OBAMA’S THIRD TERM

 

Black Lives Matter, Antifa March Through DC, Chant ‘Burn It Down’

by Jack Phillips, February 7, 2021

Black Lives Matter protesters and Antifa agitators marched through Washington on Feb. 6 and threatened people as they ate dinner, according to video footage and reports.

“Burn it down,” the demonstrators chanted.

“We are here tonight because black lives matter,” members of the far-left group also said. “Despite black lives mattering, black people are still dying at the hands of the police paid for by our tax dollars.”

Other video footage uploaded by independent journalists on the scene showed Antifa types fighting with police officers, who were trying to keep them away from restaurants. Some, clad in all black, could be seen holding the red-and-black Antifa flag.

At one point, police in Washington were seen forming lines around outdoor diners to separate them from the demonstrators and agitators. (US News, 2/7/2021)

“About the morality and justice of the rampage of rioting in the wake of Floyd’s death, and the sole riot at the Capitol, the media are the self-anointed judges. They decide which riots are benign and which are malignant, which should receive an empathetic response, and which should end with every participant in prison.”  (Pat Buchanan, 2/9/2021)

KEYSTONE CONTROVERSY

President Biden has expressed great concern for the unemployed, even calling an unemployed woman in California.  It was good PR, but it doesn’t alter the fact that one of his first actions was to increase unemployment, by closing the Keystone pipeline.

The leader of one of the most prominent U.S. labor unions said he regretted President Biden’s move to derail the Keystone XL pipeline project on his first day in office in a new interview.

“I wish he hadn’t done that on the first day,” AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka told journalist Jonathan Swan on “Axios on HBO.”

Labor groups have said Biden’s day-one decision to nix the Keystone pipeline eliminated 1,000 union jobs off the bat and could kill ten times more in construction jobs that were expected to be created by the project.   (FoxNews 1/8/2021)

PRIDE FLAGS TO BE FLOWN AT ALL US EMBASSIES

Secretary of State (SOS) Antony Blinken announced he will reverse an order from President Trump and put up “pride” flags at U.S. Embassies around the world. Blinken also confirmed that he plans to appoint an envoy for the Human Rights of LGBTQ persons, a position created by Barack Obama in 2015 that wasn’t filled during the Trump presidency. Biden is the first U.S. president to openly embrace a full range of homosexual rights.  (Breitbart, 2/5/2021)

STILL NO CALL

Some people are fretting that US President Joe Biden has not yet picked up the phone to call Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. They worry that this may betoken a new coolness by the United States towards Israel.

To which one can only wonder: what planet are such people living on?

For Israel scarcely needs the absence of a phone call to tell it that it has a grave problem with the new occupant of the White House.

The Biden administration has resumed funding UNRWA, reopened the Palestinian mission to Washington and recommitted itself to the “two-state solution.” It has thus re-empowered the Palestinians’ agenda of demonizing and blackmailing Israel in order to destroy it, and afforded the Palestinians status while they do so.

It has also said it wants to return to the disastrous 2015 Iran nuclear agreement, brokered by former President Barack Obama, whose terms allowed the regime to obtain nuclear weapons with only a short delay while enabling money to pour in to fund its war against Israel and the west.

Although the administration is currently saying that Iran must first return to “full compliance,” the regime’s continuing breach of that deal by increasing its number of advanced centrifuges to enrich uranium suggests it believes that America will soon cave in.  (Obama’s Third Term, Melanie Philips, 2/5/2021)

NOWHERE MAN

‘The virtual inauguration of Joe Biden is a fitting culmination to a campaign which was notable for its absences; a candidate who ‘put a lid’ on his activities by noon most days; a convention without delegates, rallies without fans, press conferences without journalists, journalists without questions. The most striking absence however was that of Biden himself. There were occasional glimpses of the man who once called himself a ‘gaffe-machine’ and has a long history of angry outbursts. He was spotted last February when he humiliated a young woman, calling her a ‘lying, dog-faced pony soldier’ on national television.

In March, he told a Michigan construction worker he was ‘full of sh-t’. In May, he told radio host Charlamagne Tha God that, ‘if you have a problem figuring out whether you’re for me or Trump, then you ain’t black’.   As the ballot drew closer the appearances faded away, except for an occasional apparition on television, accompanied by the ghostly reflection of a teleprompter on a camera lens. If you told me Biden was a hologram, I’d believe you, tweeted one bewildered American.

So, it is fitting that the inauguration of a ghost should take place in a ghost town. Jubilant throngs of victorious Democrats lining the streets of Washington DC have been replaced by 25,000 soldiers from the National Guard.  How ironic that the party of perpetual protest, which called for the defunding of the police, now only feels safe to celebrate its ‘victory’ in the presence of the military and, even then, only after every soldier has been vetted by the FBI. Hillary Clinton’s dismissive contempt for Trump’s deplorables, prior to the 2016 election has morphed into terror of the mob.  (“Nowhere Man,” Rebecca Weisser, The Spectator (Australia), 1/23/2021)

WAR WITH CHINA NOT INEVITABLE

“No matter what strategies the two sides pursue or what events unfold, the tension between the United States and China will grow, and competition will intensify; it is inevitable. War, however, is not,” writes Kevin Rudd, the former prime minister of Australia and current president of the Asia Society, in a new essay.

As their relationship enters its most dangerous phase yet, Washington and Beijing must find ways to carry out their competition within a set of ground rules that both respect – or, Rudd warns, “the alternatives are likely to be catastrophic.”  (Foreign Affairs, 2/5/2021)

NEW SEC OF STATE FACES OBSTACLES

Antony Blinken hopes to re-establish his country as the moral leader of the West. But it is also clear he won’t make things any easier for the Europeans.

“The question is whether America’s erstwhile allies are interested in being led. During the campaign, Biden consistently acted as though Trump was just an historical aberration. But on Election Day, Trump received over 74 million votes, 11 million more than he got in 2016. And Republicans have given no indications that they plan to turn their back on him. Many Europeans are afraid that Biden could just be an interim chapter before the next populist gets voted into the White House. ” (Der Spiegel, 2/4/2021)

Biden ends support for Yemen war

Joe Biden has declared that “diplomacy is back at the centre” of US foreign policy as Washington ends all support for Saudi Arabia’s offensive operations in Yemen. “The war in Yemen must end,” said the new president in his first major foreign policy speech. The country has been devastated by a six-year war in which more than 110,000 people are believed to have died.  (The Week, 2/5/2021)

“Yet, when it comes to interfering in the affairs of other nations, how sinless, how blameless, are we Americans?” (Pat Buchanan, 2/5/2021)

“If American democracy crumbles, we will all pay the price” (Documentary on Sky News, 2/5/2021)

Pompeo on Biden declaring ‘America is back’:  ‘Back to when ISIS controlled a caliphate?’  (FoxNews.com)

FIRING OF LOU DOBBS – Fox is now behind CNN and MSNBC in the ratings.

IMPEACHMENT TRIAL – Schumer wants to prolong trial as long as possible to discredit Trump; and to take attention off Biden who has no Covid plan, no economic plan and no China plan – he still has not called Deng Xi.  (comment on Newsmax)

“It’s all about 2024.   They are scared to death of Donald Trump.”  (Newsmax 2/10/2021)

“Thousands of refugees are being allowed into the US without being tested for Covid-19.”  (Newsmax).   And, without jobs at a time of extremely high unemployment.

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EUROPE

The specter of vaccine nationalism stalked Europe as a row erupted between Britain and the European Commission over supply of the AstraZeneca-Oxford vaccine. Because of manufacturing problems at one of its European factories, AstraZeneca has said it will deliver less to the EU than it had planned in the coming months. The commission wants some of the shortfall to be made up with vaccine allotted for Britain. That risks breaching contractual obligations. But there are threats from the EU that if AstraZeneca does not agree, then supplies to Britain of other vaccines made in Europe, in particular the Pfizer jab, may be affected.  (The Economist, 2/4/2021)

GERMAN GREEN PARTY CALLS FOR MORE SPENDING ON DEFENCE

BERLIN (Own report) – The German Green Party foundation published an appeal calling for a “substantial increase” in the German military budget and for maintaining US nuclear weapons in Germany.  “Nuclear-sharing is a core element of the strategic connection” between the USA and Germany, according to the appeal, published on the webpage of the Green Party’s Heinrich-Böll-Foundation on the occasion of US President Biden’s inauguration.   The “authors and signatories” include the chairwoman of the Green Foundation as well as a retired Bundeswehr lieutenant general, who, in 2014, as a high-ranking NATO functionary was in charge of NATO’s realignment against Russia.  The Greens, who are still reputed to be able to integrate and politically neutralize certain factions formerly involved in the peace movement, have for some time been increasingly reaching out to the Bundeswehr.  For years they have been particularly popular among those in the top income bracket.  Spearheading the defense of western hegemony in the global power struggle, the Greens have positioned themselves as adversaries of Russia and China.

EU REACTION TO EVENTS IN BURMA

Following Monday’s coup in Myanmar, the EU and the USA are considering imposing new sanctions on that country.  Already on Monday, US President Joe Biden declared that he would immediately review the reintroduction of coercive measures.  The EU announced yesterday that it will “consider all options at its disposal to ensure that democracy prevails.”  For a long time during the Cold War, the Federal Republic of Germany had cooperated closely with the Myanmar military regime for geostrategic reasons, including arms exports.  Germany, like the West as a whole, had been disengaging from the country since 1990, again seeking better relations only after China began initiating important geostrategic projects – such as the construction of a transport corridor from the Indian Ocean to southwest China to bypass the Straits of Malacca that Washington can easily block.  The West’s attempt to outmaneuver Beijing in Naypyidaw has failed.  Aung San Suu Kyi, the de-facto head of government ousted by the military yesterday, had recently intensified cooperation with China.  (German Foreign Policy, 2/3/2021)

CHINA’S NEW MASTER RACE

“U.S. intelligence shows that China has conducted human testing on members of the People’s Liberation Army in hope of developing soldiers with biologically enhanced capabilities,” wrote then Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe, in a December 3 Wall Street Journal op-ed titled “China Is National Security Threat No. 1.”

All these Chinese moves are meant to obtain “biological dominance.” “There are,” as Ratcliffe noted, “no ethical boundaries to Beijing’s pursuit of power.”

The experiment evoked the eugenics program of the Third Reich to create a “master race.”  (Gordon G. Chang, Gatestone, 2/10/2021)

SOUTH AMERICA

Colombian President Iván Duque earlier this week announced that as many as 1.7 million Venezuelan migrants currently in Colombia will now be authorized to live and work legally in the country for ten years.

As humanitarian gestures by world leaders go, it’s hard to find something on this scale in recent history.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s fateful “Wir schaffen das” (We can do this) decision in 2015 allowed up to one million refugees to apply for asylum.  Duque’s move, by contrast, welcomes nearly twice that number of people to stay for at least a decade.

Bold as it is, it could also be deeply unpopular.  To refresh, Colombia has received almost a third of the roughly 5 million Venezuelans who have fled economic collapse and political chaos in their home country in recent years. That’s more than any other country, by far.

And while many Colombians were initially welcoming to their neighbors in need — in part because in the 1990s Venezuela served as a refuge for millions of Colombians fleeing violence themselves — attitudes have hardened over time.

Two thirds of Colombians now oppose Venezuelans staying in Colombia, and three quarters say the Venezuelan border should remain closed even after pandemic-related entry restrictions are lifted, according to a December survey by the Medellín-based pollster Invamer.  (Gzero Signal, 2/10/2021)

On Sunday, Ecuadorans head to the polls after what has been, by any standards, a hellish 18 months.  In October 2019, the oil-dependent Andean country of 13 million people was wracked by protests and violent clashes over a plan to cut fuel subsidies that was part of a lending lifeline from the International Monetary Fund.

Several months later COVID swept in with such fury that bodies were seen piled up in the streets of Guayaquil, Ecuador’s main industrial hub. As a result of the pandemic, the country has seen the third highest excess death rate in the world.

Then, last April, former president Rafael Correa — a devotee of Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez who harnessed an oil boom to implement his own free-spending version of “21st century socialism” from 2007-2017 — was found guilty in absentia of massive graft charges, convulsing an already deeply fragmented political landscape.

Now Ecuadorans, exhausted by the pandemic and a plummeting economy, are presented with a slate of no less than 16 presidential candidates, representing a kaleidoscope of flimsy parties with thin platforms. Correa still looms large, even from exile in Europe.

Small wonder then that half of voters are still undecided, and more than a third say they will spoil their ballots or leave them blank. Apathy is running high — “What does it matter?” is the prevailing feeling, according to one prominent local observer.   (Gzero Signal, 2/5/2021)

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CHURCH ATTENDANCE DOWN 20% THRU COVID

For almost a year now, we’ve been immersed in the politics of the pandemic – an event so profound that its side effects are often ignored.  Our cover story this week looks at one of the bigger indirect casualties:  the Church of England.  A leaked document shows it expects its already-dwindling flock to be 20 per cent lower after lockdown. Rather than fight this, it is planning to close churches, sack clergy – and accelerate the decline of Anglicanism.   (Fraser Nelson, The Spectator, 2/4/2021)

NOT THE C. OF E.

Let no man deceive you by any means: for that day shall not come, except there come a falling away first, and that man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition.  (II Thess 2:3)

Letter from a church pastor overseas:

If not Covid old age is a big factor. There is no new blood, and Zoom services aren’t the same as in person services.  I’ve had no baptisms since lockdown, almost a full year.

Unless the Church can function normally, there are no new people, so natural wastage whether Covid or old age will diminish membership.  We could easily be 20% down. (Future of church, 2/5/2021)

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TO THE POINT

• RUSSIA EXPELS EU DIPLOMATS following criticism of Russia’s crackdown on demonstrators over Alexei Navalny’s arrest, Russia expelled diplomats from Germany, Sweden and Poland.  Germany responded by expelling one Russian.

• Hotel quarantine within days – The government is block-booking thousands of hotel rooms hours after it confirmed quarantine rules related to Covid variant hotspots will begin on 15 February.  Ministers say residents who return from places where new variants are prevalent will have to stay in hotel rooms for ten nights, with security accompanying them if they go outside.  Labor accused Boris Johnson of “putting lives at risk” by not acting sooner.   (The Week, 2/5/2021)

• Thunberg effigies burned in India – Effigies of the environmental campaigner Greta Thunberg have been burned in Delhi after she tweeted support for India’s protesting farmers.  Photos of Thunberg and the pop singer Rihanna, who has also voiced support for the farmers, were set alight and banners were held aloft warning that “international interference” in Indian affairs would not be tolerated. The farmers’ protests were sparked by three controversial new bills.  (The Week, 2/5/2021)

• Middle-class teens more likely to steal – The children of well-educated parents are more likely to shoplift than those with mothers and fathers who went straight into work from school, a new study has found. Overall, 7% of surveyed teens admitted to stealing from a shop. The figure rose to 9% among those whose parents were educated to degree level or higher, with just 5% of those whose parents were less well educated admitted to shoplifting.  (The Week, 2/10/2021)

• UK Probe into extremist groups – Ministers have ordered an investigation into the extreme fringes on both ends of the political spectrum, The Daily Telegraph reports.  The review will be led by Lord Walney, a former Labour MP who was appointed as the government’s independent adviser on political violence and disruption.  He said that there was “not an equivalence of threat between the far-left and the far-right” in the UK, with the latter a graver threat.    (The Week, 2/7/2021)

• Imagine:  British authorities have awarded money to aid an Islamic State bride whose jihadi husband murdered innocent people, while authorities have failed to aid the victims. That is an atrocity, and one more example of how Western leaders continue to force their populations into dhimmitude.   (Jihad Watch, 2/4/2021)