The following article, Trump is Alive and Well – It’s Democrats That are Dead, was first published on Conservative Firing Line. There’s something about wishing for someone to die that brings out the worst in people’s thought process. When Democrats and other assorted Trump-haters decided that he was either dead or about to die from some unknown health condition, they lost all cognitive ability. And they went off that speeding monorail because they hadn’t seen him … Continue reading Trump is Alive and Well – It’s Democrats That are Dead ...

Always branch out. The post Tupac’s peculiarly beloved first-half of an album by Counting Crows first appeared on Far Out Magazine.

It was July 1984, a very late weeknight. My buddy Mike and I closed up Perkins Restaurant in Butler, Pennsylvania, and left about 1 a.m. with a six-pack of Budweiser pounders for the old Kaufman’s department store in downtown Pittsburgh. There we joined a long line of fellow 1980s degenerates sleeping out all night on the sidewalk in quest of coveted Bruce Springsteen concert tickets. Perkins is a nice family restaurant chain. The restaurant where Mike and I worked — he as a junior manager and I as cook, dishwasher, and all-purpose grunt — flew a gigantic American flag on a high pole outside Clearview Mall. That flag always pleased patriotic Americans, of whom there were many in our hometown, including among classmates who had graduated from Butler High School the previous month. My friends and I weren’t political or ideological. We loved our country but knew little about politics. I couldn’t define a Republican or a Democrat. Like almost everyone in America, however, we liked Ronald Reagan. Even Walter Cronkite had marveled about Reagan, “I never thought I’d see anyone that well-liked ….  Nobody hates Reagan. It’s amazing.” That was evident when Reagan was reelected with nearly 60 percent of the vote, 49 of 50 states, and winning the Electoral College 525 to 13. We patriotic teens also liked Bruce Springsteen. Already an established pop-rock star, he had just reexploded on the music scene with a smash album, Born in the U.S.A. The album cover and Bruce himself were bedecked in red, white, and blue. The stars and stripes were his theme. Old Glory was front and center for every performance during Springsteen’s enormously successful year-long-plus tour that hit major cities in America (Pittsburgh twice, both the Civic Arena and Three Rivers Stadium) and around the world. When Springsteen, during those shows, belted out the title track to the album, the crowd went nuts with patriotic fervor, furiously waving small and large flags. It was a great American moment. Or so it seemed. Unfortunately, young people in that era had been conditioned through years of indiscernible lyrics to not listen carefully to the actual words of the often-fatuous ditties to which they hummed and tapped their toes and played air guitar. In days when you didn’t have phones to Google lyrics, you often had no idea what the hell rocker X, Y, or Z was saying. And if the lyrics were sung clearly enough to understand, we morons didn’t really think much about them. And there were few starker examples of that than Bruce Springsteen’s “Born in the U.S.A.” Mockery of the U.S.A. When one paused to actually listen to the words of this seemingly patriotic anthem — which capitalized big-time on the surge in patriotism of the Reagan 1980s — you realized that Bruce’s signature song was in reality a protest. Quite incredibly, given how it fooled everyone (our fault for being mindless dupes as much as Springsteen’s fault), the Boss’ famous track was a mockery of the American dream. As even Wikipedia wryly notes, “‘Born in the U.S.A.’ has been widely misunderstood. It has been treated as a flag-waving paean to America by politicians like Ronald Reagan and Pat Buchanan, reacting to the patriotic tone of the song’s chorus, without seeming to acknowledge the bitter critique of American policy and society present in the lyrics.” Wikipedia rightly adds: “‘Born in the U.S.A.’ was widely misinterpreted as purely nationalistic by those who heard the anthemic chorus but not the bitter verses.” That’s for sure. Look at the lyrics. The song launches right off with a grim take on the country. Its dismal subject is an American guy “Born down in a dead man’s town,” who received his “first kick … when [he] hit the ground.” He was sent off to Vietnam. “They put a rifle in my hand,” he laments, “sent me off to a foreign land, to go and kill the yellow man.” After these verses, you hear again and again this mocking refrain: “Born in the U.S.A.! I was born in the U.S.A.!” The poor slob comes home from Vietnam to get a job, but he seems to be the only ambitious hardworking man in 1984 who can’t find a job at a time of booming economic growth under Ronald Reagan: “Come back home to the refinery, hiring man says, ‘son if it was up to me;’ Went down to see my V.A. man, he said, ‘Son, don’t you understand?’” Again, the mockery: “Born in the U.S.A.! I was born in the U.S.A.!” If that’s not bad enough, then we hear about this loser’s brother, whose life as an American was even more rotten: I had a brother at Khe Sanh Fighting off the Viet Cong They’re still there, he’s all gone He had a woman he loved in Saigon I got a picture of him in her arms now The brother’s American life sucked, too. Likewise, he had been sent off to kill the “yellow man,” and did not return. Probably just as well! Here, Bruce returns back to the misery of the first dead-dog dude: Down in the shadow of the penitentiary Out by the gas fires of the refinery I’m ten years burning down the road Nowhere to run ain’t got nowhere to go Nope, no jobs. Again comes the chorus, as young concertgoers waved their flags, cheering patriotically, oblivious to the meaning of the lyrics: Born in the U.S.A I was born in the U.S.A. now Born in the U.S.A I’m a long-gone daddy in the U.S.A.! Long gone. That’s what it was like to be born in the U.S.A. The land of opportunity? Oh, please. Hardly. And yet, we teenage idiots, accustomed to years of not actually listening to or thinking about the ludicrous lyrics we mindlessly mouthed to whatever tune, assumed the words were positive — patriotic. It was the 1980s, the Reagan years, the end of the Nixon–Ford–Carter years. America was back. We figured this song was a tribute to that. It wasn’t. Springsteen’s “Born in the U.S.A.” was not the Shining City on the Hill. It was not Morning in America. It was mourning in America. And yet, because of our stupidity, Bruce had amazingly become a blue-collar poster boy for the red, white, and blue. A staunch liberal Democrat, he cashed in on our patriotic feelings and juvenile gullibility. He ran our cash all the way to the bank. Few spectacles were so ludicrous and directly attributable to our profound ignorance. Blessing the USA: Lee Greenwood and Charlie Daniels For an example of a song that was truly pro-America, well, that was Lee Greenwood’s anthem, “God Bless the U.S.A.” Greenwood’s beautiful piece concludes unmistakably, undoubtedly: “There ain’t no doubt I love this land, God bless the USA!” Greenwood’s optimistic recording left no doubts, whereas Springsteen’s was filled with doubts, cynicism. Greenwood wasn’t fooling folks with fake patriotism. Greenwood was “proud to be an American.” In retrospect, it’s remarkable that Greenwood’s track was released the month before Springsteen’s, and would enjoy nowhere near the immediate success (though in the long run, it arguably has been more successful). Similarly, I would also commend a somewhat forgotten patriotic piece from the era, still heard in my neck of the woods on country music stations: Charlie Daniels’s “In America.” It’s interesting that Daniels’s song was released in May 1980, during the doldrums of Jimmy Carter’s “malaise.” Daniels was a conservative and a Reagan supporter, but unlike Springsteen, he put aside his personal politics and wrote lyrics that sought to unite and rally Americans regardless. He urged: “We’ll all stick together, and you can take that to the bank, that’s the cowboys and the hippies and the rebels and the yanks.” He exhorted, “God Bless America Again.” Bruce’s Big 50th Alas, I mention all of this now because there’s currently much fanfare over Bruce Springsteen because of the 50th anniversary of his classic 1975 album Born to Run, another work of adolescent prattle about racing cars and using girls. Like the awful message in his 1980 song “Hungry Heart,” about a guy who left his wife and kids “and never went back” because he has a “hungry heart,” the liberal Springsteen frequently wrote about using girls for sex and noncommitment. Of course, liberal women always forgive such behavior from famous liberal men so long as they’re liberal Democrats who support abortion (see Bill Clinton). All sins are washed clean at the altar of “abortion rights.” As for Born to Run, the fact that our culture would recognize the golden anniversary of something so frivolous further demonstrates our shallowness. Springsteen’s strange 50th is accorded the sort of reverence that better people in better times would have reserved for, say, the bicentennials of the births of Bach and Beethoven. People are reacting as if it’s the flipping anniversary of the death of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. And here again, Springsteen’s words are being seriously analyzed by adults who admired his music as teenagers but still haven’t figured out that the twaddle they hummed and strummed was mere juvenile poppycock. Beyond the song/album “Born to Run,” our own John Mac Ghlionn, like myself, responded to this odd ceremonial occasion by writing about “Born in the U.S.A.” and Springsteen generally. “Springsteen is not a patriot,” concluded Mac Ghlionn. “He isn’t the voice of American pride. He’s a salesman, a disingenuous one at that. He fooled a nation into cheering its own condemnation.” That’s well put. And I was among the young fools, cluelessly cheering the condemnation and making this working-class liberal a rich man in the process. READ MORE from Paul Kengor: A Message to Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce: Get Married and Have a Baby The Dating Game v. The Mating Game Brian Burch: America’s Ideal Ambassador to the Holy See

Let’s suppose, for a moment, that yesterday was the first time you heard that someone had opened fire on a church full of schoolchildren in Minneapolis last week. Like most of us, you’d probably turn to Google to get all the details. Predictably, you’d be met with a barrage of articles. You might even scroll down far enough to get to the Wikipedia page. If you did that, you’d probably get the impression that the young man who perpetrated the shooting was just a mental case who chose to target a church full of innocent children for absolutely no reason — in fact, it’s quite possible you might not even know that the young man was a biological man. The media powers that be have evidently determined that, given the furious discussion surrounding the heartless “thoughts and prayers” comment uttered by Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey, subjecting the whole story to the memory hole simply isn’t going to work — at least not yet. So, they’ve done the next best thing: They’ve decided to expunge any of the uncomfortable (and, in this case, important) details from the written record of the event. (READ MORE: Catholic School Shooting: A Message of Hope and Prayer) Take, for instance, a “here’s-what-we-know” article that CBS News published on the subject, which shared the names of the victims, the number and medical status of the injured, and the history of the shooter’s association with Annunciation Church and School. Gone, however, was reference to the shooter’s transgender identity. He was identified as “Robin” — the name he chose after transition — and  (confusingly) as “they/them” when necessary. All things considered, the article seemed to prefer merely calling him “the shooter.” An ABC News article published on Monday, which reported that police added three more children to the tally of those injured in the shooting, didn’t bother to identify the shooter’s sex at all. There were no pronouns, no names, and no discussion whatsoever of the most striking thing we know about Robert Westman, namely that he was a dissatisfied and angry victim of transgender ideology. To its credit, a New York Times article did, briefly, mention Westman’s transgender identity but failed to mention his birth name while referring to him by feminine pronouns. If journalism is the first rough draft of history, in the modern age, Wikipedia might very well be the second. You’d think the editors at Wikipedia would take that role somewhat seriously, but no. Instead, they’re concerned about violating a stylebook rule. A brief scroll through the article’s Talk page reveals extensive discussion on whether to include reference to Westman’s so-called “deadname,” which pronouns to use, and how relevant his transgender identity truly was to the event. “It doesn’t matter how insensitive it is (trust me, I think she was a terrible human being); it’s Wikipedia’s job to get the facts straight. If she identified as a female, then that’s what what [sic] Wikipedia should reflect, no matter how disgusting of a person someone is,” one editor wrote. “We should not include their birth name at all as they were not notable under that name. Also, including their birth name raises privacy concerns,” another explained. “Why is there any concern about ‘deadname’ in this situation? … It is of absolute least importance, he tried to massacre people …. I don’t care about what he called himself, I want people to know everything about him. No narrative. Just facts,” one editor fired back. Another defended inclusion of Westman’s birth name, pointing out that the media had already reliably reported it. “We have stepped into the absurd, friends. The utterly absurd,” he protested. In another section of the Talk page, another editor argued that the shooter’s transgender identity was as unimportant as his height. Currently, the article doesn’t use Westman’s birth name anywhere, and it uses female pronouns throughout. It does mention his transgender identity, but only briefly and primarily in the context of defending the transgender community. (READ MORE: Nobody Prayed) The problem, of course, is that Westman’s transgender identity is critically important to this story (even if Minnesota officials and the media would like you to believe otherwise). As both Scott McKay and Melissa Mackenzie pointed out last week, his YouTube explainers and journal entries make that abundantly clear. After all, it wasn’t as though Westman was happy pretending to be a female: “I am tired of being trans, I wish I never brain-washed myself,” he wrote in his journal. “I don’t want to dress girly all the time but I guess sometimes I really like it. I know I am not a woman but I definitely don’t feel like a man.” Obviously, failing to even acknowledge the role transgenderism played in the shooting at Annunciation Catholic Church does no good for those of us interested in preventing shootings like it from occurring in the future. Recent years have shown that there’s a very real association between transgender ideology and acts of violence. Without that critical piece of the puzzle, our tendency is to view Westman as some kind of psychotic monster — a rare breed against whom there is no defense. But that would be a mistake. Yes, he was responsible for a heinous crime. Yes, his actions were unbelievably evil. But he was also just a kid when he transitioned — a victim of a dangerous ideology. He snapped, and when he did, he took innocent life with him. The fact is, until our society comes to terms with the ideology and the demons that plagued him, bullets won’t stop raining down through stained-glass windows. READ MORE by Aubrey Harris: Will Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce Single-Handedly Save Marriage?

Saudi Arabia wants to be cool so badly you can smell the desperation from orbit. Vision 2030 — the kingdom’s masterplan to reinvent itself as a cultural hub — reads less like strategy and more like a teenager’s fantasy shopping list. Formula One races? Check. Music festivals the size of small cities? Check. Cristiano Ronaldo sweating in the desert for a payday larger than the GDP of some nations? Double check. Now they’re importing America’s sharpest comedians this fall to Boulevard City, a theme park stitched together to resemble Las Vegas — if Vegas swapped neon for sand, showgirls for censorship, and jackpots for justice delivered by blade. The lineup is formidable: Louis C.K., Dave Chappelle, and Bill Burr. Three of America’s finest comics in a generation, flown halfway around the world to entertain princes and passing crowds. There’s just one problem, and it’s a major one. Cool can’t be purchased. You can’t commission it, can’t legislate it, can’t outsource it to McKinsey consultants. Cool doesn’t submit to five-year plans. It’s organic. It’s unpredictable. And most of all, it never begs for approval. New York earned its cool because misfits and dreamers poured in, drawn by cheap rents and the freedom to start over. Painters turned empty lofts into studios. Writers hammered novels into diner napkins. Kids spray-painted subway cars until the city itself became their gallery. It wasn’t curated. It was all-out chaos — and that was the point. London’s scene exploded out of scarcity. Working-class kids boxed in by grey estates and dead-end jobs didn’t wait for permission. They grabbed guitars and fired back with a few chords and choruses that turned boredom into rebellion. Hollywood didn’t sprout from billion-dollar subsidies or state decrees. It grew because early filmmakers fled Thomas Edison’s stranglehold on movie patents in New Jersey, heading west in search of freedom, cheap land, and endless sunshine. Saudi Arabia is trying to distill coolness like crude oil. Import celebrities, erect venues, flood social media with coverage — out will come cultural legitimacy. But culture isn’t chemistry. You can’t combine the right ingredients and expect authentic art to appear. What you get is imitation without risk, creation without life. Authoritarian states excel at bulldozers and border walls. They fail at culture because culture can’t be engineered. That is the trap authoritarian regimes always fall into. China has spent decades trying to engineer soft power. Confucius Institutes by the dozen, Olympic ceremonies choreographed to the second, blockbuster films that cost fortunes yet vanish outside their borders. They can copy Parisian boulevards and fake Apple stores, but they can’t export pop songs anyone actually wants to hear. Authoritarian states excel at bulldozers and border walls. They fail at culture because culture can’t be engineered. (RELATED: ‘All Under Heaven’: The CCP’s Distortion of Chinese Philosophy) Comedy makes this contradiction brutally clear. The great comics — the likes of Pryor, Carlin, and Hicks — aren’t entertainers so much as jesters with knives. They cut power down to size. They mock authority, ridicule hypocrisy, and say what no one else dares to. The best material doesn’t just make people laugh; it makes them squirm. It is, by definition, dangerous. How do you pull that off in Riyadh, where mocking rulers isn’t edgy, it’s treason; where questioning faith isn’t taboo, it’s blasphemy; where satire doesn’t earn heckles, it earns prison? You don’t. You perform the safe stuff, the international material. You avoid the razor wire because the razor wire is real. Chappelle will deliver the same riffs that electrify crowds in Washington or New York, but they will land differently in a hall where everyone knows what cannot be said. The Saudis understand this, which is why they aren’t even pretending to cultivate homegrown comics or local countercultures. They’re simply purchasing the facade of cultural relevance. Buy Ronaldo, buy Formula One, buy Chappelle. If you can’t create cool, rent it by the weekend. This model has short-term benefits. It gets press coverage. It draws tourists. It entertains a restless young population craving connection to global culture. It even bolsters diversification efforts beyond oil. But these are transactions, not transformations. Flying in comedians doesn’t make Riyadh a cradle of comedy any more than signing a few soccer stars makes the desert a football capital. Real cultural influence comes from export, not import. America conquered the world with Hollywood, jazz, and hip-hop. France built its prestige through art, philosophy, and fashion that flowed from cafés and ateliers into the bloodstream of the West. Camus’ writing of revolt and exile. Chanel sketching in Paris. Vincent Cassel swaggering across the screen. All of this bubbled from below. Saudi Arabia is trying the opposite, importing authenticity as if it were a commodity, hoping hired talent can substitute for lived culture. Coolness thrives on friction. It thrives on the freedom to fail and the license to offend. It is born in basements and back alleys, not royal courts. Saudi Arabia wants to market itself as modern and progressive while keeping authority beyond question, as though you can host a revolution on stage without ever loosening the grip backstage. It wants comedy festivals without dissent, artists without art that criticizes the hand that feeds — and the hand that cuts them off. What results is an uncanny valley of culture: technically dazzling but spiritually vacant, like robots flawlessly reciting Shakespeare. The Riyadh Comedy Festival will no doubt be slick. The crowds will laugh. The lights will dazzle. But when the stage empties and the stars fly home, Saudi Arabia will remain what it was before: an authoritarian kingdom trying to buy its way into a cultural club that can’t be bribed. Money can buy the artists. It can even buy the art. But it can’t spark a movement. That’s the difference between having bags of cash and buckets of cool. READ MORE from John Mac Ghlionn: The Digital Lobotomy of America’s Children Begins in Virginia How Bruce Springsteen Fooled America How Deep Is China in America’s Ballot Box?

SACRAMENTO, Calif. — The city and county of Los Angeles have struggled to jump-start home and business reconstructions eight months after wildfires destroyed Pacific Palisades and Altadena, with only 17 permits issued for the Palisades and fewer than 300 for all the affected areas combined. State and local officials have waived myriad building regulations — most notably the California Environmental Quality Act and the Coastal Act — and yet progress is excruciatingly slow. Despite the well-publicized regulatory exemptions, there’s little that California can do to remove the logjams from multiple bureaucratic agencies that have impeded every type of construction for decades. The New York Post found that many “homeowners say they’re still in California bureaucratic hell — waiting for the government to clear debris, test for toxic chemicals left behind, fighting with insurance companies over payouts and trying to navigate the Golden State’s notoriously punitive homebuilding restrictions.” Los Angeles faces rough times over the next few years just getting back to relative normal, yet overburdened and barely competent city officials must also gear up to host the 2028 Summer Olympic Games. They can’t be blamed for lobbying to host them back in 2017, when no one could have predicted the disaster earlier this year. But there’s a legitimate question over whether they have the wherewithal to pull it off successfully, as the opening ceremony is less than three years away. That hasn’t dissuaded L.A. officials from their grandiose pronouncements, such as assuring that the games are basically “car free.” But, as Governing magazine reported in October, “The Los Angeles Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s $3.3 billion list of projects needed to make the games run smoothly is 5.2% funded. If the money doesn’t come through soon, transit planners predict some critical projects may be scuttled — making it tougher for visitors and regular commuters to get around town.” Private Olympic fundraising is going well, but it would be a good time for officials to come up with a plan that ditches the unnecessary nonsense. As of June, the city hoped that the Trump administration would provide $2 billion in transportation funding, per the Los Angeles Times. But as of August, the administration has mainly promised $1 billion in security funding, and the president has named himself the head of a task force that, Los Angeles Democrats fear, will mainly put them under the president’s thumb as he seeks to put his imprint on these internationally prominent events. The political situation is what it is and city officials just need to get over it if they want the games to succeed. There’s no turning back now, however, so the real question is whether Los Angeles can get itself into gear as it struggles with the wildfire rebuild — and whether it can pull off the games without hammering taxpayers with enormous costs and debt. Olympic spectacles — like sport enterprises in general — rarely live up to initial estimates. L.A.’s 1984 Olympics were the only games that turned a profit, but cost overruns are always part of the deal. LA28 promises to be privately funded, but that’s a stretch. “Boosters have drowned out skeptics by insisting that the Olympics will help the city and come at ‘no cost’ to taxpayers,” wrote the Times’ Gustavo Arellano. “But the city government will have to cover the first $270 million of any cost overruns or revenue shortfalls — and where on Earth would that money come from?” That’s the multibillion-dollar question. Most of us would rather see that money diverted to wildfire resilience and rebuilding projects. The city’s budget already is struggling. In April, the city imposed budget cuts to close a $1 billion deficit. The situation in the county is tough, too, as it faces rollbacks in federal aid. These are not great times for the region’s public officials to come up with tens of millions of extra cash to pay for an unnecessary extravaganza. Instead promoting achievable ends, Olympics organizers recently released their Impact and Sustainability Policy: “By managing environmental resources and investing in solutions for the Games that positively impact the broader region, LA28’s sustainability program will rise to the occasion and serve as a transferable model for responsible mega-events. The approach spans all of Los Angeles, with a focus on under-served communities who are disproportionally affected by the region’s environmental challenges — like persistent air pollution and intensifying heat waves.” Blah, blah, blah. Furthermore, organizers claim hosting the games offers “a once-in-a-generation opportunity to uplift our communities and lead by example.” A lot of this is meaningless jargon, but it doesn’t set cost-conscious taxpayers’ minds at ease. Some of the details make sense. Obviously, reducing (although not eliminating) car usage given the number of visitors is sensible — as is reusing existing facilities rather than building new ones. Not that anyone can build anything here in under three years. As the Southern California News Group opined, “Here’s hoping Los Angeles officials spend less time bloviating about generational uplift and more time getting the revenue numbers right.” I share that hope and expect local officials to eventually get their act together. Nevertheless, it’s a reminder that cities have more important things to do than focus on giant events that usually turn into money pits. Fiscally troubled and poorly managed ones shouldn’t even try. Steven Greenhut is Western region director for the R Street Institute. Write to him at sgreenhut@rstreet.org. READ MORE: Test for Newsom as Dems Target Charters Wildfires As a Wake-Up Call California Tries Another Tack to Crush Ridesharing

A very dangerous geopolitical chess match is playing out right in front of our eyes.  As I discussed yesterday, France and Saudi Arabia will co-chair “the Conference on the Two-State Solution” at the United Nations on September 22nd.  The goal of this conference is to create an unstoppable wave of international momentum toward the creation of a Palestinian state.  Israeli officials are very upset about this conference, and they are considering annexing large portions of the West Bank in response.  If that happens, Israel’s Islamic neighbors will go absolutely berserk and a catastrophic war could break out in the Middle East.  So let us hope that cooler heads prevail, because we are rapidly approaching a point of no return. When French President Emmanuel Macron announced that he would personally c0-chair “the Conference on the Two-State Solution”, he publicly acknowledged that we may see an “annexation” in response… French President Emmanuel Macron announced Tuesday that he will co-lead an international conference in New York on Sept. 22 with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman to promote a two-state solution for Israel and Palestine. The conference will coincide with the UN General Assembly and marks a renewed push for diplomatic engagement despite the ongoing war in Gaza. In a tweet, Macron said, “I just spoke with the Saudi crown prince, and together we will lead the two-state solution conference in New York on Sept. 22.” He emphasized that “no annexation or forced displacement will stop the momentum we have built together with the crown prince — momentum that many of our partners have joined.” Macron knows exactly how Israel may react to the peace conference on September 22nd, but he is going ahead with it anyway. So now it is Israel’s move. It is being reported that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will convene a meeting of top officials on Thursday to discuss what to do next.  Annexing at least some portion of the West Bank is one of the options that will be under consideration… Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is weighing a plan to annex at least parts of the West Bank ahead of this month’s UN assembly, where several Western nations are set to recognize a Palestinian state, according to reports. Netanyahu is expected to convene with his top ministers Thursday to discuss Israel’s response to Western pressure, which is being led by France over the destruction and looming famine in Gaza. The Israeli premier is seriously considering applying sovereignty “to certain areas” of the West Bank, but he has yet to make a final decision despite pushes from members of his far-right coalition, the Jerusalem Post reported. Needless to say, this is huge. According to Axios, Israeli Strategic Affairs Minister Ron Dermer has told Macron that Israel may annex approximately 60 percent of the West Bank… One European official said Dermer even told French President Emmanuel Macron’s Middle East adviser, Anne-Claire Legendre, that Israel would annex all of “Area C,” which constitute 60% of the West Bank. Can you imagine what the global reaction would be if Israel actually did that? But there are also other options that are apparently under consideration… Another option is the annexation of Israeli settlements and access routes to them, which constitute roughly 10% of the West Bank. A third option is to annex the settlements, the access routes and the Jordan Valley, roughly 30% of the West Bank altogether. Of course those two options would not be nearly enough to satisfy the religious conservatives in Netanyahu’s coalition. In fact, Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich is proposing a plan in which Israel annexes 82 percent of the West Bank… Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich on Wednesday unveiled a proposal for Israel to annex 82 percent of the West Bank, even as the United Arab Emirates warned that such a move would spell the end of Israel’s integration into the Middle East. The plan, unveiled together with a map of proposed borders on Wednesday, is the most concrete expression thus far of growing momentum in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s right-wing government to apply Israeli sovereignty to the West Bank in response to a range of Western countries plan to recognize a Palestinian state. Smotrich and other longtime proponents of Israel annexing the territory say their moment has come, despite international warnings against such a move. If Smotrich’s plan is instituted, the Palestinians would be left with six small population centers that are completely disconnected from one another… Smotrich’s plan came with a map that, if implemented, would absorb the vast majority of the West Bank into Israel while leaving six Palestinian population centers as islands in its midst. Those six areas are Ramallah, Nablus, Jenin, Tulkarem, Jericho and Hebron, perhaps the tensest flashpoint in the West Bank. I don’t think that Netanyahu will agree to Smotrich’s plan. But if Israel attempts to annex any territory in the West Bank, Israel’s Islamic neighbors will go nuts. Turkey has already cut off all relations with Israel, and the UAE is warning that a plan to annex territory in the West Bank would cross a “red line”… A top United Arab Emirates official warned Israel on Tuesday that annexing the West Bank would cross a “red line” that would “end the vision of regional integration,” just two days before Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was slated to hold a major ministerial consultation on whether to advance the highly controversial move. “Annexation would be a red line for my government, and that means there can be no lasting peace. It would foreclose the idea of regional integration and be the death knell of the two-state solution,” Emirati special envoy Lana Nusseibeh told The Times of Israel in an interview conducted in the UAE Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Abu Dhabi. I really do think that this is something that could potentially unite all of the surrounding nations. So what would Israel do if it was suddenly confronted with a military threat from a large Islamic coalition? That is a very important question. It appears that this thing could spiral out of control very easily. Israel’s neighbors are already furious about the ground operation that the IDF has commenced in Gaza City… Israel has begun its ground operation in Gaza City, Israel Defense Forces Chief of the General Staff Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir said Tuesday. “We are going to increase and enhance the strikes of our operation, and that is why we called you,” Zamir said in Hebrew, addressing reservists who have been called up to serve in recent weeks. “We have already begun the ground operation in Gaza [City].” I believe that we have just about reached a major tipping point, and I am extremely concerned about what is coming next. I don’t think that there is any way that Macron and Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman are going to back down at this point. And in response, Israeli officials will feel compelled to do something. If they go ahead with an annexation of West Bank territory, neighboring Islamic nations will face a moment of truth. Either they will have to forget about their “red lines”, or they will have to take military action. And if a coalition of Islamic nations takes military action against Israel, the Israelis will do whatever it takes to prevail. Michael’s new book entitled “10 Prophetic Events That Are Coming Next” is available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com, and you can subscribe to his Substack newsletter at michaeltsnyder.substack.com. About the Author: Michael Snyder’s new book entitled “10 Prophetic Events That Are Coming Next” is available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com. He has also written nine other books that are available on Amazon.com including “Chaos”, “End Times”, “7 Year Apocalypse”, “Lost Prophecies Of The Future Of America”, “The Beginning Of The End”, and “Living A Life That Really Matters”.  When you purchase any of Michael’s books you help to support the work that he is doing.  You can also get his articles by email as soon as he publishes them by subscribing to his Substack newsletter.  Michael has published thousands of articles on The Economic Collapse Blog, End Of The American Dream and The Most Important News, and he always freely and happily allows others to republish those articles on their own websites.  These are such troubled times, and people need hope.  John 3:16 tells us about the hope that God has given us through Jesus Christ: “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.”  If you have not already done so, we strongly urge you to invite Jesus Christ to be your Lord and Savior today. The post Why The Peace Conference On September 22nd Could Cause A Catastrophic War To Erupt In The Middle East appeared first on End Of The American Dream.

by Daniela Gonzalez, The Organic Prepper: Spying in Venezuela is a SERIOUS threat to citizens, especially for those related to the democratic forces. In order to keep the people controlled by force under a growing crisis and with the ghost of hyperinflation stalking at a distance (again), Venezuelans have faced a threat that few other […]