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January 2021

Anti-Trump Reprisals Allies and supporters of the 45th president won’t be safe. Matthew Vadum

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2021/01/anti-trump-reprisals-matthew-vadum/

As Joe Biden, an illegitimate president, was sworn in at a funereal inauguration ceremony surrounded by thousands of U.S. troops, Democrats were busy plotting and scheming and planning reprisals against Republicans for doing nothing other than supporting his duly elected predecessor.

These anti-democratic Democrats have been driven to utter madness by the events of January 6 even though what happened that day does not compare with the months of Antifa and Black Lives Matter murdering people and burning down cities to protest the Fentanyl-caused death in police custody of George Floyd, a drug-addicted career criminal who resisted arrest.

Even the claim that five people were killed January 6 is a lie that the Left is using as propaganda against Orange Man Bad and his backers.

Three of the people –Trump supporters— who died during or after the rally died of medical emergencies.

Kevin Greeson, 55, from Alabama, who had high blood pressure, experienced a heart attack “in the midst of the excitement,” his family said. Benjamin Phillips, 50, from Pennsylvania, had a stroke. Media reports indicate Roseanne Boyland, 34, from Georgia, was trampled by the mob but it is unclear what actually happened. A purportedly authentic redacted police incident report in case #21002749 states that Boyland “was witnessed to collapse during the protest demonstrations at about 1700 hours. … Despite all lifesaving efforts, SUB-1 died and was pronounced dead by Dr. Pyle at 1809 hours.”

I Watched Biden’s Inauguration First-Hand Haunted and numb in a horribly sanitized city. Katie Hopkins

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2021/01/i-watched-bidens-inauguration-first-hand-katie-hopkins/

As I grabbed some coffee before heading to the Capitol Building to watch the 46th President of the United States of America take his title, the lovely lady behind the counter told me she had never seen anything like this in D.C. in her life.

And all I can say as I stand here now in the freezing cold with a handful of others is that I hope America never has to see anything like this again. Nothing is as it seems. It is just horrible, in every sense.

There is no one here. And I am not saying that in the weird competitive way people talk about crowd sizes as a measure of popularity. Remember the endless quarrel over the size of Trump’s inauguration crowd versus Obama’s?

What I mean is that there is literally no one here. Even pressed up to the gates within sight of the Capitol Building there is barely a handful of Biden supporters — alongside a small gaggle of media, scratching about, trying to find something to film.

Residents with the means to do so have moved out. Others stay locked in their homes. And visitors heeded the fear-mongering and stayed away. I was called ‘a moron with a death wish’ for traveling here to document this event. And even though it is perfectly safe, no one is here to bear witness to this event.

This should be an historical moment for the country. Instead it feels like an illusion, fabricated for the TV, right down to the made-for-TV flags and columns of light on the mall.

Biden Reverses on Change to U.S. Ambassador to Israel Twitter Name to Include West Bank and Gaza Adam Kredo 

https://freebeacon.com/national-security/biden-changes-u-s-ambassador-to-israel-tw

The Biden administration on Wednesday reversed a change to the U.S. ambassador to Israel’s Twitter account name to read, “the official Twitter account of the U.S. Ambassador to Israel, the West Bank, and Gaza” after a Washington Free Beacon report highlighting the shift.

For a time on Wednesday, the official Twitter feed for the U.S. ambassador to Israel had its title changed to add “the West Bank and Gaza,” territories the United States has for decades avoided taking a stand on due to ongoing peace talks between the Israelis and Palestinians. The title change sparked an outcry online, including among Republican lawmakers, and was quietly changed back to read only, “U.S. ambassador to Israel.” The State Department would not comment on the initial change or why it was changed back to its original form.

Embassy officials have speculated that the title was inadvertently changed by Twitter due to a technical glitch when the accounts were switched from the Trump administration over to the Biden administration. The Free Beacon could not confirm the veracity of these claims.

“The U.S. doesn’t have ambassadors to any other disputed territory in the world. Singling out Israel, once again, is wrong,” said Len Khodorkovsky, former deputy assistant secretary at the State Department. “Instead of building on all the progress that’s been made toward peace in the Middle East, the Biden administration seems to be reversing course toward the failed policies of the Obama years.”

During the Obama administration, former ambassador Dan Shapiro was referred to in official communications as the “U.S. Ambassador to Israel.”

Report: Anti-Israel Malley Joining Biden As Special Iran Envoy Jeff Dunetz

https://lidblog.com/robert-malley-iran/

Per Jewish Insider, President Biden is considering adding another Israel hater to his team. Robert Malley, who shared his anti-Israel views as part of the Clinton and Obama administrations, an adviser to Bernie Sanders, and grew up with a socialist dad who was a close friend of terrorist Yasser Arafat. According to the report, Malley will be joining the re-Obama administration as Biden’s special envoy to Iran. 

The potential appointment of Malley comes as members of the Biden transition team have begun to lay out the president-elect’s vision for diplomacy with Iran following the Trump administration’s 2018 withdrawal from the 2015 nuclear agreement.

The Biden transition team declined to comment and noted that they do not presently have any personnel announcements.

A source familiar with the Biden team’s approach on Iran told JI, “The president-elect has said that if Iran resumes strict compliance with the JCPOA, the United States would return to the agreement as a starting point for follow-on negotiations. But Iran is a long way from returning to compliance, and there are many steps in the process to getting there that we will need to evaluate once in office. Our first order of business will be consulting with Congress and our allies on the path forward.”

Beijing Fills the Mideast Vacuum China’s projection of power isn’t only a regional concern. It will eventually pose a threat to the U.S. By Robert D. Kaplan

https://www.wsj.com/articles/beijing-fills-the-mideast-vacuum-11611183756?mod=opinion_lead_pos7

The Biden administration’s Middle East policy will reportedly focus on rejoining the Iran nuclear deal and renewing Israeli-Palestinian negotiations. This could undermine key allies in Israel and Saudi Arabia while ignoring a core geopolitical challenge that few in Washington are addressing: growing Chinese influence in the Middle East.

Through its trillion-dollar Belt and Road Initiative, China has invested in a port near the Persian Gulf in Gwadar, Pakistan, and a military base by the entrance to the Red Sea at Djibouti. The Chinese also envision a military base at Port Sudan, further north on the Red Sea, and a naval facility at Jiwani, Pakistan, on the Iranian border. Then there are the new Israeli port facilities at Haifa and Ashdod, which the Chinese will likely be administering. Afghanistan could one day become a branch line for the Belt and Road corridor from western China through Pakistan to the Arabian Sea. China is the largest trading partner for both Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. China is investing billions of dollars in Egypt and more billions as part of a strategic pact with Iran.

Unlike many in Washington, who separate regions in order of perceived importance, Chinese strategists think organically about geography. They recognize that in a smaller, more interconnected and confining world, regions and continents work together and flow into each other. Thus, the Chinese know that the road, railway and port system they are building across the Middle East will one day give them a strong hand in Europe and East Asia—not to mention East Africa.

Beijing doesn’t take sides. China is happy to work with Iran, Israel and Saudi Arabia. Rather than promote a liberal vision—or any vision—the Chinese are remorselessly mercantile and imperial in their approach. It’s all about money and transportation links: classical geography fitted to a postmodern world.

Biden’s Keystone Pipeline Kill On his first day he insults Canada and ends thousands of jobs.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/bidens-keystone-pipeline-kill-11611184519?mod=opinion_lead_pos3

President Biden issued a blizzard of executive orders on his first day in office, including a diktat to revoke the permit for the Keystone XL pipeline. This is a slap at Canada, and it sends a message to investors that playing by U.S. rules provides no immunity from arbitrary political whim.

TC Energy (formerly TransCanada) has been stuck in the quicksand of American politics for more than a decade. A 2004 executive order requires the State Department to approve cross-border projects. In 2008 TC applied for a permit to transport up to 830,000 barrels of crude per day from the Alberta oil sands to U.S. refineries on the Gulf Coast.

The Obama State Department found five separate times that the pipeline would have no material impact on greenhouse gas emissions since crude would still be extracted. Shipping bitumen by rail or tanker would result in 28% to 42% higher CO2 emissions and more leaks. No matter. President Obama in 2015 rejected the permit as an oblation to the Paris Climate accords.

President Trump gave the right of way, but legal challenges by anti-fossil fuel groups marooned the pipeline and ran out the clock on the Trump years. Now Mr. Biden is yanking Keystone’s permit and rejoining the Paris agreement. Neither action will matter to the climate.

Trump’s Top-10 Triumphs: A Last Look At A Remarkable Presidency

https://issuesinsights.com/2021/01/21/trumps-top-10-triumphs-a-final-look-at-a-remarkable-presidency/

President Donald Trump became an ex-president on Wednesday, as Joe Biden was inaugurated as the 46th president of the United States. We wish him nothing but the best. But before we let Trump go, we thought we’d review some of his biggest accomplishments while in office. We call them “triumphs,” because they were all big achievements executed against great odds.

More than any other president of recent memory, Trump fought hard for average working Americans. And contrary to the epithets thrown at him by his far-left detractors in the Democratic Party, his policies helped low-income and minority Americans most of all.

We believe – we hope – that Trump’s post-presidential career and reputation will resemble President Ronald Reagan’s. For those old enough to remember, Reagan also was called every vile name in the book, from “senile” to “fascist” and everything between. Yet, today, in retrospect, his presidency shines as a beacon in our nation’s history.

Given the at-times unhinged nature of the criticism directed at Trump’s presidency by the left and Republican “never-Trumpers,” Trump’s performance in just four years was nothing short of remarkable. He promulgated dozens, if not hundreds, of successful policies that other presidents talked about, but never secured.

He reached so many we can’t highlight all of them. But here are 10 that we believe stand out — and that future presidents (are you listening, Joe Biden?) would be foolish to reverse or overturn: