Displaying posts published in

September 2022

FOREIGN POLICY, WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

US Must Treat Iran Like Russia by Con Coughlin

By on September 19th, 2022

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/18910/treat-iran-like-russia

[I]t is vital that the US and its allies confront the reality of Iran’s expanding military operations around the world.

While Tehran had denied the reports [that Iran had provided Russia with military-grade drones], Ukraine’s defence ministry posted images of what appeared to be parts of a destroyed drone with “Geran-2” written on the side in Russian. The wingtip appeared to match that of a Shahed-136.

This is, by any standard, amounts to a truly momentous escalation in Iran’s military activities: it is the first time Iranian military equipment has been deployed on European soil.

The fact that evidence has emerged demonstrating that Iran is actively supporting Russia’s unprovoked aggression against Ukraine makes a mockery of this argument.

If Iran is prepared to deploy sophisticated military equipment such as drones on European soil, then it is clear the ayatollahs would have no hesitation about firing their long-range ballistic missiles, potentially armed with nuclear weapons, at European targets.

Iran’s willingness to become directly involved in the deadliest conflict Europe has witnessed since the end of the Second World War represents a significant escalation in the threat Tehran poses to the outside world, one that Western powers ignore at their peril.

Israeli Defence Minister Benny Gantz, addressing The Jerusalem Post Conference in New York last week, revealed a map showing more than ten facilities that Iran has constructed in Syria in recent years to produce mid- and long-range precision missiles that can be used to target Israel.

This is not the action of a country that, as the Iranians repeatedly insist, is interested in peace, and should serve as a wake-up call to Western leaders to confront Iranian aggression in the same way they have confronted Russia over its decision to invade Ukraine.

The West must now provide the same level of support to all those countries — which now include Ukraine — that find themselves the targets of unprovoked acts of aggression by Tehran.

One of the most important lessons learned from the 1930s was that what starts in one place, such as Austria or Sudetenland, can almost be guaranteed not to stay in that place.

Now that even the Biden administration has been forced to admit defeat in its ill-considered attempts to revive the Iran nuclear deal, it is vital that the West does not let its guard slip on Iran’s malign activities across the globe.

Throughout the year-long negotiating process in Vienna over Iran’s nuclear ambitions, which the Biden administration now concedes have ended in stalemate, Tehran has sought to give the impression that it is interested in negotiating a deal, while at the same time ramping up its aggressive military activities in the Middle East and beyond.

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NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Equal Justice, They Said We are now a revolutionary society in decline using the courts, prosecutors, the administrative state, and the law itself to punish enemies, help friends, and declare such asymmetry “social justice.” By Victor Davis Hanson

By on September 19th, 2022

https://amgreatness.com/2022/09/18/equal-justice-they-said/

What once distinguished the United States from illiberal regimes following the Orwellian mantra “some are more equal than others” was the hallowed American idea of “equal justice under the law.”

The phrase is engraved above the entrance to the United States Supreme Court—an ideal that took centuries to achieve. Yet it is an ancient concept—what the Greeks called isonomia that distinguished classical democratic Athens from its anti-democratic rivals. Isonomia later became enshrined as the central criterion of all Western consensual governments.

Does it still exist in Joe Biden’s America? 

In many ways, no—due both to state and private vendettas as well as state efforts to destroy rather than merely defeat political opponents. 

Is the law equally applied at the border? 

Ask yourself whether you are more likely to be hounded by the federal government for not being vaccinated if you are a citizen in the U.S. military, or illegally violating federal immigration law as you storm the southern border? 

Who needs a passport to leave and enter the United States—a citizen or an illegal alien?

If you nullify federal law and refuse to hand over a detained illegal alien to federal immigration agents, are you more or less likely to be prosecuted than someone who likewise deliberately seeks to nullify federal law by bulldozing on his property a nest of federally protected squirrels?

What tradition of Western jurisprudence allows violent criminals in America’s largest cities to be released upon booking? 

What law states they are instantly free to commit more crimes without worry of incarceration or punishment, while those accused of illegally parading sit in jail for years awaiting charges? 

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NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Bill Maher strongly defends the past on its own terms By Andrea Widburg

By on September 19th, 2022

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2022/09/bill_maher_strongly_defends_the_past_on_its_own_terms.html

It’s to be hoped that Maher is a barometer of the fact that leftist ideas are so extreme they’re even offending leftists

Bill Maher is a leftist (and proud of it), but he’s neither a fool nor a fantasist. Of late, he’s been one of the more prominent leftists pointing out that his side of the political aisle has gone too far and is destroying itself. Maher’s latest effort hit home with me because I was a college history major and have always understood that the past is a different place from the present. Rather like medieval man himself, the left doesn’t get that, and Maher at least made the effort to remedy that situation.

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NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

MAGA’s Real Crime? Spotlighting Government Failure By J.B. Shurk

By on September 19th, 2022

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2022/09/magas_real_crime_spotlighting_government_failure.html

The midterm elections are only weeks away.  The Democrats are in complete control of the House, Senate, and presidency.  Donald Trump’s name appears nowhere near a November ballot.  Yet the only things Democrats talk about are the former president and his “Make America Great Again” voters.  It is as if Joe Biden’s and Nancy Pelosi’s political troops have no interest in touting their successes in opening the Southern border to endless illegal immigration, promoting divisive lockdowns and “vaccine” mandates, passing a Green New Deal spending extravaganza, encouraging transgender drag queen shows for elementary-schoolers, emptying prisons of criminals, eliminating cash bail for felony arrests, leveraging Americans’ pain at the gas pump to push them into expensive electric vehicles, or presiding over the highest rates of inflation in over forty years.  They’ve accomplished so much in such little time!  Maybe their campaign slogan could be “Making Americans Poorer and Less Secure for Their Own Good” or “Vote Democrat: Because We Know Better.”

Or maybe the Democrat party realizes that its policy “successes” have caused so much pain for the American people that the only path to continued power consists of cynically demonizing half the country as “extremists,” “insurrectionists,” and “terrorists” who must be defeated at any cost.  For a nation not engaged in violent civil war, it sure sounds as if 75 million Trump voters have been officially declared the enemy.  Senator Mazie Hirono says pro-life Americans who oppose abortion are “literally a call to arms.”  Representative Hank Johnson says parents attending school board meetings to protest racist, sexualized, and Marxist indoctrination disguised as academic curricula are part of a “coordinated attack happening across the country.”  Ohio Senate candidate Tim Ryan says, “We’ve gotta kill and confront” MAGA “extremists.”  Department of Homeland Security chief Alejandro Mayorkas claims that the country’s biggest national security threats come from “domestic extremists” who are “radicalized” by “anti-government sentiment” or “false narratives propagated on online platforms.” 

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NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

DoJ Tramples on the Constitution by Jerry Newcombe

By on September 19th, 2022

https://www.frontpagemag.com/doj-tramples-on-the-constitution/

The United States under the Biden administration is using the force of government to harass the late Phyllis Schlafly’s group in Alabama.

In recent months, the Eagle Forum of Alabama has helped write legislation in that state to protect children with gender confusion from receiving “treatment” that could permanently damage them.

In his End of Day Report (9/9/22), Gary Bauer writes, “After Alabama banned transgender surgeries on children, the Biden Administration sued the state in federal court to block the law. But they’re not just arguing against the constitutionality of the law. They are also going after a conservative public policy group that lobbied on behalf of the law.” Of course, that group is the Eagle Forum of Alabama.

The United States’ Department of Justice issued a subpoena in August demanding records from the Eagle Forum of Alabama, stating: “Several public statements suggest that Eagle Forum of Alabama staff may have had some involvement in drafting the legislation or its predecessor bills. As a result, the United States is issuing the enclosed subpoena for certain records in the Eagle Forum of Alabama’s possession from January 1, 2017 through the present.”

The official subpoena demands: “any draft legislation, proposed legislations, or model legislation.” This included all their communiques on the subject, e.g., “any social media postings.”

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ANTI-SEMITISM Comments turned off

What About Anti-Semitism in our High Schools? Students increasingly engage in harassment and bullying toward their Jewish peers – while administrators turn a blind eye. by Adam Milstein

By on September 19th, 2022

https://www.frontpagemag.com/what-about-anti-semitism-in-our-high-schools/

In recent years, while much of the Jewish community has been keenly focused on antisemitism on college campuses, we have largely overlooked another growing danger. Activist teachers and administrators have increasingly injected antisemitism into American public and private high schools through expanded Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) departments and policies and by promoting radical curricula steeped in Critical Race Theory (CRT), such as the Liberated Ethnic Studies Model Curriculum (LESMC). Through this ideology, American Jews are implicitly and sometimes, explicitly, portrayed as privileged white oppressors. By extension, the Jewish State, Israel, is described as an oppressive ethno-state engaged in apartheid, colonialism, and ethnic cleansing.

We are starting to see the consequences of this campaign. Highschool students, both in public and private schools around the nation are engaging in antisemitic bullying and harassment toward their Jewish peers. Amplified through social media and group chats, the phenomenon has become increasingly frequent in high schools. Antisemitism also rears its head in high school sports and a there’s a spike in antisemitic graffiti, like swastikas. Physical violence rooted in antisemitism has become increasingly common in the U.S. and worldwide, from Los Angeles to Atlanta, Palm Beach, New York, and even in Australia.

Last month, a federal investigation found that during the 2018 and 2019 school years, a Tempe, Arizona, based Kyrene School District violated the civil rights of a middle schooler when she was forced to endure repeated antisemitic harassment in class. Nine students harassed and called her antisemitic names, in addition to making frequent jokes about the Holocaust.

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IMMIGRATION Comments turned off

When a ‘Sanctuary City’ is Short on Sanctuary Martha’s Vineyard gets a lesson on lax immigration policies. Bruce Thornton

By on September 19th, 2022

https://www.frontpagemag.com/when-a-sanctuary-city-is-short-on-sanctuary/

Self-proclaimed “sanctuary city” Martha’s Vineyard, one of the richest and whitest communities in the country, has turned out to be not much of a sanctuary for the illegal aliens they claim to care so much about. Recently, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis sent 50 Venezuelan illegal aliens to the tony enclave, reasoning that if its citizens are serious about their compassion for migrants and their love of diversity, they’d jump at the chance to prove it by actually spending some money on them.

Instead, the town-fathers and citizens whined about the strain on their resources and the disorder caused by unvetted illegal aliens swarming their town. Then there’s the hysteria over relocating illegal border-crossers, something Biden’s Feds have been doing for months––an estimated 10,000 just to New York.

Martha’s Vineyard’s complaints are also particularly shameless, claiming a “housing crisis” in a community with thousands of empty rooms. Meanwhile, documentary film maker Ken Burns by implication called De Santis Hitler, and Hillary Clinton directly called him a “human trafficker.” Barack Obama, who frequently lectures “bitter clingers” about their xenophobia towards “people who are not like them,” owns a huge, 29-acre estate in Martha’s Vineyard that could easily accommodate all 50 Venezuelans.

Instead, the mayor called in the National Guard to ship all those “diverse” victims of callous Republicans to a military base on Cape Cod, an act of NIMBY Pharasism. Then the rich denizens of Martha’s Vineyard started a GoFundMe fundraiser to panhandle ordinary Americans for money to handle this “humanitarian crisis” that’s already been resolved simply by kicking the migrants out of town. The proceeds, however, will not go to the expelled migrants, but to “building up a reserve to assist situations like this in the future.”

But like most of the virtue-signaling Left, this playground of the economic elite has exposed itself as full of posers unwilling to actually do anything about their vaunted “principles”––a long tradition among Western leftists. The result is a morally preening political rhetoric that worsens problems like uncontrolled illegal immigration by proscribing obvious common-sense solutions such as upgrading border security, including building a wall; keeping those claiming asylum in Mexico; and Title 42, which allowed for increased expulsions.

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ENVIRONMENT AND JUNK SCIENCE Comments turned off

How Global Warming Is A Lot Like ‘Get Trump’

By on September 19th, 2022

https://issuesinsights.com/2022/09/19/how-global-warming-is-a-lot-like-get-trump/

“Meanwhile, President Joe Biden, the Democratic Party, and much of the media want the country to believe that, led by “MAGA Republicans,” the dark night of fascism continues to descend on the U.S. They are partly right. There is a distinct whiff of fascism in the air. But it’s the Democrats who released the stench with their efforts to crush dissent and establish single-party rule over constitutional governing.”

Brilliant author Tom Wolfe wrote more than 45 years ago that “the dark night of fascism is always descending in the United States and yet lands only in Europe.” While still relevant to our present times, it’s the sort of observation that can also be applied to a couple of other events playing out in our world today.

First up, global warming. We’ve been hearing the shrill warnings, a constant wave of hysteria for more than three decades. Because of man’s use of fossil fuels, we’ve been told the polar ice caps would melt, glaciers would collapse en masse, snow would stop falling, rising sea levels would flood coastal regions, and droughts and floods would be the rule rather than rare exceptions.

It’s hard to even recall a time when this alarmist or that climatista wasn’t trying to convince the world that we have only eight or 10 or 11 or maybe “zero” years, possibly even less than 100 months, to change our fossil-fuel-burning ways before Gaia would see to it that we begin to suffer and perish.

In fact, we shouldn’t even be here today. In 1989, the Associated Press reported that “a senior U.N. environmental official says entire nations could be wiped off the face of the Earth if the global warming trend is not reversed by the year 2000.” 

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ELECTIONS Comments turned off

The Real Midterm Election Stakes Will voters put a check on the unrequited ambitions of the Democratic left?

By on September 19th, 2022

https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-real-midterm-election-stakes-voting-spending-inflation-environment-filibuster-11663528778?mod=opinion_lead_pos1

“If Democrats add seats in the Senate and hold the House, there won’t be much of a check on progressive ambitions. If they accomplish this with inflation at 8%, they will be even more emboldened. That is what’s really on the ballot in November.’

If the election polls are right, Democrats have a good chance of adding to their majority in the Senate and even keeping it in the House. Toward that end they are trying to convince voters that abortion and Donald Trump are the main election issues. But the real issue, by far the most important for actual policy, is whether voters will put a legislative check on the political left.

Mr. Trump isn’t even on the ballot this year, and Joe Biden will be President at least through 2024. No national abortion law is likely to pass Congress as long as the 60-vote legislative filibuster rule remains in the Senate. Abortion law could change in many states depending on election results, but probably not in most.

In other words, the Democratic election strategy is a new version of their 2020 campaign bait-and-switch. Joe Biden and Democrats in Congress won by making the election a referendum on Mr. Trump and Covid-19. But once in office they pivoted to advance a far-left labor agenda and enact the biggest expansion of government in modern history. They succeeded on many fronts, and only the opposition of Sens. Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema prevented them from killing the filibuster to do much more.

The Democratic left hasn’t given up on any of this, however, as they are admitting if you pay attention. The media are ignoring this as they echo the abortion and Trump narrative. So it’s worth laying out what Democrats really have in mind, based on what they tried to do this Congress and are promising for the next.

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