47.8 F
New York
Friday, March 29, 2024
Home Blog Page 1597

Rep. Waters Says She Didn’t Encourage Violence as Trump Lawyer Plans to Show Video

0
AP

BY ZACHARY STIEBER(EPOCH TIMES

Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.) on Sunday claimed she did not encourage people to commit violence when she said three years ago that people were going to “absolutely harass” members of the Trump administration.

“As a matter of fact, if you look at the words that I used, the strongest thing I said was tell them they’re not welcome, talk to them, tell them they’re not welcome,” Waters said on MSNBC. “I didn’t say go and fight. I didn’t say anybody was going to have any violence. And so they can’t make that stick.”

Waters in separate remarks in 2018 encouraged people to confront government officials.

“Already you have members of your Cabinet that are being booed out of restaurants, who have protesters taking up at their house, who say, ‘No peace, no sleep. No peace, no sleep,’” Waters told a crowd in Los Angeles.

“Let’s make sure we show up wherever we have to show up, and if you see anybody from that Cabinet in a restaurant, in a department store, at a gasoline station, you get out and you create a crowd. And you push back on them. Tell them they’re not welcome anymore, anywhere!”

Appearing on MSNBC after the rally, she added that she had “no sympathy” for people working for then-President Donald Trump.

“The people are going to turn on them. They’re going to protest. They’re going to absolutely harass them until they decide that they’re going to tell the president, ‘No I can’t hang with you,’” she said.

Trump at the time said Waters “just called for harm to supporters” and Republicans have pointed to Waters’s comments when defending Trump against the current impeachment effort. The former president was impeached last month for allegedly inciting the Jan. 6 storming of the U.S. Capitol.

Bruce Castor, one of Trump’s impeachment lawyers, was asked whether he’d show senators during the upcoming trial the comments made by Waters and other Democrat officials.

“I think you can count on that,” Castor said last week. “If my eyes look a little red to the viewers, it’s because I’ve been looking at a lot of video.”

“Many of them in Washington are using really the most inflammatory rhetoric possible to use. And certainly there would be no suggestion that they did anything to incite any of the actions,” he added, referring to the raucous riots that took place in major U.S. cities last year.

“But here, when you have the president of the United States give a speech and says that you should peacefully make your thinking known to the people in Congress, he’s all of a sudden a villain. You better be careful what you wish for.”

Waters responded that the tactic wouldn’t work.

“No matter what he says about me or [Speaker] Nancy Pelosi or [Sen.] Cory Booker, or anybody they’re going to point to, it won’t work,” she said on Sunday. “It won’t work at all, because nothing matches the way this president has tried to destroy this democracy.”

support the epoch times visit their site https://www.theepochtimes.com/

The Journalistic Tattletale and Censorship Industry Suffers Several Well-Deserved Blows

0

By Glen Greenwald (Subscribe here: https://greenwald.substack.com/)

A new and rapidly growing journalistic “beat” has arisen over the last several years that can best be described as an unholy mix of junior high hall-monitor tattling and Stasi-like citizen surveillance. It is half adolescent and half malevolent. Its primary objectives are control, censorship, and the destruction of reputations for fun and power. Though its epicenter is the largest corporate media outlets, it is the very antithesis of journalism.

I’ve written before about one particularly toxic strain of this authoritarian “reporting.” Teams of journalists at three of the most influential corporate media outlets — CNN’s “media reporters” (Brian Stelter and Oliver Darcy), NBC’s “disinformation space unit” (Ben Collins and Brandy Zadrozny), and the tech reporters of The New York Times (Mike Isaac, Kevin Roose, Sheera Frenkel) — devote the bulk of their “journalism” to searching for online spaces where they believe speech and conduct rules are being violated, flagging them, and then pleading that punitive action be taken (banning, censorship, content regulation, after-school detention). These hall-monitor reporters are a major factor explaining why tech monopolies, which (for reasons of self-interest and ideology) never wanted the responsibility to censor, now do so with abandon and seemingly arbitrary blunt force: they are shamed by the world’s loudest media companies when they do not.

Just as the NSA is obsessed with ensuring there be no place on earth where humans can communicate free of their spying eyes and ears, these journalistic hall monitors cannot abide the idea that there can be any place on the internet where people are free to speak in ways they do not approve. Like some creepy informant for a state security apparatus, they spend their days trolling the depths of chat rooms and 4Chan bulletin boards and sub-Reddit threads and private communications apps to find anyone — influential or obscure — who is saying something they believe should be forbidden, and then use the corporate megaphones they did not build and could not have built but have been handed in order to silence and destroy anyone who dissents from the orthodoxies of their corporate managers or challenges their information hegemony.

Oliver Darcy has built his CNN career by sitting around with Brian Stelter petulantly pointing to people breaking the rules on social media and demanding tech executives make the rule-breakers disappear. The little crew of tattletale millennials assembled by NBC — who refer to their twerpy work with the self-glorifying title of “working in the disinformation space”: as intrepid and hazardous as exposing corruption by repressive regimes or reporting from war zones — spend their dreary days scrolling through 4Chan boards to expose the offensive memes and bad words used by transgressive adolescents; they then pat themselves on the back for confronting dangerous power centers, even when it is nothing more trivial and bullying than doxxing the identities of powerless, obscure citizens.

But the worst of this triumvirate is the NYT’s tech reporters, due to influence and reach if no other reason. When Silicon Valley monopolies, publicly pressured by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) and other lawmakers, united to remove Parler from the internet, the Times’ tech team quickly donned their hall-monitor goggles and Stasi notebooks to warn that the Bad People had migrated to Signal and Telegram. This week they asked: “Are Private Messaging Apps the Next Misinformation Hot Spot?” One reporter “confess[ed] that I am worried about Telegram. Other than private messaging, people love to use Telegram for group chats — up to 200,000 people can meet inside a Telegram chat room. That seems problematic.”

These examples of journalism being abused to demand censorship of spaces they cannot control are too numerous to comprehensively chronicle. And they are not confined to those three outlets. That far more robust censorship is urgently needed is now a virtual consensus in mainstream corporate journalism: it’s an animating cause for them.

“Those of us in journalism have to come to terms with the fact that free speech, a principle that we hold sacred, is being weaponized against the principles of journalism,” complained Ultimate Establishment Journalism Maven Steve Coll, the Dean of Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism and a Staff Writer at The New Yorker. A New Yorker and Vox contributor who runs a major journalistic listserv appropriately called “Study Hall,” Kyle Chayka, has already begun shaming Substack for hosting writers he regards as unacceptable (Jesse Singal, Andrew Sullivan, Bari Weiss). A recent Guardian article warned that podcasts was one remaining area still insufficiently policed. ProPublica on Sunday did the same about Apple, and last month one of its reporters appeared on MSNBC to demand that Apple censor its podcast content as aggressively as Google’s YouTube now censors its video content.

Thus do we have the unimaginably warped dynamic in which U.S. journalists are not the defenders of free speech values but the primary crusaders to destroy them. They do it in part for power: to ensure nobody but they can control the flow of information. They do it partly for ideology and out of hubris: the belief that their worldview is so indisputably right that all dissent is inherently dangerous “disinformation.” And they do it from petty vindictiveness: they clearly get aroused — find otherwise-elusive purpose — by destroying people’s reputations and lives, no matter how powerless. Whatever the motive, corporate media employees whose company title is “journalist” are the primary activists against a free and open internet and the core values of free thought.


The profound pathologies driving all of this were on full display on Saturday night as the result of a reckless and self-humiliating smear campaign by one of The New York Times’ star tech reporters, Taylor Lorenz. She falsely and very publicly accused Silicon Valley entrepreneur and investor Marc Andreessen of having used the “slur” word “retarded” during a discussion about the Reddit/GameStop uprising.

Lorenz lied. Andreessen never used that word. And rather than apologize and retract it, she justified her mistake by claiming it was a “male voice” that sounded like his, then locked her Twitter account as though she — rather than the person she falsely maligned — was the victim.

But the details of what happened are revealing. The discussion which Lorenz falsely described took place on a relatively new audio app called “Clubhouse,” an invitation-only platform intended to allow for private, free-ranging group conversations. It has become popular among Silicon Valley executives and various media personalities (I was invited onto the app a few months ago but never attended or participated in any discussions). But as CNBC noted this week, “as the app has grown, people of more diverse backgrounds have begun to join,” and it “has carved out a niche among Black users, who have innovated new ways for using it.” Its free-speech ethos has also made it increasingly popular in China as a means of avoiding repressive online constraints.

These private chats have often been infiltrated by journalists, sometimes by invitation and other times by deceit. These journalists attempt to monitor the discussions and then publish summaries. Often, the “reporting” consists of out-of-context statements designed to make the participants look bigotedinsensitive, or otherwise guilty of bad behavior. In other words, journalists, desperate for content, have flagged Clubhouse as a new frontier for their slimy work as voluntary hall monitors and speech police.

Fulfilling her ignoble duties there, Lorenz announced on Twitter that Andreessen had said a bad word. During the discussion of the “Reddit Revolution,” she claimed, he used the word “retarded.” She then upped her tattling game by not only including this allegation but also the names and photos of those who were in the room at the time — thus exposing those who were guilty of the crime of failing to object to Andreessen’s Bad Word:

Numerous Clubhouse participants, including Kmele Foster, immediately documented that Lorenz had lied. The moderator of the discussion, Nait Jones, said that “Marc never used that word.” What actually happened was that Felicia Horowitz, a different participant in the discussion, had “explained that the Redditors call themselves ‘retard revolution’” and that was the only mention of that word.

Rather than apologizing and retracting, Lorenz thanked Jones for “clarifying,” and then emphasized how hurtful it is to use that word. She deleted the original tweet without comment, and then — with the smear fully realized — locked her account.

Besides the fact that a New York Times reporter recklessly tried to destroy someone’s reputation, what is wrong with this episode? Everything.

The participants in Clubhouse have tried to block these tattletale reporters from eavesdropping on their private conversations precisely because they see themselves as Stasi agents whose function is to report people for expressing prohibited ideas even in private conservations. As Jones pointedly noted, “this is why people block” journalists: “because of this horseshit dishonesty.”

One reporter, Jessica Lessin, recently complained she was blocked by Andreessen from his Clubhouse discussions — as if she has the divine right to monitor people’s communications. And Lorenz herself has been obsessed with monitoring Clubhouse discussions in general and Andreessen in particular for months, mocking him just last week when she obtained a fake credential to enter:

Just take a second to ponder how infantile and despotic, in equal parts, all of this is. This NYT reporter used her platform to virtually jump out of her desk to run to the teacher and exclaim: he used the r word! This is what she tried for months to accomplish: to catch people in private communications using words that are prohibited or ideas that are banned to tell on them to the public. That she got it all wrong is arguably the least humiliating and pathetic aspect of all of this.

Beyond all this, what if he had used the word “retarded”? What would it mean? If someone uses that term maliciously, as a slur against others to mock their intellect, it is certainly reasonable to condemn that. Used with that intent and in that context, it is unnecessarily hurtful for people who suffer diseases of cognitive impairment.

But that is not remotely what happened here. Anyone who spent any time at all on the sub-Reddit thread of r/WallStreetBets knows that “retards” was the single most common term used by those who short-squeezed the hedge funds invested in the collapse of GameStop. It is virtually impossible to discuss the ethos of that subculture without using that term. This was one of their most popular battlecries:

“We can stay retarded longer than you can stay solvent.”

And the use of that term in the sub-Reddit was not just ubiquitous but fascinating: layered with multiple levels of irony and self-deprecation. Sociologists could, and should, study how that term was deployed by those Redditors and what role it played in forming the community that enabled them to strike a blow against these hedge funds. It reflected their self-perceived place at the bottom of social hierarchies, expressed the irony that they as unsophisticated investors were defeating self-perceived financial wizards, and marked their culture and community as transgressive. Did some use it with malice? Maybe. But there was vast complexity to it.

To declare any discussion of that term off-limits — as Lorenz tried to do — is deeply anti-intellectual. To pretend that there is no difference in the use of that term by the Redditors and its discussion in Clubhouse on the one hand, and its malicious deployment as an insult to the cognitively disabled on the other, is dishonest in the extreme. To publicly tattle on adults who utter the term without any minimal attempt to understand or convey context and intent is malicious, disgusting and sociopathic.


But this is now the prevailing ethos in corporate journalism. They have insufficient talent or skill, and even less desire, to take on real power centers: the military-industrial complex, the CIA and FBI, the clandestine security state, Wall Street, Silicon Valley monopolies, the corrupted and lying corporate media outlets they serve. So settling on this penny-ante, trivial bullshit — tattling, hall monitoring, speech policing: all in the most anti-intellectual, adolescent and primitive ways — is all they have. It’s all they are. It’s why they have fully earned the contempt and distrust in which the public holds them.

Share

The same stunted mentality just resulted in the destruction of the career and reputation of Lorenz’s far more accomplished colleague, science reporter Donald McNeil. On a 2019 field trip for rich high school kids to Peru, he used the “n-word” after a student asked him whether he thought it was fair that one of her classmates was punished for having used it in a video. McNeil used it not with malice or as a racist insult but to inquire about the facts of the video so he could answer the student’s question.

After New York Times senior editors — including African-American editor-in-chief Dean Baquet — investigated and concluded that “only” a reprimand was appropriate — “it did not appear to me that his intentions were hateful or malicious,” said Baquet — dozens of McNeil’s colleagues wrote a furious letter demanding far more severe punishment. “Our community is outraged and in pain,” said the 150 Times employee-signatories, adding: “intent is irrelevant.” Intent is irrelevant when judging how harshly to punish this storied journalist for uttering this word.

They got what they wanted. McNeil wrote a grovelling, abject apology, and then the Times announced he was gone from his job after forty-five years with the paper, including for COVID reporting over the last year that the paper had submitted for a Pulitzer Prize for Public Service. Just think about that: New York Times employees, who are unionized, demanded that management punish a fellow union member more harshly than management wanted to. In 2002, McNeil won the 1st place prize from the National Association of Black Journalists for excellence in his reporting on how the AIDS crisis was affecting Africa. Now his forty-five-year career and reputation are destroyed — at the hands of his own colleagues — because “intent is irrelevant” when using off-limit words.

The overarching rule of liberal media circles and liberal politics is that you are free to accuse anyone who deviates from liberal orthodoxy of any kind of bigotry that casually crosses your mind — just smear them as a racist, misogynist, homophobe, transphobe, etc. without the slightest need for evidence — and it will be regarded as completely acceptable. That is the rubric under which the most famous lawyer of the ACLU, an organization once devoted to rigid precepts of due process, decided on Saturday to brand two of his ideological opponents as “closely aligned with white supremacists.” Fresh off being named by Time Magazine as one of the planet’s 100 most influential human beings — this is someone with a great deal of power and influence — trans activist and ACLU lawyer Chase Strangio decided to spew this extremely grave accusation about J.K. Rowling and Abigail Shrier, both of whom oppose the inclusion of trans girls in female sports:

As I’ve written before, I’m not in agreement with those who advocate this absolute ban. I’m open to a scientific consensus that develops hormonal and other medicinal protocols for how trans girls and women can fairly compete with CIS women in sporting competitions. But that does not entitle you — especially as an ACLU lawyer — to just go around casually branding people as “closely aligned to white supremacists” who have never remotely demonstrated any such affinity, just because you feel like it, because you crave the power to destroy your adversaries, or are too slothful to engage their actual views.

But this is absolutely acceptable behavior in mainstream and liberal circles. I just spent the week being widely branded by these kinds of people as a “misogynist” — someone who hates women — because I criticized and mocked Congresswoman Ocasio-Cortez for her scornful rejection of the offer from Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) to work with her to investigate Robinhood’s conduct in the GameStop affair. I particularly critiqued her ludicrous accusation to Cruz that “you almost had me murdered” — a claim that even CNN’s “fact-checker” Daniel Dale, who would rather poke out his own eyes than conclude that a popular Democrat has lied — said was without evidence because “Cruz did not advocate violence against Ocasio-Cortez, much less call for her murder.”

AOC is a popular and powerful politician, and journalists are allowed to criticize and mock such people. It’s our job. Yet for doing mine, I was casually and widely cast as a sexist hater of women (ironically, an old homophobic trope long deployed against gay men) by the likes of Ashley Reese (“just baldly misogynistic”) of Jezebel (which really ought to just change its name to You’re a Misogynist, since it has no other content) and long-time Media Matters and David Brock smear artist Eric Boelhert (“Greenwald’s hatred of women knows no bounds”).

That I was one of AOC’s first and most active supporters back in 2018 when she ran against incumbent Joe Crowley — when people like Reese and Boelhert had not even heard of her — and that I have defended her more times than I can count, while also criticizing her on occasion, obviously goes unmentioned and does not matter (for those asking why I supported her, I interviewed AOC during her primary run and she gave impressive answers now unrecognizable from her politics). My support of AOC in 2018 was simultaneous with my misogynistic support for Cynthia Nixon for New York Governor and Zephyr Teachout for Attorney General. Was my misogyny hidden then, or did it just recently develop? There’s no reason to interrogate any of this. It does not deserve that. There’s zero rationality let alone evidence to this tactic. It’s just driven by spite and stupidity and vindictiveness.

I can ignore these kinds of accusatory smears, or scorn and ridicule them and their practitioners — and I do — because they have no power over me. But consider how many people in journalism or other professions whose positions are less secure are rightly terrorized by these lowlife tactics, intimidated into silence and conformity. They know if they express views these Stasi agents and their bosses dislike, their reputations can be instantly destroyed. So they remain silent or pliant out of necessity.

That’s the purpose, the function, of these lowly accusatory tactics: to control, to coerce, to dominate, to repress. The people who engage in these character-assassinating, censorship-fostering games — especially those who call themselves “journalists” — deserve nothing but intense scorn. And those who are free from their influence and power have a particular obligation to heap it on them. Aside from being what it deserves, that scorn is the only way to neutralize this tactic.

AN END TO INVASIVE BIOPSIES? Hebrew University Researchers Advance Simple and Inexpensive Diagnostic Blood Test

0

(Jerusalem, February 4, 2021) In diagnostic medicine, biopsies, where a sample of tissue is extracted for analysis, is a common tool for the detection of many conditions.  But this approach has several drawbacks – it can be painful, doesn’t always extract the diseased tissue, and can only be used in a sufficiently advanced disease stage, making it, in some cases, too late for intervention.  These concerns have encouraged researchers to find less invasive and more accurate options for diagnoses.

Professor Nir Friedman and Dr. Ronen Sadeh of the Life Sciences Institute and School of Computer Engineering have published a study in Nature Biotechnology that shows how a wide range of diseases can be detected through a simple blood test.  The test allows lab technicians to identify and determine the state of the dead cells throughout the body and thus diagnose various diseases including cancers and diseases of the heart and liver.  The test is even able to identify specific markers that may differ between patients suffering from the same types of tumorous growths, a feature that has the potential to help physicians develop personalized treatments for individual patients.

The test relies on a natural process whereby every day millions of cells in our body die and are replaced by new cells. When cells die, their DNA is fragmented and some of these DNA fragments reach the blood and can be detected by DNA sequencing methods. However, all our cells have the same DNA sequence, and thus simply sequencing the DNA can not identify from which cells it originated. While the DNA sequence is identical between cells, the way the DNA is organized in the cell is substantially different.   The DNA is packaged into nucleosomes, small repeating structures that contain specialized proteins called histones. On the histone proteins, the cells write a unique chemical code that can tell us the identity of the cell and even the biological and pathological processes that are going on within it. In recent years, numerous studies have successfully developed a process where this information can  be identified and thus reveal abnormal cell activity.

A new approach advanced by Hebrew University researchers, Professor Friedman and Dr. Ronen Sadeh is able to precisely read this information from DNA in the blood and use it to determine the nature of the disease or tumor, exactly where in the body it’s found and even how far developed it is.

The approach relies on analysis of epigenetic information within the cell, a method which has been increasingly fine-tuned in recent years.  “As a result of these scientific advancements, we understood that if this information is maintained within the DNA structure in the blood, we could use that data to determine the tissue source of dead cells and the genes that were active in those very cells. Based on those findings, we can uncover key details about the patient’s health,” Professor Friedman explains.  “We are able to better understand why the cells died, whether it’s an infection or cancer and based on that be better positioned to determine how the disease is developing.”

Along with the clear diagnostic benefits of this process, the test is also non-invasive and far less expensive than traditional biopsies.  Dr. Ronen Sadeh said, “We hope that this approach will allow for earlier diagnosis of disease and help physicians to treat patients more effectively.  Recognizing the potential of this approach and how this technology can be so beneficial for diagnostic and therapeutic purposes, we set up the company Senseera which will be involved with clinical testing in partnership with major pharmaceutical companies with the goal of making this innovative approach available to patients.”

#  #  #

Sadeh, R., Sharkia, I., Fialkoff, G. et al. ChIP-seq of plasma cell-free nucleosomes identifies gene expression programs of the cells of origin.

 

 

 

 

 

Trump Lawyers Argue He’s Not Responsible for Storming of Capitol

0
(AP Photo/Alex Brandon, File)

(NEWSMAX) Rioters who stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6 to prevent the certification of President Joe Biden’s victory did so of their own accord, former President Donald Trump’s lawyers argued in a brief filed Monday ahead of his impeachment trial.

A speech made by Trump in the hours before the riot “was not an act encouraging an organized movement to overthrow the United States government,” his lawyers said.

In a brief filed on the eve of the impeachment trial, Trump’s lawyers denounced the impeachment as an act of “political theater” by House Democrats seeking to gain an advantage for their party.

The brief foreshadows the claims they intend to present when arguments begin Tuesday on the same Senate floor that was invaded by rioters last month.

They suggest that Trump was simply exercising his First Amendment rights when he disputed the election results and argue that he explicitly encouraged his supporters to have a peaceful protest and therefore cannot be responsible for the actions of the rioters.

They also say the Senate is not entitled to try Trump now that he has left office, an argument contested by even some conservative legal scholars, and they deny that the goal of the case is justice.

“Instead, this was only ever a selfish attempt by Democratic leadership in the House to prey upon the feelings of horror and confusion that fell upon all Americans across the entire political spectrum upon seeing the destruction at the Capitol on Jan. 6 by a few hundred people,” the lawyers wrote.

“Instead of acting to heal the nation, or at the very least focusing on prosecuting the lawbreakers who stormed the Capitol, the Speaker of the House and her allies have tried to callously harness the chaos of the moment for their own political gain,” they added.

The trial will begin in Tuesday with a debate and vote on whether it’s even constitutional to prosecute the former president, an argument that could resonate with Republicans keen on voting to acquit Trump without being seen as condoning his behavior.

Under a draft agreement between Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell, the proceedings will break Friday evening for the Jewish Sabbath at the request of Trump’s defense team and resume Sunday. There will likely be no witnesses, and the former president has declined a request to testify.

Trump’s second impeachment trial is opening with a sense of urgency — by Democrats who want to hold him accountable for the violent Capitol siege and Republicans who want it over as quickly as possible.

The proceedings are expected to diverge from the lengthy, complicated trial that resulted in Trump’s acquittal a year ago on charges that he privately pressured Ukraine to dig up dirt on a Democratic rival, Joe Biden, now the president.

Trump very well could be acquitted again, and the trial could be over in half the time.

Under the terms of the trial being negotiated, it would launch first with a debate over its constitutionality, a key argument of the former president’s defense. Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., forced a vote on the issue last month, and senators will again be confronted with a debate and vote.

Opening arguments would begin Wednesday at noon, with up to 16 hours per side for presentations.

Trump is the first president to be twice impeached, and the only one to face trial after leaving the White House. The Democrat-led House approved a sole charge, “incitement of insurrection,” acting swiftly one week after the riot, the most violent attack on Congress in more than 200 years. Five people died including a woman shot by police inside the building and a police officer who died of injuries the next day.

So far, it appears there will be few witnesses called, as the prosecutors and defense attorneys speak directly to senators who have been sworn to deliver “impartial justice” as jurors. Most are also witnesses to the siege, having fled for safety that day as the rioters broke into the Capitol and temporarily halted the electoral count certifying Biden’s victory.

Instead, House managers prosecuting the case are expected to rely on the trove of videos from the siege, along with Trump’s rhetoric refusing to concede the election, to make their case.

His new defense team has said it plans to counter with its own cache of videos of Democrat politicians making fiery speeches.

“We have the unusual circumstance where on the very first day of the trial, when those managers walk on the floor of the Senate, there will already be over 100 witnesses present,” said Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., who led Trump’s first impeachment. “Whether you need additional witnesses will be a strategic call.”

Democrats argue it’s not only about winning conviction, but holding the former president accountable for his actions, even though he’s out of office. For Republicans, the trial will test their political loyalty to Trump and his enduring grip on the GOP.

Initially repulsed by the graphic images of the siege, Republican senators including Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell denounced the violence and pointed a finger of blame at Trump. But in recent weeks GOP senators have rallied around Trump arguing his comments do not make him responsible for the violence. They question the legitimacy of even conducting a trial of someone no longer in office.

On Sunday, Republican Sen. Roger Wicker of Mississippi described Trump’s impeachment trial as a “meaningless messaging partisan exercise.” Paul called the proceedings a farce with “zero chance of conviction” and described Trump’s language and rally words as “figurative” speech.

Senators were sworn in as jurors late last month, shortly after Biden was inaugurated, but the trial proceedings were delayed as Democrats focused on confirming the new president’s initial Cabinet picks and Republicans sought to put as much distance as possible from the bloody riot.

At the time, Paul forced a vote to set aside the trial as unconstitutional because Trump is no longer in office, drawing 44 other Republicans to his argument.

A prominent conservative lawyer, Charles Cooper, rejects that view, writing in a Wall Street Journal opinion piece Sunday that the Constitution permits the Senate to try an ex-official, a significant counterpoint to that of Republican senators who have looked toward acquittal by advancing constitutional claims.

Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, one of Trump’s ardent defenders, said he believes Trump’s actions were wrong and “he’s going to have a place in history for all of this,” but insisted it’s not the Senate’s job to judge.

But 45 votes in favor of Paul’s measure suggested the near impossibility of reaching a conviction in a Senate where Democrats hold 50 seats but a two-thirds vote — or 67 senators — would be needed to convict Trump. Only five Republican senators joined with Democrats to reject Paul’s motion: Mitt Romney of Utah, Ben Sasse of Nebraska, Susan Collins of Maine, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania.

Report: New York Adds over 1,500 Coronavirus Fatalities to Long-Term Care Death Toll

0
. Photo Credit: AP

HANNAH BLEAU(BREITBART)

New York State reportedly added over 1,500 coronavirus-related fatalities to its long-term care facility virus death toll, the Empire Center for Public Policy reported Sunday.

The total number of long-term care facility deaths linked to the Chinese coronavirus “jumped by another 1,516” as the state continues to update its numbers following last month’s bombshell report from New York Attorney General Letitia James. The report found that Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s (D) administration vastly undercounted the number of nursing home deaths “by as much as 50 percent.”

The newly disclosed deaths represented an almost eight-fold increase for assisted living and other adult-care facilities, which provide non-medical services for their elderly and disabled residents.

When combined with the recently revealed count of nursing home residents who died in hospitals, the publicly reported toll in New York’s long-term care facilities had increased by almost 5,800, or 63 percent, over the past 10 days (see table).

The Health Department’s data on long-term care deaths had previously omitted residents who were sent to hospitals before passing away, a practice used by no other state. Officials had refused to share the full count in spite of months of queries from legislators and the media and a Freedom of Information lawsuit by the Empire Center.

Cuomo’s administration came under fire over controversial guidance at the start of the pandemic, requiring such facilities to accept positive coronavirus patients over worries of hospital capacity. According to the state’s department of health, “approximately 6,326 COVID-positive residents were admitted to facilities between March 25, 2020 and May 8, 2020.”

Cuomo doubled down following the revelation of James’s report, defending his state as having “a lower percentage of deaths in nursing homes than other states.”

“Look, whether a person died in a hospital or died in a nursing home, it’s — people died. People died,” he said during a January 29 press conference.

“But we’re below the national average in number of deaths in nursing homes,” he continued. “But who cares? Thirty-three [percent], 28 [percent], died in a hospital, died in a nursing home. They died”:

New York leads the nation in overall coronavirus fatalities, reporting 44,979 coronavirus-related deaths, according to Worldometers.

Has Israel just found the cure for Covid?

0
Dr. Nadir Arber in his lab where EXO-CD24 was developed. Photo courtesy of Tel Aviv Sourasky Medical Center.

By Abigail Klein Leichman (ISRAEL 21C)

EXO-CD24, an experimental inhaled medication developed at Tel Aviv Sourasky Medical Center, cured all 30 moderate-to-severe cases in a Phase I clinical trial.

Developed over the past six months at the hospital, EXOCD24 stops the “cytokine storm” – where the immune system goes out of control and starts attacking healthy cells – that occurs in the lungs of 5-7% of Covid-19 patients.

“To date, the preparation has been tried with great success on 30 severe patients, in 29 of whom the medical condition improved within two to three days and most of them were discharged home within three to five days. The 30th patient also recovered but after a longer time,” the hospital reports.

“The drug is based on exosomes, [vesicles] that are released from the cell membrane and used for intercellular communication. We enrich the exosomes with 24CD protein. This protein is expressed on the surface of the cell and has a known and important role in regulating the immune system,” explained Dr. Shiran Shapira, director of the laboratory of Prof. Nadir Arber, who has been researching the CD24 protein for over two decades.

“The preparation is given by inhalation, once a day, for only a few minutes, for five days,” Shapira said.

She said the experimental treatment has two unique characteristics. The first is that it inhibits the over-secretion of cytokines. The second is that it is delivered directly to the lungs and therefore has no systemic side effects that injected or oral drugs can cause.

“Even if the vaccines perform their function, and even if no new mutations are produced then still in one way or another the corona will remain with us,” said Arber, director of the medical center’s Integrated Cancer Prevention Center. “To this end, we have developed a unique drug, EXO-CD24.”

Arber added that this advanced preparation “can be produced quickly and efficiently and at a very low cost in every pharmaceutical facility in the country, and in a short time globally.”

Prof. Ronni Gamzu, CEO of the medical center, said, “Prof. Arber’s results for first-phase research were excellent and gave us all confidence in the method he has been researching [here] for many years. I personally assisted him in further obtaining the approvals from the Ministry of Health for further research.”

Allocetra

Meanwhile, Enlivex Therapeutics last week reported positive results from a multi-center Phase II clinical trial of its experimental Covid-19 immunotherapy drug Allocetra in severe and critical Covid-19 patients.

We reported in October that five Covid-19 intensive care patients were discharged from Hadassah University Medical Center in Jerusalem after treatment withAllocetra.

Nine severe and seven critical Covid-19 patients were treated with Allocetra in the Phase II clinical trial. Fourteen of them recovered and were discharged from the hospital after an average of 5.3 days.

The Phase II trial originally was expected to enroll 24 patients but was “completed early in support of anticipated accelerated regulatory filings of the trial’s positive safety and efficacy data,” Enlivex reported.

Altogether, 19 out of 21 Phase II and Phase Ib Allocetra trial patients recovered and were discharged from the hospital after an average of 5.6 days. Most of the patients in both studies had pre-existing risk factors such as male gender, obesity and hypertension.

“The results we have seen from the 12 Covid-19 patients treated to date with Allocetra are exciting,” said Prof. Vernon van Heerden, head of the General Intensive Care Unit at Hadassah and the lead investigator of both clinical trials.

“The Phase II patients who have been discharged from the hospital are currently healthy. We believe that these compelling results have demonstrated the safety and efficacy of Allocetra in these complicated patients, highlighting the potential of Enlivex’s product candidate to benefit severe and critical Covid-19 patients as well as others suffering from cytokine storms and organ dysfunctions across various clinical indications.”

Allocetra is based on the research of Enlivex chief scientific and medical officer Dr. Dror Mevorach, head of internal medicine and of one of Hadassah’s coronavirus wards. It works by restoring balance to the immune system.

Mevorach said Allocetra “may have utility as a safe and efficacious treatment … regardless of the specific coronavirus mutation that afflicted the patients, and across different life-threatening, high mortality clinical indications with high unmet medical needs.”

Elderly Man Dies After Getting COVID-19 Vaccine in NYC

0
(Frank Molter/dpa via AP)

An elderly man died shortly after getting a COVID-19 vaccine in New York City, health officials said Monday.

The man, in his 70s, collapsed as he was leaving the vaccination site at the Jacob Javits Convention Center in Manhattan Sunday morning, state Health Commissioner Howard Zucker said, local television station PIX first reported.

On-site security and first responders rushed to his side within seconds but the man died at a local hospital a short time later, according to Zucker.

In a statement, Zucker said the incident occurred about 25 minutes after the man received the vaccine and followed the required 15-minute observation period, “where he exhibited no adverse reactions or any distress.”

“Initial indications are that the man did not have any allergic reaction to the vaccine,” the health official said, adding he and other public health experts maintain the coronavirus vaccine is safe.

“I encourage all eligible New Yorkers to get vaccinated,” Zucker’s statement concluded.

The mass-vaccination site first opened Jan. 13; the convention center was originally used as a field hospital after the coronavirus pandemic first struck last spring.

NEWSMAX

Trump Mulling Whether to Launch Own Social Media Platform: Senior Adviser

0
AP.

BY JANITA KAN(EPOCH TIMES) 

Jason Miller, senior adviser to former President Donald Trump, said on Feb. 6 that Trump is deciding how he will reemerge on social media, including considering whether to create his own platform.

“I would expect that we will see the president reemerge on social media,” Miller told Breitbart News on Feb. 6 on radio channel SiriusXM 125.

“Whether that’s joining an existing platform or creating his new platform, there are a number of different options and a number of different meetings that they’ve been having on that front. Nothing is imminent on that.”

When pressed for more information about Trump’s social media plans, Miller said that “all options are on the table.”

“A number of things are being discussed. So stay tuned there because you know he’s going to be back on social media. We’re just kind of figuring out which avenue makes the most sense,” he said.

Trump, who has been one of the most active presidents on social media, was permanently suspended from Twitter and remains indefinitely banned from Facebook following the Jan. 6 breach of the U.S. Capitol. The targeted policing of Trump’s posts occurred throughout his presidency and ramped up following the Nov. 3 election, when the former president and his team repeatedly joined entreaties to independently review the integrity of the results in several states.

Other platforms such as YouTube, Instagram (which is owned by Facebook), and Snapchat have also banned the former president from using their platforms.

The social media companies justified their censorship as an effort to guard against violence, claiming that Trump had violated their terms of use. Their move to prevent Trump from expressing his views on the platforms came after the media, lawmakers, and other critics claimed that the former president’s remarks on Jan. 6 incited violence, which they say led to the Capitol breach.

In the upcoming Senate impeachment trial, Trump’s team plans to defend the former president by arguing that the trial is unconstitutional and that he was exercising his First Amendment rights when he made a speech on Jan. 6.

Trump had addressed a crowd in Washington as Congress met to count electoral votes, in which he reiterated allegations about election irregularities and potential fraud and his dissatisfaction with the media and several lawmakers. In his speech, Trump called on supporters to “peacefully and patriotically” make their voices heard at the U.S. Capitol.

The breach at the U.S. Capitol began before Trump had finished his speech at the rally, according to a timeline compiled by The Epoch Times. As the incident escalated, Trump continued his urge for peace and respect for law enforcement throughout the afternoon.

Following the incident, Trump condemned the “violence, lawlessness, and mayhem,” saying that those who “infiltrated the Capitol have defiled the seat of American democracy.”

“This is a very, very dangerous road to take with respect to the First Amendment, putting at risk any passionate political speaker,” David Schoen, one of Trump’s impeachment defense attorneys, previously said of the new round of efforts to impeachment Trump.

The Justice Department and FBI had also said that they had charged protesters who conspired to breach the U.S. Capitol days before the incident, a detail that challenges the argument put forward in many media reports that Trump’s speech on Jan. 6 was the impetus for the violence. Meanwhile, the pipe bombs that were planted at the RNC and DNC headquarters on Jan. 6 were believed to have been placed there the night before the riots, law enforcement bodies have said.

This week, media outlets began speculating whether Trump had joined the social media website Gab after the account realdonaldtrump, which is the same handle as Trump’s Twitter account, posted a copy of the letter Trump’s lawyers wrote to Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), the House of Representatives’ lead impeachment manager.

Miller denied that the account is being used by the former president. Meanwhile, Gab said in a statement on Twitter that the account was “a mirror of POTUS’ tweets and statements that we’ve run for years.”

“We’ve always been transparent about this and would obviously let people know if the President starts using it,” founder and CEO Andrew Torba said in a statement on Gab.

Navarro: DOJ Slow-Walked Trump’s Executive Orders While Fast-Tracking Biden’s

0
President Joe Biden (AP)

BY IVAN PENTCHOUKOV(EPOCH TIMES

The Department of Justice (DOJ) put up hurdles to executive orders prepared by President Donald Trump while fast-tracking the ones prepared by President-elect Joe Biden during the transition period leading up to Inauguration Day on Jan. 20, according to former Trump senior adviser Peter Navarro.

“Bill Barr, President Trump’s attorney general, actually turns out to be Joe Biden’s first attorney general,” Navarro told Fox News’ Maria Bartiromo in an interview aired on Feb. 7. “We had over 30 executive orders queued after Election Day, ready to go, but we kept running into all these roadblocks and hurdles. It turns out that Bill Barr’s Office of Legal Counsel was fast-tracking all of these Biden EOs [executive orders], and basically, it was a deep-state coup.”

Navarro made the remarks when asked to explain how Biden managed to have dozens of executive actions ready to go during his first days in office. Navarro said he’s worked on preparing more than 50 executive orders during his four years at the White House. The DOJ’s Office of Legal Counsel serves as the final checkbox in the process of determining whether the president has the statutory authority to set in motion what the contents of a given order call for.

“We got slow-walked at the Department of Justice, and this is a problem I told Barr about numerous times, and he should have been fired months before he was. By the last year of this administration, he was really working against this administration in a lot of ways,” Navarro said. “The bottleneck was at the Department of Justice on so many things we did.”

The DOJ didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment; The Epoch Times was unable to contact Barr for comment.

Barr announced his resignation as attorney general on Dec. 14, 2020, and departed the office on Dec. 23. At the time, Trump’s legal team was pursuing numerous challenges to the outcome of the 2020 election. In the letter, Barr lauded Trump’s accomplishments and noted that the DOJ would continue to pursue investigations into alleged voter fraud.

On Jan. 7, the day after the breach of the U.S. Capitol, Barr issued a scathing statement criticizing the president.

“Orchestrating a mob to pressure Congress is inexcusable,” Barr said in a statement obtained by Politico. “The President’s conduct yesterday was a betrayal of his office and supporters.”

Trump is now facing an impeachment trial on a charge of inciting an insurrection, in connection with a speech he delivered on Jan. 6. During his remarks, Trump told supporters to make their voices heard “peacefully and patriotically,” but many in the media and Democrats selected excerpts from the speech and used them to accuse the president of calling for violence.

Nikky Haley: Biden ‘snubbing Israel’ while ‘cozying up to enemies like Iran’

0
Former United States Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley (Flash90/Yonatan Sindel)

By David Isaac, World Israel News

“This is truly dangerous.” So said former U.S. Ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley when asked about the Biden administration’s efforts to reenter the Iran nuclear deal during a Fox News interview on Wednesday.

She told Fox News Primetime host Trey Gowdy that Biden plans “to lift all the sanctions that we put on Iran,” adding that those sanctions weakened Iran and stopped it from funding terrorists.

It also “weakened their economy so much that they’ve got the Iranian people demonstrating in the street against the regime,” she said.

Describing Biden’s Iran plans as “literally Obama 2.0,” Haley said the new administration is prepared to jump back into the deal without asking Iran to leave Syria, stop its nuclear and missile program or stop funding terrorism.

“You’re actually hurting our friends, Israel and the Arab countries that worked with us on getting these sanctions passed on Iran, that worked with us on trying to hold back terrorism,” she said.

“The Biden administration is snubbing our friends like Israel but they’re cozying up to enemies like Iran,” Haley added.

Haley also brought up the fact that Biden has yet to reach out to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu since his inauguration.

“Biden’s been in office for two weeks now. He has yet to call the Israeli prime minister, one of our closest allies,” she said. “I don’t understand the logic.”

Haley was first asked about China. She says the U.S. is hamstringing itself in terms of its defense capabilities by reentering the START Treaty with Russia, which limits U.S. nuclear armaments, while China continues to advance.

“My concern is the Biden administration is not taking China seriously,” Haley said.

Actress says Marilyn Manson’s abuse against her included anti-Semitism

0
Marilyn Manson attends the 9th annual "Home for the Holidays" benefit concert on Dec. 10, 2019, in Los Angeles. (AP/Invision/Richard Shotwell)

By Lauren Marcus, World Israel News

Actress Evan Rachel Wood, who recently alleged that rock star Marilyn Manson abused her for years, posted on Instagram that part of the abuse included anti-Semitism.

The pair met when Wood was 19 and Manson was 37, after he asked her to star in the music video for his song “Heart-Shaped Glasses.” They were engaged for eight months in 2010.

Manson “started grooming me when I was a teenager and horrifically abused me for years.” wrote Wood in a bombshell Instagram post last week. “I was brainwashed and manipulated into submission.”

While Wood’s initial allegations were made last Monday, she added new details about Manson’s anti-Semitism last Friday.

“I was called a ‘Jew’ in a derogatory manner,” she wrote in an Instagram Story. “He would draw swastikas over my bedside table when he was mad at me.”

 

Wood said Manson seemed relieved that she is not ethnically Jewish. Her mother converted to Judaism and her father is a Christian.

“My mother is Jewish and I was raised with the religion. Because [my mother] converted and wasn’t of Jewish descent, he would say things like, ‘that’s better’ because I wasn’t ‘blood Jewish,’” she wrote.

Evan Rachel Wood

Evan Rachel Wood arrives at the 69th Primetime Emmy Awards, Sept. 17, 2017. (AP/Jordan Strauss)

Wood pointed out that Manson has three tattoos associated with Nazism, including a skull-and-crossbones Totenkopf and an “M-swastika.”

“Totenkopf is German for ‘death’s head’ and typically refers to a skull-and-crossbones image,” Wood wrote, next to a photo of Manson’s tattoo. “’During the Nazi era, Hitler’s Schutzstaffel (SS) adopted one particular Totenkopf image as a symbol.”

“Among other uses, it became the symbol of the SS-Totenkopfverbande (one of the original three branches of the SS, along with the Algemeine SS and the Waffen SS), whose purpose was to guard the concentration camps.”

‘He did not have these tattoos when we started dating,’ Wood clarified.

In November 2020, an interview from 2010 in which Manson said “I have fantasies every day about smashing [Wood’s] skull in with a sledgehammer” raised eyebrows among the public.

Manson’s representatives dismissed the remarks as typical music industry hype.

‘The comments where Manson had a fantasy of using a sledgehammer on Evan…was obviously a theatrical rockstar interview promoting a new record, and not a factual account,” said a spokesperson for Manson.

“The fact that Evan and Manson got engaged six months after this interview would indicate that no one took this story literally.”

After another 10 women stepped forward accusing him of abuse, Manson denied all the allegations in an Instagram post.

“Obviously my art and life have long been magnets for controversy, but these recent claims about me are horrible distortions of reality,” he wrote.

“My intimate relationships have always been entirely consensual with like-minded partners. Regardless of how — and why — others are now choosing to misrepresent the past, that is the truth.”

Longtime Reagan Secretary of State George Shultz dies at 100

0
n this Jan. 9, 1985 file photo, Secretary of State George Shultz, center, walks with President Ronald Reagan and Vice President George Bush upon his arrival at the White House in Washington, after two days of arms talks with the Soviet Union in Geneva. Shultz, former President Reagan's longtime secretary of state, who spent most of the 1980s trying to improve relations with the Soviet Union and forging a course for peace in the Middle East, died Saturday, Feb. 6, 2021. He was 100. (AP Photo/Barry Thumma, File)

(AP) — Former Secretary of State George P. Shultz, a titan of American academia, business and diplomacy who spent most of the 1980s trying to improve Cold War relations with the Soviet Union and forging a course for peace in the Middle East, has died. He was 100.

Shultz died Saturday at his home on the campus of Stanford University, where he was a distinguished fellow at the Hoover Institution, a think tank, and professor emeritus at Stanford’s Graduate School of Business.

The Hoover Institution announced Shultz’s death on Sunday. A cause of death was not provided.

A lifelong Republican, Shultz held three major Cabinet positions in GOP administrations during a lengthy career of public service.

He was labor secretary, treasury secretary and director of the Office of Management and Budget under President Richard M. Nixon before spending more than six years as President Ronald Reagan’s secretary of state.

“He was a gentleman of honor and ideas, dedicated to public service and respectful debate, even into his 100th year on Earth,” President Joe Biden said in a statement. “That’s why multiple presidents, of both political parties, sought his counsel. I regret that, as president, I will not be able to benefit from his wisdom, as have so many of my predecessors.”

Shultz was the second-longest serving secretary of state since World War I I and had been the oldest surviving former Cabinet member of any administration.

Condoleezza Rice, also a former secretary of state and current director of the Hoover Institution, said in a statement that Shultz “will be remembered in history as a man who made the world a better place.”

Shultz had largely stayed out of politics since his retirement, but had been an advocate for an increased focus on climate change. He marked his 100th birthday in December by extolling the virtues of trust and bipartisanship in politics and other endeavors in a piece he wrote for The Washington Post.

Coming amid the acrimony that followed the November presidential election, Shultz’s call for decency and respect for opposing views struck many as an appeal for the country to shun the political vitriol of the Trump years.

“Trust is the coin of the realm,” Shultz wrote. “When trust was in the room, whatever room that was — the family room, the schoolroom, the locker room, the office room, the government room or the military room — good things happened. When trust was not in the room, good things did not happen. Everything else is details.”

Over his lifetime, Shultz succeeded in the worlds of academia, public service and corporate America, and was widely respected by his peers from both political parties.

After the October 1983 bombing of the Marine barracks in Beirut that killed 241 soldiers, Shultz worked tirelessly to end Lebanon’s brutal civil war in the 1980s. He spent countless hours of shuttle diplomacy between Mideast capitals trying to secure the withdrawal of Israeli forces there.

The experience led him to believe that stability in the region could only be assured with a settlement to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and he set about on an ambitious but ultimately unsuccessful mission to bring the parties to the negotiating table.

Although Shultz fell short of his goal to put the Palestine Liberation Organization and Israel on a course to a peace agreement, he shaped the path for future administrations’ Mideast efforts by legitimizing the Palestinians as a people with valid aspirations and a valid stake in determining their future.

As the nation’s chief diplomat, Shultz negotiated the first-ever treaty to reduce the size of the Soviet Union’s ground-based nuclear arsenals despite fierce objections from Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev to Reagan’s “Strategic Defense Initiative” or Star Wars.

The 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty was a historic attempt to begin to reverse the nuclear arms race, a goal he never abandoned in private life.

“Now that we know so much about these weapons and their power,” Shultz said in an interview in 2008, “they’re almost weapons that we wouldn’t use, so I think we would be better off without them.”

Former Secretary of State Henry A. Kissinger, reflecting in his memoirs on the “highly analytic, calm and unselfish Shultz,” paid Shultz an exceptional compliment in his diary: “If I could choose one American to whom I would entrust the nation’s fate in a crisis, it would be George Shultz.”

George Pratt Shultz was born Dec. 13, 1920, in New York City and raised in Englewood, New Jersey. He studied economics and public and international affairs at Princeton University, graduating in 1942. His affinity for Princeton prompted him to have the school’s mascot, a tiger, tattooed on his posterior, a fact confirmed to reporters decades later by his wife aboard a plane taking them to China.

At Shultz’s 90th birthday party, his successor as secretary of state, James Baker, joked that he would do anything for Shultz “except kiss the tiger.” After Princeton, Shultz joined the Marine Corps and rose to the rank of captain as an artillery officer during World War II.

He earned a Ph.D. in economics at MIT in 1949 and taught at MIT and at the University of Chicago, where he was dean of the business school. His administration experience included a stint as a senior staff economist with President Dwight D. Eisenhower’s Council of Economic Advisers and as Nixon’s OMB director.

Shultz was president of the construction and engineering company Bechtel Group from 1975-1982 and taught part-time at Stanford University before joining the Reagan administration in 1982, replacing Alexander Haig, who resigned after frequent clashes with other members of the administration.

A rare public disagreement between Reagan and Shultz came in 1985 when the president ordered thousands of government employees with access to highly classified information to take a “lie detector” test as a way to plug leaks of information. Shultz told reporters, “The minute in this government that I am not trusted is the day that I leave.” The administration soon backed off the demand.

A more serious disagreement was over the secret arms sales to Iran in 1985 in hopes of securing the release of American hostages held in Lebanon by Hezbollah militants. Although Shultz objected, Reagan went ahead with the deal and millions of dollars from Iran went to right-wing Contra guerrillas in Nicaragua. The ensuing Iran-Contra scandal swamped the administration, to Shultz’s dismay.

After Reagan left office, Shultz returned to Bechtel, having been the longest serving secretary of state since Cordell Hull under President Franklin D. Roosevelt.

He retired from Bechtel’s board in 2006 and returned to Stanford and the Hoover Institution.

In 2000, he became an early supporter of the presidential candidacy of George W. Bush, whose father had been vice president while Shultz was secretary of state. Shultz served as an informal adviser to the campaign.

Former President Bush said “America has lost one of its finest statesmen with the passing of George Shultz.”

“He was a person of deep intellect, talent, and patriotism,” Bush said in a statement. “He took on a wide range of important jobs and did them all well. George Shultz was a great public servant, and America is better because of that service.”

Shultz remained an ardent arms control advocate in his later years but retained an iconoclastic streak, speaking out against several mainstream Republican policy positions. He created some controversy by calling the war on recreational drugs, championed by Reagan, a failure and raised eyebrows by decrying the longstanding U.S. embargo on Cuba as “insane.”

He was also a prominent proponent of efforts to fight the effects of climate change, warning that ignoring the risks was suicidal.

A pragmatist, Shultz, along with Kissinger, made headlines during the 2016 presidential campaign when he declined to endorse Republican nominee Donald Trump after being quoted as saying “God help us” when asked about the possibility of Trump in the White House.

Shultz was married to Helena “Obie” O’Brien, an Army nurse he met in the Pacific in World War II, and they had five children. After her death, in 1995, he married Charlotte Maillard, San Francisco’s protocol chief, in 1997.

Shultz was awarded the nation’s highest civilian honor, the Presidential Medal of Freedom, in 1989.

Survivors include his wife, five children, 11 grandchildren and nine great-grandchildren.

Funeral arrangements were not immediately announced.

Netanyahu blasts Defense Minister: ‘Blood of the dead will be on your hands’

0
rime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (r) and Defense Minister Benny Gantz (Flash90)
By David Isaac, World Israel News

In a stormy cabinet meeting on Thursday, of which recordings were leaked on Sunday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Benny Gantz engaged in a fierce verbal debate over the handling of the pandemic with the former saying, “If you don’t agree to an extension of the lockdown – the blood of the dead will be on your hands.”

The recordings, released by Kan News and Channel 12 simultaneously, offer a “rare glimpse” into how government decisions are made, Kan reports.

“Instead of a professional discussion, related to the health, life and choices of the citizens of the State of Israel – we received long hours of arguments between public leaders which would embarrass a kindergarten – and at the end, controversial decisions at the last minute, contrary to professionals’ position and without long-term planning,” Kan’s report said, in a biting criticism of the leaked debate.

“The public understands your game very well. It understands you are condemning many Israelis to serious illness and death,” Netanyahu said in the recording.

“Don’t tell me stories, don’t lecture me about responsibility for human lives. You are throwing sand in the public’s eyes,” Gantz replied.

“The lives of many Israelis will be on your hands, Benny, don’t tell me stories,” Netanyahu retorted

 “All the other experts say that if we open now, deviate from the restrictions of the Ministry of Health and open the economy in a few days according to your proposal, they say it will lead to the death, that it will start soon… and thousands of thousands of Israelis will probably die,” Netanyahu added.

 

“They say it will go up to 8,000, to 16,000, and then to 32,000. Now it cannot be that you have not heard them, and yet, after hearing them, you come to a united position that you oppose, that you oppose the decisions of the Ministry of Health,” Netanyahu said.

The prime minister accused Gantz of objecting as part of a strategy in the run-up to the elections, which take place March 23.

“In these 50 days left until the election, I expect that you will always object to what we propose.” Netanyahu said.

The cabinet ultimately agreed to end the lockdown on Sunday. However, Ben Gurion Airport’s closure was extended until Feb. 20 in an attempt to keep out mutations of the disease.

President Reuven Rivlin Hosts Launch of the Israeli Press Institute at Beit HaNasi

0
President of Israel Reuven (Ruvi) Rivlin on Sunday, February 7th 2021 / 25 Shvat 5781, hosted the launch of the Israeli Press Institute at Beit HaNasi. Photo Credit: Mark Neyman (GPO)

Israeli President of Israel Reuven (Ruvi) Rivlin on  Sunday, February 7th  2021 / 25 Shvat 5781, hosted the launch of the Israeli Press Institute at Beit HaNasi. President of the institute, retired judge Dalia Dorner, and Director Golan Yochpaz also participated in the event.

President Rivlin said, The role of the institute will be, first and foremost, to redefine the blurred borders between political propaganda, marketing content and serious journalism. To remind us all that the media, defined as the watchdog of democracy, is a uniquely important part of the democratic apparatus whose task it is to criticize and investigate, without fear or favor, and to whom the principle of separation of powers must also apply.”

 

“Journalistic ethics are not a recommendation, but rather a decisive issue of conscience and professionalism. You will need to clarify what is the role of the state and what is its area of responsibility when distinguishing between factual reporting and fake news, between legitimate expressions and dangerous incitement.”

 

“In recent years, there has been a crisis of confidence between the public and the press. The way to restoring it will never be through adopting a political agenda of one kind or another. Public faith will be earned only through professional, thorough, uncompromising work which is faithful to clear journalistic ethics, to the Israeli public and to Israeli democracy.”

 

The institute will work to strengthen press freedom and to restore public confidence in the press, focusing on educating children and young people in critical consumption of the media and raising awareness of the importance of freedom of expression and freedom of the press.

 

“It seems that there is no more suitable time to re-examine the role of the media,” said the president at the beginning of his remarks. “In recent years, with technological developments, the development of social media and other geo-political changes, the press – domestic and global – has suffered structural shocks which have raised fundamental questions regarding its identity and role.”

 

The president added, “The role of the institute you are establishing today will be, first and foremost, to redefine the blurred borders between political propaganda, marketing content and serious journalism. To remind us all that the media, defined as the watchdog of democracy, is a uniquely important part of the democratic apparatus whose task it is to criticize and investigate, without fear or favor, and to whom the principle of separation of powers must also apply. You will need to stress, at every opportunity, that journalistic ethics are not a recommendation, but rather a decisive issue of conscience and professionalism. You will need to clarify what is the role of the state and what is its area of responsibility when distinguishing between factual reporting and fake news, between legitimate expressions and dangerous incitement.” The president said that the first order of business for the institute will be to impress on its staff the commitment to diversity of views from all sectors and political positions.

 

The president noted that, “in recent years, there has been a crisis of confidence between the public and the press. The way to restoring it will never be through adopting a political agenda of one kind or another. Public faith will be earned only through professional, thorough, uncompromising work which is faithful to clear journalistic ethics, to the Israeli public and to Israeli democracy. As Jabotinsky once said, “In a place where there is a free press, there will also be hope.” He ended his remarks by congratulating the founders of the institute who have undertaken this important mission.

 

President of the Israeli Press Institute, former supreme court justice Dalia Dorner said, “In recent years, we have seen the deterioration of public trust in the media. This trend is very dangerous for democracy, whose strength relies largely on a strong and trustworthy press and on public consensus regarding the crucial value of the freedom of the press. I have met many young people in recent years, and many of them receive most of their information from social networks. I came to the conclusions that in order to restore public confidence in the press, and particularly among young people, we must work on media literacy, which is not currently taught in the formal education system. I worked to create the Israeli Press Institute primarily to fill that gap.”

 

Director of the Israeli Press Institute Golan Yochpaz: “With all those who wish to blur the importance of a strong, free investigative press in Israel to the Israeli public, we will try to make it clear just how critical it is on a day-to-day level, and how continued damage to it will erode our democratic resilience. We will try to reinforce the importance of journalists standing up for their freedom of action in their newsrooms, particularly at this difficult time for Israeli journalism.”

 

The institute will advance public media literacy, including critical reading of the press. The institute will work with Israeli and international bodies – academic institutions, think tanks and civil society and professional bodies. The institute will award an annual monetary prize to journalists for important reportage and commentary, and will hold an annual conference at which research will be presented and opinions will be shared regarding ways of strengthening Israeli journalism and public confidence in it.

 

Tom Brady wins Super Bowl No. 7, Buccaneers beat Chiefs 31-9

0
Tampa Bay Buccaneers quarterback Tom Brady celebrates with the Vince Lombardi Trophy after the NFL Super Bowl 55 football game against the Kansas City Chiefs Sunday, Feb. 7, 2021, in Tampa, Fla. The Buccaneers defeated the Chiefs 31-9 to win the Super Bowl. (AP Photo/Lynne Sladky)

(AP)Tom Brady made his seventh Super Bowl title look familiar – despite moving south to a new team and conference during a pandemic.

Brady threw two touchdown passes to old friend Rob Gronkowski and one to good pal Antonio Brown, and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers routed Patrick Mahomes and Kansas City 31-9 on their home field in Super Bowl 55 on Sunday.

The GOAT earned his fifth Super Bowl MVP award and extended his Super Bowl titles’ record in his 10th appearance, nine with New England. The 43-year-old Brady broke his own mark for oldest player to win a Super Bowl and joined Hall of Famer Peyton Manning as the only quarterbacks to win one with multiple franchises.

AP

“I’m not making any comparisons,” Brady said. “Experiencing it with this group of guys is amazing.”

Stunningly, it was easier than any of his previous Super Bowl victories, which came by an average margin of five points. Mahomes lost by double digits for the first time in his four-year career.

The Buccaneers (15-5) took their second NFL title and first in 18 years as the first team to play the big game at home, capping an unusual and challenging season played through the novel coronavirus. They won three road games as a wild card to reach the Super Bowl, and joined the NHL’s Lightning as a 2020 season champion. The Rays also went to the World Series but lost to the Dodgers.

“I’m so proud of all these guys,” Brady said. “We had a rough November but we came together at the right time. We knew this was gonna happen. We played our best game of the year.”

Mahomes and the Chiefs (16-3) failed to become the first repeat champions since Brady’s Patriots in 2003-04.

“I didn’t see it coming at all,” Chiefs coach Andy Reid said. “I thought we were going to come in and play these guys just like we’ve been playing teams, and it didn’t happen that way. I give them credit on that.”

The NFL completed its 269-game season on time without any cancellations, a remarkable accomplishment that required nearly 1 million COVID-19 tests for players and team personnel.

Due to the virus, only 25,000 mask-wearing fans attended, including approximately 7,500 vaccinated health care workers given free tickets by the NFL. About 30,000 cardboard cutouts made the stadium look full.

A streaker wearing a hot-pink onesie eluded security and slid into the end zone with 5:03 left in the game. Kansas City’s high-powered offense never got that far against Tampa’s ferocious defense.

“Obviously I didn’t play the way I wanted to play,” Mahomes said. “What else can you say? All you can do is leave everything you have on the field. I feel like the guys did that. … They beat us pretty good, the worst I’ve been beaten in a long time.”

Bruce Arians became the oldest coach at age 68 to win the Super Bowl. His mom, 95-year-old Kay Arians, witnessed it in person. Brady, Gronk and defensive coordinator Todd Bowles helped Arians get that Vince Lombardi Trophy.

“This really belongs to the coaching staff and our players. I didn’t do a damn thing,” Arians said after he was handed the trophy.

Bowles devised a masterful plan to frustrate Mahomes and shut down the Chiefs, the complete opposite of Kansas City’s 27-24 win in Tampa in Week 12, when the Chiefs jumped to a 17-0 lead in the first quarter. Tyreek Hill had 269 yards receiving and three TDs in that one. He was held to 73 yards on seven catches Sunday.

AP

After the Chiefs took a 3-0 early lead, it was all Brady and the Bucs.

Brady accomplished a career-first with an 8-yard TD pass to Gronkowksi for a 7-3 lead with 37 seconds left in the first quarter. Brady’s nine Super Bowl teams in New England produced just three points total in the first quarter. Gronkowski, who came out of retirement to play with his buddy, caught his 13th and 14th postseason TDs from Brady. They had been tied at 12 with Jerry Rice and Joe Montana.

Despite playing at home, the Buccaneers weren’t allowed to fire the cannons from their famed pirate ship after touchdowns and big plays. They did it soon after the clock expired as red, white and black confetti fell onto the field.

Fans still enjoyed the thud of Gronk’s thunderous spike after his first score.

Tampa missed an opportunity to extend the lead when Brady’s 2-yard pass to offensive lineman Joe Haeg was knocked out of his hands in the end zone. Ronald Jones was stopped short on consecutive carries as Arians stuck to his “No risk it, no biscuit” philosophy and went on fourth down.

But the Chiefs didn’t gain any momentum off the stop. Instead, they made one costly mistake after another.

First, All-Pro tight end Travis Kelce dropped a pass that would’ve been a big gain on third down. Then punter Tommy Townsend shanked a 29-yarder after a penalty forced him to kick again. The Bucs started at Kansas City’s 38 instead of their 27.

A holding call on cornerback Charvarius Ward negated an interception by All-Pro safety Tyrann Mathieu. Kansas City’s defense held but an offside penalty during Ryan Succop’s successful field goal gave the Buccaneers a first down. Sarah Thomas, the first woman official in a Super Bowl, threw that flag.

Brady fired a strike to Gronkowski for a 17-yard TD and a 14-3 lead. Gronk hesitated before spiking the ball, waiting to make sure another flag on the play was against the sloppy Chiefs.

Mahomes drove the offense for a 34-yard field goal by Harrison Butker that cut it to 14-6, but Kansas City’s defense fell apart in the final minute of the first half — allowing 42 yards on two pass interference penalties. One against Mathieu in the end zone set up Brady’s TD pass to Brown for a 21-6 halftime lead.

It was Brady who convinced his new team to give Brown a chance after the troubled former All-Pro came off suspension. His TD toss to Brown was his 50th of the season, including 10 in the postseason.

Mathieu took an unsportsmanlike penalty after the TD pass for getting into it with Brady as he ran to the sideline.

Leonard Fournette, like Brown an in-season addition, ran 27 yards untouched to extend Tampa’s lead to 28-9. Arians pumped his fist after that score and pointed toward offensive coordinator Byron Leftwich, who made the call.

Succop’s 52-yard field goal increased the lead to 31-9.

Last year, Mahomes rallied the Chiefs from a 10-point deficit in the fourth quarter against San Francisco and earned MVP honors in leading Kansas City to its first NFL championship in a half-century. But Tampa’s pass rush gave him no chance in this one.

Shaq Barrett had one of three sacks on Mahomes, who spent most of the game trying to escape Jason Pierre-Paul, William Gholston and a relentless group.

“There was nothing that was gonna stop us from winning this game,” Barrett said. “I knew we were going to keep the pressure up. Coach Bowles had a great game plan. We had the guys up there to make it work and we made it work, baby.”

After 20 seasons in New England, Brady signed a $50 million, two-year contract with Tampa in March. The Buccaneers hadn’t reached the playoffs since 2007 and hadn’t won a postseason game since the 2002 title season.

There were plenty of red-clad Chiefs fans doing the tomahawk chop for part of the first half until the Bucs made it a rout. Then it was the hometown fans chanting “Let’s Go Bucs.”

Brady avenged his loss against Chiefs defensive coordinator Steve Spagnuolo, who held the same position for the Giants when New York stifled the Patriots in the 2008 Super Bowl, preventing New England from a perfect season.

The warmer climate suited Brady perfectly. He passed Michael Jordan in championships and it doesn’t seem he’s ready to slow down. He already said he might play past age 45,

Jewish Fraternity in California Targeted with Swastikas

1

JOEL B. POLLAK

The local chapter of Jewish fraternity Alpha Epsilon Pi at California Polytechnic State University (Cal Poly) in San Luis Obispo was vandalized on Friday night with swastikas and antisemitic graffiti, according to the fraternity and the college.

In an instagram post Saturday evening, the fraternity said:

Last week, on January 27th, we honored the memory of the 6 million Jews who perished and others affected by the Holocaust. Unfortunately, in 2021, antisemitism is still the number one cause of hate crimes in the United States.

This morning, a hateful group of people committed an antisemitic hate crime on our chapter house. We awoke to multiple swastikas and antisemitic statements spray-painted on and in front of our house. This was targeted at us, as the Jewish fraternity, and we would like to let the world know we do not tolerate or condone this behavior. Our chapter and the entire San Luis Obispo Jewish community stand together proudly against those who are uneducated and who encourage hateful acts.

We are proud to be the Jewish fraternity on this campus, and at this time we ask for your support in spreading awareness about rising antisemitism through education and discussion. AEPi and the Jewish community have an open door to anyone who wishes to learn about our culture and beliefs. It is our mission to make Cal Poly a safe place for everyone.

Shabbat Shalom — Peace and Love

The university has condemned the crime, which was reported to police.

Several California colleges and universities, public and private, have experienced a rise in antisemitism in recent years, including the years prior to 2016. Fraternities were vandalized, Jews were heckled for standing up for Israel, and Jewish students were even barred from participation in student government bodies.

President Donald Trump signed an executive order in 2019 extending the protections of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 to cover Jewish students on college campuses by interpreting the statute more broadly.

 

Breitbart