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January 2023

The Struggle for Israel’s Democracy Faced with the prospect of judicial reform, Israel’s progressive elite and its American allies are threatening to tear the country apart. Gadi Taub

https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/israel-middle-east/articles/struggle-israel-democracy-netanyahu-supreme-court

The Netanyahu trial and bottom-up demands for judicial reform have melded together into a hugely consequential showdown between patricians and plebs

The Israeli election in November was, in large part, a referendum on the Netanyahu trial. The jury came back with a clear verdict: not guilty. Israelis, or at least enough of them, became convinced that the trial was a political affair, not a legal one: Israel’s left-leaning elites had given up on beating Netanyahu at the ballot box, and so turned to other means to expel him from politics.

But the majority of Israel’s voters did more than acquit Netanyahu in the court of public opinion. A majority of Israeli voters made clear that they will no longer put up with the hollowing out of Israel’s democracy by the administrative state—judges, law enforcement officers, legal advisers and the bureaucracy in general will have to stop substituting their own preferences and dictates for those of the Israeli electorate.

The Netanyahu trial and bottom-up demands for judicial reform have thus melded together into a hugely consequential showdown between patricians and plebs, between the old elites and the public at large, between the court and the elected branches of government—and at root, between the power of the administrative state and democratic politics. It is, as the press is now screaming in Israel and outside it, a struggle over soul of Israel’s democracy. Only the press has got it backwards. Yariv Levin, Netanyahu’s new justice minister, is not out to destroy democracy. He is out to restore it.

Back in 2017, a bestselling conservative Hebrew book articulated the growing frustration on the right in its title: “Why do you vote right and get left?” The book, by journalist and former Netanyahu aide Erez Tadmor, made the answer clear, and it became the operating manual for a new generation of Likud members. The reason the right never really rules, Tadmor argued, is that the left controls the important power centers outside of electoral politics: the mainstream press, the arts, academia, and above all the judicial system and its auxiliaries in law enforcement and Israel’s powerful bureaucracy.

At the summit of the judicial-bureaucratic power structure, which exists outside the purview of the consent of the governed, sits the Supreme Court, which in Israel holds powers more awesome than any judiciary in any Western democracy. In the court’s own view, there are literally no limits to its authority. It recognizes no limits on standing, and it exercises judicial review over any government action and any and all legislation, including judicial review of what the court itself declared to be Israel’s constitution—our so-called “Basic Laws.”

Is America at its worst economic point since the Great Depression? By Andrea Widburg

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2023/01/is_america_at_its_worst_economic_point_since_the_great_depression.html

Biden and the Democrats have been boasting about the economic wonders he and his administration have performed with their modernizing, equitable, diverse, green energy economic policies. However, E.J. Antoni, a research fellow at The Heritage Foundation’s Center for Data Analysis, says that the devil is in the details—and the details behind the latest GDP report show that ordinary Americans are in the worst economic condition they’ve been since the Great Depression.

RNC Research (a very good Twitter feed, despite the RNC’s dismal performance in other areas) assembled a few clips showing Biden’s economic boasts:

In Bidenland, economically speaking, everything is hunky-dory. And maybe that’s true because Biden’s family has become fabulously wealthy, as have all the people surrounding him. It’s a very rosy view from up there, in the Oval Office.

It’s less rosy where real people live. Writing at Fox Business, Antoni says that the Fed’s most recent GDP (“gross domestic product”) report contains within it terrible news about America’s flailing economy.

What Democrats like is that the report shows that the economy is still growing, albeit slowly: “The latest numbers from the Bureau of Economic Analysis show that the U.S. economy grew by 2.9 percent in the fourth quarter of last year, and 2.1 percent for 2022.” However, despite some growth, says Antoni, “economic growth is slowing down.”

It’s Now Cheaper to Drive 100 Miles in a Gas-Powered Car Than in an EV By Chris Queen

https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/chris-queen/2023/01/27/its-now-cheaper-to-drive-100-miles-in-a-gas-powered-car-than-in-an-ev-n1665848

The Biden administration is always telling us that the best thing we can do is buy an electric vehicle. In fact, various members of the administration treat it almost flippantly — it’s a no-brainer that you should buy an expensive electric car or two. Doing so will rescue the planet from certain environmental collapse and will save you loads of money, even though the average cost of an electric vehicle was $66,000 as of August of last year.

Plenty of people are falling for it, and it’s easy to see why. The siren song of the tax credit is hard to ignore, and the idea of not having to contend with rising prices at the gas pump is attractive. But is it all true?

To quote Kissy Suzuki in You Only Live Twice, “Think again, please.” It just so happens that, for now, it’s actually cheaper to drive 100 miles in a gas-powered vehicle, also known as an internal combustion engine (ICE), than in an electric vehicle.

Ryan Erik King at Jalopnik reports that “a recent report from the Anderson Economic Group (AEG) found that fueling costs from mid-priced ICE-powered vehicles are lower than similarly priced electric vehicles. Combustion drivers pay about $11.29 per 100 miles on the road. EV drivers who charge up at home spend about $11.60 per 100 miles.”

It gets even more delicious when you take into account those commercial chargers that pop up in a lot of places.

“The price difference is more dramatic for those who mainly recharge at stations,” King writes. “Frequent charging station users pay $14.40 per 100 miles.”

Jay Bhattacharya: Anti-lockdown Great Barrington Declaration vindicated, but much too late By spring 2021, every elderly person in the U.S. had been offered two doses of a vaccine, but the failed containment strategy continued

https://nationalpost.com/opinion/anti-lockdown-great-barrington-declaration-vindicated-but-much-too-late

Though little noted by the public, Thursday, Aug. 11, 2022, was an enormously important day in the history of the pandemic. Prior to that day, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control recommended that anyone who came in contact with a covid positive patient quarantine for a time. For unvaccinated exposed kids, the old guidance counselled either quarantine or negative tests to return to school.  

The new guidance eliminated the recommendation for testing people with no symptoms and eliminated the distinction between vaccinated and unvaccinated individuals in testing recommendations. The reasoning for the CDC’s shift was explicit. In describing that rationale, Greta Massetti of the CDC said, “this guidance … helps us move to a point where COVID-19 no longer severely disrupts our daily lives. We know that COVID-19 is here to stay.”

The CDC’s shift represented a fundamental change in the underlying philosophy of pandemic management. Ever since March 2020 and the infamous “two weeks to slow the spread,” the CDC’s goal — not achieved — had been to reduce or eliminate the spread of the virus. The new guidance accepted the obvious fact that the containment strategy had imposed enormous collateral harm to children, small business owners, and the working class and had not protected the vulnerable against the virus. After years of zoom school, close-contact quarantines, and missed assignments, the lockdown on American kids’ education essentially ended on Aug. 11.

In its place, the CDC adopted a more pragmatic approach more in line with how it had managed the 2009 swine flu pandemic. There is a more than thousand fold higher risk of severe disease outcomes from COVID-19 for infected elderly patients than there is for children who are very rarely hospitalized or die if infected. So not unreasonably, the CDC maintained recommendations aimed at reducing disease spread in nursing homes, such as good ventilation and vigilant testing.  

New House Intel Committee member calls for national security damage assessment on Biden family “I think that we’re going to have to do a very serious review of how classified documents are handled in the executive branch,” Rep. Austin Scott said.By Charlotte Hazard

https://justthenews.com/government/security/new-member-house-intelligence-committee-calls-security-damage-assessment-biden

Rep. Austin Scott (R-Ga.), one of the newest members of the GOP-led House Intelligence Committee, is calling for a national security damage assessment on the Biden family, following the discovery of classified documents at multiple locations connected to President Biden.

“I think so,” Scott responded when asked Thursday on the John Solomon Reports podcast whether such an assessment should be made. “I would also tell you that the difference I see is that the Biden documents were in an area where other people clearly had access to them. And I have serious questions about the amount of wealth that the Biden family has.”

The Democratic president has been under increased scrutiny since the recent disclosures about such documents being found at his Delaware home and in an office he used after serving as vice president.

Biden, at least since his successful 2020 presidential bid, had been under scrutiny regarding whether he profited or stood to profit from son Hunter Biden’s questionable overseas business negotiations including those with China. 

“I just don’t I don’t see how you accumulate that much making $175,000 a year,” Scott said about the president’s personal wealth. “I guess he made a little more as vice president, maybe $300,000 a year. But I don’t see how you accumulate that the type of wealth that he has.”

The FBI last August ceased classified document from former President Trump’s Florida home. And Vice President Mike Pence announced this week that a sweep of Indiana home had turned up such materials. 

Scott said that all people with classified documents need to be held accountable. 

The Mike Pompeo speech on China’s influence on US universities that MIT killed By Douglas Murray

https://nypost.com/2023/01/26/the-mike-pompeo-speech-on-chinas-influence-on-us-universities-that-mit-killed/

“Pompeo says that American schools that are “hooked on the CCP’s sugar must go into rehab.”Frankly I think a lot of institutions — including some of our financial institutions — should join them there. In the end it´s about whose side you are on. It would be good to know that American universities were on America’s side — for once.”

It’s always the way with political memoirs that everyone sifts them for the high-grade gossip. So it is with Mike Pompeo’s memoir, “Never Give an Inch” released this week. Media reports have understandably focused on the former CIA director and Secretary of State’s opinions on Donald Trump, John Bolton, Kim Jong-Un and a bunch of other folks.

But as is often the case, one of the biggest stories in the book has so far been overlooked.

When Pompeo was Secretary of State he took probably the most hawkish view any American official has yet taken towards the Communist Party of China. In a speech in October 2019, he told an audience of business-people (many of whom made money in China) that the Communist Party of China is “a Marxist-Leninist party focused on struggle and international domination.” He couldn’t be more correct. But something that happened afterwards proved his point.

As Pompeo relates it, he wanted to give a major speech on China and especially the way in which the CCP is distorting universities and other research institutes inside the United States. Not just by funding these institutions, and directing their research, but by trying to turn Chinese students into agents of the communist regime. It’s a crucial subject and was high time that an American official made such an intervention.

The speech was scheduled to take place at MIT, which had previously held an MIT-China Summit in Beijing sponsored by Chinese tech companies including ones that are now under sanctions for providing technology to crush human rights in China.

But shortly before the speech MIT said they couldn’t host the US Secretary of State after all. A strange move, no? Well according to Pompeo he picked up the phone and spoke with the president of MIT, Rafael Reif. And Reif claimed that there was no way that the speech could go ahead because of the risk of offending Chinese students. By MIT’s own data in 2021-22 a full 25% of international students at the university were from China.

‘The Shame of Pakistan’: Blasphemy Accusers Courageous Christian Woman Stands Up to Them by Nasir Saeed

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/19336/pakistan-blasphemy-accusers

“Pakistan was to review its harsh blasphemy laws. It has made them even harsher…The National Assembly has unanimously passed an amendment to the laws that widens the net and makes punishment more stringent under these laws…. The blasphemy laws are often misused in Pakistan to settle personal scores. It is also used to persecute its small minorities.” [Emphasis in the original] – Daily O, January 18, 2023.

Those who make false accusations do not care that innocent Christians may end up dead or in miserable prison conditions for years on end or be forced into hiding with their entire family, not knowing what will become of them, all the while in fear for their lives.

Worse, some are prepared to kill under the cover of religion and become — a hero.

Again and again, we see the victims being treated as criminals by those in positions of authority while the perpetrators are let off scot-free and even hailed as heroes. All the while, politicians who actually have the power to change this state of affairs refuse even to discuss the matter in Parliament. When people such as M. P. Bhandara and Sherry Rehman dare to speak up, they receive the inevitable death threats. For Punjab Governor Salman Taseer, Christian Federal Minister Shahbaz Bhatti and human rights lawyer Rashid Rehman, these death threats were carried out.

[H]ere we still are with nothing done to change what truly is the shame of Pakistan. The law still is as it is: innocent people continue to be accused of blasphemy and killed.

Christians need to be grateful for the way in which [Samina Mushtaq] courageously brought the truth about blasphemy to the forefront and stirred up a national debate. We need much more of it. Lawmakers need to change the laws before more unjust killings.

“Pakistan was to review its harsh blasphemy laws. It has made them even harsher,” according to a report from this month. “The National Assembly has unanimously passed an amendment to the laws that widens the net and makes punishment more stringent under these laws… The blasphemy laws are often misused in Pakistan to settle personal scores. It is also used to persecute its small minorities.” [Emphasis in the original]

DeSantis Builds Lead over Trump in Latest New Hampshire Poll John McCormack In the first independent poll of the Granite State since the midterms, the Florida governor’s support grew while the former president’s declined.

https://www.nationalreview.com/2023/01/desantis-builds-lead-over-trump-in-latest-new-hampshire-poll/?utm_

In the first independent poll of the Granite State since the midterms, the Florida governor’s support grew while the former president’s declined.

With twelve months to go until New Hampshire’s 2024 Republican presidential primary, Florida governor Ron DeSantis leads Donald Trump by twelve points — 42 percent to 30 percent — in a new Granite State poll.

The survey, conducted by the University of New Hampshire Survey Center from January 19 to 23 and released on Thursday, is the first independent poll of the first-in-the-nation 2024 GOP primary conducted since the 2022 midterm elections, in which DeSantis scored a resounding 19-point reelection victory in Florida while Trump-backed Senate candidates underperformed and cost the GOP control of the upper chamber.

The new poll shows DeSantis’s vote share improving by three points since the University of New Hampshire last conducted a survey in the summer of 2022, while Trump’s vote share dropped seven points from 37 percent to 30 percent. Trump’s vote share has declined in each of the four polls conducted by the pollster since June of 2021.

Not only is DeSantis leading in the early poll, he also appears to have the most room to grow his support. “When asked for their second choice, 30% of likely Republican primary voters support DeSantis, 19% support Sununu, 14% support Trump, 7% support Texas Senator Ted Cruz, 6% support former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, and 5% support Haley,” reports the UNH Survey Center.

More Than Half of Democrats Question Biden’s Mental Fitness Sarah Arnold

https://townhall.com/tipsheet/saraharnold/2023/01/26/more-than-half-of-democrats-question-bidens-mental-fitness-n2618805

President Joe Biden is facing a series of rough patches as he enters his third year in the Oval Office, sparking concern over his ability to govern the country from both sides of the political aisle. 

According to a Harvard/ Harris 2024 survey, six in ten respondents have doubts regarding Biden’s mental capabilities, with 65 percent believing that the 80-year-old is “too old” to run the country. 

Nearly a quarter of those who say Biden is too old, are Democrats, while 87 percent were Republicans and 67 percent were Independents.

The poll also found that 61 percent of Americans believe the country is heading in the wrong direction, while the majority, 56 percent, have an unfavorable view of Biden. 

Less than half of respondents believe that the president has failed on major issues such as immigration and the economy with 37 percent approving of how he has handled the crisis at the southern border, while 62 percent highly disapprove of his take on “fixing” the economy.

Meanwhile, in the wake of the bombshell revelations that multiple classified documents were found in Biden’s possession, American’s approval of the president slipped under the rocks even more.

January 6 Was the Worst Incident of Police Brutality Since Civil Rights Era Julie Kelly

https://amgreatness.com/2023/01/26/january-6-was-the-worst-incident-of-police-brutality-since-civil-rights-era/

One might be inclined to apply Hanlon’s razor—never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity—to the actions of law enforcement on January 6, 2021. One might even be inclined to replace “stupidity” with “incompetence” to explain why police behaved the way they did that afternoon.

But a growing body of evidence suggests neither stupidity nor incompetence can justify what now appears to be the worst incident of police brutality against political protesters since the civil rights era. After two years of watching cherry-picked video clips produced by the Department of Justice and the news media to depict Trump supporters as the violent aggressors on January 6, the public now has an opportunity to see what really happened thanks to police body camera footage released at trial.

It’s ugly—and clearly malicious.

As American Greatness has reported for nearly two years, members of the Capitol Police and D.C. Metropolitan Police Department were involved in egregious acts of excessive force during the Capitol protest. Some use of force, obviously, was necessary. But police officers initiated most of the confrontations with otherwise peaceful protesters lawfully exercising their First Amendment rights in the nation’s capital. 

Protesters by and large were not attempting to commit any crime and did not know the entire lawn surrounding the Capitol building had been declared off-limits. After all, police officials have since admitted that by the time people who attended Donald Trump’s speech arrived at the Capitol, signage and fencing indicating the campus was closed had been torn down.

The conclusion of Trump’s speech at around 1:10 p.m. coincided nearly to the minute with law enforcement’s first use of munitions on protesters assembled on the west side of the Capitol. Roughly 20 minutes earlier, a police barricade of metal racks on the far exterior of the grounds had been breached. But footage captured by the body camera of a D.C. Metro police officer showed that law enforcement had successfully pushed a growing crowd away from the building by 1:15 p.m.

Officer Daniel Thau, however, was on a mission. Sounding alternatively like a mad man or a bully, Thau desperately pleaded with other officers to give him munitions to use against the crowd despite a relatively controlled atmosphere outside.