Senate Passes Ukraine Funding Bill
—Disinformation Expert Ace
The Senate has passed a substantial $95 billion aid package to support Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan overcoming strong internal dissent and delays within the GOP-led House.Key Details:
The bill received overwhelming Senate approval with a 79-18 vote, backed by majorities from both parties despite some vocal opposition.
The package includes $61 billion for Ukraine, $15 billion for Israel, and measures to address Chinese influence, notably involving TikTok.
Critics like Senator Eric Schmitt (R-Mo.) expressed dissatisfaction, citing concerns over prioritizing foreign borders over American needs.
On Tuesday, the U.S. Senate passed a significant $95 billion emergency aid bill aimed at bolstering the defense capabilities of Ukraine and Israel, marking a pivotal moment in U.S. foreign policy amid contentious debates. The aid package, designed to address several international and security concerns, passed with a substantial majority, signaling strong bipartisan support despite notable opposition within both parties.
..."I think we've turned a corner on the isolationist movement," Senator Mitch McConnell said about the aid bill passage.
Joe Biden will give a Shpeech -- he doesn't give speeches any longer, only shpeeches -- at 3:45pm.
The Senate also passed a bill mandating the sale of TikTok to non-Chinese-state-security owners.
In a significant move by U.S. lawmakers, Congress has passed a bill that presents the most substantial challenge to TikTok's operations in the United States to date, aiming to address long-standing national security concerns associated with the app's Chinese ownership. The legislation mandates that TikTok's parent company, ByteDance, either sell the app or face a national ban, a decision backed by substantial bipartisan support and reflecting years of mounting scrutiny over the app's data privacy practices.The bill's passage marks a culmination of efforts to legislate against the perceived risks posed by Chinese technology companies, with TikTok in the spotlight due to its massive user base and cultural influence in the U.S. Critics of the app, including key Senate and House leaders, have argued that ByteDance's ownership could allow the Chinese government undue access to the personal data of American citizens, a claim TikTok has repeatedly contested.
Wednesday Morning Rant
—Joe Mannix
"Republican In Name Only" has been a pejorative for about as long as I've been politically aware. I remember it being bandied about often during the Bush 43 Administration, and less often but still commonly during the Clinton Administrations, when it was apparently first attested in print. It's been in use for an entire generation now, and been in frequent use for more than 20 years.
It remains evergreen despite the arrival of new and even more hostile appellations like "C*ckservative" (I'm not sure if that one will cause advertising grief in the main post, so apologies for the asterisk) that are also quite popular. Something about "RINO" just works and so it remains popular. It has an "X-factor" as far as political insults go and I doubt it will ever leave common parlance. That's too bad, really, because it should - or at very least, it should stop being an insult and become a compliment.
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Mid-Morning Art Thread [Kris]
—Open Blogger
Lonely Dwelling
Alfons Walde
Lonely Dwelling is a view of the Tyrolean Alps of Austria. The first thing I noticed about it is its texture. The mountain in the background is craggy and rocky, with high, steep cliffs created by Walde’s application of thick, heavy paint. It is caked on in a way that makes the work look three-dimensional, shaping the surfaces and creating sharp edges and deep crevasses. The artist sculpted this picture, not just painted it. In art, this technique is called impasto.
Along with impasto, Walde also uses chiaroscuro, a heavy use of contrasts between highlight and shadows, usually for dramatic effect. In a piece as quiet as this however, chiaroscuro is used instead to shape and define some objects and frame others. Look back at the blue mountain in the center and the buildings on the edges. There are no clouds allowing strong sunlight. The sun is also low in the sky — either mid-morning or mid-afternoon. This creates long, dark shadows and bright highlights. On the mountain, the blacks work with the thick paint to visually build up the crags and boulders even more. The mountain is solid, massive, and steep, and towers over the dwelling.
Walde’s use of steel-blue creates the illusion that the mountain is in the far distance. Called atmospheric perspective, this technique implies great distances in art and creates an illusion of depth on flat surfaces. Notice how the mountain fills the background even though it’s far away. Walde emphasizes the massiveness of the mountain. In the foreground, the deep black shadows frame the bright mountain and draw my attention to it even more.
Another trait of atmospheric perspective is as an object recedes into the distance, it will get hazier because the air diffuses light passing through it. Here the mountain is crisp and clear, however. Walde might be trying to convey thin air and high altitude. To me, this implies a physical toughness in the people that live here.
In contrast, the foreground is occupied by two plain buildings and two small figures – all painted in browns and black. Here too, Walde’s impasto sculpts and defines the buildings. Almost windowless, the houses seem roughly constructed. Walde’s brown paint creates a plastered-on effect on the outer walls, like a wattle-and-daub or adobe-type construction. To me, this makes the buildings look simple and rough and unassuming. A clue into the lifestyle and personalities of the people who choose to live here.
The mother and child are interesting. Walde painted this family in the same black and tans as the buildings, except for a small, blue cloth on the mother’s lap, the same blue as in the mountain. I think Walde is trying to create visual connections between the Tyrolian people and their region through color. He uses chiaroscuro to shape them. Rather than human forms, they seem to be constructed from blocks and without the heavy shadows, I think these figures would look flat and lifeless and might get lost within the painting. The chiaroscuro gives them mass and dimension.
Walde uses texture, color, and light to define the rough and rugged terrain, and through that, its people. Walde was Tyrolese himself. His later career focused on bright and positive depictions of this region, advertising its virtues and features, and portraying its people. I think his hometown-pride shows in works like this.
Wednesday Morning Report (4/24/24)
—Misanthropic Humanitarian
'Mornin' Horde. Hope you had your breakfast beverage and join Rover and I in prayers. Our country sure could use them. What do we have below the fold this morning?
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Daily Tech News 24 April 2024
—Pixy Misa
Top Story- Legislation to force Bytedance to sell TikTok or shut it down has passed the Senate, lathered in $90 billion of pork, and is headed for President Biden's desk where he is expected to ceremonially smear it with pudding thus passing it into law. (The Verge)
Expect TikTok to start claiming its first amendment rights to act as a spy and propaganda agency for America's enemies tomorrow.
Also... TikTok is banned in China.
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Tuesday Overnight Open Thread (4/23/24)
—Misanthropic Humanitarian
Quote II can’t get out of bed and I’ve been crying in my sleep because I feel his teeth in me. I’m left with a hideous scar on my face. It’s just ruined my life, because it will never be the same now. Kelly Allen, attackee
Quote II“The potential for autonomous air-to-air combat has been imaginable for decades, but the reality has remained a distant dream up until now,” Frank Kendall, secretary of the Air Force
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Armored Catvalry Cafe
—Disinformation Expert Ace
David French's basement
by @tk_north
Pandas live lives so similar to my own.
Dog says "you go on walking, I'll just hang out here for a while."
This dog, on the other hand, is very appreciative of its master.
Crow gives a wolf the cutest little goose.
Sheep is trying to pass as a dog. Pretty good effort.
You can buy the cat all the toys in the world, he'll still prefer non-toys.
This dog has a favorite toy. And it's an actual toy.
This video is labeled "World's Worst Sheepdog," but I prefer to think of him as just herding sheep by alternative means.
Dog hears a bad progress report.
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Speedy Pummelling
—Disinformation Expert Ace
Non-Prince Harry is now fully a US resident.
And Harry continues doing the laying about that Americans just won't do.
Prince Harry, the Duke of Sussex, has formally confirmed he is now a US resident.The acknowledgment is said to underscore the prince's increasing estrangement from Britain, after he and his wife Meghan, the Duchess of Sussex, walked away from royal duties four years ago.
A travel company he controls has filed paperwork this week informing British authorities that he has moved and is now "usually resident" in the United States.
The paperwork was filed by Travalyst Ltd, a company at least 75% owned by Harry and which was founded in 2020 to "to promote global awareness of the importance of sustainable tourism".
Meahwhile, a "royal expert" says that more employees of the monarchy will come forward with stories of being "bullied" by Meghan Markle.
Royal expert Tom Bower, author of "Revenge: Meghan, Harry, and the War Between the Windsors," believes more information about Meghan Markle's alleged bullying will come to light now that a former aide has officially spoken out."The trickle of information will, soon enough, become a stream," he wrote in an editorial for the Daily Mail, published Tuesday.
Bower's statement comes one week after former palace aide Samantha Cohen confirmed in an interview with the Australian Herald Sun that she was one of 10 staffers who were questioned about allegations that Markle, 42, "bullied" staffers during her time in the palace.
In 2017, Cohen, who had previously worked for Queen Elizabeth, was tasked with getting Markle ready for the royal family.
Bower wrote on Tuesday, "Certainly, I believe that Ms. Cohen was soon exasperated, within six months or so, and that Meghan either disagreed with, or failed to understand, the non-negotiable elements of royalty. I also believe that members of Samantha Cohen's team viewed this as an irresponsible self-indulgence. Both sides would blame a clash of cultures."
Cohen, who resigned in 2018, said that she was "treated harshly" and compared her former job to "working with teenagers," according to "Courtiers: The Hidden Power Behind the Crown" by Valentine Low.
I'm telling you it's a slow news day. I almost made these two piece-of-shit stories their own post.
The Voyager probe had stopped sending data and was Mostly Dead. But now scientists have remotely fixed it, and it's sending data again.
Turns out all they had to do was try turning it off and then back on.
The US space agency says its Voyager-1 probe is once again sending usable information back to Earth after months of spouting gibberish.The 46-year-old Nasa spacecraft is humanity's most distant object.
A computer fault stopped it returning readable data in November but engineers have now fixed this.
For the moment, Voyager is sending back only health data about its onboard systems, but further work should get the scientific instruments back online.
Voyager-1 is more than 24 billion km (15 billion miles) away, so distant, its radio messages take fully 22.5 hours to reach us.
"Voyager-1 spacecraft is returning usable data about the health and status of its onboard engineering systems," Nasa said in a statement.
"The next step is to enable the spacecraft to begin returning science data again."
Weirdly, it says its new mission is to "find Creator Kirk." No idea what that means. I guess we'll find out!
A woman riding the LA Metro died after being slashed and stabbed in the neck by a homeless man. No big deal, just all part of California's plan to bring "a diversity of travel outcomes" to riders.
A homeless man with a criminal record was arrested for the stabbing death of an unidentified woman on the Los Angeles Metro train system while she was on her way home from work on Monday morning, officials with the Los Angeles Police Department say. Forty-five-year-old Elliot T. Nowden was arrested for the murder and robbery of the unidentified female victim, who was found with a stab wound in the neck at the Studio City station. AdvertisementAccording to police, Nowden approached the 50-year-old victim while still on the train and repeatedly stabbed and slashed her throat before taking her purse. The victim was able to get off the train at the Studio City Station, where she collapsed from her wounds. Police say LA City Fire officials were dispatched to the platform at approximately 4:59 Monday morning regarding a person down call. While responding to the call, dispatchers were updated with several calls stating that the victim was bleeding, but no one approached the victim to ascertain anything about her condition. When authorities arrived, they found the victim bleeding from her neck and transported her to a local hospital, where she was pronounced dead.
Cameras located at the station were able to record most of the incident on video and show Nowden leaving the scene immediately after. Police officers were able to apprehend Nowden approximately 30 minutes later, roughly half a mile from the scene of the crime. After being interviewed by homicide detectives, Nowden was subsequently arrested and charged with murder and held on $2 million bail.
Holding a killer on bail -- now there's an innovative concept.
Germany has passed a law facilitating gender transitions for children This is just about as young as five years old.
This is all about what the kids are telling us, right? Not what their genderblending teachers and evil parents are telling them, right?
At REDUXX:
The German Parliament, or Bundestag, passed one of the world's most far-reaching sex self-determination policies on April 12, despite protests from women's rights campaigners. The Self-Determination Act (SBGG) establishes 'gender identity' as a protected characteristic and allows parents to change the sex marker on their children's documents from birth.
That's misleading, and why I didn't publish this earlier. It lets parents change their child's sex from birth but not at birth. That is, they can go back in time and change the (paper) gender of their children as if it was determined to be the opposite gender at the time of birth.
But they only have to wait until the kid is five years old to do this.
Five year olds are fully-grown adults with mature minds, right?
Supported by Chancellor Olaf Scholz's three-party coalition and promoted and supported by the Socialist Democratic Party (SDP), the SBGG also creates the potential for citizens to be fined up to €10,000 (approx. $10,800 USD) for revealing a person's given name and birth sex without their permission -- an action that trans activists staunchly oppose and refer to as 'deadnaming.'But arguably the most troubling aspect of the law relates to a portion of the bill which permits parents to alter the recorded sex of children beginning from birth. From the age of five years old, it allows for name and sex changes if there is "mutual consent" between the child and their parents.
Oh, and it lets you change your gender ever single year, but only once per year. If you decide you're a woman in April but then decide you're a non-binary trans-trending male in August, sorry, buddy, but you'll have to wait until the following April to make that official.
...
Crucially, the law includes a ban on disclosure that prohibits naming the sex and former birth name of an individual. This prohibition also applies to family members in the SBGG. Anyone who violates the ban on disclosure will face a fine of up to €10,000, which could discourage family members from coming forward to discuss how the identity change impacts them.
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Minnesota State Senator and Democrat AWFL Arrested for Burlarizing Mother-in-Law's Home
—Disinformation Expert Ace
She's immune to charges for robbing every other Minnesota citizen.
Minnesota Democratic Senator Nicole Mitchell has been arrested on suspicion of first-degree burglary, just days after posting in support of creating "safer communities" on social media.Sen. Nicole Mitchell was arrested early Monday in Detroit Lakes, Minnesota, following a 911 call about an ongoing burglary at a local residence.
The arrest comes at a critical time for Senate Democrats, who currently hold a slender majority. Mitchell's likely absence could jeopardize the passing of any narrowly supported legislation.
Before her political career, Mitchell served as a meteorologist and is a lieutenant colonel in the Air National Guard. She was elected to the Senate in 2022.
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Already Facing a Boycott Over Its Transgender Policy, Planet Fitness Doubles Down and Hires a CEO Specializing In, Get This, "Diversity"
—Disinformation Expert Ace
There will be a diversity of penises in the girls' locker room for your daughters to choose from.
Planet Fitness, which plummeted $400 million in value in March after gym-goers boycotted the franchise over a transgender policy, announced it was hiring a new CEO Tuesday who has a history of pushing diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI).Colleen Keating headed FirstKey Homes for the past four years, where she signed onto the "CEO Action for Diversity & Inclusion pledge," which promises to "continually strive to diversify our workforce, hiring through a DE&I lens to find talent in multiple locations and backgrounds," according to The New York Post.
In LinkedIn post from two years ago she said she signed the CEO DEI pledge "to crystallize my unwavering commitment to advancing #diversity, #equity and #inclusion in the workplace and the communities we serve."
"I was proud to be a part of this critical conversation with my peers who are equally committed to making our workplaces trusting places to have complex, and sometimes difficult, conversations about diversity and inclusion, implement and expand unconscious bias education, share best practices (and lessons learned!), and create and share strategic inclusion and diversity plans," the post added.
In a 2022 interview with Triple Pundit, Keating said ensuring the corporate DEI push isn't just a flash in the pan but "starts with DEI being embedded in a company's culture and clearly demonstrated in words and actions across the organization. When we stop thinking about DEI as a 'program' and recognize it as an imperative that's woven into the very fabric of our company then DEI can't be a half-measure or a failure."
When reached for comment, Planet Fitness pointed to its press release announcing Keating's hiring.
In other words: They declined comment.
...The Western New England University graduate is set to replace Chris Rondeau as CEO of the "judgment free zone" gym on June 10. The Post reports Planet Fitness shares fell by an additional 1.7% earlier this week.
The decline started with the story of Patricia Silva, a Planet Fitness regular in Fairbanks, Alaska, who sparked outrage on social media by recounting her experience of seeing "a man with a penis" shaving in the women's locker room in front of what appeared to be a 12-year-old girl.
Meanwhile, demonstrating that the trans movement is at heart just a movement about "love," the pediatrician who wrote the Cass Report, Hillary Cass, which cautioned about the anti-science behind the trans movement, has been warned to stay out of public transportation for her own safety.
The doctor behind a landmark review of the NHS's gender identity services for children and young people has said fears had been raised about her personal safety amid online abuse after the report's release.Dr Hilary Cass told the Times she wished to address the "disinformation" circulating about the findings and recommendations handed down by the Cass review when it was published on 10 April.
She said she had received online abuse in the wake of the report and had been advised to stop using public transport.
The report said the evidence base for gender medicine in young people had been thin and children had been let down by a "toxic" public discourse around gender.
Thanks to Cass, evidence not ideology will be used to guide children seeking gender advice
Cass told the Times: "I have been really frustrated by the criticisms, because it is straight disinformation. It is completely inaccurate."It started the day before the report came out when an influencer posted a picture of a list of papers that were apparently rejected because they were not randomised control trials.
"That list has absolutely nothing to do with either our report or any of the papers."
Referring to the online abuse she had received, she said: "There are some pretty vile emails coming in at the moment, most of which my team is protecting me from, so I'm not getting to see them."
She added: "I'm not going on public transport at the moment, following security advice, which is inconvenient."
She's been scared out of doing a similar report on adult transgender "therapy:"
NHS England has since announced a second Cass review-style appraisal of adult gender clinics. Cass confirmed to the Times that she would not take part in the adult report after the abuse she suffered in recent weeks.She said: "You heard it right here: I am not going to do the adult gender clinic review."
She knows better than to blaspheme against the trans cult a second time.
Amid Violence and Chants of "Death to America" and "Burn Tel Aviv to the Ground," the Gaslight Media Races to Give the Pro-Hamas Criminals a Media Glow-Up
—Disinformation Expert Ace
Below, aggressive "protesters" demand that Jews leave "their space," which is Columbia University's grounds, where the Jews in question are paying a hundred grand a year to attend.
They also demand that spectators observe their self-declared "community guidelines" and not photograph them as they publicly protest in a public space.
Also, pro-Hamas, pro-war leftists chanted "kill another [Jewish] soldier" and "Burn Tel Aviv to the ground."
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Democrat Party Takes a Cut of Donations for Bail for Pro-Hamas Criminals;
NFL Donated to Group Providing Free Bail to Terrorism Supporters
—Disinformation Expert Ace
And the Democrat Party is actually taking a cut of these bloodstained donations. The Democrat Party's funding platform, ActBlue, is raising money for the "A15 Action and Community Justice Exchange," which is bailing out the terrorists.
And ActBlue takes a piece of each donation.
Police across the United States arrested dozens of "Free Palestine" protesters Monday as part of a "multi-city economic blockade" targeting major airports, highways, and bridges. Those defendants are set to receive free bail money and legal assistance thanks to an online fundraiser hosted by ActBlue, the Democratic Party's primary fundraising platform that earns a cut off of each contribution.
The "bail and legal defense fund," organized by A15 Action and Community Justice Exchange, remains live on ActBlue's website roughly 24 hours after the protests caused chaos in cities such as San Francisco, Chicago, Philadelphia, and New York City. The fundraising platform--which is used by President Joe Biden and every major Democratic congressional campaign--earns a 3.95 percent transaction fee each time a donor contributes to the fund, according to its policies.ActBlue's website states that its fundraising platform is exclusively available to groups whose "work is not at odds with values including, but not limited to, social equality; women's rights; LGBTQIA2S+ rights; racial justice; diversity; freedom of speech; disability rights; and respect for scientific inquiry, discovery, and data."
The link between ActBlue raising funds for activists that deliberately "coordinate[d] to disrupt and blockade economic logistical hubs and the flow of capital" in solidarity with "Palestine" highlights the blurred boundary between the Democratic Party's anti-Israel faction and its mainstream establishment.
ActBlue did not respond to a request for comment.
Protesters on Monday aimed to disrupt economic "choke points" to maximize financial disruption, as stated on their website. Activists were advised to refrain from engaging with police, with the promise of receiving "money bail, court fees and fines" and other legal services from Community Justice Exchange upon arrest.
That's the old news -- the new news is that the NFL is also funding the Community Justice Exchange.
Or at least they have funded it, as late as 2022, and are still promoting it on their website.
The left-wing nonprofit that bailed out anti-Israel protesters who blocked bridges and highways across the country last week was a multi-year partner of the NFL's "Inspire Change program" whose work is still promoted on the NFL's website.Community Justice Exchange set up a "bail and legal defense fund" for those arrested during last week's A15 protests. The protests targeted major airports, highways, and bridges in dozens of U.S. cities including San Francisco, Chicago, New York City, and Philadelphia. Their explicit goal was to disrupt economic "choke points" to maximize financial disruption, as explained on their website.
The online fundraiser, hosted by ActBlue and organized in conjunction with A15 Action, told donors that the funds will "support community members who are criminalized in the U.S. for their solidarity with Palestine."
As an official "Inspire Change" partner, the Community Justice Exchange received grants and publicity in its work "to end money bail and pre-trial detention at the local level and immigration detention at the national level." The NFL's partnership with the Community Justice Exchange was last extended in June 2022, according to an announcement from the league. The league touted the left-wing group's "work with organizers, advocates, and legal providers across the country that are using community bail funds as part of efforts to radically change local bail systems and reduce incarceration." The grants went toward "coordinating and supporting the 100+ local protest to bail funds and a centralized rapid response fund to support those protesting for racial justice."
The partnership appears to have since lapsed--the nonprofit wasn't on the list of grantees announced in May 2023. The NFL's "Inspire Change" website lists Community Justice Exchange under "Previous Grant Recipients" and still includes a link to the group's website.
The NFL's promotion of the left-wing group underscores the extent to which anti-Israel groups have been propped up by major donors and institutions in the United States. Community Justice Exchange is also a project of the Tides Center--a left-wing dark money network funded by George Soros and other prominent liberal billionaires like Pierre Omidyar. The Tides Center serves as a hub for a variety of left-wing groups, channeling substantial funds from affluent donors and functioning as a "fiscal sponsor," enabling them to sidestep IRS registration.
Neither the NFL nor Community Justice Exchange responded to requests for comment.
All of the terrorist satellite organizations, from the Democrat Party to the NFL, are refusing to comment.
Supreme Court Seems Ready to Overturn 9th Circus' Judge-Made Law That Homeless People Are Allowed to Sleep On the Streets (At Least Until Cities Build Free Houses for Every Single Homeless Person)
—Disinformation Expert Ace
One (1) aspect of the downfall of California isn't actually Gavin Newsom's doing, unbelievably enough. Cities on the west coast allow permanent homeless encampments because the leftwing circus called the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals decided to make up their own laws and imposed the rule that homeless people must be permitted to camp wherever they like, until and unless governments create housing for all of them.
The Supreme Court is finally getting around to reviewing this lawless ruling.
The U.S. Supreme Court appears to be leaning towards supporting an Oregon city's crackdown on public sleeping, a decision that could have far-reaching implications for the escalating homelessness crisis under the Biden administration. The case, which challenges lower court rulings that deemed it "cruel and unusual" to fine or jail individuals sleeping on public land if no shelter is available, could redefine how cities and states manage the growing number of people living in tents, cars, and on the streets....
The Supreme Court's more liberal justices have suggested that the city's law amounts to unlawfully targeting individuals simply because they are homeless. Justice Sotomayor argued that "You don't arrest babies who have blankets over them. You don't arrest people who are sleeping on the beach," while Justice Kagan stated that "Sleeping is a biological necessity. It's sort of like breathing. ... But I wouldn't expect you to criminalize breathing in public."
However, the court's conservative justices have questioned where the line should be drawn between someone's conduct, which can be legally punished, and a status they are unable to change, which cannot be punished. They also suggested that homelessness is a complex policy problem and questioned whether courts should be responsible for managing it.
The conservative justices seemed especially receptive to this obviously-true notion that judges shouldn't be writing the laws.
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The Morning Rant: Minimalist Edition
—CBD
The archetype of the European Jew has subsumed the reality of worldwide Jewry. Scholarly, studious, non-confrontational, more interested in the intellectual than the physical. And of course the prevailing historical truism that millions of Jews went meekly to the slaughter from 1933 to 1945.
And this well-meaning fool accepts the paradigm that Jews don't fight, that we should run away and let the "authorities" calm the waters before we return.
"The events of the last few days, especially last night, have made it clear that Columbia University's Public Safety and the NYPD cannot guarantee Jewish students' safety in the face of extreme antisemitism and anarchy," Buechler wrote. "It deeply pains me to say that I would strongly recommend you return home as soon as possible and remain home until the reality in and around campus has dramatically improved."
He is wrong.
Jews have been fighting for as long as we have been a people. We fought the Babylonians, we fought the Greeks, we fought the Romans, and we even fought God! He described us as a "stiff-necked" people.
And the Lord said to Moses: I have seen this people and behold! they are a stiff necked people.-- Exodus 32:9
The modern state of Israel never got the message about not fighting. Many of the people who were instrumental in the refounding of Israel were survivors of the Holocaust. They had seen first-hand the world's indifference to the Nazi's destruction of European Jewry, and they knew that without self-determination, it would happen again and again.
That self-determination required fighting...lots and lots of fighting. It began even before the state of Israel was formally founded, and it has never stopped. The idea that American and European Jews can insulate themselves from the world-wide hatred of Jews, Judaism, and Israel is irrational in the extreme. We will always be hated by some; we will always be attacked by some; and we will never be safe unless we embrace the historical stiff-necked attitude of Jews and say, "NO!" We will not cower. We will not run. We will fight.
here are appropriate archetypes for Jews...
She was one of the leaders of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising and one of only 34 fighters to survive the war. After leading her group of surviving fighters through the sewers of Warsaw with the aid of Simcha "Kazik" Rotem in the final days of the ghetto uprising (on May 30, 1943), she continued her resistance activities in the rest of Warsaw outside the ghetto. She took part in the Polish Warsaw Uprising in 1944.
Mordecai Anielewicz
Mordecai Anielewicz (born 1919, Wyszków, Poland -- died May 8, 1943, Warsaw) was a hero and principal leader of armed Jewish resistance in the Warsaw ghetto during World War II.
A Kibbutz in israel was renamed "Yad Mordechai" after him, and they managed to fight off most of the Egyptian army for several days in May of 1948. It delayed them enough that the rest of Israel was able to organize a defense.
THAT'S how it's done.
[Crossposted at CutJibNewsletter]
The Morning Report — 4/23/24
—J.J. Sefton
Good morning, kids. Aside from being absolutely sickened to my stomach by the rabid, nearly and actually violent Jew-hatred that has exploded across college campuses and beyond in the wake of the 10/7 attack on Israel, it's stunning to me how so many people, most dishearteningly my fellow Jews, are shocked – SHOCKED! – at why this suddenly happened. Of course, it's neither shocking nor stunning nor sudden when all of the signs taken in context with actual history have been in one's face for decades.
Dershowitz expressed profound disappointment in his party's failure to address the pro-Palestine demonstrations at Columbia University that have been ongoing since last Wednesday.“We're hearing nothing from Democrats. We are hearing nothing from Chuck Schumer,” Dershowitz explained. “We're hearing nothing really direct from [sham] President Biden. He made a very disappointing statement. In the same breath, he talked about the demonstrators in passing and he said, ‘but you have to understand the Palestinian situation.’ No, you don't have to understand the Palestinian situation. When people are calling for rape and murder and beheading. The Democrats are an extraordinary disappointment."
"I am no longer presumptively voting for Democrats," he added. "I'm gonna vote for whoever is the best candidate, that may include Democrats, but I have no loyalty anymore to the party.”
Dershowitz criticized college admissions practices and Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) policies, which he argued have contributed to the recent issues observed at prestigious universities.“
Many of the students [protesting] today are unqualified students,” Dershowitz said. “They were admitted because of DEI. They were admitted because Qatar and other Arab countries are paying for foreign students. These are not the best and the brightest students, they are the loudest students, but they're certainly not students who are looking out for the best interests of America.”
Oh, counselor, with all due respect, get your head out of your ass and wake the fuck up! You haven't heard from Schumer? Not even two weeks ago he and most of the party that despite what you say still bitterly cling to attempted to overthrow the Netanyahu government during war time. And as for your railing against unqualified students from Muslim countries infiltrating academia, you completely disregard the capture of American academia by our own native born terrorists with doctorates and tenure whose mission is the brainwashing of American-born youth to hate and overthrow this country. The loudest voices at these near pogroms are those.
Forget Israel and Jews for a moment. Since at least the end of World War Two, American colleges and universities have been focused on dismantling this nation, its culture, western civilization and Judeo-Christianity, erasing the accomplishments of 1,000 years of human development achieved slowly and painfully at times and taking us back to what will be the darkest of dark ages. And that rot can be found now in pre-K through high schools.
To not have seen the likes of Edward Said, Rashid Khalidi, Theodore Adorno, Herbert Marcuse, William Ayers, Ward Churchill and thousands upon thousands just like them, less well known but no less infamous for the raping of the American mind, is to have been willfully blind. While I'm loathe to criticize someone as prominent as Dershowitz for saying generally what needs to be said at this time, which of course should be encouraged, my castigation stands. Unless and until you deprogram yourself from no doubt decades of propaganda that you've been stewing in that Democrats are the good guys, who are for the downtrodden and the little guy and Republicans are the Nazis, better you should just keep quiet. All the equivocation you spout in a desperate attempt to preserve the fictitious image about a party and political movement that you idolized and dedicated yourself is an exercise in radioactive turd-polishing.
Give it up. Let it go.
Kraft, 82, called for academics with secure jobs at the Ivy League school to be held accountable for incendiary remarks and lectures that some argue have indoctrinated students to hate Israel.“We have professors who, instead of teaching how to think, are trying to tell our young people what they should think,” the billionaire former Columbia University donor told Fox News host Sean Hannity. “I think one of the biggest problems that we have to do something about is really tenure at these universities,” Kraft added. “Where people can do things and don’t have accountability.”
. . . Kraft said he was dismayed by the level of antisemitism he’s witnessed on college campuses since Oct. 7, 2023.
“I never thought I’d see what’s going on in America, what’s happening right now, and it really pains me to see it,” he said.
Really? I seem to recall Robert Kraft being a team owner about the time that a brillo-headed scrub named Colin Kaepernick got a whole bunch of players around the league to take a knee during the playing of the Star Spangled Banner. In all fairness, I don't know what his reaction to that was and I'd like to give him the benefit of the doubt that he was equally disgusted. But what did the coaches and the owners do back then? IIRC, not a whole hell of a lot to discourage that behavior.
I thought Kraft and his ilk were savvy businessmen. Perhaps the image of the ivy covered walls of academia got him bamboozled but look what's been going on with his and his colleagues' money in his own business, right under his nose.
The left-wing nonprofit that bailed out anti-Israel protesters who blocked bridges and highways across the country last week was a multi-year partner of the NFL's "Inspire Change program" whose work is still promoted on the NFL's website.Community Justice Exchange set up a "bail and legal defense fund" for those arrested during last week's A15 protests. The protests targeted major airports, highways, and bridges in dozens of U.S. cities including San Francisco, Chicago, New York City, and Philadelphia. Their explicit goal was to disrupt economic "choke points" to maximize financial disruption, as explained on their website.
The partnership appears to have since lapsed—the nonprofit wasn’t on the list of grantees announced in May 2023. The NFL’s "Inspire Change" website lists Community Justice Exchange under "Previous Grant Recipients" and still includes a link to the group's website.
The NFL's promotion of the left-wing group underscores the extent to which anti-Israel groups have been propped up by major donors and institutions in the United States. Community Justice Exchange is also a project of the Tides Center—a left-wing dark money network funded by George Soros and other prominent liberal billionaires like Pierre Omidyar. The Tides Center serves as a hub for a variety of left-wing groups, channeling substantial funds from affluent donors and functioning as a "fiscal sponsor," enabling them to sidestep IRS registration.
To paraphrase Robert Frost, the rot is ugly, dark and deep. And if you've decided to return to watching the NFL just because Kaepernick has vanished from the scene, you're stupid.
Meanwhile, Sen Josh Hawley has called on Joey Sponge-Brain Shits-Pants to activate the National Guard to ensure the protection of Jewish students at Columbia U.
At the same time, Eric Adams, the mayor of the completely rotten apple belched up this hideous equivocation:
“But I also look back to Little Rock, AR, and what it meant for African Americans to be escorted on campuses because they were afraid for their lives. And that is what I see when I see Jewish students going through this at this moment. There is no place for hate in this city. I don’t care if it’s antisemitism, Islamophobia, anti-Sikhism. We don’t have a place for that, and I don’t want to be, and I won’t be the mayor where you have to take off your hijab, your yarmulke, or your turban when you enter a place of higher education or use our transportation system or walk our streets.”
The pathetic attempt to both condemn the assault on Jews while trying to preserve the votes of those instigating the pogroms at the ballot box is disgusting. Funny he brings up Little Rock because it was the Democrat Party that instigated a Civil War to preserve slavery, that created the KKK as a terrorist organization to intimidate freed black slaves, that instituted Jim Crow laws to keep the down, that opposed civil rights legislation and created a gigantic welfare state that has committed genocide against blacks and kept them as virtual slaves to Big Government. And he has the fucking gall to invoke Little Rock?
Ditto Biden, who actually used verbiage similar to Trump's "good people on both sides" Charlottesville statement.
The media took that out of context since Trump was referring only to the issue of the Confederate flag's defenders and detractors, not those engaged in violence, who turned out to be Leftist "confederates" so to speak. Biden cannot afford to lose the Muslim/Maoist alliance and his equivocation between perpetrators and victims, dementia notwithstanding, clearly in evidence. This time, though, the media is obviously silent.
Speaking of Rashid Khalidi, worst of all was Obama who desecrated the Passover holiday by equating "Palestinians" with Jews in bondage to Pharaoh. That was his Passover message.
I stated yesterday and with all this garbage both on this issue and virtually any other topic covered in the links, the divide is no longer about two sides disagreeing about an issue or issues. It's about one side's hatred of the nation it allegedly is a part of, and its obsession with destroying it and the side that seeks its preservation.
“We’ll see you at your house. We’ll murder you,” Riddhi Patel, the co-founder of the local chapter of the Sunrise Movement, told members of the Bakersfield City Council.The Sunrise Movement, a radical environmentalist group founded by a former Occupy Wall Street activist and funded by the Ford Foundation, had become notorious for its ugly tactics, recruiting young people and children to harass and even threaten elected officials.
Dressed in stark black shirts with yellow letters, sometimes decorated with skulls, the angry teens of the Sunrise Movement had reminded some people of the Chinese Communist Red Guard and the Nazi stormtroopers, which only increased with Sunrise’s support for a second genocide of the Jews.
While the Sunrise Movement had supposedly been created to force a Green New Deal, it had an obsession with the Jews that broke out when it demanded that Jewish groups be banned from a leftist event “because they “are all in alignment with and in support of Zionism”.
. . . Riddhi Patel was at the end of a pipeline designed to train leftist foot soldiers determined to overthrow America and destroy Israel. The confrontations, whether it was Patel calling for murder, or the pro-Hamas activists shutting down bridges and roads, or assailing synagogues and scrawling swastikas, were not meant to convince, but to radicalize the activists.
Although the Neo-Nazi Left loves to hide behind the legacy of MLK and the Civil Rights movement, its business is not persuasion, it’s revolution. Its ideal activists, like Patel, started out with a political wing of the far Left, like the Bernie Sanders campaign, before transitioning into more openly radical organizations combining day jobs as community organizers with real roles as domestic terrorists. The ugliness and the violence are there to alienate, to get the activists to hate everyone and to confuse violent emotional tantrums with meaningful political change.
The only extraordinary thing about Patel was that she got caught making the political violence that the Neo-Nazi Left thrives on personal. Had she called for the destruction of America or Israel, she would have been fine, and had she spoken in general terms of a leftist uprising that would wipe out the capitalists, that too would have gotten a pass, but she threatened individuals, in unmistakable language and on video, and, like Lee Harvey Oswald or Jim Jones stopped being a revolutionary hero and became an embarrassment to be quickly covered up.
If Dershowitz or Kraft or anyone else still can't understand what they're seeing on college campuses, they should read this column. Good friend and friend of blog Michael Walsh has some cromulent observations about the great divide and the potential for some kind of reconciliation:
Hard as this may seem to believe, back before the election of Barack Hussein Obama -- just seven years after 9/11, remember -- there was at least one thing sane people on both the Left and the Right agreed upon: freedom of speech and the primacy of the First Amendment. Conservatives were dedicated to the constitution in all its aspects, while liberals at least pretended to enjoy the blessings of free expression, even if they often employed the 1A as a shield with which to protect themselves and their dissention from the consequences of their intentions. Honest men on both sides could not only have reasoned discussions with one another, but actually be friends.Obama's elections, in ways which still remain to be understood, changed all that. The notion that not everybody saw the Lightbringer as a divinized politician descended, deus ex machina, from the flies and wings of the American stage to redeem the U.S.A. from its original sin of "racism" threw them into a fit. By their lights, the election should have been unanimous, by acclamation; how dare their former darling maverick, John McCain, have the effrontery to oppose him? Even the fact that McCain, a born tomato can whose last public act was to betray his Senate comrades and his country over Obamacare, threw the election by "suspending" his campaign near the end didn't appease them. As for those who actually voted against the Punahou Kid, off to purdah and perdition with them. And thus the Cold Civil War (as I dubbed it at the time) was well and truly underway. . .
. . . Is there still a way for honest patriots on both sides to come together? Yes, there are some, even though the Democrat-Media Complex has erased almost all traces of their existence, owing to its complete control of the public Narrative.
I'd like to believe that honest men on both sides can come together. But the problem for me is that whatever defined those two sides no longer exists, or is well on the way to extinction. What we have is one side that is hell bent to destroy us and . . . us. People who cling (bitterly) to the desire to be left alone. To be free to live as we see fit. The other side cannot abide by that as to them it is a zero sum game.
Are we willing to do whatever is necessary to preserve our freedom? That requires self-preservation "by any means necessary." What comes after that, if we do emerge on top please God, is open for discussion afterwards.
- ABOVE THE FOLD, BREAKING, NOTEWORTHY
- Michael Walsh: "Perhaps, later, in the rubble, we can find common ground and begin anew. Not with the New Soviet Man but the rebirth of Western Man, a believer in freedom, a capitalist with a conscience, and a man whose philosophy is not beggar-thy-neighbor, who doesn't see the world as a zero-sum game, and who only asks to live and let live. But it begins with free speech, or it never begins at all."
In Search of Common Ground
- “For those of us who remember Soviet totalitarianism, it was a déjà vu.”
How the West Suppresses Dissent
- "The left will find and use children in perverse ways that endanger their innocence, and politicians will do nothing to prevent it. It’s up to parents to create safety for their families. It starts at the school board and ends in their state capitols."
Fleeing To Red States Won’t Spare You From The War Against Wokeness
- Daniel Greenfield: “'We’ll see you at your house. We’ll murder you,' Riddhi Patel, the co-founder of the local chapter of the Sunrise Movement, told members of the Bakersfield City Council."
How the Neo-Nazi Left Brainwashes its Recruits to Kill
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Daily Tech News 23 April 2024
—Pixy Misa
Top Story- Australia has elbowed Brazil out of the way and decided that it is going to be the new global censor. (MSN)
An Australian federal court has ordered Twitter and Facebook to take down a video wherein a Christian bishop was stabbed in his own church by a Usual Suspect... Globally.
You are not permitted to know that this happened, because it might, I don't know, look bad for Usual Suspects.
(Note that the other recent stabbing in Sydney that made the news was a random mentally ill man, who, while known to the police, was not a Usual Suspect.)
In the ensuing brouhaha a senator from Tasmania has asserted that Elon Musk should go to jail and Australia's nominally conservative party leader has covered himself in shit and given full-throated support for the nonsense.
Sorry. I didn't vote for any of these idiots.
- Journalists for Censorship has also given this their thumbs up. (The Register)
"I never thought the leopards would eat my face", sobs woman who voted for the Leopards Eating People's Faces Party.
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Monday Overnight Open Thread (4/22/24) Less Is More Edition
—Misanthropic Humanitarian
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Duckling Rescue Foundation Cafe
—Disinformation Expert Ace
An ostrich preens its feathers.
A baby bear is transported by belly rubs.
The "Parade of a Thousand Demons" in Kyoto.
Spring comes to Alaska.
A baby goat sampler. Also, a baby sheep.
These dogs ain't no Jive Turkeys!
Little bear says it's safe, come on over and play with it and its enormous mother-bear.
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Fast Blows
—Disinformation Expert Ace
Update: Axios and the Washington Post thank Johnson for his courage and bravery. (Both?!!)
Unfortunately, blame can't just be put on Johnson.
Trump was scheming with the GOPe behind the scenes as well.
Michael Tracey @mtraceyTrump strategized with Lindsey Graham and other GOP Senators to pass Ukraine funding, the Wall Street Journal reports, which led to the adoption of Trump's fake "loan" proposal in the final legislation. "Payback is contingent on defeating Russia."
Per Graham, Trump looks forward to extracting Ukraine's vast natural resources -- an extension of his prior philosophy to "take the oil" from Iraq and Syria.
"Trump's stance was key" in assuring the passage of the bill, according to the WSJ, as were the "religious convictions" of Speaker Mike Johnson, Trump's emissary in the House.
Just before the bill was passed, Trump dined with Polish President Duda in NYC, at Trump's invitation. Duda was in the US on a lobbying tour to press for Ukraine funding. The next day, Trump wrote his Truth Social post declaring Ukraine a vital "US national security interest."
And so -- there you have it. Now we have at least another couple years of war in Ukraine underwritten by the US taxpayer, at Trump's personal behest.
The AlwaysTrump contingent kept telling me that Trump's position on Ukraine was clear and strong, and Ron DeSantis' was weak and vacillating. They never bothered to actually read Trump's statement on Ukraine -- he did have a strong statement, he said he'd strongly fund Ukraine -- and just attributed to him the position they wanted him to have, and then clubbed Ron DeSantis over the head with a position they claimed to be Trump's but never, ever was.
Trump benefits from the same effect that Obama noted -- "I am a blank screen upon which people can project their wishes."
I was never strongly against funding Ukraine. I don't know how we got into this weird position of agreeing with the hard left's position on Russia before they suddenly reversed themselves and all declared, "We have ALWAYS been against Eastasia."
But I did want such funding, which I do not particularly care for, at least tied to something I do care about, US border security.
But nope.
Voters are tiring of the Uniparty's singular focus on the integrity of Ukraine's borders.
Nolte tells us about a Heritage USA poll.
With a margin of error of 3.1 points, between April 2-4, the Heritage Foundation polled 1,000 swing voters in the battleground states of Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, and Nevada. The questions focused on the ongoing funding of Ukraine versus securing our own border and found that a majority have soured on Ukraine and want our border secure.
When asked, "Is it more important to secure [America's southern] border or to provide funding to Ukraine," only 11 percent of swing voters sided with Ukraine. In comparison, 50 percent said they wanted our border secured.
"In thinking about U.S. border security and the situation in Ukraine," read the next question, "which of the following is the best approach?" A clear majority of 54 percent chose "spending more money to secure the U.S. border than to help Ukraine."
Only 23 percent chose "spending an equal amount" on both Ukraine and our border. Even fewer, just ten percent, said more money should be spent defending Ukraine's border over our own.
When asked if the $113 billion the U.S. has already sent to Ukraine is "too much, too little, or about the right amount of aid," 56 percent said it was either "far" (31 percent) or "somewhat" (25 percent) "too much." But only 12 percent said the $113 billion was "far" (3 percent) or "somewhat" (9 percent) "too little." Those who said the $113 billion was "about the right amount" totaled just 16 percent.
The next question asked if those surveyed would "favor or oppose" a proposal that provided "funding for Ukraine but no funding to secure the southern border." A whopping 75 percent either "somewhat" (25 percent) or "strongly" (50 percent) opposed putting Ukraine's security above our own (which is what Democrats, the corporate media, and establishment Republicans want). On the flip side, only 17 percent said they "strongly" (5 percent) or "somewhat" (12 percent) support putting Ukraine's security above our own.
A Democrat voted for the Ukraine funding with this benediction: "Die, MAGA, die."
A New York Democratic congressional candidate celebrated the House passing a $60 billion bill to fund Ukraine while hoping for the death of the MAGA movement, a message posted to X shows."Slava Ukraine," New York congressional candidate Nate McMurray posted to X Saturday afternoon.
"Die MAGA die. You lose," he added of former President Trump's supporters and those who agree with the "Make America Great Again" platform.
McMurray's tweet followed the US House passing a bill Saturday that provides $60 billion to Ukraine amid the nation's ongoing war against Russia. The aid package passed 311 to 112, with more Republicans voting against the bill, at 112, than Republicans who voted for it, at 101.
Columbia pro-Hamas protesters drove dirty Jews off parts of the campus they occupied. (Irony.)
NBC says don't worry, physically ejecting Jews from a campus they paid to be at (and actually earned their place to be admitted to) is just some more "mostly peaceful" protesting of the sort we saw in the Summer of Love.
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