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September 2021

FOREIGN POLICY Comments turned off

The International Puzzle of Trust and Deception Incomprehensible American cluelessness about Afghanistan. Dr. Shmuel Katz

By on September 7th, 2021

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2021/09/international-puzzle-trust-and-deception-dr-shmuel-katz/

The United States controls the NSA and many other intelligence agencies. This fact on its own makes it incomprehensible that the current US leadership had no clue about what was happening in Afghanistan. The rumors are that they wanted it to unfold in a certain way for a variety of reasons. But it’s more likely that they have over played their hand with this last move.

This recent event clearly seems to be part of an intentional plan to weaken the United States. Let’s look at the following recent problematic policy changes – Open borders, energy dependence, inflation, decimated military, defunding the police, population control, limits on flow of information, indoctrination in the schools, rewriting of history, racial unrest, gender confusion, selective implementation of laws, undermining US international standing, etc.

This overall situation forces a serious question: Can the United States be trusted under these circumstances?

Good people must wake up if they want to have a free and democratic republic in the United State or in any other free country across the globe!! Independence, freedom, and self-reliance are imperative to be able to run a stable country. Terrorists and their supporters should not be trusted, as they will break any promise or agreement when they feel strong enough to do so.

Therefore, people must understand that giving away national treasures – or even simple assets of value – will never appease unreliable operatives with malicious intentions!! Eventual durable peace and reconciliation will be possible only if a solid long-term education of mutual respect and recognition is implemented in all educational institutions and media outlets. In addition, terror infrastructures must be dismantled, and incitement and misinformation must be stopped.

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EDUCATION Comments turned off

Notable & Quotable: Tearing Down Princeton Free speech, but only to supply students ‘with the tools with which they can tear down this place.’

By on September 7th, 2021

https://www.wsj.com/articles/notable-quotable-tearing-down-princeton-11630965255?mod=opinion_major_pos4

Dan-el Padilla Peralta, associate professor of classics, in a video shown at Princeton University’s freshman orientation:

When I speak about the privileges that we have I am particularly intent on one of those privileges. This is the privilege—especially for those of us who have the benefits of tenure—to exercise free speech. But I don’t mean free speech in the masculinized, bravado sense . . . I envision a free speech and an intellectual discourse that is flexed to one specific aim, and that aim is the promotion of social justice, and an anti-racist social justice at that.

And in order for that work to be realized richly and capaciously it behooves all of us who are on the faculty to think about ways in which we can provide effective mentoring to our students—instruct and guide them about the institutional peculiarities of Princeton and Princeton culture—but not with a view to habituating them into a practice of assimilation or indoctrinating them in the belief that somehow this is the best damn place of all, but in order to supply them with the tools with which they can tear down this place and make it a better one.

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FOREIGN POLICY Comments turned off

Our Friends the Taliban Biden is relying on the group with ties to al Qaeda. Good luck.

By on September 7th, 2021

https://www.wsj.com/articles/our-friends-the-taliban-biden-administration-al-qaeda-haqqani-network-afghanistan-11630954075?mod=opinion_lead_pos1

The Taliban claimed Monday to have conquered the last major opposition to its takeover of Afghanistan, routing remnants of the former Afghan military and others in the Panjshir Valley. No doubt the abandoned U.S. military equipment helped. Let’s hope the Talibs feel grateful—because the Biden Administration plans to depend on them for years to come.

The White House hopes Americans forget about all this as it focuses on domestic affairs. But this is one of the more extraordinary political transformations in U.S. history. The Taliban, the sponsors of Osama bin Laden and killers of Americans for 20 years, have overnight turned into a courted U.S. partner.

“A new chapter of America’s engagement with Afghanistan has begun. It’s one in which we will lead with our diplomacy,” Secretary of State Antony Blinken declared recently, almost as if he was announcing a triumph like the fall of the Berlin Wall. “The military mission is over. A new diplomatic mission has begun.”

Mr. Blinken says the U.S. will now work with the Taliban to get the remaining Americans and Afghan allies out of the country, and he’s optimistic. “The Taliban has committed to let anyone with proper documents leave the country in a safe and orderly manner. They’ve said this privately and publicly many times,” said the Secretary of State.

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ELECTIONS Comments turned off

Larry Elder Is the School-Choice Champion California Needs, Former Dem Senate Leader Says By Caroline Downey

By on September 7th, 2021

https://www.nationalreview.com/news/larry-elder-is-the-school-choice-champion-california-needs-former-dem-senate-leader-says/

Conservative radio host Larry Elder has emerged as the favorite among the Republicans challenging California governor Gavin Newsom in the upcoming recall election. The fire-breathing right-wing radio host is not just appealing to staunch conservatives, however, he’s also earned an unexpected endorsement from California’s former Democratic Senate leader, Gloria Romero.

A champion for school choice, Romero plans to abandon the Democratic ticket on September 14 in favor of a candidate she believes will be a champion for the impoverished black and Hispanic children who have been abandoned by the Newsom administration.

Hailing from South Central Los Angeles, Elder has walked the walk when it comes to advocating for education freedom, Romero said in an interview with National Review. Elder’s father, a janitor who earned a GED as an adult, instilled the wisdom of “hard work wins” in his sons, a credo that the Republican contender believes goes hand in hand with school choice.

“School choice benefits children of parents who preach that education and hard work are key to upward mobility,” he wrote in a July editorial defending the policy.

Sometimes called the “fourth branch of government,” the California teachers’ union has a monopoly on education that is holding students hostage, Romero claims. As to why school choice hasn’t made inroads in California, she blames “the spinelessness, the lack of a backbone, and fear” that Democratic elected officials have had in responding to this “800-pound gorilla in the room.”

Beholden to the massive public education bureaucracy, which accounts for nearly half of the state’s annual budget, Democratic lawmakers have historically squashed any attempts at school reform, preventing lower-income African-Americans and Hispanic children from securing a higher-quality education, Romero, who is Hispanic, asserted.

“You’re looking at a war chest that no other special interest in California can even command. It’s unparalleled. That’s where they get the money to smash down and frighten Democrats to shut up and stand down when it comes to education reform,” she said.

Romero and Elder have pointed to surveys showing tremendous support for school choice among African American and Latino parents. Yet their pleas are ignored by the Democratic Party, which colludes with the teachers’ union to avoid relinquishing their power.

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ENVIRONMENT AND JUNK SCIENCE Comments turned off

There’s Nothing The U.S. Can Do To Affect Global Temperature

By on September 7th, 2021

https://issuesinsights.com/2021/09/07/theres-nothing-the-u-s-can-do-to-affect-global-temperature/

Despite zero evidence that human greenhouse gas emissions are harming Earth, the Democrats, cheered by the media, continue to enact energy policies they say are necessary for saving our world. But all they’re doing is increasing energy scarcity, which forces prices higher, and ignoring facts that don’t fit their narrative.

America’s worst energy policy offender is California, where the ever-eager-to-mandate-and-forbid ruling class is outlawing automobiles that burn fossil fuels, halting electricity generation from conventional sources, and executing a war on gas stations.

It’s all so entirely pointless. California’s humanity produces only about 1% of all global greenhouse gas emissions. If the state fell into the ocean tomorrow, as some have predicted it will (it won’t), the world thermometer wouldn’t be moved one bit.

The story is the same for the entire country.

“Here’s the most important fact about the Green New Deal: It wouldn’t work,” says the Heritage Foundation’s Nicolas Loris. “Ultimately, fully implementing the Green New Deal would have no meaningful impact on global temperatures.”

Yet if enacted, the law would nevertheless “bring huge changes to our country,” Loris continues, as it “is a wish list for big government spending, expansive government control, and massive amounts of wealth distribution.” It would also allow progressives to implement their twisted definition of “social justice.”

“This deal would fundamentally change how people produce and consume energy, harvest crops, raise livestock, build homes, drive cars, travel long distances, and manufacture goods,” says Loris. But “even if Americans were on board with this radical change in behavior and lifestyle, it wouldn’t change our climate.” 

How can he make such a statement? Because his colleague Kevin Dayaratna ran the numbers – and put them before Congress during a 2017 House committee hearing.

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MEDIA Comments turned off

Where are the apologies for spreading ‘harmful misinformation’ about fake ivermectin overdoses in Oklahoma hospital? By Thomas Lifson

By on September 7th, 2021

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2021/09/where_are_the

Rachel Maddow still has her blue checkmark on Twitter.  The ultra-rich (reportedly earning $30 million a year in her new MSNBC contract) news commentator gleefully spread a false story that rural hospitals and ambulances in Oklahoma were backed up because so many ignorant rubes were overdosing on ivermectin horse medicine.  Some were even losing their vision.

It is all part of a campaign to demonize ivermectin, and totally false.  The original story appearing in Rolling Stone was as fake as that magazine’s University of Virginia rape hoax.

So where’s the accountability?  There is no tag from Twitter calling this misinformation.  No sign on Maddow’s Twitter feed that she takes responsibility for spreading a false story that could lead to people not taking an effective medicine.  Why, people could miss a life-saving treatment.  This is the sort of thing where the left cries, “Blood on your hands!” when there is an opportunity to criticize a conservative.

Disclaimer: I am not a physician and do not offer any medical advice.  Always consult your doctor before taking any medication.

And the fact is that, despite the AMA calling for an end to use of ivermectin for COVID — because people self-administering the drug have overdosed (as happens with aspirin all too frequently in suicide attempts) — it has been endorsed by medical authorities overseas and can demonstrate remarkable effectiveness.

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ELECTIONS, POLITICS Comments turned off

CLINTON’S MIDAS KING-TERRY McAULIFFE- BY MARJORIE WILLIAMS (2000)

By on September 7th, 2021

https://archive.vanityfair.com/article/2000/1/clintons-midas-king

You probably know,” says Terry McAuliffe, thumping the arms of his chair at the Oval Room, a restaurant two blocks north of the White House, “I come here a lot. This used to be George’s table.” He’s sitting in the see-and-be-seen chair, the one everyone has to pass on the way into the main dining room. He doesn’t have to spell out that he’s referring to George Stephanopoulos, former media favorite and adviser to President Clinton. “Yeah,” he says, in case you missed the point. “Old George is kind of out of favor now, and I’m in.”

So this is the first clue to how a man becomes what Vice President A1 Gore has called “the greatest fund-raiser in the history of the universe”: it’s not about subtlety. “I’m one of the few fighters in the party,” McAuliffe likes to say. “I think that’s one of the reasons the president loves me. I’m the only one around with any you-know-what.”

Terry McAuliffe can afford to crow. After two decades at the slippery peak of a pursuit most men tire of after two or three election cycles, McAuliffe is the acknowledged master at separating political donors from their money. He is, at 42, a self-made multimillionaire, with a fortune that may reach into nine digits. And, icing on the cake, he has achieved the official role of First Friend to the president, a status sealed during the fall when he posted collateral of $1.35 million in cash to help the Clintons buy their new house in Chappaqua, New York.

The Clintons’ reliance on a private benefactor, especially one as controversial as McAuliffe, raised so many questions that they went on to arrange a different form of financing, without McAuliffe’s help. But the home-financing deal was, in the scheme of things, a drop in the bucket of Bill Clinton’s debt to McAuliffe, the culmination of one of those instructive Washington symbioses: between a man who calls himself “the king of money” and a man whose flirtations with personal and political disaster have made him more financially needy than any other president in memory. “The feeling I had is, the one guy, if he did this, that they couldn’t criticize [by saying] he was going to get something out of it was me,” says McAuliffe. “Because I was so far into everything. I mean, what’s the president going to do, give me another round of golf?”

The “everything” that McAuliffe has been “into” has included: leading the fundraising effort for Clinton’s 1996 campaign, at a time when many other Democrats were writing him off as a one-term president; chairing (and raising money for) his 1997 inaugural; raising nearly $7 million for the president’s legal-defense fund (“I am the fund-raiser for it. I raise all the big checks,” he says); raising money for Hillary Clinton’s Senate campaign (“I put her whole money team together…. I made 50 calls for her this weekend…. I love old Hillary!”); raising money for the president’s future library, budgeted to cost more than $125 million; and rounding up corporate sponsors for the administration’s planned millennium celebration on the mall.

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ELECTIONS Comments turned off

Virginia races offer an early preview of Democrats’ midterm challenges By Reid Wilson

By on September 7th, 2021

https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/570932-virginia-races-offer-an-early-preview-of-democrats-midterm-challenges

Voters in Virginia will give Democrats and Republicans the first hints of the political landscape in advance of next year’s midterm elections when they head to the polls in eight weeks.

The marquee match-up is an expensive race for governor between former Carlyle Group chief executive Glenn Youngkin (R) and Terry McAuliffe (D), seeking a return to Richmond after four years out of the governor’s mansion.

But the more revealing test will come in smaller, below-the-radar elections for seats in the House of Delegates. Democrats hold 55 of the 100 seats up for election in November, contests that can approximate what appears to be an uphill battle to maintain control of the House of Representatives in Washington one year from now.

Delegate elections “can certainly, at times, play the role of canary in the coal mine. And I think that’s even more true now given how nationalized our elections at every level have become,” said Tucker Martin, who served as a top aide to former Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell (R). “If there are trends developing you’ll see some of them in the results.”

Democrats lost half a dozen seats in Virginia elections in 1993, a year before control of Congress changed hands in the 1994 Republican revolution. Republicans ended more than a century of Democratic control of the House of Delegates in 1999, a year before George W. Bush became the first Republican president since Eisenhower to take office with control of the House and Senate (though Democrats reclaimed control of the Senate after a party switch).

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NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Richard Baehr on Afghanistan

By on September 7th, 2021

NO LINK

 There has been plenty written about our Afghanistan withdrawal. The “great achievement” pointed to by our President reading a script someone wrote for him, was that we brought 124,000 people out during our airlift. It would seem worth pointing out that 6,000 of these were Americans, 7,000 were Afghans with special visas (meaning well fewer than half the 18,000 translators identified several months ago), and a few thousand (number not provided) who were nationals of our Nato allies.

What this means is that over 100,000 , or more than 80% , are people who did not fit any of the categories for whom the airlift was intended. How these people were the ones selected for admission to the airport and outbound flights is entirely unclear. Supposedly vetting of these people is now underway, and already  several hundred have been identified who had problematic backgrounds (potential threats).  

The large majority are likely people with no or minimal background records we can access .You  can do the math on how many potential threats to America might be admitted if 1 per cent of 100,000, or 0.1% of 100,000 turned out to be bad guys. 19 people did a lot of damage 20 years ago in the space of a few hours. We took a lot of Afghans out, but left a few hundred Americans, and a  lot of Afghans we were committed to getting out, in the hands of a ruthless band of  very well armed America loathing  tribesmen straight out of the middle ages.

  Of course, we are now told the Taliban are different- more inclusive, more respectful of women, anxious to govern pragmatically, and join the community of nations, and of course responsive to American pressure (with sufficient cash bribes). And we can count on them to do the job preventing the county from being overrun by jihadists anxious to make it a primary base again for attacks against the West. Of course we can simply come in over the top to bomb them into the stone ages (what’s new) if they fail to do a good job on the terror front. This is the wisdom of our diplomatic and homeland security luminaries. 

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CHARLOTTE'S NEWS WEB, MEDIA Comments turned off

HIGH NOONAN Scott Johnson

By on September 7th, 2021

https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2021/09/high-noonan-3.php

Noonan is a sore subject of long standing with me. She makes my skin crawl.

Noonan joined the crowd turning on George W. Bush in what I thought was (in Noonan’s case) a grossly unfair manner in 2008. Noonan wasn’t just unfair, she was also cowardly. I wrote critically about one of Noonan’s weekly Wall Street Journal columns in which she identified with the public disapproval of Bush that April in “Season of the witch.”

Having turned on George W. Bush, Noonan moved on to support the election of Barack Obama later that year. Noonan all but endorsed Obama in her 2008 column “Obama and the runaway train.” The anti-Bush and pro-Obama columns fit neatly together. She wrote of Obama just before the election:

He has within him the possibility to change the direction and tone of American foreign policy, which need changing; his rise will serve as a practical rebuke to the past five years, which need rebuking; his victory would provide a fresh start in a nation in which a fresh start would come as a national relief. He climbed steep stairs, born off the continent with no father to guide, a dreamy, abandoning mother, mixed race, no connections.

He rose with guts and gifts. He is steady, calm, and, in terms of the execution of his political ascent, still the primary and almost only area in which his executive abilities can be discerned, he shows good judgment in terms of whom to hire and consult, what steps to take and moves to make. We witnessed from him this year something unique in American politics: He took down a political machine without raising his voice.

In a sense, Obama delivered, but in another sense Noonan got everything wrong. Obama certainly changed the direction and tone of American foreign policy, yet the change failed to yield the results Noonan anticipated. He betrayed allies and sold out to enemies for good measure, but for nothing in return.

Noonan then turned on Obama. In “The unwisdom of Barack Obama,” Noonan condemned Obama on one of the grounds she had supported him in 2008. It had dawned on her: “His essential problem is that he has very poor judgment.”

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