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December 2024

Charging Netanyahu with War Crimes Shows the ICC Is Illegitimate and Not Fit for Purpose by Con Coughlin

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/21169/icc-netanyahu-arrest-warrant

[T]he International Criminal Court (ICC)… should be defunded, dismantled, or both.

[By] law, the ICC is precluded from prosecuting any country that already has a valid judiciary system. This stipulation is the based on the treaty upon which the ICC was founded.

Another option that should be considered is for the incoming Trump administration’s new Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), to establish whether maintaining US funding for bodies such as the United Nations and its affiliates, the ICC and ICJ, all of which display a strong anti-Israeli bias, is in Washington’s best interests. Certainly, without the lavish funding these bodies receive from Western governments, their ability to pursue their own twisted agenda will at least be severely curtailed.

The decision by the International Criminal Court (ICC) to issue arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defence Minister Yoav Gallant on unsubstantiated war crimes charges, shows that the body is unfit for purpose, and should be defunded, dismantled, or both.

First, by law, the ICC is precluded from prosecuting any country that already has a valid judiciary system. This stipulation is the based on the treaty upon which the ICC was founded.

US defence attorney Alan Dershowitz is assembling a “legal dream team” to contest the charges. He emphasized that it would base its argument on the ICC’s lack of jurisdiction.

It’s Official — Trump Names Deep State Foe Kash Patel FBI Director Robert Spencer

https://pjmedia.com/robert-spencer/2024/11/30/breaking-its-official-trump-names-deep-state-foe-kash-patel-fbi-director-n4934745

The appointment has been rumored ever since Donald Trump was reelected president of the United States, and on Saturday evening, he made it official: “I am proud to announce,” Trump wrote on Truth Social, “that Kashyap ‘Kash’ Patel will serve as the next Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation.” This is an extraordinary and highly significant appointment, as Patel has been a harsh critic of the far-left, highly politicized and deeply corrupt FBI. A thoroughgoing housecleaning appears to be in the offing — unless the deep state that Patel will be targeting manages to defeat him in a head-on confrontation.

Trump added in his announcement:

Kash is a brilliant lawyer, investigator, and “America First” fighter who has spent his career exposing corruption, defending Justice, and protecting the American People. He played a pivotal role in uncovering the Russia, Russia, Russia Hoax, standing as an advocate for truth, accountability, and the Constitution. Kash did an incredible job during my First Term, where he served as Chief of Staff at the Department of Defense, Deputy Director of National Intelligence, and Senior Director for Counterterrorism at the National Security Council. Kash has also tried over 60 jury trials. This FBI will end the growing crime epidemic in America, dismantle the migrant criminal gangs, and stop the evil scourge of human and drug trafficking across the Border. Kash will work under our great Attorney General, Pam Bondi, to bring back Fidelity, Bravery, and Integrity to the FBI.

Patel may very well do just that. Certainly it is something he has made no secret about wanting very much to do. Back in August, Patel was asked what he would do if he did become the director of the FBI, and his answer was pure gold.

“One of my biggest personal recommendations,” Patel said, “is you shut down the FBI headquarters building and open it up the next day as the Museum of the Deep State, and you send those 7000 agents in the headquarters building down range to chase down rapists, to chase down murderers, to chase down drug traffickers and let the cops be cops on the streets across America. You keep a small contingent in Washington, DC. That’s step one.” 

Warning: No Deal Whatsoever with Iran’s Mullahs by Majid Rafizadeh

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/21164/no-deal-with-iran-mullahs

The Iranian regime’s sudden willingness to negotiate following Trump’s reelection is nothing more than a tactical maneuver. It seeks to buy time, stave off tough sanctions, and delay decisive action while advancing its nuclear program, while waiting out Trump.
This is a familiar strategy, designed to outlast the Trump administration and neutralize any efforts to hold the regime accountable. Such deceptive overtures must be recognized for what they are — a fake truce to secure the Islamic Republic’s survival and expansion.
The West must stop deluding itself into believing that any deal with such a country can succeed.
The only effective approach is one of unwavering sanctions, relentless pressure, maintaining a military option and supporting the efforts of most of the Iranian people, who are desperate for a new form of government.

The possibility of negotiating a deal with Iran has resurfaced. Reports suggest that the Islamic Republic’s leaders are expressing a willingness to engage with the incoming US administration after Donald J. Trump assumes office.

Reaching a deal, however, with a regime actively waging proxy wars against Israel, most of the Persian Gulf States and the United States — and that is arming Russia in its war on Ukraine — would be a monumental error.

Such an agreement would not only bolster the regime financially, but also grant it global legitimacy. That renewed strength would only once again fuel Iran’s aggression, further destabilize the region, and embolden its revolutionary ambitions. Negotiating with a regime steeped in terror would simply serve to expand its reach and strengthen its resolve.

History provides a clear warning against such actions. In 2015, President Barack Obama’s nuclear deal, which granted Iran the opportunity to build as many nuclear weapons as it is able to, marked the beginning of a dangerous trajectory.

What is the Administrative State? ‘The administrative state’ is that quota of political power that covertly fills the vacuum left by the failure of the legislative branch to discharge its obligations. By Roger Kimball

https://amgreatness.com/2024/12/01/what-is-the-administrative-state/

Last week in this virtual space, I wrote that Donald Trump would make a renewed effort during his second term to dismantle “the administrative state.” As in his first term, he would employ various strategies to blunt the effects of the administrative apparatus that governs us. He would, for example, disperse some parts of the government outside the overwhelmingly left-progressive swamp of Washington, D.C.

As an aside, I should note that I regard the persistence of Washington as the seat of our government as a serious impediment to the goal of “deconstructing” the administrative state. “It has,” I wrote back in 2022, “long been obvious to candid observers that there is something deeply dysfunctional about that overwhelmingly Democratic, welfare-addicted city.”

It is a partisan sinkhole. Jefferson wanted the capital moved from New York to Washington in part to bring it closer to the South, but also to place it in a locality that was officially neutral. There is nothing neutral about Washington today. The city has some impressive architecture and urban vistas. They should be preserved and staffed as tourist attractions. But the reins of power should be relocated.

I doubt that will happen. Which means that the eternal vigilance that MAGA must maintain around its enemies will have to be redoubled. Trump attempting to govern from Washington will be like Ike trying to undertake the Normandy invasion with half his planners on loan from the German general staff.

Still, there are some symbolic gestures that he and his aides might consider. I have long suggested that the inauguration be held somewhere other than Washington, D.C. There is nothing in the Constitution that requires the inauguration be in Washington. LBJ, remember, was sworn in on Air Force One just a couple of hours after Kennedy was assassinated. When Warren Harding died, Calvin Coolidge was visiting the family homestead in Vermont. His father, a justice of the peace, administered the oath of office in the parlor. I think the next inauguration should be well away from the swamp of Washington. Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach is one venue that springs to mind, but I am sure there are other attractive spots. At a minimum, I hope the inauguration committee will consider having some of the parties elsewhere. A ball in Butler, PA, for example, would not only be celebratory but also serve as a useful reminder of how close Trump came to a fatal encounter with an assassin’s bullet.

John Tierney From “Fringe” to Mainstream Trump’s nomination of Jay Bhattacharya to head NIH is a major victory for science and academic freedom.

https://www.city-journal.org/article/trump-taps-jay-bhattacharya-for-nih

Four years ago, Jay Bhattacharya was ostracized by his colleagues at Stanford and censored on social media platforms thanks to a campaign against him by the public-health establishment. The director of the National Institutes of Health, Francis Collins, sent an email to another NIH official, Anthony Fauci, urging a “quick and devastating published takedown” of Bhattacharya and his fellow “fringe epidemiologists.” 

Bhattacharya is far from the fringe today. Donald Trump nominated him this week for Collins’s old job, director of the NIH. Assuming the Senate confirms him, it will be a major victory for science and academic freedom—and a serious threat to the universities that suppressed scientific debate and promoted disastrous policies during the pandemic, causing public trust in science to plummet. Academic researchers and administrators have mostly refused to acknowledge their mistakes, much less make amends, but Bhattacharya promised yesterday to “reform American scientific institutions so that they are worthy of trust again.” 

As NIH director, he would wield a potent tool to induce reform: money. Stanford and more than a dozen other universities each get more than $500 million annually in grants from the NIH, the world’s largest funder of biomedical research. The NIH grants support not only researchers but also their universities’ bureaucracies, which collect a hefty surcharge to cover supposed overhead costs. The federal largesse has helped finance the administrative bloat at universities, including the expansion of diversity, equity, and inclusion bureaucracies under the Biden administration, which took into account a university’s commitment to DEI principles when deciding whether to award grants from the NIH and other agencies.  

Trump choices Marty Makary, Jay Bhattacharya will disrupt our health agencies to save lives By Betsy McCaughey

https://nypost.com/2024/11/27/opinion/trump-picks-marty-makary-jay-bhattacharya-will-disrupt-health-agencies-to-save-lives/

The public health establishment and left-wing media are rushing to discredit President-elect Donald Trump’s picks to lead health agencies. The New York Times smears them as “outside the medical mainstream.”

Circling the wagons, Dr. Paul Offit, an adviser to the Food and Drug Administration, lamely observes, “What they’re saying when they make these appointments is that we don’t trust the people who are there.”

You bet.

Trump and the public have every reason to distrust the current agency heads, after the repeated blunders, deceptions and cover-ups during COVID-19. Trump is appointing disruptors with the courage to challenge the status quo.

Like Dr. Marty Makary, nominated to head the Food and Drug Administration.

Makary’s credentials will make it impossible for the Senate to reject him. A Johns Hopkins surgeon and professor of public health, Makary was voted into the prestigious National Academy of Medicine, a Hall of Fame for doctors.

More importantly, if you’re in the hospital, you want Makary on your side.

Two decades ago, he declared war against the epidemic of medical errors killing as many as 100,000 patients a year. Errors like patients being given the wrong dose of a medication, or a surgeon operating on the wrong body part, or a lethal germ invading the patient’s body to cause an infection.

The medical establishment was hush-hush about them. But not Makary. 

We should be thankful that the future is in Trump’s hands — and not Harris’ By Douglas Murray

https://nypost.com/2024/11/28/opinion/we-should-be-thankful-that-the-future-is-in-trumps-hands-and-not-harris/

This Thanksgiving we got a reminder of what might-have-been. And what we have been unburdened by.

We should be truly grateful.

For this was the week in which Kamala Harris broke her post-election silence. And I think anyone who saw it can agree: the vice president is not doing well.

In an almost 10-minute-long word salad, the former presidential candidate told her supporters such things as: “You have the same power that you did before November 5, and you have the same purpose that you did. And you have the same ability to engage and inspire, so don’t ever let anybody or any circumstance take your power from you.”

The only thing that made Harris’ message different from a late-night conversation with a very drunk friend was that at no point did Harris actually say “I love you guys” and then burst out weeping.

But it was a reminder of how close this country came to a decline that other countries are experiencing.

Back in my native Britain this past summer the public elected a Labour government that, like Kamala, doesn’t seem to have any idea of what it is doing. Or what it could do.

They are currently working out how to kill off the citizenry with euthanasia. But as for plans to grow the economy, secure the borders or improve living standards? Nope. Not an idea in sight.

The FBI and DOJ’s ‘politically motivated’ persecution of a former informant — all to protect the Bidens By Miranda Devine

https://nypost.com/2024/11/27/opinion/the-fbi-and-dojs-politically-motivated-persecution-of-a-former-informant-all-to-protect-the-bidens/

One of the most disturbing scandals of the Hunter Biden saga is the imprisonment without trial of former FBI informant Alexander Smirnov. 

The Ukrainian-born Israeli-American, who once told his FBI handler about Ukrainian claims of a $10 million bribe to the Bidens, has been languishing in a Los Angeles prison for nine months on charges that he lied to the FBI. 

Last week, federal prosecutors slapped new tax-evasion charges on Smirnov, 43, which suggests they know their original indictment is too weak for a jury to convict him when he faces trial beginning Jan. 8. 

Smirnov was one of the FBI’s most trusted confidential human sources, paid more than $100,000 during what his lawyers call “undivided, years-long loyalty to the United States” before he was thrown to the wolves in the middle of the Biden impeachment inquiry. 

Busted in February 

He was arrested in February on charges that he “provided false derogatory information to the FBI in 2020 about Joseph Biden, who at the time was a candidate for president and had previously been the vice president. 

“The alleged false information concerned Joseph Biden’s and his son Hunter Biden’s involvement with Burisma Holdings Ltd., a Ukrainian energy business.” 

How Do Dems Solve a Problem Like Kamala? If they can’t make her go away in 2025, things are likely to get worse. Daniel Greenfield

https://www.frontpagemag.com/how-do-dems-solve-a-problem-like-kamala/

After inflicting one of the most financial and electoral defeats on the Democrats, Kamala is still around and still barraging supporters with endless texts pleading for money.

The Kamala campaign is still burning through its list, allegedly to pay off a $20 million debt, but it’s hard to believe that it hasn’t covered that already.

The Harris Fight Fund is sending out messages asking for money to “organize against Trump’s radical cabinet appointments” and to “start building the critical resources we need to hold Trump accountable these next four years.”

Now the whole thing might be a scam to suck up more money, but with 41% of Democrats putting Kamala’s name in the box for the 2028 nomination, and with Kamala exploring options that may include running for governor, it’s pretty clear that she’s not going away and she’s building up yet another campaign war chest.

Dems need Kamala to go away, but how do they do that?

Dems couldn’t make Kamala go away in 2024 with devastating consequences. If they can’t make her go away in 2025, things are likely to get worse.

Obama Signals He Controls Biden and He’s Coming for Israel Bad news for America and Israel. by Daniel Greenfield

https://www.frontpagemag.com/obama-signals-he-controls-biden-and-hes-coming-for-israel/

One of Obama’s little pseudointellectual gimmicks was very visibly holding topical books to send a signal ahead of a policy intifada. One of those infamous moments came when he was showing off Fareed Zakaria’s “The Post-American World”.

That’s not something Biden does.

Biden’s not much of a reader and he hasn’t bothered with that kind of posturing before, but then shortly after forcing a ceasefire on Israel using an arms embargo, he was photographed while ‘pulling an Obama’.

President Biden was photographed exiting the Nantucket Bookworks bookstore in Massachusetts with a copy of an anti-Israel screed by Obama’s old pal Rashid Khalidi who had been a terrorist spokesman. Was Biden really planning to read through ‘The Hundred-Year War on Palestine: A History of Colonialism and Resistance’ which slurs Israel as an ‘apartheid state’ and describes Islamic terrorism against Jews as ‘resistance’?

After the Oct 7 attacks, Khalidi defended Hamas, claimed that its members really wanted peace and that Hamas had opened “a door that the United States, Europe and Israel slammed shut”.

“If you can’t go to the International Criminal Court or do a BDS,” Khalidi argued, “then you pick up a gun.”

Khalidi was so toxic that the Los Angeles Times had permanently buried a video of Obama’s toast for the former terror spokesman.

So why is Biden showing off a copy of Khalidi’s hate tract?