Iranian Regime on Edge as Protest Anniversary Looms A terrified and desperate tyranny. by Majid Rafizadeh

https://www.frontpagemag.com/iranian-regime-on-edge-as-protest-anniversary-looms/

As Iran edges closer to the anniversary of the September 2022 uprisings laden with historic significance, the regime faces an unsettling reality: the prospect of renewed massive street protests reminiscent of the seismic upheavals of September 2022. Within Tehran’s inner sanctums of power and among its suppressive forces, an uneasy apprehension looms.

Against this backdrop, an intricate web of orchestrated actions and narratives by the Iranian regime against its principal opposition, is captivating global attention. The regime’s strategic orchestration of these narratives unveils a profound storyline—one that crumbles under the weight of scrutiny, exposing the regime’s underlying vulnerability and growing desperation.

Implicit in this tense atmosphere is the understanding that the oppositional group, the MEK, remains a potent catalyst behind such monumental social movements. During the 2018 uprising, Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei himself conceded, based on internal intelligence assessments, that MEK activists had meticulously planned for months to orchestrate the widespread demonstrations that reverberated across the nation.

The subsequent 2022 protests further underscored the MEK’s influence, as the commander of Iran’s State Security Force candidly asserted that “rioters, led by the MEK, are willing to instigate chaos.” Such declarations, along with acknowledgments of MEK-orchestrated protests, expose Tehran’s alarm and its recognition of the MEK’s role as the main architect of unrest.

As the Iranian regime stares down this impending milestone, it artfully maneuvers its tactics to counteract the potency of the MEK during this critical juncture.

Among the recent measures, the regime has invoked INTERPOL mechanisms to apprehend MEK members. July bore witness to Tehran’s announcement of summoning 107 MEK leaders and officials for prosecution, while spreading rumors that the MEK is unsafe and scrambling to relocate to Canada. A thread of “suspicious deaths” among MEK members at Ashraf-3, the group’s residence in Albania, was deftly woven into the regime’s propaganda. Even Iran’s Judiciary Chief publicly proclaimed the regime’s determination to repatriate MEK members from foreign jurisdictions.

For ‘Wokism’ to Live, Free Speech Must Die And that means the First Amendment must die. by Bruce Thornton

https://www.frontpagemag.com/for-wokism-to-live-free-speech-must-die/

“Wokism” is the “highest stage” of Marxism, to borrow Lenin’s phrase, the final descent of that malign, murderous ideology into intellectual degradation and absurd triviality. After all, “wokism” is, like communism, a mash-up of radical secularism, scientism, technocratic tyranny, and a ruthless “any means necessary” modus operandi. Hence like Marxism, for “wokism” to succeed, coherent arguments, empirical evidence, common sense, and truth itself must be discredited, distorted, and demonized, at the same time alternative authorities––God, the Constitution, real science–– subjected to tyrannical elimination or refashioning.

So we shouldn’t be surprised that for decades the left has targeted the First Amendment and silenced dissent. Especially after the collapse of Soviet communism, which its last president Mikhail Gorbachev facilitated with his policy of glasnost or greater freedom for public expression, the “new left” children of communism were not going to make the same mistake. Hence, they have for decades doubled-down on their intolerance for dissent manifested in “political correctness” and censorship.

And that means the First Amendment must die.

Leftism has two bad ideas that from its beginning have programmed it to be tyrannical. The first is to deny the reality available to common sense and experience. The natural world and human nature––the latter’s corruptibility empirically verified on every page of history––cannot be allowed to compromise the utopian outcomes promised by communist theory.

British historian Thomas Carlyle in 1857 identified this leftist sacrifice of reality to theory as it appeared among the radicals of the French Revolution, the precursors of the Bolsheviks: “Formulas, Philosophies, Respectabilities, what has been written in Books, and admitted by the Cultivated Classes: this inadequate Scheme of Nature’s working is all that Nature, let her work as she will, can reveal to these men. . . . [T]hey will do one thing: prove, to demonstration, that the Reality will not translate into their Formula; that they and their Formula are incompatible with the Reality: and, in its dark wrath, the Reality will extinguish it and them!”

Thus the truths of nature must be subordinated to the revolutionary’s fanciful imagination and will to power. For example, biological sex, an unchanging fact of nature, must be altered into “gender,” a mere preference from an endless catalogue of invented manifestations––no matter that this preposterous belief is obviously unscientific.

Clinical psychologist Jordan Peterson points out this patent truth: “Trans is clearly identifiable as a fad, comparable to preceding fads, or ‘transmissible psychological diseases,’ like outbreaks of alleged multiple personality disorder, hysteria, self-mutilation, and anorexia. The typical victim is a young female with an underlying neurosis that seeks a socially acceptable form of expression. These forms of expression vary with the times.” But no matter the form, the facts of biology must be denied in order for an illiberal political ideology to undermine reality in order to aggrandize political power and control.

As for human nature, its tragic reality also is denied, and its inevitable improvement simply asserted as our birthright stolen by the wicked oppressors du jour. These villains profit from forbidding humanity the boons of the collectivist paradise it will enjoy once its good and noble nature is restored by the revolution. Achieving this impossible goal entails a rejection of the tragic nature of human existence, the permanence of suffering and misery that follows from our destructive passions and interests.

The Nation’s Fiscal Crisis Just Got Real

https://issuesinsights.com/2023/09/06/the-nations-fiscal-crisis-just-got-real/

Over the weekend, the Washington Post let it slip that all is not well in Bidenomicsville. The deficit, it reports, could end up hitting $2 trillion when the current fiscal year ends in three weeks, which it describes as an “unexpected deficit surge.”

In other words, the deficit will nearly double this year, calling the lie on one of President Joe Biden’s favorite boasts about how he cut the deficit more than any president in history.

But while this apparently comes as a shock to the Post, as well as other liberal news sites that picked up on the Post report, anyone paying attention knew this was happening.

Back in February, for example, we pointed out that Biden’s reckless economic policies had added more than $5 trillion to projected deficits, even as he claimed he’d done more to cut the deficit than “any president in history.”

In early June, we noted that revenues had been plunging this year, despite all the boasts about a strong economy, and that “the projected deficit for the entire year is now close to $1.6 trillion, which is almost $300 billion higher than Treasury projected at the start of this fiscal year.”

In July, we pointed out that Bidenflation was pushing up the cost of federal entitlement programs such as Social Security and Medicare, and had resulted in a 37% increase in interest payments on the national debt in the first nine months of this fiscal year. That was the result of the Federal Reserve’s interest rate hikes, which were also a result of Bidenflation.

BIDEN’S PICK FOR AMBASSADOR TO ISRAEL: JACK LEW (RHYMES WITH WHO???)

https://www.cnn.com/2023/09/05/politics/joe-biden-jack-lew-israel-ambassador/index.html
CNN  —  https://www.cnn.com/2023/09/05/politics/joe-biden-jack-lew-israel-ambassador/index.html

President Joe Biden is nominating former US Treasury Secretary Jack Lew as his ambassador to Israel at a fraught moment in US-Israel ties.

Lew, who also served as chief of staff during the Obama administration, will likely face a tough confirmation battle as Republicans seek to challenge Biden’s policies toward Israel.

Tensions between Biden and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s right-wing government have persisted for months, in part over contentious judicial reforms and what Biden regards as extremist positions taken by members of Netanyahu’s government. Israel’s moves to expand settlements in the occupied West Bank have also drawn US criticism.

Biden and Netanyahu are expected to meet sometime this fall in the United States after a prolonged period without face-to-face talks. The two men have known each other for decades.

Even amid the tensions, Biden is looking to secure a normalization agreement between Israel and Saudi Arabia in the hopes of bringing more stability to the Middle East.

Lew, who has been working in private equity in recent years, declined to comment. He would replace Tom Nides as US ambassador to Israel. Nides, who is married to Virginia Moseley, the executive vice president of editorial for CNN US, departed the post earlier this summer.

Aside from his posts at the White House and Treasury, Lew served as deputy secretary of state for management and resources, and as the director of the Office of Management and Budget. He practices Orthodox Judaism and is 68 years old.

An impeachment inquiry looms It carries real risks for both Biden and the Republicans: Charles Lipson

https://thespectator.com/topic/impeachment-inquiry-looms-joe-biden/

The signals coming from House Speaker Kevin McCarthy are that his Republican majority will soon launch a formal impeachment investigation. The final decision hasn’t been announced — 

 and an investigation is still a far cry from a full House vote. But setting up an impeachment committee is an essential first step. Most of his caucus wants to take it. 

Most, but not all. The reservations of some Republicans and the calculations behind them are why McCarthy has moved slowly. The speaker’s problem is more than rounding up votes. The other problem is the investigation carries real risks as well as benefits. 

The biggest benefit is a technical, legal one. It gives House investigators the power to compel testimony and documents from all Executive Branch agencies, even the most reluctant, as well as private parties. According to the Office of Legal Counsel, the Department of Justice’s in-house legal advisor, “The House of Representatives must expressly authorize a committee to conduct an impeachment investigation and to use compulsory process in that investigation” in order to compel testimony and document production. With that committee, they can go to court directly to demand compliance. 

The president may be entitled to some protection for official communications, but, in 2020, the Supreme Court overwhelmingly rejected President Trump’s expansive claim that he and his aides had absolute immunity from congressional subpoenas. “Executive privilege” didn’t extend nearly that far. Instead, the High Court set standards to guide lower courts on what Congress could rightfully demand, including demands on the president himself. 

The court’s standards are a multi-part test:  

Subpoenas must be ‘detailed and substantial’;  
They must have legislative purpose, which includes impeachment;  
The materials must not be available to Congress another way; and 
Compliance must not ‘unduly burden’ the president as he fulfills his other duties 

The SCOTUS decision was “new law” since, for over two centuries, the president and Congress managed to resolve these disputes without the courts’ intervention. When that cooperation broke down, the court was forced to decide between the other two branches. 

Donald Trump and the coming ordeal by Byron York,

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/donald-trump-and-the-coming-ordeal

A Wall Street Journal national poll over the Labor Day weekend has shaken some observers’ views of the 2024 Republican presidential campaign. The bottom line: It’s no longer a two-man race between former President Donald Trump and Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL). Trump has pulled so far ahead and DeSantis has fallen so far behind that it is now inaccurate to characterize the two as locked in a head-to-head battle.

The numbers: Trump was the choice of 59% of poll respondents, while DeSantis was the choice of 13%. After DeSantis came former South Carolina Gov. and U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley at 8% and entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy at 5%.

In an earlier Wall Street Journal poll, in April, Trump led DeSantis 48 to 24 — a 24-point lead. Now, it’s 59 to 13 — a 46-point lead. “What was once a two-man race for the nomination has collapsed into a lopsided contest in which Trump, for now, has no formidable challenger,” the Wall Street Journal wrote.

There are no foreseeable events in the next few months that will change that dynamic. That means the possible game changers come next year, at two times. One is when voting starts with the Iowa caucuses on Jan. 15. The other is when the first of Trump’s many criminal trials begins, possibly on March 4.

Stanley Goldfarb Medical Doctors, or Social Workers? Physicians need to practice medicine, not worry about the “social determinants of health.”

https://www.city-journal.org/article/medical-doctors-or-social-workers

Can your doctor cure poverty? How about homelessness? Food insecurity? For that matter, does your doctor treat the legacy of slavery and racial discrimination?

Most people answer this question readily: No. Doctors are trained to treat medical conditions, helping patients lead healthier, happier, longer lives. Yet the medical elite think the answer is “yes.” For years, health disparities between white and minority communities have been attributed to the so-called social determinants of health (SDH), which include the effects of poverty on communities, the residue of historic discrimination, and purported ongoing discriminatory practices in health care. But do these factors really determine health—or are they more properly termed “social factors affecting behaviors associated with health status”? That’s not nearly as catchy as SDH. It just happens to be more accurate.

In a 2017 report, “Perspectives on Health Equity and Social Determinants of Health,” the National Academy of Medicine went further, presenting the issue through the lens of critical race theory. As the report frames it, no social comity exists to characterize human social interactions, only a dyad of oppressor and oppressed. The goal of eliminating disparities in the social determinants of health would be the achievement of true health equity, defined as “The optimal conditions for all people by valuing everyone equally, rectifying historic inequities, and distributing resources according to need.” The last phrase evokes a certain nineteenth-century social and economic philosophy. The report goes on to tie health disparities, among other factors, to the portrayal of black men in the media and to the expulsion and suspension of black children in early education.

The report’s clearest message: no one should attribute any health-care disparities to individuals’ self-determined actions. The report also decries “getting distracted by the alleged ‘deficits’ or ‘individual behaviors’ of marginalized communities” and calls for moving away from a “decontextualized, biomedical framework.” 

John O. McGinnis Chicago Fire Brandon Johnson is on course to be the Windy City’s most damaging leader in living memory.

https://www.city-journal.org/article/chicago-mayor-brandon-johnsons-first-100-days

Brandon Johnson has reached the 100-day mark as mayor of Chicago. His actions and statements in that time suggest that the city will face continued decline. He remains beholden to the group most responsible for his election: the Chicago Teachers Union. And when it comes to the twin dangers shadowing Chicago’s future—crime and fiscal irresponsibility—he has set the stage to make them even worse.  

Johnson was a former member of the Chicago Teachers Union (CTU), and the union provided him with crucial support that enabled him to vault past better-known candidates into the mayoral runoff. He has wasted no time in repaying his benefactor. He named Jen Johnson (no relation), the CTU’s former chief of staff, to be his deputy mayor of Education, Youth, and Human Services—a position that has traditionally taken part in negotiations with the union. But even before union negotiations for the next contract began, the mayor unilaterally gave the union a gratuity, extending parental leave to 12 weeks. That’s one less arrow in the city’s quiver for negotiations.

Mayor Johnson also fired Allison Arwady, the city’s health commissioner. Arwady was unpopular with the teachers’ union because she aided Lori Lightfoot in executing one of her best policies—reopening public schools during Covid. School closures have caused widespread learning loss in children, particularly ones in the most vulnerable communities that Johnson purports to serve. Nothing better illustrates Johnson’s likely course on education policy: he will serve special interests at the expense of Chicago’s children. When asked why he fired Arwady without having even met with her, Johnson gave no answer other than to quote a cryptic rap lyric. Chicagoans should expect no transparency when it comes to the mayor’s relations with the union, which has essentially taken over city government.

Shortly before Johnson became mayor, a large group of teenagers came downtown on a weekend evening, vandalized stores, and harassed and beat up passersby. Mayor Lori Lightfoot condemned the violence. Johnson, in contrast, labeled the behavior unacceptable but also sought to excuse it, saying that it was not constructive to “demonize youth who have otherwise been starved of opportunities in their own communities.” Asked after he had become mayor when crime would come down, Johnson responded that one could not expect results until poverty and the trauma of communities were addressed. This claim flies in the face of all that we know about crime control. Many communities poorer than Chicago’s have nothing like the city’s levels of crime. Moreover, proven strategies are available for reducing crime, like simply filling the many vacant positions in the Chicago police force. But Johnson is more interested in making crime a prop for his progressive talking points about inequality.

Trump is a Vulgarian, but he’s a Competent Vulgarian Peter Smith

https://quadrant.org.au/opinion/qed/2023/09/trump-is-a-vulgarian-but-hes-a-competent-vulgarian/

EXCERPT

Apropos Western civilisation, Sheridan writes: “Trump was right to argue the ideological left had blighted schools. He was right to champion communities left behind by globalisation, right to want to secure borders. There were also many things he was wrong about.”

What “many things”? Please tell.

What things of substance did Trump do that were wrong? Getting NATO countries to stump up more for their own defence? Moving America’s embassy in Israel to West Jerusalem? Here’s some more things that apparently Trump did right according to Sheridan: creating a booming economy pre-COVID, calling out China and imposing selective tariffs, increasing US defence spending, the Abraham Peace Accords and “appointing three brilliant judges to the US Supreme Court.”

Why wouldn’t people vote for Trump if they read of his achievement’s in Sheridan’s many articles, supposedly decrying Trump. Professor so-and-so has a very brusque and crude manner and even though he is on the brink of discovering how to commercialise nuclear fusion, we can’t possibly have him on the faculty. Hmm? If you can handle a bit of Trump’s rough and tumble language, it’s all gravy from there on.

Three Years Later, Trump Deserves A Nobel Peace Prize For The Abraham Accords By: Abe Hamadeh and Bryan E. Leib

https://thefederalist.com/2023/09/05/three-years-later-trump-deserves-a-nobel-peace-prize-for-the-abraham-accords/

This month, the world will celebrate the three-year anniversary of President Donald Trump’s Abraham Accords.  

While the Obama administration and others said Trump’s bold decision to keep his campaign promise and move the United States Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, the eternal capital of Israel, would cause war in the Middle East, just the opposite happened. Many of these individuals said the same when the framework of the Abraham Accords was initially announced, but just as they were wrong before, they were wrong once again.

On Sept. 15, 2020, President Trump ushered in a new era of peace and collaboration in the Middle East among Israel, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Sudan, and Morocco without a single bullet fired. Imagine that: Peace was achieved through America leading with strength, without any wars started, when the experts said the opposite would happen.

Furthermore, Trump and his administration provided the metaphorical runway and jet fuel for long-standing relationships among the Israelis, Bahrainis, and Emiratis that had been held in the darkness to take off into the light for the world to see, which has led to tremendous economic and societal expansion. As commercial ties grow, so will the strength of the bonds between the countries and their people. 

Per the Abraham Accords Peace Institute, trade between the countries saw a major increase from 2021 to 2022, coming in at $3.37 billion in 2022, an 82 percent increase from 2021! Bahrain is set to utilize Israeli solar technology as a result of the Abraham Accords, and earlier this year, the Abrahamic Family House opened its doors to the world in Abu Dhabi. The center encompasses three separate houses of worship — a mosque, a church, and a synagogue, as well as shared spaces for gathering and dialogue. Based on these economic and societal indicators, the Abraham Accords have been a major success thus far.

Both authors have seen firsthand how Israel is liked and respected in the Arab world, which never would have happened if not for the Abraham Accords. Having served as a U.S. Army Reserve captain and intelligence officer in Saudi Arabia during the historic peace accords, Abraham Hamadeh had a unique experience serving in the Middle East, with Syrian ancestry and Arabic language skills allowing for much more personal interactions with Saudi Arabia’s security apparatus’ leadership — and they’re ready for peace.