By Taylor Lewis, AMER THINKER

The Trumpian grip on the Republican Party slackened ever so slightly this past week.  Kris Kobach’s loss in the Kansas Senate primary was a setback for immigration hardliners in what should have been a banner year in fortress America.

The coronavirus gave President Trump an excuse to bar — really bar, not just gesture toward — foreign travel to the U.S., which he did.  But the effect will be ephemeral, fading when a vaccine is developed or herd immunity takes hold.

Kobach, a champion of stricter immigration controls, was defeated by Rep. Roger Marshall, a sock puppet of moneyed national Republican groups.  With Kobach’s serial failure to win an election, and the boat racing of Jeff Sessions’s bid to retake his Senate seat thanks to the president’s personal grudge, populists are back on their heels.  The famed border wall remains incomplete in the twilight of Trump’s first term.  Two reliable votes on border security have, in a twist of depressive humor, been banned from emigrating to Washington.  Curt Mills reports: “[A] clear effect of the dual defeat of Kobach and Sessions, beyond depriving immigration hawks of sentinels in the Senate, will be to (relatively) moderate the likely immigration policy of the 2024 Republican primary.”
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Magnetic measurements made by Israeli researchers reveal the immensity of the destruction of Jerusalem by the Babylonians.

Arutz Sheva Staff ,

Every year on the 9th of Av (Tisha B’Av) Jews around the world remember the destruction of the First Temple. Now, thanks to the long historic memory of the Jewish People, and the archaeological findings that were discovered lately at City of David, researchers from Tel Aviv University, the Hebrew University and the Israel Antiquities Authority have been able to measure earth’s magnetic field in August of the year 586 BCE – revealing the immensity of the destruction of Jerusalem by the Babylonians.
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MG Paul E. Vallely, US Army (Ret)
Chairman of Stand Up America US Foundation  July 29, 2020

Working and Supporting the Chinese People to Eliminate the evil Chinese Communist Party (“The CCP”) (Through Chinese Eyes)

“The scourge of our planet today is a small group of rogue regimes that violate every principle on which the United Nations is based. They respect neither their own citizens nor the sovereign rights of their countries. If the righteous many do not confront the wicked few, then evil will triumph. When decent people and nations become bystanders to history, the forces of destruction only gather power and strength” – President Trump, speech at UN
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Defining Arab Palestinian nationalism prior to Israel’s establishment in 1948 would have been difficult, since the term “Palestinian” generally referred to Jews.

By Moshe Dann, JPOST JUNE 18, 2020

Jordan’s King Abdullah meets Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas at the Royal Palace in Amman on March 12, 2018

An Arab Palestinian homeland? OK, but where? Where can, and should it be located? Is it feasible and realistic? Will it ensure the survival of Israel and Zionism? Is it politically and economically coherent? Is it historically consistent? Will it allow Arab Palestinians to express their sense of national identity, decide their destiny (e.g. to vote), and will it contribute to a better life? In order to make our way through the maze of complexities, competing arguments and myths, we need to understand the history of an idea – Palestinianism – and how and why it became such a contentious issue.
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President Trump grasps what is at stake and has taken strong actions to push back at the Chinese regime for its belligerent acts. One cannot say the same about Joe Biden and his fellow globalists at the United Nations

By Joseph A. Klein, CFP United Nations Columnist

China’s one-party communist regime has played the West since China’s professed opening of its economy to global trade and investments. It wants to replace the current rules-based international system with one dominated by China’s authoritarian model. To that end, the regime is deftly exploiting multilateral institutions from the World Trade Organization to the World Health Organization to the United Nations itself.

Thus, China has managed to get away with retaining a “developing country” status within the World Trade Organization, which gives it unfair preferences. China has the second largest Gross Domestic Product in the world, surpassed only by the United States. It does not deserve any preferential treatment. But China still gets it.

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Dr. Ileana Johnson Paugh, CFP

When I first became aware of U.N. Agenda 21, two decades ago, I started reading everything I could find and the more I read, the deeper my searches took me – the large octopus using the environment as an excuse was stretching its tentacles far and wide across the globe. I could hardly believe it myself as I found long documents, conferences, videos of politicians, presidents, and famous people pushing this globalist agenda and passing executive orders to implement it by fiat at all levels of government.

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by Majid Rafizadeh, GATESTONE INSTITUTE  •  August 8, 2020

A new secret deal with China appears to be giving Beijing significant control over Iran. The ruling mullahs are selling off the country to China, just as some African governments did. Beijing appears more than happy to make deals with dictators, ignore their human rights abuses and plunder their nations to advance its own global hegemonic ambitions. Pictured: Iranian President Hassan Rouhani (right) and Chinese President Xi Jinping meet on January 23, 2016 in Tehran, Iran. (Photo by STR/AFP via Getty Images)

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By Mike Doran and Peter Rough, HUDSON INSTITUTR

Chinese President Xi Jinping and Iranian President Hassan Rouhani shake hands during an official welcoming ceremony prior to their meeting at Saadabad Palace in Tehran, Iran on January 23, 2016. (Pool / Iranian Presidency/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images)

Revelations this week that China has helped Saudi Arabia build a facility for extracting uranium yellowcake, a step along the path towards nuclear energy and weapons, has underlined the increasingly influential role played by China in the Middle East.

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You do not challenge any part of this politically correct madness without risking everything. I recommend that more of us do just that

By Phyllis Chesler, SPECTATOR

Phyllis Chesler, in a photo from her website

Perhaps contemporary ‘cancel culture’ officially began in 1989, when Khomeini issued his fatwa against Salman Rushdie for having ‘defamed’ Islam in The Satanic Verses. Rushdie was ushered into hiding and the Islamist assault on truth-speech in the West was on. But here’s what I also think.

The day after Israel won its 1967 war of self-defense, the propaganda began in deadly earnest against both Israel and the West. Within two decades, perhaps less, Western universities were intellectually and politically ‘occupied’ by Stalinist and Islamist narratives. Balkanized social identities and victimology ruled.

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The Democrats’ case against the attorney general is wildly distorted

By Andrew J McCarthy, NATIONAL REVIEW

Attorney General William P. Barr has a dilemma: how to purge federal law enforcement of the politicization that has left its reputation in tatters, while simultaneously ensuring accountability in one of modern history’s most politically combustible criminal probes.

That probe, conducted at Barr’s direction by John Durham, the United States Attorney for Connecticut, is scrutinizing the origins and predication of what even the attorney general has taken to calling “Russiagate.” This is the “investigation of the investigators,” focusing on the Obama administration’s — in particular, the FBI’s — counterintelligence and criminal investigations into claimed suspicions of Trump “collusion” with Russia. Based on rank hearsay and speculation, much of it sourced to the Hillary Clinton campaign and since discredited, Obama officials developed a theory that Donald Trump had been complicit in the Kremlin’s hacking of Democratic Party emails. The Kremlin’s supposed goal was to snatch the 2016 presidential election from the heavily favored Hillary Clinton and force Trump, under threat of blackmail, to do Vladimir Putin’s bidding in the Oval Office. Read more…

Israel Prize laureate and scholar credited with revolutionary translation and commentary of seminal Jewish texts in ‘once-in-a-millennium’ achievement

By Marissa Newman, TOI

Rabbi Adin Even-Israel (Steinsaltz) in his Jerusalem office (Raphael Ahren/Times of Israel)

Rabbi Adin Even Yisrael Steinsaltz, whose translation and groundbreaking commentary of the entire Babylonian Talmud and Bible has been lauded for making the ancient Jewish texts approachable, died Friday at the age of 83.

A longtime educator, prolific author of over 60 books, and Israel Prize laureate, Steinsaltz (who years ago switched to a Hebraicized version of his surname, Even-Israel, but never shook off the original), was also an educated physicist and chemist, a biting social critic, and a beloved public figure in Israel — revered for his encyclopedic mind, and admired for his down-to-earth and kindly bearing. (His first name means “gentle” in Hebrew, and by all accounts, he was).

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By Lt. Col. (res.) Dr. Mordechai Kedar August 7, 2020

BESA Center Perspectives Paper No. 1,681, August 7, 2020

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY: On August 4, 2020, a massive explosion occurred at a warehouse on the waterfront of the Port of Beirut, Lebanon. It killed at least 135 people, wounded at least 5,000, left approximately 300,000 people homeless, and devastated the port region of the city, causing damages estimated between $10 billion and $15 billion. The Lebanese authorities are blaming the explosion on mismanagement by port officials, but there is reason to suspect that it was the result of Hezbollah negligence.

The official report of the Lebanese authorities on the massive August 4 explosion at the Port of Beirut is that a warehouse near the water containing 2,750 tons of ammonium nitrate exploded. They claim that this material had been in the warehouse for over six years, with the approval of the court, and confirmed this claim with documentation.

With all due respect to the Lebanese authorities, I do not buy this story. I believe that explosives, ammunition, and missile fuel (which are highly volatile and flammable substances) were stored by Hezbollah in this warehouse after being shipped from Iran. There are several reasons why I believe this.

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By Irina Tsukerman, BESA August 6, 2020

Satellite image of Africa, photo by NASA via Wikipedia

BESA Center Perspectives Paper No. 1,679, August 6, 2020

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY: For the Muslim Brotherhood, the Libyan conflict is an opportunity to flex its muscles in the “weak link” of the Arab Muslim world. Weak African countries have once again become recruiting grounds for Qatar-funded and Turkey-backed Islamist ideologues. For all the criticism of the shortcomings of the governing structure in Sudan, the political alternatives that are emerging thanks to the Brotherhood’s alliance with leftists and Communists may be far worse.

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By MARTIN SHERMAN

Even a cursory analysis of the “Commanders for Israel’s Security” plan, perversely titled “Security First” will reveal that it is not a security plan composed by military experts, but a political manifesto drafted by amateur politicians

It is useless for the sheep to pass resolutions in favor of vegetarianism, while the wolf remains of a different opinion. – R. Inge, dean of St. Paul’s Cathedral, 1915.

The most righteous of men cannot live in peace if his evil neighbor will not let him be– from Wilhelm Tell Act IV, Scene III, by Friedrich von Schiller, 1804.

“When somebody says they want to kill you, you should believe him.” An unnamed Holocaust survivor, commenting on the lessons he had learned from his experiences during World War II.
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T. Belman.  When J-Street was created in about 2008, it proclaimed itself pro-Israel by redefining the term. It was created and financed by George Soros who wanted to counter the influence of AIPAC.  It purported to speak for American Jewry.  Thereafter the main stream media gave 4 times the coverage that it gave to AIPAC. This was the beginning of the cancel culture.

by Dr. Eric R. Mandel, MEPIN

President Donald Trump, near an Israeli flag at the Israel Museum in Jerusalem-(photo credit: REUTERS/Ronen Zvulun)

The term “pro-Israel” has become has become a lightning rod, due in part to President Donald Trump’s many self-described pro-Israel statements and actions, and the scorn many people have for just about anything he says or does.

Writing in Haaretz, Jonathan Tobin said, “Democrats and never-Trump former Republicans argue that even if you support the president’s policies, they are bad for Israel… the association with Trump is tarnishing the Jewish state… [yet] if Democrats are increasingly divided on Israel, this is a trend that long predates Trump and was largely weaponized by Barack Obama’s feud” with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu over the Iran nuclear deal.

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BY Dean Cheng, Senior Research Fellow, Asian Studies Center
Dean brings knowledge of China’s military and space capabilities as a research fellow on Chinese political and security affairs.

Aerial photo taken on July 27, 2020 shows floodwater being discharged from the Three Gorges Dam in central China’s Hubei Province.Xinhua News Agency / Contributor / Getty Images

KEY TAKEAWAYS

As if 2020 has not been sufficiently crisis-laden for the People’s Republic of China, it now faces the potential for major catastrophe due to massive rains.

The massive runoff into the Yangtze has led to concerns that the Three Gorges Dam will be overstressed beyond its capacity to withstand the inflow.

The flooding of the Yangtze will have enormous effects in China and beyond, especially since the threat of dam collapse coincides with several other domestic crises.

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