One week in progressive America

 

The Democrats had a lousy week. It began with former President Donald Trump’s acquittal in the Senate.

Trump’s acquittal was a major blow to the Democrats. It isn’t that anyone believed Trump would be convicted. Whether Republicans love or hate the former president, the fact is that it is unconstitutional to hold an impeachment trial for a former officeholder. And for that reason alone, there was no chance that more than a smattering of Republicans would support the move.

But once the farcical trial ended, public focus moved to the Democrats—who now control both houses of Congress and the White House. True, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is already planning to drag Trump back to center stage with her “January 6 Truth Commission.” But that won’t happen for several months. And in the meantime, for the first time in five years, the Democrats find themselves, and their actions, the focus of public attention.

The first casualties of the scrutiny have been the Democrat governors of the most populous Democrat states in the Union—Andrew Cuomo of New York and Gavin Newsom of California.

After a nearly a year of Cuomo being lavished with adulation for his leadership of the coronavirus pandemic in New York, upheld as the future of the Democratic Party, touted as a possible candidate for Attorney General and even winning an Emmy for his press conferences, the truth has caught up with “America’s governor.”

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Watch: Biden Rescinds UN Sanctions On Iran

 

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‘Dovid Hamelech's onetime home,’ the biblical city of Ziklag ...

 

An aerial view of what is likely the biblical city of Ziklag.

While surveying the Elah Valley in 2007, archaeologist Saar Ganor looked around and saw something strange protruding from the ground. On further examination, he wondered if it could be part of an ancient city. His guess was right, and the resulting excavations carried out by Yosef Garfinkel of the Hebrew University and Ganor, Ashkelon District archaeologist at the Israel Antiquities Authority, revealed what appeared to be a Judean city.

Located on the southern border of Judah, and with two notable gates, the site — now known as the Qeiyafa Fortress — was very possibly the Shaaraim (“Two Gates”) mentioned in the Bible, dating back to the 10th century BCE when David reigned as king.

For years afterward, Ganor hoped he might one day come across another settlement from the time of David. And in 2013, striding along a hill while involved in a major survey of the 1,000 acres between Kiryat Gat and Beit Guvrin, a piece of clay caught his eye. Excited, he showed it to Garfinkel. To their delight, it belonged to the exact same era as Qeiyafa. An added bonus: the hill, when excavated, also revealed findings from a Philistine town mentioned in the Hebrew Bible.

At the site of the Ziklag dig with Saar Ganor

Ganor and Garfinkel dug out the hill in 2015, together with representatives of Sydney’s Macquarie University. Because of the hemispherical difference in seasons, the excavations took place in the Israeli winter. They ended, at least temporarily, with the onset of the coronavirus pandemic.

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Chareidie Girl That Crossed into Syria And Had to be Exchanged for Arabs Previously Wrote ‘No fence will stop me,’ on Facebook

The Israeli woman who crossed into Syria and was returned in a deal brokered by Russia, in a picture shown by Channel 12 on February 20, 2021 

 Hebrew media on Saturday showed the first images of the Israeli woman who crossed into Syria two weeks ago, and was returned under a murky deal brokered by Russia. Her Facebook posts had her defiantly vowing that “No fence will stop me.”

The images were shown as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that no Israeli vaccine doses have been sent to Syria as part of the deal to secure her freedom.

The release of the young woman was secured in recent days after over a week of diplomatic wrangling. She landed at Ben Gurion International Airport on a flight from Russia in the early hours of Friday morning.

On Saturday evening, Channel 12 and Channel 13 published several images of the woman that were blurred, to prevent her from being identified.

The pictures, as well as video clips, taken from her Facebook page, show the woman out and about in glorious natural surroundings.

“No fence will stop me,” she writes in one post cited by Channel 13.

The woman, whose name has not been released for publication, is said to be a 25-year-old from Modiin Illit.

The woman’s crossing into Syria earlier this month was not her first time attempting to cross Israel’s borders. According to Israeli authorities, she had twice tried to enter the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip — once by land and once on a makeshift raft — and once attempted to cross into Jordan. All three times she was captured by either the military or the police.

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Frum Pregnant Woman & Child with Coronavirus Die at Hadassah

 

A 32-year-old woman diagnosed with Covid-19, pregnant at week 30, died last night in the intensive care unit at Hadassah Ein Kerem Hospital. Efforts to revive the fetus were also unsuccessful.

The woman has been identified as Osnat Ben Shitrit of Givat Zeev near Jerusalem. She leaves behind a husband and 4 children.

The young woman in advanced pregnancy was hospitalized due to respiratory distress in the intensive care unit for corona patients at Hadassah Ein Kerem last Tuesday, when she was in critical condition.

Last night her condition deteriorated and she developed a multi-system failure. A senior multidisciplinary team was called to the unit, including intensive care and anesthesia specialists, obstetricians and gynecologists, an ECMO team and heart and chest surgeons.

The hospital notes that the team began immediate treatment and performed very prolonged resuscitation, and even performed a caesarean section (at week 30) in order to try and save the fetus.

However, the condition of the mother and the fetus was critical and the mother and baby ultimately passed away.

"The staff at the Corona Intensive Care Unit and the specialists who were called to treat the woman and baby are in emotional turmoil. The rescue efforts involved many partners from all over the hospital who fought for the mother and baby's lives. All of Hadassah shares in the deep grief of the family. The social service staff at the hospital is accompanying them in their time of distress," the hospital said.

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How Meah Shearim Guys Get Rid of Their Garbage

 

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Canada to follow Australia and take on Facebook ....

Canada is poised to take on Facebook, following the example set by Australia, which began a war with the tech giant when the country’s publishers backed proposed legislation demanding payment for their content.

Canadian Heritage Minister Steven Guilbeault condemned Facebook’s actions as “highly irresponsible” last week when the social media giant removed all Australian news content from its sites in retaliation. 

Guilbeault warned that Canada would be next in making sure Facebook paid for news content from Canadian publishers. Guilbeault is charged with drafting legislation in the next few months that would require Facebook and Alphabet Inc’s Google to pay up.

“Canada is at the forefront of this battle … we are really among the first group of countries around the world that are doing this,” Guilbeault told reporters.

Guilbeault said he recently met with government ministers from Australia, Finland, France and Germany to hammer out a common front with respect to Google and Facebook, the Globe and Mail reported.

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Biden brings America back to bad Obama days

As winners never fail to remind losers, elections have consequences. But rarely is there a  single day where consequences pack as much wallop as Friday, where the irrationality of Joe Biden’s policies came into full view.

From the border with Mexico, where the new administration started opening the doors to at least 25,000 migrants seeking asylum, to the Mideast tinderbox, where it moved to rejoin the misbegotten Iran nuke deal, the new president appears fixated by the desire to turn back the clock to 2016.

It’s as if Biden has been seized by a sentimental longing to try to make the world like it was when the Obama-Biden administration left office. Unfortunately, “The Way We Were” is a nice song but not much of a guide to the future.

Still, trying to recapture the past would be reasonable if those years had created prosperity at home and peace abroad. In fact, the world ­Donald Trump inherited was brist­ling with trouble and America’s economy was moving forward at a snail’s pace.

Despite revisionist efforts by the media and the left to erase the achievements of the president they hated, Trump had major policy successes that benefited all Americans. It’s especially unnerving, then, that Biden is choosing to reverse the very policies that produced those benefits. 

Trump Derangement Syndrome leads people to do weird things, but Biden’s attempt to cancel Trump’s biggest victories is among the weirdest. 

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Ethiopian Worshippers Killed Protecting the "Ark of the Covenant"

Go figure!

 Hundreds of worshippers reportedly armed with 'cobbles and sticks' rushed to protect the sacred Ark of the Covenant as brutal fighting in Ethiopia neared the church where it is said to be secured.

As skirmishes broke out between soldiers and rebel fighters in the holy city of Axum, in the Tigray region, worshippers rushed to defend the Church of St Mary of Zion.

A local university lecturer claimed to The Times that some people 'were killed' after running to 'support priests and others protecting the ark' at the church.

The ark is described in the Bible as an ornate wooden casket which houses stone tablets etched with the Ten Commandments.  It is said to have been in the Axum church since the 1960s. 

Up to 800 people are believed to have been killed in the fighting, which took place in November but news of which has only just emerged because the region has been cut off from outsiders. 

A shocking video filmed at the monastery of Debre Abay, south-west of Axum, appears to show the aftermath of a war crime carried out by Ethiopian soldiers.

They are seen joking and laughing as they walk among the bodies of villagers. 

Ethnic violence over land and resources has been a persistent problem in Ethiopia under Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, who came to office in April 2018. 

Ethiopian forces and soldiers from neighbouring Eritrea have for months been fighting troops loyal to the former Tigrayan regional government. 

Thousands have been killed and millions put on the brink of starvation.   

The fighting at the Church of St Mary of Zion, between Eritrean soldiers and rebel Tigrayan militia, saw up to 800 people killed. 

The world's media has been largely cut off from the region since the fighting began.

Getu Mak, 32, a university lecturer told The Times: 'When people heard the shooting, they ran to the church to give support to the priests and others protecting the ark.

'Certainly some of them were killed for doing that.' 

The defenders of the ark reportedly armed themselves with only 'cobbles and sticks', according to witnesses who spoke to the Belgium-based non-governmental Europe External Programme with Africa.

Getu added that worshippers were worried the ark would be taken from the church 'to Eritrea, to [Ethiopian capital] Addis Ababa' or may disappear entirely. 

A day after the killings at the church, Eritrean forces reportedly went looking for people sympathetic to the rebel Tigray People's Liberation Front (TPLF). 

Getu said there was 'no mercy' and even the young and old were targeted. 

And the horrifying video filmed at Debre Abay monastery and posted on social media showed pools of blood and the ground strewn with dozens of bodies. 

Groans could be heard from one seriously injured man who was seen on the floor, lying between corpses.

The soldiers could be seen laughing as they talked to each other following what appears to have been a mass execution. 

Ethnic violence over land and resources has been a persistent problem in Ethiopia under Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, who came to office in April 2018. 

The internet and mobile phone networks have been shut off in Tigray. 

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Man, 95, a Nazi concentration camp guard is deported back to Germany and questioned by cops after living in the US for 60 years

 

A 95-year-old former Nazi concentration camp guard has been deported from the United States and arrived Saturday in his native Germany where he is being held by police for questioning, authorities said.

The U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency said in a statement that Friedrich Karl Berger was sent back to Germany for serving as a guard of a Neuengamme concentration camp subcamp in 1945. 

Berger, who had retained German citizenship, was deported for taking part in 'Nazi-sponsored acts of persecution', the department said. 

The case was investigated by the U.S. Department of Justice. 

German authorities confirmed Berger arrived Saturday at Frankfurt and was handed over to Hesse state investigators for questioning, the dpa news agency reported.

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