In The Shadow Of Mt Hollywood

There's been a near-immediate consensus that the Hamas invasion over the weekend was a failure of Israeli intelligence, less so that US intelligence missed anything. NBC’s Kristen Welker pressed Blinken on “Meet the Press” on whether it was an intelligence failure. Blinken said that the violence in the region was “an attack that I don’t think anyone saw coming,” but fell short of calling it a failure. . . . Deputy national security adviser Jon Finer also dodged answering whether it was a failure, again reiterating that there will be time in the future to look into it. So far, only a few observers are looking at the causes of the invasion. Yesterday's New York Post editorial is a good start: The Obama administration’s vision saw an empowered Iran as a fulcrum to force action from Israel on the Palestinian question. Thus the Iran deal, which set the mullahs on the path toward nuclear breakout and regional hegemony they are now speeding down. . . . Obama’s Whit...

As of this posting, Robert Malley's Wikipedia entry is a version that was last updated on October 3 , in response to an October 1 story in the Tablet that I linked yesterday. The Wikipedia entry notes, "On June 29, 2023, Malley was placed on unpaid leave as special envoy to Iran, his security clearance was suspended amid an investigation into possible mishandling of classified material." I took note of the Tablet story only over this current weekend, assuming it must have been part of the prior weekend's bad news dump. But as I dug deeper, the story is months old. It was covered in a Washington Post op-ed on September 6 , referring to events four months earlier: Anyone who criticized the Chinese government for its secrecy surrounding the disappearance of former foreign minister Qin Gang (including me) is guilty of hypocrisy unless they acknowledge that the U.S. government is being similarly opaque about the fate of one of America’s top diplomats. Congre...

The news of an attack on Israel leading to the first declaration of war in 50 years has mostly raised questions for me about contexts that I'd been noticing for some time. The first is Biden's recent slights against both Israel's President Herzog, on which I posted here , and Prime Minister Netanyahu, which I covered in this post. On July 18, President Joe Biden seemingly fell asleep today while sputtering gibberish during a high-level meeting with the President of Israel, Isaac Herzog. “The Israelis and the Palestinians… uh… on a political level… They uh, and… uh… They uh… And, I… Agwai endhole and whole shegwam… And uh…” said Biden. My assessment at the time was that this was deliberate, an indication at best that Isreal's head of state wasn't worth Joe's full attention, however pro forma this might seem. Then there was a not fully unequivocal exchange with Prime Minister Netanyahu on September 20: Biden noted that he worked with Netanya...

REPORT: President Biden has “mistreated” his dogs by punching and kicking them according to sources close with Judicial Watch. Biden’s dogs are just like his son: Poorly trained. Documents from the United States Department of Homeland Security, reveal injuries from attacks… pic.twitter.com/dDGRuYxc1P — Collin Rugg (@CollinRugg) October 6, 2023 The video in the post at X above bothers me in several ways. I've had five pet dogs in my life, none has been a German shepherd, but I think dog body language is pretty consistent across breeds. What I see in the video, if that's his most recent dog, Commander, is Commander being led off the helicopter by Joe and promptly becoming confused. He's on a leash, Joe heads for the limo, Commander hangs back and in fact turns the other way. As best I can read, Commander has his head low and is wagging his tail more or less level to the ground, indicating he's not sure what to do. Joe somewhat awkwardly gathers Commander in, first with...

The last we heard of Sarah Ashton-Cirillo, late a 46-year-old Florida man named Mike who'd turned up as "Sarah", the oficial spokestrans for the Ukrainian territorial defense force, was that once the story attracted the attention of Ohio Sen Vance, he'd been suspended from the role of spokestrans . On social media, the TDF said: “The statements of (Junior Seargant) Ashton-Cirillo in recent days were not approved by the command of the TDF or the command of the AFU. When conducting military operations against the aggressor, the defense forces of Ukraine strictly observe the norms of international humanitarian law. “The command of the TDF will conduct an official investigation into the circumstances of these statements. Appropriate decisions would be taken. Sergeant Sarah Ashton-Cirillo will be suspended immediately pending the investigation.” It looks like the official investigation has taken place, the appropriate decisions have been taken, and, son of a ...

According to Wikipedia , The Great Replacement (French: Grand Remplacement ), also known as replacement theory or great replacement theory, is a white nationalist far-right conspiracy theory disseminated by French author Renaud Camus. The original theory states that, with the complicity or cooperation of "replacist" elites, the ethnic French and white European populations at large are being demographically and culturally replaced with non-white peoples—especially from Muslim-majority countries—through mass migration, demographic growth and a drop in the birth rate of white Europeans. Since then, similar claims have been advanced in other national contexts, notably in the United States. Mainstream scholars have dismissed these claims as rooted in a misunderstanding of demographic statistics and premised upon an unscientific, racist worldview. According to the Encyclopædia Britannica , the Great Replacement "has been widely ridiculed for its blatant absurdity....

Recent weeks have brought indications that there are strains in the remaining Democrat coalition. Both Illinois Gov Pritzker and New York Gov Hochul have complained that the migrant incursions on the southern border are too big to handle, since once they cross, the migrants often head to New York or Chicago, where they stay and consume government services. While neither Pritzker nor Hochul has pointed specifically to the de facto open border itself, both complain that there's no federal coordination in relocating the migrants, no policy that will allow the migrants to work, and no federal aid for the cities providing services to the migrants. On Monday, Pritzker outlined the problems in a letter to Biden : On top of the 15,000 that have arrived in Chicago and Illinois over the last 13 months, we are now seeing busloads more migrants at increasingly higher rates being sent specifically to Chicago each day. Our state government has been forced to dedicate over $330 ...