Saturday, May 11, 2024

The Top 5 (May 11)

* "The Democrat Party’s Antisemitism Went Mainstream With Barack Obama" (Shawn Fleetwood, Federalist)

From the article -- It goes without saying that if the aforementioned demonstrators were “MAGA Republicans” protesting an Islamic country and harassing Muslim students, legacy media “journalists” would be relentlessly spamming the phone lines and emails of every GOP official in the country asking for condemnation. They will never hold Democrats to the same standard, and their refusal to call out Obama for ignoring the leftist occupation of universities shows it.

While the media’s inaction isn’t surprising, neither is Obama’s silence. Obama’s decision to remain mum on the issue is representative of his behavior and the individuals encompassing him throughout his life...

* "The People Setting America on Fire: An investigation into the witches’ brew of billionaires, Islamists, and leftists behind the campus protests." (Park MacDougald, Tablet)

From the article -- Have America’s college students suddenly converted en masse to anarcho-communist-jihadism? Not quite. Many are far left and anti-Israel. Some are foreigners, or the children of foreigners, who have imported the conspiracies and hatreds of their homelands. More, admitted under relaxed pandemic-era admissions standards and proudly ignorant of both American and world history, are taking the “decolonial” half-knowledge pushed by their elders to its logical conclusion.

But students are not the only, and perhaps not even the most important, faction active in the campus protests. As in the “mostly peaceful” Black Lives Matter protests of the summer of 2020, “outside agitators”—professional radicals and organizers, black bloc antifa thugs, Marxist-Leninist revolutionaries, and Palestinian and Islamist radicals—have played a central role in organizing and escalating the campus protests, just as they have organized and escalated the wider anti-Israel protest campaign that began almost immediately after Oct. 7. This largely decentralized network of agitators is, in turn, politically and financially supported by a vast web of progressive nonprofits, NGOs, foundations, and dark-money groups ultimately backed by big-money donors aligned with the Democratic Party...

* "Biden’s double game on Hamas should fool no one: A presidential speech condemned past and present antisemitism. However, it contradicted policies aimed at letting the terrorists win and appeasing pro-Hamas voters." (Jewish News Service)

From the article -- The reason for Biden’s carping at Israel had nothing to do with human rights or America’s strategic interests. It was motivated by politics. From the moment that the Oct. 7 attacks happened, the left wing of the president’s Democratic Party has been vocal in its distaste for Israel and opposition to a successful effort to take out Hamas. So-called “progressives,” as well as the extremists of the left-wing congressional “Squad,” were falsely accusing Israel of war crimes and “genocide” even before the bodies of the Oct. 7 victims were cold. They are motivated by intersectional and critical race theory ideologies, which falsely label Israel as a “white” oppressor and regard the Palestinian war to destroy the one Jewish state on the planet as a righteous cause. They want self-determination for everyone but Jews, perceiving Hamas’s genocidal goals as a form of justified “resistance.”

Living as he does in a left-wing bubble inside the White House and, as he has always been throughout his long political career, a weathervane determined to stay in sync with liberal fashion, Biden thinks the anger at his initial pro-Israel policies is the reason why he continues to trail former President Donald Trump in the polls. He believes that mollifying disaffected young leftists, as well as Arab and Muslim-American voters, is the key to retaining the support of the Democratic base.

* "A simple and persuasive way to explain your pro-life view is as easy as one, two, three." (Paul Stark, NRL News)

From the article -- If someone asks what you think about abortion, or why you’re pro-life, what do you say? How do you get supporters of abortion to rethink the issue—or even change their minds? We can put forward our case clearly, concisely, and in a way that appeals to those who aren’t already pro-life. Here are three key points to make when articulating your view....

* "To Abortion Workers: 'Jesus Still Loves the Little Children'" (Denny Hartford, Vital Signs Blog)

From the article -- The Wednesday focus in Vital Signs “3 for 5 Prayer Campaign Against Planned Parenthood” is to “pray for spiritual conversion among Planned Parenthood employees and supporters.”...Well, with this prayer target in mind, I thought I’d write up a quick summary of the appeal I made to the abortionists last Monday morning when Claire, Keith, and I were engaged in our prayers and public pro-life witness on the sidewalk there. It is one of the messages I have spoken to abortion workers for over 40 years and it goes something like this...