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Ruth King

The danger of another Israeli electoral deadlock An inability of either the Likud-led camp or the “anybody but Bibi” bloc will enable the incumbent government ministers to stay put for the foreseeable future. One of these is radical-leftist Merav Michaeli. By Ruthie Blum

https://www.jns.org/opinion/the-danger-of-another-israeli-electoral-deadlock/

Transportation Minister Merav Michaeli, the head of Israel’s falsely dubbed “center left” Labor Party, doesn’t even bother these days to temper the radicalism that makes her indistinguishable from Meretz leader Zahava Gal-On.

This isn’t the sole reason that the outspoken feminist—who has boasted of carrying on the legacy of the late (assassinated) prime minister Yitzhak Rabin—is polling so poorly in the run-up to the Nov. 1 Knesset elections.

Her drawing of such a comparison would be merely comical if it didn’t serve a purpose beyond that of self-aggrandizement: making herself appear more mainstream than she actually is. It’s been a tall order, since the extent of her extremism was well known even before she joined the current coalition, that collapsed under the weight of its untenable mixture of contradictory ideologies.

But she has spent the past year and a half glossing over the controversial social issues that long ago became her trademark. Rejecting matrimony is a key one.

“I want all secular states to totally eliminate all registration and regulation of marriage,” she announced in a 2012 TED talk. “I want to cancel the very concept of marriage.”

Biden Embraces America’s Fiercest Enemies: Whose Side Is He On?by Khaled Abu Toameh

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/19024/biden-embraces-enemies

• These members of Congress, [Saudi author Mohammed Al-Saed] implied, either do not know or are conveniently “forgetting” that Iran has been at least as brutal to Americans as Saudi Arabia has.
• While the gruesome murder of Osama bin Laden’s good friend, Jamal Khashoggi — whose dream was to “establish an Islamic state anywhere” — cannot be ignored, Iran’s regime has created a list of hostile acts against the US at least as long.
• This simplified list does not even include that Iran is presently supplying Russia with kamikaze drones and trainers as well as missiles to use against the civilians of Ukraine. Just suppose for an instant that Iran possessed nuclear weapons instead?
• Iran already controls four Middle Eastern countries in addition to its own — Lebanon, Syria, Yemen and Iraq — as well as countless terrorist proxies, including Hezbollah, Hamas, the Houthis and Palestinian Islamic Jihad. Since 1979, the Iranian regime has repeated its plan of “Death to Israel” and “Death to America.” And now the Biden administration still wishes it could “reward” Iran with legitimized nuclear weapons, the ballistic missiles to deliver them, and a trillion dollars? How can anyone see that as “fair”?
• Yet Biden has threatened there will be “consequences” for Saudi Arabia because it declined to help the US enrich and empower its most openly bellicose enemy. How could it? Had Biden offered to drop the new Iran deal, the Saudi answer might well have been different.
• “Saudi Arabia is just defending its interests and security, which is under threat from Washington’s new allies in Iran.” — Mohammed Al-Saed, Saudi author, Okaz, October 17, 2022.
• [T]he Biden administration was damaging America’s relations with its historical friends and allies while sending “positive messages” to America’s fiercest enemies and haters. — Dr. Ibrahim Al-Nahhas, Saudi political analyst, Al-Riyadh, October 19, 2022.
• [T]he Biden administration has preferred to attack Saudi Arabia than deal with the use of Iranian drones by the Russians in Ukraine… Were it not for American and European leniency, especially since the era of Barack Obama, who tried with all naivety to rehabilitate the Iranian regime, Iran would not have interfered in the internal affairs of Europe and four Arab countries (Syria, Iraq, Lebanon and Yemen) — Tarik Al-Hamid, former editor-in-chief of the Saudi-owned Asharq Al-Awsat, October 19, 2022.
• Since Barack Obama admitted erring in his failure to support Iran’s protestors in 2009, however, has US policy changed? Apart from painfully feeble lip-service to the protestors in Iran, Biden and his administration, through their inaction, appear still to be totally committed to their initial alliance with Russia and Iran.
• Biden and his administration , it appears, would rather align themselves with the mullahs in Iran and the new “Russian-Iranian Axis of Evil,” than strengthen their ties with America’s longstanding partners, the Arabs in the Gulf.
• The winners: Russia and Iran.

Will  ‘Democracy Die in Darkness’ After November? The Democrats will soon chant democracy is dying because they are terrified it is thriving as never before. By Victor Davis Hanson

https://amgreatness.com/2022/10/23/will-democracy-die-in-darkness-after-november/

The Republicans were always going to win big in November, regardless of what biased pundits professed. 

There was likely never a sudden “blue resurgence” or “red collapse” of late summer. 

Those fantasies were mostly Democratic Party talking points. They were readily regurgitated by the fusion media and biased pollsters. The ruse was transparently designed to dampen conservative turnout and fundraising, while fueling interparty squabbling over supposedly “unelectable MAGA candidates.”

As it turns out, all the late infusions of millions of dollars of Silicon Valley dark “cabal” money will be to no avail.  

All the last-minute Joe Biden giveaways like student-loan forgiveness, marijuana pardons, and COVID relief checks will be too little, too late.  

All the Trump-derangement syndrome psychodramatic distractions from the January 6 committee to the Mar-a-Lago raid will be too transparently desperate. 

And all the shrill 11th-hour warnings of a new variant of racism from the multimillionaire Obamas on the stump will be just that—shrill.

Yes, the Democrats will soon chant democracy is dying because they are terrified it is thriving as never before. And that grass-roots resurgence is mostly because Republicans are no longer so easily stereotyped as the out-of-touch party of aristocratic Mitt Romneys and condescending Bill Kristols.  

Win with Wisdom By J.B. Shurk

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2022/10/win_with_wisdom.html

The ancient Greek philosopher Heraclitus argued, “A man’s character is his fate,” by which he meant that we are all capable of shaping our futures.  It is also true that a nation’s character is its fate and that countries prosper or perish by their own hands.

Taking these two truths together, it is easy to look around today and lose hope about what lies ahead.  Western civilization is in moral peril and spiritual decay.  Increasingly authoritarian political leaders have abandoned Enlightenment principles recognizing the sanctity of individual rights and a social compact ensuring that legitimate government arises only from the “consent of the governed.”  Virtue is maligned, while sin is lauded.  Constitutional protections and inherent freedoms are ignored.  Manipulated language and propaganda supplant both meaning and the pursuit of truth.  Surely, we are damned.

Or maybe the endless winds of chaos and change have conspired to make sure we are here to lead at this moment in history.  Maybe you see the collapse around us clearly because you are meant to help rebuild and lift others up.  When our brains and hearts tell us that something is terribly amiss in the world, then we are given an opportunity to fix what’s out of place.  When everything around us seems wrong, then we are given the chance to change everything.  That is either a heavy burden or an extraordinary gift, but which it is remains our choice.  The great blessings of free will flourish only with sacrifice and duty.  We are, as English poet William Ernest Henley reminded, the masters of our fates and the captains of our souls.  It is our character that will decide what is to come.  It is our choices that will shape what lies down our road.

It’s Official: Joe Biden Is the Absolute Worst Protector of the Border in U.S. History By Rick Moran

https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/rick-moran/2022/10/23/its-official-joe-biden-is-the-absolute-worst-protector-of-the-border-in-u-s-history-n1639289

The U.S. fiscal year ends on September 30, which means the final numbers on illegal aliens attempting to cross our border are in. There were 227,000 attempted border crossers in September — the highest September numbers in history. The total attempted border crossers for FY 2022 were 2.3 million — also the highest ever recorded.

Buried in the Border Patrol release was the fact that 20 known or suspected terrorists were caught at the border in September, bringing the total number of terrorists captured at the border in 2022 to 98.

“While failing regimes in Venezuela, Cuba, and Nicaragua continued to drive a new wave of migration across the western Hemisphere, the number of Venezuelans arriving at the southern border decreased sharply nearly every day since we launched additional joint actions with Mexico to reduce irregular migration and create a more fair, orderly and safe process for people fleeing the humanitarian and economic crisis in their country,” CBP Commissioner Chris Magnus said in a press release.

Would you describe this process of getting rid of Venezuelans “fair, orderly and safe”?

El Paso Times:

Border Patrol is moving around migrants it intends to expel to Mexico in what it calls “lateral transfers” to reduce overcrowding in its holding facilities in El Paso and to keep from further overwhelming Juárez, where hundreds of Venezuelans have been left on the street to fend for themselves and with orders to leave Mexico “by their own means.”

“We’re doing it an effort to decompress the Central Processing Center” in El Paso, said Border Patrol El Paso Sector spokeswoman Valeria Morales. The holding facility in Northeast El Paso has been overcrowded for weeks, amid a sharp increase in migration through the region.

Biden’s Next Crisis: Home Heating Oil Rationing Begins in Northeast, and It’s Not Even Winter Yet By Ryan Ledendecker

https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/ryanledendecker/2022/10/23/bidens-next-crisis-home-heating-oil-rationing-begins-in-northeast-and-its-not-even-winter-yet-n1639328

It looks like President Joe Biden might get his winter of death after all, and it’s not because of the unvaccinated.

If you live in the Northeast, you know that even in normal times, heating oil bills constitute a significant expense because winters are usually brutal. Unfortunately, this year could be the worst year ever for residents of the region hoping to adequately heat their homes. Not only are heating oil prices through the roof on anti-fossil fuel President Joe Biden’s watch, but even for those who have the funds to stock up, it doesn’t really matter: heating oil rationing is already taking place.

Rationing. Like toilet paper and baby formula rationing. Why is all this rationing happening on Biden’s watch? For the record, we never once worried about rationing under former President Donald Trump.

But the worst part about this unfolding crisis is that it’s not even winter. 

According to a bombshell Bloomberg report:

The US Northeast is so short on heating oil that the fuel used to power home furnaces is being rationed even before the start of winter.

Some wholesalers in Connecticut are putting retailers on allocation, meaning they can only get a limited amount of fuel based on availability, according to Chris Herb, president of the Connecticut Energy Marketers Association, which represents around 600 family-owned retailers in the state. These retailers must in turn ration their customers.

Bloomberg’s data matches what former Maine Gov. Paul LePage, a Republican gubernatorial candidate, told radio talk show host Howie Carr this week, in that the heating oil shortage situation in the Northeast is beyond frightening and a genuine cause for concern. LePage essentially begged current Democratic Maine Gov. Janet Mills to do something, anything, to bring attention to the situation before it’s too late and people start dying, while also blaming Biden for not properly addressing the issue.

The Real Epidemic in Our Cities: Lawlessness Welcome to the Left’s ideas – and their earthly incarnations. by Abe Hamadeh

https://www.frontpagemag.com/the-real-epidemic-in-our-cities-lawlessness/

America’s recent crime wave has been fostered by poor policy decisions, prosecutorial activism, and apathy for justice. At least a dozen major American cities set records for murder totals in 2021, including Tucson, Arizona. While some are calling for enacting harsher criminal penalties, the problem in many American cities is rooted in the lack of criminal accountability and an unwillingness of prosecutors and elected officials to enforce the laws we already have.

Amidst the persistence of the “defund the police” movement, the recent collective response to rioting, looting, and lawlessness in most major cities has been flaccid. In cities like Phoenix, leaders recklessly allow homeless camps filled with the mentally ill and drug addicted to flourish near helpless businesses and property owners. Attacks on Phoenix police are up 30 percent in the past five years. Across the country, elected officials and prosecutors entrusted to enforce the law are implementing reckless bail “reform.” Across the country, organized shoplifting and retail theft crimes have become more violent, brazen, and sophisticated.

Arizona isn’t California or New York – yet. But with the influence of recent massive political winds in Arizona, far left officials preside over several local and state offices, increasingly embracing the same extreme ideologies and failed criminal enforcement policies ingrained in other states. The next Arizona Attorney General must be up to the task of standing against those trying to mirror “soft” on crime policies and laws like California or New York – or the quality of life we enjoy as Arizonans will be lost.

Notable & Quotable: A Washington Post Columnist on Racial Politics ‘Because White people are likely to be the majority of voters for at least two more decades, America is in trouble.’

https://www.wsj.com/articles/notable-quotable-race-voter-problem-election-gop-american-politics-power-11666540232?mod=opinion_lead_pos10

From “America’s problem is White people keep backing the Republican Party,” a column by the Washington Post’s Perry Bacon, Oct. 13:

Perhaps the best way to understand American politics is an overwhelmingly White coalition facing one that is majority-White but includes a lot of people of color. . . .

And because White people are likely to be the majority of voters for at least two more decades, America is in trouble. Across the country, GOP officials are banning books from public libraries, making it harder for non-Republicans to vote, stripping away Black political power, aggressively gerrymandering, censoring teachers and professors and, most important, denying the results of legitimate elections. The majority of America’s White voters are enabling and encouraging the GOP’s radical, antidemocratic turn by continuing to back the party in elections.

It’s not, as much of our political discourse implies, that the Democrats have a working-class or Middle America or non-college-voter problem. The more important story is that America has a White voter problem. And there is no sign it’s going away anytime soon.

The CDC Pushes to Vaccinate Toddlers, Again Its decision to include Covid-19 shots in children’s schedules is based on far-too-flimsy evidence. Allysia Finley hedcut By Allysia Finley

https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-cdc-pushes-to-vaccinate-toddlers-again-advisory-committee-children-schedule-covid-19-fda-risks-shot-evidence-public-health-11666529146?mod=opinion_lead_pos7

Is the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention trying to give vaccine skeptics a shot in the arm? That’s the message its Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices sent last week with its vote to add Covid-19 vaccines to childhood vaccination schedules.

Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Robert Califf stressed that the CDC isn’t mandating vaccines for kids. “Mandates are not the remit of either CDC or FDA,” he tweeted on Oct. 19. Didn’t the CDC argue the opposite in court when defending its mask requirement for public transportation?

It’s true that states and localities don’t have to follow the CDC’s recommendations when deciding which shots kids must receive to attend daycare and school, but they usually do. One CDC panelist said the vote was merely symbolic. But symbolism matters.

Why else did face masks become so controversial? Given the scant evidence supporting widespread use of nonmedical-grade masks, many conservatives perceived masking as another instance of liberals imposing scientifically baseless rituals on nonadherent Americans. The same is now true with vaccinating children.

Most conservatives don’t oppose vaccines per se. But never before has the CDC recommended, or the FDA authorized, a vaccine for children based on such thin evidence of benefits and lack of clarity on potential risks.

This Bill Would Sanction Iran’s Leaders for Human Rights Crimes. Not a Single Democrat Supports It. Adam Kredo

https://freebeacon.com/national-security/this-bill-would-sanction-irans-leaders-for-human-rights-crimes-not-a-single-democrat-supports-it/

As the Iranian regime violently cracks down on growing nationwide protests, lawmakers’ attention is again on the atrocities committed at the hands of the Iranian regime. Yet not a single House Democrat has lent support to legislation that would sanction Iran’s supreme leader and his inner circle for mass human rights crimes, according to senior congressional sources familiar with the matter.

The bill, dubbed the Mahsa Amini Act after the 22-year-old Iranian woman who was killed by the regime’s morality police for improperly wearing her head covering, would “impose sanctions on the supreme leader of Iran and the president of Iran and their respective offices for human rights abuses and support for terrorism,” according to a copy of the measure obtained by the Washington Free Beacon. Amini’s murder last month sparked nationwide anti-regime protests that threaten to topple the hardline Iranian government, which has reacted to the demonstrations with more violence, including beating, imprisoning, and shooting protesters.

The Republican-led bill was circulated to every single Democratic House office, but not a single one has yet to cosponsor the bill, two senior Republican congressional aides told the Free Beacon.