Missive From Girlfriend. Be Thankful. War Ages. Dufus Lied Again. Democrats Li. Take Iran's Threat Seriously.

+++
From one of my dearest girl friends:

Couldn't agree with you more about the local paper..  I can't stand their editorial staff and have told them as much.  BTW, your recent Letter was sooooo good.  I'm surprised that they printed it.

When I got to the end and saw your name, I was so happy.  It was a great letter.

+++++++++++++++++

Always be thankful:

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

 war ages:

++++++++++++++++++++ 

Dufus lied again

+++++++++++++++++++++++++

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Why Do Democrats Lie So Damn Much?

By Derek Hunter

++++++++++++++++++

As previously noted:

+++

The Dobbs ruling on abortion didn't take rights away; it gave them back

Also on our Substack, Jefferson Shupe writes that the recent Supreme Court decision “didn’t seize control over the abortion issue. Quite the opposite, actually. They gave it up.” He also notes that while many are feeling disempowered over the ruling, “state control over abortion allows us to better coexist.”

I know that some readers do not feel empowered right now, as their state might have a trigger law that gives them less latitude on this issue than they had before. But let’s separate these things for a moment. The Dobbs ruling is not an abortion ban. In fact, from what I can find, it doesn’t even frown upon the practice. This was the justices handing us the keys with an apology note: “Found this in a drawer, belongs to you. Sorry for keeping it so long.”

This should be good news to both sides. For one, state control over abortion allows us to better coexist. That unity that I spoke of? We don’t need to be united on this.

Read the Full Article

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

After it is too late we might begin to take Iran's threats seriously:
+++

The video declared Iran’s regime can move its “peaceful nuclear program to a nuclear weapons program” at a fast pace.

Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps is planning to construct nuclear warheads and has threatened to pulverize New York, it said on two of its affiliated Telegram channels on Saturday.  

Iran expert Ben Sabti tweeted that an IRGC “Telegram channel threatens to produce atomic warhead for missiles," citing the channel's message: “Iran can immediately return to Emad project and build an atomic bomb if Natanz facilities are attacked.”

The Emad, cited in the message, is an Iranian long-range missile.

The IRGC-linked Bisimchi Media (Radioman Media) Telegram channel published a video titled "When Will Iran's Sleeping Nuclear Warheads Awaken," according to the London-based Iran International news outlet. 

Turning New York into hellish ruins

The short video declares that Iran’s regime will develop nuclear weapons in a rapid-fire period of time “if the US or the Zionist regime make any stupid mistakes.”

Per Iran International, the video states that Iran’s ballistic missiles have the capability of “turning New York into hellish ruins,” in an ostensible reference to Iran’s space program.

“The nuclear facilities of Fordow have been built deep under mountains of Iran and are protected against trench-busting bombs and even nuclear explosion"

“The nuclear facilities of Fordow have been built deep under mountains of Iran and are protected against trench-busting bombs and even nuclear explosion… all infrastructures required for nuclear breakout have been prepared in it,” the video said, according to Iran International.

The news organization paraphrased the video as stating that “the facilities at Natanz may be highly vulnerable to a possible attack by Western powers and Israel but Fordow will immediately assume war footing and begin the nuclear breakout project within a short time if Natanz comes under missile attack.”

The video declared that the regime can move its “peaceful nuclear program to a nuclear weapons program” at a fast pace.

According to the report, the video noted that Iran’s uranium enrichment process to build a nuclear weapon in the underground facilities of Fordow, near Qom, has enabled it to be on the brink of nuclear breakout and membership in the club of nuclear powers.

The US government has classified the IRGC as a foreign terrorist entity.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

 

 

Always Another Side To An Issue. Cliff Reponds. Beyond Hunter .

Yes, there is another side to issues:

Monopoly will soon be renamed black entitlement

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

I asked what Cliff thought about a pre-emptive attack by Israel on  Iran when I listened to his EMET interview but it reached him too late. This is his response.

Tehran, the Day After

From: Cliff May
https://www.nationalreview.com/magazine/2022/08/15/tehran-the-day-after/

  

What might happen in Iran if America or Israel bombed the nuclear sites?

 

What would happen inside Iran if America or Israel bombed its nuclear sites? That intriguing question is rarely broached, in part because many in Washington recoil from any speculation that might make such a military contingency a more concrete exercise. Iran’s atomic program keeps advancing, and the odds of any new nuclear deals seriously constraining it seem low, but neither Israel nor America appears keen on striking.

Even when it seemed in 2010 and 2011 that Israel might well attack, Washington, in government and in the somewhat freer realm of think tanks, avoided any prolonged discussion of what an Israeli attack might provoke inside Iran. Before Ebrahim Raisi, a police-state cleric par excellence, became the Islamic Republic’s president last year, there had been some concern in America and Europe that U.S. or Israeli military action might undermine Iranian “moderates.” According to these observers, the moderates were perpetually on the cusp of gaining real power but fragile enough to be undone by American meddling. It was the possibility of Iranian reprisals — against U.S. forces in Afghanistan and Iraq and against shipping in the Persian Gulf — that really captured America’s attention when it appeared Jerusalem might let loose the Israeli Defense Forces.

Israel has made similar assessments of Iran’s internal dynamics vis-à-vis the efficacy and impact of a first strike. Beyond the strike itself, what has always captured Jerusalem’s attention was whether an attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities would bring a barrage of Iranian-directed short- and medium-range missiles from Lebanon, where Hezbollah has significant munitions stockpiles. If Israel decides to attack, the sole criterion for unleashing its air force will surely be a firm belief that the operation can significantly damage Iran’s atomic ambitions. If a strike somehow led to internal unrest, the superannuation of senior officers in the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, or a new clandestine effort to rebuild the nuclear-weapons program, those might well be secondary considerations reinforcing or weakening Jerusalem’s calculations. But such concerns wouldn’t matter unless the IDF concluded it could scupper the clerical regime’s capacity to build the bomb.

It would have been easier for the IDF to cripple Iran’s nuclear infrastructure and personnel years ago, before the development of advanced centrifuges. But former prime minister Bibi Netanyahu’s cabinet, along with the head of the IDF, declined to back him when he and his defense minister Ehud Barak wanted to attack twelve years ago. Now, it’s very likely that neither Israel’s political class nor its airmen are confident that they can strike as effectively.

Jerusalem’s tempo of attacks on Iranian interests in the region in the last two years, including assassinations inside Iran, is, therefore, best understood as an upping of the conventional ante. These actions signal to Tehran that its nuclear accomplishments will not deter Israel from pushing back against the clerical regime when it can. Jerusalem’s more aggressive behavior isn’t a girding of the loins before a preventive attack but an acknowledgment that it has failed to stop the clerical regime’s nuclear ambitions. 

That might change as Israelis internalize the possible ramifications of the Islamic Republic’s going nuclear. The clerical regime, which has repeatedly sponsored or directed terrorism against Jews worldwide, might provoke Jerusalem one too many times, giving the high ground to those who still want to act.

The same still might be true for the United States. Iran’s supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, might make a monumental mistake and execute a mass-casualty terrorist attack against Americans. Over the years, under Democrats and Republicans, Washington has blinked at Iranian terrorism — and, in Iraq, Iranian-sponsored militia attacks against U.S. forces — and done little in response. Khamenei undoubtedly approved the thwarted bombing of an Iranian opposition rally outside of Paris in 2018; if it had succeeded, hundreds, including many Americans, might have died. The supreme leader, who can expatiate endlessly on his enmity for the United States, might let hubris get the better of him — he’s unquestionably winning in his decades-old quest to develop nuclear weapons. If enough Americans died through Iranian terrorism, the bipartisan reluctance to support another military foray into the Middle East might evaporate.

So would an Israeli or American strike convulse Iran’s political system? The nuclear-weapons program has become the third pillar of Khamenei’s theocracy (the other two being anti-Americanism and the veil). If the Israelis, whom the regime asperses as Zionists ready for extinction, can badly damage the nuclear program, the regime will lose face. Iranian VIPs, especially within the Revolutionary Guards, have said repeatedly that the Israelis wouldn’t dare strike the nation’s atomic sites. This confidence has surely diminished since Israel started assassinating scientists and officials, including IRGC personnel, and periodically sabotaging nuclear-related equipment. If the Israelis do dare and succeed, it will be a stunning blow. It’s one thing to have the “Great Satan,” a superpower, lay waste your program; it’s another thing entirely to have the “Little Satan” do it.

And military defeats can be deadly for dictatorships. Historically, there’s nothing deadlier. If an Israeli or American strike led to a larger war — and there are good reasons to believe that Iran would be nervous about replying in an escalatory conventional manner after the U.S. Navy intervened (terrorism is a much more likely response) — then the possibility of adverse internal repercussions would increase. While there is no guarantee that an Israeli or American raid would cause sufficient shock to produce a convulsive — let alone fatal — internal backlash against Khamenei and the Guards, there is a chance it would start a process that might. Nothing else on the horizon offers Israel or America better odds of creating considerable turbulence quickly within the system.

It’s certain that the revolution-loyal left, right, and center (these Western terms don’t really capture how the Iranian ruling elite divides itself) would rise in umbrage against any Zionist aggression. But the West exaggerates the Iranian reflex to rally around the flag after an Israeli or American strike. Iranians aren’t automatons. Compared with Arabs and Turks, who lack an ancient cosmopolitan culture reinforcing their modern identity, Iranians don’t have a jagged and brittle patriotism. They are an old and sophisticated people quite capable of holding multiple hatreds concurrently. The massive, pro-democracy Green Movement in 2009, which for days shook the streets of Tehran, and nationwide demonstrations in 2017 and 2019, which again convulsed the ruling elite and led to wicked police-state repression, are upwellings of over 40 years of ire at theocracy. This won’t go away because Israel bombs Iran’s nuclear sites.

The notion that the Iranian ruling class would somehow benefit from a resurgent nationalism caused by an external attack ignores the decades the mullahs have spent denouncing nationalism as another noxious Western imposition on the Middle East. In particular, Khamenei is leery of Iranian nationalism and how it might thwart the Islamic project. “The enemies of Islam and Muslims want the Islamic ummah to be disunited,” he avers. “They create ethnic discord. They promote radical nationalism in different countries. They divide Muslims into groups and label them as Persians, Arabs, Turks, Pakistanis, Shia and Sunni.” Iran’s theocrats have insisted that the legitimacy of the Islamic Republic is predicated on its divine ordinance rather than on notions of Persian nationalism. In what is undoubtedly a self-defeating move, the clerical regime has done much to untether itself from one of the most powerful forces in modern politics.

The clerical regime’s defeat in the Iran–Iraq War did not make Iranians rally to theocracy. On the contrary, that defeat by Saddam Hussein helped to unleash an enormous wave of reflection and self-criticism. The Iranian people have since asked searching questions about the war itself. Why did the conflict continue when an armistice was available in 1982, after the victory at Khorramshahr when Saddam’s armies retreated back into Iraq? Akbar Hashemi-Rafsanjani, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini’s right-hand man, exerted considerable effort trying to hide the fact that he was strongly in favor of turning a defensive, “imposed” war into a major offensive designed to down Saddam and extend the Islamic revolution. For the parents who lost sons from 1982 to 1988, the war is a haunting indictment of a state bent on exporting its cause. The Islamic Republic’s ritual celebrations of the conflict have always rung hollow for millions who saw combat or whose loved ones died or were maimed in a war reminiscent of the Western Front in World War I.

Indeed, without the Iran–Iraq War, we likely would not have seen the transformation of the Islamic Republic’s religious and political culture — a second intellectual revolution that robbed the theocracy of the revolutionary left and eventually created the Green Movement. This political evolution ignited in about five years, from 1988 to 1992, when the regime-critical but revolution-loyal Islamic left began to take shape. By 1999 that “left” was ready to transform the government into a real democracy, which is why this movement was crushed by clerics who’d been instrumental in building the theocracy — Khamenei, Rafsanjani, and Hassan Rouhani (the latter two are often categorized as “moderates” by Westerners who used to see Thermidor just around the corner).

No figure was more venerated in the Islamic Republic’s relentless propaganda machine than General Qasem Soleimani. He was the man who defeated America in Iraq, took on the Islamic State with ingenuity, and planted the Islamic Republic’s flag from the slums of Beirut to the mountain villages of Yemen. On January 3, 2020, Soleimani was killed by a U.S. drone attack. The regime initially used its latest martyr to rally public support in mourning ceremonies that attracted thousands. The general was an iconic figure who elicited contradictory emotions from even die-hard opponents of the regime. (His magnetism may have sprung from his image as the great Shiite defender against rapacious Sunnis.) That “goodwill” evaporated rapidly. In its panic and fear of further American attacks, the Revolutionary Guards shot down a Ukrainian airliner, killing 176 passengers. The Iranian street and college campuses erupted again, this time in denunciation of the regime. “They are lying that our enemy is America; our enemy is right here,” protesters chanted. A brutal crackdown restored order, but this episode revealed how attenuated the bonds between state and society have become — even a foreign attack cannot redound to the government’s advantage. As with the last days of the Pahlavi dynasty, the Islamic Republic has lost the ability to control the national narrative.

Today, the theocratic state is bereft of a reliable constituency, let alone a convincing governing dogma. It is beset by persistent protests from all segments of society. The poor who were once the theocracy’s mainstay have joined the ranks of the disaffected. The economy benefits only the connected, and class stratification has never been more provocative. Corruption is endemic. Khamenei and his allies are no longer even pretending to seek the public’s approbation. The elections that once offered at least a pretense of choice, and could generate considerable national excitement, are now rubber stamps of choices made by Khamenei and his inner circle. Voter turnout, even when orchestrated by the regime, has plummeted. All the mullahs have left at their disposal are the security organs.

If the Israelis or Americans can make Khamenei and his Revolutionary Guards look pathetic, it might lead to a national questioning, a slow-motion chain reaction that could seriously weaken the regime. Anger no longer rises gradually in the Islamic Republic. It explodes immediately and nationally when the system can’t nip local protests in the bud. A scenario of rapidly increasing protests after a bombing raid isn’t probable, given the ruthlessness of the Iranian police state, but such an eventuality shouldn’t be ruled out. The regime is, however, most unlikely to see the reverse: an American or Israeli raid reinforcing popular support for the theocracy. Resentment toward the mullahs is simply too entrenched.

— Mr. Gerecht, a former Iranian-targets officer in the CIA’s directorate of operations, is a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. Mr. Takeyh is a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++ 

Corruption goes beyond Hunter's shenanigan's

+++

https://thefederalist.com/2022/07/26/fbi-jeopardized-national-security-by-calling-verified-hunter-biden-evidence-disinformation-whistleblowers-say/

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

 

 

Black Exhaustion and Our Luncheon. Fed Up With Corrupt, Incompetent Wall Street Journal.

Not Buying It: Glenn Loury, Ian Rowe, and Robert Woodson Debunk Myths about the Black Experience in America

Featuring Glenn Loury, Ian Rowe, Robert Woodson, and Peter Robinson via Uncommon Knowledge

In this wide-ranging conversation, recorded at the Old Parkland Conference in Dallas, Texas, Glenn Loury, Ian Rowe, and Robert Woodson debunk the 1619 Project, advocate for the restoration of the Black family and the Black church, describe their own very different upbringings and formative experiences, and discuss the many reasons why they are optimistic about the future of Black Americans, despite prevailing narratives commonly expressed in the media.

+++

Thursday 28 August, I hosted a discussion group of 6 buddies. Two could not make it. I sent two items to discuss.  One was written by an author and discussed how Palestinians were beginning to be a burden among Arabs who wanted to break through the handcuffs they have shackled themselves with for centuries..  

The other article I wrote and analogized the same thing was happening with the black community.

I am not a racist, never have been a racist and am at the point where I have been made to become a racist like the kicked dog discussed in the video.

The wonderful thing about America is freedom and with freedom comes success, failure and responsibility.  Democrats and their union lackeys have prevented blacks from having the kind of education they deserve. Furthermore, families that lack father's are another reason for black failure and errant behaviour. Thank the Democrats again because they would not offer welfare if the father was in the family unit.  

I can think of nothing more despicable and  Dem.Sen. Moynihan predicted the consequences over 50 years ago and was vilified by his own party.

Our lunch discussion was  wide ranging. We discussed limited terms for both elected politicians as well as unelected bureaucrats.  We touched on dispersing federal agencies throughout the nation and away from D.C.  

On a local level we discussed issues pertaining to Soros' funding of  radical DA's and how it came to be and was there anything that could be done to curtail it from occurring.  We discussed the quality of the American citizen as the root of many of our problems.

One of the attendees was a former DA and discussed the nature of the office and the people attracted to serve. He was an optimist and thought the tide was turning but would take 30 or more years to bring us back to where we departed.   

He also acknowledged that in the entire dining room he doubted whether anyone present had ever read opinions rendered by Justice Thomas yet, had already formed opinions of the man.

One, at the table, was another attorney and had read many of Thomas' opinions.

We discussed the mid term election and the pitiful state of American affairs and the ineptness of the current president.

We discussed the Democrat's tactic of manipulating words in order to control the agenda.  Are we in a recession because of two back to back negative GDP Quarters?

Obviously we solved no problems but we enjoyed the company of each other and hope the current radical Democrat Party will be smashed, Stacey Abrams will go down  in justified defeat and were undetermined about Trump's running.

Because we are all conservatives it was somewhat of an echo chamber discussion but I daresay the education, rational thinking of those attending collectively exceeds that of the average voter.

Speaking for myself,  I have faith in the goodness of American's but not their sophistication.  They still have commonsense.

+++
I have mentored a black kid who reached out to me some 4 years ago. I am proud of his accomplishments and the progress he has made both in education and job experience. He has not always done what I challenged him to do but at least I have exposed him to another side and he takes it to heart.

He is the hope of his race. 

My Louisville daughter has done an amazing job raising money, getting inspirational speakers to come to West End School, which she helped found, to speak and she mentors graduates long after they have moved on.

Amy is much softer than I am. Takes two to tango.

A cousin of mine clerked for Justice Thomas some 3 years ago and, of course, my father helped liberate Birmingham, with others, of their tyrannical police chief and his snarling dogs.

My family has been on the right side of the race ledger for decades but I confess I am no longer willing to be a pin cushion for black radicals, BLM, Stacey Abram's garbage etc..

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

On May 14, we left for our annual trip to Litchfield Beach, to be with "family" from our Atlanta days. I asked the WSJ to withhold delivery of my paper  and restart the Sat/Sun Edition on May 22.

They failed to do so. Several days later I called the WSJ Circulation Department and for the next two weeks spoke with an Indian male, and perhaps his wife, and they were courteous and totally incompetent.  I then asked to speak to their superior and they said they had none.  I then wrote a letter to the Assistant Editor of theWSJ and never got a reply.

Then I cancelled the paper portion of my subscription and retained the electronic portion and asked for a refund of the unused portion of my paper subscription and have yet to receive same.

I started reading the WSJ in 1950 when I was in college and, except for the time I was in service  and mostly out of the country, I have been a loyal subscriber. We are talking about some 70 years.

You would think the WSJ would give a damn but apparently not. I even asked Kim Strassel to help me and to o avail. A second disappointment.

  TO MAKE MATTERS EVEN MORE CONTEMPTIBLE THE WSJ HAS NOW STOLEN WHAT THEY OWE ME FROM THE UNFULFILLED SUBSCRIPTION.

THIS IS CAPTALISM AT IT'S WORST AND WHAT IS RADICALLY WRONG WITH OUR NATION. CUSTOMER SERVICE HAS GONE TO HELL AND CORPORATIONS  ARE MORE INTERESTED IN DIVERISTY HIRING THAN SERVING CLIENTS.

AND YOU WONDER WHY I AM A PESSIMIST.  A PESSIMIST IS SOMEONE WHO HAS MET TOO MANY OPTIMISTS.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Do Democrats Really Want Civil War? Because This Is How You'd Do It  By Kurt Schlichter +++

The Great Depletion  By Katie Pavlich +++ Virginia AG Sues Biden for Pushing Transgender Ideology on Children By Sarah Arnold +++ Democrats Going for Desperate Line of Attack Ahead of Midterms  By Rebecca Downs +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++  FROM HOOVER: The Roots of Black Economic Progress By David Henderson via Defining Ideas David Henderson describes how substantial drops in the poverty rate among Blacks and Hispanics are due in large part to the Trump administration’s Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017. Incomes rose by a higher percentage in Black and Hispanic households than in White households. From 2017 to 2019, median income for Black households increased by 13.5 percent, from $40,594 to $46,073. Meanwhile, for Hispanics, that figure went up 11.3 percent, from $61,372 in 2017 to $68,703 in 2019. Henderson credits the Trump legislation’s reduction of the corporate income tax rate from 35 percent to 21 percent for this substantial economic progress. He explains that economists have long known that tax cuts increase incentives for more capital investments in workers, which translates into growth in real wages and national income. +++ Not Buying It: Glenn Loury, Ian Rowe, and Robert Woodson Debunk Myths about the Black Experience in America Featuring Glenn Loury, Ian Rowe, Robert Woodson, and Peter Robinson via Uncommon Knowledge In this wide-ranging conversation, recorded at the Old Parkland Conference in Dallas, Texas, Glenn Loury, Ian Rowe, and Robert Woodson debunk the 1619 Project, advocate for the restoration of the Black family and the Black church, describe their own very different upbringings and formative experiences, and discuss the many reasons why they are optimistic about the future of Black Americans, despite prevailing narratives commonly expressed in the media. +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

At War With Animals. Abbas Has Stolen And Now Wants To Rule As Dictator. Del DA Competent? Youthful Stupidity. For Want Of A Nail? More.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ 
Never forget we are war with animals. They have no heart, no soul just hatred

+++

Bereaved mother: 'This was no traffic accident, they hit me intentionally'

'The vehicle made a sharp turn towards me and accelerated, I tried to avoid it but it rammed into us,' mother of 6-year-old killed in ramming says.

Rivka Atara Zinman, the mother of the six-year-old boy who was murdered Wednesday in a ramming attack, described the crash, which she emphasized, "was not a car accident."

Zinman and four of her children were evacuated for treatment following the ramming; six-year-old Matan arrived at the hospital in critical condition. Doctors fought for hours to save his life, but he ultimately succumbed to his injuries.

Speaking in Hebrew from her hospital bed at Hadassah Ein Keem Medical Center, Zinman said, "There was no traffic accident. It was not a traffic accident."

"I was traveling, the road was empty, including in the other lane. And the vehicle - just saw me, and made a sharp turn towards me and accelerated. I tried to move, I tried to avoid it, and nothing. It rammed into us. My son, who was next to me, received a serious hit to his stomach, he underwent surgery. And my younger son - he was murdered.

"This was not a traffic accident. It was a terror attack. They wanted to hit me. They did hit me. I am asking that they open an investigation into this matter, because this was essentially a terror attack, and not a random traffic accident. I am telling you with certainty, it was not. I was fully conscious the entire time, I saw exactly what happened. It was intentional."

Mother of boy killed in accident: I lost my Matan to Arab terrorism on the road

Six-year-old boy who was killed in accident on Highway 60 identified as Matan Zinman from Shvut Rachel.

Zinman family from Shvut Rachel. Matan is to the left

The six-year-old boy who was killed in an accident on Highway 60 near the Ma’ale Levona junction on Wednesday evening is Matan Zinman from the town of Shvut Rachel in the Binyamin region.

Matan was supposed to begin first grade in a month.

A preliminary investigation revealed that a Palestinian Arab vehicle crossed into the opposite lane and collided head-on with the vehicle in which Zinman was traveling with his mother and three brothers.

The mother, Rivka Zinman, and her four children were all evacuated for treatment at hospitals in Jerusalem. Matan arrived at the hospital in critical condition. Doctors fought for hours to save his life, but he ultimately succumbed to his injuries.

The mother is in moderate condition, a 12-year-old girl is in serious condition, a 10-year-old boy is moderately injured and a six-month-old baby is lightly injured.

Rivka Zinman, who was driving the car with her children, said from the hospital on Wednesday evening, "We were driving on Highway 60 to a family gathering in Ariel. Suddenly a white Palestinian car emerged from the opposite lane and sped in front of me. I slowed down but the Palestinian car sped up. I realized it was going to hit me head-on and I was unable to stop. The collision was at an enormous speed. I lost my Matan to Arab terrorism on the road."

The professional teams of the Binyamin Regional Council and the community of Shvut Rachel are looking after the needs of the family and the community. Social workers are accompanying the family members in the various hospitals.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Apparently on Thursday after a 2 hour conversation with Xi, Biden said little, was warned and then lectured.

+++++++

FOR THE WANT OF A NAIL.  Sent to me by a dear friend and fellow memo reader.

+++

Saw the column the other day and skipped over it. My friend David Sarfatti told me I was wrong as it is world changing. .In reaction he wrote the article ULTIMATUM which he says should be widely distributed by Israel

https://m.jpost.com/middle-east/iran-news/article-713089?utm_source=jpost.app.android&utm_medium=share

+++

Abbas wasn't satisfied with stealing 100's of millions of dollars from American taxpayers. Now he wants to play the role of  dictator.

+++

New report: Abbas turning PA into 'dictatorship'

Plight of Palestinians Grows as Media Stays Mum on PA Descent Into Dictatorship

 

A veteran Jerusalem-based correspondent for a respected international wire service confided this week that her superiors had told her that they are not the least bit interested in stories about Israel's upcoming November 1 election.

This can, of course, be understood. After all, this will be Israel's fifth election in just over three and a half years. The main players have not changed, the issues are not particularly global in nature and the personality-driven politics that are characterizing the race are aimed at the average Israeli voter, not observers abroad.

Where the international media can and should take an active interest is in the contrast between Israel and the Palestinian Authority when it comes to the respective states of their governments. The foreign press likes comparing Israel to the Palestinians on other issues, like the strength of their security forces, COVID-19 vaccination rates and average income.

Yet the fundamental issue of democratic governance in Jerusalem and Ramallah is a seeming nonstarter.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Delaware DA not competent to investigate Hunter?

+++

https://thefederalist.com/2022/07/27/doj-insiders-say-delaware-us-attorneys-office-too-inadequate-to-investigate-biden-family-corruption/
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Republicans who deny the 2020 election results have now moved closer to overseeing the voting process in five different states. Election officials and democracy experts are alarmed.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

YOUTHFUL STUPIDITY. HOW SAD.  THEY WILL REGRET ONE DAY BUT IT WILL BE TOO LATE. MORE STUPID LAWYERS IS THE LAST THING WE NEED.

+++++++++++++++++++++

Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas won't return to teaching a constitutional law seminar at George Washington University after student protests over the Supreme Court's vote to overturn Roe v. Wade.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Will the J6 hearings, which has proven a flop, boomerang on the radical left? If Trump runs they have the communist governor from California thirsting to run and I will vote for Trump in a heartbeat. He could select Cuomo's brother or Stacey Abrams as his VP. Stacey is a heavier and darker version of Kamala but far more intelligent and dangerous.

++

https://thefederalist.com/2022/07/29/is-the-j6-committee-trying-to-get-trump-re-elected/

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Eiland Retires. I Give The SMN 2 Years. Missing Something? State Department Assessed. Iranians Rattled. Zito. Recession. More.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

                                                              +++++++++++++++++++++ 

My dear friend and Georgia art lovers equally great friend has announced his retirement. Bill Eiland  is unique and, in my opinion, is irreplaceable.  His southern heritage, his humor, his exquisite taste in art and world wide contacts made him a treasure.

Bill had many opportunities to leave but he loved Athens, GMOA and chose to be a big fish in a small pond.

+++

Board of Advisors

As most of you have already heard, Bill has formally announced his retirement. It is impossible to imagine the Georgia Museum of Art without Bill Eiland. We are profoundly grateful for his devotion, leadership, and vision over the last 33 years. We look forward to celebrating him in the coming months and hope you will join us. Stay tuned for more information on upcoming celebrations. I am including (below) the Provost’s official announcement to our UGA community.

Heather Malcom

Director of development

Dr. William Underwood (Bill) Eiland, who has served as Director of the Georgia Museum of Art since 1992, recently announced that he will retire effective March 31, 2023.  

Under Dr. Eiland’s leadership, the Georgia Museum of Art has seen its collections, stature, and reach grow dramatically. Over the past 5 years alone, the museum has won 50 awards for its publications, programming, staff, and exhibitions. Over that same period, its collection has grown by leaps and bounds. 

Dr. Eiland oversaw the museum’s 1996 move to the Performing and Visual Arts Complex from its former location in what is now known as the Administration Building. He also oversaw a $20 million, privately supported expansion of the Museum in 2011. In recent years, major gifts have grown the Museum’s collections in African American and African diasporic art, contemporary art, and photography.  

Dr. Eiland has elevated the museum’s national and international reputation through service on the board of the American Alliance of Museums, as a trustee of the Association of Art Museum Directors, trustee of the International Council of Museums, and as chair of the Arts and Artifacts Indemnity Advisory Panel for the National Endowment for the Arts. He also served as Vice Chair of the Board of the American Association of Museums and Vice-Chair of its Accreditation Commission. 

His honors include receiving the American Alliance of Museums Distinguished Service Award; induction into Sigma Pi Kappa, an international fraternity of historic preservationists; the James Short Award for distinguished service in the museum profession from the Southeastern Museums Conference; a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Georgia Association of Museums and Galleries; and a Governor’s Award for the Arts and Humanities. 

 

Dr. Eiland’s passion for the Georgia Museum of Art is undeniable, and his record of achievement is unmatched. Information on a national search for the next Director of the Georgia Museum of Art will be announced in the fall semester. In the meantime, I hope you will join us in congratulating Dr. Eiland on his extraordinary legacy of promoting arts education, scholarship, and outreach. 

Thank you,

Michele Turner

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

The Savannah Morning News has gone from a good newspaper with imminently qualified staffing to a lousy paper. So much for cheap skating and diversity for the sake of diversity. Sad.

I give them another 2 years at most.

https://www.savannahnow.com/story/news/2022/07/27/diversity-coverage-staff-priority-savannah-morning-news/10154185002/

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Am I missing something here or is this not exactly right?

+++

So let me get this straight. It takes between 21 to 35 days for a Russian oil tanker to get to US ports to be offloaded.

It takes between 35 and 60 days for a tanker from the Middle East to make the same trek.

It takes about 10 hours to load the tanker and up to 24 hours to unload. If it has to wait in port to get to an unloading dock, it can take up to 3 days.

The average tanker burns 2,625 gallons of diesel fuel per hour. 22.38 pounds of CO2 are created from burning 1 gallon of diesel fuel.

So, in one hour, a tanker ship hauling oil to a refinery in the US creates 58,757.5 pounds of CO2 per hour. Averaging the travel time of the tankers, that's 27.67 million tons of CO2 per trip.

In comparison, your car creates between 6 and 9 tons per year.

Without going into all the equations of how many tankers come to the US per year, let alone our exports, will someone please explain to me how drilling our own oil and moving it through pipelines, along with importing oil from Canada via pipeline will not be more environmentally "green" for the world.

Please explain to me why buying oil from another country is good for the environment??

Or better yet how buying oil from another country is better than pumping our own oil??

There's nothing green about this other than these elites are lining their pockets with green.

+++++++++++++++++++++++

State Department's Middle East policy assessed

By Ambassador (ret.) Yoram Ettinger, “Second Thought: a US-Israel Initiative” July 28, 2022,

Conventional wisdom vs. evidenced-reality

According to the late Prof. John Kenneth Galbraith, “the notion of conventional wisdom… is commonly understood as knowledge that is accepted within a certain community or among the general public…. [They] tend to hold on to opinions and ideas that fit with their established worldviews. Accordingly, conventional wisdom provides an obstacle for the acceptance of new knowledge or novel and original thinking….

“To its adherents, conventional wisdom provides comfortable padding against inconvenient truths and the complexities of reality…. This is a prime manifestation of vested interest. For a vested interest in understanding is more preciously guarded than any other treasure…. Acceptable ideas are disinclined to change….

Read more...

+++

In Iran, Israel Has Everyone Rattled - JIHAD WATCH

By Hugh Fitzgerald

Ever since Israel introduced a computer worm into Iranian computers that caused more than a thousand Iranian centrifuges to speed up and destroy themselves, in an operation that has entered history as Stuxnet, Israel has been performing acts of derring-do that have, through cyberwarfare, sabotage, and assassinations, rattled Iran’s leaders. Between 2010 and 2012, four of Iran’s top nuclear scientists were assassinated, one after the other, in the middle of Tehran traffic, by a man (or sometimes two) on a motorbike who pulled up alongside their cars and let loose a volley of shots, then rode off through that traffic. None of the killers has been found.

In 2018, 20 Mossad agents managed to break into a nondescript building in central Tehran, blast their way through 32 steel doors, and seize the entire nuclear archive of Iran, some 100,000 documents, which they managed to bring back to Israel for analysis, and also to share its information about heretofore unknown nuclear sites with the IAEA. In 2020 and 2021, Mossad agents again managed to sabotage nuclear facilities at Natanz; the second attack was on a facility that had been built deep underground. At the end of 2021 Mossad killed Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, the nuclear scientist who was regarded as the “godfather” of Iran’s nuclear program.

And in recent months, Israel has renewed its campaign of assassination, killing nearly a half-dozen high-ranking officials belonging mainly to the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps. A report on these latest Israeli acts, and their effect on Iranian morale, can be found here: “Iranian politician says Israel ‘freely runs its operations’ in Tehran,” Times of Israel, July 19, 2022:

An Iranian politician indicated that many in his country feel Israel is operating freely in Tehran and targeting security operations with ease.

In a report published Tuesday in the UK-based Financial Times, an official cited only as a “reformist politician” was quoted as saying that “it feels as if Israel has established a large-scale organization in Tehran and freely runs its operations.”

The politician added: “Israel is clearly targeting Iran’s ‘highly secure’ image to tarnish its greatness in people’s eyes.”

A series of assassinations and attacks in Iran have been attributed to Israel in recent months, though Jerusalem rarely if ever publicly takes credit for such operations. But in a rare interview last week — and rarer yet comments on Israeli activity in enemy countries — National Security Adviser Eyal Hulata said Israel had “acted quite a lot in Iran over the past year.”…

“The Financial Times report noted a feeling of “anxiety at the highest levels of the Iranian establishment” over the series of Israeli-attributed attacks. In late June, the IRGC replaced its longtime intelligence chief in a move seen by many as a reaction to the suspected assassinations.

Iran is running scared. Every other month, it seems, the Israelis manage to kill another high official, or to hit another nuclear or non-nuclear facility, or place malware on Iranian computers. in the past, Iran has several times claimed to have “unearthed” a Mossad cell, but no names are ever produced, no prisoners paraded to confess on camera, and nothing more is heard about these so-called Mossad agents. Most analysts suspect that Iran has yet to find a single Israeli agent.

Nevertheless, Iranian officials told the UK newspaper that they are not looking to directly escalate tensions at the moment.

Of course, the key words here from Iran are “not looking to directly” escalate tensions. The Iranians want to conduct their regional aggression not “directly,” but through their two closest proxies, the Houthis in Yemen and Hezbollah in Lebanon. So far, Iran has supplied Hezbollah with 130,000 rockets and missiles that have been hidden in civilian areas all over southern Lebanon, and occasionally Hezbollah launches a rocket or drone toward Israel.

Iran’s policy remains to work with its proxy forces and we will not initiate any attacks against Israel if Israel doesn’t attack Lebanon,” a “regime insider” was quoted as saying. “It’s not wise for us to fight with Israel. And Zionists also show teeth to attack but their teeth are not sharp enough to go as far as striking Iran.”

Gen. Aviv Kochavi, head of the IDF, would beg to differ. Israel has been striking Iran relentlessly all along: what was Stuxnet, what were those eight targeted assassinations, what was that repeated sabotage of nuclear facilities in Natanz and Fordo, what are the continuing mysterious explosions at petrochemical plants and electric plants all over Iran, aif not examples of Israel “striking at Iran”?

In a similar report in The New York Times late last month, Iranian officials told the newspaper that Israel’s operations have had drastic and long-lasting effects.

“The security breaches inside Iran and the vast scope of operations by Israel have really undermined our most powerful intelligence organization,” said former Iranian vice president Mohammad Ali Abtahi.

Unnamed Iranian officials also said at the time that “Israel’s spy network has infiltrated deep into the rank and file of Iran’s security circles.”

The fear is palpable in the ruling circles in Tehran. They are no longer bothering to hide it. The nonstop success of Mossad in its sabotage and assassination efforts has demoralized the Iranians. The “drastic and long-lasting effects” of Israeli deeds has made clear to the Iranians that “Israel’s spy network has infiltrated deep into the rank and file of Iran’s security circles.” Sitting in Tehran, whom can the ayatollahs, or the IRGC commanders, trust? Israel keeps hitting them here, there, and everywhere. It never claims responsibility; it doesn’t have to. Everyone knows who has been behind these attacks. Everyone wonders who else is part of this Mossad network, what Iranians are working with Mossad to undermine and weaken the regime.

High officials, including at least one IRGC commander, have been arrested in a panicky show of force, but nothing has been proved, and it seems the Iranians are announcing that “Israeli agents have been arrested” just to persuade the public that “something is being done.” But not a single trial has yet been held of supposed Mossad agents, none of those agents have been named or paraded before the public. Iranian officials are trying, but failing, to put on a brave face about Iran’s supposed imperviousness to Israeli attacks, even as the Mossad keeps running circles around it. They have no idea where the next Israeli strike, or act of sabotage, or assassination will take place. Iran’s top clerics and military men are now deeply suspicious of one another. Whom they can trust? In whom can they confide? Mossad appears to be, to use Flaubert’s famous phrase, “présent partout, et visible nulle part” – everywhere present, but nowhere to be seen.

+++

Dispatches from the middle of somewhere 

By Salena Zito

       

In my estimation, there is no patch of geography in this country that is the "middle of nowhere." This is America; everywhere is the middle of somewhere.

Economists and academics can debate the definition of what inflation is or what a recession is, but the messaging from the White House is one of denial. The question is how you communicate with people and show empathy. Biden's inability to do this is puzzling.
In American politics one of the most important things you have to do is validate people. You need to meet people where they are and acknowledge their concerns, even if you privately think to yourself they are unfounded. When Bill Clinton said "I feel your pain” he didn't say, "You guys don't understand what's going on." That's why it worked. Click for the full story

+++++++++++++++++++++++++

Until Very Recently, Biden’s Economic Advisors Defined ‘Recession’ as ‘Two Quarters of Negative Growth’

By Debra Heine 

The Republican National Committee has unearthed a number of remarks made by several Biden officials that seriously undermine their efforts to change the definition of a recession.

Until very recently, economic experts—including members of the Biden administration—defined a recession as two consecutive quarters of economic decline. On Thursday, economic data will be released that is expected to show the U.S. economy shrank for two consecutive quarters. With this bad economic report looming ahead of the midterm elections, the Biden regime has been attempting to broaden the “technical definition” of recession to include other variables.

But as recently as May of 2022, Biden’s Chair of the White House Council of Economic Advisers Cecilia Rouse said “two quarters of negative growth” means the economy is in a recession.

And in May of 2019, Biden’s economic adviser Heather Boushey said: As a “rule of thumb,” a recession refers to “two quarters of negative growth in GDP.”  Later that year, Biden’s economic adviser Jared Bernstein defined a recession as “two consecutive quarters of declining growth.”

Biden’s economic adviser Jared Bernstein in September 2019: A recession is “defined as two consecutive quarters of declining growth.”https://t.co/q7EyM7Gh2Q

— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) July 27, 2022

Biden’s economic adviser Heather Boushey in May 2019: As a “rule of thumb,” a recession refers to “two quarters of negative growth in GDP.” pic.twitter.com/E9F5s3nVn6

— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) July 27, 2022

None other than Biden’s National Economic Council Director Brian Deese said in March of 2008: “Of course economists have a technical definition of recession, which is two consecutive quarters of negative growth.”

Deese at the time was was working for Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign as her economic policy director. After Clinton was defeated in the Democrat primary, Deese joined Barack Obama’s campaign as an economic advisor.

In the past week, Bernstein, Rouse, and Deese, have all attempted to change the traditional definition of recession, even though they have used it themselves in the past.

Citing a “holistic look at the data,” In a White House Council of Economic Advisors post on the White House website, CEA chair Rouse and member Bernstein claimed last week that “it is unlikely that the decline in GDP in the first quarter of this year—even if followed by another GDP decline in the second quarter—indicates a recession.”

Bernstein echoed that narrative on CNN Saturday night.

“Actually two quarters of negative GDP doesn’t necessarily qualify as a recession,” he said, insisting that the variables that National Bureau of Economic Research considers to determine whether we are in a recession “tend to look pretty good.”

Monday morning, Deese also denied that the country is under a “technical definition” of recession.

“The technical definition considers a much broader spectrum of data points, but in practical terms, what matters to the American is whether they have a little economic breathing room, have more job opportunities, their wages are going up,” Deese said on CNN.

Deese repeated the message at the White House on Tuesday.

“Two negative quarters of GDP growth is not the technical definition of recession,” he insisted, adding, “it’s not the definition that economists have traditionally relied on.”

Brian Deese, yesterday: "Two negative quarters of GDP growth is not the technical definition of recession.”

Deese, 2008: “Economists have a technical definition of recession, which is two consecutive quarters of negative growth.” pic.twitter.com/MzVk7drq3v

— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) July 27, 2022

By any metric, the economy in the United States is not doing well under Biden.

There may be plenty of “job opportunities” throughout the country, but unfortunately many Americans, for whatever reason,  have left the work force.

The labor shortage is most acute in the food sector, durable goods manufacturing, wholesale and retail trade, and education and health services, according to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. “These industries have more unfilled job openings than unemployed workers with experience in their respective industry.”

Businesses are going under because they can’t find people willing to work. Economist Lawrence Summers said the government’s juiced-up unemployment benefits created the record labor shortage.

Meanwhile, wages are not going up, as Deese suggested, they’re going down “by quite a bit,” according to Casey Mulligan, former chief economist for the Council of Economic Advisers (CEA) under former President Trump.

“It seems to me that the White House seems to be saying, ‘yeah, you’re working more and earning less, but at least you’re working more,'” Mulligan, who is currently a professor at the University of Chicago, told Fox Business. “I don’t understand the silver lining of that. We work in order to earn. That earning part is not going well.”

“That’s really the GDP. GDP combines both the labor income and capital income, but they tend to move together,” he continued “We’ve seen it in the earnings data as well. Real wages, real earnings have fallen quite a bit just in the last month as well as over the last year.”

Update:

Members of the Biden regime are reportedly twisting the arms of “their allies and sycophants” to amplify their fake narratives about the economy.

Senior administration officials are hitting the airwaves and arm-twisting reporters in private, imploring anyone who will listen that the economy — despised by majorities of both Republicans and Democrats fed up with inflation — is still healthy.

About Debra Heine

Debra Heine is a conservative Catholic mom of six and longtime political pundit. She has written for several conservative news websites over the years, including Breitbart and PJ Media.

And:

RECESSION: Democrat Policies Tank Economy

Prolonged stagnation, fiscal crisis possible

By Christian Whiton

“Destruction,” by Thomas Cole from his Course of Empire series, 1833-1836.

The year of disasters for Joe Biden and the Democrats who control Washington just got officially worse. The Commerce Department announced this morning that the economy shrank by an annualized 0.9% in the second quarter which ran from April through June. Coming on the heels of a 1.6% annual contraction in the first quarter, that confirms two successive quarters of economic decline—the standard definition of a recession.

The development makes official the economic misery that most Americans have been feeling since Joe Biden became president: out-of-control inflation, declining real wages, and a workforce disrupted by big government.

The news is also the latest reminder that our economic and political elite are clueless and dishonest.

The economic disaster began because Joe Biden and his fellow big spenders have adhered to something called Modern Monetary Theory that said the government could spend as much as it wants and run up national debt without consequence. That theory has been put to the test since the 2020 government shutdown of the economy. Since then, the federal government has spent about $7 trillion more than it would have under its previous bloated budget plan and permanently enshrined annual budget deficits in excess of $1 trillion.

The Federal Reserve funded most of that growth by doubling its holdings of debt instruments from just over $4 trillion in early 2020 to just under $9 trillion today—primarily by creating dollars out of thin air to buy up newly issued government debt. Economic growth ended as soon as unsustainable spending was curtailed and inflation has raged.

Recall that the geniuses of Washington and Wall Street assured us there would not be inflation. Then they said it wouldn’t be bad nor would it last long. But it is bad and it is persistent.

We received the same clueless or mendacious predictions about the overall economy. In June, Joe Biden said of the possibility of recession: “First of all, it’s not inevitable.” The same month, Democrat House Speaker Nancy Pelosi falsely stated that the economy had improved. This month, Treasury Secretary Janet “from another planet” Yellen pushed the envelope from spin to outright lying when she said, “This is not an economy that is in recession”—something the statisticians of her own administration were undoubtedly already telling her was not true.

Yesterday, clueless Fed Chairman Jerome Powell—one of many establishment poodles first given his job by Donald Trump because he “looked the part”—denied there is a recession. The “independent” Chairman Powell, who acts like he is a deputy assistant secretary at the Treasury Department taking orders from Joe Biden and Yellen, echoed laughable White House propaganda about the job market somehow negating the recession, even though he knows employment is a lagging indicator.

It wasn’t just the government elite who were wrong or lying. The other people you indirectly pay to be right, economic analysts at big Wall Street firms, were mostly wrong. Overall, the big banks forecasted economic growth despite access to all of the information the rest of us have and confirmation of a slowdown from their own business activities. (Luckily readers of this page knew recession was coming due to numerous warnings. Examples: March 14, May 26, June 16, July 1.)

The recession announcement isn’t just news because of the economic pain it reflects. It also foretells political turmoil and possibly a government spending crisis.

The economy is routinely the issue that voters care about the most. Recessions during the first terms of presidencies doomed Gerald Ford and George H. W. Bush. To hold the White House, Democrats must now hope to pull a Ronald Reagan, who won a landslide reelection in 1984 after a steep recession in his first term.

The problem for Democrats is that Reagan had laid the groundwork for a return to rapid and sustained economic growth. He cut taxes and regulation while giving Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volker the political cover to tighten monetary policy dramatically. Volcker’s tightening, which brought the prime interest rate to as high as 20% (it is 2.5% today), deepened the recession but controlled inflation. Then, from that reset, Reagan’s tax cuts and unabashed support for free market capitalism created a booming economy—Seven Fat Years of growth that changed America and the world.

Have Democrats created the political and economic circumstances for such a recovery? Reagan cut taxes and regulations. Democrats have tried repeatedly to increase them and succeeded through creating inflation—a tax on all Americans’ wages and savings. Democrats also want to use their religion of climate change alarmism as a justification to regulate every facet of the economy, starting with raising energy prices further.

This reality should call into question claims by Washington and Wall Street that any recession will be short and shallow. A Republican Congress can put a limit on some of the Democrats’ biggest schemes for transforming the economy, but Beltway Republicans seldom even call for balancing the budget or controlling federal spending—a likely prerequisite along with tighter monetary policy to taming inflation. Sustained economic prosperity will probably require a Republican president who is better than his party’s congressional luminaries. Until then, the safest bet is for “stagflation”—low or no economic growth and persistent inflation.

Furthermore, higher interest rates, out-of-control federal spending, and threats to the dollar’s global dominance because of dumb sanctions on Russia have an outside chance of sparking a fiscal crisis for the government—spending cuts made out of necessity rather than prudent choice. (Expect defense spending to decline no matter who is president.)

Joe Biden and his fellow Democrats sure know how to go out with a bang.

Christian Whiton was a senior advisor in the Bush and Trump administrations. He is a senior fellow at the Center for the National Interest and a principal at DC International Advisory.

+++++++++++++++++++++

The National Tragedy of Hunter Biden’s Laptop - Tablet Magazine

https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/news/articles/the-national-tragedy-of-hunter-bidens-laptop

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

In Case You Missed It

Produced in Partnership with JNS

To sponsor this or future webinars, contact us here.

Much hope has been placed in an eventual normalization of relations between Israel and Saudi Arabia. On July 15th, President Biden travelled to Saudi Arabia in an attempt to help cement relations between the two countries and to find another source to lower the cost of gas for Americans before the November midterm elections. The Saudis were gracious enough to invite a group of Israeli journalists to cover the story.

 

One particular journalist, Gil Tamari, took it upon himself to enter Mecca, film what he saw there and then broadcast it to the world. This one incident by one individual might potentially have soured the flowering of relations between Saudi Arabia and Israel. Why is it so difficult for those of us from Western democracies to understand the cultural, societal and theological contexts of other cultures? What is it about Islam that we fail to understand?

 

Here to discuss this with us was Harold Rhode.

About our Speaker: Harold Rhode is a Distinguished Senior Fellow at the Gatestone Institute. He received a Ph.D. in Ottoman History from Columbia University and later served as the Turkish Desk Officer at the US Department of Defense.

Harold Rhode taught Islamic history at the University of Delaware as an adjunct professor from 1979 until 1981. In May 1982, he joined the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Policy at the Pentagon as an adviser on the Islamic world with a special emphasis on Turkey, Iran, and Iraq. He retired from this position in 2010. During his tenure he wrote papers on how to understand, negotiate, and deal with Turkey, Iran, Central Asia, and other Arab countries.

Watch Here++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Raising interest rates  in combination with increases in taxes  is a sure bet those in the lower socio level will suffer the most while driving us deeper into a recession.  Thank you Manchin.  I am sure 

the miners in West Virginia are delighted.

++++++++++++++++++++