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It was the 50th anniversary of the Yom Kippur War --- actually the day after, so it would fall on Saturday, the Jewish Sabbath and also Simchat Torah, the day when Jews celebrate reading the Torah.  We’d just seen President Biden preside over a prisoner swap in exchange for $6 billion in freed-up money to Iran.  (And it doesn’t matter which Iranian “pocket” that money goes into; leftist media need to stop insulting our intelligence trying to split that hair.)  This was also after Biden’s 2021 delivery of nearly $400 million to the Palestinian Authority (!!), which experts have been warning would help Hamas and cause them to organize more terrorist attacks.  Tensions had reportedly been escalating.  Yet Israel was caught off guard, and so, it seems, were we.

As Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Monday, “Hamas is ISIS.”  We would go further to say that in helping Hamas, however indirectly, by telling Iran it was about to be $6 billion richer, we gave aid and comfort to our own (and Israel’s) enemy.

Now, AFTER the worst attack on Israel since the Holocaust, we know that Iran, the #1 state sponsor of terrorism, spent weeks --- months, more likely --- plotting it with Hamas.

On Monday, Biden “put a lid on the day” early and attended a barbeque that night.  He must not have been overcome with curiosity about how this huge, well-orchestrated attack could’ve happened without the knowledge of either America or Israel, the countries with arguably the best intelligence agencies in the world.  Have we perhaps been spending too much time trying to ferret out those dangerous Trump supporters, maybe at church or bingo?  How on earth could the U.S. not have known that Iran was working with Palestinian terrorists on this attack?

According to THE GUARDIAN, “it is a mystery why Israeli intelligence appears to have had no idea it was coming.”  They explained that “Israel’s surveillance of Gaza is intense.  It monitors activity, communications and daily life via state-of-the-art surveillance equipment, including drones flying over the strip.  It also relies on human intelligence via informants, many of whom are blackmailed or otherwise coerced into assisting Israel.”  Sadly, that’s the way covert operations work here, too.

“The intelligence failure is monumental,” they went on to report, “and will shake the Israeli public’s faith in their government and army’s ability to protect civilians.”  As Eli Maron, a former head of the Israeli navy, said, “All of Israel is asking itself, where is the IDF [Israeli Defense Forces], where are the police, where is the security?”

THE GUARDIAN reports that many people in Gaza just want to live their lives, free from repeated wars and conflicts.  “They resent the fears imposed on them and the fear instilled in them by Hamas rulers.”  And, “the apparent lack of knowledge of Hamas’ plot will likely be seen as a prime culprit in the chain of events that led to the deadliest attack against Israelis in decades...The ferocious attack, which likely took months of planning and involved coordination among multiple militia groups, appeared to have gone under Israel’s intelligence radar.”

Retired Israeli Gen. Amir Avivi said that without a foothold in Gaza, Israeli security forces have relied on technological means to gather intelligence, and Gaza militants have found ways to evade these.  “They’ve gone back to the Stone Age,” he said.

(Scary sidenote: while our intelligence agencies have been laser-focused on the “threat” of Trump supporters, concerned parents and traditional Catholics, they’ve assured us we have little to worry about from foreign terrorists because there are now “electronic fences,” social media surveillance and other high tech security, just like what Israel relied on in Gaza.)  

Avivi also said that Israeli security services were wrong about Hamas’ intentions:  “Israel’s security establishment has in recent years increasingly seen Hamas as an actor interested in governing, seeking to develop Gaza’s economy and improving the standard of living for Gaza’s 2.3 million people.”  He and others say the truth is that Hamas, which calls for Israel’s destruction, “still sees that aim as its priority.”  And now we’ve seen which one of those views turned out to be right.  They’re really just dirty terrorists.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/oct/08/israel-hamas-gaza-palestinian-territories

But that still doesn’t explain how such a devastating, multifaceted attack could have been planned without the knowledge of Israeli and American intelligence.

“...The weekend’s assault, which caught Israel off guard on a major Jewish holiday, plunges [their intelligence] reputation into doubt and raises questions about the country’s readiness in the face of a weaker but determined foe,” reported the Associated Press.  “This is a major failure,” said Yaakov Amidror, former national security adviser to Netanyahu.  “This operation actually proves that the [intelligence] abilities in Gaza were no good.”

Amidror had no explanation, either, saying lessons must be learned “when the dust settles.”

Chief military spokesman Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari said the army owes an explanation, but for now, “First we fight, then we investigate.”

 

 

As reported in THE HILL, U.S. intelligence officials refused to call this an intelligence failure.

On Sunday, Secretary of State Anthony Blinken sidestepped the question.  “We will have plenty --- we will have plenty of time to --- the Israelis will have plenty of time to look into that,” he stammered.

He told FOX NEWS SUNDAY host Shannon Bream that “there will be a time and place to look back on exactly how this happened, who knew what when, but that moment is not now when we’re still in the throes of the attack, as your reporting just showed this is still ongoing.”

Wrong, Mr. Secretary of State.  This IS the time and place.  Blinken is stalling for time until he and his people can devise the story they want us to swallow, and Americans are sick of that.  It doesn’t make sense that our government wouldn’t have been able to foresee anything about this.

(Maybe our patience is just running thin and our trust is gone after January 6, now that we know our FBI had quite a bit of information on, and involvement with, activities leading up to Trump’s rally.  Benghazi comes to mind as well.  They’ve lied to us so much that their old playbook really doesn’t work any longer.)

As for the Iranians, they’ve certainly had their own spies in place.  Recall the story we ran last week from Matt Taibbi in TABLET, about Biden’s chief envoy to Iran Robert Malley being involved in a high-level Iranian spy ring busted in DC.  Sean Hannity addressed this on Monday with guests former CIA station chief Dan Hoffman and Florida Rep. Mike Waltz, who called this “an absolute intelligence failure.”

Waltz expressed concern that “actually, we WERE picking things up, and then you’ve got so many Iran sympathizers in the Biden administration that they were simply looking away.”

Ah, at last, somebody said it!

Waltz continued:  “Not only do you have Robert Malley, who was the chief negotiator for the Iran deal under Biden and Obama, essentially running a spy ring, you have the chief of staff in the Pentagon, of our Special Operations Office...read on to all kinds of departmental programs; she’s still on the job.  She still has access to all kind of classified systems, yet she was calling the Iranian foreign ministry before and after briefings to Congress about their nuclear program.”  (We assume he’s talking about Wendy Sherman, whose only defense of human rights in Iran was “saying things forcefully”…)

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/weekly-standard/wendy-sherman-defends-us-human-rights-record-in-iran

By the way, in light of the attack on Israel, the Robert Malley story may turn out to be, in the words of California Rep. Darrell Issa, the “worst State Department scandal since Alger Hiss.”  Incredible details here, in this must-read piece…

https://nypost.com/2023/10/09/suspended-iran-special-envoy-rob-malley-under-scrutiny-for-hamas-remarks-following-israel-terror-attack/ 

Also, from the archives, here’s another must-read, about Joe Biden’s role as “Tehran’s favorite senator” thanks to his “political games.”  It’s from August 2008, just after Obama chose him as his running mate.  Here’s who is in the White House now...

https://www.aei.org/articles/bidens-blink-on-iran/

So, this intelligence failure is one more thing congressional Republicans have to look into.  “How far did this go, how much influence, how deep were these tentacles?,” Waltz asked.  “And was it really a failure of collection, or was it people turning a blind eye at the most senior levels?”

Similarly, after working for many years with Israeli intelligence, Hoffman was “shocked” by this failure.  But he did note that Israel needs to keep information about it close to the vest right now, so they don’t expose vulnerabilities.

 

……..

 

Just a few days ago, critics were expressing concern about the Army cutting its Special Ops budget, with 10 percent fewer personnel, and shifting its focus away from counterintelligence in the Middle East.  (WHAT counterintelligence?)  Rep. Waltz was one of them, saying he was “stunned and appalled.”  The idea sounds even crazier now…

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/congressional-veteran-stunned-and-appalled-at-possible-special-operations-cuts/ar-AA1hL8z8

We’ll end by quoting what retired Green Beret Lt. Scott Mann said very presciently just days before the attack:  “You know, they are regenerating in Afghanistan and there is very good chance that we could see a resurgence of them.  And you can’t mass produce Special OPS after an emergency occurs; that is a Special Operations point.”  Also, “al-Qaida and ISIS have an enduring desire to strike the homeland.  They’ve proven that they can and they will.  And they now have a new unfettered safe haven in Afghanistan.  And they’re gonna make that happen.”

 

….

 RELATED READING:  For when you have time, Alex Marlow, author of the new book BREAKING BIDEN, has an unsparing explanation of why Biden bears responsibility for Hamas’ attack on Israel.  Our hope would be that editorial writers at THE NEW YORK TIMES who actually blamed Trump for this --- not kidding, and they never mentioned Obama or Biden or their Iran policy --- would read it, but of course, they won’t.

 

https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2023/10/09/alex-marlow-joe-biden-bears-responsibility-for-hamass-terror-attack-on-israelis/

 

Personal Note

October 12, 2023

I’ve received word that Retired Col. Douglas MacGregor, a former adviser to Trump’s Secretary of Defense, gave an interview lumping me in with those who want to go to war against Iran because I allegedly said that an attack on Israel is an attack on America. I don’t know where he got that idea, but it’s incorrect. What I actually said is that an attack on US citizens should be met with strong action, and these Hamas terrorists have killed Americans and taken them hostage.

To that end, I endorse giving Israel all the support it needs to eradicate Hamas once and for all. That includes sending special forces to advise and help with rescuing American hostages, but not as part of a boots-on-the-ground fighting force, and not to invade Iran.

https://therightscoop.com/breaking-us-special-forces-have-just-landed-in-israel-to-help-with-freeing-israeli-hostages/

I also support strong action against Iran for supporting these terrorists, but I have been saying that for years. It doesn’t mean sending in the Marines or bombing Tehran.

There are all kinds of ways to take action to contain Iran, like not lifting sanctions on them, keeping the US energy independent and an exporter of fossil fuels so that Iran doesn't have lots of oil money to fund terrorists, supporting the many brave Iranian dissidents who dare to stand up against the mullahs, preventing Iran from developing nuclear weapons, and of course, NOT HANDING THEM $6 BILLION! In short, by doing the exact opposite of everything the Obama and Biden Administrations have done.

That doesn’t take going to war, it just takes not being an idiot.

Kudos to Harvard President Claudine Gay. It only took her a couple of days and two tries to arrive at the almost correct response to over 30 Harvard student groups signing a letter supporting Hamas’ murder, rape and torture of innocent Israelis as legitimate and justifiable forms of protest. 

After the university first issued a wishy-washy statement condemning vague violence and endorsing compassion, which was greeted with legitimate and justifiable fury and outrage, Gay finally stated that while the groups have a right to speak, they don’t speak for Harvard, and that the terrorist atrocities perpetrated by Hamas are “abhorrent, whatever one’s individual views of the origins of longstanding conflicts in the region.” There, was that so hard?

https://dailycaller.com/2023/10/10/harvard-president-responds-to-students-groups-blaming-israel-for-hamas-attacks/

Now, as for the claim that they have a “right to speak” these abhorrent thoughts, I will throw back at her the same argument that leftist university groups have made for several years while threatening, canceling and shouting down conservative speakers: that they don’t have a right to be free of consequences for their “hate speech.” I think I can make a pretty good case that voicing support for the wholesale slaughter of Jews is more “hate speech” than calling for separate sports teams for men and women. Alan Dershowitz, who was a distinguished Harvard law professor for decades, told Sean Hannity that he’s not allowed to speak on campus in support of Israel anymore, but leftist professors who back Palestinian terrorists are allowed to speak there. Maybe that's why the students are so painfully ignorant, immoral and uninformed. 

For that reason, many people are calling for the names of the students who signed this letter to be made public, so that future employers or companies offering them internships can rescind those offers. If you can’t have someone in your company who wrote a non-PC tweet ten years ago, then why would you hire someone who openly endorses anti-Semitic genocide?

After all, in their own words: Hate speech should have consequences.

Related: Townhall.com has already started ferreting out the identities and backgrounds of some of the student leaders of these groups, and I’m not at all surprised by some of the other people and groups they’re associated with.

https://townhall.com/tipsheet/john-hasson/2023/10/10/meet-the-harvard-students-supporting-hamas-invasion-of-israel-n2629626

 

Yesterday, we mentioned that THE NEW YORK TIMES had written an editorial actually blaming Trump --- it never fails --- for the weekend massacre in Gaza, and that the piece had failed even to mention Presidents Biden or Obama, or the nation of Iran.  Similarly, when Biden spoke briefly on Tuesday, he didn’t mention Iran, either.

There was not a word of condemnation for the #1 state sponsor of terrorism around the world, the state we know was helping Hamas and Hezbollah.  And when John Kirby was asked about the relative importance of this threat on Tuesday by FOX NEWS’ Martha MacCallum, he agreed with Biden’s statement that “The only existential threat humanity faces, even more frightening than a nuclear war, is global warming going above 1.5 degrees in the next 20, 10 years.”  He said Biden stands by that statement, and that “climate change IS an existential threat; it actually threatens and is capable of wiping out all human life on Earth, over time.  I mean, that’s --- I don’t know how [much] more existential you can get...”

Really??  As if that much warming were even happening (it’s not --- and 1600 climate scientists and scholars have said the climate is not an emergency:  https://www.thecollegefix.com/more-than-1600-scientists-and-other-scholars-sign-no-climate-emergency-declaration/).  In contrast, according to “Scientific Aspects of Nuclear Explosion Phenomena” by Samuel Glasstone and Philip J. Dolan, if a nuclear bomb goes off, “immediately after the explosion time, the temperature of the weapon material is several tens of million degrees and the pressures are estimated to be many million atmospheres.”  In “Physics:  Its Methods and Meanings” by Alexander Taffel, it says the explosion “reaches a temperature of millions of degrees Celsius.”

Presumably this might cause a wee bit of environmental damage.  Now there’s some global warming we all ought to be more concerned about, on a scale we can’t even comprehend.  Why, it might even be capable of wiping out all human life on Earth, over not very much time at all.  Isn’t that the very definition of an existential threat?

https://hypertextbook.com/facts/1999/SimonFung.shtml

It’s time to push back against having our intelligence insulted by politicians and their henchmen, over and over again.

Biden did manage to acknowledge that Americans have been taken hostage.  (Sean Hannity reported Tuesday night that the family of one presumed hostage hadn’t received any communication at all from the White House.)  As for the Americans who are alive and haven’t been taken hostage, they’re apparently stuck for now if they want to fly out, as commercial planes are not flying in.

(Actually, there was one airline out, at least at first, but you probably didn’t hear about it because it came thanks to former President Trump. Here’s the story of a man and his wife who were able to fly to Dubai then home to DC via Emirates Airlines, due to the historic Abraham Accords normalizing relations between Israel and the UAE. He credits Trump, thanks him profusely and calls their departure “miraculous.” So that’s why you’ll never hear this story in the mainstream media.)

https://www.westernjournal.com/american-thanks-trump-bringing-wife-home-war-torn-israel

Let’s hope these Americans don’t have to stay there as long as the ones who were left in Afghanistan after our shamefully haphazard pull-out in August 2021.  As of this March, there were about 175 Americans still left behind, some of them being held captive by the Taliban.  That’s from Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s testimony before Congress…

https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2023/mar/23/175-americans-are-still-afghanistan-some-held-tali/

Accounts differ as to whether the $6 billion (!!!) of frozen assets Biden has promised Iran access to in return for five American hostages can be re-frozen at this time.  Apparently, it can be, though, because this move is being seriously discussed.  That money should never have been part of any hostage deal in the first place and should stay FROZEN colder than a terrorist’s heart.

https://dailycaller.com/2023/10/09/biden-admin-iran-defense-payment/

But let’s get back to the question of how these monsters were able to slip up on Israeli and, it seems, American intel agencies for this slaughter of Jews.  The NEW YORK POST reports that the mastermind was a man named Mohammed Deif; their headline offers some welcome unintentional humor (our favorite kind) on a day when we can really use some.  Just read the POST’s headline…

https://nypost.com/2023/10/10/who-is-mohammed-deif-palestinian-militant-behind-israel-attack/

“Palestinian militant behind Israeli attack is slippery, one-armed, one-legged former bomb maker,” it reads.  Okay, we take our laughs where we can find them.  Presumably this guy got out of bomb-making because after the first two attempts, he realized he just wasn’t very good at it.

He’s obviously better at planning.  He’s got a reputation as a “psycho” and a “cat with nine lives” because he’s survived so many assassination attempts.  We know he’s responsible for this massacre because he posted a video on Saturday announcing the start of the people’s “revolution.”

The name “Deif” means “guest” in Arabic and apparently refers to his habit of moving around a lot and staying with a variety of other operatives to avoid detection.  As the POST reports, “Deif has remained in the shadows for decades despite Israel’s best efforts to take him out at least five times in assassination attempts.”  Now this wheelchair-bound savage will be deified by Hamas, Hezbollah and their contemptible fans.

Col. Eyal Rosen of the Israeli army reserves said his “main goal is to destroy Israel.  This is one of the first steps --- this is just the beginning.”

So, apparently this guy is so slippery that Israeli intelligence hasn’t been able to find him or know what he’s up to, even with the many people, including Iranians, who must have been helping him.  One would think, though, that even if they didn’t know of his plan, they (and we) would have been extra-cautious around the 50th anniversary of the Yom Kippur War, with tensions rising and other factors that made the day significant.  We hope to bring you more about the cause of this deadly intel failure very soon, but in the meantime, let’s look at the situation in our own country and the likelihood of a similar failure.  JUST THE NEWS has done that.

https://justthenews.com/government/congress/intel-missing-hamas-attack-plus-rising-number-suspected-terrorists-border-pose

Does the fact that the U.S. has 18 intelligence gathering agencies give you any peace of mind?  Me, neither.  Those agencies have been busying themselves targeting Trump supporters as dangerous domestic terrorists and didn’t pick up on the threat in Israel --- or didn’t move on that threat --- and probably don’t have a clue what thousands of potential terrorists, mostly young men, coming across our southern border are doing here.

Former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy spoke about this on Monday, saying, “Looking at our own intelligence failures, we have to look at our border....[This year] in my own state [California], we caught two from Yemen on the terror watchlist; [also some] from China and others.  Why are they coming to America?  What do they have planned and who are they communicating with?”

The NEW YORK POST has a good summary of the large number being apprehended.

https://nypost.com/2023/09/15/160-people-on-terror-watch-list-stopped-at-us-border-in-2023/

Of course, these are just the ones we apprehended.  Do you think any terrorist working for a slippery eel like Mohammed Deif would let himself get caught?

Israel has (well, had) a border fence, but as part of their carefully plotted attack, Hamas broke it down to come through.  Here, it’s been so much easier for young men from all over the world to slip in gradually, as the Biden administration has installed handy turnstiles in areas that have any barrier at all.  Come right in!  Feel free to mix in with the people pouring in from this hemisphere, and then go wherever you like.  We won’t stop you.

The Senate Intelligence Committee released a redacted threat assessment just a few weeks ago, on September 20, warning about Hamas and Hezbollah in the context of the Iranian regime.  “Iran has growing intelligence and CI [aside:  as in “confidential informant,” such as American Robert Malley and his associates] capabilities to advance its geopolitical objectives,” it says.

No kidding.  We would add the phrase, “in large part because of this administration’s Iran policy

A Huck's Heroine

October 12, 2023

Here’s a Huck’s Heroine salute to Inbal Lieberman, a 25-year-old Israeli woman who is the security coordinator of Kibbutz Nir Am. She immediately realized that the sounds she was hearing were different from “the usual rocket attacks” on the kibbutz. She ran from home to home, opened the armory and passed out guns, and placed 12 men on the kibbutz fence. When the terrorists arrived to attack, all 25 of them were killed.

https://www.breitbart.com/middle-east/2023/10/10/25-year-old-israeli-woman-kills-terrorists-leads-team-to-save-kibbutz-from-hamas/

This article explains why Israel has distributed 10,000 “assault rifles” to civilian security teams since the attack.

https://www.breitbart.com/2nd-amendment/2023/10/10/10000-assault-rifles-distributed-israeli-civilian-security-teams/

But it doesn’t explain why the initial victims were unarmed and unable to fight back. Many people don’t realize that Israel, despite its reputation for self-defense, has strict gun control. The horrifying numbers of victims could be ascribed to the same idea as that behind the saying of Second Amendment defenders: “When seconds count, the police are just minutes away.” They had to wait for security forces to arrive and save them. 

Those forces acted with stunning bravery, even making themselves human shields to protect civilians, but the terrorists were still able to kill hundreds of people because, unlike the residents at the kibbutz, they were unarmed.

This thought-provoking article from a gun rights website argues that this attack should put an end to all demands for more gun control, but of course, it won’t. The left will just keep saying, “It can’t happen here,” even as they open up the border and allow unvetted people from who-knows-where to come streaming in.

https://www.thetruthaboutguns.com/the-israeli-terrorist-attacks-should-end-the-gun-control-debate-in-the-us-but-it-wont/

And by the way, the argument that “it can’t happen here” is moronic rubbish. News flash: 9/11 happened HERE.

 

Today we have an update on the fate of the monster who goes by the name “Mohammed Deif,” the one-armed, one-legged, one-eyed bomb maker-turned-terrorist-leader reportedly responsible for the planning of Saturday’s grisly massacre in Israel.  He’s been one of the Israeli military’s “Most Wanted” since 1995.  We heard a tentative report earlier Wednesday that he might have been killed along with some accomplices, but it appears now that he is still out of reach.  Here’s more about him…

https://www.france24.com/en/middle-east/20231010-mohammed-deif-the-elusive-architect-of-hamas-s-attack-on-israel

As Brian Killmeade reported on Jesse Watters’ FOX NEWS show Wednesday night, the military has caught up with some of his family members.  Retired Marine Corps. Col. Chris Douglas, whose background includes investigating the explosion in Afghanistan that killed 13 Americans, appeared on the show to discuss the current manhunt.

He said it’s challenging to find this terrorist because the population in that region obviously isn’t turning him in.  This could mean either that they uniformly support him or that they are too afraid of him to make a move.  He’ll be “very tough to find,” as he’s “just hiding among the populace.”  There’s also an extensive tunnel network, he said, but one would think Israeli intelligence would’ve had that figured out.

When Kilmeade asked Col. Douglas if our abandonment of $4 billion worth of fighting equipment in Afghanistan might be related to this, he answered, “I mean, it’s hard to say that it isn’t.”

“The Middle East is the most complicated region in the world,” he said.  “And although security wasn’t perfect in Afghanistan, it was more secure than it is now, with the Taliban in charge and all of the weaponry that we left behind and the manner in which we left.  That said, the allies and partners within the region and around the globe definitely weren’t convinced that we were the force of choice in the future for incidents such as this.”

He put that about as delicately as it can be stated.  Suggested translation:  it made us look pathetically weak around the world.  Tragically, in many circles --- Harvard University comes to mind --- Hamas is being seen as strong and heroic right now, and even justified in what they have done (as if anything could ever justify THAT).  So, what has to happen to change that twisted perception?

“Speed, surprise, and violence in action” is what they [the Israelis] need now, Col. Douglas said.  “They’ve got to respond swiftly, violently, and then, what’s gonna have to follow after that, though, is once they’ve defeated Hamas, any remaining need to be held to account.  And they need to rapidly establish some sort of assistance package to Gaza; that’s gonna be the next.  Because otherwise, it’s gonna be just this continuing problem, without providing some sort of stability.”

And what about the security of our own border?  Kilmeade brought up the 6,000-plus “alien apprehensions” of Afghanis crossing into the U.S.; the 164 from Lebanon; the 659 from Iran; the 30,000 from Turkey (and of course these are just the apprehended ones), and asked, “Should we think that all these people want to be part of the American Dream?”

With an uncomfortable chuckle, Col. Douglas said, “You’d be naive to think that.  The manner in which this happened in Israel should be a call to our elected officials, our President, to establish some sort of border security and to determine who here at home may wish us harm.”

That obviously makes too much sense for our current leadership to do.

 

………..

 

One Democrat talking point the past few days has been that “this isn’t the time to talk about the security failures.  We’ll work on that later.”  Certainly, they don’t want to dwell on a topic that brings up our own border security, but that consideration in the coming months is one huge reason why we have to determine the cause of this intelligence failure NOW and make sure it doesn’t happen here.

Bonchie at REDSTATE was right out of the gate with at least a preliminary look at how this could happen.  “Clearly, intelligence resources were involved,” he said on Sunday of the attack, “and the multitude of weaponry, including thousands of rockets, was not produced by the Palestinians.”

“At this point, anyone denying Iran’s involvement might as well proclaim that the sky is not blue,” he said.  “Iran’s own Supreme Leader came out and praised Hamas’ attack as it was occurring.  Now, we have further confirmation, including from Hezbollah, Iran’s chief anti-Israel terror militia, that Iran was directly behind planning and pulling the trigger on the invasion.”

https://redstate.com/bonchie/2023/10/08/confirmed-iran-planned-and-green-lit-murderous-hamas-attacks-on-israel-n2164840

He pointed out that Biden’s Iran policy saved them when their economy --- and possibly their Islamist regime --- was on the verge of collapse, with renewed oil sales and unfrozen assets that are enriching them by tens of billions of dollars.  We would add that the Biden administration has dispersed other questionable funds, more than $730 million to a UN agency that the State Department said in 2021 has assisted Hamas.  (Unbelievably, the UN doesn’t categorize Hamas as a terrorist group.)

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/biden-admin-sent-730m-to-un-group-despite-calls-for-anti-jew-violence-rotten-to-the-core/ar-AA1i0g76

Hamas and Hezbollah are also reportedly rolling in cryptocurrency, and Iran funds Hamas to the tune of about $100 million a year.

https://nypost.com/2023/10/11/hamas-palestinian-terrorists-raised-nearly-100m-in-crypto/ 

Bonchie also noted that this approach to Iran policy dates back to Obama and that many of the players today are his holdovers.  Jake Sullivan is one of those, a chief architect of Obama’s all-important “Iran deal.”  (We were saying in those days that Obama seemed more like the president of Iran than of the United States.  His administration was all about that deal, remember?)  And recall our recent story about this official, Ariane Tabatabai, in light of what just transpired with Iran’s help.  This is a must-read now in case you didn’t see it the first time...

https://www.frontpagemag.com/chief-of-staff-of-pentagon-counterterrorism-office-served-iranian-gov/

Tabatabai, an Iranian immigrant working in the Obama administration, recommended sharing intelligence with Iran in 2016, among other suggestions (the article has startling details) for working with them --- as an ally.  In 2021, after Biden’s State Department brought her in as a senior adviser, a congressional letter suggested her security clearance be pulled because she obviously had a “relationship” with Iran.  The letter said that Tabatabai “has echoed Iranian regime talking points and has made excuses for Iran’s oppressive government.”

But that congressional letter was taken about as seriously as most other congressional letters are these days.  State Department spokesman Ned Price defended Tabatabai, saying that any security-related concerns about her were “baseless and illegitimate.”  He called expressions of these concerns “smears and slander.”  And today, Tabatabai is still in the Biden administration, with the impressive title of Chief of Staff to the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Special Operations and Low-Intensity Conflict. 

This is true even though Iran envoy Robert Malley --- now under investigation for mishandling classified documents and suspected of being part of a spy ring for Iran --- personally brought her onto his team of negotiators.  “Even in the face of serious evidence that the State Department and the Department of Defense are employing an enemy government agent, the Biden administration is not backing down,” Daniel Greenfield writes for FRONT PAGE Magazine.  “The speed with which Tabatabai...has been able to fully penetrate the highest echelons of our national defense in a little over a decade is a testament to the national security collapse within a disloyal bureaucracy.” 

https://www.frontpagemag.com/iranian-agent-in-pentagon-counterterrorism-office-accused-of-sabotaging-intel/

There are other stunning examples as well, as guest Brooke Goldstein, CEO of The Lawfare Project, laid out on Wednesday’s HANNITY.  (See full show, about 15 minutes in; the interview isn’t broken out as a clip. This requires a cable subscription; the show should be free on YouTube in a day or so.)

https://www.foxnews.com/video/6338901912112

We still don’t know exactly what contributed to this stunning security failure, both here and in Israel.  But after reading about such pro-Iranian people in our own government, it starts to seem possible that our government MIGHT have, um, “missed” an operation largely planned by Iran.  If anyone in our State Department or Pentagon had any hint of this impending vicious attack and Israel was not warned, that would make our government complicit in the worst attack on Jews since the Holocaust.

 

 


BY MIKE HUCKABEE

Blessings on you and your family from all the Huckabee team! 

Mike Huckabee


DAILY BIBLE VERSE

Blessed are the peacemakers: for they shall be called the children of God.

Matthew 5:9


Message to Readers: I wish things were different

I wrote last month about an investigation into all the liberal groups that fund and feed “information” to the A.P., and how that helps to explain why so many “news stories” on subjects like “climate change” read like activist group press releases. From those stories, you’d think there is no other viewpoint other than turned-up-to-11 hysteria. 

Unfortunately, if I summarize the stories for you, it will possibly result in my newsletter being demonetized or blocked or having our ads removed by certain Internet “gatekeepers” who have decided that their views are the only objective truths allowed to be aired in public. This is why, if you’d like to help pay my staffers so that we can keep bringing you the real stories every American needs to know, you should subscribe to the Substack version. Just click here:

Subscribe to The Morning Edition (substack.com)

You’ll find subscription plans as low as $3 a month for the full newsletter with exclusive subscriber-only content, no gatekeeper censorship, and no ads. Plus, you get a 20% discount on “Huckabee” merchandise, so unlike an electric car, it really does pay for itself! But sorry, no government subsidies.

I email daily and my politics newsletters usually take 10-15 minutes to read. I cover the news of the day and the liberal media. I write about the upcoming elections and dive deep on the Biden scandals. I will also share my opinion of the Trump indictments. I don’t think you will regret supporting a reporting of the facts, not the liberal bias the mainstream media gives you these days!

With gratitude,

Mike Huckabee

Subscribe to The Morning Edition (substack.com)


How did we (and Israel) not know?  Part II

Yesterday, we mentioned that THE NEW YORK TIMES had written an editorial actually blaming Trump --- it never fails --- for the weekend massacre in Gaza, and that the piece had failed even to mention Presidents Biden or Obama, or the nation of Iran.  Similarly, when Biden spoke briefly on Tuesday, he didn’t mention Iran, either.

There was not a word of condemnation for the #1 state sponsor of terrorism around the world, the state we know was helping Hamas and Hezbollah.  And when John Kirby was asked about the relative importance of this threat on Tuesday by FOX NEWS’ Martha MacCallum, he agreed with Biden’s statement that “The only existential threat humanity faces, even more frightening than a nuclear war, is global warming going above 1.5 degrees in the next 20, 10 years.”  He said Biden stands by that statement, and that “climate change IS an existential threat; it actually threatens and is capable of wiping out all human life on Earth, over time.  I mean, that’s --- I don’t know how [much] more existential you can get...”

Really??  As if that much warming were even happening (it’s not --- and 1600 climate scientists and scholars have said the climate is not an emergency:  https://www.thecollegefix.com/more-than-1600-scientists-and-other-scholars-sign-no-climate-emergency-declaration/).  In contrast, according to “Scientific Aspects of Nuclear Explosion Phenomena” by Samuel Glasstone and Philip J. Dolan, if a nuclear bomb goes off, “immediately after the explosion time, the temperature of the weapon material is several tens of million degrees and the pressures are estimated to be many million atmospheres.”  In “Physics:  Its Methods and Meanings” by Alexander Taffel, it says the explosion “reaches a temperature of millions of degrees Celsius.”

Presumably this might cause a wee bit of environmental damage.  Now there’s some global warming we all ought to be more concerned about, on a scale we can’t even comprehend.  Why, it might even be capable of wiping out all human life on Earth, over not very much time at all.  Isn’t that the very definition of an existential threat?

https://hypertextbook.com/facts/1999/SimonFung.shtml

It’s time to push back against having our intelligence insulted by politicians and their henchmen, over and over again.

Biden did manage to acknowledge that Americans have been taken hostage.  (Sean Hannity reported Tuesday night that the family of one presumed hostage hadn’t received any communication at all from the White House.)  As for the Americans who are alive and haven’t been taken hostage, they’re apparently stuck for now if they want to fly out, as commercial planes are not flying in.

(Actually, there was one airline out, at least at first, but you probably didn’t hear about it because it came thanks to former President Trump. Here’s the story of a man and his wife who were able to fly to Dubai then home to DC via Emirates Airlines, due to the historic Abraham Accords normalizing relations between Israel and the UAE. He credits Trump, thanks him profusely and calls their departure “miraculous.” So that’s why you’ll never hear this story in the mainstream media.)

https://www.westernjournal.com/american-thanks-trump-bringing-wife-home-war-torn-israel

Let’s hope these Americans don’t have to stay there as long as the ones who were left in Afghanistan after our shamefully haphazard pull-out in August 2021.  As of this March, there were about 175 Americans still left behind, some of them being held captive by the Taliban.  That’s from Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s testimony before Congress…

https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2023/mar/23/175-americans-are-still-afghanistan-some-held-tali/

Accounts differ as to whether the $6 billion (!!!) of frozen assets Biden has promised Iran access to in return for five American hostages can be re-frozen at this time.  Apparently, it can be, though, because this move is being seriously discussed.  That money should never have been part of any hostage deal in the first place and should stay FROZEN colder than a terrorist’s heart.

https://dailycaller.com/2023/10/09/biden-admin-iran-defense-payment/

But let’s get back to the question of how these monsters were able to slip up on Israeli and, it seems, American intel agencies for this slaughter of Jews.  The NEW YORK POST reports that the mastermind was a man named Mohammed Deif; their headline offers some welcome unintentional humor (our favorite kind) on a day when we can really use some.  Just read the POST’s headline…

https://nypost.com/2023/10/10/who-is-mohammed-deif-palestinian-militant-behind-israel-attack/

“Palestinian militant behind Israeli attack is slippery, one-armed, one-legged former bomb maker,” it reads.  Okay, we take our laughs where we can find them.  Presumably this guy got out of bomb-making because after the first two attempts, he realized he just wasn’t very good at it.

He’s obviously better at planning.  He’s got a reputation as a “psycho” and a “cat with nine lives” because he’s survived so many assassination attempts.  We know he’s responsible for this massacre because he posted a video on Saturday announcing the start of the people’s “revolution.”

The name “Deif” means “guest” in Arabic and apparently refers to his habit of moving around a lot and staying with a variety of other operatives to avoid detection.  As the POST reports, “Deif has remained in the shadows for decades despite Israel’s best efforts to take him out at least five times in assassination attempts.”  Now this wheelchair-bound savage will be deified by Hamas, Hezbollah and their contemptible fans.

Col. Eyal Rosen of the Israeli army reserves said his “main goal is to destroy Israel.  This is one of the first steps --- this is just the beginning.”

So, apparently this guy is so slippery that Israeli intelligence hasn’t been able to find him or know what he’s up to, even with the many people, including Iranians, who must have been helping him.  One would think, though, that even if they didn’t know of his plan, they (and we) would have been extra-cautious around the 50th anniversary of the Yom Kippur War, with tensions rising and other factors that made the day significant.  We hope to bring you more about the cause of this deadly intel failure very soon, but in the meantime, let’s look at the situation in our own country and the likelihood of a similar failure.  JUST THE NEWS has done that.

https://justthenews.com/government/congress/intel-missing-hamas-attack-plus-rising-number-suspected-terrorists-border-pose

Does the fact that the U.S. has 18 intelligence gathering agencies give you any peace of mind?  Me, neither.  Those agencies have been busying themselves targeting Trump supporters as dangerous domestic terrorists and didn’t pick up on the threat in Israel --- or didn’t move on that threat --- and probably don’t have a clue what thousands of potential terrorists, mostly young men, coming across our southern border are doing here.

Former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy spoke about this on Monday, saying, “Looking at our own intelligence failures, we have to look at our border....[This year] in my own state [California], we caught two from Yemen on the terror watchlist; [also some] from China and others.  Why are they coming to America?  What do they have planned and who are they communicating with?”

The NEW YORK POST has a good summary of the large number being apprehended.

https://nypost.com/2023/09/15/160-people-on-terror-watch-list-stopped-at-us-border-in-2023/

Of course, these are just the ones we apprehended.  Do you think any terrorist working for a slippery eel like Mohammed Deif would let himself get caught?

Israel has (well, had) a border fence, but as part of their carefully plotted attack, Hamas broke it down to come through.  Here, it’s been so much easier for young men from all over the world to slip in gradually, as the Biden administration has installed handy turnstiles in areas that have any barrier at all.  Come right in!  Feel free to mix in with the people pouring in from this hemisphere, and then go wherever you like.  We won’t stop you.

The Senate Intelligence Committee released a redacted threat assessment just a few weeks ago, on September 20, warning about Hamas and Hezbollah in the context of the Iranian regime.  “Iran has growing intelligence and CI [aside:  as in “confidential informant,” such as American Robert Malley and his associates] capabilities to advance its geopolitical objectives,” it says.

No kidding.  We would add the phrase, “in large part because of this administration’s Iran policy.”


Update on the Biden financial scandal

 Of course, no matter what else is happening in the world, information about this scandal continues to drip out.  Thanks to an August 2022 Freedom Of Information Act request by former Trump adviser Stephen Miller’s organization America First Legal, we finally know that then-Vice President Joe Biden’s office exchanged nearly 20,000 emails with Hunter Biden’s investment firm Rosemont Seneca.  (Of course, Joe Biden knew NOTHING about his son’s business affairs.)  Details here…

https://www.nationalreview.com/news/then-vp-joe-bidens-office-exchanged-nearly-20000-emails-with-hunters-investment-firm/


Israel update

Once again, here is the link to Fox News’ continually-updated page of the latest news on the war in Israel.

https://www.foxnews.com/live-news/hamas-attack-israel-war

The major developments over the past 24 hours are that the death toll has risen to at least 2100 people, including about 1200 killed in Israel. Israel is continuing its pounding of the Gaza Strip by air in preparation for a ground invasion of Hamas-controlled territory. The defense minister said he’s “eliminated every restriction” on the IDF and “we will eliminate anyone who fights us.”

President Biden said it’s been confirmed that Americans are among those who have been taken hostage by Hamas, but it’s not certain yet how many.

Another Iran-backed terrorist group, Hezbollah,1` launched an attack from the north from Lebanon, but Israel was prepared for it. There were also reports of rockets being fired at Israel from Syria, but Israeli troops reportedly destroyed the source.

https://www.foxnews.com/world/israel-responds-hezbollah-attack-lebanon-deploying-tens-thousands-northern-border

With politicians from both parties demanding that the Biden Administration refreeze that $6 billion they unfroze for Iran, White House spokespeople are spinning like drunken ballet dancers as they try to deny and deflect. Here’s a round-up of several ways in which they’ve tried to insult our intelligence, including:

https://redstate.com/sister-toldjah/2023/10/10/reporter-lights-up-state-dept-spox-after-he-tries-blaming-trump-for-6-billion-biden-unfroze-for-iran-n2164914

Insisting that the money could only be used for “humanitarian” purposes (but it frees up $6 billion elsewhere in their budget to fund terrorism)…Claiming that there’s no direct evidence that Iran used the money to fund this attack (So it can’t be true if we don’t have video of a mullah handing a big bag of money marked “$6 billion from Biden” to a Hamas terrorist? That’s the same argument they’re using to insist there’s no direct evidence that Joe got any of Hunter’s corrupt deal money)…And when all else fails, try to blame it on Trump. I’m not kidding, and you’ll never guess why they try to claim this is Trump’s fault.

You see, Trump withheld that money from Iran and let so much of it accrue. Well, in that case, I guess they had no choice but to free it up for the world’s #1 supporter of terrorism. There was just so much of it!

 


Personal note

I’ve received word that Retired Col. Douglas MacGregor, a former adviser to Trump’s Secretary of Defense, gave an interview lumping me in with those who want to go to war against Iran because I allegedly said that an attack on Israel is an attack on America. I don’t know where he got that idea, but it’s incorrect. What I actually said is that an attack on US citizens should be met with strong action, and these Hamas terrorists have killed Americans and taken them hostage.

To that end, I endorse giving Israel all the support it needs to eradicate Hamas once and for all. That includes sending special forces to advise and help with rescuing American hostages, but not as part of a boots-on-the-ground fighting force, and not to invade Iran.

https://therightscoop.com/breaking-us-special-forces-have-just-landed-in-israel-to-help-with-freeing-israeli-hostages/

I also support strong action against Iran for supporting these terrorists, but I have been saying that for years. It doesn’t mean sending in the Marines or bombing Tehran.

There are all kinds of ways to take action to contain Iran, like not lifting sanctions on them, keeping the US energy independent and an exporter of fossil fuels so that Iran doesn't have lots of oil money to fund terrorists, supporting the many brave Iranian dissidents who dare to stand up against the mullahs, preventing Iran from developing nuclear weapons, and of course, NOT HANDING THEM $6 BILLION! In short, by doing the exact opposite of everything the Obama and Biden Administrations have done.

That doesn’t take going to war, it just takes not being an idiot.


A Much-Needed Lesson

Watch an Israeli mom give MSNBC’s Andrea Mitchell a much-needed lesson in the difference between Israel defending its homeland and its people and vicious Hamas terrorists murdering innocent people, including children.

https://redstate.com/bobhoge/2023/10/10/msnbc-continues-to-embarrass-itself-with-biased-hamas-coverage-israeli-mom-claps-back-at-andrea-mitchell-n2164923

Former New York Times editor Bari Weiss had to perform the same basic service for Joe Scarborough and crew.

https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2023/10/a-word-from-bari-weiss.php

As Scott Johnson notes at that link, “Current events have flushed out the many Nazis in our midst.” It’s genuinely disturbing to see how many people in allegedly civilized nations, from Europe to Australia to the US, are loudly siding with the anti-Semitic, genocidal terrorists of Hamas.

https://www.breitbart.com/middle-east/2023/10/11/watch-free-palestine-rally-in-dearborn-michigan-cheers-hamas/

They’re even in our own Congress...

https://www.westernjournal.com/ilhan-omars-attempt-pin-war-crime-israel-gets-taken-apart-piece-piece/

https://redstate.com/jenvanlaar/2023/10/10/video-rashida-tlaib-has-no-comment-when-asked-about-hamas-beheading-jewish-babies-n2164924

https://dailycaller.com/2023/10/10/dem-lawmaker-colorado-hamas-rape/

Some claim to be merely expressing sympathy for the oppressed Palestinians, but many don’t even bother to hide their sick hatred anymore and are openly cheering murder, rape and brutal torture of innocent Jews, even babies and children, as if it were a justifiable form of protest.

For instance, I find it hard to believe that BLM has any credibility left to lose at this point, but if so, they burned it to the ground with their public statements that were clearly in support of brutal terrorism.

https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2023/10/10/black-lives-matter-organization-shows-support-for-hamas-amid-terror-attack-on-israel/

The Chicago BLM chapter deleted its tweet celebrating Hamas by showing a sick graphic of terrorists paragliding into Israel, but the Internet is forever, and we will not forget.

Related: None of the ten top celebrities on Instagram have shown support for Israel, but many of them bent over backwards to genuflect before BLM.

https://www.breitbart.com/entertainment/2023/10/10/none-of-ten-most-followed-celebrity-instagram-accounts-shows-support-for-israel-following-hamas-attacks-many-backed-blm/

Some commentators have also asked why we aren’t hearing a peep out of Antifa. That radical group claims to have taken its name from being “anti-fascist.” They call everyone Nazis and fascists, from Trump voters to police to people who don’t want men in girls’ bathrooms, but they say nothing about the return of actual, 1930s-style anti-Semitic thugs who want to kill Jews?

I’m not surprised, nor am I surprised at any of these far-left extremists taking the side of genocidal anti-Semites. It’s long been established that the left attacks the right by falsely accusing them of what the left is actually doing. Ever since “Antifa” appeared, I’ve been pointing out that they are in reality the biggest fascist threat in America. They didn’t even try to disguise it. How much more obvious can they get about being fascists than dressing in dark clothes, hoods and masks and physically assaulting anyone who dares to voice a political opinion they disagree with?

Well, they finally found a way: not saying a word about fellow violent radicals who are trying to exterminate the Jews. As so many people are suddenly saying these days, “When someone tells you what they are, believe them.”


A Huck’s Heroine

Here’s a Huck’s Heroine salute to Inbal Lieberman, a 25-year-old Israeli woman who is the security coordinator of Kibbutz Nir Am. She immediately realized that the sounds she was hearing were different from “the usual rocket attacks” on the kibbutz. She ran from home to home, opened the armory and passed out guns, and placed 12 men on the kibbutz fence. When the terrorists arrived to attack, all 25 of them were killed.

https://www.breitbart.com/middle-east/2023/10/10/25-year-old-israeli-woman-kills-terrorists-leads-team-to-save-kibbutz-from-hamas/

This article explains why Israel has distributed 10,000 “assault rifles” to civilian security teams since the attack.

https://www.breitbart.com/2nd-amendment/2023/10/10/10000-assault-rifles-distributed-israeli-civilian-security-teams/

But it doesn’t explain why the initial victims were unarmed and unable to fight back. Many people don’t realize that Israel, despite its reputation for self-defense, has strict gun control. The horrifying numbers of victims could be ascribed to the same idea as that behind the saying of Second Amendment defenders: “When seconds count, the police are just minutes away.” They had to wait for security forces to arrive and save them. 

Those forces acted with stunning bravery, even making themselves human shields to protect civilians, but the terrorists were still able to kill hundreds of people because, unlike the residents at the kibbutz, they were unarmed.

This thought-provoking article from a gun rights website argues that this attack should put an end to all demands for more gun control, but of course, it won’t. The left will just keep saying, “It can’t happen here,” even as they open up the border and allow unvetted people from who-knows-where to come streaming in.

https://www.thetruthaboutguns.com/the-israeli-terrorist-attacks-should-end-the-gun-control-debate-in-the-us-but-it-wont/

And by the way, the argument that “it can’t happen here” is moronic rubbish. News flash: 9/11 happened HERE.

 


Harvard’s speech problems

Kudos to Harvard President Claudine Gay. It only took her a couple of days and two tries to arrive at the almost correct response to over 30 Harvard student groups signing a letter supporting Hamas’ murder, rape and torture of innocent Israelis as legitimate and justifiable forms of protest. 

After the university first issued a wishy-washy statement condemning vague violence and endorsing compassion, which was greeted with legitimate and justifiable fury and outrage, Gay finally stated that while the groups have a right to speak, they don’t speak for Harvard, and that the terrorist atrocities perpetrated by Hamas are “abhorrent, whatever one’s individual views of the origins of longstanding conflicts in the region.” There, was that so hard?

https://dailycaller.com/2023/10/10/harvard-president-responds-to-students-groups-blaming-israel-for-hamas-attacks/

Now, as for the claim that they have a “right to speak” these abhorrent thoughts, I will throw back at her the same argument that leftist university groups have made for several years while threatening, canceling and shouting down conservative speakers: that they don’t have a right to be free of consequences for their “hate speech.” I think I can make a pretty good case that voicing support for the wholesale slaughter of Jews is more “hate speech” than calling for separate sports teams for men and women. Alan Dershowitz, who was a distinguished Harvard law professor for decades, told Sean Hannity that he’s not allowed to speak on campus in support of Israel anymore, but leftist professors who back Palestinian terrorists are allowed to speak there. Maybe that's why the students are so painfully ignorant, immoral and uninformed. 

For that reason, many people are calling for the names of the students who signed this letter to be made public, so that future employers or companies offering them internships can rescind those offers. If you can’t have someone in your company who wrote a non-PC tweet ten years ago, then why would you hire someone who openly endorses anti-Semitic genocide?

After all, in their own words: Hate speech should have consequences.

Related: Townhall.com has already started ferreting out the identities and backgrounds of some of the student leaders of these groups, and I’m not at all surprised by some of the other people and groups they’re associated with.

https://townhall.com/tipsheet/john-hasson/2023/10/10/meet-the-harvard-students-supporting-hamas-invasion-of-israel-n2629626

 


Making it official

Kari Lake announced that she will run for Democrat Krysten Sinema’s Arizona Senate seat.

https://www.westernjournal.com/breaking-kari-lake-announces-decision-us-senate-run

And Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announced that he’s leaving the Democratic Party (even more than Reagan, he could say, “The Party left me!”) to run as an independent, Third Party campaign for President.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/robert-f-kennedy-jr-to-run-for-president-as-an-independent-end-democratic-primary-campaign/ar-AA1hVPKC

This has both sides worried, since it isn’t clear whether he would take more votes away from Biden or Trump. I suspect his effect on the race might be less than expected by the time the actual election arrives. But liberals are having meltdowns (even his own family is attacking him, their loyalties obviously being to the Party first.) They're also accusing Fox News of propping RFK Jr. up until he made this announcement, then having Sean Hannity confront him on his long history of leftwing positions, like opposing fracking and fossil fuels and supporting Obama, Kerry and Biden.

Seems to me that Hannity was just doing his job, which is to ask tough questions and make politicians explain themselves. The liberal outlets should try that with Biden sometime. 

I had RFK Jr. on my TBN show, but not to promote his candidacy. I made it clear that he’s a liberal, and we disagree on most issues, but at least he had the guts to come on my show and have a civil discussion, which is something most Democrats refuse to do, despite the standing invitation. I respect him, but that doesn’t mean I’m going to vote for him. Why is that so hard for some people to understand? I guess if you’re obsessed with nothing but maintaining political power at all costs, it’s hard to focus on nuances.

https://youtu.be/WzzmBkYLV-o?si=Ohujgz3ksPaOjCMe


New Santos indictments

Tuesday, the US Attorney’s Office in the Eastern District of New York filed a 23-count indictment against Republican Rep. George Santos, adding 10 more counts to a previous indictment. The new charges include wire fraud, falsifying FEC records and aggravated identity theft.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/rep-george-santos-charged-with-conspiracy-wire-fraud-and-more-in-23-count-superseding-indictment/ar-AA1i0xHs

As tempting as it might be to put this into the “two-tiered justice” story bin, the charges aren’t the kind of stuff other prosecutors have had to torture torts and strain credulity to come up with. They include actual crimes, like allegedly inflating his fundraising numbers with fabricated or stolen contributions and charging expenses on his donors’ credit cards without authorization. I’ll defend anyone’s right to the presumption of innocence, but the fact that his campaign treasurer pleaded guilty to related charges last week might make that problematic.

It's a shame that when New Yorkers finally elected a Republican, it turned out to be this guy. But on the bright side, between him and Sen. Bob Menendez, we finally know just how corrupt a Congress member has to be before someone finally arrests them.


Economy update

I don’t want to be constantly negative about the economy, so I’ll share this story from a conservative site, Breitbart Business Digest, that argues that the high jobs numbers in recent months are actually solid and not just part time jobs replacing fulltime jobs, as some commentators suggest.

https://www.breitbart.com/economy/2023/10/10/breitbart-business-digest-actually-the-september-jobs-number-was-really-strong/

Unfortunately, I also have to note that our politicians have screwed things up so badly that even good news is bad news, and strong hiring could convince the Fed to raise interest rates again to try to bring down inflation.

https://www.breitbart.com/economy/2023/10/11/bidenflation-rises-producer-prices-rising-faster-than-expected/

And before the Democrats try to give Biden credit for the good jobs numbers, I’ll repeat something I’ve been saying since Obama was in: The US economy is like an Olympic swimmer: so strong that he can stay afloat even with a concrete block tied around his neck. But giving Obama or Biden’s policies credit for that feat is like giving credit to the concrete block instead of the swimmer.


4 Million

Not that anyone else in DC is keeping count, but a report by Congressional Republicans found that from the time Biden took office in January 2021 to March 2023, roughly four million illegal migrants were allowed to cross the border, and at least 2,148,738 were released into the US. Add to that another 205,473 aliens released “through illegal categorical parole programs,” plus more than 1.7 million known “gotaways” that evaded Border Patrol entirely and escaped into the US. 

https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2023/10/10/gop-report-biden-welcomed-4-million-migrants-26-months/

Altogether, that’s about 4 million illegal immigrants coming in over 26 months. So New York, Chicago and LA, you’d better start building more public housing.


Good to see

It's always good to see a state pass laws to protect election integrity, even if they have to override a Democrat Governor’s veto to do it.

https://www.westernjournal.com/huge-win-election-integrity-north-carolina-republicans-override-democratic-governors-veto/

I love the Gov’s argument that by establishing bipartisan local election boards instead of boards packed with appointees from the Governor’s party, this law poses a “threat to democracy.” Once again, that’s the new definition of “Democracy,” meaning, “Anything that keeps Democrats in power.”


Update on the Biden financial scandal

Of course, no matter what else is happening in the world, information about this scandal continues to drip out.  Thanks to an August 2022 Freedom Of Information Act request by former Trump adviser Stephen Miller’s organization America First Legal, we finally know that then-Vice President Joe Biden’s office exchanged nearly 20,000 emails with Hunter Biden’s investment firm Rosemont Seneca.  (Of course, Joe Biden knew NOTHING about his son’s business affairs.)  Details here…

https://www.nationalreview.com/news/then-vp-joe-bidens-office-exchanged-nearly-20000-emails-with-hunters-investment-firm/


 I JUST WANTED TO SAY: 

Thank you for reading my newsletter. 

For more news, visit my website.


Israel's 9/11

October 9, 2023

Just as we were going to press on Saturday, word came of the horrific terrorist attack/invasion of southern Israel by Hamas. Since then, the news has turned more tragic with each passing hour. Naturally, in a newsletter like this, we can’t possibly provide you with up-to-the-minute news on such a fast-breaking story. But if you will bookmark this link, it will take you to Fox News’ page of the latest stories, continually updated:

https://www.foxnews.com/live-news/hamas-attack-israel-war

All we can do, aside from urging you to pray for Israel and the victims of this unconscionable terrorist assault (those who were killed, injured or taken hostage), is give you a brief recap of the major news thus far, point you to some of the most important commentary, and add some of my own.

To bring you up to speed: On Saturday, Hamas staged the biggest attack on Israel in years from the Gaza Strip, launching a barrage of thousands of rockets in an attempt to overwhelm Israels’ Iron Dome missile defense. The militants also infiltrated Israel and attacked unarmed men, women and children, even slaughtering at least 260 people who were gathered for a music festival. Depending on the source, the current death toll is reportedly between 800 and 1100, including nine Americans, with more than 2,000 wounded, and an unknown number taken hostage, which might include Americans, but that’s not yet verified at this writing. Many are calling this Israel’s 9/11, and I don’t think that’s an overstatement. Here is just one example of Hamas’ savagery, and I don’t even want to describe it here.

https://townhall.com/tipsheet/mattvespa/2023/10/08/woman-being-paraded-by-hamas-terrorists-identified-as-german-tourist-n2629511

Israel has declared itself to be in a state of war for the first time in 50 years, and Prime Minister Netayahu has deployed tens of thousands of troops to the Gaza Strip. Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said he has ordered a “complete siege” of Gaza, cutting off water, electricity and food, adding, "We are fighting human animals and we are acting accordingly." Netanyahu predicted that this war will be long and difficult, but military officials vowed to “kill every terrorist in Israel.”

Of course, the big question looming over this atrocity was how such a massive attack could have been planned and executed without Israeli intelligence getting a whiff of it? That question might have been answered by Hamas and Hezbollah leaders, who revealed that the attack was planned with help from Iranian security officials and greenlit by Iran at a meeting last week in Beirut. Judging from the military equipment the terrorists are using, including sophisticated drones, it’s likely Iran also helped supply the weaponry. Iran’s “Supreme Leader” even praised the barbaric attack as it was happening.

https://redstate.com/bonchie/2023/10/08/confirmed-iran-planned-and-green-lit-murderous-hamas-attacks-on-israel-n2164840

This shouldn’t have been a surprise. Some of us have been warning of the dangers of Iran for years, even as the Obama and now Biden Administrations have done everything possible to lift sanctions, release frozen assets and claim that Iran’s leaders can somehow be bribed or schmoozed into giving up their rabid hatred of America, Israel, Jews and any non-radical Muslims who dare question them. Here’s your answer for how well that idiotic notion works out in reality. Now, imagine them with nuclear weapons.

Donald Trump saw this coming last month, when Biden unfroze $6 billion in Iranian cash to get some US hostages released (reportedly really $16 billion; the other $10 billion didn’t get as much press.)

https://www.westernjournal.com/flashback-trump-predicted-terrorist-attacks-money-provided-us/

Trump predicted it would be used to fund terrorism, but the Biden White House insisted that, oh no, it could only be used for “humanitarian” purposes. Secretary of State Antony Blinken is desperately trying to spin that, still insisting that none of that money was used for this attack, and it wasn’t US taxpayer money but “Iranian resources that Iran has accumulated from the sales of oil.”

https://www.breitbart.com/clips/2023/10/08/blinken-no-u-s-taxpayer-dollars-were-involved-in-iran-support-of-hamas-terror-attack/

What an impressive string of irrelevant points. Who cares if the money that funded this atrocity came out of that particular Iranian bank account or another one? It came from IRAN, which is why we shouldn’t be freeing up funds, lifting sanctions and letting them build nuclear reactors. And thanks for inadvertently admitting the truth that Iran has accumulated a lot of resources from selling oil. That’s billions of dollars they wouldn’t have accumulated if Joe Biden hadn’t declared war on the US fossil fuel industry and driven up the price of oil while making other nations more dependent on sources like Iran.

And just to be abundantly clear, here’s a former State Department advisor on Iran explaining precisely why the Biden crew’s frantic spin about that $6 billion is garbage, and it actually “freed up huge reserves” that Iran could use to continue funding terrorism through groups like Hamas.

https://redstate.com/nick-arama/2023/10/08/former-state-department-advisor-blasts-biden-on-6-billion-for-iran-n2164823

There is also a claim by a high-ranking Israeli Defense Forces commander that some of the equipment left behind in Afghanistan during Biden’s botched pullout was used to attack Israel.

https://townhall.com/tipsheet/saraharnold/2023/10/08/weapons-left-in-afghanistan-thanks-to-bidens-botched-withdrawal-are-being-used-to-attack-israel-n2629553

If you think this Administration has the slightest idea of what it’s talking about when it comes to Iran, here’s a reminder that just eight days before the attack, Biden’s “National Security Adviser” Jake Sullivan was boasting of all their accomplishments in the Middle East and declared, “The Middle East region is quieter today than it has been in two decades.”

https://www.westernjournal.com/bidens-national-security-advisor-get-wrong-one-week-massacre-israel/

Another very disturbing aspect of this attack has been watching the attempts by people in the US and Europe to put the blame for it on Israel, Republicans, Donald Trump or anywhere other than where it belongs: on the vicious, barbaric, hate-filled Hamas terrorists who committed it.

https://www.theblaze.com/news/migrants-throughout-europe-celebrate-hamas-attacks-against-israel

I am fed up to my eyeballs with the moronic moral equivalencies and immediate calls for a cease-fire dished out by far-left, anti-Semitic “Squad” members in Congress, MSNBC commentators and other useful idiots of radical Islamic terrorists.

https://www.westernjournal.com/squad-dems-weigh-terrorists-murder-hundreds-israel/

https://www.breitbart.com/clips/2023/10/07/msnbc-israel-caused-attacks-on-it-and-made-people-vote-for-hamas/

We even had an official government agency, the US Office of Palestinian Affairs, tweet out, “We urge all sides to refrain from violence and retaliatory attacks. Terror and violence solve nothing.” That was quickly deleted with the State Department saying it was not authorized and doesn’t reflect US policy, which is to unequivocally support Israel’s right to defend itself.

https://townhall.com/tipsheet/leahbarkoukis/2023/10/07/us-office-of-palestinian-affairs-deletes-tweet-telling-israel-to-refrain-from-retaliating-n2629509

Good. I don’t want to hear any balloon juice from liberal bureaucrats urging Israel to show restraint and end the violence, which can be translated as “let their people be slaughtered and do nothing to stop it.” We had something like that in the 1930s and ‘40s, and Jews and all other decent people all over the world vowed, “Never again.” “Never” means “NEVER.”

The “Democratic Socialists of America” held a rally in Times Square on Sunday to cheer the Hamas attack on Israel and the slaughter of innocent civilians. So the next time some “Democratic Socialist” tries to convince you that they’re not REALLY your dad’s America-hating socialists, remember this and realize that you can call a scorpion a butterfly, but it’s still a scorpion.

https://www.breitbart.com/middle-east/2023/10/09/photos-democratic-socialists-of-america-cheer-palestinian-terror-in-new-york/

Here’s something that I sincerely hope will make people rethink sending their kids to an Ivy League school: 57 student groups at Harvard signed a statement holding Israel “entirely responsible for all unfolding violence.” Yes, they think it’s Israel’s fault that Hamas terrorists murdered hundreds of innocent people and injured thousands more. I wonder if they’d blame Israel or Trump if some of the millions of unvetted illegal entrants allowed into the US under Biden turned out to be terrorists and attacked a music festival they were attending?

https://www.breitbart.com/tech/2023/10/08/harvard-students-stand-with-palestinian-terrorists-after-attack-on-israel/

On that subject, look at how many people inside both the US and European nations are celebrating this barbarism and ask yourself how they got there and if they might do it, too.

https://redstate.com/tladuke/2023/10/08/attack-on-israel-is-a-stark-reminder-to-united-states-what-happens-when-evil-crosses-an-open-border-n2164821

And here’s more blinkered stupidity from Human Rights Watch, who previously slammed Israel for having too much security on the barrier between Gaza and Israel.

https://instapundit.com/610037/

But the biggest morons on the planet had to be the pro-Palestinian protesters from a group called “Queers for Palestine.” One commentator asked if they were aware that the only place in the Middle East where they could be openly gay and not be executed is Israel?

Finally, I will urge you again to pray for Israel and for the victims of this horrific attack, and end with this thought-provoking commentary from Victor Davis Hanson:

https://twitter.com/VDHanson/status/1711174923220361268

Hanson also posted this on Twitter (X)…

https://twitter.com/VDHanson/status/1710800023028641940

“Here we are 78 years after the end of the Holocaust and once again, thuggish killers dressed in black are pulling Jewish elderly, women, and children out of their homes and executing them, and then throwing their bodies into the street. But in 1945, we were fighting the SS murderers, now we are sending millions in subsidies to their modern Hamas killer squad counterparts. We the American people should demand not one more American cent to these Gestapo and SS killers.”

Here’s an update on the latest leftist virtue signaling by Ben & Jerry’s, the premium ice cream for wealthy, decadent socialists. I reported that the brand announced it would not sell its ice cream in “occupied Palestinian territory,” meaning certain parts of Israel, a move that got it praised by the anti-Semitic BDS (Boycott, Divest, Sanction) movement. The prime minister of Israel warned parent company Unilever of “severe consequences” for its boycott decision. Well, here they come…

https://redstate.com/bonchie/2021/07/19/the-stock-market-tumbles-and-joe-bidens-response-is-unbelievable-n413091

First of all, that article points out that no part of Israel is “occupied Palestinian territory.” Israel took over the West Bank when it won the 1967 war against Jordan and its Arab allies, and the Israelis have a claim on that territory going back to Biblical times.

More to the current point, Israeli law requires local distributors to sell products in all of Israel, so this is an illegal decision that could get Ben & Jerry’s removed from the entire nation’s store shelves. In addition, 35 US states have made it illegal to boycott Israel, which hurts both Israelis and Palestinians, so they might have opened up a legal can of worms in two-thirds of the US. Finally, a number of grocers in the New York area and beyond announced that they will stop carrying Ben & Jerry’s ice cream over this.

Moral: Don’t let radical leftists run your ice cream company if you don’t want your business to suffer a complete meltdown.

I usually don’t spend too much time on political developments in other nations because Americans aren’t that interested. But the replacement of Benjamin Netanyahu after 12 years as Prime Minister of Israel is not an Israeli news item, it’s a story that affects the entire world.

https://www.foxnews.com/world/netanyahu-goes-scorched-earth-in-last-speech-swipes-at-biden-administration-over-iran

After a 60-59 vote in the Parliament, Netanyahu was replaced by Naftali Bennett, who is backed by a fractious coalition ranging from Israel hawks to Islamic Arabs. The major concern with a coalition that covers the entire spectrum of left to right is whether there can be consensus without capitulation on critical issues such as sovereignty in Judea and Samaria and building on the Abraham Accords.

Netanyahu has been the focus of Israel haters worldwide because there has never been so tough, eloquent or resolute a defender of Israel’s right to exist and to defend itself from those who aim to eradicate it. The elites who are always pushing Israel to compromise more never explain how you can compromise with people who want to kill every Jew. By letting them kill half the Jews?

In a strong outgoing speech, Netanyahu said that Iran is "celebrating" his loss because "they understand that starting today, there will be a weak and unstable government that will align with the dictates of the international community." He also revealed that he had privately warned President Biden that his attempts to reinstate the Obama Iran nuke deal would pave the way “for Iran to have an arsenal of nuclear weapons with international legitimacy." He even compared Biden’s blindness to the consequences to FDR’s tragic failure to bomb the train tracks leading to Auschwitz when he had a chance in 1944.

He also predicted that he will soon be back. I hope it’s not under similar circumstances to Winston Churchill’s replacement of British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain after a period when he was out of government. He came back because Britain’s leaders tried to appease the Nazis and ended up needing a tough, resolute leader to win World War II.

Benjamin Netanyahu has been a personal friend of mine for many years, and I’m not sure the people of Israel fully appreciate his statecraft that has led to unprecedented peace, prosperity, and security not just for Israel, but for the entire Middle East. It will take years for the new leadership to develop the depth of relationships that Netanyahu had fostered over his 12 consecutive years and 15 total.

Having said that, Israel is where it is because of God, not any one man or political party. I’ve also known Naftali Bennett for over 10 years and have high hopes that he will use his very significant executive skills to keep Israel stable and secure. I hope all my Christian friends will join me as we “pray for the peace of Jerusalem.”

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