ELECTIONS, FOREIGN POLICY Comments turned off

Meet Philip Gordon: Kamala’s Foreign Policy Guru His views on Iran—and connections—are raising eyebrows in Washington. By Jay Solomon

Posted By on August 14th, 2024

https://www.thefp.com/p/philip-gordon-kamala-harris-foreign-adviser

What does Kamala Harris believe about the Middle East? Does she side with the old-school Democrats in her party, who are traditionally pro-Israel? Does she believe that the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), was transformational—and should be salvaged? What does she think about a U.S. defense pact with Saudi Arabia? Syria’s president Bashar al-Assad? And Sudan’s widening civil war?

With the specter of a broad Mideast war hanging over this presidential election—and potential U.S. involvement growing as the Pentagon dispatches carriers, destroyers, and missile-defense capable cruisers to the region—the answers to all of these questions are far more urgent than they typically would be for American voters. The problem is that Vice President Harris has largely been a back-bencher on foreign policy, unlike some of her predecessors, including her boss Joe Biden. 

Which is why a man named Philip Gordon—who has served as Harris’s foreign policy adviser since she ran for the White House in 2020 and has worked in every Democratic administration since Bill Clinton’s—has become the focus of tremendous scrutiny in Washington over the past few weeks. 

Republicans believe that through Gordon they have the outlines of a Harris foreign policy agenda. And they’re already crafting their political attacks around it. “Democrats want to put him in charge of the White House’s entire foreign policy,” Republican senator Ted Cruz told The Free Press. “It would be unspeakably catastrophic.”

Gordon’s critics from the right say he’s not just wrong on issues—he’s skeptical of U.S. military power and the efficacy of financial sanctions—but that he’s also developed troubling contacts with institutions and individuals close to Iran. Republicans are already demanding Vice President Harris answer why Gordon wrote a string of 2020 opinion pieces with a Pentagon official, Ariane Tabatabai, who was tied last year to an Iranian government-backed influence operation, called the Iran Experts Initiative, tasked with selling the 2015 nuclear deal. (More in a moment.) 

“Before joining your office, Mr. Gordon co-authored at least three opinion pieces with Ms. Tabatabai blatantly promoting the Iranian regime’s perspective and interests.” Republican senator Tom Cotton and Representative Elise Stefanik wrote Harris on July 31. “Each prediction was. . . wrong, as it was biased in favor of Tehran.”

MEDICINE AND HEALTH Comments turned off

Leor Sapir A Consensus No Longer The American Society of Plastic Surgeons becomes the first major medical association to challenge the consensus of medical groups over “gender-affirming care” for minors.

Posted By on August 14th, 2024

https://www.city-journal.org/article/a-consensus-no-longer

The main justification for “gender-affirming care” for minors in the United States has been that “all major U.S. medical associations” support it. Critics of this supposed consensus have argued that it is not grounded in high-quality research or decades of honest and robust deliberation among clinicians with different viewpoints and experiences. Instead, it is the result of a small number of ideologically driven doctor-association members in LGBT-focused committees, who exploit their colleagues’ trust. Physicians presenting different viewpoints are silenced or kept away from decision-making circles, ensuring the appearance of unanimity.

As the U.K.’s Cass Review pointed out, the World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH) and the U.S. Endocrine Society were especially important in forging this consensus, and they did so by citing each other’s statements, rather than conducting a scientific appraisal of the evidence. The “circularity” of this approach, says Cass in her report to England’s National Health Service, “may explain why there has been an apparent consensus on key areas of practice despite the evidence being poor.”

Perhaps because it has never really depended on evidence, this doctor-group consensus has shown remarkable resilience in the face of major system shocks, including several whistleblowers, revelations from court documents that WPATH manipulated scientific evidence reviews, the Cass Review, a bipartisan commitment in the U.K. to roll back pediatric medical transition, and a growing international call for a developmentally informed approach that prioritizes psychotherapy over hormones and surgeries.

WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

China Is Now Goading Iran into Attacking Israel by Gordon G. Chang

Posted By on August 14th, 2024

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/20855/china-goading-iran-attack-israel

As countries around the world pressure Iran not to strike Israel — Tehran blames the Jewish state for the bomb that killed Haniyeh on July 31 — China was, in effect, publicly goading Iran to act.

Hamas is a proxy of Iran. Iran’s regime believes that it is no one’s proxy, but the Chinese seem to think that Iran is indeed theirs.

First, there is Beijing’s direct economic lifeline to the ailing Iranian economy.

Beijing also provided diplomatic cover for the assault on Israel. Propaganda support may have been even more important: Some 96.5% of the videos on Hamas carried on the Chinese-owned social media platform TikTok support the terrorist group. China’s Communist Party uses that platform to amplify favored narratives.

[T]he [Gulf] region is now especially concerned about the flood of Chinese weapons into the hands of Iran and its terrorist proxies. Regional leaders should be: All three of Iran’s main proxy groups—Hamas, Hezbollah and the Houthis — fight with Chinese arms.

China’s President Xi Jinping, apparently adopting the views of Mao Zedong, has been promoting “chaos” to pave the way for worldwide Chinese rule. Wang Yi in his call on the 11th to Tehran made a bold chaos move.

China, from all indications, wants more war in the world’s most war-torn region.

China’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi on August 11 told Iran’s acting foreign minister that Beijing supports the Islamic Republic defending its “sovereignty, security, and national dignity.” Wang said that killing Hamas’s Ismail Haniyeh, the terrorist group’s political leader, in Tehran violated Iran’s sovereignty and threatened regional stability.

As countries around the world pressure Iran not to strike Israel — Tehran blames the Jewish state for the bomb that killed Haniyeh on July 31 — China was, in effect, publicly goading Iran to act.

Why would the Chinese foreign minister do that? Perhaps because Beijing believes that its proxy, Iran, is losing a war and has to act fast.

Hamas is a proxy of Iran. Iran’s regime believes that it is no one’s proxy, but the Chinese seem to think that Iran is indeed theirs.

ISRAEL Comments turned off

How the West Bank became an ‘occupied Palestinian territory’ – opinion ICRC’s rulings have distorted and confused the issue of Israel’s legitimate claims to the territories, and are used to condemn Israel. By Moshe Dunn

Posted By on August 14th, 2024

https://www.jpost.com/opinion/article-814137

Shortly after the Six Day War in 1967, the United Nations asked the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) – a private Swiss organization that is the official guardian of the Fourth Geneva Convention (FGC) – for its opinion on the legal status of the territories that Israel had conquered, including Judea and Samaria, known as the West Bank of the Jordan River.

Unilaterally, the ICRC decided that Israel had violated international law (meaning the FGC) and declared the disputed areas to be Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT). This decision was adopted by the international community as law. The basis for the committee’s decision, however, was, and still is, secret – as are many things in Switzerland.

The ICRC later claimed that its decision was based on the Hague Regulations (1907), particularly Article 42, which defines occupation. It chose to ignore Article 43, however, which stipulates that occupation occurs when “the authority of the legitimate power… passe(s) into the hands of the occupier…” Since neither Jordan nor Egypt were the sovereign legitimate powers in the territories, Israel’s claims are not illegal.

In fact, earlier decisions of the international community, such as the San Remo conference (1920), which supported the idea of a “Jewish national home” in Palestine, validate Israel’s claims.

A Palestinian state did not exist at the time, nor has one ever existed.

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Deep State Plutocrats Have Nowhere to Hide By J.B. Shurk

Posted By on August 14th, 2024

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2024/08/deep_state_plutocrats_have_nowhere_to_hide.html

The worst mistake the Deep State ever made was to turn conservatives against Big Business.  Traditionally, fighting corporate power was the purview of the political left.  Conservatives have generally backed “free markets” because they despise socialism’s predilection for choosing economic winners and losers.  Conservative voters have long seen government regulation as more of a threat than Wall Street wheeling and dealing.  

This makes sense.  American conservatives largely embrace the principles of the Founding Fathers’ laissez-faire liberalism, and many share policy preferences that overlap with today’s self-described libertarians.  For conservatives, the left’s “politics of envy” is unappealing.  The left’s desire to redistribute private property within some sort of Marxist system is seen as a dangerous impulse toward legalized theft.  The left’s love for collectivism over individual freedom is regarded as insidious.  Voters who support limited government do not tend to care how Sam Walton became a millionaire.  They are much more likely to applaud individual success as the product of hard work and innovation.

Times are changing, though.  Over the last forty years, middle-class Americans who put their faith in “free markets” have gotten smacked upside the head by corporate interests time and again.  The savings and loan scandal, pension scams, derivatives-juiced market crashes, the housing collapse, the offshoring of good jobs, tech bubbles, predatory lending, reverse mortgages, and countless other corporate schemes have left working-class Americans in dire straits.  All of these various gut punches have produced a kind of “awakening” among “live free or die” Americans: “free markets” are an illusion, and the economic game is rigged.

ELECTIONS Comments turned off

Veterans Will Not Be Fooled By Tim Walz A choice made out of Kamala’s fear. by Kurt Schlichter

Posted By on August 14th, 2024

https://www.frontpagemag.com/veterans-will-not-be-fooled-by-tim-walz/

Kamala Harris’s disastrous and cowardly choice of Tim Walz as her running mate over Josh Shapiro – who was the logical pick and was shamefully passed over because he is Jewish – is simply more of the same with her. He’s a choice made from fear. She feared somebody who would be competition. She feared somebody who would be smarter, which really limited her choices. So she chose this guy, who no doubt told her exactly what she wanted to hear. This is her modus operandi. She’s afraid. She operates from fear, and now she has exactly the kind of sergeant major she wants by her side – one who will be sure to enable her worst instincts all the way to defeat.

You just know that Walz being in the Army checked a box for her – DEI hacks love checking boxes – and she didn’t look any deeper than that. No one around her did either. None of her flunkies ever served. None of them understand. They just thought that they could flash some pictures of Walz in his uniform strutting about, and that would be enough to nail down the votes of all the rubes with DD 214s. But what you don’t know can hurt you. And what she doesn’t know is that Tim Walz is going to alienate vets, except for the pinko blue falcons like the loathsome Vindmans and those Twitter goofs who insist you shouldn’t have an AR15 because they are experts, having once qualified “marksman” on an M4.

You can Google “blue falcon” if you want. Just don’t do it with kids around or on your employer’s computer.

Civilians aren’t going to understand this. It’s a veteran thing. Civvies will look at pictures of him in his BDUs or ACUs and think he looks STRAC. But vets know what they see when they look at this guy and it’s not good.

ELECTIONS Comments turned off

Walz’ Former Superior: He ‘Quit’ Rather Than Deploy, And Went Over My Head to Get Out Ed Morrissey

Posted By on August 14th, 2024

https://hotair.com/ed-morrissey/2024/08/10/walz-former-superior-he-quit-and-went-over-my-head-to-do-so-n3792960

We covered this a couple of days ago based on a clip, but the entire interview with retired Minnesota National Guard Command Sergeant Major Doug Julin is worth watching. CNN’s Laura Coates spent ten minutes on Thursday night trying to defend Tim Walz through most of it, but Julin would not be deterred. Not only did Walz know that his unit would be deployed when he suddenly retired, Walz back-doored Julin in applying for retirement, he explains, leaving his unit in the lurch. 

And there’s a reason Walz did that — a very clear reason, Julin points out:

COATES: Is your concern that it’s — oh, go ahead. I do want to ask this question quickly, Sergeant Major, and I appreciate your time, but is your — [crosstalk] — concern about the manner in which he did not speak to you or his decision to retire, which he, as we’ve talked about, he would have been entitled to do, which causes the most concern? Because that is the focus that so many people are wondering about, whether he has done something wrong in service or done something personally to offend you.

JULIN: No, he did something wrong in service, as I stated before. He knew the policies and procedures and how we go to leadership and address issues or discuss issues and concerns out there. Again, backing up, he had told me, no, I’m going forward, we’re going to go with the battalion, and go from there. So, I’m under the believing, he told me he was going forward. I’m underneath that believing that he’s going forward. He went around me, which he should have addressed it with me so he could help me with some things out there.

ELECTIONS Comments turned off

A Campaign Of ‘Joy’? 

Posted By on August 14th, 2024

https://issuesinsights.com/2024/08/14/a-campaign-of-joy/

The Democratic talking points were issued and the media enthusiastically accommodated: The Harris-Walz campaign is now a moveable feast of joy. But there’s nothing even remotely joyful about Kamala Harris’ and Tim Walz’s political orientation. Their positions are founded on militancy and just plain meanness.

The media are nothing but shills for the Democratic Party. They are so willing to please that they will run with whatever theme the party tells them to. Take a look at recent headlines. 

“Harris Used to Worry About Laughing. Now Joy Is Fueling Her Campaign,” says the New York Times.

“Harris is pushing joy,” according to the Associated Press’ surely unbiased reporting.

The British Guardian swears that the “Democrats’ joy is unconfined,” while ABC News wants Americans to know that “early Harris-Walz rallies feature big crowds, talk of ‘joy.’”

National Public Radio says “Harris and Walz reintroduce joy,” as the Washington Post declares that “​​Harris and Walz seize on joyful message in contrast to darker Trump themes.” And from Salon’s perspective, “Vibes matter: Trump can hardly restrain his jealousy over the Harris campaign’s joy.”

NATIONAL SECURITY AND DEFENSE Comments turned off

Sleep Walking into WW3 Brought to you by the Biden-Harris catastrophe. by Kenneth R. Timmerman

Posted By on August 13th, 2024

https://www.frontpagemag.com/sleep-walking-into-ww3/

Donald Trump has warned several times over the past few weeks that we are closer to World War III today than at any time since the end of the Second World War.

It’s a theme he’s been sounding off and on for the past two years, but lately he’s making the threats to our security caused by Biden-Harris policies the central theme of his events.

“I think our country right now is in the most dangerous position it’s ever been in from an economic standpoint, from a safety standpoint,” the former president warned at a press conference recently at Mar-a-Lago. “Both gangs on the street and frankly gangs outside of our country in the form of other countries that are frankly very powerful.”

The problem comes down to leadership, the former president said. The Biden-Harris team have “no clue” about American power or world affairs.

Democrats just laughed at the former president, still drunk with the euphoria of having convinced Old Joe to bow out of the presidential race.

But the challenges to America’s security are very real, and it’s not just Donald Trump who is warning about them.

The congressionally-mandated Commission on the National Defense Strategy just issued a 114-page report that buttresses Trump’s concerns for the future of our nation.

WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Dhimmi Britain Sinks into Authoritarianism, Death to Free Speech by Robert Williams

Posted By on August 13th, 2024

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/20852/britain-authoritarianism-free-speech

The teenage son of a Rwandan migrant family stabbed three little girls to death at a Taylor Swift-themed dance workshop in Southport, a city near Liverpool, on July 29. The murders triggered protests and riots by Britons who have apparently had enough.

Within a day of the first protests, Prime Minister Keir Starmer gave a speech in which he barely mentioned the murdered little girls, yet painted those who protested as “far right thugs…” He added that he was creating a special Violent Crime Unit, dedicated to fighting — guess who — the protesters.

Incredibly, Starmer’s first act after the murders was not, as one might expect, to deal with concerns over the safety of British citizens, but to dedicate funds to new emergency security for mosques.

Starmer could have stopped the demonstrators in their tracks by listening to — and addressing — the concerns of “ordinary” people in the wake of the murders. Instead, he chose to brand them as “far right thugs”, thereby inflaming an entire country…

Police further inflamed matters by setting their dogs on harmless protesters, arresting many, and handcuffing a 73-year-old lady with a pacemaker who had never been arrested before, and was guilty of just peacefully protesting the murders of young girls.

“I’m 73 years old and I’ve here because of them babies that has died and I’m being arrested,” said the woman, who was surrounded by riot police.

In Plymouth, according to one report, while leftist radicals were destroying a church… police were not stopping the radicals, but instead beating the protesters.

The director of public prosecutions of England and Wales, Stephen Parkinson, chillingly warned that sharing and retweeting online material of the riots was a serious offense that would lead to arrest.

So, retweeting posts on X now gets you sent to the pokey. A Muslim brandishing an AK-47 assault rifle on social media, however, while threatening to blow people’s heads off, is apparently acceptable.

What the police did not do was arrest the gangs of armed Muslim men who took to the streets across British cities. In Birmingham, Bolton, and Middlesbrough, “Muslim patrol” members beat white people, whom they accused of being part of the anti-mass migration protests.

Why were no police officers present? When West Midlands police were asked why they did nothing about “an awful lot of people armed with various weapons” (Muslim gangs) in Birmingham, the answer was that the Muslim communities had been allowed to “do their own policing”.

“We have really strong business and community relations [with Muslim communities]… we had the opportunity to meet with [Muslim] community leaders, meet with [Muslim] business leaders… to kind of understand the style of policing that we needed to deliver…” — West Midlands Police Superintendent Emlyn Richards.

He [Richards] then went on to note that the counter-protesters (the Muslim gangs) had “the right intentions” and that only “a small minority” of people had been intent on causing “either criminality, disorder or fear within our communities.”

Curiously, British police did not acknowledge “right intentions” of those protesting the Southport murders and that only “a small minority” had engaged in violence and riots against the police, hotels hosting illegal migrants, and mosques.

Contrary to what the police said, Muslim “elders” appeared to incite members of their community in Birmingham, telling them to “protect the house of Allah” against the “far right” and messaging Starmer that they were fully able to “defend themselves”.

The Chief Constable of the West Midlands… released a video statement addressed to the Muslims in the region, greeting them deferentially with “Salam Alaykum,” and reassuring them of the police’s support and giving “huge thanks” to their “elders” for their “cooperation.”

Using the ongoing protests across Britain to crack down — one-sidedly — on basic rights, Starmer has successfully exacerbated racial conflict, inflamed tensions, created division, penalized free speech and neatly sneezed at legitimate concerns.