General Milley Should Be Fired for Holding Secret, Personal Talks with China By Dan McLaughlin

https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/general-milley-should-be-fired-for-holding-secret-personal-talks-with-china/

If we did not already have enough reasons to believe that General Mark Milley has no business serving as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, today’s blockbuster story in the Washington Post, excerpted from the Bob Woodward/Robert Costa book Peril, should confirm this. Any Congress worthy of the name in a democracy would open an investigation of General Milley and push for his removal; any president who took his oath seriously would fire him immediately.

Here is what Woodward and Costa report, apparently from General Milley’s own mouth as one of their principal sources for the book:

Twice in the final months of the Trump administration, the country’s top military officer was so fearful that the president’s actions might spark a war with China that he moved urgently to avert armed conflict. In a pair of secret phone calls, Gen. Mark A. Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, assured his Chinese counterpart, Gen. Li Zuocheng of the People’s Liberation Army, that the United States would not strike. . . . One call took place on Oct. 30, 2020, four days before the election . . . and the other on Jan. 8, 2021, two days after the Capitol siege . . .

Milley went so far as to pledge he would alert his counterpart in the event of a U.S. attack, stressing the rapport they’d established through a backchannel. “General Li, you and I have known each other for now five years. If we’re going to attack, I’m going to call you ahead of time. It’s not going to be a surprise.” . . .  In the second call, placed to address Chinese fears about the events of Jan. 6, Li wasn’t as easily assuaged, even after Milley promised him, “We are 100 percent steady. Everything’s fine. But democracy can be sloppy sometimes.” Li remained rattled, and Milley, who did not relay the conversation to Trump, . . . understood why. The chairman . . . believed the president had suffered a mental decline after the election . . . a view he communicated to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi . . . on Jan. 8. He agreed with her evaluation that Trump was unstable. . . . Believing that China could lash out if it felt at risk from an unpredictable and vengeful American president, Milley took action.

California Governor Newsom Survives Recall Election By Brittany Bernstein

https://www.nationalreview.com/news/california-governor-newsom-survives-recall-election/

California voters overwhelmingly chose to keep Democratic Governor Gavin Newsom in office in a recall election on Tuesday.

Newsom was spared after a projection by the Associated Press showed that a majority of voters opted against recalling him.

With 61 percent of the estimated vote in, early returns showed that 5.3 million voters supported keeping Newsom in office, while 2.5 million Californians voted in favor of his removal.

In remarks Tuesday evening at the California Democratic Party headquarters in Sacramento, Newsom said it “appears we are enjoying an overwhelmingly ‘no’ vote here tonight.”

“But no is not the only thing that was expressed tonight,” Newsom said. “I want to focus on what we said yes to as a state. We said yes to science, we said yes to vaccines, we said yes to ending this pandemic, we said yes to people’s right to vote without fear of fake fraud or voter suppression.”

“I am humbled and grateful to the millions, and millions of Californians who exercised their fundamental right to vote, and express themselves so overwhelmingly by rejecting the division,” Newsom went on to add.

Who Pays For Dems’ Plan To Spend Trillions To ‘Stimulate’ Economy? Hint: Not The Rich

https://issuesinsights.com/2021/09/15/who-pays-for-dems-plan-to-spend-trillions-to-stimulate-economy-hint-not-the-rich/

“Promises of utopia through ever-expanding government paid for by the rich, a perennial socialist ideal, never work out. In the end, average Americans, not the rich, always pick up the tab.”

The increasingly far-left Democrats and President Joe Biden seem dead set on pushing through another massive “stimulus” package of $3.5 trillion. Given the chance, they’ll make it even bigger. To pass it, they’re promising that someone called the “rich” will pay for it all. Don’t believe it.

It’s only “fair,” they say, to make “wealthy Americans” and corporations pay for all the things you want and need, especially upgraded infrastructure, improved health care, and better schools.

The best example of this mindset was this week’s viral photo of Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez in a designer dress emblazoned with “Tax The Rich” while attending a $30,000-a-plate fundraiser (above). The irony, apparently, is lost on Democrats.

The Dems’ plan, on paper at least, claims to collect about $2.9 trillion from the wealthy and corporations, mainly by raising tax rates on high-income families from 37% to 39.6%, corporate tax rates from 21% to 26.5%, and by jacking up the capital-gains tax rate from 20% to 25%.

Another $900 billion or so will come from the vague category of “taxpayer compliance,” which seems to indicate a more aggressive IRS, and from letting Medicare directly “negotiate” – that is, extort – steep cuts in drug prices by pharmaceutical companies.

The Masking of the Servant Class: Ugly COVID Images From the Met Gala Are Now Commonplace While AOC’s revolutionary and subversive socialist gown generated buzz, the normalization of maskless elites attended to by faceless servants is grotesque. Glenn Greenwald

https://greenwald.substack.com/p/the-masking-of-the-servant-class

From the start of the pandemic, political elites have been repeatedly caught exempting themselves from the restrictive rules they impose on the lives of those over whom they rule. Governors, mayors, ministers and Speakers of the House have been filmed violating their own COVID protocols in order to dine with their closest lobbyist-friends, enjoy a coddled hair styling in chic salons, or unwind after signing new lockdown and quarantine orders by sneaking away for a weekend getaway with the family. The trend became so widespread that ABC News gathered all the examples under the headline “Elected officials slammed for hypocrisy for not following own COVID-19 advice,” while Business Insider in May updated the reporting with this: “14 prominent Democrats stand accused of hypocrisy for ignoring COVID-19 restrictions they’re urging their constituents to obey.”

Most of those transgressions were too flagrant to ignore and thus produced some degree of scandal and resentment for the political officials granting themselves such license. Dominant liberal culture is, if nothing else, fiercely rule-abiding: they get very upset when they see anyone defying decrees from authorities, even if the rule-breaker is the official who promulgated the directives for everyone else. Photos released last November of California Governor Gavin Newsom giggling maskless as he sat with other maskless state health officials celebrating the birthday of a powerful lobbyist — just one month after he told the public to “to keep your mask on in between bites” and while severe state-imposed restrictions were in place regarding leaving one’s home — caused a drop in popularity and helped fueled a recall initiative against him. Newsom and these other officials broke their own rules, and even among liberals who venerate their leaders as celebrities, rule-breaking is frowned upon.

But as is so often the case, the most disturbing aspects of elite behavior are found not in what they have prohibited but rather in what they have decided is permissible. When it comes to mask mandates, it is now commonplace to see two distinct classes of people: those who remain maskless as they are served, and those they employ as their servants who must have their faces covered at all times. Prior to the COVID pandemic, it was difficult to imagine how the enormous chasm between the lives of cultural and political elites and everyone else could be made any larger, yet the pandemic generated a new form of crude cultural segregation: a series of protocols which ensure that maskless elites need not ever cast eyes upon the faces of their servant class.

Last month, a delightful event was hosted by Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) for wealthy Democratic donors in Napa — the same wine region of choice for Gov. Newsom’s notorious dinner party — at which the cheapest tickets were $100 each and a “chair” designation was available for $29,000. Video of the outdoor festivities showed an overwhelmingly white crowd of rich Democratic donors sitting maskless virtually on top of one another — not an iota of social distancing to be found — as Pelosi imparted her deep wisdom about public policy.

Joe Biden’s Pox Americana Antony Carr

https://quadrant.org.au/opinion/america/2021/09/joe-bidens-pox-americana/

I was wondering how long it would take for American commentators to come up with semi-plausible reasons for continuing to support a President who has overseen the most comprehensive and humiliating defeat in US history. Until recently we’ve had to be content with the usual blather from the palace eunuchs of main-stream media anxious to protect a cognitively challenged Joe Biden, supported by ridiculous utterances from Washington’s swamp creatures, such as a call from the State Department for the Taliban to include women in its government.

Well, what may charitably be interpreted as a plausible justification has now emerged in an article by Kevin Baker published by the American political news site Politico on August 28.  It’s entitled, The Old Cliché About Afghanistan That Won’t Die and it characterises Biden’s decision to “move on” as “a gutsy decision, however chaotic its execution has been,” which necessarily implies that Biden broadly agreed with Trump’s Doha agreement, but as Orange Man must be blamed for everything, perhaps that’s not something to be emphasised.

As an aside, the article comments on nineteenth century European imperial fantasies, the popular but supposedly racist concept of “a gallant band of doomed, white warriors fighting to the last while helplessly outnumbered by ‘savages’.”  Of course, we now know that in accordance with the doctrines of multiculturalism, savages don’t exist and any publicity glorifying those who resisted deadly attacks by people so misclassified is always racist.

The article notes that the British got their revenge for the debacle of 1842, in which the Afghans wiped out Major General Sir William Elphinstone’s withdrawing army, when they invaded Afghanistan a few months later, crushed all Afghan forces pitted against them and sacked Kabul.  After yet another war, the situation was stabilised during Lord Curzon’s time as Viceroy of India through patronage and multiple agreements with tribal leaders and obtaining supporting fatwas from relevant authorities.

The Russian intervention that commenced in 1979 ultimately failed, forcing a withdrawal that began in 1988.  International media were invited to observe it with its accompanying ceremonies and parades.  As units withdrew, the media accompanied them through Kabul, up to Mazar-e-Sharif and across the Oxus or Amu Darya River into Uzbekistan, where there were more ceremonies and parades. On 15 February 1989, international media watched as the last remaining Soviet soldier, supreme commander General Boris Gromov, walked alone across the Oxus River Bridge back into the USSR.  The regime they supported and left behind managed to survive for another couple of years.

Bush Denigrates ‘War on Terror’ Veterans  Backers of America’s costly “War on Terror” seek the approbation of their one-time enemies at the expense of those who heeded their calls to defend the country. By Julie Kelly

https://amgreatness.com/2021/09/13/bush-denigrates-war-on-terror-veterans/

On September 11, 2001, Flight 93 reportedly was headed for Washington, D.C. when Americans attempted but failed to overcome Islamic terrorists who planned to use the hijacked plane as a missile against the U.S. Capitol building. The plane crashed in a field outside of Shanksville, Pennsylvania.

Twenty years later, George W. Bush stood on that same ground and compared patriotic Americans at the U.S. Capitol protesting a hijacked presidential election to the Islamic terrorists who murdered nearly 3,000 innocent people on 9/11. Bush’s “War on Terror” came full circle, realizing the worst fears of his legion of haters from the time—the same people now praising his “courage” in confronting imaginary domestic terrorists.

“[W]e have seen growing evidence that the dangers to our country can come not only across borders but from violence that gathers within,” Bush said Saturday. “There’s little cultural overlap between violent extremists abroad and violent extremists at home. But in their disdain for pluralism, in their disregard of human life, in their determination to defile national symbols, they are children of the same foul spirit, and it is our continuing duty to confront them.” 

Now, one might reasonably assume Bush was addressing leftist protesters who burned down cities, tore down monuments, and brutally attacked innocents in the summer of 2020. Perhaps Bush’s condemnation of those who “disregard . . . human life” was meant for the thugs who murdered retired police captain David Dorn last summer?  

Nope. The former president wasn’t talking about Antifa or Black Lives Matter. Bush, in fact, attempted to justify the summer 2020 riots: “Looting is not liberation, and destruction is not progress,” he said in a June 2, 2020 statement. “But we also know that lasting peace in our communities requires truly equal justice. The rule of law ultimately depends on the fairness and legitimacy of the legal system. And achieving justice for all is the duty of all.”

The term Bush used on 9/11—“violent extremist”—applies to Americans who were in Washington, D.C. on January 6, 2021. Don’t take my word for it. Take the word of Avril Haines, Joe Biden’s director of national intelligence.

In March, Haines issued an urgent bulletin warning “domestic violent extremists” pose a heightened threat to the homeland. “Newer sociopolitical developments—such as narratives of fraud in the recent general election, the emboldening impact of the violent breach of the US Capitol, conditions related to the COVID-19 pandemic, and conspiracy theories promoting violence—will almost certainly spur some DVEs to try to engage in violence this year.”

A sketch of the U.S. Capitol building was included in the document.

Israel Tries to Lighten Burden of Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank Guess what they get in return? Hugh Fitzgerald

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2021/09/israel-tries-lighten-burden-palestinians-gaza-and-hugh-fitzgerald/

At the end of August and beginning of September, Israel did what it could to ease the lives of Palestinians both in Gaza and in the PA-run territories in the West Bank. First, it expanded the Gaza Strip’s fishing zone to 15 nautical miles – the most since 2007.

Then Israel announced that many more goods and construction materials would be allowed into Gaza from Israel at the Kerem Shalom Crossing. Especially notable was Israel’s decision to allow in “dual-use” items such as cement, which can be used for civilian purposes, to help in the rebuilding of Gaza after the 11-day war, but can also be used to fortify rocket launching pads and artillery emplacements and, even more worrisome, can be used to rebuild the extensive network of underground tunnels — about 100 kilometers of which were destroyed by the IAF airstrikes in May – that enable Hamas to move fighters and weapons underground on “the Metro,” undetected by Israel.

In addition, Israel has promised to supply Gaza with an extra five million cubic meters (1.3 billion gallons) of water.

Israel has also agreed to allow 5000 more workers from Gaza into the Jewish state, to help relieve unemployment in the Strip.

Finally, Israel has been collaborating with Qatar in making it possible to distribute directly to the 100,000 poorest families in Gaza the $10 million that Qatar, partly at Israel’s urging, has committed to send every month.

‘We Have Won!’ Terrorist mass murderer Nidal Hasan urges the Taliban to implement Sharia law. Lloyd Billingsley

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2021/09/we-have-won-lloyd-billingsley/

“We Have Won!!! All-Praises be to All-Mighty Allah! Congratulations on your victory over those who hate for the Laws of All-Mighty God to be supreme on the land. I pray to Allah that He helps you implement Shariah Law fully, correctly, and fairly.”

That was Fort Hood mass murderer Nidal Hasan, in a letter to his attorney retired U.S. Army Col. John Galligan, directing his remarks to the Taliban. Hasan’s most significant word is “We.”

Hasan was a major in the U.S. Army Major but described himself as a “soldier of Allah.” In 2009, Hasan was communicating with al Qaeda terrorist Anwar al-Awlaki about killing American soldiers, then shipping out for Afghanistan. On November 5, 2009, at Fort Hood, Texas, Hasan gunned down 13 unarmed American soldiers and wounded more than 30 others. The soldier of Allah saw himself as a combatant for the Taliban, but those in charge at the time didn’t see it that way.

For the composite character president David Garrow described in Rising Star: The Making of Barack Obama, it was only “workplace violence,” not even gun violence. As Col. Galligan told Fox News this week, “workplace violence” is not even a punishable offence in the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ). True to form, Hasan was charged with mass murder, but not terrorism. According to Galligan, “the government could have elected to proceed along that line but chose not to.”

The composite character president, formerly known as Barry Soetoro, called the killings “incomprehensible,” adding that “no faith justifies these murderous and craven acts.” For Hasan, it was fully comprehensible, and he certain believed Islam justified his actions.

Vice president Joe Biden said, “Jill and I join the President and Michelle in expressing our sympathies to the families of the brave soldiers who fell today.  We are all praying for those who were wounded and hoping for their full and speedy recovery.  Our thoughts and prayers are also with the entire Fort Hood community as they deal with this senseless tragedy.” For Nidal Hasan, the attack made perfect sense.

Democrat party the gravest threat to the Republic By Eric Utter

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2021/09/democrat_party_the_gravest_threat_to_the_republic.html

There was a time when the two-party system functioned for America, a time when the Democrat party was patriotic and offered a viable alternative to the GOP. A time when we could agree to disagree about the relative size of government, and various marginal policy issues. The Democrat party once featured the likes of Harry Truman, Adlai Stevenson, and JFK.

That time is long gone. As are any principles and scruples the party may have had. It now vehemently disagrees with virtually all the founding principles of the nation. No longer does it purport to believe in limited government, of, by, and for the people. It believes in unlimited government, of, by, and for those in government. It does everything it can to undermine the rule of law and equality under law. Democrats are summarily assaulting the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. They are attacking each of the Ten Amendments, including the right to free speech, and the right to protect oneself. And now, even the right to control over one’s own body. (And, in a related note, they have previously and largely successfully disparaged the Ten Commandments and banished them from the public square.)

Democrats for the most part no longer hide their desire to control others’ lives. President Biden recently stated that he has authorized the deployment of “Surge Response Teams” made up of “experts,” in part from the Defense Department, to combat the coronavirus and bully the unvaccinated. But maybe we shouldn’t be too concerned based on the Defense Department’s recent performance in Afghanistan.

Democrats love taxing the hell out of those with gainful employment. They love spending other people’s money, often on schemes to help them attain or retain power. They have the temerity to label a tax cut a “risky spending scheme.” They currently plan to raise taxes across the board, and proposed a corporate tax rate higher than communist China’s.

Democrats routinely traffic in obfuscation, projection, deceptions and lies. The vast majority of elected Democrats seem to be for baby genocide, obstruction of justice, and a return to a race-based society, and against election integrity and the concept of God-given rights.

Afghan Resettlement Delayed after Measles Cases Detected in Recent Arrivals By Brittany Bernstein

https://www.nationalreview.com/news/afghan-resettlement-delayed-after-measles-cases-detected-in-recent-arrivals/

The CDC has reportedly recommended that Afghan evacuees being processed at U.S. military bases overseas be tested and vaccinated for measles — an undertaking that would delay resettlement efforts by weeks — after four individuals tested positive following their arrival in the United States last week.

The Biden administration first announced last week that it would pause flights for Afghan evacuees at the Ramstein Air Base in Germany and the Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar after four people tested positive following their arrival in the U.S. 

On Monday, White House deputy press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters that the administration plans to halt flights for “at least seven additional days.”

However, senior administration officials reportedly told Politico that they are making arrangements for the pause to be extended to allow thousands of people to be vaccinated and for immunity to develop. 

Such an undertaking could cause weeks-long delays in the efforts to resettle as many as 12,000 Afghans, and it would lengthen the stay of evacuees now housed at U.S. military bases, which are already struggling with overcrowding, according to the report.

“All arriving Afghans are currently required to be vaccinated for measles as a condition of their humanitarian parole and critical immunizations,” Jean-Pierre said.