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January 2024

FOREIGN POLICY Comments turned off

Joe Biden and Bob Casey Fail the Israel Test Watching videos of Hamas atrocities reinforced my opposition to their policy of appeasing Iran. By David McCormick

By on January 8th, 2024

https://www.wsj.com/articles/joe-biden-and-bob-casey-fail-the-israel-test-gaza-hamas-pennsylvania-senate-ca1056bb?mod=opinion_lead_pos7

Mr. McCormick, a combat veteran and former CEO of Bridgewater Associates, is a Republican candidate for U.S. Senate in Pennsylvania.

You could hear the demented joy through the phone. A young man standing in the Mefalsim kibbutz called his parents back in Gaza to brag about murdering 10 Jews on Oct. 7. They were elated.

That was but one episode in a gut-wrenching 47-minute compilation of recordings and videos from that horrific day that I watched in a Tel Aviv hospital during a recent trip with my wife, Dina, to Israel. A father executed in cold blood in front of his children. Entire families burned alive in their homes. Women staggering and bleeding through their clothes after being raped. Beheadings. Baby after baby, slaughtered. It isn’t possible to watch this footage without concluding Hamas must be wiped off the face of the planet.

The footage should be a wake-up call for those in power and mandatory viewing for every member of Congress, Biden administration official, and delegate to the United Nations. It’s a window into the evil underlying Hamas, and jihadism more broadly, that will shake any leader with a conscience.

Some of America’s leaders need to be shaken. Thus far, Israel has counted on bipartisan U.S. support, but the chorus of Democratic dissenters is growing louder, influenced by pro-Hamas activists in our streets. Sen. Bernie Sanders has called to cut off all military aid to Israel, while other Democrats are insisting on a cease-fire that would leave Hamas in charge in Gaza.

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ELECTIONS Comments turned off

The Supreme Court to the Ballot Rescue Trying to ban opposition-party candidates from the ballot will spreads unless the Justices stop it.

By on January 8th, 2024

https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-supreme-court-to-the-ballot-rescue-f887f84f?mod=opinion_lead_pos3

The Supreme Court agreed Friday to hear Donald Trump’s appeal of the Colorado Supreme Court’s decision to ban him from the state’s presidential primary ballot, and just in time too. The political malpractice of using Section 3 of the 14th Amendment to ban opposition candidates is spreading.

In Pennsylvania, progressive activist Gene Stilp is suing to have incumbent Republican Congressman Scott Perry stripped from the state’s primary ballot. Mr. Stilp is a Democrat who lives in Mr. Perry’s 10th Congressional district and lost a race for Congress in 2012.

Mr. Stilp is asking the Pennsylvania courts to declare that the Pennsylvania secretary of state can ban Mr. Perry from the ballot. Mr. Perry objected to the certification of the election results on Jan. 6, but then so have Democrats in other elections. Democrats in Congress have introduced bills to banish other Members from the ballot in the next election.

When Colorado and Maine moved to strip Mr. Trump from their own ballots, we warned that it would lead to more such efforts. Democrats are piling on now because of the Jan. 6 riot. But if this ballot banishment stands, Republicans won’t be the only targets.

It’s a shame the Supreme Court has been dragged into the election, but it has never ruled definitively on Section 3 disqualification. This makes it all the more welcome that the Justices will hear the Colorado case on a relatively rapid timeline. The Court set oral argument for Feb. 8, which means that if the Justices are more or less united they could issue a ruling before the presidential primaries are over.

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