ISRAEL, WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Iranian Missile Hits Israeli Cargo Ship in the Arabian Sea

Posted By on March 29th, 2021

https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/rick-moran/2021/03/28/iranian-missile-hits-israeli-cargo-ship-in-the-arabian-sea-n1435516

According to a report by Israel’s Channel 12, an Iranian missile struck an Israeli-owned cargo ship in the Arabian Sea on Thursday. The ship sustained little damage and continued on its way to India.

The sea war between Israel and Iran has been heating up in recent weeks. Israel has attacked a dozen Iranian oil tankers in the last several months, causing billions in damages.

Haaretz:

Last month, a ship owned by an Israeli firm, the MV HELIOS RAY, was hit by an explosion in the Gulf of Oman. Israel estimated that the explosion was a targeted attempt against an Israeli-owned ship by Iran.

Iran denied involvement at the time. “We strongly reject this accusation,” Saeed Khatibzadeh, spokesman for the Foreign Ministry in Tehran.

According to a report in the Wall Street Journal, Israel and Iran have been trading blows at sea since at least 2019.

Since late 2019, Israel has used weaponry including water mines to strike Iranian vessels or those carrying Iranian cargo as they navigate toward Syria in the Red Sea and in other areas of the region. Iran has continued its oil trade with Syria, shipping millions of barrels and contravening U.S. sanctions against Iran and international sanctions against Syria.

Some of the naval attacks also have targeted Iranian efforts to move other cargo including weaponry through the region, according to U.S. officials.

The attacks on the tankers carrying Iranian oil haven’t been previously disclosed. Iranian officials have reported some of the attacks earlier and have said they suspect Israeli involvement.

The U.S. has gone to court to seize many of those tankers which it alleges are in violation of sanctions on both Iran and Syria. “The purpose of the Iranian operations are to circumvent sanctions on both Iran and Syria to fund IRGC, these court cases say. Such tankers often carry hundreds of millions of dollars worth of oil,” reports the Journal.

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Is Racism Moral Now? By Victor Davis Hanson

Posted By on March 29th, 2021

https://amgreatness.com/2021/03/28/is-racism-moral-now/

“Whiteness is a public health crisis. It shortens life expediencies, it pollutes air, it constricts equilibrium, it devastates forests, it melts ice caps, it sparks (and funds) wars, it flattens dialects, it infests consciousnesses, and it kills people . . . ”

—Damon Young, New York Times contributor

“Over the past year, I have, of course, still had to interact with white people on Zoom or watch them on television or worry about whether they would succeed in reelecting a white-supremacist president. But white people aren’t in my face all of the time. I can, more or less, only deal with whiteness when I want to . . . White people haven’t improved; I’ve just been able to limit my exposure to them.”

—Elie Mystal, The Nation     

Racism is the deductive bias against, and often hatred of, an entire racial group. It is often birthed by dislike of particular individuals of a given group that supposedly justifies, by extension, disliking or indeed hating all of them. The popular reaction against this widespread toxic pathology shown African Americans birthed the anti-slavery movement, the Civil War, the resistance to Jim Crow, and the modern Civil Rights movement.

But now there grows a strange new ahistorical “antiracism” racism.

One variety encourages holistic hatred, blaming all of one’s own unhappiness, indeed all of the cosmic injustice in the manmade and natural world—the very air, water, and earth—on a white racial collective.

Another constructs a purported racial pathology to encourage segregation and separation from all members of the white race, thereby limiting all “exposure” to a toxic people.

These are not just the idle critical race theory rants of intellectuals. They now are reified in racially segregated graduations and dorms and in systemic racialist reeducation and confessional workshops in government, the military, and private enterprise. In fact, the new antiracism racism is flagrantly directed at “whiteness”—the obsession of an America gone mad.

WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

US, China, Russia and Thucydides Trap by Amir Taheri

Posted By on March 29th, 2021

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/17213/us-china-russia-thucydides-trap

The Paris Climate Accord is more of an aspiration than a strategy while the Iranian nuclear problem has always been a way of avoiding the real issue: the danger that the Islamist regime poses for regional peace and stability.

[T]he Biden doctrine, if one might suggest such a label… could cause lasting damage because it concerns relations with China and Russia.

Is China [and Russia] a rival, a challenger, a competitor, an adversary or an enemy? Is the US heading for a cold, lukewarm or even a hot war…?

[W]ithout answering that question it won’t be possible to develop serious policies to deal with them.

The phrase “Russia wants to subvert our democracy” has become a Bidenian leitmotiv. And, yet, the same Russia is invited as a partner in stabilizing Libya, finding a future for Syria and helping keep the mullahs on leash.

You don’t deal with an adversary, even a troublemaker, the same way you do with an enemy.

[T]here are enemies who, like the bug in a Voltaire short story, are suicidal; they prefer to attack and die rather than live to make peace.

George Shultz always advised against taking on two powerful challengers at the same time, even though the US needed to plan for simultaneously fighting two major wars.

When Joe Biden started his presidency with the slogan “diplomacy is back!” some wondered what that meant in terms of a coherent foreign policy. Diplomacy, as every sixth-grader knows, is one of the many means needed to implement a policy. On its own, it is either an academic conceit or another name for charade. In the past week or so we have observed diplomacy, as practiced by the new administration, both as a conceit and a charade.

As a conceit, it appeared in the headline-catching slogan “America is back in the Paris Climate Accord” launched by Washington. Now, however, we know that the “return” is so full of “ifs and buts” that even the French, initially applauding loudly, are beginning to wonder whether they have been sold a bill of goods. Another example was furnished by the tedious scrimmage over the “nuclear deal” with the mullahs in Tehran.

President Biden had hinted at a quick return to the path traced by his former boss Barack Obama. Based on that assumption, British Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab imagined a scenario that would lead to defanging the mullahs with a lasting solution to the 42-year old “Iran problem.” Now, however, we know that Raab may have jumped the gun as the Biden team are still wondering what to do about a deal that Robert Malley, the diplomat in charge of the dossier, has described as defective.

In the broader scheme of things, these two examples may do little harm.

IMMIGRATION Comments turned off

Migrant border crisis about to get worse By Monica Showalter

Posted By on March 29th, 2021

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2021/03/migrant_border_crisis_about_to_get_worse.html

Already Joe Biden has botched it at the border.

After issuing a series of executive orders designed to dismantle President Trump’s border stabilization, tens of thousands of migrants are pouring in, and thousands of kids are in cages. The Bidenites are claiming it’s no crisis, just seasonal movements. The migrants wearing Biden t-shirts know different. The coyotes enticing illegal migration in exchange for millions in smuggling ‘fees’ know different. And the President of Mexico, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador knows different too, stating that Biden is the one who caused the border crisis. Facts are facts, and the interested parties know.

That’s why the Biden administration is trying to muzzle the press, block photos, and keep inconvenient congressional members away. They know, too. They can read the polls.

But incredibly, it’s going to get worse. According to this alarming report from Rick Moran now at PJMedia (Hat tip: Instapundit), more migrants are on their way, and the forecast is for bigger numbers.

According to the administration’s own estimates, the number of unaccompanied minors who are apprehended at the border will rise sharply in April compared to March.

Wall Street Journal:

As of Thursday, the Biden administration reported more than 18,000 immigrant children in its custody, with roughly 12,500 of them in government child shelters. About another 5,500 are being held in temporary Border Patrol holding facilities waiting to be transferred to shelters.

A senior Border Patrol official told reporters Friday morning that the number of children has continued to rise in recent days and that children were routinely being held in the agency’s stations and tent facilities for an average of about 90 hours but that some had been there for as long as 100 hours. The longest they are allowed to stay by law is 72 hours. The official said children were staying in Border Patrol facilities longer than allowed because the Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of Refugee Resettlement doesn’t have enough space to house them all

IMMIGRATION Comments turned off

GOP Senator Gives Firsthand Account of Border Crisis: ‘This Is Absolutely an Open Border Situation’ By Janita Kan

Posted By on March 29th, 2021

https://www.theepochtimes.com/gop-senator-gives-firsthand-account-of-border-crisis-this-is-absolutely-an-open-border-situation_3753247.html

Sen. James Lankford (R-Okla.) shared his experience during a tour at the U.S. southern border this week, lamenting the gravity of the crisis caused by a significant rise in illegal border crossings, particularly from unaccompanied minors.

Lankford was one of the 19 senators who visited the U.S.-Mexico border and facilities housing unaccompanied minors to see firsthand the extent of the illegal immigration crisis. The Oklahoma senator documented what he saw in several videos and social media posts in an attempt to shed some light on the situation, given that open media access has not been readily granted by the administration.

“This is absolutely an open border situation,” Lankford said in one of his videos. “Anyone who wants to come in from any country in the world, if you walk onto this bridge here in McAllen, Texas, on the Mexico side of it and get here, and you pay the cartels—to actually come up to this area so the cartels, make you pay a fee to come here on the Mexico side—then they come in here, and they’re all released.

“So no matter what your background is, no matter who you are, if you come through this spot right here, you’re going to be released. This is what open borders really look like. This is why this is a problem,” he added.

Lankford was describing a temporary processing center at McAllen, Texas, located less than a mile from the U.S.-Mexico border where illegal immigrants, in particular family units, were entering into the United States. The migrants, he said, were being stopped by border patrol agents after entering into the United States and led to a temporary holding area under a bridge. After obtaining basic information about the migrants, families with children 6-years and younger are given a Notice to Appear, and are then transported to a bus station in the center of McAllen, Texas, where they were released.

He said that although the Notice to Appear requires that illegal immigrants appear in court at a later date, some of the court hearings may not occur until three-years time.

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

The Truth About the Boulder Massacre Will it be buried with the bodies? Don Feder

Posted By on March 29th, 2021

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2021/03/truth-about-boulder-massacre-don-feder/

In coverage of the March 22 Boulder, CO. supermarket massacre, The New York Times was true to form (All the News That’s Fit to Spin), reporting that “investigators were trying to determine what motivated a 21-year-old man” charged with 10 murders.

Whenever the establishment media tell you that the authorities are diligently searching for a motive in a mass shooting, it means there’s no shortage of clues that they don’t want to follow, to keep you from jumping to any logical conclusions.

In typical New York Times fashion, the newspaper devoted two paragraphs to the murder weapon (a “Ruger AR-556 semiautomatic pistol”), while avoiding any mention of Islam or jihad.

The story did include one tantalizing detail: that the suspect’s identity was “previously known to the FBI,” because it was “linked to another individual under investigation.” Readers were left to wonder — linked to an individual being investigated for what? Linked in what way? Were they pen pals, bridge partners?

The media is portraying Ahmad Al Aliwi Alissa (say, is that a Scandinavian name?) as a classic nut case. His brother describes him as “mentally ill,” “paranoid” and “anti-social.” He thought he was being followed and was prone to violence – none of which is in any way incompatible with Islamic terrorism. The typical jihadist isn’t warm, outgoing and full of bonhomie.

What they aren’t telling you:

Alissa is a refugee from Syria, one of the most anti-Semitic countries in a region notorious for Jew-hatred.
Online, he described himself as a faithful Muslim.
He believed Islamophobia is ubiquitous.
He thought America was a racist, Islamophobic country. If only we treated religion-of-peaceniks as well as Christians are treated in Muslim countries. LOL.
He despised Donald Trump.
He drove 32 miles from his home in Arvada to a supermarket in Boulder for his shooting spree.
The market where the murders took place (King Soopers) is part of a chain that advertises a large selection of kosher food.
This particular market is favored by Boulder’s Jewish community.
It happened five days before the beginning of Passover.

Be assured that any anti-Semitic rants have been purged from his Face Book and Twitter accounts, which were taken down immediately after the murders.

FOREIGN POLICY Comments turned off

The Biden Administration is Determined to Undo Trump’s Most Important Achievement A disturbing glance at Biden’s boosting of Palestinian oppressive, jihadist institutions. Hugh Fitzgerald

Posted By on March 29th, 2021

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2021/03/biden-administration-determined-undo-trumps-most-hugh-fitzgerald/

The Biden Administration is determined to undo the most important achievement of the Trump administration, that is, its support for Israel’s rights under the Palestine Mandate and U.N. Resolution 242, and for the Abraham Accords, and its refusal to any longer tolerate the PPalestinian Authority’s Pay-For-Slay Program, or the antisemitism in its schoolbooks. “Internal Biden memo said to back 2-state solution along 1967 lines,” by Jacob Magid, Times of Israel, March 17, 2021:

…The US paid hundreds of millions of dollars a year to the PA’s creditors, such as the Israeli state utility companies from which the Palestinians purchase water and electricity. They paid for training for the PA’s security forces and numerous infrastructure projects.

What did the U.S. get for its hundreds of millions of dollars in annual aid to the PA? Did the PA agree to negotiate with Israel? No, it hasn’t done so for years. Did it cease its support for terrorism? Not at all. The PA continues to spend about $350 million each year for its “Pay-For-Slay” program. The Taylor Force Act prohibits any American aid from going to the PA as long as it continues to support the Pay-For-Slay program. How does the Biden Administration plan, in its insensate desire to again shell out hundreds of millions of dollars to the PA, to get around the Taylor Force Act?

Washington also gave hundreds of millions a year in funding for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency — known as UNRWA — which is in charge of administering the daily needs of hundreds of thousands of Palestinian refugees and their descendants across the Middle East.

The memo, which was passed along to US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, highlights UNRWA in particular as one of the organizations the Biden administration plans to back in order to aid the Palestinians….

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Biden: A Captive to His Handlers Profiles in presidential puppetry. Lloyd Billingsley

Posted By on March 29th, 2021

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2021/03/lloyd-lloyd-billingsley/

“Like FDR in his waning days, Joe Biden is a pathetic puppet of the Democrats’ Harry Hopkins squad. These leftist Green New Dealers want Biden to give America’s adversaries everything they want, asking little or nothing in return. Joe Biden is running for president in 2024, when he’ll be 82. So far he’s performing well as the nation’s undertaker-in-chief.”

“The perception of you that got you elected as a moral, decent man is the reason a lot of immigrants are coming to this country and are trusting you with unaccompanied minors.”

That was PBS White House correspondent Yamiche Alcindor at Joe Biden’s March 25 press conference. The event was really a worship service, conducted by house hagiographers and lacking only mandatory timed applause. Still, the proceedings did prove informative in a different way.

Biden needed a cheat sheet and marked photos of approved reporters. The Delaware Democrat is utterly captive to his handlers, a condition previously showcased by America’s 32nd president.

Many Americans, and people around the world, still believe Franklin Delano Roosevelt was fully able-bodied and a tower of strength during World War II. In 1985, Hugh Gregory Gallagher challenged that perception in FDR’s Splendid Deception: The moving story of Roosevelt’s massive disability – and the intense efforts to conceal it from the public.

In 1920, FDR was the Democrat candidate for vice president under James Cox. The next year, he suffered an attack of polio, and as Gallagher notes, FDR was “anxious that press should not know how severely paralyzed he had become.” FDR associate Louis Howe “constantly misled reporters” and worked out “a scheme to transfer Roosevelt without reporters discovering just how ill he really was.”

As Gallagher recalled, “FDR had made it a rule, during his first campaign for governor, that photographers were not to take pictures of him looking crippled or helpless.” During his entire career, reporters obeyed with startling fidelity.

Not a single newsreel showed President Roosevelt being lifted, carried or pushed in his chair.

If a photographer broke the rules, the Secret Service would seize the camera and expose the film.  The Secret Service built ramps for the president, sometimes raising an entire street to the level of the building entrance with wooden trestles and scaffolding. These extensive measures allowed the FDR to appear to “walk” from his car into a building without undue effort.

MEDIA Comments turned off

Biden’s Lie-Filled Press Conference He called on “correspondents” too deferential to challenge him. Joseph Klein

Posted By on March 29th, 2021

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2021/03/bidens-lie-filled-press-conference-joseph-klein/

President Joe Biden’s March 25th press conference was his first since taking office. He lied so often during the hour or so he spoke and fielded questions that even the New York Times had to take notice.

“We’re sending back the vast majority of the families that are coming,” Biden claimed, referring to families of migrants illegally crossing or seeking to cross the U.S.-Mexico border.

“False,” declared the New York Times. “Federal officials recorded about 19,000 encounters with families at the southwestern border in February. Of those, about 7,900 families, or 42 percent, were expelled, far short of a majority.” The Times also cited an Axios report that the expulsion rate was 13 percent during the previous week.

Biden claimed that former President Donald Trump eliminated the funding for aid to the Central American countries that Biden had helped put together as the Obama administration’s vice president. The purpose of the aid, Biden said, was to get at the root causes of why migrants were leaving those countries. “What did Trump do? He eliminated that funding,” Biden said. “He didn’t use it.”

“False,” declared the New York Times again. “President Donald J.Trump did not completely eliminate the aid that Mr. Biden cited,” the New York Times explained. The Times’ fact-checker pointed out that aid to Central America was set by Congress at $505.9 million in the 2021 fiscal year (which began during Trump’s term) and that the aid that Trump temporarily suspended in April 2019 was restored in October 2019.

The New York Times also said that Biden had “exaggerated” when he claimed that Trump had “shut down the number of beds available.” Calling this an exaggeration was too kind. Biden was lying once again. The Times’ fact-checker noted that the monthly bed capacity grew to over 16,000 by December 2018, and that by Trump’s “last full month in office, in December 2020, monthly bed capacity was more than 13,000.” There were some reductions during the pandemic to comply with coronavirus protocols while Trump was in office – health precautions that the Biden administration is throwing to the wind as it tries to cope with the huge surge of illegal unaccompanied minors that its open border policy has invited.

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

The Bipartisan Senate Bill You Haven’t Heard About By Bill Scher

Posted By on March 29th, 2021

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2021/03/29/the_bipartisan_senate_bill_you_havent_heard_about_145490.html

Two weeks ago, Senate Democratic Whip Dick Durbin told his colleagues in a floor speech, “It’s time to change the Senate rules and stop holding this Senate hostage.”

Last Thursday, the Senate voted on a bill to push back the application deadline for the Paycheck Protection Program — the low-interest loan program helping small businesses survive the pandemic — from March 31 to May 31. The bill passed 92-7, and is headed to President Biden’s desk.

If the Senate were actually being held hostage, this measure would not have passed. Admittedly, the bill does not qualify as sweeping legislation. Its passage does not immediately pave the way for the Democrats’ ambitious legislative proposals such as expanding voting rights, investing trillions in infrastructure, addressing climate change, raising the minimum wage or establishing a pathway to citizenship for undocumented workers.

But the PPP extension is more than naming a post office. With the loan program scheduled to expire on Wednesday, blocking an extension would have left 190,000 businesses with pending applications in the cold.