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Ruth King

Her name is Emily Damari The left will never live down the shame of staying silent on the racist kidnapping of a British Jew. Brendan O’Neill

https://www.spiked-online.com/2025/01/20/her-name-is-emily-damari/

There is a British woman who survived 15 months at the hands of a neo-fascist militia. A woman who was cruelly deprived of her liberty and dignity by racist monsters and yet who emerged from that hell smiling and defiant. A woman who spent her 28th birthday in the bondage of an army of bigots. A woman who was subjected to the most intolerable persecutions for one ‘crime’ and one ‘crime’ only – she’s a Jew.

And yet if you said her name on the streets of Britain, many people would not know who she was. No one on the ‘anti-racist’ left held a vigil for her. The activists of Antifa raised not a peep of concern for this Jew seized by a racist army. These people see ‘fascism’ everywhere, in every utterance made by Donald Trump, every bristling against mass immigration, every criticism of the Koran. Yet when a fellow Brit was cruelly incarcerated by a movement founded with the express intention of murdering Jews, they said not a word. To them everything is fascism, except fascism.

Her name is Emily Damari. Go and say it to people. Let them know that a British citizen was kidnapped by Hamas and that British ‘progressives’ said nothing. Let them know that this British-Israeli was brutalised by Jew-killers and it made not so much as a dent in the conscience of Britain’s bourgeois left. The people who cry ‘black lives matter’ and ‘trans lives matter’ and ‘Muslims matter’ could not bring themselves to utter these three poxy words: ‘Emily Damari matters.’

Ms Damari was taken from her home in Kibbutz Kfar Aza in southern Israel during Hamas’s orgy of barbarism on 7 October 2023. She was shot in the hand, causing her to lose two fingers. She was dragged to Gaza where she spent 471 days in the captivity of anti-Semites. She was released yesterday, as part of Phase 1 of the ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas, along with two other women: Romi Gonen, 24, and Doron Steinbrecher, 31. I have come ‘back to life’, said Emily on Instagram after her release.

To be clear, Emily was not forgotten. Britain’s Jewish community held vigils for her. Fans of Tottenham Hotspur – the team she supports – campaigned for her release. So did fans of Arsenal. Not for the first time, working-class football fans showed themselves to be the moral backbone of the nation, as our ‘betters’ shamefully looked the other way. It fell mostly to Emily’s heroic mother, Mandy, to keep her daughter’s plight in the headlines. Her dogged campaigning even compelled government officials to break their reprehensible silence and speak on the racist brutalisation of one of their own people.

Geography’s Revenge Trump’s bold vision to reclaim America’s dominance in the Western Hemisphere challenges outdated alliances and redefines strategic priorities for an era of fierce global competition. By Christopher Roach

https://amgreatness.com/2025/01/21/geographys-revenge/

Over the last few weeks, Trump has raised a lot of eyebrows by suggesting that our country should annex Greenland, invite Canada to join as the 51st state, and seek the return of the Panama Canal. Together, these remarks signal a break from prevailing norms and a plan to consolidate America’s dominant position in the Western Hemisphere.

Like much of what Trump does, it all seems cheeky, but only at first glance. Even if these maximalist positions do not prevail, they form an anchor for negotiations. Trump is actively seeking to expand U.S. influence over strategically significant regions within our immediate vicinity.

A new order is emerging where regions and their shifting balances of power are the dominant force in the world, rather than conflicts between mere nation-states. Among these competing regions, Europe, under the institutions of the EU, is becoming an economic and political force in its own right, often sidelining the U.S. Unlike NATO, we are not a member of the EU, and it provides space for Europe to assert its own collective interests as distinct from our own.

The BRICS consortium is also gaining power and becoming a viable node of international power, while China is making inroads to consolidate its own influence over Eurasia through its “Belt and Road Initiative.” China also maintains robust commercial ties with Africa and Latin America. Russia, of course, has been asserting its own sovereignty over the former Soviet Union in Georgia, Ukraine, and among the various Stans.

The U.S. is no longer as powerful as it once was in relative terms. We have done a lot on autopilot in recent years, continuing to assert our prerogatives as if the rest of the world has not taken notice of the humiliations in Afghanistan, Niger, and the Red Sea. Our adversaries and competitors are reevaluating things from a realist perspective, and we should as well, abandoning outmoded ideas about friends, enemies, and our own capabilities.

After the Cold War, for a time, we were the most powerful, but this led to a failure to set any priorities. National security strategy documents consisted of meaningless word salad without any intelligent effort to rank threats or connect one activity with another.

A Trump Inaugural Speech for a Trump Presidency

https://www.nationalreview.com/2025/01/a-trump-inaugural-speech-for-a-trump-presidency/

Donald Trump’s inaugural address was functionally indistinguishable from one of his rally speeches. It wasn’t as long or discursive but was just as plain-spoken and pointed, and made exactly the same promises.

The address was another sign that Trump intends to govern the way he ran.

His critique of the status quo was stinging and harsh, while a pained Joe Biden and Kamala Harris had to sit within feet of him and endure it.

The flip side of Trump’s often-decried gloomy portrait of the present is his vaulting optimism about the future he intends to bring about. So it was with this address. As usual, he didn’t stint on his bigger-and-better superlatives. It’s going to be a new Golden Age, as “we stand on the verge of the four greatest years in American history.”

Trump described himself as an exemplar of common sense, and, indeed, on some key issues he captured the center last November. His pledges in his address to shut down the border, deport criminals, make it government policy that there are only two genders, and judge people on their merits rather than their race and gender are firmly in the middle of the American consensus, and not too long ago would have been utterly uncontroversial.

His assurances that he will build up the military, push back on electric vehicle mandates, exploit our fossil fuel resources to the maximum extent possible, and end all government pressure for censorship were welcome, as well.

Biden Pardons Dr. Doom Sealing Fauci’s fate as “the architect, author, and godfather of the pandemic.” by Lloyd Billingsley

https://www.frontpagemag.com/biden-pardons-dr-fauci/

On Monday, Joe Biden issued preemptive pardons for the January 6 committee, Gen. Mark Milley, and Dr. Anthony Fauci, explaining that “issuance of these pardons should not be mistaken as an acknowledgment that any individual engaged in any wrongdoing, nor should acceptance be misconstrued as an admission of guilt for any offense.” As the Delaware Democrat contends:

“For more than half a century, Dr. Fauci served our country. He saved countless lives by managing the government’s response to pressing health crises, including HIV/AIDS, as well as the Ebola and Zika viruses. During his tenure as my Chief Medical Advisor, he helped the country tackle a once-in-a-century pandemic. The United States is safer and healthier because of him.”

It isn’t, and Dr. Fauci got his start by declining to serve his country.

Anthony Fauci earned his medical degree in 1966 but to avoid treating wounded American soldiers, in 1968 he took a cushy “Yellow Beret” post with the National Institutes of Health (NIH). Dr. Fauci’s bio showed no advanced degrees in molecular biology or biochemistry but in 1984 the NIH made him head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID).  Nobel laureate Kary Mullis, inventor of the polymerase chain reaction (PCR) technique, was on record that Dr. Fauci “doesn’t understand electronic microscopy and he doesn’t understand medicine. He should not be in a position like he’s in.” That reality would quickly become evident.

Fauci’s drug of choice to treat AIDS was AZT (azithodomidyne, also known as Zidovudine), rejected for cancer treatment because of excessive toxicity. As Robert F. Kennedy Jr. showed in The Real Anthony Fauci, the NIAID boss forced AZT and other toxic drugs on black foster children in New York City, with deadly results. Fauci was never held accountable and remained in his post.

Burning Down the House Biden leaves as much destruction in his wake as possible. by Mark Tapson

https://www.frontpagemag.com/burning-down-the-house/

Inauguration Day 2025 was a great day for America, the beginning of our nation’s comeback to greatness, and the end of an era most Americans consider a steep descent into progressive madness and self-destruction. But even as Donald J. Trump reclaimed the White House on Monday and began launching a series of orders to restore sanity and put America First, evicted tenant Joe Biden – arguably the worst President in our country’s history – raced in his final hours to set as many fires as possible on his way out the door.

Literally within the last 15 minutes of his term, for example, the doddering puppet pardoned five members of the Biden crime family – brother James Biden and wife Sara; sister Valerie and her husband John Owens; and brother Francis – to protect them from the incoming administration holding them accountable, possibly for treasonous corruption.

Wait, haven’t the Democrats been self-righteously declaring for eight years that no one is above the law, not even a President?

Biden, predictably, issued a statement, reeking of shameless hypocrisy, claiming he is merely protecting those family members from Trump’s vengeful political retaliation. “My family has been subjected to unrelenting attacks and threats, motivated solely by a desire to hurt me — the worst kind of partisan politics,” stated the bitter, angry hypocrite.

The irony here is that it is the Democrats who have spent the last eight years targeting their political enemies – most notably their hated arch-enemy Trump – with merciless and relentless partisan lawfare. Biden’s statement accuses Trump of precisely the strategy to which his own Party has resorted:

Baseless and politically motivated investigations wreak havoc on the lives, safety and financial security of targeted individuals and their families. Even when individuals have done nothing wrong and will ultimately be exonerated, the mere fact of being investigated or prosecuted can irreparably damage their reputations and finances.

Yes, that is precisely why the Democrats engage in it with such fervor: it suits their politics of personal destruction. It is exactly the kind of vicious persecution the cruel J6 Committee brought to bear against the Capitol “insurrectionists,” many of whom Trump rightfully plans to pardon (when Biden pardons someone, it is to protect political cronies; when Trump pardons someone, it is because he or she has been unjustly targeted politically).

Is Trump Ushering In An Era Of Responsible Journalism, Too?

https://issuesinsights.com/2025/01/21/is-trump-ushering-in-an-era-of-responsible-journalism-too/

In his inaugural speech, President Donald Trump talked about ushering in a new golden age for America. Is he also ushering in a new era of responsible journalism?

Yes, that’s harder to believe than any of the other promises Trump made, such as the one about how he’d “keep our children … disease-free.” But we thought we saw a faint glimmer of what honest journalism could look like on Monday.

For years, journalists had decided to label anything Trump said with which they disagreed a lie. That was especially true when it came to any Trump claim about the integrity of the 2020 election.

For example, here’s a headline from the New York Times in October.

This wasn’t about correcting the record. It was about attacking Trump every which way they could. When Joe Biden told an outright lie, the press routinely dismissed it as a “gaffe,” or an “exaggeration,” or just Joe being Joe.

But anytime Trump made a boast, the press would scream “Liar!” If he exaggerated for effect. Liar! It got to the point where if Trump said the sky was blue, the press would call him a liar because, in fact, the sky isn’t blue, it only appears blue because of the way the light interacts with the atmosphere.

But look at the “fact check” the New York Times ran on the day of Trump’s second inauguration.

Inauguration Day: Tale Of Two Agendas

https://issuesinsights.com/2025/01/21/inauguration-day-tale-of-two-agendas/

Donald Trump, now the 45th and 47th president of the United States, promised his “top priority will be to create a nation that is proud, prosperous and free,” during his second inaugural speech Monday. At the same time roughly half way around the globe, a group met with the intention of dividing the world into two parts – an inner circle of masters and the rest of the 8 billion on Earth who would be ruled by them.

Trump is far from being the fascist that his most rabid opponents claim he is. Chapman University professor Joel Kotkin captures well the baseless smears aimed at Trump in a recent post in Sp!ked:

To listen to much of the media, progressive politicians and many academics, Donald Trump’s inauguration on Monday will usher in a politics we have not seen since the days of Mussolini, Franco and, worst of all, Hitler. In her presidential campaign, vice-president Kamala Harris openly called Trump ‘a president of the United States who admires dictators and is a fascist.’

The article’s subhead: “There is nothing Nazi-like about Donald Trump or his programme for America.”

During his speech Monday, Trump failed to reference any of history’s fascists. He didn’t endorse their train schedules. He didn’t propose economic or industrial policy in which the government centrally plans private-sector activities and pursuits. He never summarized his agenda as “everything within the state, nothing outside the state, nothing against the state,” as Mussolini did.

Instead, he talked about restoring freedom, including free speech. About the rule of law. About America’s exceptionalism. About letting people buy whatever car they — not government masters — choose.

“Our top priority will be to create a nation that is proud, prosperous, and free,” he said.

Why Hamas still stands: Failed military doctrine drives IDF thinking David Isaac

https://www.jns.org/why-hamas-still-stands-failed-military-doctrine-drives-idf-thinking/

Ran Baratz, who teaches military doctrine at the IDF’s National Defense College and founded Mida, an online Hebrew-language Commentary-like magazine, raises no objections to the ceasefire deal with Hamas—but not for the reasons one would expect. It’s because the IDF can’t win. At least, not with a General Staff marinated in postmodern military doctrine.

Baratz notes that the army’s rank-and-file is second to none, but the General Staff’s lack of strategy results in endless targeted raids, where the IDF goes in, kills some terrorists, retreats, then reenters the same area to cope with more terrorists—and lose more of its valiant young soldiers.

“When generals don’t have a strategy, they come up with an overarching strategy of attrition, which doctrinally, is achieved by raids,” Baratz told JNS on Jan. 15.

“They have different names for raids. In Vietnam, it was called ‘search and destroy.’ But it was the same idea. You raid a place, you kill the enemy combatants, with some collateral damage, and you pull back. You could see that in the Second Lebanon War [in 2006], and you can see that today. If they had a good operational plan, they wouldn’t be speaking about raids,” he says.

The General Staff didn’t even have a plan in place to invade the Gaza Strip, Baratz says. They thought it wasn’t needed as Hamas was “deterred.” That’s why it took so long for the IDF to go into Gaza after the Oct. 7, 2023, invasion.

So Baratz says of a ceasefire, “whatever the government thinks best.” His focus is on bigger issues, such as how Israel can rebuild its once-vaunted military institutions.

The main problem in his view is postmodern military doctrine, which afflicts not just the IDF, but Western militaries in general. Postmodern doctrine replaced classical military doctrine as a result of two events.

The first was the advent of nuclear weapons.

President Trump, Urgently Needed: Maganomics ‘Manhattan Project’ for a Nuclear Fusion Reactor Superior to China’s Tokamak by Lawrence Kadish

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/21326/manhattan-project-nuclear-fusion

Among the first, most urgent, orders of business for President Donald J. Trump should be to create a Maganomics “Manhattan Project” to develop a nuclear fusion reactor superior to China’s tokamak.

Communist China, which has a head-start, has just helped place a tokamak in Thailand.

This century’s great clean-energy revolution is science’s newest frontier: producing inexpensive, unlimited energy through nuclear fusion. It is done in containers, called tokamaks, giant nuclear reactors to make and store it. Smaller reactors “barely 3 feet across” are already being developed in the US, including one in Idaho and two in northern Nevada.

Nuclear fusion consists of heating two electrons at 27 million degrees Fahrenheit, forcing them to fuse, producing clean energy similar to the Sun’s:

“When the nuclei of small atoms fuse, the resulting nucleus is slightly lighter than the components that went into making it. The lost mass is released as energy. By the famous equation E=mc2, a very small amount of mass becomes a great deal of energy. When four hydrogen atoms (or two deuterium atoms) fuse to become one helium atom, the mass loss is so tiny, the energy released is still small. However, if you can manage to fuse a steady supply of atoms, the energy released becomes immense.”

Communist China’s leader Xi Jinping has already stolen virtually all of America’s intellectual property and technology — for which one can blame hapless former US administrations — and used it to build his extended military, including cyber and space capabilities. Xi lied in assuring the US that he would not militarize the artificial islands he was constructing, then straight away militarized them. When the US declined to build hypersonic weapons out of concern that other countries might then feel compelled to build them too, Xi set about completing hypersonic missiles.

“A Tectonic Election?” By Sydney Williams

http://www.swtotd.blogspot.com

Today, as we celebrate Martin Luther King, we will also inaugurate our 47th President. Mr. Trump is only the second president to serve two non-consecutive terms. As Professor Guelzo indicated in the interview quoted above, this election might represent a tectonic shift in the alignment of the two parties. Personally, I suspect that shift is already upon us. A month ago I wrote an essay entitled “Political Parties are Dynamic.” That essay argued that Democrats failure in 2024 was due to their having ignored middle-class, working Americans, while adopting a bar-bell approach to the electorate – coastal, monied elites offset by those dependent on government. On December 2, 2024 I wrote an essay titled “End of Identity Politics?’, which argued that economic class had mattered more, in the November election, than ethnicity, race, or gender. In speeches, ads and literature, Democrats claim to represent working, middle-class America, but they have abandoned them. Consider education and the poor testing results of students in our public schools, and look at the rising cost of food, electricity and housing – all up more than 23% over the past four years. According to Monster’s 2025 Work Watch Report, 95% of workers say paychecks failed to have kept up with the cost of living.  Is it any wonder that working-class Americans opted for change?

Professor Guelzo did not say that 2024 was a “tectonic” election, only that it might prove to have been. He cited three past elections as tectonic: 1800, when John Adams’ loss to Thomas Jefferson spelled the end of the Federalist Party; 1860, when Lincoln’s victory established the Republican party as a major party; and 1932 when Franklin Roosevelt’s win created the modern Democratic party.

Even before the election, people had grown weary of sanctimonious virtue signalers: politicians who use the Justice Department to investigate political opponents, government bureaucrats who call out policy disagreements as either dis-or-misinformation; news organizations who use “fact checkers” to muzzle free speech; university professors who censored opinions that did not adhere to a proscribed orthodoxy; high school administrators who permit boys into girls’ bathrooms; “influencers” who are blind to counter-arguments; open borders that let in migrant criminals; citizens being told they will have to give up their gas stoves; and big businesses that claim merit is less important than diversity.