Biden’s New Iran Nuclear Courtship The White House wants to push the issue past the 2024 election.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/biden-administration-iran-deal-nuclear-weapons-international-atomic-energy-agency-7251bbe1?mod=opinion_lead_pos1

Here we go again. The same people who gave us the Iran nuclear deal in 2015 are trying to pull off a new version that would send Iran cash on day one in return for promises down the road.

The deal taking shape, per press reports in the U.S. and Israel, isn’t the “longer and stronger” agreement President Biden promised. He held that out for months but Iran refused. Now, in a remarkable retreat, the Biden Administration is pursuing an unwritten “understanding” with Iran to get to the brink of a nuclear breakout but go no further.

Iran has enough uranium enriched to 60% purity for several nuclear weapons, and it can get to weapons-grade quickly. But the U.S. isn’t asking Iran to turn over enriched material. The deal mooted in the press offers financial relief for Iran via sanctions waivers, plus a promise of no new sanctions or International Atomic Energy Agency censures, while requesting only that Iran not enrich uranium beyond 60%.

Color us skeptical that an unwritten agreement, without clear technical restrictions, would compel Iran to reinstall monitoring equipment, turn over data or submit to enhanced inspections. It isn’t clear what role the IAEA would play, and the U.S. would risk Iranian withdrawal if it insisted on real verification or responded meaningfully to Iran’s foreign aggression or domestic crackdowns.

“Trust but verify” is being turned on its head. There’s no trust and little verification. The new strategy is hope and pay.

Last week the U.S. gave Iraq a sanctions waiver to pay Iran $2.76 billion for gas and electricity. This looks like the kind of goodwill gesture—a bribe to keep talking—that the U.S. ruled out in October 2021. The Biden Administration says the waiver is unrelated, citing past payments driven by Iraqi energy needs, but this one is five times as large.

The Administration says Iran will spend the Iraqi funds only on food and medicine, as if money isn’t fungible. In reality the U.S. is freeing up billions of dollars that will finance the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and its imperialism across the Middle East.

No One Is Looking Forward to the 2024 Presidential Election Trump’s indictment and a low approval rating for Biden are leading to voter dread with 16 months to Election Day Simon J. Levien & Aaron Zitner

https://www.wsj.com/articles/presidential-election-2024-biden-trump-2c1e9bcc?mod=hp_lead_pos1

As Donald Trump entered a Miami courtroom earlier this week to face federal charges, drawing a raucous crowd and a crush of news media, John Newman felt fatigued by the thought that 16 months of a presidential campaign were yet to come.

“I wish I had a fast-forward button,” said Newman, a political independent in Chicago who is looking for a moderate Republican to support but fears Trump will crowd out his rivals.

Welcome to the election of dread.

Trump’s legal troubles are a sign of the country’s divisions, says John Newman of Chicago. 

If there’s one thing that voters of both parties—and independents—agree on, it’s that few are looking forward to the run-up to November 2024. The two leading candidates, Trump and President Biden, look to be heading for a repeat of 2020, and few see much to relish in that.

The two men are universally known, robbing the electorate of the potential to fall in love with someone new. “We know based on past performance what you’re going to bring to the table. There is nothing more to learn,” said Patrick Gray, a Democrat in Bay City, Mich. “I’m tired of it already.”

Within their own parties, Biden and Trump stoke plenty of anxiety to match whatever enthusiasm they can generate from the faithful. Polling suggests a substantial majority of Democrats don’t want Biden to run for office again. Trump remains the dominant force within the Republican Party, but many say they are open to someone new who doesn’t bring the former president’s combative divisiveness—or the distraction of a grueling court battle.

And no one can claim with a straight face that Biden, at 80 years old—or Trump, 77—represents the youthful vigor or embodiment of America’s bright future that many have found appealing in past presidential candidates.

Neither Biden nor Trump can even claim that a majority of Americans approve of his job performance in office, and so the potential rematch is shaping up to be a battle of who is less unpopular.

‘There is nothing more to learn’ from a Biden-Trump rematch, says Patrick Gray of Michigan. 

If 2020 is any guide, and if the two ultimately top their tickets come Election Day, it will be a razor-thin contest: Biden’s margin of victory in 2020 in the states that decided the election was less than 77,000 votes across four states, although he won the popular vote by seven million.

China Overtakes Russia as Dominant Power in Central Asia by Lawrence A. Franklin

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/19726/china-russia-central-asia

Communist China’s People’s Liberation Army has established a military presence in Murghab, Tajikistan, close to the Chinese border with Afghanistan. There is also no doubt that Russia’s embarrassing military imbroglio in Ukraine has helped China supersede Moscow as guarantor of Central Asian state sovereignty.

[Kazakh President Kassym-Jomart] Tokayev has…. denounced Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. As the Kazakh leader is doubtless aware, some notable Russian nationalists such as former Russian Prime Minister and President Dmitry Medvedev have mused that, after Ukraine is dealt with, Kazakhstan will follow.

China offers Central Asia four basic dimensions of assistance that Russia can no longer provide: financial investment, complementary commerce, development of transport infrastructure, and construction of industrial plants such as oil refineries.

China is building a Chinese-Kyrgyzstan-Uzbekistan railway, which will ultimately span the expanse of Central Asia to the Middle East. Beijing appears determined to link China and Europe by fashioning thoroughfares that avoid crossing Russian territory that pass through a mid-level corridor of the Caucasus countries.

In exchange, China will be granted wide access to Central Asia’s considerable energy resources. Chinese companies, for example, appear eager to tap into Turkmenistan’s vast natural gas reserves. Chinese oil corporations would also likely dominate Kazakhstan’s petroleum export market to service China’s insatiable desire for more fuel.

It increasingly looks as if that there is some truth in French President Emmanuel Macron’s comment that Russia appears to have become China’s vassal state. It certainly seems as if the Chinese Communist Party has made considerable progress toward achieving its broad objectives of fostering China’s Global Development and Security Initiatives. Neither plan appears to have a principal role for Moscow.

China recently hosted a summit of the leaders of Central Asia’s former Soviet Republics in Xi’an, China, the site of the start of the ancient Silk Road. The symbolism attached to Xi’an as the site for the 18-20 May gathering underscores China’s intent to remind Central Asian leaders that Chinese civilization’s relationship with the region predates ties to Russia by centuries. It also might demonstrate China’s resolve to replace Russia as Eurasia’s hegemon. China, in fact, did not even invite Russia to the conference.

Lesson Learned: Study Shows Charters Outperform Traditional Public Schools By: Auguste Meyrat

https://thefederalist.com/2023/06/16/lesson-learned-study-shows-charters-outperform-traditional-public-schools/

If traditional public schools want to succeed, they should follow charter schools’ lead.

People debating school choice have long had a difficult time finding a comprehensive study to really show the difference between charter schools — publicly funded schools that are run independent of a district or union — and traditional public schools. In most instances, the variables are too numerous for anything to be conclusive. Charter schools seemed to be better, but only certain charters in certain states with certain kids during certain years.

Finally, a new study has come out that indicates charters are indeed generally better than traditional public schools. Tabulating the academic progress of 1.8 million charter school students, researchers at Stanford University’s Center for Research on Education Outcomes determined that these students were the equivalent of 16 instructional days ahead on English and six instructional days ahead in math. To make sure they weren’t comparing apples to oranges, these students “were each paired with a ‘virtual twin’ (i.e., a nearby pupil possessing similar demographic traits and prior test scores) enrolled at the district school that the charter student otherwise would have attended.”

Naturally, the gains varied from state to state and school to school. In states such as New York, Massachusetts, Tennessee, and Rhode Island, charter school students outpaced traditional public school students by more than a month of instruction in reading and math. Additionally, charter schools that operate under a charter management organization (CMO), like the Knowledge Is Power Program or Founders Classical Academy, did better than their non-CMO counterparts, particularly in math.

And before skeptics give the “But Covid!” excuse, it’s worth noting that these results follow a pattern of steady progression over a decade: “The center’s first national analysis, issued in 2009, showed charters under-performing traditional schools in both core subjects; in a 2013 follow-up, they slightly bested traditional schools in English while still lagging in math.” Unlike most traditional public school systems, charter schools are relatively young and have accordingly experienced growing pains; Covid was incidental to this. Even among charter schools that were part of the same CMO, older campuses outperformed newer ones.

The Left’s New Daddy Warbucks  Expect Alexander Soros to increase his funding of progressive-Left, globalized, and woke agendas in the United States and elsewhere. By Rachel Ehrenfeld

https://amgreatness.com/2023/06/15/the-lefts-new-daddy-warbucks/

Alexander Soros’ bragging, “I’m more political,” promises limitless funding of the progressive-Left agenda for the 2024 election. It seems that the June 11 glorified announcement in the Wall Street Journal, exalting Alexander Soros’ accession to his father’s financial empire and global “political-philanthropic” foundations, was meant to boost the young man’s clout. 

The young Soros was groomed for this role for a long time. In 2018, George Soros took him on a world tour, introducing him to presidents and heads of state as his heir. Now, Alexander oversees investments in the $25 billion Soros Fund Management and is the chairman of the New York-based global Open Society Foundations (OSF) board.

“The arc of history doesn’t follow its own course. It needs to be bent,” the elder Soros told the New York Times. “I am really engaged in trying to bend it in the right direction,” he said.

Not to be outdone, Alexander has been doing his own bending by establishing Bend the Arc. This progressive-leftist Jewish group vigorously attacks former U.S. President Donald Trump’s anti-socialist Make America Great Again plan, Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu’s Zionist agenda, and the Jewish State of Israel. 

Speaking about Jews and Israel, Alexander parrots his father’s opinions. In July 2012, in an interview published by Philanthropy News Digest, he declared, “I worry when Jews in America start to support policies in Israel which they wouldn’t support in America . . . which don’t give full rights to people who are technically living under occupation [meaning the Palestinians, who are ruled by the corrupt, terrorist Palestinian authority], and which don’t allow for immigration of people who aren’t Jews or for non-Jews to become citizens,” he said, falsely representing the reality in Israel.

Like his father, he stated support of “Israel as a nation-state,” adding, “I don’t believe in a Jewish world and a non-Jewish world.” Instead, he accused Jews of being hypocrites for giving “credence to the old adage that Jews are liberal or left-wing only for their own self-interest.” Incredibly, the new leader of the largest private foundation claiming to advance an “open society” that promotes “equality” is accusing Jews of wanting “a color-blind society with all these different ethnic groups,” not because of their values, but “because it makes them safer”! He continued, “A lot of American Jews do support one thing here, and another thing there, and that’s inconsistent. I don’t think they realize it,” he added. 

So, seeing his Bar-Mitzvah photo in the Journal announcement was unsurprising. Alexander employs the same strategy to preempt criticism long used by his father. George Soros has been using the religion he was born into successfully for decades, claiming to be a victim while trivializing antisemitism. Somehow he manages to label those who dare criticize the Soros agenda, activities, and statements as antisemites.

J6 Pipe Bomber Story Goes Boom The FBI conducted a halfhearted inquiry, at best. Now we know why. By Julie Kelly

https://amgreatness.com/2023/06/15/j6-pipe-bomber-story-goes-boom/

It remains the greatest unsolved mystery related to the events of January 6: Who placed pipe bombs near the headquarters of both the Democratic National Committee and Republican National Committee the night before?

Shortly before the joint session of Congress convened at 1 p.m. to debate the results of the 2020 Electoral College vote, a woman on her way to do some laundry looked down and spotted a device in an alley adjacent to the RNC building. Karlin Younger ran to notify security guards, who then called police. Law enforcement conducted a search of the area and located another device outside the DNC building.

Panic quickly ensued. “I just had to evacuate my office because of a pipe bomb reported outside,” Representative Elaine Luria (D-Va.) tweeted at 1:46 p.m. “I don’t recognize our country today and the members of Congress who have supported this anarchy do not deserve to represent their fellow Americans.”

“I’m sheltering in place in my office,” Rep. Haley Stevens (D-Mich.) tweeted at the same time. “The building next door has been evacuated. I can’t believe I have to write this.”

The media immediately suggested the explosives had been planted by someone loyal to the president; the New York Times noted in its breaking report that the bombs were found “just a few blocks away from the U.S. Capitol, which Mr. Trump’s supporters stormed on Wednesday afternoon.”

Federal authorities promised a full-throated investigation. During a press conference on January 12, 2021, acting U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia Michael Sherwin and Washington FBI Field Office chief Steven D’Antuono emphasized the seriousness of the pipe bomb threat. “They were real devices. They had explosive ignitors,” Sherwin told reporters. D’Antuono announced a $50,000 reward for information leading to the identity and arrest of the perpetrator. The FBI, D’Antuono warned, was “looking at all angles, every tool, every rock is being unturned” in pursuit of the bomber.

A few months later, D’Antuono made another desperate plea for the public’s help in his investigation and doubled the reward. “We know it can be a difficult decision to report information about family, friends, or coworkers but this is about protecting human life. We need your help to identify the individual responsible for placing these pipe bombs to ensure that they will not harm themselves or anyone else.”

Western Governments Embrace the Tiananmen Square Mentality By J.B. Shurk

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2023/06/western_governments_embrace_the_tiananmen_square_mentality.html

With the thirty-fourth anniversary of China’s Tiananmen Square Massacre having just passed, it is worth pointing out how that atrocity set the stage for increasing government tyranny across the globe today.  The Chinese slaughter of innocents should always be seen as the other side of the coin to the fall of the Berlin Wall and collapse of the Iron Curtain.  

In Europe, where dedicated freedom fighters spent decades creating a “parallel polis” providing both an escape from and organized resistance to totalitarian regimes, the fall of communism naturally followed the rise of public movements for liberty.  In China, where cries for freedom were crushed with tanks and despair for the lost, the one-party communist State’s power grew.  When the United States and other Western countries chose to ignore China’s crimes against humanity in a Faustian exchange for Western companies’ lucrative opportunity to replace their own domestic workforces with Chinese slave labor under the communists’ control, the West proved that it was more than willing to sell out both moral conviction and political principle for a quick buck.  

The Chinese communists learned that Western governments are ultimately corrupt “paper tigers” that pretend to stand for human freedom but instead prostitute their ideals for material greed.  Aspiring tyrants around the world learned that it is better to crush popular opposition movements with gruesome violence than to permit calls for individual liberty and free speech to grow into outright rebellions powerful enough to redirect the course of history. 

Western politicians celebrate the fall of the Soviet Union and occasionally grumble about Chinese human rights abuses, but make no mistake: the collapse of the Iron Curtain and the Tiananmen Square Massacre remain cautionary tales to those enamored of power.  In their minds, they hear only Machiavelli’s warning that, if one must choose, it is far “safer to be feared than loved.”  The COVID police state that still lingers, the “climate change” police state lying up ahead, the abandonment of free speech protections as collateral damage in an imaginary war against “hate,” the World Health Organization’s push for global government through permanent “emergency” — none of these totalitarian monstrosities would exist today had the West stood courageously for human freedom against State-engineered barbarity.

That it did not and instead spent the next three decades empowering China economically, militarily, and reputationally will always be a stain on Western history.  And because Western governments have largely ignored China’s decades of genocide, torture, and enslavement, Western citizens must now live under governments dangerously indifferent to the preservation of human freedom here at home. 

Imagine if the United States had acted more resolutely against the Tiananmen Square Massacre.  Imagine if the dead bodies of students strewn across an area paradoxically named for “heavenly peace” had become an enduring international symbol of the personal sacrifice humans will make to be free and an enduring indictment against State tyranny.  Imagine if the words “Remember Tiananmen Square” had become a common condemnation of all government overreach.  What would the world look like today?  

Congress Had Questions About the CDC Stifling Dissent. Rochelle Walensky Refused To Answer. Robby Soave

https://reason.com/2023/06/15/rochelle-walensky-cdc-congress-questions-covid-meta-censorship/

Rochelle Walensky, the outgoing director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), faced tough questioning from House Republicans on Tuesday, when she appeared before the Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic.

Rep. James Comer (R–Ky.) grilled Walensky about the CDC’s communications with social media companies—Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, in particular—during her tenure as the head of the federal agency chiefly responsible for battling COVID-19.

As reported in Reason’s March 2023 issue, Walensky’s CDC routinely communicated with content moderators and Facebook, recommending aggressive takedowns of purported misinformation about mitigation efforts, COVID-19’s origins, and vaccines:

According to a trove of confidential documents obtained by Reason, health advisers at the CDC had significant input on pandemic-era social media policies at Facebook as well. They were consulted frequently, at times daily. They were actively involved in the affairs of content moderators, providing constant and ever-evolving guidance. They requested frequent updates about which topics were trending on the platforms, and they recommended what kinds of content should be deemed false or misleading. “Here are two issues we are seeing a great deal of misinfo on that we wanted to flag for you all,” reads one note from a CDC official. Another email with sample Facebook posts attached begins: “BOLO for a small but growing area of misinfo.”

These Facebook Files show that the platform responded with incredible deference. Facebook routinely asked the government to vet specific claims, including whether the virus was “man-made” rather than zoonotic in origin. (The CDC responded that a man-made origin was “technically possible” but “extremely unlikely.”) In other emails, Facebook asked: “For each of the following claims, which we’ve recently identified on the platform, can you please tell us if: the claim is false; and, if believed, could this claim contribute to vaccine refusals?”

Comer’s questions got straight to the heart of this matter. Unfortunately, Walensky declined to directly comment on it.

Amtrak Joe And The Trans-Pacific, Trans-Indian Railroad

https://issuesinsights.com/2023/06/16/amtrak-joe-and-the-trans-pacific-trans-indian-railroad/

Some of the best advice ever given was from Mark Twain, who said “it’s better to keep your mouth shut and appear stupid than open it and remove all doubt.” We’re not saying Joe Biden is stupid, but his comment about “plans to build a railroad from the Pacific all the way across the Indian Ocean,” removes all doubt that he is all there.

Speaking Wednesday evening before the League of Conservation Voters’ annual dinner, Biden waxed ineloquently:

“We’re talking about building — and I had my team putting together with other countries as well — to build a railroad from the Pacific Ocean — from the Atlantic Ocean all the way to the Indian Ocean.”

Reports said he also rambled on about a proposal to build a line across sub-Saharan Africa.

It’s too bad Vice President Kamala Harris didn’t offer a few words about the idea. She could have talked about, with a little Russian dressing on top, “the significance of the passage of trains over large bodies of water, which are known as oceans, and they are located on our planet, and there is a great significance to train travel, which has made history throughout history at a moment in time.”

It’s hard to decide which is more likely, construction and completion of Biden’s worldwide train, or the unlikely event he and Harris actually string words together in a coherent manner on the same day.

The Trump Indictment—In 10 Bothersome Paradoxes Victor Davis Hanson

https://victorhanson.com/the-trump-indictment-in-10-bothersome-paradoxes/

Yes, we are told Trump is facing serious charges. Experts tell us he will be going to prison. Some of his legal team have quit. Yes, he was sloppy about communicating with the lawyers of the National Archives. Yet, read the 1978 Presidential Records Act (put into place after the typical sloppy departure protocols of most presidents)—and consider that Barack Obama, Vice President Joe Biden, and Vice President Mike Pence were likely all in violation. Moreover, we are not stupid, when asked to ignore the following:

1) That a president who had the prerogative to declassify almost any presidential papers he takes with him when leaving office, in a way that a senator or vice-president does not, should be prosecuted for doing just that when a former senator, and former vice-president are not prosecuted for doing the same.

2) That an ex-president is prosecuted for having supposedly classified papers in his possession after 18 months as a private citizen, but an ex-senator, ex-vice president, and current president is exempt, despite having classified documents for some 15 years—and keeping that fact absolutely quiet.

3) That a “disinterested” special counsel who is currently indicting a conservative Republican ex-president and current opposition presidential candidate, is married to a leftwing documentary filmmaker, whose recent work includes Becoming, a 2020 obsequious documentary of Michelle Obama.

4) That the current president removed classified documents, and kept them stored while President of the United States in as many as four unsecured locations, including a poorly locked garage, shared by his drug-addled son, who made millions of dollars by leveraging foreign governments in quid pro quo fashion, presumably on the principle that he and his father had inside information that could be of monetary value—and is not being indicted.

5) That never before in U.S. history has any administration overseen the indictment either of an ex-president of the opposite party or a current leading candidate for president of the opposite party—or both.