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December 2020

Biden Meddles with Donald Trump’s Middle East Legacy at his Peril by Con Coughlin

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/16866/biden-trump-middle-east

It is worth remembering that, when President Trump took office, the region was still reeling from the dire consequences of former US President Barack Obama’s inept and naive handling of the region.

By early January 2017, when Mr Trump took office, Iran was squandering the tens of billions of dollars it received for signing the nuclear deal, which Mr Obama had helped broker in 2015, on expanding its malign influence across the landscape of the Middle East.

Mr Trump’s Middle East legacy… completely redefined the landscape of the region from the chaos and conflict that prevailed when Mr Obama left office. Nowadays, the momentum in the region is moving towards peace, not conflict….

[T]he challenge for the incoming Biden administration now will be to see how it can pursue a different foreign policy agenda without jeopardising the very significant achievements that have been accomplished during Mr Trump’s tenure.

Certainly, if the incoming Biden administration makes any serious attempt to undermine Mr Trump’s legacy in the Middle East, it will do so at its peril.

The incoming Biden administration has indicated that one of its top priorities will be to adopt a new approach in Washington’s dealings with the Middle East. In particular it wants to revive the flawed nuclear deal with Iran as well as re-establish a dialogue with the Palestinian leadership, which imposed a three-year boycott on the Trump administration.

Yet, while the new Biden team, the majority of whom are relics from the Obama administration, are keen to assert a new policy agenda for the region, they also need to take care that, in so doing, they do not squander the impressive legacy US President Donald Trump has built up in the region.

Congress’ Christmas Tree Bill Loaded with Climate Ornaments Julie Kelly

https://amgreatness.com/2020/12/24/congress-christmas-tree-bill-loaded-with-climate-ornaments/

The goodies tucked inside the COVID “relief” bill are just a down payment on future climate compromises. It might not be the Green New Deal, but close enough.

Americans on both sides of the political aisle—and politicians as divergent as President Trump and Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.)—are justifiably outraged at the $900 billion pork barrel spending bill disguised as COVID-19 “relief” that won congressional approval on Monday.

The president is pushing back, posting video messages that detail the bill’s giveaways to foreign countries and special interests unrelated to easing the devastating economic consequences of shutdowns ordered by Democratic and Republican governors alike. 

There is no end in sight to these punitive, costly decrees, which have done nothing to stop the spread of a virus that cannot be stopped; viruses outsmart humans almost every time and considering the sad crop of human leadership in the world right now, it’s not exactly a high wall for any pathogen to scale.

One group, however, is very pleased with this monstrosity of a bill: environmentalists. “Climate change,” just as it was for his previous boss and BFF, is a top priority in a Joe Biden Administration. Team Biden will work quickly to restore most if not all of Barack Obama’s climate change agenda, a legacy Donald Trump successfully razed.

The presumptive president promises to address the “existential threat” allegedly caused by manmade climate change; he’s regrouping Obama’s climate band, including former EPA administrator Gina McCarthy, who used her agency to thwart Congress and almost single-handedly advanced Obama’s extreme climate policies, and former Secretary of State John Kerry. As Biden’s “climate czar,” Kerry, a chief negotiator on the Paris Climate deal, will fulfill Biden’s pledge to re-enter that pact.

Thanks to House Democrats and Senate Republicans, however, Biden is getting a head start on his climate change wish list. 

What the Lockdown Leviathans Don’t Get We want to live, yes, but we also want to live lives of meaning, purpose, connection, and contentment. By Tal Bachman ****

https://amgreatness.com/2020/12/24/what-the-lockdown-leviathans-dont-get/

Sure—usually “it’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas” by, say, the end of November.  But Meredith Willson’s classic Holiday tune didn’t quite come true this year.

After all, here’s just a starter list of things that were either banned or restricted this holiday season: Christmas family gatherings; Christmas concerts; Christmas tree lighting ceremonies; Christmas parties; Christmas worship services; Christmas sing-alongs; Christmas season sporting events; Christmas shopping trips; and even Christmas visits with Santa. 

More broadly, nearly every conceivable social activity, aside from popping out to a grocery store to stave off starvation (or, possibly, suicide) for another week, was either banned or severely restricted this year for millions of us.

Don’t like it? Don’t worry, said the experts: If you’re feeling a mite lonely after nine months of house arrest in Papillon-like solitary confinement, just throw a rollicking Christmas “social” event in which you stare, all alone, at a computer screen on a Zoom call, as the most ruthless, repressive, imperialist regime on earth monitors everything you say, and then instantly disables your account if you dare to criticize it. (Soon, no doubt, it won’t only be the Chinese government doing the monitoring and disabling, but our own—supposing it hasn’t merged with the CCP by then).

“Anti-Racist Grading” Means Not Expecting Kids to Know 2 + 2 = 4 Daniel Greenfield

https://www.frontpagemag.com/point/2020/12/anti-racist-grading-means-not-expecting-kids-know-daniel-greenfield/

Here’s a preview of “anti-racist grading”. What’s anti-racist grading? The math on that simple. Anything you attach “anti-racist” is nullified. Thus “anti-racist policing” means no policing. Anti-racist carpet cleaners make your carpets dirty instead.

And anti-racist teaching? Since none of you are the products of anti-racist education, I’m sure you can already figure that equation out. But here’s the work shown.

One thing we understand from Universal Design for Learning is that there are multiple ways a kid can express their knowing. And so if you know 2+2=4, one way you can express your knowing is by writing it. Another way you can express your knowing is by discussing it. A third way is by creating a model that shows it. A fourth way is by illustrating it and a fifth way is by performing a play. But in too many schools, only one way is considered legitimate. So if you write it, you get an A and that’s it. There might be 100 kids in the school who know 2+2=4, but if only two of those kids can write it, then only two of those kids will receive As. That is profoundly discriminatory.

Awesome. No wait, profoundly awesome. In an anti-racist way.

Kids will no longer need to learn that 2 + 2 = 4 because it’s assumed that they already know it. And they can express that knowingness by performing a play whose theme is that capitalism is evil because it insists that 2 + 2 = 4.

The main beneficiaries of this anti-racist education will be minority students who will be left even more unprepared for the real world, and even more dependent on the subsidies and privileges of the anti-racist system and its anti-racist non-plantation that is totally a plantation. 

Who knew how true Animal Farm would really be.

Two bad. Four also bad. All numbers are bad. Only anti-racist numbers are good. And there’s only one anti-racist number. Zero. 

A Christmas Message for Dr. Fauci HELL NO. This is America! Wayne Allyn Root *****

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2020/12/christmas-message-dr-fauci-wayne-allyn-root/

This can’t be a mistake. No one can be this dumb. No one can be this clueless. Not even Democrats. Not even moronic Democratic governors. Not even nanny-state government bureaucrats like Dr. Anthony Fauci.

Fauci jasked Americans to cancel Christmas. He said, “…it’s just one of those things you’re going to have to accept.” He reported he would not even allow his own three daughters to come home for Christmas this year. He wants all Americans to “painfully” isolate. He says he and his wife will be spending the holiday alone.

I have a message for Dr Fauci: “First, not just no. HELL NO. This is America. This is a free country. If we want to celebrate Christmas, we will. If we want to go to church, we will. If we want to spend the holidays with our children, we will. We’re adults. We make our own decisions. This isn’t a nanny state. It’s not the Soviet Union. It’s not Nazi Germany. We don’t need government bureaucrats telling us what to do, how to live our lives or how to spend the holidays.

Second, you’re a typical Ivy League egghead. You’re too smart for your own good. You have IQ but clearly no emotional intelligence. And certainly no common sense.

Third, how can I see this nicely? SCREW YOU. I love my family. I love my children. I love Christmas. I don’t know you. I don’t owe you. And I don’t answer to you.”

Fauci and his crowd of moronic Democratic governors are control freaks. But no one is listening, certainly not conservatives, not Trump deplorables, not patriots and not Christians. We love Christmas. We love our families. And no one is taking that away from us. Not in America.

Ocasio-Cortez Calls Amazon Jobs a Scam Yet another socialist tries to explain the purpose of business. Jason D. Hill

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2020/12/alexandria-ocasio-cortez-calls-amazon-jobs-scam-jason-d-hill/

Americans spoke loud and clear when Bernie Sanders and his brand of socialism were defeated in the Democratic primaries. They said no to socialism and all that was promised with it. Socialism is just not in our political DNA, Americans pointed out. Even those who voted for Joe Biden thought they were electing a liberal centrist; someone closer to near-fiscal conservatives, rather than rapacious, wealth-appropriating socialists. They might be wrong. But I think that they rejected socialism when they voted against Bernie Sanders.

Yet here is that naïve activist masquerading as a politician, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, making a crass and abrasive demand for socialism by attacking a symbol of the free market: Amazon. Last week, AOC came out in a series of incendiary attacks against Amazon, accusing the company of providing sham jobs for workers because it left them homeless. In a series of tweets on Twitter, AOC referenced a Bloomberg News article which reported that more than 4,000 Amazon employees are on food stamps.

AOC immediately tweeted: “A Job that leaves you homeless & on food stamps isn’t a job. It’s a scam.” She further went on to state that Amazon’s jobs are a “scam” because they’re not creating financial security for workers.

Mixing categories in a way that first year students of logic would not, AOC went on to state: “This is why “Amazon jobs” aren’t it & we should instead focus our public investments + incentives on small businesses, public infrastructure, & worker cooperatives that actually support dignified life.”

Unfair Criticism Aimed at Trump’s Pardons But Obama’s clemency to a betrayer of national security and a terrorist was praised. Joseph Klein

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2020/12/unfair-criticism-aimed-trumps-pardons-joseph-klein/

President Trump is coming under fire by the usual Trump-hating naysayers for issuing pre-Christmas pardons on December 23rd to several of his associates who were caught up in the Russia collusion hoax. They were treated unfairly by the FBI and prosecutors involved in the Mueller investigation. One of the most notable pardons went to Paul Manafort, President Trump’s former campaign manager who received an overly harsh sentence and even spent some time in solitary confinement for white collar crimes.  Another pardon went to Roger J. Stone Jr., a political ally and longtime friend of Trump’s who was arrested following a pre-dawn raid of his home by more than a dozen FBI agents. CNN just happened to be there to capture this outrageous exercise of overkill.  President Trump had previously pardoned retired United States Army lieutenant general Michael T. Flynn and former Trump campaign aide George Papadopoulos, both of whom were hounded for what are known as process crimes.

President Trump is also being criticized for pardoning his son-in-law Jared Kushner’s father, Charles Kushner, who served two years in prison after pleading guilty in 2004 to tax evasion, retaliating against a federal witness and lying to the Federal Election Commission.

The New York Times editorial board claimed that Trump had abused his pardon powers and “made a mockery of mercy, doling out clemency to some of the most deplorable people in the country.” As usual, the Times’ editors have it all wrong. President Trump’s grants of pardons and clemency are well within his broad constitutional authority. There are also plenty of precedents for what Trump has done from the acts of prior presidents. The Times editorial acknowledged only two prior presidential pardons that it put in the abusive category – Gerald Ford’s pardon of Richard Nixon and Bill Clinton’s pardon of the fugitive financier Marc Rich. The editors neglected to mention Bill Clinton’s pardon of his half-brother Roger Clinton Jr.

And then there is the darling of the mainstream press, Barack Obama. Obama commuted sentences for a member of the U.S. Army convicted of violating the Espionage Act and a convicted terrorist.

A Year’s Worth of Media Malfeasance It was a dirty job, but someone had to sort through the year’s worst examples of media bias. Douglas Andrews

https://patriotpost.us/articles/76709-a-years-worth-of-media-malfeasance-2020-12-23

Putting one’s finger on the five biggest media failures in any one year is a daunting task. It’s like trying to list the five worst plays during a Detroit Lions football season or Hollywood’s five worst movies of the year — there’s just too much terrible material to sift through.

The Daily Wire’s Hank Berrien, though, has given it a thoughtful effort, while The Federalist’s Tristan Justice took the “easy” way out and built a list of 20 journalistic failures.

As an aside, if there’s a first prize for Photojournalistic Failure of the Year, it has to go to CNN, whose “mostly peaceful” footage of the Kenosha riots was mostly accurate in the same way that Baghdad Bob was mostly credible:

It’s hard to quibble with Berrien’s top five, though one might move them around a bit in order of importance and impact. There can be no argument, though, with his choice as worst of the worst: the media’s utter refusal to cover the Hunter Biden story in the weeks just prior to the election. In doing so, the media didn’t just put its finger on the scale; it put its shoulder on the scale.

Of Merit and Melanin: Identity Politics and the Balkanization of America By Caren Besner

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2020/12/of_merit_and_melanin_identity_politics_and_the_balkanization_of_america.html

On May 22, 2019, Democratic gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams gave a speech at the Center for American Progress. Ms. Abrams spoke out strongly in her defense of Identity Politics, stating that “Identity Politics is exactly who we are and exactly how we won,” and arguing that Identity Politics “brought new folks to the process.” That is untrue.

America is based on the idea of pluralism, the notion that, regardless of our race, religion, creed, or national origin, we would all co-exist within one nation. Countless millions migrated here from every continent and continue to do so. They retained their ethnic, religious, and cultural identity, but regarded themselves as Americans. Most worked and studied hard, going to school in the evening to master English and prepare for the difficult citizenship exam. Many have said that the proudest moment of their lives was when they were sworn in as American citizens.

To this day, many families still retain old and worn naturalization certificates as part of their family heirlooms. To them, and for hundreds of millions around the world, America was and is, a source of hope and inspiration. This is the reason why protesters in Hong Kong wave American, not Chinese flags. It is why, from Central America to China, families give all they have to smugglers, sometimes having to resort to selling themselves into virtual slavery to get here. Probably, half the world’s population would emigrate here right now if they had the wherewithal to do so.

Identity Politics strips away the idea that we are all Americans first. It places race, religion, creed, sexuality, and most importantly, skin pigmentation at the forefront of one’s identity. It maintains that America is a horrible place, filled with racists, sexists, and xenophobes, and is, in fact, the source of most of the world’s problems. This is a reversion to tribalism. It repudiates everything that America stands for and could ultimately have catastrophic consequences.

Just ask the former citizens of what used to be called Yugoslavia. That nation devolved into civil war and anarchy with various ethnic and religious groups, mainly Serbs, Muslims, and Croats, competing for power and control. It ruined the city of Sarajevo and, ultimately, the nation of Yugoslavia and introduced two new terms to our language: “Ethnic Cleansing” and “Balkanization.”

COVID Relief and Trump’s Revenge A pocket veto of the coronavirus package is payback for McConnell’s perfidy. by David Catron

https://spectator.org/covid-relief-trump-mcconnell/

President Trump has been deeply dissatisfied by the reluctance of the Republican establishment to support his challenges to November’s election results that he and millions of voters attribute to vote fraud. Trump has been particularly unhappy with the laissez-faire attitude of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), who has discouraged GOP senators from openly backing Trump’s effort. The president had his revenge Tuesday night when he denounced the coronavirus stimulus bill that McConnell had finally finished Monday evening and hailed as a “historic rescue package to help American families through this pandemic.” Trump demanded a “suitable” bill that includes $2,000 checks for individuals and contains no wasteful spending.

If Trump refuses to sign the McConnell legislation, which includes $600 for individuals and contains all manner of special interest funding unrelated to COVID-19, the Republicans may well lose two Georgia Senate seats and control of Congress. The McConnell bill was cobbled together largely because of the January 5 Georgia runoff for two Senate seats that protect the GOP majority. Democratic candidates Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock have been selling themselves as alternatives to the GOP incumbents, Sens. David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler, whom they accuse of being too abstemious to provide much needed assistance to Georgians hurt by the pandemic. Both Democrats immediately exploited the president’s criticism of the package. Ossoff put it as follows:

President Trump is, as ever, erratic and all over the place, but on this point, tonight, he’s right. Six hundred dollars is a joke. They should send $2,000 checks to the American people right now because people are hurting. And David Perdue … who opposed even the first single round of $1,200 checks … has obstructed direct relief for the last eight months, and now decided he wanted to cut it down to $600 when people can barely feed their families through no fault of their own. Congress should pass $2,000 checks.

Warnock issued this statement:

As I’ve said from the start, the Senate should have acted on this months ago and support for Georgians should have been far greater. Donald Trump is right, Congress should swiftly increase to $2,000. Once and for all Senator Loeffler should do what’s best for Georgia instead of focusing on what she can do for herself.