So we now have proof of shenanigans in Georgia, Biden is being hammered for evidence of bribes, so they need a distraction.
So Syria gets bombed, rather than the head of the snake, Iran. They do this because they’re cowards who know Syria can’t fight back. Rather than bombing Iran backed clowns, why not go straight for the source? Because either way, this will be viewed as escalation.
🚨 BREAKING: The U.S. has carried out multiple air strikes against Iranian proxies in Syria. pic.twitter.com/hpmezsLPHM
“IDF Kills Hamas Head of Intelligence Directorate Who Helped Plan Oct. 7 Massacre”
The Israeli Defense Force has announced that they have conducted a Joint-Operation with Shin Bet which has led to the Death of the Deputy Head of the Hamas Intelligence Service, Shadi Barud who is said to have been an Direct Planner of the Terrorist Attack on October 7th against… pic.twitter.com/kJQarCY58p
The significant event was the targeted killing of Shadi Barud, who the IDF says is responsible – along with Yahya Sinwar – for planning the October 7 attack on Israel. https://t.co/A2Cszvd3Wx
“Israeli Students at MIT Terrified as Pro-Hamas Protesters Chant ‘Intifada’ and ‘One Solution’
“This is not even related to what happens in Israel. That is calling for a terror attack here. A huge group of people calling out loud for terror attacks”
“Apparently, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology is not immune to the madness we are seeing unfold on college campuses in recent weeks.
Pro-Hamas students recently held a campus rally, chanting ‘one solution’ and ‘intifada,’ horrifying Israeli students at the school.
FOX News reports:
Israeli MIT students ‘terrified’ after anti-Israel rally chant calls for ‘one solution, intifada’
Israeli students at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) say they are “terrified” to be on campus after participants at a campus protest chanted “one solution, intifada, revolution” at a rally supporting the devastating Hamas terrorist attacks that killed hundreds of Israelis in Israel.
MIT students Liyam Chitayat and Lior Alon told Fox News Digital in interviews that after they contacted MIT’s administration to report the calls to violence being chanted from the protest and for concern for their own safety, they’ve yet to receive a substantial response.
Chitayat, a 19-year-old pursuing a Ph.D. on a prestigious scholarship and who previously served in the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), describes the rally cry as a call for the murder of Jews and the demolition of Israel.
“Intifada is not a call for resistance. Intifada is the name of acts of bombing and killing civilians in Israel in the Israel-Palestine conflict. It’s the name of taking civilian lives in terrorist attacks in Israel. That is what intifada means. That is how it’s defined,” she said…
The recent protest rally at MIT was held by several student groups, including MIT Coalition Against Apartheid. That group issued a statement the day after the Hamas attacks of Oct. 7, saying they “hold the Israeli regime responsible for all unfolding violence.”
—
"One Solution" is an allusion to the Nazi's "Final Solution," the extermination of all Jews. "Intifada Revolution" is violent terrorism against Israelis and Jewish people.
“Robert Card, suspect in the Lewiston, Maine, shootings, is a 40-year-old Army reservist, a trained firearms instructor, and had recently reported mental health issues including hearing voices.
Card was reported to have been committed to a mental-health facility in Maine for two weeks this summer.
This information brings up some very disturbing questions that go beyond this awful crime:
First, why is a citizen in Maine, with a mental health history, able to possess a firearm?
For one thing, Maine lacks a “Red Flag” law which allows people (including families) to request that firearms be taken away from a person who has been deemed a threat to themselves or others, as appears to have been the case here.
As of 2023, 21 states (plus D.C.) have red flag laws.
Maine has a “Yellow flag” law which has only been used two dozen times from 2020 to 2022 and does NOT allow family members to directly petition a judge to order someone to give up their guns.
Only police can issue such a request.
Furthermore, I believe it is unlikely that Robert Card was taking anti-psychotic medication if prescribed, even after he threatened to shoot up a National Guard base.
This is what psychiatry calls homicidal ideation with a concrete plan. It is justification for involuntary commitment to a psychiatric facility and it immediately raises the question of why Card was reportedly released after only a two week stay.
Maine is in trouble when it comes to mental health services and it is not alone. Mental hospitals are being closed all across the country.
As of the end of 2021, there were only 87 mental health crisis workers for the entire state, compared with more than 2,500 law enforcement officers.
More than 2,000 patients were waiting for outpatient mental health treatment and 32 out of 45 emergency department beds were filled with individuals awaiting discharge for residential mental health care.
Meanwhile, more than 20 mental health residential programs in Maine had closed that year due to lack of staffing and inadequate financing.
Spring Harbor Hospital is the only nonprofit private psychiatric hospital of inpatient services in Southern Maine. Maine has only two state-run mental hospitals.”
They are worse than a joke they are the antithesis of “save the planet”, while giving those who own one a sense of virtue that doesn’t exist. https://t.co/aPMQqBDopH
It’s ridiculous and insane that we are being subjected to this insanity, especially with the other costs to live oatmeal brain has put on us. https://t.co/YSkOLqPsJB
This is missing the fuel spent digging up the lithium (about 2 years of fuel cost), also the cost of getting electricity from the power plant. And lol the fact that most electricity comes from fossil fuel power plants. https://t.co/ox6SbWklho
“People aren’t buying the hype or the vehicles, as EV truck makers are discovering.
Has Biden’s EV revolution ALREADY lost its spark?
Experts say motorists are rejecting White House push for electric vehicles – as Ford and GM both scale back on production of their eco pickup trucks
…But despite initially promising sales, Americans now seem increasingly disinterested in swapping out their combustion engine trucks for electric equivalents.
‘Electrification is a governmental and environmental initiative. It is not consumer driven,’ said Joe McCabe, President and CEO of automotive consultancy AutoForecast Solutions.
‘The demand for electrified vehicles is not meeting or exceeding supply so we’re at a point where [manufacturers] may have to pare back on this EV initiative because the new set of buyers are going to be a more difficult hurdle to clear,’ he added.
Americans especially do not like being pushed into – or out of – anything by the government, nor being forced by that same government to subsidized someone else’s ideology. Which is, to be perfectly honest, how a good many people see the entire renewable scam. Taxpayers feel as if they’re footing the bill for a virtue signaling social crusade, and none of it benefits them in the least, from utilities that twitch but cost a fortune, to being shoved out of their beloved F-250 onto a city bus or into an EV.
Now that some of the infrastructure plans and EVs themselves have been around for a bit, it turns out taxpayers might just be right to be torqued off about the bill of goods they’ve been sold.
They are subsidizing someone else’s Green fever dream.
A sweeping first-of-its-kind analysis published by think tank Texas Public Policy Foundation (TPPF) concludes that electric vehicles (EV) would cost tens of thousands of dollars more if not for generous taxpayer-funded incentives.
According to the TPPF report — authored by energy experts Jason Isaac and Brent Bennett — the average model year 2021 EV would cost approximately $48,698 more to own over a 10-year period without the staggering $22 billion in taxpayer-funded handouts that the government provides to electric car manufacturers and owners. The analysis factors in federal fuel efficiency programs, electric grid strain, and direct state and federal subsidies.
“It is not an overstatement to say that the federal government is subsidizing EVs to a greater degree than even wind and solar electricity generation and embarking on an unprecedented endeavor to remake the entire American auto industry,” the report states. “Despite these massive incentives, EVs are receiving a tepid response from the majority of Americans who cannot shoulder their higher cost.”
…”Electric vehicle owners have been the beneficiaries of regulatory credits, subsidies, and socialized infrastructure costs totaling nearly 50 thousand dollars per EV,” he said. “These costs are borne by gasoline vehicle owners, taxpayers, and utility ratepayers, who are all paying a hefty price for someone else’s EV.“
Both the money they’re spending and how much more they are going to need to pull this scam off in addition to the logistics is mind-blowing. I don’t have to tell you who gets to foot the bill.
…A “net zero” society inherently favors the haves over the have-nots. Renters and low-income families aren’t as likely to own private chargers, and electricity purchased from public chargers can cost five to 10 times as much as charging privately in a garage at home. To avoid penalizing the little guy, federal EV mandates require that 40% of benefits pay for public chargers in disadvantaged areas, while California requires that at least half go to such “equity” communities, where relatively few people currently drive EVs.
The numbers of chargers and logistics – just for CA – are staggering. I’m not even going to ask the question, because it’s obvious no one did the math.
They have now.
…According to a California Energy Commission assessment, California will need more than 2.4 million public chargers to accommodate about 15.5 million electric cars, trucks, and buses by 2035. That breaks down to 2.11 million chargers (including 83,000 fast chargers) to support 15.2 million electric cars, as well as 256,000 depot chargers and 8,500 public chargers for 377,000 trucks and buses.
…Those chargers will have to be installed at curbsides, parking lots, parking decks, grocery stores, restaurants, convenience stores, big box stores, office buildings, strip malls, shopping centers, movie theaters, and a host of other locations so that drivers always have ready access to plug-in.
By comparison, California now has about 11,000 gas stations, convenience stores, and other businesses that sell gasoline, which roughly converts to about 110,000 individual gas nozzles, according to an estimate by Jeff Lenard, vice president of Strategic Industry Initiatives at the National Association of Convenience Stores. That means the transition from fossil fuels to electrons will require California to install at least 20 EV charging ports for every gas nozzle by 2035.
Not all chargers are equal, so the new EV infrastructure will require significant changes in driving habits. While so-called fast chargers can bring a battery to 80% of capacity in under an hour, most of the new public chargers will be cheaper, Level 2 technology, which provides between 5 miles and 60 miles of range for each hour of charging, and isn’t practical for charging up quickly on a road trip.
The math says CA needs 2,200,000 installed chargers in a little over a decade and they have 94,000 now. Huh. Best get crackin’.”
“There was an interesting – and frankly tres concerning – development a little over a month ago that I noticed and saved, but didn’t have time to get to.
Then, boom – here we are on the precipice of what could turn into something truly ugly and it takes on even more serious overtones.
But let me backpedal a tad, and fill in the color for the background, as it were.
The US Navy isn’t the only asset the United States has that floats. Our country has what’s known as the “US Maritime Fleet.” They are commercial, deep-sea, ocean-going vessels, yes, BUT. In time of need or war-time mobilization, they come to the nation’s defense for sea-lift duties like resupply, and transportation. The US flagged “fleet” operates under the US Maritime Administration (MARAD) who belong to the Department of Transportation. MARAD even has a so-called “commandant” in charge as opposed to a secretary-type title, and the current occupant is one RADM Ann Phillips.
Maritime matters were a priority during the GHW Bush years, but really got revved up during Trump’s term.
…During President Trump’s administration, Maritime Administrator Commandant Mark Buzby instigated a tidal wave of change. He allocated hundreds of millions of dollars for training ships, activated the entire ready reserve fleet in significant naval Turbo Activations, personally handled media inquiries, engaged with sailors nationwide, and attended major events as a headline speaker.
Biden’s current administrator, in contrast, has been so little engaged, she’s earned her own call-sign, and it’s not a compliment – “…who some call the Ghost Admiral.””
How do we get to know her? Are there any videos of her giving speeches? Has she written any articles for major news outlets? Has she given any podcasts or tv interviews? https://t.co/6aKRKo1PeH
“Phillips has been in the post for 2 1/2 years and, well, maybe her boss has something to do with how little she’s produced. Being an obvious diversity hire is probably another reason for Mayor Pete’s MARAD boss’s lack of engagement.
…This is a crucial moment for shipping. The Jones Act faces fierce opposition. US ports struggle with insufficient funding. Shipyards are letting the Navy down. Wall Street funnels money into China’s shipping industry while American shipping languishes. European allies plead for LNG to address a dire energy crisis. US Merchant Ships confront threats and surveillance from Russian and Chinese warships. The UN asserts that world hunger hinges on maritime transportation.
…Phillips’ engagement has been even more limited. The few headlines she has made revolve around her evasive responses to Texas Senator Ted Cruz’s inquiries about LNG terminals during her confirmation hearings. Now, two and a half years into President Biden’s tenure, with the global demand for American LNG at a critical point, eight LNG terminal permits remain untouched on the Commandant’s desk.
…“This is the most ineffective Commandant* we’ve ever encountered,” said a US shipping executive who asked to remain anonymous, fearing repercussions from Commandant Phillips. “She’s also the only MARAD Administrator in decades I haven’t had the privilege to meet in person.”
They went through Buttigieg’s tweets and he’s never mentioned her. I think he mentioned the MARAD once. Little does Pete realize how important they are, but there’s a lot Pete is clueless about.
…The Navy relies heavily on MARAD to subsidize and support shipyards, as well as recruit and train shipyard labor that builds our nation’s warships and supplies them with Ready Reserve ships and a steady stream of Merchant Mariners for Military Sealift Command vessels. However, they seem to be even less aware of MARAD’s crucial role in naval security. When I asked 22 US Navy Surface Warfare officers, “Who is the head of the US Maritime Administration?”, only 3 were aware of MARAD’s existence, and not a single one could identify the person in charge.
US sealift capabilities have been degrading and are under tremendous stress at the moment, even before what has just happened in the Eastern Mediterranean. There has been such contraction in the shipping industry that a think tank recently floated the idea of allowing foreign seamen to work in a second US deep-sea flagged fleet. All this sounds kind of out-there unless we have a declared conflict. That’s when the US Maritime Fleet swings into action in support of the Navy and the country.
Needless to say, however, the US union came out firmly against the proposal, pointing out that it’s the US government’s responsibility to maintain the maritime fleet training, and objecting to using US tax dollars to fund that training for foreign crews.
…One of the suggestions is to increase the US flag commercial fleet engaged in international trade from 85 to 250 vessels, all crewed and controlled by American citizens. The report also introduces the idea of establishing a new, limited second US ship registry with specific requirements, such as US citizen control and crewing from the US or allied nations. While these ships wouldn’t serve as military sealift, the report argues that they would enhance supply chain security and deter gray-zone tactics.
In response to the report, a coalition of unions have issued a joint statement strongly opposing a number of the recommendations contain in the report, which they believe would negatively impact the implementation of existing US maritime policies and the operation of US-flag vessels. The joint statement also criticizes the report for failing to identify solutions that would incentivize the use of US-flag, US-crewed vessels. However, the unions specifically highlight their strong opposition to the establishment of a second US-flag registry.
According to the unions, the US-flag deep-sea fleet is the largest segment of the maritime industry and provides the trained and qualified American mariners required to meet the Department of Defense’s needs during war or international emergencies.The unions stress the importance of the government ensuring there are enough trained and qualified mariners for national security, and argue against using taxpayer dollars to support US-flag vessels that do not contribute to the pool of civilian mariners.
Against all this roiling in the background – with a completely disinterested, incompetent administrator (and administration) at the helm – word came at the end of September that Maersk, the largest shipping firm in the world, and the “principle transportation partner for the US military” was backing away from it’s DoD contracts. And picking up business from China.
How ’bout them apples? And how in the Sam Hell did they let this happen?
In a world where the Pacific is becoming a cauldron of geopolitical tensions and Russia’s actions in Ukraine highlight the paramount importance of military logistics, the strategic chessboard is experiencing moves that are unparalleled. Maersk, the Danish maritime behemoth and a principal commercial transportation partner for the U.S. military, has chosen to divest its U.S. flagged tanker fleet along with select U.S. military contracts to Maritime Partners, a relatively minor entity operating under the Jones Act. Concurrently, the company is escalating its investments gloablly [sic] including in China, prompting speculations into whether these developments are interconnected. The answer is not so simple.
…According to Hanley, Maersk executive interviewed by gCaptain today, the company plans to maintain its support and investment in container services and the US Maritime Security Program. However, it has already divested its critical tanker fleet and contracts to manage military grey hull ships. Maersk also was clear the recent divestiture of sale of assets received the approval of key military stakeholders including the US Maritime Administration (MARAD), Military Sealift Command (MSC) and the US Transportation Command (TRANSCOM).
How critical are those assets to the US Military? Very.
“The Department of Defense is projected to need on the order of one hundred tankers of various sizes in the event of a serious conflict in the Pacific,” said former Maersk executive Steve Carmel in a gCaptain editorial. “Not only does the U.S. lack the tonnage required to support a major conflict in the Pacific, it has no identifiable roadmap to obtain it.”
Oh, WELL DONE, GUYS. Go ahead, sell it – who needs tankers anyway? Not us.
Mind you, we don’t really build many BIG ships here anymore. That’s something to keep in mind, too.”
—
I was visiting Halifax when News broke about GTS Katie that later resulted in Operation Megaphone.
It was an important lesson in what happens when a nation’s military doesn’t have direct access to its own shipping.
🚨 NEW FOOTAGE: Democrat Rep. Jamaal Bowman removes warning signs before pulling the fire alarm in a House office building last month pic.twitter.com/dhwOQN2G6y
Same people that wanted to destroy @jk_rowling for saying there are only two biological genders, and hold her to account financially and otherwise for those words, are now upset when we hold them to account for their Antisemitic rhetoric in public.
My favorite is hearing how our society is run by "American Taliban Christo-fascists" from women allowed to attend college, dress as they please, choose their own sexual partners, and get jobs if they want.
I wouldn't have thought post 9/11 kids would have less of a clue.
The Bucks County, Pennsylvania Democrat Committee is trying to get a court order to remove these campaign signs that say "Groom Dogs Not Kids" before the November 7 school board elections in the district. pic.twitter.com/QRX035gyIb
It is insulting that Bowman thinks anyone with a brain believes his lie. Really, though, he doesn’t care. Nor do the other liars.
I am thankful our congressman does point out the ultimate foolishness and actual danger of electric vehicles in our cold weather.
A school system that has students graduating with no knowledge of the Holocaust or US history is defective. Shame on those who support this. Sadly, our state is going the way of California. We can only pray people wake up and that we have good, knowledgeable, effective candidates to oppose those who support this eveil.
dj, I just caught up on the last three days here. You took “minor exception” with my evaluation of media coverage of the war. Let me clarify that I said “much of the reporting” was bad, and did not mean all or even most of the reporting. You’re right,
“Bipartisan Coalition of Lawmakers Introducing Bill to Crack Down on Anti-Semitism at Colleges
“It’s critical the Department of Education has the tools and resources it needs to investigate antisemitism and root out this vile hatred wherever it rears its ugly head”
“Over the last two weeks, what we have seen unfold on campus at places like New York University, Harvard and even MIT, in response to the Hamas attack on Israel has been downright sickening.
Now lawmakers from both parties are uniting to introduce a bill to deal with anti-Semitism on campus.
FOX News reports:
GOP and Dem lawmakers back bill to crack down on college ‘hotbeds of antisemitism’
A bipartisan coalition of lawmakers is backing a bill to require the Department of Education to consider antisemitism while enforcing federal anti-discrimination laws and to ensure that antisemitism on college campuses is “properly investigated and prosecuted.”
The Antisemitism Awareness Act directs the DOE to use the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s working definition of antisemitism and its examples while investigating hate crimes.
Republican New York Congressman Mike Lawler introduced the bill to quash the “disturbing and unacceptable” antisemitic demonstrations at universities, which “have long been breeding grounds of antisemitism.”
Sen. Tim Scott, R-S.C., the 2024 presidential candidate who is co-leading the bill, says America’s universities “have become hotbeds of antisemitism, especially in the wake of the brutal Hamas terror attacks against Israel and innocent civilians.”
“It’s critical the Department of Education has the tools and resources it needs to investigate antisemitism and root out this vile hatred wherever it rears its ugly head,” said Scott.
Reps. Josh Gottheimer, D-N.J., and Jared Moskowitz. D-Fla., and progressive Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, D-Texas, are also co-sponsoring the proposal, despite many progressive Democrats splitting with their colleagues on backing Israel and condemning Hamas’ Oct. 7 terrorist attack.
“Those who commit antisemitic attacks with the sole purpose of hurting the Jewish community must be held accountable to the full extent of the law,” said Moskowitz. “With the hatred we’ve witnessed over the last couple weeks, it’s beyond clear we need a multi-layered approach to stopping antisemitism.”
“Just look at the figures. These aren’t specific to higher education but it’s all related.
From Reuters:
US antisemitic incidents up about 400% since Israel-Hamas war began, report says
Antisemitic incidents in the United States rose by about 400% in slightly over two weeks since war broke out in the Middle East after Palestinian Islamist group Hamas attacked Israel on Oct. 7, advocacy group Anti-Defamation League (ADL) said Wednesday.”
When it’s destroyed, they’ll blame Israel. But it’s their barbarous tactics using civilians and hospitals as shields that’s the cause.
“IDF: Hamas Uses Al-Shifa Hospital as Main Terror Base
“Hamas wages war from hospitals.””
Hamas operates within and hides beneath the largest hospital in Gaza. Their priorities are clear—and the people of Gaza are not among them. pic.twitter.com/7M4ZqjFyYs
While Hamas is holding a press conference in their HQ – the Shefa hospital, we will be releasing more exclusive information about their lies. pic.twitter.com/MprGlqdUZA
The Israeli Defense Force has released an Infographic showing the Hamas Headquarters and Terrorist Complex beneath the Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City. pic.twitter.com/uin1ZwD1gb
“I am 21 years old and Jewish. Apparently, 48 percent of my peers want people like me dead.
As of October 23, 64 percent of 18- to 24-year-olds think what happened on October 7 was a terrorist attack. Seventy-seven percent of us think “it’s true that Hamas terrorists killed 1,200 Israeli civilians by shooting them, raping and beheading people including whole families, kids and babies.” But when asked, “in this conflict do you side more with Israel or Hamas?”
Forty-eight percent said Hamas.
I am not surprised.
In high school, my homeroom had an exercise where we made a T-chart dividing various ethnicities, religions, and other identities into the categories of “oppressor” and “oppressed.” Women: oppressed. Straight people: oppressor. Black people: oppressed. Then we reached the “Jew” category. And we paused. This being a high school in Los Angeles, many of my classmates were Jewish. I recall we skipped it altogether. But the T-chart stayed on the whiteboard.
If there were fewer Jews in that room, I’m confident that “Jews” would’ve gone squarely in the “oppressor” column.
Social justice theory became part of everything. My senior English class was not about great literature, but about readings in critical theory, mostly about race and gender. I had a nonacademic weekly homeroom class in which we learned that every white person is racist, and all men are evil. It took me a long time to shake off a hatred of men. It wasn’t socially acceptable to disagree, and no one really tried.
My high school got a dean of gender studies and feminism. At the time, one of her roles was to help seniors write their college applications. In answer to the question “What is the most significant challenge that society faces today?” I wrote it was identity politics. She gave me a note saying that meant I was rejecting the advances of the civil rights movement. I changed it.
I see the biggest part of growing up to be the acceptance of gray areas. But Gen Z worships these identity categories and the distinction of oppressor/oppressed. I know that’s true—I am submerged in it every day. The oppressor is always wrong, and the oppressed are always right. Since high school, we’ve been trained to identify and slot people based on their identities alone.
That’s intersectionality for you.
The cheering of Hamas among people my age on college campuses in the U.S. might seem shocking to older people. But it doesn’t shock me. For most of my peers, social issues are unanimous. At my college campus, the tiny group of people who publicly celebrated the overturning of Roe v. Wade were mocked mercilessly.
And so, even a terrorist group’s mass murder of innocent Jews—babies, grandmothers, entire families—cannot defeat my generation’s Manichean belief system. Jews are the worst, and October 7 is about justifiable revenge.
I am a college junior at Stanford. For my freshman and sophomore years, I lived in a dorm with the only dining hall that serves kosher food. Last winter, a Jewish student in my dorm found that a portrait of Hitler had been drawn on his door. My friend was the RA who had to report it. They never found the perpetrator.
Soon after, swastikas were carved into bathrooms in the main quad.
In my freshman year, I took part in a Great Books program: Structured Liberal Education (SLE). Weeks were labeled by students like Shark Week: Plato week, Marx week, Holocaust week. (I’m not kidding.)
In SLE’s third quarter, my classmates and I were lucky enough to dive deeply into the ideologies that have shaped where we are now, a tour of the great books of the past 200 years. That quarter, I recall a conversation where I was shot down during “Fanon week” (which celebrates “anti-colonial” hero Frantz Fanon) for suggesting that approving violence under the guise of “decolonization” could have nasty consequences. I was the only person to vehemently disagree with Marx in my discussion section. In a moment of weakness, I pretended to be a communist during my oral exam to save my grade.
In another section during spring quarter’s “Holocaust week” where we read Arendt’s Eichmann in Jerusalem and Primo Levi’s Survival in Auschwitz, a student gave a presentation on how Zionism is the new Nazism and how Israelis were the new Nazis. He chose this specific week to present. A Chinese student argued with the presenter, but that was that. The class went on as usual.
This is only my small corner of Gen Z. Gen Z, comprised of people born in 1997 to 2013, makes up a fifth of America’s population. Not all of us—thank God—go to elite universities, where the obsession with the so-called “oppressed” is our intellectual north star. But the vast majority of us were raised on Instagram and Twitter—our ideas are tweet-length and infographic-sized. And the oppressor/oppressed framework was made for us.
After seeing a thread on X about how TikTok—the preferred search engine for just over half of Gen Z—is an echo chamber for virulently anti-Israel posts and how its algorithm promotes pro-Palestine content, I re-downloaded the app for the first time since Covid to see how bad it really was.
In my foray back into TikTok, I was reminded of how my friends and I would doomscroll on the app. By osmosis, we mindlessly bleated the same talking points served up to us in thirty-second videos. The same critical theory books we read championing “decolonization” and “resistance” had been distilled into the perfect format: the explainer video.
Dipping my toes back in was a wake-up call as to how sinister this information flow has become. (It’s worth noting that TikTok is owned by Chinese company ByteDance.)
Within the first minute of scrolling under a search for “Zionism” on TikTok, I saw a “Zionism Explained” video with over 125,000 views. It said that Jews are forbidden by God to have their own state, completely ignoring the fact that the State of Israel is secular. “How did this start? Let’s go back to 1897,” the video instructs. But Jewish history in Israel started thousands of years ago, not in 1897.
When I searched “history” on TikTok, a woman with the “cute freckles and lashes” filter told me and over 80,000 viewers that, in “the biggest plot twist of the century,” Jews are using their ancestors’ “tragedy to justify and inflict another Holocaust.”
That explainer video is why, when I went to a pro-Palestine rally at Stanford on Wednesday and asked a fellow student what she meant when she chanted “from the river to the sea,” she said that, after admitting she wasn’t knowledgeable about the issue, Palestine must be free from the Tigris River (in Iraq) to the Black Sea (north of Turkey). This student, though she has no sense of geography, is actually chanting for the land from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea to no longer contain the state of Israel. It is an eliminationist slogan.
I saw a similar message at an off-campus café recently when I walked by a girl whose laptop bore a newly applied sticker with the words “By Any Means Necessary” stamped over an outline of Israel. It’s been less than three weeks since October 7 and already these glib stickers plugging genocide, aimed at my generation, are proliferating.
A new axis of evil—Big Tech, social media companies, and China—has taken the once-fringe position that Jews are undeserving of a homeland, and is now pushing the idea of their mass slaughter via shoddy animation and beautiful women hosting “explainer” videos. And it’s trickling down onto t-shirts and “cute” laptop stickers.
“It began as a liberal organization that was taken over by the communists and supported the Hitler-Stalin Pact.
Within a day of the massacre of Israeli babies, women, the elderly and others, the National Lawyers Guild issued a statement in support of the mass murderers. The Guild is a group of hard-left lawyers, students, and legal employees. It has branches in law schools throughout the country and has many members, especially among law students.
It began as a liberal organization before World War II and included many legal luminaries, including Jews. Quickly, though, it was taken over by the Communist Party, and it supported the Hitler-Stalin Pact of 1939. As a result of its support for Hitler, many liberal members quit.
Committed Communists who always follow the party line remained members. Following World War II, the Guild again attracted some liberals who saw it as an alternative to the conservative American Bar Association. In the 1970s, it was taken over by radical leftists¸ including some members of the Communist Party. It was no longer a home for liberals.
In 1948, the Guild followed the lead of the Soviet Union in supporting the establishment of Israel. When the Soviet Union and the Communist Party turned against Israel in the 1960s, the Guild followed suit in opposing Israel and supporting Palestinian terrorists. Nonetheless, some liberals, including Jews, stayed on as members. It remains to be seen whether it will lose the support of Jewish liberals, following the events of October 7, 2023.
It is important to note that the lengthy statement by the Lawyer’s Guild in support of Hamas and in opposition to Israel was issued before Israel responded to the Hamas attack. It was posted on October 8, while bodies were still being recovered from the south of Israel.
The statement begins by emphasizing “the legitimacy of the right of the Palestinian people to resist the legal military occupation, apartheid and ethnic cleansing … as well as Israel’s perpetration of its atrocities.” It described the rapes, beheadings, murders and kidnappings committed by Hamas as “the recent military actions carried out by Palestinian resistance…”
The Guild’s statement urged the public to support resistance to Israel’s occupation “by all available means including armed struggle.” It criticized those who had condemned Hamas’ barbarity. It accused Israel of genocide and demanded that Hamas be removed from the United States list of foreign terrorist organizations.
Plus, too, the Guild demanded that Israel be held legally accountable for the defense of its citizens. It claimed that Israel’s goal is to “annihilate” the Palestinians, and it demanded the release of every single Palestinian prisoner — including those convicted of mass murder.
The Guild did not call for the release of the hostages held by Hamas, and it opposed efforts of any country to “normalize relations with Israel.” It said not a single word in condemnation of the rapes, beheadings, and kidnappings of Israeli babies, children, and women.
I am not aware of any law school in which the National Lawyers Guild has a chapter condemning or even criticizing this statement. It has gone largely unnoticed in the law school community. This statement, though, was not produced out of thin air or by artificial intelligence, it was written and circulated by specific leaders of the National Lawyers Guild, including students at America’s leading universities.
Students who support this antisemitic, anti-American, and anti-humanitarian statement are currently being given job offers by America’s leading law firms, by government agencies, by hedge funds and by other potential employers. I am sure that these employers are unaware that they may be hiring lawyers who support the rapes and beheading of Jewish women and children.
Full transparency, which lies at the core of the marketplace of ideas protected by the First Amendment, demands that the name of every member of the National Lawyers Guild who supports this statement be made public, so that potential employers know whom they are hiring. Few clients would be willing to be represented by lawyers who have advocated the rape, beheading, murder, and kidnapping of Jewish civilians.
If there were groups of law students at any law school that advocated the lynching of African-Americans, the raping of women or the killing of gay and transgender people, the National Lawyers Guild would be the first to demand that the names of the students supporting such atrocities be made public. Now the shoe is on the other foot, and it is the Guild that is supporting such barbarity.”
One of the biggest reasons I do not support Ukraine. I cannot support countries that lock up faith leaders for political opinions they disagree with. It’s undemocratic, and is a mockery of the great American tradition of freedom of religion.
Please take the time to watch the Tucker video. Very little of it is Tucker talking. Even if you’re not a fan, the guest makes it worth your time to hear and consider. There’s persecution of Christians taking place by the Ukraine govt. The very one our govt is giving away billions to. The man’s testimony is worthy of your time and consideration.
Wandering Views 
So we now have proof of shenanigans in Georgia, Biden is being hammered for evidence of bribes, so they need a distraction.
So Syria gets bombed, rather than the head of the snake, Iran. They do this because they’re cowards who know Syria can’t fight back. Rather than bombing Iran backed clowns, why not go straight for the source? Because either way, this will be viewed as escalation.
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Good.
“IDF Kills Hamas Head of Intelligence Directorate Who Helped Plan Oct. 7 Massacre”
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Disgusting.
“Israeli Students at MIT Terrified as Pro-Hamas Protesters Chant ‘Intifada’ and ‘One Solution’
“This is not even related to what happens in Israel. That is calling for a terror attack here. A huge group of people calling out loud for terror attacks”
https://legalinsurrection.com/2023/10/israeli-students-at-mit-terrified-as-pro-hamas-protesters-chant-intifada-and-one-solution/
“Apparently, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology is not immune to the madness we are seeing unfold on college campuses in recent weeks.
Pro-Hamas students recently held a campus rally, chanting ‘one solution’ and ‘intifada,’ horrifying Israeli students at the school.
FOX News reports:
Israeli MIT students ‘terrified’ after anti-Israel rally chant calls for ‘one solution, intifada’
Israeli students at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) say they are “terrified” to be on campus after participants at a campus protest chanted “one solution, intifada, revolution” at a rally supporting the devastating Hamas terrorist attacks that killed hundreds of Israelis in Israel.
MIT students Liyam Chitayat and Lior Alon told Fox News Digital in interviews that after they contacted MIT’s administration to report the calls to violence being chanted from the protest and for concern for their own safety, they’ve yet to receive a substantial response.
Chitayat, a 19-year-old pursuing a Ph.D. on a prestigious scholarship and who previously served in the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), describes the rally cry as a call for the murder of Jews and the demolition of Israel.
“Intifada is not a call for resistance. Intifada is the name of acts of bombing and killing civilians in Israel in the Israel-Palestine conflict. It’s the name of taking civilian lives in terrorist attacks in Israel. That is what intifada means. That is how it’s defined,” she said…
The recent protest rally at MIT was held by several student groups, including MIT Coalition Against Apartheid. That group issued a statement the day after the Hamas attacks of Oct. 7, saying they “hold the Israeli regime responsible for all unfolding violence.”
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It’s time to start holding these administrators responsible for what they allow on their campuses.
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Once again, on the FBI radar, yet nothing was done. They’re too busy rounding up non violent Jan 6ers.
We need to have a conversation about reopening facilities that Reagan closed.
https://nypost.com/2023/10/26/opinion/massacre-shows-how-maine-and-nation-fail-to-deal-with-violent-mentally-ill/
“Robert Card, suspect in the Lewiston, Maine, shootings, is a 40-year-old Army reservist, a trained firearms instructor, and had recently reported mental health issues including hearing voices.
Card was reported to have been committed to a mental-health facility in Maine for two weeks this summer.
This information brings up some very disturbing questions that go beyond this awful crime:
First, why is a citizen in Maine, with a mental health history, able to possess a firearm?
For one thing, Maine lacks a “Red Flag” law which allows people (including families) to request that firearms be taken away from a person who has been deemed a threat to themselves or others, as appears to have been the case here.
As of 2023, 21 states (plus D.C.) have red flag laws.
Maine has a “Yellow flag” law which has only been used two dozen times from 2020 to 2022 and does NOT allow family members to directly petition a judge to order someone to give up their guns.
Only police can issue such a request.
Furthermore, I believe it is unlikely that Robert Card was taking anti-psychotic medication if prescribed, even after he threatened to shoot up a National Guard base.
This is what psychiatry calls homicidal ideation with a concrete plan. It is justification for involuntary commitment to a psychiatric facility and it immediately raises the question of why Card was reportedly released after only a two week stay.
Maine is in trouble when it comes to mental health services and it is not alone. Mental hospitals are being closed all across the country.
As of the end of 2021, there were only 87 mental health crisis workers for the entire state, compared with more than 2,500 law enforcement officers.
More than 2,000 patients were waiting for outpatient mental health treatment and 32 out of 45 emergency department beds were filled with individuals awaiting discharge for residential mental health care.
Meanwhile, more than 20 mental health residential programs in Maine had closed that year due to lack of staffing and inadequate financing.
Spring Harbor Hospital is the only nonprofit private psychiatric hospital of inpatient services in Southern Maine. Maine has only two state-run mental hospitals.”
—–
Gun laws won’t stop this.
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But muh narrative…..
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This goes nicely with the above.
“EV Market Is Looking Fugly”
https://hotair.com/tree-hugging-sister/2023/10/26/ev-market-is-looking-fugly-n587807
“People aren’t buying the hype or the vehicles, as EV truck makers are discovering.
Has Biden’s EV revolution ALREADY lost its spark?
Experts say motorists are rejecting White House push for electric vehicles – as Ford and GM both scale back on production of their eco pickup trucks
…But despite initially promising sales, Americans now seem increasingly disinterested in swapping out their combustion engine trucks for electric equivalents.
‘Electrification is a governmental and environmental initiative. It is not consumer driven,’ said Joe McCabe, President and CEO of automotive consultancy AutoForecast Solutions.
‘The demand for electrified vehicles is not meeting or exceeding supply so we’re at a point where [manufacturers] may have to pare back on this EV initiative because the new set of buyers are going to be a more difficult hurdle to clear,’ he added.
Americans especially do not like being pushed into – or out of – anything by the government, nor being forced by that same government to subsidized someone else’s ideology. Which is, to be perfectly honest, how a good many people see the entire renewable scam. Taxpayers feel as if they’re footing the bill for a virtue signaling social crusade, and none of it benefits them in the least, from utilities that twitch but cost a fortune, to being shoved out of their beloved F-250 onto a city bus or into an EV.
Now that some of the infrastructure plans and EVs themselves have been around for a bit, it turns out taxpayers might just be right to be torqued off about the bill of goods they’ve been sold.
They are subsidizing someone else’s Green fever dream.
A sweeping first-of-its-kind analysis published by think tank Texas Public Policy Foundation (TPPF) concludes that electric vehicles (EV) would cost tens of thousands of dollars more if not for generous taxpayer-funded incentives.
According to the TPPF report — authored by energy experts Jason Isaac and Brent Bennett — the average model year 2021 EV would cost approximately $48,698 more to own over a 10-year period without the staggering $22 billion in taxpayer-funded handouts that the government provides to electric car manufacturers and owners. The analysis factors in federal fuel efficiency programs, electric grid strain, and direct state and federal subsidies.
“It is not an overstatement to say that the federal government is subsidizing EVs to a greater degree than even wind and solar electricity generation and embarking on an unprecedented endeavor to remake the entire American auto industry,” the report states. “Despite these massive incentives, EVs are receiving a tepid response from the majority of Americans who cannot shoulder their higher cost.”
…”Electric vehicle owners have been the beneficiaries of regulatory credits, subsidies, and socialized infrastructure costs totaling nearly 50 thousand dollars per EV,” he said. “These costs are borne by gasoline vehicle owners, taxpayers, and utility ratepayers, who are all paying a hefty price for someone else’s EV.“
Both the money they’re spending and how much more they are going to need to pull this scam off in addition to the logistics is mind-blowing. I don’t have to tell you who gets to foot the bill.
…A “net zero” society inherently favors the haves over the have-nots. Renters and low-income families aren’t as likely to own private chargers, and electricity purchased from public chargers can cost five to 10 times as much as charging privately in a garage at home. To avoid penalizing the little guy, federal EV mandates require that 40% of benefits pay for public chargers in disadvantaged areas, while California requires that at least half go to such “equity” communities, where relatively few people currently drive EVs.
The numbers of chargers and logistics – just for CA – are staggering. I’m not even going to ask the question, because it’s obvious no one did the math.
They have now.
…According to a California Energy Commission assessment, California will need more than 2.4 million public chargers to accommodate about 15.5 million electric cars, trucks, and buses by 2035. That breaks down to 2.11 million chargers (including 83,000 fast chargers) to support 15.2 million electric cars, as well as 256,000 depot chargers and 8,500 public chargers for 377,000 trucks and buses.
…Those chargers will have to be installed at curbsides, parking lots, parking decks, grocery stores, restaurants, convenience stores, big box stores, office buildings, strip malls, shopping centers, movie theaters, and a host of other locations so that drivers always have ready access to plug-in.
By comparison, California now has about 11,000 gas stations, convenience stores, and other businesses that sell gasoline, which roughly converts to about 110,000 individual gas nozzles, according to an estimate by Jeff Lenard, vice president of Strategic Industry Initiatives at the National Association of Convenience Stores. That means the transition from fossil fuels to electrons will require California to install at least 20 EV charging ports for every gas nozzle by 2035.
Not all chargers are equal, so the new EV infrastructure will require significant changes in driving habits. While so-called fast chargers can bring a battery to 80% of capacity in under an hour, most of the new public chargers will be cheaper, Level 2 technology, which provides between 5 miles and 60 miles of range for each hour of charging, and isn’t practical for charging up quickly on a road trip.
The math says CA needs 2,200,000 installed chargers in a little over a decade and they have 94,000 now. Huh. Best get crackin’.”
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Thank Joe Biden and his merry band of Democrat stooges.
“US Maritime Woes: God Forbid We Go to War”
https://hotair.com/tree-hugging-sister/2023/10/26/us-maritime-woes-god-forbid-we-go-to-war-n587976
“There was an interesting – and frankly tres concerning – development a little over a month ago that I noticed and saved, but didn’t have time to get to.
Then, boom – here we are on the precipice of what could turn into something truly ugly and it takes on even more serious overtones.
But let me backpedal a tad, and fill in the color for the background, as it were.
The US Navy isn’t the only asset the United States has that floats. Our country has what’s known as the “US Maritime Fleet.” They are commercial, deep-sea, ocean-going vessels, yes, BUT. In time of need or war-time mobilization, they come to the nation’s defense for sea-lift duties like resupply, and transportation. The US flagged “fleet” operates under the US Maritime Administration (MARAD) who belong to the Department of Transportation. MARAD even has a so-called “commandant” in charge as opposed to a secretary-type title, and the current occupant is one RADM Ann Phillips.
Maritime matters were a priority during the GHW Bush years, but really got revved up during Trump’s term.
…During President Trump’s administration, Maritime Administrator Commandant Mark Buzby instigated a tidal wave of change. He allocated hundreds of millions of dollars for training ships, activated the entire ready reserve fleet in significant naval Turbo Activations, personally handled media inquiries, engaged with sailors nationwide, and attended major events as a headline speaker.
Biden’s current administrator, in contrast, has been so little engaged, she’s earned her own call-sign, and it’s not a compliment – “…who some call the Ghost Admiral.””
“Phillips has been in the post for 2 1/2 years and, well, maybe her boss has something to do with how little she’s produced. Being an obvious diversity hire is probably another reason for Mayor Pete’s MARAD boss’s lack of engagement.
…This is a crucial moment for shipping. The Jones Act faces fierce opposition. US ports struggle with insufficient funding. Shipyards are letting the Navy down. Wall Street funnels money into China’s shipping industry while American shipping languishes. European allies plead for LNG to address a dire energy crisis. US Merchant Ships confront threats and surveillance from Russian and Chinese warships. The UN asserts that world hunger hinges on maritime transportation.
…Phillips’ engagement has been even more limited. The few headlines she has made revolve around her evasive responses to Texas Senator Ted Cruz’s inquiries about LNG terminals during her confirmation hearings. Now, two and a half years into President Biden’s tenure, with the global demand for American LNG at a critical point, eight LNG terminal permits remain untouched on the Commandant’s desk.
…“This is the most ineffective Commandant* we’ve ever encountered,” said a US shipping executive who asked to remain anonymous, fearing repercussions from Commandant Phillips. “She’s also the only MARAD Administrator in decades I haven’t had the privilege to meet in person.”
They went through Buttigieg’s tweets and he’s never mentioned her. I think he mentioned the MARAD once. Little does Pete realize how important they are, but there’s a lot Pete is clueless about.
…The Navy relies heavily on MARAD to subsidize and support shipyards, as well as recruit and train shipyard labor that builds our nation’s warships and supplies them with Ready Reserve ships and a steady stream of Merchant Mariners for Military Sealift Command vessels. However, they seem to be even less aware of MARAD’s crucial role in naval security. When I asked 22 US Navy Surface Warfare officers, “Who is the head of the US Maritime Administration?”, only 3 were aware of MARAD’s existence, and not a single one could identify the person in charge.
US sealift capabilities have been degrading and are under tremendous stress at the moment, even before what has just happened in the Eastern Mediterranean. There has been such contraction in the shipping industry that a think tank recently floated the idea of allowing foreign seamen to work in a second US deep-sea flagged fleet. All this sounds kind of out-there unless we have a declared conflict. That’s when the US Maritime Fleet swings into action in support of the Navy and the country.
Needless to say, however, the US union came out firmly against the proposal, pointing out that it’s the US government’s responsibility to maintain the maritime fleet training, and objecting to using US tax dollars to fund that training for foreign crews.
…One of the suggestions is to increase the US flag commercial fleet engaged in international trade from 85 to 250 vessels, all crewed and controlled by American citizens. The report also introduces the idea of establishing a new, limited second US ship registry with specific requirements, such as US citizen control and crewing from the US or allied nations. While these ships wouldn’t serve as military sealift, the report argues that they would enhance supply chain security and deter gray-zone tactics.
In response to the report, a coalition of unions have issued a joint statement strongly opposing a number of the recommendations contain in the report, which they believe would negatively impact the implementation of existing US maritime policies and the operation of US-flag vessels. The joint statement also criticizes the report for failing to identify solutions that would incentivize the use of US-flag, US-crewed vessels. However, the unions specifically highlight their strong opposition to the establishment of a second US-flag registry.
According to the unions, the US-flag deep-sea fleet is the largest segment of the maritime industry and provides the trained and qualified American mariners required to meet the Department of Defense’s needs during war or international emergencies.The unions stress the importance of the government ensuring there are enough trained and qualified mariners for national security, and argue against using taxpayer dollars to support US-flag vessels that do not contribute to the pool of civilian mariners.
Against all this roiling in the background – with a completely disinterested, incompetent administrator (and administration) at the helm – word came at the end of September that Maersk, the largest shipping firm in the world, and the “principle transportation partner for the US military” was backing away from it’s DoD contracts. And picking up business from China.
How ’bout them apples? And how in the Sam Hell did they let this happen?
In a world where the Pacific is becoming a cauldron of geopolitical tensions and Russia’s actions in Ukraine highlight the paramount importance of military logistics, the strategic chessboard is experiencing moves that are unparalleled. Maersk, the Danish maritime behemoth and a principal commercial transportation partner for the U.S. military, has chosen to divest its U.S. flagged tanker fleet along with select U.S. military contracts to Maritime Partners, a relatively minor entity operating under the Jones Act. Concurrently, the company is escalating its investments gloablly [sic] including in China, prompting speculations into whether these developments are interconnected. The answer is not so simple.
…According to Hanley, Maersk executive interviewed by gCaptain today, the company plans to maintain its support and investment in container services and the US Maritime Security Program. However, it has already divested its critical tanker fleet and contracts to manage military grey hull ships. Maersk also was clear the recent divestiture of sale of assets received the approval of key military stakeholders including the US Maritime Administration (MARAD), Military Sealift Command (MSC) and the US Transportation Command (TRANSCOM).
How critical are those assets to the US Military? Very.
“The Department of Defense is projected to need on the order of one hundred tankers of various sizes in the event of a serious conflict in the Pacific,” said former Maersk executive Steve Carmel in a gCaptain editorial. “Not only does the U.S. lack the tonnage required to support a major conflict in the Pacific, it has no identifiable roadmap to obtain it.”
Oh, WELL DONE, GUYS. Go ahead, sell it – who needs tankers anyway? Not us.
Mind you, we don’t really build many BIG ships here anymore. That’s something to keep in mind, too.”
—
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It’s a miracle!
Kidding. It was all staged.
https://twitter.com/NiohBerg/status/1717530203067470069?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1717530203067470069%7Ctwgr%5E4276397f3b6273598fa3ca2917046afb75ebc7a5%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Ftwitchy.com%2Fbrettt%2F2023%2F10%2F26%2Fpalestinian-vlogger-makes-remarkable-recovery-after-being-in-critical-condition-n2389060
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A Democrat lied?
What were the chances?
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This falls under the “Play stupid games, win stupid prizes” category.
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Weird, and inconsistent….
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Groomers say what?
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It is insulting that Bowman thinks anyone with a brain believes his lie. Really, though, he doesn’t care. Nor do the other liars.
I am thankful our congressman does point out the ultimate foolishness and actual danger of electric vehicles in our cold weather.
A school system that has students graduating with no knowledge of the Holocaust or US history is defective. Shame on those who support this. Sadly, our state is going the way of California. We can only pray people wake up and that we have good, knowledgeable, effective candidates to oppose those who support this eveil.
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Sorry for the typo. 😉
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dj, I just caught up on the last three days here. You took “minor exception” with my evaluation of media coverage of the war. Let me clarify that I said “much of the reporting” was bad, and did not mean all or even most of the reporting. You’re right,
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Oops, cut myself off. You’re right, reading different sources shows good reporting as well. I’m sorry if it sounded like I used too broad a brush.
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Good, and long overdue.
“Bipartisan Coalition of Lawmakers Introducing Bill to Crack Down on Anti-Semitism at Colleges
“It’s critical the Department of Education has the tools and resources it needs to investigate antisemitism and root out this vile hatred wherever it rears its ugly head”
https://legalinsurrection.com/2023/10/bipartisan-coalition-of-lawmakers-introducing-bill-to-crack-down-on-anti-semitism-at-colleges/
“Over the last two weeks, what we have seen unfold on campus at places like New York University, Harvard and even MIT, in response to the Hamas attack on Israel has been downright sickening.
Now lawmakers from both parties are uniting to introduce a bill to deal with anti-Semitism on campus.
FOX News reports:
GOP and Dem lawmakers back bill to crack down on college ‘hotbeds of antisemitism’
A bipartisan coalition of lawmakers is backing a bill to require the Department of Education to consider antisemitism while enforcing federal anti-discrimination laws and to ensure that antisemitism on college campuses is “properly investigated and prosecuted.”
The Antisemitism Awareness Act directs the DOE to use the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s working definition of antisemitism and its examples while investigating hate crimes.
Republican New York Congressman Mike Lawler introduced the bill to quash the “disturbing and unacceptable” antisemitic demonstrations at universities, which “have long been breeding grounds of antisemitism.”
Sen. Tim Scott, R-S.C., the 2024 presidential candidate who is co-leading the bill, says America’s universities “have become hotbeds of antisemitism, especially in the wake of the brutal Hamas terror attacks against Israel and innocent civilians.”
“It’s critical the Department of Education has the tools and resources it needs to investigate antisemitism and root out this vile hatred wherever it rears its ugly head,” said Scott.
Reps. Josh Gottheimer, D-N.J., and Jared Moskowitz. D-Fla., and progressive Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, D-Texas, are also co-sponsoring the proposal, despite many progressive Democrats splitting with their colleagues on backing Israel and condemning Hamas’ Oct. 7 terrorist attack.
“Those who commit antisemitic attacks with the sole purpose of hurting the Jewish community must be held accountable to the full extent of the law,” said Moskowitz. “With the hatred we’ve witnessed over the last couple weeks, it’s beyond clear we need a multi-layered approach to stopping antisemitism.”
This is absolutely necessary.”
“Just look at the figures. These aren’t specific to higher education but it’s all related.
From Reuters:
US antisemitic incidents up about 400% since Israel-Hamas war began, report says
Antisemitic incidents in the United States rose by about 400% in slightly over two weeks since war broke out in the Middle East after Palestinian Islamist group Hamas attacked Israel on Oct. 7, advocacy group Anti-Defamation League (ADL) said Wednesday.”
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When it’s destroyed, they’ll blame Israel. But it’s their barbarous tactics using civilians and hospitals as shields that’s the cause.
“IDF: Hamas Uses Al-Shifa Hospital as Main Terror Base
“Hamas wages war from hospitals.””
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This shows why the legislation above is necessary.
“Why My Generation Hates Jews
My peers have been indoctrinated to believe that Jews are oppressors. And so even our mass slaughter is seen as justifiable revenge.”
https://www.thefp.com/p/why-my-generation-hates-jews
“I am 21 years old and Jewish. Apparently, 48 percent of my peers want people like me dead.
As of October 23, 64 percent of 18- to 24-year-olds think what happened on October 7 was a terrorist attack. Seventy-seven percent of us think “it’s true that Hamas terrorists killed 1,200 Israeli civilians by shooting them, raping and beheading people including whole families, kids and babies.” But when asked, “in this conflict do you side more with Israel or Hamas?”
Forty-eight percent said Hamas.
I am not surprised.
In high school, my homeroom had an exercise where we made a T-chart dividing various ethnicities, religions, and other identities into the categories of “oppressor” and “oppressed.” Women: oppressed. Straight people: oppressor. Black people: oppressed. Then we reached the “Jew” category. And we paused. This being a high school in Los Angeles, many of my classmates were Jewish. I recall we skipped it altogether. But the T-chart stayed on the whiteboard.
If there were fewer Jews in that room, I’m confident that “Jews” would’ve gone squarely in the “oppressor” column.
Social justice theory became part of everything. My senior English class was not about great literature, but about readings in critical theory, mostly about race and gender. I had a nonacademic weekly homeroom class in which we learned that every white person is racist, and all men are evil. It took me a long time to shake off a hatred of men. It wasn’t socially acceptable to disagree, and no one really tried.
My high school got a dean of gender studies and feminism. At the time, one of her roles was to help seniors write their college applications. In answer to the question “What is the most significant challenge that society faces today?” I wrote it was identity politics. She gave me a note saying that meant I was rejecting the advances of the civil rights movement. I changed it.
I see the biggest part of growing up to be the acceptance of gray areas. But Gen Z worships these identity categories and the distinction of oppressor/oppressed. I know that’s true—I am submerged in it every day. The oppressor is always wrong, and the oppressed are always right. Since high school, we’ve been trained to identify and slot people based on their identities alone.
That’s intersectionality for you.
The cheering of Hamas among people my age on college campuses in the U.S. might seem shocking to older people. But it doesn’t shock me. For most of my peers, social issues are unanimous. At my college campus, the tiny group of people who publicly celebrated the overturning of Roe v. Wade were mocked mercilessly.
And so, even a terrorist group’s mass murder of innocent Jews—babies, grandmothers, entire families—cannot defeat my generation’s Manichean belief system. Jews are the worst, and October 7 is about justifiable revenge.
I am a college junior at Stanford. For my freshman and sophomore years, I lived in a dorm with the only dining hall that serves kosher food. Last winter, a Jewish student in my dorm found that a portrait of Hitler had been drawn on his door. My friend was the RA who had to report it. They never found the perpetrator.
Soon after, swastikas were carved into bathrooms in the main quad.
In my freshman year, I took part in a Great Books program: Structured Liberal Education (SLE). Weeks were labeled by students like Shark Week: Plato week, Marx week, Holocaust week. (I’m not kidding.)
In SLE’s third quarter, my classmates and I were lucky enough to dive deeply into the ideologies that have shaped where we are now, a tour of the great books of the past 200 years. That quarter, I recall a conversation where I was shot down during “Fanon week” (which celebrates “anti-colonial” hero Frantz Fanon) for suggesting that approving violence under the guise of “decolonization” could have nasty consequences. I was the only person to vehemently disagree with Marx in my discussion section. In a moment of weakness, I pretended to be a communist during my oral exam to save my grade.
In another section during spring quarter’s “Holocaust week” where we read Arendt’s Eichmann in Jerusalem and Primo Levi’s Survival in Auschwitz, a student gave a presentation on how Zionism is the new Nazism and how Israelis were the new Nazis. He chose this specific week to present. A Chinese student argued with the presenter, but that was that. The class went on as usual.
This is only my small corner of Gen Z. Gen Z, comprised of people born in 1997 to 2013, makes up a fifth of America’s population. Not all of us—thank God—go to elite universities, where the obsession with the so-called “oppressed” is our intellectual north star. But the vast majority of us were raised on Instagram and Twitter—our ideas are tweet-length and infographic-sized. And the oppressor/oppressed framework was made for us.
After seeing a thread on X about how TikTok—the preferred search engine for just over half of Gen Z—is an echo chamber for virulently anti-Israel posts and how its algorithm promotes pro-Palestine content, I re-downloaded the app for the first time since Covid to see how bad it really was.
In my foray back into TikTok, I was reminded of how my friends and I would doomscroll on the app. By osmosis, we mindlessly bleated the same talking points served up to us in thirty-second videos. The same critical theory books we read championing “decolonization” and “resistance” had been distilled into the perfect format: the explainer video.
Dipping my toes back in was a wake-up call as to how sinister this information flow has become. (It’s worth noting that TikTok is owned by Chinese company ByteDance.)
Within the first minute of scrolling under a search for “Zionism” on TikTok, I saw a “Zionism Explained” video with over 125,000 views. It said that Jews are forbidden by God to have their own state, completely ignoring the fact that the State of Israel is secular. “How did this start? Let’s go back to 1897,” the video instructs. But Jewish history in Israel started thousands of years ago, not in 1897.
When I searched “history” on TikTok, a woman with the “cute freckles and lashes” filter told me and over 80,000 viewers that, in “the biggest plot twist of the century,” Jews are using their ancestors’ “tragedy to justify and inflict another Holocaust.”
That explainer video is why, when I went to a pro-Palestine rally at Stanford on Wednesday and asked a fellow student what she meant when she chanted “from the river to the sea,” she said that, after admitting she wasn’t knowledgeable about the issue, Palestine must be free from the Tigris River (in Iraq) to the Black Sea (north of Turkey). This student, though she has no sense of geography, is actually chanting for the land from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea to no longer contain the state of Israel. It is an eliminationist slogan.
I saw a similar message at an off-campus café recently when I walked by a girl whose laptop bore a newly applied sticker with the words “By Any Means Necessary” stamped over an outline of Israel. It’s been less than three weeks since October 7 and already these glib stickers plugging genocide, aimed at my generation, are proliferating.
A new axis of evil—Big Tech, social media companies, and China—has taken the once-fringe position that Jews are undeserving of a homeland, and is now pushing the idea of their mass slaughter via shoddy animation and beautiful women hosting “explainer” videos. And it’s trickling down onto t-shirts and “cute” laptop stickers.
It’s cool to promote hate.”
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From Alan Dershowitz….
“A Short History of the National Lawyers Guild and How It Came to Support the Crimes of Hamas”
https://dersh.substack.com/p/a-short-history-of-the-national-lawyers?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=373575&post_id=138339044&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=bcowk&utm_medium=email
“It began as a liberal organization that was taken over by the communists and supported the Hitler-Stalin Pact.
Within a day of the massacre of Israeli babies, women, the elderly and others, the National Lawyers Guild issued a statement in support of the mass murderers. The Guild is a group of hard-left lawyers, students, and legal employees. It has branches in law schools throughout the country and has many members, especially among law students.
It began as a liberal organization before World War II and included many legal luminaries, including Jews. Quickly, though, it was taken over by the Communist Party, and it supported the Hitler-Stalin Pact of 1939. As a result of its support for Hitler, many liberal members quit.
Committed Communists who always follow the party line remained members. Following World War II, the Guild again attracted some liberals who saw it as an alternative to the conservative American Bar Association. In the 1970s, it was taken over by radical leftists¸ including some members of the Communist Party. It was no longer a home for liberals.
In 1948, the Guild followed the lead of the Soviet Union in supporting the establishment of Israel. When the Soviet Union and the Communist Party turned against Israel in the 1960s, the Guild followed suit in opposing Israel and supporting Palestinian terrorists. Nonetheless, some liberals, including Jews, stayed on as members. It remains to be seen whether it will lose the support of Jewish liberals, following the events of October 7, 2023.
It is important to note that the lengthy statement by the Lawyer’s Guild in support of Hamas and in opposition to Israel was issued before Israel responded to the Hamas attack. It was posted on October 8, while bodies were still being recovered from the south of Israel.
The statement begins by emphasizing “the legitimacy of the right of the Palestinian people to resist the legal military occupation, apartheid and ethnic cleansing … as well as Israel’s perpetration of its atrocities.” It described the rapes, beheadings, murders and kidnappings committed by Hamas as “the recent military actions carried out by Palestinian resistance…”
The Guild’s statement urged the public to support resistance to Israel’s occupation “by all available means including armed struggle.” It criticized those who had condemned Hamas’ barbarity. It accused Israel of genocide and demanded that Hamas be removed from the United States list of foreign terrorist organizations.
Plus, too, the Guild demanded that Israel be held legally accountable for the defense of its citizens. It claimed that Israel’s goal is to “annihilate” the Palestinians, and it demanded the release of every single Palestinian prisoner — including those convicted of mass murder.
The Guild did not call for the release of the hostages held by Hamas, and it opposed efforts of any country to “normalize relations with Israel.” It said not a single word in condemnation of the rapes, beheadings, and kidnappings of Israeli babies, children, and women.
I am not aware of any law school in which the National Lawyers Guild has a chapter condemning or even criticizing this statement. It has gone largely unnoticed in the law school community. This statement, though, was not produced out of thin air or by artificial intelligence, it was written and circulated by specific leaders of the National Lawyers Guild, including students at America’s leading universities.
Students who support this antisemitic, anti-American, and anti-humanitarian statement are currently being given job offers by America’s leading law firms, by government agencies, by hedge funds and by other potential employers. I am sure that these employers are unaware that they may be hiring lawyers who support the rapes and beheading of Jewish women and children.
Full transparency, which lies at the core of the marketplace of ideas protected by the First Amendment, demands that the name of every member of the National Lawyers Guild who supports this statement be made public, so that potential employers know whom they are hiring. Few clients would be willing to be represented by lawyers who have advocated the rape, beheading, murder, and kidnapping of Jewish civilians.
If there were groups of law students at any law school that advocated the lynching of African-Americans, the raping of women or the killing of gay and transgender people, the National Lawyers Guild would be the first to demand that the names of the students supporting such atrocities be made public. Now the shoe is on the other foot, and it is the Guild that is supporting such barbarity.”
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“This statement…was written and circulated by specific leaders of the National Lawyers Guild, including students at America’s leading universities.”
For some reason my mind turned that last phrase into “America’s misleading universities.” How lost they are.
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Aj
One of the biggest reasons I do not support Ukraine. I cannot support countries that lock up faith leaders for political opinions they disagree with. It’s undemocratic, and is a mockery of the great American tradition of freedom of religion.
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Aj
Please take the time to watch the Tucker video. Very little of it is Tucker talking. Even if you’re not a fan, the guest makes it worth your time to hear and consider. There’s persecution of Christians taking place by the Ukraine govt. The very one our govt is giving away billions to. The man’s testimony is worthy of your time and consideration.
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