Tuesday, December 12, 2023

I was shouted down in Oakland for condemning Hamas. The councilmembers did nothing to stop it

 The Forward

City leaders utterly failed to condemn rampant disinformation and antisemitic rhetoric

"After being shouted down in Oakland City Hall, I headed back to my seat. The next speaker scowled at me, called me a b—h, and stepped up to the podium.

"She then firmly proclaimed that it was Israel, not Hamas, who carried out the atrocities in southern Israel.

"On Monday night, I headed to the Oakland City Council meeting to deliver a one-minute public comment asking for an amendment to a resolution calling for a cease-fire between Israel and Hamas. Along with other members of our Jewish community, I urged the councilmembers to include a condemnation of Hamas alongside their call for a cease-fire.

"The start to the afternoon set the stage for an evening that grew increasingly polarized, vitriolic and seething with hatred. I suspected this would be an uphill battle, but little did I know that I would be in for a night of hateful conspiracy theories and antisemitism run amok." . . .



White House Refuses to Invite Released Israeli Hostages to Hannukah Celebration -

  The Politics Brief   "CNN on Monday night delivered an eyebrow-raising report about freed Israeli hostages that were held by the terrorist group Hamas not getting an invitation to a White House Hannukah celebration, despite requests reported to have been made to the Biden administration.

“This is a Hanukkah reception that the White House is hosting tonight to celebrate the fifth night of Hanukkah hosted by the President and the First Lady,” CNN reported.

“And what one of the family members of the families that have their family members that are missing in Gaza still believed to have been abducted by Hamas. On October 7th, they told me that they had reached out to the White House because several of the families were in town this week, had asked for an invitation to this event, but that they ultimately did not get invited.”

“The White House did not respond to a request for comment,” CNN added.“Look, these are family members that are desperately trying to bring attention to the fact that there are still eight dual American citizens that are still missing, that are still unaccounted for, obviously, the formal negotiations to get more hostages out,” the report went on. “We saw those breakdown earlier this month. So there are a lot of questions right now, and these families are very desperate for any kind of news, any kind of movement that they’re seeing from the White House as well as the Israeli government on how their family members are going to get out.”

blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-media-max-width="560">

Families of several hostages asked to attend tonight’s Menorah lighting at the White House.
They were refused invitations.
The Biden Administration doesn’t want to upset its base of Hamas supporters.

— Gabe Hoffman (@GabeHoff) December 11, 2023

USEFUL IDIOTS! Popular Liberal TV host, Bill Maher, blasts students at Ivy League colleges for aligning themselves with ‘Team Hamas’

 Barenakedislam    

Bill Maher, host of Real Time, blasted universities such as the University of Pennsylvania and Harvard for siding with Hamas and playing host to students he characterized as “useful idiots.”

"The Blaze Maher listed off a series of slogans heard during pro-Palestinian rallies on school campuses, including “intifada,” which the host described as a vague term analogous to “jihad.” However, he went on to mention the use of the phrase, “From the river to the sea,” which he suggested was “a little more genocide-y.”
“What irks me is that look, I’m always going to be on the side ‘as far as you can push free speech,'” Maher said. “What bothers me is the double standard… Say they don’t want to say ‘Kill the Jews,’ but I certainly have heard chanted ‘F**k the Jews, f**k the Jews.’” “I cannot think of any other group (Muslims, homosexuals, etc)  that you can say ‘f**k the blank’ and have it be acceptable,” Maher added."

That cringeworthy SNL skit

SNL Alum Dropped Out of Awful Antisemitism Sketch Minutes Before Airtime, Was 'Uncomfortable' – RedState    "Saturday Night Live reached a new low with their cold opening over the weekend, where they ruthlessly mocked Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-NY) for questioning three university presidents during Dec. 5 congressional hearings about antisemitic activity on their campuses. Instead of lampooning the university presidents, who disturbingly claimed that the calls for genocide by their students and professors needed to be taken "in context," they portrayed Stefanik, who asked some very important questions, as a raving lunatic with anti-Jewish feelings.

"Turns out one of their own alum -- eleven-year SNL veteran Cecily Strong -- wasn't down with the antisemitic skit either and backed out "last minute" -- just before the show was due to go live. She was "uncomfortable" with the skit, according to a backstage account.

"Newcomer Chloe Troast was thrust into the limelight, and while I understand that it's a tough job being assigned a part right before airtime, she was still spectacularly bad and unfunny.

"They couldn't even get the university presidents' names right:

A Shameful Ruling Class that Shamelessly Shames Good Americans

 J.B. Shurk - American Thinker  . . ."If the Clintons supercharged shamelessness in America, they have certainly found plenty of equally lascivious comrades along the way.  It is why sexually delusional men shamelessly beat women in competitive sports.  It is why women “shout their abortions” without any consideration for the lives they have sacrificed.  It is why the ever-evolving LGBT community commits itself to “pride,” rather than humility.  It is why Jew-hating leftists accuse the right of “hate.”  It is why a criminal deviant such as Hunter Biden calls himself a “victim.”  It is why Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin threatens the deaths of American servicemembers in an undeclared war against Russia, unless Congress again gives tens of billions of dollars to similarly corrupt officials in Ukraine." . . .


"In such an era, when the worst people hold onto power, it becomes imperative never to let the shameless shame you.  Don’t let them shame you into putting on a mask, paying more for “green” energy, abandoning God, or adopting their “woke” religion.  Do not worry about the government’s opinion of you.  As Tucker Carlson sagely advises: “Care only about the opinions of people who love you.' ”

Monday, December 11, 2023

Republican Demands 'Full-Fledged Apology' From 'SNL' Over Skit

 MSN (msn.com)    "Republican representative is demanding that Saturday Night Live issue a "full-fledged apology" after the show mocked New York Representative Elise Stefanik.

Saturday's episode opened with a sketch parodying the congressional hearing on campus antisemitism. On December 5, the presidents of Harvard, MIT and the University of Pennsylvania discussed measures to address the rise in antisemitism at colleges amid the Israel-Hamas war, with their testimonies prompting uproar online.

An exchange between University of Pennsylvania President Liz Magill and Stefanik has gained particular traction, with conservatives—including North Carolina Representative Greg Murphy—blasting SNL for ridiculing Stefanik while being less harsh on the "progressive" college leaders.

On October 7, Hamas launched a surprise attack on Israel, killing 1,200 people and taking 240 hostage. Israel subsequently fired airstrikes on Gaza. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu cut off supplies of food, medicine, fuel and energy into Gaza, before launching a ground offensive. As of Monday, 17,700 people have been killed in Gaza, according to the Associated Press, with roughly 90 percent of the area's 2.3 million population displaced.

The conflict has led to a rise in anti-Palestinian and antisemitic attacks across the U.S. Although she denounced antisemitism earlier in the hearing, Magill was criticized for seemingly evading a question by Stefanik.

When asked if students "calling for the genocide of Jews" breaks the university's rules against harassment, Magill called it a "context-dependent decision."

"If the speech turns into conduct it, can be harassment, yes," she told Stefanik.

The exchange went viral, with Magill resigning from her post on Saturday. The SNL skit that night starred Ego Nwodim as Harvard President Claudine Gay, Heidi Gardner as MIT's Sally Kornbluth, and Chloe Fineman as Magill, while Chloe Troast portrayed Stefanik.

"I'll turn it over to MAGA superstar Elise Stefanik from New York, who's been pacing the hallways listening to Lose Yourself by Eminem," said comedian Molly Kearney, dressed as Representative Virginia Foxx, chairwoman of the House Committee on Education and the Workforce.

"Thank you, chairwoman," Troast replied. "I'm going to start screaming questions at these women. I'm Billy Eichner."

"Yes or no, is calling for the genocide of Jews against the code of conduct for Harvard?" she asks Nwodim, who replied: "Well, depends on the context."

Troast then moved on to Fineman, yelling: "UPenn lady, same question, yes or no?"

Americans finally back Israel in wiping out terrorism from the river to the sea

 FAFO War update - Don Surber (substack.com)

Other media outlets in America followed suit because the horror by Palestinians was unjustified and inhumane. Palestinians went beyond the pale, which justified Israel finally taking off the gloves and doing what it should have done decades ago.


"Palestinians celebrated the 50th anniversary of the Yom Kippur War with an attack on Israeli civilians that was so brutal and inhumane that most Americans finally said to hell with Hamas and the Palestinians. Israel is well on its way to ridding the world of Hamas as the West now rejects the Palestinian Propaganda machine — Pallywood — which fakes war crimes by Israel while committing war crimes against Israel.

"Palestinian actor Saleh Aljafarawi, 25, appeared in so many of the videos that Americans began calling him Mister FAFO — the acronym for F*ck Around, Find Out. Palestinians are learning what FAFO means.

"Liel Leibovitz, editor-at-large for Tablet Magazine, wrote, “Why do we love him so? Why has he become the subject of so much attention, on social media and in the press? Because he is the pure embodiment of a greater truth: We live in an age that has progressed beyond rational argument.

“It should be obvious by now that so many of the creeps who purport to weep for Palestine don’t really care about Palestinians, dead or alive, or about Israelis, or about the historical and moral intricacies of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. What they want is an excuse to indulge in something deeper, more libidinal, ancient, and indeed erotic — hating Jews.

“They cheer for Mister FAFO not despite the fact that he’s so obviously faking it but precisely because of it. His performances promise liberation from the annoyances of a fact-based reality whose contradictions are inherently troubling, and instead affirm that old motto coined by Hasan-i Sabbah, the 12th-century founder of the Hashashin, or the Order of the Assassins — nothing is true, everything is permitted.”

"This is the FAFO War as Hamas sees the West growing a spine. The blowback is approaching hurricane level.

"Hamas-shielding AP asked four days after the attack, “What was Hamas thinking?" . . .

Oh, the West reverted back to form and the Biden administration. Its anti-Semitic wing (led by Obama’s operatives) pushed for a ceasefire. Palestinians saw that as the victory it was but made the mistake of celebrating too early.

They had seen how the Obama Democrats operated in the past and would be justified in thinking it would be as before. It is a default position for all to consider campus and congressional Democrats as feckless and cowardly. TD

Illuminating the October 7 Massacre

  Elise Cooper  "Two books have been recently published highlighting recent atrocities against the Jews. The first, a novel, The Paris Housekeeper by Renee Ryan, and the other a non-fiction, War Against the Jews by Alan Dershowitz. These books are very relevant to the atrocities committed on October 7th by Hamas against Israeli civilians. But they also show the similarities between what happened to the Jews during the Nazi reign and the October 7th massacre.

"How apropos that Hanukkah, the miracle of resistance, started on December 7th, the “Day of Infamy,” when America was the victim of an unprovoked brutal attack. As Jews around the world celebrate this festival, they are reminded that October 7th was, quoting an Israeli official, “Israel’s Pearl Harbor.”

"Below is an interview with both authors about their books and the relevance to today.

"Alan Dershowitz wrote the book out of outrage. “As soon as I heard about the events of October 7th, I dropped everything and called my publisher and said I must write a book about this because it changes everything. It makes it clear why Israel does everything in its power to destroy Hamas, a genocidal organization. If they had the opportunity to go further than the Kibbutz they would have beheaded, burned, raped, and murdered every Jew in Israel. This is a game changer, and the world must realize it.”

"Renee Ryan wrote the book a year ago, having no idea how relevant it would be today. “I thought I was writing these quotes about what happened fifty, sixty, seventy, eighty years ago during the Nazi reign. I cannot comprehend that these quotes can be applied to October 7th. Quotes such as this by my Jewish character, Rachel, ‘This enemy, these new Germans are hardened, angrier, and more ruthless. Hate lives in their heart. Hate for people like us.’ It is so heartbreaking. Have we not learned anything. October 7th is very similar to what happened. It is even the same rhetoric, the exact same things said in the 1930s, 1940s.”

"Mr. Dershowitz believes Hamas wants a Final Solution. “’Never Again’ has not meant anything since the day it was uttered. Never Again tragically just became a slogan. Now on college campuses, students and faculty feel free to call for genocide against the Jews. Everyone should read the Hamas Charter, which in some ways is worse than Mein Kompf because it is more specific.”

"Women were viciously gang raped, had their pelvises broken, children were raped, babies were burned in ovens, people were brutally tortured and killed. Yet, many either demonstrate against Israel or just look the other way. Dershowitz refers to the congressional testimony by the college presidents of Penn State, Harvard, and MIT. He wonders, where are the feminist groups? People love to utter the words “Fascist” and “Nazi” against Donald Trump but refuse to say a word against Hamas." . . .

Hamas supporters are completely unhinged from logic and even reality - American Thinker   . . ."I’ll end, not with my words, but with Harry Truman’s, contained in a letter he wrote to Samuel Cavert, General Secretary for the Federal Council of The Churches of Christ in America, who was upset with Truman’s decision to drop two atomic bombs on Japan:

August 11, 1945

My dear Mr. Cavert:

I appreciated very much your telegram of August ninth.

Nobody is more disturbed over the use of Atomic bombs than I am but I was greatly disturbed over the unwarranted attack by the Japanese on Pearl Harbor and their murder of our prisoners of war. The only language they seem to understand is the one we have been using to bombard them.

When you have to deal with a beast you have to treat him as a beast. It is most regrettable but nevertheless true.

Sincerely yours,

Harry  S. Truman [in autograph]

Nearly Half Of Dems Say Charges Against Trump Are Politically Motivated: I&I/TIPP Poll –

  Issues & Insights  "With less than a year to go in the presidential election cycle, most Americans almost always have a good idea of who will be running for president, and who won’t. That’s especially true when an incumbent president is eligible for reelection. As this month’s I&I/TIPP Poll demonstrates, that’s not the case this time around.

"While both of the main parties’ likely candidates — President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump — have healthy leads against potential competitors within their own parties in virtually all polls, it’s still not clear that either will even be on the ballot next year.

"The media are full of stories that cite Democratic Party sources and contributors suggesting that the 81-year-old president, who has shown signs of age-related mental impairment in recent years, should drop out of the running. The complaints have become increasingly urgent as Biden’s presidential favorability readings have plunged sharply.

"Meanwhile, Trump faces an unprecedented legal assault, with four separate indictments covering 91 allegations of criminal behavior on his part. In normal times, that would be a political disaster.

"But these are not normal times.

"To better gauge national sentiment, the national online I&I/TIPP Poll asked 1,301 registered voters this month a number of questions related to the upcoming primary election season. The poll, taken from Nov. 29-Dec. 1, has a margin of error of +/-2.8 percentage points.

"Of Trump, I&I/TIPP asked two key questions.

"First: “To what extent do you agree or disagree with the statement: The Democratic Party is using the law to try to prevent Trump from running in the 2024 election.”

"This is a big topic of discussion, both inside the Beltway and outside, despite mainstream media efforts to downplay the issue by calling Trump a “threat to democracy.”

"Voters aren’t buying it." . . .

It's as if the talent within academia is stirring, and has had enough of wokesterism, too.

 

Cartoons - American Thinker

Harvard’s president Claudine Gay accused of plagiarizing… Dr. Carol Swain?! - American Thinker   "(Somebody get the popcorn—and quickly—because the show is about to start, and you won’t want to miss it.)

"Yesterday, Christopher Rufo took to X and released bombshell evidence against Harvard’s current president Claudine Gay, accusing her of a serious infraction—but it had nothing to do with her refusal to expel the pro-Hamas students calling for the death of their Jewish counterparts (let alone condemn their actions), or the university’s scandalous hard-left policies… but Gay’s alleged plagiarism for her Ph.D dissertation. See the thread from Rufo below: . . . 

 As Rufo also noted, Gay is a darling of the left, “touted as the first black woman” to run Harvard in its 368-year existence, but she’s been mired in scandal since the outset of her stint.. . .

 With Magill out, academic heavyweights start to speak out against university wokesterism - Monica Showalter    "With the resignation of woke University of Pennsylvania president Liz Magill, following an execrable performance addressing antisemitism in Congress, some kind of dam has broken. Now academics with actual achievements are beginning to speak out against the wokesterism that has laid low the reputations of their universities.

"CNN commentator Fareed Zakaria, who's best described as a left-leaning moderate, has thrown down the gauntlet about woke universities, calling them indoctrination centers, not places of learning, and demanded that universities return to their core mission of seeking the actual truth, demanding excellence, instead of creating their own "truths."

"He's on fire here: . . .   He wrote up his remarks in this CNN commentary America’s top universities should abandon their long misadventure into politics, retrain their gaze on their core strengths and rebuild their reputations as centers of research and learning.

Elise Stefanik: smiting the unworthy - American Thinker   . . ."We saw this clearly at the hearing. The lady presidents had their noses so high in the air that they couldn’t see the elephant trap that Elise Stefanik so adroitly prepared for them. Sally Kornbluth and Claudine Gay’s robotic delivery and raised-eyebrow disdain were bad enough, but the champ here was the smirking Liz Magill of UPenn, who fairly oozed smug superiority as she set out to put this uppity backwoods congresswoman in her place (“Stefanik? Realllly? What kind of a name is that, anyway?”) Magill fell hard, resigning on Saturday night, the most opportune point of the news cycle, and taking the university trustees board chairman with her. Elise S. can stencil two victories on the side of her fighter jet, with more to come.

Secondly, what the Hell is wrong with these people? Who acts this way? You can’t get beyond the age of twelve in American culture without realizing that smug arrogance gains you nothing and will get you nowhere. If you present a punchable face, you will be punched. How did Kornbluth, Gay, and particularly the smirking twit Magill miss this lesson?

This Chanukah, Let’s Vow to Defeat Our New Oppressors: Higher Education › American Greatness     "We know from history that Jew-hatred, the world’s oldest and once again most fashionable form of bigotry, is the chameleon of all hates — forever taking on new hues to suit the scapegoating needs of the day. It has always been thus, and it will always be thus. This is a cancer for which there is sadly no cure.

. . ."But in the aftermath of Tuesday’s astounding congressional hearing with the presidents of Harvard, the University of Pennsylvania and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, during which the demonic triumvirate smirked their way through rigorous bipartisan questioning and repeatedly failed to condemn calls for genocide of the Jewish people as contrary to their universities’ codes of conduct, we must make another related commitment. This Chanukah, modern-day Maccabees and like-minded fellow defenders of our Western heritage must commit to razing to the ground today’s Hellenizers: American higher education." . . .

You have to see how SNL treats Elise Stefanik in this skit  Have you seen anything more juvenile?

We Are Jews Against Soros

 


We Are Jews Against Soros | Opinion (newsweek.com) "George Soros is an evil man. In fact, he is one of the most evil men currently shaping American and Western politics, and global events more generally.

"To straightforwardly opine in this manner is not to traffick in antisemitism or noxious Jew-baiting. It is simply to share one's perspective about one of the most influential political donors, "philanthropists," and social activists in the world—someone who doles out countless sums to undermine and reshape in his dystopian image entire countries, spreading across at least five separate continents.

"It is frankly astounding that this even needs to be said. I am a Jewish columnist, podcaster, and public speaker. As such, I routinely share my opinions as a basic feature of my job. I imagine some of those opinions are provocative—perhaps highly so—for a subset of the population, especially those of a left-of-center bent. Some (very) small percentage of my critics may hate me and hate my opinions because I am Jewish, but it is surely the case that the overwhelming majority of my critics disagree with me on the merits of my ideas and contributions to the public discourse. Unless I have a compelling reason to believe a specific critic is acting out of rank bigotry, I operate from a baseline presumption that the critic is not a Jew-hater, but simply disagrees with my position.

"Again, this should be obvious. But for far too many, it is apparently not obvious—at least when it comes to criticism of George Soros.

"For years, whenever conservatives, nationalists, and traditionalists have criticized the absolutely sprawling influence of George Soros and his left-wing Open Society Foundations umbrella network, Soros' praetorian guard in the elected official class and corporate press invariably shriek, "That's antisemitism! You can't say that!"

"What utter tripe." . . .

The True Evil of Hamas

The Caroline Glick Show In Focus  "Hamas pretends to be the "nice guy" while we begin to hear about the horrors endured by the hostages and the terrifying nature of Palestinian society. Yet the Biden administration pushes onward to a Two State Solution of disastrous proportions."