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Wednesday, October 2, 2024

"This entire administration is naifs, weaklings, idiots, and Marxists," I posted at Instapundit earlier this week about a different Middle East report, but today's news proves that my estimation was entirely too optimistic.

In an Atlantic piece headlined "The War That Would Not End," Franklin Foer takes readers on a deep dive "inside the year-long American effort to release the hostages, end the fighting in Gaza, and bring peace to the Middle East." It isn't that Foer's peace isn't well-sourced or lacking details — it's that he needed to go back much further than one year to tell the story.

(The article is paywalled, but I spend a bit of your VIP membership on subscriptions to sites like The Atlantic so you don't have to.)

The story begins almost as soon as Biden assumed (and I do mean assumed) office on Jan. 20, 2021. From my long-form Monday column:

Less than one month into his solitary, sad little term, Biden lifted former president Donald Trump’s restoration of U.N. sanctions on Iran. The White House and the State Steno Pool sold the move as something that "could help Washington move toward rejoining the 2015 nuclear agreement aimed at reining in the Islamic Republic’s nuclear program." Trump had withdrawn from Barack Obama's "Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, or JCPOA, in 2018, accusing Iran of serious violations."

"Trump had Iran broke and boxed in," I wrote. "Biden unleashed the Kraken."

In addition to that, Biden restored US funding to UNRWA (a virtual arm of Hamas) and removed the Houthis from the Foreign Terrorist Organization and Specially Designated Global Terrorist lists that Trump had finally put them on late in his term.

But perhaps the most bone-headed move was Biden's rejection of Mike Pompeo and Jared Kushner's Abraham Accords, negotiated under Donald Trump's auspices between Israel and a growing number of Arab states.

And Another Thing: Speaking of me being right, I warned you more than three years ago that he had already "frittered away any chance for peace in the Middle East."

The genius of the Accords was twofold. The first is that the peace agreements were bilateral between Israel and each Arab nation — no U.S. security guarantees required. The Accords were meant to be self-sustaining as trade and cultural contacts grew between states that had been officially at war for decades.

The second is that the negotiations bypassed the Palestinians completely.

Every other peace effort was premised on something more impossible and only slightly less ridiculous than trying to ride a pogo stick to Mars: negotiate a settlement between Israel and the Arabs of Gaza/West Bank before negotiating a formal peace between Israel and the rest of the Arab world.

The Palestinians don't want peace. They want to murder Jews from the river to the sea — and then some. And yet every American president from Bill Clinton to Barack Obama insisted on pounding their skulls on the cement wall of Palestinian intransigence.

The Accords roadmap was to bring one Arab nation after another on board, culminating in Trump's second term with Saudi Arabia. With Iran broke and the Arabs at peace with Israel, Hamas and Hezbollah would have withered on the vine. Then, and only then, peace might be brokered between Israel and the Arabs of Gaza and the West Bank.

Instead of carrying on, White House PressSec Jen Psaki breezily denounced the Abraham Accords in May of 2021 as having failed to do "anything constructive" because, as I wrote above, the "entire administration is naifs, weaklings, idiots, and Marxists." The Biden-Harris administration let the Accords wither while they empowered Iran and pursued an old-school peace plan starting with — surprise! — an Israeli/Palestinian peace made impossible because Biden had already empowered Iran.

So now the administration has spent the last year, described in dizzying detail by Foer, scrambling around trying to figure out how to put out the fires when they're the ones who poured the gasoline and lit the match.

https://pjmedia.com/vodkapundit/2024/09/26/team-biden-cant-understand-how-they-blew-middle-east-peace-and-im-cry-laughing-n4932862?utm_source=twdailypmvip&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=nl

Tuesday, October 1, 2024

Dems Deploy Swat Team

Dems Deploy Swat Team

by Lloyd Billingsley in 2024 Election, Democrats

Joe Biden recently left his beach chair for a guest-star appearance on “The View,” a pre-scripted show with a strong supporting cast. “I always felt you were going to probably do four years and then try to figure out where to go with Kamala,” said Whoopi Goldberg. But on the other hand, that Donald Trump “just wouldn’t – he was like a bug. He just kept being there. He was a like a bug right there.”

Goldberg made a buzzing sound and pointed to the table where Biden slammed down his hand. The studio audience loved it, but this was more than a sight gag. For years, Biden has been portraying Trump as a threat to democracy, comparing him to Hitler, and so forth.

On July 8, Biden told donors he it was “time to put Trump in a bull’s-eye.” On July 13 in Butler, Pennsylvania, Thomas Matthew Crooks gained a rooftop perch with a clear sight line on Trump and got off eight shots. One bullet caught Trump in the ear and others killed attendee Corey Comperatore and wounded James Copenhaver and David Dutch.

Biden then claimed it had been a “mistake,” to say it was time to put Trump in a bull’s-eye and that he only meant to focus on his policies. Biden and Obama then issued statements claiming there “is absolutely no place for political violence in our democracy,” careful to include the brand name of the ruling Junta. Biden then guaranteed a coverup by ordering an investigation that would impanel partisan Democrat Janet Napolitano, DHS boss under Obama.

The Secret Service and FBI launched investigations but on September 15, criminal gunman Ryan Routh was able to build a sniper’s nest on the fringe of the golf course where Trump was playing. It was after this second assassination attempt that Joe Biden showcased his swat act, and the Delaware Democrat was not alone.

After the second attempt on Trump’s life, Biden’s commerce secretary Gina Raimondo appeared on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” and proclaimed “let’s extinguish him [Trump] for good.” Raimondo claimed she meant “vote him out,” but the language recalled the Nation of Islam’s Louis Farrakhan comparing Jews to “termites,” and everybody knew what he meant. Raimondo, a former governor of Rhode Island, earned an economics degree from Harvard, a doctorate from Oxford, and a law degree from Yale. Her call to “extinguish” Trump shows how little any of that means. Biden can’t match her academic credentials but he was ramping up hatred long before his swat routine.

On September 1, 2022, backdropped in red, with U.S. Marines standing by, the Delaware Democrat told the nation, “there is no question that the Republican Party today is dominated, driven, and intimidated by Donald Trump and the MAGA Republicans, and that is a threat to this country.” Trump and the “extreme MAGA Republicans” form a “clear and present danger.” And so on, targeting anyone who wants the nation to be great.

Recall the show-trials over Jan. 6, and the imprisonments without trial. Recall that last year Biden’s FBI shot dead Craig Robertson, a 75-year-old woodworker, for threats he allegedly posted online. Observe the mass importation of criminals, as peaceful American parents are branded domestic terrorists and violent extremists.

In Stalinist style, the Democrats want to quash all opposition. That surely encourages the Lee Harvey Oswald and Ramon Mercader types already out there. As the election approaches, watch for more assassination attempts on Trump and more violence against his supporters.

https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2024/09/dems-deploy-swat-team.php

Left-Leaning Parents Are Teaching Their Kids to Hate

Left-Leaning Parents Are Teaching Their Kids to Hate

Matt Margolis

A recent CNN study has shed light on a troubling trend: left-leaning parents are instilling a deep-seated animosity toward Republicans in their children. The segment highlighted the findings, which revealed stark polarization among kids based on their parents' political beliefs. The study found that Democrat-leaning children expressed extreme negative feelings about Donald Trump compared to their Republican counterparts’ relatively mild sentiments toward Kamala Harris.

“Democrat-leaning kids were about nine times more likely to express negative emotions about Donald Trump than Republican-leaning kids were about Kamala Harris,” the narrator revealed.

One boy researchers interviewed for the study asserted, “Donald Trump, he did bad things. He’s like Hitler,” illustrating just how extreme the rhetoric has become.

Another child expressed her belief that Trump only wanted to be president to control everyone, while yet another remarked on the January 6 events with a mix of confusion and disdain, calling it a day with "a bunch of Republicans believing Trump."

Psychologist Ashley Landrum, who analyzed the responses, suggested that the intensity of these sentiments is a reaction to how their parents perceive Trump.

Well, duh.

“Donald Trump is a very polarizing figure,” she noted, pointing to the stark differences in how red-state kids engage with political figures. She suggested that the kids know less about Kamala Harris and thus have less intense feelings about her.

The divide extends beyond mere opinions. When asked about friendships across political lines, Republican-leaning children showed more openness to visiting households that support Democratic views. In contrast, Democrat-leaning kids were five times more likely to refuse a visit to a pro-Trump household.

Another boy bluntly stated that his parents wouldn’t let him go to a Trump-supporting house because “my mom and dad don’t like Donald Trump at all. Not a single bit.”

In a particularly revealing moment, Landrum asked a black boy from a Democrat household whether he would feel comfortable visiting a Trump-supporting household. His response was extremely telling: “No."

When Landrum asked why, he said it was because he assumed that a Trump-supporting household would be racist.

“Because they know that he doesn’t like black people, so they would not be happy [sic] to me,” he said.

It’s ironic that Democrats who claim to value tolerance are actually instilling a level of bigotry in their own children. Meanwhile, kids with Republican-leaning parents were far more tolerant.

The home environment is shaping these children’s views, driving them toward either acceptance (if they have Republican parents) or intense hostility (if they have Democrat parents). Sadly, Democrat parents are fostering a generation conditioned to harbor deep-seated animosity toward political opponents rather than promoting an understanding of differing perspectives. This isn’t just a minor concern; it’s a recipe for a society even more divided than is currently is.

https://pjmedia.com/matt-margolis/2024/09/26/left-leaning-parents-are-teaching-their-kids-to-hate-n4932863?utm_source=pjmediavip&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=nl_pm

The 'Kill Trump' Rhetoric Is Getting Worse

The 'Kill Trump' Rhetoric Is Getting Worse

David Strom

"Extinguish Trump for good."

Those are the words of the sitting Secretary of Commerce to the viewers of MSNBC.

"Extinguish." "For good." Seems very clear to me.

How about the current President of the United States miming the squashing of Donald Trump like a bug as he joins the harridans of The View? It's not quite the founder of The Lincoln Project actually calling on people to "put a bullet" in Donald Trump, but it's pretty obvious what he meant.

Democrats decry Donald Trump's rhetoric every moment of the day, but the fact is that it is they who keep invoking the imagery of a dead Donald Trump, both before and after two assassination attempts on his life.

It's almost like they were calling for somebody to kill him, and when two assassins fail they keep asking others to step in and do the job.

Generally speaking, I am not a big fan of accusing people of inspiring violence through heated rhetoric. It's usually a cheap and easy smear to deploy, asserting guilt by association.

Except these guys keep on talking about "eliminating," "extinguishing," and even shooting Donald Trump. The language is pretty explicit and just short of directly asking that Trump get killed.

"Put a bullet" in Donald Trump is, after all, explicit. And even after Rick Wilson said it his organization gets donations pouring into it, and they are putting ads on the TV. Democrats aren't running away from that rhetoric but towards it.

Donating money to an organization headed by a man who says that means you support the message. And, to be honest, a lot of Democrats do. In a poll after the assassination attempt, 28% of Democrats said the country would be better off if Trump were killed.

Democrats' political strategy against Trump is simple: turn him into a demon in the eyes of the American people. He is Hitler, Mussolini, and Stalin all in one.

As the Democrats ship money to Iran--a country that is recruiting assassins in the United States to kill Trump, they keep the rhetoric at a level that is unprecedented in modern history.

Their language is unambiguous and unrelenting. It is not accidental or spontaneous. It is a steady drumbeat telling people that Trump is a threat to their lives and freedoms and he must be "extinguished."

MSNBC seems to exist mainly to incite hatred and violence toward Trump and 'MAGA Republicans." Every moment of every day is dedicated to spewing hatred and propaganda, spreading lies and hoaxes, and encouraging people to hate their fellow Americans.

Especially Donald Trump.

What is remarkable is that Republicans are taking all this metaphorical and literal incoming fire and remaining focused on winning the election. There is no call for revenge, just an unrelenting focus on pushing these murderous people out of power.

"Journalists" sit next to people and sagely nod at the most outrageous calls to violence against Trump. It is sickening.

But it makes me even more determined to humiliate them at the ballot box.

We can't sit this one out. We can't be passive and accept that our political leaders and media elite are fundamentally corrupt and power-hungry. We can't let them be rewarded for aiming deranged lunatics at our once and future president.

We have a country to save. It's time to toss the sociopaths out of power. We'll be better off for it, and academia will have the opportunity to snap up some more Democrats to corrupt the next generation.

https://hotair.com/david-strom/2024/09/25/the-kill-trump-rhetoric-is-getting-worse-n3794987

Don's Tuesday column

THE WAY I SEE IT by Don Polson Red Bluff Daily News 10/01/2024

Changes forced by threat of jail

Employment numbers, the flip side of unemployment, appeared in Saturday’s Daily News; as usual, “the rest of the story” (hat tip Paul Harvey) is the millions of workers nationally who’ve simply dropped out of the working/job seeking “labor participation force.” The local 6.6 or 6.9 percent rate is realistically closer to 10 percent or more, depending on how many “work force dropouts” there are.

Included in the “employed” segment are, locally, a nearly 20 percent increase in government jobs, which contribute nothing to the private sector economy (money they spend is simply taxpayer income redistributed)—but God bless our public servants.

Americans are vastly worse off for the 20-to-50 percent increase in the cost of everyday groceries and essential products or services, compared to pre-COVID (ahem, the prior president). Another stealth bit of bad news for Americans is the fact that virtually all jobs have gone to foreign-born workers. Also, most “jobs” reported are part-time, not the full-time ones on which a family with two incomes can keep ahead—except that there are so many “families” consisting of single mothers, God bless them, whose baby-daddies ought to be providing for the needs of those kids, rather than public benefits alone, or supplementing their low level jobs.

***

A weekly reminder to stop by the Republican election headquarters in the former Ramsey Jewelers location at 748 Main Street. Rub elbows and share your politics and patriotism with other conservatives in a “safe space” free of “woke” loonies, who need to be told, “Have an issue? Here’s a tissue.”

***

Readers are greatly benefited by some (not all) syndicated columnists. Kudos to the editor for providing Michael Reagan, whose life and wisdom in President Ronald Reagan’s family and political orbit provides a weekly dose of truth on the national presidential race. If you missed it, go back and read it again. He makes a case for his preferred candidate that should move local voters to support “common sense.”

Another gem of California’s political “bard” class appearing weekly, is Dan Walters of CalMatters. “Californians back measure to crack down on crime despite Newsom’s opposition,” delivered what should be “common sense” on the issue of “unintended consequences” of Prop 47, over which voters were snookered by an intentionally deceptive title, “Safe Neighborhoods and Schools Act,” in 2014.

Even the Google AI-generated summary includes the admission that the goal was simply to reduce prison populations; to “de-incarcerate” criminals convicted of property, drug and violent crimes through a rote process of judicial/lawyer collaboration. In the “unicorn and rainbow delusions” of that act, massive savings from not providing “three hots and a cot” to countless criminals would be “invested” in “programs that support schools, victims, and mental health.”

The impetus for Prop 47 was that minority inmates were “victims” of a white, racist justice system and deserved leniency. Rather than admit the wrong-headed-ness of what the British call the “mollycoddling” of offenders, Gov. Newsom’s political class in Sacramento rushed to “flank” and block voters from approving the obvious remedy: Prop 36. Newsom failed to garner enough support among even the farthest left legislature in America; hence, you will be able to mark your ballots to approve Prop 36 and, hopefully, “take a bite out of crime.”

It is, after all, a truism handed down for centuries: the threat of assured time in jail is not only the biggest disincentive to “doing the crime,” it is also the most effective deterrent to continued drug addiction and illegal public camping.

To those protesting the supposed harsh punishment over drugs and homelessness, I would offer a bit of wisdom from radio host Lars Larsen heard on an Oregon talk station: Addicts themselves have repeatedly admitted that getting clean and sober was pretty much optional—meaning they gave it a faint effort before going back to the pushers and dealers—until it was forced treatment or jail. They’d be cut off from drugs or booze in the cells, but the incentive to stick with the program, while free and able to get on with a productive life, was undeniable.

Those obsessed with giving irresponsible homeless campers every benefit, while shelter spaces go empty, ought to realize they are only enabling social, mental dysfunction and substance abuse by refusing the alternative of jail for such people. Sometimes, actually very often, people require making hard choices to do what’s right.

Let us not forget one part of Kamala Harris’s California record—which will be more thoroughly delved into in coming weeks—was her pivotal role in promoting Prop 47. That includes the deceptive renaming of it to convey the opposite of what could easily have been foreseen: criminal damage to “neighborhoods and schools.”

Kinda undercuts a lot of her narrative as “the prosecutor” to know she did all she could to enable drug, theft and property crimes in California, doncha think? That’s the way I see it.

The Great Man Theory: Is Modern Liberalism a Zombie Faith?

The Great Man Theory: Is Modern Liberalism a Zombie Faith?

Scott Pinsker

On July 21, 2024, Joe Biden ended his bid to be reelected president. Today—two months and five days later—Kamala Harris is the Democratic nominee. Next week, if a scandal breaks and Harris must drop out, Tim Walz could easily slide into the top spot.

But really, does it even matter?

There are many ways to interpret history. In the 19th century, “The Great Man Theory” emerged as the preeminent academic lens. Scottish historian and philosopher Thomas Carlyle summarized The Great Man theory thusly: “The History of the world is but the Biography of great men.”

It’s a rather straightforward worldview: Great men accomplish great things. Therefore, the driving force of large-scale historical arcs is powerful, courageous leaders—men like Alexander the Great, Julius Caesar, Shakespeare, Napoleon, Washington, etc. They’ve bent, shaped, and contorted the world in accordance with their unique vision.

The antithetical worldview is “History from Below.” Also known as social history, it rose to prominence in the 1960s and posits that The Great Man Theory is inaccurate, unfair, and elitist. Instead, history is driven by society itself—all the “normal people” just trying to get by—and the notion of “Great Men” is actually a myth.

There are no great men: Just byproducts, beneficiaries, and plunderers of our existing social structure. To quote Barack Obama in 2012: “You didn’t build that.”

The “History from Below” concept can be analogized to a surfer riding a wave: Sure, someone had to ride the wave, but the surfer isn’t responsible for making the tides roll in or out. He just happened to be there at the optimal time. And if it weren’t him, it would just be someone else.

As you’ve probably anticipated, there’s a stark political divide between the two philosophies. Conservatives tend to side with The Great Man Theory—after all, it’s highly compatible with conservative beliefs of rugged individualism, personal autonomy, and the heroic nature of man. Liberals prefer the History from Below Theory, which negates individualism, personal accountability, and the entrepreneurial mindset and solely credits society at large.

With this in mind, it’s fascinating to analyze the Republican Party and the Democratic Party through these two prisms:

The MAGA movement is 100% aligned with The Great Man Theory. That’s its raison d'être: It’s gonna take a Great Man to Make America Great Again. A dude like Jeb! won’t cut the mustard. We need Trump(!).

But for the Democrats, they’re running in the exact opposite direction: Great men don’t exist; there are no great men. So, the only thing that matters is the liberal agenda. And if the liberal agenda needs to swap one leader for another—i.e., go from Clinton to Gore to Kerry to Obama to Hillary to Biden to Harris—it doesn’t really matter because leaders are irrelevant.

“You didn’t build that.”

Even if you passionately disagree with their worldview, don’t dismiss the sincerity of the Left: They truly, completely, 100% drank the Kool-Aid. This isn’t lip-service but a core tenant of modern liberalism. (It makes sense: If the Democrats thought differently... well, they’d be Republicans.)

From a conservative’s perspective, this means it’s immaterial if it’s Biden, Harris, Walz, or anyone else on the top of the ticket. Liberalism is a movement with a large body, a minuscule head, and mob-like tendencies. (This makes them panicky and prone to wild overreactions.) This isn’t an ideology that follows a leader; instead, it appoints different flagbearers to march a little bit ahead, but make no mistake: The liberal movement is moving all on its own.

Your head is for thinking; your heart is for feeling. Since day one, liberalism has always been far more concerned with emotions than thought—with symbolism over substance. And so, it’s become a zombie faith—reliant not on new ideas, innovation, or the dreams of its leaders but on the emotional trajectory of its followers.

It is because it was.

Right now, we have a zombie president. Nobody knows the true extent of Biden’s mental deterioration, but he’s clearly diminished. No matter: Liberals don’t need no stinkin’ leaders. Day or night, today or tomorrow, it’s irrelevant. All that matters to the movement is the movement.

As far as Machiavellian gameplans go, it's not too bad: Hey, zombies are hard to kill.

It’s why liberals have been so successful at fundamentally changing America.

https://pjmedia.com/scott-pinsker/2024/09/26/the-great-man-theory-is-modern-liberalism-a-zombie-faith-n4932848?utm_source=pjmediavip&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=nl_pm