Daily News Roundup

Estimated Reading Time: 23 minutes

NOTABLE QUOTES

Nick Short contributor tomklingenstein.com: The control of information, the crackdown on dissent, the redefinition of reality itself: all of these are classic tools of totalitarian regimes. We must understand that fact — understand both the goals of the group quota regime and how they intend to achieve them — before we can proceed. We are in a war, and we ought to know our enemy if we hope to fight and win.

John Leonard contributor to American Thinker: Technically speaking, Donald Trump is guilty of something — he’s guilty of the crime of being Donald Trump. He hasn’t broken any laws, but laws have been modified to break him. As former NKVD (now the KGB) head Lavrentiy Beria once famously said, “Show me the man and I’ll show you the crime.” The Democrats have been shown one term of Donald Trump in power and they didn’t like what they saw. Energy independence, historically low unemployment, almost zero inflation, a strong economy […] I mean, who wants that?

Jeffrey Ludwigcontributor to Frontpage Magazine: The importance of the individual is a profoundly Christian ideal. Christianity is concerned about the potential eternal happiness of every individual based on his or her salvation in light of his or her relationship with Christ. Thus, the views of the WEF and the sustainability freaks who insist that we stop eating meat, stop driving gas-powered automobiles, stop using gas stoves, get used to living in smaller spaces and closer to our jobs, and stop making a big deal about the sanctity of male or female identity (which distracts from the supposedly more important issues of sustainability) are directly in opposition to the essence of Christianity.

J.B. Shurk contributor to American Thinker: There is a segment of the human race that will never surrender. There is an even larger population that springs to life when theoretical warnings become real enough to smack ingenuous dreamers across the face. Every time totalitarianism’s boot bruises another neck, a resistance movement grows in strength until the monster wearing that boot comes crashing down. And, still, with the weight of history serving as a warning to all who seek to smother human liberty, tyrants rise again today like a hydra-headed beast wishing enslavement for any who get in its way. That is why, as Camus warned, freedom must be won again every single day. Can it be done? Absolutely. How does it begin? By laughing at the State.

Michael Tennant contributor to LewRockwell.com: When the leading advocates of autonomous weaponry tell us to be concerned about the unintended dangers posed by their use in battle, the rest of us should be worried indeed. Even if we lack the mathematical skills to understand emergent behavior in AI, it should be obvious that humanity could face a significant risk to its existence, should killing machines acquire the ability to think on their own. Perhaps they would surprise everyone and decide to take on the role of international peacekeepers, but given that they’re being designed to fight and kill, it’s far more probable that they might simply choose to carry out those instructions in an independent and extreme fashion. If so, there could be no one around to put an R.I.P. on humanity’s gravestone.

Daniel Greenfield contributor to Frontpage Magazine: The emerging narrative is that the Democrats aren’t turning out voters because the party hasn’t come out strongly enough in support of Hamas and against Israel. If the Democrats lose in 2024, that narrative will solidify and future Democratic Party presidential candidates will be warned to support Islamic terrorism and oppose those like Israel who resist it or lose. A handful of Muslim settlers in Michigan built up their state within a state, they’ve taken the Democratic Party hostage and now intend to take the United States of America hostage.

DEMOCRAT PARTY MARXIST PLAYBOOK: ABOLISH THE FIRST AMENDMENT

Berenson: Free speech is under attack all over

In 1941, as the United States neared war with Germany and Japan, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt listed the “Four Freedoms” vital to life – and offered “freedom of speech” as the first freedom, even before “freedom from fear.” Roosevelt’s stirring words were part of a centuries-long American tradition of protecting free speech – a tradition the United States spread globally. Free speech became a core value, a way for democracies to set themselves apart from dictatorships. No more. Democratic societies suddenly seem to have forgotten the value of speech and debate. Elites inside and outside government lash out against “misinformation” — a word they can rarely if ever define — and demand measures against it. Most stunningly, the media itself now regularly demands that speech be suppressed. The reasons why are complex, […] In the 1990s, a Michigan conservative thinker named Joseph Overton articulated the idea that political outcomes exist in an acceptable window of possibility. […] Like most good theories, this theory is intuitively obvious once it has been explained. After Overton died in a plane crash in 2003, it became known as the Overton window, giving him a prominence in death he had never enjoyed in life. Big, quick shifts in Overton windows can and do happen – often either after an outside shock or with a lot of societal discomfort or both. (In other cases, such as the growing acceptance of legalized cannabis and other recreational drugs, the shift comes more slowly and quietly, the result of well-organized and -funded pressure campaigns.) But for the most part, the elites set the boundaries of acceptable discourse – the edges of the Overton windows. […] This is why Donald Trump, and his electoral success, has come as such a shock to the elites of both parties. Stylistically, Trump has always been unacceptable – gaudy, obnoxious, vulgar, a poor man’s idea of a rich man. (I will confess to this snobbery too.) But now Trump is pushing major policy changes that are well outside the Overton window –

Short: How Censorship Drives the Woke Revolution

The woke regime, like all totalitarian regimes before it, views your freedom of speech not as a right but as an obstacle. The suppression of dissent is a vital element of the power grab that will enable this regime to achieve its political goal: the establishment of group quotas as the organizing structure of American life, rather than individual merit and constitutional liberty. What makes the group quota regime different from the tyrannies of the past is that it has access to mechanisms of political control that are entirely unprecedented in human history, thanks to the technological and social revolution of the last few decades. The migration of so much of our political life into the digital realm, the outsourcing of speech and information control to nominally private actors not directly bound by constitutional limitations, and the development of new tools for more efficient and effective manipulation — including, most recently, artificial intelligence — have created a perfect storm of censorship that is both more extensive and more subtle than that practiced by any previous authoritarian regime.

BIDEN CRIME FAMILY

Devine: Despite media spin, there’s still overwhelming evidence Joe Biden knew of family’s business dealings

Joe Biden and his Praetorian Guard in the media are cock-a-hoop about the indictment last week of FBI informant Alexander Smirnov, a US-Israeli dual national accused of having lied to the FBI when he claimed Hunter and Joe Biden each were paid a $5 million bribe by the owner of corrupt Ukrainian energy company Burisma. For more than three years, Joe Biden has refused to address the avalanche of evidence about his family’s corrupt influence peddling while he was VP. He has refused to address evidence that he was involved in son Hunter and brother Jim’s lucrative shakedown of shady characters in the world’s most corrupt countries — where he was in charge of US policy. He has lied point-blank when confronted, claiming to have no knowledge of Hunter and Jim’s business dealings, despite dozens of proven instances when he met Hunter’s foreign business partners, and spoke to them at least two dozen times on speakerphone.

VDH: Delusions, Alternate Realities, and the Biden Consortium

Hunter Biden has a train of a dozen lawyers defending him on felony indictments ranging from several counts of tax fraud to gun violations. From time to time, the contents of his laptop come up, both in these criminal trials and in civil suits. The information on the laptop is, of course, incriminating and useful to various prosecutors and litigants. Yet Hunter himself is suing the computer repairman with whom he dropped off his laptop and never retrieved—and never paid—despite signing a waiver relinquishing ownership if and when in default of payment and claim. But the weirdest element of the Biden labyrinth of illegality is that both Hunter and his attorneys footnote their writs and statements with the inexplicable notion that the laptop is not necessarily Hunter’s own—but then again, it could be. In other words, they are not presenting evidence to show that either the photographs, texts, or emails are concocted, even while they are suing various parties for defamatory dissipation of the sort of true, sort of false contents. Translated: . . .

BIDEN’S DEMOCRAT PARTY MARXIST PLAYBOOK: PERSECUTE YOUR OPPOSITION, PRESIDENT DONALD J. TRUMP & HIS FORMER TRUMP EMPLOYEES, SUPPORTERS & WH STAFF

Toboroff: Democrats are trying to send Trump the way of Alexei Navalny

Friday, February 16, 2024 is the day America codified political persecution. In a civil fraud case where no one was defrauded, New York Democrat judge Arthur Engoron ruled that President Trump must pay $350 million in damages. It’s unclear who Trump is supposed to pay. The victims—banks—made money in the transaction. Additionally, Engoron ruled Trump can’t do business in New York for three years. Seemingly the only people Democrat judges won’t prosecute for doing “business” in New York are illegal immigrants. On the same day as the Engoron ruling, Alexei Navalny, a Russian opposition leader who ran for office against Russia’s President Putin, “died” in the Polar Wolf penal colony after taking a walk. Putin’s fiercest domestic critic was already serving a 9-year sentence on fraud and embezzlement charges. Putin’s fiercest domestic critic was already serving […] Sound familiar?

Hoft: The Fix Is In: New York Judge Merchan in Upcoming NY Trump Criminal Case Is Rabid Leftist Who Donated to Democrats and Sent Trump’s 75-yr-old Former CFO to Prison

Leftist judge Juan Manuel Merchan, who will oversee President Trump’s junk criminal case in New York City that is scheduled to start next month on March 25, made political contributions to a nonprofit fundraising platform for Democratic candidates and progressive groups. This latest election interference case by the radical Democrats involves a payment Trump made to Stormy Daniels before the 2016 election. Trump has pleaded not guilty to the charges brought by far left Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg. Judge Merchan sent President Trump’s former 75-year-old CFO to prison for five months last year in a made-up tax fraud scheme targeting President Trump, his family, and his business.

TRUMP: REPUBLICAN PARTY PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE

Ingraham Angle: Trump to Laura: When we make America great again, I’ll smile

Watch the 8:03 minute video: https://www.foxnews.com/video/6347352019112

Ingraham Angle: Trump to Laura: I worry about the safety of Americans

Watch the 4:05 minute video: https://www.foxnews.com/video/6347351992112

Ingraham Angle: Undecided voters tell Laura if Trump town hall changed their minds

Watch the 5:30 minute video: https://www.foxnews.com/video/6347351986112

Ingraham Angle: Newt Gingrich: ‘It’s all a lie’

Former Speaker Newt Gingrich reacts to former President Trump’s ‘The Ingraham Angle’ town hall in Greenville, South Carolina.

Watch the 5:26 minute video: https://www.foxnews.com/video/6347353586112

Schlichter: Donald Trump’s Chances of Winning Are Better Than Ever

Some of my newfound sanguinity regarding Donald Trump’s chances in November is based upon objective facts, like polls. Well, it’s as objective as modern polling can be. But there are other objective factors, like the fact that his opponent, Joe Biden, is a desiccated, corrupt, old pervert who’s leaped over the edge of senility into full-scale incoherence and soiling himself. Everybody knows it, and Robert Hur’s report did him no favors. Sure, the New York Times and the rest of the regime media are trying to spin it as if we have to have a medical degree and a five-year residency in gerontology to assess our alleged president as a drooling, mindless husk. But the people see it, and the people know it. I’m not one of those people who believes that he, Very Real and Serious Doctor Jill, and the minions propping him up are going to just leave the power and prestige of their presidential positions for something as irrelevant to them as the good of the country. Some of my rationale for thinking that Donald Trump has a better chance than he had a while ago is based on subjective factors. I’m feeling the vibe, and the vibe is more and more Trump-friendly. […] There’s a ton of work to do and a lot of potential black swans, twists, and turns, between now and the election. But one thing is certain. Trump can win.

GLOBALISM (GREAT RESET/NEW WORLD ORDER) & TRANS HUMANISM (AI HUMANS 2.0) ARE INEXTRICABLY LINKED

Ludwig: Mass Migration, Trans-humanism, Sustainability, and God

The globalists’ war against the Christian ideal. The present migration crisis in Europe and the USA is being brought about by globalists operating on the Marxist principle of a worldwide redistribution of wealth, but at the same time a world controlled by powerful global economic interests. The result will be a dictatorship albeit not a dictatorship of the proletariat (yet, nevertheless, claiming to be in the name of the dispossessed). As under communism, personal possessions by the masses will be extremely limited or non-existent, and this will be accomplished in the name of the environment (“sustainability”). The ruling “interests” supposedly will override the inherent selfishness of the West (but not their own selfishness). Western Civilization will no longer be the locus of economic domination. Under the new communist-inspired reductio, despite the political dissolution of colonialism, the West is still in charge of the world economy and thus continues to subordinate the interests of the second and third world countries to their own. According to the World Economic Forum (WEF) and to the pundits and second-rate minds that drafted the U.N. Agenda 2030, as well as pseudo-visionaries like George Soros, John Kerry, Greta Thunberg, Klaus Schwab, and Yuval Noah Harari (Schwab’s right-hand man at the WEF), there is a racial component to economic domination that must be overcome and that is linked to the economic dominance of Western Civilization over all other cultures in South America, Africa, and Asia. The blaming of Western Civilization and American civilization for the poverty of the non-Western world is all part of the globalist propaganda machine.

Tennant: “Emergent” AI Behavior and Human Destiny

Yes, it’s already time to be worried — very worried. As the wars in Ukraine and Gaza have shown, the earliest drone equivalents of “killer robots” have made it onto the battlefield and proved to be devastating weapons. But at least they remain largely under human control. Imagine, for a moment, a world of war in which those aerial drones (or their ground and sea equivalents) controlled us, rather than vice-versa. Then we would be on a destructively different planet in a fashion that might seem almost unimaginable today. Sadly, though, it’s anything but unimaginable, given the work on artificial intelligence (AI) and robot weaponry that the major powers have already begun. Now, let me take you into that arcane world and try to envision what the future of warfare might mean for the rest of us. By combining AI with advanced robotics, the U.S. military and those of other advanced powers are already hard at work creating an array of self-guided “autonomous” weapons systems — combat drones that can employ lethal force independently of any human officers meant to command them.

THE CORRUPT & DANGEROUS U.S. INTELLIGENCE AGENCIES & THE ADMINISTRATIVE STATE APPARATUS

Conradson: WATCH: O’Keefe Strikes Again – IRS Official Tells O’Keefe Media Group Reporter That the IRS uses AI to Spy on Americans’ Bank Accounts: Is It Constitutional? “I doubt it,” says IRS Official Alex Mena

According to Alex Mena, an IRS official with the criminal investigations unit in New York, who met with O’Keefe Media Group’s undercover journalist, the IRS uses artificial intelligence technology to spy on American citizens and company bank accounts without a warrant or evidence to uncover what they consider fraud. According to the source, the IRS is “going after the small people” and “destroying people’s lives.” All of the agents are “like robots,” said Mena.

Read more/Watch the 14:32 minute undercover video: https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2024/02/watch-okeefe-strikes-again-irs-official-tells-okeefe/

REPUBLICAN U.S. HOUSE MAJORITY

Chaitin: House Freedom Caucus Offers Spending Back-Up Plan To ‘Save Americans $100 Billion’

A group of House conservatives are requesting an update from Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) on spending negotiations ahead of yet another set of deadlines that could trigger a government shutdown and suggested a back-up plan that could trigger across-the-board spending cuts if they don’t win policy concessions.

Members of the Freedom Caucus led by Rep. Bob Good (R-VA) sent a letter to Johnson on Wednesday as a stopgap measure is set to expire in two stages, with funds approved for some federal agencies though March 1 and money to other departments through March 8, and the fiscal 2024 appropriations process remains incomplete.

CHINA: AMERICA’S MORTAL ENEMY

Greenfield: Fmr Navy Intel Cmdr Reveals Biden Suppressed Info on Previous Chinese Spy Balloons

Former Rear Admiral Michael Studeman had headed up the Office of Navan Intelligence. In an op-ed at the Financial Times, he reveals that “when I was director of intelligence for the Indo-Pacific Command, for example, I watched as numerous requests to publicize Chinese malign activities were disapproved by Washington, including a recommendation to publicize Beijing’s use of high-altitude surveillance balloons over the sovereign airspaces of the US, our allies and Asian partners. This was many months before the shooting down of a Chinese balloon flying over the US last year.” Now this is important because the Biden administration claimed that it was not aware of previous spy balloons.

BIDEN/HARRIS/OBAMA’S AMERICA LAST REGIME: RADICAL TRANSFORMATION OF FOREIGN POLICY

Spencer: Biden Regime Plans to Give Hamas a Grand Reward for Murdering 1,200 Israelis

It has been clear for quite some time that the Biden regime, despite its show of support for Israel, is really on the side of Hamas. […] As if all that weren’t bad enough, now the Biden regime is planning to follow it with the worst betrayal of all of our most loyal ally in the Middle East. The Washington Post reported Wednesday that “Egypt, Jordan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Palestinian representatives, in addition to the United States” were “rushing to complete a detailed, comprehensive plan for long-term peace between Israel and Palestinians, including a firm timeline for the establishment of a Palestinian state, that could be announced as early as the next several weeks.” As you may have noticed, the one concerned party that would likely lose territory if any such state were established was conspicuously absent from these negotiations.

Buccino: Ukraine Can No Longer Win

As the second anniversary of Russia’s full-scale invasion of the country to its west nears and the latest aid package for Ukraine stalls in Congress, we must be clear-eyed about the future: there is no path for Ukraine to win this war. American support will not change this reality. […] Today, the situation is grim. The once dynamic fighting has slowed to a cruel slog – one that inures to Russia’s favor as Ukraine runs low on troops and munitions while Russia maintains both in plenty. The long-planned, high-risk, months-long Ukrainian spring 2023 counteroffensive failed, with Ukraine unable to regain any territory seized by Russia. Support for Zelinsky – in Ukraine and the West – has finally slipped. American aid is log-jammed in Congress, and the U.S. seems tired of funding the war.[…] The reality two years in is that there is no path to victory for Ukraine – not in the sense of pushing Russian troops back to the pre-February 2022 lines of control. After the Ukrainian troops abandoned Avdiivka – […]

BIDEN/HARRIS/OBAMA’S AMERICA LAST REGIME: RADICAL TRANSFORMATION OF AMERICA

Arnold: WH Aides Instruct Biden to Ramp Up Attacks on Trump to Disguise His ‘Poor Memory’

President Joe Biden is reportedly amping up his attacks against his 2024 election opponent, former President Trump, to divert American’s attention away from his declining mental health. According to a CNN report, Biden has instructed his campaign advisors to speak poorly about the so-called “orange man bad narrative,” or Trump as Democrats like to put it. CNN spoke to several sources claiming Biden is trying to shift the public’s atrocious view about him instead of focusing on a “back to normalcy” campaign.

Lachman: The world’s drowning in debt — brace yourself for economic turbulence

When it comes to a country’s overindebtedness, the four most dangerous words are “This time is different.” As Harvard’s Kenneth Rogoff and Carmen Reinhart taught us in their magisterial book “This Time Is Different: Eight Centuries of Financial Folly,” unless addressed promptly, over-indebtedness almost always ends in tears — an economic, banking or exchange-rate crisis. How much more should we be worried about the world’s long-run economic outlook? It’s not only a single major country with troubling debt. Each of the world’s major economies has a serious debt problem caused by too many years of irresponsible budget policies and zero interest rates — and could make it all the more difficult to avoid a recession and renewed financial strain at home. Take the United States, the world’s largest economy.

Shurk: Of Course We Should Mock the State

Ever since Obama’s election, the effort to bulldoze America and rebuild on its rubble a compliant nexus point for the WEF’s coercive Borg to dominate the West has picked up speed. Unaccountable bureaucrats and politicians in Washington don’t even pretend to respect the will of voters anymore. Strong majorities of Americans have said resoundingly: close and secure the borders, stop spending money that you do not have, end widespread warrantless surveillance, stop censoring public debate, stop distorting the law to punish dissenting voices, safeguard elections from mail-in ballot fraud, and stop funneling money to foreign regimes that use that money to attack the United States. The hive-mind Borg in D.C. has told the American people to go suck an egg. The federal government’s targeted abuse of Americans has been an eye-opening experience for many. Consider this question: […] As a Christian who does not have an irrational fear of nation states, I always think, “Better to be a Christian nationalist than a globalist child-groomer, amirite?” What those who seek to divide us are really saying through the use of this Christian dog whistle is […] For the love of freedom everywhere, we must all mock the State. The quickest way to defang any totalitarian regime is to paint it with the emasculating brush of contemptuous ridicule.

DEMOCRAT PARTY MARXIST PLAYBOOK: SEVER THE PARENT-CHILD BOND

Kruta: Illinois Bill Changes Definition Of ‘Abused Child’ To Include Kids Whose Parents Object To Abortion, Transgender Hormones And Surgeries

House Bill 4876, which was introduced in early February, also shields doctors from liability if they prescribe such treatments to minors who do not have parental consent — and empowers the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services (DCFS) to step in and, if they deem it necessary, remove children from their biological parents based on the new definition of an “abused child.” […] According to the legislation, which imbues minors with the same legal status as adults with regard to consenting to medical treatments and procedures related to abortion and gender transition, “consent to the performance of abortion services and gender-affirming services executed by a minor is not voidable because of such minority.”

DEMOCRAT PARTY MARXIST PLAYBOOK: CHILDREN ARE THE TARGET OF THE DARKNESS AFFECTING OUR NATION

Billboard Chris X post: Look at these women feeling sorry for pedophiles. They say pedophilia is a sexuality. One even says babies are born with it. We’re told to “overcome our negative feelings about pedophiles.” This is the cult of queer theory. This same trance-like ‘compassion’ they feel for pedophiles is why so many leftist women cheer on men in womenface as their own rights are destroyed. They have completely lost their moral compass. These are the types who applaud the maiming and sterilization of children, believing that children are born in the wrong body. Fools, so blind to evil, they become useful idiots for it.

Watch the disturbing 1;59 minute video: https://twitter.com/billboardchris/status/1759451558461497591

EDUCATION INDOCTRINATION

Dallmeyer: UW-Madison student gov votes to remove Lincoln statue, a ‘remnant’ of ‘white supremacy’

In June, Campus Reform reported that UW-Madison would not remove the Lincoln statue despite students’ calls in favor of doing so. In September, a petition titled “BIPOC Demands for the University of Wisconsin-Madison” garnered more than 3,000 signatures. The first demand states, “Remove the Abraham Lincoln monument located at the top of Bascom Hill and replace it with someone who stands for the justice of all people.” Students argue that President Lincoln was “anti-Black,” “anti-Native” and “not pro-Black.” Following these calls to remove the statue, a resolution was introduced to the Associated Students of Madison (ASM) Student Council advocating for the removal of the Lincoln statue on campus. The resolution states that the statue should be removed and replaced because it “serve[s] as remnants of this school’s history of white supremacy.”

ELECTION INTERFERENCE

Justice: Dark Money Group Peddles Viral Disinformation To Frame GOP Senate Candidate As Clueless Elite

Eric Hovde launched his campaign to unseat Democrat incumbent Sen. Tammy Baldwin Tuesday. Heartland Signal, a political newspaper based in Chicago, published a 44-second segment from Hovde’s speech when he addressed the crisis on the U.S. southern border. “It’s not just a humanitarian crisis for our country,” Hovde said. “But do you know how many lives are lost on that journey to get here? How many people’s life savings have been wiped out by the human trafficking cartels? And they’ve lost 100,000 children that they can’t account for.” “Let me assure you,” Hovde added, “more than a few of them have ended up being sexually trafficked. I know this all too well. My brother and I have homes all over the world, and we have three in Central America that deal with issues like this.”

Heartland Signal, a leftist digital website backed by Democrat donors, posted the clip on X with the caption, . . .

FIGHT FOR ELECTION INTEGRITY

Court: D.C. Must Fork Over Data About ‘Deceased’ People On Voter Rolls From Leftist-Linked ‘Maintenance’ Group

In the latest win for election integrity advocates, Washington, D.C. agreed to forfeit data related to the leftist-linked voter roll “maintenance” group known as ERIC, according to a stipulated court order released on Tuesday. Judge Ana Reyes of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia oversaw the settlement that determined that Monica Holman Evans, the executive director of the D.C. Board of Elections (DCBOE), must forfeit data reports that ERIC generates about deceased or potentially deceased individuals on D.C.’s voter registration lists to the Public Interest Legal Foundation (PILF).

Reed more: https://thefederalist.com/2024/02/21/court-d-c-must-fork-over-data-about-deceased-people-on-voter-rolls-from-leftist-linked-maintenance-group/

WAR IN ISRAEL

Luttwak: How Israel will invade Rafah

The final offensive against Hamas faces complications To the immense chagrin of those calling for a ceasefire, victory remains Israel’s war objective — and it is far from a distant prospect. Of the two key metrics that will decide its victory, one is mostly satisfied, while the other could soon follow. The first, the destruction of Hamas’s infrastructure, can be measured in the hundreds of kilometres of subterranean tunnels that the IDF has penetrated, cleared and thoroughly wrecked. Since many of these housed rocket workshops, a clear indication of progress is the drastic decline in the number of them launched from Gaza each day: first thousands, then hundreds, then a few, then none. The second vector of progress — the killing or capture of fighters and military leaders — cannot be measured so easily. Towards the end of January, Hamas’s death toll was reported as approximately 9,000, and yesterday it was reported as 12,000. Moreover, when one fighter is killed, another is sufficiently wounded to be removed from the battlefield. Because they live very safely in Qatar, none of Hamas’s top political leaders has been killed, so far.

Tobin: Opposition to Humanitarian Aid for Gaza Goes Mainstream in Israel

Under pressure from the Biden administration, Israel has allowed humanitarian aid into Gaza. But a nascent grassroots movement has channeled widespread public opposition to the policy. Ishay Green, 45, an Israeli high-tech entrepreneur and former leader of protests against Israel’s right-wing government, last week helmed a convoy of vehicles from Tel Aviv to the Gaza border to block trucks carrying foreign aid from entering the Palestinian territory. Green told the Washington Free Beacon that the protests are as much about unifying the nation as they are about winning Israel’s war against Hamas. “As a people, this is something we can do that the government cannot do,” he said, pointing to the U.S. and international pressure on Jerusalem to ramp up aid to Gaza. “But this is just one small thing. The bigger story of Israel is how we unite. If we unite, we are going to win.”

Michael Klare: Swarming Our World

Make no mistake, artificial Intelligence (AI) has already gone into battle in a big-time way. The Israeli military is using it in Gaza on a scale previously unknown in wartime. They’ve reportedly been employing an AI target-selection platform called (all too unnervingly) “the Gospel” to choose many of their bombing sites. According to a December report in the Guardian, the Gospel “has significantly accelerated a lethal production line of targets that officials have compared to a ‘factory.’” The Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) claim that it “produces precise attacks on infrastructure associated with Hamas while inflicting great damage to the enemy and minimal harm to noncombatants.” Significantly enough, using that system, the IDF attacked 15,000 targets in Gaza in just the first 35 days of the war. And given the staggering damage done and the devastating death toll there, the Gospel could, according to the Guardian, be thought of as an AI-driven “mass assassination factory.”

Miller: A Clear Blue Sky Over Israel

What one survivor of Hamas’s October 7 atrocities saw at the Nova music festival. The contrasts are what haunt Millet Ben Haim when she thinks about Hamas’s October 7 attack. As she lay on the ground, hidden in brush, with the sound of bullets and rockets growing ever closer, she looked up at the sky. It was clear blue—and then she saw a butterfly. “It was so beautiful,” she said. “I thought I was going to die, but that the world would go on. There was beauty around me, along with the butchery.” She was panicked but occasionally calm. She wanted to live but prayed that a rocket would hit her. “I had been in the army,” she said. “So I knew what would happen to us if we were caught—rape, torture, a slow death.”

MEDICAL RESEARCH

Tilley: Doctor on the cusp of a cancer cure: Nobel Prize-winning oncologist whose discovery means killer disease could be treated with a vaccine in years to come

Early stage trial results show vaccines are becoming increasingly promising for difficult to treat cancers such as pancreatic cancer, and could be used for many of the 200 forms of the disease. Her work has already won a Nobel Prize for her ‘decisive contributions’ to the field. […] Dr Wu was able to unearth the key to making cancer vaccines work. Along with her team, she discovered how to identify tumor’s unique neo-antigens. These are proteins that form on cancer cells when mutations occur. These tumor neo-antigens can be identified by the immune system’s T cells as foreign, and then attacked. Dr Wu identified patients’ neo-antigens by sequencing DNA from healthy cells and cancer cells. Copies of the neo-antigens were then inserted into a customized vaccine to trigger the immune system to attack the cancer cells. Dr Wu was determined to test the technology in advanced melanoma patients in a trial. […] Once they had secured FDA approval, six advanced melanoma patients were vaccinated with a seven-shot course of individualized neo-antigen vaccines. The groundbreaking results, published in Nature in 2017, showed . . .

AP & Morrison: Experimental pacemaker for the BRAIN is credited with saving the life of New Yorker with crippling depression–it may soon be available to 3m Americans

The device controls the amount of electrical stimulation sent to an area of the brain that regulates emotions called the subcallosal cingulate. The electrical device helped Emily Hollenbeck of New York, who has lived in a black hole of depression for years, feel better immediately. Doctors believe that deep brain stimulation (DBS) works for depression because it communicates with the brain in a way it understands. Our brains use both electricity and chemicals to send messages between nerve cells, called neurons.

Reda more: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-13107479/A-pacemaker-brain-helped-woman-crippling-depression-It-soon-offer-hope-others.html

OTHER NEWS, COMMENTARY, OPINION

Vespa: Wait, That’s Why It Took So Long for This Newspaper to Release the KC Shooter’s Mugshot?

We have a mugshot for Mays, which the Kansas City Stay included in their story about the new charges, but the editor’s note is something to behold: The Star is for the first time publishing a booking photo for Lyndell Mays, who was taken to the Jackson County Detention Center Tuesday night after being treated at a hospital. The Star had held off until Wednesday to understand why a booking photo of Dominic M. Miller was not available. The Jackson County Prosecutor’s Office said Wednesday morning that Miller is still at the hospital and had not yet been photographed. In addition, we took the time to carefully consider whether to use booking mugs in the absence of other images of the adult suspects; The Star policy is to use booking mugs only in the highest profile of crimes. Are you kidding me? First, this was a mass shooting. The liberal media always treats these incidents as high profile unless new details emerge that prevent them from weaponizing the tragedy against Republicans. Second, . . .

Taigo: Desperate for money, Chicago sues ‘Big Oil’

Last year, Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson sued Hyundai and Kia based on the absurd allegation that the vehicles they make are too easy to steal. Now, Johnson has set his sights on “Big Oil,” claiming that British Petroleum, Chevron, ConocoPhillips, Exxon Mobil, Phillips 66, Shell, and the American Petroleum Institute deceived “Chicago consumers about the climate dangers associated with their products.” “There is no justice without accountability,” said Johnson. “From the unprecedented poor air quality that we experienced last summer to the basement floodings that our residents on the West Side experienced, the consequences of this crisis are severe, as are the costs of surviving them. That is why we are seeking to hold these Defendants accountable.”

INTERNATIONAL

AP: Greek farmers drive 200 tractors to Athens to protest rising costs

Greek farmers join the widespread farmer protests that have broken out across Europe. Some 200 tractors formed the main convoy in central Greece heading southward, while thousands of protesters were expected to travel to the capital on chartered buses and ferries. The Greek farmers — whose demands are similar to those at widespread farmer protests elsewhere in Europe — have spent weeks staging sporadic blockades along highways and in rural towns.

The Prickly Pear’s TAKE ACTION focus this year is to help achieve a winning 2024 national and state November 5th election with the removal of the Biden/Obama leftist executive branch disaster, win one U.S. Senate seat, maintain and win strong majorities in all Arizona state offices on the ballot and to insure that unrestricted abortion is not constitutionally embedded in our laws and culture.

Please click the TAKE ACTION link to learn to do’s and don’ts for voting in 2024. Our state and national elections are at great risk from the very aggressive and radical leftist Democrat operatives with documented rigging, mail-in voter fraud and illegals voting across the country (yes, with illegals voting across the country) in the last several election cycles.

Read Part 1 and Part 2 of The Prickly Pear essays entitled How NOT to Vote in the November 5, 2024 Election in Arizona to be well informed of the above issues and to vote in a way to ensure the most likely chance your vote will be counted and counted as you intend.

Please click the following link to learn more.

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