Sunday, December 4, 2022

GOP Rep. Pushes Back as Fox Hosts Slam Bipartisan Bill: 'America Needs It'

 https://www.newsweek.com/gop-rep-pushes-back-fox-hosts-slam-bipartisan-bill-america-needs-it-1764410

McDowell pressed the GOP lawmaker about his vote on the bipartisan infrastructure bill, which she said was "fueling inflation."

"How are you not part of the problem, instead of being the solution?" McDowell asked.

Bacon responded that he believes the Republican Party should embrace infrastructure policy. Bartiromo, however, asked him about how much of the bill would actually be going to infrastructure. Former President Donald Trump has claimed only 11 percent of the funding goes toward "real infrastructure," but this claim was inaccurate.

Biden leveraged $1B in aid to Ukraine to oust corrupt prosecutor, not to help his son

 https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/factcheck/2020/10/21/fact-check-joe-biden-leveraged-ukraine-aid-oust-corrupt-prosecutor/5991434002/

While former Vice President Joe Biden oversaw foreign policy in Ukraine, his son Hunter Biden served on the board of Burisma Holdings, the largest gas company in the fledgling democracy.

Despite a recently concluded investigation by Senate Republicans that found no wrongdoing by the Bidens, claims to the contrary have continued to circulate on social media.

"VP Biden threatened to withhold 1 billion dollars from Ukraine to save his son's job," reads a meme posted to Facebook by Secure America Now. The meme has been shared more than 9,000 times since Oct. 18.

It's true that Joe Biden leveraged $1 billion in aid to persuade Ukraine to oust its top prosecutor, Viktor Shokin, in March 2016. But it wasn't because Shokin was investigating Burisma. It was because Shokin wasn't pursuing corruption among the country's politicians.


Lawrence: Appeals Court Tells Trump Something He Never Hears

Trump calls for the termination of the Constitution in Truth Social post

 https://edition.cnn.com/2022/12/03/politics/trump-constitution-truth-social/index.html

Former President Donald Trump called for the termination of the Constitution to overturn the 2020 election and reinstate him to power Saturday in a continuation of his election denialism and pushing of fringe conspiracy theories.

“Do you throw the Presidential Election Results of 2020 OUT and declare the RIGHTFUL WINNER, or do you have a NEW ELECTION? A Massive Fraud of this type and magnitude allows for the termination of all rules, regulations, and articles, even those found in the Constitution,” Trump wrote in a post on the social network Truth Social and accused “Big Tech” of working closely with Democrats. “Our great ‘Founders’ did not want, and would not condone, False & Fraudulent Elections!”

Quit Underestimating President Biden

 https://www.gingrich360.com/2022/11/30/quit-underestimating-president-biden/

We dislike Biden so much, we pettily focus on his speaking difficulties, sometimes strange behavior, clear lapses of memory, and other personal flaws. Our aversion to him and his policies makes us underestimate him and the Democrats.

But remember: Presidents Dwight Eisenhower and Ronald Reagan both preferred to be underestimated. Both wanted people to think of them as pleasant – but not dangerous. They found being underestimated was a major asset. While people laughed at them, they were busy achieving their goals and getting their programs implemented.

Rep. Greene Blasts 'Turncoat' Republicans for Not Fighting 'Election Fraud'

 https://www.newsweek.com/rep-greene-blasts-turncoat-republicans-not-fighting-election-fraud-1764422

After originally dismissing the reports as potential misinformation and casting doubt on its authenticity, The Washington Post and The New York Times later found that thousands of emails, which formed the basis of the story, did come from a computer that Hunter reportedly dropped off at a repair shop in Wilmington, Delaware, in April 2019, but never picked up.

However, The Washington Post said in March that the emails provide "little new insight" into Hunter's work for Burisma and that they do not implicate the president.

Musk’s revelations on Twitter censoring Hunter Biden laptop story prompt liberal rage: ‘Hack stuff'

https://www.foxnews.com/media/musks-revelations-twitter-censoring-hunter-biden-laptop-story-prompt-liberal-rage-hack-stuff

Liberal commentator Brian Tyler Cohen attempted to dismantle the thread’s entire argument, tweeting, "So Twitter was acting under orders of the government except Biden wasn't POTUS in 2020. And it's a First Amendment violation except Twitter can't violate 1A as a private biz. And the takedown requests from team Biden were nudes against Twitter's TOS. But going great otherwise!"

Elon Musk and Tucker Carlson Don’t Understand the First Amendment

 https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2022/12/elon-musk-and-tucker-carlson-dont-understand-the-first-amendment/672352/

Last night, on Fox News, Tucker Carlson also picked up the claim about the First Amendment. With characteristic breathless hyperbole, Carlson declared that the documents “show a systemic violation of the First Amendment, the largest example of that in modern history.”

Musk and Carlson are both profoundly wrong; the documents released so far show no such thing. In October 2020, when the laptop story broke, Joe Biden was not president. The Democratic National Committee (which also asked for Twitter to review tweets) is not an arm of the government. It’s a private political party. Twitter is not an arm of the government; it is a private company.

Saturday, December 3, 2022

Girls in foster care: a vulnerable and high-risk group

 https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/19550260/

Results: Findings indicated that these girls had significant histories of maltreatment, chronic health issues, and foster care placement instability; 84% of the girls had been physically abused; 95% were victims of ongoing abuse by the biological parents (78%). Sexual abuse was reported by 81%, and 68% were sexually abused by more than one individual. Ninety-five percent were neglected; 51% of the neglect was classified as severe and chronic. All of the girls (100%) had been shown to exhibit sexually abusive and inappropriate behaviors toward other children, including exposing themselves to age-mates, violation of body space, sexually aggressive remarks, sexual touching without permission, and sexual touching of much younger children. Ninety-two percent of the girls had two or more changes in caregivers by age 16 years. Over one-third of the girls (39.2%) experienced four or more different living situations that lasted less than 1 month.


Palestinian teens order Haredi man to kiss their feet, post on TikTok, are arrested

 https://www.timesofisrael.com/palestinian-teens-who-ordered-haredi-man-to-kiss-their-feet-in-tiktok-clip-arrested/

Police arrested two Palestinian teenagers who filmed themselves threatening an ultra-Orthodox man in Jerusalem’s Old City and ordering him to bend down on his knees and kiss one of their feet in a video that they later uploaded to TikTok.

The phenomenon of Palestinians filming themselves assaulting or humiliating ultra-Orthodox residents sparked outrage and clashes last year, leading to several arrests. In one particularly viral video, a Palestinian was filmed pouring hot coffee on an Orthodox man, leading to a two-year prison sentence.

The latest clip was captioned with the line “look at how he kisses his shoes” with a laughing emoji.

Adults 65 Years and Older and At-Risk Populations: Do Not Just Wait for the Next Wave, Get Vaccinated Now to Stay Healthy!

 https://www.gov.il/en/departments/news/09112022-01

The Ministry of Health is preparing for this winter, foreseeing a wave of COVID-19 and influenza infections.

We advise everyone 65 years and older and at-risk populations to get the Omicron-specific vaccine for COVID-19 that protects against most Omicron sub-variants common in Israel and the world over.

'Prison is tough on them': Judge releases terrorists who tried to lynch a Jewish family

 https://www.israelnationalnews.com/news/363749

Justice Amit wrote in his decision that, "The defendants come from normative families, and don't have criminal records, the detention is tough on them and they probably have learned their lesson. The defendants are currently being held in the Damon prison alongside security prisoners. I'm not convinced that this does any good for the defendants or the State's interests."


Thursday, December 1, 2022

DeSantis Tells Allies to Stay Mum About Trump’s ‘Nazi’ Dinner. It’s Part of a Bigger Plan

 https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2022/11/30/tucker-carlson-gop-ukraine-00071205

But when it comes to some of Trump’s most Jewish and pro-Israel supporters who have spoken out against the dinner, the former president has been taking down names, as is his spiteful wont. In the past few days, some pro-Trump Jews — including his former Israel ambassador and bankruptcy attorney David Friedman — appeared to publicly back away from him or condemn his recent actions, the ex-president privately reacted with his typical fury and grievance, telling advisers that some of his top Jewish conservative backers were being “disloyal,” after all he’d done for them and for Israel, one person with direct knowledge of the complaints and another source briefed on them say.


What Tucker Carlson and Trumpist Republicans Get Wrong About Ukraine

 https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2022/11/30/tucker-carlson-gop-ukraine-00071205

Ironically, treating Ukraine with the restraint that neorealists demand today would lead to a high probability of strategic catastrophe tomorrow. Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki got it just right when he noted that restraint isn’t that different from passivity.

“If Ukraine becomes dependent [on Russia], we will need to do absolutely nothing to provoke a war,” Morawiecki said recently. “It’ll come to us. Putin won’t stop. The Kremlin will go farther. Passivity will be our suicide.”