Friday, March 29, 2024

OUT Hochul. Truth Behind Lies. GOP Self-Immolation. Melissa #3. 2 UGH Essay. More.





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'Get Her Outta Here': Kathy Hochul Told to Leave Slain NYPD Officer's Wake – PJ Media

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Marxism never works. That is why brain dead radical Democrats want to impose it on America because they want to destroy us.  We are stupid enough to assist them.
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HOOVER DAILY:
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Gaza: The Truths Behind All The Lies

by Victor Davis Hanson via American Greatness

From civilian casualties, the use of disproportionate force, and international biases, the mainstream narrative of the Gaza conflict often obfuscates the truth behind lies.

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FORMER CNN ANCHOR GAVE THE MOST SPOT-ON RESPONSE TO THE OCTOBER 7 HAMAS MASSACRE

written by Phil Schneider 

Cuomo hit it on the nose. What Israel’s enemy did was to bring the ultimate traumatic terror hit on Israel. Hamas went after the Israeli women, the children, and all of the innocents – “just like the Holocaust.” Chris Cuomo understands and appreciates the fact that what was done on October 7th was exactly a one day full-fledged Holocaust. ”It was death in your face – hands-on and personal. They enjoyed mutilating…. This was absolute genocide.”  

Chris Cuomo explained that the pattern of what was done to Israel on October 7th had nothing to do with freedom or peace or a better life. ”They wanted the world to know that they wanted the Jews to burn again.” Israel is fueled by the deepest fear of genocide. 

“Israel is doing far less than it could.” He is also right about that. The Israeli people will only view what they are doing as victory if the fear of whatever is put into the Arabs in Israel’s midst so that they realize that they will be killed if they dare plot to kill Israelis again. 

The bottom line is that Israel and the entire Western world are both deeply involved in a battle between good and evil. Radical Islam is the evil that must be fought mercilessly. Those who see things through that prism will surely stand with Israel. Those who see this as a human rights issue will easily get confused into thinking that Arabs actually give a hoot about human rights and that the Arabs attacked because of their own human rights struggles. That is all hogwash. Nobody rapes and mutilates a woman as a response to feeling that their own human rights have been violated. Nobody kills babies because of human rights violations. Cuomo is right in noting that people need to see the 47 minutes of footage if they are not convinced as of yet. This is not a mere border skirmish. It is a battle between good and evil.

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The GOP hate being in authority.  They prefer tearing each other apart.

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The Self-Immolating House GOP Majority 

By The Editors

A majority is a terrible thing to waste, but House Republicans aren't letting that stop them.

They currently have one vote to spare amid toxic divisions that make the place nearly ungovernable. About six months after Matt Gaetz filed his motion to vacate against House Speaker Kevin McCarthy for working with Democrats to pass a budget bill, Marjorie Taylor Greene filed a motion to vacate against Speaker Mike Johnson for working with Democrats to pass a budget bill.

For now, the Greene motion is just to make a threat, but it's easy to imagine a move against Johnson, especially if he ever brings a Ukraine-aid bill to the floor.

The root of the problem is that Republicans underperformed in the 2022 midterms, in large part because they nominated MAGA candidates who didn't accept the outcome of the 2020 election. The resulting slender GOP majority in the House served to empower a small faction of clownish MAGA acolytes, as Montana Republican Matt Rosendale — a card-carrying member of this faction — acknowledged when he said he had been praying for a small majority.

This created the predicate for McCarthy's struggles winning the speakership, during which he agreed to a rule change to return to one member being able to offer a motion to vacate. That, in turn, allowed Matt Gaetz to torpedo McCarthy's speakership with the help of a handful of Republicans, largely out of personal pique. This took out a master fundraiser and adept tactician and led to the rise of Mike Johnson, an inexperienced leader trying to manage in unforgiving circumstances.

The outsized influence of the likes of Marjorie Taylor Greene and Matt Gaetz and their willingness to actively support primaries against their Republican colleagues, the vitriol from MAGA world directed at anyone who doesn't toe the line, the weakness of the House leadership, and the fact that little is getting done have led to a spate of retirements and resignations, most recently of the promising Mike Gallagher and the rock-ribbed Ken Buck (who, it should be noted, voted to vacate McCarthy).

Basically, what we're witnessing is a political version of Gresham's law, with the bad politicians forcing out the good.

It would help if more Republicans acknowledged the limits of their power at a time when they (barely) control just one chamber of Congress, and if Speaker Johnson showed more decisiveness and willingness to push back against the most destructive members of his own caucus. But the likes of Greene and Gaetz aren't going away, and the numbers are what they are.

Reversing Rosendale's logic, the only answer is to grow the majority in November. The spectacle of House Republicans consuming themselves with unremitting internal warfare is, needless to say, not helpful to that cause.

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HOOVER WEEKLY HIGHIGHTS:

The Need to Reboot and Reemphasize Civics Instruction Has Never Been Greater

By Chester E. Finn, Jr. 

Chester E. Finn writes that the state of civics education in American school systems is quite poor, and it is costing pupils in the long run. He advocates for a reinvigorated civics curriculum centered on teaching about core government functions and rules rather than the “civic action” or activism incorporated in many civics classes today. He argues that the cumulative effect of this poor effort at civics instruction is a “population that is gradually untethering from democracy,” unable to understand the political issues they come across in the news, if they’re paying attention at all.

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Melisa travels.

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Chapter 3. March 20 – 23, 2024.

We spent a lovely night in the Agra Oberoi, and rose early to get to the Taj Mahal by sunrise. Sunrise and sunset are the “golden hours” when the Taj seems to glow. We had missed sunset, so we didn’t want to miss sunrise.

After a quick continental breakfast at the hotel, we were off once again in the golf carts.

We stayed just an hour to enjoy a few different angles for photos. (I’m sure one or the other of us found the one no one has ever seen. Hah!) Then back to the hotel for a real breakfast. Jim went off on an excursion to a marble goods factory, and I stayed behind to work on this epistle. 

When we were here 8 years ago, Jim visited the same marble factory and came back having purchased a gorgeous cutting board. This time, he returned empty handed, which is just fine. He did enjoy seeing the tiny pieces of gems that they inlay into the marble and watching them work, all by hand.

About noon, we left Agra and headed to Jaipur.

Agra is 125 miles southeast of Delhi, and Jaipur is 155 miles southwest. Together, they orm the Golden Triangle of Indian tourism.

To get from Agra to Jaipur took about 4 ½ hours. We stopped for lunch along the way at a very interesting spot. The owner of the restaurant owns about 100 acres of land here. (They measure in hectares, so my math might be off a bit.) He has a hotel and banquet facility and handles small groups in his dining room. (We are about 20 people.)

There was an extensive buffet with any Indian dish you might want, including such famous Indian desserts as crème brulée and vanilla ice cream.

Overly stuffed, we carried on to Jaipur, arriving about an hour before dinner. Once again, the hotel was a magnificent Oberoi. On this property, rooms are scattered about in casitas or, in our case, a tent. The tents are considered an upgrade, and they are quite nice. Two central poles held up the canvas roof, which was lined with sparkly fabric. We had a king-sized bed, large screen TV, dressing area with a claw-footed tub, separate shower, and 2 sinks. It was totally private, with a wall all around. Quite delightful.

Jim and I went for a walk on the property to get the lay of the land and get in a few steps. We are surrounded by flowers and park-like green lawns, inhabited by a large number of peacocks and peahens. These birds rule the roost, so to speak. They parade around, unfazed by humans, and fly up to sit on roofs, posing for photos. We had one that stayed on the walk outside our tent for about 2 hours while he stared at us and we stared at him.

Dinner was an elaborate affair. First, the men in our group were all wrapped in turbans and the ladies were given long, colorful scarves. Then we had a “band” of 3 men. All three musicians sat on the ground behind “Welcome Uniworld” written out in flower petals. We had 2 drummers on bongo-type drums and one playing something that sounded just like an accordion but was in a square box sitting on the ground beside the musician The band was soon joined by 4 female dancers in long, full, multi-colored skirts with spangles. They were barefoot and wore pants under their skirts, and they = twirled those skirts around, making a lovely sight. Each of the dancers had a pot balanced on her head with fire coming up from the pot.

We thought they were tied on until they just tossed them off at the end. Egads -- they were really balancing them. Then one of the dancers stacked two of these pots, and then four of them on her head and continued to dance without dropping any. She even managed to sit and put her chin nearly on the ground without calamity.

Then a young man came out to show off his skills, which included walking/standing on a bed of nails. Ouch! Why?

We had a huge buffet dinner under the stars. Quite nice. All my clothes are now too tight, so a change in habits is required – maybe just the ice cream or the crème brulée,not both. Such a sacrifice!

Jaipur is the capital and largest city of the state of Rajastan. It was founded in 1727 by Maharaja Jai Singh II, the ruler of Amer. It is the tenth largest city in India, with only 3-4 million residents at last count. Like other Indian cities, it is crowded and the drivers all think they have the right-of-way. We’ve seen several times when traffic was held up by some less-than-intelligent driver in the left lane wanting to cross 2-3 lanes of traffic to turn right.

Jaipur is known as the Pink City, but the color of the buildings is more of an ochre or adobe. The city was coated in that color for the visit of the Prince of Wales in 1905 and has remained so from then on.

We took off in the morning for the Amer Fort. This fort was begun in 1592 by Raja Man Singh, the commander of Akbar’s army. It was later completed and extended by Jai Singh before he moved the capital down the hill to Jaipur. The wall of the fort snakes long the top of the mountains like the Great Wall in China. The fort overlooks a lake which reflects its rampart and terraces. Inside the fort are palaces, temples, and homes for many people in the palace.

One note here -- there is still a maharaja of Jaipur, but he has no power. His family was allowed to keep the palace, but the government doesn’t provide any money, so he has to open it up to the public. Some of his relatives live in the palace, so very little is open to the public.

The bus parked down below the fort and we switched to Jeeps to ride up the hillside.

This was mostly a scenery-photography stop, but we did see a couple of specific things.

One was the hall of mirrors called Sheesh Mahal. Unlike Versailles, these mirrors are tiny mosaics all over the walls and ceiling. The effect in candlelight must be magnificent. The second was a small museum showing the clothing of one of the Singhs. He had a pituitary problem which caused him to grow 7 feel tall and a weight of over 500 pounds. I don’t think the Big and Tall Shop would have enough fabric to cover him.

On the way out, as we walked down to the Jeeps, the hawkers were out in force. Hats ,musical instruments, tote bags, tiny elephants strung together, shoes, shoehorns, all were being deeply discounted by the time we reached the bus parking lot. Our local guide, Yogi, got a stack of hats and brought them on the bus to see if there were any takers. Then he paid what he knew was a fair price. Ditto for tote bags, guidebooks, hand-decorated small sunbrellas, and various other tchotchkes. That way, everyone was happy.

We also visited Jantar Mantar, an observatory where we were met by a professor. He explained to us the way the various sun dials on the premises worked to keep time to the minute. India decided some time back to have just one time zone. The center of the country is 5 ½ hours ahead of Greenwich Mean Time, so they chose that as their official time for the whole country, making it a real pain to try to figure out what time it is = at home. Subtract 9 ½ hours from the time in India to get Savannah time. 

They never change time for daylight savings, so, for Indians, it is simple.

This professor also did a slap-dab job at describing each of our personalities based on the date and time of our births. The time is important because it tells him which sign in rising. (Don’t ask why.) When it was my turn, he said “You are taller than your mother was.” Well, no, I’m an inch shorter. That probably irritated him, so then he told me my color was blue and I was a bossy lady. (The last time we were here, the man doing this job told me how wonderful I was. I liked him better.) 

When it came to Old Grumpypants, he looked at his palm and said Jim could sometimes get aggressive.

Look out pickle ballers! I don’t think the professor’s heart was really into this. I did keep that blue color in mind, however, as you’ll see shortly. He said Jim’s color was red, so his little red Lexus is just right for him.

We drove around the old walled city, taking in the hubbub and sights. After lunch, it was time for SHOPPING! Jaipur is a shopping paradise. Not every pair of Nike shoes you find is actually Nike, but a knock-off of any brand you’ve heard of is available. We were not of a mind to shop for cheap stuff, however. Yogi took us to a jewelry manufacturer.

They cut and polish the stones upstairs and sell their wares in a very nice store down below. A lot of the designs are too elaborate and blingy – some might say gaudy – but they do have some simpler things if you are patient enough to wade through stacks of boxes, with 24 different designs per box. India is known for diamonds, rubies, emeralds, and sapphires. Wait, aren’t sapphires blue? Aha.

Jim stood by patiently while I tried to find something just perfect. I did pick out one pair of earrings, but they were too expensive, so we kept looking. And looking. And looking.

Finally, Jim spoke. “What’s the best price you can give us on the ones she likes?” After a bit of haggling, he got the price down about 25%, so Jim and Rajeed shook on it. My anniversary present! What a sweetie. Do I need to change is moniker to Old SweetiePants?

The next stop was a textiles place. We had seen most of this before (and bought a carpet for our living room) but I had somehow missed the clothing department on the third floor. This time, we went straight to the fabrics department. I was hoping to find a nice comfortable summer dress. Well, ladies and gentlemen, Apollo has landed! Just pick out a style, your favorite fabric from the hundreds of options, and the tailor will measure you and we’ll whip it up and have it at your hotel by 9:30 tonight. This is the way to shop!

Exhausted and broke, we went back to the hotel and had an early dinner alfresco with a nice couple from Australia. It was their 50 th wedding anniversary, so we got to share in a scrumptious brownie with ice cream that the hotel provided gratis. A fine way to end an evening.

This morning, Saturday, we were up at 3:00 a.m. to get our bags out by 4:00 and then take off for the airport. I was expecting the Jaipur airport to be, well, not the modern and fairly well-run airport that it was. But it wasn’t all easy. They checked everything.

Printed tickets had to be presented in order to get into the building. Then we had a pretty long wait to check our bags and get boarding passes. We had to pay for extra baggage weight, but it was a small amount. Security was one line for men and another for women. They opened my camera case and checked everything in there. Then into the “frisking” room, where the guard seemed very suspicious of my deep brain stimulator battery. I had to open my shirt and let her see that it was, in fact, inside and not a bomb on the outside. Jim got pretty well checked out, too. Of course, we ARE suspicious looking because we are “different”. Then upstairs to the waiting area, boarding pretty quickly, and off we took.

The plane was IndiGo airlines, a domestic carrier. It seemed like a pretty new plane, but it was all 3 seats on each side. We got adjacent aisle seats from the check-in man.

I was scheduled for a middle seat, so I asked him if he could find me an aisle or window.

He didn’t grasp that Jim and I did not need to sit together, so he moved both of us. We

went from row 4 to row 26, which did not make James happy UNTIL we were leaving the plane. We were able to go out the back door and take a bus to the baggage area rather than having a long walk with the rest of our group. Hah!

We flew from Jaipur to Kolkata, aka Calcutta. It was a 2 hour flight, so I had a good nap. The Indians are funny. They are very strict about some things, like batteries in your chest, but not at all strict about others. People were listening to loud music on their phones (and allowing us to hear it all) until the plane was in the air, and once again as soon as the plane landed. A man was standing up while the plane was taxiing, but a stewardess didn’t like the way my neighbor’s seat belt was fastened. Go figure. I’ll save Kolkatta and the riverboat for our next episode.

Here is the link for Jaipur photos: https://www.mmemery.com/Jaipur2024

If the link won’t work, just copy or type the address into your browser.

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Only 2 UGH's.

By Dick Berkowitz

Friday's (3/29) WSJ's " Mansion"  section was entitled "Modernism Finds a  Way In Savannah."

My wife was born in Savannah, we were married in Savannah 52 years ago but lived in Atlanta until 2002.  I believed it was time we move to Savannah to be with her mother and father who were getting advanced in years,  Lynn came kicking and screaming, as did our daughter, Abby, but I prevailed.

After I year Lynn came around, made new friends and retained special ones from her Atlanta days and we have continued our May week at N Litchfield Beach, South Carolina with four couples from our Atlanta neighborhood. 2004 will be our 40th year, I believe.

Initially our children, who grew up together, came and could bring a friend, if they so chose, and in the morning we piled out of our large beach rental home like circus clowns  exiting a car. The kids are all married, live all over, are raising their own kids so we are down to 5 couples. We are the only couple with great grandchildren.

We have a routine but, due to health issues, I no longer play tennis with my buddies so I read books, take a nap, am in charge of making Marguerita's. and in the evening we generally play a game called left, right center with pennies and roll the dice to see what we do next.

I designed the house we live in at The Landings on Skidaway Island and a gifted decorator, who helped us remodel our Atlanta home, took my rough sketches and scaled the rooms and re-directed the stairs to the upstair bedrooms and sitting area..

Our home has a typical stucco exterior but inside it is open and contemporary because we are art enthusiasts and the ceiling is 9 feet downstairs. Our collection probably numbers some 300 items and runs the gamut.  In earlier years we traveled and always bought art to remind us of our trip and which we could afford so our collection includes Africa, Asia, European, Native American objects. I particularly favor the American period in the early 1900's when America came into it's own, ie. Théodore Dreiser's novel. Gershwin's music, Negro Jazz, Ash Can Artists and you get the drift.

Our friends love our home, and there is little, after 22 years, we would change, except Lynn got short changed on a larger closet to accommodate her shoes.

I resigned my board membership on the State Museum (GMOA), on the University of GA. Campus, in Athens, after some 24 years because it was getting difficult to attend the meetings and our internationally recognized fabulous director, Bill Eiland, was resigning.

We have hosted the GMOA Board, we have had nationally known authors stay with us and give talks to groups of friends and our family piles in on various holidays. There is nothing pretentious about our home.  It is comfortable, like an old pair of shoes, and we know we too will have to downsize so we are apprehensive but realistic.

We have explored Maitland, FL. where our real estate daughter lives and have no desire to move an inch north of Savannah.  My side of the family (I am an only child) numbers 30. In August it will rise to 31 as our 5th great grandchild is born and our last unmarried oldest grandson just married a lovely Californian.

At 90, soon to be 91, my own years are numbered and my goal is to make sure Lynn does not have to undertake a move by herself. We have begun the painful art object de-accession process but it ain't going well because every time we give something away we re-fill the empty space with another object. UGH.

Life has been good to us and we consider ourselves blessed. Speaking for myself, I have done more than I ever could have imagined, met incredible people, had amazing experiences, have great friends, a wonderful family of productive, talented offspring and a marriage to a unique woman who everyone wonders how she hung in there. They call her a saint. 

However, Lynn won't let me get a dog. We came home one day after Abby's soccer game with a Bichon, named Hairy.  He lived 17 years and we had to put him down. One of the saddest days of my life.  I still keep his fleece rug by my desk. We waited for Abby to come from Maitland to bid him goodbye. Another UGH.

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Another dumb move but then Oregonians are not real people.  

I stopped giving to the Atlanta Federation because they invested in accord with Fink's ESG stupidity.  Now even he regrets doing so. 

Boards are responsible for investing prudently and to make me the most they can so our giving will grow.  Two years ago they underperformed because they would not invest in energy which exploded upward.

I deem they violated their fiduciary responsibility and they will not receive a penny more until they mend their ways and go back to the old fashion method of seeking to make me all they can within sensible parameters.

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In a first, Oregon’s Jewish federations pull investments from fossil fuels

By Asaf Elia-Shalev

(JTA) — Oregon’s two Jewish communal federations have decided to divest their endowment funds from the fossil fuel industry due to concerns about the ongoing impact of the climate crisis.

The announcement on Wednesday makes the Jewish Federation of Greater Portland and the Jewish Federation of Lane County, which together represent approximately 60,000 Jews, the first of the 146 Jewish federations across North America to pull their investments from oil, gas and coal companies. They have more than $3 million in investment assets. 

Even as many Jewish groups actively support climate action and engage in advocacy on the issue, only a handful of Jewish organizations have ever announced fossil fuel divestments. Dayenu, a Jewish climate advocacy group that released the announcement on behalf of the federations, has been encouraging Jewish groups to embrace divestment as a tactic that can help accelerate a global transition toward clean energy. 

“Oregon’s two Jewish Federations are leading the way, taking this common-sense approach to aligning their investments with their values and taking meaningful action on climate,” Dayenu CEO Jennie Rosenn said in a statement. “They are the first of what we are confident will be many Jewish communal institutions to follow.”

More than 1,600 institutions and organizations around the world have made full or partial climate investment pledges, including hundreds of faith-based groups, according to a public database that tracks pledges. Before the new announcement, only three Jewish groups were among that tally: the Reform movement’s pension system; the American Jewish World Service, a global service and aid group; and Kolot Chayeinu, a congregation in the Brooklyn, New York, neighborhood of Park Slope. 

The Portland Jewish federation concluded that fossil fuel divestment aligned with its financial goals as well as its values, according to Hank Kaplan, a federation board member. 

“In addition to being the main driver of the climate crisis, fossil fuels are a declining industry and have underperformed the rest of the market over the past decade,” Kaplan said in a statement. “Screening out fossil fuels aligned with our values and our history of climate action and made plain financial sense.”

Dayenu began advocating divestment after calculating in 2022 that the endowments of Jewish communal organizations had at least $3 billion tied up in oil, gas or coal companies. Dayenu’s initiative came as another Jewish group involved in environmental advocacy, Adamah, organized a new green coalition of Jewish institutions interested in climate action. 

By early 2023, these efforts, supported by donors such as the Diane and Guilford Glazer Foundation, put climate at the top of the agenda of the Jewish communal world for the first time. (The Glazer Foundation also supports 70 Faces Media, JTA’s parent company.)

The two Oregon federations don’t directly manage their own investment dollars. Instead, they hold accounts with the Oregon Jewish Community Foundation, a donor-advised fund that directs investments and makes grants on behalf of donors. The federations made their climate-friendly investment change by opting to use a fossil-fuel-free pool offered by the foundation. 

Several other donor-advised funds, or DAFs, serving Jewish communities across the country offer fossil-fuel-free options, but the exact number is unknown, said Jacob Siegel, Dayenu’s climate finance advisor, who added that he has “had conversations” with Jewish DAFs that “either offer fossil-fuel-free investing options or are in process to create such an option.”

Siegel said that if donors request fossil fuel-free options from the organizations housing their philanthropic capital, it could persuade more DAFs to offer that choice. 

“The goal is not just about the dollars represented,” he said, “but about changing the market signals more generally.” 

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Both are schmucks and Jews in name only.  You can be born Jewish but you can also become anti-Semites as these two have.

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The Schumer-Sanders Alliance

America’s two most influential Jewish politicians are at the forefront of the political attack on the Jewish state.

What’s wrong with this picture? America’s two most influential Jewish politicians are at the forefront of a political assault against the Jewish state. The Senate majority leader, Charles Schumer, who has for decades styled himself Israel’s “shomer,” goes on the attack against the Israeli government that leads the fight against a growing global attack on Jews. He does this to abet President Biden’s domestic campaign to appease pro-Hamas voters. 

Then there is Senator Sanders. The “Squadfather,” as Commentary’s Seth Mandel calls him, is the secular rabbi of the most anti-Israel and antisemitic factions in America’s politics. Known by accent and attitude for being Jewish, he endorses every blood libel from Representative Rashida Tlaib and Company. “Not another nickel for Netanyahu’s immoral war against the Palestinian people,” Mr. Sanders declared Thursday.

Both Messrs. Schumer and Sanders claim their attacks are meant to save the country they profess to love from itself. “Many people do not understand that the Israel of today is not the Israel of Golda Meir, of twenty or thirty years ago,” Mr. Sanders shared on Pod Save America. “It is a right wing country, increasingly becoming a religious fundamentalist country.” But wait, is this the same country that religious fundamentalists — Hamas — are intent on destroying?

Also, Golda? The woman of “there is no Palestinian people”? The one who said peace would come only when Arabs “love their children more than they hate us?” What would Golda tell Mr. Sanders and his fellow travelers who accuse Israel of deliberately starving the people of Gaza — never mind that hundreds of trucks carrying food, medicine, and water enter the strip daily, even as Hamas holds 143 hostages? 

In 1973, Secretary Kissinger famously begged Prime Minister Meir, whom Mr. Sanders now claims to idolize, to spare the lives of Egyptian soldiers surrounded by Israeli troops in the Sinai. They could die of thirst, Kissinger said. “We’ll send them water when we have got our prisoners back,” retorted Golda, as depicted by Helen Mirren in a recent biopic. Imagine the outrage if social media existed back then. Imagine Mr. Sanders’s reaction. 

Mr. Schumer the other day called from the Senate floor for regime change in a friendly democratic country. All he wanted to do is spark a political debate in the country he loves, he explained later. Has Mr. Schumer ever met an Israeli? Every politician (and citizen) in Israel knows that debate is etched so deeply in the country’s political culture that at any moment partisan allies could turn on each other, break a coalition, and force a new election. 

Hamas decided to launch its attack in October because Israel was so consumed with debate. Debating is the lifeblood of free societies. It gets so intense sometimes that Israelis have a term for excess infighting — “firing in the APC.” Meaning a nightmare military scenario in which soldiers inside an armored personnel carrier start shooting at one another. Israel has, during the war, laid such a fight aside. Why are Messrs. Schumer and Sanders trying to ign

Most Americans recognize the danger of tarnishing Israel, which is why Senator Lieberman spent his last day on earth warning Mr. Biden that Jewish Democrats will abandon him in November if he abandons Israel. A former French premier, Manuel Valls, said at Paris this week that around the world since October 7 hatred is growing against “universal values and therefore of Jews.” How can a French Socialist figure it out when Messrs. Sanders and Schumer can’t?

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My first daughter, Debra. Wonders never cease.

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