ANTI-SEMITISM, MEDIA Comments turned off

Gary Lineker: how virtue-signalling rots the soul His embrace of Israelophobia reveals the useful idiocy of the centrist dads. Tom Slater

Posted By on May 20th, 2025

https://www.spiked-online.com/2025/05/19/gary-lineker-how-virtue-signalling-rots-the-soul/

We’ve seen the most mediocre minds of a generation destroyed by virtue-signalling. Gary Lineker – now out of the BBC, after he ‘accidentally’ shared an anti-Semitic Instagram post – is a grimly instructive example of a moralising centrist dad whose thirst for retweets led him down a deranged and dark path. A man who has swanned effortlessly from raging against Brexit to comparing the Tories to the Nazis to reposting an ‘anti-Zionist’ video that included an image of a rat, a quintessential piece of Nazi-era, Jew-hating propaganda. Apparently, Gary’s famed ability to detect resonances of the 1930s – he once accused Suella Braverman’s immigration rhetoric of being positively Goebbels-esque – failed him on this occasion.

A formal statement is expected today, announcing Lineker’s departure from the BBC’s football coverage. He had already agreed to leave Match of the Day at the end of the football season – the show he has helmed since 1999, shortly after his dazzling playing career had ended – but he was due to stay on for the 2026 World Cup. Since Lineker shared that despicable post, by a group called Palestine Lobby, things have finally hit breaking point. Even an ‘unreserved’ apology – claiming his amplification of an age-old anti-Semitic trope was an ‘accident’ for which he takes ‘full responsibility’ – wasn’t enough to keep his already acrimonious relationship with the Beeb intact.

There are those who are trying to present this as a free-speech issue – largely people who have hitherto expressed no interest in the subject and have actually led high-profile cancellation crusades in the past. Woke leftist Owen Jones – who led the charge to get Toby Young pushed out of a government appointment – has declared his solidarity with Lineker, claiming ‘the BBC has driven out one of their most popular stars for opposing genocide’. Even though Israel’s war against Hamas is not a genocide and Lineker has actually been kicked out for reposting material straight out of Der Stürmer. By OJ’s wonky standards that doesn’t render you unfit for taxpayer-funded work, but jokes about tits on Twitter 10 years ago absolutely does.

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

This Is the Man Behind the Curtain of Biden’s Health Coverup Matt Margolis

Posted By on May 20th, 2025

https://pjmedia.com/matt-margolis/2025/05/19/the-real-criminal-behind-joe-bidens-health-cover-up-n4939953

For four years, Americans watched Joe Biden stumble—literally and figuratively—through his presidency, while his inner circle and media allies insisted everything was just fine. Any attempt to question his physical or mental decline was met with accusations of “ageism” or dismissed as wild conspiracy talk. This, from the same Democrats who once obsessed over Donald Trump’s mental fitness, but spent most of Biden’s term parroting absurd claims that he was “sharp as a tack,” “a beast,” or “running circles around his staff.” Videos of Biden looking lost on stage or mumbling were dismissed as “cheap fakes” by the Biden White House, and the media enthusiastically echoed that talking point.

It took a humiliating debate meltdown to finally make it clear they could no longer cover up the obvious. Only then did Democrats admit what everyone else had known for years: Joe Biden was neither physically capable nor mentally fit to serve as president. The charade is over—but the damage is done.

But, now, in light of the revelation of Joe Biden’s cancer diagnosis, Congress needs to subpoena Joe Biden’s White House physician, Dr. Kevin O’Connor, to answer questions.

In 2023, shortly before Biden announced his reelection campaign, O’Connor called Biden a “healthy, vigorous 80-year-old male” fit for the presidency. Everyone knew it was laughable. Biden was visibly deteriorating—stumbling through speeches, forgetting names, and needing direction just to exit a stage. The signs were there for anyone willing to look, and even then, some insiders were quietly admitting behind the scenes that there were serious concerns. Yet, a year later, O’Connor doubled down. In February 2024, he wrote, “The President feels well and this year’s physical identified no new concerns.” 

These claims were lies. Biden’s mental and physical struggles were evident daily, and insiders were already leaking concerns. O’Connor’s medical authority made his deception worse than political spin. 

His health reports gave everyone cover. Without him, the deception couldn’t have happened.

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Ilya Shapiro Courts Must Stop Schools from Transitioning Kids Without Parental Consent A recent appeals court ruling dismissing a lawsuit over a public school’s gender-transition policy underscores the need for judicial intervention to restore parental rights.

Posted By on May 20th, 2025

https://www.city-journal.org/article/leon-county-florida-school-board-gender-identity-littlejohn-case

The social contagion of gender confusion among American teenagers has been worsened considerably by educators. In many cases, school officials, most notably at public schools, have socially transitioned children, while deliberately concealing this information from parents.

One such case arose in Leon County, Florida (Tallahassee), where the school board established a comprehensive Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Gender Nonconforming and Questioning Support Guide. That guide specifically instructed educators that they should not tell parents when a child announces a transgender identity, and that children have a legally protected right to keep from their parents information regarding their gender identity and any steps the district takes to affirm that identity.

Operating on this guidance, administrators met secretly with January and Jeffrey Littlejohn’s 13-year-old daughter in the fall of 2020 to develop a “gender support plan” that allowed the child unilaterally to decide which name and pronouns to use, which restroom to visit, and with which sex she would lodge on overnight trips. The document also indicated that school staff would use a new name and “they/them” when referring to the child at school but would use the child’s given name and “she/her” when talking to her parents.

The Littlejohns sued in federal court, alleging violations of familial privacy and of their constitutional rights to direct the upbringing of their children and to make medical and mental-health decisions for them. The district court granted the defendants’ motion to dismiss for failure to state a claim upon which relief could be granted, and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit affirmed in a 2-1 split decision.

The appellate panel held that even if the Littlejohns alleged that defendants intentionally violated their constitutional rights, they had to allege further that the defendants’ conduct “shocked the conscience.” That “shock-the-conscience” requirement, per the majority, doesn’t apply to challenges of legislative actions, but it does apply to all claims that executive actions—like those of school officials—violate fundamental rights.

The decision was admittedly in tension with at least three other circuit precedents, each of which says that plaintiffs may win by showing either that the executive officials’ conduct violated their constitutional rights or that it shocked the conscience, but not necessarily both. Though he joined the majority because he felt bound to do so, Judge Kevin Newsom called the outcome “totally bizarre.”

ENVIRONMENT AND JUNK SCIENCE Comments turned off

Growth of wind ‘farms’ put Golden Eagle on ‘path to possible extinction’ By Olivia Murray

Posted By on May 20th, 2025

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2025/05/growth_of_wind_farms_put_golden_eagle_on_path_to_possible_extinction.html

Just a thought: Maybe if the environment and nature matter, we reconsider the towering slaughter machines killing all our birds?

A species that’s been ranked as a “least concern” by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (ICUN) is now on a fast track to “possible extinction.”

And, like essentially all the chaos, brokenness, and death one can observe in the modern world, if you unravel the thread to get to the why, you’ll no doubt arrive at a leftist policy in some capacity.

A drastic increase in violent crime? Look no further than the federal government’s “war on poverty,” open borders, and the promotion of godlessness.

A mental health crisis? Blame abortion—one out of every three or four women is post-abortive, and suffering from serious mental trauma. When men say women are getting crazier, there’s probably a good amount of truth to that. They’re very likely experiencing post-traumatic stress, and not being treated for it. Blame a “health care” industry that’s not focused on selling dangerous medications instead of health and healing. Blame a progressive “education” system that teaches that boys can be girls and girls can be boys, and all it takes is some irreparable mutilation to your sexual organs and a serious drug cocktail of synthetic hormones for the rest of your life.

A worthless dollar? Thank progressive spending to sustain progressive social programs.

A once-thriving species now backsliding toward extinction? Enter…those godawful wind turbines.

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

The FBI Washington Headquarters Won’t Be Missed The long-overdue shuttering of the FBI’s scandal-scarred Washington headquarters signals not just a change of address, but a necessary exile of the agency’s most politically corrupted core. By Victor Davis Hanson

Posted By on May 20th, 2025

https://amgreatness.com/2025/05/19/the-fbi-washington-headquarters-wont-be-missed/

Current FBI Director Kash Patel is closing down the agency’s Washington, DC, mothership office and moving at least 1,500 employees out of the DC area to regional offices.

The decision was not just Patel’s.

During the Biden Administration, it was determined that the 50-year-old Hoover building headquarters was structurally decrepit. More germanely, no prior FBI director had ever explained why nearly a third of the FBI workforce was centered in offices in Washington, far from where most of the serious crime in America occurs.

The news is welcome for reasons well beyond the safety of agents in an apparently unsafe headquarters.

It is no exaggeration to state that most of the FBI scandals of the last decade were born in the Hoover building headquarters, suggesting that the agency had long become top-heavy, politically weaponized, and deeply embedded in and compromised by the Washington apparat.

Former FBI Director, later appointed as special counsel, Robert Mueller ran a media-driven, 20-month, 40-million-dollar legal circus chasing the unicorn of “Russian collusion.” His left-wing legal team—replete with political conflicts of interest and scrubbed cell phones—was dubbed by the obsequious, giddy left-wing media as the “army,” “untouchables,” “all-stars,” “dream team,” and “hunter-killer teams.”

When called to testify about his investigation that had found no Russian-Trump collusion, Mueller implausibly denied any knowledge of the Steele dossier or FusionGPS. Yet they were arguably the very catalysts for his own special counsel appointment.

Two of his Washington FBI investigators were fired—the amorous Peter Strzok and Lisa Page—who had co-texted a deep personal antipathy toward Trump, the object of their investigations, and a desire to see him not become president, referred to as an “insurance policy.” Note that either the FBI or Mueller’s team also mysteriously lost the requested recorded texts and calls on the duo’s phones.

ISRAEL Comments turned off

Greta Thunberg, If You Can Stand Her She missed the boat, literally. She wasn’t on the good ship “Conscience”.Hugh Fitzgerald

Posted By on May 20th, 2025

https://www.frontpagemag.com/greta-thunberg-if-you-can-stand-her/

Greta Thunberg has received all sorts of acclaim for her work as an environmental warrior that began when she was scarcely out of grade school. But now that she’s 22, and has saved the planet, she’s gone on to other things. Would you be surprised to find out that she’s now going to make the world safe for Hamas? British journalist Brendan O’Neill takes her to task for her latest cause, and the malignancy of her attack on the tiny, embattled Jewish state that is now fighting a seven-front war for its survival. More on O’Neill’s dismemberment of Thunberg can be found here: “Greta Thunberg’s moral siege of Israel,” by Brendan O’Neill, Spiked, May 7, 2025:

Why isn’t Greta Thunberg sailing an aid ship to Sudan? Things are dire there. Two years of war have given rise to ‘catastrophic hunger levels’. The horrors dwarf ‘those in Ukraine, Gaza and Somalia combined’, reports Deutsche Welle. And yet the benighted Sudanese have failed to win the favour of the world’s best known eco-brat. Her boat is destined not for Africa but for the only strip of land that matters to the virtuous of the West: Gaza.

Sweden’s prophetess of doom is back in the news. She’s making waves with her plan to sail to Gaza. She and others from the turbo-smug keffiyeh classes had planned to sail on a boat called – wait for it – Conscience. Rumour has it they called it that because ‘Aren’t We F**king Wonderful?’ was too long for the hull. But their moral expedition has been put on hold after a drone fired on their boat in waters off Malta, causing damage but no casualties.

Actually, Greta missed the boat, literally. She wasn’t on the good ship “Conscience,” part of the Freedom Flotilla that was going to “break the Israeli siege” of Gaza by bringing humanitarian aid. Something else kept her from going, but if physically she was not present, in spirit she was definitely there. She’s been a hater of Israel much of her short life.

ISRAEL Comments turned off

The UN’s Pride Goes Before Delivering Humanitarian Relief in Gaza Insists on its own flawed aid delivery plan. by Joseph Klein

Posted By on May 20th, 2025

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm-plus/the-uns-pride-goes-before-delivering-humanitarian-relief-in-gaza/

United Nations senior officials from Secretary General Antonio Guterres on down have blamed only Israel for the current humanitarian crisis in Gaza. They claim that Israel, as the supposed “occupying power” in Gaza, is responsible for ensuring that the basic needs of the Palestinian civilians are met and has failed to do so. They continue to ignore Hamas’s refusal to end the war by immediately releasing all the remaining hostages and laying down its arms, as even Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas has asked Hamas to do. And they ignore Hamas’s theft of food and other critical supplies, which the terrorist organization has diverted for its own use or sold in the black market at outrageous prices.

The UN and its non-government organization (NGO) partners have shown that they cannot deliver food and other necessities directly to needy Palestinian civilians in Gaza in a safe and secure manner. Yet, the UN bureaucracy has rejected a new humanitarian plan that Israel and the United States have proposed which would do just that.

Under this plan, distribution sites would be set up within Gaza where Palestinian civilians can receive vital supplies from aid workers under the auspices of the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF). Israeli soldiers would be stationed beyond the sites’ perimeters to help prevent diversion by Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, and criminal organizations while also ensuring that Israel can remain secure. But the Israeli Defense Forces would not play any direct role in the distribution of aid.

GHF’s Board of Directors includes Nate Mook, the former CEO of World Central Kitchen and Special Advisor on Ukraine to the Howard G Buffett Foundation. Its Executive Director is Jake Wood, the founder and former CEO of Team Rubicon and a veteran of over 1500 disaster and humanitarian operations. The appointment of David Beasely, the former Executive Director of the United Nations World Food Program, to GHF’s Advisory Board is still being finalized.

According to GHF’s description of its operating model, it would “initially stand up four Secure Distribution Sites, each built to continuously serve 300,000 people—1.2 million Gazans in the initial phase, with capacity to expand past 2 million. Pre-packaged rations, hygiene kits, and medical supplies move through tightly controlled corridors, monitored in real time to prevent diversion.”

ISRAEL Comments turned off

How Arabs See Trump’s ‘Separate Peace’ and Deals With Islamists by Khaled Abu Toameh

Posted By on May 19th, 2025

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/21632/trump-deals-with-islamists

In the eyes of Iran and the Houthis, Trump’s separate peace deal that excluded Israel is a captivating green light to continue their attacks on “The Little Satan”, while obligingly halting their assaults on vessels in the Red Sea.

Trump’s deal with the Houthis sent everyone in the Middle East the message that the Trump administration has finally thrown Israel under the bus.

Worse, Trump’s agreement does not require the Houthis to abandon their jihad (holy war) against either the US or Israel.

“[The Palestinians are] ecstatic that their employer, Qatar, just “purchased” the US presidency with a $400 million 747 jet and a Golf Course….” — Ahmed Fouad Alkhatib, Palestinian political analyst, X, May 11, 2025.

Qatar wanted the American-Israeli hostage released as a gesture to Trump on the eve of his visit to the Gulf state. Hamas leaders were not able to say no to Qatar, and immediately complied.

This event shows that Qatar has enough influence over Hamas to instruct it to release all the hostages. Qatar could have used its influence from the beginning to force Hamas to release all of them; but it did not.

Qatar wants to make sure that its long-standing allies, Iran and Hamas, remain strong and in power after the current war.

Trump and his Special Envoy Steve Witkoff are being played and appear not even to know it. If they do know it, personal friendships and financial rescues have apparently taken priority over hard-nosed negotiating. Their only priority seems to have been raking in trillions of dollars from Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states, a Trump golf resort in Saudi Arabia, a $400 million “flying palace” from Qatar, a Trump hotel in Dubai and the promise of a Trump Tower in Damascus.

“Donald Trump may go down in history as the American President who empowered Islamism around the globe [by funding Syria’s al-Sharaa], more than any other president in the history of the USA.” — Nervana Mahmoud, Egyptian political analyst, X, May 13, 2025.

Trump and his advisors undoubtedly have good intentions, but… trying to strike deals with Iran and its Hamas and Houthi terror proxies, instead emboldens these terrorists and enemies of the US.

After Trump returns to Washington, he will quickly discover that the Islamists and their sponsors in the Middle East have not changed. Iran, Hamas and the Houthis will continue to call for death to Israel and America. Qatar will continue to provide political and financial support to anti-American Islamists and other Jihadis. As for Syria’s jihadist president, the belief that he will transform himself into a moderate pro-Western Arab leader and a democrat is, unfortunately, nothing but a joke.

Saudi Arabia, under Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, also appears to be moving in that direction, though at a much slower pace. MBS will not join the Abraham Accords. Trump’s wish that he would sign onto them “in your own time” is a sweet, naïve dream.

If Trump were to use military force against Iran’s nuclear weapons program, it would not only be a blow to Tehran and its terror proxies, it would enormously empower the moderate Arabs and Muslims who correctly view the mullahs as a threat to their national security and stability.

If Trump wants real peace and prosperity, he must, unfortunately, act against Iran and its terror proxies, and distance himself from jihadists and their sponsors, especially Qatar. Such a move would be the best way to expand the Abraham Accords and encourage other Arabs to seize hold of Trump’s great promise.

ISRAEL Comments turned off

Eurovision fans’ glorious f-you to the Israel haters Yuval Raphael winning the audience vote reveals the chasm between the new elites and the silent majority. Tom Slater

Posted By on May 19th, 2025

https://www.spiked-online.com/2025/05/18/eurovision-fans-glorious-f-you-to-the-israel-haters/

So Austria edged out Israel to win last night’s Eurovision Song Contest in Basel, Switzerland. Amid a resurgence of anti-Semitism among the cultural set, one might be tempted to reach for some crude historical references – given Basel was the birthplace of the modern Zionist movement, the venue for the First Zionist Congress in 1897, and Austria was the birthplace of, well, Hitler. But where the Jews and the Jewish State are concerned, last night’s grand final was a moment of triumph, even if contestant Yuval Raphael didn’t quite make it over the line.

In the run-up to this year’s Eurovision, there was all the usual frothing agitation, demanding the Jewish State be banned from the competition because of the ‘genocide’ activists insist Israel is committing in Gaza. Seemingly, they have no idea what genocide actually means and have forgotten that Hamas started this war when it butchered 1,200 people in Israel on 7 October 2023, targeting civilians for murder, rape and torture. That 24-year-old Raphael is a survivor of 7 October – indeed, the last major music event she attended before last night was the Nova festival – hasn’t dimmed their zealotry.

All the usual suspects dusted off their old open letters. They claim this is about the war, even though they’ve been calling for a boycott for decades. That Eurovision is organised by broadcasters, not by governments, never seems to phase them. It seems that all Israelis must be held accountable for the alleged misdeeds of their government – particularly for having the gall to defend itself and its people from genocidal Islamists.

BOOKS, EDUCATION Comments turned off

Lawless: The Miseducation of America’s Elites by Ilya Shapiro

Posted By on May 19th, 2025

In the past, Columbia Law School produced leaders like Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Now it produces window-smashing activists.

When protestors at Columbia broke into a build­ing and created illegal encampments, the student-led Columbia Law Review demanded that finals be canceled because of “distress.”

Law schools used to teach students how to think critically, advance logical arguments, and respect oppo­nents. Now those students cannot tolerate disagreement and reject the validity of the law itself. Rioting Ivy Leaguers are the same people who will soon:

Be America’s judges, DAs, and prosecutors
File and fight constitutional lawsuits
Advise Fortune 500 companies
Hire other left-wing diversity candidates to staff law firms and government offices
Run for higher office with an agenda of only enforcing laws that suit left-wing whims

In Lawless, Ilya Shapiro explains how we got here and what we can do about it. The problem is bigger than radical students and biased faculty—it’s institu­tional weakness. Shapiro met the mob firsthand when he posted a controversial tweet that led to calls for his firing from Georgetown Law. A four-month investi­gation eventually cleared him on a technicality but declared that if he offended anyone in the future, he’d create a “hostile educational environment” and be sub­ject to the inquisition again. Unable to do the job he was hired for, he resigned.

This cannot continue. In Lawless, Shapiro reveals how the illib­eral takeover of legal education is transforming our country. Unless we stop it now, the consequences will be with us for decades.