NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Pelosi’s Jan. 6 Commission Half the country won’t believe its findings no matter who’s on it.

Posted By on June 30th, 2021

https://www.wsj.com/articles/pelosis-jan-6-commission-11625005856?mod=opinion_lead_pos4

Nancy Pelosi is giving her plan to investigate the Jan. 6 Capitol riot one more try, and this one looks even less likely to find a common set of credible facts and conclusions.

The Speaker on Monday introduced legislation to create a new select House committee to probe the Capitol riot and may hold a vote this week. This follows her attempt to establish a commission with members from outside Congress. That failed amid Republican concern that the structure of the commission gave Democrats the ability to appoint and control the commission staff.

Her new plan is even more lopsided. Mrs. Pelosi would appoint all 13 members and the chairman. Eight spots would go to Democrats, and five to Republicans—despite a closely divided House. Mrs. Pelosi would retain authority to veto GOP members named by Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy. The committee chairman would have unilateral subpoena power, as well as the ability to order depositions in consultation with the (Pelosi-approved) ranking Republican.

Mrs. Pelosi has already made clear what she thinks happened on Jan. 6. She said the committee’s job will be to explore the “root causes of [Jan. 6]—the white supremacy, the anti-Semitism, the Islamophobia, all the rest of it that was so evident.” Nothing like prejudging. It will also look at Capitol security and “what it means to be ready for such an insurrection.”

Her real goal is to keep Jan. 6 alive in the public mind to use against Republicans to maintain control of the House in 2022. Democrats also hope the committee will divide Republicans. Mrs. Pelosi said this week she might name a Republican as one of her eight picks. She’s betting Reps. Liz Cheney or Adam Kinzinger will sign up, and in the process highlight the GOP divide over Donald Trump.

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

The New Racial Discrimination The Biden Administration’s ‘equity’ policies are losing in court.

Posted By on June 30th, 2021

https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-new-racial-discrimination-11625006066?mod=opinion_lead_pos1

The Supreme Court recently put off whether to hear a case accusing Harvard of discriminating by race in admissions. The Court asked the Biden Administration for its view of the case, punting a decision to next fall or later. We hope the Justices realize that sooner or later they will have to decide whether the new wave of racial discrimination is constitutional.

President Biden’s emphasis on “equity” as a dominant policy goal is already creating new challenges in the federal courts. By equity, Mr. Biden means preferences for some racial groups over others to achieve equal outcomes. A federal judge in Wisconsin recently issued a temporary restraining order against a $3.8 billion Department of Agriculture program that allocates loan forgiveness by race. And last week another federal judge, this one in Florida, issued a preliminary injunction.

This program, part of Covid-19 relief, is aimed at helping “socially disadvantaged farmers.” A USDA fact sheet boasts that it steers benefits to those who are “Black, Native American/Alaskan Native, Asian American or Pacific Islander, or are of Hispanic/Latino ethnicity.” The legislation further includes $1.01 billion in funding “to USDA to create a racial equity commission and address longstanding discrimination across USDA.”

BOOKS, CHARLOTTE'S NEWS WEB Comments turned off

In the war of 2034, China has won the first battle without firing a shot  by Jamie McIntyre

Posted By on June 30th, 2021

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/policy/defense-national-security/in-the-war-of-2034-china-has-won-the-first-battle-without-firing-a-shot

EXCERPT FROM THIS ARTICLE:  “Instead of us doing business with China, and China becoming freer, what has happened is a place like China has bought our silence with their money,”

Retired four-star Adm. Jim Stavridis has a hot property on his hands.

Stavridis is the co-author of a critically acclaimed bestseller, 2034: A Novel of the Next World War, a scarily plausible imagining of how the United States and China could be drawn into a war and how badly it could turn out for both sides.

With a cast of complex, finely drawn characters and true-to-life depictions of current and future military capabilities, it’s just the sort of made-for-Hollywood technothriller that seems destined for a big or small screen near you.

The book had been out only a few months, when sure enough, Stavridis’s phone rang.

“I was called by the CEO of one of the largest studios in the country on a Friday who said, ‘I’m reading the book. I love it. The only question in my mind is whether we’re going to do a movie or we’re going to do a miniseries. Who’s your agent?” he said.

As Stavridis recounted last month on the podcast Chatter on Books, he spent the weekend scrambling to get an agent with experience negotiating movie rights and called the CEO back on Monday.

But by then, something had changed.

“Bad news,” said the CEO. “I read to the end of the book, and you know, I just can’t sell this in China.”

Stavridis may yet see his work of cautionary fiction, written in the spirit of classic Cold War novels such as On the Beach or Fail-Safe, turned into a movie or streaming series. Still, for now, the unseen hand of Chinese censorship has killed the project without lifting a finger.

ISRAEL Comments turned off

Lapid, don’t count on courting Democrats Ruthie Blum

Posted By on June 30th, 2021

https://www.jns.org/opinion/lapid-dont-count-on-courting-democrats/

Israeli Foreign Minister Yair Lapid seems pleased about his meeting on Sunday in Rome with U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken. Like his American counterpart, he belongs to the self-described “center” of a political camp pressured by a far-left minority.

What this means is that while neither is openly hostile to either country, both cling to failed premises about the nature and purpose of international relations. More specifically, Blinken believes that the best way to prevent the powers-that-be in Tehran from building the bomb is through a return to the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) or some version of it.

Lapid, who was gung-ho for the JCPOA when it was negotiated in 2015, now says he has “serious reservations” about resuming its current iteration. Still, he hastened to reassure Blinken that the new Israeli government “believe[s] the way to discuss [Israeli-American] disagreements is through direct and professional conversation, not a press conference.”

This was a not-so-veiled reference to Benjamin “Bibi” Netanyahu, whose tenure as the longest-serving prime minister in Israel’s history ended on June 13. Less than a month earlier, the now-former prime minister ostensibly embarrassed Blinken during a joint talk with reporters in the wake of the ceasefire that ended “Operation Guardian of the Walls,” Israel’s 11-day war against Hamas and terrorist infrastructure in Gaza.
“I hope that the United States will not go back to the old JCPOA, because we believe that that deal paves the way for Iran to have an arsenal of nuclear weapons with international legitimacy,” said Netanyahu unabashedly, despite sharing the stage with Blinken.

“Whatever happens, Israel will always reserve the right to defend itself against a regime committed to our destruction, committed to getting the weapons of mass destruction for that end,” he declared.

The very different message that Lapid wanted to convey to Blinken was that Washington could count on his tact and obeisance—traits that Netanyahu supposedly has been incapable of exhibiting towards Democrat-run administrations. It’s an accusation that Lapid and his “center-left” compatriots have been hurling at Netanyahu for years, both when Barack Obama was in the White House and during Donald Trump’s term in the Oval Office.

ISRAEL Comments turned off

Could Palestinian protests lead to the ouster of Mahmoud Abbas? David Isaac

Posted By on June 30th, 2021

https://www.jns.org/could-palestinian-protests-lead-to-the-ouster-of-mahmoud-ab

Hamas is also turning up the heat, hoping to one day seize control of the West Bank from Fatah as it did in Gaza.

As unrest continues in Ramallah and Hebron, questions have arisen surrounding the future of Palestinian Authority (PA) leader Mahmoud Abbas.

For the fifth straight day Monday, protesters called for the ouster of Abbas following the death of activist Nizar Banat. PA security forces forcibly removed Banat from his home last Thursday near Hebron. He was beaten with iron rods by two dozen officers, taken for questioning and pronounced dead a few hours later, according to his family, Reuters reported. Banat was a vocal critic of Abbas.

Large-scale protests ensued. Videos uploaded to social media show Palestinian forces, some in riot gear, others in plainclothes, firing tear gas at protesters, hitting them with fists and clubs and targeting reporters. Journalists on the scene expressed their anger, with one tweeting, “Abbas will fall, the authority will fall, and the security coordination dogs will fall.” Hundreds also protested on the Temple Mount.

“These protests are almost unprecedented in their intensity, in the number of people participating in them,” Arab-Israeli journalist Khaled Abu Toameh told JNS. “For the first time you see large numbers of people chanting ‘Down with Abbas’ … It’s no longer about Nizar Banat only. It’s about people demanding regime change.”

Last Friday in Hebron, thousands attended Banat’s funeral, with mourners arriving from across PA-controlled territory.

“Abbas has completed the 16th year of a four-year term. Under him, things seem to be going in the wrong direction for the Palestinians,” Toameh said, noting divisions within Fatah, the loss of the Gaza Strip to Hamas, lack of freedom of speech and the recent crackdown on activists.

He added, “The feeling on the Palestinian street is that the Palestinian leadership is on a different planet, that it’s insensitive to demands regarding elections, regarding reform, regarding corruption. If you take all these things into consideration, you see how serious it is. The Palestinian people feel they’re not part of the Palestinian decision-making process and Abbas has turned it into a private fiefdom. People are saying enough is enough.”

ISRAEL Comments turned off

Biden administration turns to UNRWA in its rush to rebuild Gaza David Isaac

Posted By on June 30th, 2021

https://www.jns.org/the-biden-administration-turns-to-unrwa-in-its-rush-to-rebuild-g

“UNRWA is a very problematic organization. It is fully controlled by Hamas. Hamas uses the facilities of UNRWA for weapons storage and to launch rockets. All of the local employees of UNRWA are Hamas people. Nobody’s allowed to work in UNRWA without the permission of Hamas,” said Kobi Michael, senior researcher at Tel Aviv’s Institute for National Security Studies.

Following the recent war between Israel and Hamas, the Biden administration has put an emphasis on rebuilding the Gaza Strip, promising the terror group won’t benefit. Some experts say Washington’s approach will fail to bear fruit.

Rebuilding Gaza was the first agenda item U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken mentioned when he met Israeli Foreign Minister Yair Lapid in Rome on Sunday. It’s a recurring theme for Blinken, who brought up reconstruction of Gaza at every stop during his two-day visit to the Middle East in late May, days after the last bombs fell in “Operation Guardian of the Walls.” He stressed that rebuilding Gaza must be done in such a way that Hamas, which runs the coastal enclave, won’t redirect the aid to its military effort.

Blinken was echoing President Joe Biden, who shortly before a May 21 ceasefire said the U.S. would seek to quickly rebuild Gaza “in a manner that does not permit Hamas to simply restock its military arsenal.”

The administration is funneling money to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA). In April, it had announced it was restoring $150 million to the U.N. agency. Following the Gaza conflict, Blinken said the U.S. would inject almost $33 million for “UNRWA’s emergency humanitarian appeal,” again ensuring “Hamas does not benefit from these reconstruction efforts.”

Asaf Romirowsky, executive director of Scholars for Peace in the Middle East, who has studied UNRWA for two decades, said, “UNRWA is a case study of the client hijacking the service provider because the majority of UNRWA employees are Palestinians.” (UNRWA employs 28,000 Palestinian staff members, according to its website.)

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Biden’s Baking an Orwellian Upside-Down Cake of Taxes and Entitlements By Lawrence Kudlow KUDLOW,

Posted By on June 30th, 2021

https://www.nysun.com/national/bidens-baking-an-orwellian-upside-down-cake/91557/

It’s bad enough that President Biden and the Democratic congressional leaders essentially double-crossed the GOP bipartisan infrastructure package including the democrats who participated, And it’s really bad that Speaker Pelosi & Co. are holding the infrastructure package hostage, to a tsunami of tax hikes and massive entitlement increases all of which will do great damage to the economy.

Now, though, President Biden is now comparing his multi-trillion dollar boatload of new entitlements to tax cuts. It’s an Orwellian upside-down-cake. Here’s what the President said:

“I think it’s time to give ordinary people a tax break … Why is this not a tax break for working folks when the stuff we give to the super wealthy are called tax breaks? Look, major action on clean energy, housing, caregiving, on child and paid leave, universal pre-k, free community college. The human infrastructure is intertwined with our physical infrastructure.”

Huh? They’re not tax cuts. They’re spending. Permanent spending. Remember what the great Nobel laureate economist Milton Friedman said. “Keep your eye on one thing and one thing only: how much government is spending, because that’s the true tax …”

And Mr. Biden wants government cash payments without any work qualifications or other employment incentives. They are middle class entitlements.

If you have a moment take a look at today’s Wall Street Journal editorial: “It’s the Entitlements, Stupid.” Then if you have a moment more, read the op-ed piece from my old friend and Reagan budget office colleague John Cogan entitled “Biden’s plan for an entitlement society.”

WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Cut Off the Blood Supply to China’s Communist Party: End Trade by Gordon G. Chang

Posted By on June 29th, 2021

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/17512/end-china-trade

The real problem for Beijing is that consumption, the only sustainable part of the Chinese economy, looks far softer than officially reported, something evident from the widely followed China Beige Book survey. Spending will not fully recover until the coronavirus pandemic passes, and that is unlikely to happen soon due to China’s barely effective vaccines.

In any event, Washington must begin enforcing laws, especially those banning the importation of products made with forced or slave labor.

Japan’s Uniqlo is not the only brand that has been implicated. Nike and Apple have, through subcontractors, apparently used such labor. Enforcement has been hampered by, among other things, lack of personnel and a failure of political will.

The larger goal has to be an ending of trade relations with China. “Because the threat posed by China to the United States results from its hostile system and includes economic, technological, and military dimensions, only systemic, not piecemeal, responses can possibly protect critical U.S. interests,” Washington, D.C.-based trade expert Alan Tonelson tells Gatestone. “Sanctions against individuals or companies will inevitably produce only pinprick effects, and even these are easily nullified with shell game corporate renamings and personnel changes.”

“I want to be clear on this, our goal is not to hold China back,” said U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken in a June 25 interview with Anne Claire Coudray of TF1. “It is not to establish a policy against China.”

Really? The Chinese regime spread a disease that has at last count killed 604,000 Americans; last year it urged the violent overthrow of the American government; it is killing tens of thousands of Americans annually with fentanyl and related opioids; and it steals half a trillion dollars of American intellectual property every 12 months. It has even declared a “people’s war” on America.

EDUCATION Comments turned off

Majority of Voters Reject Teaching Children That America Is ‘Structurally Racist’: Harvard Poll By GQ Pan

Posted By on June 29th, 2021

https://www.theepochtimes.com/majority-of-voters-reject-teaching-children-that-

About two-thirds of Americans believe that children should not be taught in school the claim that the United States is a “structurally racist” nation dominated by white supremacy, a new poll revealed.

The findings were published last week as part of an online survey (pdf) conducted by the Center for American Political Studies at Harvard University and The Harris Poll between June 15 and 17, among 2,006 registered voters. The survey asked participants whether they “believe that kids in elementary school should be taught that America is structurally racist and is dominated by white supremacy.”

In response, 61 percent of participants answered children “should not be taught this,” while the remaining 39 percent said children “should be taught that America is structurally racist.”

When it came to another question regarding the teaching of the First Amendment in schools, an overwhelming 81 percent of participants said elementary school students should learn about the First Amendment and the importance of free speech, compared to 19 percent who said they should not.

The results of the survey echoed those of an online poll conducted by Economist and YouGov poll between June 13 and 15, among 1,500 adult U.S. citizens. Participants were asked if they had “a good idea of what critical race theory (CRT) is,” to which 54 percent responded “yes,” 23 percent said “no,” and 23 percent said they are “not sure.”

Those who said they knew about CRT were then asked whether they have a “favorable or unfavorable” opinion of it. Of these participants, 58 percent said they at least have a “somewhat unfavorable” view of CRT, while 38 percent say they are in favor of the Marxism-rooted ideology, which deems the foundations of the American system to be inherently and irredeemably racist.

WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

The False Claim That ‘Muslims Are Being Lynched in India’ And how and why the truth is being kept from you. Ashlyn Davis

Posted By on June 29th, 2021

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2021/06/false-claim-muslims-are-being-lynched-india-ashlyn-davis/

We received an interesting reply to one of our articles yesterday. When we reported about the Muslim preacher Mohammad Umar Gautam, who has been arrested by the Uttar Pradesh Anti-Terror Squad for running a religious conversion outlet, one Twitter user claimed, “They are already lynching Muslims on streets with impunity, don’t make their situation worse.” 

We found it incongruous that in a country where a Muslim preacher, supported by politicians and industrialists, openly holds congregations to convert non-Muslims to Islam, Muslims are being lynched on the streets, and that, too, with impunity. But we believe in giving a fair chance to all claims and so did some research, and this is what we found.

In 2017, a Muslim man, Pehlu Khan, was attacked under the suspicion of cow theft, and succumbed to his injuries. The incident got immediate judicial attention; the accused were detained by the police and then-Home Minister Rajnath Singh assured justice. Crimes cannot be obliterated from a country of over 1.3 billion. But to contend that the crime against the Muslim was committed with impunity is a shameless stretch of the truth in order to claim eternal victimhood.

This is the dear and treasured victimhood status that many Muslims have been unremittingly exploiting throughout Narendra Modi’s tenure as Prime Minister. Nurturing their deep-seated hatred for Hindus, they have now prefixed their favorite hyperbolic claim, “lynched for being a Muslim” with “forced to chant Jai Shree Ram,” in order to satiate their occasional cravings for affronting Hindu sentiments.

We have previously detailed how, earlier this month, the Muslim intelligentsia, comprising Muslim media personalities, politicians and political influencers, distorted the Muslim-on-Muslim violence in Uttar Pradesh’s Ghaziabad into an assault on a Muslim by Hindu extremists. This venomous cabal has mastered the art of coming up with false and deceptive claims of “hate crimes” every time a Muslim is victimized, regardless of the faith of his offender or the cause of the attack. Hinduphobic media houses and assorted websites have repeatedly latched onto such stories, ensuring they reach every corner of the world, but have done nothing to negate the impact of the misinformation after investigations revealed these to be warped narratives and that no hate crime was involved.