by Victor Davis Hanson,   ZERO HEDGE         January 6, 2022:

Recently, Democrats have been despondent over President Joe Biden’s sinking poll numbers. His policies on the economy, energy, foreign policy, the border, and COVID-19 all have lost majority support.

As a result, the left now variously alleges that either in 2022, when they expect to lose the Congress, or in 2024, when they fear losing the presidency, Republicans will “destroy democracy” or stage a coup.

A cynic might suggest that they praise democracy when they get elected, only to claim it is broken when they lose.

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Russian President Vladimir Putin, Chinese Leader Xi Jinping, and then-Iranian President Hassan Rouhani at the Shanghai Cooperation Summit on June 14, 2019 in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan.  (Mikhail Svetlov/Getty Images)

While much attention in global capitals is being paid to Russian troops amassing on Ukraine’s border, Lithuania is the ‘canary in the coal mine’ of global order, argue Hudson Senior Fellows Tod Lindberg and Peter Rough in The Wall Street Journal. NATO member Lithuania faces a united front of Sino-Russian pressure designed to test U.S. and European commitment to their democratic partners. If the U.S. and NATO allies fail to support Lithuania, the impact of Sino-Russian cooperation will be felt far beyond Vilnius. See below for further analysis, and join us next week for a discussion on China’s economic slowdown and the implications for its political stability.

Read the Op-Ed

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By Jonathan Turley,     January 7, 2022

In the day long events commemorating January 6th, Speaker Nancy Pelosi made a telling statement to her fellow members and the public at large. Pelosi declared “It is essential that we preserve the narrative of January 6th.” Part of that narrative is that this was not a riot but an “insurrection,” an actual “rebellion” against our country. Pelosi’s concern over the viability of that narrative is well-based as shown by a recent CBS News poll. The majority of the public does not believe that this was an “insurrection” despite the mantra-like repetition of members of Congress and the media. The public saw that terrible day unfold a year ago and saw it for what it was: a protest that became a riot. (For full disclosure, I previously worked as a legal analyst for CBS News).

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NY SUN: https://www.nysun.com/foreign/biden-getting-set-to-accept-irans-status-as/91881/

By Majid Rafizadeh, GATESTONE INSTITUTE  •  January 8, 2022

• • No amount of appeasement and no deal is going to change the core pillars of the Iranian mullahs’ revolutionary principles, which include anti-Americanism, antisemitism, supporting terror groups, and brutally repressing their own population. The theocratic establishment uses international and regional agreements, such as its election last April to the UN Commission on the Status of Women, to advance its revolutionary ideals.
  • The Biden administration might begin to understand, nearly four decades after the establishment of the mullahs’ regime, that, as Henry Kissinger remarked, “The exercise of diplomacy without the threat of force is without effect.”

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Russia is sending troops to Kazakhstan to support the government, which has been facing days of angry protests. For Moscow, there is more at stake than cementing its influence in a neighboring country shaken by unrest.

   DW

Kazkh President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev (left) enjoys close ties with Russia’s Putin

There’s one statistic that underlines just how important Kazakhstan is for Russia — the two former Soviet republics share one of the world’s largest national borders at 7,600 kilometers (4,722 miles).

But it’s not just the length of the common frontier that matters. The neighboring regions have been militarily significant since the Soviet era. Important sites include the Kapustin Yar missile test firing range, which is partly located in Kazakhstan, and the many weapons factories in and near the Ural mountain range. Geopolitically, Russia considers Kazakhstan, and indeed much of the entire region, as its backyard.

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T. Belman. I don’t agree with Kelly’s characterization of Jan 6 as a riot. She also said many cops were hurt and she cast aspersions on claims of voter fraud. I disagree. There is no comparison between this event and the riots lead by Antifa and BLM where many cops were killed. On Jan 6 the people who entered the Capital were invited in by police to begin with. The Democrats and their enforcers encouraged everything to happen and even appointed provocateurs. This was a staged event rather than a riot.

I posted this video because I respected Megyn Kelly. She is a former prosecutor and understands what it takes to make a case. She has a reputation to protect. So I trust her investigation and conclusions.

by Jeff Miller, REPUBLICAN BRIEF

On Friday, conservative justices questioned President Joe Biden’s vaccine requirement for businesses, as the Court heard arguments from Republican officials and businesses who want to block the policy.

Justices John Roberts and Neil Gorsuch have said that states and Congress should lead the effort to combat the pandemic, rather than a federal agency.

Amy Coney Barrett, a conservative justice, argued the workplace policy was too broad, affecting more than 80 million Americans.

GOP-led states and business leaders brought a lawsuit against the mandate for companies with 100 or more employees as an example of federal overreach.

It appears that the liberal justices sided with the Biden administration’s position that vaccinations and mandates were the best way to curb the pandemic.

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Envoy to Beirut says Riyadh ‘hopes political parties will end Hezbollah’s terrorist hegemony over every aspect of the state’

By AGENCIES    Today,

RIYADH — Saudi Arabia’s ambassador to Beirut said Thursday that Hezbollah was a threat to Arab security after the leader of the Iran-backed Lebanese movement branded King Salman a “terrorist.”

The latest exchange of insults follows a crisis between Lebanon and Gulf Arab states over the war in Yemen, and Saudi accusations that Hezbollah was meddling in the conflict.

“Riyadh hopes that the political parties will give priority to the supreme interest of Lebanon… and end Hezbollah’s terrorist hegemony over every aspect of the state,” ambassador Waleed Bukhari said in a statement to AFP.

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While Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett can effectively hold off formal negotiations, his left-wing colleagues are laying the groundwork for a return to the two-state follies of previous left-wing governments.  Op-ed.

By Alex Traiman, INN 

(JNS) Israel may have a right-wing prime minister, but Naftali Bennett is not positioning Israel’s diplomatic priorities. That portfolio rests with Foreign Minister and Alternate Prime Minister Yair Lapid, who is scheduled to take over the premiership as part of a rotation arrangement with Bennett in August 2023.

Bennett is busy micromanaging Israel’s COVID response, which includes constantly changing regulations and border closures.

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By Monica Showalter, AM THINKER

Congressional Democrats and their allies have been blowing a lot of hot air about the Jan. 6 “insurrection,” a pathetic crowd-control failure brought on by Capitol Police incompetence, crossed wires among those charged with security, and quite likely some FBI pot-stirring through agents provocateurs.  It’s bee ess.  The whole show is about discrediting President Trump to keep him from running for office in 2024, because, well, they know he won the 2020 election, and a lot of voters would like to get their votes’ worth in 2024.  But that’s precisely why they keep blowing the incident up into an “insurrection.”

According to leftist Rep. Hakeem Jeffries, who’s been tipped to lead the Democrats once House speaker Nancy Pelosi leaves the scene, via PBS:

It’s a day like Pearl Harbor and like Bloody Sunday down in Selma, Alabama, and like September 11 that should live in infamy here in America and throughout the world.

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by Daniel Pipes, The National Interest
September 19, 2021

Ex-Muslims are publicly flaunting their rejection of Islam as never before: a steamy tell-all memoir that tops the country’s best-seller lists; one video (with 1.5 million views) showing a copy of the Koran ripped into pieces; another video with a woman in a bikini cooking and eating bacon; and blasphemous cartoons of Muhammad.

Beyond such provocations, ex-Muslims work to change the image of Islam. Wafa Sultan went on Al Jazeera television to excoriate Islam in an exalted Arabic and over 30 million viewers watched the video. Ayaan Hirsi Ali wrote a powerful autobiography about growing up female in Somalia and went on to author high-profile books criticizing Islam. Ibn Warraq wrote or edited a small library of influential books on his former religion, including Why I am Not a Muslim (1995) and Leaving Islam: Apostates Speak Out (2003).

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By Nan Jacques Zilberdik, PALESTIAN MEDIA WATCH | Jan 6, 2022

Fatah anniversary messages:
·         Abbas honors “brave” terrorist prisoner “heroes,” their “struggles are lofty medals of honor”
·         Fatah hasn’t abandoned terror
·         Abbas implies PA/Fatah are prepared to use terror to get rid of Israel – “regardless of the sacrifices”
·         Terrorist murderer Dalal Mughrabi, who led killing of 37, among them 12 children, paraded as role model at anniversary procession
·         Arch-terrorist Abu Jihad, who was responsible for the murder of 125, stars in anniversary music video
·         “O God take [the Jews] to hell… grant victory to the Muslims… and expel the despicable ones from my land and liberate it from the Jews” – student recites at PA school ceremony
·         Fatah’s vision for the future remains a world with no Israel: Maps of “Palestine” erase all of Israel
Songs broadcast by PA TV for Fatah anniversary:
·         “Wave the rifle… we won’t cast our weapons from our hands,”
·         “We waved the [machine gun] and the RPG“
·         “My machine gun and my bullets are the path to salvation”

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HOW MANY PEOPLE ACTUALLY ATTACKED COPS ON JAN 6?

Tonight at midnight, just hours from now, we will begin the first of many annual remembrances of January 6th. pic.twitter.com/EZkV7LfpHQ

— Tucker Carlson (@TuckerCarlson) January 6, 2022

By Victor Davis Hanson, JWR

Recently, Democrats have been despondent over President Joe Biden’s sinking poll numbers. His policies on the economy, energy, foreign policy, the border, and COVID-19 all have lost majority support.

As a result, the Left now variously alleges that either in 2022, when they expect to lose the Congress, or in 2024, when they fear losing the presidency, Republicans will “destroy democracy” or stage a coup.

A cynic might suggest that they praise democracy when they get elected, only to claim it is broken when they lose. Or they hope to avoid their defeat by trying to terrify the electorate. Or they mask their own revolutionary propensities by projecting them onto their opponents.

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By Petr Svab, EPOCH TIMES      Jan 6/22

Mortality among young-to-middle-age Americans went through the roof last year. The majority of the increase didn’t involve COVID-19, according to official death certificate data.

Deaths among people aged 18 to 49 increased more than 40 percent in the 12 months ending October 2021 compared to the same period in 2018–2019, before the pandemic, based on death certificate data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
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By Soeren Kern, GATESTONE INSTITUTE  •  January 6, 2022

• The Russian demands, which effectively require NATO to commit suicide, are so obviously outrageous and unmeetable that Western analysts are split over interpreting Russian President Vladimir Putin’s motives. Some say he is using the impossible list of demands as a pretext to invade Ukraine. Others think he is playing a weak hand to try to divide the West and reorder Europe’s security architecture in Russia’s favor.
• Germany appears to be the West’s weak link the face of Russian pressure. On January 3, the German newspaper Bild reported that Scholz is seeking “a new beginning” in relations with Moscow. This has alarmed smaller European countries which fear that Germany will reach an accommodation with Putin behind their backs.

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By Victor Rosenthal

Psychological warfare is not all that different in organization from the kinetic kind. There are campaigns and objectives. Recently the objective of our enemies – the Arab-European axis of antisemitism – has been to destroy the legitimacy of the Jewish presence in Judea and Samaria. The attacks have come from several directions, but the objective is the same: to establish in the minds of target populations, which include Israelis, Europeans, and Americans, the idea that Jews living in the territories is illegal, immoral, and detrimental to the prospect of peace in the region; and to force their expulsion.

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