CCP GETTING AWAY WITH MURDER IN PLAIN SIGHT
WASHINGTON—The Chinese Communist Party is “getting away with murder” as it expands its tentacles in international bodies like the United Nations to shun criticism, according to Rep. Chris Smith (R-N.J.).
“They are getting away with, literally, murder in plain sight, and too many countries are acquiescing or running, sadly, away from the issues that China is notoriously known for,” he told The Epoch Times, citing the regime’s repression of religious freedom and pervasive use of torture.
“Everywhere you look, it is bad and getting worse, and they are doing a full court press at the United Nations to cover it up.”
Mr. Smith, who chairs the U.S. Congressional-Executive Commission on China, on April 10 presided over a hearing examining Beijing’s decades-long effort to subvert the United Nations system.
The United States remains the largest funder to the United Nations, contributing as much as $18 billion in 2022—the latest year with full data available.
Despite its outsized payments, the United States’ generosity hasn’t translated to commensurate influence at the United Nations when compared to China.
Chinese officials headed four of 15 U.N. specialized agencies, with deputies in nine others as of 2020. Leadership roles at the U.N. system prove a handy tool for Beijing when its interests are on the line.
AFRICA’S CLUB OBAMA
The ramshackle Club Obama is a shed on stilts above a garbage dump of a beach in Conakry, the capital of the West African country of Guinea. It doesn’t get much business anymore because Obama is no longer popular here. Guineans thought he would flood them with US taxpayer dollars but he didn’t. “Obama did nothing for us,” they’ll tell you.
The sad truth is that Guineans have done nothing for themselves. Independence from France came in 1958, and the place has been run by one party dictatorships, military juntas, and ridiculously corrupt leaders ever since. It’s the size of Oregon, with 12 million people who have a per capita GDP of $800 a year. Yet is has up to half the world’s reserves of bauxite (source of aluminum) and is #3 in world production, has diamonds, gold, and many other resources – which all goes into the bottomless pockets of whoever the ruling elite are at the moment.
It’s the tragedy of so much of Africa writ large. In 1974, after Cassius Clay had his “Rumble in the Jungle” in Zaire with George Foreman, he was asked by a reporter upon his return to America, “Champ, what did you think of Africa?” With wit and wisdom he replied, “Thank God my Granddaddy got on that boat!” (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #84 Photo ©Jack Wheeler)
IRAN ATTACKS ISRAEL (AGAIN)
“Don’t.” That was Joe Biden’s one-word tough-guy warning on more than one occasion regarding whether Iran would strike Israel. It blew up in his face over the weekend as Iran launched hundreds of drones and ballistic missiles at civilian targets in Israel — the first time Iran struck Israel from its own soil, largely skipping using proxies like Hamas. Fortunately, Israel was ready and, along with U.S., British, and Jordanian assistance, foiled nearly all of the incoming fire.
“Well, he said ‘Don’t’ multiple times,” said former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, “and ‘Don’t’ isn’t a national security policy. It’s not even a deterrent.”
It’s practically an invitation from this president. In fact, the Biden administration reportedly conveyed to Iran through Turkey that its action against Israel must be “within certain limits.”
DEI CRONYISM AND WOKE GRIFTERS
When ideology replaces meritocracy or provides immunity from the consequences of illegal behavior, systemic mediocrity follows.
Under toxic National Socialism, Stalinism, and Maoism, millions of cronies and grifters mouthed party lines in hopes that their approved ideology would allow them to advance their careers and excuse their lawbreaking.
The same thing has happened with the woke movement and the now-huge Diversity/Equity/Inclusion conglomerate.
Grifters and opportunists mask their selfish agendas under the cloak of neo-Marxist care for the underprivileged or victimized minorities. Meanwhile, they seek to profit illegally as if they were old-fashioned crony capitalists.
THE TREASURY OF PETRA
The 2,000 year-old Rose Red City of Petra was the religious center of an ancient Arab tribe named Nabataeans. They didn’t build huge temples such as this – they carved them out of cliffs of rose-red sandstone in their hidden mountain sanctuary east of the Dead Sea in present-day Jordan.
The most famous carved temple is called The Treasury (Al-Khazneh in Arabic), 128 feet high, hand-carved into the vertical rock face. You’ve seen it in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusades and other movies.
One interesting feature of Nabataean culture was the prominence of women. The two principal deities worshipped by them was the male god Dushara, god of the sun and sky whom the ancient Greeks associated with Zeus, and Al-Uzza, the goddess of fertility whom the Greeks associated with Aphrodite.
Al-Uzza was accompanied by Al-lat, the goddess of wisdom, and Manat, the goddess of destiny, as a triad devoutly worshipped by the Nabataeans and throughout all pre-Islamic Arabia. Together, they are the “forbidden goddesses” of Koranic Islam. Which is why their images, along with that of Dushara have been defaced and etched out of their carvings in the upper niches of The Treasury.
Experiencing Petra is on most people’s travel bucket list. Being here, it’s easy to see why. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #292, photo ©Jack Wheeler)
THE FORBIDDEN GODDESSES
[Salman Rushdie is in the news today (4/15) with the publication of his new book, Knife: Meditations of an Attempted Murder. As are the terror-masters of Iran with their massive missile and drone attack upon Israel on Saturday (4/13). Thus this Monday's Archive, written on August 17, 2022 in response to the knife attack on Rushdie days earlier on August 12, should be a must-read. For it exposes the great skeleton in the Islamic closet, the “Satanic Verses,” the truth of which drives the Mullahs of Iran and their followers into criminal insanity.
TTP, August 17, 2022
In the 1st and 2nd Centuries AD, there arose in what is now northern Iraq an Arabian kingdom called Hatra, named after its capital city. Made wealthy with the caravan trade from Mesopotamia to the Mediterranean, the Arab kings of Hatra built magnificent temples to their gods and goddesses.
The one you see above is known to archaeologists as The Lady of Hatra as what the Arab Hatrans called her is not known. Three others, however, are definitely known – for they are the Forbidden Goddesses, worshipped and adored by Arabs 2,000 years ago, hated and feared by over one billion people today.
Here they are – Al-Lat in the center, flanked by Manat, and Al-Uzza – the daughters of Allah, the subject of the Koran’s “Satanic Verses.” Funny thing is, almost no one save for scholars on the history of Islam and Moslem fanatics knows what these “Satanic verses” are. So what are they?
FLASHBACK FRIDAY – THE CRUSADER FORTRESS IN THE CAUCASUS
This is the fortress town of Shatili in an extremely remote Caucasus region in Georgia called Khevsureti. It was built by the Crusaders 1,000 years ago. The Khevsur people who live here trace their ancestry back to these Crusaders and until the 1930s still wore chain mail in feud-battles with other towns. I took this picture in 1991.
American traveler Richard Halliburton (1900–1939) saw and recorded the customs of the Khevsurs in 1935. The Khevsur men, dressed in chain mail and armed with broadswords, wore garments full of decoration made up of crosses and icons. They don’t do that anymore, but they proudly retain their Crusader Christian heritage – for Georgia adopted Christianity in the 4th century AD. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #85 photo ©Jack Wheeler)
A TWO-FER FOR UNDERSTANDING THE CONSTITUTION
HALF-FULL REPORT 04/12/24
It’s just too irresistible to start this HFR with the greatest clickbait headline not just of the week, but of modern times. Ready?
Daily Mail, 4/06: Why Sydney Sweeney And Her Double-D Breasts Are Being Hailed As Proof That Woke Culture Is Dead.
“Sydney Sweeney is one of Hollywood’s hottest rising stars, with a recent hit in rom-com Anyone But You, and Spider-Man spin-off Madame Web. Still only 26, Sweeney produces her own films and has unexpectedly become more than an actress.
The all-American blue-eyed blonde with corn-fed curves has become a cultural phenomenon, her unashamed sexuality embraced by America’s conservative Right as proof that woke culture is dying, if not already dead. Movie critic Amy Hamm says:
‘We’ve spent years being chastised for desiring or admiring beauty – because beauty is rare and exclusionary, and to exclude is to hate – or so we’ve been scolded to accept by today’s diversity, equity, and inclusion fanatics. We aren’t supposed to admire Sweeney’s beauty; but we’ve done it anyways. The times, they are a-changin’.’
Yes, they are. From J.K. Rowling’s courageous success against tranny-worship to Sweeney being an unapologetically sexual woman movie star, the culture is shifting rapidly from insanity to sanity. America is becoming normal once again.THE ROCK-HEWN CHURCHES OF LALIBELA, ETHIOPIA
900 years ago, the Church of Saint George (Bete Giyorgis in Amharic) was not built – it was hand carved downwards from a horizontal rock ledge. There is nothing like the rock-hewn churches in Lalibela anywhere else in the world.
Christianity was established in Ethiopia in 330 AD and has flourished ever since. Experiencing the devotion still so very much alive in one of the oldest Christian countries on earth is inspiring. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #26 photo ©Jack Wheeler)