Whose Children Are They? thumbnail

Whose Children Are They?

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By Bruce Bialosky

When I was growing up there was no question who was in charge of me.  It was my parents.  I was blessed with going to one of the finest public school systems at the time — Shaker Heights, Ohio.  It was clear the schools were responsible for educating me to read, write, learn mathematics and science, and teach me about history, particularly American history. The responsibility ended there. Have things ever changed?

I saw a transition when my own children attended school. The Beautiful Wife and I chose to send them to a Jewish school system. We knew of the degradation of the public school systems (in the ‘90s) and wanted our children to have our Jewish values reinforced during the long school days they experienced.  When they were in elementary school the only indoctrination they were subject to was spelling correctly and multiplication tables.

Challenges began by the time they got to high school. There was a required health course that was a poorly disguised sex education course.  Reviewing the curriculum, I questioned some of the materials and was told by the school headmaster it was a required course by the state of California for my children to graduate.  Otherwise, tough luck sir.

The following year was dedicated to teaching the elements of Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth. I had seen the movie and found it to be a load of malarkey. There were predictions in the movie passed off as being truths about the future which have subsequently turned out to be incorrect.

For a meeting with the principal and science department head, I arrived with a stack of counter-evidence to what was proposed in the movie. I started by holding up my well-worn copy of Paul Ehrlich’s The Population Bomb.  I spoke of how when I was my kids’ age the book was spoken of as gospel. Virtually everything in the book turned out to be hogwash.  In fact, even the Left-leaning Wikipedia states, “Paul Ralph Ehrlich is an American biologist best known for his pessimistic and inaccurate predictions and warnings about the consequences of population growth and limited resources.” I told them Al Gore’s movie would end up being thought of in the same manner. It had no scientific basis. Unfortunately, they went on with their misguided celebration of the movie.

The challenges we faced 17 years ago are insignificant compared to what is being spread in the public school systems today in coordination with the two national teachers’ unions propagandists.  I don’t know what I would do today if I were faced with the degradation of the school systems in my area.  I am sure I would pull up stakes and relocate to an area where my children were not being indoctrinated. Alternatively, they would be home-schooled.

That is exactly what I see happening.  Every group that ever wanted to change society has drafted the children into their movement and trained them in their thinking. Lenin did it. Stalin did it. Mao did it. You can rest assured that Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il did it and Kim Jong Un is continuing in their footsteps. We know Palestinian children are being indoctrinated to hate and want to kill Jews. 

You can fight back.  My friend, Barak Lurie, recently wrote a book, Keeping The Kids All Right, a handy guide on how to protect your kids from indoctrination.

Many people are pessimistic because the teachers’ unions have such a death grip on the educational system.  It would be moderately acceptable except for the epic failures of educating the kids in the basics of reading, writing, and arithmetic. That is why they call for abolishing standardized tests — to hide their malfeasances. 

Recent wins by parents wanting traditional education along with parental control in the schools have given me reason to be optimistic. Parents who for a long time trusted that their school boards and schools were doing the right thing have become activists. Many parents are running for school board positions instead of allowing the Education Cartel to control their schools. 

The bigger move is taking back control and returning it to the hands of the parents. As of today, there are ten states with universal or near-universal school choice programs, meaning that all or virtually all students in the state are eligible to participate in a school choice program. That puts parents in charge of choosing their kids’ school instead of being told their children are sentenced to an underperforming indoctrination factory.

These states are Arizona, Arkansas, Florida, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Utah, and West Virginia.  These programs allow students to use public funds to attend a private school, charter school, or other non-public educational setting. Six more states have legislation to adopt universal school choice.

In the next five years or so we will begin to see the contrast in performance among states.  My money is on the states that provide freedom of choice to parents.  You know where the school funding follows the students as opposed to the performance in New Jersey, New York City, Chicago, and California where children’s futures are sacrificed to the god of unionized teachers.

We used to blindly trust our school systems before teachers’ unions took over.  Those days are gone.  Parents need to be and are once again involved in their children’s education.  They must take back control.  It needs to be done before we have a generation of uneducated, indoctrinated zombies created by inferior schools.

*****

This article was published in  Flash Report and is reproduced with permission from the author.

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Congress Headed For Showdown Over Ukraine, Israel Funds As Massie And Greene Say ‘NO’ To All thumbnail

Congress Headed For Showdown Over Ukraine, Israel Funds As Massie And Greene Say ‘NO’ To All

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By Tyler Durden

House Republican opposition to Ukraine funding – a large part of why Kevin McCarthy was ousted by the Freedom Caucus – is solidifying under newly crowned Speaker Mike Johnson, who hand-delivered a report to President Biden with a list of demands.

In particular, the list – written by Rep. Mike Garcia (R-CA), informs Biden that Congress won’t authorize any additional funds for Ukraine unless the administration answers a dozen questions about the path forward. Chief among them – how Biden and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy plan to win the war against Russia, and how long it might take.

“Failure to ask these questions, and a continued willingness by Congress to enable this carte blanche mentality to date, is, in my opinion, a dereliction of duty and a recipe for disaster that will enable a Ukrainian defeat and enhance Chinese aggression,” said Garcia.

Johnson, meanwhile, has made clear that House Republicans won’t bundle Ukraine aid and money for Israel’s conflict with Hamas, as Biden wants.

On Sunday, Johnson told “Sunday Morning Futures” that Israel aid must be separated because it’s a more “pressing and urgent need” that the House will act on this week.

“There are lots of things going on around the world that we have to address, and we will,” he said, adding “But now what’s happening in Israel takes the immediate attention, and we’ve got to separate that and get it through.”

What about no on Israel too?

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) on Sunday posted on X that she won’t support any more foreign aid, including support to Israel, because of the national debt…..

*****

Continue reading this article at Zero Hedge.

Image Credit: Gage Skidmore

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Decolonization from Theory to Practice

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By Phillip W. Magness

Since October 7th, 2023, we have seen that ideas have consequences in the real world. Phillip Magness is an economic historian who specializes in the economic dimensions of slavery and racial discrimination, the history of taxation, and measurements of economic inequality over time. He also maintains an active research interest in higher education policy and the history of economic thought.

He joins Kate Wand on Liberty Curious to discuss his recent work on Critical Race Theory (CRT), its proliferation in academia and the mainstream, and its connection to the far left’s response to Hamas’ massacre of Israeli citizens. Phil Magness is a Senior Research Faculty and F.A. Hayek Chair in Economics and Economic History at the American Institute for Economic Research.

Read more of Phil’s work at philmagness.com
Phil’s Faculty profile at AIER.org
Enjoy the full catalog of AIER Podcasts
Phil’s Article on Critical Race Theory in the Data

Use these timestamps to navigate the interview content:
0:00 – Intro
1:35 – CRT in a nutshell
3:05 – CRT academics’ reactions to Oct 7
10:24 – Media spin
13:08 – Who is colonizing who?
17:07 – What is decolonization?
19:15 – The dangers of CRT in the real world
20:39 – The proliferation of CRT in academia
26:46 – Why are these ideas so seductive?
30:15 – Promises
33:07 – Silver linings?
37:20 – Last Thoughts

*****

This article was published by AIER, The American Institute for Economic Research, and is reproduced with permission.

Image Credit: Wikimedia Commons

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DHS special agents are being pulled off investigating child trafficking to make sandwiches for illegal immigrants

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By The Geller Report

A patriotic whistleblower told Joh Hawley that DHS special agents are being pulled off investigating child trafficking to make sandwiches for illegal immigrants at the southern border.

Secretary Mayorkas can’t deny it. And this as FBI Director said the threat of a Hamas-inspired attack in the U.S. is at “a whole other level.”

Special agents yanked off child trafficking cases to make sandwiches for migrants at border – https://t.co/0Nd8bV3HWx

— Josh Hawley (@HawleyMO) October 31, 2023

Watch:

BREAKING: FBI Director Chris Wray warns Hamas terrorists may exploit tensions in the US to “conduct attacks here on our own soil.” WATCH pic.twitter.com/X1FD3NQty0

— Simon Ateba (@simonateba) October 31, 2023

And this:

JUST IN: FBI Director Chris Wray says Iran has made assassination attempts against “dissidents and high-ranking current and former U.S. government officials, including right here on American soil.”pic.twitter.com/CSn4omLfgA

— Simon Ateba (@simonateba) October 31, 2023

And this as FBI Director said the threat of a Hamas-inspired attack in the U.S. is at “a whole other level.”

FBI Director Wray: “We are in a dangerous period… Gaps in our intelligence are real & it’s something that we have concerns about. It is a time for vigilance… If you see something say something.”

EXCLUSIVE: 100 Syrians, 50 Iranians Cross Biden’s Open Border in October, Says Source https://t.co/17XLguwYtX via @BreitbartNews Future enemy to start wars here…

— g.t.mace (@gldbug) October 31, 2023

According to a source within CBP, the influx of Special Interest Migrants across the U.S./Mexico border continues early in the NEW fiscal year as nearly 100 Syrian and 50 Iranian nationals have been apprehended by the Border Patrol since the beginning of October. The source says the influx of Syrian and Iranian Special Interest Migrants is concerning, considering the turmoil unfolding in the Middle East.

The Syrian and Iranian migrants were apprehended in multiple sectors across the southwest border during October. The latest arrest of an Iranian national by the Border Patrol occurred near Eagle Pass, Texas, on Saturday. The Iranian national was discovered within a single group of more than 300 that crossed into the small border city. A debrief of the Iranian migrant is pending as of press time, according to the source.

Feel safe?

A DHS employee posted pro-terrorist, pro-genocide images all over social media on the day Israel was attacked. And she’s apparently STILL on DHS payroll – pic.twitter.com/vKtrZ8ZnBl

— Josh Hawley (@HawleyMO) October 31, 2023

AUTHOR

Pamela Geller

RELATED ARTICLE: ‘Palestinian’ Woman Featured in VOGUE to Jews: ‘We Will Drink Your Blood And Eat Your Skull’

EDITORS NOTE: This Geller Report is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

The Key to Peace In the Middle East Rests With The Iranian People thumbnail

The Key to Peace In the Middle East Rests With The Iranian People

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By Amil Imani

A Reckoning with the Past and a Call for Action

As protests in Iran persist, demanding greater freedom and a transition to democracy, the United States needs to reflect on its past actions, particularly about Iran, and decide on a course of action. To clarify: The Iranian people have been yearning for change, and the United States must stand firmly with them.

So, let us evaluate the U.S.’s past and present policies toward Iran with some practical advice for the current administration. We will also try to critically examine former U.S. President Jimmy Carter’s role in the rise of Shiite Islam in Iran and praise President Trump’s withdrawal from the Iran nuclear deal. Furthermore, let this serve as a warning against supporting groups like the Mujahidin Khalgh (MEK) while advocating for support for secular Iranians and condemning the Iran nuclear deal for its hidden perils.

The Iranian Uprising: A Cry for Freedom

Protests have been raging in Iran for over a year, ignited by the tragic death of Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old woman, who was arrested for the perceived violation of Iran’s strict hijab laws. The following protests have become a massive movement, demanding greater freedoms and a complete change in the country’s leadership. Many protesters chanted, ‘Women, Life, Freedom’ —a famous rallying cry after nationwide protests erupted following Amini’s death last year. As the world watches these brave Iranians struggle for a better future, it becomes abundantly clear that they support their cause more actively. Doing so is not just a matter of principle; it’s a strategic imperative for regional peace and stability.

Encouraging International Support

The United States should lead the charge in rallying international support for the Iranian protesters. Diplomatic pressure, economic sanctions, and targeted measures against Iranian officials and entities involved in repression, censorship, and prison abuses should be employed. By taking the lead, the U.S. can encourage its European allies and other nations to join a unified front, sending a clear message to the Iranian regime.

A Democratic Movement in Iran

A popular democratic movement in Iran is desirable and necessary to bring about lasting change. The Islamic Republic’s oppressive regime is incompatible with the aspirations of the Iranian people. Our responsibility is to aid in the transition to a more democratic, representative government that respects the rule of law and individual rights.

Young Iranians, mainly the urban-educated Iranians, are among the most ardent believers in democracy worldwide. Many view America as the country with the best hope for spreading and protecting the high ideals of democracy. In a sense, many Iranians feel a closer affinity with a democratic Israel than all the neighboring Arab Muslim dictatorships. Although Islam was imposed on Iran some 1400 years ago, Iranians deeply value their ancient non-Arab identity and have never fully surrendered to the Arab culture. During the bloodletting war initiated by the late Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein against Iran, all Arab states sided with the Butcher of Baghdad against Iran. Yet, Israel was the only Middle Eastern country that remained neutral and helped Iran in the struggle. We Iranians don’t forget our friends, and we also remember our enemies.

Economic Measures

The United States should reconsider sanctions regulations that impede Iran’s interaction with international financial institutions, as such restictions may inadvertently harm the Iranian people. Instead, the U.S. should establish a fund dedicated to supporting the Iranian protest movement and promoting economic stability in the country during this period of upheaval. It is good that the US has imposed sanctions on Iranian officials and entities connected to the repression of protests, censorship, and prison abuses.

Amplifying Support through Media

  • The US should utilize traditional and social media to amplify and sustain support for the Iranian people.
  • By publicly championing their cause, we ensure their struggle does not fade into obscurity.
  • Publicizing their plight keeps the international community engaged and aware of the ongoing protests, which in turn exerts more pressure on the Iranian government to address the demands of its people.
  • President Joe Biden and other high-ranking officials should vigorously embrace traditional and social media to amplify and sustain their support for the Iranian people and remind demonstrators that the administration stands with them.

Facilitating Internet Access

Protesters in Iran rely heavily on the internet for communication and organization. The U.S. should take measures to facilitate greater access to the Internet for the Iranian people. This empowers them to organize more effectively and allows them to communicate with the outside world, shedding light on the situation inside Iran and garnering international support.

The Obama Fiasco

When Obama went on his apology world tour, bad-mouthing the United States and singing the praises of Islam and internationalism, he showed vacillation and weakness at every turn. For one, he did not even find it in himself to voice his support for the brave Iranians against the rule of fascist mullahs in the 2009 Green Revolution.

The results: Thousands of democracy’s best children of Iran were slaughtered, maimed, or imprisoned, and the Iranian mullahs are encouraged and have tripled their speed in the quest for their ultimate weapon, knowing full well that you neither can nor will do anything to stop them.

He failed to voice his support for the people. It implied that what was happening in Iran was a kind of family dispute best left to be settled by the Iranians themselves. A family feud indeed. One side of the “family” with legions of savages armed to the teeth, the Revolutionary Guard  (IRGC) and their hired thugs, and the other side of the “family” defenseless civilians using their voices to plead their case. The Islamic rulers spared no heinous means in mercilessly silencing the people’s representatives.

Today, the IRGC possesses an enormous power structure with influence over almost every aspect of Iranian life. Unlike the regular armed forces responsible for defending Iran’s territory, the IRGC was explicitly designed to protect the Islamic revolution itself and eavesdrop on the regular military. Khomeini never trusted the regular army.

No nation provided even moral support for the Iranian people, while the savage mullahs and their thugs consolidated their rule of terror with impunity. The same scenario is recurring, and the world’s silence is deafening while we are engaged in the Ukraine war.

Carter’s Legacy and the Rise of the Islamic Terrorism

It is impossible to discuss Iran’s tumultuous history without evaluating the role of former U.S. President Jimmy Carter. His tenure oversaw a turbulent period in Iran’s history, ultimately leading to the rise of Shiite Islam and the establishment of the Islamic Republic. Carter’s actions, or lack thereof, are attributable to the birth of a regime that has caused immeasurable death, suffering, and turmoil, particularly during the Iran-Iraq war. The heavy toll of hundreds of thousands of Iranian lives lost in that conflict is a painful reminder of the consequences of policies that failed to support the Iranian people.

As President Carter dithered, Khomeini’s influence grew, and his message of Islamic revolution resonated with the Muslim population seeking an alternative to the Shah’s regime. The Carter administration’s failure to understand the dynamics of the Iranian opposition and its inability to support pro-democracy forces ultimately contributed to the rise of the Islamic Republic.

The upheavals of 1979 shattered the existing order, and a turbaned charlatan that Jimmy Carter called a saint, Ayatollah Khomeini, skillfully steered the forces of change to promote his brand of totalitarian rule—a rule aimed at taking Iran backward to a primitive, violent, and misogynistic society.

Carter made a bone-headed decision some forty-five years ago. Both Iranians and Americans paid dearly and continue to pay.

The Trump Administration’s Bold Move: Withdrawal from the Iran Nuclear Deal

In stark contrast to Carter’s legacy, the Trump administration made a crucial decision in May 2018, withdrawing from the Iran nuclear deal and reinstating sanctions. This move was not merely an act of political bravado; it was a statement that the Iranian regime, with its history of deception, violence, and religious fanaticism, could not be trusted. It marked a turning point in U.S. policy toward Iran, reflecting an understanding of the true nature of the Islamic Republic.

The Iran Nuclear Deal: A Flawed Bargain

The Iran nuclear deal, formally known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), was touted as a diplomatic achievement that would prevent Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons. However, it had significant flaws. Under the JCPOA, Iran was allowed to continue its nuclear program, albeit with certain limitations. While proponents argued that these restrictions would prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons, critics rightly pointed out that it allowed Iran to maintain its nuclear infrastructure, setting the stage for a potential breakout once the restrictions expired.

Moreover, the deal did little to address Iran’s destabilizing activities in the region. Iran supported proxy groups, such as Hezbollah, and incited violence in neighboring countries. The influx of funds resulting from sanctions relief further emboldened Iran’s aggressive regional behavior.

The Trump administration’s decision to withdraw from the deal recognized these shortcomings and stated that the United States would not disregard Iran’s destabilizing actions.

Beware of Cultish Groups: Rejecting the MEK

While we acknowledge the need to support the Iranian people, we must heed the warnings of history and avoid supporting groups like the Mujahidin Khalgh (MEK). We must discern our choices and not inadvertently back an organization that could harm the people it claims to represent.

The MEK, considered a terrorist organization, has a dark militant history and a controversial reputation. While it claims to advocate for democracy and freedom in Iran, it has been criticized for its cult-like practices and authoritarian leadership. Supporting such a group could have unintended consequences, potentially undermining the democratic aspirations of the Iranian people.

As we acknowledge the need to support the Iranian people, it is vital to heed the warnings of history and avoid supporting groups like the Mujahidin Khalgh (MEK). “The MEK is not a valid player on the Iranian political scene. They have no credibility in Iran,” warns Ryan Crocker, former US Ambassador to Iraq.

I must strongly warn my fellow Americans not to repeat President Jimmy Carter’s monumental folly that brought the infamous Ayatollah Khomeini to power and birthed Islamist jihadism by standing behind Maryam Rajavi, the leader of the notorious Mujahidin-e Khalq or (MEK), the most dangerous terrorist group that even abused and murdered their members for trying to defect or escape from Camp Ashraf in Iraq. It would be equivalent to betraying the ideals of America—the flag holder of freedom in the world.

Secular Iranians are our True Allies

The path forward lies in championing the cause of secular Iranians, the United States’ best friends in the Islamic world. Their vision for a democratic Iran, where individual rights and freedoms are respected, aligns with our values and interests. We must throw our full support behind them in their quest for a brighter future.

The protests in Iran have revealed the Iranian people’s unwavering determination for a better future in which they enjoy the same rights and freedoms that citizens of free nations often take for granted. It is our responsibility as the United States, a beacon of democracy and liberty, to support their aspirations.

While history contains valuable lessons, the present moment calls for a bold, resolute stance. We must rally behind the Iranian people, drawing from our past experiences to navigate the complex landscape of Iranian politics. By standing with the Iranian people in their pursuit of democracy and freedom, we can help pave the way for a more peaceful Middle East.

The time for action is now, and the United States must seize the opportunity to be a force for good in Iran and beyond. In doing so, we can ensure that the tragic mistakes of the past are not repeated and that the Iranian people can finally achieve the freedoms they so desperately desire.

Final note

Once the Islamic regime is defeated, it would be the greatest thing since the fall of Soviet communism. It would subvert virulent Islamic ideology by creating a truly democratic, secular, strong nation in tandem with Israeli democracy in the heart of the Islamic Ummah. It would be an answered prayer just as much for the world as for Iranians.

©2023. Amil Imani. All rights reserved.

RELATED ARTICLE: US and EU: Supporting Iranians demanding freedom is not a luxury

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Hostages Kidnapped by Hamas Climbs to 245 as German and British Police Seen Tearing Down Posters of the Missing

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By Dr. Rich Swier

IDF spokesman Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari says the military has so far notified the families of 240 hostages that their loved ones are being held in the Gaza Strip, upping the number of confirmed people who were abducted on October 7 to at least 245.

🚨JUST IN: IDF spokesman Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari says the military has so far notified the families of 240 hostages that their loved ones are being held in the Gaza Strip, upping the number of confirmed people who were abducted on October 7 to at least 245. pic.twitter.com/P1tnu1SUHx

— Mohamed Fakhar (@Fakaa32) October 31, 2023

New videos on X and photos published by the DailyMail.com show German and British police officers destroying posters of Jews kidnapped by Hamas terrorists.

This is bowing to the tenants of Islamists like Hamas, Hezbollah, Al Qaeda, ISIS, Boko Haram and the Mullas of Iran.

Fury as Met Police officers pull down posters of kidnapped Israeli children in London

By Summer Goodkind and Natasha Anderson, 31 October 2023

VIEW PHOTOS: HERE, HERE, HERE AND HERE

A furious row has broken out after Metropolitan Police officers were filmed pulling down posters of Israeli children kidnapped by Hamas during the terror group’s barbaric October 7 attack.

Two officers stripped the outside of Cullimore Chemist in Edgware, North London of flyers of the missing innocents after receiving calls from residents concerned about tension within the community.

Some locals in the area, which is home to a sizeable Jewish community, have slammed the officers over their ‘disgusting actions’. But the Met has insisted they were merely taking steps to ‘stop issues escalating’ and to ‘avoid community tension’.

In a statement, the force said that the missing posters were hung in ‘retaliation’ for comments about the Israel-Hamas war – including branding Israel and the IDF as ‘filthy animals’ – that were posted online by an alleged member of the chemist’s staff. Police said a print of out the remarks was also hung outside the shop.

Officers removed the posters and the comments because they have a ‘responsibility to take reasonable steps to stop issues escalating and to avoid any further increase in community tension,’ the force said.

Investigators are also reviewing the alleged staff member’s social media post for possible offences.

The controversy comes as the Met has come under fire for failing to clampdown on Islamism and extremism at pro-Palestine protests on the streets of London. Last weekend, protesters were seen carrying effigies of dead babies, and earlier this month extremists led a rally calling for ‘jihad’.

Read the rest.

German police officers destroying poster of Israeli civilians kidnapped by Hamas.

Have they studied at American universities? Or in Nürnberg? pic.twitter.com/RQWBSrwsGg

— Visegrád 24 (@visegrad24) October 31, 2023

©2023. Dr. Rich Swier. All rights reserved.

RELATED TWEET ON X:

Real Americans confront a Hamas supporter for removing posters of kidnapped Israeli civilians.

Well deserved!! 👏👏#ElonMusk#Gaza#IsraeliNewNazism #Israel #starlinkforgaza #Gaza_Genocide #HamasislSIS #Palestine #USA pic.twitter.com/bJwtVL3WW4

— Debashish (@nickjr001) October 28, 2023

Secretary Of State’s Office Lacks Processes To Clean Voter Rolls Of Over 78K Noncitizens, Nonresidents thumbnail

Secretary Of State’s Office Lacks Processes To Clean Voter Rolls Of Over 78K Noncitizens, Nonresidents

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By Corinne Murdock

The secretary of state’s office lacks the processes in place to remove about 78,000 potential noncitizens and nonresidents from its voter rolls.

In its last two quarterly reports issued to the state legislature in May and August, respectively, the department reported that it had received reports of but not acted on over 78,200 potentially invalid voters. The secretary of state’s office didn’t respond to our inquiry as to whether they have since put in place any processes to remove those potentially invalid voters from the voter rolls.

Through the beginning of August, the secretary of state received reports of over 53,200 persons reported to have been issued a driver’s license or equivalent of an Arizona nonoperating ID license in another state; over 1,300 persons who admitted to not being a citizen on a jury questionnaire; and over 23,600 persons who admitted to not being a resident of a county on a jury questionnaire. In those cases, the secretary of state’s office disclosed that a process for sending notices, placing voter registrations on inactive status, or canceling voter registrations was “in development.”

These reports were included as exhibits in a Monday filing by Attorney General Kris Mayes in the case Mi Familia Vota v. Adrian Fontes, a case seeking to nullify state election integrity laws requiring stricter standards for voter proof of citizenship and voter roll cleanups.

These reports were previously believed to have not been submitted to the legislature, per previous reporters’ accounts of an inability to obtain the records. According to the exhibits, the two reports were submitted to Sen. President Warren Petersen (R-AZ-14) and House Speaker Ben Toma (R-AZ-27).

Last month, the Democratic Party-backed activist groups secured a partial win in a ruling from Arizona District Court Judge Susan Bolton. The judge determined that the proof of citizenship requirement set forth by the two laws in question, HB 2492 and HB 2243, posed too great a burden on voters.

Several questions remain before the Arizona District Court in the case.

One concerns whether HB 2492’s requirement that voters provide their place of birth, referred to as the birthplace requirement, violates 52 U.S.C. § 10101(a)(2)(B), referred to as the materiality provision.

“No person acting under color of law shall – deny the right of any individual to vote in any election because of an error or omission on any record or paper relating to any application, registration, or other act requisite to voting, if such error or omission is not material in determining whether such individual is qualified under State law to vote in such election,” states the federal statute.

Last week, the Biden administration issued a brief declaring that birthplace wasn’t material to determining voter eligibility. Kristen Clarke, Civil Rights Division assistant attorney general, and Gary Restaino, Arizona District attorney, argued that certain individuals born in the U.S. can be noncitizens such as those with diplomat parents, those who later renounce their citizenship, and those born outside the country to U.S. citizen parents.

Another question concerns whether the voter list maintenance programs set forth by HB 2492 and HB 2243 violate 52 U.S.C. § 10101(a)(2)(A), referred to as the discrimination provision, or violate the National Voter Registration Act (NVRA).

“No person acting under color of law shall – in determining whether any individual is qualified under State law or laws to vote in any election, apply any standard, practice, or procedure different from the standards, practices, or procedures applied under such law or laws to other individuals within the same county, parish, or similar political subdivision who have been found by State officials to be qualified to vote,” states the federal statute.

Another concerns whether the NVRA requirement that states accept and use the Election Assistance Commission (EAC) federal voter registration form preempts HB 2243’s voter list maintenance program.

The case is scheduled to go to trial on Nov. 6.

*****

This article was published at AZ Free News and is reproduced with permission.

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As we move through 2023 and into the next election cycle, The Prickly Pear will resume Take Action recommendations and information.

Arizona News: November 1, 2023 thumbnail

Arizona News: November 1, 2023

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By The Editors

The Prickly Pear will provide current, linked articles about Arizona consistent with our Mission Statement to ‘inform, educate and advocate’. We are an Arizona based website and believe this information should be available to all of our statewide readers.

Unstaffed Drop Boxes Jeopardize The Safety And Security Of Our Elections

Secretary Of State’s Office Lacks Processes To Clean Voter Rolls Of Over 78K Noncitizens, Nonresidents

Blake Masters enters race for Lesko’s seat

Arizona county sheriffs deploy deputies to border

Federal Court Rules Abortionists May Seek Injunction Against Abortion Ban

Biden Admin Targets Nation’s Largest Private Christian University

When Bonds Become Bailouts – The Case Of Mesa USD

Arizona rises in state business tax climate rankings

Hobbs Appoints Tovar To State Board Of Education

Hobbs’ “Diversity Council” Raises Legal Questions

City Of Flagstaff Threatened With Lawsuit Over Firearms Advertisement Ban

Mayor Gallego Proves Again That She’s Willing To Silence Anyone To Gain More Power

Sen. Kerr Resigns From Hobbs’ Water Council

Tucson Unveils New $140 Million Public Transit On Existing Route

Mesa Teacher On Leave For Dressing As The Devil, Chanting ‘Hail Satan’ Over Students

TAKE ACTION

As we move through 2023 and into the next election cycle, The Prickly Pear will resume Take Action recommendations and information.

Feminists Are Consenting to Hamas’ Rape Culture thumbnail

Feminists Are Consenting to Hamas’ Rape Culture

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By Gil Troy

And they’re doing it proudly, on campuses and capitals around the world

On Oct. 7, Hamas unleashed a savage assault on southern Israel. These marauders were equal-opportunity killers, kidnappers, and abusers. Their bloody frenzy targeted everyone in their path—babies, Thai workers, Israeli Arabs, Bedouins, the elderly, special needs children, and, of course, Israeli Jews. They particularly relished targeting women—slaughtering them, raping them, cutting babies out of pregnant women’s wombs, torturing mothers and grandmothers in front of their families—and, many fear, sexually enslaving some of the hostages. The world witnessed these perversions because the villains proudly filmed them, then inspired Palestinians and pro-Palestinian progressives to spread them across social media. This secondary, digital, GoPro assault on the victims’ dignity made this orgy of misogyny one of the bloodiest and most publicized attacks on women in history.

Nevertheless, more than three weeks later, the feminist community remains silent. In May 2021, within days of Israel counterattacking in self-defense against yet another Hamas bombardment, over 120 gender studies departments denounced the Jewish state. Declaring that “justice is indivisible,” they proclaimed that our work is “committed to an inclusive feminist vision,” as per the National Women’s Studies Association’s 2015 Solidarity Statement, “that contests violations of civil rights and international human rights law.” The call was so popular, that the Palestinian Feminist Collective asked for patience. “Please note, due to the overwhelming response we are only uploading names twice a day. Please be patient as we are stretched to capacity.”

Now, despite seeing Hamas’ rape cult, not one gender studies department has defended even one victimized woman. Feminists have long taught us to believe the accuser and not blame the victim. For years, progressives insisted, in academic papers, on T-shirts, and even on coffee mugs, that when fighting oppression, “silence is consent,” or even that “silence is violence.” On Oct. 7, the violated women shouted, shrieked, cried, begged, rape after rape, cut after cut, fighting off these assaults with their voices and their bare hands as best each could. Some hostages may still be struggling. By contrast, violating every feminist principle I’ve ever read and respected, today’s feminist movement is violently, silently, consenting to this mass crime against women and against the victims from three dozen different countries. Some even doubt the testimonials—and the staggering, bloody, heartbreaking evidence of stripped women paraded through Gaza’s streets. Robbing someone of their story is a secondary offense—but nevertheless inexcusable.

If justice is indivisible, these women deserve justice—and empathy too—whether or not you like Israel or abhor it and its policies. If rape culture is never OK, all civilized people should repudiate so many Palestinians’ and progressives’ delight in spreading these videos and cheering these crimes. In their silence, most leading feminists became complicit, aiding and abetting this mass attempt to dehumanize women just because they’re Jews—or happened to be on the Gaza border that day.

Violating every feminist principle I’ve ever read and respected, today’s feminist movement is violently, silently, consenting to this mass crime against women.

Beyond the sheer cruelty and unfathomable scale of suffering, these crimes devastated so many people, Jews and non-Jews alike, who recognized the barbarians’ perverted pedigree. President Joe Biden connected the historical dots on Oct. 18, saying that when this “sacred Jewish holiday, became the deadliest day for the Jewish people since the Holocaust,” it “brought to the surface painful memories and scars left by a millennia of antisemitism and the genocide of the Jewish people.” He added: “The world watched then, it knew, and the world did nothing. We will not stand by and do nothing again. Not today, not tomorrow, not ever.”

Indeed, these crimes echoed the mass murders and sexual assaults the Nazis perpetrated during the Holocaust, that Arabs perpetrated on their Jewish neighbors during the Hebron Massacre of 1929, that Cossacks perpetrated on so many Jews during pogroms—and so many other Jew-haters perpetrated on Jewish women, no matter how young or old over millennia.

In singling out women, those guilty of this gendered violence want to dehumanize them doubly. They seek to strip Jewish women of their dignity by abusing them in unspeakable ways. They try humiliating Jewish men, treating them as so helpless they cannot even defend their women and children.

After three weeks of hearing how this sadistic saturnalia “exhilarated” too many progressives, those justifiably appalled by these enablers of evil are now being told the worst abuses never happened. Once again, the hypocrisy is stunning. Feminists teach that denying sexual assault intensifies the trauma, erasing the victim’s personhood yet again. Nevertheless, some feminists are questioning the stories—perhaps because they don’t want to question their blind support for the Palestinian cause. They want to deny the vile photos and videos, the reports from IDF officials, pathologists, and volunteers at the overworked morgues, or testimonies from captured Hamas criminals describing “having sex with dead bodies, meaning the body of a dead young woman,” because the goal was “to dirty them, to rape them.”

The horrors of Oct. 7 were so unnerving that the characteristic gallows humor of the Israelis has been muted. The first joke I heard, however, is tragically on point: If gaslighting is denying you said what you said …. Gaza-lighting is denying you did what you did—after broadcasting it broadly to the world…..

*****

Continue reading this article at Tablet Mag.

Image Credit: Wikimedia Commons

TAKE ACTION

As we move through 2023 and into the next election cycle, The Prickly Pear will resume Take Action recommendations and information.

Want to start War III? Then import more anti-American/anti-Western migrants thumbnail

Want to start War III? Then import more anti-American/anti-Western migrants

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By Dr. Rich Swier

The Federation for American Immigration Reform reported in an article titled Illegal Alien Border Apprehensions: What the Numbers Mean reported,

September 2023’s illegal alien border apprehension numbers are finally out, marking the end of Fiscal Year 2023. The picture they paint, is bleak, but also, given the lax security at the border, completely predictable. The total number of people encountered trying to cross our borders illegally was a record-breaking 3.2 million, up from 2.76 million in FY 2022 and 1.96 million in FY 2021.

Following the termination of Title 42 in May 2023, encounters briefly dipped only to rebound up again once it became obvious that the Biden administration’s announcement it would impose greater security did not materialize. Other factors have also played a huge role in driving the growing influx, including parole programs and the administration’s policies regarding Temporary Protected Status (TPS).

  • A record 3.2 million border encounters in Fiscal Year 2023, up 16 percent since FY 2022.
  • Types of Illegal Aliens: Big jump in migrants encountered traveling in family groups, up 62 percent in FY 2023.
  • Parole Programs: Big Pull Factor for Beneficiary Nations
  • Border Security: Open to Terrorism and Tyrannies

Read the full column.

WATCH: TUCKER ON X with British broadcaster, former politician and former leader of the UK Independence Party (UKIP), Nigel Farage explaining why when you accept more anti-Westerners into a country you are setting yourself up for WW III.

Ep. 35 Start another war, send millions more anti-Western refugees to the West. Starting to notice a pattern? pic.twitter.com/93dQaVfbNF

— Tucker Carlson (@TuckerCarlson) October 30, 2023

In a column titled Biden’s Busted Border Is A Giant Red Carpet For Terrorists Manhattan-based Fox News Contributor Deroy Murdock reported,

Maddeningly, Biden’s murder of the U.S.-Mexico border (1848-2021) goes even deeper.

Since Trump departed, southern-frontier incursions have soared among illegals in the Terrorist Screening Dataset. Consider these fiscal year apprehensions:

2017 – 2
2018 – 6
2019 – 0
2020 – 3
2021 – 15
2022 – 98
2023 – 169

Border Patrol caught only 11 terrorists trying to penetrate America’s boundaries under Trump. Under Biden? 282 — up an alarming 2,464%.

Also nailed on the “border,” as Biden watched: 73,008 Special Interest Aliens from 12 terror-tainted countries. Between Oct. 1, 2021, and Oct. 4, 2023, these illegals hailed from:

Afghanistan – 6,386
Egypt – 3,153
Iran – 659
Iraq – 123
Jordan – 185
Lebanon – 164
Mauritania – 15,594
Pakistan – 1,613
Syria – 538
Turkey – 30,830
Uzbekistan – 13,624
Yemen – 139

This month alone, through Oct. 14, illegals have busted in from:

Afghanistan – 285
China – Nearly 2,000
Iran – 30+
Pakistan – 35
Russia – 100+
Syria – Nearly 60

These numbers mean potentially massive trouble, especially since Hamas’ unprovoked slaughter of innocent Israelis on Oct. 7 cranked the Middle Eastern cauldron to boil.

Customs and Border Protection’s San Diego Field Office Intelligence Unit issued a “Situational Awareness” memorandum, which the Daily Caller News Foundation first obtained. The Oct. 20 document “assesses that individuals inspired by, or reacting to, the current Israel-Hamas conflict may attempt travel to or from the area of hostilities in the Middle East via circuitous transit across the Southwest border.”

The warning continues: “Foreign fighters motivated by ideology or mercenary soldiers of fortune may attempt to obfuscate travel to or from the US to or from countries in the Middle East through Mexico.”

Read the full column.

The Bottom Line

Import those who hate you and you are importing another 9/11 or worse, an army bent on starting WW III.

©2023. Dr. Rich Swier. All rights reserved.

RELATED TWEETS ON X:

🚨 JUST IN: Biden DHS @SecMayorkas flat out REFUSES to answer how many illegal immigrants have ties to terror groups

WHY IS THE BIDEN ADMINISTRATION HIDING THIS? pic.twitter.com/7yW48lDbJP

— Nick Sortor (@nicksortor) October 31, 2023

My reaction to Mayim Bialik’s video… who I really respect and like, BTW. Just my raw thoughts… pic.twitter.com/6nmhMuidzv

— Dr. Sheila Nazarian (@DoctorNazarian) October 30, 2023

HHS has lost contact with over 85,000 unaccompanied migrant children.

Yet, @SecBecerra has done nothing to address this crisis.

I will not stop until someone is held accountable for this dereliction of duty. pic.twitter.com/nFjETbYU8E

— Sen. Marsha Blackburn (@MarshaBlackburn) October 29, 2023

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Feds Warn That Hamas, Hezbollah Could Be Crossing Southern Border

Illegal Alien Border Apprehensions: What the Numbers Mean

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Ryan Mauro Discusses the Israel-Hamas War

Stop Calling Them ‘Pro-Palestine’ Rallies

Halloween Horror: The Return of the Bond Market Vigilantes thumbnail

Halloween Horror: The Return of the Bond Market Vigilantes

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By Mark Wallace

For those who make their living on Capitol Hill and at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, the real horror this Halloween won’t be the kids in their Halloween costumes or the scary movies in the cinema — it will be (and is) the return of the Bond Market Vigilantes.

Simply put, the Bond Market Vigilantes are a politician’s worst nightmare.  Politicians make their living collecting bribes dressed up as campaign contributions from lobbyists of every ilk.  In return, the politicians pass legislation expressly designed to line the pockets of the various interest groups that the lobbyists work for.  Oftentimes, the legislation itself is drafted by the lobbyists’ lawyers.  Some interest groups are so large — for example, senior citizens collecting Social Security and obtaining their health care through Medicare — that even lobbyists are not particularly needed to keep the money flowing.  When a vote to reduce Social Security entails political suicide, the situation more or less takes care of itself.

In other words, virtually the entirety of the Capitol Hill kabuki show involves keeping the U.S. Treasury’s money flowing to the country’s most important and influential interest groups, be they a single corporation, an entire industry such as Big Pharma, or a large segment of the population.

But what happens if something occurs that imposes highly undesirable consequences when the existing money flows continue or, God forbid, increase?  That’s where the Bond Market Vigilantes come in.  During the week of March 31, 2020, the thirty-year U.S. Treasury bond contract on the futures exchange traded as high as 191.688.  In the most recent week that ended on October 27, 2023, that same contract traded as low as 107.125.  That’s nearly a 50 percent drop from the high in one of the world’s most important securities.  It’s a drop that occurred over three and one-half years, so we are not dealing here with a flash in the pan or a sudden panic but rather a considered judgment by some of the world’s most respected and intelligent investors that leaving money in the hands of the United States Government for a long period of time (say, 30 years) is a very, very bad idea.

And why would it be a bad idea?  Not because the U.S. Treasury cannot be relied upon to pay those 30-year bonds in full at maturity in fiat currency.  The Federal Reserve can print whatever quantity of fiat currency (at this point in the article I am going to cease calling it “money”) it wants to, there’s no doubt that the Fed will manufacture out of thin air a sufficient quantity of fiat currency “I-owe-you-nothings” (as the great central banker John Exter called the Treasury’s greenbacks) to pay maturing 30-year Treasuries at their full face value.

No, the problem is not full payment at maturity, the problem is what will those wheelbarrows full of greenbacks will be worth when the 30-year Treasuries finally mature.  The judgment of those investing in 30-year Treasuries — we can now call them the Bond Market Vigilantes — is that those wheelbarrows full of U.S. fiat currency being rolled out in 2053 won’t be worth a whole lot.

The Bond Market Vigilantes are a nightmare for Washington’s politicians and bureaucrats for a variety of reasons, the most important of which are the profoundly negative effects on the Federal Government’s budget, the financial markets and ultimately the economy itself.  Higher interest rates mean more fiat currency going to pay interest (obviously) and less being available for the various interest groups feeding at the Federal Trough.  Now, although it’s true that even more fiat currency can be printed to both pay the interest and pay the interest groups in full, that would just make the Bond Market Vigilantes even more anxious to exit 30-year Treasuries and thus would force long-term interest rates even higher.

High-interest rates have a depressing effect on both the financial markets and the economy.  If those rates move high enough, both would be crushed, and nothing makes an incumbent politician more likely to get voted out of office than a crashing stock market (“Sir, your IRA is now worth only half of what it was worth last year”) and an economy in depression (“Mr. Smith, we lost half of our customer base, so your services are no longer required”).

Three and one-half years of declining Treasury Bond prices is a long time, folks, and it should be obvious to all those not blind that we are now in a new era where rising long-term interest rates and falling prices of U.S. Treasury securities imposed by the Bond Market Vigilantes constitute a slowly-tightening noose around the necks of politicians long used to spending like drunken sailors.

Collectively, the Bond Market Vigilantes represent a “new sheriff in town.”  It’s not for nothing that Democrat strategist James Carville stated that if he died and were reincarnated, he wouldn’t want to come back as president or pope — he would come back as the Bond Market.

*****

Image Credit: Shutterstock

TAKE ACTION

As we move through 2023 and into the next election cycle, The Prickly Pear will resume Take Action recommendations and information.

Why Are Some Social Justice Unionists Backing the Palestinians? thumbnail

Why Are Some Social Justice Unionists Backing the Palestinians?

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By Michael Watson

Editors’ Note: It is interesting that the “social justice movement” now endorses terrorism, we might add extremely barbaric forms of terrorism because they believe violence is justified for their cause.  No matter how blood-curdling the acts, Progressives can find justification. Conservatives have long contended this kind of violence was philosophically supported by this movement but was largely hidden from the public.  Proving that political positions often come in a “package”, Left-wing unions, student groups, anti-fossil fuel alarmists, university faculty, transgender and queer groups, members of the media, Black Lives Matter, and some feminists; all fall in line with their anti-Israel position.  This must come as a particular shock to the many progressive-leaning Jews that have lent support to these groups over the years.  We hope and pray they start rethinking their positions. But it likely is a shock to most Americans who now can see how deeply penetrated and corrupted have become some of our major institutions. We believe most of this corruption originates from the universities and the takeover of the Democratic Party by radicals.  Obama and Sanders have re-made the party. Why on earth are not Republican governors and legislatures, that have nominal control in about half the nation, not cleaning up our state-supported universities?  There needs to be greater ideological diversity on campus. If colleges get state money, taxpayers have a right and responsibility to influence university education.  For private colleges, it is more difficult. Why not start taxing the endowments for Harvard and Yale? Maybe that will get their attention.  If indeed this “social justice” claptrap emanates from the university, Conservatives and moderates should make cleaning up the university a top priority.  As for labor unions, how does taking such a sickening moral stance improve worker pay and conditions?  Members certainly should want to know.

Since the horrific terrorist attacks against Israel on October 7, numerous left-wing institutions have disgraced themselves by taking actions that at least appeared to side with the terrorists against their civilian victims. In perhaps the most regrettable of all illustrations of the power of social justice unionism, labor organizations joined the self-discreditation—and where they didn’t, their usual allies on the far left denounced them for craven, financially interested right-deviationism.

Let us conduct a brief tour of the more notable union actions defending the Hamas rampage, the “Palestinian cause,” or those who exposed themselves by supporting them.

Little Labor Radicalizes

Some on the union-curious right have placed their hope for a revival of class struggle and trade unionist spirit in “little labor,” focusing on the Amazon Labor Union (ALU) and Starbucks Workers United. Yet both are radical—far more radical than the major labor unions content to align with the immediate needs of the Democratic Party of the moment—and their stances on the Israel-Hamas conflict illustrate this.

The Amazon Labor Union—praised for its organizing efforts by Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL)—got to work undermining the U.S.-Israel relationship before the outbreak of war. Campaigning alongside the extremely controversial former Women’s March leader Linda Sarsour at the Amazon Web Services summit in New York, Amazon Labor Union leader Jordan Flowers declared, “We are here today to fight back, and everyone should have their chance to say that Amazon needs to be held accountable, Google needs to be held accountable, and the Israeli government should be held accountable for all charges and crimes,” while demanding the company break deals it made with the State of Israel over cloud computing.

Starbucks Workers United, a campaign of the larger Workers United division of the Service Employees International Union, responded to the initial reports of Hamas raids from Gaza in about the worst way imaginable. The union’s official Twitter account posted (and later deleted) “Solidarity with Palestine!” in response to an image of a truck destroying the Israel-Gaza Strip border fencing. Many Hamas operatives used such gaps in the fence to enter Israel to murder civilians. The Washington Free Beacon reported, “Union chapters in Iowa, Chicago, and Boston promoted rallies in support of the Palestinian attacks, including a ‘Long Live Palestinian Resistance’ rally to be held in Boston on Monday.”

What About Big Labor?

The radical stances of the ALU and Starbucks Workers United drew attention from In These Times, a socialist movement newspaper that tracks the labor movement and other left-wing activist causes. The paper compared the radical positions of these unions and the United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers of America (UE), which formally opposes U.S. military aid to Israel, favorably with the more pro-Israel positioning of other unions, including such banes of conservatives’ existence as Randi Weingarten’s American Federation of Teachers.

How did that happen? UE has a long and controversial history. It departed from the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO; later a constituent of the AFL-CIO federation) in 1949 amid disputes over Communist domination of the labor movement and whether to accede to federal rules requiring union officials to declare that they were not Communists. Since then, UE has gained a reputation as one of the most radical-left-positioned labor organizations with a notable membership (28,030 as of 2021) in the United States.

As for “little labor,” the same independence that leads right-wingers to falsely believe that independent (or independent-appearing) unions can remain politically independent or neutral outside of the economic core issues actually empowers those unions to be as insanely extremist as their activists’ hearts desire. Randi Weingarten, Mary Kay Henry of the national SEIU, Liz Shuler of the AFL-CIO, and the other national union leaders have very strong coalitional incentives not to cross the Democratic Party’s general moderately pro-Israel consensus. (Yes, it exists: Statements made by Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer (D-NY) and President Biden about the current conflict have largely supported the Israelis, at least in theory. Practice may be another matter, but that is not yet decided.)

A further caution comes from the United Auto Workers—or at least its Harvard Graduate Student Union local. A faction of conservatives still imagines the UAW as a union of hard hats who don’t want to deal with silly social politics—indeed, who need protection from silly social politics! But the union in real life actually consists of a mix of auto workers, university graduate students, and casino workers, among others. And those graduate students are all about the silly social politics—and want there to be no consequences for actions such as signing letters blaming Israel for being attacked by Hamas. The Washington Free Beacon reported that Harvard’s UAW-affiliated union proposed a resolution to “allow students who have faced blowback for their vicious anti-Israel advocacy to apply for up to $1,500 a piece, funded not by union dues but the university’s own coffers.” Empowering Big Labor means empowering these factions, too.

Evolving Ideology

Senior, national-level union officials are old enough to have risen through a labor movement that was more closely aligned with an Israel ruled for decades and culturally dominated by a staunchly collectivist Labor Zionist movement, with whom American unionists had a strong affinity. Louis Nayman, a retired union organizer writing in Tablet, expressed disappointment in the AFL-CIO’s official statement in response to the Hamas attacks, contrasting its wishy-washiness to the small-d democratic resolution of the Cold War-era AFL-CIO leaders like George Meany and Lane Kirkland.

But as Labor Zionism has weakened in Israel (the Labor Party, which carries the flag of Labor Zionism in modern Israeli politics, fell from its maximum of 56 in 1969 to a mere four of the 120 seats in the most recent Israeli election), young labor unionists have lost a connection to the state. And as Labor Zionism crafted in the ashes of the Nazi Holocaust has declined in popularity on the Left, intersectional theory has risen. And intersectional and “decolonization” theory targets “settler colonial” nations for ultimate elimination—among them perhaps first and second are the United States and Israel. Let the would-be buyer beware.

*****

This article was published by Capital Research and is reproduced with permission.

Image Credit: Shutterstock

TAKE ACTION

As we move through 2023 and into the next election cycle, The Prickly Pear will resume Take Action recommendations and information.

The 1939 Flag of Palestine Recognized It As A ‘Jewish Entity’ thumbnail

The 1939 Flag of Palestine Recognized It As A ‘Jewish Entity’

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By Dr. Rich Swier

The 1939 flag of Palestine clearly shows that it was recognized as a Jewish entity even then, and that the name “Palestine” historically referred to a region (so named by the Romans after they expelled the Jews in 134 AD, using the name of the Philistines, the Israelites’ Biblical enemies), not to a people.

Click here to view the 1939 flag of Palestine.

There was no Palestinian nationality before the 1960s, when it was invented in order to reposition what was then universally known as the Arab/Israeli conflict. Up to the invention of “Palestinians,” the Israelis were the tiny, besieged people amidst a huge number of hostile Arabs; after that invention, the “Palestinians” themselves became the tiny, besieged people against the big, bad Israelis. PLO executive committee member Zahir Muhsein said this in 1977:

The Palestinian people does not exist. The creation of a Palestinian state is only a means for continuing our struggle against the state of Israel for our Arab unity. In reality today there is no difference between Jordanians, Palestinians, Syrians and Lebanese. Only for political and tactical reasons do we speak today about the existence of a Palestinian people, since Arab national interests demand that we posit the existence of a distinct “Palestinian people” to oppose Zionism.

For tactical reasons, Jordan, which is a sovereign state with defined borders, cannot raise claims to Haifa and Jaffa, while as a Palestinian, I can undoubtedly demand Haifa, Jaffa, Beer-Sheva and Jerusalem. However, the moment we reclaim our right to all of Palestine, we will not wait even a minute to unite Palestine and Jordan.

The Israelis were mistaken ever to play along with this charade.

1939 Palestinian Flag. What does it look like? Surprised?

Factual Israel, November 14, 2014:

This a Larousse French dictionary from 1939. In the appendix it lists all the then current flags of the world in alphabetical order. You’ll notice that for Germany at that time the flag was the Nazi one replete with Swastikas’ which proves that this was pre-1945 ( before 1945)!

Now, alphabetically, look for the Palestinian Flag. YES , there is one. What does it look like? Surprised? Oh, but you thought (Mandate Jewish) Palestine was an Islamic Arab-,Turkish-, Circassian Sovereign State that the bad Jews took over , right?

Confused?

From 1920-1948 a ( class ‘A’ Mandate) State of Palestine existed as per international law but it was, as all of its major institutions, Jewish. Until the 1960s, name “Palestine” resonated as something Jewish to European ears; the Muslims rejecting the name saying it didn’t belong. The 4,000 year old Jewish homeland or “Land of Israel” or the “Holy Land” were all synonymous!!

The British as legal Mandatory over the Mandate managed or mismanaged the state partially with Jewish Auxiliary until Jews regained official sovereignty in 1948, by declaring independence.

The U.N. did not recreate Israel as some people claim.

Read more.

©2023. Dr. Rich Swier. All rights reserved.

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Czech Defense Minister Jana Černochová calls to leave the UN for supporting terrorism

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By The Geller Report

Brava! A voice of humanity and moral clarity.

Czech Defense Minister Jana Černochová calls to leave the United Nations  for supporting terrorism stating, “Three weeks ago Hamas murdered over 1400 Israelis, more victims for their population than Al Qaeda murdered in the US on 9/11. And only 14 countries, including ours, have spoken out clearly against this unprecedented terrorist attack. I am ashamed of the UN. Czech Republic has no place in an organization that cheers on terrorists and does not respect the fundamental right to self-defense. Let’s get out!”

Czech DM calls to exit UN for supporting Hamas, warns Holocaust is back

The Czech Republic’s defense minister’s move to call to leave the UN came after a resolution called on Israel to leave Gaza without condemning Hamas.

By TOVAH LAZAROFF, JERUSALEM POST STAFF

One must not stand silent in the face of a second Holocaust, the Czech Defense Minister Jana Černochová said as she called on her country to withdraw from the United Nations to protest its failure to condemn Hamas’ October 7 attack on Israel.

“The Holocaust is back, and we must not be silent again,” she said, in a statement she posted on X.She spoke of her outrage one day after the UN General Assembly voted 120-14 for a ceasefire for the Gaza War, which focused primarily on the plight of the Palestinians in Gaza.The UNGA resolution which also had 45 abstentions, did not mention or clearly call for the release of the 230 hostages the terror group took captive on that day.

Read full article.

AUTHOR

Pamela Geller

RELATED TWEETS ON X:

🚨 Breaking: 🇨🇿 Czech Defense Minister Jana Černochová calls to leave the UN 🇺🇳 for supporting terrorism: “Three weeks ago Hamas murdered over 1400 Israelis, more victims for their population than Al Qaeda murdered in the US on 9/11. And only 14 countries, including ours, have… pic.twitter.com/BvMcjsgXdW

— Dr. Eli David (@DrEliDavid) October 28, 2023

Every single word. 🇮🇱🇮🇱🇮🇱 pic.twitter.com/gAbbb9hy2v

— Michal -מיכל✡️ 🟦 (@MichalSabra) October 27, 2023

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Islamic Atrocities: Baby Was Found in an Oven, Baked to Death by Hamas Terrorists

Biden Has Blown Up the World

EDITORS NOTE: This Geller Report is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

Stocks Look for Seasonal Strength thumbnail

Stocks Look for Seasonal Strength

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By Neland Nobel

As reported in the past few missives on the subject, stocks, and bonds have been having a generally tough time.

We warned that this was going to happen, and we were lucky enough to get the call right.  Weakness continued through the month of October and just might extend into the first weeks or so of November.

Many assumed the recent strength was “a new bull market.”  We expressed doubts, in part because of the trend in interest rates and also because valuations remain quite high.  But we admit we did not anticipate how weird this market would prove to be.  While the market is still nominally up for the year, only 27% of stocks in the S&P are trading above the longer-term 200-day moving average.  In the case of the broader NYSE average, only 28% are above their 200-day moving average.

Can you have a bull market with almost three-quarters of the stocks within the broad equity indices heading down?  Not really.  What you can say is that a handful of mega-cap stocks can make the market appear to be in an uptrend, when the bulk of shares are actually going lower.

We have urged caution by suggesting more money in market-neutral cash and short-term bonds, and less money in equities and long-dated bonds.  Now that short-term T-bills pay over 5%, it has been a good place to be.

During this most recent decline, results have varied depending on the time period measured and which sector of the market you may be positioned.

The best performer has been Big Tech, which is responsible for most of the gains in the S&P 500, due to the capital-weighted nature of that index.  That said, indications are that this leadership is now weakening.

But QQQ, which represents the 100 largest companies in the NASDAQ is up 30% or so on the year. That looks quite good at first glance.

However, the tendency to measure results in one-year increments can be deceptive.  Most indices peaked out by the spring of 2021, or a bit earlier. So, if you look at a three-year time frame, the QQQ is down about 14%.  Since inflation has soared in the past three years of Bidenomics, the real performance is not as good as headlines would suggest.

The widely followed and indexed S&P is up about 11% so far this year but is down about 12% from its high reached in 2021.

However, the equal-weighted S&P, which removes the distortion of the “Magnificent Seven” big tech companies, is down about 2% so far for the year, but down 18% from its high a few years ago.

The Russell 3000 (IWV) represents smaller companies.  The so-called “small cap” has been having a rough time. It is down 10% so far this year, and down about 14% from the highs three years ago.  This may be because balance sheets and cash holdings are weaker for small companies and the rise in interest rates is playing havoc with their refinancing costs.

However, other sectors have soared.  XLE, which represents traditional hydrocarbon energy, is up 188% over the past three years.  Money managers that kicked oil stocks out of their portfolios for green/political reasons, did their investors a terrible disservice. ESG funds have generally seen large outflows and people seem finally to be souring on “woke” investing.

Sharply rising interest rates have taken a modest toll so far on equity prices but have created the worst three-year return for bonds in American history.  TLT, an index that measures the value of longer-term treasury bonds is down a whopping 43.5% or so from the high reached three years ago.

Thus, with stock and bonds both struggling during the Biden period, the typical 60% equities and 40% bond allocation has been a loser, especially if measured against inflation during that period.  Bottom line, most investors taking a diversified approach, have lost ground over the past three years, and largely so far this year.

Don’t be too upset with your financial advisor.  They simply have not had good markets to work with and concentrated bets that have been good would have violated the prudential rules that they must abide by.

There is some hope, at least in the short term. Stocks have now become pretty oversold on a momentum basis.  In addition, stocks tend to do well from Thanksgiving and into January.  Of course, there is no guarantee, but that is the history.

Complicating matters, 3Q GDP was strong, suggesting the FED cannot ease back on interest rates anytime soon, which muddies the picture of the “seasonal strength” stocks usually show in the period just ahead.

In addition, the massive size of government debt issuance is putting downward pressure on bond prices, which is another way of saying interest rates are rising for market-driven reasons of supply and demand and are now out in front of the FED, which has “paused” rate increases.

Given how sharply interest rates have risen, we are a bit surprised stocks have not done worse.

It is somewhat surprising the economy likewise has done as well as it has. But it simply may be that huge fiscal stimulus has delayed the pain and that it will come in time.  Interest rates on home mortgages are now breaching 8%, and real estate turnover has slowed to a crawl.  Most consumers have their money tied up in their homes and it has been the consumer who has carried the economy.  Also, the cash hoard the public had built up from all the “stimulus” checks has now largely been dissipated. This in turn explains the explosion in credit card debt as people try to continue to support their standard of living.  But borrowing at credit card rates to maintain a standard of living is like a snake eating its tail.

Rising rates have kept the dollar strong, driving up the trade deficit and creating a headwind for gold.

Gold is up about 11% over the past three years, which is not a terrible performance given the strength of the dollar.  Measured in most other foreign currencies, gold is already at new highs while in dollar terms it hovers just below old highs.

Gold is now showing better relative strength than the stock market.  Given the runaway deficit spending, likely more defense spending, a probable slowdown that will force the FED to pivot, the chance of expanding war, and political chaos next year; investors may want to look seriously at gold.  It is currently “oversold” and Western investors continue to bail out of gold bullion ETFs, while most central banks continue to buy gold quite aggressively.  Weak hands are selling, strong hands are buying, and the public is not paying much attention to gold.  Fundamentally, that is a good setup for the yellow metal.

We view gold more as insurance against political mismanagement of money, and that seems more necessary than ever.

The first gold purchases should be in the form of bullion coins or small bars.  Investors should take delivery of the actual metal itself and store it safely.

Our longest-term advertiser would be a good place to start. Call American Precious Metals at 602-840-5500 or 1-800-522-GOLD.  If you are inclined to buy, please support them and The Prickly Pear.

Insofar as stocks are concerned, the short-term weakness has not yet broken what we believe remains a primary bull market.  However, continued deterioration has occurred with daily prices now falling below the key 200-day moving average, and shorter-term 21-day and 50-day have crossed and rolled over to the downside.

Certainly, the stock market is oversold and due to bounce.  But higher interest rates are doing their damage and while the recession call by many seems to have been too early, 2024 could still see a recession emerge.

The yield curve remains inverted, but it is starting to de-invert. Market declines have often occurred during the de-inversion process.

We also have growing concerns about a “credit event” that could shake markets. Years of zero or near-zero rates made use of heavy financial leverage quite popular.  As rates rise, assets sensitive to rates such as bonds and mortgages decline in value.  Those institutions that hold them like banks, insurance companies, finance companies, and pensions, have suffered substantial losses. We don’t really have special insight as to where the problem will reveal itself but rest assured somebody out there is taking a beating.  As we are seeing in China, it is possible the credit event could start abroad and spread here or it will be of domestic origin.

This chart will give you an insight.  Huge amounts of domestic corporate debt come due over the next five years and must be refinanced at much higher rates.  For the marginal borrower, this is going to be painful, if not fatal.

Therefore, other than some seasonal strength and a bounce from an oversold condition, we remain cautious about heavy allocation to stocks and prefer to park in 5% plus short-term T-bills while we await more information.  Stay in high-quality debt.

Much celebration has occurred because of the strong Q3 growth reported.  However, those who like to parse the numbers complain that almost all the growth is attributable to huge Federal spending.  Government spending is approximately 37% of GDP.

What is true though is the Friday PCE (Personal Consumption Expenditure) inflation numbers were bad, well above the FED’s 2% inflation rate.  Let’s face it.  The FED and Biden uncorked inflation and they can’t get it back into the bottle.  The market’s hopes for lower rates look increasingly bleak.

*****

Image Credit: Shutterstock

Chart: Jesse Felder

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Zero Net by 2050 Has Zero Chance Of Succeeding thumbnail

Zero Net by 2050 Has Zero Chance Of Succeeding

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By Dr. Thomas Patterson

Arizona State University President Michael Crow believes we are in such danger that we should amend the US Constitution to empower the government to deal more expansively with climate change. Dr. Crow’s view that constitutional protections of our liberties should be eliminated when they become inconvenient wouldn’t square with the founders’, but his estimate of the dangers and required remedies for our changing climate are quite mainstream.

“Net-zero by 2050” has become an article of faith among our corporate and academic elites, no longer requiring proof or intellectual defense. The notion that we must eliminate all carbon emissions by mid-century if we want to save the planet is the organizing principle for environmental, social, and corporate governance (ESG) investing.  In 2022, it was mentioned more than 6,000 times in filings with the Securities and  Exchange Commission.

The SEC has helpfully proposed climate disclosure rules to help investors “evaluate the progress in meeting net-zero emissions and assessing any associated risk“. Skeptics are sidelined as “climate deniers”.

But mounting scientific evidence suggests that net zero is wildly impractical and probably not even achievable. In September, the Electric Power Research Institute, the research arm of the US electric power industry (which would seem to be naturally inclined to support proposals that increase reliance on electricity), released a sober report on the practicality of net zero.

Their study concluded that “clean electricity plus direct electrification and efficiency…are not sufficient by themselves to achieve net-zero economy-wide emissions”. Translation: it can’t be done. No amount of wind turbines, solar panels, battery power, fossil fuel, or other available technologies will achieve net zero by 2050.

Furthermore, even “deep carbonization”– drastic reductions in atmospheric carbon levels – is an impossible dream. With natural gas and nuclear generation forced to the sidelines, that would require options like carbon removal technologies, which would cost a quadrillion (million billion) dollars, which would…well, you get the picture.

Finally, the report concludes living in a net-zero world may not be all that great. Supply chains operating only on electricity and the reliability and resiliency of a net-zero electricity grid could be highly problematic.

The response to this nonpartisan and obviously consequential report was silence. There has been essentially no media coverage. No climate activists rushed to dispute the methodology nor challenge the conclusions.

This is a significant tell.  You could assume if the eco-activists were genuinely concerned about our climate future, they would have some interest in responding to this major challenge to their assumptions. But they ignored it to cling to their groupthink.

Yet other indications that the transition to renewable fuels is already off the track keep coming. The government-certified North American Electric Reliability Corp recently issued its 2022 Long-Term Reliability Assessment. NERC concluded that fossil fuel plants were being removed from the grid too quickly to meet electricity demand, putting us at risk for energy shortages and even blackouts during extreme weather.

But wait, there’s more. PGM International, a large grid operator in the Northeast, recently released projections indicating it will soon lose 40,000 MW, 21% of its generation capacity. The looming plant closures are mostly “policy-driven” by onerous EPA regulations and mandatory ESG commitments.

Renewables, although lavishly subsidized to replace the lost electricity, consistently underperform and will be able to produce at most half of the electricity lost.  Meanwhile the government is perversely mandating electric vehicles, appliances and whatever.

Finally, the repeated assertions of settled science were unsettled by 1,609 scientists and professors worldwide signing a “No Climate Emergency” declaration. The document was issued by Climate Intelligence or Clintel, a nonpartisan self-funded, independent organization of scholars whose only agenda is “to generate knowledge and understanding of the causes and effects of climate change and climate policy”.

They point out that there is no basis for claiming an upcoming existential crisis.  Carbon dioxide is not primarily a pollutant but a necessary basis for life. Moreover, there is no statistical evidence that global warming is intensifying natural disasters. Panic is dangerous, with the potential to plunge us into perpetual poverty.

They charge that climate science has degenerated into a discussion based on beliefs, not on “self-critical science”. Historians of the future, reflecting on our era of hyper-politicized science, will undoubtedly agree.

*****

Image Credit: Pixabay

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Polls Showing Support For Israel Hide Some Ugly Truths thumbnail

Polls Showing Support For Israel Hide Some Ugly Truths

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By David Harsanyi

There were dozens of Charlottesville-type marches in the United States last week. No one in the media wants to ask why.

According to a new Harvard/Harris poll, only the police and military are more respected than Israel. It’s heartening that Americans overwhelmingly support civilization over the Islamofascists of Gaza and Iran.

Then again, “Palestinian Authority” gets 17 percent support, and Hamas has a 14 percent positive rating — which is to say, 14 percent of your neighbors have taken the side of a medieval religious cult that’s vicious enough to cut Jewish babies out of mothers before beheading them. If 14 percent of Americans supported ISIS or al Qaeda or the Nazi Party, we would probably be concerned.

Anyway, those numbers seem far too small to me. I think there’s a good reason why. For one thing, many of those who claim to be “supporters” of the Jewish State are not. The Barack Obama types, who do the perfunctory throat-clearing about Israel’s right to exist before going into the usual reasons it should not. This faction — let’s be generous and call them “both-siders” — is a growing concern in the Democratic Party and on the fringes of the right.

According to the Harvard poll crosstabs, 36 percent of “liberals” of all ages agreed that the Hamas attack on civilians was justified. 15 percent of “conservatives.” While antisemitism isn’t the exclusive domain of left or right, full-blown Hamas apologists are now deeply embedded in left-wing institutions such as universities, major newspapers, cable news, progressive politics, think tanks, and the State Department. They have the kind of disproportionate reach and institutional respect that cosplaying Nazis standing in front of Disney playing with themselves can only dream about.

Also according to the Harvard poll, a majority of 18- to 24-year-olds believe the killing of more than 1,200 Israeli and American civilians was justified. Nearly half of those 25 to 35 believe it was justified. That percentage might be a bit lower than what you find in The New York Times newsroom; nevertheless, it is only going to get worse.

How many young people working as engineers or carpenters or starting a new business or at home tending to a new family support Hamas? Very few, one imagines. What about the lit majors or those pursuing international relations degrees or Ph.D.s in one of the social pseudosciences? There is little hope for those who attend hermetically sealed ideological laboratories of higher “learning,” where identitarianism, intersectionality, and other iterations of Marxism — most contingent on some form of antisemitism — are taught.

These institutions are run by cowardly administrators who only stand up for free speech when defending terror apologists. They will continue to create credentialed moral nitwits. These are not often places for young people to learn critical thinking skills. But they are places that produce ideologues who’ll be getting those editorial jobs and professorships and teachers union presidencies and law clerkships and security clearance jobs at the Pentagon.

Who else makes up this minority? We’re not supposed to talk about it, but it’s clear. According to a Cygnal poll (the outfit gets an “A” rating from FiveThirtyEight), a majority of American Muslims agree that Hamas was “justified” in its attack on Israel as well.

Though it is indisputable that antisemitism is deeply ingrained in certain Muslim communities, to say so will likely get you smeared as “Islamophobic” — always a big topic of conversation in Washington when Jews are being murdered.

But look to Europe, where crimes against Jews have skyrocketed in places with high levels of immigration from the Middle East, to understand the potential problem. When Pew polled the Muslim world, it found nearly universal antipathy toward Jews. Not only in places like Jordan and Egypt, where governments have spent decades ginning up Jew-hatred to distract from their own failing but also in Muslim-majority nations like Indonesia, where there are around 20 Jews and the Israeli border sits thousands of miles away. Antisemites like Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib did not appear from the ether. They represent communities in Michigan and Minnesota.

There were dozens of Charlottesville-type marches in the United States last week, with chants of genocide ringing in the air. They were attended largely by Muslim protesters, along with the hard left (including a number of self-hating Jews.) Though Jews are by far the most targeted religious minority in the United States, we have yet to have a big national conversation about the problem. No one in major media dares even bring it up.

*****

This article was published by The Federalist and is reproduced with permission.

Image Credit: Wikimedia Commons

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‘The Ground Shook In Gaza’: Israel’s Defense Minister Announces ‘Next Stage’ In War Against Hamas thumbnail

‘The Ground Shook In Gaza’: Israel’s Defense Minister Announces ‘Next Stage’ In War Against Hamas

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By The Daily Caller

Israel’s defense minister announced on Saturday that the war against Hamas has entered a “new stage” following expanded ground operations that were launched against Gaza beginning on Friday.

Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said in televised remarks that the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) had expanded ground operations against Gaza by sending in tanks and infantry backed by large strikes from the air and sea, according to The Associated Press.  However, an IDF spokesperson told ABC News on Friday that the expanded ground operations were not the anticipated full-on military invasion of Gaza.

“We moved to the next stage in the war,” Gallant said. “Last evening, the ground shook in Gaza. We attacked above ground and underground…The instructions to the forces are clear. The campaign will continue until further notice.”

Video activity of the IDF Ground Forces in Gaza. pic.twitter.com/FWt0pFO53q

— Israel Defense Forces (@IDF) October 28, 2023

Gallant said on Friday that he anticipated that a ground invasion into Gaza would be difficult, and that the ground invasion would begin soon, according to the AP. “It will take a long time” to destroy Hamas’ wide-ranging network of tunnels, Gallant said.

Gaza residents described Friday’s bombardments as the most intense of the three-week old war, according to the AP. These Israeli strikes knocked out most communications in Gaza, while also targeting several of Hamas’ tunnels and underground bunkers, according to the AP.

The IDF on Saturday released images of Israeli tanks entering open ground in Gaza, which appeared to be near the Israeli-Gaza border. “We are conducting out sweep and clear activities in order to create better conditions for optimal operation conditions on the ground, IDF spokesperson Peter Lerner told ABC News on Friday.

The Israeli strikes on Friday knocked out internet connections in Gaza and caused the largest outage of the war so far, according to The Washington Post. “We are beefing up pressure on Hamas. We’re increasing pressure that they’re under,” Mark Regev, an advisor to Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told Fox News on Friday. “Our military operations are underway,” Regev added.

Israel’s military operations against Gaza are in response to Hamas’ terrorist attack against Israel that began on Oct.7 and led to the deaths of over 1,400 Israelis, and the capturing of over 200 hostages, four of whom have since been released by Hamas.

AUTHOR

RYAN MEILSTRUP

Associate editor.

RELATED ARTICLE: ‘Payback’: Israel Expands Ground Operations Against Hamas, Official Says

RELATED TWEET ON X:

When you hear that people in Gaza don’t have fuel, it’s because Hamas took all of it. pic.twitter.com/i2MOjesZxw

— Israel Defense Forces (@IDF) October 29, 2023

EDITORS NOTE: This Daily Caller column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

All content created by the Daily Caller News Foundation, an independent and nonpartisan newswire service, is available without charge to any legitimate news publisher that can provide a large audience. All republished articles must include our logo, our reporter’s byline and their DCNF affiliation. For any questions about our guidelines or partnering with us, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.

Corrupt FBI Received ‘Criminal Information’ From over 40 Confidential Sources on Joe Biden, Hunter, James thumbnail

Corrupt FBI Received ‘Criminal Information’ From over 40 Confidential Sources on Joe Biden, Hunter, James

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By The Geller Report

The FBI shutdown the reporting and information coming from those sources by lying, saying the data was “foreign disinformation.” And the country’s leading candidate for President, Donald Trump, is being serially indicted for non-existent infractions.

We have no country. Not really.

The FBI has maintained more than 40 confidential human sources on various CRIMINAL MATTERS related to the Biden family, including Joe Biden, dating back to his time as Vice-President – Fox News

All sources conveyed information of a criminal nature to the FBI concerning Joe Biden, James Biden, and Hunter Biden.

These sources were under the supervision of various FBI field offices throughout the country, including the FBI’s Seattle Field Office.

CHUCK GRASSLEY: “Based on the information provided to my office over a period of years by multiple credible whistleblowers, there appears to be an effort within the Justice Department and FBI to shut down investigative activity relating to the Biden family.”

“Such decisions point to significant political bias infecting the decision-making of not only the Attorney General and FBI Director, but also line agents and prosecutors.”

“Our Republic cannot survive such a political infection and you have an obligation to this country to clear the air.”

FBI received ‘criminal information’ from over 40 confidential sources on Joe Biden, Hunter, James: Grassley

Grassley alleges that the FBI and DOJ sought to shut down investigations into the Bidens

By: Brooke Singman, Fox News, October 25, 2023:

More Americans think Joe and Hunter Biden did something illegal: Fox Poll

Americans in Nashville weigh in on Hunter Biden’s business dealings and whether the first family did anything illegal

EXCLUSIVE: The FBI maintained more than 40 confidential human sources on various criminal matters related to the Biden family, including Joe Biden, dating back to his time as vice president, according to information obtained by Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa.

.@ChuckGrassley letter to Director Wray, AG Garland “I’ve been made aware that at one point in time the FBI maintained over 40 Confidential Human Sources that provided criminal information relating to Joe Biden, James Biden, and Hunter Biden.” 👇https://t.co/d2TBGrxIrL pic.twitter.com/XftbEAlsz8

— Catherine Herridge (@CBS_Herridge) October 26, 2023

The confidential human sources “provided criminal information to the FBI relating to Joe Biden, James Biden, and Hunter Biden.” Those confidential human sources were managed by multiple FBI field offices across the nation, including the FBI’s Seattle Field Office.

But Grassley learned that an FBI task force within the Washington Field Office sought to, and in some cases, successfully, shut down reporting and information from those sources by falsely discrediting the information as foreign disinformation. That effort “caused investigative activity to cease.”

However, despite those efforts by the FBI task force, Grassley said in at least one instance, a confidential human source and its information had been vetted by multiple U.S. attorneys’ offices, which found “no hits to known sources of Russian disinformation.”

The revelations were laid out in a letter Grassley wrote to Attorney General Merrick Garland and FBI Director Christopher Wray late Tuesday night. The letter was exclusively obtained by Fox News Digital.

“Based on the information provided to my office over a period of years by multiple credible whistleblowers, there appears to be an effort within the Justice Department and FBI to shut down investigative activity relating to the Biden family,” Grassley wrote to Garland and Wray. “Such decisions point to significant political bias infecting the decision-making of not only the Attorney General and FBI Director, but also line agents and prosecutors.”

He added: “Our Republic cannot survive such a political infection and you have an obligation to this country to clear the air.”

Read full article.

AUTHOR

Pamela Geller

RELATED TWEET ON X:

Sen. Chuck Grassley has confirmed that since Joe Biden was Vice President, the FBI has maintained over 40 confidential human sources providing criminal information on the Biden Crime Family. That’s more assets and resources than the feds have working Mob bosses.

Grassley also…

— Charlie Kirk (@charliekirk11) October 27, 2023

EDITORS NOTE: This Geller Report is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

Qatar: Master Double-Dealer thumbnail

Qatar: Master Double-Dealer

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By Con Coughlin

There is a very good reason why the tiny Gulf state of Qatar finds itself so well-placed to play a central role in negotiating the release of Israeli hostages taken captive by Hamas during its barbaric assault against Israel.

The hundreds of millions of dollars the Qataris have given Hamas during the past decade have been instrumental in helping the terrorist group to develop the infrastructure that enabled it to carry out its murderous assault on Israel in the first place.

Qatar would like the world to believe that it is acting as an honest broker in its efforts to secure the release of the Gaza captives. But the reality is that it deserves to be condemned by the West as a state that sponsors global terrorism, so long as it maintains its indefensible support for Hamas.

Without the substantial financial backing Hamas has received from both Qatar and Iran, whose support for the terror group is estimated at $100 million a year, it is questionable whether Hamas would even be able to survive.

The extent of Qatar’s involvement with Hamas was laid bare during the atrocities committed against Israeli civilians on October 7, when Ismail Haniyeh, the terrorist mastermind behind the attacks, was seen cheering for joy in front of the television in his exclusive hotel suite in Doha, the Qatari capital, as the horrific events unfolded.

Haniyeh, who has been designated a terrorist by the US since 2018, has been resident in Qatar since the Gulf State offered him political asylum in the emirate several years ago.

Apart from enabling Haniyeh and other senior members of the terror group to lead a comfortable lifestyle away from the hardships suffered by poor Palestinians in Gaza, their presence in Qatar provides them with an internationally recognized platform to spread their pernicious propaganda throughout the Middle East on the Qatari-owned Al Jazeera television network.

The key role Qatar plays in facilitating Hamas’s ability to maintain its global presence was reflected soon after the October 7 attacks, when Doha played host to a meeting between Haniyeh and Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian, where the Iranian envoy praised the atrocity as a “historic victory” against Israel.

Qatar’s subsequent efforts to involve itself in negotiations to secure the release of the 200 or more Israeli hostages that were taken captive during the Hamas attack are therefore being viewed with a great deal of skepticism by Western leaders, with calls being made for Qatar to end Haniyeh’s life of luxury in the Gulf State.

The Qataris claim their close ties with Hamas have enabled them to help secure the release of an American mother and daughter from Chicago, who were visiting the Nahal Oz kibbutz less than two miles from Gaza when Hamas terrorists launched their attack, captured them and took them into captivity. The release of the two women prompted US President Joe Biden to issue an official statement thanking the Qatari and Israeli governments “for their partnership” in securing the release of the two Americans

Qatar’s suggestion that it may be able to secure the release of more hostages has also been a key factor in Israel’s decision to delay its ground invasion of Gaza as part of the newly-formed Israeli emergency government’s aim to wipe Hamas off the face of the earth.

The prospect of further hostage releases has certainly had a significant impact on Israeli public opinion, with some calling for Israel’s planned military offensive to be delayed until all the hostages have been freed, a process that could delay any future Israeli military action by months. On Sunday night a crowd gathered outside the home of Israeli President Isaac Herzog, waving placards reading “bring them home”.

Qatar’s skillful exploitation of the hostage crisis has even resulted in Hamas claiming on Al Jazeera that the Israeli government refused the opportunity to receive two Israelis Hamas offered as part of a hostage deal, a claim the Israelis have denounced as nothing more than Hamas “propaganda”.

While Qatar is clearly exploiting the crisis caused by the Hamas attack to burnish its own credentials as a major diplomatic player, questions still remain about its true agenda, especially in the light of the controversial role Doha played in the Afghan peace negotiations between the US and the Taliban. This ultimately resulted in the Taliban seizing control of Afghanistan and imposing uncompromising Islamist rule on the Afghan people.

Qatar certainly has a long history of supporting Islamist groups committed to overthrowing pro-Western Arab regimes in the Middle East. Qatar, together with Turkey, supported the short-lived Muslim Brotherhood government that established a repressive Islamist regime in Egypt following the overthrow of President Hosni Mubarak, a long-standing ally of the West. Qatar has also funded other Islamist groups in the region, such as in Libya.

The Qataris fund these extremist groups as part of their long-running campaign to undermine pro-Western regimes in the Middle East. The timing of the Hamas attack on Israel, for example, is seen as a deliberate attempt to derail the delicate negotiations between Israel, the US, and Saudi Arabia, Qatar’s long-standing Middle East rival, which was supposed to result in the normalization of relations between Riyadh and Jerusalem.

Concerns that Qatar is engaging in double-dealing over the hostage issue, offering to secure the release of hostages while at the same time maintaining its support for Hamas, is a cause for concern for many Western leaders.

Qatar’s hypocritical conduct has been highlighted by influential commentators such as the head of the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMR), who recently made the blunt assessment on Israeli television that “Qatar is Hamas and Hamas is Qatar,” and denounced Qatar as a terrorist state. He also demanded that Al Jazeera should pay the price for its ties with Hamas.

In Britain, where Qatar has invested heavily in recent years, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has faced calls to impose sanctions on Qatar for continuing to host the Hamas leaders responsible for directing the atrocity committed against Israeli civilians.

Mounting anger in London at Qatar’s continued support for Hamas has also resulted in calls for boycotting Qatari-owned landmark hotels such as the Savoy and the Ritz so long as Qatar continues to provide a safe haven for Haniyeh and other Hamas terrorists.

Qatar would like the world to believe that it is acting as an honest broker with its efforts to secure the release of the Gaza captives. But the reality is that it deserves to be condemned by the West as a state that sponsors global terrorism, so long as it maintains its indefensible support for Hamas.

*****

This article was published by the Gatestone Institute and is reproduced with permission.

Image Credit: Wikimedia Commons

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