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June 2025

HISTORY Comments turned off

Intrepid Heroes of the D-Day Invasion Catherine Salgado

By on June 7th, 2025

https://pjmedia.com/catherinesalgado/2025/06/06/intrepid-heroes-of-the-d-day-invasion-n4940498

June 6 is the 81st anniversary of the historic D-Day invasion of Normandy, when the Allies shifted the balance of World War II against the Nazis.

From Pointe du Hoc to Omaha Beach, and from Colleville Sur Mer to Sainte-Mère-Église, the heroism of American troops was on full display on June 6, 1944. Many of the Allied leaders were incompetent (Patton aside), but our men more than made up for that with their determination and courage. Nor did the fighting and dying end on the Normandy beaches, as troops fought their difficult way into the French countryside, pushing the Nazis back.

There are countless stories of bravery from D-Day and the following campaign — including that of my own great-uncle Jack Corley — but today I would like to share the stories of two Americans who won the Medal of Honor for their exceptional actions during the larger Normandy campaign. The first, as described by the Congressional Medal of Honor Society (CMOHS), was Army staff sergeant Arthur Frederick DeFranzo, who earned his medal on June 10 near Vaubadon, France. Scouts were moving across an open field when an abrupt hail of enemy fire wounded one scout.

SSgt. DeFranzo courageously moved out in the open to the aid of the wounded scout and was himself wounded but brought the man to safety. Refusing aid, SSgt. DeFranzo reentered the open field and led the advance upon the enemy. There were always at least two machine-guns bringing unrelenting fire upon him, but SSgt. DeFranzo kept going forward, firing into the enemy and one by one the enemy emplacements became silent. While advancing he was again wounded, but continued on until he was within 100 yards of the enemy position and even as he fell, he kept firing his rifle and waving his men forward. 

When his company had come up, however, SSgt. DeFranzo — seriously injured as he was — managed to raise himself up and take his place at the head of his men. 

But DeFranzo was now too great a target, and once more the relentless enemy fire hit him. The dying hero got his revenge, though:

In a final gesture of indomitable courage, he threw several grenades at the enemy machine-gun position and completely destroyed the gun. In this action SSgt. DeFranzo lost his life, but by bearing the brunt of the enemy fire in leading the attack, he prevented a delay in the assault which would have been of considerable benefit to the foe, and he made possible his company’s advance with a minimum of casualties. The extraordinary heroism and magnificent devotion to duty displayed by SSgt. DeFranzo was a great inspiration to all about him and is in keeping with the highest traditions of the Armed Forces.

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ANTI-SEMITISM Comments turned off

Boulder and the Gaza Mind-Virus by Seth Mandel

By on June 7th, 2025

https://www.commentary.org/seth-mandel/boulder-and-the-gaza-mind-virus/

The terror attack on Jews in Boulder has exposed how deeply heads have been buried in the sand, especially when it comes to anti-Semitism and the left. Reporting out of the Colorado college town has an Invasion of the Body Snatchers quality to it, depicting a community of identical-looking but hollowed-out replacements for the humans that once populated it.

Infected with Hamas propaganda, American cities have become creeping horror flicks, with a trio of New York Times reporters in place of the scriptwriters. In today’s Times, those narrators set the scene:

“In the foothills of the Rocky Mountains, the college town of Boulder, Colo., has long been known as a laid-back hippie haven. Its residents cherish the outdoors, and its leaders are often elected on reliably liberal promises to expand affordable housing, address climate change and increase racial equity.

“In recent months, however, the City Council has been pulled apart over an entirely different matter: the war in Gaza.

“Pro-Palestinian protesters have regularly interrupted meetings with shouting and other unruly behavior, even prompting the council to temporarily move its meetings online to avoid further disruption and later adding rules to more easily bar people from City Hall.”

So the city of Boulder increasingly cannot function, and the reason is Gaza. This is the sort of thing that should have raised alarm bells long before the inevitable anti-Semitic terror attack it produced. How was this not a major story? The pro-Hamas (in some cases Hamas-connected) network in America is grinding the gears of local government to a halt, and the answer in Boulder was: Let’s have our council meetings on Zoom?

“It’s been a hard time here in Boulder,” Mayor Aaron Brockett told the paper. “We reiterate over and over and over again that international affairs are not the business of the Boulder City Council, and our work is to clean the streets and make sure the water comes out when you turn the tap.”

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ISRAEL, MEDIA Comments turned off

Taking Sides: Wikipedia Advances Anti-Israel Narratives By Aaron Bandler

By on June 7th, 2025

https://www.realclearinvestigations.com/articles/2025/06/06/taking_sides_wikipedia_advances_anti-israel_narratives_1115040.html

Wikipedia, the world’s go-to site for information that professes to take a neutral point of view, is coming under fire for alleged anti-Israel bias in the sources it favors and content it delivers to millions of readers. 

The criticism is coming from several quarters, including a bipartisan group of 23 members of Congress who, in an April letter, expressed “deep concern regarding antisemitism” found in the online encyclopedia. The entries routinely highlight the work of anti-Zionist scholars and Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs), according to a review by RealClearInvestigations, while dismissing the views of Israel’s defenders. Amnesty International, which casts Israel as genocidal, is considered a reliable source for the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, while the Anti-Defamation League, which rejects that view, is not. 

A vigil for victims of antisemitic violence, Yaron Lischinsky and Sarah Pilgrim, gunned down last month in Washington, D.C.
AP

The controversy has emerged during a sharp rise in antisemitism around the world, including the recent murders of two Israeli embassy staffers in Washington, D.C., and the firebombing in Boulder of protesters demanding the release of hostages taken by Hamas. Critics argue that the online encyclopedia is fueling this hatred by publishing biased entries that are presented as objective statements of fact. 

Wikipedia is produced by volunteer editors who are instructed to follow a set of rules as they summarize the work of authoritative sources, which can include those that appear to be biased. Its consensus model encourages editors to work out their differences collegially and reach a compromise that balances the different viewpoints of sources to ensure neutrality. But critics say that so many academics and NGOs hold left-leaning views that cast Israel as the oppressor and Palestinians as the oppressed that it is hard for editors to avoid publishing biased statements as neutral ones. 

Consider Wiki’s entry for “Gaza genocide” – a title that, critics argue, takes sides. It begins with this statement: “According to a United Nations Special Committee, Amnesty International, and other experts and human rights organizations, Israel is committing genocide against the Palestinian people during its ongoing invasion and bombing of the Gaza Strip as part of the Gaza war.” The entry then lists several paragraphs of evidence, including large-scale deaths of Palestinians, the forced displacement of most of the population, and starvation. 

Where’s the other side of the story to establish neutrality? Not until the seventh paragraph do readers learn that Hamas’ attack in Israel, killing 1,139 people, sparked the invasion of Gaza. But rather than calling Hamas a terrorist group – a classification used by the U.S., EU, U.K., Canada, and other democratic nations – whose avowed goal is the destruction of Israel, the entry describes the Oct. 7 attack by Hamas as a response to Israel’s historic treatment of Palestinians. 

Leading With Bias 

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IMMIGRATION Comments turned off

Big Government and Illegal Immigration Illegal immigration isn’t just driven by desperate migrants—it’s sustained by bureaucrats chasing budgets, power, and incentives in a system designed to serve itself first. By Stephen Soukup

By on June 7th, 2025

https://amgreatness.com/2025/06/07/big-government-and-illegal-immigration/

The general consensus among opponents of mass illegal immigration is that the immigrants in question are largely irrelevant in their purported supporters’ calculations. For all their rhetoric about compassion, the “promise of America,” and the “land of opportunity,” immigration supporters cynically think of immigrants not as people, but as tools, as the means to an end. Mass illegal immigration is the quickest and easiest way to change the nation’s electoral calculus—altering Congressional (and, by extension, Electoral College) apportionment to favor Democrats. Or it’s the best way to undermine “white privilege” in elections (and elsewhere) by upending the white majority status. Or—as in Great Britain—it is a way to upend the historical underpinnings of the nation, create a multicultural society, and make “the right” pay for its cultural intransigence:

The huge increases in migrants over the last decade were partly due to a politically motivated attempt by ministers to radically change the country and “rub the Right’s nose in diversity,” according to Andrew Neather, a former adviser to Tony Blair, Jack Straw, and David Blunkett.

He said Labour’s relaxation of controls was a deliberate plan to “open up the UK to mass migration,” but that ministers were nervous and reluctant to discuss such a move publicly for fear it would alienate their “core working-class vote.”

As with any such consensus, this one is undoubtedly rooted in at least some truth. Democrats in the United States did indeed hitch their wagons to the theory that demographic change would deliver them a semi-permanent electoral majority, and they’ve behaved accordingly for years. As for Great Britain, who am I to disagree with “an adviser” who helped craft the nation’s immigration policy and who believes that it worked precisely as expected and delivered the multicultural utopia he and his compatriots had long envisioned? Some significant part of the present immigration crisis—here, there, and everywhere—is inarguably the result of consciously cynical manipulation on the part of aggressive ideological operatives.

All of that said, however, it is perhaps unwise and unhelpful to overcomplicate matters. Hanlon’s Razor (attributed to Robert J. Hanlon of Scranton, Pennsylvania) admonishes that one should “Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.” Douglas Hubbard, a management consultant and author, coined what he called a “clumsier” version of Hanlon’s adage, which almost certainly applies here: “Never attribute to malice or stupidity that which can be explained by moderately rational individuals following incentives in a complex system.”

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ANTI-SEMITISM Comments turned off

On Anti-Semitism and Delegitimization The path from delegitimizing Israel to justifying violence is paved with historical lies—and too often, ends in bloodshed. By Thaddeus G. McCotter

By on June 7th, 2025

https://amgreatness.com/2025/06/07/on-anti-semitism-and-delegitimization/

In the past, I have often cited George Santayana’s famous warning: “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”

It is sound advice for those not seeking to replicate past wrongs. Yet, what if someone seeks to weaponize the past to justify perpetuating and recreating its horrors? For such moral reprobates, there are unfortunately fertile fields of extant hate to sow and reap.

In former Israeli Ambassador to the United States Dr. Michael B. Oren’s authoritative history, Six Days of War: June 1967 and the Making of the Modern Middle East, one finds this heated exchange between the United Nations ambassadors for the Soviet Union and Israel:

American-Israeli differences, though sharpening, were minuscule compared to those between Israel and the Soviets. “Israel’s military hordes [are] following in the bloody footsteps of Hitler’s executioners,” ranted [Nikolai] Federenko, and Gideon Rafael responded in kind: “Neither Israel nor the Jewish people concluded a pact with Hitler’s Germany, a pact which encouraged Nazi Germany to unleash its aggression against the world.”

What is striking is how little has changed within the latest eruption of violent anti-Semitism spurred by the barbarous Hamas terrorist attack on Israeli civilians on October 7, 2024. And, in the above exchange, we can therefore glimpse the broad contours of how such anti-Semitism proceeds and is protested—if, however tragically often, in vain.

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FOREIGN POLICY Comments turned off

Is Trump ‘Going Wobbly’ on Iran? by Majid Rafizadeh

By on June 7th, 2025

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/21672/trump-going-wobbly-on-iran

Uh oh. US President Donald J, Trump has reportedly fired a “slew of pro-Israel officials in America First ‘course correction,'” and that “Trump is looking for an Iran dove to take over as Middle East chief at National Security Council, while pushing for nuclear deal,” according to Middle East Eye.

Iran uses it centrifuges to enrich uranium to high levels. Highly enriched uranium is needed only for nuclear weapons. No highly enriched uranium, no nuclear bombs. Even one uranium-enrichment centrifuge in Iran’s possession is a nuclear weapon waiting to happen.

If the US Congress could please pass a bill as soon as possible preventing the US from allowing centrifuges in Iran, it would be an enormous benefit to US and global security.

Meanwhile, America’s enemies — Russia, China, North Korea and Venezuela — are waiting to see if the US actually has any real backbone before deciding if it is safe for them to go on offense again.

This is not warmongering — it is the last resort when diplomacy fails and survival is on the line. Israel and the US have every right to defend themselves – and the region – against a regime that openly seeks their extermination.

Unfortunately, Trump has repeatedly given Iran reason to bet on that. First, Trump told Hamas in January that they had to deliver all the hostages or “all hell will break out.” When Hamas did nothing of the kind, Trump’s dramatic response was — nothing. Even better, Trump seemed to “throw Israel under the bus.” How perfect!

Then, on March 7, Trump sent Khamenei a letter saying that Iran had two months to dismantle its nuclear program… Hmm. It is now June and Iran has been enriching more uranium than ever. No wonder Iran’s regime assumes it is holding a royal straight flush.

Iran’s regime saw what happened to Libya’s Muammar Qaddafi when he gave up his nuclear arsenal. Iran’s regime saw what happened when Ukraine, thanks to the Budapest Memorandum of 1994 – signed by Ukraine, Russia and the US – gave up its nuclear arsenal. The lesson they surely learned was: No nukes, no power. Iran will not voluntarily give up what it must see as its insurance policy for ruling Iran forever.

Uh oh. US President Donald J, Trump has reportedly fired a “slew of pro-Israel officials in America First ‘course correction,'” and that “Trump is looking for an Iran dove to take over as Middle East chief at National Security Council, while pushing for nuclear deal,” according to Middle East Eye.

The threat posed by Iran’s nuclear ambitions, however, is no longer a distant concern — it is a rapidly escalating crisis with the most severe and immediate implications for Israel, the oil-rich Sunni Arab Gulf States, and North and South America. Trump appears to be scurrying to back down from “or there will be “all hell to pay,” and is possibly on the verge of letting Iran keep its uranium-enrichment centrifuges. Not an option.

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