How Long Can DeSantis Take the High Road Against Trump?

The Morning Briefing: How Long Can DeSantis Take the High Road Against Trump?

BY STEPHEN KRUISER

SEE: https://pjmedia.com/columns/stephen-kruiser/2023/07/18/the-morning-briefing-how-long-can-desantis-take-the-high-road-against-trump-n1711288;

Republished below in full unedited for informational, educational, & research purposes.

Top O’ the Briefing

Happy Tuesday, dear Kruiser Morning Briefing friends. Ellendra was forever insisting that her table tennis skills were enhanced by a steady diet of Doritos and kimchi.

There are currently two schools of thought regarding the state of the Republican primary. The first is that Donald Trump has the nomination wrapped up and that everyone else in the running should stop eating takeout meals and go home already.

The other says that polls are stupid, and we really haven’t gotten going yet.

I am fully on board with the latter. Political opinion polls have about as much validity as Hunter Biden’s claims of sobriety. Anyone who is still latching onto them should probably stop mixing Benadryl with box wine.

If the race for the 2024 Republican nomination truly isn’t over yet, then we all know that the only real non-Trump contender is Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis. Let’s be honest here, people: even Asa Hutchinson isn’t voting for Asa Hutchinson.

According to many, DeSantis’s campaign is dead in the water. I don’t agree with that. I think he is still just getting his feet wet on the real national stage. This will be a real race as we get closer to the Iowa caucuses (still a funny word). At least that’s what I believe at the moment. After last year’s Red Trickle, I’m not very convinced that my powers of political prognostication even exist anymore.

DeSantis has, for the most part, taken the high road vs. Trump thus far. Even when he decides to hit Trump directly, he’s rather polite. Matt wrote something yesterday covering DeSantis’s remarks about Iowa Governor Kim Reynolds:

“Governor, you have spent a lot of time with Governor Reynolds, You defended her after President Trump’s recent statements. Would you consider her as a potential vice presidential pick in this campaign?” a reporter asked DeSantis over the weekend.

“Of course,” DeSantis replied. “I mean, she’s one of the top public servants in America. I thought the attacks on her were totally, totally out of hand, and totally unnecessary. We should be thanking good Republican officeholders.”

He continued, “You know, we kind of joke about the Iowa-Florida [competition] — sometimes they do things before us, sometimes we do. But honestly, I want them to do better than us because it’s healthy. When Republicans are doing well, I like that. I don’t get jealous of that. I want to see them do well. And so, they’ve done a great job, and I think she’s been a model public servant, and anybody who’s a Republican that’s trying to denigrate her I think is way off base on that.”

DeSantis is, of course, referring to Trump’s latest tedious loyalty tantrum, when he berated Reynolds for not having endorsed anyone yet in the GOP primary race. These foot-stomping toddler episodes of Trump’s are really wearing on me. If I wanted to vote for a whiny baby, I’d be a Democrat. Calm down, Escalator MAGAs; I’ll still vote for him without hesitation if he’s the nominee. I just wish he’d stop attacking Republicans and maybe focus on the Dems for a while.

Whether DeSantis can effectively get in the mud while battling Trump remains to be seen. He doesn’t shy from confrontation, but his style is vastly different from Trump’s. He’s the boxer while Trump is the street brawler. Boxers can win a lot of fights, but they can also be dropped by one punch from a brawler.

Despite my personal distaste for political polling, it’s clear that DeSantis has some ground to make up if he is going to be the nominee. Should he continue to be gentlemanly with a bit of an edge, or should he start throwing some haymakers at Trump? There’s a lot to be said for him staying in his comfort zone, which allows him to be combative but not be a jerk. Then again, a presidential primary isn’t a cordial affair. Channeling one’s inner jerk is often what’s needed.

It might be time for DeSantis to forgo decorum and start swinging a bit more. Not wildly, but harder. No matter how much he’d like to box, Trump is still going to make it a street fight.

It’s going to be fun to watch.

Biden’s Biology And the lie that abortion is only about the woman’s body.

BY TERENCE P. JEFFREY

SEE: https://www.frontpagemag.com/bidens-biology/;

Republished below in full unedited for informational, educational, & research purposes.

When President Joe Biden issued a proclamation on the last day of February in honor of Women’s History Month, which was then about to commence, he made abortion one of its central themes.

In doing so, he employed a misleading euphemism that has become a common cliche used by pro-abortion politicians: “their own bodies.”

“Last year,” said Biden, “the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, stripping away a constitutional right from the American people and the ability of millions of women to make decisions about their own bodies, putting their health and lives at risk.”

This was not the first time Biden used the term “their own bodies” while advocating for abortion.

Last August, for example, Biden issued a proclamation on Women’s Equality Day, expressing a “commitment” to “protecting women’s rights.”

“This commitment is more important than ever in the wake of the Supreme Court decision to overturn Roe v. Wade and eliminate a woman’s constitutional right to choose,” Biden said.

“As states across the country strip women of their ability to make decisions about their own bodies, families, and futures, my Administration remains dedicated to protecting access to critical reproductive health care, regardless of gender, race, zip code, or income,” he said.

In May 2022, the Senate took up the Women’s Health Protection Act. “This bill,” said its summary, “prohibits governmental restrictions on the provision of, and access to, abortion services.”

All 50 Senate Republicans and Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin voted against ending debate on this bill and thus killed it.

“Republicans in Congress — not one of whom voted for this bill — have chosen to stand in the way of Americans’ rights to make the most personal decisions about their own bodies, families and lives,” Biden said in his response to the vote.

When the Senate was debating the bill, Majority Leader Chuck Schumer echoed Biden’s rhetoric.

“Senate Republicans will face a choice: Either vote to protect the rights of women to exercise freedom over their own bodies or stand with the Supreme Court as 50 years of women’s rights are reduced to rubble before our very eyes,” he said.

Vice President Kamala Harris has also frequently used this same euphemism when discussing the killing of an unborn child.

In May, Harris spoke at a gala for EMILY’s List. On its website, this group says: “We elect Democratic pro-choice women to office.”

“You know, it seems like yesterday, but it was actually a year ago this month when we were all together at this dinner and the Dobbs decision had just been leaked,” Harris said that night. “And there were three words on my mind that night: How dare they.

“How dare they attack our healthcare system,” said Harris. “How dare they attack our fundamental rights. How dare they attack the freedom of the women of America to make decisions about their own bodies.”

Last October, Harris spoke at a Democratic Party event in Texas, where she attacked pro-life political leaders.

“And now, many of these extremist so-called leaders are calling for an abortion ban nationwide. Nationwide,” she said. “They believe government, not women, should make decisions about their own bodies. Well, we do not.”

In September 2021, Harris spoke at a White House “reproductive rights roundtable.” “The president and I are unequivocal in our support of Roe v. Wade and the constitutionality of Roe v. Wade, and the right of women to make decisions for themselves with whomever they choose — about their own bodies,” said Harris. “And, needless to say, the right of women to make decisions about their own bodies is not negotiable. The right of women to make decisions about their own bodies is their decision; it is their body.”

But is it only “their body” that is affected by an abortion?

No. An abortion aborts a human life.

Yes, this human life is carried within the body of the mother, but it is not her own body. It is a separate and unique human being.

The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops has collected a set of statements made in scientific publications indicating that human life begins at the moment of fertilization. One of these comes from Van Nostrand’s Scientific Encyclopedia, published in 1976.

“At the moment the sperm cell of the human male meets the ovum of the female and the union results in a fertilized ovum (zygote), a new life has begun,” says this scientific encyclopedia.

“Zygote. This cell results from the union of an oocyte and a sperm during fertilization,” says the 2003 edition of The Developing Human: Clinically Oriented Embryology. “A zygote is the beginning of a new human being (i.e. embryo).”

Do Biden, Harris, Schumer and other pro-abortion politicians not understand this basic biological fact? Or do they seek to hide it because recognizing it would destroy any argument they could make for legalized abortion — which kills an innocent human life?

Biden himself has made contradictory claims on when human life begins, while maintaining his pro-abortion position. In a 2012 debate with Republican vice presidential candidate Paul Ryan (as this column has noted before), Biden attributed his then-belief that life begins at conception to the Catholic Church — not biological science. “With regard to abortion,” he said, “I accept my church’s position on abortion as what we call a de fide doctrine. Life begins at conception. That’s the church’s judgment. I accept it in my personal life.”

He then said: “I just refuse to impose it on others, unlike my friend here.”

In September 2021, as president, Biden (as Newsweek has reported) expressed the opposite view.

“I respect them — they — those who believe life begins at the moment of conception and all,” Biden said. “I respect that. Don’t agree, but I respect that. I’m not going to impose that on people.”

By constantly shining a light on the irrefutable fact that human life does begin at conception, pro-life political leaders can fully restore this nation’s legal respect for the right to life.

Gutting the Catholic Church with Deep Tongue Kisses

Pope Francis paves the way for an even more radical successor.

BY THOM NICKELS

SEE: https://www.frontpagemag.com/gutting-the-catholic-church-with-deep-tongue-kisses/;

Republished below in full unedited for informational, educational, & research purposes.

In one photo, he’s standing in front of an image of Christ that at first glance looks like a contorted statue of the Buddha. He’s dressed in a skin-tight unflattering pull-over that highlights body flab. Around his neck is a long wooden rosary, a misplaced use of a sacramental.

In other photos, his eyes seem to slant in a locked Machiavellian, snake-in-the-grass stare.

Who is he?

His name is Victor Manuel “Tucho” Fernandez, an Argentine Catholic Archbishop and friend of Pope Francis.

Archbishop Tucho is also a Beat Café style poet, who published ‘Heal Me With Your Mouth: The Art of Kissing,’ a small volume of poetry and prose about the art of open-mouth kissing. (Think: ‘Story of O,’ Terry Southern’s ‘Candy,’ Linda Lovelace in ‘Deep Throat,’ and Allen Ginsberg’s famous line, “This form of life needs sex.”)

“The penetrating kiss is when you suck and slurp with the lips. The penetrating kiss is when you stick in your tongue. Watch out for the teeth,” Tucho writes.

Also from Tucho:

“My boyfriend gets a hard mouth when he kisses me. He hasn’t yet learned how to loosen his lips. Lovely!”

“What I like the most is the kiss of peace at Mass. That was the first kiss with the hottie I have now.”

“I love kissing his fingertips. It gets more affectionate than anything else.”

“I once went crazy with the pleasure I was given from being kissed on the eyes. But I didn’t say this because it’s going to leave me blind.”

Tucho, now referred to as “the kissing archbishop,” says that he wrote his book on kissing to “motivate [young people] to release the best of yourself in a kiss.”

He wanted his young, passionate readers to “kiss better.”

In his little book, he warns of certain pitfalls like bad breath, yet he refrains from suggesting a particular brand of mouthwash.

Clever poet that he is, he refers to kissing as “a thermometer of love.”

Surf the Web and you’ll find, as I did, articles on how to kiss if and when you travel to Argentina. Argentines, we are told, kiss on one cheek unlike the double-cheek Europeans, and the triple-kiss Russians.

“In Argentina, it is customary to give certain people a beso, or kiss, on the right cheek when you say hello or goodbye. If you are not expecting this to happen, or don’t know that it is a thing down here, you will definitely be caught off guard the first couple of times that it happens,” one tourist guide warns.

This in no way it meant to suggest that the country of Eva Peron is all about kissing.

In 1970, the New York Times published a piece, “Militant Leftist Priests Troubling Church and State in Argentina.”

“…The Government is concerned that a bloc of leftist Argentine priests and bishops have become a militant political force in national affairs, including labor strikes, demonstrations and violence,” the Times stated.

In addition, a state security official was quoted as saying that, apart from Communist guerrillas and terrorists involving Peronists in bed with Marxists, “the greatest threat by far facing Argentina today was the militant leftist priesthood.”

Tucho, for instance, who has just been appointed by Pope Francis to head the Vatican’s Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, is no gun-carrying leftist, but he was Francis’ ghost writer for Amoris Laetitia, a 2016 exhortation on love that seems to suggest that sexual morality can change over time (just as kisses can change from surface pecks to deep mouth explorations).

Tucho was rector of the faculty of theology of the Catholic University of Argentina from 2009 to 2018.

He was made Archbishop of La Plata, known as the capital city of the Buenos Aries Province, in 2018.

As Archbishop of La Plata, the prelate put his kisses aside when he issued two successive decrees in 2018 that heavily restricted the use of the Traditional rite of the Mass, despite Pope Benedict XVI’s freeing up of the old rite in 2007 in Motu Proprio Summorum Pontificum.

Francis himself, as archbishop of Buenos Aries, did everything he could to suppress the old rite while supporting puppet Masses and sexy Tango Masses (sans kisses).

When it comes to dancing and popes, however, Saint Pope Pius X (1835-1914) always maintained that the Argentine Tango was a boring dance made for slaves. He also believed that it was off-limits for Catholics.

News of Pope Francis’ appointment of Tucho as the guardian of Catholic orthodoxy sent shockwaves throughout the Catholic world.

The controversy certainly put Tucho on the defensive.

“They refer to a book of mine that no longer exists, that talked about kissing,” the archbishop wrote on his Facebook page.

“I was inspired by a phrase from the time of the Church Fathers that said incarnation was like a kiss from God to humanity.

“At the time I was very young, I was a pastor and I was trying to reach the young. So it occurred to me to write a catechesis for teens based on what kissing means. I wrote this catechesis with the participation of a group of young people who gave me ideas, phrases, poems etc.,” the archbishop added.

Sounding somewhat like William Burroughs in ‘Naked Lunch,’ Tucho added that he wanted to warn young people that “love is in danger” when they have sexual intercourse without kissing.

You can’t just seduce waitresses by slamming them up against a wall like Neal Cassidy and Jack Kerouac did in “On the Road.”

All of this might be fine advice coming from an artist or a poet who doesn’t also claim to be a successor of the apostles.

When Pope Francis was taken to the hospital in early June for abdominal surgery, traditionalist Catholic commentators were quick to write and talk about the pope’s health, urging audiences to pray for him, the successor of Saint Peter, “even if you think he’s a heretic.”

Yet underneath this plea for prayer one felt a certain hopeful ‘something’: could these be the last hours of a pope whom many say has done more to harm the Church than any pope in 1,000 years?

Is this terrible pontificate finally—finally– coming to an end?

When photographs of a noticeably (post-hospital) weakened Francis surfaced, some wondered if the pontiff had been through a ‘purgatorial transition’ in which his globalist transgressions had finally been revealed to him by the Holy Spirit.

Had he had a “blinding light” conversion like Saul of Tarsus?

Would he retract his suppression of the Latin Mass?

Would he rebuke his obsession with the Synodal Path of the German Church and its encroachment into the Universal Church?

To have such hopes is like wishing speeding bullets would stop in midair and descend to earth like punctured hot air balloons.

Francis, abdominal sutures still in place, accelerated his globalist vision with an attack on Bishop Joseph E. Strickland of the Diocese of Tyler, Texas.

Bishop Strickland, a conservative firebrand who once accused Pope Francis of “undermining the Deposit of the Faith,” was the subject of a Vatican investigation a few weeks ago. These investigations, called Apostolic Visitations, usually don’t fare well for the one being investigated.

As the Catholic News Agency reported,

“News of the inquiry into Strickland comes following his participation in a Eucharistic procession and prayer rally in Los Angeles on June 16, organized to protest Major League Baseball’s Los Angeles Dodgers for honoring an anti-Catholic drag group at the team’s annual Pride Night game.”

Then, in a rush against time (and ill-health), Francis appointed 21 new cardinals, prelates in total alignment with his woke theological and Synodal Path obsessions, all but guaranteeing that the next pope will be something of a mega-Francis.

Francis’ revolution, as one Catholic observer noted, is an “unending revolution world without end.”

Among Francis’ picks for the red hat in October, will be the kissing Tucho archbishop who says that when we kiss we should “Watch out for the teeth.”

In the meantime, this disastrous pontificate rolls on its merry way, expelling faithful priests who offer the traditional mass, and promoting fake Catholic (criminal) families like the Biden’s in Washington.

“Ten years after that catastrophic vote [to elect him] in the Sistine Chapel,” writes Vatican observer Damian Thompson, “We have reached a moment of extreme crisis in the life of the Church.

He continues:

“Francis is tightening his control of the Vatican’s machinery, with no plans to retire. A new pope would have been nice—a couple of years ago. Now I think it’s too late. The Church may never recover its moral authority.”

Muslim Mobs Get a Pass for Assaulting Jews in NYC and LA

Attackers get off with no prison time and anti-bias training.

BY DANIEL GREENFIELD

SEE: https://www.frontpagemag.com/muslim-mobs-get-a-pass-for-assaulting-jews-in-nyc-and-la/;

Republished below in full unedited for informational, educational, & research purposes.

In May 2021, Joseph Borgen was violently assaulted by a Muslim mob while walking down the street in midtown Manhattan in the vicinity of an anti-Israel rally. The Jewish man was kicked, punched, pepper sprayed, beaten with a metal object, and ended up in the hospital.

Borgen was taunted as a “dirty Jew” and the assault was caught on video. “They were kicking me in my ribs, my stomach,” he described.

Waseem Awawdeh, the best-known of the attackers, was out two days later. Even after Awawdeh reportedly told prison guards, “If I could do it again, I would do it again”, Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg offered him a plea deal of only six months in prison. After public outrage, including protests and condemnations by elected officials,  it was raised to eighteen months.

Faisal Elezzi, another of the attackers, got off with probation and an obligation to complete “anti-bias programming”.

That same month in Los Angeles, a pro-terrorist Muslim convoy was driving down the street near the Jewish neighborhood of Fairfax and began harassing outdoor diners at a sushi place. Members of the Muslim mob waved a PLO terror flag, demanded to know who at the restaurant was Jewish, and witnesses said chanted, “death to the Jews” and “free Palestine”.

The Muslim attackers reportedly punched, kicked, threw bottles and pepper sprayed their targets who were members of the Persian Jewish community who had fled Islamic violence in Iran.

Samer Jayylusi and Xavier Pabon were arrested and immediately released on bail. They have since been sentenced to probation and ordered to visit a Holocaust museum.

The assaults in Manhattan and Los Angeles went viral. Videos of Muslim mobs attacking Jews made their way around the country and the world. They ended up appearing in national news stories. And yet most of those suspects got off with a slap on the wrist and diversity training.

“We take these cases extraordinarily seriously. That sort of hate has no place in Manhattan,” Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg had claimed.

“A hate crime is a crime against all of us,” Los Angeles DA George Gascon had promised, referring to the case. “My office is committed to doing all we can to make Los Angeles County a place where our diversity is embraced and protected.”

Both district attorneys have been linked to the pro-crime progressive prosecutor networks championed by George Soros as well as other leftist billionaires. And their promises of justice evaporated into consequences that could barely qualify as a slap on the wrist.

Of the four defendants sentenced so far in these four cases, whose sentences are known, three received probation and anti-bias classes. 75% of the perpetrators in these Muslim mobs may have spent only a few days in prison and have walked away with nothing except some classes.

The message that has been sent by DA Alvin Bragg, DA George Gascon, and Judge Laura F Priver of the California Superior Court is that Muslim attacks on Jews will go unpunished. According to reports, Judge Priver thought that “counseling and Museum of Tolerance program was a better solution than sending the two to state prison as the prosecution had requested.”

While these two Muslim mob attacks on Jews caught the attention of the world, there have been individual assaults that have gone unnoticed and mostly unpunished.

Also in 2021, Suleiman Othman accosted Blake Zavadsky in a Brooklyn neighborhood with a sizable Jewish and Muslim presence and demanded, “Why do you support those dirty Jews? What are you doing in my neighborhood?”  Othman then assaulted the Jewish man.

“The hateful and unprovoked assault this defendant admitted to today left one victim hurt, but also shook an entire community,” District Attorney Eric Gonzalez declared. “His conviction, jail time, and probation should send a message that this kind of intolerance has serious consequences.”

In reality, Othman was offered a six-month plea deal and when he turned that down, got only 60 days in prison and probation.

DA Gonzalez, like Bragg and Gascon, is a pro-crime prosecutor who ran on a platform of reducing incarceration. He’s a member of pro-crime organizations like the Soros-funded Fair and Just Prosecution alliance of prosecutors who commit to giving criminals a pass.

Gonzalez’s office had previously resisted filling hate crime charges against Farrukh Afzal, a Muslim cab driver who tried to run over a Jewish man, then after failing to hit him, got out and assaulted a second Jewish man, Rabbi Lipa Schwartz, 62, while shouting, “Allah, Allah” and declaring that he wanted to “kill all Jews”.

The Pakistani Muslim severely beat the rabbi who had been on the way to synagogue for morning prayers. He shoved him to the ground and repeatedly hit him in the head. When another Jewish man attempted to intervene, Afzal attacked him too, until he was finally restrained.

The DA’s office had attempted to dismiss it as a road rage incident with no hate crime element to it even though Afzal had eight prior arrests. Eventually, he was convicted, but not of hate crimes, and while he was supposed to have been sentenced, there is no word on the outcome. No records appear for anyone by that name in the city system while the state system shows a man by that name who committed assault had a parole interview date last year.

Antisemitic attacks are routinely greeted by promises that they are being taken very seriously followed by the offenders quietly getting a slap on the wrist. Millions watched videos or read news stories about the violent Muslim mob attacks in New York City and Los Angeles. Only thousands are aware that most of the perpetrators walked away with anti-bias classes.

Pro-crime DAs like Bragg, Gonzalez, and Gascon claim to take ‘hate’ very seriously, while remaining committed to a criminal justice reform movement that rewards criminals.

It is difficult to know to what extent the slaps on the wrist for Muslim mob attacks on Jews are due to sympathy for the ideological antisemitic motives of the perpetrators or a general belief that violent criminals should be coddled rather than locked up. But to the victims it really doesn’t make much of a difference. The targets of Muslim antisemitic violence may be collateral damage in a pro-crime movement or leftist solidarity with terror supporters.

But the message to both Muslim mobs and the Jewish community is abundantly clear.

In the two cities with some of the largest Jewish populations in the country, Jews are fair game. Muslim thugs have little to fear from the legal system when they attack Jews except for a few days in prison and a visit to a Holocaust museum.

The Squad Will Boycott Israeli President Herzog’s Speech to Congress

'Created a monster': Democrats torched for repeated attacks on Israel

Civil rights attorney Leo Terrell reacts to Rep. Pramila Jayapal calling Israel a 'racist state' on 'America Reports.'

BY HUGH FITZGERALD

SEE: https://www.jihadwatch.org/2023/07/the-squad-will-boycott-israeli-president-herzogs-speech-to-congress;

Republished below in full unedited for informational, educational, & research purposes.

Nothing says “I support free speech” like refusing to listen to what someone has to say, covering your ears and condemning him before he’s uttered a syllable. Ilhan Omar has in her characteristically blustering way announced that “there is no way in hell” that she will sit still to listen to Israeli President Isaac Herzog, a well-known moderate, address a joint session of Congress on July 19. She has now been joined by three other members of The Squad – Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Jamaal Bowman, and Cori Bush – who have announced that they will go and do likewise. And any moment now, we can expect other members of The Squad, including Ilhan’s fellow Muslim and BFF Rashida Tlaib, as well as Betty McCollum, to announce that they, too, will join the boycott. By the time the dust has settled, perhaps as many as ten members of Congress, out of a total of 535 (100 Senators, 435 Representatives) will refuse to listen to President Herzog. More on this latest demonstration by The Squad of its deep anti-Israel animus can be found here: “More ‘Squad’ Democrats join Omar-led boycott of Herzog congressional address,” by Jacob Magid, Times of Israel, July 14, 2023:

Three US lawmakers said they planned to boycott Israeli President Isaac Herzog’s speech to a joint session of Congress next week, joining a colleague who scoffed that there was “no way in hell” she would attend.

Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Jamaal Bowman and Cori Bush‘s offices each confirmed that they would not be attending the July 19 speech, backing Rep. Ilhan Omar, who was the first to make such a decision on Wednesday.

All four lawmakers are part of the so-called Squad of progressive Democrats and additional members of the eight-member group are expected to follow suit.

The four other members of The Squad are Rashida Tlaib of Michigan, Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts, Summer Lee of Pennsylvania, and Greg Casar of Texas. Tlaib will certainly join the boycott. Pressley, however, has recently been sending mixed signals on her view of Israel, voting against funding the Iron Dome project, but more recently condemning the Mapping Project of pro-Palestinian activists, a website that claims to show the ties between various Massachusetts institutions and “support for the colonization of Palestine.” Summer Lee, who narrowly won the Democratic primary in Pennsylvania’s 12th Congressional district, thereby ensuring her election to Congress, may worry about a primary challenge in 2024 and decide to mute her anti-Israel image by attending Herzog’s speech. Greg Casar, though on domestic issues he has agreed with The Squad, has supported “U.S. aid for Israel’s self-defense” and opposes the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement. It is unlikely that he will boycott Herzog’s speech.

Few others are expected to blackball Herzog, whose figurehead role and ties to Israel’s peace camp make him a far less divisive figure than many other Israeli leaders, such as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Bowman was the only lawmaker of the three latest additions to the list who offered comment on his decision, telling the right-wing newspaper Epoch Times that “I don’t think Israel has gone far enough in protecting and uplifting Palestinian rights and Palestinian lives.”…

Israel supplies the Palestinians, both in Gaza and the West Bank, with electricity and water. It also provides them with a total of 125,000 work permits (20,000 for Gaza, 100,000 for the West Bank), so that Palestinians in both Gaza and the West Bank can work in Israel and earn salaries three to ten times larger – depending on the job — than what they would earn at home. It is not Israel that has the responsibility for “protecting and uplifting Palestinian rights,” but rather, Hamas in Gaza and the PA in Judea and Samaria, both of which are cruel despotisms that cannot be dislodged democratically from power.

Perhaps Jamaal Bowman is thinking not of the Palestinians, but of the Israeli Arabs. He needn’t worry about their “rights.” They have the same rights as Israeli Jews. Arabs serve in the Knesset, sit on the Supreme Court, go abroad as ambassadors. The chairman of Israel’s largest bank, Bank Leumi, is an Arab. Jews and Arabs work in the same offices and factories, play on the same sports teams and in the same orchestras, attend the same universities and professional schools, and go into business together, in everything from restaurants to high tech start-ups. The only difference in their treatment is that Jews must, while Israeli Arabs may, serve in the military. Can Jamaal Bowman really not know any of this?

In her post on Wednesday [July 12], Omar wrote, “There is no way in hell I am attending.”
“We should not be inviting the president of Israel — a government who under its current prime minister barred the first two Muslim women elected to Congress from visiting the country — to give a joint address to Congress,” Omar tweeted in all caps, noting that a 2019 ban had meant fellow Muslim congresswoman Rashida Tlaib was unable to visit her grandmother who lives in the West Bank….

Surely Omar is well aware that Herzog is very different in his outlook than Netanyahu, whom he opposes on a number of issues, including judicial reform, and that he had nothing to do with the ban on Omar and Tlaib entering Israel. But she’s determined not to make such distinctions; collective punishment of Israelis is her stock in trade.

Ilhan Omar is against all Israeli Jews, of all political persuasions, save possibly for the farthest left members of the Meretz Party, who are eager to help the Palestinians squeeze Israel back within the indefensible 1949 armistice lines in order to obtain a specious “peace.”

At the same time, the hardline nature of the current coalition is sure to make it easier for other progressive lawmakers to follow Omar’s lead.

Why are these people called “progressive”? There is nothing “progressive” — a word with positive connotations – about them. Are they not better identified as “fascistic” in their methods? Do you doubt that they would silence, if they could, all pro-Israel voices, with a vindictive thud reminiscent of Mussolini’s Black Shirts permanently silencing – with a bullet – Giacomo Matteotti?

Even if every one of those eight members of the Squad decided to stay away from Herzog’s speech, and even if two more Congressmen were to join them, that would mean a total of ten members of Congress, out of a total of 535, would have boycotted Herzog’s speech. That’s less than 2%. Nothing for Ilhan Omar (D-Mogadishu) or Rashida Tlaib (D-Ramallah) to write home about.

The Secret Service Knows Who Brought the Cocaine to the White House, Says Bongino

The Secret Service Knows Who Brought the Cocaine to the White House, Says Bongino

BY MATT MARGOLIS

SEE: https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/matt-margolis/2023/07/17/the-secret-service-knows-who-brought-the-cocaine-to-the-white-house-says-bongino-n1711193;

Republished below in full unedited for informational, educational, & research purposes.

The White House may be trying desperately to put Cocainegate behind them, but this story may not go away anytime soon. The signs of a cover-up are everywhere, and responsible journalists aren’t going to take the White House narrative seriously. Why should they? Not only did the story change multiple times as to where the cocaine was, but at first, there was an effort to claim that it was a nasal spray that was found.

Meanwhile, the White House is now trying to convince the public that it is impossible to determine who brought the cocaine into the White House, because no cameras caught it, and no fingerprints or DNA was found on the package. If those aren’t red flags for a cover-up, I don’t know what is.

The question is, will honest people on the inside do or say anything about it?

According to Dan Bongino, who was a Secret Service agent, his former colleagues in the Secret Service are furious, and they know exactly who brought the cocaine into the White House.

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“So there’s probably less than 200 people who could have left this cocaine, by the way, in a bag which is plastic, which is non-porous, meaning it’s probably not that hard to pull a latent print. They’ve got to know who did it. The question is, who’s pressuring them to not find out who did it? And it’s gotta be coming from this White House. This is terrible. Don’t destroy this agency like the FBI. It’s really unbecoming,” Bongino said. “A lot of my former colleagues at the Secret Service who retired, they are absolutely furious about this. Oh yeah, yeah, I can tell you, I got 50 emails, communications, and texts from people. ‘This is embarrassing, humiliating.’ These are good guys, man, guys who worked for Obama and Bush, non-partisan guys, most of them aren’t even political. This is embarrassing. They know exactly who it was.”

Bongino added that the simplest explanation is likely the truth.

“I’m in the Secret Service for 12 years, a good amount of time. We never had this problem. So nobody, by Occam’s razor, right, the process of deduction, keeps it simple stupid, Occam’s razor. You’ve got this guy. We never found coke in there before. You’ve got a dude who’s doing coke on tape, who’s got a reputation for being a coke addict. He’s living in the White House. He’s there on Friday. The coke’s found there on Sunday, and everybody is like, ‘Gosh, who could it be.'”

If Bongino is correct in claiming that the culprit is known, one can’t help but wonder how long the truth can be kept a secret.