FOREIGN POLICY Comments turned off

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

Posted 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. 

ISRAEL Comments turned off

UN Admits 95% of its Gaza Aid Trucks Were “Intercepted”Daniel Greenfield

Posted By on August 13th, 2025

https://www.danielgreenfield.org/

Over the past few weeks, the UN, the EU, the media and Hamas banded together to demand that aid deliveries shift back from the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation to the United Nations. The campaign played out with Hamas kidnapping, torturing and killing employees of the U.S. aid group, while the media spread false claims that Israel was using GHF distribution sites as ‘death traps’ for killing Gazans, and world leaders demanded that the UN be put back in charge of aid.

Back when the UN had been in charge it had faked its own famine by refusing to deliver food and letting it pile up instead. Since then the UN’s food aid has kept on piling up even while GHF, an American Christian aid group, has managed to deliver millions of meals to Gaza residents, despite being smeared by the media as “controversial” for feeding those whom the UN wouldn’t.

Whom was the UN actually delivering aid to back when it even bothered trying to deliver it?

The UNOPS ‘Mechanism for Gaza’ revealed that of the around 2,600 aid trucks entering Gaza, only 300 made it to their destination. 2,310 trucks or 88% of them were ‘intercepted’.

Much of the ‘aid’ being brought in by the UN and its allies, including the UN’s WFP, UNICEF, the International Red Cross, the International Medical Corps and the World Central Kitchen, whose founder Jose Andres, has been constantly attacking Israel in the media, was ‘intercepted’.

The UN World Food Programme (WFP), which has been front and center in the media, crying for more money and denouncing Trump and Israel, only successfully delivered 1,864 pallets of aid since May while losing 29,673 pallets or 93% of it to “interceptions”.

The UN’s WFP recently claimed that it has run out of food stocks and needs $265 million for just the next 6 months to feed Gaza. Where did its food stocks go?

Certainly not to aid stations.

MEDIA, NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

The Press Is Lying About D.C. Crime

Posted By on August 13th, 2025

https://issuesinsights.com/2025/08/13/the-press-is-lying-about-d-c-crime/

We’ve come to expect that no matter what President Donald Trump says or does these days, the mainstream press will rush out to say he’s wrong. So, we weren’t the least bit surprised when, after Trump said crime in the nation’s capital is out of control and called in the National Guard, news outlets immediately dismissed his claims.

But who is doing the lying here?

Crime in D.C. “is getting worse, not getting better,” Trump said. Nonsense came the chorus of press reports, with headlines such as:

“Fact check: Violent crime in DC has fallen in 2024 and 2025 after a 2023 spike” said CNN.
“Trump Takes Control of D.C. Police, Citing ‘Bloodthirsty Criminals.’ But Crime Is Down.” said the New York Times
“FACT FOCUS: Trump exaggerates, misstates facts on Washington crime” said AP

The implicit message is that Trump is making up a crime problem to flex his authoritarian muscles.

These and countless other stories all cite the same set of police department statistics showing the rate of violent crime in D.C. on the downtrend.

So, case closed, right?

Not so fast. Just a few weeks ago, the local NBC affiliate reported that:

A D.C. police commander is under investigation for allegedly making changes to crime statistics in his district.

The Metropolitan Police Department confirmed Michael Pulliam was placed on paid administrative leave in mid-May … Pulliam — the former commander of the 3rd District that patrols Adams Morgan and Columbia Heights — was placed on leave with pay and told he was under investigation for questionable changes to crime data, five law enforcement sources familiar with the investigation told News4.

HOMELAND SECURITY, NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Trump Was Right the First Time: Fire Intel’s CEO by Gordon G. Chang

Posted By on August 12th, 2025

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/21828/fire-intel-ceo-tan

Here is a suggestion: Instruct the Justice Department to open a criminal investigation into Tan. It is time to establish accountability in corporate America when it comes to the People’s Republic of China.

The sales were illegal under U.S. law — the university was added to the Commerce Department’s Entity List in 2015 — and Cadence in late July pled guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit export control violations. Additionally, the company agreed to pay a fine of more than $140 million.

To establish accountability, the Justice Department must investigate Tan’s role in Cadence’s long series of sales to the Chinese military.

“[S]omeone operating at his level and who engaged with Chinese military-affiliated businesses cannot be a reliable partner to the U.S. … So long as Tan remains as CEO of Intel, the U.S. government can never do substantial business with that firm because the risk of compromise is too great.” — Brandon Weichert, senior national security editor of The National Interest, to Gatestone, August 2025.

President Donald Trump and members of his cabinet met Lip-Bu Tan, CEO of Intel, on August 11.

“The meeting was a very interesting one,” Trump posted on Truth Social immediately afterwards. “His success and rise is an amazing story. Mr. Tan and my Cabinet members are going to spend time together, and bring suggestions to me during the next week.”

Here is a suggestion: Instruct the Justice Department to open a criminal investigation into Tan. It is time to establish accountability in corporate America when it comes to the People’s Republic of China.

First, the good news.

Tan can save the ailing American chipmaker.

He has the right vision for Intel, is extremely capable, and has the strength to take on the chairman of the company’s board of directors, who wants to implement a misguided restructuring.

ISRAEL, MEDIA Comments turned off

Why Is Reuters Carrying Water for Hamas? Media organizations said there is ‘no evidence’ of systemic aid theft by Hamas. That reporting went viral. But it isn’t true.By Jonas Du

Posted By on August 12th, 2025

https://www.thefp.com/p/why-is-reuters-carrying-water-for-hamas?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email

When it comes to the war in Gaza, how is it that the legacy media always defers to the narrative that benefits Hamas? A recent Reuters story illuminates the problem.

Last month, the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) produced an internal analysis tracking reports of waste, fraud, and abuse of humanitarian aid in Gaza. 

According to that report, between October 2023 and May 2025, USAID’s Bureau for Humanitarian Assistance received 156 notifications of “fraud, waste, and abuse notifications” from its NGO partners in Gaza, amounting to a loss of more than $4.6 million. The key finding was that “for all 156 incidents, partners did not provide any information in their incident reports alleging SG [sanctioned group] or FTO [foreign terrorist organization] involvement,” according to a slideshow of the findings obtained by The Free Press.

But when the analysis was leaked to legacy news organizations, they reported something completely different. 

In late July, first Reuters and then CNN reported that the analysis “found no evidence of systematic theft by the Palestinian militant group Hamas.” ABC later reported that USAID “failed to find any evidence” that Hamas “engaged in widespread diversion of assistance.” Those news organizations didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment.

There is a world of difference between “notifications” of aid misuse and actual misuse.

Two sources familiar with USAID and its analysis confirmed that the partners’ failure to report terrorist involvement does not mean there is “no evidence” of theft by Hamas. “The report appears to be wholly reliant on self-reporting by UN agencies and NGOs who are extremely reticent to report Hamas interference out of fear of violent retribution by Hamas,” a senior U.S. official familiar with the USAID report told The Free Press.

When the Reuters story was published, “nobody at the highest levels of the USAID administration had seen the report,” said a senior official at the State Department, which oversees USAID. “It was deliberately and intentionally manufactured. . . and distributed to plant a deliberate false narrative.”

Worse yet, Hamas used Reuters’ framing to fuel accusations of starvation and genocide against the U.S. and Israel. Allegations of theft “were recently refuted by an internal investigation by the United States Agency for International Development, which confirmed the absence of any reports or data indicating the theft of aid by Hamas,” said Izzat al-Rishq, a founding member of Hamas’s politburo, on August 1. “We strongly condemn U.S. President Trump’s reiteration of Israeli allegations and lies accusing Hamas of stealing and selling humanitarian aid in Gaza.”

ISRAEL, WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Australia Recognizes Palestine After Israeli Hostages Revealed to Be Starving, Abused Catherine Salgado

Posted By on August 12th, 2025

https://pjmedia.com/catherinesalgado/2025/08/11/australia-recognizes-palestine-after-israeli-hostages-revealed-to-be-starving-abused-n4942600

The government of Australia waited until after videos had been released showing how horrifically Hamas is abusing Israeli hostages, and after former hostages affirmed that not a single Gazan intervened to help any hostages (quite the opposite), to recognize a state of Palestine.

Evyatar David’s and Rom Broslavsky’s families must be heartbroken seeing how little Western governments care about their sons ever returning home, how all the empathy is for the jihadi captors. Not only has a state of Palestine never existed, but it should never exist. Establishing one would be a marvelous reward for terrorism. Don’t believe me, believe the Hamas official who proudly said that the reason countries are recognizing Palestine is directly due to the horrific massacre of Oct. 7, 2023, the deadliest day for Jews since the Holocaust. Israel’s only option to end the decades of Jihad is to take back the Gaza Strip, which they had to begin with, and try to deport as many so-called Palestinians as possible.

After all, those Muslims who have called themselves Palestinians since the 1960s are a conglomeration of Arabs and other Muslims from different nations. Allowing them to move to Gaza only created catastrophe and tragedy. Time to send as many of them back as possible. Donald Trump suggested this plan earlier this year, and it was a very good plan. It makes even more sense now that multiple nations, with Australia as the latest antisemitic name on the list, are trying to end the war in Hamas’s favor by demanding recognition of a Palestinian state (which, incidentally, was already created a century ago — it is called Jordan, only the Jordanians don’t want the destructive “Palestinians” back). 

MEDICINE AND HEALTH Comments turned off

Jonathan Alpert Therapy’s Identity Politics Problem The field has embraced left-wing racialism.

Posted By on August 12th, 2025

https://www.city-journal.org/article/therapy-psychology-wokeness-identity-politics

Psychotherapy used to be a refuge from politics, but it’s become another front in the culture war. Therapists once helped people face reality. Today, more and more, they urge patients to interpret it through a hierarchy of oppression.

As a psychotherapist with more than two decades of experience, I have observed this shift firsthand. Hundreds of patients have come to me after being frustrated or even harmed by previous therapists, who encouraged them to interpret their struggles through the lens of identity politics.

A black man, for example, came to me after a failed round of therapy with another provider. He wasn’t just anxious; he was disillusioned. “I went in for help managing anxiety,” he said. “But the therapist kept steering the conversation back to racism, even though I never brought it up. I left feeling like I was being treated as a black person first, and a human being second.”

A gay man told a similar story. “I wanted help managing stress at work,” he said. “But every session focused on supposed shame over being gay, even though that wasn’t why I was there. I felt pushed into a narrative that didn’t fit me.”

Graduate programs are no longer producing healers, but political activists with therapy licenses. Instead of teaching students to treat anxiety, depression, or relationship issues using evidence-based methods, many programs now encourage trainees to develop “critical consciousness.” That means guiding clients to interpret their distress through the lens of systemic oppression, rather than addressing individual agency, patterns, or choices.

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

John Ketcham, Charles Fain Lehman How to Bring Safety to the District of Columbia A suite of laws and precedents give Trump all he needs to get Washington’s crime problems under control.

Posted By on August 12th, 2025

https://www.city-journal.org/article/trump-press-conference-dc-home-rule-crime-national-guard

In a Monday morning press conference, President Donald Trump announced new, decisive action to quell crime and violence in the District of Columbia. Flanked by Cabinet officials, the president indicated that he will not only deploy National Guardsmen to the city but also temporarily federalize the D.C. police department (MPD) under an obscure provision of the District’s home rule law.

Trump’s moves follow an assault last week on 19-year-old Edward Coristine, a Department of Government Efficiency software engineer, who was allegedly beaten by a group of 15-year-old assailants during an attempted carjacking. President Trump blamed the attack on soft-on-crime policies and suggested that he is considering reasserting direct federal control over the nation’s capital city. Congressional Republicans, who see the District as a convenient punching bag, eagerly voiced support for more aggressive action, including ending D.C.’s “home rule.”

Ending home rule is both unlikely and probably imprudent. But Congress and the president have many options to consider short of its revocation. From hiring more police officers to appointing a “control board” to run the criminal justice system, history and law present several levers that the Trump administration should consider pulling to improve residents’ lives.

For most of American history, Congress exercised its constitutional prerogative to govern D.C. through standing committees dedicated to overseeing its affairs. In 1871, Congress inaugurated an experiment in home rule but repealed it three years later amid financial mismanagement. Congress then established a three-member commission government, all of whom were appointed by the president. President Lyndon B. Johnson later replaced that commission with a nine-member council and a single commissioner, all appointed by the White House. Finally, in 1973, Congress passed the District of Columbia Home Rule Act, delegating its authority to today’s local government.

This home-rule arrangement grants Congress and the president significant federal oversight powers that, until now, have gone largely unused. Some of these reflect Congress’s final lawmaking authority over the District—such as Congress’s right to review and veto laws passed by the D.C. Council and to approve the budget through annual appropriations legislation.

ISRAEL Comments turned off

Israel’s Military: Force and Dollar Multiplier for the US Ambassador (Ret.) Yoram Ettinger

Posted By on August 12th, 2025

http://bit.ly/45bujf4

The Israeli Battle-Tested-Laboratory received – with much gratitude! – the initial F-15 (Boeing) and F-16 (Lockheed-Martin) in 1976 and 1980 respectively.  Since that time, for 45-50 years, the Israeli Battle-Tested Laboratory and Showroom of the US defense and aerospace industries and Armed Forces has significantly improved these fighter jets – and the US air force’s battle tactics – through the uniquely intense operational use of the aircraft (due to the uniquely violent Middle East). 

*The Israeli improvements (mostly shared with the US manufacturers and Armed Forces) have yielded ground-breaking mega billions of dollars worth of research and development (saving 10-20 years), enhancing US competitiveness in the global market, increasing US exports and expanding the US employment base. The Israeli improvements have enhanced the capabilities of the F-15 and F-16, as well as several hundred of other US military systems, which have been supplied to the Israeli Battle-Tested-Laboratory.

*For example, the F-15I Ra’am, a variant of the F-15E adopted to Israeli specifications, functions as a compact but long-range strategic bomber with enhanced ground-attack roles. Also, Israel’s F-16s have undergone hundreds of Israeli-designed upgrades including improvements to the cockpit (75% Israel-upgraded), fire control (50% Israel-upgraded), wings and fuel tanks, effectively modernizing and extending their operational lives.

*State-of-the-art Israeli game-changing technologies have bolstered the range, payload capacity, and overall performance of the aircraft. Israel has introduced an innovative engine overhaul, which has extended the life of the aircraft. These enhancements have bolstered the US economy and defense capabilities, while advancing the Israeli Air Force’s strategic superiority in the Middle East; thus, enhancing Israel’s posture of deterrence, minimizing Middle East instability, securing pro-US Arab regimes, and reducing wars and terrorism, which is a critical US interest.

ISRAEL Comments turned off

Shutting down the economy won’t help the hostages Ruthie Blum

Posted By on August 12th, 2025

https://www.jns.org/shutting-down-the-economy-wont-help-the-hostages/

In a press conference on Sunday morning, the October Council—consisting of hostages’ families, bereaved relatives of Oct. 7 victims and mothers of reservists—took turns at the microphone to call for a countrywide strike the following week.

The men and women who read statements aloud conveyed a uniform message to the powers-that-be in Jerusalem: End the war and bring home all the hostages. Their plea for a deal to return the captives held by Hamas for the past 22 months isn’t new.

On the contrary, accusing the government of pursuing its goals in Gaza at the expense of the hostages has become a protest-movement mantra that every Israeli knows by heart.

That’s a delicate way of describing the chants and placards claiming that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin “Bibi” Netanyahu has the blood of the fallen—and that of those “certain” to be killed by their kidnappers—on his hands. It’s a narrative backed by the mainstream Israeli media and embraced by Hamas.

Former political/military officials whose hatred for Bibi outweighs any vestige of patriotism they once possessed go even further. They’re perpetuating the lie, spread by the Jewish state’s most virulent enemies, that Israel is guilty of war crimes.

Again, nothing novel about the noxious noise that’s music to Hamas’s ears. Ditto for the call to paralyze the economy—the very threat two years ago that caused Netanyahu to reverse his decision to fire then-Defense Minister Yoav Gallant and proceed with judicial reforms. Hence the revival of the general-strike idea.

But the current attempt to pressure the premier into meeting unreasonable demands came on the heels of the announcement that Israel would be taking over Gaza City. The Cabinet approved the plan after a 10-hour session, during which ministers debated among themselves and with IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir about how to proceed in the face of a failed “negotiation” process with Hamas.