FOREIGN POLICY Comments turned off

Solar Panels: Biden’s ‘Buy China’ Plan by Gordon G. Chang

Posted By on June 14th, 2022

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/18609/solar-panels-biden-china

Beijing set out to destroy the American solar panel industry with subsidies that allowed Chinese companies to sell below the cost of manufacture — and, with the help of a series of neglectful American presidents, it largely succeeded.

Americans workers cannot compete with slaves. Chinese solar panels are often made with what is politely termed “forced labor,” Uighurs and other captive Turkic minorities transported around China to factories resembling concentration camps.

Now, thanks to Biden, products built by forced or slave labor will find their way into the United States tariff-free. Chinese producers have been shipping China-made products into Southeast Asian countries — most notably Vietnam — and exporting them to the U.S. with labels falsely showing manufacture in those other countries.

Biden “has opened the door wide for Chinese-funded special interests to defeat the fair application of U.S. trade law.” — Mamun Rashid, Auxin Solar’s CEO, NBC News, June 6, 2022.

“We have not invested in building up American capacity the way we should, and we have not addressed China’s repeated cheating,” [Senator Sherrod] Brown [D-Ohio] stated. “On all these decisions, American solar manufacturers and their workers must be at the table.” Biden, unfortunately, has taken away the seats of these domestic stakeholders.

The second implication is even more important. Biden with his tariff waiver, dog-whistled to American manufacturers to keep factories in China.

Biden always says he wants to support American manufacturers, but he keeps making decisions favoring Chinese workers. He did that June 6 when, with a single stroke of his pen, he devastated a U.S. industry, undermined the American legal system, and promoted slave labor in China.

On June 6, President Joe Biden, declaring a national emergency, granted a 24-month tariff exemption for solar cells and modules from Cambodia, Malaysia, Thailand and Vietnam.

The biggest beneficiary of Biden’s move is none of those countries. It is China. The biggest victim is America.

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

We Salute Our Treasured Flag by Lawrence Kadish

Posted By on June 14th, 2022

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/18614/flag-day-message

Today, June 14, is Flag Day across the United States.

It is a day that should compel us to pause, fly our nation’s flag from our homes, businesses, and public spaces in recognition of what our flag represents. Simply put, it has been a symbol of hope, freedom, and opportunity for hundreds of millions of people throughout the generations.

When our immigrant forefathers arrived at Ellis Island in hopes of starting a new life, many clutched small American flags in their hands. Today, newly sworn-in American citizens leave the ceremony proudly holding the colors of their newly adopted country: red, white, and blue.

When Americans liberated Western Europe during World War II, overjoyed civilians found the means to create handmade American flags, then draped them out their windows. It reflected their heartfelt appreciation that they were being rescued from the horrors of the Third Reich; displaying the American flag was the most powerful means they had to acknowledge the sacrifice of American GIs.

Today, American flags are still poised on the surface of the moon, planted there by heroic Apollo astronauts who also left behind a plaque reminding eternity that we “came in peace for all mankind.” These symbols have allowed the world to reflect on the fact that that a bold American adventure achieved the unbelievable and that we came not in conquest but to further expand our shared understanding of the universe.

The Pledge of Allegiance we recite today has seen several variations over time, but each word is a reminder that our nation is profoundly different from those came before it.

ISRAEL Comments turned off

Words and Consequences: ‘West Bank’ vs. Judaea and Samaria By Victor Sharpe

Posted By on June 14th, 2022

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2022/06/words_and_consequences_west_bank_vs_judaea_and_samaria.html

When did it become an accepted truism that peace between Israel and the Arabs who call themselves Palestinians requires that Israel give to them its very own Biblical birthright in the Jewish heartland? When did the Oslo Accords supersede the eternal possession of the Jewish people to that God-given heartland of Judea and Samaria, the territory a hostile world insists on calling by its illegitimate Jordanian name; the West Bank?  

Who are they who dare divide the land that the Almighty bequeathed to Abraham and to his descendants through Isaac and Jacob? Who are they who would give any part of tiny Eretz Yisrael (the Land of Israel) to the alleged descendants of Ishmael, who possess vast territories throughout the Middle East and North Africa?

Judeophobes (aka Anti-Semites) may not like being told this, but the following facts are truths that cannot shrivel away.

Unlike the deeply appreciated last incumbent of the White House, President Donald J. Trump, too many previous U.S. presidents displayed pro-Muslim Arab policies, which created clear and present dangers to the very existence of the reborn Jewish state. It is thus with the present Democrat president, Joe Biden. He, like his malign handlers, should take note of Genesis 12:3.

And then there was Barack Hussein Obama, whose hatred of the Jewish state surpassed even that of the lamentable Jimmy Carter. Remember Obama’s Secretary of State, John Kerry? He came numerous times to pressure and threaten Israel, thus ushering in an even more baleful time for the embattled Jewish state.

ENVIRONMENT AND JUNK SCIENCE Comments turned off

Climate-Change Censorship: Phase Two Now Gina McCarthy tells Big Tech to stifle debate global-warming policy responses.

Posted By on June 14th, 2022

https://www.wsj.com/articles/climate-censorship-phase-two-gina-mccarthy-social-media-biden-white-house-11655156191?mod=opinion_lead_pos3

Progressives first demanded that social media platforms silence critics of climate alarmism. Now White House national climate adviser Gina McCarthy wants them to censor content on the costs of a force-fed green energy transition.

A few years ago, Facebook enlisted third-party “fact checkers” to review news stories about climate. That didn’t satisfy Democratic Senators who howled about a “loophole” for opinion pieces. Facebook then began appending fact-checks to op-eds, including by our contributors Bjorn Lomborg and Steven Koonin, that criticized apocalyptic climate models and studies. The goal was to restrict readership.

Now progressives are moving to censorship phase two, which is shutting down debate over climate “solutions.” “Now it’s not so much denying the problem,” Ms. McCarthy said in an Axios interview last Thursday. “What the industry is now doing is seeding doubt about the costs associated with [green energy] and whether they work or not.”

Ms. McCarthy cited the week-long power outage in Texas in February 2021. “The first thing we read in the paper was” that the blackouts occurred “because of those wind turbines,” she said. “That became the mantra.” In fact, most of the media immediately blamed climate change and fossil fuels.

WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

The U.N.’s Apologist for Dictators Michelle Bachelet, the high commissioner for human rights, cares little about rights. By Mary Anastasia O’Grady

Posted By on June 14th, 2022

https://www.wsj.com/articles/united-nations-un-dictator-michelle-bachelet-cuba-china-xinjiang-uyghur-human-rights-genocide-havana-san-isidro-luis-alcantara-maykel-osorbo-castillo-11655056624?mod=opinion_featst_pos3

Humanitarians were up in arms last month when Michelle Bachelet, the U.N. high commissioner for human rights, came away from a China tour spouting Beijing propaganda.

For those who fight for liberty in Cuba, the high commissioner’s performance was no surprise. During the Cold War she was on the side of the Soviets, and she’s a lifelong admirer of the Cuban revolution. Let’s face it: Human rights are not her thing.

According to Axios, the 70-year-old Ms. Bachelet “used Chinese government talking points to frame her remarks” on the situation in Xinjiang, where the regime has detained some one million Uyghurs and other minorities. Ms. Bachelet described China’s policies “as a form of ‘counter terrorism’ intended to combat ‘violent acts of extremism.’ She also referred to mass detention facilities as ‘vocational and educational training centers,’ the government’s euphemism for the camps,” Axios reported.

China seized on Ms. Bachelet’s words to its own advantage, with the consul general in Kolkata tweeting that Beijing was “not only vindicated, but justified” after the U.N. visit.

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Biden Made His Own Mess Kyle Smith

Posted By on June 14th, 2022

https://www.nationalreview.com/2022/06/biden-made-his-own-mess/

The president was dealt an excellent hand and has played it terribly. He has no one to blame for the sorry state of his administration but himself.

You’d think someone whose career in national politics goes all the way back to 1972 would have noticed this, but apparently President Biden hasn’t: Unpopular presidents tend to complain that they were dealt a bad hand, and then grouse that the media are making things look worse than they are. But Biden was dealt an excellent hand; he has no excuses for the mess he’s in.

When Biden took office, the U.S. was already bouncing back from economic calamity, and tens of millions of vaccine doses were in the pipeline. If he had made smart decisions, the U.S. would be doing fine right now. Instead, he is the primary cause of the crises that are swamping his presidency. The media could scarcely be more inclined to spin things in his favor, and yet even they can’t entirely ignore the dispiriting facts.

A sympathetic-sounding author, Chris Whipple, who is writing a book about White House chiefs of staff, told NBC News that Team Biden “came in with the most daunting set of challenges arguably since Franklin D. Roosevelt, only to then be hit by a perfect storm of crises, from Ukraine to inflation to the supply chain to baby formula. What’s next? Locusts?” Biden has himself, according to the same NBC News story, been sympathetic to the why-am-I-so-unlucky view.

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Biden’s Approval Rating Is Now Lowest In Gallup’s History

Posted By on June 14th, 2022

https://issuesinsights.com/2022/06/14/bidens-approval-rating-drops-to-lowest-in-gallups-history/

On day 487 in office, President Joe Biden set a new record. He has the lowest approval rating of all presidents at this point in their presidencies since Gallup started tracking this in 1945.

According to Gallup’s Presidential Job Approval Center, just 41% approve of the job Biden is doing. That’s worse than Gerald Ford, or Lyndon Johnson, or even Jimmy Carter on day 487. Much worse than Ronald Reagan, the Bushes, Bill Clinton, or Barack Obama.

To add insult to injury, Biden’s approval rating is now lower than Trump’s was at this point in Trump’s first term.

Biden’s oh-so-presidential response to his cratering support: he is “seething.”

Instead of accepting blame, Biden and his “inner circle” are blaming everyone around them, including the White House staff. Politico reports that: “Members of Biden’s inner circle, including first lady Jill Biden and the president’s sister, Valerie Biden Owens, have complained that West Wing staff has managed Biden with kid gloves, not putting him on the road more or allowing him to flash more of his genuine, relatable, albeit gaffe-prone self.”

Yeah, letting Biden be Biden will work.

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

A dangerous implosion of American politics Republican Congress facing a Democratic White House for two years would defer economic policy change until 2025 David Goldman

Posted By on June 14th, 2022

https://asiatimes.com/2022/06/a-dangerous-implosion-of-american-politics/

While working Americans suffer the worst decline in real income since the waning months of the Carter Administration, America’s political parties are in disarray with internal divisions almost as intense as the issues that have polarized “red state” and “blue state” America.

Neither party has a proposal – credible or otherwise – on the political agenda to alleviate the inflation that is crushing family income. And neither has the prospect of gaining a governing mandate, as opposed to a temporary majority.

It’s a national train wreck, and no one has a plan to stop it.

Unless his legal problems interfere, Donald Trump almost certainly will run for president again in 2024 and will be his party’s nominee. The Congressional commission investigating the January 6, 2021, Capitol riot may have gathered enough information to motivate federal charges against the former president, but that remains unclear.

Trump’s obsessive belief that the Democrats stole the 2020 election damages him. More ominous is that his economic policies contributed to the present disaster, and Trump has no thoughts on the subject apart from assigning the whole of the blame to Biden.

MEDICINE AND HEALTH Comments turned off

Lockdown Damage Empirical evidence demonstrates that shutting down economies and schools brought little benefit and much harm. Brendan Patrick Purdy

Posted By on June 14th, 2022

https://www.city-journal.org/the-damage-of-covid-lockdowns

Did the Covid lockdowns save lives? Statistics can help answer the question.

In April, free-market economists Phil Kerpen, Stephen Moore, and Casey B. Mulligan published a working paper for the National Bureau of Economic Research entitled “A Final Report Card on the States’ Response to COVID-19.” Their report considered three variables for all 50 states and Washington, D.C.: health outcomes (measured by adjusted mortality), economic performance throughout the pandemic (measured by unemployment and GDP), and the pandemic effect on education (measured by the percentage of cumulative in-person instruction). The authors investigated the relationships among the three variables using simple linear regression, a tool to summarize and study relationships between two continuous variables. This method yields a correlation coefficient that rates both the strength and the direction of the relationship between the two variables.

The results: locked-down economies did not have better health outcomes, open schools were slightly negatively correlated with health outcomes, and the lockdown of schools and economies were highly correlated.

Since the underlying data are available, I ran my own analysis, and the results were largely the same. Indeed, the relationship between health outcomes and economic effects was statistically insignificant. So, too, was the relationship between health outcomes and open schools. Thus, one cannot conclude that economic lockdowns or school closures were associated with saving lives during the pandemic. A significant relationship existed between states that locked down the economy and closed schools, which means that governments that were willing to lock down businesses also sent students home. Ultimately, whether a state or district locked down the economy or closed down schools hardly predicted the health of those that live there.

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Reactionary ‘progressives’ strike again Ruthie Blum

Posted By on June 14th, 2022

https://www.jns.org/opinion/reactionary-progressives-strike-again/

A few ignoramuses with rainbow flags gathered on Sunday at New York City’s Chelsea Piers to protest the participation of Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis in the Jewish Leadership Conference, held annually by the conservative Tikvah Fund. Other speakers at the event included former U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, former Israeli Ambassador to the United States Ron Dermer, former U.S. Deputy National Security Advisor and current Tikvah chairman Elliott Abrams, and a slew of conservative Jewish intellectuals.
The timing, at the height of Pride Month, couldn’t have been better from a propaganda perspective for the demonstrators present and behind the scenes. While countries around the Free World are going out of their way to celebrate the LGBTQ+ movement through parades, public-service announcements and all vehicles that highlight “choice” and “identity,” the very idea that any venue would dare to let DeSantis darken its premises presented a golden opportunity for bitching and moaning about victimhood.

The trouble is that this reactionary method of manipulation to silence all voices that don’t align perfectly with a “progressive” point of view works—at least, on liberals. Afraid to be labeled as Neanderthal right-wingers, the latter cave to pressure at the drop of a threat.
This is how the above conference, titled “Jews, Israel and the Future of the West,” got booted last month from the agenda of its originally planned location: The Museum of Jewish Heritage–A Living Memorial to the Holocaust. The excuse for the travesty was that the institution doesn’t “do politics.” Leaning on this phony assertion, the museum ultimately refused to sign a contract with Tikvah.