Posted on April 18, 2024 by John Hinderaker in Anti-Americanism, Anti-Semitism, Leftism

It Isn’t About Israel

The evil that is now running rampant across our country is ostensibly directed at Israel, but Israel is only the pretext, a target of convenience. We have seen in recent months that “anti-Zionism” is merely a cover for anti-Semitism. If Israel disappeared tomorrow, the anti-Semites here, in Western Europe and elsewhere, wouldn’t miss a beat.

But it doesn’t stop there. In Iranian and al Qaeda ideology, Israel is only the Little Satan. America is the Great Satan. So, what would happen if someone brought an American flag to an anti-Israel demonstration? A few brave souls tried it:


The al Qaeda and Iranian dogma that America is the Great Satan and Israel the Little Satan has now been adopted by the American left, including most of the Democratic Party. In Minnesota, where I live, the Little Satan/Great Satan ideology has been endorsed by our state government and is being taught to all public school students.

Following legislation passed last year along party lines, public school students in Minnesota are being told that the great evil of world history is “settler colonialism.” And it turns out that, despite the countless instances of invasion and migration through human history, there have been only two instances of “settler colonialism.” Imagine that! The two instances are, of course, Israel and the United States.

So, if you thought that the Ayatollah Khomeini and Osama bin Laden were hopeless cranks whose ideas could never catch on, think again. They are accepted by mobs in New York City, at MIT, at Harvard, at Columbia, at Penn, and so on. Worse, in some states at least, they are accepted by the liberals who run the public schools.

Posted on by Lloyd Billingsley in California, Censorship

What’s Up Doxx?

The practice of doxxing is “to publicly identify or publish private information about (someone) especially as a form of punishment or revenge.” In 2011, for example, online hackers “claimed responsibility for posting personal information of more than 40 officers, including their home addresses, campaign contributions, property records, and names of family members after they claimed the LAPD oppressed them by shutting down the Occupy L.A. Movement.”

California’s doxxing laws, notes Daniel Greenfield of Frontpage Magazine, were created to prevent cyberstalking against women by ex-boyfriends, and “never meant to silence investigative reporting or cover for terror supporters.” That is what the Council on American-Islamic Relations now seeks. Shortly after the 10/7 massacre:

CAIR’s San Francisco Bay Area staff and Islamist allies met with California Attorney General Rob Bonta and urged him to enforce laws against what the group claimed was “doxing.” Under California law, doxxing can be punished by up to a year in prison. Bonta has been considering running for governor and might be amenable to doing what it took to win Islamist support.

Bonta also believes it’s okay to tax people for ten years after they leave California, so he just might go for it. Meanwhile, CAIR’s Massachusetts chapter, Greenfield notes, “met with Attorney General Andrea Campbell and urged her to create an ‘anti-doxxing task force’ to target pro-Israel and Jewish groups.” CAIR is looking for allies in the government looking to “criminalize journalism” about Islamic terrorism. That could easily expand to anything less than worshipful of Joe Biden.

Recall the Department of Homeland Security’s Disinformation Governance Board, under  Biden acolyte and aspiring chanteuse Nina Jancowicz. In 2024 moving forward, the struggle against government censorship is the struggle of memory against forgetting.

Posted on by Steven Hayward in Climate, Hamas

The Climatistas Versus the Hamasniks

As I have been half-joking for months now, it must be discouraging for the climatistas to turn out to block a road, deface a museum, or commit some other nihilistic act, only to find the pro-Hamas protestors got up earlier and beat you to the bridge or the airport. That will teach the climatistas to sleep in!

So the climatistas have had to step up their game, in today’s case, causing the following ruckus:

Chaser: The Nation magazine has the solution to this dilemma! Merge the issues! I am not making this up:

The Single Most Important Thing President Biden Can Do for the Climate Is Enforce an Immediate Cease-Fire in Gaza

. . . Strengthening the ties between the anti-war/anti-imperialist/peace and environmental/climate/justice movements has long been a priority for both of us. We call this effort “war and warming.” The globe’s two most immediate crises—climate change and genocide—are dimensions of the same system with different facets: Call it racial capitalism, imperialism, settler colonialism, environmental racism, or extractivism.

P.S. Christopher Scalia for the win:

Posted on by Scott Johnson in Anti-Semitism, Hamas, Terrorism

Columbia update

The unauthorized pro-Hamas/anti-Israel demonstration continues for a second day at the heart of the Columbia campus. Columbia authorities have called the cops. The pro-terrorist students want to put President Shafik to the test. As I wrote earlier today, Columbia authorities started asserting themselves and taking remedial action in anticipation of yesterday’s House Education Committee hearing. The hearing did some good even before it was held.

How could we have overlooked the Omar angle? Questioning President Shafik yesterday, Omar somehow omitted to mention that daughter Isra Hirsi is participating in the pro-Hamas work on campus at Columbia. Shouldn’t Omar have mentioned that? We only learned of Hirsi’s work via her disclosure on X of her suspension from Barnard this morning. The rotten apple doesn’t fall far from the rotten tree.

As you might have guessed, Isra Hirsi is a piece of work. Let me repeat. The rotten apple doesn’t fall far from the rotten tree.

One more time. The rotten apple doesn’t fall far from the rotten tree.

And let me say this one more time. That House hearing did some good.

Posted on by Steven Hayward in The Daily Chart

The Daily Chart: The Tax Burden and Other Scary Things

Joe Biden is back doing what Democrats always do—engage in class warfare, demanding that the rich “pay their fair share.” On the very rare occasions a reporters asks a Democrat to offer a precise definition of what “fair share” is, Democrats change the subject, because what “fair share” always means is “more.” (But don’t ever accuse liberals of being greedy for other people’s money, because they think it belongs to them by entitlement.)

Here’s what the effective tax rate by income group actually looks like:

And as for scary things:

Posted on by Scott Johnson in Illegal immigration

Josh Hawley’s master class

C-SPAN has just posted the video clip of Senator Josh Hawley’s beatdown of DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas in the tweet below. This may be the most brutal and relentless interrogation of a senior administration official I have ever seen, certainly in the space of eight minutes. It graphically depicts the madness of the Biden open-door immigration policy in small as well as its utter indefensibility in large.

Senator Hawley comments separately on X: “Here’s the truth. Mayorkas illegally paroled Laken Riley’s killer into the US. He had a criminal record. He then committed a crime against a child in New York. No prosecution. In fact, HE GOT A WORK PERMIT. And then he killed Laken. Mayorkas knew *all* this. He lied about it[.]” And Elon Musk speaks for me (via the tweet at the preceding link): “Wow, this is insane[.]”

Quotable quote (Hawley): “Is this a record that you are proud of?”

Posted on by Steven Hayward in Academic left, Gender Follies, Identity Politics

How Folx-sy

Yesterday we noted the exchange in the House hearing with Columbia University president Minouche Shafik in which she was asked about the use of the term “folx” in Columbia University’s School of Social Work. President Shafik professed ignorance of the term, but this is very likely an outright lie, as the term has been catching on in academia for a long time, like “Latinx.”

Here, perhaps, is a clue to what’s behind this deliberate mutilation of the language (among other mutilations). The video is only one minute long, but seems so much longer:

Prediction: At some point in the future—perhaps several decades from now alas—we’re going to look back on the gender and identity insanity of the current moment the way we now look back on phrenology and lobotomies.

And keep in mind that none of this could have spread so widely without the ideological hothouses of our universities. President Shafik undoubtedly knows this, but like most college leadership today is too spineless to do anything about it, let alone admit it.