WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Russia’s Putin to NATO: Commit Suicide or Face All-Out War by Soeren Kern

Posted By on January 6th, 2022

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/18096/russia-putin-nato

The Russian demands, which effectively require NATO to commit suicide, are so obviously outrageous and unmeetable that Western analysts are split over interpreting Russian President Vladimir Putin’s motives. Some say he is using the impossible list of demands as a pretext to invade Ukraine. Others think he is playing a weak hand to try to divide the West and reorder Europe’s security architecture in Russia’s favor.

Germany appears to be the West’s weak link the face of Russian pressure. On January 3, the German newspaper Bild reported that Scholz is seeking “a new beginning” in relations with Moscow. This has alarmed smaller European countries which fear that Germany will reach an accommodation with Putin behind their backs.

“The Russian leader… believes he has a window of opportunity to act. He is worried that the risk of Kiev joining NATO will increase if a stronger U.S. leader… comes to power…. Regretfully, the Biden administration’s ‘experts,’ like Obama’s before them who fecklessly sought a ‘reset’ with Russia, are likely to fall into Putin’s trap.” — Rebekah Koffler, a Russian-born U.S. intelligence expert.

“A second Russian attack on Ukraine, should it happen, ought to serve as a long-overdue wake-up call for the West about Russia’s intentions to establish an exclusive sphere of influence in Eastern Europe and assert Moscow’s claims to exercising influence in Central Europe, within NATO’s perimeter…. Europe’s security would deteriorate dramatically. The zone of competition would shift from Eastern Europe to Central Europe and the Baltic states.” — Andrew Michta, geopolitical analyst

“The West should immediately impose tough sanctions on Russia, provide serious defense assistance to Ukraine, demonstrate unambivalent support for Ukrainian sovereignty, and project moral and strategic resolve. Unfortunately, current trends and past behavior provide little cause for optimism that the ‘free world’ will rise to the challenge.” — Anne Pierce, foreign policy expert

“Westerners do not seem to understand what is at stake. They think that only the fate of Ukraine is being decided, which is of less concern to them than that of Armenia…. They resemble those who in 1939 believed that Hitler’s demands would be limited to Danzig. However, one only has to look at the texts proposed by Moscow to understand that the stakes are quite different.” — Françoise Thom, French historian of Russia.

“In 1946-7 we knew that freedom was worth dying for, something that is obviously forgotten today. After Munich in 1938, the West was ashamed to have abandoned Czechoslovakia into Hitler’s clutches. Today we are cowardly letting down Ukraine, but we do not even realize our dishonor, nor the danger of giving in to an aggressor. We are like the Byzantines who were discussing the sex of angels while the Ottoman forces were destroying the city walls.” — Françoise Thom.

Russia has threatened war if the United States and its NATO allies fail to comply — unconditionally — with sweeping demands for a new security arrangement in Europe.

EDUCATION Comments turned off

Two American Crises By Kyle Smith

Posted By on January 6th, 2022

https://www.nationalreview.com/2022/01/two-american-crises/

Last January 6 was terrible. The ongoing abuse of our children in schools will do far more lasting damage.

A mericans are reflecting on two important crises this week. One, last year’s January 6 Capitol riot, was thoroughly investigated and its perpetrators are being severely punished. The other, the ongoing systemic abuse of our children by the Democrat-run education system, has been shrugged at, has gone wholly unpunished, and is barely acknowledged even as millions of us observe it in horrified disbelief that such hideous mistreatment can be official policy in the greatest country on earth.

One event was properly labeled something that must never be allowed to happen again, and it almost certainly won’t. (Because the Capitol Police will be prepared next time.) One event will continue every day, indefinitely, until Democrats finally get tired of subjugating our children and decide to stop.

The Capitol riot was a series of spectacular crimes that deserved spectacular punishment, as we at NR argued at the time. But what’s going on in schools is likely to do far greater long-term damage to America. The number of children being significantly harmed by nonsensical Covid restrictions such as closed schools, forced masking, forbidden talking at lunch, and canceled extracurricular activities vital for social, emotional, and physical development is in the millions. And how many young people are we killing by driving them into depressions from which there is no exit?

The invaluable David Leonhardt of the New York Times published this week a grueling summation of what pandemic restrictions — not the pandemic, which has more or less bypassed children — are doing to the youngest and most vulnerable among us. Every day our kids spend under this nightmare regime is a day of development that is lost forever. “Kids are resilient,” we tell ourselves. Are they? It seems to me something closer to the opposite is the case: Severe psychological traumas endured in childhood rarely disappear, and very often they mutate into major problems in adulthood. Psychologically speaking, kids are fragile. What kind of future are we building if we allow this horror to continue? It’s been nearly two years of this. How alienated, bitter, antisocial, and resentful are these kids going to be when they’re grown? We are poisoning our most valuable crop.

“American children are in crisis,” Leonhardt baldly and accurately states, citing sagging test scores, a spike in demand for emergency treatment of children, a 51 percent increase in suicide attempts leading to ER visits by teen girls, and anecdotal evidence of an increase in misbehavior by pupils in school. Yet some 2,200 schools are closing this week all over the country — in Atlanta, Cleveland, and some New York City suburbs. In Chicago, in-person classes are canceled. In Massachusetts, the largest teachers’ union is calling for school closings.

BOOKS Comments turned off

Decoding the Tyranny of the Administrative State By John Dale Dunn

Posted By on January 6th, 2022

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2022/01/decoding_the_tyranny_of_the_administrative_state_.html

Purchasing Submission:  Conditions, Power, and Freedom, by Philip Hamburger, 336 pp Hardcover $35 Kindle $33.25,   ISBN-13 978-0674258235, Harvard University Press, 2021.

Professor of Law Philip Hamburger of Columbia University has been campaigning for years to measure, define and condemn the growth of a powerful administrative state in America.     

The late, great Angelo Codevilla rang the alarm about the excesses of centralized oligarchic statism and an army of unelected bureaucrats eating away at liberty for citizens under the constitution in his essay, “Scientific Pretense and Democracy,” followed on by another wellreceived  2010 essay “The Ruling Class and the Perils of Revolution,” about the growth of an unelected totalitarian ruling class, whose influence and power are derived from “expertise” that allowed them to exert power over and intimidate the citizenry as the self-anointed oligarchy.  

Professor Hamburger, Friedman Professor of Constitutional Law at Columbia, caught my attention with a short monographic book, The Administrative Threat, that summarized the points of his erudite 650-page 2014 book, Is the Administrative State Unlawful?  The short book is a great summary but the long book is magisterial and explains why the political geniuses of the American Founding wrote a Constitution that intentionally hobbled the power of the executive branch and created competing branches to distribute power and prevent tyrannical grasping of power by any branch, along with a federal plan to distribute power to the states.

The Founders were well aware of the history of tyranny in England — crown edicts, Star Chamber prosecutions and other abuses that flourished in the first half of the 17th century — ending with a civil war and regicide of Charles I.  These events were fresh in their 18th century minds and they were serious students of political theory.

Hamburger wrote his two books from the maw of the liberal political establishment, Columbia University in Upper West Side Manhattan, but he obviously has his legal head on straight.  He writes about administrative state growth and abuses that had emanated from that growth of a regulatory state.

ENVIRONMENT AND JUNK SCIENCE Comments turned off

Tyranny in the Name of Climate Change By Anthony Watts

Posted By on January 6th, 2022

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2022/01/tyranny_in_the_name_of_climate_change.html

A recent paper published by Cambridge University Press titled “Political Legitimacy, Authoritarianism, and Climate Change” is raising serious and worrisome questions about the role of academia in our national political debate on climate change.

The paper was written by Ross Mittiga, who self-describes as an “assistant professor of political theory at Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, specializing in climate ethics.” He also labels himself an “environmentalist, vegan, and occasional gadfly.”

Mittiga’s paper explicitly argues society must prioritize climate action over democratic principles and adopt an authoritarian government if society fails to politically act on climate change. Or, in the words of the political left: “my way or the highway.”

This is disturbing because it completely ignores the will of the people to self-govern, favoring a totalitarian approach in order to tackle what Mittiag deems a “climate crisis.”

Key points of the paper in the abstract:

Is authoritarian power ever legitimate? The contemporary political theory literature — which largely conceptualizes legitimacy in terms of democracy or basic rights — would seem to suggest not. I argue, however, that there exists another, overlooked aspect of legitimacy concerning a government’s ability to ensure safety and security. While, under normal conditions, maintaining democracy and rights is typically compatible with guaranteeing safety, in emergency situations, conflicts between these two aspects of legitimacy can and often do arise. A salient example of this is the COVID-19 pandemic, during which severe limitations on free movement and association have become legitimate techniques of government. Climate change poses an even graver threat to public safety. Consequently, I argue, legitimacy may require a similarly authoritarian approach. While unsettling, this suggests the political importance of climate action. For if we wish to avoid legitimating authoritarian power, we must act to prevent crises from arising that can only be resolved by such means.

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Think Jan. 6 Was A Big Deal? Here Are 30 Far More Significant Events On That Day In History-Read it and Weep

Posted By on January 6th, 2022

https://issuesinsights.com/2022/01/06/think-jan-6-was-a-big-deal-here-are-30-far-more-significant-events-on-that-day-in-history/

The rest of the nation may have moved on, but Democrats are determined to squeeze the events of a year ago for every ounce of political juice they can from the events that happened at the U.S. Capitol.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi says she wants to mark the day as “an observance of reflection, remembrance, and recommitment.” President Joe Biden plans to speak on the Capitol steps. The press is providing saturation coverage.

Not only does the public not care, but polls show that voters are currently more inclined to vote for Donald Trump – the supposed instigator of the “insurrection” – than Biden.

They know that the only reason Democrats want to keep the focus on Jan. 6 is because they think it will help them politically. Never Trumpers want to keep Jan. 6 alive because they hope it will keep him from ever holding elective office again.

Yes, the attack on the Capitol building was outrageously stupid, and we’re all in favor of those who broke the law being punished. But in our view, there have been many other events that also happened to take place throughout history on Jan. 6 that are far more deserving of presidential speeches, prayer vigils, remembrances and the like.

And so, without further ado, here is our list. (Feel free to use the comments section below to suggest any that we might have overlooked.)

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

The elite war on biological sex Transgender ideology is relentlessly promoted by the elites – despite huge opposition from ordinary people. Frank Furedi

Posted By on January 6th, 2022

https://www.spiked-online.com/2022/01/05/the-elite-war-on-biological-sex/

For thousands of years, the biological distinction between male and female was considered a simple fact of life. But no more. According to a survey by pollsters Rasmussen Reports, a significant minority of Americans reject the claim that male and female are the only two genders.

While 75 per cent of those polled agree that there are only two genders, 18 per cent disagree. Eighteen per cent may be a clear minority, but as a proportion of Americans it is still a substantial number of people.

Moreover, this minority view has considerable influence over public life and government policy. In the US, people can change the gender identity on their passports without documentation; male-born transgender athletes are now allowed to compete in girls’ and women’s sports; and schools constantly expose children to transgender ideology. And all of this is taking place in spite of popular opposition.

Today’s political and cultural elites are not only indifferent to the views of the majority on sex and gender – they consider these views to be ignorant and prejudiced. Indeed, these elites believe they have a duty to educate and ‘raise the awareness’ of their culturally illiterate inferiors.

The media, academia and other cultural institutions ceaselessly promote trans ideology. In Western societies, celebrities, media stars and commentators possess a monopoly over how gender is framed. HBO’s highly publicised Harry Potter 20th Anniversary: Return to Hogwarts is a case in point. Because of her views on sex and gender, Harry Potter creator JK Rowling was infamously excluded from the show, appearing only in a few snippets of archive footage. This effectively told the world that Rowling’s views on sex are unacceptable. The Harry Potter cast members were also mobilised to promote the message that if you love Harry Potter then you should take a stand against Rowling’s views.

In recent years trans ideology has been all over our TV screens. Indeed, as one commentator at Salon recently boasted, ‘2021 was an extraordinary year of making the non-binary ordinary… More inclusive… pop culture led the charge in busting the gender binary.’

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Stop Calling Jan. 6 an ‘Insurrection’ That’s a legal term that denotes much more than a sporadically violent riot or disturbance. By Jeffrey Scott Shapiro

Posted By on January 6th, 2022

https://www.wsj.com/articles/stop-calling-jan-6-an-insurrection-capitol-riot-civil-disorder-insurgency-protest-first-amendment-11641417543?mod=opinion_lead_pos6

The events of Jan. 6, 2021, are misunderstood, and the failure to correct the record could be damaging to both America’s future and its justice system. Words have to have meaning, and the continuous mislabeling of the U.S. Capitol breach as an “insurrection” is an example of how a false narrative can gain currency and cause dangerous injustice.

Many crimes undoubtedly took place at the Capitol that day. Demonstrators rioted, destroyed government property and in some instances engaged in acts of violence. Many are charged with violating 18 U.S.C. 371, which makes it a crime “to commit any offense against the United States, or to defraud the United States,” and with underlying charges of civil disorder, disorderly conduct, entering and remaining in a restricted building or grounds, destruction of government property, and obstruction of an official proceeding.

These are important criminal charges that shouldn’t go unaddressed. But of the hundreds of “Capitol Breach Cases” listed at the Justice Department’s prosecution page, not one defendant is charged with insurrection under 18 U.S.C. 2383. That’s because insurrection is a legal term with specific elements. No prosecutor would dare mislabel negligent homicide or manslaughter a murder, because they are totally distinct crimes. The media has no legal or moral basis to do otherwise.

The events of Jan. 6 also fail to meet the dictionary definition of insurrection, which Merriam-Webster defines as “an act or instance of revolting against civil authority or an established government.” A usage note adds that the term implies “an armed uprising that quickly fails or succeeds.” A closely related term, “insurgency,” is “a condition of revolt against a government that is less than an organized revolution and that is not recognized as a belligerency.”

FOREIGN POLICY Comments turned off

Iran’s “Nuclear Blackmail”: Iran Has No Interest in Negotiating a New Nuclear Deal by Con Coughlin

Posted By on January 5th, 2022

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/18091/iran-nuclear-blackmail

“If the Iranians think the world does not seriously intend to stop them, they will race towards the bomb. We must make it clear that the world will not allow this to happen. There needs to be a credible military threat on the table.” — Yair Lapid, Israeli Foreign Minister, interview with the author, December, 2021.

Mr Lapid’s calls have been echoed by US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan who, following talks with Mr Bennett in Jerusalem, called for world powers to adopt a “common strategy” for dealing with Iran.

Mr Lapid’s concerns about Iran’s approach to the Vienna talks are supported by Western security officials closely monitoring the negotiations, who state that, far from taking a constructive approach to the negotiations, the Iranians are simply playing for time.

In the meantime Iran has sought to string out the negotiations in Vienna by concentrating on relatively minor issues, such as whether UN inspectors can have surveillance cameras operating at key sites. Iran’s obstructive conduct, moreover, is being backed by Russia and China, which were also signatories to the 2015 deal but now want to embarrass the Biden administration by ensuring the current round of talks end in failure.

The hardline approach being adopted by Tehran certainly makes the prospect of military action to destroy Iran’s nuclear facilities more likely in 2022, with US military officials confidently asserting that, if military option is required, it would be possible to target Iran’s entire nuclear programme.

The big question that remains, though, is whether, if the talks do fail, Mr Biden will have the resolve to initiate military action, or will instead seek to hit Iran with more — ineffective — sanctions.

In the meantime, Tehran continues to work on its controversial uranium enrichment activities so that, unless urgent action is taken soon, the world could soon find itself having to confront a nuclear-armed Iran.

Israeli Foreign Minister Yair Lapid’s observation that Iran is engaging in “nuclear blackmail” with Western negotiators provides a damning indictment of the current state of play regarding the negotiations being held in Vienna on Tehran’s nuclear activities.

EDUCATION Comments turned off

Yale’s ‘Anonymous’ By Jimmy Quinn

Posted By on January 5th, 2022

https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/yales-anonymous/?utm_source=recirc-desktop&utm_medium=homepage&utm_campaign=right-rail&utm_content=corner&utm_term=third

The Yale Daily News granted anonymity to a Chinese student who published a column on Peng Shuai’s disappearance by the Chinese Communist Party. The student paper’s editors explained why they published the piece that way:

Editor’s Note: The News has granted the author of this piece anonymity due to a risk to their family’s safety. The author is a University student with family in China who might be harmed by the piece being published with the author’s name. As a policy, the News does not accept anonymous submissions. However, we believed this piece could not be published without guaranteeing the author’s anonymity.

It’s an important piece that, fitting in with other recent events, deserves attention:

As a concerned Yale student, who has to remain anonymous for fear of putting those I love in danger, I’m writing to you so that she won’t be forgotten. We won’t forget her. And I want to tell you what I think #WhereIsPengShuai is really about. If we trivialize Peng Shuai’s allegations as just another social media hashtag, what she did will be for nothing…

The Yale endowment needs to divest from China. The track record of the CCP has made it more than clear that every dollar of investment in China is unethical, until the CCP is willing to positively respond to, and act on, allegations by Peng Shuai and many others. Despite having a significant Chinese portfolio, which includes top-earning tech companies like Tencent and JD.com, the Yale Investments Office currently has no publicly available ethical policy specific to China or a review of its ethical implications.

There are two critical points to take from this.

First, a counter-CCP campus divestment movement is taking shape, and this piece serves as a reminder of its significance. In October, Catholic University of America’s student government voted to support the school’s divestment from firms implicated in the Uyghur genocide, leading school officials to pledge to take steps toward that goal.

Rory O’Connor of the Athenai Institute, the group coordinating a nationwide boycott campaign, told me at the time that his organization is targeting a number of other schools across the country in the coming months.

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Poll: Most Republicans Distrust the FBI By Julie Kelly

Posted By on January 5th, 2022

https://amgreatness.com/2022/01/04/poll-most-republicans-distrust-the-fbi/

For decades, the Federal Bureau of Investigation enjoyed strong support from Republican political leaders and voters. But the agency’s reputation has crashed among its most dependable constituency amid scandal, corruption, and flagrant politicking on behalf of the Democratic Party.

A Rasmussen poll released today shows that 57 percent of Republicans hold an unfavorable view of the FBI; 47 percent of all likely voters surveyed at the end of December view the FBI unfavorably.

As if to prove the bureau has become the jackboots of the national Democratic Party rather than a nonpartisan law enforcement agency, a whopping 63 percent of Democrats have a favorable opinion of the FBI.

In a question that cribbed an accurate accusation made by Trump loyalist Roger Stone, 64 percent of Republicans agreed with the statement that “a group of politicized thugs at the top of the FBI who are using the FBI…as Joe Biden’s personal Gestapo.” Overall, 46 percent of those polled agreed with Stone’s sentiment.

Christopher Wray gets poor marks from Republicans; 61 percent say Wray, appointed by Donald Trump in 2018, is influenced by Joe Biden and not independent of the administration. Fifty percent of all voters and 35 percent of Democrats believe Wray takes his marching orders from the White House.

Over the past several years—under the leadership of James Comey, Andrew McCabe, and Wray—the FBI has torched its credibility among the majority of Americans. Comey opened Crossfire Hurricane, a counterintelligence probe into the Trump campaign based on imaginary Russian election collusion, in 2016. Comey used as evidence before a secret court a “dossier” of false political propaganda sourced by a foreign agent paid by the Clinton campaign and Democratic National Committee.

Text messages between top agents involved in the probe showed open contempt for Donald Trump and his voters. McCabe lied three times to FBI investigators about his role in leaking classified information; an FBI lawyer and Clinton campaign attorney also have been charged with perjury related to Crossfire Hurricane. (A special counsel continues to investigate the probe’s origins and those involved.)