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April 2024

Law-School Rot Hits Berkeley Dean Close to Home — Literally Tal Fortgang

https://www.nationalreview.com/2024/04/law-school-rot-hits-berkeley-dean-close-to-home-literally/

When students turned a party into a protest, Erwin Chemerinsky learned the hard way that coddling activists won’t save you when they become the mob.

The moral and behavioral rot at our elite law schools has hit close to home — literally — for the dean of Berkeley Law, Erwin Chemerinsky. On April 9, about 60 third-year students gathered in the dean’s backyard for a pre-graduation dinner. A few of the students co-opted the occasion to rant about their school’s supposed support for Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza and Chemerinsky’s avowed Zionism. Chemerinsky and his wife, Berkeley law professor Catherine Fisk, repeatedly pleaded with these students to leave. When Fisk tried to wrest a microphone from the student leading the demonstration, the student accused Fisk of assault and refused to move, insisting that she had a First Amendment right to continue.

In the days before the dinner, posters had gone up around campus that depicted the dean wielding a bloody knife and fork, with the message, “No dinner with Zionist Chem while Gaza starves.”

In his short official statement following the unsettling evening at his home, Chemerinsky used the words “sad” or “sadness” four times. He was “sad to hear” that students wanted him to cancel the dinner, as proclaimed on the posters, and that if he did not acquiesce, they would protest. And he was “enormously sad” that students would be “so rude” as to “use the social occasion for their political agenda.”

The Fundamental Unraveling of America This year’s election is our final wake-up call. By Albin Sadar

https://amgreatness.com/2024/04/16/the-fundamental-unraveling-of-america/

By now, it must be overwhelmingly apparent to every American citizen that what candidate Barack Obama promised on the campaign trail back in 2008 has come to pass. Obama touted a “fundamental transformation of America” if elected president and, once elected, he proceeded to accomplish that one huge goal.

It can certainly be argued that the country experienced a slow boiling of the frog during the eight years of Obama’s presidency and that, during that period, the pot neither got to boil too long nor did the frog feel the heat intensely enough to hop out. Hillary Clinton was anointed by the Democrats to follow Obama to continue the unraveling of America’s constitutional republic, replacing it with their own interpretation of a “democracy.”

But somehow, out of nowhere, a wrecking ball named Donald J. Trump collided with the original fundamental-transformation plan. However, that, as we all experienced, was only a temporary setback. Once the 2020 election was successfully rigged and stolen and a hand-puppet-Biden government was installed, Obama and his global handlers continued stirring and reheating the pot to the required boiling point.

As it turned out, this time around, turning up the heat also necessitated putting a lid on the pot because there was a real chance that the frog might finally catch on and attempt to jump out.

So, where are we now?

The pot continues to frantically boil, with the frog finally awakening to its fate—but trapped inside the pot. And the only one capable of removing the lid is that same old why-won’t-he-just-go-away-already Trump. Even with the onslaught of tactics straight out of the Jussie Smollett playbook (i.e., if you can’t find a crime, make one up), resulting in New York- and DC-style “fair” trials and verdicts, Trump continues to generate his own heat, resulting in the heads of Democrats boiling—and sometimes even exploding.

The Reality of Migrant Crime A catastrophic – and lethal – mess. by Byron York

https://www.frontpagemag.com/the-reality-of-migrant-crime/

There’s been an ongoing political debate lately about crimes committed by migrants who entered the United States illegally. Actually, there’s not much to debate about their first unlawful act — entering the United States without authorization — but much disagreement about how many illegal border crossers commit crimes after that.

In recent weeks, Republicans have publicized the murder of Laken Riley, the Georgia nursing student who police say was abducted and killed by Jose Antonio Ibarra, a Venezuelan migrant who entered the United States illegally in September 2022, only to be quickly released into the country. Ibarra was one of millions of illegal crossers who rushed into the United States after the implementation of virtually open-border policies by President Joe Biden. In response to Republicans highlighting the murder, some Democrats argued that the “immigrant crime narrative is racist,” in the words of California Democratic Rep. Robert Garcia.

The issue popped up in the State of the Union address, when some Republicans tried to goad Biden into saying Riley’s name. Biden did say the name — although he got it wrong — and then referred to the alleged killer, Ibarra, as an “illegal.” Democratic activist groups reacted in anger, not at the murder but at the use of the word “illegal” to describe an illegal immigrant. Biden swiftly apologized, saying he should have called Ibarra “undocumented” instead.

Now there is another migrant crime in the news, this time in New York City. Last week police raided a house in the Bronx that had been taken over by migrant squatters who had entered the U.S. illegally. In addition to arresting eight of them, police confiscated several firearms, extended magazines, ammunition, plus the drugs ketamine and cocaine. The cops moved in, the New York Post reported, after one of the migrants “allegedly flashed a pistol at someone on the property March 27, leading to a 911 call and the discovery of the squatter gang.”

In true New York fashion, a judge quickly freed most of the suspects without bail. At that point, the Enforcement and Removal Operations office of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) arrested three of them. How did they do that? Officers just went back to the house in the Bronx, where the suspects had returned to keep doing what they were doing before their arrests. Now, it appears four others have also been picked up by ICE.

Monsters on the Loose: Israel is the Canary As goes the Jewish state, so goes the West. by J. Christian Adams

https://www.frontpagemag.com/monsters-on-the-loose-israel-is-the-canary/

Not long ago, the monsters were kept sealed up tight somewhere. Just a few decades ago, western values maintained the international order. But when the monsters escape, as they did on October 7, the monsters go after Jews.

Western values that governed international and domestic norms are being replaced by chaos and authoritarianism around the world, as well as here at home.

First Israel. What makes October 7 so sinister is that the monsters went after Jews in their place of ultimate sanctuary – Israel. They dragged them from their homes and murdered them in Israel instead of Berlin’s Scheunenviertel, the long vanished Jewish quarter, or any of the sites of other pogroms across history.

October 7 was different and illustrated how precarious Israel’s existence is.

The monsters seem to be on the loose around the globe, even in Europe. In eastern Europe the postwar international order is under attack, where even recognized international borders are meaningless.

Perhaps the very term “postwar” no longer has currency. Perhaps we are so far removed from that war which governed so much about the last eight decades – including Israel’s right to exist – that the term “postwar” is obsolete.

The West seems to have forgotten the lessons of 1914 or 1939. Land for peace is back in vogue, despite always being a fool’s gambit – whether in the West Bank, Sudetenland or Donetsk.

Few in the West seem to understand how close to the cliff we are. Too many are too busy staring at their phones.

The only western-style democracy in the middle east is in an existential fight for survival. Meanwhile, domestic anti-Semites are raiding private homes of noted Jewish law professors and bullying students on campus who support Israel’s right to exist.

Initially firmly supporting Israel, since October 7 the radicals who staff this administration – whether at the State Department, White House or Department of Defense – have asserted their influence. Support for Israel in the executive branch is withering.

Iran Attacks Israel – With Assurances From Biden? The Mullahs were committing suicide by attacking the Jewish state. But not if Biden had Iran’s back.Kenneth R. Timmerman

https://www.frontpagemag.com/iran-attacks-israel-with-assurances-from-biden/

I was wrong.

I believed the Iranians would not attack Israel directly as they had been threatening, because such an attack would green-light an Israeli response on the Iranian homeland that would be devastating for the Islamic regime.

I reasoned that the extraordinary coordination among U.S. and Israeli officials late last week signaled a potential joint U.S.-Israeli counterstrike should Iran’s leaders be so reckless as to attack Israel.

The commander of U.S. Central Command General, Eric Kurilla, visited Israel on Thursday, just as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was putting in a public appearance at Tel Nor Air Force base to give a pep talk to Israel F-15 pilots. Also last week, Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin held two videonconferences with his Israeli counterpart, Yoav Gallant, and the Pentagon moved the USS Dwight D. Eisenhower and its carrier task force closer to Israel from its current duty station further down the Red Sea to better defend the Jewish state.

Despite Iran’s ongoing threats that it would “punish” Israel for its alleged role in bombing the Iranian consulate in Damascus on April 1, where Quds Force war-planning meetings were underway, I believed that even attacks by Iranian proxies in Iraq against Israel would be seen by Israel as a direct Iranian attack. Therefore I was confident that any direct Iranian attack on Israel would greenlight Israel to strike Iran.

I said that publicly last week. A few days later, Israeli minister without portfolio, Benny Ganz, said it on Israeli TV. (In case you missed it, Benny Ganz is the “moderate” Israeli politician Biden & Co. are trying to maneuver into position to replace Bibi.)

Both of us were wrong.

Joe Biden’s Wars

https://issuesinsights.com/2024/04/16/joe-bidens-wars/

It’s long been known around Washington, as former Defense Secretary Robert Gates once said, that Joe Biden “has been wrong on nearly every major foreign policy and national security issue over the past four” – now five – “decades.”

So the conflicts raging around the world and forecasts of World War III should have been expected.

But, hey, at least we didn’t elect in 2020 the guy who sent impetuous tweets that upset elites and snowflakes.

As president, Biden has projected American weakness in a Carter-esque fashion, starting with his chaotic and deadly withdrawal from Afghanistan, which a State Department report said suffered from “constantly changing policy guidance,” and a top general described as a “strategic failure.”

He’s been no Ronald Reagan. He’s not even been a Donald Trump. So it’s no coincidence that Russia invaded Ukraine a little more than two years after Biden took office. And we all knew it was coming, because three months after Biden stumbled into the Oval Office, Russian strongman Vladimir Putin, as Sen. Tom Cotton noted just before the invasion, “sent tens of thousands of soldiers, tanks, and munitions to the Ukrainian border.”

In response, Biden proposed a presidential summit in Geneva, which, says Cotton, elevated “Russia in the eyes of the world” and “allowed the image-obsessed Putin to strut on the international stage and pretend that Russia was once again an equal to the United States.” Apparently, the hotline between Washington and Moscow was soon thereafter cut. Putin recently said he hadn’t spoken to Biden in two years, according to Richard Grenell, acting director of national intelligence for the Trump administration.

Christians Prefer Living in Israel, Not the Palestinian Authority by Bassam Tawil

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/20581/christians-prefer-israel-not-palestinian-authority

Among the top 50 countries in which Christians were persecuted in 2023 were Yemen, Libya, Iran, Afghanistan, Iraq, Morocco, Qatar, Egypt, Turkey, and other Middle Eastern and Muslim-majority countries. Israel, needless to say, was not on the list.

Despite these disturbing statistics, US television personality Tucker Carlson, in his interview with the Bethlehem pastor, chose to single out Israel, the only country where Christians feel safe and where their number is increasing every year. Carlson did not bother to ask the pastor about the persecuted Christians of Egypt.

Carlson chose to interview Isaac, who has long history of promoting falsehoods about Israel and the Arab-Israeli conflict in his roles as pastor, academic dean of Bethlehem Bible College (a self-identified “Palestinian Christian Evangelical university college” that promotes a “Palestinian Christian theology”), and director of the “Christ at the Checkpoint” conferences — the infamous venue where anti-Israel libels are proclaimed in the name of Christian love, justice and peace.

“[T]hose of us who track these things know that Munther Isaac has long been the high priest of antisemitic Christianity; sadly, he spreads his hate from the city of Jesus’ birth.” — Rev. Johnnie Moore, president of the Congress of Christian Leaders, jewishinsider.com, April 11, 2024.

“We have a mafia here that is seizing Christian-owned lands. I protested against this Muslim mafia, and I even called a large gathering. I invited 80 people to my home. That same night, fliers were distributed in Bethlehem threatening to kill me. Of course, I am worried about the future of Christians here. Looking at the facts on the ground, you can see that there is no future for the Christians here. We are melting; we are disappearing. I fear the day will come when our churches will become museums. That is my nightmare.” — Samir Qumsieh, prominent Christian leader near Bethlehem, to Gatestone, April 2024.

Since the Palestinian Authority (PA) assumed control of Bethlehem in 1995, the Christian share of the population has dropped from 65% to only 12% today. By contrast, the Christian population in Israel has been on the rise in recent years. “Most of us 180k Christian Israelis prefer to live under Israel freely rather than under a Palestinian Islamic Authority regime controlling Bethlehem. Israel gives us freedom while living under Arabs has been genocidal for Christians all across the Middle East,” says Shadi Khalloul, a Christian Maronite who describes himself as a “patriotic Israeli.”