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September 2023

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The Democrats’ Deal With the Devil The party struck a bargain in 2020 that put Biden and them in power. It will be harder this time. By Daniel Henninger

By on September 21st, 2023

https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-democrats-deal-with-the-devil-clyburn-biden-harris-trump-election-age-a27453b8?mod=opinion_featst_pos1

Readers of this column know that I give historic significance to February 2020, when Democratic Rep. Jim Clyburn endorsed Joe Biden in the South Carolina presidential primary. It’s worth a review because that decision now haunts a Democratic Party said to be haunted by Mr. Biden’s “age.”

The existential threat to the Democratic establishment as the 2020 presidential primaries unfolded was Vermont’s socialist senator, Bernie Sanders. Coming off a big win in the Nevada caucuses, Sen. Sanders headed to South Carolina with a leading delegate count of 45—and momentum. The Democrats’ No. 2 vote-getter then wasn’t Joe Biden. It was, incredible to recall, Pete Buttigieg, holding 26 delegates after the voting in Iowa, New Hampshire and Nevada. Mr. Biden was third, with 15 delegates after a poor showing in Nevada. Trailing was Sen. Elizabeth Warren, a progressive who lacked Bernie’s mysterious charisma.

The Clyburn endorsement, which sent a signal to the state’s black voters, boosted Mr. Biden to a 48.6% win in South Carolina. Bernie was second with 19.8%. Abetted by the moderate voters who were Rep. Clyburn’s target audience, Mr. Biden eked out a win in November. Nearly four years later, the party establishment that sent Mr. Biden toward the presidency is talking about sending him packing. A CNN poll says Nikki Haley would beat Mr. Biden today by 6 points, and the incumbent president is tied statistically with all the other non-Trump GOP candidates.

Let’s understand what happened back in South Carolina. One of literature’s great allegories is the story of Dr. Faustus, who in return for receiving great powers from the devil, agreed to let Mephistopheles come for his soul sometime in the future. By throwing the party behind Mr. Biden, Rep. Clyburn and the Democrats made a conscious Faustian bargain.

The conceit now, or euphemism, in every conversation or poll is that Mr. Biden is “too old.” As in the 25th Amendment’s capacity concerns. But the Biden inner circle knew in February 2020 that the former vice president was already on the brink of being “too old.” Thus the Delaware-basement campaign. But by committing to Mr. Biden, the Democrats got possession of the powers of the presidency for four years. They also got a passive president who held open the door for the largest outpouring of spending and regulation in generations.

Now that fellow on the other side of Faustian bargains has shown up to tell the Democrats their payment is due. After giving them four years of extraordinary power, he’s taking back Joe Biden. What lies ahead for the Biden-less party could be a hard slog.

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NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Merrick Garland Ducks the Hunter Biden Questions The AG demonstrates why appointing a special counsel was a bad idea.

By on September 21st, 2023

https://www.wsj.com/articles/merrick-garland-special-counsel-david-weiss-hunter-biden-6377c505?mod=opinion_lead_pos2

Shortly before the Trump Administration left office, Attorney General William Barr declined Republican calls to appoint a special counsel for Hunter Biden. We agreed with him. As we warned, a special counsel can bury a case in secret for years, and an AG can duck questions by saying that’s the special counsel’s job.

Merrick Garland essentially made that point for us on Wednesday. In contentious testimony before the House Judiciary Committee, President Biden’s Attorney General wouldn’t even say whether he talked to U.S. Attorney-turned-special counsel David Weiss about Hunter’s case.

The answers Republicans seek, Mr. Garland suggested, will be addressed “in the public report that will be transmitted to the Congress.” Given that a special counsel’s report typically comes at the end of an investigation, that means that Congress and the American people aren’t likely to get these answers before the 2024 election.

Mr. Garland portrayed himself as independent of both the White House and the details of Mr. Weiss’s investigation. But he didn’t have to ask President Biden what he wanted. In May the President publicly signaled to prosecutors that there should be no indictments when he told MSNBC “my son has done nothing wrong.”

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WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Another Palestinian Reverie by Raymond Ibrahim

By on September 20th, 2023

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/19980/palestinian-reverie

On August 29, 2023, Sheikh Issam Amira, a prominent member of the Palestinian Hizb al-Tahrir party, argued that the “liberation” of Palestine is nothing compared to the potentially great conquests that Islam has in store for the rest of the non-Muslim world — including the United States.

What crime did these non-Muslim cities, nations, and continents commit against Muslims to deserve being targeted for violent conquest?

“The Party of Satan is America, Europe, Russia, and all Western nations, and all infidel [non-Muslim] nations everywhere…. Everyone who opposes Allah and his prophet is to be stricken with disgrace and misery. Not just that, they are to be broken in the here, and sent to the fire in the hereafter.” — Sheikh Issam Amira, YouTube, August 29, 2023.

Although [Hizb al-Tahrir] means the “party of liberation,” and although it pretends its sole interest is “liberating” Palestinians from Israel, when its members get together there seems to be an additional plan, not just for Jews.

Palestinian cleric Nidhal Siam made clear that, from an Islamic perspective, for Christians as well, liberation and conquest are one and the same.

“Oh Muslims, the anniversary of the conquest [fath/فتح, literally, “opening”] of Constantinople brings tidings of things to come. It brings tidings that Rome will be conquered in the near future, Allah willing.” — Nidhal Siam, Jerusalem Post, January 20, 2020.

[The Palestinians] seek sympathy from the international community, despite the fact that until 1964, there reportedly were no Palestinians.

It also might be helpful to recall that until the seventh century and the birth of Muhammad, there were no Muslims – anywhere – let alone Palestinians.

The word Islam means “submission.”

“Fight those who do not believe in Allah and the Last Day, nor comply with what Allah and His Messenger have forbidden, nor embrace the religion of truth from among those who were given the Scripture, until they pay the tax, willingly submitting, fully humbled.” — Qur’an, 9:29 Khattab translation.

Those conquered are given three choices: to convert to Islam; to remain tolerated, second-class citizens, called dhimmis, pay a “protection” tax [jizya], and live according to humiliating rules to remind them of their inferiority, — such as being allowed to ride a donkey but not a camel or horse. The third choice is to die.

It is also helpful to remember that the Qur’an is not made up of “suggestions; Muslims consider it the word of God, similar to the Ten Commandments. One cannot say, “Oh, Allah didn’t really mean that.” Yes, Allah did…

In each of these military engagements, Muslims were the aggressors: they invaded non-Muslim territory and, apart from the Battle of Tours, which they lost, they butchered and enslaved the inhabitants, and appropriated their lands — for no other reason than that they were “infidels” — non-Muslims.

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HISTORY Comments turned off

Yom Kippur (Day of Atonement) Guide for the Perplexed, 2023-Yoram Ettinger

By on September 20th, 2023

1. Soul searching. Yom Kippur is observed on the 10th day of the Jewish month of Tishrei (September 25, 2023). It is called the Super Sabbath (Shabbat Shabbaton in Hebrew), concluding 10 days of soul-searching and spiritual self-awareness and self-enhancement, which begins on Rosh Hashanah, the first day of the Jewish year.

According to Leviticus 23:26-32: “The Lord said to Moses, that the tenth day of the seventh month [Tishrei] is the Day of Atonement…. Do not do any work on that day…. This is a lasting ordinance for generations to come….”

Yom Kippur commemorates the day of divine forgiveness for the sin of worshipping the golden calf idol. It cautions against the temptation to sacrifice spiritual values on the altar of materialism and convenience.

2. Social responsibility. Asking forgiveness of fellow human-beings is a major feature of Yom Kippur, transferring human behavior from acrimony and vindictiveness to forgiveness and peaceful coexistence. It is consistent with the philosophy of Hillel the Elder, a leading 1st century BCE Jewish Sage: “The essence of the Torah is: do not do unto your fellow person that which is hateful to you; the rest [of the Torah] is commentary.” 

3. No ill-speaking. According to Judaism, the tongue can be a lethal weapon, and therefore, ill-speaking of other people (“evil tongue” in Hebrew) may not be forgiven.  Yom Kippur is a reminder that words are controllable while inside one’s mouth, but they become uncontrollable once they are uttered out.

4. Behavioral enhancement. Yom Kippur highlights magnanimity, humility, genuine-repentance, compassion, consideration, forgiveness, responsibility, optimism and faith.  It recognizes one’s fallibilities, emphasizes learning from one’s mistakes, minimizing future missteps, elevating morality and enhancing family and community cohesion.

Criminals and sinners are invited to participate in Yom Kippur services.

5. Fasting is a key feature of Yom Kippur, reducing material pleasure, in order to focus on one’s soul-searching, and enhancing empathy with the needy. The Hebrew spelling of fasting [צומ] is the root of the Hebrew word for reducing/focusing ((צמצומ.

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NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Communism, Fascism, Globalism — What’s the Difference? By J.B. Shurk

By on September 20th, 2023

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2023/09/communism_fascism_globalism__whats_the_difference.html

Monarchy: A system of government where supreme power is vested in a single genetic lineage — a dictatorship passed through family inheritance.

Communism: A system of government in which the State plans and controls the economy and a single, authoritarian party holds power — a dictatorship of the proletariat.

Fascism: A system of government marked by the centralization of authority under a dictator in which an economy is subject to stringent governmental controls and political opposition is violently suppressed.

Globalism: A system of government marked by the elimination of national sovereignty and the centralization of authority within international organizations such as the United Nations, World Health Organization, and World Economic Forum — all run by a small group of wealthy elites.

Monarchy, communism, fascism, globalism — what’s the difference?  At the end of the day, we are talking about a system of government in which centralized power belongs to a small group of elites who use their control over economic, military, and intelligence-collecting institutions to rule over everyone else.  Whether it is a government run by Mussolini, a king, the self-described “proletariat,” or an international cabal of central banks and corporations — it is a dictatorship all the same.

Let’s not pretend that raw “democracy” is significantly different.  As early-twentieth-century sociologist Robert Michels laid out in his treatise, “Political Parties,” an “iron law of oligarchy” guarantees that a small group of elites eventually rise to “rule over” any form of democratic organization.  Representative democracy, Michels argued, is a “facade” that legitimizes the continuing “rule” of some elite class. 

Administrators, bureaucrats, and political leaders love to talk about “democracy” because doing so buttresses their pretense that the people are actually in control.  Nothing could be farther from the truth.  It is the “ruling class” that hoards power, and the more any elite member speaks of “democracy,” the more certain you can be that the elites are actively betraying the overall will of the people.  No matter how much this hurts, remember, you asked for it — because this is a “democracy”!

Note that a member of the “ruling class” or one of its controlled institutions (such as Wikipedia) could easily use the above paragraphs to vilify “populism.”  Think about the doublespeak tightrope that the “ruling class” now walks:

Democracy: A system of political government controlled by the common people.

Populism: Political ideas and policies that are supported by the common people.

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ELECTIONS Comments turned off

Voter Registration Charities: A Massive, Overlooked Scandal By Parker Thayer

By on September 20th, 2023

https://amgreatness.com/2023/09/19/voter-registration-charities-a-massive-overlooked-scandal/

“Nonprofit voter registration” doesn’t sound interesting. Yet nonprofit voter registration, or the use of tax-exempt charitable organizations to conduct and fund voter registration drives, is one of the most important and underreported political scandals of our time.

Nonprofit voter registration, and the get-out-the-vote (GOTV) activities that usually accompany it, have become the heart of a billion-dollar industry in America. According to Candid’s Foundation Funding for U.S. Democracy database, since 2011 nearly 60,000 grants have been made for “Voter Education, Registration, and Turnout” and “Civic Participation,” benefitting 15,000 different organizations to the tune of $5.9 billion dollars.

Most of the largest grantors and grantees in this industry are left-leaning. Despite IRS rules prohibiting 501(c)(3) charitable nonprofit groups from engaging in partisan electioneering, it has long been an open secret that the purpose of their work is to register voters from favorable demographics in order to help get Democrats elected. The voter registration industry has always retreated behind the fig-leaf of “nonpartisanship” when necessary, which has protected it from serious scrutiny..

Until now, that is. My recent special report, How Charities Secretly Help Win Elections, ripped away that fig-leaf. The report reveals the untold story of a nondescript charity named the “Voter Registration Project” that was used to funnel over $100 million into a five-year voter registration scheme hatched by Clinton campaign operatives to help Democrats win elections in 2020. Using tax forms, leaked documents, and leaked emails, the report shows how the scheme aimed to register over 5 million “non-white” voters in Arizona, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Ohio, North Carolina, Virginia, and Nevada; how it was developed through multiple drafts and edits into a highly sophisticated plan dubbed the Everybody Votes Campaign; and how that plan was eventually adopted by a super PAC tied to Sam Bankman-Fried that instructed billionaire donors to keep it completely secret since it was the most “cost-effective” method for “netting additional Democratic votes.”

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ISRAEL, MEDIA Comments turned off

Thomas Friedman’s lamentation In his unrelenting laceration of Israel for depriving Palestinians of their own state, the columnist has ignored history and reality.Jerold S. Auerbach

By on September 20th, 2023

https://www.jns.org/israel-palestinianconflict/thomas-l-friedman/23/9/19/319758/?_se=YW5uZS1tYXJpZS5mYXJvdXpAbGFwb3N0ZS5uZXQ%3D&

Once again (Sept. 5), New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman has offered his wisdom for a solution to the decades-long conflict between Israelis and Palestinians. He claims that “far-right Jewish supremacists,” also known as the “right-wing zealots” who lead the Netanyahu government, pose “an internal Israeli Jewish threat” that obstructs the two-state (Israel and Palestine) solution that Friedman has long craved. Israel’s government, he insists, is not normal.

Friedman’s discomfort with Israel is hardly new. It dates back to his undergraduate years at Brandeis University. He joined a left-wing Jewish advocacy group that favored a two-state solution along pre-1967 lines that would deprive Israel of biblical Judea and Samaria (Jordan’s “West Bank”). As The New York Times Jerusalem bureau chief, Friedman became an incessant critic of Israel. He chastised Israelis for ignoring the plight of Palestinians, absurdly linking their violent uprisings, which he labeled “non-lethal civil disobedience,” with the American civil-rights struggle.

As a columnist, Friedman has been free to write as he wishes about Israel’s failings in the Times. Insisting that there was “no hope for peace without a Palestinian state in Gaza and the West Bank,” he has equated Jewish settlers with Palestinian suicide bombers. With Benjamin Netanyahu as prime minister, he preposterously warned that if Israel did not “freeze all settlement activity,” it “could become some kind of apartheid-like state” in control of 2.5 million Palestinians. Indeed, “scary religious nationalist zealots” might lead Israel unto the “dark corner” of a “South African future.” To satisfy him, Israel “must freeze all settlement building in the West Bank,” thereby permitting Palestinian control of its biblical homeland.

To be sure, Friedman is hardly alone among Times critics of a Jewish state. It has a long history, dating back to 1928, when Joseph Levy became the first Times reporter in Palestine. For Levy, following murderous Arab riots, Jews were the problem, and he became the conduit for anti-Zionist critics to express their views in his newspaper. Although Levy was the first Times critic of the idea—no less reality, of Jewish statehood—he was hardly the last. A bevy of Jerusalem bureau chiefs, columnists and reporters have followed in his footsteps.

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ENVIRONMENT AND JUNK SCIENCE Comments turned off

Climate Militants Disrupt Peoples’ Lives as UN Climate Summit Looms Hysteria replaces reason. by Joseph Klein

By on September 20th, 2023

https://www.frontpagemag.com/climate-militants-disrupt-peoples-lives-as-un-climate-summit-looms/

United Nations Secretary General António Guterres has made many fear-mongering declarations about climate change over the last several years. This past July, he raised his decibel level of hysteria by claiming that the “era of global warming has ended. The era of global boiling has arrived.” To underscore his clarion call to action by world leaders gathering in New York City for the UN’s annual General Assembly High-Level Week, the Secretary General decided to convene a Climate Ambition Summit on September 20th. Never mind the huge carbon footprints created by all the foreign dignitaries flying into New York to blow hot air as usual.

The objective of the UN Climate Ambition Summit is to go beyond the commitments that countries made in 2015 as part of the Paris agreement on climate change. UN member state governments and private sector stakeholders are expected to step forward with detailed plans of action to combat climate change with mitigation and adaptation measures, and to deliver commitments for funding the achievement of “climate justice.”

Discussing his climate summit, Secretary General Guterres declared that “the planet can’t wait.” He wants rich countries to take “a quantum leap in their efforts to reduce emissions,” in order to prevent average global temperatures from rising more than 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7F) above pre-industrial levels. China, however, gets a free pass, despite the fact that it remains the world’s number one emitter of greenhouse gasses and continues to build an abundance of coal-fired plants. The UN and other multilateral organizations still treat China as a “developing” country, even though its economy ranks globally as the second largest.

In the lead-up to the climate summit, climate justice warriors are taking to the streets, conducting disruptive protests to demand an end to fossil fuels now. This follows a years-long pattern of actions that have included defacement of works of art at museums, occupation of buildings, deflating tires of SUVs, and blocking traffic for extended periods of time – in capitalist countries, of course. Not in Communist China.

Although these militant tactics have often backfired by antagonizing many people whose lives have been significantly disrupted as a result of the militants’ actions, the climate justice warriors are doubling down.

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ENVIRONMENT AND JUNK SCIENCE Comments turned off

First Time Tragedy, Second Time Farce Michael Walsh

By on September 20th, 2023

https://the-pipeline.org/the-column-first-time-tragedy-second-time-farce/

Girl-children and their Pied Pipers took to the streets of Manhattan over the weekend, demanding — demanding! — an end to all traditional sources of energy and the immediate installation of the net-zero, carbon-free, powered-by-unicorn-farts utopian future they believe they’re owed because, well, just because. The “March to End Fossil Fuels” was an orchestrated kickoff to “Climate Week” convened to Save the Planet and featured appearances by the usual suspects, including la Pasionaria herself, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, as well notable lefty actors such as Susan Sarandon, Kyra Sedgewick, Ethan Hawke, Edward Norton, and Kevin Bacon, who all have time on their hands since they’re on strike from play-acting in films. (Full disclosure: so are the writers, which includes me.) According to the entirely one-sided story by Seth Borenstein of the AP:

“We have people all across the world in the streets, showing up, demanding a cessation of what is killing us,” Ocasio-Cortez told a cheering crowd. “We have to send a message that some of us are going to be living on, on this planet 30, 40, 50 years from now. And we will not take no for an answer.”

This protest was far more focused on fossil fuels and the industry than previous marches. Sunday’s rally attracted a large chunk, 15%, of first-time protesters and was overwhelmingly female, said American University sociologist Dana Fisher, who studies environmental movements and was surveying march participants.

Of the people Fisher talked to, 86% had experienced extreme heat recently, 21% floods and 18% severe drought, she said. They mostly reported feeling sad and angry… Among the marchers was 8-year-old Athena Wilson from Boca Raton, Florida. She and her mother Maleah, flew from Florida for Sunday’s protest. “Because we care about our planet,” Athena said. “I really want the Earth to feel better.”

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NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

What We Must Believe to Believe Biden Is Innocent Is it plausible that the real rainmaker of Biden, Inc. was the only one who didn’t get paid? by David Catron

By on September 20th, 2023

https://spectator.org/what-we-must-believe-to-believe-biden-is-innocent/

It’s hardly a surprise that the corporate media have rushed to the defense of President Biden pursuant to the impeachment inquiry announced last week by House Speaker Kevin McCarthy. More surprising is the absurdity of the arguments they offer on his behalf. For years, his denials notwithstanding, Biden knew his son ran an international enterprise whose only real service was selling access to the Vice President of the United States to foreign entities who hoped to procure favorable policy decisions from the Obama administration. This operation generated at least $20 million that was doled out to nine Biden family members, yet we are asked to believe that the “Big Guy” didn’t get a cut.

This situation is, to coin a phrase, worse than Watergate.

CNN, for example, insists there is no evidence that he “personally received any money.” The network’s fact-checkers evidently need to see a cancelled check made out to “Joe Biden” by an Oligarch who has helpfully written “bribe” on the memo line. The public is more sophisticated. A significant plurality of voters believe that Biden has accepted bribes. A recent Yahoo/YouGov survey asked this question (48F): “Do you believe that Hunter Biden funneled millions of dollars to his father in a long-running scheme to help Joe Biden profit off of his position?” Fully 45 percent of registered voters answered, “Yes.” These aren’t “MAGA extremists.” Indeed, 41 percent of Independents answered, “Yes.”

Moreover, they have many sound reasons for doubting the President’s veracity and suspecting him of engaging in impeachable offences. On August 24, House Oversight Chairman James Comer (R-Ky.) released a list of 16 instances of Biden lying to the American people about his knowledge of his family’s influence peddling schemes. Last week, Chairman Comer released an additional list of evidence showing that Joe Biden’s involvement in these illegal schemes was anything but passive.

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