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September 2021

Post-Merkel Germany’s Race for the Center Regardless of who wins, Sunday’s election will deliver a coalition that governs by consensus. By Josef Joffe

https://www.wsj.com/articles/merkel-germany-federal-parliamentary-election-race-coalition-scholz-11632426273?mod=opinion_lead_pos7

Who will replace Germany’s eternal chancellor, Angela Merkel, in Sunday’s election? None of the six parties in the Bundestag will capture a majority, and so it will be on to Act II: coalition-building, which may take weeks, even months. But it hardly matters whom the Parliament finally anoints. The voters will have affirmed tepid centrism.

That isn’t the Germany of the 20th century. “Centrists” the Kaiser and Führer were not; they wanted to fuse Europe into a German fiefdom. Such types are ancient history.

Germany’s new players are essentially unknown in the U.S. Leading in the polls is the Social Democrat Olaf Scholz. Behind him trots Armin Laschet, the equally uninspiring candidate of Ms. Merkel’s Christian Democrats. He is trailed by the youngish Annalena Baerbock of the semi-left Greens and Christian Lindner of the Free Democrats. Mr. Lindner, an old-style liberal, speaks for them all: “We secure the country’s center.”

Each candidate could win a place at the cabinet table. Whatever the winner’s political coloration, the government will be gray. That is a blessing—or curse—of multiparty government. Two-party systems like America’s and Britain’s tend to polarize. Coalitions of the many gravitate toward the middle; otherwise the parties couldn’t govern together.

Turkey: NATO’s Pro-Russian, Taliban-Friendly Ally by Burak Bekdil

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/17763/turkey-nato-russia-taliban

Around the Taliban, and in a bizarre combination of convergence of interests and ideological kinship, a new anti-Western circle is evolving, including a willing NATO member state…. anti-Western sentiments are bringing together these regional powers, who are now courting Afghanistan’s radical rulers.

The hard lesson learned from relying on an “ally” for critical production, then needing to reshore that capability as politics change, ultimately will cost U.S. taxpayers between $500 million and $600 million in nonrecurring engineering costs, according to Ellen Lord, the previous Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition.

U.S. President Joe Biden’s Afghan drama will spur a number of anti-Western alliances based on different anti-Western calculations. Proof? Just look at the names of the countries on Taliban’s invitation list for its birthday party.

The Taliban, since its founding in 1994, has been using the most notorious shariah-based law enforcement, including beheadings, stoning women to death, forcing burqas on women, killing girls who are students, gang-raping, locking women in their homes and various other medieval practices. Now, for the first time in NATO’s history, a member nation’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, has said that the Taliban’s interpretation of Islam does not contradict Turkey’s.

A love affair with Islam, in fact, seems to be blossoming. At the end of August, the Taliban asked Turkey for technical support to run Kabul’s airport. Pro-Hamas, Islamist allies Turkey and Qatar have since been discussing with the Taliban conditions for reopening the Hamid Karzai Airport; only the security issue of technicians, private companies and security staff who will be running the airport remains a concern. On September 2, Turkey said it was evaluating proposals from the Taliban and others for the safe operation of Kabul’s airport after the radical group’s return to power in Afghanistan.

“We have held our first talks with the Taliban, which lasted three and a half hours,” Erdoğan told reporters August 27. “If necessary, we will have the opportunity to hold such talks again.”

Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu also mentioned on September 6 that Turkey was in “direct talks” with the Taliban concerning the future of Afghanistan. “After all,” the minister said, “It would be wrong for Turkey to completely pull out of Afghanistan.”

The Moral Perverseness of Democrats’ Foreign Policy Priorities Unapologetic anti-Semites and anti-American zealots, sadly, are now steering one of America’s two leading political parties. By Josh Hammer

https://amgreatness.com/2021/09/23/the-moral-perverseness-of-democrats-foreign-policy-priorities/

Few areas of public policy lend themselves less easily to big-picture doctrinal sorting and various “-ism” labeling than does foreign policy. That is perhaps now truer than ever, as America’s two major political parties continue their already ascendant realignment, with Democrats abandoning their working-class roots in favor of a professional-managerial ruling class and Republicans ditching the libertarian-inspired corporatism of yesteryear in favor of a “deplorable”-inspired populism. Foreign policy is an inherently nuanced subject, and speaking in broad strokes about it during a once-in-a-generation political realignment can risk analytical error.

Those caveats aside, we should still feel comfortable making what may, at least superficially, seem like precisely such an overly broad statement: The Democratic Party’s mainstream foreign policy priorities, in 2021, are completely morally perverse. That moral inversion simply cannot be overstated; the events of this week help underscore why.

On Tuesday, during the Jewish holiday of Sukkot, when religious Jews were offline, House Democratic leadership caved to the outspoken, anti-America, anti-Israel U.S. Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez-led “squad” and stripped about $1 billion for funding for Israel’s Iron Dome missile defense system that was included in a must-pass continuing resolution. House Democratic leadership did so due to the staunch opposition of funding Iron Dome by the likes of Ocasio-Cortez, Representative Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.), and Representative Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.)

Democratic leadership initially claimed the Iron Dome funding will reappear in a later defense budget bill a few months from now but, perhaps realizing the subpar optics of refusing to fund Iron Dome to the tune of $1 billion in a massive CR that included $28.6 billion in disaster aid, introduced late on Wednesday a standalone bill to fully fund Iron Dome. But the fact that House leadership was forced to resort to such a gambit is itself telling. Steny Hoyer may be the House Democrats’ majority leader, but the House Democrats’ real leader is now crystal-clear: Ocasio-Cortez. The Hamas Caucus has struck again.

An American Horror Story Thomas Caldwell’s is just one of several stories of American patriots living the nightmare of being American political prisoners.  By Julie Kelly

https://amgreatness.com/2021/09/23/an-american-horror-story/

Thomas Caldwell’s wife awakened him in a panic at 5:30 a.m. on January 19.

“The FBI is at the door and I’m not kidding,” Sharon Caldwell told her husband.

Caldwell, 66, clad only in his underwear, went to see what was happening outside his Virginia farm. “There was a full SWAT team, armored vehicles with a battering ram, and people screaming at me,” Caldwell told me during a lengthy phone interview on September 21. “People who looked like stormtroopers were pointing M4 weapons at me, covering me with red [laser] dots.”

Agents demanded that Caldwell, a former lieutenant commander in the U.S. Navy who suffers from debilitating service-related spinal injuries, come outside and lay down in the grass.

“Someone grabbed my legs and dragged me through the grass. They threw me face down on the hood of the car, kicked my legs apart, put a chain around my waist and put me in handcuffs.” Caldwell said he looked up to see Sharon, his wife of 22 years, dressed in her nightgown holding her hands up with a sock in either hand. She, too, was covered in red dots from the weapons aimed at her. Sharon, 61, begged to put on her socks before they forced her outside in the cold. “I said a prayer, ‘Father, please don’t let them kill my wife,’” Caldwell said through sobs.

Caldwell was forced into the back of a police car for nearly 40 minutes; he asked several times what he was being charged with but FBI agents refused to answer. Eventually, Caldwell was led back toward his house. “I have a [collector] ’63 Thunderbird in my garage as a reminder of my grandfather, a retired Army colonel. An agent kicked one of the doors open and was leaning with his battle gear up against the car, scratching it up.”

Once inside, Caldwell saw that his wife “was still alive.” He was interrogated for at least two hours and realized the raid was tied to his participation in the January 6 protest in Washington, D.C.

Agents read what he called a “version” of his Miranda rights; he consented to the interview without an attorney present. Caldwell told me something I’ve heard repeatedly from January 6 defendants as to why they easily cooperated with the FBI: “I didn’t have anything to hide.”

Roughly 20 agents raided the Caldwell home, taking every electronic device including old computers and hard drives. This included Caldwell’s downloaded copies of cherished pictures. “They took every family photo we have.”

Agents then transported Caldwell to the Central Virginia Regional Jail in Orange, Virginia, two hours from their home. He thought he would be booked and released.

Instead, it was just the start of what he called “an American horror story.”

The Nightmare Begins

Biden, ‘Conman-in-Chief,’ Foists Absurdities on Americans Meanwhile the threats to America and Americans increase. Michael Cutler

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2021/09/biden-conman-chief-foists-absurdities-americans-michael-cutler/

Voltaire was the nom de plume of famed French philosopher François-Marie Arouet. We will begin today by considering the sage advice encapsulated in his quote, “Those who make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities.”

Purveyors of absurdities unmask themselves when their statements are laced with contradictions and demonstrate hypocrisy. Seeking out those examples of hypocrisy and contradictions can serve as an effective “BS detector!”

There is certainly no shortage of absurdities that are spewed by the mainstream media and politicians, but the Biden administration appears hell-bent on foisting record numbers of absurdities on Americans today even as his statements, policies and executive orders undermine national security, public safety, and public health, thereby proving that in reality, Biden’s ‘Build Back Better’ is bunk!

While Biden lambastes Americans who refuse to be vaccinated against the COVID-19 virus and imposes draconian measures to punish them, he continues to encourage a human tsunami of illegal aliens to head for the U.S. borders. Among these hundreds of thousands of illegal aliens are citizens from countries around the world. Many of these aliens are permitted to enter the United States each month and among them are those who have not been vaccinated to protect them (and us) against COVID-19 and, indeed, are stricken with that virus and other dangerous viruses.

Haitian migrants hijack buses, further embarrassing Biden administration By Eric Utter

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2021/09/haitian_migrants_hijack_buses_further_embarrassing_biden_administration.html

Multiple reports say that Haitian migrants, ostensibly in federal custody, have “hijacked” several buses while being transported and forced out their drivers. The incidents, they say, have occurred while migrants have been taken from the camp beneath the Del Rio-Ciudad Acuna International Bridge to processing centers across the region, as well as from the processing centers to local airports for deportation flights, and could cause the U.S. government’s immigration enforcement operations to be halted.

A senior federal law enforcement official recently told the Washington Examiner: “They’ve been basically overpowering the drivers and they’ve actually hijacked a couple of the buses and driven them down the road a little ways and escaped. This happened multiple times.”

The same official added: “They’re moving the detainees, but they’re not shackled — they’re not restrained in any way. Yesterday some detainees kicked a window out and 22 escaped.”

How the hell can migrants who are supposedly in custody hijack buses and essentially take the bus drivers into custody? How feckless, naïve and weak have we become? Is there anything the Biden administration can do competently and with determination? Other than thumbing its collective nose at the Constitution, browbeating American citizens into accepting an unvetted experimental substance into their bodies, and generally taking away the freedoms the Founders bequeathed them?

For the love of God, the Biden administration has accepted — proactively manufactured to be more precise — defeat in Afghanistan. To the Taliban, semi-nomadic goat-herders from the ninth century! It has allowed China to get away with murder. Mass murder, actually. And it is letting China figuratively walk all over us, while appearing to wish to emulate the Chinese Communist Party’s push to completely usurp and obliterate any and all of its citizens’ remaining freedoms.

How bad is it? The United States Army Garrison Japan recently announced that it probably couldn’t even repel a potential incursion by monkeys.

Iron Dome Funding Bill Passes House Despite Vehement Progressive Opposition By Caroline Downey

https://www.nationalreview.com/news/iron-dome-funding-bill-passes-house-despite-vehement-progressive-opposition/

“Eight Democrats and one Republican rejected the Iron Dome supplemental measure, including Representatives Rashida Tlaib, André Carson, Ilhan Omar, Marie Newman, Ayanna Pressley, Jesús García, Raúl Grijalva, Cori Bush, and Thomas Massie, respectively. Massie, the lone Republican to vote against the measure, opposes all foreign aid. The bill now advances to the evenly-divided Senate for a vote.”

Independent legislation that would allocate $1 billion to Israel’s Iron Dome defense system, introduced after House progressives stripped the support from a previous government spending bill, overwhelmingly passed the House on Thursday.

Democratic House Appropriations Committee Chairwoman Rosa DeLauro proposed the stand-alone legislation on Wednesday, eliciting outrage from squad member Representative Rashida Tlaib, who was one of just nine House members to vote “no.”

The progressive congresswoman announced her opposition Thursday, saying she refuses to financially support a “violent apartheid system.”

Democrats Can’t Hide Their Israel Problem By Philip Klein

https://www.nationalreview.com/2021/09/democrats-cant-hide-their-israel-problem/#slide-1

Stripping funding for Iron Dome only makes sense if the goal is to help Hamas become more efficient at killing civilians.

F or the past decade or so, top Democrats have been desperately trying to downplay the increasing size and influence of the anti-Israel wing of the party. But it keeps getting harder to hide what’s happening. This week provided yet another stark reminder when a group of progressives banded together to force House speaker Nancy Pelosi to rip $1 billion for Israel’s Iron Dome missile-defense system out of a spending bill meant to avert a government shutdown. It’s hard to overstate what a radical turn this is for the party.

Iron Dome has been an enormously successful shield that has allowed Israel to protect its people by shooting down rockets that Palestinian terrorist groups indiscriminately fire at civilians. By limiting Israeli casualties, the system also protects Palestinian civilians. That is, were the rocket attacks more deadly, Israel would have no choice but to launch a more aggressive military campaign — and likely a ground invasion in Gaza — which would mean the loss of more lives on both sides.

But the life-saving system comes at a cost. Each time Israel intercepts a rocket, it is estimated to cost between $50,000 and $80,000. When Palestinians pursue a saturation-bombing strategy and fire thousands of rockets all over Israel, as they did in May, the price tag of defending civilians can quickly add up, so the system requires constant funding.

There is of course a principled stand one could take against foreign aid in general, or against sending more money overseas at a time when the U.S. is facing historic debt. But progressives are not making any sort of consistent argument against foreign aid and have zero concern for the national debt. If current plans being pushed by progressives pass, then Democrats will have authorized $6 trillion in new spending within the first year of Joe Biden’s presidency. That’s 6,000 times $1 billion.

Media Test Positive For Corrupt COVID Coverage

https://issuesinsights.com/2021/09/24/media-test-positive-for-corrupt-covid-coverage/

Policymakers and public health officials need to be held accountable for their miserable pandemic failures. So should the media, which have no interest in objective news, and are following an agenda that is both repulsive and poisonous

Among of the media’s favorite stories of the last 18 months are the deaths of the unvaccinated and those who expressed skepticism about the lethality of the Wuhan coronavirus. A recent example is the death of a 40-year-old California woman, who, according to the British Daily Mail, “regularly posted anti-vax, anti-mask content, proclaiming herself a ‘free thinker’ who ‘questions everything.’ ” The mother of four – who also considered herself “unmuzzled” – “had been battling COVID-19 and resulting pneumonia ahead of her passing.”

Tragic as her death was, it would not have been covered by the media had she been vaccinated and cheerfully compliant with lockdown and mask rules. But in the twisted minds of most of today’s journalists, it’s a story that has to be told to boost their vanity. They are our moral superiors.

The glee with which the story is reported is not overt. But like so many others, it was told in a way to lead readers to classify the victim as a backward, anti-science conservative who might even be a Republican and a Trump supporter. It’s part of the left’s agenda to marginalize such people.

Thankfully, there are exceptions to the cruelty. Journalist Zaid Jilani recently told the media to stop shaming those who aren’t perfectly lined up with the left’s pandemic demands and succumb to their coronavirus infections.

“Maybe they were skeptical of vaccines, or masks or something like that, and maybe they got COVID, and they died,” Jilani told Hill.TV. “That’s usually a very sad circumstance, but it’s turned into sort of a celebration, like ‘ha we got the other side!’ ”

“It’s an odd way to think of a virus,” he added.

Scapegoats at the Texas Border The Biden White House blames border agents who are overwhelmed.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/scapegoats-at-the-texas-border-joe-biden-administration-alejandro-mayorkas-11632433558?mod=opinion_lead_pos3

At last the Biden Administration is furious about tumult on the southern border. Not about the surge of migrants, mind you. The White House is using a single episode to scapegoat law enforcement and deflect criticism from its immigration failure.

The flare-up came Monday, when Reuters published footage of mounted Border Patrol agents facing down about 200 Haitian migrants near Del Rio, Texas. The article, and several that followed, mistook the officers’ reins for whips and claimed they’d been wielded against migrants. Democratic Rep. Rashida Tlaib denounced what she called “human rights abuses.”

It was a classic rush to judgment in the age of viral images. Yet the Biden Administration joined the pile-on against its own officers. By Tuesday Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas launched an investigation and took the officers off duty. White House press secretary Jen Psaki called the actions “brutal and inappropriate” and said President Biden was “horrified.”

Perhaps investigators will conclude that the border agents used excessive force. But the Administration looks fixed on a foregone conclusion. “We are addressing this with tremendous speed and tremendous force,” Mr. Mayorkas said Wednesday. His promise that “it will be completed in days not weeks” should prompt skepticism about fairness.