Displaying posts published in

February 2024

Daniel Gordis:Meet Captain ‘B’—the first Israeli Arab woman in an IAF airborne unit She speaks about the danger of people in her Israeli Arab village finding out what she does, about growing up in an Arab “Zionist” home, and what she’d do if she fell into Hamas captivity.

Here are some select portions of the rather lengthy article, translated:

Captain ‘B’s clothing closet at the Palmachim Air Base is where she hides the greatest secret of her life. Captain ‘B’, in her twenties, is the first female Arab flight mechanic in the history of the IDF, and in fact, the first female airborne service person from the Arab community. Except for a few close family members and the members of her squad, no one knows.

Captain ‘B’ lives in an Arab village, which includes a militant population, who, to put matters mildly, are not among the “lovers of Zion.” Thus, for the five years that she has served in a variety of positions in the Air Force, she’s never gone home wearing a uniform. “In my clothes closet at the base,” she says, “there are more civilian clothes than uniforms. And when I get to the base in civvies, I go straight to the room, change clothes, and then head out to the squadron. And vice-versa: before I go home, I change into civilian clothing. You wouldn’t believe how careful we have to be at home. In the winter and in the summer, we launder the uniforms and they go straight into the dryer—we would never hang them outside to dry.”

And that’s because why? What would happen if people in the village knew what you do?

Someone would get attacked. That’s for sure.

From your family?

Yes.

And they’d have to be taken out of the village [for their safety]?

I don’t think there’d be anyone to take out after that.

Really? To that extent?

I think so.

And then, when we leave the office and head to the landing strip of the Black Hawks of Squadron 123, where she is now serves, she’s transformed. Captain ‘B’ stands tall, doesn’t stop smiling. Wearing her flight jumpsuit and her helmet and visor that cover her face, she hops quickly onto one of the helicopters to be photographed. It’s evident that here, among the flying machines that come in and out of Gaza, she’s more comfortable in her own skin than she is in the streets of the village where she was born and raised.

How long are you really going to be able to keep this secret from the people in your village?

There’s been an escalation in my village of late. Violent incidents, grenades, shootings. My own motto is “it’s good to die for our land” [DG – a famous quote commonly attributed to the early Zionist icon Yosef Trumpeldor], and I don’t care if they kill me, but the thought that they might do something to my family, and even worse, because of me? I couldn’t live with that. My priorities in life are first God, then my family, then the army.

After 12 Years, Michael Mann’s Defamation Case against Mark Steyn Finally Goes to the Jury By Ryan Mills

https://www.nationalreview.com/news/after-12-years-michael-manns-defamation-case-against-mark-steyn-finally-goes-to-the-jury/

After nearly 12 years, a jury will finally decide whether conservative pundit Mark Steyn and science writer Rand Simberg defamed climate scientist Michael Mann in blog posts that accused him of misconduct and compared Penn State University’s investigation of him to its investigation of Jerry Sandusky, the school’s child-molesting former football coach.

The case has important implications for the free-speech rights of critics to comment freely on controversial matters without fear of legal reprisals.

The jury began deliberating around 4 p.m.

During closing arguments on Wednesday, Mann’s attorney, John Williams told the jury that the statements against his client were “clearly” defamatory, the comparison to Sandusky was direct, and it “implied that he was the moral

He said that Mann was “horrified” by the comparison to Sandusky, felt like a “pariah,” and “it still affects him emotionally.” He said that the blog posts on the websites of National Review and the Competitive Enterprise Institute led to a drop in Mann’s grant funding.

He said Simberg’s conduct was “reckless” because he “never, ever took the time to read the actual studies he was attacking.” He called Mann’s hockey stick graph, which shows spiking global temperatures over the last century, a “brick house.”

“People huff and they puff, and they have not been able to blow it down,” he said.

But Victoria Weatherford, Simberg’s attorney, said that her client “truly believed in his heart” that what he wrote was true, and his blog post was protected by the First Amendment.

“Professor Mann is a public figure, and our First Amendment makes sure that each of us is free to comment on the most important issues of public concern without fear of being censored or silenced or bullied into submission,” she said.

“Rand is just a guy, just a blogger voicing his truly-held opinions on a topic that he believes is important,” she said, “and that is an inconvenient truth for Michael Mann.”

Moshe Dann :The war against Hamas and its supporters – and the upcoming-war against Hezbollah – is all about Israel’s right to self-defense, its survival, and, therefore, about Jewish sovereignty.

https://www.israelnationalnews.com/news/384819

Israeli sovereignty, the basis for its national existence as a Jewish state, the homeland of the Jewish People, is defined in Israel’s Declaration of Independence in 1948. It incorporated much of UN Resolution 181, passed in1947, including the rights of its non-Jewish residents, and, following the war in 1948-9, Israel was accepted as a member state of the United Nations.

The result of the war, however, was inconclusive. Israel and the Arab countries that had attacked Israel agreed to a cease-fire and an Armistice was signed based on temporary – de facto, not de jure ‘borders.’ The areas that were conquered by Egypt, Jordan and Syria became known as “the West Bank.” Local Arab terrorists, and those from neighboring countries, however, continued to attack Jews.

Since the beginning of its existence as a state, therefore, Israel was faced with a problem: what to do with Arabs who lived under its jurisdiction and did not accept Israeli sovereignty; many, if not most still do not. For them, Israel’s survival and victory in the war of 1948-49 was a “Nakba” (catastrophe) – the essence of the Palestinian narrative, and its ideology, Palestinianism.

As a result of the war, many Arabs fled to other countries, especially to Jordan, nearly a million became “refugees,” most of whom were cared for by UNRWA, and about 156, 000 who remained in Israel and became Israeli citizens. In addition, as a result of the war, Israel acquired abandoned Arab villages and property, and areas which had not been assigned to Israel in 1948, especially in the Galilee, the Negev, and western Jerusalem – which Israel declared as its capital — with their Arab populations. Arabs still consider these areas as “disputed,” and they oppose any form of Israeli sovereignty.

Rabbi Steven Pruzansky,esq The Empty Toolbox America’s policy: Heads, we lose; tails, they win. With those odds, further attacks are not only inevitable; they are logical.

https://www.israelnationalnews.com/news/384783

On October 7, Palestinian Arab terrorists from Hamas and Islamic Jihad, aided by Gazan “civilians” of all ages, invaded Israel, pillaged, plundered, raped, and marauded, murdered approximately 1200 Jews, wounded thousands, and kidnapped hundreds. Tens of thousands of Israelis remain displaced, exiles in their own country.

The Palestinian Authority has yet to condemn the brutal assault and subsidized it in the form of its pay-for-slay program which continues, with a steadily increasing number of terrorist recipients. The attack was greeted with widespread celebrations among Palestinian Arabs and their supporters across the world.

And Joe Biden wants to reward these people with an independent state, recognized by the United States and the Western world.

This is not only morally repugnant; it is also diplomatic folly, which, if it ever succeeds, would pose a mortal danger to Israel’s existence. Biden has said some nice things and done some important things for Israel since the invasion, for which we should be thankful; he has also said some nasty things and done some incredibly harmful things to Israel, for which we should be wary of his continued support.

An independent Palestinian state Arab is a moral obscenity for several reasons. It literally rewards terror – past, present, and future. Biden and his minions, much like they are doing with Ukraine, are hoping that Israel can defend itself but not prevail in this conflict.

The obsession with Gazan refugees (while concurrently indifferent to the condition of Jewish refugees) has, with irrational Israeli acquiescence, resulted in the unremitting resupply of Hamas’ fuel, food, and other provisions, instead of the evacuation of Gazans from the war zone which is a right afforded all other refugees enmeshed in a conflict. It is designed to make Israel’s military effort much more difficult, essentially an endorsement of the Gazans’ employment as human shields and hampers any possibility of rescuing the hostages. Israel has foolishly consented to this.

Trial Of Mann v. Steyn, Part IV: The Defense Case Francis Menton

https://www.manhattancontrarian.com/blog/2024-2-6-trial-of-mann-v-steyn-part-iv-the-defense-case

The trial of Michael Mann versus Mark Steyn and Rand Simberg is nearing its conclusion in the Superior Court of the District of Columbia.

The court’s livestream feed makes it possible for people like me to observe the proceedings from home. However, they only show to the home viewers the same things that the jury gets to see and hear, and not necessarily all of that either. For example, some exhibits that are shown to the jury on an easel in the courtroom are not visible on the video feed. Also, many things happen in the courtroom that the jury is not allowed to watch or hear — the general idea being that the jury is supposed to base its decision only on evidence that gets “admitted” by the judge, and therefore anything that is not evidence is not something they can participate in. So when the lawyers argue legal issues before the judge — mostly about what can be admitted into evidence — the jury can’t hear it, and they also mute the video feed to home viewers. Other colloquy between the judge and the lawyers, often on administrative matters, is generally muted. Of about 5 1/2 hours of trial time each day, often an hour or more has been muted.

And thus it is not entirely clear to me that tomorrow is the last day of trial. But there was a stray unmuted remark from the judge on Monday that he hoped the jury would “get the case” on Wednesday. That means that closing arguments are likely to be tomorrow.

The last two days, Monday and Tuesday, have seen the presentation of the guts of the defense case. These were the main witnesses: Stephen McIntyre and Ross McKitrick, authors of a series of papers in the early 2000s that dissected Mann’s work and discovered several serious flaws; two members of the Penn State “Inquiry” Committee, that investigated Mann after the release of the ClimateGate emails in late 2009, and made no adverse finding against Mann (Mann has claimed that he was “exonerated”); and Eugene Wahl, a climate scientist and collaborator of Mann who had deleted certain emails that were subject to FOIA requests after Mann forwarded him a request to do so.

What follows are what I thought were some of the more significant highlights. Obviously, there is much that I have omitted. Also, I should note that I am a terrible note-taker. Also, many of the exhibits appeared quickly on the screen, without sufficient time to copy their contents accurately. So I have done my best, but I solicit any corrections from others who may have been watching.

‘White Kikes’ and ‘Melanin Recessives’ By Janet Levy

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2024/02/white_kikes_and_melanin_recessives.html

Tamara Weitzman, an oncology social worker in Seattle, was called an “insensitive, Canadian white bitch” and a “white kike” at her workplace. 

On both occasions she informed her superiors, but no action was taken against her abusers. 

Instead, her employer – the Seattle Cancer Care Alliance (SCCA), since merged with the Fred Hutchison Cancer Center (FHCC) – required Ms. Weitzman to endure “remedial” courses in racial sensitivity and DEI (diversity, equity, and inclusion) at which her experiences with antisemitism were discounted and her political views denounced. 

She says the message she got at the courses was that a) though she was Jewish, she “could pass” as white, so she could not have experienced discrimination; and b) she could not understand the history of racial discrimination. 

Course moderators disparaged her opinions.

To add insult to injury, in February 2021, she was fired despite five years of service during which she received several favorable performance reviews – one said she was a “wonderful addition to the SCCA social work team” – and a 23% raise. 

Reason: her “ethnic sensitivity” and core values did not align with those of the SCCA and her supervisor could not work with her to address these issues.

On January 16, Ms. Weitzman filed a complaint with the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington (Seattle division) seeking relief and damages from the SCCA/FHCC and her supervisors there.  She was unable to evoke the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment as her employer is not a government entity.  Unfortunately, she also missed the 180-day deadline to sue under the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

A Moment in History Pregnant with Purpose By J.B. Shurk

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2024/02/a_moment_in_history_pregnant_with_purpose.html

A reader recently posted a comment that has stuck with me.  He asked, “Why do I even bother awakening to face another day of truly impending doom?”  He sarcastically added, “May as well get drunk and go back to sleep cuz the ‘Republicans’ won’t do enough this year or next five to prevent the really bad times coming which will make the Depression/WWII seem like the good old days.”  As someone who regularly partakes in gallows humor, I chuckled at the sentiment.  Over the next day, though, the serious thought behind that sentiment began to increasingly sting like a smart jab to the ribs.

I write a lot about “doom and gloom” issues during this era of great social change, much like how a Bangkok meteorologist writes a lot about rain during monsoon season.  Sometimes the steady downpour of “doom and gloom” feels as if it will never come to an end — just as a persistent monsoon often convinces the body that it will never stop raining.  The wet season, however, does finally pass.  So too will this period of prolonged madness.  

It is why I also write so much about a “Great Awakening” happening both here in America and across the West, in which more and more minds are becoming alert to the evils around us.  Sometimes these “awakenings” happen in spurts, where punctuated events jolt sleeping brains awake for the first time.  Seeing people experience an “Aha!” moment is like watching the clouds part so that sunlight can briefly reach the ground.  Those epiphanies are becoming more frequent, and more sunlight is steadily breaking through the swirling chaos that surrounds us.  That doesn’t just fill me with hope; it provides me with a sustained comfort that comes from a firm belief that we will overcome this chaos together.  Why awaken to face another day of impending doom?  Because we are blessed to be “awake.”

Amazon Censored Books on COVID Vaccine After Pressure from Biden White House By Eric Lendrum

https://amgreatness.com/2024/02/07/report-amazon-censored-books-on-covid-vaccine-after-pressure-from-biden-white-house/

New internal emails from Amazon reveal that the tech giant ultimately censored books discussing the topic of Chinese Coronavirus vaccines after being pressured to do so by the Biden Administration.

As reported by the New York Post, the emails and other documents were released by House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) on Monday in a series of posts on X, which Jordan referred to as “The Amazon Files.” The communications were obtained by a subpoena from the House Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government, which was established with the purpose of exposing abuse of federal powers to target political opponents, including collusion between the government and private sector entities such as Big Tech.

In an email dated March 2nd, 2021, Andrew Slavitt, a former senior advisor for COVID-19 in the Biden White House, asked “who can we talk to about the high levels of propaganda and misinformation and disinformation of [sic] Amazon?”

“If you search for ‘vaccines’ under books, I see what comes up,” Slavitt said in a later email on the same day. “I haven’t looked beyond that but if that’s what’s on the surface, it’s concerning.”

In response, officials from Amazon expressed their hesitance at doing the White House’s bidding, saying “We will not be doing a manual intervention today. The team/PR feels very strongly that it is too visible, and will further compound the Harry/Sally narrative (which is getting the Fox News treatment today apparently), and won’t fix the problem long-term … because of customer behavior associates.”

The Amazon official later says that another company official “gave very direct guidance to the teams to be boring and not do anything that is visible and will draw more attention.” He then admitted that a tweak was in the works at the website which would redirect more customers’ search results to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) website.

The Absurd Democrat Border Con It remains unclear why Biden and Homeland Security Chief Alejandro Mayorkas destroyed what Trump had achieved. Why would they ensure such misery for both Americans and millions of illegal migrants? Victor Davis Hanson

https://amgreatness.com/2024/02/08/the-absurd-democrat-border-con/

In 2021, Joe Biden opened wide an inherited, secure southern border that had finally stopped mass illegal immigration.

When he overturned Donald Trump’s efforts, a planned flood of over 8 million illegal immigrants entered the U.S.

Almost all arrived without background checks, health screening, or vaccination certificates—but with massive needs for free housing, education, healthcare, and food entitlements and subsidies.

For four years, Donald Trump battled the courts, his Democratic opposition, and the open-border establishments within his own party to ensure legal-only immigration. Somehow, he rebuilt some of the old porous border fence. He had begun to build his long-promised new wall to the Gulf of Mexico. He had ended Obama-era catch-and-release.

Would-be refugees had to apply for asylum in their home country. Trump leveraged Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador to police his own border and stop cynically transiting millions of illegal aliens into the U.S.

There was general Democratic Party opposition to all of Trump’s measures, both through Congress and via the courts.

For the last three years of Biden’s mass influx, the left has applauded open borders. That is, until late last year, when overwhelmed southern border state governors began busing and flying illegal immigrants en masse to northern sanctuary-city jurisdictions.

For years, these sanctuary zones had preened their liberality about open borders. They smeared as “racists” and “xenophobes” any who insisted on legal-only immigration.

But now they were subject to the real-life ramifications of their own destructive ideologies.

Major blue-state cities like Chicago, Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Washington, D.C., became outraged that they were inundated with tens of thousands of immigrants, all without legality, veritable identification, or background checks.

CNN rearranges the deck chairs… again The network is attempting to put itself at the center of the anti-Trump universe Stephen L. Miller

https://thespectator.com/newsletter/cnn-rearranges-the-deck-chairs-again-bad-press-02-06-2024/

After CNN ousted Chris Licht, who attempted, at least, to moderate CNN’s biased news coverage, the floundering network has found itself in limbo, unsure of how much more it wanted to lean into a professional, “definitely not biased” news infotainment network.

Now, new boss Mark Thompson has signaled a clear direction for the network in this election year: All Donald Trump, All the Time, with changes once again to its morning and midday line-up. All CNN is really doing, though, is shuffling deck chairs around the network as ratings continue to languish behind networks like the History and Hallmark channels.

What Thompson and other CNN executives don’t seem to get is that the brand is the problem, the brand that has found itself in peril over the course of the past six years. CNN can reshuffle the same dishonest media news personalities while attempting to juice the last remaining drops of credibility it’s attempted to fashion over the last thirty years, but all that has gone out the window for a network that still insists on existing as a kind of zombie form of liberalism, that unlike MSNBC, refuses to admit its editorial leanings.

CNN will move Kasie Hunt to mornings now. Hunt (like most current new personalities) made her name as a correspondent during the 2016 presidential campaign, hounding various GOP candidates while ignoring Democrats, which is pretty much a standard résumé requirement to end up in a CNN chair these days.

CNN has also moved former White House grandstander Jim Acosta from a little-watched Sunday daytime show to a little-watched, weekly daytime slot. Acosta will presumably also offer live, breaking-news situations. Acosta famously made his reputation by making Trump administration White House press briefings about him and his questions about immigration and the Statue of Liberty — a topic he has somehow all but forgotten as the country faces a border crisis not seen in thirty-five years, and New York City threatens to deport criminal migrants.

Since Jim Acosta’s attention-seeking antics were rewarded with his own CNN show, his line-up has included a who’s who of Donald Trump’s circus cadre. His regular guest rotations have included George Conway, Adam Kinzinger, Mary Trump and others whose sole existence is to somehow remind everyone how very bad Trump is, and also how much they used to suck up to him personally and professionally.

But Thompson and CNN see an election year coming and are once again attempting to put CNN at the center of the anti-Trump universe, positioning itself as both a Donald Trump elevator network, while trying to maintain Jeff Zucker’s hires of #Resistance. Back then, it sacrificed mainstream cachet for the viewership of fierce partisans — and it’s hoping to repeat the trick eight years later.