POLITICS Comments turned off

On a Party-Line Vote, House Democrats Reject Sanctions on Overseas Hamas Supporters By Jim Geraghty

Posted By on May 20th, 2021

https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/on-a-party-line-vote-house-democrats-reject-sanctions-on-overseas-hamas-supporters/?utm_

Another sterling moment in American legislative history: “Democrats blocked a bid to bring the Palestinian International Terrorism Support Prevention Act up for consideration in a 217-209 vote along party lines. The bill, introduced by Rep. Brian Mast, R-Fla., would impose sanctions on foreign entities known to have provided financial assistance to Hamas, among other measures.” The same bill passed the House unanimously in 2019, but was not taken up for a vote in the Senate. The U.S. currently has sanctions against Hamas itself and some limits on business dealings with the Palestinian Authority.

Still, there’s some evidence that Democrats who took this stance, opposing sanctions against Hamas supporters, are simply listening to their base. A new Trafalgar Group survey indicates that 38.5 percent of self-identified Democrats blame Israel for the current violence, 15.5 percent blame Hamas, about 6 percent each blame Iran and the Palestinian Authority, and 34.4 percent aren’t sure.

Meanwhile, 12.5 percent of self-identified Republicans blame Israel for the current violence, 42.5 percent blame Hamas, 14.6 percent blame Iran, 10.5 percent blame the Palestinian Authority, and 19.8 percent aren’t sure.

The Mast proposal forced Democrats’ hand. They could either take this action, and offer the potential of a genuine financial squeeze on Hamas, boxing in the Biden administration. Or the Democrats could look soft against a group launching rockets into civilian areas. (Maybe those Democrats saw an old photo of a Hamas rally and thought it was just Robert Byrd and Ralph Northam.)

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Chicago Mayor Refusing to Accept Interview Requests from White Journalists By Isaac Schorr

Posted By on May 20th, 2021

https://www.nationalreview.com/news/chicago-mayor-refusing-to-accept-interview-requests-from-white-journalists/

Chicago mayor Lori Lightfoot is only accepting interview requests from “black and brown journalists” as a matter of policy, according to a spokesman.

“As @chicagosmayor reaches her two year midway point as mayor, her spokeswoman says Lightfoot is granting 1 on 1 interviews-only to Black or Brown journalists,” local political journalist Mary Ann Ahern tweeted.

On Twitter, Lightfoot defended the policy, writing that she “ran [for mayor] to break up the status quo that was failing so many. That isn’t just in City Hall. It’s a shame that in 2021, the City Hall press corps is overwhelmingly White in a city where more than half of the city identifies as Black, Latino, AAPI or Native American.”

“This is exactly why I’m being intentional about prioritizing media requests from POC reporters on the occasion of the two-year anniversary of my inauguration as mayor of this great city” Lightfoot added, before noting that “we must be intentional about doing better.”

POLITICS Comments turned off

The Democrats Have a Kamala Harris Problem By Charles C. W. Cooke

Posted By on May 20th, 2021

https://www.nationalreview.com/2021/05/the-democrats-have-a-kamala-harris-problem/

It seems indisputable that the Democratic Party has a real interest in Harris being more popular than she is.

A mericans have never much liked Kamala Harris. Despite being theoretically well-placed to dominate the 2020 Democratic primary, she dropped out of the race in December of 2019 with just 3 percent support nationally and about 7 percent support in her home state of California. Now holding the vice presidency, Harris remains impressively unbeloved. Per a recent YouGov poll, her net approval rating is ten points underwater among all voters and 25 points underwater among independents, 44 percent of whom say they have a “very unfavorable” opinion. For a vice president to engender such feelings — especially at this stage in the cycle — is unusual, to say the least.

Still, that Harris is unpopular should come as no great surprise, given that she somehow manages to combine into a single package a transparent insincerity, an unvarnished authoritarianism, and a tendency toward precisely the sort of self-satisfied progressivism that helped the Republicans to limit their losses at the last general election. If her apologists wish to, they can pretend that the reaction Harris yields is “gendered” or “systemic” or “inequitable” or whatever other bastardized academic term is fashionable this week, and they should feel free to knock themselves out doing so. Deep down, though, they must know that America isn’t the problem here. The problem is that Harris is a phony. It remains the case that, throughout her entire public career, almost nobody has looked at Kamala Harris and thought, “Yes, she’s the person we need to lead us.” Sure, she’s won a couple of elections. But even in deep blue California, she has struggled. Her 2010 victory in the attorney general’s race was decided by just 74,000 votes out of more than 9.6 million cast, and ended up being so close that it took three weeks before the result was finally clear. There is a reason that, having been picked as Biden’s running mate, Harris was quickly shoved offstage.

ISRAEL, MEDIA Comments turned off

Media Bias: How ‘Woke’ AP Got Caught Lying (Again) About Israel And Terrorist Hamas

Posted By on May 20th, 2021

https://issuesinsights.com/2021/05/20/media-bias-how-woke-ap-got-caught-lying-again-about-israel-and-terrorist-hamas/

For journalists of a certain age, the Associated Press was the gold standard for hard, objective news. Facts mattered, opinions didn’t. It influenced the world. Even now, its website brags that “More than half the world’s population sees AP journalism every day.”

If true, that might not be a good thing. After recent revelations about its bias in reporting on Israel’s conflict with Hamas, the AP has again shown itself to be just another left-biased media outlet. When it comes to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, AP’s reporting can’t be trusted.

This is a tragedy for journalism. Generations of reporters knew they could cull facts and quotes from AP stories and trust that they were accurate and unbiased.

That’s no longer the case.

“Once considered the epitome of neutrality and fairness,” the American Spectator recently wrote, “the AP has become a woke organization.”

Its reporting simply isn’t reliable. AP’s rage over the Israel Defense Forces’ destruction of its offices in Gaza is a perfect example.

ISRAEL Comments turned off

Bassem Eid: An Open Letter to My Palestinian Brethren

Posted By on May 20th, 2021

https://www.investigativeproject.org/8858/bassem-eid-an-open-letter-to-my-palestinian

Thanks to Nurit Greenger for this….rsk

I know that the past 10 days have been incredibly devastating and equally bewildering. Why is the world letting the Israelis do this to you? I am writing to you, my Palestinian brothers and sisters, to open your eyes from the disinformation that your real captor, Hamas, is feeding you.

To my Palestinian brethren, I implore you: please do not let Hamas brainwash you into thinking it has “achieved” anything on our behalf.

Do not fall prey to its lies and manipulations. Hamas is not a social justice movement and it certainly does not care about me or you. It is a criminal gang that only cares about increasing its own power at all of our expense. Your lives start to improve only when the Hamas reign of terror finally ends. Only then will you actually taste the fruits of real peace with your Jewish cousins.

Yes, I know that to some in the media Hamas has more or less achieved its goal in this vile destructive war it started 10 days ago. It has spread fake news about Sheikh Jarrah being the core of Jewish aggression. It has incited violent riots at Al Aqsa by falsely claiming that the Jews are going to destroy Al Aqsa when that has never been true. And then it exploited the situation it created by starting a war with Israel to then justify its rocket attacks. All the while, Hamas showed Palestinians a clear contrast between its ability to act and Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas and his Fatah party’s inability to do much of anything.

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

“Missing the Forest for the Tree” Sydney Williams

Posted By on May 20th, 2021

http://www.swtotd.blogspot.com

Most Republicans do not want to denigrate President Trump, but neither do they want to elevate him. Benign neglect is the preferred path. The good of what he did – freeing up the economy from restrictive regulations and confining taxes, repatriating more than a trillion dollars in corporate cash, raising wages for the lowest income workers, and creating the most jobs ever for Black and Hispanic; taking real steps to resolve the border crisis; addressing the bureaucratic morass in Washington; calling out international governmental bodies for their undemocratic ways; getting NATO nations to pay a greater share of their defense; confronting enemies of freedom like Communist China, Russia and North Korea; signing the Abraham Accords and instigating Operation Warp Speed to get a COVOD-19 vaccine out in record time – was overshadowed by a supersized ego and mean-spirited, feckless Tweets.

Democrats, on the other hand, would like to keep the spirit of Donald Trump front and center. While it is true that his ardent Republican supporters do not want to give up on him, neither do Democrat leaders who see him as someone around whom they can rally their troops. Trump Derangement Syndrome helped Mr. Trump with the public when he was President because complaints about him were so outrageous. But it hurts the Republican Party and their chances today when anti-Trump opinions are voiced by other Republicans. “Prudent Republicans,” wrote Andrew McCarthy in the May 15th issue of National Review, “perceive that the best way to move on from Trump is to stop talking about him.” I agree.

If Republicans want to take control of the House and Senate in 2022, they will have to focus on issues, not on the personality of the former President. Single issue politicians detract from legitimate policy debates. In refusing to accept the outcome of the 2020 election, Mr. Trump has done no more than what Al Gore did in 2000 and Hillary Clinton did in 2016. In all three cases (2000, 2016, 2020), there were certainly electoral irregularities, but there always have been. However, from what we now know, none of those elections would have been reversed. “If questioning the results of a particular election were a crime, as many have asserted in the wake of the controversial 2020 election and its aftermath,” writes Mollie Hemingway in her forthcoming book Rigged: How the Media, Big Tech, and the Democrats Seized Our Elections, “nearly the entire Democratic Party and media establishment would have been incarcerated following the 2016 election.” It is not that Mr. Trump’s character should be ignored, but that it must be kept in perspective.

DAVID'S SLINGSHOT DPS, EDUCATION, ISRAEL Comments turned off

Dozens of Princeton Faculty Sign Letter on Mideast Conflict That Condemns Israel’s ‘Jewish Supremacy,’ Does Not Mention Hamas By Dion Pierre

Posted By on May 20th, 2021

https://www.algemeiner.com/2021/05/19/dozens-of-princeton-faculty-sign-letter-on-mideast-conflict-that-condemns-israeli-state-as-jewish-supremacy-does-not-mention-hamas/

At least fifty Princeton University faculty and staff signed a statement condemning “the ongoing attacks on the Palestinian people in Gaza by the Israeli armed forces,” in an open letter that decried Israel as a system based on Jewish supremacy, and made no mention of the Hamas militant group’s attacks on civilians.

“We condemn the displacement of Palestinian families in the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood of East Jerusalem — part of a decades long campaign of warfare, expulsion, unequal residency rights, and discriminatory planning policies that advances the ethnic cleansing of Jerusalem,” said the Tuesday letter. “The brutal system that controls Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories is ideologically founded on Jewish supremacy.”

Also signed by several hundred Princeton students and alumni, the letter continued, “We mourn all loss of life. We also refuse the ‘two-sides’ and ‘evenhandedness’ narrative that ignores and conceals the meaningful differences between Israel — one of the most heavily militarized states in the world that receives $3.8 billion in military aid annually from the United States — and a Palestinian population resisting occupation and oppression.”

“We salute the bravery and will-to-survival of Palestinians — in the Occupied West Bank, East Jerusalem, Gaza, and within Israel — as they resist the violence of the Israeli military, settler militias, and lynch mobs,” the letter said. It included no mention of Hamas, or the 4,000-plus rockets that the group has so far fired at Israeli territory.

Appearing in The Daily Princetonian, the letter also endorsed the so-called “Palestine and Praxis” open letter, a document signed by faculty from a range of universities urging their institutions to end partnerships with military, legal and academic entities “involved in entrenching Israel’s policies.”

IMMIGRATION Comments turned off

More than 61,000 migrants released into the US from the border under Biden by Anna Giaritelli,

Posted By on May 20th, 2021

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/more-than-61-000-released-border-biden

More than 61,000 immigrants who illegally crossed the U.S.-Mexico border have been released into the United States since President Joe Biden took office, according to federal data.

The federal immigration agencies that are responsible for apprehending and detaining immigrants have instead discharged tens of thousands of migrants into the country, despite the Biden administration’s claims that most migrant families are not being taken into custody in the first place. And it is the first time that an administration has greenlighted the release of immigrants without telling them when to appear in court, as previous administrations have done during surges.

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s Border Patrol allowed 61,312 illegal immigrants to walk out of their stations in February, March, and April. The number is a staggering increase from the 18 people who were let go during former President Donald Trump’s final full month in office, when the number of families showing up at the border was one-tenth of what it is at present. (Historically, though, more people attempt to migrate to the U.S. in the springtime than in the winter or summer months.)

The releases of adults and families do not include the tens of thousands of unaccompanied children who are also being discharged by the Department of Health and Human Services.

FOREIGN POLICY Comments turned off

Byron York The president appeases Putin

Posted By on May 20th, 2021

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/byron-yorks-daily-memo-the-president-appeases-putin

On Tuesday came word that President Joe Biden will waive sanctions on a major player in the construction of the Nord Stream 2 pipeline, which U.S. officials have long seen as a Russian threat to U.S. and European security. The pipeline, which is nearly completed, would transport natural gas from Russia to Germany. In the process, it would make both Germany and the rest of Europe — and the NATO alliance — vulnerable to the strategic desires of Russia and its leader, Vladimir Putin. Not surprisingly, the pipeline is a top-priority project for Putin.

President Donald Trump was a leading force in supporting sanctions against the companies and individuals involved in the pipeline. But now, Biden plans to ease sanctions on Nord Stream 2 AG, the company that is running the project, and its top official, Matthias Warnig. And here’s the odd thing: “The State Department will…acknowledge that the corporate entity in charge of the project (Nord Stream 2 AG) and its CEO, (Putin crony and former East German intelligence officer Matthias Warnig) are engaged in sanctionable activities,” writes Axios’ Jonathan Swan, who broke the story. “However, the State Department will waive the applications of those sanctions, citing U.S. national interests.”

What are those national interests? Swan reports that the Biden administration “is not willing to rupture its relationship with Germany” over the pipeline, which the administration insists it is still determined to stop.

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Both Republicans and Democrats in Congress oppose the pipeline and support sanctions related to it. But for Republicans especially, after listening to Democrats accuse President Trump of appeasing Putin, the administration’s decision is particularly galling. And add to that their unhappiness with Biden shutting down the Keystone XL pipeline project in the U.S.

ISRAEL, NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Has Everyone Gone Nuts? I can’t be the only person who has a Black Lives Matter sign but also believes Israel isn’t an apartheid state, who does Women’s Marches but thinks Hamas is not La Résistance. Where is everyone else? BY JILL KARGMAN

Posted By on May 19th, 2021

https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/arts-letters/articles/has-everyone-gone-nuts

When you’re like me and get a new asshole ripped daily by both the far right and the far left, it can feel like you’re in a Gary Larson cartoon as a dude on a tiny desert island with a palm tree. I don’t have a long white beard, but I definitely feel the weirdo isolation—this week more than ever before.

Over the past four years, my countless posts against that malignant narcissist Mango Mussolini sparked the ire of both his cosplaying Nazi followers and my own fanatical co-religionists, who regularly went ripshit on me for loathing their beloved leader. But that wasn’t going to stop me. I coped with the stress of 45 by sharing memes and following like-minded liberals who seemed to experience the same full-body cringe at Trump’s every idiotic move. While I got likes for commenting on his racism, sexism, or his orange neckgina, members of the other team called me an “ugly jew cunt” and more than a few Hasidic followers called me a fake Jew.

Those DMs never actually bothered me. Extreme religion—be it Pentecostal Christianity or extreme Orthodoxy of my own faith—has always disagreed with me, and probably always will. I have always suspected that no matter the faith, in any religion’s fundamentalist form the true believers all ultimately subjugate women and believe that being gay is a sin. Which is why all of their comments calling me an infidel have always been meaningless to me. If you don’t believe in hell, you don’t fear the bubbling sulfur of the Devil.

But that was before we were all plunged into Hades on Earth this past week, bombarded with horrific images on both sides of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. After a barrage of influencers, fashion brands, and random-ass TikTokers posted one-sided propaganda claiming that Israel was ethnically cleansing oppressors, I felt my blood simmering and decided to post a simple Insta story: “I support Israel’s right to defend itself,” it said, simply. “Oh, and PS to some of my gay friends who keep posting against this, Israel is the ONLY country in the Middle East that supports LGBT rights!”