Hypocrisy and Failure Abounds.

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Michigan is poised to revive compulsory unionism

The state’s right-to-work law liberated workers and boosted the economy. Now Democrats want to repeal it.

By Jeff Jacoby Globe Columnist

Just over a decade ago, Michigan lawmakers passed a right-to-work law, making their state the 24th in the nation to protect employees from compulsory unionism. It was one of the best things they ever did.

Labor leaders and their allies warned of dire consequences if Michigan became a right-to-work state and unions lost the power to force workers to pay union dues as a condition of keeping a job. They claimed wages would fall, the economy would suffer, and there would be “no positive impact whatsoever on job growth.”

They couldn’t have been more wrong.

According to data compiled by the Mackinac Center for Public Policy, inflation-adjusted average incomes in Michigan, which had risen by less than 1 percent in the nine years that preceded right-to-work, soared by 22 percent in the nine years that followed. Michigan had lost 379,000 jobs in the nine years before the passage of right-to-work in 2012 but gained 155,100 jobs in the same period afterward. The state’s unemployment rate averaged 8.5 percent between 2002 and 2012; it fell to an average of 6 percent in the decade since. Writing recently in Crain’s Detroit Business, former Michigan Senate majority leader Mike Shirkey pointed out that manufacturing jobs in particular expanded by 6.4 percent — a sharp contrast to the 1.1 percent decline in non-right-to-work states (like Massachusetts).

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Hunter's Report ACCESSED By House Committee

The Treasury Department has, at last, relented, now saying it will grant the House Oversight Committee access to investigate..

Read More

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George Soros Exposed as Major Force Behind Trump’s Prosecution and Imminent Arrest

By Kyle Becker

President Donald Trump reacted to the news of his imminent arrest in New York by pointing out that the Manhattan District Attorney’s office’s “leader is funded by George Soros.”

Manhattan D.A. Alvin Bragg, whom Donald Trump is referring to in his post, was elected in November 2021 with indirect backing from left-wing billionaire George Soros, who gave $1 million to the Color of Change PAC, which spent it to elect Bragg.

https://trendingpoliticsnews.com/creepy-old-dude-knab/

In addition to the Soros connection the above link/article  also talks about the impacct of hydrogen cells on the market. 

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I have been discussing this fear for decades and former CIA Director Woolsey put me on this idea and concern.

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Iran's Mullahs Mission: Wipe Out America

by Majid Rafizadeh

A radical regime, whose mission is to "Export the Revolution" and bring Islamist rule to the rest of the world, will not alter its aims through policies of appeasement.

The appeasement policies of the Obama Administration empowered and emboldened Iran's ruling mullahs, and the Biden Administration seems determined to pursue the same path. Recall when, upon reaching the JCPOA "nuclear deal" with Iran in 2105, then US President Barack Obama pointed out that he was "confident" that the deal, with its lifting of sanctions on Iran, would "meet the national security needs of the United States and our allies"? It was even outlined in the JCPOA preamble that all parties "anticipate that full implementation of this JCPOA will positively contribute to regional and international peace and security."

What was actually the result? The international community witnessed even more rockets launched by Yemen's Houthis at civilian targets, the deployment of Lebanese Hezbollah soldiers in Syria, and increasing attacks by the Iranian-funded Hamas on Israel. With billions of dollars of revenue pouring into the pockets of Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), Tehran did not change its behavior for the better. Instead, it became even more empowered and emboldened to pursue its revolutionary ideals of anti-Americanism and anti-Semitism.

Iran became, in fact, according to the US State Department, "the world's worst state sponsor of terrorism."

Worse, at the peak of these appeasement policies towards the mullahs, Iran's fundamentalist regime was emboldened to publicly harass the US Navy, detain US sailors and imprison American citizens. Khamenei has also repeatedly threatened "Death to America!" and "Death to Israel!" and made incendiary remarks about wiping Israel from the face of earth "in less than 8 minutes."

Currently, thanks to the Biden Administration's appeasement where it would not matter and inaction where it would, the Iran's ruling mullahs are closer than ever to acquiring nuclear weapons. The Biden administration would do well to realize that a nuclear Iran is not just an existential threat to Israel; a nuclear Iran is major threat to the region, Europe, America, the world.

The regime has made its intentions clear. Especially now that it is aligned with Putin's Russia and the Chinese Communist Party, it would like to conquer the US.

As recently as November, Khamenei vowed, "Death to America will happen. In the new order I am talking about America will no longer have any important role."

The headline of a report by Iran's state-controlled Afkar News read (in Farsi): "American Soil Is Now Within the Range of Iranian Bombs". The report boasted about the damage that Iran could inflict, and claims that the Islamic Republic can use "a high-altitude electromagnetic bomb to attack the United States."

"The U.S. Congress' Electromagnetic Attack Commission has long warned that detonating just one nuclear bomb at high altitude [over the US] could take out the US power grid and, with it, all infrastructure. The report of March 28, 2017 of the Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs in the US Senate also writes in a report to the 114th Congress: 'A successful attack with an electromagnetic nuclear bomb against the United States could cause the death of approximately 90% of the American population.'"

The report adds:

"By sending a military satellite into space, Iran now has shown that it can target all American territory; the Iranian parliament had previously warned [the US] that an electromagnetic nuclear attack on the United States would likely kill 90 percent of Americans..... If the industrialized nations of the world cannot devise effective ways to defend themselves against dangerous electronic attacks, they will collapse within a few years... American soldiers will not be able to find food to eat or fire a shot."

American politicians shortsightedly fail to harden America's electric grid, probably because it will not show up as an accomplishment that donors will respond to, electorally or financially, during their election campaigns.

The European Union, which voted in favor of lifting the arms embargo against Iran, is also being threatened:

"The same type of ballistic missile technology used to launch the satellite could carry nuclear, chemical or even biological weapons to wipe Israel off the map, hit US bases and allies in the region and US facilities, and target NATO even in the far west of Europe...."

Tragically, through its appeasement policies and failure to take on the Free World's adversaries in a serious and credible way, the Biden Administration has been empowering at least one predatory regime that is determined to accomplish its mission of Jihad to rule the world at any cost; even if that requires wiping out other states. And now, thanks to the catastrophic policies of the Biden Administration -- suppressing US fossil fuel production, thereby enriching Russia so it could launch a war against Ukraine; and by snubbing America's historical ally, Saudi Arabia -- it has brought US national security to the brink.

Dr. Majid Rafizadeh is a business strategist and advisor, Harvard-educated scholar, political scientist, board member of Harvard International Review, and president of the International American Council on the Middle East. He has authored several books on Islam and US Foreign Policy. He can be reached at Dr.Rafizadeh@Post.Harvard.Edu

And:

Blame Biden for Iran’s diplomatic triumph

It’s not the fault of the Saudis or even Chinese interference. America’s contempt for its Middle East allies is the main obstacle to expanding the Abraham Accords.

By JONATHAN S. TOBIN

(March 17, 2023 / JNS) For Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s domestic opponents, it was just more fodder to label his new government a failure. The Israeli left was chortling about the news of China brokering a resumption of direct relations between Saudi Arabia and Iran. That’s because they thought it spoiled the premier’s meeting with Italian Prime Minister Georgia Meloni on a visit last week to Rome.

In the cutthroat zero-sum game of Israeli politics, the shocking development was seen primarily through the prism of the anti-Netanyahu resistance’s ongoing campaign to topple the coalition that won a majority in the November Knesset election. If this meant taking a short break from demonizing the government’s plans for judicial reform to snark about a development that seemingly thwarted one of the prime minister’s top foreign-policy goals—getting the Saudis to join the Abraham Accords and normalize relations with Israel—then they were happy to do it.

But the development was nothing to laugh about. And far from being something for which Netanyahu could be assigned even partial blame or reflecting poorly on his priorities, this had little to do with Israel or even with any of the issues that have long held up Saudi Arabia’s joining the accords.

The real culprit is the Biden administration.

President Joe Biden’s foreign policy has been highlighted by the disaster in Afghanistan and its embrace of Ukraine, whose security it seems to value more than that of America’s own borders. But one consistent theme has been the attempt on the part of the Obama administration alumni back at work in Washington to revive their old boss’s pivot in the Middle East away from longtime allies Israel and Saudi Arabia to a new alignment based on a rapprochement with Iran.

That’s the context for the Iran-Saudi pact.

The two longtime foes will re-establish diplomatic relations and the Saudis have received promises—in theory, guaranteed by China—that Iran will cease trying to overthrow the monarchy via the use of its terrorist auxiliaries in the region.

That’s a coup for Beijing that further reinforces its effort to establish itself as a global superpower rival to the United States. But it’s also a sign that the Saudis understand its alliance with the Americans, which dates back to the presidency of Franklin D. Roosevelt, is predicated on trading oil for security. And that was meaningless with a president like Biden. His combination of weakness and prejudice against their country left them vulnerable to the Iranians.

The Saudis, like the rest of the Middle East, know that the United States is no longer, in the parlance of the region, the “strong horse” feared by its enemies.

By contrast, Iran has shown its contempt for the United States.

It thumbed its nose at Biden by coming to the aid of Russia after its illegal invasion of Ukraine. More importantly, it thwarted Biden’s quest for a new nuclear deal that would, like its 2015 predecessor from which former President Donald Trump rightly withdrew, more or less guarantee that Tehran would eventually get a weapon rather than prevent it. The Iranian regime realized that it could achieve its nuclear ambition without the West’s official acquiescence and that it need not fear any repercussions from Biden.

Iran’s rebuff would have caused a more sensible White House to understand that rebooting the alliance with the Saudis was a necessity.

Following up the Trump administration’s success with the Abraham Accords would have been even smarter. Helping the Saudis to normalize relations with Israel—with whom it already had a tacit alliance against Iran—would have constrained Tehran’s efforts to foment unrest throughout the region via its terrorist auxiliaries and made it easier for Washington to turn to Riyadh for more oil during an energy crunch.

Instead, Biden’s open contempt for the Saudi de facto ruler, Prince Mohammed bin Salman, prevailed. The willingness of Democrats to treat his autocratic regime as a unique threat to human rights, while seeking to enrich and empower a far more barbarous Islamist tyranny in Tehran, sent a clear message to MBS that doing the Americans’ bidding when the war in Ukraine led to just such an energy shortage was not in his country’s interests.

MBS has come to the not-unreasonable conclusion that rather than depend on an administration that is uninterested in the survival of the House of Saud, he’d be better off hedging his bets by trying to cool down the conflict with the Iranians.

Still, it would be a mistake to conclude that the Saudis have irrevocably linked their fate with Iran and China, or that there is no way for Washington to retrieve the situation. MBS understands how worthless Tehran’s promises are. The prince isn’t so foolish as to think that the Iranians aren’t still bent on toppling his family sooner or later.

That’s why the day before the deal with China and Iran was announced, The Wall Street Journal broke the news about the Saudis making clear to the United States the terms under which they would normalize relations with Israel.

Some believe the pact with Iran renders those discussions moot. But while the obstacles to changing the ties between the Saudis and Israel from an under-the-table relationship to one of formal recognition are still formidable, they are by no means insuperable. Or at least they don’t have to be, provided that Washington was interested in making it happen.

The price for normalization with Israel that the Saudis made public was steep. They want the United States to formally commit to guarantee their security. In addition to more arms sales, they want help in building a civilian nuclear program. That is really the beginning of a Saudi quest for a bomb with which they can deter Iran, which, thanks to Obama’s appeasement, is already a threshold nuclear power for all intents and purposes.

The United States has no interest in fomenting a Mideast nuclear race. The Saudi request, however, has more to do with their impatience with America’s unwillingness to keep Iran in line.

What was most conspicuous by its absence from the list of Saudi demands was any assurances from the United States or Israel about creating an independent Palestinian state, which is, at least according to foreign-policy establishment, the real obstacle to normalization.

Like other Gulf State governments, the Saudis have no interest in continuing to sacrifice their interests on the altar of Palestinian intransigence. They also rightly fear that any such state would be merely one more failed government vulnerable to overthrow by Islamists and provide Iran with more opportunities to create instability.

The real problem is not the Palestinians or even the Saudi nuclear wish list. It’s that the Biden administration has no desire to do something that would annoy Iran or help Netanyahu, who the Obama alumni hate as much as MBS.

But if Biden is serious about wanting to contain Iran, fend off China or even promote peace in the Middle East, then he needs to strengthen ties with Riyadh.

Guaranteeing the Saudis’ security will stick in the craw of Democrats, who inexplicably consider the murder of Jamal Khashoggi—an exiled Saudi ally of Iran who wrote for The Washington Post—to be a crime that is worse than any of those committed by Tehran. Yet the deal with Iran is a sign not so much of Saudi betrayal as it is that the United States has abandoned its friends.

By stepping up to formally assure the Saudis of American support, Biden can advance stability in the Middle East with a sequel to the Abraham Accords. It would also send a message to Iran and the Russians that the United States can still be a “strong horse” that can’t be slighted or ignored.

That would seem to be the most sensible course of action for the president. Should he fail to do so, it will be one more sign that he and his advisors prefer to focus on quarrels with MBS and Netanyahu, and ignore the threat from China rather than advance American interests or Middle East peace.

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

Jonathan S. Tobin is editor in chief of JNS.org, a senior contributor for The Federalist and a columnist for Newsweek. He is also the host of the Top Story podcast that can be viewed on YouTube and listened to on Spotify and other platforms. He can be reached via e-mail at: jtobin@jns.org. Follow him on Twitter at @jonathans_tobin and on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/JonathanSTobincolumnist/. 

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