Democrats and Israel now

Abbas Returning to Good Boy Tactics in Anticipation of Biden Presidency  ..."Suddenly, Abbas is prepared to offer the kinds of concessions that, had he presented them to President Trump’s advisor Jared Kushner, he could have had a Palestinian state by now. Such an intriguing man.///

..."Harris also said the Biden administration would reopen the US consulate in eastern Jerusalem which the Trump administration closed last year."

The Approaching Storm in U.S.-Israel Relations

. . . "Since Election Day, and since the networks proclaimed Joe Biden the winner, Israel’s media, along with its diplomatic and security establishment and political leadership busied themselves with scouring the lists of candidates for senior foreign policy positions in a Biden administration and considering the implications of So and So’s appointment to national security advisor over Whatshisname. The notion behind the name game is that the appointment of one person over another will significantly impact a Biden administration’s Middle East policy either to Israel’s benefit or to its detriment.

"There is nothing new about the name game. Israel’s political and national security leaders and its media know-it-alls play it every four years. And often, personnel has been policy. For instance, when Trump replaced his first secretary of state Rex Tillerson with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, things changed. Tillerson opposed leaving the Iran nuclear deal and opposed moving the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem. Pompeo supported both.

"But in the case of the apparently incoming Biden administration who fills what job is basically irrelevant. And worrying about it should certainly not be a priority. Biden’s policies are basically set in stone."...

..."Biden also committed himself to reinstating U.S. humanitarian aid to Gaza. Such a move will be a boon for the Hamas terror regime which now relies on cash payments from Qatar."...

...But one thing is clear, having committed himself to restoring the U.S. commitment to the deal, Iran will hold all the cards in any future negotiation on the terms of a U.S.-Iran nuclear rapprochement. And that means that the U.S. will back Iran’s nuclear weapons program more or less from the outset of a Biden-Harris administration.

..."Likewise, appeasing Iran and giving it an open road to a nuclear arsenal is a domestic political issue for Democrats.

""Talk of Biden’s joviality and personal warmth, and of moderates versus radicals are soothing distractions for Israelis who are about to face the most hostile U.S. administration in history. But the facts are the facts. And to meeting the challenge a Biden administration will pose to Israel’s national and strategic interests, Israel must steel itself for what awaits it, not worry who will occupy which post in a Biden administration."

POLL: Fox News Popularity Among Republicans Plunges in Wake of Election Coverage

News Thud  "A new Morning Consult poll shows the popularity of Fox News plunging in wake of their election coverage.

"Many conservatives were upset at Fox News for making an election night call that Joe Biden had won Arizona. The margin on the race, which at the time was much larger, ended up being a fraction of a percent.

"Per Morning Consult “in polling conducted Nov. 9-16, the network’s average favorability rating among GOP respondents has dropped 13 percentage points, to 54 percent, and the average share of those with an unfavorable view of the network nearly doubled, to 30 percent.”

Biden: Families Must Be ‘Wearing Masks’ ‘Inside the Home’ Over Thanksgiving

Democrat presidential nominee claims he's been advised by unnamed 'health experts'

Jay Greenberg

Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden has warned that families must be "wearing masks" during Thanksgiving celebrations, even when they are "inside the home."

"Biden made the call during his "COVID-19 briefing" as he continues to play "president-elect."

"The former vice president laid down the law for Americans to follow over the holidays.

"Citing unnamed "health experts," Biden said the public must limit their family gatherings on Thanksgiving and adhere to coronavirus protocols inside their private residences.

"Biden said gatherings must be limited to “five people, maximum ten people” who are “socially distanced, wearing masks.' ” . . .

Biden’s Shot at Success

Ian Macfarlane

Conrad Black

Joe Biden has one great chance to emancipate himself from the extremists in his own party and work with moderate Trump supporters and NeverTrumpers among the Republicans.

"There is a pathway to significant success for a President Biden. It is hard to detect, given the questionable nature of his apparent election, fragmented party, likely inability to enact anything that he currently supports in the Congress, and the probable Democratic loss of the majority in the House in the midterm elections, as well as his evident frailties. 

"Biden was retrieved from imminent candidate mortality by the party elders to spare the Democrats a Bernie Sanders candidacy and was saddled with most of Sanders’ quasi-Marxist program. But in his most impressive remark in the presidential debates, Biden said that in policy terms, “I am the party.” It was a forceful, and in a way, a reassuring statement. 

"Joe Biden, in his 48 years in Washington, has been on all sides of almost every issue. If he has never been strong, so too has he never been an extremist. He is not a true believer in the radical leftist program that he officially stood upon and from which he has in effect already departed. In any case, such a program has absolutely no chance of being adopted by a Congress with such a strong Republican presence as the next one.

"Since there is also no practical likelihood of his attempting a second term as president, the only way that Biden could build a record of achievement is to work with the Republicans in Congress along with whatever moderate Democrats remain. His party would run away from under him, or at least the Sandersite wing of approximately 40 percent of them would run. But they would have nowhere to go. " . . .

Conrad Black has been one of Canada’s most prominent financiers for 40 years, and was one of the leading newspaper publishers in the world as owner of the British telegraph newspapers, the Fairfax newspapers in Australia, the Jerusalem Post, Chicago Sun-Times and scores of smaller newspapers in the U.S., and most of the daily newspapers in Canada. He is the author of authoritative biographies of Franklin D. Roosevelt and Richard Nixon, one-volume histories of the United States and Canada, and most recently of Donald J. Trump: A President Like No Other. He is a member of the British House of Lords as Lord Black of Crossharbour.

Some animals are more equal than others — Gavin Newsom edition

The Slammer

Kevin Boss  . . .

All Animals Are Equal.
But Some Animals Are More Equal Than Others. 

Precisely.  I am a longtime California restaurateur and just one of many California business-owners on the verge of financial ruin by virtue of the near-total Gavin Newsom–ordered lockdowns of the past nine months.   How, I wonder, does the famous French Laundry chef and owner, Thomas Keller, feel about the attention this dinner has gotten?  I know he, like all of us in the hospitality business, has struggled with the lockdowns and the ever-changing, arbitrary COVID rules.  But I also know that the bill for Newsom's French Laundry dinner party was probably over $6,000.  Since Keller no doubt had a couple of other similar parties that night, the restaurant probably had sales in excess of $18,000 for the evening.  I'm happy for him and his staff.  But one of my businesses has had exactly $0 sales for the past nine months. 

I know from experience that Keller's businesses are suffering reductions in sales and increased costs due to the absurd government imposed COVID protocols.  Thomas Keller knows that many of his colleagues in California and nationwide have failed to survive the lockdowns or are on the verge of closing forever.  How does Keller feel about hosting and cooking an exquisite meal for Governor Newsom — the man who is singlehandedly destroying an entire industry in the name of questionable science?   

Take a peek under the Orwellian hood with this clip of dozens of oBjEcTiVe media outlets literally reading the EXACT SAME SCRIPT telling you what to believe

 

Joel Abbott   "I have a fair number of people in my life that wonder why I get so irked by our nation's media. In the last decade, millions of us have seen how biased and Orwellian the media machine is, and how it wields its power and influence to control the lives and futures of so many.

"But no matter how often I discuss the rampant partisanship in newsrooms, the one-sided daily attacks on conservatives, the narrative pushing, and the language manipulation, there are millions of Americans who still trust the media establishment. Many of them just voted for Joe Biden because said establishment has spent four years saying Donald Trump is an Orange Hitler and a threat to democracy.

"I often encourage people to look for trigger phrases such as "threat to democracy" to see the media's bias. Who do they overwhelmingly attach such labels to? What do they mean by the phrase? How do they want you, the viewer or reader, to feel?

"It's easy to take aim at the talking heads at CNN and MSNBC, and even my most left-leaning acquaintances usually understand there's "some" bias on those national shows.

"But what about their local news? Surely they can be trusted, right? Surely they wouldn't read from some Orwellian Big Brother's script to get you to distrust something, right?

"If anyone is in doubt, show them this haunting clip this holiday season. There's a new nightmare before Christmas in town." . . .

James Woods exposes dozens of local news shows reading from the same (Biden) script  . . . "This time, with a video that effectively raises the chilling reality that local TV news across the country has been co-opted into dutifully mouthing the same scripts, written to indoctrinate the public with leftist propaganda.  In this case, beware of "disinformation" (from you know who), cloaked in self-righteousness.  By combining the voices of multiple TV broadcasters on their respective stations into a chorus, with a collage of their images, this tweet exposes a genuine scandal in an impactful way." . 

. .

If We Want Better Policing, Eliminate Qualified Immunity

 People's Pundit Daily

"Yesterday’s column focused on how police unions protect the bad apples who misbehave and therefore cause some people to resent law enforcement, especially in the minority community.

"Curtailing the role of those unions would be an important step to create better bonds between the police and the citizenry.

"Today’s column will explain the need to repeal or substantially curtail the doctrine of “qualified immunity,” which was created by courts to protect cops who trample on people’s rights.

"It’s not a complete answer, just as fixing the union problem isn’t a complete answer. But getting rid of the doctrine at least will give citizens the opportunity to bring lawsuits when cops disregard their civil liberties. This tweet is a good summary for those who don’t have time to dig into the topic." . . .

"David French condemned the practice in a piece for National Review in 2018.

Judges created qualified immunity, and they can end it. It’s past time to impose true accountability on public servants who violate citizens’ constitutional rights. First, some background. Since 1871, federal law has permitted Americans to file lawsuits against public officials who violate their constitutional rights. It’s a powerful tool that essentially deputizes members of the public to defend their own liberties.

…However, after generations of judges have interpreted the statute, the phrase “shall be liable” has come to mean “may occasionally be liable.” …In 1982, …the law changed. In a case called Harlow v. Fitzgerald, the Supreme Court concocted the modern doctrine of qualified immunity. …As the doctrine developed, to prove that a right is clearly established, the plaintiff generally had to find and cite a remarkably similar case, with nearly identical facts, decided by a court of controlling jurisdiction. …the entire notion of “clearly established law” rests on a series of absurd, fantastical premises. Are we really to believe that a police officer doesn’t know he shouldn’t pound on the wrong door and blow away the innocent occupant unless a court said so in a case, say, five years before?

‘End Qualified Immunity’ by David French, National Review, September 2018

Full article...

 

A Vegas oddsmaker’s take on Fox News and the election grift

 

Image by Ken Swope.

. . . "After describing a famously fixed football game in 1978 (the New York Giants versus the Philadelphia Eagles), Root wrote,

Gamblers feel the same way about this presidential election. This presidential election is rancid. It feels as fixed as that Giants-Eagles NFL football game. Let me give you the details of this election- from a gambler’s perspective.

"Once the polls closed on Tuesday and the counting began, gamblers took note of the onrush of Trump votes. Trump quickly moved from a 2 to 1 underdog to an 8 to 1 favorite:

What does all this mean? Bettors putting their money on the line during Election Night have always proven to be deadly accurate. Smart bettors can clearly see what direction a race is taking. Bettors around the world clearly saw what I saw, when they stared at the electoral map- Trump was headed for an electoral landslide.

"At that point, something very weird occurred. It didn’t happen at CNN or MSNBC, it happened at Fox News. You all remember that Fox refused to call Florida, Ohio, or Texas for Trump, even though Trump was miles ahead in those three states. Additionally, even though Trump was also significantly ahead in Virginia, Fox nevertheless called the state for Biden. But that wasn’t the worst:

And then it happened. It was the most bizarre call in Election Night history. Fox News called Arizona for Biden. Why? It wasn’t even close to over. There was no reason on earth to make that call. Arizona is STILL not over 8 days later. CNN still hasn’t awarded Arizona. ABC pulled it back from Biden only 24 hours ago. [Root’s article was published on Nov. 14.)

"The moment that call occurred Trump’s 8 to 1 odds collapsed back to 2 to 1. One of Root’s major bookmaking friends called him:

 “Wayne, something is wrong. I’ve never seen a drop like that, let alone a drop that fast. How can Trump go from 8 to 1, to 2 to 1. Someone knows something. We’ve got a problem.” . . .

Fox News continues to alienate its viewers  "Fox News continues to insult its audience. This time, the insults came from Kristin Fisher, who was speaking from either ignorance or malice when she attacked Rudy Giuliani after Trump’s legal team gave a press conference."

 .If Fisher had listened to Ellis, she wouldn’t have whined about the absence of evidence. Ellis could not have made it plainer that the conference was to summarize the case, not to prove it. . .