Former US attorney: Flynn case was 'manipulated' at highest levels of Obama admin to go after Trump - David Montanaro

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by David Montanaro 

Can Michael Flynn sue for malicious prosecution?

Former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn's rights were violated and he should consider a lawsuit against the Department of Justice and former Obama administration officials, former U.S. attorney Brett Tolman said Friday on "Fox & Friends."

"That's why there is an action called a Bivens action. That is to go after a federal investigator that violates someone's constitutional rights. It's specific for that occasion and I hope is he looking at it strongly," said Tolman, an attorney who served as a federal prosecutor in Utah from 2006 to 2009.

Flynn’s lawyers said this week that newly uncovered notes from former FBI official Peter Strzok indicate then-FBI Director James Comey appeared to downplay Flynn’s calls during the presidential transition with Russia's ambassador as “legit” during a meeting where then-President Barack Obama and then-Vice President Joe Biden also weighed in.

BIDEN SAYS HE WAS 'AWARE' OF MICHAEL FLYNN PROBE DURING TRANSITION

The handwritten notes, purportedly penned by Strzok, were submitted by Flynn’s legal team on Wednesday as part of his court case, after acting U.S. Attorney Michael Sherwin and the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia shared them with his attorneys.

Video

On Wednesday, after a federal appeals court ordered Flynn’s case be dismissed, Powell filed the notes and claimed they produced “further stunning and exculpatory evidence” that was previously withheld from Flynn. Tolman concurred, saying that it points to the highest levels of the FBI, including former Director James Comey and his deputy, Andrew McCabe.

READ: TRANSCRIPTS OF FLYNN-KISLYAK CONVERSATIONS DURING TRUMP TRANSITION

"That should concern everyone that they still, somehow, found a way to manipulate a case and bring it when they deemed his underlying action as being legitimate," said Tolman, explaining that McCabe "saved the case from being dismissed."

"Why does he do it? Because there is an absolute effort - call it collusion, conspiracy, whatever you want to say -- that now we know goes as high as the vice president and the president. To not only withhold information about the investigation to the incoming president, but to go after the incoming president through their incoming national security adviser on an investigation that did not have a foundation to it," he argued.

"That's why they continued to prosecute him. Because they were doing what they could to try to prevent Donald Trump from getting into the Oval Office."

Fox News' Brooke Singman contributed to this report.


David Montanaro

Source: https://www.foxnews.com/media/tolman-flynn-case-manipulated-fbi-obama-biden

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Revealed: Obama Effort to ‘Evolve’ Explanation of Benghazi Attack - Tom Fitton

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by Tom Fitton

The records were produced in response to our 2016 Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit (Judicial Watch v. U.S. Department of Justice)

It’s hard to keep your story straight if you’re making it up as you go along, which was the modus operandi of Obama fabricator Ben Rhodes.

The Justice Department released 80 pages of records showing top Obama White House officials scrambling to “evolve” its false claims that the September 11, 2012, terrorist attacks on U.S. Government facilities in Benghazi, Libya, began “spontaneously” in response to an anti-Muslim video on the Internet.

The emails reveal top Obama White House official Ben Rhodes and Clinton State Department Deputy Chief of Staff Jake Sullivan joking about being called “liars” and “leakers.”

The records were produced in response to our 2016 Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit (Judicial Watch v. U.S. Department of Justice (No. 1:16-cv-02046)). We filed the lawsuit after the Justice Department failed to comply with a July 7, 2016, FOIA request for records of the FBI’s investigation of former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server during her tenure.

On September 16, 2012, then-U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice appeared on five Sunday television talk shows claiming the Benghazi attack was incited spontaneously by an anti-Muslim Internet video. The newly released records show a redacted official’s email from September 27 to then-Deputy National Security Advisor Ben Rhodes and then-NSC spokesman Tommy Vietor, copying then-Deputy Chief of Staff Jake Sullivan, saying, “What’s the plan here?” Rhodes responds:

Broader plan is IC [intelligence community] acknowledgement of an evolving assessment of what took place, which happens to be true (unlike just about everything else we’ve seen reported on Benghazi.)

Further along in the email thread, an official whose name is redacted, says, “Everyone know [sic] Susan [in her TV appearances] was using not just IC approved guidance, but IC created.”

Additionally, Rhodes says to Sullivan and other redacted officials:

At least you’re only a liar. Could be worse – we’re liars and also allegedly leakers. So you’ve got that going for you, which is something.

Sullivan replies: “We’re only lying footsoldiers [sic]. You’re lying masterminds. That’s cooler.”

A redacted official replies to Sullivan: “I prefer that we go by henchmen. Has more of a Marvel comic sinisterness to it. There should be a cable show where all the guests, and the anchor, have to wear polygraphs. Or, when there’s a dispute between source, the aggrieved parties take a poly, with some neutral third party rendering judgment. The Biggest Liar.”

Rhodes says to Sullivan: “I’d like to go on television and tell everybody what I think…. Look at it this way. I[t] could be worse. You could be a career bureaucrat whose greatest thrill in life is leaking half-truths, self-justifications and outright lies to the likes of Eli Lake, Kim Dozier, and whoever picks up the phone at Fox News.”

We previously uncovered that on September 14 Rhodes and other Obama administration officials were attempting to orchestrate a campaign to “reinforce” President Obama and to portray the Benghazi consulate terrorist attack as being “rooted in an Internet video, and not a failure of policy.” Also included were numerous emails sent during the assault on the Benghazi diplomatic facility. The contemporaneous and dramatic emails describe the assault as an “attack:”

September 11, 2012, 6:41 PM – Senior Advisor Eric Pelofsky, to Susan Rice:

As reported, the Benghazi compound came under attack and it took a bit of time for the ‘Annex’ colleagues and Libyan February 17 brigade to secure it. One of our colleagues was killed – IMO Sean Smith. Amb Chris Stevens, who was visiting Benghazi this week is missing.  U.S. and Libyan colleagues are looking for him…

At 8:51 pm, Pelofsky tells Rice and others that “Post received a call from a person using an [sic] RSO phone that Chris was given saying the caller was with a person matching Chris’s description at a hospital and that he was alive and well.  Of course, if he were alive and well, one could ask why he didn’t make the call himself.”

Later that evening, Pelofsky emailed Rice that he was “very, very worried.  In particular that he [Stevens] is either dead or this was a concerted effort to kidnap him.”  Rice replied, “God forbid.”

The new records show a December 2, 2015, communication from NASA Regional Counterintelligence Director Arthur Payton to the FBI Counterintelligence Division in which Payton returns a review of evidence obtained in the course of the FBI investigation of Clinton’s email server, specifically, a “classification and determination review.” The contents of the classification review and determination were not included among the records released.

In an April 20, 2016, memorandum from Robert Zanger, of DOJ’s Office of Records Management and Policy, to Peter Strzok memorializing an earlier request by Strzok, Zanger indicates that Strzok had requested that DOJ produce “‘all electronic and transactional records between any @clintonemail.com email account’ and thirty-nine (39) specified DOJ email accounts …’” Strzok also asked the DOJ for a “general, or gateway, search of its [DOJ’s] systems for any other electronic and transactional records involving the identified external e-mail domain [@clintonemail.com].” The April 20 memo indicates DOJ complied with the request, saying, “JMD  [Justice Management Division] searched for any appearance of the @clintonemail.com domain in the electronic information (including emails and documents) of current and departed named custodians from the components for which JMD maintains electronic information. JMD located a small number of documents, but no email between the @clintonemail.com domain and any named custodian.” The memo notes that JMD had other DOJ components search their records too, and that:

The Civil Division located nine documents containing the term @clintonemail.com. A review of the content of the nine records by the Civil Division confirmed that the responses were related to the Division’s handling of Freedom of Information Act litigation, not communications between the custodian and the @clintonemail.com domain.

The memo noted that while it conducted a search of DOJ’s email gateway server for any email between DOJ email accounts and the @clintonemail.com domain, “The server log is maintained for a period of two years. [Emphasis added] JMD performed a search [April 2016] in the JMD-managed Email Gateway Server Log for the @clintonemail.com domain covering the period of 2/3/14 to 2/3/16 and found no email to or from the @clintonemail.com domain. [By the time this search was conducted, and no records were found, Clinton had been out of office as secretary of state since January 2013, a period of three years and three months.]

In a January 28, 2016, memo from Peter Strzok to the Counterespionage Group at the CIA, Strzok says that – due to a Section 811(c) referral under the Intelligence Authorization Act from the Intelligence Community Inspector General relating to the unauthorized release of classified information – the FBI is requesting a copy of a document, the title of which is redacted. Strzok notes that, “The assessment was provided to the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI), the National Security Council (NSC) and to the Department of State (DoS) in, or around, October of 2009.”

In connection with an apparent response to the above “Request for Records,” an FBI memo dated June 27, 2016, indicates that the CIA provided the document sought. The synopsis of the memo reads: “CIA response to FBI LHM [Letterhead Memo] dated January 28, 2016 regarding a document request.” The memo further notes: “[redacted] document attached to CIOL [apparently referring to a Counterintelligence Operations Letter].”

Joking about being called ‘liars’ after being caught lying about the Benghazi terrorist attack says a lot about the Obama-Clinton team’s contempt for the rule of law and those four innocent Americans murdered in Libya September 11, 2012. The documents also show that Ben Rhodes, the Obama White House official who created the false story for Susan Rice to use on Benghazi, was planning to orchestrate again an ‘evolving’ explanation about the Benghazi attack by the Intelligence Community in time for then-President Obama’s reelection.  You can see how this manipulation is a prelude to Obama’s extensive abuse of the “intelligence community” during the next election to go after President Trump!


Tom Fitton

Source: https://www.judicialwatch.org/

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AG Barr is under attack by most of the media and other Democrats because they believe Obama admin criminals are above the law. - Jack Hellner

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by Jack Hellner

The Justice Department had been politicized throughout the Obama administration and no one in the mainstream media cared.

Most of the media and other Democrats are out to destroy AG Barr because they claim he has politicized the Justice Department, but that is clearly not true. 

The Justice Department had been politicized throughout the Obama administration and no one in the mainstream media cared. 

Eric Holder committed perjury more than once, was never charged, and called himself as Obama’s “wingman.” and most of the media and other Democrats didn’t care.

Eric Holder: 'I'm still the president's wingman'

Most of the media and other Democrats were not mad that Hillary Clinton and her aides got off for their crimes. They were mad that Comey told the public the crimes she committed. 

James Comey exonerates Hillary Clinton, July 5, 2016 (YouTube screen grab)

There were no hearings by Democrats on the politicization of the Justice Department.

F.B.I. Director James Comey Recommends No Charges for Hillary Clinton on Email

Most of the media and other Democrats or career prosecutors and former Justice officials did not demand that AG Loretta Lynch resign when she met with Bill Clinton a few days before a pretend interview with Hillary. Of course, Lynch wanted any investigation into Hillary’s crimes termed as “matters” instead of an “investigation.” That shows candidate Clinton was going to get off no matter how many crimes she committed.

Bill Clinton and Loretta Lynch describe their infamous “tarmac meeting”

There was no outrage and there were no resignations when the FBI railroaded General Michael Flynn. In fact, the media and Democrats are angry that this innocent man, who was financially destroyed by the vengeful, corrupt FBI and Justice Department officials, is finally receiving justice.

Why dismiss the Flynn case? Because the FBI can't prove it

This should be a big story, but most of the media and other Democrats won’t care that Obama and Biden were deeply involved in the targeted attack on Flynn. It is clear that Obama was deeply involved with the Justice Department during his entire term, as the media pretended that it was independent. There was little concern about the rule of law.

Explosive New FBI Notes Confirm Obama Directed Anti-Flynn Operation

The media is too busy campaigning for Biden and seeking to destroy Trump to cover this bombshell of a story. 

After all, Stone only got forty months and Bolton has a book. They are also spending every day trying to keep the country in a depression to help Biden win. 

The reason that Barr is being attacked every day is because he and Durham are seeking the truth and the media and other Democrats have been lying continuously and don’t want the truth to come out. They certainly don’t care about the rule of law and equal treatment under the law. 

If anyone wants to see how massive and extensive corruption at the Justice Department has been for a long time, read the book Licensed to Lie by the great Sidney Powell, who finally got justice for a decorated retired General. I thought the media and other democrats said all generals should be respected.

Licensed to Lie: Exposing Corruption in the Department of Justice

In Licensed to Lie, attorney Sidney Powell takes readers through a series of disturbing events, missteps, and cover‐ups in our federal criminal justice system. According to Powell, the malfeasance stretches across all three branches of our government — from the White House to the U.S. Senate, to members of the judiciary. Even worse, the law itself is becoming pernicious. Americans can now be prosecuted, convicted, and imprisoned for actions that are not crimes. And if acquitted, there is no recourse against prosecutors who hid evidence vital to the defense. Join us for a discussion of these distressing legal trends and what might be done about them.

So, the next time Democrat campaign workers posing as journalists and other Democrats claim they care about the rule of law, equal treatment under the law, the Constitution, separation of powers or the politicization of the Justice Department, everyone should recognize they don’t mean it. All they care about is getting a Democrat elected as president so they can infect the public with radical leftist policies that will enrich powerful politicians and career bureaucrats and absolutely decimate our freedom and prosperity. 

Jack Hellner

Source: https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2020/06/ag_barr_is_under_attack_by_most_of_the_media_and_other_democrats_because_they_believe_obama_admin_criminals_are_above_the_law.html

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Modern Slavery and Woke Hypocrisy - Judith Bergman

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by Judith Bergman

There are currently an estimated 9.2 million black slaves in Africa. Slavery, according to the index, includes forced labor, forced sexual exploitation and forced marriage. — Global Slavery Index, 2018.

• There are an estimated 136,000 people living in modern slavery just in Britain. Slavery in the UK takes the form of forced labor, and domestic and sexual exploitation. Albanians and Vietnamese are among the groups that constitute the majority of slaves. — Global Slavery Index, 2018.
• There are currently an estimated 9.2 million black slaves in Africa. Slavery, according to the index, includes forced labor, forced sexual exploitation and forced marriage. — Global Slavery Index, 2018.
• "According to the U.N.'s International Labor Organization (ILO), there are more than three times as many people in forced servitude today as were captured and sold during the 350-year span of the transatlantic slave trade", Time Magazine March 14, 2019.
• Modern slavery earns criminal networks an estimated $150 billion a year, just slightly less than drug smuggling and weapons trafficking.
• "G-20 countries import some $354 billion worth of products at risk of being produced by modern slavery every year". — Global Slavery Index, 2018.
• One Malian slave, Raichatou, told the Guardian in 2013 that she became a slave at the age of seven when her mother, also a slave, died. "My father could only watch on helplessly as my mother's master came to claim me and my brothers," she said. She worked as a servant for the family without pay for nearly 20 years, and was forced into a marriage with another slave whom she didn't know, so that she could supply her master with more slaves.

While Black Lives Matter (BLM) and its sycophants endlessly debate changing the names of streets and removing statues, they ignore the staggering 40 million victims of actual slavery in the world today, including an estimated 9.2 million men, women and children currently enslaved in Africa. Pictured: Vandals attempt to pull down the statue of US President Andrew Jackson in Lafayette Square, on June 22, 2020, near the White House in Washington, DC. (Photo by Tasos Katopodis/Getty Images)

The news has been filled with reports about Black Lives Matter (BLM) supporters vandalizing and tearing down statues of slave traders, slave owners, and anyone who they perceive as having been historically involved with slavery. In Bristol, England, a statue of the slave trader Edward Colston was pulled down and thrown into the harbor. In Belgium, statues of King Leopold were defaced.

The actions have caused some local authorities to consider whether all statues perceived as offending current sensibilities should be removed. The London Mayor Sadiq Khan announced a commission to examine the future of landmarks, such as statues and street names, in the UK capital.

What is not apparent is how attacking old statues of people who have been long dead is supposed to help anyone, especially millions of black and non-black people, who are still enslaved today. It would appear that the woke activists of BLM and their many kneeling supporters do not care about the plight of modern slaves, of which there are an estimated whopping 40 million today. Evidently, it is far easier, and presumably more pleasurable, to destroy Western historical monuments than to embark on the difficult work of actually abolishing modern slavery.

In the UK itself, there is a shocking range of modern slavery, something that the local wokesters are happy to ignore as they bravely attack statues of stone and metal. According to the UK government's 2019 Annual Report on Modern Slavery, there are at least 13,000 potential victims of slavery in the UK, although as that number dates back to 2014, it is questionable. According to the 2018 Global Slavery Index, there are an estimated 136,000 people living in modern slavery just in Britain.

Slavery in the UK takes the form of forced labor, and domestic and sexual exploitation. Albanians and Vietnamese are among the groups that constitute the majority of slaves. British news outlets have run several stories about the estimated thousands of Vietnamese, half under the age of 18, who are kidnapped and trafficked to the UK where they are forced to work as slaves on cannabis farms. There, they form a small part of the "vast criminal machine that supplies Britain's £2.6bn cannabis black market". Those who are not forced to work in the cannabis industry are enslaved in "nail bars, brothels and restaurants, or kept in domestic servitude behind the doors of private residences". In January, BBC news ran a story about a Vietnamese boy named Ba, who was kidnapped by a Chinese gang and trafficked to the UK, where his Chinese boss starved him and beat him whenever one of the cannabis plants failed.

BLM may not care much about Vietnamese lives in the UK -- after all, they are all about black lives, so how about black slaves in Africa? There are currently an estimated 9.2 million men, women and children living in modern slavery in Africa, according to the Global Slavery Index, which includes forced labor, forced sexual exploitation and forced marriage.

"According to the U.N.'s International Labor Organization (ILO), there are more than three times as many people in forced servitude today as were captured and sold during the 350-year span of the transatlantic slave trade", Time Magazine reported in March 2019. According to the ILO, modern slavery has seen 25 million people in debt bondage and 15 million in forced marriage.

Modern slavery earns criminal networks an estimated $150 billion a year, just slightly less than drug smuggling and weapons trafficking. "Modern slavery is far and away more profitable now than at any point in human history," Siddharth Kara, an economist at the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy, told Time. According to the 2018 Global Slavery Index, "G-20 countries import some $354 billion worth of products at risk of being produced by modern slavery every year".

In 2017, shocking footage emerged from actual slave auctions in Libya: CNN documented an incident in which Arabic-speaking men sold off twelve Nigerians. In 2019, Time Magazine interviewed an African migrant, Iabarot, who had been sold into slavery on his way to Europe:

"When Iabarot reached Libya's southern border, he met a seemingly friendly taxi driver who offered to drive him to the capital city, Tripoli, for free. Instead, he was sold to a 'white Libyan,' or Arab, for $200. He was forced to work off his 'debt' on a construction site, a pattern that repeated each time he was sold and resold."

Sex trafficking forms a considerable part of modern slavery. The Nigerian mafia, for instance, according to a 2019 report by the Washington Post, is trafficking women by the tens of thousands:

"Some experts say that as many as 20,000 Nigerian women, some of them minors, arrived in Sicily between 2016 and 2018, trafficked in cooperation with Nigerians in Italy and back home."

According to a July 2017 report by the UN's International Organization for Migration (IOM):

"Over the past three years, IOM Italy has seen an almost 600 per cent increase in the number of potential sex trafficking victims arriving in Italy by sea. This upward trend has continued during the first six months of 2017, with most victims arriving from Nigeria". In its report, IOM estimated that 80 per cent of girls, often minors, arriving from Nigeria -- whose numbers soared dramatically from 1,454 in 2014 to 11,009 in 2016 -- were "potential victims of trafficking for sexual exploitation".

In parts of the African continent, especially in the Sahel, slavery is still ingrained in traditional culture, even though, officially, slavery has been outlawed. In countries such as Mali and Mauritania, so-called descent-based slavery or "caste-based" slavery -- in which slavery is passed down from generation to generation, so that slaves are born into their predicament -- is still practiced by some.

In 2013, it was estimated that around 250,000 people were living in slave-like conditions in Mali, where slavery is not illegal. One Malian slave, Raichatou, told the Guardian in 2013 that she became a slave at the age of seven when her mother, also a slave, died. "My father could only watch on helplessly as my mother's master came to claim me and my brothers," she said. She worked as a servant for the family without pay for nearly 20 years, and was forced into a marriage with another slave whom she didn't know, so that she could supply her master with more slaves.

In Mauritania, it is estimated that up to 20% of the population is enslaved, even though slavery was officially outlawed in 1981. The slaves are mostly from the Haratine minority, who are black Africans, as opposed to the nearly half of the population who are Arabs or Berbers. According to a report by the Guardian from 2018:

"Slavery has a long history in this north African desert nation. For centuries, Arabic-speaking Moors raided African villages, resulting in a rigid caste system that still exists to this day, with darker-skinned inhabitants beholden to their lighter-skinned "masters". Slave status is passed down from mother to child, and anti-slavery activists are regularly tortured and detained. Yet the government routinely denies that slavery exists in Mauritania, instead praising itself for eradicating the practice."

The report also described a few of the horrific fates of the Haratine slaves:

"Aichetou Mint M'barack was a slave by descent in the Rosso area. Like her sister, she was taken away from her mother and then given to a member of the master's family to be a servant. She got married in the home of her masters and had eight children, two of whom were taken away from her to be slaves in other families. In 2010, Aichetou's older sister was able to free her... after she herself fled her masters when they poured hot embers over her baby, killing it."

BLM and the many corporate executives, university professors, media, sports and cultural personalities who are bending their knees to the movement seem totally unconcerned by the fates of the likes of Aichetou. More likely than not, they have never heard of her or her many fellow sufferers. They are apparently black lives that do not matter -- to anyone except the courageous people working in the local anti-slavery organizations.

Instead, BLM and its sycophants endlessly debate changing the names of streets and universities, and removing statues, all of which do not amount to anything more than infantile virtue signaling. They waste time debating whether people who were never themselves slaves, should receive reparations from people who never owned a slave.

To engage in all this posturing, while ignoring the staggering 40 million current victims of actual slavery, not only represents the immeasurable depths of woke hypocrisy, but constitutes an extreme insult to those who are suffering their slavery in silence, while slowly dying from the physical, sexual and emotional abuse that they are being forced to endure. If anything is "offensive," it is that.

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

Source: https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/16152/modern-slavery

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Ami Horowitz Video: Do Black Lives Really Matter to the Left? - Ami Horowitz

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by Ami Horowitz

Ami travels to the leftist East Village and to Harlem to learn the haunting answer.

In his latest short video, filmmaker Ami Horowitz goes to the leftist East Village as well as to Harlem to find out if black lives really matter to the Left. What he learns reveals just how much progressives care about the values they claim to champion. Check it out below:




Ami Horowitz

Source: https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2020/06/do-black-lives-really-matter-left-ami-horowitz/

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Progressive Jews Defend Black Lives Matter Movement - Jospeh Klein

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by Joseph Klein

Turning a blind eye to Jew-hatred.

The Union for Reform Judaism (URJ) issued a statement on June 12^th declaring that "Black Lives Matter is a Jewish Value.” It also issued what it called a “primer” on the Black Lives Matter movement (BLM) and its principles. It tried to explain away the hateful language leaders of the Black Lives Matter movement and its partner The Movement for Black Lives have used to attack the Jewish State of Israel, including the Movement for Black Lives’ platform back in 2016 referring to Israel’s actions against the Palestinians as “genocide.”

“In general, no one organization or platform speaks for the Black Lives Matter movement,” said the URJ primer. “Among the prominent entities working to end systemic racism and white supremacy in the United States are organizations named the ‘Movement for Black Lives’ and ‘Black Lives Matter.’ As with the many Jewish communal organizations that exist, each has its own base of support with some overlap, and none speaks for the Black Lives Matter movement overall.” (Emphasis in the original)

In other words, according to URJ and other progressive Jewish organizations and leaders, nobody is responsible for whatever is said and done in the name of the Black Lives Matter movement. It’s just an “idea,” says URJ.

Should Jews just forget about the desecration of synagogues and damage to Jewish-owned businesses during Black Lives Matter “protests” because, in URJ’s words, “none speaks for the Black Lives Matter movement overall?” Absolutely not. As the Yiddish proverb says, “A half truth is a whole lie.” The Black Lives Matter movement may be decentralized but it does have leaders who speak in its name and must be held accountable for encouraging acts of violence, including against Jewish targets.

The president of Black Lives Matter of  Greater New York,  Hawk Newsome, said during an interview on June 24^th that “If this country doesn’t give us what we want, then we will burn down this system and replace it.” Does this represent the kind of “Jewish Value” that the Union for Reform Judaism had in mind when it declared that “Black Lives Matter is a Jewish Value?”

Newsome said last year that he approves of Antifa’s use of violence because, he claimed, they are "protecting us from racist, right wingers who don't have a problem using violence.” When he was asked how Antifa’s assault of people like the journalist Andy Ngo could be justified, he responded, “What has America ever achieved through peaceful means?”  Is the endorsement by a key Black Lives Matter leader of fascist-style violence by Antifa a “Jewish Value” that the Union for Reform Judaism would also endorse?

The desecration of Los Angeles synagogues and defiling with anti-Semitic slogans of a statue of Raoul Wallenberg, the Swedish diplomat who saved thousands of Hungarian Jews from the Nazis, occurred during a “protest” on May 30 organized by the Black Lives Matter movement. Melina Abdullah, who was among the original group of organizers who convened to form Black Lives Matter, also co-founded the Los Angeles chapter of Black Lives Matter which she continues to lead. Abdullah boasted on May 31st. "We've been very deliberate in saying that the violence and pain and hurt that's experienced on a daily basis by black folks at the hands of a repressive system should also be visited upon, to a degree, to those who think that they can just retreat to white affluence."

Such "pain" was inflicted upon the congregants of the Baba Sale Congregation on Fairfax Avenue in Los Angeles and other synagogues that were spray painted with the letters “BLM.” Congregation Beth Israel was vandalized with graffiti stating “free Palestine” and “f— Israel.”

Progressive Jews, wracked by guilt over their white privileged status, still have their eyes shut. They are willing to excuse whatever “violence” and “pain” Black Lives Matter decides to commit as revenge against “white affluence.”

Yonathan Reches, a writer for Jewish Journal and member of the progressive Jewish IKAR Community, rationalized the attacks on Los Angeles synagogues during the Black Lives Matter organized “protests” this way: “As frightful as that reality may be to those of us who benefit from the American concept of property rights, we cannot deny that this is a natural response to a system that has made it impossible for communities of color to liberate themselves by peaceful means. After five centuries of unfathomable subjugation — most especially of the native and black communities — one would think that our society would recognize their undisputed moral authority to call attention to their own oppression…The safety of our houses of worship is entirely connected with the alignment of our community on the right side of this issue and of history.”

In other words, the Jewish community must align itself with the BLM’s notion of the “right side of history” or face the destruction of Jewish places of worship and businesses reminiscent of  Kristallnacht. But not to worry. “Black Lives Matter is a Jewish Value” according to the Union for Reform Judaism.

A New York-based leftwing group called " Jews For Racial & Economic Justice” is an eager supporter of Black Lives Matter’s agenda, including the defunding of the police. The group co-organized a rally and march on June 25^th to “#RiseUp to demand New York City Council and Mayor Bill de Blasio #defundNYPD and invest in our communities.”

Jews For Racial & Economic Justice have taken their support for Black Lives Matter to such an extreme level that it collaborated with other activists to create a Haggadah supplement for Passover dedicated to Black Lives Matter. In addition to the usual Black Lives Matter agitprop, this supplement included a reworked version of the traditional Passover song Dayenu that includes the following line: “If we had learned and chanted the words from Assata Shakur and not protested violence by militarized police — Lo Dayenu “

Assata Shakur is a former member of the Black Liberation Army, who was convicted of being an accomplice in the first-degree murder of State Trooper Werner Foerster during a shootout on the New Jersey. She managed to escape to Cuba. Among her quotes not included in the Black Lives Matter friendly version of Dayenu: “When Black people seriously organize and take up arms to fight for our liberation, there will be a lot of white people who will drop dead from no other reason than their own guilt and fear.”

In 2018, Jews For Racial & Economic Justice conducted a Juneteenth Seder, which included having “four cups, Assata’s Cups, in honor of Black power freedom fighter Assata Shakur.” Ahmad Sa'adat, the General Secretary of the Marxist-Leninist Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, is just as admiring of Shakur. “We salute sister Assata Shakur, still struggling and free in Cuba, while facing renewed threats and ‘terrorist’ labeling to justify hunting down this global symbol of freedom,” he wrote in an essay entitled “Prisons, the Black Liberation Movement, and the Struggle for Palestine.”

The Palestinian activists who want to destroy the Jewish State of Israel are linking their cause to the Black Lives Matter movement. The BDS National Committee, which describes itself as the largest coalition in Palestinian society that leads the global BDS movement, declared shortly after the killing of George Floyd: “Just as the occupying Israeli military forces serve to further entrench the apartheid system against Palestinians, the US police forces only serve to further entrench the system of American white supremacy and privilege…We can’t breathe until we’re free from oppression and racism. #BlackLivesMatter.”

Is this what the Union for Reform Judaism had in mind when it declared, “Black Lives Matter is a Jewish Value?” Rabbi Rick Jacobs, president of the Union for Reform Judaism, does not appreciate being confronted with the truth about the Black Lives Matter movement’s radical leadership and agenda. In fact, he and other progressive Jewish leaders do not brook dissent from their uncritical defense of the Black Lives Matter movement. They have targeted the Zionist Organization of America (ZOA), led by Mort Klein, who committed the cardinal “sin” of tweeting that Black Lives Matter “is a Jew hating, White hating, Israel hating” extremist organization.

As punishment for such heresy, Rabbi Jacobs and other pro-Black Lives Matter Jewish leaders want to expel ZOA from the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, which describes itself as “the preeminent forum where diverse segments of the Jewish community come together in mutual respect to deliberate vital national and international issues.” Rabbi Jacobs’ rationale for wanting ZOA expelled is that ZOA’s continued membership would mean “we are now implicated by his views, his Islamophobia, his racism, full stop. Black Lives Matter is at the center of one of the most critical fights for justice in our country.”

No self-respecting Jew should be allowed to question the Black Lives Matter movement’s good intentions if Rabbi Jacobs and his ilk had their way. In other words, hiding the truth about the Black Lives Matter movement is now more important to these progressive Jews than standing up for the Jewish peoples’ sacred places of worship and their homeland. These progressives forget that the real Jewish value is that all lives are precious.

Photo: Jewish Journal

Joseph Klein

Source: https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2020/06/progressive-jews-defend-black-lives-matter-joseph-klein/

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China's Undeclared War on India - Vijeta Uniyal

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by Vijeta Uniyal

The Free World, if it wishes to remain free, seriously needs to stand with the world's largest democracy.

• China's artificial islands in the South China Sea -- equipped with military bases, naval ports and airfields -- pose a strategic threat to neighboring countries. In 2018, China landed nuclear strike-capable bombers on these artificial islands, sending an alarming message to the U.S. and regional powers.
• Some commentators ascribe China's stepped-up predations -- on Hong Kong, the Philippines, Japan, Indonesia, South Korea and Australia -- to a hope that the world is too distracted by the coronavirus pandemic and the economic devastation it unleashed to bother confronting China, let alone stop it.
• While the U.S. has decreased its nuclear stockpile, China is boosting its arsenal, according to a report released by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute on June 15.
• The Free World, if it wishes to remain free, seriously needs to stand with the world's largest democracy. If China is allowed to succeed in its aggression, it will only embolden the Communists in Beijing to redraw borders, dictate terms to other countries in the region, and press on with its plan to dominate the world.

India has been facing its toughest military challenge in nearly six decades after 20 Indian soldiers were reported beaten to death by Chinese troops in a border clash. Pictured: An Indian army convoy drives towards Leh, on a highway bordering China, on June 19, 2020 in Gagangir, India. (Photo by Yawar Nazir/Getty Images)

India has been facing its toughest military challenge in nearly six decades after 20 Indian soldiers were reported killed by Chinese troops in a border clash.

The soldiers were beaten to death with "sticks, fists, rocks and wooden clubs" during a confrontation in the Himalayan region of eastern Ladakh, Indian sources said. In keeping with a 1996 bilateral border agreement between India and China, soldiers are forbidden from firing weapons in the area where the clash occurred.

Chinese troops carried out a "premeditated and planned action that was directly responsible for the resulting violence and casualties", Indian Foreign Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar said on June 17.

"Based on what I know, Chinese side also suffered casualties," tweeted the editor-in-chief of the Chinese newspaper Global Times, a Communist Party mouthpiece.

"Indian intercepts reveal that Chinese side suffered 43 casualties including dead and seriously injured in the violent face-off," New Delhi-based Hindustan Times newspaper reported that military sources had said..

Beijing, so far, has not confirmed these figures.

The conflict between the two nuclear-armed powers reignited last month after 12,000 Chinese troops crossed into Indian territory. In May, China's People's Liberation Army invaded the strategic Galwan Valley, located near India's northern tip, and occupied over 23 square miles of territory, Indian media reported. "[T]he capture of Galwan river valley provides the PLA strategic domination over positions overlooking India's Darbuk-Shyok-Daulat Beg Oldi (DSDBO) road, which connects Leh to the Karakoram Pass," the Indian news website Print reported.

In the India-China war of 1962, Chinese troops occupied nearly 15,000 square miles of Indian territory. China still refuses to recognize large parts of its 2,100 mile-long border with India, and has been demanding an additional 35,000 square miles of territory in India's northeastern region.
Faced with an invasion of strategic heights and the brutal deaths of its soldiers, India is under pressure to respond to Chinese aggression. Prime Minister Narendra Modi vowed on June 17 to "firmly protect every inch of the country's land and its self-respect" in face of Chinese incursion. "I want to assure the Nation that the sacrifice made by our soldiers will not go in vain," Modi said. "India's integrity and sovereignty is supreme for us, and no one can stop us from defending it. Nobody should have an iota of doubt about this."

Chinese aggression comes as India is in the grip of the coronavirus pandemic. The country has reported around to 12,000 deaths and 366,946 cases of the virus, which first surfaced in Wuhan, China late last year.

Some western commentators have argued that China's bullying is an attempt to punish Indian for deepening strategic ties with the United States. "Chinese troops pushed over the border into India last month amid border clashes as Beijing looks to slap down Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi over his ever-closer relationship with the United States," Britain's Daily Telegraph wrote on June 12.
Still other commentators ascribe China's stepped-up predations -- on Hong Kong, the Philippines, Japan, Indonesia, South Korea and Australia -- to a hope that the world is too distracted by the coronavirus pandemic and the economic devastation it unleashed to bother confronting China, let alone stop it.

In 2019, India upgraded its participation in the US-Australia-India-Japan Consultations ("The Quad"). This Indo-Pacific alliance offers a counterweight to China's growing naval and military build-up in the region.

Earlier this month, India and Australia signed a series of defense agreements boosting naval cooperation between the two countries. A military logistics agreement, signed as part of a bilateral "Comprehensive Strategic Partnership", gives the Indian Navy "strategic access deep into the Indo-Pacific region," The Times of India newspaper reported. The agreement signed on June 4 gives "reciprocal access to each nation's respective military bases," Japan's The Nikkei added.

Both India and Australia are threatened by China's military build-up. "We are committed to an open, inclusive, prosperous Indo-Pacific and India's role in that region, our region, will be critical in the years ahead," Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison said while endorsing the bilateral strategic partnership. "We share an ocean and we share responsibilities for that ocean as well," he added.
China's artificial islands in the South China Sea -- equipped with military bases, naval ports and airfields -- pose a strategic threat to neighboring countries. In 2018, China landed nuclear strike-capable bombers on these artificial islands, sending an alarming message to the U.S. and regional powers.

Beijing's latest military adventure poses a grave threat to world peace. Both China and India possess significant nuclear arsenals. With a combined population of more than 2.7 billion, the Asian powers are home to one third of humanity.

While the U.S. has decreased its nuclear stockpile, China is boosting its arsenal, according to a report released by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute on June 15. According to the report:

"China is in the middle of a significant modernization of its nuclear arsenal. It is developing a so-called nuclear triad for the first time, made up of new land- and sea-based missiles and nuclear-capable aircraft."

India and Pakistan, China's key regional ally, have also increased "the size and diversity of their nuclear forces," the reported found.

Despite China's military superiority and economic clout, an armed conflict with India would not be a walkover. Apart from the India-China war of 1962, India has not lost a single military conflict.
While India can withstand Chinese military aggression, the Free World, if it wishes to remain free, seriously needs to stand with the world's largest democracy. If China is allowed to succeed in its aggression, it will only embolden the Communists in Beijing to redraw borders, dictate terms to other countries in the region, and press on with its plan to dominate the world.

• Follow Vijeta Uniyal on Twitter

Vijeta Uniyal, a journalist and news analyst, is based in Germany.

Source: https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/16150/china-war-india

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