Biden’s DOJ Targets Parents - Joseph Klein

 

by Joseph Klein

Attorney General Garland takes aim at parents who speak out against the indoctrination of their kids.

 

President Joe Biden’s Attorney General Merrick Garland has declared war on parents protesting the far-left’s indoctrination rammed down their children’s throats. In doing so, Garland has declared war on the First Amendment.

Garland issued a memorandum on October 4^th entitled “Partnership Among Federal, State, Local, Tribal, And Territorial Law Enforcement To Address Threats Against School Administrators, Board Members, Teachers, And Staff.”  Garland acted in response to a request for assistance the Biden administration received from the National School Boards Association (NSBA). The NSBA accused parents who showed up at public school board meetings to strongly voice their objections of engaging in threatening behavior akin to "domestic terrorism."

The NSBA's letter asked the Biden administration for “a joint expedited review by the U.S. Departments of Justice, Education, and Homeland Security, along with the appropriate training, coordination, investigations, and enforcement mechanisms from the FBI, including any technical assistance necessary from, and state and local coordination with, its National Security Branch and Counterterrorism Division, as well as any other federal agency with relevant jurisdictional authority and oversight.”

The Biden administration obliged with Garland’s law enforcement memorandum.

Violence or threats calculated to incite imminent violence are not protected by the First Amendment. Such acts are intolerable in a free society, no matter who commits them or why. But Garland did not stop with using his law enforcement tools solely to combat the commission of violence or threats of imminent violence against other individuals. Garland also called upon the FBI, federal prosecutors, and other law enforcement “partners” to “discourage, identify, and prosecute” what he loosely characterized as “efforts to intimidate individuals based on their views.”  

Garland is the one intimidating “individuals based on their views.” Biden’s Attorney General is abusing his authority over the FBI and federal prosecutors to intimidate or, in his words, “discourage” parents with a certain point of view from loudly voicing their opinions in public forums. These parents strongly oppose efforts by the Biden administration, school boards, school administrators, and educators to twist their children’s minds with Critical Race Theory and gender identity pronouns. Some parents have protested mask mandates for their children. Others have protested against overly long school closures.

Instead of standing up for the parents’ constitutional rights to freely express their opinions and “petition the Government for redress of grievances,” Garland has done precisely the opposite.   

As Asra Nomani, vice president of investigations and strategy at Parents Defending Education, put it in her tweet addressed to Garland: “You are criminalizing parenting, and you owe the people of America a swift apology.”  Nomani referred to herself sarcastically as "Domestic Terrorist” in her sign-off.

The Biden administration is applying a double standard in deciding when to take intimidation of public officials seriously.

The day before Garland issued his memorandum proscribing intimidation of school officials, a far-left progressive harassed Democrat Senator Kyrsten Sinema. This activist followed Senator Sinema, who teaches at Arizona State University, into a bathroom Sinema was using on campus. The social justice warrior then shouted slogans at Sinema while illegally recording the bathroom confrontation to post on Facebook.

How did Biden respond to this despicable attempt to intimidate a U.S. senator of his own party who happens to disagree with his spend-and-tax policies? Biden said that, while such behavior was inappropriate, “it happens to everybody."

If such behavior is to be expected by public officials, why is the Biden administration coddling school board officials faced with less than what Senator Sinema experienced? Money talks.

According to Open Secrets, over 85 percent of education industry donations went to Joe Biden during the 2020 presidential campaign. The teachers’ unions are notorious for their generous donations to the Democrats’ coffers. They expect deference to their wishes in return.

The protesting parents confronted school board members at public board meetings where issues of vital concern to the parents were being discussed. The parents did not follow the school board members into bathrooms. Yet Garland is unleashing the FBI on parents for doing far less than the far-left progressives have done in getting in the faces of members of Congress without any consequences.

Some critics of the parents’ protests have said that all these parents have to do is to vote out the present members of school boards they don’t like and vote for their preferred alternative candidates. Protesting and voting are not mutually exclusive. Both are constitutional rights. Moreover, not all school boards are elected. In some cases, mayors decide who serves on the board.

It is revealing what happens when the tables are turned, and a school board member intimidates parents who voice opinions the school board member does not like.

In Virginia, for example, a particularly strident anti-parent school board member used a Facebook group she belonged to as a means for stirring up threats to “hack” and “expose” parents who opposed Critical Race Theory in schools.

“The Facebook group included several elected officials — including the county’s top elected prosecutor, Buta Biberaj,” the Daily Wire reported.

There is no opportunity for a popular recall vote in Virginia. Once triggered by the collection of the requisite number of signatures calling for a recall, the matter is turned over to a prosecutor for a trial in order to determine whether removal is warranted by reason of misconduct or incompetence.

Enough signatures were collected to initiate the recall process against the school board member who has intimidated parents resisting the indoctrination of their children with Critical Race Theory. The Catch 22 was that the same George Soros-funded prosecutor who aligned herself with the school board member’s “anti-racist” Facebook group refused to recuse herself from the recall proceeding. She was standing in the way of allowing the recall initiative to move forward in accordance with Virginia law.

Fortunately, the parents did not give up. A judge ruled on October 5^th that a special prosecutor could take over.

This is not an isolated case of a leftist prosecutor’s obstruction of the process for recalling a school board member in Virginia. Another Soros-funded far-left prosecutor in Virginia simply dropped a recall initiative against a school board member even though the initiative had amassed the requisite number of signatures for the prosecutor to proceed.  

The left has already succeeded in infiltrating the major U.S. universities and colleges to push their radical ideology on impressionable students. Now they have their sights on elementary and high school kids.

With the support of a web of George Soros-backed activist groups, leftists are taking over local school boards. Using their power to dictate school curricula and policies, these school boards are pushing ahead with incorporating Critical Race Theory, gender identity terminology, and other leftist dogma into the public schools they govern.

Once many parents began to realize what their children were being taught, they began to rise up and protest. Arrogant school board members couldn’t take the heat and appealed for help from the Biden administration, which has been busy promoting Critical Race Theory and transgender ideology throughout the federal government, military, and in education.

Attorney General Garland’s October 4^th law enforcement signals the Biden administration’s intention to persecute these dissenting parents.

 

Joseph Klein

Source: https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2021/10/bidens-doj-targets-parents-speaking-out-against-joseph-klein/

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Biden Nominates USSR Apologist for Comptroller of the Economy - Lloyd Billingsley

 

by Lloyd Billingsley

From Kazakhstan with Lenin.

 

Joe Biden’s nominee for Comptroller of the Currency in the U.S. Treasury Department is Saule Omarova, a native of the Kazakh Soviet Socialist Republic and graduate of Moscow State University, which she attended on a “Lenin Personal Academic Scholarship.” In a May 9, 2020 interview with Chris Hayes of NBC, Omarova explained how she arrived in America.

“I was an undergraduate student at Moscow State University and there was at the very end of the Gorbachev era an exchange program between Moscow State and University of Wisconsin Madison. I got lucky against all odds, and I came for that one semester in 1991 to Madison, Wisconsin. While I was there in December of 1991, the Soviet Union fell apart. So there I was, a student without anywhere to go back. I was very worried about what was going to happen. So I stayed to do my Ph.D. in political science, but frankly, I’m just, to this day, I feel guilty for having left the country at such a momentous time, because obviously they couldn't hold it together without me.”

“Your departure and it all falls apart,” Hayes said. “That’s amazing timing.” As it turned out, unlike many other émigrés, Omarova remained a fan of the USSR.

In 2019, nearly 30 years after the USSR collapsed, Omarova was on record that “say what you will about old USSR, there was no gender pay gap there. Market doesn’t always ‘know best.’” In the old USSR, the all-male Dictatorship of the Proletariat always knew best, but Hayes didn’t get into that.

As F.A. Hayek outlined in The Road to Serfdom way back in 1944, economic knowledge is fragmented and dispersed, so no group of people, is able to plan an economy that will thrive for the benefit of all. That’s why Omarova’s beloved “old USSR” was an economic basket case.

Countries barren of liberties are also barren of groceries. The biggest country in the world, with abundant energy and natural resources, could not even feed itself. This was a matter of record, but Hayes failed to press the issue. Omarova knew that in the old USSR consumers waited in line to select, pay, and pick up the goods. That is how an economy planned by Communist Party bosses functions in practice, but there’s more to it.

In a Communist state like the old USSR, the rulers must be willing to take drastic measures, so as Hayek put it, the worst get on top. In the old USSR, those less than worshipful of the collectivization plan must be “liquidated as a class,” as with the kulaks of Ukraine in the 1930s, Stalin deployed a planned famine that claimed the lives of millions.

Hayes might have asked if Stalin, Khrushchev, Brezhnev et al ever did anything with which Saule Omarova disagreed, but he never popped the question. The USSR also herded people into the forced labor camps that Solzhenitsyn wrote about in The Gulag Archipelago, and Anne Applebaum charted in the 2003 Gulag: A History. Hayes didn’t ask about those books, and Omarova failed to explain what she knew, when she knew it, and what she thought about it.

The Kazakhstan native earned a PhD in political science from the University of Wisconsin and a law degree from Northwestern. During the administration of George W. Bush, Omarova served in the treasury department as a special advisor on regulatory policy to the undersecretary for domestic finance. The Lenin scholar now holds forth as a law professor at Cornell.

In The People’s Ledger: How to Democratize Money and Finance the Economy, released in 2020, Omarova sets forth the vision of  “how democratizing access to central bank money would—and should—transform and democratize the entire financial system.” The paper offers a “blueprint for a comprehensive restructuring of the central bank balance sheet as the basis for redesigning the core architecture of modern finance.”

Her focus is the Federal Reserve and her proposed reforms “would make the financial system less complex, more stable, and more efficient in serving the long-term needs of the American people.” Making independent banks “non-depository lenders” would change banking “as we know it.”

Saule Omarova wants to eliminate private banks as a class, a government takeover similar to the “old USSR,” where the Communist dictatorship set people’s salaries, as the Lenin scholar explained, “in a gender-blind manner and all women got very generous maternity benefits. Both things are still a pipe dream in our society!”

Many Republicans oppose Omarova, and Federal Reserve boss Janet Yellen reportedly has reservations. The Lenin scholar’s biggest booster is Sen. Elizabeth Warren, whose entire career is based on her false claim to be Cherokee. Warren is the prime mover of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which blamed the financial crisis on private institutions and cast the federal government as the savior. Saule Omara’s scheme does likewise, only more so.

Instead of private banks, people would hold deposits with the Federal Reserve. Government would control everybody’s money. That is a belch from the old USSR, but Saule Omarova has a shot at confirmation.

Tracy Stone-Manning, linked with tree-spiking eco-terrorists, was recently confirmed as director of the Bureau of Land Management. Vichy politicians could easily make way for the Lenin scholar from the Kazakh Soviet Socialist Republic.

 

Lloyd Billingsley

Source: https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2021/10/kazakhstan-lenin-lloyd-billingsley/

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Biden is Brewing a National Crisis - J. Robert Smith

 

by J. Robert Smith

America’s principal adversaries -- Xi, Putin, the mullahs, and Kim Jong-un -- know, like most Americans do, that Biden is in over his head.

Have we ever had a president who in mere months made so many dumb, intemperate decisions, thereby precipitating major crises?  You’d think that the Afghanistan and border fiascos would suffice for one four-year term.  But the smart money is that we haven’t seen the last of Biden-manufactured crises.  Biden is a nightmare version of Pig-Pen of the Peanuts comic strip.  A perpetual cloud of incompetence, conceits, corruption, and shabby political motives swirls around him.  

Per Richard Fernandez at PJ Media, September 27:

As Niall Stanage of the Hill put it, “President Biden’s biggest vulnerability isn’t any single issue. It’s the risk that he could be seen as losing control of events.”

The dissolution of the landscape means the Biden administration isn’t plagued by any one malady anymore but by multiple organ failure.

What’s perilous to the nation isn’t likely any one crisis, as Fernandez and Stanage alluded to, but some combination.  Afghanistan and the border crises aren’t that combination -- at least not yet.  But both do threaten to be part of a toxic mix leading to greater crisis during Biden’s term.   

Other potential areas ripe for trouble are the economy, a new round of COVID lockdowns, the 2022 midterm elections, and leftist instigated unrest.  An economic downturn would be a big domino falling, setting off a chain reaction.  The other three areas are likely intertwined.  More in a moment. 

Afghanistan wasn’t a one-off, in that what happened there stays there.  Afghanistan again becomes a staging area for Islamic terrorism, which threatens the homeland.  Biden’s surrender there promises to spin off threats to American interests and national security elsewhere. 

America’s principal adversaries -- Xi, Putin, the mullahs, and Kim Jong-un -- know, like most Americans do, that Biden is in over his head.  More, the U.S. is divided and conflicted.  Reported the Epoch Times on September 28, compounding homegrown troubles, the PRC is engaging in subversion here through their “3 Warfares” doctrine.   

The greatest peril is open conflict, particularly with the PRC.  Taiwan is increasingly a flashpoint for a Sino-American war.  Biden’s bungling stupidity over Afghanistan can only stiffen Xi’s resolve to conquer Taiwan, sooner rather than later. 

Or Biden may not prosecute a war with the PRC in Asia-Pacific, however necessary to defend America’s vital interests.

Biden appears to be compromised with the Chinese, via the influence-peddling schemes that he and his family operate.  How and when Xi decides to leverage Biden’s corruption are open to Vegas-style wagering.  Could Xi force Biden to stand down over Taiwan?     

The border crisis is a metastasizing cancer, deliberately so.  Two million illegals are anticipated to cross into the U.S. this year.  Then there are the out-years, ’22, ’23, and ’24 to consider. 

The manifold stresses that this diaspora will place on communities are only in their earliest stages.  This represents an insidious, evolving assault on society.  While Biden’s ham-handedness certainly plays a key role in the border meltdown, Democrats have long advocated for open borders.  This crisis manifests a perverse and destructive fulfillment.   

The four other areas -- the economy, a new round of COVID lockdowns, the 2022 midterm elections, and leftist instigated unrest -- could precipitate crises that impact and exacerbate one another.  

The economy is a linchpin and crisis watchlist worthy. 

Inflation worries are in the news.  Economists tend to split on inflation.  Is it transitory, attributable to supply chain issues arising from last year’s lockdowns, or will it persist and worsen?  Some analysts claim the global supply chain crisis will abate by next summer.  Or will it?  

But inflation fears are attributable to more than supply.  Biden’s policies and legislative goals point to stagflation, says the New York Post’s editorial board. 

Consider conventional energy, which is the lifeblood of modern economies. 

As of January 20, 2021, the U.S. was energy independent.  Kudos, President Trump.  Energy was affordable.  The Biden administration signaled its hostility to conventional energy development and production from Day One, shutting down the Keystone XL pipeline (killing thousands of jobs in the process).  

Pander, Biden does, to the delusional cult of environmental zealots who’ve been prophesizing climate cooling, warming, or whatever else sounds dire since the early 1970s.  Earth doom is always just 10 years away. 

Drivers have suffered dramatic gas price hikes since Biden assumed office.  As of January 2021, the average national cost of a gallon of gas was $2.249.  As of September, the cost has risen to $3.176 per gallon, on average. 

Biden’s solution to greater energy demands and spiraling costs is to beg OPEC to up output, a request that has been denied to date.  Evidently, ruining the earth’s climate from Saudi Arabia and other OPEC member states is okay.

The mounting cost of energy drives up the cost of everything, including food.  Then there’s the Democrats’ $3.5 trillion run at big government socialism, slyly named the “Build Back Better and American Families Plan.”  Infighting is waylaying the measure, but desperate Democrats aren’t giving up.  They can’t.  It’s pivotal to their fortunes.     

This legislation’s profligacy and taxing provisions aren’t only economy-cripplers, but attacks on private enterprise, society, and liberty.  The Heritage Foundation’s Tommy Binion told the Daily Signal (September 29):

 I believe that the reconciliation package, which is the socialist wish list of today’s Democratic Party, [$3.5 trillion] in spending, cradle-to-grave welfare, everything they want on climate change, everything they want on immigration, all packed into one bill, is the most threatening legislation in our lifetimes.

The last three areas for possible crises -- COVID lockdowns, the 2022 midterm elections, and leftist instigated unrest may intertwine.        

Democrats appear to be headed for a shellacking in the 2022 midterms.  Losing control of the House and Senate -- or just the House -- would scuttle their agenda.  Congressional Republicans could roadblock many Biden administration’s executive actions, provided McCarthy and/or McConnell have the stones to fight. 

Election integrity remains an outsized concern.  Will battleground states, in particular, have sufficient election reforms in place next year?  The GOP is lawyered-up and ready to litigate and plans for stronger election monitoring challenges, reports Truthout, a vexed left-wing outlet.  But the chances for Democrat election chicanery: strong.         

With Democrats likely facing awful elections prospects might the Biden administration push COVID lockdowns? 

Draconian blue state lockdowns led the way in crippling the national economy last year, which had as an aim hurting Trump’s reelection prospects.  The lockdowns were, in part, a pretext to blast out ballots across states (so much for chain of custody and ballot security).  Proof that Democrats want rigged elections in perpetuity is found in their “For the People Act of 2021.” 

Democrats must be watching Australia’s slamdown of its citizens with covetous eyes.  Getting away with lockdowns will be harder, but Democrats aren’t hesitant.        

Lastly, Antifa and BLM stoked urban riots in blue cities last year.  Unrest in 2022 would again create a national atmosphere of fear and tension.  As Democrats hoped last year, they’d hope again next year: That “protests against racial injustice” would damage GOP election chances.  Or, if not that, some other excuse to foment unrest.       

Should a national crisis emerge, the culprits are likely a convergence of crises.  When has the nation been confronted by so many threats in so many different ways simultaneously?     

“These are the times that try men’s souls,” wrote Thomas Paine.  “The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman.”         

Are we ready to stand? 

Image: Marc Nozell

 

J. Robert Smith can be found regularly at Gab @JRobertSmith and occasionally on Parler, again @JRobertSmith.  He also blogs at Flyover.

Source: https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2021/10/biden_is_brewing_a_national_crisis.html

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Ruthless podcast sounds alarm: Facebook whistleblower is 'Trojan horse' for Dems, media to censor the right - Joseph A. Wulfsohn

 

by Joseph A. Wulfsohn

Co-host Josh Holmes slammed Senate Republicans for embracing Frances Haugen as a 'good-faith actor'

 

Dems use Facebook scandal to ramp up speech police

As Joe Biden drops in popularity and every one of the issues of their agenda has become more unpopular, they're going to try to increase and weaponize the federal government.

The hosts of the conservative "Ruthless" podcast sounded the alarm on the Facebook whistleblower who testified on Capitol Hill, warning that Democrats and the corporate media are using her as a launching pad to censor political speech. 

Josh Holmes kicked off the discussion by tackling the narrative that Frances Haugen, the former civic project manager for Facebook who testified this week before the Senate Commerce Committee, is some sort of "hero" for speaking out against Facebook's alleged wrongdoings. 

"First of all, she's a leftwing activist. … Long, long record of activism, contributions to not just like establishment Democrats, we're talking about like, movement progressives, right?" Holmes began on Thursday's podcast. "But all of this is coached up by a guy that she's hired named Bill Burton."

GREENWALD: FACEBOOK WHISTLEBLOWER IS BEING EMBRACED BY LIBERALS INTENT ON CONTROLLING POLITICAL DISCOURSE

Holmes said Burton was a former press aide in the Obama administration and is a board member for the Center for Humane Technology, a group that Holmes claims aims "to change content policies that favor corporate media over individual voices or alternative media." 

"They hate things like ‘Ruthless.’ …. What they want is to basically make The New York Times, The Washington Post, CNN, MSNBC the only purveyors of information in this country," Holmes maintained. 

Co-host Comfortably Smug chimed in, saying "it's all interconnected" with Big Tech's silencing of conservative voices in the name of preventing the spread of "disinformation."

"They don't give a s--- about disinformation," added Michael Duncan, another host. 

Former Facebook employee and whistleblower Frances Haugen testifies during a Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation hearing entitled 'Protecting Kids Online: Testimony from a Facebook Whistleblower' on Capitol Hill on Tuesday, Oct. 05, 2021 in Washington, DC. Featuring: Frances Haugen Where: Washington, District Of Columbia, United States When: 05 Oct 2021 Credit: POOL via CNP/INSTARimages/Cover Images (POOL via CNP/INSTARimages/Cover Images)

Holmes said Burton also served as a campaign adviser for Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn, who sits on the Senate committee that invited Haugen to testify. 

"Weird how that works," Smug and Duncan reacted in unison, with Duncan adding, "And then suddenly, this whistleblower has a new Twitter account that gets verified immediately right before she goes and testifies on Capitol Hill."

Holmes then blasted Senate Republicans at Tuesday's hearing, saying, "They did a horrible job."

"They took this woman as if she was a good-faith actor and allowed her unquestioned, basically, to spread misinformation that is entirely designed to shut off conservative voices in purveying any information in this country," Holmes said. 

"This entire whistleblower process is a Trojan horse to silence conservative voices. And it's the media in this Democratic dark money universe that is the undercurrent behind all of this because they know two things," Duncan responded. "No. 1, conservatives do better online, right? The Big Three broadcast channels, cable news, the corporate media they control can set us aside and can set the narrative. Our only way of breaking through that narrative is with the internet, right? And so if they can try to Trojan horse this whistleblower into the United States Senate and convince these Republican senators, 'Oh, actually, Facebook's the problem,' then they're gonna have us do their work for them."

WHISTLEBLOWER SAYS FACEBOOK IS A US 'NATIONAL SECURITY ISSUE'

Smug stressed that "this is about business," pointing to how so-called "disinformation" reporters attempt to gin up outrage over how the top 10 most-viewed Facebook posts are often dominated by conservatives. 

"All the left-wing corporate media is basically like, 'Oh, conservatives are getting the most-viewed posts. We should attack Facebook. Make sure they're not heard,'" Smug said.

"These people are the most undemocratic people in our politics," Duncan declared. 

"And this is why I was so upset about what Senate Republicans did at this hearing yesterday, because first of all, if you ever have a congressional hearing where the Sunday before is previewed by ‘60 Minutes,’ hold on to your wallet," Holmes said. "Hold on to your wallet because whatever that is, it is entirely designed by a left-wing ecosystem and a corporate media to try to purvey its own sense of misinformation about whatever's to come."

Video

 

Holmes railed against Haugen for attempting to connect Facebook's shutdown of its election integrity division following the 2020 presidential election to the Jan. 6 riot, saying, "That's her entire framework for why she's in this discussion now."

"She goes on to say all of these things about Instagram and child safety and research issues, but it's worth pointing out at no point did she ever work at Instagram or Facebook on any of those issues," Holmes added. 

Duncan said he welcomed a "national discussion" about the impact technology and social media have on kids, but called what is taking place a "sleight of hand."

The hosts blasted the media and Big Tech over the spread of real misinformation like the whipping narrative that was pushed at the southern border last month.

"I'm tired of it. I'm tired of it," Holmes said. "We need to get the senators and congressmen on Capitol Hill to wake up because the left is trying to literally turn off the microphone to every conservative outlet in America. And if you don't start understanding this, and if you don't start pushing back and playing some offense, let alone good defense, we're gonna be in a world of trouble."

 

Joseph A. Wulfsohn is a media reporter for Fox News. Follow him on Twitter @JosephWulfsohn.

Source:https://www.foxnews.com/media/ruthless-podcast-facebook-whistleblower-frances-haugen-trojan-horse

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Islamic/Arab terrorists bite the hands that feed them - Yoram Ettinger

 

by Yoram Ettinger

Hat tip: Jenny Grigg 

"Confidence-building" gestures have a dismal history of achieving the opposite of the desired result.

The extension of US gestures and concessions to Islamic terrorists, and the waiving of a US military option while negotiating with Iran's regime of terror, are perceived as weakness by terrorists, adversaries and allies of the US. 

Such a policy ignores, or takes lightly, the objective and well-documented 1,400 year old past track record of Islamic terrorism, while emphasizing the subjective and speculative future track record of terrorists.

Such a policy erodes the US posture of deterrence, which is a prerequisite to the minimization of global turbulence, undermining US interests in the international arena, while bringing the threat of Islamic terrorism closer to the US mainland.

Such a policy is based on the assumption that Islamic terrorism is driven by despair, and the need to dwell on the despair (diplomatically and economically) rather than dealing with terrorism (militarily). However, Islamic terrorism has been driven – since the 7^th century – by the imperialistic religious vision to establish a universal Islamic society, dominating the world and subordinating the "infidel" to Islam, peacefully or militarily.

Such a policy is based on the assumption that Islamic terrorism is driven by US policy. However, Islamic terrorism has haunted the US since the late 18th century, during Democratic and Republican Administrations (e.g., the Obama and Trump Administrations).
For example:

*During the 1980s, it was US diplomatic, financial and military assistance which enabled the Mujahideen to drive the USSR out of Afghanistan. But, Mujahideen-related Islamic terrorists reacted in an anti-US terrorist offensive, which has persisted since 1996, culminating on September 11, 2001.

*In 2015, the US engineered the nuclear accord with Iran's Ayatollahs (the JCPOA), which generated a mega-billion dollar bonanza to Iran's treasury, in addition to unprecedented diplomatic benefits. But, Iran's Ayatollahs reacted by vastly bolstering their role as a regional and global epicenter of subversion, terrorism, civil wars, the proliferation of ballistic capabilities and drug trafficking in the Persian Gulf, the Middle East, Central Asia, Africa, Europe, South and Central America, emerging as a leading threat to regional and global stability, in general, and US national and homeland security, in particular.

*In 2011, the US engineered a US-led NATO military offensive against Libya's Qadhafi, playing the key role in the toppling of the Qadhafi's regime by Islamic terrorists. But, in 2012, the Islamic terrorists took over the US Consulate General and the CIA compound in Benghazi, lynched the US Ambassador and three more Americans, and transformed Libya into a major platform of regional and global anti-US Islamic terrorism.

*In 1978/79, the US played a most essential role in the toppling of the Shah of Iran ("America's policeman in the Gulf") by Ayatollah Khomeini. But, the Ayatollas reacted by taking over the US Embassy, holding 63 American hostages for 444 days, and emerging as a key threat to regional and global stability, including threatening vital US interests abroad and on US soil.

*In 1982/83, the US sent its soldiers to Lebanon, in order to slow down Israel's military pursuit of Palestinian terrorists. But in 1983, Palestinian and Islamic terrorists truck-bombed the US Embassy and Marines headquarters in Lebanon, murdering 250 Americans.

*In 1993 and 2005, Israel made unprecedented concessions – which no Arab country ever did - by extending Palestinian Authority to major parts of Judea and Samaria (the West Bank) and the Gaza Strip, importing some 100,000 Palestinian terrorists from Tunisia, Lebanon, Yemen and the Sudan to areas which are critical to the existence of the Jewish State. The reaction by the PLO (Palestinian Authority) and Hamas to the unprecedented concessions has been an unprecedented wave of anti-Israel terrorism and hate-education, which reflect the Palestinian vision of eliminating the Jewish State.

*In the 1950s, 1960s, 1970s and 1990, Egypt, Syria, Jordan, Lebanon and Kuwait extended Palestinian authority on their ground, triggering Palestinian terrorism against their generous hosts, culminating in Arafat's and Mahmoud Abbas' collaboration with Saddam Hussein's 1990 invasion of Kuwait. Hence, the Arab view of Palestinians as role model of intra-Arab subversion, terrorism and ingratitude. Therefore, the wide gap between the pro-Palestinian Arab talk and the anti-Palestinian Arab walk, as demonstrated by the actual opposition of pro-US Arab regimes to the establishment of a Palestinian state, which they assume would be another rogue entity, fueling further turbulence in the Middle East.

Against the backdrop of the aforementioned developments, one should not subordinate the reality of Islamic/Arab/Palestinian terrorism to well-intentioned oversimplification, lest it erodes the US posture of deterrence,  which would play into the hands of Iran's Ayatollahs, the Muslim Brotherhood (the largest Sunni Muslim terror network from India through the Middle East, North Africa, Europe and the USA), the Taliban, Al Qaeda, Hezbollah, Hamas, and the Palestinian Authority, as well as Pakistan, Turkey, China and Russia.

Unlike the post WW2 German population, which was ready – historically, culturally, ideologically, politically and educationally – to accept democracy, peaceful-coexistence and human rights, the Islamic/Arab Middle East is not susceptible to these Western values and institutions, persisting in their 1,400 year old intra-Arab and intra-Muslim subversion, terrorism and wars, irrespective of US policy.

The assumption that Islamic/Arab/Palestinian terrorists will accord the Western/Israeli "infidel" that which they have yet to accord to one another – peaceful coexistence – is premature and divorced from reality.

Therefore, it behooves Western democracies, in general, and the US, in particular, to enhance their military posture of deterrence and pursue peace-through-strength rather than peace-through-gestures, concessions and retreats.

 

Yoram Ettinger

Source: https://bit.ly/30aDayw

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Biden administration ups pressure on Israel to crack down on China - Yaakov Katz, Lahav Harkov

  by Yaakov Katz, Lahav Harkov

Defense officials call on Bennett to head new panel to screen Beijing’s investments in Israel as gov’t stalls on rail tenders.

 

PRIME MINISTER Naftali Bennett and US President Joe Biden chat in the Oval Office last week.

(photo credit: JONATHAN ERNST / REUTERS)

Biden administration officials spoke with National Security Advisor Eyal Hulata about the threats posed by Chinese investments in major infrastructure and hi-tech in Israel when he visited Washington this week.

 

The American officials encouraged Israel to establish a more robust screening system for foreign investments.

 

Senior Israeli defense officials have also recommended that Prime Minister Naftali Bennett establish a new committee to oversee foreign investments in Israel, in light of China’s numerous bids on Israeli infrastructure and technology.

 

The new committee, which the officials have suggested be led by the prime minister, would replace an existing committee that falls under the Finance Ministry, but is voluntary and does not cover core areas in which China invests.

Liberman presents the budget for 2021-2022 at a Knesset meeting on Thursday, September 2, 2021. (credit: MARC ISRAEL SELLEM)

The Prime Minister’s Office has yet to make a decision on the matter, but the recommendation comes as the government continues to stall on announcing the winner of the tender to build the Tel Aviv Light Rail’s new Green and Purple Lines. The NTA Metropolitan Mass Transit System, the government-funded company responsible for the design and construction of the transit system, has been dragging its feet in making a final decision.

 

Earlier this week, Egged, Israel’s largest transit company, announced the winners of a tender to buy 200 electric buses in April. All three companies that won would be supplying buses made in China.

 

The officials who have recommended the establishment of the new committee include top officers in the IDF and the Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency) who are concerned over two possible consequences of the continued Chinese penetration of Israel’s economy.

 

The first concern is that if China continues to win tenders and build infrastructure, Jerusalem’s ties with Washington will fray and lead to tension with Israel’s most important ally. The second concern is that China could use the infrastructure for espionage activities inside and against Israel.

 

The winner of the Tel Aviv Light Rail tender was originally scheduled to be announced in June.

 

Most of the groups competing for the multibillion-dollar deal include Chinese companies. While the government officially says it has not opened the envelopes to review the bids, a source with knowledge of the matter said the government contacted one of the groups to ask why its price was so much lower than the others.

 

One of them includes the China Railway Construction Company. One of its subsidiaries, the China Civil Engineering Construction Corp., dug the Gilon Tunnel in the North in 2014 at a cost of about $200 million, worked as a subcontractor on the Carmel Tunnel project for about $150m. in 2010 and for the last couple of years has been working on the Tel Aviv Light Rail’s Red Line to the tune of $500m.

 

President Joe Biden issued an executive order in June banning these companies from receiving any US investment due to suspected ties to the Chinese defense industry.

 

Government officials have voiced concern that if the Chinese are nixed from the tender it could lead to a major crisis with Beijing and see China cut economic relations with Israel. On the other hand, if China does win the tender, the news could strain relations with the Biden administration, which could turn tense in the coming months amid a continued pursuit of a nuclear deal with Iran and the White House’s declared intention to open a consulate for Palestinians in east Jerusalem.

 

The committee proposed by the defense officials would sit under the National Security Council, headed today by Hulata, who Bennett appointed to the role in July. Hulata was in Washington this week as part of a large interagency delegation that held talks with US counterparts led by Biden’s National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan.

 

The committee, if approved, would replace the one former prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu established in 2019 to vet foreign investments. That committee includes senior representatives from the Treasury, Defense Ministry and National Security Council, as well as observers from the Foreign Ministry, Economics Ministry and the National Economic Council.

 

Referral for a recommendation from the committee comes from various regulatory bodies.

The Prime Minister’s Office declined to comment on the matter.

 

In response to a query, the NTA on Thursday said a decision on the tender would be announced “soon” and after the different bids are reviewed. The tender “was one of the largest and most complex ever done in Israel,” it said.

 

Carice Witte, executive director of SIGNAL (Sino-Israel Global Network & Academic Leadership), which studies China-Israel ties, said: “It is very smart to rethink the review committee, to take into consideration critical developments and new factors that could impact Israel’s long-term national security.”

 

“A well-fashioned committee could prevent delays like the one we’re experiencing now with the light rail,” she said, adding that the delay on the light rail is due to government offices not being properly versed in the relevant issues.

 

Bennett opposed past attempts to restrict investments from China before he was prime minister.

 

Yaakov Katz, Lahav Harkov

Source: https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/biden-administration-ups-pressure-on-israel-to-crack-down-on-china-681379

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Iran Regime's Hostage Taking: Where Are the West and the UN? - Majid Rafizadeh

 

by Majid Rafizadeh

Instead of appeasing the Iranian regime and turning a blind eye to its human rights violations, the West needs to hold the ruling mullahs of Iran accountable for detaining foreign nationals as hostages, bargaining chips and as pawns with which to extract political and economic concessions.

• In the hope of resurrecting the disastrous Iran nuclear deal and subsequently lifting sanctions on the ruling mullahs of Iran, the Biden administration and the European Union have been silent on the fates of foreign hostages kept in Iran's notorious prisons.

• Among the current foreign citizens currently held hostage in Iran is Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, a British mother.... Amid the ongoing nuclear talks between the Iranian regime and world powers, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps court sentenced her to yet another year in prison in April 2021.

• American citizens held as prisoners in Iran include Iranian-Americans Baquer and Siamak Namazi, Morad Tahbaz, and businessman and conservationist Emad Shargi. Shargi's family has pleaded with the Biden administration to help free him.

• Instead of appeasing the Iranian regime and turning a blind eye to its human rights violations, the West needs to hold the ruling mullahs of Iran accountable for detaining foreign nationals as hostages, bargaining chips and as pawns with which to extract political and economic concessions.

Among the current foreign citizens currently held hostage in Iran is Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, a British mother, who, along with her then-22-month-old daughter, traveled to Iran in 2016 to visit her family for Nowruz, and was arrested as she was about to board a plane to return home to the UK. Pictured: Richard and Gabriella Ratcliffe, the husband and daughter Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliff, during a news conference in London on October 11, 2019. (Photo by Daniel Leal-Olivas/AFP via Getty Images)

In the hope of resurrecting the disastrous Iran nuclear deal (Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action) and subsequently lifting sanctions on the ruling mullahs of Iran, the Biden administration and the European Union have been silent on the fates of foreign hostages kept in Iran's notorious prisons.

Some of the foreign hostages in Iran come from Western countries, including the United States, France, Canada, Germany, the United Kingdom, and Australia.

Among the current foreign citizens currently held hostage in Iran is Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, a British mother, who, along with her then-22-month-old daughter, traveled to Iran in 2016 to visit her family for Nowruz, the Iranian New Year, after the nuclear deal had been reached and sanctions against the Islamic Republic had been lifted. As she was about to board a plane to return home to the UK, she was surrounded by officials of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and arrested.

Amid the ongoing nuclear talks between the Iranian regime and world powers, the IRGC's court sentenced her to yet another year in prison in April 2021.

American citizens held as prisoners in Iran include Iranian-Americans Baquer and Siamak Namazi, Morad Tahbaz, and businessman and conservationist Emad Shargi. Shargi's family has pleaded with the Biden administration to help free him. "Our family has been torn apart. My husband has been taken," his wife, Bahareh Shargi, told "Face the Nation" moderator Margaret Brennan. Shargi's daughter, Hannah, said:

"The image I'm just working towards is having him walk through our front door. Like, that is all I want. And that is what I dream about... him coming home, walking through the door, like, surprising us. And then I wake up, and it's, of course, a dream."

Imprisoning foreign nationals is generally under the control of Iran's hardline judiciary system. The head of the judiciary, also known as the Chief Justice of Iran, is directly appointed by Iran's Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. The judiciary system, in other words, requires the Supreme Leader's approval to make decisions about foreign prisoners and hostages.

It is no secret that Iranian authorities use foreign citizens as bargaining chips and pawns for extracting economic concessions or receiving political and financial gains, as well as to swap prisoners. This has been the policy of the theocratic establishment since the Islamic Revolution in 1979, starting on the first day of the establishment of the Islamic Republic with the US Embassy takeover in Tehran and 52 Americans being held hostage for 444 days.

The regime releases hostages only when it has achieved its political, economic and ideological objectives. The Obama administration, for example, transferred $1.7 billion in cash to Iran in exchange for releasing several Iranian-American citizens.

Currently, the regime most likely sees foreign nationals held in its detention as a powerful means of leverage to gain an upper hand in any nuclear talks.

Foreign nationals are also held in extremely difficult conditions. They generally have no access to due process, are routinely denied a lawyer, and are often held in solitary confinement. According to the Human Rights Watch report for 2021:

"Iranian courts, and particularly revolutionary courts, regularly fall far short of providing fair trials and use confessions likely obtained under torture as evidence in court. Authorities have failed to meaningfully investigate numerous allegations of torture against detainees. Authorities routinely restrict detainees' access to legal counsel, particularly during the initial investigation period.

"The IRGC's Intelligence Organization continues to arrest Iranian dual and foreign nationals on vague charges, such as 'cooperating with a hostile state.'"

Recently, a hacking group calling itself Edalat-e Ali (Ali's Justice) leaked videos of Iran's prisons, some of which revealed abuse, including beatings and unspeakable treatment of detainees carried out by the authorities at the notorious Evin Prison, where political prisoners are held. "We will continue to expose the oppression," that the Iranian government is "inflicting on people," the group said.

Instead of appeasing the Iranian regime and turning a blind eye to its human rights violations, the West needs to hold the ruling mullahs of Iran accountable for detaining foreign nationals as hostages, bargaining chips and as pawns with which to extract political and economic concessions.

• Follow Majid Rafizadeh on Twitter

 

Dr. Majid Rafizadeh is a business strategist and advisor, Harvard-educated scholar, political scientist, board member of Harvard International Review, and president of the International American Council on the Middle East. He has authored several books on Islam and US foreign policy. He can be reached at Dr.Rafizadeh@Post.Harvard.Edu

Source: https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/17842/iran-western-hostages

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Nobel Prize in Physics awarded for making ‘guess’ about climate - Anthony Watts

 

by Anthony Watts

[T]he bottom line is climate models then and now still don’t provide a certain answer as to how much warming will occur, because scientists still haven’t been able to nail down the single most important variable known as “climate sensitivity.”

This past week, Syukuro Manabe, Klaus Hasselmann, and Giorgio Parisi were awarded the 2021 Nobel Prize in Physics for research that led to early computer models of the Earth's climate. On the face of it, some people might think this is a grand achievement. In reality, unlike many Nobel-worthy accomplishments that are based on hard data or newly known processes, this one was simply a guess. Incredibly, we still don’t have an answer, more than 60 years later.

As the BBC reports,

“It is incredibly difficult to predict the long-term behaviour of complex physical systems such as the climate. Computer models that anticipate how it will respond to rising greenhouse gas emissions have therefore been crucial for understanding global warming as a planetary emergency.”

The Associated Press reported on Manabe’s work, saying, “…other climate scientists called his 1967 paper with the late Richard Wetherald “the most influential climate paper ever.” Manabe’s Princeton colleague, Tom Delworth, called Manabe “the Michael Jordan of climate.”

CNN reported,

“Manabe… harnessed the calculating power of early computers and applied it to climate. In the late 1960s, his climate circulation model was on a computer that occupied a whole room and only had half a megabyte of memory. After hundreds of hours of testing, the model showed that carbon dioxide had a clear impact -- when the level of carbon dioxide doubled, global temperature increased by over 2°C.”

Glowing reviews, crude early calculations, and wild claims of a “planetary emergency” aside, the bottom line is climate models then and now still don’t provide a certain answer as to how much warming will occur, because scientists still haven’t been able to nail down the single most important variable known as “climate sensitivity.”

As referenced in Climate at a Glance: Climate Sensitivity, for decades, scientists have debated the effect of climate sensitivity, due to the uncertain nature of climate feedback in various models.

Declaring future predictions of global warming “settled science” requires a fairly precise calculation of future temperatures. However, since climate sensitivity was first identified more than 40 years ago, scientists and climate models have produced a very broad range of potential future temperature patterns. Estimates in peer-reviewed studies range from 0.8°C warming to almost 6.0°C warming by 2100.

Such a large range of uncertainty means climate model temperature projections remain dubious, at best. This means that no matter if your climate model is a crude rendition running on an ancient computer, or a new supercomputer that can perform billions of calculations per second if you don’t have the actual value of climate sensitivity to use in the equations, your end result will always be a guess.

If climate scientists don’t understand the Earth’s atmosphere well enough to nail down a true climate sensitivity estimate for increased carbon dioxide emissions, how can we trust climate model projections of future warming that rely on such an uncertain value?

And that’s what we have -- an unanswered guess that was given a Nobel Prize. Physicist Lubos Motls didn’t mince words when he wrote of the award on his website:

 “But even if the two men deserved such an award, which they don't, it is absolutely unforgivable how the prize was justified. It was justified by buzzwords (I especially mean the nonsensical superstitious phrase "global warming") that are almost identical like those in the justification of the Nobel Prize in Peace for pure scammers such as Al Gore. In this way, the Nobel Prize has committed suicide and I don't want to hear about it again. The political motivation of this prize is 100% obvious.”

“Award-winning” science deserves something better than guesses that stem from political motivations. We deserve better because politicians are using these guesses to justify upending our way of life, returning us to the dark ages of energy poverty.

Anthony Watts is a senior fellow for environment and climate at The Heartland Institute.

Image: PxFuel

 

Anthony Watts

Source: https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2021/10/nobel_prize_in_physics_awarded_for_making_guess_about_climate.html

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Revolution Has Come to America - Caroline Glick

 

by Caroline Glick

And now, with the Biden administration firmly ensconced in power, they move forward with their revolution with the firm backing of the state, and its weapons of repression and criminalization.

 

How does a nation lose its freedom? One way, of course is through foreign conquest. History is filled with examples of nations being subjugated and enslaved by foreign tyranny.

Today, in the United States, Americans are not losing their liberty to a foreign power, but to domestic revolutionaries. The revolutionaries are willing to use force, as they showed in the summer of 2020 when they burned and looted their way through U.S. cities. But generally speaking, their weapon is not the gun or the jackboot, but demonization and intimidation. And now, with the Biden administration firmly ensconced in power, they move forward with their revolution with the firm backing of the state, and its weapons of repression and criminalization.

Last month the revolutionaries and the administration converged before the cameras at meeting between Vice President Kamala Harris and students at George Mason University in Virginia.

A female student with the voice of a child used her audience with Harris as an opportunity to promote the revolution’s vicious hatred of Jews, and of America. She sniffed emotionally under her mask and told America’s second highest elected official that her feelings were hurt when Congress passed a bill for supplemental funding to Israel’s Iron Dome anti-missile system. The move, she yowled, “hurts my heart because it’s an ethnic genocide and a displacement of people, the same that happened in America, and I’m sure you’re aware of this.”

Harris might have been expected to call the student out for promoting anti-Semitic and anti-American blood libels. But she didn’t. Instead, Harris empowered the young bigot. She said she was “glad” the student shared her views. “This is about the fact that your voice, your perspective, your experience, your truth, should not be suppressed and it must be heard, right? And one of the things we’re fighting for in a democracy, right?”

There are two ways to understand Harris’s behavior, and they can both be true at the same time. It’s possible that Harris was intimidated. She didn’t want to get into a confrontation with a delicate crybully who talked about her hurting heart. Telling off whiny revolutionaries doesn’t film well. In fact, more often than not, it leads to one’s cancellation in society.

Consider the plight of Prof. Dorian Abbot. A renowned geophysicist at University of Chicago, Abbot was invited to present MIT’s prestigious Carlson lecture later this month. But when word got out that Abbot was coming to campus, the revolutionaries at MIT demanded it be rescinded.

It works out that Abbot is guilty of expressing wrong thoughts. He opposes academic discrimination of white students on the basis of their skin color. Like Harris, MIT administrators decided it would be better to give in to the revolutionary mob than to stand up for their students’ right to learn from Abbot.

The wrongthink mobs who reign supreme in most U.S. campuses have spread their tentacles to the political realm. This week, revolutionaries in Arizona hounded moderate Democrat Senator Kyrsten Sinema in a public bathroom. They chastised and threatened her while she sat in a stall, and as she washed her hands in the sink. Sinema was deemed deserving of hectoring in the ladies’ room because she opposes the revolutionaries’ $3.5 trillion social engineering budget for 2022. 

The second reason Harris may have decided to support the George Mason’s student’s slander of Israel and America is because it is likely that she really liked what the student was saying. This brings us to what the revolution is about and to the Biden-Harris administration’s position on its goals.

As Barack Obama said after winning the 2008 presidential election, the purpose of the revolution is to “fundamentally transform the United States of America.” The doctrine that stands at the heart of the revolution is critical race theory.  As CRT researcher Christopher Rufo of the Manhattan Institute has written, “Critical race theorists believe that American institutions, such as the Constitution and legal system, preach freedom and equality, but are mere “camouflages” for naked racial domination. They believe that racism is a constant, universal condition.”

Rufo continued, “Critical race theory reformulates the old Marxist dichotomy of oppressor and oppressed, replacing the class categories of bourgeoisie and proletariat with the identity categories of White and Black. But the basic conclusion is the same: in order to liberate man, society must be fundamentally transformed through moral, economic, and political revolution.”

In early 2020, Rufo exposed that the federal government, including government departments and agencies as well as the U.S. armed forces were requiring their employees and servicemen to undergo CRT workshops and seminars. Participants in the seminars were separated by race. White participants were required to acknowledge and disavow their “whiteness,” that is, their inherent racism, and apologize to non-whites and commit themselves to empowering their non-white colleagues at their own expense, since, they were told, as white people, they were inherently oppressors.

Rufo’s revelations caused an uproar. Then president Donald Trump reacted by issuing an executive order banning CRT training from the federal government and the armed forces.

Trump’s executive order was one of the first policies Biden overturned. Biden cancelled Trump’s executive order on his first day in office. In the days and months that have followed, his administration has reinstated and expanded CRT indoctrination.

Since early this year, the center of gravity in the fight against the CRT revolution moved from the government to the classroom. Rufo and others exposed how under the cover of fighting racism, local school boards from coast to coast have been transforming K-12 classrooms into CRT indoctrination centers. Kindergarten children are taught that their gender is not fixed, but fluid. Tales of hardcore communist, anti-American, anti-white and anti-police indoctrination have abounded across America. For example, fifth graders in a Philadelphia elementary school were forced to celebrate “Black communism.” Kindergarteners in Buffalo, New York were taught that “all white people” are racists and forced to watch a video of dead black children. They were warned of “racist police and state-sanctioned violence” that placed their lives in constant jeopardy.

Parents saw the indoctrination first hand due to the school shutdowns over the past year and a half in response to the Covid-19 pandemic. As the schoolrooms moved into the homes through Zoom, American parents saw their children’s teachers demonize police and teach them to hate their country, judge people by their skin color, and reject the values at the heart of the American experience. The backlash has been profound.

Over the spring and summer, thousands of concerned parents countrywide began attending school board meetings and demanding that the indoctrination stop and CRT curricula be withdrawn. Videos of the meetings, and the invariably dismissive and hostile responses parents received from school board members were seen by tens of millions of people. In Virginia, which as been a focal point of the struggle, parents have been subjected to arrest for trying to protect their children from CRT.

Two weeks ago, the CRT revolutionaries opened their counter assault on the parents. At a gubernatorial debate in Virginia September 28, former governor and current Democrat candidate Terry McAuliffe said that parents have no right to interfere with school curriculum.

“I’m not going to let parents come into schools and actually take books out and make their own decisions,” he said, adding, “I don’t think parents should be telling schools what they should teach.”

The next day, the National School Boards Association shot off a letter to Biden asking him to direct his administration to treat the protesting parents as “domestic terrorists.”

And this week, Attorney General Merrick Garland issued a memo to the FBI Director and federal prosecutors effectively ordering them to fulfill the NSBA’s request.

Garland’s memo was directed at parents no less than to federal law enforcement officials. And his message was clear: If you object to CRT indoctrination in the classroom, the federal government will treat you like terrorists. You will lose everything. Under the circumstances, how many parents will be willing to continue the fight for their children’s American souls?

This returns us to the student at George Mason. The anti-American and anti-Semitic lies she propounded to Harris were not her lies. They were the lies she has been taught by the CRT revolutionaries in the classroom. They taught her that the U.S. was born not in liberty, but in slavery, racism and genocide. She has been taught that the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, the Civil War and the Civil Rights Act were all fig leaves behind which the true venality of America operates and carries out its oppressive, genocidal and racist machinations. There is no forgiveness for America’s crimes. Only the revolution, which will “fundamentally transform the United States” can fix what is ailing Uncle Sam.

Likewise, the Jewish state, America’s mini-me can only be redeemed when the “colonialist Jewish settlers” and their “genocidal,” “Apartheid” regime are kicked out of “Palestine.”

Consistent polling data show that between two thirds and three quarters of Americans oppose the inclusion of CRT in school curricula. But the revolutionaries don’t care. They don’t need the public’s approval with the FBI, the U.S. attorneys, the President and the Vice President on their side and placing the full force of the federal government behind their efforts.

Americans are not losing their liberty to invading armies from China or Russia, or even to terrorists from al Qaeda. Those enemies are all sitting on the side, eating popcorn and watching as the combined force of CRT revolutionaries and the federal government trample the rights and freedoms that have defined America since its founding, in favor of “their voice, their perspective, their experience and their truth.”

Originally published in Israel Hayom.

 

Caroline Glick

Source: https://carolineglick.com/revolution-has-come-to-america/

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Turkey's Airstrikes in Syria, Iraq - Uzay Bulut

 

by Uzay Bulut

The same Turkish government that claims to counter "terrorism" through its fight against the Kurdish PKK has supported ISIS in the region for years.

• Turkey appears to be maneuvering to expand an Islamic state in Syria and Iraq.

• The same Turkish government that claims to counter "terrorism" through its fight against the Kurdish PKK has supported ISIS in the region for years.

• "The ability of ISIS to become a functioning state so quickly is largely due to its relationship with President Erdoğan in Turkey." — Dr. Mordechai Kedar, BESA Center, October 11, 2020.

• The Turkish government -- a member of NATO -- clearly seems to feel itself on a jihadist roll.

On August 17, in Iraq, the Turkish military carried out an airstrike on a hospital in Sinjar Province, where the Yazidi minority had already been victim of a genocide in 2014 at the hands of ISIS. The raid, consisting of three drone strikes, "totally destroyed" the makeshift hospital in the village of Sekaina. A doctor in Sinjar said that at least three people had been killed and five others wounded. Pictured: An Anka drone in the service of the Turkish military, 8.6 meters long and with a wingspan of 17.6 meters, in a hanger in Ankara on March 5, 2021. (Photo by Adem Altan/AFP via Getty Images)

Since the Taliban's violent takeover of Afghanistan on August 15, Turkey has increased its expansionist military activities in the Middle East in a way that is significantly impacting the lives of minorities.

Turkey appears to be maneuvering to expand an Islamic state in Syria and Iraq.

Turkey has so far been using its fight against the PKK (Kurdistan Workers' Party) as an excuse to justify its military aggression, destruction and casualties of persecuted minorities. Among those communities affected by Turkish military actions in Iraq and Syria are Yazidis, Assyrians and Kurds -- communities previously targeted by ISIS and al-Qaeda.

On August 17, in Iraq, the Turkish military carried out an airstrike on a hospital in Sinjar Province, where the Yazidi minority had already been victim of a genocide in 2014 at the hands of ISIS.

The raid, consisting of three drone strikes, "totally destroyed" the makeshift hospital in the village of Sekaina. A doctor in Sinjar said that at least three people had been killed and five others wounded. A senior Iraqi army officer told AFP that the raid had been carried out by Turkey's military. Another Turkish air strike on August 16 targeted and killed a senior Yazidi leader, Hassan Saeed.

Assyrian Christians, another persecuted indigenous minority in Iraq, are also suffering from Turkish airstrikes. In a 2021 report , "Caught in the Crossfire: Assyrians and the Turkey-PKK Conflict in Iraq," by the Assyrian Policy Institute, reported:

"Turkish strikes in northern Iraq have caused irreparable and costly damage to civilian properties and agricultural lands... The destruction to private property and farmland caused by Turkish airstrikes effectively robs Assyrian farmers of their livelihoods and immediately threatens their ability to stay in their homes and villages."

Meanwhile, Turkey's military is targeting northern Syria, where the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) and its Kurdish component, the People's Protection Units (YPG), previously fought against ISIS.

Also in August, the Turkish military conducted bombardments in Al-Hasakah Province; once again Turkey used the PKK to justify targeting civilians and US allies. One child was killed and five other civilians were wounded in the bombardment, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. The next day, 13 rockets hit the Afrin city center, killing three people and wounding four others. In another airstrike that killed four members of the SDF, the Turkish military targeted Tel Tamir's Military Council base. Sosin Birhat, one of the SDF casualties, had previously joined meetings with top US military officials and diplomats, the pro-government Turkish newspaper Sabah noted.

Amy Austin Holmes, a public policy fellow at the Woodrow Wilson Center for Scholars, has challenged Turkey's version of events:

"First, Turkey justified its 2018 and 2019 interventions in Syria by claiming the presence of the SDF/YPG along its southern border constituted a grave threat. But my analysis of data from the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project indicates the opposite is closer to the truth. Between January 2017 and August 2020, Turkey and Turkish-backed forces carried out 3,319 attacks against the SDF/YPG or civilians. By contrast, the SDF/YPG carried out 22 cross-border attacks into Turkey. Turkish officials claim their attacks against the SDF/YPG were tit-for-tat. But that is mathematically impossible.

"Second, after signing the U.S.-brokered ceasefire agreement in Syria in October 2019, Turkey promised to safeguard civilians and religious and ethnic minorities. However, Yazidis, Christians and Kurds have fled in droves from the Turkish-occupied areas of Syria. Data I analyzed showed that Turkey and Turkish-backed militias violated the U.S. ceasefire agreement over 800 times in the first year after it was signed. The Assyrian Christian region of Tel Tamer was targeted every single month.

"Finally, I led a research project that analyzed the impact of Turkish airstrikes on Yazidis in Sinjar. Data-mining from five different sources, we found that Turkey had hit Sinjar with strikes every single year for the past five years. Turkish military activity is a major impediment to recovery. In the month of July alone, 472 Yazidis who tried to return to Sinjar to rebuild their lives ended up relocating back to camps for internally displaced people.

"As these examples illustrate, Turkish claims about "anti-PKK" operations need to be fact-checked."

The same Turkish government that claims to counter "terrorism" through its fight against the Kurdish PKK has supported ISIS in the region for years. According to Dr. Mordechai Kedar:

"2014 marked the year when ISIS became a very real threat to the Middle East. Within one year, the group managed to take over a third of Iraq and half of Syria, with 200,000 fighters under its control....

"The ability of ISIS to become a functioning state so quickly is largely due to its relationship with President Erdoğan in Turkey.

"ISIS has had strong connections to Turkey over the years, whether through its oil industry or through its willingness to shield wanted members of the Muslim Brotherhood. This 'neighborly' relationship was essential to ISIS's success, and it continues to be reflected in Turkish decision making.

"Turkey has been ruled by Erdoğan since 2002. He is a vocal supporter of the Muslim Brotherhood, a movement that seeks to establish a worldwide Islamic caliphate that applies Islamic sharia law.

"Not only did President Erdoğan never launch any counterterror operations to disrupt ISIS's networks or recruitment activities, but he provided it with assistance."

International Christian Concern has reported that Turkey's expansionist foreign policy has significantly declined religious freedoms in the region, making persecuted minorities even more vulnerable:

"Countries previously part of Turkey's former Ottoman Empire, and countries with a significant Muslim population, are specifically targeted... Turkey has leveraged those religious freedom issues of neighboring countries for Turkey's own benefit, at the expense of the local population.

"In short, Turkey's military expansionism has had the impact of exploiting people, exporting persecution, and enabling the perpetrators to commit even more egregious actions. If this is how Turkey treats vulnerable communities outside of its own borders, then how much more so within."

The Turkish government -- a member of NATO -- clearly seems to feel itself on a jihadist roll.

 

Uzay Bulut, a Turkish journalist, is a Distinguished Senior Fellow at the Gatestone Institute.

Source: https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/17839/turkey-airstrikes-syria-iraq

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