A WordPress Blog-THE CHURCH MILITANT Ephesians 5:11-"And have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather expose them". This Christian News Blog maintains a one stop resource of current news and reports of its own related to church, moral, spiritual, and related political issues, plus articles, and postings from other online discernment ministries, and media which share the aims to obey the biblical commands to shed light on and refute error, heresy, apostasy, cults, and spiritual abuse. ALL CONTENT FROM HTTPS://RATHEREXPOSETHEM.BLOGSPOT.COM MOVED TO THIS NEW BLOG, MAY 2020
Atlas Organization founder Jonathan D.T. Ward discusses the China Competition 2.0 bill unveiled by Democrat senators, the economic containment of China, and the status of the U.S. dollar.
Republished below in full unedited for informational, educational, & research purposes.
Is Old Joe Biden losing what little grip he had?
The reputed president hosted a reception in the White House Monday to celebrate Eid al-Fitr, the Muslim feast marking the end of Ramadan, the monthlong season of fasting by day and gorging by night, and he was in even worse form than usual. The senescent corruptocrat who holds the job that not too long ago entitled him to be called the leader of the free world was slurring his words and making wildly inappropriate cracks. At one point he even told an audience member, “Hush up, boy,” which would have made for at least a week’s worth of media outrage for his predecessor, if not impeachment proceedings. All in all, Biden’s Eid display was another I-told-you-so moment for the Democrats who wish Old Joe would just go away already.
Biden's "Hush Up, Boy" Comment Sparks Outrage
President Joe Biden is facing backlash for making racially insensitive comments during a White House celebration of Eid-al-Fitr. From referring to a Muslim judge as "boy" to using racist language towards attendees, Biden's behavior has sparked outrage and criticism from many Americans, particularly Muslim Americans. Additionally, Biden's comment calling Rep. Ilhan Omar "beautiful" has been criticized for being inappropriate and objectifying. The incident has highlighted the hypocrisy of the Democrat Party's supposed commitment to anti-racism. The treatment of Muslim Americans at the event has also raised concerns. Follow Next News for more breaking news and analysis on this developing story.
Biden struggled with his teleprompter even more than usual and was often defeated. In the midst of a lengthy bout of Islamopandering, he declared: “Muslims surveyed and served very, very bravely in the U.S. Armed Forces and law enforcement.” “Surveyed and served” was clearly a matter of the dementia-ridden octogenarian reading his cue cards wrong and then correcting himself. A bit later on he said: “And the cheer from Muslim —” No, that can’t be right, Joe, try again: “We cheer for Muslim athletes, like Kareem” – uh oh, you know this is going to be a tough one for The Big Guy – “Alj- — Alj- — Abdul-Jabbar.” Old Joe tried to cover for this by adding: “I know him, and I still mispronounced his name. But he calls me ‘Joe Bidden’ once in a while.” That almost certainly was yet another lie from Joe, but the audience, knowing that the jabbering old man who is supposed to be president was very much on their side, dutifully laughed, anyway.
Even amidst all his pandering, however, the alleged president managed to make some clumsy and tone-deaf remarks.He called out, “Congresswoman Omar. Where are you, Congresswoman Omar?” When the winsome and patriotic Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Mogadishu) responded, “Right here.” Biden said: “I’m not supposed to — I’ll get in trouble for saying this, but you look beautiful tonight.” Omar is a Sharia-adherent, hijab-wearing Muslim. The basis for the hijab in Islamic theology is that it is supposed to reduce a woman’s attractiveness and thereby remove the possibility that men will be tempted; for Biden, as a male who is unrelated to Omar and an infidel at that, to tell her that she looks beautiful was the height of inappropriateness. If he weren’t pretending to be president, he would indeed have gotten in trouble for saying such a thing.
Biden also boasted that Muslims in his regime were working away at his socialist, America-Last agenda: “Muslim Americans in my administration are working on everything from making sure our veterans get quality healthcare, to meeting the climate crisis, to representing Americans overseas as members of our diplomatic corps.” But as Biden was in mid-pander, an audience member called out: “We also have the first federal judge — Muslim federal judge. The only one.” Biden began to reply, but the audience member kept talking until Papa Dementia snapped: “You want to come and make a speech? Hush up, boy.” Boy? Who are you calling “boy,” Joe? If Biden had an “R” after his name, this “boy” would have been screaming headline news all Tuesday morning. But as always, Old Joe gets a pass.
Pious Joe also seized yet another opportunity to run down his own tradition, marveling at how Catholics have it easy compared to Muslims in terms of fasting: “It’s not so different than we Catholics have Lent. We do it for 40 days, but not nearly as hard as your time. It’s a little longer than Ramadan, but we get to eat and drink during the day, which makes a big difference, to say the least.” Sure, but Biden didn’t mention that during Ramadan, Muslims feast all night, which makes the fast look quite different. Nor did he note that the traditional Lenten fast, which some Christians still observe, involves eating no meat, dairy, or fish for forty days, and that’s far more rigorous than Ramadan. Why did Catholic Joe have to go out of his way to compare his own faith unfavorably to Islam? Why does he profess to be a pious Catholic and yet never miss an opportunity to denigrate Christianity or foster legislation that is opposed to its teachings?
Biden concluded by wishing the audience a “Happy Eid Mubarak.” The name of the feast is actually “Eid al-Fitr,” that is, the Feast of Breaking the Fast. “Eid Mubarak,” or “Blessed feast,” is what Muslims say to one another on the big day. So what Biden was saying to his guests was the equivalent of saying “Happy Merry Christmas.” Just more tone-deafness, and one more indication that it’s long past time for Old Joe to retire to his taxpayer-funded walled Delaware beach house and catch up on those Matlock reruns.
Republished below in full unedited for informational, educational, & research purposes.
Old Joe Biden held a big party for Muslims at the White House Monday, and he went heavy on the pandering, claiming that “Muslims have been part of the United States from the very start.” But conspicuously not playing a part in this lovefest was Mohamed Khairullah, the mayor of Prospect Park, N.J., who complained Monday that the Secret Service had barred him from attending. What’s this, Joe? “Islamophobia” in the Biden regime’s White House? Appoint a special counsel!
News 12 New Jersey reported Monday that Khairullah, “New Jersey’s longest-serving Muslim mayor,” asserted that “officials at the White House told him that the United States Secret Service decided that he could not enter.” Khairullah, in full victimhood mode, lamented, “I guess I’m back to being accused of something.” News 12 New Jersey explains that he was “referencing a 2019 incident where he was detained at JFK International Airport. The Syrian American mayor traveled to Syria in 2015 to aid refugees and to the Middle East last year with no issue.”
Well, there was a bit more to it than just aiding refugees. Back in Sept. 2019, Khairullah was at JFK International Airport in New York City, on his way home from visiting relatives in Turkey. “We just wanted to go and have a good time,” he said, but upon his return, he was held for no less than three hours for questioning. “I don’t go near shady organizations,” he declared and added, “I believe that my constitutional rights were violated” by questions about whether he had met with any terrorists.
It turned out, however, that Khairullah has a history of support for jihad activity.Terrorism researcher John Rossomando noted in Nov. 2019 that it was “more likely that Khairullah was pulled aside by the CBP [U.S. Customs and Border Protection] due to his frequent travel to the Syrian war zone via Istanbul.” Also: “The mayor worked on relief missions and was a board member with Watan USA, the American branch of the London, England–headquartered Watan Foundation. Watan’s partner organizations and some of its leaders have supported and assisted al-Qaeda in Syria. Its co-founder and president, Moaz al-Sibaai, belonged to the Muslim Brotherhood–linked Muslim Council of Britain’s Business and Economics Committee. A 2015 IRS tax form listed Khairullah as a Watan USA board member.” Thus there was every reason for U.S. officials to look twice at Khairullah’s trip.
And as you no doubt expect, there was more: “Khairullah’s social media shows he repeatedly expressed support for Jabhat al-Nusra,” al-Qaeda’s affiliate in Syria. “Khairullah even thanked ISIS for taking bandits off the streets of Syria.” Khairullah wrote in Jan. 2014, “A good thing that ISIS has done is to eliminate the thieves and bandits in their area of control. Allah knows what was behind this move.”
But Khairullah didn’t note any of that when he decided to go public with this complaint about his questioning by the CBP. “It was definitely a hurtful moment where I’m thinking in my mind that this is not the America that I know,” he said. “I am very familiar with our laws and Constitution.” That’s terrific, seeing as how you’re the mayor of an American city and all that. “And everything that was going on there was a violation.” Even worse, “it’s flat-out insulting. It’s flat-out stereotyping of Muslims and Arabs.” Maybe. But all this made it abundantly clear why the Secret Service had abundant reason to bar Khairullah from Old Joe’s post-Ramadan shindig.
The Hamas-linked Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), however, disagreed, and fumed: “We call on the White House to override the Secret Service and reinstate the mayor’s invitation, disband the secret watchlist, and issue an apology to [Mayor Khairullah].” In the face of this intimidation, at least so far the Secret Service is standing firm: “While we regret any inconvenience this may have caused, the mayor was not allowed to enter the White House complex this evening. Unfortunately, we are not able to comment further on the specific protective means and methods used to conduct our security operations at the White House.”
There are perfectly good reasons to keep a man such as Mohamed Khairullah away from the White House. The refusal to recognize this is designed to make sure that no one is barred in this way in the future. After Khairullah’s rage and complaints, the Secret Service may become more wary of daring to stop people from entering sensitive areas, no matter how suspicious they may be. Is that what Mohamed Khairullah, the patriotic mayor of Prospect Park, N.J., wants? Is that what any American should want?
Republished below in full unedited for informational, educational, & research purposes.
NGO Monitor has released its 2022 report: USAID 2022 West Bank and Gaza Grantees: Vetting Gaps Remain. The report highlights the U.S. government’s failure to properly vet Palestinian beneficiaries of aid. But maybe it isn’t really isn’t about vetting at all. Enough is known about the Palestinian Authority and its support for jihad terror groups, which is precisely what prompted Donald Trump to withhold American funding. The record of the Biden administration and its palpable sympathy for the Palestinians raises justifiable doubts about its reasons for lax vetting.
In 2018, the Trump administration withheld an additional $45 million from the jihad terror-linked United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA). That’s what due diligence looks like. And while complaining that Palestinians would “starve” because of Trump’s cuts, the Palestinian Authority (PA) purchased a $50,000,000 private jet for Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas. The “State of Palestine” also built 100 embassies globally and funded jihad terror prisoners, even while constantly begging the world for cash.
In 2018, Trump signed the Taylor Force Act to end American aid to the PA until the PA stopped paying money through the Palestinian Authority Martyr’s Fund to the families of Palestinian jihadist prisoners and suicide bombers. Nonetheless, the Biden administration resumed shoveling aid to the PA, ignoring the Taylor Force Act. The implications of the payment of American dollars to the PA are obvious. In 2021, the Muslim Brotherhood praised the Democrats for siding with jihad terrorists against “Zionist attacks.”
Less than two months ago, Tom Nides, Biden’s ambassador to Israel, stated: “I spend 60% of my time trying to help the Palestinian people.” He boasted: “I was the first person out there when Ben Gvir went up to the Temple Mount to stir up trouble.”
NGO Monitor’s communications director, Itai Reuveni, stated:“USAID grantees should align with US goals and values.” But that would depend on whose values one is talking about. For the first time, Gallup has found that “Democrats’ sympathies in Middle East shift to Palestinians.”
“Biden Admin Continues To Fund Palestinian Groups Supporting Terrorists, Watchdog Says,” by Kate Anderson, Daily Caller, May 1, 2023:
The Biden administration is funding several Palestinian organizations despite their leaders’ support for and glorification of terrorism, according to a report released Monday by NGO Monitor, an Israeli research and watchdog group.
NGO Monitor released its 2022 report Monday calling out the U.S. government for failing to thoroughly vet Palestinian applicants to its foreign aid programs. The United States Agency for International Development (USAID), a U.S. federal agency that administers civilian foreign aid and development assistance, approved thousands of dollars in 2022 to fund several Palestinian organizations which have members or leaders with concerning views on terrorism, according to the report.
“NGO Monitor’s findings demonstrate that there remain blindspots in USAID vetting, allowing NGOs led by individuals who glorify violence to receive US taxpayer funds,” NGO Monitor’s communications director Itai Reuveni told the Daily Caller News Foundation. “USAID grantees should align with US goals and values.”
The Palestinian Charity for Youth Economic Empowerment (CYEE) was given $76,000 in 2022 by USAID for “60 emerging female leaders,” according to NGO Monitor’s report. For instance, CYEE Project Coordinator Haneen Al-Qawasm celebrated Ghassan Kanafani, a spokesperson for the Popular Front for Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), a U.S. designated terrorist group since 1997, as a “revolutionary” and martyr in a Facebook post, according to the report.
CYEE Executive Director Sahar Othman has also cheered for Palestinian terrorists on her social media after several were killed in fights with the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), according to the report.
Community Development and Continuing Education Institute (CDCE-I) received $78,000 from USAID for a project that “encourages youth participation and accountability in local governance.” The organization’s board members, however, have expressed sympathy and even glorified Palestinian terrorism against Israel on multiple occasions, according to the report……
Republished below in full unedited for informational, educational, & research purposes.
The New York Times has a new reporter, even worse than those already covering Israel and the Palestinians. She is Raja Abdulrahim, who, when a college student, was helped by financial aid from CAIR, and she has remained loyal to that organization, an unindicted co-conspirator in the country’s largest terrorism financing trial. She has a special sympathy for Hamas, about which she has had nothing bad to say, and now that she works for the Times, her opinion pieces, masquerading as news reports, carry much greater weight. More on Abdulrahim’s sympathetic coverage of Hamas can be found here: “The New York Times’ Gift to Hamas,” by Tamar Sternthal, CAMERA, April 23, 2023:
In 2019 and again in 2022, Gaza residents launched the “We Want to Live” campaign, protesting Hamas corruption, taxes, and policies that condemn citizens to a life of poverty.
Whenever Hamas leaders want more money, they simply impose a new tax – on gasoline, on heating oil, on electricity, on food. Few dare to openly protest; on a few occasions when Gazans have been pushed to public protests, they have been clubbed into submission by the bullyboys of Hamas. Some protests dramatically show the depth of their immiseration: Gaza merchants were recently filmed dumping their produce as a protest of a heavy Hamas tax crushing Gazans struggling to make ends meet, making them unable to buy the products that the merchants had to sell.
But Hamas, it seems, can count on The New York Times’ Abdulrahim to be more compliant than ungrateful Gaza residents. Indeed, Abdulrahim’s 1200-plus word article highlighting the dire financial situation of the Gaza Strip does not mention Hamas once, a glaring omission sure to have brought great holiday cheer to the territory’s repressive regime (“As Gaza Celebrates Eid, a Gift for Women — and a Duty For Men,” in print April 21).
Since her university days, Abdulrahim was groomed to provide coverage favorable to Hamas. As a student sponsored by CAIR (the Council on American-Islamic Relations, whose executives were unindicted co-conspirators in the United States’ largest terror finance case in history), Abdulrahim defended anti-Israel terror groups, denying that Hamas and Hezbollah are terror organizations that have murdered innocent Israeli civilians. Now, as a Times reporter, she churns out propaganda on behalf of Palestinian terrorists, justifying CAIR’s long-ago investment in the young writer.
Two weeks after the 9/11 attacks, Abdulrahim, then a student at the University of Florida, defended Hamas and Hezbollah in a letter to her campus newspaper, the Independent Florida Alligator, denying that Hamas and Hezbollah are terrorist organizations. The Sept. 26, 2001 letter stated: “I decided to respond to Guy Golan’s letter (‘Jews must help all Arab people’) from Monday’s Alligator because he erroneously refers to Hamas and Hizbollah as ‘fundamentalist’ and ‘terror organizations’ that have ‘murdered innocent Israeli civilians.’”
Her latest lengthy feature [in the New York Times] in service of Hamas, covers in great detail the coastal territory’s enduring custom of giving cash gifts to female relatives despite severe economic hardship. “Despite economic pain, Palestinian Muslims follow a costly annual custom,” was the subheadline in the international print edition.
About the bankrupting tradition, Abdulrahim explains:
To give the eidiya [the gift given as part of celebrating Eid], some men will go into debt. Others will wait until their wives get their eidiya from relatives before turning around and using that money to give the gifts to their other female relatives.
However bad one’s financial situation is, we have to go and give,” said Mr. Helles’ father, Hamid al-Abid Helles.
Abdulrahim stresses the wretched state of the impoverished people of Gaza, who don’t even have enough money to buy the presents they are required to give to female relatives at Eid. Some go into debt to pay for the Eidiya gifts they will give, while others wait until their own female relatives receive their Eid gifts, and then they re-purpose them, sending them as their Eid gifts to others. We are made to feel keenly the economic pain of the Gazans. But Abdulrahim has no intention of putting the blame for their poverty where it belongs: on the despotic regime of Hamas, which has ruled Gaza since 2007.
Hamas has caused that impoverishment in two ways. First, the Hamas leaders have helped themselves to billions of dollars in aid money, which they then squirrel away abroad, in bank accounts, on stocks, or on real estate. Abdulrahim never raises the issue of Hamas’ corruption.
While Abdulrahim tactfully refrains from mentioning the word “Hamas,” she reserves blame for the coastal territory’s bleak financial situation solely on the Israeli-Egyptian blockade, writing:
These days, coming up with the money for the eidiya is especially onerous. The 16-year-blockade of Gaza by Israel and Egypt has undermined the living conditions of more than two million Palestinians and led an unemployment rate of nearly 50 percent, among the highest in the world.
Notably, even on the narrow issue of the blockade, Abdulrahim violates the journalistic imperative to report basic information, neglecting to include even one word about the reasons for the Israel-Egyptian restrictions. In contrast, this recent AP report, which cites the Israeli-Egyptian blockade only in passing, commendably informs: “A crippling Israeli-Egyptian blockade imposed after Hamas violently wrested control of Gaza in 2007 has made it difficult for Hamas to smuggle Iranian-made rockets into the coastal enclave in recent years.”
The blockade not only prevented the smuggling by Hamas of Iranian-made rockets into the Strip, but prevented “dual-use” materials that could be used to build weapons, or terror tunnels, from entering Gaza. Abulrahim makes no mention of why Israel imposes its blockade; in her telling, it seems inexplicable and cruel.
More broadly, Abdulrahim’s pronounced pro-Hamas agenda does not leave any space to note Hamas’ responsibility for stifling the local economy by investing in terror infrastructure as opposed to economic development and social welfare.
In Gaza, Hamas built an entire network of underground tunnels (since destroyed by Israel), where its operatives and their weapons could remain hidden from the view of Israeli pilots. The men of Hamas were thus able, until recently, to move across the Strip through these tunnels without being observed. Now Israel has both located and destroyed that network of terror tunnels. These tunnels cost hundreds of millions of dollars to build, money that might have gone to schools, hospitals, and relief aid to the 65% of Gazans who now live below the poverty line. Abdulrahim has nothing to say about the spending choices Hamas has made, so scandalously indifferent to the wellbeing of Gazans.
Last May, the US Treasury Department revealed that Hamas’ Investment Office, which oversees a network of three Hamas financial facilitators and six companies, raised more than $500 million for the terror organization. “Hamas has generated vast sums of revenue through its secret investment portfolio while destabilizing Gaza, which is facing harsh living and economic conditions. Hamas maintains a violent agenda that harms both Israelis and Palestinians,” charged Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Terrorist Financing and Financial Crimes, Elizabeth Rosenberg.
All that money, coming to Hamas from rich Sunni Arab individuals in the Gulf, from the state of Qatar, and now, too, from Iran, which has chosen to overlook sectarian differences with Hamas for the greater good of the cause – the destruction of the Jewish state — adds up to hundreds of millions of dollars a year. Where does it all go? Much of it goes to the tens of thousands of members of Hamas, who live well amidst so much poverty. And while 60% of Gazans are unemployed, Hamas members and their relatives are assured of well-paid government sinecures. Abdulrahim ignores the economic benefits of membership in Hamas, a source of great resentment among the general population.
Meanwhile. the New Arab reported in July 2022 (“‘We Want to Live’: Gazans revive popular online campaign against Hamas“):
Residents in Gaza revived a three-year-old digital campaign against the Islamic Hamas movement, blaming it for the deteriorating living conditions in the territory over the years.
Under the hashtag “We Want To Live”, thousands of Gazans, including expatriates, joined the campaign which holds Hamas mainly responsible for the economic, political and social problems in the impoverished and besieged coastal enclave….
But Abdulrahim won’t touch these folks’ stories….
Hamas runs the Gaza Strip like a Mafia family. Those who are in the family – the “made men” of Hamas — get everything they want, for themselves and their relatives, while the general population endures a steady impoverishment. At the very top are the leaders, whose colossal corruption is a constant source of resentment and rage. Just two of those leaders, Khaled Meshaal and Mousa bin Marzouk, have each managed to accumulate fortunes of $2.5 billion. In addition, 600 “Hamas millionaires,” who have been allowed to take their more modest cuts from donors’ aid of between one and a few million dollars apiece, live in luxurious villas in the Strip.
Israel, meanwhile, is doing its best to improve the economic situation of Gazans. It has increased the number of work permits for Gazans from 7,000 to 17,000 in just two years and has now gone beyond even that number, providing more than 21,300 Gazans with work permits. And Jerusalem has made clear that if conditions are sufficiently peaceful, it is prepared to increase the number of such permits further still. Israel has similarly increased the work permits for Palestinians in the West Bank to more than 120,000. With these permits, Gazans can work in Israel and earn salaries seven times greater than what they can earn in Gaza – if that is, they can find work at all in the Strip. With these salaries, the Gazans working in Israel can support large numbers of people in their extended families. In fact, the only good economic news to report from Gaza is about an increase in the number of people who can now work in Israel.
Abdulrahim must know of the online protests against Hamas, and knows of the resentment and rage against Hamas felt by so many Gazans, but she fails to report on any of that. Hamas must be very pleased with Abdulrahim’s reporting. And so, it seems, is The New York Times.
Republished below in full unedited for informational, educational, & research purposes.
WASHINGTON — NSSF, The Firearm Industry Trade Association, applauds Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis for signing HB 3, legislation the governor made a priority earlier this year. HB 3 will prevent “woke” corporations with discriminatory policies against firearm industry members and other businesses from collecting taxpayer dollars through state contracts and pensions. Simply put, the Sunshine State will choose to do business with those companies that do not discriminate based on an industry they may not like or with which they disagree politically.
“This is a promise kept by Governor DeSantis. He said he would ensure that ‘woke’ corporations would not benefit from Florida’s tax dollars while those same corporations actively discriminate against lawful but disfavored businesses. Today, Governor DeSantis delivered on that promise,” said Lawrence G. Keane, Senior Vice President and General Counsel for NSSF. “The firearm industry is deeply grateful to the legislators who worked diligently to protect industries that are wrongfully denied essential financial services simply because ‘woke’ Wall Street banks politically disagree with them. Wall Street can choose to hold on to those ‘woke’ discriminatory policies but Governor DeSantis has made it clear that Florida will choose to do business with those that share Floridians’ values.”
The legislation builds on a ban Gov. DeSantis signed last year prohibiting “woke” Environmental, Social, and Governance investment strategies with state and municipal pension funds.
Gov. DeSantis explained at the signing ceremony that ESG policies that discriminate against politically-disfavored industries are antithetical to free market enterprise and have no place in Florida.
“Last year we said we were going to take action against something called ESG. It stands for something called environmental and social governance. But what it really is is an attempt by elites to impose ideology through business institutions, financial institutions, and our economy writ large,” Gov. DeSantis said, according to Florida Politics. “ESG is basically just window dressing for doing what these people want to do. … It’s really an elite-driven phenomenon. They’re trying to change society. They’re trying to change policy.”
About The National Shooting Sports Foundation
NSSF is the trade association for the firearm industry. Its mission is to promote, protect and preserve hunting and shooting sports. Formed in 1961, NSSF has a membership of thousands of manufacturers, distributors, firearm retailers, shooting ranges, sportsmen’s organizations, and publishers nationwide. For more information, visit nssf.org
Republished below in full unedited for informational, educational, & research purposes.
If you had any doubt that Bernie Sanders (I-USSR) was an actual Communist, doubt no longer. The guy who stands ready in case Old Joe retires and the Democrats opt to pick another octogenarian Leftist sat down Friday for a chat with Chris Wallace on HBO Max, and declared that if someone earns more than $999 million in a given year, the U.S. government should seize all of it. That’s right: all of it. Not 90 percent. Every last penny. And he showed no indication of having any idea why this policy if it were ever enacted, would kill the economy and leave non-billionaires worse off than they were before. Or maybe, given the unanimous record of socialist states, that’s the idea.
The UK’s far-Left Guardianreported Tuesday that the trouble started when the failed CNN host Wallace asked the twice-failed presidential candidate Sanders about a statement in the old Commie’s book It’s OK to Be Angry About Capitalism. Sanders, by the way, receives royalties for that book, and there is no cap on the income he can earn; if it becomes a bestseller, he will get more money. At no point will anyone step in and tell Bernie, who owns three houses, that he is making too much money, and has to turn over the rest to the wise Leftist bureaucrats who will duly redistribute it to those in need.
Wallace asked Sanders about his declaration in that book that “billionaires should not exist.” He asked the old leech: “Are you basically saying that once you get to $999m that the government should confiscate all the rest?” Sanders unabashedly owned up to backing systematic and organized grand theft, replying: “Yeah. You may disagree with me but, fine, I think people can make it on $999m. I think that they can survive just fine.” This is precisely the kind of deceptive argument that Leftists love to use in order to justify their evil and inhumane policies.
In reality, there is no doubt that Bernie Sanders is right: people with 999 million dollars will do just fine. But that is not the only aspect of this scenario that needs to be considered. Bernie started to rail against Walmart, claiming, according to the Guardian, that it “in many cases pays starvation wages to its 1.2 million employees.” Sanders asserted that “many of their workers are on Medicaid or food stamps. In other words, taxpayers are subsidizing the wealthiest family in the country. Do I think that’s right? No, I don’t.”
This betrayed Bernie’s failure to understand basic economics. He deplores the idea that Walmart workers are collecting government benefits; apparently, he believes that the Walton family, which owns the retail giant, should pay better wages so that the government doesn’t have to offer welfare benefits to Walmart employees. All right. But he was saying all this in the context of explaining why he thinks that wages after a certain point should be confiscated entirely by the government. If that plan were implemented, the Waltons would have less money. It would be more difficult for them to pay the wages Sanders is demanding, and the government would have to take up the slack with the money it confiscated. So Sanders’ proposal would end up reinforcing the system he hates.
Impervious to logic and common sense, Sanders insisted: “You can have a vibrant economy without [a few] people owning more wealth than the bottom half of American society.” He said that if he ever becomes Dear Leader, er, that is, president, “if you make a whole lot of money, you’re going to pay a whole lot of money.”
On the surface, it sounds just, and that’s why it takes in superficial thinkers such as Sanders’ friend and acolyte Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. But Sanders shows no appreciation of the fact that the billionaires he wants to rob are the people who provide jobs for those who aren’t billionaires. If the rich can only earn a certain amount by law, they’ll go to other countries where they can keep more of what they earn, or they simply will not produce as much. Why should they, if the government is going to take it all?
The ones who suffer from all this socialism, in the end, will be the poor about whom Sanders claims to care. The places where they might have worked will have gone to other countries that offer a more favorable tax structure. The people who might have started a company that would have employed them will have no incentive to do so. That’s why socialist countries are always economic basket cases and always will be.
Sanders has every reason to know this. He loves Communism so much that back in 1988, he and his new bride honeymooned in the Soviet Union, apparently delighted to visit a totalitarian state that imprisoned and enslaved its own people. Brute force is the only way you can force people to work if they have no economic incentive to work hard. That’s the paradise this old Commie envisions for the country that used to be known as the Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave.
Republished below in full unedited for informational, educational, & research purposes.
This is rich: the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) held its annual conference last week — which was naturally focused on fighting COVID-19 — and the event turned into a COVID-19 superspreader.
The four-day conference, which was held in an Atlanta hotel and hosted about 2,000 attendees, was held in person for the first time in four years. By day three, at least one person at the confab had tested positive for the dreaded virus. On the fourth day, “conference leaders publicly announced the potential cases in the closing session of the conference, canceled an in-person training, emailed all officers with current CDC guidance and offered to extend the hotel stays of sick attendees who needed to isolate,” according to the Washington Post, which quoted an email from CDC spokesperson Kristen Nordlund.
In a Friday article hilariously entitled “CDC meeting, intended to mark covid progress, sees virus cases of its own,” the Post provided the schadenfreudelicious details. For starters, the conference was specifically for the CDC’s “epidemic intelligence service officers [EID] — the disease detectives deployed to identify and fight outbreaks” — the CDC’s own COVID-fighting elite, in other words. And there’s more from this rich vein of irony among the people who spent the past three years presuming to tell us how to avoid the scary virus:
Among the presentations were more than a dozen sessions on the lessons from fighting covid, including “How Far We Have Come: A COVID-19 Surveillance System Evaluation,” a session that discussed improvements in tracking the virus. …
“We haven’t had the conference in four years, so we’re really excited to have our current officers and our alumni back,” Eric Pevzner, head of the service, said in a video earlier this week. “This is the place where our disease detectives are showcasing their work.” …
In posts on social media, conference attendees were unmasked as they gathered in person. Some CDC staffers and alumni opted to attend virtually, worried about covid risks, according to people with knowledge of the event.
And now we know how that turned out — among people who were doubtless “vaccinated and boosted” up to their eyeballs, yet.
As of Tuesday, 35 attendees had tested positive, CDC spokes Nordlund told The Hill:
“CDC is working with the Georgia Department of Health to conduct a rapid epidemiological assessment of confirmed COVID-19 cases that appear to be connected to the 2023 EIS Conference to determine transmission patterns in this phase of the COVID-19 pandemic,” Nordlund said.
“Whenever there are large gatherings, especially indoors, such as at a conference, there is the possibility of COVID-19 spread, even in periods of low community spread,” she added.
The Hill notes that current COVID-19 infection rates are considered to be low both in Fulton County, Ga., (where the conference was held) and across the nation. That the gubmint experts tasked with tracking and fighting the virus — and dictating our freedoms to us — were able to muster up enough infection to create their own outbreak under these low-risk conditions speaks volumes.
Republished below in full unedited for informational, educational, & research purposes.
Joe Biden and his deputy chief of staff held a meeting with three business associates of Hunter Biden, one of whom was a foreign national, at the White House during the summer of 2011 when Biden was serving as vice president. This information was obtained through a review of emails and White House visitor logs by Fox News Digital.
During a July 2011 meeting, Hunter was reportedly attempting to negotiate a deal worth billions of dollars with these associates, one of whom was likely a foreign national, with then-Vice President Joe Biden and his deputy chief of staff Alan Hoffman. The individuals present were energy executive David Gamperl and two relatively unknown businessmen named Xi Wang and Andre Lasserre. The meeting was arranged after the trio had previously pitched a lucrative Brazilian bond deal to Hunter Biden, the son of Joe Biden. Two intermediaries, including Sean Conlon — who would later become the co-host of CNBC’s “The Deed” and the founder of Conlon & Co. — facilitated the meeting with the aim of helping Conlon and Hunter’s Rosemont Seneca investment firm “get more bonds to move.”
On June 22, 2011, Gamperl emailed Conlon about the “substantial profit” being offered by Nagi Ghawi, president of the now-defunct Mercantile Investment Group of the West Indies. Conlon later forwarded the email to Hunter Biden, insisting “We need to put our heads together on this.”
On the same day, Ghawi proposed a meeting with either then-Vice President Joe Biden or his chief of staff, “ASAP.” In another email forwarded to Hunter Biden by Conlon, Ghawi confirmed his acceptance of a letter of engagement “based on 7% fees + 3% fees as a bonus if the first structured instrument (LTN) is executed within 60 days.” The deal would cover all intermediary fees, with any other fees to be deducted from that amount.
In a reply to Conlon, Hunter said, “Ok- what do we need to do moving forward?”
“I will discuss,” Conlon explained. “I got a letter. I need an email about the event and a promise about meeting next week,” adding later that the stipulation was an agreement for the vice president to “formally meet” with “these guys.”
“So we have an engagement letter if they get other 10 bonds they have a face value of 10b,” Conlon wrote on June 23, 2011. “While it is far-fetched Devon [Archer] said he talked to his professor and these get traded. We get 10% in fees. We need to get these guys to an event or something where they get to just formally meet your Dad. For follow on they can talk to the Chief of Staff. Let me know how soon we can do that. V[ery] brief. If Nagi gets that done we get more bonds to move.”
There is substantial evidence to support the claim that Joe Biden had knowledge of his son’s business dealings, despite his repeated denials. During his time as vice president, Biden met with over a dozen of his son’s business associates, contradicting his repeated denials of having any knowledge of Hunter’s business activities.
“I have never spoken to my son about his overseas business dealings,” Biden told Peter Doocy in 2019. “You should be looking at Trump. Trump’s doing this because he knows I’ll beat him like a drum. … Everybody’s looked at it and said there’s nothing there. Ask the right question.”
