AMERICA’S NEWSPAPER OF RECORD: Israel Cuts Off Gaza From All Updates On Taylor Swift And Travis Kelce.
Author Archive: Ed Driscoll
October 15, 2023
WHY ARE VANGUARD MUTUAL FUNDS INVESTING IN THE CCP MILITARY INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX? Vanguard invests in Chinese military-linked companies: report.
TRUNALIMUNUMAPRZURE! Yikes: Biden Glitches so Badly During a Speech That His Wife Has to Rescue Him.
PROPORTIONALITY…FAIRNESS…WHATEVER YOU WANT TO CALL IT REARING ITS UGLY AND ANTI-SEMITIC HEAD:
Hamas created the Middle Eastern equivalent of an Einsatzgruppe, which were the Nazi military units tasked with one thing…the destruction of Eastern European Jewry. Should Israel treat them as if they are a standing army fighting under the flag of a sovereign nation, or as a savagely Jew-hating gang of maniacs that have been inculcated with one idea their entire lives…that the life of a Jew means nothing, and taking that life is a good thing? Himmler and Heydrich would be proud of the Pallies!
Well, they certainly were proud of their Middle Eastern allies back in the day: Nazi Antisemitism & Islamist Hate.
RIP: Actress Suzanne Somers dead at 76. “‘She survived an aggressive form of breast cancer for over 23 years.’”
The woke movement’s larger hope is to transform America, and the world, fundamentally. The historical record is a sad one, full of barbarism, tragedy, and savagery. One can hardly blame people for wishing the future might be less bloody than the past. But if the tragic side of human life is due to the inevitable contradictions in the human condition, such idealism always tends to cross over into misanthropy. There is a deep moral lesson in the story of Satan being a fallen angel. If moral calculations will always be complex, and if many important political decisions will always be tragic (justice for one entailing injustice for another), the historical record is likely to remain in the future as it was in the past. From the perspective of an outsider looking at the history of the Middle East, both Jews and Muslims have a claim to Jerusalem (as do Christians). But from the perspective of each, any solution that is truly satisfactory to the one will inevitably seem like surrender to many in the other group. In time, almost inevitably, any compromise will break down, perhaps violently. Such is the tragic dimension of politics.
In other words, todays wokesters combine the hatred of racial discrimination with a radical desire for a utopian future. And Jews are in the way of that project. That is hardly a novel turn in history. Hitler called the Holocaust the “Final Solution.” It was, more exactly, “The Final Solution to the Jewish Question.” Like today’s progressives, Hitler had hope for a better future: “I believe in a conclusive understanding among peoples which will come sooner or later. There is no point in bringing about co-operation among nations, based upon permanent understanding, until this Jewish fission-fungus of peoples has been removed.” Karl Marx said something similar. In his essay on “The Jewish Question,” Marx said that progress would not take place until Jews stopped being Jews. The Hamas Charter expresses a similar version of the Muslim apocalypse. All would be peace, plenty, and harmony on earth were it not for those meddling Yids.
To allow religious and ethnic diversity is to allow a world in which tragic divisions and choices remain fundamental to politics, with the terrible consequences they necessarily entail. To recognize the necessity of a Jewish Israel is to reject comprehensive progress through merely human (as opposed to divine) means. Rather than admit that, many American progressives choose to shoot the messenger, or, as in this case, to back those who will.
As Mark Steyn has written, “our tolerance of our own tolerance is making us intolerant of other people’s intolerance, which is intolerable. And, unlikely as it sounds, this has now become the highest, most rarefied form of multiculturalism. So you’re nice to gays and the Inuit? Big deal. Anyone can be tolerant of fellows like that, but tolerance of intolerance gives an even more intense frisson of pleasure to the multiculti masochists.”
SQUAD GOALS, PART DEUX: Ilhan Omar Shares Fake News To Push Anti-Israel Narrative.
CHANGE: Trump-backed Jeff Landry wins Louisiana governor’s race. “The win is a major victory for the GOP as they reclaim the governor’s mansion for the first time in eight years. Landry will replace current Gov. John Bel Edwards, who was unable to seek reelection due to consecutive term limits. Edwards is the only Democratic governor in the Deep South.”
VDH: Hamas and Amoral Clarity.
One unexpected blowback from the medieval Hamas’s barbaric murdering of hundreds of Israeli civilians is the revelation of current global amorality.
More than 20 Harvard university identity politics groups pledged their support to the Hamas murderers — to the utter silence for days of Harvard President Claudine Gay.
Americans knew higher education practiced racist admission policies. It has long promoted racially segregated dorms and graduations. And de facto it has destroyed the First Amendment.
But the overt support for Hamas killers by the diversity, equity, and inclusion crowd on a lot of campuses exposes to Americans the real moral and intellectual rot in higher education.
Democratic Socialist members of the new woke Democrat Party openly expressed ecstatic support for Hamas’s bloodwork.
Their biggest fears were not dead fellow Americans or hostages, or some 1,000 butchered Jewish civilians. Instead they were fearful that righteous Israeli retaliation might destroy the Hamas death machine.
Palestinians for years fooled naifs in Europe and the Obama and Biden administrations into sending billions of dollars into Gaza.
These monies were channeled to tunnel into Israel, to obtain a huge rocket arsenal, and to craft plans to wipe out Jews.
The Biden administration has blood on its hands.
It’s VDH, so read the whole thing.
LEON PANETTA: I Don’t Regret Signing Hunter Biden Laptop Letter, ‘Disinformation Is Involved Here.’
Baier followed up, “You don’t think that it was real?”
Panetta responded, “I think that disinformation is involved here. I think Russian disinformation is part of what we’re seeing everywhere. I don’t trust the Russians, and that’s exactly why I was concerned that the public not trust the Russians either.”
Baier then asked, “[O]bviously, Hunter Biden said it was his laptop and this investigation continues. So, you don’t have any regrets about doing what you did?”
Panetta responded, “No, I don’t have any regrets about not trusting the Russians.”
As Jonathan Turley notes: “Denial Ain’t Just a River in Egypt”: Panetta Repeats Debunked Russian Disinformation Claims on Laptop.
AMERICA TO FORD: Your Electric Trucks Can Drop Dead. “Buck notes today that with sales of the F150 Lightning tanking, Ford has now canceled all dealer stock orders for the vehicle. Dealers are stuck with thousands of trucks they cannot sell. As Buck puts it, dealers are ‘choking on a 97-day supply of Lightnings nationwide with 3,632 for sale.’ Ideally, dealers stock a 60-day supply of vehicles they need to sell.”
OUT ON A LIMB: Hard Evidence Warranting The Impeachment Of Joe Biden.
October 14, 2023
YOSH MANTINBAND: A word from my (soldier) son.
One last thing — I saw someone tweet something like “You can’t tell an oppressed nation how to retaliate.”
There is a pretty clear line (trigger warning — graphic descriptions of actual events from the past 4 days): Don’t shoot babies in the head in front of their mothers. Don’t rape women on the bodies of their friends they just partied with at a music festival. Don’t murder parents who managed to save their 10-month-old twins (now orphans) only by hiding them in a last act of desperation. Don’t parade naked dead bodies in the street. Don’t send mothers a video of their son being murdered from his own WhatsApp. Don’t livestream killing an elderly grandmother from her own Facebook account for her granddaughter to see live. The list is way, WAY longer than this, and we are just finding out just how bad it is (as I’m writing this, they found 40 dead babies). Heartbreakingly, this is not based on stories, this is all documented, posted, and celebrated proudly by Hamas on social media.
I’ll end this post by saying: Hamas has brainwashed some of the Palestinians in Gaza. Not all, but some. These terrorists are not looking for peace. They are looking to murder me, my family, and every single person in my country.
I’m not sure how your country’s army would react, but I know that my army is in an impossible situation trying to keep the country safe while trying not to harm civilians. If you’re not seeing it, consider diversifying your news sources.
Read the whole thing.
QUESTION ASKED AND ANSWERED: So, Is the Frasier Reboot Worth Watching?
GERMANY IS PARTYING LIKE IT’S 1939 ONCE AGAIN: Anti-Semites Marking Jewish Houses With Star Of David In Berlin: Reports.
Perhaps if Hamas supporters bristle at being compared to Nazis, they should stop doing stuff that Nazis used to do. Err, like this fellow: Author Dylan Evans tweets about ‘final solution’, things immediately go horribly wrong for him.
Dylan Evans is currently research officer in Evolutionary Robotics at the University of Bath. Previously he was a research fellow in the Philosophy Department at King’s College London, where he was involved in a project on the evolution of the emotions. His previous books include Emotion: the Science of Sentiment and Introducing Evolutionary Psychology. He contributes regularly to the Guardian, and broadcasts frequently.
Including broadcasting this, before nuking his account:
Exit question: “Are we the baddies?”
ANNALS OF LEFTIST AUTOPHAGY: Cancel Culture Finally Comes for the Left, and I Can’t Stop Laughing.
As I wrote previously, all the geopolitical arguments in the world, right or wrong, do not excuse mass murder, including the massacring of children. When Hamas crossed the border and started indiscriminately killing people and taking hostages, there was no question that the gloves would have to come off. Complaints about settlements and the Al-Aqsa mosque became academic at that point.
Still, in the immediate aftermath of the attacks, some people actually came out in open support of Hamas’ atrocities, justifying them and blaming Israel for the murder of its own people. Joint letters were put out by universities and protests were held with chants glorifying Hamas “martyrs.”
Naturally, some companies decided that was a bridge too far and rescinded job offers to those who participated, and now the crying has begun.
The Israel-Gaza war is still in its first week, but some people in the United States and around the world have lost their jobs, or have faced discipline or backlash, for their criticism of Israel. https://t.co/SNgxTCRK7P
— The Washington Post (@washingtonpost) October 12, 2023
Does the Washington Post know it’s the Washington Post? It worked very hard to cancel Eric Clapton in 2021 over his anti-lockdown and anti-vaccine mandate stance, by dredging up racist remarks the guitarist uttered on stage 45 years earlier while he was drunk out of his mind, and concurrently worked very hard to pretend that cancel culture isn’t a thing:
https://t.co/Wo1zZlbjbq pic.twitter.com/d2LARNWoFW
— Jarvis (@jarvis_best) October 13, 2023
‘I DON’T GIVE A ‘F**K:’ The Anti-Israel Talking Point That Sent This TV Host Over the Edge.
Tensions boiled over during the Thursday broadcast of The Hill’s Rising show when Briahna Joy Gray peddled anti-Israel talking points that co-host and Reason senior editor Robby Soave couldn’t stomach. Gray contends that Hamas’s atrocities against the Israeli people during this heinous terror attack were embellished, casting doubt on the confirmed reports of babies being burned alive and beheaded. It was done to strip their humanity away, she added. She tried to further bolster her erroneous point by painting with a wide brush, citing some random GOP operative, which is where Mr. Soave couldn’t handle it. Gray interjected that if what this official said didn’t matter, why are liberals facing questions about apologizing for Hamas’ terrorism?
Well, that’s self-explanatory: every pro-Palestinian rally in this country that we’ve seen over the past few days has endorsed the killing of children, the terrorism, and the wholesale killing of Jews. It’s here that Soave exploded at his co-host (via The Daily Caller):
"I don't give a F*** Briahna." – @robbysoave https://t.co/GCaAneuAqp
— Ben Domenech (@bdomenech) October 14, 2023
To sum up the left’s worldview:
— Inez Stepman ⚪️🔴⚪️ (@InezFeltscher) October 14, 2023
THE 21st CENTURY IS NOT TURNING OUT AS I HAD HOPED: Burned-out parents seek help from a new ally: ChatGPT. “Parents have used it to script ‘the talk’ with young teens or draft a toast for their child’s wedding.”
OUT ON A LIMB: Dylan Mulvaney Is The Babylon Bee’s Man Of The Year.