IMMIGRATION Comments turned off

Sinema blasts Biden administration as ‘outrageous’ in lack of funding for migrant crisis in border states by Gabrielle M. Etzel

Posted By on September 10th, 2023

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/policy/immigration/sinema-blasts-biden-administration-outrageous-lack-funding-migrant-crisis

Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (I-AZ) lambasted the Biden administration on Friday as “outrageous” and “ridiculous” for failing to allocate sufficient funds to humanitarian organizations on the Arizona-Mexico border dealing with the migrant crisis.

“The government has shown a real inability to respond in real-time to the change in the patterns,” Sinema said, adding that the Biden administration has “completely shortchanged Arizona border communities” that are experiencing fluctuations in where migrants cross into the U.S.

In July, Border Patrol’s Tucson sector set a 15-year high for migrant encounters, making it the busiest along the Southwest border.

Arizona citizens, in particular, are frustrated with the insufficiency of the Shelter and Service Program, which provides federal assistance to social work organizations that assist migrants.

Under the prior apparatus, called the Emergency Food and Shelter Program, federal money for the migrant crisis was limited to border towns, but dollars under the SSP program are now being spread across the entire country.

New York City, which has received more than any border town under the SSP, has been given $106.8 million in funding, compared to the $56 million to be shared across state governments and non-profits in the four states that border Mexico.

Sinema told reporters that the lack of funding for humanitarian services along the southern border is creating a dangerous situation for both migrants and Arizonan communities as social workers and volunteers struggle to do their jobs with decreased levels of public support.

Sinema said she is working to get more funding from the administration that is “adequate to actually meet the needs of the border communities that are actually meeting the challenge.”

ELECTIONS Comments turned off

Biden fails crisis management in Hawaii; DeSantis shines in Florida By Michael McKenna

Posted By on September 10th, 2023

https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2023/sep/9/biden-fails-crisis-management-in-hawaii-desantis-s/

One legitimate measurement of the readiness and capability of a candidate to be president is how he or she responds to a crisis.

In a moment of crisis, the core of human beings is on display. Some people wither; others shine. Either way, it is always a peek into the foundation of the person — his or her value system.

We had two examples of this recently, as both President Biden and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis had the opportunity to respond to crises, in the wake of the devastating fire on Maui and Hurricane Idalia, respectively.

How did they do?

Unfortunately, the president embarrassed himself. While the fires were burning, Mr. Biden remained on the beach and in the beach house of a wealthy donor; he could not even manage an encouraging or sympathetic comment or two to the Maui survivors. When he finally did get around to visiting Hawaii, he compared the fires — which destroyed an entire community and may have killed more than 100 people — to a small kitchen fire he once experienced.

It will not surprise you to learn that the president has managed, in the retelling, to turn that kitchen fire into an inferno that almost killed his wife and his cat, and destroyed his 1967 Corvette. The president wasn’t clear about which loss would have been the greater personal tragedy.

He did this while talking to survivors who, in many instances, were and are certain that their loved ones are dead among the ashes.

ELECTIONS Comments turned off

The Presidential Election Narrative Is Changing — With Likely Consequences for Fundraising Douglas Schoen

Posted By on September 10th, 2023

https://themessenger.com/opinion/the-presidential-election-narrative-is-changing-with-likely-consequences-for-fundraising

There has been a huge change in the race for president, and it has more to do with elite opinions about the outcome of the race than it does with the actual numbers.

While there has been a marginal improvement in Donald Trump’s position vis-à-vis Joe Biden, largely due to Biden’s low ratings both for job performance and for his handling of the economy, Biden is also plagued by an increasing number of Democrats who are lukewarm to his position atop the party’s ticket.

Indeed, due to Biden’s age and an increasing perception of corruption involving his son Hunter Biden — who we learned this week is likely to be indicted on gun charges before the end of the month — Biden’s vulnerabilities as a candidate are rapidly piling up.

The reason this is important, is that with a spate of polls, including recent national polling by my firm, Schoen Cooperman Research, showing that Trump’s ratings as president (52% approve, 44% disapprove) are close to 10-points higher than Biden’s contemporaneous ratings (44% approve, 54% disapprove), political analysts are starting to realize that what happened in 2016 could well repeat itself in 2020: That is, an upset victory for Donald Trump.

To be sure, for the last six to nine months — both before and after the former president’s four indictments — the narrative among elites had been pretty much as follows: Trump is damaged goods due to his indictments; he can’t focus on a campaign; swing voters, suburbanites, and women will not vote for Trump; his focus on 2020 will just detract from hopes for a better future, and the GOP must do everything they can to find a stronger nominee.

Meanwhile, the data continues to show Trump with roughly a 40-point lead over his closest primary opponent, a 1-point lead over Biden in SCR’s recent polling, as well as a considerable advantage over Biden in the aforementioned retrospective versus current approval rating of the two administrations.

ELECTIONS Comments turned off

Freddy Gray: Is Joe Biden really running again?

Posted By on September 10th, 2023

https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/is-joe-biden-really-running-again/

Will President Joe Biden be on the ballot in the presidential election of 2024? It’s a question that Biden seemed to answer four months ago when he announced, in an online video, that he would be running for re-election next year. ‘Let’s finish this job,’ he said. ‘Because I know we can.’ 

Three-quarters of Americans say they’re ‘seriously concerned’ about Biden’s mental and physical competence to do the job

Team Biden must have hoped that, after making that announcement, the doubts surrounding his bid for re-election would go away. As the polls increasingly show Donald Trump cruising towards a re-nomination for the Republican ticket, America appears then to be heading – grimly, inevitably – towards a repeat of 2020. Trump vs Biden 2024: this time it’s more depressing. 

But the concerns about Joe Biden’s fitness for office now, let alone another four years, have never gone away. In fact, they’re intensifying again. 

He’s an unpopular president: his approval ratings have remained stuck around 40 per cent, though it’s worth noting Obama’s were not much better. The Biden administration like nothing more than to talk up his economic accomplishments – record jobs! Manufacturing boom! – yet the public doesn’t agree. Some 60 per cent of Americans now say that Biden’s policies have made the country worse off. The number of people who think America is on the ‘right track’ under his leadership is currently less than 25 per cent. 

Democrats can and will find comfort in telling themselves that Biden beat Trump in 2020 and, with the added advantages of incumbency, he can do it in 2024. America isn’t really going to vote for Donald Trump again, is it? 

EDUCATION Comments turned off

Oliver Rhodes Who killed free speech at Harvard?

Posted By on September 10th, 2023

https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/harvard-doesnt-need-free-speech/

Harvard, consistently ranked as one of the world’s best universities, has just been rated the worst for free speech in the United States. The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (Fire), which compiled the rankings, described the state of free speech at Harvard as ‘abysmal’.

This news is surprising, since in April over fifty Harvard academics formed a Council on Academic Freedom dedicated, in its words, ‘to promoting free enquiry, intellectual diversity and civil discourse’ on campus. The Council’s formation marked a milestone in official recognition of the problem of free speech, mainly for conservative professors. The psychologist Steven Pinker and Lawrence H. Summers, former advisor to President Clinton, are both members. So why does Harvard’s reputation continue to decline?

Having just finished a year at Harvard, I would say there’s a fairly simple explanation. It is misleading to speak of a free speech problem when Harvard doesn’t really need free speech in the first place. The purpose of America’s elite universities, for decades, has been to serve as hitching posts for the elite. Most people are there to climb the ladder and get a well-paid job. Once you understand this, you can see why a university which professes to champion enquiry, tolerance and diversity ends up doing the exact opposite. 

The purpose of America’s elite universities, for decades, has been to serve as hitching posts for the elite

For starters, Harvard’s student body remains stubbornly homogeneous. Ten per cent of graduating seniors identify as conservative, versus 70 per cent liberal. Diversity of race and gender have improved – but these are relatively easy to achieve when affirmative action privileges wealthy black students, and girls outperform boys at high school. 

FOREIGN POLICY Comments turned off

New Biden Nuke Deal is a Farce and Emboldens Iran IAEA Report Proves Secret Biden Nuclear Deal with Iran is a Fraud By Fred Fleitz

Posted By on September 10th, 2023

https://amgreatness.com/2023/09/08/new-biden-nuke-deal-is-a-farce-and-emboldens-iran/

As I discussed in an August 3, 2023 American Greatness article, the Biden administration negotiated a secret, unwritten nuclear deal with Iran last spring that reportedly will provide Tehran with $20 billion in sanctions relief and keep its nuclear program at a level capable of quickly producing weapons-grade nuclear fuel.

A new report by the International Atomic Energy Agency disproves the Biden Administration’s attempts to dismiss the danger of the secret agreement and to falsely portray it as a deal that halted Iran’s pursuit of nuclear weapons.

Iran also reportedly agreed under this deal to cooperate with IAEA investigations of its nuclear program. Iran is allowed to keep its nuclear infrastructure under the agreement, including advanced uranium centrifuges, and is permitted to continue to develop this technology.

Linked to the agreement is a U.S.-Iran prisoner swap under which Iran received $6 billion in sanctions relief in exchange for releasing five innocent Americans imprisoned in Iran. The prisoner swap was widely criticized as the U.S. paying ransom to free Americans held hostage by Iran. The five Americans were released from prison and placed under house arrest in Iran on August 10. Negotiations to allow them to leave the country are continuing.

To circumvent congressional oversight of this dangerous deal, it was negotiated as a set of unwritten “understandings” and the Biden administration has publicly denied its existence.

But at the same time, Biden officials have privately spun the deal to selected reporters as a diplomatic victory by claiming it suspended Iran’s nuclear weapons program because Tehran agreed not to produce weapons-grade uranium.

This week, Biden administration officials attempted to convince reporters that a new International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) report proves this because Iran is producing less near-weapons-grade 60% enriched uranium due to their diplomatic efforts.

This is a clever distortion of the IAEA report.

First of all, uranium enriched to 60% uranium-235 is only ten days to two weeks away from weapons-grade level enrichment, 90%.

ENVIRONMENT AND JUNK SCIENCE Comments turned off

The WEF and the Climate Cult: Colluding for a World-wide Welfare State By Thaddeus G. McCotter

Posted By on September 10th, 2023

https://amgreatness.com/2023/09/09/the-wef-and-the-climate-cult/

One should never underestimate the Left’s propensity for projecting its sins upon its victims; nor, when the Left does manage to admit the destructive effects of their regressive ideology, to proclaim these disastrous consequences as fundamental transformational and “liberation.” To avoid such a fraught misunderstanding, one must ever remember the Left perverts the purported rationale of every entity captured in their “long march” through the institutions.

To wit: The World Economic Forum (WEF).

One would think an organization comprised of the uber rich global elitists would be assiduously focused on increasing wealth. The rationale would be their own greed; and the need to spread wealth to meet rising global expectations of material prosperity that, as history shows, when unmet lead to revolutions – revolutions which confiscate the wealth of the rich and often their lives. Yet, to spread material wealth is rarely the goal of the rich. Their goal is to amass wealth; then, having amassed it, to protect it from the masses. However, in a contradiction Karl Marx would appreciate, in spreading their wealth to increase the masses’ material prosperity, they will also be increasing the masses’ expectations. In an age of instantaneous global communication among the masses, these expectations will rapidly and exponentially rise. There is every reason to believe they will not be met; and revolutions and/or chaos will ensue as the masses demand their “equitable” share of prosperity.

Thus, for the WEF, what to do if one doesn’t necessarily want to share their pile to spread the wealth and only exacerbate rising expectations among the masses that can’t be met; and, when unmet, spur nothing good for rich elitists?

For the first time in human history, the goal is not to increase material prosperity but to cap and curtail it. By making diminished expectations a virtue, the WEF hopes to coercively redistribute other people’s wealth to manage mass expectations, prevent governmental confiscations and preclude revolutions. In sum, the WEF goal is not creation of prosperity, but the management of scarcity. In this, they have found a willing partner in the apocalyptic climate cult, which is more than happy to scare and coerce people into latching onto their mutual, radical, socialist agenda.

But, one may ask, how can the ostensible “titans” of capitalism become strange bedfellows with socialist environmentalists? Because both want to control you for their own purposes; and, for now, those purposes coincide. One need look no further for proof than the ESG movement among multinational corporations. Someday, likely sooner rather than later, when these two colluders’ interests no longer mesh, it will be interesting to see which side is the rider and which is the tiger.

EDUCATION Comments turned off

The Regime Strikes Back The Biden Administration opens a meritless civil rights investigation into New College of Florida. Christopher Rufo

Posted By on September 10th, 2023

https://christopherrufo.com/p/the-regime-strikes-back?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=1248321&post_id=136864574&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=8t06w&utm_medium=email

The fight for New College of Florida has taken another turn. Earlier today, the Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights opened an investigation into the Sarasota-based university, where I serve as a trustee, for alleged “discrimination on the basis of disability.”

The investigation stems from a complaint by unnamed “students, faculty, and staff” alleging, in part, that the college’s trustees and administrators violated civil rights law by removing “gender neutral” signage from bathrooms, defunding the DEI and gender studies programs, and “misgendering” the former DEI director, who uses “ze/zir” pseudo-pronouns.

This is a brazen attempt to subvert the democratic governance of New College and entrench left-wing ideological programs under the guise of civil rights law. Although the complaint is wholly without merit, this does not mean it will automatically fail. The Biden Administration has demonstrated repeatedly that it is willing to weaponize the federal law enforcement apparatus against school board parents and other conservative reformers.

We are ready for the fight. When Governor DeSantis appointed the new board of trustees, he told us: “If the media isn’t attacking you, you’re not doing your job.” The same could be said of the Biden Administration.

ISRAEL Comments turned off

Oslo is dead: A Palestinian state will never exist Michael Freund

Posted By on September 10th, 2023

https://www.jpost.com/opinion/article-758080

Thirty years on, we can say with confidence that Oslo and everything that it stood for is dead. Rather than trying to revive it, we would do well to offer it a fitting eulogy.

Next week marks the 30th anniversary of the signing of the Oslo Accords, one of the most colossal strategic errors in modern Israel’s history.

Three decades after prime minister Yitzhak Rabin and PLO terrorist-in-chief Yasser Arafat shook hands as a beaming US president Bill Clinton looked on, the smiles have long ago been erased thanks to the disaster wrought by the agreement.

And since the legacy of that catastrophic capitulation by the Jewish state is still very much with us, it is worth gazing back, however briefly, at the folly of that regrettable attempt to appease terror with territory.

Tossing logic to the wind, and blithely ignoring the warnings of senior IDF officials as well as the opposition, Rabin and foreign minister Shimon Peres inexplicably decided to rescue Arafat from political oblivion.

Despite his ignominious career ordering the hijacking of airlines and cruise ships, plotting school massacres, and reveling in the murder of innocents, Arafat was suddenly granted legitimacy as a “partner” by Israel’s government thanks to Oslo. 

WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

From Kublai to Xi: Old and New Silk Road by Amir Taheri

Posted By on September 10th, 2023

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/19963/china-xi-new-silk-road

Under China’s Mongol rulers, the Silk Road was a private enterprise scheme, an example of capitalist free trade producing prosperity. Xi’s folie, however, is an exercise in command economy of the kind known as “socialist planning.”

At a time when the Chinese economy has entered a bumpy patch, how has Xi’s folie project done so far?

Launching “white elephants” in Sri Lanka led to the island nation’s bankruptcy and produced regime change in Colombo, while turning China into number-one hate figure for people hit by economic collapse under the burden of debt.

In some places, such as Kazakhstan, infrastructure built in Soviet era has been revamped as new; a case of painting the canary to pass it on as parrot.

In what could become a domino effect, at least 20 states are on the verge of default because half of their national budget goes for servicing foreign debt, mostly to China. Ghana and Zambia have already defaulted, and Pakistan has just been saved with a $3 billion handout from the International Monetary Fund.

(China refuses to join the Paris Club of 22 countries, top global creditors, thus avoiding rescheduling of debts. Xi can demand payment of debts he grants even before contracts end.)

Xi’s belief that his global folie would benefit China alone is also wrong. If there is a railway or a port or a canal somewhere, everyone would be able to use it, everyone including China’s real or imagined rivals such as the US, the European Union and Japan.

President Xi! Please note that humans resent getting favors even if the donor is sincere.

Ingratitude is part of human rights.