Latest Analysis and Commentary
by Majid Rafizadeh • December 3, 2022 at 5:00 am
The Biden administration appears to be repeating Obama administration's policy of choosing to be silent in the face of the Iranian regime's bloodshed, human rights violations, and crackdowns that kill and wound peaceful protesters -- and has the same policy regarding brave Chinese protestors as well. One hospital staff member wrote in a message to CNN about a female detainee: "When she first came in, [the officers] said she was hemorrhaging from her rectum... due to repeated rape. The plainclothes men insisted that the doctor write it as rape prior to arrest...." -- CNN Special Report, "How Iran's security forces use rape to quell protests," November 21, 2022. Will the Biden administration ever stop appeasing the regime of Iran, called by the US Department of State "the world's worst state sponsor of terrorism"? Will the Biden administration ever start standing with Iranian -- and Chinese, Brazilian and Venezuelan -- men and women asking only for what we purport to care about -- liberty and freedom -- but who suffer brutality and suppression from their own governments?
The Biden administration appears to be repeating Obama administration's policy of choosing to be silent in the face of the Iranian regime's bloodshed, human rights violations, and crackdowns that kill and wound peaceful protesters. Pictured: An anti-regime protest at Amirkabir University in Tehran, Iran on September 20, 2022. (Image source: Darafsh/Wikimedia Commons)
When millions of citizens poured into the streets of Iran in June 2009 to protest against the country's regime, the Obama administration was silent as many people in Iran cried out, "Are you with us, or are you with them [the ruling mullahs]?" Now, the Biden administration appears to be repeating Obama administration's policy of choosing to be silent in the face of the Iranian regime's bloodshed, human rights violations, and crackdowns that kill and wound peaceful protesters -- and has the same policy regarding brave Chinese protestors as well. More than 2,000 academics from universities across the United States, including 10 Nobel laureates, signed a letter to President Joe Biden calling for "urgent attention to a dire situation in Iranian universities," and taking "further tangible actions." These include ending diplomacy, ending nuclear talks, and continuing punitive sanctions "until all violators of human rights in Iran are held accountable."
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by Judith Bergman • December 2, 2022 at 5:00 am
China has set up at least 54 overseas police stations in 30 countries, including in the United States (New York), Canada, Spain, Italy, France, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, Hungary, Portugal, the Czech Republic, Brazil, Argentina and Nigeria, according to a recent report from Safeguard Defenders, a human rights NGO. The police stations are part of China's campaign to "persuade" Chinese citizens suspected of criminal acts – particularly telecommunications fraud, but also political "crimes" such as political dissent – to return to China to face criminal prosecution. China not only threatens the Chinese citizens themselves but also members of their families who have stayed behind in China. Such threats have been continuing for years, as FBI Director Christopher Wray pointed out in 2020, when he mentioned a case from the US in which a Chinese government "emissary" visited a target in the US and told him that he could choose between returning to China or committing suicide. China's overseas police stations purport merely to have administrative or consular functions, but function as means of threatening Chinese abroad to return to China, thereby skipping the necessary legal requirements under international law. Crucially, the police stations operate without the consent and knowledge of the host countries, such as in the Netherlands, where one of the police stations operates out of a plain ground-floor apartment in Rotterdam belonging to a small Chinese handyman business. Beijing, not surprisingly, has denied all wrongdoing. "The organizations you mentioned are not police stations or police service centers," Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian Zhao insisted. "Their activities are to assist local Chinese citizens who need to apply for expired driver's license renewal online...." Safeguard Defenders has appealed to countries to take swift action against the police stations. "Action needs also be taken to protect a quickly growing Chinese diaspora in the target countries, unless the latter are content with having a foreign government police minority groups on their territory, often to the intentional detriment of the target country and its policies, and aimed at intimidating the diaspora into obedience to the CCP anywhere in the world. Dedicated reporting and protection mechanisms must urgently be made available." – Safeguard Defenders, January 18, 2022.
(Image source: iStock)
China has set up at least 54 overseas police stations in 30 countries, including in the United States (New York), Canada, Spain, Italy, France, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, Hungary, Portugal, the Czech Republic, Brazil, Argentina and Nigeria, according to a recent report from Safeguard Defenders, a human rights NGO. Most of these police stations are located in Europe, with nine such police stations in major Spanish cities, four in Italy, and three in Paris, among others. According to Peter Dahlin, director of Safeguard Defenders, those are just the tip of the iceberg: "We are convinced that there are many more, because these only belong to two jurisdictions – Fuzhou and Qingtian, where most of the Chinese in Spain come from – and China itself admits that it has launched the project in ten. So it could be up to five times more."
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by Alain Destexhe • December 1, 2022 at 5:00 am
In Brussels, Moroccans outnumber people of Belgian origin in the under-18 age group; many schools are attended exclusively by children of non-European origin. In those public schools where parents have the choice of religion classes, Islam is now followed by a majority of pupils. Whether one describes these changes as "diversity" or as a "great replacement" is of little importance; over a few decades the evolution has been considerable and has modified the social fabric of Belgium's cities. The hijab (Islamic veil) is increasingly present and is worn by a majority of women in some municipalities. During the month of Ramadan, almost all shops and restaurants are closed during the day in some areas. The number of mosques is exploding and all currents of Islam are represented in Brussels, where tensions between Sunnis and Shiites, or even between Moroccans and Turks, are sometimes high, especially within the Muslim Executive of Belgium, a structure that the federal government set up in order to have a single interlocutor for the Muslim community, but which has been going from crisis to crisis. During trials or elections, it is common to see women arriving with their husbands, and explaining that they cannot be retained as jurors or assessors because they do not speak any of Belgium's official languages, thus attesting to a completely failed policy of integration. The "vivre ensemble" ("live together") praised by the Belgian political world is a myth, with communities living side by side but not mixing with each other. Moroccans marry Moroccan women and Turks marry Turkish women... In France, the country's colonial past is regularly evoked to justify the anger of young North Africans. It is an explanation that does not hold: similar incidents take place in Belgium, a country that has no historical link with North Africa. What is most distressing is the denial and the total absence of debate on the issues of immigration and integration, mainly on the French-speaking side of the country. Neither the media nor the political parties talk about it. Sunday's riots were attributed by the mayor of Brussels to "thugs and scoundrels", a discourse that was widely repeated without any precision or analysis. While in France and elsewhere in Europe there is a lively debate around this theme, it is as if Belgium has given up, accepting its destiny as a multicultural country with a Muslim majority in its capital and from time to time a "new normal" made up of urban riots, shootings and terrorist attacks.
Violent clashes took place in Belgium after the Morocco-Belgium football match during the World Cup in Qatar. In Brussels, Moroccans outnumber people of Belgian origin in the under-18 age group. While elsewhere in Europe there is a lively debate around immigration and integration, it is as if Belgium has given up, accepting its destiny as a multicultural country with a Muslim majority in its capital and from time to time a "new normal" made up of urban riots, shootings and terrorist attacks. Pictured: Police work to clear a street amid violent riots on November 27, 2022, in Brussels, Belgium. (Photo by Nicolas Maeterlinck/Belga/AFP via Getty Images)
Violent clashes took place in Belgium after the Morocco-Belgium football match during the World Cup in Qatar. Riots took place in Brussels, Antwerp and Liege, where a police station was attacked by about 50 "youths", and also in several cities in the Netherlands. Beyond these incidents, the popular jubilation in the predominantly Moroccan neighborhoods of Brussels, especially in Molenbeek, revealed that in these areas, the Moroccan identity has remained much stronger than the Belgian one, even though most of the inhabitants have dual nationality. One would have to be blind and trying to fit reality into the ideology of "living together at all costs" not to see that the sympathies of Moroccans in Belgium were with the Moroccan team and not with the team of their "second homeland". Some journalists tried to do so, with headlines like "No matter who wins between Belgium and Morocco, it will be a party".
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by Lawrence Kadish • November 30, 2022 at 4:00 pm
(Photo by Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images)
U.S Senator Joseph Manchin has been playing both sides against the middle for the past year and it appears that game is about to end. This year Manchin offered his vote to pass the so called "Inflation Reduction Act" in return for Senate leadership support of legislation that would loosen regulations now impacting energy pipeline construction in his home state of West Virginia. In some earlier era in Washington, that kind of Capitol Hill give-and-get would have gone unnoticed, just another deal being cut with taxpayers' money before lunch in the Senate dining room. That was then. This is now.
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by Bassam Tawil • November 30, 2022 at 5:00 am
The Biden administration's recent decision to upgrade its relations with the Palestinian Authority (PA) is yet another sign of how the US is rewarding the Palestinians, as they are the Iranian regime, for their ongoing toxic incitement and terrorism against Israel. It is the first time the US has created a position at the State Department that is solely responsible for Palestinian affairs. The decision coincided with two bomb attacks in Jerusalem, in which a 16-year-old Jewish boy was killed and 14 other people wounded. The Palestinian Authority, in fact, offers stipends to the terrorists and their families as part of its "Pay-for-Slay" program -- which serves as an incentive, especially in an area that is not wealthy, for its citizens to continue their violence. Several Palestinian groups issued separate statements lauding the Jerusalem bombings as "heroic operations" and calling for the murder of more Jews. Abbas has never called on the terror groups to halt their attacks. One would have expected the Biden administration to demand that the Palestinian leadership dismantle the terror groups operating under its auspices in the West Bank. One would have expected the Biden administration to demand that the Palestinian Authority halt the monthly payments for terrorism to the terrorists and their families. One would have expected the Biden administration to pressure the Palestinians to return to the negotiating table with Israel and abandon their long-time policy of rejecting all offers without even proposing a counteroffer. The Biden administration, which resumed financial aid to the Palestinians -- without any conditions attached -- has chosen to ignore the Palestinian leadership's role in encouraging violence, hate and efforts to eliminate Israel, and to erect, in its place, yet another Islamic state. The payments to the terrorists and their families successfully encourage many Palestinians to carry out attacks against Israelis: they know that they or their families will be added to the Palestinian Authority's payroll. The Biden administration is dead wrong if it thinks that upgrading its relations with the Palestinian Authority will have a moderating effect on the Palestinians or prompt them to improve their policies toward Israel. On the contrary, the move is likely to increase the Palestinian leaders' intransigence because now they feel that the US is on their side, notwithstanding their incitement and support for terrorism. By upgrading US-Palestinian relations, the Biden administration is also sending a message to these Arab countries that it stands behind the Palestinians' rejection of normalization and peace between the Arabs and Israel. The Biden administration has anyway done nothing to support the Abraham Accords or try to get more Arab countries, including Saudi Arabia, on board. Instead, the Biden administration has done everything in its power to antagonize America's traditional allies in the Arab world, first and foremost Saudi Arabia. The Biden administration's policy of appeasement of the mullahs in Iran has already alienated some Arabs, especially the Gulf states.
The Biden administration's recent decision to upgrade its relations with the Palestinian Authority (PA) is yet another sign of how the US is rewarding the Palestinians, as they are the Iranian regime, for their ongoing toxic incitement and terrorism against Israel. Pictured: US President Joe Biden meets with PA President Mahmud Abbas in Bethlehem on July 15, 2022. (Photo by Mandel Ngan/AFP via Getty Images)
The Biden administration's recent decision to upgrade its relations with the Palestinian Authority (PA) is yet another sign of how the US is rewarding the Palestinians, as they are the Iranian regime, for their ongoing toxic incitement and terrorism against Israel. The decision sends a message to the PA and its president, Mahmoud Abbas, that the Biden administration does not care if the Palestinians continue to glorify and embrace terrorists who murder and wound Jews and others. A senior US State Department official was quoted as saying the Biden administration notified Congress that it has appointed Hady Amr as a new "special representative for Palestinian affairs." The move is an upgrade in US-Palestinian relations. It is the first time the US has created a position at the State Department that is solely responsible for Palestinian affairs.
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by Daniel Greenfield • November 30, 2022 at 4:00 am
This is what a slow-motion coup looks like. The solution to patronage isn't professionalism, it's smaller government. Government is not a meritocracy and there's no point in keeping up the pretense that any part of it is merit-based. The most fundamental virtue of our constitutional government is that the public has supreme power over the government. The civil service system has effectively eliminated that power. A smaller government begins with a much smaller bureaucracy. Apologists for the bureaucracy claim that eliminating the permanent patronage of the civil service would erode "public trust in our government" and "undermine the role of civil servants as stewards of the public good". The public has no trust in the government. The one thing most of the country, across political and racial lines, can agree on is not trusting the government. Currently only about 29% of Democrats and 9% of Republicans trust the government. How much more trust is there to lose? Civil servants are not "stewards of the public good". The American people are. Monarchies and tyrannies have stewards of the public good. The only true constitutional and democratic virtue of a civil service is that it is easy to fire. A bureaucracy that can't be gotten rid of isn't serving the people, it's mastering them, and that is what the administrative state has long since become. The only reason Democrats are panicking over permanent patronage reform is because the ranks and especially the senior management of the federal bureaucracy are full of their people. There's nothing democratic or merit-based about letting a corrupt partisan faction control the administrative state and the lives of hundreds of millions of people with no recourse. The next president who isn't beholden to the administrative state should provide that recourse.
The most fundamental virtue of our constitutional government is that the public has supreme power over the government. The civil service system has effectively eliminated that power. This is what a slow-motion coup looks like. (Image source: iStock)
When former President Donald Trump, Governor Ron DeSantis, and Senator Ted Cruz, among others, endorsed rolling back the power of bureaucrats and their administrative state, Democrats panicked. Senator Dianne Feinstein and Hillary Clinton's former running mate, Senator Tim Kaine, introduced a countermeasure which they called, "Preventing a Patronage System Act" according to Kaine, to "protect the merit-based hiring system for our federal workforce". Media editorialists claimed that making it easier to get rid of federal employees would bring back patronage or the spoils system. The problem is that patronage never left. We have spent generations living under a permanent patronage system. The spoils system, as bad as it was, kept one party from permanently packing its supporters into the government. Removing it just meant that the Democrats have permanently packed the federal bureaucracy.
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by Gordon G. Chang • November 29, 2022 at 5:00 am
The CCP, as the Chinese Communist Party is informally known, has now lost hearts across the country. China throughout the Communist period has witnessed demonstrations, but most of them are, as Burton noted, "highly localized" and "directed at malfeasance, corruption, and incompetence of lower level Communist functionaries." Now, however, the anger is directed at the Party itself. In short, as evident from the spontaneous demonstrations of the weekend, the Chinese people have had enough of Xi Jinping and CCP rule. They recognize the fundamental fact that the Party's system does not work. The Chinese people are not only angry over Xi Jinping's "dynamic Zero-COVID policy;" they are also troubled by a crumbling economy and the collapse of the all-important property sector. New-home prices in 70 cities, for instance, fell in October for the 14h-straight month. There have been abnormally few sales in recent months as the market is "frozen," with big spreads between what sellers demand and what buyers are willing to pay. These drops in prices and sales are of great concern because some 70% of Chinese household wealth is tied up in property. China's people, as a result, were not happy even before Thursday's fatal blaze. Fomenting hatred of America, to save the Communist Party from popular unrest, would not be a big step for Xi.
The Chinese people are not only angry over President Xi Jinping's "dynamic Zero-COVID policy;" they are also troubled by a crumbling economy. Now their anger is directed at the Communist Party itself. In short, as evident from the spontaneous demonstrations of the weekend, the Chinese people have had enough of Xi Jinping and CCP rule. Pictured: Xi speaks to the media on October 23, 2022 in Beijing. (Photo by Kevin Frayer/Getty Images)
Extraordinary protests quickly spread across China over the weekend, including major cities such as Beijing and Shanghai, since a fire Thursday claimed a reported 10 lives in an apartment block in Urumqi, in the northwestern part of the country. China's people were enraged by the regime's COVID controls, which had prevented firefighters from reaching the scene of the tragedy in time. "This is people past their breaking point," tweeted CNN's Selina Wang on Sunday. Also on Sunday, the Telegraph's Simina Mistreanu reported on Twitter that a crowd numbering at least 100 began marching toward Tiananmen Square, in the heart of the Chinese capital. Police, however, stopped demonstrators after only a few blocks, at the Liangma River. "The fact that they intended to protest at Tiananmen," she wrote, "is wild."
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by Alan M. Dershowitz • November 28, 2022 at 5:00 am
The City of San Francisco is a state actor that is constitutionally prohibited from disqualifying job applicants on the basis of race. That is precisely what occurred here, despite the phony claim that Arntz can reapply for his job. There is one important benefit to the San Francisco decision — at least as compared to university admissions decisions. The San Francisco panel did not try to disguise the racial criteria they are employing, whereas most universities go to great length to deny that race alone is often a dispositive factor in ranking applicants. This will make it easier for the courts to hold San Francisco's Arntz decision as a clear violation of the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment. In the bad old days, race was often used to discriminate against Black applicants. Today race is often used to discriminate in favor of Black applicants. I guess that is some sort of progress. But real progress will be achieved only if and when race is no longer a factor that trumps meritocracy. Only then will Martin Luther King, Jr.'s dream of how his children and ours should be judged become a reality.
San Francisco is essentially firing its elections director, John Arntz, because he is apparently of the wrong race to satisfy their "racial equity plan." The City of San Francisco is a state actor that is constitutionally prohibited from disqualifying job applicants on the basis of race. That is precisely what occurred here, despite the phony claim that Arntz can reapply for his job. Pictured: A protest at San Francisco City Hall on July 20, 2020. (Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)
John Arntz has held the job of San Francisco's director of the Department of Elections for two decades. He has been repeatedly praised for his excellent performance at this increasingly important job — important because of so many election challenges and doubts. Just two years ago, the election commission commended him for his "incredible leadership." But now they are essentially firing him because he is apparently of the wrong race to satisfy their "racial equity plan." This is what he was told: "Our decision wasn't about your performance, but after twenty years we wanted to take action on the City's racial equity plan and give people an opportunity to compete for a leadership position."
The mayor of San Francisco, London Breed, disagreed:
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by Raymond Ibrahim • November 27, 2022 at 5:00 am
"I heard them. They were shouting in Arabic and Swahili, saying that the kafirs [unbelievers] should be killed, all of them, and make Congo an Islamic state. Shoot all of them. Kill all of them, and burn their houses, these notorious Christians." — International Christian Concern, October 10, 2022, Democratic Republic of Congo. "The ADF rebels attacked the village, and more precisely the hospital. They looted everything they could find, taking medicines, and at the end they set fire to the building. A nun, who is also a doctor and was on night duty, was burned alive, along with a patient.... [Once the hospital was destroyed] the rebels continued on their way and set fire to another hospital nearby." — Father Marcelo Oliveira, Aid to the Church in Need, October 22, 2022, Democratic Republic of Congo. "When they were all gathered, they started asking who is Muslim and who is Christian. Those who identified as Christian, they started tying their hands behind their back and they cut their throats." — Bishop Alberto Vera Aréjula of Nacala, Aid to the Church in Need, October 5, 2022, Mozambique. Before long, the video went viral on social media, and was even broadcast as "breaking news" by TV9, which referred to James [falsely accused of blasphemy] as a "sanitary worker" — code in Pakistan for both Christians and the lowest of the low. In James' own words, "I knew the sensitivity of this news; it was a death warrant against me." — Voice of the Martyrs, October 12, 2022, Pakistan. "[It is] an easy way to settle personal scores against someone. People don't even think twice before using this law against someone, as victims of this law have to spend 8-11 years in prison to prove themselves innocent...." — Nasir Saeed, Director of Centre for Legal Aid & Assistance, Voice of the Martyrs, October 22, 2022, Pakistan. The president of Cairo University, Muhammad Uthman al-Khosht, assigned 31 new directors, deputy directors, managers, and researchers to head a number of departments, including those of agriculture, medicine, engineering, nursing, dentistry, statistical research, and African Studies. Although the Copts—Egypt's indigenous, Christian, people—make up anywhere from 10-20% of its population, notable among these new Cairo University hires is that not a single one of them is Christian. All are Muslim. Earlier this year, 98 female judges took the legal oath in preparation for assuming judicial roles in Egypt's State Council.... [S]ince its inception 75 years earlier, not a single woman had sat on the podium of the State Council court—and now 98 are. Yet, not one of them is a Christian... at the very least 10 of the 98 should have, for proper representation, been Christian.
Earlier this year, 98 female judges were appointed to judicial roles in Egypt's State Council. Since its inception 75 years earlier, no woman had sat on the podium of the State Council court — and now 98 are. Yet, not one of them is a Christian, despite the fact that the Christian Copts account for between 10-20% of the nation's population. Pictured: Judge Radwa Helmi Ahmad, the first woman on the bench of Egypt's State Council, sits on her first hearing in Cairo, on March 5, 2022. (Photo by Samer Abdallah/AFP via Getty Images)
The following are among the murders and abuses Muslims inflicted on Christians throughout the month of October 2022: The Muslim Slaughter of Christians Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC): On Oct. 1, machete-wielding militants of the so-called "Allied Democratic Forces" (ADF), a wing of the Islamic State, slaughtered 14 men and women in a surprise attack on a village in the Christian nation (96% Christian, 1% Muslim). According to another report, the bodies of those hacked to death "were found bearing signs of torture." Before leaving, the militants had torched the village, destroying the survivors' livelihoods, and had abducted two children. Again, on Oct. 5, the jihadists slaughtered between 10 and 20 Christians, including a pastor, during a raid on another village, which they also torched before leaving. An additional 20 villagers were also reported missing. According to a survivor:
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by Amir Taheri • November 27, 2022 at 4:00 am
The new enrichment program is taking place in the Fordo nuclear center which, built deep underground, is supposed to be immune from possible air strikes. As on the eight previous occasions when this trick was used, Tehran's message is addressed to Western powers, notably the United States: resume the nuclear talks or else! The mullahs played that trick with presidents Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, Barack Obama and Donald Trump. In every case, except that of Trump, the trick worked. At the same time, Foreign Minister Hussein Amir-Abdollahian plays reluctant debutante by claiming that the US "is begging us to resume talks." Over the past two weeks, he has been pestering Omani and Qatari foreign ministers with phone calls demanding they persuade Washington to return to the stalled talks. Last week, Tehran announced that 41 foreign nationals have been seized as hostages and charged with helping the current anti-regime protests across the country. That brings the number of hostages now held by the mullahs to 81, the highest since they seized 52 American diplomats in 1979. Will the trick work again? I am almost certain that, had it not been for the current uprising against the Islamic Republic, the Biden administration would have fallen for the trick with a big smile, if only to save Obama's only legacy while settling scores with Trump. It is not hard to expose Tehran's game as a cheap trick. For years, Tehran, through its lobbyists and useful idiots in Washington, has been selling the story that Khamenei has issued a fatwa banning the production of nuclear weapons under Islamic law. To be sure, no one has ever seen that fatwa except supposedly Obama, who claimed he had some knowledge of it. But if there is such a fatwa and the mullahs don't intend to build a bomb, why would they need to enrich uranium up to 60 percent? The mullahs' game worked for as long as it concerned only themselves and the cynical or lily-livered Western politicians. This time round, however, a third player is in the field: a good chunk of Iranian people who feel they cannot take it anymore. The myth of the Khomeinist despotism as a people-based regime, peddled by characters like Noam Chomsky, has been punctured. Even Bill Clinton is now tweeting support for young Iranians calling for regime change in Tehran.
Iran's ruling mullahs have effectively announced that they intend to speed up uranium enrichment to 90%, which would give them the material needed for producing nuclear weapons. As on the eight previous occasions when this trick was used, Tehran's message is addressed to Western powers, notably the United States: resume the nuclear talks or else! Pictured: The Isfahan uranium enrichment facility in Isfahan, Iran. (Photo by Getty Images)
Like a one-trick pony, Iran's ruling mullahs have played unpredictable so often that they have become predictable in their unpredictability. Facing a nationwide uprising that seems to continue despite massive repression and shaken by the International Atomic Energy Agency's unexpectedly tough stance on the never-ending nuclear dispute, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has ordered fresh use of an old recipe, which has two ingredients. The first ingredient is an announcement that the Islamic Republic has started enriching uranium UF6 up to 60% instead of the 3.67% allowed under the moribund Obama "nuclear deal". This means that the mullahs intend to speed up enrichment to 90%, which would give them the material needed for producing nuclear weapons. The new enrichment program is taking place in the Fordo nuclear center which, built deep underground, is supposed to be immune from possible air strikes.
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by Majid Rafizadeh • November 26, 2022 at 5:00 am
The mullahs are freely expanding their nuclear weapons program, now enriching uranium to nearly weapons-grade level. Iran is also seeking assistance from its ally, Russia, to bolster its nuclear program, according to the US intelligence officials. Iran has been providing attack drones to Russia that are being used in Ukraine and is preparing also to deliver ballistic missiles. As a result, it should not come as a surprise that the Islamic Republic is going to seek something in return from Russia for these weapons deliveries. The regime continues to keep the IAEA's cameras at Iran's nuclear facilities turned off. By doing so, it is effectively preventing the IAEA from monitoring its nuclear activities, including uranium enrichment. Iran's regime also refuses to answer the IAEA's questions about uranium particles found at three of its undeclared nuclear sites. To what lengths will the Biden administration go to protect Iran's mullahs, allow them to crush anti-regime protestors, and collude with Russia to help Iran acquire nuclear weapons capability?
Iran's mullahs are freely expanding their nuclear weapons program, now enriching uranium to nearly weapons-grade level. Iran is also seeking assistance from its ally, Russia, to bolster its nuclear program, according to the US intelligence officials. (Image source: iStock)
It has been nearly a year since nuclear negotiations with Iran stalled; since then, the Biden administration appears to be sitting idly by watching the ruling mullahs advance their nuclear weapons program. The mullahs are freely expanding it, now enriching uranium to nearly weapons-grade level. Iran is also seeking assistance from its ally, Russia, to bolster its nuclear program, according to the US intelligence officials. Kamal Kharrazi, Iran's former foreign minister, pointed to Iran's major advances in an interview to Al Jazeera: "It's no secret that we have become a quasi-nuclear state. This is a fact. And it's no secret that we have the technical means to produce a nuclear bomb... In the past, and within just a few days, we were able to enrich uranium up to 60%, and we can easily produce 90% enriched uranium."
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by Cynthia Farahat • November 25, 2022 at 8:00 am
Bahgat Saber, a member of the Muslim Brotherhood, operates from his New York apartment and often streams live videos from Times Square. During his multi-hour videos, Saber routinely incites terrorism, assassinations, kidnapping and torture in an extremely graphic manner. The calls for violence in his videos are viewed by millions of people across the world. In October, when Saber called for bloodshed, he broadcast a code used by al-Qaeda to activate their cells for open warfare... this time, he specified targeting opponents of the Muslim Brotherhood's Islamist project anywhere in the world. When fatwas -- religious opinions or edicts -- entail orders for assassination, they are called "blood fatwas." Basically, they are contract killings masquerading as religious pronouncements. Akram Kassab, a New York City-based Muslim Brotherhood theologian and member of the Muslim Brotherhood's International Union of Muslim Scholars — designated by the UAE as a terror group — issued an assassination fatwa from a Muslim Brotherhood television channel, Al-Ann, on May 18, 2015. Ahmed Abdel-Basit Mohamed, also known as "Basit," was sentenced to death in Egypt for his role in deadly terrorist attacks there. He now lives freely in the US. Basit confirmed the Egyptian government's accusations when he publicly bragged about his involvement in a terrorist attack in Egypt in which 506 people were wounded or killed. According to Basit's LinkedIn profile, he is currently an Adjunct Professor of Astronomy at Manhattan College. The Muslim Brotherhood is directly connected to al-Qaeda and other terrorist groups. Muslim Brotherhood members such as Saber and Basit operate inside the US and openly support jihad. The US withdrawal from Afghanistan turned that country into a transnational jihadist training camp under the oversight of the Muslim Brotherhood-affiliated regime in Qatar, now hiding behind the US airbase there while acting against America's interests. How long will the US continue to ignore its self-declared enemies who, while enjoying the hospitality of the US, plot to destroy her?
In videos posted to YouTube and social media, Bahgat Saber, a Muslim Brotherhood propagandist based in New York City, routinely incites terrorism, assassinations, kidnapping and torture in an extremely graphic manner. The calls for violence in his videos are viewed by millions of people across the world. (Image source: MEMRI) A Muslim Brotherhood propagandist based in New York City has called for jihad both in the United States and internationally. Bahgat Saber, a member of the Muslim Brotherhood, operates from his New York apartment and often streams live videos from Times Square. During his multi-hour videos, Saber routinely incites terrorism, assassinations, kidnapping and torture in an extremely graphic manner. The calls for violence in his videos are viewed by millions of people across the world. In October, when Saber called for bloodshed, he used a code-phrase employed by al-Qaeda to activate their terrorist cells for open warfare. In a video titled, "Ride, O horses of Allah." Saber started his video with, "We are working in the upcoming phase on Ride, O horses of Allah" — which is al-Qaeda's call for activating terrorism.
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by Lawrence Kadish • November 24, 2022 at 8:00 am
Our election integrity is under assault, as is our Constitution. We have lost confidence in our rulers. We have lost confidence in how we elect our rulers. (Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images)
"Tsekung asked about government and Confucius replied: 'People must have sufficient to eat; there must be a sufficient army; and there must be confidence of people in the ruler.' 'If you are forced to give up one of these three objectives, what would you go without first,' asked Tsekung. Confucius said, ' I would go without the army first.' 'And if you were forced to go without one of the two remaining factors, what would you rather go without,' asked Tsekung again. 'I would rather go without sufficient food for the people.... [A] nation cannot exist without confidence in its ruler.'"
— From The Wisdom of China and India by Lin Yutang.
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by Alan M. Dershowitz • November 24, 2022 at 5:00 am
It was a strange mixed verdict because those she was acquitted of defrauding needed more protection from the law than those she was convicted of defrauding. This is not to deny that even these financial gamblers are entitled to legal protection against fraud, despite the well-known caution of caveat emptor. It is to question the proportionality of a double-digit sentence in the face of the acquittal on the far more serious charge. A wealthy investor who loses a million dollars, representing one percent of his net worth, has lost less than a middle-class investor who loses $100,000, representing half of his assets. Yet the sentencing guidelines undervalue these realities. The irony is that Holmes might well have gotten a shorter sentence if she had been convicted only of the more serious crimes.... The guidelines give far too much weight to the quantity of financial losses, and too little to the qualitative realities of the risky investment world.
Former Theranos CEO Elizabeth Holmes arrives at federal court on October 17, 2022 in San Jose, California. (Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)
Elizabeth Holmes, the Silicon Valley wonderkid who founded and ran Theranos, the blood testing company, was sentenced last week to 11 years in prison. A jury acquitted her of the most serious charges related to defrauding government and military officials regarding the use of the Theranos device by soldiers. But it convicted her of defrauding highly sophisticated, experienced and mega-wealthy investors.
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November 24, 2022 at 4:00 am
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