The war with Iran; Yesterday's Israeli strikes revealed a new strategy that's now beginning to unfold

 Melanie Phillips: Substack

"According to Brig. Gen. Amir Avivi, head of the Israel Defence and Security Forum (a group composed of robust Israeli military and security analysts), the US election on November 5 is a crucial factor in Israel’s next moves."       (Emphasis mine. TD)

"This morning, people have been trying to work out the significance of the Israeli strikes on Iran that were carried out in the early hours of yesterday.

"Given that Israel didn’t strike Iran’s nuclear weapons facilities, oil terminals or members of the Iranian regime, in line with the enormous American pressure to limit such an attack, some people have leapt to the conclusion that although this was a tactical success it was a strategic failure in not striking a decisive blow against Tehran. 

"Such an assessment is distinctly premature.

"First, it’s important to register the scale of the achievement. Israel openly attacked Iran in a complex operation involving 100 fighter jets over a distance which presents significant challenges. Iran’s air defences were simply brushed aside and then crippled along with its missile and drone production capabilities. Iran has now been shown to be widely exposed to Israeli attack and its capacity for retaliation has been diminished.

"Although Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, has stated that the US didn’t dictate Israel’s targets, the Israel Air Force operated entirely within the red lines set down by the Biden administration. 

"Yet Israel may have achieved what it needed to do at this stage, given a range of factors that have a direct bearing on the urgency of neutralising the threat from Tehran while minimising the likelihood of acute damage to Israeli lives in any possible Iranian response. 

"The targets struck by the Israel Air Force were far from negligible. The New York Times, quoting three Iranian and three senior Israeli defence officials, reports that targets for attack included defences at the Bandar Imam Khomeini petrochemical complex in Khuzestan Province, at the major economic port Bandar Imam Khomeini, and at the Abadan oil refinery. Air-defence systems were also struck in Ilam Province, at the Tange Bijar gas refinery.

"Such strategic targeting, which reportedly shocked Iran, carries a double message: first, as a deterrent against further Iranian aggression, and second, as the essential precursor to a far more significant attack.

Michelle, do you recall how this country elected Barack, pampered you all, celebrated you, and pretty much spoiled you rotten?

Legal Insurrection

"And how have those Democratic "grown-ups" in the White House worked out? Not very well, to our great chagrin, which is why people want to vote them out." 

Toon added by TD

"Michelle Obama is another one who just cannot accept the fact that VP Kamala Harris sucks.

"I really think the Obamas think she’s great. Therefore, racism and sexism have to be the reason why she’s not demolishing former President Donald Trump:

I got to ask myself, “Well, why on earth is this race even close?” I lay awake at night wondering what in the world is going on. And it’s clear to me that the question isn’t whether Kamala is ready for this moment because by every measure, she has demonstrated that she’s ready.

The real question is, as a country, are we ready for this moment?

"Lady, get over yourself."

Having realized that their candidate is horrible, Michelle Obama has decided that the best strategy is to suggest that Americans are racist and sexist for not supporting Kamala Harris.

This is what a losing campaign looks like.

— Greg Price (@greg_price11) October 26, 2024

In the next few days we expect to take this schtick to "The View", Colbert, and MSNBC. TD

Obama said they were ready to turn the page on the politics of division when they have been the chief proponents of such politics

"Now it's Michelle Obama's turn. Once again, just like her husband, what you got was someone who was angry, preaching at you, and telling a fantasyland of falsehoods about her "dear friend," Kamala Harris."

Wow. Michelle Obama blatantly lies on stage while campaigning for Kamala Harris:
"[Kamala's] not ducking interviews or cowering in safe spaces only with fawning audiences." pic.twitter.com/QroUlZ0IRJ

— The Post Millennial (@TPostMillennial) October 26, 2024

. . ." This is the person who hid herself and wouldn't do an interview for weeks. She hasn't faced her "harshest critics." She's concealed herself behind fawning or softball interviews, with the exception of one Fox interview where she tried to filibuster and ended up stumbling all over herself. Meanwhile, Trump has been doing interviews with everyone, including interviews Harris is ducking like the "Joe Rogan Experience." She's not seeking out Republicans to find common ground. No, she's finding "Republicans" like Liz Cheney, who have already thrown in with the Dems, who have been rejected by other Republicans and/or voted out." . . .

Americans’ Justified Media Mistrust

"Such blatant bias from the media suggests a once respected institution has little if any standing left."

 J.T. Young  

"America’s establishment media loves to hide behind the First Amendment. However, there can be no freedom of the press if there is no freedom in the press.  No greater blow is being struck for such a freedom than Americans’ tuning out of the establishment media."

 "Recent polling shows Americans’ mistrust of establishment media at an all-time high. The only surprise is that it isn’t higher. America’s establishment media bias is so consistent that they clearly no longer just cover the news from one side, but for one side.

"Gallup recently released a poll (10/14) showing that “trust in the fourth estate — the mass media — is at a new low.” Less than one-third of Americans (31%) expressed “‘a great deal’ or ‘fair amount’ of confidence in the media to report the news ‘fully, accurately and fairly.’” In contrast, almost seven in ten Americans have “no trust at all in the media” (36%) or “not very much” confidence (33%) in the media.

"Gallup’s question was not a new one. Back in the 1970s, America’s confidence in the media was 68%-72%.  Even in the late 1990s and early 2000s, trust ranged between 51-55%. Today, Gallup finds “the news media is the least trusted group among 10 U.S. civic political institutions.”

"Far from being merely a perception problem, the establishment media’s faults run far deeper. The Media Research Center has long cited numerous polls finding “journalists are much more liberal than rest of America” and that this liberal advantage is growing. These journalists report the way they lean with “most of the journalistic elite offering reflexively liberal answers to practically every question a pollster can imagine.”

"A 2022 Syracuse University survey showed that only 3.4 percent of American journalists say they are Republicans. And this summer, the Media Research Center found media coverage of Kamala Harris had been 84 percent positive, while Trump’s had been 89 percent negative.

"Certainly, Americans don’t need polls to tell them about establishment media bias; case after case exists.  There was the Russian dossier that was breathlessly reported on and used for extensive investigations by Congress. It turned out the FBI should never have undertaken a Trump-Russia probe.  Then there was case of Hunter Biden’s laptop that was treated as a hoax; only to turn out to be true and a key piece of evidence in his trial — in which he was convicted on all three charges." . . .

J.T. Young is the author of the new book, Unprecedented Assault: How Big Government Unleashed America’s Socialist Left, from RealClear Publishing and has over three decades’ experience working in Congress, Department of Treasury, and OMB, and representing a Fortune 20 company.

How Democrat Lawfare Launched Trump’s Comeback

 The American Spectator  The legal war meant to end his political career actually revived it.

. . ."Then, after “defeating” him in 2020, they maligned him in the media as an aspiring dictator, raided his home, illegally removed his name from state ballots, arrested him, forced him to sit for demeaning mugshots, and convicted him based on a legal theory that most experts found laughable. This would have caused almost anyone reading this column to throw their hands up and say, “Nothing is worth this.” But he knows we are worth it."

This article is taken from The American Spectator’s fall 2024
 print magazine. 

"When Donald Trump left Washington on January 20, 2021, the consensus among our ruling elites was that his tumultuous career in politics was at an end. The Democrats, however, were taking no chances. Having impeached him just a week earlier in the House of Representatives, they were hard at work preparing to put him on trial in the Senate for “incitement of insurrection” despite the fact that he was no longer in office. They were so fearful that Trump might stage a comeback that they hoped to convict him of an offense that would forever disqualify him from holding public office at any time in the future.

"Three weeks later, the Senate began an impeachment trial that was so constitutionally questionable that Chief Justice John Roberts refused to preside over the farce. During the ensuing antics, one of Trump’s attorneys, Bruce Castor, explicitly called out the Democrats concerning their real motive for insisting on the unprecedented proceeding: “Let’s understand why we are really here. We are really here because the majority in the House of Representatives does not want to face Donald Trump as a political rival in the future.” Trump was inevitably acquitted by the Senate, and Castor proved remarkably prescient. 

"This impeachment charade was the beginning of a multi-year legal campaign, the primary purpose of which was to associate the former president, in the public psyche, with a fictitious conspiracy to undermine our democracy™ and to assure that his viability as a future presidential candidate was irreparably damaged. Trump, however, was not so easily disposed of. As Gallup reported at the time of Trump’s departure from Washington, “Republicans’ average 88% approval of Trump ties Eisenhower’s as the highest own-party approval score, though most presidents had better-than 80% approval among their fellow partisans.”

" 'Moreover, a mere five weeks after leaving office, he appeared at CPAC in Orlando, Florida, where he delivered a ninety-minute speech that made it clear that he had no intention of retiring in disgrace. Trump spoke to an enthusiastic audience that cheered when he teased a 2024 presidential run and said his political career was “far from over.” This rattled Democrats, who decided to conduct a public “investigation” of the January 6 riot. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi appointed a select committee consisting of seven Democrats and two notorious RINOs, which predictably devolved into a nakedly partisan inquisition. As Kevin Roberts of the Heritage Foundation put it:. . ."

As the Dodgers play the Series, thinking back to their tolerant glory days

Jumping ahead to the real heart of this article:

Will O'Toole  . . . "The Los Angeles Dodgers and the New York Yankees are squaring off once again in the Fall Classic, the first time the league and one-time city rivals face off in the World Series since the strike season of 1981. It’s their 12th meeting.

"Interestingly, the Yankees and Dodgers matchups have had some historical meaning. In 1947, Jackie Robinson became not just the first African American to break the color barrier in the National League for the then-Brooklyn Dodgers but became the first to play in the World Series.

"Robinson handled the pressure, stress, and anxiety with professionalism, tact, and class. Then-Dodger’s manager Branch Rickey’s choice in his pursuit of integrating baseball was a deliberate “social engineering,” a strategy that paid off with more and more black players moving from the Negro Leagues to Major League Baseball over the course of the late 1940s and 1950s." . . .

 . . ."Today, when thinking of the Dodgers, many baseball fans cannot help but think of the incident last season when the Dodgers hosted an Anti-Catholic group, “The Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence,” to their stadium. In that one brief inglorious moment, LA management forgot its past tolerance.

The Dodgers invited a group that blasphemed the tenets, beliefs and protocols of a religion and people that have had a bond with the franchise since its days in Brooklyn. This would never have occurred under the leadership of owner Walter O’Malley, the same man who respected Koufax’s faith.

According to The Angelus, the Catholic newspaper of Los Angeles, Walter O’Malley credited his Catholic faith for his success. Named “Brooklyn’s Catholic Man of the Year” in 1952, O’Malley was a daily Mass attender.

"Nor would this have occurred until the leadership of Branch Rickey or Tommy Lasorda.

"True, the Dodgers retreated, performed a “corporate mea culpa,” and engaged its Christian fans with “their own night” to celebrate a “Faith and Family Night” in Chavez Ravine. Still, for a franchise long held in esteem for its “progressive and social justice ways,” the damage has been done. Their hypocrisy is just another sad reflection on the state of sports.

"A franchise that portrayed itself as pristine, pure and perfect in all manners, methods and machinations forgot its roots not just logistical but culturally."

Mika Brzezinski takes 'crazy' to a new level. She watches too much MSNBC, I'd say

 Eric Utter   

"Ah, of course, she was referring to Trump being insufficiently thrilled by abortion. So she said: “He’s making us afraid to have babies.” This is the Mother of All Non Sequiturs."

"I thought perhaps I’d seen and heard it all, and that those on The Left couldn’t possibly attain a higher level of hypocrisy and insanity.

"I see now that I was mistaken.

"There is batsh*t crazy … and then there is Mika Brzezinski crazy.

"Mika used a recent Morning Joe broadcast on Fake News MSNBC to embark on a rant so unhinged and unmoored from reality that it boggles the mind. 

"She bizarrely stated: “As important as Trump’s fascism is,” before asserting “it’s the lead story every day” and referring to “his cozying up to, uh, dictators.”

"She not only called Trump a fascist, as if everyone know this unassailable fact, but implied fascism is very important to his identity. And then averred that Trump has somehow been snuggling/spooning with the likes of Vladimir Putin, Xi Jinping, Kim Jong-un, and Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

"But she was just getting started. She referenced “what he has said about our veterans” and “what he wants to do with the military against his political adversaries.”

"Unlike Democrats and their organ grinder monkeys in the mainstream media, Trump truly respects the military, the individuals that comprise it, and veterans in general. And it is the Democrat Party, as evidenced by the Obama-Biden-Harris administration, that has weaponized the military against its enemies … i.e., American citizens who have the temerity to publicly disagree with its agenda.

"For the vast majority of folks, this would have been enough stupid slander for a lifetime, but not for Mika, who was almost foaming at the mouth now. She then asserted, “He is killing us. I’m talking about us women. He’s killing us.”

"He is? Are women’s bodies being piled up like cordwood somewhere where we can’t see them?

"Ah, of course, she was referring to Trump being insufficiently thrilled by abortion." . .  .

Mika must watch The View daily. TD

“Donald Trump is a mensch; he has always stood with the Jewish people,” UPDATED

 RTM  

 “Donald Trump is a Mensch ; he has always stood with the Jewish people,” Wartski stated, emphasizing that the comparisons Harris makes not only distort the legacy of the Holocaust but also insult its victims, including his own parents.

Jerry Wartski, a 94-year-old Holocaust survivor, has criticized Vice President Kamala Harris for her recent comparisons between former President Donald Trump and Adolf Hitler, describing it as one of the most offensive statements he has encountered in his lifetime. Wartski, who endured the horrific conditions of the Auschwitz concentration camp as a child and lost most of his family during the Holocaust, finds such parallels deeply troubling." . . .

. . .The Vice President has repeated her stance in several venues, including social media platforms and public appearances, where she alleges that Trump seeks unchecked power akin to that wielded by dictators. During a town hall meeting, Harris stated, “Donald Trump aims to create a military loyalty reminiscent of Adolf Hitler’s generals, prioritizing his own interests over our Constitution.”

"These remarks have caused significant backlash among Republican leaders, including House Speaker Mike Johnson and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, who issued a joint statement condemning the comparisons. They have suggested that such rhetoric could incite further hostility against Trump and his supporters.

"Trump, in turn, has publicly rebuked Harris, labeling her claims as unfounded and disrespectful. His campaign has utilized Wartski’s testimony in advertising efforts, showcasing his criticisms of Harris. Trump’s enduring relationship with the Jewish community has also been highlighted, particularly in light of Wartski’s testimonials."

More on this here  How ironic that those calling Trump "Hitler" include those blocking Jews from streets. TD

Obama Uses 'Nazis' To Attack Trump. Ambassador Grenell Wrecks Him. 

  . . ."Not long after Obama utilized Nazis in his attack on Trump, U.S. Ambassador to Germany Richard Grenell responded with a tweet, writing: " 'Fact check: Donald Trump kicked the Nazi out of NYC after 14 years and multiple Presidents allowed him to stay."

. . . " 'The Nazis killed 6 million Jews," Grenell told The Daily Wire. "No one should ever joke about this horrific part of history." . .  .

UPDATE: Democrats point out that she's made too many cases against Trump — a scattershot approach that was bound to fail. The final pathetic, desperate attempt to paint Trump as Hitler has failed to move the needle.  . . ."Harris herself is being fingered for never getting around to defining herself for voters beyond "Donald Trump is a poopy head." 

"Democrats point out that she's made too many cases against Trump — a scattershot approach that was bound to fail. The final pathetic, desperate attempt to paint Trump as Hitler has failed to move the needle.

"No need to wonder why. Like the massive overuse of the charge of "racist" during the Obama years, the "fascist" label has lost its power to do damage." . . .

Yet it continues: Tim Walz Calls Trump Madison Square Garden Attendees Nazis. Great idea, Hillary thanks for this.