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August 2024

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“The Election – Character or Issues?” Sydney Williams

By on August 2nd, 2024

http://www.swtotd.blogspot.com

While it appears that we Americans don’t agree on a lot, there is general agreement that our political center has been squeezed by extremists at both ends of the political spectrum. Democrats have moved to the left – toward European-style social engineering. Republicans have become more populist, not in an authoritarian way, but in the sense that they represent ordinary people opposed to elitists in government, labor, finance, business and education. At the far-left are those who fly the Palestinian flag, and sick climate-cultists who destroy works of art to bring attention to their agenda. At the far-right are those who fly the Confederate flag, and xenophobes who would deport illegal aliens. Political choice has become more difficult for those inclined toward a politics of consensus and collaboration.

An emphasis on character by the media has replaced a focus on issues that affect the electorate. While Kamala Harris may have an edge when it comes to character, she is no paragon of virtue. Both candidates are fodder for the tabloids. The crucial differences between them are not in their character; it is their policy prescriptions. Like most politicians, Ms. Harris is chameleon-like when it comes to where she stands, except on issues like abortion, climate change and Hamas. She was, keep in mind, ranked the most liberal of all U.S. Senators in 2019 by GovTrack.us, a non-partisan Congress tracker. In contrast, Mr. Trump, apart from lacking a sense of humor, being a protectionist on trade, and wanting to make America great again, seems devoid of a consistent political ideology. But he has the advantage of not being a pietistic professional politician.

As November draws closer, voters must grapple with multiple issues: the economy/inflation, healthcare, foreign policy/defense, immigration, debt/deficits, abortion, education, climate/environment, entitlements, infrastructure, the Supreme Court, along with myriad concerns regarding the cultural environment, from the role of families, the threat from identity politics, to biological men participating in women’s sports.

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ISRAEL Comments turned off

Guest Contributor The World Held Hostage, Day 300: Countering Kamala’s Condescension, Bibi Bombs Away Bob Maistros

By on August 2nd, 2024

https://issuesinsights.com/2024/08/02/the-world-held-hostage-day-300-countering-kamalas-condescension-bibi-bombs-away/

A tragic milestone is reached today: Day 300 of Iran Hostage Crisis II, as reflected on this site.

And developments are moving fast and furious, even if the end of the ordeal has not for five Americans and some 65 other innocent captives still presumed alive.

As the marker approached, dynamic Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu delivered an oration for the ages, and took bold, decisive actions that could accelerate a deal to return the women, infants, and men who continue as pawns in Hamas’ cruel machinations.

And dimwitted presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris delivered remarks for the aged (i.e., stepping into the place of her deposed, dementia-ridden boss) that threatened to set the captives’ homecoming back indefinitely.

“The war in Gaza could end tomorrow if Hamas surrenders, disarms, and returns all the hostages,” Bibi boomed during his address before a joint congressional session. “But if they don’t, Israel will fight until we destroy Hamas’ military capabilities and its rule in Gaza and bring all our hostages home.”

Yet why would Hamas’ blood-soaked Caesars wave the white flag and cash in their caches of human poker chips given Harris’ winking assurances in her first appearance as de facto diplomat in chief?

After meeting Netanyahu, whom she had already dissed by skipping his speech – and following a dutiful but disingenuous recitation of the usual homilies about supporting Israel – Ms. Harris laid bare where her real sympathies lie as she embarrassed her guest with a regurgitation of warmed-over Palestinian propaganda:

To wit: 

I also expressed with the prime minister my serious concern about the scale of human suffering in Gaza, including the death of far too many innocent civilians. And I made clear my serious concern about the dire humanitarian situation there, with over 2 million people facing high levels of food insecurity and half a million people facing catastrophic levels of acute food insecurity.

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ANTI-SEMITISM, ISRAEL Comments turned off

Anti-Zionism and Antisemitism If you insist that the Jewish state is the only one that should not be allowed to defend itself against terrorist attacks, you are probably an antisemite. David Benatar

By on August 1st, 2024

An unqualified advocacy of two states, without adequate attention to Israel’s security, would very likely result in repeated threats of the kind Israel currently experiences from Hezbollah in Lebanon and from Hamas in Gaza. Advocating that inhabitants of the only Jewish state should expose themselves to such risks—especially if you would not expect that of any other country—is antisemitic in effect. Unless the political culture of the Middle East outside of Israel changes fundamentally, the likely effect of a binational, unitary, or even a federal state, would be to make things even worse for Israel’s Jews than they already are. As things stand, it is fantastical to suppose that a Palestinian state between “the river and the sea” would be any different from any of the states that currently surround Israel. If such a state were established, the results would be fatal to many Jews currently living in Israel. The events of 7 October 2023 provide ample evidence for this. Any Jews who survived the establishment of a Palestinian state would then be living in the kind of repressive regime that characterises the entire region, outside of Israel. In short, there is no plausible interpretation of “From the River to the Sea, Palestine will be Free” that could imply anything other than disaster for Israel’s Jews. If this is your plan to bring liberal democracy to Palestine, you are naïve at best. You may not be motivated by antisemitic prejudice, but your plan is antisemitic in effect.

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ANTI-SEMITISM, ISRAEL Comments turned off

Antisemitism: The Sinister Pattern The enemies of the Jews are the enemies of Enlightenment. Brett Hall (November 2023)

By on August 1st, 2024

https://quillette.com/2023/11/01/antisemitism-the-sinister-pattern/

The enemies of Israel are the enemies of reason and civilisation, and of our traditions of criticism. Those of us who like to think of ourselves as defenders of reason have a responsibility to speak out on this here and now, at one of the darkest times in modern history.

There are 7.2 million Jews living in Israel—73 percent of the population. So, less than three-quarters of Israel’s population is comprised of Jews. But Israel is a Jewish state, a state that exists to protect Jews. This is required because there have been systematic attempts over thousands of years to exterminate Jews. And ever since there have been Jews, there have been Jews in Israel. The first Jews populated the land where Israel is today in around 2,000 BCE. In other words, they have continuously occupied the land for close to 4,000 years.

There are around 15 million Jews living on Earth and of those who live outside Israel, most are found in the US, which has a Jewish population of around 6 million. By comparison there are 2.38 billion Christians and around 2.1 billion Muslims worldwide. Jews comprise only 0.2 percent of the total global population. Christians make up approximately 31.6 percent, Muslims around 25 percent, and Hindus 15 percent—even Buddhists make up around 8 percent. There would be many more Jews but for the continued and sometimes almost successful attempts to exterminate them. There is an asymmetry here.

Mainstream Islam explicitly teaches its adherents that Jews deserve death simply for being Jews. We could illustrate this with many passages from Islamic scripture, but one typical example will suffice, from a Hadith by Ibn ’Umar, reported by Al-Bukhari:

I heard the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) saying: “You (i.e., Muslims) will fight against the Jews and you will gain victory over them. The stones will (betray them) saying: ‘O Abdullah! There is a Jew hiding behind me; so kill him.”

Mainstream Islamic scripture is riddled with Jew hatred. Muslim children are taught this scripture. Of course, not all Muslims are antisemitic, but, again, there is an asymmetry here. Jewish scripture does not teach Jews to hate Muslims—if only because, when the Torah was written, Muslims did not exist. The Hebrew Bible predates Islam by around 2,500 years.

Israel has a population of approximately 9.4 million. Compare this to Egypt’s more than 110 million, Iran’s more than 88 million, Syria’s 22 million and Jordan’s 11.5 million. While Jews comprise only 0.2 percent of the global population, they fill our news reports night after night, years after year, generation after generation. Because they are always under attack: for being Jews and for defending themselves.

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WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

The Horror of an Iranian Nuclear Weapon by Nils A. Haug

By on August 1st, 2024

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/20827/iran-nuclear-weapon-horror

Iran has hardly been shy about articulating its genocidal objectives against Israel. Iran’s newly elected President Masoud Pezeshkian, in early July, reaffirmed “Tehran’s dedication to destroying Israel.” This aim, he added, is “rooted in the fundamental policies of the Islamic Republic.”

The question, therefore, is what exactly is to be done to prevent a nuclear catastrophe initiated by Iran, one that could arrive at any moment?

“In the Middle East, Iran is virtually behind all the terrorism…. When he founded the Islamic Republic, Ayatollah Khomeini pledged, ‘We will export our revolution to the entire world. We will export the Islamic revolution to the entire world’… which country ultimately stands in the way of Iran’s maniacal plans to impose radical Islam on the world?… It’s America, the guardian of Western civilization and the world’s greatest power. That’s why Iran sees America as its greatest enemy… Last month…. the foreign minister of Iran’s proxy, Hezbollah… said this: ‘This is not a war with Israel. Israel… is merely a tool. The main war, the real war, is with America.'” — Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, speaking before a joint session of the US Congress, July 25 2o24.

“Is this war now with Israel?… My answer is that this is not a war with Israel. Israel is merely a tool. The main war, the real war, is with America.” — Khalil Rizk, Hezbollah’s head of foreign relations on Al-Manar TV, June 17, 2024.

“The greatest tragedy of the Jewish people,” Nobel Peace Prize laureate Eli Wiesel stated, “is that they listen to the promises of their friends and not the threats of their enemies.”

The leaders of Israel should take seriously the threats of their enemies and act to protect both Israel and the Free World from potential imminent disaster.

The primary obligation of any national leader, including Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, is to protect the integrity of the country’s borders and to ensure the safety of every citizen. Netanyahu’s legal, political, and moral duty is to ensure that every citizen can live in peace, and be free, prosperous, and independent.

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ISRAEL Comments turned off

Ismail Haniyeh was a monster, not a ‘moderate’ His fascist violence caused untold suffering to Israelis and Palestinians alike. Brendan O’Neill

By on August 1st, 2024

https://www.spiked-online.com/2024/07/31/ismail-haniyeh-was-a-monster-not-a-moderate/

Forget ‘centrist dads’, there’s a new political character in town: the centrist fascist. The moderate Jew-killer. The middle-of-the-road cheerleader of mass murder. It’s Ismail Haniyeh of Hamas, who was bumped off in Tehran yesterday, presumably by the Israel Defence Forces. Reading the strangely pained media coverage of his death, you could be forgiven for thinking he’d been a pragmatic, upstanding guy, someone who was considered ‘very moderate’, in the words of Sky News crank, Alex Crawford. In truth, of course, he was a militant anti-Semite and we should spend as much time mourning his passing as he did the Jews his comrades butchered on 7 October: ie, none.

The m-word I expected to see in the commentary on Haniyeh was ‘murderous’ – the m-word I got was ‘moderate’. For all his ‘tough rhetoric’, he was actually ‘moderate and pragmatic’, says BBC correspondent, Yolande Knell. That ‘tough rhetoric’ included calling the 7 October pogrom a ‘victory’, agitating for a further ‘jihad of the swords’ (that is, more Jew murder), and chanting about the ‘army of Muhammad’ returning to wreak vengeance on Jews. BBC types will damn you as a crazy extremist if you say women don’t have cocks, and then straight-up depict a man who wanted to draw swords against Jews as a moderate.

He was ‘pragmatic’ and ‘open to negotiation’, says the Guardian. CNBC at least had the decency to caveat its insane commentary, only calling Haniyeh a ‘relatively moderate figure’. He was seen ‘as a moderate’, says Reuters, certainly in comparison with ‘more hardline’ Hamas leaders. Seriously, what does ‘moderate’ even mean in the Hamas context? This is a terror outfit whose founding charter committed it to the murder of Jews. And which slaughtered more Jews in one day on 7 October 2023 than anyone else had since the Nazis. A fascistic act Haniyeh celebrated. Perhaps he only wanted to kill some Jews, not all of them? Is that ‘pragmatism’ in Hamasworld?

The killing of Haniyeh has sent shockwaves around the world. He joined Hamas upon its creation in 1987. He swiftly moved up its ranks and by the late 1990s, following various stints in Israeli jails, he was running the office of Hamas’s founder, Sheikh Ahmed Yassin. He became Palestinian prime minister in 2006, after Hamas won the most seats in the Palestine-wide elections, but he was dismissed by the Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, in 2007. In 2017, he was elected leader of Hamas’s political wing, though he swiftly went into exile in Qatar where he lived it up as ordinary Gazans suffered in the various wars started by his cronies.

During the 2000s, as he soared to power in Hamas’s political wing, the movement’s military wing, the Al-Qassam Brigades, was murdering hundreds of Israelis. They detonated suicide bombs in discotheques, pizza restaurants, on buses. And they did so from a belief that ‘the Jews are the most despicable and contemptible nation to crawl upon the face of the Earth’, in the words of Hamas’s one-time minister of culture, Atallah Abu Al-Subh. Imagine if someone had told you, while all that racist slaughter was taking place 20 years ago, that one day the political head of the movement behind it would be borderline gushed over as a ‘moderate’ in the mainstream media. You’d have thought them mad. Yet here we are.

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ELECTIONS Comments turned off

Kamala Harris Is a Threat to America by Rich Lowry

By on August 1st, 2024

https://www.nationalreview.com/2024/07/kamala-harris-is-a-threat-to-america/

She can’t disguise it.

A week or so ago, the presidential election got less predictable — and more consequential.

For Kamala Harris, the newly anointed one, there is no part of the American system or compact that’s not up for grabs.

She favors packing the Supreme Court and vitiating or eliminating the Senate filibuster.

In other words, she wants to fundamentally alter two central institutions of the United States government to bring one to heel and to make the other better serve progressive ends. These aren’t 2019 positions. She endorsed Court-packing just days ago and was talking of shooting significant holes in the filibuster in 2022.

She revealed everything you need to know about her regard for checks on executive power during a 2020 primary debate. She laughed off the idea — defended by a Joe Biden then still demonstrating a vestigial institutionalism — that there might be constitutional limits on her ability to unilaterally impose gun-control measures.

It’s hard to imagine a more casual dismissal of the spirit of American constitutionalism.

Harris is hostile to those most American ideals of color-blindness and equality of opportunity, favoring instead the poisonous concept of “equity” that means achieving equal outcomes, as she herself has repeatedly put it. Most politicians at least would have had an internal tuning fork that would prevent them from saying this out loud. Not Kamala.

Of course, she’s a devotee of the 1619 Project, which trashes the history of the country she wants to lead, and a fan of its architect Nikole Hannah-Jones.

She has endorsed the divisive, unworkable, and unjust concept of reparations, although she’s been vague about what it would entail.

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NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

The Denigration of America’s Great Cities By Howard J. Warner

By on August 1st, 2024

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2024/08/the_denigration_of_america_s_great_cities.html

Why have Democrat-run blue cities become such hellholes?

I recently traveled by car to Baltimore to seek medical testing at Johns Hopkins Medical Center. 

I was shocked to see the many empty and boarded-up buildings between the Inner Harbor area, the athletic arenas for baseball, and football and the Johns Hopkins Medical campus. 

We stayed at the hotel located at the north-east corner of the campus, which was very pleasant.  Hospital security staff advised us to avoid the subway system between the harbor and the campus and to not walk that distance, though it is only a little more than a mile. 

We used an Uber service on this advice between the hotel and the harbor. 

On the route I noticed beautiful old narrow row homes well maintained only blocks from deserted buildings. 

I grew up in New York City and lived in three of the boroughs over my lifetime.  I was aware of neighborhoods to avoid due to crime, but never felt unsafe during those times.  I routinely used the New York City subways without concern. 

That was before the COVID crisis left many with a sense of dread and fear. 

I went to college in St. Louis and visited Chicago many times during that period.  I had little fear then, though I avoided crime-ridden neighborhoods.  I have visited Boston, Los Angeles, San Diego, and San Francisco many times over the years. 

But now I am much more cautious.

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ELECTIONS Comments turned off

Harris Is Recycling the 2020 Democrat Campaign Kamala Harris will struggle to replicate Joe Biden’s 2020 election strategy in 2024 due to her inability to project a moderate image and her radical political history. By Victor Davis Hanson

By on August 1st, 2024

https://amgreatness.com/2024/08/01/harris-is-recycling-the-2020-democrat-campaign/

Joe Biden won the 2020 presidential election through a successful tripartite subterfuge.

One, Biden never really campaigned. His handlers rightly assumed that the more the public and the media saw a debilitated Biden in the flesh, the less they would want him as president.

So, the Biden campaign used the COVID lockdowns to ensure that Biden stayed safe in his basement office.

Biden strategically distanced himself from disinterested journalists, using COVID as an excuse to avoid public appearances. It allowed him to run a 19th-century, front-porch sort of virtual campaign.

In his place, the liberal media, Democratic grandees, and the billionaire donor class served as Biden campaign surrogates—vastly outspending, out-advertising, and out-lawyering the underfunded incumbent Trump.

Second, again using COVID as a pretext, well-funded Democratic legal teams altered the voting laws during early 2020 in key swing states to encourage non-Election Day voting.

For the first time, majorities in many key states voted by mail-in/absentee ballots and during weeks of early voting.

We now know why the left was so motivated to push through radical balloting changes that were otherwise impossible prior to 2020 but have been mostly institutionalized since.

Non-Election Day ballots outnumbered Election Day ballots. They were far more likely to be cast by Democrats. And as the number of such ballots soared, the traditional rejection rate of non-Election Day ballots prior to 2020 fell—even as registrars were swamped.

Once obscure terms such as ballot harvesting and ballot curing became mainstream.

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ISRAEL Comments turned off

Eitan Fischberger Israel Settles Some Scores When unencumbered by international pressure, the Jewish state is an unstoppable force in fighting terrorists.

By on August 1st, 2024

https://www.city-journal.org/article/israel-settles-some-scores?skip=1

On July 30, Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh attended the inauguration ceremony of the Islamic Republic of Iran’s new president, Masoud Pezeshkian, where attendees chanted “Death to Israel, Death to America.” By the following morning, Haniyeh was dead, eliminated in a targeted strike on his Tehran home.

The strike, almost certainly conducted by Israel, was a stunning display of military precision and strategic prowess, made all the more astonishing by the fact that Fuad Shakr, effectively Hezbollah’s second in command, was taken out by Israel less than 12 hours earlier. Just two weeks ago, in Gaza, Israel appeared to have done the same to Mohammad Deif, the head of Hamas’s military brigades, with another targeted strike. These operations underscore a truth forgotten by Israel’s enemies, and even to an extent by Israel itself: when it chooses to be unencumbered by international pressure, Israel is an unstoppable force in the fight against terrorism.

Its recent series of targeted assassinations should send a stark warning to terrorist leaders worldwide: they are not safe. The moment they leave the safety of their underground bunkers—or their fancy accommodations in Qatar, in the case of Hamas leaders—they may find themselves in Israel’s crosshairs. To drive this message home even more powerfully, however, the international community, particularly the United States, should unequivocally express support for the strikes. Better yet, the U.S. should leverage its influence and pressure Qatar to expel the remaining Hamas officials enjoying safe haven in Doha.

Critics of the targeted assassinations will doubtless voice concern over potential escalatory responses from Hamas and Hezbollah, as well as other Iranian-backed proxies like the Houthis and Palestinian Islamic Jihad. But these critics forget that the escalation already occurred—on October 7, to be exact, when Hamas led thousands of terrorists in the most devastating mass slaughter of Jews since the Holocaust.

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