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For example:
His many racist comments, his comment about his son being the smartest person he ever knew, his comment about firing the Ukraine investigator and many, many more:
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Saudis Crow Over Biden Coming Hat-In-Hand to Riyadh
The man who promised to make Saudi Arabia a “pariah” now begs them for oil.
What was once planned as a quick visit to Israel-and-the-Palestinians by President Biden has become a three-way affair, with Saudi Arabia not only added to the itinerary, but has become the main event, the meeting in Riyadh with the Saudi Crown Prince will overshadow his lightning visits to Jerusalem and Bethlehem. In Israel, Biden will attend the Maccabiah Games and no doubt discuss with Prime Minister Bennett ways for Israel to tamp down “tension” in the area – even though all such tension is provoked by the Palestinians – and he will repeat, in his conversations with both Israel and the Palestinians, the latest mantra of the Bidenites, that he “looks forward to reaffirming his lifelong commitment to a two-state solution and to discuss the ways in which we might rekindle a new political horizon that can ensure equal measures of freedom, security, prosperity, and dignity to Israelis and Palestinians alike.“
I’m not sure Israel and the Palestinians can have “equal measures of freedom, security, prosperity, and dignity,” given the failure of the Palestinians to create a free and democratic society – a failure that we see in all 22 states of the Arab League, where either despots or monarchs rule, but nowhere is there a true democracy, of citizens rather than subjects. Nor can the Palestinians, with Islam stunting their mental growth, ever hope to rival the advanced state of Israel, with the astonishing inventiveness of its people. In Israel innovation is welcome; Muslim Arabs regard innovation, or bida, with deep suspicion. As for “equal measures of…..dignity,” both Hamas and the PA have shown how little they care for the “dignity” of those they rule over, people who are not permitted to choose their rulers by elections, and who are arrested or even executed for daring to criticize those rulers. Why would the people in a “Palestinian state” fare any better than they do now under Hamas in Gaza, or under the PA in the West Bank? It will be amusing, however, to hear Biden repeat that mantra to Mahmoud Abbas – all that guff about “equal measures of freedom, security, prosperity and dignity” – that is, to the very man who is now in the 17th year of his four-year term, who had his harshest critic, Nizar Banat, beaten to death, and who has amassed a fortune of $400 million consisting mostly of aid money he stole.
But then, with Israel-cum-Palestinians given their quick due, for Biden it’s on to the real object of this trip, which is to make up, in properly obsequious fashion, with Crown Prince Muhammad bin Salman, so that the Saudis will turn on the oil tap wide enough to bring down the price of gas for consumers, and thereby, the Bidenites calculate, give Biden a shot at being reelected.
The Saudis are delighted to see President Biden having to eat crow. They don’t like him. They resented his refusal to respond forcefully to Houthi attacks on their country. They have been mightily displeased with his attempt to appease the Iranians in Vienna. But most infuriating, to MbS, has been Biden’s anger over the killing of Jamal Khashoggi. During the campaign for president, Biden promised to make Saudi Arabia a “pariah.” Now Biden is going to have to go, hat in hand, to the man he knows ordered Khashoggi’s murder and continues to deny it, and to behave as if he believed him.
A report on how the Saudi commentators are gloating over US President Joe Biden’s planned visit next month, claiming that the US leader’s about-turn on his vow to make Saudi Arabia a “pariah” reflected the kingdom’s importance in global affairs, is here: “Biden to meet with Saudi crown prince despite ‘pariah’ pledge,” Reuters, June 14, 2022:
After the White House confirmed on Tuesday that Biden would meet de facto ruler Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman on a trip to the region, the Saudi commentators took to social media to praise the prince for his handling of the crisis in US-Saudi ties.
“We said it before and we did not exaggerate, they [Western leaders] will all come successively to Riyadh,” tweeted Faisal AlShammeri, a reporter at Saudi-owned Al Arabiya TV.
“Realpolitik changed the administration’s convictions,” he added.
Rights groups, in contrast, said the visit risks “fostering repression” inside the kingdom, the world’s largest oil exporter.
Everyone understands that Biden’s visit has nothing to do with morality, and everything to do with the Saudis increasing their oil production, to make up for Russian oil that been taken off the market. I doubt that Biden’s appearance – his smile and handshake with a man he considers to be a murderer — will have any effect on increasing “repression” in the Kingdom. The Saudis are largely impervious to outside pressure to improve their record on human rights, and MbS will not be any more repressive because of Biden’s visit. Besides, the Bidenites must be thinking, better repression in Saudi Arabia than a recession in the United States.
US relations with Saudi Arabia have been under strain since the 2018 murder and dismemberment of journalist Jamal Khashoggi by a team of Saudi operatives in the kingdom’s consulate in Istanbul.
Biden had refused to deal directly with Prince Mohammed following a US intelligence report implicating him in the killing. The Saudi government denied any involvement by the prince, saying the murder was a heinous crime by a rogue group.
The Saudi denial is nonsense, of course. MbS ordered the killing of Khashoggi, and now he has his severest American critic coming to Riyadh, prepared to ignore the Khashoggi affair. Upon Biden’s return to Washington, he will no doubt give a press conference on his trip, and when he is asked “did you discuss with the Crown Prince the killing of Jamal Khashoggi?” will blandly answer that “I promised to keep my conversation with the Crown Prince about the helpful role Saudi Arabia can play in calming the world’s oil markets and that’s exactly what I did.”
Comment:
But Washington’s desire to improve ties with Gulf monarchies has become more urgent following Russia’s Feb. 24 invasion of Ukraine, which highlighted the relevance of Gulf oil producers as Europe looks to cut its energy dependence on Russia.
Biden’s July 15-16 visit to the kingdom, where he is also due to attend a summit of Arab leaders, ends his campaign pledge to make the kingdom a pariah as he struggles to combat high US gasoline prices and build a united international front to isolate Russia.
Former Saudi intelligence chief and senior royal Prince Turki al-Faisal blasted critical remarks, carried in US media, about the prince and the kingdom’s human rights record and suggested Biden was trying to save his presidency.
“It is the tanking popularity of the president that brings him to us. It is his legitimacy that he hopes to bolster by meeting with our crown prince,” Prince Turki wrote in an op-ed published in the Saudi newspaper Arab News on Saturday.
Yes and no, Prince Turki. Yes, of course Biden is coming to Saudi Arabia to “save his presidency.” But no, it’s not his “legitimacy that he hopes to bolster” by meeting with the Crown Prince. In fact, the photograph of a smiling Joe Biden shaking hands with MbS will likely lead only to ridicule at home. What he wants is not “legitimacy,” but lower prices at the pump; it’s the economy, stupid. Biden figures that if gasoline is still above $5 a gallon this November, his party could lose both houses of Congress, ending his hopes to pass his agenda and making much less likely his reelection in 2024. If the Saudis do as he wishes, and increase their production sufficiently to bring down that price to below $4 a gallon and keep it there, Biden thinks he has a fighting chance to be reelected.
Prince Turki and other commentators highlighted Saudi Arabia’s importance, whether for regional and energy security or global politic
Saudi political scientist Hesham Alghannam tweeted that the visit was taking place with “our conditions and interests.”
Rights advocates said Biden’s visit risks “encouraging new abuses and further entrenching impunity” in the kingdom where the prince, widely known by the initials MbS, has cracked down on dissidents and opponents during his swift rise to power.
The Crown Prince doesn’t need Biden’s appearance to give him the go-ahead to crush his domestic opponents. He is the man, remember, who in November 2017 imprisoned more than 400 of Saudi Arabia’s most powerful people, among them Saudi royals, tycoons, and generals, and held them hostage in the Riyadh Ritz-Carlton until they promised to disgorge some of what the Crown Prince claimed were their ill-gotten gains. With this display of his power, the Crown Prince managed to claw back more than $106 billion for the Saudi Treasury.
Thirteen human rights groups, including Human Rights Watch and London-based Saudi group ALQST, last week issued a joint letter urging Biden to secure the release of detained dissidents and remove travel bans on others, including US citizens, before he visits Saudi Arabia.
Biden is not going to raise the issue of human rights. That would fatally vitiate his mission, by angering the Crown Prince. Bringing up human rights will simply remind the Crown Prince of all the unfavorable things Biden has said about him in the past, in connection with the murder of Khashoggi. Biden, though his mind wanders, will have practiced enough with his advisers to stick to the script in Riyadh. Increased production of oil by the Saudis, will be his most important order of business. He will also repeat to MbS his previous pledge to the world that “Iran will NEVER get a nuclear weapon on my watch.” Some may snicker that Biden can promise, but in the end it will not be America but Israel that will make sure that pledge is kept.
From Biden’s point of view, his contrite appearance in Riyadh, and his assurance that Iran will not get a nuclear weapon should be enough to win over the Crown Prince. Another million or two barrels of Saudi crude daily could do wonders for Biden’s presidential prospects. Isn’t that, for Joe Biden and the Bidenites, all that really matters?
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Soros seeks to expand his radical influence by getting in bed with Obama and Clinton's former staffers?:
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George Soros’ Takeover Of Anti-Communism Radio Could Be Led By Clinton Staffers
(RoyalPatriot.com )- Radio Mambi, Miami’s conservative Spanish-language talk radio station, may soon be controlled by Obama and Clinton campaign strategists. The sale to a George Soros-linked entity has outraged the station, Miami’s Cuban-American community, and conservative media watchdogs.
Radio Mambi, historically associated with the Cuban exile community and anti-communists, would be controlled by liberals. Soros will partially own it if the $60 million purchase is allowed by the FCC (FCC).
Jorge Bonilla, director of MRC Latino, called it a leftist power grab.
Bonilla said this is power and control. There is no free speech here. “Misinformation” is irrelevant. This contract is problematic since it controls information flow to a specific community for political gain.
“You’re looking at the shutdown or drastic restructuring of a historic radio station,” Bonilla said.
Bonilla believes the imminent acquisition has a definite, strategic aim as influential liberals will control Miami’s “mainstay of the right” and Spanish-language stations in New York, Chicago, Dallas, Houston, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, and San Antonio.
Lakestar Finance, a Soros Fund Management-affiliated investment group, helped finance the Latino Media Network, a new network of 18 Hispanic radio stations, including Radio Mambi. If approved by the FCC, Jess Morales Rocketto, a former Hillary for America and AFL-CIO official, and Stephanie Valencia, a former Obama White House aide, would run Univision’s stations.
“The Soros-funded extremist Left is running a plot to corrupt local media in Florida,” Gov. Ron DeSantis tweeted.
Valencia, accompanied by anti-Trump conservative Al Cardenas, came to Miami last Thursday to try to soothe station tensions. Cardenas is married Ana Navarro, a fake Republican who publicly favors Democrats.
The former Obama advisor told Radio Mambi personnel “nothing will change,” but they don’t believe her.
A source at Radio Mambi said, “Nobody believes her.” They think we’re dumb.
Valencia reportedly called Soros a “lender,” not an investment. Valencia told the gathering she didn’t have a strategy for the station, so someone asked why Soros would lend $60 million to a nonprofit with no plan.
Valencia said, “They like what we want to do,” admitting they are going to “do something” that appeals to an ardent leftist.
Advertisers are reportedly looking for exits. Employees are leaving.
Many Radio Mambi workers are the children of Cuban exiles, and there is the pressure at home not to have a left-of-center format. According to Bonilla, one notable employee’s mother expects him to quit if the sale is approved.
“Radio Mambi is in disarray,” he stated.
If the FCC approves the agreement, Soros’ group will acquire control in 2023.
Valencia declined to comment.
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Can two fading attributes serve to reverse "wokeness?"
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Does tradition and faith provide the cure for woke madness?
As radical leftist ideologies set society on fire, what’s needed is an intellectual debate about whether classical liberalism or a rediscovered conservatism provides the answers.
By JONATHAN S. TOBIN
(June 21, 2022 / JNS) If, like most people, you don’t follow the world of political and literary intellectual ideas closely, then you missed it. Three years ago, a debate between two conservative writers turned into the kind of no-holds-barred brawl that drew in many other writers and even garnered attention from liberal journals like The New Yorker. But while many observers decried the back and forth between David French and Sohrab Ahmari as reflecting the decline of civility in American public discourse, the substance of their disagreement was important.
With radical ideologies and intolerant woke culture taking a crowbar to traditional values and even the foundations of Western civilization, what should the proper response be? Do we keep faith with classical liberalism, and maintain an attitude of live and let live, even when we see disturbing trends gaining traction and driving opponents out of the mainstream? Or do we reject the idea of a neutral public square and instead answer wokeness with a counter-offensive rooted in tradition and religion that would not tolerate those forces seeking to tear down institutions and civic culture?
The pretext for this donnybrook was a news item about a drag-queen story hour held in a public library in Sacramento, Calif. For Ahmari, then the op-ed editor at the New York Post and now the editor of Compact, a new magazine he recently founded, the deliberate exposure of small children to cross-dressing risqué dancers was a disaster that required more than a shrug of the shoulders. He thought the problem was that conservatives were so devoted to individual rights that they failed to see what was at stake.
He said advocates of radical ideas about race, sexual or gender-identity indoctrination weren’t interested in merely defending their autonomy to do as they like in private spaces. They required everyone else to positively affirm their choices and ideas, and that imperative—backed up by liberal political forces that practiced intolerance for dissent in the name of tolerance—would inevitably drive anyone who didn’t agree out of the public square. That is what happened with religious dissenters from practices like gay marriage, which is now widely accepted across society, and would also inevitably happen to those who felt drag-queen story hour and even worse ideas were inappropriate.
Ahmari placed blame for this complacency on David French, a lawyer who defended conservatives in religious liberty cases and then also a writer for National Review magazine. In an essay published in the First Things magazine titled “Against David French-ism,” Ahmari said it was the willingness of people like French to argue only for a public square in which everyone could do as they liked that had stripped society of its defenses. The classical liberal values of individual liberty at the core of conservative political ideas in the late 20th and early 21st centuries were, said Ahmari, a failure because it was too weak and too tolerant to fight for what its adherents believed in.
In response, French—today a senior editor at the “Never Trump” journal The Dispatch—denounced Ahmari’s call for an offensive against the woke as a threat to everyone’s liberty. If the right could ban drag queens from libraries, what would stop the left from doing the same to conservative Christians and Orthodox Jews? To his way of thinking, even things that he opposed were “the blessings of liberty.” It was the duty of conservatives to defend free discourse, not to suppress it.
Part of the subtext of this argument was that French was a fierce critic of former President Donald Trump. Ahmari had moved from opposition to support of Trump once he was in office. Ahmari’s notion that the right had to stop playing nice with intolerant leftists tapped into the same feelings that drove many voters to embrace Trump.
A lot has happened in the three years since this dustup, and events have strengthened Ahmari’s argument in the eyes of many on the right. Included in what has contributed to a genuine cultural crisis are the Black Lives Matter riots; the willingness of many in the media, academia and public education to adopt the false narrative about American history promoted by The New York Times’ “1619 Project;” the embrace by many of the same institutions of critical race theory, white privilege, intersectionality; the acceptance of the intolerant and racist “diversity, equity and inclusion” agenda; and the spread of gender indoctrination even for very young children.
Indeed, the pretext for the Ahmari-French debate has gone mainstream. The drive to foster acceptance of those who identify as transgender has led to intolerance of dissenting views. Those opposing the practice of allowing life-altering surgeries and treatments for children who claim to be experiencing gender dysphoria are branded as bigots by the Biden administration. And, yes, the appearance of drag queens not just at libraries but in public schools has been normalized by those who see it as necessary to promote inclusion. Indeed, when Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel recently quipped that she thought the battle for LGBTQ acceptance may require “a drag queen for every school,” Ahmari did something of a touchdown dance over French and other critics. His predictions that their tolerance of that which ought not to be tolerated would lead to those who opposed such practices now being the ones being driven out of the public square was seemingly vindicated.
That is the context for the publication of a new book that takes this debate to a different and higher level. In Conservatism: A Rediscovery, Yoram Hazony argues that liberalism and liberal values are being destroyed by woke radicals who have seized control over much of our popular culture and even our political system. He says the only possible way to oppose this trend is to discard a classical liberal approach that has proven incapable of defending itself. In its place, he advocates for a system of conservative democracy that would balance belief in individual rights with the needs of the nation and society. What he wants is the triumph of a conservatism rooted in ideas of nationalism, faith and tradition that are, he believes, the only effective answer to the woke Marxists who are in the process of storming and capturing American society.
Though in his book Hazony takes up the cudgels for the Anglo-American conservative tradition, he has been a formidable intellectual force in the Jewish world. Born in Israel though raised and educated in the United States, Hazony founded the influential Shalom Center think tank in Jerusalem and then helped lead the way to it becoming Shalom College, Israel’s first liberal arts college. Since leaving Shalem, he has taken on different projects, including the presidency of the Herzl Institute and becoming chairman of the Edmund Burke Foundation, named in honor of the 18th-century English thinker and politician whose ideas are at the core of his philosophy.
Much of the book is an exercise in intellectual history. He traces the history of Anglo-American conservatism back to its early English roots and also provides a triptych through the work of the writers and thinkers who shaped modern American conservative thought. At its core is a critique of rationalist ideas that are based on abstract concepts as opposed to those that are empirical, and derived from experience and integrated into national traditions.
This may be heavy-going for readers not interested in political philosophy. But Hazony’s template for what a conservative democracy would entail is more worthy of widespread debate than the Ahmari-French spat.
The most accessible section of the book is its concluding passages in which Hazony speaks of what it means to live a conservative life. In tracing his own story of meeting the woman he would marry in college and their subsequent journey towards a life based on religious belief while exploring the world of conservative ideas provides an instructive model for how to live your principles. His belief that you can’t credibly extol traditional values in public while flouting them at home makes sense.
As for policy, he extols a blueprint for society that would be based on reverence for national identity, embrace of public religion, the rule of law, the notion of the traditional family and the religious congregation as the basis of civilized life and education that would be influenced by religion. He backs economic freedom but unlike prevalent conservative trends of the last generation, which venerated the free market above all other values, he supports a more common good conservatism that would balance the needs of the nation and its people against unfettered capitalism. He thinks immigration rights should be tempered by the necessity of integrating migrants into the national culture and cohesion of each country. His defense of nationalism as a virtue in and of itself (the subject of a previous book), and his opposition to multilateralism and international bodies, is similarly based in the experience of what destructive institutions like the United Nations have done.
Some of this is controversial, especially for Jewish readers. His support for the role of religion in public life goes beyond opposition to a high wall of separation between church and state to support the notion that Christianity “should be the basis for public life and strongly reflected in government” in nations like the United States, where there is a Christian majority, albeit with “provisions” being made for Jews and other minorities to ensure their right to practice their beliefs.
That sounds like the establishment of Christianity as a state religion, something the Founding Fathers rejected with good reason, as well as a shift in status from full equality to toleration for Jews. While that might be defensible in nations that are based on a specific ethnic or religious group like Israel, which is and has the right to be an avowedly Jewish state, or other nations with Christian, Muslim or other national cultures, that’s a non-starter for the United States.
Nor is it clear how the enshrinement of the traditional family as the norm, while laudable in principle, can be compatible with a belief in equality for differing versions of family life.
While these are weaknesses in Hazony’s argument, such questions also point out the difficult dilemma society faces. If acceptance of non-traditional practices inevitably leads to intolerance for traditional religion and culture, how do those who value tradition and the Western canon, but also venerate individual liberty as the only proper purpose of government, defend what they hold dear?
The woke threat to society and democracy that this book seeks to address is no passing fad. In spite of the misgivings about some elements of his vision of conservative democracy, more books like Hazony’s—and a vigorous debate about them and their ideas—are needed. Without it, we will remain at the mercy of forces whose objective is not just to strip the public square of faith and to drive traditional values and their adherents to the margins of society, but also to ultimately smother any idea of liberty or democracy.
And:
By Star Parker
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NPR: Biden is set to announce today that he wants to stop collecting federal gas tax over the summer to give consumers a break from inflation and high prices. Economists say that the decision wouldn't make much difference for drivers — and could backfire on the economy.
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Biden Will Push Congress For Gas Tax Holiday, Despite Obama Once Calling It a 'Gimmick'
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With inflation at a record high, Jeff and his team have been on the hunt for safer ways to profit in today’s market… and tonight at 8 p.m. ET, Jeff’s holding a special event where he’ll share details on one such opportunity. It’s an investment he says is legally mandated to make money for investors… but not in the form of dividends or interest. Instead, these deals return thousands of dollars or more in some cases… and they can even protect your money in volatile markets like today. So click here to reserve your spot for tonight’s 8 p.m. event, and then read on to learn more. Here’s Jeff… |
“Real” Inflation Is Much Higher Than the CPI |
By Jeff Brown, editor, The Bleeding Edge 1994. That was the last time the Federal Reserve raised the Fed Funds Rate 75 basis points. And what did it end up doing after that? Seven months later, it ended up cutting rates again. Put simply, the Fed is crashing the markets and asset prices, and its policies will not address inflation. The reality is that the “real” inflation is much higher than what is represented by the Consumer Price Index (CPI) of 8.6%. By way of example, if we calculate the CPI the way it was back in 1980 – without assumptions and adjustments for product substitutions – we see a very different picture… Using these alternative CPI calculations, inflation currently sits around 17%… and the interesting thing is that this feels far more accurate. Have the prices of chicken, eggs, gasoline, electricity, bacon, and just about everything else risen more than 8.6%? They have… and in most cases, those prices are up by more than 17% year-over-year. Raising the Fed Funds rate 75 basis points to 1.5% won’t do anything to tame the kind of real inflation that we are seeing right now. The Fed missed its chance to address this problem last year. Now inflation is out of control. If it were serious about addressing inflation, the Fed would raise the Fed Funds rate to 9% in one fell swoop… But it can’t do that. It would collapse the entire economy. It simply isn’t an option. What the Fed is doing now is its version of virtue signaling. It just wants to appear to be making an effort. ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ |
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