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Ruth King

Warning: No Deal Whatsoever with Iran’s Mullahs by Majid Rafizadeh

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/21164/no-deal-with-iran-mullahs

The Iranian regime’s sudden willingness to negotiate following Trump’s reelection is nothing more than a tactical maneuver. It seeks to buy time, stave off tough sanctions, and delay decisive action while advancing its nuclear program, while waiting out Trump.
This is a familiar strategy, designed to outlast the Trump administration and neutralize any efforts to hold the regime accountable. Such deceptive overtures must be recognized for what they are — a fake truce to secure the Islamic Republic’s survival and expansion.
The West must stop deluding itself into believing that any deal with such a country can succeed.
The only effective approach is one of unwavering sanctions, relentless pressure, maintaining a military option and supporting the efforts of most of the Iranian people, who are desperate for a new form of government.

The possibility of negotiating a deal with Iran has resurfaced. Reports suggest that the Islamic Republic’s leaders are expressing a willingness to engage with the incoming US administration after Donald J. Trump assumes office.

Reaching a deal, however, with a regime actively waging proxy wars against Israel, most of the Persian Gulf States and the United States — and that is arming Russia in its war on Ukraine — would be a monumental error.

Such an agreement would not only bolster the regime financially, but also grant it global legitimacy. That renewed strength would only once again fuel Iran’s aggression, further destabilize the region, and embolden its revolutionary ambitions. Negotiating with a regime steeped in terror would simply serve to expand its reach and strengthen its resolve.

History provides a clear warning against such actions. In 2015, President Barack Obama’s nuclear deal, which granted Iran the opportunity to build as many nuclear weapons as it is able to, marked the beginning of a dangerous trajectory.

What is the Administrative State? ‘The administrative state’ is that quota of political power that covertly fills the vacuum left by the failure of the legislative branch to discharge its obligations. By Roger Kimball

https://amgreatness.com/2024/12/01/what-is-the-administrative-state/

Last week in this virtual space, I wrote that Donald Trump would make a renewed effort during his second term to dismantle “the administrative state.” As in his first term, he would employ various strategies to blunt the effects of the administrative apparatus that governs us. He would, for example, disperse some parts of the government outside the overwhelmingly left-progressive swamp of Washington, D.C.

As an aside, I should note that I regard the persistence of Washington as the seat of our government as a serious impediment to the goal of “deconstructing” the administrative state. “It has,” I wrote back in 2022, “long been obvious to candid observers that there is something deeply dysfunctional about that overwhelmingly Democratic, welfare-addicted city.”

It is a partisan sinkhole. Jefferson wanted the capital moved from New York to Washington in part to bring it closer to the South, but also to place it in a locality that was officially neutral. There is nothing neutral about Washington today. The city has some impressive architecture and urban vistas. They should be preserved and staffed as tourist attractions. But the reins of power should be relocated.

I doubt that will happen. Which means that the eternal vigilance that MAGA must maintain around its enemies will have to be redoubled. Trump attempting to govern from Washington will be like Ike trying to undertake the Normandy invasion with half his planners on loan from the German general staff.

Still, there are some symbolic gestures that he and his aides might consider. I have long suggested that the inauguration be held somewhere other than Washington, D.C. There is nothing in the Constitution that requires the inauguration be in Washington. LBJ, remember, was sworn in on Air Force One just a couple of hours after Kennedy was assassinated. When Warren Harding died, Calvin Coolidge was visiting the family homestead in Vermont. His father, a justice of the peace, administered the oath of office in the parlor. I think the next inauguration should be well away from the swamp of Washington. Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach is one venue that springs to mind, but I am sure there are other attractive spots. At a minimum, I hope the inauguration committee will consider having some of the parties elsewhere. A ball in Butler, PA, for example, would not only be celebratory but also serve as a useful reminder of how close Trump came to a fatal encounter with an assassin’s bullet.

John Tierney From “Fringe” to Mainstream Trump’s nomination of Jay Bhattacharya to head NIH is a major victory for science and academic freedom.

https://www.city-journal.org/article/trump-taps-jay-bhattacharya-for-nih

Four years ago, Jay Bhattacharya was ostracized by his colleagues at Stanford and censored on social media platforms thanks to a campaign against him by the public-health establishment. The director of the National Institutes of Health, Francis Collins, sent an email to another NIH official, Anthony Fauci, urging a “quick and devastating published takedown” of Bhattacharya and his fellow “fringe epidemiologists.” 

Bhattacharya is far from the fringe today. Donald Trump nominated him this week for Collins’s old job, director of the NIH. Assuming the Senate confirms him, it will be a major victory for science and academic freedom—and a serious threat to the universities that suppressed scientific debate and promoted disastrous policies during the pandemic, causing public trust in science to plummet. Academic researchers and administrators have mostly refused to acknowledge their mistakes, much less make amends, but Bhattacharya promised yesterday to “reform American scientific institutions so that they are worthy of trust again.” 

As NIH director, he would wield a potent tool to induce reform: money. Stanford and more than a dozen other universities each get more than $500 million annually in grants from the NIH, the world’s largest funder of biomedical research. The NIH grants support not only researchers but also their universities’ bureaucracies, which collect a hefty surcharge to cover supposed overhead costs. The federal largesse has helped finance the administrative bloat at universities, including the expansion of diversity, equity, and inclusion bureaucracies under the Biden administration, which took into account a university’s commitment to DEI principles when deciding whether to award grants from the NIH and other agencies.  

Trump choices Marty Makary, Jay Bhattacharya will disrupt our health agencies to save lives By Betsy McCaughey

https://nypost.com/2024/11/27/opinion/trump-picks-marty-makary-jay-bhattacharya-will-disrupt-health-agencies-to-save-lives/

The public health establishment and left-wing media are rushing to discredit President-elect Donald Trump’s picks to lead health agencies. The New York Times smears them as “outside the medical mainstream.”

Circling the wagons, Dr. Paul Offit, an adviser to the Food and Drug Administration, lamely observes, “What they’re saying when they make these appointments is that we don’t trust the people who are there.”

You bet.

Trump and the public have every reason to distrust the current agency heads, after the repeated blunders, deceptions and cover-ups during COVID-19. Trump is appointing disruptors with the courage to challenge the status quo.

Like Dr. Marty Makary, nominated to head the Food and Drug Administration.

Makary’s credentials will make it impossible for the Senate to reject him. A Johns Hopkins surgeon and professor of public health, Makary was voted into the prestigious National Academy of Medicine, a Hall of Fame for doctors.

More importantly, if you’re in the hospital, you want Makary on your side.

Two decades ago, he declared war against the epidemic of medical errors killing as many as 100,000 patients a year. Errors like patients being given the wrong dose of a medication, or a surgeon operating on the wrong body part, or a lethal germ invading the patient’s body to cause an infection.

The medical establishment was hush-hush about them. But not Makary. 

We should be thankful that the future is in Trump’s hands — and not Harris’ By Douglas Murray

https://nypost.com/2024/11/28/opinion/we-should-be-thankful-that-the-future-is-in-trumps-hands-and-not-harris/

This Thanksgiving we got a reminder of what might-have-been. And what we have been unburdened by.

We should be truly grateful.

For this was the week in which Kamala Harris broke her post-election silence. And I think anyone who saw it can agree: the vice president is not doing well.

In an almost 10-minute-long word salad, the former presidential candidate told her supporters such things as: “You have the same power that you did before November 5, and you have the same purpose that you did. And you have the same ability to engage and inspire, so don’t ever let anybody or any circumstance take your power from you.”

The only thing that made Harris’ message different from a late-night conversation with a very drunk friend was that at no point did Harris actually say “I love you guys” and then burst out weeping.

But it was a reminder of how close this country came to a decline that other countries are experiencing.

Back in my native Britain this past summer the public elected a Labour government that, like Kamala, doesn’t seem to have any idea of what it is doing. Or what it could do.

They are currently working out how to kill off the citizenry with euthanasia. But as for plans to grow the economy, secure the borders or improve living standards? Nope. Not an idea in sight.

The FBI and DOJ’s ‘politically motivated’ persecution of a former informant — all to protect the Bidens By Miranda Devine

https://nypost.com/2024/11/27/opinion/the-fbi-and-dojs-politically-motivated-persecution-of-a-former-informant-all-to-protect-the-bidens/

One of the most disturbing scandals of the Hunter Biden saga is the imprisonment without trial of former FBI informant Alexander Smirnov. 

The Ukrainian-born Israeli-American, who once told his FBI handler about Ukrainian claims of a $10 million bribe to the Bidens, has been languishing in a Los Angeles prison for nine months on charges that he lied to the FBI. 

Last week, federal prosecutors slapped new tax-evasion charges on Smirnov, 43, which suggests they know their original indictment is too weak for a jury to convict him when he faces trial beginning Jan. 8. 

Smirnov was one of the FBI’s most trusted confidential human sources, paid more than $100,000 during what his lawyers call “undivided, years-long loyalty to the United States” before he was thrown to the wolves in the middle of the Biden impeachment inquiry. 

Busted in February 

He was arrested in February on charges that he “provided false derogatory information to the FBI in 2020 about Joseph Biden, who at the time was a candidate for president and had previously been the vice president. 

“The alleged false information concerned Joseph Biden’s and his son Hunter Biden’s involvement with Burisma Holdings Ltd., a Ukrainian energy business.” 

How Do Dems Solve a Problem Like Kamala? If they can’t make her go away in 2025, things are likely to get worse. Daniel Greenfield

https://www.frontpagemag.com/how-do-dems-solve-a-problem-like-kamala/

After inflicting one of the most financial and electoral defeats on the Democrats, Kamala is still around and still barraging supporters with endless texts pleading for money.

The Kamala campaign is still burning through its list, allegedly to pay off a $20 million debt, but it’s hard to believe that it hasn’t covered that already.

The Harris Fight Fund is sending out messages asking for money to “organize against Trump’s radical cabinet appointments” and to “start building the critical resources we need to hold Trump accountable these next four years.”

Now the whole thing might be a scam to suck up more money, but with 41% of Democrats putting Kamala’s name in the box for the 2028 nomination, and with Kamala exploring options that may include running for governor, it’s pretty clear that she’s not going away and she’s building up yet another campaign war chest.

Dems need Kamala to go away, but how do they do that?

Dems couldn’t make Kamala go away in 2024 with devastating consequences. If they can’t make her go away in 2025, things are likely to get worse.

Obama Signals He Controls Biden and He’s Coming for Israel Bad news for America and Israel. by Daniel Greenfield

https://www.frontpagemag.com/obama-signals-he-controls-biden-and-hes-coming-for-israel/

One of Obama’s little pseudointellectual gimmicks was very visibly holding topical books to send a signal ahead of a policy intifada. One of those infamous moments came when he was showing off Fareed Zakaria’s “The Post-American World”.

That’s not something Biden does.

Biden’s not much of a reader and he hasn’t bothered with that kind of posturing before, but then shortly after forcing a ceasefire on Israel using an arms embargo, he was photographed while ‘pulling an Obama’.

President Biden was photographed exiting the Nantucket Bookworks bookstore in Massachusetts with a copy of an anti-Israel screed by Obama’s old pal Rashid Khalidi who had been a terrorist spokesman. Was Biden really planning to read through ‘The Hundred-Year War on Palestine: A History of Colonialism and Resistance’ which slurs Israel as an ‘apartheid state’ and describes Islamic terrorism against Jews as ‘resistance’?

After the Oct 7 attacks, Khalidi defended Hamas, claimed that its members really wanted peace and that Hamas had opened “a door that the United States, Europe and Israel slammed shut”.

“If you can’t go to the International Criminal Court or do a BDS,” Khalidi argued, “then you pick up a gun.”

Khalidi was so toxic that the Los Angeles Times had permanently buried a video of Obama’s toast for the former terror spokesman.

So why is Biden showing off a copy of Khalidi’s hate tract?

Why are we surprised about Jew hatred in Quebec? Diane Bederman

https://dianebederman.com/why-are-we-surprised-about-jew-hatred-in-quebec/

While Second Cup CEO Peter Mammas was at a theatre watching Gladiator II with his children, he learned about a franchise owner in Montreal spewing vile antisemitism. Without hesitation, he took decisive action to shut it down immediately. Contrast this with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, who was at a Taylor Swift concert with his children as Montreal faced chaos. He did nothing. Leadership is defined by action in moments of crisis. One acted. One didn’t. Let that sink in.

In my not so humble opinion, Quebec is the most Jew hating province in Canada. I think it comes by it honestly. Quebec was settled by the French. Or should I say colonized?

Let’s take a peek at the Jew hatred from France, which, sadly continues today under the leadership of Macron. French President Emmanuel Macron called for an arms embargo on Israel as she fights for her life against Jew hating terrorists. And “France supports the International Criminal Court, its independence and the fight against impunity in all situations.” (Arrest warrants have been issued for Netanyahu and Gallant for crimes including “wilful killing”, “extermination and/or murder”, and “starvation” during the war in Gaza.) Canada’s French-Canadian Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau, also stands with the ICC. A recent biography of Pierre Trudeau, long-serving prime minister of Canada and Justin’s father, revealed that in his twenties even he was part of fascist, nationalist, and anti-Semitic movements, before he evolved into a committed democrat and civil libertarian. Hmmm

The Experts, Science, Medicine—All Amazing, All Fallible Joan Swirsky

https://newswithviews.com/the-experts-science-medicine-all-amazing-all-fallible/

For thousands of years, going back to the Bible, women have wept and grieved and pleaded to God over their miscarriages. Indeed, it took all these millennia for modern-day pharmaceutical companies to develop solutions to this ongoing nightmare.

In the 1940s, they were happy to offer doctors the ability to prescribe diethylstilbestrol (DES) to prevent miscarriage. “You can tell them you would give it to your wife,” the marketing mavens from Big Pharma suggested to physicians.

And with good reason. This “miracle drug” worked! Women who had experienced no trouble conceiving but were plagued by constant miscarriages were now able to carry their babies to term and deliver quite “perfect” bundles of joy!

But then disaster hit with unspeakable horror. After one or two years of watching their beautiful babies smile and roll over and teethe and then walk and speak and thrive, the little girls began developing hideous vaginal cancers, and those who survived to adulthood experienced higher-than-normal premature births, miscarriages, and ectopic pregnancies.

The little boys, too, had horrible anomalies in their urogenital tracts and are still being watched for higher-than-average cases of testicular and prostate cancers.

In 1971, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) took DES off the market.

So much for the science!

SECOND TIME’S A CHARM

In 1957, another miracle medication, originally marketed as a sleeping pill but also found to prevent miscarriages,was developed in West Germany, and soon found its way to America, where women eagerly took the drug––approved by the FDA––and, again, were thrilled to carry their babies to term.

But unlike DES, where the monstrous effects took months to years to develop, the grotesque and tragic effects of the new drug––Thalidomide––were obvious from the moment of birth: children born with missing arms and legs, eye and urinary tract anomalies, heart problems, et al. The list of horrors went on and on.

So much for the science!