Ernesto 'Che' Guevera was evil, and the people who extolled him as a revolutionary martyr during his reign of terror -- and who idolize him even now -- can be described only as idiots. Or, as author and Cuban exile Humberto Fontova writes, "useful idiots" (a term coined by Communist Vladimir Lenin, used to describe the stupid masses who embraced Soviet ideology).
In this history-breaking special, Jesse Kelly and the foremost expert on Che, Mr. Fontova, expose the wretched, blood-thirsty cultural icon who thought nothing of shooting a pregnant woman in the stomach, and who still holds sway in Hollywood and among dopey Leftists in Che T-shirts.
Today, Che is idolized in classrooms, universities, even corporate board rooms across America.
It’s time people learned about the cold-blooded killer who wanted to infect the Western Hemisphere with his Communist ideology.
Arm yourself with the facts you need to destroy the progressive narrative.
And:
While I am on my soap box, I do not understand how so many who hate Trump continue to fixate on him yet, completely ignore the consequences of a Biden presidency which they helped create.
Finally we come to the mass media, Palestinians and Israel (edited.)
WaPo Opinion Piece Decries ‘Anti-Palestinian’ Media, but Gets Every Single Fact Wrong
“Journalists once had a responsibility to report facts without bias.”
Ironically, this quote appeared in a slanted Washington Post opinion piece containing numerous falsehoods. Written by two American-Palestinian activists, “How Media Coverage Whitewashes Israeli State Violence Against Palestinians” argues that, by “neglecting to contextualize Israeli state violence, the media has given the Israeli government a free pass, enabling it to continue ethnically cleansing the Palestinian people with impunity.”
In their April 28 article, Laura Albast and Cat Knarr furthermore assert that “headlines in outlets such as the Associated Press, the New York Times, the Guardian, the Wall Street Journal, NBC News and others use language that fails to recognize the power imbalance between the Israeli military apparatus and the native Palestinian people.”
As HonestReporting has repeatedly detailed (see, for instance, here, here, here and here), the opposite is true. In actuality, news organizations all too often dismiss the reality of Palestinian terrorism.
Case in point: on April 30, the Reuters wire service headlined an article “Israeli and Palestinian killed in West Bank violence,” lumping Israeli terror victim Vyacheslav Golev together with a former Palestinian security prisoner who was shot during violent clashes and was hailed a “martyr” by multiple US-designated terror groups (see here, here, here and here). Yihya Adwan reportedly served as a commander in the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades.
Nonetheless, Albast, a senior editor at the Institute for Palestine Studies-USA, and Knarr, who serves as the US Campaign for Palestinian Rights’ communications director, accuse journalists of “conveying incomplete narratives that give reign to Israeli aggression.” In an attempt to substantiate this claim, the authors charge Israeli police with “attack[ing] Palestinian worshipers at the holy site of Al-Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem” on April 15, in what they describe as “carefully calculated… state violence.”
Authors of opinion pieces and editorials are entitled to express their personal opinions and beliefs. However, in the words of the famous Senator, the late Daniel Patrick Moynihan, “Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not his own facts.”
The April 15 Temple Mount Clashes
“When looking at the footage of what happened, the dynamic is obvious: forces with gear and guns versus worshipers kneeling in prayer,” Albast and Knarr declare in one of the first paragraphs, rejecting the notion that “clashes” took place between two sides. To back up their thesis, they link to Qatar-funded Al Jazeera, AlAraby’s English-language website and the Hamas-affiliated Quds News Network.
Paradoxically, in blaming Israel for the escalation, the pro-Palestinian campaigners actually echo the prevailing media narrative promoted by outlets like CNN. Yet videos posted to Palestinian social media channels tell an entirely different story.
On April 15, supporters of the Hamas terror organization launched a premeditated assault against Israeli security forces atop the Temple Mount, Judaism’s holiest site, which is also home to the Al-Aqsa Mosque. At dawn, before morning prayers, hundreds of rioters gathered at the complex for a pro-Hamas demonstration.
Video footage shows them chanting violent antisemitic slogans, including “In spirit and blood we redeemed Al-Aqsa.”
Early this morning they arrived at the Temple Mount chanting, "In the blood we redeemed al-Aqsa."
Meanwhile, the Palestinians collected rocks, fireworks and other projectiles inside the mosque — to be used to attack security forces. In telling police footage released that day, an officer can be heard pleading to worshippers: “I’m asking all of you to leave so we can promptly allow you back to the noon prayer. We are now cleaning the mosque compound for your safety.”
Some 150 Palestinians were wounded in the Palestinian-initiated skirmishes on April 15, as were three policemen.
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False Moral Equivalences
Albast and Knarr write that “media descriptions regularly imply a false symmetry between occupier and occupied, propping up anti-Palestinian and Islamophobic narratives that blame the Palestinian people for Israeli aggression,” decrying a perceived double standard between coverage of the Russia-Ukraine war and the Arab-Israeli conflict.
As HonestReporting has pointed out, moral equivalences between the plight of the Ukrainian people under attack by Russia and Palestinians attacking Israelis are not grounded in facts.
Palestinian terror groups do not discriminate between soldiers, civilians, men, women, children or babies, with Gaza-based Hamas referring to all citizens of the Jewish state as “Zionist soldiers,” all the while encouraging their members to carry out unprovoked attacks on Israelis.
By contrast, Ukrainians are taking up arms to fight off a military invasion that — according to most members of the United Nations Security Council and the General Assembly — violates Article 2(4) of the UN Charter.
Related Video: Reality Check, AP: Palestinian Terrorists Don’t Do ‘the Same Thing’ as Ukrainians Resisting Russian Invasion
Freedom of Worship for All
The Washington Post piece also falsely contends that Jerusalem blocked “Palestinian Christians from entering the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.” This is, of course, not true in the least. Since Israel gained control over eastern Jerusalem in a defensive war in 1967, the Jewish state has guaranteed freedom of worship for all religious groups in its capital.
Recent Israeli restrictions on the number of worshippers that can enter the church — put into place out of fear of a repeat of last year’s stampede at a Jewish holy site — are applied equally to Palestinians and foreign pilgrims alike.
Following the April 23 Holy Fire ceremony, a police spokesman emphasized that the participants “included Christians from Israel and around the world — Arabs and tourists took part in it…without regards to language, gender or nationality.”
In their final attempt to smear the Jewish state, Albast and Knarr recycle the long-debunked canard that accuses Israel of practicing “apartheid.” HonestReporting has dissected this libel in several in-depth analyses (see here, here and here).
Although the blind hatred of the authors for the Jewish state comes to little surprise — after reading an an “amazing book written by a Jewish author,” Albast once ‘joked’: “I should stop googling authors’ biographies” — the Washington Post should know better than to publish outright disinformation.
Please take action by reaching out to Washington Post to — politely but firmly — demand that the opinion section stop promoting ‘alternative facts.’
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If one listens to Biden and his own people in their own words it is evident Democrats are anxious to alter the Frist Amendment, to change the Second Amendment, flood the nation with illegals, control elections and monitor speech so it will conform to their wishes. This is not even a European nation and certainly not The America I grew up in or our founders intended. How did we come so far to be like a gulag, to letting the fox in the hen house, to turning America into Cuba?
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Naturally China will study what occurred but I seriously doubt it will motivate them to invade Taiwan because, to take over Taiwan, they will have to destroy what they want to possess. Again, like Charles Lamb's Essay on "Burning of A Roast Pig."
The only reason would be if Xi's tenure, as ruler for life, impels him and I suspect it will not. The biggest risk he faces is of an economic nature and middle class discontent..
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China Tries Learning From Russia’s Mistakes in Ukraine, Preps to Invade Taiwan
Another potential war seems to be looming large.
Beijing is clearly studying the mistakes made by murderous Russian tyrant Vladimir Putin in the Russian-Ukrainian war.
Xi and Putin Were Threatening Invasions Simultaneously
Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, however, has been a disaster for him and Russia in more than one way.
Russian troops are being pummeled by fierce Ukrainian defenders. Russia’s economy and foreign assets are getting battered and/or frozen by the United States and its western allies.
Apparently, the no less murderous regime of communist China is now studying what Putin and his stooges did wrong.
They are researching how to attack Taiwan in order to conquer it, without exposing Beijing’s financial assets abroad to the wrath of western nations.
Against this backdrop, it is worth noting that Taiwan is far more connected with the United States than Ukraine ever was.
China is vastly more powerful in finances and resources than Russia. It has far more to fear if it invades Taiwan because if the Chinese communists strike Taiwan, it seems almost certain that America and its allies in the region will intervene.
Putin’s Bizarre War Lessons
Apparently, Communist China remains unperturbed by Putin’s unfolding abject failure to conquer Ukraine.
Beijing continues to consider seriously the option of trying to conquer Taiwan. Top-level Chinese officials recently held a meeting with the country’s banks to study how to defend against a western “economic attack.”
Reports say the US government is considering imposing similar sanctions on communist China if the latter ever decides to try to conquer Taiwan by force
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I was not aware of this until very late last night (Monday, May 2).) My reaction is, just another anarchist act meant to shake the foundations of faith we have in our nation's institutions.
Once again, the radical, right or left, are at it 24/7. They are dedicated and committed and, thus, have the advantage. The mismatch limits us to an every 2 year window, we are not as committed because we want to live life rather than always be on edge in a defending posture.
The issue for Americans is will the radicals wear us down? The old testament story of the Maccabean's is telling as is Franklin's response: "We have a republic if we can keep it." I would add we have the structure and tools to keep it if we want it and re dedicated enough. Therein, lies the answer.
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The Shocking Supreme Court Leak
And our race to the bottom.
By Bari Weiss
In March, we ran a piece by the reporter Aaron Sibarium called “The Takeover of America’s Legal System.” The story made the case, backed up by exhaustive reporting, that just as education and the press and medicine were being transformed from within, so too, was the law. And those who comforted themselves with the notion that the law would be a bulwark against the new dogma were in for a rude awakening.
Aaron showed that the young lawyers who were entering the most elite legal institutions in the country—law firms and law schools and courts—didn’t necessarily share the ethos of those institutions. In fact, many of them explicitly seek to revolutionize them.
My thoughts immediately went to this story when I saw the shocking headline last night by Politico: The Supreme Court plans to overturn Roe. We know that because someone leaked what appears to be an initial draft of the majority opinion of a decision that was expected to land in late June.
You can read the entire thing here.
The opinion, written by Justice Samuel Alito and joined by Justices Clarence Thomas, Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett, holds that “Roe was egregiously wrong from the start.” It goes on: “We hold that Roe and Casey”—the 1992 decision that upheld Roe, which passed in 1973—“must be overruled.” More: “It is time to heed the Constitution and return the issue of abortion to the people’s elected representatives.”
Less than two hours after Politico dropped the story, CNN reported that Chief Justice John Roberts does not want to overturn Roe, but was willing to uphold the Mississippi law that would ban abortion at 15 weeks of pregnancy. Who knows what could leak next.
From what I can see, this is a shattering event on three levels. Substantively, politically, and institutionally.
Substantively. If indeed this draft opinion becomes the law, what will it mean for American women to live in a country where Roe is overturned and abortion is kicked back to the states? What will it mean practically? What would it mean for women in the 13 states where abortion would become immediately illegal? What would it mean for the doctors who perform those abortions, including in cases of rape and incest? Or in the case of ectopic pregnancies? And other unthinkable questions.
Politically. The most obvious take here is that the Democrats were in for a bruising in the midterms and this was leaked by a liberal to galvanize Democrats. Galvanize how? Perhaps to get voters to turn out as if their lives depended on it. Perhaps to pass a law before the midterms legalizing abortion. (Here’s Bernie Sanders on Twitter last night: “Congress must pass legislation that codifies Roe v. Wade as the law of the land in this country NOW. And if there aren’t 60 votes in the Senate to do it, and there are not, we must end the filibuster to pass it with 50 votes.”) Perhaps to reanimate the case for court-packing.
Institutionally. I know several people who have clerked for the Court. And because I am, like every journalist, utterly and shamelessly nosy, I have pressed all of them to share their personal anecdotes about the mysterious men and women in black robes. Sure, they’d share fun details about pick-up basketball, or the famously warm relationship between Scalia and RBG. Maybe, years after the fact, they’d tell a highly curated, well-rehearsed story. But the idea of breathing a word about the actual workings of the court, about a decision that had not yet been made public—that would have appalled every single one of these people, liberal and conservative alike.
How did we go from that ethos to a world in which—leaving the possibility of some kind of Russian or Chinese hack, or a more banal security breach, or someone pulling the draft from the garbage—one or more clerks are undermining the institution itself? (That question is the same whether the leaker was a liberal enraged about the decision, or, less obviously, a conservative, perhaps trying to firm up a fifth vote or somehow pressure the chief justice.)
On the question of abortion—its morality and its legality—I do not think there is a better piece that has been written than on the subject than this one by Caitlin Flanagan. It’s called “The Dishonesty of the Abortion Debate” and I urge you to read it. And, if you haven’t yet, please listen to the conversation I had with Caitlin about abortion on Honestly, which captures where I sit on this fraught issue.
Perhaps you feel torn. Most Americans do: A majority of Americans consistently say they do not want Roe to be overturned . . . and yet a majority of Americans also favor some restrictions on abortion. According to Gallup, less than 30 percent of Americans say that abortion should “generally be legal” in the second trimester. All of which suggests that few people have actually read Roe.
On the question of politics, and the hideous ways this leak and the decision itself will play out, there will surely be much more to say in the coming days. (As I write, the crowd gathered outside the Court is chanting, “Fascist scum have got to go.”) This leak is tremendous news for Democrats, who would spend every moment until the midterms promising to overturn this ruling (and running away from the subject of inflation).
To my mind, though, the question of what this leak means for the institution of the Supreme Court is the most profound one. That is because it captures, in a single act, what I believe is the most important story of our moment: the story of how American institutions became a casualty in the culture war. The story of how no institution is immune. Not our universities, not our medical schools, not legacy media, not technology behemoths, not the federal bureaucracy. Not even the highest court in the land.
The Supreme Court was always the most cloistered governmental institution in America—the one where wisdom and precedent and reverence for our great constitutional tradition outweighed everything else. If there was something sacred that remained, this was it. Yes, there have been leaks from the Court before. But as Politico pointed out, last night’s leak was historic, and not in a good way: “No draft decision in the modern history of the court has been disclosed publicly while a case was still pending.”
I called up one of the smartest professors I know at one of the top law schools in the country, and he echoed that: “To my knowledge, it’s never happened before in the modern history of the court. It is the most serious possible breach.”
Serious, severe, shocking, he said. But in the end, not surprising. Why not? Here’s how he put it: “To me, the leak is not surprising because many of the people we’ve been graduating from schools like Yale are the kind of people who would do such a thing.”
What did he mean by that? “They think that everything is violence. And so everything is permitted.”
He went on: “I’m sure this person sees themselves as a whistleblower. What they don’t understand is that, by leaking this, they violate the trust that is necessary to maintain the institution.”
Perhaps some of you feel that the institution had already been betrayed. That the Court, long before this leak or this explosive decision, had already been diminished. Maybe the refusal to consider Merrick Garland put you over the edge. Or maybe it was the revelations about Clarence Thomas’s wife and January 6th. Or maybe it was the Kavanaugh hearings. How he was grilled. Or that he was nominated. Or maybe it was earlier: Bush v. Gore or Anita Hill or Robert Bork. no
This feels different than all of that. Why? Because all of those other instances were moments of outrage bookended by long periods of sobriety and seriousness. They were the exceptions that proved the rule. Now, everything seems to have been turned upside down, and the outrage, the uncontrollable or unslakable partisan fury, seems to have overtaken everything. Our sense of history, our respect for the institution, for norms, for even more basic human things: like trust, devotion, privacy, integrity. Jonathan Turley put it this way late last night: “There appears no ethical rule or institutional interest that can withstand this age of rage.”
To the jaded and hardened who have already crossed over into this new age—an age in which power and winning are the only tests of virtue, and the old ideas, like civility and respect, now seem twee—the leak might seem normal or even necessary. But it is nothing more than the most recent salvo in our race to the bottom.
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