ISRAEL Comments turned off

Palestinians: We Prefer Terrorism to Peace with Israel by Bassam Tawil

Posted By on June 22nd, 2023

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/19746/palestinians-terrorism-peace

The findings of the poll, which was conducted between June 7 and 11, show that the Biden Administration and all those who continue to talk about reviving the peace process between Israel and the Palestinians are living under an illusion. The results of the poll indicate that most Palestinians are more interested in killing Jews than making peace with them. The results, in addition, show that most Palestinians want as a successor to their current leader, PA President Mahmoud Abbas, who has ties to terror.

According to the poll, the largest percentage of Palestinians (24%) believe that the rise of extremist Islamist terror groups such as Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) was “the most positive or the best thing that has happened to the Palestinian people since the Nakba.”

[A] majority of the Palestinians see terrorist groups and the murder of Jews — not the construction of schools and hospitals — as their proudest accomplishment over the past seven decades.

More than half of the Palestinians, the poll showed, prefer an “armed struggle” (terrorism) against Israel to negotiations with it.

The only thing that seems to disturb the Palestinian public is the possibility that Mahmoud Abbas’s Palestinian Authority security forces might go after the terror groups.

The armed terrorists of these groups are regularly hailed by Palestinians as heroes and martyrs.

The Palestinians want the gunmen to remain on the streets and continue their terror attacks against Jews. The vast majority (86%) say that the PA does not have the right to arrest members of these terrors groups to prevent them from carrying out attacks against Israel. This view seems to be one of the reasons that Abbas is reluctant to order his security forces to crack down on these terror groups and confiscate their weapons. Abbas is undoubtedly aware of the widespread support the terrorists enjoy among the Palestinian people. He undoubtedly knows that if he goes against the terrorists, he will be denounced by his people as a traitor and Israeli collaborator. Abbas and the Palestinian Authority are already facing severe criticism for conducting security coordination with Israeli security forces in the West Bank.

According to the latest PSR poll, support for the concept of the “two-state solution” stands at 28% and opposition stands at 70%. A poll conducted by the same center three months earlier showed that support for the “two-state solution” stood at only 27%, while opposition to it stood at 71%.

When it comes to choosing their leaders, Palestinians again showed that they prefer a candidate who killed Jews and wants to destroy Israel to anyone who is perceived as being overly moderate towards Israel.

While the Biden administration seems to have confidence in Abbas and his Palestinian Authority, 84% of the Palestinians — with good reason — believe that PA institutions are corrupt. Moreover, the level of dissatisfaction with the performance of Abbas, the poll showed, stands at 80%.

The results of the latest Palestinian poll show that the Biden administration and the European Union, by believing that they can promote the idea of a “two-state solution” between Israel and the Palestinians, continue to engage in self-deception. The Americans and Europeans appear blithely oblivious to the sentiments of the Palestinian street and prefer to listen only to what senior Palestinian officials tell them behind closed doors in Ramallah. The Palestinian officials are clearly misrepresenting the situation when they talk about the Palestinians’ desire to achieve peace and establish a Palestinian state next to Israel. They are saying that because they are hoping to get a state in the West Bank which they could then use as a launching pad from which to attack Israel. This is exactly what the Palestinians did after Israel pulled out of the Gaza Strip in 2005 and handed it over to the Palestinian Authority: they started firing rockets from the Gaza Strip at Israel.

The radicalization is the direct result of decades of brainwashing and incitement against Israel taking place nonstop in mosques, throughout the media, in schools, on university campuses, in sports, at summer camps and even in crossword puzzles.

If anything, the results of the poll show that the Americans and Europeans are wasting their time trying to convince the Palestinians to return to the negotiating table with Israel.

Are the EU or the Biden Administration putting any pressure on Abbas and the Palestinian leadership to crack down on the terror groups and cease their incessant incitement against Israel? No, instead the EU is sending equipment to the Palestinians to help them illegally build on land to be negotiated. The US, for its part, not only pretends that fighting terrorism is morally equivalent to committing terrorism, but also, in defiance of the US Congress, continues to reward Mahmoud Abbas’s “pay-to-slay” “jobs program” with fungible money, still incentivizing Palestinians to murder Jews.

The Biden Administration has resumed its efforts to relaunch peace negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians.

On June 19, US Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs Barbara Leaf arrived in Ramallah, the de facto capital of the Palestinian Authority (PA), and met with Hussein al-Sheikh, a senior Palestinian official who serves as Secretary-General of the PLO Executive Committee.

MOVIES AND TELEVISION, P.C.-CULTURE Comments turned off

Disney’s ‘Elemental,’ which features ‘non-binary’ character, flops in opening weekend It was the worst opening weekend ever for Pixar, according to The New York Times

Posted By on June 21st, 2023

https://www.foxnews.com/media/disneys-elemental-features-non-binary-character-flops-opening-weekend

Pixar film “Elemental,” which features the studio’s first “non-binary” character, according to a voice actor for the film, earned only $29.5 million in its opening weekend. 

It was the lowest opening weekend ever for Pixar, The New York Times reported Sunday. That was despite creative direction from Pixar, one of the most famous studios in the entertainment business, and support from Disney, which owns Pixar. 

Outlets around the country took notice of the movie’s dismal performance.

The movie “fell short of already-low expectations,” Variety reported. “Pixar’s ‘Elemental’ falls flat,” The New York Times headlined Sunday. The Hollywood Reporter wrote that the move was “iced by moviegoers” along with “The Flash,” a superhero flick that has suffered from its leading actor, Ezra Miller, becoming the center of scandal in 2022 after he was arrested multiple times.

“Elemental” acquired some notoriety of its own after it featured the first non-binary character in its history, “Lake.” The actor who voiced Lake, Kai Ava Hauser, posted about the role on Twitter.

IMMIGRATION Comments turned off

Migrant Crossings Surge 25% At Key Border Ports As Biden Admin Pushes Phone App

Posted By on June 21st, 2023

https://dailycaller.com/2023/06/20/migrant-crossings-surge-25-at-key-border-ports-as-biden-admin-pushes-phone-app/

Migrant crossings at the ports of entry along the southern border increased roughly 25% between April and May as the Biden administration pushes an entry program through a phone application, according to new data U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) released Tuesday.

The number of migrants jumped from roughly 28,000 in April to nearly 35,000 in May, according to CBP data. The Biden administration has increasingly pushed migrants to use a phone application known as CBP One to book appointments for entry at U.S. ports along the southern border following the end of Title 42 on May 11.

There were 28,696 migrants that appeared for CBP One appointments at the ports in May, according to CBP.

 A sign is posted at the U.S. Border Patrol station where lawyers reported that detained migrant children had been held unbathed and hungry on June 26, 2019 in Clint, Texas. Nearly 100 children were sent back to the troubled facility yesterday after it had been cleared of 249 children just days earlier. Acting commissioner of U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) John Sanders submitted his resignation in the wake of the scandal. (Photo by Mario Tama/Getty Images)

The Biden administration says the use of such programs is driving down illegal immigration.

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Leftist rage against courthouse artist, claiming he drew Trump too handsome By Monica Showalter

Posted By on June 21st, 2023

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2023/06/leftist_rage_against_courthouse_artist_claiming_he_made_trump_too_handsome.html

In courthouses where cameras aren’t allowed, the courthouse artist produces the image of record.

Which is why assorted leftists exploded in rage at the bland, courthouse drawings of William Hennessey, Jr., who up until now has said that his work rarely draws any attention.

According to Jack Montgomery at the National Pulse:

Leftists raged at an obscure sketch artist following Trump’s arraignment in Miami, seething that the former president looked too young and handsome in his courtroom drawings.

 “The courtroom sketch artist, William Hennessy [J]r., is far too kind to [Donald Trump],” wrote one Twitter user.

 “His pastel drawings make the pig look at least 20 years younger and 90 pounds thinner.”

 “Any chance you can whip up a quick indictment for false depiction of an indicted grifter?” wrote another, tweeting at a parody account of Jack Smith.

Some Twitter users went so far as to link Hennessy’s Facebook page and encourage others to harass him.

 “Yo Bill, why trim 70lbs off Trump? Just weird. Do you privately think of him as a trim superhero?” demanded one person on a Facebook post.

The first thing this little ragefest tells us is that leftists have too much time on their hands, using their hours here on earth to complain about somebody else’s courthouse artwork. Montgomery’s piece has the drawings here.

The second thing this tells us is that leftists set a great store on how someone looks. They’re all in on looks-ism, despite their bony finger pointed at others for the same thing.

The third and most important thing this says is that hand drawn sketches, which was all the leftists got out of this trial, are not easily manipulated the way photographs are. That the leftists raged about Trump’s pictures being too handsome for their expectations brought to mind that had the pictures been photos instead of drawings, they would have been able to manipulate them into unflattering photos, what what with a plethora of inexpensive photo editing tools on the Internet. They could have reddened Trump’s face, as 60 Minutes once did to Trump’s advisor, Steve Bannon, to make him look like a drunk. Or, they could have given Trump a five o’clock shadow and painted some sweaty beads on his face to discredit him, the way once-vice president Nixon was discredited with those features during his debates with then-politician John F. Kennedy on television. They could have made Trump dirty, or pasty-pale, or back-shadowed, or better still, upshadowed, to get the image of Trump they wanted, and of course, made him look guilty or sleazy or dishonest to the casual observer. They could have Photoshopped in handcuffs or a bright orange jumpsuit, which is what they’ve slavered for for years. They can’t do that to even a reproduction of a drawing on the Internet, because the picture would simply be not true.

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Time to Get Rid of Federal ‘Disinformation’ Bureaus by Pete Hoekstra

Posted By on June 21st, 2023

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/19745/federal-disinformation-bureaus

Recently, Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines announced the creation of a new office within the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI): The Foreign Malign Influence Center (FMIC).

Support in Congress means the money grab is on, with federal agencies vying to secure funds for the hot new topic to grow their bureaucracy, influence and power.

Other agencies already involved in disinformation are numerous…. The DHS has, or had, a Countering Foreign Influence Task Force… and a heavily criticized, ridiculed and now disbanded “Disinformation Governance Board.”

Is the threat of a new Orwellian “Ministry of Truth” as big as it is toxic?… is this function for the federal government even appropriate?

The American government is extremely capable at generating its own disinformation… Disappointingly, Americans have seen this capability firsthand. Some U.S. intelligence leaders have used their status to aggressively plant disinformation to undermine presidents and influence elections.

Consider Director of National Intelligence James Clapper and FBI Director James Comey, who used their positions to undermine incoming President-elect Donald Trump in January 2017 by leaking and hyping to the media information based on a deceptive briefing they provided to Trump to begin framing him for supposedly colluding with Russia in the disruptive, two-year pretend-investigation known inside the FBI as “Crossfire Hurricane” and outside it as “the Russia Hoax.”

The “Russia Hoax,” it turned out — as its perpetrators reportedly knew all along — had been organized and funded by Trump’s presidential election opponent Hillary Clinton — evidently to deflect attention from her extensive destruction of classified material — as well as the Democratic National Committee; fraudulently prosecuted by the FBI, and laundered by the Perkins Coie law firm.

Other recent allegations about potentially malign activities by our government abound. The FBI incidentally collected data without a warrant on U.S. citizens 3.4 million times in 2021. Thirty percent of the times the FBI did so, it acted in error or roughly one million times.

The evidence appears to be overwhelming….. When Congress has set lines, the Intelligence Community and law enforcement have been more than willing to overstep their bounds and stretch their legal authorities.

It is time to hold those responsible accountable…. Crucially, given the federal government’s repeatedly demonstrated disregard for the law, it is time to consider whether it should even be engaged in this effort. It should not. The American government, based on the First Amendment, should not be anywhere near regulating protected speech. The American government should not be deciding what speech should be regulated and what speech should not.

Recently, Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines announced the creation of a new office within the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI): The Foreign Malign Influence Center (FMIC). It would encompass “election threat work, essentially looking at foreign influence and interference in elections, but it also deals with disinformation more generally.” Legislation creating the center was passed by Congress and signed into law in 2022.

BOOKS Comments turned off

The Sunset of the West, or the Dawn of Recovery? Bruce Thornton’s new pamphlet outlines the dire crisis that America and Western Civilization face today.

Posted By on June 21st, 2023

https://www.frontpagemag.com/the-sunset-of-the-west-or-the-dawn-of-recovery/

Our new pamphlet, The Sunset of the West, or the Dawn of Recovery?, authored by Bruce Thornton, a classical scholar and Freedom Center Shillman Fellow, is a brilliant piece outlining the dire crisis that America and Western Civilization face today.

It urgently needs to be read; its message needs to be urgently heeded.

Order your copy now: https://horowitzfreedomcenterstore.org/products/the-sunset-of-the-west-or-the-dawn-of-recovery

ANTI-SEMITISM Comments turned off

Student Jew-Hatred at the City College of New York Worms in the Big Apple. by Bruce Bawer

Posted By on June 21st, 2023

https://www.frontpagemag.com/student-jew-hatred-at-the-city-college-of-new-york/

Of the number of Western anti-Semitic groups that pretend to be motivated not by the glorious vision of Jews in endless torment, but by a deep sensitivity to the supposedly unprecedented suffering of the Palestinians, there can seem to be no end. In many cases, their online self-descriptions are so deceptive as to rise nearly to the level of high art: Al-Awda, The Palestine Right to Return Coalition, which equates Israelis to Nazis, calls itself “a broad-based, non-partisan, democratic, and charitable organization of grassroots activists and students committed to comprehensive public education on the rights of all Palestinian refugees.” Under the slogan “Justice, Equality, Dignity,” Jewish Voice for Peace, which loves Hamas, represents itself as “a national organization dedicated to a U.S. foreign policy based on peace, human rights, and respect for international law.”

And then there’s Students for Justice in Palestine, which in the constellation of Jew-hatred is a galaxy all its own. Established thirty years ago at the University of California at Berkeley, it was the brainchild of Hatem Bazian, who then, as now, was a lecturer in the Departments of Eastern and Asian American and Asian Diaspora Studies at that storied institution. His website further identifies him as “a co-founder and Professor of Islamic Law and Theology at Zaytuna College, the 1st Accredited Muslim Liberal Arts College in the United States.” In addition to these activities, Bazian founded both the Islamophobia Research and Documentation Project and the Islamophobia Studies Journal. (Beginning to notice a pattern?) Some time back, the respected watchdog group Canary Mission bestowed upon Bazian a title that, while perhaps not highly coveted in some circles, is surely, these days, mightily competitive – namely that of “most dangerous professor in America.” Justifying this designation is a predictable list of offenses – a repeated failure to condemn even the most barbaric acts of terrorism, a readiness to gush with praise for the Intifada, and, needless to say, a long record of utterly virulent Jew-hatred.

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Less Freedom By John Stossel

Posted By on June 21st, 2023

https://pjmedia.com/columns/john-stossel/2023/06/21/less-freedom-n1704919

Politicians claim their bills bring us good things. Free health care! Child care! A cellphone for all!

But government isn’t Santa Claus. Government is force. Most every law takes away a little of our money or freedom or both.

The Heritage Foundation ranks economic freedom across the globe. The United States once ranked No. 4 in the world, but we’ve been in decline. This year, as my new video explains, we’re 25th.

“If you care about living a prosperous life, you should care about what government economic policies are,” says The Heritage Foundation’s Derrick Morgan.   

The foundation ranks countries’ economic freedom based on things like rule of law, regulatory efficiency, open markets, fiscal health, etc. 

The big reason the USA fell in the rankings is that Congress spends so much more money than government can squeeze out of us in taxes.  

ELECTIONS Comments turned off

RFK Jr. Is Really Scaring Them Now: LA Times Says He’s a Threat to ‘Our Democracy’ By Robert Spencer

Posted By on June 21st, 2023

https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/robert-spencer/2023/06/20/rfk-jr-is-really-scaring-them-now-la-times-says-hes-a-threat-to-our-democracy-n1704885

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has the Leftist political and media elites deeply rattled, and that’s utterly delightful.

Imagine this scenario: a wildly unpopular and manifestly incapable president is running, however haltingly, for reelection. Initially he seemed like a lock, but then he encountered an unexpected challenge from a scion of an old American political family, a man who defies all the conventional categorization of political candidates and has set the establishment on its ear by challenging not only the superannuated corruptocrat in the White House but many of that establishment’s most cherished assumptions.

It would make a great novel, but it’s real life, and it’s an exhilarating reminder that America is still a republic, still a place where the elites can be challenged at all, however entrenched they may appear to be. Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has not only challenged the elites, he has frightened them to the core, and that’s wonderful to see. The latest indication of how much of a threat they consider him to be comes from the Los Angeles Times, always a reliable organ for far-Left propaganda. The Left Coast Times is so scared of RFK Jr. that on Monday, it proclaimed, “Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is a threat to your health — and our democracy.”

Now, this is absurd on its face and an insult to the intelligence of the handful of remaining Los Angeles Times readers. The Left has now become so divorced from reality that Times writer Michael Hiltzik would have us believe that a contested Democrat party primary is bad for “our democracy.” But a full-out coronation of Old Joe to serve another four years as the figurehead for the shadowy individuals who are really running things? Why, that would be “our democracy” personified. One candidate, inevitable outcome? Good democracy! Two candidates, unclear outcome? Bad democracy!

ENVIRONMENT AND JUNK SCIENCE Comments turned off

Why Our Electric Grid Is Threatened: John Hinderaker

Posted By on June 21st, 2023

https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2023/06/why-our-electric-grid-is-threatened.php

America used to have stable, cheap electricity. This is really the definition of a first-world country; or it used to be, anyway. Now, for the first time in many years, we can’t safely rely on the electric grid, while at the same time the price of electricity is spiraling upward.

This video by Kite & Key Media provides a good, if simple, explanation of why our grid is now under threat and soon will be wholly unreliable. The culprit, of course, is intermittent “green” energy:

I think that over the rest of this century, the world will divide into rich and poor nations. Rich nations will be those that use fossil fuels and nuclear energy to power their economies and their lives. Poor nations will be those that go “green.”