NATIONAL SECURITY AND DEFENSE Comments turned off

Another U.S. military base under attack: Lackland Air Force Base returns fire on armed group in vehicle By Monica Showalter

Posted By on August 18th, 2024

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2024/08/another_u_s_military_base_under_attack_lackland_air_force_base_returns_fire_on_armed_group_in_vehicle.html

You’d think this might be bigger news, with reporters scruffing around for more information about it, pressuring public officials:

According to the Associated Press, which has the most complete account:

U.S. Air Force security guards exchanged gunfire with someone who twice opened fire on an entrance to Joint Base San Antonio-Lackland early Saturday, according to a spokesperson for the base.

“It was an off-base shooting from a passing vehicle that fired shots towards the gate, prompting our security forces to respond,” base spokesperson Stefanie Antosh said in a statement. “There is no threat to the installation. We had no injuries, no fatalities.”

Antosh said the shooting was being investigated by San Antonio police, who said in a release that the first shooting occurred about 2:15 a.m.

“The security personnel stated they heard several shots fired as well as the fired rounds go past them,” Sgt. Washington Moscoso said in the release. “After this incident, the security personnel added more armed guards as a precaution.”

A vehicle later stopped near the same entrance shortly after 4:30 a.m., Moscoso said.

EDUCATION Comments turned off

The Professor, His Nemesis, and a Scandal at Oberlin The story of how a liberal college promoted and defended an Iranian Islamist and betrayed its own values. Roya Hakakian

Posted By on August 18th, 2024

https://quillette.com/2024/08/08/the-professor-his-nemesis-and-a-scandal-at-oberlin-mohammad-jafar-mahallati-iran-islamism/

I. A Disappearance

On 28 November 2023, the profile of a tenured professor at Oberlin College disappeared from the school’s website. Only a day earlier, typing Mohammad Jafar Mahallati’s name into the site’s search box returned a page with an extensive biography and links to several of his posts and videos. His photograph was there, too: a bearded man with a greying hairline and a reticent smile that suited his title of Professor of Peace and Friendship Studies. Since 2007, he had been among the most prominent professors on campus.

A former top diplomat who had represented Iran at the United Nations from 1987–89, Mahallati had brought a certain metropolitan pizzazz to the small college, along with glamorous tales from his days of hobnobbing with a global who’s who of politicians and diplomats. Among academics, where consensus is hard to reach, nearly everyone remembers Mahallati as “magisterial.” If Shi’ism had a campaign ad made for the American consumer, Mahallati—who had swapped the Western suit and tie for the mandarin-collar blazer and shirt and drove a siren-red BMW around town—would be that ad.

Even the locals were smitten. The Iranian professor who had given them an annual Day of Friendship, complete with rainbow flags and peace t-shirts, was all the proof they needed that the George W. Bush administration was wrong to call Iran an evil state. With his arrival at Oberlin in 2007, he managed to infuse the humble small town with an air of cosmopolitan grandeur. And a few years later, he was appointed to the prestigious Nancy Schrom Dye Chair in Middle East and North African Studies. The chair’s namesake, Nancy Shrom Dye, was Oberlin’s president from 1994–2007, and it was Dye who brought Mahallati to Oberlin after she met him during two trips to Iran in the mid-2000s.

MEDICINE AND HEALTH Comments turned off

The Voter-Registration Guide Will See You Now By Stanley Goldfarb

Posted By on August 18th, 2024

https://www.nationalreview.com/2024/08/the-voter-registration-guide-will-see-you-now/

A worrisome new consensus in the medical community holds that doctors should be as concerned with politics as they are with medicine.

‘We again discussed . . . the importance of voting and the safety, security, and effectiveness of voting by mail.”

These probably aren’t the words you’d expect to see in a medical record. Yet that’s what a medical professional at a prominent northeastern hospital wrote earlier this year after seeing a patient. The record, a de-identified version of which was provided to my organization, shows a new and profoundly concerning trend in medicine: Leftists are making the doctor’s office a major cog in their voter-registration and turnout machine.

The movement has been building since at least 2020, growing out of the woke fixation with so-called “social determinants of health.” This concept holds that medical professionals should be as concerned with welfare, housing, and climate policy as they are with diagnosing illnesses and prescribing medications.

As the argument goes, such policies affect patient health, so health care has a duty to shape them. In 2022, the American Medical Association — which is thoroughly captured by woke ideologues — passed a resolution asserting that “voting is a social determinant of health.”

Statements from such influential sources signal to medical employers and educators that doctors should make voter registration a central part of their work. Medical journals are applying further pressure by publishing a slew of opinion articles and tendentious studies arguing that voter registration in medical settings will improve health equity.

Having practiced and worked in academic medicine for 50-plus years, I know that when the New England Journal of Medicine says jump, the medical establishment collectively leaps.

ELECTIONS Comments turned off

Beware Extremists in Green Hats at the Democratic National Convention By Robert Stilson

Posted By on August 18th, 2024

https://www.nationalreview.com/2024/08/beware-extremists-in-green-hats-at-the-democratic-national-convention/

The far-left, anti-Israel National Lawyers Guild has been mobilizing to assist the tens of thousands of protesters expected to hit the streets of Chicago.

If demonstrations unfold as expected at the Democratic National Convention next week, look for an occasional fluorescent-green hat among the protesters. This is the signature headgear worn by National Lawyers Guild (NLG) legal observers, who can often be found attending major left-wing protests in support of the demonstrators. They represent an organization that has long been one of the most deeply radical activist groups in the country and one that harbors a particularly virulent hostility toward Israel. They have expressed that hostility in some truly appalling ways.

Next week in Chicago, scores of radical groups are promising to “March on the DNC.” While the protesters’ ancillary demands span the full “Everything Leftism” spectrum, the overriding motivation is animosity toward “apartheid Israel” and the Democratic Party’s alleged complicity in a “genocide” in Gaza. Tens of thousands are expected to take to the streets.

For months, members of the NLG — a nonprofit association of leftist attorneys, law students, and other legal workers — have been mobilizing in anticipation, promising “on-the-ground support to all the courageous protesters.” This includes training sessions in protesters’ rights, assistance for any demonstrators who are arrested, and access to a network of volunteer attorneys ready to represent those facing charges. The guild’s local Chicago chapter will operate a 24/7 legal support hot line for convention protesters.

BOOKS Comments turned off

CHAPTER 32: Transhumanism, Big Lies, and the Great Reset Space Is No Longer the Final Frontier—Reality Is* by Linda Goudsmit

Posted By on August 18th, 2024

https://goudsmit.pundicity.com/27985/chapter-32-transhumanism-big-lies-and-the-great

: goudsmit.pundicity.com  and website: lindagoudsmit.com

We begin our discussion of transhumanism with its 2018 description from the World Economic Forum (WEF), “What is transhumanism and how does it affect you?”:[i]

The central premise of transhumanism is that biological evolution will eventually be overtaken by advances in genetic, wearable and implantable technologies that artificially expedite the evolutionary process…. The result is an iteration of Homo sapiens enhanced or augmented, but still fundamentally human….

Some distinguished scientists, such as Hans Moravec and Raymond Kurzweil, even advocate a posthuman condition: the end of humanity’s reliance on our congenital bodies by transforming “our frail version 1.0 human bodies into their far more durable and capable version 2.0 counterparts”.

Transhumanism is the political ideology promoted by the globalist elite in their quest for immortality. “Humanity 2.0” is the biological objective of the Fourth Industrial Revolution, and stakeholder capitalism is its economic engine.

Klaus Schwab, the premier 21st-century humanitarian huckster, is selling stakeholder capitalism as the central feature of the Great Reset, WEF’s economic recovery plan in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Schwab is selling enslavement dressed up as freedom, with the infamous slogan “You will own nothing and be happy.” In reality, stakeholder capitalism is a return to the binary sociopolitical system of feudalism, where you will be an indentured serf who owns nothing because the elite own everything, including you.

ELECTIONS, ISRAEL Comments turned off

Democratic convention to push for Israel arms embargo Andrea Shalal

Posted By on August 18th, 2024

https://www.aol.com/pro-palestinian-delegates-democratic-convention-195700854.html

CHICAGO (Reuters) -Dozens of Muslim delegates and their allies, angry at U.S. support for Israel’s offensive in Gaza, are seeking changes in the Democratic platform and plan to press for an arms embargo this week, putting the party on guard for disruptions to high-profile speeches at its national convention in Chicago.

Calling itself “Delegates Against Genocide,” the pro-Palestinian group says it will exercise its freedom of speech rights during main events at the four-day Democratic National Convention convening on Monday to formally nominate Vice President Kamala Harris for president in the Nov. 5 election against Republican former President Donald Trump.

Group organizers declined to give details, but said they were encouraging supporters to wear Palestinian keffiyehs, or scarves, and to carry Palestinian flags, and would seek changes in the party platform, while urging delegates to speak on the convention floor.

President Joe Biden is due to speak on Monday and Harris on Thursday.

Pro-Palestinian delegates say they deserve a bigger role in the writing of the party platform.

The group wants to include language backing enforcement of laws that ban giving military aid to individuals or security forces that commit gross violations of human rights.

“We’re going to make our voices heard,” said Liano Sharon, a Jewish business consultant and delegate who signed an alternative platform along with 34 other delegates. “Freedom of expression necessarily includes the right to stand up and be heard even when the authority in the room says to shut up.”

NATIONAL SECURITY AND DEFENSE Comments turned off

‘How Do We Organize for Revolution?’: U.S. Funding, Running Cover by Robert Williams

Posted By on August 18th, 2024

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/20868/organize-for-revolution

Iran has made no secret of the immense importance it places on the US protests – as a way to export its Islamic Revolution. They have been making it clear that the regime sees the protesters at US campuses as an Iranian fifth column in America to be used in the future….

According to the analysts, “60 percent of Pro-Palestine campus protestors were not authentic online users….” — XPOZ analyst, iranintel.com, August 2, 2024.

At UCLA, “Those who occupied encampments on the university’s property disallowed Jews from passing through the quad unless they would disavow Israel and, by extension, their Jewish faith. UCLA’s position had been that the encampments preventing Jewish students from accessing certain areas of campus were not its responsibility.” — August 14, 2024 according to National Review.

Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines was not particularly forthcoming about exactly where and how Iran is peddling its influence on US campuses. Haines’s only suggestion was to warn Americans to be “more vigilant”. How does one go about being “more vigilant” if one is not given a clue what to be vigilant about?

Why are Haines and Kirby deliberately misleading the public about the nature of these protests, which are anything but organic?

Protests were apparently planned well in advance of October 7. One of the lead organizers of the campus protests, the Hamas-affiliated Students for Justice in Palestine had a toolkit ready for a “Day of Resistance” just days after the massacre. While Haines and Kirby claim that the protests are “organic” and “in good faith,” Hamas, an Iranian proxy, had been organizing protests on US campuses.

Other foreign powers are also involved in stirring up the pro-Hamas protests: China is connected by means of an organization named Code Pink….

Significantly, the People’s Forum was behind the three-day conference in Detroit, “People’s Conference for Palestine.” At the conference, the People’s Forum’s executive director Manolo De Los Santos — to great applause — called for the complete destruction of the United States….

According to NGO Monitor, Answer Coalition, along with a multitude of pro-Hamas organizations, including CODEPINK, Palestinian Feminist Collective, Students for Justice in Palestine Chicago, American Muslims for Palestine Chicago, National Lawyers Guild -Task Force on the Americas/San Francisco Bay Area chapter, ANSWER Coalition – Chicago, Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network, Jewish Voice for Peace Chicago, U.S. Campaign for Palestinian Rights, U.S. Palestinian Community Network (USPCN), and National Students for Justice in Palestine are planning to “March on the DNC” on August 19-22, when the Democratic Party is scheduled to host its convention in Chicago.

“Pro-Palestinian protesters are backed by a surprising source: Biden’s biggest donors,” Politico revealed in May. “The donors include some of the biggest names in Democratic circles: Soros, Rockefeller and Pritzker…”

Finally, the Biden-Harris administration itself, and therefore taxpayer money, is funding the protests, through the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)… “a $50 million grant was awarded from the EPA through the Democrats’ Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) to ‘Climate Justice Alliance,’ a group that engages in pro-Hamas, anti-Israel, and anti-Semitic activities.” — US Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, May 21, 2024.

US officials shamefully use disinformation to confuse the American public.

ISRAEL Comments turned off

This Week Today Current Events from Israel: Rabbi Ben Packer

Posted By on August 18th, 2024

https://mailchi.mp/dd9d88d97a17/israel-current-events

Iran/Hezbollah/other evil crazies have still not retaliated for the recent assassinations of terrorist leaders. Why is that is the question that everyone is asking. Is it a strategic move? Are they scared of the repercussions? Are they waiting for a hostage/ceasefire deal in Gaza to get them out of the whole situation, at least temporarily? My bet is on the last one. As time has gone by, the pressure for a deal to free at least some of the hostages has intensified. Israel could try some kind of rescue attempt in the near future, but barring that, it would seem a deal is on the way, along with a way out for Iran/Hezbollah/Yemen and possibly Hamas, at least in the short term. I’m not saying I think this is a good idea, but I think this is where this is going. 

Meanwhile in Gaza
The IDF continues to hammer away at terrorists and terrorist infrastructure. In an attack on a terrorist headquarters located in a school, at least 31 Hamas and Islamic Jihad terrorists were killed. The Muslims and their allies have labeled the successful attack a massacre. Idiots. An Israeli soldier was killed in southern Gaza this week by a sniper. Despite this tragedy, there are many successes in the field. It all comes back to the original gamble by the head of Hamas Sinwar – how long can Israel continue to destroy Hamas before the international/domestic pressure stops it. If they get to Sinwar and his lieutenants, total victory can be achieved. Otherwise, Hamas remains a threat in Gaza. 

I read an interesting take this week that suggested that as long as the religious/right-wing community is willing to stay in reserve duty and fight in Gaza, the war will keep going. In essence, a grassroots situation where the lower ranking soldiers force the hand of the secular leftist leadership. A fascinating phenomenon indeed. 

Of course, occasionally the secular left will fight back, like they have in persecuting the reservists who are accused of abusing an imprisoned Nukhba terrorist from Oct. 7th. They even brought in the terrorist to testify! Let’s just say that in traditional Judaism we invalidate the legitimacy of testimony of a witness for much less than the hideous crimes of  Oct. 7th. As of now the soldiers have been released to house arrest. It’s a nice attempt to kill the morale of the other reservists, but unlikely to work. 

Finally, the top brass of the army and other security services (ie. secular leftists) are currently very publicly emphasizing their approval of any hostage deal, even one requiring a full pull out of Israeli forces from Gaza, including the border area with Egypt. Obviously, it’s not their job to support or oppose any deal, so it makes such behavior even more suspicious. They want this war over so they can start planning their asylum in Portugal. They might be surprised at how much of Israel would support such a move by them, but want the war to continue, without them in charge. 

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Harris’s Kamunist Agenda Faces Harsh Reality The socialists funneling ideas to Harris have put together an economic plan redolent of Venezuela or, indeed, the Soviet Union. By Roger Kimball

Posted By on August 18th, 2024

ttps://amgreatness.com/2024/08/18/harriss-kamunist-agenda-faces-harsh-reality/

Don’t cry for me, Argentina.

Cry for Kamala the Kamunist.

It took them a while, it’s true, but at least Argentina has someone with a rudimentary knowledge of economics in charge.

Indeed, Javier Milei, one of my favorite leaders on the world stage today (along with Viktor Orbán, Benjamin Netanyahu, Georgia Meloni, and Nayib Bukele) is a Trump-like dynamo.  If I had a more developed entrepreneurial bent, I would try marketing a line of Milei chainsaws in the United States.  Just as he took a chainsaw (sometimes literally) to excessive spending, regulation, and bureaucracy in Argentina, so my Mielei Chainsaws could be employed against waste, fraud, and abuse here across the fruited plain. Milei’s robust policies have put Argentina on the runway to economic success. They have slashed inflation—some 200% when he took office—and his abolition of rent control—surprise, surprise—has sparked a 195% rise in available housing stock.

Meanwhile, the socialists funneling ideas to Harris have put together an economic plan redolent of Venezuela or, indeed, the Soviet Union.  Its centerpiece revolves around centrally promulgated and enforced wage and price controls—a recipe for shortages and inflation.

The plan itself has been ridiculed across the ideological spectrum, from CNN to The Wall Street Journal.  “Harris’ plan to stop price gouging,” quoth CNN in a masterpiece of understatement,  “could create more problems than it solves.”

The WSJ was a bit franker. For one thing, there is “no evidence that supermarkets or other food retailers are gouging anyone. Food prices are higher than they were before the Biden Presidency, but that is because of inflation.”

And who caused that inflation, Kemo Sabe? The man with the keys to the money duplicating machine, Joe Biden or his handlers.

WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Stephen Schecter :Canada is showing us how societies collapse. The country is a microcosm for the Western world increasingly becoming a joke — a well-deserved one — and Israel would benefit from keeping its distance.

Posted By on August 18th, 2024

https://www.futureofjewish.com/subscribe?utm_source=email&utm_campaign=email-subscribe&r=1gcx7u&next=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.futureofjewish.com%2Fp%2Fthe-west-is-becoming-a-joke&utm_medium=email

Last week, Gay Pride Vancouver held its annual parade, only to cancel it half-way through because 20 to 30 “pro-Palestinian” masked protestors blocked the route of the parade at its mid-way point.

The police said the protest was peaceful and no arrests were made, not even for causing a public disturbance. The organizers stated afterwards that the decision to cancel the parade was not taken lightly, but as “the right to protest is a cornerstone of our democracy.”

Given that they “stand in solidarity with the protestors,” the organizers decided to cancel the rest of the parade and “focused on ensuring that our Parade participants and those who came to watch the parade dispersed safely.”

Wasn’t that nice of them?

Having not attended the parade myself, unlike Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau sporting a gay rainbow on a black t-shirt, I cannot vouch that among the parade participants this year there was the usual float of Queers Against Israeli Apartheid; but even if there was, it clearly was not enough for the more militant of the LGBTQ2TS+ community, who clearly felt obliged to make a more fervent statement supporting people who rape, mutilate, burn, and murder men, women, and children.

That they did so in their usual cowardly fashion, masking their faces, puts them right alongside the keffiyeh-sporting Palestinians they so adore and champion, as tightly bound to them as they can get without jumping into bed with them. For that, of course, they would be thrown off Gaza rooftops, but this prospect never seems to penetrate their dimwit brains, just as supporting vile murderers never strikes them as perhaps an abuse of free speech.

Nor does it occur to the Vancouver Police Department that this “peaceful protest” on behalf of crazed rapists that put an end to a parade is perhaps a violation of public order and a crime akin to shouting fire in a crowded cinema. But nothing of that sort seems to cross the minds of the good denizens of Vancouver, who pride themselves on the spirit of community that celebrates dead Jews.