Commentary: Signs of America’s Declining Power and the Emerging Multipolar World

President Biden walking in front of a line of international flags

During Bush’s years as president, Democrats frequently criticized his foreign policy, complaining that he acted like a cowboy, pursuing wars unilaterally without the imprimatur of the “international community.” Internationalism was a particular obsession of 2004 Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry, who lambasted the Bush administration for snubbing the United Nations and upsetting France with its Iraq policy.

Obama was mostly a darling of foreign leaders, as he ceded American power and prestige in a bid to right what he considered the historic wrongs of colonialism and western chauvinism. This was evident in his obsession with completing the Iran deal, participating in the Kyoto accords, assisting NATO attacks on Libya and Syria, and in the general tone of public diplomacy during the Arab Spring.

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Republicans Move to Defund John Kerry’s Climate Envoy Office

On Wednesday, over two dozen Republicans in the House of Representatives introduced a bill that would cut all funding for John Kerry’s newly-established “climate envoy” office at the State Department.

As Fox News reports, the No Taxpayer Funding for Climate Zealots Advancing Radical Schemes Act would forbid the use of any federal funds from being appropriated for the purpose of funding Kerry’s office, including for such purposes as travel, administrative, and salary expenses. Biden first created the office specific

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GOP to Investigate John Kerry’s Secret Negotiations with Chinese Communist Party

Congressman James Comer (R-Ky.), Chairman of the House Oversight and Accountability Committee, will be directly probing secret negotiations held between John Kerry and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).

As reported by Fox News, Comer sent a letter to Kerry on Thursday informing the Biden official that Comer himself would be investigating the matter. Kerry, a failed presidential candidate and former Massachusetts Senator, was named Biden’s Special Presidential Envoy for the Climate (SPEC) at the start of Biden’s term; the position of SPEC was created specifically for Kerry.

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Republicans Introduce Bill to Defund John Kerry, Other Biden ‘Climate Tyrants’

Eight Republican House members have introduced legislation to defund climate czar John Kerry and other “climate tyrants“ inside the Biden administration, blaming them for an energy crisis that has sent gasoline soaring to $5 a gallon.

The group, led by Rep. Chip Roy of Texas, introduced the No Taxpayer Funding for CZARS Act that would ban federal funding for any activity of the special presidential envoy for climate, including salary and both administrative and travel expenses.

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21 U.S. Federal Agencies Are Analyzing the ‘Environmental Damage’ of Ukraine War

The federal government has assembled a 21-agency working group to study and assess the environmental impacts of the ongoing war in Ukraine.

The “Interagency Working Group on Environmental Damage in Ukraine” — which was assembled by the Department of State and includes officials from the Environmental Protection Agency, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and Department of Defense — has met weekly for about a month, Axios first reported Friday.

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Commentary: John Kerry Is Putin’s Useful Climate Idiot

Vladimir Putin and John Kerry shaking hands

Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine marks the end of the West’s Era of Illusions. It was an era in which Western elites obsessed about solving climate change because the climate crisis was far more dangerous than issues of war and peace and the stability of the international system. They even convinced themselves that climate change causes war, so climate change policy could double as national security policy; and, for many years, the annual round of kumbaya UN climate talks was the apogee of international relations.

In a BBC World Service interview, presidential climate envoy John Kerry expressed concern about the amount of greenhouse gas being emitted from the war in Ukraine. Kerry was just getting warmed up with a string of platitudes that show him as a deluded climate relic, unable to come to terms with the reality that Putin has imposed on the world. “Equally importantly,” Kerry complained, “you’re going to lose people’s focus,” as if the first invasion of a sovereign European country since the Second World War is an annoying distraction. Hopefully, Kerry continued, Putin would realize that Russia’s land is thawing, and the people of Russia are at risk.  

Kerry concluded with an expression of pure self-deception, saying he hopes Putin “will help us to stay on track with respect to what we need to do for the climate.” Stay on track? Russia has never hidden its intention to avoid cutting its emissions. Russia’s second Nationally Determined Contribution, submitted in November 2020 under the Paris climate agreement, is to limit its 2030 emissions to “no more than 70% of 1990 levels.” The document is careful to avoid pledging to cut or reduce emissions. The 1990 baseline year was the last one before the collapse of the highly inefficient and heavily polluting centrally planned Soviet economy. Thus, the 70% limit actually enables Russia to increase its emissions by 34% – and that’s before taking account of any changes in forestry and land use that would allow Russia to claim credit for negative emissions. 

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Pennsylvania House Democrat Urges Biden to Restart Keystone XL Pipeline

An Altoona-area Democrat in the Pennsylvania House of Representatives filed a memorandum on Friday asking colleagues to cosponsor a resolution backing reopening of the Keystone XL pipeline.

In his message to the House, Representative Frank Burns (D-Portage) noted that the U.S. imports more than 800,000 barrels of oil daily from Russia and that oil prices reached more than $100 per barrel last week. The representative anticipated that Russian fossil fuels will only get more expensive—perhaps even unavailable—as the Russia-Ukraine military conflict continues.

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Commentary: The Russia-Ukraine Crisis, the History Our Media Got Wrong

Russia’s looming invasion of Ukraine presents a clear and present danger to the safety of the European Union and a direct challenge to the NATO alliance, but only now are our major media waking up to this dire threat to Western security. We must now confront urgent questions: Did the United States strengthen Russia, did it weaken Ukraine, and did it do so under the nose of these media?

First, a quick run-through of American actions that strengthened Russia. In his 2009 inaugural address, Barack Obama promised to approach adversaries with an open hand, not a closed fist. For this, he won a Nobel Peace Prize, an oxymoronic name, equivalent to the Affordable Care Act.

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Landmark Democratic Initiative Virginia Clean Economy Act Under Fire From Republicans

The Virginia Clean Economy Act (VCEA) is one of the signature pieces of legislation Democrats passed during their control of Virginia’s General Assembly and the governor’s mansion. It set deadlines for utilities to be 100-percent carbon, set energy efficiency standards for utilities, declared that solar and wind are “in the public interest,” created a Virginia Community Flood Preparedness Fund, and brought Virginia into the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI,) a program where utilities have to bid for carbon dioxide emissions allowances.

The day after the act passed out of the House in February 2020, House Minority Leader Todd Gilbert (R-Shenandoah) called Democrats’ actions including the VCEA historic, but warned that those bills would have far-reaching impacts, including higher energy prices for citizens and businesses.

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Commentary: America Gone Mad

After three weeks in Europe and extensive discussions with dozens of well-informed and highly placed individuals from most of the principal Western European countries, including leading members of the British government, I have the unpleasant duty of reporting complete incomprehension and incredulity at what Joe Biden and his collaborators encapsulate in the peppy but misleading phrase, “We’re back.”

As one eminent elected British government official put it, “They are not back in any conventional sense of that word. We have worked closely with the Americans for many decades and we have never seen such a shambles of incompetent administration, diplomatic incoherence, and complete military ineptitude as we have seen in these nine months. We were startled by Trump, but he clearly knew what he was doing, whatever we or anyone else thought about it. This is just a disintegration of the authority of a great nation for no apparent reason.”

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Commentary: Christopher Steele Is a Product of Corrupt FBI

Just as the special counsel’s investigation into the origins of Crossfire Hurricane—the FBI counterintelligence probe launched in the summer of 2016 to sabotage Donald Trump’s presidential campaign—is showing signs of life, one of the central figures in the hoax is attempting to burnish his sullied image.

ABC News anchor George Stephanopoulos has produced a documentary featuring Christopher Steele, the man responsible for the so-called dossier bearing his name. “Out of the Shadows: The Man Behind the Steele Dossier,” streamed on Hulu Monday night; promotional clips hinted that, far from a hard-hitting interview exposing Steele for the charlatan he is, Stephanopoulos gave Steele a chance to spin his story ahead of possible new indictments related to John Durham’s inquiry into the Trump-Russia election collusion hoax.

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John Kerry Refuses to Single Out China for Not Setting Climate Goals

Climate envoy John Kerry applauded climate actions made by the U.S. and other countries, but refused to single out China for not setting substantive goals for cutting emissions.

“We have a lot of things to still come across the transom and that will sort of decide where we are overall and which countries have neglected to do what is responsible,” Kerry told the Associated Press in an interview.

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John Kerry Invested $1 Million in Chinese Fund Supporting Company Blacklisted for Human Rights Abuses

Special Presidential Envoy for Climate John Kerry and his wife hold at least $1 million in a Chinese investment fund that owns a significant stake in a Chinese technology company that aided China’s human rights abuses against Uyghur Muslims, records show.

Kerry reported holding an “over $1,000,000” stake in the investment fund, Hillhouse China Value Fund L.P., in his financial disclosure submitted in February. The fund is a part of the Hillhouse Capital Group, a private equity firm operated by Chinese billionaire Zhang Lei and known for its early investments in some of China’s top technology companies.

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Commentary: The Puppet Master of the Republic

“Ya know, reality has a way of intruding. Reality eventually intrudes on everything.”

– Joe Biden

During last year’s Democratic primaries when everyone fumbled the ball, the leftist voters turned to socialist Bernie Sanders. Although the DNC figured Sanders would fizzle with baseline Democrats, they misread their comrades. When Sanders won California and Nevada, they hurriedly regrouped. Their strategy was to pair Joe Biden with a babysitter VP, and use them as their progressive shills.

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Missouri’s Treasurer Opposes Biden Administration’s Influence on Divesting in Fuel Companies

Gas station at night

Missouri Treasurer Scott Fitzpatrick and 14 other Republican state treasurers are questioning President Joe Biden’s administration pressuring of U.S. banks and financial institutions to not lend to or invest in fossil fuel companies.

The group of chief financial officers sent a letter to presidential climate envoy John Kerry this week expressing concern about a reported strategy to eliminate the coal, oil and natural gas industries by cutting off loans or investments.

“While the pursuit of more renewable sources of energy is a noble cause, the fact is that fossil fuels remain critical to our country and the entire world,” Fitzpatrick said in a statement. “The Biden Administration’s failure to acknowledge this will result in increased costs for consumers and businesses. An energy independent America is vital for national security and strengthens our economy which impacts all Americans – especially our poorest citizens who feel rising prices at the gas pump and the checkout line most. Attempts to pressure financial institutions to cut off the fossil fuel industry amounts to nothing less than an abuse of power by the federal government and should not be tolerated by states.”

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Iranian Foreign Minister Said He Had No Knowledge of Israeli Airstrikes Until Kerry Tipped Him Off

John Kerry with Sarah Rosen Wartell in background

Iranian foreign minister Javad Zarif claimed he did not know that Israel was behind 200 military airstrikes in Iran until secretary of state John Kerry tipped him off, a new translation of a leaked audiotape reveals.

The New York Times buried the revelation of Kerry’s treasonous behavior deep in a story about the leaked audiotape last week.

Kerry is now the Biden administration’s United States Special Presidential Envoy for Climate.

Amid calls for him to resign or be fired, the corporate media and State Department officials stepped up to the plate to defend Kerry, saying Zarif had already heard about Israel’s actions from the media before Kerry blabbed about it. At the same time, Kerry claimed (unconvincingly) that none of it was true.

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John Kerry Vehemently Denies Sharing Secret Intel About Israel with Iran

John Kerry

Former Secretary of State John Kerry on Monday vehemently denied providing Iranian foreign minister Javad Zarif with secret information about Israeli strikes on Iranian interests in Syria, an allegation which Republicans seized on to call for Kerry’s ouster from the Biden administration.

“I can tell you that this story and these allegations are unequivocally false. This never happened – either when I was Secretary of State or since,” Kerry tweeted in response to reports of his interactions with Zarif.

Iran International, a London-based outlet, and The New York Times reported that Zarif said in a secret audio recording that Kerry had informed him that Israeli forces had struck more than 200 Iranian targets in Syria.

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Virginia NFIB: Business Is Improving, but Employers Are Having Trouble Filling Positions

As the country emerges from COVID-19 restrictions, small businesses are doing better, according to a March report from the National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB). However, uncertainty about the next few months for business owners is still high, and businesses are having trouble finding qualified workers to fill positions.

“Virginia’s small businesses are working hard on their recovery but are struggling to find the right workers to fill open positions,” NFIB Virginia State Director Nicole Riley said in a Wednesday press release

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Commentary: What to Make of the Biden Climate Barrage

Sleepy no more, President Joe Biden has taken to the Oval Office with gusto. On Wednesday, he resumed a climate policy blitz that has already included rejoining the Paris Agreement and deep-sixing the Keystone XL pipeline with an “Executive Order on Tackling the Climate Crisis at Home and Abroad.”

Among the banner proclamations from the Wednesday order are that Biden will pause the leasing of federal land to oil and gas companies, seal off 30 percent of federal land from development altogether, create a National Climate Task Force to wage “government-wide” battle on climate change, and require of the intelligence services a National Intelligence Estimate on the security impacts of climate change.

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Jim Jordan Calls Out Democrats for Having No ‘Legislative Initiatives’ Apart from Attacking Trump

Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH-04) tore into his Democratic colleagues Tuesday for having no “legislative initiatives” apart from attacking President Donald Trump. The comments came during a contentious House Oversight Committee hearing on climate change and its impact on national security. Former Secretary of State John Kerry was called before the committee as a witness, and criticized the Trump administration for the alleged committee it plans to create to study climate change. Kerry called the task force a “council of doubter and deniers,” though Jordan pointed out that it hasn’t even been formed yet. “I’m just asking the fundamental question: how can it be a council of doubters and deniers when it hasn’t even been formed?” Jordan asked. .@JohnKerry calls the President's climate change task force "a council of doubters and deniers." Apparently Mr. Kerry can foretell the future! The task force hasn't even been formed yet! But @OversightDems just spent 4 hours talking about it. pic.twitter.com/6AIX3Tn8It — Rep. Jim Jordan (@Jim_Jordan) April 9, 2019 “Well, it would be,” Kerry responded, to which Jordan jokingly said the former Obama diplomat “can foretell the future.” “You already know who’s on the council and you already know the conclusion they’re going to reach…

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A Brief History of North Korean Diplomatic Name Calling

Tennessee Star

by George Rasley, CHQ Editor   The Leftwing media and the failed DC foreign policy establishment have been having a meltdown over President Trump’s reference to North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un as “Rocket Man,” and have spent the past two days suggesting that giving Kim a demeaning nickname is somehow indicative of a lack of diplomatic acumen, or maybe even mental imbalance, on Trump’s part. Former Secretary of State John Kerry said President Donald Trump’s United Nations speech may have put America in isolation and danger. Appearing on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” show Wednesday, Kerry criticized Trump’s harsh rhetoric against North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. Kerry said, “You have to ask yourself: Is America safer because of ‘rocket man?” He was referring to Trump’s characterization of Kim. Kerry said that kind of harsh language will make it harder for the United States to engage in diplomacy on North Korea and other international issues. Kerry seems to have forgotten that back in 2014 the North Koreans once referred to him as, “A wolf with a hideous lantern jaw,” and also described Kerry as a “wolf donning the mask of sheep.” The trigger for these insults was then-Secretary of State Kerry’s statement…

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