FOREIGN POLICY Comments turned off

Biden Invites Pro-Taliban Pakistan to “Democracy Summit” Daniel Greenfield

Posted By on December 7th, 2021

https://www.frontpagemag.com/point/2021/12/biden-invites-pro-taliban-pakistan-democracy-daniel-greenfield/

A day after the Taliban seized power in Kabul and President Ashraf Ghani fled the war-torn country, Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan said Afghans have “broken the chains of slavery in the country.”

Doesn’t stop Pakistan from getting an invite to Biden’s Democracy Summit.

Even Foreign Policy mag and the Washington Post both note that being a democracy doesn’t seem to be a requirement for participating in Biden’s democracy summit.

No one can actually articulate how the attendees are in any way consistently democratic.

 “Inclusion or an invitation is not a stamp of approval on their approach to democracy,” Jen Psaki argued.

Then why bother and why call it a democracy summit at all? Call it an international ice cream social.

But, despite Biden inviting Pakistan, Osama’s pals aren’t sure they actually intend to virtually show up.

Pakistani decision-makers are holding extensive consultations on whether to attend the virtual summit on democracy convened by US President Joe Biden this week, as certain issues are making it difficult for Islamabad to make the final call.

Official sources, however, said the decision would be announced soon. The Foreign Office is tight-lipped over the subject, while diplomatic sources have told The Express Tribune that the White House is still waiting for Pakistan’s official response to the invitation.

ISRAEL Comments turned off

The funny feminist angle to Gilat Bennett’s defiance of her husband’s Omicron plea: Ruthie Blum

Posted By on December 7th, 2021

https://www.jns.org/opinion/the-funny-feminist-angle-to-gilat-bennetts-defiance-of-her-husbands-omicron-plea/

It’s not clear which of the two women who aroused the ire of the Israeli public last week received the lioness’s share of contempt. It was definitely a tough competition between Gilat Bennett, wife of Prime Minister Naftali Bennett, and Channel 12 broadcast journalist Dana Weiss.

The brouhaha began when it was announced last Wednesday that Mrs. Bennett was taking the couple’s four children on a vacation abroad. This wouldn’t have elicited a yawn, let alone nationwide resentment, had the news not come less than a week after the premier urged the public to avoid traveling overseas.

Naftali Bennett’s request that we all sit tight until further research is done on the Omicron variant of the COVID-19 virus followed his Cabinet’s decision to forbid entry into the country of foreign nationals—with some exceptions, of course, including all the contestants arriving to compete in the “Miss Universe” pageant on Dec. 12 in Eilat.
Yes, while thousands of tourists and family members of Israeli residents were forced suddenly to cancel their flights to Ben-Gurion Airport—with no prior warning and great confusion surrounding refunds and rescheduling—beauty queens from some 80 parts of the world were ushered in, no problem.

Still, the closure wasn’t imposed on Israelis entering or exiting the country, though the PCR-testing and quarantine rules for them were to be tightened. Nor were pre-planned Hanukkah parties and other events canceled or even curtailed, save for a tweak in the number of people allowed in closed spaces.

FOREIGN POLICY Comments turned off

China and Russia Race Ahead of America America twiddles its thumbs while its enemies develop anti-satellite capabilities and hypersonic missiles. Caroline Glick

Posted By on December 7th, 2021

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2021/12/china-and-russia-race-ahead-america-caroline-glick/

Over the past several weeks a hard truth has become undeniable: The United States of America is no longer the all-powerful superpower it has been since the end of the Cold War. Far from it. The strategic implications of this state of affairs are profound, for both the United States and its allies.

A nation’s position in the global pecking order is based on two things—its capabilities and its credibility. America’s capabilities have diminished in a stunning way relative to its superpower competitors. And so has its credibility.

For over a generation, U.S. leaders eschewed “the weaponization of space.” But as they congratulated themselves on their restraint, the Chinese and the Russians weaponized space.

On Nov. 16, Russia launched a surface-to-air missile into space that destroyed an antiquated Cosmos spy satellite located dangerously close to the International Space Station. The satellite exploded into 1,500 pieces, all of which were large enough to imperil the space station and the eight astronauts (including two Russians) on board. NASA responded with a nasty condemnation.

This brings us to China.

China’s anti-satellite program is far vaster than Russia’s. China has missiles capable of destroying satellites, and it fields laser and jamming technologies capable of blocking satellite communications. Last month, China raised its anti-satellite capabilities several notches with its launch of “Shijian-21.” “Shijian-21” is a satellite with a robotic arm the Chinese claim is geared towards cleaning “space junk.”

U.S. Air Force Gen. James Dickinson has a different, more plausible explanation for the arm’s purpose. Speaking to Congress in April, Dickenson said, “Space-based robotic arm technology could be used in a future system for grappling other satellites.”

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

The Decline and Fall of Kamala Harris She thought she was a queen, but she was only a pawn. Daniel Greenfield

Posted By on December 7th, 2021

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2021/12/decline-and-fall-kamala-harris-daniel-greenfield/

The end of the Obama era renewed the civil war between the Democrat establishment and the Socialist insurgents. Hillary Clinton, the establishment woman whose loss to Obama had inaugurated 8 years of insurgent rule, faced down a new challenge from the Sanders nsurgency.

The next round of the fight in 2020 was a virtual draw with black voters choosing Biden and white lefties backing Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren. The Biden administration was a compromise between both wings of the party. Its senior members are establishment while many of their juniors are Warren allies or linked to the Congressional Black Caucus.

Biden was a useful compromise candidate because his age and mental condition made him a “one-and-done” politician whose administration would take the hit by implementing radical policies and coping with the political fallout from the pandemic and runaway inflation.

Except that Biden, who keeps promising to run again, doesn’t seem to know it.

The only member of his administration who is even more clueless than Joe is Kamala. The compromise that put her in the White House was the most misguided one of them all.

Biden had promised the Congressional Black Caucus a black female veep. The CBC wanted one of its own, particularly Rep. Karen Bass, but considering her Castro sympathies and general leftist radicalism, that would have meant writing off Florida and the rest of America.

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

So much for ‘the tragedy of the treadmill delayed’ in supply chain crisis — FDA warns of 100 vital drug shortages By Monica Showalter

Posted By on December 7th, 2021

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2021/12/so_much_for_the_tragedy_of_the_treadmill_delayed_in_supply_chain_crisis__fda_warns_of_100_vital_drug_shortages.html

Over at the White House, the ongoing supply chain fiasco, which has left dozens of cargo ships stranded near West Coast ports awaiting offloads, is considered something of a joke.

White House press secretary Jen Psaki came under fire on Tuesday after joking that it’s a “tragedy” some people may have to wait longer for their treadmill to arrive amid the supply-chain crisis that has disrupted global economies.

“The tragedy of the treadmill delayed,” Ms. Psaki laughed when pressed about the supply-chain crisis during her daily press briefing.

Well, now we’re learning what’s really going on here from JustTheNews:

More than 100 pharmaceutical drugs are facing supply chain shortages, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) warned.

EDUCATION Comments turned off

Remote Learning Fails the Test New research finds student scores fell more sharply where virtual learning was prevalent.

Posted By on December 7th, 2021

https://www.wsj.com/articles/remote-learning-fails-the-test-nber-study-schools-11638463245?mod=opinion_lead_pos2

Accumulating evidence shows the damage of school shutdowns. Now a working paper published in the National Bureau of Economic Research documents how much remote learning reduced student achievement, especially for low-income and minority children.

The researchers—from Brown University, University of Nebraska-Lincoln and MIT—examine the relationship between in-person learning and third- through eighth-grade student scores in 12 states. They found that the share of students who scored “proficient” or above declined in spring 2021 compared to previous years by an average of 14.2 percentage points in math and 6.3 percentage points in language arts.

What’s more, “these declines were larger in districts with less in-person instruction,” the authors note. For example, they found that “offering full in-person instruction rather than fully hybrid or virtual instruction reduces test score losses in math by 10.1 percentage points (on the base of 14.2 percentage points).” In language arts, the losses for full in-person instruction were cut by 3.2 percentage points. In short, remote and hybrid instruction were linked to two to three times more learning loss.

Losses in language arts were “significantly larger in districts with larger populations of students who are Black, Hispanic or eligible for free and reduced price lunch,” the researchers note. This isn’t surprising since lower-income parents may not have had the time or financial means to provide additional academic support to children. But here’s the kicker: The study also found that districts with lower test scores and more black students also offered less in-person learning.

FOREIGN POLICY Comments turned off

The U.S. Needs a Hypersonic Capability Now Washington mothballed its program just as Beijing made developing the technology a priority. By Arthur Herman

Posted By on December 7th, 2021

https://www.wsj.com/articles/america-needs-a-hypersonic-capability-china-xi-beijing-missile-weapons-attack-defense-budget-11638827597?mod=opinion_lead_pos5

Eighty years ago, imperial Japan used a technology first developed by the U.S. and the U.K.—carrier-based bombing and torpedo attacks—to cripple the American Navy at Pearl Harbor. Americans must now wonder whether China is setting the stage for another devastating attack on American forces using another U.S.-pioneered technology: hypersonic missiles.

China’s July 2021 test of a hypersonic missile was literally a shot “around the world,” according to Gen. John Hyten, the departing vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. “It went around the world, dropped off a hypersonic glide vehicle that glided all the way back to China, that impacted a target in China,” he told CBS News. When asked why China was developing this advanced technology, Gen. Hyten replied, “They look like a first-use weapon. That’s what those weapons look like to me.”

Hypersonic weapons don’t follow a single trajectory like ballistic missiles. They can twist and turn on their way to a target, while their incredibly high speeds—above Mach 5, or a mile a second—make it impossible for existing land- and space-based systems to detect a hypersonic attack until very late in the missile’s flight path. It also isn’t clear whether current U.S. command-and-control systems can process data fast enough to respond to a head-on hypersonic threat.

China tested a second nuclear-capable missile carrying a hypersonic glide vehicle on Aug. 13. This means that Beijing is surging ahead with a technology against which the U.S. has very limited capability for defense or detection.

The shame is that the U.S. has been the primary developer of hypersonic vehicles, going back to the X-15 program in the 1960s. According to Mike Griffin, a former undersecretary of defense for research and engineering, the U.S. effectively shut down its hypersonic effort in the mid-2010s—while China made hypersonics a Manhattan Project-level priority. As a result, Gen. Hyten told the website BreakingDefense.com in October, China has performed “hundreds” of tests of hypersonic weapons in the past five years, while the U.S. has conducted nine.

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Ira Gershwin at 125 The famed lyricist made the American vernacular sing. By John Edward Hasse

Posted By on December 7th, 2021

https://www.wsj.com/articles/ira-gershwin-george-gershwin-great-american-songbook-porgy-and-bess-11638816267?mod=opinion_reviews_pos2

Lennon & McCartney. Rodgers & Hammerstein. Gilbert & Sullivan. Creative collaboration in songwriting comes in many shapes. None was more singular than that of composer George Gershwin and lyricist Ira, his older brother. Their mutual trust, respect and love made them deeply compatible creators. Ira’s words and George’s music melded into hundreds of sparkling songs, such as “The Man I Love” and “Embraceable You.”

Ira penned clever, virtuosic lyrics for their pieces. Falling in love was one of his favorite subjects, as in this stanza combining wit, whimsy and sentiment:

In time the Rockies may crumble,

Gibraltar may tumble

(They’re only made of clay),

But—our love is here to stay.

Although one of America’s pre-eminent lyricists, Ira has been overshadowed by George’s brilliance, fame and effervescent persona. George lapped up the limelight; Ira shunned it.

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

California Needs To Stop Its Crime Spree Before It Goes National

Posted By on December 7th, 2021

https://issuesinsights.com/2021/12/07/california-needs-to-stop-its-crime-spree-before-it-goes-national/

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is apparently convinced that the shoplifting and smash-and-grab robberies in California are a myth. But they are real, perversely spectacular, and likely to spread across the country if they remain unchecked.

The retail heart of San Francisco, with its abundance of luxury shops, is usually overflowing with commerce at this time of the year. Instead, it’s become a “ghost town.”

“Widespread ‘flash mob’ looting turned Union Square – the city’s most fashionable shopping district – into an area resembling a blighted neighborhood in Detroit,” Michael Shellenberger writes in a recent New York Post op-ed. 

Much of the state “seems to have become a plunderers’ paradise,” says the Pacific Research Institute.

Thieves have moved on from shoplifting with large garbage bags at drug stores to violent smash-and-run raids on retailers, some of them during the middle of the day. Neiman-Marcus, Nordstrom, Saks Fifth Avenue, Louis Vuitton, and other stores from San Francisco to Walnut Creek to San Jose, Los Angeles, and Beverly Hills have been robbed by hammer- and crowbar-wielding mobs that have left a few fallen store employees in their wake.

Late last month, a security guard protecting a television news crew working on a story about an Oakland store that had been hit by thieves was shot while doing his job. Kevin Nishita, a former police officer, later died. He was gunned down when he tried to stop three men from stealing the crew’s camera. This didn’t happen under the cover of darkness but in the middle of the day.

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

POLL STUNNER: ONLY 22% OF VOTERS WANT BIDEN TO RUN AGAIN

Posted By on December 7th, 2021

https://issuesinsights.com/2021/12/06/ii-tipp-poll-stunner-just-22-of-americans-want-joe-biden-to-run-for-president-again/

Just when it seemed President Joe Biden could get no lower in the public’s political esteem, a new I&I/TIPP Poll of Americans’ preference for the 2024 Democratic presidential ballot is a shocker: Just over one out of five want Joe Biden back at the top of the Democrats’ ticket in three years.

A number of recent I&I/TIPP Polls (here and here) have documented Biden’s sharp decline in favorability with the public due to a number of issues, ranging from his leadership of the military, the botched Afghanistan withdrawal, the recent inflation surge and supply-chain crisis, the border crisis, and a number of other vexing White House issues.

Even so, no favorite has emerged among the large field of potential challengers to run against Biden in the 2024 primaries. The I&I/TIPP Poll gave respondents the names of 16 other possible candidates, asking “Who do you want to see run for president on the Democratic ticket in 2024?”

As mentioned, Biden was named by just 22% of those asked, while 12% mentioned Vice President Kamala Harris, whose abrasive style, lack of preparation and revolving-door personnel changes have drawn criticism even from formerly friendly Democrats and the left-leaning media.

None of the rest rose above low single-digits: Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg garnered 4%, while New York Rep. Andrea Ocasio-Cortez, Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren, Massachusetts Rep. Joe Kennedy and Georgia 2018 gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams each attracted 3% of the support.

New Jersey Sen. Corey Booker, Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar, California Gov. Gavin Newsom and Colorado Sen. Michael Bennet all got thumbs up from 2%.