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June 2023

Biden’s Endless Gifts to China by Robert Williams

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/19751/biden-gifts-to-china

The gifts the Biden Administration has already given the Chinese Communist Party in just two years have been nothing short of exorbitant — and often to the detriment of the US.

The Biden Administration intends to spend more than half a trillion dollars on “clean energy and climate action over the next decade”, according to the US Department of Energy. That amount would reportedly include projects for climate change and investments in renewable energy, such as solar panels and wind turbines.

The problem is: these policies are all gifts to China.

In solar energy… China produces between 70% and 98% of the world’s silicon-based raw material and other components for solar panels — a solid world monopoly.

“Most solar panels are imported, with three-quarters of the imports originating from Chinese subsidiaries manufacturing in Southeast Asia…. the US… fell to just 0.5% in 2017.” — USA Facts, August 16, 2022.

Not enough is being invested in the manufacturing of solar panels in the US… The solar cells will mainly be coming from China.

The Biden Administration has placed a massive bet on electric vehicles. The goal is that 50% of new vehicles sold in the US should be electric by 2030. Electric vehicles need lithium-ion batteries. China has almost a global monopoly on producing them.

The average cost of raw materials, including lithium, nickel and cobalt, was more than $8,000 per electric vehicle in June 2022. That amount represented an increase of more than 140% since 2020, resulting in the cost of producing an electric vehicle being 125% more to that of an internal combustion vehicle. How many American consumers can afford such expensive cars? Furthermore, electric vehicles have a tendency to burst into flames. None of these problems seems to bother the Biden Administration.

There are several problems with wind turbines. One is that the US still relies on foreign imports to make them, including from — China. Another is that wind turbines endanger wildlife, such as birds and whales.

The Biden Administration has also set a goal to “achieve a carbon-pollution-free electricity sector by 2035.” All these measures clearly hobble the US and reduce its power to compete, while China, already the world’s largest user of fossil fuels, has announced that by 2030, its carbon dioxide emissions will peak… China last year built more new coal-fired power plants than the rest of the world combined — the equivalent of two new coal-fired plants per week.

The proposal [by the Environmental Protection Agency to limit how much carbon dioxide US coal- and gas-fired power plants may emit] means that US electric power plants would have to transform the way that they operate, either costing them billions in new equipment, or closing them down entirely.

All these Biden policies seem almost custom-tailored to reduce America’s ability to compete internationally, while giving China even more room to grow its economy and gain an even greater edge over the US.

[A]ccording to John Kerry, the Biden Administration’s “climate envoy,” whatever the US does unilaterally, without similar action by China and other major economies, is utterly pointless. Kerry admitted in January 2021 that even if the US were to have zero carbon emissions, “almost 90 percent of all of the planet’s global emissions come from outside of US borders. We could go to zero tomorrow and the problem isn’t solved.”

California Bill Would Enable Therapists to ‘Emancipate’ 12-Year-Olds from Their Own Parents By Eric Lendrum

https://amgreatness.com/2023/06/23/california-bill-would-enable-therapists-to-emancipate-12-year-olds-from-their-own-parents/

On Tuesday, Democrats in the state of California advanced a bill that would allow therapists and other mental health “professionals” to have children forcibly removed from their homes and placed into state custody without the consent of the parents.

According to the Washington Free Beacon, the State Senate’s Judiciary Committee approved Assembly Bill 665, which passed by a party-line vote. If the bill became law, children as young as 12 would be legally allowed to check themselves into state-run shelters with the unconditional approval of a therapist or counselor, and without the parents’ knowledge.

The bill is authored by State Senator Scott Wiener (D-Calif.) and State Assemblywoman Wendy Carrillo (D-Calif.). Wiener in particular has a long history of introducing highly controversial, pro-LGBTQ bills that are often passed into law, including a bill making it legal to knowingly infect someone with HIV.

The authors claim that the bill is only meant to provide equal access to mental health services for all children in the state of California, and could only apply to children who are on Medi-Cal, the state-funded Medicaid program that primarily targets low-income families.

“This bill protects children. It makes children safer. It makes children healthier,” Wiener falsely claimed. “It’s unfortunate that this bill, like so many, has been caught up in this right-wing outrage machine.”

However, the bill is already facing widespread backlash. Prior to the committee vote, numerous California residents publicly testified against the bill; various witnesses described it as an “emancipation of 12 year olds,” “heinous,” and “dangerous.”

Under the bill, there would be no obligation for any such therapist or counselor to prove that a 12-year-old is mature enough or in a dangerous enough situation to justify being placed in a “residential shelter.” There is such a requirement for minors who are on private insurance. Similarly, any possible decision to inform the parents or withhold such information from them would be left entirely up to the mental health professional involved, even if it is simply an intern or trainee.

A Catastrophic Implosion . . . of the Rule of Law Instead of proper rule of law we are living with that Orwellian alternative, Our Rule of Law™—an arbitrary enforcement of the laws and use of the coercive power of the state.  By Roger Kimball

https://amgreatness.com/2023/06/25/a-catastrophic-implosion-of-the-rule-of-law/

Like some other commentators, I have in recent years several times quoted a famous exchange from Ernest Hemingway’s first novel, The Sun Also Rises. Recent developments in the Biden family money laundering scheme, the implosion of a boutique underwater expedition to the Titanic, and a possible coup in Russia prompt me to wheel it out once again. “‘How did you go bankrupt?’ Bill asked. ‘Two ways,’ Mike said. ‘Gradually, then suddenly.’”

It fits the long-running drama over Hunter Biden’s laptop from hell, I think. Miranda Devine broke news of that scandal in the New York Post in the run-up to the 2020 presidential election. It languished in the doldrums of official nonrecognition for years as the regime went into overdrive to keep people, especially voters, from paying any attention to it. 

Gradually, however, the truth leaked out. First, the authenticity of the laptop was acknowledged. Turns out it was not “Russian disinformation,” as those 51 intelligence experts insisted. Nope, it belonged to Hunter all right. At first, the public was titillated by all the sex-drugs-and-rock-n-roll that pervaded that digital trove. Gradually, very gradually, however, the publicly important stuff—the money angle with news of foreign payments apparently to dear-old-dad from various foreigners—began leaking out. 

Then suddenly, just this last week, the House Ways and Means Committee began dropping bombs. 

Material from an IRS whistleblower—no, two IRS whistleblowers—got fed into the mix and we got such Hunter Biden classics as this WhatsApp message from July 2017 addressed to Henry Zhao, a member of the Chinese Communist Party and, wouldn’t you know it, a business partner of Hunter’s: 

I am sitting here with my father and we would like to understand why the commitment [the commitment being millions of the crispest] made has not been fulfilled. Tell the director that I would like to resolve this now before it gets out of hand, and now means tonight, And, Z, fi [sic] get a call or text from anyone involved in this other than you, Zhang, or the chairman, I will make certain that between the man sitting next to me and every person he knows and my ability to forever hold a grudge that you will regret not following my direction. I am sitting here waiting for the call with my father.

What the Left Has Left for America What the Left now fears most is the revolutionary model it has bequeathed to America—and what might happen if its monstrous creation falls into politically incorrect hands. By Victor Davis Hanson

https://amgreatness.com/2023/06/25/what-the-left-has-left-for-america/

The present-day Left bears little resemblance to the old civil-libertarian, integrationist Democratic Party that existed from the 1960s through 2000. 

The antecedents to its current madness were once previewed in the old party’s extremist wing of campus radicals of the 1960s and 1970s. They were accentuated by Black Lives Matter and Antifa during the Obama years, forged during the COVID lockdown and George Floyd riots, and polished during the era of Trump derangement syndrome. 

On almost every issue, Democrats have repudiated their prior reverence for the Supreme Court. 

They distrust individual liberty and free expression. 

They now worship the money and clout of corporate America. 

Racial ecumenicalism and integration are seen as passé. 

There is little need for borders to protect vulnerable American workers, given the advantages of inviting in millions of poor illegal immigrants without audits. 

Democrats have transmogrified into a Soviet-style socialist binary of rich and poor, run by an elite nomenklatura that dictates its orders to its foot soldiers of the underclass. An entire new left-wing vocabulary—clingers, deplorables, irredeemables, dregs, chumps, ultra-MAGA, semi-fascists—has come to express their hatred of the middle class. 

On the Supreme Court 

The Left has adopted Franklin Roosevelt’s once infamous (but now sanctified) 1937 approach to destroying the autonomy of the Supreme Court by threatening to pack it. 

Note how any means necessary are justified in their attacks. Swarm the conservative justices’ private homes to leverage future opinions, with the assurance that an ethically bankrupt Justice Department will never enforce existing laws prohibiting such intimidation of the justices. 

Have the Democrat Senate minority leader scream threats to justices by name at the very doors of the court and at the head of a mob—promising to individual justices a whirlwind to reap and unrecognizable forces that will soon hit them. 

Wage ad hominem attacks on traditional justices in the media. Allege they are corrupt, on the theory that they are limited in their means of defense and any rebuttal will lack the wherewithal of the original unfounded smears. 

Talk nonstop about changing the number of the court justices in order to intimidate conservative justices to move leftward. Move left or be packed! 

Argue for nullifying Supreme Court decisions if they lack legal sanction, given the conservative majority of the Court. 

Drive down the Court’s approval ratings in polls by nonstop screams that the justices cruelly hurt left-wing constituencies. 

Claim that the presidency and the Senate, both in leftist hands, are the true voices of the people, rather than ossified edicts of heartless conservative justices. 

Storming Our Castles The Left’s war on home ownership, the suburbs and the American Dream intensifies. by Michael Finch

https://www.frontpagemag.com/storming-our-castles/

Around 90 A.D., the Roman historian Tacitus traveled through Germania observing the lives of its inhabitants. It was quite an eye-opening journey for him. Among his many observations, he noted how the Germanic people chose to live in small separate dwellings, separate from even extended family. Often these dwellings would house just a mother, father, and their children.  That seems normal to us today, but it certainly wasn’t to Tacitus and the Romans, or much of the civilized world at that time.

Authors Michael Lotus and James Bennett wrote of this in their groundbreaking book “America 3.0: Rebooting American Prosperity in the 21st Century Why America’s Greatest Days Are Yet to Come.” The Germanic tribes would take this radical cultural trait with them, when in the 5th Century A.D. they would conquer Britannia. In fact, the German tribe of Angles would give England its future name. While this cultural trait would not remain as powerful in Germania or in much of Europe, it would further migrate, most notably to America, Canada, and Australia.  The idea of owning a single-family home is not unknown to the world, of course, but it planted its deepest cultural seeds here in the United States. The epitome of the American Dream is to own one’s home – a home is a man’s castle.

Why the history lesson? Because the yearning to own one’s own home is under threat and the ability to buy and own a piece of land in America is under intense attack from the Left. But then what isn’t under attack from the Left. Our communities, families, churches, every aspect of middle-class lifestyle is seen as an obstacle to the Left’s utopian dream of a new society, a roadblock in the efforts to radically transform society.

The Left is now pushing policies that promote a “densification” of living. These new “smart cities” include dense living in small, cramped dwellings in cities where the need and use of a car are eliminated. The question of what people may want becomes irrelevant. That some younger people choose to live in dense living arrangements in cities is often true. But most younger people, when they marry and have families, choose to live outside of dense cities; they vote with their feet and choose to live in suburbs.

Another Woke Reboot Dies a Horrible Death By Matt Margolis

https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/matt-margolis/2023/06/25/another-woke-reboot-dies-a-horrible-death-n1706111

We’ve long been critical of Hollywood’s lack of fresh, new ideas and its apparent fascination with rebooting past films or giving us a sequel decades later. Sadly, merely paying homage to the original material is insufficient. Instead, producers opt to incorporate “wokeness,” believing it will be more appealing to modern viewers, but in the process, they end up taking something beloved and turning it into garbage that the masses don’t want to see.

The latest example is Grease: Rise of the Pink Ladies, the prequel series to the 1978 hit film Grease. I’m not sure who wanted this — it’s bad enough to hear any of the original songs and get them stuck in your head — but once again, the effort seemed less about telling a compelling story, and more about making it an anachronistically diverse, LGBTQ story, flaunting same-sex romances and obsession with racial identity.

Woke reboots, sequels, and prequels don’t have a stellar track record, and it’s hard to understand how Hollywood hasn’t gotten the hint. It’s bad enough that Hollywood doesn’t have enough new ideas it constantly has to borrow from past works, but it’s particularly bad when woke writers take period pieces and shamelessly insert LGBTQ ideology into them or diversify the cast in a way that makes them grossly inaccurate to the point where they’re arguably rewriting history. For example, Disney’s live-action reboot of Lady and The Tramp portrayed interracial relationships and race relations in a way that was grossly unrealistic for the era it took place in. The characters Jim Dear and Darling were made an interracial couple even though interracial marriage was illegal at the time and place the movie was set.

‘Out of Sight, Out of Mind’: The Border Crisis Is Still With Us Despite the Media Blackout By Rick Moran

https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/rick-moran/2023/06/25/out-of-sight-out-of-mind-the-border-crisis-is-still-with-us-despite-the-media-blackout-n1706119

Hot Air’s Jazz Shaw reminds us that the Biden administration is still touting the drop in illegal crossings at the border. A Politico story from early this month gave an account of the White House end zone dance about its “plan” to deal with the end of Title 42 working so well.

“The Department of Homeland Security said that since the lifting of the public health order known as Title 42 at midnight May 12, unlawful border crossings have plummeted by more than 70 percent. In a press release, the Biden administration cited its ‘execution’ of a plan that paired tough consequences for unlawful entry with an expansion of lawful pathways and processes for migrants in the hemisphere.”

It should be noted that the Biden administration altered the definition of “unlawful border crossing.” It vastly expanded legal pathways to enter the country, including the addition of a phone app that could be used to make an appointment with a border patrol agent.

They’re just as “illegal” as they were before because they still have to show up in front of an immigration judge and plead their case.

And the Border Patrol still counts those entries as an “encounter,” meaning that for the month of May, 204,000 illegal alien “encounters” occurred at the border.

As you can see, border encounters in the month of May were slightly lower than in the same month last year. (Approximately 200K versus 240K.) But that’s still 20K higher than in 2021 and nearly ten times higher than in 2020. And there are still four months left in the current fiscal year. We’re on track to still set another record. And even if we don’t we’ll still wind up well above two million, which is completely unacceptable.

Merrick Garland May Be Impeached Over Latest Whistleblower Claims By Matt Margolis

https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/matt-margolis/2023/06/25/merrick-garland-may-be-impeached-over-latest-whistleblower-claims-n1706168

I’ve been advocating for Attorney General Merrick Garland to be impeached for some time now, but it finally looks like House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) is getting on board with the idea in light of recent whistleblower accusations.

On Sunday, McCarthy indicated in a tweet that the House GOP could initiate an impeachment inquiry against the scandal-plagued Garland if IRS Criminal Supervisory Special Agent Gary A. Shapley Jr.’s claims that U.S. Attorney David Weiss wanted to appoint a special counsel for the Department of Justice’s investigation into Hunter Biden prove to be accurate.

“We need to get to the facts, and that includes reconciling these clear disparities. U.S. Attorney David Weiss must provide answers to the House Judiciary Committee,” McCarthy tweeted. “If the whistleblowers’ allegations are true, this will be a significant part of a larger impeachment inquiry into Merrick Garland’s weaponization of DOJ.”

Just 36% Agree With Biden That The Economy Is ‘Strong’ — I&I/TIPP Poll Terry Jones

https://issuesinsights.com/2023/06/26/just-36-agree-with-biden-that-the-economy-is-strong-ii-tipp-poll/

Once upon a time, Democratic presidents understood how important a healthy economy was. President Bill Clinton and his advisers won two elections living by the mantra, “It’s the economy, stupid.” Get that right, they thought, and everything else follows. But today, Americans think President Joe Biden doesn’t get it, June’s I&I/TIPP Poll shows.

The online I&I/TIPP Poll, taken from May 31-June 2 and including responses from 1,358 adults nationwide, asked the following: “To what extent do you agree or disagree with the following statement: The American economy remains strong, as it transitions to steady and stable growth.”

That statement, by the way, was not made up. It’s a direct quotation of what Biden told Americans after the Commerce Department reported in April that real GDP growth in the first quarter was a disappointing 1.1%. It has since been revised up slightly to 1.3%. We did not, when surveying Americans, identify who made that statement.

Do Americans agree with Biden that the economy’s strong, steady and stable? Overall, I&I/TIPP found, 55% of Americans disagreed that the economy “remains strong,” while just 36% agreed. The poll has a margin of error of +/-2.7 percentage points.

The Horror of Being Christian in Muslim Pakistan: Just One Month by Raymond Ibrahim

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/19750/christian-in-muslim-pakistan

“[T]here was absolutely no case. There was no proof against Noman, and none of the witnesses produced by police could corroborate the blasphemy allegation against him…. This is murder of justice.” — Lazar Allah Rakha, lawyer for Norman Masih, a 22-year-old Christian man, sentenced to death for “blasphemy”, Morning Star News, May 31, 2023,

“Several people have been lynched over false accusations of blasphemy in Pakistan. At least 57 cases of alleged blasphemy were reported in Pakistan between Jan. 1 and May 10 [2023], while four blasphemy suspects were lynched or extrajudicially killed during the same period…” — Morning Star News, May 22, 2023

“The blasphemy laws have been consistently misused to settle personal disputes, persecute minority groups, and incite mob violence and hatred. We demand prompt action and a collective effort by the government to address these human rights violations.” — Retired Justice Nasira Javaid Iqbal, Morning Star News, May 22, 2023.

[A] Muslim policeman, hired to protect a Catholic school run by the Sisters of the Presentation of the Blessed Virgin Mary, instead attacked the school and murdered two young girls. — British Asian Christian Association, May 16, 2023.

“[T]he incident [murder] has been officially blamed on the ‘mental health’ of the man, without investigating his possible relations with Muslim extremist groups.” — bitterwinter.org, June 1, 2023.

“[W]hy this horrific terrorist event occurred at the missionary school is due to a hatred of education for women, in radicalised Pakistan.” — British Asian Christian Association, May 16, 2023.