For clarification. Generally anything above three +++ has mostly been written by me except posting of articles and anything above longer ++++ is written by others.
House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., has reportedly stated that he...READ MORE
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Media UPSET To See Attacks On Trump Lose Steam
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Read This Alert >>>+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ I remain distrustful of this Administration and it's various agencies and who run them simply because Democrats want bigger intrusive government and those who want to destroy America, eliminate capitalism and replace it with despotic socialism then comes communism. So happens the Justice Department withheld their knowledge of these "documents" two months before the mid terms as did the FBI do with respect to Hunter's computer. These two acts alone are not confidence builders and place me in the opposite direction and reconfirm my concerns regarding veracity. The investigative part of he FBI has proven to be totally compromised and politicized and untrustworthy. This has become a proven fact and only a dunce, a biased Democrat and Trump Hater would/can conclude otherwise. The apologists have already begun to push back and refute these factual revelations +++ Two Presidents, Two Special Counsels The Editorial Board Jan. 12, 2023 6:46 pm ET “I strongly believe that the normal processes of this department can handle all investigations with integrity,” Mr. Garland said. “But under the regulations, the extraordinary circumstances here require the appointment of a special counsel.” He claimed this would make clear the Justice Department’s “commitment to both independence and accountability.” The new special counsel is Robert Hur, who clerked for Chief Justice William Rehnquist before starting a career as a federal prosecutor. To repeat what we said when Mr. Garland appointed Jack Smith as special counsel to investigate President Trump, including Mr. Trump’s Mar-a-Lago document hoard, the political insulation being sought here is a matter of mere perception. Whatever Mr. Hur finds out about how classified material wound up in Mr. Biden’s garage next to his Corvette, Mr. Garland shoulders the responsibility for the investigation, including deciding how to conclude it. “My Corvette’s in a locked garage, OK? So it’s not like they’re sitting out on the street,” Mr. Biden said Thursday. Rest easy, America: The First Vette is safe and sound. As for the classified papers from his time as Vice President, locked or not, Mr. Biden’s garage isn’t a secure place where they’re supposed to be kept. Additional classified material, Mr. Biden also said, was recently found in his personal library. Still, he argued: “People know, I take classified documents and classified material seriously.” Apparently not as seriously as the feds usually do. Last year a former civilian employee of the Pentagon was sentenced to three months in prison for taking classified documents to her hotel room, as well as keeping handwritten notes of meetings that included classified details. That information was categorized as Confidential and Secret. To compare, Mr. Biden and Mr. Trump each reportedly held on to documents that were rated as more sensitive than Top Secret. Prosecutions for mishandling the nation’s secrets aren’t rare, though many of them involve reams of materials or high risk of exposure. Former CIA Director John Deutch was set to plead guilty to a misdemeanor charge of mishandling classified information on a computer at his home. President Clinton pardoned him first. Although Mr. Trump was inexplicably mulish about handing over his files, on current evidence there’s no good case for putting a President in prison—much less making two Presidents into cellmates—for improperly retaining materials from recent public office. When Mr. Trump was out on a limb by himself, this point was less obvious to some of our media competitors. Now that Mr. Biden faces a similar inquiry, perhaps they see how ridiculous it is to have the Justice Department investigating both the current and former President who are running against each other for the same office in 2024. Rather than pass the buck to special counsels, Mr. Garland would be wiser to help the country by seeking a better way out. The Justice Department can clarify the facts, and explain whether each President handled documents recklessly in ways that could have harmed national security. Barring some explosive revelation, however, Mr. Garland can then close both cases, giving voters their say next year when Mr. Trump and Mr. Biden each expect to be on the ballot. +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ An ancient spoon stirs American mischief against Israel The Department of Homeland Security has internalized the Palestinian Arab big lie. It is all utter garbage. Op-ed. By Melanie Phillips Jan 12, 2023, (JNS) An ostensibly minor incident a few days ago has provided devastating evidence of the brainwashed malevolence within the Biden administration towards not just Israel but the Jewish people. In a ceremony at the Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities in Bethlehem, the Department of Homeland Security’s investigative arm delivered to the Palestinian Authority a 2,700-year-old spoon dating from the Assyrian empire. |
Churchillisms
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Breaking: Health Department Begins LANGUAGE BAN
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Muslim rigidity is a serious reason why so little forward movement can occur."
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25 Years After Oslo: The Elephant in the Room
T. Belman. What more is there to say. So much for the vaunted Res 242 and its land for peace principle.
By Robert L. Meyer
It is now more than 25 years since the Oslo Accords were signed in October 1993. Yet in the many published opinion pieces and reporting on this anniversary and the failure of the parties to agree on a final two-state solution to the Israeli/Palestinian conflict, nowhere is found any Israeli politician or journalist who has the slightest inkling of the massive effect of Islam in influencing and motivating the Palestinian supposed peacemakers.
Islam is indeed “The Elephant in the Room.”
The Koran, chapter 2, verse 191 states: “Drive them out from where they drove you out.”
Islamic scholars universally have interpreted this verse to mean that once land becomes Islamic, by conquest or otherwise, it stays Islamic forever and that Muslims must drive out any non-Muslim government that takes power in a land once ruled under Islamic law.
Caliph Umar conquered Jerusalem and Palestine in 637 AD, and the Land of Israel remained under Muslim rule (with the exception of the 188-year Crusader Period, 1099 – 1187 AD) until September 1923, when the British Mandate began. To Muslims, Palestine has been “Muslim land” since its conquest by Islam in 637 AD.
Moreover, this position has been corroborated and confirmed (in Arabic) by Mahmoud Al-Habbash, who is Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas’ advisor on Islam and also the Supreme Shari’ah Judge of the Palestinian Authority (“PA”):
“Mahmoud Al-Habbash emphasized that according to Islamic Shari’ah law, the entire land of Palestine is waqf (i.e., an inalienable religious endowment under Islamic law) and is blessed land, and that it is prohibited to sell, bestow ownership or facilitate the occupation of even a millimeter of it.”
[Official PA daily Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, Oct. 22, 2014, translation by Palestinian Media Watch (“PMW”)]
See also the statement below from the Palestinian Authority, translated from the original Arabic:
“Anyone who thinks that the nation has sold its Palestine or its Jerusalem is just imagining things. Anyone who thinks that a day will come when the nation will sell one inch or millimeter of the blessed and sanctified land of Palestine is just imagining things. The entire nation says what [PA] President Mahmoud Abbas said: ‘The Palestinian, Arab, Muslim, or Christian who will relinquish one inch of Jerusalem has not been born and will never be born.’”
[Official PA TV, April 20, 2018, translation PMW]
The Palestinian Authority’s current Mufti, Muhammad Hussein, has corroborated this same position:
“Palestine, that includes within it Jerusalem, is waqf land [and] it is forbidden by Shari’ah law to relinquish it or ease the transfer of ownership of it to enemies, because it is part of the Islamic public property. Granting ownership over Islamic territory or part of it to enemies is invalid and constitutes treason.”
[Official PA daily Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, April 13, 2018, translation PMW]
Please note that the Palestinian Authority reflects the same view set out in the Hamas Charter (Article Eleven):
“The Islamic Resistance Movement [Hamas] believes that the land of Palestine is an Islamic waqf consecrated for future Moslem generations until Judgment Day. It, or any part of it, should not be squandered: it, or any part of it, should not be given up.”
For these reasons, the exchange of Muslim “Land for Peace” with Israel simply is impossible under Islam. Has anyone in Israel ever noticed and considered this point — or are we so ignorant of Islam that it has never been properly considered and evaluated?
The Koran, chapter 2, verse 191 was once mentioned to Shimon Peres in 2015. He replied, “No. You are wrong. We made peace with Egypt. We made peace with Jordan.”
Shimon Peres was right — and wrong.
Prior to signing the Israel/Egypt Peace Treaty of March, 1979, Egyptian President Anwar Sadat held out for — and ultimately received — his stated demand to get back “every square inch” of the Sinai. This occurred notwithstanding Israel’s initial negotiating position for a continuing Israel monitoring presence at Sharm el Sheikh and the western mountains of Sinai and retention of both the Israel-developed Taba and Yamit tourist communities in the Sinai near Eilat.
After the Israel / Egypt peace treaty was signed, Sadat could turn to the Egyptian people and rightfully claim that he had recovered “every square inch” of Egyptian-administered Muslim land.
The Jordanian case is even more interesting and illuminating.
In a two-step exercise starting in June 1988, King Hussein first renounced all Jordanian claims to Judea and Samaria, the wishfully named “West Bank” of Jordan. Six years later, in October 1994, Israel and Jordan signed a peace treaty.
However, there had been a serious problem: Israel occupied three areas of Jordanian land since June 1967: The tiny “Peace Island” in the middle of the Jordan River, and two agricultural fields belonging to Israeli settlements in the Arava, south of the Dead Sea.
In Annex 1A and 1B of the Peace Treaty, this matter was resolved: Israel fully recognized Jordanian sovereignty over all this land. Jordan agreed that Israel could continue to “use” the lands in the same manner as previously for a rolling 25-year period unless terminated by Jordan following a one-year notice (which Jordan gave in late October 2018).
After the signing of the peace treaty, King Hussein could turn to the Jordanian people and rightfully claim that he had recovered every square centimeter of Jordanian-administered Muslim land.
As for the land of Israel/Palestine itself located “from the River to the Sea,” the Arab League and Jordan left this to Palestinian President Yassir Arafat and the Palestine Liberation Organization as the sole entity to negotiate and resolve with Israel.
What did Yassir Arafat and his successor, Mahmoud Abbas, do?
At the Camp David negotiations in July 2000 between Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak and Yassir Arafat, following Israel’s offer to give up 97% of Judea and Samaria to the Palestinians, Arafat stunned Barak and President Bill Clinton by never making a counteroffer. Why? Because he could not do so: the Koran (chap. 2, verse 191) did not permit it. Allah says that Muslim land can never be given to the kufaar (infidels) under penalty of death. Palestinian recognition of Israeli sovereignty over any part of Palestinian land was impossible, Muslim Palestinians never would have accepted it and Arafat would have been murdered by his own people.
After the Camp David negotiations failed, Yassir Arafat was asked by an Israeli Muslim Arab journalist in Arabic why he walked away from the negotiations. “Because the Israelis would not give us 100%!” he replied. The Koran mandated that Arafat recover all of Palestine starting with the so-called “West Bank.” He was not free to do otherwise.
It was the same story seven years later in the negotiations between Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas held at the Annapolis Conference in November 2007: Ehud Olmert made very generous offers to the Palestinians, delivering 97% of Judea and Samaria to them, “slicing and dicing” Jerusalem horizontally and vertically, creating a land bridge between Gaza and Judea and Samaria and even allowing some Palestinian refugees back into Israel.
However, how did Abbas respond? He also made no counteroffer. Why? Because he could not do so (Koran, chap. 2, verse 191). The Koran prohibited recognizing Israeli sovereignty over any part of Muslim Palestinian land, Muslim Palestinians would never have accepted it, and Abbas also would have been murdered by the Palestinians.
According to the Koran, the Palestinians are commanded to reclaim ALL Palestinian Muslim land “from the River to the Sea,” a holy waqfunder Shariah law. The concept of Israeli-administered Muslim land (i.e. recognizing the sovereignty of the State of Israel over any part of Palestine) is impossible in Islam.
Have you ever noticed how Palestinian claims are always rooted in land-based terms? They speak of the “occupation” of their land, being “driven out” of Palestine by the Israelis in 1948, and recovering all their land “from the River to the Sea.” The Palestinian Authority’s Law No. 1 criminalizes Palestinian sales of land to Jews under penalty of death. Mohammed on his deathbed gave an order to “expel the Jews and the Christians from the Arabian Peninsula and not leave any but Muslims there.” The Hamas riots at the Gaza / Israel border are in commemoration of “Land Day.” Does any of this ring a bell?
In the Oslo Accords, the Palestinians pledged to recognize the State of Israel behind the “Green Line” and to amend the Palestinian Covenant accordingly. They never did. They cannot and will not do so without contravening Allah’s command in the Koran, chap. 2, verse 191.
As you think of the thousands of hours of negotiations by Israel, the USA and other international negotiators in trying to reach a final accord with the Palestinians on a “two state solution” since Oslo, one is reminded of the “mirror principle.”
Israeli, US and other politicians and negotiators keep thinking that they are negotiating with “the man in the mirror,” i.e., someone who thinks as they do in a Western, secular way, without regard to prevailing religious factors.
Some commentators state that the leadership of the Palestinians, starting with Yassir Arafat, is secular. To the extent that this may be true, it does not matter. The Palestinian people certainly are not secular. A survey undertaken by the Jerusalem Media and Communications Centre published on August 6, 2018 asked Palestinians in Judea and Samaria (the “West Bank”) and Gaza: “In general, is religion an important part of your life? The response was 96.8% “yes” in the West Bank and 99.2% “yes” in Gaza.
Israeli and American negotiators are not negotiating with “the man in the mirror” like themselves, but with religious Islam believing Palestinians. A little more hard knowledge about Islam, which is “the Elephant in the Room,” would help in understanding the Palestinians as driven by their own seriously held religious and cultural imperatives, which are completely the opposite of those of the Israelis and the Americans.
Source: Jihad Watch –https://www.jihadwatch.org/2019/04/25-years-after-oslo-the-elephant-in-the-room
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It is tragic when a nation, as small as Israel and constantly surrounded by religious zealots always wanting to destroy it and drive it's people into the sea, has so little top leadership save for BIBI. He is not perfect, he has flaws but he is far from a pygmy:
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Netanyahu: Israel cannot be swept away by ‘inflammatory’ slogans |
JNS |
The Israeli prime minister defends his government’s judicial reform plan, calls on opposition leaders to stop speaking about civil war and “the destruction of the state.” And: Commentary Magazine: https://www.commentary.org/ +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ As the mass media begins to suffer from their own bias and thus, pull away from protecting Biden and Democrats in general, I seriously doubt they will, all of a sudden, become objective. Objectivity is not in their DNA. Their arrogance and misplaced self-esteem and self-importance drives them. Their obligation to be America's ombudsman no longer exists or motivates them. +++ It’s Gotten So Bad For Biden Even Liberal Journalists Are Telling The Truth About Him (For Now) By Derek Hunter +++ White House Caught in Another Lie As More Classified Documents Surface in Biden's House +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Biden is losing the media, and thus the country The switch, to aggressive reporting, happened in a blink, and it came crashing about a week ago Op-ed. By Jack Engelhard Calamity Joe faces a resentful media No more are they asking which flavor ice cream he prefers, as they did there at the beginning. “Mr. President…Mr. President…what do you like best, chocolate or vanilla?” That’s as far as it got for investigative reporting from America’s docile media. Joe had them at hello. Now is it goodbye? Before our eyes we are watching Joe and his presidency unraveling domino by domino as more questions are being asked about his neglect toward classified files …a serious breach. So serious that it could bring down his presidency…especially so with the Republican House on the hunt. There is blood in the water…all the way from China. The switch, to aggressive reporting, happened in a blink, and it came crashing about a week ago when CBS Evening News broke the story about mishandled classified documents. What were they doing in Joe’s former office…when they should have been turned over to the National Archives? Joe’s alleged malfeasance is one part of the story. The other part is the media and how they turned to activists after so many years on snooze control. They turned on him, the thinking goes, because they find him unfit to run again, and are thus preparing America for a fresher face, someone like Pete Buttigieg. Pete, today’s Transportation Secretary, is equally incompetent, and he is gay, therefore perfectly suited for the highest office, thanks to the Democrats. Identity politics uber alles. Better, they reason, a young fool than an old fool…and whatever Joe did to ruin the country, Pete, or perhaps Kamala, can finish the job. Either way, the media woke up and for the first time found imperfections in good old Joe…actually, the first time they found faults in any Democrat. The answers coming from Joe’s press secretary, Karine Jean-Pierre, were found wanting and misleading, in what used to be called a “credibility gap.” After CBS came NBC and even ABC, and together they found and exposed Joe as the hoarder of classified documents, stashes of them here, there, and everywhere. Not so fast, though. Originally, they tried to play it down. No big deal, they said. Why…only a few pages were found, compared to Trump’s larger haul of forbidden material at Mar a Lago. Biden good. Trump bad. Oops. Now they have found 20 such secret materials on Joe’s properties. To divert attention, The New York Times began running stories meant to prove that the Biden family is not crooked. Joe, the paper alleged, knew nothing about Hunter’s shady business deals, and for sure Joe never shared, nor got rich, from the proceedings. Never. Never. Never. Not a chance that China has got its paws all over father and son. The rest of them, however, continued to assail Joe…an amazing turn of events and a lesson to what happens when you poke the sleeping giant, the media. You don’t want the media turning on you. Lyndon Johnson’s presidency came to an end after Walter Cronkite, note, CBS, visited Vietnam and came back to say the war was “wasteful.” Johnson declined to run for a second term. Richard Nixon was undone by Watergate. He resigned after being exposed by Woodward and Bernstein and The Washington Post. Both presidents were caught being dishonest. Joe can’t give a straight answer…not even on ice cream. New York-based bestselling American novelist Jack Engelhard writes regularly for Arutz Sheva. He wrote the worldwide book-to-movie bestseller “Indecent Proposal,” the authoritative newsroom epic, “The Bathsheba Deadline,” followed by his coming-of-age classics, “The Girls of Cincinnati,” and, the Holocaust-to-Montreal memoir, “Escape from Mount Moriah.” For that and his 1960s epic “The Days of the Bitter End,” contemporaries have hailed him “The last Hemingway, a writer without peer, and the conscience of us all.” Email Jack here ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ And so it goes: +++ Destroying American Democracy – An Inside Job By Pete Hoekstra, GATESTONE Just last week it was revealed that the FBI again withheld pertinent information from the American public, for past two months, until after the November 8, 2022 federal election. The combination of a politically weaponized Intelligence Community, operating hand-in-hand with organizations that are main gateways for information to millions of Americans, is a serious threat to American democracy and the integrity of our elections. Let us just briefly look at the steep slope of lying, deceit and corruption that has seeped into the leadership of the U.S. Intelligence Community. Having… false information — some of which the FBI actually altered — in the public domain was evidently intended to damage Trump. Today we know that the “Russia hoax” was a lie…. the information in the “Steele dossier” was false — and the FBI had known it was from the start. For almost two years, the authenticity of the material found on Hunter Biden’s laptop was questioned. Today, its authenticity has been verified; the information is real and damning. As summarized by the New York Post: “Yes that letter from the Dirty 51 had all the classic earmarks of a disinformation operation, all right – one designed to ensure Joe Biden won the presidency. And it was essentially a CIA operation, considering 43 of the 51 signatories were former CIA.” One final example of the Intelligence Community involving itself in domestic politics comes from the recent release of the Twitter files…. Tweet #17 states, “executives were also clearly liaising with federal enforcement and intelligence agencies about moderation of election-related content.” Finally, the FBI paid Twitter $3.5 million reportedly to “handle requests from the bureau.” The FBI, DHS and the ODNI had literally had set up shop at Twitter. Can our government, law enforcement, and the Intelligence Community still be trusted? Have those federal government agencies literally weaponized law enforcement and intelligence against political opponents in the U.S.? Has more than one solitary person — former FBI attorney Kevin Clinemith, for altering an email — been held accountable for these egregious abuses of power? Who authorized the cozy relationship between law enforcement, the intelligence community with twitter? Who in these government agencies reviewed and approved of the output and decisions coming from these joint efforts? Who has the records, notes and decisions that emanated from these groups? It is clear that our law enforcement community needs to be investigated, but most importantly we need to investigate how our Intelligence Community has evolved from having literally a non-existent relationship with speech in America to being inside the room determining what speech is allowed. There… needs to be a significant investigation by an outside, non-government group to understand how far this massive government overreach into free speech and election manipulation went. Clearly the government has been influencing what we get to see and hear. It needs to stop — now — before our democracy is destroyed. Can our government, law enforcement, and the Intelligence Community still be trusted? Have those federal agencies weaponized law enforcement and intelligence against political opponents in the U.S.? Today we know that the “Russia hoax” was a lie. The information in the “Steele dossier” was false — and the FBI knew it was from the start. Over the last few years, there has been much written about the destruction of American democracy. Frequently the threat has been of alleged interference in U.S. elections by Russia, China or other state actors. Government agencies, the name of election integrity, were assigned to identify and disrupt these foreign intrusions. As more and more information is revealed about these agencies, it seems that America’s Intelligence Community participated in these activities domestically, and in a way that poses a grave threat to both election integrity and American democracy. +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Safer in a foreign war zone? +++ Parts of Chicago, Philadelphia More Dangerous Than Wartime Iraq, Afghanistan: StudySkyrocketing crime rates are turning mayoral elections in America's biggest cities into referenda on those cities' liberal prosecutorial policies.By Matthew Rice +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Ordman's Good News Israel (edited.) +++ So Much More! - Israel's Positive Newsletter to 15th Jan 23 There has been so much more happening in Israel recently. A higher number Israeli startups than ever were on display at CES Las Vegas, which handed out more CES awards to Israeli innovators. There was more European funding for Israeli agricultural technology; and another Israeli satellite was successfully launched. In the health arena, Israeli doctors have again been treating patients in Africa; a further 1000 Europeans and Israelis can walk without pain thanks to Israeli knee implants; and a UAE sheikh was more than happy with the medical treatment he received in an Israeli hospital. In the 15th Jan 23 edition of Israel’s good news, the highlights include:
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Living in the Land of Lies. By: Victor Davis Hanson Part One - January 3, 2023 In reading and listening this holiday week I encountered nothing really other than outright lies. I was sitting on a farm buffeted before Christmas by near-record cold temperatures and after Christmas by near-record precipitation. Yet almost weekly we receive stories about California’s “permanent drought” of hot/dry weather and an environmental Armageddon that only precivilizational scarcity can avert. This fated doom means we in California have been outlawing gasoline-powered yard tools and new natural gas ovens and heating systems, and must always suffer fuel prices 30-40 percent above those in the rest of the nation due to special green blends and restrictions on refinery operations and new gas and oil leasing. So, no matter: all of these recent stories of near-record cold and precipitation, as well as fated new cutbacks are followed by warnings of imminent global warming catastrophes. Apparently, if Californians do not use fossil fuels at all, but, as the largest state importer of electricity in the nation, buy out-of-state electricity (much of it generated by coal or natural gas) then we at least can feel better about ourselves. But more to the point, before the recent week of intense cold storms, giving ample rain and snowfall, California was already experiencing in most places a 100 percent-plus December precipitation rate. By New Year’s Day, we may well have 100 percent-plus of the season’s entire average annual precipitation. Apparently, the harder the rain falls, the colder the days become, and the more Governor Newsom and the Bay Area “scientific” community insist we need to return to a premodern lifestyle of mass transit transportation, unaffordable gas and diesel, and wind and solar generated, sky-high electricity rates We are told yet again by President Biden, by Vice President Harris, by their Pravda megaphone, Karine Jean-Pierre, and perhaps by soon-to-be-impeached Alejandro Mayorkas that the border is “secure.” And any who object to 5 million entries since January 2021 prove that it is not a Great Replacement Theory racist. Yet, living the lie proves otherwise. Here in Central California, I’ve noticed a substantial new surge and influx of illegal aliens. On my avenue, a recent sheriff’s raid surrounded a nearby house, where neighbors long suspected gang chop shops, drug dealing, and other unmentionable trafficking. The amount of trash on the farm is greater than usual, and the paper/trash is of exclusively Spanish language matter (but, alas, carefully sifted to exclude any address or names on envelopes). The number of parked cars in the orchard of occupants variously shooting drugs, scouting out copper wire thievery, fornicating, or engaging in illegal shooting (e.g., red-tailed hawks, great horned owls, anything that moves), and those walking cross-country, through the vineyards and orchards, who do not speak English is on the rise as well. In the papers, there are increasing stories of outraged parents from Oaxaca who are not provided Spanish translators at school board meetings, ironically often overseen by Latino citizen board members who do not speak Spanish fluently. To suggest that if someone comes illegally into the U.S. without the permission of the host, and does not know or quickly learn English, then one should not make costly demands on the citizen population, is proof of racism. Imagine a U.S. expatriate who sneaks across the southern border and does not acquire a resident visa or green card, continues to reside illegally in Mazatlán, and then goes to a city council meeting to demand his Mexican hosts provide for him an interpreter in English—or else! Occasionally even the Fresno Bee notes that illegal aliens (“undocumented migrants”) have been arriving in Central California. But again, we are told by Californians that the border is secure just as we must return to our pastoral past given the constant doom of permanent scorching heat and unending aridity. Part Two - January 4, 2023 I turn on my computer and often receive from two universities all sorts of the latest campus news. But the news is different than it was pre-Covid/George Floyd riots. The Jeanne Clery Disclosure of Campus Security Policy and Campus Crime Statistics Act is now some 32 years old. And it is increasingly flagrantly violated by colleges and universities. The number of Clery Act fines leveled against higher education has gradually increased, but probably not as much as the violations themselves. The law demands that campuses publish a three-year history of their crime statistics and a daily police log of crimes and descriptions of suspects to warn campus residents of potential dange But suddenly the descriptions that one receives from universities increasingly are of little practical value and vastly different than pre-2020. That is the old law wars with new wokism which dictates that any suggestion that people of color might be overrepresented in any reported crime statistic is systemic racism. Thus, in the past when you received an email of an on-campus assault, break-in, robbery, or sexual offense, the campus police log gave a general description of the suspect—sex, race, height, weight, general clothes, and appearance. But not so much now. Usually, the phrase “full description unavailable” follows, or it is air-brushed into generalities that provide the student nothing of preemptive value. Many universities, including state colleges such as UC Berkeley, have been fined for violating the statute. They operate apparently on the theory that crime is much higher than one imagines. Thus, its publication is not conducive to admissions, or at least woke formalities on campus. If blacks and Latinos, according to U.S. crime data, are “overrepresented” in the general population as violent crime perpetrators, and if that trend holds true on campus, and if a campus’s new mission is to highlight the multifarious dangers that white “supremacy” and “privilege” hold for people of color, then it apparently is wiser to shut up. That is, campuses apparently choose to violate the law and pay the fine or violate the law and hope the left-leaning Biden administration concurs with their noncompliance than obey the law and violate the canons of on-campus wokism. In other words, the potential collateral (and life-threatening) danger to a student who is not told the detailed description of a rapist or thug on campus, and thus cannot make the necessary adjustments, is considered tolerable—at least in comparison to the risk of woke outrage by suggesting that a particular profile appears too frequently in the campus police daily crime suspect report. Most campus news digests in general are usually a litany of oppressions that highlight the hard work of diversity/equity/inclusion administrators (there are over 15,000 general administrative staffers at Stanford for roughly the 16,000 students enrolled). The explicit message (that has replaced the old implicit subtext) is again white supremacy and white privilege. But then the national news, well beyond such on-campus Clery Act matters, to the extent it is reported, does not bear out such groupthink and newspeak at all For example, there is a new national wave of anti-Semitism. But it is increasingly voiced by black cultural billionaires, entertainers, sports figures, and intellectuals like Alice Walker, Kayne West, Whoopi Goldberg, and Kyrie Irving. And there is an “upsurge” in hate crimes against Asian-Americans and Jews. But to the extent one can access FBI crime records, and such crimes are even reported, they consistently show that blacks commit hate crimes at double their numbers in the general population, while whites are “underrepresented” and commit fewer hate crimes than their demographic percentages. CSU Fresno, where I taught for 20 years, reports that its so-called white population is now 18 percent and Stanford’s is a bit higher at 23 percent of its incoming class. So much for the old “proportional representation” that has now given way to “reparatory” or “compensatory” admissions and hiring. “Disproportionate” action has replaced “affirmative action.” The constant harangues about oppression and the expensive remedies for it seem somewhat odd given the greater number of oppressed and victimized than the shrinking pool of oppressors and victimizers. How do institutions in which their white student enrollments are only 30 percent of their national demographics—that commit crimes at far less than their demographic percentages in the general population—still find on-campus pale dragons to slay? (Reader, you may answer with “adjectives”: add “systemic” to racism, or “micro” to aggression to detect the undetectable. In other words, the more one reads on campus about “white privilege,” the fewer white oppressors one sees. So, what happens when the white population shrinks on campus to ten percent, which is likely on the horizon when the current expanding pools of DEI administrators take over the presidencies of most universities? Will then a Hobbesian bellum omnium contra omnes follow in the fashion of the shotgun, hot-mic racism voiced by progressive Los Angeles Latino city-council members, or the anti-Semitism of an Alice Walker, Whoopi Goldberg, Kayne West, or the late Michael Jackson, and get louder, even as the multifaceted white hatreds of a racist Joy Reid become passé? If you do not take an interest in the affairs of your government, then you are doomed to live under the rule of fools. Plato ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Stacey Abrams is a loser and and a naggingly sore one. Now a Georgia court has declared she owes some big bucks. +++ Stacey Abrams Group Ordered To Reimburse Georgia Over Election Lawsuit A federal judge has ordered Stacey Abrams’ Fair Fight Action to pay over $200,000 to reimburse the state of Georgia for legal fees related to a false lawsuit that claimed Republican Gov. Brian Kemp cheated his way through the 2018 gubernatorial election. Fair Fight Action and other plaintiffs lost the four-year suit last September. The group claimed the Peach State infringed on voting rights. The judgment includes compensation of roughly $193,000 for trial costs and $38,000 for exhibit copies utilized during the case. Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger applauded this decision as he argued that Abrams should receive a stricter punishment. According to the Georgia attorney general’s office, the suit cost the state about $6 million. However, the court’s ruling does not capture attorney fees for Georgia’s legal defense. “This is a win for taxpayers and voters who knew all along that Stacey Abrams[’s] voter suppression claims were false, it has never been easier to vote and harder to cheat in the state of Georgia,” Raffensperger said in a statement. “This is a start, but I think Stacey Abrams should pay back the millions of taxpayer dollars the state was forced to spend to disprove her false claims.” “While the Court’s actions are not the preferred outcome, the conduct of this trial and preceding cases and legislative actions represent a hard-won victory for voters who endured long lines, burdensome date of birth requirements and exact match laws that disproportionately impact Black and Brown voters,” Abrams said in response to the ruling. Abrams established Fair Fight Action after her loss to Gov. Brian Kemp (R-GA), asserting that state laws suppressed voting. Abrams lost the 2018 election but refused to concede, citing voter suppression. She lost the governor’s race by over 50,000 votes in Georgia, after which she then claimed “efforts to undermine” voters’ rights were in motion. Abrams has continued to challenge the election outcome based on “voter suppression. Abrams claimed the gubernatorial election was “stolen from Georgians” and that the officials made it difficult to register voters and maintain voter rows. And then: More sleaze from Hunter +++ New low for Hunter Biden: Fighting to prevent daughter with ex-lover from using his last name Hunter Biden fathered a daughter with ex-lover Lunden Roberts. He is fighting hard to prevent his daughter from taking his last name. Read in Fox News: https://apple.news/ ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ I found the McCarthy Hearings disconcerting but most know Democracy and freedom can get messy. I was not complimentary about them but, perversely, maybe I missed some of the potential benefits. The naysayers went a bit over board and extreme but by holding McCarthy's feet to the fire they might also have accomplished some future good because they forced him to stiffen his back. Now he is on record, has walked the line and should he go backwards and melt , like a Rino, he is finished. It is high time liberals, who have ruled the Republican Party, move aside and let the younger Turks have their say. Many are very bright, seemingly conservative to the core and understand the distinction between what the Founding Father's intended versus what we have turned into and the spread is far too wide. Those opposed have their own agenda and it is more government, more control by government and less freedom because through all their "moronic" but dangerous demands they remain ready to do anything, to be in the driver's seat. Again, where this all plays out is anyone's guess. I can see a period when violence throughout the land becomes commonplace. Was the defunding of police a prelude to allow this to happen? I can also see the collapse of the radical's efforts because the overwhelming number of Americans like what we once had,. They do not want ,totalitarianism, communism, socialism or any "ism." They are willing for America to change while retaining our democracy, our republic and correct where true needs should be addressed but do so in a systematic and common sense way while retaining the core essence of our freedoms and open society. What the " she she" Biden crowd want is the opposite and his deep rooted incompetency, mean spiritedness could become so glaring he takes his crowd down after his wrecking bar approach becomes onerous and overly intolerable. Those Biden placed in government to run matters are incompetent, were selected to check off sexual proclivity, color, race, multi-life styles, gender and a variety of extremes that do not sit well with normal "Yanks.". You can push too far and Biden's press secretary, among other weirdos who steal luggage at airports, are a prime example. For someone who is cynical and pessimistic and when matters get as bad as I believed they would and now are and somewhat more to come and, at least the bubba's and deplorables are becoming truly pissed, I believe it is now time to begin getting hopeful so I am beginning to feel the ground shake underneath my feet. The Democrats will stonewall, the mass media will continue their inane excuses and that will all boomerang against them. Various agencies of our government will continue to lie and thwart and that too will just increase the pace and race to the bottom and serve no purpose except to create more discontent. Of course the Justice Department will lead the parade. Stay tuned. +++ Avi publishes another book. +++ The Future of Our Species By Avi Jorisch At this moment human beings, imperiled by hunger, pollution, and global warming, are at a critical juncture. Many believe that we are closer than we’ve ever been to extinction. But we’re also in an era of abundance – and remarkable wealth – that’s fueling innovation that could enable us to fundamentally change our destiny. The enormous change we will experience in the coming decades will make life on earth unrecognizable. More than half a century ago, Gordon Moore proposed a theory that would radically change our conception of technology. The power of microchips running our computers, he concluded, will double every two years, while their cost will remain about the same. He predicted the invention of home computers, cellphones, self-driving cars, and smartwatches – all of which would become cheaper over time. “Moore’s law” has since proven to be true. Ray Kurzweil, a scientist, futurist and director of engineering for Google, took Moore’s law a step further, arguing that exponential growth isn’t a recent phenomenon, but something we’ve experienced for thousands of years. By the 19th century, technological change was occurring at a rate faster than in the previous 900 years combined, and included innovations such as the steam engine, the electric telegraph, and gas lighting. The first few decades of the 20th century saw more technological advancement than the entire previous century – from cars and airplanes to radio transmission. Kurzweil makes a convincing case that the rate of global technological progress will continue to be exponential. “We won’t experience 100 years of progress in the 21st century,” he says, “it will be more like 20,000 years of progress.” He predicts the next few decades will see radical technological changes straight from the pages of science fiction. According to Kurzweil, humans will be able to cure most diseases by the end of this decade. We’ll be able to reverse-engineer the brain and use nanobots to treat debilitating illnesses, including disorders like Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s. And as a result, our lifespans will increase dramatically. His predictions about energy have equally far-reaching implications. “In 2030 we will have [total] renewable energy,” Kurzweil says, “and it will be inexpensive.” Solar energy, he maintains, will satisfy the total demand of humankind, likely meaning cleaner air and fewer wars. His most shocking predictions involve virtual reality and artificial intelligence. Kurzweil believes that by 2029, computers will exhibit intelligent behavior equivalent to or indistinguishable from that of humans – including the capacity for love, romance, and humor. AI will eventually respond to the personalities and preferences of human users, and we’ll build real human-computer relationships. But this is also the moment when AI will surpass us, as machines gain the ability to conceive of ideas no human has ever thought of. By the early 2030s, Kurzweil thinks we’ll be able to copy a human brain and reproduce it in electronic format. Humans will no longer need flesh, blood, or bones, and we won’t die in the traditional sense. We’ll just 3D print fresh organs. Even greater changes will come by 2045, though we can hardly comprehend them, because our brains are wired to believe that the future will evolve linearly and predictably, rather than exponentially. By that year, Kurzweil posits, we’ll have achieved what’s known as singularity, a period when humans will multiply their effective intelligence a billion-fold by merging our brains with artificial intelligence. This is the point at which human civilization experiences unforeseen changes due to uncontrollable and irreversible technological growth – which will fundamentally impact how we learn, work, recreate, and wage war. “This leads to computers having human intelligence, humans putting them inside our brains, connecting them to the cloud, expanding who we are,” says Kurzweil. That Kurzweil’s rosy predictions sound more like Star Trek: The Next Generation than The Terminator is not lost on futurists like Nick Bostrom, who believe that when singularity arrives, there’s a strong possibility that machines will enslave or destroy human beings. Bostrom envisions an AI that will “annihilate Earth-originating intelligent life or permanently and drastically curtail its potential.” The Rand Corporation, a US defense think tank, warns that the use of AI in military applications could cause a nuclear war by 2040. Even Elon Musk, founder of SpaceX and Tesla, two of the most innovative 21st-century companies, has called artificial intelligence “more dangerous than nukes.” He, too, believes the rate of improvement in AI is exponential, and that it’s “capable of vastly more than people really understand.” As he once tweeted, “competition for AI superiority at a national level [is the] most likely cause of World War III.” Whether we’re headed toward utopia or dystopia – or something in between – will rest on the decisions humanity makes over the next few years. In the coming decades, what’s next will be dictated by our growing ability to leverage exponential thinking to bring about truly extraordinary innovations that are far beyond our current imagination – technologies that will, if used for good, allow us to make the world a far better place. As Abraham Lincoln said, “the best way to predict your future is to create it.” Avi Jorisch (www.avijorisch.com) is the author of NEXT: A Brief History of the Future (Gefen Publishing) and a Senior Fellow at the American Foreign Policy Council ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ They just keep coming: +++ Biden Caught In Yet Another Lie +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ |
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