Palestine As A Weapon … Inside Lebanon

LebanonPalestinians | MEMRI Daily Brief No. 580


The Gaza war between Hamas and Israel has had an effect on public opinion worldwide. But the effect has not been the same in all countries. In Spain and Latin America, for example, full-throated advocacy for Palestinian causes is most marked among the political left; the farther left the party, the more extreme the advocacy. In the Middle East, the war has exacerbated existing friction between regimes, such as between Morocco and Algeria. In some places the war has fed into internal conflict, being used as a weapon or club in domestic political situations. In Jordan, the war is heightening friction between the country’s Palestinian majority and its minority “East Bank” Jordanian elite. Internal tensions also spiked in Lebanon, a country where the cause of Palestine has been used at least three times in the past 50 years – by the PLO, by Syria and by Iran – as an excuse for foreign interference and oppression.

Public opinion in Lebanon is not uniform according to sect. There are “pro-Resistance” Christians, some of them vociferously so, and there are non-Christians – Shi’a and Sunni and Druze – who are against Lebanon being part of a wider war and opposed to being dragged by Hizbullah into another conflict. Those types of individuals often have to keep a lower profile given the threat of assassination, as befell Hizbullah critic Lokman Slim in 2021.[1] But if one was to generalize, opposition to war is much more likely – certain more open – among the country’s Christian population, which is much more likely to embrace the concept that the war in Gaza has nothing to do with Lebanon and that Lebanon should concern itself with its own business and be neutral in all regional conflicts, including wars with Israel. To want to be neutral and at peace in Lebanon, to put the country’s interests first over some foreign conflict, is interpreted by the so-called “Axis of Resistance” as being pro-Israel even if one never mentions that state.

Since the war began on October 7, 2023, the Resistance Axis – Hizbullah and its puppets – have concentrated much of their ire, their propaganda networks, and street action against the country’s Christians, particularly against the Maronites, their leaders, and their symbols. In this way, an external conflict has been transformed into a tool of coercion and intimidation in an already existing internal struggle for power, pitting the country’s Shi’a duopoly (Hizbullah + Amal) against anyone else, but especially against that part of the Maronite leadership most opposed to Hizbullah hegemony.

This could be seen from the beginning of the war in October. A reporter for Lebanon’s MTV channel was interfered with by a pro-Hizbullah minder in South Lebanon because he claimed that the channel “supported the Zionist enemy.” At the same time, noisy crowds carrying Palestinian and Hizbullah flags invaded Christian urban areas – Awkar, where the U.S. Embassy is located, and Achrafieh/Gemmayze. These outsiders’ chants included “Shi’a, Shi’a, Shi’a,” “At Your Service, Oh Nasrallah,” and “Let’s Go, Sayyed, for the Sake of Allah.” Strangely enough, such provocative acts were deemed to be not sectarian – but Christians advocating for a federal Lebanon are often derided as irredeemably sectarian.

While images of Hamas spokesman Abu Obeidah – as “the spokesman of the nation” – marked Beirut’s airport road, Hizbullah’s extensive electronic media proxy army (which also includes leftist and pan-Arab nationalist allies) kept up a steady diet of anti-Maronite content, from political and religious mockery to crude, often obscene images against prominent figures – Kataeb Party parliamentarians Nadim and Samy Gemayel (portrayed as babies or women), Lebanese Forces leader Samir Geagea (pictured as Judas), and even the late Bashir Gemayel.

Other images at Christmastide showed Jesus Christ as crucified for Palestine or as a Palestinian militant, “the first Palestinian revolutionary.” The Maronite Patriarchate, which has called for neutrality, was another focus of criticism. The mostly Christian proponents of neutrality were now dubbed by the critics as “isolationists.” While much of this ferment over the past months was war-related, some was not, and focused rather on Maronites as Maronites, a type of eternal “Maroniphobia,” inspired by social resentment or envy as much as by political disagreement or religious hatred. That the Christian population of Lebanon was declining and that Christians were emigrating was a topic of particular glee.

The Axis of Resistance also benefited from the presence of domesticated Court Christians – mocked by critics as dhimmis or as “Nasara Al-Manar” (Christians of the Hizbullah television channel Al-Manar) – who would amplify the Iranian-sponsored Resistance’s talking points. This phrase is a likely response to the “Shi’a Al-Safara” term developed by Hizbullah online trolls and aimed against members of that community opposed to the terrorist group.

Some prominent Christians, of course, are immune to Resistance trolling. Suleiman Frangieh (grandson of President Suleiman Frangieh, 1970-1976) and Gibran Bassil, son-in-law of former President Michel Aoun, are Hizbullah allies who still aspire to become the next Lebanese president with the support of Nasrallah and Amal’s Nabih Berri.

The latest point of internal friction in this mostly online campaign was generated by, of all things, a Catholic nun when video surfaced in early March 2024 of Sister May Ziadeh praising “the Resistance” while speaking at the Ghabala parochial school in the mostly Maronite Christian region of Keserwan. Ziadeh said:

“In the south there are students of your age who say they have no dreams other than liberating their land. Today we pray for the south, for the children of the south, for the people of the south, for the mothers of the south, and for the men of the resistance, because they are men from Lebanon and they are working hard to protect this homeland. If we don’t reach out to them, and we don’t love them no matter what we think, then we will be traitors to our land, our homeland and every book we read.”[2]

The resulting media firestorm was predictable, even though positions were scrambled. The politicians and trolls of the Resistance (Hizbullah and friends) who had mocked and threatened priests and bishops, now found a nun they could embrace and cheer. The same online voices who only recently dripped venom against the Maronite Patriarch now launched a hashtag – “Solidarity with Sister Maya.” Defenders of the Church were placed on the defensive but contrasted this nun who defended the persecutors of Christians with nuns and others who defended their own community.

The Federal Lebanon website responded noting that “the problem is not praying for the south. The problem is asking to pray for the men of the resistance. We don’t send young children to schools to receive ideological indoctrination, The Hitler Youth has no place in our schools.”[3] Not surprisingly, Hizbullah’s Maronite allies like Bassil, and so-called “patriotic Christian” supporters of Hizbullah and Palestinian terrorists, used the nun incident to score political points.[4] The Hizbullah mouthpiece Al-Akhbar sarcastically declared that Geagea’s Lebanese Forces, the largest Christian opposition party, had declared takfir on the nun.[5]

It is worth adding that Sister Maya was not only asking for prayers for the Resistance, but also implied that not supporting Hizbullah is treason, which is very much in sync with the Resistance narrative in Lebanon. Those who want neutrality, who are in favor of peace, and who are “isolationists” or federalists are to be considered as “traitors.” That is why Lebanese journalists and others seen as having had any sort of contact with Israelis risked being brought before a military court.[6]

The deterioration in communal relations inside Lebanon, driven especially by Hizbullah and by the decline in both Christian and Sunni Muslim political power, predates the current Gaza war, but the conflict is deepening these tensions. Hizbullah knows that many and probably most Lebanese may have no love for Israel but are against another war in general, as the country is already enduring an unprecedented economic crisis.

But with about 300 Hizbullah fighters already killed since the conflict began, and Israeli airstrikes slowly creeping deeper north the longer the war continues, the terrorist group may be trapped in an iron cage of its own making. A wider war in Lebanon may become inevitable, despite the efforts of the Biden administration to prevent this.[7] If a longer, more intense war does come, the current campaign of intimidation and coercion launched against the Christian “isolationists” in Lebanon may get much worse very soon.

AUTHOR

Amb. Alberto M. Fernandez

Ambassador Alberto M. Fernandez is Vice President of MEMRI.

SOURCES

[1] Washingtoninstitute.org/policy-analysis/middle-east-matters-episode-one-murder-lokman-slim-justice-delayed-lebanon, March 14, 2023.

[2] Almodon.com, March 11, 2024.

[3] Twitter.com/FederalLebanon_/status/1767205135048978728, March, 11, 2024.

[4] Tayyar.org/News/Lebanon, March 11, 2024.

[5] Al-akhbar.com/Politics/378547, March 12, 2024.

[6] MEMRI Special Dispatch No. 11187, UAE-Based Lebanese Journalist Layal Alekhtiar, Wanted By Lebanese Military Court For Interviewing Israeli Military Official: The ‘Culture Of Death’ Has Destroyed Half Of Lebanon And Other Arab Countries – I Have Chosen The ‘Culture Of Life’, March 8, 2024.

[7] Aaawsat.com, March 12, 2024.

EDITORS NOTE: This MEMRI column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

Plunge Faster Into The Abyss

As Israel approaches its sixth month at war with Hamas in Gaza, and likely nears another war on its northern border with Hezballah, the Biden administration continues to pursue a radically transformative regional agenda to seek rapprochement and strategic condominium with Iran and establish a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza.  The main obstacle to this agenda, according to administration strategists, is not its dissonance with reality, but the irresponsibility and intransigence of Israel’s government.  To overcome this obstacle, thus, the administration has resumed interfering in domestic Israeli politics and intensified its efforts to destabilize an Israeli government it believes most threatens its ideological quest regionally.

The administration seeks this ambitious agenda despite the attacks of October 7, which did little to dissuade it from its faith in the two anchoring objectives. It does so because the events reinforced its view of the importance of its informing paradigm — a truly post-colonial agenda animated by a progressive narrative (contrition over both the “interference” in Iranian affairs throughout the last century and over the dispossession of the Palestinian people as part of a larger global European oppression). Applying that self-excoriating paradigm, the administration’s cognoscente believe, will finally address the underlying grievances driving regional rage and resentment, and thus replace them with a condition of mutual strategic deference and respect between Washington and Tehran, both of whom tightly control their proxies.

The Gaza war did nothing to dilute the administration’s obsession with this vision. Indeed, if anything, it reinforced the imperative, feasibility and urgency of advancing its two key mechanisms of its realization – establishing a Palestinian state and rapprochement with Iran’s Islamic regime.

Added to this urgency is that progressives have influenced and radicalized not only the administration’s policy, but also its domestic political understanding, strategy and operations. Progressives have intentionally peddled a climate of political despair for the entire Democratic party – without any real evidence — that is miraculously resolvable only by pandering to the most radical pro-Palestinian elements in Michigan in the run-up to the 2024 elections.

The main obstacle they see to surmounting this electoral despair and attaining the messianic vision whose implementation would reunite the party with its progressive base, in their view, is the current obstinacy of the Israeli government.  And as a result of this conceptual box within which the administration has locked itself, the already-prioritized objective of ousting the Likud government in Israel has now intensified and risen to a perfect storm injected with steroids.

The problem is, the further this administration’s effort deepens, the more detrimental the immediate application of its ideological mission is to ousting the current government and then swaying Israeli politics in the longer term after the war.

The greatest influence which the United States exercises over Israel is the political woes of the left side of Israel’s spectrum. Ever since the election of Menachem Begin and his Likud party in 1977 — resulting from a tectonic realignment of Israeli politics crystallizing all the “outsiders” against the ossifying elite that had dominated the state since its founding – Israel’s left-leaning, Ashkenazi (European) -hyper-secular elites and the parties through which they exercise political power have faced declining prospects for electoral victories. In the last two decades, the only ability of the left to gain power was to align behind right-wing parties that bolted from personal loyalty to the current leader of the Likud, Benjamin Netanyahu.

Israeli structures in all sectors thus became increasingly distorted. Specifically, the more left-leaning elites have tried to reinforce their control over non-elected structures governing the state and society (military, judicial, financial, high-tech, societal, academic, press), as well as sought to expand the power of these structures over every aspect of life in order to maintain their control and “ownership” of Zionism.  The judicial reform upheaval that tore Israel to shreds in the year before the Gaza war erupted was a battle between the proponents of that long-term effort and the resulting backlash that had developed. And the post-war debate over the responsibility for the catastrophic failure of the war’s surprise, especially delineating who is to blame between the political (which was a right-leaning coalition) and military leadership and security elites (retired “LeSheavarim” or “formers” and current), almost immediately started fracturing along the same schism. The intensity of these debates marked just how far the right would go to finally challenge those structures and how far the left would go, even to the mat, to protect those institutions and its grip over them.

Enter the American angle. Institutions, no matter how elite and entrenched, ultimately begin to yield to the pressure of aligning with the society from which they derive their power.  Left isolated, thus, the distortion of Israeli institutions would eventually align with the society in which it operates.  But the left in Israel is deeply invested in another layer of resilience.  It has successfully leveraged Israel’s international allies, and in particular the American relationship, to domestically overpower their more street-popular opposition.

The Israeli left has been able to do this largely because in as much as the international community had intervened in Israel traditionally, it was to advance a more left-leaning agenda. In the marketplace of politics in Israel, the world had the left’s back.

But this whole structure is anchored ultimately to U.S. influence and dominance on both practical and intellectual levels. And it is also anchored to an international community – especially an American foreign policy establishment – that is largely homogenous in its outlook in viewing Israel’s left as more amenable to the pursuit of its agenda.  As such, Israel’s left became not only increasingly reliant on American support but also increasingly subordinate to American demands.  When administrations defined the U.S. national interest in ways roughly aligned with the interests as conceived by Israel’s left – even if it bent Israel to be dangerously dependent and more flexible than wise in things it normally would rather not be — that remained a powerful and even insurmountable alliance.  But if Washington departed from the interests of Israel’s left – especially under administrations that leaned more right – that investment drifted from essential to either useless or even detrimental.

Back to the present.  Over time, the memory seared into the Israeli psyche on October 7 will melt into resumption of “normal” politics in Israel, and when that happens, some of the fissures in Israeli politics which raged before the war will return.  But the administration fails to grasp that moment is not yet here; the war in Gaza has not yet ended and the war in the north has not begun or even begun to be resolved.  And in this, the administration is essentially trying to prod Israel back to its pre-October 7 political atmosphere, crack the unity government and leverage the power of Israeli institutions to shift the political direction of Israeli society.

Moreover, even when the guns fall silent, there is no going back to October 6.  Israeli society has changed, and while polls suggest it holds the right-leaning government that was in power on October 7 responsible along with the military leadership, policy issues polls also suggest that the population has shifted sharply rightward. And the Israeli center-left – which had been aligned with Washington’s preferences for the last 30 years – has also shifted rightward as a result of the war at the same time this administration – under the sway of a radicalizing progressive agenda – has drifted leftward and is sharply abandoning its more liberal pro-Israeli agenda.  The gap then between Israel’s center-left and the Biden administration – which the latter fails to observe — is vast and growing.

This leads us to the current moment. For over a week, the Biden administration has encouraged the idea in Western press that this is “Netanyahu’s” war, that Israel cannot be allowed to enter the final towns and areas in Gaza still under Hamas control (Rafiah and the Philadelphia corridor), that a ceasefire and Palestinian statehood are both unattainable as long as the Likud prime minister remains in office and that absent a ceasefire the danger of escalation with Iran grows and the aspiration for regional stability through a rapprochement and strategic condominium with Tehran recedes.  So Netanyahu must go – and the chattering class of Washington has responded to echo that sentiment quickly.

The problem is that over the last week, it is clear this is not “Netanyahu’s” war. Israeli polls for example note that 73 % of Israelis support the IDF entering Rafiah and the Philadelphia corridor in Gaza, even if it means conflict with Egypt and the U.S. administration. Similar majorities want to continue fighting and reject a ceasefire until Israel has achieved full victory and destroyed all of Hamas in Gaza and brought the area under full Israeli control for the near term. Similarly, most Israelis see little hope in avoiding escalation against Hizballah in order to prevent the communities of the north becoming the next victims of an even more deadly repetition of the October 7 attacks as afflicted Israel in the south. And there is no measurable block of Israelis that holds any hope of coming to terms in any way, even in terms of a proper deterrence relationship, with Iran.

In short, the Israeli people now see the Biden team’s self-assigned transformative regional mission to be existentially threatening and a grave danger to the very survival of the state and the safety of its citizens. Moreover, it is clear the center-left in Israel is aligned with the comparable polling blocks on these issues.  While there may be some marginal far-left parties and politicians that still cling to these views, the core of the center-left in Israel was sobered by the horrors of October 7 no less than the right of the spectrum.  As such, for example, despite the idea that PM Netanyahu is driving Israel to enter Rafiah, Benjamin Gantz, who leads the center-left party announced that there is no conceivable way in which Israel can avoid entering Rafiah and taking the rest of Gaza, nor is any currently floated form of a ceasefire agreement draft anything but a “non-starter.”

Added to this is that every public indicator also suggests that Israelis apportion the greatest blame for the national calamity which befell them on October 7 not only to specific parties or figures, but to the overall climate of fractionalization and bitterness that rendered Israeli society over the last year.  National unity at this moment is considered to be synonymous with national survival, and any actor disrupting  consensus or issue dividing the nation’s unity is rejected as a subject of address at this time. It is not an ideological view, but a practical one as well: the nation as a whole through mass mobilization of reserves is fighting, not just its regular army. To raise issues or trigger debate that can divide tank crews, elite units, combat squads and platoons, directly undermines the ability of the IDF to perform.  To break the nation’s unity and force through controversial “day after” policies and new elections now would be catastrophic in this regard.

In that context, any “day after” scenario such as Palestinian statehood, the splitting of the national unity government and the holding of elections, or even the idea of trying to leverage the desperate concern for the fate of the hostages against the imperative of absolute victory over Hamas is with disdain, disgust and determination profoundly rejected in public opinion.

The Biden administration thus is making a parade of mistakes to emphasize its messianic progressive agenda now, in believing it has any Israeli following for its agenda, and in trying to split Israeli politics and use Israel’s dependence on American aid to oust the current government and stand up a new, more pliable one.  The administration is banking on its influence to cause a rift with Israel – with every day unveiling yet another form of crisis and break with Israel — in hopes it strengthens the left, weakens the prime minister and forces a new elections and government.

Instead, with every new crisis, and with every indication that the administration does not appreciate the deep wound suffered in the Israeli psyche to its very confidence of existence resulting from October 7, the Biden administration fails further.  Indeed, it is squandering immense credit it built in Israeli society after October 7 in its quest for a ceasefire, for protecting inflated forms of Palestinian humanitarian interests, for rejecting a war plan over which there is roughly a national consensus rather than nurturing its credit over the long run to further leverage it to seek a more modest vision in the post-war atmosphere.

In the end, the very crises the administration embraces to try to weaken and oust the current government, the more the administration causes the U.S. to lose influence over Israel and erode the respect it holds within Israeli society.

In the end, the administration will defeat itself.

AUTHOR

David Wurmser

Dr. David Wurmser, is a Senior Analyst for Middle East Affairs at the Center for Security Policy, as well as a Fellow at the Misgav Institute for National Security and Zionist Strategy. He also is the executive and founding member of the Delphi Global Analysis Group, LLC – a firm specializing in geopolitical risk analysis and mitigation for infrastructure, high-tech, defense and financial firms from the United States, Japan and India navigating in Israel — since its founding in 2007. From December 2018 until September 2019, Dr. Wurmser also served as senior advisor to the U.S. National Security Advisor, Ambassador John Bolton.

Prior to this, Dr. Wurmser was the senior advisor from 2003-2007 to the U.S. Vice President Cheney on Middle East, proliferation and strategic affairs. Before becoming the senior advisor for the Vice President in 2003, Dr. Wurmser was the senior advisor to Under Secretary of State John Bolton at the State Department.

RELATED ARTICLE: Biden’s problem is with Democrats who hate Israel, not Netanyahu

EDITORS NOTE: This Center for Security Policy column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

BIDEN BORDER INVASION UPDATE: FBI Director Warns of ‘Very Dangerous Threats’ by Islamic State Terror Cells Coming to U.S.

This is one way for Democrats to get rid of opposition, import assassins.

If that sounds crazy, it’s nearly as crazy as allowing 10 million unvetted illegals in from the world’s most dangerous regions. And flying them (for free) anywhere they want in America (with no papers.)

FBI director warns of ‘very dangerous threats’ at border, smuggling network with ‘ISIS ties’

By Adam Shaw, Fox News, March 11, 2024:

FBI director warns of ‘wide array of threats at US border’

FBI Director Christopher Wray warned of a number of threats, including drugs and gangs coming across the US border.

FBI Director Christopher Wray on Monday warned of a “wide array” of dangerous threats coming from the U.S. border, including drug trafficking, violent gangs and smugglers with ties to ISIS.

Wray was asked by Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., at a Senate Intelligence Committee hearing about the threats at the border, including the Tren de Aragua gang from Venezuela. Wray said he couldn’t speak to a specific gang, but said that there were dangerous individuals entering via the southern border.

“From an FBI perspective, we are seeing a wide array of very dangerous threats that emanate from the border. And that includes everything from drug trafficking — the FBI alone seized enough fentanyl in the last two years to kill 270 million people — that’s just on the fentanyl side,” he said.

These images from a CBP intelligence bulletin show tattoos and identifiers for Tren De Aragua.

“An awful lot of the violent crime in the United States is at the hands of gangs who are themselves involved in the distribution of that fentanyl,” he said.

Officials have warned about the presence of gangs, including Tren De Aragua. Fox News reported last week about a Customs and Border Protection (CBP) internal bulletin that told agents to be on the lookout for those coming across the border who may show signs of belonging to the bloodthirsty gang. Fox News reported last week that the brother of the suspect in the killing of Georgia student Laken Riley has ties to the gang. Both the suspect and his brother are Venezuelans who entered the U.S. illegally.

Rubio asked Wray whether smuggling networks that are moving people all over the world could also have ties to ISIS or other terrorist organizations.

“So, I want to be a little bit careful how far I can go in open session, but there is a particular network that, where some of the overseas facilitators of the smuggling network have ISIS ties that we’re very concerned about and that we’ve been spending enormous amount of effort with our partners investigating. Exactly what that network is up to is something that’s, again, the subject of our current investigation,” he said.

Rubio asked him to confirm that there is a network “we’re concerned about” that has facilitators involved with ties to ISIS.

“Correct,” Wray said.

Biden admin should be more focused on stopping border crisis than terminology: Chad Wolf Video

There were more than 2.4 million migrant encounters in FY 23, and FY 24 so far included a month with record encounters of over 300,000. The border has become a top political issue with both President Biden and former President Donald Trump visiting the border this month.

Continue reading.

AUTHOR

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EDITORS NOTE: This Geller Report is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

Pro-Islamic State Media Outlets Call On Muslims To Attack Jews And Christians In The West During Ramadan

On March 12, 2024, the pro-Islamic State (ISIS) Sarh Al-Khilafa media outlet released a poster titled “Fight All The Polytheists.” The poster praises the 15-year-old assailant who stabbed a 50-year-old Orthodox Jew, Meir Zvi Jung, in the Selnau area of Zürich, Switzerland,[1] as a response to ISIS Spokesman Abu Hudhayfah Al-Ansari’s call to attack “Jews and their allies everywhere.” Asserting that just as “the Jews, Christians and their allies” fight against the Muslims the world over, so must Muslims fight them wherever they are, the poster claims that “a Jew in Palestine or in China is an infidel whose blood is permissible.” The poster concludes that “like they attack us, we will respond to their hostility, break their power, our fire won’t be extinguished until we avenge our brothers sooner or later, as we will kill the men, capture the women and enslave the children, so wait, we are waiting with you.”[2]

On March 11, the pro-ISIS Al-Murhafat media outlet released a poster featuring a quote by slain ISIS Spokesman Abu Muhammad Al-Adnani, calling on Muslims in “the Crusaders’ countries” to carry out lone-wolf attacks, declaring that such attacks are more effective than ISIS operations in Syria and Iraq, and telling supporters in the West that “if one of you strives to reach the Islamic State, then one of us wishes to be in your place.” Al-Adnani called to target civilians, as it is “more painful,” and declared that there is no difference between armed or unarmed, woman or man. He also encouraged attacks during the holy month of Ramadan, saying: “Perhaps you will attain great reward or martyrdom during Ramadan.”[3]

REFERENCES

[1] See MEMRI JTTM Report: In Video Uploaded To Internet, Teenage Stabber Of Jew In Zürich Swears Allegiance To Islamic State (ISIS), Calls On Muslims To Target Jews And Christians Everywhere, March 3, 2024.

[2] March 12, 2024.

[3] March 11, 2024.

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EDITORS NOTE: This MEMRI column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

The Woke Department of Defense is Opening Up a New Avenue of Data Collection

Great news for the Communist Chinese who have flooded our Republic with over 400,000 male military age illegal immigrants.

The U.S. Navy led by the woke/Communist Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin has approved a program that will allow sailors to utilize their iPhones and Androids etc. with an internet connection while out at sea in an effort to improve their living conditions as per the woke Navy leadership as per a public directive on March 12th, 2024.

In a The Conversationalist column titled “Soldiers with smartphones can be a gift to the enemy”, Maria Farrell wrote,

With security risks and data-leaks, why do some serving soldiers bring smartphones on deployment, and how do countries differ?

A few years ago, my husband deployed to Afghanistan where the British Army had categorically banned all soldiers from using their phones. He called once a week at most, and our conversations were stilted and short. It’s hard to share sweet nothings in front of a line of soldiers waiting their turn. All was well until one morning I had coffee with another army wife. Her husband was working in the US Marine Corps Camp Leatherneck, and she got to facetime him every. single. morning. What I’d thought was an iron law of deployment – no personal communications devices for anyone, anywhere, anytime – turned out to be more an evolving set of practices.

Cell phones are wildly insecure. They’re the most vulnerable node in a network designed to generate and exploit user-data and share it with a wide range of actors, from device manufacturers, operating system owners, content-creators, software and app-designers, phone companies and partner networks. And those are just the organizations officially permitted to pull down mobile device data. Many apps leak data continually, as a consequence of either poor design or the user’s failure to install updates. We also have a perennial problem of apps that access and share personal and device data they have collected unnecessarily.

These Communist Chinese illegal immigrants who, under the Biden reign of Marxist terror have been given a free pass into the USA via Mexico and even can join the U.S. Navy after they get their Social Security Numbers and then they can join the Navy and get to work uploading the sensitive information to their handlers in Beijing from our warships.

The Navy currently prohibits using cell phones with internet connectivity aboard warships due to security reasons. Well you would think right? Obviously these cell phones will also expose their users’ location data and, in turn, those of the vessels they have boarded.

Much like the CIA and the FBI illegally are tracking American citizens in the United States unconstitutionally by collecting their cell phone data now the communist Chinese will have the same opportunity on board our warships.

Boot camp is a joke and literally anyone can pass this gauntlet that used to separate the men from the boys in the past era of military training. Now Boot Camp is a free pass if you can wake up on time and don’t need assistance with wiping your own behind.

Under this so called “let’s make life easy for the lazy weak and non productive new younger generation of sailors trial program”, sailors aboard a warship which has not been identified by the weak woke Department of the Navy is actually based in Changwon, (Imagine that) 185 miles off the coast of Seoul, South Korea.

It will be easy to ID the ship once the sailors start calling their wives lol and once they will be able to use their phones connected to the internet via a taxpayer funded commercial low Earth orbit satellite, according to the woke Navy officials.

When I deployed in Operation Desert Storm and Desert Shield I was allowed one radio message per week strictly controlled by Radio Central to protect the lives and security of our mission.

Now the Communist Chinese and the Iranians will be feasting at the trough of information flowing directly from the heart of one of our warships.

May God protect our republic from this current Marxist White House and Department of Defence.

©2024. Geoff Ross. All rights reserved.

RELATED ARTICLE: Navy sailors get 12 official mobile “apps”

Netanyahu Prepares To Cross Biden’s ‘Red Line’ On Potential Rafah Invasion As Tensions Escalate

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he would defy President Joe Biden’s “red line” on a potential Rafah invasion as tensions between the two leaders continue to escalate, according to Axel Springer, the parent company of Politico.

After announcing additional humanitarian aid to Gaza during his State of the Union address, Biden told MSNBC that if Israel was to invade Rafah, a city in Gaza holding displaced Palestinians, it would be a “red line.” Netanyahu, however, indicated in an interview with Axel Springer that he would be ignoring Biden’s warning on a potential invasion of Rafah.

“We’ll go there. We’re not going to leave them. You know, I have a red line. You know what the red line is? That October 7 doesn’t happen again. Never happens again,” Netanyahu told the outlet.

Netanyahu added that he had the support of some anonymous Arab leaders on his potential military move as Israel battles the terrorist organization Hamas in its war, Axel Springer reported.

“They understand that, and even agree with it quietly,” Netanyahu told the outlet. “They understand Hamas is part of the Iranian terror axis.”

Though the latest public dispute between Netanyahu and Biden adds to growing tension between the leaders, White House officials told Politico Playbook they are allowing Netanyahu to “vent.” They believe, the White House officials told Politico Playbook, that the criticism is about applying pressure on Hamas to strike a hostage deal, rather than embarrassing Biden.

As war in the Middle East has dragged on, Netanyahu and Biden have reportedly had several disagreements. Biden hung up on Netanyahu in December after a heated phone call about the Palestinian tax revenue dispute, sources told Axios. The president has reportedly called Netanyahu an “asshole” in at least three different incidents, three people familiar with the president’s comments told NBC News in February. Following the reports, a National Security Council spokesperson told NBC News that Biden and Netanyahu have a “respectful relationship,” though the president lets the prime minister know when he disagrees.

The president reportedly voiced criticism of Netanyahu in January during an event, a supporter who was present at the event told NBC News.

“He did say Bibi started off great, but ‘he’s been a pain in my ass lately’ or ‘he’s been killing me lately’ — one of those things,” the person who was present for Biden’s comments told NBC News. “He goes, ‘But he’s doing a disservice … of late.’”

AUTHOR

REAGAN REESE

White House correspondent. Follow Reagan on Twitter.

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Trump Secures Enough Delegates To Clinch Republican Nomination

Former President Donald Trump won enough delegates from nominating contests Tuesday evening to secure the 2024 Republican nomination, according to The Associated Press.

Trump won primaries in GeorgiaMississippi and Washington, surpassing the Republican National Committee’s required 1,215 delegate threshold from Tuesday’s contests to become the presumptive nominee, the AP projected at the time of writing. The Hawaii caucus has yet to be called.

President Joe Biden reached his party’s 1,968 target after a win in Georgia. Biden, who also secured a win in Mississippi on Tuesday, already won Hawaii‘s Democratic caucus on March 6 with 66% support, according to the AP.

Across all of the nominating contests on Tuesday, 161 Republican delegates and 254 Democratic delegates are on the line, according to the AP.

The president is likely to face an “uncommitted” protest vote in Washington over his handling of the Israel-Hamas war, as he did in several Super Tuesday states and Michigan. The ballot option received 7.5% support at the time of writing, according to the AP.

Trump won nearly all of the Super Tuesday states on March 5, while former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley was able to narrowly secure the blue state of Vermont. Haley dropped out of the Republican primary the following day after only notching two wins this cycle, including Washington, D.C., but did not endorse Trump.

The former president notched big wins in the first four nominating states — IowaNew HampshireNevada and South Carolina — as well as in the U.S. Virgin IslandsMichiganIdaho, Missouri and North Dakota.

Trump is currently leading Biden by 1.7 points in the RealClearPolitics average for a potential 2024 rematch, and is also ahead in crucial battleground states like MichiganArizonaGeorgiaNevadaNorth Carolina and Wisconsin.

AUTHOR

MARY LOU MASTERS

Contributor.

RELATED ARTICLE: Nikki Haley Takes One State, But Trump Romps In The Rest As Super Tuesday Results Roll In

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ACTION ALERT: West Point Official Mission Statement Eliminating ‘Duty, Honor, Country’

 

”Duty, Honor, Country,” a striking expression of West Point’s time honored ideals, is the motto of the U. S. Military Academy and is embedded in its coat of arms.

Though not as old as the institution they represent, the USMA coat of arms, also referred to as the seal, and motto have a long and interesting history.

According to archival records, the coat of arms and motto were adopted in 1898. Col. Charles W. Larned, professor of drawing headed a committee to design a coat of arms for the Academy and stated several criteria for the design. The committee decided that the design should represent the national character of the Academy, it’s military function, its educational function and its spirit and objectives.

Symbolism in the Coat of Arms

The committee began with the creation of an emblem that consisted of a sword, a universal symbol of war, and the helmet of Pallas Athena, a fully armed mythological goddess, is associated with the arts of war, and her helmet signifies wisdom and learning. The emblem is attached to a shield, bearing the arms of the United States, and on the shield’s crest is a bald eagle, the national symbol. The eagles claws hold 13 arrows representing the 13 original states and oak and olive branches, traditional symbols of peace.

Duty, Honor, Country

The eagle is grasping a scroll bearing the words “West Point, MDCCCII (1802), USMA,” and the motto, “Duty, Honor, Country.” The motto as such was never previously stated, but in writings of early superintendents, professors and graduates, one is struck by the recurrence of the words “duty,” “honor” and “country.” Colonel Larned’s committee believed Duty, Honor, Country represented simply, but eloquently, the ideals of West Point.

The committee did not express an opinion as the relative importance of the three words; however, there is perhaps significance in the fact that “honor” is in the center of the motto. As Maj Gen Bryant Moore noted in a 1951 article in Assembly Magazine, “honor” forms the keystone of the arch of the three ideals on which West Point is founded.

The coat of arms was used without change until 1923, when Captain George Chandler, of the War Department, pointed out to the Superintendent Brig. Gen. Fred Sladen that the eagle and the faced the heraldic sinister side. The helmet, eagle’s head and sword were soon turned to their current position.

Since 1923, the coat of arms has been in regular use at West Point and is carved on many of the older buildings. In 1980, the coat of arms was registered with the Library of Congress as an “identifiable logo” for the Academy.

Another tradition the woke Lieutenant General Steve Gilland, the Superintendent of the United States Military Academy at West Point and his Marxist bosses are trying to eliminate the motto Duty, Honor, Country.


This is an “Action Alert”

Col. (Ret.) Bill Prince, President of the MacArthur Society of West Point Graduates, attended the 07 March West Point Board of Visitors meeting, at the Library of Congress in Washington DC.

Early in the meeting, current Superintendent LTG Steven W. Gilland announced a major change to the Academy’s Official Mission Statement. Expunged is the commitment to the approximately 125-year-old motto of Duty, Honor, Country.

LTG Gilland advised that in its place members of the Corps of Cadets would be “…committed to the Army Values…’’’ The seven Army values are not listed in the Mission Statement, but LTG Gilland remarked that Duty, Honor, Country were pretty much subsumed under the seven Army values. (Col. Prince’s comment: Duty and honor are two of the seven; Country does not make the cut.)

Meeting organizers supplied printed 12 page agenda packets to Board members and their staffs, but not the visitors, me being one, so we took the opportunity to grab agenda packets from vacant chairs. LTG Gilland advised, and the agenda packet specifically stated (page 4), that the new verbiage has been validated as an “Army Senior Leader Approved Mission.” Applicable briefing slide.

There is no identification of which Senior Army Leader found fault with Duty, Honor, Country. Not even the GOP members of the committee raised any objections.

Quickly, the briefing slides moved to the impacts of potential short-term and long-term lapses in funding.

Click here to view all briefing slides.

ACTION

If you are concerned, as we in the MacArthur Society certainly are, that there is an element at the Academy, and likely in the chain of command above, which wants to eradicate foundational principles which have stood the test of time, then I’m asking you to join me in sending an email to VP for Alumni Services Terence Sinkfield ’99 at terence.sinkfield@wpaog.org (845-446-1513).

Three questions occur to me:

Who is the “Army Senior Leader” who expunged Duty, Honor, Country from the Mission Statement?

Did this officer receive direction from above in his chain of command to take this action?

Did the AOG (in its mission to represent the members of the Long Grey Line) provide preliminary input to this decision and if so what input.

The MacArthur Society’s Mission is to preserve, defend, and advocate for West Point’s history, purpose, and principles of Duty, Honor, and Country. Clearly our Society must take action on this issue. Donations are of overriding importance in helping us stay in the fight. Join us!

Thank you for your support of the mission.

Col. (Ret.) Bill Prince ’70
President
MacArthur Society of West Point Graduates

What Business Do Christians Have Being Journalists?

Collin Hansen, a Christian journalist, once wrote that “there’s significant overlap between” journalism and Christianity, because both “teach by distilling complicated concepts about how the world works. Both herald news, good and bad.” But he added that one “might not know about the overlap between these callings because journalists and preachers generally don’t like each other.”

Of course, it’s no wonder why. Journalists aren’t famous for their good, trustworthy reputations. Rather, they’re more commonly infamous for their willingness to lie and twist the narrative to accommodate their biases. We scan headlines and notice that left- and right-wing outlets may cover the same news yet tell completely different stories. How do we know who and what to trust?

More importantly, what business does a Christian have in a field notorious for misconduct?

Growing up, I didn’t pay much attention to politics. Partly because I lacked an interest in it, and partly because I saw how it stirred up immense controversy. I didn’t see the point of engaging in what seemed like a constant societal migraine. But here I am, a Christian reporter with my gaze particularly fixed on the political arena. So, what changed? It’s simple.

I used to tell people, “The only political opinions I have are what’s addressed in the Bible.” And while it’s largely still the case, there’s a much different meaning behind that statement now. Back then, if I said that, I was primarily referring to matters of abortion, gender, and marriage — areas I firmly believe Scripture makes abundantly clear. But what changed between then and now is that I see more clearly how the Bible touches on far more than those three significant areas. Indeed, the more I study Scripture (and observe the political landscape), the more I see just how much the Bible applies to nearly everything.

It was during my internship at Family Research Council, shortly after attending Bible college, when this became blatant. Evidently, there are a vast number of political topics to consider when claiming the Bible “nearly” applies to “everything.” But I’ve had the privilege of writing for The Washington Stand about immigration, debanking, socialism, abortion, economics, LGBT activism, education, social media, mental health, and more, and for every single topic, a biblical worldview has applied. Moreover, in each topic, a Christian voice was not only relevant, but needed.

God is not just “some” truth you can choose to adopt in personal and isolated areas of convenience. No, He is the ultimate Truth as it pertains to all things, regardless of how we feel. The truth of God is “the same yesterday, today, and forever” (Hebrews 13:8). It’s completely detached from the roller coaster of human trends and finite perspectives. As such, Christians have an advantage to journalism secular journalists don’t. Christian journalists know objective truth, and it has set us free (John 8:32). And its Christian journalists who then take God and His word into the messy battleground of secular journalism to serve as salt and light to a world in desperate need of it. And really, all Christians who engage in politics are called to do this, too.

I had a conversation with a friend the other day about how hopeless it can feel standing for biblical truth in the public square when it seems to have no impact. And yet, for this very reason, I don’t find it coincidental Galatians 6:9 frequently comes to mind, which says, “Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up.” And really, this is what Christian journalists are called to take on.

I believe it’s a strong and reasonable temptation to give up when swimming against the current — particularly in an ocean as restless as politics. But what I believe Galatians 6:9 is meant to remind us of is that we don’t give up because, while we may not always be able to see how our efforts make a difference, we serve a God who said, “Before they call I will answer; while they are still speaking I will hear” (Isaiah 65:24). And Jesus said in John 5:17, “My Father is always working, and so am I.”

Feeling like God isn’t working is no reason to give up. Instead, we never have reason to give up because we trust, in His sovereignty, He is working.

2 Corinthians 4:4 says that “the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers, to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.” But don’t you see? Journalism is such a wonderful opportunity for Christians to put the light of the gospel back into the public square. We will be criticized and rejected for it, but we will also be glorifying God.

Hansen articulated it well when he shared why Christian journalism matters:

“Journalists that would serve the church will fulfill a catechetical calling. We are teachers who help other Christians understand a world created by God but corrupted by sin. Our investigative work reflects the biblical reality that we live in … [a] time when our ‘adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour’ (1 Peter 5:8). We expose the sin that imperils believers so that they might be prepared to defend themselves in the power of the Holy Spirit.

“Yet, we also live in … [a] time when the Father is working in glorious ways to spread the saving knowledge of His Son, Jesus Christ. This is good news, and journalists have been called to tell it. With a little help from preachers, we just might be able to encourage the church with a new, more edifying approach to media.”

As corrupt and abused as it may be, I don’t believe the realm of media, reporting, and journalism is worth abandoning. Like everything in this fallen world, its frustrating nature is not one we should shy away from. Rather, it should be a wake-up call to what Christians are meant to do in the first place. That is, to proclaim the truth.

Earlier, I said I am a Christian reporter with my gaze fixed on politics. And while that is true as it pertains to what I write about, behind it all is a gaze fixed on Christ. And so, as a Christian journalist, I shall repeat the words of Psalm 146:2, in that “I will praise the Lord as long as I live; I will sing praises to my God while I have my being.”

AUTHOR

Sarah Holliday

Sarah Holliday is a reporter at The Washington Stand.

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EDITORS NOTE: This Washington Stand column is republished with permission. All rights reserved. ©2024 Family Research Council.


The Washington Stand is Family Research Council’s outlet for news and commentary from a biblical worldview. The Washington Stand is based in Washington, D.C. and is published by FRC, whose mission is to advance faith, family, and freedom in public policy and the culture from a biblical worldview. We invite you to stand with us by partnering with FRC.

Biden Admin Sent ‘Hate Group’ List of Conservative Orgs to Banks after J6

Last week, it came to light that the Biden administration provided a listing of “hate groups,” which lumped together mainstream conservative organizations alongside avowed neo-Nazi and white supremacist groups, to major U.S. banks for the purpose of monitoring financial transactions in the wake of the January 6, 2021 riot at the Capitol. Experts say the pattern could lead to an increase in banks cancelling the accounts of politically disfavored organizations.

The listing was taken from a report compiled by the Institute for Strategic Dialogue (ISD) and the Global Disinformation Index (GDI), two U.K.-based left-wing activist groups. The report includes a listing of “American Hate Groups,” which is itself based on the classifications of the anti-Christian Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) and the Anti-Defamation League (ADL). The listing classifies conservative organizations such as Family Research Council, Alliance Defending Freedom, American Family Association, Eagle Forum, Liberty Counsel, and others alongside avowed Neo-Nazi and other white supremacist groups such as the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan.

According to an investigation by the House Judiciary Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government, the Treasury Department’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) sent the report to “some of the largest financial institutions in the world, including the very financial institutions that are likely responsible for providing financial services to many of the listed ‘hate groups.’”

In January, reports surfaced that FinCEN had urged banks to “comb through the private transactions of their customers” to look for “suspicious charges” of legal activities involving political and religious expression without warrants, including the purchase of religious texts and legal firearms. Experts warn that these actions are part of a pattern of increasing collusion between the federal government and corporate America to commit warrantless surveillance of American citizens.

But experts also fear that the Biden administration’s actions could lead to an increase in outright cancellations of the bank accounts of conservative organizations by major financial institutions, which has already occurred on numerous occasions. As Jeremy Tedesco, a senior counsel at Alliance Defending Freedom, testified before the Weaponization subcommittee last week, “viewpoint-based de-banking is on the rise.”

As reported by National Review, some banks are citing “reputation risk” in order to justify discrimination “against gun manufacturers, distributors, and sellersfossil-fuel producerscontractors for the Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency; and private prisons and related services.”

In recent years, two Christian nonprofit organizations were targeted by Bank of America (BoA). Indigenous Advance Ministries, which helps impoverished widows and orphans in Uganda, had its long-standing account closed in 2023, with BoA claiming that they no longer serve Indigenous Advance’s “business type” and that the ministry exceeded the “bank’s risk tolerance.” Three years prior, Timothy Two Project International, a ministry that trains indigenous pastors across the globe, received “a nearly identical letter” from BoA and “was repeatedly stonewalled in attempts to gain clarity about the cancellation and how to resolve it.”

Similarly, in 2022 JPMorgan Chase, without explanation, cancelled the account of the National Committee for Religious Freedom (NCRF), a nonprofit that advocates for religious freedom in the U.S. which is headed by former U.S. Ambassador-at-Large for International Religious Freedom Sam Brownback. In order for their account to be reinstated, JPMorgan demanded that NCRF turn over a list of high-level donors, “a list of candidates it intended to support, and its criteria for political support.”

Experts say that the Biden Treasury Department’s actions could lead to more conservative organizations being de-banked.

“That’s what they want,” Chris Gacek, senior fellow for Regulatory Affairs at Family Research Council, told The Washington Stand. “It’s really troubling. The Republican attorneys general need to come together on this. They need to really start digging into this de-banking pattern and getting subpoenas out. One of the industries where there’s a lot of state regulation is banking. State AGs would have the ability to get subpoenas and start looking at the records and start seeing what the Feds were forcing them to do. It’s very, very serious.”

AUTHOR

Dan Hart

Dan Hart is senior editor at The Washington Stand.

RELATED ARTICLE: J6 Committee Reportedly Covered Up Key Testimony, Resulted in Trump Being Struck from Ballot

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EDITORS NOTE: This Washington Stand column is republished with permission. All rights reserved. ©2024 Family Research Council.


The Washington Stand is Family Research Council’s outlet for news and commentary from a biblical worldview. The Washington Stand is based in Washington, D.C. and is published by FRC, whose mission is to advance faith, family, and freedom in public policy and the culture from a biblical worldview. We invite you to stand with us by partnering with FRC.

Judge Orders Biden Administration to Build the Wall

The Biden administration must spend funds allocated by Congress to build a wall on the southern border, a federal judge ruled Friday. Southern District of Texas Judge Drew Tipton sharply rebuked the Department of Homeland Security for contending that, “notwithstanding the language in the statute,” it had discretion to spend the money however it pleased. “Whether the Executive Branch must adhere to federal laws is not, as a general matter, an area traditionally left to its discretion,” Tipton, a Trump appointee, remarked dryly.

As usual, this lawbreaking by the Executive Branch is traceable back to the nation’s chief executive. On his first day in office, President Joe Biden issued a proclamation declaring that “it shall be the policy of my Administration that no more American taxpayer dollars be diverted to construct a border wall.” The proclamation, as Tipton noted, paused all spending on a border wall and directed DHS to devise other ways to spend the allocated funds.

This language was already misleading because the word “divert” means “to turn from one course or use to another.” To quote from the ruling, “In 2020 and 2021, Congress funded roughly $1.4 billion ‘for the construction of [a] barrier system along the southwest border.’” Thus, by halting construction, President Biden was responsible for diverting funds from one purpose to another. The issue was funds being diverted from, not to, border wall construction.

In compliance with Biden’s proclamation, but in defiance of Congress’s allocation restrictions, DHS dreamed up plans to spend most of the money on “smarter border security measures” (a.k.a. technology systems, not a wall), “environmental remediation, flood-control, and cleanup projects.” Under these plans, the DHS would only construct new barriers “in two locations where they are filling gaps in existing walls,” according to the testimony of their own expert.

“The Biden Administration has failed to abide by the law to finish the construction of a wall along the southwest border,” said Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey (R). “Joe Biden refuses to carry out his constitutionally mandated responsibilities, so we took him to court to force him to do his job.”

In response to the Biden administration’s fantastical interpretation of “construction of [a] barrier system,” the judge threw the dictionary at them. “The definitions of ‘construction’ and ‘barrier’ connote building a physical structure that would serve as a barricade and a line of demarcation,” he wrote, after quoting from Merriam-Webster. “‘System’ accounts for the large scale of the U.S.-Mexico border requiring different kinds of barriers such as walls, fencing, buoys and the like.” Obviously, “this plain meaning does not include the Government’s definition,” Tipton concluded.

Tipton proceeded to analyze surrounding text in the same appropriations law. “Congress broke [the relevant section] down into five distinct subsections” and stipulated that “these funds ‘shall be available only as follows,’” he acknowledged. So, funds allocated in one category couldn’t be diverted to a purpose in another category. The following section of the law gave “currently deployed steel bollard designs” as an example of one type of barrier DHS was authorized to construct with the funds, demonstrating that Congress clearly intended the funds to cover the construction of the actual barrier.

Tipton further reasoned that DHS’s creative plans to reallocate border barrier funds fell into the other subcategories Except for a “generalized catch-all,” each section had “clearly separate and distinct purposes,” with one funding a border barrier, another “border security technologies,” another “facility construction and improvements,” and yet another “integrated operations assets and infrastructure.” These distinct categories described all the other projects DHS had in mind.

The agency’s discretion over spending projects did not extend so far, the judge argued. It would be one thing if the states who challenged the administration’s decision (Texas and Missouri) simply objected to DHS’s decision to pursue or not pursue any particular spending project. Instead, a fundamental part of their argument was that “DHS was specifically obligated to spend the CAA funds to construct border walls, and the decision to not do so … was outside DHS’s discretion and violated the law.”

This distinction was important because, instead of turning the argument into a question of federal authority versus state authority, it became an argument over whether Congress or an executive agency had authority over spending. “The central question in this case, then, is this: Has the Government obligated FY 2020 and FY 2021 funds for the ‘construction of [a] barrier system’?” the judge asked. He answered, “The answer is largely no.”

This is not just the opinion of a single federal judge out in Texas. Tipton quoted from a 1993 Supreme Court opinion, Lincoln v. Vigil, “an agency is not free simply to disregard statutory responsibilities: Congress may always circumscribe agency discretion to allocate resources by putting restrictions in the operative statutes.”

Given this legal slam dunk, the judge issued a preliminary injunction, preventing any parts of the DHS’s plan that did not involve the “construction of physical barriers, such as additional walls, fencing, buoys, etc.” and prohibiting them from obligating the funds in question “toward mitigation and remediation efforts, repair of existing barrier, so-called system attribute installation at existing sites, or other similar purposes.”

During a previous hearing in the Southern District of Texas, a federal judge had dismissed Texas’s border wall lawsuit for a lack of standing, but then the Fifth Circuit reversed that decision and remanded the case in July 2023.

This lawsuit forms part of a legal maelstrom darkening relations between Texas and the Biden administration over its handling of the border. Other lawsuits taking place concurrently involve Texas’s attempt to arrest illegal immigrants, place razor wire along the border, or place buoy barriers in the Rio Grande River.

Given the larger legal context surrounding the southern border, not to mention political controversy making illegal immigration a top issue in the 2024 election, the opinion contained several findings that could be significant beyond the scope of this one ruling. Specifically, the court acknowledged the Biden administration’s border crisis had inflicted real injury on the state of Texas because of the costs the state has incurred in dealing with it.

Beyond that, the court also found “that Texas has demonstrated that its injuries are traceable to DHS’s funding decisions.” Texas submitted the DHS’s own documents to prove to the court that “constructing additional border barriers will reduce illegal entries in areas where those walls are constructed, increase detection rates across the entire border, and generally disincentivize illegal immigration.”

In other words, the Biden administration knew that constructing barriers would at least hinder illegal immigration, yet from January 20, 2021 it has deliberately chosen to pursue a policy of not constructing border barriers. In late January, President Biden told reporters, “I’ve done all I can do” to secure the border. According to this federal court’s findings, DHS’s own documents prove that statement false.

AUTHOR

Joshua Arnold

Joshua Arnold is a senior writer at The Washington Stand.

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EDITORS NOTE: This Washington Stand column is republished with permission. All rights reserved. ©2024 Family Research Council.


The Washington Stand is Family Research Council’s outlet for news and commentary from a biblical worldview. The Washington Stand is based in Washington, D.C. and is published by FRC, whose mission is to advance faith, family, and freedom in public policy and the culture from a biblical worldview. We invite you to stand with us by partnering with FRC.

What if Iran gives Hezbollah the bomb and they bring it here?

An Iran watchdog group says the country has enough weapons-grade uranium to build a nuclear weapon in just one week. Multiple sources indicate that Iran already did the engineering work to build a weapon and may have already done a cold test of a weapon.

In effect, Iran already has the bomb. The game is over. We cannot stop them.

“We possess every aspect of nuclear weapons technology.”

Ali Akbar Salehi, Iran’s ex-nuclear chief

“Iran does not need to do a nuclear test to build a nuclear weapon… They designed a program where they could test the components, the subcomponents, and then test the whole assembled device minus the weapons-grade uranium and have a way to know that if that test was successful, which we call a cold test, then the nuclear explosion would actually take place if it was detonated,”

David Albright, physicist and weapons expert

Sources also point out that Hezbollah, an Iranian-sponsored group, has cells inside the United States and may be able to carry out attacks here on no notice.

Why do we treat these two threats as separate and distinct? Why do we worry about Iran delivering a nuclear weapon via a missile or a bomb dropped by a plane? Why don’t we consider the possibility the bomb will explode here inside the United States and Hezbollah will be the delivery vehicle?

A modern atomic bomb is not that big. Assuming the Iranians have already built weapons, we do not know the exact dimensions. We do know, though, that an American nuclear weapon with ten times the power of the weapons we dropped on Japan measures roughly three feet long and eighteen inches in diameter.

There is no southern border. Millions of people are crossing it without interference. Enough fentanyl comes in every year to kill 100,000 Americans. Are we really supposed to sleep well at night believing something the size of a large suitcase cannot be smuggled in?

“Once the Iranian regime gets access to nuclear weapons, it will most likely provide some of them to its proxies, including Hezbollah in Lebanon and the Houthis in Yemen. The threat of a nuclear-armed Iran must not be underestimated. Iran’s regime has frequently threatened to wipe a whole country — Israel — off the map, and is also increasing military cooperation with Venezuela and Cuba to threaten the US. Europe, too, remains a rich target for nuclear blackmail. Iran would not even have to use its nuclear bombs; the threat would be enough.”

Dr. Majid Rafizadeh, President of the International American Council on the Middle East.

Hezbollah is not some rag-tag outfit. It operates a military bigger than that of many nation-states. It also has a highly efficient arm called Unit 910 that is specifically designed to operate abroad and plan complex attacks years in advance. In support of such operations Unit 910 caches weapons and explosives, cases targets, and waits for direction from its headquarters.

We do not suspect they are here in the United States. We know they are, and we know they have been here for years.

Originally published by AND Magazine

AUTHOR

Sam Faddis

Charles “Sam” Faddis is a veteran, retired CIA operations officer, Senior Partner with Artemis, LLC and published author. With degrees from The Johns Hopkins University and the University of Maryland Law School, he is a contributor to ANDmagazine.com, Newsmax, and The Hill among others. He regularly appears on many networks and radio programs as a national security and counter-terrorism expert.  Sam is the author of “Beyond Repair: The Decline And Fall Of The CIA” and “Willful Neglect: The Dangerous Illusion Of Homeland Security.

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EDITORS NOTE: This Center for Security Policy column is republished with permission. All rights reserved.

Why Conservatives Need to Stop Saying “My Country’s Not Perfect”

A “Persian flaw” was originally a flaw purposely included in a handmade carpet because, the thinking was, only God could aspire to perfection. ’Tis true, too, that perfection is not a thing of this world. Given this, you may wonder why I write in my title that conservatives must stop issuing disclaimers to the effect of, “We all know our country is not perfect.” Well, consider a little analogy:

Imagine you were giving a speech in honor of your mother and opened with, “Now, we all know my mother’s not perfect.” Might there not be some stunned silence? Is it possible some listeners might view you as a bad child? Moreover, if your mother heard your disclaimer, mightn’t she be hurt?

This reaction to it would not be registered because the impression prevailed that your mother was a Jesus-like figure who walks on water. Rather, because your mother is human, it’s a given that she’s not perfect. Thus, making a point of issuing such a disclaimer implies that your mother isn’t just saddled with the “normal” human imperfections but is uniquely or profoundly flawed, so much so that you’d be embarrassed lauding an aspect of her life without first acknowledging her uniquely defective character.

In other words, such a disclaimer is gratuitous, just a bit like saying, “We all know my mother is not a man” or “We all know my mother is not an extraterrestrial.” Unless she’s got a beard and chest hair or looks like E.T., what’s the point?

Now, the imperfection disclaimer would be appropriate if your mother had knocked over three banks and you were pleading her case before the parole board, but is the U.S. that kind of a country? To what are we comparing her?

America was not the first to practice slavery, our flagellantism obsession, but was one of the first nations to eliminate it (Vermont enacted anti-slavery laws in 1777 already). As for “racism,” a 2020 study found the obvious: The U.S. is one of the least racist countries on Earth.

Consider, too, that China had its brutal wars of unification and, much later in history, a Maoist government that would kill 60 million people. Russia has a history including figures such as Ivan the Terrible, a Ukrainian genocide and Joseph Stalin’s purges. And prior to Western Civilization’s intervention, most parts of the world were ridden with barbarities such as cannibalism and human sacrifice. This, not to mention that slavery was once status quo the world over and that “racism” in many places still is. Yet citizens of other countries never feel compelled to issue an imperfection disclaimer.

So where is this standard of perfection, this utopia, that we’re comparing America to when we do so? Heaven is Heaven; it’s not on Earth.

Speaking of this flawed fold, and the sin making it so, vanity (and perhaps narcissism, too) also sometimes drives the imperfection disclaimer’s issuance. Implicit in the statement may be the message, “I wouldn’t want you to think I’m the kind of person who wouldn’t recognize my country’s flaws; I want you to know that I’m better than my nation — part of the enlightened set.”

None of this, mind you, means our attitude should be, “My country, right or wrong,” which, as G.K. Chesterton pointed out, “is like saying ‘My mother, drunk or sober.’” But this gets at part of the imperfection disclaimer’s silliness: It’s not even motivated by the right concerns.

We’re in the throes of the Sexual Devolution and a cultural revolution, with ne’er-do-wells telling children they can change sexes and have any kind of sex and illegal aliens being advantaged over citizens. Yet too many of us are manipulated into issuing the imperfection disclaimer based on left-wing imperatives (e.g., slavery and racism), which range from being in the past to common to man to exaggerated to imaginary. It’s a testimonial as to how the con-artist Left, with its control of culture-shaping entities such as the media, academia, entertainment and Big Tech, can mold thinking and manage the debates.

Lastly, know that just as an imperfection disclaimer relating to your quite normal mother would cause many to look dimly upon you, so does issuing one about our country lose us respect internationally. This world isn’t exactly replete with desert mystics and “If they don’t respect themselves,” the thinking often is, “why should we respect them?” So as my mother would often say, “Don’t wash your dirty laundry in public.”

Perfection is not a prerequisite for praise. A father will proudly tout his son’s accomplishments without mentioning the boy’s occasional mischievousness. Likewise, talking about our country’s successes doesn’t necessitate disclaimers about her sins.

Stop saying, “We all know our country is not perfect.” It’s not a sign of virtue. It’s a marker of leftist victory.

©2024. Selwyn Duke. All rights reserved.

Contact Selwyn Duke, follow him on X (formerly Twitter), MeWe or Gettr or log on to SelwynDuke.com

Senate Democrats UNANIMOUSLY VOTE AGAINST Proposal to Prohibit Illegals From Voting

For those you still scratching your heads as to why the Democrats have blown up our borders and ushered in a foreign invasion.

Senate Democrats Block Bill That Would Ban Illegal Immigrants From Voting

Sarah Arnold | March 10, 2024 4:00 PM

With the 2024 presidential election coming up and millions of illegal aliens storming the southern border, Republicans are taking a stand from letting another 2020 election happen. 

However, Democrats are trying to squash the GOP’s efforts of upholding election integrity. 

This week, Senate Democrats shot down proposed legislation that would exclude illegal immigrants from being counted on the census for the purposes of apportionment for House seats and the Electoral College. 

Proposed by Sen. Bill Hagerty (R-TN) to add an amendment to the $460 billion spending package, the legislation would require the Census Bureau to include a U.S. citizenship question in any future census. It would ban any illegal immigrants and non- U.S. Citizens from being counted for congressional district and Electoral College apportionment.

However, 51 Democrats and Independents voted against the bill. 

45 Republicans voted in favor of the legislation with the exception of Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska). 

“Today I forced Chuck Schumer to hold a vote on whether illegal aliens should be counted for determining the number of congressional seats and electoral votes each state gets. Democrats’ unanimous opposition to this commonsense measure confirms that they’re using illegal aliens and sanctuary cities to increase their political power,” Hagerty said in a statement. “With this vote, Senate Democrats chose to trample on the rights of each American’s voice. I will continue to fight and press this issue in the Senate.”

The bill would be similar to a Trump-era legislation that would also have had a citizenship question on the 2020 census. 

However, Democrats were critical of Trump’s plan, claiming that questioning a person’s citizenship was wrong and intended to benefit Republicans in future elections.

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The ‘Ceasefire’/’Red Hand’ Pin Worn by Actors at the Oscars is the Symbol of Jews Torn Limb From Limb and Cannibalized

The Muslim hordes ate his organs.

Why don’t these left-wing Nazis just wear a swastika and be done with it?

Remembering the Ramallah Lynching, 20 years later

Jerusalem Post

On October 12, 2000, IDF reservists Vadim Norzhich and Yosef Avrahami were lynched by a Palestinian mob while detained at the el-Bireh police station in Ramallah after accidentally entering the Palestinian Authority (PA) controlled city.

Marking what would become the onset of the more violent Second Intifada following the collapse in Israeli-Palestinian negotiations at Camp David in July, the events of October 2000 became among the most brutal timeframe in the history of relations between the two peoples. The Ramallah lynching itself also became one of the first mass publicized incidences of political violence in the internet age, having been widely broadcasted in Israel and around the world.

The event began when Norzhich and Avrahami, two IDF reserve duty soldiers, drove in their civilian vehicle to a meeting point at the settlement of Beit El, when according to accounts, the reservists were unfamiliar with the West Bank road system and drove through the military checkpoint outside Beitunia. From there, they entered the Palestinian city of Ramallah.

Arriving to a Palestinian roadblock, the reservists were detained by PA policemen and taken to the local police station in Ramallah’s twin city el-Bireh, close to the headquarters of PLO chief Yasser Arafat. The detention of the two reservists incidentally came at the same time of a funeral service Palestinian youth who had been killed by Israeli forces a few days earlier. Likewise, over 100 Palestinians  has been killed in violent confrontations with Israeli security forces in the weeks prior.

According to accounts, rumors spread that Israeli undercover agents were being detained at the police station, prompting a crowd of over 1,000 to gather calling for their deaths. While Israeli intelligence got word that the reservists were being detained and a crowd was gathering, the IDF allegedly decided against a rescue operation due to the presence of PA security forces in the area. Haaretz and Maariv, The Jerusalem Post’s sister publication, also reported that 13 Palestinian policemen were injured trying to prevent the mob from storming the station and conducting the lynching.

The IDF reservists were murdered by the crowd via beatings and stabbings, with one Italian news outlet later capturing the infamous photo Aziz Salha raising his blood-soaked hands to the cheering crowd.

The reservists’ bodies were then thrown out the window, mutilated and set on fire. The bodies were then dragged to Al-Manara Square in the city center. PA security forces, aware of the seriousness, attempted to confiscate film showing the events.

Continue reading.

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