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Dec. 4, 2023 - The Ben Shapiro Show

52:04

For The Left, “Balance” Means Shrugging at Sexual Assault

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	There's a famous comic from 2014, during the last major war between Israel and Hamas.
	It was done by cartoonist A.F.
	Branko, and it depicts then-Secretary of State John Kerry sitting between Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and a member of Hamas.
	The Hamas terrorist has a baby strapped to him with dynamite, and he's holding a paper reading demands.
	Death to all Jews.
	Kerry is asking Netanyahu, could you at least meet him halfway?
	The more things change, the more they stay the same.
	This weekend, Rep.
	Pramila Jayapal, chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, appeared on CNN, where she was asked about why there hasn't been more international outrage over Hamas' systematic rape of Israeli women.
	The accounts of Hamas rapes have been legion.
	Over the weekend, 39-year-old Yoni Sadon told the UK's Sunday Times that he saw at the Nova Festival a beautiful woman, quote, an eight or ten of fighters beating and raping her.
	She was screaming, stop it already, I'm going to die anyway from what you are doing, just kill me.
	When they finished, said Sidon, they were laughing, the last one shot her in the head.
	Here was Jayapal's response.
	Rape is horrific.
	Sexual assault is horrific.
	I think that it happens in war situations.
	Terrorist organizations like Hamas obviously are using these as tools.
	However, I think we have to be balanced about bringing in the outrages against Palestinians.
	15,000 Palestinians have been Killed in Israeli airstrikes, three quarters of whom are women and children.
	And it's horrible, but you don't see Israeli soldiers raping Palestinian women.
	Well, Dana, I don't want this to be the hierarchy of oppressions.
	That is hysterical.
	For the first time, Pramila Jayapal now opposes a hierarchy of oppression.
	Balance, you see, is the key.
	Balance in all things.
	Never mind the new reports emerging from hostages about just what they experienced in Gaza at the hands of Hamas.
	According to the Daily Mail, for weeks they were starved, beaten, drugged, branded,
	and made to watch footage of Hamas terrorists invading their homeland with weapons pointed to their heads
	until the moment was right for the terror group.
	One hostage was operated on by a veterinarian.
	Many of the hostages were kept with supposed civilians in the Gaza Strip, giving the lie to the hard and fast distinction between Gaza's Hamas members and the civilian population.
	But still, why can't the Israelis meet their Jew-hating terrorist enemies halfway?
	Increasingly, this seems to be the logic of the Biden White House.
	Although, to be clear, they aren't actually asking Israel to meet the Palestinians halfway, they're actually asking them to meet them about 80% of the way.
	As Israel's offensive against Hamas renews in southern Gaza, the White House has now ratcheted up its absurd and continuous demands for Israel to do a, quote, better job protecting civilians, as though Israel is in the business of murdering civilians the same way Hamas is, or as though Israel isn't already taking insane precautions to avoid the killing of civilians.
	Israel is actually taking more precautions to avoid civilian deaths than any army in modern history, as Ron Zermer, Israeli Minister of Strategic Affairs, pointed out over the weekend.
	We saw the UNICEF director there in Tom Sufi Burrage's piece, and we heard Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin say that if that continues, this could be not only humanitarian disaster, but a strategic calamity for Israel.
	Your response?
	Well, listen, we're doing everything we can to keep civilians out of harm's way.
	I want the American people to understand this.
	This war is not going on thousands of miles away.
	It's going on literally hundreds of yards away, and it's going on at a time when rockets are flying into our country and we have people running to bomb shelters.
	I think what the Israeli army has done in prosecuting this war is unprecedented in the history of warfare.
	When you have an enemy right on your border, and you're doing everything to get the civilians of that enemy out of harm's way.
	I don't think any other country, including the United States, I don't know if you ever faced a situation like this, would take such great care.
	Yet Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin spent the weekend warning the Israelis that the government risks, quote, strategic defeat in Gaza, even if they win a, quote, tactical victory, because Palestinians, he said, might be driven into the arms of the enemy.
	This naturally creates a catch-22.
	Israel can't get rid of Hamas without civilians dying, specifically because Hamas wants its own civilians to die.
	If Israel does get rid of Hamas and civilians die, by Austin's logic, Israel will then suffer a strategic defeat.
	And if Israel doesn't get rid of Hamas, Israel will suffer an actual defeat.
	This is called a no-win scenario, and yet the White House seems eager to provide Israel with no-win scenarios lately.
	Thus, the Biden administration is reportedly encouraging Israel to restore humanitarian aid into Gaza at the same levels as they did during the recent ceasefire.
	That's political idiocy.
	First off, it removes all incentive for Hamas to come back to the table if the aid is something Hamas wants, since they steal it.
	Giving them the aid while Hamas continues to hold hostages is ridiculous.
	Second, Israel is currently at war.
	The fuel the U.S.
	wants shipped into Gaza goes largely to Hamas.
	Then, of course, the media lie about all of this, leading to awkward exchanges like this one between a Sky News reporter and a spokesperson for the IDF.
	You're telling people where is going to be targeted next.
	People don't have power to power up their mobile phones.
	They haven't got Wi-Fi.
	Well, I don't know.
	I mean, I think you and all of your viewers saw our hostages being paraded through the streets as they were released to Israel over those seven nights, and hundreds of Gazans holding their phones, videoing them.
	So clearly there's enough power to power their phones when they're parading our hostages through our Gaza.
	Now that same power to their phones will be to get the maps, download the maps, look at the flyers, and don't forget, we're not only... Ladies and gentlemen, I'm so sorry, we are out of time.
	Reporter is so humiliated.
	I'm sorry, we're done here.
	Yes, it turns out there is electricity, which is how all of the terrorists and their friends are powering their cell phones.
	Then there's the no-win scenario being pressed forward by the White House for after Hamas falls, the supposed option of the Palestinian Authority taking over in the Gaza Strip.
	Vice President Kamala Harris fresh offered disquisitions on the power of school buses and Venn diagrams and handling the border.
	Remember that time she was supposed to handle the border?
	She laid this one out there.
	We have to revitalize the Palestinian Authority, which means giving the support that is necessary for good governance.
	Understanding that on the issues that must be resolved as we think of a plan for the day after, it is about good governance which will bring transparency and accountability to the people of Gaza and the West Bank.
	It's also about what we need to do to recognize there must be some Plan for security for the region and I suspect as a plan develops it will take into account interim and then longer term.
	That full-time resident of the uncanny valley putting out the dumbest plan imaginable.
	Revitalizing the Palestinian Authority?
	The PA doesn't even have full control of its citizens in the West Bank, Judea and Samaria.
	The Arab world thinks Mahmoud Abbas is a joke, because he is.
	And so do the people he rules over, by the way.
	If elections were actually held in the West Bank today, Hamas would likely win.
	All of this is silly nonsense, and the White House knows it is silly nonsense.
	In fact, because the radical Muslim world perceives the White House's weakness, they are pushing, and they are pushing hard.
	According to the Associated Press over the weekend, three commercial ships in the Red Sea were struck by ballistic missiles fired from Houthi-controlled Yemen on Sunday, and a U.S.
	warship shot down three drones in self-defense during the hours-long assault, according to U.S.
	military sources.
	Responsibility for the attack was claimed by the Houthi rebels who are backed by Iran.
	In a statement, CENTCOM said that the attacks, quote, represent a direct threat to international commerce and maritime security.
	They have jeopardized the lives of international crews representing multiple countries around the world.
	It said the three commercial ships and their crews are connected to 14 countries.
	According to Central Command, the USS Kearney, which is a Navy destroyer, detected a ballistic missile fired from Houthi-controlled areas of Yemen at the Bahamas-flagged bulk carrier Unity Explorer.
	The missile hit near the ship.
	Shortly afterward, the Kearney shot down a drone headed its way, although it's not clear if the destroyer was the target.
	The drone was also launched from Yemen.
	About 30 minutes later, the Unity Explorer was hit by a missile.
	And while responding to the distress call, the Kearney shot down another incoming drone.
	Central Command said the Unity Explorer reported minor damage from the missile.
	Two other commercial ships, the Panamanian-flagged Bulk Carriers No.
	9 and Sophie 2, were both struck by missiles.
	The No.
	9 reported some damage, but no casualties.
	The Sophie 2 reported no significant damage.
	While sailing to assist the Sophie 2, the Carney then shot down another drone.
	Headed in its direction, the drones did no damage.
	According to Central Command, quote, we have every reason to believe that these attacks, while launched by the Houthis in Yemen, are fully enabled by Iran.
	They said the U.S.
	will consider all appropriate responses.
	Houthi military spokesman, Brigadier General Yahya Sari, claimed Sunday's attacks, saying the first vessel was hit by a missile, the second by a drone, while in the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, which links the Red Sea to the Gulf of Aden.
	Sari did not mention any U.S.
	warship being involved in the attack.
	Quote, the Yemeni armed forces continue to prevent Israeli ships from navigating the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden until the Israeli aggression against our steadfast brothers in the Gaza Strip stops, said Sari.
	The Yemeni armed forces renew their warning to all Israeli ships or those associated with Israelis.
	They will become a legitimate target if they violate what is stated in the statement.
	Now, in a normal time, this sort of activity against American warships and against international shipping, that would be an act of supreme idiocy.
	The United States Navy remains the world's foremost guardian of the freedom of the seas, and the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, which is the place where all these attacks are happening, that is the route by which 10% of all global trade passes.
	Attacking the U.S.
	Navy directly is absolutely insane, unless you think the United States is weak.
	So why would the terrorists do that?
	Well, maybe because they think the United States is weak.
	And maybe they think that because the Democratic Party's base is showing sympathy for terrorism.
	There's no other way to put this.
	The latest Gallup poll shows 50% of Americans approve of Israel's military action in Gaza, with 45% disapproving.
	Heavy partisan breakdown in this poll.
	71% of Republicans agree with Israel's actions.
	Only 36% of Democrats do, compared with 63% of Democrats who do not.
	What's more, just 30% of people aged 18 to 34 actually approve of Israel's actions against Hamas in the Gaza Strip, compared with 67% of people who don't agree.
	Only 30% of people of color actually agree with Israel taking action against Hamas, compared with 64% who do not.
	55% of Democrats think the United States should send more humanitarian aid to the Palestinians, you know, the same people whose government attacked Israel on October 7th and who are stealing all that aid, compared with just 12% who think more military aid should be sent to Israel in the middle of a war.
	Meanwhile, domestic Muslims are mobilizing to pressure the Biden administration.
	According to Axios, quote, Muslim American leaders from Michigan, Minnesota, Arizona, Wisconsin, Florida, Georgia, Nevada, and Pennsylvania are expected to meet in Dearborn, Michigan, which is absolutely ground zero for radical Islamism in the United States, to launch what they call, quote, an Abandon Biden campaign.
	Leaders from the swing states, they say, will work together to guarantee Biden's loss in the 2024 election.
	It should be noted, by the way, the leaders of this particular campaign have their own ugly histories.
	According to Jewish Insider, one of the leaders, Hassan Shibley, was forced to step down as a local head of the Council on American-Islamic Relations for alleged domestic abuse and sexual misconduct.
	He calls Israel, quote, Zionist ISIS.
	Several of the leaders of this rally support October 7th.
	This is the kind of action that terrorists are looking for.
	They believe that if they create enough trouble, they'll get Americans thinking twice about supporting Israel in the first place.
	This is the tactic, and it is nothing new.
	Of course, it goes all the way back to the Arab oil embargo of 1973.
	It was also Osama bin Laden's strategy in the 1990s.
	He believed that America was a, quote, paper tiger, and after a few blows, ran in defeat.
	According to an interview he did in 1998, quote, Bin Laden believes that what we consider to be terrorism is just the amount of violence required to get the attention of the American people.
	His aim is to get Americans to consider whether continued support of Israel is worth the bloodshed he promises.
	Bin Laden told the interviewer, quote, So we tell the Americans as people, and we tell the mothers of soldiers and American mothers in general, that if they value their lives and the lives of their children, to find a nationalistic government that will look after their interests and not the interests of the Jews.
	This tactic seems to be working at least with members of the political left and the democratic party.
	That's why members of the progressive caucus have to downplay the mass rape of women.
	Because they would like to cave in, precisely the way Hamas and the Houthis and Iran wish them to cave in.
	But they don't really want to lose all moral credibility, so instead, They can sort of condemn rape, but they have to make sure to retain balance.
	Cowardice requires balance, after all.
	In just one second, we'll get to the latest from the Middle East, as well as the latest from the international anti-Semitic problem.
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	So, if a large part of this game is an intimidation tactic on the part of radical Muslims and the international left that is caving to it and agreeing with it, well, you gotta say so far they're being successful.
	Over the weekend, a knifeman in Paris killed a German tourist and wounded a Briton.
	He said he was motivated by the war in Gaza, according to the UK Telegraph.
	The suspect is 26.
	He is a convicted terrorist with a history of psychiatric problems, which makes you wonder, why is he out on the streets of Paris?
	Why is it that Europe is so damn stupid?
	He reportedly shouted, wait for it, wait for it, Allahu Akbar, I know, that was a hard one, before being arrested near the Eiffel Tower on Saturday.
	Video later emerged of police officers approaching the suspect.
	He's a French-born national to Iranian parents with stun guns drawn.
	He shouted he was wearing explosives and was also ready to die.
	He claimed that France was an accomplice to Muslims being killed in Gaza.
	He said, quote, we do not forget your crimes against Muslims, especially women and children.
	We will fight you and kill you until the last day of judgment.
	Apparently, this meant that he was going to attack a German couple with a knife.
	You ask yourself, why would they do that?
	Right?
	I mean, sure, they hate Jews, but why are they just attacking random German tourists?
	And the answer is, to scare the hell out of you.
	That is the whole point of terrorism.
	The whole point of terrorism is to scare you into doing what they want.
	That's the whole idea here.
	And that sort of tactic is now being applied pretty much everywhere.
	So in Philadelphia last night, Quote-unquote, protesters decided they were going to threaten a falafel shop in Philadelphia.
	What did this falafel shop do?
	Is the falafel shop involved in making Israeli foreign policy?
	Apparently, according to these protesters, it is.
	Why?
	Because it's Israeli-owned.
	So they literally gathered outside this falafel shop to threaten the owner of a falafel shop in Philadelphia.
	I mean, let me think.
	Is there another population in history that threatened Jewish business owners for the crime of being Jewish?
	Heart.
	Oh, yeah, right.
	I did not see that one coming.
	In any case, here we go.
	These are the protesters threatening a falafel shop in Philadelphia for world peace, of course.
	So Goldie, Goldie, you can't hide!
	Goldie, Goldie, you can't hide!
	We charge you with genocide!
	We charge you with genocide!
	Goldie, Goldie, you can't hide!
	Goldie, Goldie, you can't hide!
	We charge you with genocide!
	They're shouting, Goldie, Goldie, you can't hide.
	We charge you with genocide.
	Goldies is the name of the falafel shop.
	By the way, the amount of projection here is just astonishing.
	These are people who would love to see every Jew wiped off the face of the earth, which is why they are attacking a Jewish falafel shop in Philadelphia.
	And certainly they want every Jew in the Middle East killed.
	They want those people gone.
	And yet, they're the ones charging everybody else with genocide.
	The amount of projection is always insane from the anti-Semites.
	Meanwhile, over in Columbus Circle, you had protesters who decided that it was a great
	time to go shopping, so they decided to break into shops or run roughshod through Columbus Circle.
	They've now reached Columbus Circle and they are going to run into Columbus Circle.
	And basically run roughshod through the shops.
	Again, what's the goal of this?
	The goal is to intimidate.
	The goal is to suggest that the only way to stop their bad action is to give in to their demands.
	And they're running right past security, so security doing an amazing job.
	Also wildly understaffed.
	Right there.
	So, excellent stuff happening all over the country, and this has its predictable effects, which is that the intimidation very often succeeds.
	So, for example, over in Williamsburg, Virginia, Every year, they have an official menorah lighting.
	Again, it's that time of year.
	So, this week, Hanukkah starts.
	Hanukkah is, in the Jewish calendar, it's a more minor holiday, but in America, it's obviously become a big holiday because of its juxtaposition to Christmas and being part of the season and all of this sort of thing.
	With that said, it's very common across the country for people to hold Hanukkah menorah lighting ceremonies.
	The event organizer canceled it.
	Why?
	Because apparently, the menorah lighting, which was scheduled for the second Sunday's Art and Music Festival on December 10th in Williamsburg, said that it did not want to appear to choose sides in the Israel-Hamas conflict.
	Now, you may say to yourself, wait, what does lighting up a menorah have to do with the Israel-Hamas conflict?
	And the answer is, nothing.
	But, again, the idea is that if you even light a menorah, you are choosing sides.
	Which, by the way, actually is kind of honest, because, let's be real, that is what one side wants.
	Everyone who would light a menorah they want dead or expelled, that's the goal.
	The event organizer claimed a Hanukkah celebration would send a message the festival was quote supporting the killing bombing of thousands of men women and children.
	And, um, they even went further.
	They offered to reinstate the event if the event called for a ceasefire.
	So if you mirror the political priors of the people who are anti-semitic, then they will allow you to do what, uh, they will allow you to light your menorah.
	Which, by the way, is rather counter to the... It's basically the Hanukkah story all over again.
	The Hanukkah story is about the Greeks basically saying to the Jews they can't light the menorah, and the Jews then leading a massive revolt to stop them from impinging on their religious freedom.
	But this kind of cowardice, it's becoming common all over the United States.
	It's certainly happening on our campuses.
	We'll get to that in just one second.
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	Okay, so.
	Meanwhile, intimidation on college campuses is continuing apace.
	The Columbia School of Social Work is holding a teach-in this week.
	The poster for this thing is insane.
	Again, this is the Columbia School of Social Work.
	Apparently, the poster shows a chain that is being broken by a love flower being fired from an AK-47.
	I'm not kidding.
	And a bird of peace!
	Significance of the October 7th Palestinian counter-offensive teach-in and discussion.
	Now you might think, what would that counter-offensive be?
	Oh yeah, that was the mass slaughter and rape of hundreds of people.
	1,200 people killed, 240 taken hostage.
	That's the counter-offensive.
	And they're holding a teach-in at Columbia School of Social Work.
	So that's exciting stuff.
	Meanwhile, Cornell students According to Mediaite, protesting against Israel and the university's involvement with companies that do business with Israel occupied a campus building on Friday, holding signs condemning the war in Gaza, chanting from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free, which of course is a genocidal slogan, and holding a mock trial of the university president when Martha Pollack for, quote, complicity in genocide.
	Students with the Cornell Coalition for Mutual Liberation, again, this is the intersectional coalition, organized the protest, which joined many other student demonstrations against Israel with other groups on campus, like Students for Justice in Palestine, which of course is a radical front group.
	The groups first held a die-in on Thursday on campus.
	They advertised the event as a, quote, occupation, and then leading up to a mock trial.
	And then finally, they ended up occupying school buildings, They disrupted studying.
	They prompted complaints to the dean.
	They delivered a list of demands.
	That included that the university take a strong stance against, quote, doxing of students.
	By doxing, they mean if you take part in a protest and you show your face, that's a form of doxing.
	Nobody's sending their home addresses.
	It's now doxing to point out that a person participated in a protest.
	The group demanded the university divest from Israel and declared that school is implicated in breaches of international law.
	And then they held a trial of the president of the university and found her guilty of genocide and apartheid.
	Why?
	Because Cornell has ties to engineering, aerospace, and other tech companies.
	It would be very difficult, by the way, to divest from, you know, the Palestinians because there are no businesses that actually succeed from those particular areas, mainly because they are run by corrupt... corruptocrats.
	So, um, that all went particularly well.
	The administration may end up meeting with them.
	Probably the administration will end up caving to them because this is what these administrations do.
	That's exactly what happened over at Brown University.
	On Monday night last, the Brown University president, Christina Paxson, spoke at a vigil honoring a Palestinian student who'd been wounded in a shooting in Vermont.
	And then, um, the...
	The president was interrupted by protesters calling for the university to divest from Israel, of course.
	Now, what's amazing is that the university published the speech as written on the website.
	That is not how the speech was delivered.
	According to the version on the website, she was supposed to say, quote, At a faculty meeting last month, I said that every student, faculty, and staff member should be able to proudly wear a Star of David or Donna Cathia on the Brown campus or to cover their head with a hijab or yarmulke.
	But after the pro-Hamas students began heckling her, that line changed to quote every student, faculty, and staff member should be able to proudly don a keffiyeh on the Brown campus or to cover their head with a hijab.
	So, um, there goes the Star of David and the Keepa and the Amaca.
	So, yep, caving to all the worst people.
	Again, that is what the left does.
	They cave to all the worst people.
	And you know who knows that is America's enemies.
	They know this across the board.
	This, by the way, is why, again, all over the... Why is it that it feels like the world is on fire?
	Because when the world and America's enemies sense weakness in the White House, they take advantage of this.
	This would also be, presumably, why Venezuela is now threatening to invade one of its neighbors.
	According to Yahoo News, Venezuelan electoral authorities on Sunday claimed that 95% of voters in a non-binding referendum approved of the nation's territorial claim on a huge chunk of neighboring oil-rich Guyana.
	By the way, that sounds like an amazingly free and fair vote in a socialist tyranny when 95% of people approve.
	Well, that is one of my favorite things, by the way, about these tyrants, is that they will hold the elections in an attempt to show that they are in fact not tyrannies, and then they will stack the results so much that it's like 95 to 5.
	It's like, guys, if you're gonna hide the ball, like, hide the ball a little bit.
	Say it was like 65 to 35 or something.
	But no, it's 95 to 5 that they should go in, crush Guyana, and steal all of its oil.
	Maduro, who is the corrupt tyrant of Venezuela, hailed what he called, quote, an overwhelming victory for the yes throughout Venezuela.
	Quote, we have taken the first steps of a new historic stage in the struggle for what belongs to us to recover what the liberators left us.
	The referendum naturally raised fears in Guyana and around the region about Venezuela's ultimate intentions over the contested territory.
	Maduro hopes the outcome of the referendum will strengthen his nation's century-old claim to the oil-rich Essequibo territory governed by Guyana.
	The defense minister, Vladimir Padrino, said, quote, Today is a day of ratification of national sovereignty.
	The people have done it with flying colors.
	About 10.5 million votes were cast, according to the president of the National Electoral Council, Elvis Amoroso.
	But the tally stirred confusion because an opposition politician suggested that each voter cast a total of five votes, one for each question on the referendum related to Venezuela's claim.
	Apparently, it was like two million people who turned out.
	The Maduro government said it was not seeking justification to invade or annex the huge territory.
	But, of course, the whole point is a threat.
	The whole point is a threat.
	I mean, what they are saying, basically, is, sure, we might invade.
	I mean, we have an absolutely good claim to, you know, the territory of our neighbor, so we should just... maybe we'll grab it, or maybe he'll sign us a bribe.
	This is the same sort of shtick that Kim Jong-un routinely does in North Korea.
	He drops some sort of nuclear test weapon, and then he asks for the West to pay him, said he won't do a bad thing.
	Venezuela has claimed the huge territory of Essequibo for decades, even though its 160,000 square kilometers represent more than two-thirds of Guyana, and its population of 125,000 is one-fifth of the entire population of Guyana.
	So, um, good times.
	Good times.
	And again, that's only happening... Would that be happening under, say, a President Trump?
	I have serious doubts.
	Meanwhile, the situation in Ukraine continues to be very bad for the Ukrainians.
	They tried an all-out frontal assault on dug-in positions.
	It didn't work.
	Now, according to Politico, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg warned the Western military lines should be ready for bad news from the Ukrainian front as Kiev continues to defend against Russia's all-out invasion.
	Stoltenberg says wars develop in phases.
	We should also be prepared for bad news.
	His comments come as Western allies debate over ammo and financial aid for Ukraine and Moscow is boosting its troop levels.
	Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a decree on Friday to increase the number of soldiers by 170,000 to a total of 1.3 million.
	The lines really have not moved very much.
	Stoltenberg is calling on NATO members to ramp up the production of ammunition.
	Now The reason that Putin is doing that is because he assumes that the West is going to essentially leave Ukraine defenseless.
	The West should not do that.
	The West should provide Ukraine with what is necessary in order to defend its own territory while looking for an off-ramp.
	This, by the way, has been true since about two months into the war because it was perfectly clear from the outset of the war that the military goal of pushing Russia completely out of Crimea or the Donbass was not going to succeed.
	Russia had spent 10 years entrenching itself in these areas and absent providing Ukraine with like F-22s, nothing was going to change in these particular areas.
	Okay, with that said, Russia is sensing weakness and they are pushing, and they are pushing very, very hard.
	Meanwhile, the left is concerned with the things that we are almost concerned about, right?
	I mean, like, we might be concerned about the world being on fire, but what the left is concerned about is fossil fuels.
	Now, maybe you think that that's crazy.
	Because it's crazy.
	But, for the left, You have to understand that the chief moral priority on Earth right now is deindustrialization and redistributionism.
	This is the thing they care about the most.
	They believe that the world is on fire not because America's enemies sense weakness and then prey on that weakness.
	They believe the world is on fire because we're not setting quote-unquote more of an example.
	And the way that we need to set an example is by deindustrializing.
	It's by taking green initiatives in order to curb our own economic growth.
	Now, ironically, the result of that is going to be the impoverishment of many of the countries that require actual economic health.
	It's going to make those countries more aggressive, not less.
	Richer countries tend to fight each other less.
	So, I guess the idea here is impoverish everyone and then the world will become more peaceful.
	It's really, really stupid.
	So, the UAE climate chief, Sultan Al-Jubeir, he said yesterday, That the fossil fuel phase-out, this thing that's being pushed by the entire international community, is like, this is really dumb and it's not going to work.
	He happens to be correct.
	We do not, I'm not in any way signing up to any discussion that is alarmist.
	I am here factual and I respect the science.
	And there is no science out there or no scenario out there that says that the phase-out of fossil fuel is what's going to achieve 1.5.
	1.5 is my North Star.
	And a face down, and a face out of force of yule, in my view, is inevitable.
	It is essential, but we need to be real, serious, and pragmatic about it.
	I'm sorry, I do not accept it.
	I am not accepting this, I'm sorry.
	I am sorry, I respect you, and I do not accept any false accusations.
	I've been very clear about my position.
	This is wrong.
	And you're asking for a phase-out of fossil fuel.
	Please, help me, show me a roadmap for a phase-out of fossil fuel that will allow for sustainable socio-economic development.
	Unless you want to take the world back into caves.
	No.
	Show me!
	Okay, he is absolutely right about all that.
	That would be, of course, the UAE.
	And he's totally right about all of that.
	But the West has this bizarre religious vision that if they magically say that fossil fuels should be phased out, then they will just disappear and everyone will retain their level of economic development.
	Or, sotto voce, they won't.
	Which is what the Sultan is saying there.
	He's like, well, no.
	If you do this, then the economy is going to tank, which of course is true.
	Nonetheless, Biden climate envoy John Kerry, who went directly from failing in foreign policy to failing on climate change, he is now calling for the death of all coal plants, which is good luck, dude.
	We'd be transitioning out of coal.
	There shouldn't be any more coal-fired power plants permitted anywhere in the world.
	That's how you can do something for health.
	And the reality is that we're not doing it.
	So, you know, the measure here is really sounding the alarm bell.
	I find myself getting more and more militant because I do not understand how adults who are in position of responsibility can be avoiding responsibility for taking away those things that are killing people on a daily basis.
	He is so ridiculous.
	How ridiculous is John Kerry?
	Article from The Wall Street Journal, quote, wealthy nations are sending tens of billions of dollars
	to poorer ones for clean energy.
	The linchpin of a global strategy to cut greenhouse gas emissions in the developing world.
	But two of the most ambitious efforts yet in South Africa and Indonesia
	are now at risk of unraveling, sowing doubts about the rich world's ability
	to push developing countries away from coal and other fossil fuels.
	South Africa and Indonesia, among the world's most coal hungry economies
	are backtracking on commitments they made to burn less of the fuel
	under agreements known as the Just Energy Transition Partnerships,
	which offered them $28.5 billion from the United States and other wealthy nations.
	So they're just ignoring it, and then they're taking the money, and then they're still building their coal-fired power plants.
	We're paying people to continue to do what they were doing in the first place.
	When, by the way, the only actual way that environmentalism has become a thing is through the wealth of the West.
	That is why.
	But again, the morality of the West is not tied up in reality.
	These days, it's tied up in absolute fantasy.
	And there is no better example of this than the current Pope.
	We'll get to that in just one second.
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	Okay, meanwhile.
	Again, when it comes to the international left, not only is there no morality, there's no actual realism about the world.
	That's true on virtually every topic.
	When it comes to foreign policy, there's no realism because the assumption is that if the West simply goes, hands off, the world will be a better place, which of course is a lie.
	And then when it comes to things like environmental policy, look, the world has to be super hands-on.
	We're going to get involved imperialistically with stopping developing nations from developing their own economies.
	We're going to lecture them, like, a lot, a lot.
	So we're not going to focus on the things that actually make a person moral.
	Instead, we are going to, quote-unquote, heal the earth by telling poor people that they're not allowed to use carbon-based fossil fuels, the most efficient fuels known to mankind.
	A perfect example of this sort of moral disconnect, unfortunately, is Pope Francis.
	So Pope Francis, I've been very critical of Pope Francis, of course.
	I don't have a particular dog in the Catholic fight, except that I believe the Catholic Church is strongest and best for Western civilization when it holds to some semblance of traditional values.
	So, two stories from the Vatican over the course of the weekend.
	One, Pope Francis did take action against one of his biggest critics, according to The Blaze.
	This is the second time this month Pope Francis punished an American prelate.
	Pope Francis punished Cardinal Raymond Burke, 75-year-old canon lawyer from Wisconsin.
	He revoked Burke's salary and his subsidized Vatican apartment.
	He was living, like other cardinals in Rome, in his apartment for free.
	He received a monthly stipend of about $5,000.
	He said that he was taking action against Burke because he was a source of disunity, according to an anonymous participant, in a particular conversation on November 20th.
	Another unnamed source said Francis punished Burke because he was using his privileges against the church.
	Reports from earlier this week claim that the Pope said of Burke during the meeting, quote, Cardinal Burke is my enemy, so I take away his apartment and his salary.
	Francis denies making those comments.
	I never used the word enemy or the pronoun my.
	I simply announced the fact of the meeting of the disaster he had without giving specific explanations.
	Burke has been very critical of Francis by saying you're focusing on like the environment and you don't seem to care at all about the crucial social issues that are dividing the church today.
	And in many cases, you're being soft on them.
	That happens to be right, by the way.
	The Pope has been unbelievably soft.
	What he does, he issues these sort of vague exclamations about, say, LGBTQ issues inside the church, or say, about female priests.
	He doesn't actually cave on them.
	He just makes really vague statements that seem to open the door.
	And then when asked for clarification, he says, how dare you ask for clarification?
	I was perfectly clear.
	No, you weren't, or nobody would be asking the questions.
	That's happening on the one hand.
	And then on the other hand, you've got the Pope calling for the elimination of fossil fuels.
	Which, by the way, for a church that is seeking new adherence in the poorest parts of the world, it turns out that you know what they actually need?
	Fossil fuels.
	I'm sorry to break it to the Pope and everybody else in the environmentalist corner, the single most efficient source of fuel on the planet remains fossil fuels.
	That's particularly true if you're looking at places like Africa, if you're looking at places like Asia, like South America.
	This is someone giving a statement for Pope Francis, obviously.
	He sent a statement to COP28.
	Pope Francis obviously. He sent a statement to COP28.
	Instead we should consider the footprint of a few nations responsible for a deeply troubling
	ecological pandemic towards many others. It would only be fair to find suitable means
	of remitting the financial debts that burden different peoples.
	Climate change signals the need for a political change.
	Let us emerge from the narrowness of self-interest and nationalism.
	These are approaches belonging to the past.
	Let us join in embracing an alternative vision.
	This will help to bring about an ecological conversion.
	Ecological conversion.
	I mean, it seems to me that they should spend more time talking about spiritual conversion.
	I say this as a Jew, and they should be talking about ecological conversion.
	But again, this is the new morality.
	The new morality is not based on anything remotely like social morality or church or family.
	It's based on all these other ancillary issues that build up a bizarre cult-like morality focused on quote-unquote saving the earth.
	It's ridiculous.
	Okay, meanwhile, closer to home, over the course of the last few days, the Congress expelled George Santos.
	He currently faces 23 federal charges, including fraud and identity theft.
	He has pled not guilty.
	Before Friday's expulsion, which passed 3-11 to 1-14, only five people in history had been booted by the House.
	Three were removed in 1861 because they actually served in the active Confederacy.
	The other two, in 1980 and 2002, according to the Wall Street Journal, were convicted of serious crimes.
	So, Congress moved to boot Santos because he's pretty obviously guilty of all this stuff.
	However, setting a precedent of booting members before they've actually been convicted of a crime, that's going to open the door to a lot of things.
	And once you start booting members based on the fact that they've been accused of a crime, welcome to Congress, where half of Congress is accused of a crime.
	As the Wall Street Journal editorial board points out, said, it's no good to argue that Santos is a fabulous who fibbed his way into office.
	How is that a distinction with other members of the Congress?
	What's the rule now?
	Shortly after Santos' ouster, Pennsylvania Senator John Fetterman renewed his call to eject Senator Bob Menendez.
	If you're going to expel Santos, how can you allow somebody like Menendez to remain?
	He said Menendez, I think, is a senator for Egypt.
	Because that's the accusation, is that he was paid off by foreign countries.
	So, yeah.
	So it may now be that in Congress, an accusation is tantamount to a conviction.
	And really that started with the anti-Trump movement.
	Because again, the accusations against Trump based on Ukraine, based on Russia, and all the rest of this sort of stuff, were considered sufficient to push an impeachment inquiry into him.
	And so now the accusation is going to be tantamount to the actual conviction.
	So regardless of what you think of Santos, and I think he's a ridiculous figure, Almost as ridiculous as, you know, one-third of the rest of Congress.
	But if the new standard is accused equals guilty, then welcome to Congress where there are like five people left.
	And meanwhile, Donald Trump versus Joe Biden, that race continues to move forward.
	House Democrats are realizing that Bidenomics is a giant fail.
	According to Axios, House Democrats have rejected the White House's months-long campaign to sell Bidenomics.
	They stopped pushing the term months ago.
	The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee and House Majority PAC, two key fundraising arms, are avoiding using the term Bidenomics on social media and press releases because they say the tagline is ineffective.
	In a meeting this past summer, House Democrats stuck with people over politics rather than Bidenomics.
	Apparently, according to Democratic sources, they're saying that Bidenomics presents a bunch of issues.
	They say it's tone deaf because there are a bunch of people who don't like the economy.
	One Democratic strategist said the biggest problem wasn't using Biden, but the term was too philosophical and required too much explanation.
	So they're going to continue to push Bidenomics policies, they just won't use the catchphrase Bidenomics because they try and fail.
	And there is some hilarity to that because the reason Bidenomics became a thing is because Obamanomics was a thing and Obama was personally popular.
	So linking Barack Obama, a personally popular president, with his failing policies made the policies somewhat more popular.
	Attaching Biden's name to his bad economic policies makes his bad economic policies worse for the American people.
	So Democrats are running headlong from Joe Biden in the 2024 election, which is not a good sign for Joe Biden, which means the real hope for Democrats is not Joe Biden.
	The real hope for Democrats is that somehow, someway, people show up to vote against Donald Trump.
	That is a very dicey proposition.
	They're basically making two separate arguments.
	One is that Donald Trump will be a dictator.
	We'll get to that in a moment.
	Plus, they're making the argument that Donald Trump is a criminal.
	The problem there for Trump is that he doesn't have to be a criminal to be convicted as a criminal in places like Washington, D.C.
	We'll get to all the updates from court in just one second.
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	Okay, meanwhile, as Joe Biden continues to fade in the polls, and again, the polls are not good for Joe Biden right now.
	I'm looking at the latest polls, the RealClearPolitics election polls between Donald Trump and Joe Biden.
	The latest Messenger Harris X poll has Trump up 52 to 48 on Joe Biden in the polling average.
	Trump is up almost two points, 47 to 45.3.
	Biden has led in only two of the last maybe 10 polls.
	These are very bad numbers for Joe Biden.
	And again, it's not that his numbers have gone down.
	They haven't.
	They've been pretty stagnant.
	In fact, they're a little bit up from where they were back in June.
	The problem is that the numbers for Trump have risen pretty dramatically.
	Why are those numbers rising?
	Because Trump isn't in the news.
	Well, Democrats have two ways of putting Trump back in the news.
	That is their actual strategy.
	One is, claim that Donald Trump is going to be a tyrant.
	And the other is, criminal conviction.
	Those are the two big plans.
	So, on the Trump is a tyrant side, Robert Kagan, a Post Opinions contributing editor, has a piece over at the Washington Post called, A Trump Dictatorship Is Increasingly Inevitable.
	We Should Stop Pretending.
	I don't think it's going to play.
	No one thinks Trump is going to become dictator of America.
	You know how you become dictator of America?
	By taking control of the military.
	Do you think the military is simply going to go along with Donald Trump's plans to completely subvert the Constitution of the United States?
	Do you think that's the thing that's going to happen?
	It didn't happen on January 6th.
	It didn't even come remotely close to happening on January 6th.
	Trump dictatorship.
	And what's funny is that the elements of dictatorship that they suggest are all things that Democrats are currently doing.
	Again, the projection here is super strong.
	Oh my God, he might take over the bureaucracy.
	Oh, you mean like Democrats have taken over the bureaucracy for like a hundred years?
	Oh my god, he might put federal judges on the courts that are conservative.
	Oh, you mean like Democrats have been trying to stack the courts for, you know, the last several generations?
	You know, what exactly is it that Trump is going to do that's so insanely dictatorial?
	Well, according to Robert Kagan, the next phase is about people falling in line.
	He's talking about how Trump is going to pick up the nomination in all likelihood.
	And then he says Trump will not only dominate his party, he will become the central focus of
	everyone's attention. Even today, the news media can scarcely resist following Trump's every word
	and action. Once he secures the nomination, he will loom over the country like a colossus,
	his every word and gesture chronicled endlessly. So first of all, that was true of Obama as well.
	But then the idea is going to be that once he takes power, something terrible is going to happen.
	If Trump does win the election, he will immediately become the most powerful person ever to hold that office.
	Not only will he wield the awesome powers of the American executive, but he will do so with the fewest constraints of any president, fewer even than in his own first term.
	What limits those powers?
	The most obvious answer is the institutions of justice, all of which Trump by his very election will have deviled, defied, and revealed as impotent.
	A court system that could not control Trump as a private individual is not going to control him better when he's President of the United States and appointing his own Attorney General and all the other top officials at the Justice Department.
	Are you kidding me?
	So, in other words, because Trump is going to nominate his own AG, this makes him a dictator?
	I would like to introduce you to Merrick Garland.
	Or going all the way back to Clinton, Janet Reno.
	I'm like, what the hell are we talking about here?
	Will a future Congress stop him?
	asked Robert Kagan.
	Presidents can accomplish a lot these days without congressional approval, as even Barack Obama showed.
	Um, you mean, what do you mean even Barack Obama?
	He mainly showed it.
	It was Barack Obama who started this process.
	The final constraint on presidents has been their own desire for a glittering legacy, but is that the way Trump thinks?
	He thinks his legacy will be Napoleon.
	Will his presidency turn into a dictatorship, says Robert Kagan?
	The odds are, again, pretty good.
	What, what exactly, what the hell?
	What is he even talking about?
	He says that his administration will be filled with people with enemies lists.
	A determined cadre of vetted officials will see it as their sole presidentially authorized mission to root out those in the government who cannot be trusted.
	Many will be fired.
	Others will be subject to career-destroying investigations.
	Again, like...
	This is so tiresome and it's not going to hunt.
	This dog is not going to hunt, which means that in the end, what Democrats are really relying upon is not scaring the hell out of you about Trump.
	It's going to be criminal conviction.
	The bad news for Trump is that criminal conviction is a high likelihood given the latest developments in Washington, D.C.
	So Andy McCarthy over at National Review points out that over the weekend, Trump was dealt two defeats in Washington, D.C.
	federal courts.
	Judge Tanya Chutkin, who's presiding over the criminal case with regard to January 6, 2020, ruled that he is not immune from criminal prosecution.
	Now, it was unlikely he was ever going to get a ruling in his favor, but it could determine the viability of Trump's 2024 presidential bid, according to McCarthy.
	According to McCarthy, Chutkin's 48-page opinion rejected the former president's claims that the First Amendment barred his prosecution by the Biden Justice Department special counsel, Jack Smith.
	Listen, he says, I've periodically spotlighted the immunity issue.
	It's not that I thought Trump had much of a chance of prevailing.
	He says, the immunity issue is critical for Trump because it is appealable pretrial and thus potentially a vehicle for delay.
	And delay is Trump's main strategy, but that just got shot down.
	So there is no delay.
	He says, trials are not won by legal claims, which are argued outside the jury's presence.
	Jury trials are won by factual evidence.
	A good deal of the evidence against Trump is unsavory.
	But, but it doesn't really matter because it's a DC jury.
	He says that Trump recognizes he could be very well convicted in the federal election interference case.
	He knows that recent polling, which showed him leading Biden on a number of battleground states, indicated a material slice of his support would fall away if convicted in one or more criminal cases.
	He says that the delay tactic was Trump's best option, and now the delay tactic is probably going away.
	He says he thinks that the appeal by Trump is probably going to be rejected by the Supreme Court.
	He says, And let's say that he's convicted.
	most is this, it is doubtful the former president and current
	JP front runner will get the delay he seeks in his election interference case. He's very likely to be facing a criminal
	trial in Washington running from March to May 2024. And defendants
	are required to be in attendance throughout the entire federal
	criminal trial. And let's say that he's convicted. He says that he thinks Chudkin would exercise a broad authority to
	allow him to remain at liberty pending sentencing, which is about three months after travel, that means just that he
	would be sentenced if convicted May, June, July, August.
	So in August.
	So as McCarthy says, if Trump were convicted and sentenced to a term of imprisonment, the default position of federal law would call for the revocation of bail and an order that he be remanded.
	That presumption could be overcome only if Chutkan made a finding that Trump's appeal raised a substantial issue likely to result in reversal of the conviction, which is probably unlikely.
	So we may enter the final days of the 2024 election with Trump actively in prison.
	That is a thing that may actually happen now that Chutkan has basically rejected all arguments to the contrary.
	That is the plan.
	And so when Trump says this is election interference, he is certainly not wrong, at least when it comes to that DC case, which is a debacle.
	Alrighty, coming up, we'll get to the new religion of the left with Goddess Beyoncé.
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