When Seconds Count, the Police Are Only Minutes Away

 The American Spectator | USA News and Politics   "My grandmother’s grandmother, Martha Heard, was by all accounts a formidable woman. During the lawless period after the Civil War, a gang of rowdies turned up at Grandma Heard’s door. Knowing that her husband was away on business, they’d decided to help themselves to a store of good tobacco he was known to keep. “Miz Heard,” they shouted, “we want to try some of your husband’s tobacco, you bring it out here or we’ll have to come get it.” Grandma told her children to hide, then took a shotgun from its place by the front door and stepped out on the porch to confront the men. Aiming the shotgun at the loudmouth leader, she told them to leave. He scoffed and said, “There’s just one of you and one gun, you can’t shoot us all.” To which she replied, “That may be, but it’s you I’m aiming at.” Her resolution, and the big shotgun won the day. “Let’s go somewhere else, boys,” said the leader. “I know her and she’ll do it.”

"I’ve been thinking a lot about Grandma Heard lately, as I read more and more articles chronicling the precipitous decline in police response times. In Portland, Oregon, where support for the police tanked at the height of the “defund the police” movement, overall response times more than doubled between 2016 and 2022, from an average of 8.1 minutes to an average of 16.4.  Since 2022, and despite belated efforts to hire more officers, response times in Portland remained stagnant, creating what some described as a “public safety crisis.” The situation in Oakland, California has been recently described as “abysmal,” with response times to high-priority violent crimes increased by more than 50 percent between 2018 and 2022, with no improvement in sight. " . . .

In their rush to support Hamas, leftists expose the sociopathy behind their politics

Andrea Widburg - American Thinker

Hamas’s sadistic attack has had the virtue of revealing to many on the left (especially Jews) that they have been part of a sociopathic cult. Maybe it will bestir some of them to leave that cult and embrace truth and objective virtue.

"There’s a saying that hypocrisy is the tribute that vice pays to virtue. In other words, a hypocrite knows that virtuous principles have value, so he hides behind virtuous words even as he engages in contrary behavior. But what do you call it when people boldly abandon their principles out of political opportunism? I call that cultural and political sociopathy. Hamas’s sadistic raid on Israel has exposed to many people the sociopathy that guides the Democrat party and its fellow travelers on the left.

"Writing on X, Robert Sterling assembled an incredible laundry list of the rules that leftists have insisted that Americans must live by. At least since 2020, and in many cases years or even decades earlier, these are the rules controlling college and university campuses, media outlets, and political elections. However, on October 7, 2023, when Hamas attacked Israel, the rules changed, big time." . . .

It’s been amazing this week to watch the left invert every rhetorical device they’ve used since 2020, all to avoid having to criticize terrorists dedicated to Jewish genocide. It would be hilarious, if it weren’t so reprehensible.

2020: Silence is violence.

2023: People can’t…

— Robert Sterling (@RobertMSterling) October 14, 2023

Alex Marlow: Joe Biden Bears Responsibility for Hamas’s Terror Attack on Israelis (breitbart.com)   . . . [Biden's] Afghanistan withdrawal strategy lead to chaos, horror, and death – including for children and American servicemen. His Ukraine/Russia policy undoubtedly played a major role in Putin’s decision to invade. China has routinely humiliated the U.S. on the world stage. Biden is more responsible than any single person for the humanitarian crisis at the U.S./Mexico border. His efforts to keep America’s Southern border opens confirms that, stunningly, national security is simply not a priority for the U.S. President.

So, yeah, he’s wrong on every major foreign policy decision.

He staffed his foreign policy machine with grifters, dissemblers, and ideologues. Those who didn’t spend the Trump years hawking their services to the highest bidder were perched at think tanks, where they were no less at the mercy of foreign interests. Just last week, the Pentagon announced a probe into a Biden appointee over her cozy relationship with Iranian officials while promoting the nuclear deal as a scholarly “expert.”

Once in power, these phony “experts” have rarely even hinted at progress toward Middle East peace of any kind.

In fact, the region has been markedly more chaotic than the relative calm of the Trump years.

 

Once, the Cousin of Daniel Pearl Was a Peace Advocate: Read His Powerful Story of Confronting Darkness

And it seems Mr. Benjamin isn't the only one who sees through the propaganda to the reality. As Nick Arama informed us only this morning, none other than Senator Chuck Schumer, he of threatening the Supreme Court fame, got a taste of his own medicine, and maybe a little reality check of his own. And Bonchie tells us how some pro-Hamas students may find their prospects dimmed when their support for horror comes to light -- and that's good. 

 RedState   "His reality check didn't happen overnight, though; it began 10 years ago, he wrote.

In March 2003, I turned 13 and celebrated my bar mitzvah in Walnut Creek, California. By Jewish tradition, I became a man. But the ceremony felt redundant; I had already grown up. Only one year earlier, my older cousin, Daniel Pearl, an investigative journalist for The Wall Street Journal, was kidnapped and beheaded by Islamist jihadis while on assignment in Pakistan.

His killers, like the Hamas killers of last weekend, proudly released a video documenting Danny’s murder. Among Danny’s last words were, “My father is Jewish. My mother is Jewish. I am Jewish.” At first, I was in shock—how had my own cousin become a player in such a large international nightmare? Why did people get murdered simply for being who they are? In this case, for being Jewish?

"Here, even at 13, Mr. Benjamin was doing what so few people today seem to do; that is, to question their own assumptions and biases. That was the beginning.

When I immigrated to Israel at the age of 18 and enlisted in the Israel Defense Forces, I was still driven by ideals. I thought I could promote more goodwill with our Palestinian neighbors. Serving in a combat unit based on the Gaza border, I witnessed the release of the kidnapped Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit, held for five years by Hamas, when his freedom was exchanged for more than 1,000 Palestinian prisoners. One for 1,000. Despite my many criticisms of the Israeli government, I recognized then how much Israel valued the life of every soldier.

Thus, the Gaza attack can be traced to Tehran’s panic over progress made between Israel and Saudi Arabia on a “normalization” agreement.

"And what is very sad, as the U.S. Secretary of State, Antony J. Blinken has revealed, a Holocaust survivor in a wheelchair was dragged into Gaza and was taken hostage. Thus, on these days we are with Israel. Solidarity with Israel, we are all Jews!"  Dimitris Eleas

The real problem is Iran - American Thinker  “Stand against Hamas’ terror or stand with them,” was the title of an article in New York Daily News a few days ago.

"It is exactly like this. It is not easy to understand what the people who govern Gaza really think. In the wake of Hamas's recent terror attack on Israel, it's clear that Hamas’ ultimate goal is to commit again a genocide against the Jewish people. It openly wants to do it, as is written in its founding documents.

"Hamas, unlike its secular rival, Fatah, has declared that Israel has no right to exist. And sadly, Israel did not see “the strategic meaning of the rhetoric of Hamas” said Shlomo Avineri, a former Israeli officer and political scientist. For Hamas “every civilian is a soldier; this was not rhetoric but identifying the vulnerability of the Israeli communities inside Israel,” he added.

"IDF, Mossad, and Shin Bet were focused on individual terrorism in the West Bank. And that was a fatal mistake. To gather intelligence is an art, but to gather intelligence from the Arabs is on another level. What come to my mind on this are some words by a Greek-French philosopher: "[The Arabs] present themselves as History’s eternal victims" (Cornelius Castoriadis, 1991). 

"We need somehow to look at history and a particular letter by Stuart Gottlieb – a professor who teaches at Columbia University – to the New York Times.

Re “The Yom Kippur War Led to Peace. This One Can, Too,” by Bret Stephens (column, Oct. 9):

"The 1973 Yom Kippur War led to peace because the parties involved recognized and accepted a new status quo in the Middle East. In 1967, Israel upended the status quo with a stunning military victory, including the seizure of the Sinai Peninsula from Egypt." . . . 

Cancel Culture Finally Comes for the Left, and I Can't Stop Laughing

Recall that Harvard rescinded its acceptance of Kyle Kashuv, a school shooting survivor because some vindictive person dug up and released years-old group chat messages in which he said some naughty words. But I'm supposed to care that Hamas apologists aren't getting hired? 

RedState   "Following the deadly invasion by Hamas terrorists that took the lives of at least 1,200 people in Israel, you'd think there would be no question who was at fault. You'd think that, but you'd be wrong. 

"As I wrote previously, all the geopolitical arguments in the world, right or wrong, do not excuse mass murder, including the massacring of children. When Hamas crossed the border and started indiscriminately killing people and taking hostages, there was no question that the gloves would have to come off. Complaints about settlements and the Al-Aqsa mosque became academic at that point. 

"Still, in the immediate aftermath of the attacks, some people actually came out in open support of Hamas' atrocities, justifying them and blaming Israel for the murder of its own people. Joint letters were put out by universities and protests were held with chants glorifying Hamas "martyrs." 

"Naturally, some companies decided that was a bridge too far and rescinded job offers to those who participated, and now the crying has begun. 

Ryna Workman had a job offer lined up when the New York University law student wrote a message to the university’s Student Bar Association saying Israel was solely to blame for the war with Hamas that has killed at least 1,300 people in Israel and more than 1,350 people in Gaza.

“Israel bears full responsibility for this tremendous loss of life,” Workman wrote. “This regime of state-sanctioned violence created the conditions that made resistance necessary. I will not condemn Palestinian resistance.”

But the post came with a consequence: Workman no longer has a job after law school. . . .

Full article. 

So-Called ‘Women’s Rights’ Organizations Utterly Silent about Hamas Raping and Murdering Women -

Are they leftists before they are women?

The Lid (lidblog.com)

"They claim to be “women’s rights” organizations, but so far, almost none of them have spoken out to oppose the rapes, murders, and kidnappings of Israeli women and girls.

"Gee, don’t you wonder why that might be?

"Is it because they are leftists before they are women?

"Per The Daily Caller:

"Several international women’s rights organizations have remained silent as terrorists killed and sexually assaulted numerous Israeli women in an attack over the weekend, according to a Daily Caller News Foundation review of their social media platforms and websites.

Hamas, a U.S.-designated Palestinian terrorist group, invaded Israel on the morning of October 7 and began executing and kidnapping Israeli men, women, children and the elderly, with thousands reported dead and injured.

Multiple outlets have reported that Hamas terrorists have been sexually assaulting women as they tried to escape from a music festival in Israel but international women’s groups have remained silent over the past few days despite the violence.

These fake women’s rights groups do not care about women.

They only care about their left-wing agenda.

To Save Gaza, Destroy Hamas

 The American Spectator | USA News and Politics 

Israel’s military response will not simply be mowing the grass. It will mean uprooting Gaza’s violent extremists and reseeding the lawn.

 "In the new Gaza War, it is vital to remember that Gaza is not the problem; terrorism is. 

"Israel’s war strategy must be focused on removing the root cause of the conflict. According to Palestinian radicals, American progressives, and other Zionophobes, the root cause is “occupation,” which can only be solved through “decolonization.” This is their standard talking point and all they want to talk about. But it’s hard to explain how decolonization includes butchering hundreds of unarmed young revelers at a love and peace music festival or any of the other atrocities perpetrated over the weekend.

"Plus, their rationale is factually and legally flawed. The Gaza border was established as part of the 1949 Egypt-Israel Armistice Agreement. The border is the same type of “green line” that defines other Palestinian territorial claims. The only way to argue that Israeli cities outside Gaza are “occupied territory” is if you believe that Israel has no right to exist at all. Conveniently, this is also the Hamas platform.

"Gaza was previously ruled by the Ottomans, the British, the Egyptians, and from 1967 to 2005 by Israel. It became a self-governing territory under the logic of land for peace. In 2005, Israel dismantled its settlements and withdrew from Gaza, leaving it to the Palestinians to order their own affairs. Optimistic peace proponents envisioned two countries side by side, self-governing and stable. Gaza was supposed to be the model of what was possible in a future two-state solution. 

"However, land for peace became land for war in the hands of Gaza’s terrorist overlords. Hamas seized control in Gaza in 2006 after an electoral victory over the rival Fatah faction and turned the strip into a launching pad for Iranian-made rockets and other nefarious activity." . . .

How Hard Is It to Condemn Atrocities?

 The American Spectator | USA News and Politics

American leftists’ response to the Hamas attacks offers insight into their worldview — something that few of us should quickly forget.

"SACRAMENTO — After Hamas terrorists murdered 260-plus mostly young people enjoying a “peace” concert near the Gaza border and slaughtered families in their homes, normal people were utterly outraged and sympathetic to the Israeli victims. Others — mostly university professors, progressive activists and “journalists,” and even some members of Congress — couldn’t bring themselves to condemn the violence. Some even excused it." . . .

. . ."Examples abound. Black Lives Matter Grassroots issued a statement that didn’t acknowledge the atrocities but instead called on readers to “understand the resistance in Palestine as an attempt to tear down the gates of the world’s largest open air prison.” In response to a post on X condemning violence against all civilians, Yale University professor Zareena Grewal responded: “Settlers are not civilians. This is not hard.” I’ve read pro-Palestinian tweeters who downplayed the concert attack because the attendees were “rave girls.”

"And many of us have read about the statement from the 33 Harvard University student groups stating that its signers “hold the Israeli regime entirely responsible for all unfolding violence.” Entirely responsible? Apparently, Palestinians have no control over their actions. That certainly makes one wonder what they’re teaching at one of the country’s premiere academic institutions." . . .

The woke left

Do we remember that in February the ridiculous Secretary of State Blinken bragged that not only had the Biden administration resumed massive aid to the corrupt PLA, canceled by Trump, but also cumulatively had transferred $1 billion—even as Palestinian authorities and Abbas bragged that they would continue to pay bounties to the families of “martyrs” (i.e., those killed while conducting terrorists attacks against Israel)? Victor Davis Hanson

 https://packaged-media.redd.it/v0ellbuctttb1/pb/m2-res_640p.mp4?m=DASHPlaylist.mpd&v=1&e=1697414400&s=b9b6227f5f1e35b3ecc4a2bcdf451dfcea5e36e4#t=0

 Time for Wokesters to Stick a Sock in It - American Thinker   "What exactly do I mean by “wokesters” -- what do they believe and why? Richard Samuelson in a brilliant essay analyzes their thinking and its genesis, and in so doing shows how their acts make them worthy of contempt.

In the wake of the barbaric attack on Israel, many Americans have been shocked, angered, and disgusted to see woke organizations express anything other than condemnation for Hamas. On campuses and in our communities, students and organizations like Black Lives Matter have expressed support for the butchers of Jews. Meanwhile, all too many campus leaders, formerly so quick to condemn even the hint of racism, can barely muster even weak condemnation of such savagery. Many Americans find themselves shaking their heads in dismay.

Where does this blindness come from? Why are so many people who think of themselves as crusaders for justice so misguided? . . .

ITEM 5: Biden gave Iran $6 billion.  ITEM 5: Biden gave Iran $6 billion. Trump took a contract out on the top Iranian general.  Guess which one NYT warned would start World War III.

John Cusack Whitewashes Hamas Terror Attack as Self-Defense After Talking to Palestinian Protesters in Chicago (breitbart.com)   "Left-wing actor John Cusack joined a pro-Palestinian march in Chicago and later vented his fury at what he sees as a peaceful people suffering under a “brutal occupation” from “invading” Israeli usurpers.". . .

"Cusack is known to maintain a constant stream of social media posts espousing communist, socialist, and far left, anti-American rhetoric.

"The actor was personally accused of racism in 2019 after sharing an antisemitic cartoon and quote and before finally apologizing, ultimately defending himself after a backlash, as Breitbart News reported."

Why do Harvard students support Hamas and blame Israel? (usatoday.com)   

More than 30 student groups at Harvard University signed on to a letter stating they 'hold the Israeli regime entirely responsible for all unfolding violence.'    

"It’s hard to wrap your mind around: The social justice warriors on college campuses around America have come out in support of terrorists who last weekend raped and murdered and beheaded innocent people (including children, women and the elderly) in Israel. 

"These are the same students who need safe spaces from those who may talk about race or gender in a way they find offensive, or who will shout down and demand the cancellation of speakers with whom they disagree.

"Yet, some of them seem perfectly OK with defending the atrocities committed when Hamas invaded Israel in a surprise attack in which the terrorists murdered at least 1,200 Israelis; 27 Americans also died and more than a dozen are missing." . . . 

The lesson is don't behead babies and expect support.

 But it was a mostly peaceful spree of rape, torture and burning babies alive. (Sounds like Ali Velshi from MSNBC)

Highlights of the week - Don Surber (substack.com)  " ITEM 1: The horrific attack on Israel by Palestine shocked the world. Suddenly Sarah Silverman and other celebrities no longer support anti-Semitic groups such as BLM.

"J.K Rowling tweeted, “We said ‘never again.’ The UK was a safe haven. Now, after the biggest massacre of Jews since the holocaust, British Jewish children are being advised to hide their identities as they walk to school, for their own safety. There should be mass outrage that this is necessary.”

"From my side of the pond, Brits worried too much about Bibi and too little about Corbyn. Virtue signaling made anti-Semitism popular again.

"But we must forgive these fools and move on to eliminating Black September, PLO, PLA, Hezbollah, Hamas, Hummus, or whatever Palestinians are calling their terrorist army these days. Level Gaza.

"Too harsh?

Ilhan Omar Wakes Up Early To See What Presents She Got For Global Day Of Jihad

  Babylon Bee

"WASHINGTON, D.C. — United States Representative Ilhan Omar woke up extra early Friday so she could rush downstairs to see what presents she got for the Global Day of Jihad before anyone else got up.

" 'Hurry up!" she called to her brother. "The Global Day of Jihad only comes once a year, sleepyhead!"

"Sources say the congresswoman was hoping for a good gift since she had been a good antisemite all year, and left out plenty of hummus for jolly old Durka Claus.

"To her delight, carefully nestled under her Palestinian flag were several presents wrapped in plain brown wrapping paper topped with red bows representing the blood of her enemies. She tore through them greedily, delighted to see that she had not been forgotten this October 13th.

" 'Wow! A real improvised explosive device! Gee, thanks, Durka Claus!" she shouted giddily. "This is the best Global Day of Jihad ever!"

"Later, fellow squad member Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez called Ilhan Omar in tears because she hadn't received any presents, only a threatening note admonishing her for being an infidel."

Probe of Burisma was active when Joe Biden forced prosecutor’s firing, Hunter's documents show |

  Just The News

Despite claims that the investigation into Burisma was "dormant" when Pres. Biden held up $1 billion loan to Ukraine and demanded that Ukrainian Prosecutor Shokin be fired, Hunter Biden’s own communications, committee documents, and his own business partner show otherwise. 

"E-mails obtained from Hunter Biden’s laptop, documents released recently by the House Ways and Means Committee, and Devon Archer’s testimony call into question a long-held narrative that a Ukrainian investigation into Burisma Holdings was “dormant” in fall 2015 when then-Vice President Joe Biden intervened to force the firing of Ukrainian Prosecutor General Viktor Shokin.

"In fact, the Ukrainian energy company was acutely concerned about Shokin’s investigation and wanted it closed, the memos show.

"A CNN fact-check parrotted the administration's narrative that “Shokin was not prosecuting Burisma,” after then-President Donald Trump made the claim during the 2020 election. “While there had been an investigation of the company, Shokin's former deputy, Vitaliy Kasko, has said that it was dormant at the time of Joe Biden's intervention,” CNN wrote.

"But documents from Hunter Biden laptop released by a Congressional committee last week, and testimony from Hunter Biden associate and former Burisma board member Devon Archer show Burisma believed that Shokin was actively investigating the company. The documents also show that Burisma sought Hunter Biden’s help by using his American connections to close the case permanently." . . .