These days, when one ponders misogyny and antisemitism, one’s mind should almost immediately turn to Hamas’s “genocidal” and sadistic rapes, kidnappings, and murders of Israeli women on 10/7.  Of Israeli men, too. But let’s be clear. Hamas is a Muslim, Islamist, terrorist group funded by Iran, Qatar, and major Western philanthropists, and covered for by both the Western intelligentsia and the Western media. Please recall, that the mobs on the “Jew hunt” in Amsterdam were mainly Muslims whose country of origin was Morocco. As for the media: Consider the op-ed published in the New York Times Dec. 2. It’s written by two professors, Natalia Mehlman Petrzela and Rachel Schreiber, both of whom teach at the New School. Remember it’s the school that had the first faculty led anti-Israel/pro Hamas encampment in Manhattan. The piece is titled “Misogyny and Antisemitism Are a Toxic Brew.” Good title, important subject, but guess what? Is Hamas or Iran correctly identified, targeted, focused upon? Absolutely not. The co-authors do note, but only in passing, that “antisemitism and misogyny can be found across the political spectrum” but do not name or describe any alleged wrong-doers among Democrats, on the American Left, or in the Muslim world. Instead, they specifically, and rather shockingly, name President-elect Trump. “The problem is rampant on the right, as conservatives platform a Hitler apologist and lionize Donald Trump, a man who has been found liable for sexual abuse and scapegoated Jews in anticipation of a possible loss.” First of all, “conservatives” didn’t platform a Hitler apologist, Tucker Carlson (inexcusably) did. Last time I looked, Carlson was banished from the most widely watched conservative cable news channel, Fox. Secondly, are the Times authors saying that Trump sexually abused Jewish women? Because they were Jews? Did his orthodox Jewish daughter have anything to say about this? Or are they mixing it all up due to the lack of corroborating evidence and joining Trump’s alleged abuse of non-Jewish women with statements he made about the Jewish vote? Utterly incoherent. Petrzela and Schreiber also describe a rapist in Texas “who put on Christmas music and raped (a woman) after she disclosed she was Jewish.” One is meant to assume that the Texas rapist is a Christian. This is all passing strange. Here’s why. These co-authors begin their piece this way: “Zio bitch! A young man in a kaffieyeh and Black Lives Matter T-shirt barked at one of us.” We are not told the young man’s name, skin-color, or religion. When something is omitted, it usually means that we are talking about a Muslim or an African American perpetrator. Courtesy of DEI, even if this might be an accurate description — it will still be perceived as a racist or “Islamophobic” statement. One will be fired, cancelled, ostracized. Thus, consider the gang-rape of the 12 year-old girl in France, which the op-ed mentions. Everyone in France knows that the French media and the French police do not mention race, skin-color, ethnicity, or country of origin in criminal matters. It was the Jewish community which informed  the public that the girl was a Jew, and that the young rapists “used antisemitic slurs while they violated her.” Does anyone believe that White, Catholic Crusaders or white Nazis did this? Please recall, that the mobs on the “Jew hunt” in Amsterdam were mainly Muslims whose country of origin was Morocco. One is not allowed to write this — and frankly, since so many Caucasian Dutch soon supported the “Jew hunt,” perhaps it matters a bit less. The silence of feminists globally after 10/7 is something I know a bit about. The co-authors mention it as well as the “hostility” towards anyone who tried to break this silence. But what’s this point doing here? Being de-platformed is not the same as being raped, is it? Are the feminist censors rapists, or at least rape-collaborators? If so, why not say so? Petrzela and Schreiber mention pornography, pogroms, and  Jews, and quote Jean Paul Sartre and Andrea Dworkin who both refer to 20th century matters. What the Hamas terrorists did on 10/7, in the 21st century was, in part, influenced by pornography but they also took it a step further, by video-ing it, proudly sending their crimes to their victims’ families, and turning it loose on the internet. Finally, the co-authors point out how “intersectionalists” have sought to redress all forms of bias — except that of antisemitism. White, Jewish women, in particular, are “soft targets,” and remain unprotected by academic DEI feminists. The co-authors are right. But they fail to connect this with the silence of feminists on 10/7. Or to place the silence in the larger context of Islamist/left-wing Jew-hatred. I wonder how heavily edited this piece was — or whether the co-authors themselves are proud of it just as it is. READ MORE from Phyllis Chesler: ICC Fails Afghan Women. Filmmakers Step In. Ban Face Masks: Our Safety Requires It The post Whitewashing Leftist and Islamist Jew Hatred appeared first on The American Spectator | USA News and Politics.

Amidst the tumult of controversial cabinet nominations, recriminations in the Democratic Party about why it was clobbered on Nov. 5, the Israeli–Hezbollah ceasefire, and Russia’s grinding advances in Ukraine, it is understandable why a major scandal that recently erupted in India was slow to be picked up by U.S. mainstream media, although it has potential implications for U.S.–India relations. Once again, the Adani Group, one of India’s leading enterprises is the focus. In January of last year, New York-based Hindenburg Research alleged stock price manipulation and accounting fraud over decades by this conglomerate engaged in energy and infrastructure development. Initially, Adani lost more than $60 billion in market capitalization following the release of the Hindenburg report. (It was also a Hindenburg Research publication in August that alleged accounting irregularities of server manufacturer, Super Micro Compute of Silicon Valley – the company’s auditors, Ernst & Young, resigned last month.) The Latest Scandal On Nov. 20 in New York, the U.S. Department of Justice indicted the founder and chairman, Gautam Adani, and seven executives, for an over $250 million bribery scheme to secure electricity distribution contracts from Indian officials and for providing false and misleading statements to secure loans and a bond offering that was then sold to U.S. investors and other international parties. This time, the fallout immediately cost Adani almost $55 billion in market capitalization. The company has vigorously denied these charges and has said it will pursue legal action. In addition to the falling bond prices of Adani, other immediate ramifications included a Moody’s and Fitch outlook downgrade from “stable” to “negative” and hesitation by some foreign banks to contemplate fresh funding. The French energy firm, TotalEnergies, paused new investment in the company. Adani also pulled a planned $600 million bond offering. The company’s airport and power project in Kenya was canceled and an investigation was started in Sri Lanka on all Adani projects. Longer-term consequences are difficult to assess. Long-Term Impact During the previous Indian National Congress-controlled coalition government, India had corporate scandals in the outsourcing, mining, telecom, and defense sectors. More recently, however, the Bharatiya Janata Party government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi has been intensely committed to improved governance and has been generally quite successful — except for a 2018 fraud case that involved Punjab National Bank. Naturally, the Indian National Congress (INC) opposition has seized this opportunity to discredit Modi and his Bharatiya Janata Party, which has distanced itself from Adani and advises that it has no reason to defend the beleaguered company. Further, the leader of the INC opposition has called for the resignation of the chair of the Securities Exchange Board of India for inadequate supervision. It is possible that Adani’s travails will soon disappear from headline news in India, given the vibrancy of the Indian press and the rapid pace of the modern news cycle. Whether Justice Department allegations are proven or not though, there will likely be damage to India’s reputation and governance among offshore constituencies. Risk management committees and corporate boards will also assess and stress test their exposure to Adani. They will also want to review their exposure to other hotshot Indian companies. Foreign direct investment (FDI) in India, necessary for job creation in the manufacturing sector, may be affected. FDI has increased dramatically due to India’s deregulated economy. The India Brand Equity Foundation reports FDI over $70 billion per year from 2022-2024, also noting that it has increased by 20 percent since 2000. Since 2014, business in India has been quite successful under the Modi government, and it is well known that Morgan Stanley has predicted that the country will rank as the third-largest GDP in the world by 2027. Whether these recent developments will slow economic momentum and aspirations remains to be seen. For some companies, India has been seen as an attractive alternative to China, where there has been a general crackdown on foreign firms, but now there is a severe threat of additional tariffs from the new Trump administration. (Late last year, Apple announced that it would move a quarter of its iPhone production to India). Also, India has an aggressive target of 500 GW from renewable energy sources by 2030 and now its state-run Solar Energy Corp is embroiled in the Adani scandal. Momentum may be slowed as contracts for solar energy are further scrutinized. Foreign Policy Implications The White House has understandably expressed confidence in U.S.–India relations, advising that it is aware of the charges against Gautam Adani and colleagues. The U.S. does not need another contentious issue with India, viewed as a major diplomatic player in BRICS and the Global South with access to Russian President Vladimir Putin. It is also a U.S. ally interested in containing China. Nevertheless, this scandal comes on the heels of a mid-October announcement by the Department of Justice of charges against an Indian government employee for his role in an assassination plot on U.S. soil. A co-conspirator was also previously charged. India watchers and the world of international finance will note that, in the coming days, Gautam Adani will also need to address a summons by the U.S. Securities Exchange Commission to appear in court for civil charges. The Adani Group is a strategic asset to India and a major contractor for the India–Middle East–Europe Economic Corridor (IMEC), intended to compete with China’s vaunted Belt and Road Initiative with shipping and rail infrastructure. Gautam Adani is also reported to be well-known to Modi. A question is whether President-elect Trump will intervene, capitalizing on his rapport with Modi and the successful 2020 visit to New Delhi (branded as “Namaste Trump”). As I wrote then in The American Spectator, Trump received a hero’s welcome in India and staged a visit to important Hindu and Muslim sites that helped strengthen U.S.–Indian emotional bonds. Frank Schell is a business strategy consultant and former senior vice president of the First National Bank of Chicago. He was a lecturer at the Harris School of Public Policy, University of Chicago, and is a contributor of opinion pieces to various journals. READ MORE from Frank Schell: Separating Fact From Hype About BRICS What’s Wrong With Canada? India’s Modi Wins a Third Term — But No Majority The post Justice Department Indicts Top Indian Company for Bribery appeared first on The American Spectator | USA News and Politics.

from State Of The Nation: …push for this pardon to cover up a 10-year massive international crime spree committed by the rogue U.S. Federal Government in Ukraine and elsewhere. SOTN Editor’s Note: It ought to be obvious to every Obama-Biden era investigative journalist and Ukraine War researcher that the scandalous and disastrous pardon of Hunter Biden was […]

by Alex Berenson, Unreported Truths: Gottlieb – Pfizer director, Biden v Berenson defendant – is openly trying to block RFK from the Dept. of Health and Human Services. His pharma paymasters must be even more worried than I thought. If I’ve learned anything about Dr. Scott Gottlieb while suing him for his role in making […]

Does the fact that cross-sex hormones affect children differently based on their sex make it unconstitutional for states to protect minors from transgender medical procedures? This is the key issue of the case heard Wednesday by the Supreme Court, says Tennessee Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti, a Republican who is the named respondent in United States v. Skrmetti. The Biden-Harris administration filed suit against Tennessee on behalf of other opponents, asking the high court to strike down a state law banning transgender medical treatments for minors. “The fundamental question of the Supreme Court case is: Does the mere fact that hormones affect kids differently mean that any regulation of hormones for kids is going to be a constitutional issue?” Skrmetti told The Daily Signal in a phone interview Wednesday night. “We regulate medicine all the time,” Skrmetti said. “The states have been regulating the practice of medicine for hundreds of years. And yet we have this one odd carve-out because boys and girls are different, and that’s such a fundamental fact of human existence, it seems hard to see how we could be boxed in and left unable to protect kids just because we happen to have two sexes.” U.S. v. Skrmetti will decide whether states may ban irreversible transgender medical interventions for children. The high court is asked to rule on the constitutionality of SB 1, the Tennessee law that protects children from gender-transition procedures.  In Wednesday’s oral argument, lawyers for the U.S. government and the American Civil Liberties Union contended that the Tennessee law discriminates based on sex because it bans transgender medical procedures only “when inconsistent with the patient’s birth sex.” U.S. Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelagor, representing the Biden-Harris administration, argued that so-called puberty blockers are prescribed to boys and girls with early-onset puberty. It is thus sex discrimination to deny puberty blockers based on sex to children with gender dysphoria, she said. A doctor may prescribe estrogen to an adolescent female with a hormone disorder, but not to an adolescent male who wants to transition to a female, which Prelagor said is facial discrimination— discrimination that is plainly based on protected class or status. Justice Amy Coney Barrett posed a hypothetical to her: What if a new drug with the sole purpose of blocking puberty was banned? Prelagor admitted that such a ban would not facially discriminate based on sex. In his interview with The Daily Signal, Skrmetti said the existence of two biological sexes shouldn’t prevent states from “protecting kids.” The position that the Tennessee law is sex discrimination is a “hyperformal reading of the law” that is better suited for “statutory text,” the state’s attorney general said. “When you’re looking at the Constitution, and there were questions [by the justices] to this effect, you have to be careful about an overly formal reading that has significant consequences,” Skrmetti told The Daily Signal. “We’ve long thought that the sex discrimination argument here is misplaced.” He said sex-based differences in the hormone prescriptions prohibited by the Tennessee law are because of “enduring physical differences” between boys and girls. “It’s just a fact that our bodies are different,” Skrmetti said, “and they react differently to different hormones.” Justice Samuel Alito twice asked ACLU lawyer Chase Strangio, who offered the second oral argument against the Tennessee law, whether a transgender identity is “immutable” and unable to be changed. Strangio, born a woman, says she identifies as a transgender man. She is the first known transgender person to argue before the Supreme Court. After avoiding the question the first time, Strangio responded to Alito’s second inquiry by saying that she believes that transgender status is immutable. “I think that the record shows that the discordance between a person’s birth, sex, and gender identity has a strong biological basis and would satisfy an immutable immutability test,” Strangio said, “and I also think under this court’s precedents for determining whether something is a suspect or quasi-suspect classification, a distinguishing characteristic is sufficient.” Alito brought up detransitioners—those who identified as trans before changing their minds and deciding to live in accord with their biological sex. Strangio acknowledged that this does happen. “So it’s not an immutable characteristic, is it?” Alito asked. This exchange was significant because a “characteristic being immutable is part of the determination as to whether a protected class should be recognized,” Skrmetti told The Daily Signal. “Part of the argument here, from the government and the ACLU perspective, is that there should be constitutional protections for transgender status, and the immutability issue is a really important part of that,” Skrmetti said. “So that was a significant question.” Justice Brett Kavanaugh posed the question: If harm is caused both by permitting and prohibiting transgender medical procedures for minors, how could the Supreme Court pick a side? Kavanaugh asked how the court could choose between protecting kids from deeply regretting undergoing transgender medical interventions and allowing kids who say they will be distressed without so-called gender-affirming care to take cross-sex hormones and puberty blockers. “Because this is a policy decision about balancing risks and benefits, when the state looks at the evidence, it’s allowed to make its own determinations of what to do in response,” Skrmetti told The Daily Signal. “And for the court to constitutionalize this, it takes away the people’s ability to govern themselves.” If the Supreme Court decided that states can’t ban transgender medical treatments for kids, he said, it would “impose uniformity on a national level when this is still a very underdeveloped area of research, and it doesn’t give states the opportunity to serve as the 50 different laboratories of democracy.” “Our position is the state should be allowed to decide here, and that if the courts step in, that’s a constitutionally suspect move that’s bad for our constitutional republic,” Skrmetti said. A ruling against Tennessee’s law also would create “significant precedent as to how to deal with gender identity cases going forward,” the attorney general said. The ruling could affect whether men who say they identify as female should be allowed to compete in women’s sports. “If the court issues an opinion that clarifies how courts generally should deal with these issues, then certainly the sports cases would be affected,” Skrmetti said. The post After Supreme Court Hearing, AG Skrmetti Says Sex Differences Shouldn’t Stop States From Protecting Kids appeared first on The Daily Signal.