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March 2022

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Canada’s Real Prime Minister? By David Solway

By on March 12th, 2022

https://pjmedia.com/columns/david-solway-2/2022/03/11/canadas-real-prime-minister-n1565874

Canada’s Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland furnishes an interesting case study in an apparently contradictory dynamic of incompetence and competence. As a high-ranking minister, she is clearly incompetent, having, for example, nearly deep-sixed our NAFTA treaty talks with Donald Trump. Her insistence on the inclusion of “progressive” policies, such as gender equality, labor union safeguards, a chapter dedicated to indigenous peoples, and favored environmental standards only ensured that Canada got the short end of the renewed accord. Her attempt to enact Liberal policy was politically inept.

She also exhibits a sentimental tendency to tear up at critical moments. She is famous for walking out of the EU Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement with Canada, fighting back tears—though as former NDP Premier Bob Rae tweeted in Freeland’s patronizing defense, “Crying is not a sign of weakness, it is a natural emotional response to a lot of different situations.” Her valediction to her conference confrères was risible beyond belief. “Canada is disappointed, I am personally very disappointed, I have worked very, very hard. We have decided to go back home. I am very, very sad, really. Tomorrow morning, I will be at home with my three children.” So there!

Being on the verge of tears for not getting her way with a team of alpha males is not how the representative of a G7 nation in the midst of a tough bargaining session is expected to behave. Rather, we are witnessing the hoary cliché of the spoiled little girl whose wishes Daddy has denied, but who will eventually pout her way through any setback. This is Canada’s finance minister.

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Éric Zemmour, the Insiders’ Outsider: Anthony Daniels

By on March 12th, 2022

https://quadrant.org.au/magazine/2022/03/eric-zemmour-the-insiders-outsider/

“The last thing you would expect a French Jew to do is declare Dreyfus guilty and Pétain a saviour. Very well, and thanks for the candour. We now know how far the maverick presidential candidate is prepared to go to establish in voters’ minds his nationalist credentials and his distance from any other identity. If identity politics is the sleep of reason, it certainly brings forth monsters.”

Every politician must, I suppose, have a view of history. The radical tends to see the past as a tale of woe in which improvement, if it has occurred at all, is thanks to such as he, while the conservative tends to see it as a tale of triumph spoiled only by the like of his current opponents. As in one of those drawings beloved of perceptual psychologists, which the viewer can see either as a vase or two candlesticks but not as both, so it is with politicians’ version of history: glory or damnation, but not both.

One of the prominent (and most controversial) candidates in the forthcoming French presidential election, Éric Zemmour (above), is definitely a history-as-triumph man. In part, this might be explained by his background. The son of Jewish Berber immigrants to France not long before Algerian independence, he has gratefully seized the opportunities offered him by the country of his parents’ adoption. He has by application, high intelligence and talent carved out a brilliant career for himself as a patriotic polemicist and broadcaster whose books now sell by the hundreds of thousands. (It may be, of course, that the causative relationship went, and goes, partially in the opposite direction: because he believed in the French Republican model of meritocracy, he was enabled or encouraged to seize whatever opportunities were going.)

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EDUCATION Comments turned off

Princeton Walks Away from Chicago By Ramesh Ponnuru

By on March 12th, 2022

https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/princeton-walks-away-from-chicago/?utm_source=recirc-desktop&utm_medium=homepage&utm_campaign=river&utm_content=featured-content-trending&utm_term=third

In 2015, Princeton University adopted the “University of Chicago principles” on free speech. Edward Yingling and Stuart Taylor Jr. have an article lamenting the way the university has been betraying those principles lately, and in an underhanded way. It has been punishing a professor for expressing his conservative views and then reinterpreting its rules to allow those actions.

For more, see this letter decrying the university’s behavior from the American Council of Trustees and Alumni.

Dear Member of the Board:

The American Council of Trustees and Alumni, now in its 26th year, has
unwaveringly advocated for robust academic freedom and strong
protection of campus freedom of expression. It is for this reason that we
once more bring to your attention and to the attention of the public the
way in which the Princeton administration has violated its own stated
commitment to free speech in the matter of Cotsen Professor in the
Humanities Joshua Katz. At stake is whether Princeton University will
maintain the principles of freedom of expression that it has publicly
announced and celebrated.

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NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

The Chips are Down Kenin M. Spivak A Chinese invasion of Taiwan would crater American tech dominance and military readiness.

By on March 12th, 2022

https://americanmind.org/salvo/the-chips-are-down/

Russia’s nuclear arsenal is the principal reason given by the United States and NATO for refusing to engage Russia directly in Ukraine. Nuclear war also will be a risk if China invades Taiwan.

There are, of course, differences in an analysis of the U.S. response to a potential Chinese invasion of Taiwan. For one, without NATO, the U.S. would largely face China on its own. Also, China has a stronger claim on Taiwan than Russia does on Ukraine. On the other hand, much more importantly to the United States, Taiwan is the world’s principal fabricator of semiconductor chips. Semiconductors are the new oil. Whoever controls semiconductors can control the world.

According to the Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA), although the U.S. is the world’s leader in headquarters for companies generating semiconductor demand (33 percent) and for end users (25 percent), the U.S. manufactures just 19 percent of all chips, while mainland China supplies 35 percent and Taiwan 15 percent. If China invades Taiwan, 50 percent of the world’s chip production will be controlled by China.

Taiwan may manufacture only 15 percent of all chips, but it manufactures 92 percent of the world’s advanced chips. All advanced chips not made in Taiwan are manufactured in South Korea; none are produced in the United States or Europe. If China were to invade Taiwan, the U.S. and the world could lose access to almost all leading-edge chips, almost two-thirds of more-mature microprocessors, and half of all dynamic random-access memory (DRAM) chips.

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ISRAEL Comments turned off

The left’s war on Israel is coming into the open By Andrea Widburg

By on March 12th, 2022

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2022/03/the_lefts_war_on_israel_is_coming_into_the_open.html

Following the Holocaust, many in the world understood that Jews, the ongoing victims of the world’s oldest hatred, needed a safe haven where they would be masters of their own destiny.  That haven was Israel, a land acquired through an unbroken four-thousand-year history, purchase, and gift, and, eventually, through attacks against them, the spoils of war.  For many years, American support for Israel was consistent across the political spectrum.  However, as Israel became associated too strongly with America during the Cold War, the left turned against her — and now leftists, including those in the Biden administration, are increasingly open about their animosity.

A couple of days ago, The Washington Free Beacon revealed that the Biden administration is offering almost $1 million in taxpayer money to whatever groups can dig up dirt on Israel:

The Biden administration is offering nearly $1 million for groups to investigate alleged human rights abuses in Israel, the West Bank, and the Gaza Strip, an effort that will delegitimize Israel, according to sources who spoke to the Washington Free Beacon.

The State Department’s Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor (DRL) is soliciting nonprofit groups to apply for grant money up to $987,654 to “strengthen accountability and human rights in Israel and the West Bank and Gaza,” according to a grant notice first posted online in mid-February.

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ENVIRONMENT AND JUNK SCIENCE Comments turned off

Biden’s America-Wrecking Climate Agenda Steve Milloy

By on March 12th, 2022

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2022/03/12/bidens_america-wrecking_climate_agenda_147323.html

President Biden is driving fossil fuel-powered America into a wall so that he can replace it with a “green energy”-powered America. The Biden administration euphemizes this as a “transition.” It is not. It’s just a collision that will result in America being totaled.

Since Joe Biden became president, he has done everything in his power to de-power America. On Day 1, he killed the Keystone XL Pipeline, halted new oil and gas drilling on public lands, and rejoined the Paris climate agreement, which commits America to cutting our greenhouse gas emissions but not China’s.

Biden’s Environmental Protection Agency reinstated Obama-era rules to make it more expensive to produce oil and gas, issued rules to make internal combustion engine-powered cars more expensive, and gave “green” California the unprecedented (and probably unconstitutional) authority to dictate what kind of cars all Americans can drive. Biden has empowered the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission with the authority to block new oil and gas pipelines on the basis of climate concerns, and is continuing to halt new oil and gas drilling on federal lands in defiance of a federal court order.

These and many other anti-fossil fuel actions have raised gasoline prices roughly one dollar per gallon since Biden took office. Then Russia invaded Ukraine, exacerbating an ongoing global energy crisis (worsened by European climate policies). Gasoline prices have increased another 60 cents since the Ukraine invasion, and are not likely to stop rising any time soon.

Normally in response to such an energy crisis, a U.S. president might at least temporarily put aside an unpopular political agenda to ease supply issues and alleviate pain at the pump. Not Joe Biden. He is doing anything but that. Biden first announced during his State of the Union address that he and other allied nations were going to release 60 million barrels of oil from national strategic petroleum reserves around the world, including 30 million from the United States.

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NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

JUST PUBLISHED – OPEN THE BOOKS OVERSIGHT REPORT: INVESTIGATING FAUCI’S FINANCES

By on March 12th, 2022

https://mailchi.mp/e0a2af1f130f/35b-from-us-taxpayers-funded-world-health-organization-58871?e=0c8ccf8e98

Where has Dr. Anthony Fauci gone?!

Noone seems to have heard from Fauci since the mid-January U.S. Senate hearing when he was grilled on his finances. Senator Marshall’s questions were premised on our OpenTheBooks findings on Fauci’s financials.

The senate hearing – where Fauci called Marshall a “moran” – was Fauci’s last prominent public event.

So, we’ve been hard at work to break down everything you need to know about Dr. Anthony Fauci and his finances. And now it’s all in one place…

We’re excited to share our newest 20-page Oversight Report – just published this week – INVESTIGATING FAUCI’S FINANCES – free to download right now.

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NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

A Couple Of Really “Smart” Guys Set Out To Prosecute Donald Trump Francis Menton

By on March 12th, 2022

https://www.manhattancontrarian.com/blog/2022-3-11-a-couple-of-really-smart-guys-set-out-to-prosecute-donald-trump

From time to time on this blog I have had occasion to note the extent to which many of the seemingly “smartest” people in our society time and again fall hook, line and sinker for the most preposterous mass hysterias. When it really counts, the people who have risen to the very top ranks of our social hierarchies prove to have no critical thinking capabilities whatsoever. For some entertaining reading about various self-made billionaires, former cabinet secretaries, and the like, making utter fools of themselves, you might try my posts from February 9, 2017 (“Watch Out For Rule By The ‘Smart’ — Part III”), or June 25, 2014 (“Watch Out For Rule By The ‘Smart’”). Both of those posts dealt with the topic of attempts to alter world temperatures through government taxation and spending.

A recent example of the phenomenon of the smart dopes now comes forth from the District Attorney’s office of New York County — that is, the people here in Manhattan charged with the enforcement of the New York State criminal laws. In this instance the subject of the hysteria was the idea that Donald Trump, President of the United States, needed to be charged with some sort of violations of the New York criminal law arising out of his business dealings.

Although prosecutors don’t publicly announce when they start investigations, it is clear from various court filings along the way (e.g., Trump’s lawyers opposing enforcement of subpoenas) that the DA’s criminal investigation of Trump was well underway as early as 2019, that is, in the middle of Trump’s term as President. The Manhattan DA at the time was Cyrus Vance, Jr. If you are old enough, you will recognize from Vance’s name that he is the son of the Cyrus Vance who was Secretary of State when Jimmy Carter was President, and also at various times Secretary of Defense, Secretary of the Army, and other such government positions, in between stints as big-time partner of big-time law firm Simpson Thacher & Bartlett.

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CHARLOTTE'S NEWS WEB, NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Biden goes bonkers over inflation Monica Showalter

By on March 12th, 2022

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2022/03/biden_goes_bonkers_over_inflation.html”

Joe Biden should be hopping mad about inflation, which rolled in at 7.9% and is destroying the purchasing power, wage gains, and savings of the citizenry even as he touts good economic times in his speeches.

Instead, he’s going bonkers over the voter reaction to inflation, not the inflation itself.

“I’m sick of this stuff!” he hollered.  “We have to talk about it because the American people think the reason for inflation is the government spending more money.  Simply.  Not.  True.”

But of course, it is perfectly true.  He’s wallowing in denial about it and now thinks he can yell his way into making Americans think differently.

In his wretched King Lear-like rant, brimming with rage and self-pity, Biden whimpered that Americans were just poor simpleton peasants who don’t understand inflation and don’t give Joe and all his “achievements” the credit they deserve:

Yes, they do, Joe. Yes, they do.

What do we make of this crazed rant against reality?  PJMedia’s Robert Spencer, for one, thinks it could be the dementia kicking in.

What’s happening to the American economy is entirely the fault of the old man who is shouting about how sick and tired he is of people saying it’s his fault and of the bright young Leftists with whom he has filled his administration and who are anxious to seize as much of the fruit of the labors of the American people as they can, so as to finance their various utopian boondoggles.

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FOREIGN POLICY Comments turned off

Why Are the Biden Administration, EU, Appeasing the Iranian Regime? by Majid Rafizadeh

By on March 12th, 2022

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/18315/biden-administration-eu-iran

Many Iranians, meanwhile, in defiance of Iran’s regime, gathered outside the Ukrainian embassy in Tehran to express their support for the Ukrainian people, criticize the Iranian government for supporting Russia, and chanted “Death to Putin”.

As police began cracking down on the protesters, the Biden administration and the EU remained silent.

Why are the Biden administration and the EU appeasing the Iranian regime, which has for four decades attacked Americans and carried out terrorist activities and assassinations?

The Biden administration and the other members of the JCPOA nuclear deal negotiated in 2015 (China, France, Russia, the UK and Germany) — with the European Union — instead of holding Iran to account, are evidently determined to reward it. It is not quite clear for what. For years of unspeakable behavior, both to its own citizens and internationally?

Meanwhile, as the US has been negotiating this new agreement, US intelligence services have just identified “at least two Iranians” as trying to assassinate former officials of the Trump administration. The Biden administration is said to have been trying to cover up the plot lest it derail the negotiations to shower Iran with “rewards”.

The Iranian regime, an official state sponsor of terrorism, has carried out terrorist activities around the world for almost four decades. Why are the Biden administration and the EU not implementing the same policies towards Iran’s regime as they are towards Russia?

While the European Union has leveled different kinds of sanctions on Russia, including restricting access to the EU’s capital and financial markets, the EU nevertheless continues to appease Moscow’s staunch ally, the world’s largest sponsor of state terrorism, Iran.

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