What Did You Say?

Tagged with:

Israel’s Netanyahu Rules Out Gaza Cease-fire

Friday, 03 November 2023 11:39 AM EDT

The United States urged Israel on Friday to ensure more humanitarian aid gets into Gaza and to do more to protect Palestinian civilians, as Israel’s prime minister said there would be no cease-fire in the nearly month-old war until Hamas releases hostages.

The leader of the Iran-backed Hezbollah militant group stoked fears that the conflict could widen by promising more attacks along the Lebanon border.

Israeli troops tightened their encirclement of Gaza City, the focus of their campaign to crush the enclave’s ruling Hamas militants, who launched a brutal attack on Israeli communities that started the war.

But ever since that Oct. 7 assault, there have been concerns the conflict could ignite fighting on other fronts, and Israel and the Iranian-backed militant group Hezbollah have repeatedly traded fire along the Lebanon border.

In his first public speech since the war began, Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah said his group had “entered the battle” with the past weeks’ unprecedented cross-border fighting. “We will not be limited to this,” he said, suggesting escalation was possible. Still, Nasrallah stopped short of announcing that Hezbollah is fully engaging in the war.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken, on his third trip to Israel since the war began, reiterated U.S. support for Israel in the war, saying it has the right to defend itself. But he said a “humanitarian pause” was needed to boost aid deliveries to Palestinian civilians amid growing alarm over the humanitarian crisis in Gaza.

After meeting Blinken, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel “refuses a temporary cease-fire that doesn’t include a return of our hostages,” referring to some 240 people Hamas abducted during its attack. He said Israel was pressing ahead with its military offensive with “all of its power.”

Blinken said there had to be a substantial and immediate increase in humanitarian aid to Gaza, where “we need to do more to protect Palestinian civilians.” Without that, “there are no partners for peace,” he said, adding that it was critical to restore the path toward a two-state solution to the Israel-Palestinian conflict.

Hezbollah, an ally of Hamas, attacked Israeli military positions in northern Israel with drones, mortar fire and suicide drones on Thursday. The Israeli military said it retaliated with warplanes and helicopter gunships, and spokesman Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari said civilians were wounded in the Hezbollah attacks.

“We are in a high state of readiness in the north, in a very high state of alert, to respond to any event today and in coming days,” he said.

Blinken said the U.S., which has deployed aircraft carriers and other forces in the eastern Mediterranean, was committed to ensuring that no “second or third front” opens in the conflict, referring to Hezbollah.

In his speech, Nasrallah said his militia is not deterred by U.S. warnings, saying: “Your fleets in the Mediterranean … will not scare us.”

A war with Hezbollah would be devastating for both Israel and Lebanon. Hezbollah is much stronger than Hamas, with an arsenal of some 150,000 rockets and missiles, some believed to be precision-guided weapons capable of striking deep inside Israel.

Israel has promised to unleash vast destruction in Lebanon if all-out war erupts, accusing Hezbollah of hiding its military installation in the midst of residential areas. The two enemies fought an inconclusive monthlong war in 2006. Renewed fighting could also risk drawing Iran, which backs both Hamas and Hezbollah, into the conflict.

More than 9,200 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza so far, mostly women and minors, and more and than 23,000 people have been wounded, the Gaza Health Ministry said, without providing a breakdown between civilians and fighters.

More than 1,400 people have died on the Israeli side, mainly civilians killed during Hamas’ initial attack, when some 240 people were also taken hostage. Some 5,400 have also been injured.

Twenty-four Israeli soldiers have been killed in Gaza since the start of the ground operation. Since the start of the war, seven Israeli soldiers and a civilian have been killed in different incidents along Israel’s border with Lebanon.

As American officials have before, Blinken pledged unwavering support for Israel and its right to defend itself.

“We stand strongly for the proposition that Israel has not only the right but the obligation to defend itself, and to make sure that October 7 should never happen again,” said Blinken, who also plans to visit Amman, Jordan. It follows President Joe Biden’s suggestion for a humanitarian “pause” in the fighting. The aim would be to let in aid for Palestinians and let out more Palestinians who hold foreign passports and wounded.

Around 800 people left Gaza over the past two days — the first time people departed the besieged territory other than four hostages released by Hamas and another rescued by Israeli forces.

Blinken first held talks with Netanyahu behind closed doors before starting wider discussions with the leader and his War Cabinet and meeting with President Isaac Herzog.

More than 3,700 Palestinian children have been killed in 25 days of fighting, according to the Health Ministry in Hamas-run Gaza. Bombardment has driven more than half the territory’s 2.3 million people from their homes. Food, water and fuel are running low under Israel’s siege, and overwhelmed hospitals warn they are on the verge of collapse.

Israel has allowed more than 260 trucks carrying food and medicine into Gaza, but aid workers say it’s not nearly enough. Israeli authorities have refused to allow fuel in, saying Hamas is hoarding fuel for military use and would steal new supplies.

White House national security spokesman John Kirby said the U.S. was not advocating for a general cease-fire but a “temporary, localized” pause.

Israel has not openly responded to Biden’s suggestion. But Netanyahu, who has previously ruled out a cease-fire, said Thursday: “We are advancing. … Nothing will stop us.” He vowed to destroy Hamas rule in the Gaza Strip.

Israel and the U.S. seem to have no clear plan for what would come next if Hamas rule in Gaza is brought down — a key question on Blinken’s agenda during the visit, according to the State Department.

Meanwhile, military officials said Israeli forces have now completely encircled Gaza City, a densely packed cluster of neighborhoods that Israel says is the center of Hamas military infrastructure and includes a vast network of underground tunnels, bunkers and command centers.

Israeli forces are “fighting in a built-up, dense, complex area,” said the military’s chief of staff, Herzi Halevy.

Hagari, the military spokesperson, said Israeli forces were in “face to face” battles with militants, calling in airstrikes and shelling when needed. He said they were inflicting heavy losses on Hamas fighters and destroying their infrastructure with engineering equipment.

Hamas’ military wing said early Friday that its fighters battled Israeli troops in several areas in Gaza and claimed they killed four soldiers on the northern edge of the city of Beit Lahiya. It also claimed to have destroyed several tanks with locally made anti-tank rockets.

Neither the reports from Israel nor Hamas could be independently verified.

Casualties on both sides were expected to rise as Israeli troops advance toward the dense residential neighborhoods of Gaza City. Israel has warned residents to immediately evacuate the Shati refugee camp, which borders Gaza City’s center.

But hundreds of thousands of Palestinians remain in the path of fighting in northern Gaza, despite Israel’s repeated calls for them to flee. Many have crowded into U.N. facilities, hoping for safety.

Still, four U.N. schools-turned-shelter in northern Gaza and Bureij were hit in recent days, killing 24 people, according to Philippe Lazzarini, general-secretary of the U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees, known as UNRWA.

In the occupied West Bank overnight, Israeli forces killed seven Palestinians in different places and arrested many more, according to the Israeli military and Palestinian health officials.

Copyright 2023 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.

Category:

International Politics, Islamic News

Tagged with:

The Pro-Hamas Left Is Warming Up For Real Violence

BY: JOHN DANIEL DAVIDSON | NOVEMBER 02, 2023

Author John Daniel Davidson profile

JOHN DANIEL DAVIDSON

VISIT ON TWITTER@JOHNDDAVIDSON

Talk about bad timing. On Wednesday, the White House announced a “National Strategy to Counter Islamophobia,” the necessity of which, according to awkwardly scripted remarks by Vice President Kamala Harris, is that Muslims endure a disproportionate number of “hate-fueled attacks and other discriminatory incidents.”

Leave it to the Biden White House to pick a moment when a wave of antisemitism is surging across America to announce this. Set aside the dearth of evidence that Muslims face persecution or discrimination in mainstream American society. Last year set a record for anti-Jewish hate crimes, breaking the previous record that was set the year before. Since the Oct. 7 Hamas terrorist attack on Israel, antisemitism has erupted in our cities and on campuses, this time with the imprimatur and cooperation of the identitarian left. The idea that now is the time to address Islamophobia is so out of touch with the reality of the moment, only the Biden-Harris administration could possibly have come up with it.

But the announcement inadvertently serves to highlight a rather disturbing development in our civic life. At this point, some three weeks removed from the Hamas slaughter of 1,400 Israelis, it’s hard to deny that we have a domestic constituency for Hamas in this country. Generally speaking, it’s comprised of a broad swath of the woke left together with a broad swath of Muslim-Americans, united in what amounts to an unstable Red-Green alliance.

It’s also easy to see that this Hamas constituency is warming up for a season of real violence.

We’ve all seen the recent videos of self-righteous Hamas sympathizers tearing down posters of missing or kidnapped Israeli children. In almost every case, their actions are accompanied by either a defiant callousness or a dead-eyed nonchalance. Pleading with them or interrogating them is pointless, as every person who has tried to do so on camera has quickly discovered. These people are antisemites, and it’s not possible to shame them out of their antisemitism. They own it gladly.

But this week, a different sort of video appeared on social media. A group of Jews in Manhattan’s Upper East Side physically protected a bunch of posters of Israeli child hostages from an antisemite who was trying to tear them down. The man, who of course covered his face with a keffiyeh, tried to force his way through and a scuffle ensued. Eventually, a cop pulled up and appeared to arrest the man as a crowd gathered.

Just happened. 68th and Lex. Jews protecting the posters of Jewish children hostages from being torn down. pic.twitter.com/xIrcdSf9Ne
— Dan Senor (@dansenor) November 1, 2023

The incident illustrates the violence lurking just beneath the surface of the antisemitic, pro-Hamas sentiment now manifesting all across the country. The kind of people who are willing to casually rip down posters of children taken hostage by terrorists are not those who have any kind of principled commitment to nonviolence. They might or might not individually be cowards, but they clearly have no problem with violence as such — see, for example, the BLM posters celebrating Hamas paragliders who slaughtered more than 250 Israeli concertgoers on Oct. 7.

This is especially true on our nation’s college campuses. This week at Harvard, whose students have staged some of the most blatant and vile pro-Hamas demonstrations, including straightforward calls for the ethnic cleansing of Jews, a group of keffiyeh-waving students surrounded and then assaulted a Jewish student who was simply trying to get away from them.

Some of these assailants have been identified, like Ibrahim Bharmal, a student at Harvard Law School and an editor at the Harvard Law Review, as well as Elom Tettey-Tamaklo, a student of Harvard Divinity School. That a Harvard law student feels free to harass and assault Jews on campus — the opposite of what we should expect from a student of the law — suggests not only that antisemitism on campus is a real threat to Jewish students but that the pro-Hamas woke left is growing in boldness and is reasonably confident it can target individual Jews on campus with impunity.

More on Ibrahim Bharmal, EDITOR of the Harvard Law Review at @Harvard_Law & @Kennedy_School. See him physically and verbally assault an Israeli student during an anti-Israel protest on campus. Read his NEW Canary Mission Profile: https://t.co/FhgNNbpME6 pic.twitter.com/C49vYh2m9e
— Canary Mission (@canarymission) November 1, 2023

Jon Levine called the Harvard assault a LARP pogrom, which is exactly what it was. And as we know from 2020, left-wing riot and assault LARPers eventually get around to the real thing. Indeed, all the elements are falling into place for a season of civic violence of the kind we saw during the summer of 2020. The White House’s ham-fisted campaign against Islamophobia is all the confirmation you need that Jewish Americans, not Muslims, are the ones in real danger right now.

This is something of a pattern on the left. When a dangerous or unstable element in its coalition is revealed as such, the official narrative is to pretend that element is under unique threat from the American mainstream. Look at the media and Democrat reaction to the mass shooting at a Christian school in Nashville back in March. The shooter was Audrey Hale, a 28-year-old woman who identified as a man. She killed three children and three adults before police took her out. Hale was mentally unwell and left behind a kind of trans shooter manifesto, which was suspiciously never released to the public.

pic.twitter.com/571HCx0ZPI
— Ted Nugent (@TedNugent) October 28, 2023

In the wake of the shooting, all we heard from the corporate press and Democratic leaders was that transgender Americans were under threat. Not a word about how transgender ideology attracts mentally unstable, unwell people who need help, not affirmation. That was not the conversation they wanted to have, even after the slaughter of six innocent people.

Likewise, we’re going to hear a lot more about how Muslims and left-wing Hamas apologists are the real victims, even as Jewish students suffer escalating attacks, harassment, and threats. Make no mistake, the violent rhetoric you hear at these pro-Hamas rallies, the revolting practice of tearing down posters of Israeli children taken hostage, the targeting of individual Jewish students on campus — it’s all leading somewhere very bad.

John Daniel Davidson is a senior editor at The Federalist. His writing has appeared in the Wall Street Journal, the Claremont Review of Books, The New York Post, and elsewhere. He is the author of the forthcoming book, Pagan America: the Decline of Christianity and the Dark Age to Come, to be published in March 2024. Follow him on Twitter, @johnddavidson.

Category:

Tagged with:

Dao Award Aims to Send Pulitzer Prize Packing

By: Tony Kinnett / @TheTonus / November 01, 2023

We’re finally getting an alternative to the Pulitzer Prize, and it couldn’t have come at a better time. The Dao Prize, an annual award that aims to showcase and support investigative journalism, is the result of a partnership between two conservative organizations: the National Journalism Center, created by the Young America’s Foundation, and the Dao Feng & Angela Foundation, a philanthropic grantmaker dedicated to “preserving conservative roots” and “universal values.”

The Dao Prize couldn’t have arrived at a better time, given the state of Pulitzer Prize nominees, finalists, and winners over the past decade.Emily Jashinsky, director of YAF’s National Journalism Center, described the current incentive structure in media as “broken” in a post on X, formerly Twitter:

“Reporters who do amazing work are attacked. Reporters who do garbage work are given Pulitzers. The carrots and sticks are all mixed up. But we can fix that.”

She’s not wrong. It’s now more profitable for a journalist to write libelous drivel going after conservatives than to report factually.

The Pulitzer Prize, which used to be awarded based on stellar investigatory reporting that exposed fraudulent mayoral elections, medical malpractice, and the corruption of toxic Chinese imports, now celebrates The New York Times’ censorious coverage of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Pulitzer has fallen from celebrating accurate journalism to refusing to rescind awards given to egregious reporting by The New York Times and The Washington Post. The newspapers’ reporting falsely accused the Trump administration of colluding with Russia in the 2016 election, despite overwhelming evidence and Federal Election Commision fines for both Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign and the Democratic National Committee over the allegations.

What an incentive structure for the next generation of journalists! Why investigate serious issues and expose corruption, cover-ups, and abuses of power when it’s just as easy to write an unfounded hit piece accusing New York City’s Jewish schools of maleducation and malfeasance?

Forensic bombshells such as the New York Post’s reports on the Hunter Biden corruption and bribery scandal are ignored by the Pulitzer committee while pieces such as Times reporter Brian Rosenthal’s slander of Orthodox Jewish yeshivas gets an immediate nomination.

“Journalists who put narratives over facts get prestigious trophies,” Jashinsky told The Daily Signal, so “it’s all too easy for reporters to get sucked into this cycle, lured by prestige, recognition, and money.”

The National Journalism Center, founded in 1977, seeks to correct this dramatic misalignment in incentives by prioritizing a return to foundational investigative principles.

A press release from YAF lists “accuracy and courage” as the two primary values judged in considering journalists’ work for the prize. The Dao Award committee certainly has its work cut out for it—2023 has seen an incredible bevy of investigative work.

Like the Pulitzer, the Dao Award may be given to an individual journalist or a publication. Jashinsky listed Emma-Jo Morris of Breitbart News, Miranda Devine of the New York Post, Aaron Sibarium of The Washington Free Beacon, and the “Twitter Files” team, which includes Matt Taibbi, Bari Weiss, and Michael Shellenberger, as some of the candidates up for consideration.

The prize is set to be awarded Wednesday night at a gala in Washington, D.C., and also will be livestreamed on the Young America’s Foundation YouTube channel. The winning journalist or publication will receive $100,000 along with the prize, and two finalists will get $10,000.

At a time when institutions we’ve relied on for decades have failed us in monumental fashion, conservatives, centrists, and independents have a responsibility to set up new organizations and awards that praise proper standards.

I look forward to the Dao Award’s impact on investigative journalism as the nation continues to abandon the rotting remains of a legacy media system too wretchedly narcissistic to reform.

COMMENTARY BY

Tony Kinnett @TheTonus

Tony Kinnett is an investigative columnist for The Daily Signal.

Category:

International Politics, Islamic Alert, Military

Tagged with:

Iran-Backed Forces Have Attacked US Positions and Allies 23 Times in Past Two Weeks, Pentagon Says

By: Adam Kredo | October 30, 2023

Iran-backed forces across the Middle East have attacked American positions and allies at least 23 times in the last two weeks, the Pentagon said Monday, adding that a U.S. military response will occur “at a time and place of our choosing, and we’re going to continue to do so.”

Since October 17, in the wake of Hamas’s war on Israel, Iranian terror forces have launched 14 attacks on American assets in Iraq and nine in Syria “through a mix of one-way attack drones and rockets,” a senior Defense Department official told reporters during a press briefing. The U.S. military responded last Thursday to these strikes by bombing Iranian positions in Syria, and American forces will continue to target Tehran’s proxy groups at will, the official said. Iran, the Pentagon assesses, is targeting American forces, threatening to drag the United States into a larger regional war.

“It’s about Iran and the [Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps], who use infrastructure, militants, and proxies on the ground across the Middle East to include both Iraq and Syria,” the Defense Department official said, speaking only on background. “We reserve the right to respond at a time and place of our choosing, and we’re going to continue to do so.”

“Let me be clear,” the official added: “We’re going to continue to respond when the president decides that’s necessary for U.S. force protection.”

In the weeks since the Iran-backed terrorist group Hamas launched an unprecedented attack on Israel, killing more than 1,400, Tehran’s allies in Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, and Yemen have stepped up their terrorism activities. These activities include rocket fire and shelling on Israel from areas in both Syria and Lebanon, where Hezbollah forces are stationed.

Iran’s assets in Iraq have also increased their strikes on American forces in the country, resulting in last week’s military response by the United States. The Pentagon also said that Hamas militants are using hospitals and other civilian structures to conduct their terrorism operations against Israel.

The Israeli military’s foray into civilian areas of the Gaza Strip has fueled accusations that the country is intentionally targeting innocents, claims that have been amplified by anti-Israel U.S. lawmakers such as Reps. Rashida Tlaib (D., Mich.) and Ilhan Omar (D., Minn.). The Pentagon, however, says it has seen evidence that Hamas is using civilian structures as command centers.

“What I would say about Hamas is [its] use of civilian structures for command-and-control facilities and to hide weapons,” the official said. “There is an abundance of public reporting about the ways in which Hamas uses civilians as human shields and civilian structures to hide and obfuscate tunnels, as well as weapons.”

This includes “Hamas’s use of hospitals to emplace command-and-control infrastructure or other weapons that can be used against Israeli civilians.”

As of Monday afternoon, the Pentagon said it has no plans to facilitate “military-assisted departures” for American citizens stuck in the region.

Category:

Tagged with:

US Not Drawing Red Lines for Israel as It Ramps Up Offensive: WH

Friday, 27 October 2023 04:01 PM EDT

The United States is not trying to dictate limits for Israel, the White House said on Friday, as the Israelis expanded their military operation in Gaza against Hamas militants. The fresh military onslaught by Israel comes as the United States scrambles to arrange a humanitarian pause for deliveries of fuel and relief aid to Gaza civilians. How the expanded ground operation will impact efforts toward a pause was unclear.

White House national security spokesperson John Kirby, at a news briefing, would not comment on the Israeli expanded ground operation. But he said Washington supported Israel’s right to defend itself after Hamas militants killed 1,400 people in southern Israel on Oct. 7. “We’re not drawing red lines for Israel,” he said. He said the United States continued to discuss with Israel the aims of its operation, the need to protect civilians in Gaza, the effort to gain the safe return of Israeli hostages and the need to consider what comes after ground operations in Gaza.

“Since the very beginning, we have had and will continue to have conversations with them about the manner in which they’re doing this. And we have not been shy about expressing our concerns over civilian casualties, collateral damage, and the approach that they might choose to take. That’s what friends can do, and we’re friends,” he said.

Category:

International Politics, Islamic News

Tagged with:

Today’s TWO Politically INCORRECT Cartoon by A.F. Branco

A.F. Branco Cartoon – Overreach

A.F. BRANCO | on October 26, 2023 | https://comicallyincorrect.com/a-f-branco-cartoon-overreach-2/

Most people now realize that Iran is directly involved with Hamas and the recent attacks on Israel through the funding they have received from Biden, the $6 billion, and $58 billion through oil revenue when Biden ignored the embargo placed on their production by Trump.

This can even be traced back to when Obama was president, giving Iran pallets full of millions of dollars. Most of the money from Biden and Obama has most likely ended up in the hands of terrorists like Hamas and Hezbollah that have killed Jews and Americans.

Obama has long been suspected of favoring Iran over the people of Israel and their welfare and having strong Muslim sympathies that may have been instrumental in his Middle East policies.

Iran Strikes From Gaza — By A.F. Branco ©2023

A.F. Branco Cartoon – Speaker Anti-RINO?

A.F. BRANCO | on October 26, 2023 | https://comicallyincorrect.com/a-f-branco-cartoon-speaker-anti-rino/

We have a New Speaker, Mike Johnson. Will he be the anti-RINO we all have been hoping for?

House Republicans came to their collective senses on Oct. 25 and elected U.S. Rep. Mike Johnson (R-La.) as the new Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, ushering in new leadership three weeks after former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) was ousted when 208 House Democrats joined a coalition of 8 House Republicans on Oct. 3 in removing his via motion to vacate the chair.

The vote among Republicans for once was unanimous on the House floor, with Johnson getting even more support than did McCarthy when he was finally elected in January. What remains to be seen is if Republicans will be able to keep the conference united when the House proceeds to imminent appropriations bills Johnson has promised to put onto the floor in the coming days and weeks.

In an Oct. 23 dear colleague letter to House Republicans prior to winning the internal conference election for the Speaker nomination, Johnson laid out the legislative calendar for appropriations for the next 18 months. Per the calendar, four appropriations bills will come up immediately in the next week: Energy and Water, Legislative Branch, Interior and Environment and Transportation, Housing and Urban Development.

Four more would follow in the week after that, in time for the Nov. 17 when the current continuing resolution comes due. Johnson acknowledged that his proposed, expedited schedule for passage of appropriations was “ambitious,” and afforded that there might not be time to work out differences with the Senate.

If so, Johnson also offered another continuing resolution as a fallback: “if another stopgap measure is needed to extend government funding beyond the November 17 deadline, I would propose a measure that expires on January 15 or April 15… to ensure the Senate cannot jam the House with a Christmas omnibus.”

On Israel, Biden Picks Up Where Obama Left Off

BY: DAVID HARSANYI | OCTOBER 25, 2023

President Barack Obama walks with President Mahmoud Abbas of the Palestinian Authority

Author David Harsanyi profile

DAVID HARSANYI

VISIT ON TWITTER@DAVIDHARSANYI

Secretary of State Antony Blinken contends that Hamas would gain no “greater” victory “than allowing its brutality to send us down a path of terrorism and nihilism. We must not let it.”

You can hear echoes of Barack Obama’s insufferable moral equivalencies imbued in that statement.

The contention is a not-so-subtle warning to Israel, who will almost surely enter Gaza and try to dismantle the Hamas terror state — which has been indirectly and directly funded not only by Iran, the European Union, and the United Nations but also by the Obama and Biden administrations.

The insinuation, of course, is that Israel needs to temper its inclination to engage in “terrorism and nihilism.” It is a blood libel.

It is not “terrorism” to seek justice for the pregnant woman who had her baby cut from her body or the elderly couple who was burned alive. And eliminating those who committed Nazi-like atrocities against your citizens is no more nihilistic than tracking down Eichmann or demanding Emperor Hirohito unconditionally surrender.

Yet, only days after the worst mass murder of Jews since the Holocaust, Biden was already lecturing Benjamin Netanyahu on how “democracies like Israel and the United States are stronger and more secure when we act according to the rule of law.” The insinuation, again, is that there is something nefarious about winning a war against those who massacre your citizens.

Israel doesn’t target civilians, as Blinken, busy placating the progressives who now infest Washington and academia, knows well. Many Israeli soldiers have died because the nation avoids civilian casualties – even as Hamas diligently places their weapons and themselves behind women and children.

Then again, the idea Hamas’s greatest victory would be Israelis exacting revenge is itself the kind of self-satisfying gibberish that might impress a crowd at the Aspen Ideas Festival or readers of Tom Friedman columns.

Hamas’ greatest victory is killing and terrorizing as many Jews as possible. We know this because Islamists tell us this all the time. Why is this confusing? “There is no solution for the Palestinian problem except by Jihad” are the words literally written into the group’s charter. And Hamas is quite popular in both Gaza and the West Bank. Islamic fundamentalism is popular.

“Look, what happened in Gaza, in my view, is Hamas and the extreme elements of Hamas don’t represent all the Palestinian people,” Joe Biden said the other day. This is the “religion of peace” canard, begun by George W. Bush and widely promulgated by Obama all over again.

When our former president declared that the “future must not belong to those who slander the prophet of Islam,” he wasn’t joking. Every time Islamists committed acts of terror, the Obama administration would turn the conversation towards “Islamophobia,” a neologism that conflates tolerance of individuals and groups (Muslims) with tolerance of a belief system (Islam). This rhetoric is not only meant to cloud reality but to chill speech and create immunity for the many progressive “anti-Zionis ts” on the left.

The modern Democrats have taken up this dishonest framing with gusto. When a reporter asked White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre this week if the president was concerned about rising anti-Semitism — you know, because of the Jew-hating protests that have broken out across the country — she responded by saying there were no “credible threats” and then pivoted the claims that “Muslims and those perceived to be Muslim have endured a disproportionate number of hate-fueled attacks.”

She did this twice. Not only is it a gross deflection, but it is also a lie. According to the FBI, hate crimes against Jews represent over 50 percent of all religion-related hate crimes, while hate crimes against Muslims are under 10 percent.

But Obama’s most corrosive legacy is foreign policy. Democrats have become obsessed with turning Iran into a regional counterweight to Israel while also restarting a “peace process” that would surely create a Muslim Brotherhood-led terror state on Israel’s borders.

Before Israel could even identify all the bodies of their citizens, Biden was already yammering on about the “dignity” and “self-determination” in places where “self-determination” manifested in the creation of a Jihadist terror state.

Donald Trump nixed this strategy, punishing Iran and circumventing Hamas/PLO in peace negotiations with Gulf states. That success was shattered when the Obama retreads entered the White House again and began opening up billions to Iran and sending Hamas and Fatah hundreds of millions of dollars.

The Biden administration is teeming with Obama-era Iran and Muslim Brotherhood fans. Not only did someone like Rob Malley — rehired by Biden after leading Obama’s giveaway — surround himself with real-life Iranian assets, but he’d met at least twice with Hamas, once with Obama’s blessing.

“This administration is different from the previous administration,” Hamas’s deputy foreign minister and New York Times columnist, Ahmed Yussuf, said at the time. “We believe Hamas’s message is reaching its destination.”

Definitely.

Even now, despite overwhelming ev idence of its involvement in the killing of not only 1,300 Jews, 30 of them Americans, the administration does everything it can to deny Iran provided logistical and financial help that killed 30 Americans.

Like Obama, Biden offers just enough lip service about Israel’s right to defend itself to placate Jewish donors and voters. Every action of the president – even his supposed morale-lifting trip to the country–is meant to inhibit Israel from winning. Democrats are open to helping Israel defend itself but unopened to the prospect of destroying those who seek its end.

Let me amend that. There are plenty of Democrats who want Israel destroyed and more every day.

When Obama finally deigned to wade in on the killing of Jews and Americans, he offered his usual perfunctory throat-clearing about Israel’s right to exist before hitting the “but.” The “but” can be summed up as so: the more Jews die, the more Jews have a responsibility to placate the Islamic world and give their enemies a state.

And apparently, in many ways, the Biden administration concurs.

David Harsanyi is a senior editor at The Federalist, a nationally syndicated columnist, a Happy Warrior columnist at National Review, and author of five books—the most recent, Eurotrash: Why America Must Reject the Failed Ideas of a Dying Continent. Follow him on Twitter, @davidharsanyi.

Category:

International Politics, Media

Tagged with:

Reporters have meltdown when State Department says Israel has right to defend itself from brutal terrorist attacks

By: CANDACE HATHAWAY | October 11, 2023

State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller (Image Source: Department of State YouTube video screenshot)

Reporters had a meltdown on Tuesday when a State Department spokesperson declared that Israel has a right to defend itself from the recent brutal terrorist attacks carried out by Hamas.

The terrorist organization has reportedly killed more than 1,000 people, including women and children. Another 150 people are believed to have been taken hostage by the group.

Department spokesperson Matthew Miller held a press conference on Tuesday expressing condolences for the families with loved ones killed by Hamas over the weekend, including 14 American citizens.

Following his opening remarks, Miller opened the floor to field reporters’ questions but was shocked by some of the inquiries, which he claimed seemed to disregard Israel’s right to defend itself from terror attacks.

Said Arikat, a reporter for the Palestinian media outlet Al-Quds, asked Miller, “The president has said that Hamas is motivated — and I’m paraphrasing — motivated solely by the quest to kill Jews. Do you believe that is to be the case? Is it the assessment of this government that Hamas’ sole motivation is to go out and kill Jews? There’s no context; there’s no siege that has gone on for 16 years? There is no raid after raid by the Israelis?”

Miller responded, “Said, I am just going to say that is a bit of a surprising question after what we saw a Hamas carry out this weekend, when we saw Hamas go in and deliberately target Israeli citizens — and not just soldiers in the [Israel Defense Forces] but women, children, kidnapped them.”

The State Department spokesperson noted that Hamas is “behaving in the most inhumane way possible.”

Said attempted to interrupt Miller several times, but the State Department spokesperson ignored the reporter and moved on to others’ inquiries.

Reporter Max Blumenthal with the Grayzone News pressed Miller on the strong language used by Israeli leaders regarding potential counterstrike plans.

Miller stated that Israel is expected to follow international law and added that the Biden administration is likely to disagree with some comments made by Israeli leadership but plans to “make those known privately.”

Blumenthal snapped back, noting that the administration has made public comments previously.

“Some of the questions I’m getting today do seem to ignore the fact that Israel just had hundreds of its citizens killed, people who were taken hostage, and pretend that Israel shouldn’t be able to conduct any kind of —” Miller retorted.

Blumenthal repeatedly shouted over Miller, asking him to acknowledge the deaths of Palestinian children. Journalist Sam Husseini also shouted over the State Department spokesperson.

At one point, Miller was asked, “So baby killing is okay here?”

“And I will say, ultimately, the Hamas terrorists who launched these operations — there is no one who has more disregard for Palestinian civilian life than those terrorists,” Miller continued. “Those terrorists launched this activity knowing that there would be retaliation, knowing that Israel would have to defend itself, as any country did, knowing that it would lead to the unfortunate loss of civilian lives by their — by Palestinians, and they did anyway.”

Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!

Category:

Tagged with:

Israel And Hamas Are Embroiled in a Zero-Sum Religious War, And So is the West

BY: JOHN DANIEL DAVIDSON | OCTOBER 11, 2023

Author John Daniel Davidson profile

JOHN DANIEL DAVIDSON

VISIT ON TWITTER@JOHNDDAVIDSON

The events of the past 120 hours have made it abundantly clear that Israel can no longer coexist alongside Hamas. The violence unleashed by Hamas against unarmed civilians, including women and children and the elderly — much of it filmed and livestreamed online — has shocked the world. On Tuesday, we learned that at a kibbutz near the Gaza border called Kfar Aza, Hamas terrorists slaughtered entire families, including at least 40 babies and small children, some of whom they beheaded.

The Western world has not seen this kind of barbarity in nearly 80 years, and most of us recoil from it in horror and incomprehension. Make no mistake: Kfar Aza will take its place in history alongside Auschwitz and Treblinka. The evil of Hamas is that kind of evil, perhaps not in scale but in kind. In some ways, it is worse because while the Nazis took care to hide what they were doing from the world, Hamas has broadcast its atrocities, boasted and reveled in them. All Hamas members are guilty and deserve swift execution.

Delivering justice to Hamas is now Israel’s grim task, and they will go about it as best they can. But another, perhaps more difficult, task is confronting the Western world at large. In the immediate wake of the Hamas atrocities, demonstrations were staged all over the Western world — in support of Hamas. Those who marched in the streets, who signed pro-Hamas student statements, who posted memes online praising Hamas are not, by and large, antisemitic neo-Nazis. They are left-wing zealots, BLM and LGBT activists, the woke grandchildren of radical Baby Boomer politics, brain-washed by “anticolonialism” propaganda, which they regurgitated before a watching world.

https://twitter.com/SohrabAhmari/status/1711932941423484981?s=20

This should not surprise you. The people who cheer the beheading of babies are of course those who also cheer the slaughter of babies in the womb. They are, like Islam itself, post-Christian, and their morality, like the morality of Hamas, is decidedly pagan. That means they do not believe in universal human rights or inherent human dignity. They do not believe in the Christian doctrine of imago Dei and the moral imperatives that flow from it. They do not believe in objective morality or truth. They reject the Christian precepts that constitute the basis for Western civilization.

These are the barbarians who reside beyond the gates of the Christian West. They believe only in power, and they will do whatever they can to gain it. Once they have it, they will exercise it as they see fit, unconstrained by questions of right and wrong, or notions of justice and morality whose premises they reject. They will not have qualms about their own hypocrisy or inconsistency. Appeals to compassion and mercy will fall on deaf ears.

For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse. For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things.
Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves, because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen.
For this reason God gave them up to dishonorable passions. For their women exchanged natural relations for those that are contrary to nature; and the men likewise gave up natural relations with women and were consumed with passion for one another, men committing shameless acts with men and receiving in themselves the due penalty for their error.
And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a debased mind to do what ought not to be done. They were filled with all manner of unrighteousness, evil, covetousness, malice. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, maliciousness. They are gossips, slanderers, haters of God, insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless. Though they know God’s righteous decree that those who practice such things deserve to die, they not only do them but give approval to those who practice them. Romans 1:18-32

These are the same people, after all, who insist that “words are violence” and that debates and free speech and even jokes must be suppressed because of the “harm” they cause to vulnerable and marginalized people. If you say a man cannot become a woman, they want you to be fired, to be silenced, to lose everything. If you say we must not castrate and mutilate children in the name of gender ideology, they want your own kids to be taken from you. Confronted by the wholesale slaughter of women and children, the decapitation of babies by armed men, they respond with a shrug and a meme. They do not care about violence as such, they simply want to be the ones to wield it.

Do not think these people are just confused or ignorant. They are pagans, and like the Hamas terrorists whom they champion, they cannot be reasoned with or accommodated. If it is obvious that Israel and Hamas cannot coexist, it is equally obvious that these two worlds, the Christian and the pagan, also cannot coexist. We will become all one thing or all the other.

Under such circumstances, we need to recognize this struggle for what it is: a fundamentally religious struggle between two irreconcilable religious worldviews. For many centuries the Christian West was able to see this clearly. It’s why the Catholic Church worked tirelessly for centuries to stamp out paganism in northern Europe. It’s why the Spanish conquistadors, confronted by human sacrifice cults in the New World, toppled them and razed their temples. They understood that there could be no peace with such a regime. It had to be destroyed utterly.

So, the problem we confront today is old, and the solution is the same. But do we even have the ability, at this late hour, to recognize the problem and do what is necessary? Probably not. We are likely too far along in the process of dechristianization.

Just look at how we responded to 9/11. Many have been calling the Hamas attack Israel’s 9/11, which is an apt comparison. But Israel should not make the mistake America and its leaders did. We did not recognize the 9/11 attacks as a religious act. In fact, we actively denied that the massacre was religiously motivated, and so we failed to respond on religious grounds. Remember the infamous words of then-President George W. Bush immediately after the massacre of 3,000 Americans. Surrounded by Islamic leaders who more or less shared the basic worldview of the al-Qaeda terrorists, he proclaimed that Islam was a “religion of peace,” and insisted there could be no connection between the killing and the religion the killers professed.

It was incredible to behold at the time. And what followed was equally incredible. We invaded Iraq on the premise that the Iraqis were just like us, or that we could make them like us. Absurdities followed. The State Department flew political scientists to Baghdad to devise an “Islamic” basis for constitutionalism and the rule of law. In Afghanistan, we went well beyond offering education to Afghan girls and women and instead spent decades and untold billions catechizing them into gender theory and queer studies. For years our leaders repeated ad nauseum the fatuous notion that deep down all people want to be free. Never did it occur to them that some people would rather have justice or power or revenge.

All of these things were indications that we had finally severed ties with our Christian past and stepped firmly, perhaps without realizing it, into the pagan future. We never grappled with the root causes of 9/11, never entertained the notion that a people’s relationship to God shaped everything and was therefore insurmountable. All such discussion was totally absent from the public square. We bought into the lie that all religions are the same, democracy and classical liberalism are fungible and can be imposed at will on any culture, and that religious differences are mostly matters of aesthetics.

What a monstrous lie — and a dangerous one, too, as we are learning every day now. The conflict unfolding in the Middle East is fundamentally religious in ways that are fairly obvious. What is less obvious, because we are a post-Christian people, is that the conflict unfolding in America is equally religious. Hamas and the pagans stand on one side; Christians and Jews stand on the other. Only one side is going to win.

John Daniel Davidson is a senior editor at The Federalist. His writing has appeared in the Wall Street Journal, the Claremont Review of Books, The New York Post, and elsewhere. He is the author of the forthcoming book, Pagan America: the Decline of Christianity and the Dark Age to Come, to be published in March 2024. Follow him on Twitter, @johnddavidson.

Category:

International Politics, Islamic News, Political

Tagged with:

Beheaded Babies, Whole Civilian Families Found Dead in Wake of Hamas Terror Attacks in Israel

By: Tyler O’Neil / @Tyler2ONeil / October 10, 2023

An Israeli house utterly obliterated in Hamas' terrorist attack — An Israeli Defense Force commander told journalists that soldiers founded babies beheaded in the wake of Hamas terrorists’ assault on Israel. The IDF showed journalists around Kfar Aza, a town near Gaza, on Oct. 10. Pictured: A view of a house left in ruins after an attack by Hamas militants on this kibbutz days earlier when dozens of civilians were killed near the border with Gaza. Oct. 10 in Kfar Aza, Israel. (Photo: Alexi J. Rosenfeld/Getty Images)

Israeli soldiers report finding the bodies of babies, some of them decapitated, in the ruins of a town ravaged by Hamas terrorists in their surprise attack on Saturday. Israeli Defense Force soldiers took dozens of foreign journalists Tuesday to Kfar Aza, a town about 1.5 miles southeast of the Gaza border. Journalists surveyed the devastation, with explosions and artillery fire occurring in the background.

“It’s not a war,” Gen. Itai Veruv, head of the IDF’s Depth Command, told reporters. “It’s not a battlefield. You see the babies, the mothers, the fathers in their bedrooms, in their protection rooms, and how the terrorists kill them.”

“It’s not a war … it’s a massacre,” Veruv added.

'It's not a war, it's not a battle. It's a massacre'

Journalists are let into Kfar Aza for the first time, four days after the community came under the shock attack by Hamas terrorists

IDF Major General Itai Veruv describes the scene of brutal violence, where whole families… pic.twitter.com/HJzoMKj2Ta
— i24NEWS English (@i24NEWS_EN) October 10, 2023

Nicole Zedek, an i24 News reporter, said that an IDF commander told her they found the bodies of some 40 babies, some of whom had been beheaded.

i24NEWS Correspondent @Nicole_Zedek reports from Kibbutz Kfar Aza, a quarter-mile from the Gaza border, and recounts the atrocities that were committed in the small community which remains an active scene as soldiers clear booby traps and recover the bodies of dozens of victims pic.twitter.com/J4ZfWZQYHp
— i24NEWS English (@i24NEWS_EN) October 10, 2023

Earlier Tuesday, the IDF reported having regained control over the border with the Gaza Strip, roughly 72 hours after Hamas terrorists blew through sections of the barrier and launched the invasion early Saturday morning, The Times of Israel reported.

Hamas militants attacked Israel on the last day of the Jewish festival of Sukkot, as well as the Sabbath day of rest and the 50th anniversary of the Yom Kippur War. The terrorists slaughtered over 900 Israelis, including about 250 at a music festival, and kidnapped more than 100.

“This morning, on Shabbat and a holiday, Hamas invaded Israeli territory and murdered innocent citizens, including children and the elderly,” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a statement posted on X (formerly Twitter) Saturday. “Hamas has started a brutal and evil war.”

“They didn’t go for military targets—they went for civilians, they went for grandmothers, children, babies,” Israeli Defense Forces’ international spokesman Lt. Col. Richard Hecht said in a video message Sunday. “The numbers are unprecedented.”

“The style of attack is barbaric,” Hecht added. “In a way, this is our 9/11.”

He explained that the Hamas fighters attacked a party near the Gaza strip and kidnapped a grandmother. “Everybody, nearly, in Israel is affected by this.”

Hamas militants shot civilians at bus stops, on roads, and in their cars, photos show, according to Israeli experts who spoke to the Times of Israel. Videos reportedly show Israeli civilians, including women and children, getting abducted and taken to Gaza. Two videos raise concerns of sexual assault or rape.

Operational update with IDF International Spokesperson Lt. Col. Richard Hecht. https://t.co/9d9JeiUYFG
— Israel Defense Forces (@IDF) October 8, 2023

Read more about the attacks and Israel’s response here.

Read more about Iran’s involvement here.

Category:

Tagged with:

Pro-Palestine Student Org Calls for National ‘Day of Resistance’ Backing Attacks on Israel

By: Mary Margaret Olohan / @MaryMargOlohan / October 10, 2023

NEW YORK, NEW YORK - OCTOBER 09: Pro-Palestinian demonstrators gather in support of the Palestinian people during a rally for Gaza at the Consulate General of Israel on October 09, 2023 in New York City. On October 7, the Palestinian militant group Hamas launched a surprise attack on Israel from Gaza by land, sea, and air, killing over 700 people and wounding more than 2000. Israeli soldiers and civilians have also been kidnapped. (Photo by Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images) — Pro-Palestinian demonstrators gather in support of the Palestinian people during a rally for Gaza at the Consulate General of Israel on Sunday in New York City. (Photo: Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images)

A national pro-Palestine student organization is calling for a “day of resistance” on college campuses Thursday in support of brutal terrorist attacks on Israel, emphasizing that they are not only in solidarity with Palestine, they are “PART of this movement.”

A toolkit released by the national Students for Justice in Palestine calls for the student movement for “Palestine liberation” to organize a national day of resistance on college campuses across the U.S. and Canada. The organization did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

“We as Palestinian students in exile are PART of this movement, not in solidarity with this movement,” the toolkit messaging says in bold. “This is a moment of mobilization for all Palestinians. We must act as part of this movement. All of our efforts continue the work and resistance of Palestinians on the ground.”

At least six chapters have already announced such events for Oct. 12, according to the Anti-Defamation League: Arizona State University, University of Arizona, Butler University in Indiana, University of Louisville in Kentucky, University of Binghamton in New York and the University of Virginia.

“We must continue to resist directly, through dismantling Zionism and wielding the political power that our organizations hold on our campuses and in our communities,” the Students for Justice in Palestine toolkit says. “We are asking chapters to host demonstrations on campus/in their community in support of our resistance in Palestine and the national liberation struggle—one which they play a critical role in actualizing.”

Israeli soldiers on Monday remove the body of a civilian killed days earlier in an attack by Palestinian terroists on this kibbutz near the border with Gaza in Kfar Aza, Israel. (Photo: Amir Levy/Getty Images)

If a protest is not possible, the national Students for Justice in Palestine encourages other forms of engagement, such as a sit-in, “disruption” or “educational event.”

The Anti-Defamation League expressed concerns about such tactics: “Although these are all nonviolent tactics, they raise the real possibility of creating a hostile environment for Jewish students, and the confrontational spirit that permeates the toolkit raises the concern that these actions could lead to acts of harassment or vandalism targeting Jewish students and organizations.”

Victoria Coates, vice president of The Heritage Foundation’s Kathryn and Shelby Cullom Davis Institute for National Security and Foreign Policy, told The Daily Signal on Tuesday that “the corrosive antisemitism that infects American higher education today has been on ugly display since the terrorist attacks against Israel over the weekend.”

“Instead of denouncing the genocidal Hamas terrorists who hunted, tortured, murdered and took Jews hostage, all too many in academia have come out in favor of their depraved and savage rampage as if it were somehow legitimate because the victims were Jews,” Coates said. (The Daily Signal is the news outlet of The Heritage Foundation.)

She added: “This bigoted response stands in stark contrast with the wave of support for Ukraine after [Russian President] Vladimir Putin’s invasion in 2022, when the same campuses that will host these anti-Israel rallies flew Ukrainian flags in solidarity with the victims of Putin’s attack.”

The calls for demonstrations come after the terrorist group Hamas infiltrated Israel over the weekend, firing more than 4,500 rockets and slaughtering more than 1,000 people, including many women, children, and babies.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Saturday declared war against Hamas, which the U.S. has designated as a terrorist organization since 1997.

Media reports continue to describe unspeakable atrocities committed by Hamas. An Israeli Defense Forces spokesman said Tuesday that Israeli soldiers had found beheaded corpses of babies in a town near Gaza.

DAY-OF-RESISTANCE-TOOLKIT Download

“It’s not a war, it’s not a battlefield. You see the babies, the mother, the father, in their bedrooms, in their protection rooms, and how the terrorists killed them,” IDF Maj. Gen. Itai Veruv said as reported by Fox News. “It’s a massacre.”

But the national Students for Justice in Palestine messaging states that “when people are occupied, resistance is justified.”

“Normalize the resistance,” the messaging says, urging students to describe the current events as a “struggle for national liberation,” rather than a war or a conflict.

The invasion shows that “Israel is fragile,” the messaging continues. “The Zionist entity is fragile, and Palestinian resistance is alive.”

George Washington University Students for Justice in Palestine weigh in on the devastation in Israel: "WE WILL BE CAGED NO LONGER."

These are DC college students. pic.twitter.com/uwVINQgaQ6
— Mary Margaret Olohan (@MaryMargOlohan) October 10, 2023

Meanwhile, pro-Palestine groups at universities such as George Washington University in Washington, D.C., are expressing support for Palestine without acknowledging the atrocities that the terrorists have committed in Israel.

“This past weekend we witnessed them break free, tearing down the prison walls, and making it known to the world: WE WILL BE CAGED NO LONGER,” says a statement from GW Students for Justice in Palestine. That statement praises the invasion as “history in the making” and “the beginning of a new era in our struggle.”

“GW Students for Justice in Palestine maintains unwavering support for our people’s resistance, in all its forms,” the statement says. “Every single act of resistance moves us closer to the liberation of our homeland. We will never capitulate to the colonizer or his sympathizers, and we stand firm and steadfast in support of our people’s right to resist. We call upon all our people and those in solidarity with us to join us in this struggle.”

The true face of the American Left https://t.co/Wn5qixzaJQ
— Josh Hawley (@HawleyMO) October 10, 2023

Jewish Insider editor-in-chief Josh Kraushaar reacted to the student statement by calling it a “look at the intellectual/moral climate on top college campuses.”

Lawyer and commentator Erielle Davidson tweeted: “My skin is crawling at the thought that American universities allow bloodthirsty freaks to carry their degrees. GW has a high Jewish population. Despicable.”

And Israeli television anchor Lidar Grave-Lazi said in a social media post that “the world is finally opening its eyes to see the true face of the ‘Pro-Palestinian’ movement.”

“It is not about human rights,” she said. “It is about brutality, barbarism, hatred and the annihilation of Israel. Unfortunately, they have infiltrated college campuses across the U.S. and not enough is being done to counter their hatred. Just look to @Harvard’s deafening silence. Anyone who is civilized and has a shred of humanity should condemn such statements and call them out for what they truly are.”

George Washington University did not immediately respond to requests for comment as to what steps it is taking to ensure the safety of its Jewish students.

Tyler O’Neill contributed to this report.

Category:

International Politics, Islamic News, Political

Tagged with:

UK’s Onshore Wind Scheme Could Backfire, With Far More Potent Greenhouse Gas Emissions

By: Miles Pollard / September 12, 2023

As it relates to wind power in the United Kingdom, not everything is coming up daisies, much less roses, despite what advocates for renewable power would have Britons believe. (Photo: Studio-fi/iStock/Getty Images)

Shortly after naming Claire Coutinho as secretary of state for energy security and net zero on Aug. 31, British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak announced a plan to accelerate the approval process for onshore wind projects. Previously, a 2015 ruling allowed a single complaint within a community to halt an onshore wind program and fully stopped subsidies for such projects. Under the new rule, communities can speed up the process for allocating sites through local development orders or community right-to-build orders.

However, wind farms can drastically raise the cost of electricity when the wind doesn’t blow and could leak a chemical that is exponentially more harmful to the environment than carbon dioxide (CO₂).

Perhaps Coutinho isn’t aware of the influential 2019 BBC article that uncovered how the U.K.’s offshore wind turbine gearboxes are utilizing the world’s most potent greenhouse gas, sulfur hexafluoride, and that these gearboxes are leaking 15% of the gas over their lifecycle.

Sulfur hexafluoride (SF₆) is 23,500 times more potent than carbon dioxide (CO₂). For reference, methane (CH₄) and nitrous oxide (N₂0) are roughly 25 and 298 times more potent than carbon dioxide, respectively. Additionally, these estimates are only over a 100-year perspective, and SF₆could exist up to 3,200 years in the atmosphere. Consequently, a single pound of released SF₆is the equivalent of 11 tons of CO₂ in the atmosphere.

No energy source, not even wind, can be fully without externalities, even with the most advanced recycling techniques. That’s not to mention the hydrocarbons needed to fabricate the nylon and fiberglass for blades and to create the steel and concrete for towers.

Speaking of externalities, Coutinho should also acknowledge the potential of 100,000 birds killed every year by wind turbines in the U.K. However, losses could be minimized by adopting the Norwegian practice of painting one rotor blade black to reduce those deaths by an estimated 70%.

Despite the calls for expansion of energy generation, one of the largest hurdles is the time it takes to link to the grid, with more than 1,100 projects currently waiting to connect. With such a backlog of projects and the lack of transmission infrastructure, the U.K. government should contemplate allowing these projects to compete in an unsubsidized market to weed out economically unviable projects and restore reliability and adaptability to the grid.

Furthermore, the U.K. should also be wary of greenlighting or expanding every wind project without completing the due diligence to investigate local environmental harm and to acknowledge the wishes of local constituents. Abandoning reliable generation capacity for intermittent wind power without first investing in viable storage capacity is a recipe for disaster. For example, scalable gas-fired power stations saved the U.K. last winter by providing 60% of the needed electricity while wind turbines contributed a paltry 3%.

In order to end the economic malaise caused by ever-increasing energy prices and a culture of strangling economic freedom into stagnation, the U.K. needs to adopt an energy policy that will lower prices of electricity, rather than adopting the German model of closing reliable nuclear power stations and massively expanding intermittent solar and wind. Instead, the U.K. should adopt the Trump-era all-of-the-above strategy for energy security.

Similarly, the U.K. should roll back pre-Brexit European laws and rebuff current proposed measures that seek to control people’s everyday lives, such as mandating that properties meet net zero targets or pay £15,000 (about $18,750).

In an economic climate of spiraling inflation, the U.K. government should look to all avenues, including retaining its coal power until viable base-load generation alternatives can be secured.

The U.K.’s remaining nuclear reactors should be left online or expanded, and small modular nuclear reactors should be explored. Rather than solely expanding wind turbines that could leak a greenhouse gas 23,500 times more potent than CO₂, the U.K. should explore scalable alternatives, such as the zero-emission natural gas plant that is being brought online in 2025.

With continuing inflation, connected insiders colluding with unelected bureaucrats, and a worldwide populace increasingly leery of increasing government censorship, the U.K. needs to abandon anti-energy policies and acknowledge that economic growth will always require more energy and more ingenuity. Lifting restrictions on wind power and other sources is but the first step to allowing the U.K. to become energy secure.

Intermittent sources alone cannot ensure energy security, as they are only as good as their storage capacity. Wind power must also be upfront about its tangible greenhouse gas emissions.

The U.K. needs stable and scalable energy sources to alleviate its energy woes. Only by lowering high energy bills and lowering the cost of living can the U.K. reignite the boundless energy of human potential.

COMMENTARY BY

Miles Pollard

Miles Pollard is an economic policy analyst with the Center for Energy, Climate, and Environment at The Heritage Foundation.

Category:

Green New Deal, International Politics

Tagged with:

‘Wake Up’: Congressman Warns of ‘Genocide,’ ‘Ethnic Cleansing’ Against Christians in Armenia

By: Mary Margaret Olohan / @MaryMargOlohan / September 06, 2023

Republican New Jersey Rep. Chris Smith called on his colleagues Wednesday to recognize that 120,000 Armenian Christians living in Nagorno-Karabakh are facing extinction. Pictured: Demonstrators rally to demand the reopening of a blockaded road linking the Nagorno-Karabakh region to Armenia and to decry crisis conditions in the region, in Stepanakert on July 25, 2023. Karabakh has been at the centre of a decades-long dispute between Armenia and Azerbaijan, which have fought two wars over the mountainous territory. (Photo by Ani BALAYAN / AFP) (Photo by ANI BALAYAN/AFP via Getty Images)

Republican New Jersey Rep. Chris Smith called on his colleagues Wednesday to recognize that 120,000 Armenian Christians living in Nagorno-Karabakh are facing extinction.

“Delay is denial,” Smith, who chaired the emergency congressional hearing on Nagorno-Karabakh as co-chair of the Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission, said in a statement to The Daily Signal. “The Biden Administration must say immediately that this is genocide—and stop it.”

The Capitol Hill hearing, held Wednesday, examined the ongoing blockade of the Lachin corridor in Nagorno-Karabakh, a region between Eastern Europe and western Asia that is referred to as the Republic of Artsakh by Armenians.

The region is a disputed territory that Armenia and Azerbaijan have fought over for several decades, and the Azerbaijani government has blockaded the Armenians since December 2022. The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights has warned that Armenians face dire shortages of food, medical supplies, baby formula, fuel, and more.

“This blockade of the 120,000 Armenian Christians is reaching a critical juncture,” warned Turkish journalist and political analyst Uzay Bulut in an August 2023 op-ed. “Food and medicine are running out, and starvation is beginning to set in. Currently, there is no fuel — which has led to a complete transportation shutdown. The Armenians of Artsakh are thus being forced into submission to Azerbaijan through a policy of starvation.”

A view shows an Azerbaijani checkpoint at the entry of the Lachin corridor, the Armenian-populated breakaway Nagorno-Karabakh region’s only land link with Armenia, on Aug. 30, 2023. (Photo: Karen Minasyan/AFP/Getty Images)

“This crime—it is the crime of genocide—was planned, tested, and imposed by the government of Azerbaijan, that is to say by President Ilham Aliyev, who rules Azerbaijan as a dictator,” Smith said Wednesday. The congressman has met with Aliyev twice, his office said, once in 2013 and again in 2014, to discuss his human rights abuses.

“The situation in Nagorno-Karabakh is much more desperate now, and two-and-a-half more months of inaction raises the question whether there is, within our own government, any will to help,” he said. “In August, when the Security Council met in special session to discuss the crisis neither the U.S. nor any other member took this action.”

Smith continued: “Meanwhile, the Azerbaijani government taunts the very people it is starving, as when President Aliyev said his blockade is necessary to deal with the smuggling of cigarettes and iPhones, and Azerbaijan’s ambassador to the U.N. held up photos of supposed Karabakh residents partying and enjoying the high life.”

Smith emphasized that the Biden administration does not want this genocide to end in the deaths or “ethnic cleansing” of the people of Nagorno-Karabakh.

“But that is exactly where events are headed,” he said.

“The Biden administration must wake up, recognize the absolutely grave responsibility it has here, and focus on finding and implementing a humane solution,” the congressman added. “And this must mean that the blockade is lifted and the people can continue to live in their ancient homeland—and not be subject to violence and threats. This situation is now a three-alarm fire.”

One of the witnesses who spoke to lawmakers on Wednesday was Luis Moreno Ocampo, the former prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, who released a statement Aug. 7 warning that “there is a reasonable basis to believe that a Genocide is being committed against Armenians living in Nagorno-Karabakh in 2023.”

“There are no crematories and there are no machete attacks,” he wrote. “Starvation is the invisible genocide weapon. Without immediate dramatic change, this group of Armenians will be destroyed in a few weeks.”

The International Association of Genocide Scholars condemned that blockade in February 2023, warning against the “ongoing aggression against the indigenous Armenian population of the region” and “the risk of genocide against the Armenian population of that entity.”

In late July, a spokesperson for Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken said that Blinken had spoken with Azerbaijan’s President Aliyev and expressed “deep concern” for the situation in Nagorno-Karabakh.

“Secretary Blinken underscored the urgent need for free transit of commercial, humanitarian, and private vehicles through the Lachin corridor, and emphasized the need for compromise on alternative routes so humanitarian supplies can reach the population of Nagorno-Karabakh,” Blinken spokesman Matthew Miller said. “The Secretary stressed the need for all parties to keep up positive momentum on peace negotiations.”

Some have expressed concerns in recent weeks that the Azerbaijan is amassing troops and weapons ahead of a coming invasion.

“There’s a very real chance in the coming weeks that #Azerbaijan will seize the rest of #NagornoKarabakh and continue on to southern #Armenia,” warned Robert Nicholson, president of The Philos Project, a Christian organization that advocates “for pluralism in the Near East.”

“Russia, Turkey, and Iran will have signed off on it,” he continued. “And unless something changes, the US will watch it all happen. Where are our leaders?”

There's a very real chance in the coming weeks that #Azerbaijan will seize the rest of #NagornoKarabakh and continue on to southern #Armenia. Russia, Turkey, and Iran will have signed off on it. And unless something changes, the US will watch it all happen

Where are our leaders?
— Robert Nicholson (@rwnicholson_) September 5, 2023

Category:

International Politics, Islamic News, Religion

Tagged with:

This Global Gathering Embraces China, Russia in Advancing Communist Agenda

By: Mike Gonzalez / @Gundisalvus / August 28, 2023

President Biden and other Western leaders have coddled Marxist leaders while treating the São Paulo Forum as a debating society. Pictured: Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva joins Chinese leader Xi Jinping in inspecting troops during a welcome ceremony Aptil 14 outside the Great Hall of the People in Beijing. (Photo: Ken Ishii/Pool/Getty Images)

You may never have heard of the Foro de São Paulo, since Western media tend to ignore it, But it’s the world’s largest and most impactful Marxist international organization. The latest São Paulo Forum gathering demonstrated how pro-China and pro-Russia this radical body is, and how it retails its winning blueprint throughout the world.

Rubbing elbows at this summer’s gathering in Brasilia, Brazil’s capital, were members of the Chinese Communist Party, Cuba’s Communist Party, and the Democratic Socialists of America—the party of U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., and U.S. Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y.; Rashida Tlaib, D-Mich.; Jamaal Bowman, D-N.Y.; and Cori Bush, D-Mo.

One member of the Democratic Socialists of America who attended the conference, Estefania Galvis, assured the main television station of Venezuela’s Marxist government, TeleSur, that her party was “fighting inside the heart of the empire.” Venezuela’s TeleSur, Cuba’s Prensa Latina, and lefty outfits such as Peoples Dispatch gave blanket coverage to the gathering June 29-July 2. But for U.S. media reports, it was crickets.

So, we don’t read that at this year’s São Paulo Forum, Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, the host along with Brazil’s Communist Party, bragged about how proud he was to be called a communist. His enemies “accuse us of being communist, thinking that this will offend us,” Lula said in his opening speech, adding: But that does not offend us. … To call us communist or socialist will never offend us. Never. On the contrary, it makes us proud. The people know that we deserve to be called that.

The enemies of communists, he said, were the narratives of “family, tradition, and patriotism.”

The conference routinely lambasted the United States and defended and praised China, Russia, Cuba, and Venezuela. The group’s opening declaration said São Paulo Forum members would deepen their ties to the Chinese Communist Party.

President Joe Biden and other Western leaders have done nothing but coddle Lula and the region’s other Marxist leaders while treating the São Paulo Forum as a debating society. But the São Paulo Forum is the world’s largest grouping of Marxist governments, political parties, non-governmental organizations or NGOs, third-party groups, guerrilla groups, and terrorists.

Their actions affect Americans and Europeans through drug trafficking, targeted immigration, financing of political parties in the West, and support of violent groups such as Black Lives Matter, whose leaders attend and network at São Paulo Forum conferences.

The São Paulo Forum was formed in 1990 by Fidel Castro, Cuba’s long-time communist tyrant, and Lula, then the leader of Brazil’s Socialist Party. Two main reasons existed for forming a hemispherewide network of communists. First, aside from in Cuba, communists had failed to win power the traditional Marxist way—violent revolution followed by state terror. So another approach was needed.

The second reason: The Soviet Union—the paymaster of all communists since its inception in 1917—was collapsing at the time.

The key strategy for the São Paulo Forum, after switching from bullets to ballots, was for Marxists to run for office not as Marxists per se, but as populists, reformers, or anti-corruption crusaders. Then, after winning, they would change constitutions and society.

The São Paulo Forum’s annual summits, frequent workshops, and smaller gatherings became platforms for planning and sharing “best practices.” In his recent speech, Lula reminded his audience that it was the Foro de São Paulo that introduced the electoral strategy—“and you know we’ve had a lot of victories.”

Using this political do-it-yourself kit, Hugo Chavez was elected president of Venezuela in 1998, instantly putting that country’s enormous oil revenues—and rapidly growing narcotrafficking earnings—at the disposal of the São Paulo Forum’s other communists. Lula was elected president of Brazil in 2002 and ruled for eight years, then was elected again in 2022. Evo Morales followed suit in 2005 in Bolivia and Rafael Correa in 2006 in Ecuador.

All except for Lula have been accused by the U.S. government of engaging with terrorist Marxist guerrillas and drug cartels. Colombia’s FARC guerrilla group (Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia) and ELN (Ejercito de Liberacion Nacional), as well as Peru’s Maoist Shining Path guerrillas, have taken part in São Paulo Forum meetings.

A second wave of Marxists has been elected since the last conference in 2019—in Chile, Colombia, Honduras, Peru, and, of course, Brazil. A far-left organization called the North American Congress in Latin America boasts that 80% of the region is now in the control of the Left.

A recent addition to the São Paulo Forum’s winning strategy has been to use social media to incite and organize street protests in free societies, and then use the resulting discontent to place Marxists in power in elections. BLM-style street riots in Chile and Colombia paved the way for the election of their Marxist leaders. As the gathering’s closing declaration put it, this mayhem has been translated into “electoral victories.”

All of these leftist governments are opening the region to China. The São Paulo Forum’s opening declaration was as praiseful of China as it was contemptuous of America.

“The U.S. project of domination over Latin America and the Caribbean is facing an environment marked by threats to its hegemony,” the document said, adding:

The dispute with China, and the growing presence of progressive or leftist political forces in regional governments … constitute an important challenge to a country affected by multiple crises that are manifesting themselves in the political, economic, social and cultural spheres.

Cooperation between China and Latin America is not new, and will grow in the future. China represents a factor for stability and balance in the region …. There are no conflicts of interests between China and Latin America, as the People’s Republic of China has never attacked or illegally occupied any Latin American territory.

The U.S., according to the document, is trying to “reverse its decline and recover its previous hegemonic status, a desperate effort putting world peace at risk.”

The final declaration also characterized Cuba, which hasn’t known democracy or freedom for more than 60 years, as a “universal patrimony of dignity.”

It’s time we took these people seriously, even if our “leaders” do not.

COMMENTARY BY

Mike Gonzalez @Gundisalvus

Mike Gonzalez, a senior fellow at The Heritage Foundation, is a widely experienced international correspondent, commentator, and editor who has reported from Asia, Europe, and Latin America. He served in the George W. Bush administration, first at the Securities and Exchange Commission and then at the State Department, and is the author of the book “BLM: The Making of a New Marxist Revolution.” Read his research.

Category:

International Politics, Opinion

Tagged with:

Victor Davis Hanson Op-ed: Fentanyl, Viruses, Spying: Why Do We Let China Get Away With Attacks on America?

Victor Davis Hanson / @VDHanson / August 18, 2023

A smiling President Joe Biden and China's President Xi Jinping shake hands — There is a huge asymmetry in the bizarre Chinese-American relationship. China would never tolerate America treating it as it treats America. Why do our leaders let this situation continue? Pictured: President Joe Biden (right) and Chinese leader Xi Jinping (left) shake hands as they meet on the sidelines of the G20 Summit in Bali, Indonesia, on Nov. 14, 2022. (Photo: Saul Loeb, AFP/Getty Images)

Imagine if the United States treated China in the same way it does us. What if American companies simply ignored Chinese copyrights and patents and stole Chinese ideas, inventions, and intellectual property as they pleased and with impunity? What if the American government targeted Chinese industries by dumping competing American export products at below the cost of production—to bankrupt Chinese competitors and corner their markets? What would the communist Chinese government do if a huge American spy balloon lazily traversed continental China—sending back to the United States photographic surveillance of Chinese military bases and installations? How would China react to America stonewalling any explanation, much less refusing to apologize for such an American attack on Chinese sovereignty?

Envision a U.S. high-security virology lab in the Midwest, run by the Pentagon, allowing the escape of an engineered, gain-of-function deadly virus. Instead of enlisting world cooperation to stop the spread of the virus, the American government would lie that it sprung up from a local bat or wild possum.

Washington would then make all its relevant military scientists disappear who were assigned to the lab while ordering a complete media blackout. America would forbid Chinese scientists from contacting their American counterparts involved in the lab, despite the deaths of more than 1 million Chinese from the American-manufactured disease. And what if during the first days of the pandemic, Washington had quietly prevented all foreign travel to the United States, while keeping open one-way direct flights from America to major Chinese cities?

How would Beijing respond if American biotech company warehouses were discovered in rural China with unsecured vials of deadly viruses and pathogens? Would China be angered that it was never notified by an American company that it had left abandoned COVID-19 and HIV viruses and malaria parasites in its facilities—along with rotting genetically engineered dead rats littering the floors with hundreds more lab animals abandoned in laboratory cages?

What would Chairman Xi Jinping have done if American-made fentanyl was shipped in massive quantities to nearby Tibet on the Chinese border? And what if it would be deliberately repackaged there as deceptive recreational drugs and smuggled into China, where it annually killed 100,000 Chinese youth, year after year?

What if 10,000 Americans this year illegally crossed the Indian border into China and disappeared into its interior?

What if an allied Asian nation—such as South Korea, Japan, or Taiwan—went nuclear? And what if, in North-Korean style, it serially blustered to send one of its nuclear missiles into the major cities of China?

What if almost monthly China discovered an American military operative teaching incognito at a major Chinese university or among the ranks of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army? Would China object if an American femme fatale agent was sleeping with a high-ranking Chinese official of the Chinese Communist Politburo? Or what if one of the chauffeurs of its top-ranking Chinese officials was a nearly two-decade-long American agent?

What would be the Chinese reaction if there were 350,000 American students attending schools all over the Chinese nation, with perhaps 3,000-4,000 of them actively engaged in national security espionage on behalf of the United States?

These “what-ifs” could be expanded endlessly. But they reflect well enough the great asymmetry in the bizarre Chinese-American relationship. Obviously, China would not tolerate America treating it as it does the Americans.

Why then does the imbalance continue? Do naive Americans believe that the more China is indulged, the more it will respond in kind to American magnanimity? Does the U.S. believe that the more China is exposed to our supposedly radically democratic and free culture, the sooner it will become a good democratic citizen of the global community?

Are we afraid of China because it has four times our population and believes its economy and military will overtake ours in a decade?

Are we terrified that its Chinese government is completely amoral, utterly ruthless, and capable of anything?

Or are our political, cultural, and corporate elites so compromised by their lucrative Chinese investments and joint ventures that they prioritize profits over their own country’s national security and self-interest? And did the Biden family—including President Joe Biden himself—in the past receive millions of dollars from Chinese energy and investment interests? Did Hunter Biden’s quid pro quo decade of grifting result in millions in Chinese money filling the Biden family coffers—all in exchange for the current Biden and past Obama administrations going soft on Chinese aggression?

No one seems able to explain the otherwise inexplicable. But one way to get along with China and to regain its respect is to deal with it exactly the way it deals with the United States. Anything less, and America will continually be treated with even more Chinese contempt—and eventually extreme violence.

COMMENTARY BY

Victor Davis Hanson @VDHanson

Victor Davis Hanson is a classicist and historian at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University, and author of the book “The Second World Wars: How the First Global Conflict Was Fought and Won.” You can reach him by e-mailing authorvdh@gmail.com.

Category:

Tagged with:

Conservative American Ally Guatemala May Fall to the Left

By: Meredith Bernal / Max Primorac / August 16, 2023

Guatemalan candidate for president and former First Lady Sandra Torres speaks at a podium — Guatemala is one of America’s last partners in the region that still holds conservative values: free-market, anti-communism, and pro-family. Sunday’s election could threaten that should the Left find a new base in Central America. Pictured: Candidate for president of Guatemala and former first lady Sandra Torres presents her plan for government in Guatemala City on Aug. 7, 2023, in the run-up to the Aug. 20 ballot. (Photo: Fernando Aguilar, AFP/Getty Images)

Elections have consequences. They can either benefit a nation or lead to disastrous outcomes. On June 25, Guatemala held its first round of the presidential election, and the results ended disastrously for this historically conservative Central American country of 17 million people.

The results also do not bode well for America, as the current government has been pro-U.S. and a staunch American foreign policy ally, and the election of a leftist government could dramatically change all that. In an unexpected twist of events, the two candidates heading into this Sunday’s run-off elections are former first lady Sandra Torres and Bernardo Arévalo, son of former Guatemalan President Juan José Arévalo Bermejo—both leftists. The two won the first election round with only 15% and 11%, respectively, in a deeply fractured vote.

Prior to the elections, the then-frontrunner, a conservative businessman, was controversially disqualified by the attorney general while the Right has come under heavy criticism for splintering the nation’s majority conservative vote, leaving an opportunity for the Left to gain control. The results break this year’s string of conservative wins in Latin America. First, Chile’s Marxist president tried to radically change the country’s pro-free market form of government through a constitutional convention to rewrite the nation’s constitution. He was upended after conservatives won two-thirds of the convention seats.

Paraguay’s conservatives easily kept control of their government. And this past weekend saw conservatives in Argentina win nearly two-thirds of the vote in the first round of presidential elections amid a country financially ruined by the ruling socialist government.

It is Torres’ third time as a presidential candidate while it is Arévalo’s first. Torres campaigned on an agenda centered on “transforming Guatemala to be a place of equality, where women and men have the same opportunities, the youth find jobs, and everyone develops peace of mind.”

A social democrat, observers tell us, “She is too corrupt.” Since June, Torres has pivoted her campaign message to cast herself as a defender of the country’s deeply held conservative values—pro-life, pro-family, and pro-religion. She promises to name conservative ministers to her government if she wins. Nevertheless, public distrust of her runs high.

Arévalo hails from a new political party, Semilla. Local conservatives fear “he will make common cause with global progressives on abortion, gender identity, and a pro-LGBTQ+ platform.” Last year, Semilla unsuccessfully introduced a bill in parliament “for persons who menstruate,” a reference to “transgender” men’s rights (transgender men are biological women).

In neighboring Mexico, the ruling left-wing Morena (Movement for Social Regeneration) Party has convicted conservative members of parliament and church leaders for “gender-based political violence” for speaking out against transgender ideology. An Arévalo victory could bring similar pressures on the Guatemalan people.

During the campaign, Arévalo evaded questions about social issues and has laser focused on an appealing anti-corruption agenda. While Guatemala has made substantial improvements in democratizing its national economy, it remains riven with corruption between government and businesses and scandals that have eaten into Guatemalans’ trust in their own institutions. Indeed, voter turnout exposed the country’s loss of faith in government, as only 60% of eligible voters showed up at the polls with 24% of them leaving their ballots blank. In sum, half of the country opted out of participating in the elections.

The impact of Guatemala’s election on American national security could be severe. The current conservative government has been a staunch U.S. foreign policy ally, recognizing Taiwan over Communist China, openly backing Ukraine over Russia, and being solidly pro-Israel and pro-U.S.

Other Latin American states have joined China’s Belt and Road Initiative of receiving massive loans and infrastructure investments in return for loyalty to Beijing. Recently, current Guatemalan President Alejandro Giammattei pledged “absolute support” for Taiwan after neighboring Honduras switched sides and recognized Beijing over Taipei.

Torres promised to maintain relations with and expand economic relations with Taiwan. Her critics warn, however, that given the executive powers of the president, once in office, “she could easily switch to China.”

Alejandro Palmieri, the editor of La Republica Guatemala, warns that “Torres previously praised the PRC [People’s Republic of China] as an economic powerhouse, though she still wants to maintain relationships with the United States and Taiwan since they are important trade partners for us.”

As for Arévalo, he has made it clear that he wants to establish closer relations with China since he believes that it is essential for Guatemala’s economic growth.

Palmieri said that Guatemala’s conservative values are aligned with conservative American principles: “Guatemala is one of the U.S.’s last partners in the region that still holds conservative values such as support for a free-market economy, recognizing the hemispheric threat Communist China represents, and fidelity to the idea that the family structure is central to our lives.”

Sunday’s election results could threaten those shared values should international progressives find a new base in Central America. No doubt, as the White House has done with Marxist victors in Brazil and Colombia and progressives elsewhere in the hemisphere, it is likely only too keen to roll out the red carpet for Guatemala’s next left-wing president.

COMMENTARY BY

Meredith Bernal

Meredith Bernal was a member of the Young Leaders Program at The Heritage Foundation.

Max Primorac

Max Primorac is director of The Heritage Foundation’s Douglas and Sarah Allison Center for Foreign Policy. He previously served as acting chief operating officer at the U.S. Agency for International Development. From 2009 to 2011, he was a senior adviser to the Afghan government.

Category:

International Politics, Religion, Spiritual

Tagged with:

Finnish Grandmother Is Back In Court Facing ‘Hate Speech’ Charges For Tweeting Bible Verses

BY: ELYSSA KOREN | AUGUST 11, 2023

man and woman walking in snow in Finland

ELYSSA KOREN MORE ARTICLES

In 2019, Päivi Räsänen did what any one of us might do — she tweeted at her church. Her tweet was simple and peaceful. She questioned the choice to sponsor a local pride parade. She questioned, was this befitting of their Christian faith? And she attached a scripture passage to the tweet.

Räsänen will be headed to court for the second time on criminal charges of “hate speech.” This longstanding member of the Finnish Parliament, medical doctor, and grandmother has faced onerous prosecution for four years at the hands of Finland’s government for a tweet.

Subjected to 13 hours of police interrogation, authorities dug into her past, charging her with three counts of “agitation against a minority group” for the tweet, in addition to a 2004 church pamphlet and 2019 radio appearance. Bishop Juhana Pohjola of Finland’s Evangelical Lutheran Church also was criminally charged for publishing the pamphlet, which discusses a Biblical-based understanding of marriage and human sexuality. Their charges carried with them tens of thousands of euros in fines and even the possibility of a two-year prison sentence.

In March of last year, the Helsinki District Court delivered a unanimous acquittal, stating clearly that, “it is not for the district court to interpret biblical concepts.” However, the law in Finland allows for legal double jeopardy — prosecutors can appeal all the way to the Supreme Court on the mere basis of dissatisfaction with the verdict. On Aug. 31, Räsänen and the bishop will be back in court once again. Their legal defense is supported by ADF International.

Without free speech, there can be no freedom, and the enormous implications of this case for fundamental freedoms have triggered international outrage. Finland, regularly ranked as the “happiest” country on Earth, is known as a stable bastion of European democracy. If this can happen there, then we must all beware.

On Aug. 8, 16 U.S. members of Congress, sent a letter to Rashad Hussain, U.S. ambassador–at–large for international religious freedom, and Douglas Hickey, U.S. ambassador to Finland, in response to Räsänen’s “egregious and harassing” prosecution. The letter highlights the severity of what’s at stake: “This prosecutor is dead set on weaponizing the power of Finland’s legal system to silence not just a member of parliament and Lutheran bishop but millions of Finnish Christians who dare to exercise their natural rights to freedom of expression and freedom of religion in the public square.”

Free speech is a preeminent American value, but also one well-protected in international law. The U.S. should always stand against the criminalization of peaceful expression and especially should raise concerns when violations of free speech occur in countries we view as allies, especially on human rights. As the legislators’ letter states, “No American, no Fin, and no human should face legal harassment for simply living out their religious beliefs.”

Now is the time for the Biden administration to speak out loud and clear. While the administration has acknowledged that it has privately raised concerns over Räsänen’s case with the Finnish government, it is vitally important that the U.S. government take a public stance in defense of free speech so under threat in this case.

With regard to Räsänen’s case, the legislators’ letter makes clear, “The selective targeting of these high-profile individuals is designed to systematically chill others’ speech under the threat of legal harassment and social astigmatism.” Historically, the U.S. has been the strongest bulwark against international violations of freedom of speech. In standing up for Räsänen, the U.S. government would in turn send a signal that it is standing up for the right of every person who feels the rapidly encroaching winds of censorship.

Elyssa Koren is director of legal communications for ADF International. ADF UK is supporting the legal defense of Isabel, Adam, and Father Sean. Follow her on Twitter: @Elyssa_Koren

Category:

Tagged with:

Slaughter of Nigerian Christians Warrants International Attention

By: Olivia Hundley / Max Primorac / August 03, 2023

In its first full day in office, the Biden administration canceled a modest grant to help persecuted Christians in Nigeria document atrocities against them. By contrast, Esther Bitrus, who was kidnapped by Boko Haram Islamic extremists in 2014 in Nigeria, listens as then-President Donald Trump hosts her and other survivors of religious persecution from 17 countries around the world at the White House on July 17, 2019. (Photo: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

“If we keep quiet, we are going to go extinct,” says Catholic Bishop Chipa Wilfred Anagbe of the Diocese of Makurdi in Benue state, Nigeria.

In June, the Congressional Values Action Team caucus met with Anagbe and the Rev. Remigius Ihyula who shared their testimonies of atrocities committed against Christians in Nigeria by Islamic extremists and about the complacency of the Nigerian government. The meeting rallied support behind House Resolution 82, introduced by Rep. Chris Smith, R-N.J., expressing the sense of Congress that the Biden administration officially redesignate Nigeria as a “country of particular concern for grossly violating religious freedoms and appoint a special envoy for Nigeria and the Lake Chad region.”

An estimated 5,621 Christians worldwide were killed for their faith last year. Of those, 90% were Nigerian, according to a January report by Open Doors International, a nonprofit group that advocates on behalf of persecuted Christians. The report says, “Militant groups such as Boko Haram, Islamic State West Africa Province, and other Fulani militants inflict murder, physical injury, abduction and sexual violence on their victims.”

Western media commonly frames the violence in Nigeria as a “herder-farmer” conflict “propelled by climate change and resource scarcity,” despite U.S. government reports that “one of ISIS’s largest and most powerful regional branches … controls broad swaths of territory and has killed or displaced thousands of people in Nigeria and neighboring countries.” Records show Fulani militants attacking Christian communities, burning churches, summarily killing schoolchildren, kidnapping priests for ransom, and often executing them. Twelve Nigerian state governments officially adhere to Islamic Sharia law, “contributing to discrimination and violence against Christians,” according to International Christian Concern.

The Religious Freedom Institute’s Nigerian Atrocities Documentation Project in an April report shared a survivor’s account of an attack in Zangon Kataf in Kaduna state. He “disclosed that the terrorists who attacked his community were seen in Hilux vans shouting ‘Allahu Akbar’ while shooting,” the report explained. “That day, about 42 persons were killed and over 300 houses were razed. The attacks did not in any way suggest that it was a conflict between Fulani herdsmen and indigenous farmers.”

There is a problem of mislabeling the crisis, said Richard Ikiebe, a Nigerian who is president of the International Organization for Peace Building and Social Justice, at a July 19 press conference in Washington, D.C., hosted by the International Committee on Nigeria. “Stop saying that it’s a farmer-herder clash. And stop saying that it’s a poverty issue … and stop saying it’s a climate change issue.” Those issues are involved, he added, but they are not the core issue.

The State Department denies that religion plays a role in these massacres. In its “2022 Report on International Religious Freedom: Nigeria,” it stated, “While much of the violence involved predominantly Muslim herders and, depending on location, either predominantly Christian or Muslim farmers … banditry and other criminality, not animosity between particular religious groups or on the basis of religion, were the primary drivers of intercommunal violence.”

That’s false.

In just the past month, “37 Christians have been killed by Fulani militants and other terrorist groups in Nigeria’s Benue state,” International Christian Concern reported July 24. Another report by Nigerian-based research and investigative rights group Intersociety said that more than 1,000 Christians had been killed in the first 100 days of 2023 alone.

Soon after becoming secretary of state in early 2021, Antony Blinken repudiated the Trump administration’s emphasis on religious freedom, declaring that “there is no hierarchy that makes some rights more important than others.”

In its first full day in office, the Biden administration canceled a modest grant to help persecuted Christians in Nigeria document atrocities against them. In contrast, the independent and bipartisan U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom explicitly recommended the U.S. government “[r]edesignate Nigeria as a ‘country of particular concern,’ or CPC, for engaging in and tolerating systematic, ongoing, and egregious violations of religious freedom, as defined by the International Religious Freedom Act (IRFA)” in its 2021 annual report, as it has every year since 2009.

Still, the U.S. State Department removed Nigeria from the “country of particular concern” list in 2021 without explanation just before Blinken traveled to Nigeria.

Smith, the New Jersey lawmaker, pressed the administration’s U.S. ambassador-at-large for international religious freedom, Rashad Hussain, about Nigeria’s de-designation at a House Foreign Affairs subcommittee hearing last month. “I share your concerns. I don’t think we have much disagreement in terms of the substance of what’s happening on the ground,” Hussain said.

“The killings of people, even pregnant women and children, and the occupation of their lands to cause the cessation of all economic activities mirror the pattern of jihadi elements like Boko Haram in other parts of Nigeria,” Anagbe said in his July 18 testimony at that House Foreign Affairs subcommittee hearing.

In response to the atrocities, a bipartisan group of 14 members of Congress have co-sponsored House Resolution 82, which seeks to redress the administration’s cover-up.

“It is imperative that the State Department take action by adding Nigeria as a [country of particular concern] and make clear that the U.S. government condemns the continued egregious actions in Nigeria,” said Rep. French Hill, R-Ark., a co-sponsor of the resolution.

The resolution echoes the cries of Anagbe that we cannot remain silent while Nigerian civilians are being killed in large numbers for their faith.

“Nigeria is the regional anchor of West Africa … and when Nigeria is unstable, the entire region is unstable,” said Eric Patterson, the president of Religious Freedom Institute, in his testimony before the subcommittee. “We also do not want to see falling dominos of failing states, millions of destitute refugees, and a global petroleum shock. Nigeria’s friends care about Nigeria, both because it will affect the United States sooner or later, and because the citizens of Nigeria deserve justice and peace.”

COMMENTARY BY

Olivia Hundley

Olivia Hundley is a member of the Young Leaders Program at The Heritage Foundation.

Max Primorac

Category:

International Politics, Islamic News

Tagged with:

Italy’s Meloni reacts to NYT opinion piece blasting her right-wing policies: ‘Respond with … results’

By Taylor Penley FOXBusiness | Published July 31, 2023 12:32pm EDT

Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni sits down for part two of an exclusive interview with FOX Business’ Maria Bartiromo to discuss her country’s success and speculations that conservatism is growing in Europe.

Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni said she prefers to let her actions speak louder than words when asked how she responds to a New York Times opinion piece that blasted her policies, particularly what’s happening in Italy overall.

“There is nothing I want to tell to those who criticize me. I think it is a right they have,” she told FOX Business’ Maria Bartiromo in an exclusive interview. “The only way I like to respond is with results, so I react. I do what I think is right for my nation, for the interests of my nation, and I think that what is happening in Italy is the only thing that really can give an answer or not.”

She cited Italy’s economic success, her vow to Italian companies that “we [the government] will not disturb you” and her hope that she can make the people of her nation believe that they can do better without the state “creating problems” for them.

ITALY’S MELONI DRAWS COMPARISON TO LEGENDARY EUROPEAN LEADER AHEAD OF VISIT WITH BIDEN

Giorgia Meloni Italian Prime Minister — Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni releases statements to the press at the end of the meeting with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz on June 8, 2023, in Rome. (Simona Granati / Corbis via / Getty Images)

She said government should work with the people to allow the country to thrive.

“We want to create richness,” she said. “You will have a state, you will have institutions able to work with you, near you. That doesn’t mean that we don’t have rules. We have it, and we are quite strict on it, but we want them to believe there is nothing the institutions can do if the people do not answer. So, we have to go all in the same direction. We have to do it together, and that was my first message.”

Meloni, since taking power last year, has amassed criticism from more left-wing voices across the media, some of which openly compared her to fascist dictator Benito Mussolini.

In the New York Times guest essay, about which Bartiromo asked Meloni during the interview, author David Broder expressed concern that Meloni’s Italy is taking too many steps in the wrong direction – calling out accusations that minorities are “undermining the triad of God, nation and family,” adding that the implication has “dire practical consequences for migrants, nongovernmental organizations and same-sex parents.”

MSNBC HOST BLASTS ‘LIBERAL MEDIA’ ‘PLAYING DOWN’ ITALIAN PM’S ‘FASCISM’

Giorgia Meloni Biden meeting — President Biden meets Giorgia Meloni, Italy’s prime minister, in the Oval Office on July 27, 2023. (Yuri Gripas / Abaca/Bloomberg via / Getty Images)

“Ahead of Italy’s election last fall, Giorgia Meloni was widely depicted as a menace. By this summer, everything — her youthful admiration for Benito Mussolini, her party’s links to neofascists, her often extreme rhetoric — had been forgiven,” he wrote.

Among other grievances laid out in the essay, Broder mentioned “efforts to weaken anti-torture legislation, stack the public broadcaster with loyalists and rewrite Italy’s postwar constitution to increase executive power …”

“Ms. Meloni’s government isn’t just nativist but has a harsh authoritarian streak, too,” he said.

Among other concerns, he said, is that the ideology is spreading.

But not everyone agrees that Meloni’s approach is alarming – at least concerning the economy. Weighing in after the segment, Fox News contributor Liz Peek praised the Italian prime minister for offering a different solution to economic problems in European nations.

MELONI, MACRON TALK MIGRANT CRISIS, UKRAINE AT FRENCH PRESIDENTIAL PALACE

Kevin McCarthy and Giorgia Meloni — Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni and House Speaker Kevin McCarthy speak to reporters after a meeting at the Capitol on July 27, 2023. (Drew Angerer / Getty Images)

“Italy is the third-largest economy in Europe. If she can show the EU that lower taxes, less regulation and inspiring people to work can cause growth in your economy, can begin to solve some of the problems that are endemic in European countries, bully for her,” she said. “They are going to oppose it just like the New York Times is opposing it. They hate capitalism. It interferes with their creeping socialism in Europe, where politicians and bureaucrats take more and more power. I say bully for her and long live the republic.”

Michael Lee, founder of Michael Lee Strategy, also sat down with Peek and FOX Business’ Cheryl Casone, who sat in as guest host for “Mornings with Maria” on Monday.

“Italy’s got real problems, and there are some advantages to the EU, but this is why I was in favor of Brexit,” he said. “Like, once you have the ‘death harness,’ I call it, of the EU weighing down upon you and telling you how you can again run your country, it becomes very, very difficult. So, I wish Italy the best, but I’m skeptical.”

video

Human traffickers are becoming more powerful: Meloni

Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni discusses Italy’s relations with China and the conservative movement’s growing influence in Europe. While speaking with Bartiromo, Meloni touted Italy’s accomplishments, including that its economy is growing more than others in Europe, higher job rates and workforce optimism.

“Things are going well,” she said. “I think I see also in the Italian economy that people now believe that things can change, that things can get better, so they do more, and that’s what, in my opinion, can make the difference.”

For more Culture, Media, Education, Opinion, and channel coverage, visit foxnews.com/media.

Category:

REP JIM BANKS DEMANDS ANSWERS ON ‘INADEQUATE’ DOD CONFUCIUS INSTITUTE WAIVER GUIDANCE: ‘AGENTS’ OF THE CCP

Tagged with:

‘Alarming evidence’ links China’s Communist Party to American K-12 schools, anti-indoctrination group claims

Parents Defending Education says ‘Little Red Classrooms’ report should concern Americans

By Brian Flood | Fox News | Published July 26, 2023 10:28am EDT

FIRST ON FOX — Parents Defending Education (PDE), a grassroots organization dedicated to fighting indoctrination in the classroom, says it has uncovered disturbing evidence linking Chinese Communist Party (CCP)-sponsored financial entities to American K-12 schools. The findings are detailed in a new report dubbed “Little Red Classrooms,” which was sent to 34 governors, key lawmakers and committee chairs on Wednesday.

“The alarming evidence uncovered by our investigation should concern parents, educators, and policymakers alike. Families deserve to know who is influencing the American education system so that they can make informed choices about what their children are learning behind closed doors,” PDE president Nicole Neily told Fox News Digital.

“The Trump administration took steps to rein in Confucius Institutes at colleges and universities. It is frightening, however, that no such transparency mandate exists at the K-12 level,” Neily continued. “Accordingly, it is imperative that elected officials at both the federal and state levels take immediate action to gauge the extent of these programs in order to ensure that American schoolchildren receive a high-quality education free from undue foreign interference.”

chinausflags — Parents Defending Education, a grassroots organization dedicated to fighting indoctrination in the classroom, says it has uncovered disturbing evidence linking Chinese Communist Party-sponsored financial entities to American K-12 schools. (Getty)

Parents Defending Education bills itself as “a national grassroots organization working to reclaim our schools from activists imposing harmful agendas. PDE’s sister organization, PDE Action, sent the “alarming” results of its lengthy “Little Red Classrooms” investigation to House Education & Workforce Committee Rep. Virginia Foxx, R-N.C.; House Armed Services Committee Chairman Rep. Mike Rogers, R-Ala.; and House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Rep. Mike McCaul, R-Texas.

According to the letters, which have been obtained by Fox News Digital, the investigation exposed how millions of dollars of China-linked funding has flowed into America’s K-12 classrooms. PDE believes American students are subject to CCP propaganda under the guise of Chinese language and culture programming.

“The fact the Chinese government had so much access to American classrooms, students, and curriculums should worry families,” PDE senior adviser Michele P. Exner wrote to McCaul.

The committee chairs were informed that through “records requests and publicly available information, it was discovered that 143 school districts across the United States have engaged in contracts to establish Confucius Institutes and Classrooms,” including in three of the nation’s top science and technology high schools, and several that are near 20 U.S. military bases. “Considering China’s adversarial relationship with the United States, this poses significant security risks that warrant immediate attention from your committee,” Exner wrote to Foxx.

“The Chinese government has long touted their Confucius programming as a way to advance their strategic goals around the world. In 2009, former Chinese Communist Party Senior Chairman Li Changchun admitted that Confucius Institutes were an ‘important part of China’s overseas propaganda set-up’ and in 2017 Chinese government officials lauded the programs as a way to push China’s Belt and Road initiative,” the Foxx letter continued. “Security concerns with these China-led courses in America’s schools are well documented.”

BILL LIMITING CHINA-BACKED CONFUCIUS INSTITUTES PASSED UNANIMOUSLY BY SENATE

Rep. Michael McCaul (R-TX) arrives to a caucus meeting with House Republicans on Capitol Hill — House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Rep. Mike McCaul, R-Texas, was notified of Parents Defending Education’s findings. (Drew Angerer/Getty Images)

PDE also listed “examples of the alarming relationships China’s government has established with American K-12 classrooms,” such as the Simpson County Board of Education in Kentucky entering into an agreement with the North China Electric Power University to develop the Confucius Institute of Western Kentucky.

“The North China Electric Power University works directly with the Chinese government’s energy sector to push China’s global energy initiatives. The Chinese International Education Foundation (CIEF) tasked the university with selecting more than 34 Chinese teachers to send to Simpson County Public Schools for the 2020-2021 school year,” Exner wrote.

PDE also pointed to a pair of Chinese nationals who taught Mandarin at Appoquinimink School District in Delaware during the 2012-2013 school year. “According to a district webpage, these teachers underwent a ‘rigorous selection process’ in China. This includes interviews with Chinese government officials ‘at the national level,’” according to Exner, who also serves as PDE Action’s director of federal affairs.

The letter to McCaul noted that “34 states and the District of Columbia have had schools that have engaged in financial exchanges with the Chinese government or affiliated entities ranging from a few thousand dollars to more than a million dollars per contract,” according to PDE findings.

“Since 2009, the Chinese government has used Confucius Institutes and Confucius Classrooms to push their agenda in schools around the globe. Chinese Communist Party officials have openly stated how they are using these educational partnerships established under the guise of ‘cultural and language immersion programs’ to expand China’s overseas propaganda campaign,” Exner wrote.

“In a Chinese state media article from 2016, the Chinese Communist Party ‘lauded’ Confucius Institutes and Confucius Classrooms for promoting its Belt and Road Initiative. Security concerns with these China-linked programs became so problematic that the State Department declared them a ‘foreign mission’ during the summer of 2020,” Exner continued. “These programs have created significant security vulnerabilities for the United States and gave the CCP unfettered access to curriculums and America’s classrooms. PDE uncovered at least two connections between U.S. and China schools tied to the Chinese military and energy operations.”

UNIVERSITY TO CUT TIES WITH CHINESE CONFUCIUS INSTITUTE AFTER GOP SCRUTINY ON $17M DOD GRANT

PDE also accused the CCP of openly using deceptive tactics to influence the next generation of Americans to advance their own self-serving agenda.

“We cannot allow this to happen. We urge the committee to take immediate action to investigate, expose, and hold hearings on the Chinese government’s involvement in America’s schools. PDE looks forward to working with you in protecting our students from the threats of the CCP,” Exner wrote to McCaul.

PDE informed Rogers that Confucius Institutes and Classrooms were operating in schools in the vicinity of the following U.S. military bases including U.S. Naval Academy, Buckley Air Force Base and Space Force, Davis-Monthan Air Force Base, Dover Air Force Base, Fort Bliss, Fort Liberty, Fort Knox, Naval Station Great Lakes, Hanscom Air Force Base, Hill Air Force Base, Lackland Air Force Base, Langley Air Force Base, Los Angeles Air Force Base, MacDill Air Force Base, McGuire Air Force Base, U.S. Coast Guard Academy, Nellis Air Force Base, Naval Station Norfolk, Puget Sound Naval Shipyard and Naval Base San Diego.

“Allowing China to have unfettered access to America’s schools poses significant security risks to students and their families. It becomes even more dangerous when this is happening near sensitive locations containing information critical to our national security,” Exner wrote.

Democratic Arizona Gov. Katie Hobbs — PDE sent a letter to Arizona Gov. Katie Hobbs urging an investigation between Arizona’s public schools and Chinese government sponsored programs. (AP Photo/Ross D. Franklin, File)

WHAT CHINA IS DOING IN CUBA IS A BIG THREAT TO ALL OF US

PDE Action also wrote to several other influential lawmakers including Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt.; and Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-La. The House China Select Committee, the Senate HELP Committee, the Senate Armed Services Committee and the Senate Foreign Relations Committee are expected to be notified of “Little Red Classrooms” findings, too.

PDE Action political director Alex Nester also sent a letter, which has been obtained by Fox News Digital, to Arizona Gov. Katie Hobbs.

“Documents uncovered via online searches and public records requests show that three schools in Arizona — Catalina Foothills School District and Tucson Unified School District, as well as the International School of Tucson — forged ties with Chinese government backed programs over the course of a decade,” Nester wrote.

“PDE Action respectfully requests the Office of the Governor of Arizona to investigate ties between Arizona’s public schools and Chinese government sponsored programs, such as Confucius Classrooms,” Nester continued. “While it’s vital for American students to have opportunities to learn world languages and cultures, public school districts should not give the Chinese government unfettered access to K-12 classrooms. This has the potential of posing significant security risks to students, families, and our national interests.”

A similar letter was sent to 33 additional governors on Wednesday morning, including Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, California Gov. Gavin Newsom, Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp, New York Gov. Kathy Hochul, Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt and Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer.

PDE’s “Little Red Classrooms” report details more examples that the group finds deeply concerning, breaking down the $17,967,565 spent across 143 school districts in 34 states plus the District of Columbia.

Brian Flood is a media reporter for Fox News Digital. Story tips can be sent to brian.flood@fox.com and on Twitter: @briansflood.

Category:

NORTH KOREAN AMBASSADOR MAKES RARE APPEARANCE AT UN, BLAMES US FOR ESCALATION

Tagged with:

North Korea detains US soldier who crossed border ‘without authorization,’ officials say

US soldier held by North Korea after crossing border previously got in fight with locals, skipped flight home, official says

By Greg Norman , Jennifer Griffin , Liz Friden | Fox News | Published July 18, 2023 1:35pm EDT

A plainclothes American soldier has been detained in North Korea Tuesday after crossing the Military Demarcation Line separating the country from South Korea, U.S. officials tell Fox News.

A senior defense official tells Fox News that Private 2nd Class Travis King had just finished about two months in a South Korean detention facility following a physical altercation with locals. After King was arrested and throughout the time he was held at the facility he made comments that he did not want to come back to America, according to the official. A U.S. Forces Korea spokesperson said King was on a joint security area orientation tour on Tuesday when he “willfully and without authorization crossed the Military Demarcation Line into the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK).”

“We believe he is currently in DPRK custody and are working with our KPA (Korean People’s Army) counterparts to resolve this incident,” the spokesperson added.

North Korea South Korea border crossing — In this photo taken on May 9, 2023, South Korean soldiers walk at the truce village of Panmunjom in the Joint Security Area (JSA) of the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) separating North and South Korea, with a view of North Korea’s Panmon Hall in the background. (Anthony Wallace/AFP via Getty Images)

King, who is serving under U.S. Forces Korea and the U.S. Army, was due to face disciplinary action from military officials, a senior U.S. defense official has told Fox News. Prior to his detainment by Kim Jong Un’s regime, King was released from the South Korea detention facility and spent about one week under observation at a U.S. base in South Korea. King was supposed to board a flight to go back to the U.S. and was escorted to an airport. But the military escort could not follow him past airport security, so King entered the terminal by himself with no escort. King later was alone Tuesday when he left the airport terminal for the tour of the DMZ.

King was to be separated from the military for cause, and was supposed to go back to the U.S., according to an official that spoke to Fox News, but he missed his flight.

Map of where North Korea detained US soldier — The location of where a U.S. soldier reportedly crossed the Military Demarcation Line and was detained by North Korea, on Tuesday, July 18, 2023. (Fox News)

A U.S. defense official also told Fox News the soldier was on a tour in a personal capacity and was wearing civilian clothes at the time of the incident.

NORTH KOREAN AMBASSADOR MAKES RARE APPEARANCE AT UN, BLAMES US FOR ESCALATION

North Korea’s state media has not commented on the matter.

“There are a lot of unanswered questions and I can tell you our U.S. military right now is mounting a full investigation,” Dan Hoffman, a former CIA station chief, told “Fox & Friends”. “I’m sure they are talking to anyone at that demilitarized zone who might have witnessed the soldier crossing over into North Korean territory. That is one of the most heavily surveilled geographic areas on the planet.”

“Now North Korea has another piece of leverage that they can use against us and we know from the past that they have used U.S. persons as pawns to gain traction and negotiations with the United States,” Hoffman added.

South Korean soldiers at border — South Korean soldiers stand guard during a media tour of the Joint Security Area (JSA) in the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) in the border village of Panmunjom in Paju on March 3, 2023. (Jeon-Heon-Kyun/AFP via Getty Images)

A State Department spokesperson told Fox News Digital it is “aware of reports from the Department of Defense that a U.S. service member willfully and without authorization crossed the Military Demarcation Line into the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea,” but “Due to privacy considerations, we have no further comment at this time.”

U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin also said “We’re closely monitoring and investigating the situation and working to notify the soldier’s next of kin and engaging to address this incident.

“In terms of my concerns, I’m absolutely foremost concerned about the welfare of our troop,” Austin added. “And so we will remain focused on this.”

The State Department advises Americans not to travel to North Korea “due to the continuing serious risk of arrest and long-term detention of U.S. nationals.”

“The U.S. government is unable to provide emergency services to U.S. citizens in North Korea as it does not have diplomatic or consular relations with North Korea,” it adds in a travel advisory.

Cases of Americans or South Koreans defecting to North Korea are rare, though more than 30,000 North Koreans have fled to South Korea to avoid political oppression and economic difficulties since the end of the 1950-53 Korean War, according to The Associated Press.

The Korean border village of Panmunjom, located inside the 154-mile-long Demilitarized Zone, was created at the close of the Korean War. The area is jointly overseen by the U.N. Command and North Korea.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Greg Norman is a reporter at Fox News Digital.

Category:

Tagged with:

‘Exceedingly Dangerous’: Here’s How The UN Plans To Massively Expand Its Influence

By: JAKE SMITH, CONTRIBUTOR | July 12, 20237:43 AM ET

UN_GLOBAL — SAID KHATIB/AFP via Getty Images

The U.N. is planning to unveil sweeping policy proposals that would massively expand its influence.
The policies could attempt to impose strict regulations on individual democracies and put freedom of speech at risk, policy experts told the Daily Caller News Foundation.
“It is clearly an effort to empower the Secretary-General and the United Nations,” Brett Schaefer, senior researcher in International Regulatory Affairs at Heritage Foundation, said to the DCNF.

The United Nations (U.N.) is unveiling proposals for a massive expansion of its influence in the upcoming “Summit of the Future” conference in 2024, including policies that would grant the organization an “emergency platform” during global crisis events and a digital code of ethics to censor “misinformation.” The conference will bring together U.N. allied nations and non-governmental organizations to discuss a sweeping policy agenda that speaks to left-wing initiatives, like increasing the size of government, digital censorship and drastic pandemic and climate proposals. These policies signal a concerning expansion of the U.N.’s influence over individual democracies, according to policy experts who spoke to the Daily Caller News Foundation.

CAN YOU SAY “ONE WORLD GOVERNMENT”?

“Back when Americans called themselves Englishmen, we couldn’t abide being ruled by people we didn’t vote for and never saw,” Michael Chamberlain, director of Protect the Public’s Trust, a government watchdog organization, said to the DCNF. “Self-government is in our national DNA. We elect representatives to enact the laws we live by… not so with the United Nations and other international and foreign organizations. That is why it is exceedingly dangerous for the United States to relinquish its sovereignty and allow any of these organizations the power to rule over us.”

In the event of a global crisis, such as a “major climactic event” or “future pandemic risk,” the emergency platform policy would give the U.N. the ability to “actively promote and drive an international response that places the principles of equity and solidarity at the center of its work,” according to the “Strengthening the International Response to Complex Global Shocks – An Emergency Platform” policy proposal.

The proposal was written by U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, who would have the authority to declare an emergency platform and extend it on his own whim if the policy was ratified.

“It is clearly an effort to empower the Secretary-General and the United Nations,” Brett Schaefer, senior researcher in International Regulatory Affairs at Heritage Foundation, said to the DCNF. “The Emergency Platform policy brief would grant the Secretary-General ‘standing authority to convene and operationalize’ a response to a broad array of international crises with minimal consultation with the member states, including the U.S.”

The emergency platform would also ensure “that participating actors make clear commitments that directly and immediately support the global response to a complex shock.” These participating actors include the U.N.’s member states like the U.S., China, and the U.K. (RELATED: Unearthed WHO Proposal Calls For Adopting ‘Social Listening’ Techniques To Combat ‘Infodemic,’ Misinformation)

“While the member states would not be compelled legally to abide by the recommendations of the Secretary-General, the pressure to ‘contribute meaningfully to the response and [be] held to account for delivery on those commitments’ would be immense,” said Schaefer. “The U.S. should be willing to respond positively to assist other nations in times of crisis, but this should be a decision made by our elected leaders, not driven from Turtle Bay.”

UN_SECRETARY

U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres appears remotely at a conference in Geneva, Switzerland on July 6. (Photo by Johannes Simon/Getty Images)

Another one of the “Summit of the Future” proposals would seek to develop a “code of conduct” online that would demonetize and censor what the U.N. considers misinformation, titled “Information Integrity on Digital Platforms,” the DCNF previously reported.

The U.N. and the Global Disinformation Index (GDI) – which is funded by the U.N. itself, as reported by the DCNF – cite multiple conservative news outlets as sources of misinformation while accrediting left-leaning sources as highly reliable, according to the GDI’s “Disinformation Risk Assessment.” For example, the GDI gave the New York Times, the Washington Post and BuzzFeed News “low” risk levels, while giving the Daily Wire, the New York Post and the American Conservative “high” risk levels.

“From health and gender equality to peace, justice, education and climate action, measures that limit the impact of mis- and disinformation and hate speech will boost efforts to achieve a sustainable future,” the U.N. Secretary-General wrote in the “Information Integrity on Digital Platforms” proposal. (RELATED: Obama Stresses ‘Need’ For ‘Digital Fingerprints’ To Crack Down On Information That ‘Is Not True’)

The U.N.’s definition of “misinformation” poses a major risk to free speech, Schaefer said.

“We have seen firsthand how efforts to repress ‘disinformation’ and ‘misinformation’ instead are misused to silence opposing opinions and repress inconvenient evidence – such as the Chinese lab leak theory on the origin of COVID,” Schaefer said. “It is hard to see any U.N. Code that would not run roughshod over the First Amendment.”

Chamberlain agreed and added that the U.N. has no basis to establish the policy in any democratic country.

“Americans still have the protections of the First Amendment that prohibit the government from infringing on their rights to free speech,” said Chamberlain. “Not only is the government barred from trampling on those rights, it is not allowed to outsource that trampling to others, not even to large, powerful international organizations, regardless of how highly regarded those organizations may be.”

Calling for guardrails to contain the proliferation of hate and lies in the online world, @antonioguterres puts forward proposals for a Code of Conduct for Information Integrity on Digital Platforms in new report. https://t.co/7ZoX9i81uk pic.twitter.com/Punt48XxYi
— United Nations (@UN) June 14, 2023

Other policy proposals include a global vaccination plan for COVID-19, which would seek to administer a minimum of 11 billion doses worldwide and increase funding and authority to the World Health Organization.

“The independence, authority and financing of WHO must be strengthened,” wrote the U.N. Secretary-General in the “Our Common Agenda” report. “This includes greater financial stability and autonomy, based on fully unearmarked resources, increased funding and an organized replenishment process for the remainder of the budget.”

Another proposal seeks to enforce climate change initiatives by reaching net zero carbon emissions by 2050 “or sooner” via abolishing fossil fuels and coal energy worldwide and coercing financial actors to shift away “from high-emission sectors to the climate resilient and net zero economy.”

“We should be shoring up our populations, infrastructure, economies and societies to be resilient to climate change, yet adaptation and resilience continue to be seriously underfunded,” the U.N. Secretary-General said in the “Our Common Agenda” report.

Schaefer told the DCNF he remains skeptical that the U.N.’s climate plan is possible.

“China’s priority – and the priority of many other countries, especially developing countries – is to maximize economic growth and increase standards of living. To the extent that net zero and phasing out fossil fuels impede those goals, they will not abide by limitations,” Schaefer said.

The United Nations did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Category:

Tagged with:

NATO Chief: Erdogan Agrees to Send Sweden’s Accession Protocol to Parliament

NEWSMAX | Monday, 10 July 2023 04:04 PM EDT

VILNIUS, Lithuania — NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said Turkey President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has agreed to send Sweden’s NATO accession protocol to the Turkish Parliament “as soon as possible.” Stoltenberg made the announcement after talks with Erdogan and Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson on the eve of a NATO summit in Lithuania. Sweden’s NATO accession has been held up by objections from Turkey since last year.

Earlier Monday, Erdogan said his country might approve Sweden’s membership in NATO if European Union nations “open the way” to Turkey’s bid to join the EU. It was the first time that Erdogan linked his country’s ambition to join the EU with Sweden’s efforts to become a NATO member.

Category:

Tagged with:

Russian rebellion explainer: Who is Yevgeny Prigozhin? What is the Wagner Group? How is Putin dealing with mercenary uprising?

By: PAUL SACCA | June 24, 2023

Editor’s note: The article has been updated with the reported development that the Wagner Group has halted its advance on Moscow.

Russian leader Vladimir Putin has vowed to enact harsh punishment against a Russian mercenary group that recently launched a rebellion. Yevgeny Prigozhin is leading the Wagner Group, composed of private Russian mercenaries, on a “march of justice” toward the country’s capital of Moscow.

Who is Yevgeny Prigozhin and what is the Wagner Group?

Yevgeny Prigozhin was born in Saint Petersburg, Russia. Early in his life, he was a convict and owned a hot dog stand, but later branched out to operate fancy restaurants.

ABC News reported:

In 2010, Putin helped open Prigozhin’s factory that was built on generous loans by a state bank. In Moscow alone, his company Concord won millions of dollars in contracts to provide meals at public schools. He also organized catering for Kremlin events for several years — earning him the nickname “Putin’s chef” — and has provided catering and utility services to the Russian military.”

In 2014, Prigozhin became the leader of the Wagner Group, a private military company that participated in Russia’s annexation of Crimea. PMC Wagner had been fighting alongside Russian military forces in the invasion of Ukraine. Last year, the Kremlin-backed Wagner group attempted to assassinate Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, according to The Times.

According to the Associated Press, “The Wagner forces have played a crucial role in Russia’s war in Ukraine, succeeding in taking the city where the bloodiest and longest battles have taken place, Bakhmut. But Prigozhin has increasingly criticized Russia’s military brass, accusing it of incompetence and of starving his troops of weapons and ammunition.”

Prigozhin, 61, said he transitioned from a Putin ally to staging a serious rebellion because of an alleged Russian attack on Wagner forces in Ukraine.

Prigozhin claimed that Russia’s chief of the General Staff, Gen. Valery Gerasimov, ordered airstrikes on Wagner’s convoys, which were driving alongside ordinary vehicles. He asserted that the attack killed “a huge number of our comrades.” Prigozhin alleged that Gerasimov made the order after a meeting with Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu. The Russian Defense Ministry denied attacking Wagner troops.

Prigozhin, who claimed to have 25,000 troops under his command, said the Wagner Group would punish Shoigu in an armed rebellion and possible civil war.

“All of us are ready to die. All 25,000, and then another 25,000,” Prigozhin declared.

Wagner Group chief accuses Russian army of attacking Wagner forces www.youtube.com

Where is the Wagner Group now?

Prigozhin marched his Wagner PMC soldiers from Ukraine back to Russia this week. Wagner troops entered Rostov-on-Don – Russia’s ninth-most populated city with more than 1 million residents. Rostov-on-Don is home to the Russian military headquarters for the southern region and also oversees the war in Ukraine. He asserted that he easily breached checkpoints in the city. Prigozhin claimed the Wagner Group had seized control of a Russian military headquarters in Rostov-on-Don “without a single gunshot.” He added that his private military group fighters had taken control of the airfield and other military facilities in the city.

“We didn’t kill a single person on our way,” Prigozhin said on Friday. “But we will destroy anyone who stands in our way. We are moving forward and will go until the end.”

He said of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, “The war was needed for a bunch of scumbags to triumph and show how strong of an army they are.”

“We do not want the country to live on in corruption, deceit, and bureaucracy,” he said.

Prigozhin has openly chastised Russia’s military leadership and has disputed how successful the invasion of Ukraine has been.

“The evil embodied by the country’s military leadership must be stopped,” the PMC Wagner leader declared.

PMC Wagner military equipment was “moving across” the Lipetsk region, Governor Igor Artamonov said via Telegram on Saturday. The region is 250 miles south of Moscow, signaling that the Russian private paramilitary organization could be headed to the Russian capital. There were several reports that the Wagner Group halted its advance on Moscow.

Reuters reported, “Mutinous Russian mercenary fighters who surged most of the way to Moscow have agreed to turn back to avoid bloodshed, their leader said on Saturday, in a de-escalation of what had become a major challenge to President Vladimir Putin’s grip on power.”

Prigozhin reportedly said on Saturday, “Now the moment has come when blood could be spilled. Understanding responsibility [for the chance] that Russian blood will be spilled on one side, we are turning our columns around and going back to field camps as planned.”

How is Vladimir Putin dealing with the mercenary uprising?

Vladimir Putin pledged to punish the mutineers and crush the rebellion – which is arguably the most serious threat to his hold on power since he took power in Russia 23 years ago.

“All those who prepared the rebellion will suffer inevitable punishment,” Putin proclaimed in a speech to the nation. “The armed forces and other government agencies have received the necessary orders.”

Putin called the rebellion a “stab in the back.” He said the uprising arrives at a time when Russia is “fighting the toughest battle for its future,” adding, “The entire military, economic, and information machine of the West is waged against us.”

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said, “All the necessary measures were being taken.”

Russia’s Federal Security Service, or FSB, has demanded that Prigozhin be arrested by his contract soldiers. The FSB also instructed the Wagner Group troops to refuse to follow his “criminal and treacherous orders” and halt the potential coup. Russia’s National Anti-Terrorism Committee has charged Prigozhin with calling for an armed rebellion – which carries a punishment of up to 20 years in prison.

A counterterrorism state of emergency has been declared in Moscow.

Russia’s National Anti-Terrorism Committee announced on Saturday morning, “In order to prevent possible terrorist attacks in the city and Moscow region, a regime of counterterrorism operations has been established.”

Putin issues blunt warning to Wagner group www.youtube.com

How has the U.S. responded to the Russian rebellion?

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken held an emergency call on Saturday morning with G7 and European Union officials regarding the developments in Russia.

“The United States will stay in close coordination with Allies and partners as the situation continues to develop,” Blinken wrote on Twitter.

U.S. National Security Council Adam Hodge said, “We are monitoring the situation and will be consulting with allies and partners on these developments.”

Volodymyr Zelenskyy said of the rebellion, “Anyone who chooses the path of evil destroys himself.”

“For a long time, Russia used propaganda to mask its weakness and the stupidity of its government. And now there is so much chaos that no lie can hide it,” Zelensky said. “Russia’s weakness is obvious. Full-scale weakness. And the longer Russia keeps its troops and mercenaries on our land, the more chaos, pain and problems it will have for itself later.”

Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!

Tensions mount in Russia as notorious Wagner group seizes military headquarters www.youtube.com

Category:

EX-GOOGLE CHIEF BUILT ‘OLIGARCH-STYLE EMPIRE’ TO INFLUENCE AI, BIDEN WHITE HOUSE AND PUBLIC POLICY: REPORT

Tagged with:

China wants to militarize AI and Big Tech firms might not even be on our side

By Joel Thayer | Fox News | Published June 16, 2023 2:00am EDT

Circa 1996, U.S. lawmakers wanted to make sure scrappy startups, like AOL and Amazon, had a fighting chance against incumbents. Our government had a straightforward approach: rubberstamp mergers and free tech from any regulatory oversight. These policy approaches were intended to level the playing field for the nascent tech industry and export our values abroad. And it worked! But only in part. Our tech policies of yore have turned those startups into the world’s first set of trillion-dollar companies. But Big Tech failed to export our values — and has even been counterproductive on that end.

Big Tech’s engagement with China is a case in point.

Big Tech has set aside American values to profit off China. Apple’s manufacturing arrangements in China, for example, have contributed to the ongoing enslavement of Uyghurs — a religious minority — In the country.

AI sign — Big Tech has been kowtowing to Chinese interests not American values. (JOSEP LAGO/AFP via Getty Images)

And Big Tech has helped the Chinese government firm up its own anti-American sentiments. Apple has a multi-billion-dollar deal that gives the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) a back channel to all Apple devices located on the mainland. Apple’s deal with China requires it to take down apps that promote anti-CCP narratives, including those celebrating the Tiananmen Square demonstration and calling for independence for Tibet and Taiwan.

Big Tech has even exported CCP values into the United States. Google demonetizes YouTube videos in the U.S. that offend the CCP. Amazon partnered with China’s propaganda arm “to create a selling portal on the company’s U.S. site, Amazon.com – a project that came to be known as China Books.” Apple still lists TikTok as an “essential app” for its users even with the Treasury Department investigating the app on national security grounds, the Department of Justice investigating the company for spying on American journalists, and the director of the FBI and President Joe Biden’s Director of National Intelligence raising issues with the app’s relationship with the CCP.

Back in America, our laissez-faire approach has encouraged Big Tech companies to take centralized control over our information, personal data and our markets. These companies are so dominant that they can buy out any competitor that drives away revenue from them, with the federal government green lighting nearly every acquisition Big Tech wants. Since 2000, Google, Amazon, Meta, and Apple collectively acquired over 800 companies.

What may be worse, Big Tech uses centralized control to kill new startups, force acquisitions, or just flat-out steal their competitors’ functions through their app stores. And to “connect and promote a vast network of accounts openly devoted to the commission and purchase of underage-sex content.”

The firms also totally control digital ad markets to arbitrarily inflate the cost of digital ads. In short, they get richer while you pay more for products online.

Last Congress, a bipartisan chorus of Senators and Representatives proposed bills to curb the effects of Big Tech’s centralized control by reforming our antitrust laws, protecting our children and creating a national privacy regime.

Congress hearing security — TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew testified before a congressional panel on Thursday regarding security concerns surrounding the Chinese-owned app. (Fox News)

Not one significant reform passed. Why not? One theory is that Big Tech simply outspends their opposition’s lobbying effort. But that doesn’t tell the whole story. The reason is far more entrenched — our tech policies have evolved from nurturing startups to institutionalizing Big Tech incumbents as our national champions.

Sadly, our government still thinks these companies will help us fight against China, even though they kowtow to the CCP at almost every chance and consistently invoke policies that suppress our core values domestically, like freedom of speech, religion or association. And Big Tech has helped the Chinese government firm up its own anti-American sentiments. Apple has a multi-billion-dollar deal that gives the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) a back channel to all Apple devices located on the mainland.

Frankly, these facts should call into question whether Big Tech even shares American values at all.

It is even more imperative to get this right as our nation decides how to deal with artificial intelligence. It’s no secret that the Chinese government wants to militarize its own AI capabilities; we are shaping up to be on the losing end of that digital arms race if we don’t get serious. As it stands now, the AI market is concentrated among a few companies, dominated by Big Tech. Worse, almost all have significant ties to China and its government. Our national security and individual liberty demand that Congress tackle AI with a clear sight of who these companies are and the values they hold — based not only on their words but their actions.

The reality is that Big Tech firms are not our champions, and our policies should stop treating them as such. Instead, we should treat them like the multinational corporations that they are. Let’s start by passing meaningful, bipartisan reforms to protect our consumers, our children, and — let’s face it — our national security.

Joel Thayer is president of the Digital Progress Institute and an attorney who focuses his law practice on telecommunications, regulatory and transactional matters, as well as privacy and cybersecurity issues.

Category:

Tagged with:

The U.K. Just Banned Chemical Castration for Kids. America Should Do The Same and More

BY: JORDAN BOYD | JUNE 12, 2023

Author Jordan Boyd profile

JORDAN BOYD

VISIT ON TWITTER@JORDANBOYDTX

The United Kingdom’s primary government health system will no longer hand out castration drugs to children like candy because “there is not enough evidence to support their safety or clinical effectiveness as a routinely available treatment.”

The National Health Service announced on Friday that only kids in the United Kingdom who are enrolled in clinical trials or get approved for an exception would have access to prescriptions that suppress and wreak havoc on humans’ natural growing pattern.

The decision to halt the universal prescription of life-altering drugs is long overdue considering there was never any evidence that permanently manipulating a child’s body would remedy his or her mental struggles.

In recent years, pharmaceutical companies and bureaucracies began marketing a sterilizing chemical regime as a way to “pause” puberty for the growing number of kids who claim to struggle with gender dysphoria. On the contrary, the increasing body of evidence shows that pumping kids full of neutering drugs causes irreversible harm, including sexual dysfunction and permanent infertility, a higher risk of cancer and cardiac events, impaired vocal cords, bone density issues, and transition regret.

NHS still allows doctors to “socially transition” children, a nonsense concept since “transitioning” sexes is physically impossible. But the agency is not afraid to warn medical professionals that transgender interventions like wrong-sex hormones — which studies show lead to sickening regret — will “cause some irreversible changes.”

NHS also rightfully acknowledges that “in many cases gender variant behavior or feelings disappear as children reach puberty.” In the U.S., schools, hospitals, corporations, and the White House claim that refusing to perform dangerous gender experiments on children via drugs or surgery will banish victims to turmoil, discrimination, and suicide.

Similarly, while someone can be remotely approved to mutilate functional body parts in just 22 minutes in the U.S., the British taxpayer-funded agency still requires a “detailed assessment, usually over 3 to 6 appointments over a period of several months.” Even if someone was approved for a so-called “transition,” the socialized health care system’s “waiting times for referral and treatment are currently long.”

The NHS’s recent actions aren’t perfect but they are better than the status quo in the United States, where the federal government and president repeatedly force the sterilization of kids on Americans.

No matter what the current institutional complex claims, children aren’t lab rats to be pumped full of dangerous drugs. They are the most vulnerable in our society and their innocence deserves protection from the left’s radical sexual agenda.

More than a dozen Republican-led states recognize this, which is why they have effectively restricted or banned physical transgender interventions. Countries like Sweden, Finland, France, and now the U.K. are coming to terms with this reality and scaling back their participation in the mutilation racket.

Unfortunately, banning the mass dissemination of disfiguring drugs in only some areas of the world is not enough. Especially because states like California, Washington, and Minnesota have set themselves apart as sanctuaries for mangling children, with cities like Madison, Wisconsin working to follow suit.

We need to not just ban the demonic act of chopping off healthy body parts or rendering them useless with castrating drugs, but also punish the people promoting and executing the left’s shop of horrors behind parents’ backs. In Texas, Attorney General Ken Paxton classified it as child abuse. In Florida, Gov. Ron DeSantis barred people seeking mutilation from using taxpayer-funded programs to pay for it. If reelected in 2024, former President Donald Trump promised to kick medical professionals who meddle unnecessarily with children’s bodies off of Medicaid and Medicare.

The radical gender ideology movement is mentally, physically, and spiritually hurting adults and children. Until it is quelled, corporations and governments will continue to push the transgender industry’s profits over people.

Jordan Boyd is a staff writer at The Federalist and co-producer of The Federalist Radio Hour. Her work has also been featured in The Daily Wire, Fox News, and RealClearPolitics. Jordan graduated from Baylor University where she majored in political science and minored in journalism. Follow her on Twitter @jordanboydtx.

Category:

FBI DIRECTOR SAYS COVID PANDEMIC ‘MOST LIKELY’ ORIGINATED FROM CHINESE LAB

Tagged with:

US govt sent $1.3 billion to China, Russia for gender equality, cat experiments and Wuhan lab research

By Thomas Catenacci | Fox News| Published May 31, 2023 2:01pm EDT

The U.S. government has given Chinese and Russian entities at least $1.3 billion for various research programs over the past five years, according to an analysis released Wednesday by Republican Iowa Sen. Joni Ernst and watchdog group Open the Books.

The analysis revealed that millions of taxpayer dollars have been given to, among others, a Chinese software developer for military tech support, a Russian health insurance provider that has since been sanctioned and Chinese agriculture companies. And it showed the federal government gave $2 million, more than previously reported, to the Chinese state-run Wuhan lab studying bat coronaviruses.

“Washington’s continued spending is so out of hand, it is losing track of Americans’ hard-earned taxpayer dollars, but I am creating accountability for every penny,” Ernst said in a statement after releasing the report.

“It is gravely concerning that no one in Washington can actually account for millions sent to Russia and China for pointless projects,” the Iowa Republican continued. “But I have the receipts. I’m shining a light on this reckless spending, so bureaucrats can no longer cover up their tracks and taxpayers can know exactly what their hard-earned dollars are funding.”

Iowa Senator Joni Ernst speaks at a podium in the halls of Congress — Sen. Joni Ernst, R-Iowa, said she released the report Wednesday “so bureaucrats can no longer cover up their tracks.” (Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)

In addition to releasing the analysis, Ernst introduced the Tracking Receipts to Adversarial Countries for Knowledge of Spending (TRACKS) Act that would require all federal funding for organizations in China and Russia to be tracked and disclosed. Rep. Mike Gallagher, R-Wisc., who chairs the China Select Committee, introduced companion legislation in the House.

Overall, using data obtained from the Congressional Research Service, Ernst and Open the Books tracked $490 million in U.S. grants and contracts paid to Chinese entities and another $870 million paid to Russian entities. The Government Accountability Office previously estimated the U.S. funneled just $48 million to Chinese entities over the five-year period ending in 2021.

BIPARTISAN GROUP OF LAWMAKERS DEMANDS BIDEN SEIZE IRANIAN OIL AND GAS SHIPMENTS, ENFORCE TRUMP-ERA PROGRAM

According to Ernst’s analysis, one program, a $58.7 million State Department grant, included giving a Chinese organization, Beijing-based Crossroads Cultural Communication, $96,875 for “gender equality” through the exhibition of New Yorker magazine cartoons.” To increase awareness on gender equality and women empowerment through an exhibition of works by women cartoonists of the New Yorker Magazine in China,” the 2021 grant description states.

Biden and Xi shake hands in front of the Chinese and US flags — President Biden shakes hands with Chinese President Xi Jinping in Indonesia on Nov. 14, 2022. (REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque)

Another, a $51.6 million grant from the Department of Defense, resulted in $6 million in funding for Chinese tech firm Beijing Juehua Trading Co. to provide “deployment and distribution command” software for the U.S. military. And Chinese food producers were awarded $1.6 million under the Department of Agriculture’s National School Lunch Program, which was designed to assist domestic producers.

The $2 million in research funding for the Wuhan Institute of Virology — the Chinese lab some experts have blamed for leaking coronavirus, sparking the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 — included $1.1 million from the U.S. Agency for International Development and $600,000 from the National Institutes of Health. The funding was indirectly transferred through EcoHealth Alliance, a U.S. non-governmental organization.

In addition, a $4.2 million Health and Human Services program granted $770,466 to the Pavlov Institute, a state-run lab located in St. Petersburg, Russia, to experiment on cats running on treadmills. The Biden administration ultimately cut off funding for the program after criticism from groups like White Coat Waste and Republican lawmakers.

Ernst’s analysis also showed that the federal government wired $4.7 million to Russian company PAO Rosgosstrakh for health insurance. That same company was sanctioned by the Treasury Department amid the Ukraine invasion in 2022.

Also, $1.45 million was granted to entities in Russia for COVID-19 pandemic virus tracking.

Thomas Catenacci is a politics writer for Fox News Digital.

Category:

International Politics, Religion

Tagged with:

India’s Manipur remains tense weeks after 400 churches were burned, 60 Christians killed

By Anugrah Kumar, Christian Post Contributor | SUNDAY, MAY 21, 2023

An Indian army soldier (R) stands along with villagers in front of a ransacked church that was set on fire by a mob in the ethnic violence hit area of Heiroklian village in Senapati district, in India’s Manipur state on May 8, 2023. – Around 23,000 people have fled the unrest which erupted last week in the hilly northeast state bordering Myanmar. The latest clashes erupted between the majority Meitei people, who are mostly Hindu, living in and around the Manipur capital Imphal and the mainly Christian Kuki tribe of the hills. (Photo by Arun SANKAR / AFP) (Photo by ARUN SANKAR/AFP via Getty Images)

The northeastern Indian state of Manipur remains in a tense state of unease weeks after a devastating spate of violence led to the deaths of at least 73 individuals, most of them Christians, and the burning, damage or destruction of nearly 400 churches.

Kuldeep Singh, a security advisor to the Manipur Government, told reporters Saturday that 488 weapons and about 6,800 rounds of ammunition looted amid the strife had been retrieved, Ukhrul Times reported. The Assam Rifles additionally recovered 22 pounds (10 kg) of explosives and 2,000 BIPL detonators.

The largely Christian tribals belonging to the Kuki-Zo communities, who reside on the hills of Churachandpur district, say two groups of the predominantly Hindu Meitei community — Arambai Tengoll, also known as “black-shirts,” and Meitei Leepun — were behind the violence. Meiteis are primarily settled in the Imphal Valley.

The violence, which began on May 3, primarily engulfed the Imphal Valley and Churachandpur, causing at least four days of turmoil. The region remains fraught with tension as authorities fear possible reprisal attacks due to the significant accumulation of weapons within both involved communities.

The Indian Express earlier reported that over 1,000 weapons and 10,000 rounds of ammunition were stolen from the Manipur Police Training College, two local police stations, and an IRB battalion camp in Imphal by members of the Meitei ethnic group. The report also noted, without stating specific figures, that police stations in Churachandpur were attacked and looted by the Kuki community.

During this period of hostility, the escalating violence has not only claimed a minimum of 73 lives, out of which about 64 were Christian tribals, but also left 200 people injured. More than 1,700 residences suffered damage, complete destruction or saw their homes set ablaze. The turmoil has forced about 50,000 individuals to abandon their homes, of whom roughly 35,000 belong to Christian tribal communities.

The houses of Meiteis in the Christian tribal-majority Churachandpur have also been damaged or destroyed.

A local source informed The Christian Post that the violence and ensuing tensions have caused a complete exodus of tribal residents from the Imphal Valley. Similarly, all Meiteis previously residing or working in Churachandpur, including government and police officials, have fled the area.

According to the source, Christian organizations in the area have recorded the burning, damage, or destruction of 397 churches and six Christian institutions amid the wave of violence. Significantly, these churches primarily served as places of worship for Meitei Christians. It is alleged that these structures were primarily targeted and destroyed by Meitei Hindus.

Archbishop Dominic Lumon of Imphal, whose jurisdiction covers the entirety of Manipur, has launched an appeal for funds to assist those impacted by the violence. He warns of a “general sense of hopelessness and desperation” throughout the region, acknowledging that all communities, regardless of their affiliation, are affected by the ongoing strife.

Fr. Varghese Velikakam, Vicar General of the Diocese of Imphal, criticized local police for their failure to prevent the attacks and questioned the lack of guards after attempted assaults. Videos of the violence show police looking on or participating in the violence on tribal people. Despite the apparent targeted nature of these attacks, Fr. Varghese advised the Church to act cautiously, maintain neutrality and promote peace and unity.

Northeast India has had long-standing ethnic tensions. In Manipur, the Meiteis and the tribal communities have long been at odds over issues such as land ownership and affirmative action policies.

After winning the 2017 state election, the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party, led by Chief Minister N. Biren Singh, reclassified the majority of tribal settlements as reserved forests, effectively treating them as illegal immigrants. This move, along with the Meiteis’ ongoing quest for recognition as a tribal group, has significantly exacerbated tensions between the two groups.

Manipur’s highest court’s recent instruction to the government last month to consider the Meiteis’ demand for legal recognition as a tribal group has further stirred anxiety among the tribal communities. The recent outbreak of violence was triggered when a tribal student group protested against this demand.

The Hindu Meiteis and Christian tribals each constitute approximately 42% of the state’s population. Despite this balance, the Meiteis have historically held dominance in the state’s political and economic spheres.

Critics also point to Chief Minister Singh’s past orders to demolish churches in Imphal, under the allegation of illegal construction on government-owned land, as a significant strain on inter-community relations.

The widespread violence and targeted attacks against the Christian community have raised concerns about the potential escalation of religious conflict in the region.

As these communities grapple with the aftermath, Manipur remains under a dark cloud of uncertainty, its future dictated by both the government’s ability to quell tensions and the communities’ willingness to engage in peace-building efforts.

Category:

Tagged with:

Surprising surge in Chinese migrants attempting to reach US border through dangerous jungle trek

By Samantha Kamman, Christian Post Reporter | TUESDAY, MAY 02, 2023

Venezuelan and Haitian migrants wait to be registered at Canaan Membrillo village, the first border control of the Darien Province in Panama, on October 13, 2022. – The clandestine journey through the Darien Gap usually lasts five or six days at the mercy of all kinds of bad weather: snakes, swamps and drug traffickers who use these routes to take cocaine to Central America. | LUIS ACOSTA/AFP via Getty Images

A growing number of Chinese migrants are journeying through a dangerous mountain jungle in Necoclí, Colombia, an area that has become a “breeding ground” for illegal migration, drug trafficking, rapes and robberies to get to the United States, according to a recent report. Chinese migrants now comprise the fourth-largest people group making the trek through 66 miles of the Darién Gap, a region between the borders of Colombia and Panama, to reach the U.S.-Mexico border. Unlike the incalculable number of migrants from countries like Haiti, Venezuela, Cuba, Indonesia and elsewhere, the Chinese migrants have money, a lot of money, and stay in luxury hotels.

“That’s one of the big changes that we’re seeing now,” said Newsmax war correspondent Chuck Holton in an interview with Greta Van Susteren during her recent trip to Panama to investigate the U.S. border crisis and surge in illegal immigration.

“There are a tremendous number of Chinese coming through that we haven’t seen until recently,” Holton said. “They’re now the fourth-largest group of people coming through the Darién Gap. That’s very strange because the majority of the people you see here are destitute. … The people coming from China pay up to $30,000 a person for the same crossing. They have tons of money, and they’re staying in luxury hotels and they have iPhones.

“Some of them tell me that it’s because of the extreme COVID measures in China. They just can’t take being welded inside their house anymore,” he added. “But talking to some of the merchants here … they have told me that many of the Chinese were prisoners” sent away with money.

According to Holton, in Panama, many of the Chinese are indentured servants who get their money from the Chinese mafia. Once they reach Panama or wherever else the mafia wants them to go, they work for the rest of their life to pay off their debts. “So, it looks like they have a lot of money, but in reality, that money is debt that they have taken on to get here,” he added.

In April, the Biden administration, alongside government officials representing Panama and Colombia, announced a campaign to end the illegal movement of goods and people through the Darién Gap and into the United States. U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro N. Mayorkas, Panamanian Minister of Foreign Affairs Janaina Tewaney and Colombian Minister of Foreign Affairs Álvaro Leyva Durán led the delegation in Panama City.

Holden elaborated on the government officials’ plans to close for 60 days the part of the Darién Gap migrants have been trekking through. The war correspondent noted that the area is a jungle, and many migrants can work around this plan by journeying through a different part of it.

While some migrants opt to stay in Ecuador, Holden said the reason most migrants are choosing to cross the border now is because they’ve heard from people they know who live in the U.S. that entering the country and finding a job will be easy. The correspondent also speculated that with Title 42 set to expire on May 11, that is another reason why many migrants are heading to the U.S. border.

In October, the Biden administration used Title 42 to remove most Venezuelan asylum seekers from the U.S. While the Department of Homeland Security policy gave some Venezuelans a pathway to stay in the U.S., others were ordered to remain in Mexico until their asylum claims were heard.

According to Voice of America, there were nearly 90,000 illegal crossings through the Darién Gap in the first three months of 2023. Holden, who started reporting on the issue in 2012, noted that at the time, 45,000 people attempted to use the route. Last year, however, that number reached nearly 250,000.

One group that takes advantage of the flow of migrants, Holden added, is drug traffickers. These traffickers disguise themselves as migrants seeking asylum and carry backpacks full of cocaine. In October, the Panamanian news outlet Nex Noticias reported that authorities had arrested over a dozen people in Darién for their involvement in drug trafficking.

“I think it’s very instructive to Americans to understand what a gap there is in our thinking, in our way of life and what our expectations are from life and what theirs are,” he said. “Because so many people you talk to here, you ask them about facing the dangers of the Darién Gap, and they say it can’t be any harder than where I just came from. It can’t be any harder than living in Haiti or living in Venezuela or Cuba. And they are inured to that kind of hardship.”

According to VOA, U.S. Customs and Border Patrol reported that 4,366 migrants from China encountered border agents from October 2022 to February 2023 after illegally crossing the southern border.

Samantha Kamman is a reporter for The Christian Post. She can be reached at: samantha.kamman@christianpost.com. Follow her on Twitter: @Samantha_Kamman

Category:

Tagged with:

If China’s Yuan Usurps The Dollar, The World Economy Will Be At Communists’ Whims

BY: MACKENZIE BETTLE | APRIL 17, 2023

Chinese 100 yuan bills — If the Chinese yuan were to become the global reserve currency, it would, in essence, give the CCP the ability to cripple entire nations.

Author Mackenzie Bettle profile

MACKENZIE BETTLE

In July 1944, 44 delegates from Allied countries came together during World War II in Bretton Wood, New Hampshire. The goal? Devise an international currency system to manage foreign exchange that would disadvantage no country and effectively facilitate post-war rebuilding and commerce. The outcome: The U.S. greenback would be the world’s reserve currency.

It has been almost 80 years since, and all nations have been better off with a United States dollar-dominated world. World gross domestic product (GDP) in 1940 was $7.81 trillion. For 2023, the world GDP is expected to be $112.6 trillion. That is an increase of 1,441 percent. Billions of people have been lifted out of poverty because of this.

China is working overtime to disrupt the dollar-dominated world economy. The significance of the dollar losing its premier position cannot be overstated. The Biden administration should not overlook this.

Most Americans may be unaware of crucial transactions occurring around the globe recently. And who could blame them? All the corporate media’s main headlines have been over the now-public indictment of former President Donald Trump, over factually weak allegations involving hush-money payments to a porn star.

The indictment of a former president is a crossing-of-the-Rubicon moment in American history. But displacing the dollar as the world’s reserve currency, as China and Russia have both made known is their objective, has analogous ramifications for the world. But while the world watches Trump’s indictment, they are missing China’s transactions with some of our major allies and trading partners in the yuan. Notably, China is doing this with nations that need better stewards.

Bloomberg News reported in February 2023 that the Inevitable Rise of the Petroyuan (yuan used to settle Middle East oil transactions) was a “myth.” One month later, Saudi Arabia and OPEC are now considering just that.

In our republic, the founders “separated the purse from the sword.” With the passing of the Federal Reserve Act of 1913, Congress further separated the purse from our elected representatives by giving the Federal Reserve power over the nation’s money supply.

China has no such separation of powers. President Xi Jinping wields both the sword and purse. What that means if the yuan were to become the global reserve currency is giving the Chinese Communist Party effective control over the money supply for the entire world. The United States would still have the dollar, but it would require exchanging for the yuan to transact with other nations.

Inflation and deflation can both have devastating effects on the economy. Deflation is what caused the Great Depression. Inflation, as we all feel the pain currently, caused an entire decade to be lost in the 1970s.

Allowing China to become the facilitator of the currency used in global commerce, such as the dollar is now, would be to give unprecedented powers to a communist dictatorship. The ebbs and flows of the global economic apparatus would be subject to a hostile foreign power that has no issue retaliating against other sovereign nations that disagree with them.

If the Chinese yuan were to become the global reserve currency, it would, in essence, give the CCP the ability to cripple entire nations. With a country as hostile as China, entire sovereign nations would be subject to the whims of the communists who run their countries. The CCP could arbitrarily restrict credit, enact sanctions, block entire nations from global commerce vis a vis foreign exchange prohibition, and use any of the other vast economic warfare tools the global reserve currency brings. Of course, unless nations decide to toe the Communist Party line.

The world would be like when we were younger and our financial life was dependent upon allowances given to us by our parents. Except in this case, instead of doing chores, nations would have to accept genocide, persecution of minorities, and the desecration of civil rights. We can bet governments would likely have to become complicit. That is not out of the realm of possibility when dealing with actors such as communists.

Mackenzie Alan Bettle graduated from Arizona State’s W.P. Carey School of Business with a bachelor’s in business, law, and economics, summa cum laude, and received his Juris Doctorate from Seton Hall University Law School with an emphasis on law and economics. He is a practicing attorney in Phoenix, Arizona. He loves business, politics, economics, law, football, and his two fluffy Havanese dogs, Jack and Kobe.

Category:

CHINA’S SECRET POLICE HAVE INVADED AMERICAN SHORES, HUMAN RIGHTS ADVOCATE SAYS

Tagged with:

Two NY residents arrested for running secret Chinese police station: ‘Significant national security matter’

By Greg Norman , Marta Dhanis | Fox News | Published April 17, 2023 12:59pm EDT

The FBI and federal prosecutors announced Monday the arrests of two New York residents who allegedly ran an undisclosed Chinese government police station in Manhattan’s Chinatown neighborhood.

“…ran an undisclosed Chinese government police station in Manhattan’s Chinatown”

Lu Jianwang and Chen Jinping have each been charged with conspiring to act as agents of China’s government, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of New York.

Breon Peace, the U.S. Attorney for that office, said China’s Ministry of Public Security (MPS) “has repeatedly and flagrantly violated our nation’s sovereignty, including by opening and operating a police station in the middle of New York City.”

“Two miles from our office just across the Brooklyn Bridge, this nondescript office building in the heart of bustling Chinatown in Lower Manhattan has a dark secret. Until several months ago, an entire floor of this building hosted an undeclared police station of the Chinese National Police,” Peace said. “Now, just imagine the NYPD opening an undeclared secret police station in Beijing. It would be unthinkable.”

Two New York residents were arrested by FBI for allegedly running an undisclosed Chinese government police station in Manhattan's Chinatown neighborhood.. — Two New York residents were arrested by FBI for allegedly running an undisclosed Chinese government police station in Manhattan’s Chinatown neighborhood.. (US DISTRICT COURT: EASTERN DISTRICT OF NEW YORK)

“Here’s what we know happened inside the secret police station in Lower Manhattan. At the very least, the station was providing some government services, like helping Chinese citizens renew their Chinese driver’s licenses,” Peace continued. “But to do even that, the law requires that individuals like the defendants who act as agents of a foreign government give prior notice to the attorney general before setting up shop in New York City. That didn’t happen.”

“More troubling, though, is the fact that the secret police station appears to have had a more sinister use on at least one occasion,” Peace added. “An official with the Chinese National Police directed one of the defendants — a U.S. citizen who worked at the secret police station — to help locate a pro-democracy activist of Chinese descent living in California. In other words, the Chinese national police appear to have been using the station to track a U.S. resident on U.S. soil.”

“The two defendants whose arrests we’re announcing today destroyed evidence of their communications with the Chinese national police when they learned of the FBI’s investigation,” Peace also said. “These two defendants knew they had something to hide, and they obstructed justice in an attempt to prevent the FBI from learning the full extent of what they were up to.”

Peace said his office and the FBI’s New York Field Office are the “first law enforcement partners in the world to make arrests in connection with the Chinese government’s overseas police stations.”

Both defendants in the case were arrested at their homes in New York City this morning, he said.

CHINESE DEFENSE MINISTERS’ TOUR OF TOP RUSSIAN MILITARY ACADEMY UNDERSCORES CLOSE TIES BETWEEN MOSCOW, BEIJING

Michael Driscoll, Assistant Director-in-Charge of the FBI’s New York Field Office, said “Not only was the police station set up on the order of MPS officials, but members of the Chinese consulate in New York even paid a visit to it after it opened.”

Peace said “before helping to open the police station in early 2022, Lu Jianwang had a longstanding relationship of trust with [Chinese] law enforcement, including the MPS.”

“In 2018, Lu was enlisted in efforts to cause a purported Chinese fugitive to return to China,” Peace continued. “The victim of that effort reported that he was repeatedly harassed to return to China. That victim received threats of violence against his family in the United States and MPS officers harassed a victim’s family in China.”

The Justice Department earlier described the announcement as a “significant national security matter.”

The defendants are scheduled to appear in court this afternoon before a magistrate judge.

“Thanks to our investigation and arrest today with the FBI, the defendants will be held accountable,” Peace said. “And the MPS is on notice that we will not tolerate similar threats to our national sovereignty.”

Peace also announced charges Monday against 34 MPS police officers belonging to a task force called the “912 Special Project Working Group.”

They are accused of conspiracy to transmit interstate threats and conspiracy to commit interstate harassment.

CHINA CRITICIZES US SANCTIONS ON FENTANYL TRADE, SAY THEY ‘UNDERMINE’ WASHINGTON-BEIJING RELATIONS: REPORT

“This task force isn’t a normal police force. It doesn’t protect people or combat crimes, it commits crimes targeting Chinese democracy activists and dissidents located outside of the People’s Republic of China, including right here in New York City,” he said.

“This task force operates as an Internet troll farm, creating thousands of fake online personas, which they use in a coordinated plot to harass dispatch, reach and threaten dissidents and activists throughout the world,” Peace added. “People who the PRC perceives as threats to the legitimacy of the Chinese Communist Party.”

Peace said in one instance, in an online video conference on the topic of countering communism — which was held on a U.S. technology platform – “task force officers flooded the video conference and drowned out the meeting with loud music and vulgar screams and threats directed at Chinese dissidents.”

“In addition to threatening and harassing Chinese dissidents, the MPS officers use their fake online personas to spread official Chinese government propaganda and narratives to counter and overwhelm the dissidents’ pro-democracy speech,” he added, describing that with their exposure, “the world now has a unique, never before seen view of how the PRC government deployed this army of Internet trolls.”

The Justice Department also said in this scheme, the “on several occasions, the defendants used online personas to contact individuals assessed to be sympathetic and supportive of the PRC government’s narratives and asked these individuals to disseminate Group content.”

A third federal criminal complaint unsealed Monday charges an additional ten individuals, including a former China-based employee of a U.S. telecommunications company — with conspiracy to commit interstate harassment and unlawful conspiracy to transfer means of identification.

“As alleged, Julien Jin and his co-conspirators in the Ministry of Public Security and Cyberspace Administration of China weaponized the U.S. telecommunications company he worked for to intimidate and silence dissenters and enforce PRC law to the detriment of Chinese activists in New York, among other places, who had sought refuge in this country to peacefully express their pro-democracy views,” First Assistant U.S. Attorney Carolyn Pokorny for the Eastern District of New York said in a statement.

The complaint, which builds on charges announced by the Justice Department in December 2020, “reveal that Jin worked directly with and took orders from defendants at the MPS and the Cyberspace Administration of China to disrupt meetings on the Company-1 platform and that the co-defendants had targeted U.S.-based dissidents’ speech on Company-1’s platform since 2018.”

Greg Norman is a reporter at Fox News Digital.

Category:

Foreign Policy, International Politics

Tagged with:

McCarthy Strengthens U.S.-Taiwan Relations While Biden Allows Red China to Rise

BY: SHAWN FLEETWOOD | APRIL 06, 2023

Kevin McCarthy meets Taiwan President Tsai at the Reagan Library — House Speaker Kevin McCarthy met with Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-Wen on Wednesday in an aim to strengthen U.S.-Taiwan relations.

Author Shawn Fleetwood profile

SHAWN FLEETWOOD

VISIT ON TWITTER@SHAWNFLEETWOOD

On Wednesday, Speaker McCarthy and a bipartisan group of lawmakers met with Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen at the Ronald Reagan Library in California. The meeting made McCarthy the most senior U.S. official to meet with the leader of Taiwan on U.S. soil in decades, according to Newsweek.

During the historic summit, McCarthy reaffirmed Congress’s commitment to strengthening relations with the island nation and support for Taiwan’s aim to remain democratic in the wake of increasing Chinese aggression.

“I felt our meeting today provided a greater peace and stability for the world. America’s support for the people of Taiwan will remain resolute, unwavering and bipartisan,” McCarthy said. Tsai echoed similar sentiments, saying, “To preserve peace, we must be strong” and “we are stronger when we are together.”

“I am the Speaker of the House. There is no place that China’s going to tell me where to go and who I can speak to — I’m not the general manager of @HoustonRockets.”

“We’re united in this same approach… on both sides [of the aisle].” – @SpeakerMcCarthy’s message to the CCP. pic.twitter.com/VR5tIHw6WN
— Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party (@committeeonccp) April 6, 2023

The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) — which claims Taiwan is Chinese territory — issued remarks on Thursday threatening to “take resolute measures” in response to Tsai and McCarthy’s alleged promotion of Taiwanese independence. Taiwan News reported the island’s national defense ministry tracked a People’s Liberation Army helicopter and two naval vessels in the waters surrounding Taiwan on Wednesday and Thursday.

Most egregiously, however, is the CCP’s attempt to “inspect” ships traveling through the Taiwan Strait. According to Reuters, “China’s Fujian maritime safety administration launched a three-day special joint patrol and inspection operation in the central and northern parts of the Taiwan Strait” on Wednesday that includes “moves to board ships.” Fujian is a southeastern Chinese province bordering the Taiwan Strait.

“The maritime safety authority in the southeastern Chinese province said … the operation included ‘on-site inspections’ on direct cargo ships and construction vessels on both sides of the Taiwan Strait ‘to ensure the safety of vessel navigation and ensure the safe and orderly operation of key projects on water,’” the report reads. Taiwan indicated it would not cooperate with the inspections.

Biden Helps China by Undercutting America

In the background of McCarthy’s bid to reaffirm U.S. support for Taiwanese sovereignty is the flailing presidency of Joe Biden, whose administration’s seemingly intentional bid to cripple America’s national security and economic stability is giving China leeway to expand its influence across the globe.

On Monday, NBC News reported the infamous Chinese spy balloon the Biden administration let drift across the continental United States earlier this year “was able to gather intelligence from several sensitive American military sites.” Among the intelligence transmitted back to the CCP was “mostly from electronic signals, which can be picked up from weapons systems or include communications from base personnel.”

On the economic front, Biden’s monetary policy — which includes spending trillions of taxpayer dollars on useless Democrat pet projects — has resulted in decades-high inflation, causing everyday Americans to struggle to afford basic necessities such as gas and groceries. The administration’s ongoing war against the U.S. fossil fuel industry has only exacerbated the country’s economic pains.

Under Biden, the hegemony of the U.S. dollar is also in jeopardy. Countries such as Brazil and Malaysia have announced within the past week plans to work with China to reduce dependence on the U.S. dollar when conducting trade with Beijing. Most recently, the Chinese yuan surpassed the U.S. dollar as the most traded currency in Russia, signifying growing ties between Beijing and Moscow.

As noted by The Daily Caller, “[i]f foreigners no longer want [U.S. dollars] for trade, central bank reserves, private wealth funds, and the official currency of about a dozen countries, all those dollars have nowhere to go but back to us in a flood like our country has never seen.” Such a scenario would likely lead to hyperinflation and further suffering among the American people.

The U.S. is haunted by self-inflicted domestic problems, so the CCP likely sees an opportunity not just to take control of Taiwan but to recalibrate the politics of the Indo-Pacific in its favor. The longer Biden cripples the U.S., the closer China gets to creating a new world order devoid of U.S. influence.

Shawn Fleetwood is a Staff Writer for The Federalist and a graduate of the University of Mary Washington. He also serves as a state content writer for Convention of States Action and his work has been featured in numerous outlets, including RealClearPolitics, RealClearHealth, and Conservative Review. Follow him on Twitter @ShawnFleetwood

Category:

Tagged with:

McCarthy, Taiwanese president meet, declare strong ‘bond’ between the two nations

By Brooke Singman | Fox News | Published April 5, 2023 5:06pm EDT

House Speaker Kevin McCarthy and Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen declared the relationship between the United States and Taiwan is strong amid “unprecedented” challenges in the Indo-Pacific region. McCarthy, R-Calif., and Tsai met at the Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley, California on Wednesday, along with a group of bipartisan lawmakers.

House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., second from right, welcomes Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen as she arrives at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley, Calif., Wednesday, April 5, 2023. (AP Photo/Ringo H.W. Chiu)

“Today, I’m honored to meet with Taiwan’s President Tsai as she transits the United States,” McCarthy said, adding that their discussion took place “fittingly” at the library, which highlights Reagan’s belief in “democracy and commitment to the ideals of peace and freedom.”

CHINESE EMBASSY SENDS THREATENING LETTER TO CONGRESS OVER TAIWAN MEETING, WARNS IT ‘WILL NOT SIT IDLY BY’

“Those values have always served as the bedrock of our friendship with the people of Taiwan and they are more important now than ever before,” McCarthy said.

“I believe our bond is stronger now than at any time or point in my lifetime,” he added, noting that Tsai is a “great champion of that bond.”

Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., conducts a news conference in the U.S. Capitols Statuary Hall on Thursday, January 12, 2023. (Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images) (Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images)

The speaker of the House said the United States “will honor our obligations and reiterate our commitment to our shared values behind which all Americans are united.”

McCarthy met with Tsai and a bipartisan group of lawmakers. Tsai thanked McCarthy and the Republican and Democratic lawmakers who attended the meeting.

“Their presence and unwavering support reassure the people of Taiwan that we are not isolated and we are not alone,” Tsai said.

US SAYS CHINA HAS NO REASON TO STEP UP AGGRESSIVE ACTIVITY DUE TO TAIWAN’S STOPOVERS IN THE US

Pointing to the regional challenges, Tsai said “it is no secret” that the “peace that we have maintained and the democracy which we have worked hard to build are facing unprecedented challenges.”

Tsai, in the meeting, reiterated Taiwan’s commitment to “defending the peaceful status quo, where the people of Taiwan may continue to thrive in a free and open society.”

“I also highlighted a belief which President Reagan championed, that to preserve peace, we must be strong,” Tsai said. “I would like to add that we are stronger when we are together.”

In this image made from video, Taiwan's Presidential office secretary general Lin Chia-lung, left, President Tsai Ing-wen, center, and Foreign Minister Joseph Wu wave before Tsai's departure on an overseas trip at Taoyuan International Airport in Taipei, Taiwan, Wednesday, March 29, 2023. — In this image made from video, Taiwan’s Presidential office secretary general Lin Chia-lung, left, President Tsai Ing-wen, center, and Foreign Minister Joseph Wu wave before Tsai’s departure on an overseas trip at Taoyuan International Airport in Taipei, Taiwan, Wednesday, March 29, 2023. ((AP Photo/Johnson Lai))

Tsai also thanked members of Congress for their proposed initiatives that have “helped to make Taiwan and our partnership stronger.”

“Specifically, initiatives in the realm of enhancing Taiwan’s self-defense capabilities, fostering robust trade and economic ties between us, and supporting Taiwan’s meaningful participation in the international community, and also to seek out our shared interests in peace and prosperity across the Indo-Pacific,” Tsai said.

US DEFENDS SENDING AIRCRAFT THROUGH TAIWAN STRAIT AS CHINA GROWS INCREASINGLY AGGRESSIVE

The meeting Wednesday came after The Chinese Embassy wrote a threatening email to McCarthy and other members of Congress who planned to meet with Tsai Wednesday.

Li Xiang, the embassy’s liaison to Congress, wrote a nearly four-page email warning U.S. lawmakers that China views the meeting as a “blatant provocation.”

“I have to point out that China will not sit idly by in the face of a blatant provocation and will most likely take necessary and resolute actions in response to the unwanted situation. Let’s work together to prevent such a thing from happening,” Li wrote, according to a copy of the email obtained by PunchBowl News.

McCarthy’s meeting with Tsai came months after former House Speaker Pelosi visited Taiwan, which, according to the Chinese Embassy, “triggered a serious crisis in the China-U.S. relationship.”

“Lessons should be learned,” the letter read.

Speaker of the House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), center left, poses for photographs after receiving the Order of Propitious Clouds with Special Grand Cordon, Taiwan’s highest civilian honor, from Taiwan's President Tsai Ing-wen, center right, at the president's office. — Speaker of the House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), center left, poses for photographs after receiving the Order of Propitious Clouds with Special Grand Cordon, Taiwan’s highest civilian honor, from Taiwan’s President Tsai Ing-wen, center right, at the president’s office. (Chien Chih-Hung/Office of The President via Getty Images)

China shut down communications with the United States military after Pelosi visited Taiwan last year. That visit prompted increased aggression by China in the South China Sea and led experts to predict a Chinese invasion of Taiwan by 2024.

China sent a specific warning to McCarthy on Tuesday regarding the meeting, alleging it would break the “One China” policy.

MCCARTHY’S CHINA MISSION: GIVE BIDEN A ‘BACKBONE,’ ‘EMPOWER’ HIM TO TACKLE THE CCP THREAT

“If Speaker McCarthy ignores the international community’s broad support for the one-China principle, refuses to draw lessons from others’ mistakes, and insists on playing the ’Taiwan card,’ it will undoubtedly further damage China-US relations, and even strengthen the strong determination of the Chinese people to unite and fight for national reunification,” a spokesperson for China’s consulate in Los Angeles wrote.

The “One China” policy, adopted by the U.S. and other countries, stipulates that the government of Beijing is the sole legitimate government of China.

CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP

Officials and lawmakers have warned that it’s only a matter of time before China tries to invade Taiwan, with some arguing that the 2024 U.S. presidential election and the Taiwanese election might have influence on the timing of China’s aggression toward Taiwan.

Brooke Singman is a Fox News Digital politics reporter. You can reach her at Brooke.Singman@Fox.com or @BrookeSingman on Twitter.

Category:

Foreign Policy, International Politics

Tagged with:

Chinese-American bank ‘willingly’ provided Biden family financial records: GOP Senator

By Kristen Altus FOXBusiness | Published March 27, 2023 8:19am EDT

Sen Ron Johnson: Cathay Bank ‘willingly’ provided Biden bank records

A “Mornings with Maria” panel says the American public should be “rightly concerned” with the Biden family’s financial relations with China. As more confirmations come forth regarding the Biden family’s business dealings in China, Americans are calling on President Joe Biden to address the “significant and important” financial connection.

“When you see this kind of a connection between a sitting president, his son and the Chinese government, when people just don’t trust this and know that it’s one of the biggest threats facing us right now, that’s a really big issue that needs to be addressed,” Maslansky + Partners President Lee Carter said on “Mornings with Maria” on Monday.

Her comments come on the heels of Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., revealing Sunday to host Maria Bartiromo that Chinese-American-owned Cathay Bank disclosed Biden family bank records that match U.S. regulator records.

HAWLEY PROPOSES BILL REVOKING CHINA’S PREFERENTIAL TRADE STATUS

“A bank from China, let’s face it, the Communist Party controls those types of institutions; they willingly gave us the documents that backed up the Treasury records,” Johnson said on “Sunday Morning Futures.”

Joe Biden 30th birthday — Sen.-elect Joe Biden and wife Neilia cut his 30th birthday cake at a party in Wilmington, Delaware, on Nov. 20, 1972. His son, Hunter, waits for the first piece. | Getty Images

While Cathay Bank was founded in the U.S. in 1962 and is currently headquartered in Chinatown, Los Angeles, they also house representative offices in Beijing, Shanghai and Taipei, according to its website. It also claims to be America’s oldest operating bank founded by Chinese Americans.

Despite Biden denying in recent weeks that his son, Hunter Biden, brother Jim, and Hallie Biden, the widow of his son, Beau, received split payments of $1 million from Hunter’s business associate, Rob Walker, Johnson claimed the new Cathay Bank records solidify the House Oversight Committee’s investigation into the family’s international business ventures.

“Is that the Chinese Communist Party, is that a shot across President Biden’s bow, saying, ‘Listen, this is some of the information we have. If you don’t toe the line, if you don’t do things that displease us, we’re going to even provide … more information,'” Johnson said. “So, we obviously have a multiple-tier system of justice.”

video

Carter further argued Monday that Americans’ concerns around Biden’s potential Chinese collusion are valid.

“This isn’t just a Chinese bank, this is an American bank that was founded by Chinese Americans,” Carter said. “After everything that we’ve been through with China, at this moment, only 15% of Americans trust China … the American people are rightly concerned. They deserve to have answers. And I think at a minimum, the president needs to make a statement and address people’s concerns because they’re valid.”

video

Financial services industry veteran Michael Lee also joined the conversation Monday, pointing out the coincidence of U.S. banks’ reluctance to provide Congress with information now that a Democrat holds office.

GET FOX BUSINESS ON THE GO BY CLICKING HERE

Joe and Hunter Biden with China flag — After further confirmation of the Biden family’s business dealings in China, Maslansky + Partners President Lee Carter called on President Biden to address possible collusion with “one of the biggest threats facing” America on “Mornings with Maria.” (FOX Business / Photo illustration / Fox News)

“Let’s just go back in time and remind everyone: Nobody gets [$1 million] sole mandate from the Chinese government to start a private equity firm, especially one that doesn’t have any private equity experience, especially someone that doesn’t have any private equity experience and has a debilitating crack habit,” Lee said.

“So, what type of influence did they buy as the Chinese Communist Party is running around with Russia, Saudi Arabia, Iran, setting up a new reserve currency to take out the United States of America?” he continued. “What did the Bidens give up and what is it doing to our national security?”

Category:

Business, International Politics, Political

Tagged with:

America’s TikTok challenge is not what you think

By Adonis Hoffman | Fox News | Published March 23, 2023 5:00am EDT

As the House Energy and Commerce Committee convenes on Thursday to explore the threat of TikTok this week, it will be faced with a daunting challenge — how to position U.S. policy over popular U.S. practice. In fact, when it comes to TikTok, the chasm between American foreign policy and American commercial interests could not be wider. On the one hand, Congress and the Biden administration are inching up to impose an outright ban on TikTok in the coming weeks if it does not sell to an American company.

The company itself is arguing that the U.S. should mend it but not end it.

TIKTOK CEO TO PLEDGE COMPANY WILL GUARD DATA FROM CHINESE ACCESS, IN BID TO STAVE OFF BAN

On the other hand, American advertisers, brands, marketers, ad agencies and influencers are embracing TikTok like there’s no tomorrow. While U.S. policymakers are preparing to make history through an unprecedented ban on a social media app, U.S. companies are spending unprecedented sums on TikTok marketing, advertising and promotion. Not a week goes by without an announcement of seminars, conferences, webinars, and workshops by ad agencies and marketing experts on how to profit from TikTok.

TIKTOK CEO TO TELL CONGRESS THAT CHINESE OWNED APP NOW HAS 150M ACTIVE USERS IN THE UNITED STATES: REPORT

Led by budding entrepreneurs and marquee names, TikTok tutorials have become a cottage industry. One ad exec who did not want to be identified, noted: “I have advised all my creative directors to find a way to get our clients on every social media app, beginning with TikTok and Instagram. If not, they are missing golden opportunities to engage with viewers for extended periods of time. We have a chance to reach over 885 million viewers and that number is growing.”

With the average TikTok user on the app for well over an hour and a half every day, it is a great marketing opportunity to be sure. These data show that America is a tale of two cities when it comes to popular social media.

Privacy activists caution against the lack of personal data protection on the one hand, and in the case of TikTok, serious national security implications. Yet social media mavens have come to rely on the app for their very livelihood and profitability.

BIDEN ADMIN THREATENS BAN IF TIKTOK’S CHINESE OWNERS DON’T SELL STAKES

Many of the leading brands in America (and indeed the world) are on TikTok.

For example,”TikTok was the fastest growing app in America, and brands are finally realizing the advertising opportunity. In fact, viewers who engage (share, like, or comment) on a brand’s video are 150% more likely to purchase their product or service. Even more convincing, 350% of engagers are more likely to visit the brand’s physical store and 40% are more likely to visit the brand’s website! These are conversion opportunities you do not want to miss out on!

DEMOCRATS, REPUBLICANS ARE TEAMING UP TO TACKLE TECH THREATS BROADER THAN JUST TIKTOK

Companies and brands such as Chipotle, Red Bull, The Washington Post, NBA, Taco Bell, Fortnite, Nickelodeon, Crocs, Netflix, the NFL, HP, ESPN, Vineyard Vines, Levi’s, WWE, Bentley Motors and others are using TikTok to bolster their sales and customer engagement.

And it is not just average brands, but major companies like Apple, Google and Microsoft that have joined the party.

“Google, Apple and Microsoft all have TikTok accounts, with over 8.5 million likes between the three. While Apple has more than 1.3 million fans on the platform, Google and Microsoft have 403,000 and 143,000, respectively. But unlike Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter, or any social platform where these companies also have a presence, TikTok is being used to showcase the brands beyond traditional advertising.”

But there is yet another dimension to the debate which bears examination. According to Pew Research, 31 percent of American TikTok users are Hispanic and 30 percent are Black. These numbers reflect the growing embrace of social media expression by ethnic groups who use TikTok, Instagram and Facebook in higher proportions than others.

BANNING TIKTOK SOUNDS TEMPTING. HERE’S WHY IT’S ALL WRONG

Former ad exec Sanford Moore pointed out the targeted marketing opportunities for brands in reaching Hispanic and Black consumers is “tremendous.” He noted that “while some advertisers overlook their demographic, Black and Hispanics over-index in consumption and brand loyalty. These consumers should not be taken for granted.”

CLICK HERE TO GET THE OPINION NEWSLETTER

All of this suggests not only a policy divergence, but a generational dichotomy as well.

It is clear that younger social media users can and will adapt to a new national policy. With new social media apps such as WeChat, QQ, Telegram and others, there are alternative outlets for TikTok users to segue if the U.S. imposes an outright ban.

The tough task for Congress is not convincing privacy activists and security stalwarts about the dangers of TikTok. Nor is it finding a way to mend it but not end it.

The enduring test for U.S. policy is educating and convincing the next generation of Americans — including brands, companies and marketers– that China, Russia and other sworn enemies will use any means necessary to compete and dominate.

CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP

And that includes a seemingly harmless, simple app that has us singing and dancing our way to data subversion. That is an infinitely more difficult challenge than legislating a ban on TikTok, but equally important to our national interests.

CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM ADONIS HOFFMAN

Adonis Hoffman is CEO of The Advisory Counsel LLC. He served in senior posts in Congress and at the FCC, was legal counsel to the American Association of Advertising Agencies, and adjunct professor at Georgetown University.

Category:

Tagged with:

Tik-Tok

False Prophets

March 17, 2023 by Jerry Broussard

This verse came up in my devotions this morning. I was prompted by The Holy Spirit to make this image and publish it. False prophets have always been a problem with numerous cultures, and dealing with them varies with severity. Knowing who are the “false” prophets has always been the rub. God’s answer? If their prophecy does not come true, then they’re false.

Above are some of the High Priests of the Climate Change Religious Cult. They also clam to be prophets, though they do not use that term. They claim science is behind their forecasts, when in reality they are tyrannical prophecies that have never come true.

Name any other discipline, and any of them had the same record of false claims of catastrophes that never happen, and they would be derided is all the main stream press, and the political elite would make their lives a living hell.

For 40 plus these false prophets have forecasted disasters that never happened. Using terms that gender fear, they prey on the weak minded. Fear is their only tool, because science is NOT with them, neither is their forecasts. Running their climate change religion as any typical tyrannical organization, they have amassed a large portion of the wealthiest people and organizations, they seek to amass more wealth, and more control. Working with the World Economic Forum, they quest for “One World Government” proceeds with freighting results.

When you consider the number of nations that have been dupped into acting on the “Green New Deal”, and have failed miserably, you’d think that the entire World would rise up and deal appropriately with these false prophets of climate change.

All prophecies have failed. All scientific claims have proven false. All attempts to apply their demented Green New Deal has proven disastrous. Their quest for One World Government is becoming more obvious. The false masks they wear to decieve are beginning to slip, revealing who they really are.

When is enough? How much more are we suppose to take?

Category:

Foreign Policy, International Politics, Military

Tagged with:

Sorry, Media Nerds, The War in Ukraine Is Literally A ‘Territorial Dispute’

BY: EDDIE SCARRY | MARCH 16, 2023

Ron DeSantis should say it one more time for the people in the back. The war is literally a dispute over territory.

Author Eddie Scarry profile

EDDIE SCARRY

VISIT ON TWITTER@ESCARRY

Apologies in advance for making you consider something uttered by David French and Jennifer Rubin, but the two work for prominent news publications that unfortunately shape our national dialogue, so bear with me.

“DeSantis actually called Russia’s grotesque, aggressive invasion of a sovereign country a ‘territorial dispute.’ … Astonishing. Dangerous.”—French, New York Times columnist

“[DeSantis] has decided that if you can’t beat the pro-Putin wing of the Republican Party, then join them. He declared that Russia’s brutal and unjustified war of aggression against a sovereign Ukraine is actually ‘a territorial dispute between Ukraine and Russia…’”—Rubin, Washington Post columnist

The “territorial dispute” quote is from Republican Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ recently released statement about the ongoing war in Ukraine (a place our elected leaders in Washington sometimes refer to as “Our Last Great Hope.”) What he said more fully is that “becoming further entangled in a territorial dispute between Ukraine and Russia” is not a “vital interest” to the United States.

That’s a view shared by anyone who thinks yet another foreign war without clear and substantial strategic benefit to America is not something we should busy ourselves with. (It’s not like we have any pressing problems here!) But French, Rubin and the rest of the national media really hate that view. It’s “pro-Putin”! It’s “astonishing” and “dangerous”!

DeSantis should say it one more time for the people in the back. The war is literally a dispute over territory. Russian leadership claims Ukraine as its own and the Kremlin’s settlement offers are based almost solely on territory concessions (with some details related to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization).

“I believe that Russians and Ukrainians are one people … one nation, in fact,” Russian President Vladimir Putin said in 2019. In some parts of Ukraine, even Ukrainians claim that. “Many In Eastern Ukraine Want To Join Russia,” read a NPR headline in 2017.

The Washington Post last year found at least 15 percent of residents of Ukraine’s Donbas region said they wanted to join Russia. Maybe, just maybe, this has something to do with Russia and Ukraine being literally part of the same nation for more than half a century.

I know that’s not very sexy for the nerds in the media who prefer to think of the war like a Marvel movie where a corny villain can be overpowered by a united and freedom-loving Justice League, but that’s not the case.

Democracy is at stake!

*Cue Max Boot solemnly removing his little hat in reverence.*

It turns out that discussing the conflict doesn’t first require the speakers to confess their love for Ukraine and hatred for Putin while shedding a tear. It’s not the romantic affair that Rubin, French, et al. want it to be.

Eddie Scarry is the D.C. columnist at The Federalist and author of “Liberal Misery: How the Hateful Left Sucks Joy Out of Everything and Everyone.”

Category:

Tagged with:

Two of the four Americans kidnapped in Mexico are dead, two alive: report

By Michael Lee | Fox News | Published March 7, 2023 10:16am EST

Warning Graphic Content: Armed men seen dragging Americans into truck in Mexico

Four Americans were kidnapped in Matamoros, Mexico having traveled to the country for medical treatment. Two of the four American citizens kidnapped in Mexico are dead while the other two remain alive, Reuters reported Tuesday, citing the governor of Tamaulipas.

Tamaulipas Gov. Américo Villarreal said Tuesday that one of the surviving Americans was wounded and the other was not, while two of the four U.S. citizens who traveled to Mexico were found dead.

The FBI is still working to return the missing Americans, who were abducted after being caught in the crossfire of rival cartels shortly after crossing the U.S. border with Mexico.

U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland said during a Tuesday news conference that he has been briefed by the FBI on the situation unfolding in Mexico and said the State Department was working with Mexican authorities on the investigation.

Garland offered sympathies to the families of the victims of the attacks, but did not confirm the reports that two of the Americans died in the attack.

The attorney general added that the Justice Department would be working to prosecute the cartel members behind the incident.

Dramatic video shows the moment four Americans were kidnapped shortly after crossing into Mexico, in what authorities have called a case of mistaken identity.

The video of the violent incident shows armed men in body armor dragging one person across the pavement and pushing a woman into the bed of a white truck, then dragging two more men who appear to be wounded across the pavement and loading them into the bed of the same truck.

Photos from the scene show a white minivan with North Carolina plates riddled with bullet holes shortly after the kidnappings, with a woman who reportedly witnessed the attack telling the Associated Press she saw the minivan collide with another vehicle before hearing gunfire and seeing armed men approach the van.

“All of a sudden they (the gunmen) were in front of us,” said the woman, who declined to be identified for fear of retaliation. “I entered a state of shock, nobody honked their horn, nobody moved. Everybody must have been thinking the same thing, ‘If we move they will see us, or they might shoot us.’”

FIRST OF FOUR AMERICANS KIDNAPPED IN MEXICO HAS BEEN IDENTIFIED

A member of the Mexican security forces stands next to a white minivan with North Carolina plates and several bullet holes, at the crime scene where gunmen kidnapped four U.S. citizens who crossed into Mexico from Texas, Friday, March 3, 2023. (AP Photo)

She added that she saw the men force one woman who was able to walk into the bed of their truck, while another victim who she said could move his head was loaded into the truck.

“The other two they dragged across the pavement, we don’t know if they were alive or dead,” she said.

According to law enforcement, the group of Americans were traveling to Mexico for health services last week when the minivan they were driving was attacked by a group of armed men, who shot at the vehicle before dragging the Americans out and loading them into a truck. The four Americans were not thought to be the intended target of the attack.

The group crossed from Brownsville, Texas, into the Mexican city of Matamoros, Tamaulipas, an area that has been plagued by cartel violence and carries a travel advisory from the State Department warning Americans to avoid visiting.

Mexican Natioanla Guard prepare a search mission for four U.S. citizens kidnapped by gunmen at Matamoros, Mexico. (AP Photo)

FOUR AMERICANS KIDNAPPED IN MEXICO MAY HAVE BEEN TARGETED UNINTENTIONALLY: REPORT

One of the four Americans in the group, Zindell Brown, was identified by his sister, Zalandria Brown of Florence, South Carolina, on Tuesday, saying she has been in contact with the FBI and Mexican authorities since the incident.

“This is like a bad dream you wish you could wake up from,” Brown told the Associated Press. “To see a member of your family thrown in the back of a truck and dragged, it is just unbelievable.”

Brown said her younger brother is from Myrtle Beach and was visiting Mexico with three friends, one of whom was there to get a tummy tuck surgery.

She added that her brother was hesitant to make the trip, warning his friends about the dangers before they departed.

Mexican army soldiers prepare a search mission for four U.S. citizens kidnapped by gunmen in Matamoros, Mexico. (AP Photo)

“Zindell kept saying, ‘We shouldn’t go down,’” Brown said.

The victim’s father, O’dell William Brown, said the family is reeling from the news.

“I don’t know which way to go right now,” he said. “We don’t know what’s what.”

It is unclear if Brown is one of those who died in the incident.

The FBI is offering a $50,000 reward for information leading to the return of the victims and arrests of those responsible.

THE Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report

Michael Lee is a writer at Fox News. Follow him on Twitter @UAMichaelLee

Category:

Crime, International Politics

Tagged with:

Canada considers allowing assisted suicide for children without parental consent

By Samantha Kamman, Christian Post Reporter | February 23, 2023

A parliamentary committee has called for expanding Canada’s assisted suicide program so that “mature minors” whose deaths are “reasonably foreseeable” be allowed to hasten their deaths without parental consent.

The Special Joint Committee on Medical Assistance in Dying presented its report last week for discussion in the House of Commons, recommending that minors should be eligible for doctor-assisted suicide. Minors “deemed to have the requisite decision-making capacity upon assessment” should be eligible for the country’s Medical Assistance in Dying Program (MAID), the report states in a list of 23 recommendations.

The committee urged the Canadian government to “undertake consultations with minors on the topic of MAID, including minors with terminal illnesses, minors with disabilities, minors in the child welfare system and Indigenous minors, within five years of the tabling of this report.”

MOVE OVER MOLECH and Margerete Sanger. Canada wants to abort children at any age simply because they deem them less than “normal”.

The report also recommended that parental consent is not always necessary in certain cases if a minor is eligible for assisted suicide.

“That the Government of Canada establish a requirement that, where appropriate, the parents or guardians of a mature minor be consulted in the course of the assessment process for MAID, but that the will of a minor who is found to have the requisite decision-making capacity ultimately take priority,” Recommendation 19 in the report reads.

While the report recommended expanding MAID to minors, it called for restricting it to only young people whose death is “reasonably foreseeable.”

The report did not propose an age limit for assisted suicide, stating “eligibility for MAID should not be denied on the basis of age alone.” Regarding parental consent, the final report recommends parents be consulted “where appropriate.”

The majority of the committee’s members called for the government to hold formal consultations with Canadians under 18 within the next five years and to provide funding for research into the issue of minors being eligible for MAID. In addition, the committee called for the creation of an independent expert panel to evaluate the criminal code provisions in MAID for “mature minors” within five years.

Recommendation 22 calls on the Canadian government to “work with provinces and territories, regulatory authorities, provincial and territorial law societies and stakeholders to adopt the necessary safeguards for advance requests.”

Conservative members of Parliament objected to the proposal to expand MAID eligibility to minors, highlighting how decision-making capacities, even for mature young people, remain questionable. Citing Dr. Maria Alisha Montes, a clinical associate professor of pediatrics, the report states: “I would argue that MAID for mature minors carries the highest amount of risk, as the consequence is death.”

“It’s irreversible,” Montes wrote. “We need to ask ourselves if we should be legalizing this for mature minors when biology shows us that the ability to balance risks and rewards is one of the last areas of the brain to mature.”

As The Christian Post reported, Canada legalized doctor-assisted suicide in 2016 but was limited to citizens or permanent residents at least 18 years old with “a serious and incurable disease, illness or disability” that included “enduring and intolerable suffering.”

Canadian Parliament expanded the law in 2022 to patients with non-threatening physical disabilities, intending to offer assisted suicide to people with mental illness by March before the Canadian government announced a temporary delay in December.

MAID provider Dr. Madeline Li, who has overseen hundreds of patients hasten their deaths through the program, recently expressed concerns that MAID has gone too far and is “missing fundamental safeguards for vulnerable people.”

In an op-ed published earlier this month by the Canadian magazine Maclean’s, Li voiced disapproval towards offering assisted suicide to people with mental illnesses or patients with curable conditions that refuse care.

The provider recalled a cancer patient determined eligible for MAID despite his condition having a 65% chance of a cure. The MAID assessors approved his case just because the patient declined care and had a “grievous and irremediable condition.”

“[I]t was irremediable because they didn’t want the treatments available. That’s what the law currently states: as long as the patient doesn’t want the treatment, their condition is considered irremediable — even if there are effective treatments,” she wrote.

“But not treating a cancer with such a high chance of cure goes against medical practice standards. The doctors involved had a lot of moral distress about this person’s request for MAID. This person signed consent for me to share their story, but I feel differently about it than they did. They saw it as an expression of their autonomy; I saw it as dystopian.”

Canada wouldn’t be the first country to legalize assisted suicide for minors, as the Netherlands and Belgium have allowed the practice. In the Netherlands, children 12 and older can request assisted suicide but must have parental consent unless they are 16 and older. In Belgium, children must have a terminal disease or be near death. They must also have the consent of their parents.

Samantha Kamman is a reporter for The Christian Post. She can be reached at: samantha.kamman@christianpost.com. Follower her on Twitter: @Samantha_Kamman

Category:

Tagged with:

Biden Declares U.S. Will Sustain War In Eastern Europe Indefinitely, Against Americans’ Wishes

BY: JORDAN BOYD | FEBRUARY 21, 2023

Less than 24 hours after his staged trip to Kyiv, Ukraine, President Joe Biden told thousands of spectators in Warsaw, Poland, that he plans to indefinitely squander U.S. taxpayer dollars on a proxy war, despite Americans indicating they oppose this involvement.

“Our support for Ukraine will not waver, NATO will not be divided, and we will not tire,” Biden yelled on Tuesday during his occasionally incoherent remarks.

The event was promoted as a somber affair to mark one year since Russia invaded Ukraine. Biden’s speech, however, kicked off with the light-hearted air of a campaign stop, featuring background music by the Foo Fighters and Coldplay and photo opportunities with children waving American, Polish, and Ukrainian flags.

Back home, Americans plagued with sky-high inflation, a growing border crisis, and hazardous chemical spills are not as enthused by Biden’s words. Less than half of Americans support shipping weapons and cash to the Eastern European country, especially because, with no oversight, those funds are lining the pockets of Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky, whose regime is plagued with allegations of corruption.

Despite Americans’ opposition to prolonging an overseas war, Biden falsely claimed to his audience in Poland that Americans “are united in our resolve” to sponsor the Zelensky regime “for as long as it takes.”

Biden cited showy Ukraine flag virtue-signaling campaigns and Congress’s assistance in sending $113 billion taxpayer dollars and counting to Zelenksy as proof that Americans want to keep handing over blank checks to a foreign government.

“All across my country, in big cities and small towns, Ukrainian flags fly from American homes. Over the past year, Democrats and Republicans in the United States Congress have come together to stand for freedom. That’s who Americans are, that’s what Americans do,” Biden said.

In a full embrace of the uniparty’s interventionist agenda, Biden claimed this commitment to “the people of Ukraine and the future of Ukraine” is rooted in the belief that Ukraine should be a “free, sovereign, and democratic” nation. “There’s no sweeter word than freedom. There is no nobler goal than freedom. There’s no higher aspiration than freedom. Americans know that, and you know it,” Biden said.

While his homeland crumbles, Biden touts dragging the U.S. into a global war in the name of advancing “democracy” and “sovereignty” overseas with no word about the negotiations required for de-escalation. On the contrary, Biden said the only end to this war he will accept is Russia ceasing its invasion, something President Vladimir Putin said he doesn’t plan to do.

“If Russia stopped invading Ukraine, it would end the war. If Ukraine stopped defending itself against Russia, [it] would be the end of Ukraine,” Biden said.

Jordan Boyd is a staff writer at The Federalist and co-producer of The Federalist Radio Hour. Her work has also been featured in The Daily Wire, Fox News, and RealClearPolitics. Jordan graduated from Baylor University where she majored in political science and minored in journalism. Follow her on Twitter @jordanboydtx.

JORDAN BOYD

VISIT ON TWITTER@JORDANBOYDTX

Category:

Tagged with:

Joe Biden Fiddles with World War In Ukraine as U.S. Border, Railways Burn

BY: JOY PULLMANN | FEBRUARY 20, 2023

**Where is Biden as his country is in flames? Hiding from his crimes against Americans and our Constitution by urging atrocities in Ukraine.**

Author Joy Pullmann profile

JOY PULLMANN

VISIT ON TWITTER@JOYPULLMANN

Americans received a pristine view of Democrats’ disastrous America-Last policies this morning as Joe Biden paid a surprise visit to Ukraine while his own country literally burns with manmade disasters he continues to inflame.

Biden’s Federal Emergency Management Agency denied any money to help clean up a burning chemical disaster zone in the Republican state of Ohio, but Republican Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has made it clear that Biden will get a blank check to slosh around hundreds of billions from U.S. taxpayers to prolong the carnage of war in Ukraine — and the profits from it from insane deficit spending that also threatens U.S. national security.

Not only is key U.S. infrastructure on fire stateside, but Biden, in violation of his oath of office, also set the U.S. border figuratively on fire immediately upon assuming the presidency by lifting former President Trump’s effective enforcement of U.S. national security laws. Cities and towns across the United States are overwhelmed with mass human trafficking and the outsourcing of U.S. border control to international drug cartels allied with the top U.S. foreign adversary, Red China.

It’s no surprise that American support for expanding the U.S. proxy war with Russia is declining. They can see that their neighbors have to pay tens of thousands of dollars a year for health insurance even if they never see a doctor because they’re really paying off the health expenses of illegal migrants, and that their neighbors are dying from the fentanyl trafficked with the human flood of misery across the border.

And where is Biden as his country is in flames? Hiding from his crimes against Americans, our laws, and our Constitution by urging continued atrocities while doing a dog and pony show in Ukraine. While forcing his own people — and those whose migration keeps the cartels supplied with the billions to buy military-grade weaponry — to suffer murder, rape, and other heinous crimes, Biden is abroad encouraging ongoing violence in Ukraine.

War is hell, especially for the vulnerable — women, children, and the elderly. But Democrats and their military-industrial complex believe death, rape, starvation, and continued demolishing of Ukranian homes and towns are a worthy trade for a shiny new excuse to open U.S. coffers wide to high-dollar campaign donors with no oversight. It’s no coincidence, surely, the dollar spigots are also flooding toward the very same country that supplied millions to politically influence Biden’s family — and, according to his family, to influence Biden himself.

This is Joe Biden’s “mission accomplished” moment. Or, it would be, if the hapless and embarrassing George W. Bush were as patently evil as the Democrats running Biden.

Remember, six weeks after he invaded Iraq, Bush stood in front of a banner proclaiming “Mission Accomplished.” U.S. troops remained in Iraq and Afghanistan for 20 more years, spending precious soldiers’ lives and trillions in American treasure to weaken our national security by distracting us from higher foreign policy priorities, such as China. Right after Bush gave the “Mission Accomplished” speech, Iraqi insurgents redoubled their efforts.

**U.S. Navy Photo by Photographer’s Mate Third Class Juan E. Diaz. Public domain / Wikimedia**

Democrats’ media mouthpieces may have controlled U.S. discourse so much that only the brave like Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis can point out the foolhardiness of tempting another world war by refusing to seek peace for Ukraine. But the rest of the world is not fooled. They’re aware that Democrats are weak, that they hate America, and that they are willing to sell the labor, security, and peace of their American brethren to the highest bidder.

Biden may be trying to look tough by visiting Ukraine weeks after allowing Chinese spy balloons to traverse the United States and then shooting down $6 hobby balloons with $400,000 missiles. But the only person he’s fooling is himself.

Biden’s weakness is the Democratic Party’s weakness is the U.S. foreign policy cabal’s weakness. And weakness invites aggression. Photo ops are not going to reduce the threat of a world war. Patently weak appearances by Biden in fact escalate the threat of world war. Seeking to de-escalate is the only prudent choice. We all had better pray someone with power figures that out before China and Russia continue to align against us. History tells what happens when leaders fiddle after setting their cities ablaze.

Joy Pullmann is executive editor of The Federalist, a happy wife, and the mother of six children. Her just-published ebook is “101 Strategies For Living Well Amid Inflation.” Her bestselling ebook is “Classic Books for Young Children.” Mrs. Pullmann identifies as native American and gender natural. Her many books include “The Education Invasion: How Common Core Fights Parents for Control of American Kids,” from Encounter Books. Joy is also a grateful graduate of the Hillsdale College honors and journalism programs.

Category:

Tagged with:

Elon Musk chooses perfect venue to condemn one-world government: ‘The whole thing may collapse’

By: CHRIS ENLOE | February 16, 2023

Elon Musk used an unlikely forum this week to protest the formation of a single global government: the “World Government Summit.”

Speaking at the conference in Dubai via remote signal, Musk warned that a one-world government creates “a civilizational risk” that could result in the collapse of modern society.

“I know this is called the ‘World Government Summit,’ but I think we should be a little bit concerned about actually becoming too much of a single world government,” Musk said.

“If I may say, we want to avoid creating a civilizational risk by having — frankly, this may sound a little odd — too much cooperation between governments,” he added.

Musk explained that throughout history civilizations have risen and fallen. But neither their rise nor their fall “meant the doom of humanity as a whole because there’ve been all these separate civilizations that were separated by great distances.”

Specifically, Musk cited the rise of Islam in the Middle East and the simultaneous fall of the Roman Empire, probably referring to the Eastern Roman Empire, or Byzantine Empire, which ultimately fell to the Ottoman Empire in the 15th century. He observed that this separation of empires led to the preservation of knowledge and advancement of science.

Seemed like the right venue
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) February 15, 2023

“I think we want to be a little bit cautious about being too much of a single civilization because if we are too much of a single civilization, then the whole thing may collapse,” Musk went on to say.

“I’m obviously not suggesting war or anything like that. But I think we want to be a little bit wary of actually cooperating too much,” he said. “It sounds a little odd, but we want to have some amount of civilizational diversity such that if something does go wrong with some part of civilization that the whole thing doesn’t collapse and humanity keeps moving forward.”

Not only does Musk believe that a one-world government threatens society and humanity, but he has previously warned that “civilization will crumble” if people do not start having more children.

Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newslett

Category:

CHINESE SPY CRAFT PAYLOAD LOCATED OFF WATERS OF SOUTH CAROLINA, MOSTLY INTACT: US OFFICIAL

Tagged with:

US military shoots down ‘object’ flying in territorial waters over Alaska

By Adam Sabes | Fox News | Published February 10, 2023 3:33pm EST

The U.S. military shot down an “object” that was flying in territorial waters over Alaska, National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby said Friday afternoon during a White House press briefing.

“I can confirm that the Department of Defense was tracking a high altitude object over Alaska airspace in the last 24 hours. The object was flying at an altitude of 40,000 feet and posed a reasonable threat to the safety of civilian flight. Out of an abundance of caution and the recommendation of the Pentagon, President Biden ordered the military to down the object. And they did. And it came in inside our territorial waters,” Kirby said.

Kirby added that the “object” landed on frozen waters, and that “Fighter aircraft assigned to U.S. Northern Command took down the object within the last hour.”

He also added that the “object” was “much, much smaller than the spy balloon that we took down last Saturday.”

National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby speaks during a news conference in the James S. Brady Press Briefing Room at the White House in Washington, D.C., on Friday. (Andrew Harrer/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

“The way it was described to me was roughly the size of a small car as opposed to a payload that was like two or three buses sized,” Kirby said.

Kirby said that he doesn’t know of any “outreach” to the Chinese government about the object, and said that the government doesn’t know who owns the unmanned object.

BIDEN SAYS CHINESE SPY FLIGHT ‘NOT A MAJOR BREACH’

“We do not know who owns it, whether it’s state owned or corporate owned or privately owned,” he said.

**President Biden speaks to reporters as he and first lady Jill Biden leave the White House and walk to Marine One on the South Lawn in Washington, D.C., on Dec. 27, 2022. (Anna Moneymaker)**

Kirby said that the object was shot down because it was flying at around 40,000 feet and could have posed a threat to civilian aircraft versus the Chinese spy craft discovered last week, which Kirby said was at 65,000 feet and posed no threat to civilian aircraft.

Air Force Brig. Gen. Pat Ryder, a Pentagon spokesperson, said Friday afternoon that the military has located a significant amount of debris from the object, stating that it was shot down by an F-22 using an A9X missile out of Joint Base Elmendorf–Richardson in Anchorage, Alaska. He said the object entered U.S. airspace on Thursday.

“Debris that’s been recovered so far is being loaded on to vessels taken ashore, cataloged, and then moved onwards to labs for subsequent analysis. And while I won’t go into specifics due to classification reasons, I can say that we have located a significant amount of debris so far that will prove helpful to our further understanding of this balloon and its surveillance capabilities,” Ryder said.

**Pentagon spokesman Air Force Brig. Gen. Patrick Ryder speaks during a briefing at the Pentagon in Washington, D.C., on Jan. 17, 2023. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik)**

“We have no further details about the object at this time, including any description of its capabilities, purpose or origin,” Ryder added.

Just over a week ago, defense officials said that a Chinese spy craft was spotted over Billings, Montana. After it traveled at high altitudes around 60,000 feet, it was shot down on Saturday by an F-22 using a single A9X missile.

President Biden ordered on Feb. 3 that the spy craft should be shot down whenever the military determined that it’s safe to do so without potentially harming civilians on the ground.

Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin III said in a statement after the balloon was shot down that “President Biden gave his authorization to take down the surveillance balloon as soon as the mission could be accomplished without undue risk to American lives under the balloon’s path.”

**U.S. forces recover debris from a shot-down Chinese surveillance balloon. (US Fleet Forces)**

“After careful analysis, U.S. military commanders had determined downing the balloon while over land posed an undue risk to people across a wide area due to the size and altitude of the balloon and its surveillance payload. In accordance with the President’s direction, the Department of Defense developed options to take down the balloon safely over our territorial waters, while closely monitoring its path and intelligence collection activities,” Austin said.

Fox News’ Jennifer Griffin contributed to this report.

Adam Sabes is a writer for Fox News Digital. Story tips can be sent to Adam.Sabes@fox.com and on Twitter @asabes10.

Category:

Tagged with:

Today’s Politically INCORRECT Cartoon by A.F. Branco

A.F. Branco Cartoon – Sum Dum Guy

A.F. BRANCO | on February 9, 2023 | https://comicallyincorrect.com/a-f-branco-cartoon-sum-dum-guy/

People are rightfully worried about a China Spy Balloon but seem unconcerned about China’s spyware TicTok on their phones.

03 TicToc DY 1080 — **Political Cartoon by A.F. Branco ©2023**

DONATE to A.F.Branco Cartoons – Tips accepted and appreciated – $1.00 – $5.00 – $25.00 – $50.00 – $100 – it all helps to fund this website and keep the cartoons coming. Also Venmo @AFBranco – THANK YOU!

A.F. Branco has taken his two greatest passions, (art and politics) and translated them into cartoons that have been popular all over the country, in various news outlets including NewsMax, Fox News, MSNBC, CBS, ABC, and “The Washington Post.” He has been recognized by such personalities as Rep. Devin Nunes, Dinesh D’Souza, James Woods, Chris Salcedo, Sarah Palin, Larry Elder, Lars Larson, Rush Limbaugh, and President Donald Trump.

Category:

International Politics, Religion

Tagged with:

Christians face harassment in more countries than any other religious group, Pew study finds

By Ian M. Giatti, Christian Post Reporter | February 6, 2023

Indian Catholic devotees offer the way of the cross prayers after an Ash Wednesday service at Saint Mary’s Basilica in Secunderabad, the twin city of Hyderabad, on March 5, 2014. | AFP via Getty Images/Noah Seelam

Christians faced harassment in more countries than any other religious group amid the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, according to a recent Pew Research study finding an increase in 45 countries where followers of Christ face social or government abuse or violence since 2012.

The data on restrictions to religion around the globe, released last November, was featured in a Jan. 27 report showing that Christians face harassment in over 155 countries in 2020, an increase from 110 in 2012. The organization’s definition of “harassment” can include a wide range of actions, including verbal abuse to physical violence and killings committed by governments, social groups or individuals. The study captured “cases where individuals or groups feel singled out or unable to express their religious belief or nonbelief.” The study rated 198 countries and territories by their levels of government restrictions on religion and social hostilities involving religion using the same 10-point indexes used in the previous studies.

Pew’s Government Restrictions Index (GRI) measures government laws, policies and actions that restrict religious beliefs and practices, while its Social Hostilities Index (SHI) measures acts of religious hostility by private individuals, organizations or groups in society. Researchers sifted through over a dozen publicly available data sources for the report, including the U.S. Department of State’s annual peports on international religious freedom and annual reports from the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom.

Overall, physical harassment related to religion occurred in more than two-thirds of countries in 2020, the research shows. Muslims faced harassment in 145 countries, an increase from 109 in 2012. Jews, who make up 0.2% of the global population, face harassment in 94 countries, up from 71 in 2012.

The study found that Christian groups were “targeted by private individuals and organizations in nine countries” as Christians were often blamed for the rise of the COVID-19 pandemic.

“In Turkey, an Armenian Orthodox church’s door was set on fire, and news reports said the man told police that he acted because “they [Armenian Christians] brought the coronavirus” to Turkey,” the Nov. 27 Pew report states.

“In Egypt, conspiracy theories blamed the pandemic on the Coptic Orthodox Christian minority, which international Christian observers said exacerbated the discrimination the minority group already faced.”

In India, two Christians were beaten and killed while in police custody for violating COVID-19 curfews in Tamil Nadu, according to the U.S. State Department’s annual international religious freedom report.

The study also found a nine-fold increase in countries where non-religious people face harassment. Pew named the United States among 27 countries where “religiously unaffiliated people” were harassed in 2020.

“Restrictions on religion don’t just affect those who are religious. Religiously unaffiliated people also are harassed because of what they believe,” states the Jan. 27 report by research analysts Sarah Crawford and Virginia Villa, which focuses on harassment against the religious unaffiliated.

Pew study says religiously unaffiliated face harassment in the US | Screenshot/Pew Research

The report also found that the religiously unaffiliated faced harassment in 12 majority-Muslim nations and six majority-Christian countries.

Forms of government harassment for atheists, according to Pew, included atheist groups in Croatia — a majority-Catholic country — who alleged the presence of the cross and other Roman Catholic symbolism in public buildings like hospitals and courtrooms were unconstitutional.

And in countries like Pakistan, where Islam is the state-sanctioned religion, atheists are not given a “no religion” option for their identification cards, although the “government requires people to state their religious affiliation.”

Examples of social harassment cited by Pew included a political satirist in Lebanon who called atheism the “religion of donkeys” during a program on a TV channel backed by that nation’s Christian Free Patriotic Movement political party.

While the rise of the religious “nones” isn’t new, Pew predicts the trend could result in the number of Christians of all ages shrinking from 64% to as low as 35% of all Americans by 2070.

The Pew findings come as the global persecution watchdog organization Open Doors reported last year that over 360 million Christians experienced high levels of persecution and discrimination across the globe.

But even as more people shy away from identifying with any religion, many of those who report no religious affiliation still partake in a wide variety of religious and spiritual practices and beliefs.

According to a 202 Baylor University study, many “nones” still attend religious services, pray, meditate, believe in God or a higher power, have religious experiences, and believe in Heaven, Hell and miracles.

Category:

Tagged with:

Montana officials deny viral midair ‘explosion’ video amid concerns over Chinese spy balloon

By: MICHELE BLOOD | February 04, 2023

**MTN News and @MMtTreasures video screenshot composite**

Like Blaze News? Get the news that matters most delivered directly to your inbox. SIGN UP

A viral video depicting what appeared to be an explosion over Billings, Montana Friday night was met both with skepticism and concern amid widespread reports of a Chinese spy balloon flying over the state earlier in the week.

“We’re monitoring the situation. I’m talking to our National Guard to find out if they have additional information,” Gov. Greg Gianforte (R-Mont.) told Fox News Channel host Tucker Carlson in an on-air interview shortly after the video was posted.

Later in the evening, the City of Billings reported on its Twitter account that they confirmed with Montana’s Disaster Emergency Services and Gov. Gianforte that there were no explosions “in, around, or across” the state. In addition, the City of Billings said the video “cannot be substantiated.”

We have confirmed with @MontanaDES & @GovGianforte that there have not been any explosions in, around, or across #Montana. They are aware of the video and it can not be substantiated. https://t.co/LDz0jyTC6g
— City of Billings (@BillingsMT) February 4, 2023

The “explosion” video, posted by an account called @MMtTreasures, appeared to show a vertical pillar of white smoke or vapor, a flash of light, and something falling from the sky. In the text accompanying the video, @MMtTreasures also describes seeing a jet and witnessing what she described as an “explosion.”

“Ok, so here’s what I just caught on video I [sic] few minutes ago out my window. I saw a jet go by so fast and then explosion in the sky. Holy crap! Billings MT.”

Ok, so here’s what I just caught I few minutes ago out my window. I saw a jet go by so fast and then explosion in the sky. Holy crap! Billings MT. pic.twitter.com/swr8ERC6pf
— Dolly Mills-Moore (@MMtTreasures) February 4, 2023

Dolly Moore, the woman who posted the video, described her experience in an interview with MTN News on Friday night, which was shared in a report by KRTV.

“All I could think was, oh my gosh, this is happening again from two nights ago with the spy balloon over Billings,” Moore said in the interview.

By 9:45 p.m. on Friday night, Yellowstone County Sheriff Mike Linder, had made contact with Moore.

Linder said at that time that they believed the video was legitimate, according to a report by NBC affiliate KULR. The sheriff also reportedly added it was difficult to tell exactly what the video showed and that there was no evidence of an aircraft going down nor any evidence of an actual explosion over Billings.

Senator Steve Daines (R-Mont.) also says there has been no confirmation of an explosion over the state or the city of Billings, per KULR‘s reporting on Saturday.

Rep. Matt Rosendale (R-Mont.), responded to the City of Billings tweet, saying he was “still following all these events closely and will keep Montanans informed as any new information becomes available.”

I am still following all of these events closely and will keep Montanans informed as any new information becomes available. https://t.co/Ja9avfxt1J
— Matt Rosendale (@RepRosendale) February 4, 2023

Gianforte did not address the video in an interview on Fox News Channel’s Fox and Friends Saturday morning.

“Honestly, if this had been up to Montanans, we would have taken it out of the air the moment it came into our sovereign airspace,” Gianforte said, referencing the balloon seen in the area long before the unsubstantiated “explosion” video posted Friday night.

Gianforte also noted the Biden administration’s seeming failure to take action on the Chinese spy balloon, “endangers the American people and emboldens our enemies.”

Category:

Tagged with:

Was the Government Ever Going to Tell Us About the Chinese Surveillance Balloon?

BY: TRISTAN JUSTICE | FEBRUARY 03, 2023

Chinese Surveillance Balloon in the sky over Montana

I went looking for aliens in Roswell two years ago on a reporting trip to New Mexico. The aliens might not exist, but the conspiracies certainly do.

In 1947, a rancher discovered a field of debris wider than a football field after a July thunderstorm at the height of the U.S. flying-saucer wave. Air Force officials initially said the material was from a flying disc before claiming it was a crashed weather balloon, but many remain skeptical of the government’s explanation given that such balloons don’t leave behind a wide area of destruction.

The military acknowledged the debris was part of a secret atomic project in 1994, but records remain classified. Though President Donald Trump said in 2020 he’s heard “very interesting” things about Roswell, he refused to declassify any documents.

Now, more than 75 years after the incident, more questions are arising over an apparent airborne espionage object 1,000 miles north of Roswell.

On Thursday afternoon, NBC News revealed that a suspected Chinese surveillance balloon is hovering over Billings, Montana. The supposed weapon of espionage had apparently flown from the Alaskan Aleutian Islands and over Canada before making its way to airspace above the U.S. nuclear arsenal. According to NBC News, the balloon was spotted over the state that’s home to 150 warheads on Wednesday, near where the Chinese have been buying up American farmland.

“The U.S. military has been monitoring a suspected Chinese surveillance balloon that has been hovering over the northern U.S. for the past few days,” NBC reported. “Military and defense leaders have discussed shooting it out of the sky, according to two U.S. officials and a senior defense official.”

Defense officials told reporters that military leaders refused to shoot the balloon down because a widespread debris field would pose a threat to civilian life in the rural state. According to The Wall Street Journal, President Joe Biden was briefed on the issue on Wednesday.

If the Pentagon knew the surveillance tool was on its way to the nuclear arsenal, however, why didn’t the president have it shot down when it was over Alaska? Was Biden’s Wednesday briefing his first? Why wasn’t he told sooner? Why didn’t officials inform the public when it crossed into U.S. airspace? Did our government maybe not catch the balloon and are now covering for their own negligence? And why didn’t the Canadians shoot it down?

Even more troubling is why the Chinese would have a surveillance balloon over Montana in the first place, considering Beijing’s advanced satellites in low-earth orbit that provide all the bird’s eye images they need. Are they sending a message before Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s visit to the Chinese capital next week? Is espionage through TikTok not enough? We might not have ever known about the balloon had the press not snapped a photo of it.

We don’t know what happened at Roswell, and we probably never will. Was it actually a weather balloon that crashed? Was the object part of a military experiment? Could it have even been from a foreign government? Was it from the Empire — either an alien one from a galaxy far, far away or Red China?

Will Billings be the new Roswell?

SEE MY COMMENTARY BELOW

Tristan Justice is the western correspondent for The Federalist and the author of Social Justice Redux, a conservative newsletter on culture, health, and wellness. He has also written for The Washington Examiner and The Daily Signal. His work has also been featured in Real Clear Politics and Fox News. Tristan graduated from George Washington University where he majored in political science and minored in journalism. Follow him on Twitter at @JusticeTristan or contact him at Tristan@thefederalist.com. Sign up for Tristan’s email newsletter here.

Author Tristan Justice profile

TRISTAN JUSTICE

VISIT ON TWITTER@JUSTICETRISTAN

Category:

Don’t miss out on content from Dave Rubin free of big tech censorship. Listen to The Rubin Report now.

Tagged with:

British Army veteran arrested for silently praying for his dead son near an abortion clinic

By: JOSEPH MACKINNON | January 23, 2023

**Image source: YouTube video, ADF UK – Screenshot**

Like Blaze News? Get the news that matters most delivered directly to your inbox. SIGN UP

A British Army veteran was confronted by police for standing silently near an abortion clinic in Bournemouth, England. The man’s apparent crime: He was silently praying for his murdered son.

Adam Smith-Connor of Southampton is the second Briton in recent months to have been arrested, not for speech or actions, but for silent prayer — for the thoughts in his head.

Censoring silence

Smith-Connor told the Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) UK, a faith-based freedom advocacy group, that “22 years ago, I drove an ex-girlfriend to a facility where I paid for her to have an abortion. Many years later, I came to realize what I had done and it has been a source of great grief to me in my life.”

“I now pray for my son and to God for forgiveness,” said Smith-Connor, adding, “I would never have imagined being in a position to risk a criminal record for praying silently.”

Smith-Connor approached a British Pregnancy Advisor Service abattoir in the English county of Dorset on Nov. 24 to pray “for my son Jacob, for other babies who have lost their lives to abortion, for their grieving families, and for abortion clinic staff.” The BPAS is the leading provider of abortions in the United Kingdom and boasts on its website that one in three U.K. women will “have an abortion by the time they are 45 years old.”

The National Catholic Register reported that Smith-Connor was standing silently with his back to the facility to respect the privacy of staff and visitors, when a pair of officers confronted him, pressing him on what he was doing and why. Footage of the incident shows one of the officers ask, “What is the nature of your prayer today?”

Smith-Connor responds, “What is the nature of my prayer? I’m praying for my son.”

The female officer notes that that there is “a clause within the Public Space Protection Order around prayer and around disapproval around the activities at the clinic here.”

The Scotsman reported that in October, the abattoir in Bournemouth became the fifth in the country to get a PSPO. Accordingly, in the area around the facility, various activities such as protests are verboten. Those found in violation could incur a fine of £100 ($123.65 USD) or face a conviction at a magistrates court. Among the things that are forbidden in such a buffer zone are protests via “graphic, verbal or written means” and “holding vigils where members audible pray, recite Scripture, genuflect, sprinkle holy water on the ground or cross themselves if they perceive a service-user is passing by.”

Concerning the establishment of the no-free speech zone in Bournemouth, Councilor Bobbie Dove stated, “Whilst we acknowledge the right of anyone to conduct a peaceful protest, we had to balance this against the distress caused or likely to be caused, and the detrimental impact of behaviours experienced by those accessing medical services or doing their jobs.”

Having clarified that Smith-Connor was in the buffer zone, the female officer can be heard in the video attempting to establish whether Smith-Connor’s silent prayer may have had something to do with the abattoir.

In response to Smith-Connor’s admission that he is silently praying for his dead son, the officer says, “I’m sorry for your loss. But ultimately, I have to go along with the guidelines of the Public Space Protection Order, to say that we are in the belief that therefore you are in breach of clause 4a, which says about prayer, and also acts of disapproval around the activities at the clinic.”

“What is the nature of your prayer?” authorities interrogate army veteran youtu.be

The ADF UK reported that Smith-Connor was ultimately fined on the basis of the PSPO. He is now challenging the resultant council fine, stating, “This cannot be right in a country that values freedom.”

“Freedom of thought has to be one of the most fundamental freedoms that any human being can have,” he said. “I spent 20 years in the military including spending time in Afghanistan defending the very principle of freedom.”

“I’m not a criminal,” Smith-Connor emphasized. “I am a husband. I am a father. I’m a military veteran and I’m a Christian. But I have been censored.”

TheBlaze previously reported that a woman was similarly arrested by police over her silent prayer on Dec. 6 in Birmingham, England. Isabel Vaughan-Spruce was charged with breaching a PSPO.

“Nobody should be arrested for the thoughts they have in their own mind. The arrest and charge appears to be premised entirely on her admission that she was praying internally,” Jeremiah Igunnubole, Spruce’s legal representative, said in a statement. “The clinic was closed and she was standing, in a public space, without once engaging anyone. As a public space, she was not banned from being present there.”

Igunnubole noted that in Adam’s case, he “could now face prosecution for holding thoughts, and lifting those thoughts to God in prayer, within a censorship zone..”

Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!

Fined for silent prayer: Adam’s story youtu.be

Category:

International Politics, Spiritual

Tagged with:

Texas leads 20 Republican states in suing Biden admin over migrant parole program

By Adam Shaw | Fox News | Published January 24, 2023 3:21pm EST

FIRST ON FOX: A coalition of 20 states and a top conservative legal group is suing the Biden administration over its recently-expanded humanitarian parole program that allows tens of thousands of migrants from designated countries a month into the U.S. — arguing that the program is unlawful. The lawsuit, filed by Texas and America First Legal in the Southern District of Texas, is joined by 19 additional states who are seeking to block the Biden administration’s parole program which allow up to 30,000 migrants from Haiti, Nicaragua, Cuba and Venezuela into the U.S. each month.

The Biden administration announced the program for Venezuelans in October, which allowed a limited number to fly directly into the U.S. as long as they had not entered illegally, had a sponsor in the U.S. already and passed certain checks.

Earlier this month, President Biden announced that the program would be expanding to include Haitians, Nicaraguans and Cubans, and that the program would allow up to 30,000 a month into the U.S. It was announced alongside an expansion of Title 42 expulsions to include those nationalities.

OVER QUARTER OF A MILLION MIGRANT ENCOUNTERS IN DECEMBER ALONE

Around 60 recently arrived Venezuelan migrants are seen entering a shelter at Bellevue early Wednesday morning, Oct. 12, 2022, in Manhattan, New York. ((Luiz C. Ribeiro/New York Daily News/Tribune News Service via Getty Images))

“We anticipate this action is going to substantially reduce the number of people attempting to cross our southwest border without going through a legal process,” he said.

In the lawsuit, led by Texas and America First Legal and joined onto by 19 additional Republican-led states, plaintiffs argue that the program is illegal given the “exceptionally limited” parole power available to the federal government. The lawsuit notes that parole is limited by Congress to be used on a “case-by-case basis for urgent humanitarian reasons or significant public benefit” — a standard which the lawsuit says the program fails to meet.

“The parole program established by the Department fails each of the law’s three limiting factors. It is not case-by-case, is not for urgent humanitarian reasons, and advances no significant public benefit. Instead, it amounts to the creation of a new visa program that allows hundreds of thousands of aliens to enter the United States who otherwise have no basis for doing so. This flouts, rather than follows, the clear limits imposed by Congress.”

https://www.scribd.com/embeds/621691479/content?start_page=1&view_mode=scroll&access_key=key-8XVnOXl70A6ZbeWwInTC

The Biden administration has said the program is one of a number of ways it is expanding lawful migration pathways as a way to combat the ongoing migrant surge at the border that has seen historic numbers hit the border each month –and is calling on Congress to pass a broader immigration reform bill. Separately, it has used humanitarian parole to allow Afghans and Ukrainians into the U.S. in the last year. But conservative critics have said the latest program is illegal, and facilitates rather than stops the migrant surge.

The lawsuit says that the program is also unlawful as it did not engage in the notice-and-comment rulemaking required by the Administrative Procedure Act — by which a number of immigration policies have been at least temporarily struck down in recent years. It also argues that the states “face substantial irreparable harms from the Department’s abuse of its parole authority, which allow potentially hundreds of thousands of additional aliens to enter each of their already overwhelmed territories.”

GOP state lawsuit on humani… by Adam Shaw

“Every state in America, especially border states like Texas, is being crushed by the impacts of illegal immigration,” Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton said in a statement to Fox News Digital. “The Biden open borders agenda has created a humanitarian crisis that is increasing crime and violence in our streets, overwhelming local communities, and worsening the opioid crisis. This unlawful amnesty program, which will invite hundreds of thousands of aliens into the U.S. every year, will only make this immigration crisis drastically worse.”

The lawsuit also marks the latest in a flurry of legal challenges to the Biden administration’s policies by America First Legal — a conservative legal group launched by former Trump White House official Stephen Miller, who he described as being “at the forefront of the legal battle to save America’s borders from complete annihilation at the hands of this lawless administration.”

TEXAS BILL WOULD REQUIRE TITLE 42 EXPULSIONS OF MIGRANT UNTIL COVID-19 MANDATES, EMERGENCY LIFTED

Miller labeled the Biden program as “pre-amnesty for what would be illegal aliens before they even arrive at our border.” He also compared it to the Obama-era Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, which granted protection from deportation to illegal immigrants who came to the U.S. as minors.

“This is a dramatic escalation in the open borders crusade – not only is Biden freely admitting illegal aliens who arrive at our borders, but he is now going to foreign countries to pre-approve innumerable illegal aliens to flood into our country without any legal basis whatsoever. It is illegal, unconstitutional, and contemptible,” he said.

The states joining onto the lawsuit with Texas are Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Florida, Idaho, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Ohio, South Carolina, Tennessee, Utah, West Virginia, and Wyoming.

The new parole program came after more than 250,000 migrants were encountered at the southern border in December, a new record. However, the Biden administration has said it believes that the new measures are already having an effect and that there has been a drop in migrant encounters at the border from those nationalities.

“The December update shows our new border enforcement measures are working. Even as overall encounters rose because of smugglers spreading misinformation around the court-ordered lifting of the Title 42 public health order, we continued to see a sharp decline in the number of Venezuelans unlawfully crossing our southwest border, down 82% from September 2022,” acting Customs and Border Protection (CBP) Commissioner Troy Miller said in a statement last week. “Early data suggests the expanded measures for Cubans, Haitians and Nicaraguans are having a similar impact, and we look forward to sharing the additional data in the next update.“

Adam Shaw is a politics reporter for Fox News Digital, primarily covering immigration and border security. He can be reached at adam.shaw2@fox.com or on Twitter .

Category: