Terrifying video on antisemitic conference at the University of North Carolina - Thomas Lifson

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by Thomas Lifson

So much for "It can't happen here"...

Ami Horowitz, the investigatory filmmaker who often exposes campus madness, has produced a video that ought to terrify anyone familiar with the history of Weimar Germany. Then, as now, universities were among the leaders in whipping up Jew-hatred and actually persecuting Jews. One of the neglected aspects of the origins of the Holocaust is that the purge of Jews from Germany's famous universities opened up new career possibilities for those faculty and students who remained once their institutions were Judenrein.

We are not (yet) at the point of expelling Jews from faculties and student bodies, but we are at the point of violent attacks on Jews being justified by faculty members at prestigious universities, as a jaw-dropping interview in Horowitz's latest video (embedded below) shows. We are also at the point where multiple academic departments at such a university — a publicly owned and funded institution of (purported) higher learning — are comfortable sponsoring an academic conference with open Jew-hatred, and government funds (nearly a quarter million dollars!) are allocated to sponsor it.

Horowitz was denied access to film the conference but snuck in sound equipment and somehow managed to get a clip of the crowd cheering when the speaker onstage complimented them: "You look beautifully antisemitic," to the accompaniment of loud music and strobe lights.

If you are not Jewish and think this doesn't affect you, think again. Jews are only the first on the list of targets.



Hat tip: Geller Report.

Image credits: YouTube screen grabs.

Thomas Lifson

Source: https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2019/04/terrifying_video_on_antisemitic_conference_at_the_university_of_north_carolina.html

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Comey scoffs at Barr testimony, claims ‘surveillance’ is not ‘spying’ - Brooke Singman

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by Brooke Singman

Barr said he believed it was his “obligation” to review where there was any misconduct in the intelligence gathering during the origins of the Russia investigation.

Former FBI Director James Comey joined the chorus of Democratic critics complaining about Attorney General Bill Barr’s testimony this week that “spying did occur” against the 2016 Trump campaign, claiming he has no idea what the Justice Department leader is talking about -- and saying he “never thought of” electronic surveillance as “spying.”

Comey sought to draw a distinction between surveillance -- which was authorized against a Trump adviser -- and spying during a cybersecurity conference in California on Thursday, echoing Democratic lawmakers who have accused Barr of going too far in his Senate testimony this week.

BARR HAMMERED FOR STATING 'SPYING DID OCCUR,' DESPITE CONFIRMATION OF TRUMP TEAM SURVEILLANCE

“I have no idea what he’s talking about so it’s hard for me to comment,” Comey said.
“When I hear that kind of language used, it’s concerning because the FBI and the Department of Justice conduct court-ordered electronic surveillance,” he continued. “I have never thought of that as spying.”

He added: “If the attorney general has come to the belief that that should be called spying, wow.”

“That’s going to require a whole lot of conversations inside the Department of Justice. But I don’t know what he meant,” Comey said.

Before a Senate Appropriations subcommittee on Wednesday, Barr testified that he believes “spying did occur” on the Trump campaign, adding, “the question is whether it was adequately predicated.” Barr said he believed it was his “obligation” to review where there was any misconduct in the intelligence gathering during the origins of the Russia investigation.

But despite the backlash from Democrats over his use of the term, Barr's testimony appeared to refer to intelligence collection that already has been widely reported and confirmed.

Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) warrants against former Trump campaign aide Carter Page are currently the subject of a Justice Department inspector general investigation looking at potential misconduct in the issuance of those warrants. That review also reportedly is scrutinizing the role of an FBI informant who had contacts with Trump advisers in the early stages of the Russia investigation.

TRUMP DEFENDS BARR, SAYS THERE 'ABSOLUTELY' WAS SPYING AGAINST HIS CAMPAIGN

When asked about the controversy surrounding Barr’s remarks, a person familiar with his thinking denied that he was trying to fuel conspiracy theories or play to the conservative base.

Video

“When he used the word spying, he means intelligence collecting,” the source told Fox News, also noting Barr’s history as a CIA analyst in the 1970s. “He wasn’t using it in a pejorative sense, he was using it in the classic sense.”

The Oxford Dictionary defines ‘spying’ as: “to collect information about something to use in deciding how to act,” or to “observe furtively.”

The use of the term as it applies to the FBI's surveillance in 2016 has been fiercely disputed. The New York Times, even as it reported last year on how the FBI sent an informant to speak to campaign advisers amid concerns about suspicious Russia contacts, stated that this was to "investigate" Russia ties and "not to spy."

But Barr's testimony suggests he makes no distinction between the two. He also stressed that the question for him is whether that "spying" was justified.

“I want to make sure there was no unauthorized surveillance,” Barr said.

President Trump defended the attorney general Thursday, saying that his statement was “absolutely true.”

“There was absolutely spying into my campaign,” Trump said Thursday in the Oval Office. “I’ll go a step further and say it was illegal spying. Unprecedented spying.”

Meanwhile, Comey touted Barr’s experience at the Justice Department.

“I think his career has earned him a presumption that he will be one of the rare Trump Cabinet members who will stand up for truth,” Comey said. “Language like this makes it harder, but I still think he’s entitled to that presumption and because I don’t understand what the heck he’s talking about, that’s all I can say.”

Whether proper or improper, the issue of surveillance of the Trump campaign has been widely documented.

The FISA warrants, for example, were the subject of a GOP House Intelligence Committee memo last year. That memo alleged the unverified anti-Trump dossier provided much of the basis for law enforcement officials to repeatedly secure FISA warrants against Page, though Democrats have pushed back on parts of the GOP report.

House Intelligence Committee Ranking Member Devin Nunes, R-Calif., on Thursday notified Barr of criminal referrals related to the case alleging several "potential violations" of the law.

Video

“In late 2015, early 2016, spying began on the Trump campaign,” Nunes said on “Hannity” on Thursday. “That information leaked, that led to what they considered to be ‘legal spying’ that began, that they acknowledge they started doing at the end of July.”

He added, referring to Comey's memo-taking from high-level meetings: “You have the culmination of the ultimate spying where you have the FBI director spying on the president, taking notes, illegally leaking those notes of classified information. Why? So they can appoint a special counsel to spy on an acting president again. So there’s a lot of spying and a lot of leaking.”

Meanwhile, as part of Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz’s investigation, he is reportedly probing the involvement of FBI informant Stefan Halper—whose role first emerged last year. During the 2016 campaign, Halper reportedly contacted several members of the Trump campaign, including former foreign policy adviser George Papadopoulos and Page. Halper also reportedly contacted former campaign aide Sam Clovis.

BARR REVEALS HE IS REVIEWING 'CONDUCT' OF FBI'S ORIGINAL RUSSIA PROBE

Barr also testified this week that he is conducting a Justice Department review of the “conduct” of the original Russia investigation.

“[I’m] trying to get my arms around all of the aspects of the counterintelligence investigation that was conducted in the summer of 2016,” Barr said before the House Appropriations Committee Tuesday.

Fox News' Jake Gibson and Gregg Re contributed to this report.


Brooke Singman

Source: https://www.foxnews.com/politics/comey-scoffs-at-barr-testimony-claims-surveillance-is-not-spying

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EU's Collusion with Iran - Judith Bergman

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by Judith Bergman

EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini seems strongly committed to ensuring that Iran -- and Europe -- continue receiving economic benefits from the illegal, unsigned, and unratified Iran nuclear deal.

• The main purpose of the Instrument in Support of Trade Exchanges (INSTEX) is to ensure that Europe -- and potentially third countries -- can continue doing business with the mullahs in Iran without risking US penalties for contravening US sanctions.
• EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini seems strongly committed to ensuring that Iran -- and Europe -- continue receiving economic benefits from the illegal, unsigned, and unratified Iran nuclear deal. Mogherini insisted that Iran is complying with the JCPOA. It is not. US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, referring to documents seized by Israel, stated that the nuclear deal was "built on lies" .
• No amount of human rights abuses, however atrocious -- or terrorism, even against its own citizens; or cheating to acquire deliverable nuclear capability to unleash on Israel, the US and eventually threaten the entire West -- will, it seems, deter the EU from its criminal collusion with Iran. Europe seems determined to wade into its own destruction with its eyes wide open.

The European Union insists that Iran is complying with the nuclear deal (JCPOA). It is not. US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, referring to documents seized by Israel, stated that the nuclear deal was "built on lies."(Photo by Win McNamee/Getty Images)

On January 31, Britain, France and Germany announced a new payment mechanism known as the Instrument in Support of Trade Exchanges (INSTEX). It was designed to preserve the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), also known as the Iran nuclear deal, after the US left the deal in May 2018 and reinstated -- as well as broadened -- US sanctions on the country in November 2018. The main purpose of INSTEX is to ensure that Europe -- and potentially third countries – can continue doing business with the mullahs in Iran without risking US penalties for contravening US sanctions.

"INSTEX will support legitimate European trade with Iran, focusing initially on the sectors most essential to the Iranian population -- such as pharmaceutical, medical devices and agri-food goods," the foreign ministers of Britain, Germany and France said in a joint statement. In the longer term, INSTEX aims to be open to other countries wanting to trade with Iran, the statement said. Federica Mogherini, High Representative of the EU for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy and Vice President of the European Commission, said INSTEX was "essential for the continued full implementation of the nuclear deal".

Mogherini seems strongly committed to ensuring that Iran -- and Europe -- continue receiving economic benefits from the illegal, unsigned, and unratified Iran deal. "Alongside Iran's implementation, the lifting of nuclear-related sanctions is an essential part of the deal so we will continue to work to preserve the economic dividends of sanctions lifting," Mogherini said recently. "Our collective security requires a solid multilateral architecture for non-proliferation and disarmament. This is why the European Union will continue to work to preserve the nuclear deal with Iran," added Mogherini who insisted that Iran is complying with the JCPOA.

It is not. US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, referring to documents seized by Israel, stated that the nuclear deal was "built on lies." In addition, the head of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran, Ali Akbar Salehi, in a recent interview with Iran's state-owned Channel 2, made it clear that the flimsy "nuclear deal", initiated by then-US President Barack Obama, has done nothing to stop Iran from making advances in its nuclear program, according to Iran expert Dr. Majid Rafizadeh. "[T]he latest reports on Iran's nuclear progress," Rafizadeh wrote, "also indicate that Iran is on the threshold of modernizing its mechanism for producing highly enriched uranium, which can be utilized to build a nuclear weapon".

EU member states such as France, Germany and the UK continue to claim that Iran is complying with its agreements: these countries evidently want to continue doing business with the mullahs. Official figures by Germany's Federal Statistics Office revealed that German exports to Iran grew by 4% to 2.4 billion euros in the first 10 months of 2018, and monthly export volumes are expected to average 200 million to 250 million euros a month in 2019. In October 2018, German goods exported to Iran totaled almost 400 million euros ($455 million), representing a surge of 85% from the previous October and the highest monthly volume since 2009, according to Reuters.

A German intelligence report also noted that, "Iran has continued unchanged the pursuit of its ambitious program to acquire technology for its rocket and missile delivery program." Much of that activity has evidently taken place in Germany: Iran's efforts to develop its nuclear and missile programs resulted in "32 procurement attempts... that definitely or with high likelihood were undertaken for the benefit of proliferation programs," in the state of North Rhine-Westphalia, Fox News reported in 2017.

Germany is now refusing even to disclose Iranian attempts to obtain nuclear weapons and missile technology, and claiming that it no longer keeps such statistics, Fox News recently reported.

If Iranian attempts to attain nuclear weapons leave major EU powers undeterred from doing business with Iran, what then about Iran's atrocious human rights record? Europe, after all, likes to boast that it is committed to human rights. "The European Union," the EU professes, "is based on a strong commitment to promoting and protecting human rights... Human rights are at the heart of EU relations with other countries... EU policy includes:

• promoting the rights of women, children, minorities and displaced persons
• opposing the death penalty, torture, human trafficking and discrimination
• defending civil, political, economic, social and cultural rights
• defending human rights through active partnership with partner countries, international and regional organisations, and groups and associations at all levels of society
• inclusion of human rights clauses in all agreements on trade or cooperation with non-EU countries".

When it comes to Europe's relationship with Iran, none of those lofty principles appears to matter at all. According to Amnesty International's 2017-2018 country report on Iran:

"The [Iranian] authorities heavily suppressed the rights to freedom of expression, association and peaceful assembly, as well as freedom of religion and belief, and imprisoned scores of individuals who voiced dissent. Trials were systematically unfair. Torture and other ill-treatment was widespread and committed with impunity. Floggings, amputations and other cruel punishments were carried out. The authorities endorsed pervasive discrimination and violence based on gender, political opinion, religious belief, ethnicity, disability, sexual orientation and gender identity. Hundreds of people were executed, some in public, and thousands remained on death row. They included people who were under the age of 18 at the time of the crime".

Women, it seems, were especially subjected to abuse. According to the report:

"Women remained subject to entrenched discrimination in law and practice, including in access to divorce, employment, equal inheritance and political office, and in family and criminal law...The authorities failed to criminalize gender-based violence... The legal age of marriage for girls remained at 13, and fathers and grandfathers could obtain permission from courts for their daughters to be married at an even younger age. All 137 women who registered as presidential candidates were disqualified by the Guardian Council. President Rouhani included no woman ministers in his cabinet, despite civil society demands. Compulsory veiling (hijab) allowed police and paramilitary forces to harass and detain women for showing strands of hair under their headscarves or for wearing heavy make-up or tight clothing..."

Evidently none of these facts bothered Mogherini and company.

Then how about the fact of Iran being the world's leading state sponsor of terrorism? After all, Iran plotted four terrorist attacks on European soil since 2015 alone, according to the Dutch government. It alleged that Iran committed two assassinations in the Netherlands, and plotted one attack in Denmark and another in France -- the latter at a rally of dissidents.

In fairness, the EU has produced the tiniest of pathetic gestures to pretend that it cares about Iranian terrorism: It imposed sanctions on Iran's intelligence ministry and two Iranian nationals. But has a little state-sponsored terrorism come between Iran and the EU in doing business -- professedly to preserve an illegal and unsigned Iran deal? Dream on.

No amount of human rights abuses, however atrocious -- or terrorism, even against its own citizens; or cheating to acquire deliverable nuclear capability to unleash on Israel, the US and eventually threaten the entire West -- will, it seems, deter the EU from its criminal collusion with Iran. Europe seems determined to wade into its own destruction with its eyes wide open.

Judith Bergman, a columnist, lawyer and political analyst, is a Distinguished Senior Fellow at Gatestone Institute.

Source: https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/14006/eu-collusion-iran

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What Happens to Palestinians Who Demand a Better Life? - Khaled Abu Toameh

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by Khaled Abu Toameh

Mohammed Safi wanted the world to know that Palestinian leaders deflect the heat on the Palestinian street towards Israel.

• Mohammed Safi is reported to have lost his eyesight while being held in a Hamas prison. His crime: participation in demonstrations calling for an end to the economic crisis in the Gaza Strip and protesting new taxes imposed by the Hamas rulers.
• "The interrogator hit him in the head from behind three times and told him: 'This is so you won't be able to see at all.'" — Ahmed Safi, Mohammed Safi's brother.
• Safi simply sought to communicate that Palestinians in the Gaza Strip are living under a brutal Islamist regime that has offered them nothing but terror -- directed towards Israel and towards themselves. He wanted the world to know that Palestinian leaders deflect the heat on the Palestinian street towards Israel.
• Safi chose to speak truth to power and place the misery of the Palestinians in Gaza squarely where it belongs: at the feet of Hamas. He paid dearly for that choice. Meanwhile, Hamas leaders can now claim another "achievement" in their jihad against Israel: they managed to transform a clear-headed and courageous young man into a blind and disabled one.

Mohammed Safi (right) reportedly lost his eyesight while being held in a Hamas prison. His crime: participation in demonstrations calling for an end to the economic crisis in the Gaza Strip and protesting new taxes imposed by Hamas. (Image sources: Mohammed Safi - Ahmed Safi/Facebook; Hamas gunmen - Chris McGrath/Getty Images)

Mohammed Safi, 27, is the latest victim of Hamas, the Palestinian Islamist movement that has been controlling the Gaza Strip since 2007.

While voters in Israel were heading to the ballot boxes to elect a new parliament, Safi, who is from the town of Beit Lahia, in the northern Gaza Strip, is reported to have lost his eyesight while being held in a Hamas prison. His crime: participation in demonstrations calling for an end to the economic crisis in the Gaza Strip and protesting new taxes imposed by the Hamas rulers.

The protests -- held under the banner "We Want to Live!" -- were the first anti-Hamas demonstrations of their kind in many years. Thousands of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip took to the streets during the protests and called for solutions to their horrific economic morass, including soaring unemployment and the skyrocketing cost of living.

Safi was among the Palestinians who decided that they had had enough of the brutal and corrupt regime of Hamas. Like most men at his age, he wanted his Hamas leaders to do something to improve their living conditions. They wanted an end to repression and dictatorship. They wanted their leaders to offer them hope instead of sending them to fire rockets at Israel and demonstrate violently at the Gaza-Israel border.

It now seems that Safi will never live literally to see Hamas removed from power. He will not live literally to see an improvement of living conditions and the economy in the Gaza Strip.

According to Safi's family, he is now blind. He lost his eyesight, they say, under torture while being held by Hamas security forces for talking to people gathered on the streets to protest economic hardship. Most of the protesters said they had been brutally assaulted by Hamas security forces. Some complained that Hamas security officers had broken their arms and legs. Even senior Fatah officials such as Atef Abu Seif fell victim to Hamas's violent crackdown on peaceful demonstrators seeking job opportunities and a better life.

The price that Safi paid, however, has probably been the highest. His family says he was detained for interrogation by Hamas security forces at least five times on suspicion of participation in the economic protests in mid-March in the Gaza Strip.

His brother, Ahmed, said that Safi had already suffered from a neurological disease that affected one of his eyes. "When the [Hamas] security services took him away," Ahmed said, "We told them that he's supposed to undergo surgery in one of his eye. The officers ignored us. They didn't care about his health condition. During the interrogation, Safi complained that he wasn't able to see in one eye. In response, the interrogator hit him in the head from behind three times and told him: 'This is so you won't be able to see at all.' My brother is now in hospital after losing his eyesight."

From his hospital bed, where doctors are trying to find ways to restore his eyesight, Safi confirmed that he had warned his interrogator about his health condition, but to no avail. He said: "I only have one request from all those who have a conscience, all those who care: I want to see again. That's all."

A human rights group in the Gaza Strip called the Journalists Forum for Human Rights held the Hamas security forces fully responsible for the tragedy and called for a comprehensive investigation. It also called for holding those responsible to account and denounced the incident as a "human, moral and national crime."

Safi's friends and several youth activists from the Gaza Strip who gathered near his hospital bed expressed outrage over the way he was treated during his incarceration by the Hamas security forces.

"Like many Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, Mohammed Safi, who is lying here in Shifa Hospital, doesn't have media organizations to support him," said one of the youth activists, Rami Aman. "He and many Palestinians don't have the support of any organizations. Mohammed is now blind because of the actions of members of Hamas's security forces."

Safi's case serves as a reminder how Palestinians living under the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank and Hamas in the Gaza Strip are continuing to suffer from repression, corruption and bad government. The Palestinian Authority and Hamas tolerate no criticism. They arrest political opponents almost on a daily basis. They throw them into prison and in many instances subject them to physical and mental torture.

Safi is lucky to be alive, albeit now blind. He could easily have wound up dead. That is what happens to Palestinians who dare to stand up and speak out against their leaders.

This week, Israel held its fifth election since the most "recent" Palestinian election. The last time the Palestinians held an election was in January 2006. Then, it was a parliamentary election that resulted in a Hamas victory. Since then, the leaders of the Palestinian Authority and Hamas have been fighting each other and denying their people the chance to hold a free and fair election. There is no room for democracy or free elections under the Palestinian Authority and Hamas. There is also no room for any voices calling for an improvement of living conditions and job opportunities.

Safi was not even demanding new parliamentary or presidential elections. According to his family and friends, he does not even belong to a political group. He simply sought to communicate that Palestinians in the Gaza Strip are living under a brutal Islamist regime that has offered them nothing but terror -- directed towards Israel and towards themselves. He wanted the world to know that Palestinian leaders deflect the heat on the Palestinian street towards Israel.

Had Safi headed towards the border to hurl bombs and rocks at Israeli soldiers and launch incendiary kites in the context of the Hamas-sponsored "Great March of Return," he would have been hailed as a hero by his Hamas leaders.

Safi simply chose to speak truth to power and place the misery of the Palestinians in Gaza squarely where it belongs: at the feet of Hamas. He paid dearly for that choice. Meanwhile, Hamas leaders can now claim another "achievement" in their jihad against Israel: they managed to transform a clear-headed and courageous young man into a blind and disabled one.

• Follow Khaled Abu Toameh on Twitter

Khaled Abu Toameh, an award-winning journalist based in Jerusalem, is a Shillman Journalism Fellow at Gatestone Institute.

Source: https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/14057/hamas-gaza-protests-torture

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Trump appears to embrace plan to bus illegals being released to sanctuary cities - Rick Moran

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by Rick Moran

The president trolls the opposition, and Democrats are livid.

Given the harsh reaction to the Washington Post story yesterday about the Trump administration considering releasing immigrant detainees into sanctuary cities, you just had to know that the president would take the opportunity to troll his political foes.

Washington Times:

President Trump said Friday that he is considering a plan to release illegal immigrants into sanctuary cities, saying it is fitting punishment for Democrat-led communities that refuse to get tough on border security.
Mr. Trump was confirming a report in The Washington Post that said the idea was being considered.
"Due to the fact that Democrats are unwilling to change our very dangerous immigration laws, we are indeed, as reported, giving strong considerations to placing Illegal Immigrants in Sanctuary Cities only," the president said on Twitter.
Hours later, speaking to reporters at the White House, Mr. Trump said he would only be giving the sanctuaries what they say they want.
"California certainly is always saying 'Oh we want more people,' and they want more people in their sanctuary cities, well we'll give them more people. We'll give them a lot. We can give them an unlimited supply," he said.

Apparently, Democrats oppose the idea because, well...why do they oppose the idea?

Democrats bristled at Mr. Trump's suggestion.
"It is a notion that is unworthy of the presidency of the United States and disrespectful," House Speaker Nancy Pelosi told reporters.
Thousands of illegal immigrant [sic] children and families are being nabbed at the border every day right now and because of lax U.S. laws, most of them are quickly released. That usually means being driven to a bus station in a city near the border and dropped off, leaving the migrants to disperse on their own or with the help of nonprofit organizations that are rushing to help.
Some of those communities have complained about being overwhelmed by the releases.
Mr. Trump didn't say what exactly he's considering, but one option would be to transport the illegal immigrants caught at the border to sanctuary jurisdictions elsewhere, spreading the impact of the releases beyond the border.
Court documents detailing illegal immigration show some migrants already gravitate toward sanctuary communities, seeking out the more generous treatment such as ability to obtain government services and driver's licenses.

Trump is offering Democrats a perfect opportunity to virtue-signal. Or do Democrats only give lip service to the "welcoming" nature of sanctuary cities?

In truth, the logistics would be a nightmare. You would need hundreds of buses going to dozens of destinations. You would need to feed and care for thousands of illegals on the road. And once they got to where they were going, what would you do with them? It's not enough to just dump them inside the city limits of a sanctuary city and expect the city to care for them. The immigration bureaucrats who rejected this proposal knew what they were doing.

Still, it's satisfying to see Trump once again expose the mass hypocrisy of Democrats. "Not in my backyard," says Pelosi. If not in San Francisco, where would you suggest they go, Madame Speaker?

Rick Moran

Source: https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2019/04/trump_appears_to_embrace_plan_to_bus_illegals_being_released_to_sanctuary_cities.html

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Poland's Two Faces - Joseph Puder

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by Joseph Puder

The plague of Jew-hate once again rears its ugly head.

The article below is the continuation of a dialogue/debate Frontpage is hosting on the question of Polish Culpability in the Holocaust? -- the title of Joseph Puder's Frontpage article that sparked this conversation. We have run two previous pieces by Danusha Goska on this issue: Poland's New Law Criminalizing Speech about the Holocaust and The Brute Polak Stereotype Strikes Again. John Radzilowski also recently countered Joseph Puder's critique of his viewpoint. Frontpage continues to welcome contributions to this dialogue and debate. 
 
In the small town of Ulanow, in southeastern Poland, back in 1996 I encountered graffiti on a wall next to the Catholic Church which read, “Juden Raus.” Never mind the fact that there are no living Jews in this town. What remains is a common grave site where 1,500 Jews were murdered by the Nazis and their helpers. The graffiti on the wall best symbolized the irrationality of anti-Semitism. Now, in 2019, it appears that the plague of anti-Semitism is once again rearing its ugly head. 

Stanislaw Krajewski, a University of Warsaw professor and prominent member of the Warsaw Jewish community, is quoted as saying, “Twenty years ago, I would have said that anti-Semitism is on the wane (in Poland) but this is no longer the case. Old stereotypes are resurfacing.” He added, “Anti-Semitism is still present in Poland. It is part of the overall climate.”

Yet, in Warsaw, unlike Paris, you can still walk around with a yarmulke on your head without being harassed or worse. The comment by Israel Katz, Israel’s interim foreign minister, that “Poles suckle anti-Semitism with their mother’s milk,” even if substantially true, stirred unnecessary tensions between Israel and Poland, and Catholic Poles and Jews. It triggered a wave of hate speech on the internet in Poland. Konrad Dulkowski, head of an NGO that monitors racist and xenophobic behavior in Poland pointed out that those internet comments “unfortunately confirm in a way what Israel Katz has said,”

It must be said however, that unlike the past, when anti-Semitism was incited from the top, namely the government and the Catholic church, it is no longer the case now. In fact, Jaroslaw Kaczynski, the leader of the Law and Justice party (PiS), (the governing party in Poland) a national-conservative Christian democratic party, considered by many as a rightist party, condemned anti-Semitism and even stressed that anti-Zionism is a form of anti-Semitism. This has been reported by Konstanty Gebert, a Polish-Jewish journalist. But, when the European Union (EU) Agency for Fundamental Rights (FRA) released a survey in 2018 on discrimination and hate crimes against Jews in the EU, Jewish respondents from a dozen EU states were asked how often they heard or had seen non-Jews make anti-Semitic remarks, Poland had the highest percentage of respondents having witnessed anti-Semitism.

Monika Krajewski, wife of Stanislaw Krajewski, herself an artist and writer, summarized it all by saying, “People don’t realize, even in Israel, that there are two Polands.” This is exactly what this reporter concluded in his previous articles on this subject. To personally illustrate this point, I shall present two experiences in Poland. In Krakow, I came across a group of high-schoolers from the western Polish city of Wroclaw, on a school vacation to historic Krakow. Congregated on the grass along the bank of Vistula River, a short walk from the Old city where I came from, I asked the students if any of them spoke English. One of them volunteered. I pointed out to him that coming out of the Old city I saw a poster which had crossed the name Aleksander out and replaced it with “Zyd Kwasniewski,” the serving president of the Polish Republic. “Zyd” is the derogatory for a Jew, and Kwasniewski was clearly not Jewish. The boy explained: “We don’t like Jews because they sold us things we did not want and cheated us.” I asked if he has known any Jews? “No, he said, but his dad told him so.” I followed by asking him if his dad knew any Jews? And once again the answer was “no." He went on to mention that his grandfather told his father about the Jews, and the grandfather as well, had never met a Jew. At this point even his friends realized the absurdity of what he was saying and shouted at him to shut up. The bigotry displayed by the student was obviously inherited from his parents or even grandparents, and it is deeply rooted with negative stereotypes of Jews, without knowing a single Jew.

In Warsaw however, I encountered the other face of Poland. Seated with a young medical student at Warsaw’s Old City “Pizza Hut,” (the hottest restaurant in Warsaw at the time) we struck up a conversation about Poland’s past and present. Somehow the conversation led to the question of Jews in Poland. The young man, in a sincere and intelligent way said, “We in Poland are poorer today because we don’t have the Jews. The Jewish people gave us culture, they contributed to our arts, sciences, and to our economy.” The young man did not know my religious background, and wasn’t pandering, he spoke from the heart.

Regrettably, it was the Polish government that initiated the current impasse in Israeli-Polish relations. The Krakow Post, in an opinion piece by British historian Daniel Tilles, based in Krakow, argued that: “While it is completely understandable that Poland wants to stamp out the misleading and offensive phrase ‘Polish death camps,’ this should be done through education, not by threatening prison sentences for those who use the term, as the government has proposed. Even more worryingly, the new draft law on this issue - combined with the threat to withdraw a state honor from historian Jan Gross (author of the book Neighbors, which tells the story of the Jedwabne massacre of 1,600 Jews by fellow Poles), has the potential to be just the opening salvo in a far broader attempt to impose the ruling party’s historical vision, potentially impinging on academic freedom.”

Polish anti-Semitism and philo-Semitism notwithstanding, according to Israel’s Foreign Ministry website, “Today, Israel and Poland enjoy very solid and profound relations, which include close cooperation in the political, military, economic, cultural, and educational spheres. Those relations are based on mutual interests, shared values, and similar analysis of the situation in the international arena, but they are also a natural continuation of the joint Polish-Jewish history of almost a thousand years

Interviewed last December by the Jerusalem Post, Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki [pictured above] pointed out that Polish-Israeli relations are very good, Jews make an important contribution to Polish society, and their situation in Poland is better than those living in the vast majority of western European countries. Morawiecki added, “All across Europe, synagogues are protected with heavily armed police or even military forces. In Poland, there is no need for that. We of course, condemn any hatred against Jews and prosecute it with full force – but I am happy to say that incidents of such hatred are marginal and do not represent the views of our nation.”

Monika Krawczyk, the newly elected President of the Union of Jewish Religious Communities in Poland told the Jerusalem Post (February 26, 2019) that Holocaust history is not properly taught in the Polish school system, and that she intends to take up the matter with the proper authorities. This would appear to be the right solution to the current impasse in Polish-Israeli relations, which otherwise can be most productive for both nations and people.

* * *
Photo by Kancelaria Premiera

Joseph Puder

Source: https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/273362/polands-two-faces-joseph-puder

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Washington State Resorts to Shock Tactics, Indoctrination to Teach Tribal History - Sara Dogan

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by Sara Dogan

Children are asked to draw a map of a “sacred space” - and then watch as their teacher rips off a piece.

Washington State is in the process of implementing a new mandatory curriculum on Native American history in its public schools. Proposed lesson plans are now up on the Office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction’s website. And some parents in the state are highly disturbed by the content of those lessons which they say indoctrinate students in a one-sided leftist understanding of American history and could be traumatizing for young children.
 Senate Bill 5433 which was signed into law by Washington’s democratic governor Jay Inslee in 2015 made it compulsory for Washington public schools to cover “tribal history, culture, treaty rights, contemporary tribal and state government institutions and relations and the contribution of Indian nations to the state of Washington” as part of the academic curriculum. The result of this mandate is titled “Since Time Immemorial: Tribal Sovereignty in Washington State,” a section on the Office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction’s website which covers suggested lesson plans, training materials, and “guiding principles” to help school administrators and teachers institute the new curriculum.
Not all of the curriculum is objectionable. For instance, goals identified by the Superintendent’s office include helping students to “understand that over 500 independent Tribal nations exist within the United States today, and that they interact with the United States, as well as each other, on a government-to-government basis…”
But much of the curriculum was designed to elicit students’ emotions and provoke their anger rather than teach them facts.
One suggested lesson under the category “Encounter, Colonization, and Devastation: The Tribal Perspective” instructs the teacher to ask students to each create a map of a “sacred space” that is important to them. Then, the lesson instructs, the teacher should pick a student to help them “‘trick’ the class.” 
The lesson plan explains what the teacher should do next:
"Circulate throughout the room as you praise and select your pre-arranged student’s map as one you especially like. Hold it up to show the class. Show a particular part of the map (though it doesn’t matter which part) that you especially like, and you’d like to add it to your map. Say something like, 'Oh, I really love this part, don’t you? In fact, I would really like to have it. Can I?' The student should look surprised and say, 'No.' You should persist, 'Oh, come one. I just want this part.' Tear that portion of the map. The student should look shocked and hurt. The observing students will certainly be shocked, and will look immediately to that student. And you should respond by saying something like, 'What? What’s the big deal? I only took part of it! I really wanted it!' Allow your students to respond… Let your class in on the trick, and connect their reactions to how tribes must have felt when non-tribal people began settling on their land and claiming it as theirs!"
Another lesson proposed as part of the new curriculum suggests that teachers should “compare the similarities between the struggles for Independence of the Indian Nations, the US Colonies, and (if the teacher chooses) another contemporary struggle, such as the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict” suggesting that Israel colonized Palestine, a highly controversial view of the founding of Israel which is promoted by the anti-Israel terror group Hamas.
A proposed “learning activity” for young children asks the teacher to have students portray the characters in a poem titled “A Friend of the Indians.” In the poem, a purported “friend of the Indians” sits next to an Iroquois leader named Red Jacket on a log. Red Jacket keeps asking the friend to move over. Finally the poem concludes with a lesson:
"'But if I move further I shall fall in the water,' the man pleaded, teetering on the edge. Red Jacket replied, 'And even so you whites tell us to move on when no place is left to go.'"
The lesson plan asks teachers to reenact this poem using chairs in the classroom with the teacher portraying Red Jacket. It instructs educators: “In the last stanza, the student will have nowhere else to go, except off the chairs onto the floor… Connect this activity with the sacred space activity and article… a. Taking things/spaces that are important to others is hurtful b. There is a question of fairness and justification for taking things important to others.”
Videos designated for use in elementary school classrooms also contain controversial comments that are contrary to scientific fact. “There is no migration story. We were created here. We did not cross any land bridge. We have our creation story here,” a member of the Nez Perce tribe says in a videoapproved for classroom use, stating a religious view believed by some Native American tribes which is contrary to the scientific consensus. 
Another Native American participant in the video declares, “If we go back to the people of non-Indian descent and ask them how they eventually came to our country they have many hidden stories that they don’t want to talk about because if you read the history books…you will see a glorious account of what had occurred which actually didn’t occur.”
The highly controversial lessons and curriculum were brought to light by parent Joshua Campbell, who is currently a student teacher himself and working towards becoming a classroom teacher. Campbell has a son who will begin first grade next year and so he used the superintendent’s website to discover what his son would learn at school.  He was not pleased with what he found.
“I was absolutely shocked at what they were setting up to be implemented in our schools,” Campbell said in an interview on the Dori Monson Show.
“I have a very great responsibility. Trust is one of the most important things,” Campbell added. “I do believe in having a safe classroom, and one of the biggest things about that is, you have to establish a relationship of trust with your students … it literally breaks that trust.”
Campbell clarified that he supports public schools teaching Native American history, but he feels that the current curriculum is too ideological and will be harmful to elementary school students.
“Sovereignty is really, really hard to understand … they need to get to a level in middle school to have the skills to say, ‘Okay, there are multiple perspectives,'” he explained.
Washington State Superintendent of Public Instruction Chris Reykdal also went on the Dori Monson show to defend the material on his website. He stressed that teachers are not required to use particular lessons but can choose from a variety of lesson plans to meet the new state standard. The suggested lessons on his website were vetted by other teachers, he claimed.
“When we get teachers’ eyes on it, especially when it’s age-appropriate curriculum, that they make a pretty good judgment about that,” Reykdal asserted.
Regarding the controversial suggestion that teachers compare the history of America to the creation of Israel, Superintendent Reykdal did not find this comparison problematic.
“I’m really comfortable making connections with contemporary conflict over territory, land, historical rights, and that seems pretty darn relevant to me that you had a culture here, many cultures across the Americas for 13,000 years, and then Europeans came along, and obviously there was significant tension,” Reykdal said. “And the textbooks didn’t exactly portray that in a very balanced way for a long time, so it seems pretty relevant that we would try to connect that to something that might be more in the headlines today.”
Addressing fears of bias and indoctrination, Reykdal claimed, “Most professional educators are very responsible to draw a line between where they are personally, while bringing kids a balanced curriculum.”
Cambell, however, remains concerned that the new curriculum crosses the line between education and indoctrination. “I want children to think on their own, they need to have an individual mindset, because they are all unique, and they’re our next generation,” he said. “But the groupthink idea, it does lead to indoctrination.”

To learn more about the Freedom Center's campaign to halt indoctrination in K-12 schools, please visit  www.stopk12indoctrination.org.  To read the K-12 Code of Ethics CLICK HERE. To order the Freedom Center’s new pamphlet, “Leftist Indoctrination in Our K-12 Public Schools,” CLICK HERE. To donate to the Stop K-12 Indoctrination campaign, CLICK HERE.


Sara Dogan

Source: https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/273454/washington-state-resorts-shock-tactics-sara-dogan

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Questioning Global Warming - Todd Royal

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by Todd Royal

The question should be asked: are we looking at the wrong phenomenon, and should we be debating global cooling?

When pollsters realized the public and elected officials weren’t buying global warming as a concept or policy, in a brilliant political move, they came up with the phrase “climate change.” This helped sell the theory of man-made global warming. Weather is politicized and computer models are only predictions that have been used as pawns in elections and justifying increased government budgets. The global warming/climate change (GWCC) narrative has made Al Gore a rich man peddling unrealized fear.

In January 2012, sixteen eminent scientists published an article in the Wall Street Journal, titled, “No Need to Panic About Global Warming. If mankind is causing global warming then how do you explain:

“Today’s CO2 concentrations worldwide average about 380 parts per million. This level of CO2 concentration is trivial compared with the concentrations during earlier geologic periods. For example, 460 million years ago, during the Ordovician Period, CO2 concentrations were 4,400 ppm, and temperatures then were about the same as they are today. With such high levels of CO2 the Earth should have been boiling.”

It seems more reasonable to be agnostic based upon this fact:

“According to the Climate.gov website, the current global average temperature is roughly ‘shy of 60 degrees Fahrenheit. About 55 million years ago – just after the age of the Dinosaurs – the era known as the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum (PETM) saw average global temps as high as 73 degrees Fahrenheit.”

As humans only showed up about 100,000 years ago how do you account for the PETM era? Supposedly, 97% of scientists agree man is the cause of catastrophic GWCC. When in fact that statement is false. Moreover:

“A recent study reported in the peer-reviewed Organization Studies found that just 36 percent of earth scientists and engineers believe that humans are creating a climate change crisis. A majority of the 1,077 respondents in the survey believe that nature is the primary cause of recent GWCC.”

What if you believe the 97% scientist debate then why hasn’t this information been widely reported?

“The media ignore a petition on the Internet signed by more than 31,000 scientists, including 9,029 PhDs, 7,157 with a master’s of science, and 12, 715 with a bachelor of science degree, all of whom dispute the global warming thesis.”

The GWCC narrative also took a hit when a March 2019 NASA study found the famous Jakobshavn glacier in Greenland was starting to grow again “after retreating about 1.8 miles and thinning nearly 130 feet annually since 2013,” but is growing the past two years (2016-2018). Past natural variability seems to be the cause instead of vetting the scientific consensus that “demands to prove that rising CO2 is causing an effect like melting Greenland ice.”

Are there other factors that determine earth’s heating and cooling other than CO2? According to Professor A. Balasubramanian from the Centre for Advanced Studies in Earth Sciences, University of Mysore:

“The climate of a region (or whole earth) is determined by radiation energy of the sun, and its distribution and temporal fluctuations. The long-term state of the atmosphere is a function of variety of interacting elements. They are: Solar radiation, Air masses, Pressure systems (cyclone belts), Ocean Currents, Topography.”

CO2 is a factor that influences regional and global temperatures, and there are considerable questions about the role it plays in recent warming trends in the 20th and 21st century. Climate scientist Vijay Jayaraj cites these weather facts to make the case the earth is actually in danger of global cooling:

“There is poor correlation between CO2 emissions and global temperature. Between 2000 and 2018, global temperature showed no significant increase despite a steep increase in carbon dioxide emissions from anthropogenic sources. The same was the case between the years 1940 and 1970. When carbon dioxide concentration increases at a constant and steady rate and temperature doesn’t follow the pattern, we can be certain that carbon dioxide is not the primary driver of global temperature.”

MIT atmospheric physicist, Richard Lindzen, one of the world’s leading climatologists, also believes CO2 is not the main factor in GWCC and figuring out GWCC is a dicey proposition. He questions whether the earth is warming, cooling or somewhere in between – in other words Dr. Lindzen is a skeptic because he doesn’t know if CO2 is the main driver of weather. Climate scientists acknowledge life on earth happens because of the Earth’s positioning in the solar system to the sun and “that the sun is the biggest influencer and driver of global temperature.”

NASA's original homepage accepted, “the sun’s impact on our climate system.” But they succumbed to the GWCC madness and took it down for public consumption. Freedom of speech and scientific debate has been squelched. CO2 is now the leader in the GWCC debate sweepstakes and political discussion while avoiding how the sun affects weather and global temperature. This is a huge mistake for these reasons:

“Central Europe, for example, temperature changes since 1990 coincided more with the changes in solar activity than with atmospheric CO2 concentration. The same has been true globally, and across centuries. The Maunder Minimum (1645-1715) and Dalton Minimum (1790-1830) – periods of low solar activity – were responsible for the coldest periods of the Little Ice Age. Likewise increased solar activity in the Roman Warm Period (~250 B.C. to A.D. 400) and Medieval Warm Period (~A.D. 950-1250) brought warmer temperatures on Earth. Hundreds of peer-reviewed scientific papers affirm the overwhelming impact of solar activity on Earth’s temperature.”

The question should be asked: are we looking at the wrong phenomenon and should be debating global cooling? A number of climate scientists believe “another major cooling” is likely to happen in this century. Despicably and treacherously GWCC has overtaken all rational discussions about all forms of energy, electricity and the weather. If you question GWCC you are a “climate denier,” or worse you’re viciously attacked without fully vetting the issue of whether or not man is causing anthropogenic GWCC.

Graphic credit: Pixabay

Todd Royal

Source: https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2019/04/questioning_global_warming.html

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SPLC, ADL, and the 'White Nationalism' Panic - Bradley Betters

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by Bradley Betters

Although perhaps commendable in the civil-rights arena at one time, for years founder Morris Dees and his top lieutenants -- treated the center as a ‘hate business’ of sorts; using “hyperbolic fundraising appeals” to scare donations out of “gullible Northern liberals.”

A cluster of events this past week marked a steepening in the upwards trend toward online censorship.

In a New York Times/Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) collaborative report about online extremism, authors claimed the social media sphere enabled a “global network of white extremists” to develop and that this has led to a “surge of white supremacist and xenophobic terrorism in the West.” Although grasping in its conclusions and broadly flawed, the report was no doubt a clear enough justification for many to continue the culling of speech freedoms online.

In a near-identical report of its own, the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) described certain social media platforms having apparently become “round-the-clock digital white supremacist rallies.” They too conclude more policing from both industry and government had to be done.

Both reports coincided with social media executives themselves being called to a hearing before the House Judiciary Committee where it was demanded that they do more to “stem white nationalist propaganda and hate speech online.”

The collective push to double down on a free-speech atmosphere already challenged post-Christchurch seems to beg the question: is it a surge in “hate” we’re witnessing, or rather surge in “hate panic”?

According to the Times analysis of social media posts, among global white extremists who have committed murders since 2011, one third, or 15, were “inspired” by others who had committed similar acts by either having read each other’s manifestoes or acknowledging one another’s crimes.

But whether such connections can be said to be a true motivating factor in their crimes should be viewed as a highly fact-dependent enquiry, and one likely only answerable by probing the killers directly. Further, to say these connections between them constituted an actual “network” seems to inflate that term as normal people understand it. What might constitute a network is online correspondence between extremists, which the Times found one instance of.

The report seems to have uncovered not so much a ‘surge in social media-enabled violence’ but the pervasiveness of social media in people’s everyday lives and the ease with which one’s online reading and communication habits (and criminal motives) can be ascertained.

The Times’ ‘surge in violence’ claim is similarly loose. Between North America, Europe, and Australia, the report counts a headline number of 347 attacks (undefined in the report) being perpetrated by whites from 2011 through 2017. But when broken down, the figure approaches 50 a year, which, in the minds of many, may not signal a widespread scourge, especially considering the white population in these regions is roughly 800 million. Responding to a Times op-ed which parroted an ADL finding that, from 2008 to 2017, 71 percent of 387 extremist related fatalities in the U.S. were linked to white supremacists, American Spectator’s David Catron worked out the per year figure to be 28. As he wrote, “[e]very death is tragic, but this is less than half the annual fatality rate associated with bee and wasp stings.”

And of course, the fact that the report relied on the SPLC is a general taint on its conclusions. Recent bombshell revelations in the New Yorker confirm what critics have long contended about the organization -- that it inflates its hate-group standard and manufactures reports, according to one former staffer, showing “‘hate’ always… to be on the rise.” Although perhaps commendable in the civil-rights arena at one time, for years founder Morris Dees and his top lieutenants (many of whom have left since the revelations), treated the center as a ‘hate business’ of sorts; using, as the insider describe it, “hyperbolic fundraising appeals” to scare donations out of “gullible Northern liberals.” As Nathan J. Robinson of Current Affairs summed it up, “the Morris Dees model” was to “find[] as much ‘hate’ as possible in order to make as much money as possible.”

The same charge has been laid against the ADL, whose Senior Vice President for Policy, Eileen Hershenov, also testified at this week’s congressional hearing. They also employ a “hate” labelling program in addition to surveys on U.S. and global anti-Semitism. Critics claim that the surveys are often push-polls (from one questionnaire: “Jews still talk too much about what happened to them in the Holocaust”… is this “probably true?”) and say anti-Semitism is certainly not at the pandemic-levels they assert (ADL critic Noam Chomsky: “In the ranking of problems, I think maybe it comes up to a thousandth”). The group follows a similar “Morris Dees model”, say critics. Quoting him at length, David Samel writes:

ADL perpetually has its hand out for donations, and what better way to motivate donors than a screaming headline that there are one billion anti-Semitic adults on the planet? ...ADL’s home page trumpets the frightening results and offers visitors an easy way to “Help ADL Change the World” with a single click… It is difficult to imagine that the survey was not planned, at least in part, as a fundraiser, with foreknowledge of a direct relationship between the quantification of the danger and the anticipated revenues.

As Robinson writes in Current Affairs, groups like the SPLC and ADL engage in the “politics of spectacle.” Their brand of anti-racism advocacy, as he says, is “endemic to a certain kind of ‘elite liberalism’”, one which “totally skew[s] the idea of how racism works and how to begin solving it.” For these groups, this might actually be the whole point. 

These groups are big players behind the internet censorship trend which started with the 2016 U.S. election, ticked up after Charlottesville, and ticked up again post-Christchurch. Without countering it, and the alarmist research and organizations that encourage it, social media censors will be free to claim that there is a surge in “hate” across the West, rather than a surge in “hate panic”, as is more likely the case. 

Bradley Betters

Source: https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2019/04/splc_adl_and_the_white_nationalism_panic.html

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