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February 2021

Did Biden Pick Garland As AG To Wreak Revenge On Trump, GOP?

https://issuesinsights.com/2021/02/23/did-biden-pick-garland-as-ag-to-wreak-revenge-on-trump-gop/

Plainly, he’s no constitutionalist. He’s a political pragmatist, who tailors his constitutional views to the current political taste.

President Biden is now two-for-two in making awful selections for his Cabinet. The first was naming entirely unqualified far-left activist Neera Tanden to be director of the Office of Management and Budget. The second is his selection of appeals court judge Merrick Garland to be attorney general.

For those who don’t recall, Garland was nominated in March 2016 for a seat on the Supreme Court. The Obama administration sold him through the mainstream media as a potential court “moderate,” the best the Republicans could hope for.

Despite nonstop media pressure, Senate Republicans held fast, dragging their feet on confirmation hearings for Garland in the hopes (then seen by most political pundits as highly unlikely, if not impossible) that a Republican president would succeed Obama.

But, mirabile dictu, Donald Trump defied expectations and won the presidency. Consequently, not only did the country escape Garland, three new conservative justices — Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett — are now on the nation’s highest court, thanks to Trump.

Obama Working Like The Devil To Steal The Next Election By Judi McLeod

https://canadafreepress.com/article/obama-working-like-the-devil-to-steal-the-next-

A clear and present danger on the road ahead to Election 2022 and beyond—totally ignored by the media.

What has “Resistance” leader former President Barack Obama been doing since the questionable outcome of the Nov. 3, 2020 election?

Working like the devil to control the outcome of the very next election!

Teaming up with old pal Eric Holder, former Attorney General of the U.S. in his administration, Obama wants to ban all Republicans from election—even before running—through a well-funded manipulation of the redistricting process.

Obama and Holder call the process “filibustering” and “gerrymandering”

Obama and Holder call the process “filibustering” and “gerrymandering”, with Obama once again playing the race card by calling it “another Jim Crow relic” that is preventing progress on voting rights.

This from the leaders of a Party who shows no shame or regret for denying the votes of some 74 million Americans who voted for President Donald Trump in the questionable 2020 Election!

Deceitful Democrats—always more than ready to take Republicans by surprise— through their support group the National Redistricting Action Fund (NDRC) are already working in 15 states to “demand fair maps – and an end to gerrymandering—during 2021 redistricting”.

Environmentalism, Trumpism, and the Working Class by William Murray

https://quillette.com/2021/02/20/environmentalism-trumpism-and-the-working-class/

The inauguration of President Biden as the 46th US President hasn’t produced quite the catharsis that Democrats (and others) had hoped for. After only a few months of one-party rule in Washington, DC—and the sputtering finale of impeachment—there should be fear among Democrats that attention will return to the signs of real damage done to the progressive/liberal project in the wake of its collision with the Trump train.

The shifting of both American political parties into one another’s former political spaces has been head-spinning. The trend of Republicans turning into the party of labor and Democrats becoming a party of capital looks to continue in the 2020s—something few people outside of Pat Buchanan and Ross Perot would have guessed 30 years ago. And it turns out that the promise of a Democrat-voting bloc made up of well-educated whites, blacks, and the growing Hispanic population delivering a decades-long progressive era in American politics is not coming to pass.

For nearly 20 years, this promised “coalition of the ascendant” has coalesced but failed to ascend. In 2009, with the inauguration of Barack Obama, Democrats in the House of Representatives controlled 256 seats and 58 seats in the Senate. In 2021, Democrats under Biden/Harris hold 221 seats in the House, while the Senate is split 50/50.

To be fair, a major caveat to the “coalition” argument involved keeping white working-class voters in the Democrat column while the promised growing populations of Hispanic and urban singleton voters delivered on its demographic determinism. Instead, the raw numbers from the 2020 general election suggest that Trump’s class rhetoric captured parts of the working classes that the Democratic Party had previously thought were untouchable.

So, what changed in America’s politics that would cause working class Hispanics and black voters to move toward Trump?

Biden is set to repeat Obama’s Mideast failures — and wipe out US influence Dominic Green

https://nypost.com/2021/02/21/biden-is-set-to-repeat-obamas-mideast-failures/

Every now and then, America mislays one of its Mideast allies. “Who lost Iran?” they asked in 1979, as the shah’s regime went sideways, the answer being Jimmy Carter and the State Department. “Who lost Egypt?” they asked in 2012, as the Muslim Brotherhood took power, the answer being Barack Obama and the State Department.

“Who lost Israel?” will soon be added to this perplexed ­refrain. The answer will be President Biden and the State Department.

But this time, America will be losing the region as a whole — to its historic rival, Russia. Iranian mischief will wax again, and Washington’s Arab and ­Israeli allies will move on without anyone losing much sleep over what the White House thinks about anything. This is a deliberate strategic choice, and it will lead to the collapse of American ­influence in western Asia.

Team Biden appears bent on reviving the Iran deal at all costs. The costs include completing the Democrats’ turn away from the Jewish state and thoroughly alienating America’s Sunni-Arab clients. In reviving the nuclear deal, moreover, Washington will repeat a failed experiment in the hope of different results.

The Iranian regime won’t ­accept a tougher deal than the 2015 accord, and the Biden ­administration is Obama 3.0: The same team looks to rehabilitate its reputation, not to secure the ­national interest. The Obama-Bidenites will accept any humiliation from Tehran and call it a diplomatic breakthrough.

The Polar Bear Paradox As climate moves to the center of the world stage, activists will lose influence over policy. By Walter Russell Mead

https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-polar-bear-paradox-11614035542?mod=opinion_lead_pos10

President Biden laid down a climate marker in his inaugural address: “A cry for survival comes from the planet itself. A cry that can’t be any more desperate or any more clear.” He returned to the theme in his speech last week to the Munich Security Conference, calling the climate crisis “existential.”

For environmentalists, those are welcome words. The Trump years saw the U.S. leave the Paris Agreement while pursuing aggressive deregulation at home. Climate change is now back on the national agenda.

There are two mistakes observers can make about this new era of climate diplomacy. The first is to think it won’t last or will be limited to rhetoric. Climate skeptics and fossil-fuel interests should brace themselves. The fight to reduce global greenhouse-gas emissions and to shift the world’s energy systems toward much lower emissions isn’t going away. Key positions up and down the government bureaucracy will be filled by committed greens who have thought long and hard about how to use the powers of the regulatory state to achieve green goals. A host of new policies—and new regulations—are sure to come.

Those who dismiss ideas like the “green new deal” as mere left-wing fantasies miss the enormous appeal of these programs for corporations looking for new business opportunities. It isn’t only renewable energy companies looking for government mandates and funding. It’s major auto manufacturers dreaming of replacing every gasoline-powered car and truck on the planet with an electric vehicle—and reaping the public-relations reward of looking virtuous. It’s construction companies looking to replace the existing energy infrastructure.

The Woke ‘Model Minority’ Myth For progressives, Asian-American achievement is an embarrassment. By William McGurn

https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-woke-model-minority-myth-11614035596?mod=opinion_lead_pos8

The North Thurston Public Schools in Lacey, Wash., made headlines in November when their “equity report” classified Asian-Americans along with whites instead of as “students of color.” Apparently the Asian-Americans were doing too well academically to be students of color. After what the district said was “an overwhelming public response,” it admitted its “category choices” had “racist implications” and dropped the equity report from its website.

To normal Americans, it makes no sense. How are Asian-Americans not “people of color”? But give the North Thurston folks credit for following progressive logic to its conclusion. Modern progressive theory more or less divides the nation between the oppressors, defined as whites, and the oppressed, defined as everyone else. In this framework, achieving success puts you on the side of the oppressors and thus makes you white or “white-adjacent”—even if your family came from China or India.

Calling it progressive to send children of color the message that achievement is white is an irony lost on the woke. Bigoted laws such as the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 or actions such as the internment of Japanese-Americans during World War II were once thought among the worst stains on American history left by anti-Asian racism. But these days the characterization of Asian-Americans as the “model minority” triggers the woke.

Migrants and the Threat to Women’s Rights in Europe The lack of frank debate feeds Islamists and the far right, who would impose illiberal solutions.By Ayaan Hirsi Ali

https://www.wsj.com/articles/migrants-and-the-threat-to-womens-rights-in-europe-11614017275?mod=opinion_lead_pos6

The European debate on immigration, integration and Islam has intensified. In part this is a response to terrorist attacks, the preaching of radical Islam, and the re-emergence of extreme right-wing and populist parties. But the big, underlying change has been the influx of migrants from the Middle East, Africa and South Asia.

More than 3.7 million people have arrived illegally in Europe since 2009, the majority of whom have applied for asylum. Roughly half arrived in 2015 alone. Two-thirds of the newcomers were male. Around 80% of asylum applicants were under 35. The great majority have come from Muslim-majority countries.

The flow of migrants has abated in the past few years, but large numbers of people still attempt to reach Europe, even during the pandemic. Last year Europe saw more than 336,000 first-time asylum applications and 114,300 illegal entries from January through November.

One consequence has been a change in the position of women in Europe. Many Muslim migrants don’t feel or express contempt for women. But some do—enough to drive a trend.

One shocking event that drew attention to this trend was the wave of sexual assaults on New Year’s Eve 2015-16 in Germany. According to German police, more than 1,200 women were assaulted, of whom 24 said they were raped. The perpetrators often acted in gangs, attacking lone women. Of 153 suspects in the city of Cologne, nearly all were foreign, including 103 from Morocco and Algeria. Sixty-eight were asylum seekers.

Justice Thomas, In a Fiery Dissent, Marks Need for Election Reform By Adele Malpass

https://www.nysun.com/national/justice-thomas-in-a-fiery-dissent-illuminates/91427/

The refusal of the Supreme Court to take up a challenge to Pennsylvania’s last minute changes to its ballot deadlines in the 2020 election was done without explanation by the majority. All the more clear is the case for reforming our national law on Election Day — the need for it to be a single date with results that can be announced after the polls close. It’s not election week, month, or season. It’s Election Day.

In 2020, six states failed to meet this standard. These states unfairly threw the process of counting the electoral college and popular vote into chaos. Forty-four states managed, despite the pandemic. In 1845, Congress enacted the Presidential Election Day Act to establish a “uniform time for holding elections for electors.” It declared that “the Tuesday after the first Monday in November” is the day on which all states must appoint electors.

Since the 1848 election, states have been able to meet this deadline despite the 1918 pandemic, World Wars I and II, and hurricanes. A single election day and prompt reporting is part of the peaceful transfer of power. The idea is that voters should not have to wait days or weeks to hear election results. The longer the vote-counting takes, the more exceptions made during the counting process, the less confidence voters have in the outcome.

This was certainly the case in 2020. And the press was complicit in the disruption by refusing to call election results due to the “red mirage.” This was an idea first pushed by a Democratic consulting firm funded by Mayor Bloomberg saying that on election night it was highly likely that President Trump would appear to have won in a landslide, but would ultimately lose when all the mail-in ballots were counted over the next week.