WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Murder, machetes and mobs in Britain The deeper issue is a corrosive breakdown of trust, social order and cohesion Melanie Phillips

Posted By on August 1st, 2024

https://melaniephillips.substack.com/p/murder-machetes-and-mobs-in-britain?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=77655&post_

Hardly had we managed to digest the horrific news of the massacre of small children at a Taylor Swift-themed dance class yesterday in a northern English town than we were looking on appalled at what followed.

At a school in Southport, three little girls aged six, seven and nine were murdered by a random attacker wielding a knife. Five of the eight other children who suffered stab wounds as well as two adults were left in a critical or serious condition.

The suspect who was captured was the Cardiff-born, 17 year-old son of Rwandan immigrants. At time of writing we know no more hard facts about him than that. 

But throughout yesterday X/Twitter and other social media were heaving with claims that the attacker had an Arab name, that he was a Syrian Muslim asylum-seeker and that he was on an MI6 watch list. 

None of these claims was remotely verifiable at the time, and today we have learned they were all untrue. There are reports that some of these claims originated from Russian bots or AI. Yet they were recycled all day yesterday by commentators and known influencers, demonstrably inflaming already heightened fury online.

The police made a point of announcing during the day that the attacker had been born in Cardiff. If this was an attempt to calm passions by showing that he wasn’t a Syrian asylum-seeker, it failed. The police announcement was treated with scorn. 

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Sanitizing Violent, Flag-Burning Pro-Hamas Protesters The ideological labels that weren’t. by Tim Graham

Posted By on August 1st, 2024

https://www.frontpagemag.com/sanitizing-violent-flag-burning-pro-hamas-protesters/

On the same day that President Joe Biden implied Jan. 6 was a darker day than 9/11 and Pearl Harbor, leftist protesters fought and shoved police and burned the American flag near the Capitol. They pulled down the American flag and replaced it with the Palestinian flag. Some flew the Hamas flag and vandalized monuments with spray-painted slogans like “Hamas is comin’” and “I commend Hamas.”

The occasion was Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu speaking to a joint session of Congress. So how would our D.C.-riot-hating media treat this? Some largely pretended it did not exist (like The Wall Street Journal news pages). Even Netanyahu denouncing some protesters as “useful idiots” for Iran didn’t drag out more detail.

Others went into denial. On the “PBS NewsHour,” reporter Nick Schifrin asked former Rep. Tom Malinowski (D-N.J.) about Netanyahu calling protesters “useful idiots” for Iran. Malinowski replied, “If you look at the protesters who are flying the Hamas flag and burning the American flag —” Schifrin interrupted: “You mean they’re flying the Palestinian flag.” No, photographs showed Hamas flags were flown by someone. It’s funny how they avoid that.

On NPR’s “All Things Considered,” reporter Jennifer Ludden found protesters to denounce Biden as a “silent accomplice,” but insisted they were “largely peaceful.” Shoving cops and vandalizing monuments and burning flags were not “considered.”

On NBC, you could see vandalized monuments behind anchorman Lester Holt, but he and reporter Andrea Mitchell merely used the “thousands of protesters” to underline that Netanyahu was controversial, not that the protesters were in any way controversial. No flag-burning appeared, and no violence toward police was pointed out.

ISRAEL, MEDIA Comments turned off

Media Mourns ‘Moderate,’ ‘Pragmatic’ Hamas Leader Who Wanted to Kill All the Jews By Daniel Greenfield

Posted By on August 1st, 2024

https://www.frontpagemag.com/media-mourns-moderate-pragmatic-hamas-leader-who-wanted-to-kill-all-the-jews/

After attending the inauguration of Iran’s new president among the festive chants of “Death to America” and “Death to Israel”, Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh found death waiting for him. 

“We always shout: ‘Death for the sake of Allah is our loftiest aspiration,’” Haniyeh had claimed. 

The Hamas billionaire who lived in luxury in Qatar hadn’t actually wanted to die, but he should have been careful what he wished for before the missile granted him the death he cheered for. 

After the Hamas atrocities of Oct 7, Haniyeh had declared that we need the “blood of the women, children, and elderly” to awaken the “revolutionary spirit”. But his his dreams of killing all the Jews and seizing Israel ended when he left the protection of U.S. terrorist “allies” like Qatar and Turkey, and visited Iran.   

Haniyeh never left Iran. 

Earlier, Israel had taken out Fuad Shukr, the number two figure in the Hezbollah Islamic terrorist group, still wanted by the United States for his role in the Marine Corps Barracks bombing in Beirut which killed 241 American military personnel. It followed that up by taking out Haniyeh even as he was staying under the terrorist regime’s military protection in the heart of Tehran. 

Allies from Doha, Moscow, Beijing and D.C. to CAIR to BLM to the BBC mourned his death. 

“Never say that those martyred in the cause of Allah are dead—in fact, they are alive!” CAIR San Francisco head Zahra Billoo tweeted. “Tonight, we mourn Ismail himself but know his martyrdom is not in vain.” 

ELECTIONS Comments turned off

Harris Gets Caught In A Big Fat Lie Right Out Of The Gate

Posted By on August 1st, 2024

https://issuesinsights.com/2024/08/01/harris-gets-caught-in-a-big-fat-lie-right-out-of-the-gate/

When CNN calls out a Democrat for lying, it’s worth sitting up and taking notice. That’s just what happened last week, after Kamala Harris’ first campaign rally.

“Donald Trump wants to take our country backward,” she said in Milwaukee. “He and his extreme Project 2025 agenda. Like, we know we got to take this seriously. And can you believe they put that thing in writing? Read it. It’s 900 pages.

“When you read it,” she goes on, “you will see Donald Trump intends to cut Social Security and Medicare. They intend to end the Affordable Care Act and take us back, then, to a time when insurance companies had the power to deny people with preexisting conditions.”

CNN, to its credit, read the 900-page document, or at least skimmed it, and in an article headlined “Fact check: Harris falsely claims Project 2025 blueprint calls for cutting Social Security,” it reports that:

The Project 2025 document does not show that Trump intends to cut Social Security; the document barely discusses Social Security at all and does not propose cuts to the program. In addition, contrary to Harris’ suggestion, Project 2025 does not call to ‘end’ the Affordable Care Act or eliminate its protections for people with pre-existing conditions. The document does criticize the Affordable Care Act, especially the law’s expansion of Medicaid, but makes clear it is advocating changes to the law rather than terminating the law entirely. (emphasis added)

In other words, Harris is just making sh*t up.

EDUCATION Comments turned off

Mark Bauerlein The Trustee Solution Florida’s experience proves that a strong governor and a few savvy and fearless conservatives can advance higher education reforms.

Posted By on July 31st, 2024

https://www.city-journal.org/article/the-trustee-solution-for-higher-education

Conservatives who have witnessed higher-education reforms fail to stop the spread of political correctness have good reason to be dismayed. There is, however, a promising tactic available to them right now, at least in some states, that requires little manpower and no extra cost. All it takes is a determined governor plus a few individuals experienced in academic politics and practice. Consider Florida.

In December 2022, a staffer in the office of Governor Ron DeSantis asked if I would serve as a trustee of New College of Florida, the small honors college in the state system founded in Sarasota in 1964. I agreed, as did Christopher Rufo, Charles Kessler, Matthew Spalding, and, later, Ryan Anderson. By the time of our first board meeting in late January 2023, word of our appointment had spread, and dozens of news stories fashioned a narrative: conservative vandals ruin liberal arts gem. Hundreds of protesters gathered outside the hall with megaphones and placards, while 200 students, professors, parents, and activists crowded inside to deliver public comment laced with invective. 

What happened next provided a lesson for the Right: a few conservatives and a strong governor can enact genuine reform—if they exploit the proper power center. Over the next several months, amid faculty and administrator hostility, media attacks, censure from scholarly associations, nonstop lawfare, and reproofs from politicians (California governor Gavin Newsom even came to Florida to commiserate with protesters), we fired the president and general counsel, hired a new president, ended DEI operations, denied early tenure to five candidates, abolished the gender studies major, recruited donors and new professors (sometimes over faculty opposition), and steered curricular revisions in a classical direction.

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

This Is Still Our Country By J.B. Shurk

Posted By on July 31st, 2024

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2024/07/this_is_still_our_country.html

It is a crazy time to be alive.  We have economic uncertainty, threats of war, political violence, and social turmoil.  An assassin nearly took President Trump’s life.  Puppet President Biden has been recycled for a younger model.  The Olympic Games openly mocks Christianity and celebrates transvestitism.  The EU, Russia, China, Iran, Israel, and the U.S. are all tiptoeing toward a little nuclear tête-à-tête.  Apprehension saturates the air.

Still, if you were a time-traveler from the future surveying the world as it unfolds today, you might whisper, “What an amazing time to be alive.”  That is a luxury that those who look back through history often enjoy.  Those living through chaos rarely write about trying times as marvelous adventures.  They are too busy struggling to survive.  

I do not wish to minimize the struggles that we will continue to experience, but I do want to take a small step back and recognize this moment for what it is: a hinge on the door of history opening up a new era for humanity.  The hallway we’ve been walking down for many decades has come to an end.  The door before us is shaking loudly as we fight for what reality will take shape on the other side.  Our situation is perilous and consequential.  

Future generations — buttressed by a misguided belief that their world was always foreordained — will dream about having been alive in our time, just as many of us have contemplated what it would have been like to fight in the trenches of WWI, endure the volatile interwar period, or beat back totalitarianism in the mid-twentieth century.  Ours is not an easy time…but it is one ripe with significance.

Is this a contest between communism and capitalism?  Is it a war between West and East?  Is it a clash of civilizations, cultures, religions, and traditional beliefs?  It is all of that and more.  At its heart, the revolution that is picking up speed throughout the world centers on one essential conflict: state supremacy versus individual freedom.  

The war that has already begun is the mechanism for answering a straightforward question: how much liberty will each of us be “allowed” to possess, and how much control will governments maintain over their respective populations?  As with all wars, this one concerns the exercise and retention of power.  Somewhat uniquely, however, our war will decide whether we individual humans are ultimately sovereign arbiters over the direction of our personal lives, or whether we are disposable cogs in an all-powerful government machine.

ELECTIONS Comments turned off

Kamala’s Running Mate Selection Process Takes a Humiliating Turn Matt Margolis

Posted By on July 31st, 2024

https://pjmedia.com/matt-margolis/2024/07/30/kamala-running-mate-selection-process-takes-a-humiliating-turn-n4931181

Kamala Harris’s search for a running mate has hit yet another snag. Previously, Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (D-Mich.) took herself out of consideration, and two others have followed suit since dirt dug up on them made them a lot less likely to be picked. Gov. Josh Shapiro (D-Pa.) has been accused of covering up sexual harassment in his office, and then Sen. Mark Kelly (D-Ariz.) has been exposed as the co-founder of a spy balloon company that was partially funded by China. This may not preclude Kamala from selecting either, but it likely hurts both of their chances.

Now, another top contender has taken his name out of consideration: Gov. Roy Cooper (D-N.C.).

According to the New York Times, Cooper “has informed [Harris’s] team that he has withdrawn from the vice-presidential sweepstakes, according to two people briefed on the matter.” 

“I strongly support Vice President Harris’ campaign for President,” Cooper said in a statement. “I know she’s going to win and I was honored to be considered for this role. This just wasn’t the right time for North Carolina and for me to potentially be on a national ticket.

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Fight Against Treachery by Lawrence Kadish

Posted By on July 31st, 2024

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/20821/fight-against-treachery

One does not need to embrace religion to recognize that something beyond our understanding saved former President Donald Trump from death. With the FBI confirming that it was, in fact, a bullet that came to within millimeters of a fatal head wound, Trump has survived an assassination attempt that would have changed the course of American history.

Some call it divine intervention. Others chalk it up to simply fate. It reminds us of those Americans who went to work in the Twin Towers on the morning of 9/11 and those delayed in transit. Today, we each must reflect on the forces that had an assassin miss his target by a literal hair’s breath.

Trump, shaking off the shock of a failed assassination attempt with an appeal to “fight,” stood tall, with blood on his face, his fist in the air and an appeal to “fight,” in defiance of treachery. It was a response that will go down in history.

Not so fortunate was an extraordinary firefighter, Corey Comperatore. As shots rang out at the rally, he lay across his family to protect their lives, taking a fatal bullet. Two others who attended the rally were severely wounded. We are praying for their swift and full recovery.

It may have been divine intervention that saved Donald Trump, but freedom is the Almighty’s gift enshrined in American values, Declaration of Independence, Constitution and Bill of Rights. Americans should be forever grateful to the founding fathers for their breathtaking wisdom and foresight.

FOREIGN POLICY, ISRAEL Comments turned off

Why Has the Biden Administration Donated Close to One Billion Dollars in “Aid” to Hamas since the October 7 Massacre? by Robert Williams

Posted By on July 31st, 2024

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/20811/biden-administration-donates-to-hamas

Since October 7…. the total of US taxpayer funds donated to Gaza as a reward since the massacre on October 7 to $896 million, or close to a billion dollars.

A lawsuit, brought in December 2022 and updated in March 2024, by Rep. Ronny Jackson and victims of terror attacks in Israel, alleges that President Joe Biden and Secretary of State Antony Blinken “knowingly and unlawfully” provided more than $1.5 billion in aid to Gaza and the West Bank since taking office. Biden and Blinken have “known for years” that the US aid is providing “material support” for Hamas’ “tunnels, rockets, weapon procurement, and command and control infrastructure,” among other terror structures, the lawsuit stated.

The Biden administration has sought to have the case dismissed twice but failed. On June 28, the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas ruled that the lawsuit can proceed, and that there is evidence the Biden administration continued awarding taxpayer cash to UNRWA even after Congress blocked funding to that group due to its support for Hamas’s military infrastructure.

In short, the Biden administration has donated less to Sudan and DRC Congo combined, where a total of nearly 50 million people face starvation, than to Gaza, where 2 million people face no such thing. What is going on? And where is Congress?

According to FBI director Christopher Wray, “the actions of Hamas and its allies will serve as an inspiration the likes of which we haven’t seen since ISIS launched its so-called caliphate years ago.” Iran, officially labeled the world’s leading sponsor of state terrorism by the 2023 US annual Terrorism Report, calls the US “the Great Satan” and continues to vow “Death to America.”

Blinken casually announced in a July 19 interview that Iran had reduced the time it would need to create sufficient fissile material for a nuclear weapon “to one to two weeks.” He then went on to gaslight the audience by claiming that the Biden administration has been “maximizing pressure on Iran across the board.”

Why is the Biden administration, under the pretense of “humanitarian aid,” drowning these terrorist enemies of America in US taxpayer money? And what, if anything, is Congress going to do about it?

ELECTIONS Comments turned off

Clips Of Harris Talking Are The New ‘Cheap Fakes’

Posted By on July 31st, 2024

https://issuesinsights.com/2024/07/31/media-now-calls-harris-clips-cheap-fakes/

Credit where due, the New York Times published a report on Monday noting that Kamala Harris has a lot of far-left baggage that she will be struggling with now that the Democratic Party has anointed her as its presidential candidate.

Indeed, she does. And there are reams of videos showcasing her extremist views across the board, fracking, defunding police, abortion, amnesty for illegals, socializing medicine.

But then the Times manages to sabotage its own reporting with this line: “video clips of her old statements and interviews are being weaponized as Republicans aim to define her as a left-wing radical who is out of step with swing voters.” (emphasis added)

Seriously? Showing video clips of Harris when she last ran for president constitutes “weaponizing” them?

This is from the same people who routinely misquote Donald Trump, make up quotes entirely, or try to spin something Trump said as a joke into a national crisis.

In any case, Republicans aren’t weaponizing anything. They are just doing what reporters should be doing, but won’t – informing the public about a person who completely flamed out in her first run for president and whom Biden picked as running mate solely to meet his self-imposed quota.

In a normal presidential campaign, pressing a candidate to justify, defend, or explain away previously expressed views is precisely what the press would do. They’re doing that right now to J.D. Vance.