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"I agree with Obama, the Democrats have a story to tell and they should tell it. It's an ugly story. P---"
The minute Obama allowed hordes of radical Muslims into America anti-Semitism and barbaric acts against Jews and an increase in anti-Semitism rose. This article and analysis by Steve Feldman is one of the best I have read.
Obama always knew what he was doing even when it was the worst of choices. His actions were always purposeful and towards one goal, diminishing America as a great power.
He associated with radicals who hated America. Biden's choice for Attorney General was Obama's choice for The SCOTUS. Garland follows in the footsteps of former AG Holder. His refusal to indict those unlawfully picketing Justices is outrageous as is his apparent unwillingness to order the FBI to investigate any potential connection of those picketing with the attempt on Justice Kavanaugh's life is another dereliction of duty and now we have targeting of Mass. Jewry.
How/when will the effect of Obama bias against America end?
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The Target on Your Head
By Steve Feldman
Firearms enthusiasts – and those who watch crime/law enforcement themed TV shows and films — know that by the time you see that red dot projected on your body from a distance, the bullet is on its way.
If you are Jewish and are in Massachusetts, that metaphoric little red dot is right between your eyes right about now, and before long every Jewish person and institution throughout America may be similarly “painted.”
The enhanced and immediate threat to Jews and others is a result of a collective of anonymous Jew-haters who have created a sinister new internet-based anti-Jewish “mapping project” that directly and indirectly serves as a call to action against Jews and others – publishing names, addresses and other details of individuals, organizations, institutions, businesses and other entities. The rantings on the website indicates that each and all of these entities are responsible for “colonization” of “Palestine” and a host of other “oppressive” actions against others.
Given the current climate of violence sweeping America, this Massachusetts mapping project is a clear and present danger that is just one easily triggered perpetrator away from massive bloodshed and casualties.
Those responsible for the website and associated threats describe themselves as “a multi-generational collective of activists and organizers; we are unpaid and don’t report to any donors.” The bulk of the rhetoric is Leftist although given the odd bedfellows of Jew-hatred, they could include haters from other corners.
The FBI and other law enforcement agencies and governments must investigate the website and its creators to prevent attacks.
Attacks against Jews in America are worsening and growing in number – and becoming more acceptable – largely due to anti-Jewish/anti-Israel/anti-Zionist propaganda and rhetoric. Many of the attacks have been “random”: Though attacked because they are Jewish, the individual or institution is selected typically they are in proximity to a Jew-hating or deranged attacker.
Now, individuals and organizations who are committed to strike the Jewish People have literally mapped out who and where the Jewish and Jewish-connected “targets” are.
Furthermore, while Jews and institutions have been targeted because of religion or stereotypes, this new project specifically demonizes Jews over ideology and due to support for Israel — whether actively or passively, directly or indirectly. It also demonizes non-Jews who may have even a peripheral or secondary relationship to Israel, Zionism or Jewry. Hundreds of these entities are today identified on their map.
The collective’s website has both a static map plus an interactive map with a large quantity of data and a sophisticated set up that draws links to and from the various entities. It also includes manifestos laced with false claims, outright lies and distortions of history – and conspiracy theories galore about Jews, the US military, corporations, universities and others.
“Intersectionality” at work
To be clear, whoever is behind this project has a list of grievances in addition to those they state against Zionism and Israel. But like nearly all who engage in “Intersectionality,” Jews, Zionists and Israel are at the top of their pyramid of “oppressors,” and Jews, Zionism and Israel are the nexus that unites a diverse group of self-designated “victims” to concentrate their combined efforts against. Like many others who have preceded them for thousands of years, they claim Jews are to blame for all that they perceive is wrong with the county, society or the world.
Jew-hatred is exacerbated by technology/mass-communication. Rampant and pervasive anti-Israel and anti-Zionist lies, propaganda and false accusations in the news media and on social media; on campuses from educators, student organizations and guest speakers; from elected officials at local, state and federal levels; from international agencies and NGOs; and from activists across the political spectrum representing a host of special interests spread it and have motivated criminal attacks.
Many disparate groups and individuals united through intersectionality have expressed a desire to eliminate Israel and eradicate Zionism. It is ironic since Zionism is merely the Jewish People’s liberation movement. Zionism is the noble movement for Jewish self-determination and independence in the historic and legal Jewish homeland, a k a: Israel. Zionism is a pillar of the Jewish religion. Israel is the nation-state of the Jewish People. It is where the largest Jewish community on planet Earth calls home.
Those who oppose Israel’s existence have twisted the perception of Zionism Into something evil, and accused Jews of carrying out that evil via Israel’s actions.
While anecdotally or via surveys some members of the Jewish community say they are unaware of or believe they are not endangered by the anti-Israel/anti-Zionist animus – and some actually participate in anti-Israel and anti-Zionist groups and activities – this mapping project essentially makes any and every Jewish person vulnerable to attack. For example, an anti-Zionist Jewish person might be benefiting from the services of a Jewish agency and might find himself or herself at the wrong place at the wrong time – when someone triggered by the website’s incitement goes on a rampage at the site.
Gasoline on a smoldering fire
This collective pours gasoline onto a smoldering fire.
While in their diatribes they do not use the words “Jew” or “Jewish,” many of their targets are clearly identifiable as Jewish. Like all of those who participate in the Palestinian-Arab created BDS Movement, they are clever enough to claim to be acting solely on behalf of an “oppressed” people – a people that happens to be waging a war of annihilation against the Jewish People.
“BDS” – shorthand for boycott, divest and sanction – is a tactic employed by Jew-haters and would-be “social justice warriors” to meet an objective that exceeds the surface claim of intending to apply economic pressure against the Jewish state of Israel to force it to change policies. Those at the helm of BDS have made it known that their true purpose is the destruction of Israel.
As goes Israel, so goes the Jewish People.
The BDS tactics have mostly been unleashed in corporate board rooms, campuses, city council meetings and elsewhere.
While a relative handful have pushed back against BDS with varying degrees of success, the BDSers have not been stopped or even slowed. They are relentless and creatively destructive.
Which brings us back to those laser-targeting dots and the map of Massachusetts.
This collective of unidentified individuals and/or groups taken those dots and placed them onto a map of the commonwealth of Massachusetts. These dots – nearly 500 in all — each represent an entity. Many pinpoint the addresses of individual Jews, Jewish institutions, Jewish organizations and others (corporate, governmental, educational, cultural) that they claim have some connection to Jews, Israel or Zionism — or are friends or allies of Jews and Israel.
Many of the dots on the map represent entities that have no discernible connection to Jewry such as police departments in far-flung cities – yet the collective has connected each to one another to create a sort of “guilt-by-association” network that heightens the danger/threat.
The overwhelming majority of these entities are in and around Boston. Like many major US cities, Boston and its suburbs have long been a hub of anti-Jewish activities cloaked in anti-Israel/anti-Zionist vernacular. It is likely that similar maps and targeting of Jews for other states and localities will follow.
The lie-filled anti-Jewish rhetoric throughout the website is already widespread.
Some examples from the Massachusetts-centric website:
“… [We] wanted to develop a deeper understanding of local institutional support for the colonization of Palestine and harms that we see as linked, such as policing, US imperialism, and displacement/ethnic cleansing. Our work is grounded in the realization that oppressors share tactics and institutions – and that our liberation struggles are connected. We wanted to visualize these connections in order to see where our struggles intersect and to strategically grow our local organizing capacities.”
“Our interactive map illustrates some ways in which institutional support for the colonization of Palestine is structurally tied to policing and systemic white supremacy here where we live, and to US imperialist projects in other countries. Our map also shows the connections between harms such as privatization and medical apartheid, which are often facilitated by universities and their corporate partners. Since local universities engage in these multiple forms of oppression and produce much of the ruling class, and because they are major land holders in our area, we’ve emphasized the university as a central nexus that ties together many of the harms traced on the map.”
In an article/diatribe on their website dated June 3, 2022, with the subject line “Zionism, Policing and Empire: A Dispatch from the Mapping Project,” the collective writes: “In Massachusetts as in the rest of the US, police have built large militarized forces, are extensively networked for sharing resources and information, and use their military and surveillance power to enforce the intersecting systems of white supremacy and capitalism. Our work in the Mapping Project reveals the local extent of their networking with each other, as well as their networking with universities, weapons companies and certain NGOs. The Department of Homeland Security, with its use of “counterterrorism” as a catch-all for programs of surveillance and militarization, has played a central role in organizing and funding these networks, often using Israel as a point of reference for ideology, policy, technology and organization.”
They go on: “We recognize that the role of police in capitalist societies is primarily to protect property and those who have property from those who don’t. In colonial-settler states, police focus overwhelmingly on colonized people, placing them under a regime of surveillance, denial of freedom of movement, mass imprisonment and lethal violence.”
After a long passage of condemning legitimate law-enforcement efforts to combat crime and terrorism, the collective pins what they view as oppressive police and Department of Homeland Security practices on the Jews:
“As all levels of policing have been drawn more deeply into the DHS sponsored restructuring as ‘counterterrorism,’ Israel has become a consistent point of reference. As the state that has long identified its entire apparatus of colonialism and war under the claim of fighting ‘terrorism,’ Israel markets itself as the world’s foremost expert on ‘counterterrorism.’ It’s notable in this context that Israel calls ‘terrorist’ any opposition to its regimes of expansion and racist domination, from armed resistance against soldiers and settlers to protest and critical reporting.”
They cite numerous examples of Israeli officials conveying their wisdom and experiences preventing and fighting terrorism and crime to benefit the people of Massachusetts – although the collective views this as a series of negatives rather than as beneficial.
They conclude one of their manifesto as follows:
“We see our map and associated database as a resource for gathering intelligence on the agents of oppression; their intersections offer possibilities for us to organize and connect our struggles. They study us and are networked with each other; we need to study them and form our own networks of resistance.
“We have shown physical addresses, named officers and leaders, and mapped connections. These entities exist in the physical world and can be disrupted in the physical world. We hope people will use our map to help figure out how to push back effectively.
“We view US police on all levels as white-supremacist, colonial institutions that have no role in our communities; we support non-cooperation, community self-defense, and resistance in all its forms.”
Titles of other diatribes/manifestos on their website include: “Charity is Theft: The Gann Foundation and Boston’s Zionist NGO circuit,” “Massachusetts’ Imperialist Landscape” and “Boston’s Colonial Universities Grab Land for Profit, War, and Medical Apartheid.”
In their twisted, hate-inspired view of the world, the Jewish People play a hand in or are responsible for all of the above.
Elsewhere on the website are more anti-Jewish claims, conspiracy theories and invective such as this: “Boston’s Zionist leaders and powerhouse NGOs, which buy legitimacy and support from universities, use their influence to enable a range of oppressive agendas: supporting the Israeli army and Israeli settlements in Palestine; criminalizing Palestine liberation activists on college campuses; funding US police departments and cop unions; extracting wealth from colonized Puerto Rico; and advancing the privatization of US public schools.”
A clear and present danger
But it is the map that makes the diatribes the clear and present danger.
The interactive map https://mapliberation.org/dev/map_js/ lists 13 clickable “harm categories.” Among these are “colonialism,” “ecological harm,” “policing,” “US imperialism” – and “Zionism.” Each category has entities represented by dots on the map that pinpoint locations, and most include names of employees. They claim there are 162 Zionist entities, or entities that foster Zionism in Massachusetts. The label with the most targets/entities is “surveillance,” with 347 entities.
Were such a map to be created and published by neo-Nazis – and placed in home mailboxes or on windshields – law enforcement would already be mobilized to investigate and pursue those responsible. That this likely has been created by Leftist Jew-haters must not diminish the pursuit nor mute the outcry.
One dot on the map represents the home of a couple (identified by name and home address) who the anti-Jewish collective claims are “Complicit in: Colonialism, Propaganda/Normalization, Zionism.” They target the couple for “financially support[ing] several Boston area Zionist organizations and initiatives as well as Boston area educational, media, and medical organizations and institutions.”
They claim that the couple “have made large donations to Boston area organizations and initiatives which support and normalize Israel’s ethnic cleansing of Palestinians from their homeland and theft of Palestinian resources.” The couple, the website claims: “For decades, [they] have provided consistent support to Combined Jewish Philanthropies, and in recent years increased focus on their investment in Israel, and in the Jewish future.” The collective’s followers know what to do; what they want them to do.
Using the map’s keyword search tool, more than 40 entities are identified when the word “Jewish” is entered – including local offices of national Jewish organizations.
Few Jewish entities in Massachusetts are spared culpability by the collective. One of the entities they target is the New England branch of what the collective writes is “a national organization for Jewish individuals with disabilities and their families. [Organization name] encourages the individuals it engages to attend a variant of ‘Birthright Israel’ called ‘Israel Free Spirit,’ which is specifically targeted toward individuals with disabilities. Per Israel Free Spirit’s website, ‘This journey offers a fabulous tour to Israel for young adults with disabilities. Through its dedicated and experienced staff and tour guides, great activities, and state-of-the-art specialized bus, the trip is designed for participants to have a comfortable and incredible journey.’ [Organization name] maintains partnerships with local Zionist organizations, including Combined Jewish Philanthropies, the Ruderman Family Foundation, and JewishBoston.”
What will be done? What must be done!
The question now is: What will Jewish leaders, Jewish communal groups and individual Jews do about the new development now that we see the “red dots” and know the “bullets” could be on their way?
What will law enforcement at the federal, state and local levels do to protect Jews, Jewish institutions and others given the map and strong suggestions to attack the targets?
Who are the anti-Jewish activists who are involved in this campaign? Who is helping them? Who is funding them? Their identities must be revealed – before there is violence and they then go into hiding.
For as long as Jew-haters can remain nameless and faceless, there is nothing to deter them from their diabolical activities. While their right to rant and rave is sacrosanct in America, activities that endanger minorities, institutions that serve minorities and places where minorities gather are not. Jews remain one of the smallest minorities in America and also among the most preyed upon minorities.
Neither Jewish communal leaders nor law enforcement should brush these people off as cranks. The ir effort reveals their determination to harm. They must not be minimized.
Opposing activists must spare no legal or ethical efforts to expose them and thwart them. Law enforcement must use every available tool including the RICO statute. We must demand this now rather than after an incident.
There will always be Jew-haters, those who incite Jew-hatred and those who act out based upon the hatred and incitement. Higher walls and more security systems for Jews and Jewish institutions are not a sufficient answer. They are expensive and they turn Jewish enclaves, synagogues, schools and centers into unwelcome environments rather than the warm and inviting places they were meant to be.
Law enforcement’s role in preventing attacks and incitement to attack must be paramount as the true preventor of violence. Jews and our friends and allies must combat the root causes of Jew-hatred, expose hater’s lies and aggressively and widely disseminate the true facts and history of Israel and Zionism as an essential component of prevention — or many will pay the highest price for failures to act.
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We remain the stuckees! Thank you Trump haters.
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https://issuesinsights.com/
Biden’s Approval Rating Is Now Lowest In Gallup’s History
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Report: IRGC officers who died developed arms for Hezbollah
Source says two officers whose deaths were announced Sunday were engaged in "developing arms for Hezbollah".
Two officers from Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps’ Aerospace Force whose deaths were announced Sunday were engaged in "developing arms for Lebanon's Hezbollah," Iran International reported on Monday.
Ali Kamani and Mohammad Abdus, both Revolutionary Guard’s aerospace engineers, "were not killed in accidents" as the Islamic Republic claimed, a source told the London-based news channel, which is affiliated with the Iranian opposition.
The two died in separate incidents in two different areas, but the source did not provide further details about the circumstances of their deaths.
What was clear from the information received is that the two officers did not die as a result of a car or work place accident, according to Iran International.
It is noteworthy that the source emphasized their role in developing weapons for the Hezbollah terrorist organization.
Iranian media first announced that Kamani, a relatively junior officer, died in a “car accident in line of duty” in Khomein, in central Iran.
A few hours later, news came that another aerospace Force officer had also died in the province of Semnan "on lime of duty". Iran's space launch center is located in Semnan. In the reports by the Iranian media, he was said to be working for the Defense Ministry.
The IRGC aerospace force is tasked with Iran’s missile development and space program.
Iran's defense ministry emphasized that both officers died on line of duty and called them “martyrs” without any explanations.
Last month, Colonel Hassan Sayyad Khodaei, a member of the IRGC's Quds Force in Syria, was shot dead outside of his Tehran home.
A second officer, Colonel Ali Esmailzadeh, was found dead days later at his home.
Meanwhile on Monday, The New York Times reported that Iran believes Israel killed two Iranian scientists who died within days of each other by poisoning their food.
A spokeswoman for the Israeli Prime Minister’s Office declined to comment on the two recent deaths inside Iran.
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The virus is spreading and it is not COVID. We, unwittingly, have allowed every facet of American society and fabric to be penetrated and it all accelerated with the election of Obama and continues at an increasing rate under Biden, Obama's handpicked stooge.
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Cancel culture isn’t just for academics anymore
As limits on speech spread from campuses to Big Tech forums to newsrooms and even sports, it’s time to ask whether woke mobs are killing free discourse?
By JONATHAN S. TOBIN
(June 13, 2022 / JNS) For a lot of people, the phrase “cancel culture” is still a theoretical concept. They know it refers to people being punished in various ways for saying things others don’t want to hear, but they have little personal experience of it. Indeed, up until not all that long ago, the idea of being “canceled” was something that was largely limited to the rarified world of academia. College campuses were the beachheads for those seeking to spread toxic ideologies about intersectionality and critical race theory. Inevitably, that meant that they were also the places where intolerance for differing opinions incubated from an outlier position into mainstream practice.
We have gotten used to seeing stories about colleges canceling appearances from guest speakers whose views on a variety of subjects might offend someone. The offended parties were almost always left-wing students, often egged on by leftist professors, who considered the enunciation of opinions they deemed beyond the pale unacceptable. We were told that hearing ideas that challenged these students’ pre-existing opinions and prejudices would “trigger” them, causing them to feel “harm” or to be “endangered.”
H.L. Mencken, the great skeptic and cynic of American journalism, once defined Puritanism as “the haunting fear that someone, somewhere, may be happy.” The woke left has embraced its own brand of rigid orthodoxy in which they are haunted by the idea that someone, somewhere may be questioning their ideas about race, gender, government power, and above all, whether open debate about these issues should be tolerated.
But dust-ups about guest speakers at colleges have now morphed into ongoing controversies about whether institutions of higher learning ought to allow those guilty of wrong-think about affirmative action or the notion that America is an irredeemably racist nation to continue teaching. Social media, which was once believed to be the method by which free speech would proliferate even in repressive nations and cultures, became the vehicle for detecting and then enforcing violations of the new orthodoxies.
For example, in 2017, University of Pennsylvania Law Professor Amy Wax, a noted Supreme Court litigator and expert on social-welfare law and policy, and also a medical doctor, fell afoul of cancel culture for co-writing an article in which she lamented the price Americans were paying for “the breakdown of the country’s bourgeois culture.” In it, she spoke of “the destructive consequences of the welfare state” and linked the growth of a variety of social pathologies to the decline in belief in the importance of hard work, decorum, patriotism and stable two-parent families. Most importantly, she pointed out that “all cultures are not equal or at least not equal in preparing people to be productive in an advanced economy.” The willingness of opinion leaders in popular culture to champion “multicultural grievance polemics” has, she said, had real consequences in terms of the actual harm done to society.
For this somewhat anodyne and almost irrefutable observation, she was roundly denounced at her own university, which had repeatedly honored her for her teaching, as well as throughout the academy. But rather than stay silent, she has continued speaking out in defense of the Western canon, as well as about the truth about affirmative action policies and questioning the value of unlimited immigration into the country of those who oppose core democratic principles of equality. She is now routinely denounced as a racist and “white supremacist,” and the University of Pennsylvania is reportedly trying to figure out how it can legally punish or fire her.
Ilya Shapiro, another legal scholar, was suspended at Georgetown University Law School earlier this year for, as he conceded, a poorly worded tweet in which, like many Americans, he questioned the wisdom of President Joe Biden’s commitment to consider only a black woman for a Supreme Court appointment. That prompted some Georgetown law students to pressure the university to not only fire him but to provide them with a “safe space” where they could cry about Shapiro’s apparent heresy. The school’s six-month investigation into Shapiro’s tweet ended when it concluded that since he had not yet begun work at the university when he posted it, he could not be punished. Though reinstated, Shapiro soon resigned, saying that his employer’s unwillingness to defend his right to state his opinions meant that it had bowed to a progressive mob and ensured that he would have to keep silent in order to avoid being put through another such ordeal.
At Princeton University, noted linguist Joshua Katz was fired, supposedly over a past violation of school policy (for which he had already been punished). But really, it was about his willingness to criticize the moral panic about race that spread throughout the country during the summer of 2020. The school branded him a racist for questioning the Black Lives Matter movement, and after a prolonged attack from so-called progressives, it succumbed to the pressure to purge Katz.
While these cases have attracted national attention, they are just the tip of the iceberg. The dynamic is that even when the abandonment of free-speech policies is criticized, those who might think of emulating the victims’ courage in contradicting fashionable opinion are still deterred. Few people can risk the financial consequences of losing a job over their desire to speak the truth, let alone the grief and trouble that go with being the object of the rage of a cancel-culture mob.
The net result of these controversies is that free discourse is not merely chilled but is effectively suppressed. Examples like Wax, Shapiro and Katz are notable largely because few of those who might agree with him would be willing to risk the perils of following in their footsteps.
Nor are universities the only places where people can get canceled. And rather than the mob’s fury being solely directed at conservatives, they have grown bolder in recent years.
Part of this plays out in the way that large companies like Amazon cancel authors and books that call into question the new orthodoxies about race and gender.
It also affects journalism. In 2020, The New York Times fired an editor for choosing to publish an opinion article by Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) that called for action to halt the Black Lives Matter riots. Another editor, Bari Weiss, resigned over what she termed the intolerable pressure that stemmed from a woke Twitter mob in the paper’s newsroom determining policy regarding anti-Semitism.
The chilling of speech has even spread to the sports world, where last week Jack Del Rio, an assistant coach of the National Football League’s Washington team, was fined $100,000 for a tweet in which he wondered why the Black Lives Matter riots were not being investigated by Congress and dismissed the Capitol Riot as a “dustup.” The team denounced Del Rio for expressing a political opinion that they disagreed with and with the financial penalty they exacted, made it clear no one on the team, or in a similar position elsewhere should dare to publicly express a view that wasn’t in line with that of the woke establishment that currently rules in most boardrooms, as well as in professional sports.
It doesn’t matter whether you agree with Del Rio’s opinions about riots or believe that the opinions expressed by Wax, Shapiro and Katz were correct. What matters is that a critical mass of American institutions across the board has abandoned the idea that the right to freedom of expression should be respected.
It’s true that there were always some constraints on discourse, especially in the private sector. But the general assumption that governed American public life was that restrictions on free speech were dangerous not just because they were wrong in and of themselves, but because most people understood that silencing one point of view would inevitably lead to shutting up others, including themselves. What’s so different and dangerous about contemporary cancel culture is that it is an enforcement mechanism employed by one side in our political battles—the woke left—that no longer believes in the concept. Having come to see politics as a zero-sum game in which those who question racialist thinking can be branded as evil racists, woke mobs on campus, in newsrooms or on Twitter have no compunction about demanding purges in the name of expunging those who question their ideas.
The implications of this development are obvious. Without open discourse, democracy is a sham. And if those who question ideas like critical race theory or the Black Lives Matter movement, which provides a permission slip for anti-Semitism because Jews are assumed to possess “white privilege,” are canceled, then that means those who champion these toxic ideas are often given impunity in the same forums, essentially granting a permission slip for Jew-hatred.
A country where cancel culture has become pervasive is not a safe place for democracy or Jews. More to the point, speaking out against this trend, can’t just be a matter for the courageous few who are willing to risk cancellation. Unless and until this trend is confronted and defeated not just in the public square but by holding universities who allow it run rampant accountable, free speech will be a thing of the past.
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Another poignant op ed by Hanson.
There is nothing wrong with California that a multitude of "recall petitions" won't fix and the ultimate unzipping of this state from the union.
Our two great coastal states are a symbol of American greatness and in large measure, the cause of it's total undoing. Far too many citizens of these two states are afflicted with arrogance, hypocrisy and inadequate feelings of self-importance.
Even N.Y's finest are fleeing the city.
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The Selfish Californian
The Silicon Valley motto should be “I create inequality by hating inequality.”
By Victor Davis Hanson
We hear plenty of reasons for the perfect storm that imploded California. One-party, progressive government, of course. Decades of unchecked illegal immigration, without doubt. Years of mass flight out of state of the productive middle classes, certainly.
But perhaps the most important, but overlooked, reason has been the infusion of trillions of dollars of mostly tech capital into the state. Unimaginable sums of market capital warped politics and led to a top-down, feudal society, run by progressive elites who are shielded from the ramifications of their own toxic ideologies.
More specifically, the common denominator was the emergence in California of a selfish, monied, left-wing political class. In concrete terms, it cared little for others but masked that unconcern with abstract leftism, emulating medieval penance and indulgences to assuage guilt over its enjoyment of sheltered and very good lives.
California’s recent premier politicians at the local, state, and federal levels—Jerry Brown, Barbara Boxer, Dianne Feinstein, Gavin Newsom, and Nancy Pelosi—all enjoyed wealth and power, whether by inherited money and family brand names, through marriage, or using their positions to leverage lucrative family and personal business with the Chinese.
Their lifestyles before, during, and after office-holding reflected both their privileges and the vast material differences between their own lives and the millions of Californians who suffered enormously from their utopian bromides. Yet a world away from their homes in Grass Valley, Kentfield, Lake Tahoe, Napa, Pacific Heights, or Rancho Mirage, the rest of the state’s residents who voted for them currently cannot afford a house, a full tank of gas, a chuck steak, or an air-conditioned afternoon.
At least the Church of the 15th century offered formal contractual indulgences and personal penance manuals for the guilt-ridden elite eager to abort their earned inferno-to-come. In California, however, to enjoy affluence and leisure without guilt or recriminations, left-wing power elites virtue signaled their progressivism, even as it wrecked the lives of distant others.
If it were a question of drilling more oil while transitioning to clean power or shrugging that nobody José Martinez in Sanger would pay $6.50 a gallon to commute to work, it was a no brainer: Mr. Martinez was simply out of sight, out of mind collateral damage.
So too all of California’s poor and lower middle classes who could not afford to flee and now cannot afford shelter, food, fuel, and safety, due to decades of policies that zoned away new home construction, strangled the gas, timber, and mining industries, taxed and regulated gas and diesel to the point of unaffordability, neglected the needs of the state’s once rich farming industry, and loved fish far more than people. Apparently, these well-educated and self-declared Socrateses believed that Californians could drink Facebook, eat Google, drive Twitter, and live on Snapchat.
The far-left Atlantic’s various contributors for years have been cheerleading most of the policies adopted by the Bay Area elite—defunding the police, decriminalizing an array of crimes, appeasing homelessness, ignoring dangerous drug use and dealing, and urging more redistributive taxation and entitlement.
But now Atlantic essayist Nellie Bowles warns us that San Francisco is a “failed city.” And she is correct in that the city is increasingly medieval. Its downtown is emptying, filthy, toxic, dangerous, and pre-civilizational—perhaps an unfair term since it was rare in pre-Roman Gaul or nomadic North Africa for tribal residents to sleep in the village pathways, fornicate and defecate openly among children, and violently attack random passersby.
In truth, the implosion of San Francisco, Los Angeles, and California more broadly is no accident. Destroying all the bounty that was inherited from far better and far-seeing generations was the logical result of deliberate policies—reflecting the self-interest of a few million rich, educated professionals. They apparently decided that their genius and superior morality had transcended worries over ancient challenges of food, water, shelter, transportation, and received law and custom.
California’s anointed enjoyed safe neighborhoods from Malibu to Presidio Heights. They inherited or purchased beautiful coastal corridor homes worth $1,200 a square foot, from La Jolla to Berkeley. They drew income from the trillions of dollars invested in Silicon Valley and the new globalized and Asia-centric economy that opened markets of multibillions of consumers for entertainment, media, finance, law, academia, corporations and the accompanying credential professional classes.
And so, they grew hubristic and stupid. In their arrogance and ignorance, they began to feel their own bounty and leisure were birthrights. Free from worries about who brought them their water, food, safety, energy, and shelter—or how—they were liberated to institutionalize their own visions of 21st-century-correct living to less fortunate others, albeit from a properly segregated distance.
Freeways were obsolete ideas. The fewer built, and the even fewer maintained, the more likely the clueless could be crowded into cost-effective, clean, and safe mass transit.
So, a $15 billion high-speed rail disaster arose and remained inert like Stonehenge monoliths. Meanwhile, thousands of the poor on the obsolete Highway 99 continued to die and were maimed in daily accidents on a Road Warrior-esque obstacle course. The nearby Amtrak trains still sat delayed on side-tracks, for want of a simple, 19th-century two-track rail. How strange that bankrupt 21st-century visions came at the cost of easy 20th-century solutions.
Aqueducts, reservoirs, dams? These were likewise relics of previous delusional generations. That the coastal corridor’s water came from aqueducts across vast distances was mostly unknown by those who crowded into one of the most naturally unsustainable regions on the North American continent—a coastal strip mostly dry and bereft of an aquifer to sustain its tens of millions.
So, the state stopped building water storage. More often, it released snowmelt and runoff water into the ocean rather than to farms and to replenish aquifers.
Fires? Let forests of evergreens burn as they had in primordial times, better to burn to provide mulch for worms and birds—and scare away the deplorable foothill folk who had no business living in the mountains, anyway.
The elite now dreamed of returning to a half-million person California of the 19th century, reputedly with lush riverbanks from the sea to Sierra, with salmon runs to the mountains. They recoiled at the very idea that a 40 million-person state of mostly poor immigrants—over a quarter of the state’s population was not born in the United States—might need water for their towns or for the farms they worked.
How ironic that millions fled Mexico and Central America to enter, often illegally, the once golden California, land of plenty. They were welcomed by the state’s business and political elite but not to be housed, fed, and schooled as were the elite. Their directive was to vote correctly for their supposed betters and to supply janitors, landscapers, nannies, cooks, and housekeepers for those who welcomed them in—on the condition that they not dare demand the state’s green resources for good homes, affordable gas, or a nice lawn or long shower.
Let them instead eat a solar farm, bike path, or Tesla.
And so it went, each carefully placed brick in the once sturdy long wall of California, laid carefully over the past 150 years—to ensure a naturally fragile state with affordable food, energy, security, housing, transpiration, schools, and education—was ripped out, mocked as obsolete, and written off an embarrassment to the present.
Californians who look at their aging dams, their granite classical civic buildings, and their large municipal parks, are like Dark-Age Greeks who stumbled around the ruins of Mycenaean palaces and walls, wondering who were the demi-gods who built such things that now were impossible to emulate. So, too, we are bewildered at Balboa Park or the California aqueduct, or rather saddened that simply copying them is beyond our moral power or expertise.
The state was once rich and secure in gas and oil, nuclear power, cutting-edge freeways and airports, water storage, law enforcement, a topflight public school system, and an effective higher education triad. All these resources have become either politicized or taboos that are neglected, dismantled, or destroyed by a class that commuted little, was nonchalant about their power bills, put their kids in private schools, and enjoyed neighborhoods whose zip codes and private security patrols bounced away revolving-door felons and homeless far distant to the haunts of the middle class and poor.
Rich leftists quote the Gini coefficient chapter and verse, oblivious that they have created a state of affairs in which California ranks second to the bottom—below even New York—in such calibrations of inequality. The Silicon Valley motto should be, “I create inequality by hating inequality.”
We have not built a major mountain reservoir outside of Los Angeles in over 40 years even as the population has soared. The main north-south laterals of the state—the 101, I-5, and 99—often narrow into four-lane deathtraps. SFO and LAX are among the more nightmarish airports in the nation. California’s test scores rank in the nation’s bottom 10 percent of schools.
Over one-fifth of the state lives below the poverty rate. Urban geographer Joel Kotkin recently noted that African Americans and Latinos in California suffer among the lowest real incomes in the nation, 48th and 50th respectively. How could that be true in the land of Mark Zuckerberg, Nancy Pelosi, and Jerry Brown?
One-third of Americans on public assistance live in California. To drive through the rural center of the state is to revisit the 1930s world of the Joads. Ramshackle farmhouses now house 20 or some immigrants. Many of them reside here illegally, in trailers, shacks, and illegal add-ons. A state famous for regulating the life out of the middle classes simply ignores systemic flagrant violations of sewage, water, power, and building codes, in the manner of the exemptions given the homeless: out of sight, out of mind.
California’s mid-size cities nudge out other blue-state metropolises to rank among the nation’s leaders in property crimes. The nation’s highest gas taxes, income taxes, and near highest sales taxes either do not mitigate the above pathologies or perhaps help fuel them.
If our liberal political elites lived in crime-ridden Stockton, San Bernardino, or Modesto, had two children in the Los Angeles City public schools, commuted daily on the 99 from Delano to Visalia, flew weekly commercial out of LAX, tried to buy a California home on their salaries as public officials, rode BART to Oakland each evening home, or depended on a business supplying the state with lumber, gas or oil, food, transportation, or construction—the stuff of life—then they might fathom how assuaging their left-wing guilt in the abstract destroyed the lives of those they never see and never wish to see.
So, in a word, California’s debacle was the work of the self-absorbed.
The self-declared most caring, virtuous, and moral in the end proved the most narcissistic, selfish, and self-centered. Yes, the rich left-wing California elites are many things, but utterly selfish explains what they do unto others.
About Victor Davis Hanson
Victor Davis Hanson is a distinguished fellow of the Center for American Greatness and the Martin and Illie Anderson Senior Fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution. He is an American military historian, columnist, a former classics professor, and scholar of ancient warfare. He has been a visiting professor at Hillsdale College since 2004. Hanson was awarded the National Humanities Medal in 2007 by President George W. Bush. Hanson is also a farmer (growing raisin grapes on a family farm in Selma, California) and a critic of social trends related to farming and agrarianism. He is the author most recently of The Second World Wars: How the First Global Conflict Was Fought and Won, The Case for Trump and the newly released The Dying Citizen.
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More good news about Israel from Ordman (edited.)
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So many of Israeli innovations and activities are designed to solve critical problems. This week's newsletter includes Israeli solutions to diagnose autoimmune diseases, treat dry eye disease, prevent stroke after heart operations and can even resolve major problems with the U.S. healthcare system. Israelis have organized beach cleanups, actions to combat hate, activities for disabled veterans and a conference to solve the challenges affecting the African continent. Latest Israeli technology includes eco-friendly replacements for plastic, fossil fuels and pesticides and turns greenhouse gas into useful products. Israelis have been working hard to resolve traffic chaos, reduce high cost railway tickets, prevent drones colliding and asteroids from hitting the Earth. Finally, Israeli volunteers continue to go to extraordinary lengths to save the lives of those in need, whether in Israel or in war-torn Ukraine.
Important - if this email arrives in your spam folder, please mark it as "Not Spam". Next week's newsletter will be published on Sunday 19th June.
In the 12th May 22 edition of Israel’s good news, the highlights include:
- An Israeli AI system diagnoses complex diseases.
- Israel’s UN Ambassador will chair General Assembly meetings.
- 10 Israelis received top Math and Science awards.
- An Israeli startup makes useful products from greenhouse gas.
- Israel is building hotels to receive more tourists.
- The world’s largest vegan fest returns to Tel Aviv.
- Liberia is to open an embassy in Jerusalem.
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ISRAEL’S MEDICAL ACHIEVEMENTS
Using AI to identify autoimmune diseases. After winning a medical contest to detect celiac disease, Shlomit Steinberg-Koch founded Predicta Med. Its Artificial Intelligence is 84% accurate in detecting Crohn’s disease, ulcerative colitis, celiac disease, rheumatoid arthritis, psoriatic arthritis, multiple sclerosis, and lupus.
https://www.israel21c.org/new-
https://predicta-med.com/
Breakthrough dry eye treatment. (TY Atid-EDI) Israel’s Lumenis (see here previously) has won a MedTech Breakthrough award for “Best New Technology Solution for Ophthalmology.” Its OptiLight Optimal Pulse Technology (OPT) is the only FDA approved light treatment for dry eye disease, with 49 million US sufferers.
https://lumenis.com/medical/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?
https://lumenis.com/medical/
Breakthrough Innovation. (TY Hazel) Two Israeli health tech startups Sanolla (ultrasound stethoscope - see here) and Naor (a.k.a. Rapid Diagnostics) saliva-based Covid-19 detection (see here), were awarded the Breakthrough Innovation Award at the InoVEX 2022 Pitch Contest held in Taiwan.
https://nocamels.com/2022/06/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?
Protecting heart patients from stroke. Israel’s Filterex Medical has completed successful trials of its CAPTIS device. The easily deployed device protected 20 patients during Transcatheter Aortic Valve Replacement (TAVR) procedures, preventing any embolic particles (debris) entering the bloodstream and causing a stroke.
https://filterlex.com/2022/06/
Treating OPMD. Israel’s Sheba Medical Center has opened a specialized clinic to diagnose, treat and follow-up Bukharan Jews suffering from the life-shortening genetic disease oculopharyngeal muscular dystrophy (OPMD). The team includes ENTs, neurologists, oral and maxillofacial physicians, and ophthalmologists.
https://www.jpost.com/health-
Genome sequencing for $100. Israeli-founded, US-based Ultima Genomics has emerged from secrecy to announce it has developed a sequencing machine that allows genome sequencing for a fraction of the cost of rival companies. With five Israelis in the leadership team, it has just raised $600 million in funding.
https://www.ultimagenomics.
Powering healthcare. The goal of Israel’s Vim is to help change US medical care from “sick care” to “health care”. Vim links the payer to the provider to improve quality of patient care at lower cost, with efficient workflow, fast diagnoses, and proactive prevention. Read how the Israeli system differs from the US system.
https://www.calcalistech.com/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?
ISRAEL IS INCLUSIVE AND GLOBAL
Israel’s first female mine cleaner. 20-year-old Eden is making history as the first-ever woman to work as a mine clearer in the Jewish state. “My boyfriend and I saw a job opening for mine clearers, applied, and were accepted,” she explained. She had extensive previous experience in the IDF’s engineering corps.
https://worldisraelnews.com/a-
European diplomats clean up Bat Yam beach. On World Oceans Day, the European Union delegation to the State of Israel, the French Embassy, the Municipality of Bat Yam, and hundreds of Israeli volunteers performed an official clean-up of Bat Yam beach, south of Tel Aviv, as part of the annual #EUBeachCleanup campaign.
https://www.
Chalk Over Hate. Artists 4 Israel (see here previously) sponsored an event in a National Day of Action against hate and anti-Semitism, inspired by the Jewish holiday of Shavuot. Artists all over the world spread messages of tolerance and love using just chalk and stencils.
https://www.jns.org/chalk-
https://www.artists4israel.
The “Imam of Peace”. I don’t often include blogs in my newsletter, but the positive messages in this interview by Jonny Gould with Mohammad Tawhidi are well worth reading.
https://blogs.timesofisrael.
400 under 30. Israel hosted 400 young leaders from 34 countries at the 2022 Forbes Under 30 Summit EMEA (Europe, the Middle East, and Africa). One of the four days had Israeli Arabs, Jews, and Palestinian Arabs, working together, and with Israeli startups, on 10 projects to address challenges facing the Middle East.
https://nocamels.com/2022/06/
Disabled veterans’ games. (TY JNS) 70 Israeli and 70 British disabled veterans competed against each other in the fourth annual Veteran Games in Tel Aviv. As part of the program, the participants also went on tours of Israel, including Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, and the Dead Sea. https://www.israelhayom.com/
Israeli Ambassador is VP of UN Assembly. Israel's Ambassador to the UN, Gilad Erdan, has been elected Vice President of the UN General Assembly. As part of this role, Ambassador Erdan will chair General Assembly meetings and take part in setting the agenda for General Assembly deliberations.
https://www.i24news.tv/en/
Israel-Africa conference. The Paris Conference “Israel Back in Africa? Challenges and Opportunities,” hosted diplomats from Senegal, Egypt, Morocco, Ghana, Madagascar, Mali, and Somaliland. There were entrepreneurs from Nigeria and Cameroon and Nigeria’s Releaf signed an agreement with Israeli NGO VIP (see last week).
https://www.timesofisrael.com/
SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY
UN Ambassadors see Israeli innovations. (TY ILTV) At Israel’s Startup Nation Central, eleven UN ambassadors saw the products of SGTech (zero-carbon sustainable farming), Biotic (biodegradable replacement for plastic) and Ecowave Power (clean electricity from waves).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?
Israeli mathematicians share Shaw Prize. The 2022 Shaw Prize in Mathematical Sciences has been awarded to Israelis Noga Alon and Ehud Hrushovski for “their remarkable contributions to discrete mathematics and model theory; with interaction notably with algebraic geometry, topology, and computer sciences”.
https://www.shawprize.org/
Eight top Israeli scientists. The 2022 Blavatnik Prizes for Computer Science have been awarded to eight outstanding Israeli doctoral students from the Weizmann Institute, Hebrew University and Tel Aviv University. Sir Leonard Blavatnik said that Israeli computer science increasingly affects everyday lives around the world.
https://english.tau.ac.il/
Hack the galaxy to get into space. Israel’s Rapyd (see here previously) has launched its Hack the Galaxy challenge. Developers who solve all 42 challenges can win tickets to ride to the edge of space aboard the Space Perspective Spaceship Neptune. They may, however, opt for a cash alternative prize of $130,000.
https://www.calcalistech.com/
Making CO2 useful. How do you dispose of excess carbon dioxide (CO2)? Israel’s Carbonade converts it into reusable carbon byproducts. The co-founders found a chemical catalyst, developed by Israel’s Weizmann Institute that, when used with water, converts CO2 into anything from detergents to plastic to building material.
https://www.calcalistech.com/
The best biochemical product of the year. The World BioProtection Forum (WBF) has awarded Best Biochemical Product to Israel’s STK Bio-Ag Technologies for REGEV, the first 'hybrid' foliar fungicide (see here previously). https://stk-ag.com/stks-regev-
Defending the planet. Scientists from Israel’s Weizmann Institute joined 100+ astronomers worldwide in a recent NASA planetary defense exercise. Weizmann’s David Polishook, director of Weizmann’s observatory, played a key role in the exercise’s mission to discover and assess the threat of a “near-Earth object” asteroid.
https://www.jns.org/israels-
See 14 Israeli cybersecurity companies. Southern California-Israel Chamber of Commerce in collaboration with Elite Entrepreneur Organization is welcoming the "Merage-Homeland/
https://www.scicc.biz/news/
Welcome to the age of the drone. More about Israel’s Airwayz, (see here previously) whose software has been used to test the management and control of fleets of autonomous drones from multiple companies flying across Israel. See here for previous articles about Israel’s National Drone Network Initiative.
https://www.israel21c.org/
Everyone uses Israeli technology. Quote from the CEO of ETF Managers Group, “Most technology users, from online shoppers to Fortune 500 companies, are unaware that they use Israeli technology applications and solutions every day… Israeli innovations power some of the biggest names in the technology industry today.”
https://www.sec.gov/Archives/
Solving the world’s traffic problems. Article featuring Israeli startups with hi-tech solutions to prevent traffic jams and parking nightmares. Those not previously reported in this newsletter include Mobi a.k.a. Mobility Insight (AI traffic management) and Trailze (navigation for urban micro-mobility providers).
https://www.israel21c.org/11-
https://www.mobilityinsight.
Revolutionizing rail ticketing. (TY Atid-EDI) Israel’s Save A Train is the leader in digital B2B Rail ticketing worldwide and the largest global rail distributor. It operates services in over 12 European countries, plus China and is expanding to the USA, Canada, Australia etc., with features including dynamic pricing for train tickets.
https://www.railway-
ECONOMY & BUSINESS
Israel’s outlook is better than most. The Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) has slashed its predictions for global economic growth due to the Ukraine situation and the Covid-19 pandemic. But the OECD expects that Israel will maintain a healthy 4.8% growth in 2022, compared to 3% in the OECD.
https://www.timesofisrael.com/
The fastest free trade agreement in Israel’s history. Just two years after the historic Abraham Accords, the new UAE-Israel free-trade agreement removes tariffs on 96% of goods between the two countries. It is expected to increase bilateral non-oil trade to over $10 billion within five years.
https://www.jns.org/uae-free-
Upgrading a Unicorn to a Centaur. The large number Unicorns (private companies valued at $1 billion+) is making it difficult to identify promising stable ventures. A new term “Centaur” should be used to designate those Unicorns with an Annual Recurring Revenue (ARR) of at least $100 million. There are 25 Israeli ones.
https://www.timesofisrael.com/
Entrepreneurship, Israel, and Ivy League students. Princeton’s Center for Jewish Life-Hillel is a partner in the planning and funding of Israel Tiger Trek, which is focused on Israeli entrepreneurs based in New York. It has led to startups like chef app WoodSpoon, and urban sharing platform TULU (see here previously).
https://www.jns.org/opinion/
Surge of interest in the hotel business. Israel’s Tourism Ministry has received 107 applications for grants to build new hotels or expand existing ones. The ministry has a budget of NIS 165 million for such grants, to support the rehabilitation of the country’s tourism industry in the wake of the global COVID-19 pandemic.
https://www.jns.org/107-
Pangea to upgrade Jamaican voter registry. Israel-based Pangea has won a contract to supply technology to the Electoral Commission of Jamaica to support the establishment and maintenance of a biometric voter registry. Jamaica has four million voters and Pangea will help eliminate the risk of voter fraud.
https://www.biometricupdate.
A personalized hotel experience. Israel’s Duve helps hoteliers and hospitality professionals customize guest journeys and build a digital personalized experience. Prospective guests allow Duve to pass on details such as reason of visit, type (e.g., family/business/romantic) interests, language, travel method, food preferences etc.
https://www.calcalistech.com/
The Video Exchange. (TY Omri Hurwitz) Israel’s Truvid is an online video platform that connects content creators with media providers such as websites, applications, connected TV etc. Publishers use Truvid to monetize their sites and distribute content around the globe. Truvid gets the right video to the right audience.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?
https://entrepreneurstudio.
Takeovers and mergers. Israel’s Elementor has acquired Israel’s Strattic, a web development and hosting solutions company for several million dollars. https://www.calcalistech.com/
Investment in Israeli startups to 12/6/22: Vayyar Imaging raised $108 million; Perimeter 81 raised $100 million (new Unicorn); Laminar raised $30 million; Duve raised $10 million;
CULTURE, ENTERTAINMENT & SPORT`
"Paths of the Righteous”. Ari Mittleman is the author of "Paths of the Righteous" about eight non-Jews who have gone above and beyond for Israel and the Jewish people. They include an African American who fought fires on the Gaza border and a Latino evangelical who convinced Guatemala to open an embassy in Jerusalem.
Paths of the Righteous: Stories of Heroism, Humanity and Hope: Mittleman, Ari: 9789657023730: Books - Amazon https://arimittleman.com/ https://gefenpublishing.com/
Israel’s Ecovillages. Clil, Adama, and Kadita are just some of the villages in Israel’s Galilee that preserve the land in its wild nature. The houses are self-built, solar-powered, and the villagers grow fruit, grapes, and olives, raise goats and chickens, and process their products traditionally. For new residents there is a long waiting list.
https://israelbetweenthelines.
Latest Israeli stamps. (TY JR) Jacob Richman has posted images of Israel’s new stamps – issued to celebrate the Jewish festival of Shavuot (Pentacost). https://jr.co.il/stamps/
World’s largest vegan festival. Tel Aviv’s Vegan Fest, the largest vegan gathering when it began in 2019, has returned after the pandemic. 100+ food stalls offered dishes from vegan restaurants, and featured free cooking workshops, live music, children’s activities, plus workshops on everything from yoga to natural soap-making,
https://www.i24news.tv/en/
Top officials visit Israeli sports expo. Future Sport Israel Expo in Tel Aviv attracted delegates from the most popular sports leagues in the world. They included the NFL, Spanish & Italian soccer leagues and basketball top divisions. They saw Israeli innovations in broadcasting, performance analysis, players' fitness and more.
https://www.jpost.com/
THE JEWISH STATE
An Odyssey from Odessa to Israel. Last summer, a new Ukrainian immigrant to Israel went back to visit Ukraine and was tempted to return as it was bursting with life, while Israel had many restrictions. Several months later, Ukraine was at war and her children needed to be rescued. That’s when Chabad stepped in.
https://israelbetweenthelines.
Education, education. (TY Sharon) It has been Israeli Education Week and Sharon’s camera focused on Jerusalem’s centers of learning. There was certainly much activity (mostly physical) at the Jerusalem College of Technology and the groundbreaking ceremony for its new Machon Lev campus for 3,000 women.
http://rjstreets.com/2022/06/
Thousands of North Americans making Aliyah. Some 1,000 North Americans have immigrated to the Jewish State this year. Another 2,000+ are already registered to make Aliyah during the summer. Nefesh b’Nefesh have arranged 10 group flights, hosted a celebratory “Homecoming BBQ” and held a virtual “Mega” job fair.
https://www.
Jerusalem in numbers. Imaginative video that counts down from 55 (years since Jerusalem was united) with 55 facts about Israel’s capital. Each number equates to one of the facts. All in 2 minutes and 20 seconds.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?
Liberia to open embassy in Jerusalem. (TY Algemeiner) Liberia announced it will open an official office in Jerusalem that will serve as a precursor to a full-fledged embassy in the future. This makes the West African nation the fifth country to open a mission in the Israeli capital after the U.S, Guatemala, Kosovo, and Honduras.
https://www.i24news.tv/en/
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Biden has appointed many flakes and dangerous people to serve in his administration but few are as dangerous as Robert Malley.
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Iran gave Biden a reason to abandon appeasement. He still won’t do it
Tehran’s latest provocation earned censure; however, the determination in Washington to avoid a conflict while focusing on the war in Ukraine illustrates America’s confusion.
By JONATHAN S. TOBIN
(June 10, 2022 / JNS) What were the leaders of Iran’s Islamist regime thinking when they removed 27 cameras that were supposed to allow the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to monitor its nuclear program? Perhaps they meant it to test the mettle of the West and its willingness to hold them accountable for their behavior. It could be one more bargaining trick they’ve pulled out of their sleeve as they wait patiently for the Biden administration to crack and offer more concessions in order to get Tehran to sign on to a new and even weaker nuclear deal than the bargain it struck in 2015 under the Obama administration.
Or maybe the Iranians really don’t care what anyone in Washington or any other Western capital thinks, and it is part of their grand strategy to become, at the very least, a nuclear threshold state.
This latest provocation earned Iran a rebuke from the IAEA. That was followed by a stiff joint message from the governments of the United States, United Kingdom, France and Germany, urging Iran to heed the will of the international community and live up to their responsibilities under the original nuclear pact and IAEA regulations. But the idea that the ayatollahs and their Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) terrorist minions are worried about a slap on the wrist from the IAEA is a joke. Nor, after a year-and-a-half of playing President Joe Biden and his foreign-policy team for fools as they run out the clock in negotiations to get Tehran to return to Obama’s deal can anyone believe that such futile Western gestures present the slightest deterrent from pursuing its nuclear ambition.
The Iranians have been using this time to speed ahead with building up their capacity and enriching more uranium to the point where IAEA director-general Rafael Grossi is saying they are reaching the point where crossing the nuclear threshold “cannot be avoided.”
They’re not there yet and further still from assembling a bomb, which leaves the West time to take action—both in terms of crippling sanctions, a total embargo on Iranian oil, and, as a last resort, the threat of force from the world’s most powerful militaries. And, indeed, by thumbing their nose at the international community in this manner, the Iranians have given Biden every reason to pivot from his efforts at appeasement and to finally start acting like he means it when he says Iran will not get a weapon on his watch.
That’s a risk the Islamist regime seems prepared to take. If so, it’s largely because they’ve already measured up Biden and the gang of former Obama staffers running foreign policy on his watch and decided that it’s no risk at all. Weak figures like Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Robert Malley—that veteran appeaser of terrorists in charge of Iran policy—are committed to diplomacy for its own sake. They are so averse to ratcheting up pressure on this rogue regime that it’s clear there are virtually no circumstances under which anyone can imagine that they will call Tehran’s bluff and return to the only sane policy imaginable with respect to Iran. That involves the aforesaid sanctions, an embargo and a credible threat of military action.
Of course, doing that would necessitate admitting that they were wrong and, horror of horrors, former President Donald Trump was right to understand that the only possible response to the empowerment and enrichment of Iran that was achieved by Obama’s pact was to withdraw from it and start working towards Iran’s total isolation. Trump’s strategy was a gamble since it involved the possibility that Iran would race to a weapon before the West could apply all of its leverage.
Yet to his credit, Trump understood that the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) that was put in place by his predecessor didn’t just kick the can down the road in terms of stopping Iran’s nuclear threat. It guaranteed that Iran would get a nuclear weapon with Western approval by the end of the 2020s and would leave Tehran far more powerful than it would have otherwise become. Eventually, an American president was going to have to start the process of forcing Iran to renegotiate the deal, and the sooner that started, the better the chances of success.
Needless to say, from the point of view of the Biden administration, conceding that their reversal of Trump’s policy and doubling down appeasement isn’t working would be a worse calamity than an Iranian nuclear weapon. For Democrats, the idea of undoing the damage that Trump supposedly did to American foreign policy is a matter of religious faith rather than sober analysis. They are so committed to the notion that his administration was a force for evil that it has blinded them to the realities of the Middle East.
Still, the Biden team has other reasons for being soft on Iran.
At present, the administration is almost completely fixated on the war between Russia and Ukraine. Granted, the aggression committed by Russian President Vladimir Putin’s regime was more than illegal. It undermined the stability of Europe and has resulted in the sort of mass casualties not seen on the continent since World War II. It is to be hoped that, combined with the stiffer than expected Ukrainian resistance, the massive aid given to Kyiv by the United States and its allies will both help them deplete the threat posed by the Russian military and send a powerful message to China that it should not believe it can get away with similar aggression against Taiwan.
But the administration’s tunnel vision on Russia, a country that has been exposed as a second-rate power—albeit one with nuclear weapons that shouldn’t be pressed too far—has allowed it to ignore the threat Iran is posing to American allies in the Middle East.
Unfortunately, Malley and many others serving under Biden seem to have bought into the delusion, first floated by Obama that Iran could be persuaded to “get right with the world.” That mistaken idea would lead the United States to reconfigure its Middle Eastern policy to allow for a rapprochement with the world’s leading state sponsor of terrorism while slighting or repudiating Israel and its Arab friends.
Biden is trying to distance himself from Saudi Arabia—a friendly despotic regime that many Democrats view with more distaste than Iran—and at the same time get them to pump more oil to reduce the rising price of gas that is killing the Democrats in the polls. But he also appears eager to find a way to get Iranian oil flowing to the world.
That may be why Iran is upping the ante in its long-running standoff with the administration in the nuclear talks in Vienna. Tehran figures that if it’s patient enough, Biden will eventually cave on the last sticking points in the negotiations—like taking the IRGC off the list of terrorist organizations—and a new deal can be signed to make the Islamic regime richer and stronger (and eventually get a nuke anyway). Since they don’t think Biden will ever take action against them even if they do break out to a weapon, every provocation and breach of international law comes with a get-out-of-jail-free card signed by the president.
The saddest aspect of this debacle is that there is still an opportunity for Biden to stiffen his spine and take the sort of actions that will make it clear to the ayatollahs that if they continue on this path, it will lead to the impoverishment of their country and potential military conflict that they cannot win. Even worse is the realization that Biden is not only unwilling to be honest about the situation, but that he may be incapable of mustering the courage to do what needs to be done to carry out his promise about stopping Iran from going nuclear.
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Finally, another Ross Rant:
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Jamie Dimon says we are in for an economic hurricane. The president of Goldman says we are in for economic shocks. The president of Morgan Stanley echoes similar views. The Atlanta Fed just dropped its Q2 GDP forecast to .9%.Tesla just laid off 10% of its staff. Silicon Valley is laying off staff. Small business is slowing or stopping hiring because wages are too high. Home sales are dropping. 83% of survey respondents say the economy is poor-the highest number since 1972. The vice chair of the Fed says they will be raising rates for several months at least. Oil is now around $121 and rising maybe to over $140. Goldman forecasts $140 by mid-summer. Coal is in very short supply. Natural gas will continue to rise. Result, utility bills and gas will eat paychecks. Mortgage rates are about at 5.5% which is considered the break point for most at today's excessive home prices. Inflation continues very high. Basic foods, gas and rent are well above 8.5% inflation rate, so real wages are declining materially. People who bought a second car, or a second home with Covid free money are now finding the monthly payments and carry costs are becoming a burden. 35% of workers are feeling financial stress.
I continue to expect stock prices to again decline down to, or below 3750. The administration has no intention to materially allow increased oil and gas production, nor to approve new pipelines. Ukraine wheat remains locked in warehouses. The US wheat harvest will be smaller due to some weather events. The war goes on. Many of my sophisticated investor and fund manager friends expect a trading range of 3650-4000 with the chance it could go much lower. There is real risk of some additional black swan event that could do real damage. We have been in the greatest credit bubble in history, and that bubble is losing air. Volatility will be the norm for a long time. Stay conservative.
What is the White House answer for all this-raise taxes by $1 trillion and spend hundreds of billions on their latest green fantasy project. The ignorance is unexplainable
Someone needs to explain to me how, if these energy price forecasts turn out to be correct, how inflation moderates, and how we do not have a recession by late October. More reason to buy oil stocks now. The seventies revisited. The World Bank just forecast it will be 1970's stagflation, and the lowered their US GDP forecast by 37%. The OECD just lowered its world GDP forecast by33%
Yellen will be gone by November. They need a scapegoat, and she likely is tired of lying.
We are still 800,000 jobs less than in 2019. Labor participation remains low. All that is happening is people are returning to work, but no net new jobs are being created. They are returning because the money is running out from the giveaways of Covid. A lot of people who could work, just choose not to because they still have Covid money, and food stramps, and other subsidies like Obamacare. They may also have rent subsidies . Many are likely working off the books either in legal jobs or crime. Biden and the administration are lying about job growth and economic growth, and are not dealing with the real issues. The risk is, unemployment might reach 5% as the Fed tightens, and then the Fed needs to just stop and not reinstitute QE or lowering rates again. They have to wait for inflation to get back to 3%. If we do have a recession and 5% unemployment, then watch for many of the start-up tech darlings to go BK since they will have no cash flow and the venture investors will be faced with the choice of who to keep alive. The growth over cash flow strategy is dead. Dotcom 2 could happen again. Also a lot of junk financed companies might find it hard to cover debt service although most have refinanced at very low rates so should squeak by. More SPACs will crash. Crypto will decline further as the speculative wave crashes with higher rates and less liquidity. The speculative cycle is ended and investing from here on will take different analysis. Back to fundamentals. Cash flow. Proven long term demand for the product.
If we do hit 5% unemployment, then the Dems will go nuts as they will have just been wiped out in November and will be looking ahead to 2024 with unemployment climbing, inflation still too high, gas prices still way too high, and food shortages. The pressure on the Fed to lower rates will be intense, and with two seats filled by diversity picks beholden to the White House, and no real monetary economics or banking experience, and Brainard being a major dove, Powell will be pushed hard. If the Fed reverses course, we will be in for bigger trouble as inflation will not have been stopped.
In the seventies we had the oil shortages, like today. Then we had the Arab oil embargo. Today we have the Dem domestic oil embargo where the administration is restricting production and pipelines such that we are not able to maximize US production, and are not even back to producing as much as in 2019. The rig count is not increasing now. We also had the Great Society programs ramping up and the Vietnam War spending-today we had the Rescue Plan from March 2020 which was similar to the Great Society entitlement programs- giving away free money and stoking demand without increasing supply. We also had bad Fed policies. The similarities are extensive. When the administration held Powell back from raising rates while they dangled his renomination, it was Biden who created the inflation situation we now have.
Since 2008 we have been in a false credit market where bond prices and borrowing rates were fictitious because the Fed and other central banks bought bonds and kept rates around zero, or even negative. Asset prices, especially homes, and many stock prices, were driven to absurd heights. This stoked the flames which were fed fiscal and monetary gasoline when the pandemic hit. The final straw was the American Rescue Plan which was the match. If Manchin had not killed BBB, we would be headed for a total economic crash as that $5.5 trillion would have exploded inflation. The Dems seemingly never took Econ 101. Now add on the shutdown of oil production and pipelines by the Biden administration, the first war in Europe in 75 years, and the first real pandemic in 100 years, the worst inflation in 40 years, record high energy prices, a coming famine in parts of the world, and an incredibly incompetent administration, and you have a level of uncertainty that is almost unprecedented. This is why I have been negative for so long, and why the stock market is not staging any sort of long term rally for a long time. There is no way to really know yet where the bottom is. Anyone who says they know, as some have claimed, is a fool or a divinity. Investing going forward will not be the same as it has been for the past 30 years. The metrics have changed. Whatever charts, indexes, historic relationships, etc are over. Now you have to work at fundamental analysis.
This is why bonds were a good investment for 30 years, but now they are not. Zero rates are over, maybe for a decade or probably much longer. 60-40 portfolio balancing is out of touch with reality now. It fails to recognize the massive shift that is going on in risk adjusted cost of capital, and the need to stop inflation. If a money manager tells you to go to 60-40 find a new money manager. It is not yet time to buy bonds. Rates are going higher. Cash is again king. When Biden was elected I sold a lot of my stocks in the belief he was going to be a disaster. I was wrong on timing and reinvested within a week as soon as it became clear the stock market was not paying attention. I got largely back out, 70%, to cash and in oil, in January 2022, when it became clear the market was realizing reality. Now I am just sitting and waiting and watching. It is going to get ugly.
Credit spreads are now widening by anywhere from 25-to over 100 BP, depending on the deal. Further widening is very likely. Loan to cost or value is also beginning to tighten. Result is not just the index rate is rising, but also the spread, so borrowing costs are becoming much more expensive for lower proceeds, and will go much higher as the Fed raises and as the economy deteriorates. Liquidity is declining. Construction loans are becoming much harder to get as the uncertainty of the economy and probable recession becomes more of an issue. Achieving financing will become harder, and much more expensive as we go further into economic downturn and risk. New construction will slow. IRR's will materially decline as a result of higher debt costs and more equity required. The glory days are over. Time to sell.
The FTC says investors have been scammed out of over $1 billion on crypto trades. Some crypto experts predict Bitcoin could fall a lot more, and one even predicts $6000. I have never believed these various crypto coins were anything more than pure speculation and backed by air. One day there will be a real crypto coin, but it is not today. Good luck if you own Bitcoin or any other crypto.
The announcement yesterday that a new cancer treatment was 100% effective for one type of cancer will potentially open another new door for a cure for other cancers. It might prove to be a major new break thorough. It provides real hope.
Over Memorial weekend 52 people were shot and 10 died in Chicago. What did we hear from Biden or Schumer. No more AR-15s and crickets about Chicago. I am willing to bet none of the guns were bought legally. 1165 children 17 or under have been shot to death, and another 3216 wounded already this year. Most were just in the wrong place, or were in their own home when shots hit them. 80% were black. One charter school in Philadelphia has a special room to memorialize dead students-5 last year, and so far 2 this year-all black. How many of those guns do you think were bought legally. Guns are readily available on the street. Chicago has tight gun laws as does NYC. Makes no difference. We have a lot of gangbangers who have no regard for human life. Politicians getting all in a lather over Uvalde are missing the real point. More laws will not make any difference. Stop and frisk and putting illegal gun violators in jail for a long period of time makes the real difference. Ending no bail laws would change everything. The recall of the San Fran prosecutor is a very good sign. Putting mentally ill people in institutions makes a real difference. Red flag laws and enforcing them makes a real difference. Shooters who use an AR-15 will just use a different weapon, but they will still kill. The shooters on the subway and in Philadelphia used pistols. You can kill a lot of people with a semi-automatic pistol if you have a second magazine. Gun control laws are just politicians sounding like they are doing something, when the fact is it will not stop the crazies from getting a gun. In the UK they kill with knives, but still kill. It is all about bad culture, and letting the crazies out on their own
The jury decision in the Durham trial was not objective. The judge was related by marriage to Dems and three jurors were openly left. One had a daughter who was on a team with Sussman's daughter. The judge made decisions to withhold evidence and allow tainted jurors that hampered Durham. He had no chance to win. The evidence was clear, Sussman was part of the scheme to get the FBI involved so they could tell the press the FBI was investigating, and they leaped on it destroying any credibility the MSM still may have had. Durham is far from finished. He has publicly laid out the genesis of the worst sedition in American history, and showed Hilary was behind it and approved it. The MSM then piled on and claimed Durham never had a case.
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