Monday, October 7, 2024

October 7, 2024

Good morning,

Welcome to the news for independent thinkers

Leading the News . . .

One year after Oct. 7, Israel sees a future at war . . . For years, the military aimed to provide long stretches of peace that were only momentarily punctured by short conflicts with Palestinian militants. There were occasional military maneuvers aimed at degrading the axis, but they were never severe enough to draw retaliation. Much of Israel's security establishment now believes these decades lay the groundwork for the deadly Oct. 7 attack from Hamas's Gaza stronghold that killed 1,200 people and took another 250 hostage. Israel can no longer allow its enemies the time and space to build up arsenals that can pose an existential threat, many have come to believe. Wall Street Journal

Israel stands alone in fight against terror

These 97 people are still being held by Hamas a year after Oct. 7 attacks

Politics

Harris won't say whether Netanyahu is a close ally . . . Vice President Kamala Harris declined to say whether she considers Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu an ally, ducking a basic foreign policy question as she seeks to shore up votes among the Democratic Party's anti-Israel wing. Harris, in an interview with CBS News's 60 Minutes set to air in full on Monday, was asked whether the United States has "a real close ally" in Netanyahu. Harris did not answer. "I think, with all due respect, the better question is, 'Do we have an important alliance between the American people and the Israeli people,'" she responded. "And the answer to that question is yes." Washington Free Beacon

Speaker Johnson calls federal response to Helene 'a massive failure' . . . Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) called the federal response to Hurricane Helene a "massive failure" and pointed to the hundreds of people still missing. "At the federal level, this has been a massive failure. And you can just ask the people there on the ground. I have been there. I was in Georgia. I was in Florida, where Hurricane Helene made landfall, there on the coast. And then we'll be going to the hardest hit parts of North Carolina on Wednesday of this week," Johnson told Shannon Bream on "Fox News Sunday." The Hill

Democrats have made a huge mistake in not at least getting on top of this as a PR matter, and now Republicans have an issue they will pound through Election Day as the tragedies pile up.

Vance says Trump administration would end funding to Planned Parenthood . . . Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio), former president Donald Trump's running mate, said that if elected, Trump would seek to end federal money for Planned Parenthood. "We don't think that taxpayers should fund late-term abortions," Vance told RealClearPolitics on Saturday night. "That has been a consistent view of the Trump campaign the first time around; it will remain a consistent view." Washington Post

The claim is always that the government doesn't fund divisions of Planned Parenthood responsible for abortion, but of course, the money is fungible.

Buying votes? New Biden-Harris Medicare plan could cost taxpayers $20B . . . In an election-year stunner, the Congressional Budget Office is warning the Biden-Harris administration's new Medicare prescription drug plan could cost taxpayers more than $20 billion over three years. The budget analysis arm of Congress said the increased costs are due to the government subsidizing many seniors' premiums by sending money to insurance firms, and it would cost at least $5 billion extra in 2025 alone and add to the deficit. Just the News

Culture

Antisemitic incidents in US surge to record high . . . Reports of antisemitic incidents in the US have reached a record high since last year's Hamas attack in Israel, according to a preliminary report from the Anti-Defamation League Center for Extremism (ADL). The group found more than 10,000 incidents from 7 October 2023 to 24 September of this year, more than a 200% increase compared to the same period a year earlier. It is the highest ever since the ADL began tracking such incidents in 1979. BBC

New Jersey high school allegedly banned yellow ribbons honoring Israeli hostages . . . A New Jersey high school is accused of banning yellow ribbons, aimed at honoring Israeli hostages abducted by Hamas, at a club fair, a move critics described as "deeply offensive" and "blatant antisemitism." Fair Lawn High School also prohibited Israeli flags at the event, because administrators believed the flags were too political, some parents and the group StopAntisemitism allege, noting that members of the Muslim Student Association were permitted to display a keffiyeh. Fox News

Hillary Clinton calls for crackdown on free speech . . . Hillary Clinton called for a government crack down on social media, sparking users on X to accuse her of saying 'the quiet part out loud.' The former Secretary of State told CNN host Michael Smerconish Saturday that leaders could 'lose control' if they don't take serious action to censor digital content - sparking outcry on the web. Clinton called for the federal government to imitate states like California and New York to place more controls on social media. Daily Mail

Incendiary comments in the media were common in the days of the Founding Fathers. But they let it ride instead because they were trying to limit tyranny, not take steps toward it.

Fired teacher wins lawsuit after refusing to use students' pronouns

International

Putin's "Merchant of Death" is back in business . . . Viktor Bout, the Russian arms dealer known as the "Merchant of Death," walked out of a U.S. jail almost two years ago in a trade with Moscow for U.S. basketball star Brittney Griner. Now he is back in business, trying to broker the sale of small arms to Yemen's Iran-backed Houthi militants. The 57-year-old, whose life reportedly inspired the 2005 Hollywood movie, "Lord of War," starring Nicolas Cage, spent decades selling Soviet-made weapons in Africa, South America and the Middle East before being arrested in 2008 in a U.S. law-enforcement sting operation. Wall Street Journal

Money

Carrying a credit card gets even more expensive after CFPB fiat . . . Banks have been raising interest rates on credit cards for years, and some are lifting them higher still to recoup the revenue they fear losing from a new cap on late fees. That means cardholders struggling to pay their bills might not see much relief, if any, even with the Federal Reserve expected to continue lowering rates. The average credit-card interest rate was 21.5% in May, hovering around its highest level in Fed data going back to 1994. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau finalized an $8 cap on late fees earlier this year. Wall Street Journal

A classic example of government regulation simply being end-run by business and harming consumers. In this case, credit card debt holders who pay on time are penalized to help those who are less responsible.

You should also know

North Carolina mountain towns 'forever changed' by Hurricane Helene's destruction . . . Mountainside North Carolina towns have been "forever changed" and cut off from the world by the wrath of Hurricane Helene — with residents calling the destruction "absolutely overwhelming." "Chimney Rock is just destroyed, it's forever changed," said 59-year-old Brett Johnson, a resident of the small tourist town about an hour southeast of Asheville. "There were beautiful homes all along here, where now there's just dirt and rocks," he said. New York Post

Milton rapidly intensifies into Category 3 hurricane as Florida braces . . . The first Hurricane Watches were posted for Florida's west coast on Monday morning as millions of people across the region prepare for life-threatening impacts from Hurricane Milton, such as a potentially deadly storm surge, destructive winds and flooding rain.Hurricane Milton continues to rapidly intensify while it makes its trek over the open waters of the Gulf of Mexico. As of the latest advisory from the National Hurricane Center (NHC), it reached Category 3 strength with winds of 120 mph. Fox Weather

LeBron and Bronny James make NBA history . . . LeBron James and Bronny James made NBA history by becoming the first father-son duo to play together on the same team during the Los Angeles Lakers' pre-season game against the Phoenix Suns. Bronny, on his 20th birthday, entered the court during the second quarter in a 118-114 defeat by the Suns. Never before had a father and son played in an NBA game of any type - including pre-season - at the same time. BBC

Supreme Court will weigh challenge to Biden regulations on 'ghost guns' . . . In one of their first cases of the term, the nine justices are slated to weigh a 2022 rule issued by the ATF that aims to treat ghost gun kits and gun parts like other firearms. Ghost guns, according to the ATF, pose an urgent public safety threat because they involve components that can be "readily converted into a working firearm." Opponents of the ATF ghost gun regulation, including gun owners, pro-Second Amendment groups, and manufacturers, argue that the ATF's rule oversteps the bureau's authority by extending the definition of firearms to include gun kits and partially completed frames or receivers. Washington Examiner

Let's be honest here. Ghosts are scary enough. We shouldn't allow them to have guns.

Guilty Pleasures

Trans men team enters actual men's league, and it goes as you would expect . . . A group of "trans men," biological women trying to become men, formed a soccer team in Spain to play in a league of all-male teams, and the results were about as lopsided as you'd expect. The team, Fenix FC (because the mythical avian creature represents "rebirth"), played its first game recently in the fifth tier of Spanish "football." They lost their first game by a score of 19-0. Daily Caller

Well, at least no one can accuse them of changing their sex to try to win at sports.

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