How To Create Conspiracy Theories

By: Victor Davis Hanson

American Greatness

July 24, 2023

It is easy to birth conspiracy theories.

All that is required is chronic government stonewalling of reasonable requests for transparency. Then add in high officials serially lying under oath, along with the blatantly unequal application of the law. Institutionalize arguments from the authority of politicians and bureaucrats who refuse to adjudicate arguments empirically.

Include the weaponization of investigatory and intelligence bureaucracies. Finish with the transformation of an obsequious media into a mouthpiece of the state. And presto, you end up with a skeptical, cynical public that learns to believe the very opposite of what it is told by elites.

January 6th

Curiously. some conservative politicians, media, and politicos often remark of their surprise that so many of the Trump base insists that the January 6 riot at the Capitol was in part a federally driven conspiracy, or perhaps just a mere “demonstration” gone awry.

But whether true or not, why would some not believe that—given the efforts of the state to hide and warp facts?

Consider what drives rational people to embrace supposed “conspiracy” theories around the so-called “insurrection?”

One reason, of course, is that there was evidence of FBI informants present on January 6. Do not take the word of conservatives for such suppositions.

Instead, remember what award-winning New York Times reporter and keen follower of right-wing political activity, Matthew Rosenberg said of January 6, albeit in an ambush interview conducted by Project Veritas:

“The left’s overreaction — the left’s reaction to it in some places was so over the top. They were making it too big a deal … that gave the opening for lunatics in the right to be like, ‘Oh, well, nothing happened here. It was just a peaceful bunch of tourists,’ you know, and it’s like, but nobody wants to hear that.”

Rosenberg then remarked that he spotted numerous FBI informants among the crowd milling around the Capitol. Or as he put it, “There were a ton of FBI informants among the people who attacked the Capitol.” Cannot the FBI refute such allegations?

Apparently not. Given such speculation, one would expect that FBI Director Christopher Wray might at least categorically deny such inflammatory accusations.

Yet in congressional testimony when asked whether the FBI had inserted informants among the protestors, sphinxlike Wray merely shrugged, “So I really need to be careful here talking about where we have or have not used confidential human sources.”

Then there is the mysterious case of Ray Epps, initially sought by the FBI “as a person of interest” for allegedly inciting demonstrators to break the law and enter the Capitol.

But then oddly Epps was de facto exempted for some 30 months from arrest—even as hundreds who urged no such action were indicted and convicted of “illegal parading” or unlawfully “demonstrating in front of the Capitol”—misdemeanors that ended up resulting in felony-type sentencing.

In one video clip, as Epps attempts to gin up the stationary crowd to move illegally into the Capitol, he is met with “conspiratorial” accusations from skeptical bystanders calling out: “Fed! Fed! Fed!”

Epps filed suit against Fox News for defamation on grounds that anchor Tucker Carlson had tied him to efforts to incite January 6 violence. Yet then suddenly Epps announced that he believes he will soon be charged, after all, by the government for his role in the January 6 protests.

If true, such an arrest was long anticipated, since Epps is caught on tape, unambiguously, on more than one occasion, urging demonstrators to enter the Capitol unlawfully (e.g., “We need to go to the Capitol”).

If one would like to hatch an Epps conspiracy theory, then one could do no better than quoting another Ray Epps braggadocious claim that he had texted to his nephew:

“I orchestrated it.”

It did not help the Left’s construction of a January 6 “insurrection” theory that it serially misled the country about the actual loss of life. At first, Democrats insisted, falsely, that Officer Sicknick’s tragic death was due to protestor violence. Yet an autopsy revealed that he died a day later from a stroke.

Then Democrat leaders pivoted to claim that any law enforcement officer present on January 6, who for any reason subsequently committed suicide, was to be counted a victim of protestor violence.

All the while, the media kept largely quiet about the fact that the only unambiguously violent death that day was that of military veteran Ashli Babbitt. She was unarmed as she was shot unlawfully entering the Capitol through a broken window.

The name and identity of the officer, remember, were suppressed for months—a protective protocol unlike any other accorded law enforcement officers in the country who lethally shoot unarmed suspects.

Asymmetries

If all that was not enough to create suspicion about media and political narratives, then there was the asymmetrical media coverage and the reaction of the Justice Department to the 2020 summer riots.

Touch an officer on January 6, and one sat in jail for months. Club an officer in the summer of 2020, and the offender was likely to become certified as a member of the Antifa or BLM resistance, albeit acting up a bit during the “summer of love.”

Unlike January 6, the violence of arsonists, murderers, rioters, and Antifa and BLM mobs resulted in 1,500 injured law enforcement officers, more than 35 violent deaths, nearly $2 billion in property damage, and 14,000 arrests. Yet most of the indictments were dropped, or plea bargained down to minor misdemeanors by sympathetic leftwing city and state prosecutors.

Note that the 2020 rioters also targeted iconic and government buildings. Rioters attempted to burn down a federal courthouse, a police precinct headquarters, and an historic Washington D.C. church—all topped off by the mob’s nocturnal effort to stampede into the White House grounds to get to the president.

That failed assault precipitated a hasty Secret Service effort to put Trump and his family in a secure subterranean bunker. Again, why was such violence aimed at the White House largely unpunished given its intensity matched or exceeded that of the Capitol riot?

Even more importantly, the investigatory January 6 committee also fed rather than quieted conspiracy theories. The Democratic leadership in the House of Representatives first denied nominated Republican representatives any seats on the select committee.

Instead, they cherry-picked just two Republicans—on the apparent requisite that both Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger were:

a) die-hard Trump haters, and

b) politically inert and headed for forced retirement.

The committee neither called any contrarian witnesses nor subpoenaed documents and videos felt to be antithetical to their narrative of a rightwing violent and armed “insurrection.” Yet, again, they did not produce evidence that anyone arrested inside the Capitol had a firearm.

Nor were any plans found of “insurrectionists” planning to occupy government property for any length of time—in the fashion of, say, Seattle’s “Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone” (CHAZ) or (CHOP) “Capitol Hill Organized Protest.”

In that case, rioters simply annexed government space as their own for over three weeks, ran the sanctuary-like mini-revolutionary state, forbid the police to enter, and were granted exemptions from city and state authorities.

The January 6 narrative of continuous threats of an armed revolution was leveraged to justify deploying 20,000 armed soldiers —the largest militarization of Washington D.C. since Jubal Early’s Confederate raid of 1864. Again, such use of federal troops stood in dire contrast to the abject appeasement of the far more violent 2020 rioters, when sympathetic mayors and governors resisted calls to deploy federal troops to their jurisdictions.

Recall that the suspicions arising around January 6 followed a long series of revelations about government misconduct that confirmed the suspicions of once reviled “conspiracists.”

In numerous cases, the wild charge of conspiracists eventually were proven, while the sober and judicious defense narratives of government officials were exposed as outright lies, and occasionally themselves conspiracies.

The True Conspiracists

There was no “Russian collusion” conspiracy.

There was a Clinton conspiratorial effort.

It sought to hide campaign money through three paywalls to hire Christopher Steele to add to his ad hominem lies, and to ensure that they were disseminated throughout the media and government. The point was solely to emasculate her opponent, Donald Trump.

As far as the first Trump impeachment phone call, given the multimillion-dollar corruptions abroad of the Biden family syndicate, and the boasts of Joe Biden about his past interference in Ukraine politics to fire a bothersome prosecutor, any president would have warned Ukraine to clean up its act with the Bidens or face holds on American largess.

The Covid-19 virus did escape from a nearby Chinese virology lab. It was a media and government-fed lie that it was birthed naturally in the wild by a bat or pangolin, part of a three-year-long effort to appease the Chinese communist party. And there was a clear role of the NIAID and NIH in funding dangerous gain-of-function research under the auspices of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army.

Most of what the government assured about the quarantines and vaccinations proved eventually to be wrong or only half-true. That reality proved ironic when those who warned of lockdown dangers were eventually vindicated, but never received apologies from their accusers.

Given the blanket exemptions provided to Hillary Clinton for unlawfully destroying subpoenaed material and using a home server to transmit classified information, the reduction of Hunter Biden’s numerous felonies to minor misdemeanors, and the likely exemption given Joe Biden for storing classified files for years at his various homes and offices, why would anyone not believe that the government and the media work hard to suppress the truth?

And why would any citizen believe the government or the media after the Biden campaign solicited “51 intelligence authorities” to swear falsely that the genuine Hunter Biden laptop was likely a product of “Russian disinformation.”

The entire concocted lie was a Biden-campaign effort to use the gravitas of former government officials and the complicity of the media to promote a fantasy to influence the impending presidential debate. And it worked to a tee.

Note as well that the FBI hired out Twitter employees to suppress information concerning the Biden laptop. The truth was deemed “disinformation” to mislead voters on the eve of the 2020 election.

Normally, distinguished government heads of hallowed bureaus carefully weigh in on investigations to warn against idle speculations and convulsed conspiracies. But who currently in Washington could be sure of any such voice since our most esteemed intelligence and investigative directors are admitted liars?

Former FBI Director James Comey feigned amnesia in congressional testimony. He passed off a dossier he knew to be fallacious as genuine evidence to a FISA court.

His successor Andrew McCabe lied on four occasions to federal investigators. Current Director Christopher Wray has continually stonewalled congressional oversight committees.

Special counsel and former FBI Director Robert Mueller preposterously claimed he knew nothing of the Steele dossier or Fusion GPS.

Both John Brennan, former CIA Director, and James Clapper, Director of National Intelligence, admittedly lied under oath to Congress. None of these liars faced any legal consequences.

Anthony Fauci’s incriminating emails keep appearing in the public domain, making a mockery of his earlier, ludicrous claim that he had not channeled U.S. dollars to the Wuhan lab to ensure the continuance of outlawed gain–of–function research.

Worse still, so often those screaming “conspiracy theory” are conspiracists themselves. Hillary Clinton schemed with dark money and paywalls to smear her 2016 opponent.

As election denialists Hillary Clinton (“He knows he’s an illegitimate president”) and Jimmy Carter (“He [Trump] lost the election and he was put into office because the Russians interfered on his behalf”) refused to accept the 2016 verdict, projecting such denialism onto others.

So how does the government abort a conspiracy theory?

Simple: Quit the chronic lying and for once tell the truth.

The Coup We Never Knew 

Did someone or something seize control of the United States

 By: Victor Davis Hanson 

What happened to the U.S. border?  Where did it go?  Who erased it?  Why and how did 5 million people enter our country illegally?  Did Congress secretly repeal our immigration laws?  Did Joe Biden issue an Executive Order allowing foreign nationals to walk across the border and reside in the United States as they pleased? 

Since when did borrowed money not have to be paid back?  Who insisted that the more dollars the federal government printed, the more prosperity would follow?  When did America embrace zero interest?  Why do we believe $30 trillion in debt is no big deal?

When did clean-burning, cheap, and abundant natural gas become the equivalent of dirty coal?  How did prized natural gas that had granted America’s wishes of energy self-sufficiency, reduced pollution, and inexpensive electricity become almost overnight a pariah fuel whose extraction was a war against nature?  Which lawmakers, which laws, which votes of the people declared natural gas development and pipelines near criminal? 

Was it not against federal law to swarm the homes of Supreme Court justices, to picket and to intimidate their households in efforts to affect their rulings?  How then, and with impunity, did bullies surround the homes of Justices Brett Kavanaugh, Samuel Alito, Amy Coney Barrett, Neil Gorsuch, John Roberts, and Clarence Thomas—furious over a court decision on abortion?  How could these mobs so easily throng our justices’ homes, with placards declaring “Off with their d—s”? 

Since when did Americans create a government Ministry of Truth?  And on whose orders did the FBI contract private news organizations to censor stories it did not like and writers whom it feared? 

How did we wake up one morning to new customs of impeaching a president over a phone call?  Of the speaker of the House tearing up the State of the Union address on national television?  Of barring congressional members from serving on their assigned congressional committees? 

When did we assume the FBI had the right to subvert the campaign of a candidate it disliked?  Was it suddenly legal for one presidential candidate to hire a foreign ex-spy to subvert the campaign of her rival? 

Was some state or federal law passed that allowed biological males to compete in female sports?  Did Congress enact such a law?  Did the Supreme Court guarantee that biological male students could shower in gym locker rooms with biological women?  Were women ever asked to redefine the very sports they had championed?

 When did the government pass a law depriving Americans of their freedom during a pandemic?  In America can health officials simply cancel rental contracts or declare loan payments in suspension?  How could it become illegal for mom-and-pop stores to sell flowers or shoes during a quarantine but not so for Walmart or Target? 

Since when did the people decide that 70 percent of voters would not cast their ballots on Election Day?  Was this revolutionary change the subject of a national debate, a heated congressional session, or the votes of dozens of state legislatures?  No, of course not.

What happened to Election Night returns?  Did the fact that Americans created more electronic ballots and computerized tallies make it take so much longer to tabulate the votes?

 When did the nation abruptly decide that theft is not a crime, assault not a felony?  How can thieves walk out with bags of stolen goods, without the wrath of angry shoppers, much less fear of the law?

 Was there ever a national debate about the terrified flight from Afghanistan?  Who planned it and why?  And today, the current administration (Biden) is blaming former President Trump for that disaster!

What happened to the once-trusted FBI?  Why almost overnight did its directors decide to mislead Congress, to deceive judges with concocted tales from fake dossiers and with doctored writs?  Did Congress pass a law that our federal leaders in the FBI or CIA could lie under oath with impunity?

Were Americans ever asked whether their universities could discriminate against their sons and daughters based on their race?   How did it become physically dangerous to speak the truth on a campus?  How did that happen in America?

 How did a virus cancel the Constitution?  Did the lockdowns rob us of our sanity?  Or was it the woke hysteria that ignited our collective madness?

 We are beginning to wake up from a nightmare of a country we no longer recognize, and from a coup we neither knew about nor recognized.

The Coup We Never Knew 

Did someone or something seize control of the United States

 By: Victor Davis Hanson 

What happened to the U.S. border?  Where did it go?  Who erased it?  Why and how did 5 million people enter our country illegally?  Did Congress secretly repeal our immigration laws?  Did Joe Biden issue an Executive Order allowing foreign nationals to walk across the border and reside in the United States as they pleased? 

Since when did borrowed money not have to be paid back?  Who insisted that the more dollars the federal government printed, the more prosperity would follow?  When did America embrace zero interest?  Why do we believe $30 trillion in debt is no big deal?

When did clean-burning, cheap, and abundant natural gas become the equivalent of dirty coal?  How did prized natural gas that had granted America’s wishes of energy self-sufficiency, reduced pollution, and inexpensive electricity become almost overnight a pariah fuel whose extraction was a war against nature?  Which lawmakers, which laws, which votes of the people declared natural gas development and pipelines near criminal? 

Was it not against federal law to swarm the homes of Supreme Court justices, to picket and to intimidate their households in efforts to affect their rulings?  How then, and with impunity, did bullies surround the homes of Justices Brett Kavanaugh, Samuel Alito, Amy Coney Barrett, Neil Gorsuch, John Roberts, and Clarence Thomas—furious over a court decision on abortion?  How could these mobs so easily throng our justices’ homes, with placards declaring “Off with their d—s”? 

Since when did Americans create a government Ministry of Truth?  And on whose orders did the FBI contract private news organizations to censor stories it did not like and writers whom it feared? 

How did we wake up one morning to new customs of impeaching a president over a phone call?  Of the speaker of the House tearing up the State of the Union address on national television?  Of barring congressional members from serving on their assigned congressional committees? 

When did we assume the FBI had the right to subvert the campaign of a candidate it disliked?  Was it suddenly legal for one presidential candidate to hire a foreign ex-spy to subvert the campaign of her rival? 

Was some state or federal law passed that allowed biological males to compete in female sports?  Did Congress enact such a law?  Did the Supreme Court guarantee that biological male students could shower in gym locker rooms with biological women?  Were women ever asked to redefine the very sports they had championed?

 When did the government pass a law depriving Americans of their freedom during a pandemic?  In America can health officials simply cancel rental contracts or declare loan payments in suspension?  How could it become illegal for mom-and-pop stores to sell flowers or shoes during a quarantine but not so for Walmart or Target? 

Since when did the people decide that 70 percent of voters would not cast their ballots on Election Day?  Was this revolutionary change the subject of a national debate, a heated congressional session, or the votes of dozens of state legislatures?  No, of course not.

What happened to Election Night returns?  Did the fact that Americans created more electronic ballots and computerized tallies make it take so much longer to tabulate the votes?

 When did the nation abruptly decide that theft is not a crime, assault not a felony?  How can thieves walk out with bags of stolen goods, without the wrath of angry shoppers, much less fear of the law?

 Was there ever a national debate about the terrified flight from Afghanistan?  Who planned it and why?  And today, the current administration (Biden) is blaming former President Trump for that disaster!

What happened to the once-trusted FBI?  Why almost overnight did its directors decide to mislead Congress, to deceive judges with concocted tales from fake dossiers and with doctored writs?  Did Congress pass a law that our federal leaders in the FBI or CIA could lie under oath with impunity?

Were Americans ever asked whether their universities could discriminate against their sons and daughters based on their race?   How did it become physically dangerous to speak the truth on a campus?  How did that happen in America?

 How did a virus cancel the Constitution?  Did the lockdowns rob us of our sanity?  Or was it the woke hysteria that ignited our collective madness?

 We are beginning to wake up from a nightmare of a country we no longer recognize, and from a coup we neither knew about nor recognized.

The Coup We Never Knew 

Did someone or something seize control of the United States

 By: Victor Davis Hanson 

What happened to the U.S. border?  Where did it go?  Who erased it?  Why and how did 5 million people enter our country illegally?  Did Congress secretly repeal our immigration laws?  Did Joe Biden issue an Executive Order allowing foreign nationals to walk across the border and reside in the United States as they pleased? 

Since when did borrowed money not have to be paid back?  Who insisted that the more dollars the federal government printed, the more prosperity would follow?  When did America embrace zero interest?  Why do we believe $30 trillion in debt is no big deal?

When did clean-burning, cheap, and abundant natural gas become the equivalent of dirty coal?  How did prized natural gas that had granted America’s wishes of energy self-sufficiency, reduced pollution, and inexpensive electricity become almost overnight a pariah fuel whose extraction was a war against nature?  Which lawmakers, which laws, which votes of the people declared natural gas development and pipelines near criminal? 

Was it not against federal law to swarm the homes of Supreme Court justices, to picket and to intimidate their households in efforts to affect their rulings?  How then, and with impunity, did bullies surround the homes of Justices Brett Kavanaugh, Samuel Alito, Amy Coney Barrett, Neil Gorsuch, John Roberts, and Clarence Thomas—furious over a court decision on abortion?  How could these mobs so easily throng our justices’ homes, with placards declaring “Off with their d—s”? 

Since when did Americans create a government Ministry of Truth?  And on whose orders did the FBI contract private news organizations to censor stories it did not like and writers whom it feared? 

How did we wake up one morning to new customs of impeaching a president over a phone call?  Of the speaker of the House tearing up the State of the Union address on national television?  Of barring congressional members from serving on their assigned congressional committees? 

When did we assume the FBI had the right to subvert the campaign of a candidate it disliked?  Was it suddenly legal for one presidential candidate to hire a foreign ex-spy to subvert the campaign of her rival? 

Was some state or federal law passed that allowed biological males to compete in female sports?  Did Congress enact such a law?  Did the Supreme Court guarantee that biological male students could shower in gym locker rooms with biological women?  Were women ever asked to redefine the very sports they had championed?

 When did the government pass a law depriving Americans of their freedom during a pandemic?  In America can health officials simply cancel rental contracts or declare loan payments in suspension?  How could it become illegal for mom-and-pop stores to sell flowers or shoes during a quarantine but not so for Walmart or Target? 

Since when did the people decide that 70 percent of voters would not cast their ballots on Election Day?  Was this revolutionary change the subject of a national debate, a heated congressional session, or the votes of dozens of state legislatures?  No, of course not.

What happened to Election Night returns?  Did the fact that Americans created more electronic ballots and computerized tallies make it take so much longer to tabulate the votes?

 When did the nation abruptly decide that theft is not a crime, assault not a felony?  How can thieves walk out with bags of stolen goods, without the wrath of angry shoppers, much less fear of the law?

 Was there ever a national debate about the terrified flight from Afghanistan?  Who planned it and why?  And today, the current administration (Biden) is blaming former President Trump for that disaster!

What happened to the once-trusted FBI?  Why almost overnight did its directors decide to mislead Congress, to deceive judges with concocted tales from fake dossiers and with doctored writs?  Did Congress pass a law that our federal leaders in the FBI or CIA could lie under oath with impunity?

Were Americans ever asked whether their universities could discriminate against their sons and daughters based on their race?   How did it become physically dangerous to speak the truth on a campus?  How did that happen in America?

 How did a virus cancel the Constitution?  Did the lockdowns rob us of our sanity?  Or was it the woke hysteria that ignited our collective madness?

 We are beginning to wake up from a nightmare of a country we no longer recognize, and from a coup we neither knew about nor recognized.

 

Israel and Its Global Discontents

By: Victor Davis Hanson

July 11, 2023

I just returned from 17 days abroad and watched a lot of BBC and CNN international news, given there were no other alternatives. Their coverage of the recent Israeli effort to destroy a terrorist network in Jenin was surreal. It can be summed up as the following: Killing Jews randomly inside Israel is acceptable behavior. But trying to stop that by using violence to break up terrorist enclaves are crimes against humanity.

This asymmetry is, of course, not new. But what continues to explain the Western, and indeed, European, dislike of Israel?

The old anti-Semitism?

The fear of Islamic terrorism (Europeans slurring Judaism and Jews earn no rebuke, but printing a cartoon mocking the prophet can get an editor killed)?

The boilerplate leftwing mantra of “imperialism” and “colonialism” that slurs Israel as a Western interloper that has no business in the historic homeland of the Jews?

The Western overdog syndrome? Elite Westerners, Europeans in particular, must pay obeisance to the “victims” of the West.

Add up the biases and the current Pavlovian hostility still remains surreal. Yet one thing remains constant: year-by-year the leftwing/radical Palestinian/the Squad mantra of a Palestinian nation “to the sea” is not going to happen, ever.

I also just returned from Israel, and I was there a year ago as well. It has never seemed so wealthy, busy, and confident—despite media accounts to the contrary and Palestinian terrorists’ recent attacks on Jews inside Israel.

Construction cranes are ubiquitous. Young people predominate. Families are everywhere with not one or two, but three, four, and five children.

There are few visible homeless. There are no smash-and-grab crimes, no car jackings, no Saturday night shooting gallery à la Chicago, nor gratuitous violence such as in a typical day in Portland or San Francisco. I saw no excrement on the sidewalk. Sophisticated San Franciscans should send a delegation to Tel Aviv to be instructed in municipal hygiene.

Contrary to propaganda, Israel is diverse. There are black, brown, and white Jews, secular and religious, native-born and immigrant. There are lots of Arab Israelis who at least publicly, whatever their private sentiments, seem to enjoy living more inside Israel than outside it.

Shared Jewishness seems a stronger bond for Jewish immigrants of different colors and ancestries than Americanism is for a diverse United States.

The Biden administration has been quite critical of the Israeli government for pruning back the powers of the Israeli Supreme Court, which, unlike its American counterpart, has few if any checks on its growing jurisdictions, often in a partisan fashion.

Yet for all the protests, Israel did not experience 120 days of arson, mass violence, 35-40 dead, 1,500 police officers wounded, and its own youth torching courthouses and police precincts as did America in the summer of 2020. Its president, whom the Left detests, is learned and articulate; ours cannot finish a sentence and believes Putin is currently fighting the Iraq war.

Its military has experienced nothing like the American humiliation in Afghanistan. Its investigatory agencies are not weaponized as are ours.

In sum, the elite of the United States, and particularly leftwing administrations, likes to lecture Israel on its supposed moral failings. Yet America of today has lost the moral right, the right derived from its once constitutional superiority, calm, efficiency, cohesion, honesty, and stability, to lecture Israel on its shortcomings.

Biden Administration Funding 

Iran’s Nuclear Bomb Tests,

Threatening Israel for Trying to Prevent Them?

By:  Majid Rafizadeh

Gatestone Institute

July 15, 2023

Thanks to the Biden Administration’s appeasement of the Iranian regime, the mullahs have become more emboldened than ever to test their nuclear bomb. Secret attempts by the Administration to reach an interim deal with the mullahs threaten not only to add an estimated $100 billion into the treasury of the Iranian regime’s struggling economy, but, worse, catapult an Iranian nuclear menace onto the world.

Iran’s aggression threatens not only its own brutalized citizens – Iran has executed more than 200 people in just the first half of this year and deliberately poisoned more than 1200 schoolgirls — but also the entire region, Europe, and the United States.

New European intelligence reports recently disclosed that the Islamic Republic of Iran has sought to skirt sanctions imposed by the European Union and the United States to accelerate testing an atom bomb.

The Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI) published the intelligence documents with translations. According to Ayelet Savyon, director of MEMRI’s Iran Media Project:

“The reality is that Iran has not in any way backed off from its efforts to build nuclear weapons, has taken every opportunity to advance its technological capabilities to this end, and has for years misled the international community and lied about its intentions while at the same time widely publicizing its goal to legitimately attain nuclear-threshold status and continues doing so to this day.”

Reports also indicate that the Iranian regime’s illegal nuclear activities have escalated in 2023 under the Biden Administration’s watch. According to the 2022 report of the Netherlands General and Intelligence Security Service:

“Last year, Iran proceeded with its nuclear program. The country continues to increase stocks of 20% and 60% enriched uranium. Using centrifuges, this can be used for further enrichment to the 90% enriched uranium needed for a nuclear weapon. Iran is further ignoring the agreements that were made within the framework of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA). And by deploying increasingly more sophisticated uranium enrichment centrifuges it is enlarging its enrichment capacity.”

In addition, the Swedish Security Service noted in its annual report for 2023:

“Iran engages in industrial espionage, which is mainly aimed at the Swedish high-tech industry and Swedish products that can be used in a nuclear weapons program.”

Adam Samara, a spokesperson for the Swedish Security Service, told Fox News Digital:

“The Swedish Security Service can confirm that Iran is conducting security-threatening activities in Sweden and against Swedish interests…

“Examples of these activities are industrial espionage targeting Swedish high-tech industries and unlawful intelligence gathering targeting Swedish higher education institutions. Iran seeks Swedish technology and knowledge that can be used in its nuclear weapons program.

“The Swedish Security Service has an ongoing collaboration with our international partners, but we do not however go into details concerning that collaboration.”

Despite these factors and the strong opposition from Congress — including a warning from U.S. Rep. Michael McCaul that according to the Iran Nuclear Agreement Review Act of 2015, any agreement, even an informal one, with Iran about its nuclear weapons program, must be approved by Congress and no funds released until after 60 says — the Biden Administration has been holding​ ​secret talks in Oman to reward the Iranian regime with a nuclear deal that will pave the way for it legally to obtain as many nuclear weapons as it likes, empower the ruling mullahs with billions of dollars, lift sanctions, allow it to rejoin the global financial system and enhance the theocratic regime’s legitimacy on the global stage.

The Biden Administration also reportedly wants immediately to pump $17 billion into the Iranian regime’s treasury — “for humanitarian purposes” — as if the administration has no idea that money is fungible and will free up previously allocated “humanitarian funds” for nuclear and terrorist work. These benefits will not only enable Iran to complete its nuclear weapons program but also to send more arms to Russia to attack Ukraine, as well as to enable the regime’s ongoing expansion even further over the Middle East — in Iraq, Syria, Yemen, Lebanon and the terrorist groups in the Gaza Strip — as well as throughout Latin America.

Ever since the Biden Administration assumed office, Iran’s ruling mullahs have been rapidly advancing their uranium enrichment to levels just below those needed for a nuclear bomb and reports state that they may be planning to test one. In March 2023, Under Secretary of Defense for Policy Colin Kahl told the House Armed Services Committee that Iran’s nuclear program had made “remarkable” progress.

At present, according to Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, Iran reportedly has enough enriched uranium to produce five nuclear bombs. “Make no mistake,” Gallant told his Greek counterpart Nikolaos Panagiotopoulos during a visit to Athens on May 4, 2023, “Iran will not be satisfied by a single nuclear bomb. So far, Iran has gained material enriched to 20% and 60% for five nuclear bombs… Iranian progress, and enrichment to 90%, would be a grave mistake on Iran’s part, and could ignite the region.”

Along with this Iranian plan to join the “nuclear club,” abetted by the Biden Administration, this same Biden Administration, in the face of Iran’s openly stated commitment to Israel’s destruction is, according to one report, now pressuring Israel to “commit suicide” or risk losing American support.

The dangerous legacy the Biden Administration appears to want to leave includes threats to the only democracy in the Middle East while capitulating to the world’s most vicious dictators in Afghanistan, China, Venezuela, and Iran — which the US State Department has called the “top state sponsor of terrorism” — and soon, thanks to the Biden Administration, armed with nuclear bombs.

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.

The Amish: A L

The Biden Family Caricatures

By: Victor Davis Hanson

American Greatness

July 20, 2023

The Biden First Family seems determined to confirm every stereotype of their antisocial behavior—to the point of dysfunctionality.

During the 2020 campaign, at least eight women alleged that then-presidential candidate Joe Biden in the past had serially and improperly touched, kissed, or grabbed them.

One, Tara Reade alleged she was sexually assaulted by Biden, who denied the charge.

Yet Biden himself finally was forced to apologize for some of his behavior. Or as he said at the time, “I get it.”

He claimed that he would no longer improperly invade the “private space” of women and had meant no harm.

But Biden’s obnoxious conduct extended well beyond the eight accusers.

Women as diverse as former Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, and Biden’s daughter-in-law Kathleen Buhle, have both alleged in their memoirs that Biden made them feel uncomfortable through his intrusive touching and embraces.

On several occasions, Biden developed a strange tic of becoming too physical with young girls. He habitually attempted to hug them while blowing in their hair.

His daughter Ashley wrote in her diary that she feared her past adolescent showers with her father had been inappropriate. Even as president, Biden has weirdly called out young girls in his audiences to note their attractiveness.

On one occasion, the president interrupted his speech to address a female acquaintance—enlightening the crowd that, “We go back a long way. She was 12 and I was 30, but anyway…”

As a result, Biden has likely been warned repeatedly to forgo intimate references to young women.

He has no doubt also been advised by his handlers to stop all close, supposedly innocent contact with young girls and children—if for no other reason than to prevent his political opponents from charging that Joe is “creepy,” “perverse,” or “sick.”

And yet like some addict, Biden cannot stop—regardless of the eerie image he projects around the world.

Last week, the president jumped the proverbial shark by embracing a young child in a crowd while on the tarmac of the Helsinki, Finland airport.

In his strangest act yet, Biden kept moving his mouth near the face of the young girl. He was apparently trying to nibble the youngster, almost in turkey-gobbling fashion.

She recoiled.

No matter—Biden continued at her shoulder.

Again, she flinched.

Biden then reverted to form and sought with a second try to smell her hair and nestle closer.

Had any other major politician in the age of #MeToo committed such an unnerving stunt, he would likely have been ostracized by colleagues and mercilessly hammered by the media.

Not in Biden’s case.

The apparent media subtext was that it was either just “Old Joe” trying to be too friendly, or a symptom of his cognitive decline and thus not attributable to any sinister urge.

Senescence now provides paradoxical cover for Biden’s creepiness—newfound exemption for his old boorish behavior.

Also, during the President’s latest antics, cocaine was found in the West Wing of the White House.

All the White House spokespeople had to do was to reassure the public that the drugs most certainly did not belong to first son Hunter Biden—despite being a frequent guest resident of the White House and a former crack-cocaine addict.

Instead, press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre dismissed reporters for requesting such clarification.

Then the official narrative went through several contortions, as to where and how the bag of cocaine was found.

The disinformation only added suspicion that the White House either would not or could not be transparent about the discovery of illicit drugs abandoned at the very nexus of American governance.

Requests for clarity were understandable not just because Hunter has had a long history of drug addiction.

He also has a troubling habit of leaving a public trail of evidence of his drug use.

Hunter forgot his crack pipe in a rental car. He abandoned his laptop which contained evidence of his felonious behavior. And his unlawfully registered handgun turned up in a dumpster near a school.

In sum, the President and his son both have quite disturbing and all-too-public bad habits.

Americans in response assume both would be careful not to offer the tiniest shred of evidence that their pathologies continue.

White House handlers should keep Joe Biden from even getting near small children and young women.

And they should be just as unambiguous that Hunter Biden has never, and would never, even get too close to illicit drugs while inside the White House.

Sadly they can do neither.

These suspicions are force multipliers of the mounting evidence of Biden family corruption. They feed narratives of heartlessness about disowning a granddaughter born out of wedlock. And they add to worries of presidential senility.

The result is the caricature of a first family: one that is utterly dysfunctional—and increasingly detrimental to the country at large.

Racism of “Racism”

By: Judd Garrett

Objectivity is the Objective

July 20, 2023

Robert Kennedy Jr is being called a “racist” and “antisemitic”, and members of his famous family are condemning him for his comments about the origins of Covid-19. Earlier this week, Kennedy said, 

“Covid -19 attacked certain races disproportionately. The races that are most immune to Covid -19, because of the genetic structure, and genetic differentials among different races, of the receptors, of the ACE2 receptor, Covid -19 is targeted to attack Caucasians and black people. The most immune people are Ashkenazi Jews and Chinese. And — but we don’t know whether it was deliberately targeted or not, but there are papers out there that show the racial and ethnic differential impact of that [Covid virus].”

After reading his statement a half dozen times, I cannot find where he said anything that was racist. How is bringing up the possibility that the Covid virus which negatively affects certain races more than others and may have been bio-engineered that way, racist? Under what definition of racism does that statement fall? Statistics and scientific studies show that the Covid virus does affect certain races much worse than others, and we now know that the virus was bio-engineered in a lab in Wuhan, China, so how is connecting those dots, and suggesting the possibility that the virus may have been intentionally bio-engineered to target certain races, itself racist? 

Facts do not matter anymore. Donald Trump was called a racist for merely pointing out that the Covid virus came from China. The virus either did or did not originate in China. If it did, then you are not being racist for saying it, you are being truthful. Why is suggesting that China which is currently holding over a million Uyghurs in concentration camps because of their race and religion, may have bio-engineered a virus that targeted certain races, racist against the Chinese? Is suggesting that someone else may be racist, racist? If that is true, then all the people who continually call white people racist, are themselves racist. And am I racist for calling those people racist? 

We don’t even know what the word “racist” means anymore because the charge of racism has been used and abused so often as both a shield and a weapon that the meaning of the word has become completely distorted to the point that it no longer means anything. The charge of racism against Kennedy is a red flag. When the establishment wants to shut someone down or prevent him from speaking, so they can keep the truth from coming out, their primary recourse is to falsely call that person a racist, so society will cancel him and prevent him from speaking. So, this effort to silence Robert Kennedy Jr leads me to believe that what he is claiming may have some truth to it. And even if it is not true, it is not racist. No one who points out that black people die of heart disease at a higher rate than white people are called racist. 

In May of 2022, Oprah Winfrey released a documentary called, The Color of Care, claiming that the United States medical establishment is systemically racist against black people because the outcomes of a Covid infection for black people were worse than white people. The documentary “details the racial disparities in health care and the families who lost loved ones in the pandemic” in the United States. Winfrey said, “Because of the color of your skin, there are disparities in your ability to receive your rightful health care.” She claimed that hospitals in America which by law cannot refuse care to anyone were turning away black people during the pandemic solely because they were black. 

So, it was completely fair for Winfrey to point out the racial disparities of the impact of Covid-19 because, in her claims, black people were the victims, but Robert Kennedy Jr is racist for saying a similar thing because in his claims white people were possibly the victims. Is their racism in the charge of racism? Oprah Winfrey can claim that the US medical system is racist against black people, and she is lauded, but when Robert Kennedy Jr charges that the CCP bio-engineered the Covid virus to attack certain races, he is considered racist.

Robert Kennedy Jr’s comment about Covid may be wrong. They may be misguided. But they’re not racist. They were the exact opposite of racist. He was warning about the potentiality of how bioweapons could be used by evil racist people to commit genocide, and he is being called racist for saying that.

Interestingly, when you dig through the numbers, the Covid virus did not solely affect different races differently, it also had a disparate impact on people based on age and health. Is it just a coincidence that a communist country which is obligated to financially take care of its people from cradle to grave, meaning they have to support the elderly and infirmed for years after they stop being productive to society, happened to bioengineer a virus that 95% of the people it killed were elderly and infirmed, and then unleash it on its own people. Did the CCP use Covid-19 to trim the herd of their citizenry of the sick and aged? Or am I being an ageist or ableist for even bringing up that possibility?

We no longer have intelligent people who are engaged in our national dialogue. No one was willing to address Robert Kennedy Jr’s claims on an intellectual or factual level. They never addressed the studies which showed how Covid-19 harmed certain races much more than others or the dangers of bio-engineered weapons. If the depth and breadth of your debating skills is to levy the charge of racism, then you should no longer be taken seriously, and sadly Robert Kennedy Jr’s comment about Covid-19 proved that is the case for most of the so-called journalists working in the mainstream media and most of the politicians working in Washington.

The Biden Family Caricatures

By: Victor Davis Hanson

American Greatness

July 20, 2023

The Biden First Family seems determined to confirm every stereotype of their antisocial behavior—to the point of dysfunctionality.

During the 2020 campaign, at least eight women alleged that then-presidential candidate Joe Biden in the past had serially and improperly touched, kissed, or grabbed them.

One, Tara Reade alleged she was sexually assaulted by Biden, who denied the charge.

Yet Biden himself finally was forced to apologize for some of his behavior. Or as he said at the time, “I get it.”

He claimed that he would no longer improperly invade the “private space” of women and had meant no harm.

But Biden’s obnoxious conduct extended well beyond the eight accusers.

Women as diverse as former Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, and Biden’s daughter-in-law Kathleen Buhle, have both alleged in their memoirs that Biden made them feel uncomfortable through his intrusive touching and embraces.

On several occasions, Biden developed a strange tic of becoming too physical with young girls. He habitually attempted to hug them while blowing in their hair.

His daughter Ashley wrote in her diary that she feared her past adolescent showers with her father had been inappropriate. Even as president, Biden has weirdly called out young girls in his audiences to note their attractiveness.

On one occasion, the president interrupted his speech to address a female acquaintance—enlightening the crowd that, “We go back a long way. She was 12 and I was 30, but anyway…”

As a result, Biden has likely been warned repeatedly to forgo intimate references to young women.

He has no doubt also been advised by his handlers to stop all close, supposedly innocent contact with young girls and children—if for no other reason than to prevent his political opponents from charging that Joe is “creepy,” “perverse,” or “sick.”

And yet like some addict, Biden cannot stop—regardless of the eerie image he projects around the world.

Last week, the president jumped the proverbial shark by embracing a young child in a crowd while on the tarmac of the Helsinki, Finland airport.

In his strangest act yet, Biden kept moving his mouth near the face of the young girl. He was apparently trying to nibble the youngster, almost in turkey-gobbling fashion.

She recoiled.

No matter—Biden continued at her shoulder.

Again, she flinched.

Biden then reverted to form and sought with a second try to smell her hair and nestle closer.

Had any other major politician in the age of #MeToo committed such an unnerving stunt, he would likely have been ostracized by colleagues and mercilessly hammered by the media.

Not in Biden’s case.

The apparent media subtext was that it was either just “Old Joe” trying to be too friendly, or a symptom of his cognitive decline and thus not attributable to any sinister urge.

Senescence now provides paradoxical cover for Biden’s creepiness—newfound exemption for his old boorish behavior.

Also, during the President’s latest antics, cocaine was found in the West Wing of the White House.

All the White House spokespeople had to do was to reassure the public that the drugs most certainly did not belong to first son Hunter Biden—despite being a frequent guest resident of the White House and a former crack-cocaine addict.

Instead, press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre dismissed reporters for requesting such clarification.

Then the official narrative went through several contortions, as to where and how the bag of cocaine was found.

The disinformation only added suspicion that the White House either would not or could not be transparent about the discovery of illicit drugs abandoned at the very nexus of American governance.

Requests for clarity were understandable not just because Hunter has had a long history of drug addiction.

He also has a troubling habit of leaving a public trail of evidence of his drug use.

Hunter forgot his crack pipe in a rental car. He abandoned his laptop which contained evidence of his felonious behavior. And his unlawfully registered handgun turned up in a dumpster near a school.

In sum, the President and his son both have quite disturbing and all-too-public bad habits.

Americans in response assume both would be careful not to offer the tiniest shred of evidence that their pathologies continue.

White House handlers should keep Joe Biden from even getting near small children and young women.

And they should be just as unambiguous that Hunter Biden has never, and would never, even get too close to illicit drugs while inside the White House.

Sadly they can do neither.

These suspicions are force multipliers of the mounting evidence of Biden family corruption. They feed narratives of heartlessness about disowning a granddaughter born out of wedlock. And they add to worries of presidential senility.

The result is the caricature of a first family: one that is utterly dysfunctional—and increasingly detrimental to the country at large.

The Biden Family Caricatures

By: Victor Davis Hanson

American Greatness

July 20, 2023

The Biden First Family seems determined to confirm every stereotype of their antisocial behavior—to the point of dysfunctionality.

During the 2020 campaign, at least eight women alleged that then-presidential candidate Joe Biden in the past had serially and improperly touched, kissed, or grabbed them.

One, Tara Reade alleged she was sexually assaulted by Biden, who denied the charge.

Yet Biden himself finally was forced to apologize for some of his behavior. Or as he said at the time, “I get it.”

He claimed that he would no longer improperly invade the “private space” of women and had meant no harm.

But Biden’s obnoxious conduct extended well beyond the eight accusers.

Women as diverse as former Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, and Biden’s daughter-in-law Kathleen Buhle, have both alleged in their memoirs that Biden made them feel uncomfortable through his intrusive touching and embraces.

On several occasions, Biden developed a strange tic of becoming too physical with young girls. He habitually attempted to hug them while blowing in their hair.

His daughter Ashley wrote in her diary that she feared her past adolescent showers with her father had been inappropriate. Even as president, Biden has weirdly called out young girls in his audiences to note their attractiveness.

On one occasion, the president interrupted his speech to address a female acquaintance—enlightening the crowd that, “We go back a long way. She was 12 and I was 30, but anyway…”

As a result, Biden has likely been warned repeatedly to forgo intimate references to young women.

He has no doubt also been advised by his handlers to stop all close, supposedly innocent contact with young girls and children—if for no other reason than to prevent his political opponents from charging that Joe is “creepy,” “perverse,” or “sick.”

And yet like some addict, Biden cannot stop—regardless of the eerie image he projects around the world.

Last week, the president jumped the proverbial shark by embracing a young child in a crowd while on the tarmac of the Helsinki, Finland airport.

In his strangest act yet, Biden kept moving his mouth near the face of the young girl. He was apparently trying to nibble the youngster, almost in turkey-gobbling fashion.

She recoiled.

No matter—Biden continued at her shoulder.

Again, she flinched.

Biden then reverted to form and sought with a second try to smell her hair and nestle closer.

Had any other major politician in the age of #MeToo committed such an unnerving stunt, he would likely have been ostracized by colleagues and mercilessly hammered by the media.

Not in Biden’s case.

The apparent media subtext was that it was either just “Old Joe” trying to be too friendly, or a symptom of his cognitive decline and thus not attributable to any sinister urge.

Senescence now provides paradoxical cover for Biden’s creepiness—newfound exemption for his old boorish behavior.

Also, during the President’s latest antics, cocaine was found in the West Wing of the White House.

All the White House spokespeople had to do was to reassure the public that the drugs most certainly did not belong to first son Hunter Biden—despite being a frequent guest resident of the White House and a former crack-cocaine addict.

Instead, press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre dismissed reporters for requesting such clarification.

Then the official narrative went through several contortions, as to where and how the bag of cocaine was found.

The disinformation only added suspicion that the White House either would not or could not be transparent about the discovery of illicit drugs abandoned at the very nexus of American governance.

Requests for clarity were understandable not just because Hunter has had a long history of drug addiction.

He also has a troubling habit of leaving a public trail of evidence of his drug use.

Hunter forgot his crack pipe in a rental car. He abandoned his laptop which contained evidence of his felonious behavior. And his unlawfully registered handgun turned up in a dumpster near a school.

In sum, the President and his son both have quite disturbing and all-too-public bad habits.

Americans in response assume both would be careful not to offer the tiniest shred of evidence that their pathologies continue.

White House handlers should keep Joe Biden from even getting near small children and young women.

And they should be just as unambiguous that Hunter Biden has never, and would never, even get too close to illicit drugs while inside the White House.

Sadly they can do neither.

These suspicions are force multipliers of the mounting evidence of Biden family corruption. They feed narratives of heartlessness about disowning a granddaughter born out of wedlock. And they add to worries of presidential senility.

The result is the caricature of a first family: one that is utterly dysfunctional—and increasingly detrimental to the country at large.