FOREIGN POLICY Comments turned off

Pompeo: No One Can Ever Again Deny the Threat Iran’s Islamic Republic Presents Israel, Gulf Nations By Isabel van Brugen

Posted By on February 19th, 2021

https://www.theepochtimes.com/pompeo-no-one-can-ever-again-deny-the-threat-irans-islamic-republic-presents-israel-gulf-nations_3702900.html

Former U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Feb. 18 said he is confident that no one will ever again be able to deny the threat that the Islamic Republic in Iran presents Israel, the Gulf nations, and the United States, following the “historic” achievements for the region made under the Trump administration.

Pompeo made the remarks while accepting a “Champion of International Human Rights” award at the ninth Annual Champions of Jewish Values International Awards Gala, held by the the World Values Network on Thursday in honor of Black history month. It is the first award of its kind.

He was referring to former President Donald Trump’s Abraham Accords, a joint statement between Israel, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), and the United States—and later, with Bahrain and other Arab countries. The agreement, which earned the former president Nobel Peace Prize nominations, serves to establish new cooperation and normalization between the Middle East nations.

The deals were first announced on Aug. 13 and Sept. 11, 2020.

“I am confident that people around the world now think about Iran differently than when our administration took office,” Pompeo said, addressing the event virtually.

“And while the next administration [Biden] may choose its own tactical plan, I don’t believe that’s the case that anyone will ever again deny the threat that the Islamic Republic presents to the United States, to Israel, to Arab nations in the Gulf.”

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

DOJ Changes Legal Position in Arizona Voting Case By Matthew Vadum

Posted By on February 19th, 2021

https://www.theepochtimes.com/doj-tweaks-legal-position-in-arizona-voting-case_3702650.html

The Biden administration changed its position on an upcoming Supreme Court appeal dealing with Arizona’s electoral integrity laws, disavowing the previous administration’s interpretation of anti-discrimination provisions of the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

Although the Biden administration won’t present oral arguments in the case or update a friend-of-the-court brief filed by the Trump administration, it signaled to the justices and the public that it’s leaving the door open to adopting a more aggressive interpretation of the statute in the future.

Section 2 of the law forbids voting practices that result “in a denial or abridgment of the right … to vote on account of race or color [or language-minority status],” and provides that such a result “is established” if a jurisdiction’s “political processes … are not equally open” to members of such a group “in that [they] have less opportunity … to participate in the political process and to elect representatives of their choice.”

“That text must be construed in light of Section 2’s constitutional context, as an exercise of Congress’s authority to enforce the Fifteenth Amendment’s ban on intentional discrimination,” the Trump administration’s brief filed last year stated.

The filing comes as the litigants prepare to present oral arguments to the Supreme Court in the case on March 2.

The case is two cases that the court consolidated. The first is Brnovich v. Democratic National Committee (DNC). The second is Arizona Republican Party v. DNC. The reach of Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 is at issue.

FOREIGN POLICY Comments turned off

The Biden administration offered to restart negotiations with Iran over its nuclear program, but it was not clear if Tehran would accept.

Posted By on February 18th, 2021

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/18/us/politics/biden-iran-nuclear.html?campaign

WASHINGTON — The United States made a major move on Thursday toward restoring the Iran nuclear deal that the Trump administration abandoned, offering to join European nations in what would be the first substantial diplomacy with Tehran in more than four years, Biden administration officials said.

In an effort to make good on one of President Biden’s most significant campaign promises, Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken spoke with European foreign ministers and agreed that the 2015 nuclear accord with Iran “was a key achievement of multilateral diplomacy,” and one worth pursuing again, according to a State Department statement.

Mr. Biden has said he would lift sanctions imposed by President Donald J. Trump if Iran returned to the sharp limits on nuclear production that it observed until 2019.

Iran has said the United States was the first to violate the terms of the 2015 nuclear accord, and that it would act only after the United States reversed course and allowed it to sell oil and conduct banking operations around the world. A senior Biden administration official said on Thursday evening that closing that gap would be a “painstaking” process.

The announcement will open what is likely to be a delicate set of diplomatic offerings.

The sparring over who moves first will be just the first of many hurdles. And with a presidential election only four months away in Iran, it was not clear if the country’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and the nation’s political and military leadership would fully support re-engagement with the United States.

WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Accidental Blast During Bomb-Making Class Kills 30 Taliban Fighters

Posted By on February 18th, 2021

https://www.breitbart.com/asia/2021/02/16/accidental-blast-bomb-making-class-kills-

At least 30 Taliban members died after an explosive device detonated during a bomb-making tutorial in Afghanistan’s northern Balkh province over the weekend, the Defense Post reported on Tuesday.

A group of Taliban jihadists gathered at a mosque in the village of Qultaq on February 13 to receive training on how to assemble bombs and improvised explosive devices (IED). An explosive device accidentally detonated, killing at least “30 Taliban fighters including six foreign nationals who were expert mine makers,” according to the Afghan Army’s 209th Shaheen Corps, which confirmed the deadly blast in a statement released Saturday. The bodies of the six Taliban-affiliated foreign nationals were rendered unidentifiable by the blast, according to the statement.

The Taliban has not commented on the incident. Such accidental explosions are fairly common in war-torn Afghanistan. A similar blast occurred at a mosque in Balkh’s Chahabar Bolak district in August.

“A group of eight Taliban IED experts were busy manufacturing a bomb inside a mosque in Sikandar Khel Village [when a] … premature explosion caused by [the] IED killed four Taliban militants and wounded at least four others,” Afghanistan’s Khaama Press reported at the time, citing a statement by Afghanistan’s Shaheen Corps.

ENVIRONMENT AND JUNK SCIENCE Comments turned off

Texas: Time To Get Rid Of This Ridiculous Wind Power Francis Menton

Posted By on February 18th, 2021

https://www.manhattancontrarian.com/blog/2021-2-17-texas-time-to-get-rid-of-this-ridiculous-wind-powe

Texas. It is the number one energy producing state in the United States. It is both the largest producer of oil, and the largest producer of natural gas, and has been for decades. Texas also has abundant coal reserves. It has been ground zero of the fracking revolution, which has revolutionized oil and gas production, vastly increased supplies, driven prices down by around two-thirds since 2014, and turned the U.S. into a net energy exporter for the first time in decades. By all rights, Texas should be the shining beacon of fossil fuel energy abundance for everyone else to envy.

And yet in Texas this week, there has been a good blast of cold air, accompanied by some meaningful ice and snow storms, and suddenly Texas finds itself with widespread power blackouts covering much of the state. Although the levels of cold and ice have been somewhat unusual, they have also been well within the range of historical experience. Meanwhile, other states farther north have been colder and have had more snow and more ice and yet the power has not gone out. What gives?

The simple answer is that despite its great abundance of fossil fuel energy, Texas nevertheless fell big for the ridiculous scam of trying to produce a high percentage of its electricity from wind. Yes, the story is somewhat more complicated than that, as stories always are. But not much more complicated. Basically, with its grid stressed in many ways in the past week, the wind was useless to carry the load that needed to be carried.

The Wall Street Journal in an editorial today collects some basic data from Texas as to electricity supply capacity and usage. Total winter generation capacity for the state is about 83 GW, while peak winter usage is about 57 GW. That’s a margin of over 45% of capacity over peak usage. In a fossil-fuel-only or fossil-fuel-plus-nuclear system, where all sources of power are dispatchable, a margin of 20% would be considered normal, and 30% would be luxurious. This margin is well more than that. How could that not be sufficient?

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Florida is completely exposing the lie of lockdown Daniel Horowitz

Posted By on February 18th, 2021

https://www.theblaze.com/op-ed/horowitz-with-no-mask-mandate-and-schools-open-florida-ranks-11th-lowest-in-excess-deaths-among-seniors

There’s a reason why the Biden regime is trying to attack Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and create an illusion of a disproportionate viral crisis in the state. With no declared emergency restrictions in place at the state level since last September, the fact that Florida is doing better than the national average completely exposes the lie of lockdown and masks having any effect whatsoever on the fixed natural progression of the virus.

Dr. Fauci is suggesting a novel scientific principle – that schools can’t reopen until Congress passes yet another “stimulus” bill. Yet in Florida, schools have been open all year, and the state’s excess deaths for 2020 rank the 16th lowest in the nation, according to a new analysis. What’s more, the Sunshine State, which is regarded as God’s waiting room for seniors, experienced the 11th lowest per capita rate of COVID deaths for seniors in 2020.

A new analysis conducted by RationalGround.com and exclusively obtained by TheBlaze collated CDC excess death data for 49 states (excluding North Carolina, which has incomplete data) and ranked the states from smallest to largest increase in excess deaths from 2019 to 2020. As we have seen in study after study, there is absolutely zero correlation between non-pharmaceutical interventions, such as business and school closures or mask mandates, and a lower rate of excess deaths.

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

What Has the WHO Done to Deserve a $200 Million Blank Check From Biden? By Rick Moran

Posted By on February 18th, 2021

https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/rick-moran/2021/02/18/u-s-will-pay-who-200-million-in-dues-after-trump-cut-funding-n1426476

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken has informed the United Nations that the U.S. will pay the World Health Organization $200 million in dues. The money is owed to WHO after the Trump administration cut funding to the group.

The cash certainly isn’t for a job well done. As of today, more than 2.5 million people have died in a pandemic that the WHO knew about early on and after the organization failed to take steps against China to mitigate the disaster. In fact, the organization has been a Chinese toady throughout the pandemic, running interference for China and keeping a lid on Chinese incompetence, mismanagement, and perhaps even negligence in handling a dangerous pathogen.

The WHO hasn’t saved a single life and probably cost lives with their contradictory and confusing directives on how to stay healthy. Why give them anything?

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Unity Watch: Democrats Introduce a Bill to Punish Trump When He Dies By Victoria Taft

Posted By on February 18th, 2021

https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/victoria-taft/2021/02/18/unity-watch-democrats-introduce-a-bill-to-punish-trump-when-he-dies-n1426572

Democrats want to make Donald Trump’s death as miserable as they tried to make his life in office.

The Democrats began trying to politically kill off Donald Trump before he took office and now they want to kill off his memory up to and after he leaves this mortal coil.

California Democrat Congresswoman Linda Sanchez has introduced a bill to deprive President Trump of the typical honors of every former president.

Her bill, HR 484, is called the “No Glory for Hate Act,” and seeks to deprive the former president from being buried in Arlington National Cemetery or to have any kind of memorials erected in his honor.

Attorney and GOP activist Harmeet Dhillon has a question for Sanchez and her co-sponsors.

This is pathetic, even for you, House Democrats. I heard some of you went to law school. Ever heard of a bill of attainder?

CHARLOTTE'S NEWS WEB, NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

The First Step Towards Righting America Is Refusing To Believe The Left About Anything Jesse Kelly

Posted By on February 18th, 2021

https://thefederalist.com/2021/02/18/the-first-step-towards-righting-america-is-refusing-to-believe-the-left-about-anything/

Did you know that you can see The Great Wall of China from outer space? Is that not absolutely incredible? I heard this cool little fact from a friend some time ago and began telling everyone I knew about this cool trivia nugget.

What really blew me away was how almost everyone I told had already heard this and agreed with me that it is a very cool fact. A man-made wall you can see from outer space. That is just incredible.

I mean, it would be incredible, if it were true. You see, it is not true—not even a little. NASA and multiple individual astronauts have debunked this myth. Yet much of the general public believes it to be a fact, as NASA points out.

But why? The narrative. That is why. There is nothing more powerful (and destructive) in today’s world than the narrative.

The narrative, as I define it, is simply an assumption or set of assumptions widely accepted by the general public as facts. As we know, facts cannot be changed. That is why they are facts.

This is also why it is so critical to ensure the general public gets an accurate narrative. Otherwise, if the base set of publicly believed facts is wrong, every step after that will also be incorrect. It’s like getting swallowed up by an avalanche and digging ferociously in the wrong direction.

P.C.-CULTURE Comments turned off

Mediocrity’s Envy of Genius: The Dirty Secret of Cancel Culture By David P. Goldman

Posted By on February 18th, 2021

The Cultural Revolutionaries at the New York Times this week reviewed the witch hunt against classical musicians, who stand accused of racism simply because the great Western composers happened to be white. Cancel culture is despicable in all of its manifestations, but I take this particular instance personally: I trained in the school of musical analysis founded by Heinrich Schenker (1868-1935). My principle teacher was Carl Schachter, who also taught Prof. Timothy Jackson of the University of North Texas, the target of this particular witch hunt

It’s all about envy.

My childhood piano teacher kept a recording of Florence Foster Jenkins, the deluded society lady portrayed by Meryl Streep in a 2016 comedy, as a horrible example for youth. Her voice would de-feather a screech-owl, but no-one was allowed to tell her she couldn’t sing. The only classical musician still active who bears comparison to Ms. Jenkins is a certain Philip Ewell, now a professor of music theory at Hunter College, who posts videos of himself torturing a cello until it squeals in pain. Prof. Ewell is African-American and has won his fifteen minutes of fame by denouncing whiteness in classical music.

All this would be of scant interest except that Prof. Ewell has become the scourge of alleged racism in the classical music world, and may have succeeded in extirpating from the academy a grand tradition of musical analysis that began with Beethoven. Ewell also dismisses Beethoven as merely “an above average composer” whose prominence erases the contribution of composers of color. Thanks to Ewell’s rampage against supposed white supremacy in classical music, the living chain of teacher-to-pupil transmission of this aspect of Western civilization may be broken irreparably.