told The New York Times that Israel was responsible for killing Mohsen Fakhrizadeh. If Israel carried out the assassination, it raises questions about how much the US knew about the operation … Since the story came out that said President Trump considered attacking Iran, Israel has stepped up airstrikes in Syria against what it calls Iranian-linked targets and leaded information to the press that said they are preparing for war with Iran. On the other hand, Iran is exercising caution, urging its allies in the region to avoid provoking tensions with the US.

… Under George W. Bush, in 2007, all 17 U.S. intelligence agencies declared with “high confidence” that Iran no longer had a bomb program. Four years later, the same intel agencies affirmed that finding. Since 2015, Iran’s nuclear facilities, under the Iran nuclear deal, have been subject to U.N. surveillance and inspections. And Iran has neither produced plutonium nor enriched uranium to the 90% level needed for a bomb. Israel claims Iran never stopped working on a bomb, but US Intel agencies and UN nuclear inspectors have agreed that the military nuclear program that Fakhrizadeh oversaw was ended in 2003 … From Netanyahu’s standpoint, there are, however, many motives to make the call to kill Fakhrizadeh.

Several years ago, Project Baltimore began an investigation of Baltimore’s school system. What they found was an utter disgrace. In 19 of Baltimore’s 39 high schools, out of 3,804 students, only 14 of them, or less than 1%, were proficient in math. In 13 of Baltimore’s high schools, not a single student scored proficient in math. In five Baltimore City high schools, not a single student scored proficient in math or reading. Despite these academic deficiencies, about 70% of the students graduate and are conferred a high school diploma — a fraudulent high school diploma … Yet, the schools spent a full week learning about “systemic racism” and “Black Lives Matter activism.” … The school climate, seldom discussed, plays a very important role in education … Years ago, much of the behavior of young people that we see today would have never been tolerated.

… The authorities responsible for Germany’s wartime concentration camp network carried out extensive measures at Auschwitz, and other camps, to save inmates’ lives. Though for decades widely known among specialized historians, this remarkable story has been unknown to the wider public, and one extraordinary aspect of it has remained secret for decades. In 1944, during the final year of the war in Europe, the Germans installed and operated state-of-the-art high frequency facilities at Auschwitz to kill disease-bearing lice and other pests … Deployment of “microwave” delousing facilities was just one of many conscientious measures taken by the SS authorities to save inmates’ lives.

Jonathan Pollard, a former U.S. Navy analyst convicted of spying for Israel in the 1980s, had his parole ended on November 20. Pollard, who served 30 years in prison before being released in 2015, became a hero in Israel. The Israeli government, ironically the largest recipient of U.S. foreign aid in history, granted him citizenship in 1995 … The scope of his espionage was so extensive that in the 1990s, then-CIA Director George Tenet threatened to resign if President Clinton released him … So damaging to U.S. security was Pollard’s role that then-defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger told Israeli Ambassador Meir Rosenne in 1987 that Pollard should have been executed. Joseph DiGenova, the prosecutor who handled the Pollard case, said that the damage he did to U.S. security was “beyond calculation.”

The U.S. Embassy in Budapest on Monday condemned an article published by a Hungarian official that drew parallels between American-Hungarian billionaire George Soros and Adolf Hitler and the Nazis … On Saturday, Szilard Demeter, a ministerial commissioner for culture and the head of the Petofi Literary Museum in Budapest, wrote an opinion piece in pro-government news site Origo referring to Europe as “George Soros’ gas chamber,” and calling Soros “the liberal Führer (whose) liber-aryan army deifies him more than did Hitler’s own.” … Demeter retracted the article on Sunday following the backlash, and said he would delete his Facebook account.

As President-elect Joe Biden’s transition is kicking into high gear after the Trump administration’s General Services Administration on Monday finally agreed to acknowledge his victory, we can report that at least five Jews will serve in top positions in the new administration: Ronald A. Klain as White House Chief of Staff; Antony John Blinken as Secretary of State; Janet L. Yellen Secretary of the Treasury; Alejandro N. Mayorkas as Secretary of Homeland Security; and Avril Danica Haines as Director of National Intelligence.

Schools in Burbank will no longer be able to teach a handful of classic novels, including Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird, following concerns raised by parents over racism. Middle and high school English teachers in the Burbank Unified School District received the news during a virtual meeting on September 9. Until further notice, teachers in the area will not be able to include on their curriculum Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird, Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, John Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men, Theodore Taylor’s The Cay and Mildred D. Taylor’s Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry. Four parents, three of whom are Black, challenged the classic novels for alleged potential harm to the district’s roughly 400 Black students. All but Huckleberry Finn have been required reading for students in the district.

This year is the 75th anniversary of the end of World War Two. One of the biggest frauds of the final stage of that war was the meeting at Yalta of Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, and President Franklin Roosevelt. Yalta has become a synonym for the abandonment of oppressed people … The German civilians killed after the war were simply another asterisk that could safely be ignored by Good War chroniclers … U.S. government secrecy and propaganda efforts did their best to continue portraying World War Two as the triumph of good over evil. If Americans had been told in early 1945 of the barbarities that Yalta had approved regarding captured Soviet soldiers and the brutal mass transfer of German women and children, much of the nation would have been aghast.

Citing little-known reports and remarks of Polish, British and French officials, and other evidence, Weber traces President Franklin Roosevelt’s secret campaign to provoke war in Europe prior to the outbreak of hostilities in September 1939. By pressing Britain, France and Poland into war against Germany, the US President bears at least some responsibility for World War II. Weber also discusses the role of Jewish power and influence on US foreign policy during those years. Roosevelt’s record of deceit, lies and lawlessness is routinely suppressed by those who control the US media and American cultural life.

Blazoned in huge black letters across page one of the December 4, 1941, issue of the Chicago Tribune was the headline: F.D.R.’S WAR PLANS! … Chesly Manly, the Tribune’s Washington correspondent, revealed what President Franklin D. Roosevelt had repeatedly denied: that he was planning to lead the United States into war against Germany. The source of the reporter’s information was no less than a verbatim copy of Rainbow Five, the top-secret war plan drawn up at FDR’s order by the Joint Board of the Army and Navy … Rainbow Five called for the creation of a ten-million-man army, including an expeditionary force of five million men that would invade Europe to defeat Hitler.

The European Union has strongly condemned the killing of a top Iranian nuclear scientist, calling it a “criminal act.” The European External Action Service posted a statement on its website, denouncing the assassination. “This is a criminal act and runs counter to the principle of respect for human rights the EU stands for,” said the statement, attributed to an EEAS spokesperson. “In these uncertain times, it is more important than ever for all parties to remain calm and exercise maximum restraint in order to avoid escalation which cannot be in anyone’s interest.” High-ranking Iranian nuclear physicist Mohsen Fakhrizadeh was assassinated in a roadside ambush near Tehran on Friday.

A top Iranian scientist was assassinated near Tehran in an ambush on Friday, Iranian state media first reported. Israel has previously alleged the scientist, Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, headed an Iranian military nuclear program … The New York Times cited three anonymous officials who said Israel was behind Fakhrizadeh’s assassination. Fakhrizadeh headed Iran’s Amad Project, a nuclear program the US and Israel claimed was a military operation. According to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and US intelligence, the Amad Project was halted in 2003. Israel is believed to be responsible for a series of assassinations of Iranian scientists that mainly took place between 2010 and 2012.

An adviser to Iran’s supreme leader who is a possible 2021 presidential candidate is warning that any American attack on the Islamic Republic could set off a “full-fledged war” in the Mideast in the waning days of the Trump administration. Speaking to The Associated Press, Hossein Dehghan struck a hard-line tone familiar to those in Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard, a force he long served in before becoming a defense minister under President Hassan Rouhani … Hard-liners in recent years have openly suggested Iran move toward a military dictatorship given its economic problems and threats from abroad, particularly after President Donald Trump pulled America out of Tehran’s 2015 nuclear deal with world powers.