MEDIA Comments turned off

Epic fail: Media apathy on attempted Kavanaugh murder shameful Joe Concha

Posted By on June 16th, 2022

https://thehill.com/opinion/judiciary/3523618-epic-fail-media-apathy-on-attempted-kavanaugh-murder-shameful/

It was one of the biggest and most disturbing stories of the year: An alleged assassination attempt of a Supreme Court justice was thwarted after a man was arrested outside the home of Brett Kavanaugh. If the alleged assailant had been successful, the country would have been further divided over the prospect of President Biden nominating another liberal justice to replace Kavanaugh. It also would have possibly triggered a copycat murder of another conservative justice to tip the balance of the high court to the left for years to come. 

Last week, Nicholas John Roske, 26, was charged with attempted murder of a Supreme Court justice. At the time of his arrest, Roske was carrying a black tactical chest rig, tactical knife, a Glock pistol, two magazines of ammunition, zip ties and pepper spray.  

And despite this major story, some lawmakers and journalists simply shrugged their collective shoulders at the plot. On the Sunday morning political shows, the assassination attempt wasn’t mentioned even once.

So, ask yourself this: If there were a murder attempt against Justice Sonia Sotomayor or Justice Elena Kagan or soon-to-be Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, would it be a top story? No doubt.

And then there’s social media, where Twitter somehow is allowing this tweet from the radical abortion rights organization Ruth Sent Us to remain on its platform:

“If you’re in the DC metro area, join us. Our protests at [Justice Amy Coney] Barrett’s home moved the needle to this coverage. Falls Church is a People of Praise stronghold. She sends her seven kids to a People of Praise school that she sat on the Board of Directors for. She attends church DAILY.”

CHARLOTTE'S NEWS WEB, NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Biden goes into cloud cuckoo land on inflation By Monica Showalter

Posted By on June 16th, 2022

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2022/06/biden_goes_into_cloud_cuckooland_on_inflation.html

“Biden is still blaming oil companies for the ongoing inflation, as if oil companies themselves were not subject to the higher transport, production, labor, and materials costs of taking oil out of the ground, vowing to punish them with “emergency powers” if they don’t pump more oil to increase supply.  He’s begging the Saudis to produce more oil, despite an amazing array of oil resources available in this country, production of which he has largely shut down, as well as the Keystone XL pipeline from Canada.  He’s also reportedly releasing another round of oil from the Strategic Oil Reserve as if the first huge release had had any effect.  It didn’t.  He’s blaming Russian president Vladimir Putin.  He’s blaming the global economy.  He’s blaming Republicans for not approving his latest spend-a-thons.What he’s not doing is addressing inflation itself and the runaway federal spending that created it.  It’s as if he doesn’t know, or thinks you don’t know.”

Joe Biden either is stupid or thinks you’re stupid.

Because how else does anyone explain a speech like this, to the supposed working stiffs of the AFL-CIO Tuesday?

Biden, visibly angry: “I don’t want to hear anymore of these lies about reckless spending. We’re changing people’s lives!” pic.twitter.com/0I3OgmIJGD

— Townhall.com (@townhallcom) June 14, 2022

No more lies about reckless spending?  Here’s the whole thing:

WATCH LIVE: President Joe Biden speaks at AFL-CIO convention https://t.co/NGF1mEBc8K

— PBS NewsHour (@NewsHour) June 14, 2022

There’s plenty to dislike about this, from the 1940s proletarian vernacular to the heaping helping of old hokey Irish Catholic gesturing, as if the abortion president were actually Catholic and not a guy who plays one on TV for political benefit.

FOREIGN POLICY, ISRAEL Comments turned off

Why Have Negotiations? Shoshana Bryen

Posted By on June 16th, 2022

https://www.jewishpolicycenter.org/authors/shoshana-bryen/

In December, the Biden administration quietly proposed a five-government summit to enhance prospects for the “two-state solution” it promotes as key to Middle East regional security. Israel, Jordan, Egypt, the Palestinian Authority and the United States would meet to discuss, discuss … discuss … what?

Israel apparently waited several months to see if something useful would materialize but has now said it will not participate. No surprise. Negotiations work best; in fact, they work only when the parties have a common endgame. Hashing out the mechanisms, concessions, policies, gains and losses is the way to get to an agreed-upon future. These five governments have no common view.

Israel sees the future in the Abraham Accords. Egypt, and even Jordan, recognize that Accords countries (plus, Saudi Arabia and a few others that are close but not yet there) have a plan that includes economic, social, political and security gains for all the parties. Most recently:

A free-trade agreement between Israel and the United Arab Emirates;
An Israeli orchestra played in Egypt;
MoUs by an Israeli tech delegation in Morocco;
The renovation of a Moroccan Jewish cemetery;
Israel’s Independence Day being marked (as a holiday!) in Bahrain and Morocco;
A security agreement and air overflight rights between Saudi Arabia and Israel;
Israel’s participation in CENTCOM plans and exercises to secure the Red Sea.

War among them is a relic of the past.

The Palestinian leadership, however, insists that the past is not only the past, but also the present and the future. Oddly, President Joe Biden and the U.S. State Department are doing nothing to disabuse them of the notion.

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Liz Peek: Desperate Biden Goes Begging to Saudi Arabia

Posted By on June 16th, 2022

https://www.nysun.com/article/desperate-biden-goes-begging-to-saudi-arabia

How humiliating. In mid-July, President Biden will travel to Saudi Arabia to meet with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, who is that nation’s de facto ruler. That’s the same Mr. Biden who, on the campaign trail in 2020, called the oil superpower a “pariah” state and vowed to make sure “America does not check its values at the door to sell arms or buy oil.” 

Unless, apparently, polling suggests he really, really needs the oil. Such are the complications that arise when the president of the United States departs from decades-long relationships rooted in realpolitik and follows a childish urge to abandon every policy of his predecessor, even those that were unquestionably successful.

The lead-up to this planned sit-down has been an embarrassment. In March, MBS, as he is known, and his UAE counterpart, Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed al Nahyan, refused to take a phone call from Mr. Biden. 

Imagine, the President of the United States sitting by the phone like a pimply teenager pining for that someone special to ring up. (The White House denied this report in the Wall Street Journal, saying that indeed Mr. Biden had spoken by phone with the “king”; that is called a non-denial denial.) 

Why would the UAE and Saudi rulers make Mr. Biden beg? Because the President has gone out of his way since his first week in the Oval Office to insult those two countries and let them know that agreements established under President Trump are null and void. 

FOREIGN POLICY, ISRAEL Comments turned off

Slow Joe goes to Israel By Barry Shaw

Posted By on June 15th, 2022

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2022/06/slow_joe_goes_to_israel.html

The dates have been fixed for Biden’s visit to the Middle East: July 13-16, and the schedule looks loaded with pitfalls for the fumbling president.

His visit to Israel coincides with the Opening Ceremony of the Maccabiah Games which is always covered live on Israeli TV. For many Israelis, who have low expectations, Biden’s visit will be a distraction. What can he deliver for Israel?

The only four items that Biden has been fixated on for 50 years are:

Stopping Jews living in Judea and Samaria,
Dividing Jerusalem our capital,
Pushing for a “two-state” non-solution, even if the other state will inevitably be controlled by Hamas,
Increasing U.S. taxpayer money to the unrepentant regressive corrupt Palestinian Authority. Biden ignores two U.S. laws banning such payments until the PA commits not to use the money to reward their terrorist killers.

We call it their “Pay to Slay” reward system. The more Jews you kill, the more money you get, courtesy of the funding from the United States, Europe, and the UN.

This obscenity has to stop, but under Biden the payments are increased.

After telling Israel he has our backs, he will meet Mahmoud Abbas, probably in Bethlehem, to tell him he has Biden’s full support and money, no strings attached.

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Jan 6 committee flouts the rules of Congress, delivers propaganda By David Zukerman

Posted By on June 15th, 2022

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2022/06/jan_6_committee_flouts_the_rules_of_congress_delivers_propaganda.html

The Jan. 6 House Select Committee has been marred by officials acting in an arbitrary and capricious manner. The journalistic result is propaganda not fairly and honestly informing the American people on the conduct of this committee and its threat to democratic government

For example,

“[I]t is well established that, when a congressional committee seeks to use the implied authority to compel testimony, it must respect the Separation of Powers; it must do so only in pursuit of a valid legislative purpose (and not for the purpose of generating publicity or pursuing law enforcement) and it must follow the rules associated with the delegation on which its claimed subpoena authority relies.” 

This quote appears at page 4 of the Introduction to the reply brief (Case 1:21-cv-03217-CJN Document 38 Filed 06/06/22) filed by former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows in his lawsuit against Speaker Nancy Pelosi and the Jan. 6 committee.

The Meadows reply brief opened the Introduction with this statement:

“No authoritative appellate court has ever held that a senior aide to a President, or a President himself, can be compelled by Congress to appear and give testimony, let alone when there is a claim of Executive Privilege.” 

This statement makes clear how breathtaking Speaker Pelosi’s actions have proven to be, willing to dash to pieces the Separation of Powers tradition of our tripartite federal government. 

FOREIGN POLICY Comments turned off

Biden’s New Policy Funds China’s Military, Supports Slavery, Achieves Nothing by Peter Schweizer

Posted By on June 15th, 2022

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/18616/biden-china-policy-support

Previously, U.S. policy was that Americans were forbidden to invest in companies included in a “blacklist” of Chinese companies directly involved in China’s military, and in producing applications used by the Communist regime to oppress its own people and threaten its neighbors. The new “answers” amount to a wholesale abandonment of a policy Americans of all political stripes supported.

[I]t can also be seen as part of a long easing of economic sanctions imposed by the Trump administration, without obtaining any benefit for American prestige or negotiating leverage with China in return.

The 48 companies included on the initial Trump administration blacklist all work directly with the People’s Liberation Army, Chinese intelligence, or otherwise provide artificial-intelligence products and services used by Beijing to deny the human rights of its Uighur minority.

While Hikvision and Sinochem’s listed subsidiaries are not traded on major U.S. exchanges, they have been included in index funds carried by such giants as Vanguard and BlackRock.

There is no penalty for investors who continue to hold these stocks after the grace period, which ended in June 2022. All the order says is they may not buy any more shares, nor can they (after the grace period) sell what they have, without OFAC approval.

[M]oves like this should be offered only in negotiation with the Chinese over things important to American national security, and the peace and freedom of our allies. Giving up on it because it was “confusing” to international financial institutions is a sad excuse.

And it comes at a time when the Biden administration has also announced a tariff waiver on solar panels coming from Cambodia, Malaysia, Thailand, and Vietnam. This action, explained as a “bridge” while domestic solar panel manufacturing ramps up, re-opens a previously closed door to China’s dumping solar panels into the U.S. market.

At the same time, China is these days more belligerent, more aggressive, and more of a problem than ever. What exactly is the Biden administration getting for its quiet retreat from the tougher trade policies of the Trump administration?

Not a more conciliatory stance on Taiwan. China will “definitely not hesitate to start a war” over a Taiwan split, Chinese Defense Minister General Wei Fenghe warned the U.S recently.

Not help for American business.

Recently the Biden administration issued new answers for Americans invested in Chinese companies with direct ties to Beijing’s military. Previously, U.S. policy was that Americans were forbidden to invest in companies included in a “blacklist” of Chinese companies directly involved in China’s military, and in producing applications used by the Communist regime to oppress its own people and threaten its neighbors. The new “answers” amount to a wholesale abandonment of a policy Americans of all political stripes supported.

ISRAEL, MEDIA Comments turned off

New York Times Lectures and Hectors Israel When will “the paper of record” ever treat Israel fairly? Hugh Fitzgerald

Posted By on June 15th, 2022

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2022/06/new-york-times-lectures-and-hectors-israel-hugh-fitzgerald/

The New York Times doesn’t much care for Israel. Its reporters always find some flaw to exaggerate, some Palestinian atrocity to explain away, some “settlers” in the “occupied West Bank” to denounce, some new way to libel the inoffensive, warmhearted, and permanently imperiled Jewish state. It recently ran a “staff editorial” on the killing of Al Jazeera journalist Shireen Abu Akhleh which, for connoisseurs of its anti-Israel slant, did not disappoint. A report by Ira Stoll on this editorial that lectured and hectored Israel on “what it must do,” is here: “New York Times Editorial Lectures: ‘Israelis Should Care More,’” by Ira Stoll, Algemeiner, June 9, 2022:

The New York Times these days only rarely publishes staff editorials, and it saves the ones it thinks are most important for the Sunday newspaper, which attracts the largest readership.

This past Sunday, which was also the Jewish holiday of Shavuot, the Times unleashed an editorial headlined “Who Killed Journalist Shireen Abu Akleh?” The question is rhetorical, because the Times editorialists have already clearly decided who is to blame. You guessed it, Israel. The Times insists: “Israel needs to ensure the safety of journalists in the country and in areas that it occupies, to ensure the safety of its own democracy.”

The Times assumes that we all agree on who killed Abu Akleh – Israel. But despite the claims of the Palestinians, and the Timesmen who parrot them, it is not known, and cannot be known, until the bullet that killed her can be subject to ballistic tests by forensic experts. Israel is not insisting that it alone must conduct those tests – they could be carried out jointly with the PA and the American government. However, the PA adamantly refuses to produce the bullet, without explanation. That apparently doesn’t bother the New York Times, which sees nothing suspicious in the PA’s failure to produce the bullet. So Israel will be forced to issue an incomplete report, unable either to implicate or exculpate itself, until that bullet can be made available for forensic analysis.

WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Bizarro World: Mega-Terrorist Turkey When it comes to Turkey, Western countries behave like weaklings. David Boyajian

Posted By on June 15th, 2022

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2022/06/bizarro-world-mega-terrorist-turkey-david-boyajian/

Welcome to bizarro world.

That’s where Turkey, a notorious state sponsor of international terrorism, has the sheer gall to accuse Finland and Sweden of supporting terrorists.

Even more bizarre: Neither Finland, Sweden, the U.S., NATO, EU, nor any country or leader has, to my knowledge, pointed out Ankara’s glaring hypocrisy.

Turkey claims that Finland and Sweden host members of the PKK, the militant Kurdish organization that the U.S. and EU regard as terrorists. Both Nordic nations deny the charge.

Like many Europeans, however, Finns and Swedes sympathize with Kurds. Turkey has long repressed and ethnically cleansed the latter.

Regardless, Ankara is blocking uber-civilized Finland and Sweden from joining NATO.

Ironically, Turkey — autocratic, infamously violative of human rights, and systemically corrupt — would be unqualified to join NATO today were it not already a member.

The point is, who is Turkey to accuse others of terrorism?

Mega-Terrorist Turkey

BOOKS Comments turned off

The Crushing of Tibet-Michael M. Rosen

Posted By on June 15th, 2022

https://www.nationalreview.com/magazine/2022/06/27/the-crushing-of-tibet/?utm_source=recirc-desktop&utm_medium=homepage&utm_campaign=river&utm_content=featured-content-trending&utm_term=third

When the Iron Bird Flies: China’s Secret War in Tibet, by Jianglin Li (Stanford University Press, 576 pp., $35)

The recent depredations of the People’s Republic of China in East Turkestan/Xinjiang have had the unfortunate effect of obscuring and displacing a similar oppression that the Chinese perpetrated in another region: Tibet. More than half a century before it began persecuting the Uyghurs, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) engineered and executed a brutal, enduring domination of Tibet that persists today. But while the Tibetan cause enjoyed its heyday in the West in the 1990s, the region has largely faded from the headlines since.

Jianglin Li, a historian of Tibet, seeks to remedy this forgetfulness. In When the Iron Bird Flies, a masterly account of the CCP’s invasion and subjugation of the Tibetan regions in the 1950s, Li exhumes decades of archival Chinese records and interviews survivors of the onslaught. She tells the story through the eyes of the overwhelmed and ultimately defeated Tibetans, as well as from the point of view of the CCP officials who quelled their hard-fought rebellion.

While even the Chinese-nationalist government had sought to integrate Tibet into the Chinese body politic in the first half of the 20th century, the story truly begins with Mao Zedong’s rise to power. He was determined, no matter the cost, to swallow the Tibetan provinces of U-Tsang, Amdo, and Kham — which form more than a fifth of contemporary China by area. On January 2, 1950, Mao, visiting Moscow, cabled the CCP Central Committee, noting that “although the population of Tibet is not large, its international status is crucial. We must occupy Tibet and reform it into a people’s democracy.” Not for Mao the traditional religious and herding lifestyle of this peaceful people of the northwest steppe; they must be fundamentally remade in the image of Socialist Man.