What happens when children seize the wheel

 CarolineGlick.com So who is in charge: Obama, Biden (I laugh), or functionaries in the Deep State somewhere that even Donald Trump had no control?

"Israel today is compelled to decide between two options. It can fight the war to win it, in Iran and Gaza, first and foremost, and risk a rupture of relations with the United States. Or, it can lose the war and accept the position of a U.S. protectorate, with the full knowledge that the United States will not permit its protectorates to challenge Iranian hegemony."

"Three reports published since Iran’s April 13 combined missile and UAV assault on Israel stand out for what the tell us about the nature of U.S. policy in relation to the war.

"First, on Sunday Reuters reported that Turkey mediated between Iran and the United States to agree on the size and scope of Iran’s assault on Israel before Iran carried it out. A Turkish diplomatic source told the news agency that, “Iran informed Turkey in advance of its planned operation against Israel…[and] Washington had conveyed to Tehran via Ankara that any action it took had to be ‘within certain limits.’”

"The Turkish diplomat told Reuters that the mediation was conducted by Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan with Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian and U.S. Secretary of State Tony Blinken.
“Iran informed us in advance of what would happen. Possible developments also came up during the meeting with Blinken, and they [the U.S.] conveyed to Iran through us that this reaction must be within certain limits,” the official said.

"The second story, reported widely by the U.S. and Israeli media, revealed that the United States is pressuring Israel to suffice with a “symbolic” counterattack against Iran. In other words, U.S. President Joe Biden and his team are telling Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the government that Israel can conduct a bit of a sound and light show over Iran, but it may not do any meaningful damage to Iran’s military, missile, nuclear, energy, or regime targets. Blinken reportedly went so far as to tell Minister Benny Gantz and Jewish leaders in the United States that it isn’t in Israel’s interests to attack Iran.

"Finally, on Thursday morning, Qatari media reported that the United States has agreed that Israel may attack Hamas’s final redoubt in Rafah, along the Egyptian border, but only if Israel’s strike against Iran is little and mild.

"The most startling feature common to all three stories is the sense that for the administration, everything that is happening here is a game. It isn’t a war. At best, it’s a playground fight, or a video game. The reports indicate that as the Americans see things, Iran and its terror armies in Gaza, Lebanon, Yemen, Syria and Iraq are children. And they’re ganging up on Israel—another child. It’s Uncle Sam’s job to be the grownup and set rules for their fight that give everyone a chance to get his licks in—but only so hard, and only so many.

"The rules Biden and his team have set are fairly straightforward. Iran and its proxies are permitted to attack Israel as hard as they can. Israel is allowed to defend against their attacks. Israel is permitted to carry out limited—preferably covert—raids to counterattack.
Israel is not allowed to defeat its foes." . . .

A Democratic Party Megadonor Just Issued a Major Warning for Biden

 Matt Vespa (townhall.com)    "Now, let’s move to the incompetence part of this presidency. It certainly played a factor in this decision to suspend arms shipments to Israel, but does Biden think he can pull a long con over the electorate here? Does this man believe he has the smarts and skills to sell to the antisemites and pro-Hamas supporters within the Democratic Party base that he’s tough on Israel while telling American Jews that our “ironclad” support for the Jewish state will remain? 

"That’s the sticky wicket: Biden needs to kowtow, grovel, and appease vicious antisemites and supporters of radical Islam to keep his 2024 bid alive. It’s the ‘Keep Michigan’ page of the 2024 playbook. He loses this state, and it’s all but over. His path to 270 in the Electoral College virtually vanishes, a point where operatives on both sides agree. So, to win over the terrorist vote, Biden is playing reckless games with Israel, which is on the cusp of total victory against Hamas in Gaza." . . . 

"Let's not forget there are more Jewish voters who care about Israel than Muslim voters who care about Hamas,"

Ted Cruz Rips Biden on Israel Arms: It Gets Even Worse When You See Who He Did Approve Arms Shipments For – RedState

. . ."Why Biden would do this — essentially helping Hamas — right at this pivotal point is concerning. It appears political, to help his fortunes with the left and in places like Michigan, that he desperately needs to hold onto for the election. 

"What makes Biden's threat even more concerning is what he's doing at the same time." . . .

"So not only is he threatening them by holding up weapons, he's providing weapons to their enemies, including Lebanon where they have Iran terror proxies who are even now attacking Israel. 

"While one might argue that he's trying to appeal to the left to help his political fortunes, this does nothing but hurt our ally and embolden terrorists. There isn't even the gross, disgusting political excuse to cover him here of trying to appease leftists, by arguing to stop the action in Rafah. 

"Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) blasted this action." . . . 

Hamas and American campuses

UPDATED 5:20 PM Friday: Where are the anti-Hamas protests? Why does the world accept the rape, torture and slaughter of Jews? (substack.com)

'Hamas has taken Americans hostage. Where is that pathetic housewife Michelle Obama with her duckbill pout and hashtag sign?'

Within 72 hours of the attack, Politico reported, “U.S. calls for ‘proportionate’ Israeli response while not openly setting red lines.”

Proportionate?

Fortunately, Israel ignored Democrats and did not send soldiers in to rape and murder Palestinians. Instead it methodically destroyed the military fortress hidden below Gaza City. Palestinians staged horrors. The world press ate it up." . . .

Ilhan Omar on Biden Withholding Arms from Israel: 'What Young People Across the Country Were Protesting For'   . . ."Protesters who had participated in the various encampments and protests had issued a varying list of demands, including calling for their universities to divest from Israeli companies, ending academic ties with Israeli educational institutions, ending academic student trips to Israel, a ceasefire in the ongoing war between Israel and Hamas, and for the U.S. to stop arming Israel."

Northwestern Administrators Sign Resolution Calling for Boycott of 'Terror' State Israel (freebeacon.com)

Northwestern University administration officials and faculty members signed a resolution demanding that the school cut ties with Israel, calling the Jewish country a "terror" state and accusing it of "one of the most atrocious and monstrous sieges in modern history." . . .

Campus scarf people, remember this hostage. Will she play again?

Greta Thunberg joins the campus scarf people:  – Twitchy

The black and white Keffiyeh, a garment that symbolizes a commitment to jihadist terrorism and the elimination of the world's lone Jewish state, is officially the Current Thing.

What a world we live in. https://t.co/6vILrOUypF

— Jordan Schachtel @ dossier.today (@JordanSchachtel) May 9, 2024

 This Pro-Hamas Student at Princeton Shows How Weak and Soft the Left Is (townhall.com)    "It’s not enough that pro-Hamas mayhem has overtaken college campuses nationwide. We now have these students, though many are probably professional agitators, going on hunger strikes to protest the war in Gaza. We should put “hunger strike” in quotes since this is intermittent fasting. These kids are taking snack breaks—it’s the weakest sauce hunger strike ever. Yet, at Princeton, one student who claims to be immunocompromised complained that she was dying from her self-imposed hunger strike and blamed the school for weakening her." . . .

Hamas was here.

. . . "And? This decision was yours to make. Israel isn’t going to withdraw because some idiots decided to starve themselves for terrorists. Biden may be messing with arms shipments to Israel, which is reckless, but even this administration isn’t going to abandon Israel, though it might seem that way right now. They’re setting the stage to sell Muslim voters that they’re willing to crack down on the Jewish state without doing so—those bombs will be shipped but later. And Muslim voters will be able to see right through it because Biden can’t maneuver worth a damn. It’s part of the ‘keep Michigan’ playbook." 

Defending Freedom: A Tribute to the Warriors of Israel :: Gatestone Institute

It is no coincidence that Gaza was the historic home of David's avowed enemies, the Philistines. Goliath was a Philistine; David killed him not far from the caves of Adullam in the Kingdom of Judah, present-day Judea, in Israel's heartland. In similar mode, Israel's enemies invaded Judea in October 7th. Statements by these enemies openly acknowledge that they will continue hostilities and repeat attacks until all Jews are eliminated: 

 Israeli soldiers inspect the entrance to a Hamas terror tunnel just
outside an UNRRWA compound in Gaza City

. . ."Encouraged by the words of Yitzhak Lamdan, "Never again shall Masada fall," Israel fights for all that is beautiful, free and democratic, and shall protect civilization to the end. It is therefore incumbent upon a new cohort of great men and women, the latest giborei Yisrael - heroes of Israel – to secure the nation so that its hard-won freedoms, values, and moral-ethical precepts, can be enjoyed by subsequent generations.

"Finally, Israel's brave warriors might identify with Eli Wiesel's statement in his Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech of December 10, 1986:

"I have faith in the Jewish people. Let Israel be given a chance, let hatred and danger be removed from her horizons, and there will be peace in and around the Holy Land."

"As people of peace, the warriors and all citizens of Israel long for such a time with all their hearts, but first there are battles to be won."

Is This Biden’s ‘Supermarket Scanner’ Moment?

  Issues & Insights (issuesinsights.com) 

But we won’t be satisfied until that line – “they have the money to spend” – is indelibly etched in everyone’s memory, along with the line “worst president in U.S. history,” whenever Biden’s name comes up.

 . . ."This week, Joe Biden actually did do something that shows he is perhaps the most clueless president in American history.

In a softball interview this week, CNN’s Erin Burnett let Biden carry on — uninterrupted — with his usual litany of lies.

• That he created 15 million jobs (there’ve been less than 6 million net new jobs under Biden – about equal to Trump’s over the same period).
• That Trump told people to inject bleach (a claim repeatedly debunked by fact-checkers).
• That a million people died from COVID on Trump’s watch (fewer than 470,000 had died when Biden took office; more than 720,000 have died since).
• That “we have got 1,000 billionaires in America. You know what their average federal tax is? Eight-point-three percent” (a completely made-up number that we wrote about here).
• That “when I started this administration, people were saying there’s going to be a collapse of the economy” (nobody but Biden was saying that).

"But then Burnett, to her credit, asked about inflation.

“ 'The cost of buying a home in the United States is double what it was, when you look at your monthly costs, from before the pandemic,” she says. “Real income, when you account for inflation, is actually down since you took office, economic growth last week far short of expectations. Consumer confidence, maybe no surprise, is near a two-year low.”

"Biden’s response was a priceless example of incoherent braggadocio.

"First, he completely ignores the fact that real wages are down, and instead points to a survey that, he says, shows “65% of the American people think they’re in good shape economically.”

"Then he follows that up by saying “the polling data has been wrong all along.”

"Then he’s entirely dismissive of anyone complaining. “The idea that we’re in a situation where things are so bad, the folks that — I mean, we have created more jobs. We have made — we’re in a situation where people have access to good-paying jobs.” . . .

American wisdom and intelligence operating in the world

 

ISRAEL ALONE: Biden Places Arms Embargo On Israel, IDF Continues Into Rafah -   “We’re going to continue to make sure Israel is secure in terms of Iron Dome and their ability to respond to attacks that came out of the Middle East recently,” he told CNN. “But it’s, it’s just wrong. We’re not going to – we’re not going to supply the weapons and artillery shells.”

"Republican senators as well as pro-Israel Democrat Senator John Fetterman reacted harshly to Biden’s arms embargo against Israel, which is in essence holding up a congressionally approved deal.

"Senator Lindsey Graham said the following to Secretary of Defense Austin: “If we stop weapons necessary to destroy the enemies of the State of Israel at a time of great peril, we will pay a price. This is obscene. It is absurd. Give Israel what they need to fight the war. They can’t afford to lose. This is Hiroshima and Nagasaki on steroids.” . . . And how did Iron Dome work on October 7?

While it may be hard to understand how Israel will continue to fight without American resupply, Israel has been in this situation before. Before 1967, Israel did not have the types of arms pacts with America it has now – and it still prevailed. This is the land of miracles. Israel’s government may be flawed, but even they realize that the Jewish people have no other choice but to fight and defeat the Jihadist Nazis with or without America. . . . 

 Joe Biden's decision to halt supply of arms to Israel if Rafah is invaded could come back to haunt him | World News | Sky News

• "The message it sends: That America could be seen to abandon Israel (despite that not being what Mr Biden has said) will not be lost on countries around the world. It suggests that America is flaky with its alliances. For months, Mr Biden has dismissed calls to limit weapons supplies. Now he's u-turned. If Mr Biden blinks as Mr Netanyahu crosses the Rafah red line then the flaky image is only compounded. What does America stand for will be the question."

Israel Enters Rafah As Negotiations With Hamas Breakdown and Bibi Tells Biden Where to Put It – RedState  

The breakdown seems to be caused in no small part by the utter ineptitude of Biden's team.

  . . ."The material impact of Biden's threat is minimal.

Israel’s top military spokesman, Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari, also appeared to downplay the practical impact of any arms holdup. “The army has munitions for the missions it plans, and for the missions in Rafah, too -- we have what we need,” he said in response to a question at a news conference.

"However, the political significance of his threat is immense. This puts Biden in the difficult position of following through on his threat in his "one tough hombre" persona and showing the world just how fragile US security assurances are, or backing down and having the kids of his cabinet officials and friends jeer him from the campus of Columbia University."

White House Says Hamas Has Suffered Enough!

In other words, leave Hamas in place. We didn't notice any mention of the American hostages or even Palestinian civilians — just the "suffering and pressure" Hamas has undergone.

Joe Biden Gets Un-Endorsed After Betraying Israel – PJ Media 

Biden's efforts to balance his public support for Israel with his need for votes from the antisemitic wing of his party is starting to cause some backlash from Democrat voters who support Israel.

  . . ."However, his betrayal of Israel may also be backfiring on him, as people who have long supported him are calling him out. On Thursday, actor Michael Rapaport posted a profanity-laced video rant on X/Twitter indicating that he's "un-endorsing" Biden for refusing to provide them arms just to help him get some votes.

" 'I’m officially un-endorsing #JoeBiden I did so much work on behalf of this soft serve ice cream eating MF, I’m done," he wrote in his post.

"But the video was far more angry.

" 'Smokin' Joe Biden. Cadaver Joe Biden. You know who I am. You know my work. I'm the one who invented ****-stain Donald Trump," Rapaport begins in the video. "Pig-**** Donald Trump. That's me, that's my work. I didn't ask for a thank you. I didn't ask for an invite to the White House and everybody and anybody shows up at the White House these days. I did it for the love because I couldn't stand that motherf****r." 

"Rapaport was hardly through." . . .

But Biden’s nuanced position has created different fault lines of division within his own Democratic Party. The president now faces a rash of new criticism from some lawmakers and voters in battleground states where his position on Israel carries the most political risk for his efforts to win re-election. . . .

Hamas Joe secures another vote for Trump -

Musings from Dianny

There are probably a lot of people like me who believe that Donald Trump is the worst possible Republican nominee in 2024 who will now happily bite the bullet and cast their vote for the guy just to ensure that the manifestly unfit Joe Biden and the Marxist band of dangerous weirdos running his administration are driven out of the White House on January 20, 2025.

"Whelp, it turns out that Joe Biden’s latest foreign policy blunder didn’t just hand a lifeline to Hamas. It tossed Trump a lifeline as well.

"I went to bed last night decidedly undecided about what to do in November. I’d sooner slide naked down a railing covered in razor blades than vote for Joe Biden. At the same time, I do not like Donald Trump and wish, like Cher, that I could turn back time and convince the insufferable blowhard to stand aside and endorse Ron DeSantis as his undoubted heir.

"Then I woke up to discover that Hamas Joe had blown up decades of US foreign policy by stabbing Israel in the back while providing aid and comfort to a designated terrorist group, and by golly, paint me red and tattoo Make America Great Again on my forehead.

"Great work, Joe!

"It was reported this week that the Pentagon paused a shipment of “high payload munitions” to Israel over the administration’s opposition to Israel’s operation in Rafah." . . .

Hamas Declares That It Will Make No Further Concessions ...John F. Di Leo 

..."So, how should we respond to the leaders of Hamas, when they insist on undeserved concessions?"Exactly the same way we would respond if the request came from Speck, Gacy or Manson."Hamas tortured, maimed, raped and killed 1140 innocents on Oct. 7, 2023 alone."  The only difference between them is scale." 

 Did Biden's Love for Hamas Just Lose Him the Jewish Vote? – PJ Media

The Dispatch's Jonah Goldberg — whom I like personally, find engaging as a critic of Leftism, but who pretty much swims in a sea of NeverTrumpers — had this to say on Twitter/X shortly after the arms suspension was revealed: "I’ve heard from a LOT of reliably anti-Trump people - I mean really, really, anti-Trump people - who have had it with Biden tonight. Anecdotal, to be sure. But very telling in my circle."

The Morning Briefing: Netanyahu Is a Magnifying Glass on Biden's Pathetic Weakness – PJ Media   . . ."We can blame age-related dementia all we want, but Joe Biden would have been a weak president even if his last brain cells hadn't taken a permanent vacation. The predictable byproduct of the leader of the world's lone (for the moment) superpower being weak is that the worst people in the world find new ways to be awful. 

"That gets compounded when said weak leader essentially throws in with the worst people and abandons an ally, as Biden has done in his pursuit of 15 electoral votes in Michigan. In his effort to do so, Biden has been attempting to project power by threatening to cut off war supplies to Israel. To the eternal shame of the Republic, Biden and his handlers have finally thrown Israel all the way under the bus." . . . 

You must have wondered who was operating Joe's strings; well here is one answer:

 Biden's NSC Intel Director, Maher Bitar, Is a Former Radical Pro-Palestinian Activist  "Maher Bitar, the White House Coordinator for Intelligence and Defense Policy at the U.S. National Security Council (NSC), was a radical pro-Palestinian activist and a leader within Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP).

The SJP is one of the most prominent groups involved in the pro-Hamas, antisemitic “encampment” protests that have taken over dozens of university campuses. Its parent group is also the target of a lawsuit by survivors and families of victims of the October 7 terror attack that alleges SJP is a propaganda front for Hamas in the U.S.

Bitar’s record is coming under closer scrutiny as President Joe Biden takes unprecedented action to undermine Israel’s war against the Hamas terrorists that attacked it on October 7, including withholding arms from Israel.

Victor Davis Hanson: Try a Little Honesty About Israel

The scarf people on campus chant phrases given to them without an original thought from their mouths. TD

Victor Davis Hanson; PJ Media

If Hamas had come out of its tunnels, separated from its impressed civilian shields, released its surviving Israeli hostages, and either openly fought the Israeli Defense Forces or surrendered the organizers of the October 7 massacre, no Gaza civilians would have died.

"Scan news accounts of anti-Israel campus and street protestors. Read their demands and manifestos. Collate the confusion after October 7 from the Biden administration. Here are 10 of their most common untruths about October 7 and the war that followed.

"Progressive Hamas"

"Gay and transgender student protestors in America would be in mortal danger in Gaza under a fascistic Hamas that has banned homosexual acts and lifestyles. Anyone protesting publicly against Hamas or its allies would be arrested and severely punished.

"Women are segregated in most Hamas-run educational institutions. Under the Hamas charter, women are valued mostly as child-bearers. By design, there are almost no women in high positions in business or in government under Hamas.

" 'Colonists and settlers"

"Students scream that Israelis are "settlers" and "colonists" and sometimes yell at Jewish students to "go back to Poland."

"But the Jewish presence in present-day Israel is deeply rooted in ancient tradition. Dating back at least three millennia, the concept of "Israel" as a distinct Jewish state, situated roughly in its current location, is ingrained in history.

"By contrast, the much later Arab invasions of the Byzantine-controlled Levant and their arrival in Palestine occurred about 1,800 years after the establishment of a Jewish Israel.

" 'Two-state solution"

"When student protestors scream "From the river to the sea," that is not advocacy for a two-state solution." . . .

"It is a call to eliminate the state of Israel -- lying in between the Jordan River and Mediterranean Sea -- and its 10 million Jewish and Arab citizens. The Hamas charter is a one-state/no-Israel agenda, which we saw attempted on October 7." . . .

In Maine "New Mainers" equals "Biden newcomers" equals illegal aliens (by definition)

 

Guess where she will get those workers! Maine Governor Wants to Resettle 75,000 Foreign-Born Migrants in Maine by 2029 - The Maine Wire

. . ."Mills told the liberal Portland Press Herald newspaper that the goal of attracting 75,000 migrant workers to Maine is part of her plan to supply businesses in Maine with “New Mainers” to fill job vacancies.

“ 'New Mainers” is a euphemism that progressives and left-wing nonprofits in Maine have adopted to refer to migrants, refugees, asylum applicants, and illegal aliens who have settled in Maine. Some newspapers in the state have adopted the term as well.

It’s unclear whether Gov. Mills intends for those 75,000 new workers to come exclusively from foreign-born migration. Her office hasn’t clarified what it meant and her communications aides did not respond to inquiries Thursday.

The plan will be crafted by the governor’s advisors and delivered to her next year, so right now it’s not clear exactly how the migrant resettlement office would be funded, how expensive it would be for taxpayers, or whether it would be a cabinet level agency.

Republican lawmakers quickly panned the idea, questioning Mills’ prioritization of current and future migrants over the needs of Maine citizens. Some noted the governor’s refusal to support a bipartisan plan that would create a new cabinet level agency for child protective services.

“I hope the governor corrects her statement about adding 75,000 asylum seekers to the state of Maine,” House Minority Leader Billy Bob Faulkingham (R-Winter Harbor) told the Maine Wire.

“Her office has grossly mishandled the asylum seeker situation,” Faulkingham said. “How does she propose increasing the population of the state by five percent when her solution for a few hundred asylum seekers is hotels and basketball stadiums?”

The Gov may appreciate this:   

“Who called this girl to the stage? Never repeat this. You’ll face consequences if you do.”
~ Whether it is ‘literate’ #Kerala or lawless Kandahar, the mindset is the same. pic.twitter.com/m87nUWBXfW

— Abhijit Majumder (@abhijitmajumder) May 10, 2024