It's starting: ....REPORTERS GROW FRUSTRATED AS BIDEN TEAM REFUSES QUESTIONS

 

President-elect Joe Biden's transition team disabled the chat function for reporters on conference Zoom calls, where journalists had been pressing officials to take more questions.

"The Biden transition team appears to have disabled the public chat function on its transition zoom calls, a place where I and others had been routinely complaining to them to take more questions," incoming Politico White House editor Sam Stein tweeted Wednesday. 

Reporters on the call had to use a "raise hand" function to register they wanted to ask a question.

Stein and other reporters expressed frustration on the chat on Dec. 18 after one Zoom call where the transition team took only five questions.

"Hey guys, there [are] tons of folks looking to ask questions and since this is being done once a week, could we PLEASE go longer or at least hold more frequent briefings," Stein wrote on the chat.

"Any chance you can take a few more questions? There are a lot of folks here with questions," Zeke Miller from The Associated Press added. 

"Is there a point in saying we want to ask questions if you only call on the same small group every week?" said White House reporter Andrew Feinberg.

Biden's transition team did not respond to a request for comment.

Biden campaign press secretary T.J. Ducklo told CNN last month that Biden believed "transparency is incredibly important" regarding his relationship with the press.

"He also believes, though, that it's the media's job to hold him accountable," he said. "He's there to do the people's work and he welcomes that relationship. He welcomes their role, the media's role in our democracy and I think it will be, frankly, the polar opposite of what we've seen over the last four years... I think you'll see a huge change in the culture in the way this White House treats the media."

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Watch: Haredi man stabbed in Lakewood

 

A haredi man was wounded in a stabbing incident in Lakewood, New Jersey Tuesday.

The incident occurred in a parking lot near Ashley and Cedarbridge avenues Tuesday morning (local time), when a woman waiting near the parking lot ambushed a haredi man outside of his car, stabbing him as he loaded his vehicle.

The victim, a 36-year-old Lakewood man, had been loading pastries into his car when the assailant attacked him with a 12-inch knife.

The man was wounded but did not suffer life-threatening injuries, and was able to chase his attacker after the stabbing.

Police identified that stabber as 38-year-old Erika Cruz.

Cruz was later taken into custody and charged with aggravated assault, illegal weapon possession, and possession of a weapon for unlawful purposes.

Investigators say there is no evidence currently that the attack was a hate crime, saying that it seems to have been a random assault.

"The investigation is still active and we are trying to piece together the reason for the attack," Lakewood Police spokesman Capt. Gregory Staffordsmith said. "At this time there isn’t any evidence to suggest that it was biased or racially motivated.

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US: We won't allow Daniel Pearl's killer to evade justice

 

The US warned on Wednesday that it would not allow a Pakistani man who was convicted and later acquitted in the 2002 murder of American journalist Daniel Pearl to evade justice after a provincial court in Pakistan ordered his release, The Associated Press reported.

The Sindh High Court in Pakistan’s south last week overturned a government detention order that Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh, the key suspect in Pearl’s slaying, should remain in custody.

Sheikh was convicted for his role in helping lure Pearl in January 2002 to a meeting in the city of Karachi, during which he was kidnapped. Pearl, 38, was killed the next month.

Sheikh, who was on death row for 18 years, was acquitted earlier this year of murdering the Wall Street Journal reporter but had been held while Pearl’s family appeals.

In a statement on Wednesday, acting US Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen said, “We understand that Pakistani authorities are taking steps to ensure that Omar Sheikh remains in custody while the Supreme Court appeal seeking to reinstate his conviction continues. The separate judicial rulings reversing his conviction and ordering his release are an affront to terrorism victims everywhere.”

Rosen praised Pakistan for appealing the rulings to ensure that Sheikh and his co-defendants are held accountable. “If, however, those efforts do not succeed, the United States stands ready to take custody of Omar Sheikh to stand trial here,” he stated.

The US, he stressed, “cannot allow (Sheikh) to evade justice for his role in Daniel Pearl’s abduction and murder.”

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Goodbye to 2020, the year when so much and so many were so wrong

 

Hey, coulda been worse, right? In 1918, the year Joe Biden won his letterman’s sweater in leather-helmet football, the number of deaths in America was up 46 percent over the previous year thanks to the pandemic and the Great War. This year: only 15 percent. Huzzah! If you have the urge to punch 2020 in the nads, be aware that in 1349, a third of the population of Europe died.

2020 was a mild setback compared to 536 (“the worst year to be alive,” mainly because Amazon Prime deliveries took like six months because of a glitch in mastodon operations) and 1816, when volcanic ash from an eruption coated the atmosphere and nothing would grow in the “year without a summer,” causing mass starvation. There hasn’t been a gnaw-on-your-dead-grandpa year since, though maybe we’ll have one a couple of years from now, when Bill Gates wants to pull the cool-the-atmosphere-with-ash trick again, this time intentionally. Hey, go for it, experts! Sure, Bill is an expert in writing intermittently functional software, not in climate engineering, but why should that stop him from appointing himself to smother out the sun?

Come to think of it, maybe it’s experts, not 2020, that should be absorbing a baseball bat to their collective crotch. Thanks to experts, leaders and authorities, 2020 was the Year of Wrong. Every day, the high and mighty calmly assured us that “facts” and “science” and “data” were telling us stuff that was completely, horrifically, catastrophically wrong.

When the Wuhan Flu broke out of whatever Chinese bat-brunch spot it came from, authorities told us it was no big deal. Donald Trump’s wrongness, as usual, got the most attention: “We have it totally under control. . . . It’s going to be just fine,” he said on Jan. 21. Trump had lots of company in being wrong: “Get on with your lives + get out on the town despite Coronavirus,” Mayor Bill de Blasio urged New Yorkers on March 2, the day after the first confirmed case hit town.

“In this situation, the facts defeat fear because the reality is reassuring,” Gov. Andrew Cuomo said, also on March 2. “We should relax because that’s what is dictated by the reality of the situation.” Cuomo added this was “not our first rodeo.”

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29-year-old Frum Man Hit By Car While Roller Blading in Boro Park in Critical Condition

 

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Alec Baldwin Who Called Trump a "Fake and a Fraud" Is Actually Married to One!

 

How you say . . . scam artist?

Hilaria Baldwin, the epically thirsty, self-identified Spanish wife of actor Alec,has been outed as a basic white woman from Massachusetts, real name Hillary Hayward-Thomas.

Escandalo!

The cringiest piece of evidence is a clip from the “Today” show, in which Hilaria, speaking in a Spanish accent while cosplaying as some kind of culinary expert, says, “We have very few ingredients. We have tomatoes, we have, um, how you say in Eng — cucumbers.”

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Gideon Sa'ar: We will include Arabs and Muslims

 

The chairman of the New Hope party, former MK Gideon Sa’ar, made clear on Tuesday evening that he is interested in including Arabs and Muslims on his Knesset slate.

"I have another five weeks until the lists are submitted, but we will include minorities on our list for the Knesset. This is important to me," he said in an interview with the Arabic language Hala TV.

When asked by the interviewer if he also means Muslims, Sa’ar replied, "Why not? The question is a question of a path.”

So far, a number of Knesset members have joined Sa’ar and his party, most of them from the Likud movement, some of whom have subsequently resigned from the Knesset.

Among those who have joined are MK Yifat Shasha Biton, former Minister Ze’ev Elkin and former MKs Michal Shir and Sharren Haskel.

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The NYT’s obscene drive to destroy a teen’s life

 

Jimmy Galligan is an 18-year-old college freshman from Leesburg, Va. — and cancel culture’s Count of Monte Cristo.

Some months ago, Galligan, who is biracial, posted a three-second video of a white, female classmate using a racial slur. Galligan had sat on the video for years, waiting for the moment it would do the most damage. After the girl, a cheerleader named Mimi Groves, was accepted to the University of Tennessee, the time had come.

“I wanted to get her where she would understand the severity of that word,” said Galligan. He said he was proud of himself: “You taught someone a lesson.”

The video showed Groves, 15 at the time and having just obtained her learner’s permit, boasting “I can drive, [slur].” The remark wasn’t directed at anyone in particular. The brief clip circulated on Snapchat until it was obtained and saved by Galligan, who had grown furious at how often he heard his white classmates using the N-word.

Galligan shared it publicly in June. In response, Groves lost her spot on UT’s cheerleading squad. Then the university pressured her to withdraw from the school entirely. The admissions office had apparently received hundreds of messages from irate alumni demanding blood. Groves is now attending a community college.

This story is a powerful example of several social phenomena: the militant streak in social-justice activism, the naivety of today’s teens, mob justice on social media and high-schoolers’ capacity for elaborate cruelty. But the wildest thing about this incident is that most people will learn about it by reading The New York Times.

Mimi Groves and the little two-timing bastard Jimmy Galligan 

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Charged with murder, stabbing? In NYC, you’re free to go

 Criminal-justice “reform” in New York has turned our courts into a merry-go-round, with violent offenders free to jump off at will.

The latest outrage took place in The Bronx, where 16-year-old Jordon Benjamin allegedly stabbed Amya Hicks in mid-December. Arrested a few days later, he was charged with felony assault and assorted lesser charges. Amya Hicks needed surgery and spent several days in the hospital. Benjamin was less inconvenienced: He only spent a few hours in a holding cell before being released on his recognizance, without having to post bail.

It’s bad enough that an alleged knife-wielding thug who slashes neighborhood women got to gallivant out of jail. But the story becomes downright enraging when we learn that Benjamin was already facing manslaughter charges — and the same judge let him out twice.

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Middle East peace deals were Trump’s "mission impossible" made possible

by Michael Goodwin

Donald Trump’s legacy, like the man himself, will be complicated, but the one certainty will be his record of achieving what conventional wisdom said couldn’t be done. His world-shocking victory in the 2016 election is the best example, and commanding the development and approval of COVID-19 vaccines in just nine months is another. 

The Abraham Accords are a third stunning achievement. When Trump took office, just two Arab nations, Egypt and Jordan, had treaties with Israel, a situation that had existed without change since 1994. There are now six regional nations with diplomatic relations with the Jewish state. 

“We’re making it look easy,” joked Jared Kushner, whose persistent and tireless diplomacy helped secure the historic breakthroughs. 

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