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The U.S. budget deficit will jump to $1.915 trillion for fiscal 2024, topping last year’s $1.695 trillion gap as the largest outside the COVID-19 era, the Congressional Budget Office said on Tuesday, citing increased spending for a 27% increase over its previous forecast. The CBO said in an update to its budget outlook that higher outlays for student loan relief, Medicaid healthcare for the poor, higher Federal Deposit Insurance Corp costs to resolve bank failures, and U.S. aid to Ukraine and Israel make up the bulk of a $408 billion increase in this year’s projected deficit since February, when it forecast a $1.507 trillion deficit.

… The Israelis have regularly broken agreements with the United States regarding the use of certain weaponry as well as the supply of U.S. weapons technology to third countries … U.S. oversight regarding Israel is virtually nonexistent … The fact that the U.S. Congress is rolling out the red carpet for Netanyahu in July is particularly ludicrous in view of his history of manipulating American public and congressional opinion … Netanyahu has spoken privately about his ability to manipulate Democratic administrations because he has the power of the Jewish lobby behind him, and Democratic presidents are fearful of antagonizing the Jewish vote and Jewish fund raising on behalf of Democrats.

The charitable foundation that owns Wikipedia said it respects the decisions of its volunteer editors after receiving a letter from a broad coalition of Jewish groups calling on the foundation to override a move by editors to declare the Anti-Defamation League an untrustworthy source on Israel and Zionism. More than 40 Jewish groups signed a letter addressed to the board of the Wikimedia Foundation, saying the decision serves to make the Jewish community more vulnerable to antisemitism. “Fundamentally, Wikipedia is stripping the Jewish community of the right to defend itself from the hatred that targets our community,” the groups wrote on Monday under the letterhead of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, an umbrella group of which the ADL is a member.

In 1993, the District of Attorney of San Francisco released 700 pages of documents implicating the Anti-Defamation League, an organization that claims to be a defender of civil rights, in a vast spying operation directed against American citizens who were opposed to Israel’s policies in the Occupied West Bank and Gaza and to the apartheid policies of the government of South Africa and passing on information to both governments. Under great political pressure, Smith later dropped the charges.

British writer Nicholas Pringle collected reminiscences by men and women who served with the British armed forces during World War II, and published them in the book, The Unknown Warriors. “There were 182 responses in total. … Only three of the responses in the entire 500-page book were positive … All three were positive due to personal financial success. So naturally that leaves the rest, meaning there were 149 negative responses. The numbers speak for themselves … Immigration was by far the biggest complaint. Almost every response mentioned it. Of these immigrants it was mostly Muslims and also blacks from the Caribbean who were viewed the most negatively. Not one person referred to immigration positively.” Runtime: 59 mins.

A lot of people have been posting on social media that if the heroes of D-Day had been able to see what would happen to their countries — mainly the USA, Britain, and Canada — they would not have fought … There is documentary support for that bitter sarcasm … British author Nicholas Pringle published an appeal in the local newspapers of his country asking for men and women who’d fought or served in WW2 to offer their memories, and their opinions as to whether all the sacrifices had been worthwhile. Pringle got enough responses to publish them as a book of over five hundred pages, title The Unknown Warriors … Even discounting for ordinary geezer grumbling, though, Pringle’s respondents were remarkably negative … That’s a British perspective, but it maps pretty well into what I hear from American vets and see on social media.

… After a series of catastrophic policy mistakes by centrist leaders, there is no way back for Germany – and its decline is only going to accelerate from here … A country that prided itself on its efficiency, that saw itself as the engine of Europe and boasted of its formidable export machine was, as he put it, slipping to third world status … Germany is now in a deep hole. It is the slowest-growing economy in the G7 this year, forecast to expand by a meagre 0.2pc over 2024, significantly slower than the UK … It is hard to see any way out of this mess for the hapless Olaf Scholz … The German economy is descending to third world status, and its hapless political class has no idea how to turn that around – and it will take the rest of the eurozone down with it.Q

The Anti-Defamation League is fueling war with its attacks on those trying to stop Israeli assaults on Palestinians, and its pernicious charge that “anti-Zionism is genocide.”  / … The ADL’s framing of itself as an advocate against bias is completely belied by its advocacy for Islamophobic policy, its work to foster militarized policing and hyper-surveillance, and its clearly articulated role as an advocate for Israeli policies, including apartheid … The ADL’s reach into our conversations at this crucial time is unbelievably dangerous. We may well be on the brink of a world war, which the ADL is fueling with its insistence that Jewish safety depends on Palestinian genocide … We must stop platforming the ADL as a civil rights group. We must understand it as a political organization with political aims. Its aim is genocide, and its aim is war.

Wikipedia’s editors last week voted to declare the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), a New York–based Jewish advocacy group, “generally unreliable” on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. An overwhelming majority of editors are also said to have also voted to label the organization unreliable on the topic of antisemitism, its core focus. Dozens of Wikipedia editors stated that the ADL “should not be cited for factual information on antisemitism as well because it acts primarily as a pro-Israel organization and tends to label legitimate criticism of Israel as antisemitism” … After formal declaration, the decisions will add the ADL to the list banned and partially banned sources.

… Many once widely accepted “facts” about the Dachau camp are now discredited. It wasn’t long ago, however, when it was seriously and authoritatively claimed that people were killed in a gas chamber there. Eyewitness testimony was cited to “prove” that as many as 250,000 people were put to death in this gas chamber … No reputable historian still contends that anyone was ever killed in a Dachau “gas chamber.” … The German troops had surrendered; they were not killed in battle but were executed while prisoners of war. Germans were put on trial and executed for similar acts, but, then, the victors were the prosecutors, judges and executioners, and they write the official history … Of all the atrocities committed at Dachau (by either the Germans or the Allies) the liberation day massacre of German prisoners was probably the worst.

A new poll conducted by NORC at the University of Chicago (commissioned by the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression) shows that only 28% of Americans have a lot of trust in higher education. Academia has continued to alienate much of the country as an orthodox echo chamber. As with media outlets, the result has been falling interest and trust in these institutions. The poll asked “How much confidence, if any, do you have in U.S. colleges and universities?” Only 28% said they had a “great deal of confidence in colleges and universities.” Not surprisingly, given the ideological balance at most schools, the highest levels of trust came from Democrats and liberals. However, even this group only showed a 40% high confidence rate. Among Republicans, it drops to 12% and among independents it drops to 28%.

… Hart is among hundreds of thousands of young people who came of age during the pandemic but didn’t go to college. Many have turned to hourly jobs or careers that don’t require a degree, while others have been deterred by high tuition and the prospect of student debt. What first looked like a pandemic blip has turned into a crisis. Nationwide, undergraduate college enrollment dropped 8% from 2019 to 2022, with declines even after returning to in-person classes, according to data from the National Student Clearinghouse. The slide in the college-going rate since 2018 is the steepest on record, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Economists say the impact could be dire … In dozens of interviews with The Associated Press, educators, researchers and students described a generation jaded by education institutions.

The recent decision by U.S. congressional leaders to invite Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to address the Capitol [on July 24] has rightly sparked outrage and dismay among those who oppose Israel’s genocidal actions in Gaza. Coming as it does in the wake of the International Criminal Court’s charges against Netanyahu, this move, which aims to showcase solidarity with Israel, is deeply troubling on moral, political, and geostrategic grounds, highlighting the hypocrisy and, to put it mildly, moral ambiguity of U.S. foreign policy … Instead of standing up for justice and accountability, congressional leaders have chosen to prioritize political expediency and appease Israel at the expense of Palestinian lives.

… New York is the world’s leading Jewish City, exceeding even Israel’s Tel Aviv. More important, this city’s billionaires, many of them Jewish, are Israel’s most ardent and influential supporters. Their donations reach almost all politicians, high officials and, just revealed, important black and Hispanic members of Congress. Those American students protesting Israel’s decades of repression of Palestinians now risk having their post-university careers ruined or seriously damaged by pro-Israel pressure groups. Never before have we seen such a dramatic and intimidating display of pro-Israel power.

… The situation is now even worse: The Israel we knew is gone, and today’s Israel is in existential danger … Israel is led by a prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, who has to stay in power to avoid potentially being sent to prison on corruption charges … Add it all up and you see a reckless act of economic, military and moral overstretch – committing seven million Jews to control more than seven million Palestinians (including two million Israeli Arabs) between the river and the sea in perpetuity. That would be madness in a time of peace. In a time of war – a low-grade three-front war that could become a high-grade three-front war any day – it is insane. Israel is increasingly alone, because what ally would want to partner with that agenda? … For now Israel needs to get the hell out of Gaza and back into a timeout.

The United States on Friday imposed sanctions on the neo-Nazi Nordic Resistance Movement and several of its leaders, designating them terrorists as Washington seeks to combat violent white supremacy, the U.S. State Department said. The action designates Sweden-based NRM and three of its leaders as “specially designated global terrorists,” the State Department said in a statement. NRM is the largest neo-Nazi group in Sweden and has branches in Norway, Denmark, Iceland and Finland …

Why does it seem the Pentagon is far better at spending money than actually putting together a successful operation? The failed “Operation Prosperity Guardian” and the disastrous floating Gaza pier are but two recent examples of enormously expensive initiatives that, though they no-doubt enriched military contractors, were incapable of meeting their stated goals … The Wall Street Journal published a devastating article revealing that after spending more than one billion dollars on munitions alone, the operation had failed to deter the Houthis and failed to re-open commercial shipping in the Red Sea … Meanwhile, the article informed us that a continued US effort to fight the Houthis over Red Sea shipping was “not sustainable.”

The UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry (COI) provides a detailed analysis of the Hamas attack on Israel on October 7 and the Israeli assault on Gaza. The report finds both sides committed war crimes but concludes there is no evidence to support the claim that Hamas engaged in mass rape during its rampage in southern Israel. The COI found evidence of Israel intentionally killing civilians and Israeli forces engaged in acts of sexual torture … The COI found evidence to back the Palestinian claims that Israel is engaging in systemic sexual torture and humiliation … The Israeli forces inflicted sexual torture on males, according to the COI. “Males were repeatedly filmed and photographed by soldiers while subjected to forced public stripping and nudity, sexual torture and inhumane or cruel treatment,” the report found.

… Such adulation morphed into electoral triumph on Sunday when 31.4 per cent of the French voted for Marine Le Pen’s impeccably dressed, carefully groomed and well-spoken protégé … But it was not just Mr [Jordan] Bardella who was drawing swarms of young voters. Germany’s hard-Right Alternative for Germany (AfD) also surged in the polls, propelled in part by voters under the age of 30. One poll published on Sunday showed that 32 per cent of 18-34 year-olds voted for the RN in France, more than double the total of the 2019 European elections. In Germany, the AfD saw an 11 per cent jump in its vote share among 16-to-24 year-olds, claiming a total of 16 per cent. It saw big jumps in 25-44 year-olds, too … Many young voters say mainstream parties are not tuned in to their concerns – at worst hardly speaking their language.

Dragged down in important part by disapproval over the U.S. position on the Gaza war, the popular image of the United States abroad has declined over the past year, according to a new poll of public opinion in 34 countries released Tuesday by the Pew Research Center. The survey, the latest in an annual series that dates back more than two decades, also found that international confidence in U.S. democracy has fallen. A median of four in ten of the more than 40,000 respondents said U.S. democracy used to be a good model for other countries to follow but no longer is. That view was most pronounced in the ten European countries covered by the poll … In ten of the 21 countries that were also surveyed last year, however, favorable views fell by six percentage points or more …

… Mention of the Jewish men who had founded Hollywood’s big studios and turned California into the global capital of filmmaking: the Warner Brothers, Samuel Goldwyn, Louis B Mayer, or their contemporaries … “When you talk about the founding of Hollywood studios, you’re talking about the Jewish founders.” … The featured studio bosses could be, well, rather unpleasant at times … Without Jews, many of whom fled Eastern Europe for the American west coast to avoid pogroms in the early 20th century, cinema as we know it would look very different. Schmuel Gelbfisz, Lazar Meir and the Wonsal brothers are not names you would associate with entertainment heavyweights. The fact is that they changed their given Jewish names to Goldwyn, Mayer and Warner because they thought they would be more acceptable to Americans.

… Even many of those who readily acknowledge the tremendous influence of American film and television seem not to fully comprehend the formidable scope of the power behind Hollywood, or the outlook and agenda of those who wield that power … Hollywood, together with the rest of the Jewish-Zionist dominated US media, sensationalizes and distorts current events, systematically falsifies history, promotes debased “entertainment” and perverse cultural standards, and makes possible the Jewish-Zionist hold on American political life …

… The Jewish denial that Hollywood is controlled by Jews is a great lie which can be attested to by anyone who has ever been associated with the film industry … It is positively insulting for them to deny their influence and power — particularly when they themselves are continually boasting in their own circles about their “overrepresentation” in these fields. And it is absolutely infuriating when this denial reaches the point that non-Jews are attacked by Jewish agitators and Zionist zealots for stating obvious facts and truth.

The Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs has lodged a formal protest against Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko, following his controversial remarks suggesting that Jews “steal without thinking.” During a recent meeting on corruption, Lukashenko stated, “There is a list of 30 suspects here. Forgive me, I’m not antisemitic, but more than half of the accused are Jewish.” He further commented, “What’s going on here? Have they [the Jews] assumed a special privileged status? Stealing and not thinking about their future? In Belarus, everyone is equal before the law. Jews, Belarusians, Ukrainians, Russians, and also Poles. Everyone.” The remarks prompted a swift response from the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

European voters revolted against their political leaders in last week’s continent-wide parliamentary votes. The result was a bombshell: right-wing parties made huge gains, shaking the existing order to its foundations and sending warning signals to voters in the US, Britain, and Canada …What caused this political earthquake? The answer is simple: immigration … The recent parliamentary elections in Europe – that brought over 300 million to the polls – cannot be ignored. They are a salvo of protest from voters who want immigration halted. They don’t want to see Europe go multicultural, multi-ethnic, lesbian, gay and third world. They want the traditional Europe of high culture, white society, and fiscal caution.

… Focusing on whether Trump is guilty in this case or whether the trial was politically motivated misses a much bigger point. Either way, the crimes he has been convicted of are small fry compared to the crimes of state that he committed while in office. And these crimes are, at most, only marginally worse than those committed by every US president in living memory, irrespective of which of the two major parties they have belonged to … Clearly, it is time we take a step back from the narrow focus on Trump’s latest legal wranglings. Focusing on his shady business dealings committed when out of office obscures the fact that, if there were any justice in this world, Trump as well as all his recent predecessors would be tried for much bigger crimes of state that dwarf in severity anything about hush money payments or falsifying business records.

No aspect of the American Civil War left behind a greater legacy of bitterness and acrimony than the treatment of prisoners of war. “Andersonville” still conjures up images of horror unmatched in American History. And although Northern partisans still invoke the infamous Southern camp to defame the Confederacy, the Union had its share of equally horrific camps. Prison camps on both sides produced scenes of wretched, disease-ridden and emaciated prisoners as repulsive as any to come out of the Second World War … In addition to camps for captured soldiers, the North also established concentration camps for civilian populations considered hostile to the Federal government.

Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY) told Tucker Carlson that the American Israel Public Affairs Committee has designated representatives assigned to each Republican member of Congress to ensure the lawmakers vote for bills Israel supports. Appearing on Friday’s edition of The Tucker Carlson Show, Massie explained some of AIPAC’s tactics to sway lawmakers. The congressman told Carlson that he banned AIPAC from his office after the group lobbied against his reelection. Massie said the bad blood began when he refused the group’s request to write a white paper on Israel when he first ran for Congress. “I have Republicans, you come to me on the floor and say, ‘I wish I could vote with you today. Yours is the right vote, but I would just take too much flak back home,’” Massie stated.

Robby Soave and Jessica Burbank discuss a conversation between Tucker Carlson and Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) about AIPAC, the influential pro=Israel lobby group, and its hold on the US Congress. Every Republican Congressman has an “AIPAC babysitter,” says Massie, who guides each lawmaker on how to further Israeli interests. “Everybody but me has an AIPAC person — like your AIPAC babysitter, who is always talking to you for AIPAC,” Massie said. “Every member has something like this?” Tucker Carlson asked. “Every Repub –, I don’t know how it works on the Democrat side, but that’s how it works on the Republican side …” “That’s crazy,” Carlson responded. “So, I’ve had four members of Congress say, ‘I’ll talk to my AIPAC person’ — that’s literally what we call them, ‘my AIPAC guy,'” Massie said. Runtime: 9:34 mins.

Former US lawmaker Cynthia McKinney says every candidate for Congress must pledge to support Israel’s military superiority in the region and continued large-scale US funding for the Zionist state, or risk losing the ability to raise funds for election campaigns. “If you don’t sign the pledge, you don’t get money,” she says in this interview with Marzieh Hashemi, an American-born journalist who lives in Iran. “You make a commitment that you would vote to support the military superiority of Israel, that the economic assistance that Israel wants, that you would vote to provide that,” she adds. If a candidate does not sign the pledge or perform accordingly, “then you do not get money to run your campaign,” McKinney says. After she made the pledge public, she says, the tactic changed, but the basic requirement remained. Runtime: 9:51 mins.

If one were to argue that a top Spanish government official would someday declare that “from the river to the sea, Palestine would be free”, the suggestion itself would have seemed ludicrous. But this is precisely how Yolanda Diaz, Spain’s Deputy Prime Minister, concluded a statement on May 23, a few days before Spain officially recognized Palestine as a state. The Spanish recognition of Palestine, along with the Norwegian and Irish recognition, is most important. Western Europe is finally catching up with the rest of the world regarding the significance of a strong international position in support of the Palestinian people and in rejection of Israel’s genocidal practices in occupied Palestine … The perception and language pertaining to Palestine and Israel are changing among ordinary people across the world.

A four-day election has shaken the foundations of the European Union, with the far right rocking ruling parties in France and Germany, the bloc’s traditional driving forces. For the next five years it will be harder for the European Parliament to make decisions. French President Emmanuel Macron called snap national elections after Marine Le Pen’s National Rally humbled his pro-European centrists in the polls. German Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s Social Democrats also suffered as the extreme-right Alternative for Germany shrugged off scandals to make massive gains … Green and pro-business liberal groups across Europe suffered heavy defeats, but mainstream formations held their ground, with the center-right European People’s Party remaining the biggest bloc in the 27-nation EU’s assembly.

Most Black Americans say they’ve experienced racial discrimination regularly or from time to time, which colors how they view U.S. institutions like policing, the political system and the media, according to a study on conspiracy theories … The study found that more than 8 in 10 Black Americans surveyed agreed with the statement that “Black people are more likely to be incarcerated because prisons want to make money on the backs of Black people.” And more than 6 in 10 Black adults surveyed agreed that institutions such as the criminal justice system, the country’s economic system and policing are designed to hold Black people back … In medicine, the survey found that 55% of those surveyed said they agreed with the statement that “medical researchers experiment on Black people without their knowledge or consent.”

Long considered one of the best medical schools in the world, the University of California, Los Angeles’s David Geffen School of Medicine receives as many as 14,000 applications a year … In interviews with the Free Beacon and complaints to UCLA officials, including investigators in the university’s Discrimination Prevention Office, faculty members with firsthand knowledge of the admissions process say it has prioritized diversity over merit, resulting in progressively less qualified classes that are now struggling to succeed. Race-based admissions have turned UCLA into a “failed medical school,” said one former member of the admissions staff … The bar for underrepresented minorities is “as low as you could possibly imagine,” one committee member told the Free Beacon. “It completely disregards grades and achievements.”

Former President Donald Trump complained in an interview with Fox News’s Sean Hannity about the Israel lobby not having as much influence over Congress as it once did and vowed he would be a staunch supporter of Israel if re-elected. “You know, Israel was the most powerful lobby in the country 15 years ago. Today, between Tlaib and AOC, and all of these people, what they’re doing. Israel, they don’t have the backing that they once had,” Trump said … Trump made similar comments about Israel’s influence in Congress in an interview with Israel Hayomback in March. “Some 15 years ago, Israel had the strongest lobby. If you were a politician, you couldn’t say anything bad about Israel, that would be like the end of your political career,” he said.

Academic fraud is forcing Wiley, a major publisher of scientific journals, to close 19 journals after some were overwhelmed by industrial-scale research fraud. In the last two years, Wiley has retracted over 11,300 papers containing some fraudulent content. Academic publishing is a major industry … The sources of the fake science are “paper mills” — businesses or individuals that, for a price, will list a scientist as an author of a wholly or partially fabricated paper … While articles in scientific journals are supposed to disseminate scientific information, it has devolved into self-promotion. Scientific publishing is how scientists let their peer group know how brilliant they are. It has also become a proxy for productivity. The more papers you are listed as an author on, the better your chances of advancement. 

It is impossible to watch the photographic documentation of the ugly, violent demonstrators during Wednesday’s parade of Jewish supremacy through the streets of Jerusalem without hearing Prof. Yeshayahu Leibowitz’s warning echoing in the background … “The general spirit was that of revenge,” wrote Haaretz journalist Nir Hasson, who was assaulted by a gang of teens who hurled him to the ground and kicked him. “The leading symbol on the marchers’ shirts was the Kahanist fist, the popular chant was a particularly bloody revenge song, alongside chants of ‘Death to Arabs’ and ‘May their village burn.’ … The overall atmosphere was frightening.” … The rioters threatened, cursed, shoved and attacked Palestinian passersby and anyone they identified as a journalist or who tried to film them.

A recent poll by the Forsa Research Institute, conducted last week, has shown a significant shift in German public opinion regarding Israel’s military offensive in Gaza. Commissioned by the German weekly magazine, Stern, the poll found that 61 per cent of Germans disapprove of Israel’s actions in the Gaza Strip, with only one-third still in support. This marks a dramatic change from a November poll after the 7 Octoberattacks, when 62 per cent of Germans supported Israel’s military response, and only 31 per cent were opposed. The change in opinion spans all German political parties, including the Social Democrats, coalition partners, the Greens, and the largest opposition party, the centre-right Union, as well as some members of the far-right Alternative for Germany, who are now opposing Israeli military action.

No figure of modern French history is as honored as Charles de Gaulle … In 1940 he refused to accept his country’s defeat by Germany, and from London he founded and led the pro-Allied “Free French” force during World War II. From 1944 to 1946 he headed the provisional government of France. In 1958 he was called from retirement by popular acclaim to resolve the seemingly unsolvable crisis over Algeria … During the years that he dominated his country’s political life – 1958-1969 – he charted an independent foreign policy, tied neither to the US nor the USSR, and strove to make France the preeminent nation in Europe … It’s impossible to read any lengthy biography of this man without admiration for his audacious self-confidence, courage, determination, and cunning.

Israel organized and paid for an influence campaign last year targeting U.S. lawmakers and the American public with pro-Israel messaging, as it aimed to foster support for its actions in the war in the Gaza Strip, according to officials involved in the effort and documents related to the operation. The covert campaign was commissioned by Israel’s Ministry of Diaspora Affairs … The ministry allocated about $2 million to the operation and hired Stoic, a political marketing firm in Tel Aviv, to carry it out, according to the officials and the documents. The campaign began in October and remains active on the social platform X. At its peak, it used hundreds of fake accounts that posed as real Americans on X, Facebook and Instagram to post pro-Israel comments. The accounts focused on U.S. lawmakers …

The soldiers who landed in Normandy on D-Day were greeted as liberators, but by the time American GIs were headed back home in late 1945, many French citizens viewed them in a very different light. In the port city of Le Havre, the mayor was bombarded with letters from angry residents complaining about drunkenness, jeep accidents, sexual assault — “a regime of terror,” as one put it, “imposed by bandits in uniform.” This isn’t the “greatest generation” as it has come to be depicted in popular histories. But in “What Soldiers Do: Sex and the American G.I. in World War II France,” the historian Mary Louise Roberts draws on French archives, American military records, wartime propaganda and other sources to advance a provocative argument …

… Far from being universally welcomed as liberators, many troops had a distinctly surly reception from the people of Normandy. The reason for this was simple. Many Normandy towns and villages had been literally obliterated by Allied bombing … Some 20,000 French civilians were killed in the two-and-a-half months from D-Day, 3,000 of them during the actual landings … “It was rather a shock to find we were not welcomed ecstatically as liberators by the local people, as we were told we should be … They saw us as bringers of destruction and pain,” Mr Roker wrote in his diary … In his book, Mr Hitchcock raises another issue … Allied looting, and worse. “The theft and looting of Normandy households and farmsteads by liberating soldiers began on June 6 and never stopped during the entire summer,” he writes.

… [Thomas] Jefferson in early 1784 presented Congress with his own currency plan. Instead of inventing a new unit, as the Morrises had done, he proposed relying on the most familiar coin then in use, the Spanish dollar, which would henceforth be called the U.S. dollar … Jefferson, however, proposed to divide the U.S. dollar into tenths, hundredths, and thousandths, arguing that such divisions are mathematically simpler and would lead to fewer mistakes. This seems self-evident to us today but was far less so to eighteenth-century Americans … Thanks to Jefferson, the U.S. dollar became the first decimal currency in the world, serving as a model for all modern currencies.

A majority of Britain’s young people do not believe Israel should exist, a new UnHerd poll has revealed. A preliminary finding of an exclusive survey of 1,012 voters about foreign policy, conducted by Focaldata and due to be released tomorrow on UnHerd, found that a striking 54% of 18-24-year-olds agreed with the statement that “the state of Israel should not exist.” Just 21% disagreed … The war’s high degree of exposure online and on social media appears to have fuelled interest among Britain’s young … As the Israeli war enters its eighth month, public opinion has slowly shifted in Palestine’s favour … Overall level of support for the Jewish state over the same time frame has plummeted to 16%, according to YouGov figures.

… Even in protest, the Israeli “peace camp,” over the years, has generally been starkly utilitarian: pragmatic, not principled, objecting not to Palestinian “civilian casualties,” but to Israeli “strategic” blunders … Israelis appear oblivious to the unutterable, irreversible, irremediable ruin adjacent … Protesters merely want regime change … Genocidal statements saturate Israeli society … On the facts, and, as I have had to, sadly, show here, both the Israeli state and civil society are driven by Jewish supremacy, the kind that sees little to no value in Palestinian lives and aspirations. That the Jewish State is genocidal is not in dispute. But, commensurate with the surveys shared above, and as many have quite reasonably concluded, Jewish-Israeli civil society is sick, too. … Israelis, by and large, have become a solipsistic sorority of Jewish supremacists.

I’ve long criticized our current US justice system – on all levels – as becoming much more about political justice than blind justice. The bizarre trial and conviction of former President Donald Trump last week on 34 felonies only reinforces my concerns …  Regardless of one’s view of Donald Trump, it is a disturbing development in our society when justice is treated more like a football game where you root for your “team” rather than a way of preserving our freedom and liberty in an equal way for all … The politicization of justice is not limited to the Democratic Party. The wind sown by political opponents of Donald Trump may well become the whirlwind they reap when their own political opponents are in positions of power. When that is the case, we all lose.

… Israel bonds are state-issued securities — comparable to US savings bonds — that the Israeli government sells to support general spending. The money from the bonds is deposited directly into the “general budget” for the State of Israel. The capital raised is not earmarked or publicly disclosed … Yet it is American states and municipalities that have emerged over the past 20 years as a primary investor in these sovereign bonds. In the six months following the Hamas attack, at least 14 states and four municipalities invested in Israel bonds … The lawsuit in Palm Beach will likely be just the first of a wave of forthcoming legal challenges to Israel bonds. As it stands, American taxpayers are being forced to buoy the Israeli economy as it brutalizes Palestinians from Gaza to the West Bank.

… As dramatic as D-Day was, on any measure of scale, it does not rank among the ten biggest battles of World War II. (All of the top ten were fought on the eastern front.) Yet it has to be regarded as among the very most decisive battles of the war — and certainly one of the most stupendous accomplishment of American arms in particular … Hastings points out that, except for artillery, Allied equipment was consistently inferior to its German counterpart: Despite the huge Allied investment in technology, the Germans produced better rifles, better grenades, better machineguns, better antitank weapons, better tanks, and better aircraft. Most serious of all: the Germans consistently outmaneuvered and outfought the Allies in Normandy, especially the British.

…  Most Americans, British and Canadians believe that D-Day was the decisive stroke that ended WWII in Europe. But this is not true. Germany’s mighty Wehrmacht, which included the Luftwaffe, was destroyed by Stalin’s Soviet Union … The most important point of the great invasion is that without it, the Red Army would have reached Paris and the Channel Ports by the end of 1944, making Stalin the master of all Europe except Spain. Of course, the Allies could have reached a peace agreement with Germany in 1944, which Hitler was seeking and Gen. George Patton was rumored to be advocating. But the German-hating Churchill and left-leaning Roosevelt were too bloody-minded to consider a peace that would have kept Stalin out of at least some of Eastern Europe.

… In a flurry of support on Thursday, mega donors including Israeli-American casino billionaire Miriam Adelson and hotelier Robert Bigelow lined up behind Trump, with their donations set to bolster a wave of pro-Trump ads, door-knocking and phone banking in battleground states. Adelson, the widow of Sheldon Adelson, will donate to Preserve America, according to US media reports, which said it was unclear how much she would give. The stalwart pro-Israel couple gave the super PAC $90 million during the 2020 presidential election, in which they were among Trump’s biggest donors. They also backed Trump during the 2016 election and were leading advocates of moving the US Embassy in Israel to Jerusalem.

Antisemitic remarks have flooded China’s heavily censored online platforms and the Israeli government’s Chinese social media accounts since the Hamas attacks on Israel. Scores of online Chinese commentators and netizens quickly rallied for Gaza after the Hamas attacks began Oct. 7, accusing Israel of oppressing Palestinians for decades, and saying Israel deserves the bloodshed … “Wherever the Jews have gone, they have always been massacred. There’s a reason why. You only love Jews when they are not in your area,” wrote online commentator Vincent … Other comments praised “Little Mustache” as many Chinese people refer to Germany’s Adolf Hitler … A Weibo account run by China’s state-owned CCTV claimed the Jewish community dominates U.S. finance and politics …

… After Oct. 7, China’s internet — from message boards to video platforms to social media — suddenly flooded with viciously anti-Israel and antisemitic comments. Pointing to Israel’s actions against the Palestinians, people have said things ranging from support for Hitler and Nazi Germany to the idea that oppressed Jews have become oppressive Nazis … It’s not just a phenomenon on social media. State media, such as the Chinese Communist Party-backed national news broadcaster CCTV, claimed that “Jews represent just 3% of the American population but control 70% of its wealth … these factors can be used to exert incomparable influence on politics.” The CCTV video has since been removed …

An officer of Austria’s federal military gives a lucid, detailed briefing on the current military situation in Ukraine, and what’s likely to happen next. Colonel Markus Reisner analyzes and explains the strategic, operational and tactical approach of the Russian armed forces during their second winter offensive and now, at the beginning of an upcoming Russian summer offensive. He explains the current Ukrainian defensive measures, and the daunting challenges that Ukraine’s armed forces currently face. As Russian military forces continue to gain the upper hand in the conflict, he shows, a major Russian offensive can be expected in the coming weeks. Briefing of May 29, 2024. Runtime: 23:31 mins.

… An investigation by the Guardian and the Israeli-based magazines +972 and Local Call can reveal how Israel has run an almost decade-long secret “war” against the International Criminal Court (ICC). The country deployed its intelligence agencies to surveil, hack, pressure, smear and allegedly threaten senior ICC staff in an effort to derail the court’s inquiries. Israeli intelligence captured the communications of numerous ICC officials, including Khan and his predecessor as prosecutor, Fatou Bensouda, intercepting phone calls, messages, emails and documents. The surveillance was ongoing in recent months, providing Israel’s prime minister, Bejamin Netanyahu, with advance knowledge of the prosecutor’s intentions.

… The focus on Netanyahu is a convenient distraction from the fact that the war in Gaza is not Netanyahu’s war, it is Israel’s war — and the problem isn’t only Netanyahu; it’s the Israeli electorate … The thousands of Israelis who are once again turning out to march in the streets are not protesting the war. Except for a tiny handful of Israelis, Jews, and Palestinians, they are not calling for a cease-fire or an end to the war — or for peace. They are not protesting Israel’s killing of unprecedented numbers of Palestinians in Gaza or its restrictions on humanitarian aid that have led to mass starvation … They are certainly not invoking the need to end military occupation, now in its 57th year.

In what might sound like something out of Louis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland, or for the more modern twist, Seinfeld’s Bizarro World, two Republican congressmen have introduced legislation that would extend the same employment protections to Americans serving in the Israeli army as Americans who leave work and home to serve the U.S. military. In other words, no different than U.S. National Guardsman or Reservists, they are just fighting for another country. “Over 20,000 American citizens are currently defending Israel from Hamas terrorists, risking their lives for the betterment of our ally,” said Rep. Guy Reschenthaler (R-PA) … According to the Washington Post, as of February, some 23,380 American citizens are currently serving in the Israeli Army, many of them emigres to Israel …

The Wall Street Journal reports that today’s college students are so lonely, sad, and socially anxious that they grab their dining hall food to go — preferring to eat in their rooms. Time spent in dining halls is down 40 percent, according to Degree Analytics, a college data company. Attendance at sporting events, clubs, and even dorm meetings is down too … The story documents classroom changes too — and not just at the fancy colleges. The changes include less class participation and more students handing in half-finished assignments. … It’s no surprise that mental health on campus is reportedly decreasing. One in seven students has considered suicide this past year, according to a Healthy Minds study …

Some 126 of the Tory party’s 344 MPs have accepted funding from pro-Israel lobby groups, Declassified has found. The revelation comes as Rishi Sunak calls a general election in which his unequivocal backing of Israel could cost the party votes. The value of the donations or hospitality amounts to over 430,000 pounds [$547,000], with the organisations paying for sitting Conservative MPs to visit Israel on 187 occasions. … The main funder is Conservative Friends of Israel, a parliamentary group which does not disclose its own sources of funding. Other notable donors include the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), Australia-Israel Cultural Exchange, and the European Leadership Network. Thirteen Tory politicians have accepted over £50,000 in total to travel to Israel since 7 October, including for “solidarity” missions.

Human Rights Watch co-founder Aryeh Neier, a Jew who left Third Reich Germany as a child, explains why he has come to the conclusion that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza. Interview with Fareed Zakaria, host of CNN’s “GPS” show. Runtime: 9:55 mins.

Human Rights Watch is the best-known and arguably the most influential among Washington elites of any of the many human rights organizations in the United States. So when HRW issues an unsparing, 200-plus page legal and factual report concluding that Israeli government authorities are guilty of the crime of apartheid, it is a very big deal … The take-away is this: Human Rights Watch now acknowledges that Israel’s policies are designed to maintain Jewish domination over Palestinians across all the territory it controls, from the river to the sea. And Israel is guilty of the crime of apartheid … Ultimately there is only one answer to that resistance, equal rights. These truths are becoming clearer to all outside observers …