ANTI-SEMITISM, WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Weizmann busts swiped as anti-Israel vandalism sweeps UK By David Isaac

Posted By on November 5th, 2024

https://www.jns.org/weizmann-busts-swiped-as-anti-israel-vandalism-sweeps-uk/

Palestine Action, a United Kingdom-based anti-Israel group, on Saturday carried out coordinated vandalism in several U.K. locations, including Manchester and Cambridge Universities.

Violence included defacing with red paint the Jewish National Fund offices in London and Cambridge University’s Institute of Manufacturing.

Palestine Action said it targeted the Cambridge Institute because it partners with Rolls-Royce, Siemens and BAE Systems, which the group has accused of “perpetrating genocide.”

The vandalism marked the 107th anniversary of the Balfour Declaration of Nov. 2, 1917, a public statement by the British Government during World War I announcing its support for the establishment of a “national home for the Jewish people,” an important step in the political process leading to the creation of modern Israel.

The declaration was due mainly to the efforts of Chaim Weizmann, who led world Jewry following WWI and became Israel’s first president.

Weizmann worked as a chemist at Manchester University during the war, making an important contribution to the war effort.

In perhaps the most brazen act, Palestine Action activists smashed a glass display case at the university’s chemistry building and stole two busts of Weizmann, posting a video of the theft on social media.

ELECTIONS, ISRAEL Comments turned off

Israeli anxiety, America and the ayatollahs: Ruthie Blum

Posted By on November 5th, 2024

https://www.jns.org/israeli-anxiety-america-and-the-ayatollahs/

Tensions are high in Israel as the United States enters the last lap of its presidential election. Given the level of public concern surrounding the race and the amount of space devoted to it by local analysts, an alien observing from Mars might mistakenly assume that the vote is taking place between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea, not across the Atlantic Ocean.

It’s already been established, through surveys and punditocracy consensus—including among those more predisposed politically to Vice President Kamala Harris and Democrats in general than to former President Donald Trump and the Republican Party—that most Israelis are praying for the latter to emerge victorious.

Polls showing that the candidates are basically tied, with daily fluctuations in swing-state percentages, is causing a lot of nail-biting, and not exclusively in U.S. capitals or Jerusalem. No, it’s safe to say that the entire world is watching and waiting with bated breath for the outcome.

Though Joe Biden will remain at the helm in the White House until the beginning of 2025 regardless of the results at the ballot box, nobody thinks he’s running the show in any respect, nor has he been for at least two years. It’s assumed in Israel, however, that the figures behind him could engage in serious lame-duck sabotage in the weeks leading up to the inauguration of his successor.

After all, during a similar period at the end of 2016, outgoing President Barack Obama and his sidekick, Secretary of State John Kerry, pulled a few stunts that made Israel’s enemies proud. Key among these moves was the abstention on U.N. Security Council Resolution 2334, adopted on Dec. 23.

Resolution 2334, which passed by 14-0, condemned Israeli settlements and called for all construction of them to cease. It also called for further labeling of Israeli goods, not only those made in settlements. In addition, it categorized the Western Wall as “occupied Palestinian territory.”

ELECTIONS Comments turned off

Why Do We Even Have Elections? Why Don’t We Just Let The Media Choose?

Posted By on November 5th, 2024

https://issuesinsights.com/2024/11/05/why-do-we-even-have-elections-why-dont-we-just-let-the-media-choose/

We’ve become accustomed to Democratic Party operatives thinly disguised as journalists smearing, slurring, slamming, and lying about Republican candidates. They don’t want voters to know the truth. They’re not objective purveyors of the facts but rather political players who want to have the power to pick the winners of every election.

Some years ago, while at the University of California, Los Angeles, economics professor Timothy Groseclose wrote a book that showed Democratic candidates start their campaigns with significant leads over their GOP candidates due to media preference.

In “Left Turn: How Liberal Media Bias Distorts the American Mind,” Groseclose, now at George Mason University, demonstrated how that bias could be measured. “​​He is so numerate,” economist David Henderson wrote in a review, “that he makes clear with the data just how extreme the left-wing bias is.”

It’s possible that the hole Republicans have to start in is even deeper than it was when “Left Turn” was published in 2011.

The media are so invested in Democrats, through their votes and their campaign donations, and through their hard-left ideology, that they don’t want voters to determine the outcomes of elections. They want to be the power brokers who coronate the kings and queens of our executive and legislative bodies.

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Biden-Harris Administration Secretly Signs Up for UN World Governance, Internet Censorship by Robert Williams

Posted By on November 4th, 2024

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/21086/un-world-governance-internet-censorship

On September 22, unnoticed by most Americans, the Biden-Harris administration adopted the United Nations Pact for the Future to transform global governance, which introduces the foundations of a world government. There was no debate, no media coverage, no press releases, and no interviews about the Biden-Harris administration’s surrender of United States sovereignty to the UN.

Americans were apparently not supposed to find out.

These agreements usher in a dystopian future, where the UN — an active supporter of terrorism and arguably the world’s most corrupt international entity… in partnership with the unelected and unaccountable World Economic Forum, led by Klaus Schwab… is given unprecedented power over the peoples of sovereign countries, who have had no say whatsoever on the contents of this pact, because it has been kept hidden from them.

Buried near the end of the Digital Global Compact, in paragraph 30, is the only thing you need to know about it: “We must urgently counter and address… all forms of hate speech and discrimination, misinformation and disinformation….”

The UN, its member states and the Biden-Harris administration evidently want to establish world-wide censorship that will make any future criticism of their power grab impossible.

In 2021-22, the UN entered into a partnership with Google to ensure that the search engine only display information reflecting UN perspectives. Dissenting views would have to be erased. The UN did not even hide their totalitarian move, and issued a press release about it.

Google is clearly doing the UN’s bidding. If you try to google the words “climate change” today, every single dissenting view has been suppressed by the search engine. In the first twenty-plus pages of results that come up on Google, not a single of them deviates from the UN/WEF narrative, with most results only containing links to UN bodies or other institutions that partner with the UN, such as the EU, the World Bank, government websites and a few climate-alarmist articles from the Guardian, the New York Times, AP and Reuters.

This is what UN censorship looks like now. Can you imagine what it will be in a few years, if countries do not immediately move to stop it?

ELECTIONS, NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

LIGHTEN UP AMERICA! SYDNEY WILLIAMS

Posted By on November 4th, 2024

http://www.swtotd.blogspot.com

While Kamala Harris began her campaign with a promise of joy, it soon deteriorated into character smears against her opponent, with Ms. Harris calling him “fascist” and a “Hitler,” and with President Biden referring to Mr. Trump’s supporters as “garbage.” What makes the “fascist” label ironic is that, as Victor Davis Hanson wrote in last Thursday’s issue of American Greatness, “…he [Trump] has been the target of fascists machinations from her own party and supporters for nearly a decade.”

Mr. Trump has always appeared devoid of humor, except when polls swing his way. Writing in the current UK issue of The Spectator, Kate Andrews noted “…in the past few weeks, something has restored Trump’s humor.” As the audience left a recent rally in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, she quoted a man speaking to his family: “That was better than Netflix.”  Most of us smiled when Mr. Trump, wearing an orange reflector vest (and in response to Mr. Biden’s remark), jumped into a garbage truck in Green Bay, Wisconsin. Nevertheless, Mr. Trump does have a habit of calling his opponents names that would make Gordon Gekko blush. Amidst this war of words, America seems an unhappy place. Last Thursday, The Washington Post editorialized: “…in an increasingly angry nation…incidents of road rage escalate across the country.”  As in 1888 Mudville, there is little joy in the U.S. today.

FOREIGN POLICY, WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

America’s Enemies Working Together Is the Biden-Harris Foreign-Policy Legacy By Pat Fallon

Posted By on November 4th, 2024

https://www.nationalreview.com/2024/11/americas-enemies-working-together-is-the-biden-harris-foreign-policy-legacy/

Our adversaries such as Russia, China, Iran, and North Korea are working closer together than ever before and appear far more willing to undertake acts of aggression.

In February 2021, after less than a month at the helm in Washington, D.C., the Biden-Harris State Department revoked the Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO) designation for Ansrallah, more commonly known as the Houthis, a belligerent, armed militant group operating out of Yemen. The message was clear: Even if your group is defined by targeting innocent people, the Biden-Harris White House will bestow the same legitimacy upon you as any nation-state by granting you a seat at the negotiating table.

Nearly four years later, we have intelligence reporting that indicates that Russia is providing Houthi terrorists with real-time targeting data to strike commercial ships in the Red Sea. A major U.S. adversary is providing known terrorists with intelligence to wreak havoc upon international commerce — what went wrong?

Much has transpired since the start of the Biden-Harris administration, and any objective observer will note that the world is far less safe — with the potential of a great-power conflict at the highest point since 1939. Our adversaries such as Russia, China, Iran, and North Korea are working closer together than ever before and appear far more willing to undertake acts of aggression.

Many point to the botched withdrawal from Afghanistan in the summer of 2021 as the catalyst for how the Biden-Harris foreign-policy agenda would play out. The chaotic withdrawal, which culminated in the deaths of 13 U.S. service members, was the result of reckless planning and a refusal to listen to the concerns of the secretary of defense, the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, and the U.S. Central Command commander, who we now know pleaded with Biden and Harris to reverse course. By pursuing their naked political objective of leaving Afghanistan before the 20th anniversary of 9/11, the Biden-Harris White House stranded American citizens and Afghan allies on the ground. Russia and China, no doubt, took note of the incompetence displayed by U.S. leaders.

ELECTIONS, NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Reflections on an American Saga When was the last time that a single name invoked such a wide array of emotions as the name Trump? By Eric Lendrum

Posted By on November 4th, 2024

https://amgreatness.com/2024/11/04/reflections-on-an-american-saga/

Regardless of whatever happens on Tuesday, the end of the 2024 election will have a bittersweet feel to it, for it will be the final chapter of Donald J. Trump’s story. Whether it is the end of the final chapter or just the beginning is up to us to decide.

But perhaps Trump can already claim victory, no matter who is ultimately declared the winner at the end of it all. And his would be a far greater victory than any one election result.

All Good Things

The future of the nation depends on the decision that will be made shortly. But, win or lose, it will not be the end of the United States of America. Not by a long shot. America is resilient, and no one personifies that titanic endurance like Donald Trump.

They hit him with a fake “Russian collusion” investigation, two impeachments, a Chinese virus, race riots, a stolen election, an FBI raid, dozens of bogus charges, a mugshot, a conviction in a kangaroo court, and multiple assassination attempts. But through it all, when there was doubt, he always ate it up and spit it back out. With nerves of steel and a heart of gold, he walked right through the fire every single time, refusing to quit until the race was finally over.

That is exactly why here, in the end, it is rather difficult to come to terms with the idea that President Trump’s political journey is entering its conclusion. He himself has said as much, admitting that he will not run for a fourth time in 2028 if this election is also stolen from him.

And, despite the left’s endless screeching about him being a “dictator in waiting” who may extend his time in office, it is clear to those with an IQ higher than room temperature that he will leave office in 2029, as he should, if he wins this election. In the end, the one and only thing that can bring Trump’s political journey to an end is the one thing he has always loved and respected the most: the will of the American people.

And so, win or lose, this will be the final election with Donald Trump’s name on the ballot.

This fact was not lost on me as I filled out my absentee ballot for the general election in the Commonwealth of Virginia. It was the sixth time overall that I had filled in the bubble next to his name, the culmination of his historic three consecutive successful runs for the Republican nomination. I found myself hesitating to fill out the ballot, only because I wanted to savor the act one final time.

ELECTIONS, NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

From ‘Clingers’ to ‘Garbage’—Why the 16 years of Vilification? Derogatory labels highlight the cultural and socioeconomic divide between elite politicians and many Americans, particularly Trump supporters, who feel disrespected by these terms and policies. By Victor Davis Hanson

Posted By on November 4th, 2024

https://amgreatness.com/2024/11/04/from-clingers-to-garbage-why-the-16-years-of-vilification/

Who actually are the “garbage” people?

Are they one and the same with Joe Biden’s “semi-fascists,” “chumps,” and “dregs of society?”

Or Barack Obama’s “clingers?”

Do they include Hillary Clinton’s “deplorables” and “irredeemables?”

Are they FBI grandee Peter Strzok’s Walmart shoppers who “smell?”

Over the last decade-and-a-half, Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden, Harris-Walz, and a host of other self-described elites have variously invented a wide range of smears and slurs—but about whom exactly?

Who are these people that leftwing politicians have so vehemently derided—and why?

They include Trump supporters, of course, or what Biden also dubbed “ultra-MAGAs” and Tim Walz called “fascists,” now without the prior qualifying prefix “semi.”

In general, these adjectives of disdain denote about half the country according to the results of what will soon be the last three presidential elections.

This half is more rural than urban, characterized by larger than smaller families, more high-schooled diplomaed than college degreed, and more conventional and traditional than vanguard and trend-setting.

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

The Real Reason the Left Hates J.D. Vance He exposes what their ideology really is. by Tom Knighton

Posted By on November 4th, 2024

https://www.frontpagemag.com/the-real-reason-the-left-hates-j-d-vance/

Before he ever ran for public office, I read J.D. Vance’s book, Hillbilly Elegy. It had angered someone who got triggered pretty easily, so I wanted to read it for myself. What I got was an eye-opening and entertaining memoir of Vance’s childhood, some parallels with things I see in my own community, and a glimpse at just why the left would come to hate him so much.

The truth is that Vance is a lot of things that people want in a candidate. He’s young, well-spoken, intelligent, and understands the issues.

Your average leftist would hate him for that alone, but they have more of a reason.

You see, Vance represents just how much of their ideology is an absolute lie.

Many leftists like to argue that America is a nation of haves and have-nots and that the haves got there via things like inheritance, cronyism, and other nefarious methods. They want people to believe that the system is rigged against them and they can never make it out of poverty on their own. The idea of “pulling yourself up by your bootstraps” just isn’t realistic.

The problem is that Vance did just that.

He came from the lower socioeconomic strata. He joined the Marine Corps in order to pay his way through college. There, he worked his tail off to graduate with solid grades so he could go to law school at Yale.

Over my many years, I’ve seen a lot of leftists claim that getting out of poverty is all but impossible. Some have even claimed the military wasn’t an option for escape despite the fact that yes, it is, and it’s obvious to anyone who cares to look.

Vance shows that there’s a pathway toward college if you want it badly enough.

He went from relative poverty to being a venture capitalist, a United States senator, and possibly just a week away from becoming vice president of the United States.

What’s more, he did it without becoming a leftist like Barack Obama or Bill Clinton. He recognized the virtue of his own hard work and rather than pretend he’s some rare soul who made it out, he recognized that while others might not get quite where has, they can escape their poverty-stricken lives and become more of they’re willing to work for it.

They hate him because his very existence proves that what they’re peddling to millions of people is nothing more than nonsense.

ISRAEL Comments turned off

The Desolation of Palestine Before Zionism, a largely uninhabited land. by Robert Spencer

Posted By on November 4th, 2024

https://www.frontpagemag.com/the-desolation-of-palestine/

In the eighteenth century, an English traveler, Thomas Shaw, noted that Palestine was “lacking in people to till its fertile soil.”The French count Constantine François Volney, an eighteenth-century historian, called Palestine “ruined” and “desolate,” observing that “many parts” had “lost almost all their peasantry.” Volney complained that this desolation was unexpected, for the Ottoman imperial records listed larger populations, which led to tax collection efforts’ being frustrated. Of one area, Volney wrote: “Upwards of three thousand two hundred villages were reckoned, but, at present, the collector can scarcely find four hundred. Such of our merchants as have resided there twenty years have themselves seen the greater part of the environs…become depopulated. The traveller meets with nothing but houses in ruins, cisterns rendered useless, and fields abandoned. Those who cultivated them have fled.”

Another English traveler, James Silk Buckingham, visited Jaffa in 1816 and wrote that it had “all the appearances of a poor village, and every part of it that we saw was of corresponding meanness.” In Ramle, said Buckingham, “as throughout the greater part of Palestine, the ruined portion seemed more extensive than that which was inhabited.” Twenty-two years later, the British nobleman Alexander William Crawford Lindsay, Lord Lindsay, declared that “all Judea, except the hills of Hebron and the vales immediately about Jerusalem, is desolate and barren.”

In 1840, another traveler to Palestine praised the Syrians as a “fine spirited race of men,” but whose “population is on the decline.” He noted that the land between Hebron and Bethlehem was “now abandoned and desolate,” marked by “dilapidated towns.” Jerusalem was nothing more than “a large number of houses…in a dilapidated and ruinous state,” with “the masses…without any regular employment.”

In 1847, a U.S. Navy officer noted: “The population of Jaffa is now about 13,000, viz: Turks, 8000; Greeks, 2000; Armenians, 2000; Maronites, 700; and Jews, about 300.” Significantly, he counted no Arabs there at all.