More evidence of the depressing increase in political polarization and hatred
I had a friend about fifteen years ago, we’ll call her Marjorie. We were fairly good friends for about seven years, and then we both moved away and ended up living over an hour from each other and the friendship slowly faded. We haven’t communicated now in a couple of years, but I still have access to her Facebook page even though I’m not active on Facebook.
When we were friends, I knew that she was a liberal Democrat (I wouldn’t ever have called her a leftist) and she knew I was on the right. It was never an issue between us, and although we sometimes discussed politics we didn’t do so often, and we never argued. It was one of those “agree to disagree” things, for the most part. Our friendship was based on other commonalities.
To the best of my recollection, we still were in touch during the Trump years, although not often. But it was just the natural attrition caused by time and distance. Every now and then I’d check her Facebook page and see what she was doing: her kids and grandkids and travels and garden and that sort of innocuous, pleasant stuff. Did she ever post anything political? I don’t recall seeing anything at all, but if I did it was of a mild sort.
But a little while ago I saw that she’d recently posted the following text, which apparently first started circulating back in 2022. I reproduce the whole thing here for you; the original had a different last sentence (which you can find at the link):
Dear Republican Party: You sold your soul. You used to stand for patriotism but sold your soul to a traitor who conspired with an enemy to destroy our democracy.
You used to stand for our armed forces but sold your soul to a draft dodger who mocked their courage and sacrifice.
You used to stand for hardworking Americans but sold your soul to a con man who made his fortune by cheating them.
You used to stand for the American dream but sold your soul to a racist who traded the Statue of Liberty for walls and cages while praising the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers.
You used to stand for family values but sold your soul to a predator who betrayed all three of his wives.
You used to stand for Jesus but sold your soul to a wolf in sheep’s clothing who has made a mockery of Christianity.
Currently under investigation for tax fraud, voter fraud, insurrection and violation of the Espionage Act, you continue to defend his lies. Whatever he paid you for your soul, I hope it was worth it. But knowing him, you’re probably still waiting for your check.
I’m not even going to bother fisking the supposed facts in the message; the falsehood of so many of them isn’t why I’m spotlighting this. I am more amazed at the fact that this previously mild-mannered and non-vitriolic person saw fit to post it with approval, as though excoriating half her fellow Americans for losing their souls to what amounts to a devil seemed an appropriate thing for her to do. I assume that she has no current friends on the right (I wouldn’t count, since we haven’t been in touch at all for four years or so).
It’s chilling because she used to be tolerant of other points of view, and it wasn’t all that long ago, and to the best of my recollection even included some of the Trump years. Her posting this makes me very sad, because it means either that she knows no one anymore who is a Republican and/or that she has no problem publicly insulting her Republican friends and acquaintances and relatives.
This behavior is very different from that of the person I used to know. But this post is not really about Marjorie. It’s that I think she’s emblematic of a great many other people. Something – and I believe it’s been the unremitting propaganda from the left, mostly based on lies but apparently very persuasive – has accomplished the transformative task.
Attempted juror bribery in Minnesota
Here are the circumstances:
A juror in a huge pandemic fraud trial reports receiving a bag full of $120,000 with a promise of more where that came from if she acquits seven defendants who allegedly stole $40 million from a fund created to feed poor children during the pandemic.
The seven defendants are part of a huge federal criminal complaint alleging that 70 individuals stole more than $250 million of pandemic relief funds.
“This is completely beyond the pale,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Joseph Thompson said in court on Monday. “This is outrageous behavior. This is stuff that happens in mob movies.”
The case is in Minnesota, and the 7 accused individuals were part of agencies such as “Feeding Our Future.” More here:
Defense attorneys called the attempted bribery “un-American,” “very troubling,” “horrific” and “unprecedented,” but they had argued against detaining the defendants, none of whom have been in custody since the start of 2023. One has a GPS ankle monitoring device.
Brasel said they will be detained until investigators can figure out if one of them leaked the list. Defendants and their family members watching in the gallery cried and hugged as U.S. Marshals escorted the defendants out.
Brasel said the jurors are concerned about their families’ safety and the juror whose home was approached is terrified. “The juror remains at risk for retaliation,” she said.
The mysterious bagwoman said there would be a similar payoff if the juror voted for acquittal, but instead the juror turned the money in to authorities.
The first article I quoted doesn’t mention some salient facts in the case, and the second article I quoted doesn’t mention it until paragraph fourteen, but here’s what I’m talking about:
Said Shafii Farah, Abdiaziz Shafii Farah, Mohamed Jama Ismail, Abdimajid Mohamed Nur, Abdiwahab Maalim Aftin, Mukhtar Mohamed Shariff and Hayat Mohamed Nur were charged in 2022 with wire fraud, money laundering and other charges. They have connections to a Shakopee restaurant, Empire Cuisine & Market.
Shakopee is a suburb of Minneapolis-St. Paul. Even back in 2017, when this article was published, it had a significant and growing Somali population, and I’m going to assume these seven defendant are members of that demographic.
The defendants allegedly hauled in quite a bit of money:
The six men and one woman received more than $40 million for 18 million meals distributed at 50 food sites across Minnesota — from Rochester to St. Cloud — in 2020 and 2021. Prosecutors allege about 10% of that money was spent on food and defendants ran a “brazen” fraud scheme that created numerous shell companies to launder money, submitted rosters of made-up children’s names and inflated meal claims.
Prosecutors also say some of the defendants gave kickbacks to other people in the scheme disguised as consulting fees, leading to bribery charges. They said defendants spent the money on themselves, including a $1 million lakefront Prior Lake property, luxury cars and gold jewelry.
Your pandemic funds, hard at work.
Israel announces the death of four hostages
Three are elderly men and one middle-aged. The announcement is somewhat mysterious:
The Israel Defense Forces announced on Monday that it had confirmed the deaths of four Israeli hostages in Hamas captivity, following the gathering of new intelligence findings.
IDF spokesman Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari said in a press briefing that the military could not immediately confirm the circumstances of the deaths of Chaim Peri, 79, Amiram Cooper, 84, Yoram Metzger, 80, and Nadav Popplewell, 51, but that it would investigate their deaths fully.
“We estimate that the four were killed together, in the Khan Younis area, several months ago, while being held by Hamas terrorists and while IDF forces were operating in Khan Younis,” he said.
“I know that difficult questions will arise regarding the circumstances of the deaths,” Hagari added, appearing to reference the possibility that the four had been mistakenly killed by IDF troops or Israeli airstrikes.
It is unclear whether the IDF discovered the bodies and whether part of the investigation will involve forensics on the bodies, or whether the intelligence has been gathered from captured Hamas operatives or from other informants. Three of the men were in a video released in December and the other in May. Hamas claimed the three were killed in an Israeli strike. That could actually be true, and if so it would be squarely on the shoulders of Hamas. Or it could be a false claim by Hamas. There is no way to get the truth from them; that’s why Israel is trying to figure it out. I wish them luck with that.
Hamas’ kidnapping of the hostages on October 7 set this all up, and it was obvious (or should have been) from the start why they did it and what their plan would be regarding them. The precedent set long ago by Israel was to release an enormous number of terrorists for one hostage, thus guaranteeing the taking of more hostages. Hamas scored a great coup on October 7 by taking so many, and in particular the children, the elderly, and the women.
This was guaranteed to create the maximum pressure on Israel to do anything, anything, to get them back. The hostages were Hamas’ insurance policy against being obliterated by Israel – that, and “international opinion” and “international law,” which would inevitably side with Gaza.
Once a person is under the control of kidnappers, all bets are off. The person can be tortured, raped, and/or killed at the kidnappers’ will. The kidnapper can hold out for a very high ranson price. In the case of Hamas, we don’t even have proof of life for the hostages, since even the very few who have been in videos are not holding recent newspapers, for example. Hamas is drunk with its own sadistic power, and knows the extreme value of its captives. It is willing to squeeze the last drop of agony out of the situation for the families, the Israeli government, and Israel’s sympathizers.
And many in Israel are cooperating by blaming the Israeli government for not doing enough – that is, for not utterly capitulating, or not waving a magic wand that causes the hostages to come home.
I can’t locate it at the moment, but I recall Caroline Glick saying in a video that there are actually more families of hostages who are saying to Israel’s government to not make any deal that would compromise the war effort than who are demonstrating to the government to free them at any cost. But that latter group is making the most noise and getting the most media coverage. And how can we blame that group, when their loved ones continue to be in such terrible peril? I can’t blame the families, even though I think that were the government to actually do what they say it would be disastrous. But they are suffering to an almost unimaginable degree, and their desire to have their loved ones rescued overrides everything.
How many hostages do I think are still alive? I think probably at least thirty, mainly young women who have been kept as sex slaves. Perhaps some men are alive, too, but nowhere near as many. However – and I think this is an important thing to remember – I don’t know that we’ll ever see many or even any of them again alive (or even dead), no matter what kind of “deal” may eventually be made. Since we don’t know who’s alive and who’s dead of the ninety or so hostages about whom Israel still has little to no information,, Hamas can do whatever it wants with them or with their living or dead bodies. Hamas has total power in terms of the hostages – including the withholding of information, the better to torment Israel and the families ever more exquisitely.
Open thread 6/4/24
Fisking Biden’s “peace deal” speech
A very depressing and yet insightful podcast from Caroline Glick:
And from her sister Bonnie Glick, we have this article. Here’s an excerpt that reminds us that something similar had come through a different source a few weeks earlier:
Out of thin air, on May 6 Hamas agreed to the ceasefire terms. Only, what actually happened was that the terms they agreed to were not the negotiated terms that the US, Qatar, and Israel had seen. Indeed, Egypt edited the ceasefire terms in such a way that Hamas would get a “win” and say they accepted the terms, but the terms, as edited, were outrageous.
Here’s the heart of Bonnie Glick’s essay:
Egypt built a formidable border wall, something Donald Trump could not even imagine in a fever dream for America. It is impenetrable, militarized, and closely guarded with Egyptian troops and security forces. The way through it for Gazans seeking to get out of Gaza? Baksheesh. Upwards of $5,000 per person. It has also been a gateway for international aid and smuggling into Gaza resulting in over $88 million in profit to the holder of the border keys.
The holder of those keys is a Bedouin tribal leader named Ibrahim al-Organi, now the wealthiest man in northern Sinai. But how could an ex-con smuggler rise to a position of border control prince? Through connections to the Egyptian government, Organi has cultivated extremely close ties with Egyptian President al-Sisi, and more significantly, with al-Sisi’s son, Mahmoud. General Mahmoud al-Sisi is the Deputy Chief of Egyptian intelligence and he sits on Organi’s board.
Here’s another good discussion of the Biden forces’ unilateral declaration of a peace plan:
Some people disagree with much of this. One is David Horovitz (note the “v” rather than the “w”). His piece is extremely convoluted in its reasoning and he practically ties himself in knots trying to express what he’s saying, but here’s the headline and subtitle: “Biden’s fateful, carefully timed, and highly complex challenge to Netanyahu and Hamas: It seems the PM is being asked to choose between his own interests and Israel’s, while Hamas is urged to consent to its own demise. But maybe there’s a more limited US game plan.” That’s a mouthful, but I think this is the gist of it:
All of the above brings us to the possibility — I stress, the possibility — that Biden himself and his team do not actually envisage the Israeli proposal playing out as specified, and are in fact seeking more immediate goals with only a vaguer hope of long-term fateful change.
The Israel-Hamas conflict is a zero-sum game: Israel wants to destroy Hamas; Hamas wants to survive and get back to destroying Israel. Neither side will agree to terms that definitively thwart its core goals.
By extension, therefore, complete clarity from Biden would have doomed the deal he is more realistically trying to achieve — which may be for the implementation of the first phase, but perhaps only the first phase, of a hostage-truce agreement.
That way, at least many of the living hostages get to come home from Hamas captivity.
That way, just possibly, too, a modicum of calm is restored at Israel’s northern border.
That way, more humanitarian aid enters Gaza. Global hostility to Israel recedes at least a little. Smotrich and Ben Gvir leave the coalition and Gantz stays. All good news from the Biden administration’s point of view and, it believes, from Israel’s too.
Even this more limited process does not obviate the danger of Hamas securing the release, early in phase one, of extremely dangerous terror chiefs into the West Bank, a marked escalation of terror from that front, and Hamas terminating the deal early, with very few hostages released.
Ya think? In other words, the whole thing is absurd. We don’t even know how many living hostages there are, and Israel is supposed to negotiate for “players to be named later”? And give up hundreds and hundreds of terrorist/murderers in the bargain? And stop fighting? And do Biden or Obama or Blinken et al actually think Hezbollah will stop the pressure on Israel for more than a short while (if that) in order to fool the world into thinking something has changed? The whole proposal is sickening, and sickeningly cynical, even as an idea.
At the mention of Lebanon I’m reminded of something else that Biden said when he debated Sarah Palin back in 2008, in the good old days when he possessed whatever faculties he had at his best. To refresh your memory:
Said Biden of the Bush administration’s supposed Middle East follies:
“When … along with France, we kicked Hezbollah out of Lebanon, I said and Barack said, ‘Move NATO forces in there. Fill the vacuum, because if you don’t, Hezbollah will control it.”
Huh?
Assuming that Biden was referring to when, in 2005, American and French pressure helped the Lebanese people kick Syrian troops out of Lebanon, who ever thought NATO occupation of that deeply divided country was a good idea?
As if America’s NATO allies would have gone in the first place.
But hey, as long as it makes Biden sound presidential.
After that debate, the MSM praised Biden’s horse manure to the skies. They’re still doing it.
A tiny pause
I usually finish my posting in the late afternoon, barring important breaking news. Today, though, I have some commitments for the next few hours and plan to post more in the evening.
Roundup
There’s really too much news these days to cover fairly, even in a roundup. But here’s some of it:
(1) One less hostage body for Hamas to use as a cynical bargaining chip; one more Israeli dead on 10/7. RIP.
Dolev Yehud was a paramedic and was murdered by Hamas during the October 7 massacre, when he left his house in order to try to save lives. His body was located in Kibbutz Nir Oz.
Following an identification process that was carried out by medical officials from the National… pic.twitter.com/91bJTY6bvS
— Israel Defense Forces (@IDF) June 3, 2024
(2) Biden, that stalwart democracy defender, is readying an executive order about people entering over the southern border and claiming asylum. If I”m not mistaken, this is the sort of thing he said he couldn’t do without Congress, but that was a ploy to be able to label the GOP members of Congress as not cooperating with limiting the flow of people across the border. The AP covers this with an article headlined: “Biden prepares a tough executive order that would shut down asylum after 2,500 migrants arrive a day.” Biden, so “tough” on those “migrants.” This is obviously announced that way with a keen eye to the 2024 election and anger at Biden’s previous policy on illegal aliens. The order concerns those claiming asylum only, which as far as I know used to be a fairly small percentage of entrants across the southern border but in recent years is claimed by just about everyone who is apprehended coming in that way. The rules for asylum have relaxed, and the courts are so overwhelmed that claimants can be here years before their cases are heard (if they appear at all at that point).
(3) The pandemic was big business not just for the pharmaceutical companies, which one would expect, but also for the NIH:
New data from the National Institutes of Health reveal the agency and its scientists collected $710 million in royalties during the pandemic, from late 2021 through 2023. These are payments made by private companies, like pharmaceuticals, to license medical innovations from government scientists.
Almost all that cash — $690 million — went to the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, the subagency led by Dr. Anthony Fauci, and 260 of its scientists.
This was double the amount typical of pre-COVID times.
And there’s also this.
(4) The Hunter Biden gun trial is in the jury selection phase. Note that Hunter is being tried for something that has nothing to do with Joe. Note that he is being tried in Delaware, a solidly Democrat state and one in which the Bidens have had enormous influence for many many decades. This is IMHO a show trial, but a show trial of the opposite kind from the ones to which Trump is being subjected. This trial is going forward in order to give the appearance of even-handedness – “see, even the president’s son is not above the law.” But I predict Hunter will get the equivalent of a wrist slap. What’s more, Hunter almost certainly did commit a bona fide crime, and not just one, either.
(5) Eric Clapton put down his copy of The Protocols long enough to opine:
British rock guitar legend Eric Clapton moved one step closer to Roger Waters territory last week, telling an interviewer that “Israel is running the world, Israel is running the show.”
The 79-year-old musician, who has recently performed playing a guitar painted in the colors of the Palestinian flag, was interviewed on May 22 by David Spuria, an American Youtuber who hosts the popular Real Music Observer show.
Talking about the recent campus protests in the US against Israel, Clapton criticized the Senate hearings in which university presidents were asked about antisemitism on campus.
“I was so enthused about what was going on at Columbia [University] and elsewhere. And then what I couldn’t believe, because it freaked me out, were the Senate hearings, which were like the Nuremberg trials, you know?” he said.
Indeed, oh brilliant one. Just like the Nuremberg trials.
(6) Dershowitz has suggestions for the Trump appeal.
Open thread 6/3/24
The plot is a bit hard to follow:
Would you like to hear what Chris Cuomo has to say about the Trump trial?
No? Well, give it a try anyway. It’s only about two minutes long:
And while we’re at it, this is a pretty interesting summary of the Trump years so far:
Try to enjoy June
It’s a beautiful day outside where I live.
I’m going out. Recent political and world events have been quite miserable, but I’m trying not to let that destroy my enjoyment of things – like spring and summer, friends, family, the arts, nature, all those wonderful things that help make life worthwhile.
In case you’re at home stewing, I suggest you do the same.
The left gaslights the right about the Trump verdict: But our sacred institutions!
Here’s the way the left’s game is played. It’s not just about the Trump verdict – for example, they have used the same technique in connection with accepting the results of the 2020 election. But it is very much in evidence right now in regard to the NY verdict against Trump:
(1) The left alters or ignores the usual rules, which destroys trust in an institution in order to “get” their opposition.
(2) The institution can be almost anything: the FBI, presidential elections, or the legal system, to take a few recent examples.
(3) The right responds by criticizing the compromised institution and the left.
(4) The left acts shocked, SHOCKED that the right has stopped respecting the hallowed institution that is a pillar of our government and society.
Case in point, Joe Biden trolling us yesterday about Trump’s remarks:
President Joe Biden on Friday called former President Donald Trump’s reaction to his conviction in New York on criminal hush money charges “reckless” and “dangerous.”
“It’s irresponsible for anyone to say this was rigged, just because they don’t like the verdict,” Biden said at the White House, hours after Trump held a press conference condemning the criminal case. …
This jury was chosen the same way every jury in America has chosen,” the president said. “Five weeks after careful deliberation, the jury reached a unanimous verdict.” …
“Our justice system has endured for nearly 250 years,” Biden said. “And it literally is a cornerstone of America, our justice system … justice should be respected.”
“And we should never allow anyone to tear it down. As simple as that. That’s America. That’s who we are. That’s who will always be God willing.”
Joe Biden, gaslighter-in-chief. And these are the talking points parroted by Democrats right on down the line (or maybe it’s Biden who is the parrot – no matter).
It’s almost a thing of beauty, really. Destroy the institution – in an obvious way – and then gaslight the public by saying it’s the other side’s objections that are “tearing down” the institution that you have already trashed.
Another way to put it: the fox says that he guarded that henhouse most assiduously, and anyone who says otherwise is questioning the integrity of foxes – a sacred principle on which our republic rests.
The left, which long ago (or not so long ago) questioned the methods of the FBI, the DOJ, the police, and the government in general, now finds these things beyond criticism. The MSM is, of course, in agreement with the left. For example, see this AP story headlined, “Republicans join Trump’s attacks on justice system and campaign of vengeance after guilty verdict.” Note also the Orwellian reversal, because it is the left that has attacked and perverted the justice system to get vengeance on Trump and also to run election interference against him.
From the article:
Embracing Donald Trump’s strategy of blaming the U.S. justice system after his historic guilty verdict, Republicans in Congress are fervently enlisting themselves in his campaign of vengeance and political retribution as the GOP runs to reclaim the White House.
Almost no Republican official has stood up to suggest Trump should not be the party’s presidential candidate for the November election — in fact, some have sought to hasten his nomination. Few others dared to defend the legitimacy of the New York state court that heard the hush money case or the 12 jurors who unanimously rendered their verdict.
And those Republicans who expressed doubts about Trump’s innocence or political viability, including his former hawkish national security adviser John Bolton or top-tier Senate candidate Larry Hogan of Maryland, were instantly bullied by the former president’s enforcers and told to “leave the party.”
Republicans POUNCE!
This is probably as good a place as any to link to this article by law professor Steven Calabresi, entitled “President Donald Trump’s Manhattan Convictions are Unconstitutional.”
And here’s Alan Dershowitz from yesterday:
The left thinks it will be able to stand upright in the wind that would blow: