Victor Davis Hanson On The Utter Insanity of Joe Biden’s Open Border

  American Greatness  

Did the millions swarming the Rio Grande not listen to the horror stories of Ilhan Omar or Rashida Tlaib? Do they not read the warnings of systemic this and that from Professor Kendi? Have they been briefed on endemic something by Ta-Nehisi Coates? Are they unaware of the messaging from BLM and Antifa? Were they not warned by President Obrador of the Inferno waiting ahead to the north? 

 "There have been more than 8 million illegal entries into the United States since Joe Biden was elected president.

 He appointed Alejandro Mayorkas as Secretary of Homeland Security, whose apparent prime directive was to destroy the southern border.

"That task is precisely what Mayorkas has now accomplished. The result is that the border is neither “porous” nor “problematic,” but nonexistent, kaput, vanished—and by design.

"In one of the most surreal experiences in the history of the United States, each night Americans see video clips of thousands of foreign nationals crossing the border en masse with complete impunity—as if the entire corpus of federal immigration law has been dynamited.

"But by whom? And why? 

"Do they want to create billions of dollars in new entitlements and subsidies to grow government, hike taxes, and make the upper middle class pay, as Biden puts it, “their fair share?”

"Whatever the cause of this nihilism, there are at least 10 ways their open border is insidiously destroying the United States.

Blockade of World Trade Center By Anti-Israel Activists An Attempted Intimidation of U.S.

Legal Insurrection   As they chanted phrases they learned from others; no original thoughts from them.TD

"Their goal is not to convince people, it’s to send a message of intimidation, that they will disregard even our most sensitive of norms because they hate our society as much if not more than they hate Israel."

"Anti-Israel protesters on December 28, 2023, took their blockade tactics to the World Trade Center. The rebuilt World Trade Center. After the 9/11 attack by Islamic fundamentalist terrorists destroyed the prior World Trade Center, killing 3000 people and changing the course of our history."

 'Free Palestine' Hamas supporters have defaced and disgraced the White House, the 9/11 Memorial at the World Trade Center, The Lincoln Memorial, Christmas Tree Lightings across the United States in major cities..

You are beautiful, but WAKE UP AMERICA . #TheWestIsNext

Never forget.. pic.twitter.com/YQUK2cnBXc

— Ron M. (@Jewtastic) December 28, 2023

Touring 'Biden Country'

  Mark Z. Barabak (jewishworldreview.com)

It's not as though he is just entering politics at age 81. "He has a wealth of knowledge that he brings with him," said Taylor, as heads nodded around the table. Now Biden just has to convince the rest of the country.

"For those who doubt Joe Biden's capacity to be president, Herb Klar has a suggestion: Swing by his neighborhood sometime.

" 'They don't come to Rossmoor and see all the octagenarians ... and see how lively and bright and competent we all are," said Klar, 76, a retired clinical social worker, who was sporting a Golden State Warriors hoodie on a crisp afternoon on the east side of San Francisco Bay.

"Old age, he said, "is seen as a kind of freakishness."

"Biden is the oldest president in American history, making every day in office a milestone of sorts. He is attempting something never before tried: Winning reelection to a second term that would end when he is 86 years old.

"The prospect horrifies Republicans. It also creates no small amount of stomach churn for Biden's fellow Democrats.

"So many people as they get into their 80s start to lose some of their cognitive ability," said Lee Herschman, who happens to be 86 and spent her career in the entertainment and recording industries. "That's just what happens."

"But Herschman and others among Biden's generational peers — people who understand better than most the challenges of aging — say they see no signs whatsoever the president is hobbled or unfit for office.

" 'He knows the facts. He knows the players. He has all the data," said Katha Hartley, 83, who still works as a business consultant. "And if you compare that to the person who may be running against him, who might also be in prison later, there's not even a comparison."

Silence On Hamas’ Twisted Use Of Hospital Will Ensure More Die

 The Federalist  Few of the facts seem to matter as international organizations and the press ignore documented evidence of al-Shifa Hospital’s military use.

"Countless journalists from outlets hostile to Israel have reported Hamas activity within, around, and below the hospital. The hospital also served as a weapons arsenal, a launching point for rockets targeting Israel, and the headquarters of Hamas leadership."

"For weeks, Hamas has denied it was using al-Shifa Hospital, Gaza’s largest medical complex, as a base of operations. Captured Hamas terrorists tell a different story. They admit to using hospitals for military purposes as well as hiding places for their superiors.

"Ahmed Kahlot, the arrested director of the Kamal Edwan hospital in Gaza, recently confessed to Israel’s domestic security agency, “Hamas has offices inside the hospitals. There are places for senior officials, they also brought a kidnapped soldier there. There is a designated place for investigations, internal security, and special security. They all have private phone lines inside the hospital.” Still, many in the media, and especially the United Nations and International Red Cross, supposedly designed to protect civilian lives, have yet to offer an unequivocal condemnation of the usage.

"When it comes to Hamas’ usage of al-Shifa and other commandeered hospitals, the international community has abdicated its responsibility. Indeed, the effective silence of the rest of the world only ensures that Hamas will continue to rely on civilian structures.

"Despite corporate news outlets, such as The New York Times, attempting to portray Hamas’ usage of hospitals as a contested matter, it is not. Hamas has a long and storied history of utilizing civilian facilities — such as hospitals, schools, and mosques — for its military and terrorism operations. As the military engagement continues, rife with accusatory misreporting, it is worth recalling the illustrative instance of al-Shifa Hospital in particular, a civilian medical complex that has served as the headquarters for Hamas’ operations.

"There is nothing novel about Hamas using al-Shifa as a base of operations. During the 2014 Gaza War, The Washington Post’s London bureau chief William Booth asserted that al-Shifa Hospital had become a “de facto headquarters for Hamas leaders, who can be seen in the hallways and offices.” Even Amnesty International, amid its virulent anti-Israel sentiment, managed to cobble together an accusation in 2014 that Hamas was torturing Palestinians in certain sections of the hospital." . . .

"In this current war, neither attacks on terror facilities masquerading as humanitarian facilities nor the number of casualties should detract from Israel’s lawful and just effort to liberate the region from this stain on humanity."

Leftists Scratch Their Heads As More Abandon Their Ranks

  Issues & Insights

"In any case, the reason the left is puzzled is because it’s so completely blind to the poisonous fruit of its own ideology, something that is finally dawning on common-sense Americans."

"The only thing more uplifting than watching several prominent liberals drift rightward is the cluelessness of those on the left as to why it’s happening.

"This drift is obvious enough, since it includes journalists once heralded by the left such as Matt Taibbi (who won a Young America’s Foundation award) and Glenn Greenwald, and Democratic politicians, including Tulsi Gabbard, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. (whose speech at a Daily Caller award ceremony drew many loud cheers from the conservative audience), and Sen. John Fetterman (who recently declared that “I am not a progressive”).

"Celebrities such as Russell Brand, David Chappelle, and Bill Maher (who “has been riding an asphalt roller over the far left,” according to Townhall) are part of the shift, as are a handful of prominent business leaders, Elon Musk for instance.

"That’s to say nothing of the fact that surveys show once tried-and-true liberal constituencies – Hispanics, Asians, blacks, working class, and the young – are abandoning the Democratic party.

"It’s not as though these people are suddenly small-government conservatives. They just are waking up to the fact that the left is a cesspool of hatred and intolerance and are looking for the exits.

"All of which has caused a lot of confusion on the left. Case in point is a commentary by the New York Times’ Michelle Goldberg, who manages to come up with some theories to explain the realignment.

"One is that “celebrity defectors … lurched right after a cancellation or public humiliation.” (In other words, for petty reasons.)

"Another is that “the culture of the left is simply less welcoming,” and “people go where people accept them, or are nice to them, and away from people who are mean to them.” (An incredibly odd admission given that the left is supposedly all about “diversity” and “inclusion.”)" . . .

Hamas Retreats in Hostage Negotiations As IDF Seizes Key Intel Center

 HotAir

The very fact that Hamas fought to defend this position for weeks even while abandoning other parts of northern Gaza speaks to the value of this victory. The battle exposed an elaborate tunnel system connected to at least one mosque and one school, as well as the Rantisi Hospital.

"Well, well, well. Hamas had insisted in recent days that it would release no hostages until the IDF withdrew from Gaza, a position that left the Israeli government in firm position to reject. After more losses on the battlefield, however, Hamas has had second thoughts.

"Now they want a day of cease-fire for every hostage released, but without an IDF withdrawal. And the Israelis say …

Hamas negotiators have waived the condition of a final ceasefire and the withdrawal of IDF soldiers from Gaza in their ongoing talks with Israel for a second hostage release, according to a report by the Arab World News Agency (AWP), citing sources in Hamas.

“The five-way talks between Egypt, Qatar, the United States, Israel, and Hamas are ongoing, but so far no agreement has been reached,” the source told AWP, adding that talks have “accelerated significantly in recent hours,” with “Cairo and Doha making persistent efforts.”

The terrorist group is now open to the release of 40 hostages in exchange for 120 prisoners held by Israel, the report said, adding that Hamas had demanded a one-day ceasefire in exchange for each hostage released, but Israel refused.

"That suggestion is absurd on its face, but the direction of concessions is certainly notable. Hamas still wants to wring strategic value from the hostages that remain in their hands, but Israel clearly wants to disincentivize future hostage taking by reducing that strategic leverage. They are still negotiating on a disproportional 1:3 basis, according to reports at the Jerusalem Post and other Israeli media, but even that’s limited to inmates arrested over less-serious charges. And even the 1:3 ratio is another retreat by Hamas, which had demanded thousands of prisoners exchanged for an estimated 133 hostages captured on October 7.

"The change in direction comes as no surprise. First off, Hamas has a history of attempting to game negotiations by making outrageous demands, followed by a fallback to somewhat less-outrageous terms. But in this case, Hamas has suffered real and significant losses in the last few days that threaten to undermine their already-tottering regime in Gaza. The IDF killed one of their top commanders of the October 7 massacre, they announced yesterday, among other notable advances: . . ."

“The results will be clear results,” Gallant vows. “We will end this campaign when Hamas does not function as a governing body and certainly not as a military framework… It will take time,” he says.

Time that the cowardly Democrats in the US will allow?

 

Sure he'll debate: Joe Biden tells us his accomplishments

  Mike McDaniel - American Thinker   . . ."Americans can’t afford groceries or gas, new cars, new homes, or pretty much anything else, but Joe “cracked down on junk fees?”

Did you know we have an American Climate Corps? Do they create one or what? Do they have uniforms? Do you care?

Wow. Look at those improvements in airports, high-speed Internet, clean water and reliable transit and rail! Does anyone have a clue what they are? Joe also spent $7.5 billion to build one electric vehicle charging station. In Ohio. There was an economic recovery? In what country?

Reproductive Health Care: what?

Did you know we have a White Office Office Of Gun Violence Prevention? The first in history? What did it prevent? In which alternate reality? Oh, and we have executive actions to keep guns “out of dangerous hands.” Unfortunately, Joe thinks that means honest, law-abiding Americans. . . .

. . ."Wait a minute. Didn’t the Supreme Court rule Joe didn’t have the power to cancel student loans? Not even through “various actions?” Can anyone produce a single American who thinks their college bills were more affordable last year?

He strengthened democracy at home and abroad? Oh, that’s why our allies won’t help us secure the Red Sea, or pretty much anything else.  And there’s nothing like speaking out “against discrimination, racism, anti-LGBTQI+ hate" for democracy strengthening.  

"Highly qualified judges? Like whashername on the Supreme Court? The one who doesn’t know what a woman is? And what is AANHPI and how does it apply to judges? Sounds like a deadly lung disease.  "I'm sorry Mr. Smith; it's...AANHPI." Oh. It’s “Asian American Native Hawaiian Pacific Islander.” Were any of those AANHPILGBTQI+? Wouldn’t they be the very most qualified? Why don’t we have any of those?

"I’m really looking forward to the presidential debates this year. Just kidding. There aren’t going to be any.  Can you imagine how impaired Biden is going to be by October? It would be the first Weekend at Bernie's debate.

"The only good thing to come of this is we’re going to have a definitive answer to this vital question: what happens to America and the world when the POTUS is a demented, perverted, compromised agent of foreign powers?

"They’ll make up fake positives about that too." . . .

Joe Biden kicks off 'one more great year in the books' - American Thinker

. . ."Most Americans have concluded otherwise, months ago, with Biden's previous policy failures. Cumulatively, they have been moving away from Biden in a dynamic that builds upon itself. One key inflection point in many public approval polls was reached around the time of Biden's chaotic pullout in Afghanistan -- when his public approval ratings started to move downward. And sure enough, at that time he was denying anything was wrong then." . . .

The ‘Two-State Solution’ Echoes Hitler’s ‘Final Solution’ -

 

“Some say that anti-Zionism isn’t tantamount to antisemitism,” Joshua Muravchik recently wrote. “If so, it’s worse … Anti-Zionism can only mean the destruction of Israel … some seven million Jews.”

The American Spectator | USA News and Politics  "Israel is fighting our fight.

For civilization.

"Against the barbarians.

"Yet — Biden/Harris, Antony Blinken, Jake Sullivan, Lloyd Austin, Senate/House Democrats publicly urge Israel to ramp down, even stop its military in Gaza. Imagine FDR in newspapers (read by the Nazis) — scolding Churchill — “Not victory, Winston, it’s stalemate, stupid!”

"Consequently, as Israel modifies (the U.N. will condemn Israel anyway), IDF casualties mount, and the war is prolonged. IDF reservists include teachers, professors, doctors, lawyers, engineers, scientists, artists, musicians, chefs, store owners, and more. Should they die to placate the intellectual frauds who dominate our schools and universities? DEI ideology: its Jew-hating coalition discards reality; Iran and its proxy Hamas are hardly bastions of women’s rights, gay rights, the environment. 

"Palestinian genocide? Gaza’s population has grown exponentially. The Hamas playbook, not Israel, puts noncombatants in harm’s way. Note: The number of Arabs killed by Israel in all wars and conflicts since its founding in 1948 is dwarfed by the number of Arabs killed by Arabs. No outrage or demonstrations. Akin to BLM’s indifference to black-on-black murder. (Does anyone care, for example, about how many Christians have been killed by Islamists in Africa? The Vatican reported that 52,250 Christians have been murdered by Islamists over 14 years in Nigeria alone.)

"Especially in the Middle East, Bad Guys respect strength. Biden, after the Afghanistan fiasco, is perceived as weak. His policies enrich Iran: higher oil prices, relaxed sanctions, billions released. Is Biden’s team of Obama holdovers arguably traitorous? (One outed so far). The good news is most are just stupid!

"Biden’s patron Obama was obsessed with Muslim outreach; Obama’s deep proximity to his spiritual guru, America/white/Jew-hating Rev. Jeremiah Wright, was not incidental. Anti-Zionists claim Jews used the Holocaust to justify stealing Arab land. Obama obliged, publicly basing Israel’s existence on the Holocaust, yet Zionism predated it. In effect, Obama deprecated the historic claim of Jews to their ancestral land.". . .

In his first trip abroad as president — the apology tour — Obama groveled to ingratiate himself with “Islam.” He then promoted Iranian regional hegemony. He sidestepped Senate approval for his Iranian deal to slow-walk, rather than to end, Iran’s nuclear program, now more dispersed, harder to degrade. Iran’s stated purpose remains to annihilate Israel, the nuclear fallout contaminating neighboring Muslims callously incidental. 

Newsom’s California: Latest Evidence of a Death Spiral

The American Spectator | USA News and Politics

A new wave of regulations and wage mandates degrade a state that once epitomized the American dream.

. . ."Newsom noted that the state is home to 500,000 fast-food workers who seek better pay, but we’ll need to adjust that number downward a bit. After Christmas, Pizza Hut disclosed to the state’s Employment Development Department (you know, the same agency that paid out as much as $32 billion in fraudulent unemployment claims) that it was laying off all 1,200 of its stores’ delivery drivers.

"That looks like fewer fathers or mothers who can feed their children or put our state’s overpriced gas in their car. That $4-an-hour wage boost sounds good on paper, but not it if means fewer jobs. Who couldn’t see this one coming? As I wrote in the Orange County Register in November: “The unions are claiming a victory for workers, but it’s not hard to guess the result. Higher prices will mean fewer customers and reduced profits. That means fewer restaurants and fewer jobs.”

"Pizza Hut will let third-party delivery services, such as Grub Hub, handle deliveries, but this won’t be the last announcement of fast-food layoffs. In many cases, the jobs will simply dry up as individual franchises reduce shifts, curtail hiring, and shift to automatic kiosks as customers cut back on their restaurant outings. The law doesn’t target mom-and-pop restaurants, but they’ll face wage pressure as they compete for workers who can (theoretically) earn more at national chains.

"None of this will stop Newsom from touting his record of helping low-wage workers. “We’re making it known that the health and wellbeing of workers and their families is of the utmost importance for California’s future,” the governor noted in October when he signed Senate Bill 616, which expands the number of paid sick days (from three to five) that California’s private employers must pay. It also imposes new reporting and regulatory requirements.

"The California Chamber of Commerce is concerned that “far too many small employers simply cannot absorb this new cost, especially when viewed in context of all of California’s other leaves and paid benefits, and they will have to reduce jobs, cut wages, or raise consumer prices to deal with this mandate.” The group warns about the law’s impact on California’s “long-term competitiveness,” but few in the Capitol listen to mere employers." . . .    

Douglas Murray’s spectacular tirade against Palestine supporters

Douglas Murray’s spectacular tirade against Palestine supporters

Why Is Everything So Stupid?

The domination of the stupid in the public square is endlessly annoying, so I only scan what appears before my eyes courtesy of the AI bot who believes I must be re-educated.

 By Elizabeth Nickson (substack.com)   "It is impossible to estimate the opportunity cost of the climate scam, but it is in the quadrillions. Think of all you could have done in the last decades were your family income quadrupled. It should have been. We should be dancing in the stars, the real ones, not among the ghastly baboons of Hollywood. You can always tell an elite scam by the fact that it guts the lower 50%, as it is doing in the demented Dominion where people are actually going without food because of brutal carbon taxes levied all along the food chain. Two million of us are using food banks, 7%, this in the richest country in the world, given our massive resources, our expensively, meticulously educated populace.

"The stupidity of gutting the lower 50% is mindblowing, since all prosperity and peace rests upon people thriving and rising. It was the secret of the past three hundred years. Now reversed. Now going into reversal. In Canada, where the climate scam is most advanced (barring Africa), our GDP is crashing hard - 4.4% in the last three months. Will it pull up? Or will it be annualized to 6%, more? Our media is so dishonest it doesn’t report. In any case, no one under 40, reads or watches the news.

"“If you are under 40, in 2023, it has to be a medical condition that your IQ is low enough that you still watch the news. It’s one hour of propaganda in order to program.”. . . 

Destroying democracy to save it: Maine shows the danger of zealots in our legal system

 Some of these advocates exhibit precisely that zealotry of someone who seems to understand little beyond the next election, as opposed to the next generation.

Jonathan Turley; The Hill    “You had me at hello.” That line from the movie “Jerry Maguire” came to mind this week after yet another Democratic secretary of state moved to prevent citizens from voting for former president Donald Trump.

"Maine’s Shenna Bellows issued a “decision” that declared Trump an “insurrectionist” and ineligible to be president. She joined an ignoble list of Democratic officials in states such as Colorado who claim to safeguard democracy by denying its exercise to millions of Americans.

"Yet the most striking aspect of this poorly crafted decision was not its litany of conclusory findings, but rather Bellow’s implausible suggestion that she struggled over the decision. Bellows was a natural choice for challengers, who have been searching for any officials or courts willing to embrace this dangerous theory under the Fourteenth Amendment that they can unilaterally bar candidates deemed rebellious or insurrectionalist.

"Challengers knew that they had Bellows at hello. She was one of the first officials to declare the Jan. 6 riot to be an “insurrection” prompted by Trump’s speech.

"Bellows previously declared that “the Jan. 6 insurrection was an unlawful attempt to overthrow the results of a free and fair election…The insurrectionists failed, and democracy prevailed.” A year after the riot, Bellows was still denouncing the “violent insurrection.”

"Of course, in the 1996 movie, Jerry Maguire reminded Dorothy that ” we live in a cynical world — a cynical, cynical world — and we work in a business of tough competitors.” However,  he added “you complete me.”

"In our cynical politics, Bellows and Colorado Secretary of State Jena Griswold, among others, have become wildly popular for seeking to complete the effort to defeat Trump by removing him from the ballot. This cynicism is captured in statements from pundits who warn that Democrats can no longer rely on the election process, given Trump’s soaring popularity."