Tuesday, March 9, 2021

White House Staffers Secretly Observe What Is Not A Crisis. Thank God, Biden Not A Golfer Or We Might Never See Him.

















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Since there is no border crisis the White House Officials visited in secret.

Biden Officials Visit Swarmed Southern Border in Secret
This weekend >>

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While the border leaks like a sieve, Biden appoints a very important commission staffed by high paid advisors who will study feminine gender discrimination.  They should start by interviewing Gov. Cuomo.

After signing two Executive Orders and a brief speech Biden retired for the day's nappy!  Bless his heart.

Thank God, Biden is not a golfer or we would never see him.

Biden Orders Creation of Gender Policy Council

President Joe Biden speaks from the State Dining Room following the passage of the American Rescue Plan in the U.S. Senate at the White House on March 6, 2021 in Washington, DC. 

Join in the Discussion!


President Joe Biden has formally created a gender policy council within the White House as part of two executive orders he signed Monday to mark International Women’s Day.

In a statement, Biden said: "In our nation, as in all nations, women have fought for justice, shattered barriers, built and sustained economies, carried communities through times of crisis, and served with dignity and resolve. Too often, they have done so while being denied the freedom, full participation, and equal opportunity all women are due."

The council will include a staff of four, three of whom will hold the title of special assistant to the president.

The council’s mandate is to work across the federal government’s domestic and foreign policy to fight discrimination and bias, boost economic security, increase access to health care, and advance general equality through diplomacy, trade and defense.

"Today, the global crises we now face have made abundantly clear both the contributions of women and the challenges facing women," Vice President Kamala Harris said in remarks to the European Parliament. "If we build a world that works for women, our nations will all be safer, stronger and more prosperous."

The second order asks the Department of Education to re-examine the Trump administration’s policies and rule-making on Title IX, the 1972 law which governs the way sex-based discrimination in schools is handled. The goal, one of the officials said, is to ensure students have an education “free of sexual violence.”

The Trump administration also scrapped key Obama-era policies and put forward their rules which, among other items, said transgender students couldn’t use the bathroom consistent with their own gender identities. Biden’s executive order instructs the agency to make sure all policies related to Title IX are consistent with the ethos of the Biden-Harris administration, the official added.

“President Biden knows we need a government-wide focus on uplifting the rights of all women and girls in the U.S. and around the world, restoring America as a champion for gender equity,” said one of the officials.



Read Newsmax: Biden Orders Creation of Gender Policy Council
Urgent: Do you approve of Pres. Trump’s job performance? Vote Here Now!


Meanwhile:

Mr. C'mon Man seems to be sinking like a lead ship:

Shelby Steele Debunks Critical Race Theory As First Guest On Fox News Podcast With Ben Domenech

By Tristan Justice

Renowned author and senior fellow at the Hoover Institution Shelby Steele sat down as the first guest on the new Fox News podcast hosted by Federalist Publisher Ben Domenech.

On “Shelby Steele & The Consequences of Courage,” the public intellectual broke down the nation’s latest cultural revolution on race, decrying the social justice movement as one based on the pressure to prove white innocence exploited by the left.

“Critical race theory is bogus,” Steele says. “To me as a minority, demeaning, de-humanizing, I mean, you could go on forever. But it is a currency with which whites can buy innocence in the marketplace. It’s a currency which blacks and other minorities can exercise power in the political arena.”

Steele, who is black, said Americans need to find courage to reject the totalitarian impulses of the social justice movement that demonizes the population as exhaustively racist for exclusive benefits.

“White America has to find a way to restore its moral confidence,” Steele said, emphasizing it requires the courage to “say ‘look, I’m not a racist and I don’t care what you say, whether it agrees with your or doesn’t.'”

For Steele, the consequences of such courage have been far more personal.

“My brother and I have not talked in 40 years,” Steele said of his twin sibling, but added while he wishes things would have turned out differently, he himself had no regrets for defending controversial views that cost him friends and family. “If I had any regrets, it’s that I haven’t done it better than I have.”

Listen to the full podcast here.

Steele appeared on Federalist Radio Hour with Domenech last summer in the aftermath of the George Floyd riots.

And:

Another Biden Bumble - He Can't Remember the Name of His Own Defense Secretary

https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/stacey-lennox/2021/03/08/another-biden-bumble-he-cant-remember-the-name-of-his-own-defense-secretary-n1430938

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Will Biden's imbecility drive the Saudi into Israel's arms or will America's "Neville" blow up the entire Middle East?  Stay tuned.

Will Biden’s moves bring the Saudis closer to Israel?

Obama’s push to appease Iran propelled the Arabs into the arms of the Jewish state. There may be limits, however, to how far the Saudis may embrace Israel.

JONATHAN S. TOBIN

President Joe Biden’s foreign-policy team has talked a lot about re-emphasizing diplomacy and re-engaging with allies after what they claim was the trashing of old friends during the presidency of Donald Trump. But that doesn’t appear to include America’s two most important allies in the Middle East: Israel and Saudi Arabia.

The Israelis have been reassured that Biden still regards their security as important and that any disputes between the two countries will be handled behind the scenes, rather than highlighted in an effort to achieve more “daylight” between the two allies, as was the case with the former President Barack Obama. Still, Israelis know that the closeness that existed between them and the Trump administration is a thing of the past.

But that’s a far cry from the unsubtle message about downgrading relations with the Saudis that Washington has been delivering.

The justification for this decision centers on human rights and the brutal nature of the Saudi regime. The report released last month by the Director of National Intelligence about the murder of journalist Jamaal Khashoggi by the Saudis tied the operation directly to Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, known as MBS. The killing of Khashoggi in its Istanbul consulate was remarkable primarily for the brazen nature of the crime rather than for revealing anything new about the authoritarian nature of the Saudi government.

The report gives a boost to the chorus of Democratic critics of the U.S.-Saudi relationship who believe that the murder, as well as the brutal war being waged in Yemen, requires Washington to downgrade ties with Riyadh. But even for those who care about human rights and oppose the notion that America should be indifferent to the internal policies of those governments with which it does business, it’s not that simple.

Kicking the Saudis to the curb is inextricably tied to the question of what to do about Iran—a nation that is arguably an even worse human-rights offender and an aggressive Islamist nation that poses a threat to the entire Middle East with or without the nuclear weapons they seek. Just as complicated is the fact that hostility to the Saudis undermines Trump’s main foreign-policy achievement: the Abraham Accords in which a growing number of Gulf states and Muslim countries have been normalizing relations with the State of Israel.

That leaves friends of Jerusalem wondering how a cooler relationship between Washington and Riyadh will impact the push to expand the trend of normalization to the rest of the Arab world. In particular, it’s not clear whether or not the American decision to try and create another rapprochement with Iran will bring the Saudis and other Arab nations closer to Israel or drive them apart.

The optimistic view from an Israeli perspective is to remember that the warm ties between Israel and the Arab states weren’t merely a creation of Trump. It’s fair to say that although the Saudis have been looking for an exit ramp from the no-win confrontation with Israel for the last two decades, Obama’s appeasement of Iran pushed them into Israel’s arms. Faced with the reality that the United States was ignoring their interests and security by empowering and enriching Iran, they naturally turned to the only nation in the region that shared their antipathy to the genocidal terrorist-supporting regime in Tehran.

Biden’s foreign-policy team is not opposed in principle to Arab and Muslim nations deciding to no longer be held hostage to Palestinian intransigence and to recognize that they have mutual security and economic interests with the Jewish state. Yet Biden staffers have little interest in fostering such ties as long as they are based on a common hostility to an Iranian regime with which they want to re-engage.

As was the case in Egypt, where a desire to advance the cause of democracy led Obama to undermine the regime of longtime dictator Hosni Mubarak in 2011—and thus set the stage for a Muslim Brotherhood takeover that was ultimately overthrown by a popular military coup— it’s a mistake to think that the United States has more choices than either an authoritarian regime that his friendly to the West or an Islamist one that is not.

That’s not only true with respect to the internal governance of the Arabian Peninsula but also in terms of the regional balance of power. In damning MBS and recalibrating relations by ending weapons sales to the Saudis and their allies in the United Arab Emirates (the latter nation that was promised advanced jets as part of its decision to solidify ties with Israel and a pledge that Biden has already reneged on), Biden’s advisers may claim to be standing up for human rights. But undermining these American allies merely advances the interests of Iran, a tyrannical theocratic regime with a human-rights record—both in terms of internal oppression and its brutal record of adventurism abroad aiding the barbarous Assad regime in Syria, their murderous Hezbollah terrorist auxiliaries in Lebanon or the ruthless Houthis in Yemen—that is arguably far worse.

What can the Saudis and other Arab states do to protect their interests in the face of America abandoning them?

As some sources told JNS, the breach with the Americans could draw the Saudis and other Arab states closer to Israel. Indeed, a desire to make things right with the Americans might impel Riyadh to break down and recognize Israel itself, rather than persist with the current status in which the two countries are actively allied but do so without formal recognition.

It’s far from clear that’s the most likely outcome.

As much as MBS and the Saudis value their relationship with Israel and regard it now as essential to their security, there is a big difference between them and the other Arab countries. The Saudi royal family sees its legitimacy as rooted in its status as the guardian of Islamic holy places in Mecca and Medina. Recognizing the Jewish state makes sense from a realpolitik perspective, but not from a religious one since such a move would render the Saudis even more vulnerable to attacks from Islamist critics.

There’s also the possibility that Washington won’t merely punish the Saudis but actively pressure them and the other Gulf states to make their peace with Iran. Indeed, muscling them into bowing to American demands may be a much higher priority for the administration than strong-arming Israel into making concessions to a Palestinian Authority that even Washington’s most ardent two-state solution advocates know won’t make peace.

While it’s hard to imagine such a turn of events right now, stranger things have happened in the history of the Middle East.

Downgrading relations with the Saudis might bring them even closer to Israel and further solidify an Israel-Arab alliance against Iran that could be powerful enough to deter Iranian aggression and transcend Washington’s feckless efforts to appease Tehran.

But if the Biden administration, despite its claims of support for the Abraham Accords, decides that it wants to actively trash them so as to assist its agenda of making nice with Iran or try to bring the dead-in-the-water peace process with the Palestinians back to life, it’s not inconceivable that they could wind up sabotaging the greatest advance towards Middle East peace in decades.

Seen from that perspective, Biden’s swipe at the Saudis isn’t so much a blow struck for civil rights as possibly a devastating defeat for the cause of genuine peace between Jews and Arabs.

Jonathan S. Tobin is editor in chief of JNS—Jewish News Syndicate. Follow him on Twitter at: @jonathans_tobin.

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Middle East expert fears trainwreck in region if Iran emboldened

"Because of the Iran threat and possibility of US abandoning the Saudis, the Saudis may decide that they need a strategic alliance with Israel sooner rather than later."

 

An Iranian-backed war against Israel involving Hezbollah in Lebanon on one end, and a Saudi peace deal on the other, could be in the air, according to author Joel Rosenberg, who has spoken with leaders in the region.

"I write about worst case scenarios,” said Joel Rosenberg. The author of political thrillers has also become a witness to history in the region in recent years, meeting monarchs and political leaders as the Abraham Accords took shape. As such his political thrillers, the fourth of which has just been released, can be a window into what might happen in the region, gleaned from real life scenarios.

“One of themes of my novels is this: To misunderstand the nature and threat of evil is to risk being blindsided by it. I’m not trying to predict a Third Lebanon War is going to happen, much less in 2021. I don’t want it to happen at all.

"But a novel can act like a war game, it can take people into threats and dangers that they may not be thinking about and help them imagine what could happen if American leaders are blindsided by threats they don’t see coming,” he says.

The last time I saw Rosenberg was in Dubai during the brief window when thousands were traveling daily from Tel Aviv to Dubai. In December he met the UAE's Minister of State for Foreign Affairs for an interview he published at All Israel News. In the past he has met the King of Jordan and Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman in Saudi Arabia.

In November I spoke to Rosenberg after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu flew to Saudi Arabia. His views tend to reflect some of the tectonic changes taking place in the region.

Now he has a warning, and it is one that is mirrored, in a way, by his recent book. “The Second Lebanon War in 2006 was horrible. But I actually believe that the Lebanon theatre is the most likely next major war in the Middle East, and possibly even in 2021.

"In the 34 days of the Second Lebanon War, we saw 4,000 missiles fired by Hezbollah at Israel – but in a Third Lebanon War, we could see 4,000 missiles a day being fired at Israel. I am very concerned. This is the type of thing that could erupt at a moment’s notice.”

He says that in his new book Beirut Protocol, a former US Marine named Marcus Ryker, gets caught up in a war that breaks out on the Lebanese border. “In The Beirut Protocol, the US is trying to finalize a historic peace agreement between Israel and Saudi Arabia. But the US is also worried that Iran is going to try to use the peace process to foment trouble,” he says.

If this reminds us of what is actually going on in the region, it is for good reason. Like Tom Clancy’s books, which looked at real concerns during the Cold War era and after, this is about the here and now.  

In his book, the Secretary of State is coming to the region to try to finalize the peace deal. On her way to Riyadh, she plans to stop in Israel and wants to tour the border with Lebanon and get a briefing on the latest threat from Hezbollah, he says.

Today, in the non-fiction world, the US administration has said that it supports a possible peace deal between Israel and Saudi Arabia.  

Rosenberg encourages us to look at Lebanon as a major focus and one the US should take seriously.

He notes that the US was more focused on Lebanon in the 1970s and 1980s. “But in recent years, very little attention has been paid to Lebanon.”

He says that the Biden administration is “beginning to take a series of actions that looks very weak toward Iran. There is a growing sense among senior Israeli officials that they may have to go back to the way they were thinking in 2012 – that if the US and international community don’t take decisive action either diplomatically or militarily to stop Iran from getting The Bomb, then the IDF may be forced to launch pre-emptive airstrikes against nuclear facilities inside Iran.”

These concerns have been made clear by Israeli defense officials in recent weeks. Warnings about Iranian nuclear enrichment have been made public. In addition Israel is concerned about Iran’s role in Yemen and its threats from Syria, as well as Hezbollah.

“Israeli official are increasingly worried that the Biden administration could stumble into a weak and ineffectual Second Nuclear Deal,” says Rosenberg. “What people don’t realize is that Iran’s number one way of striking back at Israel is not primarily with Iranian missiles but with Iranian-built missiles – 150,000 of them – positioned in Lebanon and all aimed at us here in Israel.”

He has a bitter warning for the future as well. “That type of scenario – with thousands of missiles raining down on Israel every day – could completely overwhelm Israeli missile defense systems. That is a terrifying prospect and not just for Israel. It could also pull the US into a war inadvertently and the Biden administration must take this seriously.”

This is an important issue that is not well understood sometimes. During the Trump era Israel was given a free rein to do as it wanted. Israel’s choices, given that blank check, was generally to keep the status quo. That meant continuing the so-called ‘Campaign Between the Wars’ in Syria by carrying out airstrikes on Iranian targets. It also meant warning about Iran’s ballistic missile and drone programs.

Most important, Israel concentrated resources on the northern threat, and eschewed a cycle of conflict with Hamas.

Now things may be changing. Iran is threatening the US in Iraq with rocket attacks. It is hammering Saudi Arabia with almost daily ballistic missile and drone attacks which are escalating.

It attacked an Israeli-owned ship in the Gulf of Oman. “If the White House and State Department make Israel feel vulnerable, and don’t find a way to force Iran to back down on its nuclear program – if Biden cannot or will not find a way to neutralize the Iranian threat – then Israel won’t sit around and do nothing.

"Israeli leaders may feel they have no other choice but to strike Iran, and the implications for every country in the region – and for the US – are huge,” says Rosenberg.  

Rosenberg knows that some people may judge his warnings as those of a novelist, but they are to be taken seriously. “I write political thrillers to thrill people – to get their heart pumping and the blood pressure soaring. I want them to stay up reading all night and because they just can’t put my book down.

"But I also write these novels to get people thinking. Most people don’t want to be educated. They want to be entertained. But in books like The Beirut Protocol, I’m trying to do both.”

While he began writing fiction, in many ways his fictional world has come to intersect with the real world because he has been invited to meet the very leaders he was writing about in the countries he was covering. This is an instance where art imitates life which imitates art.

“It has been one of the great surprises and fascinating elements of my career that I have been invited to meet with American leaders, Israeli leaders, Arab leaders at the highest levels. Presidents and prime ministers. Kings and crown princes. Spy masters and special forces operators,” he says.  “I didn’t see this coming. When I started writing novels, I didn’t expect world leaders to read them. But in a way I have been given access to leaders because they don’t see me as a journalist. They know I am writing fiction. And yet they agree with the idea that a novel on the New York Times bestsellers list can sometimes be the better way to communicate threats and dangers and fears that they have – and warnings they want to deliver – than through classic journalism,” asserts Rosenberg.

He harkens back to Clancy, whose books were read by Ronald Reagan, the Cold warrior. A bit like how US military planners wondered how Dr. Strangelove got some things right about US nuclear strategy and also key aspects of B-52 operations, Rosenberg describes how he analyzes the region. 

“In my case," he said. "I’m operating in a grey zone between classified information and open source. I’m not actually dealing with classified information. But sometimes I’m using off-the-record conversations with world leaders and current and former senior intelligence officials, and that is a new way of writing a thriller and not everyone gets a chance to do it.”

In his latest novel he hasn’t factored in the prospect of a new administration. However, “one of the key points I’m making is that officials in Washington and Brussels and elsewhere don’t always recognize is that efforts to make peace in the Middle East, while right and noble, can also draw actors into the mix who are literally determined to blow up the peace process,” he says.

“When you get closer to making Middle East peace, you need to brace yourself for counter-actions by terrorist forces and terror states that are hell-bent on keeping Israelis and Arabs from making peace. Making peace is the right thing to do, but never think for one moment that you’re operating in a static environment. I want to show in my thrillers that every action has a reaction," he said.

"There are forces that are hell-bent on making sure that Arabs and Israelis never make lasting peace and they will do everything in their power to create war and terror to prevent peace from taking hold.”

Rosenberg is focused today on the prospects of Israeli-Saudi peace. “I want to see it happen. And I believe it can. But I also want to show people that such a peace treaty is going to be far more explosive and controversial to the extremists in the region, from Iran to Hamas, Hezbollah and Houthis.

"Why? Because the Saudis are the custodians of the Two Holy Mosques,” he notes. “For them to make peace with Israel could very well set off the mullahs in Tehran and all their allies. So that is something that we have to sort of understand and factor in.”

He is concerned that the US has already relaxed its previous terror designation of the Houthis in Yemen. “Biden strikes me as more desperate than Iran to get back into the deal. This has all the makings of emboldening the terror masters in Tehran… I think Tehran is getting ready to attack Israel.

"I think the mullahs are making it clear that if the US or Israel try to do something to neutralize their nuclear program, they have 150,000 missiles in Lebanon aimed at America’s number one ally.”

To stop a train wreck in the region requires a careful balance. “I believe Biden thinks he is threading the needle carefully on the whole issue of Mohammed bin Salman’s culpability in murder of Jamal Khashoggi,” he says.

The US has released a report pointing to the crown prince but hasn’t sanctioned him. “If you accuse an ally of cold-blooded murder but don’t offer proof, will that ally take that well And then you add to it taking the Houthis off the Foreign Terrorist Organization list, even as they fire missiles at the capital of our main ally. This is a very dangerous situation. There is a risk of a train wreck,” he says.

However, there could be a silver lining in that a Saudi Arabia under pressure from the US might be more inclined to a peace deal with Israel. “Because of the Iran threat and possibility of US abandoning the Saudis, the Saudis may decide that they need a strategic alliance with Israel sooner rather than later.”

Rumors over the last months have pointed to that possibility, as well as some kind of closer alliance between Israel, Bahrain, the UAE and Saudi Arabia.

The author is realistic on the trajectory of Saudi Arabia. He points to how Turkey has recently become more extreme and hostile in its rhetoric while Saudi Arabia is trying to move in a different direction. “They want to become a moderate and friendly and peaceful country. Turkey under [President Recep Tayyip] Erdogan is going in absolutely the wrong direction. Rosenberg sees the possibility of peace with Riyadh. 

“My recommendation is if they truly believe they should make peace with Israel for their own national interests, then they should do it as soon as possible. A Saudi-Israeli peace deal will dramatically change Americans’ view of Saudi Arabia for the better. It is the one move that the Saudis can make that will break through to the American people and show Americans and the world that the Saudis truly are trustworthy and long-term partners for peace.” He has said this  directly to the Crown Prince and senior Saudi leaders, he says.

“The region is changing very fast. It used to be that if Israel got itself in a war in Lebanon or with any Arab group or state, this would drive back any Arab desire to make peace with us. But I no longer think this is the case. The Saudis are now experiencing what Israel has experienced for years, where Iran and its proxies fire rockets and the world hates you for defending yourself.” 

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Sent to me by a dear friend, fellow memo reader and rabid native Georgian conservative:

How Senators Warnock and Ossoff Voted to Hurt Georgia and Help New York and California https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/stacey-lennox/2021/03/08/how-senators-warnock-and-ossoff-voted-to-hurt-georgia-and-help-new-york-and-california-n1430848

HERE IS ANOTHER ATTACK ON YOUR POCKET BOOK. DO YOU THINK THESE DUMB SENATORS OF THE LEFT KNOW WHAT THEY HAVE DONE? READ THE GRAFH  ALSO. GA. IS THE #1 SCREW JOB.

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