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Rewarding an Inimical Iran Noah Rothman

Posted By on July 21st, 2023

https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/rewarding-an-inimical-iran/

“It is dead, but we are not gonna announce it,” Joe Biden said of the Iran nuclear deal in a surreptitiously recorded video last year. “Long story,” he added. The story isn’t really that long. Barack Obama’s Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) with Iran was never ratified as a treaty by the GOP-led U.S. Senate, which warned that a future Republican administration would void the agreement. That’s exactly what happened. The end.

But while the Biden administration may privately accept this reality, it seems to believe that it is obliged to behave as though the JCPOA can be resurrected. Since he took office, the president has made a variety of fruitless overtures to the Iranian regime, the most recent of which occurred this week.

According to Reuters, a U.S. official confirmed that Washington had provided the government in Baghdad with a waiver allowing it to purchase Iranian electricity via non-Iraqi banks. The State Department has retailed the move as a humanitarian initiative — “a step Washington hopes may keep Tehran from forcing unpopular power cuts during the sweltering Iraqi summer,” the Reuters report read. But the currency waiver is a concession to Tehran.

The latest waiver was expanded to permit payments to banks outside Iraq at the request of the Iraqi government, apparently in the hopes that this might transfer some of the pressure that Iran has exerted on Baghdad to other countries.

“We have to help the Iraqis with this perennial pressure from the Iranians to access the money,” said the U.S. official.

State Department spokesman Matthew Miller told reporters that “these funds will remain in accounts where they can only be used for non-sanctionable activity, and with every transaction approved in advance by the Department of Treasury.” But coming on the heels of the Treasury Department’s decision to sanction 14 Iraqi banks over allegations that they were siphoning money for Iran, the waiver provides Tehran with new access to hard currency that the Islamic Republic desperately needs.

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Andrew Tate’s Betrayal of the West The social media personality celebrates the Islamization of Britain. by Jason D. Hill

Posted By on July 21st, 2023

https://www.frontpagemag.com/andrew-tates-betrayal-of-the-west/

The first time I heard the controversial social media personality Andrew Tate speak on women, Western society, and masculinity, I immediately thought that he was a radical Islamic extremist. A defector from the Taliban, perhaps? Over the next few months I would hear Tate make outlandish remarks such as, “Women should shut the f**k up, have kids, sit at home, be quiet and make coffee.” And more: speaking of women in general, Tate said, “If I have a degree of responsibility over her, then I must have a degree of authority… You can’t be responsible for a dog if it doesn’t obey you.”

So, when we learned on July 18, 2023, that Tate, who last year converted to Islam, was hoping for, and celebrating the fact of the imminent Islamization of Britain, I cannot say that I was surprised.

In response to the news of a Muslim billionaire winning the right to turn the Trocadero, one of London’s most famous landmarks, into a mosque, Tate (Quran in hand in the photo above) expressed his delight. Here is what he had to say on Twitter:

This building is literally dead centre in the middle of London’s historic centre. Amazing news. The only alternative to Islam for the brits are pride flags as they no longer have any innate culture or patriotisim [sic]. Allah is the best of planners and I look forward to seeing The Islamic republic of Great Britistan in her final form. Alhamdulillah Britain will be fully Islamic soon.

Tate has always had a knack for diagnosing many of the legitimate maladies plaguing Western civilization, which explains his appeal to many conservatives. He is also known for delivering what often seem to be out-of-context solutions to some of these maladies. He understands the crisis in masculinity well and has, at times, offered commonsense advice to young men who are without a sense of purpose or direction in their lives.

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Country Star Challenges America’s Culture of Crime And pro-crime “progressives” explode in rage. by Mark Tapson

Posted By on July 21st, 2023

https://www.frontpagemag.com/country-star-challenges-americas-culture-of-crime/

For decades, gangsta rappers have raked in money, fame, and recording industry awards hand-over-fist by promoting a culture of violence, drugs, crime, misogyny, hedonism, and greed. There has been not a peep of an objection from the Progressive Left to the damage this has done and continues to do to generations of young people, especially in poor inner-city communities, where rappers, gang members, and drug dealers are idolized and emulated by far too many. But let one country music star complain that American cities have degenerated into a wasteland of lawlessness and chaos, and triggered leftists leap to smear him publicly as a violent racist.

Quadruple-platinum-selling country artist Jason Aldean has found himself the target of a wave of leftist condemnation over the new video of a song (which was actually released months ago) titled, “Try That in a Small Town.” The video intersperses actual footage of rioting, looting, and confrontations with police in cities, with shots of Aldean and his band performing before a courthouse in a public square in Columbia, Tennessee.

The lyrics and imagery capture the kind of random violence that has become endemic in Democrat-run urban hellholes all across America – carjackings, the knockout game, and armed robbery – as well as open contempt for law enforcement and the American flag in a country whose children have been taught by decades of leftist educators that their homeland is a uniquely oppressive and evil nation in world history. Aldean warns in the song that that attitude wouldn’t be tolerated in small-town America, and he issues a sort of “molon labe” warning to the anti-Second Amendment activists who aim (pun intended) to disarm law-abiding gun owners.

ENVIRONMENT AND JUNK SCIENCE Comments turned off

You’ll Have Blackouts And You WIll Love Them-Generators are on the White House Hit List

Posted By on July 21st, 2023

https://issuesinsights.com/2023/07/21/youll-have-blackouts-and-you-will-love-them/

The old joke in which one fellow asks what the socialists used for lighting before candles and the other fellow answers “electricity” could use some updating. Substitute “socialists” for “U.S. Democrats.” But it won’t be just the Democrats using candles, it’s going to be all of us.

When the power goes out, most of us just have to wait until it’s restored to get back to our normal lives. In the meantime, as we wander through a dark house flipping useless switches out of habit, we make sure we don’t open the refrigerator and we put off anything we had planned that requires us to burn electricity. The more-prepared among us, though, buy fossil-fuel-powered generators to avoid interruptions

Their future, though, is in doubt. The Biden administration wants those generators to go the way of the incandescent light bulb.

“Just months after a Biden-appointed regulator teased a ban on gas stoves, the administration is working to enact a rule that would prohibit the manufacturing of nearly all portable gas generators on the U.S. market,” the Washington Free Beacon reported earlier this week.

This proposed rule would limit the amount of carbon monoxide a product can release, establishing a benchmark beyond the reach of all but a few current generators. The Free Beacon says the Consumer Product Safety Commission admits “that 95% of portable gas generators on the market cannot comply with its new standard.”

Should the rule become “law,” industry officials expect a shortage of generators will follow, as manufacturers would have only have six months to develop a compliant design. Under normal conditions, that would take years, according to the Portable Generator Manufacturers’ Association.

While some homeowners use standby generators, which have more permanence about them, to provide power when the lights go out, portables are used as well, with “far more people” choosing them because of price. What the cost-conscious consumers didn’t know when they made their purchases is that one day they would be punished for their choice. But those who have standby generators shouldn’t feel too smug. The Democrats will eventually come after those, too.

ISRAEL Comments turned off

End U.S. Aid to Israel America’s manipulation of the Jewish state is endangering Israel and American Jews By Jacob Siegal & Liel Leibovitz

Posted By on July 21st, 2023

https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/news/articles/end-american-aid-israel

Two years ago, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez famously wept in Congress after changing her vote on funding Israel’s Iron Dome missile defense system from “no” to “present.” The New York Times said that the incident showed progressive members of “the Squad” “caught between their principles and the still powerful pro-Israel voices in their party, such as influential lobbyists and rabbis.” (The line was later removed with no correction.) In People magazine, the congresswoman’s procedural maneuver to avoid voting was appreciated for its pathos: “Ocasio-Cortez Opens Up About Israel Iron Dome Vote That Left Her in Tears: ‘Yes, I Wept.’” In the end, the resolution passed the House 420-9.

Ocasio-Cortez’s bit of Kabuki theater fit neatly into the premade mythology of a domineering Israel lobby, popularized by academic John Mearsheimer, whose views are experiencing a burst of popularity in isolationist corners of the right. His central claim—that America has been pressured by an all-powerful, determined ethnoreligious lobby into acting against its own interests—is made explicit in references to “influential lobbyists and rabbis,” in Rep. Ilhan Omar’s tweets that U.S. support for Israel is “all about the Benjamins,” and in graphics like The New York Times’ infamous “Jew-tracker” that policed support for Barack Obama’s Iran deal according to the religion of members of Congress.

Belief in the mythic power of “the lobby” rests on a common article of faith that is shared by Israel’s loudest critics and most fervent supporters—namely, that U.S. military aid forms the cornerstone of the “special relationship” between the two nations, and that this aid is a gift that powerfully benefits Israel. Cutting off Israel’s D.C. cash pipeline, it’s assumed, would dramatically alter the balance of power in the Middle East: in one scenario by endangering Israel’s security, and in another by forcing its recalcitrant leaders to accept the enlightened proposals of Western policymakers.

While this fantasy version of the U.S.-Israeli relationship is useful for stirring up emotions and demonstrating partisan loyalties, it does more to flatter the self-importance of Israel-aid opponents and supporters alike than it does to describe an increasingly warped reality, in which Israel ends up sacrificing far more value in return for the nearly $4 billion it annually receives from Washington. That’s because nearly all military aid to Israel—other than loan guarantees, which cost Washington nothing, the U.S. gives Israel no other kind of aid—consists of credits that go directly from the Pentagon to U.S. weapons manufacturers.

In return, American payouts undermine Israel’s domestic defense industry, weaken its economy, and compromise the country’s autonomy—giving Washington veto power over everything from Israeli weapons sales to diplomatic and military strategy. When Washington meddles directly in Israel’s domestic affairs, as it does often these days, Israeli leaders who have lobbied for these payments—including current Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu—are simply reaping the rewards of their own penny-wise, pound-foolish efforts.

ISRAEL Comments turned off

Herzog’s lamentable performance Israel needs to deliver an entirely different message to its two-faced U.S. ally. Melanie Phillips

Posted By on July 21st, 2023

https://www.jns.org/jns/isaac-herzog/23/7/20/304430/?_

Far from the diplomatic triumph that some are making it out to be, Israeli President Isaac Herzog’s address to Congress this week left a bad taste in the mouth.

Certainly, the audience punctuated his remarks with repeated applause and standing ovations. For many members, warmth towards Israel is genuine and for some even profound. The Democratic Party, however, is sliding into increasing hostility.

Seven Democrats in the House of Representatives, along with the independent Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, boycotted Herzog’s address. Last Saturday, Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.), who chairs the Congressional Progressive Caucus, told a group of Palestinian supporters, “Israel is a racist state.”

After she was forced into a mealy-mouthed retraction, the House overwhelmingly passed a Republican-sponsored resolution, with nine Democrats voting against, stating that Israel is “not a racist or apartheid state.”

Is Israel really supposed to be grateful for this? If a member of Congress had said “Jews are child-killers” does anyone think an adequate response by Congress would have been a motion declaring “Jews are not child-killers”?

The House should have strongly condemned Jayapal and dissociated itself from her. But, of course, that wouldn’t have had anywhere near overwhelming support. Indeed, when White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre was invited to condemn Jayapal, she refused.

When it came down to it, Herzog failed in his most important task. In the continuing furor over Israel’s judicial reforms, with the Biden administration outrageously telling the Israeli government to abandon its policy and snubbing Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu by failing to invite him to the White House, Herzog needed to avoid being played off against the prime minister. He needed to demonstrate there wasn’t so much as a cigarette paper between them.

But he didn’t do that. Instead, he spun the “heated and painful debate” over judicial reform as “the clearest tribute to the fortitude of Israel’s democracy.”

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A stirring speech to Congress from Israel’s president By Ethel C. Fenig

Posted By on July 20th, 2023

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2023/07/a_stirring_speech_to_congress_from_israels_president.html

According to the Jewish calendar, yesterday was the first day of the Jewish month of Av, beginning a period of intense mourning as Jews remember and commemorate multiple tragedies in different eras that befell the Jewish people over 2,500 years ago over a period of three weeks, including several wars with enemies culminating in the destruction of both temples on the same day, years apart, nine days later.

And so it was especially significant that yesterday, speaking eloquently to a joint session of Congress attended by most of the senators and representatives, Israeli president Yitzhak (Isaac) Herzog honored the occasion

to celebrate 75 years of Israeli independence with our greatest partner and friend, the United States of America. … The people of Israel are grateful to no end for the ancient promise fulfilled and for the friendship we have formed.

(By the way, not to be confused with Israel’s elected prime minister, Binyamin [Benjamin] Netanyahu.  Under Israel’s parliamentary system of government, the president is a non-partisan, unifying figure on issues both in his country and abroad.  Also, nine “progressive” Democrat House members, plus Sen. Bernie Sanders [I-Vt.], progressively once again closed their minds by their deliberate non-attendance.)

Thanking both the Republicans, led by speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy (R), and Vice President Kamala Harris (D) for U.S. support, Herzog noted the mutual cooperation and resulting mutual benefits for the two countries: “When the United States is strong, Israel is stronger.  And when Israel is strong, the United States is more secure.”  So “it is time to design the next stage of our evolving friendship and our growing partnership together.”  “Thank you, dear members of Congress, for your support of Israel throughout history, and at this critical moment in time.”

An important element of this partnership presently is combating Iran, whose potential for nuclear terror is not confined to Israel.

Let there be no doubt: Iran does not strive to attain nuclear energy for peaceful purposes. Iran is building nuclear capabilities that pose a threat to the stability of the Middle East and beyond. Every country or region controlled or infiltrated by Iran has experienced utter havoc.

Allowing Iran to become a nuclear threshold state — whether by omission or by diplomatic commission — is unacceptable. 

Plus so much more.

EDUCATION Comments turned off

Thank you, Florida, for Fighting Indoctrination By Teresa R. Manning

Posted By on July 20th, 2023

Teresa R. Manning is Policy Director at the National Association of Scholars, Vice-President of the Virginia Association of Scholars, and a former law professor at Scalia Law School, George Mason University. 

Last month, two conservative groups made court filings to oppose Florida’s anti-woke law: The Academic Freedom Alliance (“AFA”) joined the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (“FIRE”) challenging the statute’s constitutionality.

The Florida law bans promotion of divisive concepts, based on race or sex, in the educational setting. Its language is similar to President Trump’s Executive Order 13950 which applied to the federal workforce but was withdrawn when Biden took office.

Challengers claim that the Florida law chills the free speech rights of professors and therefore violates both the First Amendment and what is called “academic freedom,” a term that is variously defined but here refers to the right of professors to teach as they see fit.

The law is actually a laudable and constitutionally sound measure to rein in the political radicalism and race-baiting that are so rampant in American schools and especially in universities. Most have heard of anti-American teaching materials such as the New York Times 1619 Project, which says that America is inherently racist, or the concepts of “white privilege,” which teach that Americans of European descent (“whites”) are “oppressors,” and even “race shaming” where teachers separate students by race, calling some groups “permanent oppressors” and others “permanently oppressed,” recently exposed and denounced by Moms in Duvall County, Florida.

The legal arguments against Florida’s law are misguided and lack merit. In fact, those committed to Martin Luther King Jr.’s principle – that we be judged not by the color of our skin but by the content of our character – should be thanking Florida officials for this legislation, not suing them.

One irony here is that the law actually forbids attempts at thought control, notwithstanding press reports to the contrary. Obviously, fighting thought control is a good thing. The law therefore secures greater freedom of inquiry and expression, not less.

For example, the law’s first provision reads in relevant part:

Subjecting any individual …. to required activity that … compels such individual to believe any of the following [racist] concepts constitutes discrimination based on race ….

The law therefore forbids compelling individuals to believe or parrot something. What’s objectionable here?

The law then gives examples of bigoted, divisive concepts that cannot be imposed. The list includes: 1) that one race is superior to another; 2) that individuals of one race, by virtue of that race, suffer from “unconscious bias;” 3) that one’s moral character is determined by race; and 4) that individuals can be held responsible, or punished, for actions committed in the past by other members of their race.

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

The Biden Family Caricatures By Victor Davis Hanson

Posted By on July 20th, 2023

https://amgreatness.com/2023/07/20/the-biden-family-caricatures/

The Biden first family seems determined to confirm every stereotype of their antisocial behavior—to the point of dysfunctionality.

During the 2020 campaign at least eight women alleged that then presidential candidate Joe Biden in the past had serially and improperly touched, kissed or grabbed them.

One, Tara Reade alleged she was sexually assaulted by Biden, who denied the charge.

Yet Biden himself finally was forced to apologize for some of his behavior. Or as he said at the time, “I get it.”

He claimed that he would no longer improperly invade the “private space” of women and had meant no harm.

But Biden’s obnoxious conduct extended well beyond the eight accusers.

Women as diverse as former Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, and Biden’s own daughter-in-law Kathleen Buhle, have both alleged in their memoirs that Biden made them feel uncomfortable through his intrusive touching and embraces.

On several occasions, Biden developed a strange tic of becoming too physical with young girls. He habitually attempted to hug them while blowing in their hair.

His daughter Ashley wrote in her diary that she feared her past adolescent showers with her father had been inappropriate. Even as president, Biden has weirdly called out young girls in his audiences to note their attractiveness.

On one occasion, the president interrupted his speech to address a female acquaintance—enlightening the crowd that, “We go back a long way. She was 12 and I was 30, but anyway…”

As a result, Biden has likely been warned repeatedly to forgo intimate references to young women.

He has no doubt also been advised by his handlers to stop all close, supposedly innocent contact with young girls and children—if for no other reason than to prevent his political opponents from charging that Joe is “creepy,” “perverse,” or “sick.”

And yet like some addict, Biden cannot stop—regardless of the eerie image he projects around the world.

Last week, the president jumped the proverbial shark by embracing a young child in a crowd while on the tarmac of the Helsinki, Finland airport.

In his strangest act yet, Biden kept moving his mouth near the face of the young girl. He was apparently trying to nibble the youngster, almost in turkey-gobbling fashion.

She recoiled.

No matter—Biden continued at her shoulder.

Again, she flinched.

Biden then reverted to form, and sought with a second try to smell her hair and nestle closer.

ISRAEL, MEDIA Comments turned off

How The Washington Post Covered Jenin A ghastly competition with the NYT on who can be more unfair to Israel. by Hugh Fitzgerald

Posted By on July 20th, 2023

https://www.frontpagemag.com/how-the-washington-post-covered-jenin/

The Washington Post has been in a sort of ghastly competition with The New York Times as to which paper can be more unfair in its coverage of Israel. On the latest reporting on Israel’s fighting terrorists in Jenin, The Washington Post appears to be, by a hair, the winner. More on its performance can be found here: “Washington Post Erases Palestinian Terrorists & Strips the Context from Israel’s Jenin Operation,” by Simon Plosker, HonestReporting, July 7, 2023:

The Washington Post’s “What is happening in Jenin in the occupied West Bank, and why now?” only ensures readers don’t know what’s happening or why Israel launched its recent military operation in Jenin.

According to journalists Niha Masih and Miriam Berger: “The military incursion on July 3 and 4 into the Jenin camp left 12 Palestinians and one Israeli soldier dead and hundreds of residents injured, displaced thousands more, and destroyed roads and infrastructure throughout the urban slum.”

Who were these 12 Palestinians? The Post fails to mention that all of them were combatants. Despite the IDF’s statement to that effect and Palestinian terror organizations claiming all of the 12, this relevant information does not appear in what is meant to be a backgrounder.

Both the IDF and the Palestinians of Hamas and the PIJ agree that all 12 Palestinians who were killed in Jenin belonged to terror groups. Why did Masih and Berger fail to mention this important fact? Surely it explains – justifies—the IDF’s successful attempt to “neutralize” all twelve. As for the number of Palestinians wounded, there were not “hundreds,” as Masih and Berger so carelessly claim, but rather, fewer than 150.

As for the “destroyed roads and infrastructure,” the article fails to note that the destruction resulted from the IDF having to use heavy bulldozers to unearth the roadside bombs and other ordinances planted by Palestinian terrorists, who deliberately turned civilian areas into military infrastructure, such as a vast weapons storage facility dug under a mosque.

The Washington Post reporters failed to explain that the Palestinian terror groups had sowed many of the roads in Jenin camp with IEDs, which made it seem that the IDF, in an act of inexplicable and wanton destruction, simply dug up the roads with bulldozers to make travel inside the Jenin camp hellish for drivers.