Hunter Biden’s Paintings Sell for More Than Picasso’s

 

Hunter Biden, the newest artist on the block, is already seeing his paintings sell more than some of Pablo Picasso’s works – an artist that’s a household name and actually produced decent art.

While he doesn’t have much experience, Hunter does bear the Biden surname, which is itself enough to make his scribblings worth tens to hundreds of thousands.

Some of Hunter Biden’s paintings are more expensive than Pablo Picasso’s, New York Post columnist Miranda Devine reported.

“You can buy a Picasso, a signed Picasso, for $400,000, which is cheaper than Hunter Biden’s $500,000 paintings,” she said. “So I think possibly that the people who are paying insane prices for Hunter Biden paintings are not really doing it for the art.”

Devine told Tucker Carlson she was turned away from Biden’s Soho art show for not having an appointment despite her email to make one with gallery owner Georges Berges going unanswered. After being denied entry, she “went across the road” to the Martin Lawrence Galleries where she discovered paintings by Roy Lichtenstein and Picasso, the latter of whose work she found to be less costly than Biden’s.

This comes after the White House has effectively expressed zero concern over Hunter’s shady art sales, with Psaki freely admitting to reporters that she has no idea who is buying his paintings – but did add that Joe Biden is “proud of his son.” Only one person on the left seems to have publicly condemned the sales, Obama’s former ethics czar Walter Shaub.

Of course, we can all imagine the reaction we’d see if Donald Trump Jr. suddenly took up painting and began selling his works for top dollar. Fortunately for Hunter, he’s on the same team as the media and the rest of the establishment.

New York pulls $111M in pension funds from Ben & Jerry

 New York state’s mammoth pension fund is pulling $111 million in investments out of the firm that owns Ben & Jerry’s because of the ice cream maker’s boycott of Israel’s occupied territories, The Post has learned.

State Comptroller Tom DiNapoli —  the sole manager of the $263 billion state Common Retirement Fund — said Ben & Jerry’s decision to stop selling ice cream in the disputed Israeli-Palestinian territories in July violated his office’s policy against the Boycott, Divestment and Sanction of Israel. 

As a result, the comptroller is yanking $111 million in equity investments from Unilever, Ben & Jerry’s parent company. 

“After a thorough review, the New York State Common Retirement Fund will divest its equity holdings in Unilever PLC. Our review of the activities of the company, and its subsidiary Ben & Jerry’s, found they engaged in BDS activities under our pension fund’s policy,” DiNapoli said in a statement to The Post.

The state comptroller’s policy established in June 2016 said BDS activities are intended to inflict economic harm against Israel and as a result, state pension fund’s investments in the Jewish State. The state pension fund — the nation’s third-largest — invests more than $800 million in retirement funds in Israel.

The policy put companies involved in BDS activities against Israel on notice that the state would yank its pension investments.

“We will be divesting those investments. Ben & Jerry’s engaged in BDS activities,” said a spokesman for DiNapoli.

Allies of Israel applauded DiNapoli for standing up for the Jewish State.

“This is wonderful news. God bless Tom DiNapoli,” said former Brooklyn state Assemblyman Dov Hikind  

“BDS equals anti-semitism and Comptroller DiNapoli  stood up against hate.”

Hikind and DiNapoli served together for years in the state Assembly and the comptroller personally called Hikind Thursday night to inform him of his action against Unilever/Ben & Jerry’s.

Dinapoli’s director of corporate governance, Liz Gordon, sent a warning notice to Unilever CEO Alan Jope that its subsidiary firm Ben & Jerry was engaging in a BDS action against Israel.

JOPE gave a circular response on August 4 defending Ben & Jerry’s actions, saying it doesn’t intervene in actions taken by the “independent” boards or the “social mission” of its brands.

“Unilever has a strong and longstanding commitment to our business in Israel. We employ nearly 2,000 people in the country across our four factories and head office, and we have invested approximately $250 million in the Israeli market over the last decade,” Jope said in a letter to Gorzon.

The Unilever boss added, “On this decision, it was no different. Ben & Jerry’s has also made it clear that although the brand will not be present in the West Bank from 2023, it will remain in Israel through a different business arrangement.”

Last month, the state of New Jersey started divesting $182 million invested in Unilever stock, bonds and other securities over Ben & Jerry’s boycott of Israel — joining other anti-BDS states including Arizona and Texas.

On July 19, Ben and Jerry’s announced that it would stop selling ice cream to Occupied Palestinian Territory [OPT] saying “it is inconsistent with our values” to conduct business there.

Ben and Jerry’s Jewish cofounders Bennett Cohen and Jerry Greenfield — who sold their namesake company to Unilever in 2000 — defended the company’s decision to end sales in the region in a New York Times editorial in July, writing that Israel was one of the first countries that the company had expanded to internationally as it grew.

The founders, who called themselves “proud Jews” said that it is “possible to support Israel and oppose some of its policies” just as they’ve “opposed policies in the US government.” 

Additional reporting by Patrick Reilly

Cuomo Will arrested as he charged over alleged groping of former aide

 

Disgraced ex-Gov. Andrew Cuomo was charged Thursday with groping a former aide in Albany’s Executive Mansion — a crime that could send him to jail for a year if he’s convicted.

A misdemeanor criminal complaint filed in Albany City Court alleges that Cuomo, 63, “did intentionally, and for no legitimate purpose, forcibly place his hand under the blouse shirt of the victim…and onto her intimate body part.”

“Specifically, the victims [sic] left breast for the purposes of degrading and satisfying his sexual desire,” it adds.

The incident allegedly took place on the afternoon of Dec. 7 on the second floor of the Executive Mansion, the governor’s official residence.

The name of the alleged victim was redacted from the complaint but a lawyer representing former Cuomo aide Brittany Commisso, 33, acknowledged it’s her.  

The complaint charges Cuomo with forcible touching, which carries a maximum sentence of one year in jail.

Nazi 'secretary of evil', 96, was informed 'down to the last detail' of every murder method used at Stutthof concentration camp,

 

A 96-year-old former Nazi concentration camp secretary was allegedly informed 'down to the last detail' of every murder method used at the Stutthof camp, a court has heard.  

Irmgard Furchner, who has been dubbed the 'secretary of evil', was wheeled into the courtroom by guards with a facemask and large sunglasses covering her face and a pink beret over her white hair on Tuesday.

She is standing trial for complicity in the murder of more than 10,000 people at Stutthof camp in Nazi-occupied Poland between 1943 and 1945, a charge which she denies.

Furchner was just 18 when she started work at the camp on the Baltic coast, and is the first woman to stand trial in decades over crimes connected to the Third Reich.

She had knowledge of all of the horrific events at the camp due to her work for the commandment of the camp and was informed 'down to the last detail' about the murder methods practised there, prosecutor Maxi Wantzen told the court in the northern town of Itzehoe.

He added that through her work as the camp secretary, she ensured 'the smooth functioning of the camp', reports the Frankfurter Allgemeine newspaper.

On Tuesday, Furchner was seen holding a black and white cane as she sat in her wheelchair wearing a pink coat, scarf and beret. 

An arrest warrant was issued after Furchner fled her retirement home on September 30 and headed to a metro station as her trial was set to begin in the northern town of Itzehoe. 

The pensioner managed to evade police for several hours before being apprehended in the nearby city of Hamburg and temporarily held in custody by authorities.

Furchner was released five days later 'under the condition of precautionary measures', said court spokeswoman Frederike Milhoffer, adding that it was 'assured that she (Furchner) will appear at the next appointment'.

According to media reports, the accused has been fitted with an electronic tag to monitor her whereabouts.

Last week, the court heard how SS men in white medical uniforms would pretend to be doctors who were simply measuring prisoners' height.

But instead, the prisoner's height was used as the setting for a specially engineered 'neck shot' device.

Around 30 prisoners were then shot in the neck within a two-hour period.

In other cases, prisoners were forced into chambers which were filled with poisonous Zyklon B gas.

Here prisoners screamed in agony, scratched at their skin until it was red raw, and even pulled their own hair out.

Furchner, born Irmgard Dirksen on May 19, 1925, worked as secretary for the concentration camp commandant Paul Werner Hoppe.

As she was only 18 at the time, she is being tried in a juvenile court, even though she is almost a hundred years old.

The prosecution claimed that her work as a secretary assisted the wider 'killing apparatus' of the concentration camp.

The prosecutor described how on July 22, 1944, SS Obersturmbahnführer Paul Maurer gave orders that a group of prisoners at Stutthof be transported to Auschwitz for extermination.

Four days later, a list of prisoners to be transferred was written at the commandant's office at Stutthof.

At 6.05pm, commandant Hoppe, then gave confirmation by radio that the transport was en

 route.

Nazi commandant Paul Werner Hoppe

The prosecution then claimed that this message must have been written by Furchner.

Furchner's lawyer, Wolfgang Molkentin, told the court in a statement that his client denies that she is 'personally guilty of a crime'. 

He said: 'Irmgard Furchner does not deny the crimes of the Shoah [Holocaust].  

What a Nut Case ....Iran man gets jail, lashes for stealing cashews

 

An Iranian court sentenced a man to 10 months in prison and 40 lashes for stealing three packs of cashews, Fars news agency reported Monday.

The conservative news agency described the verdict as surprising and pointed to the “disproportion between the sentence and the crime committed.”

It called on the judiciary to “explain or correct” the ruling against the 45-year-old father of three.

The judiciary’s Mizan Online agency announced the formation of a “special commission” in Qom province to study the issue of the “proportionality of the offense.”

It did not specify where the trial took place.

The commission “will try to use all legal abilities to reduce the sentence,” Mizan Online said.

It added that the offender had “been sentenced to one year in prison for theft in 2019, but his sentence had been suspended due to the return of the stolen goods.”

The latest ruling drew ridicule on social media, with many drawing a comparison with the classic Victor Hugo novel “Les Miserables.”

“Nearly 160 years after the publication of Les Miserables… the Jean Valjeans continue to be condemned,” one user wrote, referring to the ex-convict depicted in the book.

Fars explained that the sentence was final because it was not appealed. It did not disclose the name or location of the convicted man.

Sex offender Berland begins fraud sentence as followers mass outside jail

 

Berland at his Bar Mitzva

Berland now still wearing his tefillin

Convicted sex offender Rabbi Eliezer Berland entered prison on Thursday to serve out a fresh sentence for fraud, after he swindled his sick and elderly followers out of millions of shekels.

Around a thousand of his supporters gathered outside the prison from Wednesday evening to protest his conviction.

Berland and his extremist Shuvu Bonim sect returned to the spotlight this month with a number of arrests in connection with the suspected murder of a teenage boy and the unsolved murder of a man in the 1980s and 1990

Berland started his jail term on Thursday after he was convicted of fraud in June, in a plea deal that saw him sentenced to 18 months. The sentence will include time already served as Berland spent a year in jail before being released to house arrest in February of this year.

Berland was arrested in February 2020, after hundreds of people filed police complaints saying that he had sold prayers and pills to desperate members of his community, promised families of individuals with disabilities that their loved ones would be able to walk, and told families of convicted felons that their relatives would be freed from prison.

In the arrest raid, dozens of boxes of powders and pills were found at Berland’s home that were given to supplicants as “wonder drugs.” Laboratory checks revealed them to be over-the-counter pain medication and candy, including Mentos.

At the time of his sentencing, the judge ruled that Berland’s offenses were “committed systematically and out of greed, taking advantage of the complainants at their most difficult time during periods of crisis.”

Berland’s supporters gathered outside the Nitzan Prison in Ramle on Wednesday evening, where they held a protest and all-night study and prayer session, surrounded by heavy police presence.

The supporters will additionally set up a protest tent near the jail, while Berland’s lawyers have said they will request that he be quickly released for good behavior and cooperation, the Walla news site reported.

Berland is starting his sentence as police make apparent progress in the investigation into the suspected murder of a teenage boy and the unsolved murder of a man connected to his sect, with the arrest of eight suspects, reportedly including the son of a former senior cabinet minister.

According to the Kan public broadcaster, law enforcement are probing whether Berland was personally involved in the disappearance and suspected murder of 17-year-old Nissim Shitrit and the murder of 41-year-old Avi Edri.

Shitrit was allegedly beaten by the sect’s “religious police” four months before he was last seen in January 1986. In a documentary released by Kan in 2020, one of Berland’s former disciples said that the religious police murdered the boy, dismembered him and buried his body in Eshtaol Forest near Beit Shemesh. His remains were never found and the case was never solved.

The second murder reportedly connected to the arrested suspects was of Edri, who was found beaten to death in Ramot Forest in the north of Jerusalem in 1990. Kan reported that Edri’s murder was tied to Shuvu Bonim by former disciples. It too has remained unsolved for over 30 years.

Nissim Shitrit (L) and Avi Edri in undated photos (Courtesy)

The cult-like Shuvu Bonim offshoot of the Bratslav Hasidic sect has had repeated run-ins with the law, including attacking witnesses.

Satmar Rebbe, R' Aaron Refuses a guy that wants to give him a hitch

 

The Priest Of Jaffa a Jews Dies, Buried In Izbica Mass Grave Where His Parents Were Murdered in the Holocaust

  A tragic holocaust story reached its bitter end this week after 80 years. The Bishop of Jaffa, who was born to a Jewish family from Zamosc and miraculously survived the holocaust by hiding with gentiles, died and was flown to be buried in the mass grave where his parents perished.

'I wish Hitler were still here murdering your children!' Shocking anti-Semitic rant is captured on doorbell camera in Flatbush

 

A man in Brooklyn was captured on camera going on an aggressive anti-Semitic rant as a woman walked down the street. 

Ring surveillance footage recorded the unidentified man in the Flatbush neighborhood of Brooklyn yelling hateful profanities at a woman: 'Jewish b***h, the f**k outta here, the f**k outta here, you f**king Jewish b***h.'

He continues: 'That's why I wish Hitler was still here, murder your children, you and your husband.' 

The camera is set above two doors semi-enclosed behind a staircase. The aggressive man is seen standing on the sidewalk in broad daylight. 

The family, who is off camera, seems to catch his eye as he turns around and begins berating them.  

Another person is seen sitting on the stairs not reacting as the man goes on his threatening rant. 

The disturbing video was tweeted by NY Scanner, an account that post crowd sourced videos of crime and other wild scenes from around New York City. 

Hate crimes in New York City have sky rocketed in the past year. In 2020, NYPD reported 209 hate crimes through September. This year the police department recorded 424 hate crimes in the same time period equating to an increase of 103%. 

The Jewish population in the city has seen hate crimes against their community spike 50%. Last year, NYPD recorded 98 hate crimes against Jewish people through September while they reported 147 hate crimes against Jews in 2021 for the same time period. 

Overall crime in New York City increased by 2.6% in September 2021, compared with September 2020. While, crime year-to-date decreased by 0.2% compared to 2020. 

Republican senators introduce bill to block reopening of Jerusalem consulate

 

A group of 35 Republican senators has introduced a bill to block the Biden administration from reopening the US consulate in Jerusalem.

The “Upholding the 1995 Jerusalem Embassy Law Act of 2021” proposal, spearheaded by Senators Bill Cassidy, (Republican-Lousiana) and Bill Hagerty (Republican-Tennessee), aims to prevent the US administration from relaunching the de facto mission to the Palestinians in Israel’s capital.

With Republicans lacking a majority in both houses of Congress and with no Democrat likely to back legislation aimed at thwarting a key Biden administration policy initiative, the GOP bill has virtually no chance of passing.

The consulate was shuttered by former US president Trump in 2019 and its staff were folded into the US embassy, moved to the city a year earlier, in what the Palestinians view as a downgrading of their ties with the US.

US officials maintain that reopening the consulate is simply a return to the pre-Trump status quo and part of Biden’s pledge to renew relations with the Palestinians that were severed during the previous administration. Moreover, they point out that nearly a dozen other countries already operate consulates in Jerusalem that serve the Palestinians.

However, Israel is opposed to the Biden administration’s plan to reopen the consulate, viewing it as an encroachment of their sovereignty in the city and one that will lead to a flood of other countries moving to open diplomatic offices in Jerusalem to serve the Palestinians.

“President Biden continues to push forward his inflammatory plan to establish a second mission in Israel’s capital city of Jerusalem—one for the Israelis and a second one for the Palestinians—despite the fact that this plan violates the Jerusalem Embassy Act of 1995 and is completely opposed by the Government of Israel,” said Hagerty in a Tuesday statement introducing the bill.

“The Jewish State of Israel is one of our greatest allies. The Biden administration must not threaten this relationship with a plan that is in clear conflict with US law, which states Jerusalem should not be divided,” Cassidy said in his own statement.