Has The Tide Turned? If So, Can We Recapture The Past? Trump's Turn On Bibi. Hanson On Icons. Rotten Apple Non-Citizens Can Vote. Much More.

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Has the tide turned?  If not, has the tide begun to turn?  How long has the tide to go?  Will matters ever go back to where they began?

How does America dry itself out and turn away from drug usage, return to protecting our borders, again become a nation that abides by the law and allows free speech on college and university campuses once and finally, embodies the lessons in religious scripture again?

If it cannot achieve these important values and virtues we are finished.

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Desperate Leftists Watching Power Slip Through Their Hands

By Kevin McCullough

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In a previous memo, I wrote I would expand on the TV Broadcast and guest interviews by Mark Levine on Dec 12.  Levine began with a monologues accusing The NYT's of anti-Semitism and went back to the early 30's and described how the paper either ignored the warning signs coming from Germany or gave little accurate reporting even when there were front page stories.  

Levine walked you through the many author's who have written revealing books about the NYT's actions and spoke about Adolph Ochs Sulzberger, the paper's owner who, was himself Jewish, deserted his faith and people. He went into some detail about the NYT's respected reporter stationed in  Russia who was befriended by Stalin, given lavish gifts, even provided with a prostitute who ignored the Jewish Ukraine slaughters and acts of  starvation as they fought to retain their farms from Stalin's grasp.

Levine went on to talk about how the NYT's set the tone for the rest of the newspaper industry and, to this day, the press has embraced anti-Semitic positions and attitudes. 

He then discussed corporate ownership of the mass media and how free capitalists have succumbed to pressure from radicals and have been  selling America short by investing heavily in Chinese markets because of the opportunities for ill gotten gains as did American Scrap Dealers in Japanese before Pearl Harbor.

His interviews with guests led to a discussion of how truth will set you free and how the use of biased reporting and attacks on God are purposeful and orchestrated methods which are intended to eventually destroy America and lead to the loss of freedom and the eventual extermination of America's citizenry.

He believes the January 6th "trespassing" of The Capitol has been manipulated and mischaracterized as an insurrection in order to incarcerate participants and to deprive them of their legal rights.  Many of those who participated remain in prison  when true criminals go free and pay no bail.

Levine's predominantly black conservative guests discussed how radical Marxists attack them for being racists because they dare hold contrary views which threaten/undercut the Marxist message. Justice Thomas, Tom Sowell, Candace Owen and the recently elected Lt. Governor of Virginia all destroy the Marxist narrative because they are examples of how free all Americans are to obtain an education, better themselves and rise to greatness and accomplishments.

The greatest hypocrisy is when blacks call fellow blacks "Uncle Tom's" and Marxist TV personalities on MSNBC and CNN are allowed to persist in these accusations. In fact these hires are meant to shield corporate owners from being attacked as racist when, in fact, they are the epitome of cowardly racist acts.

America has been under consistent and co-ordinated attack for decades and as I have repeatedly mentioned the radicals are organized, their campaigns well funded by the likes of Soros and other billionaires hell bent on destroying America because as long as America exists we threaten their ability to manipulate and control, to achieve and maintain obscene wealth and power  and their status as elitists.

The push back has begun and how extensive and strong it will become remains to be seen. At present we have weak presidential leadership, a Justice Department which aligns itself with the radicals and controls an enforcement department which has been destroyed.  Biden's many choices for government are themselves Marxists or total incompetents. While he is focusing on societal changes our adversaries are growing militarily and expanding their commercial tentacles and thus, their influence.

The future appears bleak and our adversaries feel justifiably emboldened. I challenge any objective, clear eyed, unbiased person to challenge either Levine, his guests or myself in what I have written.

And:

Author Headshot

By David Leonhardt

Good morning. America’s anti-democratic movement is making progress.

The Capitol.Stefani Reynolds for The New York Times

Letting losers win

American politics these days can often seem fairly normal. President Biden has had both big accomplishments and big setbacks in his first year, as is typical. In Congress, members are haggling over bills and passing some of them. At the Supreme Court, justices are hearing cases. Daily media coverage tends to reflect this apparent sense of political normalcy.

But American politics today is not really normal. It may instead be in the midst of a radical shift away from the democratic rules and traditions that have guided the country for a very long time.

An anti-democratic movement, inspired by Donald Trump but much larger than him, is making significant progress, as my colleague Charles Homans has reported. In the states that decide modern presidential elections, this movement has already changed some laws and ousted election officials, with the aim of overturning future results. It has justified the changes with blatantly false statements claiming that Biden did not really win the 2020 election.

The movement has encountered surprisingly little opposition. Most leading Republican politicians have either looked the other way or supported the anti-democratic movement. In the House, Republicans ousted Liz Cheney from a leadership position because she called out Trump’s lies.

The pushback within the Republican Party has been so weak that about 60 percent of Republican adults now tell pollsters that they believe the 2020 election was stolen — a view that’s simply wrong.

Most Democratic officials, for their part, have been focused on issues other than election security, like Covid-19 and the economy. It’s true that congressional Democrats have tried to pass a new voting rights bill, only to be stymied by Republican opposition and the filibuster. But these Democratic efforts have been sprawling and unfocused. They have included proposals — on voter-ID rules and mail-in ballots, for example — that are almost certainly less important than a federal law to block the overturning of elections, as The Times’s Nate Cohn has explained.

All of which has created a remarkable possibility: In the 2024 presidential election, Republican officials in at least one state may overturn a legitimate election result, citing fraud that does not exist, and award the state’s electoral votes to the Republican nominee. Trump tried to use this tactic in 2020, but local officials rebuffed him.

Since then, his supporters have launched a campaign — with the Orwellian name “Stop the Steal” — to ensure success next time. Steve Bannon has played a central role, using his podcast to encourage Trump supporters to take over positions in election administration, ProPublica has explained.

“This is a five-alarm fire,” Jocelyn Benson, the Democratic secretary of state in Michigan, who presided over the 2020 vote count there, told The Times. “If people in general, leaders and citizens, aren’t taking this as the most important issue of our time and acting accordingly, then we may not be able to ensure democracy prevails again in ’24.”

Barton Gellman, who wrote a recent Atlantic magazine article about the movement, told Terry Gross of NPR last week, “This is, I believe, a democratic emergency, and that without very strong and systematic pushback from protectors of democracy, we’re going to lose something that we can’t afford to lose about the way we run elections.”

Theda Skocpol, a Harvard political scientist, notes that the movement is bigger than Trump. “I think things have now moved to the point that many Republican Party officials and elected officeholders are self-starters,” she told Thomas Edsall of Times Opinion.

Ballot counting in Wisconsin in November 2020.Chang W. Lee/The New York Times

In plain sight

The main battlegrounds are swing states where Republicans control the state legislature, like Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.

Republicans control these legislatures because of both gerrymandered districts and Democratic weakness outside of major metro areas. (One way Democrats can push back against the anti-democratic movement: Make a bigger effort to win working-class votes.) The Constitution lets state legislatures set the rules for choosing presidential electors.

“None of this is happening behind closed doors,” Jamelle Bouie, a Times columnist, recently wrote. “We are headed for a crisis of some sort. When it comes, we can be shocked that it is actually happening, but we shouldn’t be surprised.”

Here is an overview of recent developments:

Arizona. Republican legislators have passed a law taking away authority over election lawsuits from the secretary of state, who’s now a Democrat, and giving it to the attorney general, a Republican. Legislators are debating another bill that would allow them to revoke election certification “by majority vote at any time before the presidential inauguration.”

Georgia. Last year, Brad Raffensperger, Georgia’s Republican secretary of state, helped stop Trump’s attempts to reverse the result. State legislators in Georgia have since weakened his powers, and a Trump-backed candidate is running to replace Raffensperger next year. Republicans have also passed a law that gives a commission they control the power to remove local election officials.

Michigan. Kristina Karamo, a Trump-endorsed candidate who has repeated the lie that the 2020 elections were fraudulent, is running for secretary of state, the office that oversees elections. (Republican candidates are running on similar messages in Colorado, Florida, Nevada, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Ohio, Texas and elsewhere, according to ABC News.)

Pennsylvania. Republicans are trying to amend the state’s Constitution to make the secretary of state an elected position, rather than one that the governor appoints. Pennsylvania is also one of the states where Trump allies — like Stephen Lindemuth, who attended the Jan. 6 rally that turned into an attack on Congress — have won local races to oversee elections.

Wisconsin. Senator Ron Johnson is urging the Republican-controlled Legislature to take full control of federal elections. Doing so could remove the governor, currently a Democrat, from the process, and weaken the bipartisan state elections commission.

What’s next?

The new anti-democratic movement may still fail. This year, for example, Republican legislators in seven states proposed bills that would have given partisan officials a direct ability to change election results. None of the bills passed.

Arguably the most important figures on this issue are Republican officials and voters who believe in democracy and are uncomfortable with using raw political power to overturn an election result.

Miles Taylor, a former Trump administration official, has helped to start the Renew America Movement, which supports candidates — of either party — running against Trump-backed Republicans. It is active in congressional races but does not have enough resources to compete in the state contests that often determine election procedures, Taylor told The Times.

Gellman, the Atlantic writer, argues that Democrats and independents — as well as journalists — can make a difference by paying more attention. “Grass-roots organizers who are in support of democratic institutions,” he said on NPR, “could be doing what the Republicans are doing at the precinct and the county and the state level in terms of organizing to control election authorities to ensure that they remain nonpartisan or neutral.”

For more: Mark Meadows, Trump’s former chief of staff, was involved in fighting the election outcome, according to the House Committee investigating the Capitol attack.

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Could it get worse?

Chris Cuomo’s CNN Producer Indicted for Baiting Young Girls in ‘Sexual Subservience’

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Israel's prisoner exchanges have ruined Israeli deterrence

Nan Jacques Zilberdik

• Terrorists no longer see prison as deterrent; Israeli hostages will be used to free them in exchange deals

• A Palestinian accused of aiding the six terrorist prisoners who recently escaped from an Israeli prison expressed a common Palestinian conception of Israeli weakness.

  
  

  The length of Israeli prison sentences is nothing to fear because Israel will give in to demands to free terrorist prisoners prematurely in exchange for the release of Israeli hostages:

  
  

  Iyad Jaradat, accused of aiding terrorist fugitives (in Hebrew): “This is the first victory! The second victory [will be] a prisoners and missing persons [exchange] deal soon by our brothers from the Izz A-Din Al-Qassam Brigades (i.e., Hamas’ military wing), God willing. Soon we will come out [of prison], God willing.”

  
  

  [Official PA TV, The World Far From Politics, Nov. 13, 2021]

  
  

  Official PA TV helps facilitate this belief by broadcasting interviews with terrorist prisoners who were released early through exchange deals. Both potential terrorists and imprisoned terrorists - who watch PA TV in prison - are thus told that Israeli prison sentences should not be taken seriously nor deter anyone from carrying out terror attacks.

  
  

  In the following PA TV broadcast, a man states that the premature release of a murderer of 16 Israelis in the Shalit prisoner exchange deal “is a message of hope” for all the imprisoned terrorists. A Fatah official from Gaza similarly explains that prisoners serving life sentences should not believe that their sentences will be upheld, but rather expect to be released early. Additional terrorists who were released through the Shalit deal despite being given long sentences also participated in the program. In the Shalit prisoner exchange deal between the Israeli government and Hamas, Israel released 1,027 Palestinian prisoners in exchange for Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit, who had been held hostage by Hamas for more than 5 years (see below).

  
  

  Fatah Commissioner of the Prisoners, Martyrs, and Wounded in the Gaza Strip Tayseer Al-Bardini: “Your [PA TV] programs reach our prisoners and have a positive influence... Many thanks for gathering us today so we can send a message of hope to our prisoners inside prison... Those who are here today – all of them received heavy punishments – life sentences – and there was no hope for their release. Today, we are outside [of prison] with our families and children, and this is a message that Allah willing all the prisoners will be with us, and they will have a family with children...”

  
  

  Released prisoner Rami Azarah: “My brother Abd Al-Hadi Ghneim (i.e., murdered 16) was sentenced to 16 life sentences and dozens of additional years. [He] couldn’t imagine even in the best of dreams that today he would be together with us the brothers and his extended and closest family. This is a message of hope for our prisoners inside the occupation’s prisons who were sentenced to dozens of life sentences.”

  
  

  [Official PA TV, I Call You, May 26, 2020]

  
  

  The murderer himself, Abd Al-Hadi Ghneim, who was serving 16 life sentences for the murder of 16 passengers on a bus in 1989 but was released prematurely, expressed his belief that imprisoned terrorists who are serving “heavy and long sentences” like himself will be released in a similar way:

  
  

  Murderer of 16, Abd Al-Hadi Ghneim: “I thank [official] PA TV... We as a group of [released] prisoners hope and pray to Allah that our prisoner brothers who have served long terms will be released, and also those who were sentenced to very heavy and long sentences. The One who released us will release them, Allah willing... Let’s have our brothers inside prison see the [released] prisoners, their friends, how satisfied they are, and hope that Allah will release them.”

  
  

  PA TV host: “Allah willing.”

  
  

  [Official PA TV, I Call You, May 26, 2020]

  
  

  Relatives of other prisoners are convinced that their imprisoned family members will be released before they have served their sentences thanks to prisoner exchanges. Talking to his imprisoned nephew via official PA TV, an uncle assured him an early release - “you’ll get out”

  
  

  Official PA TV host: “Do you want to convey something new to him? ...

  
  

  Uncle of prisoner Khamis Al-Arayshi: “We wish him health and a speedy release, Allah willing... We say to him: Many were sentenced to life, sentenced to 25 years, and they got out via prisoner exchanges. Allah willing, you’ll get out.”

  
  

  [Official PA TV, I Call You, June 22, 2020]

  
  

  On the recent 10-year anniversary of the Shalit exchange, Palestinian Media Watch exposed the statement by an official from the Islamic Jihad terror organization that he expects terrorist prisoners will be exchanged for Israeli hostages held in Gaza like Shalit:

  
  

  Islamic Jihad Information Office Director Daoud Shihab: “A great achievement was recorded by the Palestinian resistance in the Gaza Strip. It’s still holding, as it held [former Israeli captive soldier Gilad] Shalit. It’s holding a number of Zionist prisoners and soldiers’ [bodies] today. This is good news for all our people... and all the heroes inside the occupation prisons, for all our people, because freedom is coming and the freedom celebration is coming.”

  
  

  [Al-Mayadeen TV (Lebanon), Sept. 10, 2021]

  
  

  “A number of Zionist prisoners and soldiers’ [bodies]” refers to Hamas holding Israeli hostages Avraham Mengistu and Hisham Al-Sayed and the bodies of soldiers Oron Shaul and Hadar Goldin (see note below).

  
  

  PMW has documented that senior PA and Fatah officials support kidnappings.

  
  

  Senior PA official and Deputy-Secretary of Fatah's Central Committee Jibril Rajoub, for example, has encouraged more Hamas kidnappings like the kidnapping of Shalit.

  
  

  Deputy-Secretary of Fatah Central Committee, Jibril Rajoub: "If Hamas wants to kidnap soldiers, let them kidnap soldiers. Let them kidnap. Let them kidnap if they [the Israelis] don't want to release prisoners, but want them as prisoners forever, so [the prisoners] will come out as ghosts and skeletons. The Israelis need to understand. It's clear that kidnapping is the language they understand. On the contrary, we encourage them [Hamas]. When they kidnapped [Gilad] Shalit, we congratulated them. When they concluded the Shalit [exchange] deal, in spite of our having a few reservations about it, we also congratulated them."

  
  

  [Official PA TV, Jan. 2, 2014]

  
  

  The PA also brags about past exchange deals. Recently the official PA daily marked the 38-year anniversary of an exchange deal in which Fatah and the PFLP terror organization succeeded pressuring Israel into freeing a total of 5,915 terrorists in two exchange deals:

  
  

  Official PA daily’s headline: “38 years ago, when the occupier submitted to the largest prisoner exchange deal”

  
  

  Official PA daily’s report on deal: “The Fatah Movement launched... the largest prisoner exchange deal. In 1983 Israel submitted to its demands to release 4,700 Arab and Palestinian prisoners in exchange for six Israeli prisoners who were caught together with two others, in a heroic operation that was carried out by a group of fighters from the Al-Asifa forces, Fatah’s military wing... Commander Khalil Al-Wazir ‘Abu Jihad’ (i.e., terrorist, responsible for murder of 125) ... announced that the [Fatah] leadership [under siege in Tripoli] is in danger, and that it is not responsible for what is liable to happen to the six Zionist soldiers that it captured... This caused Israeli popular pressure on the occupation government... Fatah exploited this to raise the bar of its demands.”

  
  

  [Official PA daily Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, Nov. 24, 2021]

  
  

  In September 1982, eight Israeli soldiers were captured by Fatah terrorists in Bhamadoun, Lebanon. Two of them were handed to the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) and 6 were held by Fatah. Fatah released the 6 soldiers on Nov. 23, 1983 as part of an exchange deal in which Israel released 4,700 terrorists who were held in Lebanon and 65 terrorists held in Israel. The two handed over to the PFLP were released on May 21, 1985, as part of an exchange deal in which Israel released 1,150 terrorist prisoners.

  
  

  PMW reported that Fatah TV host and regular columnist for the official PA daily Muwaffaq Matar referred to the eight Israeli hostages as "the hens that would lay golden eggs," and expressed his belief that more “quality operations” – i.e. kidnappings of Israelis -– will happen and will free more terrorists.
• +++++++++++++++++++++++
• Is Biden in need of a poll boost so bad that he will reverse course vis a vis Iran?
• Iran is said to be preparing to fire a ballistic missile into space as the revived nuclear deal talks in Vienna verge on collapse.

  Planned satellite launches »
• ++++++++++++++++++ 
• Bibi pandered and Trump exploded because he does not take criticism well.

Why did Trump turn on Netanyahu, telling an Israeli reporter, ‘F---’ Bibi? And why are pro-Israel leaders silent? I went on Newsmax to discuss

But here, let me go further than I did on Newsmax

By Joel C. Rosenberg 

BOCA RATON, FLORIDA – The biggest news story in Israel, by far, in the last few days has been the unprecedented attack by former U.S. President Donald J. Trump on former Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin “Bibi” Netanyahu.

Trump is furious at Netanyahu for moving so quickly to congratulate Joe Biden on winning the 2020 election – within 12 hours of the polls closing – when there was so much doubt and white-hot controversy surrounding the results.

This is according to a new book published only in Hebrew by one of Israel’s premier political reporters, Barak Ravid.

Incensed by what he views as a lack of loyalty, Trump can be heard on the audio tape of the interview saying of Netanyahu, “F--- him.”

The book reports that Trump and Netanyahu have not spoken since the U.S. elections.

This was the lead story on ALL ISRAEL NEWS on Friday.

Indeed, it was the lead story on all Israeli media outlets.

It has made some news in the U.S., though not as much as I would have expected.

RADIO SILENCE FROM JEWISH AND CHRISTIAN LEADERS

So far, however, I haven’t seen evidence that any major pro-Israel leader in the American Jewish community or in the American Evangelical community has commented yet on the dust up, the reasons that Trump has turned on Netanyahu or the vulgar language that the former president used in the interview.

Haaretz, a prominent Israeli newspaper, even published a story this morning headlined, “Pro-Israel Evangelicals Stay Silent on Trump's 'F--- Bibi' Comment – From prominent organizations to leading pastors, Evangelical supporters of Israel have not commented on Trump's incredible attack on Netanyahu, signaling the movement's confusion as one of its heroes turns on another.”

“The only exception was Israel-based evangelical author Joel Rosenberg,” the newspaper noted, “who said in an interview to the pro-Trump network, Newsmax, that the former president’s quotes are ‘stunning.’”

“He added that the ‘level of bitterness, given how close Trump and Netanyahu have been politically, is striking.’”

“Apart from Rosenberg (who was recently a guest on the Haaretz Weekly Podcast to discuss his new book, Enemies and Allies), there has been no public reference from any other prominent evangelical public figure as of Sunday morning, Israel time – more than 48 hours after Trump’s comments were first published.”

Below you’ll find a transcript of my Newsmax interview, and we have embedded the video so you can watch it for yourself

WHAT’S GOING ON HERE?

First, however, let’s go further.

Let’s begin with the question of why no Evangelical leaders have yet to comment.

Actually, I’m not certain how many of them have even seen – much less processed – the news. While the story made huge headlines in Israel, there have been other big stories here in the U.S., including the cataclysmic tornadoes that have left some of the worst devastation in American history.

It’s also the weekend – lots of Christmas parties, today is church, lots of kids’ activities, and many Evangelicals don’t focus as much on the news over the weekend.

But I also think there is more to it.

This is an unprecedented verbal attack by a former American president on a former Israeli prime minister.

We’ve literally never seen anything like it.

As I told Newsmax, Trump and Netanyahu were the closest political allies I can think of on the planet.

They did so much good with and for each other.

And I think Evangelical leaders are so stunned that they are not yet certain if they want to react, or how.

To be clear: I actually get Trump’s frustration – even anger – at Bibi.

Netanyahu did not need to rush to embrace Biden so quickly.

Trump was Bibi’s closest and most trusted ally.

What’s more, they were friends – they enjoyed each other’s company, saw the world similarly, were eager to stand with each other and help each other through thick and thin.

Or so it seemed.

So, I can totally understand why Trump would think Bibi should have stayed quiet for awhile longer.

Bibi was under growing pressure in the Israeli media to embrace Biden quickly.

But so what?

Bibi could have taken time to let the situation become clearer, and let other world leaders embrace Biden first.

Loyalty is important in politics, and Bibi could have kept his powder dry longer.

Now for President Trump: I have to say that I’m really disappointed with his use of such vulgar language.

Is he a New Yorker? Sure.

Is that how many New Yorkers talk? Sure.

But so what?

Trump was on the record, with an Israeli reporter, talking about a long-time friend and ally.

Why use the “F” word?

Why not express disappointment with Bibi without dropping the F-bomb, without signaling that the relationship is so terribly broken, and possibly over forever?

I wouldn’t be surprised to hear that Trump would use such language against an enemy.

But why use it against a friend?

As a Christian, I don’t use that word at all.

But you can be certain that if Biden, or Barack Obama, or Ilhan Omar, or any other Democrat had used such vile language to attack an Israeli leader, I would have called them out and said it’s wrong.

Because it is.

So, I’m saying it here about a Republican.

Trump was wrong to use such language against Netanyahu.

He wasn’t being anti-Israel.

He wasn’t being anti-Semitic.

He was simply angry.

But he was also wrong.

WHERE DO WE GO FROM HERE?

Unfortunately, for all his strengths, Bibi has a bad habit of infuriating friends, staff and political partners.

He has a nasty habit of turning allies into enemies.

Why do you think Naftali Bennett – Bibi’s one-time chief of staff – is now the prime minister, and Bibi is in the opposition?

And the list is far longer than just Bennett.

Think Benny Gantz, and Yair Lapid, and Avigdor Liberman, and Gideon Sa’ar, just to name a few.

That said, I hope that Netanyahu will call Trump and the two will reconcile.

These men did great things together.

They forged historic achievements together.   

Achievements that will be remembered for generations.

And who knows, they may both be back in power one day, and need each other again.

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TRANSCRIPT OF THE NEWSMAX INTERVIEW

ANCHOR JOHN BACHMANN: Former President Donald Trump is lashing out at Benjamin Netanyahu for accepting Joe Biden's victory in last year's election….Trump accused the former Israeli leader of disloyalty, saying he had helped Netanyahu in his own elections by reversing decades of U.S. policy and supported Israel and also their claims for the territory [of] the Golan Heights. Now, Netanyahu has responded to President Trump's comments, saying, “I highly appreciate President Trump's big contribution to Israel and its security. I also appreciate the importance of the strong alliance between our two countries, and therefore it was important for me to congratulate the incoming president.”

Let's talk about a little bit of Middle Eastern diplomacy in the Middle East. Expert and evangelical Joel Rosenberg is the author of the book, "Enemies and Allies: An Unforgettable Journey inside the Fast-Moving and Immensely Turbulent Modern Middle East". And it is turbulent, indeed, Joel -- great to see again.

JOEL C. ROSENBERG: It's great to see you, John. Never a dull moment in my part of the world. I'm glad to be in Florida, in Boca, at your headquarters today. But, wow, what is going on between Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu? Wow.

BACHMANN: So, this [interview] was back in April [when] President Trump was saying these comments. It was recently just published, though – but you can kind of, maybe, understand why he [Trump] might be a little frustrated at Benjamin Netanyahu, and maybe wondering why Netanyahu isn’t more frustrated himself, given what we've seen with these nuclear talks going on in the Biden administration.

ROSENBERG: Well, let's start off, John, as you said, with my book, Enemies and Allies. These are two allies – President Trump and former Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu are the two closest political allies I can think of on the planet.

And as we're reporting on ALL ISRAEL NEWS – but it's based on wonderful reporting, really insightful reporting by a top Israeli political journalist, Barak Ravid – former President Trump said, on the record, “F--- Bibi.” I don’t want to say the words. He reports that Netanyahu was being trashed with vulgarity by Trump.

That level of bitterness by Trump against Netanyahu, given how close they've been politically, is really striking. And it's true that Trump and Netanyahu got an awful lot done, and I think Trump thought, “Well, why within 12 hours, when the election was not really settled yet – there was some dispute – why did Bibi go so fast to embrace Biden?”

That's between them. But for a break like that to be so open, that’s stunning.

BACHMANN: It is stunning. There was real chemistry between the two men. President Trump has been known to say some, let's just say, bombastic things in the past. And maybe this is just his way of expressing himself. I'm sure these two men could come together and shake hands, perhaps, after the fact. But we'll leave it there for now because neither one of them are actually in power.

And then:

Cracked Icons

By Victor Davis Hanson 

The corrupt and mediocre heroes of the Left are imploding.

With fits and starts, we are slowly returning to reality after four years of mass hysteria. Our media-deified, progressive icons are finally being exposed as the deceivers they always were.

Jussieopath

From the moment details emerged surrounding Jussie Smollett’s hate-crime hoax, any sane, non-woke person could have recognized he was more than just a pathological liar. Smollett was also a conniving, mean-spirited egoist. He was intent on rescuing his fading acting career by libeling the Chicago police, smearing white Trump supporters as violent racists, and self-servingly advancing the lie of a purported hate crime epidemic against blacks.

To believe Jussie, as so many of the liberal establishment were eager to do, one had to believe from the get-go the utterly unbelievable: MAGA-hatted white racists (and fans of the fading Empire no less) routinely roam liberal Chicago in subfreezing temperatures at 2:00 a.m.. They typically go out, ready for victims, equipped with requisite bleach and representational hangman’s nooses.

You see, before such devils bumped into Jussie Smollett, they had been characteristically on the lookout in their late night and early morning patrols for heroic gay black actors to take out—all unbeknownst to us

The two large white ragers were easily driven off by diminutive Jussie. The black Achilles, sandwich in one hand, cell phone in the other, battled his white Trojan brutes in Homeric fashion. But at a cost: his dueling earned him heroic wounds, real and spiritual. 

The hateful Hectors managed to put a noose around poor Jussie’s neck, as he later showed police. They inflicted a supposedly career-threatening small cut below his eye. And as superhuman demons, they even splattered him with bleach that somehow defied the laws of chemistry and did not freeze in that subzero early morning. 

Once the con unraveled, and given the media myth that there are millions of racist Trump supporters eager to harm black gays, one wonders why Jussie did not, from the outset, just hire on the cheap any two of the supposed millions of available deplorables, rather than unlikely Nigerian Americans, to better fake his crime?

No matter. Would-be candidate Joe Biden immediately leveraged Smollett to virtue signal his racial bona fides. Kamala Harris claimed it was a modern “lynching.” Everyone from Nancy Pelosi to the CNN/MSNBC crowd treated us to performance-art demonstrations of their outrage. No one has apologized, given the virtual truth of the age that, while fake, “it could have happened.” 

Smollett whetted his beak in the overflow of sympathy and adulation. Michelle Obama’s former assistant was a conduit to the highest levels of anguish over Jussie’s victimization. And on and on. 

In the end, there was only the beginning: a fraud and faker, who was as obnoxious on the witness stand as he had been over the last three years in siccing the leftwing victimization industry on America.

Cuomo Duo

Think too of the now feet-of-clay, disgraced Cuomo brothers. These were the media darlings who hammed it up on television—as thousands of New Yorkers unnecessarily died in long-term care facilities due to Governor Andrew Cuomo’s decision to redirect COVID-19 patients to share facilities with the elderly and infirm. Once there, the virus wiped out thousands of the elderly and vulnerable—a moral crime that Cuomo did his best either to cover up or massage the statistics downward.

Andrew, the elder and former governor of New York, was an unrepentant bully.  He was also apparently a chronic sexual harasser. And Cuomo allegedly hired his staff to write his growing res gestae, likely on state time, and for a ridiculously obscene book advance that all parties to such a contract knew would never be paid by book sales. 

For all that, Andrew Cuomo was finally forced to resign from his governorship and is now persona non grata among the once adoring Left. He may face endless lawsuits and perhaps some criminal exposure—as he thinks he can engineer the great American redemptive comeback.

Remember, at his zenith, Lord Cuomo both flattered and insulted an obsequious press in his narcissistic and Emmy-winning press conferences. They were little more than boring, ritual trashings of and rants against Donald Trump. The latter’s crime was apparently sending to New York a hospital ship and a veritable portable hospital. Both went mostly unused. 

Many on the Left, by summer 2020, were in mourning that Biden had foolishly promised in advance to appoint as his vice-presidential running mate a black woman, thus robbing the country of Cuomo’s genius.  

His brother Chris Cuomo should have been dismissed from CNN long ago. He likely staged a fake video showing his emergence from his COVID “quarantine”—given witnesses had seen him up and about earlier in public while infectious. He lied on air, in denying his role as a journalist-cum-political advisor, in devising ways to use his media arrogance and contacts to save his brother’s hide. And he too was hit with sexual harassment charges. 

Both shared a conviction that as leftists they enjoyed nine lives of corruption and deceit—until they ran out.

The Harris Who Never Was

Do we even now remember the recent mythologies about Kamala Harris, the supposedly dynamic woman of color? Recall, she would supposedly manage Biden’s descending dotage as she prepped to be America’s first female of color Commander-in-Chief? 

She kicked off her run for president at an Oakland rally in January 2019 to media accolades. She was billed (as a compliment) to be a female version of Barack Obama. She paraded a similar exotic lineage, as a child of an African American father and an Indian immigrant mother. 

In the subsequent primary debates, Harris, the daughter of two parents with doctorates, reinvented her upbringing largely as a victim of racism. In fact, she had parlayed the career advantages of her middle-class youth and educated parents, her looks, her race, her gender, and her well-placed contacts into high office, without any shred of documented achievement. Two now familiar traits soon became evident in her presidential candidacy: Harris knew and wanted to know almost nothing of the issues, and she projected an obnoxious cackling personality, both of which the media claimed were mere smears from right-wing racist and sexist critics.

In the end, Harris too is now back where she began: a myth. She was originally politicized by mentor, paramour, and aging Willie Brown. He jump-started his then young girlfriend by putting her on a number of well-compensated state boards. Soon she was San Francisco city and then county attorney, known mostly for calibrating prosecutorial policy according to the ideology and interests of the influential.

After blowing through millions in campaign funds, Harris dropped out of the presidential race without winning a single delegate. And after ten months of Harris as vice president, a USA/Suffolk poll has her at a mere 28 percent approval rating. That is the lowest among modern vice presidents since the modern age of polling began. 

So far, Harris is known largely for three signature performances—serially berating staff and prompting mass resignations, hiring child actors to fake a spontaneous meet and greet to discuss “space,” and her role as our “border czar,” who ostensibly oversaw nearly 2 million illegal aliens streaming across an open border, neither vaccinated nor tested at a time of a surging pandemic. 

For now, Joe Biden’s staff leaks that Harris is a bully and a nasty incompetent; her staff counter-leaks that he is a doddering old fool descending into overt senility. Both are correct.

Schiffter

Do we even remember the once ubiquitous Adam Schiff? 

At one point, Schiff was being talked up as a dream California congressman, who easily could have been a marquee screenwriter, had Washington not robbed Hollywood of his talents. Schiff’s “minority” report of the House Intelligence Committee, fueled by lies generated by the Fusion GPS Steele dossier, supposedly was the corrective to the Nunes majority report, as if lies could negate the truth.

For over two years, Schiff appeared on television and at press conferences to confirm that Donald Trump was guilty of Russian collusion. The script was always the same. He produced no evidence, no data, no credible witnesses. 

Instead, Schiff grimaced in mock outrage, and began his ritual accusations, given the secret sources he had supposedly seen (winking and nodding they were not available to the ignorant hoi polloi). Schiff went on that there was unimpeachable, but always closeted evidence, of “Russian collusion.” 

As the Mueller probe collapsed into fantasy—as the FBI Washington hierarchy was insidiously discredited between felony convictions, firings, and resignations, fake FISA warrants, and James Comey’s 245 instances of amnesia under oath; and as Inspector General Michael Horowitz’s report damned the very sources Schiff once quoted—Schiff always pivoted to the next “bombshell”: more worried looks, more furrowed brows, more vague reference to mystical “information” that only his committee possessed, but of course could not be made public. 

In the end, Schiff ended up as we all knew he would: in Smollett-postmodern fashion claiming that while his former Steele Bible was admittedly full of lies and smears, it didn’t really matter because other undisclosed “evidence” still showed Donald Trump guilty of “Russian collusion”—the pathetic life raft that had once rescued the conceited Schiff from drowning in a sea of warranted congressional obscurity

The Late, Great BLM

Black Lives Matter recently jumped the proverbial shark of ridiculousness when it deplored as “racist” holding convicted liar Jussie Smollett to account. 

BLM has said little about the record black-on-black murders in many of the nation’s major cities, in part an obvious consequence from its nationwide campaign to “defund” (or, actually, shut down) the police. After the Waukesha mass murdering, BLM, which talks of “black” and “white” as collectives without individuals among them, had nothing to say about the anti-white career criminal who mowed down attendants, including children, at a Christmas parade—other than a minor regional BLM “official” who claimed in poorly hidden glee that such killing might be the start of a “revolution.”

After all the hype, all the corporate shakedown and virtue signaling money, all the charges of white racism, all of Professor Kendi’s $20-30,000 zoom reeducation rants, all the appeasing CEOs, the Mark Milleys and Lloyd Austins, and the legions of diversity, equity, and inclusion administrative bloat, what are we left with? Certainly not a Marshall plan to save the inner city, not an effort to reduce illegitimacy or single-parent households, not new charter schools to give the poor the chance of competitive educations in math, science, literature, and history. 

Instead, BLM is revealed as mostly a refined, updated version of Jessie Jackson’s old Operation PUSH con. It has garnered corporate cash that enriched its Marxist founders and hangers-on, helped to feed a crime wave, and led to thousands of increased violent black-on-black deaths in the inner city—while the white liberals who empowered and funded BLM became terrified that the new surge of crime now has reached Beverly Hills, the nation’s tony universities, West Hollywood, and Walnut Creek. White liberals seemed perplexed that non-white criminals somehow did not appreciate that the drivers of car-jacked Range Rovers or upscale shoppers at Louis Vuitton were on the right side and thus deserved exemption for their loud penance.

Basement Biden

Do we remember old Joe Biden from Scranton? He was the media fiction who hid his dementia in his basement for a year, spouting that Trump had wrecked everything and he would bring about decency, prosperity, an end to the virus, and “healing.” 

The Biden candidacy was one of the most cynical in American history. The unhinged far-Left adopted a befuddled Biden as the respectable veneer necessary to see their hard-core, but stealth socialist agenda finally enacted. Key to a virtual presidency would be virtual voting, as 102 million mail-in and early votes were never subject to the previous standards of authentication and statistical rejection rates of the past—rendering Election Day voting mostly a memory.

Good Joe was billed as the antithesis to the tweeting Bad Trump. Yet he clearly wasn’t. Even Joe’s tweets (e.g., “We are with you, Jussie”) were often more ridiculous.

Within days the “moderate” Joe Biden set in place policies that were guaranteed to begin wrecking the country, to send his polls down into the 30s, to ensure the likely wipe-out of his congressional majorities in 2022, and to make himself and the media who created his myth disliked, and the laughingstock of the country. Trump became unpopular when over 90 percent of media coverage was negative, and the Left concocted a never-ending circus of hoaxes, starting with Russian collusion; but Biden is disliked, despite an obsequious media and weaponized bureaucracies on his side.

We are in the first 10 months of a cognitively challenged president who is deteriorating geometrically not arithmetically, with a vice president in waiting whom the nation fears is more dangerous, even knowing Biden is half-senile. He may be reaching the point of embarrassment at which the media and Left no longer find him useful and begin leaking and staging his exit.

Single-handedly the Biden puppeteers have managed to restore the Trump record of achievement simply by doing the opposite of what Trump did, thereby ensuring their own failure and reminding voters of what once was working. 

Biden may end up with the most unrecognized achievement of the modern age: the radical transformation of leftwing Latinos into a conservative majority of fed-up voters—a development that will likely cause the Left to demand an end to open borders on the assumption too many Mexicans and Central Americans are ending up like wizened Cuban and Venezuelan immigrants.

We could add other fallen heroes of the Left who once saturated our recent air waves—Robert Mueller and his dream team that would rid the world of Trump, and the quartet of John Brennan, James Clapper, James Comey, and Andrew McCabe. They, by their dishonesty, prevarications, and careerism have almost single-handedly tarnished the reputations of the Washington-based intelligence and investigatory agencies. Yet now, the Left has no more need of them. They are already fading from the public awareness, as careerists who managed to erode support from all those who once most readily defended their own institutions.

The lesson of these fallen icons? 

They were deified for larger reductionist and anti-Trump agendas. Yet they were also always dispensable when their utility eroded, due to their mediocrity—of such a magnitude that even our American Pravdas could no longer continue to manipulate them for advantage.

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https://www.wsj.com/articles/almost-anybody-can-now-vote-in-new-york-noncitizen-illegal-alien-election-interference-11639331608?mod=opinion_lead_pos3

Almost Anybody Can Now Vote in New York

Democrats on the City Council give 800,000 noncitizens the franchise, as others dissent.

By The Editorial Board

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