FOREIGN POLICY Comments turned off

U.S. Needs a Broad Response to China-Iran Moves By Lawrence J. Haas

Posted By on July 16th, 2020

https://www.newsweek.com/us-needs-broad-response-china-iran-moves-opinion-1518160
A new China-Iran economic and military agreement and this fall’s expiration of the global arms embargo on Iran could dramatically upend international relations by expanding China’s global reach, empowering Iran to threaten America’s regional allies, undercutting U.S. efforts to pressure both nations and further destabilizing the Middle East.

From their agreement-which both nations plan to finalize and ratify in the coming months-China will get a greater foothold in the Middle East, threatening traditional U.S. big-power supremacy there. Iran, meanwhile, will receive an important economic lifeline through Chinese investments and oil purchases, and added security from a tighter military relationship with Beijing.

From the arms embargo’s expiration, Iran will get unimpeded global access to sophisticated weaponry-weaponry that it can use to continue building its own threatening arsenal, as well as to arm its allies like Syria’s Bashar al-Assad and terrorist proxies in Syria, Iraq, Lebanon, Yemen, and elsewhere.

These converging developments demand a thoughtful response from the West. The United States and its allies now need to develop a broad strategy to contain Beijing and Tehran and thwart their ambitions.

“Two ancient Asian cultures,” Beijing and Tehran declared in the opening sentence of their draft agreement, “two partners in the sectors of trade, economy, politics, culture and security with a similar outlook and many mutual bilateral and multilateral interests will consider one another strategic partners.”

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

BLM enemy of the mind Edward Cline

Posted By on July 16th, 2020

https://ruleofreason.blogspot.com/2020/07/blm-enemy-of-mind.html

Now that we’ve seen all the expensive, designer face masks on the Internet, it’s time to get to serious business. Speaker of hr House Nancy Pelosi wants all Americans to wear face masks, to better fight the Codiv-19 virus.  Rather, it’s to expand her power and turn the U.S into a dimmified republic.

The U.S. does not have a monopoly on racist loons. Canada has its share. Yusra Khogali, a Toronto Black Lives Matter chapter co-founder, argues that “white skin is sub-humxn” and says she prays to Allah for the “strength” not to “kill” or harm “white folks.”

In social media posts, Khogali mulled over how the white race could be “wiped out” by black people. All the while praying to Allah?

In the meantime, BLM has published a screed about how white “supremacy” has oppressed blacks by imposing its ethics on them. The ethics include:

These ethics include;

– Rugged individualism
– Self-reliance
– The nuclear family, with a mother and a father and 2.3 children
– Objective, rational, linear thinking
– Hard work
– Delayed gratification
– Respect for authority
– Following time schedules
– Christianity as the norm
– Planning for the future
– English common law justice
– Property rights
– Being polite

ISRAEL Comments turned off

The well-deserved detriment of the anti-Bibi rioters Caught between a coronavirus rock and an economic hard place, Netanyahu has been beseeching that people heed the health edicts. Ruthie Blum

Posted By on July 16th, 2020

https://www.jpost.com/opinion/the-well-deserved-detriment-of-the-anti-bibi-rioters-635339

The recent rallies in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem illustrate not only that the “anybody but Bibi” mantra is alive and well, despite the diverse camp’s three-time failure in the course of a year to oust Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the ballot box.

They also reveal why the Left has been unable to garner sufficient backing from the so-called “center” to foment a real revolution in the Jewish state of the kind that is taking place in the United States.There is no question that the COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated whatever societal malaise existed in Israel and the rest the world before the virus struck China and spread to other countries. There is nothing like health anxiety combined with money woes, after all, to cause a combination of hysteria and despair well beyond the norm.

Adding government-imposed isolation and separation from loved ones to the mix makes people feel as though they are living in a giant pressure-cooker with a minuscule steam-release valve. Under such circumstances, the smallest rise in temperature can ignite an explosion.

NETANYAHU’S REALIZATION of this in May, when the novel coronavirus curve appeared to have flattened, led him to reopen the economy, and not as gradually as health officials would have liked.

His one demand of the public – desperate to resume school, synagogue, work and play – was that it follow three simple directives, all of which had been in place for weeks: Wash hands, wear masks and practice social distancing.

MY SAY: Comments turned off

MY SAY: THREE CHEERS FOR BARI WEISS!

Posted By on July 16th, 2020

In one fell scoop, Bari Weiss did more to expose the systemic bias of the New York Times than all the pundits, commentators, critics, authors and poo bahs ( def.a person having much influence or holding many offices at the same time, especially one perceived as pompously self-important) of ostensibly Jewish support organizations….rsk

ANTI-SEMITISM Comments turned off

How Confident Can We Be of Victory in November? Bruce Bawer

Posted By on July 16th, 2020

https://amgreatness.com/2020/07/15/how-confident-can-we-be-of-victory-in-november/

We can’t even be sure that the best president of modern times will win reelection over a doddering fool in thrall to our society’s most dangerous elements.

In a way never seen before, America has gone mad.

The Democratic Party, having left the likes of Henry Jackson and Daniel Patrick Moynihan far behind, is being steered by the ideology of Ilhan Omar and Alexandria Ocasio Cortez. It’s in thrall to a Maoist mob. It’s tacitly (and sometimes not so tacitly) accepting wholesale destructiveness. It’s in bed with the Black Lives Matter terrorist group, contributions to which end up in party coffers. While the party lets Bolshevik bullies get away with violence, it vilifies decent citizens who try to defend themselves and demonizes cops who simply want to do their job. 

In this year’s presidential election, the party—and I never in my life imagined that I would be writing such a sentence—is running a manifestly senile relic who was always a mediocre hack at best; who’s best known for plagiarizing banalities and fondling little girls, and who, at a point when he was presumably somewhat less senile, cheerfully sold out his country in exchange for payoffs to his son from China and Ukraine. 

During the last few weeks, while Joe Biden has been dithering around in his basement, local and state Democratic leaders around the country have been allowing violent radicals to run wild in the streets, set fires, smash private property, and beat people up. Democratic mayors have allied explicitly with the radicals, echoing the insane calls to “defund the police” and rounding up troublemakers only to invite them to accuse cops of misconduct.

Many political leaders have followed the rioters’ lead in tearing down and vandalizing statues—not just of Confederate Civil War generals, which was the original idea, but of Union generals, abolitionists, Abraham Lincoln, Teddy Roosevelt, Winston Churchill, Frederick Douglass, and 9/11 heroes. It’s no longer about achieving racial justice but about accomplishing a Taliban—or Reign of Terror—style eradication of the past. 

In Seattle, the mayor refused to resist a takeover of several downtown blocks until the perpetrators marched on her own house. (Her government is now forcing white city employees to take trainin

ENVIRONMENT AND JUNK SCIENCE, POLITICS Comments turned off

Biden’s Green New Deal Is Just As Crazy As AOC’s

Posted By on July 16th, 2020

https://issuesinsights.com/2020/07/16/bidens-green-new-deal-is-just-as-crazy-as-aocs/

Joe Biden’s $2 trillion climate change plan, released this week, was described by one liberal outlet as “the Green New Deal, minus the crazy.” We beg to differ. Just look at Biden’s plan to outlaw the internal combustion engines for starters.

Biden says that on his first day in office, he will develop “rigorous new fuel economy standards aimed at ensuring 100% of new sales for light- and medium-duty vehicles will be zero emissions.”

Biden hasn’t said exactly when he wants new cars to be all-electric, but House Democrats have already established a timetable. Their new climate change plan calls for mandating 100% “clean” vehicles by 2035.

Keep in mind that as of today, plug-in electrics account for 0.5% of cars on the road, and made up less than 2% of new vehicles sold in 2019. And that’s despite massive taxpayer subsidies that have cost taxpayers $5 billion in credits to — mostly wealthy — EV buyers.

Clearly, consumers are not that interested in plug-ins, which is why Biden and his fellow Democrats want to force electric cars on everyone in the name of climate change.

Aside from fuel economy mandates, Biden also wants to extend and expand the EV tax credit, pump federal money into charging stations, create a new “cash for clunkers” program for those who trade in a gasoline-powered car for a plug-in.

ISRAEL Comments turned off

Beinart’s Final Solution: End Israel as Nation-State of the Jewish People by Alan M. Dershowitz

Posted By on July 16th, 2020

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/16242/peter-beinart-final-solution

If Israel were to end its existence as the nation-state of the Jewish people — as Beinart advocates — and become a Jewish “homeland” in a single binational, bi-religious state, a demographic war would become inevitable, in which Jews and Muslims would compete to become a majority. As soon as a Muslim majority materialized, the Jewish “homeland” would become precisely the kind of “Bantustan” that Beinart has railed against in the context of South Africa.

The Jewish minority would be ruled by the Muslim majority, even if it were given some degree of autonomy. Their protection would be largely in the hands of the Muslim majority, many of whom believe there is no place for a Jewish entity anywhere in the region.

A Palestinian majority would not allow persecuted Jews from around the world to seek asylum, as they can today under Israel’s Law of Return. Instead, the Palestinian state would enact its own law of return that would allow millions of exiles to “return” and assure a permanent Muslim supermajority.

Peter Beinart’s New York Times op-ed advocating the end of Israel as the nation-state of the Jewish people is a study in historical ignorance, willful deception and arrogant rejection of democracy.

Beinart proposed that a single binational, bi-religious state in what is now Israel, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip replace current Israel, whose Jewish population would then be given a “homeland” within the new nation. But Beinart is woefully ignorant of previous attempts to create or maintain binational or bi-religious states.

Beinart ignores the lessons of history surrounding the former Yugoslavia — Tito’s failed effort to create a single artificial nation from different ethnicities and religions — which ended in genocide, tragedy and its breakup into several states now living in relative peace. He omits any mention of Lebanon — a failed experiment in sharing power between Muslims and Christians. He writes as if Hindu India still included Muslim Pakistan, instead of having been divided after considerable bloodshed and divisiveness. He focuses instead on two countries, Northern Ireland and South Africa, which bear little relationship to current-day Israel, the West Bank and Gaza. Northern Ireland is a country whose population is ethnically similar, with only religious differences at a time when religion is playing a far less important role in the life of many secular Northern Irish. South Africa was a country in which a tiny minority of whites dominated a large majority of Blacks, and is now a dominantly Black nation.

WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Lebanon’s New ‘Great Satan’ by Khaled Abu Toameh

Posted By on July 16th, 2020

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/16241/lebanon-hezbollah-great-satan

Hezbollah’s financial crisis is the result of US sanctions on its patrons in Iran, which had been supporting the terrorist group annually with about $700 million from oil revenues…. — Fahim al-Hamid, Saudi journalist, okaz.com.sa, March 22, 2020.

For several weeks now, a hashtag titled “Nasrallah has ruined the country” has been trending on Twitter, with many Lebanese and Iraqis accusing the Hezbollah leader of destroying their countries.

“Nasrallah has taken Lebanon hostage and accused the US of Lebanon’s economic collapse. Hezbollah is a major partner of the network that looted the Lebanese treasury and banks. Hezbollah is a terrorist organization running an entire country.” — Video clip posted on social media platforms.

“No one has the right to drag us into the place they want, and no one has the right to impose on us a lifestyle that we do not want…. We do not want to live in isolation and be cut off from the West, Arabs and the entire world.” — Sami Gemayel, Lebanese Member of Parliament, Asharq Al-Awsat, June 18, 2020.

Hezbollah (Arabic for “Party of God”) has long been functioning as a state-within-a-state in Lebanon and its leader, Nasrallah, is the de facto ruler of the country. Now that he is having trouble paying salaries to his terrorists, Nasrallah is hoping that the US will step in and rescue Lebanon (and Hezbollah) from collapse.

Has Hezbollah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah changed his mind about the US, which he always considered a great enemy of the Arabs and Muslims? Not likely. More likely is that he is trying to dupe the Americans into giving Lebanon money to prevent the collapse of his Iranian-backed terrorist group.

Dominated by heavily-armed Hezbollah, Lebanon is currently facing the worst economic crisis in its history. The crisis is seen as the biggest threat to stability since the 1975-90 civil war in Lebanon. The World Bank warned last November that if conditions worsened, the proportion of Lebanese living in poverty could rise to 50%. Since then, the economy has been further hit by the restrictions imposed to curb the spread of the coronavirus pandemic, so the crisis has only deepened.

WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Communist China Partners With Islamic Iran Intensifying China’s challenge to U.S. ascendancy.

Posted By on July 16th, 2020

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2020/07/communist-china-partners-islamic-iran-joseph-klein/

Communist China is forging a 25-year strategic partnership with the Islamic Republic of Iran. It is an economic and security alliance between two America-hating dictatorships. As a result, China’s footprint in Iran will increase in proportion to its expected $400 billion of investment in Iran’s energy, petrochemical, transport, and manufacturing infrastructure and purchase of oil at a discounted price over the next 25 years. Beijing’s ongoing infrastructure work includes the China National Nuclear Corporation’s redesign of an Iranian heavy water nuclear reactor at Arak.

According to the New York Times, which has had access to the proposed agreement between the two countries, the agreement “calls for joint training and exercises, joint research and weapons development and intelligence sharing.” China would also be helping to construct port facilities, including one just outside of the Strait of Hormuz, the strategically important entrance to the Persian Gulf.

China was already Iran’s largest trading partner and oil client in 2019, although Iran-China trade fell by over 34 percent to $23 billion compared to 2018. The decline was in part the result of the impact of the Trump administration’s crippling sanctions imposed on the Iranian regime and firms doing business with the regime. Nevertheless, while Chinese companies are continuing to keep a wary eye on the impact of U.S. sanctions on their overall business, the Chinese government appears willing to risk a short-term economic hit to its state-run companies in order to reap the geopolitical benefits of gaining greater influence in the Middle East region through an expanded relationship with Iran. This relationship promises to bring Iran more firmly into China’s Belt and Road Initiative orbit. China is delivering yet another message to the United States that China will use its increasing economic power to challenge U.S. ascendancy in defining the rules of international relations and multilateralism.

Alex Vatanka, an Iran analyst at the Washington-based Middle East Institute, was quoted as saying during a Voice of America Persian interview that “Iran is potentially a lucrative market for China, which wants to keep its stranglehold on that market and keep out rivals.” Vatanka added that “China also does not want to see the Islamic republic fall because of American pressure, an outcome the Chinese would read as a net loss for themselves, geopolitically.” 

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Nigerian privilege By Sarah Lilly *****

Posted By on July 16th, 2020

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2020/07/nigerian_privilege.html

The war on white privilege is permeating the entire world. As a white person, I am anxiously aggrieved by the obsessive persecution of my fellow whites and I’m feverishly in fear that my white privilege will be looted from me like a loaf of bread taken from a New York deli. How will I survive without the constant assistance that this white supremacist system provides me? Out of pure self-preservation, we need to shift the focus of the mob towards another group that has been stealthily benefitting from their privilege unscathed… the Nigerians.   

Perhaps you are unaware, but Nigerians are one of the most successful demographics in the United States. While the average household income in the United States is $61,937, the median income for households of Nigerian ancestry is $68,658.

In fact, 10% of Nigerian headed households earn over $140,000 annually and 25% earn over $90,000 annually.

Nigerian immigrants rank in the top ten for both the percentage of persons 16 and older that are employed and the percentage with college degrees.

Nigerians are also one of the most educated demographics in the country. Of people over the age of 25, 37% of Nigerians hold a bachelor’s degree and 29% hold an advanced degree, compared to 20% and 11% of the total U.S. population respectively.