Headlines

Americans are in a negative mood about the current state of the country, with large majorities expressing dissatisfaction with the economy and overall national conditions. And when they look toward the not-too-distant future, they see a country that in many respects will be worse than it is today, according to a new Pew Research Center survey. Sizable majorities of U.S. adults say that in 2050 – just over 25 years away – the U.S. economy will be weaker, the United States will be less important in the world, political divisions will be wider and there will be a larger gap between the rich and the poor. Far fewer adults predict positive developments in each of these areas. And when Americans reflect on the country’s past, the present looks worse by comparison.

Scores for eighth-graders in U.S. history and civics are down across the nation, according to the latest data released Wednesday by the National Assessment of Educational Progress. Data from the Nation’s Report Card revealed that U.S. history scores declined from 236 in 2018 to 258 in 2022, a steady decline that began in 2014. This marks the lowest scores have been since the assessment began in 1994. The new data marks the first-ever drop in civics scores, declining from 153 in 2018 to 150 in 2022 … Only 14% of students reached at or above “proficient” scores in U.S. history, while only 22% of students met the same benchmark in civics … It also follows the decline in reading and math among fourth- and eighth-grade students.

Although the pace of China’s economic rise has slowed in recent years, it appears on track to end the United States’ lengthy run as the world’s largest economy by around 2035, according to the latest projection by economists at Goldman Sachs. The new estimate is 10 years later than the investment bank had predicted in 2011. But economists Kevin Daly and Tadas Gedminas said that potential growth in China still remains significantly higher than in the US … China’s annual economic growth will be around 4 per cent from 2024 to 2029, compared with 1.9 per cent in the US, according to the report, which projects what the global economy will look like through 2075.

Young people in three European countries are sharply critical of the world’s two most powerful countries, a study has found. They are concerned about the US’s role as the “world’s policeman” and China’s growing economic might, says US-based Pew Research Center. The findings are based on focus groups with some 120 adults aged 18-29 in the UK, France and Germany. Participants were from across the ideological spectrum. Many voiced concerns about how the US has wielded its power on the global stage and criticised its actions abroad as self-interested. “Across all three countries and four ideological groupings, young Europeans are steadfast in the opinion that the US acts as the world’s policeman to the detriment of the world community,” the researchers wrote.

In early March, Syria’s foreign ministry condemned a surprise visit by Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Mark Milley to an army base in northeast Syria, with Syrian media dubbing it “illegal” and a “flagrant violation of the sovereignty and integrity” of Syrian territory, adding that the US ought to “immediately” cease support for “separatist armed groups”. The article, published by VOA, also casually notes that the US has “about 900” troops deployed in “several bases and posts across northeastern Syria” allegedly as part of the fight against ISIS. Nearly a decade since US forces officially entered Syria and ISIS is still America’s reason for staying? How is this possible after numerous assurances from US officials – including a US president – that ISIS has been defeated?

A bipartisan group of hawks in Congress announced a new resolution on Tuesday that calls for the U.S. to seek the restoration of Ukraine’s 1991 borders and to bring Ukraine into NATO after the war is over. Reps. Joe Wilson (R-S.C.) and Steve Cohen (D-Tenn.) are co-sponsoring what they call the Ukrainian Victory Resolution, and have been framing it, perhaps not surprisingly, with the lofty rhetoric of World War II. So far the bill has 18 bipartisan co-sponsors. “We must not repeat the error of Sept. 1, 1939,” Wilson told Yahoo News, referencing what is now held by many as the “Munich moment” and appeasement of Adolf Hitler before the Nazi invasion of Poland. Senators Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.), and Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) have also introduced their own, similar resolution in the Senate.

An eminent British historian provides a brilliant, devastating critique of the widely accepted, “official” view of the origins of World War II. The war between Germany, Poland, Britain and France that broke out in September 1939, he shows, was not the result of an intentional plan by Hitler. “Far from wanting war, a general war was the last thing he wanted,” Taylor writes. “The war of 1939, far from being premeditated, was a mistake, the result on both sides of diplomatic blunders.” This edition includes a bibliography and index, and a “Second Thoughts” response to critics. This controversial and intensely discussed work earned praise from respected British journals. The New Statesman called it “A masterpiece: lucid, compassionate, beautifully written.”

In this scholarly article, excerpted from his book, The Forced War, Dr. Hoggan examines the secret war aspirations of President Franklin Roosevelt. Hoggan also shows how Poland’s leaders, bolstered by assurances from London of military backing, sought to provoke war with Germany. During the months prior to the outbreak of war in September 1939, he explains, Poland’s provocation of Germany was frequent and extreme. Hitler had more than sufficient justification to go to war with Poland.

When it comes to the news media and the impact it’s having on democracy and political polarization in the United States, Americans are likelier to say it’s doing more harm than good. Nearly three-quarters of U.S. adults say the news media is increasing political polarization in this country, and just under half say they have little to no trust in the media’s ability to report the news fairly and accurately, according to a new survey from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research and Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights. The poll … shows Americans have significant concerns about misinformation — and the role played by the media itself along with politicians and social media companies in spreading it …

In the mainstream US media, a rotating cast of “experts” and “analysts” present a one-sided view of the Ukraine war, pushing the message that the US must degrade and punish Russia and its leaders for attacking Ukraine by giving the Kyiv government massive military aid and support. Along with the leaders of both major US political parties, the mainstream media has been pushing this narrative for more than a year. Who are these single-voiced “experts” and “analysts”? In this episode of “Backspace,” Sana Saeed digs into the American “military-industrial media complex,” and the apparent motives of those behind the campaign, and shows how it molds public opinion in conformity with US high-level US policy. Runtime: 14 mins.

According to an April report released by watchdog group OpenTheBooks.com, the Internal Revenue Service has spent $10 million since 2020 on guns, ammunition, and other tactical gear in an effort to militarize the agency. The report revealed that the IRS and 102 other agencies outside the Department of Defense invested a combined total of $3.7 billion since 2006 – adjusted for inflation – on weapons, ammunition, and military-style equipment. OpenTheBooks.com stated that 76 of the 102 are rank-and-file regulatory agencies, such as the Environmental Protection Agency, Social Security Administration, Veterans Affairs, and Health and Human Services. “There are now more federal agents with arrest and firearm authority (200,000) than U.S. Marines (186,000),” the watchdog group’s report noted.

In The Culture of Critique, Kevin MacDonald advances a carefully researched but extremely controversial thesis: that certain 20th century intellectual movements – largely established and led by Jews – have changed European societies in fundamental ways and destroyed the confidence of Western man. He claims that these movements were designed, consciously or unconsciously, to advance Jewish interests even though they were presented to non-Jews as universalistic and even utopian. He concludes that the increasing dominance of these ideas has had profound political and social consequences that benefited Jews but caused great harm to gentile societies.

The social and political climate in the United States has become fertile ground for antisemitism in recent years, according to a report released on Monday by advocacy group Anti-Defamation League and the Tel Aviv University. Expressions of hatred against Jews have become “mainstreamed and normalized,” and incidents of violence, vandalism, and harassment of Jews have increased, the report said … A version of the “great replacement theory” cloaked in “more moderate and not overtly antisemitic language” has broadly spread in segments of the Republican Party, the report said … The conspiracy theory fosters the belief that leftist and Jewish elites are engineering the ethnic and cultural replacement of white populations with non-white immigrants … The report also said that the political left wing has pushed antisemitism as well …

… Retail crime has been rising throughout the US for the past five years, with organized criminal rings targeting stores everywhere … The National Retail Federation reported that store losses mounted from $453,940 per $1 billion in sales in 2015 to $719,458 in 2020 … Shoplifting no longer fits its traditional mold as a nonviolent crime perpetrated mostly by teens or substance-abusing adults. Nearly two-thirds of the retailers surveyed by the National Retail Federation said that violence associated with store thefts has risen, led by organized gangs that resell the goods they steal. Like retailers, top law-enforcement officials place some of the blame for the crime surge on a widespread lessening of penalties for shoplifting.

A developing medical school trend to ditch the Medical College Admission Test (MCAT) requirement may not bode well for the future of the profession, medical watchdog group Do No Harm told the Daily Caller News Foundation. Approximately 40 medical schools across the country have dropped the MCAT, a multiple choice exam that determines an individual’s ability to problem solve, think critically, and understand concepts about medical study, as a requirement for some applying students, according to a list compiled by Inspira Advantage. Do No Harm alleged that dropping the requirement is another way schools aim to bolster diversity on campus but asserted that it is a “dangerous trend,” according to its analysis.

A senior adviser at the Pentagon repeatedly said the United States’ support for Israel was the result of “Israeli lobby” money, and accused prominent officials, including Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, of becoming “very very rich” from their support for Israel. Retired Army Col. Douglas Macgregor, who was appointed as senior adviser to newly installed acting Defense Secretary Christopher Miller this week [Nov. 2020], made the comments in two media appearances in 2012 and 2019 … “The same thing is largely true for Mr. Pompeo, he has aspirations to be president,” he added. “He has his hands out for money from the Israeli lobby, the Saudis and others.” An outspoken critic of American foreign policy and “endless” wars, Macgregor also said the Israel lobby has “enormous influence” on Congress …

In a follow-up to his explosive story accusing U.S. President Joe Biden of ordering the sabotage of the Nord Stream pipelines, veteran U.S. journalist Seymour Hersh charged Wednesday that the White House — in collaboration with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz — is attempting a “cover-up of its operation” by “feeding” false alternative narratives to the press, most prominently The New York Times. … Citing an anonymous official with “access to diplomatic intelligence,” Hersh wrote that “certain elements in the Central Intelligence Agency were asked to prepare a cover story in collaboration with German intelligence that would provide the American and German press with an alternative version for the destruction of Nord Stream 2.”

The Southern Poverty Law Center’s famous list of “hate” groups is under fire in a courtroom in Alabama, where a judge has opened the door for a group that opposes illegal immigration to challenge the SPLC for slapping it with the Scarlet H. The Georgia-based Dustin Inman Society and founder D.A. King say they work against illegal immigration but have no problem with legal immigrants … He says it’s defamation for the SPLC to call him an “anti-immigrant hate group.” The SPLC asked a judge to toss the case, but U.S. District Judge W. Keith Watkins refused in a ruling last week. He said Mr. King should have a chance to develop his case and seek more evidence against the SPLC through discovery … Mr. King still has a high hill to climb. Defamation cases are almost impossible to win, particularly for those deemed “public figures” …

… Since its founding, the SPLC had been treated — at least in the mainstream media — as an unquestioned arbiter of what qualifies as racism and hatred. Being added to the SPLC’s “Hate List” was the death-knell for any number of organizations that ran afoul of Dees … Things started unraveling Dees and the SPLC in 2018, when the organization was forced to settle with Maajidd Nawaz for more than $3 million … All of these clearly indicate that Dees and his behavior, as well as the corrupt nature of the SPLC’s ever-expanding fundraising, was well known, particularly on the left — yet it was ignored … The SPLC may be corrupt. It may even be racist and sexist. But for those seeking to silence their political opponents, the SPLC is useful. For that reason alone, it is likely to endure.

… The SPLC [Southern Poverty Law Center] is so effective because it exercises power through multiple levels, each building on the other … The SPLC’s influence within law enforcement is magnified by how the organization’s reports of “hate groups” are dutifully reprinted by national outlets every year, despite the fact that many of these groups are either innocuous (such as the Family Research Council) or practically nonexistent. Many local papers also easily generate copy by simply referring to what “hate groups” exist in their area, thus inspiring local watchdog groups and Antifa to begin organizing against a threat which may not even exist … The SPLC serves not just as an activist group, but as an authority determining who is and who is not permitted to operate a group or business.

In a major policy speech, Anti-Defamation League CEO Jonathan Greenblatt doubled down on his argument that anti-Zionism is antisemitism, emphasized the threat to visibly Orthodox Jews and accused the New York Times of an “antisemitic attack” in its coverage of Hasidic movements … Greenblatt, tacked to the center, remaining focused on a message he sounded at the same summit a year ago — that anti-Zionism is unquestionably antisemitism. “I know that for bigots — especially those who self-style as ‘anti-Zionists’ — Israel’s Independence Day is a day to redouble their efforts to make sure it is Israel’s last Independence Day,” he said, adding later, “To underscore what I said at this event last year: Anti-Zionism is antisemitism. Full stop.”

A recent Pentagon study revealed that most Americans do not meet the health requirements to serve in the military, without a special waiver for their disqualifying conditions — raising concerns about a shrinking pool of recruits that has only grown as an issue in recent years. Mental health and weight were the leading conditions that increased between 2013 and 2020 in the United States, the study noted. Many are ineligible for multiple reasons, rather than only one, at 44 percent. As far as those who were disqualified for one reason, 11 percent were overweight. Drug use followed at eight percent … Only 12 percent of available American youth, ranging from the age of 17 to 24, were eligible.

… A much-needed antidote to this [official] story is provided by Benjamin Abllow’s recent book, How the West Brought War to Ukraine. Based on the critiques of a range of scholars, US government officials and military observers, and on his own investigations and interpretations, Abelow shows in compelling detail how the official story misleads. His short, seventy-one-page book is a compendium of the many ways that the Russian invasion of Ukraine was provoked … Abelow’s conclusion about the war in Ukraine is notable: “when all is taken into account, primary responsibility lies with the West, in particular with the United States.”

The woke Disney corporation does not just own radio, TV, and movie properties, it also owns several giants in the publishing industry. Now its wide-ranging layoffs of some 7,000 employees has hit the staff at the 135-year-old National Geographic magazine. According to the Washington Post’s Eric Whemple, Disney’s cost cutting campaign has hit the staff of National Geographic particularly hard … Disney has owned National Geographic for more than five years … The Mouse House also owns Disney Publishing Worldwide (DPW), which was formerly known as The Disney Publishing Group and Buena Vista Publishing Group. DPW also own Marvel Press, Lucasfilm Press, Disney Comics, ESPN Books, ABC Daytime, and many other imprints.

Walt Disney was one of the great American artists of the 20th century. This needs to be recognised. So here I am, Walt, coming to the rescue, aided by an exhibition at the Grand Palais in Paris that celebrates Disney’s films as visual art… What Disney actually achieved was not to diffuse an American banality worldwide but, in a world that was becoming ever more banal and forgetful, to preserve the old oral storytelling of the pre-industrial world. Few artists have done as much as Disney to humanise modernity; the magical proof of this is one of his last films.

For more than 40 years, the company founded and built by Walt Disney offered popular, well-crafted entertainment that upheld American values and traditions. Its films and television programming — even if sometimes sugary — epitomized, to use the much-mocked phrase, wholesome family entertainment. It was the work largely of one man, Walter Elias Disney (1901-1966), a gifted illustrator, brilliant filmmaker and genial entrepreneur who left a lasting mark on American popular culture.

Even in the White House officials know that Israel practices apartheid, but they can’t say so publicly, they have to cling to the two-state paradigm, says a Beltway scholar, Marc Lynch, who co-authored a breakthrough report in Foreign Affairs using the word apartheid to describe Israeli rule … For many years, Palestinians have said, Israel imposes apartheid. In time, public figures such as Jimmy Carter and Betty McCollum and Rashida Tlaib and Jim Klutznick (of Americans for Peace Now) echoed that view. Then two years ago a number of human rights groups, notably Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International, joined the chorus with reports labeling Israeli rule “apartheid.” … And now a respected poll reveals that 44 percent of Democrats say that Israel is “a state with segregation similar to apartheid” …

In a scene that will soon stream on Hulu, a group of early Christian bishops gathers to set a promotion strategy for their newish religion — to “make the Bible an international blockbuster,” as one puts it. But the plot is unclear: “Who are the bad guys in this story?” asks one. He and his fellow clerics consider two options: the Jews and the Romans. “Let’s make them the Jews, for sure,” says a bishop. “They run everything,” says another. And thus the First Council of Nicaea, a gathering in 325 C.E. that is considered the birth of Christian antisemitism, gets the Mel Brooks treatment in “History of the World Part II,” the long-awaited sequel to the classic Mel Brooks film that revolves around Jewish history — and skewers it … The series aims to retain Brooks’ signature combination of sharp parody, vaudevillian vulgarity and Borscht Belt antics.

The country’s cultural divides and political divides have become one and the same, according to a new national NBC News poll. The poll finds stark partisan differences on major cultural issues — racism, accepting LGBTQ people, the term “woke,” and even the fundamental goals of American society. Half of Americans — 50% — believe society should be promoting greater respect for traditional social and moral values, while 42% say society should be encouraging greater tolerance of people with different lifestyles and backgrounds. That perspective has stayed almost completely stagnant since the poll asked the same question in 2013. Digging into those numbers reveals a deep partisan divide.

The state of California is one step closer to paying reparations to Black residents whose ancestry goes back to the American slave trade. The California Reparations Task Force released estimates, as well as breakdowns of the methodology used to determine the amounts, on Monday ahead of a critical vote that will take place later this week … As outlined by the San Francisco Chronicle, an eligible resident who lived in California their whole life and was 71 or older could, in theory, receive as much as $1.2 million … Those who qualify could receive various payments to compensate for the injustices of “over-policing” of Black communities, discrimination in housing, and inequity in the health care system …

… On or around Oct. 17, 2020, then-senior Biden campaign official Antony Blinken called up former acting CIA director Mike Morell to ask a favor: he needed high-ranking former US intelligence community officials to lie to the American people to save Biden’s lagging campaign from a massive brewing scandal … So, according to newly-released transcripts of Morell’s testimony before the House judiciary Committee, Blinken “triggered” Morell to put together a letter for some 50 senior intelligence officials to sign – using their high-level government titles – to claim that the laptop story “had all the hallmarks of a Russian disinformation campaign.” In short, at the Biden campaign’s direction Morell launched a covert operation against the American people to undermine the integrity of the 2020 election.

… Tucker Carlson was one of a kind among commentators in the vast journalistic wasteland otherwise known as television news. Indeed, on issue after issue in recent years Tucker treaded forthrightly where his MSM competitors in both print and broadcast media feared to go. Perhaps that was because he was deeply informed, historically read and literate and possessed of an incisive, open, inquisitive mind that was not about to play passive stenographer to either the Deep State or the lobbies and corporate interests that suffuse the Washington beltway. Accordingly, Tucker has been nearly alone in smoking out the big issues of our time with a unique breadth, edge and consistency that neither Republican shills like Sean Hannity nor DNC conduits like Anderson Cooper and Rachel Maddow could hope to approach.

Two members of New Hampshire’s Executive Council are calling for the removal of a historical marker, saying they’re appalled by a decision to commemorate a woman who was a staunch member of the Communist Party. The historical marker for Elizabeth Gurley Flynn was installed earlier this week. Flynn was a feminist and labor activist, and founding member of the American Civil Liberties Union, who joined the Communist Party in 1936, causing her expulsion from the ACLU in 1940. “She’s a figure of great significance in terms of history,” activist Arnie Alpert said. She was sent to prison in 1951 under the Smith Act, which set criminal penalties for advocating the overthrow of the U.S. government. The two Executive Council members said it promotes communist propaganda because of Flynn’s ties to the former Soviet Union.

Harry Belafonte, who died April 25 at age 96, looked to Jewishness at first to express his hope for America, and eventually to convey his bitter disappointment in the nation’s destiny. Born in Harlem, Belafonte joined the U.S. Navy as a teenager where he learned about antisemitism and “Jews being crucified in gas chambers,” as he told a gathering at Anshe Emeth Memorial Temple, New Jersey, in 2016. Postwar drama studies at Manhattan’s New School for Social Research acquainted him with a group of talented Jewish contemporaries … His pride may be linked to the fact that as he revealed belatedly in a 2011 memoir, he had a Dutch Jewish paternal grandfather … He persisted in engaging with Hebrew and Israeli culture, despite occasional disappointments with Jewish professional colleagues.

The Israeli authorities are using an experimental facial recognition system known as Red Wolf to track Palestinians and automate harsh restrictions on their freedom of movement, Amnesty International said today. In a new report, Automated Apartheid, the organization documents how Red Wolf is part of an ever-growing surveillance network which is entrenching the Israeli government’s control over Palestinians, and which helps to maintain Israel’s system of apartheid. Red Wolf is deployed at military checkpoints in the city of Hebron in the occupied West Bank, where it scans Palestinians’ faces and adds them to vast surveillance databases without their consent. Amnesty International also documented how Israel’s use of facial recognition technology against Palestinians in occupied East Jerusalem has increased …

More murders across America are going unsolved, exacerbating the grief of families already reeling and worsening the largely cracked trust between police and the public, especially communities of color most affected by gun violence … While the rate at which murders are solved or “cleared” has been declining for decades, it has now dropped to slightly below 50 percent in 2020 — a new historic low. And several big cities, including Chicago, have seen the number of murder cases resulting in at least one arrest dip into the low to mid-30% range … That makes the U.S. among the worst at solving murders in the industrialized world. Germany, for example, consistently clears well over 90% of its murders.

… The second and third biggest bank failures in US history have followed in quick succession. The US Treasury and Federal Reserve would like us to believe that they are “idiosyncratic”. That is a dangerous evasion. Almost half of America’s 4,800 banks are already burning through their capital buffers … Somebody will take those losses. “It’s spooky. Thousands of banks are underwater,” said Professor Amit Seru, a banking expert at Stanford University … The full shock of monetary tightening by the Fed has yet to hit. A great edifice of debt faces a refinancing cliff-edge over the next six quarters … A Hoover Institution report by Prof Seru and a group of banking experts calculates that more than 2,315 US banks are currently sitting on assets worth less than their liabilities.

After a San Francisco Target store was forced to lock down its entire inventory due to skyrocketing theft, a California business leader has slammed the state’s ultra-soft on crime policies for letting brazen shoplifters and drug addicts get away with crimes time and again … Michelin says the root of the problem lies with the Safe Neighborhoods and Schools Act, also known as Prop 47, which downgraded crimes like theft of goods under $950 from felonies to misdemeanors. Many have criticized the policy as a free pass for shoplifters to keep stealing while barely getting a slap on the wrist as punishment. These repeated offenders have plagued California retail chains in recent years …

The state of Arkansas is refusing to pay a Jewish doctor for a talk he delivered at a public university because he declined to promise not to boycott Israel. Dr. Steve Feldman, a dermatologist, delivered a Zoom lecture to University of Arkansas at Little Rock medical students in February, for which he was entitled to a $500 honorarium from the state. But Feldman said that the state is withholding payment because he refused to sign a pledge, required for public contractors under Arkansas law since 2017, to commit to not boycotting Israel … Arkansas is one of dozens of states that have passed laws aiming to combat the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement targeting Israel. The laws either bar the state from investing in companies that boycott Israel or, as in Arkansas’ case, mandate that state contractors promise not to boycott the country.

… The only reason the US government is able to run up such huge deficits without experiencing a complete economic meltdown is the dollar’s world reserve currency status. But the growing de-dollarization movement-fueled by the US government’s fiscal recklessness and hyper-interventionist foreign policy should be a wake-up call to Congress … The government’s fiscal situation will soon worsen, as both the Social Security and Medicare trust funds will likely be bankrupt within the next decade, forcing Congress to find an additional $116 trillion to fully fund them. The looming economic crisis is a symptom of our moral and philosophic crisis.

While the left is busy hating on Tucker Carlson, and not without reason, it is missing the bigger picture. Carlson was a genuine aberration in US corporate media. Which is why he is gone – sacked by media “titan” Rupert Murdoch. Yes, over the years Carlson played on white fears, placing him firmly on the right. But he also gave over his massive corporate platform at Fox News to some of the most critical and thoughtful independent journalists and pundits around – from Glenn Greenwald and Aaron Mate to Jimmy Dore … In that way, he exposed ordinary Americans to critical perspectives, especially on US foreign policy, that they had no hope of hearing anywhere else – and most certainly not from so-called “liberal” corporate media outlets like CNN and MSNBC. And he did so while constantly ridiculing the media’s craven collusion with those in power.

Today [April 28], Governor Ron DeSantis visited Israel as part of his international trade mission where he signed House Bill 269 to provide law enforcement agencies with new enforcement mechanisms to punish perpetrators of antisemitic incidents and those who target religious communities. By signing HB 269, Governor DeSantis has once again made Florida a leader on protecting religious liberty and the State of Israel both in the United States and around the world. Governor DeSantis also signed a proclamation to celebrate the 75th anniversary of Israel’s independence “In 2019, I had the opportunity here in Israel to sign into law groundbreaking legislation to root out antisemitism from our public education system, establishing Florida as a leader in protecting religious liberty,” said Governor Ron DeSantis.

Florida governor and presumptive presidential nominee Ron DeSantis was spotted dining in Jerusalem this week with Israeli-American billionaire Miriam Adelson. She was among several major Republican donors at the dinner hosted Wednesday by Larry Mizel, an American businessman who helped found the Museum of Tolerance where the meal was being held. Mizel was the finance chairman for Donald Trump’s presidential campaign office in Colorado during the 2016 race. DeSantis sat in between Mizel and Adelson, according to Axios, which broke the story. Miriam and her late husband, casino mogul Sheldon Adelson, backed DeSantis during his successful 2018 gubernatorial run, donating $500,000 to the Friends of Ron DeSantis PAC. DeSantis is likely seeking Adelson’s support once again …