No One Is Safe From [ New York Times] Biased Reporting Michael Milken Wall Street Journal

 No One Is Safe From [ New York Times]  Biased Reporting
 Michael Milken  Wall Street Journal

https://www.wsj.com/articles/no-one-is-safe-from-biased-reporting-11580428578?mod=itp_wsj&mod=&mod=djemITP_h

A free and independent press is, and should always be, an impenetrable bulwark of our democracy. “Were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter,” wrote Thomas Jefferson in a 1789 letter. The media’s hallowed role, embodied in the First Amendment, assures near-total freedom to report (and even misreport) the news.

Press freedom, however, implies a responsibility to place truth above narrow partisan campaigns. That’s why editorial and commentary pages must be kept separate from news reporting. That separation has often been breached, but certain prominent news organizations have branded themselves clarions of truth. The New York Times long nurtured such a reputation. So it is profoundly disappointing to see the Times’s news pages increasingly corrupted by the political views of its reporters and editorialists.

Candor requires that I note my own lack of objectivity. For complex reasons, I have been the object of unfounded and vicious attacks by the Times for more than three decades. An article in October falsely suggested that I had intervened to obtain opportunity-zone status for the 107,000-acre Tahoe-Reno Industrial Center, or TRIC, to benefit what the Times said was my minority investment in a partnership holding 688 acres of raw land in TRIC. (It’s my longstanding practice not to divulge what’s in my portfolio.) The singular focus on this tiny sliver of the 107,000 acres makes no sense. TRIC’s 99.4% owners include Tesla, Google, Panasonic, Walmart, Blockchains, Berkshire Hathaway, Switch and other giant companies that have spent billions of dollars at TRIC and have lobbied on its behalf.

I had no knowledge about the extensive activities of the major corporate owners, their lobbyists or advisers. I am not a manager, director or officer of the partnership that owns 688 acres. Yet the Times ignored the major corporate owners to focus on me, a clear indication of their intent to deceive their readers. I can take care of myself, but I’m concerned about all those other victims caught in the middle of partisan mudslinging by the institutions that claim dedication to the truth.

As Fred Smith, founder and CEO of FedEx, wrote in these pages in November, the Times attacked his company by “printing selected facts, connecting unrelated events, and implying nefarious activities when there were none whatever.” That’s exactly what the Times did to me last fall in a long article about Nevada real estate investments. Mr. Smith’s complaint centered on provisions of the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act and its benefits to FedEx that the Times asserted were unfair.

A different provision of the act established opportunity zones, which provide incentives for private capital to create jobs and assist families in economically depressed areas. It appears the Times doesn’t like the opportunity-zone concept. They and others might prefer direct government assistance rather than incentives to private capital. While reasonable people have taken principled positions on both sides of this debate, it’s a problem when a newspaper violates its mission by carrying editorial views over to the news pages.

This is part of the Times’s multiyear campaign opposing virtually every initiative of the Trump administration. The paper attacked Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, whose department oversees opportunity zones. Then it determined it could conjure a news story virtually out of thin air if it could link Mr. Mnuchin in some way to a private citizen who might benefit from provisions of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act.

Apparently I fit the bill, and the paper deployed six reporters and researchers for several months looking for dirt. They didn’t find any—I did none of the things they hinted at. But the editors weren’t about to let an absence of facts kill a breathless front-page exposé about how I and other investors stood to “Profit From Trump Tax Break for Poor Areas.” The Times claimed, wrongly, that the Treasury secretary directed regulatory changes for my benefit. Not only did he not makes the changes for my benefit, the changes didn’t benefit me. The article reached false conclusions by claiming that mere coincidences proved intent, or by conflating events that occurred months apart in a dizzying feat of obfuscation. This ignored the public record of what really happened.

This is irresponsible journalism. The Times, which sometimes seems to exist in an alternate universe, knew before publication that important conclusions and implications in the article about me were wrong because we and the U.S. Treasury gave them every relevant fact. I’ve never spoken to Mr. Mnuchin, any other government official or anyone else about putting TRIC in an opportunity zone; I have never authorized anyone to act for me on that matter and no one has ever asked me to take any action related to it; I had no knowledge of any lobbying to put TRIC in an opportunity zone.

We gave the Times these and many other facts. They, and anyone with an internet connection, could have easily found the truth. I asked my lawyers to do just that by retaining someone to go online and figure out the real story from the public record. In three days this person found a deep trove of facts that the Times’s six reporters had apparently chosen to ignore. Anyone who wants to know the truth can find an article telling the real story plus a fact sheet and timeline at www.mikemilken.com. These documents provide a sobering antidote to the errors, omissions, deceptions and bias in the Times article.

The Times has now sent my office new questions that suggest another article is in the works. I will vigorously counter any further journalistic mendacity with hard facts and, where appropriate, other actions. But the greater risk is that no one is safe when a previously respected news organization deploys its considerable resources to twist the truth. Keep that in mind as you read future articles attacking opportunities for upward mobility through job creation.

Mr. Milken is chairman of the Milken Institute.

Crying Wolf on Impeachment Kimberley A. Strassel Wall Street Journal

 Crying Wolf on Impeachment
Kimberley A. Strassel
Wall Street Journal

The impeachment trial of Donald J. Trump is coming down to one big question: Will Democrats, by crying wolf, drown out the more legitimate Republican cry of foul?

“Foul” has served as the GOP’s most powerful and honest argument from the first days of these impeachment maneuverings. Democrats broke every standard of due process, transparency and fairness in their House investigation, making a mockery of their constitutional duty.

They hid the identity of the original accuser, denying Republicans and the country the ability to judge his motives. They held secret depositions, barring more than three-quarters of House members, as well as the press and the American public. They called 18 witnesses, but blocked the president from calling any in his defense. The White House legal team was excluded from the proceedings—prohibited from cross-examining witnesses, denied the ability to introduce any evidence that spoke to the central question of the president’s focus on Ukrainian corruption.

House Intelligence Chairman Adam Schiff secretly obtained and published the communications records of the president’s private attorney, a member of Congress and a reporter. Democrats withdrew their court challenge to compel a key witness, depriving the White House of the ability to defend its executive-privilege claim in court. And the legitimacy of the first portion of the House inquiry—including numerous subpoenas—is in doubt, since it was conducted before the House voted to open it.

Democrats approved two articles of impeachment that failed to identify a crime. Senators are instead asked to render verdicts on a vague “abuse of power” claim and on a “obstruction of Congress” charge that is the result of the House’s own decision not to litigate its demand for testimony. Those articles were passed by a partisan vote with no serious expectation of conviction, simply to make a statement: “He is impeached forever,” Speaker Nancy Pelosi said this month.

Foul, foul, foul. The Democratic affront to basic norms and standards is why most Americans continue to reject impeachment. And it is why Republican senators remained on solid ground in moving toward a quick acquittal. Substantively, they have rightly asserted it is their duty to reject a partisan and procedurally defective impeachment. Politically, they remain on the side of the majority of Americans who oppose removing this president from office.

Yet now come Democrats and the press insisting it is Senate Republicans’ job to call yet more witnesses on their behalf, namely former national security adviser John Bolton. Mr. Schiff and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer claim the failure to do this will result in a rigged trial, a “coverup,” an assault on the Constitution. Cue Republican jitters.

Relax. This is a false alarm—and for all the reasons Republicans have articulated to date. Calling Mr. Bolton wouldn’t remedy a fatally flawed proceeding. It wouldn’t erase the secret hearings, or fix the failure to settle “contempt” in the courts, or restore due process. Mr. Bolton’s testimony would add nothing. His supposed big reveal is that Mr. Trump tied the withholding of aid to Ukrainian investigations of corruption. And? Mr. Trump’s defense team has spent the week highlighting his focus on Ukrainian corruption that goes back to 2018. It has also documented completely separate reasons for the aid delay.

Everyone understands that Mr. Bolton’s testimony wouldn’t change a single Republican vote on acquittal. The only merit to calling him would be the opportunity it would provide to reopen the investigation, to allow the president’s team an honest defense with its own full roster of witnesses. But how many senators have the stomach for the months this duty to fairness would require? How many Republicans think weeks and weeks more of this torturous process is beneficial to their re-election? And who thinks that this is the Senate’s job anyway?

Republicans who hope a vote for witnesses will protect them from Democratic assault are in denial. They are surely savvy enough to know that even testimony from Mr. Bolton wouldn’t stop cries of “coverup.” Any assertion of executive privilege—any refusal to answer any question—would be cast as concealment. Democrats would claim dozens of other officials were muzzled. They can’t afford ever to concede that Mr. Trump was acquitted in a fair trial.

Far better for Republicans to shut down the whole circus. The whole affair was a series of major fouls. Get acquittal in the history books and roar out with a renewed condemnation of the Democratic abuse of a serious process. Go about reminding voters of the merits of Republican governance versus the theatrics of the partisan “resistance.” Move on to the true way Americans are meant to settle political differences in this country—the November elections.

Write to kim@wsj.com.

Copyright ©2019 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved. 87990cbe856818d5eddac44c7b1cdeb8

Biden’s Sister Sent Millions of Joe’s Campaign Dollars to Her Own Firm Hannah Blea

Biden’s Sister Sent Millions of Joe’s Campaign Dollars to Her Own Firm

Hannah Blea

https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2020/01/28/joe-bidens-sister-valerie-sent-millions-of-joes-campaign-dollars-to-her-own-consulting-firm/?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_term=daily&utm_campaign=20200128&utm_content=A
Valerie Biden Owens, the sister of former vice president Joe Biden (D), who served as the campaign manager for his past presidential campaigns, directed $2.5 million from “Citizens for Biden” and “Biden for President Inc.” to her own consulting firm during her brother’s 2008 presidential bid alone, Breitbart senior contributor and Government Accountability Institute (GAI) President Peter Schweizer’s investigative blockbuster Profiles in Corruption: Abuse of Power by America’s Progressive Elite reveals.

Biden’s political tenure, as Schweizer’s book extensively details, has largely remained a complicated family affair, resulting in little-known financial benefits for not just his son Hunter Biden, but for his sister Valerie.

Her role as a senior partner in the political messaging firm Slade White & Company coincided with her participation in Biden’s various political campaigns. She was only one of two executives – the other being Joe Slade White – at the firm and has remained the Executive Vice President for 15 years.

However, the lines between her role as leading her brother’s political campaigns and working at the firm blurred, as the firm “received large fees from the Biden campaigns that Valerie was running,” Profiles in Corruption reveals:

The firm received large fees from the Biden campaigns that Valerie was running. Two and a half million dollars in consulting fees flowed to her firm from Citizens for Biden and Biden For President Inc. during the 2008 presidential bid alone. Keep in mind that Joe Slade White & Company worked for Biden campaigns over eighteen years.

The report demonstrates a pattern, as Schweizer’s book shows, of the complex, albeit largely unknown, dynamics of the Biden family and the financial benefits reaped, which purportedly stem from the presidential hopeful’s varying positions in government throughout his life.

“These are not a few disparate enterprises, but rather moneymaking ventures that appear to be part of a well-organized family business,” Profiles in Corruption details.

Biden has previously denied, particularly on the campaign trail, the allegations that his family members have cashed out in various ways over the course of his political career.

“I’ve never discussed with my son or my brother, or anyone else anything having to do with their businesses, period,” Biden told reporters in August 2019 amid further allegations of his family members using his political leverage for personal gain.

“As we will see, this is an impossibility, “ Schweizer writes.

The latest revelation, detailing Valerie’s direction of millions of her brother’s campaign dollars to her consulting firm, follows the eye-opening discoveries detailed in Schweizer’s New York Times #1 bestseller Secret Empires, which effectively “blew the lid off the Biden-Burisma scandal in Ukraine, wherein Hunter Biden made up to $83,000 a month with Ukrainian energy giant Burisma as his father led U.S.-Ukraine policy while vice president,” as Breitbart News detailed.

Profiles in Corruption also exposes “the Biden 5,” detailing how Hunter Biden’s firms scored business deals with figures and entities tied to the governments of Russia, China, and Kazakhstan. It also reveals how Biden’s brothers seemingly benefited from his political stature. As Schweizer reveals, James Biden’s firm received $1.5 billion in government contracts despite a lack of experience in the international development industry. Profiles in Corruption also details Frank Biden’s connection to projects receiving millions in taxpayer loans over the course of the Obama administration.

Materials to review and consider: 1) corruption in the Ukraine; and 2) Kissinger on Trump [especially international relations]

 Materials to review and consider: 

1) corruption in the Ukraine; and

 2) Kissinger on Trump [especially international relations]

 Below, for your information, are six reports on corruption involving  prominent US nationals and/or their families and the summary of a meeting with Henry Kissinger.

Items a. and b. by Peter Schweizer are  regarded as highly reliable; 

Items c. d. e. f.  contain  a great  range of materials,  many of which have been  verifed from other sources including on the  scene field investigations .  [They are forwarded as  “interesting”  but  "not fully verified” and if they are forwarded further they should be labeled as “not fully verified”];

The  Henry Kissinger remarks came from a face-to-face discussion with a reliable source but may not ,on reflection, adequately  present Henry Kissinger’s public opinion. [Therefore; the Kissinger remarks, before being forwarded, should be subject to crosschecking  with other recent public statements  made by Henry Kissinger. ]



a.     Profiles in Corruption: Abuse of Power by America's Progressive Elite  January 21, 2020 by Peter Schweizer

b.     Secret Empires: How the American Political Class Hides Corruption and Enriches Family and Friends
by Peter Schweizer

c.     Corruption in Ukraine – September 1, 2016 by Oleg Bazaluk

d.     Corruption in Ukraine: view from the inside: What is really going on in Ukraine by Anna Iemelianova


e.     Ukraine: Democratization, Corruption, and the New Russian Imperialism (Praeger Security International) by Taras Kuzio

f.     Energy Dependency, Politics and Corruption in the Former Soviet Union: Russia's Power, Oligarchs' Profits and Ukraine's Missing Energy Policy, ... Series on Russian and East European Studies) by Margarita Balmaceda (

g.    Kissinger : on Trump  [Kissinger once wrote:
"The weak grow strong by effrontery – The strong grow weak through inhibition!"  No sentence better captures International relationships.]

Donald Trump is a phenomenon that foreign countries haven't seen before. He is  a  leader… doing changes like never before.

Every country now has to consider two things:

     One, their perception that the previous president, or the outgoing president, basically withdrew America from international politics, so that they had to make their own assessments of their necessities.

     And secondly, that there is a new president who's asking a lot of unfamiliar questions. 

Our allies grew complacent with Obama's passivity and now are fearful due to Trump's activism.  And they must balance the two in developing their policies. The  new assertion of power under Trump creates a new dynamic that every one of our allies and of our enemies must consider. When Trump boasts that he has a "bigger red button" than Kim Jung Un does, he  transcends the  rhetoric of the past, thereby forcing a new recognition of American power.

 Trump is  talking about issues that most Americans are concerned about. My mantra about Trump is … we are in agreement with most of what he says.  What matters is that he covers most of the things we  want.

Army Maj. Gen. (Ret.) John K. Singlaub, a Decorated War Hero, Urges AG Barr to Dismiss Charges Against Gen. Michael Flynn

Army Maj. Gen. (Ret.) John K. Singlaub, a Decorated War Hero,  Urges AG Barr to Dismiss Charges Against Gen. Michael Flynn

Kristina Wong



Army Maj. Gen. (Ret.) John K. Singlaub, a decorated war hero, wrote to Attorney General Barr on Thursday, asking him to dismiss charges against Lt. Gen. (Ret.) Michael Flynn, the president’s former national security adviser.

Singlaub, chairman of America’s Future, Inc., and Ed Martin, president of the organization, wrote that a federal prosecutor named Brandon Van Grack, in a “severe miscarriage of justice,” pressured Flynn to lie in a case related to a former business partner. They wrote:

This kind of a political conduct should not be levied at an American hero like Lt. General Flynn. As a decorated military officer with a career spanning from World War II to the Reagan Administration, and in light of my continued efforts to help our President and democracy, I know what courage looks like. I have fought Nazis, Communists, and other enemies of freedom. I have worked against enemy lines and behind them. I’ve seen the atrocities of war and tasted victory.

There may be few people today who have seen what I have seen, but courage doesn’t just belong to my generation. Many brave men and women fight for freedom today. Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn is one such courageous individual. He served our nation honorably for thirty-three years in the U.S. Army. During his time in Afghanistan and Iraq, he had an important role in developing counterterrorism strategy. As a founding member of the Central Intelligence Agency, I can attest to the difficulty and importance of the work he did. He is clearly a patriot in every sense of the word. That’s why I was so pleased to honor him as the inaugural recipient of an award bearing my name in 2018, the Maj. Gen. John K. Singlaub Award For Service To America.

They said now Flynn is facing “character assassination, financial ruin, and prison time because of a vendetta-driven narrative launched by Robert Mueller’s phony investigation.”

They wrote to Barr, “I call on you to show courage now by supporting Lt. Gen. Flynn as the American hero he is … . Our men and women in uniform should be treated with fairness and respect. No one who has served America so faithfully should have the Department of Justice pressuring them to lie.”

Singlaub and Martin implored Barr:

You are a man who holds justice in very high regard, Mr. Barr. Please see that Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn receives the justice he deserves. The underlying narrative of destroying our Nation’s core belief system and social justice with injustice is what these rogue men and women are instigating. We must not allow our way of life to be upended by those who want to rule by ruining the careers of those that stand for righteousness.

You can see that the rule of law means something and those that conspire to take down our leaders do not prevail. Rule in favor of the Honorable Lt. General Michael Flynn, dismiss the charges, and show the nation and the world our Department of Justice will not tolerate these insubordinate pressures thrust upon good people.

Flynn last month withdrew his guilty plea, after Flynn’s defense attorney Sidney Powell alleged that Van Grack pressured Flynn to lie in a case against a former partner. When Flynn refused to do so, Van Grack reversed his obligations as part of the plea deal in the special counsel’s inquiry into whether the Trump campaign colluded with Russia.

How five members of Joe Biden’s family got rich through his connections

By Peter Schweizer

---

Political figures have long used their families to route power and benefits for their own self-enrichment. In my new book, “Profiles in Corruption: Abuse of Power by America’s Progressive Elite,” one particular politician — Joe Biden — emerges as the king of the sweetheart deal, with no less than five family members benefiting from his largesse, favorable access and powerful position for commercial gain. In Biden’s case, these deals include foreign partners and, in some cases, even U.S. taxpayer dollars.

The Biden family’s apparent self-enrichment involves no less than five family members: Joe’s son Hunter, son-in-law Howard, brothers James and Frank, and sister Valerie.

When this subject came up in 2019, Biden declared, “I never talked with my son or my brother or anyone else — even distant family — about their business interests. Period.”

As we will see, this is far from the case…

James Biden

Joe Biden’s younger brother, James, has been an integral part of the family political machine from the earliest days when he served as finance chair of Joe’s 1972 Senate campaign, and the two have remained quite close. After Joe joined the U.S. Senate, he would bring his brother James along on congressional delegation trips to places like Ireland, Rome and Africa.

When Joe became vice president, James was a welcomed guest at the White House, securing invitations to such important functions as a state dinner in 2011 and the visit of Pope Francis in 2015. Sometimes, James’ White House visits dovetailed with his overseas business dealings, and his commercial opportunities flourished during his brother’s tenure as vice president.

Consider the case of HillStone International, a subsidiary of the huge construction management firm, Hill International. The president of HillStone International was Kevin Justice, who grew up in Delaware and was a longtime Biden family friend. On November 4, 2010, according to White House visitors’ logs, Justice visited the White House and met with Biden adviser Michele Smith in the Office of the Vice President.

Less than three weeks later, HillStone announced that James Biden would be joining the firm as an executive vice president. James appeared to have little or no background in housing construction, but that did not seem to matter to HillStone. His bio on the company’s website noted his “40 years of experience dealing with principals in business, political, legal and financial circles across the nation and internationally…”

James Biden was joining HillStone just as the firm was starting negotiations to win a massive contract in war-torn Iraq. Six months later, the firm announced a contract to build 100,000 homes. It was part of a $35 billion, 500,000-unit project deal won by TRAC Development, a South Korean company. HillStone also received a $22 million U.S. federal government contract to manage a construction project for the State Department.

David Richter, son of the parent company’s founder, was not shy in explainingHillStone’s success in securing government contracts. It really helps, he told investors at a private meeting, to have “the brother of the vice president as a partner,” according to someone who was there.

The Iraq project was massive, perhaps the single most lucrative project for the firm ever. In 2012, Charlie Gasparino of Fox Business reported that HillStone officials expected the project to “generate $1.5 billion in revenues over the next three years.” That amounted to more than three times the revenue the company produced in 2011.

A group of minority partners, including James Biden, stood to split about $735 million. “There’s plenty of money for everyone if this project goes through,” said one company official.

The deal was all set, but HillStone made a crucial error. In 2013, the firm was forced to back out of the contract because of a series of problems, including a lack of experience by Hill and TRAC Development, its South Korean associate firm. But HillStone continued doing significant contract work in the embattled country, including a six-year contract with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

James Biden remained with Hill International, which accumulated contracts from the federal government for dozens of projects, including projects in the United States, Puerto Rico, Mozambique, and elsewhere.

---

Hunter Biden

With the election of his father as vice president, Hunter Biden launched businesses fused to his father’s power that led him to lucrative deals with a rogue’s gallery of governments and oligarchs around the world. Sometimes he would hitch a prominent ride with his father aboard Air Force Two to visit a country where he was courting business. Other times, the deals would be done more discreetly. Always they involved foreign entities that appeared to be seeking something from his father.

There was, for example, Hunter’s involvement with an entity called Burnham Financial Group, where his business partner Devon Archer — who’d been at Yale with Hunter — sat on the board of directors. Burnham became the vehicle for a number of murky deals abroad, involving connected oligarchs in Kazakhstan and state-owned businesses in China.

But one of the most troubling Burnham ventures was here in the United States, in which Burnham became the center of a federal investigation involving a $60 million fraud scheme against one of the poorest Indian tribes in America, the Oglala Sioux.

Devon Archer was arrested in New York in May 2016 and charged with “orchestrating a scheme to defraud investors and a Native American tribal entity of tens of millions of dollars.” Other victims of the fraud included several public and union pension plans. Although Hunter Biden was not charged in the case, his fingerprints were all over Burnham. The “legitimacy” that his name and political status as the vice president’s son lent to the plan was brought up repeatedly in the trial.

The scheme was explicitly designed to target pension funds that had “socially responsible investing” clauses, including pension funds of labor union organizations that had publicly supported Joe Biden’s political campaigns in the past. Indeed, eight of the eleven pension funds that lost their money were either government employee or labor union pension funds. Joe Biden has “a long-standing alliance with labor.” He closely identifies with organized labor. “I make no apologies,” he has said. “I am a union man, period.” And many public unions have endorsed him over the years.

Transcripts from Devon Archer’s trial offer a clearer picture of Hunter Biden’s role at Burnham Asset Management, in particular, the fact that the firm relied on his father’s name and political status as a means of both recruiting pension money into the scheme and alleviating investors’ concerns.

Tim Anderson, a lawyer who did legal work on the issuance of the tribal bonds, recounts seeing Hunter while visiting the Burnham office in New York City to meet with Bevan Cooney, who was later convicted in the case.

The political ties that Biden and Archer had were considered key to the Burnham brand. As stated in an August 2014 email, Jason Galanis, who was convicted in the bond scheme, agreed with an unidentified associate who also thought the company had “value beyond capital” because of their political connections.

In the closing arguments at the trial, one of Devon Archer’s defense attorneys, Matthew Schwartz, explained to the jury that it was impossible to talk about the bond scheme without mentioning Hunter Biden’s name. This “was perfectly sensible,” according to Schwartz, “because Hunter Biden was part of the Burnham team.”

---

Howard Krein

Biden’s daughter, Ashley, and her husband Dr. Howard Krein 

It would be a dream for any new company to announce their launch in the Oval Office at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

StartUp Health is an investment consultancy based out of New York City, and in June 2011 the company barely had a website. The firm was the brainchild of three siblings from Philadelphia. Steven Krein is CEO and co-founder, while his brother, Dr. Howard Krein, serves as chief medical officer. Sister Bari serves as the firm’s chief strategy officer. A friend named Unity Stoakes is a co-founder and serves as president.

StartUp Health was barely up and running when, in June 2011, two of the company’s executives were ushered into the Oval Office of the White House. They met with President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden.

The following day the new company would be featured at a large health care tech conference being run by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), and StartUp Health executives became regular visitors to the White House, attending events in 2011, 2014 and 2015.

How did StartUp Health gain access to the highest levels of power in Washington? There was nothing particularly unique about the company, but for this:

The chief medical officer of StartUp Health, Howard Krein, is married to Joe Biden’s youngest daughter, Ashley.

“I happened to be talking to my father-in-law that day and I mentioned Steve and Unity were down there [in Washington, D.C.],” recalled Howard Krein. “He knew about StartUp Health and was a big fan of it. He asked for Steve’s number and said, ‘I have to get them up here to talk with Barack.’ The Secret Service came and got Steve and Unity and brought them to the Oval Office.”

StartUp Health offers to provide new companies technical and relationship advice in exchange for a stake in the business. Demonstrating and highlighting the fact that you can score a meeting with the president of the United States certainly helps prove a strategic company asset: high-level contacts.

Vice President Joe Biden continued to help Krein promote his company at several appearances through his last months in the White House, including one in January 2017, where he made a surprise showing at the StartUp Health Festival in San Francisco. The corporate event, open only to StartUp Health members, enabled the 250 people in attendance to chat in a closed session with the vice president.

---

Frank Biden

Biden’s brother, Frank Biden.

In late March 2009, Vice President Joe Biden landed in Costa Rica aboard Air Force Two, and went to the Costa Rican presidential palace for a one-on-one with President Oscar Arias. The Biden visit had symbolic significance. The last time a high-ranking American official had visited the country was back in 1997, when Bill Clinton had come.

Joe Biden’s trip to Costa Rica came at a fortuitous time for his brother Frank, who was busy working deals in the country. Just months after Vice President Biden’s visit, in August, Costa Rica News announced a new multilateral partnership “to reform Real Estate in Latin America” between Frank Biden, a developer named Craig Williamson, and the Guanacaste Country Club, a newly planned resort. The partnership, which appears to be ongoing, was wrapped in a beautiful package as a “call on resources available to the companies and individuals to reform the social, economic and environmental practices of real estate developers across the world by example.”

In real terms, Frank’s dream was to build in the jungles of Costa Rica thousands of homes, a world-class golf course, casinos, and an anti-aging center. The Costa Rican government was eager to cooperate with the vice president’s brother.

As it happened, Joe Biden had been asked by President Obama to act as the Administration’s point man in Latin America and the Caribbean.

Frank’s vision for a country club in Costa Rica received support from the highest levels of the Costa Rican government— despite his lack of experience in building such developments. He met with the Costa Rican ministers of education and energy and environment, as well as the president of the country.

On October 4, 2016, the Costa Rican Ministry of Public Education signed a letter of intent with Frank’s company, Sun Fund Americas. The project involved allowing a company called GoSolar to operate solar power facilities in Costa Rica. The previous year, the Obama-Biden administration’s OPIC had authorized a $6.5 million taxpayer-backed loan for the project.

In June 2014, Vice President Joe Biden announced the launch of the Caribbean Energy Security Initiative (CESI). The program called for increasing access to financing for Caribbean energy projects that he strongly supported. American taxpayer dollars were dedicated to facilitating deals that matched U.S. government financing with local energy projects in Caribbean countries, including Jamaica. In January 2015, USAID announced that it would be spending $10 million to boost renewable energy projects in Jamaica over the next five years.

After Joe Biden brought together leaders for CESI, brother Frank’s firm Sun Fund Americas announced that it was “engaged in projects and is in negotiations with governments of other countries in the [Caribbean] region for both its Solar and Waste to Energy development services.” As if to push the idea along, the Obama administration’s OPIC provided a $47.5 million loan to support the construction of a 20-megawatt solar facility in Clarendon, Jamaica.

Frank Biden’s Sun Fund Americas later announced that it had signed a power purchase agreement (PPA) to build a 20-megawatt solar facility in Jamaica.

---

Valerie Biden Owens

During his years in the Senate, Biden’s family benefited financially in other ways as he leveraged political power. Joe’s sister Valerie ran all of his Senate campaigns, as well as his presidential runs in 1988 and 2008.

But she was also a senior partner in a political messaging firm named Joe Slade White & Company; the only two executives listed at the firm were Joe Slade White and Valerie.

The firm received large fees from the Biden campaigns that Valerie was running. Two and a half million dollars in consulting fees flowed to her firm from Citizens for Biden and Biden For President Inc. during the 2008 presidential bid alone.

Joe Slade White & Company worked for Biden campaigns over eighteen years.

From the book PROFILES IN CORRUPTION: Abuse of Power by America’s Progressive Elite by Peter Schweizer. Copyright C 2020 by Peter Schweizer. Reprinted by permission of Harper, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers.

SOROS: THE DRUG LORD. PRICKING THE BUBBLE OF AMERICAN SUPREMACY by Roger Morgan

SOROS: THE DRUG LORD. PRICKING THE BUBBLE OF AMERICAN SUPREMACY   by Roger Morgan 

[“If one can correctly identify a problem, the solution is self evident.”—Harold Weeks]

This book is dedicated to my former wife Pam and stepdaughter Kelly, who have endured over 30 years of addiction in the family;

To my stepchildren Jennifer and Michael for my failure to get you both to adulthood drug-free;

To Debbie Wagner, for enduring my endless cave time and absentee mind while writing;

To the thousands of unsung and unpaid heroes who fight every day in communities across America, decade after decade, to preserve and enhance the lives of young people and get them safely to adulthood free of addiction.

And to my brothers Gary and Steve, and good friend Bob Dresslar and Rod Perry, who kept me afloat after an arduous year of complete economic melt down.

Foreword

My involvement in drug prevention is a result of two step-children who became addicted to drugs at age 12 and 14 roughly 30 years ago, on my watch. Like so many of my colleagues whose kids have died or been destroyed by drugs, we strive to find ways to prevent others from experiencing the same fate. I became actively involved in 1997 as Founding Chairman of the Coronado SAFE Foundation. I have been active in other organizations as a Board Member of the San Diego Prevention Coalition; member of the National Coalition for Student Drug Testing; Co-Founder of Californians for Drug-Free Schools and Special Advisor to the Golden Rule Society in Coronado.

My 14 year journey of discovery of the causes and potential solutions to the War-On-Drugs has endowed me with the following indelible beliefs:

We cannot win the war by treating the wounded, or trying to stop the supply of drugs. We must also focus on demand reduction by preventing the disease.

Drug addiction is a preventable disease that almost always starts with kids. While we have the tools (i.e. random drug testing) to prevent it, our government does not have the will or courage to do so.

The federal government is no longer tied to the people, but is controlled by money that flows in large part from and through George Soros, who professes to own the Democratic Party and has obviously neutralized the Republican Party.

Drugs help our enemies in two ways: 1) By providing them with vast sums of money for whatever their cause; and 2) Destroying or incapacitating significant portions of society places a huge economic burden on hardworking taxpayers and weakens the state they wish to control.

The greatest enemy and threat to this nation is not radical Islam and Al Qaeda, but the treasonous George Soros, who uses his billions to socially engineer and deconstruct America so that he can achieve his maligned goal of a New World Order.

Soros influence on America is taking us down a path of complete destruction. Over several decades, he has systematically invested in politicians, liberal organizations and the media so that he socially engineer society into oblivion, as with a third world country. But even he said in his book, The Bubble of American Supremacy, that sooner or later if the government doesn't fulfill its responsibility to protect the people, the people will revolt. Its time!

If there is any hope for America it lies in the grass roots efforts of millions of Americans to rid the nation of Soros and all those in power that he has corrupted, from the top down. We need to resurrect a honorable, fiscally responsible constitutionally limited government that serves the people, not the enemy.

Roger Morgan

GEORGE SOROS

His real motives weren't entirely clear, before the Obama Administration. By being the primary source of financing to proliferate the use of illicit drugs in America, with no concern for the death, destruction and economic cost they inflict on society, Soros and his treasonous companions obviously had something to gain. Was it just more money? With a personal net worth of $7 to $9 billion, obviously he wasn't going to miss a meal.

Harold Weeks was a service manager for IBM, and my father-in-law from a former marriage. When I was a young man transitioning from graduate school to my first job with Caterpillar, he gave me the following sage advice: “If one could correctly identify a problem, the solution would be self evident.” That advice has served me well throughout my life, and is applicable here.

My contention is that one cannot understand the root cause of the drug problem in America, whereby we have 5% of the world's population yet consume 66% of the world's drugs, unless you understand the role, mission and actions of George Soros, spearhead for the illicit drug trade. Soros is unquestionably leading the effort to legalize and proliferate the use of illicit drugs, but many others serve his cause, including the 16.7 million Americans who smoke pot.

My personal journey into drug prevention stemmed from my failure to get all of my kids to adulthood intact, free of addiction to drugs. As the journey grew from local to state and national involvement, it became increasingly clear that the role of Soros and the Drug Policy Alliance (DPA) were aimed at fostering the proliferation of drug use, at the expense of young people and the future of our nation; for that matter, all nations.

Unlike others who want to legalize drugs for various reasons, Soros has a more sinister objective, to control the world by economic means, to create a New World Order. The biggest obstacle to achieve that end has been a strong America. It appears that he is armed with billions, maybe even trillions, that flow through his secretive offshore hedge fund (The Quantum Fund in the Netherland Antilles), which gives him the financial means to do it. If you look at his influence on what is happening in America today, one can conclude he is well on his way.

Afflicting the disease of addiction on the masses helps overwhelm public services for health, mental illness, crime, welfare, child/family assistance et al., which in turn creates a greater dependence on an ever expanding socialistic government while those with the money are in control. The British have practiced it for centuries, in China with the opium wars and India with ganja. Make vast sums with drug money and use the money to control a state weakened in large part by addicting a large percentage of the population.

Army Gave Special Forces Captain 14 Days to Leave without Severance Pay

 Army Gave Special Forces Captain 14 Days to Leave without Severance Pay

KRISTINA WONG 18 Jan 2020

The Army gave a Special Forces captain with 17 years of service and a Purple Heart only 14 days of notice to separate from the Army — leaving him and his family scrambling to figure out how to pay all their bills for at least the next few months.

To make matters worse, a medical board had qualified him to receive a $250,000 severance package for injuries he sustained while serving in combat in Iraq in 2007. But an Army assistant deputy secretary ignored that recommendation and instead ordered that he be separated with nothing.

The captain had been planning, as part of a warrior transition program with the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), to begin training at the VA beginning in late January through April. The program allows active duty soldiers transitioning out of the military to receive their military pay while training to become a service representative at the VA. However, due to the Army’s ruling, he would not be an active duty soldier when the program begins, and thus not be eligible for the program.

The VA has granted several people, including him, an exception to start training, but he will not receive any pay during the training.

The captain, in addition to monthly mortgage and other bills, is also supporting a family of five — himself, his wife who is attending pharmacy school, and his three children, 13, 11, and three.

His three-year-old daughter will lose her ability to attend military base daycare once her father is separated from the Army. The family will have to find childcare while not making any income for at least several months. While he will have health care at the VA, his immediate family will not, until he finds another job at the VA or elsewhere.

All of this is happening due to an extramarital affair he had five years ago, in 2015. He asked not to be identified out of concern over retaliation as well as hurting his future job prospects.

After six combat deployments and injuries from an improvised explosive device (IED) in 2007, he was suffering from chronic lower back pain, traumatic brain injury, and marital problems. He said his then-wife refused to work on their problems, instead wanting to appear “picture perfect” to the outside world.

He fell into a dark period and considered suicide. It was at that time he started an affair, which lasted for two-and-a-half months, while on a deployment. He said the woman was married to an Army staff sergeant, who he did not know personally, and that they were already going through a divorce. After seeking help, he confessed to his wife about the affair. They then went to marital counseling.

They would eventually divorce, but as he was going through marital counseling, he told his chain of command about the affair in October 2016. He was then relieved of his duties, had his clearance suspended, and was suspended from work for 11 months. His suspension ended when he received a General Officer Memorandum of Reprimand (GOMOR) in 2017, which is essentially a letter of reprimand, from the 1st Special Forces Command commander.

Things seemed to get better after his suspension ended, however. He was assigned to work at his Special Forces Group’s headquarters in a “rehabilitation assignment,” where he deployed to Germany and worked on sensitive activities to deter Russian aggression and excelled at that job. After the deployment, he was then given an executive officer position in a company, essentially becoming second in command. He was remarried in the fall of 2018 and getting treatment for his injuries.

Around that time, he was informed that the GOMOR had triggered a board of inquiry on whether he should be separated from the Army. His deputy commander and two battalion commanders wrote letters to the board in his defense, arguing he should be allowed to stay in the Army.

A Special Forces colonel and group commander he served under wrote in an August 2018 letter:

[He] has accepted responsibility for the actions documented in his GOMOR and referred [Officer Evaluation Report]. He continues to serve our Nation, the Army, and our Soldiers at a very high level — the Army should retain him.

…

We assess [his] leadership as sound. His professional performance warrants continued service. He has expiated his personal and professional transgressions through hard personal and professional work.

His battalion commander wrote in a separate August 2018 letter:

I unequivocally recommend that [he] be retained on active duty as a Special Forces Officer. Prior to the incident in 2015, [he] performed exceptionally well as an officer in the U.S. Army. After receiving a General Officer Memorandum of Reprimand, [he] continued to be a top officer, performing with distinction as a CPT in this highly talented Special Forces Group. I witnessed [his] leadership, critical thinking, and ability to make a difference in our Soldiers’ lives.

…

I believe [he] understands his errors and fully redeemed himself. In retention, I believe [he] will live the Army values, continue to be a strong performer, and excel as a Special Forces CPT. I strongly recommend this officer be afforded the opportunity for continued service as a Special Forces Officer.

Another battalion commander wrote:

His work ethic and commitment to excellence was apparent with his ability to manage, plan, and execute sensitive activities for a forward deployed O-6 headquarters, a task usually assigned to a seasoned Field Grade Officer. [He] is an officer that can always be counted on to complete any task assigned and is a great asset to the Army and the Special Forces Regiment. He should be retained and given the opportunity to lead in the future.

And a major and direct supervisor wrote:

With one exception, [his] professional record depicts a high performing and accomplished Army Officer, which is consistent with my personal observations over the past eight months as his supervisor. During a recent deployment, [he] was provisionally assigned to my office. I found [him] to be a distinctly competent, hardworking, and motivated Captain. His initiative, leadership, and concern for Soldiers impressed me.

…

I respectfully request retention of [him] in the U.S. Army as a Special Forces Officer.

Despite the letters, the Army board of inquiry decided on February 28, 2019, that he would be separated with an honorable discharge. About a month later, his doctors recommended he be evaluated by a medical board and seek medical separation or retirement due to his injuries.

A physical evaluation board on November 1, 2019, found him to be physically unfit for duty due to his IED-related injuries and recommended he be medically separated from the Army with severance pay. The board’s rating and his 17 years of service qualified him for an approximately $250,000 severance package.

His lawyers told him it would take six to nine months for the Army to adjudicate the board of injury’s ruling and the medical board’s recommendation, which would give him roughly until May 2020 to transition out of the Army. He then applied for the VA training program.

Despite a medical separation usually taking precedence over other kinds of separation, on January 6, 2020, Army Assistant Deputy Secretary Alexander Conyers convened an “ad hoc review board” and denied his medical separation and severance pay, and instead gave him an honorable discharge and just 14 days notice of separation from the Army.

The captain has sought help from Sen. Cory Gardner (R-CO), whose office has queried the Army about his case. The Army told his office in a January 10, 2010, letter obtained by Breitbart News:

The Department of Army Ad Hoc Review Board subsequently reviewed the case. The elimination is based on both misconduct and moral or professional dereliction (army Regulation 600-8-24, paragraph 4-2b), and derogatory information (Army Regulation 600-8-24, paragraph 4-2c).

Gardner’s office said in a letter that the Army has not addressed all the issues his case raises and that he will be following up on his case with the Army.

Aside from being denied a medical separation with severance pay, he has been denied the ability to take 67 days of leave he has built up or transition leave, which could have allowed him to continue to be paid while training with the VA through April. The Army instead bought back his days of leave for about $11,000, but that may not be approved until March.

“Now my daughter will not have daycare. I will not have a job. I am looking and applying, and my family will not have health care until I find a new job. My entire family is struggling with this news. My wife is applying for residency programs, and she does not believe she will be able to do them now that I will not have a job and the severance package,” he said.

“I have served with honor. I have been wounded in combat, and when I come forward with my problems, the Army did not care and just threw me away,” he said.

The captain has also looked at recent high-profile cases where soldiers who were convicted have been pardoned. “I am looking for mercy to save me and my family,” he said.

He will also likely have chronic back pain for the rest of his life. “Sometimes I can’t even walk,” he said.

He is due to be discharged from the Army on Monday, January 20, 2020. Since Monday is a federal holiday, he cleared his workspace on Friday.

Veteran advocates agree it is unusual that a medical board recommendation not take precedence over a board of inquiry.

Andrew Pogany, an Army veteran who runs a non-profit to help veterans suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder, said this kind of stress can lead those serving to a path of suicide.

“It’s a horrific sad reality of how this nation treats those who have honorably served,” he said.

Breitbart News queried the Army as to why he was being honorably discharged versus medically separated, whether his discharge is a result of him coming forward with mental health and marital issues, and why he was given only two weeks notice to leave the Army instead of allowed to use 67 days of earned leave.

An Army spokesman responded that due to privacy concerns, the Army was not able to discuss the specifics of the case.





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GOD BLESS AMERICA

 The link at the bottom will take you to a video showing the very first public singing of  "God Bless America."



But before you watch it you should know the story behind the first public showing of the song.

The time was 1940.

  America was still in a terrible economic depression.

Hitler was taking over Europe and Americans were afraid we'd have to go to war.

It was a time of hardship and worry for most Americans.  This was the era just before TV when radio shows were HUGE and American families sat around their radios in the evenings, listening to their favorite entertainers and no entertainer of that era was bigger than  Kate Smith.


Kate was also large; plus size as we now say and the popular phrase still used today is in deference to her; "It ain't over till the fat lady sings."
Kate Smith might not have made it big in the age of TV but with her voice coming over the radio, she was the biggest star of her time.  Kate was also patriotic.

It hurt her to see Americans so depressed and afraid of what the next day would bring.

She had hope for America, and faith in her fellow Americans.

She wanted to do something to cheer them up, so she went to the famous American song-writer Irving Berlin (who also wrote White Christmas) and asked him to write a song that would make Americans feel good again about their country.  When she described what she was looking for, he said he had just the song for her.  He went to his files and found a song that he had written but never published, 22 years before - in 1917.


He gave it to her and she worked on it with her studio orchestra.

She and Irving Berlin were not sure how the song would be received by the public, but both agreed they would not take any profits from God Bless America.  Any profits would go to the Boy Scouts of America .  Over the years, the Boy Scouts have received millions of dollars in royalties from this song. This video starts out with Kate Smith coming into the radio studio with the orchestra and an audience. She introduces the new song for the very first time and starts singing.  After the first couple verses, with her voice in the background, scenes are shown from the 1940 movie, You're In The Army Now.


At the 4:20 mark of the video you see a young actor in the movie, sitting in an office, reading a paper; it's Ronald Reagan.  You will recognize other old stars but have forgotten their names.  You may remember George Murphy near the end, though.


To this day, God Bless America stirs our patriotic feelings and pride in our country.

Back in 1940, when Kate Smith went looking for a song to raise the spirits of  her fellow Americans, I doubt whether she realized just how successful the results would be for her fellow Americans during those years of hardship and worry... and for many generations of Americans to follow.  Now that you know the story of the song, I hope you'll enjoy it.


Many  people don't know there's a lead in to the song since it usually starts with God Bless America... So here's the entire song as originally sung.  Enjoy it!



Kate Smith introduces God Bless America - YouTube
https://www.youtube.com/embed/TnQDW-NMaRs?rel=0

Human Rights Watch: Hypocritical Critic of  ‘Jewish Settlers’…. while actively supporting settlements in “occupied territories” everywhere else in the world

Eugene Kontorovich   Wall Street Journal

Hypocritical attacks on Israel are common, but Sarah Leah Whitson takes them to a new level. As Middle East and North Africa director of Human Rights Watch, she is one of the sharpest critics of the Jewish state’s presence in the West Bank, promoting boycotts and international prosecution for the supposed crimes of occupation and settlement. Yet elsewhere Ms. Whitson strongly supports settlements in occupied territories—suggesting that she and her colleagues don’t take their own legal claims against Israel seriously.

The settlements Ms. Whitson supports are in Nagorno-Karabakh, an area that was within the borders of post-Soviet Azerbaijan until 1994, when Armenia occupied the region after a protracted war. Since then, the Armenian leadership in Yerevan has actively encouraged the movement of settlers into the area. Many Armenians regard Karabakh as their historic homeland. But the United Nations, international courts and the U.S. all consider it occupied Azeri territory.

Ms. Whitson, who is from an Armenian family, served as master of ceremonies at a 2018 fundraiser for the Armenian National Committee of America, a pro-settler charity that views Karabakh as an “integral part of the Armenian homeland.” Even as Ms. Whitson led Human Rights Watch’s campaign to boycott Israeli economic activity in the West Bank, she took to Twitter to promote Armenian wines, including from the occupied territories. Asked about the inconsistencies between her positions, Ms. Whitson responded by email: “My personal support for Armenian diaspora organizations pertains to their charitable and educational work in Armenia and their efforts to advocate for recognition of the Armenian Genocide.”

This explanation is at odds with HRW’s approach to Israel, where the group calls for boycotts of entire companies—including unrelated divisions—because some of their work is in settlements. It is also at odds with the record: Ms. Whitson’s fundraising appeals for pro-settlement groups are in no way limited to educational issues. She has celebrated the work of the Armenian General Benevolent Union, which supports new settlement construction to encourage “young families to set down their roots.” She specifically praised the group for helping Syrian Armenians who have “resettled in Armenia”; many or most such refugees have been resettled in the occupied territory.

Ms. Whitson is fully within her rights to support Armenian settlements. Nothing in international law requires boycotts or sanctions against such communities. But if HRW were serious about its opposition to “settlers” and “occupation,” it wouldn’t have a supporter of them heading its Middle East division.

Ms. Whitson isn’t alone in opposing occupation and settlements only in Israel. Nancy Kricorian, leader of a Code Pink boycott campaign against Israel, also turns out to be an Armenian settler activist. Michigan Rep. Rashida Tlaib urges a boycott of Israel while co-sponsoring a bill to normalize relations with Armenian settlements.

The European Council on Foreign Relations has led efforts to restrict connections between Europe and Israeli activities in the West Bank. The think tank claims this is the clear and impersonal command of international law. Yet it has recently emerged that some of its largest corporate donors have significant and direct business interests in Moroccan-occupied Western Sahara and Turkish-occupied Northern Cyprus. The council doesn’t seem bothered by connections to those occupied territories.

Similarly, the revelations about Ms. Whitson will almost certainly not compromise her position at HRW or in the “antisettlement” movement. This shows that there is more than a double standard at play. The acceptance of settlement activity by supporters of sanctions on Israel suggest they know that the international law they claim to enforce against the Jewish state is not international law at all.

Mr. Kontorovich is a professor at George Mason University’s Scalia Law School 

Facebook utilizes censorship without giving the individual the ability for a meaningful appeal

Facebook utilizes censorship without giving the individual the ability for a meaningful appeal

Facebook apparently is doing political  censoring. Among Facebook accounts that have been disestablished include me, a Mormon bishop, and American Airlines  stewardess,, an Air Force general , a schoolteacher and a physician. None of us received any notice. None of us can be regarded as political. None of us have engaged in tit-for-tat   encounters

What we have in common is that we have said something favorable to Donald Trump. If we have posted links that have not been the same links nor has there been any contents that can remotely be identified as coordinated

Facebook’s actions are a attempt at censorship of conservative  thought. 

We now all sympathize with Donald Prager believe that your investigation will earn you journalistic recognition

Add Philip Rucker of the Washington Post to the list of unreliable fiction writers who attempt to seduce the American public with false information.

Add Philip Rucker of the Washington Post to the list of unreliable fiction writers who attempt to seduce the American public with false information.

The multiple faces of anti-Semitism Ben Cohen JNS.org 1-7-20

   Ben   Cohen’ article  is to the point  and should  be  a wake-up call to every military officer who should be concerned about the rapid worldwide drift toward  direct verbal and physical anti-semitic  actions against Jews.

The multiple faces of anti-Semitism

Ben Cohen     JNS.org   1-7-20
https://www.jns.org/opinion/the-multiple-faces-of-anti-semitism/

(January 5, 2020 / JNS) Several years ago, in an article for Commentary magazine, I offered a distinction between two kinds of anti-Semitic mindsets. I named the first one “bierkeller” anti-Semitism and the second one “bistro” anti-Semitism, as a way of illustrating the cultural gulf between these two forms.

Bierkellers, or “beer cellars,” were the drinking establishments in Germany that during the 1920s and ’30s were the domain of Nazi thugs. They also provided an arena for Adolf Hitler to refine his foaming gutter rhetoric targeting communism, liberalism, and most of all, the Jews. There was no attempt to camouflage or prettify any of this rhetoric, which loudly declared that the Jews were Germany’s misfortune. The thorough dehumanization of the Jews in Nazi propaganda prepared the ground for a decade of persecution that culminated in the Holocaust.

Bierkeller anti-Semitism, then, was unmistakable and instantly recognizable. But “bistro” anti-Semitism—named a bit mischievously in honor of the cozy restaurants and bars where metropolitan intellectuals tend to gather—was, I argued, harder to identify. That is because Jews as Jews are rarely the direct targets of these writings, speeches, parliamentary resolutions and so on. Instead, the bistro mindset relies upon qualifiers, codes and euphemisms that seek to separate “Jews” and “Judaism” from “Zionism,” “The State of Israel,” “The Jewish Establishment” and the other bugbears of progressives who advance anti-Semitic arguments while indignantly deflecting the charge of anti-Semitism as a reputational smear without foundation.

This contrast between the full-throated anti-Semitism that denies the Jews their humanity and the camouflaged anti-Semitism that denies the Jews their nationality isn’t the only difference. Arguably more important is the observation that the “bierkeller” form of anti-Semitism explicitly aims to visit physical violence upon Jews, whereas in its “bistro” form, protestations against Jewish power and privilege manifest in the main non-violently form: for example, boycott campaigns, demonstrations against pro-Israel and Zionist speakers on university campuses, the constant opprobrium poured upon the Jewish state in the halls of the United Nations, and by leading human-rights NGOs like Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International.

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Still, as the years have gone by, the gulf between crude anti-Semitism and its more polite expressions (between the “bierkeller” and the “bistro”) has narrowed considerably. Among the examples I would cite is the British Labour Party, where the anti-Semitic rhetoric that destroyed its reputation over the last five years was, more often than not, of the “Rothschild Bankers Rule the World” variety. (Not to mention blaming Jews for the trans-Atlantic slave trade, accusing “Zionists” of having “collaborated” with the Nazi regime and a slew of other murky fantasies that had nothing to do with Israeli settlement policy.)

I would also cite France, where the phenomenon of deadly violence against Jews—from terrorist attacks to home invasions—is now entering its third decade. No case better symbolizes the crisis of French anti-Semitism than that of Sarah Halimi, the 65-year-old Jewish woman who was tortured and beaten to death by one of her Muslim neighbors, Kobili Traoré, in a Paris public housing project in April 2017. Despite substantive evidence of Traoré’s past criminal record, his attendance at the Islamist Mosquee Omar in Paris, and witness testimony of his anti-Semitic cries as he battered Halimi to death, he will evade criminal trial on the grounds of temporary insanity caused by cannabis consumption. No wonder that the chief rabbi of France, Haim Korsia, described the decision by Paris prosecutors not to try Traoré as a “license to kill Jews.”

Moreover, during the last year, “visible Jews”—those who wear religious clothing or Jewish symbols—have been assaulted in numerous outrages across the globe, from Buenos Aires to Brooklyn to Berlin. In November, I reported on one such incident—a physical attack on a young, kipah-wearing Jewish man in the changing room of a gym in the German city of Freiburg by a man shouting “Free Palestine!” and “You Dirty Jew!” For the assailant, clearly, there was no need to separate the Palestinian cause from the anti-Jewish one; in the moment that he grabbed the young man’s kipah, spat on it and threw it into a garbage can, they were one and the same struggle.

The resurgence of crude, violent anti-Semitism in both the United States and Europe at the close of this last decade inevitably casts the polite anti-Semitism of progressive circles in a new light. For all their insistence that anti-Semitism is one thing and anti-Zionism something else entirely, on the streets of European and American cities, the two work hand-in-glove. Rhetoric that demonizes Israel for allegedly smuggling human organs, for example, has fused with more traditional fixations over Jewish bankers, Jewish lobbyists and Jewish secrecy.

The net result is not just that anti-Semitic hate crimes have multiplied in nearly every country with a Jewish community, most notably in America; it’s that anti-Semitism drawn from all parts of the political and cultural spectrum is now on open display, and painfully so. White supremacists, radical black nationalists and Islamists all coexist and contribute to the overall growth of anti-Jewish animus, while populist right-wing and left-wing politicians alike have shown themselves ready to co-opt anti-Semitism when it is politically expedient to do so. Anti-Semitic dog-whistles and tropes increasingly poison all manner of political disputes—from the ultra-nationalist AfD party in Germany’s parliament denouncing immigration to progressive Democrats on Capitol Hill denouncing American policy in the Middle East.

Neither of those two last groups would appreciate being bracketed with the other, but that merely demonstrates how ideologically adaptable anti-Semitism can be, particularly when digital communication allows for the spread of anti-Semitic ideas that blur traditional political, religious and national boundaries. How we respond to these developments as a Jewish community is among the critical tests we will face in the coming decade.

Ben Cohen is a New York City-based journalist and author who writes a weekly column on Jewish and international affairs for JNS.

Who is a greater threat – the left or the right?

The one thing that Alan Dershowitz and Dennis Prager agree on   [ Video link    https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=2&v=Gc86fPirz3A&feature=emb_logo    ]

Leah Rosenberg

https://israelunwired.com/leftist-and-conservative-who-agree-on-something/

Alan Dershowitz and Dennis Prager are two of the leading Jewish thinkers of our time. Dershowitz and Prager generally disagree, but agree on free speech. Dershowitz does not believe that God gave us an instruction book along with this world. Prager does. Dershowitz defines himself as a moral relativist. Prager explains perhaps better than anyone else how dangerous this attitude is. They could probably argue for hours and hours about politics and Judaism.
Any time you bring Dershowitz and Prager into the same room, you know it will be good.  Both Professor Alan Dershowitz and Dennis Prager are geniuses.  But they tend to toe a different line on most issues.  But not when it comes to free speech.  On this matter, they see eye-to-eye.

Who is a greater threat – the left or the right?

The hard-right and the hard-left pose a clear threat to the Western world.  But Alan Dershowitz, a liberal, argues that the hard left is a much greater threat.  This trailer for the film, “No Safe Spaces,” looks like this is going to be a classic film that protects free speech. [you tube video link….https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=2&v=Gc86fPirz3A&feature=emb_logo   ]
Tenured professors are indeed a group that is one of the most problematic in the world.
Dershowitz gets it and so does Dennis Prager!
The Liberal left is the clear and present danger in The United States.  If things continue to descend even more in the USA, a civil war may even become something that the Left will support! Of course, it takes two to tango. However, don’t expect the right-wing to sit there and let the left tape their mouths shut.
Free Speech must win out. Let’s have a genuine War of Ideas and then we won’t have any fear of ever lifting arms against one another.