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Ruth King

Restart, Reset or Renew? The Strategy against Iranian Nuclear Ambition by Peter Schweizer

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/16937/iran-nuclear-ambition

Even if the deal negotiated in 2015 by the Obama administration were worth the effort, it is impossible to imagine the Iranians willingly recommitting to enrichment levels they have long since blown past. No one believes in their professed “peaceful use” of nuclear energy. So why does a return to the deal make any sense?

The killing of top terror-funding IRGC official Qasem Soleimani by the US military and Iran’s relatively toothless retaliatory attack against two US bases in Iraq suggest that the regime fears what an escalation of tensions would mean to its own future more than it desires to stab at the “Great Satan.” The regime may finally be on the verge of collapse.

Those sanctions are the only leverage the U.S. really has against Iran, and they may finally succeed, much as the Reagan administration was able to do to the USSR in the 1980s. Now is not the time to reduce or remove them in exchange for paper promises born of a campaign slogan, from a regime whose movements suggest it fears its days are numbered.

Through covert operations, hidden diplomacy, an intense military buildup, and a series of actions designed to throw sand in the gears of the Soviet economy, American policy destroyed the USSR from its fingertips to its heart. Former Soviet leaders including Mikhail Gorbachev have admitted it with grudging admiration. The only ones who were wrong were those in the liberal foreign policy establishment who pretended it was all just a coincidence.

President-elect Joe Biden ran on a slogan to “restore the Iran nuclear deal.” For those voters desperate to undo every accomplishment of the Trump administration, which abandoned the deal and imposed sharp sanctions on Iran’s oil and financial sectors, it must have sounded attractive.

But now that Biden will be responsible for American security and not just criticizing Donald Trump, he would do well to slow down and consider alternatives.

Turkey-Israel Reconciliation? by Uzay Bulut

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/16951/turkey-israel-antisemitism

[I]t was Erdogan who in October called Jerusalem a Turkish city. Referring to the Ottoman occupation of Jerusalem (1517-1917), Erdogan said: “It is still possible to encounter traces of the Ottoman resistance in this city that we had to leave in tears during the First World War. In other words, Jerusalem is our city, it is a city from us.”

Apparently, the Erdogan regime is hoping to expand trade with Israel and further gain diplomatic support in international matters. At the same time, instead of genuinely trying to fight anti-Semitism and other forms of racism in Turkish society through education and other means, the Erdogan regime has been indoctrinating its supporters with Jew-hatred and actively supporting Hamas terrorists.

On December 25, a reporter asked Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan about his views on the news that Israel and Turkey were “re-establishing their relations recently.” Erdogan replied:

“Our relations with Israel concerning intelligence have not been interrupted anyway; they continue. I mean, we are experiencing some difficulties with the people at the highest level there, as with some other countries. If we had no such problems with the top [of the Israeli government], our relations with Israel would be very different. Of course, particularly Israel’s Palestine policy is Turkey’s red line. It is impossible for us to accept Israel’s Palestinian policies. It is impossible for us to accept Israel’s attitude towards our brothers and sisters in Palestine and its ruthless actions there. Where we differ with Israel is our understanding of justice and of territorial integrity of countries. Otherwise, we want to move our relations with them to a better point.”

Two weeks before Erdogan talked about “bettering relations with Israel,” a conference organized by a pro-government Turkish organization, the Association of Justice Defenders Strategic Studies Center (ASSAM), promoted the idea of creating a joint Islamic army and a common defense system for the “Confederation of Islamic Countries”. One of the main targets of this proposed army is Israel.

Our Leaders Have Betrayed Us By Kenneth R. Timmerman

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2021/01/our_leaders_have_betrayed_us.html

Millions of Republican activists in every state in the country are asking themselves, what can we do now? All of our political lives we put our faith in our elections.

Millions of Republican activists in every state in the country are asking themselves, what can we do now?

All of our political lives we put our faith in our elections.

When we lost, we analyzed our mistakes and sought lessons for how next time to run a better campaign. When we won, we aspired to work with our former opponents for the betterment of the country. On both sides.

It’s what we’ve done in America for the past one hundred and sixty years.

Today it sounds quaint, but our differences ended at the nation’s shores. That quarantine around foreign policy and national security disputes dissolved during the Clinton years when deep divides over trade agreements and China split our country – not along party lines, but into globalists and what the global elites derisively termed the “nativists.”

Those “nativists” – the left-behinds of the Rust Belt, and those “old-fashioned” Americans derided by Obama for “clinging to their Bibles and their guns,” became the Deplorables that defeated Hillary Clinton and elected Donald Trump.

When Mob Inciters Become Lions of the Left An Aaron Sorkin film celebrates the Chicago Seven for plotting an attack on a party convention.By Helen Andrews

https://www.wsj.com/articles/when-mob-inciters-become-lions-of-the-left-11610558248?mod=opinion_lead_pos6

The Chicago Seven were countercultural heroes in the 1960s. They thumbed their noses through one of the country’s most notorious political trials, taunting the judge and making a mockery of the proceedings with flippant courtroom pranks. Aaron Sorkin wrote and directed a movie about them last year, “The Trial of the Chicago 7,” which will probably win a few Oscars.

One thing people forget about the Chicago Seven is that most of them were guilty. Jerry Rubin admitted as much later: “We wanted disruption. We planned it. . . . We were guilty as hell. Guilty as charged.”

The crime they were accused of was crossing state lines to incite a riot. The defendants believed that Vice President Hubert Humphrey’s 1968 nomination for presidency was illegitimate. Nominations in those days were decided not by primaries but by backroom deals among party power brokers. The antiwar movement believed that a more democratic process would have produced a candidate opposed to the Vietnam War.

The question was whether the violent clashes between protesters and police outside the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago were an unfortunate consequence of peaceful marching that got out of hand, or whether the organizers intended for things to get violent.

HALL OF SHAME

NATIONAL REVIEW TODAY

Try Him Now

By Matthew Continetti

Donald Trump has spent his life dodging the consequences of his misbehavior. For once, he must be punished.

An Impeachable Offense

By The Editors

The prudential questions shouldn’t be brushed aside, but this gross misconduct is what the impeachment clause was written to address.

The ‘Late Impeachment’ Question

By Ramesh Ponnuru 
Precedent and purpose cut against the argument that the Constitution bars lawmakers from holding an impeachment trial after Trump leaves office.

McCarthy Says Trump ‘Bears Responsibility’ for Capitol Riot, Advocates Censure Instead of Impeachment

By Zachary Evans 
‘The President bears responsibility for Wednesday’s attack on Congress by mob rioters,’ McCarthy said.

Shame
By Kevin D. Williamson

A paltry ten House Republicans mustered the guts and the patriotism to vote to impeach Donald Trump. By way of comparison, 139 Republicans in the House voted to overturn the 2020 election. If the American public concludes that this is a party of irresponsible crackpots who can no longer be trusted with power, it will be impossible to blame them.

Never Forget These Ten Republican Turncoats Who Voted to Impeach Trump By Matt Margolis

https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/matt-margolis/2021/01/13/never-forget-these-ten-republican-turncoats-who-voted-to-impeach-trump-n1336625

The House of Representatives has voted to impeach President Trump a second time. This time over accusations that he incited an insurrection on the U.S. Capitol. Anyone who watched or read the words Trump spoke on the day can’t say with a shred of honesty that Trump ever incited violence upon the Capitol.

And yet ten Republicans joined with Democrats in their never-ending witch hunt of Trump. These Republicans have seen endless accusations being lobbed at Trump. From accusations of racism to colluding with Russia, or the bogus claim of a quid pro quo with Ukraine… yet they joined in the pile-on. For what? To make nice with the left? What good does being a pawn in their attacks on Trump do? The Senate will never convict him over these absurd allegations. The left will not be better to these Republicans once they’ve outlived their usefulness.

So, here they are. Here’s the list of Republicans who voted with Democrats to impeach Trump over bogus charges.

Rep. Liz Cheney (Wyo.) – GOP Conference Chair
Rep. Anthony Gonzalez (Ohio)
Rep. Jaime Herrera Beutler (Wash.)
Rep. John Katko (N.Y.)
Rep. Adam Kinzinger (Ill.)
Rep. Peter Meijer (Mich.)
Rep. Dan Newhouse (Wash.)
Rep. Tom Rice (S.C.)
Rep. Fred Upton (Mich.)
Rep. David Valadao (Calif.)

Remember these names. Don’t give them any money. Support primary challengers in 2022. These people have no business being in the Republican Party when they knowingly go along with a party that has been desperate to impeach Trump and remove him from office since before he even took the oath.

5 Things to Know About the Spread of Big Tech Tyranny By AG News Staff VIDEO

https://amgreatness.com/2021/01/13/5-things-to-know-about-the-spread-of-big-tech-tyranny/

Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram’s lifetime ban of President Trump has set off an insidious assault on free speech that is reaching into all corners of the free markets.

Trump’s Democrat Impeachers and Double Standards Who, exactly, is guilty of “inciting insurrection”? John Perazzo

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2021/01/trumps-democrat-impeachers-and-double-standards-john-perazzo/

A mere 12 days after President Trump took office in January 2017, Congressman Joaquin Castro of Texas became the first of many elected Democrats to publicly call for his impeachment. In that case, Castro’s concern was with regard to Trump’s executive ban on travel to the U.S. from nations rife with Islamic terrorism. By the end of 2019, House and Senate Democrats had proposed more than 70 additional reasons for impeaching Trump. Nancy Pelosi, for her part, went full-fascist when she declared, less than four months ago: “We can impeach him every day of the week for anything he does.”

And now, this same Nancy Pelosi has brought her totalitarian vision to life, impeaching Trump for “incitement of insurrection,” a sin supposedly committed in the same January 6 speech where the president explicitly and unambiguously encouraged his supporters to “peacefully and patriotically make your voices heard.” Yes, Pelosi and her fellow Democrats assure us that — even though it now seems highly unlikely that the people who breached the Capitol that day were among those who had attended Trump’s speech — the president himself was somehow responsible for the actions of the several hundred lamebrains who chose to break the law.

By the Democrats’ same “logic,” however, a much stronger case can be made for the idea that the words which so many Democrats themselves have spoken over the past four years could, and should, have been used as justifications for removing them from political office.

Doubling Down on Impeachment Insanity Fanatical Dems impeach President Trump for the second time — and again without evidence. Matthew Vadum

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2021/01/v-benjamin-plotinsky/

With mere days before a new president takes office, leftist Democrats and useful-idiot Republicans voted Wednesday to impeach President Donald John Trump on false grounds for a second time, a move that places the United States on a fast-track toward banana-republic status.

The vote to impeach on January 13 was 232 to 197. Ten Republican lawmakers voted to betray their own party and impeach President Trump.

They are: Adam Kinzinger of Illinois; Liz Cheney of Wyoming; John Katko of New York; Fred Upton of Michigan; Jaime Herrera Beutler of Washington;  Dan Newhouse of Washington; Peter Meijer of Michigan; Anthony Gonzalez of Ohio; Tom Rice of South Carolina; and David Valadao of California.

The reason why they did this is clear: despite everything that has happened, Trump’s voters are standing by him. That makes him a threat –not to the republic, as the Left claims— but to the deep state-globalist-socialist-communist alliance that in a few days will control both the executive and legislative branches of the federal government. They want Trump out of the picture so things can return to so-called normal. Even if they can’t get the impeachment trial underway in the Senate before Trump leaves office at 12 Noon on January 20, they want the Senate to convict the president and bar him from seeking office again. Some legal scholars, though, notably not Alan Dershowitz, say a president leaving the office does not deprive the Senate of jurisdiction to hear the case.

China’s, Not Sweden’s Or Denmark’s, Is The Government Democrats Want

https://issuesinsights.com/2021/01/14/chinas-not-swedens-or-denmarks-is-the-government-democrats-want/

When Democrats propose “progressive” policies, they say their objective is make the U.S. more like Europe’s welfare states, not socialist nations such as Venezuela and Cuba. Maybe at one time that was true. But not now. In recent years, China has become the nation they want to emulate.

Let’s clear up one possible misunderstanding right away. We’re not calling the Democrats communists. There are hard socialist leanings within the party, and far too much just-below-the-surface authoritarianism. But we’re not saying they’re communists, though they have no reservations about calling conservatives and Republicans fascists and Nazis, even when they know the charges are untrue.

Nor are we going to try to make the case that Democrats are in bed with China. We simply want to point out that Democrats want to reign over this country the way the communist party rules China.

The Democrats’ appetite for following the China model goes back more than a decade. One of its early manifestations is found in the fever dreams of New York Timesman Thomas Friedman. In 2008, he openly yearned for America to be “China for a day.” He called it a “fantasy, basically,” yet he wondered:

“What if we had a government here that could actually make decisions? Okay? That could actually come together, Democrats and Republicans, and make a long-term plan and pursue it?”

Those remarks were made on what is loosely called a “comedy report.” In a more sober interview with news anchor Tom Brokaw, Friedman didn’t stray from his chosen course.

There’s only one thing worse than one-party autocracy, the Chinese form of government, and that’s one-party democracy. You know, in China, if the leadership can get around to an enlightened decision it can order it from the top down, OK. Here, when you have one-party democracy, one party ruling, basically the other party just basically saying no, every solution is sub-optimal.