Wednesday Potpourri

First, to celebrate Christmas Dr. Jill Biden-- and don’t you dare not call her Dr.-- sent out a video featuring a group called Dorrance Dance.

What is Dorrance Dance? Glad you asked. John Lucas did the research:

I learned that the Dorrance Dance is not just another entertainment group that happens to specialize in tap dancing. Rather, it is an ultra-radical political organization that designs and intends its performances to be “subversive.” The company’s statements and recommendations on its website provide the context that explains what it means when it says that its dancing is meant to be “subversive.” 

Now you can feel fully informed about the insult.

Second, President Donald Trump continues to trash his opponents, especially Florida Governor Ron DeSantis. So much for Ronald Reagan’s eleventh commandment.

Apparently, Trump said that DeSantis would be working in a pizza parlor if it wasn’t for him.

To which JustMindy replied:

DeSantis graduated from Harvard and Yale, was a history teacher, a Prosecutor, a Navy Jag and a Congressman before Trump knew his name. He also did it on his own without a silver spoon in his mouth & deferments for bone spurs. Trump is a lying narcissist.

Third, as you know, the Biden administration is doing everything in its power to undermine the Israeli effort to eradicate Hamas. It is doing so while pretending to be on Israel’s side. It used to be called speaking out of both sides of your mouth, or speaking with forked tongue. In truth, it is precisely what a good leader does not do.

As  it happens, the Biden presidency has allowed Iranian proxies to get away with dozens of attacks on American troops in the Middle East. And it has allowed the Houthi rebels to shut down shipping in the Red Sea.

What is the meaning of it all?

Evidently, the Israeli approach to terrorism makes Biden look bad. It makes him look like an appeaser. It shames him. And we can’t have that.

So, Biden and his European satraps have invented new rules of warfare, rules that apply only to Israel.

Olia Klein explains:

Russia: the civilian population in Palestine can’t be bombed, but in Ukraine it can. Turkey: 4 mln Palestinians have the right to their own state, but 40 mln Kurds do not. Egypt: we worry about the Palestinians, but we won’t let them in. Houthis of Yemen: our country is in complete devastation, but we will fight Israel. 

Western leftists & LGBT activists: Palestinians are wonderful peaceful people, but we won’t go to them, they’ll kill us there. Hamas: we should not take care of the residents of Gaza, let the UN take care of them. But Israel is to blame for everything.

Fourth, as for the Biden administration efforts to undermine Israel in favor of Hamas, what have the consequences been? Ron M @Jewtastic explains:

Casualties in Israel have skyrocketed since the IDF has tried to fight according to the Biden administration's endless new rules and limitations. I will do the math shortly, but I think it's a 100% increase in casualties. 4 more overnight and dozens in the last 10 days.

Fifth, how many of the statistics coming out of Gaza are true? How many of them are propaganda? 

John Hayward makes this reasonable observation on Twitter:

There's no fuel in Gaza and everyone is starving in the dark, but Hamas can somehow keep launching gigantic swarms of rockets. Nobody in the U.N. "collective punishment is evil!" chorus cares that those rockets are deliberately targeting Israeli civilians.

Sixth, David Goldman recalls Machiavelli, as an antidote to those who keep shrieking that the Israeli attack on Gaza will radicalize the population there. 

Machiavelli: "If an injury is to be inflicted on an enemy, it is to be so severe, that the enemy's retaliation need not be feared." The US tech sanctions provoked China without doing severe damage--dumbest possible thing to do.

Seventh, serious leftist thinkers just awakened to the fact that they and their allies have been filling the minds of American youth with anti-Semitism. And, of course, the Anti-Defamation League missed the point. It had been fighting right wing extremism-- which it mistakenly decided was the root of all anti-Semitism:

Geoffrey Miller explains

While the @ADL was fighting misguided battles demonizing the 'far right' & Trump supporters, the Leftist woke indoctrinators turned an entire generation anti-semitic & anti-Israel.

Eighth, the Israeli consulate invited New York City education bureaucrats to watch the video of the Octobre 7 massacre. The bureaucrats did not even respond to the invitation.

The New York Post reports:

Fifty-one top city Department of Education officials were invited to watch footage of the Oct. 7 atrocities committed by Hamas to better understand the Jewish plight, but none responded or attended, The Post has learned.

Chancellor David Banks, his deputies, superintendents, and several UFT representatives were first invited to the screening at the Israeli Consulate by embassy volunteers on Dec. 5 and then two days later by the NYC Parents Alliance.

The parent group, which represents Jewish families mostly from specialized high schools, sent a letter urging the DOE officials to attend.

Incurious, we might say. Bigoted, we might also say. The people who are in charge of public education in New York City want to keep their heads in the sand. 

Ninth, in the matter of social contagion, regarding transgenderism, but also regarding bulimia and anorexia. In truth, more exposure of these conditions  creates more cases, through social contagion.

CryMiaRiver explains on Twitter:

Karen Carpenter's tragic battle triggered a social contagion of anorexia; Princess Diana's public struggle with bulimia had the same effect. The book Sybil kicked off the multiple personality disorder epidemic in the 80s. Running parallel to that was the Satanic Panic, set off by the book Michelle Remembers. As a result, thousands of lives were destroyed. As cutting started to appear in movies and TV shows, the number of teens self-harming increased, and when TikTok influencers with Tourette's launched to fame, adolescent girls began experiencing TikTok tics. Mental illnesses are inextricably entwined with the cultural fads and whims of the era in which they arise. Our celebration of the likes of Jazz Jennings and Ellen Page captures the minds of young people, plants the dangerous idea that the discomfort and anguish of puberty can be miraculously solved with drugs and surgeries, sending many down the same devastating path to destruction. Children and adolescents no more need trans role models than they do anorexic or bulimic role models. Every time we celebrate a celebrity coming out as trans, we sacrifice countless young people to the horror of this medical atrocity.

Tenth, evidence is mounting. More and more people are noting that smart phones are making young people stupid. Derek Thompson writes about it for The Atlantic: 

The Program for International Student Assessment, conducted by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development in almost 80 countries every three years, tests 15-year-olds in math, reading, and science. It is the world’s most famous measure of student ability.

In sum, students who spend more time staring at their phone do worse in school, distract other students around them, and feel worse about their life.

Teens are easily distracted and exquisitely sensitive to peer judgment. Results from a decade of observational research have now repeatedly shown a negative relationship between device use and life satisfaction, happiness, school attention, information retention, in-class note-taking, task-switching, and student achievement. These cognitive and emotional costs are highest for those with the most “device dependence.”

Eleventh, the news out of a Colorado court has rightly appalled everyone. The courts has decided that Donald Trump, on the basis of speculation, should not be allowed on the state presidential ballot.

Jonathan Turley responded:

This country is a powder keg and this court is just throwing matches at it. This is hands down the most anti-democratic opinions I’ve seen in my lifetime.

Better yet, the satirical Babylon Bee gets the last word:

Colorado Saves Democracy By Not Allowing People To Vote For Preferred Candidate

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