Haley Strack; National Review"Hamas captured more than 240 hostages in its October 7 attack, which killed 1,200 Israelis. An estimated 136 captives reportedly remain in Gaza and of those, the Israeli military has declared at least 31 of them dead, according to intelligence leaked to the New York Times.
"An additional 20 hostages also may have been killed in captivity.
"The Israeli military is “deploying all available resources to locate and retrieve as much information as possible regarding the hostages currently held by Hamas,” a spokesman told the Times. Israeli Defense Forces notified the families of the hostages this week.
"U.S. secretary of state Antony Blinken arrived in Cairo on Tuesday to negotiate the possibility of a cease-fire deal with Egyptian officials that could prompt the release of the rest of the hostages.
"Although “efforts to free the hostages are continuing at all times,” Israel will not “agree to every deal, and not at any price,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said. Hamas demands the withdrawal of Israeli troops from Gaza in exchange for the freed hostages and has pressed Israel to release thousands of Palestinian prisoners in exchange for the Israeli civilians. Netanyahu has stressed repeatedly that Israel’s goal is to wipe out Hamas.
" 'We will not end the war before we complete all of its goals: the elimination of Hamas, the return of all our hostages, and ensuring that Gaza will no longer pose a threat to Israel,” Netanyahu said this week.
“ 'There are those who say ‘yes’ to everything in places where you must say ‘no.’ They receive applause from the international community but endanger our national security,” Netanyahu said. “And there are those who say ‘no’ to everything, receive applause at home, but they also endanger vital interests.”
HALEY STRACK is a William F. Buckley Fellow in Political Journalism and a recent graduate of Hillsdale College.
Biden will lie while looking directly into the camera lens, figuring that people would never expect such in-your-face dishonesty coming from the highest elected official in the country. Generally speaking, most people are not skilled liars. It takes years of political chicanery to become masters of deceit.
Bob Weir - American Thinker"We the people of these United States have been thrust into a nightmare scenario as we go through, arguably, the strangest era in our history. When President Trump was in office, he opened the oil spigot and soon made the U.S. energy independent. Under Trump’s leadership, in 2018, the U.S. surpassed Russia and Saudi Arabia to become the world’s largest producer of crude oil. The move alone helped spur the economy and lower prices on just about everything we use. Biden immediately turned off that spigot, resulting in high inflation and more dependence on foreign oil. And that was just the beginning of Biden’s assault on the U.S., including opening our southern border to millions of illegal aliens, as he used executive orders to reverse everything Trump did to make our country greater.
"The invasion of our border by scores of foreign countries is nothing short of a declaration of war! Yet, instead of using our military to fight off the invasion, Biden lies to us about the border’s security while using our military to protect Ukraine’s border. It’s become evident that the left is willing to use any means necessary to weaken our country. Voters in the 2024 general election should keep in mind the question: are we better off now than we were four years ago? No sensible person could answer that question in the affirmative. As much as I hate to admit it, the left, with its nefarious allies in the MSM and the total corruption of the “justice system,” is winning the war with propaganda." . . .
As the Oct 7 Hamas massacre has shown us, a large portion of the American population is more than a little susceptible to propaganda, no matter how reprehensible the source. TD
The motive for the removals is obvious, however at least one board member claimed the holidays were simply axed to shorten the school year which currently extends into mid-June. If so, why were these two days removed and no other holidays? After all, PRIDE! month is celebrated, even if there is no single day off. And the schools are closed on Indigenous People’s Day, Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, Yom Kippur, Election Day, Eid al-Fitr, Eid al-Adha, and “Juneteenth.” Incredible. Maybe cut out a couple of them? Of course not.
(And Election Day isn’t a “day” anymore. It goes on and on for months, via mail-in balloting, until the Democrat party candidate has enough votes to win.)
Meanwhile, at Brookfield High School, oddly enough also in Connecticut, a newly installed tampon dispenser in a boy's bathroom was torn off the wall just 20 minutes after it was installed.
This prompted Marc Balanda, the school’s principal, to write an email to the school stating, "I am aware that the law says ‘men’s bathroom’ but the actions today that led to vandalism and destruction of property were the work of immature boys, not men.” So boys aren’t men but girls can be?! Wow.
In nearby New York City, a mayoral commission voted to remove a statue of Thomas Jefferson from City Hall, where it’s resided for almost two hundred years ... because he owned slaves.
Those members of Gen Z who are marching for Hamas or telling pollsters they oppose Israel are driven by a variety of motives. For many, old-fashioned ignorance or personal factors such as a desire to join a popular cause may determine whether they march against Israel, as their predecessors marched for isolationism in the 1930s.
. . ."Does that mean all Gen Zers were pro-Israel when the left-of-center Yair Lapid was prime minister fourteen months ago? Hardly. The real reason for hostility toward Israel among that age bracket is their ignorance of the history and facts of the Arab-Israeli conflict, not the specific policies of a particular prime minister. Israel is not to blame if many young people choose to base their views on misleading Instagram photos, biased college professors, and radical ideologies that falsely paint Israel as a “white supremacist” state.
"Nor is ignorance about foreign affairs among the younger generation a new problem in America. President Franklin D. Roosevelt was bothered by it, too.
"In the 1930s, polls found that 63% of college students favored unilateral American disarmament, and many thousands of them signed a public pledge declaring, “We will not support the U.S. government in any war it may conduct.”
"They couldn’t be bothered to read up on what was happening in Nazi Germany and the threat Hitler posed to world peace. They were worried about being drafted. They preferred sweet fantasies of peace to the reality of a world headed for war. And some just wanted to mimic “what the cool kids were doing”—they saw that many British university students were signing the Oxford Pledge, vowing that “under no circumstances” would they “fight for [their] king and country.”
"In 1934, 25,000 American college students took part in a one-hour walkout from classes to demonstrate their opposition to U.S. involvement in any war. The strike mushroomed to 175,000 participants in 1935, then 500,000 in 1936— nearly half the national college student population.
"The student antiwar movement began to crack when communist-aligned students changed their position—again and again—not as a result of studying the facts but out of obedience to their party. For them, ignorance was indeed bliss.
"In the early 1930s, the Soviet Union preferred that America keep out of European affairs, so their followers on U.S. college campuses promoted the antiwar strike. But when the Spanish Civil War erupted in 1936, and the Kremlin-backed Spain’s leftwing government, its campus sympathizers suddenly dropped their calls for American isolationism. Then when the Soviets signed their nonaggression pact with Nazi Germany three years later, their followers all went back to urging America to stay out of Europe’s conflicts." . . .
. . ."While she was allegedly fired for her cultural and religious beliefs, Carano argues that the entertainment giant turned a blind eye to her male costars, who allegedly made offensive and denigrating posts directed towards Republicans. She points to Pedro Pascal’s 2017 post comparing former president Donald Trump to Hitler."
"In an escalation of a standoff over her firing in The Mandalorian, Gina Carano is suing Disney and Lucasfilm for discrimination and wrongful termination in a lawsuit that opens another front in the battlefield for influence over Hollywood that has drawn in corporate America.
"Carano, in a complaint filed on Tuesday in California federal court, alleges she was fired for voicing right-wing opinions on social media and seeks a court order that would force Lucasfilm to recast her. Elon Musk, making good on a promise to foot the legal bill for users who claim they have been discriminated against due to their activity on his platform, is helping fund the suit through X.
. . ."Lucasfilm in 2021 announced that Carano will not be returning to the hit series after sharing a post in which she said “most people today don’t realize that to get to the point where Naxi soldiers could easily round up thousands of Jews, the government first made their own neighbors hate them simply for being Jews. How is that any different from hating someone for their political views?” . . .
On X funding the suit, Carano added, “I am honored that my case has been chosen to be supported by the company that has been one of the last glimmers of hope for free speech in the world.”
Monica Showalter
- American Thinker "Singer-songwriter Tracy Chapman has already made her feelings known about wokester whining regarding a white country-music singer who licensed her 'Fast Car' song and got a hit out of it, but over at the Grammys, she really made her point clear -- by coming out of 20 years retirement and singing a duet with the same country music star, Luke Combs, that had the Grammy audience bawling and on their feet.
"It was a class act all around, which is not something you expect much of at the Grammys anymore:
Award shows are tedious and crass, but the smile on Tracy Chapman’s face when the auditorium goes nuts for her before she takes everyone to school with no lip sync, no auto-tune and no in-ear monitors is a pretty sweet moment to capture live. pic.twitter.com/YZGbWgMmHJ
"Because, well, she's brimming with merit and talent and brilliance, and she never insults her audience. Yes, her politics are probably progressive, based on some of her song topics and lyrics, but they are always personal, and she never throws her politics in people's faces. She's first and foremost an artist. So, her music appeals to 100% of her potential audience, not 50% as the loud wokester musicians like to do to themselves, shutting out half their potential buying audience by yelling about MAGA or whatever. Chapman doesn't do that -- she lets her beautiful music speak for itself as befits a true artist.
"That's why she's number one -- and every woke Hollywood loudmouth ought to take notice."
A female reservist for the Israel Defence Forces who prepared the bodies of the female victims of the 7 October attacks has told Sky News some of the corpses showed evidence of sexual assault.
Shari Mendes said some women had been repeatedly shot in the face and genitals.
Hamas has denied claims its members abused or sexually tortured female victims.
They have been living on foreign and Israeli aid. They were given the chance to build up a social and economically safe society. October 7th however showed what they really and foremost wanted. Ever since, I reject calling them Palestines. Gazanese it is, and they are far from innocent, far from victims, far from poor. They chose to be what they are and given the freedom, they will choose the same again. My heart goes out to all Israelis.
Nili Margalit is interviewed about her time as a hostage:
"A nurse held in Hamas captivity for nearly two months warned Israel’s leaders that remaining hostages, many with serious health issues, are facing dire conditions and “living on borrowed time.” In a letter to the war cabinet leaked to Hebrew-language media, Nili Margalit said captives are suffering from heart problems, renal failure, and Parkinson’s disease, without proper medical care or sanitation." . . .
Israelis, this should be a message to you. Fight to the death. Do not allow yourselves to be taken prisoner. If you die in combat, at least it will be a quick death as opposed to a long torture-filled gantlet ending in death at the hands of Satan's demons in human form. That goes particularly for Israeli women." Comment from Mac
The statements about “inclusivity” are rather interesting considering in September, Oberlin demoted their then-women’s lacrosse coach, Kim Russell, to what was essentially a desk job as an Employee Wellness Project Manager, all for the crime of publicly defending herself after stating she believed women’s sports shouldn’t be opened up to men who identify as women.
“This award comes with a great sense of pride. It also comes with a great sense of responsibility. We cannot become complacent. We must constantly commit ourselves to maintaining and improving inclusivity on our campus.”
Does this woman actually believe what she is saying?
"In their write-up as to why they chose Oberlin for the distinction, the NCAA specifically cited their stated commitment to DEI:
Diversity, equity and inclusion is at the forefront of Oberlin’s mission. The school’s expansive efforts supporting LGBTQ student-athletes and staff include required education, physical and financial resources, campus and community partnerships, and panel discussions. […]
. . .Among Oberlin’s inclusion efforts are requiring staff and student-athletes to complete microaggression, pronoun and allyship trainings. The school has also hosted Pride-themed basketball games and 5K races to raise money for The Trevor Project, a nonprofit organization focused on suicide prevention efforts among LGBTQ youth. OneTeam trainings have been offered to anyone in the athletics department, as well. The school is mindful of pronouns for all staff and student-athletes, maintaining a master list with those details to use in any print or digital materials. Transgender athletes have also been brought to campus to speak to student-athletes and staff. In 2018, Oberlin dedicated a locker room to be an all-gender changing space for transgender student-athletes and community members. In 2023, Oberlin student-athletes started a Queer Student Athlete Group to create a safe space for queer athletes to feel heard, represented and appreciated.
"Their athletic director, Natalie Winkelfoos, declared in her video acceptance speech that “This award comes with a great sense of pride.”
That's enough. We've used all the WOKE phrases speeches like this require. TD
"I suspect that Hamas can’t seriously negotiate releasing the rest of the hostages because they have raped and murdered most of them. They are trying to get whatever concessions they can before the truth is revealed. My heart goes out to the friends and relatives of those who were killed and taken hostage. Never again! That means eliminating all the Hamas terrorists and their entire infrastructure." OldProf2
"The Israeli military is gearing up to dismantle the terrorist infrastructure along Gaza’s southern border with Egypt as it wraps up the offensive in the Hamas stronghold of Khan Younis, Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant announced Friday.
"The defense minister assured that “we are completing the mission in Khan Younis and we will also reach Rafah and eliminate everyone there who is a terrorist who is trying to harm us.” The Egyptian border, particularly the area around Rafah Border Crossing, is a major weapons supply line and terrorist escape route for Hamas in Gaza.
"Rafah, the southernmost part of the Gaza, is infested with underground terror tunnels leading into Egypt. According to an October 2023 report by the DC-based think tank Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD), the “tunnels to Egypt played key Role in arming Hamas.”
"With the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) tightening the noose around Hamas’s terrorist leadership and jihadi fighters running out of arms and ammunition, the closing of the terrorist supply lines through Rafah is a key Israeli military objective." . . .
Dramatic Operation On Camera. Many comments must come from pro-Hamas people. For you, I will try to publish items containing Mothers, fathers and their families being burned alive andmachine-gunned. One you may like is a teenage boy coming home and Hamas killing him, showing a large puddle of blood coming from his head.
For other requests, I refer you to your Congressional representative, Tlaib, at right, your people's choice.
"Hannah Ritchie, a data scientist at the University of Oxford, claims that doomsday warnings of floods, widespread famine and deaths from disasters are overshadowing the progress that has been quietly made in recent years.
"She pointed out how emissions per person peaked in 2012 and remained the same since, along with the notion that organic food is not more climate-friendly and that the dreaded 2.7F of warming is not a tipping point into oblivion
"Ritchie, who published the book 'Not the End of the World,' recently shared the seven key points that led her to change her position on the climate crisis." . . .
3. Humans have overcome environmental crisis
"The world was faced with a near global catastrophe starting in the 1980s when British meteorologist Jonathan Shanklin discovered a hole in the ozone layer.
"The hole – which hit the global headlines – was created by the release of human-made chemicals, particularly CFCs (chlorofluorocarbons), into the atmosphere.
"This discovery led to the Montreal Protocol, an international agreement to halt the production of CFCs, signed in December 1987, and mend the hole.
"However, scientists' alarm was first dismissed by government officials who downplayed the ozone layer issue.
"But eventually, world leaders came together to form the Montreal Protocol, an international agreement to halt the production of CFCs, which was signed in December 1987." . . .
So was it unnecessary to be afraid? Or was it because we were afraid we solved the problem? TD
Kevin Jackson, 2024 The Black Sphere. . ."I mentioned this a while back, as I explain that the Left’s incessant attacks on Trump actually hurt Democrats with the black vote. I wrote:
Their targeting of Trump provided a wake-up call to blacks. No longer were black people the only victims of profiling and discrimination. Blacks discovered that former ex-president billionaire Republicans suffer the same fate of the oppressed Negro. Yes, Democrats actually exposed the game. They target and oppress anybody who won’t further the narrative set by the Party of Oppression.
"The video by Newsmax has gone viral. But it will have much farther reach, particularly now that Trump himself is promoting it." . . .
"The 2024 election cycle is heating up as it becomes increasingly clear that the nation will once again be choosing between President Joe Bidenand former PresidentDonald Trumpin the race for the White House. Of particular interest this season is the declining support for Biden among Black voters, a critical constituency that helped him win in 2020.
"Currentpollingshows that while Biden still enjoys considerable support among Black voters overall, with 73 percent preferring him over Trump, his backing drops significantly among Black voters under 34—to just 60 percent. Interestingly enough, 28 percent of this group support Trump.
"Given the reality that Black Americans have supportedDemocratsat percentages exceeding 90 percent in days past, it is clear this new trend has placed quite an obstacle in the president's path to reelection.
"The obvious question is: Why is this happening?
"For starters, the Biden administration has largely neglected Black voters' concerns since taking office in 2021. Yet Biden has championed other groups of Americans, such as migrants and the LGBTQ community. Indeed, evenUkraineseems to get more attention from the Biden administration than African Americans
"The president has essentially signaled that he cares more for the plight of people in foreign countries than addressing domestic issues that affect the Black community." . . .
Light A Candle commented: "He’s not exaggerating. Here are major areas where the majority of Black Americans differ from white Democrats:"
Funded policing, per Gallup “Black Americans Want Police to Retain Local Presence“, “Seventy-nine percent of those who have had an interaction with the police in the past 12 months say they want the police to spend more or the same amount of time in their neighborhood”.
Immigration, per Gallup: 84% of Black Americans favor “Tightening security at U.S. borders” and 82% favor “Requiring business owners to check the immigration status of workers they hire”.
School Choice, per Harvard EdNext: “School choice divides the Democratic Party along racial and ethnic lines. African American Democrats support targeted school vouchers, universal vouchers, and charter schools at 70%, 60%, and 55%, respectively.”
Affirmative Action, per Pew, less than half of Black Americans approve of AA in college admissions. The only demographic approving in the majority are white Democrats. In addition, more Black Americans feel AA has ultimately disadvantaged them personally than has helped them. And 28% percent (!) of Black American adults feel they have personally unfairly benefited from AA.
Voter ID, Rasmussen Reports found 69% of Black Americans support it.
. . ."I thought of The Arsonists this week when I heard snippets of a podcast interview featuring former president Barack Obama on the Middle East. "Nobody's hands are clean," Obama said. "All of us are complicit." Nah, man. Not all of us are complicit. It's just you."
. . ."It's you, because you're the one who gave that stentorian speech about red lines in Syria and then sat by and did nothing as those red lines were crossed and Assad continued to slaughter his own people, allowing the Iranians and the Russians to creep in and fill the vacuum left by your devastating lack of leadership.
"I, Me, Mine"
"It's you, because you're the one who came up with the idea of empowering Iran, the world's premiere exporter of terrorism, Holocaust denial, and chaos, all the while telling the American people you were merely trying to stop Teheran from getting a nuclear bomb. Billions of dollars and thousands of dead later, we can all see how well this idea—which you, with the eloquence only a professor could muster, called "regional integration"—is working.
"It's you, because you're the one who delivered a parting gift to the region, ending your final term as president by reversing four decades of American bipartisan support of Israel and abstaining from a U.N. vote condemning Israeli settlements, while funneling $400 million in annual payments to the despotic Palestinian Authority, which then promptly used this money to fund its pay-for-slay program, doling out large cash payments to any Palestinian who murdered Jews.
"So, please, Mr. President: Spare us your opinions.". . .
"Only a mind gripped by the erotic pull of theory would look at the 2009 demonstrations in Iran—the so-called Green Revolution—and decide that America ought to side not with the huddled masses yearning to breathe free but with their jailers, the murderous mullahs who beat women to death for not wearing proper head coverings, execute gays, and kidnap Americans for ransom like common criminals."
Do Obama’s obsessions explain Biden’s Iran appeasement? - JNS.org ..."Washington is claiming that the ransom payment will help ease tensions with Iran and perhaps lead to what may be an informal agreement that will help revive former President Barack Obama’s 2015 nuclear deal. But the Iranians, as they have consistently done with the last two Democratic presidents, are playing hard to get. The Islamist government is representing the deal as another example of its skill in manipulating its Western enemies. It also sends a message to the protest movement that has been clamoring for democracy and women’s rights for the last year, that—just as Obama did in 2009 during similar Iranian anti-regime protests that were also violently repressed—the United States has no interest in supporting them.". . .
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