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Ruth King

Haley Strack :Columbia University Professor Jeffrey Sachs: U.S. Is ‘Complicit’ in Israeli ‘Genocide’ in Gaza

https://www.nationalreview.com/news/columbia-university-professor-jeffrey-sachs-u-s-is-complicit-in-israeli-genocide-in-gaza/

Columbia University’s Director of the Center for Sustainable Development said Sunday that U.S. support for Israel makes America complicit in genocide.

Jeffrey Sachs, a Columbia professor and Harvard-educated climate activist, joined Al Jazeera‘s “The Bottom Line” this weekend to discuss Hamas’s war on Israel, which he said could end if the United States stopped supplying munitions to its longtime ally.

“Of course, what the government of Israel doing, is unconscionable. World opinion is united against Israel,” Sachs said. “The problem is the United States remains complicit in these war crimes because it’s traditional in U.S. politics that politicians show no space between the United States and Israel.”

“It is, I think quite likely, that the International Court of Justice is going to find that Israel is in violation of the genocide convention. And does the United States want to be complicit in genocide?” he added. “This is a pretty straightforward question.”

Sachs called Israel’s campaign in Gaza “absolutely inhumane,” and blasted Israeli Defense Forces for destroying universities, mosques, and hospitals — civilian hideouts Hamas terrorists are known to take cover in. Nations should also resume and increase funding for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA), a Palestinian aid agency that houses thousands of Hamas affiliates, Sachs added.

“UNRWA does heroic work in a war zone,” he said. “And it has lost a huge number of staff to this war. Israel targets the United Nations. Israel uses the United Nations as its punching bag, and UNRWA has taken the brunt of this.”

A Few Short, Random Thoughts Sydney Williams

http://swtotd.blogspot.com

American values, which have been denigrated, evolved over two hundred years. It has become common to debase history and belittle capitalism, Certainly, one can find faults in both. One thing that is often forgotten is how rare have been revolutions that produced positive change. The French Revolution of 1789 eliminated a king and produced an Emperor. The Haiti slave rebellion of 1791 got rid of the French and eliminated slavery, but the nation has never had an honest and fair government. The Russian Revolution of 1917 exchanged autocratic Tsars for totalitarian Communists. Other examples: China in 1949, Cuba in 1959, and Iran in 1979. But the American revolution produced a government that evolved into the world’s fairest representative democracy. Capitalism, which creates winners and losers, is antithetical to today’s devotees of DEI, with its focus on equal outcomes. Yet, it is capitalism that encourages competition and offers choices to consumers. Free market capitalism has done more to lift people out of poverty than any other economic system. It provides people opportunities, to strive to do their best in whatever field they choose.

A few other thoughts:

Democracy – a form of government close to the center of a spectrum that stretches from anarchy to autocracy. It is not perfect, as Churchill said in a speech before the House of Commons on November 11, 1947: “…the worse form of government except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.” Our democracy is, as Abraham Lincoln said at Gettysburg on November 19, 1863, a “government of the people, by the people, for the people.” It is rare. Despite its visible success, according to ourworldindata.org, twice as many people live in “closed autocracies” as live in “liberal democracies.” Yet, we cannot forget that while our government is beneficent, dependency on government, unless it is absolutely necessary, leads to a loss of freedom.

The Thin Veneer of Civilization by Mark Tapson

https://www.frontpagemag.com/the-thin-veneer-of-civilization/

The Left is turning us into a “sh*thole country.”

During a White House meeting with Senators in January, 2018, then-President Donald Trump reportedly questioned the reasoning for allowing immigration from “shithole countries” such as Haiti. This triggered the pearl-clutching mainstream media, and charges of racism flew fast and furious, including from Haiti Ambassador to the U.S. Paul Altidor, who said Trump’s language was based on “clichés and stereotypes rather than actual fact.”

Today Haiti is a shithole country, and that is not a racist cliché or stereotype but actual fact. It is a failed nation in a state of emergency, becoming a dangerous power vacuum in the Caribbean. Awash in violence and chaos, the country is run by a heavily armed gang whose messianic leader Jimmy Cherizier is grotesquely and justifiably nicknamed “Barbeque.”

Even reports of cannibalism have surfaced amid the current chaos, including videos on social media showing at least one gang member gnawing on a human leg from a burning corpse. An anonymous journalist on the ground told The Daily Express, “We have seen images of gang leaders eating people they have killed. We have seen images of people being tortured when they are kidnapped.”

As Horowitz Freedom Center Shillman Fellow Daniel Greenfield notes, Haiti is a failed state because it lacks “a legitimate government or a functional society,” and its police force is barely distinguishable from the murderous gangs it is supposed to control. The police there actually spawned “Barbeque” Cherizier, a warlord now the most powerful man in Haiti, who has orchestrated or been involved in a number of massacres of the Haitian people.

Media Bloodbath: Elon Musk Is Now More Trustworthy Than Every Major News Outlet

https://issuesinsights.com/2024/03/18/elon-musk-is-now-more-trustworthy-than-every-major-news-outlet/

Shortly after Donald Trump made remarks at a rally in Ohio, Joe Scarborough posted on X: “Donald Trump’s America. And he is proud of it. Promised another ‘bloodbath’ if he loses again.” The picture was from the Jan. 6 riot.

Soon after, however, Scarborough deleted the post.

We can’t say for certain why, except that he hit the delete button shortly after Elon Musk responded to “Morning Joe” with this comment:
The same can’t be said for almost every other major news outlet, which ran blood-curdling headlines about Trump’s supposed call to violence if he loses. Here’s a small sample:

Trump predicts ‘bloodbath’ if he loses 2024 election, ramps up anti-migrant rhetoric

Trump says there will be a ‘bloodbath’ if he loses the election

Trump Says There Will Be a ‘Bloodbath’ and Elections Will End if He Isn’t Reelected

Trump says country faces ‘bloodbath’ if Biden wins in November

Mary Trump’s Dire Warning After Donald Trump’s ‘Bloodbath’ Remark

An Even Darker Trump: Warns Of ‘Bloodbath’ If Not Elected

In Ohio, Trump warns of ‘bloodbath’ if he doesn’t win election

Donald Trump talks about ‘bloodbath,’ attacks immigrants as he rallies for Republican Senate pick in Ohio

Guilty!—But Not Really Guilty? A cynical public now expects any accused prominent leftist to remain unindicted, while any non-leftwing target will be indicted, convicted, and jailed—for the same alleged offenses. By Victor Davis Hanson

https://amgreatness.com/2024/03/18/guilty-but-not-really-guilty/

In 2011, then Homeland Security Advisor to President Obama, John Brennan, swore before Congress that drone-targeted assassination missions near the Pakistani border had not led to “a single collateral death.”

That was an obvious lie with grave consequences, given that Brennan was sworn under oath and was one of the top officials in the US national security community. Yet there were no subsequent repercussions.

In fact, the opposite occurred. Brennan was subsequently rewarded with a 2013 appointment as CIA Director.

But the next year, once again, Brennan lied to Congress, assuring the Senate Intelligence Committee that his CIA had not secretly accessed senate staffers’ computers. Again, there were no consequences for his repeated lies. Instead, Brennan, upon retirement, went on to be an MSNBC/NBC analyst who helped to promulgate the Russian collusion/laptop disinformation hoaxes.

In 2013, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper also lied under oath to Congress when he laughably stated that the National Security Agency did not spy on American citizens. Later, when called out by senators, Clapper fudged in a televised interview. “I responded in what I thought was the most truthful, or least untruthful, manner by saying no.” Try that contortion with the IRS.

Some members of Congress referred a criminal complaint of perjury against Brennan to then Attorney General Eric Holder. Nothing happened. Again, one of the chiefs of the American national security community was exempted after lying to members of Congress.

Clapper went on to a lucrative position as a CNN national security analyst, and at one point he claimed that Trump was a Putin “asset.”

As far as Eric Holder, he had earlier defied a congressional subpoena and was held in contempt by the House. The Department of Justice, however, chose not to pursue the complaint. Later in the Trump administration, Trump adviser Peter Navarro would be sentenced to four months in jail for similarly resisting a congressional subpoena. Was it a crime or not to resist a congressional subpoena?

SCAPEGOATING NETANYAHU — THEN AND NOW Stephen Soukup

https://wokecapital.org/scapegoating-netanyahu-then-and-now/

Benjamin Netanyahu is not fit to be the Prime Minister of Israel.

You don’t have to take my word for this, of course.  No less a luminary than the Senate Majority Leader said as much the other day.  That’s right.  The Majority Leader.  Of the Senate.  Of the United States of America.  Not the Knesset, mind you, but the U.S. Senate.  Moreover, he said that the United States should do everything it can to ensure that Netanyahu is pushed out of power.  Seriously (emphasis added):

In a landmark speech, New York Sen. Chuck Schumer said Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has “lost his way,” urged new elections in Israel, called for a two-state solution and said the United States should use its “leverage” to push for its goals in the region if Netanyahu remains in power….

[S]aying he spoke for a “silent majority” of American Jews, Schumer said many were “horrified” that Israel was falling short of upholding Jewish values due to its far-right coalition members and the way it is prosecuting the war in Gaza. And he castigated Netanyahu for actively opposing a two-state solution.

Maybe it’s just me, but I’d like to see the crosstabs of the survey showing that the “silent majority” of American Jews agree with Schumer on this.  I have a long and notorious history of underestimating American Jews’ loyalty to the Democratic Party, but I still think Schumer is mistaken here.  In fact, I think that he is full of male cattle excrement.

Schumer’s rant – which would be classified as “election interference” if it came from anyone other than a Democrat and were directed at anyone other than Netanyahu – was less about finding a solution to the current problems plaguing Israel and more about finding a scapegoat for the failure of the Democrats’ decades-long delusions about Middle East “peace.”

My American Greatness column tomorrow is about the millennia-old tradition in the West of scapegoating Jews for all the world’s problems when those problems get especially burdensome.  This is a familiar topic in these pages.  As it turns out, scapegoating Netanyahu is the Democrats’ version of this medieval antisemitism.  It allows them to blame “the Jews” without actually having to blame the Jews.  It gives them a handy, ready-made explanation for the failure of the two-state solution that enables them at least to try to play both sides of the issue.  In public, they say things like “of course I support Israel and its right to defend itself,” even as they nod and wink at their agitated Arab and identitarian supporters, whispering, “We know, we know.  It’s really the Jew’s fault.”

CHAPTER 10: Objective Reality Is Required for a Free Society Space Is No Longer the Final Frontier—Reality Is [upcoming release April 2024]

https://goudsmit.pundicity.com/27618/chapter-10-objective-reality-is-required-for

 goudsmit.pundicity.com  lindagoudsmit.com 

The globalist War on America, documented in the Dodd Report, is a culture war fought without bullets that has targeted America’s children for over 100 years. The classroom is the globalists’ chosen battlefield, because whoever controls the educational curriculum controls the future. Why is this true?

Because children live what they learn. Education is an industry, and like all industries, it produces a product. The goal of America’s enemies is to produce an unaware, compliant citizenry groomed for life in the planned globalist Unistate. The War on America’s Children utilizes both informational and psychological warfare to achieve that goal.

The globalist social engineers are skilled strategists applying subversive wartime psychological tactics to “change the hearts and minds” of American children. The strategic goals are to replace parental authority with governmental authority, and to move society from objective reality, the adult world of facts, to subjective reality, the childish world of feelings.

Interfering with a child’s developing ability to reality-test is a staggering deceit and a monstrous abuse of power. Education reformer Deborah DeGroff’s 2019 handbook Between the Covers: What’s Inside a Children’s Book?[i]exposes the deceit and documents the sad reality of illiteracy in America today.

In the past, when children were told that every student was a butterfly, the children knew it wasn’t true because they could see for themselves that some students were extremely smart and others weren’t–––no matter what the teacher said. At that time, children were still learning to read with phonics. It was a time before sight-words and whole-word instruction became ubiquitous, and well before “hi-lo” reading even existed.

I had never heard of hi-lo reading before reading Deborah DeGroff’s book. Basically, instead of teaching children to actually read, a deceitful system was developed to address and adapt to the alarmingly low reading levels across the country. Hi-lo is a reference to the fact that the book content is considered upper-grade (high school interest), but the actual reading level is lower grade—sometimes as low as second- or third-grade level!!

Larry Hogan: The U.S. Senate Needs Pro-Israel Voices That’s one of the reasons I’m running to succeed Maryland Democrat Ben Cardin. By Larry Hogan

https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-us-senate-needs-pro-israel-voices-thats-why-im-running-maryland-larry-hogan-19605a8a?mod=opinion_lead_pos8

The Democratic Party is splintering over Israel. Although it isn’t clear what America’s future partnership with our closest ally will look like, the outcome of the race to succeed Sen. Ben Cardin (D., Md.) could signal the direction. Mr. Cardin has been one of Israel’s most important supporters. When he retires next January, the world will be watching to see who picks up his mantle. One reason I am running for this seat is because we need pro-Israel champions in the Senate who will stand up to the loudest, angriest voices.

Though we belong to different parties, Mr. Cardin and I have worked together to do what is best for Maryland. I commend him for being a consistent supporter of Israel. As chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, he has worked to protect aid to Israel and to promote a strong U.S.-Israel partnership.

His approach is becoming far too rare in his party. Maryland’s junior senator, Democrat Chris Van Hollen, has become one of the chamber’s most hostile anti-Israel voices. He signed an outrageous letter on March 11 urging President Biden to offer Israel an ultimatum: Expand humanitarian-aid access in Gaza or else lose military assistance.

Both my potential Democratic opponents in this race—Rep. David Trone and Prince George’s County Executive Angela Alsobrook—have similarly demonstrated that they wouldn’t adequately support Israel. Each has demanded a cease-fire. Pushing for an immediate cease-fire is tantamount to urging Israel’s surrender, as it would leave Hamas intact to attack again in the future. The Council on American-Islamic Relations—whose executive director said he was “happy to see” the atrocities of Oct. 7 and whose Maryland director has compared Israel to Nazi Germany—applauded Mr. Trone’s call for a cease-fire in Gaza.

By contrast, my stance is this: We all want the violence to end, but the way to do so is to force Hamas terrorists to release every hostage, to surrender and to be held accountable for their crimes. As governor, I faithfully stood with Israel, including by signing an executive order prohibiting agencies and departments from entering into contracts with any business that boycotts Israel.

Following the Oct. 7 massacre, I also withdrew from two fellowships at Harvard when I saw that the university refused to condemn the protests that justified and celebrated Hamas’s terrorism. That is the kind of leadership I will take to the Senate.

Ukraine: Unintended Consequences by Amir Taheri

ttps://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/20494/ukraine-unintended-consequences

Though Putin remains personally popular to a degree that would make any Western leader green with envy, the war is clearly losing popular backing. Latest polls, some sanctioned by Kremlin-controlled organs, show that the war enjoys no more than 30 to 40 percent approval among Russians. More interestingly, between 50 and 60 percent of Russians oppose a second wave of military call-up, something that the Kremlin’s military planners regard as imperative if Russia means to stay in the game.

Instead, NATO has found two new members, and not just anyone, because Finland and Sweden built part of their national identity on neutrality. Even worse for Putin, the US-led alliance is seeding up membership procedures for at least four other countries, notably Albania…

Being forced to sell its oil at a juicy discount to China is the last thing that Russia might have wanted, had it not been forced to do so because of Western sanctions.

What is amazing is that all those involved in this tragedy seem to be unable to read the runes even when plainly explained to them, notably that a war fought half-heartedly, almost as a weekend hobby, could go on without producing a winner and a loser, something without which no war can ever end.

Though Russian President Vladimir Putin remains personally popular to a degree that would make any Western leader green with envy, the war against Ukraine is clearly losing popular backing. Latest polls, some sanctioned by Kremlin-controlled organs, show that the war enjoys no more than 30 to 40 percent approval among Russians.

Even a year ago, some Russia-watchers believed that President Vladimir Putin might end his war on Ukraine with something like a victory in time before what could be his last re-election campaign.

However, now as Russians go to the polls, no victory is even remotely in sight.

The Strategy of Atrocity in the Gaza War by Michael Hochberg and Leonard Hochberg

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/20495/hamas-strategy-atrocity-gaza-war

Hamas is perhaps the first regime in recorded history to fight a war designed to maximize casualties among their own population.

Failing to swiftly destroy Hamas and directly punish Hamas’s backers in Iran and Qatar will teach sympathizers in other parts of the Muslim world that strategies of atrocity should be added to the playbook of regimes challenging U.S. allies around the world. Even worse would be for Hamas to actually achieve a strategic victory and gain a Palestinian statehood; such an outcome would ensure that atrocity becomes a standard and widely used strategy for at least a generation to come.

The laws of war — primarily a Western innovation — are being weaponized by the enemies of the West, who do not subscribe to Western culture….. Today, the United States and our allies find ourselves at war with states and non-state entities who do not subscribe to the laws of war.

“[T]he Hamas terrorists killed by Israel in the ensuing war, and civilian non-combatants killed in the Gaza Strip while being used as human shields by Hamas. They are all considered “Martyrs” whose families are eligible to receive stipends of 1,400-12,000 shekels [$375-$3200] per month for life.” — Itamar Marcus; Founder, Palestinian Media Watch, palwatch.org, January 10, 2024.

The popular accusation of disproportionality is, in point of fact, aimed to prevent Western-aligned nations from achieving decisive victories. Even when the allies of the United States have the military capacity to break the will of the enemy, thereby imposing peace on the defeated, they will be forced to resort to fighting forever wars.

Why should the Israelis be compelled to allow aid into Gaza, when Hamas continues to hold hostage not just Israelis but also Americans? Under the guise of benevolence and generosity, international organizations promote forever wars.

If the type of warfare that we have seen from Hamas is allowed to succeed, and is not met with overwhelming violence and utter defeat, it will become the standard approach for those challenging Western dominance. If, however, we want to live in a world where the laws of war mean something, then the penalties for deliberately flouting them need to be terrible. Otherwise more regimes will be tempted to gain advantage through strategies of atrocity.

The US should stop imposing on our allies a doctrine of defeat.

Finally, the day after hostilities end, the Israelis must protect the new Gazan government from being undermined by renewed efforts to support terrorism and remilitarization.

The only path to peace, other than the destruction of Israel, is through a comprehensive Israeli victory and an unconditional surrender by Hamas in Gaza, and a post-war arrangement ensuring that the Gazans will not be able to commit such atrocities in Israel again.

Hamas is perhaps the first regime in recorded history to fight a war designed to maximize casualties among their own population. Pictured: Israeli Foreign Minister Eli Cohen shows a photo of an Israeli soldier posing next to a Hamas weapons cache that was found at Rantisi Hospital in Gaza, at a press conference at the European Office of the United Nations in Geneva, on November 14, 2023. (Photo by Pierre Albouy/AFP via Getty Images)

“People should either be caressed or crushed. If you do them minor damage they will get their revenge; but if you cripple them there is nothing they can do. If you need to injure someone, do it in such a way that you do not have to fear their vengeance.” — Niccolo Machiavelli.