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January 2024

The Houthis Are Emboldened by Biden’s Weakness By Noah Rothman

https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/the-houthis-are-emboldened-by-bidens-weakness/

It’s starting to feel like an exercise in futility to continue to hector and cajole the commander in chief of the armed forces into doing his job. Joe Biden seems perfectly happy to absorb the consequences associated with the Iran-backed campaign of terrorism engulfing the Middle East. When the Pentagon does respond to attacks on U.S. service personnel and American interests — that is, when the Defense Department isn’t in “full cover-their-a** mode” — it does so in a calibrated way that conveys America’s desire to avoid escalation more than its interest in restoring deterrence. That message has been received loud and clear, and the Iran-sponsored Houthi rebels are making the most of their free hand.

“This is the largest attack on commercial shipping,” one unnamed national-security official told CNBC reporters yesterday. The observation followed reports that the terroristic outfit launched a large missile and drone attack on merchant vessels in defiance of the multinational naval operation, Prosperity Guardian, which is tasked with providing security for commercial traffic in the region. U.S. and British naval forces reportedly shot down “18 drones, two anti-ship cruise missiles and one anti-ship ballistic missile,” but the Houthis did not limit its targeting to commercial vessels.

British secretary of state for defense Grant “Shapps said that Royal Navy ship HMS Diamond, which repelled the attacks along with U.S. warships, may have been specifically targeted,” Reuters reported, “adding there was also ‘a generalized attack on all shipping.’” Shapps made note of the untenable nature of the status quo emerging amid months of unmolested Houthi attacks on military and commercial vessels in the Gulf of Aden. “This cannot continue and cannot be allowed to continue,” he said simply.

But the White House is unmoved. Neither the president nor his subordinates appear concerned that their facile warnings about the “consequences” the Houthis will bear for these provocations are being ignored. They don’t seem to care that this Iran-backed terror campaign has already had deleterious effects on the global maritime trade regime and the international supply chain. They are willing to look beyond direct attacks on U.S. warships and those of their allies — targeting of which the Houthis boast, despite the Pentagon’s claims that the group doesn’t really mean it — even if that increases the threat born by U.S. service personnel in hot spots all over the globe.

Hunter Biden Piles Contempt upon Contempt Noah Rothman

https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/hunter-biden-piles-contempt-upon-contempt/

The president’s troubled son, Hunter Biden, has treated the congressional inquiry into his conduct and the Justice Department’s curious response to it with disdain from Day One.

Late last year, the House Oversight Committee issued a subpoena seeking testimony from the younger Biden, compelling him to answer the committee’s questions behind closed doors. His attorneys disregarded this courtesy, treating it as an opportunity to enter into public negotiations with the committee over the terms to which their client might graciously submit to Congress’s demand.

Hunter Biden wanted to testify in public and before the cameras — a request the Republican-led committee denied. Rather than observe Congress’s authority, Hunter Biden made a theatrical show of appearing in Washington on the day he was supposed to comply with the subpoena, but only to issue a fiery condemnation of House Republicans.

“I’m here to testify at a public hearing today to answer any of the committee’s legitimate questions,” the president’s son exclaimed. “What are they afraid of? I’m here. I’m ready.” But the subject of a congressional inquiry doesn’t get to make the rules — Congress does. So, in response to Hunter’s display of contempt, Congress elected to formalize that status. “Hunter Biden today defied lawful subpoenas, and we will now initiate contempt of Congress proceedings,” House Republicans declared in mid December.

Why I Quit My Dream Job at MIT I refuse to teach students who lack basic critical thinking skills—or who condemn my Jewish identity. By Mauricio Karchmer

https://www.thefp.com/p/resigned-mit-october-7-antisemitism

For most academics, getting a job at MIT is a dream. Until October 7, it was for me. But in December, I resigned from my post because I could no longer deal with the pervasive antisemitism on MIT’s campus. 

How I got there is a story that is unique to me, but it’s also a story about what’s happening across American academia today. 

I was born in Mexico to a Jewish family. I immigrated to the States in the 1980s to obtain a master’s at Harvard, and then moved to Israel for my PhD in computer science from Hebrew University. In 1989, I started working as an assistant professor at MIT, and after a career in the financial industry, I returned in 2019 as a lecturer. 

As a computer scientist, I normally don’t have time for politics. But when Hamas invaded Israel on Saturday, October 7, brutally murdering 1,200 Israelis, I emailed the head of my department and urged her to issue a statement of support for Israelis and Jews. I assumed the reason was obvious. The university had sent statements before on various issues—such as a message condemning the murder of George Floyd in 2020 and another standing in solidarity with the Asian community amid a wave of hate crimes in 2021. 

On Monday, the head of my department and its office of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) sent out a message titled “A time for community support of each other.” 

The message was riddled with equivocations, without mentioning the barbarity of Hamas’s attack, stating only that “we are deeply horrified by the violence against civilians and wish to express our deep concern for all those involved.” I was shocked that my institution—led by people who are meant to see the world rationally—could not simply condemn a brutal terrorist act.

That same day, the protests on campus started. Students chanted “Free Palestine” and “From the river to the sea” with fury and at times glee, like they were reciting catchy songs instead of slogans demanding the erasure of the Jewish people.

The Inherently Destructive Uniparty Agenda While wealthy elites have always exercised disproportionate influence in American politics, what is happening in 21st century America is unique. By Edward Ring

https://amgreatness.com/2024/01/10/the-inherently-destructive-uniparty-agenda/

It’s easy enough to blame Democrats for everything, but as a rapidly increasing percentage of American voters have realized, Republicans share the blame. These politicians are controlled by their donors, and in America today, the big donors are in agreement regardless of which party or which candidate gets their money.

This, then, is what has become dubbed America’s uniparty. And while wealthy elites have always exercised disproportionate influence in American politics, and, for that matter, the politics of virtually every nation that has ever existed, what is happening in 21st century America is unique.

To begin with, for most of American history, elites have competed for political power and influence, with the differing agenda and interests preventing one faction from acquiring absolute power. But today, on the issues that will have the most profound impact on our future, America’s elites are perfectly aligned. Also today and without precedent in American history, the goals of America’s elites are in conflict with the interests of the American people.

There are two broad, interrelated areas where the uniparty consensus currently aims to break the American people, destroying our coherence as a nation along with our prosperity and individual freedom. They both relate to how we are handling immigration. America’s de facto immigration policy is to invite millions of people per year to enter the United States. Because this policy also effectively excludes immigrants who have the means and the integrity to attempt legal entry, the millions who cross our borders each year are the most desperate people from the most failed nations.

America’s immigration policy, in practice, admits people whose life experience is to barely survive in nations ruled by thugs and fanatics. They are accustomed to endemic corruption and extreme poverty. As for the small fraction of immigrants who enter the United States legally, the criteria for their admission is more of a lottery than a merit-based criteria that might arguably be in the national interest.

But immigration—even the uncontrolled, meritless, flagrantly illegal, massive wave that Americans are now experiencing—would probably not be enough to break our unity and our freedom. It would be a challenge, but absent two other nihilistic factors, both driven by America’s elites, we might eventually assimilate the new arrivals and continue to thrive as a nation.

Sydney M. Williams a Review of “November 1942″ by Peter Englund”

https://swtotd.blogspot.com/

As Carl Sandburg wrote, battles are fought far from those who direct them. As Mr. Englund explains in his “Note to the Reader,” this book does not describe what war was during the four weeks in November 1942, but tries “to say something about how it was.”

It was the month of November 1942 that saw Germany stymied at Stalingrad, the American invasion of North Africa and the German-Italian defeat at El Alamein; it witnessed the Guadalcanal campaign that ended Japanese expansion in the South Pacific and the Japanese retreat in New Guinea. At the start of November, it appeared that the Axis might be victorious. By the end of the month, it seemed certain that the Allies, ultimately, would be victors. It was on November 10, following Montgomery’s victory over Rommel at El Alamein that Churchill spoke at the Lord Mayor’s Luncheon in London: “Now this is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning.” While he was right, of the estimated 60 to 80 million people who died in World War II most were yet to meet their fate.

When Lawyers Defending Their Clients Become the Accused by Elizabeth Eastman

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/20296/lawyers-defending-become-accused

Ensuring the integrity of elections is… a fundamental requirement to support the legitimacy of the American democratic republic.

We do not have to speculate about the motives of The 65 Project. The head of the group has admitted that their goal is “to deter right-wing talent from signing on to any future GOP efforts” to challenge elections, not only by bringing bar complaints but to “shame them and make them toxic in their communities and their firms.”

The 65 Project’s straight-faced motto, incidentally, is, “Defending Democracy and the Rule of Law.” If only!

We are witnessing a shift in the legal system from lawyers representing and defending clients to lawyers becoming the accused, and, as a form of pseudo-juridical destruction, being charged with unfounded claims.

One of the many great provisions in the American Constitution provides that everyone is entitled to a defense. The “right to counsel” is guaranteed by the Sixth Amendment and the “due process” clauses of the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments.

What, however, are the implications when the lawyers who provide that defense are threatened with disbarment proceedings, crushing legal costs to defend their licenses, exclusion from participation in the broader legal and academic communities, and having their reputations smeared, all because they represented clients who were deemed unpopular or took on cases fraught with controversy?

Lawyers throughout America are being subjected to these very ordeals due to their participation in cases related to the 2020 presidential election. One of the principal groups pursuing this strategy operates under the name “The 65 Project.”

Houthis Still Attacking Ships in the Red Sea By Dominic Pino

https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/houthis-still-attacking-ships-in-the-red-sea/

Remember last week when the White House issued a joint statement that called for “the immediate end of these illegal attacks” in the Red Sea? The attacks are still happening.

Military Times reports that American jets from the USS Dwight D. Eisenhower, three U.S. destroyers, and one U.K. destroyer shot down 18 drones, two cruise missiles, and an anti-ship missile in an attack on Tuesday.

Fortunately, nobody was injured or killed. Eventually that fortune will run out if these attacks persist. The U.S. has a massive technological advantage over the Houthis, but even the best equipment doesn’t have a perfect success rate. U.S. sailors have been under attack in the Red Sea.

U.S. Central Command counts Tuesday’s attack as the 26th by the Houthis on commercial shipping since November 19. It described Tuesday’s barrage as a “complex attack” and stated that the weaponry used was “Iranian designed.”

The White House statement from last week said, “The Houthis will bear the responsibility of the consequences should they continue to threaten lives, the global economy, and free flow of commerce in the region’s critical waterways.” Six days later, they are continuing to do all of those things. Will the 27th Houthi attack on commercial shipping be the one that leads to consequences? The 28th? The 29th?

Destruction and Obstruction: How Pro-Palestinian Protesters Are Defending Hamas’s Massacre By Haley Strack

https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/destruction-and-obstruction-how-pro-palestinian-protesters-are-defending-hamass-massacre/

Masses of anti-Israel protesters have descended on cities to call for a cease-fire in Gaza in the months following Hamas’s October 7 terror attack. Here are some of the most extreme examples of protesters who have blocked major roadways, vandalized property, and broadcast antisemitic statements:

Washington, D.C.: More than 500 pro-Palestinian protesters staged a sit-in at the United States Capitol in October. The anti-Zionist movement Jewish Voice for Peace led the demonstration, in which protesters demanded a “cease-fire now.”

The protesters first gathered on the National Mall where Cori Bush (D., Mo.) and Rashida Tlaib (D., Mich.) spoke to the crowd. Tlaib repeated the lie during her remarks that the Israeli military bombed a Gaza hospital (American and Israeli intelligence confirmed that a misfired Palestinian rocket caused the blast).

New York City: Pro-Palestinian protesters blocked the Williamsburg, Brooklyn, and Manhattan Bridges and the Holland Tunnel during rush hour on the morning of January 8. Protesters calling for a “cease-fire now” refused to let commuters into the city. The protest was part of a wider campaign to “Shut It Down for Palestine,” organized by the Palestinian Youth Movement, National Students for Justice in Palestine, Answer Coalition, the People’s Forum, International Peoples’ Assembly, Al-Awda in New York, and the Palestinian American Community Center in New Jersey.

Police arrested 325 protesters, the NYPD reported, and the roads were cleared by 11:15 a.m. that morning. Many of the 325 will face misdemeanor charges with a desk appearance ticket, according to NYPD chief of patrol John Chell.

“NYPD, KKK, IDF they’re all the same,” protesters chanted.

Lights Out in America The cowardice at America’s most important liberal publications is damaging democracy. John Lloyd

https://quillette.com/2024/01/05/the-lights-are-going-out-all-over-america/

Cancellations of people and events are most damaging when authorities surrender to the demands of the cancellers without a fight. When a university fails to insist that a “controversial” speaker be assured of a hearing in the teeth of noisy protests, it does more than cede victory to the protesters in return for a (temporarily) quiet life. This kind of capitulation tears another hole in the fabric of civil society, the free existence of which demands respect for a rule of free speech and publication, however unwelcome some speech and some publishing may be. Should the observation of this rule be replaced by a claim that speech on selected themes can cause fear and “pain,” public debate—especially in universities—will find itself at the mercy of self-appointed commissars tasked with sparing people psychological and emotional damage.

The US media enjoys the world’s strongest protections of speech and publication, so it might have been counted on to oppose this movement in the name of those freedoms. But instances of journalists being fired or forced to resign for writing or saying the wrong thing have been growing, and these cases tend to follow a similar pattern. First, a writer or editor publishes a piece that is deemed offensive to one or more groups of “marginalised” individuals. Second, activists, influencers, celebrities, and not infrequently the writer’s/editor’s own colleagues informally collaborate in a sustained social-media mobbing of the publication in question and any staffers unwise enough to defend the article at issue. Third, following a period of agonised indecision, the writer/editor is pushed out and the publication releases a craven apology detailing the hurt caused and the lessons learned. Upshot? The mob is greatly empowered and the spectrum of permissible opinion shrinks.

The Fabricated Memory of January 6th By James Watkins

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2024/01/the_fabricated_memory_of_january_6th.html

We in America have a collective memory of what slavery was like in the 19th century. And when I say we have a collective memory, I mean we share a fabricated collective memory. Slavery was real, but no one today has a real memory of it.

Our collective memory comes from television shows like Roots and movies like Speilberg’s Amistad and The Color Purple. It comes from every movie you’ve ever seen about slavery in the United States. And so, as a collective culture, we think that because we’ve seen these films, we have an authentic memory of what slavery was like when we are only remembering someone else’s portrayal — someone else’s idea of what they think happened. Whether it’s Alex Haley or Quentin Tarantino, we have someone else’s presentation.

The same thing is now happening with the Democrats when they’re recalling January 6th. The Democrat Party has created a fake and fabricated memory of January 6th. They did it with the help of ABC News, with the editors, camera crews, and the post-production people to create a memory that would be played over and over in the media to create a collective memory of an insurrection.

We know the then-House Speaker invited her niece (a professional photographer) to come down to the Capitol and photograph the historic event. We also know that ABC producers were employed to produce the televised hearings of the January 6 Commission for several weeks, and had a hand in editing actual J6 footage. This was designed to create an altered, fabricated memory of what happened the day thousands of people came to Washington because they were concerned the election of 2020 had unanswered questions. Not necessarily unanswered by a non-asking media, but unanswered, nevertheless.