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AND:
How Democracy Dies in Darkness in Five Easy Steps.
POSTED BY Ruth King
What if you believed the U.S. was in mortal danger because its elections continually led to the wrong results and policy choices?
What if the “people” were just too ignorant of what was good for them and continually displayed such dangerous cluelessness in how they voted? How could you even work with such chumps, dregs, crazies, clingers, deplorables, and irredeemable's?
What if you still gave them lots of chances to reform and become enlightened on climate change, transgenderism, and race relations? And yet still they never appreciated your efforts on their behalf. Instead, they continued to buy AR-15s, or watch NASCAR or buy a RAM 2500 with a 700hp engine.
What if you worked hard to instruct these idiots through the media, social media, the arts, entertainment, foundations, academia, public schools, professional sports, Hollywood, Wall Street, and even the corporate board room—and yet still despite your control of the nation’s messaging and influencing, the dumb electorate voted for ignoramuses and unqualified buffoons?
What then would you be willing to do to save the country?
In a word, you would say “democracy dies in darkness” (darkness as in ignorance). And then you would scream “FORWARD!” And rally, with “YES, WE CAN!”
Then, as the saints you are, you would have to “intervene” extra-legally to save America. There would be no other choice. That is, you would have to destroy democracy to save it.
So, what you would do?
STEP ONE. Go after the wrong-minded Supreme Court. Discredit it. Have senators declare it “illegitimate.” Talk openly of ways the Pentagon or National Parks could avoid or weaken the Court’s rulings by creating sanctuary areas immune from federal jurisdiction.
Have the senate majority leader lead a mob to the court’s very doors and openly threaten conservative justices by name. Threaten their persons by warning that because they sowed the “wind” they would soon reap the “whirlwind” and thus had no idea what would “hit” them. Have mobs surround their houses and violate—with impunity—all federal laws prohibiting such intimidation of justices. In fact, ignore the law entirely and let anyone scream 24/7 outside the incorrect justice’s home.
Ferret justices out at restaurants. Swarm their dinner stables. Get in their faces. Have the president go abroad and openly attack the court in front of his foreign hosts. Serially scream in Congress that the court must be packed, enlarged by six more justices immediately, good men and women who would be properly sober and judicious progressives picked by legal-eagle President Joe Biden.
Talk of impeaching an illiberal justice. Talk even of subpoenaing his wife before a congressional committee. Protest, demonstrate, and obstruct any justice at campus lectures or public forums. Make clear the price for his harmful bad thought.
STEP TWO. Turn the FBI into a proper state police, an enlightened American Stasi. Sic the FBI on political opponents: confiscate the phones of elected House members in public. Raid the homes of journalists in the predawn hours. March them out in their underwear. Stage SWAT raids against an opposition president’s ally. Hell, raid the ex-president’s house itself. And tip off CNN to film the entire spectacle. Leak to the Washington Post that “nuclear secrets” for two years have been in Trump’s possession! Surprise the president’s lawyer at his office. Seize his files. Arrest a sexagenarian presidential advisor for not showing up for Congressional testimony—and put him publicly in leg irons.
Divert the FBI from silly things like investigating terrorists and cartels and traffickers swarming across the southern border or investigating bribery of officials by foreign governments. Instead, put FBI undercover agents at school board meetings, secretly to learn about and intimidate counter-revolutionary loudmouth parents who endanger the work of idealistic teacher unions and woke school board members.
The Secret Service is too ossified to protect progressive presidents from right-wing interference. The new FBI would become a presidential retrieval service. If dark elements may possess the first daughter’s lurid lost diary, replete with confessions of showering underage with the Commander-in-Chief, then hunt it down, and raid journalists’ homes. If a crack-addicted son of the president lost his laptop incriminating the president, then find it. Sit on it. Stonewall it and keep it out of the pre-ballot-day news.
Appoint FBI directors who are true-blue believers and are willing to stonewall and mislead Congress. Ensure they can lie to federal investigators, leak confidential and classified FBI documents to the media, falsify federal warrant applications, and plead amnesia when called out by the media or congressional investigative committees. And if you complain, then you are unpatriotic and likely a “domestic terrorist.”
Work with the Left in crafting pseudo-opposition research to destroy a wrong-headed presidential campaign. Hire a foreign ex-spy as a source. Spread his phony dossier to the media. Name the entire hit operation, “Operation Crossfire,” and set entrapment ambushes to get opposition foot soldiers to lie. Leak to cable news the narratives of “Russian collusion.”
STEP THREE. Change voting and government rules when they are no longer useful. Claim any customs and traditions that are no longer advantageous are mere racist relics or the baleful legacy of old white men.
When in the majority, demand the end of the racist filibuster. When in the minority save it as a roadblock to fascism.
Damn the Electoral College as undemocratic and racist—unless the blue wall returns and the sure leftwing electoral votes of California, Illinois, and New York reassume dominance.
Let in two more states and with them four more progressive senators.
Pass a national voting law that supersedes state balloting and bans once and for all any requirement to show a valid ID to vote in person.
Insist that any effort to check mail-in ballots against registration lists, or to require full signatures and accurate addresses are racist and must be banned nationwide. The goal is to have 65 percent of the voters not vote on Election Day.
Expand court packing to the district and circuit courts to increase the number of enlightened jurists.
STEP FOUR. Remake the U.S. Congress. Insist that your Speaker of the House can bar any opposition member from a committee, despite the nomination of the minority leader.
When in the minority, insist that any such neutering of the House minority leader is racist and sexist. Arrest and indict any former opposition figure who refuses to obey a congressional committee summons; however, if the majority is lost and the right people are subpoenaed by the wrong people of the opposition party, claim such subpoena power is tyrannical, Nazi-like, racist, and bigoted.
Have your House speaker publicly tear up the State of the Union address, the moment the opposition president hands it over on national television. If in the minority, vote to censure any such Speaker who would destroy the hallowed protocols of the House and so cheaply attempt to embarrass an enlightened president.
The moment you take over a majority in the House, preferably in the opposition president’s first term, impeach him. Impeach him again a second time, when he rebounds. Impeach him when he leaves office.
Impeachment now, impeachment tomorrow, impeachment forever!
When in the majority, create and pack select committees. Call no hostile witnesses. Allow no cross-examinations. Pressure witnesses to flip testimonies to avoid possible criminal referrals. Send out dozens of subpoenas. Veto all minority party committee nominations—unless these members will not be reelected and have at least once voted to impeach the president of their own party.
STEP FIVE. Create border chaos. Destroy immigration law. Open the border. Call racist and xenophobic any who oppose three million illegal aliens pouring into the country. Defame your border patrol as medieval whippers, who harm the innocent. Stop all border wall construction. Send illegal entrants to purple states most prone to be flipped to correct thinking.
Insist newcomers do not need to be tested or vaccinated for Covid. Demand that background checks or prior certification of refugee status are racist constructs—and no longer necessary.
Be selective. Turn away Venezuelans and Cubans, Eastern Europeans, or Taiwanese as counterrevolutionaries. Favor those from the poorest and most leftist homelands. Give all illegal aliens phones, money, IDs, and flights to whatever cities they wish. Claim that citizenship is a racist obstruction to voting rights, which are universal and have nothing to do with being a legal citizen.
AND:
The Origins of Woke -
A forgotten satirical book from the nineties predicted cancel culture.
by Phoebe Maltz Bovy - Common Sense
At a church book sale in my Toronto neighborhood, I found The Official Politically Correct Dictionary and Handbook, a bestseller by Henry Beard and Christopher Cerf first published 30 years ago. I always gravitate to books like this—first to see whether there is anything new in this world, and then to remind myself that the overly simplistic answer is no. (See also the 1995 compendium Debating Sexual Correctness. The #MeToo discourse existed prior to #MeToo.) It seems we’re living through a kind of 1990s revival—fueled, I suspect, by nostalgia for pre-Covid, pre-9/11, pre-internet times. Or maybe just by teenagers’ timeless desire to dress the way everyone did decades ago.
The front cover of the dictionary shows a man, a woman, and a dog, each affixed with labels such as “hair disadvantaged” (he’s balding), “woman of noncolor” (she’s white), and “nonhuman animal companion” (it’s a shaggy dog). None of them, though especially the woman and the dog, would be out of place in a 2022 farmers market. (Again: cyclical fashions.)
The back cover bears a warning: “Be sensitive or else!,” with the follow-up, “Welcome to the nineties. But you better watch what you say. If you’re not politically correct, not even your pet—oops, your animal companion—will love you anymore.” Beard’s author bio begins, “Although Henry Beard is a typical product of elitist educational institutions and a beneficiary of a number of negative action programs, he has struggled to overcome his many severe privileges.” And Cerf’s: “Christopher Cerf is a melanin-impoverished, temporarily abled, straight, half-Anglo-, half-Jewish-American male.” Privilege disclaimers in the early 1990s! I had to have it.
A compare-and-contrast of 1990s PC and contemporary so-called wokeness could fill volumes, so I’m mostly restricting myself to a too-close read of this one book. I’m asking only a few questions: What do the differences between the two phenomena indicate about the specificity of each moment? Did PC have the same place in the culture as wokeness later would?
And to the fact of the book itself: Could something like this exist today—that is, a light-hearted poke at left-wing pieties? The existence of The Babylon Bee Guide to Wokeness suggests yes, but humor does not exactly define the anti-wokeness crowd. Instead, the backlash is a mix of earnestly concerned liberals who think the left is shooting itself in the foot (Hi!) and conservatives delighted that the left is shooting itself in the foot. Humorlessness dominates today—perhaps due to increased polarization or a sense that the stakes are too high to joke around. Those who have taken on wokeness with humor, from comedian Dave Chappelle to evolutionary biologist Colin Wright, have faced protests, social media bans, and even physical attacks. Woke and anti-woke alike gravitate toward dead seriousness.
By contrast, the legacy of political correctness is the mockery it inspired. PC had its heyday as fodder for parodies in the 1990s, when I was in elementary school. Politically Incorrect with Bill Maher launched in 1993. The following year saw the appearance of Politically Correct Bedtime Stories, fairy tales updated satirically to reflect then-contemporary mores. There was also PCU, a campus comedy starring Jeremy Piven and David Spade that featured a scene in which meat was thrown at protesting vegans. South Park, which skewered both political correctness and conservative censoriousness, first appeared in 1997.
That, then, is the context for the PC Dictionary. It was very nineties to find it all hilarious and absurd. When I began reading the book, I had certain assumptions about what would seem different or dated. My initial hunch was that nineties PC was more about manners—how to speak politely of people of different races, sizes, and so forth—and as such, didn’t frighten anyone. But that’s not quite right. After all, in those years people talked about the PC police or the thought police. The book includes references to sexual harassment lawsuits and anxious jokes about being subjected to them. And the term “political correctness” is itself originally a reference to totalitarian speech restrictions.
While the specific term cancel culture wasn’t used, the concept existed and was indeed driving cultural concerns. The book opens with an account of an environmental studies professor having a “formal sexual-harassment charge” filed by some students, after he’d made a risqué joke in class. The dread, and the reality, that an encounter with PC could wreck your life was around in the nineties. But there was also a general sense that once the kids got into the real world, they would drop a lot of their PC nonsense. That couldn’t be more different from today, when corporations and other institutions tout their adherence to the orthodoxies of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion.
As best I can tell, PC wasn’t a force dividing society, Dreyfus Affair-style, the way one’s stance on wokeness can be. The general reality conveyed by the book is that certain liberals, on college campuses or in progressive neighborhoods, believed that PC was a force for good and mockery was not welcome. Others, equally liberal, were comfortable laughing at PC excesses. It wasn’t impossible that someone could get in trouble for saying the non-PC thing. But people were not fearful, as many are today, that every utterance was being policed.
The PC Dictionary highlights the fact that while the exact terminology may differ, many of the concerns of that era overlap with ours. Apparently, “writing about communities of which one is not a member” was frowned upon—a transgression that would see one accused of “cultural appropriation” today. There were gender-neutral pronouns, but it’s “tey” and “tem” rather than “they/them.” “Sex worker” was preferred over “prostitute,” “houseless” over “homeless,” “enslaved person” over “slave.” “Swapping sex partners” was to be called “consensual non-monogamy.” “Person-first” language (a person with a condition, etc.) comes up quite a bit. (“Person of differing sobriety” in lieu of “a drunk,” or my favorite: “persons with difficult-to-meet needs”—serial killers, for example.) Considering this was all before social media, the sheer Tumblr-ness of it all is striking.
As for differences? There’s a lot more about animals than one sees these days: veganism, but also speciesism and pet ownership. And though gender neutrality comes up frequently, and intersexuality occasionally, the entire concept of transgender or non-binary identities never appears.
There are parts of the book in which the authors mockingly point out PC terms that are simply part of today’s language: “chair” rather than “chairman,” or “personal assistant” replacing “secretary.” I wonder where the debate over “pregnant people” vs. “pregnant women” will end up in 30 years.
While some things in The Official Politically Correct Dictionary and Handbook feel dated, much of it could be written in 2022. There are the defenses of free speech, for example, including a long glossary item: “freedom of speech and the First Amendment,” which recounts “an official ban on inappropriately directed laughter” at the University of Connecticut. Beard and Cerf take aim at the censorious policing of language, writing that PC’s fixation on this betrays the movement’s essence of style over substance. The authors deride the self-satisfaction of the proponents of PC in the following passage:
It’s easy to see why so many reformers have forsworn a unified assault on such distracting side issues as guaranteeing equal pay for equal work; eliminating unemployment, poverty, and homelessness; counteracting the inordinate influence of moneyed interests on the electoral system; and improving the dismal state of American education, all in order to devote their energies to correcting the fundamental inequities described in these pages.
My final verdict? PC is wokeness. Wokeness is PC. And per the cover models, normcore is forever.
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BY Derek Hunter
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The McConnell betrayal: Why Republicans never win - AM THINKER
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BIDEN WAS ALLOWED TO ESTABLISH THE NEW TREND IN CAMPAIGNING - DON'T APPEAR..
SINCE "DEPLORABLES" ARE FASCISTS WHY WASTE TIME ON THEM? EVEN BETTER, MAKE SURE YOU ARE PHYSICALLY AND/OR MENTALLY AFFLICTED..
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Pennsylvania’s Absentee Candidate
Weeks before mail voting, John Fetterman is still ducking debates.
BY James Freeman
Roughly a month before many Pennsylvanians begin voting by mail, Democrats’ nominee for a U.S. Senate seat is still refusing to debate. What makes Lt. Gov. John Fetterman’s unwillingness to participate especially odd is that even as he cites health concerns for avoiding the debate stage, his own campaign has been busy explaining why they shouldn’t be a problem.
This column can only imagine how many excuses he’s offered over the decades for his work avoidance, but that doesn’t necessarily mean his new excuse for avoiding the typical work of a candidate is not legitimate. It’s just hard to square with comments from his campaign staff.
Mr. Fetterman suffered a stroke in May and now presents debate avoidance as part of the recovery process, though he resumed speaking to crowds of supporters last month. Criticism of this campaign method by his Republican opponent, political newcomer Dr. Mehmet Oz, has naturally inspired leftist media folk to attack Dr. Oz. But it’s still hard for the press pack to avoid addressing the underlying issue, since American voters maintain this quaint idea that candidates ought to have to explain and defend their positions in a public setting.
(Trip Gabriel of the New York Times reports on the fallout from Dr. Oz’s criticism:)
The attacks have pried open an issue that the Fetterman campaign has sought to control — Mr. Fetterman’s health — by avoiding free-for-all questioning from the news media or voters since the candidate’s return to campaigning...
After suffering a stroke days before the primary, Mr. Fetterman had a pacemaker and defibrillator implanted. His campaign at first released little information. Eventually, it disclosed he had been diagnosed with a heart condition, cardiomyopathy, which makes it harder for the heart to pump blood to the body. In a statement at the time, Mr. Fetterman’s doctor said he should be able to campaign and serve in the Senate without problems if he takes his recovery “very seriously.”
(Mr. Fetterman has decided to define the term as appearing in front of friendly supporters and lobbing insults at his opponent but refusing to face tough questions. Should voters take his position very seriously? Nikolas Lanum and David Rutz of Fox News report:)
DePauw University journalism professor Jeffrey McCall said that sympathetic media coverage of Fetterman’s health is “understandable,” but the media need to recognize there is a difference between understanding and holding someone accountable as a candidate.
“We should all be concerned for Fetterman’s health, of course, but this seat in the Senate could well determine Senate control, and thus, Fetterman should be expected to demonstrate that he can handle the duties of the office,” McCall told Fox News Digital. “Being an effective senator requires being able to debate in committee hearings and on the floor of the Senate. Therefore, Fetterman should be expected to rhetorically engage the public through formal debates and through in-depth media interviews.”
(Now would certainly be the time, with voting by mail just weeks away for many Pennsylvanians. The Fetterman excuse naturally leads to the question of how one can claim to be unfit to fully participate in a political campaign but perfectly fit to hold political office. In the course of rebutting such questions, the Fetterman campaign has perhaps inadvertently made the best argument for his full participation. Michael Scherer, Colby Itkowitz and Lenny Bernstein report for the Washington Post:)
Pennsylvania Democrat John Fetterman’s Senate campaign said Wednesday that his stroke recovery, which has complicated his ability to engage in verbal conversations, could influence his plans for debates with Republican nominee Mehmet Oz in one of this fall’s highest-stakes races.
“We are working to figure out what a fair debate would look like with the lingering impacts of the auditory processing in mind,” Fetterman campaign strategist Rebecca Katz said. “To be absolutely clear, the occasional issues he is having with auditory processing have no bearing on his ability to do the job as senator. John is healthy and fully capable of showing up and doing the work.”
Advisers say Fetterman can engage in one-on-one conversations but struggles with more chaotic auditory environments, a condition that is common for stroke survivors and which doctors say can improve over time.
This certainly suggests that a one-on-one debate without a crowd present should be very manageable. In fact it suggests that he should do even better in a studio debate than in the campaign rallies he’s already attending. And even if his speaking is not exactly what it was, there’s every reason to believe that voters are able to take it into account with reason and understanding. According to the Post:
Democratic focus groups in August found little concern among swing voters about Fetterman’s health, with substantial sympathy for his continued recovery, according to a Democratic pollster who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe the private research.
In the sessions, Democrats showed swing voters videos of Fetterman speaking before and after the stroke to test for concerns. Voters responded by saying that they knew people who had a stroke and “it takes time” and expressed confidence that he would continue to improve, the pollster said.
If, according to his own campaign, Mr. Fetterman is fully capable of being a senator and if even Democratic pollsters say voters can be trusted to be reasonable about any lingering effects of the stroke, why shouldn’t Mr. Fetterman have to explain his positions before being handed an enormous amount of political power?
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SO WHAT!
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Joe Biden Is Selling Out the United States to Iran | Opinion
, FOUNDER AND CHAIRMAN, CHRISTIANS UNITED FOR ISRAEL
In 2015, when then-President Barack Obama was on the verge of signing the Iran nuclear accord, Israel sought to upend Obama's forthcoming blunder by publicly denouncing the deal. Israel's then-prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, went so far as to use an invitation to address a joint meeting of Congress to all but implore the people's representatives to stop Obama's appeasement of the Islamic Republic. Despite a majority of U.S. senators opposing the agreement, the Iran deal was signed—and Tehran was immediately enriched and empowered by billions of dollars and access to global markets. In subsequent years, Iran never fully adhered to the agreement, yet the regime reaped the deal's rewards nonetheless.
Over a year after taking office, then-President Donald Trump exited the Iran deal and engaged in a campaign of maximum diplomatic and economic pressure aimed at bringing the world's leading state sponsor of terror to heel. The Trump administration's actions had a significant impact on Iran's economy, dramatically decreasing Iran's leverage in any future negotiations over its illicit nuclear program, support for terrorism around the globe, and myriad human rights abuses. Unfortunately, President Joe Biden squandered the strong position left to him by his predecessor. And despite Biden's erstwhile promises of a "longer and stronger" agreement, the president is now poised to repeat Obama's mistakes.
President Biden appears to have resigned himself to Iran acquiring a nuclear weapons capability—albeit after he leaves office. The deal he is inching toward signing is both shorter and weaker than that which President Obama negotiated, immediately releases billions of dollars in frozen assets, alters non-nuclear terrorist designations, lifts certain secondary sanctions, and in less than six months wipes away the conventional arms embargo against the Islamic Republic. For all this, Iran makes temporary and incomplete concessions and will release American hostages—but will not make assurances that other hostages won't be taken, or that other Americans won't be targeted by Iranian-backed terrorists. Nor will Iran forsake its state sponsorship of terrorism worldwide.
It is, in short, a near total victory for Iran over the United States.
Head of the IAEA, Rafael Mariano Grossi
Head of the IAEA, Rafael Mariano Grossi and Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian meet, on March 05, 2022 in tehran, Iran. Meghdad Madadi ATPImages/Getty Images
Unfathomable as it may be, this is just the opening act of the tragedy about to unfold. With no extension to the original agreement's arbitrary sunset clauses, in 2025 the provision enabling snapback sanctions will die. In the ensuing years, limitations on Iran's development of advanced centrifuges will fade away. And in 2030, the deal will expire completely, freeing Iran to finish its decades-long pursuit of a nuclear weapon with impunity.
It's no wonder, then, that there is widespread bipartisan concern over the path the Biden administration is taking. Congress, which has long been sidelined by the White House, must assert itself. The legislative branch's impact can be enormous, but only if it acts.
In May, a supermajority of senators voted on a non-binding provision calling for President Biden to address Iran's support for terror in negotiations with the pariah state, while also opposing Iranian demands that the U.S. lift its terrorist designation on Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, which is responsible for murdering hundreds of U.S. military personnel. The Biden administration ignored the former concern and conceded the latter point. Later, that same month, Biden's lead Iran negotiator, Robert Malley, assured the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that any Iran deal would be submitted for congressional review. That review, and which actions policymakers take to shore up our allies' capabilities, is very likely our last hope of averting disaster.
Failing to stop this deal consigns generations of Americans into a life wherein an emboldened Iranian regime has an internationally legitimized turnkey nuclear weapons capability, or a demonstrated nuclear weapons program, that allows it to confidently act on U.S. soil and against U.S. allies. The constant threat of Iranian terror, nuclear blackmail, or catastrophic war will hang over all our heads—in perpetuity.
Members of Congress therefore face one of the most important decisions of their lives. For some, it may be politically expedient to support President Biden's capitulation. For others, it may be politically beneficial to simply pillory the president. Neither approach is proper. Our elected officials must rise above our present hyper-partisan environment and ask themselves one simple question: Will they allow a new evil empire to rise on their watch—one for whom the notion of "mutually assured destruction" is not feared, but relished?
I sincerely hope for America, Israel, and the rest of the free world that the answer is "no."
Pastor John Hagee is the founder and chairman of Christians United for Israel.
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A VERY DEAR AND LONG TIME FRIEND SEND ME THIS:
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Dear Fred,
The Democrats' problem with anti-Semitism raged into the open again, with comments by Rep. Omar that Biden and Pelosi have failed to condemn. I debated this fight on the Left on Fox News @ Night.
On Fox's Cavuto Live, I discussed plans for well-deserved higher taxes on big tech coming out of the G7.
Please see below for talking points and linked video if you're interested.
Cordially,
Christian
Fox New: Woke anti-Semitism
Video: https://bit.ly/3cF8Zmy
Fox News: Big Tech is insular, bigoted, out of friends, and destined for higher taxes
Video: http://bit.ly/techtaxcoming
Talking Points
DEM ANTI-SEMITISM
- Omar and her fellow progressives have taken moral equivalence to a new level, equating Hamas to the USA and Israel. Previously she said pro-Israel advocacy was “all about the Benjamins.” For his part, Biden previously complained about “Shylocks” engaging in usury. The woke, race-obsessed Democrat Party is once again exhibiting anti-Semitism.
- Biden and Pelosi have failed to condemn Omar. When Rep. Steve King (R-IA) made inappropriate comments, fellow Republicans removed him from all committees. Why won't Democrats take even this step? Are anti-US and anti-Israel progressives too important a part of their coalition?
- Omar should be grateful to be in America, but appears to hate our country. How much of today’s Left shares her views?
BIG TECH AND G7
- Big tech is out of friends on both sides of the Atlantic and in both parties in the USA. They deserve what they are about to get—higher taxes based on where digital users are located, rather than whichever tax haven they choose for their headquarters on paper.
- It’s unclear whether this Congress will pass major legislation to check the power of Twitter, Amazon, Apple, Facebook and Google, but whether it is this or the next Congress, a big change is coming.
- Republicans ordinarily would oppose higher taxes and breakups, but in this case should decline to defend the lefties of tech. In fact, they should propose even higher taxes on tech in exchange for eliminating the payroll tax, which will help blue-collar and service workers.
- Silicon Valley is the most bigoted place in America outside of Washington.
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ORDMAN - GOOD NEWS ISRAEL (EDITED):
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It's great to return to Israel after 3 weeks in the UK. And despite most Israelis only now getting back to work, to school, and to studies, this latest newsletter shows that the summer break barely slowed the fast pace of Israeli innovation and social activity. Medical breakthroughs in cancer treatments, heart and spinal surgery, and emergency medicine. Major advances in agriculture technology and renewable energy. Increased trade with the USA, Europe, Arab states and New Zealand. Humanitarian aid for Kentucky and Ethiopia. International sporting successes in soccer and gymnastics. Finally, on the 125th Anniversary of the first Zionist Congress, Israel is uncovering more of its Biblical roots and laying the foundations for an even brighter future.
Please recommend www.verygoodnewsisrael.
In the 4th Sep 22 edition of Israel’s good news, the highlights include:
- Two Israeli breakthroughs in the fight against cancer.
- Israeli doctors saved lives of comatose US and Ukrainian children.
- Israeli surgeons repair the deformed faces of children in Ethiopia.
- An Israeli gas heating boiler cuts 50% of CO2 emissions.
- Two Israeli startups are installing renewable energy in 7 Arab countries.
- Israeli air purifiers are being installed in thousands of US classrooms.
- An Israeli gymnast won a European gold medal in Munich.
- Archeologists have unearthed the town where Joshua lived 3,000+ years ago.
- Please click here, to donate (a small or large amount) to help me publicize VeryGoodNewsIsrael.(Please note that the donate link is now working and a PayPal account is not necessary!)
ISRAEL’S MEDICAL ACHIEVEMENTS
A better way to kill cancer. Researchers at Tel Aviv University and the University of Lisbon have improved the current method of disabling cancer’s defenses. Instead of an expensive antibody infusion that only partially works, they developed a tiny molecule for a totally effective treatment that can be administered orally at home.
https://english.tau.ac.il/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?
Pinpointing harmful gene mutations. Researchers at Jerusalem’s Hadassah Medical Organization have developed an AI algorithm to identify, with 96% accuracy, all possible harmful mutations of the TP53 cancer-causing gene. The breakthrough can improve genetic screening and customized treatment for cancer patients.
https://hadassahinternational.
Nano-diamond delivery. (TY WIN) Researchers from Israel’s Bar-Ilan University have produced tiny diamonds that can deliver medicinal and cosmetic treatments to cells, through layers of human skin. They are also effective antioxidants. The nano-diamonds are produced by detonating explosives inside a closed chamber.
https://www.i24news.tv/en/
Using Avocado pits to treat sun-damaged skin. (TY UWI & Israel21c) Israel’s AvoMed has patented an ecofriendly process to extract PFA (polyhydroxylated fatty alcohol) from normally trashed avocado pits. PFA is a bioactive compound that AvoMed use to developed skin-care products to treat sun damage and inflammation.
https://www.israelhayom.com/
Fixing aneurysms without open heart surgery. Cardiologists at Jerusalem’s Hadassah Ein Kerem Medical Center are the first in Israel to fix life-threatening heart aneurysms by minimal catheterization. Four patients underwent the 2.5-hour procedure in which an implant is threaded via the arm or leg to the heart.
https://www.jpost.com/health-
Algorithm predicts risk of stroke. Two students at Israel’s Technion Institute have written a machine learning algorithm that predicts the development of atrial fibrillation (AFib) - a condition that causes strokes. Using one million ECG recordings from more than 400,000 patients, their algorithm was 95% accurate.
https://ats.org/our-impact/
https://academic.oup.com/
Spinal surgery via the waist. Rambam Health Care Campus is the first Israeli hospital to fix back problems via “anterior-to-psoas” keyhole surgery using a minimally invasive incision in the waist. It takes advantage of an “anatomical corridor” running from the waist to the back, where surgeons then perform spinal fusion.
https://www.timesofisrael.com/
Musical tests to detect mental deterioration. Tel Aviv University researchers have developed musical tests that measure brain activity in old age. 50 patients from Dorot-Netanya Geriatric Medical Center performed melodies on different musical instruments while electrical brain activity was recorded.
https://www.sciencedaily.com/
https://www.frontiersin.org/
Israeli biotechs in Southern California. SCICC with American Israeli Medical Association and Elite Entrepreneur Organization host the “Merage Medical-Biotech Innovations" featuring 20 Israeli biotechs. Sep 14 @ 7.30pm in San Fernando Valley. RSVP: jsegal@investorsresearchgroup.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/
Helping recovery of little leaguer. (TY Jess) Many articles describe how 12-year-old Little League World Series baseball player Easton Oliverson emerged from a coma after a serious fall. His recovery was aided by Israeli neurosurgeon Dr Oded Goren who currently practices at Geisinger Medical Center in Pennsylvania.
https://uk.news.yahoo.com/
https://providers.geisinger.
“No chance” Ukrainian teen recovers in Israel. Anna Kosma arrived at Jerusalem’s Shaare Zedek Medical Center in a deep coma suffering from a rare infection, and little chance of survival. Doctors put her in “cerebral anesthesia” state to avoid brain damage from the medication, and after 3 months she has been released to rehab.
https://www.timesofisrael.com/
ISRAEL IS INCLUSIVE AND GLOBAL
First woman air defense commander. The Israeli Air Force has appointed Lt. Col. Revital Barzani to head its 66th Ram Battalion, which operates David’s Sling system against medium-to-long-range rockets and missiles. Barzani, a mother of three, is the first female officer to command a battalion in the IDF’s air defense array.
https://www.timesofisrael.com/
Shelter for Tel Aviv homeless. Tel Aviv’s Municipality, with help from the charity La’sova, has inaugurated a NIS 36 million shelter for 144 homeless male residents. From 3pm to 9am it will provide a place to sleep, shower, eat, receive counseling, medical referrals and more. La’sova has 13 temporary shelters in the city.
https://www.timesofisrael.com/
https://www.lasova.org.il/en/
More Jewish students learn Arabic. (TY Hazel) A new education program has been launched in 30 Jerusalem schools where Jewish students will be taught Arabic. The program seeks to reduce language and social barriers between Jerusalem Arabs and the Hebrew-speaking Jewish population of Israel’s capital.
https://www.timesofisrael.com/
Water for PA farmers. Israel’s Civil Administration has approved plans to build a 30km pipeline for carrying some 3 million cubic meters of treated wastewater from Ramallah to Palestinian Arab farmers in the Jericho valley. The rare cooperation between the PA and Israel will halt pollution of the Nahal Prat Nature Reserve.
https://www.jpost.com/middle-
More Israeli aid for Kentucky. Israel’s Consul General for the Southeastern United States, via Chabad Kentucky, joined in relief efforts for Kentucky flood victims, providing clothing, shoes, and household goods. Last year Israeli NGOs helped victims of Kentucky’s deadly tornados (see here previously).
https://www.jns.org/in-
Fixing children’s faces in Ethiopia. (TY UWI) Israeli oral and maxillofacial surgeons Oded Nahlieli and Michael Abba fix children’s deformities in Equatorial Guinea, including a boy who had been unable to eat solid food for 4 years. They also trained local doctors to use Israel’s ORVizio remote surgical guidance system.
https://www.israel21c.org/the-
SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY
Putting the AI in Retail. Great article featuring Israeli tech startups developing tech solutions to aid retailers join the digital revolution. Includes five startups previously included in this newsletter OneBeat, Drill, Trax, Nexite, and StorEE. https://www.calcalistech.com/
Israel fuels Spacemilk. (TY UWI) The US vegan health & sports nutrition company Spacemilk has partnered with Israel’s NextFerm Technologies to use the Israeli startup’s ProteVin yeast fermentation-based, non-GMO protein alternative in its new nutrition drink. The product is scheduled to be launched by end 2022.
https://www.israel21c.org/
https://spacemilk-smk.
How wild wheat protects itself from insects. Scientists at Israel’s Ben Gurion University have isolated the gene in wild wheat that produces a poison to repel insects. Modern cultivated wheat has lost this trait, which Israeli scientists believe they can reintroduce to improve protection for the world’s vital wheat resources.
https://in.bgu.ac.il/en/pages/
https://www.frontiersin.org/
Detecting disease in potatoes. The Hebrew University of Jerusalem and the Israel’s Agricultural Research Organization (Volcani Institute) have developed a biosensor for early detection of disease in potato crops. It emits a luminescence when exposed to an infected potato. The more disease, the more the luminescence.
https://www.bfhu.org/20 22/08/25/israels-hebrew-
Israeli tech in farm machinery. (TY UWI) John Deere is one of the world’s largest agricultural and forestry machinery manufacturers. It is integrating the agricultural technology system from Israel’s CropX, enabling users to view data and analytics including soil sensor monitoring, from within John Deere’s Operations Center.
https://www.israel21c.org/
Partnering to make oxygen on the Moon. Israel’s Helios )see here previously) has joined with Florida’s Eta Space to create and store oxygen on the Moon. Helios’ electrochemical reactor will extract the oxygen from moon rocks and Eta Space’s cryogenic technology will liquify it and store it.
https://www.timesofisrael.com/
Using green hydrogen to heat homes. Israel’s TurboGen has developed a micro-turbine gas boiler that is powered using 50% hydrogen and 50% natural gas (methane). The TG-40 microgenerator produces 50% of the CO2 produced by a conventional gas boiler. TurboGen is working to develop a 100% hydrogen micro-turbine.
https://www.israel21c.org/
Teen tech entrepreneurs. (TY UWI & I24 News) Great video featuring some of the Israeli teens who presented their inventions at the Unistream’s Young Entrepreneur competition (see here previously).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?
The Innovation Nation Tour. The Pacific Southwest Israel Business Council has organized the first business mission to Israel of the Southern California Israel Chamber of Commerce. It has the full approval of the Israeli Consulate in Los Angeles. Meet the key players, institutions and companies shaping the Innovation Nation.
https://www.scicc.biz/2022-
ECONOMY & BUSINESS
Now we’re cooking! (TY Hazel) Israel’s natural gas production surged 22% in the first half of the year, as the government implemented its plans to export gas via Egypt to Europe. 10.85 billion cubic meters was extracted in the last 12 months from the Tamar and Leviathan fields, of which 42% was exported.
https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/
Innovating with New Zealand. (TY Nancy & Josh) Kiwi expat supporters of Israel are invited on 5th Sept to meet in Jaffa, to network and strengthen Israel’s relationship with New Zealand (email for info). The link to the New Zealand Israel Innovation Hub, has info about forging new partnerships between Israel & New Zealand.
contact@nziih.co.nz https://nziih.co.nz/
NIS 300 million for medical startups. Israel’s Peregrine Ventures has established a consortium of leading companies that will jointly develop and invest over NIS 300 million in startups and graduates of Peregrine’s technology incubator. They include Bristol-Myers Squibb, Elbit, and Tel Aviv & Ben Gurion Universities.
https://www.calcalistech.com/
Renewable energy for 7 Arab countries. (TY Hazel & Nevet) Israeli energy companies Enlight Renewable Energy and NewMed Energy are to launch renewable energy projects in Egypt, Jordan, Morocco, the UAE, Bahrain, Oman, and Saudi Arabia. The projects focus on solar and wind power production, and energy storage.
https://www.moroccoworldnews.
Vodafone pilot for green ammonia. (TY Hazel) Telecom giant Vodafone has deployed zero-emission fuel cell technology from Israel’s GenCell (see here previously) in Romania as part of a pilot project aimed at powering remote cell towers. The GenCell FOX alkaline fuel cell’s only byproducts are water, nitrogen, and heat.
https://www.jpost.com/
Keeping your eyes on the road. Israel’s Cipia (formerly EyeSight Technologies – see here previously) has added SAIC Motors and Chery to the three other motor manufacturers using its Driver Sense driver monitoring system. Driver Sense will be used in a Chery SUV to be produced in late 2023.
https://nocamels.com/2022/08/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?
Israeli tahini takes US by storm. In 2011, Israel’s Jackie Zitelman and her two American sisters have turned Israeli tahini into a hugely successful product, available in 900+ US stores. Soom tahini is produced in Northern Israel, in a factory owned by an Israeli Muslim.
https://www.israel21c.org/the-
AliExpress sets up in Israel. Chinese online retail giant AliExpress has established warehouses in Israel in Airport City near Ben-Gurion International Airport. Customers can order items online and if they are already in Israel’s warehouses, it will shorten delivery wait times and lower costs.
https://www.jns.org/major-
Clean air for USA classrooms. (TY Hazel) Israel’s Aura Smart Air (see here previously) is installing its air-purifiers in thousands of American schools, universities, and school buses. They include in New York, Maryland, and California. The devices capture and kill 99.9% of viruses, bacteria, germs, and allergens.
https://www.israel21c.org/
Investment in Israeli startups to 4/9/22: Theranica raised $45 million; Fairmatic raised $42 million; Accessibe raised $30 million; Landa (real estate) raised $25 million; Rookout raised $16 million; OVO Automotive raised $3.5 million; Mermade Seafoods raised $3.3 million; Deliverider raised $2 million;
CULTURE, ENTERTAINMENT & SPORT`
No summer ending in Jerusalem. (TY Sharon) 31 Aug is the official end of summer and start of Israel’s new school year, but there is still much to see on Jerusalem Streets. Sultan’s Pool concerts, Israel Comedy Festival, Theater music, VR shows, Cocktail Festival, Wine Festival, BAFTA award event, and Sefer Torah procession.
http://rjstreets.com/2022/08/
Maccabi Haifa qualify for soccer’s Champions League. Maccabi Haifa FC has reached the UEFA Champions League group stage for the first time since 2009. In their final qualifying match they defeated Red Star Belgrade 6-5 on aggregate. The win also earns the Israeli team at least Euro 26 million.
https://www.jns.org/maccabi-
Another gold for Israeli gymnast. Israeli gymnast Artem Dolgopyat struck gold at the European Artistic Gymnastics Championship in Munich, despite having an injured foot. It was Artem’s third gold medal in international competition. He previously won gold at the Tokyo Olympics.
https://www.jpost.com/israel-
Scholarships for athletes. Tel Aviv University has launched a new annual scholarship for student-athletes. The International Sports Scholarship Fund will provide full degree support for talented athletes of all nationalities between the ages of 17-30, to study in any of TAU International’s nearly two dozen English-taught programs.
https://english.tau.ac.il/
THE JEWISH STATE
Ancient Israelite settlement discovered. (Source: TPS; TY WIN) Archeologists have discovered an ancient settlement at Tel Tibnah in Samaria, dating back to the time when the Israelites entered the Land of Israel, over 3000 years ago. It is identified with Timnat Serach where Joshua bin Nun lived and was buried.
https://thejewishvoice.com/
Turning Hell into Heaven. The City of David organization has revitalized the Valley of Hennom, on the outskirts of Jerusalem into a brand-new park. The valley is mentioned in in the Book of Joshua and is said to be the origin for the concept of hell. Israelis transformed it, just as they did to the once desolate Land of Israel.
https://unitedwithisrael.org/
Athletes for Israel. Since its launch in 2018, Athletes for Israel has brought high-profile athletes and sports teams to the country to compete in athletic events and get to know the Jewish state. After their trips many of the athletes help publicize the story of Israel’s people, history, food, technology, and culture.
https://www.jns.org/athletes-
180 young Olim. 180 new immigrants ages 22 to 35 arrived in Israel last month from 30 different countries. They include doctors, engineers, lawyers, architects, journalists, athletes, artists, teachers, and IT professionals who will study Hebrew intensively for 5 months at Ulpan Etzion, the Jewish Agency’s flagship program.
https://www.jns.org/doron-
A Muslim “Tzadik”. On Aug 17, Noor Dahri wrote to his 10,000+ Facebook followers, “An exciting time has come for me to visit Israel for 10 days, the land of dreams, love, peace, and coexistence. The holy land of divine faiths, Abrahamic Prophets, and the land of Blessings. Insha’Allah.” Read about him and his trip.
https://www.jewishpress.com/
https://www.jns.org/noor-
The fast road to Jerusalem. A new entrance to Jerusalem, Route 16, has been opened and is expected to significantly ease traffic, providing speedy travel between Route 1 and the city’s southern neighborhoods. It has 4 tunnels, 7 bridges, 50,000 acres featuring bike paths, walks, picnic areas and views over the Jerusalem hills.
https://www.timesofisrael.com/
We need to be the best. (TY JNS) On the first day of the Israeli school year, President Herzog writes a letter of encouragement to all Israeli children.
https://www.israelhayom.com/
We are the Blessed generation. Avi Abelow states that it is important to once in a while take a step back from daily life, the headlines and the worries, and see the big picture of life, which is so very good. Great message.
https://pulseofisrael.com/
125 years since first Zionist Congress. Some 1,400 people attended an event at the Stadtcasino concert hall in Basel, Switzerland, where Theodor Herzl led the First Zionist Congress on Aug 29, 1897. Israel’s President Herzog began his address with the blessing for being in a place where a miracle happened.
https://www.timesofisrael.com/
https://www.gov.il/en/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?
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EDMOND SAFRA WAS A GIANT AND CREATED AN EVEN BIGGER ENTITY.
NOT UNTIL ISRAEL WAS FOUNDED WERE JEWS ABLE TO ENGAGE IN A VARIETY OF ENTERPRISES AND UNDERTAKINGS. THEY COULD NOT TAKE LAND WITH THEM WHEN THEY HAD TO FLEE SO THEY WERE NOT FARMERS. BASICALLY, THEY COULD ONLY FLEE WITH THEIR BRAINS AND THIS IS PARTLY WHY JEWS ENTERED THE LEGAL MEDICAL, MUSICAL AND FINANCIAL WORLD.
NOW LOOK AT WHAT HAVE ACCOMPLISHED.
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How did a proud Sephardi Jew build a global financial empire?
Sitting down with writer Daniel Gross, whose new book details the life and legacy of Edmond J. Safra, who made monumental contributions to Israel.
Financial journalist Daniel Gross is of proud Syrian-Jewish stock on his mother’s side. Yet the historian and author of nine books knew about the very private billionaire Edmond J. Safra in only the vaguest terms.
“I knew him as a rich guy and a banker who lived in different places,” Gross laughs. “I thought I had some privileged insight because firstly, I’ve been a financial journalist for 30 years, and I’ve interviewed a lot of the major figures in global finance at a very high level. Secondly, Safra is the biggest name in the Syrian Jewish community.”
Gross, the author of the newly released A Banker’s Journey: How Edmond Safra Built a Global Financial Empire, spoke to the Magazine to get to the heart of the man who made monumental contributions to the State of Israel, while never actually claiming citizenship or owning a home here.
The timing was right
Edmond J. Safra has been dead for nearly 23 years. When Gross received the request of the Edmond J. Safra Foundation to write this biography, it came with the express cooperation of Safra’s widow, Lily, who sadly passed away just weeks before the release of this book.
Gross was granted access to a trove of private archives and more than 300 interviews that traced the story of Safra’s life, from his childhood in Beirut as the son of Banque de Crédit National owner Jacob Safra, to his shocking demise in a fire at his home in Monaco in 1999.
“Edmond had been sent by his father to Milan at age 15 to literally run around the central banks of Europe buying gold. When he was 20, and the family needed to get out of Beirut, it was Edmond who decided the family were going to Brazil,” he says. “He couldn’t get citizenship in Europe. America wouldn’t take people. His father was already in his sixties, and Edmond was effectively a surrogate father for his two younger brothers. He paid the tuition of his brother Joseph at boarding school in England. There’s a great letter he wrote to the dean of the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania in 1957: ‘Can Joseph come for just two years and take banking courses?’ Edmond had this sense of self-possession. He had already been doing business by the time he was 22 with the Rothschilds, but Wharton didn’t know him from anybody. The answer was no.”
Family and personal papers in seven languages formed the backbone of this biography. Besides offering a deep dive into the international banking climate of the second half of the 20th century, Gross shows how Safra was perceived by the international banking community in extremes. He was a financial prodigy whose ethics reached deep into the Torah; and as a feared competitor globally, he could be reviled for his old-fashioned way of keeping his banks close to his sleeve, installing family and members of the displaced Syrian and Beirut Jewish communities in banks that operated from Brazil, the US, Europe and, eventually, the Far East and Israel.
“Part of what makes it very compelling to me is that to be a Jew in the 20th century was to be displaced. We know an awful lot about Europe, Eastern and Western Europe. We know some about the Sephardi experience – Morocco, Yemen, Iran, Iraq, etc. – and comparatively little about Syria, and especially the Lebanese, which is a very unique community. The Beirut Jewish community was about 6,000 people at its peak before the founding of the State of Israel, so it was pretty small. The Great Aleppo Synagogue in Syria has a cornerstone from 300 CE, which is one of the longest continuous Jewish communities in the world. Beirut didn’t form their big synagogue until 1927. So even though it was only 150 miles away as part of the Ottoman Empire, that community only formed and crystallized in the late 19th century, early 20th century,” he says.
Gross notes that many Jews who landed in Beirut, like the Safras, had come from Aleppo and Damascus. “In 1947-1948, you had pogroms in Aleppo and you had pogroms in Baghdad. The Israelis went and brought everyone out of Morocco. In 1948 they brought everyone out of Yemen. Beirut had this sense of coexistence, where the Jews were not only sort of protected but part of the establishment. Through the 1950s, ’60s, ’70s, there was a functioning Jewish community in Beirut, and Edmond was going to Beirut till the time of the civil war. That’s a very different kind of experience than much of the rest of the experience of Jews in the Arab world,” Gross says, adding that Safra was someone who had multiple identities.
“He was a banker and a philanthropist. He was an heir to a multi-generational banking family, and also an entrepreneur who did start-ups. He maintained his Lebanese citizenship and passport throughout his entire life, after the civil war and after the Israeli invasions. He still owned his father Jacob’s Banque de Crédit National, BCN, the bank that his father founded in 1920 and continued to operate until his death in 1999. He had other banks in the world worth billions. Yet he clung fiercely to this little bank and to his citizenship.”
“He was a banker and a philanthropist. He was an heir to a multi-generational banking family, and also an entrepreneur who did start-ups. He maintained his Lebanese citizenship and passport throughout his entire life, after the civil war and after the Israeli invasions. He still owned his father Jacob’s Banque de Crédit National, BCN, the bank that his father founded in 1920 and continued to operate until his death in 1999. He had other banks in the world worth billions. Yet he clung fiercely to this little bank and to his citizenship.”
In both Aleppo and Beirut, the Jewish communities had formal councils to make sure people were taken care of, and the Safra family, being what Gross describes as almost the aristocrats of this community, were the leaders among the leaders of the formal organization. Jacob Safra, Edmond’s father, had been the president of the Beirut Jewish community.
“From a very young age, the mantle of leadership, of sponsorship, of both Beirut and Aleppo communities fell on Edmond’s shoulders. It was his personal wealth and his banks which were the vehicles for protecting people’s savings, for helping them get started in exile.”
The letters Gross discovered among Safra’s personal documents went like this: “I’m fleeing Beirut, I need a job,” and Edmond would respond: “Come to Brazil. I have a job for you.” In São Paulo, the Safra brothers had set up Banco Safra. Another letter read: “We’ve got to get out of Beirut. We’re going to New York.”
By the 1960s, Edmond had founded Republic Bank and was in the process of turning this small bank into the 14th-largest in the United States. “Come to New York. I have a job for you,” Edmond would write back.”
Safra’s loyalty to the Beirut and Syrian Jewish communities came at a steep price, though.
“Edmond was doing business in the ’40s and ’50s with Saudis and Kuwaitis,” Gross says. “He had networks with Sephardi Jews all over the world and into the Arab world generally. He felt that he had to keep a low profile regarding his identification with Israel because if he didn’t, then the Jews in Beirut and Syria would suffer. They were effectively hostages in some way, and he was looking after them.”
Philanthropy in Israel
Gross discovered that the Safra family had been among the biggest supporters of Porat Yosef, the yeshiva in Jerusalem’s Old City created by Aleppo Jews, dating back to the 1940s and ’50s.
Safra, like his father Jacob before him, had a particular reverence for Rabbi Meir Baal Haness, a Roman-era Tannaitic scholar, whose grave in Tiberias became a shrine for both Ashkenazi and Sephardi Jews. Edmond sent money to Tiberias to renovate the Baal Haness ruins in his father’s name in the 1950s.
In 1977, Beirut Rabbi Yaakov Atiya made aliyah, settled in Bat Yam and over the next four years, Safra single-handedly built the synagogue, leading to his first true visit to Israel since a stopover at Lod Airport in 1947. A few years earlier, in 1975, he had created the Fondation Terris, pledging $1 million to support the construction and maintenance of Sephardi synagogues and religious institutions in Israel. The work would be overseen by a committee that included Chief Rabbi Ovadia Yosef and two government representatives.
“Barely 6% of Sephardic Jews in Israel attended college, and many were pushed into vocational schools. Edmond’s goal was to give Sephardic children a better chance of integrating fully into Israeli society through opportunities for higher levels of education by establishing, in 1977, the International Sephardic Education Foundation, ISEF.”
“Barely 6% of Sephardic Jews in Israel attended college, and many were pushed into vocational schools,” Gross writes in A Banker’s Journey. “Edmond’s goal was to give Sephardic children a better chance of integrating fully into Israeli society through opportunities for higher levels of education by establishing, in 1977, the International Sephardic Education Foundation, ISEF.
“There are many records of him supporting charities in Israel, but he was always a little cagey about public identification with Israel’s political leaders. He would meet privately with Moshe Dayan. He was involved in emergency fundraising in the wake of the Yom Kippur War but was keeping it quiet publicly because he feared what would happen not only to his businesses but also to the Jewish community in Beirut and Aleppo, with whom he was identified, if he was too public,” Gross says.
In the 1980s and ’90s, with most of the remaining Jewish population out of Lebanon and Syria, Safra started coming to Israel more frequently, and his philanthropy came to light with the naming of Jerusalem’s municipal campus Safra Square in honor of his parents. At auction, he purchased the manuscript of Albert Einstein’s theory of relativity to give to the Israel Museum. In 1991, the Safra brothers expanded their banking activities in Israel with the purchase of FIBI, the First International Bank of Israel.
Vendetta and vindication
Gross notes that there was always this question about how the Safras made their money. “His companies were publicly held, and you could be a shareholder. It wasn’t a secret as to how they were making money. But his view of banking was at odds with, say, what CitiGroup or JP Morgan did. His view was that his first responsibility was to his depositors. In the US, we have deposit insurance. In Lebanon, there was no deposit insurance. Your deposit insurance was your name. You borrowed on your family’s name, and if you didn’t pay back, that was a mark of shame.
“His view of banking was that first, ‘I’m going to protect my depositors, and as a result I’m not going to lend to people I don’t know. I’m not going to make credit cards so that anyone could borrow money from me. I’m not going to make mortgages.’ He would lend to very large established companies, and he would lend to governments because governments generally paid back their debts. And he would lend to the International Monetary Fund or the World Bank. From his perspective, he would rather make a loan at 4% that was guaranteed by the World Bank than at 8% to somebody else and have to worry about being paid back,” Gross says, adding: “Edmond didn’t respect organizational charts. He would call a bank manager or a lower-level loan officer if he wanted information – and many junior people enjoyed a direct connection to the boss.”
The only book to be written about Edmond Safra until now has been Vendetta: American Express and the Smearing of Edmond Safra, a work that looked into a secret operation involving American Express and its hired spies, double agents and journalists-turned-henchmen bent on a mission to harm Safra. Author Bryan Burrough penned nearly 500 pages to vindicate Safra, leaving Gross a broader agenda to focus on less sensationalism and more on the enormity of Safra’s banking and philanthropic legacy.
Safra had married Brazilian-born socialite Lily Watkins, whose mother was Ukrainian-Jewish and father was a Scottish-Jewish engineer. They married in their forties and never had children together, although family photographs show Safra relaxed and clearly reveling in his role as a family man to Lily’s surviving children and grandchildren from a previous marriage. The Safras never quite recovered from the tragic news of the death of Lily’s son Claudio and their grandson in a car accident in Brazil in 1989.
Lily Safra passed away this summer at age 87 from pancreatic cancer. Chairwoman of the Edmond J. Safra Foundation, which supported hundreds of organizations around the world, an A-list guest and entertainer to Europe’s highest royals, her death in Geneva marked the end of an era.
“Edmond didn’t play golf, tennis or have many leisure pursuits, but collecting was a passion he shared with Lily,” Gross writes. “He loved the chase of bidding, calculating relative value, and understanding the dynamics of auctions in the same way he loved delving into markets and hunting for deals, whether it was paintings, drawing, sculptures, carpets, furniture, decorative objects or watches.”
It’s fun to speculate what Safra’s reprise would have been to this impressive overview of his life both inside and beyond banking. Daniel Gross discovered that “Edmond would often respond in Hebrew with the first line of Ecclesiastes, Kohelet, saying that everything is vanity, everything man does ultimately is futile, for the world continues to turn and the sun rises and sets as before, and man cannot alter things in any meaningful way.”
And yet, here it is, in Israel and far beyond: proof that Edmond Safra may have proven Ecclesiastes wrong. His family legacy is alive and well, primed to continue for only heaven knows how many more sunrises and sunsets. <
A Banker’s Journey: How Edmond J. Safra Built a Global Empire, by Daniel Gross, is available in hardcover and Kindle editions.
The writer is an artist and the author of The Wagamama Bride: A Jewish Family Saga Made in Japan.
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DeSantis would be even better than Trump (Daily Caller)
It's time to pass the torch to a new generation that will take Trump's willingness to fight and blue collar shift to the next level
BY Christian Whiton
Writing in the Daily Caller, I argue that Trump transformed the GOP for the better and created a New Right that can win, but that DeSantis would be a better choice in 2024 to carry on the fight.
I also enclose the latest edition of Simon & Whiton in which Mark and I discuss the growing crisis in China, why semiconductors aren’t the silver bullet Taiwan imagines, and Singapore’s visas for the rich.
To restore America by reversing the Democrats’ historic destruction of our economy, culture, and national security, there should be no doubt: Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis would be better than former President Donald Trump for president in 2024.
I write this as a fan of Trump, as someone who served on his transition and in his administration, and as someone who cherishes the New Right he has founded — a movement grounded in blue collar populism, not playing by the lefty media’s rules, and a realist foreign policy.
Back in 2016, Trump was a master showman who could identify issues voters cared about and match them with simple policies. “Build the wall.” “Bring back the jobs.” “Lock her up.” But DeSantis can actually execute the sentiment and policies he conveys.
For example, as president, Trump tried to win over woke corporations like Apple and its progressive CEO, Tim Cook, who like many executives enjoys lecturing Americans about supposed moral lapses but made his business richer by depending on communist China. Trump had nothing to show for his unrequited romance, which included numerous invitations for the high-minded CEO to the White House.
Contrast that with DeSantis this year when Disney’s CEO, Bob Chapek, allowed himself to be bossed around by a vocal minority of woke employees who didn’t like that the Florida legislature enacted a parents’ rights bill that prevents preaching transgenderism to young students. When Chapek attacked Florida, DeSantis called the legislature to action and within a week Disney’s decades-old special status as its own self-governing municipality was gone.
More recently, DeSantis ordered Florida’s pension fund administrators to invest funds with the singular goal of making money for retirees, not for flavor-of-the-month woke causes under the banner of “socially responsible” investing.
When Trump had enough of FBI Director James Comey pretending that the Trump campaign colluded with Russia, he fired that quintessential swamp critter in 2017. But he appointed another swamp critter, Christopher Wray, as his successor. Wray has continued to turn the bureau’s Washington Field Office into a tool of partisan Democrat politics. Both of Trump’s attorneys general, Jeff Sessions and William Barr, were pointless seat fillers.
Contrast that to DeSantis, who recently took decisive action against a George Soros-backed, soft-on-crime prosecutor in Tampa, Andrew Warren, who thought he could ignore laws passed by the state legislature. DeSantis canned the prosecutor and replaced him with one who will enforce the law. Similarly, DeSantis just dispensed with school board members in liberal Broward County who put politics and bureaucrats ahead of school security. Buh-bye.
Conservatives rightly disdain Anthony Fauci, the face of the federal government’s incompetent and ham-fisted effort to manage the COVID-19 pandemic. While Fauci has been in government for decades, he was placed in his position of supreme prominence by Trump. Then, Trump did little to protect the rights of Americans stuck in states that enforced prolonged lockdowns, killing off small businesses and damaging a generation of kids needlessly forced to stay home from school.
Contrast that to DeSantis, who bravely reopened businesses and schools in his state as quickly as possible despite phony claims by public health tyrants that doing so would lead to mass death. He also defended the rights of parents to choose whether or not to give their children vaccines with scant track records and he put an end to pointless and harmful masking of children in school.
The pattern is clear. Trump knows the establishment and corporate media are wrong but seldom musters the policies necessary or, just as important, the people who can get the job done. In fact, the inability of Trump’s personnel operation to hire supporters and keep opponents out of his administration was an eighth wonder of the world.
DeSantis has demonstrated skill at finding the people and policies to beat the Left. The proof is in the overall success of Florida, which continues to attract people and businesses fleeing Democrat-run states and cities.
As with the elections of John F. Kennedy in 1960 and Bill Clinton in 1992, it is time for a new generation to take power. Trump would be 78 if elected and could only serve one term. DeSantis would be 46.
As a member of Generation X, he can bring that cohort’s constructive nonchalance to bear in a breaking from the hysterical self-reference and systematic destruction of institutions that progressive Baby Boomers have wrought.
Put simply, America needs a successful president after a string of failures who can provide eight years of consistent restoration and be succeeded by another Republican. Such a revival would enable Americans to put politics back in their place, rather than where they are now — in the middle of everything from what you can say to where you can live and work.
DeSantis can fight like Trump and govern better. The big question is whether he can keep the blue collar voters Trump brought into the Republican coalition, especially in the Midwest and Pennsylvania.
DeSantis could go far in attracting these voters by supporting higher tariffs, especially on China, to foster American manufacturing and by promising to deport the millions of illegal immigrants Joe Biden has allowed into the country.
In effect, DeSantis could out-trump Trump.
Christian Whiton was a senior adviser in the Donald Trump and George W. Bush administrations. He is a senior fellow at the Center for the National Interest.
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Winsome Sears: Why Democrats despise black conservatives like me
BY Cal Thomas
RICHMOND, VA — The definition of winsome is “sweetly or innocently charming: winning, engaging.”
The lieutenant governor of Virginia, Winsome Sears, is all of these, but she is also tough and has convictions on issues that matter to her and thinks should matter to Virginians and the nation.
As President Joe Biden last Saturday commemorated “Slave Remembrance Day,” Sears told me during an interview in her office, “If you want to live in the past, go ahead; just don’t drag me back with you.
On election night last November, she brought cheers from her supporters when she noted how much has changed since the start of the civil rights movement: “We [people of color] own the water fountains. We’ve had a black president elected twice…”
The former Marine and Jamaican immigrant (she says her father arrived in America with $1.75 in his pocket) is now the second-most powerful office holder in the state and the first female lieutenant governor. Sears can charm when necessary, but her boldness in discussing controversial issues reveals a backbone other Republicans should emulate.
I ask Sears why the media seem to ignore or mischaracterize black conservatives like her and why so many blacks continue to vote for Democrats. “In order for [Democrats] to continue to win,” she says, “they need to get 80 to 90% of the black vote. That’s why they are so full of hatred when conservatives like me, or libertarians, don’t think the way they do. . . . We don’t really care.
“The slaves did not die in the fields to be beholden to the Democrat Party. They wanted their freedom . . . their families to be reunited . . . and their children to get a good education.”
Sears says she is mystified by how “the Democrat Party became synonymous with black people. [Democrats] were the ones who were keeping us from achieving. Then there’s this other thing that is happening with black women not having their babies. And they call me a white supremacist for saying we want more black babies. Democrats have to make up their minds.”
Sears says she believes Donald Trump won more of the non-white vote in 2020 than he did in 2016 because he delivered on jobs for minorities and “black entrepreneurship increased to about 400% of where it had been.”
She also notes Trump’s dedication of a funding stream to Historically Black Colleges and Universities. “He forgave $360 million in debt they owed since [Hurricane] Katrina days.” According to AP VoteCast, Trump won 8% of the black vote in 2020, about a 2 percentage-point gain on his 2016 numbers.
Would she endorse Trump if he runs in 2024? She hedges: “I’m going to hold my fire. I want to see what he says, what he does and who else is out there.”
I ask her about what some have referred to as “Christian nationalism.” Sears, who is upfront about her Christian faith, responds, “I think what we have to be careful about as Christians is that no one is on the throne except Christ. . . . We know that God can use anyone. He even used a donkey to speak to Balaam [an Old Testament story] to tell him he was going down the wrong path. So, if He can use a jackass, He can use anybody.”
How would she measure success? “What the world considers success, I don’t. I have come to believe it the way the Lord defines it. Were you obedient?” She recalls the biblical stories that seemed to define failure at the time when “they killed the prophets. . . All He wants to know is did you obey me?”
Yet, she is amazed at her own accomplishments. “Winsome wasn’t born here,” she said. “This is not her country, not her culture, and yet here she is — second in command in the former capital of the confederacy. The KKK must be turning over in their graves.”
Only in Virginia . . . and America.
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ALL THE NEWS THAT WAS FIT TO BE REORTED BUT THE NEW YORK TIMES HAD ANOTHER AGENDA:
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Jonathan Tobin has exposed the objectives of Peter Beinart and the NY Times....Anyone who subscribes to the NY Times should recognize that they are assisting this newspaper in its continuing anti-Israel and anti-semitic "journey", which can eventually imperil the safety and security of all our children and grandchildren, and the Jewish State of Israel.
Personally and, with the benefit of hindsight, sadly I recall my parents reading the Times each and every day, and how devoted they were to this newspaper. Over the past several decades or so, we have come to recognize how in the late 1930's and early 1940's the Times intentionally "hid" facts...Yes, they knew about the ongoing organized slaughter, torture, and annihilation of the Jews of Europe by the Nazis....and chose not to disclose most of what they knew...After reading Jonathan's article below, it appears that the Times hasn't changed much.....
"This implicit defense of BDS boycotts of Israel and Beinart’s article sends a powerful message. The Times, which has a long and dishonorable history of downplaying anti-Semitism and biased reporting about Israel, is not only making it clear that it’s not going to cover attacks on Jews except from people it can identify as political opponents. It’s also increasingly invested in a campaign to legitimize left-wing anti-Semitism, and it has willing allies in the Jewish community like Beinart, who often speaks of himself as an observant Orthodox Jew, who will assist in this effort. The decision of the Times to engage in this sort of a campaign against Israel and the Jews is one more wake-up call for liberal Jews who don’t understand that the left is coming for them just as much as it is for conservatives and Israelis."
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SALENA'S EFFECTIVENESS COMES FROM GETTING OUT AMONG THE PEOPLE ;
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From the Rockies to Appalachia and the Land of Lincoln in between: Dispatches from the Road
BY SALENA ZITO
Colorado's sleeper Senate race just got real: EAGLE, Colorado — There is something going on here in Colorado politics that is not much different than what happened in Virginia exactly one year ago — a shift away from the status quo and the odds-on favorite Democrat toward his Republican challenger.https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/columnists/colorados-sleeper-senate-race-just-got-real
When candidates avoid debates, voters question the transparency, trust, and authenticity of the candidates: CHARLESTON, Illinois — Just off U.S. 36, in a drive home across the country that began in Colorado heading toward the Ohio-Pennsylvania state line, a slight diversion off of Illinois state route 130 led me to one of the sites where Abraham Lincoln and Stephen Douglas debated. https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/columnists/when-candidates-avoid-debates-voters-question-the-transparency-trust-and-authenticity-of-the-candidates
A chance meeting at the gas station:
As I begin to write about my trip across the country, I have chosen a cultural story rather than a political one. That's because Americans are still two very distinct things in their communities: joiners and gatherers. These attributes contribute to our having a purpose greater than ourselves and showing up when friends and strangers are in need.
It is a story rarely told on social media or cable news, but it is truly who we still are. https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/restoring-america/community-family/a-chance-meeting-at-the-gas-station
Many Americans feel left out by Biden’s student loan policy:
HARRISON CITY, Pa. — Frank Spena said he always knew he had a knack for “figuring things out, problem solving, things of that nature,” but the former star high school athlete wasn’t sure where that would take him once he graduated from Churchill High School in 1979.
“First, I went off to play junior hockey in Canada,” he said, explaining that he quickly got serious, came home and went to community college here in Allegheny County.
His career went in a different direction when he got into the Electricians Local Five Union apprenticeship program, where his knack found its niche. It turned into a career that has served him well. He said he has a made a good life for himself and his wife: “We just bought a farm in Harmony, 95 acres, along with a house that was built in 1850.”
Mr. Spena, 61, said when he attended CCAC he took out a loan for his education. “If I had reneged on that loan, trust me: They would send people out to chase you. But reneging on a loan is something I would have never considered; you take out a loan, you pay a loan back. There are consequences when you behave responsibly . . . you come up a better person and someone who appreciates what it took to be successful.” Last week, President Joe Biden announced that up to $20,000 of college loans for individuals who earn $125,000 or less, and household who earn $250,000 or less, are now eligible to be forgiven. That means individuals like Mr. Sera are now being rewarded for doing it right by subsidizing someone else’s education.
“What was done here was classist in that it rewards the professional class and makes electricians like me or plumbers or those working construction that keep our bridges and streets safe or the people who keep your lights or heat or air conditioning flowing in the energy industry are being essentially told our contribution to the country matters less,” he said.
Mike Rowe made his name meeting and working with blue-collar workers across the country on his iconic TV series “Dirty Jobs” and founded the mikeroweWORKS Foundation, which has granted millions of dollars in work ethic scholarships to train more skilled workers. He told the Post-Gazette he is dumbfounded by the Biden administration’s decision to place the burden on the very people we should be rewarding for their choices and skills.
“For every five tradespeople that leave the field this year, two will replace them, and it has been that for nearly a decade — we are looking at a crisis in the skilled labor market unlike anything we’ve ever seen — it’s just math,” Rowe said.
“So, if you ask yourself, ‘Well, what does this decision do to encourage more people to get into the trades?’ The answer is: nothing. If you ask, ‘What does this decision do to get more of those 11 and a half million open jobs filled with people that have the proper training?’ The answer is: nothing. And if you ask yourself, ‘What does this decision do to encourage universities to charge even more money than they’re charging right now?’ The answer is: everything.”
Jim Kunz III sees the issue differently. The 39-year-old Brighton Heights native said he has been paying for his classical music and music composition degree from Duquesne University, which he did not finish, since he left in 2004. It is a $30,000 debt he is still paying down.
Mr. Kunz said he feels his generation was pressured into believing that college was mandatory: “There were no other options,” he said, even though his father was a fourth-generation craftsman in a union with apprenticeship programs paid for by the membership.
Mr. Kunz, who now works in that same trade, admits he made a wrong decision in attending college. He also said he sees no problem with the taxpayers footing the bill for his student loans, likening it to taxpayers footing the bill for workers fixing the roads and bridges: “Frankly, you could say that when I was working operating cranes building roads and bridges, that people were footing my life because that’s all taxpayer money that paid me to build a bridge.”
Mr. Rowe said Mr. Kunz answers the question of what compels rational people to borrow tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars to purchase a diploma that offers few marketable skills.
“There was no voice of reason, or caution, or common sense in his decision because all of the voices were offering the same advice, and that advice is terrible. Terrible not because it’s inherently bad, but because it’s a one-size-fits-all approach to one of the most important decisions a person can make,” said Mr. Rowe.
Student loan forgiveness has struck a chord with voters in a way that will influence their decision this November. It is dividing Democrats, especially in states like Ohio, where Democratic Senate nominee Tim Ryan blasted the Biden plan, saying it “sends the wrong message to millions of Ohioans without a degree working just as hard to make ends meet.”
That sentiment has been echoed by several other Democratic incumbents, including Nevada Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto, New Hampshire Rep. Chris Pappas and Colorado Sen. Michael Bennet — with both Obama secretary of treasury Larry Summers and long-time Democratic strategist Paul Begala taking even more strident positions against the measure.
Penny Folino said her life resembles the movie ‘My Big Fat Greek Wedding’: “My dad never wanted me to go to college; he wanted me to run the family diners, and said ‘I teach the college instructors more about business than they’re going to teach you,’” she said of her father Athanasios “Tom” Petropoulos, founder of the iconic Tom’s Diner.
Ms. Folino explains that her father came to this country in 1969 to provide a better life for his family: “After working in the restaurant business in the city for ten years, he opened Tom’s Diner and passed that legacy to my brother and myself.”
When their father took ill — he passed away Christmas Eve in 2020 — they sold all of the Tom’s Diners the family had run for years, from Dormont to Morgantown, W.Va.
“I did go to college for a bit, but turned out my father was right: I did know a lot about business,” Ms. Folino said. “I will point out: When I did attend college, I paid off my loans,” she added, noting all three of her grown adult children have paid or are in the process of paying off their student loan debt.
Today the 54-year-old is the national business development manager for a utility-scale solar facility. “I specialize in startups,” she said, adding that when the oil and gas industries were tanking several years ago, she told her bosses in Texas and Calgary to invest in renewables.
“They thought I was the craziest person in the world, telling these gas and oil guys that we have to go into renewables — yet they let me do it, and then COVID hit, and we were the only global electrical outfit in the country working. I pulled in $46 million in one quarter, and it saved the whole U.S. division of the company,” she said.
It’s a master’s degree-level job that she got with very little college education, but Ms. Folino has never let barriers stop her from succeeding: “I’ve never had a resume.”
Jennifer McIntyre-Morris and her husband, retired Army veteran Dennis Morris, of Avella, both grew up poor; both went to college; and both paid it off.
Mr. Morris said he grew up the son of “dirt poor” teenage parents and saw his only option out was through the Armed Forces. After several deployments to Iraq, including the 21-day march into Baghdad in 2003, he retired in 2011 and has held jobs working underground as a foreman at a coal mine, and in the oil fields. Today he is just about to graduate from the Pennsylvania Gunsmith School. “Finally used my GI Bill for the first time,” he said.
Mr. Morris still has to pay 20% of the cost, which he does religiously. He said he would never think of nor accept a simple handout from the government. Never particularly political, he said issues like this have made him a Republican: “Yeah. I’m very upset about it. I go off to fight for my country and come back to pay someone else’s extravagant debt.”
Ms. McIntyre-Morris grew up in a trailer park in Washington County. “I had a great childhood,” she said, “but we didn’t have a great deal; my dad worked at the glass factory in Bridgeville, and we just simply didn’t buy things that we couldn’t afford to pay for in cash.”
She worked two jobs to support herself when she attended college, sometimes taking breaks between semesters to work to pay the loans and then continuing when she had enough money. “That is what you did. There is a value, a character-building moment there that the government is taking away in an effort to persuade young people to show up to vote,” she said.
She was so motivated by issues like this that she started volunteering for the local Republican Party as precinct committee person, then got her husband to volunteer, and now is running to chair the county party.
Mr. Biden made it clear that people with a college degree are considered more valuable to society than people without one. The biggest victims are the millions of hardworking people who paid their bills and lived within their means. How they feel about this going into the voting booth may not be registering with pollsters yet, but the public sentiment on this Will either benefit the Democrats or wake up independent and Republican voters.
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THIS FROM A VERY DEAR FRIEND WHO IS MORE THAN QUALIFIED TO MAKE THE STATEMENT HE HAS AND HE IS ALSO A LOYAL MEMO READER. WEST POINT GRADUATE, LONGTIME GENERAL OFFICER.
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If we had a Republican Administration this might get legs, but under the current Administration it will go nowhere. I believe these are facts and not allegations, but there is much worse going on and most of it will never see the light of day. Milley is totally on top of the Left Agenda to make it a woke diversified force and in a few more years our military will not be close to being combat ready under his leadership. We have already learned they cannot attract recruits and when they do they are substandard and the Military is reducing its entrance standards in an attempt to fill its quotas. All because of Milley's agenda. Really sad after all we collectively did to make the military a better place than it was when we joined.
Why Gen. Mark Milley Should Be Court-Martialed
Chris Farrell, our Director of Investigations & Research and a former U.S. Army intelligence officer, has identified the most egregious examples of treasonous subversion by a commissioned officer since Benedict Arnold. And that officer currently is at the top of the military hierarchy, no less. Here is Chris’ report in The Washington Times.
Gen. Mark A. Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, should be subject to an Article 32 Hearing under the provisions of the Uniform Code of Military Justice for his conduct and statements as memorialized in the Bob Woodward book “Peril,” and the Aug. 8, 2022, New Yorker magazine excerpt of a forthcoming book by Susan B. Glasser and Peter Baker.
An Article 32 Hearing is the military equivalent of a civilian grand jury, and should probable cause of the commission of a crime be established, it would lead to Gen. Milley’s court-martial. The Army has an affirmative duty to maintain good order and discipline, especially with regard to senior leader misconduct.
History provides an example of a senior officer engaged in misconduct. Assistant Chief of the Army Air Service Brig. Gen. Billy Mitchell was court-martialed in 1925 for remarks to the press concerning two deadly military aviation accidents.
Mitchell made the following offending statements: “These incidents are the direct result of the incompetency, criminal negligence and almost treasonable administration of the national defense by the Navy and War Departments,” and “The bodies of my former companions in the air molder under the soil in America, and Asia, Europe and Africa, many, yes a great many, sent there directly by official stupidity.”
On Dec. 17, 1925, Mitchell was found guilty of “conduct of a nature to bring discredit upon the military service.” The court suspended Mitchell from rank, command, and duty, with the forfeiture of all pay and allowances for five years. Mitchell resigned from his commission as an Army officer on Feb. 1, 1926. Some would say that history vindicated Mitchell, with the coming of World War II. Nonetheless, Mitchell paid the price for press statements outside the scope of his authority and for his insubordination.
Gen. Milley called his communist Chinese military counterpart in October 2020 and January 2021 with unauthorized promises and assurances of advanced warnings of U.S. military intentions and actions. America learned of these contacts through the book “Peril,” authored by Mr. Woodward and Robert Costa. In the book, Gen. Milley is quoted as saying, “General Li, I want to assure you that the American government is stable and everything is going to be OK. We are not going to attack or conduct any kinetic operations against you.” And then, reportedly, Gen. Milley said this: “General Li, you and I have known each other for five years. If we’re going to attack, I’m going to call you ahead of time. It’s not going to be a surprise.”
Gen. Milley admitted to making the calls. A spokesman for Gen. Milley stated that Gen. Milley acted within his authority as the senior military adviser to the president and the secretary of defense, yet Gen. Milley failed to consult any civilian authority, a fact confirmed by Christopher Miller, the former acting secretary of defense, and by former President Donald Trump.
Former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, a graduate of West Point and an Army officer, as well as a lawyer, congressman and former director of the CIA, described Gen. Milley’s actions: “If you had a senior military leader, who is simply an adviser, tell the Chinese Communist Party that they would get notice of an attack, this rivals anything we’ve seen in our nation’s history.”
Mr. Woodward and Mr. Costa “obtained” a copy of a call transcript between Gen. Milley and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi concerning Mr. Trump and nuclear weapons. The book provides detailed quotes from both Gen. Milley and Mrs. Pelosi. In one exchange, Mrs. Pelosi at length attacks Mr. Trump, saying “they couldn’t even stop him from an assault on the Capitol,” and that “he’s crazy. You know he’s crazy. He’s been crazy for a long time.”
“So don’t say you don’t know what his state of mind is. He’s crazy and what he did yesterday is further evidence of his craziness. But anyway, I appreciate what you said.”
Gen. Milley responds to Mrs. Pelosi, “Madam Speaker, I agree with you on everything.”
Gen. Milley obviously cooperated in some manner with Mr. Woodward. Freedom of Information Act requests for call transcripts were stonewalled by the Pentagon. Gen. Milley is hiding the information from the American people and forcing a current lawsuit in federal court to compel him to release information he selectively leaked to friendly reporters.
Mr. Baker and Ms. Glasser make clear that Gen. Milley loathed Mr. Trump and was grossly insubordinate. The authors quote Gen. Milley saying, “F—- that s—-, I’ll just fight him” [President Trump], and, “If they want to court-martial me, or put me in prison, have at it. But I will fight from the inside.” A general “fighting from the inside” against the president is the very definition of subversion.
Gen. Milley must be held to account for his conduct and selectively leaked statements. His conduct goes far beyond the controversy of the Mitchell court-martial. Mitchell pales by comparison. His reported actions, if true, are the most egregious examples of treasonous subversion by a commissioned officer of the United States since Maj. Gen. Benedict Arnold.
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BRENT BOZELL WILL BE SPEAKING HERE AT THE LANDINGS, MONDAY OCT 3 AT 5pm UNDER THE AUSPICES OF THE SIRC.
ATTACHED PARTIALLY EDITED.
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DICK
Joe Biden gave the most divisive and hateful speech from a sitting President in the nation's history… In order to tell you how much he despises you.
Yes, Joe Biden hates you.
This tyrant used the power of the White House to deliver a speech calling 70 million Americans “semi-fascists”, racists, and disgusting human beings.
The Fake News media is of course declaring this speech “brave” and “historic”.
You and I know the truth.
This speech was used to create division and attempt saving the Democrats from being WIPED OUT in the midterm elections.
The Media Research Center (MRC) is mobilizing 100% of our resources to expose the truth about Joe Biden’s speech, the tyranny of this administration, and what the Fake News media is doing to protect Biden.
Please help raise an EMERGENCY $10,000 to help spread our message and hold the media accountable. Click here to donate >>>
The media’s attempt to portray this speech as anything less than EVIL or an attempt to divide the country and sabotage the America-First movement is pathetic.
The Fake News media is now doing the White House’s bidding.
All the news outlets are doing their job to trash pro-Trump Americans and call the President brave.
It's a disgusting coordinated effort on the part of the Biden administration and the media.
You and I MUST mobilize to expose the leftwing bias in the media and tell Americans the TRUTH about Biden’s speech.
The White House is at war with 70 million Americans he’s declared to be racist and “semi-fascists”.
Let’s fight back.
Please click here to help the Media Research Center raise an emergency $10,000 to expose the leftwing media.
Thank you, Friend.
Brent Bozell
Founder and President of MRC
The mission of the Media Research Center is to create a media culture in America where truth and liberty flourish. The MRC is a research and education organization operating under Section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code, and contributions to the MRC are tax-deductible
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