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Israel Pulls Negotiators After Hamas Rejection, Blames US & UN

Israel Pulls Negotiators After Hamas Rejection, Blames US & UN 1

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Israel Pulls Negotiators After Hamas Rejection, Blames US & UN 2

Chalk up another failure in Joe Biden’s strategic diplomacy. After ramping up pressure on Israel to give his administration more credibility in Dearborn as well as in Qatar, Biden and his team allowed the UN Security Council to pass a cease-fire demand without the condition of Hamas releasing the hostages it kidnapped. Supposedly, this momentum would press Israel to offer more concessions and allow Hamas to moderate its hardline demands.

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And Lucy would really let Charlie Brown kick the football, too! 

No … not really:

Palestinian terror group Hamas said Monday night that it informed mediators seeking the release of Israeli hostages that it will stick to its original position on demanding a permanent ceasefire, the withdrawal of Israeli troops from Gaza, a return of displaced Palestinians and a “real” exchange of “prisoners” — demands Israel has already rejected as delusional. …

Hamas claimed in a statement on Monday that Israel “did not respond to any of the basic demands of our people and our resistance (Hamas): a comprehensive ceasefire, withdrawal from the Gaza Strip, the return of the displaced, and a real exchange of prisoners.” The statement appeared to constitute a rejection of the latest proposal on offer in Doha, where Israel and Hamas have been holding indirect talks via mediators from Egypt, Qatar, and the United States.

The only people surprised by this development would work in either the White House or at Turtle Bay. The conundrum hasn’t changed since the eight-day pause in late November. Hamas will not give up its hostages or its human shields, nor will it ever agree to leave Gaza, because they remain convinced that Israel wants an excuse to stop fighting — and/or that the US and West will force Israel to withdraw without any concessions. Hamas also doesn’t give a rat’s ass what happens to the civilians in this war, a point they have proven every day since seizing total control of Gaza in the 2006 elections. 

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Concessions don’t make Hamas more reasonable. They make them more aggressive in using that leverage for ultimate victory. That’s why it used to be Western policy to refuse to negotiate with terrorists, let alone offer them concessions that rewarded their terror tactics and strategies.

Instead, Hamas hasn’t moderated its demands a bit. They have re-escalated them to their previous maximalist positions.  Hamas’ leadership senses weakness and want to use it to isolate Israel as much as possible — and appear to have outplayed Biden and Antony Blinken in doing so.

Having been knifed in the back by both the US and UN, Israel pulled out of talks in Qatar today. And they didn’t do so quietly, either:

In a statement, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said Hamas’s decision to reject a US-brokered compromise is “clear proof it is not interested in continuing talks, and a sad testament to the damage caused by the UN Security Council resolution,” referring to a call for a ceasefire passed Monday night that the US did not veto, thus enabling its passage. …

Foreign Minister Israel Katz said in a radio interview Tuesday morning that the US decision to withhold a veto on the Security Council resolution would hurt Israel in talks to free its hostages.

Foreign Minister Israel Katz said in a radio interview Tuesday morning that the US decision to withhold a veto on the Security Council resolution would hurt Israel in talks to free its hostages. …

Strategic Affairs Minister Ron Dermer told Bloomberg TV on Tuesday that the US decision gave Hamas reason to believe “they’re going to get a ceasefire without giving up the hostages.”

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The White House is still whining about Netanyahu today. They’re claiming that the Russia-China cease-fire resolution still mentioned the hostages and that the Israelis could have adopted their own passive view of it. Blaming Israel ignores a lot of recent context in the US, however:

“It seems like the Prime Minister’s Office is choosing to create a perception of daylight here when they don’t need to do that,” White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said in a press briefing.

Oh really? The “perception of daylight” started yesterday at the UN, and not when Chuck Schumer demanded new elections in Israel over the direction of the war? And not when Joe Biden announced his support for Schumer’s speech a couple of days later? Or when Kamala Harris declared the day before the UNSC vote that the US had not ruled out “consequences” for Israel if they moved forward to finish the war Hamas started by destroying their brigades in Rafah?

Kirby disgraces himself with this sophistry. It has become very clear that Biden’s a lot more worried about Dearborn than about the survival of an ally under constant attack for almost two decades by a barbaric terrorist army. The White House has done nothing to demand our own hostages back, or to hold Hamas accountable for kidnapping them while murdering thirty-plus Americans on October 7. It’s not the Israelis creating a ‘perception of daylight,’ but Biden and the rest of the Kabul Bug-Out authors making sure everyone sees the ‘daylight’ they’re creating from Israel. 

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Perhaps this time the Israelis have had enough. Dermer suggested, in the most diplomatic way possible, that theUS should basically STFU and get ready for the inevitable in Rafah. And unless Hamas suddenly decides to capitulate and leave the territory, that advice will likely apply to everyone. 

Israeli Hostage Describes Sexual Assault and Torture During Her Time in Gaza

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Israeli Hostage Describes Sexual Assault and Torture During Her Time in Gaza 4

Amit Soussana was kidnapped from her home in Kfar Aza by Hamas militants on October 7. She was pulled from her burning home and then dragged back to Gaza. This part of her ordeal was captured on camera, showing that she fought her captors.

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Amit would wind up spending several weeks in captivity. The first couple of weeks were spent mostly alone in an apartment with a man named Muhammad.

Ms. Soussana said she was held alone in a child’s bedroom, chained by her left ankle. Sometimes, the guard would enter, sit beside her on the bed, lift her shirt and touch her, she said.

He also repeatedly asked when her period was due. When her period ended, around Oct. 18, she tried to put him off by pretending that she was bleeding for nearly a week, she recalled.

Around Oct. 24, the guard, who called himself Muhammad, attacked her, she said.

Early that morning, she said, Muhammad unlocked her chain and left her in the bathroom. After she undressed and began washing herself in the bathtub, Muhammad returned and stood in the doorway, holding a pistol.

“He came towards me and shoved the gun at my forehead,” Ms. Soussana recalled during eight hours of interviews with The New York Times in mid-March. After hitting Ms. Soussana and forcing her to remove her towel, Muhammad groped her, sat her on the edge of the bathtub and hit her again, she said.

He dragged her at gunpoint back to the child’s bedroom, a room covered in images of the cartoon character SpongeBob SquarePants, she recalled.

“Then he, with the gun pointed at me, forced me to commit a sexual act on him,” Ms. Soussana said.

The Times report doesn’t offer any more detail about the assult but says that Soussana offered a lot more detail during the 8 hours the paper interviewed her. After it was over, her captor apologized and begged her not to tell Israel about what he had done.

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As for her credibility, the Times has verified that she told the same story with the same basic details to doctors and a social worker within hours of her release from captivity.

Ms. Soussana’s personal account of her experience in captivity is consistent with what she told two doctors and a social worker less than 24 hours after she was freed on Nov. 30. Their reports about her account state the nature of the sexual act; The Times agreed not to disclose the specifics.

Eventually she was transferred to another house that contained several other Israeli hostages. While she was with them, she was tied up and beaten, supposedly her captors wanted information.

On that day, the guards wrapped her head in a pink shirt, forced her to sit on the floor, handcuffed her, and began beating her with the butt of a gun, she said.

After several minutes, they used duct tape to cover her mouth and nose, tied her feet, and placed the handcuffs on the base of her palms, she said. Then she was suspended, hanging “like a chicken” from a stick stretching between two couches, causing her such pain that she felt that her hands would soon be dislocated.

They carried on beating and kicking her, focusing on the soles of her feet, while simultaneously demanding information they believed she was hiding from them, Ms. Soussana said.

She still doesn’t understand what exactly they wanted or why they thought she was concealing something, she said. At one point, the head guard brought over a spike, and made as if to poke her eye with it, pulling away just in time, she said.

“It was like that for 45 minutes or so,” she said. “They were hitting me and laughing and kicking me, and called the other hostages to see me,” she said.

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After the beating, they told her she had 40 minutes to give them the information or she would be killed. One of the other hostages asked if she had any final messages to relay to her family. But she wasn’t killed. Instead she was transferred to another house which contained a stairway leading to underground tunnels. She was kept there for a time and said it was hard to breathe because there was so little oxygen. 

Finally, on November 30, the last day of the truce, she was released. Here’s video showing the moment she was handed over to the Red Cross. The other woman in the car with her was hostage Mia Schem. Schem says she only escaped being raped by her captor because his wife and family were living in the next room.

Soussana is the first hostage to come forward saying she was sexually assaulted while in captivity.

Sign Up Now For Your ‘Palestinian Resistance 101’ Class

Sign Up Now For Your 'Palestinian Resistance 101' Class 5

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Sign Up Now For Your 'Palestinian Resistance 101' Class 6

Are any of your children attending Columbia University in New York? If so, you might want to alert them to this exciting new educational opportunity. The college is now apparently offering a new class covering the ongoing unrest in the Middle East. It’s called Palestinian Resistance 101. The subtitle of the course is, “The Fight for Liberation.” Students will hear from speakers representing Israeli-designated terror groups who will instruct them on how to celebrate the October 7 terror attacks and the strategic importance of hijacking airplanes. Your kids will be out there in the streets waving swastikas around in no time at all or your money back! (Free Beacon)

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On Sunday, a group of keffiyeh-clad individuals huddled around a computer to discuss the “Palestinian resistance.” Charlotte Kates, a member of the Israeli-designated terror group Samidoun, praised Hamas’s Oct. 7 terror attack for showing “the potential of a future for Palestine liberated from Zionism.” Khaled Barakat, a Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine activist, lauded airplane hijackings as “one of the most important tactics that the Palestinian resistance have engaged in.”

While those speakers and other attendees were explicit in their support for terrorism against Jews, the event did not take place in Gaza, Doha, or Tehran. It took place in New York City, where an anti-Semitic Columbia University student group—Columbia University Apartheid Divest—invited the speakers to deliver a lecture on “the fight for liberation,” titled “Palestinian Resistance 101.”

Where are all of these pro-Hamas activist groups coming from? And who came up with the name “Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine?” It sounds like something out of a Monty Python movie. It might all be humorous were it not for the very serious nature of what’s going on here. These groups are showing up on American college campuses and fanning the flames of the already unhinged pro-Hamas student groups. 

Columbia University is technically listed as a “privately supported, nonsectarian, not-for-profit” institution. However, they still currently receive $1.2 billion in government grants and contracts annually. Why is any university receiving taxpayer funding of any sort when they are spreading this type of poison around in the national bloodstream? The maniacs involved in Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) are already causing enough damage. They don’t need outside help of this sort.

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To be clear, none of this is happening in a vacuum. Young people don’t simply wake up one morning and decide to support terrorism. They are being indoctrinated, possibly at home but definitely in the schools. They have professors and advisers there steering them in this direction and those teachers and administrators only quiet down (temporarily) when their antics make national headlines and calls for their dismissal come up for discussion. 

Speaking of SJP, they haven’t slowed down with their hateful antics, even if they aren’t generating as many headlines these days. They are still holding “die-ins” around the country and they just held another one at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill this weekend.  They plastered pictures of dead children on campus buildings while chanting about “honoring our martyrs.” At other schools such as the University of Chicago, the question is finally being raised as to whether or not the school should continue to allow SJP to engage as a recognized student group. Their constantly disruptive behavior and violations of school policies are turning the campus into a toxic and sometimes dangerous battlefield. The fact that they continue to find faculty sponsorship is equally disturbing. 

Now they are importing foreign “talent” to come in and egg the students on further. I remain in favor of free speech, but openly calling for violence and the destruction of property is not free speech. It’s incitement. And a way should be found to put a stop to it.

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Blundering Biden Campaign Sends Jill Out to Call Florida Republicans Nazis

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Jill Biden is increasing her time out on the campaign trail. She was in California over the weekend raising money for her husband’s re-election campaign.

Instead of confronting Jill for the elder abuse she inflicts on her husband as his top confidant, and insists he runs for re-election despite advanced age and dementia, Democrats donated to the campaign. Jill’s job is to rewrite history and tout the successes of her husband while in the White House. I know. There isn’t anything positive to talk about. So, she calls Republicans, especially Florida Republicans, Nazis.

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How original

The tickets for that shindig cost up to $100,000 each. She aimed at the Parental Rights in Education Act in Florida, referring to it with the name Democrat activists gave it – the Don’t Say Gay Bill. She said it was a step towards dictatorship.

Jill is a teacher, remember, in a Virginia community college, so she is probably in support of keeping parents out of their children’s education. She likes to remind teacher union members that they have a friend in the White House because she is a union member, too. 

If educators are expressing these opinions in public, what hatred are they spewing in their classrooms?

‘History teaches us that democracies don’t disappear overnight,’ she said. ‘They disappear slowly, subtly silently. A book ban a court decision, a Don’t Say Gay law.

‘Before World War Two, I’m told, Berlin was the center of LGBTQ culture in Europe. One group of people loses their rights and then another, and then another, until one morning you wake up and you no longer live in a democracy.’

Days before Jill blasted Florida Republicans as Nazis, the state settled a lawsuit over the parental rights bill. Governor DeSantis called it a major win for his agenda in Florida. 

The bill bans sexual orientation and gender identity from being a part of classroom instruction for school children in kindergarten through third grade. It expanded to all grades last year.

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Two years ago, DeSantis displayed some of the books taken out of classrooms during a press conference. Most of the books have been moved to the school libraries and put in age-appropriate sections

Some included illustrations depicting minors engaged in sexual activity and instructions on how to masturbate, engage in sex acts or download apps that make it easier to have ‘casual intercourse.’

And he slammed the ‘hoax’ that taking the books out of the classroom would be a form of ‘book banning.’

‘I just think parents, when they’re sending their kids to school, they should not have to worry about this garbage being in the schools,’ the GOP governor said.

 Say, where was Jill back in the day when her husband was allegedly showering with her daughter? 

When Joe Biden launched his re-election campaign in January, he said that Trump ‘echoed the same language used in Nazi Germany’. This is what desperate Democrats do – they name-call in the ugliest ways possible to distract from their lack of substance. 

Jill went on a little riff about how “MAGA Republicans” want to undo all the “success” that has happened in the LGBTQ community. 

Ironic. Democrats from Old Yeller to others in the Democrat Party continue to try to scare voters into believing that “democracy is on the ballot.” Democrats always accuse Republicans of what they are doing.

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People are not as stupid as Jill and Joe think. Many people weighed in on social media by expressing their disgust with Jill’s remarks.

This is the best Democrats have to offer. 

This Is the City of San Francisco Fighting for Safety and Sanity

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This Is the City of San Francisco Fighting for Safety and Sanity 10

It’s a given that nearly everyone in San Francisco politics is on the left. Still, there’s a difference between those on the left who still want and expect a city that is sanely run and which makes a real effort to maintain public safety and the woke utopia that leftists are trying to usher in through their reforms to the justice system, reforms that often seem synonymous with giving violent criminals one pass after another.

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Case in point, back in June 2021 a 94-year-old woman named Anh “Peng” Taylor was stabbed in broad daylight by Daniel Cauich, a man with a long criminal history, including a previous arrest for murder. Cauich was wearing an ankle monitor at the time of the attack, all of which was caught on video.

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Miraculously, Anh Taylor survived. As for Daniel Cauich, he had previously been arrested for murder but was released because he wasn’t given a proper Miranda warning.

55-year-old Larry Peevey was killed at the 16th and Mission BART plaza on June 5, 2016. Daniel and his brother Header Cauich, along with another man, Jose Poot, were arrested and all three charged in Peevey’s murder. As the Examiner reported at the time, Peevey was killed with two knives and a hatchet — and police had grainy surveillance video of the crime.

The brothers don’t speak English well and were mirandized with the help of an interpreter. Afterwards they admitted to being present in the video of the murder but their attorney later argued that they hadn’t understood they had a right to remain silent.

According to an excerpt from the court transcript from that hearing, defense attorney Paul Dennison successfully argued that charges against the brothers should be dismissed both due to the inadmissibility of their initial statements to police, and the lack of other evidence against them.

The trial was further muddled by the a California law passed in 2018 which said an accomplice could not be convicted of first-degree murder unless there was evidence of “malice aforethought” from the accomplice.

Dennison argued that without the statement given by Daniel Cauich as to his presence at the BART plaza, given without proper Mirandizing, the court had no other proof that he was at the scene of the crime. And even if there were such evidence, there was no proof of express malice toward the victim from either Cauich or his brother.

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The result was that Daniel Cauich and his brother were released and the charges against them were dismissed. By 2021, progressive DA Chesa Boudin claimed his office had argued Cauich should be held in jail because he was on felony probation at the time of another burglary arrest. Instead, he was released for substance abuse treatment with just an ankle monitor. And that’s when he randomly attempted to murder Anh “Peng” Taylor.

Finally, jump forward to March 15 of this year. After nearly three years in jail awaiting trial, Cauich was sentenced for the attempted murder. The result was a suspended sentence and another diversion program. The judge decided Cauich deserved one more chance to stay out of prison

The judge, Kay Tsenin, read the sentence and said that Cauich can avoid jail time but is required to enter probation and a strict behavioral and mental health treatment program, which means he will be under intensive supervision in a facility with limited freedom until he successfully finishes the program.

The court combined the attack and another burglary case for this sentence.

A program called the Intensive Supervision Court—intended for high-risk probationers as an alternative to state prison—will decide later what specific programs Cauich will undergo. If he violates any probation rules, he will be sent to prison.

“I am giving you one last chance to stay out of state prison,” Tsenin said to Cauich during the hearing.

That infuriated a lot of people, including DA Brooke Jenkins who posted this on X.

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A group of protesters, including Jenkins, showed up at the courthouse to denounce the outcome. As you’ll hear in this clip, there were also counter-protesters who showed up to support the light sentence for Cauich.

The counter-protesters were mostly defense attorneys who don’t like Brooke Jenkins.

Cauich’s defense attorney, Lisa DewBerry, said that her client was the victim of a hit-and-run himself that contributed to a severe mental health crisis that came to a head when he stabbed Taylor.

The defense attorney said Judge Tsenin sentenced him appropriately and set terms for Cauich to receive mental health care. She said if he failed to live up to the strict demands tied to his probation, a 10-year prison sentence would be re-instated.

Outside the courthouse, counter protesters, including defense attorneys, backed Judge Tsenin’s decision to offer probation in this case.

“She made the best judgment. And Brooke Jenkins shouldn’t be attacking judges for doing the best job that they can with the evidence presented and distorting the facts,” said defense attorney Marc Zilversmit.

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A final decision hasn’t been made, in part because the judge can’t move forward with this slap on the wrist sentence without the approval of the DA’s office. And as of now as if Jenkins is not going to give her approval.

It’s not clear to me how long Cauich would remain in a mental health residential treatment program if the deal were to go forward. This document on the DA’s website such treatment is limited to two years. Presumably after that Cauich would still be on probation but would otherwise be free to walk the streets. But again, the details are a bit vague.

It feels to me like this protest and counter-protest is what it looks like when a city overwhelmed with progressive criminal justice reformers tries to stand up for some basic level of sanity and safety. Putting away a person who dodged a murder charge and who then attempted to murder of an elderly stranger for no reason should not be a tough call. But in San Francisco you have to fight an uphill battle even to keep someone like Daniel Cauich from getting another and then another last chance.

As for Anh Taylor, she is now 97-years-old and is doing well according to her family.

Boeing CEO Bows Out

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This feels as if it’s been a long time coming, though in reality it probably wasn’t. After Boeing has faced one public relations disaster after another and multiple lawsuits over safety and manufacturing failures with its 737 Max airline series (and a few other models as well), CEO Dave Calhoun has announced that he will be stepping down. The resignation isn’t taking effect immediately, however. He will remain until the end of the year while the company launches a search for his replacement. Boeing’s chairman is also stepping down from the board of directors, though he will remain with the organization. With some of their planes literally falling apart in the air, not to mention the mysterious “suicide” of a whistleblower who had complained about safety and production standards at Boeing’s manufacturing plants, the pressure had apparently become too much and the company appears to be attempting to demonstrate that they are taking the issue seriously. (NY Post)

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Boeing CEO Dave Calhoun will leave his post at the end of the year and the company’s chairman of the board will step down this spring as the aerospace company reels from increased scrutiny from regulators in the wake of near-disasters including a door blowout in mid-flight earlier this year.

The company’s chairman, Larry Kellner, is stepping down from the board of directors in May while Stan Deal, president and CEO of Boeing Commercial Airplanes, is resigning effective immediately, according to reports.

Steve Mollenkopf, former CEO of tech giant Qualcomm, will be Boeing’s new board chairman, succeeding Kellner.

The pressure on Boeing to take some sort of action had been coming on multiple fronts. Last week, the CEOs of several airlines had requested a meeting with Boeing’s board to “express concerns” over the company’s safety and production issues. The airlines have been taking a black eye as well, with some facing their own lawsuits brought by distraught flyers. 

The news of the impending changes seemed to be well-received on Wall Street initially. Boeing’s stock had plunged 25% this year, but on Monday it rebounded slightly. This may provide some relief to Boeing’s shareholders who have clearly also been unhappy. 

What remains to be seen is whether or not changes at the top will lead to meaningful changes on the production floor. Whoever takes charge will still be under enormous pressure to get planes out the door and into service as quickly as possible lest they start losing customers and missing their sales targets. According to the whistleblowers, that pressure is what drove the sloppy performance in the production and quality control departments. The now-deceased whistleblower John Barnett testified that after he raised issues of production quality and safety, rather than addressing those issues, management launched a campaign of gaslighting and harassment against him. 

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In any event, changes are clearly required. While there thankfully haven’t been any crashes or fatalities in recent years, they’ve come terrifyingly close. Video has been released of a wheel literally falling off of one of Boeing’s planes during takeoff and destroying a car in the parking lot below. Thankfully nobody was in the car at the time.

Another plane was found to have an entire panel missing from its exterior when it landed. They say an investigation is underway, but at this point, the airline isn’t sure whether the panel fell off during the flight or if it was already missing when they took off. That’s probably more the fault of the maintenance crew at the airport than Boeing, but it’s disturbing nonetheless. None of this is normal and the industry badly needs to restore the faith of the flying public if they ever hope to return to business as usual.

Russian Court Extends Evan Gershkovich’s Pre-Trial Detention

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Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich is approaching the one-year mark of when he was arrested by Russia’s Federal Security Service, (FSB) while on a reporting trip. 

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A Russian court extended his pre-trial detention by three months. A trial date has not been set. He is 32 years old now and was detained on March 29, 2023. He is being held in Moscow’s Lefortovo Prison. He is charged with espionage.

What sets Evan’s detention apart from other American citizens being held in Russia is that he is a reporter. He is the first reporter to be detained in Russia on an allegation of espionage since the end of the Cold War. 

Evan, the Wall Street Journal, the State Department, and his family deny that Evan is a spy. He was accredited by Russia’s Foreign Ministry to work as a journalist when he was detained. Evan’s court appearance was a closed hearing at the Moscow City Court. The FSB requested Evan remain behind bars as he awaits trial. He will be held until June 30 due to the latest ruling of the court. 

Investigators are allowed up to a year in criminal cases that are deemed particularly complex to prepare for trial, according to Russian law. Extensions can be granted in exceptional circumstances. 

Evan’s detention is indeed an exceptional circumstance from an American point of view. He’s the first journalist detained in Russia on espionage charges since the end of the Cold War. That is an important distinction. This is Putin jabbing his finger in Joe Biden’s eye. Biden is perceived as weak on the world stage. Putin is emboldened and testing how far he can go. He is testing boundaries. And, he is detaining Americans to use as leverage to make prisoner swap deals he wants to make.

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U.S. Ambassador to Russia Lynne Tracy released a statement. She said that Evan remains resilient and acknowledged that the ruling in favor of extending his detention was “particularly painful” since this week marks a year since he was detained.

“The accusations against Evan are categorically untrue. They are not a different interpretation of circumstances. They are fiction,” she said.

Gershkovich’s detention is “not about evidence, due process or rule of law,” Tracy said. It is about “using American citizens as pawns to achieve political ends,” she added.

 The Wall Street Journal also released a statement.

The Wall Street Journal said in a statement, “It’s a ruling that ensures Evan will sit in a Russian prison well past one year. It was also Evan’s 12th court appearance, baseless proceedings that falsely portray him as something other than what he is—a journalist who was doing his job. He should never have been detained. Journalism is not a crime, and we continue to demand his immediate release.”

Court proceedings in Russia are usually closed, especially in espionage cases. There has been no evidence presented against Evan in court. 

Last week, Jason Conti, general counsel for the Wall Street Journal’s publisher, Dow Jones, said during an event at the National Press Club that the U.S. government should deliver immediate consequences, including sanctions, against authoritarian countries that wrongfully detain reporters. 

The Biden administration said it sanctioned the FSB about a month after Evan was detained. Allegedly, the sanctions were being put together before Evan’s detention. The administration said sanctions would pressure Putin. It has not done so. Since Evan’s detention, other Americans have been detained, including another journalist. 

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Evan is designated as wrongfully detained by the State Department. That commits the government to securing his release. He and Paul Whelan, who is serving a 16-year sentence for espionage in a Russian penal colony, are the only Americans with that designation in Russia by the State Department. 

Putin said in February that he is open to a prison swap with Evan and maybe Whelan for a Russian being held prisoner. He didn’t give a time frame or a name but it is thought that he was speaking about Russian operative Vadim Krasikov. He is serving a life sentence in Germany for gunning down a Chechen emigre in a Berlin park in 2019. 

Evan’s story gets a lot of publicity because he is a journalist. I wish other Americans being detained were given the same attention. The Washington Post editorial board published an op-ed yesterday stating that Evan should be freed now. 

Not even during the Cold War, when the Soviet police state routinely harassed and sometimes expelled Western correspondents, did any U.S. reporter receive the kind of long-term detention to which Mr. Gershkovich is being subjected. (He is still awaiting trial.) The closest parallel is the case of U.S. News & World Report correspondent Nicholas Daniloff, whom Soviet authorities detained in 1986, also on phony charges of espionage. The regime kept him for just 13 days in Lefortovo, followed by 17 days of house arrest in the U.S. Embassy, before letting him return to the United States in exchange for a Soviet official arrested in the United States.

But this is Vladimir Putin’s Russia and thuggery reigns. Probably, Mr. Putin is holding Mr. Gershkovich as a chit to be traded for actual Russian spies or other criminals held in the West. Mr. Putin used similar tactics in the case of U.S. women’s basketball star Brittney Griner, arrested at a Moscow airport on dubious drug charges in February 2022 and released in a trade that December for Viktor Bout, a Russian convicted in the United States of arms trafficking and other crimes. The next such offender Moscow hopes to deal for could be Vadim Krasikov, an FSB assassin convicted in Germany in December 2021 of the brazen daylight murder of a Chechen dissident in a central Berlin park.

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Interestingly, WaPo goes back to 1986. That was Reagan’s time in office. Reagan was a strong leader, as opposed to Joe Biden today. Perception is everything in politics. Biden’s weakness jeopardizes Americans overseas. 

The op-ed ends with this:

In a just and rational world, Mr. Putin would unconditionally free these people. In this misbegotten moment, though, it falls to the Biden administration to explore every possible option to secure their releases, including negotiations with Moscow, to make sure this bitter anniversary never comes around again. Meanwhile, the cruelty Mr. Putin is inflicting upon these Americans, and their families, cannot be overstated. And the names of Ksenia Khavana, Alsu Kurmasheva, Paul Whelan and Evan Gershkovich cannot be forgotten.

The Biden administration does not have a good record in bringing Americans home. His record is the opposite. He leaves military members and helpers behind, as he did in the disastrous withdrawal in Afghanistan. He leaves Americans behind when violence breaks out overseas, as in Israel and Haiti. He is not strong enough to do what needs to be done. 

Our enemies are watching. They are emboldened by Biden’s weakness. The world is a dangerous place for Americans right now. Biden doesn’t care. 

When I write about Evan and other Americans detained overseas, as I often do, I feel anger that we have such weak leadership in the White House. We need a change. Thank you for coming here and supporting the writers at Hot Air as we fight the good fight every day. We can do that thanks to your support. Will you consider increasing your support and becoming a VIP member, if you have not already done so? Please go HERE and find the plan that works best for you. We need all hands on deck as we approach the elections in November. We can’t do it without you. Thank you for your consideration. We have a country to save!

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Rep. Bowman Does a U-Turn on Hamas and Sexual Assault

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Rep. Bowman Does a U-Turn on Hamas and Sexual Assault 15

It might be time for Rep. Jamaal Bowman to pull another fire alarm. Today, Politico has a story about his reversal on the question of whether or not Hamas militants sexually assaulted Israeli women during the 10/7 attack on Israel. More than a month after the attack, Rep. Bowman told a pro-Palestinian gathering in White Plains, NY that those reports were a “lie” and “propaganda.” Here’s video.

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There’s a bit of bait and switch happening here. On the day he made those comments Rep. Bowman gave an interview to a local news outlet in which he sounded much less extreme. “We don’t want anyone to be killed. What happened on October 7 was horrible and I condemn that and we condemn it,” he said in a much calmer voice. So it’s one face for the ceasefire protesters and a different one for the media even on the same day. Maybe Bowman thought his comments about rape claims being a lie hadn’t been captured on video?

Whatever the case, as of last week Rep. Bowman was singing a very different tune.

Asked about those remarks on Thursday outside the House floor, Bowman declined to talk about them on the record.

“I’m focused on my votes and other things. I’m not talking,” he said. When asked if he still doubted those claims, he added: “I’m not talking about that now. My team will get back to you.”…

“As I said at this rally, what Hamas did on October 7th is a war crime and they must release all the hostages,” he said. “The UN confirmed that Hamas committed rape and sexual violence, a reprehensible fact that I condemn entirely. I also voted yes on Resolution 966, which officially condemns the rape and sexual violence committed by Hamas. So let me be clear, and ensure my words are not twisted: I always stand against sexual violence in all forms and stand for peace for all.”

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It has been a tough couple of months for Bowman. In January he was forced to walk back some 9/11 conspiracy theories he had promoted years earlier as a blogger.

Web archives show that while Bowman was a 35-year-old educator running the Cornerstone Academy for Social Action in the Bronx, he maintained an online journal at Relentless-Strongback.Blogspot.com, where he published poems and brief essays there on personal, political, and pedagogical concerns through 2014…

Bowman there invoked a favorite, disproven trope of the paranoid fringe: that the collapse of Building 7 was the result of a controlled demolition. In fact, the National Institute of Standards and Technology determined that Building 7 buckled and fell after debris from its taller peers struck it and ignited a blaze inside, undermining its structural integrity. The agency found that none of the details of collapse, from the manner in which the building’s windows broke to the sounds reported in the area, were consistent with the massive blasts a controlled demolition would have required.

The poem then pursues even more obscure conspiratorial musings.

“Allegedly/Two other planes/The Pentagon/Pennsylvania/Hijacked by terrorist [sic]/Minimal damage done/Minimal debris found/Hmm…” he wrote.

The poem ended with Bowman recommending people watch two conspiracy videos: Loose Change and Zeitgeist. That Bowman was promoting this Alex Jones level claptrap little more than a decade ago is pretty amazing. Of course there was also a shout-out to Michael Moore which seems less surprising. In any case, the 9/11 conspiracy theorizing did not go over well with first responders.

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The comments have infuriated first responders, and multiple law enforcement groups who spoke with Playbook said the writings have all but disqualified him from their endorsement.

“I’ve been dealing with these imbeciles for over 20 years now, where I’ve been accused of planting bombs every 10 floors in the Trade Center and things like that,” said Thomas von Essen, the city’s fire commissioner on Sept 11.

Rep. Bowman faces a primary challenge from Westchester County executive George Latimer. Latimer is running, in part, on his support for Israel and has raised significant money from AIPAC. Overall, Latimer has raised about twice as much money as Bowman.

District Hiring ‘Whiteness’ Superintendent to Root Out White Supremacy

District Hiring 'Whiteness' Superintendent to Root Out White Supremacy 16

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District Hiring 'Whiteness' Superintendent to Root Out White Supremacy 17

The Saint Louis Park School District, located in the suburbs of Minneapolis, is hiring an assistant superintendent to “examine the presence of Whiteness” in the district. 

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It’s a good gig, paying between $134,000 and $201,000. 

It seems that “Whiteness” is a pressing problem for the district, which no doubt explains why there has been so much learning loss in the public schools over the past few years. Enrollment of White students has been dropping, with only 53% of the students being White, and as they have fled to other districts, the problem of White Supremacy has gotten worse, leading to horrible test scores:

In St. Louis Park Public School Dist., 55% of elementary students tested at or above the proficient level for reading, and 50% tested at or above that level for math. Also, 52% of middle school students tested at or above the proficient level for reading, and 37% tested at or above that level for math. And 58% of high school students tested at or above the proficient level for reading, and 34% tested at or above that level for math

It’s a troubling thing, to see how Whiteness is harming minority students, and the district is working hard to root it out. As the student body and staff become less White, Whiteness has become an increasing problem. 

No doubt testing is a White concept too, so perhaps eliminating measurement of student performance will help improve student success rates. It’s worth trying, and a good antiracist school superintendent could look for other ways to ensure success for students. 

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A job description at St. Louis Park Public Schools says the school district is seeking an assistant superintendent who can “examine the presence and role of ‘Whiteness’ in systems and structures.”

Posted last week on the school’s job board, the position of assistant superintendent will receive an annual salary between $134,141 and $201,212. The position will be a part of the superintendent’s leadership team and will have significant influence in how the school district operates.

However, the job description indicates that the role will have a very particular focus. The first sentence of the position’s summary says, “the Assistant Superintendent proactively supports the Superintendent to create and communicate anti-racist structures and systems, works to interrupt systems of oppression, and serves as a role model for culturally relevant pedagogy.”

The school district continues its summary of the position by saying the assistant superintendent must be “unwaveringly committed to anti-racist actions and use data to adapt and sustain their efforts towards racial equity to plan, direct, and coordinate action to achieve the mission and strategic objectives.”

As a matter of fact, words such as “anti-racist,” “racial equity,” and other related phrases appear in the job description over a dozen times.

Proficiency in math and reading are disastrously low, which goes to prove that requiring students to learn math and reading are White supremacist as well. I strongly encourage the district to consider dropping these subjects and focus on more important things like ensuring that students become Queer activists who support Hamas and prepare to riot for public health. 

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Minnesota claims to be among the best states in the nation when it comes to education, but that, too, is undoubtedly due to its being drenched in Whiteness that must be rooted out. Shockingly, most White states in the nation also happen to perform better than average on test scores, proving that they too, are White supremacist. Somehow, Asians, who score highest on performance measures, are immune to White supremacy or have become White themselves

Rooting out Whiteness from education is second only to rooting out heterosexuality, with emotional resilience comes in third in priority for elimination. 

Minnesota has among the worst achievement gaps between White and minority students in the nation, and the problem has been the prevalence of Whites in the population. Luckily, the importation of refugees is slowly changing the demographics, and with that change, there has been a significant reduction in focus on educational attainment and a greater focus on ideological indoctrination. 

I sincerely hope that more school districts can focus on the problem of Whiteness. 

NYC Sends Hundreds More Police to the Subways

NYC Sends Hundreds More Police to the Subways 18

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NYC Sends Hundreds More Police to the Subways 19

The crime problem in New York City’s subways has become legendary over the past few years, fueled in part by the invasion of illegal migrants flooding the city. The Governor and the Mayor have already sent in the National Guard and the State Police in an attempt to combat the problem. Now the Metropolitan Transit Department and the NYPD have announced that an additional 800 uniformed police officers will be heading into the tunnels. But their focus won’t initially be on the knife-wielding muggers or the maniacs shoving people onto the tracks. They will be dispatched to the subway platforms to watch out for turnstile jumpers who evade paying their subway fares. That may sound rather trivial at first glance, but it’s actually not, as we’ll discuss below. (Associated Press)

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New York City plans to intensify a crackdown on subway fare-beating by sending at least 800 police officers specifically to keep watch on turnstiles, officials announced Monday.

It’s the latest in a string of recent moves to address concerns about safety and unruliness in the nation’s busiest subway system. Now, the New York Police Department plans to deploy hundreds of uniformed and plainclothes officers this week to deter fare evasion.

“The tone of law and order starts at the turnstiles,” department Transit Chief Michael Kemper said at a news conference. Chief of Patrol John Chell said the additional officers would fan out to various stations, based on crime, ridership statistics and community complaints.

Fare evasion obviously sounds like a far less serious threat to society than armed robbery or attempted murder. (Turnstile jumpers can be charged with Theft of Services, a misdemeanor offense that can bring a one-year jail term, though few are ever punished that way without prior offenses.) But this type of law enforcement approach can actually pay significant dividends. It’s an example of the “broken windows” type of law enforcement that sent crime rates plunging back when Rudy Giuliani was the Mayor.

If someone is willing to disregard the signs and jump over a turnstile without paying, it’s possible that they were just short of cash and in a hurry. (That’s not much of an excuse, since the turnstiles all accept contactless credit and debit cards.) But many of the people who do that are probably going to be willing to break other laws and may be entering the tunnels with that purpose in mind. If you can shut them down before they even make it to the platform, you might be preventing a far worse crime from taking place.

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Something clearly needed to be done. Despite previous efforts to enhance enforcement, the NYPD reports that crime rates in the subway system are up 20% over the same period in 2023. The surge in robberies and assaults has been particularly bad. In 2022, crime rates dropped significantly after Mayor Eric Adams implemented the “subway surge” in policing, but by the following year, the funding for that program ran out. The results have been obvious. Just last week, a gang of 13 criminals assaulted and robbed multiple people of their wallets, phones, and even shoes. As you’ll see in this video, none of them paid their fare at the turnstiles. 

The current surge in law enforcement in the tunnels is already starting to pay off. The NYPD reports that more than 1,700 people have been arrested on a charge of turnstile-jumping so far this year. That’s nearly double the rate seen in the first three months of 2023. Additionally, over 28,000 evasion tickets have been issued. Will that bring the crime rates back down? Time will tell, but it may not be that simple. We are currently living in an era of widespread insanity and lawlessness. The problems are being exacerbated by the flood of illegal migrants. The cops have their hands full and New York is still far short of its law enforcement recruitment goals. We should give them credit for making the effort, but they’ve got a lot on their plates at the moment.

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