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Cease Fire on Hold
By Sherwin Pomerantz
The hostage release proposal along with parameters of a ceasefire offered to Hamas has been rejected by them after their sitting on the text for two weeks. The changes that Hamas has requested to a ceasefire proposal by the United States are "not significant" and include the complete withdrawal of Israeli troops from the Gaza Strip, a senior leader in the group told Reuters on Thursday. But we and the US believe otherwise.
US Secretary of State Blinken said on Wednesday that Hamas had proposed numerous changes, some unworkable, to the US-backed proposal, but that mediators were determined to close the gaps. The US has said Israel has accepted its proposal, but Israel has not publicly stated that. Prime Minister Netanyahu has repeatedly said Israel will not commit to ending its campaign before Hamas is eliminated.
The Israeli document had excluded 100 prisoners with long sentences and restricted releases to only prisoners with sentences of less than 15 years remaining, the Hanas official said. "There are no significant amendments that, according to Hamas leadership, warrant objection," said the Hamas leader. The group's demands also include the reconstruction of Gaza; the lifting of the blockade, including opening border crossings; allowing the movement of people; and transporting goods without restrictions," the senior Hamas leader said. In addition, Hamas wants a US guarantee related to the withdrawal of Israeli troops from Gaza.
Negotiators from the US, Egypt and Qatar have tried for months to mediate a ceasefire in the conflict. Major powers are intensifying efforts to defuse the conflict in part to prevent it from spiraling into a wider Middle East war, with a dangerous flashpoint being the escalating hostilities along the Lebanese-Israeli border.
Sirens warning of suspected drone infiltrations sounded today across northern Israel. The alarms were activated in Safed, Katzrin, Majdal Shams, and many other communities in the Upper Galilee and Golan Heights. Firefighters and police have received reports of numerous rocket impacts in northern Israel, following a barrage fired from Lebanon.
Rockets that hit the Katzrin area sparked several fires, footage purportedly from the area shows. Incoming rocket sirens sounded in several communities in the Upper Galilee, close to the northern city of Safed. Footage shows the Iron Dome air defense system active over the area, amid what appears to be a major barrage from Lebanon.
In the good news department, despite Israel’s war with Hamas, Tel Aviv rose to fourth place in a prestigious report ranking the world’s top startup ecosystems unveiled at London Tech Week on Monday. The 2024 Global Startup Ecosystem Report, an annual analysis conducted by Startup Genome and the Global Entrepreneurship Network evaluated 4.5 million companies in more than 300 entrepreneurial ecosystems worldwide. Tel Aviv and Los Angeles both rose one spot up from last year, ranking behind Silicon Valley, New York City and London, tied for fourth place with Los Angeles.
According to the report, Tel Aviv’s tech startup ecosystem has created substantial value from exits and funding, positioning it as the leading ecosystem in the Middle East and North Africa region. From July 2021 to December 2023, Tel Aviv’s ecosystem generated an impressive $253 billion, marking a 47% compound annual growth rate compared to the previous period. The city ranks among the top ecosystems globally for early-stage funding and investor activity.
251 days into the war people here wonder how we would describe “victory” other than the release of the remaining hostages, those who are alive and the bodies of the many who are presumed dead (and who died from lack of proper care by Hamas). It is probably not possible to fully eradicate Hamas which is as much an idea as it is a governing group. Where that leaves us is not clear although everyone hopes to an early end of the current hostilities. May it be so.
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Lady Maga Delivers Truth About 'Palestine' to Pride Attendee
By LINCOLN BROWN |
Photo by Lincoln Brown
You may or may not have heard of Lady Maga. He is a gay drag performer who is also a conservative. I met Lady Maga (AKA: Ryan Woods) at the 2022 Utah Republican nominating convention. As a veteran of these gatherings, I can honestly say that Ryan was the most interesting person I have ever encountered at a GOP convention, which may not be saying much since if you have met one Utah Republican, you have pretty much met them all.
I was taking a bathroom break, and as I strolled into the men's room there was a tall, blonde woman checking her makeup in the mirror. At first, I thought I had perhaps wandered into the wrong latrine. I went back out and checked the sign and was relieved to see that I was in the right place. That still does not explain why a woman was in the men's room. But then after a moment's thought, I realized, "Oh, yeah. The world is doing that now." So I went back in. I thought he might have been a protester who had somehow managed to invade the convention.
Lady Maga did not waste any time in letting me and everyone else know that he did not believe he was a woman and that he was staunchly opposed to indoctrinating children into trans ideology and resolutely against men going into women's spaces. After he left, the reporter in me kicked in, and I knew I had to get an interview.
While trying to figure out how I was going to explain to my wife that I was looking for a man in drag whom I had met in the men's room, I caught up with Ryan on the exhibitors' floor. He reiterated his stance on kids and men and also said that children had no place at drag shows of any kind. He was and is strongly opposed to the sexualization of children and has no trouble calling out the LGBTQ movement. He stated for the record that as a gay man who is a drag performer, he is furious that the art form was being hijacked. On his X profile, he describes himself as a “PATRIOT! Advocate. Proud American. Not alphabetical. Costume artist.”
It is Pride Month, as we all know, and Salt Lake City is the scene of many events this year. Usually, I don't go up to the city during June, but I suspected that Ryan/Lady Maga would put in an appearance. Ryan is a feisty conservative activist who, to my knowledge, has never shied away from any situation. This time he was talking to attendees about "Queers for Palestine."
The young lady's ignorance is stunning. To a certain degree, it is understandable that she was unaware that gays and lesbians face persecution in areas such as Palestine. Most people in her demographic are deeply indoctrinated and, as we are all aware, live by their feelings, One could argue that they interpret the entire world through the lens of their emotions. That does not bode well for the future. It does not give one much hope for the present, but such is life. However, the fact that she was under the impression that Israel is a Muslim country displays a lack of awareness that is monumental.
Ryan gave an interview to the New York Post:
“My role as Lady Maga is not to just support the MAGA movement and encourage people to support President Trump, it’s to expose the modern hijacking of the gay movement,” Woods said.
One of the many ways he feels the movement has gone astray is in adopting “humiliatingly stupid” political issues like “Queers for Palestine.”
“It’s like saying ‘mice for cats’ or ‘slugs for salt’.”
It may be tempting to dismiss Ryan because he is a gay drag performer. But whether or not Ryan's appearance, orientation, and occupation make you uneasy, he is a needed voice in these times. For one thing, his appearance allows him access to places where a standard-issue conservative may have a difficult time finding an audience. He told The Post, “If it was just your regular white man in a Trump hat walking around, I don’t think people would have been as receptive.”
Then there is his demeanor. You will note in the video that he is never once condescending or angry. When I interviewed him, he never lost his sense of camp. Lady Maga may not be every conservative's cup of tea, but he is bringing the message to people who desperately need to hear it.
Lincoln Brown
Lincoln Brown is a former talk show host who hosted "The Lincoln Brown Show" in Utah. He is also an ex-wildland firefighter, truck driver, bartender, HazMat responder, and columnist whose work has appeared in Townhall.com and The Hill. He also holds a Master’s Degree in Theological Studies.
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POLITICO Hints at the Obvious: The Biden Crime Family Is a Real Thing
By DAVID STROM
One of the things you learn about in mafia movies, and I assume the movies mostly match real life, is that the Don uses intermediaries to do his dirty work.
The Big Cheese is under constant public scrutiny, so he avoids saying or doing anything explicitly and obviously illegal, leaving that to his underlings.
This is (mostly) how Joe Biden works his crime family. He may occasionally say hello to his marks or make an introduction, but the orders, actions, and money are all done and gotten through others. The only thing you know for certain is that the Don lives high off the hog, with no apparent means of support aside from some nominal amount.
That is how Joe Biden's crime family works.
POLITICO last week dropped a story that, without explicitly saying Biden was involved in influence peddling, described how Biden's influence peddling family works.
Anybody who paid even the most modest attention to the influence-peddling operation knows the outlines of how Biden's scam works, but POLITICO lays it out in reasonable detail.
For years, Joe Biden shared a bookkeeper with his son, Hunter. He also shared a personal lawyer with his brother, Jim. And when Jim Biden wanted to know more about one of Hunter Biden’s associates, he hired the former head of Joe Biden’s Secret Service detail to investigate.
Since 2019, Joe Biden has repeatedly distanced himself from his family’s business dealings, saying that he has never so much as discussed them with his relatives or with anyone else. But House impeachment inquiry interviews, public records and emails reviewed by POLITICO show that members of his inner circle were regularly enmeshed in those dealings: Many of the president’s closest staffers and advisers have doubled as his relatives’ business associates, both during and after their stints working for the man at the center of the Biden family orbit.
Biden knows nothing about any of this. Not that his closest aids and his brother and son are traveling the world scooping up money and gifts for no discernable work, joining Boards of scammy companies, doing business with the Chinese Communist Party, or any of the myriad activities that are so obviously corrupt?
Biden's aides even do this while working for The Big Guy, Pedo Peter, or Sleepy Joe--whatever nickname you want to use for President Sniffy.
Those overlaps reflect an all-in-the family approach to business and politicking that dates back a half-century to the president’s first Senate bid, run primarily by his parents and siblings. Since then, his political patrons have at times forged business ties with his relatives, who in turn have converted some of their business partners into campaign supporters. And over a lifetime in public life, some of the president’s aides have taken on roles as surrogate members of the tight-knit Biden clan.
The Bidens’ approach complicates their efforts to distance the president from his family’s ventures.
As Jim and Hunter Biden’s foreign dealings have caused controversy and several of their business partners have been convicted of federal fraud and corruption crimes in recent years, any potential links between their business dealings and the president have come in for renewed scrutiny.
To allay concerns about any intermingling of their affairs, the Bidens have said that they observe strict interpersonal firewalls to avoid discussing business among themselves.
But with so many former and current aides in the mix — and with the surfacing of private communications in which Jim and Hunter Biden suggest they represent their powerful relative in business matters — onlookers are forced to take family members at their word that those firewalls always held.
Do you get the sense that the author, Ben Shreckenger, is more than a little skeptical of the Biden clan's assurances? Everybody around Joe is talking about how they have connections at the highest levels, get money for it, talk amongst each other, and Joe has nothing to do with it...
Just how stupid are you? Ben obviously knows that Biden is as dirty as a pig in s**t, and even got the story published. But, for some strange reason, others in the mainstream media haven't picked up this ball and run with it.
I wonder why?
I'm not going to recapitulate Ben's story, both because it is a waste of time and because he deserves to get your attention, the clicks, and all the credit for doing the work.
I'm here to give my own $.02, which comes down to this: the Biden crime family is not only real, but people who even the Mainstream Media should admit are credible have laid it all out there for them to inform the American public.
Yet they don't. They focus on "convicted felon" Donald Trump, screaming about hush money payouts that were legal and old, and about which literally nobody cares except for them providing an excuse to prosecute Trump for a non-crime.
Here we have Biden selling America out, doing business with Russians, Ukrainians, Chinese, and God knows who else, and the media shrugs.
One last thing: I see the publication of this story now as part of the tug-of-war between competing factions in the Democrat Party. One faction is trying to oust Biden, while another is defending Biden. There is no way this story would have been published unless some Democrat bigwig wanted it to be--likely somebody in the Obama/Axelrod camp.
I still think it is unlikely that Biden's Democrat enemies will succeed in ousting him--Biden may not run things on his own, but he still has the Trump card (as it were): he is in the Oval Office. If he wants to stay on the ticket, he will stay on the ticket.
Still, this story will likely not be the last to take a shot at Biden, and no doubt people are whispering in his ear about serving out his term and pardoning Hunter in the interim between the election and the inauguration of the next president.
I am no soothsayer, but I expect this will not work.
Jill Biden wants to remain First Lady.
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The Secret Supreme Court Tapes
A political activist infiltrated a gala to try provoking Justice Alito and his wife.
By The Editorial Board
An activist who thinks America is in danger of becoming a “Christian theocracy” infiltrated a gala at the Supreme Court, secretly taped herself trying to goad two conservative Justices into untoward remarks, and all she got was . . . this? The fact that her story led the news on Tuesday says more about the media’s obsessions than anything else.
Lauren Windsor attended a dinner last week for the Supreme Court Historical Society, where she undertook small talk while pretending to be a diehard religious conservative. The only actual news from her surreptitious recordings is that Justice Samuel Alito’s wife corroborated that he isn’t responsible for whatever flags have flown at his homes.
“The feminazis believe that he should control me,” Martha-Ann Alito says, in audio Ms. Windsor posted online. “So they’ll go to hell. He never controls me.”
Mrs. Alito adds: “You know what I want? I want a Sacred Heart of Jesus flag, because I have to look across the lagoon at the pride flag for the next month. And he’s like ‘Oh, please don’t put up a flag.’ I said, ‘I won’t do it because I’m deferring to you. But when you are free of this nonsense, I’m putting it up.’” She goes on to imagine a flag of her own design: “It’s white, and it has yellow and orange flames around it. And in the middle is the word ‘vergogna.’ Vergogna in Italian means shame.”
In other words, Justice Alito was telling the truth. “My wife is fond of flying flags. I am not,” he recently wrote, explaining why this silly flag flap is no reason to recuse from cases.
Justice Alito’s comments to Ms. Windsor are also innocuous. “As a Catholic,” she tells him, baiting her fishing hook, “I don’t know that we can negotiate with the left in the way that, like, needs to happen for the polarization to end. I think that it’s a matter of, like, winning.”
Justice Alito: “I think you’re probably right. One side or the other is going to win. I don’t know. I mean, there can be a way of living together peacefully, but it’s difficult, you know, because there are differences on fundamental things that really can’t be compromised.”
Ms. Windsor then suggests people of faith “have got to keep fighting for that, to return our country to a place of godliness.” Justice Alito: “I agree with you. I agree with you.”
This is no scandal or even revelation. It’s a common observation that the U.S. is polarized on fundamental values. How many years have voters been told this is the most important election of their lives? A judge in the U.S. is free to acknowledge his religious beliefs out loud in public. Justice Alito has done so in speeches, and Justice Antonin Scalia once debated a magazine reporter about the existence of the devil.
The patter with Ms. Windsor has the weary tone of humoring chitchat. Anybody who does such events knows the drill. Chief Justice John Roberts manages to parry and escape. “You don’t think there’s, like, a role for the Court in, like, guiding us toward a more moral path?” Ms. Windsor asks. “No,” he says. “I think the role for the court is deciding the cases. If I start—would you want me to be in charge of guiding us toward a more moral path? That’s for the people we elect.”
But Americans live in a Christian nation, Ms. Windsor objects. The Chief: “I don’t know that we live in a Christian nation. I know a lot of Jewish and Muslim friends who would say maybe not.” Talk about a headline dud: Chief Justice Defends Pluralism in Secret Tape. Hence the enormous narrative topspin being put on the Alitos in Ms. Windsor’s stunt.
There’s something especially creepy about listening to the recording of Mrs. Alito, the spouse of a public official, casually conversing at a dinner, unaware she’s being taped by someone pretending to be a friend. Is this really how Americans want politics played?
The sorry truth about our present political moment is that harassment by the left is shrinking the public space in which Justices, or at least conservative Justices, and their families can operate. Protesters brandish signs and pound pots around the Justices’ homes. They follow them to their vacation homes. And now even a dinner for the Supreme Court Historical Society offers no respite from the campaign to intimidate the Justices. It’s contemptible.
And:
Harvard Goes Only Halfway Toward Institutional Neutrality
It won’t make public statements, but reserves the right to do so with its investment decisions.
By Daniel Diermeier
Harvard University announced last week that it will no longer “issue official statements about public matters that do not directly affect the university’s core function” as an academic institution. This is welcome news for all of us who have long been concerned about politicization of universities and the resulting erosion of free expression in academia.
Carrying out a university’s purpose—to provide transformative education for students and conduct pathbreaking research—depends on a campus environment where free speech and open inquiry flourish. Creating that environment requires an abundance of open forums for discussion and debate; a culture of respectful, fact-based discourse; and a policy of institutional neutrality.
The principle of institutional neutrality applies only to universities and their leaders, including those in charge of official academic units like schools, departments and research centers. It doesn’t prevent individual students or faculty members from taking positions. On the contrary, its purpose is to provide students and faculty with the greatest possible freedom.
In explaining institutional neutrality and why it’s important, most proponents point to the 1967 Kalven Report from the University of Chicago. At the report’s heart is the assertion that neutrality is necessary for maintaining conditions conducive to a university’s purpose. The report points out that universities and their leaders risk stifling debate when they stake out official positions. Moreover, when a university or its administrative units take a political stance, it invites lobbying and competitive advocacy by various campus constituencies, which turns the university into a political battlefield and erodes its unique purpose—promoting the pursuit of knowledge and truth.
Taking official positions also erodes the university’s commitment to expertise. Recognizing and rewarding deep knowledge, and making sharp distinctions between experts and nonexperts, is part of a university’s reason for being. When university leaders make declarations on issues they know little about, often in haste, they compromise that reverence for expertise. Even in the rare case where leaders are domain experts, they should avoid making official statements to keep from chilling debate.
Oddly, the two co-chairs of the Harvard faculty working group that recommended the new policy wrote in a recent op-ed piece that “the principle behind our policy isn’t neutrality.” Instead, they seek to further “values that drive the intellectual pursuit of truth: open inquiry, reasoned debate, divergent viewpoints and expertise.” There is little to distinguish those values from those of the Kalven Report.
Sorting out these semantics can be left to future historians of academia. The important thing is that Harvard agrees the duty of the university is to be a forceful advocate only when it comes to its core functions—and to be silent on other matters.
Other universities have also moved toward institutional neutrality in response to campus unrest. Northwestern set up a committee to explore the issue this year. Stanford’s Faculty Senate approved a policy advising university administrators to avoid expressing opinions on political and social controversies “unless these matters directly affect the mission of the university or implicate its legal obligations.” Syracuse, Williams and Holy Cross have all made announcements committing to neutrality.
One may ask why it took nationwide campus crises for some schools to commit to “principled neutrality” when the idea has been known for almost six decades. The phrase reminds us that neutrality isn’t a cop-out or an evasive response to pressure, but a core principle that requires courage and conviction when internal and external constituencies pressure university leaders to take sides.
Yet although Harvard’s change of heart is encouraging news for higher education, its new policy makes a crucial omission that is at the core of the current controversy on campuses.
Students at universities nationwide have called on their institutions to join the boycott, divestment and sanctions movement against Israel. According to the Harvard working group co-chairs, it didn’t “address, much less solve, the hard problem of when the university should or shouldn’t divest its endowment funds from a given portfolio.” Its members classified divestment “as an action rather than a statement” and thus treated the question as “outside our mandate.”
This is a distinction without a difference. Whether you call it an action or a statement, politically or socially motivated divestment plainly violates institutional neutrality because it requires a university to choose a side in a debate unrelated to its core function, thus signaling that there is only one acceptable way to think about the issue.
When a university’s portfolio manager makes the considered and consequential decision to divest from a company because its stock seems overvalued, this is legitimate fiduciary oversight. But divesting because an entity does business with the Israeli government is a clear violation of institutional neutrality. A university’s investment goal should be to maximize the rate of return, which means more funding for faculty research and student aid.
Institutional neutrality firmly supports a university’s purpose. So after an era when universities have been quick to issue position statements on the political controversies of the day, it is good that they are getting out of that game. It is a university’s job to encourage debates, not settle them. But for any university policy prohibiting political statement-making to be comprehensive and effective, it must address and discourage politically driven divestment.
Mr. Diermeier is chancellor of Vanderbilt University.
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