Israel's Retaliatory Strike Crossed an Iranian 'Red Line,' Will the Mullahs Take the Bait or Move on?

By streiff | RedState.com

AP Photo/Ariel Schalit, File

Israel carried out a drone and missile strike inside Iran Thursday night in retaliation for the massive strike on Israel Sunday. Israel targeted facilities around Isfahan in central Iran, where Iranian nuclear facilities are located.

The primary target seems to have been air defense systems around the Khatami Air Base near Isfahan. This is one of the bases from which last weekend's attack on Israel was launched.

According to reports, the US was given notice of the attack at only the last minute.

Speaking at the end of a meeting of the Group of Seven nations in Capri, Italy, Italian Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani said that the U.S. was informed by Israel “at the last minute of the attack” early Friday morning.

“There was no involvement on the part of the United States, it was only information that was provided,” he said.

 Concurrent with the attack in Iran, Israel hit air defense sites in Syria. There are no conclusive reports of damage caused by any of the strikes. The scope of the attack indicates that Iranian nuclear facilities were not the target.

Neither side is making a big deal of the attack.

Iranian and Israeli media are downplaying or ignoring the event.

Iranian state television repeatedly played down the episode in its broadcasts, saying three small flying objects had been downed by air-defense systems and suggesting they had been launched from within the country. Iran’s army chief, Abdolrahim Mousavi, told state-run media the explosions heard in Isfahan were a result of the downing of a suspicious object that caused no damage. 

...

In Israel, the military said late Thursday night that there were no changes to the home-front command instructions that tell the public when to seek shelter, indicating Israeli officials weren’t expecting a major Iranian retaliation.

Is this the end? Or is it the end of the beginning?

Israel has been under extreme pressure from the Biden White House to ignore the massive Iranian assault of Sunday. Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi warned Israel that any attack on its territory would result in a "severe response." 

Iran now has the ball in its court. It can accept this strike and move on, or it can retaliate. Last night's attack sent a clear message to the Iranian leadership. Israel was able to hit a highly defended military target in a highly defended area of Iran with impunity. The strikes in Syria have opened up an aerial highway for Israeli strike fighters should Israel decide on a larger attack. On the other hand, Israel did strike Iranian territory in defiance of a threat by Mr. Raisi, so there is some egg on the face there.

The smart move by Iran would be to take the L and move on. But making smart moves is not something the terrorist government of Iran is noted for doing.

Trump’s Brilliant Prosecution Juxtaposition Campaign

BY ATHENA THORNE | P J MEDIA

AP Photo/Yuki Iwamura

Say what you want about Donald Trump, but the man is a brilliant communicator. His builder-from-Queens bluntness sometimes manifests as obnoxiousness, but it also has produced some of the most effective messaging of our time. Has there ever been a more concise slogan than “Make America Great Again”? Into those four simple words are packed a vastness of disaffection that is otherwise indescribable even if one uses the entire dictionary. 

Brilliant.

In its will to power, the American left is nakedly kangaroo-courting Trump into silence — or at least, it's trying. But like it or not, Trump is an unabashed American hero, and he will not be silenced. Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg and Judge Juan Merchan conspire to keep the presidential frontrunner locked up in a dingy courtroom during the day, but he is free to roam after court hours. An irrepressible and brilliant marketer, Trump seizes on those hours to communicate. And he is off to a pitch-perfect start.

I often write about the horrors I see on the morning network news out of nearby New York City. Every day, a fresh violent horror is reported — sometimes more than one. And every last one of them is committed by someone who should not have been on the street. The violence, shattered lives, and fear in which normal citizens live are all attributable to New York’s politicized law enforcement policies; Marxism enforcement is a more apropos moniker. 

In his zeal to Get Trump!, DA Bragg has spun a thrice-discarded misdemeanor accusation into 34 — count ‘em — felony charges. Concurrently, he has spent little or no time removing the actual dangerous criminals from the street. Once the NYPD arrests criminals, Bragg's office releases them back into society to continue preying on innocent civilians. 

The contrast between what New York — and, by extension, any blue-ruled city as well as the Biden administration — is doing and what it should be doing is a glaring weakness for the Democrat party. Americans long for the return of the rule of law. 

And now, with the eyes of the world on the sad spectacle in Manhattan, Trump has an unparalleled opportunity to exploit the issue. He has hit the ground running. TIME covered his remarks to the media after the first day of the historic malevolent prosecution trial: 

“We’ve got a real problem with this judge,” Trump said after court adjourned on Monday, wearing his iconic wide red tie and an American flag pin stuck in his jacket lapel. “We’ve got a real problem with a lot of things having to do with this trial including the DA, because you go right outside and people are being mugged and killed all day long and he’s sitting here all day long with about 10 or 12 prosecutors over nothing, over nothing.”

On Tuesday — Day 2 of the Stalinist show trial — Trump ventured to a powerfully symbolic location to deliver his after-court remarks. In an emailed statement, the Trump Campaign said:

Tonight, President Donald J. Trump visited the New York City bodega where Jose Alba, a bodega clerk, was robbed, attacked, and, ultimately, wrongfully accused of murder after being forced to defend his life by Soros-funded D.A. Alvin Bragg.

President Trump was enthusiastically greeted by supporters, who lined the streets surrounding the Harlem bodega.

If you hadn't heard of the bodega case before, I can assure you it was a big deal to New Yorkers. People were appalled that Bragg went after a humble, elderly blue-collar worker for defending himself from one of the DA's murderous thugs who shouldn't have been in society with normal people.

Trump's pilgrimage to the site of one of Bragg's early malpractices garnered him great enthusiasm and support. The Bodega and Small Business Group issued a statement of support for the once-and-future president:

As you can see in this clip of the visit, a large crowd of supporters — in New York City — was on hand to cheer Trump on. What we are seeing is the long-awaited appearance of that fabled Republican candidate who is able to connect with minority voters in inner cities (aka those most harmed by Democrat policies of freeing criminals and importing millions of dependent illegal aliens).

CLICK HERE TO VIEW THE VIDEO..

Compare and contrast to candidate Biden's feeble visit to Scranton yesterday, where he dished out a warmed-over rehash to his sparse supporters, something about "fair share" and taxing billionaires or something zzzzzzzz.

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Brigitte Gabriel @ACTBrigitte

Huge turnout for Joe Biden in his 'hometown' of Scranton.

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May I humbly suggest that, for his next after-court campaign stump, Trump visit St. Demetrios Greek Orthodox Church in his home borough of Queens? The front steps of the church are the site of a vicious mugging during which 16-year-old Jayvaun Prince pushed 68-year-old parishioner Irene Tahliambouri down the stairs. The grandmother struck the back of her head on the concrete, fracturing her skull, and she remains hospitalized. As usual, Prince already had multiple arrests for violent assaults and robberies. Just four days earlier, he had robbed a 50-year-old woman of her wallet, purse, and car. These are serious felonies, and yet he was free to keep terrorizing innocent people almost immediately.

In a tragic footnote, the teen assailant tried to hang himself in jail. Even if he remains alive, he has little chance of having a life. If only someone had pulled him up short and held him accountable after his first (or even second or third) less serious transgression. It's a reminder that Democrats are failing not only crime victims but their attackers as well, who are also made in the image and likeness of God. Under blue governance, they never had a chance at a normal life.

Communists Betray Workers, Teachers Unions Betray Students, Civil Rights Organizations Betray Blacks

By Dennis Prager | Townhall.com

AP Photo/Mark Lennihan

The Communist Party of the Soviet Union -- like most communist parties -- came to power as the great defender of workers.

In reality, the Soviet Communist Party didn't give a hoot about Russian workers. The party was nothing more than a totalitarian organization that used workers to gain power -- and then suppressed the proletariat, just as it suppressed every other group. One of the first things the Communist Party did after attaining power was disband independent labor unions and prohibit workers' strikes. Yes, the "workers' party" banned strikes.

The one major exception was the Chinese Communist Party, which came to power as the great defender of peasants. And the CCP slaughtered about 60 million of them.

This has been the modus operandi of every left-wing group everywhere: Claim concern for some group, and use that group to fool people -- specifically, naive liberals, who share few values with the Left but have frequently served as useful idiots for the Left. Liberals do so to this day.

Teachers Unions

Teachers unions are nothing more than left-wing groups that use alleged concern for students to attain and retain power. The reality, however, is while they care about teachers, they harm students far more than they help them.

One example is teachers unions' opposition to school choice. Those who actually care about students support the right of parents to choose their children's schools -- just as many teachers do when they send their own children to schools of their choice.

A second example is teachers unions' making it nearly impossible to fire incompetent teachers.

A third example was teachers unions' demands that schools lock down for nearly two years during the COVID-19 era. The unions did so despite there being no scientific evidence in support of school lockdowns and despite ample warnings that many children would suffer intellectually, scholastically, emotionally and psychologically.

Moreover, wrote John H. Cochrane of the Hoover Institution in the Wall Street Journal, "When schools went remote, parents found out what was actually going on inside the classrooms. Teachers were coaching students to hate themselves, their country and their religious traditions and sexualizing young children."

The last point brings us to a fourth example: Teachers rob young students of their sexual innocence with premature talk of, and books that deal with, overt sexual activity, and the infamous use of drag queens to perform in front of children as young as 6 years old.

Just how left-wing teachers organizations are was made clear by the sympathetic left-wing magazine The Nation in January:

"A rank-and-file campaign inside the National Education Association is demanding the president stop 'sending military funding, equipment, and intelligence to Israel.' ... But the rank-and-file campaign goes beyond (that). ... Members want the NEA (National Education Association) to revoke its endorsement of Joe Biden for the 2024 presidential race until the president ... stops 'sending military funding, equipment, and intelligence to Israel.'"

That was only two months after Oct. 7.

Civil Rights Organizations

Most civil rights organizations are also essentially left-wing groups. They use alleged concern for blacks to attain and retain power, but they harm blacks considerably more than they help them.

A glaring example is the near-universal opposition of civil rights groups to school choice despite the fact that black Americans overwhelmingly support it. According to a 2023 RealClear Opinion Research poll, 73% of blacks support school choice -- two points more than whites. They do so because large majorities of black students in public schools perform far below grade-level standards.

The reason the largest civil rights organization, the NAACP, opposes school choice has nothing to do with concern for blacks. It is that the left-wing position -- again, the NAACP is a left-wing organization -- on school choice is dictated by teachers unions.

Other civil rights organizations' positions that harm blacks include labeling as "racist" the most effective solution to racism: widespread colorblindness; supporting separate dorms and graduations for black college students; and support for lowering academic and professional standards to facilitate black advancement.

Feminist Organizations

Feminist organizations are additional examples of essentially left-wing organizations. The group they use to attain and retain power is women. Just as other left-wing interest groups, they harm the group on whose behalf they allegedly fight -- in this case, women -- far more than they help them.

The most obvious example is the support of major feminist organizations for men who say they are women participating in women's sports.

From the website of the National Women's Law Center:

"The National Women's Law Center (NWLC) unequivocally supports the inclusion of trans women in women's sports. And if you call yourself a feminist, you should too."

From the website of The Women's Sports Foundation (WSF):

"The Women's Sports Foundation supports the right of all athletes, including transgender athletes, to participate in athletic competition. ..."

In 2022, the WSF wrote a letter to the NCAA protesting any diminution of the right of biological males who say they are females to participate in women's athletics. The letter was cosigned, as expected, by LGBTQIA+ organizations but also by two major feminist organizations in addition to the Women's Sports Federation: the National Organization for Women and the National Women's Political Caucus.

Damaging women has been the primary legacy of organized feminism for the last half-century. That there are more depressed women, especially young women, today than at any other time in modern American history is directly attributable to left-wing influence generally (no religion, no country, no future) and to feminist doctrines specifically: Career is more important than marriage and family, and women can do just fine without a man to love and be loved by.

LGBTQIA+ Organizations

Perhaps the ultimate example of left-wing contempt for the groups they claim to represent is "Queers for Palestine." Palestinian queers have no rights; they face persecution and even death if they expose themselves to their society. Israeli queers are by far the safest, happiest and freest in the Middle East. But hating Israel is the left-wing position. At any cost.

A serial perjurer will try to prove an old misdemeanor against Trump in an embarrassment for the New York legal system

By Jonathan Turley | New York Post

Former President Donald Trump’s Manhattan “hush money” case is set to begin this week. - Mary Altaffer/Pool via REUTERS/File Photo

The famous Roman philosopher and orator Marcus Tullius Cicero once said, “The more laws, the less justice.”

This week, New York judges and lawyers appear eager to prove that the same is true for cases against Donald Trump. 

After an absurd $450 million decision courtesy of Attorney General Letitia James, Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg will bring his equally controversial criminal prosecution over hush money paid to former porn star Stormy Daniels before the 2016 election.

Like his predecessor, Bragg previously scoffed at the case. However, two prosecutors, Carey R. Dunne and Mark F. Pomerantz, then resigned and started a public pressure campaign to get New Yorkers to demand prosecution.

Pomerantz shocked many of us by publishing a book on the case against Trump —  who was still under investigation and not charged, let alone convicted, of any crime. He did so despite objections from his former colleague that such a book was grossly improper.

Nevertheless, it worked. Bragg brought a Rube Goldberg case that is so convoluted and counterintuitive that even liberal legal analysts criticized it.

Trump paid Daniels to avoid any publicity over their brief alleged affair. As a celebrity, there was ample reason to want to keep the affair quiet, and that does not even include the fact that he is a married man.

It also occurred before the 2016 election and there was clearly a benefit to quash the scandal as a candidate. That political motivation is at the heart of this long-delayed case.

It is a repeat of the case involving former Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards. In 2012, the Justice Department used the same theory to charge the former Democratic presidential candidate after a disclosure that he not only had an affair with filmmaker Rielle Hunter but also hid the fact that he had a child by her. Edwards denied the affair, and money from donors was passed to Hunter to keep the matter quiet.

The Justice Department spent a huge amount on the case to show that the third-party payments were a circumvention of campaign finance laws. However, Edwards was ultimately found not guilty on one count while the jury deadlocked on the other five.

With Trump, the Justice Department declined a repeat of the Edwards debacle and did not bring any federal charge.

But Bragg then used the alleged federal crime to bootstrap a defunct misdemeanor charge into a felony in the current case. He is arguing that Trump intentionally lied when his former lawyer Michael Cohen listed the payments as retainer costs rather than a payment — to avoid reporting it as a campaign contribution to himself.

Thus, if he had simply had Cohen report the payment as “hush money,” there would be no crime.

Once again, the contrast to other controversies is telling. Before the 2016 election, Hillary Clinton’s campaign denied that it had funded the infamous Steele dossier behind the debunked Russian collusion claims. 

The funding was hidden as legal expenses by then-Clinton campaign general counsel Marc Elias (the FEC later sanctioned the campaign over its hiding of the funding).

When a reporter tried to report the story, he said Elias “pushed back vigorously, saying ‘You (or your sources) are wrong.’” Times reporter Maggie Haberman declared, “Folks involved in funding this lied about it, and with sanctimony, for a year.”

Likewise, John Podesta, Clinton’s campaign chairman, was called before congressional investigators and denied categorically any contractual agreement with Fusion GPS. Sitting beside him was Elias, who reportedly said nothing to correct the misleading information given to Congress.

Yet, there were no charges stemming from the hiding of the funding, though it was all part of the campaign budget.

Making this assorted business even more repellent will be the appearance of Cohen himself on the stand. Cohen recently was denounced by a judge as a serial perjurer who is continuing to game the system.

Cohen has a long record as a legal thug who has repeatedly lied when it served his interests. He has a knack for selling his curious skill set to powerful figures like Trump and now Bragg.

For those of us who have been critics of Cohen from when he was still working for Trump, it is mystifying that anyone would call him to the stand to attest to anything short of the time of day . . . and even then most of us would check our watches.

Fortunately witnesses are no longer required to put their hand on the bible in swearing to testify truthfully in court. Otherwise, the court would need the New York Fire Department standing by in case the book burst into flames.

So this is the case: A serial perjurer used to convert a dead state misdemeanor into a felony based on an alleged federal election crime that was rejected by the Justice Department.

They could well succeed in a city where nine out of ten potential jurors despise Trump. Trying Trump in Manhattan is about as difficult as the New York Yankees going to bat using beach balls rather than baseballs. It is hard to miss.

However, this is a Pyrrhic victory for the New York legal system. Whatever the outcome, it may prove a greater indictment of the New York court system than the defendant.

NEW: Joe Biden Green-Lit Iran's Attack on Israel

By Bonchie | RedState.com

AP Photo/Alex Brandon

In a stunning yet somehow unsurprising turn of events, evidence has now emerged that Joe Biden didn't just know about Iran's attack on Israel, but that he went so far as to green-light it through back channels.

As RedState reported, Iran launched a series of drones and ballistic missiles on Saturday at the Jewish state, with almost all of them eventually being intercepted and downed. But while Israel ponders how to retaliate, a new report includes shocking information on the leadup to the attack.

There's no way to sugarcoat that. The Biden administration told the Iranians it was acceptable to attack "within certain limits." Were those limits adhered to? That's something only the president and his handlers can answer (and never will), but given their rush to demand Israel not strike back, it would seem probable that everything went according to plan. 

This is a betrayal that is hard to fathom. If an offensive attack was getting ready to be launched against the United States and one of our allies told our enemy to go ahead with the attack "within certain limits," it would be an international scandal and the end of that alliance. Yet, Israel is just expected to take this garbage from Biden and his cohorts without questioning it. 

For Israel's own sake, I hope they respond harshly to this and re-establish deterrence. Whatever Iran has on Biden and the entire Obama alumni must be incredibly serious given the lengths these people are going to protect a terrorist state. Still, that can't be allowed to dictate policy in this arena. If Iran gets away unscathed after launching this attack, it won't hesitate to launch an attack once it has secured nuclear weapons. 

That doesn't mean a full-scale war is necessary. As I explained, Iran's current offensive capabilities are limited (as are their defensive capabilities), and any retaliatory strike against their nuclear program would not lead to a "regional war." The same would be true if their drone factories were hit.

If the Biden administration wants to continue to inexcusably support and enable Iran, Israel shouldn't play along. There's too much on the line, and if the president continues down this insane path, he will lose the election in November. That would be all the better for Israel and more importantly, Americans.

Official Statement From Biden Regarding Iran Attack on Israel

By Nick Arama | RedState.com

AP Photo/Adam Bettcher

I noted earlier how there was a report that Joe Biden would be speaking after Iran began its attack on Israel. 

But quickly, that report was called back, with media like CNN saying they were "mistaken."

Translation? Even though this is the time a real leader would come out and make a strong public statement, reassuring people and/or at least keeping people informed, Biden was not doing it and indeed calling an early lid. 

But now a written statement has been issued in his name and from his X account. Chances he himself wrote this? I wouldn't bet on it. 

Biden said he condemned the attack in the "strongest possible terms" and reaffirmed "America's ironclad commitment to the security of Israel."  

Earlier today, Iran—and its proxies operating out of Yemen, Syria and Iraq—launched an unprecedented air attack against military facilities in Israel. I condemn these attacks in the strongest possible terms.  

At my direction, to support the defense of Israel, the U.S. military moved aircraft and ballistic missile defense destroyers to the region over the  course of the past week.  Thanks to these deployments and the extraordinary skill of our servicemembers, we helped Israel take down nearly all of the incoming drones and missiles.   

I’ve just spoken with Prime Minister Netanyahu to reaffirm America’s ironclad commitment to the security of Israel. I told him that Israel demonstrated a remarkable capacity to defend against and defeat even unprecedented attacks – sending a clear message to its foes that they cannot effectively threaten the security of Israel.    

Tomorrow, I will convene my fellow G7 leaders to coordinate a united diplomatic response to Iran’s brazen attack.  My team will engage with their counterparts across the region. And we will stay in close touch with Israel’s leaders. And while we have not seen attacks on our forces or facilities today, we will remain vigilant to all threats and will not hesitate to take all necessary action to protect our people.

The problem here, in addition to the question of whether he even wrote this list, is that it's his actions that have helped to lead us to this point. He's coddled Iran, released money to them, and failed to respond strongly despite them being behind dozens of militant attacks. Then, even last week, he wouldn't veto a resolution from the UN Security Council calling for an immediate ceasefire in the Israel-Hamas war. 

What happens next? Israel will likely respond. Iran has said it's over, but if Israel or the U.S. responds, they will reconsider that thought. The possibility of it spinning out of control is still out there. 

Biden has emboldened the bad actors and it's gotten out of control. He's now trying to play clean-up and display strength, but it's a bit late. 

Middle East latest: Explosions and sirens heard in Jerusalem as Iranian drones and missiles head towards Israel

Sky News

Iran has launched "pilotless aircraft" at Israel, the Israeli military has said. Delivering a televised statement, Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari says Israel is "well prepared" for the attack.

CLICK HERE TO VIEW THE REST OF THIS ARTICLE.

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