Saturday, December 23, 2023

Israeli Hostages Endured Violent Sexual Assault in Gaza, Doctors Confirm

  National Review


"Doctors responsible for treating the released Israeli hostages have confirmed that female hostages suffered violent sexual assaults at the hands of Hamas captors.

"The doctors confirmed to USA Today that Hamas sexually assaulted “many” of the released female hostages aged 12-48, adding that the hostages “came to us as patients with the trauma of those who witnessed very severe sexual assaults.” Upon their release, the hostages received pregnancy tests and were tested for sexually transmitted diseases.

“We know that female hostages were raped during their captivity under control of Hamas,” one Israeli military official said.

"Hamas still holds 19 women and two children captive. Although terrorists claim that the remaining women are female soldiers, U.S. officials have said that Hamas’s refusal to release its remaining female captives is likely because the terror group doesn’t want women to reveal the horrors of what happened to them in captivity.

" 'It seems that one of the reasons they don’t want to turn women over that they’ve been holding hostage — and the reason this pause fell apart — is that they don’t want these women to be able to talk about what happened to them during their time in custody,” State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said earlier this month.

One of the women still held hostage is Naama Levy, an Israeli woman whose abduction quickly became a viral, harrowing image at the forefront of the Israel-Hamas war. A video emerged on October 7 of Hamas terrorists dragging the 19-year-old Levy by her hair into a Jeep. Her hands were bound, and pants bloodied.

“There’s a reason why women and children were prioritized first for release: younger women are at greater risk for further trauma,” Levy’s mother, Levy Shachar wrote in a recent op-ed. “Just as women and girls are more vulnerable to more forms of violence, they are also more vulnerable to suffering from infections and pregnancy from sexual violence. The longer Naama is held in captivity, the more violence she is subjected to, the more likely she will suffer the consequences of lifelong post-traumatic stress.” . . .

Trump asking allies about possibility of Nikki Haley for vice president

  CBS News  "Former President Donald Trump has been asking allies and advisers for their thoughts about Nikki Haley as a potential vice presidential candidate, two sources familiar with the conversations tell CBS News. 

"The feedback from the MAGA crowd regarding putting Haley on the ticket if Trump wins the GOP nomination has been overwhelmingly negative, according to these GOP sources. Politico first reported that Trump allies are working to quash the possibility of a Trump-Haley ticket. 

"The former South Carolina governor has been gaining ground in recent polls, and a top Trump adviser tells CBS News one internal prediction is Haley might be a close third in Iowa to DeSantis, or that she could even come in second. 

"But Trump, in an interview Friday with conservative talk show host Hugh Hewitt, blasted polls showing Haley performing well as "fake." He also insisted he's not worried about Haley as a challenger. 

"Haley has been touting her rise in the polls, telling voters in New Hampshire that she's "surging" against Trump. The latest CBS News poll shows Haley is gaining on Trump in New Hampshire, but the former president still has a big lead in Iowa. In New Hampshire, the poll shows Trump leading with 44% to Haley's 29%. ' . . .

Victor Davis Hanson on Colorado Supreme Court Trump Ballot Ruling: 'Does the Left See Where it is Taking the Country?'

 The Gateway Pundit | by Mike LaChance   Conservative scholar and historian Victor Davis Hanson has weighed in on the Colorado Supreme Court’s decision to remove Trump from the 2024 ballot in a new column that poses some very important questions.

"Hanson reminds readers that Kamala Harris supported the riots of 2020 and that Chuck Schumer threatened two justices on the U.S. Supreme Court and asks if those acts qualify as forms of insurrection.

"He also wonders if the left realizes where all of this is taking the country.

"Hanson writes at American Greatness:

"Conservative scholar and historian Victor Davis Hanson has weighed in on the Colorado Supreme Court’s decision to remove Trump from the 2024 ballot in a new column that poses some very important questions.

"Hanson reminds readers that Kamala Harris supported the riots of 2020 and that Chuck Schumer threatened two justices on the U.S. Supreme Court and asks if those acts qualify as forms of insurrection.

"He also wonders if the left realizes where all of this is taking the country.

"Hanson writes at American Greatness:

"Trump Derangement Syndrome became Orwellian with the recent ruling of the Colorado Supreme Court.

"It approved the erasure of Trump from the Republican primary ballot in Colorado, by invoking Section 3 of the 14th Amendment.

"That ossified clause was intended to bar any ante-bellum federal officials who joined the Confederacy from again holding federal offices after 1865.

"In no way is Trump’s conduct on January 6 comparable to calling for secession, much less prompting a Civil War that cost the country 700,000 lives.

"An “insurrectionist” president does not address unarmed protestors with qualifiers like, “I know that everyone here will soon be marching over to the Capitol building to peacefully and patriotically make your voices heard.”

"How also can one be guilty of insurrection without ever being indicted for such a supposed crime, much less convicted of it? 

"And the more we learn about January 6, all the more it appears to have been a spontaneous riot, more buffoonish in nature than conspiratorial.

"No one has explained the mysterious, politicized January 6 refusal of the Speaker of the House to order a reinforcement of the Capitol police." . . . Hanson then points to this moment from  two years ago: 

Read more here

 

WATCH: Antony Blinken Asks Why World Isn't Demanding Hamas Surrender

 Breitbart

"Secretary of State Antony Blinken asked Wednesday why the world was pressuring the victim of terror, Israel, instead of pressuring the terrorist “aggressor,” Hamas, whose surrender would end the war in Gaza and save the lives of many Palestinian civilians.

"Blinken was answering questions from reporters in a year-end press conference when he delivered this response on the Gaza war:

Everyone would like to see this conflict end as quickly as possible. But if it ends with Hamas remaining in place, and having the capacity and the stated intent to repeat October 7th again and again and again, that’s not in the interests of Israel, it’s not in the interests of the region, it’s not in the interests of the world. And what is striking to me is that even as, again, we hear many countries urging to end this conflict, which we would all like to see, I hear virtually no one saying, demanding, of Hamas, that it stop hiding behind civilians, that it lay down its arms, that it surrender. This is over tomorrow, if Hamas does that. This would have been over a month ago, six weeks ago, if Hamas had done that. And how can it be that there are no demands made of the aggressor, and only demands made of the victim? So it would be good if there was a strong international voice pressing Hamas to do what is necessary to end this. And again — that could be tomorrow.

Video clips of Blinken’s remarks went viral among pro-Israel social media users — though, curiously, the United States, which is one of five permanent members of the UN Security Council, has not introduced a resolution calling on Hamas to surrender.

As Maine bureaucrats prepared to vote on a ‘sweeping EV mandate’ an act of God weather event struck, creating widespread outages

And, when that brutal storm hit and that electric grid failed, what do you think those Mainers did? Well, they pulled out their generators, fueled by gas and diesel, and stayed warm, while waiting for their power to be restored. . .

  Olivia Murray - American Thinker   "Although I (or we) wouldn’t have it any other way, being a constitutionally-devoted American can often feel like quite the heavy burden, but when all of the mainstream narrative is a contrived clown world, free-thinking patriots are blessed to have the gift of recognizing the silliness, and pointing it out for a good laugh. Get a load of this, reported by Fox News yesterday:

A top Maine state environmental agency delayed a highly-anticipated vote to approve a sweeping electric vehicle (EV) mandate amid a storm that caused widespread power outages.

The Maine Board of Environmental Protection (BEP) announced that it had indefinitely postponed the meeting, which was slated for Thursday afternoon, until further notice following the storm. Democratic Maine Gov. Janet Mills, who has pursued an aggressive green energy agenda, declared a state of emergency this week, an action that closed state government offices.

‘Governor Janet Mills declared a State of Civil Emergency for 14 Maine counties following a significant wind and rain storm that has left hundreds of thousands of people without power and that has caused significant flooding and infrastructure damage, including to town and state roadways,’ the Maine BEP said in a statement.

"As the unelected bureaucrats fixed to gather for a “highly-anticipated” vote to usher in an E.V. mandate à la Gavin Newsom and his California cronies, an act of God weather event struck, knocking out power to a significant portion of Maine residents… in the winter… with below-freezing temperatures. Although “act of God” is appropriate given its use as a secular legal phrase, such divine poeticism—a storm knocking out the electric grid as government parasites make their move for electric vehicle mandates—gives the storm an obvious double meaning. As one X user asked:

How do you mandate something without the appropriate infrastructure in place?

It’s almost as if they want things to fail.

. . .

More Caligula: Jill Biden staffer caught bringing gay male 'dates' into secured area

  Monica Showalter- American Thinker   "Is Joe Biden trying to run the White House or Caligula's palace?

"Here's the latest pervy sex scandal, this time coming from Jill Biden's wing of House Biden, from the Daily Mail:

The First Lady's press secretary Michael LaRosa tried to take a date he'd just met up to his room on a secure floor while overseas in a hotel where the president was staying, insiders exclusively tell DailyMail.com.

Sources say LaRosa, 40, did it twice during the same trip while accompanying Jill Biden to the NATO Summit in Madrid, Spain, in June 2022, and that this was part of a pattern of behavior that led to his forced resignation the following month

A Secret Service source confirmed the incident and claimed that it happened twice on the same trip.

'He was caught by Secret Service not once, but twice bringing dates to a secure floor, obviously putting the First Lady's safety at risk because you're not supposed to bring people in who are not fully vetted,' one senior White House staffer told DailyMail.com.

"Seems once wasn't enough. He got caught once, apparently wasn't embarrassed about it, and went and did it again, despite warnings about the lofty position he was in and the risks he was taking.

"It was all about the "dates" for this bozo, using official travel on the taxpayer dime for his own pervy purposes, which was undoubtedly anonymous sex partners such as is practiced in some quarters of the gay world.

"The safety and security concerns to the rest of the White House staff were of no importance to him, and the possibility of bringing in a foreign agent or terrorist among his "dates" was far from remote. The Soviets used to keep stables of such people to dangle before weaklings like him, male swallows, or as they were known, "ravens." None of that mattered to this guy when he wanted to get it on. His appetites, not the country, came first.

"Which pretty well tells us that vetting is a thing of the past in White House employment given the presence of so many of these kinky characters. It also explains the Bidens' indifference to vetting migrants at the border. Anything goes among the Bidens, which is why were have so many of the sex scandals just rolling out in public.

"It started with this weasel, which nobody thought was satirical:

Friday, December 22, 2023

Blood-red truth comes to Times Square in Manhattan

Ethel C. Fenig - American Thinker   "The world-famous bizarre fantasyland, Times Square in New York, fittingly named in honor of the early location of The New York Times, is finally getting a bloody dose of truth for all the world to see. The truth of the savagery, the hatred of Hamas against the Israelis and the Jews, that The Times can’t ignore… defend.. justify… equalize.

"A truth that pro-“Palestinian” and Hamas abettors can’t rip down, like they have with posted flyers; a display they can’t deface, like they have with billboards.

"A truth of what Hamas terrorists did to innocent festival goers in Israel, and to civilian residents of small neighboring towns, in Hamas’ own words and deeds. See below:

Control your horror—and now face the truth that this is what Hamas did. Then, understand that this is what they will do to you next, if given the opportunity. Sweden is beginning to get the message, via AP:

Sweden raises its terror threat level to high for fear of attacks following recent Quran burnings

And this, from the European Union via BBC:

There is a ‘huge risk of terrorist attacks in the European Union’ over the coming holiday season, a senior EU official has said.

And here, via Politico:

After Brussels attack, Swedes fear becoming a target for terrorists

And, after ignoring it for so many years, then explaining it away, so is ooh la la France, via Reuters:

Macron says ‘Islamist terrorism’ rising in Europe, all states at risk

And now, France’s “non-proliferation” of terrorism action plan, found here, from none other than the Ministere De L'Europe Et Des Affaires Etrangeres—and please pardon my French—which believes in liberteegalite, and fraternite.

Now why is there a heightened risk, all across Europe? Are the Europeans suddenly getting out of hand? Stabbing and shooting random people, setting off bombs, and burning down churches and synagogues? Or, does the risk come from the same people who cheered on Hamas?

Be afraid. Be very afraid. Or take action to fight back twice as hard. Now. If France can do it, then the U.S., with its power and strength and intelligence, can too. Now!

Biden will betray Israel on Obama's command

 Israel is at war for its very existence, something Obama would rejoice to see end. In war sometimes people die by friendly fire. . . 

Mychal Massie (wnd.com)   "There are many things that can be truthfully said about Obama, and none of them is flattering – unless one believes that godless, amoral sexual debauchery, being a pernicious liar and unabashed hatred for Israel are character traits to be desired.

"I've been warning since the Oct. 7, 2023, unprovoked slaughter of Jewish people by Obama's "homeboys" that America was working on a way to betray Israel. Well, if you're of the Obama philosophy "never let a good crisis go to waste," you follow the other part of his demonic planning and have acolytes placed in key positions domestically and globally where they can quickly do the most harm the moment said opportunity presents.

"Obama has employed this practice since he slithered into the national public arena. His ad hominem attacks on Sgt. James Crowley for properly executing his job during his interaction with Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates resulted in his drinking Budweiser at the infamous beer summit, which years later transitioned to Dylan Mulvaney, another sexual deviant, advertising for Bud Light. But, I digress. The practice was employed from the Trayvon Martin case to the George Floyd case. If there's a wrong side that can be exploited for person political gain, Obama will find it.

"And no case better provides for him to exploit evil for his goals and purposes than what was done to Israel Oct. 7.

"Biden is Obama's sock-puppet. Obama's hand is up the back of Biden's shirt working his mouth from behind. Every act of perversion and societal degradation Obama promoted, Biden has sanctioned and implemented.

"Which brings me to the terrorist attack on Israel by Erebusic barbarians Obama and his supposed wife pay homage to.

This is playing out exactly as I predicted. At first the sympathies were seemingly with Israel. The malevolent Jew haters disguised themselves as sympathetic to Israel, supporting her military response. The extreme side of Jewish hatred, publicly seen as Rashida Tlaib et al., simply carried on their hatred as usual, giving shade to those who would publicly turn against Israel later.

"During his last term, Obama sent his marplots to Israel to disrupt and turn Israeli opinion against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Even though that attempt by Obama failed, his nefarious agents remained in Israel working to undermine Netanyahu's leadership.

"For what amounted to just days after the terrorist attack, many in the mainstream media and cable news programming pretended to sympathize with Israel, the key phrase being: "pretended to sympathize." . . .

Horrors of Hamas Attacks Like Rape Can't Be Tool of War: Sheryl Sandberg (businessinsider.com)  . . ."As Israeli officials start to build cases against Hamas militants accused of raping women during the October 7 terror attacks, a former tech executive is issuing a plea to the international community: rape can't be normalized as a feature of war, nor should it go ignored when it happens.

"Reports of rape and sexual assault surfaced quickly in the immediate aftermath of the massacre. But in the weeks since, many more horrific incidents have surfaced and been revealed through the testimony of survivors and witnesses, from the footage of body cameras worn by Hamas, and through forensic evidence collected by authorities. Now, Israeli authorities are working to hold the militant group to account for the violence.

"But amid this massive collection of documented evidence, the country has still been forced to contend with denials or dismissals of rape or other atrocities Hamas stands accused of committing on October 7." . . .

An Israeli mother gives an extraordinary gift of love to the troops

 Andrea Widburg - American Thinker

And before any leftist cries “genocide,” note that Mrs. Haim does not say “Muslims,” “Palestinians,” or “Arabs.” Instead, the target of her wrath is a specific political and military group driven by a genocidal ideology. Just as no one would have faulted people during WWII for wishing that the name and memory of the Nazis would be wiped off the face of the earth, she offers the same prayer for the evil that is Hamas. She’s absolutely right, showing a perfect balance of compassion and wisdom.

"Last week, news broke that, in the fog of battle, Israeli troops accidentally killed three hostages. Now, the mother of one of those hostages, despite her own grief, has recognized that the soldiers involved must be suffering terrible psychological agony, and she has reached out to them with love.

"The story was truly dreadful. In the heat of battle, Israeli soldiers mistakenly shot three hostages under Hamas’s control. The Israeli military stated that the three were shirtless and waving a stick with white fabric as they ran to Israeli soldiers. They also explained what may have happened: “The IDF official said that at the time, Israeli ‘forces were under pressure’ with Hamas fighters engaged in ‘a lot of deception.’”

"I could instantly imagine the scene. It’s urban warfare on the enemy’s turf. There would have been a fierce fight with Israeli troops under fire from multiple directions. They would have been aware that Hamas fighters use suicide tactics in battle, which would see them getting as close as possible to the troops before detonating themselves." . . .

"What I cannot imagine—indeed, my brain shies away from imagining—is the psychological pain the troops involved in that shooting are feeling. As has been clear from October 7, Israelis view themselves as a family. Every person who died and every hostage seized was a person stolen from that family. And to introduce into all this emotional agony the knowledge that three of your family members were on the verge of rescue, only for you to have killed them, is a pain beyond comprehension.

"But one person did comprehend it. Iris Haim is the mother of 28-year-old Yotam Haim, one of the men who made that unsuccessful break for freedom—and she had a message for the soldiers in the Bislach Brigade, Batallion 17, which, however accidentally, was directly responsible for her son’s death:. . ."


Mexicans know a stupid gringo when they see one: Here comes Feckless Joe

 Monica Showalter - American Thinker . . ."How stupid are these people running our country?

"Our friends the Mexicans can see it, and they are speeding them on in, loading the conveyor belts to get them out of their own country and into Joe Biden's sanctuary nations, and the efficiency of the whole Mexican operation is encouraging more to come as a result. That likely explains why the border surge is so big in Del Rio. More migrants in, more that can come in.

"Biden, of course, is clueless on this matter and the only reason he's suddenly making his day-late, dollar-short appeal to the Mexicans is the impact of illegal border crossings on his own polling numbers. Recent surveys show that illegal migration is the number one concern of American voters after Bidenflation, and you can bet that if the Mexicans are acting this way, there's a problem they need to get rid of and hand over to Feckless Joe, too.

"Back in the days of President Trump, the Mexicans under the exact same government of Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador responded quickly to Trump threatening to shut down the entire border if illegal crossings weren't controlled.

"Trump also muscled them into a "remain in Mexico" agreement to disincentivize illegal border crossings and as a result, illegal crossings went down.

"Trump got results quickly with his firm hand, laying down the law with Mexico, and pretty amazingly, cordial relations with them resulted, given that he was nice and clear with them about how it was going to be.

"Biden? The Mexicans are reading him as a fool, seeing clearly his mixed messages to both migrants and themselves -- an open border and a huge benefit package with no deportation to those who get across, and complaints that people are taking him up on his offer. No wonder Mexicans are speeding them along.

"They know an idiot who can be rolled, they've seen thousands of them among the drunks from the U.S. who get rolled in Mexican towns at the border. They know a stupid gringo when they see one.

"Joe's the stupid gringo and he won't get far with any panicky phone calls complaining about the consequences of his own stupid decisions. He will get what he gets, same as the drunks do, too bad if he doesn't like it."

Why Michelle Obama is as Rotten a Choice for President as Hillary Clinton

 Marie Hembree - American Thinker   "Democrats are using identity politics again to test the waters for a ballot replacement for Joe Biden instead of finding a candidate with bona fide qualifications -- and integrity.

"Michelle Obama is being touted as a possible candidate who could beat Donald Trump.

She was recently publicized as an executive producer of a Netflix fiction movie, along with her husband, Barack. 

"There was not much of the old Obama hopey-change messaging in her anti-white Netflix endeavor, however, which left identity politics as her selling point with voters.

"Per the academic definition, identity politics is a Marxist tactic of assigning utmost societal importance to a candidate’s empowerment of a collective, victimized group such as women or minorities.

"Anyone opposing the "candidate as victim" is immediately labeled as suppressing the entire representative group. For example, people who opposed presidential candidate Hillary Clinton were labeled as anti-women or misogynists, just as those who criticized Barack Obama in 2008 and 2012 were called racist.

"Identity politics has pulverized Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s dream of Americans judging others by the “content of their character instead of the color of their skin” in choosing a candidate.

"Meanwhile, collectivism is a fundamental element of totalitarian ideology." . . .

Biden's Three Paths to Victory

PLAN C: Get Republicans to nominate Nikki Haley. RESULT: Either way, a Democrat wins.

 Biden's Three Paths to Victory


"Democrats have three paths to victory next November, all being eagerly embraced by Republicans.

"PLAN A: Enrage Republicans by bringing a string of ludicrous indictments, civil suits and ballot disqualifications against Donald Trump, thus tricking the GOP into making him the nominee.

"RESULT: Joe Biden easily wins a second term. If Trump behaves as we know he will, Biden wins even if he's dead.

"Wait, but why would Republicans make Trump the nominee just because -- OH MY GOSH, IT'S WORKING!!!

"When Trump declared his presidential run on Nov. 15, 2022, he was dead in the water. November, December, January, February -- polls all put liberal-slayer Gov. Ron DeSantis in the lead, or within striking distance. He wasn't even a candidate yet.

"Then the indictments started rolling in. The media went back to 24-7 unhinged Trump commentary, and the former president's numbers soared. The more liberals indicted him, the more it juiced his presidential campaign. (And they get to enjoy themselves while doing it.)

"Defying all expectations, by me at least, Republicans have reacted to these garbage prosecutions by saying, Watch this, liberals! We're going to punish you by handing Democrats the presidency, the House and the Senate. You disqualified Trump from the ballot, Colorado? We're going to put Democrats in a position to pack the court!

"I can't enstupid myself enough to understand why being the victim of legal persecution is supposed to make someone a great candidate for president. Please draw a diagram from "These Trump indictments are outrageous!" to "Let's make him our nominee!"

"Lots of people -- or at least several -- have been victimized by viciously unfair criminal prosecutions.

"The Innocence Project framed an innocent black man, Alstory Simon, for a double murder in Chicago in 1999. He sat in prison for 15 years until a couple of federal agents reinvestigated and exposed the rotten truth. (Watch the documentary "A Murder in the Park" -- free on Prime!)" . . .