How the ‘great powers’ are reconfiguring their partnerships for a new era. Plus, why it matters that al-Qaeda’s media chief was killed in Taliban country.

By Thomas Joscelyn, Senior Fellow and Senior Editor of FDD’s Long War Journal

During a video conference last week, Russian President Vladimir Putin said something significant. When asked if Russia would enter into a formal military alliance with China, Putin responded: “We don’t need it, but, theoretically, it’s quite possible to imagine it.”

That may not seem like a big deal, until you realize that the Russians have consistently avoided using the word “alliance” to describe their relationship with the Chinese. Instead, they’ve described their increasingly close ties as a “comprehensive strategic partnership of coordination.” It may be the case that “alliance” implies certain military commitments that go beyond how the Kremlin and Beijing currently view their dealings. Or, they may want to leave some ambiguity, avoiding terms that crystallize the situation for policymakers around the globe.

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By Jim Hoft, GATEWAY PUNDIT   October 31, 2020

Guest post by Collin McMahon

Just like Spygate in the US, far-left NGOs are trying to bring down the conservative government of Benjamin Netanyahu in Israel. Israeli representative Ariel Kallner has revealed that these radical anarchist organizations are being funded by the EU – nothing short of a declaration of war on a sovereign state.

The leftist organizations protesting outside Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s house in Balfour Street in Jerusalem are financed from abroad, mainly by the EU and Germany, as NGO Monitor’s Itai Reuveni has stated.

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[This essay is adapted and expanded from “The United States in Crisis: Citizenship, Immigration and the Nation-State” (The Claremont Institute, $12.99)]

Without the natural right principles of the founding, the nation has no future but dissolution and anarchy.

By Edward J. Erler, AM GREATNESS    October 30, 2020

A prominent immigration scholar, David Jacobson, writes that “[t]ransnational migration is steadily eroding the traditional basis of nation-state membership, namely citizenship. As rights have come to be predicated on residency, not citizen status, the distinction between ‘citizen’ and ‘alien’ has eroded. The devaluation of citizenship has contributed to the increasing importance of international human rights codes, with its premise of universal ‘personhood’.”

The goal of the Progressive Left is to abolish the classifications of citizens and aliens in favor of what is now known as “universal personhood” for those who might otherwise be called “citizens of the world” if that phrase was not an utter contradiction. A policy of open borders—the abolition of the nation-state—would usher in the era of the universal person; but it would also usher in the era of universal tyranny, or what has been called the “universal homogeneous state,” the European Union on a global scale.

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By Sarah N. Stern, AMER THINKER

A new book by Dr. Walid Phares, titled The Choice: Trump vs Obama Biden in US Foreign Policy is getting attention in Washington, D.C. and around the world. Released in late September, it stands alone as a definitive discussion and analysis of foreign policy and national security within a loud and crucial presidential election season which seems determined to focus only on domestic issues, personas, and inflammatory accusations.

In The Choice, Phares examines the shifts in foreign policy that occurred during the Obama-Biden administration between 2009 and 2016, analyzes these shifts in strategy, and highlights the domestic and geopolitical consequences. Of primary concern to the author was the Obama-Biden administration’s “partnership with the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt and the region”. This implicit and explicit partnership, Phares argues, created additional domestic and regional problems, including the emboldening of Jihadists. Just as important to the author was the Iran Deal. According to Phares, it was for this deal that the Iranian people were abandoned, ISIS could not be defeated, and allies such as the Gulf and Israel were sidelined.
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by Soeren Kern, GATESTONE INSTITUTE  •  October 31, 2020

(Photo of Rob Smith by Gage Skidmore/Flickr)

“Black Lives Matter has become a major political force during this intense election year…. But while BLM claims to benefit Black Americans, the truth is that it actually hurts us. BLM’s cult-like tactics are more like those of a violent gang than a traditional civil rights group fighting against racial discrimination.” — Rob Smith, U.S. Army veteran.

• “Self-destructive behavior that has become acceptable, particularly that in predominantly Black schools, is nothing less than a gross betrayal of a struggle, paid with blood, sweat and tears by previous generations, to make possible today’s educational opportunities that are being routinely squandered.” — Walter E. Williams, Distinguished Professor of Economics at George Mason University.
• “The unthinkable — such as defunding major police departments — has become accepted as ‘reform.’ Judging people based on their skin color has once again become accepted in the highest echelons of American society.” — Ward Connerly, political activist, businessman, and former University of California Regent.

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By Brian C. Joondeph, AM THINKER

Election day is almost here. Some things will end, like incessant campaign commercials, much to the relief of voters on both sides of the aisle. Other things will continue, including protests and riots, as we are seeing in Philadelphia, and as Kamala Harris promised.

Despite more than five years of slings and arrows hurled at President Trump, to derail his campaign, transition, and administration, Trump has a spring in his step. Not just when he is dancing to YMCA song at the end of each rally, but in his entire demeanor.

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AMERICAN GREATNESS

By James Stansbury, AMER THINKER

Thomas Lifson’s 10/26/2020 informative post detailed how Europe is now experiencing a second wave of COVID deaths.  The American mainstream media echoed the claim about the COVID spike in Europe and are also claiming that a similar one is happening in the USA based mostly on increased positive tests.  However, that trend correlates closely with the increased testing.

Unbiased COVID-19 data for this analysis was found in an interactive chart from Our World in Data.  Their COVID-19 data uses a seven-day moving average of daily deaths per million people to make it easier to compare trends for large and small countries.  I selected data for the USA and several individual European countries that posted a significant second wave trend starting around September.  The data in Chart 1 below clearly show that all these countries experienced a major spike in deaths from March to mid-April and confirm the second surge in Europe.  However, evidence of a similar surge in the U.S. is not clear.  The U.S. trend since the middle of June did not go as low and stayed relatively flat.  I am not sure about the data from elsewhere, but I suspect that the U.S. numbers are inflated (+25%) due to the many deaths reported with COVID being counted the same as those confirmed to have died from COVID.

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Sudan deal has deepened the shock in Ramallah, which is digging in despite impatience among erstwhile Sunni supporters. The Palestinians aren’t going anywhere, but the PA might be

By AVI ISSACHAROFF , TOI<
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US Vice President Joseph Biden, left, and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas wave to the press ahead of their meeting in the West Bank city of Ramallah, March 10, 2010. (AP Photo/Tara Todras-Whitehill)

The Organization of Islamic Cooperation has long been considered an anti-Israel institute, to put it mildly.

It was established following an Australian tourist’s attempt to burn down Jerusalem’s Al Aqsa Mosque in 1969. Its members are the representatives of 57 Islamic states, including Turkey and Iran, and for the past four years the organization has been headed by Secretary-General Yousef Al-Othaimeen, a Saudi politician. In February, the organization rejected US President Donald Trump’s Israeli-Palestinian peace initiative, calling on its members not to cooperate with it.

On Monday, however, Al-Othaimeen sounded a very different tone.

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By Jessica Chasmar – The Washington Times – Wednesday, October 28, 2020

Sen. Chris Coons, D-Del., center, with Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., right rear, joins Democratic members of the Senate Judiciary Committee at a news conference after boycotting the vote by the Republican-led panel to advance the nomination of Judge Amy ConeySen.

Chris Coons is calling for sweeping federal court reform following Justice Amy Coney Barrett’s confirmation to the U.S. Supreme Court, saying there are “hundreds” of President Trump-appointed judges in the lower courts who are too right-leaning to be “allowed to sit peaceably.”

Mr. Coons, Delaware Democrat and member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, made the comments during an appearance Monday night on MSNBC’s “The Rachel Maddow Show,” saying Democrats need to have “a wide-open conversation about how we rebalance our courts.”

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By Dr. Hanan Shai, BESA  October 29, 2020

Abraham Sees Sodom in Flames, circa 1896–1902, by James Jacques Joseph Tissot (French, 1836-1902) via Wikipedia

BESA Center Perspectives Paper No. 1,789, October 29, 2020

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY:

Biblical morality, which can also be called Abrahamic morality, was born in Mesopotamia and from there spread west. Until Europe freed itself of its yoke, it was the legacy of the West. Europe’s renunciation led to a series of horrendous calamities from which it was rescued by the US and Britain, which, unlike continental Europe, continued to uphold Abrahamic morality. The Abraham Accords were signed at a time when the US, patron of the Accords and leader of the West and the world, is likewise disavowing its moral values and being taken over by progressivism—another utopian European ideology that has broken from morality. The children of Abraham must make the most of the peace they have reached to reconnect the West with the moral roots that took form in the East.

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