Recent Appearances...

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Recent Appearances...

International-UN-NGOs

Sexual allegations against Khan spurred Israeli ICC arrest warrants, report suggests

2025-05-12

[IsraelTimes] International Criminal Court chief prosecutor heard of allegations against him just weeks before seeking arrest of Netanyahu and then-defense minister Gallant

International Criminal Court Chief Prosecutor Karim Khan allegedly forced sexual intercourse upon a member of staff on multiple occasions, the Wall Street Journal said Saturday, in a report that questioned whether the allegations may have prompted his decision to issue arrest warrants for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and then-defense minister Yoav Gallant.

The report said that at the time — weeks after the Hamas
..the well-beloved offspring of the Moslem Brotherhood,...
-led October 7, 2023, onslaught — Khan was coming under increasing pressure to take action over Israel’s military campaign in Gazoo
...Hellhole adjunct to Israel and Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, inhabited by Gazooks. The place was acquired in the wake of the 1967 War and then presented to Paleostinian control in 2006 by Ariel Sharon, who had entered his dotage. It is currently ruled with a rusty iron fist by Hamas with about the living conditions you'd expect. It periodically attacks the Hated Zionist Entity whenever Iran needs a ruckus created or the hard boyz get bored, getting thumped by the IDF in return. The ruling turbans then wave the bloody shirt and holler loudly about oppression and disproportionate response...
, and that he had been lashing out at his team.

A Malaysian lawyer in her 30s reportedly asked to meet with Kahn to ask him to change the manner in which he interacted with the staff. In response, he summoned her to his suite in the Millennium Hilton Hotel next to the UN headquarters in New York.

According to the report, the woman testified to UN officials that Khan started to touch her in a sexual manner, something that she said had been occurring for a number of months.

Vile and inexcusable.

"She said she attempted to leave the room several times, but he took her hand and eventually pulled her to the bed. Then he pulled off her pants and forced sexual intercourse, according to the testimony," the report said.

"He always holds on to me and leads me to the bed," she said in testimony reviewed by the Journal. "It’s the feeling of being trapped."

The report said the woman, a married mother, claimed it was one of multiple incidents of "coerced sexual intercourse" but that she stayed in the job because she felt it was an important role in human rights
...not to be confused with individual rights, mind you...
, and she was additionally paying for medical care for her mother. The report said she also began to fear retaliation if she were to complain.

The woman alleged that Khan carried out "nonconsensual sex acts" in New York, Colombia, Congo, Chad, and Gay Paree, as well as at a residence owned by his wife in The Hague, the report said.

Khan, through his lawyers, told the newspaper that it is "categorically untrue that he has engaged in sexual misconduct of any kind."

The newspaper said that just two and a half weeks after Khan learned of the allegations, on May 20, 2024, he announced his intention to issue arrest warrants for Netanyahu and Gallant over the war in Gaza, in addition to Hamas leaders. The day before, he had canceled a fact-finding mission to Israel and Gaza for which he had pressed then-US secretary of state Anthony Blinken to convince Israel to grant him access to Gaza, the report said, citing a May 3, 2024, phone call between the two. According to the newspaper, it was at that time that Khan found out about the allegations against him.

"The timing of the announcement has spurred questions about whether Khan was aiming to protect himself from the sexual-assault allegations. The day before announcing the warrant application, Khan abruptly canceled a trip to Israel and Gaza that he had previously said was important to make his decision," the report said.

According to the Journal, Alan Dershowitz had been organizing a meeting that was set to take place during the trip between Khan and Netanyahu.

Lawyers for Khan denied any connection between the allegations and the warrants.

Khan said the fact that the ICC judges approved the warrants shows that the evidence for them "met the rigorous legal threshold required." The report also noted that already in March 2024, Khan had notified US State Department officials that he intended to seek the arrest warrants, and that was before the allegations were made against him.

However,
there's no worse danger than telling a mother her baby is ugly...
court officials told the newspaper that the arrest warrants ensured support for Khan from anti-Israel countries if the allegations were to become public and additionally discouraged his accuser from coming forward.

The woman allegedly told Sherlocks that Khan had informed her that her accusations would harm the investigation into the Gaza war.

"Think about the Paleostinian arrest warrants," she said he told her, according to her testimony.

The woman, a Moslem, was said to support investigations of Netanyahu, Gallant, and Hamas. She reportedly later told colleagues she didn’t want to harm the arrest warrant process by filing a complaint. On April 29 of that year, she eventually told officials about the alleged assaults, and on May 5, the ICC’s internal investigation agency contacted her.

Goodness. So many reasons for this married muslimah to sacrifice her chastity. Could it be that her judgement is skewed?

On November 24, 2024, the ICC issued warrants for Netanyahu and Gallant. The Prime Minister’s Office panned the move in a statement as an "antisemitic decision" and asserted that it stemmed from Khan’s efforts to "save his skin from the serious charges against him for sexual harassment" as well as the beliefs of "biased judges motivated by antisemitic hatred of Israel."

ICC Warrants were also issued against three Hamas leaders, all of whom have since been killed by Israel.

I seem to recall that all three were already dead when their ICC warrants were issued, but possibly I misremember.

Last month, it was reported that United Nations
...an organization originally established to war on dictatorships which was promptly infiltrated by dictatorships and is now held in thrall to dictatorships...
Sherlocks examining the allegations of sexual misconduct were also looking into allegations that Khan retaliated against staff who reported the allegations or were critical of his handling of the matter.

Khan has alleged that the accusations against him were part of an effort to undermine the ICC. The Journal report said that court officials were concerned that the Mosssd
Mosssd

...sees all, knows all, gets 'em all in the end...
was operating at The Hague. No further details were given.

Khan remains in his position. The ICC did not respond to a Journal request for comment.

Link

Government Corruption

Dershowitz: Boasberg Should Be the One Held in Contempt

2025-04-18

[Townhall] Despite leftist U.S. District Judge James Boasberg finding probable cause to hold the Trump administration in contempt of court on Wednesday for violating his previous order, Harvard Law School professor emeritus Alan Dershowitz believes Boasberg should be the one held in contempt instead "for issuing such a vague order." Boasberg never issued a binding order, Dershowitz explained.

Look, I've been practicing law for 60 years, and what I was always taught is you follow the judge's written order. And as I understand it, there was no written order requiring bringing back these folks," Dershowitz told Newsmax. "He's flexing his muscle. He will be reversed on appeal. The United States Supreme Court is not going to allow criminal contempt against an administration for violating as vague an order as was allegedly violated in this case."

Articles of Impeachment were introduced against Boasberg by Rep. Brandon Gill (R-TX) last month.

Link

International-UN-NGOs

UN envoy Albanese says Israel had no right to wage a war in Gaza after Oct. 7

2024-12-01

The hour-plus long video of the discussion can be seen at the link.

[IsraelTimes] Speaking with Piers Morgan, special rapporteur calls ICC arrest warrant for PM and former defense chief ‘too narrow,’ urges Israel to hand Netanyahu and Gallant over to global court

Reluctantly acknowledging that Hamas
Hamas

..a regional Iranian catspaw,...
’s October 7, 2023, massacre of 1,200 in southern Israel and hostage-taking of 251 to Gazoo
...Hellhole adjunct to Israel and Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, inhabited by Gazooks. The place was acquired in the wake of the 1967 War and then presented to Paleostinian control in 2006 by Ariel Sharon, who had entered his dotage. It is currently ruled with a rusty iron fist by Hamas with about the living conditions you'd expect. It periodically attacks the Hated Zionist Entity whenever Iran needs a ruckus created or the hard boyz get bored, getting thumped by the IDF in return. The ruling turbans then wave the bloody shirt and holler loudly about oppression and disproportionate response...
"could qualify" as terrorism, the UN’s Special Rapporteur on the Paleostinian Territories La Belle Francesca Albanese nonetheless told British television personality Piers Morgan that the nature of Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza following the terrorist group’s rampage was illegal.

Interviewed on Tuesday by Morgan for his Uncensored YouTube program, Albanese said that, on "the day Israel was attacked, it had all the rights to defend itself, to protect its citizens in its territory and therefore to repel the attack with all necessary and proportional measures — which means using force, including lethal force, arresting, detaining all persons involved and found on its territory — which happened on the 7th, 8th and 9th of October."

However,
some men learn by reading. A few learn by observation. The rest have to pee on the electric fence for themselves...
she went on, "Israel didn’t have the right to wage a war against the Paleostinians in Gaza."

When it was put to her by Morgan that "absolutely" Israel had the right to go after the 3,000 Death Eaters who had poured over its border and massacred its people, and had taken the hostages to Gaza, and that "it doesn’t stop at the border," she replied that Morgan should be "very careful because... this ’eye for an eye’ logic would justify what had happened on October 7."

"The fact that we call it terrorism doesn’t justify what Israel has done since," said Albanese, arguing that "waging a war" was "not proportionate."

Albanese told Morgan that she believed the International Criminal Court’s case against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former defense minister Yoav Gallant was too narrow, and should address Israel’s entire offensive beyond its borders.

Albanese has a history of antisemitic, anti-Israel and pro-Hamas statements.

On October 11, 2023, four days after the attack, Albanese said she doubted reports of rape and sexual violence. Rather, she said the US and Israel were spreading these claims to escalate tensions.

In February, Israel’s foreign and interior ministries announced that Albanese is not allowed into Israel following a tweet to French President Emanuel Macron in which she stated, "The victims of 7/10 were not killed because of their Judaism, but in response to Israel’s oppression."

She recently told a Harvard University gathering that when Hamas refers to killing Jews ("Yahudi"), it does not actually mean Jews.

In the Tuesday interview, addressing the recently issued arrest warrants by the ICC, she called on Israeli authorities to hand over Netanyahu and Gallant.

"If they had nothing to fear they would stand justice. They would just defend themselves in front of the International Criminal Court. What do they have to fear if they did nothing wrong?" she said in the interview, which was followed by a panel of four Jewish personalities who discussed the issues she touched on.

After Hamas’s shock October 7 attack, which was accompanied by brutal assaults including sexual violence, Israel began carrying out ~~Arclight~~ airstrike
...KABOOM!...
s on the terrorist organization and launched a ground invasion later the same month with the objectives of dismantling the terror group, which rules Gaza, and retrieving the hostages.

Arguing for Israel in a subsequent panel debate hosted by Morgan were American lawyer Alan Dershowitz, and former IDF spokesperson Jonathan Conricus.

On the anti-Israel side were British journalist and author Matt Kennard and Katie Halper, host of the podcast A Jew For Ceasefire Now.

Ugh.

Albanese called the ICC warrants "necessary" and "long due" and said they were "very meaningful."

"The evidence is overwhelming that starvation has been used as a tool of war and it cannot be justified by any possible circumstance," Albanese told Morgan.

Dershowitz said the arrest warrants, while they would stop Netanyahu from traveling to other countries to "make the case for Israel," were detrimental to the ICC as well because they improperly issued. The court’s top prosecutor, Karim Khan, he said, "was supposed to go to Israel to look at both sides of the issue but after he was accused of sexual harassment, he canceled that trip because he wanted to issue the arrest warrants very quickly."

Conricus echoed the sentiment, calling Khan "suspicious and controversial" and saying the process had been "totally flawed."

"All the information has been based on false or incomplete information. I think there is proof verified by non-Israeli sources that contradicts all the allegations," he said, although he did not name any specific sources.

Morgan argued that the IDF’s refusal to allow foreign journalists into Gaza to report on what was happening in the Strip prevented such evidence from coming to light and raised suspicion against Israel.

While all four panelists agreed that foreign journalists should be allowed into Gaza, Kennard — who called Israel a "rogue terrorist regime" but refused to apply the epithet to Hamas or label its October 7 attack as terrorism — accused Israel of deliberately targeting Paleostinian media officials to stop them from reporting on its alleged crimes against humanity, a claim that Israel categorically denies.

Meanwhile,
...back at the cheese factory, there was only one thought in the mouse's mind: I can do this! I can do this! Then the trap sprung...
Conricus said the real obstacle to reliable reporting from within Gaza was Hamas, which he accused of controlling Paleostinian media in the enclave.

"I’ve seen it happen in real-time. Instead of doing their job of reporting on Hamas’s war crimes, it’s been documented but not reported because Hamas won’t let them and it’s been stifling them," he said.

Last month, Israel published documents that it said provided evidence that journalists killed by the IDF were active members of Hamas or the Paleostinian Islamic Jihad
...created after many members of the Egyptian Moslem Brotherhood decided the organization was becoming too moderate. Operations were conducted out of Egypt until 1981 when the group was exiled after the assassination of President Anwar Sadat. They worked out of Gaza until they were exiled to Lebanon in 1987, where they clove tightly to Hezbollah. In 1989 they moved to Damascus, where they remain a subsidiary of Hezbollah...
, an allegation it has made repeatedly over the last 13 months of the war.

Many of the specific journalists named were employees of Qatar
...an emirate on the east coast of the Arabian Peninsula. It sits on some really productive gas and oil deposits, which produces the highest per capita income in the world. They piss it all away on religion, financing the Moslem Brotherhood and several al-Qaeda affiliates. Home of nutbag holy manYusuf al-Qaradawi...
-based al-Jazeera, which Israel’s government took off the air and blocked in April.

In June, a court found a direct and causal connection between individuals who have carried out terror attacks inside Israel and the consumption of Al Jazeera content. It also determined that there was a "close connection" between Al Jazeera and Hamas, that some Al Jazeera news hounds in Gaza had turned themselves into "assistants and partners" with Hamas, and that some of them had even carried out terror attacks.

Meanwhile,
...back at the cheese factory, there was only one thought in the mouse's mind: I can do this! I can do this! Then the trap sprung...
addressing comments she made last month urging the UN to consider suspending Israel as a member state, Albanese accused Israel of violating international law and insulting UN officials and organizations more than any other country in the world.

Among Israel’s alleged crimes was killing 240 UN staff members and firing at UN peacekeepers in Leb
...an Iranian satrapy until recently ruled by Hassan Nasrallah situated on the eastern Mediterranean, conveniently adjacent to Israel. Formerly inhabited by hardy Phoenecian traders, its official language is now Arabic, with the usual unpleasant side effects. The Leb civil war, between 1975 and 1990, lasted a little over 145 years and produced 120,000 fatalities. The average length of a ceasefire was measured in seconds. The Lebs maintain a precarious sectarian balance among Shiites, Sunnis, and about a dozen flavors of Christians, plus Armenians, Georgians, and who knows what else? It is the home of the original Hezbollah, which periodically starts a war with the Zionist Entity, gets Beirut pounded to rubble, and then declares victory and has a parade. The Lebs have the curious habit of periodically murdering their heads of state or prime ministers...
, Albanese said.

Israel has alleged that more than 10 percent of the staff of the UN agency for Paleostinian refugees, UNRWA, in Gaza have ties to terrorist factions and that educational facilities under the organization’s auspices consistently incite hatred of Israel and glorify terror.

In February, the IDF revealed the existence of a subterranean Hamas data center directly beneath UNRWA’s Gaza Strip headquarters. The IDF has also repeatedly targeted Hamas command centers and button men hiding out in UNRWA schools.

Israel has been accused of genocide numerous times, most notably in an ongoing case brought by South Africa at the International Court of Justice. The Hamas-run Gaza health ministry says more than 42,000 people in the Strip have been killed or are presumed dead in the fighting so far, though the toll cannot be verified and does not differentiate between civilians and fighters. Israel says it has killed some 18,000 combatants in battle and another 1,000 Death Eaters inside Israel on October 7.

Israel has said it seeks to minimize civilian fatalities and stresses that Hamas uses Gaza’s civilians as human shields, fighting from civilian areas including homes, hospitals, schools, and mosques.

During the interview, Albanese said that Israeli settlements in the West Bank, which she called colonies, were also war crimes, declaring that "Israel needs to withdraw the occupation because it has given the chance for violence to fester."

She also criticized outgoing US President Joe The Big Guy Biden
...46th president of the U.S. Too old and senile to be prosecuted, not too old and senile to set national policy...
’s administration, saying the US had supplied Israel with more military, economic, financial, and political aid in the last 14 months than it ever has.

"I understand, as a European, why Jewish people have such a deep connection to Israel, but what I do question is third state responsibility. How member states act vis-a-vis a state this is committing genocide which it has been committing for 50 years and unlawful occupation and unlawful apartheid," she said.

Albanese concluded that she hoped incoming US president Trump would "step away from this precipice and do the right thing."

Dershowitz was bullish on Trump’s reelection, saying he would be "tough on Iran" — the backer of terror groups including Hamas and Lebanon’s Hezbollah — which would likely lead to peace.

"If Iran
...a theocratic Shiite state divided among the Medes, the Persians, and the (Arab) Elamites. Formerly a fairly civilized nation ruled by a Shah, it became a victim of Islamic revolution in 1979. The nation is today noted for spontaneously taking over other countries' embassies, maintaining whorehouses run by clergymen, involvement in international drug trafficking, and financing sock puppet militias to extend the regime's influence. The word Iran is a cognate form of Aryan. The abbreviation IRGC is the same idea as Stürmabteilung (or SA). The term Supreme Guide is a the modern version form of either Duce or Führer or maybe both. They hate ~~Jews~~ ~~Zionists~~ Jews. Their economy is based on the production of oil and vitriol...
is disarmed we will see real peace in the region," he said.

Kennard, however, called Trump a "disaster for the Paleostinian cause" because he "has Israel’s interests at heart."

Link

Britain

Shameful: After debate, Oxford Union votes Israel is ‘apartheid’ state committing ‘genocide’

2024-11-30

[IsraelTimes] Controversial event at prestigious UK university results in 278 votes in favor, 59 votes against; Arab Israeli speaker removed after he calls audience ‘terrorist supporters’

A controversial debate held by the Oxford Union that discussed whether Israel is an "apartheid state responsible for genocide" devolved into a yelling match between speakers and attendees on Thursday. The event took place under tight security, as protesters demonstrated outside the building.

After the debate, the union voted on the proposition, "This House Believes Israel is an apartheid state responsible for genocide," with 278 votes in favor and 59 votes against.

The Oxford Union is a student society located in Oxford, England, and is made up almost entirely of students at the prestigious Oxford University, widely regarded as one of the best institutes for higher education in the world.

Thursday’s debate featured several prominent speakers on both sides of the topic, including pro-Israel advocates Natasha Hausdorff, a British lawyer, Jonathan Sacerdoti, a British journalist who covers the UK and Europa
...the land mass occupying the space between the English Channel and the Urals, also known as Moslem Lebensraum...
for i24 News, as well as Arab Israeli activist Yoseph Haddad, and former Hamas
Hamas

..the braying voice of Islamic Resistance®,...
member-turned Israeli spy Mosab Hassan Yusef.

Arguing against Israel were US political scientist and anti-Israel activist Norman Finkelstein, Israeli-American activist and author Miko Peled, Paleostinian-American author Susan Abulhawa, and Mohammed El-Kurd, a Paleostinian writer and poet.

According to Oxford University’s student newspaper, Cherwell, the debate featured intense heckling and argument, with one audience member calling Sacerdoti a "sick motherfucker" and a "genocidal maniac" while the journalist was giving his position.

Cherwell reported that Peled said during the debate, "What happened on October 7th was not terrorism — these were acts of heroism of a people who were oppressed," and called for a Paleostinian state "from the river to the sea."

The ongoing war in Gazoo
...Hellhole adjunct to Israel and Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, inhabited by Gazooks. The place was acquired in the wake of the 1967 War and then presented to Paleostinian control in 2006 by Ariel Sharon, who had entered his dotage. It is currently ruled with a rusty iron fist by Hamas with about the living conditions you'd expect. It periodically attacks the Hated Zionist Entity whenever Iran needs a ruckus created or the hard boyz get bored, getting thumped by the IDF in return. The ruling turbans then wave the bloody shirt and holler loudly about oppression and disproportionate response...
was sparked by Hamas’s October 7, 2023, massacre, which saw some 3,000 gunnies burst across the border into Israel by land, air and sea, killing some 1,200 people and seizing 251 hostages, mostly civilians, many amid acts of brutality and sexual assault.

For her part, Abulhawa told the crowd that she "came to speak directly to Zionists: we let you into our homes when your own countries turned you away. You killed and robbed and burned and looted our lives, you carved out our hearts."

The Paleostinian poet El-Kurd argued that Zionism is "irredeemable and indefensible," and said that if the union voted in favor of calling Israel an apartheid state committing genocide, "it means that this body is catching up to the moral clarity of the global majority. It is about time and about 70 years too late."

Speaking against the proposition, meanwhile, Haddad was kicked out of the chamber for lack of decorum after calling the audience "terrorist supporters" when they booed him during his argument. As he was escorted out, the Arab-Israeli activist put on a shirt with the face of slain Hezbollah leader His Eminence Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah
...The late, lamented satrap of the Medes and the Persians in Leb...>
with the caption, "Your terrorist is dead."

Pro-Israel speaker Hausdorff called the debate a "dark moment in the Oxford Union’s history," and said that the accusation of genocide against Israel is a "slur being alleged against the real victims of genocide in this case."

Yusef, the disowned eldest son of the co-founder of Hamas who has become a pro-Israel activist, reportedly told the crowd, "Paleostinians are the most pathetic people on planet Earth," and insisted that Paleostinians are "a false identity"

At the end of the debate, the union voted in favor of the resolution 278 to 59, officially labeling Israel as apartheid and genocidal.

The union has a track record of contentious debates on Israel. In 1962, for instance, it debated whether "The Creation of the State of Israel is One of the Mistakes of the Century." Decades later, the students were still debating whether, as a 2008 motion put it, "This house believes that the State of Israel has a right to exist."

Over the years, union members have also overwhelmingly backed motions accusing Israel’s supporters of "stifling Western debate."

But anti-Israel activists haven’t had it their way on every occasion. In 2015, for instance, the US lawyer Alan Dershowitz won a debate on whether the BDS movement against Israel was wrong.

Two years before that, the union rejected a motion that argued Israel is "a force for good in the Middle East," although pro-Israel students delighted in the narrowness of their defeat, suggesting that "to get nearly 40 percent support for Israel at a British university in this day and age is a triumph."

Link

Home Front: Politix

Meet the Jewish author who has written a pithier, punchier Project 2025

2024-09-08

[IsraelTimes] Breaking away from mainstream US Jewry, Joel Pollak opposes the separation of church and state while dismissing concerns that his recommendations would spur ‘Christian nationalism’

Conservative Jew, conservative Republican, TEA party candidate, Breitbarter, believer in Donald Trump. An interesting, thoughtful gentleman.

The document recommends encouraging church attendance, White House Bible study sessions, shutting out legal im~~migrants~~ colonists, restrictions on ~~child sacrifice~~ abortion, and Dire Revenge on Donald Trump
...His ancestors didn't own any slaves...
’s tormentors.

But it’s not part of Project 2025, the massive Heritage Foundation compilation of proposals for Trump’s next presidency that liberal critics have said is a blueprint for Christian nationalism.

Instead, "The Agenda: What Trump Should Do in His First 100 Days" is the work of a Jewish author, Joel Pollak, who believes that a second Trump presidency would make American Jews safer by restoring purpose to a splintered society.

One notable Jewish-inflected proposal, establishing August 21 as "Religious Liberty Day," would mark George Washington’s famous 1790 letter promising American Jews they would live under a government that "gives to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance."

"We’re losing the common threads that bind us together," Pollak told The Jewish Telegraphic Agency. "There’s no consciousness at all of any kind of higher power."

Pollak has since 2016 been one of the most articulate spokesmen making the Jewish case for the Republican Party’s right flank, heralding a breakaway from a Jewish conservatism that for decades was more identified with moderate Republicans like the late

John Maverick McCain
... late Senator-for-Life from Arizona, former presidential candidate and even more former foot soldier in the Reagan Revolution. As an ordinary citizen he greased the infamous hookers peeing on the Obamabed in Moscow dossier in an attempt to smear President Trump...
In 2010, as a Tea Party candidate, Pollak challenged Rep. Jan Schakowsky

...the hereditary Democratic Representative-for-Life from Illinois 9th Congressional District. She is married to Robert Creamer, a Chicago check kiting artist who did time in a federal pen. Creamer was implicated in the bird dogging plot to stir up violence at Donald Trump rallies. Creamer is the co-founder of Democracy Partners, which contracts directly with the DNC to provide dirty election tricks. Creamer visited the White House 342 times between 2009 and 2016. Schakowsky plausibly denies knowing a thing about it and calls it a manufactured and non-existent scandal...
, the long-serving Jewish Democrat in a reliably Democrat Chicago, aka The Windy City or Mobtown
...home of Al Capone, the Chicago Black Sox, a succession of Daleys, Barak Obama, and Rahm Emmanuel...
-area seat.

His campaign in the heavily Jewish district where he grew up focused on what he depicted as her weak support for Israel, and he brought in his former Harvard Law professor, Alan Dershowitz, to campaign for him. Schakowsky won handily, but the experience got under her skin: Five years later she thanked J Street for helping her defeat a "Jewish Orthodox Tea Party Republican," and then apologized for the gratuitous reference to Pollard’s religious denomination.

After his defeat, he joined Breitbart News, the preeminent voice of a more hardline right-wing vanguard, working alongside other Jews including Ben Shapiro. Trump’s emergence as the Republican nominee in 2016 and his election made Pollak a go-to Jewish defender of Trump and the far-reaching changes he brought to conservatism.

He told The Times of Israel in 2017 that he was comfortable in his skin as an observant Jew on the Republican right. "There’s a comfort in a sense that I place who I am on the table and so people know where I am coming from, and it’s not a part of myself I have to introduce or explain," he said.

Now, Pollak is trying to use the following he has developed over time to shape what he hopes will be a second Trump presidency. He is bringing his ideas this week to the Republican Jewish Coalition confab in Las Vegas, where hundreds of Jewish Republicans will rally around retaking the White House.

One question facing Jewish Republicans is how much to focus on traditional concerns including Israel and how much to embrace a strain of Christian nationalism that is ascendant in their party. Pollak’s book does not make his Jewish identity central, but he applies considerable focus to Israel — and also to casting a Trump White House as a bully pulpit for the spread of religion in public life.

In 224 recommendations divided neatly into 32 clusters of seven, Pollak offers an agenda that comports with the right wing of the Republican Party and echoes a strain of conservative Jewish thinking that does not see expanded Christian expression as a threat. (That thinking featured large in the 2022 failed Ohio Senate campaign of Josh Mandel, a Jewish candidate who promoted "Judeo-Christian values.")

He would ban even legal ~~migrants~~ colonists from crossing the border with Mexico until changes are made to the immigration system. He would ban chain migration, the system of granting preference to relatives of legal US residents and citizens.

Pollak wants the Department of Justice to protect "birth crisis centers," the outlets that try to dissuade women from seeking ~~child sacrifice~~ abortions. He recommends a task force to promote childbearing and banning funding for military personnel seeking to travel to get an ~~child sacrifice~~ abortion. He also proposes ending "transgenderism" in the military.

Navigating between Trump’s endorsement of fertility treatments, including IVF, and those evangelical Christians who say the procedure involves destroying life, he says Trump should set up an ethics panel to "explore all of the difficult religious, scientific, and moral questions around IVF and make recommendations."

Pollak wants funding for religious literacy in public schools and vouchers for religious schools, and calls for launching civil rights investigations of universities that inhibit conservative speech. (Some of that jibes with the interests, or tactics, of subsets of American Jews: Vouchers would help defray costs for Jewish day schools, while federal civil rights complaints alleging antisemitism on campus have become a favored tool of American Jewish groups since October 7.)

And he proposes that White House functions should begin with a prayer, press briefings should begin with a moment of reflection and "the White House facility can hold daily Bible study events," ticketed for the public.

"The point will be to reinforce church attendance as a norm in American life and to bring faith back to the center," he writes. He adds, "These daily sessions will set an appropriate tone for the conduct of business in the White House and will encourage Bible study more generally throughout the country."

Pollak’s blueprint is one that would discomfit most American Jews, who according to polls overwhelmingly want a strong separation of church and state. And many of his proposals buck majority American Jewish opinion on issues such as ~~child sacrifice~~ abortion and immigration.

"I understand the historic concerns that American Jews have had about public prayer," Pollak told JTA. "People worry that there’s going to be imposition of Christian faith on Jews and others."

But he said he thought his audience was ready for his recommendations, saying, "I do think that we’re at a point in American society where most Jews can be comfortable with public prayer."

Amy Spitalnick, the CEO of the liberal-leaning Jewish Council for Public Affairs, said Pollak’s book is a recipe for what most American Jews would identify as Christian nationalism.

"It effectively reinforces the broader white Christian nationalist agenda that seeks to totally eliminate the line between church and state," she said. "It’s Project 2025, just with a Jewish lens."

Seth Mandel, a senior editor at Commentary, a conservative outlet, said Project 2025 came to mind when he heard about Pollak’s book. But he said fears of a Christian nationalist regime if Trump were elected are overstated.

"The first thing that popped into my head was that this sounds like what people are warning about Project 2025," Mandel said. "If Trump has any authoritarian instincts, they are generally not about forcing women into becoming a sort of religious baby-making covenant. It’s not where his campaign wants to go at all."

Mandel said he thought the public prayer elements of Pollak’s prescription would appeal little to Americans, much less American Jews, who are largely uncomfortable with the idea of presidents using the bully pulpit to preach. It’s what turned Americans off to Jimmy Malaise Carter
Jimmy <q>Malaise</q> Carter

...only the second worst president ever. Maybe the third...
, whose 1979 speech about a "crisis of the American spirit" and a lack of "faith in God" backfired and helped spur his electoral defeat, Mandel said.

"People really reacted negatively to the idea that there was going to be a preacher-in-chief, who is going to tell them how to cure what ails their soul," Mandel said. "There’s nothing wrong with Bible study, but Americans don’t really tend to want the president to lead their Bible study group."

In the interview, Pollak recognized that his plan would draw comparisons with Project 2025.

"I didn’t even look at the Heritage Foundation Project 2025," he said without being asked while promoting the new book at the Republican National Convention last month.

Pollak has no illusions that Trump would read his book or take his recommendations. It’s a recognition he makes clear in his book and reiterates in interviews, and which distinguishes him from the Project 2025 authors who played up their associations with Trump until he shut them down, furious at the negative publicity the project was garnering.

"I have never been invited to Mar-a-Lago, Trump’s Florida estate, where he has surrounded himself with loyalists," Pollak writes in the introduction. "I would serve in his administration, but I was not offered a post in the last administration, and I have no reason to expect I will be offered one in the next. I am writing this book solely because I believe I can help."

Pollak making crystal clear that he does not have Trump’s approval is as savvy as it is honest. The Kamala Harris
former senatrix from California, 2020 Dem presidential hopeful and ultimately Joe Biden's intended successor
campaign is using Project 2025 and its 900-page manifesto to bludgeon Trump, linking him to its far-reaching and radical proposals to elevate the executive branch.

How adjacent to Trump the book is, or could be, is hard to say because Trump’s loyalties and favorites constantly shift. The book is published by War Room Books, an imprint started by Steve Bannon, the onetime Trump adviser who was for a time out of favor with the former president but now seems to be influential again.

Bannon’s podcast, "The War Room," is popular with advisers close to Trump, who lamented his absence after he went to jail on July 1. He was tossed in the calaboose
Drop the rosco, Muggsy, or you're one with the ages!
for contempt of Congress for refusing to testify about the deadly January 6, 2021, Capitol riot that sought to overturn Trump’s electoral defeat. The last thing Bannon did before reporting to prison was write the foreword to Pollak’s book.

"Joel Pollak correctly notes that, in November, ’a victorious Trump will have completed the greatest political comeback in American history and will have the opportunity to make the kinds of big changes that come along once in a generation,’" Bannon writes, calling the book "an instant American classic."

In his conversations with JTA, Pollak emphasized his Israel agenda — which maps to the party’s platform — and offered more detail about some of his stances that would appear to be most at odds with mainstream American Jewish views.

On immigration, he emphasized that he believed there should be mechanisms for people to come to the country if they are "genuine victims of religious and political persecution," as many Jews were when they arrived at American shores. He also acknowledged the existence of an antisemitic version of "replacement theory" that posits that Jews are orchestrating the replacement of whites in Western countries with ~~migrants~~ colonists of color.

But he said that conspiracy theory was distinct from his worries, and broader Republican concerns, about migration. He accused the Anti-Defamation League and other groups of intentionally conflating the two ideas, "falsely accusing some conservatives of antisemitism for opposing migration."

Spitalnick said it was a distinction without a difference. "There are ways to talk about immigration policy without suggesting that there is a deliberate effort to replace the population or change the electorate or otherwise play into the very conspiracy theories and tropes that we know have directly fueled deadly violence," she said.

Regarding the White House bully pulpit for encouraging religious literacy and Bible study, he said, "The rules should prohibit proselytization, so that messages remain focused on spiritual lessons of a general and universal nature."

Pollak faults Trump for not being prepared in his first term, advancing his agenda piecemeal, which allowed groups opposed to his plans to go to the courts to stop him. Among them were Jewish organizations, including HIAS, the lead Jewish refugee aid group that led and joined a number of briefs against Trump’s immigration restrictions.

With a more aggressive approach, he argues, Trump could overwhelm the ~~Red Guards~~ liberal groups who would oppose his administration. He recommends signing hundreds of executive orders on his first day in office. Almost all of the steps he urges can be accomplished without appealing to Congress.

"Ten executive orders on the first day is what Biden did and Trump did" on their first days, he told JTA. "I’m raising it an order of magnitude. I mean, if you add up the number of suggestions in the book, it’s over 200 things that Trump could do on the first day and it’s very, very hard to challenge all of those at once. How are you going to find 200 different federal courts?"

At his book party, Pollak, who said the book was spurred by his anger at Trump’s conviction on 34 New York State fraud felonies, said he was happy to have laid out his thoughts in a forward-looking manner.

"I’m tired of feeling negative and upset about what’s going on," he said.

Link

Home Front: Politix

I'm Outta Here! 'Disgusted' Alan Dershowitz Announces He's Ditching the Democratic Party

2024-09-07

[Red State] Harvard Professor of Law Emeritus Alan Dershowitz has proven to be a wealth of (often but not always) solid commentary and analysis in recent years, as he is one of the few on the left side of the political aisle who’s been willing to point out that much of the endless Democrat lawfare against Donald Trump has been a banana republic style of justice and runs counter to our Constitution.

He’s also been a lifelong Democrat, which has been head-scratching to me. I sometimes wish I could ask, "How can you be a lifelong Democrat—did you hear what you yourself just said?"

But even Dershowitz has come to the obvious realization: this is not the Democrat Party of old; no, the modern version is a shrill, extremist version that wants to fundamentally transform America into some weird socialist utopia that it was never meant to be. He announced in August on the "Talkline With Zev Brenner Podcast" that he’s had enough in a clip that was re-posted Thursday evening and has gone viral on social media.

He's no longer a Democrat:

Link

Fifth Column

Columbia University's anti-Israel group seeking 'total eradication of Western civilization'

2024-08-18

[NYPOST] Anti-Israel radicals at Columbia University are pushing for the ''total eradication of Western Civilization'' — and threatening even more extreme tactics to accomplish their twisted goal until the ''empire crumbles.''

Columbia University Apartheid Divest, a coalition of 116 student groups at the Ivy League School whose members set up encampments on the Manhattan campus and stormed Hamilton Hall this past spring, made the explosive claim after ''comrades'' in Bangladesh ousted former Prime Minister ~~the loathesome~~ Sheikh Hasina
...Bangla dynastic politician and now exiled former Prime Minister of Bangladesh. She was President of the Bangla Awami League since the Lower Paleolithic. She is the eldest of five children of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, the founding father of Bangla. Her party defeated the BNP-led Four-Party Alliance in the 2008 parliamentary elections. She once before held the office, from 1996 to 2001, when she was defeated in a landslide. She and the head of the BNP, Khaleda Zia showed such blind animosity toward each other that they are known as the Battling Begums. That is probably because Khaleda's late husband was the Pak tool who had Mujib assassinated...
following weeks of bloody anti-government protests.

''We are Westerners fighting for the total eradication of Western civilization''

''We are Westerners fighting for the total eradication of Western civilization,'' the group wrote in an Aug. 7 Instagram post. ''We stand in full solidarity with every movement for liberation in the Global South.''

The chaotic demonstrations in Muslim-majority Bangladesh, initially sparked by student protesters opposing government job quotas, have since fueled mob violence targeting Hindu minorities, who traditionally supported Hasina's now-collapsed Awami League party.

''As the movement for Palestine faces draconian censorship and counter-insurgency in the [United] States, we must learn from our comrades in Bangladesh and continue to escalate until the empire crumbles,'' wrote the Columbia student coalition, which has demanded the university divest from all companies with business ties to Israel.

The scorched-earth social media post was attributed to the ''militants of Hind's Hall,'' referring to Columbia's historic Hamilton Hall, which a mob of protesters briefly seized on April 30 and renamed in honor of a 6-year-old Palestinian girl killed in the Israel-Hamas war named Hind Rajab.

Link

Home Front: Politix

Dershowitz: It's a Day After the Ruling and I Still Don't Know What the Crime Is – Merchan Took This a Step Further than Stalin – Supreme Court Should See This Case and Reverse This Case

2024-06-02

[Gateway] Harvard law professor and author Alan Dershowitz weighed in on the Trump convictions by a corrupt court, a biased jury, and and criminal judge on Thursday.

Dershowitz pointed out what all of us are wondering — we still don’t know the crime President Trump allegedly committed.

As the Democrat operatives’ case against President Trump wound down last week the prosecution still had not defined the alleged criminal act that President Trump allegedly committed. But it didn’t matter. The court was ready to find Trump guilty and send him to prison.

Corrupt anti-Trump Judge Juan Merchan told the jury during instructions before their deliberation that they can consider whether the defendant violated any of the following laws:

1. Federal Employees’ Compensation Act (FECA) (federal election campaign law)
2. Falsification of Business Records
3. Tax Laws

Judge Merchan also told the jury they need not agree to what crime was committed. They just had to feel like a criminal act was committed to find President Trump guilty. This was one of the greatest bastardizations of the justice system in US history.

We still don’t know what the jury decided. We still don’t know what crime was committed. It’s been two days now and the court has not defined what law was broken. The judge and jury never told us!

Alan Dershowitz pointed this out on Friday.

Link

Government Corruption

Just When You Think the Trump Trial Couldn't Get More Corrupt, This Guy Shows Up

2024-05-19

[PJ] Just when you thought the corruption surrounding the Manhattan case against Donald Trump couldn't get shadier, the Nepo Baby has arrived to prove you wrong.

Remember the guy who worked for House Democrats to prosecute the first Trump impeachment? The case in which President Trump "made a perfect phone call" to the Ukrainian president to find out Joe and Hunter Biden were shaking down oligarchs and changing U.S. policy to fire the prosecutor investigating their shady dealings? The one where he said he'd temporarily stall Ukrainian help he'd been providing if they didn't look into this shady behavior?

Remember the guy who, as a federal prosecutor in New York, sat at the right hand of the most anti-Trump, anti-GOP U.S. Attorney on the planet, Preet Bharara?

The same guy who served as Adam Schiff's counsel at the House Intel Committee and lied, and lied, and lied about Russia! Russia! Russia! Do you recall that guy?

Do you remember the Nepo Baby who's heir to the Levis fortune?

Yeah, that guy's in Congress now. And you'll be interested to know that Dan Goldman paid Trump trial Judge Juan Merchan's daughter's firm to help him get elected. I didn't realize that one of the world's most populous cities was so small.

This week, we found out that Goldman has been bragging about "prepping" former Trump attorney Michael Cohen "a number of times to prepare him" for his various legal proceedings before the House Intelligence Committee. That was Schiff's committee to Get Trump and frame the president as a Russian secret agent. For years, they kept up this sham to undermine support for the president even when they knew it was a lie.

This is the guy who prepped Cohen.

Link

Government Corruption

Rep. Dan Goldman, Client of Judge Merchan's Daughter, Says He Prepped Michael Cohen Testimony

2024-05-17

[BREITBART] Democrat Rep. Dan Goldman (D-NY), client of Justice Juan Merchan’s daughter’s consulting firm, said Tuesday he prepared Michael Cohen for testimony.

Cohen, of course, testified this week in the ongoing trial of former President Donald Trump

...His ancestors didn't own any slaves...
, and many believed that Goldman’s comments indicated he was preparing Cohen for this testimony. But Goldman’s office now says that he was referring to previous testimony from Cohen in other matters and that Goldman has had nothing to do with Cohen in this ongoing case in New York.

"Congressman Goldman was referring to his February 2019 deposition of Michael Cohen, when the Congressman was Director of Investigations for the House Intelligence Committee overseeing an investigation into Donald Trump’s financial ties to Russia," Goldman’s communications director Madison Andrus told Breitbart News on Wednesday afternoon after the initial publication of this story. "The Congressman has had nothing to do with the Manhattan District Attorney’s prosecution of Donald Trump."

Goldman also paid more than $157,000 dollars to the political consulting firm of Merchan’s daughter, Loren Merchan, Federal Election Commission disbursement filings obtained by Breitbart News show:

Link

Fifth Column

Amid unrest at Columbia University, campus rabbi urges Jewish students to stay away until it's safe to return

2024-04-22

[IsraelTimes] Following days of unrest and anti-Israel action at Columbia University in New York City, the university’s orthodox rabbi sent a message to Jewish students urging them to stay away from campus until it is deemed safe again, CNN reports.

In a message seen by CNN, the rabbi condemned the "terrible and tragic" events of the last few days.

Recent events "have made it clear that Columbia University’s Public Safety and the NYPD cannot guarantee Jewish students’ safety in the face of extreme antisemitism and anarchy," the rabbi wrote.

"It deeply pains me to say that I would strongly recommend you return home as soon as possible and remain home until the reality in and around campus has dramatically improved," the message continued. "It is not our job as Jews to ensure our own safety on campus. No one should have to endure this level of hatred, let alone at school."

The current unrest at Columbia began when the university asked the police to dismantle a "Gaza solidarity encampment" set up by students on the grounds of the university.

More than 100 people were arrested as the encampment was dismantled, and anti-Israel protests have been ongoing since then.

I just got sent this from a Columbia chat: pic.twitter.com/xpndY9ng0E
— John Podhoretz (@jpodhoretz) April 21, 2024

As usual, the Jewish community of Columbia U does not speak with one voice:

Columbia Hillel rejects a call from Orthodox rabbi to stay away from campus due anti-Israel activity

[IsraelTimes] The Hillel center

…in theory non-denominational, but in this situation they cater to the more liberal of the university’s Jews…

for Jewish life at Columbia University rejects a call from the rabbi serving Orthodox students for Jewish students to stay away from campus due to a recent surge in anti-Israel activity.

Columbia Hillel says in a statement that it does not believe Jewish students should leave the campus and that it would remain open to serve the community.

At the same time, the Hillel makes clear that it expects the university and New York City to do more to protect Jewish students.

Because they’ve done such a fine job thus far?

“We call on the university administration to act immediately in restoring calm to campus. The city must ensure that students can walk up and down Broadway and Amsterdam without fear of harassment,” Columbia Hillel says.

Link

Home Front: WoT

Columbia anti-Israel protest arrests include Letitia James intern, UPS exec's daughter who killed elderly couple in crash as a teen

2024-04-20

Pampered entitled f*cks. Consequences
[NY Post] It takes privilege to protest at Columbia.

The 114 anti-Israel protesters who were busted at Columbia on Thursday include members of the upper crust: an intern for New York State Attorney General Letitia James — and the daughter of a prominent UPS executive who killed an elderly couple with her truck as a teenager and got off with a slap on the wrist.

A Post deep-dive into the backgrounds of the protesters shows many list multimillion-dollar mansions as their home addresses, according to arrest records, and come from wealthy and powerful families.

Many are students at Barnard College, Columbia University’s liberal arts sister school.

Others are career activists with multiple arrests under their belts.

When Mommy and Daddy ensure that you don’t actually need to support yourself after graduation….

Link

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