Thursday, March 25, 2021

Biden's Border Catastrophe - Joseph Klein

 

​ by Joseph Klein

A disaster getting worse by the day.

 


The hordes of migrants trying to enter the United States by hook or crook regard Joe Biden as their president. Weeks after Biden’s inauguration, for example, migrants were spotted flying a Biden presidential campaign flag at a migrant camp of would-be asylum seekers on the Mexican side of the U.S.-Mexico border. The migrants waiting to be admitted to the United States to begin their asylum application process know that their stay in Mexico is coming to an end after Biden recklessly eliminated the Trump administration’s successful “Remain in Mexico” policy. Migrant families and unaccompanied minors who have crossed the border illegally also have much to thank Biden for. So do the smugglers making millions of dollars in human trafficking.

No wonder Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador in early March called Biden “the migrant president,” which he did not intend as a compliment. During a March 23rd press conference, Mexico’s president elaborated. "Expectations were created that with the Government of President Biden there would be a better treatment of migrants,” he said. “And this has caused Central American migrants, and also from our country, wanting to cross the border thinking that it is easier to do so."

After the Biden administration re-instituted the catch and release policy that had been ended by the Trump administration, migrant families apprehended after illegally entering the United States have been quickly released. They are free to remain in this country without even being issued a court appearance date.

“This is insane, it is another pull factor that will overwhelm us,” a senior-level law enforcement source with U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) in the Rio Grande Valley told Breitbart. “We are creating another entirely different class of aliens we will have to deal with years from now. We will never find most of these aliens once they are released.”

Some of those claiming to be families consist of children with smugglers posing as their parents. In any case, whether real or not, all families apprehended after illegally entering the United States should have been immediately turned away because of the coronavirus pandemic. The Biden administration has the emergency legal authority to do so. However, according to Axios, there is data showing that “an average of just 13% of nearly 13,000 family members attempting to cross the U.S.-Mexico border were returned to Mexico between March 14 and March 21 using the public health order, which essentially says the U.S. can close the border to nonessential travel because of the coronavirus.”

To make matters worse, Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas has confirmed that there have been “instances” when aliens who crossed our border illegally were released without testing them for the coronavirus. There were cases in which illegal aliens who had tested positive were nevertheless released into U.S. communities.

Mayorkas’s claim that the Biden administration has “closed” the border with Mexico to migrant families is a preposterous lie. White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki repeated this lie at her March 22nd press briefing.

All of this is happening as thousands of unaccompanied minors who cross the border illegally are being welcomed with open arms by the Biden administration. The administration was completely unprepared for the chaos that has followed. As of mid-March, more than 13,000 unaccompanied minors were reportedly in U.S. custody, overwhelming CBP resources. There is not enough space to house them temporarily in Border Patrol facilities until they can be safely transferred to facilities operated by the better equipped Department of Health and Human Services. The situation is so bad that the minors are being crammed together in ramshackle quarters, in numbers way beyond their stated capacity limits, with no regard to the risk of coronavirus spread. The minors lie on floor mats with a foil sheet for covers.  

According ABC News, internal CBP documents it obtained show there are now 3,889 migrants in a holding facility in Donna, Texas that is meant to hold just 250. “That means it is currently at 1,556% capacity.” 

The Biden administration has prohibited journalists from visiting or photographing where these minors, who shouldn’t be in the U.S. in the first place, are being held. The administration is covering up the shocking extent of the humanitarian and health crisis it has created. A prominent photojournalist, John Moore, tweeted: “I respectfully ask US Customs and Border Protection to stop blocking media access to their border operations. I have photographed CBP under Bush, Obama and Trump but now - zero access is granted to media.”

In response to repeated media requests for such access, all that the White House would say is that it is “working to finalize details” of a plan to allow some press access.

Biden administration officials continue to refuse to even acknowledge that there is a crisis. The administration remains in full spin mode. Psaki, for example, claimed that “children presenting at our border who are fleeing violence … who are fleeing terrible situations, is not a crisis.”

Yes, there are horrible economic conditions and violence in Central America, which parents want their children to escape. But it is a crisis when such desperate Central American parents are encouraged enough by Biden’s undoing of the Trump administration’s strict immigration policies to put their children in the hands of dangerous smugglers. It is a crisis when such children may never get to the border safely because of disease, violent attacks, or sex trafficking.

“We’re dealing with a different culture who’s not afraid to send all their kids under the age of five, knowing they’re going to get raped, knowing they’re going to get killed,” a border agent told The Epoch Times on condition of anonymity. “You talk to the adults or the teenagers and they’ll tell you, ‘They raped three or four girls, and they kicked them off the trains.’ They’re going to die.”

Those minors lucky enough to make it safely to the U.S-Mexico border are vastly overwhelming the resources available to take care of them after they have crossed illegally into this country. Hence, the inhumane conditions facing the children, just as they thought the worst was behind them.  A picture is a worth a thousand words, as photos made available by Democrat Rep. Henry Cuellar's office of the horrible living conditions demonstrate.

Despite its denials, the Biden administration has sent strong signals through its actions that encourage migrants to come to our country illegally, especially unaccompanied minors. The pull is too great to resist.

Who has Biden just tasked with trying to stem the flow of migrants from Central America? It’s Vice President Kamala Harris, of course. Biden claimed that Harris was the most qualified person to take on this job. Based on what? Harris has no experience either in diplomacy or immigration matters. It was just the other day when Harris laughed in response to a question whether she had plans to visit the border.

Harris  is supposed to oversee the infusion of billions of dollars into the economies of Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador in an attempt to reduce the poverty and violence that are fueling the migration surge. She will fail just as then-Vice President Biden did during the Obama administration. American taxpayers’ money will go down the money pits of these corrupt regimes.

President Juan Orlando Hernández of Honduras, for example, was linked to alleged involvement with Honduras’s drug-trafficking industry during a federal trial in New York. The trial was of a Honduran citizen who was convicted on March 22nd on various counts, including conspiracy to traffic cocaine. The New York Times reported that “evidence presented in court over two weeks provided a searing assessment of the president, whose government’s failure to build a lawful state and a robust economy has helped drive hundreds of thousands of despairing citizens to emigrate in recent years, with most trying to reach the United States.” Yet Biden’s solution is to send Harris down to Honduras and other corrupt Central American countries with bucketsful of cash. This would be laughable if it weren't so pathetic.

It is a dereliction of duty for the president of the United States to potentially endanger the health and security of the American people he is sworn to protect by stimulating an uncontrollable surge of illegal immigrants into this country. And it is cruel for the Biden administration to lure unaccompanied minors to take a very treacherous journey north with no idea of what awaits them. The right thing to do for all concerned is for the Biden administration to send an unambiguous message that those crossing into the United States illegally, including children, will be promptly sent home in a safe and humane manner.

Photo: Associated Press

 

Joseph Klein  

Source: https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2021/03/illegal-aliens-love-joe-biden-joseph-klein/ 

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Support Taiwan to Deter China - Dean Chang

 

​ by Dean Chang

U.S. strategic ambiguity toward China's expansionist ambitions threatens Taiwan's future and the stability of the world economy.

How is it the U.S. does not claim Taiwan as a strategic ally nor consider Taiwan an adversary?  Taiwan is what we want in a trustworthy ally: a rule-based, thriving democracy that upholds human rights.  Unfortunately, we do not recognize Taiwan as a sovereign nation though it has its own government and its own defense and monetary systems.  In fact, Taiwan, the keystone island strategically positioned between U.S. allies Japan and the Philippines, has the world’s 20th largest economy, is America’s 10th largest trade partner and produces 60% of the world’s semiconductor chips.

If defending Taiwan is one of our most vital strategic interests, the U.S. should immediately stop worrying about offending the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), act as the global leader that we are, shed the outdated strategic ambiguity on Taiwan, and acknowledge the reality that Taiwan is a nation.    

History shows strategic ambiguity has led to conflicts 

Strategic ambiguity, peppered with opaqueness in the mistaken and forlorn hope that it can deter adversaries, has invited miscalculations and unintended armed conflicts. In 1950, U.S. Secretary of State Dean Acheson’s speech to the National Press Club on January 12, 1950  made no mention of the Korean peninsula being part of the U.S. defensive perimeter.  Six months later North Korea, encouraged by China, invaded South Korea.  The resultant Korean War yielded three million deaths, including 35,000 U.S. servicemen

On July 25, 1990, U.S. ambassador April Glaspie told Iraq’s Saddam Hussein that “we (the U.S.) have no opinion on… Arab-Arab conflicts, like your border disagreement with Kuwait,”  A week later Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait drew the U.S. into a conflict that heads into its third decade and at a cost of thousands of U.S. lives and untold billions of dollars.     

In February 2014, Russia militarily annexed Crimea, Ukraine’s southernmost peninsula, in defiance of the 1994 Budapest Memorandum on Security Assurances guaranteeing Ukrainian security.  Apart from $1 billion in aid to Ukraine by the U.S. and words volleyed across the Atlantic calling for a Russian withdrawal, there was no U.S. or UK show of force nor any UN assistance; the Russians stayed put.  Over the next months, Russia, with renewed bravado, subsequently occupied eastern Ukraine, where it remains to this day. 

Strategic clarity and clear intentions, like the Monroe Doctrine, might have been more likely to preserve peace. 

Will Biden-Blinken “…Choose the Harder Right Instead of the Easier Wrong…”?

Washington needs to divorce itself from its decades-long “One China” policy and its strategic ambiguity mantra to deter Chinese aggression towards Taiwan. 

To avert potential conflicts, a new U.S. Taiwan policy should be that in addition to complying with the Taiwan Relations Act, the U.S. will defend Taiwan if Taiwan is attacked, militarily or otherwise, without provocation.  In the event of such aggression, the U.S. will recognize that there is the government of the Republic of China on Taiwan and the government of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) on China.  

The 1979 Taiwan Relations Act (TRA) and the “One China Policy emerged when Jimmy Carter recognized the PRC.  Ronald Reagan later added the “Six Assurances” in 1982 to further compliment the TRA.  Unfortunately, the declarations are not legally binding:  1) the TRA does not lawfully require the U.S. to defend Taiwan; it merely states the U.S. will provide “necessary defensive articles for Taiwan to protect itself”; 2) the “Six Assurances” guide U.S.-Taiwan relations but is a non-binding, unenforceable resolution. 

The U.S. has never formally stated if it will aid Taiwan if China invades and its continued adherence to this strategic ambiguity will encourage China to inadvertently pull the U.S. into war.  Biden’s 2020 Interim National Security Guidance augmented this vagueness: “We (the U.S.) will support Taiwan, a leading democracy and a critical economic and security partner, in line with longstanding American commitments.” 

The premise of the strategic ambiguity and the One China policy are obsolete 

They were effective when:

1) The U.S. was the dominant global superpower; 

2) China was economically depressed and militarily weak and awakening from a nightmarish Cultural Revolution; and

3) Taiwan was a developing country under martial law and barely taxiing to the ramp to become one of Asia’s Four (economic) Dragons.  

Strategic ambiguity has lost its effectiveness today because:

1) U.S. swagger has dimmed globally as domestic issues (i.e., gender and racial politics) vie for influence and resources;

2) China’s might, militarily and economically, has increased exponentially as it

   a) spreads its brand of ideology via the Belt and Road Initiative,

   b) suppresses basic human rights against ethnic and religious minorities,

   c) disavows civil liberties and universal suffrage they legally agreed upon for Hong Kong,

   d) has refused to denounce the use of force to overtake Taiwan (see 2005 Anti-Secession Law); and

3) Taiwan has

   a) matured into a rule-based, thriving democracy,

   b) successfully managed the coronavirus pandemic to become a model for the world, and

   c) created a nurturing and paternalistic platform for world-class semiconductor manufacturers to flourish. 

Taiwan is of a Vital Strategic Interest to the United States 

Biden needs to acknowledge Taiwan’s geostrategic position, its vibrant democracy and world-class semiconductor industry are economic and security benefits the U.S. and the free world need to defend, but would lead to catastrophe if not protected.  Foreign Policy defines vital strategic interests as “conditions strictly necessary to safeguard and enhance a country’s survival as a free and secure nation.”

If China invades and occupies Taiwan, the CCP will control the ingress/egress of the South China Sea, one of the world’s most vital sea lanes, where one-third of all global shipping transits.  Taiwan, Douglas MacArthur’s “unsinkable aircraft carrier” at the north end of the South China Sea, sits in a commanding, over-watch position to monitor and control all shipping flow.  Other strategic advantages for China:

  • China’s blue water navy will have unimpeded paths directly to Hawaii, North America, and South America.
  • China will control the sea lanes where 40% of its total trade transit through.
  • China will have unencumbered sea lines of communication and control of the Taiwan Straits.
  • China will gain access to 60% of the world’s $85 billion semiconductor chip manufacturing industry. Without these chips, computers cannot compute, smart phones cannot be smart, F-35s cannot fly nor fight.    

A China-occupied Taiwan gives China the ability to disrupt trade that may lead to or precipitate a global economic crisis.  When that happens, will Biden-Blinken still debate whether Taiwan is of vital strategic interest to the U.S.?  

A Path to Conflict 

The 1989 Tiananmen Massacre started the slow death spiral of the West’s dream of a politically open China.  China’s ethnic/religious genocide against the Uighurs and the Tibetans cast doubts on the CCP’s respect of human rights.  China’s unilateral abolishment of legal commitments to Hong Kong’s autonomy and the passage of the 2020 Hong Kong National Security Law nailed shut the coffin on universal suffrage for Hong Kong.  Combined with the 2005 Anti-Secession Law, its unabashed declaration of intent to occupy Taiwan and not renounce the use of force against Taiwan, China’s actions foretell its “reunification” intentions with Taiwan.

China’s actions and its intent with Taiwan, combined with the past strategic ambiguity the U.S. leading to unintended conflicts do not bode well for Taiwan to remain free and democratic.  To extricate the U.S. from being unintentionally led into a conflict with China or avoid losing Taiwan to China, Biden-Blinken need to explicitly state U.S. intentions to defend Taiwan in the event of a Chinese attack.  Ambiguity leads to miscalculations; clarity begets maximum deterrence.

Image: Luo Shaoyang 

 

Dean Chang  retired from the U.S. Army as a colonel and from the State Department as a foreign service officer with combined service in the continental U.S., Africa, Asia, and the Middle East.

Source: https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2021/03/support_taiwan_to_deter_china.html 

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Covering Up Ahmad Al Issa's Islamic Yearnings - Jamie Glazov

 

​ by Jamie Glazov

Denying the Jihad in the Boulder Jihad.

 


Frontpagemag Editors’ note: As we witness U.S. authorities and the establishment media trying to de-Islamize the Jihad in Boulder and to obscure the fact that the Jihadist perpetrator, Ahmad Al Issa, is a Muslim migrant ISIS sympathizer, a vital question confronts us: why does the Left consistently engage in Jihad Denial? Why is it so invested in denying the Islamic roots of Islamic Jihad?

This is, without doubt, one of the most pertinent questions of our time, especially now with the Boulder Jihad -- and its tragic victims -- hovering right before our very eyes. Frontpage Mag editors have therefore deemed it vital to run, below, an excerpt from Jamie Glazov’s book, Jihadist Psychopath: How He is Charming, Seducing, and Devouring Us.

The excerpt, which includes sections of Chapter 1 of the book ('The Case'), details the Obama administration's horrific record of trying to hide and camouflage the true sources of Islamic terror -- an effort that spawned catastrophic consequences.

This documentation equips us with the understanding of why Jihadists like Ahmad Al Issa are able to sow the destruction that they do today -- and so easily. It also sets the foundation for our insight into why exactly the Left practices Jihad Denial -- and what all the specious ingredients of that denial entail. These facts will all be unveiled in several published segments of Jihadist Psychopath in our forthcoming issues of Frontpage Mag.

Don't miss this essay below.

[To read the chapter on what the Left actually is -- and why it aids and abets Jihad -- read Utopian Virus: HERE.
The Virus in Power, meanwhile, explores how the Left took power in America -- and why it had such an easy time doing so. Read it: HERE. The introduction crystallizes the general nature of Jihad Denial: HERE.]

*


The Case.

On May 13, 2010, Attorney General Eric Holder had an incredulous and perplexed expression on his face as he sat before the House Judiciary Committee. He just couldn’t understand what Representative Lamar Smith, the ranking Republican on the Committee, was asking him, over and over again. Specifically, Smith wanted to know if Holder thought that “Radical Islam” had any connection to Jihadist attacks perpetrated against the United States. Rep. Smith had to ask the same question, repeated in different ways, six times while Holder looked confused and uttered short rejoinders about how Rep. Smith’s questions weren’t making sense to him. Finally, apparently realizing that Rep. Smith would not desist, Holder affirmed that whatever it was that the congressman was talking about (Holder would not pronounce the words), it was definitely not connected to the attacks to which Smith was referring. [1]

Holder’s behavior before the House Judiciary Committee clearly reflected the position of the Obama administration on the terror war -- a position that the administration had made conspicuously evident from the moment it took office. It would be the Hear No Islam/See No Islam position when it came to terrorism. Whenever Jihadists would strike, Jihad Denial would be the name of the game. This, of course, was central to the Left’s cause, since denying Jihad and its true roots helps to advance the progressives’ goal of making America more vulnerable to Jihad. And now the progressive dream had come true: the Left had its own Radical-in-Chief in the White House who was faithfully executing its destructive agenda.

----

Obama’s new path of Jihad Denial and romancing the Muslim Brotherhood took on devastating significance in October 2011, when his administration dutifully followed Muslim Brotherhood “requests” and purged all FBI and other intelligence agencies’ training manuals of any mention of Islam and Jihad.[2]

The Department of Defense followed suit and enforced a purge of all individuals who didn’t toe the new Party Line. New disciplinary action and re-education was made mandatory for anyone in the government who dared to acknowledge Islam’s role in the terror war.[3] Those who courageously told the truth about Islam, such as the scholar Robert Spencer, were removed from their positions as trainers of FBI and military personnel on the jihad threat and were replaced by members of Muslim Brotherhood front groups such as CAIR and ISNA.[4]

In the State Department, meanwhile, officials would be forbidden from asking Muslim immigrants about their views on Sharia and Jihad before approving their visa applications.[5]

A “counterterrorism” government guide would also tell officials that keeping Muslims out of the country for supporting Sharia Law violated the First Amendment. [6] All American officials and investigators were now permitted to consider only violent or criminal conduct in the terror war. Radical ideology was to be ignored, particularly if it had the veneer of “religious expression.”[7]

----

It soon became clear that Countering “Violent Extremism” {CVE) was the Obama administration’s primary “focus” in the terror war. It served the administration’s agenda perfectly because, at first glance, no one could point to what it was exactly that was being countered. There was no clear objective or identification of any specific enemy and, unsurprisingly, no mention of Jihad or Islam. Countering “violent extremism” became one of those very vague and ambiguous goals to which the administration could refer when it came time to prove it was doing something about terrorism when, in fact, it was doing absolutely nothing at all.[8]

While the CVE strategy had its nebulous aspects, there was actually something that it very clearly sought to “counter.” Indeed, it became quite evident that there were certain individuals, along with an ideology, that the administration regarded as “extremist” and that it wanted to block. And who were the guilty parties? The truth-tellers about Jihad, of course. The counter-jihad movement represented the true “violent extremism” because, according to the administration, it was instigating all the terrible and racist hatred that was being displayed against Muslims everywhere.[9] The evidence substantiating this supposed reality proved non-existent, but the notion prevailed nonetheless. And it was here that we saw the Left’s upside-down inversion of who the good and bad guys really were: Jihad had somehow become the victim, while the victims of Jihad became the terrorists.

The administration’s CVE charade was, in a nutshell, really all about one basic agenda: enforcing Jihad Denial and persecuting the dissidents who violated it. This situation yielded a disaster: the real threat facing America could not be named or labelled. In his book Catastrophic Failure: Blindfolding America in the Face of Jihad, author Stephen Coughlin documents how, under Obama, a dire threat was reduced to a “nameless abstraction.” U.S. leaders and intelligence agencies ignored the most basic tenets of intelligence, which included the critical component of threat identification. The problem, notably, began in the Bush administration. Having worked himself in the Joint Chiefs of Staff Intelligence Directorate in the immediate post-9-11 period, Coughlin recalls how he discovered that,

within the division there seemed to be a preference for political correctness over   accuracy and for models that were generated not by what the enemy said he was but on what academics and “cultural advisors’ said the enemy needed to be, based on contrived social science theories.[10]  

Under Obama, the situation went from bad to worse. Coughlin describes how Islamic supremacists became completely aware of the administration’s calculated self-delusion and, consequently, felt arrogantly at ease in actually molding American leaders’ thinking and policies. Our enemies, Coughlin writes, “successfully calculated that they could win the war by convincing our national security leaders of the immorality of studying and knowing the enemy.”[11] As a result, they became overridingly confident in their ability to fulfill the Muslim Brotherhood’s goal, which the Brotherhood boasted about in its own documents, of sabotaging the United States through the process of “civilization-jihad” and achieving this goal by Americans’ own hands.[12]

Thus, America’s suicidal disposition in the terror war reached a crisis level under Obama, when American officials actually started seeking advice and direction from precisely those forces seeking to destroy the country. As Coughlin shows, while the government identified certain individuals and organizations as providers of material support to terrorism, and as members or allies of the Muslim Brotherhood, it simultaneously sought out “those same people as cultural experts, ‘moderates’ and community outreach partners.”[13]

With Obama in the White House, therefore, the enemy was in effect advising Americans and formulating their policy on how to promote their cause. Obama was also mischaracterizing the conflict America was in. “The public face of Islam in America,” Coughlin notes, “was shaped by the Muslim Brotherhood.” Islam in America, in turn, “took the form favored by the Brotherhood.”[14] This catastrophe was compounded by the surreal fact that many officials in senior positions in the Obama administration didn’t even know anything about Islam and were completely oblivious to the Islamic doctrines that justify and even mandate Jihad against the West.[15]

Suffice it to say that while threat identification is the foundation for any successful war effort and is, therefore, crucial to protecting Americans and enhancing our security, under Obama such identification was impossible. As Coughlin points out, “a postmodern form of relativism” had rendered America “incapable of recognizing existential epistemic threats and hence made it defenseless in the face of them.”[16]

And it got worse. Not only did the Obama administration avoid recognizing the true threats that faced America, it spent a significant amount of time chasing around non-threats on purpose. Immense resources were wasted on investigating harmless non-Muslims solely for the sake of appearing non-racist. “Since 2009 we’ve opened investigations of groups we knew to be harmless,” a Pentagon counterterrorism official revealed, “they weren’t Muslims, and we needed some ‘balance’ in case the White House asked if we were ‘profiling’ potential terrorists.”[17] In this way, the Obama administration could proudly maintain that it was not engaged in “Islamophobia.”[18]

Meanwhile, The Obama administration was not content with solely silencing threat identification within the government. It would cause embarrassment, after all, if the media and American citizens could still talk openly and honestly about the ideology that posed a threat to America and the West. House Democrats, therefore, faithfully sprung to action and launched an effort to criminalize truth-telling about Jihad in the country at large. Their effort produced House Resolution 569, which leading Democrats in the House of Representatives sponsored on December 17, 2015. Referred to the House Committee on the Judiciary, the resolution sought to destroy the First Amendment by condemning hateful rhetoric towards Muslims in the United States.[19]

Conflating truth-telling about Jihad with the supposed hatred of all Muslim people, the resolution sought to criminalize any attempt to accurately identify America’s enemies and the ideology that inspires them. As Robert Spencer notes, the resolution used

the specter of violence against Muslims to try to quash legitimate research into the motives and goals of those who have vowed to destroy us, which will have the effect of allowing the jihad to advance unimpeded and unopposed.[20]

The Left’s effort with House Resolution 569 was an extension of U.N. Resolution 16/18, the effort pushed by the Organization of the Islamic Conference (O.I.C.), the 57-nation alliance of Muslim states, to stifle free speech about Islam globally by implementing a U.N. rule against the so-called “defamation of religions.” The real aim of U.N. Resolution 16/18 is, of course, to shut down “Islamophobia,” which means to curtail any truth-telling about Islam and to impose Islamic blasphemy laws worldwide.[21]

Any law applied in the U.S. that is based on House Resolution 569 or U.N. Resolution 16/18 would be a violation of the U.S. First Amendment. But this doesn’t concern leftists very much, since that is precisely their objective. This explains why Hillary Clinton personally committed the State Department to impose U.N. Resolution 16/18 on the United States in her meeting with the General Secretary of the O.I.C. in July 2011, while she was serving as Secretary of State. Clinton also affirmed that, until the effort could become U.S. law, there would be action undertaken -- by means of “peer pressure and shaming” -- to intimidate Americans who engaged in the kind of speech that U.N. Resolution 16/18 sought to end. Then, tellingly enough, in June 2012, when Assistant Attorney General Tom Perez was asked by the Chairman of the House Subcommittee on the Constitution to confirm that the Obama administration would “never entertain or advance a proposal that criminalizes speech against any religion,” he refused to answer.[22]

While the Obama administration and its leftist loyalists were busy trying to impose Islamic blasphemy laws on the United States, other American progressive forces empowered Islamic supremacism in other realms. The leftist leadership of New York City, for instance, became busy accommodating Muslim Brotherhood directives by preventing the New York Police Department from focusing on Muslims in fighting Jihad. The process started in 2012, when the Muslim Students Association (MSA), a Muslim Brotherhood front group, filed a federal lawsuit (along with a few other Muslim Brotherhood plaintiffs) against the NYPD. In its complaint, the MSA charged that the civil rights of Muslims were being violated by the NYPD's use of informants and plainclothes detectives to monitor various Islamic institutions -- particularly MSA chapters -- in the New York/New Jersey area.[23]

In early January 2016, New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio and Police Commissioner William Bratton agreed to a settlement that would exempt Muslims from NYPD surveillance. The new guidelines explicitly barred police officers from basing any future law-enforcement investigations on race, ethnicity, or, as in the case of the MSA, religion.[24] As part of the settlement, New York City also deleted from the department’s website an exhaustive NYPD report, titled "Radicalization in the West: The Homegrown Threat," which provided a crucial tutorial for all law enforcement organizations seeking to understand how an individual is moved to Islamic radicalization.[25]

The NYPD's traditional practice of cultivating informants and using undercover investigators within the Muslim community had undeniably prevented many Jihadist attacks.

But now, with more than thirty thousand worldwide Muslim terrorist attacks inspired by Islamic texts since 9/11,[26] with Jihadist attacks on the rise globally, and with the FBI recently stating that it was investigating as many as 900 open cases on individuals suspected of being ISIS operatives,[27] it has become illegal for the NYPD to single out anyone in the Muslim community for surveillance and undercover operations. As writer Daniel Greenfield noted regarding this development, “if a successful terror attack occurs in New York, it will be because Bill de Blasio crippled the NYPD at the behest of Islamic groups.”[28]

---

In America, we see how the Left succeeded through Obama in enforcing Jihad Denial and in enabling the strength of Islamic supremacist forces. In achieving this feat, progressives empowered the advance of Jihad and Sharia in the United States, which made the nation vastly more vulnerable to its enemy’s attacks.

It is undeniable that the Jihadist attacks that occurred on American soil throughout the Obama years could have easily been prevented. This fact will be heavily documented later in our story, but for now we will cite just one illustrative example: the Boston Marathon Massacre that the Tsarnaev brothers perpetrated on April 15, 2013, did not have to happen. The Russians, after all, had warned the FBI about the Tsarnaevs before the massacre, but the intelligence agency found nothing after its “investigation” of the two brothers. This is because the Bureau had its hands tied behind its back with the Jihad Denial rules of the administration. It couldn’t ask the right questions, nor pursue the right and necessary leads.

Jamie Glazov holds a Ph.D. in History with a specialty in Russian, U.S. and Canadian foreign policy. He is the editor of Frontpagemag.com, the author of the critically-acclaimed, United in Hate: The Left’s Romance with Tyranny and Terror, and the host of the web-tv show, The Glazov Gang. His new book is Jihadist Psychopath: How He is Charming, Seducing, and Devouring Us. Visit his site at JamieGlazov.com, follow him on Twitter: @JamieGlazov, and reach him at jamieglazov11@gmail.com.

Notes:

[1] Stephen Dinan, "Holder balks at blaming ‘radical Islam’," The Washington Times, May 14, 2010. http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2010/may/14/holder-balks-at-blaming-radical-islam/#ixzz30MluWyrS

[2] Robert Spencer, “Hillary Lets the Jihadist Cat Out of the Bag,” Frontpagemag.com, January 24, 2013. http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/robert-spencer/hillary-lets-the-jihadist-cat-out-of-bag/print/

[3] Stephen Coughlin, Catastrophic Failure: Blindfolding America in the Face of Jihad, (Center for Security Policy Press: Washington D.C., 2015), pp.21.

[4] Robert Spencer, Arab Winter Comes to America: The Truth About the War We're In, (Washington, D.C: Regnery, 2015), pp. xiii-xvi; Frank Gaffney, The Muslim Brotherhood in the Obama Administration, (Sherman Oaks, CA, David Horowitz Freedom Center: 2012).

[5] Leo Hohmann, “Exploding Muslim immigration overwhelms FBI,” WorldNetDaily.com, July 17, 2015. http://www.wnd.com/2015/07/exploding-muslim-immigration-overwhelms-fbi/#vJezltXyYmuQXX0j.99

[6] Daniel Greenfield, “Counterterrorism Gov Guide: Keeping Out Muslims for Sharia Law Violates First Amendment,” The Point, Frontpagemag.com, December 16, 2015. http://www.frontpagemag.com/point/261149/counterterrorism-gov-guide-keeping-out-muslims-daniel-greenfield

[7] Ibid.

[8] For an authoritative account of the CVE strategy, see Stephen Coughlin Interview, “The Hoax of ‘Countering Violent Extremism’” on The Glazov Gang, JamieGlazov.com, April 12, 2016. http://jamieglazov.com/2016/04/12/the-hoax-of-countering-violent-extremism-on-the-glazov-gang/

[9] Ibid.

[10] Coughlin, p.12.

[11] Ibid.

[12] Ibid.

[13] Ibid, p.13.

[14] Ibid, p.17.

[15] Ibid., p.14.

[16] Ibid., p.17.

[17] John R. Schindler, "The Intelligence Lessons of San Bernardino," Observer.com, December 14, 2015. http://observer.com/2015/12/the-intelligence-lessons-of-san-bernardino/

[18] Ibid.

[19] Robert Spencer, “House Democrats Move to Criminalize Criticism of Islam,” Frontpagemag.com, December 29, 2015. http://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/261268/house-democrats-move-criminalize-criticism-islam-robert-spencer

[20] Ibid.

[21] Deborah Weiss, “Democrats Castigate ‘Anti-Muslim’ Speech in Proposed Legislation,” Frontpagemag.com, January 26, 2016. http://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/261550/democrats-castigate-anti-muslim-speech-proposed-deborah-weiss; Robert Spencer, “Secretary of State Clinton says State Department will coordinate with OIC on legal ways to implement UN’s resolution criminalizing ‘defamation of religion’”, JihadWatch.org, August 3, 2011. http://www.jihadwatch.org/2011/08/secretary-of-state-clinton-says-state-department-will-coordinate-with-oic-on-legal-ways-to-implement

[22] Melanie Arter, “DOJ Official Won’t Say Whether Justice Department Would ‘Criminalize Speech against Any Religion’”, CNSNews.com, July 26, 2012. http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/doj-official-won-t-say-whether-justice-department-would-criminalize-speech-against-any. See also Coughlin, p.22.

[23] John Perazzo, “The MSA Defeats New York,” Frontpagemag.com, January 12, 2016.
http://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/261427/msa-defeats-new-york-john-perazzo; for documentation of the MSA being a Muslim Brotherhood front group, see the profile on the MSA at DiscovertheNetworks.org: http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/groupProfile.asp?grpid=6175

[24] Ibid.

[25] Paul Sperry, “The purge of a report on radical Islam has put NYC at risk,” NYPost.com, April 15, 2017. http://nypost.com/2017/04/15/the-purge-of-a-report-on-radical-islam-has-put-nyc-at-risk/; Patrick Dunleavy, “NYPD Caves to Political Correctness,” InvestigativeProject.org, January 8, 2016. http://www.investigativeproject.org/5121/nypd-caves-to-political-correctness

[26] See the website thereligionofpeace.com which keeps a track of the number of Islamic terrorist attacks since 9/11.

[27] Kevin Johnson, “Comey: Feds have roughly 900 domestic probes about Islamic State operatives, other extremists,” UsaToday.com, October 23, 2015. http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2015/10/23/fbi-comey-isil-domestic-probes/74455460/

[28] Daniel Greenfield, “Bill de Blasio Cripples NYPD Surveillance of Muslim Terrorism,” The Point at Frontpagemag.com, January 7, 2016. http://www.frontpagemag.com/point/261384/bill-de-blasio-cripples-nypd-surveillance-muslim-daniel-greenfield

 

Jamie Glazov  

Source: https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2021/03/covering-ahmad-al-issa-jamie-glazov/ 

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When Black Mass Shooters Kill Asians, It’s Not a Hate Crime - Daniel Greenfield

 

​ by Daniel Greenfield

The racist killers of Asians the media isn’t interested in.

 


"Those Asian officers who stand by and observe everything I previously mentioned," Christopher Dorner wrote in his manifesto. "You are a high value target as well."

The black mass shooter's first target was Monica Quan, the Asian-American daughter of Randall Quan, the first Chinese-American to become an LAPD captain.

Monica was shot three times in the back of the head. Afterward, Dorner (pictured above) called her father and told him that he "should have done a better job of protecting his daughter."

The media coverage of Dorner’s shooting spree focused on the racist rants about white police officers (or caucasians) in his manifesto, but there was very little discussion of his hatred for Asian-Americans even though he had named them as targets in his hateful screed.

When black mass shooters kill Asian people, the media tries to gloss over it.

Colin Ferguson's mass shooting in the 90s on a New York train is remembered largely for the decision by his radical leftist lawyers, William Kunstler and Ron Kuby to use the “Black Rage” defense. Shortly before his death, Kunstler argued that black people are entitled to rage.

But what is often forgotten is that two of the six people whom Ferguson murdered were Asian.

Maria Theresa Tumangan Magtoto was the daughter of an official with the Philippine Senate. Mi Kyung Kim, a Korean-American, had been working as a library assistant at Columbia.

A third of the men and women whom Ferguson killed were Asians.

This wasn't a coincidence. Notes in Ferguson's pockets were scribbled with rants about white people, "Uncle Toms", and "Chinese" people. None of the Asian-Americans he shot were actually Chinese, but the racist gunman didn't seem to care.

“When Louis Farrakhan mentioned Mr. Ferguson at a New York rally on Dec. 18, his audience erupted in an ovation”, “The Hate That Hate Begot”, a New York Daily News article, noted.

“God spoke to Colin Ferguson and said, 'Catch the train, Colin, catch the train’”, the Nation of Islam’s Khalid Abdul Muhammad declared at Howard University.

When John Allen Muhammad went on his rampage, his victims included Hong Im Ballenger, a Korean immigrant who ran a beauty supply store. As the D.C. sniper’s last name showed, he had been a member of Farrakhan’s black supremacist Nation of Islam hate group.

The Nation of Islam believes that non-black people were created through a eugenics program by a mad scientist from the original black race. “Asians want to know if we are targeting all Asian business. We know Asians have targeted Black communities to exploit. The JIG IS UP," Jeffery Muhammad, the Nation of Islam leader in Dallas, had warned.

This sort of anti-Asian hate extends into the highest reaches of the Democrats and the media.

Before Al Sharpton was an MSNBC host, a Democrat presidential candidate with a DNC speaking slot, and a Democrat kingmaker, he was leading boycotts of Korean stores.

Sharpton had supported the infamous Family Red Apple boycott at which racist mobs had called the owners, "yellow monkeys" and chanted, "Koreans, go home." The Freddy’s Fashion Mart protests, led by Morris Powell, head of the Buy Black Committee at Sharpton’s National Action Network, later turned lethal, culminating in the murders of seven people.

While the motive there was antisemitism and the victims were mostly young Latino women, the fire was followed by threats of violence against Korean stores in Harlem.

And Powell had cut his teeth on black supremacist boycotts of Asian businesses.

In a previous boycott incident at the Victory Fish Market, he had allegedly fractured the skull of Kim Soo Yea: the wife of the store owner.

The National Action Network has since been addressed by every top Democrat from Obama to Biden to Elizabeth Warren and Kamala Harris.

The Democrats have jumped eagerly on the spa shootings. Their media insists that the shooter could not have been a sex addict motivated by his own disorder, as he said, but that he must be a racist who hated Asian people, while refusing to make a reckoning with the publicly stated hatred for Asian people of black mass shooters like Colin Ferguson and Christopher Dorner.

The spa shootings emerged as a convenient distraction from the protests over the escalating criminal assaults on Asian people in California and New York by mostly black perpetrators.

“The perpetrator in some cases has been African American,” San Francisco Mayor London Breed had said. “And as an African American woman, as the mayor of your city, I am here to hold everyone accountable.”

That was not the media’s agenda.

Back in February, Time was scolding Asian-American victims and telling them that they needed to figure out “how to tackle anti-Asian violence without relying on law enforcement institutions that have historically targeted Black and brown communities”.

After the spa shootings, headlines like "Advocates Discourage Anti-Black Sentiment Amid Violence Against Asians" and the clumsy attempts to falsely ascribe attacks by black men on elderly Asian people to President Trump and whiteness ("This violence is caused by a system that makes working people compete against each other for scraps of what the wealthy possess," Oakland City Councilwoman Carroll Fife) gave way to political relief for Democrats.

The media spread the false claim that a police spokesman had dismissed the attack as a case of the perpetrator having a “bad day”. Even though neither the police nor the FBI had found a racial motive, the media spread its racism narrative without even the tiniest trace of evidence.

It makes little difference to the actual case. Even now, at the peak of the Democrat pro-crime policy wave where criminals are let loose for slashings and robberies, a mass murderer is never going to set foot outside the prison system whether or not he’s charged with a hate crime.

But there’s a great deal politically at stake for the Democrat media which is seizing the opportunity to deflect a politically problematic crisis back into politically safe waters.

Racist killers don’t make a big secret of their hate. White supremacist mass shooters like Dylann Roof at the Mother Emanuel church in Charleston and Robert Bowers at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh, or black supremacist shooters, like Micah X. Johnson in Dallas or David Anderson at the Kosher market in Jersey City, left their ugly beliefs in public view.

Dorner and Ferguson had notes and manifestos.

The media spends a lot more time talking about politically convenient mass killers than inconvenient ones. It’s why Robert Bowers got so much more coverage than David Anderson. It’s also why Colin Ferguson and Dylann Roof received a very different reception.

It is wholly possible to be an evil person without being a bigot. The average serial killer is not a racist. He’s just wholly devoid of empathy and enjoys the pain and suffering of others. Not every crime needs to be viewed through the narrow academic lens of prejudice: let alone ‘whiteness’.

But much as Communists couldn’t see the world in any terms other than class, Wokies can’t  understand any event except by shoving it into their identity politics prism. Some things fit into that prism, others can be made to fit with enough fake news, and still others will never fit and have to be ignored, covered up, and buried at midnight in the media graveyard of dead stories.

The media is no longer in the business of reporting stories, but of politically reconciling them in the same way that Pravda reporters had to reconcile events with Marxism-Leninism. The media politically confronts events, and tries to understand them, before distilling their understanding.

Journalism has become an academic enterprise of grad students treating every event like an opportunity to unload critical race theory lectures so that the public can be properly educated.

But now that the media is suddenly interested in mass shooters who target Asians, it might want to revisit Ferguson and Dorner who actually targeted Asians and wrote about doing it, instead of trying to ascribe a racial motive to a monster who left behind no evidence of being a bigot.

 

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/2021/03/when-black-mass-shooters-kill-asians-its-not-hate-daniel-greenfield/ 

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The Unfit President - J. Robert Smith

 

​ by J. Robert Smith

America effectively has no president. It has a cabal running things from the White House.

There was another time in U.S. history when a president was incapable of serving.  His name was Woodrow Wilson, and he had had a stroke, a debilitating one.  He never recovered.  For about 18 months, the nation was without a president.  World War I was over, and the country was on the cusp of the Roaring 20s, so perhaps having a leader wasn’t as imperative.    

Politico remembered Wilson’s October 1919 stroke in this October 2019 article

For a time, it was one of greatest cover-ups in the annals of the American presidency. (Many more years would pass before ratification of the 25th Amendment in 1967, which specifies the procedures to be followed in the event of a presidential disability.) Edith [Wilson, the First Lady] would regularly review pending legislation and executive documents -- becoming, according to some historians, the de facto acting president. [Italics added]

Seem familiar?  It should. 

A little more than a century later, history is repeating itself -- sort of.  President Joe Biden is functionally incapable of discharging his duties. Robotically signing executive orders doesn’t count. In 1919, the stroke that waylaid Wilson was covered up.  Wilson wasn’t paraded before the public.  Then, a measure of decorum was maintained in deference to citizens’ sensibilities.  (Wilson rode with his successor, Warren G. Harding, to Harding’s inaugural, but didn’t stay.)    

Not so with Biden. The 46th president is trotted out before cameras often enough.  Almost inevitably, some aspect of his meager performances proves his dysfunction.  He fluffs lines, forgets, wanders off message, and, last Friday, stumbled so badly up the stairs to Air Force One that he was within an inch of serious injury.   

Yet, however obvious Biden’s fumbles and stumbles, his performances are gaslighted by administration flaks and the mainstream media.  Nothing to see, so move on.  The establishment damn well knows better, and should have the nation’s welfare at heart, but plays along.  Congressional Democrats play along, while congressional Republicans (many, not all) acquiesce.  Pelosi and Schumer are full conspirators. McConnell plays dumb.  Kevin McCarthy is mum. 

Biden was a functionally incapable candidate last year, of course. Voters knew it.  Kids, cats, and dogs knew it.  But Democrats were unfazed.  Joe was a longtime familiar face.  Irascible, cheatin’, influence-peddlin’ old Joe.  He was kinda centrist, kinda liberal.  Voters weren’t threatened by him, so party powerbrokers settled on him from a woeful field of Democrat presidential contenders. 

Biden’s decline didn’t matter.  Democrats had aces up their sleeves.  Why labor much to dupe Americans about Biden’s fitness?  A little gaslighting was plenty.  Election chicanery in five battleground states would fix the results.  The fixes worked. 

The Biden formula hasn’t changed since his inauguration.  A pinch of gaslighting, a pound of audacity, and another pound of flagrant disregard for the people’s will remains the recipe.  The agenda is all that matters, and the cabal -- comprised of Democrats, leftists, and plutocrats, chiefly -- are driving it hard.  They aim to cement Democrat control of politics, embed aspects of authoritarianism, and impose leftist policies on Americans.          

But disaster is in the making.  The cabal-manufactured border crisis and its drive to end America’s energy independence are “destroying our country,” asserts our former -- and perhaps future -- president Donald J. Trump.  But open borders and ending energy independence are merely opening salvos in the cabal’s go at “transforming” America. 

We ain’t seen nothin’ yet.  H.R. 1 (institutionalizing elections fraud), backdooring the Green New Deal, trillions in profligate spending, packing SCOTUS, gun control, and statehood for D.C. are in the offing.  Democrats aim to muscle through these terrible initiatives.    

The big question is, can the people thwart the cabal’s designs?  Can America avoid an outright debacle?  Can grassroots patriots, courts, red states, alternative conservative media, clashes of interests, and the general institutional drag built into the Constitution slam the brakes on Democrats’ power grab and lurch leftward?

Will GOP-driven election reform in key states be enacted, thereby providing fairer playing fields for the 2022 midterm congressional elections, which are necessary to install a GOP House majority, at least?

A GOP House -- preferably a Republican Congress -- holds the power of the purse.  Depriving the Biden administration of funds would tamp down the cabal’s ability to govern by fiat (executive order). 

Now until January 2025, the game is to throw as many wrenches into the Democrats’ machine as possible… grind it to a halt.  Gridlock never looked so good. 

Yet, accomplishing gridlock won’t solve all the problems that the cabal is making.    

There are matters domestic, and then there are matters foreign.  The Constitution grants presidents significant leeway in conducting foreign affairs and national security.  A president in charge isn’t a luxury. 

The nation’s enemies -- with plenty of help from the Biden administration -- perceive weakness.  Biden, frail and practically checked out, is regarded as an open invitation to China, Russia, and Iran to push for advantages. 

The administration’s paper-tiger approach to China -- secretary of state Tony Blinken had his head handed to him last week by PRC representatives Yang Jiechi and Wang Yi -- only emboldens Xi Jinping. 

Publicly moralizing about the Uighurs and Hong Kongers, and foot-stomping about Taiwan, cyberattacks and violations of “rules-based order,” means little to Xi and his cronies.  Xi is a tyrant; power is his language.  The pushback that Blinken and the U.S. contingent received from Xi’s envoys was an unhesitating show of contempt.  That’s a harbinger and should worry Americans.  In the days ahead, how will Xi test U.S. resolve?          

Not only that, the real bone of contention with the PRC concerns the South and East China Seas -- international waters and the airspace above -- which the Chinese are attempting to seize.  Xi controlling those seas has enormous economic and national security implications for the U.S. (and other nations, most directly those in Asia Pacific). 

Countering China means not only continuing the revitalization of our armed forces begun by President Trump, but projecting that might routinely into those disputed waters.  Actions, not words, will command Xi’s attention and compel caution.   

Resuming appeasement of Iran signals the Biden administration’s unseriousness in dealing with a sworn enemy of the U.S.  Iran is a habitual violator of the international “rules-based order” so prized by the establishment.  Buying them off didn’t work for Obama and won’t work again. 

Paying tribute to the Iranians spells weakness to Xi and another bad player, Vladimir Putin.  But bluster, symbolism, and servility are what “progressives” trade in.  Hard actions, driven by clearly defined national self-interest, aren’t much factored. 

Speaking of Putin, he recalled Russia’s ambassador to the U.S. last week.  Biden, in a softball interview with ABC News’ George Stephanopoulos, slammed Putin as a “killer.” 

Biden’s mouthiness can’t entirely be attributed to his senility.  Biden, in fitter days, was prone to strut and bully.  Yet with Biden’s mind misfiring, his restraint is going, too.  Remember Biden’s outbursts during the elections? 

About being called a killer, Putin, in a well-aimed jab at Biden, said, “It takes one to know one,” and promptly challenged Biden to a debate.  Wiley Vlad is very predatory.  

America effectively has no president.  It has a cabal running things from the White House.  It has a very vindictive, narrowly ideological president-in-training, Kamala Harris, who, when she assumes the presidency well before January 2025 offers no remedies but more trouble. 

Backlashes are building to the folly unfolding at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.  This misbegotten administration needs to be hamstrung.  The nation’s safety, prosperity, and liberty are on the line.

Image: Gage Skidmore          

 

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

Source: https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2021/03/the_unfit_president_.html 

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Passover Marks The Beginning of Western Civilization - Don Feder

 

​ by Don Feder

We were slaves in Egypt – and could be again.

 


Passover begins at sundown Saturday evening, March 27.

You think you know the story. Perhaps. But, after more than 70 years, I barely know it myself.

There’s the Cecil B. DeMille version: Yul Brenner is oppressing the Jews in Egypt—conscripting them for construction projects along the Nile. With the help of frogs and locusts, Charlton Heston leads them out of slavery into technicolor freedom.

Seriously, the Passover seder is the world’s oldest continuously celebrated ritual. There are the candles and wine, the matzah and bitter herbs. (“And they embittered their lives with servitude.”) There’s the Haggadah with the four questions: “Why is this night different from all other nights?”

The celebration lasts for eight days, during which we abstain from certain foods. The theme is remembrance: Remember what God did for you when He took you out of Egypt. Each Jew must feel that he was personally redeemed. Telling the Passover story is a commandment. The Haggadah says, “The more one tells about the Exodus, the more he is praiseworthy.”

Passover is just the beginning of the story. The end is nowhere in sight.

After the first Passover and the departure from Egypt, there’s the encounter at Sinai and the giving of the Law. In the DeMille version, Moses says to Pharoah: “Men shall be ruled by Law, not by other men.” Whose law? The one from the ultimate lawgiver.

Western Civilization started at a mountain in the Sinai Peninsula, where the 12 tribes assembled received not just the 10 Commandments but the entire corpus of Jewish law. Before that, time was static. There was no progress, no movement toward a conclusion.

From Sinai came the Promised Land – more than 1,000 years chronicled in the Bible. From Sinai came the kings and prophets. Judaism and Christianity started there. (Without Passover, no Easter.) The Jews went into 2,000 years of exile and their morality was spread into Europe and eventually worldwide by Christians – hence, the Judeo-Christian ethic.

The settlers who founded America were inspired by the vision of Sinai. Many gave their children Biblical names.

For them, this was the Promised Land. (For the Great Seal of the United States, Benjamin Franklin proposed a scene showing Moses leading the Children of Israel through the Red Sea.) Eventually, the colonists came to see George III as the Pharoah of the Exodus.

The Declaration of Independence didn’t spring full-blown from the brow of Jefferson. The seeds were planted at Sinai. “That all men are created equal and endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights.” The doors to the Supreme Court chamber depict twin tablets with the Roman numerals one through ten, a reminder of our origins in a far older code of law.

But while Passover bids us to remember, the pagan culture we find ourselves immersed in tells us to forget. 

Pharoah says to Moses, “Who is the Lord that I should heed Him and let Israel go?” So too says the party of the Democrats. America’s elite calls appeals to our roots religious fanaticism, and asks why we should follow men with sandals and staffs, any more than men with wigs and buckle shoes.

Forget this invisible God, progressives say. Worship our Gods: multiculturalism, equality and choice. Washington, D.C. is their golden calf.

Passover is called the festival of freedom. Patriots have never been more concerned about the preservation of our freedoms. But the Passover story reminds us that freedom isn’t free.

After the Exodus, God didn’t say to the Israelites: “Zie gezunt – go, enjoy. The beaches of Tel Aviv await you.” He led us to Sinai and gave us the Law, which was the culmination of the Exodus. For without law, we are forced to submit to the rule of men.

In America, today, there is no law. Instead, we have mindless regulations, (Wear a facemask. Maintain social distancing.), confiscatory taxation and spending like we possessed the riches of the store cities of Pithom and Ramses.

Our courts deliberately misinterpret the Constitution to advance their ideology. Flaunting the laws of Sinai has become a secularist commandment. (“Thou shalt exalt fornication and perversion.”)

Passover is the tale that never ends. There’s always a new Pharoah, a new House of Bondage, a new journey through the Red Sea and 40 years in the desert to reach the Promised Land. And they did it all without stimulus spending.

Passover reminds us of the eternal struggle (freedom and slavery) and the eternal balance (rights and responsibilities, liberty and sacrifice).  

The seder ends with “Next year in Jerusalem.” But the City of David isn’t just a physical place. It’s also an ideal to strive toward – a time when the Law is universally acknowledged and Pharoah is finally defeated.

 

Don Feder  

Source: https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2021/03/friday-lead-passover-marks-beginning-western-don-feder/ 

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Wednesday, March 24, 2021

China Humiliates Biden's Team in Alaska - Michael Ledeen

 

​ by Michael Ledeen

Nothing of the sort took place during Trump's presidency.

 


The general consensus is that the top two Biden Administration officials -- Secretary of State Antony Blinken and National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan -- were outperformed in Alaska last week by their Chinese equivalents. The first, and so far as we know the most dramatic, example of Chinese showmanship came from Jang Jiechi, Beijing's top foreign-policy official. Talking for nearly half an hour instead of the customary two minutes, Jang lambasted the Biden Administration's human rights policy, and went on with a systematic demolition of its foreign policy "rules."

Nothing of the sort took place during Trump's presidency. The Chinese adhered to the prearranged rules, including the time limits on individual contributions. Nor did Beijing's representatives ridicule the American positions, as they did last Thursday and Friday. 
 
One is hard-pressed to explain President Biden's statement after the Thursday session that he was "proud" of the performance of Secretary of State Blinken, when most of the coverage gave a very different picture. If you read the press coverage from the rest of the world, you will get a clear picture of Chinese hegemony, whether in the debate or in the maneuvers between the two superpowers. 
 
To take just one example: the military press headlined the Chinese "humiliation" of the Americans, and focused at considerable length on Zang's diatribe at the outset of the talks. And to add insult to injury, Beijing introduced a new requirement: that would-be travelers to the People's Republic be vaccinated with a drug of Chinese manufacture.

In other words, the Chinese ran rings around the Americans, and let it be known that China, not the United States, would set the agenda of talks between the two superpowers. The historic role of Washington had thus been reversed, and the Americans would have to defend their record against Beijing's criticisms.
 
The most shocking thing about the sessions was the failure of American preparation for the Chinese assault. The top two representatives from Washington sat mutely by as the Chinese humiliation dragged on. The U.S. response came a day later and was at a far lower level than Beijing's opening critique of Biden's foreign policy.
 
Better luck next time.

 

Michael Ledeen  

Source: https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2021/03/china-humialtes-bidens-team-alaska-michael-ledeen/ 

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