Estee Lauder Heir Negative on Israel

Well, this is something.

Quoting an item from Trita Parsi, who notes this item from Lauder:

... “Ronald Lauder has never lived in Israel. But in the past year the Jewish billionaire, who serves as president of the World Jewish Congress, has given up his remaining properties in the country, a sign of the deep shift in his views of its future. A deep sense of disgust appears on his face as he recounts this. “I’ve sold my apartment in Tel Aviv, I gave my home in Be’er Sheva to the Jewish National Fund, of which I’m also the chairman. I basically cut my ties there. Because it has become so…,” Lauder grimaces, making a gesture of vomiting.

He goes on to blame Israel for failing to make peace, explaining that Israel actually didn’t want peace:

“I realized at the end of the day that Israel really didn’t want peace, but they wanted dominance. And I walked away from it.”

“You’ve lost the Democratic Party, and you’re losing the Republican Party. And it’s all because of foolishness on your part. I want to tell Israelis, ‘Shame on you! Shame on all of you. Your fathers and your grandfathers fought for this place, and you’re losing it because of foolishness. Period.’”

I think this reflects the view of many who fought to establish Israel/supported its creation, but at the same time believed in peace. Perhaps an unjust peace, clearly a peace on Israel’s terms - but a peace nonetheless.

But Israel has long swapped dominance and control for peace, and it has taken quite some time for many of its original supporters and champions to realize it - and admit to themselves the direction Israel actually is going in....

The last two grafs are Parsi--but No Lies Detected. 

Rome's Confusing Signals on Liturgy

 Yes, there are lots of confusing signals coming out of Rome.  The rude and provocative "Go Away" to the Old Rite pilgrims at St Peter's is one.

Here's the counter to that very disappointing incident:

 The Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith has published this Thursday, October 22, Venite ad me (“Come to me”), a new document on the transmission of the faith that recognizes the importance of the liturgy, the beauty of worship, and the different sensibilities present in the Catholic tradition. The text, conceived under the pontificate of Francis, signed by Cardinal Víctor Manuel Fernández Saraz, and approved by Leo XIV, addresses the Church’s difficulties in transmitting Christianity to new generations amid contemporary cultural transformations....

OK.  This is a Franny1/Leo document, written by CDF.  It has horsepower behind it.

 ...“With due respect for the currently valid liturgical norms, pastors are called to highlight the richness of the Catholic liturgical heritage,” the text affirms, citing as an example the variety of musical styles that form part of that heritage....

 ...According to the Dicastery, through gestures, words, silences, and symbols, the faithful participate in the mystery being celebrated and receive a faith that has been lived and transmitted by previous generations.

The text recovers the traditional principle lex orandi, lex credendi, which expresses the relationship between the Church’s prayer and its faith, and underscores the importance of forming believers to understand liturgical language....

You can almost hear them approve Usus Antiquior.

...[Citing Romano Guardini], Through this latter testimony, the document acknowledges that there are different forms of prayerful participation, including silent contemplation of the rites. Guardini highlighted the capacity of the faithful to welcome the sacred through sight and contemplation, even during prolonged celebrations. ...

 ...The document also affirms the value of popular piety [the prayer to St. Michael?] and traditional expressions of the Catholic faith. The Dicastery recalls that these practices have made it possible to preserve and transmit Christianity even in adverse cultural contexts....

It should be clear that there is a war going on in Rome between ultra-progressives and 'mild traditionalists' in the context of the liturgy and other matters.  It seems that Leo is in the latter camp, but--like Trump in the secular arena--undercut or actively resisted by long-tenured snakes.  [It would help if Leo were far more careful about his off-the-cuff remarks to the press.]

Oremus. 

Soccer Paper: World Series "Boring"

Some tabloid based in England managed to find a few people who called the World Series "boring."

In England, they play soccer--so they know the definition of "boring."

And the few people they found?  Obviously did not watch games One and Two, which were nail-biter/edge-of-the-seat contests.

Did NOT know that Newspaper Bias extended to sports.

Notice the "Wobbles" in Your Devices??

 The Market Ticker can tell you why your Apple phone, or MS browser, or Spectrum network, or your VPN or ad-blocker, occasionally goes wonky-wobble for a while.

...Virtually all technology-related firms have, for more than two decades, fired or laid off their best and most-competent people.  Most of them here in America were Americans.  They replaced said people with H-1bs, OPTs, CPTs and similar, most from India but not all, with many who do not even actually have the skills claimed and none of them have the experience which is why they're cheaper.  Doing this also instantly destroys the pipeline of new people in America coming into the field and the transference of said knowledge to the next generation as these foreigners are not citizens and never will be; they at best want green cards and send huge amounts of their earnings home where they intend to return after basically "mining" America for a wage that is several times what they can earn at home which permanently takes their acquired knowledge with them.

The latter problem does not show up for years or even decades but when it does the outcome is ruinous and impossible to rapidly correct as the knowledge is quite-literally lost.  The people who had it are either out of the workforce and will not return due to being previously screwed or are dead and went to their grave without passing on what they knew to the next generation.

Leaving aside outright fraud, kickbacks, race-based hiring and similar all of which is illegal between that importation and the export of the jobs themselves by moving entire departments out of the United States because its cheaper to not have to comply with US labor standards and taxes you are inevitably firing those who know the most simply because they've been there the longest and destroying the pipeline that transfers knowledge from those with gray hair like myself to the younger generation that ought to ultimately take our place and further advance the state of the art. ...

Most times, the small corps of Old & Experienced Guys that did NOT get pushed out the door and replaced by Curry-Eaters can diagnose and fix the problem.  But "Most" is not reassuring with national defense tech, nor for personal finance-tech goodies--like online banking or loan websites.

When MS forced its last OS (from 10 to 11) change into the market, Spectrum stability went bonkers.  But field-level techs did not know it was MS 10 (the old OS) causing the problems with stability, so the techies repeated the same temporarily-useful "fixes" again, again, and again, with the same problems re-occurring.  It's possible that Spectrum did not care--with them that's always a possibility--but it's more likely that they simply did not know.

Imagine that! 

  

Surber Nods

Don Surber is one of the best pundits in the US.

But even Surber nods.

... ITEM 11: Senator Elissa Slotkin, D-Ranged Michigan, said, “Right in the last two weeks of the election, they [Trump’s administration will] somehow come up with a national security incident that only they can protect us from.”

Elect retired CIA agents, get paranoia....

Wrong, Don.  That last line should read:

Elect retired CIA agents, get Insurrection-by-Color Revolution.

 

Israel Controlled Biden, Too

 Apparently Israel's command of US Presidents did not start with Trump.

 When confronted with warnings that famine was spreading across northern Gaza in early 2024, members of President Joe Biden’s foreign policy team could not believe what they were being told. The alarming reports came from U.S. agencies and respected international humanitarian groups, but they starkly contradicted Israel’s version of events. ...

... Not only were staggering numbers of Palestinians desperate for food. They lacked clean drinking water, medicine, and shelter. They were being torn to pieces—in many cases by U.S.-manufactured bombs—as the Israeli military  kept up its relentless offensive. Yet the president and his top aides failed to meaningfully exert their influence to alleviate the suffering. Instead, their response was shaped by credulous deference to the Netanyahu government and disregard for both U.S. and international law....

There is a pattern, and it repeats.

 ...Netanyahu and the fanatics in his coalition were bent on conquest and ethnic cleansing—and not in Gaza alone. They eventually expanded their war to southern Lebanon, while also giving free rein to rampaging settlers in the West Bank. Herein lies another disastrous Biden legacy. His failure to restrain Israel in 2023-24 dramatically accelerated the regional instability the increasingly enfeebled president said he and he alone was qualified to prevent....

Shakespeare was anachronistically correct on the Middle East:  "A pox on both your houses!" 

Pp Leo's Forgetfulness

 Here's a news item:

 

Pope Leo XIV stated this Sunday, during the Angelus prayed in St. Peter’s Square, that “we cannot truly love God if this love does not overflow into love for our brothers and sisters.”...

Apparently Pp Leo forgot about 'overflowing love' for adherents of the Old Rite. 

They Think You Are STUPID

Big dog-and-pony show to "convince" you that THERE ARE NO ELECTION FRAUDS AND THERE HAVE NEVER BEEN ELECTION FRAUDS AND THERE WILL NEVER BE ELECTION FRAUDS, DAMMIT!!  NOW STFU, TRUMPZOIDS!!

*Cough*

The election frauds--and there are thousands--are due to mail-in ballots.  They are mailed OUT to somebody, and somebody may or may not actually mark those ballots.  Sending a ballot to an illegal, or a nursing-home dementia patient, is the preferred method, not running silly "show and tell" games.

We know it.  Trump knows it.  And at some point in time, you'll pay for it. 

  

AI? Nope. It Cannot Be

 You don't have to get far in Rummelsburg's essay to know where it's going and yes, it strips "Artificial Intelligence" naked for all to see.

...[C. S.] Lewis presaged the current crisis of intellect when he described the men that a debunking education produces. He called them Men without Chests; we call them “critical thinkers.” Of them he wrote: “It is an outrage that they should be commonly spoken of as Intellectuals. This gives them the chance to say that he who attacks them attacks Intelligence.” Today, “intelligence” has suffered the same fate as the “intellectual.”

It is not hard to call "debunking education" sophomoric; "debunking" is--at root--what you often see in the sophomoric 'argumentation' in almost all social media:  the snarky put-down.

...“Mind” and “intellect” are words that point to realities that are immaterial in nature. Consistently eradicating all immaterial things from educational theory leaves these concepts especially vulnerable to abuse....

... The word “intellect” comes from the Latin intus legere – to read the interior. Our senses perceive outward qualities; the intellect grasps what things are, conceptually. A man sees and recognizes a particular dog, but his intellect grasps the nature it shares with all dogs. Unlike sight, it is not tied to a bodily organ; schools should cultivate its use and proper end. Aquinas teaches that the intellect’s end is truth, the conformity of mind to reality...

One is reminded of the great James Schall* (SJ's) insistence on "What IS."

 ...Intellect is a power of the soul with two operations Aquinas calls intellectus and ratio. Josef Pieper, in Leisure, the Basis of Culture, describes intellectus as “simply looking,” the mind at rest receiving reality. The student who grasps the structure of a fugue, a proof, or a proverb is doing more than perceiving: he is apprehending what the thing is. Ratio, or reasoning, is the active capacity to move from what is known by first principles to what was previously unknown.

Reasoning becomes rootless when it is not preceded by the intellect’s apprehension of the first principles....

Modern schools of thought on intelligence are dangerously insufficient.  They would teach the Bach St John Passion without reference to the text Bach quotes.  "It has sad notes" is true--but WHY it has such is simply passed over without mention.  

... Gardner’s “multiple intelligences” splits the unity of intellect into eight or more capacities, such as mathematical, kinesthetic, and musical; the intellect exercises these abilities, but they are not the intellect itself. “Emotional intelligence,” the premise of the social-emotional learning programs, inverts the order of intellect and passions. Artificial intelligence is no more like intelligence than fake flowers are like flowers; it simulates its effects, not the thing itself. Only the habit of judging by appearances lets us confuse the two....

...Dante, passing through the gate of Hell in Canto III of the Inferno, learns from Virgil that he will see the sorrowful who have “lost the good of the intellect,” not the power to think, but its object, the truth that is God – the Good....

The intellect can--and should--be formed to understand What Is:  the "I Am Who Am",  which is Truth Whole.

Artificial Intelligence cannot do so. 

Need more?  Another essay--this on iconoclasm--touches the same theme:

...We deny the humanity of another image of God: our very selves. The Greek word for image is eikon; in the Septuagint’s Genesis, God declares that man is made kat’ eikona Theou—in the image, the icon, of God. Humanity is the original icon, and today we are witnessing a global campaign of anthropological iconoclasm. We deny the physical, historical, and created reality of our own human nature.

The iconoclasts contended that God’s infinitude makes Him uncircumscribable; therefore, He cannot be painted. The Council Fathers, drawing on St. John of Damascus, argued that God the Son, Our Lord Jesus Christ, assumed a real human body, redeeming matter and circumscribing Himself. The modern iconoclast smashes his own nature because he believes he should be infinite and uncircumscribable....

IOW, seeing a part and missing the whole, thus missing What Is (True). 

*You can still get Fr. Schall's "Another Sort of Learning" from Ignatius Press.  It's worth it. 

 

The Fun Starts on Election Day!

We're not absolutely certain that DataRepublican's sketch is fact.

But being prepared is always useful.

 ...in the Senate, Democrat Sen. Elissa Slotkin of Michigan, a former CIA analyst, recently announced she’s ready for a Trump election-stealing scenario, most likely “in the last two weeks of the election, (as) they somehow come up with a national security incident that only they can protect us from.”  [Slotkin is one of the Insurrectionist Six, and has openly threatened people who join the Administration with 'retribution.'  She is--in short--a Piece of Shit.]

With many polls now showing Dems with a lead in the midterms, all that will have to happen is for Republicans to hold the Senate and do better than expected in the House, and that will be proof enough for Slotkin and her Deep-State allies. [New York City resident Tammy Baldwin is making noises about 'election interference' already.  She's stupid--but she can read a script.]  What will they promote? Riots? Demonstrations? A takeover of government through violent insurrection?

The Democratic Socialists of America are already planting the seeds of violence if things don’t go their way in the election, with their “New Battlefield Project,” calling on 10,000 “volunteers” to guard polling places.

Here’s what’s really happening.

“Activists are planning mass protests if the Trump administration tries to interfere with voting or ballot counting,” U.S. News reported in September. “And [hard-Left] legal scholars [Norm Eisen-like] are distributing white papers advising judges what they should do if the government tries to seize ballots.”

Meanwhile, “A small group of U.S. national security officials has been discreetly advising state governments and congressional lawmakers” on how to prepare for “Trump administration interference in midterm elections,” the Washington Post reports.

Sounds pretty much like they plan their own interference if the GOP wins.

 Make sure your guns are clean and your ammo is sufficient.

Fed "Judge" Making S**t Up......

It's one thing to use AI.  It's another thing entirely to get caught.

 The Fifth Circuit allowed Mississippi's anti-DEI education law to take effect and ordered the case reassigned to a different judge, sharply criticizing AI-generated fabrications and serious legal errors in Judge Henry Wingate's rulings blocking the law...

... Wingate's original order included nonexistent parties, fabricated declarations, unsupported factual claims, and misquotations of Mississippi law. Even his corrected order cited a nonexistent Fourth Circuit decision....

 Henry was appointed by............RONALD REAGAN.

Henry's picture is below.  Think he'll be disciplined?  Removed from the bench?

 

Sure, Ilhan, It's Your "Faith". Yup.

This little turd is circling the drain--so now it's a "religion" persecution.

 Ilhan Omar says critics just don't think someone of "my faith" should be in Congress....

Well, maybe it's not ONLY your "religion", scumbag:

 The Center for Immigration Studies found 81% of Somali-headed households in Minnesota use at least one welfare program. 54% get food stamps. 73% have someone on Medicaid. For native Minnesota households, it's 21% on any welfare. Ilhan can play the victim card all she wants. The numbers don't care.

Your "religion" is inimical to the US Constitution and its political system.  That much is true.

But there's good news for you!  After your time in Club Fed, you get to go home, permanently. 

NOT Mentioned in JSOnline? No Surprise.

USA Today, the sister of JSOnline, does not mention this as of this morning.  It goes without saying that none of the local TeeVee "news" outlets mentioned it either.

 New court documents unsealed reveal Ilhan Omar has been living under a fraudulent identity...her real name is Ilhan Nur Said Elmi. This could mean every single government document she has ever filled out has been fraudulent. Her whole time in America she has been trying to cover up who she is....

A Marxist-Muslim (probably non-citizen) Member of Congress is living (and voting in Congress) under a fake name.

But "news" stations don't think you should know that here in MKE.

Illegal Voting in WI? Kaul Covers It Up

 Josh Kaul--who claims to 'fight for Wisconsin'--sued to protect non-citizen voters in Wisconsin.

He won, using a Jackwad (crooked?) Judge-ette in the Land of Fruits and Nuts.  

Yup.  That's how Josh rolls.

 California Judge Araceli Martínez-Olguín blocked the Trump administration from investigating voter fraud by noncitizens in 9 states. The Supreme Court has already rejected judges’ rulings for other states or anywhere outside its jurisdiction. This judge did it anyway.

This one judge ordered DHS to stop its voter probes in California, Connecticut, Georgia, Missouri, Nevada, New York, Pennsylvania, Washington, and Wisconsin....

(That judge-ette was born in Mexico.)

Kaul has done his best to do nothing as AG, except to block any serious reforms initiated by the Feds.

Vote him out. 

Crowley: Jack Up License Costs, Tolls--AFFORDABILITY!!!

Crowley calls this "affordability."

 Question: "Mr. Crowley, are you open to new user fees for transportation funding?"
Crowley: "I am open."
Question: "Are you open to tolling?"
Crowley: "I think we should be open."

So let's jack up car & truck registration to $125?  $150? per year, jack up your driver's license fees, and then slap a toll on I-94, I-41, and I-43 drives--say $5 to get from downtown to Waukesha, or Mequon, or Oak Creek.

That's affordability!! 

Crowley: Sparkles, Rainbows, and Free S**t! and He Runs Away!

 It is the Democrat and Democrat-Socialist position:  make promises, fuggedabout details, and TRUMPF BAD.

...Crowley called for a fairer tax system, saying, “We need to make sure that everybody in the state of Wisconsin can get access to groceries, can afford a roof over their head.”...

What the Hell does "fairer" actually mean?

 ....Crowley opposed expanding the voucher program and said he would not support abruptly ending Milwaukee’s program.

“We cannot expand the voucher program in the state of Wisconsin,” Crowley said.

He called for more public school funding...

How much is "more"?  How high is "up"?   

After the debate, Tiffany stuck around to answer questions from reporters.

Crowley ran away.

THAT tells you everything you need to know. 

Channels 4 & 12 did not mention 'Runaway Dirt McGurk' in their reports.  Only Channel 58 (!) did. 

Don't Be a Patriot at Planet Fitness in Cudahy....

 Some dude got tossed out of Planet Fitness in Cudahy (WI), for wearing a jacket saying "Protect ICE, Protect the Country."

Reminder:  Planet Fitness also supports tranny men in women's locker rooms..... 

Pat Murphy & Vince Lombardi

 Former college players remember Pat Murphy fondly.

This graf reminded me of a Vince Lombardi technique:

 ...Former Notre Dame outfielder Mike Rotkis recalled a 28-10 loss at Western Michigan in Murphy’s debut season. When the Irish returned to campus, Murphy had them do sprints.

“It was like the scene in ‘Miracle,’“ Rotkis said, referring to the Kurt Russell movie about the 1980 U.S. Olympic men’s hockey team. “I can’t go anymore, you’re trying to run as fast as you can and you’re barely walking, you can barely lift your leg. He’s like, ‘All right, that was an embarrassment. Don’t let it happen again,’ and walked out.”...

IIRC, with Lombardi it was "grass drills."

...One of the favorite things of Vince Lombardi, coach, general manager and spiritual leader of the world-champion Green Bay Packers, is the grass drill. He lets an assistant coach lead the bending and stretching exercises, the calisthenics, but he himself must run the part of the drill that turns grown behemoths into groveling, gasping, sweat-soaked, foamy-mouthed animals without breath enough left to complain. It is a simple drill best conducted in the summer sun at brain-frying temperatures because sane men will not do it. The crazy men run in place, double time, as hard as they can, while Vince Lombardi shouts at them in his irritating, nasal, steel-wool-rubbing-over-grate voice. “C’mon, lift those legs, lift ’em. Higher, higher.” Suddenly he yells, “Front!”, and the players, who averaged $41,000 each for fourteen football games last season (there also were two post-season games), many of them no longer boys, but men in their thirties with families to care for and paunches to battle, flop on their bellies and as soon as they do, even while they are falling, Lombardi shouts, “Up!”, and they must leap to their feet, running, running, faster, higher. “Front!”, and they are down. “Back!”, and they roll over on their backs. “Up!” Run. “Front!” Down. “Up!” Over and over, always that raucous voice, nagging, urging, demanding ever more from rebelling lungs and legs. “Move those damn legs. This is the worst-looking thing I ever saw. You’re supposed to be moving those legs. Front! Up! C’mon, Caffey, move your legs. Keep them moving. C’mon, Willie Davis, you told me you were in shape. Front! Up! C’mon, Crenshaw, get up. It takes you an hour to get up. Faster. Move those legs. Dammit, what the hell’s the matter with you guys? You got a lot of dog in you. You’re dogs, I tell you. A bunch of dogs. Let’s move. Front! Up! For the love of Pete, Crenshaw, you’re fat. Ten bucks a day for every pound you don’t lose. Crenshaw! It’s going to cost you ten bucks a day. Lift those legs!”

The sound of their panting—seventy men reduced to sodden football suits filled with quivering muscles—rises over them in a moist, squishy roar. As the drill goes on the noises they make breathing almost drown out the sound of Lombardi’s voice. The breathing becomes louder and somewhat wetter, until it sounds like the ocean when the last wave rolls up into the sucking sand. Finally, when they are beyond the point of humanity or sanity, Lombardi lets up. “All right,” he shouts. “Around the goalpost and back. Now run!”

“That’s when you hate him,” says Henry Jordan...

The players make more money these days.  I wonder if MLF makes them do grass drills when they lose a game.

Fox6 Plays "Hide the Judge"

All four TeeeVeeee "news" outlets play the game of "Hide the Judge."

That happens when a convict gets little or no prison-time for serious--SERIOUS--offenses.  The "news" channel doesn't tell you who the "judge" was.  Is there a reason?

You'll never know that, either.

Here's the Fox6 version of the game:

 

A Milwaukee man who’s never had a driver’s license and previously served prison time for hitting and nearly killing two people – in two separate hit-and-run crashes – is now charged in a recent crash that amputated the leg of an innocent bystander....

Yes, he was in prison.  He COULD have gone in for 30 years on those counts.  Instead, he got only 7.  Who was the sentencing judge?

Fox6 won't tell you.  They play "Hide the Judge." 

Virginia Starts the War?

IF TRUE, this is interesting, and probably significant.  Grim has thoughts on it.

 Virginia’s AG just ordered election officials to:

• Deny ordinary DOJ monitors access to polls
• Tell federal agents to leave and call local police
• Document badges, weapons, vehicles & movements
• Challenge federal subpoenas
• While eliminating Election Day voter eligibility challenges

❌No specific unlawful federal operation identified—just preemptive resistance that sets up the “red line” showdown and shifts authority to the state and transfers legitimacy and control to Democratic state officials -- in Virginia's case, leftwing extremists Governor Abigail Spanberger and Attorney General Jay Jones -- 

❌This is an operational plan, not theory. 

❌The conditions for escalation are being set in advance.

Hmmm.

The Governor-ette of VA is ex-CIA.  That is an agency whose reputation is--frankly--in the shitter, and apparently for very good reason. 

Medicaid "Slashed" UP???

One thinks that Steil and Tiffany will be running ads soon.

... The latest Treasury report shows that Medicaid spending this year was up 8% compared with FY 2025. And last year’s spending was up 8% compared with FY 2024, all of which overlapped with Joe Biden’s last full year in office. Keep in mind that spending in Biden’s last year in office reflected massive increases he’d engineered allegedly to mitigate the economic effects of COVID....

IOW, Biden-the-Cabbage jacked Medicaid spend 'due to the Democrat Disease, CoVid'.

Then Trump "slashed" Medicaid, which caused Medicaid spending to go UP 8%.

Here's a question:  who benefits from that Slash-Up trick???