ELECTIONS, IMMIGRATION Comments turned off

Kamala Harris can’t repair her immigration record By Emily Jashinsky

Posted By on September 29th, 2024

https://unherd.com/newsroom/kamala-harris-cant-repair-her-immigration-record/

There’s not much Kamala Harris can do to negate the electoral consequences of this administration’s border policy except to keep quiet about it. Her campaign, though, appears to be doing the opposite. She’s leaning in.

As if to illustrate the point, the VP got doused with a metaphorical bucket of cold water on Friday afternoon just hours before she planned to deliver remarks from the border town of Douglas, Arizona. Republican Rep. Tony Gonzalez posted a letter he received this week from Immigration and Customs Enforcement revealing nearly half a million noncitizen convicted criminals are in the country, some of them outside of detention.

“As of July 21, 2024, there were 662,566 noncitizens with criminal histories on ICE’s national docket, which includes those detained by ICE, and on the agency’s non-detained docket,” an agency official wrote. “Of those, 435,719 are convicted criminals, and 226,847 have pending criminal charges.”

Fox News broke down the data by category, noting: “Those include 62,231 convicted of assault, 14,301 convicted of burglary, 56,533 with drug convictions and 13,099 convicted of homicide. An additional 2,521 have kidnapping convictions and 15,811 have sexual assault convictions. There are an additional 1,845 with pending homicide charges, 42,915 with assault charges, 3,266 with burglary charges and 4,250 with assault charges.”

These are eye-watering numbers. While they’re not broken down by year, consider this summary of the border numbers under the current administration from Left-leaning Vox: “For most of the decade before [Biden] took office, US Customs and Border Protection had in the range of 300,000 to 500,000 ‘encounters’ with migrants at the southern border each year. Under Biden, the average number has been about 2 million a year, with last year being the highest yet.”

ISRAEL Comments turned off

Killing Nasrallah Israel shows America how to win wars By Lee Smith

Posted By on September 29th, 2024

https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/israel-middle-east/articles/killing-nasrallah

Friday evening in the Levant, Israel targeted buildings in the southern suburbs of Beirut killing Hezbollah General Secretary Hassan Nasrallah. This operation represents a dramatic shift in Israeli strategy. Not only have they finally liquidated an adversary they’ve long been capable of killing, they’ve also turned a deaf ear to their superpower patron of more than half a century. But at this stage, heeding Washington’s advice in war is like taking counsel from the angel of death. Just as the U.S. is no longer willing or able to win the wars it commits Americans to fight, the Joe Biden administration won’t let U.S. allies win wars either.

By ordering the strike on Nasrallah while attending the U.N. General Assembly, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu underscored the Jewish state’s independence from the global consensus that has resolved not to confront terrorists but rather to appease them, whether they’re plotting in the Middle East or living among the local populations of Western nations, including the United States. Israel’s attack also shows that almost everything U.S. and other Western civilian and military leaders have believed about the Middle East for the last 20 years was simply a collection of excuses for losing wars. The questions that senior policymakers and Pentagon officials, think-tank experts and journalists have deliberated over since the invasion of Iraq—questions about the nature of modern warfare and the proper conduct of international relations in a multipolar world, etc.—can now be set aside for good because they have been resolved definitively.

The answers are as they ever were—at least before the start of the “global war on terror.” Contrary to the convictions of George W. Bush-era neoconservatives and the pro-Iran progressives in Barack Obama’s camp, securing a nation’s peace has nothing to do with winning narratives, or nation-building, or balancing U.S. allies against your mutual enemies for the sake of regional equilibrium, or any of the other academic theories generated to mask a generation’s worth of failure. Rather, it means killing your enemies, above all those who advocate and embody the causes that inspire others to exhaust their murderous energies against you. Thus, killing Nasrallah was essential.

WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Scathing Truths at the UN Javier Milei

Posted By on September 28th, 2024

https://quadrant.org.au/features/world/a-dose-of-unwanted-truth-at-the-un/

“From this day on, know that the Argentine Republic will abandon the position of historical neutrality that characterised us and will be at the forefront of the struggle to defend freedom. As Thomas Paine said, “Those who wish to reap the blessings of freedom must, as men, endure the fatigue of defending it.”

To the authorities of the United Nations, to the representatives of the various countries that make up the United Nations and to all the citizens of the world who are watching us, good afternoon. For those who do not know, I am not a politician, I am an economist, a libertarian liberal economist who has never had the ambition to be a politician and who was honored with the position of President of the Argentine Republic after the resounding failure of more than a century of collectivist policies — policies that destroyed our country.

This is my first speech before the UN General Assembly and I would like to take this opportunity, with humility, to alert the various nations of the world to the path they have been treading for decades and the danger of this very organisation’s failure to fulfill its original mission.

I do not come here to tell the world what to do. I come to tell the world, on the one hand, what will happen if the United Nations continues to promote collectivist policies, which they have been doing under the mandate of the 2030 Agenda, and, on the other hand, to lay out the values the new Argentina defends.

ELECTIONS, NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

When the Iranian Regime Intervenes in US Elections by Majid Rafizadeh

Posted By on September 28th, 2024

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/20971/iran-intervenes-us-elections

These remarks highlight Trump’s concerns about foreign interference and its potential impact on the integrity of U.S. elections….

In the past four years, significant funds, nearly $60 billion, have effectively been given to Iran’s mullahs by the Biden-Harris administration.

Starting a war against Israel through its proxies Hamas and Hezbollah, closing off the Suez Canal, and firing on US troops in the region more than 150 times just since October was apparently Iran’s gracious way of saying thank you.

That the Iranian regime is meddling in U.S. elections to support the Harris campaign, should serve as a jarring warning that Harris’s approach to Iran policy is one that would enable this expansionist regime to keep wreaking horrors on the world, both by itself and through its proxies, especially after it acquires nuclear capability. Why should Iran’s government, which treats its own people atrociously, be expected to treat others any better?

In a significant move that, since the establishment of Iran’s Islamist regime, Iranian leaders have actively extended their influence to support a political party and candidate in a U.S. presidential race. This notable intervention is directed towards aiding the Democratic ticket headed by Vice President Kamala Harris. It is a move that signals that Iran’s regime hopes to secure an even deeper geopolitical alignment after the upcoming U.S. elections.

The FBI recently confirmed that information stolen by the Iranian regime agents, through their hacking of Donald Trump’s campaign, was disseminated to individuals connected to the Democratic campaign.

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Catesby Leigh A Stirring Monument to America’s Warriors Sabin Howard’s A Soldier’s Journey brings a cinematic approach to the Great War—and defies the arrogance of Washington’s cultural elites.

Posted By on September 28th, 2024

https://www.city-journal.org/article/stirring-monument-to-americas-warriors

Sabin Howard’s engrossing 38-figure, high-relief sculpture—the centerpiece of Washington’s new National World War I Memorial, situated on Pennsylvania Avenue just east of the White House and Treasury Department—takes a cinematic approach to sculptural narrative. It commemorates a civilization-transforming conflict in which 116,516 Americans were killed and 204,000 wounded. The several scenes in what Howard calls his “movie in bronze,” portraying a soldier’s departure from home and family for war and its horrors and then his return, unfold from left to right in a work nearly 60 feet wide.

Entitled A Soldier’s Journey, the sculpture is noteworthy for several reasons. Its kinetic design, with changing tempos and moods and a range of character types, seems to resonate with visitors. In remarks at the memorial’s inauguration on September 13, Howard said that his sculpture heralds “an American cultural Renaissance.” There’s also a polemical edge to his public discourse, as when he told the historian Victor Davis Hanson in a recent podcast interview that the “art world” treats the public the way the government does.

Credit: Photo Courtesy of Catesby Leigh

A Soldier’s Journey appears at a time of growing aversion to elite arrogance and incompetence of the kind that foisted on the public Frank Gehry’s bloviated, $150 million Dwight D. Eisenhower Memorial (2021), with its rigid, lifeless statuary groups and enormous, unfathomable background tableau of metallic squiggles supposedly resembling the Pointe du Hoc. Back in 2018, Howard and the World War I memorial’s young architect, Joseph Weishaar, confronted such art-world arrogance when their project ran into headwinds at the federal Commission of Fine Arts, one of the guilty parties in the Ike memorial fiasco. The $44 million World War I memorial, mostly paid for with private funds, could wind up fortifying public opposition to boondoggles like Gehry’s, for which the American taxpayer got stuck with the bill.

MOVIES AND TELEVISION Comments turned off

Dinesh D’Souza hits it out of the park with new film ‘Vindicating Trump’ By Monica Showalter

Posted By on September 28th, 2024

https://www.ruthfullyyours.com/wp-admin/post-new.php

Dinesh D’Souza’s new film, “Vindicating Trump” hits the theatres tonight around the country, and should go a long way towards bringing the real Donald Trump to the public, including Democrats and independents. Go see it.

It’s fast-paced, it’s full of information, it has humorous moments, and it’s a polished production, so it’s a good film to see on movie night as the election seasons carries on.

Done as a tightly scripted docu-drama, and quite professionally done at that, given the short time it must have been produced in (I marvel at how quickly they must have gotten this done so smoothly), it starts with the rise of Trump and ends with the events today, but also projects into the election and the post-election, seeking answers about what voters are concerned about, which is fraud.

The storyline begins with the rise of Trump, brashness and all, and intellectually looks into first the calumny dished out against him, then the lawfare, and finally the assassination attempts, and carefully links how these trains of thinking build on one another, which makes the storyline coherent and powerful.

Some of it features actors in scenes re-enacting the chains of events that sought to take down Trump (and the acting is very good, it’s a splendid look into the minds of sleazeball political operatives, malevolent politicized government officials, and corrupted media satraps. The DoJ official named “Cliff” is particularly nasty. One of the funniest lines was between a couple of Screwtape-like characters not wanting to dig around in CNN’s “trash can” for media promoters). The wokesterly wokesters at the political operative desks are just so comically convincing. The acting here is very engaging, and you find yourself rooting for as well as wanting to throw rotten eggs the antagonists.

But it also features interviews with the actual players, including Trump himself, his daughter-in-law Lara Trump who leads the Republican National Committee, and his lawyer Alina Habba who has been present at all the Trump trials, describing what they saw and felt, and the effect is immersive and engrossing, even if you already know most of the story. 

However, that ‘most’ is merely that — there is a lot of new information and reporting within in that is well worth seeing the movie along for, particularly during the last half hour of the video, which if you see it on streaming, you may want to watch again and again.

ISRAEL Comments turned off

Israel Accused of the Crime of Defending Itself What other nation is disallowed to fight for its existence? by Hugh Fitzgerald

Posted By on September 28th, 2024

https://www.frontpagemag.com/israel-accused-of-the-crime-of-defending-itself/

British journalist Brendan O’Neill is appalled at the way so many in the West paint Israel’s efforts to defend itself as “war crimes.” No matter how precisely it attacks its targets — as the Hezbollah possessors of pagers, hand-held radios, and walkie-talkies were — the IDF is accused of “indiscriminate” killing in Lebanon. No matter how many ways the IDF warns civilians in Gaza to leave places and buildings that are about to be targeted, Israel remains accused of “indiscriminate” bombing. For too many people around the world, everything Israel does is “a war crime.” More on this world-wide condemnation of the Jewish state for defending itself can be found here: “This wasn’t a war crime – it was an audacious assault on anti-Semites,” by Brendan O’Neill, Spiked, September 18, 2024:

…All eyes are on Israel, naturally. Experts suspect Mossad intercepted a massive stash of pagers destined for Hezbollah militants and planted explosive material in the batteries. Then they sent a signal, from hundreds of miles away, that caused the batteries to overheat and eventually to blow up. The planning required for such a spectacular op blows the mind – no pun intended. I know Israelophobia is the default position of the influential classes, but surely even they will admit this was an ingenious way for the Jewish State to take out the adherents to a self-styled ‘army of god’ that has sworn itself to excising the ‘cancerous growth’ of Zionism from the Middle East. (They mean Jews.)…

That many in the West view Israel’s every action as criminal is depressing, but not surprising. Fundamentally, they think it is a crime for Israel to defend itself. They think it is a crime for Israel to take any action that might limit the threat posed by the apocalyptic anti-Semitism of Hezbollah and Hamas. And they think this because they think Israel’s very existence is a crime. They view the Jewish State as a criminal enterprise, a vile, law-defying blot not only on the Middle East but also on the reputation of humankind itself. When you harbour such intense, irrational hatred for one nation, it is a short step to telling that nation to down its weapons, lower its defences and let itself be attacked.

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

‘We’re Gonna Get You:’ Pro-Hamas Mob Rampages Across New York City During Mass Protest by Dion J. Pierre

Posted By on September 28th, 2024

https://www.algemeiner.com/2024/09/27/were-gonna-get-you-pro-hamas-mob-rampages-across-new-york-city-during-mass-protest/

Pro-Hamas activists stormed the streets of New York City on Thursday night, amassing in the hundreds to stage a demonstration outside the Loews Regency New York Hotel where Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was staying before addressing the United Nations the following morning.

“Netanyahu, we’re gonna get you,” the protesters, led by Within Our Lifetime (WOL) and its founder and leader Nerdeen Kiswani chanted, appearing to threaten the prime minister’s life. Flanked on all sides by dozens of New York City Police Department (NYPD) Bike Unit officers assigned to contain the demonstration, they waved Palestinian flags and signs calling for the destruction of Israel.

Later in the night, the protesters defied law enforcement officers’ orders to stay within the space they allowed, resulting in several arrests and additional charges for resisting arrest and obstructing justice. During the detainments, the protesters screamed expletives at officers, calling them “fascists,” “p—ssies,” and “pieces of sh—t.” Others, jamming their cell phone cameras into the thick of the confrontations, demanded to know the officers’ names, presumably to report them for misconduct.

In a statement WOL accused the NYPD of setting off a “cop riot to protect Netanyahu, the Butcher of Gaza.” It continued, “The NYPD incited another egregious riot against New Yorkers, arresting and injuring dozens. The NYPD’s violence and aggression exemplifies that they will continually prioritize protecting the forces of imperialism and zionism [sic] over the safety and rights of the people of NYC.” The group added that “two protesters remain in state custody.”

The demonstration shows that, nearly a year removed from Hamas’ Oct. 7 massacre across southern Israel, pro-Hamas extremists are as active as ever and intend to continue targeting major cities for mass disruptions and clashes with law enforcement.

ELECTIONS, NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

The Democrats’ Joy Of Hating America

Posted By on September 28th, 2024

https://issuesinsights.com/2024/09/27/the-democrats-joy-of-hating-america/

The London Telegraph reports that the Labour Party intentionally “threw open Britain’s borders to mass immigration to help socially engineer a ‘truly multicultural’ country.” Obviously, Labour feels the British culture is inferior and must be eradicated. America’s Democrats are no different. They hate their country so much they want to fundamentally transform it.

George Orwell captured the burgeoning self-hatred among the British smart set when he wrote in a 1941 essay:

England is perhaps the only great country whose intellectuals 
are ashamed of their own nationality. In left-wing circles it is always 
felt that there is something slightly disgraceful in being an Englishman 
and that it is a duty to snigger at every English institution. … All through the critical years many left-wingers were chipping 
away at English morale, trying to spread an outlook that was sometimes 
squashily pacifist, sometimes violently pro-Russian, but always 
anti-British.

In the 21st century, nothing has changed. The Telegraph’s 2009 story recounts “the huge increases in migrants over the last decade,” attributing it “to a politically motivated attempt by ministers to radically change the country” – this according to Andrew Neather, who advised the Tony Blair Labour government. Neather wrote in another British publication that mass immigration “enriched” the country and made London more attractive, more cosmopolitan.

Another purpose was to “rub the right’s nose in diversity,” which lines up perfectly with what the American left has been up to for several decades, because the right unabashedly, and sincerely, loves this country, and that triggers the other side.

ISRAEL Comments turned off

“An Age of Appeasement” Alan Mendoza

Posted By on September 28th, 2024

https://henryjacksonsociety.org/

The State of Israel is fighting for its future.

It began on the morning of October 7, 2023, when Hamas terrorists from Gaza invaded Israel. They went on to commit the worst pogrom since the Holocaust. Afterwards, Israel had no choice but to enter Gaza. The goal: eliminate Hamas. 

Cut to a year later, and Hamas has been nearly defeated. But, alas, Israel’s existential war is not over yet. Another terrorist threat looms large: Hezbollah. 

Every day since October 8, 2023, the Islamist group has been firing missiles from Lebanon into northern Israel. Their targets: Israeli civilians living peacefully next to the Israel-Lebanon border. Because of Hezbollah’s reign of terror, more than 100,000 people have had to flee their homes. They are staying in hotels paid for by the government, their lives on pause. 

The situation is no longer tenable. “We will return residents of the north safely to their homes,” said Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. 

To make that vow a reality, Israel has been going after Hezbollah. 

Last week, it remotely detonated the pagers and walkie-talkies of Hezbollah’s senior operatives. Although Israel has not officially taken responsibility for the operation, it has been widely attributed to its intelligence services. 

And this week, the IDF has been conducting precision air strikes on Hezbollah facilities in Lebanon. Several commanders have been killed, including the head of Hezbollah’s air units. Be in no doubt: the terrorists are on the ropes.