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October 2022

Eco-Vandals Defaced a Van Gogh for the Stupidest Reason Ever and the Reactions Are Priceless By Stephen Green

Eco-vandals threw tomato soup on one of Van Gogh’s priceless “Sunflowers” paintings at Britain’s National Museum on Thursday, the latest in a long string of attacks on Western Civilization’s treasures.

The reason for the Van Gogh attack? Two members of Just Stop Oil attempted to destroy the artwork and glued themselves to the wall because they’re anti-oil and “Sunflowers” is an oil painting.

Get it?

Yeah, me neither.

The enemies of civilization are idiot vandal-savants with moral pretentious, dressed up like dues collectors from 1984′s Junior Anti-Sex League.

Here’s what passes for their thinking:

Van Gogh’s “Sunflowers” had nothing to do with climate change, [Just Stop Oil spokesweasel Mel Carrington] said. It was simply “an iconic painting, by an iconic painter” and an attack on it would generate headlines. But the choice of soup was more symbolic, Carrington said: In Britain, many householders were struggling to pay fuel and food bills because of soaring inflation, and some could not even afford to heat up a can of soup. The government should be helping ordinary people deal with “the cost of living crisis,” rather than enabling fossil fuel extraction, she added.

Fortunately, the only damage done was “some minor damage to the frame,” according to an email released by the National Gallery. The painting itself sits safely behind glass.

I’ve been to the National Museum. I’ve seen “Sunflowers.” I’ve seen the protective glass. I’d rather have seen Van Gogh unencumbered, but I understand that the West’s treasures must be protected from the two-legged animals behind groups like Just Stop Oil.

Witness now your so-called moral betters, overgrown children still in need of a spanking:

Unavoidably, our “protestors” got what they wanted — the world talking about them.

But maybe not in the way they intended, if these selections from my Twitter timeline are any indication.

Enjoy.

Commander Salamander is one of my favorite milbloggers — one of my favorite bloggers, period. His suggestion is exactly what we ought to do, with the glued-down protestors as much on display as the art for visitors to the National Gallery.

I have to get a little more serious with this next one.

Please burn this line into your brain: “The vandalism or destruction of art is always an authoritarian act.”

Even some lefties can’t get behind this particularly stupid and futile act.

girl i’m down with the cause but van gogh was a broke mentally ill painter considered a failure until his death like what does he have to do with this https://t.co/cNpgoBKPd7

— matt (@mattxiv) October 14, 2022

Here’s another.

Kurt Schlichter has had quite enough, as you’ll see below. But it was one of the replies (also below) that really caught my eye.

Tom Clancy did just that to the environmental wackos who tried to wipe out humanity in Rainbow Six, and it’s an admirable solution. I’d also recommend no insect repellent, clothes, or food. Enjoy your nature, kids!

Oh, and ignore that comment from Ian Miles Cheong about the painting being “destroyed.” Ian provides good links and some solid content, but sometimes he plays a little fast and loose with the facts.

That’s enough for today, and I’m going to try not to lose any sleep wondering where Western Civilization’s children-with-daddy-issues will strike next.

Mohammed Khalid Alyahya: How to Lose Friends and Influence Over People A decade of Obama-Biden foreign policy has broken the Middle East and America’s security order

https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/news/articles/how-to-lose-friends-and-influence-over-people-saudi-arabia-obama-biden

Americans have a reputation, with others and in their own national literature, for being careless and breaking things. Often this is because they are so admirably creative, dynamic, and unattached to the past. But for the last two decades, the epicenter of American carelessness has been the Middle East, an area of the world that seems to encourage fantasies among all Westerners, yet where real-world margins for error are small. The result has been a series of disasters for the peoples of the region and for American prestige. This week brought what looks like another unforced error in policymaking, fed by hubris, fantasy, airy talk, and a refusal to acknowledge reality.

On Tuesday, White House national security spokesman John Kirby announced that President Joe Biden will be reevaluating America’s relationship with Saudi Arabia after OPEC+ announced the previous week that it would cut oil production. Kirby’s announcement followed a statement by Sen. Robert Menendez, D-N.J., claiming that Saudi Arabia is helping to “underwrite Putin’s war” through OPEC+. “As Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee,” Menendez said, “I will not green-light any cooperation with Riyadh until the Kingdom reassesses its position with respect to the war in Ukraine.”

As a Saudi who loves the United States, and believes deeply that our two countries need each other, the only word that comes to mind regarding the contemporary “reevaluation” of our relations is: obscene.

It was the Obama administration that decided to give Vladimir Putin a foothold in the eastern Mediterranean, which it sold to the American people as a way to “deescalate” the civil war in Syria. As the United States romanced Putin, offering him Crimea and warm water ports in Syria in exchange for pulling Iran’s irons out of the fire over the past decade, U.S. allies like Saudi Arabia, the Gulf States, and Israel have had no choice but to cope. Last month, while Russian-operated Iranian drones and missiles were pounding Kyiv, Riyadh used its diplomatic leverage to obtain the release of American and British POWs from Putin.

Pfizer board member Scott Gottlieb secretly pressed Twitter to censor me days before Twitter suspended my account last year After White House pressure failed to force Twitter to ban me immediately, Gottlieb, who was in contact with federal officials, stepped in; I will be suing him, Pfizer, and the Biden Administration:Alex Berenson

https://alexberenson.substack.com/p/pfizer-board-member-scott-gottlieb

On August 24, 2021, Dr. Scott Gottlieb sent an urgent email about my reporting to a contact at Twitter.

Gottlieb is the former commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration, a close colleague of many federal officials – and a senior board member of Pfizer, which has made $70 billion selling mRNA vaccines.

In his email, Gottlieb forwarded an article I had written about Dr. Anthony Fauci on this Substack and complained, “This is whats promoted on Twitter. This is why Tony needs a security detail.”

Thus Gottlieb — whom Pfizer pays almost $400,000 a year to serve on its board, including its highest-level “executive committee” — began the final act in a secret months-long conspiracy to suppress my basic American right to free speech.

The conspirators included corporate, private, and federal actors.

They wanted to block my reporting about the failure of the mRNA Covid vaccines. They wanted to suppress debate about the necessity for vaccine boosters or mandates.

They wanted Twitter, the most important global platform for journalism, to ban me, even though Twitter had repeatedly found my posts did not violate its rules. They wanted to soil my reputation as a reporter and damage me and my family financially.

For a time, they succeeded.

Hysteria greets Truss’s proposed embassy move The real objection is that it would signal an end to Britain’s capitulation to Arab lies Melanie Phillips

https://melaniephillips.substack.com/p/hysteria-greets-trusss-proposed-embassy?utm_source=email

In Britain, it’s diplomatic Groundhog Day all over again.

Prime Minister Liz Truss has said she wants to move the British embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.

When former US President Donald Trump similarly proposed moving the American embassy, liberals grabbed for the smelling salts. The outcome of such a move, they predicted, would be Armageddon. The entire Arab world would rise up in fury. The relocation of the embassy would utterly destroy the cause of peace.

None of this occurred. Instead, the precise opposite took place. The embassy was moved in May 2018. In September 2020, the historic Abraham Accords were signed between Israel and the Gulf states, a development that did more to advance the cause of peace between Israel and the Arabs than anything else over the course of the previous century.

Yet Truss’s aspiration has provoked similar hysteria in Britain. While the main representative organisation of British Jews, the Board of Deputies, has said it hopes the embassy move will happen, the foreign policy establishment, along with the usual Israel-bashing suspects and some left-wing British Jews, have all gone into meltdown.

It’s as if the whole experience of the US embassy move — the ludicrously overheated response to Trump’s plan and the actual, rather wonderful aftermath — never happened.

Thus, Labour MP Naz Shah sent a letter to Truss warning that moving the British embassy might become a “catalyst of uncontrollable catastrophic events”. Similarly, the left-wing Jewish group Yachad claimed the move “could spark protests and violence” and the UK would be helping entrench such “violence”. What’s their evidence for such a prediction? There isn’t any.

The British establishment has similarly been clutching its pearls and piously intoning its fears for peace. The Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, has expressed his “concern” about the move “before a negotiated settlement between Palestinians and Israelis has been reached”. Cardinal Vincent Nichols, the country’s most senior Catholic cleric, said that relocating the embassy would be “seriously damaging to any possibility of lasting peace in the region”. Given the unwavering rejectionism, violence and incitement by the Palestinian Arabs, the idea that a peaceful settlement would otherwise be a real option is simply delusional.

But the delusion goes deeper. Many of those crying foul over the plan seem to believe that moving the embassy to Jerusalem would scupper the “two-state solution” and cement Israel’s supposed land-grab of the eastern part of the city.

Durham Trial: ‘Salacious and Unverified’ Trump-Russia Dossier Story Too Juicy for FBI to Check By Victoria Taft

https://pjmedia.com/uncategorized/victoria-taft/2022/10/13/durham-trial-salacious-and-unverified-trump-russia-dossier-story-too-juicy-for-fbi-to-check-n1636765

An FBI intelligence analyst testifying in the special counsel probe by John Durham says he never really checked the fake story about the so-called “Steele dossier” in the Trump Russia collusion hoax — including the infamous and non-existent “pee tape” — and assumed FBI sources were telling the truth. This, even though the FBI offered a $1 million payday to verify it (it went uncollected), proving the FBI knew it was “salacious and unverified” in the words of former FBI chief James Comey. But knowing that, the FBI used the dossier against Donald Trump anyway and lied to the nation’s top spy court to get a warrant to spy on his campaign.

That was basically the upshot from the first couple of days of testimony in a Virginia courtroom in the John Durham special counsel probe into the derivation of the fake Russia collusion scandal.

The lies told by the professional fabulists about Donald Trump being a Russian secret agent were so tantalizing that the FBI thought them too good to check. The FBI offered the dossier novelist, former MI6 spy Christopher Steele, $1 million, labeled a “bribe” by constitutional attorney and radio host Mark Levin, to prove the allegations.

But that didn’t matter. In a high-stakes game of Ding Dong Ditch, FBI investigators put their swamp droppings in a brown bag, lit it on fire, and threw the whole damn mess on the front porch of the FISA spy court.

Why Ron DeSantis Should Run in 2024 For DeSantis, 2024 is the only time to run. By Brandon J. Weichert

https://amgreatness.com/2022/10/13/why-ron-desantis-should-run-in-2024/

Ron DeSantis is a veteran who has spent his time since leaving the military serving his home state of Florida. He is dedicated to his family and is a proven leader in his state—most recently navigating my hometown in Southwest Florida through the disastrous impact of Hurricane Ian. DeSantis has all the hallmarks of a president-in-the-making. Since 2018, DeSantis has led the state through a series of horrific crises. His powerful and disciplined leadership has ensured that the Sunshine State is one of the most prosperous and freest in the Union. 

First, there was DeSantis’ performance during the COVID-19 pandemic. When so many other states succumbed to authoritarianism, DeSantis bucked the trend (even defying then-President Donald Trump) by reopening Florida, saving the economy and, as it turned out, many lives in the process. Because of DeSantis’ visionary and decisive actions as governor during the pandemic, the Sunshine State moved away from being the butt of national jokes and was seen more and more as the promised land. Today in Florida, one sees not only old folks from northern states but young, hip people with license plates from states as far away as California and Oregon. In saving the state’s economy from the ravages of the federal government’s overly cautious pandemic response policies, DeSantis made Florida the best run state with one of the best economies in the nation. 

Second, DeSantis has waged a careful and highly effective campaign against the purveyors of indecency in corporate America. Going against what many believed was sensible advice, the Florida governor launched a cavalcade of attacks against the Disney Corporation, one of Florida’s largest employers and the owner of the Disney World theme parks in Orlando—a major economic engine for the state’s vital tourism industry. Uncowed by the threats from corporate leaders (such as insinuations that the corporations in question would fund DeSantis’ political opponents or would even pull their businesses from Florida), DeSantis understood that he had no choice and hit companies like Disney hard. He did this not because he had a jag against Mickey Mouse. Far from it. DeSantis recognized that the Left had co-opted much of corporate America—including Disney—and were using companies like Disney to push a vile agenda upon our children; attempting to reprogram and indoctrinate the kids so they’d grow up to be good little leftists. He put the country’s future, and our children, ahead of his political ambitions.

The Broken Promises of the January 6 Committee Questions about the role of the FBI and other prominent government agencies in the events of January 6, 2020 remain unanswered because they were not asked.  By Julie Kelly

https://amgreatness.com/2022/10/13/the-broken-promises-of-the-january-6-committee/

The Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol conducted its final televised performance on Thursday afternoon, an event dutifully carried live by every cable and broadcast news station. Representatives Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) and Adam Kinzinger (R-Ill.) now plan to exit stage left as their congressional careers come to an end—the former at the hands of disgruntled Wyoming Republican voters and the latter at the hands of gerrymandering Illinois Democrats. It’s only a matter of time before both find a new home at some NeverTrump outlet funded by leftist billionaires to play the role of the “conservative” useful idiot to the Democratic Party.

Since its inception, the select committee has wielded its unchecked authority not to fulfill the stated mission of finding out exactly what happened on January 6—a four-hour disturbance the enabling legislation refers to as a “domestic terror attack”—but as a vehicle to harass, intimidate, prosecute, and destroy the careers of Donald Trump, his aides, and his supporters. Former federal prosecutors for months have interrogated Trump White House officials behind closed doors to produce cherry-picked clips to bolster the regime’s narrative that Trump incited the “insurrection” by refusing to accept the 2020 presidential election as legitimate—a view still shared by the overwhelming majority of Republican voters.

Among specific promises regarding the committee’s outcome, House Democrats initially pledged to examine the “activities of intelligence agencies, law enforcement agencies, and the Armed Forces, including with respect to intelligence collection, analysis, and dissemination and information sharing among the branches and other instrumentalities of government.” Further, committee members claimed to be interested in the “policies, protocols, processes, procedures, and systems for interoperability between the United States Capitol Police and the National Guard, the Metropolitan Police Department of the District of Columbia, and other Federal, State, and local law enforcement agencies in the National Capital Region on or before January 6, 2021.”

One more insult to add on to the Jan. 6 junk pile By David Zukerman

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2022/10/one_more_insult_to_add_on_to_the_jan_6_junk_pile.html

Pelosi’s rogue Jan. 6 panel has added to its previous illegitimate actions, violating the terms of the House resolution establishing the committee, by issuing a subpoena to former president Trump.  If this wayward action by this rabid, partisan committee is upheld by the courts, we shall have an unconstitutional amendment to the Constitution providing for parliamentary government, with the president answerable to Congress.  Erased by congressional fiat, supported by the Judiciary, will be the important concept of separation of powers established by the Founding Fathers.

Clearly, the courts must act with prudential speed to put a halt to Pelosi’s assault on the Constitution — if the Judiciary is to honor its oath to support, uphold, and defend the Constitution of the United States.  And the Republican members of House and Senate must rise in solidarity to declare their opposition to the rogue nature of Pelosi’s puppet panel, comprising its violation of the terms of House Res. 503, the committee’s organizing resolution, as well as the blatant disregard of the principle of separation of powers, a key building block of the Constitution.

Systemic hatred of Donald J. Trump is no excuse for tearing down the Constitution and erecting a Potemkin governmental compact in its place, a compact that varies with the whims and prejudices of the leaders of the Democrat party.

That our Constitution is under assault by Stalinists has been made evident by the recent disclosure that the FBI was prepared to pay Christopher Steele one million dollars for his dossier smearing Donald Trump.  Had the FBI a legitimate purpose in getting hold of Steele’s obvious forgery, the July raid on Mar-a-Lago suggests that the purpose could have been achieved by a subpoena for Steele and an FBI raiding party at his residence.

Biden Deflects to Saudi Arabia By Shoshana Bryen

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2022/10/biden_deflects_to_saudi_arabia.html

Deflection. That’s when someone tries to turn aside responsibility and shift it to someone/something else. Today’s example is the rampage by the White House and Democrats against Saudi Arabia, accusing it of cutting oil production because it is in bed with Russia against American interests in Ukraine.

CNN correspondent Manu Raju tweeted on Wednesday [Rep.] “Ro Khanna and [Sen.] Dan Blumenthal are calling for bill in lame-duck halting arm sales for a year. Calls for NOPEC legislation. And Durbin this AM: ‘I don’t see any reason to arm them now if they believe their future is linked to Vladimir Putin in any way.’”

National Security spokesman John Kirby tried deflection as he announced the White House’s displeasure: “The Saudi Foreign Ministry can try to spin or deflect…  (but) The Saudis conveyed to us… their intention to reduce oil production, which they knew would increase Russian revenues and blunt the effectiveness of sanctions… They could easily wait for the next OPEC meeting… we are reevaluating our relationship with Saudi Arabia… continue to look for signs about where they stand in combatting Russian aggression.”

The reason the White House wanted the cuts to wait until the next OPEC meeting may have something to do with America’s mid-term election. Why the Saudis would care about that is unclear. The fact is that countries make economic and security decisions based on their own interests and their peoples’ interests.

America’s European allies certainly do — just last week, Reuters reported that the EU remains the  biggest market for Russian oil, according to the IAEA. India and China are increasing their purchases from Russia, according to the CEO of Gazprom Neft. And, while demanding that Saudi Arabia produce more, the Biden administration is considering reinstating a ban on exports of crude oil as gasoline prices rise in the U.S. Reducing oil exports to our allies would only make others look elsewhere, including to Russia, as winter approaches and their stocks remain low.

The actual cause of the Saudi decision to cut production in the face of Biden administration begging for an increase is Biden administration policy.

The Education Exodus Advances Why the no-accountability, government-run schools are being ditched. by Larry Sand

https://www.frontpagemag.com/the-education-exodus-advances/

In August, it was reported that over the past two school years, children whose public schools were shuttered during the Covid panic were much less likely to return when they reopened. According to the American Enterprise Institute, k-12 enrollment in the 2020-2021 school year had declined by 2.7%, or about 1.2 million students nationwide.

Updated enrollment numbers and chronic absenteeism

But a new survey has revealed that between spring 2021 and spring 2022, there was a 9% drop in families saying their children were enrolled in a government-run school – a plunge of about 4 million students. At the same time, the number of children in charters, private schools, and homeschools shot up. While the dropout numbers aren’t actual data, there is no doubt that a massive education exodus is underway.

Another sign of turbulence is the number of children who are still enrolled in district schools but are “chronically absent,” meaning that they miss more than 10% of school days for any reason. Per the U.S. Department of Education, at least 10.1 million students were chronically absent during the first full year of the Covid-19 pandemic. The data, collected for the 2020-21 school year, is a substantial increase from the approximately 8 million students chronically absent in the prior years. Excessive absences have serious consequences – kids’ learning suffers, and they are more likely to get suspended in middle school, and are at greater risk of dropping out of high school.

The future does not promise a reversal. In fact, chronic absence continued to surge during the 2021-2022 school year. Although no national data have been released yet, several diverse states – Connecticut, Michigan, Ohio, Virginia and California – claim that high absentee rates doubled in the aftermath of the pandemic.

Money flows in; no accountability required