First: I think that Donald Trump was the best President since Ronald Reagan and I also believe that serious election irregularities occasioned his “defeat” in 2020.
However, despite his perseveration on his many accomplishments, events will come to haunt him. His legal problems will continue and January 6 libels will pummel him. Furthermore, his initial clumsy handling of the pandemic-instead of appointing a panel of distinguished virologists and epidemiologists, he brought Fauci and Birx out of mothballs and conducted boring and disjointed press conferences- will be fodder for his opponents.
The future for the conservative agenda rests with younger and principled possible candidates who defy the disastrous policies of the Biden administration.
They are in the mold of Senator Tom Cotton, former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, Ric Grenell-former US ambassador to Germany, Governors de Santis of Florida, Youngkin of Virginia, and Abbott of Texas, Winsome Sears Lt. Governor of Virginia, Alexander Acosta, Former Secretary of Labor, Young Kim- Korean-American Representative California District 39, Geraldo Cadava, Hispanic historian and professor at Northwestern University, John James, West Point graduate and candidate for Senate in Michigan.
These are just a handful of possibilities if Donald Trump has the probity to step aside…..rsk
https://amgreatness.com/2022/01/25/democrats-in-2020-wrote-the-book-on-voter-suppression-and-election-subversion/
At his recent press conference last week about “voting rights,” Biden further dialed up his scurrilous “Jim Crow 2.0” imputations when he asserted the 2022 midterm elections would be “illegitimate” if federal voting legislation is not passed forbidding states from preventing many of the practices—such as a lack of voter ID requirements and legal ballot harvesting—that led to all of the chaos, confusion, and distrust of the 2020 election.
You can always count on leftists to relentlessly accuse you of every nefarious thing that they themselves are doing.
In order to understand what Biden is really talking about, you have to understand that voter suppression and election subversion were what Democrats themselves were up to during the 2020 election, mainly conducted under the auspices of the now-notorious Center for Technology and Civic Life and funded by $350 million of Facebook Founder Mark Zuckerberg’s money.
Promoting Illegitimate Votes Suppresses Legitimate Votes
When the politicians want to obtain your resources, but are reluctant to harm their electoral prospects by raising your taxes, the time honored “work around” is to increase the money supply. If the money supply is $1 and GDP consists of one donut, your $1 is worth one donut. If the government wants half of that donut, they could increase your taxes by 50 percent, thereby leaving you with half a donut.
But if it is not politically expedient to raise taxes, the government can obtain your half a donut anyway, by doubling the money supply to $2. Now the government has $1 and you have $1 but GDP still only consists of one donut. Just like if your taxes were raised, now you only get half of the overall number of donuts and the government gets the other half.
https://amgreatness.com/2022/01/25/donald-trump-and-the-future-of-maga/
In 2016, Donald Trump pulled off an extraordinary political feat only he could have achieved. As the army of highly compensated professional political consultants in Washington, D.C., watched aghast, Trump single-handedly wrested the Republican nomination from the grip of a GOP establishment that had long enjoyed complete control of national and state party hierarchies, fundraising structures, and think tanks that determine policy priorities. As Trump’s rogue campaign trounced establishment candidates in state after state in the GOP primaries—despite the unified opposition of Conservatism, Inc.—he not only defeated that establishment’s lockstep institutional opposition, he defeated their agenda in a way that permanently shifted the debate on the Right and throughout the country.
On his signature issues of immigration, trade, and foreign policy, Trump blew up the two-party orthodoxy that had reigned in Washington for decades. Despite a lack of any discernible popular support, the GOP and Democratic establishments had settled into a broad, corporate-backed consensus in favor of virtually unrestricted immigration, “trade agreements” that subsidized the mass movement of U.S. manufacturing overseas and the mass importation of cheap foreign goods (often the products of slave labor), and interventionist adventurism abroad. Any dissent from this consensus was marginalized swiftly and aggressively by the establishment enforcers of both major parties, with heretics labeled as extremists, lunatics, or both.
Exposing the Rot
Within a matter of months, Donald Trump demonstrated that this seemingly unassailable establishment consensus was, in reality, a paper tiger. Outside of the Washington Beltway, the agenda of open borders, “free trade” with an increasingly dominant and aggressive Communist China, and endless wars abroad, enjoys virtually no popular support. While the D.C.-centric constituencies promoting these policies—deep state bureaucrats, special interest lobbyists, and defense contractors—profited enormously from this general agreement among the ruling class that brooked no dissent, the interests of average Americans oppressed and abused by the elite agenda went almost entirely unrepresented in Washington. Trump’s meteoric rise demonstrated that all that was lacking was a champion independent enough of the major party structures to buck the false consensus.
https://www.jns.org/opinion/israels-ill-fated-powwows-with-the-palestinian-authority/
Israeli Foreign Minister Yair Lapid didn’t boast on social media about his meeting on Sunday with Palestinian Authority honcho Hussein al-Sheikh. The latter did so immediately, however.
“I met this evening with … Lapid, and we discussed several political and bilateral issues,” tweeted al-Sheikh, head of the P.A.’s “General Authority of Civil Affairs” and member of the Fatah Central Committee. “I have highlighted the need for a political horizon between the two parties based on international legitimacy.”
The last two words of the post reveal just what kind of “political and bilateral issues” were the focus of the talk between the powerful figure considered a possible successor to P.A. leader Mahmoud Abbas and the man slated to replace Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett next year. The false P.A. claim and commonly heard mantra that Israel violates international law as an “occupying power”—chanted in anti-Zionist circles around the world—is nothing new.
Nor is the often-obfuscated fact that it’s not only Hamas that refers to the illegitimacy of the Jewish state within any borders.
Speaking of which, Abbas prefaced his address to the 76th session of the U.N. General Assembly three months ago by stating: “This year marks the 73rd anniversary of the nakba,” the so-called “catastrophe” of Israel’s establishment in 1948.
The opening reference merely scratched the surface of the rest of his hate-filled speech, in which he reiterated, among other lies and threats, that “this colonial regime [Israel] has established on our land will disappear, regardless of how long it takes. We will not allow them to hijack our lives and kill our people’s dreams, hopes and aspirations to realize freedom and independence.”
https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2022/01/middle-east-studies-association-why-we-should-call-hugh-fitzgerald/
“MESA” is the acronym of the Middle East Studies Association, the professional group of those at American universities and colleges are who are charged with the responsibility of teaching the American young, those trusting, innocent, infinitely malleable young, about the Middle East, which mostly means the history of Islam, and the Islamicate world of Muslims, and the non-Muslim peoples and lands they conquered.
As an organization, MESA has over the past two decades slowly but surely been taken over by apologists for Islam. Many of these are Muslims, and many are non-Muslims. The latter includes a great many who, to get along with their colleagues (and remember, the most political place in the entire universe is a university faculty, and that institution which deserves to be immortalized by a gifted satirist, the Departmental Meeting) follow their apologetic lead. Junior faculty owe everything to, and therefore must curry favor with, senior faculty. If that means signing a BDS declaration, or denouncing the colonial-settler apartheid state of Israel, still harboring its dream of expanding from the Nile to the Euphrates, and responsible or everything that has ever gone wrong with the Muslim and Arab states and peoples, then so be it. The funny thing about being a trimmer or a Vicar of Bray, however, is that the mere act of signing something you really don’t believe can help convince you that you really do believe it, otherwise you would have to come to terms with your own cravenness, your own pusillanimity. And no one wants to do that.
https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2022/01/what-will-it-take-convince-democrats-school-choice-larry-sand/
During the 2020–21 school year, approximately 608,000 students used a voucher, tax-credit scholarship, or education savings account (ESA) to educate their children, according to policy experts Jason Bedrick and Ed Tarnowski. They wrote in August that as a result of the legislation enacted so far in 2021, at least 3.6 million additional students are eligible to participate in the new educational choice programs in seven states, and an additional 878,300 additional students will be eligible in 14 other states. In all, 22 states expanded or created school choice initiatives in 2021.
While this is certainly good news for the still small percentage of lucky families, there is a disturbing, though not exactly surprising reality. As detailed in a study released in the fall by researchers Jay Greene, James Paul, and Lindsey Burke, very few Democratic state legislators vote for school-choice proposals, “and the few that do almost never make a difference in whether those bills receive support of at least 50% of the legislators.” The researchers conclude, that the “empirical evidence is clear that the historical practice of courting Democratic policymakers has not been effective. Indeed, it has likely been counter-productive. Proponents of school choice should make a values-based appeal for choice that could attract more families, and elevate choice as a solution to some of the most pressing education policy fights of the day.”
It is no secret that the teachers unions are Choice Enemy #1, and are a big part of the problem in blue states. With only a handful of organized private schools nationwide, the unions are willing to spend big to advance their self-serving agenda, no matter how family-unfriendly it may be. And that outlay goes almost exclusively in one direction, of course. In 2020, the National Education Association contributed almost $15 million to candidates across the country, handing over 96% of it to Democrats. The American Federation of Teachers spent over $20 million, 99.6% of it going to Dems.
https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2022/01/florida-teen-converts-islam-murders-13-year-old-robert-spencer/
When Corey Johnson was 17, he murdered a 13-year-old boy, Jovanni Sierra Brand, and stabbed two other people because they “idolized celebrities and disrespected his Muslim faith.” Johnson is now 21. On Thursday, he got a life sentence for the murder, but no one seems to be pondering the larger implications of the case.
The UK’s Daily Mail reported Thursday that “Palm Beach County Judge Cheryl Caracuzzo sentenced Johnson to life in prison and said on Thursday she did not believe rehabilitation was likely for Johnson after he remained emotionless during the heartfelt testimony of Jovanni’s mother.”
When he was in court Thursday, Johnson did make an attempt to show remorse: “I wish I could take it back, I wish I could do something to make this right. I’d like to apologize not because it will change anything, but because I’m really truly sorry.” Johnson also, according to the Daily Mail, said that he “regretted following the Islamic extremist group ISIS, and that he hoped to help people to compensate for the crimes he had committed.”
https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/18175/dershowitz-upholding-constitution
[W]hen law professors such as Cornell University’s Michael Dorf — who is an acolyte, water-carrier and co-author of America’s most prominent constitutional hypocrite, Professor Laurence Tribe — set out to defame… anyone, for a principled representation of unpopular defendants, it becomes clear, and alarming, how much trouble the Constitution is in.
Dorf apparently does not remember the principle often attributed to Voltaire: “I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.”
He also deliberately omits the fact that my “oeuvre” includes representing half of my clients on a pro bono basis and that many of my cases have focused on the First Amendment, the Fourth Amendment and the death penalty.
[T]he reader is given no idea even of how many people were included in this admittedly “unscientific poll,” or how they were selected.
Sometimes it takes an absurd event to illustrate the high cost of upholding crucial principles, such as the right to counsel. For nearly 60 years, I have tried to emulate John Adams, Abraham Lincoln, Clarence Darrow, Thurgood Marshall, Edward Bennett Williams and others in the pantheon of my legal heroes, by representing, as they did, the most hated and vilified defendants. In making that career choice, I knew that I would be criticized by those who do not understand the constitutional right to counsel and the need for every defendant to receive zealous representation.
Following last week’s Abu Dhabi attack, Biden said he will consider reversing the decision. That would be the right move and he should do it immediately.
Biden’s moves were a classic example of the failure of appeasement. Inevitably, the Iranian ayatollahs were not won over by these and other US placations. Instead they have become increasingly hard-nosed, demanding more US compromises in exchange for fewer restrictions on their nuclear weapons project — a typical Iranian regime response to perceived weakness.
Ansar Allah still represents a direct terrorist threat to the US. In the past it has taken American citizens hostage and in 2016 fired anti-ship missiles at US vessels off the coast of Yemen…. Ansar Allah also jeopardises wider American interests in the region, as well as its allies.
So far the West has proved impotent in helping to end this devastating war, with all efforts at agreeing a negotiated settlement frustrated largely due to Ansar Allah’s intransigence. Its violent offensive against Yemen’s Marib Governorate that began last February is further evidence that — with Iranian backing — it continues to seek only the path of war. As events since Biden became president have shown, appeasement is the opposite of the answer.
It is essential that the US renew its strong opposition to Iran’s expansionist actions, countering them at every opportunity…. An implacably hard-line stance towards these terrorists is essential to reassure US allies that there are consequences for violence against them.
Re-designation would not prevent Iran from continuing to fuel the Yemen insurgency but it would send a message of US strength to Tehran, one sorely needed in the months following the Afghanistan debacle and the administration’s open desperation to renew the nuclear deal at almost any price.
The US administration could overcome this [problem of delivering humanitarian aid] by granting broad licenses and waivers to organizations and companies operating in and around Yemen, enabling essential supplies including food, fuel and medicines to be delivered. This would also need to take account of Ansar Allah’s demands for bribes from aid agencies, and their propensity to steal aid for their own profit. This is a challenge the US administration has so far side-stepped but must now clarify.
No doubt such a licensing regime would introduce further complications to the already desperate and fraught humanitarian programmes — on top of the theft of aid by Ansar Allah. But such additional bureaucratic effort is a price that needs to be paid for the wider political and strategic benefits in countering Iranian and Ansar Allah violence.
https://issuesinsights.com/2022/01/26/suddenly-its-no-longer-deeply-dangerous-to-talk-about-rigged-elections/
It wasn’t long ago that we were told that President Donald Trump’s questioning the legitimacy of the election wasn’t just unfounded, but a serious threat to the future of the nation.
As one commentator put it, by fanning the specter of election fraud, Trump was “sowing doubt not just about the 2020 election, but whether America’s voting system – the foundation of American democracy – is sound … In a democracy, where governing power is rooted in the consent of the governed, this is deeply dangerous.”
Yet here is President Joe Biden, predicting that the next election can’t be trusted, based on far less evidence than Trump had. And the press is celebrating him for it.
“I think it would easily be illegitimate,” said Biden at his marathon press conference last week when asked about the midterm elections (that Republicans are expected to sweep). “The increase in the prospect of being illegitimate is in proportion to not being able to get these reforms passed.”
Biden was referring to a bill push by Democrats that would federalize state elections and make it easy for the left to manipulate vote totals. In the bizarro world of the Democratic-media complex, this is called a “voter rights” bill. And efforts by Republicans to enact prudent requirements such as voter ID, registration roll maintenance, vote harvesting bans, and the like, are described as voter suppression.
