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July 2021

FOREIGN POLICY, ISRAEL Comments turned off

Biden Revives Obama’s Middle East Policy U.S. “evenhandedness” is back in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Joseph Puder

By on July 6th, 2021

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2021/07/president-bidens-return-obamas-middle-east-policy-joseph-puder/

President Joe Biden is of a generation that appreciated the Jewish state as America’s closest and most reliable Middle East ally. He and the likes of the late U.S. Senator Henry “Scoop” Jackson (D-WA) were staunch friends of Israel. Most Democrats in the U.S. Senate shared with Jackson and Biden their appreciation of Israel. Today however, the “progressive” wing of the Democrat party no longer shares that kind of appreciation, and support for the Jewish state. Six months into his presidency, Biden has been under pressure from the “progressives” to be tougher on Israel. Many in that “wing” have not forgiven Israel’s former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for standing up for his people in the U.S. Congress against the weak nuclear deal with Iran. A nuclear Iran poses an existential threat to the Jewish state and its people. Now that Israel has a new Bennett-Lapid government that is leaning a bit more to the left, it is hoped in Jerusalem that Biden will give serious consideration to the mistakes made by the Obama administration in dealing with Iran, and the shortcomings of the 2015 nuclear deal.

The Obama administration, (in which Biden served as Vice President) displayed too much eagerness to reach a deal with the radical Ayatollahs. Although Obama declared that “all options are on the table,” he never intended to use the military option, and the Ayatollahs of Iran recognized it. As a result, the Iranians toughened their positions, and were able to extract many concessions in the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA). These included restrictions on the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) from observing and monitoring a number of nuclear sites, and in particular military sites. It enabled the Islamic Republic of Iran to develop and produce ballistic missiles that will eventually have long-range capabilities with the possibility of reaching the U.S. The Iranian regime was cheating all along, and working secretly on producing a nuclear bomb. A nuclear device, along with a long-range ballistic missile, would be able to threaten and intimidate the US, and certainly fulfill their vows to “wipe Israel off the map.”

The JCPOA deal ignored Iran’s malignant actions in the region in seeking to bring down the Sunni-Arab regimes, including those in the Gulf States. Additionally, Iran’s military interventions by proxies, and directed by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) in Iraq, Lebanon, Syria, and Yemen, was ignored. As president, Biden has removed Iran’s proxy — the Houti (Shiite) rebels in Yemen from the list of terrorist organizations. This was clearly a way to warm up to Iran. He also ended U.S. support for the Saudi-led bombing campaign, which aims to restore the legitimate government in Yemen. This has encouraged the Houtis and their Iranian paymasters to increase their attacks inside Yemen, and against Saudi Arabia.

For a second time since assuming office, President Biden retaliated against the pro-Iranian Iraqi militia that fired missiles into a US base in Iraq, seeking to carry out Iran’s policy of removing the US presence in the region. To fulfill Iran’s aims, Biden ordered the reduction of U.S. forces in the Gulf. At the same time, Biden administration officials leaked to the media the details of the Israeli attacks on Iranian ships, including the attack on an IRGC intelligence gathering vessel. Israel, it should be said, attacked the Iranian vessels in retaliation for previous Iranian bombing of Israeli-owned commercial vessels in the Gulf.

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MEDIA Comments turned off

WaPo Promotes the Sexual Grooming of Children Civilization dies in darkness. Mark Tapson

By on July 6th, 2021

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2021/07/wapo-promotes-sexual-grooming-children-mark-tapson/

Last week The Washington Post, one of the most prominent news outlets in the world, the newspaper whose self-important motto “Democracy dies in darkness” belies its own undemocratic propaganda, saw fit to promote an opinion piece calling for the increased exposure of small children to sexual deviance.

In the article titled, “Yes, kink belongs at Pride. And I want my kids to see it,” freelance writer Lauren Rowello declared her support for the presence of “kinksters” – practitioners of sexual fetishes – in parades during so-called “Pride Month,” the thirty days a year officially devoted to the compulsory celebration of LGBT narcissism. More specifically, she called for it in order to expose children as young as toddlers to “the scope and vitality of queer life.”

Rowello, a self-described “gendervague” person who is married to a transgender woman, described how the couple attended a Pride parade in Philadelphia five years ago. (The term gendervague, in case you’re overcome by curiosity, refers “to a specifically neurodivergent experience of trans/gender identity.” You’re welcome.) At one point during the parade, Rowello wrote, “our elementary-schooler pointed in the direction of oncoming floats, raising an eyebrow at a bare-chested man in dark sunglasses whose black suspenders clipped into a leather thong. The man paused to be spanked playfully by a partner with a flog. ‘What are they doing?’ my curious kid asked as our toddler cheered them on.”

Her toddler cheered them on. In a saner time, parents wouldn’t allow adults “playfully” engaged in sado-masochism within a hundred miles of their toddlers, but today a generation or two of fanatically woke parents intentionally expose their children to such a repellent display in order to inculcate, as young as possible, a sexual awareness that kids aren’t equipped to process.

“The pair was the first of a few dozen kinksters who danced down the street, laughing together as they twirled their whips and batons, some leading companions by leashes,” Rowello continued. What kind of mother thinks it is appropriate to expose her children to human beings degrading each other with leashes? “At the time, my children were too young to understand the nuance of the situation, but I told them the truth,” Rowello explained. “That these folks were members of our community celebrating who they are and what they like to do.”

Here’s something else she could have told her children: all human beings are children of God, deserving of dignity, and literally parading them around like animals for sexual kicks is morally reprehensible. Maybe that’s too much “nuance” for Rowello.

Rowello did acknowledge that even among the LGBT crowd, there is debate about whether “kinksters” belong in Pride parades at all, at least partly because of the presence of children. But she argued that “kink visibility is a reminder that any person can and should shamelessly explore what brings joy and excitement. We don’t talk to our children enough about pursuing sex to fulfill carnal needs that delight and captivate us in the moment.”

Read that last sentence again, and ask yourself what kind of parent is in a hurry to push his or her child to fulfill carnal needs. The answer is that there are only two kinds: pedophiles and neo-Marxist ideologues who are targeting impressionable minds and vulnerable souls, with the intention of weaponizing them against the “cis-normative” status quo.

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EDUCATION, ISRAEL Comments turned off

Nation’s Largest Teachers’ Union Rejects Anti-Israel Resolution By Caroline Downey

By on July 6th, 2021

https://www.nationalreview.com/news/nations-largest-teachers-union-rejects-anti-israel-resolution/

The representative assembly of the National Education Association (NEA), the country’s largest teachers’ union, rejected an anti-Israel resolution that would condemn the Jewish state for its “ethnic cleansing” of Palestinians.

The failed measure, which only 23 percent of members supported, was one of over 30 items the organization was scheduled to debate at its annual conference, according to The Algemeiner.

The decision comes after certain teachers’ unions, including three local unions affiliated with the American Federation of Teachers, denounced Israel as an apartheid state and indicated sympathy for the Boycott Divestment Sanctions (BDS) movement last month.

New Business Item 29 asked that the union allocate approximately $71,500 to advance Palestinian causes through a number of programs. The resolution used language that legitimized Palestinian terrorism as a “heroic struggle” in the fight to combat alleged Israeli “military repression” and “ethnic cleansing.” It also urged the NEA to “publicize its support for the Palestinian struggle for justice and call on the United States government to stop arming and supporting Israel.”

After Jewish members and others voiced their opposition and lobbied against it, the item was defeated in the chamber by a significant margin.

Chairman of the NEA Jewish Affairs Caucus Patrick Crabtree noted, “I’m almost positive 29 is so divisive, it will go down in flames.”

In a statement, the Jewish caucus leadership wrote that the resolution, in addition to another anti-Israel item on the table, “could inadvertently exacerbate antisemitic sentiment, or anti-Arab sentiment, in the United States, and G-d forbid, lead to hate crimes of some sort.”

The letter warned that the measure could make Jewish students “feel uncomfortable” and put the NEA “at odds with the larger Jewish community.”

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EDUCATION Comments turned off

Universities Don’t Celebrate Diversity — They Crush It By Aron Ravin

By on July 6th, 2021

https://www.nationalreview.com/2021/07/universities-dont-celebrate-diversity-they-crush-it/

What the ideologically monolithic campus approach to ‘diversity’ forgets.

American universities have made it a part of their mission to embrace so-called diversity. Through a combination of outreach groups, equity officers (so official!), affirmative-action policies, and more, schools across the country have implemented measures to be as “accepting” as possible. To an extent, colleges are right to take steps to prevent the formation of a homogenous student body. Part of a university’s job is to prepare undergraduates for the rest of their lives. If all the students at Columbia were wealthy white kids from the Upper East Side, they wouldn’t be living in an environment that represents the world around them. But as they are so prone to do, the bureaucrats residing in the ivory tower have overcorrected.

As has been described in countless works, intellectual diversity at universities has greatly suffered. The pervasive cloud of wokism has seeped into almost every branch of academia. Law professors cut portions of curricula, such as the study of laws pertaining to rape, Jim Crow, and abuse, to avoid offending their students. Public medical schools punish discussion of “microaggression theory.” Worst of all, untold numbers of faculty have faced repercussions for expressing the slightest disagreement with the woke, hyper-inclusive ideology that progressives peddle.

But it is not only intellectual diversity that suffers in today’s college climate. Even the diversity that admissions officers favor, diversity of background, is weakened by wokeness.

The unhinged drive toward inclusion has resulted in some terribly exclusive practices. According to a report published by the National Association of Scholars, covering 173 private and public universities from all 50 states, over 70 percent of the schools surveyed offered separate, racially designated graduation ceremonies and residential areas. Elite institutions such as Harvard and Columbia have hopped on the bandwagon. But how will the broader student body reap the benefits of a diverse campus if the students opt into self-segregated programs?

One particularly innovative school, Chapman University, a midsize California university, has decided to host not one, not two, but seven individual graduation ceremonies based on students’ various ways of self-identifying. As one can imagine, there are problems with this. For one, it creates an almost comical scenario for Chapman students who fit under multiple categories. Maybe a gay, disabled, and Afro-Latino student should get five graduations! But, more seriously, the profusion of separate ceremonies detracts from the primary purpose of commencement. It is supposed to be a time when students in STEM, humanities, and business programs abandon their differences for the sake of celebrating their accomplishments together. Students toss their caps as one because they have finished as one. It seems wrong to have them throw their caps in separate groupuscules.

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NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

America’s Centers for Disease Confusion By Sally C. Pipes

By on July 6th, 2021

https://www.nationalreview.com/2021/07/americas-centers-for-disease-confusion/

Public-health officials have botched their pandemic response and messaging nearly every step of the way.

America’s vaccination campaign is stalling. In late June, pharmacists and other providers were administering roughly 800,000 shots a day — down 80 percent from a peak of more than 4.6 million in mid April.

Because of this precipitous decline, the Biden administration recently admitted it would miss its self-imposed goal of vaccinating at least 70 percent of American adults by Independence Day. So far, only 66 percent have gotten the jab.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) deserve much of the blame for plummeting vaccination rates. Public-health officials have botched their pandemic response and messaging nearly every step of the way — inadvertently stoking skepticism of the vaccines.

Take the CDC’s worst mistake: its decision, in partnership with the Food and Drug Administration, to pause the use of Johnson & Johnson’s COVID-19 vaccine for ten days because of a risk of blood clots. The risk ended up being less than one in a million.

That overreaction triggered an immediate drop in public trust in the vaccine. Immediately after the CDC advised halting the J&J shot, the number of daily first doses of all vaccines administered plummeted by some 40 percent compared with weeks earlier.

Recent data have confirmed just how damaging that choice was. According to recent polling, more than 40 percent of unvaccinated Americans say that their biggest concern is that the J&J shot causes blood clots. More than one-quarter believe that every vaccine causes blood clots.

This poor decision-making has been the norm for the CDC since the beginning of the pandemic. The agency’s guidance seems to have been motivated more by armchair psychology than by hard data.

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NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

How Much Longer Will July 4 Be A Holiday?

By on July 6th, 2021

https://issuesinsights.com/2021/07/06/how-much-longer-will-july-4-be-a-holiday/

Though it became a federal holiday only in 1941, Americans have been celebrating Independence Day since the colonies broke away from the British crown. Today, a core of extremists wants to erase our history and at the same time fix it in the public’s mind that this country is illegitimate due to a racist past and present, its colonial foundation, and capitalist system of exploitation. This leaves us to wonder how many more glorious Fourths we have left.

As we noted on Monday, most of us consider ourselves to be either “extremely” (44%) or “very” (23%) proud to be Americans. A mere 6% of the country said it was not proud to be an American.

Good news, no? But just below the surface, the numbers from our I&I/TIPP poll are alarming.

Only 36% of those from 18 to 24, the future of this country, said they were proud to be Americans. Sixty-four percent of Democrats, who hold majorities in the White House and U.S. House, share power in the Senate, and truly dominate the media, and the entertainment industry and culture, say they’re proud to be Americans. This isn’t disturbing, but it doesn’t inspire confidence, since 85% of Republicans hold the same view. That’s a significant divide.

There’s also a sizable gap between the 18-24 group and older Americans. Six in 10 (59%) of those from 25 to 44 say they’re proud of their American heritage, while 75% in the 45-64 group feel the same. Nearly nine in 10 (86%) over 65 are proud to be Americans. 

The lack of respect for our earned liberty among young adults is particularly concerning in light of what is clearly a concerted effort to delegitimize America and cast it as a systemically racist, oppressive, violent, and imperialist regime. Consider what we’ve seen and heard just in recent days:

The day before the Fourth, the New York Times, overflowing with politicized stories and opinion pieces it knows its readers are hungry for, published an article headlined “A Fourth of July Symbol of Unity That May No Longer Unite.”
National Geographic decided Saturday was a good day to plant the idea in our collective consciousness that fireworks are racist.

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ELECTIONS Comments turned off

Drop the Georgia Election Lawsuit The suit is an all but certain loser in light of Brnovich v. DNC.

By on July 6th, 2021

https://www.wsj.com/articles/drop-the-georgia-election-lawsuit-11625517739?mod=opinion_lead_pos2

Attorney General Merrick Garland is the front-runner so far for 2021’s bad timing prize. The Justice Department last month rushed out a lawsuit claiming that Georgia’s new election law violates Section 2 of the 1965 Voting Rights Act only days before the Supreme Court laid down standards that make the lawsuit a nearly certain loser.

Justice knew the likely timing of the Court’s ruling in Brnovich v. DNC, so a fair guess is that Mr. Garland succumbed to White House and progressive pressure to make a political statement to support Democratic efforts in Congress to federalize state election laws in H.R.1.

Bad call. Now federal judges hearing the case will have to contend with Justice Samuel Alito’s five principles in Brnovich as they assess the Georgia statute.

It won’t be easy to find legal fault under those principles. Mere voting inconvenience can’t be considered disqualifying, since all voting imposes some inconvenience. Any specific voting provision, such as the number of drop boxes, must also be considered in the overall context of a state’s voting rules. Georgia’s rules are generally lenient and don’t especially burden the ability of minorities to vote.

Perhaps Justice can find a federal judge somewhere to rule against Georgia, but such a ruling is unlikely to survive on appeal to higher courts. The legal and political result of the lawsuit is therefore likely to vindicate Georgia Republicans during the 2022 election season or leading up to 2024, depending on how the lawsuits proceed. Mr. Garland would be wise to drop the suit in light of Brnovich, lest his term at Justice be marred by the continuation of this patently political lawsuit.

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HOMELAND SECURITY Comments turned off

Does the Pentagon Take China Seriously? Its leaders warn of the threat from Beijing, but their budgets suggest otherwise. By Elaine Luria (D-VA District 2)

By on July 6th, 2021

https://www.wsj.com/articles/does-the-pentagon-take-china-seriously-11625503914?mod=opinion_lead_pos6

U.S. defense leaders have a problem: What they say doesn’t line up with what they do. The mismatch is apparent in the latest Pentagon budget, and a “say-do” gap undermines the trust of Congress and the American people.

Military leaders identify China as our No. 1 challenge, often calling Beijing “an increasingly capable strategic competitor,” as Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Mark Milley has warned, or a “pacing” threat. Yet the budget request reduces the ability of the Navy and the Air Force—the services that would have outsize roles in any conflict in the Western Pacific—to respond to threats in that region. Meanwhile, the budget promises undeveloped weapons that may take decades to enter the fleet, funded by a “divest to invest” strategy.

The Navy wants to retire 15 ships, including seven guided-missile cruisers and four littoral combat ships, while procuring only two surface combatant ships and two submarines. (Congress’ budget draft would buy another destroyer and limit the retirements.) Naval aviation procurement dropped 15.6% over 2021 even as the Navy speeds up F/A-18 retirements. The USS Ronald Reagan, based in Japan to counter a threat from China, is overseeing the Afghanistan withdrawal in the Middle East because no other aircraft carrier is available. Meanwhile, China is building warships at an astonishing rate. In 2010 the U.S. Navy had 68 more ships than the Chinese navy. Today, it has 63 fewer, a swing of 131 ships in 10 years.

The Air Force is also following the Pentagon’s “divest to invest” lead. Combat aircraft procurement is down 22% from 2021. The force wants to retire 137 aircraft, more than double the number it plans to buy. After the retirement of 17 B-1s last year, the Air Force’s bomber inventory is at a level top officers have called the bare minimum. Ammunition procurement is down more than 40%. China in recent years has focused on procuring advanced aircraft and has the world’s third-largest air force. In addition, China has an extensive ground-based conventional missile force, including the DF-26, known as the “carrier killer” which is capable of striking Guam.

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HOMELAND SECURITY Comments turned off

Up to 1,500 businesses affected by ransomware attack, U.S. firm’s CEO says Raphael Satter

By on July 6th, 2021

https://www.reuters.com/technology/hackers-demand-70-million-liberate-data-held-by-companies-hit-mass-cyberattack-2021-07-05/

Between 800 and 1,500 businesses around the world have been affected by a ransomware attack centered on U.S. information technology firm Kaseya, its chief executive said on Monday.

Fred Voccola, the Florida-based company’s CEO, said in an interview that it was hard to estimate the precise impact of Friday’s attack because those hit were mainly customers of Kaseya’s customers.

Kaseya is a company which provides software tools to IT outsourcing shops: companies that typically handle back-office work for companies too small or modestly resourced to have their own tech departments.

One of those tools was subverted on Friday, allowing the hackers to paralyze hundreds of businesses on all five continents. Although most of those affected have been small concerns – like dentists’ offices or accountants – the disruption has been felt more keenly in Sweden, where hundreds of supermarkets had to close because their cash registers were inoperative, or New Zealand, where schools and kindergartens were knocked offline.

The hackers who claimed responsibility for the breach have demanded $70 million to restore all the affected businesses’ data, although they have indicated a willingness to temper their demands in private conversations with a cybersecurity expert and with Reuters.

“We are always ready to negotiate,” a representative of the hackers told Reuters earlier Monday. The representative, who spoke via a chat interface on the hackers’ website, didn’t provide their name.

Voccola refused to say whether he was ready to take the hackers up on the offer.

“I can’t comment ‘yes,’ ‘no,’ or ‘maybe’,” he said when asked whether his company would talk to or pay the hackers. “No comment on anything to do with negotiating with terrorists in any way.”

The topic of ransom payments has become increasingly fraught as ransomware attacks become increasingly disruptive – and lucrative.

Voccola said he had spoken to officials at the White House, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and the Department of Homeland Security about the breach but declined to say what they had told him about paying or negotiating.

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WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Scale, details of massive ransomware attack emerge An affiliate of the notorious REvil gang infected thousands of victims in at least 17 countries.

By on July 6th, 2021

https://www.politico.com/news/2021/07/04/massive-ransomware-attack-498089

BOSTON — Cybersecurity teams worked feverishly Sunday to stem the impact of the single biggest global ransomware attack on record, with some details emerging about how the Russia-linked gang responsible breached the company whose software was the conduit.

An affiliate of the notorious REvil gang, best known for extorting $11 million from the meat-processor JBS after a Memorial Day attack, infected thousands of victims in at least 17 countries on Friday, largely through firms that remotely manage IT infrastructure for multiple customers, cybersecurity researchers said. They reported ransom demands of up to $5 million.

The FBI said in a statement Sunday that it was investigating the attack along with the federal Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, though “the scale of this incident may make it so that we are unable to respond to each victim individually.”

President Joe Biden suggested Saturday the U.S. would respond if it was determined that the Kremlin is at all involved. He said he had asked the intelligence community for a “deep dive” on what happened.

The attack comes less than a month after Biden pressed Russian President Vladimir Putin to stop providing safe haven to REvil and other ransomware gangs whose unrelenting extortionary attacks the U.S. deems a national security threat.

A broad array of businesses and public agencies were hit by the latest attack, apparently on all continents, including in financial services, travel and leisure and the public sector — though few large companies, the cybersecurity firm Sophos reported. Ransomware criminals break into networks and sow malware that cripples networks on activation by scrambling all their data. Victims get a decoder key when they pay up.

The Swedish grocery chain Coop said most of its 800 stores would be closed for a second day Sunday because their cash register software supplier was crippled. A Swedish pharmacy chain, gas station chain, the state railway and public broadcaster SVT were also hit.

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