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August 2025

ISRAEL Comments turned off

Israel, Protector of the West, Treacherously Undermined by France, UK and Canada by Lawrence A. Franklin

By on August 13th, 2025

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/21826/israel-protector-of-the-west-treacherously

The Druze, who are Arabs descended from Shia Islam, do not consider themselves Muslim. Therefore the other Arabs in Syria do not consider them Muslim either. For months “government forces” have been slaughtering them. Islamic terrorists appear to believe that they are obligated to slaughter anyone not Muslim:

Something appears wrong with this picture. Al-Sharaa promised Trump that he would protect Syria’s minorities; so far, he does seems to be doing everything but that (here, here and here) . The situation sems increasingly reminiscent of an old Soviet KGB recommendation to just keep telling them what they want to hear, then do anything you want.

In the latest of these opposition demonstrations, on July 21, dozens of protestors shouted “Hamas Out.” There is still strong reason to doubt, however, however, if Gazans would be more favorably inclined toward Israel if Hamas were gone.

Israel is already over-extended in defending virtually every minority in the area – while receiving nothing but opprobrium from most of the insensate media and many in Europe. They seem not to realize that they are the beneficiaries of Israel’s actions, even as they keep on giving away their continent to newcomers who seem intent on replacing Europe’s values with their own.

The question remains, however, if Al-Sharaa in Syria is not still just a terrorist, but in a suit and tie.

Israel has not only been protecting virtually every persecuted minority in the Middle East; it has, with the help of US President Donald J. Trump, also been protecting the West itself. Has anyone heard a breath of gratitude? On the contrary, many leaders in the West — most prominently President Emmanuel Macron of France, Prime Minister Keir Starmer of the United Kingdom and Prime Minister Mark Carney of Canada, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese of Australia, followed closely by Prime Minister Micheal Martin of Ireland and Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre of Norway — have doubled down on the side of terrorists, this time Hamas. Macron’s announcement to recognize a fantasy “Palestinian state” not only demolished the negotiations that were reportedly nearing completion for a ceasefire and the return of the 50 remaining hostages; it also might cause the death by starvation, shooting or explosives possibly strapped to them, of the 20 hostages believed to be alive. In so doing, they are betraying not only the sole tiny country that is sacrificing its own people to protect them, but their own increasingly abused citizens as well.

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NATIONAL SECURITY AND DEFENSE Comments turned off

Can the U.S. Address Its Ammunition Crisis Before the Next War? Rick Moran

By on August 13th, 2025

https://pjmedia.com/rick-moran/2025/08/12/can-the-us-address-its-ammunition-crisis-before-the-next-war-n4942631

While headlines focus on military modernization, a section of the Big Beautiful Bill allocates billions to ammunition production. It’s only the latest sign that defense officials have woken up to the crisis in ammunition production and are pouring money into production lines to close the gap between what’s needed and what is currently available.

It’s a readiness problem that was made worse in some respects by our massive support of ammunition to Ukraine in the early days of the war and to Israel. The U.S. was the only NATO nation with the stocks on hand to help Ukraine withstand the initial blows from Russia. 

The crisis, however, preceded Ukraine and has been part of a planned “managed decline” of military stocks that began in the early 2000s. 

Now, with China becoming more aggressive and North Korea a wild card, replenishing ammunition stocks, especially of 155mm shells, becomes a critical necessity. 

In congressional testimony, Army officials told Congress that they’ve “invested $4.9 billion to build new [munitions] production lines and add new capacity and resiliency to our supply chains across the country.” Also, the army is “expanding and modernizing existing facilities to increase speed, flexibility, and capacity.”

The end-goal is to create “21st-century production capabilities that can generate the ammunition stockpiles necessary to sustain our national defense” during a long war.

The Army reached its goal of quadrupling the production of 155mm shells this month by moving shell production to four separate sites. A new, fully automated 155mm artillery shell production factory called UNION Technologies opened in Texas a few weeks ago, and another new load, assembly, and pack factory opened in Arkansas last April.

In Indiana, a new explosive railcar holding yard is under construction, the first in decades.

Another deficiency related to the ammunition crisis is the lack of facilities and upgrades for munitions production. The U.S. has also failed to manufacture “abundant or novel energetics to power these explosives,” writes Mackenzie Eaglen of the American Enterprise Institute.

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NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Isaac Schorr My brush with death in DC The city has been a model of corrupt, complacent governance – a national embarrassment

By on August 13th, 2025

https://thespectator.com/topic/brush-death-washington-dc-crime/

The last thing I heard before my ears started ringing was my left turn signal clicking.

I was stopped at a red light on a Saturday afternoon, waiting to glide into my parking lot near the Waterfront Metro stop in Washington, DC when a loud crack suddenly deafened me. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a bullet-sized wound in my windshield. 

It wasn’t a windy day, and no cars had been passing by to kick a loose stone up at my beloved Camry, so it only took me only a half-second to realize what had happened. When the fight or flight kicked in, I briefly (and foolishly) fled the vehicle before diving back in to take a left on red. 

The two Metropolitan Police Department officers my 911 call summoned didn’t show up until a half-hour later, even though the nearest station was only a two-minute walk away. Gesturing toward my broken windshield, I asked them for confirmation of what I already knew had happened. Yes, my car had probably been shot with me in it, they agreed before informing me that all they could do was record the incident. 

If I wanted, they said, I could ask nearby apartment buildings and businesses for security footage and report back to them. And then they were off; my ears were still ringing.

That was only the most notable of my many experiences with the post-Covid crime wave that made DC such an unsettling place to live during my two years in the district. There was also the time a man on a motorcycle swerved onto the sidewalk to stare me down as my fiancée hid behind me; the time her cousin was mugged; and the time my friend from college was killed in a hit-and-run.

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EDUCATION Comments turned off

John D. Sailer The Justice Department’s Welcome Crackdown on Universities Higher education has long engaged in racial discrimination in hiring.

By on August 13th, 2025

https://www.city-journal.org/article/justice-department-letter-racial-discrimination-university-hiring

On July 29, the Department of Justice sent a letter to all federal grant recipients reaffirming a longstanding principle of American civil rights law: discrimination is unlawful. The nine-page memo, signed by Attorney General Pamela Bondi, lists several hiring practices that constitute illegal discrimination—many of them ubiquitous in higher education.

For years, I’ve reported on race-based hiring in academia. I’ve repeatedly found that American universities act with impunity. As a professor once told me, “every day, the universities wake up and break the law.” It’s not surprising, then, that universities have embraced virtually every practice that the DOJ deems illegal. That could mean serious consequences. The DOJ’s announcement offers “best practices” that will help institutions avoid “the revocation of federal grant funding.” If the department enforces its guidance, America’s institutions of higher education face a massive reckoning.

One practice that the DOJ lists as unlawful is “[p]referential treatment.” This occurs when an employer gives benefits to “individuals or groups based on protected characteristics in a way that disadvantages other qualified persons.” Any institution that “prioritizes candidates from ‘underrepresented groups’” violates the law.

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NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Malifornia: Californians Are Escaping the State in Massive Numbers California’s exodus surges as residents, businesses, and families flee high costs, crime, and radical policies—sending nearly 700,000 people packing in a single year. By Larry Sand

By on August 13th, 2025

https://amgreatness.com/2025/08/13/malifornia-californians-are-escaping-the-state-in-massive-numbers/

In a stunning report, StorageCafe reveals that California remains the “undisputed leader in outbound migration nationwide, with nearly 683,000 residents leaving the state in a single year, according to the latest available U.S. Census data.” The evacuees’ top destination is Texas, which welcomed approximately 98,000 former Californians in 2023 alone.

Millennials are leading the migration to Texas, making up over 31% of all movers. They are followed by Gen Zers, who account for 20%, and Gen Xers, representing nearly 15% of those relocating. Interestingly, Californians moving to Texas tend to earn more than the national average across most age groups, highlighting the financial advantage of the move.

The news from StorageCafe isn’t unique. U-Haul has released a new report, and for the fifth straight year, California topped its Growth Index—meaning more residents of the Golden State rented one-way U-Haul trucks to leave the state in 2024 than residents of any other state. Texas was the top go-to state.

People are fleeing the formerly Golden State for various reasons—high crime rates, exorbitant taxes and insurance costs, clueless leadership, and a failing education system.

Businesses are also packing up and going elsewhere. Major companies, including Chevron, SpaceX, and Charles Schwab, have departed California. In total, 441 businesses have left the state since 2018 and moved their headquarters elsewhere. High taxes, skyrocketing rent, soaring costs of living for employees, and excessive red tape are some of the reasons cited by the businesses that have exited, with, again, Texas being the primary destination state.

On the education front, per the California Policy Center, 45 out of California’s 58 counties have experienced a decline in traditional public school (TPS) enrollment over the last decade. Over the past ten years, statewide TPS enrollment has decreased by more than 612,000 students.

It’s important to note that California introduced transitional kindergarten during this period, which increased TPS numbers. When considering only grades K-12, enrollment has dropped by more than 762,000 since 2015.

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ISRAEL, WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

The Power of Propaganda and the Silence of the West Moral inconsistency and global leaders. by Marziyeh Amirizadeh

By on August 13th, 2025

https://www.frontpagemag.com/the-power-of-propaganda-and-the-silence-of-the-west/

Recently, Hamas released horrific videos depicting two Israeli hostages, Evytar David and Rom Braslavski, in inhuman conditions. One particularly harrowing video shows David, visibly emaciated, being forced to dig what appears to be his own grave in a Hamas tunnel beneath Gaza. These images evoke painful historical parallels, reminiscent of the Holocaust and the brutal conditions of Nazi concentration camps. Jews were rounded up throughout Europe and forced to dig their own graves before they were executed along with their family, neighbors, and entire communities. Jewish concentration camp survivors were so emaciated that they were little more than skin and bones, and some left for dead who were actually still alive.

The release of these videos followed controversial announcements by world leaders including UK Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer, French President Emmanuel Macron, and Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney, declaring their intention to recognize a Palestinian state. Many critics argue that this political move only emboldens Hamas and other terrorist organizations, offering them a dangerous form of legitimacy and encouragement to continue their atrocities. Certainly it does not give them reason to moderate, or release the 50 hostages still held in the hell of Gaza’s tunnels.

What’s particularly troubling is the moral inconsistency demonstrated by these purported global leaders. True leaders should act with wisdom, resolve and moral clarity. These “leaders” have instead displayed naivety that even an ordinary parent would avoid, rewarding bad behavior, thereby reinforcing it.

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NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

An Existential Threat to and from the Intelligence Community By J.B. Shurk

By on August 13th, 2025

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2025/08/an_existential_threat_to_and_from_the_intelligence_community.html

Director of National Intelligence (DNI) Tulsi Gabbard’s declassification of communications and reports that implicate Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, senior officials from the Obama administration, and former heads of the Intelligence Community in a conspiracy to frame President Trump with the Russia Collusion Hoax is nothing less than earth-shattering.  

America has endured many political scandals.  The country has never had to contend with anything of this magnitude — in which a lame-duck president abused and politicized national intelligence-gathering operations in order to blame an adversarial nuclear power for an embarrassing election loss and set in motion a series of fraudulently predicated criminal investigations intended to force President Trump’s resignation from office or impeachment and removal.

As enormous as this scandal already is, it remains an ongoing criminal conspiracy.  Every time former Obama officials — including former DNI James Clapper and former CIA director John Brennan — publicly lie about material facts regarding the Russia Collusion Hoax, they are acting as co-conspirators in a plot to defraud the American people, overthrow a legitimately elected president, and cover up past criminal activity.   

Perhaps the only aspect of this story that could rival in size such treason against the United States is the corporate news media’s continued refusal to report these events accurately without fear or favor.  For many reasons, newsrooms will not do so.  Because indoctrinated and committed leftists control the American press, “journalists” lack the requisite discernment to see beyond partisan political blinders and report facts that are personally troubling.  Even worse, many “journalists” have redefined their professional role away from any responsibility for objective truth-telling and toward a kind of active agency in which they shape “truth” to advance a particular worldview.  “Journalists” love Obama.  They despise Trump.  They are happy to act as assets for former Obama administration officials pushing lies and to hide facts that are politically inconvenient.

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ISRAEL, WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

The Eurabian Push for a Hamas State By Janet Levy

By on August 13th, 2025

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2025/08/the_eurabian_push_for_a_hamas_state.html

The hostility toward Israel in Europe is matched only by the enthusiasm for establishing a Palestinian state controlled by Hamas. Leading this effort is France: President Emmanuel Macron announced on July 25 that his country would recognize a Palestinian state later this year. Knesset member Dan Illouz rightly opposed such a state as “a gift to the terrorists of October 7.”

Four days later, at a U.N. conference, France and Saudi Arabia led the New York Declaration, aiming for a “tangible, time-bound and irreversible” step toward the creation of Palestine. The 26-page document, a study in mendacious one-sidedness, is the latest sign of Europe’s anti-Israel sentiment, which has been prevalent since the founding of the Jewish state.

On the same day, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer announced that the UK too will officially recognize the Palestinian state in September. More than 90 countries, including those in the EU and the Arab League, and many U.N. member states, support the declaration.

Writer Michael Snyder warns that this is the “biggest international push for the establishment of a Palestinian state.” The new initiative, he says, could spread quietly, and by September, the recognition of Palestine might become a reality. Unless the world wakes up now to the danger of an openly jihadist and terrorist regime, it could be too late.

In the declaration, all references to Israel are accusatory. But Hamas is never once referred to as a terrorist group, though its charter calls for the killing of Jews everywhere and the establishment of a worldwide Islamic government through jihad. Nor is there any mention of Hamas using Gazans as human shields, firing rockets from schools, hospitals, and mosques, and stealing aid—some of which comes from Israel!—to sell it to Palestinians at exorbitant prices.

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ISRAEL, WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

“Palestine” Invades the U.K. by Rafael Medoff

By on August 13th, 2025

https://jewishjournal.com/commentary/opinion/383351/palestine-invades-the-u-k/

 A recent chance encounter in London’s Heathrow Airport offered a troubling glimpse of the extent to which anti-Israel hate is penetrating youth culture in the United Kingdom.

    The encounter in question was not with a person, but rather a newspaper—the latest issue of The Skinny. Distributed free to the more than 200,000 travelers who pass through Heathrow daily—and many others, elsewhere—The Skinny is the second largest magazine of culture and listings in the United Kingdom. Its format and radicalism—political as well as cultural—are reminiscent of The Village Voice.

    The anti-Israel trend in the UK music scene has been in the news in recent weeks. The rappers Kneecap and Bobby Vylan stirred controversy at England’s Glastonbury Festival by leading the crowd in chants of “Free Palestine” and “Death to the IDF.” The new issue of The Skinny makes clear that those ugly appeals for violence were far from isolated phenomena in the UK.

    The August edition features a two-page spread about “Welcome to the Fringe, Palestine,” which is billed as “a four-day mini-festival of theatre, dance, comedy, food, storytelling, music and poetry created by Palestinians.” The reviewer emphasizes that “each piece [of the festival] is unapologetically political” and promotes “Palestinian resistance” against “Zionist occupation and genocide.” The festival’s approach of “art as politics” is urgently needed “in a moment where international conversations on Palestine are policed, sanctioned, [and] sanitized by mainstream institutions,”  the reviewer asserts.

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FOREIGN POLICY Comments turned off

ANTONY BLINKEN HAS NOTHING TO TEACH US EXCEPT TO DO THE OPPOSITE: ERIC LEVINE

By on August 13th, 2025

 Original column

Americans are legitimately outraged by the cover-up of President Biden’s cognitive infirmities.  We still do not know who actually was running the country.  However, after reading former Secretary of State, Antony Blinken’s recent op ed in the Wall Street Journal, Recognizing a Palestinian State Is a Rebuke to Hamas, we can only hope that an infirm President Biden — incoherence, incapacities, and all — called the shots.  Blinken’s essay is a delusion, predicated on fallacy, based on a fantasy. 

Everyone should remember that during his tenure as America’s leading diplomat, Blinken got absolutely everything wrong.  From the catastrophic surrender in Afghanistan, to the appeasement of Iran, the alienation of Saudi Arabia, the attempted rehabilitation of Nicolas Maduro, the pathetic response to Putin’s preparation for and invasion of Ukraine, the opening of America’s southern border to any thug, terrorist, or human trafficker willing to make the trip, and the slow motion betrayal of Israel (just to name a few), Blinken’s State Department left the world a far more dangerous place than the one it inherited. 

Yet, despite his unblemished history of utter incompetence and ineptitude, he felt the need to “educate” us on how best to foster the creation of a Palestinian State and create an “enduring, peaceful, and secure coexistence” between Israelis and Palestinians.  His prescription for peace only makes sense if one ignores history and reality. 

Blinken takes issue with the decision by France, the U.K., Canada, and Australia to unilaterally recognize a State of Palestine. He claims the establishment of Palestine should be “conditions based.”  Unfortunately, the conditions he envisions make his proposal indistinguishable from that of our allies.  Blinken’s plan only delays the day the world, with American support, establishes a terrorist Palestinian State. 

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