NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Charles Lipson: Matt Gaetz pulls the fire alarm It wasn’t a false alarm. He set the fire to burn out Kevin McCarthy

Posted By on October 4th, 2023

https://thespectator.com/topic/matt-gaetz-fire-alarm-kevin-mccarthy-congress/

Matt Gaetz pulled the alarm but, unlike the stunt by fellow House member Jamaal Bowman, there really was a fire. Gaetz set it himself, with help from seven other Republicans on the party’s populist right. Now the whole party has to deal with the smoking ruins. 

Because the majority party has only a slim edge, any small, cohesive group among them can wield huge leverage. They can threaten to sink legislation or oust the Speaker by voting “no,” knowing their party doesn’t have enough votes to carry the day without them (or help from Democrats). 

That’s exactly what this “veto coalition,” led by Florida’s Matt Gaetz, did. When they issued the threat to close the government a few days ago, the tactic failed, but only because Democrats voted with most of the Republicans to keep it open. Why did Democrats help? Because the White House told them to, knowing the president would pay a political price if the government shut down, even temporarily. That’s why Biden’s White House wanted the Continuing Resolution (CR) passed. 

When Speaker Kevin McCarthy called a floor vote on the CR, the right wing of his caucus was outraged, partly because McCarthy called their bluff, partly because they didn’t get the concessions they wanted. 

The vote Tuesday to remove McCarthy as speaker was the populist right’s revenge. They secured only eight Republican votes against McCarthy, but that was enough. It is also a backhanded compliment to McCarthy’s Democratic predecessor, Nancy Pelosi, that she managed her caucus successfully with an equally narrow majority. 

Make no mistake: the entire Republican Party will pay an enormous price for this maneuver. It’s one thing to remove a speaker; it’s another to remove him without no obvious way to resolve the resulting impasse. Each day it lasts tells American voters, “Republicans don’t know how to govern.” They know how to use a bullhorn. They know how to stop legislation. They know how to jettison a speaker. But they don’t know how to pass legislation or find a new speaker. That’s a disastrous message to send voters. 

As the Republican House majority confronts this mess, they have only two conceivable paths to end it by selecting a speaker. Given their narrow majority, they need first, a candidate who wins virtually the votes in the Republican caucus and could be elected without any Democratic votes, and second, a candidate who wins a large plurality of votes in the caucus and becomes speaker because enough Democrats help them in the floor vote, either by voting with the Republicans or remaining absent. 

BOOKS Comments turned off

How Do We Get Out of Here?: Half a Century of Laughter and Mayhem at The American Spectator—From Bobby Kennedy to Donald J. Trump Kindle Edition by R. Emmett Tyrrell

Posted By on October 4th, 2023

https://www.amazon.com/How-Get-Out-Here-Spectator-ebook/dp/B0C47G4DVD/ref=sr_1_2?crid=

How Do We Get Out of Here? is R. Emmett Tyrrell, Jr.’s intimate memoir, detailing his leadership in the conservative movement and his relationships with its major personalities from 1968 to the present.

When R. Emmett Tyrrell, Jr. was a conservative college student in 1968, he watched as Senator Robert Kennedy gave a rousing campaign speech. When Senator Kennedy asked him, “How do we get out of here?” Tyrrell—the only other person onstage—not only escorted the candidate to his car but boldly pressed a “Reagan for President” button into the legendary Democrat’s hand.

This early, irreverent political prank marked Tyrrell’s entrance into what would become a decades-long engagement at the heart of American politics as founder and publisher of the legendary conservative magazine, The American Spectator. Tyrrell has now written a candid memoir of those tumultuous years, complete with fascinating—and often, uproarious—behind-the-scenes vignettes of the turbulent politics and the most prominent political and literary personalities of the era, including the Spectator’s furious political battles with Bill Clinton, the author’s close association with Ronald Reagan, his warm relations and competition with William F. Buckley of the National Review, his friendship with a post-presidential Richard Nixon, and the chaotic years of Donald Trump’s presidency.

Written in Tyrrell’s trademark unfailing and bitingly satirical style, How Do We Get Out of Here? is an invaluable and intimate recount of the political and cultural battles that shaped our contemporary politics, written by a raconteur whose fearless muckraking materially impacted the politics of the modern era.

P.C.-CULTURE Comments turned off

The Book Ban Clan The left-wing faux book banning allegations are relentless By Larry Sand

Posted By on October 4th, 2023

https://amgreatness.com/2023/10/04/the-book-ban-clan/

In Rules for Radicals, far-left organizer Saul Alinsky’s classic work on labor activism,  number 13 in his rules of power tactics reads, “Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it.”

Alinsky’s words are in full view these days in the form of “book banning” charges, a current mantra of the American left. And, as we are in the middle of “Banned Books Week,” the onslaught is massive. Front and center in the movement is the American Library Association, whose 2023 Banned Books Week theme is “Let Freedom Read.” The ALA insists that our democracy is imperiled and “that the safety of our right to speak and think freely is directly in proportion to our right to read.”

Similarly, a new report from PEN America, a left-wing advocacy group, informs us that school book bans and restrictions in the U.S. rose 33% in the last school year, continuing what the organization deems a worrisome effort aimed at the “suppression of stories and ideas.” 

The Biden Administration thinks we are in dire straits and has appointed a deputy assistant secretary for the Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights. This “book ban czar” is entrusted to “enforce federal civil rights laws and address threats to civil rights.”

A spokesman from the Education Department adds, “The Department of Education remains firm in its commitment to ensure all students are protected from all forms of discrimination.” 

Not to be outdone, California Gov. Gavin Newsom recently signed a bill into law barring school boards from banning books, instructional materials, or curricula labeled as inclusive or diverse. He proclaims, “Remarkable that we’re living in a country right now in this banning binge, this cultural purge that we’re experiencing all throughout America, and now increasingly here in the state of California, where we have school districts large and small banning books, banning free speech, criminalizing librarians and teachers.”

In reality, whatever righteousness Banned Books Week may have once held – it started in 1982 – it has been taken over by progressives who, in large part, are trying to legitimize the field once known as “obscenity.”

In fact, most of the so-called “banned books” are nothing more than an attempt by parents not to have their children exposed to kiddie porn. For example, they don’t want their children to read books like Gender Queer, in which the protagonist says, “I can’t wait to have your c**k in my mouth — I’m going to give you the bl*w j*b of your life. Then I want you inside me.” Or maybe they don’t think their kid should be subjected to Lawn Boy, which contains a passage about 10-year-old boys performing oral sex on each other. Or perhaps they don’t want their child to be read Crank, which details meth addiction and rape.

EDUCATION Comments turned off

Drag University at Princeton Guess what’s happening at the #1-ranked American university. by Hugh Fitzgerald

Posted By on October 4th, 2023

https://www.frontpagemag.com/drag-university-at-princeton/

There is a new program, a new subject for study and teaching, at Princeton University, that should gladden the hearts of diversity, equity, and inclusivity devotees everywhere. It stretches the boundaries and pushes the envelope. Who could object? Well, you could, and I could.

Princeton, according to the latest list compiled by U.S. News and World Report, is ranked #1 among American universities. Think of that. #1.

And Princeton, no doubt hoping to solidify its status as #1, has just announced a new program that will train students in the Art of the Drag. Robert Spencer wrote about this here, and there is more here: “New ‘Drag University’ program at Princeton to fund students’ budding drag careers,” by Logan Dubil, The College Fix, September 28, 2023:

A new “Drag University” program launched at Princeton University will train students in the “artform.”

The program is offered through the school’s Gender + Sexuality Resource Center and is open to all undergraduate and graduate students interested in the world of drag, according to the center’s Instagram page.

Throughout the 2023-24 school year, enrolled participants will cover an array of topics, including the history of drag, “Sewing 101,” choreography, face painting, photoshoots and other topics, according to the program’s registration form.

The form was updated this week to note: “At this time we have reached our capacity for our scholarships, but you are more than welcome to attend our workshops.”

Prior to its update, the form stated the first six enrollees who attend the Sept. 19 orientation and commit to the program will receive scholarships to fully cover the cost of supplies, according to a copy screenshot by The College Fix.

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

A Broken Congress House Republicans have forgotten their mission. by Daniel Greenfield

Posted By on October 4th, 2023

https://www.frontpagemag.com/a-broken-congress/

When Democrats are in the majority, they get their way. And when Republicans are in the majority, the Democrats also get their way. Most recently, after the stopgap spending bill was passed, Rep Jamie Raskin took to MSNBC to boast that the Democrats “got the vast majority of what we wanted” from it. And for some Republicans that was the last straw.

Eight House Republicans allied with Democrats on a vote to remove Speaker Kevin McCarthy. And for the first time in over a century, a House Speaker was successfully booted from office.

A civil war among Republicans came down to threats from both sides of collaborating with Democrats in a House of Representatives with a narrow majority. And collaborating with Democrats seems to be the only thing that House Republicans know how to do anymore.

What are the legislative achievements of a House GOP majority, today, yesterday and the day before? They invariably involve collaborating with Democrats for personal political gain.

It’s been over a generation since a House Republican majority delivered for conservatives. Congressional Republicans are too terrified to fight Democrats and instead go after safe targets like each other. It’s not even worth counting how many times a Democrat White House made a House Republican majority cower in fear over the threat of being blamed for a government shutdown. Or how often that same majority compensated for surrendering to Democrats with meaningless virtue signaling votes that everyone knew were never going to pass the Senate.

Why are Democrats able to effectively wield their House majority while Republicans couldn’t? The Democrats are not afraid of what Republicans think of them. They develop a plan, implement it and dismiss Republican efforts to stop them. Republicans however care a great deal about what Democrats, in the House, in the media and the culture, think of them.

When Republicans threaten to blame Democrats for something, they laugh it off. Democrats backed the mobs that burned cities to the ground and opened the border to an unprecedented mass invasion without worrying what the Republicans would say. But Republicans live in fear of being blamed for a government shutdown. Rather than risk being blamed for shutting down the country, they shut down their own agenda, and then formed circular firing squads.

EDUCATION Comments turned off

A Glimmer of Hope in Higher Education The Open Discourse Coalition, a new organization that champions free speech, is thriving. By Susan J. Crawford and Kenneth G. Langone

Posted By on October 4th, 2023

https://www.wsj.com/articles/a-glimmer-of-hope-for-free-speech-in-higher-education-colleges-universities-civil-discourse-7330474?mod=opinion_lead_pos10

The president of Bucknell University, John Bravman, stood behind a placard bearing the words “Freedom of Expression” last month and kicked off a yearlong forum on the subject. Mr. Bravman introduced columnist George Will, who inveighed against censorship for 45 minutes, skewering both political parties in the process.

It was a dream come true, considering the cancel culture flourishing on many college campuses. In 2021 we wrote a letter in these pages with the headline “Alumni Are Fed Up and Ready to Fight Back.” We saw what was happening at our alma mater and colleges nationwide and decided to do something about it.

We began Open Discourse Coalition, an alumni and student-supported organization. The coalition is an independent, nonprofit organization with an office blocks from Bucknell University. Its goal is to advance the school’s mission to offer students diversity of thought with an unwavering commitment to free speech.

Prominent speakers, confident they will be heard, have been drawn to Bucknell to discuss and debate national issues, with students from the right and left turning out in large numbers. Experts on some of society’s thorniest topics have civilly discussed, disagreed and answered challenging questions from students.

It “was not nearly as polarized as what I expected,” one student wrote in response to a program. Another: “I was pleasantly surprised at how civil the conversation [was] and highly appreciated the respect both views gave each other.” One professor told us it was the first time he heard two differing perspectives on gun control at the same program in more than 20 years on campus.

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

“He Will Help You With What You Need”: New Messages To Hunter Deepen Concerns Over Chinese Influence by Jonathan Turley

Posted By on October 4th, 2023

https://www.zerohedge.com/political/he-will-help-you-what-you-need-new-messages-hunter-deepen-concerns-over-chinese-influence

After the initiation of the Biden impeachment inquiry, new messages are deepening concerns over the influence of Chinese figures on the Biden family. Messages from longtime Biden associate Fran Person show the Chinese stepping in to support Hunter’s lavish lifestyle as funds dried up during his divorce. Person wrote Hunter that Chinese businessman Bo Zhang “will help you with what you need.”

Fran Person was not just a close aide to Joe Biden for years, but someone that the First Lady Jill Biden described as a member of the family: “Fran has been like a son to Joe and me. For eight years, we traveled the country, shared holidays together … Fran may be leaving the office, but he will always be a part of our family.”

Fran left the staff of Joe Biden and went to work with Chinese figures . . . and Hunter.

In a July 2017 WhatsApp message, Person told Hunter that Zhang was aware that he was in financial distress during his divorce and would cover his costs. Hunter sounds desperate for the Chinese support as he gushes money to fund his lavish lifestyle: “100K at least gets me until next month.”

Person assures him that Zhang has his back: “He will help you with what you need.”

Fox News Digital reported on Person’s messages. They include this assurance:

“I talked to Bo previously about the 37K – he didn’t flinch. I will talk to him about 56K and possibly 100K. It really depends on his liquid assets in the US…I will ask. His only problem is getting large sums out of China (especially right now).”

Hunter appears in distress and presses Person if he knew whether anything was wired or if they were in a “holding pattern.”

Person responds “No holding pattern…he was on his way to the bank this morning. He will be in touch when it’s confirmed.”

“He will help you with what you need. He also mentioned that you should take a trip to China some time this month to just get away for a week or so…just decompress.”

Hunter later schedules the trip.

The concern is that Hunter was receiving money from figures closely associated with foreign government and foreign intelligence, including the CCP.  These operatives often look for people who are in desperate situations to exercise influence over them. Hunter Biden’s massive spending and addictions would have been a draw for intelligence services.  He offered an obvious entry into potential influence or access with regard to Joe Biden.

WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Putin’s Man in Ankara: Erdoğan by Burak Bekdil

Posted By on October 4th, 2023

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/20020/putin-erdogan

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan is trying to get the most from Turkey’s theoretical Western allies while in reality allying with Russian President Vladimir Putin – like sort of a Muslim Fidel Castro.

“[A]ny sense of a significant change in Mr. Erdoğan’s balancing act between Russia and the West appeared to evaporate on Monday, when he and Mr. Putin stood side by side after a meeting in the Russian resort town of Sochi and spoke of expanding cooperation.” — Editorial, The New York Times, September 4, 2023.

Erdoğan returned home [from Sochi] with an agenda to convince Western parties to the [grain corridor] deal on whatever terms Moscow insists should be in any new agreement.

Erdoğan needs Western money to prevent Turkey’s economic suicide. He needs U.S.-made fighter jets to maintain a delicate power balance over the Aegean skies. He needs Western pats on the shoulder to win legitimacy for his undemocratic one-man rule. But he wants all of these cookies without having to give up Russia. Over the past years, Erdoğan has made Turkey addicted to Russia, like a junkie to a dealer.

[I]t was appalling to hear an EU ambassador in Ankara tell me that he was appalled that Erdoğan said that a) he trusts Russia as much as he trusts the West, and that b) Ankara could “part ways” with the European Union if necessary. Erdogan’s ultranationalist ally, Devlet Bahçeli, immediately endorsed the cheap bluff: “We’re done with the EU.”

That is the way Erdoğan does horse trading. Sadly, each time, the gullible West gets cheated.

Erdoğan’s Turkey is one of the countries breaking Western sanctions on Russia. Earlier in September, the US State Department imposed sanctions on five Turkish shipping and trade companies for repairing Russian Defense Ministry vessels, transporting Russian military goods, and helping Russia to evade sanctions.

Perhaps Erdoğan is right. Turkey should part ways with the EU – and NATO too.

WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Ukraine’s Victory Over Russia Will Benefit Western Security by Con Coughlin

Posted By on October 3rd, 2023

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/20017/ukraine-western-security

The slow rate of [Ukrainian] progress has also prompted politicians on both sides of the Atlantic to question whether it is worth continuing to support Ukraine’s military effort or instead concentrate their efforts on negotiating a peace settlement between the warring countries.

Vivek Ramaswamy, a candidate for the Republican Party nomination in the 2024 US presidential election… calling for Ukraine to cede territory to Russia as part of a peace package that would also commit Moscow to end its military alliance with Beijing.

Ramaswamy’s fundamental argument, which is attracting support in some Republican circles, is that by supporting Ukraine’s war effort, the US and its allies risk forcing Moscow to align itself more closely with Beijing, thereby creating a powerful bloc to confront the West.

[T]he notion that Western support for Ukraine will force Moscow to forge closer ties with China is also overstated. Chinese President Xi Jinping may have given his tacit backing for Putin’s invasion of Ukraine last year, but Beijing regards Moscow as being very much the poor relation in their alliance, and sees Russia as being little more than a gas station to be used to fuel the Chinese economy. If Russia seriously thinks its interests would be better served by developing close ties with China, it should think again.

If Putin were to succeed in capturing large swathes of Ukrainian territory through force of arms, China would conclude that it could use similar tactics to achieve its own aims, such as launching an invasion of Taiwan. If Putin is defeated, though, China’s Communist rulers will have to think twice before launching an unprovoked military assault.

Had it not been for the surrender of the US to Afghanistan in August of 2021, Russia would never have invaded Ukraine. Putin only started slowly sending troops to its border a few weeks later in September. Recently, China has begun sending ships and fighter jets toward Taiwan in the same slowly escalating way, to “normalize” troop movements and avoid raising alarm. The US simply cannot afford another defeat, this time in Ukraine. The surrender of any Ukrainian territory in some “deal” to end the war will be seen by the international community as a victory for Putin and another feckless American cut-and-run.

Still another factor that risks undermining Western support for Ukraine is the unreliability of the Biden administration’s approach to the conflict. On one level, the White House remains committed to supporting the Ukrainian cause. On another, it appears confused about defining its ultimate objectives in the conflict. As retired US General Jack Keane recently commented in an interview with Fox News, the Biden administration’s current track record suggests that it still does not have a strategic goal in the conflict.

If that is the case, then in the interests of Western security, the administration needs to agree on an endgame for the Ukraine conflict, one where Russia’s humiliating defeat at the hands of Western backed Ukrainian forces becomes the central objective.

HOMELAND SECURITY Comments turned off

Report: An Iranian Spy Currently Serves as Chief of Staff for Assistant Secretary of Defense For Special Operations By Debra Heine

Posted By on October 3rd, 2023

https://amgreatness.com/2023/10/02/report-an-iranian-spy-currently-serves-as-chief-of-staff-for-assistant-secretary-of-defense-for-special-operations/

Former Special Envoy for Iran Robert Malley oversaw “an Iranian intelligence operation designed to influence the United States and allied governments” while he served as the Biden regime’s chief negotiator for the Iran nuclear deal, according to several explosive new reports.

A trove of “purloined Iranian government emails” were published last week in Semafor and in the London-based opposition paper Iran International after an extensive, months-long vetting process by the two outlets, investigative journalist and author Lee Smith reported in Tablet on Sunday.

According to the reports, Malley planted an alleged Iranian spy named Ariane Tabatabai into sensitive positions in the Biden administration, first at the State Department and then at the Pentagon, where she continues to serve as chief of staff for the assistant secretary of defense for special operations, Christopher Maier.

Malley, a controversial figure since the Obama years, has since been suspended and has had his security clearance revoked for allegedly mishandling classified documents.

As Lee reported in Tablet, email exchanges between Iranian regime diplomats and analysts over several years indicate that “Tabatabai was part of a regime propaganda unit set up in 2014 by the Iranian Foreign Ministry.”

The Iran Experts Initiative (IEI) tasked operatives drawn from Iranian diaspora communities to promote Iranian interests during the clerical regime’s negotiations with the United States over its nuclear weapons program. Though several of the IEI operatives and others named in the emails have sought to portray themselves on social media as having engaged with the regime in their capacity as academic experts, or in order to promote better understanding between the United States and Iran, none has questioned the veracity of the emails.