AND THEY JUST MIGHT: Hamas Is Losing Every Battle in Gaza. It Still Thinks It Could Win the War.

Hamas’s fighters, the Al-Qassam Brigades, were doing fine, the upbeat message said. The militants were ready for Israel’s expected assault on Rafah, a city on Gaza’s southern edge. High civilian casualties would add to the worldwide pressure on Israel to stop the war, Sinwar’s message said, according to people informed about the meeting.

Hamas’s military wing in Gaza is waging an unequal fight with the strongest military in the Middle East—a war brought on by the U.S.-designated terrorist group’s Oct. 7 attack on Israel. But Sinwar, the mastermind of that attack and one of Israel’s prime targets, is playing a different game. His goal is for Hamas to emerge from the rubble of Gaza after the war, declare a historic victory by outlasting Israel’s firepower, and claim the leadership of the Palestinian national cause.

The militants, commanded day-to-day by Sinwar’s brother Mohammed, have changed their tactics since a short cease-fire in November. Hamas fighters are now trying to avoid large firefights and instead use small-scale ambushes—using tools ranging from rocket-propelled grenades to recorded voices of hostages to lure Israeli troops into traps.

The ambushes have little chance of holding territory against Israel’s armored maneuvers. But they’re tailored to Hamas’s limited capabilities, and to Sinwar’s war aim.

“It’s a very sound tactical logic,” said Eyal Berelovich, a civilian analyst for Israel’s armed forces and a military historian at Jerusalem’s Hebrew University. “Their strategic goal is to survive.”

That’s exactly what will happen, if the antisemites embedded in the Biden Administration and throughout the American Left get their way.

MEANWHILE, OVER AT VODKAPUNDIT: The Biden Conundrum.

It’s a problem as old as marketing: how do you get the public to see your product the way you want them to see it instead of the way they already do?

The classic example of how to do it right was after the Tylenol poisonings of 1982. Future business classes might someday teach that the classic example of how to do it wrong is Presidentish Joe Biden’s reelection campaign.

Much more at the link.

CRISIS BY DESIGN: Sheriff where Laken Riley was viciously murdered — allegedly by Venezuelan migrant — pledged not to cooperate with ICE during his campaign.

KEVIN DOWNEY JR: The Growing List of the Ignored Victims of Illegal Immigrant Brutality.

THEY KEEP TELLING ME THE ECONOMY IS ROARING BUT I KEEP FINDING STORIES LIKE THIS ONE:

With a total of $1.13 trillion in debt, credit card debt that moved into serious delinquency amounted to 6.6% in Q4 2023, while it had been around 4% at the end of 2022.

Read more: https://t.co/BNKcHEzuWO

— unusual_whales (@unusual_whales) February 29, 2024

“Growth” under Biden has been bought with unsustainable debt.

THEY’RE TESTING A NEW WAY TO TRY AND PUT US OUT OF BUSINESS: Brands Warned Not to Run Ads on Sites Covering ‘Election Hoaxes.’

NOBODY CAN AFFORD TO BUY, NOBODY CAN AFFORD TO SELL: U.S. Home-Buying Demand Nears Worst Since 1995 With Rates Above 7%.

To be fair, that’s just higher interest rates doing the job they were intended to do — squelching demand to tame Bidenflation.

LINCOLN BROWN: Tea and Flop Sweat: Dems Fret About a Kennedy Wrecking Ball.

BIG MEDICINE: I Pretended To Be ‘Nonbinary’ To Expose a Medical Scandal at Kaiser Permanente.

On September 6, 2022, I received mail from my Kaiser Permanente Davis Ob-Gyn reminding me of a routine cervical screening. The language of the reminder stood out to me: “Recommended for people with a cervix ages 21 to 65.” When I asked my Ob-Gyn about this strange wording, she told me the wording was chosen to be “inclusive” of their “transgender” and “gender fluid” patients.

Based on this response, several thoughts occurred to me. Could I expose the medical scandal of “gender-affirming care” by saying and doing everything my daughter and other trans-identifying kids are taught to do? Would there be the type of medical safeguarding and differential diagnosis we would expect in other fields of medicine, or would I simply be allowed to self-diagnose and be offered the tools (i.e. hormones and surgeries) to choose my own gender adventure and become my true authentic self?

If I could demonstrate that anyone suffering from delusions of their sex, self-hatred, or identity issues could qualify for and easily obtain body-altering hormones and surgeries, all covered by insurance as “medically necessary” and potentially “life-saving” care, then maybe people would finally wake up. I certainly had.

I was prepared for failure. I wasn’t prepared for how easy success would be.

I am a 53-year-old mom from Davis, CA. My daughter began identifying as a transgender boy (social transition) and using he/him pronouns at school during 8th grade. Like several of her peers who also identified as trans at her school, my daughter was a gifted student and intellectually mature but socially immature. This shift coincided with her school’s sudden commitment to, and celebration of, a now widespread set of radical beliefs about the biology of sex and gender identity.

Read the whole thing.

THEY DON’T WANT TO FIX THEIR PLATFORMS; THEY WANT TO FIX YOU: Google Still Doesn’t Get It.

Google is now in full damage-control mode following last week’s embarrassing revelations about the Woke bias baked deep into the company’s Gemini large language model — aka, artificial intelligence.

Google CEO Sundar Pichai wrote to employees in an internal memo, “I know that some of its responses have offended our users and shown bias — to be clear, that’s completely unacceptable and we got it wrong.”

Pichai’s memo doesn’t address the root issue. The problem isn’t that users were offended. The problem isn’t that Gemini has “shown bias,” although that phrase is a tell. The problem is that Gemini is biased, and that the rot goes to the heart of its code.

To Sinchai, the problem seems to be that we’re offended because Gemini’s bias was shown — that we could see it.

Read the whole thing.

THE NEW SPACE RACE: NASA, SpaceX Test Starship Lunar Lander Docking System. “For the Artemis III mission, astronauts will ride the Orion spacecraft from Earth to lunar orbit, and then once the two spacecraft are docked, move to the lander, the Starship Human Landing System (HLS) that will bring them to the surface. After surface activities are complete, Starship will return the astronauts to Orion waiting in lunar orbit. During later missions, astronauts will transfer from Orion to Starship via the Gateway lunar space station. Based on SpaceX’s flight-proven Dragon 2 docking system used on missions to the International Space Station, the Starship docking system can be configured to connect the lander to Orion or Gateway.”

It’s all a helluva lot more complex than getting an Apollo command module and LEM to the Moon — but it also allows for getting a helluva lot more mass to the Moon. And that’s how you establish a permanent presence.

KRUISER’S MORNING BRIEFING: Mitch McConnell Needs to Go Away Harder. “My suspicion is that McConnell wants to get out while he still has the political capital to orchestrate who his successor will be. There are a lot of favors that can be called in after two decades in leadership. It was this thought that kept my enthusiasm about McConnell’s news to a minimum. Getting an only slightly younger version of McConnell installed in leadership isn’t really going to be a boon for the GOP.”

BECAUSE HIS AMBITION AND VANITY HAVE ALWAYS COME BEFORE THE HEALTH OF THE REPUBLIC OR OUR NATIONAL SECURITY CONCERNS. NEXT QUESTION? Why Biden Is Letting Dearborn Extremists Influence American Foreign Policy.

#RESIST: London ‘Blade Runners’ Fight Back Against Big-Brother Emissions Spy-Cams.

THREAD:

⚡️Campaign Finance 🧵: Letitia James

When I got asked to look into Letitia James’ financials last week, I really wasn’t expecting to find much. As you probably know, James is the Attorney General of New York who just secured a $454 million judgement against Donald Trump.

— Mel (@Villgecrazylady) February 27, 2024

A few highlights before you click over.

• The first thing you’ll notice when you download and sort the expenditures of any politician running for reelection in a safe seat is how they use their campaign funds to supplement their lifestyles to a degree middle America could never dream of.

• What do I mean? Well, in 2023 alone, James spent over $28,500 on hotels. Over $15,000 of that was spent on luxury hotels in Puerto Rico.

• Then there’s the airfare. In the 5 years she’s been the New York State AG, James’ has spent over $84,000 on airfare to fly herself all over the country.

This includes private jet rentals.

• Tens of thousands spent on “office” at everywhere from Target to BJ’s wholesale.

Over $7,000 dropped at a nightclub in NYC and billed as “office.”

Wait until Mel gets to the part about the “ghost donors” making possible all this largesse.

You should also know that Mel — someone you’ve likely never heard of with the handle “Villagecrazylady” — is just one woman on Twitter, doing the job the entire mainstream media won’t do.

They can’t fail and fold hard enough, fast enough.

THE VIEW FROM INSIDE THE BELTWAY: No, Really — WaPo Says Biden’s Border Invasion Has the Economy ‘Roaring.’

ONE COMEDIAN REMEMBERS ANOTHER: Another Great From the Comedy Boom Era Is Gone — Richard Lewis Dies at 76.

THIS IS KIND OF A BIG DEAL: Obama’s CIA Asked Foreign Intel Agencies To Spy on Trump Campaign. “The revelation that the U.S. intelligence community, under the Obama administration, sought the assistance of the “Five Eyes” intelligence alliance to surveil Donald Trump’s associates before the 2016 election is a chilling reminder of the lengths to which the Deep State will go to protect its interests and challenge its adversaries. (The Five Eyes countries are the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand.) This bombshell, reported by a team of independent journalists, exposes a dark chapter in American political history, where foreign intelligence services were reportedly mobilized against a presidential candidate.”

Read the whole thing.

WE TRULY ARE GOVERNED BY IDIOTS: SCOTUS Justice Jackson Just Said the Dumbest Thing About Guns and I Can’t Stop Laughing.

The piece has been updated (and this post bumped!) now that the official transcript is available.

MEANWHILE, OVER AT VODKAPUNDIT: Biden Announces Unannounced Hospital Visit Because He’s Fine and Nothing Makes Sense Anymore.

OUCH: Variety Waves White Flag on President Biden. “Variety is as hard-Left as The Hollywood Reporter, but columnist Daniel D’Addario couldn’t camouflage the terrible performance.”

DISPATCHES FROM THE BLUE ZONES: Denver Mulls Cutting City Employee Hours Under Migrant Financial Strain.

ANALYSIS: TRUE. Bidenomics Is Bad Economics. “During the Trump presidency, the average price increase for goods and services was a modest 7.6% over four years. That is less than 2% increase in prices for each of those four years. Contrast that with the more than 5% increase in prices for each of the last three years. This amounts to a staggering 17.6% increase in costs under President Biden’s watch, with one year remaining. This isn’t just a blip on the economic radar. It’s a troubling trend that spells disaster for household budgets across the nation.”

Plus: “Black workers and Hispanic workers have also fared significantly worse in the Biden era. Black workers experienced $65.70 increase in real weekly earnings in the Trump era compared to $28.80 in the Biden era. Hispanic workers experienced $47.20 increase in real weekly earnings in the Trump era compared to $7.80 in the Biden era.”

Why does Joe Biden hate black and brown people?

UNSUSPENDED IN TIME: She’s In, She’s Out, She’s BACK IN!

THE OBAMA CAMP WANTS HIM GONE: Former Obama aides sound alarm over ‘frail’ and ‘mumbly’ Biden — warn his age ‘is a very real issue.’