Iran... rejoined the global financial system with full legitimacy -- plus billions of dollars flowing into the treasury of the IRGC and its expanding militias across the Middle East. You would think, then, that the regime would be delighted to return to the same nuclear deal, right? Wrong. The mullahs want an even sweeter deal.

Biden already showed his cards by stating that he wants the deal. The regime now knows that Biden seems desperate for a deal, and doubtless sees this as a delectable weakness.

The ruling mullahs also most likely assume that they can extort even more concessions from a Democrat administration, particularly Biden's, because they successfully did so in the past....

Iran's Foreign Minister Javad Zarif... told a forum... that he wants a new deal. "A sign of good faith is not to try to renegotiate what has already been negotiated," he said, adding in the same speech that the US must "Compensate us for our losses." Iran's top judicial body had already demanded that the US pay $130 billion in "damages."

The regime, in addition, is playing another dangerous game, as it did with the Obama administration, to program to extort greater concessions from the Biden administration: It is ratcheting up nuclear threats.

While one looks with alarm at the massive Russian nuclear modernization effort now nearing completion, the disarmament lobby -- such as Ploughshares and Global Zero -- views such modernization as simply a reflection of how the American threat is perceived by the Russians.

There is also little doubt that the Russian Federation's priority investment in nuclear weapons was -- and remains -- aimed primarily to checkmate the United States' conventional weapons superiority, and give Russia a free hand to use its own military power for hegemonic purposes. The same could be said of North Korea and Iran's decisions to go along their respective paths to nuclear breakout.

What brings the issue to the forefront today is that many luminaries of previous administrations who may now be staffing the incoming administration still hold these historically inaccurate views.

A commitment to a "sole-purpose" posture -- or to its equivalent, a "no-first-use" stance -- not only undermines the US nuclear umbrella upon which America's allies have relied for 70 years, it also invites a Russian first strike. Moscow's conventional and nuclear forces are configured for just that kind of operation and are ultimately restrained only by the American nuclear deterrent.

If the United States wrongly assumes that Russia's deterrent serves no offensive purpose, we would be ignoring recent and authoritative evidence to the contrary.... Russia's military posture is fundamentally offensive.... "active defense."

Russia's ability to initiate conventional strikes against its rivals and adversaries is closely backed up by nuclear weapons.

Iran would undoubtedly see even partial unilateral US disarmament as a green light for its nuclear quest. One can imagine what that would lead to in the Middle East.

Moreover, US unilateral acts of altruism, designed to lead by example, will not be reciprocated: states in general, and certainly Russia and China, are, to quote Charles De Gaulle, "cold monsters."

Doctors are warning that as the virus becomes more infectious, even a trip to the supermarket with a mask is risky.

Vaccine supply is not the problem.... The problem is that state and local authorities are bungling vaccine distribution.

Every evening, Governor Andrew Cuomo sends out an e-mail blast blaming the vaccine chaos in New York on inadequate supply from the federal government. It is a lie. Data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention show New York is delivering only 37% of its vaccine supply into people's arms.

All this is proof that the states are failing miserably. It is time for a federal emergency mass vaccination program staged at malls, arenas and other public sites.

On Friday, President-elect Joe Biden announced his plan to improve vaccination rates. It is modest. He promised 100 million shots in the first hundred days of his term. That will not do the job. It is barely half of what is needed.

For the last week, members of Congress did not see fit to spend even one minute tackling the life-threatening virus terrorizing the rest of us.

The "extreme persecution" that Christians experience in 10 of the absolute 12 worst nations comes from "Islamic oppression" or is occurring in Muslim majority nations. These include: Afghanistan (#2), Somalia (#3), Libya (#4), Pakistan (#5), Yemen (#7), Iran (#8), Nigeria (#9), Iraq (#11), and Syria (#12).

"80% of Indian Christians helped by Open Doors say they were passed over for food distribution during the COVID-19 pandemic." — Open Doors, World Watch List.

Considering that for the first time in over a decade, China has made it among the top 20 persecutors in the Open Doors World Watch List — up to #17 from #23 last year — this does not bode well for Christians, who are already "intensely monitored by the state."

Similarly, in Turkey, which rose to #25 from #36 last year, every citizen's "religious affiliation is recorded on the electronic chip of identity cards, making it easy to discriminate against Christians." — Open Doors, World Watch List.

"More Christians are murdered for their faith in Nigeria than in any other country." — Open Doors, World Watch List.

But, what if all the talk about "end of America and "death of the American dream" is based on partial or even total misreading and mis-description of the mini-riot in Washington?

What happened, however, seems to have been less dramatic than what the hate-America had wished.

However, for reasons not yet known, most of the over 2,200 members of the Capitol Police were told to stay home for the day.

The best way to probe that is for the Capitol Police to demand that the District Attorney in DC opens an inquest, collects evidence, hears witnesses....

In other words, American democracy is alive and well, with robust institutions capable of dealing with any political crisis within a constitutional framework.

"If foreign audiences know that a piece of information comes from an official Chinese media source, they are likely to interpret it as 'propaganda' rather than 'news,'" wrote China expert Anne-Marie Brady in 2015...

Fortunately for the CCP, China could rely on large segments of mainstream US media to help it....

The CCP evidently knew the West well enough to calculate that framing the debate [on the coronavirus] in terms of racism would be a highly successful strategy that would play into the divisive issue of identity politics in the US and Europe.

The CCP could not have done it, however, without the media's lack of critical judgment of China's behavior, as well as the media's utter lack of interest in the CCP's quest for global domination and, according to FBI Director Christopher Wray, its willingness to achieve it "by any means necessary."

The Lebanese are worried that their country will meet the fate endured by Iraq, Syria and Yemen, where the Iranians and their militia proxies are playing a major role in the civil wars currently plaguing these countries.

The Lebanese are demanding an end to Iranian occupation of their country; they are clearly hoping that the international community will intervene to assist them in freeing Lebanon from Iran's control.

A policy of appeasement or engagement with the mullahs will yield only one thing: blood running even more freely in the streets of Lebanon, Yemen, Syria and Iraq -- as well as nuclear weapons.

Even if the deal negotiated in 2015 by the Obama administration were worth the effort, it is impossible to imagine the Iranians willingly recommitting to enrichment levels they have long since blown past. No one believes in their professed "peaceful use" of nuclear energy. So why does a return to the deal make any sense?

The killing of top terror-funding IRGC official Qasem Soleimani by the US military and Iran's relatively toothless retaliatory attack against two US bases in Iraq suggest that the regime fears what an escalation of tensions would mean to its own future more than it desires to stab at the "Great Satan." The regime may finally be on the verge of collapse.

Those sanctions are the only leverage the U.S. really has against Iran, and they may finally succeed, much as the Reagan administration was able to do to the USSR in the 1980s. Now is not the time to reduce or remove them in exchange for paper promises born of a campaign slogan, from a regime whose movements suggest it fears its days are numbered.

Through covert operations, hidden diplomacy, an intense military buildup, and a series of actions designed to throw sand in the gears of the Soviet economy, American policy destroyed the USSR from its fingertips to its heart. Former Soviet leaders including Mikhail Gorbachev have admitted it with grudging admiration. The only ones who were wrong were those in the liberal foreign policy establishment who pretended it was all just a coincidence.

[I]t was Erdogan who in October called Jerusalem a Turkish city. Referring to the Ottoman occupation of Jerusalem (1517-1917), Erdogan said: "It is still possible to encounter traces of the Ottoman resistance in this city that we had to leave in tears during the First World War. In other words, Jerusalem is our city, it is a city from us."

Apparently, the Erdogan regime is hoping to expand trade with Israel and further gain diplomatic support in international matters. At the same time, instead of genuinely trying to fight anti-Semitism and other forms of racism in Turkish society through education and other means, the Erdogan regime has been indoctrinating its supporters with Jew-hatred and actively supporting Hamas terrorists.

There is a concerted effort to tar every Trump supporter with the brush of Capitol mob protester. That is a lie. It is deliberate and malicious. It is a plan to intimidate and silence.

Facebook is purging all content referencing "stop the steal" — although there is ample evidence of voting irregularities and cause for election reform. Twitter is suspending and expelling hundreds of thousands of users. President Trump is among them. Supreme Leader of Iran, Ayatollah Ali Hosseini Khamenei, who leads public cheers of "Death to America!", is not.

Trump gave a speech stating: "if you don't fight like hell you're not going to have a country anymore." That remark is supposed to qualify as "incitement to insurrection." What a pathetic, transparent lie! Think of the number of times innumerable politicians have invoked "fight" to express encouragement for active public policy engagement. We "fight" for healthcare, justice, human rights, entitlements, civil rights — even peace.

The criminality of Hillary's outlaw email server, the phony Russia Hoax, the fake Ukraine Impeachment, FISA Warrant abuse, the politically contaminated and compromised FBI — that all gets a "pass" — but Trump telling supporters to fight for their country — THAT is impeachable?

Biden did not win in a landslide. Many feel disenfranchised.

What, however, about Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei who constantly tweets anti-Semitic and incendiary tweets and whose regime the US Department of State called "the world's worst sponsor of terrorism"? Khamenei, in fact, has become so emboldened on Twitter that, on it, he publicly calls for annihilation of Israel and denies Holocaust.

According to Twitter's "Violent organizations policy": "There is no place on Twitter for violent organizations, including terrorist organizations, violent extremist groups, or individuals who affiliate with and promote their illicit activities... Our assessments under this policy are informed by national and international terrorism designations..."

More shocking, in November 9, 2014 Khamenei posted a tweet laying out how to annihilate Israel "Why should & how can #Israel be eliminated? Ayatollah Khamenei's answer to 9 key questions. #HandsOffAlAqsa". Khamenei actually posted a screen shot exactly detailing the process to destroy Israel. These tweets are still up.

"I kid you not! At a Knesset hearing on Antisemitism, @Twitter rep tells me they flag @realDonaldTrump because it serves 'public conversation', but not Iran's @khamenei_ir call for GENOCIDE, which passes for acceptable 'commentary on political issues of the day'" — Human rights lawyer Arsen Ostrovsky, July 29, 2020.

The same negative policy [by the press and many purported human rights groups] extends to other major benefits that Israel has brought to the world, including scientific innovation, medical technology and life-saving intelligence. It goes against editorial agendas to report on the Jewish state in a positive light unless they can somehow twist a good story to turn it bad.

Under the Oslo Accords between Israel and the Palestinians in the 1990s, which created the Palestinian Authority (PA), it alone and not Israel, is responsible for their health care, including vaccinations. Nearly 150 UN members recognise "Palestine" as a state, yet these media and human rights bodies, displaying deplorably predictable bias, cannot bring themselves to allow it agency.

Contradicting allegations of a racist or "apartheid" policy, Israel has been vaccinating its Arab citizens since the programme began. Given some reluctance to be vaccinated among these communities, the Israeli government, in conjunction with Arab community leaders, have been making concerted efforts to encourage them, including a visit by Prime Minister Netanyahu to two Arab towns in the last few days for this purpose.

The same approach can be seen over the Abraham Accords of 2020, historic achievements in a hitherto elusive peace between Israel and the Arabs. These have often been received with callous cynicism in the media as well as among veteran peace processors, whose own prescriptions have repeatedly failed.

[Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu is the driving force behind the Abraham Accords, whose origins date back to his speech to a joint session of Congress in 2015, when he made a stand against Iran's nuclear ambitions. Netanyahu's solitary stance was seized on by Arab leaders, who began to realise they had common cause with the State of Israel, which could lead to a brighter future for them than one encumbered with unnecessary animosity.

[M]uch of the world is organizing to roadblock China's march to dominance in 5G telecommunications. That is, to get China's spying out of our system – although we are far from done, there is a lot of 2020 to build on in 2021.

Early in 2020, Huawei announced it had 91 commercial 5G contracts outside of China, including 47 in Europe and 20 in Asia.

China's goal was threefold: to broaden its capabilities in domestic spying, to broaden its worldwide ability to steal Western technology -- and, in particular, to infiltrate Western defense capabilities

Beijing inserted itself, often illegally, into American research institutions. And inserted spyware – hardware and software – into computers made in China and exported to the West. In the case of Super Micro Computers, providing services to Amazon, investigators discovered that extra microchips were implanted on boards in Chinese factories by operatives of the People's Liberation Army.

As the year ended, 26 of 27 EU member countries had joined the Clean Network initiative, along with 180 telecom companies and such important tech players as Israel, Japan, Australia, Singapore, Canada, New Zealand, India – and Taiwan, which is building a 5 nanometer chip production facility in Arizona. Partners in South America include Brazil, Ecuador, and the Dominican Republic.

Some pundits and Senators have suggested that a former President can be impeached and tried as a private citizen. I don't know if they think this applies to all former presidents, including Clinton, Carter, Bush and Obama, or whether it is applicable only to a president who has just recently left office. But either way, they are simply wrong as a matter of the Constitutional text and meaning.

The relevant text of the Constitution reads as follows: "The President, Vice President and all civil officers of the United States, shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors." (Article II, Section 4)

The Framers of the Constitution debated impeachment extensively. It is clear that they intended it to apply only to sitting presidents and other office holders and not to private citizens who previously held that office.

The Framers did, however, regard impeachment and trial as part of one single process, culminating in removal from office. And so, if removal from office is no longer a possibility, it would seem that Congress would have no jurisdiction to impeach.

What they want to do is to impeach President Trump without giving him an opportunity to defend himself at a Senate trial. This would be analogous to a prosecutor deciding to indict someone and then deny him a trial at which he could disprove his guilt or prove his innocence. That would be a core denial of due process, as would impeaching a president based on a majority of the House while denying him a trial in the Senate that requires a two-thirds super majority to remove.

There is eager anticipation among many of Washington's foes that Mr Biden's inauguration will result in the new president adopting a less confrontational tone with the outside world than his predecessor.

China's communist rulers, for example, are hopeful that Mr Biden will engage in the kind of meaningless trade deals so beloved of his Democratic predecessor, Barack Obama. These are the trade deals where Washington agrees to improve trade ties with Beijing on the understanding that China addresses the unfair trading relationship between the two countries, knowing full well that China's communist rulers have absolutely no intention of fulfilling their end of the bargain.

Before making any move that he may later regret, Mr Biden needs to think long and hard about the likely implications of trying to improve relations with Tehran.

As Iran has demonstrated consistently since signing the 2015 nuclear deal with the Obama administration, Tehran's primary objective is to become the dominant power in the Middle East -- not to live in peaceful coexistence with other nations in the region.