Friday, January 13, 2023


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 "I MISS BILL"

It doesn't matter what party you belong to, this is good natured political humor from a Canadian TV show, where a black comedian said he misses Bill Clinton...
 
"Yep, that's right - I miss Bill Clinton!"
He was the closest thing we ever got to having a real black man as President.
He plays the saxophone.
He smoked weed.
He had his way with ugly white women.
 
Even now? Look at him... his wife works, and he doesn't!
And, he gets a check from the government every month.
Manufacturers announced today that they will be stocking America's shelves this week with "Clinton Soup," in honor of one of the nations' distinguished men. It consists primarily of a weenie in hot water.
 
Chrysler Corporation is adding a new car to its line to honor Bill Clinton. The Dodge Drafter will be built in Canada.
When asked what he thought about foreign affairs, Clinton replied, "I don't know, I never had one."
 
The Clinton revised judicial oath:
"I solemnly swear to tell the truth as I know it, the whole truth as I believe it to be, and nothing but what I think you need to know."
 
Clinton will be recorded in history as the only President to have sex in the Oval Office between the Bushes.
 
It's just been announced by Dell that a new computer will be introduced to the market in the near future. It's the Bill Clinton model featuring a 6 inch hard-drive and no memory. 
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To Win, Republicans Must Embrace The New Election Rules

by Paul E. Peterson via The Hill
COVID-19 has given Democrats opportunities to pass fundamental changes in state election rules. New statutes have simplified voter registration and facilitated early voting by mail or in person at polling places or conveniently located ballot boxes. Vote harvesting (the collection of ballots by organized groups) is occurring at a scale not seen since the hey-day of the machine politician. 

The Time Is Now For Social Security And Medicare Reform

by Lanhee J. Chen via CNN
House Speaker Kevin McCarthy and Republicans in Congress want to restore fiscal restraint to Washington, but it won’t be easy. The difficult work of returning yearly deficits and the long-term debt to a sustainable path is complicated by the rise in interest rates and their impact on the budget, with spending on interest alone set to quadruple over the next 30 years.

A New Year For Civics Education

by Chester E. Finn Jr. via Washington Examiner
A worthy resolution for the New Year is to ignore the culture warriors and demand that education and political leaders embrace the consensus that already exists among the public on what schools should teach children about civics and U.S. history.
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Harvard didn’t cancel Kenneth Roth; it decided not to honor an antisemite
Denying a fellowship to the man who transformed Human Rights Watch into an anti-Zionist propaganda machine is justified, not a blow to free speech.
By Jonathan S. Tobin

Cancel culture in academia is a serious problem. There is no sector of American society in which dissent is so routinely crushed, or where free speech is most endangered, as the country’s leading institutions of higher learning. So, the story that someone was supposedly denied a fellowship at Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government because of his political beliefs seems to fit into a familiar pattern of shunning and silencing those who don’t adhere to the orthodoxies worshipped by the elites

That’s what leading outlets of liberal opinion, and even a group well-known for its battle for free speech on college campuses, are claiming has happened to Kenneth Roth. According to the former Human Rights Watch (HRW) and his influential supporters, he was snubbed by Harvard because of his “criticism” of Israel.

The conceit of his whiny lament in The Guardian and a dishonest editorial in The Boston Globe lies not only in the assertion that Harvard treated Roth unjustly. More outrageous are the claims by both pieces that the university’s behavior is a symptom of the way criticism of Israel and other left-wing causes are shut down by “wealthy donors”—a thinly disguised attempt by The Globe to throw shade at the Jews—and right-wing extremists.

This narrative is not just misleading and deeply unfair to Kennedy School Dean Douglas W. Elmendorf; it turns the discussion about the attitude toward anti-Israel and antisemitic sentiment on college campuses on its head. Indeed, far from being an example of how supposedly courageous truth-tellers about Israeli atrocities are being muzzled by the all-powerful “Israel lobby,” Harvard’s move is a rare instance of a leading academic institution’s taking a stand against antisemitism, rather than tolerating it.

Pro-Israel voices are silenced

At universities and colleges around the United States, the field of Middle East Studies—and now even Israel Studies—is being taught by professors openly hostile to Zionism and the Jewish state. And it’s not exactly a secret that scholars seeking tenure in those departments, or any in the liberal arts for that matter, know that they must keep secret any sign of support for Israel or any belief or affiliation that might contradict reigning leftist/intersectional dogma.

This is the case even at the Kennedy School, as is ironically evident in Roth’s allegations. These include the claim that Elmendorf told scholar Kathryn Sikkink that he rejected Roth over “criticism of Israel.” Yet, Sikkink herself is a malicious foe of Israel who, as the left-wing magazine The Nation reported in its article about the controversy, used HRW’s biased research to put forward her own argument falsely claiming that Israel, the only democracy in the Middle East, is among the world’s most repressive nations.

The issue at Harvard—or anywhere else in academia—isn’t that anti-Israel scholars can’t get jobs or be given a platform for expounding their ideas. As it happens, Roth already has a fellowship in hand at another Ivy League institution, the University of Pennsylvania, which granted him the title of “Global Justice and Human Rights Visiting Fellow,” an honor that makes a mockery of both concepts.

Indeed, Zionists with prestigious academic appointments are not so much outliers as they are an endangered species, while those prepared, like Roth, to falsely smear Israel as an “apartheid state” or to treat the existence of the one Jewish state on the planet as a crime which must be erased, are smack in the mainstream.

Seen in that light, the effort on Roth’s behalf isn’t so much wrongheaded as it is a case of the left-wing academic and media establishment trying to gaslight the American people into thinking that it is those who lie about Israel who are being persecuted, rather than the other way around.

By deciding to deny Roth the honor of a fellowship, the Kennedy School wasn’t punishing him for holding a minority opinion; it was rightly seeking to distance itself from a person who—despite his Jewish origins and the fawning support he gets from the liberal corporate media and left-wing activist groups like the American Civil Liberties Union—one of the leading proponents of antisemitic attacks on the state of Israel.

Contrary to the disingenuous talk about his merely being a critic of Israel, Roth turned HRW, a group that prior to his becoming its head, was respected as an unbiased advocate for human rights around world, into an organization obsessed with the cause of delegitimizing Israel and valorizing those seeking its destruction.

Human Rights Watch’s anti-Israel propaganda

HRW’s irresponsible and mendacious anti-Israel activism is a matter of record, not merely the opinion, as Roth’s supporters claim, of right-wing troublemakers. A good summary was published by NGO Monitor, an important non-profit organization that keeps tab on groups that specialize in fomenting antisemitism while operating under the cover of the cause of human rights.

Most devastating was the criticism of Roth made by the late Robert Bernstein, HRW’s founder, who wrote in The New York Times that Roth isn’t just prejudiced against Israel. He’s a captive of leftist ideology about colonialism, racism and white privilege. This, according to Bernstein, caused Roth to erase any distinctions between democratic countries like the United States and Israel—which may certainly be flawed and worthy of criticism for some of their policies—and authoritarian and totalitarian states whose very purpose is to eliminate human rights. In Bernstein’s words, Roth “cast aside the distinction between open and closed societies.”

It is true that Roth and HRW have spoken up against genuine human-rights violators like China, Russia and various dictatorships and Muslim theocracies for their offenses. But treating a genuinely democratic country like Israel, where the rule of law prevails and which is under siege from forces bent on its destruction, as the moral equivalent of those nations undermines the entire concept of human-rights activism or justice.

In Bernstein’s view, Roth had hijacked HRW and turned it into an anti-Israel activist group that focused disproportionately on efforts to support the Palestinian war on Zionism. Like others who smear Israel, Roth ignored the fact that the anomalous situation in Judea and Samaria (the “West Bank”) is due almost entirely to the Palestinians’ repeated rejection of peace, support of terrorism and refusal to accept the legitimacy of a Jewish state, no matter where its borders might be drawn.

Along with other so-called human-rights and international organizations like the UN Human Rights Council, HRW was part of a network of activists dedicated to demonizing Israel and Zionism. HRW is an avid supporter of the antisemitic BDS movement and “lawfare” efforts aimed at manipulating international law to make Israel a pariah. It is in this context that the onslaught against Harvard must be understood.

Some of Roth’s calumnies against Israel are particularly egregious. It wasn’t enough for him to spread falsehoods about Israel’s being an “apartheid state,” or to make dishonest claims about its murder of civilians. He even spread the blood libel that it was engaged in a racist attempt to deny COVID-19 vaccines to Palestinians, when it was the Palestinian Authority that refused the Israeli government’s offers of help in providing shots for Arabs living in the disputed territories under the despotic rule of Mahmoud Abbas.

Yet, what also needs to be understood about the effort to turn Roth into a martyr for academic freedom is that the debate isn’t merely about his despicable record of anti-Israel bias. It’s part of the vicious campaign to delegitimize Israel and Zionism that was the centerpiece of HRW’s activity during his long tenure there.

Roth is a prodigious fundraiser. HRW was rewarded for his calumnies against Israel with a $100 million grant from left-wing billionaire George Soros’s Open Society Foundation. Though some on the left treat any criticism of Soros as evidence of Jew hatred, his support for anti-Israel and even antisemitic activism aimed at supporting the Jewish state’s destruction renders their claims risible.

But Roth is also a terrible hypocrite when it comes to raising money. He solicited a $470 million donation from a Saudi billionaire, and in return promised not to advocate for LGBTQ rights in Muslim countries. Many on the left consider those who cite the fact that Israel is the one country in the Middle East where gays have equal rights (Amir Ohana, the new speaker of Israel’s Knesset, is gay) to be “pinkwashing.” But Roth was prepared to sacrifice the rights of Muslim gays in order to get more cash with which to attack the Jewish state’s existence.

An honest assessment of Roth’s record must lead to the conclusion that he isn’t a “critic” of Israel’s, but rather someone who regards its existence as a crime that must be atoned for by its destruction. His lies about Israel and willingness to deny Jews rights he wouldn’t deny to anyone else isn’t merely a controversial opinion; it’s a virulent variant of antisemitism.

He wouldn’t be the only one with such vile opinions to be given a prestigious perch at an elite university. But it is to the credit of Harvard’s Kennedy School that it drew the line at giving him the kind of honor he clearly doesn’t deserve.

Contrary to the arguments of the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE), a group that has stood up in the past for conservatives, the issue at Harvard isn’t the defense of academic freedom, but normalizing Jew-hatred.

In a saner environment than the one that currently exists in academia and the establishment media, it would be the University of Pennsylvania under fire from faculty, students, alumni and the public for honoring an antisemite like Roth. Instead, it is Harvard’s Elmendorf who is under intolerable pressure to reverse his stand and give Roth yet another platform to advance his campaign to treat Zionism, the national liberation movement of the Jewish people, as racism.

That the organized Jewish community has had little to say about Roth and the attacks on Harvard’s stand against antisemitism also provides more proof of the failure of American-Jewish leaders and their preference for liberal causes that do nothing to protect the rights or the security of the community they purport to represent.

Rather than meekly accept his claims of martyrdom, those who profess to care about fighting Jew-hatred need to put aside political differences and join in an effort to call him out for his lies. If Harvard is ultimately forced to surrender on this issue, it will be a triumph for Roth’s brand of left-wing antisemitism that is a growing threat to the ability of Jews to speak up for Israel and Zionism in the public square, and especially in academia.

Indeed, it isn’t Kenneth Roth who’s being canceled, but all those who are willing to tell the truth about the leftist war on Israel and the Jews.

Jonathan S. Tobin is editor-in-chief of JNS (Jewish News Syndicate). Follow him on Twitter at: @jonathans_tobin.
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The Higher One Climbs. Wither Biden? Halcyon Times.

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The higher one climbs the closer they get to the flames.

Will Biden be allowed to even get singed? Have American voters become so jaded and fed up with sensationalism they will ignore the Biden investigation or because Hunter is involved will it become taunting and sexually sleazy enough it will play grippingly well?  Stay tuned, because you could be in for one slimy ride of how America's first family sold America out in order to enrich themselves with  homes and fancy cars.

Will the potential stench of the investigation's revelation impact politics and truly drain the swamp for a significant period of time?  Most importantly will the fallout really, if sensational enough, drive politics long enough so true reforms of a critical nature be ensued to the end so that an historical period of cleaning the Potomac occurs?

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This last memo is written before we leave for Florida and is devoted to a variety of topics that perhaps you already know about but I thought good reminders of times past, Halcyon Days and re-setting false attempts by the mass media to portray Israel as a pariah.  In no particular order they are:

 Johnathan Tobin.



 

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Thursday, January 12, 2023

Zito Bowls and President Corvette.

 
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Who in America is bowling alone 
By Salena Zito

SOMERSET, Pennsylvania — When you walk into the Terrace Lanes bowling alley on Pennsylvania State Road 31, the first thing you will see is Althea Shaw’s broad smile. Her warm greeting has a way of making customers, both regulars and first-timers, feel as though they belong. 

“The Sleek Family opened up their doors in November of 1995," Shaw told me. "I started exactly one year later, and I have been here ever since. As far as I am concerned, it is the best job I could ever hope for. I get to meet new people all the time, see regulars almost every day, and a lot of the regulars started here with their parents when they were just 3 years old." 

It was noon on New Year's Eve, and Terrace Lanes was filling up quickly. There were several local families who piled in with their small children, followed by a group of teenagers and then several young couples. Small family groups started walking in, too, including the Nobleman and Reid families, who said they showed up on a whim.

“We are all up from Silver Springs, Maryland, for a family ski vacation at the Seven Springs resort 20 miles down the road,” explained Andrew Nobleman, a federal employee. “We wanted to take the kids to do something different. We were going to bowl at the resort, but they only have three lanes, so we looked to see what was close and found this place.” 

“What was really fascinating to us is when we pulled up to Somerset and how vibrant it is," he said. "You read stories where small-town America is struggling, but honestly, they have everything we have back home, and it is way more affordable."

Case in point: three orders of french fries, with cheese on the side, two pretzels, also with cheese on the side, a nacho platter, and a whole pizza cost a combined $14 — and the food is good!

Owner Homer Sleek said he can’t remember a time in his life when he wasn’t bowling. 

“My father opened up the first Terrace Lanes in Jerome, Pennsylvania, in 1963," he said. "I was 4 years old. I grew up as a bowling alley rat or whatever you want to call it.” He went from running around the bowling alley to cleaning it and dusting the floors. “Back then, it also meant cleaning the ashtrays out,” he said, laughing. 

Eventually, his father sold the business to him in the late '80s. In 1995, Sleek moved the business from Jerome, population 1,000, to the "big" town of Somerset, population 12,000. This was the very same year Harvard professor Robert Putnam wrote a paper and then published a book called Bowling Alone, a groundbreaking examination of American life that illustrated a culture not just in the throes of loneliness but turning still further inward.

Putnam argued that America’s social fabric — that glue of reliance and aspiration that formed communities in this country since Alexis de Tocqueville observed it with awe — had frayed significantly. 

He wasn’t wrong. Americans don’t join things in the way we used to. Fraternal organizations such as the Lions Club, the Elks, and Kiwanis don’t have robust membership like they used to, nor do civic and faith-based groups such as the Knights of Columbus. 

Church attendance is also falling. In 1995, Putnam was just scratching at the surface of what was to come with a loneliness problem in the U.S. Twenty-seven years later, it is a full-blown epidemic, especially in our most populous urban areas. The latest U.S. Census Bureau survey shows 60% report spending less time with friends, family, or anyone, for that matter. 

However, Putnam wasn’t 100% right, either. In places such as Somerset, in a region still shrinking in population because of the loss of industry, residents are feeling less stuck than they were five years ago. This is a bit of a reversal from the earlier sentiments that they needed to leave in order to be successful. Now, they look more favorably on the idea of staying and building a community. 

Sleek said there was a time when he wanted to venture out and find his place outside of Somerset.

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We know Biden is a big talker. He laughed about how he got the Ukraine investigator fired on TV.  I suspect the effort to set Newsom to become president, as I have been speculating, has begun. Obama holdovers are probably in cahoots to see that this is accomplished.

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It's official: Attorney General Merrick Garland has selected a special counsel to investigate the Biden document probe

The good news? 

He's a Trump appointee that was unanimously confirmed by the Senate back in 2018. He was also responsible for overseeing indictments of multiple top Baltimore officials for public corruption and fraud during his time as a United States Attorney

But there's some bad news, too

This news comes as the Biden document scandal continues to grow. After finding a first hoard of documents at Penn Biden Center, an additional trove of documents were also found in the garage and adjacent room of his Delaware residence. 

And can you guess who had access to that room and those documents?

A lot of people, including Trump and Edward Snowden, aren't as shocked by the scandal of having the docs. As we can see, that seems to happen a lot more than you'd think.

They think the bigger scandal is that the DOJ kept the whole story under wraps until after the midterm election.

More election interference? It sure seems that way..

After learning that classified docs were being carelessly stored in the Biden garage, Republican lawmakers have their own trove of questions. 

"House Republicans will hold Biden’s corrupt FBI and DOJ accountable for its double standard of justice and uncover the truth about why Biden has been allowed to be so irresponsible with classified documents for so long," House Republican Conference chairwoman Elise Stefanik of New York explained.

Now that we know this, don't you think it's time the public gets access to his Delaware visitor logs?

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Emails Show Hunter Biden Had Access To Garage Where Joe Biden Kept Classified Documents

Now it is beginning to hit the fan but the question is will a government that has become corrupt stonewall Biden's relationship with China or will a corrupt AG allow his department to truly dig through the dirt and will this AG appoint and allow an honest, totally objective person be appointed.  I fear the answer is no to all.  

Will my wife's: " so what, who cares, what difference does it make cynicism prevail?

It appears that there is a connection between Penn allowing Biden to launder Chinese money through academia and then receive  benefits that resulted in pay offs to our most dangerous enemy like going into our oil reserves to help China? But wait it gets worse. American oil was sold to a Chinese company Hunter had an interest in and the oil sale came to millions of dollars. Not guilty until proven  so but here is where the stonewall begins.  But then Biden does not like to build walls.

As I previously wrote Newsom wants to become president those Democrats who agree must wait ti the 2024 and they must avoid appointing Kamala so Biden has to ie before the ET BRUTE EVENT occurs and Biden has to sell his Corvette.

Stay tuned because it is going to get interesting and even The Savannah News will have to report on this and the mass media should be forced to do as much as well.

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Don’t buy Biden’s ‘surprise’ — classified documents were moved at least twice

By Jonathan Turley

With the reported discovery of a second batch of highly classified documents connected to President Biden, the decisions of Attorney General Merrick Garland are fast moving from the inexplicable to incomprehensible.

Garland was presumably briefed that classified documents were discovered in Joe Biden’s old office on Nov. 2. He also presumably knew about the Biden documents when he appointed a special counsel to investigate the classified documents at Mar-a-Lago 16 days later.

At the time of the appointment of Jack Smith, some of us noted the inexplicable refusal of Garland to appoint a special counsel to look into alleged Biden influence peddling and other crimes.

Garland continued to refuse such an appointment even as he justified the appointment of Smith on the basis that Trump was running for the presidency. Joe Biden is the president. What is the difference?

President Biden, meanwhile, is feigning ignorance, simply saying he was “surprised” the documents were there.

By not discussing the content of the documents, Biden minimizes his vulnerability to charges of obstruction or false statements. He can simply declare “surprise,” knowing that many in the media will welcome his silence as they spin the scandal.

 building that housed office space of President Joe Biden's former institute, the Penn Biden Center, The documents were discovered six days before midterm elections at a think tank affiliated with the University of Pennsylvania. Manuel Balce Ceneta/AP

Despite the lack of information, the press and pundits have already declared there is no real national security danger and certainly no comparison to Mar-a-Lago. Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, D-Texas, declared “There is no comparison. They were in a locked closet. They were not accessible.”

So that is the standard? A locked closet? The Mar-a-Lago storage room was locked and later the security was enhanced at the request of the FBI.

It is fair to note that Trump and his staff are accused of false statements and obstruction. However, that does not change the same alleged crime of unlawful removal and possession.

Biden is taking a page from the Hillary Clinton playbook. Recall the long-sought Whitewater documents. After the case was effectively over, they suddenly appeared. The New York Times called the documents “elusive,” as if they moved by free will.

Clinton was also “surprised” by the discovery of the documents . . . after they could not be used as part of the earlier investigation.

There are some obvious explanations for the documents being present in the office, particularly given Biden’s work on a book that discussed his work in some of the referenced countries like Ukraine. However, even that explanation raises more questions. For example, Biden left office as vice president in 2017 and had an office at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia after finishing his term until 2019. On February 8, 2018, the Biden Center for Diplomacy and Global Engagement says that it opened its doors in Washington, D.C.

So if these documents were removed when Biden left office, where were they in the prior year and were they moved repeatedly before they ended up in the Washington office? This does not appear a “one-and-done” mistake. Rather documents may have been at various locations over a five year period.

None of this could be clarified with Biden simply expressing “surprise.”

The FBI has two immediate tasks: secure the highly classified documents and then determine whether they may have been compromised.

Consider that Biden notably did not categorically deny asking for the documents to be taken at the end of this term as vice president.

He also did not explain when he was briefed after they were found.

Democrats and the media are eager to wave this away and move on. But, as the statements of Garland and Biden show, there are many questions that need answering. The discovery of new classified documents only magnifies those unanswered questions.

Jonathan Turley is an attorney and professor at George Washington University Law School.


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My Inflation (CPI) View. Turn In Liberal Jewish Politics At Hand? Palestinians Continue Taking Stab At it.

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The CPI report validates my earlier view that inflation has peaked and FED should realize this but they may not and thus, make a possible softer type landing bumpier. Time will tell so they must not go over a 25 basis rise. But what do I know? .

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Palestinians keep stabbing and Biden keeps supporting Palestinians.

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An Israeli man sustained moderate injuries in a Palestinian stabbing attack in the West Bank.

Earlier Palestinian threats »

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The rest of this memo will be devoted to the possible beginning in the political thinking trend  by previous liberal Jews because of their belief they were put here on earth by God to make the world better so they started bleeding with their hearts and gave up thinking rationally..

Norman Podhoretz wrote a great book: WhyJews Are Liberal" and said Jews traded religion for politics and his wife said Jews became Protestants and voted like Puerto Ricans. Certainly the owners of the NYT's did so in order to escape social prejudice.

Since I have explained, in previous memos, Jews could take their heads with them when they were driven out of countries, assuming they were not killed first. They sought institutions and businesses where they could use their minds so that meant the arts, special manufacturing jobs that involved transportable objects, like diamond cutting.  Medicine where they were needed and so allowed to live. Entertainment where people wanted to laugh or see films were other outlets..

Yes, they solved their survivor dilemma intellectually but they went overboard and hypocritical, in my opinion, with respect why they were put here on earth and began to be so emotional they became transfixed on using their heads but in perverse ways. 

The two articles I have posted are good but I do not fully agree with their conclusions. because they leave out what I have just written, I believe economics impacts everyone, even those who are not religious.  We need faith in something beyond self but politics dictates far more of what impacts life and people's decision making  than religion unless being a religious extremist drives your life and that is extremism. I believe acts of  moderation should dictate your life.

Jews in Savannah appeared around Yellow Fever time with doctors aboard and Oglethorpe needed them  so the Savannah Jewish community has been here for a long time and has been an active and integral part of this historical city's scene.

As for myself I am totally turned off by extreme liberalism and thus Democrat politics are abhorrent so I am not a Republican but I am left with few alternatives when I vote.  I remain socially liberal, militarily a hawk and fiscally conservative but fiscal conservatism dictates most of my choices. if you need or want it,  pay for it.

As you know the only Democrat I believe was outstanding was Clinton because he was a shrewd politician and embraced Gingrich's concepts and wound up balancing the budget. I did what I did with Trump, I ignored Clinton's loathsome personal attributes and based my decision on his achievements. What you do is more important than what is said, particularly when it comes to politicians.

Having said the above what do I know?

Leaving for our cruise come this Monday. Stay well, be back at the post when I return in early February.

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The New Jew

By Karol Markowicz

It was early December when The Chosen Comedy Festival came to Miami. It had been a tough few weeks for Jews.

Kanye was on his “I love Hitler” tour and it seemed like too many people wanted to hear what he had to say. The New York Times was running regular pieces about problems they saw in the Haredi communities of Brooklyn, and absolutely nowhere else, and even the secular Jews who nodded approvingly at the first write-up were starting to notice the obsession.

A rabbi friend once told me that Jews are the only people that when someone says “I hate you” say “let’s hear him out.” But at the end of 2022, Jews were finally unwilling to hear anyone out. The hatred at us had gotten old. We were collectively tired of being the target and we were craving being together in an actually safe space.

It had been 4 years since the Tree of Life shooting, 3 years since the Monsey stabbing. We weren’t over those attacks, at least in part because less deadlier attacks on Jews in places like Brooklyn were happening regularly both before and after those killings. We weren’t raw anymore. We were something else. Inside the community, something was shifting.

The easy explanation is political. Jews are moving rightward. Slowly. An Associated Press survey found that President Donald Trump’s share of the Jewish vote went from 24% in 2016 to 30% in 2020. Exit polls had 33% of Jews voting Republican in the midterm elections and exit polls require someone to tell the truth to a pollster, something a lifelong Democrat switching sides for the first time might not be ready to do. Some people credit the Jewish vote with swinging several close House seats in New York and ultimately netting Republicans the House of Representatives.

Florida in particular is becoming a home for the wayward right-leaning Jew. Florida Jews went 41% for Trump in 2020. Exit polls showed Gov. DeSantis climbing to 45% of the Jewish vote in his recent election. That number could be even higher; the campaign team will confirm after they finish combing through precinct data in the coming weeks.

For so long, Jews were seen as a political monolith. This was never exactly so. My own ex-Soviet-Jewish community in Brooklyn was always very conservative yet still rarely represented by Republicans. The so-called "ultra" Orthodox Jews of Boro Park and Williamsburg were also, of course, very conservative, but often voted Democrat anyway. Israeli-Americans, Syrian Jews, so many small pockets of Jews in America actually always leaned right.

The type of Jew that was a reliable liberal in the last 50 years was rarely an immigrant. Sometimes their families had been here since the turn of the century, missing the pograms in Russia, the oppression of the Soviet Union, the camps of World War II. American Jews have been the luckiest Jews in history but the Jews whose families had been here for a hundred years were something else beyond that. They did not know struggle or pain or true ostracism because of a faith you often couldn’t practice but also were not allowed to discard.

When they weren't allowed into certain clubs, American Jews started their own and that was that. They did not worry, they did not fear.

The archetype of this Jew lived on the Upper West Side, always voted for the most left-leaning Democrat, spent a summer on a kibbutz, maybe, but otherwise felt little affinity for Israel. They didn't need Israel’s security and didn't know anyone who did. They could be counted on to criticize Israel and America openly and happily. Their lifelong security allowed for that.

Being Jewish was about shopping at Zabar's and little else. There was a joke during the last few years that summed up what was happening with this community: "What's the difference between Donald Trump and a liberal Jew? Donald Trump has Jewish grandchildren." The shidduch crisis is very real in the liberal Jewish world. A 2021 Pew study found that “If one excludes the Orthodox and looks only at non-Orthodox Jews who have gotten married since 2010, 72% are intermarried.” When being Jewish is about bagels, people realize they can have the bagels and not think about religion at all.

This breed of Jew is the one so many think of when they think "Jewish community in America." But that Jewish archetype is fading and a new one is coming to take its place.

The night of the comedy festival, Jews were desperate for connection. Some comedians alluded to it, the way we needed each other then. Our family had moved to south Florida 11 months prior from Brooklyn. We were escaping Covid restrictions that targeted our children, crime that was spiraling out of control and also looking for a Jewish community where two immigrant, right-leaning Jews could be ourselves and be safe.

Some of the first people I met in Florida were a wealthy Jewish couple in their 70s who both carry guns. I was wowed by them and reported about their existence to all of my friends back in New York. It turned out they were not as unique as I had imagined.

There's a local gun group for Jewish gun owners in Boca Raton called "lox and glocks." A Jewish friend of mine accidentally boarded the Bright Line train while carrying and then was forced to Uber from West Palm Beach back to his Miami home. I overheard a foursome of 80-something year old Jews, one in a wheelchair,  discuss their favorite gun ranges as they licked frozen yogurt in Delray Beach. These were not the Jews we were used to.

The crowd at the comedy show was uniformly Jewish. One of the early comedians asked how many in the crowd were non-Jews. Two or three hands went up. There were cool Miami scenester Jews with Bottega Veneta bags, many Orthodox Jewish couples, Spanish-speaking Jews, groups of boychiks out on the town, Israelis, oy va voy, the Israelis.

The room laughed at in-jokes about getting into kosher restaurants in Surfside during season. They laughed at a woman imitating her elderly bubbie and zayde having sex. They laughed at comedian Modi's famous joke about how Florida didn't have Covid. "Oh yes, Florida. We were doing shows on Zoom because there was this thing called A PANDEMIC." 

And then comedian Judy Gold hit the stage. She had some early laughs but then she made an abortion joke and the vibe in the room shifted. We don't all believe the same things anymore.

She persevered and got the audience back. But soon she joked about how Jews don't have guns. The room was silent. "Really? No one likes anti-gun jokes?" That’s when the booing started. She was shocked.

Frankly, I was shocked.

I knew a change was happening but did not know it had arrived. What has been emerging, in Florida but also elsewhere, was a New Jew. This shift is partially political, yes. It does come with more votes moving from Democrat to Republican. But the main change is cultural. 

The New Jew does not cower. He does not make excuses for those who hate him, whether white supremacist or black nationalist. She speaks plainly about threats, refuses to pretend they're exclusive to the far right when she can see with her own eyes that they are not.

This New Jew might not be conservative but they are no longer of the left. His story is laid out in "The Turn" by Liel Leibovitz. He didn’t shift, the left shifted around him. She isn’t afraid of name-calling. As Leibovitz wrote “We have a better word to describe ourselves: free.”

The New Jew openly loves Israel and does not let anyone believe otherwise so that she can fit in with her usual political side. There is no “but…” same as one can love France or England and not launch into a dissertation about their political wrongs.

The New Jew remembers the Taffy Brodesser-Akner piece about how support for Israel is no longer in fashion on the left, how “we whispered to each other that it felt like the anti-Israel sentiment was actually a new way of being openly anti-Semitic, somehow wrapping it up in a Democratic cause” and how that piece made him sad. Today it would make him angry. How dare the mealy-mouthed left question the existence of the only Jewish state? We're done explaining anything to anyone anymore.

When someone is found to be a Jew-hater (a term far preferable to the clunky “antisemite”) he thinks “please, just don’t take them to the Holocaust museum.” Having to prove our humanity to people who hate us is embarrassing and the New Jew refuses to do it. We are not here to beg “please don’t hate us” and show them how much we have been hated by others. We’re here to say we mean “Never Again.” We’re here to boo when you think we won’t have guns to protect ourselves.

Her favorite Jewish organization is Tikvah because they didn’t flinch when the Museum of Jewish Heritage in Manhattan demanded they disinvite Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis from their Jewish Leadership Conference. The boldness was appealing. The event went on, the protestors impotently raged outside, and the Jews inside got to say: we invite who we want.

The New Jew furtively discusses admiration for Bari Weiss if she’s at the beginning of her journey away from the left and brazenly Ben Shapiro if she’s exited the building.

Religiously, the New Jew is either Orthodox or shul-less. She noticed that Reform and Conservative synagogues stayed closed for too long during Covid and when they re-emerged they were temples to leftism not G-d. She fills in her worship at Chabad, because they’ll never turn Shabbat into a struggle session, but it’s not an exact fit. The shuls will get there. They’ll have to. Their empty pews will be their signal.

She has broken with Facebook or Instagram friends who said vile things about Israel while Jews hid from bombs in basements in Tel Aviv. He has looked at his family, or dreamed about the one he hopes to have, and said "Not us. Not ever."

He discovers there are many others like him, so many others, and they’re welcoming and accepting as we all navigate together being independent Jews in the freest of countries.

The gun booing was telling because it wasn't about quietly owning a firearm. It was about letting others know that you do. It was about standing up for that right, standing up against the idea that our people will always be sitting ducks. We will not be.

A real political realignment to accompany this shift is coming. It is not here yet. One issue, like support for Israel, often leads to change on other issues, like gun rights. One little time you pull out a thread and where has it led? The whole shawl of Jews-always-being-liberals unravels.

Israel is an imperfect example but it's still instructive. Israel was once a left-leaning country. It is not today. The shift runs parallel to what is happening with Jews in America. Leftism rewards victimhood and the New Jews have decided to be victims no more.

Karol Markowicz is a weekly columnist at the New York Post. Follow her on Twitter: @Karol.

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History Can Be an Antidote to Antisemitism

Today’s resurgent prejudices and conspiracy theories rest on old and dangerous ideas about Jews.

By David Nirenberg

Americans heard a lot about Jews in 2022, from a hostage-taking at a Texas synagogue in January to the unapologetic broadcasting of antisemitic conspiracy theories at year’s end by Kanye West and the white supremacist Nick Fuentes. University campuses produced sharp controversies over free speech and antisemitism, as some student organizations banned pro-Israel speakers and some Jewish students reported feeling unsafe.

In November, FBI director Christopher Wray warned of a sharp rise in antisemitic hate crimes. Jews were the main victims of these crimes, but not the only ones. In October, Thomas Meixner, a Catholic professor of hydrology at the University of Arizona, was murdered on campus by a former student who reportedly insisted Meixner was the Jewish leader of a Zionist plot against him.

What counts as antisemitism? Is it on the rise, and if so, who’s to blame?

President Joe Biden and a number of other politicians from both sides of the aisle have responded by condemning antisemitism. Such condemnations are welcome and important, but they do not help us answer some of the more inflammatory questions ignited by current events. What counts as antisemitism? Is it on the rise, and if so, who’s to blame—the left or the right, Christians or Muslims? Or is it “the Jews” and their actions that are at fault, as some maintain?

These questions may feel new, but the resurgence of antisemitism didn’t begin in 2022, and it’s not only happening in the U.S. Taking a historical perspective can offer im3 9:58 am ETportant insights into the current situation.

One is that antisemitism isn’t restricted to any single group. Since the turn of the millennium, Jews have been murdered by Islamists in France and opponents of Muslim immigration in Germany, by a white nationalist in Pittsburgh and a Black Hebrew Israelite in Jersey City, N.J.

Political actors have been similarly diverse. Prominent European politicians who have cast themselves as opponents of Jewish power include the U.K.’s Jeremy Corbyn on the left and Hungary’s Viktor Orban on the right. Before the Iraq War, Saddam Hussein tried to avoid invasion by claiming that any conflict between Islam and the West was the result of Jewish machinations. In Charlottesville, Va. in 2017, white supremacist marchers at the Unite the Right Rally chanted “Jews will not replace us.”

Clearly, antisemitism appeals to groups with very different values and interests. Such convergences have happened before. As industrial economies developed in 19th-century Europe, it became common for critics of capitalism like Karl Marx to characterize money and private property as Jewish and to see Jews as architects of economic inequality. Some leftists criticized this tendency with a popular saying, “Antisemitism is the socialism of fools.”

Right-wing enemies of socialism, on the other hand, often attacked it as a Jewish plot to destroy European civilization. During World War II, these overlapping prejudices about Jewish power helped the Nazis enlist many citizens of the countries they occupied to assist in the elimination of their Jewish neighbors. Here is a second lesson from history: The more diverse the appeal of antisemitism, the greater the danger.

Looking to the past also shows how revolutions in media can give new life to old hatreds. The invention of the printing press in the late 15th century helped transform accusations of ritual murder against Jews from local affairs to international ones. The rise of mass circulation newspapers in the 19th century coincided with the rise of antisemitism in mass politics. In the 20th century, it’s hard to imagine Hitler being so successful without radio and cinema.

Today, social media is making it easier than ever to spread hateful ideas. Are we on the brink of a new era in which explicitly anti-Jewish politics once again becomes acceptable, perhaps even capable of provoking mass murder, as in the 1930s and ’40s? There is no consensus among historians on this question. How could there be? History does not repeat itself. It doesn’t even rhyme. But while comparisons between historical periods can be misleading, they can also be revealing, making us aware of our own blind spots.

In the 1920s and ‘30s, for instance, there were plenty of people who warned of the dangers of increasing antisemitism. From our point of view today, the rise of Nazism and the Holocaust show that these concerns were obviously right. But there were also plenty of people at the time who claimed that the problem wasn’t antisemitism but the actions of the Jews themselves. It was their wealth that was the problem, or their poverty; their too-successful assimilation, or their refusal to assimilate; or one of many other contradictory reasons.

These were the supposedly “real” issues, not antisemitism, which many argued was merely an accusation Jews used to silence criticism and squash free speech. During his rise to power, Hitler even brought libel lawsuits against newspapers that accused him of violent antisemitism—and won.

Today, too, there are people of various political and religious persuasions—including some Jews—who believe that antisemitism isn’t a significant problem. Rather, they say, the problem is the way in which accusations of antisemitism are wielded to repress legitimate criticism of Jews or Israel. What can we learn from this historical comparison? Certainly not that critics of Jews or of Israel today must be antisemites.

Rather, the point is that it is hard for us to know if our perceptions of our world are realistic, or if they are shaped by inherited ideologies and prejudices. A century ago, many people convinced themselves that the Jews were an obstacle standing in the way of a better future, and the result was cataclysmic—not just for the Jews but for much of the world. How can we avoid making similar mistakes?

Kanye West, seen here on Oct. 22, has stated that Blacks are the true Jews, echoing claims by Britain’s 19th-century ‘Anglo-Israelites.’

By calling our attention to past examples of how ideas like antisemitism have influenced humanity, history can provide an antidote to prejudice. We need this antidote today, because while antisemitic claims are often retailed as new revelations, they usually rest on very old beliefs. Consider Kanye West’s claim that he can’t be antisemitic because Blacks are the true Jews. In the U.S. today, variants of this idea animate the Black Hebrew Israelites and the Nation of Islam, but there’s nothing especially African-American about it.

Many different groups have argued that it is they, and not the Jews, who are the true descendants of the biblical Israelites. Contemporary white supremacists who subscribe to the Christian Identity movement say that they are the true Jews. In the early 19th century, British “Anglo-Israelites” argued that they were the descendants of the chosen people, pointing to God’s words to Abraham in Genesis 21:12: “In Isaac shall thy seed be called.” Clearly it was the Saxons who were “I-Saac’s sons”!

The diverse proponents of these anti-Jewish theories often share a common library of “proof texts.” God’s curse of the serpent in Genesis 3:15 (“And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers”) is taken to mean that the Jews are the serpent’s children, eternal enemies of God’s true people. In 2020, the American rapper Jay Electronica riffed on Revelation 2:9, which warns against “those who say they are Jews and are not, but a synagogue of Satan.” Before murdering 11 people at the Tree of Life Synagogue in 2018, Robert Bowers chose for his last social media post the words Jesus addressed “to the Jews who had believed him” in John 8:44: “You belong to your father, the devil, and you want to carry out your father’s desires.”

Historians hope that prejudices will become less compelling if people understand how well-worn they are.

It is not only the durability of these ideas that makes them dangerous but the way antisemitism roots itself in sacred texts that express humanity’s highest aspirations, like the Bible and the Quran. How deep are those historical roots? Roughly 160 years after the birth of Jesus, an obscure author named Heraclion Philologus wrote a commentary on the Gospel of John in which he argued against early Christians who were apparently claiming, based on this verse, that the Jews were descended from Satan. As a purely negative force, he argued, the Devil could not create life. But this limitation on the demonic was soon dismissed as heresy by the much more influential theologian Tertullian, who preferred to stress the creative power of Satan’s seed.

Historians hope that prejudices will become less compelling if people understand how well-worn they are, how many times they have failed to bring about the better future their adherents promised. That hope has often been disappointed. History is not a magic amulet that we can rub to protect us from danger as we make our way through a changing world. But it is a powerful reminder of how previous generations struggled with problems similar to our own—and a precious gift of humility to our own age, which is so full of passionate conviction. When it comes to confronting antisemitism and other prejudices, we need all the help that good history can offer.

Mr. Nirenberg is the Leon Levy Professor and Director of the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, N.J. He is the author of “Anti-Judaism: The Western Tradition.”

Appeared in the January 7, 2023, print edition as 'History Can Be An Antidote to Antisemitism'.

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Posted by at No comments:

Asians Flee NY. Biden Speaks Out. Allen West Interprets. Voter's Message. Iran Docks. Biden Launders Thru Academia? Newsom Nuts.

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Why Asians Have Fled Democrats in New York

By Matt Vespa

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 Biden Breaks His Silence on Classified Document Scandal

By Spencer Brown

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My dear friend and fellow memo reader, Allen West Lt. Col Ret, has written several meaningful  Op Ed's interpreting the meaning of what our constitution dictates and how i should be used and/or interpreted.

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An Election, Not a Coronation

This past week the American people were given a very important lesson about constitutional governance, a vital one for our Republic. There can be no doubt that one of the most dysfunctional legislative bodies in these United States of America is the U.S. Congress. And, if our legislative branch is not operating within the enumerated powers, duties, and responsibilities as set forth in Article I, Section 8 of our Constitution, that has a watershed effect upon the other two branches of our government, executive and judicial.

READ THE REST

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Allen West: Constitutional Priorities, Not Ideological

Greetings everyone. I pray your 2023 is off to a resounding start and will continue to rise in expectation and reward. I wish that I could say the same with what we have seen from the Biden administration so far. Here in Texas, we witnessed a modern-day Potemkin Village masquerade when Biden decided to conduct a drive-by at the El Paso port of entry. Anyone asserting that this was a Border tour or visit is gravely mistaken. The fact that El Paso was cleaned up and illegal immigrants were dispersed prior to Biden's three-hour "canine and equine theater," also known as a dog and pony show, was completely deceptive. There were no meetings with local law enforcement officials. There were no meetings with local community leaders, especially those who want border security. There were no meetings with representatives of the US Border Patrol union, and when was the last time a Democrat did not want to meet with union representatives?

READ MORE

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Colonel's Constitutional Brief: Back to Basics

Happy New Year, everyone! I pray that y’all have started 2023 in good fashion. Of course, this is the time for New Years’ resolutions, many centered around fitness and better health. I think that is very important, as we must realize that our personal healthcare is our personal responsibility . . . not the government’s. And, if you see how our economy is in a mess, then you do not want the government in charge of your healthcare. READ MORE
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Can't allow the king to see the mess he created. It would offend his sensibilities.

El Paso Bulldozed Illegal Migrant Camps Ahead of Biden’s Visit

Homeless illegal immigrant encampments in El Paso, Texas were so rampant that they had to be cleared and even bulldozed by local authorities prior to Sunday’s visit from President Joe Biden, the Washington Examiner reports.

Law enforcement officials told the Examiner that “hundreds” of people camped out on blocks surrounding a Greyhound station and an El Paso church were moved by local and federal authorities.

By the time Biden gave remarks in the Texas border town, the city streets were clean and void of any indication of an ongoing border crisis.

But according to PJ Media, the situation in El Paso was dire before Biden’s first-ever trip to the Southern border.


PJ Media reports


“El Paso had been turned into one gigantic homeless shelter after tens of thousands of illegal aliens crossed the border in December anticipating the end of the immigration restriction known as Title 42. But the Supreme Court granted a reprieve to Texas and other border states who had sued to keep the restrictions in place. As a result, streets, sidewalks, and parking lots in El Paso have been taken over by illegal aliens.

Now, Joe Biden has imposed a policy — probably to be challenged in court — that allows some illegal immigrants entry into the U.S. but forces most of the rest to wait. It’s a policy that has satisfied no one, especially groups that are agitating for open borders. About 300 of the illegals obediently marched through the streets of downtown El Paso demanding the government open the border.”

Instagram account “casa_carmelita” posted videos to their account showing police walking down an alley taken over by migrant encampments.

Twitter user “Pismo_B” posted a video of San Francisco’s streets, joking that residents are “pleading with Biden to visit” so “his cronies might be able to clean up like they did in El Paso, [Texas]!”

A senior federal agent told PJ Media in a text message that dissatisfaction from local residents has grown substantially, much thanks to the crime wrought by illegal immigration.

“The [community residents] that experienced it on a daily basis were fed up and they made it known,” the agent wrote.

“Crime was getting bad and many residents were complaining. Some migrants even took over private parking lots and were charging for people to use them for parking.”

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Voters Send Message — GOP-Led House Should Focus On Budget, Immigration, Taxes And Energy: I&I/TIPP Poll

In theory, the newly elected Republican House of Representatives should be working full speed ahead on the nation’s business. But because it’s taken so long to name a House speaker, it’s been delayed. Even so, Americans have a full agenda for Congress once it gets under way, the most recent TIPP Poll data show.

We asked Americans specifically what they wanted the new Congress to focus on during its first 100 days, the traditional time for a new group of lawmakers to unveil what their priorities and focus will be.

The list came from an online Golden/TIPP poll taken from Dec. 7-9 among 1,094 registered voters and having a +/-2.9 percentage point margin of error. It asked voters a simple question: “What do you want the Republican House of Representatives to focus on in the first 100 days?” Respondents were then given 15 possible answers.

Here are the top five:

“Budget, government funding, government shutdown” (37%); “Immigration/Border legislation” (36%); “Tax legislation” (27%); “Energy legislation” (26%); “Abortion legislation” (25%).

The middle five show the public is in something of an investigative mood:

“Impeach President Biden” (21%); “Investigations and hearings about Hunter Biden laptop” (21%); “Investigations and hearings about election integrity/January 6” (also 21%); “Impeach officials like Attorney General Merrick Garland (for Mar-a-Lago raid) (19%); “Investigations and hearings about IRS targeting” (19%).

And the bottom:

“Impeach Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas (open border)” (17%); “Investigations and hearings about COVID origins” (17%); “Antitrust legislation to rein in Big Tech” 17%); “None of the above” (8%); “Not sure” (7%)

What are we to make of all this? For one, Americans of all political stripes appear to have few things they desperately want the new Congress to take up. There’s a low-level consensus on a handful of items, but that’s about it.

Indeed, among all the possible priorities listed, none got a majority of Democrats, Republicans or independents, with one major exception: 56% of Republicans say they want immigration or border legislation passed. No other issue gets over half.

Even so, the border issue also struck a chord with independents, though not a majority, with 42% saying they wanted legislation, while just 18% of Democrats did.

This perhaps explains President Joe Biden’s sudden decision in early January to visit the U.S.-Mexico border for the first time during his presidency, after heavy criticism from conservatives and Republican Party regulars for ignoring the border problem.

Biden himself might be another target for the GOP. About 39% of Republicans responding to the poll want Biden impeached, while another 36% want Hunter Biden’s lost laptop investigated for what it might show of Biden family corruption.

But certainly, the budget is an area of potential major conflict. Since the poll was taken in December, the Democratic-led Senate approved a $1.7 trillion omnibus spending bill, but did so with the aid of Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and 17 Republican senators.

Senators face voters every six years, while for House members it’s every two years. That means senators have the luxury of hoping the voters forget what they did between elections; representatives don’t.

The new Republican Congress will likely look to do something, anything, to slow the spending juggernaut, knowing full well that it is the most popular item among their own supporters. The anger among House Republicans against members of their own party in the Senate who supported the massive new spending bill is palpable.

One reason to look for action on these and other issues of interest, even without overwhelming support, is the recent battle over who should be the speaker of the House. It took an unprecedented 15 votes for moderate California Republican Rep. Kevin McCarthy to win the speakership, but in doing so he had to make lots of promises to furious Republican conservatives.

Why the anger against McCarthy? The $1.7 trillion omnibus spending bill in the Senate was the last straw for many.

As Roll Call, the mostly centrist publication covering Washington, D.C., politics and policy, described it: “It not only covers the dozen annual spending bills for every federal agency, plus supplemental aid for the war in Ukraine and natural disaster victims, but also an extensive set of unrelated policies such as horseracing industry rules and a TikTok ban on government-issued devices.”

No one who voted on the 4,155-page bill had even read it.

McCarthy will have a short leash with distrustful conservatives of his own party.

As Roger Kimball, writing for American Greatness, described McCarthy, in words echoed by many:

He was only too happy to shovel billions of your and your children’s money to Ukraine while doing little to secure our southern border. McCarthy is from California, so, naturally, he likes to spend money. He even got behind such improvident and mendacious schemes as raiding Medicare to pay for the U.S. Postal Service. He was happy to fund the Jan. 6 kangaroo court, grant amnesty to illegal immigrants, and support mandates for the useless — indeed, dangerous — COVID vaccine for the military. In plain terms, his voting record is only intermittently conservative.

In response to his opposition within the GOP, McCarthy made specific promises, among them: A rule change to let one representative move to get rid of a House speaker; formation of a panel modeled on the 1970s-era Church committee to look into abuses by the CIA, FBI and other intelligence agencies against U.S. citizens; assignment of three members of the conservative Freedom Caucus to posts on the powerful nine-member Rules Committee; a vote on term limits for Congress, and votes on a balanced-budget and a stringent Texas Border Plan, among other items on conservatives’ wish lists.

All in all, the conservatives within the party have shifted the center of power from left to right. With the Senate in Democrats’ hands, few major initiatives are likely to make it to Biden’s desk for signing. But make no mistake: With McCarthy’s difficult ascension to the speakership, the first salvo of the 2024 election campaign has been sounded.

I&I/TIPP publishes timely, unique and informative data each month on topics of public interest. TIPP reputation for polling excellence comes from being the most accurate pollster for the past five presidential elections.

Terry Jones

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China controls The Panama Canal and apparently is happy to allow Iran to leave some ships there to irritate us and stick their finger in our eyes. 

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Iran To Station Warships in Panama Canal

By Adam Kredo


Iran's navy is set to station warships for the first time in the Panama Canal, a critical trade route in America's backyard that has never before seen an Iranian military presence.

Rear Admiral Shahram Irani, the commander of Iran's navy, said on Wednesday that his forces will establish a presence in the Panama Canal later this year, marking the first time Iran's military has entered the Pacific Ocean.

Iran in recent years has placed a greater focus on moving its military into Latin American territories as it strengthens relations with anti-American dictators in the region, most notably in Venezuela. Iranian vessels have docked more frequently in Venezuela as Tehran's hardline regime seeks to prop up dictator Nicolás Maduro. These moves are meant to provoke the United States and signal that Tehran has the ability to station its military apparatus a stone's throw from U.S. territory.

Joseph Humire, a national security analyst who focuses on Latin American issues as executive director of the Center for a Secure Free Society think tank, said Iran has been laying the groundwork for this type of voyage by holding joint exercises with allies such as Russia and China, two nations that have also been strengthening their ties with Latin American countries.

"This is what Iran has been building in Latin America for the past 30 or 40 years" by establishing embassies and bilateral agreements with a host of nations, Humire said.

Iran's goal "has always been to have a military presence in Latin America, so it's not surprising at all for its navy to announce it's going to make moves on the Panama Canal," Humire said, noting that in addition to Venezuela and Nicaragua, Iran has opened relations with Colombia.

"This is a tremendous escalation if it is to happen," Humire said. "Many people may discount Iran in terms of its capabilities … but I would not discount it because they have been building to this for a very long time."

Iranian rear admiral Irani said the navy presence in the Panama Canal is meant to "strengthen our maritime presence in international waters," according to comments published by Iran's state-controlled media.

"Today we can say that there is no scientific barrier to grow in that field," Irani said, adding that the Iranian naval forces are sailing in the Pacific Ocean for the first time.

It is likely Iran sees its presence in Latin America as a means to bolster and protect its interests in countries like Venezuela, where Iran has been helping Maduro repair his country's dilapidated oil refineries. The two rogue regimes signed a 20-year cooperation plan in June 2022, when hardline Iranian president Ebrahim Raisi was in the country for meetings with Maduro.

Latin American dictatorships have also served as a hub for Iran to evade U.S. sanctions and make arms deals.

Hezbollah, the Iranian-controlled terror group, also has a presence in Latin America that has been gaining ground for years. Hezbollah militants are known to travel freely in Venezuela and across the relatively lawless Tri-Border Area that includes Brazil, Paraguay, and Argentina.

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Laundering money and selling office through academia? 

I went to Penn and I would put nothing past that school any more when  it comes to hungering for money as their various great departments drop in respect.  Wharton undergraduate was once number one, their MBA was number one.  Even MIT beats them now.  Ben Franklin should be turning over in his grave.  Medical School still one of best.

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Penn Biden Center where classified papers were found is a ‘dark money nightmare’

By Isabel Vincent


The Penn Biden Center — the Ivy League think tank where lawyers found classified materials lined to the Obama White House — is a patronage mill for the Biden Administration.The Penn Biden Center -- the Ivy League think tank where lawyers found classified materials linked to the Obama White House -- is a patronage mill for the Biden administration. Penn Biden Center

The Ivy League think tank where lawyers found classified materials linked to the Obama White House is a patronage mill for the Biden administration, raising suspicions among critics that its establishment attracted tens of millions in donations from anonymous Chinese donors.

The Department of Justice is currently probing how “a small number” of classified documents from President Biden’s years as vice president ended up at the Washington, DC, think tank that bears his name, the White House confirmed Monday. A second batch of papers were found at an additional location, it was reported Wednesday.

The University of Pennsylvania received more than $30 million from Chinese donors shortly after the Penn Biden Center for Diplomacy and Global Engagement, which functioned as an office for Joe Biden before he was elected president, was announced in 2017, according to public records.

“The Penn Biden Center is a dark money, revolving door nightmare where foreign competitors like China donated millions of dollars to the university so that they could have access to future high ranking officials,” said Tom Anderson, director of the Government Integrity Project at the Virginia-based National Legal and Policy Center.

The center, located in Washington, DC, is affiliated with the University of Pennsylvania and critics suspect that its establishment attracted tens of millions in donations from anonymous Chinese donors for the school. The center, located in Washington, DC, is affiliated with the University of Pennsylvania and critics suspect that its establishment attracted tens of millions in donations from anonymous Chinese donors for the school. AP

The University of Pennsylvania raked in a total of $54.6 million from 2014 through June 2019 in donations from China, including $23.1 million in anonymous gifts starting in 2016, according to public records.

Most of the anonymous donations came after the university officially announced in February 2017 that it would create the academic center named for Biden, whose term as vice president under Barack Obama had just ended. In addition to leading the think tank, Biden was also named a professor at the school.

It was reported Wednesday that a second batch of confidential documents were found at an additional location. It was reported Wednesday that a second batch of confidential documents were found at an additional location. AP

The Ivy League institution received $15.8 million in anonymous Chinese gifts in 2017 and one $14.5 million donation in May 2018 — three months after the center opened — records show.

“The Penn Biden Center has never solicited or received any gifts from any Chinese or other foreign entity,” said a spokesman for the University of Pennsylvania. “In fact, the University has never solicited any gifts for the Center. Since its inception in 2017 there have been three unsolicited gifts (from two donors) which combined total $1,100. Both donors are Americans. One hundred percent of the budget for the Penn Biden Center comes from university funds.” 

The Center does not list any of its fellows or administrators on its web site, and does not have separate financial filings. It operates under the auspices of the University of Pennsylvania with a mission of engaging “fellow citizens in shaping this world, while ensuring the gains of global engagement are widely shared,” according to its website.

Several people once associated with the Penn Biden Center now have key positions in the Biden administration. AP

Meanwhile, former fellows and administrators of the Penn Biden Center now have key positions in the Biden administration.

Michael Carpenter, the former managing director of the Penn Biden Center, was named the US ambassador to the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, based in Vienna, in 2021. Secretary of State Anthony Blinken also briefly served as director of the think tank before joining the Biden administration in January 2021. Before that, Blinken was a policy advisor for President Biden’s 2020 campaign.

Juan Sebastian Gonzalez, a senior fellow at the center from April 2018 to September 2020, is currently special assistant to the president and the National Security Director for the Western Hemisphere at the White House, according to his LinkedIn page.

Michael Carpenter, the former managing director of the Penn Biden Center, was named the US ambassador to the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe in 2021. Michael Carpenter, the former managing director of the Penn Biden Center, was named the US ambassador to the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe in 2021. Wikimedia

The sensitive material at the center was discovered by Biden’s personal lawyers on Nov. 2, 2022, while they “were packing files housed in a locked closet to prepare to vacate office space,” according to a statement from Richard Sauber, special counsel to the president.

Sauber said that Biden used the Washington, DC, office space from “mid-2017 until the start of the 2020 campaign” in April 2019.

After Joe Biden was elected president in 2020, the center said it would operate “completely independent of the Biden administration.”

Other Ivy League colleges have raked in Chinese money, including Harvard, which got $75 million during the 2014-2019 period, and Yale, which received $43.5 million, records show.

The Education Department opened investigations in 2020 into whether Harvard and Yale were meeting reporting requirements for foreign cash

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Selling California, as a place to move to/live,  is a losing battle because Californians are not real people, their politics are progressively stupid and hypocritical, their crime is rising as their standard of living is collapsing and the immigration problem is fed by district attorneys that do not enforce laws and their taxes support all this social destruction.

Statistics reflect Californians are vacating the state in droves and do you realize four families have controlled the state for years and have intermarried and this has helped them hold onto power for decades and nothing appears to be changing. In two  previous memos I posted these facts twice.

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GAVIN NEWSOM IS DELUSIONAL

By NOAH ROTHMAN


California is the fifth largest economy on the planet. It is blessed with one of the world’s most amiable climates, vast stores of human capital, and abundant natural resources. It is also plagued by a crippling inferiority complex—a condition best exemplified by the state’s governor. Gavin Newsom has developed an unhealthy obsession with Republican-led states like Texas and Florida, and he cannot help but define his state’s identity almost solely in opposition to how other states do business.

Newsom has spent the last year committing California’s taxpayer dollars to an advertising campaign promoting his state as America’s true beacon of freedom, which was conceived as a response to Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’s efforts to advertise his state as the “freedom state.” Sacramento has sponsored ads berating Floridians for their choice of residence. As Newsom defines it, freedom consists of “freedom of speech, freedom to choose, freedom from hate, and freedom to love.” In his state of the state address this week, the governor called California “freedom’s force multiplier” and denounced the “rising tide of oppression” spearheaded by the “small men in big offices” with whom he is obsessed.

Even a cursory survey of the legal and political landscape in the Golden State renders Newsom’s claim laughably obtuse.

You are not free in California to work in your private industry of choice while refusing to join the labor union that covers that industry. The United States Supreme Court struck down a scheme that allowed public-sector unions to automatically deduct fees from non-union members who happen to work in a unionized field, but private labor unions are not similarly obliged to preserve Americans’ First Amendment rights. California so resented that decision that it passed a law preventing public agencies from discussing with new employees issues relating to union membership or dues or even disclosing the time and place of union meetings. The objective of this legislation is to keep workers in the dark about their options in order to ensure that organized labor’s coffers remain full.

You are not free in California to perform, according to one study, 76 out of 106 lower-income jobs without first securing a license. Setting up shop as a dental assistant, milk sampler, salon shampooer, or just about anything having to do with construction involves hours of mandatory training, exams, and licensing fees. It’s a safe bet that most Californians are not petrified by the prospect of an unlicensed wash and rinse, but the cartels that restrict access to these industries have more leverage over state legislators than their constituents do.

You’re not free in California to import from other states an enormous variety of products that do not comport with the state’s absurd and frivolous product-labeling laws. The state compels firms to warn consumers if a product contains potentially harmful chemicals even if they don’t exceed reasonable risk levels. The law ensures that lumber contains sawdust, gingerbread houses and potato chips have preservatives, and treadmills are made with plastic. Manufacturers who do not comply with these regulations cannot ship products to the state, so Californians are deprived of access to harmless conveniences “from tennis shoes to patio furniture.” But only for their own good.

For years now, California has periodically drafted its citizens into the work of policing their neighbor’s water consumption. Citizens are encouraged to engage in “drought-shaming” in an effort to conserve the state’s dwindling water supplies. The real shortages that necessitate policies like these might be alleviated by constructing desalinization plants, which make seawater potable. But these are power-intensive projects. In a state plagued by planned, rolling blackouts due to its efforts to mothball nuclear and fossil-fuel-powered plants, desalination is not an option

California has some of the strictest gun laws in the nation, which prevent consumers from purchasing not just a range of firearms and ammunition but non-lethal self-defense products. In California, you can purchase any number of flavored marijuana commodities, but you cannot do the same with non-psychoactive nicotine products. Most maddeningly, the state is determined to phase the internal combustion engine out of existence. The effort to ensure “100 percent zero emissions” on California’s roads begins on California’s lawns. The state will functionally ban the use of gas-powered lawn equipment, which is cheaper and more efficient than electric alternatives, beginning next year.

Those are the “freedom tos” that the Golden State, in all its wisdom, has denied its residents. But what about the “freedom froms?” What of the positive liberties that serve as the basis for Newsom’s indictment of Republican-led states? In this regard, California doesn’t fare much better either.

Californians are not free from exorbitant costs of living. The state’s prohibitively high gasoline prices are a result of taxes and special blend requirements. Its food costs are inflated by “free range” requirements on livestock, and that price pressure will increase if the state successfully bans all gas- and diesel-powered trucking. These conditions have contributed to Dickensian levels of social stratification—though the fabulously wealthy are unlikely to encounter the roughly 6 million state residents who live below the poverty line.

They’re not free from menace. Theft has become a way of life to such a degree that even large chain retailers that can typically absorb reasonable losses are giving up on the Golden State.

They’re not free from ignorance. The state is home to some of the worst public schools in America, even though a staggering 40 percent of the annual budget is devoted to education.

They’re not free from maladministration. Last year, the state discovered that its budget estimates were off by only $122 billion. Instead of an anticipated surplus, much of which the state spent in anticipation of the windfall, Sacramento was saddled with a $308 billion budget deficit.

Every state has its problems as well as its comparative advantages. But not every American state goes around touting itself as the model to which the nation should aspire, even amid an exodus of its own citizens. If Gavin Newsom defines “freedom” entirely and exclusively as unfettered access to abortion until the final stages of pregnancy, he’s got a point about his state. Judging by just about any other metric, however, observers are left to conclude that either he is delusional or he thinks you might be.

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