Iran's Mullahs Score Nuclear Victory - Majid Rafizadeh

 

by Majid Rafizadeh

The Biden administration has yet to take any tangible action to prevent Iran from becoming a nuclear state...

• After agreeing to extend the monitoring mechanism of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) by reinstalling surveillance cameras a year ago, Iran then announced that it would not allow the IAEA to see images from the devices.

• The Iranian regime is also refusing to answer the IAEA's questions about uranium particles found at three clandestine and undeclared nuclear sites in Iran.

• Nevertheless, the Biden administration has yet to take any tangible action to prevent Iran from becoming a nuclear state...

• The Iranian regime has also been setting up weapons factories abroad, and manufacturing ballistic missiles and weapons -- include precision-guided missiles with advanced technology -- to strike specific targets in other countries, including in Syria.

• If the Biden administration would eliminate Iran's nuclear weapons, the move would not only spare the world from yet another ruthless regime that acts despotically at home and abroad; it would also immediately send Biden's poll numbers soaring.

The Biden Administration is sitting idly by while Iran's ruling mullahs continue to advance their nuclear program. The International Atomic Energy Agency announced last month that Iran now has enough enriched uranium to build a nuclear bomb. (Image source: iStock)

The Biden Administration is sitting idly by while Iran's ruling mullahs continue to advance their nuclear program.

For almost a year and half, the P5+1 (the US, UK, France, Russia and China, plus Germany) have held fruitless negotiations with Iran, all while the Islamic Republic's theocratic establishment has clearly succeeded at speeding up its nuclear program by increasing its uranium enrichment from 20% to 60%, conducting uranium metal production, and adding additional advanced centrifuges. After agreeing to extend the monitoring mechanism of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) by reinstalling surveillance cameras a year ago, Iran then announced that it would not allow the IAEA to see images from the devices.

Most importantly, the IAEA announced last month that Iran now has enough enriched uranium to build a nuclear bomb.

The Iranian regime is also refusing to answer the IAEA's questions about uranium particles found at three clandestine and undeclared nuclear sites in Iran. The IAEA stated:

"Iran has not provided explanations that are technically credible in relation to the Agency's findings at those locations... The Agency remains ready to engage without delay with Iran to resolve all of these matters."

The Institute for Science and International Security warned in November 2021:

"Iran has enough enriched uranium hexafluoride (UF6) in the form of near 20 and 60 percent enriched uranium to produce enough weapon-grade uranium (WGU), taken here as 25 kilograms (kg), for a single nuclear weapon in as little as three weeks. It could do so without using any of its stock of uranium enriched up to 5 percent as feedstock. The growth of Iran's stocks of near 20 and 60 percent enriched uranium has dangerously reduced breakout timelines."

Nevertheless, the Biden administration has yet to take any tangible action to prevent Iran from becoming a nuclear state in spite of these critical reports, and even though a joint statement issued by the UK, France and Germany acknowledged that "Iran has no credible civilian need for uranium metal R&D and production, which are a key step in the development of a nuclear weapon."

The Biden administration would do well to understand that if the Islamic Republic becomes a nuclear state, there is the dangerous likelihood of nuclear weapons falling into the hands of Iran's proxies and terrorist militias, or that the Iranian regime will share its nuclear technology with these groups, not to mention the nuclear arms race that will take off in the region.

The Iranian regime has also been setting up weapons factories abroad, and manufacturing ballistic missiles and weapons -- include precision-guided missiles with advanced technology -- to strike specific targets in other countries, including in Syria. The latest UN Security Council "Panel of Experts on Yemen" report revealed this year that Yemen's Houthis have been receiving significant amount of weapons from the Iranian regime:

"An increasing body of evidence suggests that individuals or entities in the Islamic Republic of Iran supply significant volumes of weapons and components to the Houthis."

Iran's regime has for years been designated by the US Department of State as a "State Sponsor of Terrorism". One of the regime's own diplomats, Assadollah Assadi -- on trial in Europe for a failed terror bombing plot in Paris, in which a "Free Iran" rally was targeted -- was recently sentenced to 20 years in prison. Several countries, including Kuwait, have detained cells of Iranians spies trying to infiltrate their country, and Iran has been found using its embassies and diplomats in foreign countries for such purposes.

The Iranian regime has frequently threatened to "wipe" a whole country -- Israel -- meaning: wipe out or wipe off. General Hossein Salami, the chief of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) made the regime's plans vehemently clear: "Our strategy is to erase Israel from the global political map," he stated on Iran's state-controlled Channel 2 TV in 2019.

The Biden administration might understand that this is a revolutionary regime that prioritizes the pursuit of its revolutionary ideals. These include exporting its ideology and system of governance to other countries around the world. The regime, in fact, incorporated this critical mission into Iran's constitution, as the preamble stipulates:

"The mission of the constitution is to create conditions conducive to the development of man in accordance with the noble and universal values of (Shiite) Islam."

The constitution goes on to state that it "provides the necessary basis for ensuring the continuation of the revolution at home and abroad."

The Biden administration's appeasement of the ruling mullahs and wait-and-see policy will soon leave the world with a dangerous nuclear-armed Iran.

If the Biden administration would eliminate Iran's nuclear weapons, the move would not only spare the world from yet another ruthless regime that acts despotically at home and abroad; it would also immediately send Biden's poll numbers soaring.

• 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/18600/iran-mullahs-score-nuclear-victory

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Biden administration overrules Trump policy on Palestinians - Benjamin Weinthal

 

by Benjamin Weinthal

One observer says the move rewards Palestinian intransigence and violence

JERUSALEM – The Biden administration announced a dramatic yet partial reversal of Donald Trump’s closure of the consulate to the Palestinians in Jerusalem by opening a "U.S. Office of Palestinian Affairs" in the city.

Biden’s move is viewed by some as rewarding the Palestinian leadership after a wave of terrorism during which two Palestinians wielding an ax and knife murdered three Israelis in the town of Elad in May. 

The previous month, Raad Hazem, a 28-year-old Palestinian gunman from Jenin, killed three people and wounded six others in a crowded bar in Tel Aviv.

A prominent former Trump official sees the upgrade of the Palestinian Affairs Unit, until now part of the embassy to Israel, as a setback for the peace process between Israel and the Palestinians.

TRUMP OFFICIALLY RECOGNIZES JERUSALEM AS ISRAEL'S CAPITAL CITY, ORDERS EMBASSY MOVE FOR US

The new U.S. Embassy in Jerusalem. (AP)

"We had a consul-general in West Jerusalem for decades dedicated to Palestinian affairs, which meant Palestinians had to cross into West Jerusalem for any consular affairs related to the United States," Victoria Coates, a former deputy national security adviser for the Middle East and North Africa under Trump, told Fox News Digital.

"Since 2018, their affairs have been handled by a proper U.S. Embassy, which also happens to be in West Jerusalem. This unnecessary change with the Palestinians will only prolong the stalemate between them and Israel and will not bring us any closer to peace than the old ConGen [consulate-general] did [before Trump]." 

AL-JAZEERA REPORTER DIES FOLLOWING DISPUTED INCIDENT IN THE WEST BANK

Israel’s former Ambassador to the United Nations Danny Danon also weighed in. 

"The Biden administration is reverting to past failed practices," Danon told Fox News Digital. "Although the announced changes are essentially bureaucratic in nature, with amendments to names and reporting lines, it is the symbolism of the move which hits home for some. It signals an upgrade in relations with the possibility of more fruitless promises to come.

Danny Danon

"The Abraham Accords moved beyond broken paradigms and looked for new solutions," added Danon, who is also chairman of World Likud. "This new path has been astoundingly successful. It is perhaps time for the current U.S. administration to cast aside past failed policies and look to set new, sound strategy."

TRUMP DECLARES ‘DAWN OF A NEW MIDDLE EAST’ AS HE PRESIDES OVER SIGNING OF HISTORIC DEALS

The Trump administration helped to negotiate groundbreaking agreements to normalize diplomatic relations between Israel and the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Sudan and Morocco.

The Israeli government vehemently opposes a reopening of the Palestinian consulate in Jerusalem because it would undercut the holy city as the undivided capital of Israel. Jerusalem proposes that the U.S. open its Palestinian consulate in Ramallah, the headquarters of the Palestine Liberation Organization and the Palestine Authority.

Fox News Digital sent questions to the U.S. State Department,Thursday. In an emailed response a State Department spokesperson stated that, "The former Palestinian Affairs Unit is now called the Office of Palestinian Affairs (OPA). It continues to be led on the ground in Jerusalem by the Chief of the Office, George Noll."
The statement concluded, "The OPA operates under the auspices of the U.S. Embassy in Jerusalem, and reports on substantive matters directly to the Near Eastern Affairs Bureau in the State Department.
The new OPA reporting structure is designed to strengthen our diplomatic and public diplomacy engagement."

Sign at the State Department building in Washington, D.C., July 19, 2019. (iStock)

"Having been unable to force upon Israel their plan to open a consulate to the Palestinians in Jerusalem, this is a transparent attempt by the Biden administration to go round the back door, with a de facto consulate in clear attempt to water down the Trump administration’s recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital," Arsen Ostrovsky, an Israeli human rights attorney and chairman and CEO of the International Legal Forum, told Fox News Digital.

"The move, a direct challenge to Israel’s sovereignty, which potentially might also breach the Jerusalem Embassy Act, will only reward Palestinian intransigence and violence, as we have seen in the past months."

GAZA VIOLENCE INTENSIFIES AS JERUSALEM CLASHES RESUME

The U.S. Jerusalem Embassy Act of 1995 recognizes Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and calls for it to remain an undivided city. 

The diplomatic upgrade means Palestinians will deal directly with the State Department in Washington rather than first go through the American ambassador to Israel.

Israeli flag flying over Jerusalem and the Temple Mount (iStock)

The department has renamed the Palestinian Affairs Unit The U.S. Office of Palestinian Affairs. According to the Associated Press the office, now independent of the Jerusalem embassy, said the change was meant to "strengthen our diplomatic reporting and public diplomacy engagement." 

"We felt that it was important to reintroduce separate reporting lines to Washington on Israeli and Palestinian issues by our respective teams on the ground that focus on these issues," according to the statement, which also said the U.S. was reinstating a system in place for decades before Trump’s decision, according to the Associated Press report.

But it falls short of Biden administration pledges — and Palestinian demands — for the U.S. to reopen its consulate in Jerusalem, which for decades functioned as a de facto embassy to the Palestinians.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

 

Benjamin Weinthal reports on Middle East affairs. You can follow Benjamin Weinthal on Twitter @BenWeinthal.

Source: https://www.foxnews.com/politics/biden-administration-overrules-trump-policy-palestinians

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Understanding The Six-Day War - Ari Lieberman

 

by Ari Lieberman

The classic example of legal use of force under international law.

 

June 5^th marked the 55^th anniversary of the Six-Day War of 1967. Palestinians refer to the war as the “Naqsah,” or setback. But no matter what you call it, the Six-Day War has no parallel in modern military history. It ended with Israel vanquishing the collective military might of the Arab world. The armies of Egypt, Syria, Jordan, and Iraq collapsed in the face of a well-trained, highly motivated Israeli Army.

On paper, Israel should have lost. In every category – tanks, artillery, airpower, naval forces and manpower, Israel was badly outnumbered. But as the current Ukraine-Russia conflict reminds us, in war there are intangibles that cannot be quantified or otherwise reduced to a number.

With its back to the Mediterranean Sea and memories of the Holocaust still vivid, Israel was fighting for its very existence. Of course, there were other contributing factors to Israel’s victory such as superior military intelligence, superior training, and superior leadership but the overriding factor was that every Israeli soldier was cognizant of the consequences of defeat. One need look no further than statements from the Arab side to know what those dire consequences would be.

Egypt’s President Gamal Abdel Nasser made his intentions clear when on May 26, he declared, “The battle will be a general one and our basic objective will be to destroy Israel.” Not to be outdone, on May 31, Iraq’s President Aref stated, “The existence of Israel is an error which must be rectified. This is our opportunity to wipe out the ignominy which has been with us since 1948. Our goal is clear - to wipe Israel off the map.” Similar sentiments were expressed by the leaders of Syria and the PLO. Spurred by their leaders, the Arab world, from Cairo to Damascus, Khartoum to Baghdad, was whipped into an excited frenzy. Egyptian audiences were glued to their television sets as they watched columns of tanks and artillery making their way to the front in anticipation of final victory over the hated Yahuds.  

The Arabs believed their own propaganda, and why shouldn’t they? They had the most modern Soviet equipment – brand new T-55 tanks, ultra-modern Mig-21 fighter jets, M-46 130mm artillery that outranged anything possessed by their enemy, brand new missile boats equipped with sea-to-sea missiles. Moreover, they could muster 600,000 men under arms against Israel’s 264,000. Even some Western “experts” began to eulogize Israel, believing that the creation of the modern state of Israel was an anomaly, destined to be destroyed by superior force of arms.

But alas, events turned out quite differently than expected. On June 5, at precisely 7:45 a.m., Israel launched Operation Focus, a series of devastating, coordinated airstrikes aimed at crippling the Egyptian Air Force. In just under three hours, Israel Air Force Mirage III, Super Mystere and Vauntour aircraft transformed the bulk of the Egyptian Air Force, with all its mighty Soviet equipment, into expensive heaps of scrap metal. The IAF then turned its attention to Syria, which had instigated the conflict, catching the bulk of the Syrian Air Force on the ground, and dispatching it with ruthless efficiency.

Jordan’s King Hussein, believing Arab propaganda broadcasts steeped in Alice in Wonderland-like fantasy began bombarding West Jerusalem with Long Tom 155mm guns and 106mm recoilless rifles. Its Hunter fighter-bombers attacked Kfar Saba. Israel had warned the Little King to stay out of the conflict, but Israel’s admonishments had little effect on Hussein. The King’s fate and that of his nation was thus sealed. The IAF destroyed the Jordanian Air Force in short order.

Arab air losses during the war totaled 452, the bulk of which were destroyed in the early hours of the fighting. Having secured air superiority, Israeli armor and mechanized infantry rolled into enemy territory seizing the Sinai Peninsula and Gaza Strip from Egypt, the Golan Heights from Syria and perhaps most importantly, Judea-Samaria and East Jerusalem from Jordan.

While the war technically began on June 5^th with Israel’s preemptive strike on Egyptian airfields, in reality, it was set into motion by Nasser’s reckless May 23^rd decision to re-impose a naval blockade on the Straits of Tiran, an international waterway through which Israeli shipping passed. The closure of the Straits was a clear violation of international maritime law and an act of aggression tantamount to a declaration of war.

In 1956, Israel went to war with Egypt partly because of Egypt’s closure of the Straits. To induce Israel to withdraw from Sinai, the United States made two key commitments. It guaranteed that it would open the Straits in the event of another blockade and recognized Israel’s right under international maritime law to act on its own to ensure free passage of Israeli ships. However, the United States, embroiled in the Vietnam quagmire, reneged on its commitment to Israel.

After exhausting all diplomatic channels, Israel acted militarily and justifiably so – legally, morally, and ethically. Arab political propagandists and some of their Western apologists have argued that the Arabs had no intention of going to war, that their deployment was strictly defensive and that they had valid legal claims to maintain a blockade, but these views are ahistorical and rooted in mendacity. They are designed to promote a false anti-Israel narrative, one that casts Israel as the aggressor and serial violator of international conventions.

But facts do not lie. The aggressive intentions of the Arab nations in the weeks preceding the Six-Day War, their belligerent rhetoric, alliances, blockades, and menacing military deployments provide ample justification for use of force. Indeed, during the war, Israel captured top-secret Egyptian and Jordanian documents evidencing the Arab intent to carve up Israel. To this very day, the Six-Day War provides the classic example of legal use of force under the UN Charter and accepted principles of international law.

 

Ari Lieberman

Source: https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2022/06/understanding-six-day-war-ari-lieberman/

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Russia condemns Israel: IAF air strike caused serious damage to Damascus Airport - Elad Benari

 

by Elad Benari

Russia issues rare condemnation of Israel following overnight air strike in Damascus: We demand that the Israeli side stop this evil practice.

 

Russia on Friday issued a rare condemnation of Israel for an overnight air strike in Syria attributed to the Jewish state which significantly damaged Damascus International Airport.

"In the early morning hours of June 10, the Israeli Air Force again attacked the territory of the Syrian Arab Republic. The target of the attack was Damascus International Airport. According to information that was received, serious material damage was caused to the airport," the Russian Foreign Ministry said in a statement quoted by Maariv.

"We are forced to emphasize that the ongoing Israeli shelling of Syrian territory, in violation of the basic norms of international law, is unacceptable. We strongly condemn Israel's provocative attack on critical Syrian civilian infrastructure. Such irresponsible actions pose serious risks to international air traffic and endanger the lives of innocent people. We demand that the Israeli side stop this evil practice,” the statement added.

Satellite images published earlier by Israeli company ImageSat International (ISI) show the damage that was caused to Damascus International Airport following the overnight air strike which Syria attributed to Israel.

The images show significant damage to the runways. ISI said the strikes “completely disabled” operations at both the airport’s runways, with each runway appearing to have been struck three times.

Following the air strike, Syria’s Transportation Ministry announced it had suspended incoming and outgoing flights at the airport for 48 hours, citing technical disruptions.

Israel has not commented on the reports from Syria.

This is the second air strike in Syria attributed to Israel in the past week, after Syria claimed on Monday evening that Israel attacked the Damascus area.

According to the reports, the attack earlier this week was also carried out from the Golan Heights, and loud explosions were heard in the capital, but no injuries or damage were reported.

In late May, Syrian media reported that explosions were heard across the capital Damascus.

Syrian television reported that the country’s air defense systems were activated against "hostile targets" following an air strike which was blamed on Israel.

A radio station affiliated with the Syrian regime reported that three people had been killed in the air strike.

 

Elad Benari

Source: https://www.israelnationalnews.com/news/354706

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The Kavanaugh Assassination Plot is a Leftist Inside Job - Daniel Greenfield

 

by Daniel Greenfield

Conservative justices are in hiding because AG Garland won’t enforce the law.

 

After police arrested a California leftist on a mission to assassinate Justice Kavanaugh, the Biden administration finally condemned the campaign to intimidate the Supreme Court.

“As the president has consistently made clear, public officials, including judges, must be able to do their jobs without concern for their personal safety or that of their families," White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre falsely claimed.

After leftist activists had posted a map of the homes of Supreme Court justices to harass them, Jen Psaki had retorted. "I don't have an official U.S. government position on where people protest."

There is in fact such a position and it's illegal under 18 U.S.C. § 1507 which states that anyone with "the intent of interfering with, obstructing, or impeding the administration of justice, or with the intent of influencing any judge, juror, witness” “pickets or parades in or near a building....  or residence, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than one year, or both."

Biden just decided not to enforce these laws in order to allow his leftist allies to intimidate the justices.

Not one of the leftists who have spent years harassing Supreme Court justices with protests outside the court and even their homes has been sent off to prison. Nor will they. Pounding on the doors of the Supreme Court, marching around the homes of justices, and trying to prevent them from coming to court have become basic parts of the activist playbook.

Even after the Kavanaugh assassination plot, leftists are continuing to protest outside his home.

The arrest of Nicholas Roske, armed with a Glock 17, and carrying burglar tools, pepper spray, and zip ties, is just the latest in a wave of leftist violence touched off by the hate campaign against Justice Kavanaugh and other conservative justices. Roske was angry about the Roe v. Wade leaked draft and said that he planned to break into Kavanaugh's house and kill him.

Roske found Kavanaugh’s address on the internet after leftist activist groups doxxed him and other justices while encouraging protesters to intimidate them and their families in their homes.

What consequences will Roske face?

Last year, Ronald DeRisi, a New York man, was sentenced to only 18 months in prison after threatening to kill senators who voted to confirm Kavanaugh, including leaving one message, warning, “nine millimeter. Side of your f—ing scull, you scumbag motherf—-r.”

Justice Kavanaugh and his family have been relentlessly harassed since the nomination, the smear campaign and during his time on the Supreme Court. Those threats escalated with the leaked draft decision and were whipped up into a frenzy by the media with Big Tech complicity.

After the draft decision was leaked, fresh death threats poured in for the conservative justices. Twitter threats that still remain up include “ok I will kill samuel alito" and "we either gotta expand the scotus to 15 judges or kill clarence thomas." While Twitter censors conservatives, these death threats are still up.

But it wasn’t just random social media nutjobs. Violent rhetoric had been embraced by the Democrat leadership trying to appease and incite their increasingly deranged leftist base.

“I want to tell you Gorsuch, I want to tell you Kavanaugh: You have released the whirlwind, and you will pay the price. You won't know what hit you,” Senate Majority Leader Schumer had ranted.

“These justices are in danger that this opinion leaked before it was released publicly. There are people making threats against justices online and elsewhere. The attorney general needs to step up,” a former law clerk for Justice Gorsuch warned. “This is obstruction of justice for people to show up at a federal judge's home to try to influence the outcome of a pending case.”

Protesters harassing a traffic court judge would face charges, but the leftists who have forced Supreme Court justices to hide out at undisclosed locations know the DOJ won’t touch them.

A DHS memo noted that, "threats discussed burning down or storming the U.S. Supreme Court and murdering Justices and their clerks." Nevertheless, its spokesperson insisted that it, "is committed to protecting Americans' freedom of speech and other civil rights and civil liberties, including the right to peacefully protest." Much like the Black Lives Matter riots, leftists harassing justices is a mostly peaceful enterprise except when one of them brings along some zip ties.

The refusal to enforce the laws and stop the leftist harassment is the definition of an inside job.

Demand Justice, backed by the Soros Sixteen Thirty Fund's dark money machine and headed by a former Schumer aide, launched a campaign to force Justice Breyer to resign using a billboard truck driving around the Supreme Court with the message, “Breyer, retire. It’s time for a Black woman Supreme Court justice. There’s no time to waste."

After Breyer agreed to step down to make way for a racial quota leftist, Demand Justice told supporters that their "gushing fire hydrant of bullying tweets" helped force a justice off the court.

The leftist hate group knew that it had nothing to worry about from Attorney General Garland.

When a conspirator leaked the Roe v. Wade abortion draft decision, leftists protested outside the homes of justices and organized a plot to shut down the Supreme Court.

"One of our goals would be to expand the current political crisis by shutting down the Supreme Court," a ShutdownDC organizer boasted. They delivered a public presentation showing off a "detailed tactical plan for blocking access to the Court's underground parking garage, which is the primary entry and exit point for employees and justices."

Instead of enforcing the law, the Biden administration agreed with the protesters that in, “the president’s view is that there’s a lot of passion, a lot of fear, a lot of sadness from many, many people across this country about what they saw in that leaked document.”

Even after the Kavanaugh assassination plot, there’s no sign that AG Garland or the DOJ intend to stop the harassment of conservative justices. While Democrats rant about “threats to democracy” from conservatives, conservative justices in the nation’s highest court have been forced to go into hiding at undisclosed locations for over a month.

That’s not America. It’s what a leftist banana republic looks like. And the message is quite clear. Even if the decision at the heart of the latest assault on the Supreme Court stands, justices are now all too aware that they will be forced from their homes and terrorized over their rulings, and the Biden administration and Attorney General Garland will wink at the intimidation because it is an inside job.

The same leftist activists and money machines helping elect Democrats are also backing the harassment campaigns against the Supreme Court. The Biden administration is not about to turn on its own activists, donors, and extreme base.

Had a conservative been caught trying to assassinate Sotomayor, Kagan, or Ketanji Brown Jackson, it would be the leading nationwide story instead of being buried by the latest gun control push, and would be accompanied by urgent warnings about the threat to democracy.

The media would have no difficulty connecting the dots between the assassination plot, conservative opposition, social media, and every Republican candidate, elected official, or just random voter. Before too long the FBI and the National Guard would be out in force while the skies over D.C. filled with drones and helicopters. Instead, a Supreme Court assassination plot gets buried on Page 7 and before long we’ll hear claims that the assassin was “mentally ill”.

Despite a formal condemnation of this latest incident, the Biden administration has shown little sign that it intends to restrain its political allies or hold them accountable for harassing justices.

Nor is it in their interest to do so.

Had Roske succeeded in assassinating Justice Kavanaugh, Biden would have another Supreme Court seat to fill. Whipping up the mob and then shrugging if one of them goes beyond intimidation to actual murder provides the administration with plausible deniability.

And the Left with the opportunity to claim another Supreme Court seat.

 

Daniel Greenfield, a Shillman Journalism Fellow at the Freedom Center, is an investigative journalist and writer focusing on the radical Left and Islamic terrorism.

Source: https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2022/06/kavanaugh-assassination-plot-leftist-inside-job-daniel-greenfield/

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Biden’s WHO Takeover - Matthew Vadum

 

by Matthew Vadum

Handing American sovereignty over to the UN is still on Biden’s “to do” list.

 

The Biden administration’s bid to surrender American control over public health emergencies in the United States to the World Health Organization fell short at the UN’s 75th World Health Assembly in Geneva last month, but there is no reason to believe Biden won’t try again.

This drive is part of our illegitimate placeholder president’s effort to undo all the good things that former President Donald Trump accomplished. Trump slashed U.S. funding of WHO and served notice the country would pull out of the Communist Chinese-influenced agency, but Joe Biden aims to super-charge WHO’s authority in world affairs by amending an international pandemic treaty known as the International Health Regulations (IHR) 2005.

Of course, WHO is a bureaucratic monstrosity, a purveyor of leftist horror propaganda that, like its parent, the United Nations, should not exist.

WHO demanded the catastrophic lockdowns, getting creative and using them to push the pseudoscience of manmade global warming. “Countries must set ambitious national climate commitments if they are to sustain a healthy and green recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic,” WHO said in October 2021, claiming that “air pollution, primarily the result of burning fossil fuels, which also drives climate change, causes 13 deaths per minute worldwide.”

A WHO report bellows that “climate change is the single biggest health threat facing humanity. While no one is safe from the health impacts of climate change, they are disproportionately felt by the most vulnerable and disadvantaged.”

WHO’s constitution supports an internationalist version of the depraved Marxist concept of health equity, waging war on markets and positing that unequal levels of wealth in nations somehow endangers the human race. The document asserts: “Unequal development in different countries in the promotion of health and control of diseases, especially communicable disease, is a common danger.”

On its especially creepy “infodemic” webpage, WHO lectures that free speech challenges government control of events, whining that “too much information … during a disease outbreak … causes confusion and risk-taking behaviours that can harm health.” Unrestricted information “also leads to mistrust in health authorities and undermines the public health response.”

At the recent World Health Assembly in Switzerland, a land where assisted suicide-for-profit is considered healthcare, Biden’s proposed amendments to the International Health Regulations would have given WHO unilateral authority to declare public health emergencies in every single sovereign nation on earth regardless of the wishes of those countries’ governments.

The IHR is a binding pact among 196 countries –including the U.S.— that creates “a framework for coordinating the international response to events that may constitute a public health emergency of international concern.”

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) states that the IHR requires countries to: “make sure surveillance systems and laboratories can detect potential threats”; “work together with other countries to make decisions in public health emergencies”; “report specific diseases, plus any potential international public health emergencies, through participation in a network of National Focal Points”; and “respond to public health events.”

The CDC says the IHR also “includes specific measures countries can take at ports, airports and ground crossings to limit the spread of health risks to neighboring countries, and to prevent unwarranted travel and trade restrictions.”

It’s already bad enough that the pandemic treaty gives a hostile foreign body any say at all in U.S. domestic policy, but Biden wants to give the UN agency more power to meddle in American affairs.

Biden’s IHR amendments would bestow on WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, an Ethiopian communist and kowtower to the Chinese Communist Party, the power to declare a public health emergency in any country on earth on a mere whim.

The bundle of Biden amendments proposed in Geneva would “give WHO the right to take important steps to collaborate with other nations and other organizations worldwide to deal with any nation’s alleged health crisis, even against its stated wishes,” according to Peter Breggin and his wife, Ginger Ross Breggin. Dr. Breggin is a psychiatrist by training, a former U.S. Public Health Service officer, and former National Institute on Mental Health consultant. Mrs. Breggin is a medical reform advocate.

“The power to declare health emergencies is a potential tool to shame, intimidate, and dominate nations. It can be used to justify ostracism and economic or financial actions against the targeted nation by other nations aligned with WHO or who wish to harm and control the accused nation,” the couple wrote.

“These amendments will empower WHO’s Director-General to declare health emergencies or crises in any nation and to do so unilaterally and against the opposition of the target nation,” the Breggins add.

“The Director-General will be able to declare these health crises based merely on his personal opinion or consideration that there is a potential or possible threat to other nations. If passed, the Biden administration’s proposed amendments will, by their very existence and their intention, drastically compromise the independence and the sovereignty of the United States. The same threat looms over all the U.N.’s 193 member nations, all of whom belong to WHO and represent 99.44% of the world population.”

One of the amendments would do away with the current requirement that WHO “consult with and seek to obtain verification” from officials in a country where a health crisis is suspected before making declarations.

Another provision would allow WHO to develop “early warning criteria for assessing and progressively updating the national, regional, or global risk posed by an event of unknown causes or sources.”

Another would empower WHO, when encountering a country with a suspected problem, to take action on its own if the country fails to cooperate with it within 48 hours. WHO would be allowed “when justified by the magnitude of the public health risk, [to] immediately share with other [nations] the information available to it.”

The amendments are in line with a White House fact sheet from earlier this year that says the U.S. “will continue to advance health security and pandemic preparedness abroad, including through strengthening WHO, working with partners towards targeted IHR amendments,” as The Epoch Times reported.

Biden supports “global threat detection innovations through a globally connected network of public health surveillance systems that optimizes disease prevention and health promotion as we strengthen surveillance initiatives to provide necessary actionable data before, during, and after a pandemic.”

“The budget includes $2.47 billion in mandatory funding for CDC to include enhancements to domestic sentinel surveillance programs, expansion of domestic and global wastewater surveillance, and investments in global genomic surveillance approaches, as well as global respiratory disease surveillance platforms,” the fact sheet says.

“Respiratory surveillance platforms include video cameras and recorders that alert authorities when members of the public are seen coughing or otherwise acting in a manner that could indicate the presence of an infectious disease or help spread one already present in a population,” according to the newspaper report.

“Such equipment is widely used in China.”

Of course it is.

The amendments failed to pass despite the backing of the European Union, United Kingdom, and Australia. Apparently, India, Russia, Brazil and other countries weren’t yet comfortable with the idea of handing over domestic control of pandemic policy to a UN agency that is in China’s pocket. The World Health Assembly meeting adjourned May 28.

Biden’s attempt to sell out the interests of the United States is far from over.

Leftists are patient and Biden will try again.

 

Matthew Vadum

Source: https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2022/06/bidens-who-takeover-matthew-vadum/

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Palestinians, Yet Again, Attack Jewish Pilgrims On Temple Mount - Hugh Fitzgerald

by Hugh Fitzgerald

Only a week after Jerusalem Day. It's relentless.

 

 

Another Jewish holiday, another Arab attack on Jewish visitors to the Temple Mount. This time, it was the religious holiday of Shavuot, on June 5, exactly a week after Jerusalem Day, May 29, when Arabs last threw rocks and Molotov cocktails from inside Al-Aqsa at Jewish pilgrims. A report on the latest outbreak of Arab violence on Temple Mount is here: “Police clash with Palestinians on Temple Mount as Jews visit during Shavuot holiday,” Times of Israel, June 5, 2022

Police scuffled with Palestinians on Jerusalem’s flashpoint Temple Mount holy site on Sunday morning as Jews toured the compound during the Shavuot holiday.

Palestinians barricaded themselves inside the compound’s Al-Aqsa Mosque and threw stones at police in response to the visits. There were no reports of injuries or arrests in the incident.

The Palestinians constantly allege that Israeli Jews are “desecrating” the Al-Aqsa Mosque. But it is the Palestinians themselves who desecrate the mosque, by using it both as a place to store weapons – rocks, and bottles ready to be quickly transformed into Molotov cocktails – and as a military encampment from which they hurl those weapons at Jewish visitors and Israeli police.

Footage from the scene showed officers outside the mosque doors, while Palestinians barricaded inside threw stones out of windows and chanted “Allahu akbar,” or “God is great.”

The Israeli police did not enter – did not “desecrate” – the mosque. The Palestinians, who turned the mosque into a fortress, are the true desecrators, uttering their war cry of “Allahu akbar,” that means not that “God is great” — as even the Times of Israel translates it — but that “our [Muslim] god is greater than yours.”

Other videos showed a small group of Jews walking through the plaza surrounded by police, with Palestinians trailing the Jewish group holding Palestinian flags and shouting.

The visits by Jewish groups continued as usual under police protection, Hebrew media reported.

As the Jews quietly walked – as always, no Jewish prayers were allowed to be said – on the plaza, they were followed by a group of taunting, chanting Arabs, carrying Palestinian flags. The Jews were kept safe by the Israeli police who surrounded them; without that protective phalanx of police, the enraged Arabs – how dare Jews visit our Muslim site? — would certainly have attacked the small contingent of Jews.

The Temple Mount — which also houses the Al-Aqsa Mosque — is administered by the Waqf, a religious trust run and funded by Jordan. The site is the holiest place for Jews, as the site of the biblical temples, and Al-Aqsa is the third holiest shrine in Islam, turning the area into a major flashpoint in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Under an increasingly frayed arrangement known as the status quo, Jews are generally allowed to visit the Temple Mount during limited hours, but not pray there or perform other acts of worship that can be seen as a provocation to Muslims.

Most of the world does not realize, nor appreciate, the constraints that Israel places on Jewish visitors to the holiest site in Judaism. In order to avoid offending Muslim sensibilities, ever since Israel took possession of the Temple Mount in 1967 it has prohibited Jews at the site from saying prayers aloud or even silently mouthing them. It has also limited visits by Jews to three hours in the morning, and one hour in the afternoon, and then only from Sunday to Thursday. Meanwhile, Muslim visitors can visit at any time of day, and on every day of the week.

National-religious Orthodox Jewish activists have increasingly pushed to allow Jewish prayer on the site, which was once a fringe view, and public opinion has begun to shift in that direction. A poll released late last month found that half of Jewish Israelis supported allowing Jews to pray on the Temple Mount, with most of the respondents who supported that position saying they held the view “because it is proof of Israel’s sovereignty” over the site.

In recent years there has been a relaxation of the prohibition on silent prayers by Jews. And more Jews have been urging that they be allowed to say prayers aloud as well. They point out that the Muslims remain unappeased by that prohibition, but are in a constant state of fury at Jewish visitors to the Mount. Since allowing those visitors to say prayers aloud will not appreciably increase that fury, so the argument goes, why not let the Jews say them?

Late last month, a record number of Jews visited the Temple Mount to mark Jerusalem Day, prompting rebukes from Jordan and the Palestinian Authority. According to the Israel Police, some 2,600 Jews were granted entry to the holy site in groups of 40-50.

The Muslims were up in arms at so many – 2,600! – Jews visiting the site on Jerusalem Day. But tens of thousands of Muslims routinely visit the Al-Aqsa site; on many Fridays, 150,000 Muslims show up; on religious holidays, there have been many more. This past April, 250,000 Muslim worshippers arrived at the Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem to mark Qadr Night (Laylat al-Qadr in Arabic), a significant date on the Islamic calendar during the month of Ramadan.

Those 2,600 Jewish visitors to the Mount on Jerusalem Day,, whose numbers the Palestinians and Jordanians found unacceptably large, were about 1% of the number of Muslims who appeared on the Mount during Laylat al-Qadr. A sense of proportion is not the Muslims’ strong suit.

Jerusalem Day is a national holiday marking Israel’s conquest of the Old City and East Jerusalem from Jordan in the 1967 Six Day War, but is now celebrated mostly by national-religious Jews. The holiday’s contentious Flag March, which goes through Palestinian areas of the Old City, is seen by opponents as a major provocation.

The Jerusalem Day Flag March marks the reunification of Israel’s ancient capital. For as long as the march has existed – save for 2021, when tensions were deemed too high – the route has taken Jews from the Damascus Gate, through the Muslim Quarter, and it ends at the Western Wall. This year when the Jews marched, some Muslims threw rocks and bottles and even chairs at them. Most of the marchers chanted “the Jewish nation lives” upon entering the Muslim Quarter, but one group, several hundred strong out of a total of 70,000 marchers) chanted “Death to Arabs,” and “Let your village burn down.” It was not the Arab violence against the marchers, nor the 99% of Jewish marchers who sang patriotic songs and shouted “the Jewish nation lives” whom the world media focused on but, rather, on the few hundred marchers, mostly members of the nationalist group Lehava, who shouted “Death to Arabs.”

Now, as Jews visit the Temple Mount on Shavuot, the Arabs are at it again. They have barricaded themselves inside Al-Aqsa Mosque and from there have been hurling rocks at Jews outside. The media will fail to note that using the Al-Aqsa Mosque as a storehouse for weapons, and as a fortress from which to attack Jews, constitutes the true “desecration” of the holy site. Instead, many stories in the media will report that “Jews Visit Temple Mount on Shavuot and Provoke Angry Arab Response.” Provoke. Jews are always “provoking” those inoffensive and peaceful Palestinians. No wonder they throw those rocks. What else can they be expected to do?

 

Hugh Fitzgerald

Source: https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2022/06/palestinians-yet-again-attack-jewish-pilgrims-hugh-fitzgerald/

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Left's Coalition Cracking: Ilhan Omar Enrages Muslims by Wishing Gays a Happy Pride Month - Robert Spencer

 

by Robert Spencer

Can the Left’s love affair with its favorite religion survive?

 

In the Left’s universe, “diversity” means that people of all colors, creeds and sexual proclivities, as well as all 73 genders, say the same things and espouse the same political positions. And while Leftists have assembled an impressive coalition of the allegedly marginalized, discriminated against, non-white, non-binary, and non-sane, cracks in the edifice are inevitable, as all the coalition members don’t hold the same values. Leftists may destroy the country first, but eventually, their “diverse” mosaic is going to devolve into warring factions.

We got a reminder of that this week, after the hijab-wearing, ostensibly Sharia-observant Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Mogadishu) had the temerity to wish gays a happy Pride Month and has since been dragged for it repeatedly by Muslims who believe that gay pride is an insult to Allah. Can the Left’s love affair with its favorite religion survive relationship troubles of this magnitude? Not in the long run.

Omar began the festivities when she tweeted Wednesday: “Happy Pride Month! We won’t stop fighting until all LGBTQ+ Americans can live free from discrimination.” That was straightforward and unremarkable coming from a far-Left congresswoman, but this particular far-Leftist publicly displays her adherence to Islamic law whenever she appears in public wearing her hijab.

Regarding homosexual activity, Islamic law (Sharia) is unambiguous, as one tradition attributed to Muhammad demonstrates. The prophet of Islam is depicted as saying: “Whoever you find doing the action of the people of Lot, execute the one who does it and the one to whom it is done.’” (Sunan Abu Dawud 4462) The “people of Lot” are the people of Sodom and Gomorrah, and so this statement became the basis for the death penalty for homosexuals in Sharia states. No room for Pride Month there.

Because of this teaching, some Muslims were enraged that Omar would extend good wishes to “LGBTQ+ Americans.” One quoted in response to Omar’s tweet a warning from the Qur’an about following the ways of the unbelievers: “They will never be pleased with you unless you follow their ways. Say, ‘God’s guidance is the only true guidance.’ If you were to follow their desires after the knowledge that has come to you, you would find no one to protect you from God or help you” (2:120). Mohammed Hijab, a prominent Islamic spokesman and debater in Britain, tweeted: “Do you understand that Islam prohibits homosexual sexual practices? Have you left Islam?”

Dr. Abdullah Ali, an associate professor of Islamic Law and the Prophetic Tradition at Zaytuna College, a Muslim undergraduate college in Berkeley, Calif., didn’t mention Omar, but his rejection of her perspective was unmistakable when he tweeted Saturday: “Islam means submission to God’s will. The easiest way to undermine your faith is to insist that defying God’s commands is reason for celebration. We take no pride in sin. Any Muslim who celebrates sodomy, tribadism, or any other sin as acceptable behavior is an apostate.”

Another Muslim invited Omar to leave Islam: “Have you not read the Qur’an before? Do you know what is the consequence of the people of Lot ?! Take off the veil and embrace the religion of those who support and want equality for gays, because whoever carries your ideas we do not want him to pollute Islam.” Another actually tweeted a gif of an angry cartoon Muslim throwing stones at an unseen offender.

Ilhan Omar has aroused the ire of the Muslim community before. This isn’t the first time she has extolled Pride Month, and her present marriage to her political strategist, Tim Mynett, raised eyebrows in Muslim communities, as Islamic law forbids Muslim women to marry non-Muslim men. That controversy died down when Mynett reportedly converted to Islam. Strikingly, Omar has never received blowback from within the Muslim community for her notorious marriage to her brother, as it is generally understood to have been a fiction for immigration purposes, so as far as the guardians of Islamic morals were concerned, no harm was done.

But the Pride Month issue is larger than Ilhan Omar. She is not the only prominent Leftist who wears a hijab (Linda Sarsour and Zahra Billoo of the Hamas-linked Council on American-Islamic Relations are two others), and as Muslims continue to grow in prominence and influence on the Left, the cracks in the “diversity” edifice are only going to get wider. If we’re lucky, the entire coalition will break apart before it can realize the fullness of its insidious agenda for the United States.

 

Robert Spencer is the director of Jihad Watch and a Shillman Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center. He is author of 23 books including many bestsellers, such as The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam (and the Crusades), The Truth About Muhammad and The History of Jihad. His latest book is The Critical Qur’an. Follow him on Twitter here. Like him on Facebook here.

Source: https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2022/06/lefts-coalition-cracking-ilhan-omar-enrages-robert-spencer/

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Israel’s deepest problems are systemic and transcend whoever is in power - Douglas Altabef

 

by Douglas Altabef

Whether or not the current government falls, there are essential issues that must be dealt with by any ruling coalition.

Israel is currently mesmerized by the soap opera our government has become: Specifically, will the current coalition expire, and if so, when and how? As engrossing as the show might be, however, it only diverts our attention from the enduring, systemic issues that, if not addressed, threaten Israel’s democracy. These issues existed before the Bennett government, continued under it and will bedevil the nation under its successors.

First among these issues is the reality that Israel is not really a liberal democracy governed by the elected representatives of the people. Yes, we have the Knesset, which is charged with enacting legislation and setting the policies and priorities that are intended to steer the nation. But thanks to former Chief Justice Aharon Barak’s judicial revolution of the mid-1990s, Israel has an unaccountable oligarchy—the High Court of Justice—that has arrogated unto itself the unfettered discretion to strike down any enacted law, any IDF regulation or any security protocol it deems fit. The Court has even signaled its willingness to cancel, should it so desire, a Basic Law, which is tantamount to saying that the Court can declare Israel’s constitution unconstitutional.

The Court has essentially replaced the universally-applied doctrine of standing—i.e., who can bring an issue before the Court—in favor of their own discretion. The Court thus functions as both a forum of first hearing and an appellate forum simultaneously. The result is that the Court considers ten times the number of cases a year than the U.S. Supreme Court.

Many of these cases are petitions from NGOs lavishly funded by foreign governments, often brought on behalf of terrorists and their families. So if the IDF has determined to raze the house of a murderous terrorist, rest assured that a heavily lawyered appeal will be brought and usually prevail before the Court.

Simply stated, the Court makes its decisions based on what it thinks the outcome should be, regardless of other considerations, such as stated government policies or even enacted legislation. Therefore, the Court functions as an uber-legislative body, accountable only to itself.

What can be done about this? There has been a lot of handwringing about it on the right, but little effective follow-through. First, the mechanism for choosing justices is basically a self-reinforcing one, which could be changed so that that all justices must be approved by the Knesset. The recent decision to televise hearings on appointments to the Court is a good but ineffectual baby step. What is needed is a fundamental recalibration of who gets to nominate the candidates who will then undergo a televised hearing.

The other critically-needed antidote that needs to be considered is a Judicial Override Law, in which legislation struck down by the Court could be reinstated if passed again by a majority of the Knesset. This idea, based on the Canadian model, is akin to the veto power that a U.S. president has over congressional legislation, which can then be overturned by a two-thirds majority of Congress. Such an override mechanism will have the effect of compelling more grounded and defensible actions by the Court, as opposed to the freewheeling discretion it currently enjoys.

Tangentially related to the Court question, but also a major problem in its own right, is the pervasive and toxic impact of Israeli organizations funded by foreign governments on political discourse. This takes a number of forms: First, foremost and most frequently encountered is the shadow foreign policy that European governments conduct using anti-Zionist Israeli NGOs as their proxies. In the past decade alone more than 700 million shekels has been devoted to this insidious effort at demoralization.

This state of affairs leaves organizations like Breaking the Silence, B’tselem and Adalah, which have minimal public support, awash in funding that enables them to pursue the policies favored by their European patrons. These patrons are able to effectively hide behind the actions of locals, who after all have the right to express their views.

More recently, we have seen the same model applied to the media. Not long ago, there was a sudden eruption of media attention on the issue of “settler violence.” The only problem was that there was no outbreak of settler violence. Instead, there was an explosion of cash going to media outlets to encourage focus on the issue. My organization Im Tirtzu did extensive research that revealed an uncanny confluence between European support and media attention to “settler violence.”

Israel’s response to this should be based on the idea that democracy is not a suicide pact. In other words, by being so accessible and indifferent to manipulative discourse orchestrated by foreign governments, Israel is exposing its citizens to an incessant stream of information designed to produce questioning, demoralization and anomie on the justice of Israel’s policies and even its values.

There are ways to address this. The Transparency Law, which requires Israeli NGOs who receive more than 50% of their funding from foreign governments to publicly reveal this fact, was a start. However, foreign governments have now begun to use Israeli intermediaries to disperse their contributions, which allows the NGO in question to legally claim that its funding is domestic. Israel could deny tax exempt status to recipients of foreign government largesse, levy taxes on such contributions and take other steps to discourage or publicly highlight the issue.

These and other problems can and must be addressed by whoever is running the government. Left unaddressed, they have the potential to erode the social fabric of our society and deliver us into the hands of our adversaries.

 

Douglas Altabef is Chairman of the Board of Im Tirtzu, Israel’s largest grassroots Zionist organization, as well as a Director of B’yadenu and the Israel Independence Fund. He can be reached atdougaltabef@gmail.com.

Source: https://www.jns.org/opinion/israels-deepest-problems-are-systemic-and-transcend-whoever-is-in-power/

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New York Times: 'Many Democratic lawmakers’ are concerned by Biden’s leadership, feel U.S. is ‘falling apart’ - Gabriel Hays

 

by Gabriel Hays

New York Times report depicts Democrats as increasingly feeling sorry for Biden

 

A New York Times report revealed Saturday that many Democratic Party officials have little faith that President Biden can keep his party afloat amid mounting crises.

The piece also implied that the Jan. 6 Committee is Biden’s last chance before the midterm elections to persuade swing voters who are more fixated on inflation. 

According to reporters Reid Epstein and Jennifer Medina, "many Democratic lawmakers and party officials are venting their frustrations with President Biden’s struggle to advance the bulk of his agenda, doubting his ability to rescue the party from a predicted midterm trouncing and increasingly viewing him as an anchor that should be cut loose in 2024."

Biden has been polling poorly, and there are reports that he and his White House staff are frustrated with the obstacles in front of him, including increasingly negative media coverage.

BIDEN ADMIN FOCUSED ON WINNING NEWS CYCLE: BRUCE

President Joe Biden and the Democratic Party face a daunting challenge to hold onto control of Congress in the fall. ((AP Photo/Susan Walsh))

The report cited "nearly 50 Democratic officials" and "disappointed voters" who are "alarmed about Republicans’ rising strength and extraordinarily pessimistic about an immediate path forward" under the Biden administration.

There is "low enthusiasm" from Biden’s base and worry from party officials about the president’s "leadership, his age and his capability to take the fight to former President Donald J. Trump a second time," the Times wrote. It quoted Steve Simeonidis, a Democratic National Committee member from Florida, who said, "To say our country was on the right track would flagrantly depart from reality," and urged him to announce he wouldn't run again shortly after the midterms.

The piece also depicted the Jan. 6 Committee hearing as "perhaps the last, best chance before the midterms to break through with persuadable swing voters who have been more focused on inflation and gas prices."

Otherwise, all that Biden has – after "repeated failures of his administration to pass big-ticket legislation on signature Democratic issues" and "halting efforts to use the bully pulpit of the White House to move public opinion" – is "sagging approval ratings and a party that, as much as anything, seems to feel sorry for him."

GREG GUTFELD: THE MEDIA AND DEMOCRATS ARE RUNNING AWAY FROM THE ASSASSINATION ATTEMPT ON A JUSTICE STORY

Epstein and Medina acknowledged that Democrats have been "struggling to explain away a series of calamities for the party" including, "inflation rates unseen in four decades, surging gas prices, a lingering pandemic, a spate of mass shootings, a Supreme Court poised to end the federal right to an abortion."

Record inflation continues to bedevil the Biden White House. (istock)

The report alleged that "nearly all the Democrats interviewed" have a "deep concern about his political viability," and stated they’re uncomfortable with his gaffes. "They have watched as Biden has repeatedly rattled global diplomats with unexpected remarks that were later walked back by his White House staff, and as he has sat for fewer interviews than any of his recent predecessors."

Obama chief strategist David Axelrod told the paper that "Biden doesn’t get the credit he deserves" for some of his successes, including navigating the pandemic, uniting NATO against Russia, "and restoring decency and decorum to the White House." However, he admitted, "the president would be closer to 90 than 80 at the end of a second term, and that would be a major issue."

SEAN HANNITY: BUCKLE UP FOR BIDEN'S SUMMER OF STAGFLATION AND SUFFERING

Polling shows Biden is at a low point with Democratic voters, with one Associated Press poll showing him at just 73 percent approval with them.

Epstein and Medina rounded out the report with quotes from various party members expressing doubt about Biden’s future. Texas state representative Jasmine Crockett stated, "Democrats are like, ‘What the hell is going on?’ Our country is completely falling apart. And so I think we’re lacking in the excitement."

Former DNC chair Howard Dean implied Biden hasn’t achieved enough of what he has promised. "We need to have specific examples of how we’re dealing with things; it can’t just be pie-in-the-sky and kumbaya," he said.

The New York Times reported on Saturday that many Democratic Party leaders are not comfortable with the future of their party with President Biden in the lead. (REUTERS/Shannon Stapleton/File Photo  |  Getty Images)

The report concluded with a quote from DNC member Sheila Huggins, a lawyer from North Carolina: "Democrats need fresh, bold leadership for the 2024 presidential race. That can’t be Biden."

 

Gabriel Hays is an associate editor at Fox News. Follow him on Twitter at @gabrieljhays.

Source: https://www.foxnews.com/media/new-york-times-democratic-lawmakers-concerned-bidens

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Grassley, Hawley demand details on Disinfo Board after whistleblower revelations - Rajan Laad

 

by Rajan Laad

Demanding that DHS provide them with specifics on how it planned to coordinate its Disinformation Governance Board with social media companies to remove user content

 

The Associated Press reported yesterday that GOP Senators Chuck Grassley (Iowa) and Josh Hawley (Missouri) are demanding that the Department of Homeland Security provide them with specifics on how it planned to coordinate its Disinformation Governance Board with social media companies to remove user content after a whistleblower provided them with key documents about the board.

In an open letter to DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, Senators Grassley and Hawley wrote that DHS must "provide additional clarity regarding its policies and procedures for identifying (mis-, dis- or mal-information), as well as its efforts to ‘operationalize’ public-private partnerships and the steps it is taking to ensure it does not infringe on the constitutional rights of American citizens."

The public learned about the Disinformation Governance Board when Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas testified about its existence in April.

Observers were troubled by the appointment of Nina Jankowicz as the head of the board. Jankowicz has an abominable relationship with the truth. Back in 2020, she dismissed news about Hunter Biden's infamous laptop as "Russian disinformation." She was an advocate of the discredited Steele dossier that was funded by the Clinton campaign that was the source of the Russian Collusion hoax. She is also a blatant partisan with a history of embracing and spreading disinformation to undermine political opponents.

Observers were also concerned that Mayorkas wasn’t explicit about the powers of the Disinformation Governance Board?

Was the board meant to be a supervisory body that would order social media firms to add disclaimers or warnings about ‘disinformation’ and de-platform frequent peddlers of ‘disinformation’?

Was the board empowered to act on the ground and direct law enforcement to conduct arrests and searches? 

Was the board authorized to initiate legal proceedings?

It was alarming that this came at a time when Democrats are in myriad ways attempting to impede upon the fundamental democratic rights of citizens.

The protesters of January 6 are being subjected to draconian punishment without basis.  The partisan January 6 Select Committee exists to intimidate political opponents and prevent President Trump from running in 2024. Last year, parents who objected to their children being indoctrinated with left-wing propaganda were branded as domestic terrorists.  Recently, Biden called Trump supporters "the most extreme political organization that's existed in recent American history."

Was the Board another attempt by Washington in criminalizing political opposition?

Thanks to the efforts of GOP leaders, Free speech absolutists, and conservative commentators, the unconstitutional board was "paused" while Jankowicz was ousted.

The DHS has announced that former DHS secretary Michael Chertoff and former U.S. deputy attorney general Jamie Gorelick, both members of the Homeland Security Advisory Council, were to lead a "thorough review and assessment" of the board.

Back to Senators Grassley’s and Hawley’s letter.

The senators’ letter refers to internal DHS records provided through protected whistleblower disclosures that illustrate how the Disinformation Board was created to exert a powerful influence over the government’s efforts to crack down on disinformation in areas where there are “clear, objective facts.”

Documents reveal that DHS was not only focused on foreign disinformation but also on “issues at the heart of longstanding political debate such as theories about the validity of elections, the origins and effects of COVID-19 vaccines, and the efficacy of wearing masks.”

The letter also states that “given the significant coordinating role the Department envisioned for the Disinformation Governance Board, the consequences of installing Nina Jankowicz, a known trafficker of foreign disinformation and liberal conspiracy theories, as the board’s first Executive Director, would have been a disaster,” 

(Twitter)

GOP supporters often find themselves irked and disappointed with their party. Quite often they find their representative being seduced by Washington, causing them to abandon their campaign promises, their values, and their principles.

The likes of Mitt Romney, Lindsey Graham, and so many more have not only betrayed their voters on a regular basis but are often willing to dance obediently to the tune of the Democrats. 

 

I stand ready to vote on ALL the proposals mentioned by President Biden tonight and encourage the Democratic Leader to bring them forward for votes.

(1/2)

— Lindsey Graham (@LindseyGrahamSC) June 3, 2022

In a press conference announcing the ‘pause’, Biden press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said the board's "work doesn't stop."

It therefore should be great news for voters that Senators Chuck Grassley and Josh Hawley, were not only responsible for compelling the Democrats to pause the Disinformation Governance Board but are also keeping a close watch on the developments related to the board. 

The senators must also ensure that the whistleblower is protected in every way. Their revelation will lead to a manhunt for the 'traitor' within the DHS. Democrats respect the rights of only those whistleblowers who work to hurt their political opponents. Those who dare challenge them could be subject to severe punishment. 

The Disinformation Governance Board was an attempt by the Biden Administration to sit in judgment of every pronouncement of the citizenry. This is undemocratic because in a free society it is the citizen who should sit in judgment of the government and not the other way around.

Both Grassley and Hawley with their actions are ensuring that the inherent rights of citizens are protected.

 

Rajan Laad

Source: https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2022/06/grassley_hawley_demand_details_on_disinfo_board_after_whistleblower_revelations.html

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