China Doesn't Have to Lift a Finger to Push Biden Around - Gordon G. Chang

 

​ by Gordon G. Chang

The Biden administration has just endorsed one of China's most vicious attack lines against the United States.

• "Xenophobia" has been a constant Biden theme... Within moments [of President Trump's "travel ban" last January] ... Biden went on the attack. "This is no time for Donald Trump's record of hysterical xenophobia and fear mongering to lead the way instead of science," he said. There was nothing "xenophobic" about Trump's travel ban. It was imposed on arrivals from the country where the disease first appeared. The ban, therefore, saved lives, and it would have saved even more if it had been stricter, announced sooner, and had been more rigorously enforced.... [If Biden] had been president then, the disease would almost certainly have spread faster in America. He was, during the campaign, against all such travel prohibitions.

• Now, Biden is supporting another Chinese propaganda campaign.... The Chinese regime, which to this day uses geographical names for strains of virus, has been trying to ban any identification of China with the pandemic. Biden, with his executive order [rejoining the World Health Organization (WHO)], is doing Beijing's work as Chinese leaders try to deflect blame.

• This decision was especially hideous because WHO was complicit in China's deliberate spread of the disease. WHO disseminated Beijing's position that the coronavirus was not readily contagious even though the organization's senior doctors knew it was highly transmissible. Moreover, WHO championed the Chinese campaign against travel bans. Americans died because of these and other indefensible actions on the part of WHO, and now Biden will go back to legitimizing and supporting that organization.

• So far, Biden has taken steps that certainly encourage Beijing. His rejoining the Paris Agreement, his cancellation of the Keystone XL Pipeline, and his repeal of the ban on Chinese equipment in the American electrical grid, among others, favor, directly or indirectly, Beijing. Also of great concern is the failure of Commerce Secretary nominee Gina Raimondo to confirm that Huawei Technologies will remain on the department's Entity List.

So far, President Joe Biden has taken steps that certainly encourage Beijing. His rejoining the Paris Agreement, his cancellation of the Keystone XL Pipeline, and his repeal of the ban on Chinese equipment in the American electrical grid, among others, favor, directly or indirectly, Beijing. Pictured: Then US Vice President Joe Biden and Xi Jinping, then First Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party, pose for photos in Los Angeles on February 17, 2012. (Photo by Frederic J. Brown/AFP via Getty Images)

The Biden administration has just endorsed one of China's most vicious attack lines against the United States.

The new administration's actions look as if they are setting a pattern for its responses to Beijing on the disease and other matters.

On January 26, Biden signed his executive order titled "Memorandum Condemning and Combating Racism, Xenophobia, and Intolerance Against Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders in the United States."

The order states that during the coronavirus pandemic "inflammatory and xenophobic rhetoric has put Asian American and Pacific Islander persons, families, communities, and businesses at risk."

There is nothing wrong with protecting minorities from racism, but racism is not the problem. "Political correctness presages policy incorrectness," writes the Claremont Institute's Ben Weingarten on the Newsweek site, commenting on Biden's executive order. "And when it comes to matters of life and limb, political correctness can kill."

Weingarten is correct.

"Xenophobia" has been a constant Biden theme. On January 31 of last year, President Trump announced the "travel ban," prohibitions and restrictions on arrivals from China.

Within moments of the announcement, Biden went on the attack. "This is no time for Donald Trump's record of hysterical xenophobia and fear mongering to lead the way instead of science," he said.

Biden's campaign said the attack was not in response to the travel ban, yet on the following day the candidate expressed the same thoughts in a tweet: "We need to lead the way with science—not Donald Trump's record of hysteria, xenophobia, and fear-mongering."

There was nothing "xenophobic" about Trump's travel ban. It was imposed on arrivals from the country where the disease first appeared. The ban, therefore, saved lives, and it would have saved even more if it had been stricter, announced sooner, and had been more rigorously enforced.

Biden was against the China travel ban, and if he had been president then, the disease would almost certainly have spread faster in America. He was, during the campaign, against all such travel prohibitions.

Then, Biden's criticisms of the travel ban aligned perfectly with Beijing's attacks on Trump—and on the United States.

Now, Biden is supporting another Chinese propaganda campaign. "The Federal Government must recognize that it has played a role in furthering these xenophobic sentiments through the actions of political leaders, including references to the COVID-19 pandemic by the geographic location of its origin," declares the January 26 executive order.

The order is expected to result in a ban, across the federal government, of the use of "China virus," "Wuhan flu," and variants.

President Trump emphasized "China virus" early last year, in response to Beijing's statements. On March 12, the Chinese foreign ministry launched disinformation attacks, accusing the U.S. of being the origin of the coronavirus disease and hiding its source. An official foreign ministry tweet made explicit the claim that official Chinese sources had been hinting for more than a month: The United States was ground zero for COVID-19.

Beijing has not given up on this malicious line of attack. This month, Beijing, with absolutely no evidence, has been pointing to Fort Detrick in Maryland as the source of the disease.

The Chinese regime, which to this day uses geographical names for strains of virus, has been trying to ban any identification of China with the pandemic. Biden, with his executive order, is doing Beijing's work as Chinese leaders try to deflect blame.

"The Chinese Communist Party would love to see itself delinked from the coronavirus pandemic that originated on its shores, that it sought to cover up, that it helped spread around the world, and that it has cynically sought to exploit at every turn," writes Weingarten. "So Beijing must have been cheering when it got word of a gift, in this regard, from President Joe Biden."

Moreover, Biden, within hours of taking the oath, rejoined the World Health Organization (WHO), something else Beijing wanted because, as a practical matter, it controls the political leadership of that body.

This decision was especially hideous because WHO was complicit in China's deliberate spread of the disease. WHO disseminated Beijing's position that the coronavirus was not readily contagious even though the organization's senior doctors knew it was highly transmissible. Moreover, WHO championed the Chinese campaign against travel bans.

Americans died because of these and other indefensible actions on the part of WHO, and now Biden will go back to legitimizing and supporting that organization.

China's challenge to America is comprehensive, on every front. So far, Biden has taken steps that certainly encourage Beijing. His rejoining the Paris Agreement, his cancellation of the Keystone XL Pipeline, and his repeal of the ban on Chinese equipment in the American electrical grid, among others, favor, directly or indirectly, Beijing. Also of great concern is the failure of Commerce Secretary nominee Gina Raimondo to confirm that Huawei Technologies will remain on the department's Entity List.

Analysts say Beijing is testing Biden. Yes, but so far the Chinese do not need to lift a finger. The new president is giving them what they want, and they are not even having to ask.

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Gordon G. Chang is the author of The Coming Collapse of China, a Gatestone Institute Distinguished Senior Fellow, and a member of its Advisory Board.

 Source: https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/17012/china-push-biden 

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You Will Be Made to Believe Implausible Things - Clarice Feldman

 

​ by Clarice Feldman

War is Peace, Ignorance is Strength, and Biden is President.

In George Orwell’s masterpiece 1984, he said, “The party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command.”

To guide you along this path, I bring to your attention implausible things you are expected to believe this week. 

1. Things that are not graft.

Outrageously generous book deals to present and former officials.

The Obamas’ $65 million book advances still lead the way to the most lavish, though the notion that even Democrat politicians’ relatives, like Chelsea Clinton, would offer ghostwritten pap worth anything is something you just have to believe.

Generous speaking fees.

The $25 million the Clintons garnered for just six months of speeches in 2014 and 2015, you must regard not as bribes for access and influence, but as well-earned compensation for minutes worth of pearls of wisdom. Not just former presidents and would-be presidents are the recipients of such largesse.  Janet Yellen, the Biden pick for Secretary of the Treasury, for example, raked in $7.2 million in speaking fees from Wall Street and large corporations like Citi, Goldman Sachs, Google, City National Bank, UBS, Citadel LLC, Barclays, and  Credit Suisse. The Great Iggy (an online friend) must be in error when he questions these fees:

These fees are for what? Some pointless stupid boilerplate speech that does not and cannot, in itself, contain anything of value to the payers. So its value is in the form of access and influence only; which used to be called graft and influence peddling.

Charitable Shakedowns.

You must ignore the suggestion that plea bargains in which the government gives a settlement payment to a bureaucrat’s favorite nonprofit constitutes anything unethical. Former Attorney General Jeff Sessions halted this practice. If the new administration reverses this ban, avert your eyes from bad thinking. If the government claims a corporation ripped off yourself and fellow citizens illegally, you should be grateful they have to pay up to the agency head’s alumni association or some left-wing advocacy outfit. Why should you be compensated for the harm done to you? And from the viewpoint of the defendant, why not grease the palms of the prosecution’s favorites with some small amount rather than go through the expense and aggravation of defending?

Congressional Stock Trading

If you believed Hillary Clinton made so much money investing shrewdly in cattle futures and not out of some manipulation, you will certainly agree that speaker Nancy Pelosi’s $1 million investment in Tesla stock call options shortly before the Biden administration announced it planned to make the federal automobile fleet (645,000 cars) electric was just another example of stock trading genius by a high-ranking politician.

There’s certainly no graft in providing lucrative deals for politicians’ families.

Ignore Hunter Biden’s deals with Ukraine and China and Joe’s brother James, “who took out $650,000 in personal loans from a company that bankrupted local hospitals while trading on his brother’s name and connections to the campaign.” Or his brother Frank’s farming for clients for the law firm he’s connected with advertising with the not too subtle hint of access.  

2. You can Trust Dr. Fauci

Governor Andrew Cuomo’s handling of the China Virus was appropriate even though he placed the virus carriers in nursing homes and ignored the presence of the USNS Solace, the Javits Center, and Samaritan’s Purse hospitals which were fully staffed and ready to assist.

Dr. Fauci was right to praise him. Ignore the New York Attorney General Letitia James, who investigated and announced this week that the Cuomo administration failed to report thousands of COVID-19 deaths of nursing home residents after forcing these homes to admit COVID-19 patients. And you know you can ignore James’s report and credit Dr. Fauci’s praisee of Cuomo’s performance because Joe Biden said “Dr. Fauci isn’t just one of our foremost experts on combating viruses -- he is a good man and a tireless public servant.... Our administration, and our country, will be stronger because of his guidance.”

Dr. Fauci is one of our foremost experts on combating viruses and is totally nonpartisan. Ignore his waffling and misstatements.

This is the man who dictated coronavirus policy in the Trump administration. If mistakes were made, as the Biden administration claims, they are Fauci’s. 

Yet, astonishingly, Fauci told CNN Friday that a “lack of candor” from the Trump administration had cost American lives. 

If people’s lives really were at stake last year, why did he wait until now to tell us? 

Chalk it up to another convenient fib from a habitual fibber, who has deceived us on everything from masks to herd immunity. 

Even if you decide these are not lies but lapses of judgment by Fauci, they had potentially lethal consequences. 

Take, for instance, Fauci’s serenity back on January 21 last year, when he assured us that the virus convulsing China at the time “is not a major threat for the people of the United States and this is not something the citizens of the United States right now should be worried about.” [snip] The following week, he was at it again, vehemently opposing President Donald Trump’s proposed flight ban from China, which Biden at the time decried as “xenophobia.” 

[snip] Then there was Fauci’s advice on masks. 

Back in March, when the coronavirus was decimating New York, he told us masks were useless. 

“Right now in the United States, people should not be walking around with masks,” he told “60 Minutes.” 

Three months later, he did a backflip: “Masks work... to prevent you from infecting someone else... but also, it can protect you to a certain degree.” [snip]

Turns out he lied about herd immunity, too. 

In December, Fauci admitted to the New York Times that he had “slowly but deliberately been moving the goal posts” on the percentage of the population that needed to be vaccinated before “herd immunity” against ­COVID-19 was reached. 

“When polls said only about half of all Americans would take a vaccine, I was saying herd immunity would take 70 to 75 percent. Then, when newer surveys said 60 percent or more would take it, I thought, ‘I can nudge this up a bit,’ so I went to 80, 85,” he said. 

Fauci is not precise with numbers, which is odd for a scientist who professes to care about facts. 

For instance, on Biden’s first day last week, Fauci said we would have “100 million people vaccinated in the first 100 days” and specified he meant both “primary and boost” shots, a total of 200 million shots in arms. 

On Sunday, he was forced to “clarify that, because there was a little bit of a misunderstanding. What we’re talking about is 100 million shots in individuals.” 

The 100 million goal is fake anyway,  since we’re already there. In the week before the inauguration, 912,000 shots were administered per day, according to Bloomberg News’ tracker. On Inauguration Day, it was 1.6 million shots. 

Disregard the Media’s covering up for Both Cuomo and Fauci.

Janice Dean, who lost family members in the New York nursing home mismanagement, must not be listened to. Trust Lester Holt to fairly report:

@JaniceDean

So @NBCNews @LesterHoltNBC @TODAYshow censored one of my friends who lost a loved one in a nursing home. She wanted to say “@andrewcuomo failed us” in the interview and they told her to say “New York failed us” instead. The mainstream is STILL protecting this guy. Disgusting.

Shame on you @LesterHoltNBC @NBCNews @TODAYshow. New York State did not fail us. The governor, his administration and his health department FAILED US. You are a disgrace to all families. Just like @andrewcuomo.

You should trust Holt to provide a clear account and not bloggers like Yaacov Applebaum who nailed Cuomo’s  horrid nursing home policies last May. 

3. All the White House efforts on the China virus are based on sound science, not politics

So when the White House calls for Florida restaurants and bars to close their doors, contrary to Governor Ron DeSantis’ directives to stay open, you must ignore Richard Grenell’s criticism of Governor Gavin Newsom and its application to the White House plan for Florida. Logic is now banned thinking.

Richard Grenell

@RichardGrenell

It makes no sense to let people fly on an airplane for 5 hours but not be inside a restaurant or a gym for 1 hour.

Open up our businesses!

@GavinNewsom must be recalled.

10:07 AM · Jan 30, 2021

I’m 79 years old, and all the protocols indicate I should be among the first eligible for the vaccine. Although my D.C. ward (3) is mostly white and rich and taxpaying, too many of its residents want the vaccine, so it’s going first to wards where people have been most affected by the virus (and are in significant numbers still refusing to take it). Having registered at numerous sites, it’s still unavailable to me. On the other hand, if I had been a participant in terrorism against the U.S. like Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and others locked up in Guantanamo Bay, I would be scheduled to get it ahead of most Americans (until backlash compelled them to "pause" that plan). Don’t ask. Don’t question. Surely our leader has good reasons behind this.

4. Show trial and Impeachments are the Way to Unity

Daniel Greenfield explains, for those who are slow learners. Questioning an election is now sedition and incitement. A Capitol wrapped in barbed wire and with streets filled with National Guardsmen is not using a fake state of emergency, friends.

The show trial of President Trump and the city full of soldiers is just the opening act to the Great Purge of a domestic terrorism crackdown on anyone who ever retweeted the wrong meme.

Biden will embed a domestic terrorism office in the NSC, making the NSC's former abuses under Obama routine as a system meant to track foreign enemies is instead used to surveil domestic political opponents. Heading the effort will be Joshua Geltzman, who had formerly falsely claimed, "No, Black Lives Matter is not a terrorist organization."

Inside of a month, Democrats had redefined riots and election challenges from the highest form of patriotism to an attack on democracy. And by “democracy,” they mean the Democrat Party.

Popular leaders don’t take their false oaths of office in a deserted city surrounded by barbed wire and military checkpoints manned by 25,000 troops. Nor do they engage in show trials of their predecessors or unroll massive efforts to surveil, arrest, and silence their opponents.

That’s not the stuff of healing, but it is how you unite a country at gunpoint under your rule.

After four years of vowing to remove President Trump by any means from massive riots to illegal eavesdropping to coups, the Democrats declared an emergency because a few Republicans had done 10% of the things they had been doing, but without dressing up as human genitalia.

Democrats had been collecting bail fund donations for mass arrests in post-election protests and even a “separate fund to raise money for the families of anyone killed in violence on or around Election Day.” And then they pivoted from prepping body bags to declaring that insurrection was a national emergency which will require the National Guard to sleep in parking lots where they won’t annoy Democrat House members until Biden sees his own shadow.

That or the show trials wrap up before they get around to mandating that all future elections take place at Democrat campaign offices preceded by poll tests about equity and white privilege.

Meanwhile the Democrat media went from writing sympathetic pieces about BLM lawyers throwing Molotov cocktails at the police to demanding a thorough purge of every single person who had ever questioned the idea that Joe Biden might not be the most popular politician ever.

Any day now I expect the publishers who toss favors at Democrat officeholders to print and distribute gratis Biden’s Little Red Book for us to memorize, or redo paintings of him as they did in Russia of the doddering fool Brezhnev bedecked with dozens of  medals.

 

Clarice Feldman 

 Source: https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2021/01/you_will_be_made_to_believe_implausible_things.html 

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NATO 2030 and the “South” - Dr. George N. Tzogopoulos

 

​ by Dr. George N. Tzogopoulos

Israel is a key partner in NATO’s effort to strengthen its presence in the so-called “South.”

 

Panel of experts delivers a report to NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg on the NATO 2030 initiative, image via NATO website

BESA Center Perspectives Paper No. 1,909, January 31, 2021

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY: Israel is a key partner in NATO’s effort to strengthen its presence in the so-called “South.” As the alliance tries to find ways to remain relevant and better respond to security challenges, its relationship with Jerusalem is growing closer than ever. In December 2020, the Greek-led task group for the NATO operation Sea Guardian conducted training with the Israeli Navy in the Eastern Mediterranean. More importantly, the Abraham Accords have created new dynamics with the potential to allow closer collaboration between NATO and regional organizations such as the Gulf Cooperation Council.

Ten years after a group of experts chaired by Madeleine K. Albright laid the groundwork for what would be called NATO’s Active Engagement, Modern Defense strategic concept, another study group has offered its analysis and recommendations to Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg for his 2030 vision. Thomas de Maizière and Wess Mitchell led the initiative, which culminated in the publication of a special report on November 25, 2020. As Stoltenberg stated a few days later, NATO’s priorities are to remain a strong military alliance, enhance its political capital, and employ a more global approach. NATO’s Ministers of Foreign Affairs discussed the NATO 2030 project on  December 1-2, 2020, and it is expected that the new strategic concept will be adopted at the 2021 summit.

The NATO 2030: United for a New Era report includes several proposals on a variety of themes, including Russia, China, outer space, pandemics, green defense, energy security, terrorism, and more. Some pages are devoted to the so-called “South.”

The phrase “Southern Flank” is of historical significance. At the beginning of the 1950s, NATO formulated a strategy involving Greece, Italy, and Turkey to integrate them into the Western defense system and contain the Soviet Union. In the post-Cold War era the phrase is still in use, but is often replaced by the “South,” which encompasses the Mediterranean Basin along with Portugal and Mauritania. Developments in Africa and the Middle East are of interest to the alliance due their proximity to the southern region.

NATO’s strategy vis-à-vis the South has been facilitated by instruments like the Mediterranean Dialogue, which was launched in 1994. Algeria, Egypt, Israel, Jordan, Mauritania, Morocco, and Tunisia are engaging in discussions with the alliance to cement security in the Mediterranean. In 2017, NATO intensified its effort by establishing the Hub for the South in Naples, and the following year it announced a package to project stability.

However, while NATO has managed to consolidate its presence in the Balkans with the membership of countries such as Albania, Montenegro, and Northern Macedonia, it has not scored similar successes in other parts of the South. The efficiency of NATO’s 2011 intervention in Libya, for instance, is debatable, and it is represented in Syria only via the Turkish military involvement there. Spats among member states, notably Greece and France on the one hand and Turkey on the other, have caused serious cohesion problems.

The NATO 2030: United for a New Era report envisages a holistic understanding of security for both the East and the South to address ”the growing presence of Russia, and to a lesser extent China” in parallel with traditional threats and new risks. In so doing, it advises the careful management of differences among allies and a better definition of the relationship between multiple frameworks and activities. It considers collaboration with NATO partners crucial.

In that regard, the role of Israel is highly significant. Cooperation ranges from cyber defense, efforts to counter the proliferation of missiles and weapons of mass destruction, and intelligence related to the fight against terrorism. A few weeks ago, Commander of NATO Maritime Command Vice Admiral Keith Blount said, “Israel has been an important partner to NATO for more than 20 years as well as an active member of [the] Mediterranean Dialogue.” He made the remarks after the completion of a training exercise in the Eastern Mediterranean between Israel and a Greek-led task group for the current NATO operation Sea Guardian. The Greek frigate Spetsai and the Bulgarian Smeli linked up with Israeli maritime units Lahav and Romah to go through challenging medical evacuation and search and rescue scenarios. As part of the scenario, air units transported personnel simulating injury to a local Israeli hospital.

Above all, the new political dynamics in the Middle East and the Eastern Mediterranean will have to be carefully assessed by NATO if it is to promote a stable South in the coming years. The normalization of ties between Israel and the UAE and Bahrain creates new possibilities for the alliance’s engagement with the Gulf Cooperation Council. This is also true of NATO’s coordination with the African Union following the recognition of Israel by Sudan and Morocco. The Abraham Accords have the potential to usher in a new period that goes beyond benefits for the signatories themselves to the future interaction between NATO and regional organizations.

View PDF

Dr. George N. Tzogopoulos is a BESA Research Associate and Lecturer at the European Institute of Nice and the Democritus University of Thrace. 

Source: https://besacenter.org/perspectives-papers/nato-2030-south/ 

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Corrupti-looza: Biden family wastes no time profiting from public office - Monica Showalter

 

​ by Monica Showalter

The question is, why are they doing it so early?

In one-party states such as the old PRI-ruled Mexico, the stealing tended to start late. Before a Mexican president was escorted out for the next, he and his would sweep the presidential palace for everything not nailed down -- the lightbulbs, the toilet seats, the doorknobs and more. There were exceptions, but it was generally the known narrative. In more than one Latin American country, the last-minute asset grab on the way out actually had a name -- "La Pinata." After all, as former PRI mayor of Mexico City, Carlos Hank Gonzalez, used to say: "A politician who's poor is a poor politician." 

Which brings us to Joe Biden, and his family's unusually fast scramble to profit from his public office right out the gate.

Son Hunter still has his 10% China equity fund stake, contrary to what had been reported, and a new art gig just perfect for bringing in money from non-transparent sources, as the New York Post, in this excellent report notes, all because his blow-pipe 'art' done as his personal art therapy is somehow so very valuable. 

Brother Frank, meanwhile, is advertising his connections to old Joe for Florida law firm he's connected with, using Joe's name in a bid to drum up business. As New York Post columnist Michael Goodwin reported:

The latest sordid example involves one of Joe’s younger brothers, Frank Biden, appearing in a Florida law firm’s ad — on Inauguration Day no less. The ad used the president’s name to draw attention to the Berman Law Group’s class-action suit against sugar cane growers.

“The two Biden brothers have long held a commitment to pushing environmental issues to the forefront,” says the ad. “The president-elect has vowed to rejoin the Paris Agreement and wants to set ambitious greenhouse gas reduction targets.”

The ad, first reported by CNBC, appeared in the Daily Business Review and carried a picture of Frank Biden and quotes him saying, “My brother is a model for how to go about doing this work.”

How touching. And shameless. 

Brother James hasn't changed any, still under federal investigation for a hospital company that feds say isn't being run properly. 

Bidens of all sorts are under federal investigation for tax evasion, money-laundering, and unregistered agent foreign ties, as this Politico report citing Hunter notes.

And it seems to be having a knock-on effect as Vice President Kamala Harris's stepdaughter, Ella Emhoff, an art student (which generally isn't the most employable of professions), has suddenly gotten a fancy modeling contract, to be a 'style icon,' which hadn't been her forte until the establishment noticed she was close to power. Now they're gushing about her, selling her as stylish as emperor's new clothes. Kamala Harris, meanwhile, might just owe someone a favor. 

It's happening, Goodwin observes, because the Bidens have been doing it for decades, and never with any consequences. Now that Joe's 'the big guy' and not a mere vice president, for them it's all the better.

Which is true enough as far as it goes, but still doesn't entirely explain the speed of the influence-peddling and pocket-lining -- why, contrary to the Mexican and Latin American model -- did the rush to grab money start on day one? 

With these questionable acts starting early -- despite Joe's call to brother Frank to 'watch yourself,' what seems a distinct possibility is that the family members think the gig is not going to last so the time to act is now.

Maybe they're betting Joe isn't going to last for one reason or another. That might explain why they are rushing to scarf up all they can without covering their tracks. They're like fund managers divesting a stock  --- quickly, and all at once. Fund managers buy stocks quietly and gradually on expectations the price will go up, but when they think it's heading down, they don't play around, they dump it all at once and don't care who's watching.

That kind of desperation seems to be evident in House Biden's quick bid to cash in all at once, too. Do they know something we don't? Do they expect their window of opportunity will be short? How is it they can jump up so fast to cash in, even against warnings from Joe, who after all, assured the voters last fall with this malarkey:  

“My son, my family will not be involved in any business, any enterprise that is in conflict with or appears to be in conflict, with inappropriate distance from the presidency and government,” he said.

Even with the spotlight on, for them, it's as if the walls are closing in and Gotterdammerung is beckoning. If that's not a vote of low confidence in the durability of Joe and his presidency, what really is?

 

Monica Showalter  

Source: https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2021/01/corruptilooza_biden_family_wastes_no_time_profiting_from_public_office.html 

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Biden and the 'After Trump' era -- reality has been abruptly reinvented - Victor Davis Hanson

 

​ by Victor Davis Hanson

In the new age, expect the media and government to suddenly resent any mention of pushback against a sitting president. Questions about the Biden family’s past multimillion-dollar influence-peddling overseas or even Biden’s cognitive ability can no longer be asked.

 

Biden reverses Trump abortion policies with latest executive order

The new AT age as in "After Trump" — began on either Election Day, Nov. 3, or on Inauguration Day, Jan. 20. But either way, reality as we had known it for four years has been abruptly reinvented.

Pfizer had hinted that a vaccine could be ready in late October. Then, mysteriously, it wasn’t. Then, stranger still, it appeared — a few days after Election Day.

Suddenly, after Joe Biden’s inauguration, Illinois, Michigan and other blue states eased some of their lockdown restrictions to get their economies back on track despite little change in COVID-19 rates.

During the Trump Age, the president was supposedly responsible for every death from COVID-19.

BIDEN HAS SIGNED 40 EXECUTIVE ORDERS AND ACTIONS SINCE TAKING OFFICE

Now, the media reports that career scientists and health administrators in the federal government, especially at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, were largely to blame for past slow testing, and were tardy and lax in apprising the nation of the infectious threat.

The Biden campaign’s widely reported promises of a new, superior COVID-19 plan turned out to be more of the same old, same old from the Trump Age. 

Biden did mandate the wearing of masks on all federal property. But he then immediately undermined his own order during the first few hours on the job by going mask-less during a photo op at the Lincoln Memorial.

Video

Stranger still, President Biden announced during his first few hours in office: "There’s nothing we can do to change the trajectory of the pandemic in the next several months."

FAUCI BACKS CDC RESEARCH ON REOPENING SCHOOLS DISMISSED BY BIDEN CHIEF OF STAFF

For the first time, we now learn that there is "nothing" Biden can do about COVID-19?

Despite millions of vaccine doses being produced when he entered office, Biden went on to warn that many more Americans will die in the next few months — more than 600,000 COVID-19 fatalities in total.

The watchdog media just shrugged.

Coincidentally, after weeks of disastrous state incompetence in getting residents vaccinated, Amazon has told the new administration that it will lend its infrastructure and organization to speed up vaccinations.

If Amazon could announce that in late January, why not weeks earlier?

Speaking of Amazon, it is opposing mail-in ballots for its own employees voting on whether to unionize a warehouse in Alabama.

SEN. TED CRUZ: COVID, TEACHERS UNION SCHOOL MADNESS IS HURTING OUR KIDS -- THAT'S WHY CHOICE IS VITAL

Amazon says it’s worried about fraud. Yet Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos also owns the Washington Post, which ridiculed those who were concerned about massive mail-in voting in the 2020 election.

Video

Coincidently, with the inauguration of a new president, "nonpartisan" COVID-19 czar Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, now suddenly accuses his former boss, Donald Trump, of ignoring his wise counsel.

FAUCI: 'NOT PRODUCTIVE' TO REHASH TRUMP HANDLING OF PANDEMIC: 'LET'S LOOK FORWARD'

But for all of 2020, Fauci had been a master of the "noble lie" — the Platonic idea that government elites should deliberately misinform the supposedly less intelligent people for their own good.

Fauci gave conflicting assessments on mask-wearing, on the percentages needed to achieve herd immunity, and on the impossibility of the virus having originated in a Wuhan laboratory.

He claimed that he offered false or unproven narratives to avoid panic, or to encourage Americans to follow his correct policies.

In the new age, expect the media and government to suddenly resent any mention of pushback against a sitting president. Questions about the Biden family’s past multimillion-dollar influence-peddling overseas or even Biden’s cognitive ability can no longer be asked.

If the Republicans win the House of Representatives in 2022 and follow the new Democratic model of impeaching a first-term president without a special counsel report, it will be called a national disgrace.

Even worse, we will be told, would be the reckless mention of the 25th Amendment. The very suggestion of removing an elected president due to supposed cognitive challenges will become abhorrent.

For that matter, so too would be the appointment of any special counsel. Why waste two years, $35 million and dozens of lawyers to harass a sitting president with unfounded charges of Ukrainian or Chinese "collusion"?

In our brave new world, we will hear no more of retired military officers weighing in on the "fascism" of the commander in chief.

None will compare the recurring violence of Antifa or Black Lives Matter to that of Islamic terrorists.

None will compare Biden, who dismissed Antifa as a mere "idea," to Mussolini or the Nazis.

Any retired officer who smears the president, we will be reminded, would violate the Uniform Code of Military Justice.

The media, Silicon Valley, Wall Street, Hollywood, top retired military brass, corporate America, universities and professional sports are all recalibrating the truth for our Year One.

In about a month, they will have it down. And soon, we won’t even be able to tell the old reality from the new.

 

Victor Davis Hanson is a senior fellow in military history at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University and a professor emeritus of classics at California State University, Fresno. He is the author of more than two dozen books, ranging in topics from ancient Greece to modern America, most recently "The Case for Trump" (Basic Books, 2019)  He lives in Selma, California. 

Source: https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/biden-after-trump-reality-reinvented-victor-davis-hanson 

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BBC caves to parental outrage, pulls video teaching youngsters there are over 100 genders - Thomas Lifson

 

​ by Thomas Lifson

[T]hrough its absolute dominance of media, education, and the most influential cultural organs, the left is trying to force all of us “to reject the evidence of [our] eyes and ears"

Transgenderism and the “gender identity” dogma may be the bridge too far that undermines the hard left agenda to impose a radical restructuring of reality on the media-consuming public. We live in an historical moment when the Orwell’s prophecy in 1984 is coming true, and through its absolute dominance of media, education, and the most  influential cultural organs, the left is trying to force all of us “to reject the evidence of [our] eyes and ears… [as] their final, most essential command,” as Clarice Feldman reminds us today.

Once we passively comply with what we are told by our presumed betters and believe what they tell us, there is no limit at all, especially not reality, on what we can be made to do. Absolute power in the hands of those who dominate. That must be why there is so much institutional might, so much propaganda shoved down our throats, and such harsh penalties are imposed on dissenters to the completely unscientific (i.e., false) contention that one can instantly change biological reality and become the opposite sex, merely by “identifying” as such. There are only X chromosomes and Y chromosomes, and (other than in infinitesimally rare exceptions) people come with a biologically determined pairing, determining their sex. No matter what they think or believe or “identify” as.

The BBC of the United Kingdom (supported by mandatory fees -- a euphemism for taxes), naturally assumed that after years of indoctrination that insisting on biological reality was hateful, they could put out an “educational” video indoctrinating children aged 9 to 12 that there are over 100 genders, so as to form their concept of reality following Orwell’s prediction that they would “reject the evidence of [their] eyes and ears” and become obedient servants of the Ruling Class’s version of reality.

But British parents felt otherwise, and in numbers sufficient to persuade the mandarins of the Beeb, forced the video to be (as we now say) canceled. The Christian Post reports:

The BBC has removed a controversial video that taught children between the ages of 9 and 12 that there are more than 100 gender identities after parents objected to the “educational” content.

“We are aware that this particular film is being willfully misinterpreted by parts of the media and others on social media,” the BBC said in a statement. “As such, its original purpose and intention has been overshadowed. On this basis, we have made the decision to retire the film. We will continue to support teachers on this important topic in other ways.”

The video was widely criticized in 2019 and was in the spotlight once again this week as the BBC’s educational content is being consumed more widely due to the ongoing COVID-19 lockdowns.

The film, which was part of a series of nine films created by BBC Teach to provide curriculum support for personal, social, and health education teachers, shows a boy asking, “What are the different gender identities?”

This is a grudging and hostile cancellation, still insisting that there is nothing wrong with the video, but that because troglodytes “willfully misinterpreted” it, it no longer serves its “original purpose.”  What that purpose is remains mysterious, as do the “misinterpretations to which the Beeb is spinelessly caving.

Obviously, this is not a surrender, but rather a tactical retreat, and the “original purpose” remains the goal, waiting for the moment when it can be reimposed with less resistance.

 

Thomas Lifson  

Source: https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2021/01/bbc_caves_to_parental_outrage_pulls_video_teaching_youngsters_there_are_over_100_genders.html 

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New Team in Washington: Beyond Tokenism - Amir Taheri

 

​ by Amir Taheri

[T]he United States is about "We the People," not "We the Minorities". Democracy is a melting pot, not a salad bar.

• But what does the term "minority" mean in a democracy based on equal citizenship for all? The term minority denotes "less-ness" compared to the "more-ness" of another entity. However, how could one regard some citizens of a democratic state as "less" than other fellow citizens?

• [T]he United States is about "We the People," not "We the Minorities". Democracy is a melting pot, not a salad bar.

• America... started as a space for settlers from England but was put on the way of becoming a nation by "founding fathers": Their "one nation under God" had the distinction of being the first constitutional democracy. Its motto became: Government of the People, by the People, for the People.

• To pretend that this or that Cabinet minister was chosen because of his or her skin color, religious faith or other "minority" attribution is certainly not a compliment. If the choice is based not on the individual's competence but on salad-bar considerations, it cannot be justified on democratic grounds. If, on the other hand, such considerations played no part in the choice, why make such a song-and-dance about "rainbowism" and progressive representation?

• [F]ortunately, many members of the new Washington team have impressive academic and practical resumes. It is in everyone's interest to hope that they will see themselves not as figures in a game of ethnic tokenism but the servants of the American demos at a difficult time.

Last month, as he started shaping his future Cabinet, President-elect Joe Biden promised to form a team that offers a better representation of America as it is. Judging by the welcome that his Cabinet has received across the globe, one may conclude that he has delivered on his promise.

According to media reports, the Biden team has been "warmly received" in Canada, Mexico and Western Europe, among other places. Radio France Internationale even reports "a sense of jubilation" in Abuja because Biden's team includes several Nigerian-Americans at its second tier. In Tehran, the media take note of the inclusion of five or six Iranian-Americans in the new team with the hope that their presence would help change Washington's policy towards Iran.

Biden's team includes a number of "firsts".

It is the first US Cabinet in which those classified by "progressives" as "white men" are in a minority. According to the CIA World Factbook, "whites" account for just over 73 percent of the total US population, while the segment of citizenship labeled as WASPS (White Anglo-Saxon Protestants) has dropped to under 47 percent.

Biden's team is composed of figures from the various ethnic or religious communities that furnished almost 50 percent of the votes that pushed Biden to the top of the greasy pole. Progressive commentators in the US speak of a rainbow coalition of minorities which provides the backbone of the Democratic Party with Biden's pledge of defeating "white supremacists" as the chief slogan.

But what does the term "minority" mean in a democracy based on equal citizenship for all? The term minority denotes "less-ness" compared to the "more-ness" of another entity. However, how could one regard some citizens of a democratic state as "less" than other fellow citizens?

For from being progressive, in a democracy like the United States, dividing the citizens on the basis of ethnicity is a reactionary position that belongs to pre-modern societies. Ancient Greeks understood the difference between ethnos and demos. The term ethnos denoted community of customs and traditions of groups within society that, when coming together to create and operate a common space, would form a demos. The talk in the agora wasn't about ethnocracy but democracy. If that is all Greek to you, let us put it in plainer language. Ethnicity and similar terms in countless languages, terms such as tribe in modern European languages, caste in Indian languages, or "qawm" in Arabic and other Islamic tongues, describe human communities before the emergence of The People with a capital P. Thus, the United States is about "We the People," not "We the Minorities". Democracy is a melting pot, not a salad bar.

Progressivism is a secular religion rather than an ideology that could have its place in the competitive field of politics. Dividing citizens even on the basis of religious faiths can have no place in a democracy. Saint Augustine used the term "religare" (binding) to promote his Christianity as the highest, if not the sole, means of sustaining human societies. More recently, Pope Benedict XVI and German philosopher Jürgen Habermas echoed that belief in their project for "saving the Western civilization". However, many as far back as Cicero and Isidor of Seville preferred such terms as "natio" (common birth in a distinct land) and "relegere", which means a common reading, and hence agreement, on a set of rules to organize and administer the common space.

In American democratic secularism, the state is tasked with protecting religious, and by extension, other communities, but not of relying on them as component parts. The French version of secularism, known as laïcité, is designed to protect the state, and by extension the nation, against religion.

Progressive critics of the very concept of nationhood, notably the late Eric Hobsbawm, claimed that nations are "creations of bourgeois capitalism" to be dismantled by toiling classes led by the proletariat.

However, towards the end of his life, even Hobsbawm had to admit that the nation-state had much deeper and firmer roots than he had feared. The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, the first state in history not named after a nation, a dynasty or at least an ethnic group, had disintegrated, leaving its place to 15 nation-states.

Benedict Anderson stated that it was nationalism that created nations, not the other way round. That analysis may sound bizarre in the case of nations that emerged out of centuries-long dynastic gestation. But it may not be out of place in the case of America, which started as a space for settlers from England but was put on the way of becoming a nation by "founding fathers": Their "one nation under God" had the distinction of being the first constitutional democracy. Its motto became: Government of the People, by the People, for the People.

It may be amusing to deconstruct Senator Elizabeth Warren back to Pocahontas. But to deconstruct the American demos into a string of ethnos would not be.

In a democracy such as that of the United States, terms such as minority and majority can only have a political meaning. The majority is represented by a political party or program that has collected 50+1 percent or more votes in an election, facing minority or minorities that gathered fewer votes.

In such a system, majority and minority do not describe a permanent state of affairs. Today's majority could be tomorrow's minority.

To pretend that this or that Cabinet minister was chosen because of his or her skin color, religious faith or other "minority" attribution is certainly not a compliment. If the choice is based not on the individual's competence but on salad-bar considerations, it cannot be justified on democratic grounds. If, on the other hand, such considerations played no part in the choice, why make such a song-and-dance about "rainbowism" and progressive representation?

Salad-bar compositions cannot succeed even on their own stated terms. You bring in a Buddhist; why leave out Jehovah's Witnesses? You elevate a Tamil; why leave Bengalis sulking?

Including an Amerindian in the Cabinet for the first time catches the headlines. But it could also make my friend, an Arizona Amerindian of the P'mac tribe, wonder why his tribe didn't get there first.

Fortunately, we shall soon be back in the real world in which political figures are judged by what they do; not who they are in ethnocentric terms.

Again, fortunately, many members of the new Washington team have impressive academic and practical resumes. It is in everyone's interest to hope that they will see themselves not as figures in a game of ethnic tokenism but the servants of the American demos at a difficult time.

This article was originally published by Asharq al-Awsat

 

Amir Taheri was the executive editor-in-chief of the daily Kayhan in Iran from 1972 to 1979. He has worked at or written for innumerable publications, published eleven books, and has been a columnist for Asharq Al-Awsat since 1987. 

Source: https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/17013/washington-tokenism 

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Democrats, American Jews and Politically Correct Bigotry - Caroline Glick

 

​ by Caroline Glick

Rashida Tlaib promotes a new blood libel against the Jewish state

Israel is the world leader in COVID-19 vaccinations. By late January, more than 85 percent of Israelis over the age of 60 had completed the two-round vaccination process. If the vaccination drive continues apace, Israel will have completed the vaccination of its adult population by mid-March.

Many observers watch Israel’s breakneck vaccination drive with admiration. But several powerful anti-Semites are using Israel’s unmatched efforts to protect its population from the pandemic as a basis for spreading a new blood libel against the Jewish state.

Israel, its haters insist, is engaging in “vaccine apartheid.” Israel is “racist” for vaccinating its citizens—both Jewish and non-Jewish—before it vaccinates the Palestinians, who are governed by the Palestinian Authority.

Representative Rashida Tlaib is one of the most powerful voices promoting this new blood libel. In a recent interview, Tlaib said of Israel’s vaccination drive, “[Israelis] have the power to distribute that vaccine to the Palestinian people, their own neighbors.”

Israel’s non-vaccination of the Palestinians, she accused, “just reiterates what the Palestinian people and even human rights groups have been telling us, that this is an apartheid state.”

Tlaib’s claim, which was repeated by her anti-Israel colleagues Representatives Joaquin Castro and Jamaal Bowman, is false and intentionally defamatory. Israel hasn’t vaccinated the Palestinians for the same reason it hasn’t vaccinated the Egyptians or the French. Like the Egyptians and the French, the Palestinians have their own government and their own health ministry that is responsible for caring for them.

That isn’t to say that Israel hasn’t given the Palestinians a tremendous amount of assistance in battling COVID-19. It has.

Since the outbreak of the pandemic, and despite the fact that Israel has no responsibility for the Palestinians’ health care under the terms of the Oslo Accords, Israel has worked with the Palestinian Authority (PA) and the United Nations to train Palestinian medical personnel in testing and caring for COVID-19 patients. The PA opted not to join Israel in purchasing the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines as part of its boycott of the Israeli government. Instead, the PA decided to purchase Russia’s Sputnik-5 vaccines, and Israel was happy to facilitate their delivery.

Not only has the PA chosen not to work with Israel in vaccinating its own population, but it rejected COVID-19 protective gear that the United Arab Emirates (UAE) donated to its population because the UAE flight carrying the aid landed at Israel’s Ben Gurion Airport.

A sense of the depth and legitimacy of anti-Semitism in leftist circles in the U.S. and throughout the West today can be gleaned from the readiness of Tlaib’s fellow progressive lawmakers, leading “human rights” activists and media organizations to embrace her blood libel. Along with Bowman and Castro, and despite the fact that evidence abounds of Tlaib’s malicious dishonesty, groups like Human Rights Watch and media outlets like the BBC and were quick to jump on Tlaib’s anti-Semitic bandwagon and parrot her lie, rather than check its accuracy.

Inventing and disseminating blood libels against Israel is par for the course for Tlaib. The progressive congresswoman believes that Israel should cease to exist. Among other things, she is an avid supporter of the “Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions” (BDS) efforts against the Jewish state.

In America, the primary victims of BDS campaigns are American Jews who support Israel. On campuses and throughout progressive circles in America, pro-Israel American Jews are subjected daily to ostracism and harassment for daring to support Israel and embracing their Jewish identity.

Jewish students and professors have been driven from the public square on American campuses. According to a recent report by the AMCHA Initiative, which tracks on-campus anti-Semitism, Israel-related anti-Semitism now surpasses classical anti-Semitism on American university campuses.

Classical anti-Semitic attacks on Jews—including Nazi rhetoric, graffiti and slurs—dropped by 49 percent in 2019, while Israel-based anti-Semitic attacks increased by 59 percent over the same period. Since the COVID-19 lockdowns sent students to virtual campuses, progressive, anti-Israel-based anti-Semitism has dominated the anti-Semitic discourse at universities, and accounts for more that 90 percent of anti-Semitism in online learning environments.

As the Biden administration begins its term in office, the anti-Semites in its political camp are maneuvering to leverage their political power. They seek to end official efforts to combat their anti-Semitism—an effort rooted in a rejection of Jewish peoplehood and hatred of the Jewish state. To this end, they are lobbying the new administration to curtail the civil rights protections that the Trump administration previously provided for American Jews.

In late 2019, then-President Donald Trump signed an executive order extending Title VI protections of the Civil Rights Act to Jewish Americans. Trump’s executive order also adopted the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s (IHRA) 2016 definition of anti-Semitism and that definition’s examples of contemporary anti-Semitism as a basis for applying the law.

The IHRA definition’s examples of contemporary anti-Semitism include examples of anti-Semitism rooted in the political Right, which center on hating Jews as individuals. These include “making mendacious, dehumanizing, demonizing or stereotypical allegations about Jews as such, or the power of Jews as a collective—such as, especially but not exclusively, the myth about a world Jewish conspiracy or Jews controlling the media, economy, government or other societal institutions.”

The examples also include illustrations of anti-Semitism from the Left, which center on hating Jews as a collective people and Israel as the Jewish nation-state. The examples include, “denying the Jewish people their right to self-determination, e.g., by claiming the existence of the State of Israel is a racist endeavor”; requiring Israel to abide by standards of behavior “not expected or demanded of any other democratic nation”; “drawing comparisons of contemporary Israeli society to that of the Nazis”; and “holding Jews collectively responsible for actions of the State of Israel.”

These examples, which dismiss the common claim by Israel-haters like Tlaib and her colleagues that there is nothing bigoted about their position that the world’s largest Jewish community and only Jewish state—Israel—should be destroyed, and that its Jewish supporters in the U.S. should be ostracized and otherwise harassed, are now the target of a campaign to persuade the Biden administration to disavow the IHRA definition of anti-Semitism.

In recent weeks, outspoken anti-Israel campaigners and BDS supporters like Representative Ilhan Omar, former CNN commentator Marc Lamont Hill and New York Times columnist Peter Beinart have been pushing for the new administration to reject the IHRA definition and legitimize BDS. They have attacked Jewish Democratic groups like the Democratic Majority for Israel, as well as the vast majority of all American Jewish groups, led by the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations—all of which are urging the Biden administration to maintain the previous administration’s policies.

These efforts are being driven both by overtly anti-Israel, nominally Jewish groups like IfNotNow and Jewish Voice for Peace, and by ostensibly “pro-Israel” progressive Jewish groups, including Peace Now, J Street, T’ruah and the New Israel Fund. The AMCHA Initiative report found that since 2019, 44 percent of efforts to discredit the IHRA definition of anti-Semitism were carried out by these and other like-minded Jewish-run groups.

All of these groups are calling for the Biden administration to disavow the IHRA definition of anti-Semitism and its examples of contemporary anti-Semitism as a legal tool for combating anti-Semitism. IfNotNow is running a social media campaign, as well, to lobby the Biden administration to appoint an official special envoy to monitor and combat anti-Semitism who will simply ignore leftist anti-Semitism. As the group put it in a recent Twitter post, “It is important for us to demand that [President Biden] appoint someone to the special envoy to monitor and combat anti-Semitism who’ll be committed to fighting neo-Nazis and white nationalists, not Palestinians and students.”

It is a peculiar thing to see ostensibly Jewish groups dedicating their efforts to removing legal protections against anti-Jewish discrimination from their fellow Jews. It is a mark of the corruption of the American Jewish far Left that this is what they wish to fight for today. But even more disconcerting is the anti-Semitic disposition of large swaths of the Democratic Party. Democratic activist circles are now dominated by anti-Semitic voices from the Left who denounce Israel and its supporters. The effort by progressive Jewish groups to deny civil rights protection to pro-Israel Jews is indicative of the prevailing winds in the Democratic Party. Progressive Jews believe that to remain relevant in their party, they must fill the role of Jewish fig leaves for their party’s anti-Semitic activist base.

This then brings us to the object of their lobbying efforts—President Joe Biden. Wednesday was International Holocaust Remembrance Day. To mark the occasion, Biden released a strong statement decrying anti-Semitism. Arguably more significant, however, is the fact that Trump’s executive order on anti-Semitism has been scrubbed from the Biden White House’s website.

Originally published in Newsweek.com.

 

Caroline Glick  

Source: http://carolineglick.com/democrats-american-jews-and-politically-correct-bigotry/ 

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