Naama Levy was the young woman last seen in a video, being dragged away by terrorists and with the crotch area of her pants bloodied. Here is some slightly encouraging news, courtesy of the freed hostages:
In addition to all the other dangers, any wounded hostage is potentially subject to an infection that can kill.
This Rasmussen poll is certainly interesting, and it’s only what people are admitting to. It’s not the type of organized, institutionalized voter fraud alleged to have been witnessed in the 2020 election, but it’s the type that is alleged as part and parcel of the move to mass mail-in voting without proper safeguards:
More than 20% of voters who used mail-in ballots in 2020 admit they participated in at least one form of election fraud.
A new national telephone and online survey by Rasmussen Reports and The Heartland Institute finds that 21% of Likely U.S. voters who voted by absentee or mail-in ballot in the 2020 election say they filled out a ballot, in part or in full, on behalf of a friend or family member, such as a spouse or child, while 78% say they didn’t. (To see survey question wording, click here.)
Thirty percent (30%) of those surveyed said they voted by absentee or mail-in ballot in the 2020 election. Nineteen percent (19%) of those who cast mail-in votes say a friend or family member filled out their ballot, in part or in full, on their behalf. Furthermore, 17% of mail-in voters say that in the 2020 election, they cast a ballot in a state where they were no longer a permanent resident. All of these practices are illegal, Heartland Institute officials noted.
“The results of this survey are nothing short of stunning,” said Justin Haskins, director of the Socialism Research Center at the Heartland Institute. “For the past three years, Americans have repeatedly been told that the 2020 election was the most secure in history. But if this poll’s findings are reflective of reality, the exact opposite is true.
I have repeatedly said that the way mail-in voting was expanded and used in 2020 – with security rules so relaxed as to be crying out for violation – undermined Americans’ faith in the election whether or not massive fraud occurred, and was dangerous for that reason alone. Nothing in this report should be surprising except for the fact that many people admitted it in a poll.
The following may not earn me any popularity points, but I nevertheless wonder if some of the respondents to this poll were people on the right lying in their fraud confessions in order to establish the idea of a fraudulent 2020 election. The following results indicate to me that this actually might be the case – for some, anyway:
Among those who cast mail-in ballots in 2020, nearly equal percentages of Democrats, Republicans and unaffiliated voters admitted to fraudulent activities. For example, 19% of Republicans, 16% of Democrats and 17% of unaffiliated voters who cast 2020 mail-in ballots say they signed a ballot or ballot envelope on behalf of a friend or family member. On the question of voting in a state where they were no longer a permanent resident. more Republican mail-in voters (24%) than Democrats (17%) or unaffiliated voters (11%) admitted doing so.
Of course, fewer Republicans than Democrats voted by mail in 2020, so higher percentages don’t necessarily mean greater absolute numbers. But the parties weren’t all that far from each other in terms of voting by mail itself:
More Biden voters (36%) than Trump voters (23%) say they voted by absentee or mail-in ballot in the 2020 election. Thirty-eight percent (38%) of Democrats voted by mail in 2020, as did 24% of Republicans and 27% of voters not affiliated with either major party.
So, what does it all mean? I’m not sure, except that I continue to believe that (a) we’ll never know how much mass, institutionalized, organized fraud occurred in the 2020 election; it may have been a lot or not so much, but there are reasons to suspect the opportunity was there to a greater extent than in previous elections (b) personal election fraud of the type measured by this survey probably occurred in record numbers as well, but it’s not clear that this poll is accurately measuring it.
And I remain in strong favor of increasing election security, but it will not be happening in blue states and blue cities.
First, the old Eddie Murphy sketch. On watching it again after many years, I’m struck by the fact that, although I had remembered the first two bits – in the store; and the party on the bus – I had forgotten the third one: the bank loan. The last one in particular mimics what later happened with mortgages, except in reverse as far as “people of color” went:
Now, the recent news (Wu is the mayor of Boston):
A Wu administration official, on behalf of the mayor, mistakenly sent all Boston city councilors an email Tuesday inviting them to a holiday party that was meant exclusively for “electeds of color,” prompting an apology and mixed reactions.
Denise DosSantos, the mayor’s director of City Council relations, told the body’s “honorable members” that, “on behalf of Mayor Michelle Wu,” she was cordially inviting each of them “and a guest to the Electeds of Color Holiday Party on Wednesday, Dec. 13 at 5:30 p.m. at the Parkman House, 33 Beacon St.”
Approximately 15 minutes later, however, DosSantos sent out a follow-up email to city councilors, apologizing for the prior email, which was apparently only meant for those who were invited. The body includes seven white councilors and six of color.
Oopsies and double oopsies.
Wu is Asian, and DosSantos is black. The “apology” said this:
I did send that to everyone by accident, and I apologize if my email may have offended or came across as so. Sorry for any confusion this may have caused.
May have offended? How about “I’m sorry that my email was offensive” – the sort of real apology one seldom sees. Or how about “I’m sorry that even entertaining the idea of such a secret racially restrictive party is deeply offensive, and actually planning such a party in secret is doubly so”? Nah, that sort of apology won’t be seen.
And as far as resultant “confusion” goes, the only confusion I can imagine is the white recipients wondering why they got the email, and some of the rest of us wondering why there probably will be no serious repercussions for the senders.
A seasonal Sugarplum.
I know who my favorite is, and why:
You can see one of the differences even in the thumbnail comparison photos. The dancer on the left employs beautiful épaulement, so very rare these days.
Commenter “huxley” writes:
A tiny heads-up.
Within months you are going to start getting Chat-generated comments. I have no idea what you should do.
I don’t know either, but here’s my take on it.
If I understand the definition of AI, spam comments are a very primitive form of AI that’s been generating comments on blogs almost as long as blogs have been in existence. Spam blockers do fairly well with that sort of thing, although now and then something sneaks through. I don’t know what algorithm spam blockers use to detect them, because although most are quite easy to detect, others are more difficult.
However, present-day AI is far more sophisticated and getting more so every day. I like to think I could detect it anyway, but the truth is that maybe I couldn’t. My sense of how I could tell which comments are AI has to do with the nearly twenty years I’ve been reading comments here, and after all that time I notice that each person has a “signature” – an idiosyncratic and personal style. Could AI mimic that well enough? Perhaps. Or would it remain just a mite tone-deaf? I don’t know.
For now, I usually recognize when a troll has come back under a different moniker. It works on the same principle – recognizing a style. There are other ways to tell, too, trade secret methods that I won’t describe here because I don’t want to give them away.
AI worries me very much though, particularly fake videos. It’s difficult enough now to tell what is true and what is false. AI may make it impossible. Where will we be then?
Or are we seeing some form of taqiyya?
The man being interrogated in the following video is named Yousef al-Mansi, and he is a former minister in the Hamas government in Gaza. How did he fall into Israeli hands? Was he captured? Did he surrender?:
He was the Minister of Communications and Information Technology in the Second Haniyeh Government under Ismail Haniyeh from 17 March to 14 June 2007. Al-Mansi was appointed by Hamas as the Minister of Public Works in Gaza by January 2011.
Al-Mansi was among [those] arrested during the 2023 Israeli invasion of the Gaza Strip on 5 December 2023 and was questioned by Israeli authorities beginning on 7 December. He is considered the highest-ranking Hamas government figure whose capture has been announced.
Related: Netanyahu says “it’s the beginning of the end” for Hamas:
“I say to the Hamas terrorists: It’s over. Don’t die for Sinwar. Surrender – now!”
“In the past few days, dozens of Hamas terrorists have surrendered to our forces. They are laying down their weapons and turning themselves in to our heroic soldiers.” Netanyahu said.
Of course, jihadi extremism is much bigger and more widespread than Hamas. But getting rid of Hamas would be a start.
It won’t be easy, that’s for sure. But at least more people have become aware of the problem.
Commenter “J.J.” writes:
The solution for change, I submit, is to cut off the money. State legislatures can do this in red states.
Alumni can vote with their pocketbooks. I informed my alma mater some years ago, that they would not donate another cent until they changed their policies.
Students can start picking schools that aren’t woke. Smaller choice, but many students are opting to skip college – the blue-collar professions offer a better career path for many.
The feds could start limiting grants only to schools that are emphasizing education over indoctrination. They could also decide to tax the endowments of these schools – take away their non-profit status. The student loan program could be reorganized to only allow loans to students who attended non-woke schools. Finally, the feds could ban any foreign money going to schools unless it is for valid research or education purposes. No more foreign propaganda posing as education.
I agree.
Here’s an extremely interesting article on the money situation regarding tax breaks, and what might be done about it:
Prohibitively expensive universities that turn out students who believe that open antisemitism and championing terrorism are forms of “social justice” do so on the taxpayer’s dime. That’s because they all enjoy tax-exempt status as “educational” public charities. But are these institutions in fact serving the public interest? And how much are the lessons that students are learning at these wealthy “public charities” costing the American taxpayer?
The auditors at OpenTheBooks.com, a nonprofit government-spending watchdog which I [Adam Andrzejewski] direct, examined 10 universities—the Ivy League, plus Stanford and Northwestern. We found that during a five-year period from 2018-22 these wealthy universities collected $45 billion in taxpayer subsidies, special tax treatment, and federal payments. In fact, these universities collected a stunning $33 billion in federal contracts and grants. It therefore seems these schools are more federal contractors than educators—with federal payments exceeding undergraduate student tuition.
Additionally, the universities we surveyed profit handsomely from “nonprofit” tax breaks amounting to a benefit of roughly $12 billion. Wealthy universities pay only a 1.4% “excessive endowments” tax on their gains whereas wealthy individuals pay up to 23.4% on their capital gains. …
In addition to examining the tax-exempt status of institutions that tolerate open antisemitism and other expressions of radical bigotry, House appropriators need to go line by line with a red pen through the $7 billion doled out each year to these 10 wealthy universities. …
Public funding of any type of discrimination simply cannot be tolerated.
Much more at the link.
And although I can’t read this article because of a paywall, the short excerpt offered this tidbit:
Every year, some 200 campuses now host a multiday hate-the-Jews fest, its malignancy encapsulated in its title: “Israel Apartheid Week.”
There is also the influence of money from the Arab world, as described in this article. An excerpt:
For decades, China and Middle Eastern autocracies have been pouring billions of dollars into American and other foreign universities. Such funds support students from their countries but can also support academic programs that propagate these countries’ world views. …
… Between 2014 and 2020, Muslim-majority countries together donated $4.86 billion to American higher-educational institutions, representing 29 percent of all foreign donations.
Qatar and Saudi Arabia were responsible for much of this largesse. …
Qatar’s role is particularly troubling, since the country is often an ally to both Iran and Hamas. The country also backs other terrorist groups, including the Muslim Brotherhood, and is home to the most important Middle Eastern media outfit, Al Jazeera. Along with Saudi Arabia, Qatar is among the largest donors to Palestinian organizations and causes.
It’s too early to make direct connection between a school’s anti-Israel agitation and its donations from Middle Eastern countries, but the biggest recipients, such as Cornell, NYU, Georgetown, and Harvard tend to have large pro-Hamas elements. Student groups on each of those campuses have embraced the Hamas cause, most prominently at Harvard, where more than 30 student groups initially signed pro-Hamas statements, though some have since sought to dissociate themselves. …
… The past decade has seen a surge of Muslim students, including large numbers whose tuitions are paid by Arab governments. These students, though a small portion of all enrollees, have often led the pro-Hamas activity on college campuses. They are frequently joined by Middle Eastern studies faculty, many of whom hold anti-Israel and anti-American views, and whose departments often receive funding from Saudi Arabia and other Gulf countries.
Sobering stuff. But it explains a lot, I think.
There have been demands that the three presidents – of Harvard, MIT, and Penn – step down because of their refusal to define calls for genocide of Jews as “harassment” and their insistence that it be put into “context” instead. The president of Penn has already resigned.
But I’m not at all sure that most of those calling for their dismissal understand the magnitude of the problem. It’s not about the presidents; they are merely the visible tip of an iceberg.
And “iceberg” isn’t really a good metaphor, either, because the problems in academia are enormous and have been visible for decades to those with a mind to look and understand. These three women probably weren’t even aware of how abhorrent their weasel words were, because on campus such utterances would be absolutely standard, or even considered not anti-Semitic or anti-Israel enough. After all, if the “context” of which they spoke is the poor beleaguered ever-the-victim Palestinians (or their enabling supporters) calling for genocide on Jews or Israelis, then that would make such calls perfectly okay on many if not most of today’s campuses.
So it’s certainly not just these three universities or just these three presidents. Many many colleges, and most administrators, have to have the same sort of attitudes to have been promoted to the point of getting anywhere near a presidency. Leftism and wokeness is required. It is the campus water in which these big fish – and littler fish – swim.
Take a look and listen:
Extraordinary video in which a Jewish student highlights the extent of antisemitism on campus at @MIT. Elite universities and their DEI bureaucracies have failed us. pic.twitter.com/X2lX9sMw8l
— Ed Leon Klinger (@edleonklinger) December 6, 2023
The magnitude of the problem is way beyond what most people ever suspected. There’s a reason that this author – and others – are asking whether Gen Z is lost:
This lack of education [of Gen Z], made worse by the pandemic, not only makes these young people less capable – it also empowers propagandists of the extremes to twist history for ideological purposes.
Political pluralism has now been all but extinguished on many university campuses. Liberal-arts faculties at elite colleges are overwhelmingly left-leaning. Among professors, registered Democrats outnumber Republicans by 20 to one. In some fields, like sociology and English, this ratio is more than 40 to one.
So by “lack of education,” the author doesn’t mean lack of attendance at schools and even universities. He means lack of education in actual knowledge and the values of Western civilization.
Which brings us to the Red Cross:
The parents of an Israeli being held hostage by Hamas were reprimanded by representatives of the Red Cross after they tried to ask the Red Cross to transfer prescription medication to their child. The Red Cross told them they needed to "think about the Palestinian side. It's hard… pic.twitter.com/CrtHLKRzZf
— Marina Medvin ?? (@MarinaMedvin) December 8, 2023
No surprise.
Both the situation in academia and the state of the Red Cross – and so many other institutions – illustrate Sullivan’s first law, which is this: “All organizations that are not explicitly right-wing will over time become left-wing.” Robert Conquest stated something similar.
Looking up O’Sullivan, I learned that he made the following observation in 2001:
After all, radical Islamists have three advantages on their side: demography (the populations of Islamic nations are increasing while the West suffers a ‘birth dearth’); rapidly growing Islamic diasporas in the West, fueled by illegal immigration; and official Western policies of multiculturalism (which not only encourage immigrants to retain their original cultural identity but even promote the ‘de-assimilation’ of previously assimilated minorities in the West)…the decline of Christian belief and social influence; and the habit of respecting other cultures as unities while treating the West as a kind of multi-cultural supermarket in which Western civilization is merely one rather dusty shelf. To these trends politicians add appeasement, both diplomatic (of neighboring North Africa) and electoral (of local Muslim constituencies)”
He leaves out what I think is the biggest influence: postmodern leftism, which defines jihadis as put-upon victims of Western oppression, and therefore excuses anything such people do, no matter how vile and barbaric. The left has utterly abandoned any overarching principles such as defense of human rights or the rights of women not to be gang-raped, as long as the perpetrators are groups defined as victims of the West. One might think that Jews have been the quintessential victims over time, but they have been re-defined as white oppressors for the purposes of modern leftist thought. That is not because of anything Israel has ever done, which is nearly always better than what 99% of the countries of the world do and is also better than what any other country under the same sort of attack would do. It is because Israel is a haven for Jews, and Jew-haters have been defining Jews as oppressors – and child-murderers, for example – since long before the Jewish state came into existence.
[NOTE: And yes, the three university presidents are women, and the university has been “feminized.” But far more important is that universities have been almost wholly taken over by the left. The problem will not be solved by male presidents, because just about all possible candidates conform to the same system of values as the three women presidents who testified in Congress.]
Commenter “Cornhead” (aka Dave Begley) is a huge Vivek fan. He’s said as much in many comments here.
And I’m not. I think Ramaswamy is callow, arrogant, and unaware of the many things he doesn’t know and yet thinks he knows. That doesn’t mean I disagree with everything Vivek proposes – not by a longshot. But I agree with some part of all the GOP candidates’ proposals.
However, I’m posting this link to Cornhead’s report on his most recent attendance at a Vivek event.
I also think there’s zero chance that Vivek will get the nomination; I’ve said many times that I think it will be Trump. But might Vivek become his VP choice? I doubt it. Two egos that big probably couldn’t get along.
Looks comfy:
Many years before I stated blogging, I used to write little essays on this and that. I had no reliable venue for distributing them, but I wrote them anyway.
One was based on some article I’d read that reported on a research finding that optimists lived longer and healthier lives than pessimists. Just what a pessimist wants to hear, right? I called my essay on the subject, “Bad News For Pessimists – But Isn’t Everything?”
That title came to me again when I read this article about a week ago:
Got a naturally sunny disposition? It might protect you from dementia as the years advance, new research shows.
A team at Northwestern University in Chicago report that certain personality traits — being conscientious, outgoing and positive — appear to lower a person’s odds for a dementia diagnosis.
On the other hand, being neurotic and more negative in outlook and behavior was tied to a higher risk for mental decline, the same study found.
Great. Hunky-dory. Fabulous.
I’m not totally sure that I’m a pessimist, though. I find that I have somewhat unpredictable pockets of optimism. So I’ll optimistically cling to that idea.