RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/16043/iran-anti-israel-agenda

Recently, Iran’s parliament, the Islamic Consultative Assembly, unanimously approved an “urgent bill” directed against Israel. We are therefore to assume, it would seem, that passing a bill against the State of Israel was more “urgent” for the Iranian regime than concentrating on protecting the lives of the Iranian population during this public health crisis.

Although the traditional anti-Israel marches are cancelled this year due to the spread of coronavirus, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani stated that people will be able instead to march by cars, join a motorized phalanx or join an online event organized by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).

Not only have Iran’s ruling clerics failed to rein in their rogue behavior amid the coronavirus; they seem instead to be exploiting the “distraction” to boost their expansion.

Iran has further entrenched itself in Syria and Lebanon, including that included building a new underground weapons-storage facility at Iran’s Imam Ali military base in eastern Syria. They have boosted their support for Shia Iraqi militias and the Houthis in Yemen. They have rolled out a new missile on the way to developing intercontinental ballistic missiles capable of carrying nuclear weapons to Israel and any capital in Europe. And they have ratcheted up their anti-Israeli and anti-American agenda.

Iran has been the epicenter of the coronavirus pandemic in the Middle East. Iran’s regime has been accused of both covering up the scope of the virus in the country and spreading the disease across the Middle East. While many of the 186 countries that China has afflicted with the virus are focused on addressing the immediate problem, the ruling mullahs of Iran instead appear mostly busy furthering their anti-Israel agenda.

Recently, Iran’s parliament, the Islamic Consultative Assembly, unanimously approved an “urgent bill” directed against Israel. We are therefore to assume, it would seem, that passing a bill against the State of Israel was more “urgent” for the Iranian regime than concentrating on protecting the lives of the Iranian population during this public health crisis.

https://amgreatness.com/2020/05/20/how-to-hold-china-accountable-build-our-own-stuff/

It’s starting to happen.”

That’s what Brad Parscale said around 8 p.m. to the family and inner circle on the 14th floor of Trump Tower on November 8, 2016, as we were watching election returns trickle in from North Carolina, Florida, Pennsylvania and Michigan.

Parscale’s words came back to me with the news this week the Trump Administration awarded a $354 million contract to a private company to manufacture generic medicines and pharmaceutical ingredients in Richmond, Virginia.

It’s starting to happen—global supply chains are coming back to America.

The company, Phlow Corporation, will be making drugs used to treat COVID-19. They will be stored in a strategic stockpile of pharmaceutical ingredients to be used in the event of drug shortages or an emergency.

Those drugs, like so many others, are now made overseas, mostly in China and India. China is the world’s main supplier of the active ingredients used in many common drugs from vitamin C to aspirin.

China produces 90 percent of the active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs) for essential medicines used in serious coronavirus infections, according to Rosemary Gibson, author of China Rx. Sedatives, antibiotics, anti-inflammatories, and medicines to raise blood pressure are among the medications.

The administration killed two birds with one stone by awarding the contract to this upstart company.

The first is ending America’s dangerous dependency on Communist China for essential medicines. The second is breaking up the pharmaceutical oligarchy whose single-minded pursuit of profits led us to our foreign drug dependency in the first place.

The trade association of generic drugmakers attacked White House trade and manufacturing czar Peter Navarro when he first advanced a plan for bringing pharmaceutical manufacturing back to the United States.

They clutched their precious global supply chains like pearls, falsely claiming that rearranging those chains would spike drug prices, forcing Americans to eat cat food in order to afford their meds.

https://issuesinsights.com/2020/05/20/a-new-cold-war-has-begun-calling-china-to-account-for-covid-19-plague-is-just-a-start/

China’s communist regime has shown a shocking proclivity for lying and deceptive behavior in handling the Wuhan virus pandemic. Now, Australia, already backed by 113 countries, wants a full accounting of China’s unacceptable behavior. China’s answer? Punish Australia.

It’s arguable whether China ever intended to live by the same rules as the rest of the world when it first gained membership in the World Trade Organization in 2001, backed strongly by the U.S. That move, more than anything, cemented China’s accession to world power status, with its economy soaring from just $80 billion in GDP in 1980 to $12 trillion in 2019.

But, as we’re always reminded, with great power comes great responsibility.

And China, under the increasingly totalitarian control of President-without-end Xi Jinping, has flunked that test, as we now plainly see during the COVID-19 disaster. In addition to putting Uighurs in concentration camps and disappearing dissidents, China’s communist regime has all but crushed Hong Kong’s brave freedom movement by arresting its boldest leaders.

That’s just how the Chinese communists deal with things. Smile outwardly, plot inwardly.

When Australia took the lead this week in calling for an independent investigation into the origins and spread of the coronavirus, China didn’t argue or remonstrate or debate. It slapped 80% tariffs on Australia’s exports of barley, a key crop.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/iran-quietly-lowers-the-temperature-with-u-s/ar-BB14kvKf

BAGHDAD — After years of increasing tensions that nearly led to war, Iran has moderated its approach to the West, shifting from a policy of provocation to one of limited cooperation. The change reflects an effort to avoid direct confrontation with the United States that the Iranians say could benefit President Trump in the November election.

After months of attacks on American forces in Iraq, Iran has called off its proxy militias, one of several de-escalation steps.

Nowhere is the shift more evident than in Iraq, where Iran has backed a pro-American prime minister and ordered its proxy militias to cease their rocket attacks on American forces.

The Americans, while publicly dismissive of any change in Iranian posture, have quietly reciprocated in modest and indirect ways.

Taken together, the openings represent an incipient détente that, even if it does not last or lead to the end of hostilities between Iran and the United States, has already lowered the temperature of the relationship, reducing the risk of open conflict.

“A war is less likely to happen, but there is still the risk of a confrontation,” said Randa Slim, a senior fellow at the Middle East Institute. “But it’s less likely because the intent of the primary actors has shifted. Both Iran and the U.S. definitely do not want a war six months before the U.S. elections.”

Iran’s shift, which has not been announced or explained publicly, appears to be tactical, analysts said, noting that the country still vehemently opposes the Trump administration’s demand that it renegotiate its nuclear agreement with the West and that it has not backed off its goal of ousting the United States military from the Middle East. Publicly, both countries remain engaged in verbal warfare.