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January 2022

Destroying Taiwan by Gordon G. Chang

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/18138/destroying-taiwan

Chinese ruler Xi Jinping is not going to be deterred by the prospect of losing TSMC [semiconductor company] or, for that matter, all of Taiwan’s semiconductor industry. He will take the island even if he has to make it a radioactive slab uninhabitable for a thousand years.

“China wanted Taiwan long before TSMC was churning out chips, and would want it even if TSMC had never existed…. It wants Taiwan because, like Nazi Germany, it is an expansionist power….” — Michael Turton, columnist, Taipei Times, January 10, 2022.

China’s regime is extraordinarily casualty-adverse…. McKinney and Harris, therefore, totally miss the mark when they argue that an arms race with China would be counterproductive. Xi knows that an invasion of the island would be unpopular among most Chinese citizens if their sons or daughter were killed or maimed in the effort…, he is not about to do anything that could lead to the end of Communist Party rule.

Richard Fisher, a China military analyst with the International Assessment and Strategy Center, tells Gatestone that it is possible for the United States to win such a contest with China. Fisher is correct. The Chinese military is arms-racing not just with the United States but with much of the region, especially Japan and Australia.

[A]t a time when China’s Communist Party is attacking democracies, Washington cannot allow Beijing to absorb any one of them, even if it is not home to the world’s leading chipmakers.

“Destroying Taiwan’s democracy is essential to giving China’s Communist Party license to destroy all other democracies.” — Richard Fisher to Gatestone, January 2022.

If America came to the rescue of Taiwan, it would not be defending just the island; America would be defending itself.

America can save Taiwan from Chinese invasion by promising to destroy it, or at least its chipmaking capability, argues an article in Parameters, the U.S. Army War College’s quarterly. In “Broken Nest: Deterring China from Invading Taiwan,” Air University’s Jared McKinney and Colorado State University’s Peter Harris say that Taipei and Washington should make the island “unwantable.”

How to Counter Biden’s National Security Incompetence in 2022 America’s enemies have been watching this unprecedented deterioration of American global leadership and are preparing to cash in. By Fred Fleitz

https://amgreatness.com/2022/01/16/how-to-counter-bidens-national-security-incompetence-in-2022/

The inept national security policies of Joe Biden during his first year in office caused a profound deterioration in American and global security that is certain to worsen in 2022 unless he takes aggressive steps to change course. 

From his disastrous withdrawal of U.S troops from Afghanistan, lack of coherent policies to deal with Russia and China, a stubborn determination to appease Iran to revive the deeply flawed 2015 nuclear deal, and an obsession with climate change as a national security issue, Biden in just one year severely undermined America’s global reputation as a strong and principled nation. 

Making this worse is a global perception that Joe Biden is not mentally competent to be the U.S. commander in chief. 

America’s enemies have been watching this unprecedented deterioration of American global leadership and are preparing to cash in. This could include in 2022 China attacking Taiwan, Russia invading Ukraine, and increased provocations by Iran and North Korea, including possible nuclear tests by both nations. There is also the threat to the United States directly by criminal and national security threats resulting from Biden’s failure to secure our southern border. 

Biden’s advisers and members of Congress must recognize that threats to American security could significantly worsen in 2022 and demand changes to the Biden Administration’s national security policies and staffing. These changes should include:

First, fire Secretary of State Antony Blinken, Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas, and National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan. These officials have been weak advisers to an incompetent president and should be replaced with more experienced Democratic experts with gravitas and principle. 

Conspiracies as Realities, Realities as Conspiracies Conspiracy projection has split apart the country. The Left has fought efforts to learn the full truth, as they project conspiracies to disguise conspirators. By Victor Davis Hanson

https://amgreatness.com/2022/01/16/conspiracies-as-realities-realities-as-conspiracies/

American politics over the last half decade has become immersed in a series of conspiracy charges leveled by Democrats against their opponents that, in fact, are happening because of them and through them. The consequences of these conspiracies becoming reality and reality revealing itself as conspiracy have been costly to American prestige, honor, and security. As we move away from denouncing realists as conspiracists, and self-pronounced “realists” are revealed as the true conspirators, let’s review a few of the more damaging of these events. 

Russians on the Brain 

Consider that the Trump election of 2016, the transition, and the first two years of the Trump presidency were undermined by a media-progressive generated hoax of “Russian collusion.” 

The “bombshell” and “walls are closing in” mythologies dominated the network news and cable outlets. It took five years to expose them as rank agit-prop. 

Robert Mueller and his “dream team” consumed $40 million of Americans’ money and 22 months of our time—to find the nothingburger that most of the country already knew was nothing. Yet the subtext of the 2018 Democratic takeover of the House was the media narrative that Trump, as Hillary Clinton put it, was an “illegitimate” president, due to Russian collusion. 

Former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper claimed on national television that Trump was a “Russian asset.” Former CIA head John Brennan assured the nation that the president was “treasonous,” due to his supposed “lies to the American people.”  

All sorts of politicians, retired military, and news anchors echoed the charges. The lies and myths of has-been British spy Christopher Steele made him a leftist hero. They were repeated ad nauseam as truth.  

FBI grandees like James Comey, Andrew McCabe, Peter Strzok, Lisa Page, Kevin Clinesmith, and others destroyed their careers in their obsessions over Trump. In the process of destroying themselves, they also nearly wrecked the reputation of the FBI. The Pentagon has the lowest popular support in modern memory. The CIA is more feared by millions of Americans than by our enemies. 

Steele could not produce any evidence to back up his scurrilous charges. The inspector general of the Department of Justice found little evidence to substantiate any of the charges. James Comey and Robert Mueller under oath both pleaded either memory problems or denied any knowledge about the FBI’s use of Steele and the role his fake dossier played.  

Most of the televised accusers, when under oath before Congress, admitted they had no evidence for their flamboyant charges. Representative Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), who claimed the dossier was authentic and that Trump was compromised, has repeatedly been revealed as a liar. In various televised House hearings, he kept getting caught either fabricating, misrepresenting, or warping evidence before his own committee. 

No matter. Hillary Clinton and the Left kept pounding “collusion.” The more it was proven false, the more they shouted the lie.  

Finally, special counsel John Durham’s investigations, some authentic media investigative reporting, and the preponderance of evidence showed not only that Trump did not collude with the Russians, but that the entire charge was a sick sort of projection on the part of Hillary Clinton and her vassals.  

Steele concocted the election-cycle fantasy using a former Clintonite totem in Moscow. Another source was the now indicted Igor Danchenko ( a “primary sub-source”), who was working at the leftist Brookings Institution while feeding Steele.  

A cynic might look at this sad chapter and conclude that Hillary Clinton sought to destroy her opponent by paying Christopher Steele to manufacture fantasies fabricated from left-wing and former Clinton associates. Then she used the media, the FBI, the CIA, and the Justice Department to seed the farce while hiding her own role behind three firewalls including the DNC, the Perkins Coie law firm, and Glenn Simpson’s Fusion GPS.  

The ultimate irony?  

Hillary Clinton did collude with those claiming to have Russian connections to warp an election, and she projected her likely illegal activity onto the target of her attacks. No conspiracist could trump such reality. Will Merrick Garland look at her role in this episode as he conducts his insurrectionist investigations concerning efforts to undermine an election? 

GOOD NEWS FROM AMAZING ISRAEL FROM MICHAEL ORDMAN

www.verygoodnewsisrael.blogspot.com

These are very exciting times, as Israeli innovations are literally lifting-off. Dozens of Israeli children watched eight of their school-built nano-satellites being launched into space, and there is more good news about another 12 Israeli space projects. Intel has unveiled its latest 12th-generation Israeli-developed microprocessor and Israel’s Mobileye has lifted the lid on its super-computer chip to power autonomous cars. Those suffering from cancer, lupus and autism will have their hopes raised by the latest Israeli medical treatments and research. Afghan refugees and women in India will certainly get a lift from recent Israeli humanitarian initiatives.  Israeli trade and investment is rising to new heights and there are signs that Israeli tourism may be about to take off again. More ancient Jewish artifacts have been lifted from the Land of Israel, and the sight of blossoming trees is lifting spirits throughout the country.  Michael Ordman

ISRAEL’S MEDICAL ACHIEVEMENTS

Lupus treatment is right on target. Current treatments for lupus nephritis shut down much of the immune system, with many adverse side effects. A new therapy developed by researchers, including Israel’s Professor Chaim Putterman, targets only the relevant T-cells and is therefore much safer.

https://www.israelnationalnews.com/news/319884

How we adapt to our environment. Researchers at Tel Aviv University have discovered that our physical bodies react to electrical voltage changes within nerve cells in the brain. So, if we encounter strong smell, a voltage change tells our G-protein voltage-sensitive receptors to reduce sensitivity to the smell.

https://www.jpost.com/science/article-691568   https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-021-27593-x 

Diet can slow brain aging. A green Mediterranean diet, high in polyphenols and low in red and processed meat, seems to slow age-related brain atrophy. Ben Gurion University researchers led an 18-month international randomized control trial on 300 participants – one of the world’s longest and largest brain MRI trials.

https://in.bgu.ac.il/en/pages/news/green_med.aspx

https://academic.oup.com/ajcn/advance-article/doi/10.1093/ajcn/nqac001/6503596?login=true

Diagnosing autism in infants. Researchers from Bar-Ilan University have been able to diagnose symptoms of autism spectrum disorder (ASD) in babies up to 15 months old. They then treated those symptoms using Bar-Ilan’s pioneer Mifne Approach to avert severe deviations in the neurodevelopment of the infants identified.

https://www.jpost.com/health-and-wellness/mind-and-spirit/article-689985

An Israeli coronavirus expert. Latest webinar featuring Dr. Asher Salmon, of Israel’s Ministry of Health. (2nd link gives his background.) Start from 19 minutes 50 seconds (main talk from 23 mins).  At 1 hour 12 mins, the moderator mentions one of my local surgery’s doctors, sent by Israel to Croatia, to advise on vaccinations.

https://mfafiles.azurewebsites.net/Shares/ca4af3c2-41d8-42e2-9870-206c581ab995

https://socialimpactil.com/dr-asher-salmon-health-for-israelis-the-world/

New cancer treatment center. (TY WIN) Construction has begun on a $265 million cancer treatment center at Tel Aviv Sourasky (Ichilov) Medical Center. Philanthropist Sheldon Adelson donated $40 million towards the project prior to his death. The center will contain in-patients, proton therapy, rehabilitation, research, and more.

https://www.israelhayom.com/2022/01/03/adelson-family-donates-40-million-to-tel-aviv-sourasky-medical-center/

All hands to the pump. United Hatzalah volunteer EMT Avinoam revived 40-year-old Yankel, who suffered a cardiac arrest in Be’er Sheva. Passers-by helped with CPR and assisted ventilation. Avinoam’s defibrillator delivered 4 shocks and Yankel’s heart restarted. Next day, Avinoam visited a very grateful Yankel in hospital.

https://www.israelnationalnews.com/news/319904

Philosophy and History of Science in the Age of COVID – Part II Science vs Pseudo-Science. Jack Kerwick

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2022/01/philosophy-and-history-science-age-covid-part-ii-jack-kerwick/

“In this house, we believe in…science.” 

“The science is settled.” 

“Science says….” 

As I began demonstrating in a previous essay, anyone who espouses such clichés is scientifically illiterate. Science is not some ahistorical abstraction embodying the proverbial God’s eye view of the cosmos. It has a particularly colorful past extending back centuries, a history replete with all of the nit and grit, all of the contingencies and relativities, characteristic of all cultural phenomena. And the history of science includes, of course, rival philosophies of science. 

It was also mentioned that the 18th century philosopher Immanuel Kant revolutionized Western philosophy when he argued that it is not, as had always been assumed, the mind that passively and impartially mirrors the world. Rather, it is the world that is made to comport with the mind. The only world that human beings can meaningfully speak of is the world that has been constructed in terms of the mind’s own internal structures. These structures are comprised of the “pure intuitions” of space and time and a dozen “categories,” including the categories of “causality” and what philosophers have traditionally called “substance.” 

Space, time, universal causation, and the existence of entities that endure over time are not necessarily objective features of the universe to be discovered by scientific inquiry but, quite the contrary, the very pre-conditions of all inquiry. They are features of the human mind supplied in advance of all experience and in the absence of which we can experience nothing. 

Kant was provoked to develop his “Copernican revolution” after he was awakened by his “dogmatic slumbers” by his predecessor, David Hume. To Kant’s legacy we will return. Not everyone, it is critical to note here, was persuaded by him to abandon Hume. 

Muslim Takes Hostages At Texas Synagogue And the same charade of denial and obfuscation starts all over again. Robert Spencer

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2022/01/muslim-takes-hostages-texas-synagogue-robert-spencer/

On Saturday, Congregation Beth Israel Synagogue in Colleyville, Texas was in the middle of Shabbat services that were being livestreamed on Facebook when a Muslim gunman named Malik Faisal Akram, burst in and took hostages, including the rabbi. After a standoff that lasted hours, all the hostages were safely freed and Akram was killed. Then the denial and obfuscation began almost immediately.

FBI Special Agent in Charge Matt DeSarno got the ball rolling when he said: “We do believe from our engagement with this subject that he was singularly focused on one issue, uh, and it was not specifically related to the Jewish community, uh, but we’re continuing to work to find motive and, and we will continue on that path.”

DeSarno’s bizarre statement was based on the fact that the demands the hostage-taker made all revolved around Aafia Siddiqui, also known as “Lady al-Qaeda,” who is serving 86 years in prison for plotting a large-scale jihad massacre in New York City. The hostage-taker reportedly demanded that his “sister” be freed, which led to widespread speculation that he was in fact Aafia Siddiqui’s brother. However, Akram was no relation to Siddiqui; he was referring to her as his sister in Islam.

According to Tom Winter of NBC News, the hostage-taker even had the rabbi of Congregation Beth Israel, Charlie Cytron-Walker, whom he was holding hostage, call another rabbi in New York City. “The purpose of the call was to again demand the release of Aafia Siddiqui. The New York City based rabbi called 9-1-1 and the NYPD is well aware of the incident.”

Wisconsin Judge Rules Ballot Drop Boxes Used in 2020 Election Were Illegal By Athena Thorne

https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/athena-thorne/2022/01/16/wisconsin-judge-rules-ballot-drop-boxes-used-in-2020-election-were-illegal-n1549881

A judge in the state of Wisconsin ruled on Thursday that the use of ballot boxes in the 2020 election was, in fact, illegal. Joe Biden was declared the winner over Donald Trump in the state by 20,682 votes.

Waukesha County Circuit Court Judge Michael Bohren issued the decision in a lawsuit that had been filed on behalf of two voters by the Wisconsin Institute of Law & Liberty (WILL). WILL argued that the Wisconsin Elections Commission (WEC) had unilaterally issued guidance to election clerks, authorizing the use of ballot collection boxes, in contradiction of state law.

“The guidance from the Wisconsin Elections Commission on absentee ballot drop boxes was unlawful. There are just two legal methods to cast an absentee ballot in Wisconsin: through the mail or in-person at a clerk’s office. And voters must return their own ballots,” commented WILL Deputy Counsel Luke Berg. “We are pleased the court made this clear, providing Wisconsin voters with certainty for forthcoming elections.”

In a memo issued to state election officials months before the 2020 general election, the WEC gave its blessing to install an unlimited number of drop boxes of numerous descriptions: indoors or outdoors, staffed or unstaffed, in a box or with a fox. Officials could even use COVID-19 as an excuse to repurpose existing local “infrastructure” for ballot collection, such as mail slots set up for taxes, mail and public utilities, book and media drop slots at the local library, even “businesses or locations that have already implemented social distancing practices, such as grocery stores and banks.”

When NeverTrumpers turn against Biden By David Zukerman

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2022/01/when_nevertrumpers_turn_against_biden.html

Joseph Robinette Biden, Jr. occupies the Oval Office solely because he is not Donald Trump. He has no qualities to recommend him as POTUS beyond that. Arguably, it was the support of NeverTrumpers that provided his margin of victory in the scandal-ridden 2020 election. Now that his presidency is collapsing due to his complete ineptitude, those NeverTrumpers owe us an explanation for their support of this disaster.

Former Reagan speechwriter and prominent NeverTrumper Peggy Noonan indicated that she had broken with President Biden over his voting rights speech in Georgia, June 11, in her January 15 Wall Street Journal column.  It would not, I think, be unfair to conclude that with this speech, President Biden has lost Peggy Noonan who wrote, among other things:  “The speech itself was aggressive, intemperate, not only offensive, but meant to offend.” Clearly, the speech was intended to provoke former president Trump, with its invidious references to him, references, however, that Ms. Noonan happened to overlook.

To have a sense where Peggy Noonan stands on the issue of Donald J. Trump, two of her many columns on or about Mr. Trump shed some light, I think, on her problem with Trump Derangement Syndrome.  There are, as examples, her column extolling the courage of Rep. Liz Cheney, seeing her as facing down her GOP colleague/cowards — and her July 2021 column attacking President Trump for being “weak and sniveling.”

The American Medical Association Falls to CRT By S.R. Piccoli

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2022/01/the_american_medical_association_falls_to_crt.html

Cultural Marxism has found its way into the medical profession.
“The old world is dying and the new world struggles to be born. Now is the time of monsters.” This well-known quote is a liberal translation of Antonio Gramsci popularized by Slovenian philosopher Slavoj Žižek, which renders “In this interregnum a great variety of morbid symptoms appear” as “Now is the time of monsters.” Antonio Gramsci, the Italian Communist leader and theoretician who is considered the forefather of Critical Race Theory, had probably no idea that, a century later, such an accurate insight into his time would prove to be incredibly prophetic of our own here and now. Today the monsters — or morbid symptoms — are among us as neighbors, colleagues, and friends accept and embrace the Critical Race Theory and its ramifications in the many fields of human life and scientific research.

One of these fields — perhaps the most unthinkable — is that of medical science and practice. Things have meaningfully changed since on June 25, 2021, White Coats for Black Lives (WC4BL), a national organization led by medical students, published its statement of “vision and values.” The organization, which boasts 75 chapters at medical schools across the country and was called to action by the Black Lives Matter movement, “aims to dismantle racism in medicine and fight for the health of Black people and other people of color […]. Our job is two-fold: 1) dismantling dominant, exploitative systems in the United States, which are largely reliant on anti-Black racism, colonialism, cisheteropatriarchy, white supremacy, and capitalism; and 2) rebuilding a future that supports the health and well-being of marginalized communities.” WC4BL also focuses on “dismantling fatphobia,” embracing “Black queer feminist praxis (theory and practice),” “unlearning toxic medical knowledge and relearning medical care that centers the needs of Black people and communities.”

Kamala Harris is now officially a joke By Thomas Lifson

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2022/01/kamala_harris_is_now_officially_a_joke.html

There is no way to recover national political standing once a politician becomes a popular butt of humor, a punchline in a degrading joke. Ask Dan Quayle, who has disappeared from the scene so completely that nobody has even gotten him on the record about the vice presidency of Kamala Harris. My guess is that he is enjoying bitter laughter.

Last Thursday’s interview with Craig Melvin of Democrat-friendly NBC sealed her fate. The Zen koan-like statement, “It is time for us to do what we have been doing. And that time is every day,” closes the case, a brilliantly meaningless platitude that seems to demand meditation, as if there must be some enlightenment lurking in the vast mental emptiness.

But of course, there isn’t. More and more people are reluctantly coming to the conclusion that the woman who is a heartbeat away from the presidency, whose incumbent is elderly and afflicted by dementia, is a dummy. I resisted that conclusion in part because, after all, she was elected California’s attorney general and senator and she is the daughter of two professors, but mostly out of fear for our nation. But as her ex-staffers multiply in number, reports are proliferating of those who know her up close privately saying that, yeah, she is that stupid.

The sole plausible explanation for her rise is disgraceful. When she was younger and prettier, she had a sexual relationship with a powerful married man decades older than she, and thanks to his influence in a corrupt one-party state whose media would never question a Democrat politician on the rise, she had high political office handed to her, ratified by voters dutifully accepting party dictates.

This, too, is utterly mockable, and now that the dam is breaking, will be mentioned more often as she becomes an embarrassment to the party.