WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Trudeau-One thing about Stupid-it’s contagious Diane Bederman

Posted By on February 18th, 2025

https://dianebederman.com/trudeau-one-thing-about-stupid-its-contagious/

One thing about Stupid-it’s contagious

Dear Canadians now booing the American anthem. You stand with Trudeau’s sudden case of righteousness regarding big, bad, old Trump and his calls for the annexation of Canada and implementation of tariffs.

Where were you when Trudeau stamped out the rights of hard-working  TRUCK-DRIVING Canadians when they refused to get the Covid shot after driving all over Canada and the USA, with no open rest stops or restaurants? He called these people and those of us standing with their right not to be jabbed; racists and misogynists .

January, 2022

“Yes, we will get out of this pandemic by vaccination. We all know people who are a little bit hesitant. We will continue to try and convince them, but there are also people who are fiercely against vaccination,”

“They are extremists who don’t believe in science, they’re often misogynists, also often racists. It’s a small group that muscles in, and we have to make a choice in terms of leaders, in terms of the country. Do we tolerate these people? Or do we say, hey, most of the Quebecois people – 80% – are vaccinated. We want to come back to things we like doing. It’s not those people who are blocking us.”

HOMELAND SECURITY, NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Texas: Muslim cleric announces construction of new Muslims-only enclave near Dallas Robert Spencer

Posted By on February 18th, 2025

https://jihadwatch.org/2025/02/texas-muslim-cleric-announces-construction-of-new-muslims-only-enclave-near-dallas?utm_source=

Allahu Akbar, Texas… A New Sharia City Near Dallas! THIS is how no-go zones begin. THIS is how the West falls… Radical Imam Yasir Qadhi—a terror-linked extremist—is now building EPIC City, a 1,000+ home Islamic stronghold just 30 minutes from Dallas, complete with Sharia-compliant schools, a mosque, and commercial hubs. And he’s selling it to non-Americans, pushing an Islamic separatist agenda right in the heart of Texas.

For many years I warned that Sharia enclaves would be established, and would continue to expand until conflict became inevitable. This was, of course, denounced as “Islamophobia.”

ISRAEL Comments turned off

Netanyahu’s tightrope, Trump’s net Ruthie Blum

Posted By on February 18th, 2025

https://www.jns.org/netanyahus-tightrope-trumps-net/

The Israeli opposition and so-called “international community” have spent most of the past 16 months lobbing two key demands—or accusations—at Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin (“Bibi”) Netanyahu. One is that he must introduce a clear plan for the “day after” Hamas. The other is that he “bring home all the hostages now.”

Busy fighting an existential defensive war against the terrorists who gleefully perpetrated the massacre of 1,200 people on Oct. 7, 2023, he has been unable to give a definitive answer. He did assert, however, that the Palestinian Authority could not assume any role in Gaza. “I will not allow us to replace Hamastan with Fatahstan,” he told the now-former administration in Washington.   

The second rebuke was akin to alleging that Bibi was holding the hostages in his basement. Never mind that he was deploying the might of the Israel Defense Forces to search for them while battling the barbarians responsible for their plight—those continuing to commit the worst atrocities against Jews since the Holocaust.

Last week, U.S. President Donald Trump answered both. First, he announced that the United States would take control of Gaza. Then—after witnessing the condition of the three men emerging last Saturday from captivity looking as though they’d been liberated from Auschwitz, and hearing Hamas say that it wouldn’t free the next three the following week—he delivered an ultimatum.

“If all of the hostages aren’t returned by Saturday, [Feb. 15] at 12 o’clock … I would say, cancel [the ceasefire deal] and all bets are off and let hell break out,” he declared to reporters at the White House. “And if they’re not returned—all of them, not in drips and drabs, not two and one and three and four and two–by Saturday at 12 o’clock … all hell is going to break out.”

IMMIGRATION Comments turned off

Trump’s Opening Move Against Migrant Sex Trafficking By Madeleine Rowley

Posted By on February 18th, 2025

https://www.thefp.com/p/trumps-opening-move-against-migrant?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email

Mellissa Harper, who was installed a few weeks ago as the temporary head of the federal government’s Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR), is wasting no time making important and necessary changes to the agency’s infamous Unaccompanied Alien Children program. On Friday, the agency released new guidance that will make it more difficult for members of transnational criminal organizations and pimps to “sponsor” teenage migrants and then traffic them for sex or labor. The problem grew significantly under the Biden administration, with three times more victims applying for government benefits under the Victims of Trafficking and Violence Protection Act during the Biden administration.

The most significant change is that all potential sponsors must be fingerprinted, and the fingerprints must be sent to the FBI to check for criminal records. No child will be released to a sponsor until their fingerprints are recorded in the unaccompanied child’s file. In addition, all identification documents must be legible and unexpired.

Critics of the Trump administration’s immigration policy complain that cumbersome fingerprinting and identification rules could delay the vetting of sponsors, leading to a backlog and overcrowding in shelters that house unaccompanied children. They also fear that under Harper, who has been an official with Immigration and Customs Enforcement since 2007, ORR will share information about the sponsors, most of whom are illegal immigrants themselves, with ICE, making it easier to arrest and deport them. But Harper was unapologetic in an email to the ORR staff. “The pervasive fraud in the sponsor process is undeniable,’ she wrote.

ANTI-SEMITISM, EDUCATION Comments turned off

Welcome to Hamassachusetts By Frannie Block and Will Sussman

Posted By on February 18th, 2025

https://www.thefp.com/p/welcome-to-hamassachusetts?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email

‘Rampant and ubiquitous antisemitism’ is making its way into the largest teachers union in New England, lawmakers say.

Inside the Massachusetts statehouse on Monday, State Representative Simon Cataldo displayed the image of a dollar bill folded into a Star of David in front of a packed audience of teachers, activists, and staffers. They were there to attend a hearing on the state of antisemitism in Massachusetts public schools.
(All visuals courtesy of the Massachusetts Special Commission on Combating Antisemitism)

“You’d agree that this is antisemitic imagery, correct?” Cataldo, who co-chairs the state’s Special Commission on Combating Antisemitism, asked Max Page, the president of the Massachusetts Teachers Association (MTA)—the largest union in New England, representing 117,000 members.

“I’m not gonna evaluate that,” Page responds calmly.

Cataldo pressed him. “Is it antisemitic?”

Page continued to sit stoically, before breaking into a smile. “You’re trying to get away from the central point,” Page said, “which is that we provide imagery, we provide resources for our members to consider, in their own intelligent, professional way.”

In fact, this image is referenced in materials recently made available to Massachusetts educators for teaching about the Middle East. Entitled “Resources on Israel and Occupied Palestine,” the union’s Training and Professional Learning Division developed the framework “for learning about the history and current events in Israel and Occupied Palestine, for MTA members to use with each other and their students.” Last December, the union published the resource document on a webpage accessible only to MTA members.

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Virtue Signaling Now Means You Have To Sell That Tesla

Posted By on February 18th, 2025

https://issuesinsights.com/2025/02/18/virtue-signaling-now-means-you-have-to-sell-that-tesla/

Remember when all the best people, the elites and elitists among us, the correct thinkers, the self-appointed guardians of all things good, were buying electric vehicles, particularly Teslas? What a terrific way for them to demonstrate their green street cred. But that’s passé. The latest in look-at-me virtue signaling is selling that Tesla to make an important political statement.

Because Tesla CEO Elon Musk is aiding President Donald Trump in rooting out federal waste and corruption, he’s become a villain to the left. To be caught in one his cars is simply an embarrassment to status seekers and the prigs obsessed with placing themselves on Barack Obama’s “right side of history.” So like entertainer Sheryl Crow, they have to unload their Teslas, and, naturally, do it as loudly as possible.

Last week, Crow “dramatically bid adieu to her black Tesla,” the New York Post reported, to protest the man she tagged on her Instagram account as “#PresidentMusk.”

Crow took to social media on Friday to reveal she had sold the electric car and was donating the money to NPR, “which Musk has repeatedly called to defund as his Department of Government Efficiency looks to slash federal funding.”

“My parents always said … you are who you hang out with,” wrote Crow. “There comes a time when you have to decide who you are willing to align with. So long Tesla.”

IMMIGRATION, NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Understanding the Fight Over Birthright Citizenship By John Fonte

Posted By on February 17th, 2025

https://tomklingenstein.com/understanding-the-fight-over-birthright-citizenship/

President Donald Trump has triggered the beginning of a national debate on automatic birthright citizenship. On his first day back in office, the president signed an executive order ending the practice. Almost immediately a court temporarily blocked the executive order. At the same time, legislation was quickly introduced in Congress to end automatic birthright citizenship, essentially supporting the executive order. No doubt this dance will continue with appeals and counter-appeals in the courts and actions in the Congress. 

Let us step back and review the over 150-year history of birthright citizenship and its significance for the core American principle of “government by the consent of the governed.” 

The majority of the American political and legal establishment argues that the 14th Amendment is clear: Anyone born in the United States (with the exception of the children of foreign diplomats and enemy soldiers) is automatically an American citizen whether their parents are in the country legally or illegally.

The relevant clause of the 14th Amendment states: “All persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.” Although there is no explicit exception for diplomats and enemy soldiers, these exceptions have long been understood to be covered by “jurisdiction.”

The Contours of the Debate

ISRAEL Comments turned off

Don’t Be Fooled: The Palestinian Authority Did Not Halt Payments To Terrorists by Bassam Tawil

Posted By on February 17th, 2025

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/21401/palestinian-authority-payments-to-terrorists

“Abbas claims to have ended the ‘Pay for Slay’ program – but it’s just a rebranding… Terrorists and their families will still receive payments, just through a ‘foundation’ under Abbas’s control instead of a ministry. The new foundation remains tied to the PA, making this a deceptive move, not real reform. The PA must truly end terror payments and incitement – not just change how they guise them.” — Misgav Institute for National Security and Zionist Strategy, X.com, February 12, 2025.

The Palestinian Authority has made it clear that it is making this change not because it believes it is wrong to fund terror, but because it needs US money. The Arabic version of the decree clearly states that the main goal is to “restore international aid programs that were suspended in the past years, which we need to implement development and economic recovery programs.”

While several international media outlets continue to argue that Abbas halted the payments to the terrorists, Monica al-Jaghoub, a senior official with the PA’s ruling Fatah faction (headed by Abbas), denied the claims.

The reality is that Abbas did not — and never will — stop the payments to terrorists and their families.

Did Palestinian Authority (PA) President Mahmoud Abbas halt payments to Palestinian terrorists and their families? Or is he just trying to fool the Americans to persuade them to resume financial aid to the PA?

On February 10, the American media outlet Axios reported:

“Abbas has issued a decree revoking the system of payments to families of Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails or to families of Palestinians who were killed or wounded during attacks against Israelis.”

The payment program is known as “Pay for Slay.”

PA officials told Axios that they hope Abbas’s decision will improve relations with the Trump administration and with Congress and lead to the resumption of US financial aid to the PA.

BOOKS Comments turned off

Houellebecq’s Annihilation: an unlikely antidote to nihilism His final novel strikes a rare note of hope among his usual cynicism and despair. Neil McCarthy

Posted By on February 17th, 2025

https://www.spiked-online.com/2025/02/16/houellebecqs-annihilation-an-unlikely-antidote-to-nihilism/

French master Michel Houellebecq has said that his latest novel, Annihilation, will be his last. If that does prove to be true, his departure will deprive us of a rare literary voice.

There is simply no one quite like Houellebecq. Through his novels he is able to explore the mood of the times, our spiritual malaise, in a way few other writers can. Take his last great succès de scandale – his 2015 novel, Submission. It dramatised the self-induced decline of the West and the rise of Islamism. And it did so by convincingly presenting the seemingly impossible – an Islamist political party assuming governmental power in France – as something entirely predictable and chillingly banal. He painted a picture of a political and cultural elite all too eager to collaborate with and ultimately submit to an Islamist regime.

Submission quickly acquired a tragic poignancy. On 7 January 2015, the exact day the novel was due to be published in France, two French-born Islamist gunmen massacred the staff of satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo on the grounds it had insulted Islam. Houellebecq suspended all promotional activities and left Paris to lie low.

At the same time, in an echo of the themes of Submission, too few among the French political class were willing to stand up for free speech, a fundamental principle of Western liberal democracies. Instead, they criticised Charlie Hebdo for its mockery of Islam. French prime minister Manuel Valls denounced ‘hatred’ and ‘intolerance’ towards Islam and Muslims. Tellingly, he insisted that ‘France is not Michel Houellebecq’.

We’re now a decade on from the Charlie Hebdo massacre. Houellebecq’s Anéantir, originally published in January 2022, was finally translated into English and published as Annihilation in late 2024.

This delay in publishing the translation is striking. Houellebecq’s previous novel, Serotonin, was published in France in January 2019 and the English translation appeared just months later. Contractual difficulties reportedly played a role in the delay of Annihilation. But it’s hard not to suspect that the increasing provincialisation of the Anglosphere played a role, too. In the 1950s and 1960s, the films of François Truffaut and Jean-Luc Godard, or the novels of Françoise Sagan and Marguerite Duras, were part of the culture here as well as in France. Today, the latest French novels or films barely register in the English-speaking world.

ISRAEL Comments turned off

President Trump’s policy toward Israel – underlying assumptions Yoram Ettinger

Posted By on February 17th, 2025

bit.ly/3X0cuLm

 
1. President Trump is not an impartial leader. As expected, he is driven by US interests, determining that Israel’s capabilities and track record have been a unique force and dollar multiplier for the US, commercially and militarily, technologically and operationally.

2. President Trump views Islamic terrorism as a threat to Western democracies, including the US (“The Great American Satan”) – a mutual threat to both the US and Israel. He is aware of NATO’s vacillation (No Action Talk Only), and its unwillingness to flex any effective military and political muscle against Islamic terrorism. Also, all pro-US Arab regimes have the machetes of Iran’s Ayatollahs and the Muslim Brotherhood at their throats. Thus, Israel is the most potent, reliable and experienced ally in the US’ battle against Islamic terrorism. Trump views Israel as an essential ally in his attempt to end wars and terrorism, which requires the obliteration – not containment – of the epicenters of war and terrorism (e.g., Iran’s Ayatollahs, Hamas and Hezbollah).

3. President Trump aspires to minimize US military presence in the Middle East. However, he does not ignore the critical role played by the Middle East as the main epicenter of global anti-US Islamic terrorism and drug trafficking, and the site of 48% of global oil reserves. Also, the Middle East is a junction of critical trade routes between Asia and West Europe, stretching between the Mediterranean, the Red Sea, the Indian Ocean, and the Persian Gulf and between Europe, Asia and Africa. President Trump considers Israel as the only effective ally to fill in the vacuum created by a US military withdrawal, serving as a US strategic beachhead, while not requiring US military personnel, only US military hardware – the largest US aircraft carrier with no Americans on board.