FOREIGN POLICY Comments turned off

Why You Should Be Skeptical Of The New ‘Tough On China’ Joe Biden By Ben Weingarten

Posted By on February 17th, 2021

https://thefederalist.com/2021/02/17/why-you-should-be-skeptical-of-the-new-tough-on-china-joe-biden/

The Biden administration is stocking up with the same Democrat establishment cast that supported the project of China’s rise to global dominance.

The Biden administration and its corporate media cheerleaders are at pains to tell you that career-long China kowtower Joe Biden is “tough on China.” But toughness can only be proven by action. Contra the official narrative, however, President Biden’s initial policies and those tasked with implementing and building upon them do not indicate strength. Rather, to America’s detriment, they signal a reversion to the status quo ante of weakness.

The media has trumpeted Biden administration rhetoric on three key China-related issues: the administration’s affirmation — with caveats — of the Trump administration’s designation of the Chinese Communist Party’s atrocities in Xinjiang as constituting “genocide”; its pledge of a “rock-solid commitment” to Taiwan; and its promise to maintain a “free and open” Indo-Pacific — again, with caveats.

The media also celebrated the Biden administration’s most authoritative statements on U.S.-China policy yet, from a readout of the president’s first call with Chinese Communist Party General Secretary Xi Jinping, and related statements by officials on the administration’s China strategy. Headlines about the call claimed Biden “confronted” Xi with “concerns” about contentious issues such as human rights, trade, and Taiwan. Chinese state media, of course, saw it quite differently — as an amiable and welcome reversal of Trump’s tough on China stance.

American corporate media also reported that Biden staffers embraced the idea America is in an “intense strategic competition with China,” and would be maintaining some of the Trump administration’s policies — a tacit admission of Trump’s relative toughness.

HUMOR AND SATIRE Comments turned off

Chinese Spy Assigned To Date Eric Swalwell Begs To Be Sent To Labor Camp Instead

Posted By on February 17th, 2021

https://twitter.com/thebabylonbee/status/1362054200973213696?s=11

BEIJING—Sources within the Chinese government confirmed today that the spy who was assigned to date Rep. Eric Swalwell and get information from him abruptly returned to China and begged to be sent to a labor camp instead.

“Please — don’t make me go back!” she begged after returning to China in 2015. “I’ll do anything! I’ll break rocks! I’ll build a railroad! I’ll — I’ll even make shoes for Nike! Just don’t make me go back and date that man again!”

“It’s cruel and unusual punishment. Which, I guess, is allowed here, but still. It’s not a good look,” she said.

An international human rights board agreed, putting pressure on the Chinese government to stop forcing spies to date Eric Swalwell and other U.S. congressmen. “We call on the Chinese to resort to traditional methods of punishment like labor camps, torture, and just straight-up executing citizens rather than the cruelty of sending spies to America to date congressmen.”

BOOKS, HOMELAND SECURITY Comments turned off

Book Review: America’s Covert Border War Andrew Harrod

Posted By on February 17th, 2021

https://www.jihadwatch.org/2021/02/inside-americas-counter-jihad-covert-border-war#comment-2319899

Inside America’s Counter-Jihad Covert Border War

Contrary to America’s Leftists, “that jihadists would infiltrate land borders among bedraggled war refugees” is not an “outrageous fantasy of fringe racists, nativist immigration restrictionists, and conspiracy lunatics.” So writes Center for Immigration Studies National Security Fellow Todd Bensman in his revealing new book examining America’s Covert Border War: The Untold Story of the Nation’s Battle to Prevent Jihadist Infiltration.

Bensman is an experienced observer of his subject. This former Texas journalist became in 2009 a senior intelligence analyst with the Texas Department of Public Safety’s Intelligence and Counterterrorism Division. With federal security clearance, he worked firsthand with federal agents in Texas government “fusion center” on border security issues.

Particularly since Al Qaeda’s September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, Democratic and Republican administrations alike have worried about terrorist threats breaching America’s southern border, Bensman has documented. With bipartisan backing, officials have “deployed an internationally expansive, ambitious, and somehow almost entirely unreported counterterrorism enterprise at the border and along its Latin American approaches.” Yet this machinery “just became a victim of its own success in preventing jihadist attack” and has gone largely unnoticed.

ISRAEL Comments turned off

The Palestinian Issue – a Land-for-Peace Proposition? Ambassador (ret.) Yoram Ettinger,

Posted By on February 17th, 2021

https://bit.ly/3u6QpL8

Conventional wisdom assumes that the Palestinian Authority is amenable to peaceful-coexistence with Israel; that peaceful-coexistence is advanced by financial support of the Palestinian Authority; that a core concern for the Palestinian Authority is the land acquired by Israel in the 1967 War; and that land-for-peace (Israel’s retreat to the pre-1967 lines) is a prerequisite for Israel-Palestinian peaceful-coexistence.

Are these assumptions consistent with the Palestinian reality?

While the Palestinian ethos features religious, political, ideological, demographic and legal components, its core ingredient is a specific parcel of land, which pulls the rug out from under the “land-for-peace” assumption.

The centrality of the “1948 land” in the Palestinian ethos is underscored by the late Dr. Yuval Arnon-Ohanna, who was the head of the Mossad’s Palestinian research division and a ground-breaking researcher of the Palestinian issue (Line of Furrow and Fire). This is documented by pivotal Palestinian books, such as the six-volume Al Nakbah (“The 1948 Catastrophe”), as well as the 1959 and 1964 Fatah and PLO covenants – which are the ideological and strategic core of the Palestinian Authority – and the Palestinian educational curriculum.

These foundational documents have served as a most effective generator of Palestinian terrorism since 1948, and especially since the signing of the 1993 Oslo Accords.  They focus on the outcome of the failed 1948 Arab military invasion – by five Arab countries and the local Arabs – of the Jewish State. 

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

$1.4 Billion in COVID-Relief Payments Sent to Dead People by Internal Revenue Service By Adam Andrzejewski

Posted By on February 17th, 2021

https://www.realclearpolicy.com/articles/2021/02/16/14_million_in_covid-relief_payments_sent_to_dead_people_by_internal_revenue_service_660041.html

Last June, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) reported that Uncle Sam sent $1.4 billion in COVID relief funds to 1 million dead people. They’ve asked for it back, but dead people are notoriously bad about paying up. The federal government is equally bad about clawing it back.

The year before COVID hit, dead people received $871.9 million in mistaken payments through Medicaid, Social Security, the federal pension system, and even through farm subsidies.

That figure was part of $175 billion in “improper payments” in FY2019. And that’s only the payments that the top 20 largest federal agencies admitted to – as detailed in our report at OpenTheBooks.com.

That’s about $15 billion per month, $500 million per day, and $1 million a minute to the wrong person, in the wrong amount, or for the wrong reason. The 16-year improper payments total: a whopping $2.3 trillion.

Of the $175 billion sent to the wrong (or the dead) folks: Uncle Sam recaptured only $21.1 billion, roughly 14 cents on every misspent dollar. Over five years, federal agencies clawed back only $104 billion of the $748 billion sent in error.

Our auditors suggest looking at Social Security’s list of six million Americans age 112+-years old. One estimate says that the headcount of Americans 110+-years only numbers between 60-70!

The #WasteOfTheDay is presented by the forensic auditors at OpenTheBooks.com.

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

The Indispensable Man Rush Limbaugh, 1951-2021 by Mark Steyn

Posted By on February 17th, 2021

https://www.steynonline.com/11078/the-indispensable-man

It is with profound sadness that we announce the death of Rush Limbaugh, a giant of American broadcasting, a uniquely talented performer, and a hugely generous man to whom I owe almost everything.

Rush died this morning, after a year-long struggle with lung cancer. I was scheduled to guest-host today’s show. Instead, as you can hear, his beloved Kathryn will be introducing a special program put together by the EIB team to celebrate a great man’s life and legacy. It’s a hard thing to do – compressing a glorious third-of-a-century into three hours – but Snerdley, Kraig, Mike, Allie and everyone else I’ve worked with there for so many years will do their best.

Usually, in this line of work, if you’re lucky, you get a moment – a year or two when you’re the in-thing – and you hope to hold enough of that moment as it slowly fades away to keep you going till retirement. Rush did something unprecedented in the history of TV and radio. Commercial broadcasting began in the United States in 1920: The Rush Limbaugh Show came along two-thirds of a century later, became the Number One program very quickly, and has stayed at the top all the way to today – for a third of the entire history of the medium. And throughout all those decades Rush and his show stayed exactly the same: a forensic breakdown of the day’s news, punctuated by musical parodies, satirical sketches, and Rush’s own optimism and good humor, even through this last terrible year.

The comedy is what his many enemies and half his own side missed: Rush took politics seriously but not solemnly. In the early years of the war on terror, he introduced an Afghan version of himself “with talent on loan from Allah” and sold Club Gitmo merchandise for those seeking a tropical retreat from jihad. When Brokeback Mountain was in the news, the show ran trailers for Return to Saddle-Sore Canyon: “It’s John McCain and Lindsey Graham as you’ve always wanted to see them!” Which, in my case at least, is true.

EDUCATION Comments turned off

Chicago’s Big Education, Inc. The teachers’ union’s outsize power comes at the expense of students, parents, and taxpayers. Adam Andrzejewski

Posted By on February 17th, 2021

https://www.city-journal.org/reining-in-the-chicago-teachers-union

On Super Bowl Sunday, the Chicago Teachers Union announced its intention to return to the classroom. Finally, Chicago’s 347,476 public school students can receive the same in-person instruction that many private and parochial students have already been receiving throughout the pandemic. Why does this seem like such a big achievement?

Other “essential” workers such as grocery clerks, doctors and nurses, and package-delivery workers haven’t enjoyed the same luxury of working remotely—and they’ve kept doing their jobs without the generous pay and benefits earned by Chicago’s public-school teachers.

In 2020, Chicago had 20,927 full-time teachers at a total payroll cost of $2.3 billion, according to a response to a Freedom of Information Act request by our organization, OpenTheBooks.com. Our auditors found that the average Chicago teacher earned $108,730 last year—$81,422 in salary and another $27,307 in benefits. Further, teachers are allowed to accumulate up to 244 sick days for use or pension credit. (A full school year runs only 175 days.)

It’s not just unionized teachers who enjoy excellent pay, perks, and pension benefits. The most highly compensated Chicago Public Schools (CPU) employee was the CEO, Janice K. Jackson, who made $322,839—a $260,000 salary and an additional $62,839 in benefits. Jackson’s salary alone was $61,000 higher than that of the U.S. Secretary of Education, a cabinet-level position. And Chicago’s 522 school principals averaged $194,000 in pay and benefits last year, with the most highly compensated earning up to $219,000. Another 304 acting, interim, assistant, and resident principals averaged $171,315 in pay and perks.

MEDIA Comments turned off

The False and Exaggerated Claims Still Being Spread About the Capitol Riot Insisting on factual accuracy does not make one an apologist for the protesters. False reporting is never justified, especially to inflate threat and fear levels. Glenn Greenwald *****

Posted By on February 17th, 2021

https://greenwald.substack.com/p/the-false-and-exaggerated-claims

“One can — and should — condemn the January 6 riot without inflating the threat it posed. And one can — and should — insist on both factual accuracy and sober restraint without standing accused of sympathy for the rioters.”

What took place at the Capitol on January 6 was undoubtedly a politically motivated riot. As such, it should not be controversial to regard it as a dangerous episode. Any time force or violence is introduced into what ought to be the peaceful resolution of political conflicts, it should be lamented and condemned.

But none of that justifies lying about what happened that day, especially by the news media. Condemning that riot does not allow, let alone require, echoing false claims in order to render the event more menacing and serious than it actually was. There is no circumstance or motive that justifies the dissemination of false claims by journalists. The more consequential the event, the less justified, and more harmful, serial journalistic falsehoods are.

Yet this is exactly what has happened, and continues to happen, since that riot almost seven weeks ago. And anyone who tries to correct these falsehoods is instantly attacked with the cynical accusation that if you want only truthful reporting about what happened, then you’re trying to “minimize” what happened and are likely an apologist for if not a full-fledged supporter of the protesters themselves.

One of the most significant of these falsehoods was the tale — endorsed over and over without any caveats by the media for more than a month — that Capitol Police officer Brian Sicknick was murdered by the pro-Trump mob when they beat him to death with a fire extinguisher. That claim was first published by The New York Times on January 8 in an article headlined “Capitol Police Officer Dies From Injuries in Pro-Trump Rampage.” It cited “two [anonymous] law enforcement officials” to claim that Sicknick died “with the mob rampaging through the halls of Congress” and after he “was struck with a fire extinguisher.”

WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Hong Kong Trial of Nine Pro-Democracy Activists Begins Martin Lee, newspaper publisher Jimmy Lai are among the veteran activists facing charges that carry possible prison sentences of up to five years

Posted By on February 17th, 2021

https://www.wsj.com/articles/hong-kong-trial-of-nine-pro-democracy-activists-begins-11613481810

HONG KONG—Nine veteran pro-democracy activists appeared together in court Tuesday on charges related to the mass protests that rocked the city in 2019, in a trial that stands out for the number and prominence of the defendants facing prosecution.

They include 82-year-old pro-democracy campaigner Martin Lee, newspaper publisher Jimmy Lai and seven others who face charges of illegal assembly that carry possible sentences of up to five years in prison.

While the prosecution of Hong Kong’s opposition has become increasingly commonplace, the defendants in the trial beginning Tuesday are a Who’s Who of an earlier generation of activists who have been fighting for core issues like the rule of law and political participation since before the U.K. returned Hong Kong to China in 1997.

Mr. Lee is a U.K.-trained lawyer who co-founded the city’s first pro-democracy party and helped write Hong Kong’s foundational legal document, the 1990 Basic Law. Others charged include Margaret Ng, a 73-year-old barrister; Albert Ho, a 69-year-old lawyer and activist; Lee Cheuk-yan, a 64-year-old labor leader, and Leung Kwok-hung, also 64, a longtime politician and activist known as “Long Hair.”

Police arrested the group last April in coordinated early-morning raids that surprised many in the city, since those targeted were generally associated with peaceful activism and running for elected office—not the often bitter clashes between young protesters and the police. For many, the arrests signaled that authorities intended to go beyond prosecuting protesters who committed violence to crush the democracy movement itself.

 

The arrests came just weeks before Beijing announced its imposition of a national security law that would give mainland authorities wide latitude to enforce crimes such as sedition, terrorism and collusion with foreign powers. Today, peaceful marches are essentially banned, and even some slogans are considered illegal.

“This is a political retaliation on the part of the Chinese Communist Party,” Lee Cheuk-yan said of the trial. “Sadly now in Hong Kong, the law is being used as an instrument of political retaliation and suppression.”

WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

France’s Macron Wins National Assembly Backing for ‘Islamist Separatism’ Bill The proposed legislation heads to the French Senate amid criticism that it stigmatizes Muslims

Posted By on February 17th, 2021

https://www.wsj.com/articles/frances-macron-wins-national-assembly-backing-for-islamist-separatism-bill-11613501154

France’s National Assembly approved a bill Tuesday that aims to strengthen government oversight of mosques and religious schools and crack down on other practices—from online hate speech to forced marriage—that President Emmanuel Macron says are rooted in Islamist separatism.

The proposed legislation passed the National Assembly, or lower house of Parliament, with a vote of 347-151, garnering support from lawmakers in Mr. Macron’s ranks as well as other centrist parties. It now heads to the Senate.

Mr. Macron and his supporters in Parliament have framed the bill as a response to the spread of “Islamist separatism,” which the president describes as an ideology that aims to build a parallel society in France where religious rules override civil laws. That ideology, the Macron government says, undermines the values of the French Republic—liberty, equality and fraternity—as well as laïcité, France’s strict separation of religion and state.

The proposed legislation requires religious associations and mosques to declare foreign funding of more than €10,000 ($12,000), and to sign a pledge to respect France’s republican values to receive state subsidies. The bill would also make it easier for the government to shut down mosques, associations and schools that are found criticizing republican values.

The proposed legislation would make it a criminal offense for anyone, in the name of ideology or religious extremism, to put pressure on civil servants and public-service providers to deviate from France’s secular values. Under its provisions, a man who refuses to allow a male doctor to examine his wife could face up to five years in jail and a fine of up to €75,000.

France’s conservative party Les Républicains voted against the bill, saying it didn’t go far enough. The vote split the National Assembly’s leftist opposition, with lawmakers from the Socialist Party deciding to abstain. Far-left lawmakers voted against the bill, saying it was an unnecessary measure that risked stigmatizing France’s Muslim population, one of the largest in Europe.

“No, it is not in Muslim places of worship that terrorist attacks are organized,” far-left lawmaker Alexis Corbière said on Tuesday, speaking at the National Assembly ahead of the vote. “This text will only fabricate a new halo of suspicion around all Muslim associations,” he added.