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World’s Most Dangerous Combination: China and Russia by Gordon G. Chang

Posted By on December 25th, 2023

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/20257/china-russia-dangerous-combination

China and Russia are more than just working together. They are forming the core of a new axis. Around this core are proxies and proxies of proxies, such as Iran, North Korea, Algeria, and a host of terrorist groups.

The Chinese and Russian leaders are forming this grouping because they believe the United States, the final guarantor of the international system that frustrates them both, must be taken down. Xi, by, among other things, declaring a “people’s war” on America, has made it clear that the U.S. must be destroyed and Americans exterminated. Putin is less ambitious, only wanting the U.S. out of his way as he recreates the Russian Empire at its greatest extent.

“Washington has little leverage over Russia. There are no carrots to offer to Putin, and the sticks haven’t worked.” — Rebekah Koffler, author of Putin’s Playbook and former Defense Intelligence Agency analyst, to Gatestone, December 2023.

In other words, China and Russia are preparing to go to war together. As no country threatens either of them, they are undoubtedly thinking of perpetrating more acts of aggression.

Republican presidential hopeful Vivek Ramaswamy knows how to end the greatest threat to American national security. That threat would be the combination of the world’s two most dangerous states: China and Russia.

“I would freeze the current lines of control,” the candidate told Fox News’s Jesse Watters during his prime time show, referring to the battlefields in Ukraine. “I would further make a hard commitment that NATO will not admit Ukraine to NATO. That’s enough to get Putin to do the deal.”

“But I would require something even greater in return, Jesse,” Ramaswamy said. “Russia has to exit its military alliance with China.”

Putin will take the deal, the charismatic candidate assured Watters: “He’s gonna say, ‘Ok’ because I’m going to say, ‘We’ll reopen our economic relations with Russia and further, we’ll end the Ukraine war and also make sure NATO never admits Ukraine.’ “

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Claudine Gay Update — Now It’s Allegations Of Data Falsification Francis Menton

Posted By on December 25th, 2023

https://www.manhattancontrarian.com/blog/2023-12-24-claudine-gay-update-now-its-data-falsification

It was less than three weeks ago, December 5, when the name of Claudine Gay, President of Harvard University, suddenly burst into the news. That was the day that she, along with the Presidents of Penn and MIT, testified before Congress — and could not give a clear answer as to whether it was against the policy at their schools to call for the genocide of Jews. All three women attempted to use the occasion to paint themselves as defenders of free speech, particularly important in such extreme cases.

Manhattan Contrarian readers already knew that Ms. Gay was the opposite of a defender of free speech. In a post on December 16, 2022 with the title “Goodnight, Poor Harvard!” — written on the occasion of the announcement that Ms. Gay would become the next President of Harvard — I reviewed her record on the subject. My conclusion, based on multiple examples mostly from the work of independent journalist Christopher Brunet, was that Ms. Gay was “the enforcer-in-chief of wokist orthodoxy at Harvard.”

In the few short weeks since December 5, the news as to Ms. Gay has gotten worse and worse, seemingly by the day. First, some big donors ramped up threats to pull their funding. Then came a handful of allegations of plagiarism found in a few among Ms. Gay’s small number of academic papers. On December 12 the New York Times reported that the Harvard Corporation had appointed a special committee to investigate the allegations of plagiarism, and that the committee had cleared Ms. Gay. Then it emerged that a source had given the allegations of plagiarism to the New York Post back in October, and the Post had sent them to Harvard for confirmation — only to get in return a threatening letter from the Clare Locke law firm (the same firm that had recovered over $700 million from Fox in the Dominion Voting case) asserting that the accusations of plagiarism were “demonstrably false.” Then (December 19 in the Washington Free Beacon) there emerged a new dossier now with some 40 instances of alleged plagiarism — almost four for each of Ms. Gay’s eleven academic articles — many of the new allegations much more serious than the ones that the special committee had just deemed minor.

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2024—the Year of our Reckoning Will we meet the challenges or ensure the ongoing decline? By Victor Davis Hanson

Posted By on December 25th, 2023

https://amgreatness.com/2023/12/25/2024-the-year-of-our-reckoning/

We should remember the now modern proverb of Nixon-era economic advisor Herb Stein to the effect that what cannot go on (without destroying the nation), simply will not go on.

In some sense, the country for recent years has been cruising on the fumes from prior and likely better wiser generations and institutions. In 2024, the tab for our current apathy, toxic politics, and incompetence will come due.

So next year we will likely see the climax to a number of current dangerous ideas, events, and forces, which finally will either overwhelm us or be addressed and remedied. We live in a Neronian age but can recover if we first understand how we got here and the nature of the suicide we are committing.

In 2023, it became clear, to even the most loyal supporters of the Biden administration, that the U.S. has simply lost or indeed forfeited American deterrence abroad. Our enemies do not fear us; our friends do not trust us; and neutrals do not care either way.

After the 2021 Kabul debacle, the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, the 2023 brazen Chinese spy balloon’s uncontested trajectory over the United States, the recent Hamas invasion of Israel, the serial Iranian-fueled terrorist attacks on U.S. installations in the Middle East, and the terrorist Houthis’ veritable absorption of the Red Sea, many of America’s opportunistic enemies drew conclusions and adopted strategies that would have been previously unthinkable.

Either adversaries will be so emboldened to start regional wars—an impotent Iran now brags it will block the entire Mediterranean—or a United States will be shocked into action and have to deter Iran, the Houthis, and Islamic terrorism, while dealing with an opportunistic China eager to annex Taiwan, and Russia determined to finish off Ukraine.

Those challenges will force the military to staunch its recruitment hemorrhaging, rectify low morale, and rearm. Such rebooting in turn will require discarding the woke agenda, stopping the DEI proselytizing and virtue signaling, and returning to a meritocracy focused on military preparedness and battlefield efficacy.

Since January 2021, the Biden administration has flagrantly and unapologetically dismantled federal immigration law. It destroyed the border as we once knew it. It has already greenlighted more than 8 million illegal entrants—with another quarter-million entering each month.

No one in government has offered any projected costs to states and federal agencies of offering health, food, housing, legal, and education subsidies to millions—who broke the law by entering the U.S. and continue to do violate it while residing unlawfully here. Is that the sign of a promising American citizen—that the first thing he does upon entering America is to break his host’s law?

ANTI-SEMITISM Comments turned off

POSITIVE NEWS FROM ISRAEL FROM MICHAEL ORDMAN

Posted By on December 25th, 2023

Beyond the headlines, there is positive news from Israel brought to us even in wartime from Israel thanks to Michael Ordman.

Here in America, beyond the protests by ignorant and malicious libelers there is interfaith and bipartisan support for Israel. Thank you to all who understand the follies of armistices and cease fires that leave tyrants in power. rsk

 www.verygoodnewsisrael.blogspot.com

POSITIVE NEWS DURING A WAR
 
Done but not completed. (TY Zena & Cynthia) Emotional scenes in this newly released film from Israel’s Schneider Children’s Hospital, where many (but not all) young hostages released from Gaza have been reunited with their families. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oNRfNnvoipc
 
Another Oct 7 hero. Rami Davidian received a phone call on Oct 7 asking him to rescue someone from the Nova party. In his first rescue mission he crammed 15 youngsters into his car and took them back to his house. In another he pretended to be a Muslim from Gaza and convinced a terrorist to hand him a female captive.
https://www.israelnationalnews.com/news/382050   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AR–xNP4mGI
 
IDF dog detects bomb and saves soldiers. An IDF canine is saving lives in Gaza, sniffing out explosives and hidden terrorists.  https://unitedwithisrael.org/watch-idf-dog-detects-explosives-saves-soldiers/ https://www.jewishpress.com/multimedia/video-picks/aisha-the-k9-warrior-video-upsets-muslims-on-account-of-muhammads-wife-by-same-name/2023/12/17/
 
Young immigrants making an impact. Aliyah organization Nefesh b’Nefesh has awarded its Maor Youth Prize to ten outstanding young olim (immigrants to Israel) ages 11 to 18, from English-speaking countries, for their exceptional contributions to the State of Israel during current war.
https://www.jns.org/nefesh-bnefesh-awards-10-olim-for-assisting-war-effort/
 
Support for rehabilitation. (TY Ian F) The English-speaking branch of AWIS (Association for the Wellbeing of Israel’s Soldiers) has raised funds (see here) for the IDF’s Rehabilitation Unit, where 100+ brave wounded soldiers are receiving general medical care, physiotherapy and counseling to help them recover and recuperate.
https://www.ufis.org.il/  
 
Fighting on two fronts. In civilian life, Tal is lead R&D engineer at Synchrony Medical (see here previously) developing LibAirty to treat chronic lung disease. Since Oct 7, she has been working 12-hour shifts several days a week as chief sergeant of a control unit that coordinates helicopter evacuations of wounded soldiers.
https://www.israel21c.org/the-medical-engineer-fighting-the-war-on-two-fronts/
 
Volunteers build tech to protect. Israel Tech Guard is an all-volunteer, not-for-profit initiative building tech solutions to help protect Israelis during and after the war. They include Blood Donation Bot (donor eligibility), Rehab Track (locating patients in hospital), and Guardian X (social media identity verification) and more.
https://www.israel21c.org/israel-tech-guard-builds-new-solutions-to-protect-citizens/
 
They couldn’t wait. (TY Laura) A young couple had intended to fly to America to plan their wedding. But Oct 7 changed their plans into a quiet wedding in Israel. Jake was then called up into the IDF and so the wedding ceremony took place next to the Syrian border, with nearly 100 celebrants – the majority in army uniform.
https://aish.com/they-cannot-steal-our-joy-my-son-an-israeli-soldier-just-got-married/
 
From frontlines to fatherhood. When Avi’s wife went into labor early, Avi’s unit pulled out all the stops to get him from Khan Yunis in Gaza to Jerusalem’s Shaare Zedek hospital. Avi had been in Kfar Aza on Oct 7 when Hamas attacked.  Avi said their new baby confounded those intent on destroying the Jewish people.
https://www.jpost.com/israel-hamas-war/article-778415
 
100 Evangelicals in IDF. Juergen Buehler, president of the International Christian Embassy in Jerusalem says there are around 100 Evangelical Christian volunteers in the IDF, including two of his sons. As one of the Christian soldiers said, “We are willing to give our lives for Israel.” 
https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/article-778494
 
 
ISRAEL’S MEDICAL ACHIEVEMENTS
 
US approves fiber implants for children. (TY OurCrowd) The US FDA has cleared the bio-integrative technology from Israel’s Ossio (see here previously) to be used in orthopedic surgery for children and adolescents needing bone realignments, fusions or fracture fixation.   
https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20231206064383/en/OSSIO
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g7YlwWulwJ0  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wMfNVFWx3ls
 
Treatment for asthma. (TY Atid-EDI) Israel’s Teva has bought the rights to complete the development of BD9 – an antibody-based therapy for the treatment of asthma and atopic dermatitis from Israel’s Biolojic Design (see here previously). Biolojic’s AI platform generates antibodies that have predictable functions.
https://en.globes.co.il/en/article-teva-buys-rights-for-israeli-co-biolojics-asthma-treatment-1001465270
 
3D printer helps remove tumors. UK’s University Hospital Birmingham has reduced the time taken to remove tumors by up to three hours thanks to 3D-printed cutting guides produced on a J5 MedJet printer from Israel’s Stratasys. It is transforming the way tumors are removed from head and neck cancer patients.
https://investors.stratasys.com/news-events/press-releases/detail/872/university-hospital-birmingham-improves-craniomaxillofacial
 
Successful trial for plaque psoriasis treatment. (TY Atid-EDI) Israel’s Scinai Immunotherapeutics has announced successful preclinical trial results of its innovative anti‑IL‑17 VHH antibody (‘NanoAb’) as a local treatment for the large and underserved population of patients with mild to moderate plaque psoriasis. 
https://www.scinai.com/press-releases/scinai-announces-promising-results-in-a-psoriatic-human-skin-model
https://www.scinai.com/  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eWz0E_-ogSc
 
Massive deal to revitalize biotech. Israel’s Compugen (see here previously) only had six months’ cash left when it was rescued by Gilead Sciences in a deal worth up to $848 million. Gilead will license Compugen’s pre-clinical cancer antibody COM503 that frees up the peptide InterLeukin 18 (IL-18) to destroy tumors.
https://www.calcalistech.com/ctechnews/article/b1ue00g1wa
 

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NO POSTING UNTIL TUESDAY DECEMBER 26, 2023

Posted By on December 23rd, 2023

FOREIGN POLICY Comments turned off

Three Things the Biden Administration Must Do Now to Stop Iran’s Mullahs by Majid Rafizadeh

Posted By on December 23rd, 2023

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/20241/stop-irans-mullahs

If the Biden administration thought that by rescuing Iran’s economy, which had hit bottom, and removing the Houthis from the list of Foreign Terror Organizations would make both Iran into an ally, the generosity appears to have backfired.

If the Iranian regime is allowed to advance to nuclear weapons capability, it will be on course finally to drive the US out of the region; threaten its oil-rich neighbors; destabilize Europe; deploy military assets in Venezuela and Cuba, and, at last, come for the “Great Satan,” the United States.

It must be made unmistakably clear to Iran that the United States will not allow Iran’s current regime, a designated state sponsor of terrorism, to arm itself with nuclear weapons and emerge as yet another global nuclear threat in the Middle East, Europe and South America.

The Biden administration’s policies of placating the ruling mullahs of Iran and their proxy, Yemen’s Houthis, have clearly failed. If the Biden administration thought that by rescuing Iran’s economy, which had hit bottom, and removing the Houthis from the list of Foreign Terror Organizations would make both Iran into an ally, the generosity appears to have backfired. Iran’s regime financed and helped plan the invasion of the invasion of Israel by Hamas, which is another Iranian proxy. Iran has been arming the Houthis to target US and its allies in the region, and disrupt the shipping in the Red Sea, and Iran’s militias in Syria and Iraq have fired on US troops more than 100 times just since October 17.

It is only the warships that the Biden administration helpfully placed in the Eastern Mediterranean that have most likely deterred yet another Iranian proxy, Lebanon’s Hezbollah, from further escalating their attacks on Israel’s north. The Iranian regime has become disruptive to the highest level since the Iran-Iraq war, and unfortunately, due to what seems a hugely misguided security paralysis in Washington D.C, shows no signs of letting up.

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We Are Well Beyond Hypocrisy: Victor Davis Hanson

Posted By on December 23rd, 2023

https://pjmedia.com/victor-davis-hanson/2023/12/22/we-are-well-beyond-hypocrisy-n4924932

The abject narcissism of the insular Left is startling. They apparently believe the American public is amnesiac enough to forget what leftists once did, now that they’re doing the utter opposite. And they assume we are to discount their hypocrisy and self-absorption simply because they self-identify as erudite and moral and assume their opponents are irredeemable and deplorable.

Impeachment

The Left is saturating the airwaves with outrage over the current House Republicans’ impeachment inquiry. They allege that formally investigating Joe Biden’s role in the family grifting operation is somehow a poor constitutional precedent, if not out-of-bounds entirely.

So we hear further arguments that it will be unwise to impeach a first-term president when he loses his House majority, that there is no reason to “waste” congressional time and effort when Biden will be automatically acquitted in the Democratically controlled Senate, and that the impeachment is cynically timed to synchronize with president’s reelection efforts.

All of these are the precise arguments many of us cited when Donald Trump was impeached in December 2019 (as his reelection campaign began, and immediately after being cleared of the 22-month, $40-million-special-counsel Russian-collusion hoax).

The Democrats tried to remove an elected president over a phone call without a special counsel’s report. So Trump was impeached only after the 2018 election led to a Democratic House majority, which went from eating up nearly two years of his administration in the Russian-collusion hoax straight into the impeachment farce. There was no concern about the cost to the nation of putting an elected government into a continual state of siege.

There is one difference, though, between the Trump impeachment and the Biden impeachment inquiry. Donald Trump was impeached because he accurately accused the members of the Ukrainian government of paying Hunter Biden, with his zero fossil fuel expertise, an astronomical sum to serve on the Burisma board — as the costly quid that earned the lucrative quo from his dad Vice President Joe Biden.

IMMIGRATION Comments turned off

Turn Out the Lights, the Country’s Over: TSA Accepting Arrest Warrants as ID for Illegal Immigrants Lincoln Brown

Posted By on December 23rd, 2023

https://pjmedia.com/lincolnbrown/2023/12/22/turn-out-the-lights-the-countrys-over-tsa-is-accepting-arrest-warrants-as-id-for-illegal-immigrants-n4924956

I wish, oh how I wish I could tell you that the headline is a joke. It almost has to be a joke, right? No sane country would accept an arrest warrant as a form of ID, right? Well, this is no longer a sane country. But you probably already know that by now. But no one, even in an opium-induced fever dream, would think that the TSA would accept an arrest warrant as a form of legal ID. But it apparently does, and I think at this point, any doubts that the inmates have taken over the asylum or that there is a cabal so dedicated to left-wing ideology that no idea, no matter how ludicrous, should be taken off the table, can be put to rest. I would very much like to believe that this administration has lost its mind and is randomly pushing buttons until something happens. But we can’t take evil off the table. We would be stupid if we did.

A representative from the TSA told Fox News:

For non-citizens and non-U.S. nationals who do not otherwise have acceptable forms of ID for presentation at security checkpoints, TSA may also accept certain DHS-issued forms, including ICE Form I-200 (Warrant for Arrest of an Alien)…All passengers whose identity is verified through alternate procedures receive additional screening before being allowed into the secure area of the airport.

This refers to a civil immigration arrest warrant, not a criminal one—because entering the U.S. illegally is not a crime anymore. And yes, the person in question’s document “will then be validated via an ‘alien identification number’ being checked against a number of Customs and Border Protection (CBP) databases.” Let’s see a conservative try to get through the TSA checkpoint with any kind of “warrant.” That would end quickly and not well. 

Once upon a time, not long ago, an arrest warrant meant that you would be arrested. Hence, the name. It’s right there: “arrest warrant.” If you are a conservative who happened to be within ten city blocks of the capitol on J6, you should expect a knock on your door if you haven’t had one already. Ditto if you are a traditional Catholic who may or may not have protested outside of an abortion clinic. Or if you posted a meme about Hillary Clinton. But if you are an illegal alien who legitimately deserves to be arrested, so much so that you have a copy of your arrest warrant, no problems. Would you like to be part of the preferred boarding? Can we open your bag of almonds? Would you like a mimosa before we take off? As Southwest Airlines used to say, “You are now free to move about the country.”

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A Glaring Sign of Rot Within the CIA If there’s a new administration in January 2025, it will have its work cut out for it. Fred Fleitz

Posted By on December 23rd, 2023

https://amgreatness.com/2023/12/22/a-glaring-sign-of-rot-within-the-cia/

In his powerful new book, Neutering the CIA: Why Us Intelligence Versus Trump Has Long-term Consequences, former CIA analyst John Gentry discusses how the Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) agenda has harmed national security by elevating the goals of left-wing identity politics as paramount in the selection and promotion of officers. For example, late last month, the Financial Times revealed that a CIA officer posted pro-Palestinian images on her Facebook page and a selfie photo with the caption “Free Palestine.”

The agency officer, later identified as Amy McFadden, reportedly posted at least one of these images to the Internet after the horrific October 7, Hamas attack on Israel in which more than 1,300 Jews were killed by Hamas terrorists, many of them raped and mutilated, and more than 250 taken hostage.

According to the New York Post, two weeks after the Hamas terrorist attack, the senior CIA official “changed her cover photo to an image of a man waving a Palestinian flag in a keffiyeh-patterned shirt — a design euphemistically referred to as a symbol of Palestinian ‘solidarity’ popularized by the late Palestine Liberation Organization terrorist-in-chief Yasser Arafat.”

But McFadden is hardly the only example. A State Department employee publicly accused President Biden of being “complicit in genocide” by providing military assistance to our ally Israel. Sylvia Yacoub, a foreign affairs officer in the Bureau of Middle East Affairs, tweeted directly at the President with his handle “@POTUS,” and also tweeted directly at the Vice President, “Embarrassingly out of touch @VP,” after Vice President Kamala Harris met with the Prime Minister of the U.K., our closest ally.

ANTI-SEMITISM, BOOKS, ISRAEL Comments turned off

The year Israelophobia took over In 2023, the world’s oldest hatred returned with a vengeance. Jake Wallis Simons

Posted By on December 23rd, 2023

https://www.spiked-online.com/2023/12/23/the-year-israelophobia-took-over/

As the end of the year draws close, it’s clear the oldest hatred is back with a vengeance.

Following Hamas’s pogrom in Israel on 7 October, and Israel’s assault on Hamas in response, every day has brought new examples of Israelophobia. One episode from December that stands out in my mind was a statement from the Catholic Archbishop of Westminster, Cardinal Vincent Nichols. He said that the Jewish state had shot two women in a church in Gaza ‘in a cold-blooded killing’. But how did the clergyman, from the comfort of his home in London and having carried out no investigation, know with such certainty that it was a ‘cold-blooded killing’?

Similarly, Alex Crawford, Sky News’ most prominent foreign correspondent, tweeted at the start of December that Israel was barring entry for journalists into Gaza in order to hide its ‘war crimes’. Charges of ‘war crimes’ would need to be proven by a court of law. Yet without even being in Gaza, and presumably without any legal training, Crawford felt entitled to place the black cap of the hanging judge upon her head.

The ease with which supposedly impartial observers have unwittingly become activists belies something darker – the willingness to believe the very worst of the Jewish State. It has become commonplace to airily assert that Israel is committing ‘genocide’. And it has become commonplace to talk of its disregard for Palestinian life, especially the life of Palestinian children. Little wonder the fate of neonatal babies has been placed by Hamas at the very centre of its propaganda campaign. Hamas knows this will be lapped up by the world’s media. Why is this? Could it be because there has been a racist association between Jews and the murder of Gentile children since 1144, when the blood libel was invented in Norwich? Whether people realise it or not, the Israelophobia we see today contains dark echoes of an old anti-Semitism.

The rivers of anti-Semitism run deep. Fascinating research by two German economic historians, Nico Voigtländer and Hans-Joachim Voth, has revealed that areas of Germany in which people burned Jews at the stake in the 14th century, blaming them for the Black Death, were more likely to vote for the Nazis 600 years later. This is despite the fact that Jews had been absent from the regions in question for 400 of those years. This illustrates how, once it has taken hold, the potent virus of anti-Semitism can be passed down through the generations, inclining people to believe stories, as George Orwell once put it, ‘that could not possibly be true’.