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Gov. Kristi Noem Says COVID Didn’t Crush Economy, Government Did

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South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem speaks at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) Saturday, Feb. 27, 2021, in Orlando, Fla. (AP Photo/John Raoux)

By Eric Mack(NEWSMAX)

Hailing her state as the only one in the U.S. that did not declare shelter-in-place orders, mask mandates, business closures, or defining essential business, South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem fired back at the national failing of U.S. health experts during the pandemic.

“I don’t know if you agree with me, but Dr. [Anthony] Fauci is wrong a lot,” Noem said during her CPAC speech Saturday, pointing to the top U.S. infectious disease expert who told her South Dakota would get up to 10,000 COVID-19 hospitalizations in a day.

Her state never got over 600, she said.

“My administration resisted the call for virus control at the expense of everything else,” she continued, noting hospitalizations and not infection rates were her primary concern. “We looked at the science, the data, and the facts, and then we took a balanced approach.

“Truthfully, I never thought that the decisions that I was making were going to be unique. I thought that there would be more than would follow basic conservative principles, but I guess I was wrong.”

The early lockdowns were a step that would have locked down her state through the fall when the pandemic peaked, she said, calling out the “coercion, the force, and the anti-liberty steps the governments take to enforce them.”

“Often the enforcement isn’t based on facts; justifying these mitigation efforts has been anything but scientific,” Noem said.

Noem got laughs as she noted ABC’s George Stephanopoulos asked New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo to give Noem advice on handling the pandemic.

“Now seems like a really good time to remind everyone of what Gov. Cuomo was doing in New York,” she said, breaking down the allegations involving Cuomo’s withholding of COVID-19 death counts of seniors in longterm living facilities, after he mandated the homes to take in infected patients instead of sending them to an empty Navy ship and field hospitals.

“Now, that is the media’s COVID hero.”

2nd Former Aide Accuses Cuomo Of Sexual Harassment

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Ap

(AP) – A second former aide has come forward with sexual harassment allegations against New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who responded with a statement Saturday saying he never made advances toward her and never intended to be inappropriate.

Charlotte Bennett, a health policy adviser in the Democratic governor’s administration until November, told The New York Times that Cuomo asked her inappropriate questions about her sex life.

Another former aide, Lindsey Boylan, a former deputy secretary for economic development and special adviser to the governor, recently accused Cuomo of subjecting her to an unwanted kiss and inappropriate comments. Cuomo denied the allegations.

Cuomo said in a statement Saturday that Bennett was a “hardworking and valued member of our team during COVID” and that “she has every right to speak out.”

He said he had intended to be a mentor for Bennett, who is 25.

“I never made advances toward Ms. Bennett nor did I ever intend to act in any way that was inappropriate,” Cuomo’s statement said. “The last thing I would ever have wanted was to make her feel any of the things that are being reported.”

Cuomo, however, said he had authorized an outside review of Bennett’s allegations.

The governor’s special counsel, Beth Garvey, said that review would be conducted by a former federal judge, Barbara Jones.

“I ask all New Yorkers to await the findings of the review so that they know the facts before making any judgments,” Cuomo said. “I will have no further comment until the review has concluded.”

 

The pair of harassment allegations represent a deepening crisis for Cuomo, who just months ago was at the height of his popularity for his leadership during the height of the coronavirus pandemic last spring.

In recent weeks, he has been assailed, even by some fellow Democrats, over revelations that his administration had substantially underreported COVID-19 deaths in nursing homes.

A state assemblyman went public with complaints that Cuomo had threatened to destroy him politically over statements he made in the press, prompting other politicians to share stories about having been bullied by the governor.

Bennett did not immediately return a Twitter message seeking comment Saturday night.

She told the Times that her most disturbing interaction with Cuomo happened last June 5 when she was alone with him in his Albany office. She said Cuomo started asking her about her personal life, her thoughts on romantic relationships, including whether age was a factor, and said he was open to relationships with women in their 20s.

Bennett said she also dodged a question from Cuomo about hugging by saying she missed hugging her parents. She said Cuomo never touched her.

“I understood that the governor wanted to sleep with me, and felt horribly uncomfortable and scared,” Bennett told the Times. “And was wondering how I was going to get out of it and assumed it was the end of my job.”

Bennett said Cuomo also told her he wanted a girlfriend, “preferably in the Albany area,” and he was lonely since breaking up in 2019 with Sandra Lee, a chef, and TV personality.

Bennett also said she tried to change the subject when Cuomo’s comments were making her uncomfortable, telling him she was thinking of getting a tattoo. Cuomo, she told the Times, responded by suggesting she put the tattoo on her buttocks to avoid people seeing it when she wore a dress.

Bennett said she informed Cuomo’s chief of staff, Jill DesRosiers, about the interaction less than a week later. She said she was transferred to another job on the opposite side of the Capitol. At the end of June, she said she also gave a statement to a special counsel for Cuomo.

Garvey acknowledged that the complaint had been made and that Bennett had been transferred as a result to a position in which she had already been interested.

Garvey said in a statement that Bennett’s allegations “did not include a claim of physical contact or inappropriate sexual conduct” and Bennett “was consulted regarding the resolution, and expressed satisfaction and appreciation for the way in which it was handled.”

“The determination reached based on the information Ms Bennett provided was that no further action was required which was consistent with Ms Bennett’s wishes,” Garvey said.

Bennett told the newspaper she decided not to push for any further action by the administration. She said she liked her new job and “wanted to move on.”

Jones, who will oversee the investigation, was appointed to the bench by President Bill Clinton, a Democrat, in 1995. As a judge, she struck down a portion of the Defense of Marriage Act denying federal recognition of same-sex marriage in a ruling later upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court.

After retiring, she joined the law firm Bracewell LLP, where her work focuses on corporate compliance and investigations.

 

Her arbitration work included a 2014 decision throwing out Ray Rice’s suspension by the NFL for punching his fiancé in an elevator in an attack recorded on video.

Boylan said in Twitter postings Saturday night that she was proud of Bennett and alleged Cuomo “tried to destroy many, including me, in the press.”

“You are not going to derail or destroy any more lives,” she tweeted.

Abbas vetoes Israeli offer of vaccination unit on Temple Mount: ‘They’re trying to get a foothold’

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Temple Mount (Shutterstock)

The Palestinian Authority (PA) vetoed an Israeli offer last week to set up a vaccination clinic on the Temple Mount even though weekly prayers attract thousands of Arabs in potential super-spreader events and against health regulations.

Channel 11 reported Wednesday that PA President Mahmoud Abbas opposed the initiative, saying it would give Israel a “foothold” in the Al Aqsa compound. (Jerusalem had suggested the idea of putting a discreet vaccination unit inside a pharmacy on the Temple Mount.)

Israel also tried to soften the Palestinian rejection by proposing that only Arabs would administer the immunizations and that they would be dressed in regular clothes, with nothing identifying them as coming from Israeli health organizations. The PA remained adamantly against the idea.

When lockdown restrictions were eased almost two weeks ago, some 15,000 Moslems came for Friday prayers on the Mount. Israeli police did nothing to stop them entering Al Aqsa even though it was a gross violation of Health Ministry guidelines, which state that outdoor gatherings are limited to 20 people.

srael also tried to soften the Palestinian rejection by proposing that only Arabs would administer the immunizations, and that they would be dressed in regular clothes, with nothing identifying them as coming from Israeli health organizations. The PA remained adamantly against the idea.

When lockdown restrictions were eased almost two weeks ago, some 15,000 Moslems came for Friday prayers on the Mount. Israeli police did nothing to stop them entering Al Aqsa even though it was a gross violation of Health Ministry guidelines, which state that outdoor gatherings are limited to 20 people.

Television reports showed men crowded in long lines as they bowed and prayed, which violated social distancing rules as well. In at least one clip, practically no one was wearing a mask.

 

This is not a new phenomenon. In December, before the most recent lockdown, coronavirus commissioner Prof. Nachman Ash called the Temple Mount a “hole” in terms of Israel’s lack of enforcement of health regulations.

At the time, with the same high number of Arabs coming each week to pray, the infection rates in eastern Jerusalem neighborhoods were staggering. In Issawiya, 17.5% of Covid tests came back positive. In Kafr Aqab, 23%, and in Shuafat, a whopping 50%.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has publicly urged immunizations in the Arab sector and has visited health clinics in Arab towns to encourage vaccination. He took a picture with the one-millionth person to get the jab, an Arab in Umm al-Fahm.

The Health Ministry has staff dedicated to publicizing the need for inoculation among the Arab public, along with explanatory videos on its website about Covid-19 and vaccines in Arabic.

However, the morbidity rate from the coronavirus in the Israeli Arab sector still remains high in comparison to the rest of the population, and the vaccine rate is low. For example, among the most vulnerable over-60 age group, over 90% of the general public received a first shot, while that number is only 60% among Arab Israelis.

According to Palestinian news agency Wafa, on Thursday the Palestinian Ministry of Health called for a two-week full lockdown in Judea, Samaria and eastern Jerusalem due to a recent spike in coronavirus cases.

According to the Corona-tracker Worldometer site, while the three-day moving average at the beginning of the week in the “state of Palestine” was 596, by Wednesday it had jumped to 1,377.

Police arrest Oklahoma teens for vandalizing children’s Holocaust memorial

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The vandalized children's Holocaust memorial at the Sherwin Miller Museum of Jewish Art in Tulsa, Okla. Source: Screenshot/Tulsa Police Department.

(JNS) Two teens were arrested after they were caught on camera Wednesday morning toppling memorials dedicated to children killed during the Holocaust.

The five, custom-made metal sculptures were housed on the grounds of the Sherwin Miller Museum of Jewish Art in Tulsa, Okla. Each statue is filled with 2,000 rocks and has the names of Jewish children who were murdered on them.

The teen suspects, ages 15 and 16, were seen on video “bending the metal statues and knocking them down while also attempting to steal them unsuccessfully,” according to the museum, which estimates the damage to be upwards of $15,000.

“You come outside and your car’s been egged, that’s not great,” said Tulsa Police Lt. William White in a video posted online. “But when you have statues dedicated to the children lost in one of the greatest tragedies of humankind, obviously, there’s a different tier there. We are taking this very seriously.”

According to the police, the teens were apprehended with the help of the public, who called in tips as to their identity.

The suspects were arrested for “assault with a deadly weapon and felony vandalism [The technical term is malicious injury or destruction of property]. In this case, it’s a felony because the damage exceeds $1,000. … For those asking about charging with a hate crime, it is only a misdemeanor. They were charged with a higher crime felony, ‘vandalism.’ ”

According to the police, prior to damaging the statues, the suspects also threatened another citizen with a knife. No one was hurt in that incident.

On Facebook, the museum expressed appreciation for the acknowledgment of the statues and what they symbolize. It also noted that “this painful incident further reinforces our commitment to Holocaust education.”

Iran linked to explosion that struck Israeli-owned ship in Mideast

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hole made by an Iranian limpet mine on the damaged Panama-flagged, Japanese owned oil tanker Kokuka Courageous in 2019. (AP Photo/Fay Abuelgasim, File)

(AP) An explosion struck an Israeli-owned cargo ship sailing out of the Middle East on Friday, an unexplained blast renewing concerns about ship security in the region amid escalating tensions between the U.S. and Iran.

The crew and vessel were safe, according to the United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations, which is run by the British navy. The explosion in the Gulf of Oman forced the vessel to head to the nearest port.

The incident recalled the summer of 2019, when the same site saw a series of suspected attacks that the U.S. Navy blamed on Iran, which Tehran denied. Meanwhile, as President Joe Biden tries to revive nuclear negotiations with Iran, he ordered overnight airstrikes on facilities in Syria belonging to a powerful Iranian-backed Iraqi armed group.

Dryad Global, a maritime intelligence firm, identified the stricken vessel as the MV Helios Ray, a Bahamian-flagged roll-on, roll-off vehicle cargo ship. Another private security official, who spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity to discuss intelligence matters, similarly identified the ship as the Helios Ray.

Satellite-tracking data from website MarineTraffic.com showed the Helios Ray had been nearly entering the Arabian Sea around 6:00 GMT Friday before it suddenly turned around and began heading back toward the Strait of Hormuz. It was coming from Dammam, Saudi Arabia, and still listed Singapore as its destination on its tracker.

Israel’s Channel 13, in an unsourced report, said the assessment in Israel is that Iran was behind the blast. Israeli officials did not immediately respond to requests for comment. The Iranian government did not comment on the blast Friday.

The blast comes as Tehran increasingly breaches its 2015 nuclear accord with world powers to create leverage over Washington. Iran is seeking to pressure Biden to grant the sanctions relief it received under the deal that the U.S. bandoned nearly three years ago.

Iran also has blamed Israel for a recent series of attacks, including a mysterious explosion last summer that destroyed an advanced centrifuge assembly plant at its Natanz nuclear facility and the killing of Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, a top Iranian scientist who founded the Islamic Republic’s nuclear weapons program two decades ago.

Capt. Ranjith Raja of the data firm Refinitiv told the AP that the Israeli-owned vessel had left the Persian Gulf Thursday bound for Singapore.

On Friday at 2:30 GMT, the vessel stopped for at least nine hours east of a main Omani port before making a 360-degree turn and sailing toward Dubai, likely for damage assessment and repairs, he said.

The vessel came loaded with cargo from Europe. It discharged vehicles at several ports in the region, Raja added, including in Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia, with its last port of call at Dammam.

While details of the explosion remained unclear, two American defense officials told the AP that the ship had sustained two holes on its port side and two holes on its starboard side just above the waterline in the blast. The officials said it remained unclear what caused the holes.

They spoke to the AP on condition of anonymity to discuss unreleased information on the incidents.

A United Nations ship database identified the vessel’s owners as a Tel Aviv-based firm called Ray Shipping Ltd. Calls to Ray Shipping rang unanswered Friday.

Abraham Ungar, 74, who goes by “Rami,” is the founder of Ray Shipping Ltd., and is known as one of the richest men in Israel. He made his fortune in shipping and construction.

According to the Nikola Y. Vaptsarov Naval Academy, where Ungar provides support and maritime training, he owns dozens of car-carrying ships and employs thousands of engineers.

The U.S. Navy’s Bahrain-based 5th Fleet said it was “aware and monitoring” the situation. The U.S. Maritime Administration, an agency of the Transportation Department, issued a warning to commercial shippers early Saturday acknowledging the explosion and urging ships to “exercise caution when transiting” the Gulf of Oman.

While the circumstances of the explosion remain unclear, Dryad Global said it was very possible the blast stemmed from “asymmetric activity by Iranian military.”

As Iran seeks to pressure the United States to lift sanctions, the country may seek “to exercise forceful diplomacy through military means,” Dryad reported.

In the tense summer of 2019, the U.S. military blamed Iran for explosions on two oil tankers near the Strait of Hormuz, one of the world’s most strategic shipping lanes. The U.S. also had attributed a series of other suspected attacks to Iran, including the use of limpet mines — designed to be attached magnetically to a ship’s hull — to cripple four oil tankers off the nearby Emirati port of Fujairah.

Since the killing of Fakhrizadeh, the Iranian nuclear weapons scientist, last November, Israeli officials have raised alarms about potential Iranian retaliation, including through its regional terror proxies like Lebanon’s Hezbollah and Yemen’s Houthi rebels.

Over the years, Iran has been linked to attacks on Israeli and Jewish civilian targets in Latin America, Europe and Asia. Israel has not commented on its alleged role in the scientist’s killing.

Friday’s incident also follows normalization deals between Israel and the UAE and Bahrain. The agreements, met with scathing criticism from Iran, solidified an emerging regional alliance against the Islamic Republic.

Democrats Ignore Antifa, Black Lives Matter in Calling Out Domestic Terrorism: Rep. Greg Steube

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. (AP Photo/Marcio Jose Sanchez)

Democrats in their efforts against domestic terrorism have focused on right-wing groups and have not acknowledged violence from groups with a different ideology such as Antifa and Black Lives Matter, according to Rep. Greg Steube (R-Fla.).

“The way the Democrats define domestic terrorism is white nationalism, far right extremism. It’s not Antifa, it’s not Black Lives Matter,” Steube, who represents Florida’s 17th congressional district, told “American Thought Leaders” at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) on Friday.

Earlier this week, at a House hearing on domestic terrorism in America, Steube played a video showing organized rioting, arson, looting, and deadly violence across the United States in 2020.

“I put every one of the Democratic witnesses—after I showed a video of all the atrocious things that happened in this country over the summer, and all the violence that happened over the summer—[I] asked each one of them and read them the definition of what domestic terrorism is, and not a single one of them would agree that what Antifa and Black Lives Matter did to our country and the cities all over was domestic terrorism,” he said, adding that the Democrat witnesses either refused to answer the question, or called it “civil disobedience.”

The term “domestic terrorism” is defined under the USA Patriot Act of 2001 as referring to activities that involve “acts dangerous to human life that are a violation of the criminal laws of the United States or of any State [and] appear to be intended to intimidate or coerce a civilian population; influence the policy of a government by intimidation or coercion; or to affect the conduct of a government by mass destruction, assassination, or kidnapping; and occur primarily within the territorial jurisdiction of the United States.”

“If you read that [definition], what Antifa, Black Lives Matter [did], what happened in Minneapolis after the George Floyd shooting, all of that would be considered domestic terrorism,” Steube said. “So to say that that’s not and that’s peacefully protesting, and then [to say that] what happened Jan. 6 is domestic terrorism is not appropriate. It’s not an appropriate application in the law.”

Rioters light a fire at the Mark O. Hatfield Courthouse in Portland, Ore., on July 27, 2020. (Marcio Jose Sanchez/AP Photo)

Steube said he has called out the violence by Antifa and Black Lives Matter in the same way he had condemned the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol building. He said of Democrats’ stance, “If we’re starting to focus on one side of the political ideology, and not the other, I think [it] is very, very dangerous for the future of our country.”

“If you violated law, by illegally entering the Capitol on Jan. 6, and caused destruction of property, illegally entering a federal building, you should be held legally accountable for that, just like the protesters, and Portland and Seattle and Antifa and Black Lives Matter and what happened in Minneapolis, where they destroyed federal property, they should be held accountable too,” Steube said. “But the Democrats don’t want to go after the far left, progressive, violent actors, they only want to go after conservative violent actors.”

In a statement on Wednesday, Steube noted that prominent House Democrats have called Antifa a “false issue” and a “myth.”

Journalist Andy Ngo, an expert on the anarcho-communist group, previously told The Epoch Times that Antifa is “more than an idea.” He said that Antifa is “also a movement” that has networks of organizations, and some of them are organized into formal groups.

‘Weaponizing’ the Law to Target Political Ideology

Steube alleged that the USA Patriot Act has been used to pursue without a warrant people who were in Washington on Jan. 6.

“That’s why they’re defining it domestic terrorism. If they define it as domestic terrorism, then they can use the Patriot Act and investigate and surveil American citizens without a warrant,” he said.

While there were those who committed violence on Capitol grounds, many others who were in Washington on Jan. 6 were engaged in peaceful protest and did not commit any violence.

“You’re weaponizing the Department of Justice for political reasons, just like what we saw happen in Russia collusion, just like what we saw happen to the Trump campaign before Trump got elected,” Steube alleged.

He added: “You saw reporting where Bank of America was giving information of people who are using ATMs in Washington on Jan. 6. I know, in fact, that they’ve been going through cellphone records of those people that were that were there on Jan. 6. You normally wouldn’t be able to do that without a warrant under our Fourth Amendment rights under our Constitution, but they’re using the Patriot Act to go after domestic terrorism—in their ideological lens—which I think is very, very dangerous for the future of our country.”

Dem Assemblyman Santabarbara: FBI May Be Only Way to Get Truth about Cuomo, Nursing Homes

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Ap

IAN HANCHETT

On Friday’s broadcast of the Fox News Channel’s “Fox & Friends First,” New York State Assemblyman Angelo Santabarbara (D) said that the state legislature needs to use all of its powers, including subpoena powers, to get the truth about New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) and nursing homes, but given how the Cuomo administration withholds information from the legislature, the FBI’s investigation into the matter may be the only way to get to the truth.

Santabarbara said, [relevant remarks begin around 5:45] “We need more transparency from the governor, more accountability, and the FBI investigation that’s going on may be the only way that we get it. Because the bottom line is, this governor has withheld information from this legislature. And when we tried to exert our oversight powers, he simply ignored us. To me, that tells me that that’s not being transparent. That’s not transparency at all. That’s secrecy. We need to move forward with our own investigation, use all the powers at our disposal, subpoena powers. And these commissioners, they’re notorious — the governor’s commissioners, for coming to these hearings with no information at all. More often than not, we get answers like, we’ll have to get back to you. We’re not sure about that data. We really don’t get any answers from any of the governor’s people. It’s very frustrating. I think that the FBI investigation is something that may be the only way that we actually get truth and accountability from this governor.”

 

Breitbart

In Line For Senior Job at State, Sanders Aide Accuses Biden of Illegal Military Action

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youtube

(Free Beacon)

A top aide for Sen. Bernie Sanders (I., Vt.) who is reportedly in line to join the Biden administration took to Twitter Friday morning to assail the administration’s surprise airstrike in Syria by U.S. forces, the first military action in the war-torn country authorized by President Joe Biden.

Matt Duss, a Sanders aide who has established himself as a leading anti-Israel activist on the left, wrote that “Congress has not authorized war in Syria,” echoing criticism from many on the left who see the military strike on Syria-based Iranian militias as an illegal and unconstitutional act of war by the Biden administration.

The remark, one of several criticisms leveled by far-left foreign policy observers, comes as Duss is reportedly in line for a job at Biden’s State Department. While his rumored hiring has garnered praise from the Democratic Party’s left flank, it is unusual for prospective hires to accuse their prospective employers of war crimes.

It is not the first time Duss has criticized the president—last year he accused Biden “of undermining [former president Barack] Obama’s peace effort” between the Israelis and Palestinians, saying that Biden’s pro-Israel approach “has been wholly discredited by the last three years.”

It remains unclear what position Duss is in consideration for at the State Department. He is one of more than 100 hundred hires the progressive community is championing for jobs in the Democratic administration in hopes of pushing the State Department further left on foreign policy issues. In addition to his anti-war advocacy, Duss is a longtime critic of the U.S. alliance with Israel and has pushed to limit cooperation between America and the Middle East’s sole democracy.

Duss did not return a request for comment from the Washington Free Beacon.

Duss is not alone in opposing U.S. strikes on terrorist positions in Syria. White House press secretary Jen Psaki questioned the legitimacy of such operations in 2017, when the Trump administration authorized similar military operations against Iranian-linked forces. Vice President Kamala Harris also referred to U.S. military strikes in Syria as illegal in 2018, saying the Trump administration should not be permitted to conduct attacks without congressional approval.

US implicates Saudi crown prince in Khashoggi’s killing

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(AP) — Saudi Arabia’s crown prince likely approved the killing of U.S.-based journalist Jamal Khashoggi inside the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, according to a newly declassified U.S. intelligence report released Friday that instantly ratcheted up pressure on the Biden administration to hold the kingdom accountable for a murder that drew worldwide outrage.

The intelligence findings were long known to many U.S. officials and, even as they remained classified, had been reported with varying degrees of precision. But the public rebuke of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman is still a touchstone in U.S-Saudi relations. It leaves no doubt that as the prince continues in his powerful role and likely ascends to the throne, Americans will forever associate him with the brutal killing of a journalist who promoted democracy and human rights.

Yet even as the Biden administration released the findings, it appeared determined to preserve the Saudi relationship by avoiding direct punishment of the prince himself despite demands from some congressional Democrats and Khashoggi allies for significant and targeted sanctions.

Questioned by reporters, Secretary of State Antony Blinken defended the approach.

“What we’ve done by the actions we’ve taken is not to rupture the relationship but to recalibrate it to be more in line with our interests and our values,” he said. “I think that we have to understand as well that this is bigger than any one person.”

The conclusion that the prince approved an operation to kill or capture Khashoggi was based on his decision-making role inside the kingdom, the involvement of a key adviser and members of his protective detail and his past support for violently silencing dissidents abroad, according to the report from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence.

Though intelligence officials stopped short of saying the prince ordered the October 2018 murder, the four-page document described him as having “absolute control” over the kingdom’s intelligence organizations and said it would have been highly unlikely for an operation like the killing to have been carried out without his approval.

Saudi Arabia’s Foreign Ministry responded by saying the kingdom “categorically rejects the offensive and incorrect assessment in the report pertaining to the kingdom’s leadership.”

Shortly after the findings were released, the State Department announced a new policy, called the “Khashoggi Ban,” that will allow the U.S. to deny visas to people who harm, threaten or spy on journalists on behalf of a foreign government. It also said it would impose visa restrictions on 76 Saudi individuals who have engaged or threatened dissidents overseas.

The State Department declined to comment on who would be affected, citing the confidentiality of visa records. But a person familiar with the matter said the prince was not targeted. The person spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter.

The Treasury Department also announced sanctions against a former Saudi intelligence official, Ahmad Hassan Mohammed al Asiri, who U.S. officials say was the operation’s ringleader.

Democrats in Congress praised the administration for releasing the report — the Trump administration had refused to do so — but urged it to take more aggressive actions, including against the prince.

Rep. Adam Schiff, chair of the House Intelligence Committee, urged the Biden administration to consider punishing the prince, who he says has the blood of an American journalist on his hands.

“The President should not meet with the Crown Prince, or talk with him, and the Administration should consider sanctions on assets in the Saudi Public Investment Fund he controls that have any link to the crime,” Schiff said in a statement.

Sen. Ron Wyden, an Oregon Democrat, called for consequences for the prince — such as sanctions — as well as for the Saudi kingdom as a whole.

Rights activists said the lack of any punitive measures would signal impunity for the prince and other autocrats.

Without sanctions, “it’s a joke,” said Tawwakol Karman, a Nobel Peace Price winner from neighboring Yemen and friend of Khashoggi’s.

While Biden had pledged as a candidate to make Saudi Arabia a “pariah” over the killing, he appeared to take a milder tone during a call Thursday with Saudi King Salman.

A White House summary of the conversation made no mention of the killing and said instead that the men had discussed the countries’ long-standing partnership. The kingdom’s state-run Saudi Press Agency similarly did not mention Khashoggi’s killing in its report about the call, focusing on regional issues like Iran and the war in Yemen.

White House press secretary Jen Psaki has told reporters that the administration intends to “recalibrate” the U.S. relationship with Saudi Arabia. Biden previously ordered an end to U.S. support for the Saudi-led bombing campaign in Yemen and said he would stop the sale of offensive weapons to Saudi Arabia but has given few details of his plans.

Though the Biden administration’s relationship with Riyadh is likely to be more adversarial than that of Donald Trump’s, the reality is that Riyadh’s oil reserves and status as a counterbalance to Iran in the Middle East have long made it a strategic — if difficult — ally.

The broad outlines of the killing have long been known. The document released Friday says a 15-member Saudi team, including seven members of the prince’s elite personal protective team, arrived in Istanbul, though it says it’s unclear how far in advance Saudi officials had decided to harm him.

Khashoggi had gone to the Saudi consulate to pick up documents needed for his wedding. Once inside, he died at the hands of more than a dozen Saudi security and intelligence officials and others who had assembled ahead of his arrival. Surveillance cameras had tracked his route and those of his alleged killers in Istanbul in the hours before his killing.

A Turkish bug planted at the consulate reportedly captured the sound of a forensic saw, operated by a Saudi colonel who was also a forensics expert, dismembering Khashoggi’s body within an hour of his entering the building. The whereabouts of his remains remain unknown.

The prince, an ambitious 35-year-old who has rapidly consolidated power since his father became king in 2015, said in 2019 that he took “full responsibility” for the killing since it happened on his watch, but denied ordering it. Saudi officials have said Khashoggi’s killing was the work of rogue Saudi security and intelligence officials. Saudi Arabian courts last year announced they had sentenced eight Saudi nationals to prison in Khashoggi’s killing. They were not identified.

___

Madhani reported from Chicago. Associated Press writers Matthew Lee and Ben Fox in Washington and Ellen Knickmeyer in Oklahoma City contributed to this report.

Was Iran Responsible for Attack on Israeli-owned Cargo Ship ?

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A Nasr-1 missile fired from a warship during an Iranian navy military exercise in the Gulf of Oman, January 14, 2021

 I24 News:

An explosion that hit an Israeli cargo ship on Friday is believed to have been caused by a missile fired from an Iranian ship, Channel 12 reported on Friday citing unnamed defense officials.

The MV HELIOS RAY, a boat owned by Israeli businessman Rami Ungar, “was the victim of an explosion in the Gulf of Oman,” Dryad Global, a company specializing in maritime security, said hours after the incident.

Maritime security firm Dryad Global said the MV HELIOS RAY was a vehicle carrier owned by Helios Ray Ltd, an Israeli firm registered in the Isle of Man.

“Whilst details regarding the incident remain unclear it remains a realistic possibility that the event was the result of asymmetric activity by Iranian military,” Dryad said in a report on the incident.

The US Navy’s Bahrain-based Fifth Fleet said it was aware of the incident and monitoring the situation.

Transporting a cargo of motor vehicles, the ship was traveling between Dammam, a port city in eastern Saudi Arabia, and Singapore, at the time of the explosion in northwest Oman, the company said.

Dryad Global had immediately suggested that Iran could be responsible for the explosion, the incident taking place amid heightened tensions between the Jewish state and the Islamic Republic.

The explosion made “two holes of about a meter and a half in diameter,” Ungar later confirmed in a statement to Israeli public broadcaster Kan News, adding the damage was likely caused “by a missile or by mines attached to the boat.”

Reacting to the news that his boat was damaged, Ungar said that something like this “has never happened to me before” and looks forward to what authorities reveal in their investigation.

According to the shipowner, this explosion could be linked to previous attacks on ships in the region.

“I think this is part of the game between Iran and the United States, which is why they are hitting Western ships,” he said.

US officials are expected to inspect the ship upon arrival in Dubai on Saturday morning, Channel 13 reported.

Trump the Dominant Force at Conservative Conference

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AP

(AP) A conference dedicated to the future of the conservative movement turned into an ode to Donald Trump as speakers declared their fealty to the former president and attendees posed for selfies with a golden statue of his likeness.

As the Republican Party grapples with deep divisions over the extent to which it should embrace Trump after losing the White House and both chambers of Congress, those gathered at the annual Conservative Political Action Conference on Friday made clear they are not ready to move on from the former president — or from his baseless charges that the November election was rigged against him.

“Donald J. Trump ain’t going anywhere,” said Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, one of several potential 2024 presidential contenders who spoke at the event, being held this year in Orlando to bypass COVID-19 restrictions.

Trump on Sunday will be making his first post-presidential appearance at the conference, and aides say he will use the speech to reassert his power.

The program underscored the split raging within the GOP, as many establishment voices argue the party must move on from Trump to win back the suburban voters who abandoned them in November, putting President Joe Biden in the White House. Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell and others worry Trump will undermine the party’s political future if he and his conspiracy theories continue to dominate Republican politics.

But at the conference, speakers continued to fan disinformation and conspiracy theories about the 2020 election, with panels dedicated to amplifying false claims of mass voter fraud that have been dismissed by the courts, state election officials and Trump’s own administration.

Indeed, Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., another potential 2024 hopeful, drew among the loudest applause and a standing ovation when he bragged about challenging the election certification on Jan. 6 despite the storming of the Capitol building by Trump supporters trying to halt the process.

“I thought it was an important stand to take,” he said.

Others argued the party would lose if it turned its back on Trump and alienated the working-class voters drawn to his populist message.

“We cannot — we will not — go back to the days of the failed Republican establishment of yesteryear,” said Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who outlined a new Trumpian GOP agenda focused on restrictive immigration policies, opposition to China and limiting military engagement.

“We will not win the future by trying to go back to where the Republican Party used to be,” echoed Florida Sen. Rick Scott, who chairs the fundraising committee tasked with electing Republicans to the Senate. “If we do, we will lose the working base that President Trump so animated. We’re going to lose elections across the country, and ultimately we’re going to lose our nation.”

Scott is dismissing pressure on him to “mediate between warring factions on the right” or “mediate the war of words between the party leaders.” He has refused to take sides in the bitter ongoing fight between Trump and McConnell, who blamed Trump for inciting the deadly Capitol riot but ultimately voted to acquit him at his impeachment trial earlier this month.

“I’m not going to mediate anything,” he said, criticizing those who “prefer to fan the flames of a civil war on our side” as “foolish” and “ridiculous.”

But in speeches throughout the day, the GOP turmoil was front and center. Trump’s eldest son, Donald Trump Jr., lit into Wyoming Rep. Liz Cheney, the No. 3 House Republican, who has faced tremendous backlash for her vote to impeach Trump for inciting the Capitol riot.

And as the program was wrapping up, Trump issued a statement endorsing Max Miller, a former staffer who has now launched a campaign challenging Ohio Rep. Anthony Gonzalez, another Republican who voted in favor of impeachment.

Kimberly Guilfoyle, a former Fox News Channel host and Trump Jr.’s girlfriend, offered a pointed message to those who stand in opposition to the former president, who will not arrive at the conference until Sunday but was present in spirit in the form of a large golden statue erected in a merchandise show booth, where attendees could pose for pictures with it.

“We bid a farewell to the weak-kneed, the spineless and the cowards that are posing in D.C. pretending that they’re working for the people,” she said. “Let’s send them a pink slip straight from CPAC.”

Trump Jr., who labeled the conference “TPAC” in honor of his father, hyped the return of his father and the “Make America Great Again” platform to the spotlight.

“I imagine it will not be what we call a ‘low-energy’ speech,” he said. “And I assure you that it will solidify Donald Trump and all of your feelings about the MAGA movement as the future of the Republican Party.”

Yang walks back tough anti-BDS stance during Muslim Democratic Club forum

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New York City mayoral candidate Andrew Yang in 2019. Credit: Lev Radin/Shutterstock.

(JNS) Andrew Yang, the current frontrunner in the Democratic primary for New York City mayor, walked back his firm stance against the BDS movement and promised to meet with Palestinian American leaders on the issue.

“My view on BDS is that because of its failure to disavow certain organizations that have expressed violent intentions toward Israel that I disagree with it, but I have complete respect for people who have a very different point of view,” he said at a mayoral forum hosted by the Muslim Democratic Club of New York on Wednesday, reported Politico.

Yang said he has an issue with organizations that don’t disavow “very, very violent tactics” towards Israel, though he doesn’t have an issue with individuals or activists “making a case for what they think is right.”

He added that his Jan. 22 op-ed in The Forward may have “confused those two.”

In it, he strongly denounced the BDS movement, saying “a Yang administration will push back against the BDS movement, which singles out Israel for unfair economic punishment.”

He also said that BDS is “rooted in anti-Semitic thought and history, hearkening back to fascist boycotts of Jewish businesses.”

However, the mayoral candidate and one-time U.S. presidential candidate has been challenged by pro-Palestinian activists upset over his comparison between the BDS movement and Nazism. Earlier this week, Yang was accosted by pro-Palestinian activists on the issue while touring businesses in Brooklyn, N.Y.

Linda Sarsour, a pro-Palestinian BDS activist, who questioned Yang at the mayoral forum, said she believes that his stance does not come from a place of “bad intentions,” but that it was a “stretch” to say BDS is similar to Nazi boycotts of Jewish businesses, according to Politico.

Yang said he would “be happy to sit with Palestinian leaders, activists, folks who are engaged” in the issue. “I am very eager to learn, I’m very open-minded, and I would appreciate the opportunity.”

German Psychiatrists Raise Alarm on Lockdown Impact on Children’s Mental Health

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AP

(AP) – Pollina Dinner returned to school in Berlin for the first time this week after two months of lockdown. The 9-year-old third-grader was thrilled to see her classmates and teachers again but frets about the coronavirus pandemic’s effect on her life.

“I’m not afraid of the coronavirus, I’m afraid that everything will continue like this – that my school will close again, I won’t be able to see my friends, and that I can’t go to the movies with my family,” the girl said, fingering her blue medical mask and sighing deeply. “And wearing this mask is even worse than all the shops being closed.”

Psychiatrists, psychologists and pediatricians in Germany have voiced growing alarm that school closings, social restrictions and other precautions are magnifying the fear, disruption and stress of the pandemic among Germany´s 13.7 million children and teenagers, raising the prospect of a future mental health crisis.

“We don´t have any long-term studies yet, but there´s lots of anecdotal evidence of a crisis-driven rise in hospitalizations and overflowing psychologists´ practices,” Julia Asbrand, a professor of child and youth psychology at Berlin´s Humboldt University, told The Associated Press.

A recent survey by the University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf found that about one child in three is suffering from pandemic-related anxiety or depression or is exhibiting psychosomatic symptoms like headaches or stomach aches. Children from poorer and immigrant families are disproportionally affected, according to the survey.

Pollina, who immigrated from Russia with her family in 2019, worries about forgetting much of her German since she only speaks Russian at home. She’s one of 150 youngsters from underprivileged families who, before the pandemic. regularly spent time after school at a youth support program on the eastern outskirts of the German capital.

Arche – Ark in English – is based in Berlin’s Hellersdorf district, a neighborhood of drab concrete buildings constructed during the former Communist regime of East Germany. Some children are still allowed to come in person, but only once every two weeks. The rest of the time, the social workers and educators try to stay in touch through video chats while helping their young clients with remote learning.

“Many have completely withdrawn and don´t want to get out of their rooms anymore. They´ve gained a lot of weight, are playing online games nonstop and don´t have any more structure in their everyday lives,” Arche founder Bernd Siggelkow said.

The second major lockdown in Germany started before Christmas. Students in grades 1-3 were allowed to return to classrooms this week with reduced class sizes and limited lessons. The government hopes to ease further restrictions in coming weeks and has said that the re-opening of all schools is a top priority.

However, there’s concern the country is slipping into a third wave of infections due to more contagious variants of the virus. Virologists have repeatedly said it is still unclear to what extent the virus spreads from children attending school into homes and communities. More than 2 million people have contracted the virus in Germany and almost 70,000 have died of COVID-19, although only 10 under the age of 20, according to the country’s disease control center.

Even though children are not at as much risk of severe COVID-19 complications as older adults, they may be more vulnerable to the collateral mental health effects of the pandemic, according to experts.

An analysis by German health insurer DAK regarding youth psychological issues confirms the first-person observations of the staff at Arche.

The evaluation, which was obtained by German news agency dpa, showed that the number of children and teenagers hospitalized for psychiatric treatment in Berlin almost doubled during the first half of 2020, when schools were closed for over two months during the country’s first lockdown, compared with first six months of 2019.

The statistic underscores the psychological strain the pandemic is putting on young people but does not illustrate the scope of the problem, Christoph Correll, the director of child and youth psychiatry at Berlin´s Charite hospital, told dpa.

“Hospitalizations are the tip of the iceberg,” he said.

Teenagers, especially girls, are more prone to eating disorders and self-harming, and many children’s psychological problems are going undetected while parents are overwhelmed and teachers, social workers and pediatricians don´t have regular contact with students, clients and patients, experts warn.

Psychology professor Asbrand worries that the mental health of children and teenagers has not gotten enough attention during the pandemic. Together with other professionals in the field, she wrote an open letter to the government this month to push for youth needs to get better addressed in the ongoing health crisis and prioritized when society reopens.

An immediate action government authorities could take to help mitigate possible problems would be to allow groups to gather for school and youth sports, in line with hygiene and distancing precautions.

“We all don’t know yet how this is going to develop long-term, but we must focus on youth mental health now,” she said.

While attending Arche this week for help with homework assigned online, 16-year-old Robin Reyer said not being able to hang out with friends has been one of the hardest parts of the pandemic restrictions.

“I want to celebrate birthdays again, go out and play soccer with my friends in the park or meet them at Burger King,” he said while taking a break outside in the spring sun.

“Now, I’m only allowed to meet one friend at most,” he said. “That really sucks.”

Derek Chauvin Growing tension in Minneapolis as trial looms in Floyd death

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Concertina wire sits between fenced barriers outside the Hennepin County Government Center, Wednesday, Feb. 23, 2021, in Minneapolis, as part of security in preparation for the trial of former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin. The trial is slated begin with jury selection on March 8. Chauvin is charged with murder the death of George Floyd during an arrest last May in Minneapolis. (AP Photo/Jim Mone)

(AP) — Barbed wire and concrete barriers surround the courthouse where the former Minneapolis police officer charged with killing George Floyd will soon go on trial, a sign of the deep uneasiness hanging over a city literally set ablaze almost a year ago in the anger over his death.

Mayor Jacob Frey and Gov. Tim Walz, both Democrats, were sharply criticized for failing to move faster to stop last summer’s looting and destruction, which included the torching of a police station. Anything less than a murder conviction for Derek Chauvin is likely to test them — and the city — once again.

Jury selection begins March 8 with opening statements March 29. Floyd, who was Black, died May 25 after Chauvin, who was white, pressed his knee on Floyd’s neck while he was handcuffed and pleading that he couldn’t breathe. Chauvin faces second-degree murder and manslaughter charges; three other fired officers go on trial in August.

Thousands of people took to the streets of Minneapolis after Floyd’s death. Many demonstrated peacefully. But for several nights, the unrest spiraled into violence, with stores looted and set ablaze along the Lake Street commercial artery that included the 3rd Precinct police station, which was home to the officers who arrested Floyd. The station itself was eventually abandoned by police and burned by rioters. Some nervous neighborhoods formed watch groups, setting up checkpoints and sometimes armed patrols. The violence finally subsided after National Guard troops arrived in sufficient numbers.

As the city moves to make the courthouse virtually impenetrable, some people worry about what might happen elsewhere if Chauvin is acquitted.

Elias Usso’s pharmacy on Lake Street had been open less than a year when it was destroyed by fire and water. He blames Chauvin personally for what he considers “the murder of an innocent man” as well as the destruction that followed — estimated at more than $350 million in Minneapolis alone.

“One police officer did that,” Usso said. “Something has to change.”

 

His Seward Pharmacy has reopened with help from donors. In between vaccinating customers against COVID-19, Usso — an Ethiopian immigrant and a Black man — talked of still feeling the emotional turmoil over Floyd’s death and the unrest, and his concerns about the trial.

“I don’t know what’s going to happen to my business. We’re waiting to see,” Usso said. “But I will continue to give service to our neighbors and delivering prescriptions to grandma and grandpa. If something happens, we’re going to continue.”

Frey said more than 3,000 law enforcement officers from across the state and Minnesota National Guard soldiers will be at the ready when the case goes to the jury, expected in late April or early May.

Frey last week declared that Minneapolis remains “open for business,” and said people should go about their lives as usual.

But the security going up around the Hennepin County courthouse, City Hall and the jail — all in the heart of downtown — is extraordinary. It includes three rings of concrete barriers, two topped by chain-link fencing with a trough in between filled with coils of razor wire. The innermost fence is topped with barbed wire, and ground-floor windows at all three buildings are boarded up.

Protest leaders are on edge, too. They accuse authorities of creating a police state downtown that could trample their freedoms of speech and assembly.

“It’s not going to dissuade us from protesting. We’re determined to let our voices be heard,” said Linden Gawboy, an activist with the Twin Cities Coalition 4 Justice 4 Jamar, which formed after the police killing of Jamar Clark in Minneapolis in 2015.

It’s not just the courthouse that’s barricaded. The state Capitol in St. Paul has been ringed with temporary fencing ever since last summer’s unrest. Inside, lawmakers have squabbled for weeks over providing extra state money for security during the trials, though Walz and other officials say they’ll manage one way or another.

“There’s going to be very high emotion on all sides of this, and we’ll be prepared,” Walz said.

Julie Ingebretsen, owner of a Scandinavian food and gift market on Lake Street that was founded by her Norwegian grandfather, said she’s not boarding up, though she expects some will in the miles-long commercial corridor that includes many immigrant- and minority-run businesses. Some have never taken down the plywood that they put up last summer.

While Ingebretsen’s Nordic Marketplace was looted and vandalized, she said she was fortunate that her store wasn’t burned. She said she feels “cautiously optimistic” now because of personal outreach efforts by Police Chief Medaria Arradondo and other city officials, and their assurances that plenty of police and Guard members will be standing by.

“We’re celebrating our 100th anniversary this year, so we have every intention of celebrating another 100, and not going anywhere,” Ingebretsen said. “We are totally committed to keeping moving forward.”

Joe Biden’s Embrace of Fallacious Critical Race Theory

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John Klar(American Thinker)

The fallacy that America is “systemically racist” is rooted in arguments that the white majority suffers from subconscious racism which contaminates the entire “system.”  Proponents of Critical Race Theory and government-created “Equity” insist they have yet-to-be-discovered solutions, including conditioning of those who suffer “white guilt” and white fragility.”  President Joe Biden has eagerly joined this crusade to…. eliminate subconscious racism!

White Americans are kept in the dark as to the details of this enlightened reprogramming but are told that the Bill of Rights is an impediment to these lofty new goals to eradicate systemic biases.  The first step in eliminating subconscious racism is to stifle conscious thoughts: the liberties of Free Speech and Due Process are viewed as tools of oppression by the white majority.

It is axiomatic that government cannot eliminate subconscious racism.  Yet, government can be very effective at fomenting racism, as numerous current and historical examples demonstrate.  America is about to try its hand at this folly.

Government conditioning to eradicate human evil is hardly novel.  But what happens when government seeks to do great good, by conquering the individual human will to do great evil?  How will the BLM Utopian Police State eradicate human racism?  Is this not the same old reconditioning Kool-aid of Pol Pot and Mao, poured into newly-manufactured George Floyd bottles?

 

Anthony Burgess famously delved into this subject, in 1963.  In his iconic novel “A Clockwork Orange,” a seemingly incorrigible criminal is redeemed using “science” — only, the experiment fails miserably.  Burgess was delving into exactly the issue America’s extremist progressives deliberately obfuscate: the horror of government reprogramming.

In a 2012 essay, Burgess plainly explained what he had tried to express through fiction:

I had read somewhere that it would be a good idea to liquidate the criminal impulse through aversion therapy; I was appalled…. What I was trying to say was that it is better to be bad of one’s own free will than to be good through scientific brainwashing…. I have been derided and rebuked for expressing my fears of the power of the modern state—whether it be Russia, China, or what we may term Anglo-America—to reduce the freedom of the individual…. The behaviorist approach to man, of which Professor Skinner is a great exponent, sees him moved to various kinds of action by aversive and non-aversive inducements. Given the right positive inducements… we shall all become better citizens, submissive to a state that has the good of the community at heart. We must, so the argument goes, not fear conditioning. We need to be conditioned in order to save the environment and the race. But it must be conditioning of the right sort….

The goal of the “American Experiment” was to secure equal opportunity for all.   Efforts at “equity” aim for a sun that will melt the wings of such fairy-like dreams while depriving citizens of even an aspirational hope of equality of opportunity.  Today’s quixotic, counterproductive BLM movement is no different.  One does not abolish racism by decree, any more than lewd thoughts.  One conquers racism through love, not fear and hate.

This transfer of a sort of “dark-church” authority to the secular state is reflected in the COVID panic, and how quickly many Americans wish to abandon the Constitution in trust of Big Brother — and Big Brother Pharma.  Orwell warned of the power of an omnipotent state to inflict unprecedented destruction upon the human condition.  It is ironic that ALL Americans are familiar with Orwell’s books, but so few absorb that his warnings applied to all government structures — not just the Soviet Union.

Burgess explained that his title “Clockwork Orange” derived from “…an old Cockney slang phrase, implying a queerness or madness so extreme as to subvert nature, since what notion could be more bizarre than that of a clockwork orange?”  Today’s world looks more akin to a “Clockwork Black,” in which the techno-state and modern alienation have pushed humanity far away from awareness of its own soul.  Far too many Americans are lining up to be absorbed willingly into that dead machine.

Said Burgess:

[W]hen the social entity grows large, …the governing machine becomes remote, impersonal, even inhuman. It takes money from us for purposes we do not seem to sanction; it treats us as abstract statistics; it controls an army; it supports a police force whose function does not always appear to be protective…. The modern state, whether in a totalitarian or a democratic country, has far too much power, and we are probably right to fear it…. Pre-natal and infantile conditioning makes the slaves happy in their slavery, and stability is enforced not through whips but through a scientifically imposed contentment…. It would seem that enforced conditioning of a mind, however good the social intention, has to be evil.

Clearly, BLM activists (and Joe Biden) have not read Burgess.  Antifa is well-steeped in blackness. The Clockwork Black, ticks.

And so Joe Biden declared that “… he had a mandate to achieve racial justice and root out systemic racism in this country.”  As with other extremists, he defines neither what that term means, nor how he will eliminate subconscious bias.  Instead, he confidently proclaimed:

“Again, I’m not promising we can end it tomorrow, but I promise you we’re going to continue to make progress to eliminate systemic racism, and every branch of the White House and the federal government is going to be part of that effort….”

Exposing in practical terms the limitations posed by Anthony Burgess, Cal Thomas recently opined:

In addition to reinstating mandatory race theory training for federal employees, Biden proposes spending even more money we don’t have to fix a problem beyond the government’s reach. As with original sin, curing racism is best solved internally. It is a matter of the heart. If racism is systemic, meaning it is embedded in white people, how is it possible to eliminate it? Do those on the receiving end of discrimination have a role to play? This is a question Democrats never address. If spending money is the key to limiting racism, more progress should have been made by now.

Such common sense is shunned — soon it will be silenced as a typical gaslighting by a white person who must be silenced.  There are ominous harbingers from the Biden administration:

President Biden signed four executive actions Tuesday aimed at increasing racial equity across the nation, a move the administration said was a big early step in his efforts to dismantle systemic racism, though civil rights groups made it clear they will press for more-sweeping change in the months ahead.

Time will tell how effective this government is at sweeping away subconscious hatreds, rather than inculcate new ones.  The ticking of the Clockwork Black grows audible….

How could such grand designs be anything but “good”?

 

Great Reset: World Economic Forum Removes Tweet Claiming Lockdowns “Quietly Improve Cities” After Backlash

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AP

Jared Evan

The World Economic Forum, the cabal that has championed the Great Reset, was swiftly rebuked on Twitter after the elitist group posted a  tweet about how Covid-19 lockdowns are “quietly improving cities” across the globe.

The Tweet was taken down after the backlash reached a fever pitch and thousands of people responded negatively.

The WEF acknowledged on Twitter that they pulled the Tweet with this follow-up

Another Twitter user captured the eerie video which the WEF attached to the original tweet praising the lockdowns. The video argues that cities are better off because there is less ambient noise in cities, less pollution, clearer skies, and fewer carbon emissions.

In other words, the financial ruination of lockdown cities, mental deterioration of citizens, increases in suicides, drug addiction, poverty, and children having mental health issues (all as the result of long-term lockdowns),  take a backseat to the alleged environmental benefits of the lockdowns, according to the disconnected financial elite who compromise  The World Economic Forum.

The Great Reset has become a widely discussed issue over the last several months, rising from an esoteric topic discussed among “conspiracy theorists” to a hot button issue widely discussed and researched by the general public. The response to the WEF tweet is evidence many people are paying attention to the goals of the powerful elite to drastically change our lives forever, even after COVID’s deadly grip subsides. The people want to return back to normal, and skepticism is rampant.