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July 2024

Call for End to Israel Aid Is More Proof Organized Labor Is Progressivism and Progressivism Is Organized Labor Dominic Pino

https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/call-for-end-to-israel-aid-is-more-proof-organized-labor-is-progressivism-and-progressivism-is-organized-labor/

Seven major U.S. labor unions have issued a joint letter urging President Biden to immediately stop all military aid to Israel. “Mr. President, the time to act decisively to end this war is now. Stopping U.S. military aid to Israel is the quickest and most sure way to do so, it is what U.S. law demands, and it will show your commitment to securing a lasting peace in the region,” the letter reads.

The Association of Flight Attendants, the American Postal Workers Union, the International Union of Painters, the National Education Association, the Service Employees International Union, the United Auto Workers, and the United Electrical Workers all signed the letter.

The war in Gaza is probably not top of mind for flight attendants, mailmen, painters, teachers, janitors, auto workers, and electricians. But it is top of mind for their labor unions, because those unions are appendages of the progressive movement.

The UAW called for a cease-fire in Gaza in December of last year, with some UAW locals calling for one mere days after the Hamas attack on October 7. The UAW, in particular, has a large contingent of higher-education workers in its ranks, with college campuses being hotbeds of anti-Israel activism. The UAW represents about the same number of workers at the University of California system as it does at General Motors.

The UAW Arab Caucus, which also supports the BDS movement, called for the union to change its stance from calling for a cease-fire only to also calling for a halt to all U.S. military aid back in February.

Creating the Cult of Kamala Noah Rothman

https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/creating-the-cult-of-kamala/

Whether it’s a product of motivated reasoning or wishful thinking, the race is on to make America’s famously maladroit vice president into a cultural sensation.

If there was going to be an upside to Joe Biden’s presidency, its earliest days suggested it might be found in the lack of a cult of personality around the man. The president inspired support and opposition in Americans but not abject devotion. He was a functionary – a flawed and fallible bureaucrat – and it would be healthy for the country to revert to the mean after twelve consecutive years in which the president was regarded by his supporters as the personification of the national will. That experiment ended in failure.

It is hard to avoid the conclusion that the Biden years proved that presidents who are not ballasted by celebrity worship sink into the abyss. The president’s camp conceded as much with its bewildering campaign to popularize “dark Brandon” – a vaguely menacing figure with lasers for eyes and a conspicuous appetite for ice cream, who, as Politico put it, is also “a master of the political dark arts.”  The artifice was a bad fit for Biden, but the enterprise acknowledged a lamentable truth: In the absence of a pop mythology and the thoughtless adulation that accompanies it, the president will be evaluated on his or her performance alone. In a polarized era typified by broad and sustained dissatisfaction with the status quo, that would be a heavy lift even for an accomplished chief executive. For the middling sort, it’s the kiss of death.

A New Polish Star A blunt, brilliant debut speech in Brussels shows that Poland isn’t yet entirely lost to the Left. by Bruce Bawer

https://www.frontpagemag.com/a-new-polish-star/

Not all that long ago, Spain and Ireland and Poland were seriously Catholic countries, famous for cultures that – in comparison with most of Western Europe – seemed downright old-fashioned, and famous, too, for the severity of their laws on matters like divorce and abortion. No more. In the post-Franco era, the Spanish Socialist Workers’ Party (PSOE) has held the reins of power in Madrid longer than any other, and Spanish culture has changed accordingly. During the same period, Ireland has undergone a no less dramatic transformation.

Poland’s big political metamorphosis has happened more recently. When I visited Warsaw a few years ago, it was conservative, pristine, obviously proud of its history and heritage. I’ve been to a lot of cities in Western Europe, but, for reasons I probably need not expatiate upon, none felt as safe as Warsaw. Like most other Eastern European countries, Poland belonged to the EU but was fiercely skeptical about its leaders’ globalist agenda, their attempt to turn duly elected national governments into mere puppets, and their determination to fill Europe with Muslims who despise Western values.

Perhaps above all, I was impressed – and touched – by the Poles’ staunch pro-Americanism: unlike some Europeans, the Poles, who have always had the exceedingly bad luck of being located between Germany and Russia, those two chronically aggressive powers, and who spent much of the twentieth century under the brutal heel of Nazism and Communism, have never fallen for the widely promoted delusion that it is the EU, and not NATO – with America at its head – that keeps them safe from the threat of Russian predation.

Liz Peek: Brace yourself, America. With Kamala Harris, Democrats are about to put on an incredible show

https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/brace-yourself-america-kamala-harris-democrats-about-put-incredible-show

Heads up America: Democrats are as phony as they are dishonest. All those accolades pouring in about Joe Biden being an “historic” president and a “great public servant”? Phony. Even before his catastrophic debate Biden’s approval ratings were in the gutter. 

Gushing over candidate Kamala Harris? Also phony. Democrats have been hand-wringing for months about how they could eject President Biden but not allow the unpopular V.P. to take his place. They are only coalescing around her now because they are panicked that an open selection process would throw their party into total disarray.

Kamala Harris has been one of Joe Biden’s most stalwart defenders, lying brazenly for months about his fitness to serve as president for another four years.  

As his vice president, Harris has played a pivotal role in perpetrating one of the greatest political deceptions ever, a deception that has undermined confidence in our political system and put our country at risk. For this alone, she is disqualified from ever serving as this nation’s commander-in-chief. 

Still, Republicans need to steel themselves: Democrats are about to put on an incredible show. No, I don’t mean the Democratic Convention in Chicago, which starts on August 19. I mean the tidal wave of money and faux enthusiasm which is about to flow into the campaign to elect Kamala Harris. Democrats everywhere will inundate the airwaves with excited testimonials about Harris’ candidacy; MSNBC hosts will be positively giddy. 

Our Elections Are More Vulnerable Than Ever By Brian T. Kennedy

https://tomklingenstein.com/our-elections-are-more-vulnerable-than-ever/

At no time during the Cold War with the Soviet Union was it imagined that the Russians could manipulate a United States presidential election in favor of their preferred candidate. Hollywood’s portrayal of a “Manchurian Candidate” aside, American elections were held in person, using paper ballots, counted by human beings, with other human beings watching them. And, however vicious and corrupt the normal partisan interplay of American politics may have been, this practice insured that a fair enough election could be held. Today that is no longer the case.

Regardless of who the nominees are in 2024, just as in 2020, much of America will hold their elections in the least transparent, most vulnerable method possible: absentee ballots. Because of this, a free and fair election cannot be assured. It matters not that President Trump is ahead in all the polls and in ways that some pollsters believe cannot be overcome. Citizens should expect that, since America is in a war with Communist China, November’s election will be the target of a massive intelligence operation to decide the next president.

It should be noted that America’s election system was not built to stop the Communist Chinese or any nation state, or for that matter any dark money group, with the capacity and the interest in deciding an American presidential election.

The United States is made vulnerable by being the only developed country in the world to allow for this wide-spread use of absentee ballots. Every other advanced democracy conducts their elections in person, with identification shown, on paper ballots counted by large groups of people transparently tallying vote totals with the results available the same day of the election. In states around America, Secretaries of State have allowed or been part of the development of elections systems that would appear to be designed to allow for fraud. So whether or not an election is stolen, a free and fair election system has been stolen from the American people. Today we have systems that lack transparency, whether it is the absentee ballot process or the electronic voting systems. That it can be exploited by the Chinese Communist Party should seem obvious.

The Trump Transformation Turning the Republican Party into winners. by Bruce Thornton

https://www.frontpagemag.com/the-trump-transformation/

Remember in October of 2008, when Barack Obama boasted, “We are five days away from fundamentally transforming the United States of America” into an even bigger and more intrusive big government nanny state? That prediction was on its way to being confirmed by Obama’s two terms and his policies both at home and abroad, from the expansion of illiberal identity politics, racial divisiveness, and tax-and-spend economics here; to an appeasing, self-loathing, serially cringing apologies overseas. His handpicked successor, Hillary Clinton, was poised to take over the project and lead it to its completion.

Then the unthinkable happened––Donald Trump. At first, he was a novelty act, too crass and déclassé for the bipartisan political guild to believe he could displace the five more conventional Republicans in the primaries. He lacked the credentials typical of postwar presidents––election to state or federal office, a degree from a tony law school, and experience as a lawyer.

In addition to being tainted by commerce, his business ventures were infra dig for the political establishment––beauty pageants, professional wrestling, real estate development, and a successful reality television show The Apprentice, with its insensitive catch-phrase “You’re fired!” For cognitive elites who fancy themselves culturally literate, his book, The Art of the Deal, reeked of hucksterism and profit-grubbing. Worst of all, his take-no-prisoners, blunt, often brutal, hyperbolic speaking style was more suited for a biker bar than the hallowed halls of government, and their decorous, elevated discourse redolent of a country club soirée.

But Donald Trump’s biggest sin was winning the presidency, which discombobulated the pundits, experts, consultants, and political guildsmen. His scorn for their haughty “norms” and fossilized received wisdom was unforgivable, and his patriotic populism was an ominous sign of incipient fascism, since every well-bred globalist technocrat knew that nationalism is the gateway drug to racism, xenophobia, and ultimately Hitlerian tyranny.

That his first term was successful on every level, with economic growth at home, and peace abroad, didn’t matter to the bipartisan Trumpophobes. He just wasn’t one of them, and made his disdain for their missish rules and gate-keeping “norms” crudely obvious. For the political establishment, he had to go “by any means necessary.”

Abigail Shrier: California’s New Law Lets Schools Keep Secrets from Parents Gavin Newsom signs a bill that keeps parents in the dark if their kids change gender identity at school.

https://www.thefp.com/p/abigail-shrier-california-gender-law-newsom

Child predators follow a common playbook: target the victim, gain their trust, fill a need, and, crucially, isolate the child from her parents. For several years, this has also been standard California state protocol with regard to schoolchildren questioning their gender identities. On Monday, this scheme became law.

The “SAFETY Act,” AB 1955, signed by California Democratic governor Gavin Newsom, legally forbids schools from adopting any policy that would force them to disclose “any information related to a pupil’s sexual orientation, gender identity, or gender expression to any other person without the pupil’s consent.” Schools may not, as a matter of policy, inform parents of a child’s new gender identity unless the child volunteers her approval. The law also prohibits schools from punishing any school employee found to have “supported a pupil” hurtling down a path toward risky and irreversible hormones and surgeries.

The law effectively shuts down the local parents’ rights movement in California by eliminating its most important tool: the ability to organize at the community level to stop schools from deceiving them. No longer can families hope to convince their school boards to require schools to notify parents that their daughter, Sophie, has been going by “Sebastian” in class; that her teacher, school counselor, and principal have all been celebrating Sebastian’s transgender identity; that they’ve been letting her use the boys’ bathroom and reifying the sense that she is “really a boy.” 

It is difficult to avoid the conclusion that the law supports the priming of minor children for a secret life with a new gender identity. This includes having school-aged children participate in sexualized discussions and make identity declarations with school faculty, which are often actively hidden from the child’s parents. Elon Musk called the law “the final straw” for families and announced his intention to move both SpaceX and X, two of California’s most prominent tech companies, out of the state as a result. “The goal [of] this diabolical law,” he tweeted, “is to break the parent-child relationship and put the state in charge of your children.”

The Canonization of Joe Biden The line forms on the left.by Leesa K. Donner

https://www.libertynation.com/the-canonization-of-joe-biden/

Even before the white puff of smoke could be seen rising above the Democratic National Headquarters in Washington, DC, members of the president’s party lined up to laud the man who had suffered their wrath only a day earlier. The Joe-Must-Go campaign finally came to its obvious denouement after a few weeks of pressuring the president to drop out of the 2024 presidential race. Joe Biden didn’t go willingly and didn’t go quickly, but, by God, he went – and that’s all that matters to the Democratic Party.

Without hesitation, Washington, DC’s prominent legacy newspaper and The New York Times invoked the H-word on their front pages. As they see it, Biden’s decision to remove himself from the Democratic ticket was “heroic” – and he may now don the mantle of American Hero. As the Roman triumphus got underway, The Times chose historian Jon Meacham to spread the word of their victorious, conquering hero. And he laid it on thick:

“Mr. Biden has spent a lifetime trying to do right by the nation, and he did so in the most epic of ways when he chose to end his re-election campaign. His decision is one of the most remarkable acts of leadership in our history, an act of self-sacrifice that places him in the company of George Washington, who also stepped away from the presidency. To put something ahead of one’s immediate desires — to give rather than to try to take — is perhaps the most challenging thing for any human being to do. And Mr. Biden has done just that.”

One wonders if Meacham will initiate a movement to put Biden’s face on the one-dollar bill. However, he might have to queue up behind columnist David Ignatius, who intoned, “Bravo to Biden for opening the curtain as he closes his own.” Dana Milbank breathed a sigh of relief, saying, “[I feel] heroic more than anything. Biden did what he has always done and put the country first.” Editor and commentator Ruth Marcus chimed in with, “It is hard to age — indeed, hard to accept our own frailties and limitations at any age — and Biden’s story, laced with tragedy throughout his career, ends on a note that is both tragic and, I hope, heroic.”

Biden Administration Gives Another $100 Million for Terror: Prefers Aiding Palestinian Terrorists Such as Hamas to Supporting Israel by Con Coughlin

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/20814/biden-administration-gives-100-million-for-terror

Nothing better illustrates the perversity of the Biden administration’s attitude to the Gaza conflict that, at the same time that Washington is limiting arms exports to Israel, the US is increasing its aid to the Palestinian Authority.

One of the key lessons that the US should have learned from Hamas’s deadly terrorist attack against Israel on October 7… is that aid donations made by foreign donors invariably end up being used to fund Palestinian terrorists.

With awkward timing, the Biden administration announced its latest $100 million aid package for the Palestinians just as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was preparing to leave for his visit to Washington this week.

While aid officials blame Israel and the continuing war in Gaza for preventing the delivery of vital supplies from reaching Palestinian civilians, the real culprit is Hamas, which controls all the delivery networks. This means that much of the aid is diverted to those who support its terrorist operations.

Biden may have announced his intention to not seek re-election, but so long as his administration remains in power, there appears little prospect of any dramatic revision taking place to its deliberately icy — and potentially dangerous — attitude not only towards Israel’s offensive against Hamas in Gaza, but also its turning a blind eye toward Iran’s destabilizing nuclear weapons, possibly coming soon, with the missiles to deliver them to the Middle East, Europe, and — from Latin America and the Caribbean — to the United States.

Nothing better illustrates the perversity of the Biden administration’s attitude to the Gaza conflict that, at the same time that Washington is limiting arms exports to Israel, the US is increasing its aid to the Palestinian Authority.

One of the key lessons that the US should have learned from Hamas’s deadly terrorist attack against Israel on October 7, in which 1,200 Israelis were murdered and more than 250 taken captive and held as hostages in Gaza, is that aid donations made by foreign donors invariably end up being used to fund Palestinian terrorists.

Prior to October 7, key supporters of Hamas, such as Iran and Qatar, sent hundreds of millions of dollars to Gaza, and claimed it was to be used for humanitarian purposes such as funding schools and hospitals.

The Curious Case of the Missing President. Oliver Wiseman

https://www.thefp.com/p/the-curious-case-of-the-missing-president?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=260347&post_

But first, a simple question about the leader of the free world. 

On Monday afternoon, Joe Biden’s doctor, Kevin O’Connor, composed a memo designed to reassure the American people. The president, who tested positive for Covid six days ago, has completed his tenth dose of Paxlovid, he wrote, and “his symptoms have almost completely resolved.” O’Connor reiterated that Biden “continues to perform all his presidential duties.”  

After that letter was released, everyone here at The Free Press still had the same question: Where the hell is the president?

If Joe Biden’s decision to step down was extraordinary, so was the manner of his announcement. At this dramatic denouement of his fifty-year career in Washington, he declared the end of his reelection bid by tweeting out a letter. Since then, nothing. Or almost nothing. Late on Monday afternoon, he phoned his former campaign headquarters, now Kamala Harris HQ. “I know yesterday’s news was surprising and hard for you to hear, but it was the right thing to do,” Biden said on the call. 

But we still haven’t seen the president in days. 

Last Wednesday, Biden flew from Las Vegas, where he had been campaigning, to his beach house in Rehoboth, Delaware. It was there that he isolated and stewed, alongside only his immediate family and closest advisers, and reportedly came to the decision to step down. According to the White House daily schedule, the president will reemerge this afternoon and return to Washington.