Stealing the Election in Plain Sight - Joe Herring

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by Joe Herring

Ballot-harvesting, anyone?

If you were still harboring naïve notions of free and fair elections when Democrats are involved, perhaps this will help disabuse you of those fantasies.

From a Fox News report a few days ago:

A prominent Democratic lawyer who represented Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign [Marc Elias] is threatening to sue the state of Nevada unless it immediately suspends prosecutions for ballot harvesting before the June 9 primary, among a slew of other demands, according to a letter obtained by Fox News on Tuesday.
Writing on April 10 to Nevada Secretary of State Barbara Cegavske, a Republican, Elias first took aim at Nevada Revised Statutes section 293.330(4), which prohibits ballot harvesting and permits only certain individuals, like family members, to return ballots.
Ballot harvesting, or the practice of allowing political operatives and others to collect voters' ballots and turn them in en masse to polling stations, has drawn bipartisan concerns of fraud from election watchers.
"We ask that your office and the office of the Nevada Attorney General immediately announce a suspension of prosecutions under this statute for all elections for which mail-in balloting will be the primary means of voting in the state," Elias said.
At the same time, Elias called for Nevada to stop throwing out ballots when signatures on voters' ballots appear different from those on voters' registrations, saying "lay election officials have never had the necessary expertise" to make an accurate determination.

Ballot-harvesting is a crime, forbidden due to the inherent opportunities for fraud, intimidation, and outright manufacture of votes. The Democrats tried to legalize ballot-harvesting in the last stimulus go-round, but thankfully, they were caught and prevented from doing so.

Worse still, Elias's threats also seek to force Nevada to send a ballot to all registered voters, regardless of whether a voter requested a ballot or not. As you'll see, Nevada is merely the target du jour. The same will be expected of all 50 states before November 3, 2020.

This effort is spearheaded by former Clinton attorney Marc Elias, a partner at Perkins Coie law firm, the same firm that facilitated and helped disseminate the fraudulent Steele dossier, which launched the Russian collusion narrative. Unsurprisingly, Elias was the attorney who engaged Fusion GPS to procure the dossier using funds laundered through Perkins Coie. 

Elias is a prime example of all things wrong with the legal profession these days, a poster child for "whatever it takes" lawyerly maneuvering, regardless of ethics or legality. His involvement also makes it clear that this is no one-off effort concerning Nevada alone. 

This well known Democrat fixer has a long history of fighting voter ID laws in state after state, with his legal challenges bankrolled by none other than George Soros. He is the point of the spear in the left's effort to wrest control of the electoral process from the people of the United States. Having licked his wounds after the 2016 debacle, Elias has emerged again, fighting the same battles, singing the same tunes.

Elias wrote an op-ed for the Washington Post, published on March 16, 2020. In his missive, he outlines the same demands he has threatened against Nevada.

It will not be enough for states to simply allow more citizens to vote by mail. Each state must also provide adequate resources for the printing and distribution of millions of extra ballots and to support with extra funds the officials who are tasked with processing and counting the flood of mailed ballots. It will also require states to revisit their laws to provide free postage and community ballot collection. States then need to address the manner in which ballots are verified to minimize rejections based on issues with voters' signatures.

Citing likely difficulties with processing large numbers of mail-in ballots, Elias says:

[A]ll votes postmarked by Election Day must be treated as timely and counted in full. Unfortunately, many states do not currently count ballots received after Election Day, regardless of when voters mail them.
Replacing Election Day receipt laws with the more intuitive postmarked-by-Election Day standard is essential.

As all Democrats do, Elias ignores the concept of personal responsibility on the part of the voter, who is naturally expected to consider mailing time when returning his ballot. What his proposal does is completely different from what he claims that it will do.

It permits the exploitation of exit polling, enabling operatives to dump vast numbers of fraudulent ballots wherever needed on Election Day, having seen from exit polling which races and precincts are going to their opponents.

This cannot be permitted, as it provides specific real-time data to enable election-tampering with a specificity not seen outside of North Korea.

Ideally, states will act to correct these anti-democratic laws. If not, Congress should step in and amend federal law to make clear that ballots mailed by a voter on or before Election Day must be treated as cast on Election Day.

In his own words, Elias reveals the framework for stealing an election. Create avenues for mischief, then exploit those avenues for all they're worth. Remembering that by threatening endless lawsuits over clearly fraudulent ballots, it's not too difficult to intimidate a county election commissioner into matching voter registration signatures against received ballot signatures with a very broad standard to avoid litigation that could bankrupt post-COVID budgets.

The pattern is clear. Force a mail-in ballot scenario, suspend prohibitions against ballot-harvesting (citing reasons of health and safety, of course), and then find judges in each state to forbid the invalidating of ballots where the signatures do not match the registration.

Apart from simply declaring themselves the winner at the end of a rifle barrel, the Democrats couldn't possibly have devised a more direct path to hijacking an election.

This is the greatest danger we face in 2020 — not the virus, not North Korea, not even the economic effects of the virus, but rather the clear intention of one party to steal an election by any means necessary.

Don't be distracted: this is one issue you must not let lie fallow. They are arranging for the invalidation of your vote, right in front of your eyes. We must prevent these changes, or, like a miraculous resurrection of Lenin, we will see the whole country "turn" blue November 3.

Joe Herring writes from Omaha, Neb. and welcomes visitors to his website at dailyherring.com

Source: https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2020/04/stealing_the_election_in_plain_sight.html

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The Jerusalem Post Deletes Mentions of HIAS Alliance w/Islamists - Daniel Greenfield

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by Daniel Greenfield

[W]e're being treated to a whitewash and a cover-up.

The Jerusalem Post wrote a pretty decent article about the elevation of the HIAS boss, Dianne Lob, to head the Conference of Presidents. And then eliminated most of it to include quotes from the heads of the ADL and the National Council of Jewish Women, a radical lefty group which has made it clear that it would work with anti-Israel group.

What does putting the head of an anti-Israel org in bed with pro-terror Islamists at the head of the Conference of Presidents amount to?

Here's the information that theJerusalem Post deleted from its article.

The ZOA leadership stated that Lob has not previously been active in the COP and worried that Lob's views could be "the same as those of HIAS." The officials warned that it is "reasonable to be skeptical if views Ms. Lob may have expressed to the COP nominating committee differed from HIAS’s positions and actions under her chairpersonship."
The letter called HIAS's work with other groups "inimical" to the COP's mission, pointing to joint projects with Islamic Relief, CAIR and MPAC. Islamic Relief has been banned in Israel for terrorist activities. The UAE also declared the group a terrorist organization.
In 2017, HIAS signed a letter alongside Jewish Voice for Peace, If Not Now, J Street, the New Israel Fund and T'ruah defending anti-Israel activist Linda Sarsour.

These are radical anti-Israel hate groups. The Conference of Presidents is being turned over to one of their allies.

As Caroline Glick notes,

HIAS collaborates with nominally Jewish anti-Israel groups like Jewish Voice for Peace and IfNotNow. Both groups are leading actors in the anti-Semitic BDS campaign against American Jews and Israel.
In June 2017, Hetfield and HIAS Vice President Rabbi Jennie Rosenn joined JVP, IfNotNow and other pro-BDS groups in signing a letter defending Linda Sarsour, the anti-Semitic Democratic political activist who has called for Israel’s destruction. Sarsour has publicly supported Hamas and Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan, who himself is a vocal supporter of Adolf Hitler.
Does Lob, who was the chairman of the board of HIAS from 2016-2019 support the close cooperation with terror affiliated groups and anti-Semites that HIAS maintained under her leadership?
She says she doesn’t.
According to sources briefed on the details of Lob’s meetings with the Conference’s Nominating Committee, Lob said she was not involved in Hetfield and Rosenn’s decision to sign the letter defending Sarsour.
...
There are two ways to square this circle. It’s possible that Lob is lying and it’s possible that she’s telling the truth.
If Lob lied to the nominating committee and in her letter to the Conference members, and if she secretly shares the extreme pro-anti-Semite and anti-Israel positions of the extremists who control HIAS, then next Tuesday, leadership of the Conference of Presidents will be transferred to a woman who opposes the values shared 95 percent of American Jews.
If Lob told the truth to the nominating committee then she is shockingly incompetent. Because if she is telling the truth that means that for three years, she oversaw an organization that openly collaborated with groups with known ties to terrorist organizations and supported anti-Semites actively involved in the “reprehensible” BDS campaign against American Jews and against Israel. Presumably, Lob will bring the same incompetence with her to the Conference of Presidents when she takes over as chairman on Tuesday.

Either Lob is evil or unqualified.

And we're being treated to a whitewash and a cover-up.

Daniel Greenfield

Source: https://www.frontpagemag.com/point/2020/04/jerusalem-post-deletes-mentions-hias-alliance-daniel-greenfield/

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Despite Coronavirus, Hezbollah Remains a Dangerous Threat to Israel - Yaakov Lappin

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by Yaakov Lappin

International media reports indicate that even as the world battles the coronavirus, Hezbollah’s ongoing force build-up and weapons trafficking continue to draw preemptive Israeli airstrikes in Syria.

BESA Center Perspectives Paper No. 1,540, April 26, 2020

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY: The coronavirus pandemic has turned into a serious challenge for the Iran-backed Lebanese terror organization Hezbollah, placing the world’s most heavily equipped non-state armed group under strain. Nevertheless, recent reports indicate that these conditions have not stopped Hezbollah’s ongoing military and terrorist activity in the region.

Three locations along Israel’s security barrier on the Lebanese border were sabotaged on Friday, April 17, likely by Hezbollah operatives, in what appears to have been an attempt to infiltrate Israel. No breach was detected.

That event appears to have been a direct response to a dramatic incident that took place last Wednesday in Syria. According to international media reports, an Israeli airstrike hit a jeep carrying Hezbollah operatives who may have been involved in weapons trafficking from Syria to Lebanon.

A subsequent Al-Arabiya report said one of the occupants was Mustafa Mughniyeh, son of the late Hezbollah operations chief Imad Mughniyeh. Imad Mughniyeh was killed in a 2008 bomb attack in Damascus attributed to the Mossad and the CIA. Mustafa Mughniyeh and others in the vehicle reportedly escaped last week’s strike unharmed.

International media reports indicate that even as the world battles the coronavirus, Hezbollah’s ongoing force build-up and weapons trafficking continue to draw preemptive Israeli airstrikes in Syria.

This does not mean Hezbollah is not facing new challenges. The first is rooted in the distress the coronavirus is causing its patron, Iran. The Islamic Republic is suffering high infection and mortality numbers, its economy is in crisis, and its embattled regime is trying to fend off charges of covering up and mismanaging the pandemic.

Hezbollah’s mammoth arsenal, estimated by the IDF to be at around 130,000 surface-to-surface projectiles, is paid for by Iran and its Quds Force. Hezbollah’s arsenal consists primarily of short-range Katyusha rockets with a 45-kilometer (28-mile) reach, but also includes more than 3,500 projectiles that put greater Tel Aviv in range and carry 150 kilogram warheads. The arsenal also includes more than 200 long-range ballistic missiles that carry half-ton warheads. These missiles can strike any point in Israel.

Israel’s air defenses, made up of the Iron Dome, David’s Sling, and Arrow systems, can stop many projectile attacks, but would be flooded by the scale of Hezbollah’s arsenal in any full-scale conflict, meaning that some of Hezbollah’s attacks would invariably get through. The attacks would paralyze the Israeli home front and economy, and if symbolic or strategic sites are targeted, could cause significant harm to critical national infrastructure. Hezbollah also has a number of anti-ship cruise missiles and air-to-surface missile batteries.

Iran and Hezbollah had planned on establishing a domestic precision-guided missile industry in Lebanon that would enable the serial production of a large number of missiles. They appear to have frozen this project following a series of Israeli warnings to desist or face military action. The more Iran struggles to pay for such activities, the more constraints Hezbollah will face.

In addition, Iran’s newly appointed Quds Force Commander, Esmail Qaani, who replaced Qassem Soleimani following his killing by US drone strike in January, means Hezbollah’s leadership is now working with a less charismatic and influential Iranian commander. While the Quds Force is expected to continue to make every effort to equip Hezbollah with a range of weapons, the dynamic between Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah and Qaani is an unknown quantity that could affect future cooperation.

In Lebanon, Hezbollah’s home turf, the organization has faced accusations of importing the virus via flights from Iran. Brig. Gen. (ret.) Yossi Kuperwasser, former head of the research division in the IDF Military Intelligence Directorate, told the Investigative Project on Terrorism (IPT) that international flights out of Iran reportedly helped spread the disease in the Arab world, putting pressure on Hezbollah in Lebanon.

“Hezbollah is under pressure both because of the virus and because of its links to Iran,” he said. “Iranians continue to be active in Lebanon. Hezbollah operates in close proximity with Iranians in Syria and in other places. The whole episode reflects badly on Hezbollah. It has led to accusations [in Lebanon] against it.”

Although Hezbollah is using its extensive civilian and military infrastructure to battle the spread of coronavirus, the program has a definitive sectarian nature, since the efforts are mainly underway in Shiite areas of Lebanon.

Meanwhile, Lebanon’s massive economic troubles, which predate the virus, have only grown more acute with the pandemic. Some in Lebanon, like former Lebanese PM Fouad Siniora, blame Hezbollah and its resistance to assistance from international financial institutions for ensuring that there is no way out of those troubles.

According to a report in March in Arab Weekly, Siniora said Lebanon is “sick and requires a stronger medicine than just ointments.” He added that the Lebanese are paying the price of “Hezbollah’s hegemony over the state and its refraining from implementing reforms pledged by the state.”

The report also cited former Lebanese MP Fares Saeed, who said: “Hezbollah is the political decision-maker in the country and, while fighting in Syria, Iraq, and Yemen, it is trying to establish an economic-political system that matches its regional function by overthrowing the Lebanese financial system and removing the country from the international community in the interest of a resistance economy … that is to say, importing goods through illegal channels and relations with Iran and China, in addition to severing all relations with Washington and international legitimacy.”

Lebanon’s economy was on the brink of collapse before the pandemic struck and is in even worse shape now.

“Due to Hezbollah’s closeness to Iran, Lebanon suffers,” Kuperwasser said. At the end of March, Lebanon expressed interest in an IMF emergency loan. Hezbollah appeared to change its tune somewhat regarding the acceptance of aid, but the organization’s chief, Hassan Nasrallah, conditioned any agreement against any terms that “would make the country explode.” Lebanon’s interest mirrors Iran’s own unusual request for a $5 billion IMF loan to battle the coronavirus.

“Banks do not like connections with terror elements. This is one of the reasons why the IMF is not assisting Iran,” said Kuperwasser. “The banking systems in Iran and Lebanon are both contaminated with terror activities. Hence, the terrorism of Hezbollah, which is recognized by some of the international system, makes it difficult for Lebanon to uphold a banking system that is respectable and acceptable to the international community.”

US sanctions against several Lebanese banks accused of having ties to Hezbollah have also exerted pressure over recent years. Hezbollah is now stepping up a campaign “to place its allies at the heart of Lebanon’s banking system as the US seeks to disrupt the armed group’s financial networks,” according to the UAE’s The National. Hezbollah is trying to install allies inside Lebanon’s monetary authorities “to help the movement circumvent intensified US sanctions,” the report said.

The report, citing unnamed Arab financiers, warned that the outcome of such efforts in Lebanon could extend Hezbollah’s reach into the nerve center “of Lebanon’s banking sector—once the most important in the region—and could hamper any chance the country has of emerging from the worst financial crisis in its modern history.”

In addition, the role the Lebanese Armed Forces (LAF) play vis-à-vis Hezbollah continues to be a source of contention. Some observers point to increased collaboration between the two sides, such as joint patrols along the Lebanese-Israeli border. Others view the LAF as a potential counter-balance to Hezbollah. In 2018, the IPT reported that Hezbollah and the LAF are increasingly cooperating, with Hezbollah personnel sometimes wearing LAF uniforms during joint patrols.

Since 2010, the US has invested more than $1.82 billion in security assistance to the LAF. But the LAF’s unwillingness or inability to actively counter Hezbollah in any way has raised deep questions about its role and fueled controversy over ongoing American assistance to it.

Despite all the strain, Hezbollah does not appear to have given up on its regional armed activities. It still has about 2,300 operatives in Syria.

Reports of routine Israeli strikes against threatening activity in Syria during the coronavirus outbreak seem to indicate that “there has been no substantial change in the scope of Hezbollah’s activities in the area,” Kuperwasser said. “The Iranians continue in their efforts to bring in weapons. Some reach Hezbollah, and some go to Syria. This activity continues.”

Hezbollah continues to face its regular challenges—Israel’s close intelligence coverage of the region and rapid, precise strike capabilities—on top of the added coronavirus pressure, but none of that has stopped its military consolidation efforts in Syria. The organization has invested resources in northern Syria and is building an armed infrastructure in the Syrian Golan Heights, near the Israeli border, Kuperwasser said. It is also maintaining its weapons smuggling routes linking Syria to Lebanon.

Evidence of this activity surfaced in recent days, when the IDF released surveillance video showing the Syrian army actively cooperating with Hezbollah in the south of the country.

“Even during the coronavirus period, the new commander of the Syrian army’s 1st Division, Luaa Ali Ahmad Asaad, continues to help and allow the Hezbollah terror group [to] establish a front on the Golan Heights,” the IDF stated.

The video footage showed Asaad meeting with Hezbollah’s commander of its south Syria region, Hajj Hashem.

Last year, the IDF named Hashem as the man in charge of Hezbollah’s “Golan file,” a program to build an attack base for striking Israeli civilians and soldiers from Syria.

Recent reports indicate that the shadow war between Israel and the Shiite axis in Syria remains active despite the virus.

“Hezbollah’s activities on this level do not appear to have been eroded,” Kuperwasser said.

View PDF

This is an edited version of an article published by Algemeiner on April 21, 2020.

Yaakov Lappin is a Research Associate at the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies and a military and strategic affairs correspondent. He conducts research and analysis for defense think tanks and is the military correspondent for JNS. His book The Virtual Caliphate explores the online jihadist presence.

Source: https://besacenter.org/perspectives-papers/coronavirus-hezbollah-threat/

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An ER Physician/Entrepreneur Perspective on the Wuhan Virus - Trevor Thomas

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by Trevor Thomas

Dr. Erickson concludes that people with critical illnesses such as heart disease, cancer, hypertension, and the like, are not going to the doctor out of “fear.”

In California recently, two emergency room doctors gave a powerful briefing on what’s going on when it comes to the Wuhan virus in their state, our nation, and the world over. The two doctors in the video are Dr. Dan Erickson and Dr. Artin Massihi. Dr. Erickson is a former emergency room (ER) physician who now co-owns Accelerated Urgent Care in Bakersfield, CA. Dr. Massihi is his business partner. Bakersfield is the largest city and the county seat of Kern County, CA. Kern County has a population just over 900,000.

Dr. Erickson (YouTube screen grab)

The highlights from their briefing:

The Wuhan virus has caused “severe disruption” for their urgent care business. Because of the forced shutdown and the forced total focus on only Wuhan virus patients, their “volumes [of patients] have dropped significantly.” Confirming what Portland, OR nurse, Josie Alexander, boldly declared just one day prior to their briefing, Dr. Erickson also revealed that many California hospital ICUs “are empty, essentially.” Because of this, hospitals are “shutting down floors, they’re furloughing patients, they’re furloughing doctors.”

In certain places in California, the health system has been “evacuated” to the point that they are operating at a “minimal capacity -- getting rid of our doctors and nurses because we just don’t have the volume [of patients].”After talking to ER physicians around the country, “because COVID has become the focus” of our healthcare system, Dr. Erickson concludes that people with critical illnesses such as heart disease, cancer, hypertension, and the like, are not going to the doctor out of “fear.” Thanks to the media and many politicians across the U.S., we are dealing with an irrational and uninformed fear.

When it comes to the widespread “shelter in place” orders that permeate the U.S., Dr. Erickson points out that typically we are supposed to quarantine the sick, not the healthy. “We’ve never seen where we quarantine the healthy -- where you take those without disease, and without symptoms and lock them in your home.” This type of quarantine is not “really meshing with what we know as people of scientific minds that read this stuff every day.”

After testing 5,213 people for the Wuhan virus at their five Bakersfield locations -- which is over half of the 9,197 tests performed in Kern County -- 340 came back positive. That’s a positive rate of just over 6.5%. This indicates a “widespread viral infection” that is “similar to [the] flu.” Dr. Erickson believes these numbers are “ubiquitous” for California.

The overall numbers for the state of California -- those who tested positive divided by the overall number tested -- show that about 12% of Californians are positive for the Wuhan virus. If you apply this rate to the overall population of California, you get just over 4.7 million Californians with the Wuhan virus. At the time of this briefing, California had 1,227 Wuhan virus deaths. That means, currently in California, you have about a 0.026% chance of dying from the Wuhan virus. These numbers differ vastly from the “woefully inaccurate” (Dr. Erickson’s words) models that first predicted millions of Wuhan virus deaths across the U.S.

Dr. Erickson next asks the important questions that many politicians in the U.S. seem unwilling to consider as most of us remain in some form of shutdown: Do such numbers “necessitate sheltering in place?” Do such numbers “necessitate shutting down medical systems?” Do such numbers “necessitate people being out of work?” Of course, the answers to each of these questions should be a widespread and resounding “NO!”

Also note, as most anyone with a basic understanding of math would see, the more you test, the rate of positives (those with the Wuhan virus) goes up. With the number of deaths staying relatively the same, the death rate then gets smaller and smaller. As Dr. Erickson repeatedly put it, “millions of cases, small amount of death.” This is playing out in every state in the U.S. -- including the worst hit states such as New York. Also, it is well worth noting that across the U.S., the recovery rate for those actually contracting the Wuhan virus is well over 90% -- much closer to 100% than 90% in most parts of the U.S.

When looking at the U.S. as a whole, with over four million Wuhan virus tests, we see a 19.6% positive rate. Again notice, more testing indicates a higher rate of Wuhan virus infection. If you apply 19.6% to the total population of the U.S. (~328 million) you get over 64 million infected. Per CDC numbers, that potential number of Wuhan virus infections is similar to what we’ve seen with the flu recently in the U.S. Likewise, the total number of Wuhan virus deaths is similar to what we’ve seen in recent bad flu seasons.

Dr. Erickson highlights the 2017-2018 flu season, where “50 to 60 million” Americans had the flu, with 43,545 flu deaths. (There are multiple reports that put the deaths from the 2017-2018 flu season at 80,000 Americans.) Again, these numbers compare very well with what we are seeing with the Wuhan virus. Yet, during the deadly flu season of 2017-2018, there was “no pandemic talk, no shelter in place, no shutting down of businesses, and no sending doctors home.”

“The flu’s dangerous, it kills people,” declares Dr. Erickson, and that’s with a vaccine. Yet, just because you have a vaccine -- because only about half of Americans even get the flu vaccine -- there are no guarantees when it comes to controlling the spread of, preventing death from, or that the vaccine will even be effective against the flu or a flu-like virus. So, unless we come up with a highly effective vaccine for the Wuhan virus, and unless we’re willing to force it upon people, as we see with the flu there are few guarantees when it comes to a vaccine. 

Dr. Erickson is Norwegian, thus he compares Norway, which essentially shut down, to Sweden, which did not. These are neighboring Scandinavian nations, with significantly different approaches to battling the Wuhan virus. The difference in results for both nations were “statistically insignificant” and again showed “millions of cases with small amount of death.”

Though Norway’s numbers were slightly better than Sweden’s, Dr. Erickson again asks the important question: Do Norway’s slightly better numbers justify “shutdown, loss of jobs, destruction of the oil [companies], furloughing of doctors?”

We then hear how the healthcare community’s almost complete focus on the Wuhan virus has led to a myriad of other negative health outcomes across the U.S. After hearing from the doctors in his clinics and ER doctors across America, Dr. Erickson concludes that the weeks-long isolation we’ve been in has led to a “severe” increase in child molestation, along with increases in spousal abuse, alcoholism, anxiety, depression, and suicide.

Having made it their “life’s work” to understand immunology, microbiology, biochemistry, and virology, Dr. Erickson and Dr. Massihi conclude that all of our sheltering in place, excessive hand washing, not touching our faces, wearing of masks, wearing of gloves, disinfecting our homes, and so on, has robbed our bodies of their natural ability to develop immunities. In other words, by staying home for extended periods of time, we are weakening our immune systems. The longer we do it, the worse it gets.

There’s much more. The briefing is just over 50 minutes and is well worth your time. To sum up, we’re reacting to a virus in a way that we’ve never before reacted, with disastrous consequences -- economically and otherwise. We’re in a hole, and it’s time to stop digging. It’s time to get out, go to church, go to work, go to school, go play, and get on with our lives!

Trevor Thomas
At the Intersection of Politics, Science, Faith, and Reason.
www.trevorgrantthomas.com
Trevor is the author of the The Miracle and Magnificence of America
tthomas@trevorgrantthomas.com

Source: https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2020/04/an_er_physicianentrepreneur_perspective_on_the_wuhan_virus.html

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Denmark: Fake Bible Must be Revoked - Petra Heldt

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by Petra Heldt

DBS seems to be attempting to discard Israel.

• Unperturbed, in 2020, the Danish Bible Society (DBS) published a complete and revised Bible with the same anti-Israel New Testament version intact, plus a translation of the Old Testament, replacing the word "Israel" with "us", as in Psalm 121:4 ("He who watches over Israel [DBS: 'us'] will neither slumber nor sleep"), as Jan Frost reports.
• As in this case, trading "Israel" for "us" is not simply replacing one word for another; it switches the concept. DBS pretends that we get the divine watchfulness. It has been stolen. The original recipient, Israel, has been replaced and robbed of its privileges.
• DBS seems to be attempting to discard Israel. The Society appears to be emulating the current social attitude that develops from the anti-Israelism of Muslim immigrants and that is picked up by other Danish parts of society. Who commissioned this Bible edition? Who paid for it? Who profits from a fake Bible? Who stands for the truth of the Christian faith in Denmark?

The Danish Bible Society's 2020 Bible translation is an assault on the faiths of both Jews and Christians, and an attack on the history of the Jewish State of Israel as well as on the Jewish people. Pictured: A copy of the first complete translation of the Christian Bible into Danish, printed in 1550 for King Christian III of Denmark, on display at Frederiksborg Castle, Denmark. (Image source: Bjoertvedt/Wikimedia Commons)

With the authorized 1992 Danish Bible translation in place, the Danish Bible Society (DBS), nevertheless, issued a revised New Testament in 2012 completely omitting the word "Israel" or replacing it with "Jews" or "us". The strange reason for this extraordinary action was, as Danes recall, to prevent Danish Lutheran Christians from confusing biblical Israel with the modern State of Israel. Danish Christians protested vehemently. Unperturbed, in 2020 DBS published a complete and revised Bible with the same anti-Israel New Testament version intact, plus a translation of the Old Testament, replacing the word "Israel" with "us", as in Psalm 121:4 ("He who watches over Israel [DBS: 'us'] will neither slumber nor sleep"), as Jan Frost reports.

Jan Frost presented the details of the fake Bible on his Facebook page. This time, the State of Israel itself joined the objection. Having defended and often paid dearly with blood the blood of its people for the sake of Holy Scripture for more than two and a half millennia, Israel does not accept revisionism of Sacred Scripture. Christians acted similarly in view of the DBS Israel-free New Testament. For two millennia, Christians have preserved and defended every single letter of the New Testament; they will not accept a revisionist re-writing of history now, either.

DBS Bible 2020 is an assault on the faiths of both Jews and Christians, and an attack on the history of the Jewish State of Israel as well as on the Jewish people.

The name Israel goes back to the beginning of Jewish history when G-d called Jacob "Israel" (Gen 32:28). The ancient and modern States of Israel took the name from here. G-d's first covenant with Abraham gifted Abraham and his descendants the Land of Israel (Gen 15); the gift was never revoked. While Israel remains G-d's first love, the nations were never excluded from divine love; it was conferred on the world by the Messiah Jesus, who was a Jew, and his Jewish disciples.

The bowdlerizing of sacred history, as DBS does, brings with it the danger of developing idolatry. As in this case, trading "Israel" for "us" is not simply replacing one word for another; it switches the concept. DBS pretends that we get the divine watchfulness. It has been stolen. The original recipient, Israel, has been replaced and robbed of its privileges. History shows that robbing Israel of its divine prerogatives has too often been the first step towards persecution and murder of the Jewish community. Admittedly, the mode of replacement has been an attraction throughout history, for Christians and Muslims. Time and again, authoritative Christian leaders have warned that the substitution of Jews by Christians is an aberration of the Christian faith. Replacement ideology is a heresy. This was made clear from the early days of Christianity by defenders of the faith like Bishop Irenaeus (c. 180 CE) and did not stop in our days, with the Second Vatican Council in 1965. 
Nevertheless, all too often in Christian and Muslim history, times of cooperation with Jews were followed by persecution. Unfortunately, Martin Luther was no exception to the heretical teaching of the replacement of the Jews and his call for their murder. In modernity, the once discarded heresy of Luther's replacing Israel became fashionable again and assisted the slaughter of six million Jews.

This evil idol is alive still, most prominently manifest in Islamist ideology. Inciters in the Middle East aim to replace the State of Israel with their own Islamic claim to the land. Incredibly, this message has found favor among international organizations in Europe and beyond. The BDS movement, aiming at the annihilation of the State of Israel, is visible evidence of this wish. Danish Church organizations support BDS. The DBS Bible 2020 points in the direction of that ideology.

Furthermore, the anti-Israel DBS Bible 2020 reflects aspects of the context of recent developments in Danish society. Reuters, for instance, reports about the immigration issue that, for two decades, the number of Muslims in Denmark increased steadily and was estimated in 2019 to be 320,000 or 5.5% of the Danish population. This comes with high-profile disputes over dress codes (ongoing since 2005), Muhammad cartoons (ongoing since 2005), Islamism and terrorism (since 2014), and citizenship laws (since 2018). Judith Bergman of Gatestone informs us about the deterioration of daily life in Denmark.

For Danish Jews, this means being exposed to increasing anti-Israel sentiment and hostility from a growing Muslim immigrant community. In 2018, there were merely 6,000 Jews left in Denmark. For Christians, too, living their lives faithfully has become more difficult. They encounter harassment and denunciation of their faith and their Christian attitudes. A case in point is the persecution of the Danish Christian Torben Sondergaard and his family. In 2019 they had to flee Denmark and to seek asylum in the United States.

DBS seems to be attempting to discard Israel. The Society appears to be emulating the current social attitude that develops from the anti-Israelism of Muslim immigrants and that is picked up by other Danish parts of society. Who commissioned this Bible edition? Who paid for it? Who profits from a fake Bible? Who stands for the truth of the Christian faith in Denmark?

So far, the local Danish Lutheran Church shows no signs of putting things right. Let us turn, then, to the Lutheran umbrella organization, the Lutheran World Federation (LWF). It published four documents (in 1983, 1984, 2001, 2003) expressing a willingness to cooperate with the Jewish people and showing appreciation of the Jewish faith -- but not of the State of Israel. In addition, the Evangelical Lutheran Church of American published two documents, denouncing Luther's antisemitic teachings (1994) and establishing good relations with the Jewish community (1998). Are these grounds firm enough for condemning the destruction of Israel by the DBS mistranslation?

For the sake of Christian truth and the for the sake of the State of Israel, which is just about now rising out of the ashes of the Holocaust, the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Denmark must immediately revoke the DBS Bible 2020 edition.

Rev. Dr. Petra Heldt is Director of the Ecumenical Theological Research Fraternity, Jerusalem.

Source: https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/15935/denmark-fake-bible

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Coronavirus: China Continues to Flood the World with Defective Medical Supplies - Soeren Kern

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by Soeren Kern

Chinese authorities have refused to take responsibility for the defective equipment and in many instances have cast blame on the countries that purchased the material.

• More than a dozen countries on four continents have recently disclosed problems with Chinese-made coronavirus tests and personal protective equipment. The problems range from test kits tainted with the coronavirus to medical garments contaminated with insects.
• Chinese authorities have refused to take responsibility for the defective equipment and in many instances have cast blame on the countries that purchased the material. They have also called on nations of the world to stop "politicizing" the problem.
• Slovakian Prime Minister Igor Matovič disclosed that more than a million coronavirus tests supplied by China for a cash payment of €15 million ($16 million) were inaccurate and unable to detect Covid-19. "We have a ton of tests and no use for them," he said. "They should just be thrown straight into the Danube."
• U.S. Senator Kelly Loeffler from Georgia accused China of holding up shipments of test kits: "Testing is core to opening our country back up. I'm concerned that China's holding up test kits. They're playing games with trade policy to prevent us, the United States, from getting the testing that we need."
• "[W]e should not lose sight of the foundational strategic challenge confronting the West in the emerging post-globalization era: We are in a long twilight competition with the Chinese communist regime, a struggle we cannot escape, whether we like it or not." — Andrew Michta, George C. Marshall European Center for Security Studies.

More than a dozen countries on four continents recently disclosed problems with Chinese-made coronavirus tests and personal protective equipment. The problems range from test kits tainted with the coronavirus to medical garments contaminated with insects. Defective Chinese face masks, purchased by Spain's Ministry of Health, were distributed to hospitals and nursing homes across the country, and more than 100 healthcare workers who used them tested positive for Covid-19. Pictured: A shipment from China of 8.6 million protective face masks and 150 tons of sanitary equipment arrives at Paris-Vatry Airport in France, on April 19, 2020. (Photo by Francois Nascimbeni/AFP via Getty Images)

Gatestone Institute recently reported that millions of pieces of medical equipment purchased from China by European governments to combat the coronavirus pandemic are defective and unusable.

Since that report, more than a dozen countries on four continents have disclosed problems with Chinese-made coronavirus tests and personal protective equipment. The problems range from test kits tainted with the coronavirus to medical garments contaminated with insects.

Chinese authorities have refused to take responsibility for the defective equipment and in many instances have cast blame on the countries that purchased the material. They have also called on nations of the world to stop "politicizing" the problem — at the same time that Chinese President Xi Jinping and his Communist Party have sought to leverage the pandemic to assert a claim to global leadership.

Spain, the epicenter of the coronavirus crisis in Europe, has experienced the greatest number of problems with medical equipment purchased from China.

After the epidemic hit Spain, the Spanish government purchased medical supplies from China in the amount of €432 million ($470 million). Chinese vendors demanded they be paid up front before making any deliveries. It now appears that much of the material being supplied by China is substandard.

In late March, for instance, the Spanish Ministry of Health revealed that more than a half million coronavirus tests it had purchased from a Chinese vendor were defective. The tests, manufactured by Shenzhen Bioeasy Biotechnology, a company based in China's Guangdong Province, had an accurate detection rate of less than 30%. Bioeasy had claimed, in writing, that its tests had an accurate detection rate of 92%.

After the swindle made international headlines, Bioeasy agreed to replace the tests. On April 21, however, the Spanish newspaper El País reported that all 640,000 replacement tests were also useless. The Spanish government is now seeking a refund.

The Chinese Embassy in Madrid blamed the Spanish government for purchasing the tests from an unauthorized vendor. Bioeasy, apparently, does not have a license to sell coronavirus tests. Spain, however, has also reported problems with material purchased from vendors that are authorized by the Chinese government.

On April 15, Spain's Ministry of Health recalled 350,000 so-called FFP2 masks after laboratory tests determined that they were substandard. The defective masks were manufactured by Garry Galaxy Biotechnology, a company included on the Chinese government's list of approved manufacturers of personal protective equipment. FFP2 masks are required to filter at least 94% of aerosols, but those delivered to Spain filtered only between 71% and 82% of aerosols.

The defective masks were purchased by the Spanish Ministry of Health and distributed to hospitals and nursing homes across the country. After the defective masks were recalled, more than a hundred healthcare workers who had used them tested positive for coronavirus disease (Covid-19).

In the northeastern Spanish region of Catalonia, local health officials on April 18 recalled 180,000 Covid-19 antibody tests — also known as serological tests — because of their low rate of detection. The tests, produced by the Chinese manufacturer Guangzhou Wondfo Biotech, were purchased by the central government in Madrid and distributed to regional health authorities to detect Covid-19 in two priority groups: healthcare personnel and elderly people in nursing homes. The Wondfo tests reportedly gave negative results to people who had previously tested positive for Covid-19, and also failed to distinguish between two types of antibodies, including those that confer immunity.

In the eastern city of Alicante, the General Hospital recalled 640 disposable medical garments after one of the boxes from China contained cockroaches. The hospital said that it had received a total of 3,000 garments in 75 boxes and that it found two insects inside one of the boxes. It added that given the shortage of medical supplies, the garments would be sterilized, not destroyed.

Other countries — in Europe and beyond — have also criticized the quality of Chinese medical supplies:

• Australia. On April 1, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) reported that the Australian Border Force (ABF) had seized nearly one million Chinese-made faulty face masks and other protective clothing that was exported to Australia to help halt the spread of coronavirus. The material was valued at A$1.2 million (US$760,000). "We started seeing this stuff arriving roughly three weeks ago when news of the pandemic was really taking off," an ABF official told ABC. "The dodgy material is coming via air cargo because there is a backlog of sea freight at Australian ports."
• Austria. On April 6, the Ministry of Economic Affairs confirmed that 500,000 masks ordered from China for use in South Tyrol were "completely unusable" because they did not meet safety standards: "The result of the quality control check showed that the masks do not meet an FFP standard. When putting on the masks, it is impossible to obtain a tight fit in the area of ​​the chin and cheeks." Minister of Economics Margarete Schramböck complained that international providers of the urgently needed FFP2 and FFP3 masks had not delivered the required quality in nine out of ten cases. On April 9, Austrian media reported that the defective mask problem was far greater than initially thought. The Austrian Red Cross ordered 20 million masks from the same Chinese manufacturer that made the defective masks for South Tyrol.
• Belgium. On March 31, the University Hospital of Leuven rejected a shipment of 3,000 masks from China because the equipment was substandard.
• Canada. On April 7, the City of Toronto recalled more than 60,000 surgical masks made in China. The masks, valued at more than $200,000, were provided to staff at long-term care facilities. Toronto health authorities were investigating whether caregivers were exposed to Covid-19 while wearing the equipment. The masks represented around 50% of Toronto's inventory of surgical masks, according to Matthew Pegg, Toronto's fire chief and general manager of emergency management.
• Czech Republic. On March 23, the Czech news site iRozhlas reported that 300,000 coronavirus test kits delivered by China had an error rate of 80%. The Czech Ministry of Interior had paid $2.1 million for the defective kits.
• Finland. On April 10, the Managing Director of Finland's National Emergency Supply Agency, Tomi Lounema, resigned after he admitted to spending €10 million ($11 million) on defective protective equipment from China.
• Georgia. On March 27, Health Minister Ekaterine Tikaradze cancelled an order for 200,000 coronavirus tests manufactured by the China-based Shenzhen Bioeasy Biotechnology Company. The move came after Spain reported that 640,000 tests that it purchased from the company were defective. She said: "Georgia had a contract with this company, but today it has been canceled. The money has not been transferred. We are negotiating with another company and at first, they will send two thousand tests. If the reliability of those is approved by us, we will purchase an additional quantity."
• India. On April 16, the Mumbai-based Economic Times reported that 50,000 pieces of personal protective equipment donated by China were defective and unusable.
• Ireland. On April 6, the Health Service Executive (HSE) revealed that a large portion of the €200 million delivery of personal protective equipment supplied by China was found to be unusable for health care workers. The HSE told the Chinese company responsible for the delivery that unless the quality of the equipment being sent is guaranteed, there will not be any more deals between the two nations with regards to PPE. The government said that it was seeking a refund.
• Malaysia. On April 16, Malaysian authorities approved the use of coronavirus test kits from South Korea after similar kits from China were found to be defective. A senior official in the Ministry of Health, Noor Hisham Abdullah, said that the accuracy of the Chinese tests was "not very good." He expressed optimism over the South Korean tests: "Now that we have a test kit that is fast, portable and is cheap, that will make the difference."
• Netherlands. On March 28, the Netherlands recalled 1.3 million face masks produced in China because they did not meet the minimum safety standards for medical personnel. The so-called KN95 masks are a less expensive Chinese alternative to the American-standard N95 mask, which currently is in short supply around the world. The KN95 does not fit on the face as tightly as the N95, thus potentially exposing medical personnel to the coronavirus.
• Philippines. On March 29, the Department of Health apologized for comments it made a day earlier that two batches of coronavirus test kits provided by China were substandard. Undersecretary for Health Maria Rosario Vergeire had said that kits made by Chinese manufacturers BGI Group and Sansure Biotech were only 40% accurate in diagnosing Covid-19 and that some of them would have to be discarded. The Chinese Embassy in Manila rejected those accusations and claimed that the kits complied with standards established by the World Health Organization. "The Chinese Embassy firmly rejects any irresponsible remarks and any attempts to undermine our cooperation in this regard," a spokesman tweeted.
• Slovakia. On April 1, Prime Minister Igor Matovič disclosed that more than a million coronavirus tests supplied by China for a cash payment of €15 million ($16 million) were inaccurate and unable to detect Covid-19. "We have a ton of tests and no use for them," he said. "They should just be thrown straight into the Danube." China accused Slovakian medical personnel of using the tests incorrectly.
• Turkey. On March 27, Health Minister Fahrettin Koca said that Turkey had tried Chinese-made coronavirus tests but authorities "weren't happy about them." Professor Ateş Kara, a member of the Turkish Health Ministry's coronavirus task force, added that the batch of testing kits were only 30 to 35% accurate: "We have tried them. They don't work. Spain has made a huge mistake by using them."
• United Kingdom. On April 6, the London-based newspaper The Times reported that 17.5 million coronavirus antibody tests supplied by China were defective. The Chinese manufacturers of the tests blamed British officials and politicians for misunderstanding or exaggerating the utility of the tests. The British government, which reportedly paid at least $20 million (£16 million) for the tests, said that it was seeking a refund. Meanwhile, other coronavirus tests destined for the UK were found to be tainted with coronavirus.
• United States. On April 17, the director of the Missouri Department of Public Safety, Sandy Karsten, revealed that 3.9 million KN95 masks manufactured in China were defective. The State of Missouri had signed a $16.5 million contract with an unidentified vendor for the masks and paid half in advance. The vendor is refusing to return the $8.25 million. Missouri Governor Mike Parson said: "We got cheated here in this state and we are going to go out there and try to get our money back and hold people accountable." In neighboring Illinois, Governor J.B. Pritzker said that the state had spent $17 million on KN95 masks that may be unusable: "You know things come in shipments of a million — you can't go through one mask at a time and so you try to take samples from the shipments that come in, make sure you got what you are paying for." In Washington State, 12,000 coronavirus testing kits produced in China were recalled after some of them were found to be contaminated with the coronavirus.

On March 30, China urged European countries not to "politicize" concerns about the quality of medical supplies from China. "Problems should be properly solved based on facts, not political interpretations," Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said.

On April 1, the Chinese government reversed course and announced that it was increasing its oversight of exports of coronavirus test kits made in China. Chinese exporters of coronavirus tests must now obtain a certificate from the National Medical Products Administration (NMPA) in order to be cleared by China's customs agency.

On April 16, the Wall Street Journal reported that millions of pieces of medical equipment destined for the United States were being held in warehouses in China due to the new export restrictions imposed by the Chinese government. "We appreciate the efforts to ensure quality control," the U.S. State Department said. "But we do not want this to serve as an obstacle for the timely export of important supplies."

U.S. Senator Kelly Loeffler from Georgia accused China of holding up shipments of test kits: "Testing is core to opening our country back up. I'm concerned that China's holding up test kits. They're playing games with trade policy to prevent us, the United States, from getting the testing that we need."

The coronavirus pandemic has exposed the flaws of globalization by laying bare how the West has allowed itself to become dangerously dependent on Communist China for the supply of essential health care and medical products.

Andrew Michta, Dean of the College of International and Security Studies at the George C. Marshall European Center for Security Studies, explained:

"The Wuhan Virus and the attendant misery that the Chinese communist state has unleashed upon the world (very much including its own people) has laid bare a core structural flaw in the assumptions underpinning globalization. It turns out that the radical interweaving of markets — which was supposed to lead to the 'complex interdependence' that international relations theorists have been predicting for the better part of the century would lead to an increase in global stability... has instead created an inherently fragile and teetering structure that is exacerbating uncertainty in a time of crisis....
"If there is any good to come from the devastating impact on our nation of this pandemic brought about by the Chinese communist regime through its malice and incompetence, it will be the likely demise of enthusiasm for globalization as we know it across the West. After three decades of intellectual gymnastics aimed at convincing Americans that the off-shoring of manufacturing and the attendant deindustrialization of the country are good for us, the time has come for a reckoning.
"Since the end of the Cold War, Western elites seem to have been in thrall to the idea that various 'natural forces' in the economy and politics were propelling us forward to a digitally interconnected brave new world, one in which traditional considerations of national interest, national economic policy, national security, and national culture would soon be eclipsed by an emergent peaceful global reality. This virus crisis is a wake-up call, and while some argue we are waking up too late to effectively counter current trends, my money is on the ability of the American people to rally in a crisis and on the resilience of Western democratic institutions.
"Today, while battling the Wuhan Virus consumes the attention of our government agencies and health care systems, we should not lose sight of the foundational strategic challenge confronting the West in the emerging post-globalization era: We are in a long twilight competition with the Chinese communist regime, a struggle we cannot escape, whether we like it or not. Now is the time to wake up, develop a new strategy for victory, and to move forward."

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Soeren Kern is a Senior Fellow at the New York-based Gatestone Institute.

Source: https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/15917/china-defective-medical-supplies

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