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March 2024

ELECTIONS Comments turned off

Tulsi Gabbard For VP?

By on March 26th, 2024

https://issuesinsights.com/2024/03/26/tulsi-gabbard-for-vp

“Gabbard is, of course, not perfect. She once endorsed Sen. Bernie Sanders for president, the crank from Vermont, and still holds some positions on the left. Yet she has moved right since breaking with her party. But has she gone far enough to be a running mate that Republicans voters would support? A robust vetting would help determine that.

In the meantime, we should recall that Ronald Reagan was once a Democrat, too.”

Donald Trump either has a short list or a long one, depending on the media source, in his search for a running mate. Either way, he could do a lot worse than Tulsi Gabbard. At least she knows, unlike many establishment Republicans, just how malicious Democrats are, since she used to be one and saw the depravity up close.

Maybe Trump will choose Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, or New York Rep. Elise Stefanik. He might turn to Ben Carson, a Cabinet official in his previous administration, South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott, or South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem. All would be acceptable, as would other Republicans not named.

It’s possible, however, the best candidate isn’t even a member of the party.

Gabbard was for eight years a Democrat representing Hawaii’s second congressional district in the U.S. House. She ran for the White House in 2020 as a Democrat, but has since left the party, declaring her independence in October 2022.

The Samoan-American, a U.S. Army Reserve lieutenant colonel and decorated combat veteran, showed her plucky streak, and her inclination to think independently, while speaking in December at Turning Point USA’s Americafest.

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NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Violations of the Eighth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution by Lawrence Kadish

By on March 26th, 2024

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/20518/eighth-amendment-violations

It is high time to call on all judges and patriots to put a stop to crimes committed by those who have been elected or appointed to uphold the laws of the nation and the US Constitution, but who instead have been violating the law and assaulting the Constitution – sadly with impunity. We have seen former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton allegedly obstruct justice by reportedly ordering her staff to destroy 33,000 subpoenaed emails with BleachBit and smash two of her 13 BlackBerry mobile devices. We have seen President Joe Biden violate a ruling by the Supreme Court that blocked him from using taxpayer funds, some from people who, for whatever reason, did not participate higher education, to pay off the student loans amounting to $138 billion of other people who did.

We have seen governmental violations of the First Amendment — from Soviet-style whispers to Facebook to quash the contents of Hunter Biden’s laptop by declaring falsely – knowingly so, it turned out – that the material in it supposedly had “all the earmarks of Russian disinformation,” to calling true medical information false during the COVID-19 pandemic. The first maneuver was election interference – probably decisive in undermining the integrity of the 2020 election. The false medical information disseminated by the government, depriving the ill of alternative medicine – may have cost countless lives.

Sadly, as of late, we have been witnessing even more governmental abuse of power, astronomically out of control, by individuals elected or appointed to safeguard our laws and our Constitution, but who have been disregarding them at best and upending them at worst, specifically in the treatment individuals who supposedly walked through “the people’s house” on January 6, 2021, and most recently in disfiguring the Eighth Amendment to our Constitution to prosecute not a crime, but a person. The Eighth Amendment, in its entirety, states:

“Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted.”

To the severe detriment of our global reputation, the entire planet has just been witnessing staggering violations of those protections, through which District Attorneys and at least one judge have been permitted to skate.

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ISRAEL Comments turned off

America-Israel Rift Widens Following UN Security Council Vote on Cease-Fire to Which Hamas Objects By Benny Avni

By on March 26th, 2024

https://www.nysun.com/article/america-israel-rift-widens-following-un-security-council-vote?lctg=1474934676&recognized_email=ruthsking%40aol.com&utm_source=MG&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Evening%20Sun%20%202024-03-25

A Monday United Nations resolution, largely dictated by America, demands a two-week cease-fire in the Israel-Hamas war start immediately while all 134 Israeli hostages are released. America abstained from voting on the resolution, and even as Hamas refuses to accept a cease-fire, the Biden administration is putting increasing pressures on Israel to end major military operations in Gaza, as the rift between the countries widens.

As members of the UN Security Council rose in applause following the 14 votes in favor of the resolution and America’s abstention, Prime Minister Netanyahu canceled a government delegation’s trip to Washington that was scheduled for Monday. The Israeli government sees the American engagement at the UN as a new phase in President Biden’s pressure to wind down the Gaza war.

The Israeli delegation was to be led by Mr. Netanyahu’s close adviser, Ron Dermer. It had been invited by the White House to lean on the Israeli government to cancel a plan for a major operation at Rafah, Hamas’s last major stronghold. Four Hamas battalions and the terrorist organization’s leadership are holed-up there.

Israel is yet to commence the evacuation of more than a million Gazans from the Rafah area. It is therefore unlikely to start its assault in the next two weeks. And as Hamas is yet to accept a deal for releasing even some of the hostages, let alone all of them, the council’s resolution is unlikely to make much difference on the ground in Gaza or Israel.

The CIA chief, William Burns, returned to Washington from Doha over the weekend after Israeli negotiators there reportedly agreed to a deal for a temporary cease-fire and freeing 40 hostages and hundreds of terrorists in Israeli prison. Perhaps encouraged by America’s pressure on Israel, Hamas keeps amassing new demands.

“Releasing prisoners may have been the main Hamas demand a few months ago,” an Israeli activist who is known to occasionally speak with Hamas officials, Gershon Baskin, told Israel’s Channel 11 news Monday. “Now their top demand is to end the war and for a full Israeli withdrawal from Gaza.”

The UN Security Council resolution demands a cease-fire lasting until the April 9 end of Ramadan, in tandem with the release of all hostages. The two-operational-paragraph resolution was initially proposed by France in the name of the 10 elected members of the council. Yet, American diplomats leaned on the sponsors to change the text.

The council “demands an immediate ceasefire for the month of Ramadan respected by all parties leading to a lasting sustainable ceasefire, and also demands the immediate and unconditional release of all hostages as well as ensuring humanitarian access to address their medical and other humanitarian needs,” the resolution reads.

While the American mission at the UN exerted pressure on council members, including a last-minute word change to “lasting” from “permanent” cease-fire, administration officials and Washington lawmakers intensified the pressure on Israel to avoid a Rafah operation.

Vice President Harris told ABC News Sunday that she has “studied the map” of Gaza and concluded that Rafah refugees have no place to go. She declined to exclude the possibility of “consequences” if Israel fails to heed the administration’s dictate to avoid a Rafah invasion, such as denial of arms to the IDF. On CNN, meanwhile, Representative Alexandria Ocasio Cortez insisted that Israel is committing “genocide” at Gaza.

Her allegation — that Israel is deliberately starving Gazans and therefore is guilty of genocide — is fast taking hold around the world. It started when South Africa officially demanded that the International Court of Justice declare Israel in violation of its obligations under the anti-genocide convention.

Despite Jordan’s peace treaty with Israel, its foreign minister, Ayman Safadi, announced on Friday that the Kingdom supports the South African ICJ motion. “The Israeli aggression on Gaza and its continued committing of war crimes against the Palestinian people and violating international law with impunity are responsible for the rising tensions witnessed in the region,” Mr. Safadi said.

Israel is facilitating the entry of hundreds of aid trucks a day into the Strip, and the IDF takes caution to avoid hitting civilians as it conducts its war against Hamas’s armed men. Yet, a group of Democratic American legislators, known as the “Squad,” insists that Israel is committing genocide. Election-year pressure from the party’s leftist base has moved Mr. Biden away from full support of Israel.

Separately, President Trump also seems to be calling for ending the war. “The world is turning on Israel, and that’s not a good thing,” he told the Israel Hayom newspaper in an interview published Monday. And so, he added, “you have to finish your war” and move toward peace.

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ISRAEL Comments turned off

Israel alone Weep for America Melanie Phillips

By on March 26th, 2024

https://melaniephillips.substack.com/p/israel-alone?utm_campaign=email-post&r=8t06w&utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email

In my article here last week, I wrote that America was abandoning Israel. Today, the Biden administration wrote its name in the annals of infamy by openly joining the axis of evil against those defending civilisation.

The UN Security Council has passed a resolution demanding an immediate ceasefire in Gaza for the remainder of Ramadan, and the immediate and unconditional release of Israeli hostages.

Breaking with its historic policy of vetoing hostile resolutions at the UNSC  to protect Israel against those working for its destruction and the defeat of the west, the US abstained today and so the resolution was passed. 

Even more appallingly (if that’s possible) the UK, the Biden administration’s poodle and whose Foreign Secretary, Lord Cameron, has been threatening Israel with an end to arms sales unless it does what he and the US State Department are demanding, actually voted for the resolution. 

So both the US and UK are now aligned with the west’s foes Russia and China against Israel, the sole defender of the west in the Middle East. What a disgrace.

The resolution is obnoxious because it fails to condition a ceasefire on the release of the hostages, thus destroying the chances of the latter actually occurring.

Last Friday, the US brought forward a draft resolution which said the UNSC “unequivocally supports ongoing international diplomatic efforts to secure such a ceasefire in connection with the release of all remaining hostages” (my emphasis). That resolution’s linkage between a ceasefire and the release of the hostages was the reason it was vetoed by China and Russia. On that occasion, America’s ambassador to the UN ambassador declared: 

We should not move forward with any resolution that jeopardises the ongoing [hostage] negotiations.

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ISRAEL Comments turned off

War – Israel versus Hamas: Sydney Williams

By on March 26th, 2024

http://www.swtotd.blogspot.com

War is messy. It is cruel. It cannot be refined. It cannot be sanitized. Wars were once fought on battle fields. No longer. Civil War historian James McPherson has estimated that about 50,000 civilians died during that conflict, still less than 10% of all military deaths. That changed in the 20th Century. About half of all deaths in World War I were civilians. In World War II, twice as many civilians died as military personnel. Innocent people get hurt in modern wars, as residents of London, Dresden, Hiroshima, and Naples learned during World War II, and as residents of My Lai and Hué learned during the Vietnam War. And as people today in the eastern regions of Donetsk and Luhansk, in Gaza City, Jabalia, and Rafah understand, and in the border villages of Israel’s north where residents have evacuated due to threats from Iran’s other proxy, Hezbollah. 

When the fight is between good and evil, a “proportional” response, as attractive as the concept sounds, is not an alternative. “The moral thing to do,” the columnist Moshe Phillips wrote recently in Israel National News, “is to destroy evil when it poses a ‘clear and present danger’ or likely will again.” Hamas presents to Israel such a threat. In September 1864, on the cusp of taking Atlanta, General William Tecumseh Sherman sent a telegram to President Lincoln: “War is the remedy our enemies have chosen. Other simple remedies were within their choice. You know it and they know it, but they wanted war, and I say let us give them all they want; not a word of argument, not a sign of let up, no cave in until we are whipped or they are.” When Hamas attacked the Kibbutz Nir Oz, during the Tribe of Nova music festival, on October 7, raping women, slaughtering babies and children, mutilating those they had killed and kidnapping those they had not, war was the choice they made. Now, the only way to end the war is for Israel to totally destroy Hamas. 

The battle in Gaza, like the American Civil War and World War II, is a fight between forces of good and evil. (In one sense, this is a civil war, as both Israelis and Palestinians descend from Abraham.) This is not to suggest that all Israelis are paragons of virtue and that all Palestinians are devils incarnate. But Israel, according to the Economist Groups Democracy Index, is the only democracy in the Middle East, while Hamas is designated a terrorist organization by the United States, the European Union, and Britain. The people of Gaza bear some responsibility, as Hamas was elected in 2006 with 75% of the vote. Citizens of Gaza know that terrorists hide and store arms in tunnels beneath schools and hospitals. On September 11, 2001 there was dancing in the streets of Gaza. Ismail Haniyeh, former Gaza Prime Minister and Chairman of the Hamas Political Bureau (and who now lives in Qatar), explained in 2020 why Hamas rejects ceasefire agreements: “We cannot, in exchange for money or projects, give up Palestine and our weapons. We will not give up the resistance. We will not recognize Israel. Palestine must stretch from the [Jordan] River to the [Mediterranean] Sea.” Commenting on the loss of civilian deaths in Gaza on October 26, 2023, Mr. Haniyeh said: The blood of the women, children and elderly […] we are the ones who need this blood, so it awakens within us the revolutionary spirit.”

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WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

UN Called to Respond to Sharia Violence against Women by Raymond Ibrahim

By on March 25th, 2024

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/20514/sharia-violence-against-women

“Sharia-linked violence is inflicted upon women in the Middle East, Africa, Europe, and Asia. This includes the recent extreme sexual violence committed against Israeli women in October 2023 by Hamas proven by the UN; the infliction of sexual slavery on Yezidi women by the Islamic State (IS); killing of Iranian women for not wearing the hijab; the trafficking, kidnapping, and conversion of Coptic Christian girls in Egypt; kidnapping of girls and women in Nigeria by Boko Haram; mass attacks on women in Germany in 2015; the rape of girls in the UK by the so-called ‘grooming gangs’; the forced conversion, kidnapping and murder of Hindu girls in India, Pakistan and Bangladesh to name a few.” — Press release, March 8, 2024.

Of especial importance is that the complaint shows how many aspects of Sharia directly contradict what the UN claims it stands up for. By relying heavily on UN documents, and quoting from the UN conventions that back them, the complaint essentially asks the UN to do what it should be but is not doing.

The complaint further shows that, according to the UN’s own definitions, the issues it raises cannot be deemed “Islamophobic”….

To redress these abuses, the complaint asks the UN Human Rights Council to do several things. One consists of requesting that the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), which claims to represent the Muslim world at the UN, provide a “single consolidated response” as well as “one standardized, worldwide codification of the Sharia and an explanation as to why Sharia should not be considered a fundamental cause of violation of women’s human rights.”

The complaint also requests the appointment of “two non-Muslim rapporteurs, one who is a Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Religion or Belief and the second, a Special Rapporteur on Violence against Women…”

Should, as is likely, the UN not respond, it will have, once again, proven itself a defunct and corrupt organization.

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ENVIRONMENT AND JUNK SCIENCE Comments turned off

Climate Change and Free Speech on Trial John O’Sullivan

By on March 25th, 2024

https://quadrant.org.au/magazine/2024/03/climate-change-on-trial/

On February 9, 2024, when a Washington DC jury found writers Mark Steyn and Rand Simberg guilty of defaming climate scientist Michael Mann (above) in articles and blogs about his work on climate change, the world’s reactions seemed to divide neatly into two distinct camps. 

Much the larger group that knew about the trial from its sparse and occasional coverage in the mainstream media could hardly be either surprised, let alone disturbed, that Steyn and Simberg had lost and received punitive damages for launching attacks on climate scientists and climate science with, as the New York Times reported, “maliciousness, spite, ill will, vengeance or deliberate intent to harm”.

That morning’s AP media trailer for the trial’s climax, widely republished and copied, had been headlined as follows: “Jury to Decide on Climate Scientist Michael Mann’s Defamation Suit Over Comparison to Molester”. The story went on: “It’s been 12 years since a pair of conservative writers compared a prominent climate scientist to a convicted child molester for his depiction of global warming.” 

Scientist defamed as molester by conservatives, eh? That framing doesn’t quite do justice to both sides. Michael Mann is indeed a climate scientist of some reputation, and though Rand Simberg presented himself in court modestly as a simple researcher, Mark Steyn is a formidable commentator in leading newspapers throughout the Anglosphere on—inter alia—climate change, demography and popular culture. 

A smaller and more interested group was following the proceedings closely either in court or through the intensive internet coverage of news and commentary websites, including Steyn’s own website, but in particular Ann McElhinney’s and Phelim McAleer’s hour-long daily reconstruction of the trial with actors reading out court transcripts as a play—and an exciting one at that.

That group was amazed that the course of the trial they had been following (which certainly revealed lots of maliciousness, spite, ill-will and vengeance, not wholly or even mainly from the defendants) contrasted so markedly with its result. Instead of a verdict on defamation, they thought, the jury had delivered a public policy decision to protect climate science and scientists from criticism. 

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IMMIGRATION Comments turned off

New York Doomed to Be Migrant Central Who wouldn’t come? by Betsy McCaughey

By on March 24th, 2024

https://www.frontpagemag.com/new-york-doomed-to-be-migrant-central/

Mayor Eric Adams’ agreement to limit the time migrants can stay in shelters at taxpayers’ expense, is smoke and mirrors. It’s designed to fool you into thinking he’s solving a problem when he’s actually caving to the migrant industrial complex.

Adams claims the agreement, with the Legal Aid Society and the Coalition for the Homeless, will allow the city to evict adult migrants from city-run shelters after 30 days, saving taxpayers money and limiting the need for more shelters. Not true.

The fine print says migrants have a shot at staying longer if they obtain a driver’s license, follow shelter rules and show good behavior, or — get this one — apply for public benefits. And this is a “non-exhaustive” list of reasons making migrants eligible to stay longer.

The agreement also applies only to single adults. A staggering 78% come with children and get priority placement in hotels. The city currently spends a whopping $387 a night for food and a roof alone for each family, and shells out more money for free medical care, education and legal services. This agreement does zero to alleviate those staggering costs.

The deal dooms New York City to fiscal disaster, because it will continue to be the No. 1 destination for migrants seeking a free roof over their heads. The Big Apple is now Migrant Central.

Worst of all, nothing in the agreement empowers the mayor to evict troublemakers who have repeat run-ins with police. The migrants who beat up cops in Time Square were living in shelters, courtesy of taxpayers, and already had long rap sheets.

When troublemakers are arrested and give a shelter address, the shelter should be contacted and told they no longer qualify. Why should taxpayers be footing the bill to house criminals?

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WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Leo Varadkar vs the people Good riddance to the man who turned Ireland into a laboratory of the new illiberalism. Brendan O’Neill

By on March 24th, 2024

https://www.spiked-online.com/2024/03/22/leo-varadkar-vs-the-people/

‘I am no longer best man to be Irish PM’, said a BBC headline this week, summarising Leo Varadkar’s resignation speech. The truth, Leo, is that you were never the best man to be Irish PM. He was never elected by the people to be taoiseach, instead securing that seat of power by appointment and backroom dealing. And once there, once he’d been gifted the highest office in the land by his allies in Dublin 4, he wielded government not for the people, but against them. He bent Ireland to what was essentially a vast real-time experiment in social re-engineering and thought control.

An unelected ruler using his power and clout to correct the country and improve the people? There’s a word for that. And it isn’t ‘democracy’.

Varadkar announced his resignation on Wednesday. In an emotional speech he said he was stepping down as leader of Fine Gael immediately and will step down as taoiseach once his successor has been chosen. His ‘shock departure’ followed the people’s crushing defeat of the twin referendum he put forward. Overwhelming majorities rejected his proposals to alter the Irish constitution to update its definition of ‘family’ and to fix what Varadkar damned as its ‘very sexist’ reference to a woman’s ‘duties’ in the home. No thanks, said the electorate, in the biggest ever referendum loss by an Irish government.

Even the fact that Varadkar’s stepping down is widely seen as a ‘shock move’ speaks to the haughtiness, the outright unworldliness, of his political kind. To many of us it makes perfect sense that a PM would bugger off after suffering a historically unprecedented bloody nose from voters. But it seems the Varadkar clique thought they could ride it out. ‘No biggie’ was their view. Until his ‘shock departure’ on Wednesday, reports the Guardian, ‘the political fallout from the [referendum] debacle had widely been expected to be limited’.

Who expected that? I’m sure those voters who gleefully seized the opportunity of the referendum to give the middle finger to Varadkar and the rest of the establishment didn’t expect the impact of their discontent to be ‘limited’. It is a testament to the arrogance of technocracy, to the chasm that has emerged between Ireland’s rulers and Ireland’s ruled, that the Dublin establishment thought it could shrug off the largest drubbing it has ever received from voters.

In the end, tellingly, it seems it was disgruntlement from within his own party ranks, rather than the disgruntlement of the oiks, that convinced Varadkar to go. He was facing ‘increasing discontent within Fine Gael’, with some party bigwigs worried he’s an ‘electoral liability’. Everything you need to know about the man is contained in the fact that he essentially shrugged when the masses rose up against him but bolted when his fellow clerisy members criticised him. To the technocrat, the disapproval of their dinner-party circle carries far more weight than the discontent of ordinary people.

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ISRAEL Comments turned off

Biden’s Pier Is a Gift to Hamas Terrorists by Con Coughlin

By on March 24th, 2024

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/20513/biden-pier-gift-to-hamas

There are mounting concerns that the Biden administration’s pier plan could ultimately boomerang, especially, as Netanyahu himself has warned, if the US aid and the port itself end up in the hands of Hamas terrorists.

“This [Biden] administration betrayed its allies – the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Israel, and Jordan – by handing the port over to Qatar, namely to Hamas….. What all anti-U.S. elements will take away from this tragic episode is not that America stands by its human values to support and care for the population of Gaza, but rather that America is weak and that this is why it is granting the port to Qatar and Hamas.” — Yigal Carmon, founder and president, Middle East Media Research Institute, March 20, 2024.

As Hamas ultimately controls most of the aid distribution networks in Gaza, the plans currently being drawn up by the US and Europe to expand aid deliveries could ultimately prove counter-productive in terms of ending the conflict, as Hamas terrorists have a long track record of exploiting foreign aid to strengthen their terrorist activities in Gaza.

If the Biden administration and its European allies are really serious about ending the conflict in Gaza, then they should give their unequivocal backing to the Israeli military in its battle to destroy the terrorist infrastructure Hamas has constructed in Gaza.

For it will only be when Hamas is completely destroyed, and no longer poses a threat to the Israeli people, that there can be any genuine prospect of lasting peace in the region.

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