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What’s wrong with this picture?

(Scott Johnson)

The Times of Israel provides updates on Palestinian casualties according to Gaza’s Ministry of Health, but suggests that skepticism is warranted. Indeed, the Ministry of Health is best understood as the functional equivalent of the Ministry of Truth (“Minitrue”) conceived by George Orwell in 1984, i.e., the ministry of propaganda.

In its update on Palestinian casualties in Gaza today, the Times of Israel states the numbers of dead and wounded according to “the Hamas-run health ministry,” but adds: “The terror group’s figures are unverified, don’t differentiate between civilians and combatants, and list all the fatalities as caused by Israel — even those believed to have been caused by hundreds of misfired rockets or otherwise by Palestinian fire.”

These are obvious points, yet the numbers are taken (or repeated) at face value by President Biden and others. Here is Biden performing his Big Brother shtick earlier this month: “You can’t have another 30,000 Palestinians dead as a consequence of going after [Hamas]. There are other ways to deal with Hamas.”

In his invaluable March 6 Tablet column, Professor Abraham Wyner explains “How the Gaza Ministry of Health Fakes Casualty Numbers” and even Biden must “know” this. It’s yet another sign of Biden’s turn against Israel and/or support for Hamas.

Let me add today’s sign, per Vice President Kamala Harris: “We have been clear in multiple conversations and in every way that any major military operation in Rafah would be a huge mistake. Let me tell you, I have studied the maps — there is nowhere for those folks to go. So we’ve been very clear that it would be a mistake to move into Rafah with any kind of military operation.”

VP Kamala Harris takes a tougher line against Israel (re: going after remaining Hamas battalions in Rafah) on ABC’s “This Week”:

“We have been clear in multiple conversations and in every way that any major military operation in Rafah would be a huge mistake. Let me tell you, I…

— Josh Kraushaar (@JoshKraushaar) March 24, 2024

The incredible shrinking majority

(Scott Johnson)

John and I found the protracted humiliation of Kevin McCarthy in connection with his election to be Speaker of the House a clown show. By contrast, Steve Hayward looked mostly on the bright side in “In re: Speaker McCarthy — dissents and concurrences.”

It is at least worth noting that the GOP majority is dissipating. The clown show set the stage for the shrinking of the small GOP House majority to a number asymptotically approaching zero.

It empowered Matt Gaetz to trigger the chain of events leading to McCarthy’s ouster from the Speaker’s chair. I decried that development in “Gaetz of Eden.” Has anyone asked Gaetz what good he did in sacking McCarthy?

McCarthy was deposed this past October. It seems like ancient history. McCarthy subsequently resigned his House seat effective December 31.

I have here in my hand a list of names. According to the list, among the Republicans getting out of Dodge with McCarthy are Reps. Bill Johnson (effective January 21), Ken Buck (effective yesterday), Mike Gallagher (effective April 19), and George Santos, whose departure was involuntary.

“Normally they’re trying to talk people out of [retiring],” one House Republican told Axios. “Now we’re at a point where we’re trying to talk them out of leaving early.” It may or may not be a portent of trouble for Speaker Johnson and it may or may not be a portent of the coming Democratic majority, but it’s not good.

Tools of jihad, then and now

(Scott Johnson)

Robert Satloff is executive director of the Washington Institute. He took issue with the December 2 Washington Post story “Israel’s assault forced a nurse to leave babies behind. They were found decomposing.” Satloff deconstructed the Post story in the 5,000-word critique “Once Again, a ‘Palestinian Babies Story Merits a Washington Post Apology.”

Satloff’s critique elicited a response from Post executive editor Sally Buzbee. She stands by the Post’s story and demands that Satloff clean up his critique. Satloff publishes Buzbee’s response in his disappointed postscript “Sadly, WaPost Admits No Error in Story Filled with Them.”

This episode had me thinking back to my own examination of the Post’s reporting in this vein on Israel’s 2012 Operation Pillar of Defense. Mr. Satloff, I see your 5,000 words and raise you 5,000 words. I wrote several posts and well over 5,000 words on the story featuring the aptly named Jihad Masharawi. Forgive me for saying that those posts have stood the test of time! As the song goes, “same as it ever was.” I have retrieved this March 11, 2013 post from our archives.

* * * * *

I wrote about the photograph of BBC Arabic editor Jihad Masharawi holding the shrouded body of his 11-month-old son, Omar, in posts here, here, here and here. The photograph depicted Masharawi outside Shifa Hospital in Gaza City early in Israel’s Operation Pillar of Defense. The young Masharawi’s death was attributed to an Israeli airstrike.

The photograph went viral on the second day of the conflict between Hamas and Israel, being featured on the Web and in newspapers around the world. One such among many was the Washington Post, which ran it at the top of page one. The photo is below.

Washington Post ombdudsman Patrick Pexton devoted a column to complaints about the photograph. Paul Mirengoff explicated the manifest animus in Pexton’s column.

Everything Pexton asserted directly or indirectly as a matter of fact was wrong. When a major newspaper ombudsman is this utterly clueless, who ya gonna call? Not Ghostbusters. Power Line, I guess.

Paul Danahar is the BBC Middle East Bureau Chief and Masharawi’s colleague. He spent much of the day at Masharawi’s house on the day on the day Masharawi’s son was killed, tweeting a photo of the hole in the roof of Masharawi’s house. The house wasn’t bombed, Pexton to the contrary notwithstanding. Danahar described the munition that did the damage as a “shell.”

I tweeted Danahar to ask him on what basis he identified the munition as Israeli. I wrote at the time on Power Line that I doubted it was. I thought it was more likely to have been a Hamas rocket that failed to hit its intended target in Israel. (As I recall, something like 10 percent of the Hamas rockets landed in Gaza.) Danahar failed to respond to my tweet, although he relentlessly propagated the line that Israeli forces had killed Masharawi’s son.

Everything about the photograph looked phony to me. Was Masharawi sobbing? His face doesn’t even look like he has shed tears. Masharawi looks like he’s enacting grief. I understand that Masharawi in fact lost his son as a result of the munition that hit his house, but I found the photo odd (as I did the other photos in the series of Masharawi parading around for the cameras).

I thought that Masharawi was engaging in an opportunistic bit of Terrorist Theater, the kind I wrote about in the Weekly Standard article “He didn’t give at the office.” The article demonstrates how news service stringers in Gaza work as an arm of the terrorist authorities on whom they purport to report. By the way, the staged photos of Arafat that I wrote about in the Standard article were the work of an AP stringer. The photo of Masharawi that the Post ran was credited to the AP.

Terrorist Theater is a function of the sinister authority wielded by terrorist forces in the areas where they hold sway. Gaza is of course under the thumb of Hamas, one such terrorist power.

We held that the death of Masharawi’s son was a tragedy and offered our condolences to Masharawi on the loss of his son. We acknowledged that we didn’t know to a certainty what had happened or who is responsible for the death, and therefore asked readers to keep an open mind.

I hope you will forgive me for rehearsing what must seem like ancient history, but it really is necessary to put this report in context, as they say: “UN clears Israel of charge it killed baby in Gaza.” The Times of Israel has the story, based on this UN report:

United Nations report cleared Israel in the death of the infant son of a BBC employee during Operation Pillar of Defense in November, instead fingering a misfired Palestinian rocket for the tragedy.

The November 14 strike left 11-month-old Omar Jihad al-Mishrawi and Hiba Aadel Fadel al-Mishrawi, 19, dead. The death of Omar, the son of BBC Arabic journalist Jihad al-Mishrawi, garnered more than usual media attention and focused anger for the death on Israel, which was initially blamed for the death.

Rather, the report suggests, a 19-year-old woman and a baby were hit by shrapnel from a rocket fired by Palestinians that was aimed at Israel, but missed its mark.

Omar is dead, and Hamas killed him, but both Jihad and jihad live, and the BBC and the Washington Post among others are their willing tools.

Bobbing along

(Scott Johnson)

In his opening statement to the House Oversight Committee earlier this week, the glorious Mr. Tony Bobulinski torched Reps. Dan Goldman and Jamie Raskin:

We keep hearing from certain corners that our “democracy is at risk” and that “democracy is on the ballot in 2024,” yet the same people preaching this mantra, who know better, continue to lie directly to the American people without hesitation or remorse. Representatives Dan Goldman and Jamie Raskin, both lawyers, and Mr. Goldman a former prosecutor with the Southern District of New York, will continue to lie today in this hearing and then go straight to the media to tell more lies.

Mr. B., long may you run.

Professor Jonathan Turley takes it from there in the (highly recommended) Fox News column that he has now posted at his personal site: “The Dripping Away of the Democratic Party: Sir Thomas More and the Biden Corruption Scandal.” In the introduction to the column posted on his site, Professor Turley writes (links omitted): “Various members misrepresented my earlier testimony during the hearing on the basis for the impeachment inquiry. Members like Rep. Jamie Raskin (D., Md.) stated that I joined other witnesses in saying that there was nothing that could remotely be impeachable in these allegations. That is demonstrably untrue. My testimony stated the opposite.”

What about Goldman? You can’t leave him out:

Rep. Dan Goldman, D., N.Y., captured the problem for Democrats in even addressing any of the mounting evidence contradicting the president. Yet, Goldman has long shown a willingness to rush in where angels fear to tread.

In previous attacks, Goldman repeatedly hit the Bidens with friendly fire when eliciting damaging answers from witnesses. Goldman has a habit of raising the worst evidence that his colleagues have avoided. In one hearing, he stumbled badly in raising the WhatsApp message where Hunter told a Chinese businessman that his father was sitting next to him and would not be pleased unless he sent him money. On another occasion, he prompted an IRS whistleblower to note that an email Goldman read into the record was actually a direct contradiction of the denials of the president.

In the latest misstep, Goldman pressed former Biden partner Tony Bobulinski on a proposal shared with Hunter and others to reserve 10% for “the Big Guy.” In other emails, Bobulinski was told to use such codes to avoid mentioning Joe Biden’s name. He was expressly identified as “the Big Guy.” Video

Goldman snapped at Bobulinski, “Did anyone ever respond to that email?”

Bobulinski responded “Yes, they did numerous times. Hunter himself did.”

Goldman blurted out “you’re right” before angrily reclaiming his time to cut him off.

The video below excerpts Bobulinski’s anticipation of the Raskin/Goldman defense of the Biden family business.

House Oversight Committee hearing goes off the rails when Hunter Biden's former business partner Tony Bobulinski calls out Reps. Jamie Raskin and Dan Goldman for lying on behalf of the Biden Crime Family. pic.twitter.com/Xny4VTbhVc

— Greg Price (@greg_price11) March 20, 2024

Ramirez speaks

(Scott Johnson)

The Pulitzer Prize-winning cartoonist Michael Ramirez posts his daily cartoons on Substack at the Michael Ramirez Newsletter. He is a conservative whose genius cannot be denied. Thus the Pulitzer. Readers can subscribe here.

Michael has also been writing weekly essays for his newsletter that I have posted in our Picks as each one was made freely accessible. Today Michael has posted an 18-minute video essay that is keyed to his recent cartoons on the Academy Awards. I found his remarks entertaining, interesting, and inspiring. He tells some inside stories and he talks about joining the protest at Columbia when he received his Pulitzer. He wraps up with a statement of his his core beliefs.

His is the voice of a free mind and a free man. I thought some readers might want to listen up.

Return to Shifa

(Scott Johnson)

President Biden has turned on Israel. He and his brain trust support the survival of Hamas. It’s a big-time sell-out. The cover of the current issue of England’s Economist depicts Israel Alone (cover story here behind the Economist paywall). It reminded me of the time when England stood alone against a genocidal maniac — alone against “the insane tyrant,” as Leo Strauss referred to Hitler in his tribute to Churchill — though the thought appears not to have crossed the mind of the Economist.

The IDF has yet to complete its mission in Gaza. Yesterday IDF spokesman Daniel Hagari conducted a briefing on the IDF’s return to Shifa Hospital to root out a large band of terrorists that had come to think of the place as home. Hagari conducted the briefing in Hebrew, but the video below superimposes the English translation, which the IDF has also posted here. This is the text per the IDF:

Good evening.

The operation at the Shifa Hospital continues. This is the operation with the largest aggregation of terrorists we have apprehended since the beginning of the war. So far, we have apprehended over 500 suspects, 358 of which are Hamas and Islamic Jihad terrorists.
They are surrendering, we are interrogating them, and they are providing us with very valuable and important intelligence.

We apprehended the chain of command of the Islamic Jihad, including:
1. Muhammad Jundia – Commander of the Shejaiya Battalion of the Islamic Jihad and the Deputy Commander of the terrorist organization’s Northern Brigade
2. Samir Ziad Abd Abu Odeh – Commander of the Al-Shati sector in the rocket unit of the Islamic Jihad.
3. Ahmad Samara – responsible for tunnels and underground terror infrastructure of the Islamic Jihad in the Northern Gaza Strip.

We apprehended senior Hamas figures, including:
1. Hamdallah Ali and Omar Azida– Azida, a senior official in the West Bank Headquarters, responsible for directing Hamas terrorist activity in the area of Nablus. Ali, who advanced Hamas activity in the Qalqilya area. The two are senior officials in the West Bank Headquarters of Hamas, they acted within their roles to advance terrorist attacks from Judea and Samaria, directed the transfer of weapons and funds to terrorists. This group operated under Saleh al-Arouri.
2. Mahmoud Kwasma – an operative in the Hamas West Bank Headquarters, planned and financed the kidnapping and murder of three Israeli teenagers in 2014, Naftali Fraenkel, Gilad Shaer and Eyal Yifrach, may their memory be a blessing.

In addition, we apprehended additional senior officials in Hamas’ Internal Security forces. Many terrorists in Shifa, especially from the Islamic Jihad, surrendered to our forces. This is a very hard blow to the Islamic Jihad – many of its operatives in the north, who are the majority of its significant operatives, either surrendered or were eliminated in the operation so far. With a number of them, we exchanged fire until they surrender or are eliminated.

During the last 24 hours, we entered the Qatari Building [in the Shifa compound]. This is a building that we also operated in during the previous operation in Shifa. This time, terrorists were hiding there. Shayetet 13 searched the building. During the scans on the basement floor, they encountered a terrorist cell. Our soldiers eliminated the terrorists without our forces being harmed. In another battle, another terrorist surrendered; after these battles, several terrorists surrendered. Among them are very senior officials – I still cannot publish their identities because they hold significant intelligence – after we finish interrogating them and find the intelligence with them, we will publish the identities of these terrorists. Senior Hamas officials understand well the significance of the operation and as the picture of the apprehended and of the eliminated terrorists becomes clearer – the pressure on them will increase.

At the beginning of the war, we destroyed the underground infrastructure dug under the hospital, and we confiscated military equipment and weapons hidden in it. The terrorists’ command center at the Shifa Hospital was dealt with then. The terrorists fled in the previous operation when we called to evacuate the compound.

This time we operated differently. This time we operated by surprise. We raided the compound by surprise. The operation, led by the 162nd Division and carried out by special forces units led by Shayetet 13, in full cooperation on the ground, shoulder to shoulder with the ISA and Unit 504 for intelligence extraction in the field. We used deception tactics in this operation, and it was this that led to the success and apprehension of all 358 terrorists and there are more still inside this compound who haven’t managed to escape. This led to Hamas and the Islamic Jihad being severely damaged as a result of the operation. Those who did not surrender to our forces fought against our forces and were eliminated. Among them also the head of the Special Operations Directorate of Hamas’ General Security – who chose to fight against our forces openly and our forces eliminated him.

The fighting continues inside the hospital buildings – inside the buildings at the hospital. There are Hamas and Islamic Jihad terrorists who decided to barricade themselves – they are currently barricading themselves in the area of the emergency room. At this stage, we are evacuating the patients – there are about 220 patients there – to another building. We are creating infrastructure for them, with appropriate medical equipment so that all the patients and doctors can be safe. For the past 24 hours, we continue to call upon the terrorists in the building to surrender, those who surrender will stay alive, those who do not we will fight against until we eliminate them.

Even at these hours, our soldiers are scanning the buildings, evacuating the wounded, and continuing to operate in the compound. There will be more ongoing combat here – there will be several more days to this operation.

Last night, when we visited the soldiers in the field during the operation, from all the special units – as I said, the Commander of Shayetet 13 briefed us, but there was also the ISA, also Unit 504 and also the senior command that came with us to the field. They told us something very very important – they emphasized to us, the soldiers and the commanders, that they will do everything necessary in this operation or another in order to bring about the release of the hostages. They emphasized – this is the most important thing to us.

We do not forget that in Gaza there are 134 hostages. It is our duty to continue and make every operational and intelligence effort, and also in negotiations, in order to bring them back home. This is what we are doing, and this is what we will continue to do. This is our responsibility.

I want to also send encouragement this evening to the families of the hostages. You and your loved ones are with us all the time.

Hagari’s remarks convey a seriousness and dignity in the face of a barbarous enemy. It is a seriousness and dignity that is conspicuous by its absence in the Biden administration.

IDF Spokesman Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari delivered a speech in which he confirmed 600 arrested and over 140 terrorists killed in the Al-Shifa operation pic.twitter.com/g2RDbl8qcH

— i24NEWS English (@i24NEWS_EN) March 21, 2024

Thoughts from the ammo line

(Scott Johnson)

Ammo Grrrll looks into the future: I THINK THAT I SHALL NEVER SEE…quite a few things!

Joyce Kilmer, author of the beloved and universally known American poem “Trees,” declared that he thought that he would “never see / A poem as lovely as a tree.”

Soon I shall list some things that we cannot BELIEVE we HAVE seen. And then several things that, like Mr. Kilmer, we will never see. No, not ever. But first an important word about Mr. Kilmer.

“Trees” is a short, sweet, simple religious poem and Kilmer was a devout Catholic. So, of course, the work has been much mocked and parodied by what passes for the intelligentsia in this great land. I feel duty-bound to mention that Alfred Joyce Kilmer was a poet, yes, but he was also a soldier. As a wealthy married man with five children, he surely could have avoided service in the meat grinder that was World War I, but he enlisted in 1917 and was tragically killed in 1918 by a sniper while scouting for a German machine-gun nest in the company of Wild Bill Donovan in the Second Battle of the Marne. He was 31.

So put THAT in your pipes and smoke it, arrogant, ignorant modern critics! I’m sure the obscene bleatings of a junkie are much to be prized over a dead soldier who liked trees.

Anyway, here are a few things that we HAVE seen that I never would have believed even 10 years ago, to say nothing of when I was young.

I’m sure students of history know that in the battle for women’s suffrage, one of the arguments in FAVOR of it was that women were the kinder, gentler, more nurturing sex and would bring those sensibilities to the body politic.

So imagine my shock and awe when for thousands of women, the main issue – and one which will be harped upon in ads running every 10 minutes until the merciful Chinese EMP attack – is the right to kill their babies up to the moment of birth. My former state, Minnesota, is a “Multi-Sanctuary” state where you can travel to kill your baby when the labor pains are three minutes apart — OR wait just a few years until a three-year-old plays dress-up with a dress and then declare that the little boy is actually a girl and have him castrated. Your choice. Because it’s a “woman’s right to choose.”

What else? We have seen a mostly-peaceful, interracial mob of thugs come together in Minneapolis to burn a police station to the ground while everyone in authority just let it happen. The daughter of the wretched Governor (Polka? Waltz? Chaha? Something…) even informed those thugs that the National Guard would not be on hand. That was a first for me.

Here’s another: A pathological liar in a TV series who met the police at his door with a “noose” around his neck went on television while an otherwise intelligent person like Robin Roberts watched Jussie, an ACTOR, cry on cue. He choked back tears as he spoke about the Bad MAGA Men who had been out shlepping around rope and bleach on spec in below zero weather – just IN CASE they ran across a gay black man. Did anyone else call “Poppycock” (or words to that effect) the MINUTE they heard that preposterous tale?

Nobody asked why the MAGA dudes didn’t actually hang him. Nobody asked why they let him keep his cellphone and even call people on it during the “assault.” Nobody asked what HE was doing out and about in frigid weather. Nobody asked why he had not a scratch on him from slapping at the potential lynchers, one-handed, while his sammich never left his other hand. Not one word of his pasture patty story made any sense. And that was BEFORE the authorities found the store cam stuff the paid black “assassins” bought. With a check.

He is not serving his sentence, and to my knowledge, has never repaid the poor Chicago Police Department for the hours of overtime they spent chasing phantom MAGA guys. Also, if Robin Roberts, or Kamala, or Spartacus has ever said publicly, “Boy, that’s one on us – we made some unwarranted racist assumptions and some hysterical statements, and we’re kinda sorta sorry,” I haven’t heard about that either.

There was a months-long crisis in the shipping pipeline while the Secretary of Transportation, a Howdy Doody clone who had once been a boy mayor of a potholed municipality, but mostly was just GAY as a criterion for his high-paying job, declared he was taking maternity time off. He sat in a bed with his husband pretending that the two of them had actually birthed the babies they held. I never saw that coming. It made my skin crawl. Not that two gay guys had “acquired” babies – whatever — but that they were pretending to chest feed and lying in bed as though they had just been through the 18 hours of labor (to pick a random number) that women (okay, I) had been through. Talk about stolen valor!

Truth to tell, I have rarely been very impressed with the miscreants who inhabit Congress. But even someone as cynical as I am could never have anticipated several brain-dead losers of various colors in Congress billing themselves as The Squad being unable to say a mumblin’ word against rape, baby-beheading, immolation of children, or taking civilian hostages. Oh, I’m sorry – they DID say a word – they said it was “justified.”

So these are things we HAVE seen. Is there ANYTHING that we will NEVER see? Like in the late Mr. Kilmer’s poem? Why yes, yes, there is! A Partial List:

*Obama’s Passport history. Ditto, Obama’s Academic Coursework and Grades

*Ghislaine Maxwell’s little black book of clients (that’s how we know that DJT is not in it.)

*A non-white mother of a criminal being held legally responsible for his or her criminality.

*The murderous trans girl’s manifesto

*A forensic audit of BLM

*A transcript of what the pukes in the Biden Administration have told Israel – apart from these few words we know were said: “Die, Jews! Just Lose! We’ve got the Michigan blues!”

*An audit of any city run by a black woman mayor. Heck, ANY big city mayor.

*The complete security tapes from the January 6th walkabout in the Capitol.

*A complete list of the payouts to victims of sexual harassment by members of Congress

*How many FBI agents attended the January 6th “insurrection” as provocateurs.

*What red states and towns the illegal alien criminal invaders have been sent to.

*A non-racist and logical explanation of why black people cannot find a picture I.D.

*An abject apology from the 51 “agents” who certified that the Hunter Laptop was just Russian disinformation. And the subsequent firing of those liars and election inteferers.

I’m waiting…how ‘bout you?

“Migrants” on parade

(Scott Johnson)

Here we have the video of the day. It depicts a horde of illegal aliens breaking through the razor wire (mounted, I assume, by Texas authorities) and overrunning Texas National Guard soldiers seeking to resist them in El Paso. The video raises many questions, among them how many many “migrants” does it take to mount used to be known as an “invasion”?

We have now entered year four President Biden’s open borders program. Why does Biden refuse to see that the law is faithfully executed? Why does he support the invasion of the United States? When do we get to defend ourselves? How long can this go on?

This is the moment when TX National Guard became overrun by migrants rioting to get across the border here in El Paso today

We were there and saw it all happen. Absolute chaos here. pic.twitter.com/VN6Kf663ie

— Jennie Taer (@JennieSTaer) March 21, 2024

Doesn’t know Schumer from Shinola

(Scott Johnson)

In a long speech on the floor yesterday Senate Majority Chuck Schumer called for the replacement of the current Israeli government under Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The Times of Israel has posted the full text of Schumer’s remarks here. According to Schumer, Netanyahu is an obstacle to peace, the two-state final solution, and the Big Rock Candy Mountain. We must popularize the phrase “He doesn’t know Schumer from Shinola.”

Jonathan Tobin places Schumer in the context of his career to date: “He’s been in public office continuously since the age of 25, and the 73-year-old Senate Majority Leader has spent his adult life grandstanding for the cameras and the press while always seeking some momentary political advantage as he schemed, back-stabbed and bloviated his way to the top of his profession.”

We can infer that Schumer now approves of foreign interference in another country’s elections. Only yesterday that was a big no-no for purported thought leaders toeing the Democrat Party line.

In this case the government Schumer seeks the replacement of a government that was democratically elected and formed by a close American ally fighting for its life under extremely difficult circumstances. That’s no way to treat a friend.

Schumer pretends that the relevant policies of the Netanyahu government are peculiar to Netanyahu and his coalition. That does not seem to be the case.

Schumer gives aid and comfort to Hamas and its friends in the Democratic Party. We can infer that the obstacle posed by Netanyahu is to the political objectives of the Democratic Party as conceived by President Biden.

Biden has just renewed his sanctions waiver on $10 billion held for the genocidaires of Iran. See Richard Goldberg’s New York Post column “Biden continues Iran’s access to $10 billion just weeks after its proxy killed three American soldiers.” Biden — he doesn’t know Schumer from Shinola.

One has to wonder about the impact of Schumer’s speech in Israel. It can’t help but demoralize Israelis fighting for their lives. However, they are unlikely to think they need Schumer’s help to assess their own best interests. In articulating and pursuing Israel’s war aims, Netanyahu speaks for the people of Israel. They do not support surrender to Hamas or adoption of the two-state final solution.

Senator Tom Cotton has posted a statement responding to Schumer. Senator Cotton sees the unstated obstacle Schumer is addressing: “[T]he main elections that worry Chuck Schumer aren’t Israel’s but our elections because the rampant antisemitism that the Democratic Party has allowed to fester in its ranks is massively unpopular with the pro-Israel American public.” Senator Cotton adds this “come to Jesus” element to his statement for Schumer’s benefit: “Chuck Schumer should remove the log in his own party’s eye before he whines about the speck in Israel’s eye.”

A personal note on the Ides of March

(Scott Johnson)

I ask readers to forgive me for repeating this personal note from last year. It is meant to pay tribute to my high school, my high school teachers — Latin teachers Lyman Hawbaker (who also taught ancient history) and Dave Sims in particular — and to my classmates. In the course of our high school years we were required to study Latin and dip our toes into Caesars’s Gallic Wars, among other things. We learned something about grammar, rhetoric, Rome, and English in the process. In English we read Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar and (I think) Thornton Wilder’s The Ides of March.

I was a member of the St. Paul Academy High School Bowl team during my junior and senior years. By unanimous consent Chuck Berde was captain of the team. Chuck went on to get M.D./Ph.D. degrees from Stanford and more or less invent the medical specialty of pediatric pain relief. Chuck is Senior Associate in Perioperative Anesthesia and Pain Medicine, Department of Anesthesia, Critical Care and Pain Medicine at Boston Children’s and Professor of Anesthesia (Pediatrics) at Harvard Medical School. In high school Chuck was also a good athlete and musician who somehow found time to play in a rock band with Steve Greenberg. Steve went on to write and produce “Funkytown,” the record that reached number 1 on charts around the world in 1980.

John Fitzpatrick and Jim Vose were the other members of the team. John is the Director Emeritus of the Cornell Lab of Ornithology. Jim is a retired Minneapolis attorney. We were all friends. Below is a photo of us in our final appearance on the High School Bowl program. University of Minnesota Professor of Classical and Near Eastern Studies Robert Sonkowsky was the High School Bowl referee. He had to cool things down in case fights broke out. That is Professor Sonkowsky with his hand on my shoulder. I would like to say I was so much older then, but will leave it to Bob Dylan at this point.

In our last go-round during our senior year we won three weeks in a row and retired undefeated. In the third week we faced off against Hopkins High School. Chuck was good at everything, but he excelled in math and science. One of the questions our last week required knowledge of several scientific numbers and the performance of arithmetic operations on them to produce another number. What famous event occurred in that year? Without missing a beat, and I mean instantly, Chuck answered: “The assassination of Julius Caesar.”

Thoughts from the ammo line

(Scott Johnson)

Ammo Grrrll has seasonal thoughts on WHAT WE CAN LEARN FROM PROFESSIONAL SPORTS – especially BASEBALL. She wants commenters to know that she “will be slightly less interactive today as her son is here and we will be at a Spring Training game. It is just a coincidence (honest!) that this column was next up in the pipeline.” She writes:

Unless you are very lucky, the first thing you learn about professional sports is that their sole purpose is to break your heart. Your team is not going to make the playoffs. And if it does, it will be annihilated by the New York Yankees in the first round. Your football team is never going to win the Super Bowl, even with four bites at the apple. But at least you won’t have to sit through the Satanic Half-time Ritual with the Mandatory Wardrobe Malfunction because, with your team, the game has traditionally been over before half-time.

So, yeah, bitter disappointment is the norm no matter how hard you root for your team. How loyal a Vikings fan was I back in the day when all the players stood for the National Anthem because Bud Grant never would have allowed them to kneel?

Well, once I was approached by a New York ad agency to star in a commercial in which I would have to pretend to be a Packers fan – and I TURNED IT DOWN. Now, that’s commitment. Or economic insanity. Potato, Potahto.

It is an altogether good thing to learn early on that MUCH of life is going to be a vast surging disappointment. And still you will survive and even thrive!

You are probably not going to make the Cheerleading Squad. (I didn’t, and it broke my heart). You are probably not going to be a Homecoming Queen. (I wasn’t, but I knew THAT wasn’t in the cards!) You may not get into the college of your choice. (I did because back in the Pleistocene Age, you got into college with good grades and excellent test scores – isn’t that a quaint and backward notion?) You are probably not going to think up something like Amazon, Space X, or TurboTax. (I didn’t.) You are more likely to spend your time thinking up funny names for the harridans on The View and it doesn’t pay nearly as well.

In other words, the chances are excellent that you are going to be an Ordinary Person who works hard at an unexciting job for 55 years, lives and loves and procreates and enjoys grandchildren, Sudoku, and Pickleball. And you will realize at the end that that was much more important than being a cheerleader. Though I sure wish I would have thought up Amazon.

But, but, but, once in a great while, when the stars align, a miracle can happen. Always be on the lookout for miracles.

Else, what can we say about the 1987 and 1991 World Series wins for the Minnesota Twins? Or one of the greatest sports feats of all time, the 2004 ALCS series against the Yankees with the Red Sawx down 3 games to naught and behind in the 9th inning of Game Four to boot.

And God, who had been wearing his noise-cancelling headphones because he was so tired of listening to Bostonians whine in that particularly annoying accent, suddenly heard their prayers and declared: “Okay, Okay. It’s possible I have punished Boston enough.” And He smiled on Big Papi and decreed that a miracle would occur. And He saw that it was good.

The scruffy, scrappy Red Sox came back and won Game Four and the next seven straight games to make the World Series an anti-climactic bore, mostly because the usually excellent Cardinals decided not show up for some reason. I have long advocated that that ALCS Series be shown to cancer patients for never-give-up inspiration.

Today, with the emphasis on year-round fitness, and especially weight-training, baseball players look more like every other professional athlete than they used to. Time was a young fella could hope to be a baseball player even if he wasn’t 6’10” or didn’t weigh 300 lbs.

If a kid was gifted with some sort of bizarre, one-in-a-million people coordination, or the eyesight of Ted Williams, and was willing to practice, practice, practice, he had at least a prayer of making the majors. There was “Little” Freddy Patek, who must have got darn tired of hearing announcers call him that. There were a whole bunch of slender, muscular, HUNGRY players from the Dominican Republic. And, of course, Babe Ruth himself, who nobody would have guessed was a professional athlete if he had been a contestant on “What’s My Line?”

In professional football and basketball, because players are usually only seen with other enormous teammates and ex-player interviewers, it’s not always clear just how DIFFERENT they are from ordinary male mortals.

I was once in an elevator in a hotel in Atlanta when the Celtics were in town to play the Hawks and who should walk into my elevator but Kevin McHale and two teammates. I had always been a Celtics fan and blurted out to Mr. McHale that I was a Minnesotan and had been following his career from high school on. They were all polite and friendly. But, Good Golly Miss Molly, they were YUGE! I felt like a little Arizona barrel cactus amongst the California Redwoods.

We had a similar experience when Joe did some minor legal favor for Joey Browner of the Vikings and he invited us to a little party with a few other Vikings and their lovely ladies. Mr. Browner is a soft-spoken and classy man who often helped opponents he had just flattened to get up when they probably would have preferred to remain on the ground to take a short nap. He was only an inch taller than our Joe/Max, but outweighed him by 50 lbs. of solid muscle. Looking at Joe and Joey side by side a person would say, “One of these guys is a slender, fit, nice-looking attorney. And one of these guys is a safety on the Vikings who has been selected for four Pro Bowls.” And everybody would get it right in one.

One of the greatest things we learn from baseball, perhaps more than any other sport, is that as a batter if you succeed in getting a hit one out of three times, you are a virtual superstar! For Ted Williams and (oh so close .388) our beloved Minnesota Twin Rod Carew, they pushed that to 4/10 and it has never been equaled in 75 years!

Now that’s not a good lesson for a surgeon, an airline pilot, or even a programmer, as they have to get as close to 100 percent success as is humanly possible. But for non-life-threatening human endeavors, it is good to know that you don’t have to be perfect to be a success.

In one interview after his retirement — I am quoting from memory here, so give me a break… — the sportscaster asked Williams what he thought his batting average would be in the current era. Williams said, “I don’t know, probably about .220.” The sportscaster was incredulous. “You had a lifetime average of .344, and you think you would only hit .220 today? Why? Because of the way managers use several pitchers a game?”

“No,” replied Williams. “Because I am 70 years old.”

After last week

(Scott Johnson)

Last week the mainstream press ranked President Biden’s State of the Union address up there with the Sermon on the Mount. I reviewed it in detail and found it to be “The SOTU from hell,” but then I wasn’t the target audience. My assessment might have been unreliable.

In my comments I asked to whom the speech was addressed. That wasn’t clear to me. I guess it was addressed to all the Democrats who’d loved him before. He didn’t want them to walk out on him.

Taking a look at the polls after one week, the Hill reports that, ahead of the State of the Union, Biden’s approval rating in a Yahoo News/YouGov poll was 40 percent. In a new survey released on Tuesday by the same team Biden’s approval rating had fallen to 39 percent.

That does not appear to be an outlier: “Other polls also show the president failed to moved the needle following his address to Congress. FiveThirtyEight’s calculation of Biden’s approval rating showed him with just more than 37 percent Tuesday. On March 6, the day before the State of the Union, he had just under a 38 percent approval rating from the ABC News pollster.”

Trump and Biden have each secured his party’s respective nomination and are running neck and neck. The lack of excitement is almost palpable. It is same as it ever was before Joe got hopped up last week to shout into the void.

Via Rich Lowry/NRO.

Ms. Yellen regrets

(Scott Johnson)

In Cole Porter’s “Miss Otis Regrets,” the heroine announces that she’s unable to lunch today. Why? She has a good excuse — because she was strung up by a mob for killing “the man who had led her so far astray.”

Now Ms. Yellen regrets. Janet Yellen holds the venerable office of Secretary of the Treasury. Former chairman of the Federal Reserve, Yellen is well qualified for the job and an ostensibly serious person. Yet she has proved unfit for the office, regurgitating administration talking points with an utter lack of seriousness. Inflation — she declared in 2021 that it was “transitory.” Abortion — restricting it would be “very damaging” to the economy. By contrast, she supports the administration’s gusher of “green” spending as constructive. ‘S wonderful.

Ms. Yellen regrets she has revealed herself to be a political hack. “I regret saying [inflation] was transitory,” Yellen said in a March 13 interview on Fox News. “It has come down. But I think transitory means a few weeks or months to most people.” Three years later, it might be worth asking what “transitory” means to her and who suggested she use the term in coordination with the other occupants of the Biden administration clown car.

When Yellen adopted the administration line on inflation being “transitory,” nobody had led Yellen astray. She killed her own reputation. However, she is also able to lunch today. Why anyone should even believe anything she says is not exactly a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma. No one should.

The trouble with Dennis Ross

(Scott Johnson)

Dennis Ross is a scholar and diplomat of unmatched experience in the vagaries of “the peace process.” His 2005 memoir The Missing Peace: Inside Story of the Fight for Middle East Peace runs to 880 closely printed pages. He served in both the Bush (41) and Clinton administrations. He also served as special assistant to President Obama and worked on National Security Council in both the Reagan and Obama administrations. He currently serves as a distinguished fellow on the U.S.-Israel strategic relationship at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. His impressive Washington Institute profile is posted here.

On a personal note, I would like to add this. When I was working on the 2007 Weekly Standard article “How Arafat got away with murder,” I caught Ambassador Ross by telephone in his office late on a Friday afternoon. He was on his way out the door and didn’t know me from Adam, yet he took my question and responded as quoted in the article. He seemed to me a straightforward and decent gentleman.

Ross was invited by the MIT Jewish Alumni Alliance to speak at MIT’s “Standing Together Against Hate” program launched in the aftermath of the the October 7 massacre. MIT president Sally Kornbluth trumpeted the program as an effort aimed at “community building.” She put MIT chancellor Melissa Nobles in charge.

A Hamas apologist is scheduled to speak at MIT as part of the program on March 18. Jewish alumni reached out to Ross and confirmed his willingness to participate in the program’s speaker series. When attempts were made to move forward, however, program planners informed the alumni that Ross is not an appropriate speaker because they deem him “a politician.” The alumni group has posted its March 12 open letter to Kornbluth here.

The Washington Free Beacon’s Jessica Costescu now takes a deep dive into the story under the headline “MIT Refused To Host Dennis Ross. It Invited a Hamas Apologist Instead.” Subhead: “Dalia Mogahed, who described Hamas terrorism as legal ‘resistance,’ slated to speak as a part of MIT’s ‘Standing Against Hate’ Initiative.”

What’s the trouble with Dennis Ross? It’s not that he is a politician. He has never run for office:

Like Ross, Mogahed has served as a presidential adviser, albeit to fewer presidents and in more junior roles. She served as an adviser to former president Barack Obama in the White House Office of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships.

For Matthew Handel and Lori Ullman, two Jewish Alumni Alliance members, MIT’s refusal to host Ross—and its excuse for excluding him—are insulting.

“It’s already patronizing for anyone to say we’re at MIT, so we think we’re smarter than you,” Handel, who co-founded the group, told the Free Beacon. “It’s beyond arrogant that they would say, ‘We work at MIT, so as MIT alums, we’re smarter than you; MIT students, we’re smarter than you; Congress, we’re smarter than you.'”

Costescu gives the reader everything he might need to understand the story and the actual trouble with Ross, including this valuable note: “MIT did not return a request for comment.”

Willfully yours

(Scott Johnson)

Special Counsel Robert Hur found that President Biden willfully mishandled documents subject to the Espionage Act provision set forth in 28 U.S.C. § 793(e). However, Hur clouded the “willfulness” element of the offense by resting his non-prosecution recommendation in part on Biden’s present senility. Hur presents his analysis of the element of “willfulness” under section 793 in Chapter Nine of his report.

The relevant question is whether Biden committed the acts “willfully” at the relevant time. Hur had a smoking gun or two to prove the “willfulness” element of the offense. Among other things, however, he suggested that a jury would be reluctant to convict someone as out of it as Biden is and imputed the jury’s likely reluctance to Biden’s present inability to act “willfully” beyond a reasonable doubt. See, for example, Chapters Eleven and Twelve of the report.

Just to give an idea of the evidence Hur compiled, the Wall Street Journal’s James Freeman highlights a few passages from Hur’s report. Freeman quotes this from Chapter Twelve:

As with the classified Afghanistan documents [discussed in Chapter Eleven], there is evidence that Mr. Biden kept his notebooks after his vice presidency knowing they were classified and he was not allowed to have them.

The evidence shows convincingly that Mr. Biden knew the notebooks, as a whole, contained classified information. For eight years, he wrote in his notebooks about classified information during classified meetings in the White House Situation Room and elsewhere. He was familiar with the notebooks’ contents, which included obviously classified information. When reviewing the notebooks with [Biden ghostwriter Mark] Zwonitzer, Mr. Biden sometimes read aloud classified notes verbatim, but he also sometimes appeared to skip over classified information, and he warned Zwonitzer that the material in the notebooks could be classified. Mr. Biden also stored the notebooks in a classified safe in the White House for a time as vice president because the notebooks were classified.

In Mr. Biden’s written answers to questions from our office, he called into question whether he knew the information in his notebooks was classified. In those answers, Mr. Biden explained that when he described material in his notebooks to Zwonitzer as “classified’’ he did not actually mean “classified.” According to Mr. Biden, “I may have used the word ‘classified’ with Mr. Zwonitzer in a generic sense, to refer not to the formal classification of national security information, but to sensitive or private topics to ensure that Mr. Zwonitzer would not write about them.” Mr. Biden qualified this answer by explaining, “I do not recall the specific conversations you reference with Mr. Zwonitzer, which took place more than six years ago.”

This explanation-that “classified” does not mean “classified”-is not credible. At the time Mr. Biden met with Zwonitzer, Mr. Biden had nearly fifty years of experience dealing with classified information, including as a member of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, a member and Chairman of the Senate Committee on the Judiciary, a member and Chairman of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, and Vice President of the United States. It is not plausible that a person of his knowledge and experience used the term “classified” in this context as a euphemism for “private.”

Hur discusses the existence of grounds for reasonable doubt regarding Biden’s willfulness at the time of the acts (i.e., evidence that Biden thought the notebooks were his personal property), but falls back on Biden’s subsequent incompetence (my word, not Hur’s). If Biden thought they were his personal property, why did he lie about the meaning of “classified”? As I wrote yesterday, Hur’s analysis has the quality of a student working backward from the known answer to a question. Hur thus concludes Chapter Twelve:

Given the intelligence and military officials present and the topics discussed at the meetings Mr. Biden recounted for Zwonitzer, Mr. Biden should have realized that his notes did or were likely to contain classified information. But taken as a whole, the evidence will likely leave jurors with reasonable doubts about whether Mr. Biden knew he was sharing classified information with Zwonitzer and intended to do so. For these jurors, Mr. Biden’s apparent lapses and failures in February and April 2017 will likely appear consistent with the diminished faculties and faulty memory he showed in Zwonitzer’s interview recordings and in our interview of him. Therefore, we conclude that the evidence does not establish that Mr. Biden willfully disclosed national defense information to Zwonitzer.

I thought someone would press Hur on the “willfulness” issue at the hearing. Rep. Ken Buck, who declared he’s outta here next week, came the closest to getting at it toward the tail end of the five-hour hearing (video below). Even within the five-minutes limiting each round of questions — Buck could have omitted his introductory remarks and gotten to the point — Buck almost got there, but this ain’t horseshoes.

Why he was fired from Harvard

(Scott Johnson)

The great Dr. Jay Bhattacharya hosts the Illusion of Consensus podcast. I have embedded his most recent episode below via X. In this episode he speaks with Martin Kulldorff. Please check it out in its native habitat here and help Dr. Bhattacharya extend his reach to other platforms.

Dr. Bhattacharya’s introduction to the podcast notes that “in this critical conversation we discuss a number of hot topics, most crucially Martin’s firing from Harvard for his opposition to vaccine mandates. He has broken the silence on this tragic issue and we are happy to host his first public conversation on the matter. We also discuss Martin’s firing from the CDC over the J&J vaccine and Harvard’s generally unscientific response to the pandemic. The conversation concludes with a discussion on decentralizing and reforming the scientific community.”

Drs. Bhattacharya and Kulldorff are are two-thirds of the team that hatched the Great Barrington Declaration. With any luck, they will be recognized in next year’s Samizadat Prize.

New Illusion of Consensus podcast with @martinkulldorff. Martin tells the story of his career in public health, his advocacy for the basic principles of public health in the covid era, and his departure from Harvard.

(The link to the podcast is in my bio. Please subscribe!) pic.twitter.com/K3GOZupBlQ

— Jay Bhattacharya (@DrJBhattacharya) March 12, 2024

The required reading for the Illusion of Consensus podcast is of course Martin Kulldorff’s March 11 City Journal column “Harvard tramples the truth.” Dr. Kulldorff also discusses his experience in the excellent City Journal podcast with John Tierney below (City Journal transcript here).

Netanyahu’s negation

(Scott Johnson)

The Biden administration obviously seeks to depose the government of Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu. The administration has released our intelligence community’s assessment that Netanyahu’s “viability as a leader” is “in jeopardy,” according to the annual report on the national security threats facing the United States that was presented to Congress on Monday. I assess that the wish is father to the thought.

The assessment provides: “Distrust of Netanyahu’s ability to rule has deepened and broadened across the public from its already high levels before the war, and we expect large protests demanding his resignation and new elections,” according to the report. “A different, more moderate government is a possibility.” I assess that the wish is father to the thought and that the assessment bears the trademark of “Our Democracy™.”

Netanyahyu’s voice can be heard in the response attributed to a “very senior” Israeli official in a statement issued to the media: “Those who elect the prime minister of Israel are the citizens of Israel and no one else. Israel is not a protectorate of the US but an independent and democratic country whose citizens are the ones who elect the government. We expect our friends to act to overthrow the terror regime of Hamas and not the elected government in Israel.”

The intelligence community could not be reached for comment.

Hymn to Hur

(Scott Johnson)

Special Counsel Robert Hur testified for some five hours before the House Judiciary Committee yesterday on his investigation into President Biden’s mishandling of classified documents over his too long career in public life. I have posted the Washington Post’s YouTube video of the hearing at the bottom. At the same time, transcripts of Hur’s interview of Biden in the investigation were released: October 8 (99 pages) and October 9 (157 pages).

Mr. Techno Fog provided his hot take on the transcripts here (“confusion, evasion, and outright lies”). David Harsanyi cut to the chase in the Federalist column “Turns out Biden lied.” The Free Beacon’s Andrew Kerr reviews both Hur’s testimony and the Biden transcripts in “Interview Transcript, Congressional Testimony Shed Light on Biden’s Memory Lapses During Classified Doc Investigation.”

Hur confined his testimony to the four corners of the lengthy report he submitted to Attorney General Merrick Garland. Whenever he was asked about the facts of the case, he referred to the report’s findings. He demonstrated perfect poise and complete mastery of the case as set forth in his report.

It should go without saying that Hur knew his case, but contrast Hur’s grasp of the case with Robert Mueller’s failure to launch at the comparable hearing held following his Russiagate investigation. To put it charitably, Mueller appeared to be a figurehead who performed at best as an innocent bystander to an investigation run and conducted by others (e.g., Andrew Weissmann). Trump fans who harbor lingering animosity against Attorney General William Barr don’t understand that Mueller’s investigation would still be alive if it weren’t for Barr.

The House Democrats sought to impute a finding of “complete exoneration” of Biden to Hur. Hur begged to disagree. Hur was admirably noncompliant in the face of the Democrats’ efforts to put words in his mouth. The Free Beacon’s video of highlights (below) shows that “complete exoneration” misses the mark. As Hur put it in his opening statement, Hur “identified evidence that the President willfully retained classified materials after the end of his vice presidency, when he was a private citizen.” This evidence contradicted everything Biden himself has said in public about the case, although lying to the public is not a crime. It is standard operating procedure.

Hur was criticized for resting his recommendation of non-prosecution on Biden’s senility. Hur explained that he was required to “show [his] work” supporting his recommendation of non-prosecution. Hur reminded me of how I showed my work in solving high school physics problems. I began with the answer and worked back from there.

In Hur’s case, the answer was non-prosecution. A voice in his head from the film Network must have counseled caution: “Don’t do it, buddy! You’re a young man! You got your whole life ahead of you!” Hur’s explanation of the difficulty of obtaining a guilty verdict in the case was little more than absurd (as was his distinction of the Biden case from the Trump case).

In the course of his overlong political career, Biden has been a serial violator of the national security law. He is heedless to it. His misconduct is egregious. And he is a senescent dolt with the possible reservation that in some instances he may be senile like a fox. I don’t recall when “I don’t recall” was ever so plausible.

I would like to include one positive observation in these remarks. I was impressed by the demeanor of two congressmen whose names I had not even heard before. I don’t know anything else about them except what I saw yesterday. I am referring to Republican Ben Cline of Virginia and Democrat Glenn Ivey of Maryland.

However, yesterday’s hearing was incredibly depressing. It represents the dire condition of our politics. We have clownish Democrats volubly insisting on the things which are not. We have the exhibition of the two-tiered system of justice that Democrats have fashioned to resolve the problem of Donald Trump and other annoyances. We have the continuing exposure of the mental incompetence of the president of the United States. We have the mainstream press acting as the Democrats’ public relations arm.

He won’t back down

(Scott Johnson)

President Biden is reportedly “thinking” about imposing conditions on military aid to Israel if the IDF assault on Hamas’s redoubt in Rafah proceeds as planned. Prime Minister Netanyahu spoke by video to AIPAC’s annual policy conference in Washington. Netanyahu’s office has posted the video clip below on X and a six-minute video here on YouTube (with an echo for the first minute).

The Prime Minister’s Office has posted Netanyahu’s text here along with these further remarks in a Churchillian vein:

Some people would make you believe that the people of Israel are disunited. In fact, some people would have you believe there is the prime minister and then there is the people of Israel.

The truth of the matter is that the people of Israel overwhelmingly support the policies set forth by myself and my government. They overwhelmingly support the need for total victory. Overwhelmingly. They overwhelmingly oppose the idea of having a Palestinian state rammed down our throat.

We just had a vote in the Knesset, to illustrate the point I just made, 99 to 9 supporting this position. And you know what? It’s not irrational. It’s because they think that giving now a Palestinian state after the October 7th massacre will be the greatest reward for terrorism in modern times.

They overwhelmingly reject the idea that we should implant, after we’ve destroyed Hamas in Gaza, the PA that still inculcates its children towards terrorism and the annihilation of Israel. They want a future of peace, a future of security that is purchased by a resounding victory.

And as I say, the possibilities for this victory, the possibilities that are opened up are immense but they require that one word: victory. And I will repeat it again, victory, victory, victory. No substitute for that and we will achieve it together.

Netanyahu knows he represents the consensus of Israeli popular opinion on this point and he gives no sign of backing down.

We will finish the job. Watch my speech at the AIPAC policy conference >> pic.twitter.com/QvPEyzfQvc

— Benjamin Netanyahu – בנימין נתניהו (@netanyahu) March 12, 2024

Him or Hur?

(Scott Johnson)

Politico Playbook previews the testimony later this morning of Special Counsel Robert Hur before the House Judiciary Committee. Hur is to testify on the report of his investigation of Joe Biden’s mishandling of classified documents (i.e., the report submitted to Attorney General Merrick Garland). The Playbookers have obtained and posted Hur’s opening statement here. These are the operative paragraphs:

My report reflects my best effort to explain why I declined to recommend charging President Biden. I analyzed the evidence as prosecutors routinely do: by assessing its strengths and weaknesses, including by anticipating the ways in which the President’s defense lawyers might poke holes in the government’s case if there were a trial and seek to persuade jurors that the government could not prove his guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.

There has been a lot of attention paid to language in the report about the President’s memory, so let me say a few words about that. My task was to determine whether the President retained or disclosed national defense information “willfully”—meaning, knowingly and with the intent to do something the law forbids.

I could not make that determination without assessing the President’s state of mind. For that reason, I had to consider the President’s memory and overall mental state, and how a jury likely would perceive his memory and mental state in a criminal trial. These are the types of issues prosecutors analyze every day. And because these issues were important to my ultimate decision, I had to include a discussion of them in my report to the Attorney General.

The evidence and the President himself put his memory squarely at issue. We interviewed the President and asked him about his recorded statement, “I just found all the classified stuff downstairs.” He told us that he didn’t remember saying that to his ghostwriter. He also said he didn’t remember finding any classified material in his home after his vice presidency. And he didn’t remember anything about how classified documents about Afghanistan made their way into his garage.

My assessment in the report about the relevance of the President’s memory was necessary and accurate and fair. Most importantly, what I wrote is what I believe the evidence shows, and what I expect jurors would perceive and believe. I did not sanitize my explanation. Nor did I disparage the President unfairly. I explained to the Attorney General my decision and the reasons for it. That’s what I was required to do.

This is confused and confusing. Did Hur base his non-prosecution decision on his putative inability to prove the mental element of the possible offenses? Hur implies it is “willfulness,” although “gross negligence” would have sufficed to prove the offense under 28 U.S.C § 793. Or did he base his non-prosecution decision on a jury’s anticipated pity for a senile dolt? I trust that some members of the committee will home in on this issue this morning.

Dressed to kill

(Scott Johnson)

The New York Post devotes its cover story to President Biden’s election-year budget. By Josh Christenson, the story is headlined “Biden unveils massive $7.3T budget with $5.5T in tax hikes, plans for ‘highest burden’ in US history.” The Post has created a classic cover to flag the story (below). It should probably come with some kind of a warning: “Viewing may induce nausea.” I’m filing this under Laughter Is the Best Medicine.

Hamas’s “Operation Ramadan”–and ours

(Scott Johnson)

President Biden apparently thinks the IDF should observe Ramadan as it seeks to eliminate the genocidaires of Hamas. By contrast, the genocidaires of Hamas find Jewish holidays the right time to do their thing. It’s enough to make a sane man vomit.

Wall Street Journal letters editor Elliot Kaufman is not too choked up about Biden’s Ramadan recess. His column on the subject is datelined Tel Aviv and runs with the headline “Hamas’s ‘Operation Ramadan’—and Ours.”

The headline works a witty variation on the title of Norman Podhoretz’s classic Commentary essay “My Negro Problem–and Ours.” By the same token, it could have been headlined “My Biden Problem–and Ours.” However, it would require more than 800 words to lay it out. It would take a book.

Elliot’s column is behind the Journal’s paywall. Here is the heart of it:

There is an idea that it is wrong to fight an Islamic country during the holy month of Ramadan, which this year starts Sunday night. It’s nonsense: Look at Egypt and Syria’s 1973 Ramadan War against Israel or Iran’s 1982 Operation Ramadan against Iraq. Conversations with senior Israeli political, military and legal officials, however, suggest that the taboo is a weapon—and every player in the Gaza war has an Operation Ramadan of its own.

For more than a month, the Biden administration has set the start of Ramadan as the deadline for a deal to release Israeli hostages and stop the war. “There’s got to be a cease-fire because Ramadan,” the president said Tuesday. “If we get into circumstances where this continues to Ramadan, Israel and Jerusalem could be very, very dangerous.” The danger, in his formulation, is all on the Israeli side, so Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had better cut a deal.

Israel’s leaders lamented privately that every day in February and early March seemed to bring a new U.S. shot across Israel’s bow—an unprecedented sanctions regime; new strings attached to weapons transfers; Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s call for a “timebound, irreversible path to a Palestinian state”; a turn against the war effort, which Mr. Biden called “over the top”; loud opposition to an offensive in Rafah, now termed a “red line”; a new policy deeming all settlements illegal; blame pinned on Israel for humanitarian aid problems; calls for an “immediate cease-fire”; and leaks that the U.S. could demand its weapons not be used in Rafah.

Meanwhile, the president no longer speaks about defeating Hamas, let alone destroying it. Victory is off his list of priorities—and Israelis worry that Mr. Biden is the most pro-Israel member of his administration. Where American words gave Israelis succor after Oct. 7, they now confound and demoralize the country. According to a senior Israeli official, Mr. Blinken “says it right in your face: ‘You can’t win.’ ”

This was America’s Operation Ramadan: Spook and threaten Israel into accepting a hostage deal that would end the war much sooner than Mr. Netanyahu wants, because victory is unattainable anyway.

The administration misread Israel. Its pressure tactics have allowed Mr. Netanyahu to rally even his rivals around his positions on Rafah and against unilateral U.S. recognition of a Palestinian state, an idea Israelis find criminally insane right now. The prime minister’s chief opponent, Benny Gantz, has publicly agreed with him on both, and reportedly told U.S. officials that “finishing the war without demilitarizing Rafah is like sending in firefighters to put out 80% of a fire.” As retired Brig. Gen. Amir Avivi, head of the Israel Defense and Security Forum, tells me, “All the Hamas leaders are there. All the hostages are there. The fighters, the munitions—they’re in Rafah.”

It may not exactly fit the IDF’s timetable, but taking Rafah for Ramadan would be the right way to observe the holiday this year.

The ordeal of Martin Kulldorff

(Scott Johnson)

According to his Martin Kulldorff bio, Ph.D., Dr.h.c., is an epidemiologist, a biostatistician, and a founding fellow at Hillsdale College’s Academy for Science and Freedom. He was a Professor of Medicine at Harvard University for thirteen years. Dr. Kulldorff’s research centers on developing and applying new disease surveillance methods for post-market drug and vaccine safety surveillance and for the early detection and monitoring of infectious disease outbreaks. In October 2020, he co-authored the Great Barrington Declaration, advocating for a pandemic strategy of focused protection instead of lockdowns.

City Journal has just published Professor Kulldorff’s account of the censorship of his work and his involuntary departure from Harvard. It was something (many things) he thought and said — crimes against the groupthink of the Covid regime. His account runs to 2,500 words and is titled “Harvard tramples the truth.” It’s straight outta Cambridge. It’s straight outta D.C. It’s straight outta Orwell.

It opens: “I am no longer a professor of medicine at Harvard. The Harvard motto is Veritas, Latin for truth. But, as I discovered, truth can get you fired. This is my story—a story of a Harvard biostatistician and infectious-disease epidemiologist, clinging to the truth as the world lost its way during the Covid pandemic.” Read every word here.

Biden’s animus [With Comment by John]

(Scott Johnson)

President Biden’s animus against Israel was patent in his State of the Union Address this past Thursday evening. The White House has posted the text of his remarks as given here.

JNS editor Jonathan Tobin sets forth a rounded view of “the moral failure” of Biden’s remarks on Israel. Tobin separately addresses and elaborates on Biden’s demands on Israel, the floating harbor for Hamas, the two-state final solution, the lack of any statement on the explosion of anti-Semitism in the United States, and the appeasement of Israel haters. We have noted these deficiencies in our own way, but nothing said here does justice to the points that Tobin makes.

NRO’s Philip Klein characterized the SOTU as “the most anti-Israel presidential speech in history.” Klein posted his comments in a hot take on the evening of Biden’s speech. Among other things, he notes that “[a]fter a perfunctory mention of October 7 and the hostages, Biden then launched an extended attack on Israel’s response to the war and the conditions in Gaza that accepted, whole cloth, Hamas casualty figures that his own administration had previously questioned as unreliable.”

We have noted this point as well. Biden and others in the administration have adopted the numbers retailed by the Gaza Ministry of Health — i.e., Hamas. It represents their adoption of the Hamas point of view.

What’s wrong with this picture? Hamas is not known for the accuracy of its statements of fact. Hamas, for example, does not distinguish between the deaths of civilians and Hamas genocidaires. The Gaza Ministry of Health promotes a line that supports Hamas’s war aims.

Biden hectors Israel. He repeatedly implies that Israel violates the laws of war. This is another lie that promotes Hamas’s war aims. As Israel sacrifices the safety of its soldiers to protect civilians intentionally placed in harm’s way by Hamas, it is perversely false.

In the State of the Union Biden asserted: “More than 30,000 Palestinians have been killed — [AUDIENCE MEMBER: Says who?] — most of whom are not Hamas. Thousands and thousands of innocents — women and children. Girls and boys also orphaned.”

Abraham Wyner homes in on the casualty numbers in the Tablet column “How the Gaza Ministry of Health Fakes Casualty Numbers.” Subhead: “The evidence is in their own poorly fabricated figures.”

Wyner, by the way, is Professor of Statistics and Data Science at The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania and Faculty Co-Director of the Wharton Sports Analytics and Business Initiative. He knows what he is talking about. His column is worth your time, but Biden et al. don’t need his analysis. As Klein implies, they know it’s true. They lie without a conscience.

Wyner introduces his analysis this way (emphasis in original):

The number of civilian casualties in Gaza has been at the center of international attention since the start of the war. The main source for the data has been the Hamas-controlled Gaza Health Ministry, which now claims more than 30,000 dead, the majority of which it says are children and women. Recently, the Biden administration lent legitimacy to Hamas’ figure. When asked at a House Armed Services Committee hearing last week how many Palestinian women and children have been killed since Oct. 7, Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin said the number was “over 25,000.” The Pentagon quickly clarified that the secretary “was citing an estimate from the Hamas-controlled Health Ministry.” President Biden himself had earlier cited this figure, asserting that “too many, too many of the over 27,000 Palestinians killed in this conflict have been innocent civilians and children, including thousands of children.” The White House also explained that the president “was referring to publicly available data about the total number of casualties.”

Here’s the problem with this data: The numbers are not real. That much is obvious to anyone who understands how naturally occurring numbers work. The casualties are not overwhelmingly women and children, and the majority may be Hamas fighters.

If Hamas’ numbers are faked or fraudulent in some way, there may be evidence in the numbers themselves that can demonstrate it. While there is not much data available, there is a little, and it is enough: From Oct. 26 until Nov. 10, 2023, the Gaza Health Ministry released daily casualty figures that include both a total number and a specific number of women and children.

The first place to look is the reported “total” number of deaths. The graph of total deaths by date is increasing with almost metronomical linearity, as the graph in Figure 1 reveals….

Wyner persuasively establishes that “the Hamas ministry settled on a daily total arbitrarily.” See Figure 1 and other graphs along with the rest of the column here (data posted here).

JOHN adds: Abraham Wyner testified as an expert witness on behalf of the defendants in the Michael Mann v. Mark Steyn case. We saw his testimony when we were in D.C. for the trial. Wyner presented a statistical analysis that showed that Mann’s famous hockey stick graph was, in fact, fraudulent. His analysis was persuasive and Wyner was a great witness, but unfortunately neither his testimony nor the other evidence presented by defendants was enough to overcome the decades of propaganda that underlie climate hysteria. At least, not with a D.C. jury.

Biden’s red line

(Scott Johnson)

It turns out that President Biden has a red line. It applies to Israel. In an unlocked story, the Wall Street Journal reports that “Biden Warns Netanyahu an Assault on Rafah Would Cross ‘Red Line.’”

Biden apparently seeks to depose the Netanyahu government. He thinks that Netanyahu is the problem. He also seeks to preserve Hamas. He finds them easier to deal with than Netanyahu. Biden’s daycare minders in the White House may indeed be malevolent or stupid enough to believe these propositions. They certainly explain a lot. They explain what Biden meant about having a “come to Jesus” meeting with Netanyahu. The animus behind that statement is patent. Now we see what Biden had in “mind,” so to speak. Israel does not fit comfortably inside what the Democrats are pleased to refer to as “our democracy™.”

Biden and his minders purport to understand Israel’s national security interests better than the Israelis. The Daily Mail reports “Biden Administration consulted Israel expert on how to ‘force the Netanyahu coalition to collapse’ as president accuses the prime minster of ‘hurting Israel more than helping’ and insists Rafah invasion is ‘red line’ that must not be crossed.” The headline says it all.

Politico reports that Prime Minister Netanyahu sees things slightly differently. When asked whether Israeli forces would move into Rafah in an interview on Sunday, Netanyahu replied: “We’ll go there. We’re not going to leave. You know, I have a red line. You know what the red line is, that October 7 doesn’t happen again. Never happens again.”

It may be time to revisit Robert Gates’s assessment of Biden’s foreign policy chops: “I think he has been wrong on nearly every major foreign policy and national security issue over the past four decades.” Gates made that assessment in 2014. It therefore predates Biden’s Afghanistan, Ukraine, Iran and other debacles. We can now revise Gates’s assessment to the past five decades.

The Biden administration now distinguishes between Israel’s democracy and the people who elected it. While I cannot defend all of our government’s policies, I will absolutely defend the democracy that elected it. Our democratic ally must respect that. https://t.co/8z5MJQgqIz

— Michael Oren (@DrMichaelOren) March 10, 2024

Biden explains

(Scott Johnson)

In the video clip from his interview with Jonathan Capehart below, President Biden explains why Hamas wants a ceasefire. He forgets that he’s not supposed to explain how it promotes their goals. He seeks to backtrack but can’t figure out how, except by falsely implying that Israel is violating the laws of war. What a disgrace.

Watch Biden say the quiet part out loud. This is actually kind of amazing. Perhaps Prime Minister Netanyahu will find it of use in the “come to Jesus” meeting with which Biden is threatening him.

Biden makes the blunder of answering whether and why Hamas would want a ceasefire.

He then notices his terrible blunder in saying the truth, and goes off on a tangent. pic.twitter.com/ypqX7H8D6o

— David Shor (@DYShor) March 10, 2024

Illegal or undocumented?

(Scott Johnson)

Referring to an illegal alien as “illegal” in unscripted remarks during his State of the Union Address this past Thursday, President Biden inadvertently offended a core Democratic constituency (i.e., illegal aliens). That could not stand and it didn’t. As John notes nearby, Biden recanted and apologized within 48 hours.

Illegal or undocumented — which is the correct term. As a matter of fact, “Illegal alien” is the correct term.

When we got married, my wife was an illegal alien. Having graduated from law school and been hired by Hennepin County District Judge Robert Bowen as a law clerk, she applied for a work visa. In response she received a letter from the INS apprising her that her student visa had expired and that she was out of status. She applied for legal residency.

We went down to the local INS office for an interview. We had been advised that we would be asked a few questions to establish that our marriage was bona fide — not a fraudulent exercise undertaken solely to allow an illegal immigrant to escape deportation. As it turned out, we appeared to be the only bona fide couple of the four or five with us in the waiting room. And this was early in the Reagan years.

In the course of the interview, the INS officer asked me what toothpaste “the alien” used. It seemed funny because “the alien” was sitting next to me at the time, but we took no offense. We thought it was funny and I was happy to ace the quiz.

Today a question in that form would probably get the guy fired. Today the prescribed term is “undocumented.” Today that is the term on which the Democrats insist. Today it is the term that every mainstream media outlet (including Fox News) uses. What’s happening here?

What’s happening is the blessing of illegal immigration and the destruction of citizenship. The left seeks to break down our resistance to illegal immigration by means of a mandated euphemism. It’s an Orwellian device. The phenomenon of illegal immigration is not even to be described with tolerable accuracy. The underlying distinction is to be rendered meaningless.

As I say, illegal aliens have become a core constituency of the Democrats. To illegal aliens the left requires that the knee must be bent. I’m not sure why Fox News is compliant. It is frankly disgusting.

Here I speak for my wife and me. We support enforcement of the law. We oppose illegal immigration. We do not seek to accommodate it. We do not respect it. We desire the return of illegal immigrants to their home country or deportation to some other place. We do not want to support them with our tax dollars. We are sickened by the invasion of illegal aliens promoted by Biden and the Biden administration. The abuse of the English language that accompanies it is the least of it, but it deserves at least to be noted.

Sunday morning coming down

(Scott Johnson)

Listening to a show on the SiriusXM Grateful Dead channel a few years ago I heard one of the announcers mention that Nicky Hopkins played with the Jerry Garcia Band. I hadn’t known that. Hopkins was a fantastic English pianist whose session work is virtually ubiquitous on great rock recordings of the ’60’s, 70’s, and 80’s. Take a look, for example, at this Nicky Hopkins discography. I have been a big fan since I saw him named and heard his work as a member of the band on the Jeff Beck Group’s album Truth.

If he wasn’t quite everywhere, everyone wanted his services. His contributions to Rolling Stones recordings are notable. I have included a couple below. I loved his work with the Jeff Beck Group on their first two albums and with Quicksilver Messenger Service on a few of theirs when he was a named member of those bands.

So why is he relatively unknown? He battled Crohn’s Disease his entire life and died in 1994 of complications from intestinal surgery at the age of 50. I don’t think he ever toured with the bands of which he was a named member, let alone those to which he made such valuable contributions.

After I mentioned Hopkins in my post on Harrison’s birthday, the gentleman who runs the the Nicky Hopkins feed on X tweeted it out because of a bare mention of Hopkins’s contribution to one of the tracks I included. Checking out the Nicky Hopkins feed this morning, I see that it flags the forthcoming documentary on Hopkins.

US Premiere of The Session Man (Nicky Hopkins documentary) – closing film of LA Indie Film Fest! 7.30pm Sat 16th March in West Hollywood.@lafilmfestivals @SessionManFilm #lafilmfestivals #LAFilmFest #rockdoc #rockhistory #LAIndieFilmFest #NickyHopkins #TheSessionManpic.twitter.com/YtbNPcAcMJ

— Nicky Hopkins 🎹 (@TheNickyHopkins) March 8, 2024

One more prefatory note. It was the anniversary of Hopkins’s birth on February 24. Having written about him once before, I chose to remember George Harrison that weekend. However, I thought I would ask readers to indulge a second go-round of my tribute to Hopkins. It won’t be for everyone, but there is some good stuff and some rare stuff here and elsewhere that you can find on your own if so inclined. As I like to say in these tributes, he added to the beauty of the world. YouTube offers a treasure trove of his work. I enjoyed hunting these samples down and offer them up in the hope that one or two of them may strike your fancy or wake you up with a smile this morning. I certainly hope this tiny sliver of his vast body of work leaves you wanting more.

Hopkins was a regular contributor to the Kinks up through their classic Village Green Preservation Society album. “Sunny Afternoon” is a beautiful track. Looking around online, I found Hopkins was “responsible for both the melodica solo and the chromatic piano line that undersold his acrobatic abilities on the keyboard.” According to Ray Davies, “When we recorded ‘Sunny Afternoon,’ [producer] Shel [Talmy] insisted that Nicky copy my plodding piano style. Other musicians would have been insulted but Nicky seemed to get inside my style, and he played exactly as I would have. No ego. Perhaps that was his secret.”

And then we have his work with the Rolling Stones over several years. Hopkins’s work on the piano makes “She’s a Rainbow.”

The Jeff Beck Group’s cover of “Jailhouse Rock” may be my favorite rock recording of all time. That’s Rod Stewart on the vocal. Everyone is great on this track, including the gifted Mr. Hopkins.

Back to the Stones, we can hear what Hopkins contributed on a song like “Monkey Man,” off Let It Bleed. The album was produced by the late Jimmy Miller, the older brother of former New York Times reporter Judy Miller. My friend Judy paid tribute to him in her column “Mr. Jimmy” as well as in her great memoir The Story. You can hear why Mr. Jimmy appreciated Hopkins’s work.

I can’t leave his work with the Stones before noting his contribution to “Waiting On a Friend.” That’s Sonny Rollins on the tenor sax. That’s Mr. Jimmy on percussion. That’s Mr. Hopkins on the piano. What a track.

Who’s Next is the Who’s best album and “Getting in Tune” is one of its best tracks. “I’m just banging on my old piano” — I think that would be Pete Townsend’s tribute to you know who.

Hopkins was a named member of Quicksilver Messenger Service for a few years. Here he is with Quicksilver on the instrumental “Edward, the Mad Shirt Grinder,” one of Hopkins’s own compositions. I think he added the organ part on top of his piano. This track is a blast.

Who is this Edward fellow? I have a sneaking suspicion it was Hopkins. The name of this rare album is Jamming with Edward. “Highland Fling” is from the album. This is a wild track. Hopkins wails away.

Hopkins recorded two albums in his own name. “Pig’s Boogie” is from The Tin Man Was a Dreamer. I think Hopkins was the Tin Man too.

John Lennon loved Hopkins’s work. He played on the Beatles’ “Revolution” and on many of Lennon’s solo album tracks. His beautiful contribution to “Jealous Guy” is a good example. In the video below you can see Lennon, Hopkins (electric piano), Harrison (slide guitar), Klaus Voorman (bass), and Alan White (drums) at work in the studio on “How Do You Sleep?” (1971).

I can’t leave before we sample his work with the Jerry Garcia Band. The reference to it is what set me off on my chase. Stick around for the instrumental break on this live recording of the Garcia/Dawson/Hunter composition “Friend of the Devil.”

Mr. X

(Scott Johnson)

The current issue of the Claremont Review of Books carries the informative review of Walter Isaacson’s biography of Elon Musk by Helen Andrews. The Andrews review is relatively brief and extremely interesting. I want to single out the penultimate paragraph:

Conservatives ought to support Musk because he will need all the help he can get. The deep state has him in its crosshairs and will not stop until he is neutralized, using all the tools at its disposal. Musk is already being targeted with investigations and lawsuits, including a truly bizarre suit against SpaceX for discriminating against non-citizens in hiring. (Like all aerospace companies, SpaceX tries not to let its sensitive technologies fall into the hands of foreign governments.) Left-wing nonprofits have deliberately fomented, and in some cases fabricated, racist content on X in order to make Musk’s version of the app seem like a haven for hate speech. Preserving free speech in the run-up to the next election should be every conservative’s priority. In this fight, Elon Musk is an unexpected but entirely worthy champion.

I would amend that last sentence to read “in the run-up to the next election and beyond.” Whole thing here.

What’s wrong with this picture?

(Scott Johnson)

President Biden displayed a monumentally misguided animus against Israel in his State of the Union address this past Thursday evening. (The White House has posted its transcript of the speech as given here.) In a column behind NRO’s paywall Philip Klein characterized the address as “the most anti-Israel presidential speech in history.” I’d have to compare and contrast it with the presidential speeches of Barack Obama to be sure, but Biden’s hostility was patent.

Following the speech Biden had the opportunity to fraternize with the guys. He seized the opportunity to yuk it up outside the control of his daycare handlers in the White House. This is how it went down.

BIDEN: "I told him, Bibi — don't repeat this — you and I are going to have a come to Jesus meeting."

HANDLER: Sir, you're on a hot mic pic.twitter.com/slevQZPDap

— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) March 8, 2024

What if Biden is senile like a fox? The senility came in especially handy in his interview with Special Counsel Robert Hur. It gave Hur a rationale to recommend non-prosecution of Biden’s offenses in the mishandling of classified documents.

Miranda Devine comments on the video below: “Not ‘confused,’ slyly denying. If Republicans keep underestimating Biden they will lose again.” I anticipate that they’re going to lose again regardless, but point taken.

Q: “Why does Mr. Netanyahu need a ‘come to Jesus’ meeting?”

BIDEN (confused): “I didn’t say that in the speech.”

Q: “What about after?”

BIDEN: “You guys eavesdropping on things!” pic.twitter.com/804aXMmBmQ

— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) March 8, 2024

Thoughts from the ammo line

(Scott Johnson)

Nietzsche may have been on to something with THE WILL TO POWER! Thus spake Ammo Grrrll:

This may come as a shock to my faithful readers, but I am no student of Philosophy. For some survey course, I was forced to read Immanuel Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason. I went to the used bookstore on campus and found a copy. When I got back to the dorm, I found that the previous owner of the volume – a girl named Kathy, the flyleaf said — had used a pink marker to highlight the parts that she didn’t understand. Initially, I thought that this could come in handy for me if she had already sussed out the salient points.

Sadly, however, it soon became clear that every single page was solid pink. Not that I disagreed with Kathy. It could not have been less clear to me or any less useful had it been written in Sanskrit. I also noticed that in the final third of the book there was no more highlighter – Kathy had clearly just given up. Krikey, not a single picture or even a whimsical little joke illustrating a point, as Einstein allegedly did with his definition of “relativity.”

“When you sit with a nice girl for two hours you think it’s only a minute, but when you sit on a hot stove for a minute, you think it’s two hours. That’s relativity.” Sometimes the putative quote says “pretty girl” and sometimes it’s attributed to something he said to his secretary, but in any event, it’s clear and mildly humorous, when ol’ Immanuel was neither. Being of a logical and practical bent, I questioned whether anyone could sit on a hot stove for even a SECOND, let alone a whole minute without a trip to the ER, but I took his point.

I believe I also signed up for some course that covered Friedrich Nietzsche’s “will to power” vs. Sigmund Freud’s “pleasure principle” vs. Viktor Frankl’s “will to (or search for) meaning.” But, if that was after I met my beshert – my fated lifetime love – a future novelist named Joe/Max who was not an enthusiastic or even frequent class-attender, I may not have gone to the class very often.

Joe/Max and I knew a couple of Philosophy majors in college and kidded those friends about looking in the newspaper near graduation for Help Wanted ads down at the Philosophy Factory. Well, the joke might have been on us because both Jerry Seinfeld and Steve Martin were Philosophy majors and look where it took THEM!

Anyway, though I thought a lot of Freud’s insights were poppycock, I was more attracted to his “pleasure principle” than to the “will to power” or “the search for meaning.” Almost all the men I knew growing up – hard-working farmers or small businessmen who put in 90-hour weeks lacked the luxury of free time for philosophizing.

And then there were the ladies. Heavens to Betsy, the mother of my sister’s boyfriend had EIGHT kids, all of whom were boys. Early on, the neighbors across the street in South Dakota had nine kids and both parents worked! My experience with housewives and mothers was they literally NEVER stopped working. So for both men and women, “meaning” came from doing their jobs. Almost everybody went to church, so we also learned that “meaning” came from serving God and being kind and helpful to our Fellow Man. Works for me.

Now, in my dotage, the more I observe the behavior of Leftists and bureaucrats of any stripe, the more I think that Nietzsche and his “will to power” may have been on to something. Lordy, how Leftists LOVE to control others!

I can understand how attractive “power” is when we all start out with absolutely no power at all. None. Nada. Bupkiss. In fact, so little power that two yuge giants (and any of their friends and relatives) can pick us up and just PUT us anywhere they want us to be! In a little bathtub, in a crib when we aren’t even sleepy, in an alleged “playpen” with boring toys when we would prefer to be carried around like a pasha instead.

Plus, if you had siblings – and in the ’50s almost EVERYBODY did! – you were a prisoner to some extent of the birth order. As a First-Born, I was definitely in charge. Poor Joe/Max had four older brothers and had to form shifting alliances with some to protect himself from others.

And it only gets marginally better for YEARS. Once we get to a size where the giants no longer pick us up, or the siblings no longer immiserate us, we still have no money, no jobs, no prospects, little knowledge, no transportation, and no ability to live independently. If the slightly less scary giant tells us that we are eating Liver and Lima Beans for supper, it’s not like we can just go down to the Automat and get a burger instead. Not that Alexandria, MN or any previous even smaller towns I lived in had an Automat. Heck, we didn’t even get a fast-food hamburger joint until I was in high school.

I have known many persons of the male persuasion who so deeply resented that lack of independence that they were looking for jobs (shoveling, raking, sweeping out stores, paper boy) at a very young age. They figured out that money was a kind of power and especially if you could accumulate enough to get that Grand Prize of Independence – a vehicle!! A bicycle was a welcome miracle that allowed you to get quite far, but a car was the pinnacle, not only because it could go REALLY far (especially at nineteen cents a gallon), but it allowed you to have a female passenger.

Being a girl person, I did not covet a car so much, but I did have a pretty strong “will to autonomy.” I have never wanted to boss around another human being – and resisted all managerial jobs my whole life – but I really really really didn’t want to be bossed around myself. There were times in my working life when employers made a whole separate shift just for me so I didn’t have any supervisory responsibility. That is the truth, my hand to God.

After feminism reared its ugly Betty Friedan-like head, I noticed that a great many women LOVED to boss people around. They were devoted to status and lording any small area of power over others. Any encroachment on what they perceived as their turf worked out as well as a Crip trying to take over a busy corner of a Blood’s drug trade.

As it happened, when I was an antiwar activist, the real actual Lieutenant Governor of the State of Minnesota was a very nice Democrat named Rudy Perpich (PBUH). He and I were on a radio show about the war once, we hit it off, and when we both left ‘CCO Radio Station at the same time, he gave me a card with his personal number on it and said to call him if I ever needed help with something. He even joked that his job as Lieutenant Governor wasn’t very taxing and he could stuff envelopes.

A few months later, when our group needed a permit for a (genuinely) peaceful demonstration, and also his endorsement, I sauntered on into the Lieutenant Governor’s Office where I was met by an arrogant gaggle of gatekeepers – all women – who tried to insist that I go, one by one, THROUGH them in order to gain access to Mr. Perpich. This really mattered to them, because if a nobody like me could just waltz right in, then, what was the use of THEM?

The women pointed me from one gauntlet to another that I was going to have to run. When Rudy himself came out of his office, he saw me and said, “Well, hi, Susan,” and to the chagrin of the gatekeepers he ushered me right into his office. He signed the Permit, said sure, use his name on the list of endorsers, and bid me adieu. He was like that. If looks could have killed when I came back out, it would have been another Jonestown in there.

I miss approachable leaders like that. His father was a Croatian immigrant and miner in northern Minnesota. He himself was a dentist before he got into politics. Later he served two non-consecutive terms as governor and dedicated one entire $25,000 pay raise to the promotion of – wait for it — bocce ball. You had to love a guy like that.

The women gatekeepers who were so jealously guarding their little fiefdoms seemed addicted to power. I would imagine that it is only about fifty times worse today. People prize their spot on the Organizational Chart, commensurate with money and the ability to boss underlings around. Plus, now, you have to be mindful of Diversity, Incompetence, and Entropy – or whatever those DEI letters stand for.

And so we find ourselves in an era when legions, hordes, whole divisions of Entitled Groups and a few regular old Lazy Incompetent White Male Guys simply LIVE to tell the rest of us what to eat, what to drink, what to drive, when to get inoculated, where to live and, worst of all, what to think. Soon with the brilliance of Google Gemini we will not even be able to research something to think for ourselves. We will only be spoon-fed the thin DEI gruel that Big Brother or Obese Sister want us to ingest.

I do think “The Will to Power” (“der Wille zur Macht” in German) debate is over and it has won the day. But, “as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.” We will combine the other two motor forces in human behavior and find “meaning” in having “pleasure”: through love, beautiful friends, music, comedy, art, babies, obliterating the bulls-eye, a peaceful Shabbat, and a medium-rare steak.

The Coffeehouse in which Max Cossack works most days on his ninth novel has a new treat – a combination Chocolate Chip Cookie and a Brownie. A delight I call a Brookie. Always inspired by Theodor Herzl’s motto in the face of the difficulties of finding a safe Jewish homeland – “If you will it, it is no dream” — yesterday, I “willed” Max to bring a Brookie home to me. And he did.

The SOTU from hell

(Scott Johnson)

The comedian Richard Lewis, of blessed memory, is credited with the formulation “the x from hell.” Having watched President Biden’s State of the Union Address last night in order to comment on it this morning, I found it to be the SOTU from hell. Thank you, Mr. Lewis.

The White House has posted the text of the speech “as prepared for delivery.” That isn’t exactly how he gave it. You have to see it to get the full flavor. I have posted the White House video at the bottom.

Herewith are my impressions of Biden’s delivery and my observations on the speech in the form of bullet points:

• The Democrats in the audience broke out in cheers of “Four more years.” You have got to be kidding. Let me begin with a prediction. Even if Biden wins reelection to another term this coming November, he will not be giving four more State of the Union addresses. No way no how.

• Esquire used to pose a rhetorical question as a caption on a photograph of Richard Nixon that it published in its annual Dubious Achievement Awards edition: Why is this man laughing? The question to be posed for this speech is Why is this man shouting? He is an angry old man.

• This was a terrible speech terribly delivered. It’s a good thing no drug test was required before the address. Biden sounded hopped up. He spoke too fast. He slurred his words. He was frequently difficult to understand. He shouted a variety of clichés and shibboleths as though we might otherwise miss their depth and meaning. The disparity between the shibboleths and the shouting was almost funny.

• Biden sounded like a 45 rpm record playing at 78. It was an old record — it had scratches at several places that caused it to skip the groove.

• To whom was this speech addressed? The opening reflected the poor judgment of Biden’s daycare minders in the White House. As I heard it, the country needs to be protected from two threats: Russia and Donald Trump (“my predecessor”).

• This SOTU was a nakedly partisan campaign speech. I have to think that viewers lacking the persuasion of Democratic partisans were quickly turned off. In any event, the speech was a disgrace.

• And that’s not all. The speech was also disjointed and telegraphic. It covered everything from potato chips to computer chips. If it conformed to the laundry list mode of bad State of the Union addresses, this was a laundry list in Morse Code. You had to know the lingo of the proposed laws on Biden’s list. I had no idea what he was talking about when he got to his list.

• TCM counterprogrammed last night’s SOTU in part with Casablanca. You may recall that Humphrey Bogart responds to a comment with one of the movie’s many great lines: “I was misinformed.” Despite its thematic incoherence, anyone who took Biden’s speech at face value last night was misinformed. The misinformation gave it the thematic unity it otherwise lacked. A serious student of politics and the economy could write a dissertation exposing the misinformation conveyed in the speech.

• In his Russia/Ukraine remarks at the top of his speech Biden vowed, “We will not walk away.” Trisha Yearwood, call your office. Walk away, Joe — please. (I’m referring to Biden himself, not Ukraine.)

• The justices of the Supreme Court who chose to attend must have been thrilled to find themselves the villain of Biden’s condemnation of the Dobbs decision. The Supreme Court has returned the legality of abortion to the states. Biden both condemned the decision and celebrated its electoral impact. Abortion is not only a positive good on its own terms, it’s good for Democrats on the hustings. Wrapping it in the mantle of IVF, as he did last night, seemed to me a cruel joke.

• Biden wants to raise taxes on those not paying paying their “fair share.” Who isn’t paying his “fair share”? Billionaires aren’t. Corporations aren’t. That’s the bad news. We must be paying our “fair share.” That’s the good news, assuming we can draw that inference. Maybe someone can ask Karine Jean-Pierre about it at the next White House press conference.

• Biden wants more price controls on pharmaceutical products. When the AMA opposed the dangers of socialized medicine in days of yore, they were on to something.

• “Trickle down economics” came in for a beating. Does anyone who didn’t live through the Age of Reagan know what he was talking about? It was what Democrats condemned as “trickle down economics” that gave us the seven fat years of the Reagan boom. It was “trickle down economics’ that gave us the Trump boom — the boom for which so many voters are nostalgic today.

• Biden actually decried “shrinkflation” in the potato chips portion of his remarks. Some translation is required. “Shrinkflation” = inflation = Bidenomics.

• Biden implied that corporate shenanigans account for “shrinkflation.” Does anyone not understand why “shrinkflation” has broken out under the Biden administration?

• Biden decried “junk fees” and proclaimed his good works in saving us from them. This is “junk politics.”

• Biden reiterated his claims to have “cut the deficit.” He failed to mention that the decline occurred because pandemic spending from President Donald Trump’s tenure expired as scheduled. Biden didn’t do a damn thing. As CNN puts it, “Biden’s own actions, including laws he has signed and executive orders he has issued, have had the overall effect of worsening annual deficits, not reducing them.”

• By the way, in fiscal year 2023 total government spending amounted to $6.13 trillion and total revenue to $4.44 trillion. The resulting deficit amounts to $1.70 trillion, an increase of $320 billion from the previous fiscal year.

• Biden promoted many more federal spending programs I had never heard of. He apparently means to “cut the deficit” even faster and deeper.

• Biden bragged about his continuing student loan giveaways in the face of the Supreme Court ruling that found him to have exceeded his authority (in Biden v. Nebraska). One would like to see the thought bubbles over the heads of the Supreme Court justices.

• Biden talked about illegal immigration. He campaigned in support of it last time around. He invited it during the 2020 campaign. He facilitated it from his first day in office. Yet it’s not his fault. When it comes to the flood of illegal immigrants and related burdens, his theme song is Bob Dylan’s “It ain’t me, babe.”

• Biden saved his remarks on Israel and Hamas for the end of his speech. He won’t walk away from Ukraine, but he will walk away from Israel. He announced his Gaza rescue plan as advertised. It’s his plan to rescue himself in Michigan and rescue himself from his party’s pro-Hamas wing.

• Biden acknowledged: “Israel has a right to go after Hamas.” Thanks, big guy.

• Biden also toed the Hamas line in implicitly attributing responsibility to Israel and omitting the relevant facts: “More than 30,000 Palestinians have been killed. Most of whom are not Hamas. Thousands and thousands are innocent women and children. Girls and boys also orphaned.” See Abraham Wyner’s Tablet column “How the Gaza Ministry of Health Fakes Casualty Numbers.”

• Biden peddled “the two-state solution.” What’s wrong with this picture? As Israeli Minister of Strategic Affairs Ron Dermer puts it: “Anybody talking about Palestinian state right now is living on another planet.”

• I enjoyed and appreciated Speaker Mike Johnson’s slight shakes of his head to express his disagreement with Biden’s misinformation. He did it just right.

• Although I could say more, these observations are already too long. I will conclude here. The competition is stiff, but this must have been the worst SOTU of all time.

Oh, yeah: The Samizdat Prize

(Scott Johnson)

RealClearFoundation president David DesRosiers has announced the inaugural winners of of its Samizdat Prize. Tonight’s the night. The Samizdat Prize is intended to honor the most important users of the First Amendment in the United States. The prize aspires to confer the honor that various of the Pulitzer Prizes bestow and should replace them in the mind of right-thinking men and women. In the words of DesRosiers, the award that is given by Real Clear to journalists, scholars, and public figures who have fought censorship and stood for truth, whatever the cost.

The first three recipients of the Samizdat Prize could not be more worthy: Miranda Devine (for her work on the Biden family business), Jay Bhattacharya (the anti-Fauci), and Matt Taibbi (for his work on the Twitter Files). I have written about all three many times on Power Line. DesRosiers talked about the prize with Buck Sexton here in a discussion posted at RCP.

Dr. Bhattacharya received the prize this past September. His remarks are posted here at RCP. Matt Taibbi has just posted “America enters the samizadat era” at his Racket News site. He looks back on his career in acknowledging the honor he receives tonight. Thanks to John Hinderaker, I met Matt last year. Politics aside, we have cheered him on and sought to follow his path in our own way.

Miranda Devine wrote in her New York Post Devine Online newsletter this morning:

I am thrilled to be in Palm Beach tonight to receive the inaugural Samizdat award from RealClearPolitics, alongside pandemic refusenik Dr Jay Battacharya and Twitter Files journalist Matt Taibbi.

It’s an honor to be part of this grassroots movement to reclaim honest journalism in an era of lies.

“Samizdat” was the name of the underground press resisting the tyranny of the former Soviet Union.

It means ‘We publish ourselves” and was the inspiration for David DesRosiers, publisher and president of RealClear Foundation, to set up a rival journalism award to the Pulitzers.

Bravo to RealClear for bucking the establishment.

I couldn’t agree more. I would only add our congratulations to the inaugural recipients of the Samizdat Prize.

Biden to open Gaza port

(Scott Johnson)

Politico reports that President Biden has a big announcement to make tonight. During his State of the Union address, he will order the military to establish a temporary port in Gaza so more humanitarian aid can get to Palestinians in need. Enough with the airdrops, or to supplement the airdrops. We’re going in big time to keep Hamas in business.

It’s not clear to me if this slam comes from the administration sources briefing Politico, but it sounds like it: “The U.S. is resorting to this military mission because Israel isn’t letting in enough aid to alleviate the humanitarian crisis caused by the Israel-Hamas war plaguing 2.2 million Palestinians in Gaza.”

And then we have this: “Planning for the maritime corridor [to supply the port] still faces many execution challenges, namely how to offload, secure and distribute the aid.” Hamas will lend a hand. Of that we can be sure.

They are still working out the details, but you can’t be too cynical: “Arguably the hardest part is dispersing the aid throughout the whole of Gaza. The multinational coalition will rely on the United Nations, non-governmental organizations and other groups to ensure the assistance gets to the right places.” It’s good to know they will have the friends of Hamas within the UN on board with the plan. It only makes sense.

How do you say gag me with a spoon in Arabic?

The price of inflation

(Scott Johnson)

Jeffrey Anderson presents a comparative analysis of presidents and inflation. The mainstream press to the contrary notwithstanding, he explains what Biden has done to make us feel so black and blue. It’s not our imagination. It’s the inflation, stupid! See his City Journal column “No great mystery.” Anderson manages to review the data and perform the analysis with a sense of humor.

The daycare minders at the White House have persuaded Biden to single out “shrinkflation” as the villain. However, “shrinkflation” reflects “inflation.” It is a manifestation of rising prices. Sentient observers understand that Biden economic policies have triggered the inflation that we have suffered, just as they understand that Biden’s senescence has slowed the windmills of his mind. Biden trusts we won’t notice he indicts himself when he decries “shrinkflation.”

Biden’s daycare minders take us for fools. Thus the administration’s critique of Republicans for causing the invasion of illegals that Biden invited, facilitated, and denied. They think we are stupid.

We hear that Biden threatens to point the finger at alleged corporate wrongdoing as the source of our pain in tonight’s State of the Union address. For some reason or other this wave of alleged wrongdoing has run riot under the regime of…Joe Biden. It was somehow held in check under the regime of…Donald Trump. James Bovard seeks to immunize us against the foolishness of the Biden party line in his New York Post column “Joe Biden’s State of the Union ‘shrinkflation’ swindle.”

After last night

(Scott Johnson)

Digging deep into the Super Tuesday primary results, I foresee President Biden facing off for a rematch against President Trump. Can you feel the excitement? The two candidates represent juggernauts within their respective parties.

Let’s take the Democrats first, courtesy of RealClearPolitics. What we have here is one full boatload of results. They raise the question: who is Marianne Williamson and what is she doing here? She is the best-selling author of a variety of books including A Return to Love: Reflections on the Principles of a Course In Miracles, A Woman’s Worth, Illuminata, The Healing of America, and Illuminated Prayers. Her books have been translated into more than twenty languages. Williamson continues to inspire audiences on a global scale as she lectures internationally in the fields of spirituality and new thought.

I infer from the results that Democrats resist the light. They resist new thought. Also, we don’t have a prayer. We need a miracle.

Biden’s presents himself as a throwback to the old-fashioned Democratic Party, yet he has adopted the policies of party’s far left. Most prominent among these policies is the opening of our borders and the implicit rejection of the sovereignty of the United States. Over the past three-plus years these policies have wrought great damage. Biden wants to test the outer limits of Adam Smith’s proposition that “There is a great deal of ruin in a nation.” One can’t help but wonder if we can put ourselves back on track.

It’s not Joe Biden’s Democratic Party. It’s the woke left’s Democratic Party. It’s the party of those who say the things which are not.

Biden made an appearance during the narrow window of his waking hours yesterday. He appeared to have dropped in from outer space. He sounded like he had not been briefed since he blasted off from his homeworld. J.B., phone home.

FULL VIDEO:

REPORTER: "What's your message to Democrats who are concerned about your poll numbers?"

BIDEN: "My poll numbers? The last five polls you guys don't report. I'm winning — five! Five in a row!" pic.twitter.com/Mz5gWQMRSA

— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) March 5, 2024

On the Republican side of Super Tuesday (also courtesy of RCP), President Trump wrapped up the Republican nomination. Nikki Haley will suspend her campaign later this morning.

This is Donald Trump’s Republican Party. If President Trump were to keel over and leave us with an open convention in Milwaukee next July, I assess the odds that the delegates would turn to Haley at zero. It would be a politician in the mold of Trump — probably Ron DeSantis, or perhaps J.D. Vance or Vivek the Mistake. Trump has transformed the Republican Party. By contrast with Biden and the Democrats, he has stamped the party in his image.

I am surprised by the not insubstantial fraction of votes that Haley pulled yesterday. Some portion of the Haley represents Democrats voting in open primaries. Haley won Vermont, but even if she were the nominee she would lose it in November. Vermont is a socialist state. I’m not talking about Vermont. Assuming Trump can survive the Democrats’ lawfare, he cannot win without a united Republican Party. He has some work to do to put the Republican house together. His choice for vice president could help.

It is difficult to project the state of play in the coming months. My crystal ball is cloudy. Much depends on the course of the Democrats’ lawfare against Trump and, to a lesser extent, the nature of the campaign Trump runs. I think he best serves his own interests at this point when he is out of the news and provides the alternative to Biden. If the election can be reduced to a binary choice, Biden should lose. The Democrats’ lawfare means to preclude that.

Yesterday brought more news of the illegal immigration that Biden has invited, inflicted, facilitated, fostered. Biden’s derelictions in office are historic in nature. The Daily Mail reports, for example, “Biden administration ADMITS flying 320,000 migrants secretly into the U.S. to reduce the number of crossings at the border has national security ‘vulnerabilities.'” The New York Post reports “Elon Musk says Biden flying 320K ‘unvetted’ migrants into the US sets stage ‘for something far worse than 9/11.’” Elon Musk — he’s no dummy.

The true numbers involved in the invasion that Biden invited are staggering, whatever they are, as are the secondary effects. As I say, we need a miracle, or something like it.

Getting to know UNRWA

(Scott Johnson)

Israel’s war on Hamas has had several side effects. One such is the exposure of UNRWA a functional arm of Hamas. As Michael Rubin puts it:

The rot surrounding the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East keeps accumulating. Not only did the UNRWA allow Hamas command posts under local hospitals and the UNRWA’s own headquarters, but UNRWA employees hid weaponry in their homes and then reportedly participated in the Oct. 7 kidnappings in Israel. Some employees held Israeli civilians hostage in the aftermath of the mass kidnapping. Israel alleges that 10% of UNRWA employees are Hamas members, a figure that, if anything, seems low.

Yesterday the IDF played a recording of an UNRWA employee boasting about kidnapping an Israeli woman on October 7. The UNRWA employee is only one of several hundred UNRWA employees in Gaza who are operatives in Gaza terrorist groups. Yesterday IDF spokesman Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari held a press briefing to play the recording. Here is his introduction to it:

The information that I am about to share is distressing and some people may find it triggering, but we have an obligation to share the truth about what happened on October 7th, 150 days ago. We have a duty to expose the truth about those who took part in this brutal massacre.

Today, we are declassifying a call that we intercepted, made by Yusef Zidan Salimam Al-Khuairl, a Hamas terrorist who took part in the massacre of October 7th.

But he is not just a Hamas terrorist, he is also an UNRWA employee working as a teacher in a UN elementary school in Gaza.

The terrorist is heard speaking on the phone roughly 7 hours after Hamas began invading Israel:
Murdering; mutilating; massacring; kidnapping; raping; and burning entire families alive.

On the call, you can hear him bragging about the Sabaya is a female captive that he got his hands on.

He’s talking about one of our girls. He is talking about one of the women. The term “SABAYA” used by this UNRWA worker is an Arabic term, meaning ‘female captive’ with a possession, a possession of a captor.

“Sabaya” is exactly the same word used by ISIS to describe the Yazidi women they captured,
and did horrific things to.

I want you to listen to the conversation, I want you to hear the tone… how they brag…how they laugh…how they talk about women…How they call her a 
“noble horse”…

Listen.

The IDF has posted text and video of the briefing here. Below is the video.

Below is the recording of the call Hagari plays in the briefing. “Listen.”

This is an @UNRWA teacher.
This is a proud @UN employee.
This man's paycheque is paid by YOUR taxes.
This is a man sharing his successes.
This is a man who sees women as #sabaya, the term ISIS used for slaves.
This is the terrorism of #October7massacre
This is UNRWA… pic.twitter.com/VcPOkz49Yf

— Lt. Col. (R) Peter Lerner (@LTCPeterLerner) March 4, 2024

Via Richard Kemp/X.

JOHN adds: the UN is a hopelessly corrupt and immoral organization. We should get out.

Whole lotta lyin’ goin’ on, cont’d

(Scott Johnson)

Attorney Terrence Bradley testified last week in the hearing on the possible disqualification of Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis and Special Counsel Nathan Wade in the “conspiracy so immense” charges against President Trump et al. pending in Georgia state court. Bradley is Wade’s former law partner and lawyer in his divorce proceeding. He knows when the Willis/Wade romance began because Wade told him.

Indeed, Bradley had previously stated in text messages to Ashleigh Merchant (attorney for defendant Michael Roman) that: (1) the relationship between Willis and Wade started before he was appointed special prosecutor, (2) the relationship started while they were both magistrate judges, and (3) the motion to disqualify Willis, which alleged the start date of the relationship, was accurate.

However, that’s not the way it turned out on the witness stand. After long pauses, Bradley disavowed his previous statements. He couldn’t recall. He was speculating. As in the old Jack Benny joke, he was thinking about it. He knew nothing. It made for painful viewing. Everyone in the room knew that Bradley was lying. Which means that Willis and Wade had lied in their testimony, which was almost as obvious.

Judge Scott McAfee heard oral argument on the disqualification motion this past Friday. He announced that he would render a decision within two weeks. I think he left the bench knowing what he would do.

Now comes counsel for defendant David J. Shafer to add to the lyin’ record on the matter of disqualification. According to counsel in a three-page filing setting forth Notice of Proposed Testimony, Cobb County prosecutor Cindi Lee Yeager had “numerous, in-person and other conversations” with Bradley in which they discussed information about Willis and Wade. Bradley told Yeager that the two met during a 2019 judicial conference and that Wade “began his romantic relationship” with the future DA “at or around this time.”

The filing also describes a meeting around September 2023 when Bradley was visiting Yeager in her office and got a phone call. “Ms. Yeager could hear that the caller was District Attorney Willis. District Attorney Willis was calling Mr. Bradley in response to an article that was published about how much money Mr. Wade and his law partners had been paid in this case,” according to the filing. “Ms. Yeager heard District Attorney Willis tell Mr. Bradley: “They are coming after us. You don’t need to talk to them about anything about us.”

The Daily Mail runs it all down along with exhibits and videos in “Fani Willis warned Nathan Wade’s divorce lawyer to stay quiet about their affair, bombshell new court filing claims: Trump prosecutor case gets another twist with NEW witness that could deliver devastating testimony.” Jonathan Turley provides a link to the new filing in the tweet below.

My guess is that Judge McAfee has heard enough. He knows how he wants to decide the disqualification motion. Anyone with half a brain could see that Bradley was lying. Bradley could not have made it more obvious if he had wanted to, although (with apologies to the great Jeremiah Denton) he might have blinked out “I-M-L-Y-I-N-G” in Morse Code if he knew it.

There is a new filing in the Fani Willis case that contradicts the much maligned testimony of Nathan Wade’s former partner Terrence Bradley. A prosecutor has come forward to say that Bradley told him with clarity of the personal relationship began earlier. https://t.co/HWtlWhdmyK

— Jonathan Turley (@JonathanTurley) March 4, 2024

Longing for Auschwitz

(Scott Johnson)

As a guest of the Jewish Community Relations Council I attended a private showing of the atrocity video compiled by the IDF in the aftermath of the October 7 massacre this past December. Several of the clips compiled in the video had previously been posted to social media. The sadistic glee of the Hamas savages is apparent throughout the 45-minute video. They shriek in ecstasy as they perform their barbaric deeds. They take sensual pleasure in committing acts from which we recoil in disgust and horror.

Now Professor Alvin Rosenfeld seeks to capture the Hamas spirit in the Tablet column “Longing for Auschwitz.” What’s it all about? Professor Rosenfeld seems to me to get at the mania that is otherwise beyond our verbal grasp if not our human understanding. This is just the opening slice of his column:

Hamas’s assault on Israelis on October 7th was not an act of war as we normally think of it but something far worse. We don’t have an adequate term for what occurred on that day, so people use words like “terrorism,” “barbarism,” “atrocity,” “depravity,” “massacre,” and so on. All are correct, and yet all fall short of capturing the annihilationist fury set loose at the Nova music festival and in the kibbutzim and small towns of southern Israel. The people attacked in those places were not only to die, but to die in torment. In addition to the merciless torture, killings, slashings, burnings, beheadings, mutilations, dismemberments, and kidnappings, there were gang-rapes and other forms of sadistic sexual assault, including, according to some reports, the cutting off of women’s breasts, nails driven into women’s thighs and groins, bullets fired into their vaginas, and even intercourse with female corpses. Unimaginable? For most normal people, yes. But before going into Israel, the Hamas assassins were instructed to “dirty them” and “whore them.” And that’s precisely what many of them faithfully did.

If it were possible to encapsulate all the evil of that day in a single image, it would be that of the violent seizure of a young Israeli woman, Naama Levy, 19, barefoot, beaten, and bloodied, her hands tied behind her back, the crotch of her sweatpants heavily soiled, possibly from being raped, dragged by her hair at gunpoint into a Hamas car, and driven off to Gaza to suffer an unspeakable fate among her captors there.Her assailants filmed every second of her ordeal; and as one watches the clips of her being taken away, one sees crowds nearby loudly shouting “Allah-hu Akbar” – “Allah is the greatest”—a victory cry that offers religious sanction to the malign treatment of Naama Levy and countless others seized, slaughtered, and abducted on that horrific day.

All wars cause human suffering, but the cruelties visited upon Israelis on October 7th far surpasses what normally happens when armies go to war. Hamas’s actions had a different aim: not conquest but the purposeful humiliation of Jews by people who detest them and were sworn to degrade and dehumanize them before murdering them. For those familiar with Jewish history, the mass violence enacted against Jews in Kishinev in 1903 came instantly to mind, as did the Farhoud in Iraq in 1941 and Chmielnicki’s savage decimation of Ukrainian Jewish communities in the mid-17th century. With memories of those earlier massacres newly revived, October 7th instantly evoked the word “pogrom.” With cause. But how could such a catastrophe occur in today’s Israel? The country’s military has been hailed as one of the strongest in the world and was regarded as invincible. And yet on October 7th, it failed to protect its southern border and prevent the ruthless assault on Jews in the Gaza envelope. Responding to Hamas’s bloody deeds, one Israeli woman summed up the reactions of virtually every Jew in the country and millions of others abroad when she said, simply and incontrovertibly, “Every Israeli’s worst nightmares have come true.”

October 7th, 2023 was the most destructive day of mass violence against Jews since the end of the Holocaust. The carnage carried out on that day, far from being a by-product of war, was a religiously sanctioned, orgiastic display of unrestrained Jew-hatred. One cannot begin to understand it if one ignores the Hamas Charter and other Islamist teachings that make Hamas the organization it is and inspires it to do what it does.

Hamas originates as a branch of the Muslim Brotherhood. It is and always has been a jihadist organization, which sees the existence of the State of Israel as an intolerable intrusion into the Domain of Islam (“dar al-islam”) and is committed to removing Israel by whatever means necessary. The preamble to the Hamas Charter declares that “Israel exists and will continue to exist until Islam obliterates it, just as it obliterated others before it.” The “Palestinian problem,” it affirms, “is a religious problem” and is not amenable to a negotiated political settlement. The only way to “raise the banner of Allah over every inch of Palestine” is through “jihad,” a holy war that is a “duty for every Muslim wherever he may be.”

After watching the atrocity video, I wondered: Has Dementia Joe or blind Tony Blinken seen this? (Kelly Jane Torrance reported in her New York Post column on it that Biden has seen it.) If so, what are they doing hectoring Israel, yammering about a two-state solution, and disparaging a country acting in self-defense while in the throes of a crisis that goes to its reason for being? If that’s the best they can do, why won’t they shut up?

The “solution” is part of the problem. A people must have civilized norms and civil institutions on which to predicate a state. It can’t be created ex nihilo or ex worse than nothing.

Israel exists as a homeland and refuge for the Jewish people. The events of October 7 belie its reason for being. In other words, it won’t remain a refuge if Israelis aren’t safe from such atrocities in their homeland. Thus the war on Hamas in which it is currently engaged. Israel, by the way, also has to contend with Iranian proxies including Hezbollah and the Houthis as well as Iran itself. The day of reckoning is coming.

No government freely elected by the people of Israel can tolerate what Israel withstood on October 7. There can be no return to the status quo ante or its functional equivalent under the supervision of the Palestinian Authority, whose president for life himself supports terrorism with funds generously provided by his supporters among the Biden administration and elsewhere.

Supreme Court: Trump on ballot

(Scott Johnson)

The Supreme Court has held 9-0 that the Colorado Supreme Court erred in blessing the disqualification of Donald Trump from the state’s primary election ballot under section 3 of the Fourteenth Amendment. The Court’s opinion is per curiam. Justice Barrett concurs in part and concurs in the judgment. Justices Sotomayor, Kagan, and Jackson concur in the judgment (i.e., the result). The Court’s opinions are posted online here.

The Court’s per curiam opinion commanded a majority and its reasoning represents the law. It rests substantially on the exclusive power of Congress to enforce section 3 against candidates for federal office, “especially the presidency.”

Does the opinion leave open the possibility that Congress might refuse to certify Trump as president if he were to be elected president on the ground that he is guilty of insurrection? If Congress has not prescribed any means other than conviction of the crime of insurrection to make the determination underlying application of section 3, I doubt it. See opinion at 10. However, I may be mistaken. Perhaps the opinion cannot be read that broadly.

The opinion concludes (emphasis in original, citations omitted):

All nine Members of the Court agree with that result. Our colleagues writing separately further agree with many of the reasons this opinion provides for reaching it. So far as we can tell, they object only to our taking into account the distinctive way Section 3 works and the fact that Section 5 vests in Congress the power to enforce it. These are not the only reasons the States lack power to enforce this particular constitutional provision with respect to federal offices. But they are important ones, and it is the combination of all the reasons set forth in this opinion—not, as some of our colleagues would have it, just one particular rationale—that resolves this case. In our view, each of these reasons is necessary to provide a complete explanation for the judgment the Court unanimously reaches.

Read the whole thing here.

UPDATE: Although he characterizes it as a 5-4 decision, Andrew McCarthy supports my reading of the per curiam opinion: “What that means is that if Donald Trump were to win the presidential election, congressional Democrats would not be able — in the next January 6 joint session of Congress — to refuse to ratify his victory on the grounds that he is an insurrectionist. Under the Court’s holding, it is now a prerequisite to enforcement of the Section 3 disqualification that a person must have been convicted under the insurrection statute.”

Sticking points

(Scott Johnson)

Reading about the ceasefire negotiations that the ceasefire negotiations with which the Biden administation hopes to engineer a Hamas victory requires a certain kind of immunity to savagery. Hamas seeks to trade kidnapped Israelis for terrorists who can help Hamas finish the task it undertook on October 7. The Hamas terrorists are murderers and genocidaires. The Israelis are, well, you know, Jewish. Hamas seeks ten terrorists in exchange for every kidnapped Israeli and Israel seems okay with the proposition and the ratio.

However, the Israelis declined to show up in Cairo for further negotiations so long as Hamas refuses to provide a list of living kidnap victims. The Israelis assess that 31 of the kidnap victims taken by Hamas on October 7 are now dead. This is either elided in mainstream news accounts or referred to euphemistically as one of the “sticking points.” The Times of Israel summed up the status of negotiations yesterday:

Israel has said that 31 of the 130 hostages held since October 7 are dead. The first phase of the mooted deal is reported to provide for the release of 40 of the living hostages, including women, children, the elderly and the sick, in the course of a six-week truce, and in exchange for some 400 Palestinian security prisoners. The outline reportedly provides for negotiations on the further phased release of the remaining hostages, living and dead, in return for longer pauses in the fighting and many more Palestinian prisoner releases.

On Sunday afternoon, a Hamas official told CNN that the group will not agree to a deal without Israel consenting to an end to the war in Gaza, a non-starter for Israel.

Citing “a highly placed source” in the terror group, CNN reported that the two other areas of disagreement holding up a deal are the withdrawal of IDF troops from Gaza, and Gazan civilians being allowed to return to the northern Gaza Strip.

Vice President Harris found this a good time to hammer Israel yesterday in Selma, Alabama (White House transcript here). Israel is apparently responsible for “the humanitarian crisis in Gaza.” Why, “just a few days ago, we saw hungry, desperate people approach aid trucks, simply trying to secure food for their families after weeks of nearly no aid reaching Northern Gaza. And they were met with gunfire and chaos.” The savages of Hamas have their allies among the idiots, useful or otherwise, of the Biden administration.

Notable and quotable

(Scott Johnson)

In the latest episode of the Hoover Institution’s GoodFellows podcast (with Dan Senor sitting in for H.R. McMaster), Niall Ferguson joined from Jerusalem. He had some advice for Tucker Carlson regarding his misadventures in Putin’s Russia buried at about 43:00 of the video (below). Asked to assess Carlson’s interview with Putin, Ferguson responded:

I am beyond disappointed in what Tucker Carlson has become because four years ago he was an impressive and effective broadcaster whose monologues I used to enjoy. I mean Tucker — I don’t know if you listen to this — but you have a chance to admit that you made a terrible mistake by going to Moscow, that you were made use of by a fascist dictator. You don’t want to be the Walter Duranty of this story. You don’t want to be the useful idiot of American journalism who fell for a dictatorship.

So my advice is own it. You made a huge blunder and you need to admit it and recognize that you have been used by a fascist regime. The fact that Navalny was killed just after you had been made a fool of in that interview where Putin filibustered, made stuff up that you didn’t know enough Russian history to correct — all of this has all but destroyed your reputation and the only possible solution is a full and frank apology and an admission that you screwed up.

See my own “Political pilgrimage revisited,” “From glib to stupid,” and “The lonesome death of Alexei Navalny.”

Tucker Carlson has worked himself into a dark corner of which his Russian misadventures constitute only one component. He seeks to fill the niche formerly occupied by Charles Lindbergh on the isolationist wing of the populist right and has become a fool for Putin in the process. The odds of Carlson taking Ferguson’s advice asymptotically approach zero, but not because he shouldn’t take it.

The takeover

(Scott Johnson)

In her February 26 Tablet column “The takeover,” Neetu Arnold traces the relationship among international student recruitment, DEI policies, and left-wing activism on American campuses. It is a long column that is full of information and data. This is how it opens:

Something new and peculiar stands out about the wave of anti-Israel student activism that has rocked American university campuses since October: There is a visibly more radical element to these protests. Student activists almost seemed to take glee in Hamas’ massacre of innocent civilians—when they weren’t denying that it happened at all. The antisemitic rage struck a different tone than the typical anti-Israel fare that has become a central part of American student activism since Students for a Democratic Society formed in the 1960s.

So what changed? The answer is clear to anyone who watched the videos: these student protests are no longer composed solely of left-wing American students steeped in critical theory and post-colonial ideology. The protests are now havens for foreign students, especially those from Arab and Muslim countries, with their own set of nationalist and tribal grievances against Israel and the United States. In some cases, such foreign students appear to lead the protests in their pro-terrorism chants—some of which are in Arabic, or translations of Arabic slogans.

What we are witnessing is the latest consequence of a quiet revolution in higher education: the internationalization of the American university. Today, there are more than one million foreign students enrolled at American universities, making up more than 5% of the total student population. At elite universities, the situation is much more extreme: international students make up almost 25% of the student population.

I would add that Arnold’s introductory paragraph seems to me to apply not only to pro-Hamas “activism” on campus, but also to pro-Hamas “activism” on the streets of our major cities and inside the Democratic Party’s left-wing base. Someone needs to undertake the same kind of analysis to the off-campus phenomenon that Arnold does to the on-campus phenomenon. It isn’t pretty and it’s not going away.

After the treason of the intellectuals

(Scott Johnson)

Niall Ferguson must be one of the three most prominent historians writing in English today. He is the author of 16 books. Late last year he wrote the timely and trenchant essay “Treason of the Intellectuals.” Now he follows up that essay with the lecture “After the Treason of the Intellectuals” at the University of Austin, where he is Founding Trustee. With Ferguson’s invocation of Max Weber, the lecture put me in mind of Steve Hayward’s address to incoming graduate students at Pepperdine’s school of public policy at the beginning of this academic year.

This is the talk Ferguson gave at the University of Austin’s Founding Class of 2028 reception. It is in part a description of the state of higher education and in part a motivational talk for incoming students. He speaks from notes in front of a fiery backdrop that seems to serve as a metaphor — he calls it “a simulated apocalyptic landscape” –for the spirit of his remarks. The nascent University of Austin bids to join Hillsdale College as one of our essential educational institutions.

Drop this

(Scott Johnson)

Yesterday President Biden announced the imminent airdrop of humanitarian assistance into Gaza (Biden to the contrary notwithstanding, not Ukraine). The Times of Israel covers the announcement here.

White House National Security Advisor John Kirby was asked a good question about it at a press briefing that followed the announcement. He was asked how the administration will prevent Hamas from seizing the supplies that it intends to airdrop into Gaza.

Kirby expressed joy to be asked the question, yet for some reason he did not answer it directly. See if you can deduce the answer from his response (video below). These airdrops are complicated. They’re difficult. We’re going to keep at it and we’re going to get better. Hamas, by the way, is a designated foreign terrorist organization and therefore one to which it is illegal for American citizens to render assistance.

John Kirby effectively admits that the White House knows Hamas will steal aid air-dropped into Gaza pic.twitter.com/gzxHnBUpCp

— Eitan Fischberger (@EFischberger) March 2, 2024

The airdrop has begun. The Times of Israel reports that US military officials say the initial airdrop was carried out using three C-130 planes. One of the officials says more than 35,000 meals were airdropped. The video below shows the current airdrop to Hamas’s last stronghold in Rafah. According to Barak Ravid, the Rafah airdrop “included thousands of U.S. military ‘meals ready to eat’ (Halal).” The genocidaires of Hamas must be grateful in their own special way.

Update: #IsraelHamasWar #US #Rafah

According to U.S. and Israeli officials, 3 C-130s airdropped aid over the city of Rafah.

In the video that reportedly shows the airdrop, 2 C-130s can be seen with the payload of the third visible in the video. pic.twitter.com/OhyUMWd9z4

— John M. Larrier (@DefenseBulletin) March 2, 2024

“A global laughingstock”

(Scott Johnson)

Atlanta attorney Harry MacDougald is our old Rathergate friend. He helped us get the ball rolling in “The 61st minute” on the morning of September 9, 2004. Writing under the screen name Buckhead, Harry observed in comment number 47 of Free Republic’s Rathergate thread: “I am saying these documents are forgeries, run through a copier for 15 generations to make them look old. This should be pursued aggressively.” Life has never been quite the same since we took his cue and followed up.

Harry is the managing partner of Atlanta’s Caldwell, Carlson, Elliott & DeLoach law firm. He represents defendant Jeffrey Clark in the “conspiracy so immense” case brought by Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis. We have followed defendants’ motion to disqualify Willis from prosecuting the case. It turns out that Willis appointed her boyfriend Nathan Wade as special prosecutor in the case. Willis, Wade, and others have testified under oath on the facts underlying the conflict issues raised by defendants. I commented, most recently, in “Whole lotta lyin’ goin’ on.”

Yesterday Judge Scott McAfee held a three-hour hearing for oral argument by the attorneys on the disqualification motion. Harry was the star of the show. His thirteen-minute argument begins at 01:12:40 of the video of the hearing at the bottom. Students of ancient history may recall the role of CBS News in Rathergate. It has posted a decent account of the hearing.

I have my doubts that Judge McAfee will grant the disqualification motion, but I have no doubt that he should or that Harry accurately captured the essence of the evidence before the court. Referring to the Office of the Fulton County District Attorney and the Willis/Wade matter, Harry concluded: “This office is a global laughingstock because of their conduct.”

I reached out to Harry for a comment after the hearing yesterday. He declined to comment one way or the other on the hearing, although he did comment favorably on Power Line. My comment is that Harry was right about Rathergate and he is right about the disgrace to be resolved by the court on the pending motion.

Biden to resupply Hamas

(Scott Johnson)

President Biden announced today that the United States will airdrop humanitarian aid into Gaza in the coming days. It shouldn’t come as a surprise to those of us who have been following the line traced by the Biden administration, but this may strike some as a bridge too far. The mission will purportedly increase the flow of humanitarian assistance into Gaza, but all sentient observers understand that the it will necessarily make the “assistance” available to Hamas.

Politico reports Biden’s remarks here. The White House has not yet posted a transcript. To add insult to injury, even though he was reading off note cards, Biden confused “Ukraine” with “Gaza.” The guy’s brain is fried in more ways than one.

Biden announces the U.S. is “providing air drops of additional food and supplies” into Ukraine pic.twitter.com/ZZt7LV1EMg

— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) March 1, 2024

STEVE adds: Curious thing, though. A spokesman for Oxfam America has issued a Twitter statement opposing the relief air drop, because the narrative needs to be preserved. At least that’s how I read this:

A “massacre” update

(Scott Johnson)

After posting the adjacent item on the alleged IDF “massacre” of more than 100 Gazans yesterday, I received the Jewish Insider’s Daily Kickoff newsletter with this account of the events:

More than 100 people were killed when a crowd converged on an aid convoy in the Gaza Strip on Thursday and in a nearby confrontation between IDF soldiers and Palestinian men, in what an Israeli official with knowledge of the incidents described as a “completely unprecedented” set of events. “We’ve seen big groups of people running toward aid convoys, but nothing on this scale,” the official told Jewish Insider Executive Editor Melissa Weiss.

The convoy that came under the swarm of people was, the official described, “a very properly coordinated aid convoy with local contacts.” As the convoy passed through Gaza City early Thursday morning, thousands of people began to converge on the convoy.

“They literally physically trampled each other and ran over each other and beat each other,” the official continued. “And then Hamas started shooting at them.” The terror group aims to resell some of the convoy’s goods at a high markup, the official said.

“We did not fire at the humanitarian convoy, we secured it,” IDF spokesman Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari emphasized in a briefing yesterday evening. “The tanks that were there to secure the convoy saw the Gazans being trampled and cautiously tried to disperse the mob with a few warning shots,” Hagari said. “You can see [in a video released by the IDF] how cautious they were when they were backing up. They were backing up securely, risking their own lives, not shooting at the mob.”

Nearby, a group of IDF soldiers guarding the convoy opened fire on a group of men approaching the battalion. First, the official said, the IDF troops fired in the air to warn the men off, but the men continued running toward the battalion.

An estimated 10 Palestinians were killed in the confrontation with Israeli troops, according to the IDF, and the rest of the casualties were caused by the stampede and confrontation near the convoy.

JI’s Daily Kickoff site is here. This account is included in this morning’s edition (with links).

UPDATE: Times of Israel editor David Horovitz considers the ensuing complications in this column.

What’s wrong with this picture?

(Scott Johnson)

I understood from the Star Tribune headline over the AP story yesterday that the IDF had massacred some 100 Gazans seeking food and water. As of this morning, the AP is sticking with the story with a Rafah dateline. It leads with this observation: “Israeli troops fired on a crowd of Palestinians racing to pull food off an aid convoy in Gaza City on Thursday, witnesses said.”

I’m not sure about the massacre. Deep into the story we hear from the ever reliable “Gaza Health Ministry.” The AP reports: “At least 112 people were killed, Gaza Health Ministry spokesman Ashraf al-Qidra said. The ministry described it as a ‘massacre’ and said more than 700 others were injured.” The AP raises no warning about the record of the “Gaza Health Ministry” on such matters.

The IDF spokesmen have a better record than the AP on these IDF alleged massacres. I take it that the IDF denies that’s what happened, although it is investigating. [See update below.] The Times of Israel reports, per the IDF, that troops opened fire on several Gazans who moved toward soldiers and a tank at an IDF checkpoint, endangering soldiers, after they had rushed the last truck in the convoy further south. The Times of Israel story quotes IDF spokesman Daniel Hagari:

This morning, the IDF coordinated a convoy of 38 trucks to provide additional humanitarian assistance to the residents of northern Gaza. This humanitarian aid came from Egypt, went through a security screening at the Kerem Shalom humanitarian crossing in Israel, and then entered Gaza, for distribution by private contractors. As these vital humanitarian supplies made their way toward Gazans in need, thousands of Gazans [rushed] the trucks, some began violently pushing and trampling other Gazans to death, looting the humanitarian supplies.

Here are the facts: At 4:40 a.m., the first aid truck in the humanitarian convoy started making its way through the humanitarian corridor that we were securing. Our tanks were there to secure the humanitarian corridor for the aid convoy. Our UAVs were there in the air to give our forces a clear picture from above. At 4:45 a.m., a mob ambushed the aid trucks, bringing the convoy to a halt.

Hagari also showed a new video of the incident that is included in the Times of Israel story. Hagari’s statement continues:

In this video, the tanks that were there to secure the convoy saw the Gazans being trampled and cautiously tried to disperse the mob with a few warning shots. When the hundreds became thousands and things got out of hand, the tank commander decided to retreat to avoid harm to the thousands of Gazans that were there.

You can see how cautious they were when they were backing up. They were backing up securely, risking their own lives, not shooting at the mob.” he continued…No IDF strike was conducted toward the aid convoy. On the contrary, the IDF was there carrying out a humanitarian aid operation, to secure the humanitarian corridor, and allow the aid convoy to reach its distribution point, so that the humanitarian aid could reach Gazan civilians in the north who are in need.

The IDF posted Hagari’s statement below on X. Video is included with his statement.

“We recognize the suffering of the innocent people of Gaza. This is why we are seeking ways to expand our humanitarian efforts.”

Watch the full statement by IDF Spokesperson RAdm. Daniel Hagari on the incident regarding the humanitarian aid convoy the IDF facilitated. pic.twitter.com/m6Pve3Odqw

— Israel Defense Forces (@IDF) February 29, 2024

“And yet the lie will be repeated as fact over and over and over by those who are ignorant, and those who are not ignorant but are evil, and those who are Susan Sarandon,” comments Cliff Asness. Add the detestable Senator Elizabeth Warren to the list. Query into which category the AP falls.

Netanyahu & his right-wing government have created a catastrophe in Gaza. Today Israeli troops opened fire on Palestinians desperate for aid.

The U.S. must push for a cease-fire, hostage releases, & condition military support on pursuing a two-state solution for a lasting peace. pic.twitter.com/igeEpeFRC8

— Elizabeth Warren (@SenWarren) February 29, 2024

I can’t wait for the United States Air Force to show us how it’s to be done. If this goes down as advertised, we can resupply Hamas directly.

The U.S. Air Force is reportedly preparing for an Operation beginning next week that will see the Mass Airdropping of Humanitarian Aid including Food, Water, and Medicine into the Gaza Strip, with Flights utilizing C-130 and C-17 Transport Aircraft being launched from Airbases in… pic.twitter.com/ZH7Es0vvoj

— OSINTdefender (@sentdefender) March 1, 2024

UPDATE: The Jewish Insider’s Daily Kickoff includes this account in today’s edition.

Richard Lewis’s gift

(Scott Johnson)

Richard Lewis had the gift of making people laugh. It is a gift that gives physical pleasure. It resides in the realm of the id. You can see his gift on display in the brief exchange with Bob Costas on Costas’s old late-night show Later. By internal evidence, this clip must go back some 36 years, to 1988 or so. It’s not canned material. It wasn’t a routine. Lewis was just naturally funny and here he was on a roll with his audience of one.

RICHARD LEWIS: "I made Bob Costas laugh so hard, NBC refused to air it thinking it made him look silly. I went crazy and bugged the network so much they thankfully caved."

Rest in peace to a man who was literally too funny pic.twitter.com/9P4iYvewmj

— HarryHew (@harryhew) February 29, 2024

Thoughts from the ammo line

(Scott Johnson)

Ammo Grrrll is not CLOTHING THE EMPEROR. She writes:

In the middle of an unhinged hateful rant about Donald J. Trump AND especially about us, his “cult-like” wretched, stupid followers, Bob Costas let slip on the CNN ‘s Smerconish show that Biden is too old and needs to step aside to avoid losing to President Trump. He actually invoked the Emperor and His New Clothes image in reference to Biden. He seems to feel pretty strongly that President Trump is going to beat the Depends off Biden in November and that is unthinkable enough for Costas to advise Biden to step aside.

The dam has broken. For a long time that dam had many fingers plugging up all obvious holes and calling them “misinformation.” Conservatives who believe “misinformation” are only a stone’s throw from “Deplorability” on their inevitable path to “Insurrection!” There was a solid phalanx of deniers shrieking daily that Biden was fit as a fiddle.

Joe, they swore, was a fine speaker, but sadly cursed with a whimsical stutter that only appeared at certain times. That this was a lie was obvious to all but the lying liars who lie day in and day out for a very lucrative living. Good grief, NO, Joe Biden does not have a “stutter.” I have known several people with stutters and that is not how stuttering manifests itself.

The problem is that Biden’s brain doesn’t work anymore and he cannot reliably finish slurring all the way to the end of a WORD, let alone express a coherent thought. Heck, he cannot even READ a thought. He stops. He freezes. He looks like his last working synapse just burned out in his head. And then he mumbles, “Well, never mind.” Or, “You know the thing.” On at least two occasions that I am aware of, he could not remember Obama’s name and just called him “my boss.” He yells; he whispers; he sees dead people in the audience. He cannot get a quote right that is WRITTEN OUT in front of him.

His advanced dementia is glaringly, nakedly, apparent. But he comes out, shot up with who knows what, and APPEARS to be clothed. And quite nicely at that. Fig leaves have not been in fashion as strategically-placed nudity covers since The Garden of Eden. And so when he’s not skinny dipping in front of the female Secret Service agents, Joe wears fine suits of superior cut. But in reality he is a shambling updated version of a Greek Minotaur with the clothes of a sentient being and the head of a lost, vacant, angry old gasbag. The world knows it and has acted accordingly.

The lying liars who lie rally round and you can almost hear the strategy meetings: “Okay, the public isn’t buying the stutter deal, guys – and I’m sorry if I misgendered anybody – but, if we allow any criticism through our algorithms, let’s just say it’s his age. You know Trump/Hitler is no spring chicken, either. Yeah, AGE is the word to repeat, not, God forbid, SENILITY.”

And, just like that, every media outlet even slightly left of center starts repeating “age” like an old 33 vinyl record with a bad needle. The late and much-lamented Rush Limbaugh used to play mash-ups of the news-heads all repeating verbatim whatever the powers-that-be had told them to say. Because most of the left is childish, irresponsible, and stupid, it believes that since children like to hear “Good Night, Moon” every night, grown adults will also enjoy hearing the same word repeated until they mute the television, or, alternatively, shoot it.

But, see, AGE isn’t entirely accurate either! It’s NOT his damn age! Sure, he can’t ride a bike, negotiate a stairway, or find his way off any stage. Sure, he “trips” over a sandbag that some Christian Nationalist probably put in his way. So age has SOMETHING to do with it, but it’s not the whole story. He’s not just old; he’s corrupt, mean, creepy, and demented.

Novelist Herman Wouk was still turning out novels when he was past 100. My mother was cogent and still witty at 94. although I would have recommended her for no higher an office than Vice President. As Border Czar she would have kicked butt and taken names. And I might have been tapped to be the shortest high-fashion runway model in history. Alas, this was not to be.

Somebody old who was still productive? Does the name Benjamin Franklin ring a bell? Born in 1706, Ben held numerous posts such as College President of what eventually became the University of Pennsylvania; also, Deputy Postmaster in 1753. But he was a relatively young man then. His inventions are important and numerous.

What stands out is his stint as Ambassador to France, of great importance during the Revolutionary War, which term ended in 1785 when he was 79 years old. When French Foreign Minister Vergennes said to Thomas Jefferson, “It is you who replace Dr. Franklin?,” Jefferson replied, “No one can replace him, Sir; I am only his successor.”

See, here’s the thing about OUR guy. You know the one. We KNOW he isn’t perfect and we don’t pretend that he is. We aren’t planning to marry him. Over half a century ago at a family dinner at my late in-laws’ home, my mother-in-law opined that she would not vote for a man who had divorced his wife. And my father-in-law said: “You recently returned from Israel. Did you check to make sure your pilot and co-pilot were not divorced?!” And, good-natured little lady that she was, Minna laughed at herself and said, “Oh, Lyosh, you are right.”

Right now the Ship of State is racing headlong for an iceberg and is most of the way there. Our fellow citizens can see that we desperately need a new pilot, or captain, and it’s so bad that it’s beginning to dawn even on a few brave African-Americans and Jewish Democrats – as well as the traditional conservatives — that some bold new thing needs to be done. And urgently.

Perhaps I can contribute a marching song for our epic battle ahead. A songwriter named George F. Root wrote around 35 Civil War songs (per research on the Office of the Historian Website) which were hugely popular. I was shocked to learn this. My own dear departed mother taught me the following song before I was school-age, probably around 1950. That’s a fur piece from the Civil War, so Mr. Root’s work definitely resonated through the ages.

One of his most famous songs was for the Union prisoners held in unspeakable conditions. I’m sure that the prisons for the Confederate POWs were bad too, but Andersonville was notorious. And he wrote a song of inspiration to keep the Union POWs’ spirits up.

When I became aware there even was such a horrible thing called war, I thought only of World War I. I had seen pictures of my Grandpa in his uniform. And I was raised knowing that a Marine uncle I had never met had been killed in World War II. But the Civil War was not on my radar except for that time when I was in my stroller and I told Mama I wanted “fweedom.” No, wait, that was somebody else. I probably said I wanted a cookie. Anyway, I knew this Root song and sang it walking home from school. It had a great cadence.

Tramp, tramp, tramp
The boys are marching.
Cheer up, comrades, they will come.
And beneath the starry flag,
We shall breathe the air again
Of the free land in our own
Beloved homes.

In homage to Mr. Root let me offer this song to inspire not only the political prisoners from January 6, who have been held without trial for years, but also for all our suffering citizens imprisoned by the Orwellian cultural and political horrors we see every day:

Trump, Trump Trump
We will be voting!
Cheer up, comrades, we will win!
At our peril we bestow
A fourth term on Barry O.
If we ever want our country free again.

Faucism in one country

(Scott Johnson)

The Claremont Review of Books has published Jeffrey Anderson’s terrific review/essay “Covid catastrophes.” I think “Faucism in one county” might capture the spirit of Anderson’s take on the tyranny imposed on us by the authorities under the Covid regime. Anderson’s essay makes me angry about it all over again, but the point is to prevent a recurrence.

While we’re angry all over again, we should check out former New York Times science editor Nicholas Wade’s update of the investigation of Covid’s origin. The virus leaked from a lab in Wuhan, China, of course, but Wade has the latest on the so-called DEFUSE protocol that seems to have led to the work in Wuhan:

[W]hereas most viruses require repeated tries to switch from an animal host to people, SARS-CoV-2 infected humans out of the box, as if it had been preadapted while growing in the humanized mice called for in the DEFUSE protocol.

The authors of the proposal were a team led by Peter Daszak of the EcoHealth Alliance of New York, Shi Zhengli of the Wuhan Institute of Virology and Ralph Baric of the University of North Carolina. Although Mr. Baric is the leading expert on the technology, Mr. Daszak intended for much or most of the work to be done in Ms. Shi’s laboratory, despite giving a different impression to Darpa. He writes in the recently discovered documents that “I do want to stress the US side of this proposal so that DARPA are comfortable with our team. Once we get the funds, we can then allocate who does what exact work, and I believe that a lot of these assays can be done in Wuhan.”

Ms. Shi did most of her work with SARS-type viruses in the minimal-containment condition known as BSL2, whereas Mr. Baric, who regarded the viruses as seriously dangerous, worked in a more secure lab known as BSL3. Mr. Daszak noted that the lower-security labs would save money: “The BSL-2 nature of work on SARSr-CoVs makes our system highly cost-effective relative to other bat-virus systems.” Mr. Baric replied to this comment that the viruses might be grown under BSL2 safety conditions in China, but “US researchers will likely freak out.”

Mr. Daszak’s EcoHealth Alliance last year asserted that the DEFUSE project was never implemented: “The proposal was not funded and the work was never done, therefore it cannot have played a role in the origin of COVID-19.” But science is a competitive business. After Darpa turned down the DEFUSE proposal in February 2019, the researchers in Wuhan might have secured Chinese government funding and gone ahead by themselves. Viruses made according to the DEFUSE protocol could have been available by the time Covid-19 broke out, sometime between August and November 2019. This would account for the otherwise unexplained timing of the pandemic along with its place of origin.

Here Wade inserts parenthetically: “Mr. Daszak, Mr. Baric and Ms. Shi didn’t respond to emails seeking comment. Chinese officials have demanded that the U.S. ‘stop defaming China’ by raising the possibility of a lab leak.” Wade then concludes:

One piece is missing from the puzzle—the identity of the parent viruses from which SARS-CoV-2 was derived. The Chinese authorities have rigorously suppressed all information about the viruses being kept in the Wuhan Institute of Virology. But the documentary and scientific evidence already assembled seems sufficient to understand the genesis of the pandemic that killed millions.

The refusal of the Chinese authorities to cooperate in the relevant investigation has seemed to me a most potent piece of circumstantial evidence from the get-go.

Almost vacant

(Scott Johnson)

AEI’s Danielle Pletka is not a fan of President Trump, so I take her pulling on the fire alarm about President Biden at face value:

What we hear from members of congress is … terrible. Democrats too. Those who talk the president tell of a man who can’t go beyond the words on the page in front of him. He can’t converse on matters of substance. He can deliver talking points, but can’t negotiate with any seriousness. That’s one of the reasons — though far from the only one — why Congress can’t move forward on an emergency supplemental. Republicans are in complete turmoil, but talks with the White House are not helping.

Then there are the foreign leaders. Among themselves — and an open secret in DC’s embassies — they talk about a president who is confused, unsure of the subject matter under discussion, distant, disconnected, and all too often incomprehensible.

This is the man with the nuclear football. The man who commands our armed forces. It doesn’t matter whether you like the Democrats or hate them. The office is critically important, and it is almost vacant.

See Pletka’s What the Hell Is Going On? post “What we hear about Biden’s decline.”

Richard Lewis, RIP

(Scott Johnson)

The comedian Richard Lewis died this past Tuesday evening of a heart attack at the age of 76. The New York Times has posted a good obituary by Clay Risen here. Variety’s obituary is posted here. Richard told the story of his personal struggles in The Other Great Depression: How I’m overcoming, on a daily basis, at least a million addictions and dysfunctions and finding a spiritual (sometimes) life.

Lewis had the gift of making people laugh. I thought he was incredibly funny. You may have seen him over the past 20-plus years on any of the 41 episodes of Curb Your Enthusiasm in which he appeared. A fan has posted a 90-minute YouTube video of A Complete Timeline of Richard Lewis and Larry David Banter & Arguments (seasons 1-11).

Curb creator Larry David provided a statement to Variety on Richard’s death: “Richard and I were born three days apart in the same hospital and for most of my life he’s been like a brother to me. He had that rare combination of being the funniest person and also the sweetest. But today he made me sob and for that I’ll never forgive him.”

I met Richard when he performed at the 2015 Temple of Aaron fundraiser in St. Paul. The professional photographer Matthew Witchell was on hand. Richard greeted us warmly and posed for photographs with those of us lucky enough to attend. At the right is the photo of my wife and me with Richard. You may deduce from the photo that we were happy to meet him.

No one enjoyed the show that night more than I did. Richard performed his routine on the pulpit. Whenever he made an irreverent joke or observation, he would turn around and face the ark. Raising his hands and looking upward, he sought forgiveness and amplified the humor of his jokes.

Richard found love relatively late in life. He fell in love with Joyce Lapinsky of St. Paul’s Highland Park Senior High School, class of ’69. I thought Joyce was the most beautiful girl in a class that was full of beautiful women (and I only knew the ones who were friends of my guy friends).

After seven years of dating, Richard took Joyce to meet his therapist. He recounted his lack of confidence in his ability to select a mate. He also recalled complaining about having “some minor communication” problems with Joyce and that that was the reason why they couldn’t move forward in the relationship.

The therapist rendered judgment. “In a voice that was almost satanic — it was so dark and loud that it seemed to echo through the neighborhood — my therapist screamed at me, ‘This is as good as it gets!,'” Lewis said. “It shook me to my core.” I take that from ET’s account of Richard and Joyce’s relationship yesterday in connection with Richard’s death.

For his performance at Temple of Aaron Richard worked in a variety of funny observations about his father-in-law, Chuck Lapinsky, of blessed memory. The material sounded like it could have been part of his regular stand-up act, but it must have been good for that one night only.

JTA has posted an obituary here. JNS recounts his devotion to Jewish causes and quotes Richard talking about his father, William Lewis. He called his father a “god of kosher catering” in New York and New Jersey. “My father was so well known as a caterer and so booked up that he was actually booked on the weekend of my bar mitzvah so I had to have my party on the Tuesday,” he told JTA.

Last night I met two friends for dinner at the French Meadow restaurant in St. Paul to discuss Book III of Plato’s Republic. When we sat down I mentioned Richard’s death and pulled up the photo of Sally and me at Temple of Aaron to show them on my phone. When the owner later came over to our table to say hello, the first thing she said was that she had sad news — Richard Lewis had died. She looked and sounded deeply grieved as she talked about her friendship with Richard through Joyce. As far as I can tell, everyone who knew him liked him. RIP.

Whole lotta lyin’ goin’ on

(Scott Johnson)

Attorney Terrence Bradley testified yesterday in the hearing on the possible disqualification of Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis and Special Counsel Nathan Wade in the “conspiracy so immense” charges against President Trump et al. pending in Georgia state court. Bradley is Wade’s former law partner and lawyer in his divorce proceeding. He knows when the Willis/Wade romance began because Wade told him.

Indeed, as Techno Fog notes, Bradley has previously stated in text messages to Ashleigh Merchant (attorney for defendant Michael Roman) that: (1) the relationship between Willis and Wade started before he was appointed special prosecutor, (2) the relationship started while they were both magistrate judges, and (3) the motion to disqualify Willis, which alleged the start date of the relationship, was accurate.

However, that’s not the way it turned out on the witness stand. After long pauses, Bradley disavowed his previous statements. He couldn’t recall. He was speculating. As in the old Jack Benny joke, he was thinking about it. He knew nothing.

Mr. Fog offers pierces the fog with this clear summary of Bradley’s testimony: “[Bradley] speculated about the start of the relationship, only had one meeting with Wade about the relationship, and has no personal knowledge as to when the relationship started. All of that, of course, was contradicted by his prior representations to Ms. Merchant.”

It made for painful viewing. Everyone in the room knew that Bradley was lying. Which means that Willis and Wade had lied in their testimony, which was almost as obvious. Below is an excerpt of Bradley’s testimony that ran in full over two hours. As I say, it makes for painful viewing.

After last night

(Scott Johnson)

The Michigan primary was held yesterday. President Biden defeated Uncommitted, Marianne Willison, and my cousin Dean Phillips on the Democrat side. Dean commented on Twitter for the benefit of his former friends in the party: “If you resent me for the audacity to challenge Joe Biden, at least you’ll appreciate how relatively strong I’m making him look among primary voters!”

President Trump handily defeated Nikki Haley on the Republican side. Here are the current results posted by RealClearPolitics. Note the differential in turnout.

One can infer that Biden and Trump will be their respective party’s presidential nominees, but the results seem slightly more surprising than expected. Axios managing editor/politics David Lindsey offers a brief take on the results that I found helpful:

There wasn’t much doubt that President Biden and former President Trump would romp to victories in the Michigan primaries Tuesday. But Biden’s win in particular revealed his vulnerability in a crucial swing state that could decide the presidency in November….Arab American and young voters — key to Biden winning Michigan in 2020 — turned out by the tens of thousands on Tuesday to vote … not for Biden, but for “uncommitted” in the Democratic primary.

• The protest vote, driven by anger over Biden’s handling of the Israel-Hamas war, had drawn more than 77,000 supporters with 70% of the ballots counted — several times more than organizers expected.

• That took some of the glow from a victory in which Biden got more than 80% of the vote, and confirmed that Biden has some serious persuading to do between now and November.

• “We need more than just nice words and hope. We need a permanent ceasefire” in Gaza, Layla Elabed, campaign manager for Listen to Michigan, told CNN. The group was behind the “uncommitted” vote effort.

Other takeaways from Michigan:

1, Biden has other problems, too.

• Another jolt for the president’s campaign Tuesday: A jarring enthusiasm gap between the Democratic and Republican primaries.

• Nearly 40% more people voted in the Republican primary than in the Democratic contest — despite the protest campaign that aided turnout on the Democratic side.

• Trump, who once again defeated former UN ambassador Nikki Haley, got more votes on the GOP side than the total number of votes cast in the Democratic primary between Biden, “uncommitted” and two other candidates.

2. It wasn’t all good news for Trump.

• That surge in GOP voters was driven in part by about 27% of Republicans voting for Haley, whose support continues to be not nearly enough to win the Republican nomination — but enough to show that a sizable chunk of the GOP may never be on board with Trump.

• Haley’s campaign might not last beyond Super Tuesday next week, when Trump is expected to score hundreds of delegates and put a virtual lock on the GOP nomination as 16 states hold contests.

• But Haley’s level of support suggests that many of her backers may stay home in November — or even vote for Biden, if Trump is on the ballot.

Whole thing here.

We seek to read the tea leaves in the results. As some sage has famously observed, “It is difficult to make predictions, especially about the future.” George Eliot’s narrator in Middlemarch puts it this way: “Among all forms of mistake, prophecy is the most gratuitous.” To read the tea leaves we have to project ahead to next November. How will the candidates look at that time? Our crystal ball is cloudy. Both Biden and Trump are hobbled by weaknesses that will be magnified over the next eight months.

For Democrats this is the Weekend At Bernie’s election. It has become increasingly difficult to keep Biden upright during business hours. His brain is fried. His managers have to keep him under wraps. He is an embarrassment. Playing to his party’s activist base, he has left undone what should have been done and he has done that which should not have been done.

For Republicans this is the “In the Jailhouse Now” election. The electoral impact of the Democrat lawfare on Trump are particularly difficult to predict, but they can’t be good for him. They impose their own limitations on Trump in terms of time, money, and who knows what else. That’s what it’s all about. Anyone can see storm clouds ahead.

I absolutely hate the clichéd last resort of scoundrel pundits as the election approaches. You know, “it depends on turnout.” With respect to what should be the insuperable problems each candidate confronts, let’s just say “it depends on how it turns out.” They can’t both lose. One of them is going to prevail.

What’s wrong with this picture?

(Scott Johnson)

Cornel West is the Princeton University Class of 1943 University Professor emeritus. He is running as an independent candidate for president. He fancies himself “one of America’s most provocative public intellectuals; a champion for Truth, Justice & Love.” That’s what the man said. In the tweet below, he celebrates the suicide of Aaron Bushnell in the service of “free Palestine” — free, Hamas style. If he gets on the ballot in Michigan, he poses a certain kind of danger to the reelection of Joe Biden.

Let us never forget the extraordinary courage and commitment of brother Aaron Bushnell who died for truth and justice! I pray for his precious loved ones! Let us rededicate ourselves to genuine solidarity with Palestinians undergoing genocidal attacks in real time!… pic.twitter.com/9F7dXOAYJt

— Cornel West (@CornelWest) February 26, 2024

Crazy for “Palestine”

(Scott Johnson)

Thich Quang Duc was the Buddhist monk who self-immolated to protest the Diem regime during South Vietnam’s so-called Buddhist crisis of 1963. The AP’s Malcolm Browne won the World Press Photo of the Year in 1963 with the famous photograph of Duc on fire. Ray Boomhower’s forthcoming book about it is titled The Ultimate Protest.

Air Force senior airman Aaron Bushnell replayed the scene outside the Israeli embassy in Washington this past Sunday afternoon. He called it “an extreme act of protest, but compared to what people have been experiencing in Palestine at the hands of their colonizers, it’s not extreme at all.” He posted a video online saying he did not want to be “complicit in genocide.” He repeatedly shouted “Free Palestine” as he burned. He died later that night, apparently of the injuries he sustained lighting himself up.

It’s a bizarre story. The New York Post reported on it here and here, the Washington Post here, and the Daily Mail here (with video before Bushnell doused himself).

The Washington Post reports that Bushnell’s “suicidal protest instantly won him praise among some antiwar and pro-Palestinian activists…” If you get your news from the Washington Post, support for Hamas is now “antiwar” and “pro-Palestinian” means pro-Hamas.

The New York Post unsuccessfully sought comment from the Israeli embassy. However, Brendan O’Neill is not so discreet. He comments in his Spiked column here.

Anyone contemplating self-harm or suicide should get help. Bushnell needed a friend to urge him to reconsider or to give himself time to reconsider. Mental illness runs deep.

Bushnell might have helped himself by applying critical thought to what he reads in newspapers like the Washington Post and figuring out who’s zoomin’ who in “Palestine.” Israel is not committing “genocide.” It is the victim of those who expressly seek to commit “genocide,” but I’m sure Hamas is grateful for Bushnell’s support.

And Bushnell wasn’t “complicit” in Israel’s effort to defend itself against genocide. A combination of political witlessness and mental illness appears to have rendered Bushnell impervious to the reality principle.

Meet Victoria Victoria

(Scott Johnson)

Star Tribune music reviewer Jon Bream put in a good word for Victoria Victoria last week and prompted me to buy tickets for the show this past Sunday at the Dakota. Victoria Victoria is the name of the band — Victoria Elliott on lead vocal, Charlie Hunter on guitar, Noah Elliott on electric piano and backing vocals, Carter McClean on drums, and Maia Kamil on backing vocals.

Jon tagged Victoria — she goes by “Tory” — as “a beguilingly jazzy alt-folk singer, pair[ed] with adventurous guitarist Charlie Hunter.” I can hear the influence of Norah Jones in her singing, but she has a wider dynamic range. She can belt it out.

Charlie Hunter is beyond “adventurous.” He is a phenomenal guitarist. He plays a hybrid electric guitar that lets him thump out a bass line while playing lead. I have never seen that before. I think he was playing one of his own Hybrid Six guitar models — smiling all the while. (I wrote his agent yesterday to ask but haven’t heard back.)

Carter McLean rounds out the rhythm section on drums. Victoria’s brother, Noah Elliott, plays piano and acoustic guitar and sings harmony. Maia Kamil is a singer-songwriter who supports Victoria on the vocals.

Elliott writes or collaborates on her own songs. She could use some help with the lyrics, but she has created a beautiful sound. The video below provides an acoustic take on her song “Over My Shoulder” (written with Hunter and Stephen Lee Price) with both brother Noah and sister Halle joining on the vocals along with Kamil. She winds up her current tour in Pittsburgh on Thursday.

You can catch a glimpse of Hunter playing the Hybrid in the video of Elliott’s “Sanctuary” below.

The Smirnov turnoff, Devine ed.

(Scott Johnson)

Miranda Devine addresses “The Smirnov turnoff” in today’s New York Post column “New election year means another Russiagate as Biden, Dems try to smear impeachment probe.” Devine is of course the invaluable historian of The Laptop From Hell and the Biden family business. Here is the opening of her column:

For the 2016 election, Democrats launched Russiagate 1.0: the Trump-Russia collusion hoax proven groundless by the Mueller investigation.

For the 2020 election, it was Russiagate 2.0. Biden campaign adviser Antony Blinken prompted former CIA Acting Director Mike Morell to concoct the “Dirty 51” letter falsely claiming that Hunter Biden’s abandoned laptop was Russian disinformation.

That lie justified censorship of The Post’s accurate stories from the laptop of Joe Biden’s involvement in his son’s international influence peddling schemes.

Now that we’re heading into the 2024 election, we have Russiagate 3.0. Democrats pretend the impeachment inquiry has “utterly collapsed” because of the curious indictment last week of trusted FBI informant Alexander Smirnov on false statement charges after he allegedly told his FBI handler that Hunter and Joe each had received a $5 million bribe from the Ukrainians.

In a frantic effort to keep Smirnov in jail pre-trial, prosecutors for notorious Biden protector David Weiss, the Delaware US attorney, used language ripped straight out of the Russiagate textbook: “Smirnov’s efforts to spread misinformation about a candidate of one of the two major parties [Joe] continues.”

Now Smirnov is being used as make-believe vindication of the 51 former intelligence officials who signed the fake laptop letter to help Biden win the 2020 election.

Marc Polymeropoulos, a former CIA operations officer who claims to be a victim of the dubious “Havana syndrome,” pounced on the Smirnov story.

“It validates exactly what we were warning about,” he told NBC News. “The Russians were going to push this narrative of Hunter Biden and corruption, to hurt Joe Biden.”

No. Hunter’s “laptop from hell” was not Russian disinformation. It still isn’t. The FBI has had it in its possession since December 2019 and has authenticated it as real and valid for use in court.

The Dirty 51 are grasping at straws to try to justify their interference in the 2020 election. It wasn’t the Russians. It was Trump-deranged former CIA management who felt any means justified the ends if they could stop Trump winning a second term.

But now, as the laptop is augmented by whistleblower receipts and witness testimony, and as House Oversight Committee chairman James Comer unravels the complex web of corrupt foreign payments to the Biden family, the president’s praetorian guard is desperate. They are drowning in evidence of corruption while burbling, “There is no evidence!” Russia is all they have.

The joke is on Biden’s media handmaidens still pushing Joe Biden’s absurd lies.

No, the laptop is not a “Russian plant,” as he claimed. And, yes, Joe did talk to Hunter about his “overseas business dealings.”

Heck, he did a lot more than talk.

He made himself available for breakfasts, lunches, dinners, coffees, and pleasant chit chat on the speakerphone with Hunter’s foreign benefactors, all to oil the wheels of the family business — which was selling access to him, as he well knew.

“Look after my boy,” he told Kremlin-backed oligarch Elena Baturina and her husband, Yuri Luzhkov, the corrupt former mayor of Moscow, when Hunter activated the speakerphone at a Russian restaurant in Brooklyn called Romanoff on May 4, 2014.

They sure did. Just three months earlier, Baturina had wired $3.5 million to Rosemont Seneca Thornton LLC, the firm cofounded by Hunter, his “best friend in business” Devon Archer, John Kerry’s stepson Chris Heinz, and Jimmy Bulger, nephew of mobster “Whitey” Bulger.

Devine has much more here.

What’s wrong with this picture?

(Scott Johnson)

President Biden spoke at the Governors Ball Dinner in the State Dining Room at the White House on Saturday evening (video excerpt below). The White House has posted the transcript of his brief remarks here.

After the introductory blather, Biden referred to the portrait of Abraham Lincoln behind him — you can see it here — as he attempted to follow his text. This is how the White House transcript of the fourth paragraph reads:

And, you know, standing here in front of this portrait of the man behind me here, he — he said — and I want to make sure I get the quote exactly right. He said, “We — the better angels” — he said, “We must address the counsel — and adjust the better angels of our nature.” And we do the — and we do well to remember what else he said. He said, “We’re not enemies, but [we’re] friends.” This is in the middle of — this is in the — in the part of the Civil War. He said, “We’re not enemies, but [we’re] friends. We must not be enemies.”

“The [unnamed] man behind [him}” was Lincoln. Remember him? The attempted quotation comes from the famous passage that concludes Lincoln’s first inaugural address:

I am loath to close. We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battlefield and patriot grave to every living heart and hearthstone all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature.

The Daily Mail reports on Biden’s senescent ramble in “Biden completely butchering lines from Lincoln’s inaugural address – and then gets laughs when he jokes about his age after telling audience: ‘I wanna get this quote exactly right.'” However, I’m not sure that this was the worst of Biden’s brief remarks. He also took an incoherent stab at his phony remembrance of things past:

And, you know, it seems to me that — I’ll conclude by saying, I — I’ve spent a lot of time with Xi Jinping — someone whom I have a great deal of difference with. And I was — when I was vice president, President — my — my president was — told me that he wanted me to get to know Xi Jinping because it was clear he was going to be the head of Russia — of — of China and that he — we had a — we were having problems with Russia at the time and other countries as well. And so, what he said was, “Get to know him. He’s going to be there.” I — and he couldn’t because he was the president, and he couldn’t travel. So, I traveled 17,000 miles with him throughout the country — our country and — and in — in China, as well.

We were in the Tibetan Plateau. And he turned to me, and he said, “Can you define America for me?” And I — given this has been documented, and it’s real — I looked at him, and I said, “Yes, I can. In one word.” And he looked at me. And he said, “What’s that?” And I said, “Possibilities.” Possibilities.

You say president, you say vice president. You say Russia, you say China. Let’s call the whole thing off.

Biden has reached the stage of life described by Mark Twain. His faculties have decayed to such an extent that he cannot remember any but the things that never happened. This 17,000-mile shtick has been debunked many times. Glenn Kessler devoted one of his Washington Post Fact Checker columns — this one — to it in February 2021. He awarded it 3 Pinocchios.

However, it’s the substance of the story that is most absurd. Biden says it has been “documented.” That means he has told the story many, many times. According to Matt Viser’s 2022 Washington Post story, aides who were with Biden say that they do not recall that exchange. It has been “documented” by his repetition of it.

We can go this far with the story. When Xi observes an Obama or a Biden, he wonders how he can exploit the “possibilities.”

The White House transcript specifies the time of Biden’s remarks at 7:40 P.M. EST. He wound up at 7:44. It was past the guy’s bedtime. Fortunately, the State Dining Room is located in the Executive Residence of the White House. He only had a few pitty-pat steps to go before his head hit the pillow for the evening.

Biden completely malfunctions as he tries — and fails miserably — to read a quote from "the man behind me here" pic.twitter.com/anLx6NEAPx

— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) February 25, 2024

Bibi faces the talking points

(Scott Johnson)

Caroline Glick recommends Margaret Brennan’s interview with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu this morning on Face the Nation as “very important.” In it he faces the Biden administration talking points argued by Sullivan. She does not ask a single question that reflects sympathy with Israel’s ordeal, yet the Jew haters are having their say in the comments at YouTube. I infer that Netanyahu was able to make his own points effectively. CBS has posted the transcript of the interview here.

Sunday morning coming down

(Scott Johnson)

George Harrison was born in Liverpool on this date in 1943. He died on November 29, 2001, in Los Angeles. He added to the beauty of the world as a member of the Beatles and in his subsequent solo career. He also founded HandMade Films to produce Monty Python’s Life of Brian, still funny after all these years. I want to celebrate the anniversary of his birth this morning.

In an interview on the Dick Cavett Show way back when, Harrison was asked about his favorite Beatles songs. As I recall, he said he most enjoyed the Beatles songs with three-part harmonies. He would have contributed the third part on those songs. By my lights he was a talented and ingenious harmony singer. Among the songs he must have been thinking of would be “This Boy,” “Yes It Is,” “I’m Only Sleeping,” and “Because.” Check out the Galeazzo Frudua videos that break down the harmony parts on those songs. George’s contributions are something else.

I thought it might be fun to look back on George’s solo career through lesser known songs on his solo albums over the years 1970-2002. I may have let a hit or two sneak in, but I went in search of deep tracks. If you have a favorite Harrison hit, it won’t be here. My goal is to avoid the hits and see if we can enhance our enjoyment of his legacy along the way. Please accept my apologies in advance for any mistakes in my notes and for ads that may preface the videos. Keep your cursor poised to cut them off.

George’s All Things Must Pass made a huge impact when the Beatles broke up in 1970. You had to make your way over to side three to find “Apple Scruffs.” You can hear the influence of Bob Dylan wedded to the Beatles-style vocal backing that George supplied entirely by himself. This was my favorite track on the album.

George produced the Concert for Bangladesh and the released the related live album in 1971. He didn’t get around to making another solo album until Living in the Material World in 1973. Contrary to the urging of “Don’t Let Me Wait Too Long,” he might have let us wait too long. For some reason or other this track wasn’t released as a single.

George always called on gifted musicians for instrumental backing on his albums. Dark Horse (1974) included work by Nicky Hopkins on piano, Willie Weeks on bass, and a guy named Ringo Starr on drums. They all back George on “So Sad.”

George wrote “Far East Man” with Ronnie Wood. “While the world wages war / It gets harder to see / Who your friends really are.” Tom Scott is on the saxophones, Billy Preston on piano, Willie Weeks on bass, and Andy Newmark on drums.

George kept the albums coming. He released Extra Texture the following year. “You” led off the album and turned into a hit single with sax solos by Jim Horn and Leon Russell on piano. However, we are avoiding the hits in search of buried treasure. “Ooh Baby (You Know That I Love You)” is one of George’s tributes to Smokey Robinson.

In addition to George’s work on guitar, “Tired of Midnight Blue” has Leon Russell on piano and Jim Keltner on drums. This is a most engaging restatement of George’s warning to “beware of Maya.”

George followed up Extra Texture with Thirty Three & 1/3 Third (1975) and included a second tribute to Smokey Robinson (“Pure Smokey”). Listening to the track, I think it’s fair to say once is not enough. George’s solos make the second time around even better. Tom Scott is on the saxes again, Richard Tee on piano, and Willie Weeks on bass.

“Learning How To Love You” closed the album. That’s Richard Tee on keyboards and Willie Weeks on bass. The track was released as the b-side to “This Song.” I think this one belongs in the department of buried treasure.

The self-titled George Harrison was released in 1979. He had originally recorded “Not Guilty” during the Beatles’ sessions for the White Album, but that track remained in the can until it was released on Anthology 3 in 1996. George retrieved the song and rerecorded it for his his self-titled album. Stevie Winwood is on keyboards, Willie Weeks on bass, and Andy Newmark on drums. It’s a beguilingly bitter song.

“Here Comes the Moon” is not to be confused with “Here Comes the Sun.” I think you will enjoy it if you haven’t heard it before. George is on the guitar parts, Stevie Winwood on harmonium and backing vocals, Willie Weeks on bass, and Andy Newmark on drums.

Next came Somewhere In England (1981). George covered Hoagy Carmichael’s “Hong Kong Blues.” You won’t hear it performed by anyone else any time soon.

“Lay His Head” is something of a literal buried treasure. It was one of four songs Warner Bros. rejected for the album, although it was the b-side of “Got My Mind Set On You.” The four songs were deemed insufficiently commercial.

I’m skipping over George’s uninspired Gone Troppo (1982). After a five-year break, George’s Cloud Nine (1987) represented a return to form, as in “That’s What It Takes” (written with Jeff Lynne and Gary Wright). I think that’s Eric Clapton on the guitar solo.

I love the playing on “Fish on the Sand.” That’s George on guitar, Jeff Lynne on bass, and Ringo on drums.

George was working on Brainwashed when he died in 2001. It was posthumously released in 2002. As far as his recordings were concerned, he went out on a high note. “Stuck Inside a Cloud” was released as a promotional single only. If you like George, you’ll love this.

George lovingly covered the Ted Koehler/Harold Arlen classic “Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea.” That’s George on the uke. What a way to go.

Yulia, we hardly knew ya

(Scott Johnson)

Yesterday in San Francisco President Biden held what the White House termed a press gaggle. In the event it seemed more of a gag than a gaggle. This is the White House transcript of his remarks:

Hello, folks. This morning, I had the honor of meeting with Aleksey Navalny’s wife and daughter.

As to state the obvious, he was a man of incredible courage. And it’s amazing how his wife and daughter are — are emulating that. And we’re going to be announcing the sanctions against Putin, who is responsible for his death, tomorrow.

And — but the one thing I’ve made — that was made clear to me is that Yulanda [Yulia] is going to — she’s going to continue to fight (inaudible) the way. So, we’re not letting up.

You say Yulanda, I say Yolanda. Let’s call the whole thing off.

Today, Biden said he "had the honor of meeting with" Alexei Navalny's widow, who he called "Yolanda."

Her name is Yulia. pic.twitter.com/ecBgLtZdn0

— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) February 23, 2024

The Smirnov turnoff

(Scott Johnson)

We are apparently meant to take last week’s indictment of long-time FBI confidential human source Alexander Smirnov as a repudiation of what we have learned about the Biden family business. Smirnov’s indictment was sought by Biden-friendly United States Attorney David Weiss. It is linked in the related Department of Justice press release.

Kim Strassel observes in her weekly Wall Street Journal column: “If th[e allegations are] true, it ought to be massive story that the FBI for 13 years relied on a man who prosecutors now worry has troubling and ‘extensive’ ties to Russian intelligence. Instead, the media in its desire to embarrass Republicans is working to absolve the FBI, with the New York Times explaining the bureau never did ‘think much’ of the Smirnov claims and concluded in 2020 that they ‘did not merit continued investigation.’”

This particular episode of the Biden saga reminds me of the phonetically linked Yakov Smirnoff. Smirnoff is the immigrant comedian who wielded his catchphrase to great effect: What a country! Smirnoff’s catchphrase might qualify as the motto of the entire saga of the Biden family business. Looking around for a photo of Yakov Smirnoff I discovered that Jonathan Turley also drew on Smirnoff’s work in his New York Post column on the indictment.

Peter Schweizer first outlined the Biden family saga based entirely on publicly available documents in Profiles in Corruption (2020). In one of the interviews about the book, Peter observed: “We’re not talking about a congressman who’s trying to get a road paving for his nephew from the federal highway funds…We’re talking about globalized graft and corruption involving actors around the world who don’t particularly have the interests of the United States at heart.”

Yesterday Andrew McCarthy elaborated on “David Weiss’s Very Peculiar Smirnov Indictment in the Biden Case.” He commented: “[N]one of the most critical evidence of Biden-family influence-peddling comes from Smirnov or Russians.”

I sat down intending to demonstrate the irrelevance of the Smirnov indictment in light of the evidence accumulated to date, but Andy has done my job for me this morning in today’s NRO column “The Smirnov Indictment Does Not Vindicate the Bidens.” Subhead: “There is already extensive evidence, having nothing to do with Smirnov, of corrupt Biden-family influence-peddling.” If you can’t see the corruption, you’re not paying attention or you’re not looking. It’s in plain view. Miranda Devine also makes this point in her accessible New York Post column “Despite media spin, there’s still overwhelming evidence Joe Biden knew of family’s business dealings.”

I’m sorry McCarthy’s columns are posted behind NRO’s paywall. I wish some public-spirited benefactor would make a deal with NR’s publisher to extract McCarthy from NRO’s paywall prison. He brings his long experience as a federal prosecutor to bear and is the best columnist out there on matters at the intersection of law and politics.

The Wall Street Journal has posted Mark Kelly’s accessible video below in connection with the appearance of James Biden for deposition by the House Oversight and Judiciary Committees behind closed doors this week (Fox News story here). The caption on the video reads: “The latest revelations in the House Oversight Committee investigation into Biden family business dealings surrounds two checks that landed in Joe Biden’s personal bank account, one for $40,000, the other for $200,000.” As I say, if you can’t see it you’re not looking.

Can we be saved from SAVE?

(Scott Johnson)

The Biden administration has fashioned another program of student debt relief forgiveness. The so-called SAVE plan was promulgated by regulation last year. It takes the load off the fanny of beneficiaries of certain federal college loan programs and puts it right on the back of taxpayers. Politico reports that Biden is emailing 153,000 student loan borrowers that he’s canceling their debt. “I hope this relief gives you a little more breathing room,” the message says.

Those of us who actually pay taxes could use a little breathing room, but there is no breathing room to be found. Suffocation is the order of the day.

President Biden is himself a suffocating demagogue, as in his victory lap in the video below (White House transcript here). We thought the Supreme Court had spared us this particular outrage by its decision last year in Biden v. Nebraska. Apparently the justices needn’t have bothered themselves.

Biden declares that he has discovered a workaround. To the extent that one can understand what he’s saying in the clip below, he strikes a defiant note. He’s unafraid of consequences. He’s daring someone to stop him.

Biden on student loan cancellation: “The Supreme Court blocked it. But that didn't stop me." pic.twitter.com/ZomPnhTU1k

— TheBlaze (@theblaze) February 22, 2024

NRO’s James Lynch has a good story on Biden’s announcement in “Biden Administration Wiping Out another $1.2 Billion in Student-Loan Debt.” Matt Continetti adds up the damage:

On February 21, Biden announced that he was canceling $1.2 billion in federal student loans for 153,000 borrowers. That’s on top of more than $130 billion in student debt that he has canceled to date. The Penn Wharton school says that Biden’s efforts will cost a total of $475 billion over 10 years.

NRO’s Charlie Cooke has posted a cry from the heart expressing his indignation over the unfairness of Biden’s action. In his concluding paragraph, he seems unfairly to blame House Republicans. According to Politico, however, the House actually voted to kill SAVE this past December, but the Senate saved it. Now what?

The regulatory background to the current monstrosity is set forth by Jill Desjean in “ED Releases Final Rule on Latest Income-Driven Repayment Plan.” The final regulation was announced in the Federal Register here last year.

In light of the Supreme Court decision in Biden v. Nebraska, the regulation purports to find authority for the regulation under section 455 of the Higher Education Act than under the HEROES Act. See the “Legal Authority” section of the Federal Register announcement linked above.

What we have here is a monstrosity. James Bovard has an entertaining New York Post column satirizing it, but Bovard has no proposal to kill it. The current monstrosity comes to life this coming July 1. What we need to kill it is a new president to rein in the Education Department, or Republican majorities in both the House and the Senate, or some serious legal analysis on which to premise a challenge to the madness of King Joe.

The Hamas way

(Scott Johnson)

Dan Senor’s most recent Call Me Back podcast features Matti Friedman. Among many other things, Friedman is a former AP Jerusalem bureau staffer. It is his AP experience that prompted him to think through the wide world of sickness that we see in the reaction of the outside world to Israel’s current life-and-death struggle with Hamas. Senor asks good questions and lets the incredibly articulate Friedman speak.

Senor has posted the podcast with this introduction:

Every day we see news accounts “reported” by reputable journalists. There is typically one frame in the post-10/07 War: “Gazan Palestinians are the victims of Israel.” How does this happen? How do journalists actually operate in Gaza and around the world? And is this a window into what had Hamas figured out long before 10/07 — that the forces of barbarism could manipulate the intentional press reaction to their massacre of 10/07? That is why we wanted to sit down with Matti Friedman, who is one of the most thoughtful writers when it comes to all matters related to Israel, the broader Middle East, and also trends in the world of journalism.

He writes regularly for The Free Press and is a regular contributor to The Atlantic. His newest book is called Who by Fire: Leonard Cohen in the Sinai. Before that he published Spies of No Country: Secret Lives at the Birth of Israel, and before that Pumpkinflowers: A Soldier’s Story of a Forgotten War.

Matti’s army service included tours in Lebanon. His work as a reporter has taken him from Israel to Lebanon, Morocco, Moscow, the Caucasus, and Washington, DC. He is a former Associated Press correspondent and essayist for the New York Times opinion section. But it was his time covering Hamas’s takeover of Gaza that led him to study with great detail how Hamas manipulates the media, NGOs and the international community, and how they are working from the same playbook right now, perhaps quite masterfully.

I urge interested readers to check out the podcast below.

Here are the show notes citing Friedman’s work discussed in the podcast (I especially commend Friedman’s 2014 Tablet column linked below):

“The Wisdom of Hamas” — The Free Press.

“What if the Real War in Israel Hasn’t Even Started?” — The Free Press.

“There Is No ‘Israeli-Palestinian Conflict'” — The New York Times.

“An Insider’s Guide to the Most Important Story on Earth” — Tablet Magazine.

“What The Media Gets Wrong About Israel” — The Atlantic.

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