In The Shadow Of Mt Hollywood

According to Wikipedia , Benjamin "Bibi" Netanyahu . . . is an Israeli politician who has been serving as the prime minister of Israel since 2022, having previously held the office from 1996 to 1999 and again from 2009 to 2021.He is the chairman of the Likud party. Netanyahu is the longest-serving prime minister in the country's history, having served for a total of over 16 years. He is also the first prime minister to have been born in Israel after its establishment. . . . Netanyahu rose to prominence after being elected as the chairman of Likud in 1993, becoming Leader of the Opposition. In the 1996 election, Netanyahu beat Shimon Peres, becoming the first Israeli prime minister elected directly by popular vote, and its youngest-ever. Netanyahu and Likud were heavily defeated in the 1999 election by Ehud Barak's One Israel alliance; and Netanyahu chose to retire from politics entirely, entering the private sector. Netanyahu later returned to politics, and ser...

I keep returning to Nate Silver's Feburary advice to the White House , in which he warns [H]e's losing now and there's no plan to fix the problems other than hoping that the polls are wrong[.] I'm starting to think that Silver, like Alan Dershowitz, is a highly intelligent traditional Democrat who's sincerely trying to think his position through, and it's a fascinating process to watch. Let's revisit his February position on Biden interviews: Biden’s doing a lot fewer interviews than even the media-hostile Trump. And when he does them, his performance is still just mediocre. Again, he recommended that Biden turn things around: Over the course of the next several weeks [i.e, in March}, Biden should do four lengthy sitdown interviews with “non-friendly” sources. “Non-friendly” doesn't mean hostile: nonpartisan reporters with a track record of asking tough questions would work great. A complete recording of the interviews should be made publi...

Yesterday, in response to news that the Biden administration had "paused" certain arms shipments to Israel in an attempt to hold back Israel's intent to go into Rafah to eliminate the threat from Hamas, I quoted Alan Dershowitz's statement from back in March, "If you stop supplying ammunition and arms to Israel and deny them the right to defend themselves, you have crossed my red line." I'd been waiting, as apparently many others have, for Dershowitz's reaction to this latest development. It's come, at least for now, in yesterday's Dershow podcast, which is linked above. If I had to vote today, I would not vote for President Biden . . . For those who have asked me, has my red line been crossed, this is the red line, and if it is crossed by the Biden administration, I will abide by my commitment and not support those who have crossed my red line, and I'm sure it's a red line for many of you as well. So I hope it hasn't...

Michael LeBron, who posts as Lionel on his YouTube channel, summed up yesterday's New York trial: As the Skank Tanks . I can't possibly top that, and otrher things are happening, so I'll mention just three of them. First, according to Politico , The Biden administration is holding up shipments of two types of Boeing-made precision bombs to send a political message to Israel, according to a U.S. official and six other people with knowledge of the deliberations. The U.S. has yet to sign off on a pending sale of Boeing’s Joint Direct Attack Munitions — both the munitions and kits that convert them to smart weapons — and Small Diameter Bombs, according to six industry and congressional sources with knowledge of the discussions. While the Biden administration has not formally denied the potential sale, it is essentially taking action through inaction — holding off on approvals and other aspects of the weapons transfer process — to send a message to Israel, a U...

I happened to be watching a program about space travel on TV over the weekend, and it included the clip above, which I was also able to find on YouTube. It shows Joe receiving a NASA briefing on the first images from the James Webb Space Telescope on July 11, 2022, less than two years ago. Compared to the Joe Biden we've come to know more recently, I think it's remarkable: he's engaged, on point, speaking clearly, not slurring, not mumbling, getting all the words right. At 1:34: . . . light where stars were born, and from where they die. Light from the oldest galaxies, the oldest documented light in the history of the universe, from over 13 billion -- let me say that again -- 13 billion years ago. It's hard to even fathom. Tomorrow when this image is shared with the world, it'll be a historic moment. Clearly this was written for him. But there are also Bidenisms, the fascination with a big number, the need to rephrase the remark about light -- but some of t...

In the middle of last night, it was revealed to me in a dream that Alissa Heinerscheid, the independently wealthy Harvard legacy who achieved her 15 minutes of fame when she made Dylan Mulvaney the spokestrans for Bud Ligfht a year ago, is actually the social theorist behind the current wave of campus pogroms -- and this despite her own Jewish heritage -- with maybe a little bit of help from Charles Manson. Hear me out. I began to puzzle this through when I mentioned in a recent post that unlike 1968, when campus unrest was paralleled by riots in the ghettos, there's so far been no equivalence between student grievances and those of the African-American community. If fact, Al Sharpton has expressed deep skepticism of the pro-Palestine protests. There's no intersectional resonance. Instead, over the weeend, we had these stories : President Joe Biden has been dogged for months by pro-Palestinian protesters calling him “Genocide Joe” — but some of the groups behind the...

I've mentioned here several times Nate Silver's advice to the Biden campaign last Febsruary Biden can still win. But he's losing now and there's no plan to fix the problems other than hoping that the polls are wrong or that voters look at the race differently when they have more time to focus on it. Neither is so implausible and it is likely to be a close race. But even the most optimistic Democrats, if you read between the lines, are really arguing that Democrats could win despite Biden and not because of him. The single biggest problem Silver saw is Biden's age, and the campaign needed to do something: A lot of commentators that I respect have pointed out that Biden ought to do more public events that would help to allay public doubts about his mental sharpness. The problem is, one can infer the reason that Biden is not doing them — namely that the White House comms team is rational and has inferred that the cost of doing them outweighs the benefits becaus...