NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

The Mock Inauguration Conservatives should treat the Biden-Harris Administration exactly the way the Democrats treated Trump’s presidency, by totally dissociating themselves from any of its actions. By Paul Gottfried

Posted By on January 21st, 2021

https://amgreatness.com/2021/01/20/the-mock-inauguration/

The conservative Catholic columnist John Zmirak ends his inauguration day column for The Stream with this expression of profound disgust:

So by all means enjoy the mock-inauguration of a corrupt, senile hack as the fruit of ballot-box stuffing and fake COVID panic. But remember that now we all live in a tinpot Bananas Republic. And a disciplined, fanatically nationalist, resurgent Red China is smiling. The virus it shipped worldwide succeeded beyond its leaders’ wildest expectations.

I quote Zmirak’s peroration because of the openness of his loathing for the administration that began its reign on Wednesday. Pat Buchanan, Roger Simon, Newt Gingrich, Roger Kimball, and Michael Walsh have all recently produced informative and eloquent columns underscoring the lies, deceit, and intimidation that they associate with the woke Left. These columnists have also documented the extent of leftist control and underlined the need to resist their odious domination.

The conservative movement has reacted to this political and existential crisis in one of two ways: either by turning viciously on the outgoing president to accommodate hoped-for talking partners on the Left, or by sounding the call for resistance, which seems the admirable position of this website.

Morally and emotionally I’m a résistant, but I think the Right must face certain problems in working out how best to resist the cultural Marxist power grab.

What we are observing is not a recent development but part of a revolutionary process that began decades ago. The Left moves incrementally, while the Right usually reacts to the most recent crisis. The Left also puts itself in a position to determine the meaning of emotive terms like “equality” and “fairness.” Leftist activists took over mass education and the culture industry without breaking a sweat. Our side allowed this power grab to go mostly unnoticed, except for a few discordant voices who failed to prevail.

WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Defining ‘Metrics’ to Measure Radical Islam is Vital to Defeating It by Tawfik Hamid

Posted By on January 21st, 2021

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/16915/radical-islam-definition

Al-Azhar, the most respected Islamic university and organization in the Sunni world, is not – by their own definition – a terrorist organization. Yet the question remains. Is al-Azhar truly moderate, or could it be radical? If we fail to establish clear definitions, we can create chaotic situations that result in our asking radical institutions to help us counter radicalism.

It is notable in this context to mention that French President Emmanuel Macron met with the Grand Imam of Egypt’s Al-Azhar University, Ahmed Al-Tayeb, and called for all French imams to be trained at the Al-Azhar religious institution. The President of France probably has asked for this form of training without determining if Al-Azhar itself was a radical organization or a moderate one.

Other metrics of Islamic radicalism such as accepting child marriage, considering the lives of Muslims to be more precious than the lives of non-Muslims, and accepting force or violence to impose Islamic religious values upon others can be also included.

Based on these metrics, if any person or Islamic organization fails to reject such abhorrent ideological values, they should not be called moderates. Instead, they should be called what they are: Islamic radicals. We urgently need to detect and expose ideological radicalism before it turns – as it inevitably will – into acts of terrorism.

Since the September 11, 2001 attacks by 19 radical Islamists, the main response by many governments – as well as the United States – has been conducting direct, kinetic warfare to fight the threat of Islamic terrorism. No doubt there is a need to use kinetic force to fight militant jihadists; however, failing to fight the ideology that drives them ensures an endless supply of such individuals who will fight eternally against what they believe are infidels.

Things get more complicated when we realize that what we call radical Islam is not clearly defined – there are no standard metrics by which to measure it. In other words, we are fighting an undefined enemy. It is like fighting or trying to treat diabetes without applying metrics to the disease to determine who is diabetic and who is not, and who has improved with treatment.

The lack of metrics to measure Islamic radicalism is further confounded by the fact that the word “radicalism” can be such a relative term. We could argue about it forever as long as we do not have clear metrics for it. In other words, people can disagree whether an Islamic organization is moderate or radical if they lack the means to determine what is radicalism.

ISRAEL, WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Palestinians: Victims of an Arab Country by Khaled Abu Toameh

Posted By on January 21st, 2021

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/16948/palestinians-victims-syria

Like most Arab countries, Syria denies citizenship to Palestinians. Children born in Syria to fathers who are Palestinian nationals are considered Palestinians, not Syrian nationals.

Palestinian leaders see no evil or wrong-doing when their people are being killed, injured, displaced, arrested and tortured in an Arab country. The attention of these leaders is solely focused on Israel, which they denounce day and night not only for what it does, but also for what it does not do.

On January 9, Abbas entered the 17th year of his four-year term. He is again talking about his desire to hold new elections. This charade is played at least once or twice a year so that people will believe that he really wants elections.

The Palestinians do not need new elections. They need new leaders who will guide them out from their longstanding morass into a future of promise and peace.

As Palestinian leaders condemn Israel almost on a daily basis, they continue to ignore the ongoing suffering of Palestinians living in a number of Arab countries, especially Syria.

Since the beginning of the civil war in Syria in 2011, 4,048 Palestinians have died – but Palestinian leaders hardly seem to notice. Another 333 Palestinians have gone missing, while 1,797 are being held in prisons controlled by the regime of Syrian President Bashar Assad.

Like most Arab countries, Syria denies citizenship to Palestinians. Children born in Syria to fathers who are Palestinian nationals are considered Palestinians, not Syrian nationals.

Palestinian leaders who meet on a regular basis in the West Bank city of Ramallah seldom discuss the tragedy that has befallen their people in Syria.

Similarly, the leaders of Hamas in the Gaza Strip, who relish giving interviews to the media, seem oblivious to the existence of Palestinians in Syria.

Palestinian leaders see no evil or wrong-doing when their people are being killed, injured, displaced, arrested and tortured in an Arab country. The attention of these leaders is solely focused on Israel, which they denounce day and night not only for what it does, but also for what it does not do.

FOREIGN POLICY, ISRAEL Comments turned off

Will Israel Be Able To Withstand Biden Administration’s Pressure? A new administration’s unbridled hostility towards Israel. Caroline Glick

Posted By on January 21st, 2021

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2021/01/will-israel-be-able-withstand-biden-caroline-glick/

In an interview with The New York Times last month, President-elect Joe Biden restated his intention to return to the 2015 nuclear deal with Iran. Israel opposes this plan because the 2015 deal ensures Iran will become a nuclear-armed state.

Media reports over the past few weeks have detailed some of Israel’s plans to convince the incoming administration to reconsider its position. Among other things, the government intends to use documents from Iran’s nuclear archive, that Mossad agents spirited out of Tehran in 2018, to show Biden and his advisers that the 2015 deal was based on the incorrect assumption that Iran’s nuclear program was defensive and civilian.

The archive proves incontrovertibly that Iran’s nuclear program was conceived with the aim of and has always been about making nuclear bombs, not medical isotopes, and that the purpose of that nuclear arsenal is not to defend against its enemies, but to obliterate them.

Although Israel’s case is rock solid, it is unlikely to convince the Biden team to change course. Even without the benefit of the archive, there was massive evidence five years ago that Iran’s actions and intentions in relation to its illicit nuclear program were aggressive.

Israel shared that evidence with the Obama administration, and Barack Obama and his advisers didn’t care. They drove forward and demonized Israeli leaders and their American supporters as warmongers.

The same people who dismissed Israel’s evidence then are now leading Biden’s national security team.

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Anti-Trump Reprisals Allies and supporters of the 45th president won’t be safe. Matthew Vadum

Posted By on January 21st, 2021

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2021/01/anti-trump-reprisals-matthew-vadum/

As Joe Biden, an illegitimate president, was sworn in at a funereal inauguration ceremony surrounded by thousands of U.S. troops, Democrats were busy plotting and scheming and planning reprisals against Republicans for doing nothing other than supporting his duly elected predecessor.

These anti-democratic Democrats have been driven to utter madness by the events of January 6 even though what happened that day does not compare with the months of Antifa and Black Lives Matter murdering people and burning down cities to protest the Fentanyl-caused death in police custody of George Floyd, a drug-addicted career criminal who resisted arrest.

Even the claim that five people were killed January 6 is a lie that the Left is using as propaganda against Orange Man Bad and his backers.

Three of the people –Trump supporters— who died during or after the rally died of medical emergencies.

Kevin Greeson, 55, from Alabama, who had high blood pressure, experienced a heart attack “in the midst of the excitement,” his family said. Benjamin Phillips, 50, from Pennsylvania, had a stroke. Media reports indicate Roseanne Boyland, 34, from Georgia, was trampled by the mob but it is unclear what actually happened. A purportedly authentic redacted police incident report in case #21002749 states that Boyland “was witnessed to collapse during the protest demonstrations at about 1700 hours. … Despite all lifesaving efforts, SUB-1 died and was pronounced dead by Dr. Pyle at 1809 hours.”

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

I Watched Biden’s Inauguration First-Hand Haunted and numb in a horribly sanitized city. Katie Hopkins

Posted By on January 21st, 2021

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2021/01/i-watched-bidens-inauguration-first-hand-katie-hopkins/

As I grabbed some coffee before heading to the Capitol Building to watch the 46th President of the United States of America take his title, the lovely lady behind the counter told me she had never seen anything like this in D.C. in her life.

And all I can say as I stand here now in the freezing cold with a handful of others is that I hope America never has to see anything like this again. Nothing is as it seems. It is just horrible, in every sense.

There is no one here. And I am not saying that in the weird competitive way people talk about crowd sizes as a measure of popularity. Remember the endless quarrel over the size of Trump’s inauguration crowd versus Obama’s?

What I mean is that there is literally no one here. Even pressed up to the gates within sight of the Capitol Building there is barely a handful of Biden supporters — alongside a small gaggle of media, scratching about, trying to find something to film.

Residents with the means to do so have moved out. Others stay locked in their homes. And visitors heeded the fear-mongering and stayed away. I was called ‘a moron with a death wish’ for traveling here to document this event. And even though it is perfectly safe, no one is here to bear witness to this event.

This should be an historical moment for the country. Instead it feels like an illusion, fabricated for the TV, right down to the made-for-TV flags and columns of light on the mall.

ISRAEL Comments turned off

Biden Reverses on Change to U.S. Ambassador to Israel Twitter Name to Include West Bank and Gaza Adam Kredo 

Posted By on January 21st, 2021

https://freebeacon.com/national-security/biden-changes-u-s-ambassador-to-israel-tw

The Biden administration on Wednesday reversed a change to the U.S. ambassador to Israel’s Twitter account name to read, “the official Twitter account of the U.S. Ambassador to Israel, the West Bank, and Gaza” after a Washington Free Beacon report highlighting the shift.

For a time on Wednesday, the official Twitter feed for the U.S. ambassador to Israel had its title changed to add “the West Bank and Gaza,” territories the United States has for decades avoided taking a stand on due to ongoing peace talks between the Israelis and Palestinians. The title change sparked an outcry online, including among Republican lawmakers, and was quietly changed back to read only, “U.S. ambassador to Israel.” The State Department would not comment on the initial change or why it was changed back to its original form.

Embassy officials have speculated that the title was inadvertently changed by Twitter due to a technical glitch when the accounts were switched from the Trump administration over to the Biden administration. The Free Beacon could not confirm the veracity of these claims.

“The U.S. doesn’t have ambassadors to any other disputed territory in the world. Singling out Israel, once again, is wrong,” said Len Khodorkovsky, former deputy assistant secretary at the State Department. “Instead of building on all the progress that’s been made toward peace in the Middle East, the Biden administration seems to be reversing course toward the failed policies of the Obama years.”

During the Obama administration, former ambassador Dan Shapiro was referred to in official communications as the “U.S. Ambassador to Israel.”

FOREIGN POLICY Comments turned off

Report: Anti-Israel Malley Joining Biden As Special Iran Envoy Jeff Dunetz

Posted By on January 21st, 2021

https://lidblog.com/robert-malley-iran/

Per Jewish Insider, President Biden is considering adding another Israel hater to his team. Robert Malley, who shared his anti-Israel views as part of the Clinton and Obama administrations, an adviser to Bernie Sanders, and grew up with a socialist dad who was a close friend of terrorist Yasser Arafat. According to the report, Malley will be joining the re-Obama administration as Biden’s special envoy to Iran. 

The potential appointment of Malley comes as members of the Biden transition team have begun to lay out the president-elect’s vision for diplomacy with Iran following the Trump administration’s 2018 withdrawal from the 2015 nuclear agreement.

The Biden transition team declined to comment and noted that they do not presently have any personnel announcements.

A source familiar with the Biden team’s approach on Iran told JI, “The president-elect has said that if Iran resumes strict compliance with the JCPOA, the United States would return to the agreement as a starting point for follow-on negotiations. But Iran is a long way from returning to compliance, and there are many steps in the process to getting there that we will need to evaluate once in office. Our first order of business will be consulting with Congress and our allies on the path forward.”

HOMELAND SECURITY, WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Beijing Fills the Mideast Vacuum China’s projection of power isn’t only a regional concern. It will eventually pose a threat to the U.S. By Robert D. Kaplan

Posted By on January 21st, 2021

https://www.wsj.com/articles/beijing-fills-the-mideast-vacuum-11611183756?mod=opinion_lead_pos7

The Biden administration’s Middle East policy will reportedly focus on rejoining the Iran nuclear deal and renewing Israeli-Palestinian negotiations. This could undermine key allies in Israel and Saudi Arabia while ignoring a core geopolitical challenge that few in Washington are addressing: growing Chinese influence in the Middle East.

Through its trillion-dollar Belt and Road Initiative, China has invested in a port near the Persian Gulf in Gwadar, Pakistan, and a military base by the entrance to the Red Sea at Djibouti. The Chinese also envision a military base at Port Sudan, further north on the Red Sea, and a naval facility at Jiwani, Pakistan, on the Iranian border. Then there are the new Israeli port facilities at Haifa and Ashdod, which the Chinese will likely be administering. Afghanistan could one day become a branch line for the Belt and Road corridor from western China through Pakistan to the Arabian Sea. China is the largest trading partner for both Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. China is investing billions of dollars in Egypt and more billions as part of a strategic pact with Iran.

Unlike many in Washington, who separate regions in order of perceived importance, Chinese strategists think organically about geography. They recognize that in a smaller, more interconnected and confining world, regions and continents work together and flow into each other. Thus, the Chinese know that the road, railway and port system they are building across the Middle East will one day give them a strong hand in Europe and East Asia—not to mention East Africa.

Beijing doesn’t take sides. China is happy to work with Iran, Israel and Saudi Arabia. Rather than promote a liberal vision—or any vision—the Chinese are remorselessly mercantile and imperial in their approach. It’s all about money and transportation links: classical geography fitted to a postmodern world.

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Biden’s Keystone Pipeline Kill On his first day he insults Canada and ends thousands of jobs.

Posted By on January 21st, 2021

https://www.wsj.com/articles/bidens-keystone-pipeline-kill-11611184519?mod=opinion_lead_pos3

President Biden issued a blizzard of executive orders on his first day in office, including a diktat to revoke the permit for the Keystone XL pipeline. This is a slap at Canada, and it sends a message to investors that playing by U.S. rules provides no immunity from arbitrary political whim.

TC Energy (formerly TransCanada) has been stuck in the quicksand of American politics for more than a decade. A 2004 executive order requires the State Department to approve cross-border projects. In 2008 TC applied for a permit to transport up to 830,000 barrels of crude per day from the Alberta oil sands to U.S. refineries on the Gulf Coast.

The Obama State Department found five separate times that the pipeline would have no material impact on greenhouse gas emissions since crude would still be extracted. Shipping bitumen by rail or tanker would result in 28% to 42% higher CO2 emissions and more leaks. No matter. President Obama in 2015 rejected the permit as an oblation to the Paris Climate accords.

President Trump gave the right of way, but legal challenges by anti-fossil fuel groups marooned the pipeline and ran out the clock on the Trump years. Now Mr. Biden is yanking Keystone’s permit and rejoining the Paris agreement. Neither action will matter to the climate.