It Turns Out Hamas Won’t Just Commit Suicide Noah Rothman

https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/it-turns-out-hamas-wont-just-commit-suicide/

One week ago, Joe Biden revealed the details of an Israeli cease-fire proposal (to which the Israelis seemed conspicuously cold) that he said held out the promise of a “better ‘day after’ in Gaza without Hamas in power” (to which Hamas is expected to consent). The premise would be laughable, but the earnestness with which the Biden administration appears to believe its own suppositions drained the moment of its dark humor.

The widespread skepticism the president’s announcement produced was entirely warranted. But while the Israeli side has apparently consented to what one Netanyahu adviser said was “not a good deal,” Hamas stubbornly refuses to just roll over and die. Though that would represent a pleasantly bloodless conclusion to the war in Gaza, the terror group that slaughtered civilians en masse at the outset of hostilities seems disinclined to consent to its own euthanasia.

“Hamas will not surrender its guns or sign a proposal that asks for that,” the Arab mediators relating Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar conveyed to U.S. officials on Thursday, according to the Wall Street Journal. That revelation was apparently so unremarkable that it merited little in the way of subsequent reporting on Hamas’s negotiating posture.

The rest of the Journal piece was devoted to the political fallout resulting from an Israeli air strike on a compound housing a U.N.-run school that had served as a makeshift civilian shelter. Palestinian officials insist the strike was reckless and unprovoked. The Israelis maintain that the facility was being used by Hamas to shelter militants who participated in the October 7 attacks. The Journal’s report blurs the ethical distinctions between the combatants and their competing claims, but one stands out. When Israeli forces kill civilians, it’s an accident (when it’s not a fabrication). When Hamas kills civilians, it’s strategic.

Tragedies like the one that allegedly unfolded near the Nuseirat camp occur in war — a war, some may need reminding, that was inaugurated by Hamas. It is the offensive actor in this conflict, and the collateral damage that accompanies Israel’s defensive campaign is a lamentable consequence of Hamas’s aggression. Indeed, drawing fire near or onto civilian targets is a key feature of Hamas’s tactics in its asymmetrical struggle against the Israelis. Lending the terrorist sect’s claims credibility — or even mere emotional weight — advances Hamas’s objectives and prolongs the war.

A New Medical Coalition Rebuts the Propriety of ‘Gender-Affirming Care ’By Wesley J. Smith

https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/a-new-medical-coalition-rebuts-the-propriety-of-gender-affirming-care/?utm_source=recirc-desktop&utm_

It took too many years, but finally some countries in Europe are pushing back against so-called gender-affirming care that promotes irreversible body-altering interventions to gender-confused children and adolescents. Meanwhile, the thoroughly researched and soberly written Cass Review — authored by a highly respected pediatrician from the U.K. — exposed how evidence supporting the benefits of such drastic measures is scant while the potential harm is demonstrable. There’s no question that, in Europe at least, the tide has turned.

But not here. For some reason — ideology, politics, hubris — the American medical establishment (except for the American Academy of Pediatrics, which has agreed to re-review the data) has barely acknowledged these newest scientific studies and reforms. Neither has the Biden administration.

But now, a new American medical coalition — Doctors Protecting Children — has organized to fight back against the ideological thrall and to restore a more rational and efficacious standard of care for children. It has just issued the Doctors Protecting Children Declaration — authored by the American College of Pediatricians (not to be confused with the AAP) — setting forth specifics. (Full disclosure: My think tank, the Discovery Institute, supports the declaration.)

Remembering D-Day’s Freedom Fighters By J.B. Shurk

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2024/06/remembering_d_day_s_freedom_fighters.html

It is hard to believe that eighty years have passed since American, British, and Canadian troops landed at Normandy and fought their way across fortified beaches covered in German mines and barbed wire fences.  What a nightmare it must have been to overcome such soggy, uneven terrain while enduring heavy fire from gun emplacements secured upon hills and steep cliffs.  It must have felt like being dropped off in Hell and navigating through a gruesome Jell-O of blood, sand, smoke, explosions, and whirring bullets.  There were no timeouts.  There were no “safe spaces.”  There was nowhere to hide.  You either advanced or died.

Could Allied Forces accomplish such audacious feats today?  It is hard to imagine the “Me-Me-Me Generations” putting their lives on the line for much of anything.  Could you convince a socialist who believes that everything should be free that freedom is never free?  Could you explain to a Millennial that storming a beach is not done for Instagram snapshots, social media approval, or Facebook likes?  Could you persuade all those Westerners who hate Western civilization to pick up a rifle and fight for the West’s survival?  I’m not so sure.

Don’t get me wrong; there are still plenty of patriots among us.  America’s armed services remain home to the kind of self-sacrificing heroes who would have parachuted behind enemy lines or fought tooth-and-nail to establish beachheads eight decades ago.  But the Pentagon has also watered down physical fitness standards, promoted “politically correct” Marxists into crucial command positions, and poisoned the rank and file with “woke” indoctrination.  

‘Jaws’ Out of Water? Veteran actor Richard Dreyfuss gives the USA an intriguing – and brave – civics lesson. by Thom Nickels

https://www.frontpagemag.com/jaws-out-of-water/

The shark in the movie Jaws is alive and well, but instead of attacking innocent ocean swimmers, it is going after woke ideologues in out-of-water venues.

Recently, the Cabot Theater in Beverly, Massachusetts, managed by J. Casey Seward, hosted a Jaws symposium Q-and-A with Oscar-winning actor Richard Dreyfuss. Hundreds of people attended the event, no doubt thinking it was going to be a superficial conversation on Jaws movie nostalgia.

That changed when Dreyfuss walked onstage in a blue floral print house-dress, sashaying and wiggling his hips before the audience after which stagehands then rushed forward to remove the dress and help him put on a sports jacket.

The woman-to-man skit was more sophomoric, self-indulgent SNL-fare than genuinely funny. But it was certainly not a transphobic skit worthy of the attention it received from the progressive, left-tainted mainstream press.

Yet many media outlets “exploded” with sensationalistic breaking news headlines. It was as if Dreyfuss had been found guilty of infanticide. What media outlet didn’t jump into the act? There was Vanity Fair, AOL News, USA Today, The Washington Post, The Blade, as well as hundreds of TV news stations across the country, like WCVB-5 Boston.

Most posted videos of Dreyfuss walking onstage in that tacky house dress. And they followed the actor—dressed as a man—as he sat down with the host of the interview, a short, diminutive woman with an NPR-style, feminist buzz cut, who looked more than a little nervous as she immediately started talking about the award-winning movie, ignoring what had just happened onstage.

In online videos of the Cabot event, what’s noticeable is intense audience applause and enthusiastic appreciation. While media reports stated there were boos from some in the audience from the start, those boos were so soft they were drowned out by the cheers and clamor of approval.

Yes, yes, okay…one can hear a few disgruntled groans when Dreyfuss tells the audience that civics needs to make a comeback in America’s public schools.

Dreyfuss, who founded the Dreyfuss Civics Initiative in 2006, then urged audience members to “make sure your kids are not the last generation of Americans. And you know exactly what I’m talking about.”

Here we have a purely patriotic comment that should not be controversial at all—unless, of course, you’re a Howard Zinn fan and want American history rewritten with a Marxist slant.

Saying you favor civics classes in public schools is a mild-mannered conservative talking point, but to woke folks it can trigger something like an epileptic seizure. In fact, many of the “offenses” that Dreyfuss was claimed to have uttered on the Cabot stage were not recorded on video at all, which strikes me as odd considering all the news attention this “story” generated.

Biden is downsizing, politicizing our military Want to avoid war? Prepare for one: Don Feder

https://www.washingtontimes.com/staff/don-feder/

History teaches us that the best way to avoid a war is to prepare for one.

After World War I, another global conflict was unthinkable, the leaders of the democracies declared. Hitler, Mussolini and the Japanese imperialists thought otherwise.

In the 1930s, Britain effectively disarmed, and France relied on static defense. The United States embraced isolationism, relying on two oceans for protection, while Germany rearmed and Japan invaded China. The cost of that lack of imagination was another world war and 75 million dead.

When World War II ended, shortsighted politicians rushed to downsize our military, even as communism advanced on four continents.

After Vietnam, the peaceniks who had taken control of the Democratic Party couldn’t wait to put our armed forces in mothballs. Then came Saddam Hussein, the Taliban, 9/11, ISIS, and radical Islam’s war on the West.

The Biden administration’s death march of folly began with the disastrous withdrawal of U.S. forces from Afghanistan, with 13 service members dead, thousands of Americans stranded and $7 billion in military equipment left behind. The weakness we displayed to our enemies set the stage for the next round of aggression.

President Biden is Neville Chamberlain, George McGovern and Jimmy Carter rolled into one.

Democrats Disrespect D-Day Tone-deaf, petty, and political. by Mark Tapson

https://www.frontpagemag.com/democrats-disrespect-d-day/

Over 4000 Allied troops, including over 1500 Americans, died storming the beaches of Normandy on this day in 1944, with thousands more wounded or missing. Today’s Democrat Party chose to honor them with petty political messaging and the hyping of Donald Trump as a threat to democracy comparable to that faced on D-Day.

Failed presidential candidate and Trump Derangement Syndrome sufferer Hillary Clinton, not a person known for empathy or for her concern for American troops, diminished the 80th anniversary of D-Day by tweeting a clichéd comparison of the former President to Hitler: “Eighty years ago today, thousands of brave Americans fought to protect democracy on the shores of Normandy. This November, all we have to do is vote,” she wrote.

Needless to say, this tone-deaf, disrespectful politicization of the sacrifices and heroism displayed by so many young warriors against tyranny was not well-received on social media:

“Holy s*** I despise these people,” Army Ranger veteran Sean Parnell posted. “It’s impossible to capture just how loathsome a comment this is. To cheapen what WWII heroes did to BS garbage politics makes me sick. Again, WWII veterans deserve so much better than this.”

“What kind of shameless, broken, lizard person do you have to be to tweet out some nonsense like this?” wrote ComfortablySmug. “‘Yes I know what it was like for those soldiers on Omaha beach ducking machine gun fire, I went to vote. I am braver than the troops.’ She has never recovered from Trump’s win.”

Shades Of Nixon: Biden Refuses To Turn Over Potentially Devastating Tapes

https://issuesinsights.com/2024/06/07/shades-of-nixon-biden-refuses-to-turn-over-potentially-devastating-tapes/

Almost exactly 50 years ago, the Supreme Court ordered President Richard Nixon to turn over White House tapes that he had refused to release for nearly a year, citing executive privilege. On July 24, 1974, the court unanimously rejected Nixon’s executive privilege claim. Sixteen days later, Nixon resigned.

Fast forward to this year, and President Joe Biden is refusing to release tapes of his interviews with Special Counsel Robert Hur about his handling of classified documents, citing, as Nixon did, executive privilege, with an added twist about the risk of “deep fakes.”

Biden is, in fact, so determined to keep the tapes secret that he’s willing to let his attorney general get slapped with contempt of Congress, a charge two House committees advanced on Thursday for Garland’s refusal to comply with a congressional subpoena.

The White House is also being sued by the Heritage Foundation, Judicial Watch, and a dozen news organizations – including CNN and the Associated Press – for access to the tapes after the White House refused to comply with Freedom of Information Act requests.  

The Biden administration argues that there’s no reason to turn over the tapes since the transcripts are already out.

But last Friday, the administration admitted that the transcripts had been altered.

That admission came in response to Heritage’s lawsuit. The White House told a federal court that the transcripts were “accurate … except for minor instances.”

In response to that, Heritage’s Oversight Project posted on X that: “After being forced into federal court by us, the White House admits they altered evidence to make Biden appear less incompetent This case has been blown wide open.”

An Out-of-Control Administrative State Turns a Parking Lot into a Mine By Janet Levy

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2024/06/an_out_of_control_administrative_state_turns_a_parking_lot_into_a_mine.html

Between the law and the nitty-gritty of its implementation stands the diabolical bureaucracy — without constitutional authority but with seemingly unquestionable powers to frame rules and regulations.  Sometimes, bureaucratic decisions are downright absurd — such as, most recently, designating a parking lot a coal mine!

But before we get to how the Department of Labor’s Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA) wrested jurisdiction over a parking lot and ludicrously holds on despite legal reversals, let us run through some examples of arbitrary administrative overreach, an enduring problem over the last few decades:

The Environment Protection Agency (EPA) attempted to expand the definition of “waters of the United States” in the Clean Water Act to include wetlands on residential property. As a result, a landowner in Idaho was prevented from building a modest home on his property for 17 years until the Supreme Court ruled in his favor last year (Sackett v. EPA).
The National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) randomly decided that fishing operators should transport, house, and pay the salaries of federal inspectors who accompany them on trips to monitor compliance with fishing rules.  Previously, the NMFS itself bore those costs, as would be reasonable.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) weaponized the Antiquities Act to increase the regulatory burden on ranchers and farmers, hinder normal agricultural operations, and seize land.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) overstepped its bounds by arbitrarily banning a popular tourist activity — swimming with dolphins — citing disturbances to dolphins and their habitats.

The latest victim to raise a voice against such administrative overreach is KC Transport, Inc., a family-owned company based in Virginia and West Virginia.  The company parks, maintains, and repairs trucks; some occasionally haul coal.

In 2019, an MSHA inspector visited the company’s facility in Emmett, West Virginia, and cited the company for repairing two trucks without using blocks to secure the wheels. The inspector claimed that the company’s sporadic coal hauling brought it under MSHA’s jurisdiction and declared that the trucks and the parking lot constituted a coal mine.

Israel Is Helping Palestinians More Than Those Who Condemn Israel by Alan M. Dershowitz and Andrew Stein

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/20683/israel-helping-palestinians

Consider the fact that no Arab or Muslim nation has been willing to accept Palestinian refugees from Gaza. Perhaps these nations recall that anyone who has tried to help the Palestinians has lived to regret it.

Perhaps Ireland, Norway and Spain might extend invitations to the Palestinians to become residents there?

On April 13, more than 1,000 demonstrators marched through the streets of Hamburg, Germany and demanded that the country become a Caliphate, with Shariah law.

The only reason that Ireland, Norway and Spain can safely recognize a Palestinian state is that they do not have to live with the consequences.

Many [Arab and Muslim states]… might feel obligated officially to support the Palestinians and a “two-state solution,” but behind closed doors will admit that a Palestinian state is the last thing they want….

The truth is that few outside of Israel really care about the plight of the Palestinian people. The demonstrations on college campuses which purport to be “pro-Palestine” are far more about condemning Israel than about helping the Palestinians.

Those who claim to support the Palestinians… ought to be urging Arab and Muslim nations to help the Palestinians in material ways.

Until that is done, all the Palestinian people will get are hollow demonstrations on university campuses, empty recognitions from anti-Israel governments, irrelevant United Nations resolutions and bigoted demonization of Israel. None of this helps the Palestinian people. It only encourages more hatred, more terrorism and more war.

FAUCI TESTIFIED YESTERDAY – $710 MILLION PAID TO NATIONAL INSTITUTES OF HEALTH BY BIG PHARMA

Dr. Anthony Fauci sat for more than three hours of live questions by the U.S. House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic.

The day before the hearing, on Sunday, the New York Post broke our latest “follow the money” investigation into NIH third-party royalties.

Our auditors found that during the pandemic, $710 million in secret third-party royalties enriched the National Institutes of Health – with 97-percent of the payments flowing into Fauci’s institute, National Institutes of Allergies and Infectious Diseases (NIAID).