Columbia Israel Divestment Protests Turn Ugly

by | Apr 25, 2024 | CNN, Outside The Beltway

I didn’t think all that much of it when Columbia University’s president called in police to break up a small sit-in a few days back. But the situation has since turned into a full-blown crisis, with even the White House forced to issue statements.

CNN (“Columbia University faces full-blown crisis as rabbi calls for Jewish students to ‘return home’“):

Columbia University is facing a full-blown crisis heading into Passover as a rabbi linked to the Ivy League school urged Jewish students to stay home and tense confrontations on campus sparked condemnation from the White House and New York officials.

The atmosphere is so charged that Columbia officials announced students can attend classes and even possibly take exams virtually starting Monday – the first day of Passover, a major Jewish holiday set to begin in the evening.

Tensions at Columbia, and many universities, have been high ever since the October 7 terror attack on Israel by Hamas. However, the situation at Columbia escalated in recent days after university officials testified before Congress last week about antisemitism on campus and pro-Palestinian protests on and near campus surged.

The latest crisis has opened Columbia President Minouche Shafik up to new attacks from her critics, with Republican US Rep. Elise Stefanik demanding she step down immediately because school leadership has “clearly lost control of its campus.”

Rep. Virginia Foxx, the Republican chair of the House Education Committee, sent a letter on Sunday to university leaders warning them of consequences if they do not rein in protests on campus.

“Columbia’s continued failure to restore order and safety promptly to campus constitutes a major breach of the University’s Title VI obligations, upon which federal financial assistance is contingent, and which must immediately be rectified,” Foxx wrote.

Underscoring concerns about student safety, Rabbi Elie Buechler, a rabbi associated with Columbia University’s Orthodox Union Jewish Learning Initiative on Campus, confirmed to CNN’s Jake Tapper on Sunday that he sent a WhatsApp message to a group of about 300 mostly Orthodox Jewish students “strongly” recommending they return home and remain there.

In his message, Buechler wrote that recent events at the university “have made it clear that Columbia University’s Public Safety and the NYPD cannot guarantee Jewish students’ safety.”

“It deeply pains me to say that I would strongly recommend you return home as soon as possible and remain home until the reality in and around campus has dramatically improved,” the message reads.

The situation at Columbia has even drawn the attention of the White House, joining local leaders in urging calm.

“While every American has the right to peaceful protest, calls for violence and physical intimidation targeting Jewish students and the Jewish community are blatantly antisemitic, unconscionable, and dangerous,” White House spokesperson Andrew Bates said in a statement shared with CNN on Sunday. The statement did not include examples of those incidents.

President Joe Biden similarly said Sunday, “Even in recent days, we’ve seen harassment and calls for violence against Jews. Tï»żhis blatant antisemitism is reprehensible and dangerous – and it has absolutely no place on college campuses, or anywhere in our country.”

In response, organizers of the protest — Columbia University Apartheid Divest and Columbia Students for Justice in Palestine — said in a statement, “We have been peaceful,” and distanced themselves from non-student protestors who have gathered outside the campus, calling them “inflammatory individuals who do not represent us.”

“We firmly reject any form of hate or bigotry and stand vigilant against non-students attempting to disrupt the solidarity being forged among students – Palestinian, Muslim, Arab, Jewish, Black and pro-Palestinian classmates and colleagues who represent the full diversity of our country,” the activists’ statement continued.

New York Gov. Kathy Hochul said on X  that threatening Jewish students with violence is antisemitism. “The First Amendment protects the right to protest but students also have a right to learn in an environment free from harassment or violence,” the Democratic governor said.

In a statement, New York Mayor Eric Adams said the city’s police department has an “increased presence of officers” in the area around Columbia’s campus “to protect students and all New Yorkers on nearby public streets.”

The Democratic mayor said he was “horrified and disgusted with the antisemitism being spewed at and around the Columbia University campus.”

NYT (“Columbia University to Hold Classes Remotely After Weekend Protests“) adds:

Columbia University announced early Monday that it would hold classes remotely after a wave of agitated protests on campus over the weekend that drew widespread attention from city and national officials and raised safety concerns for some Jewish students.

The university’s president, Minouche Shafik, said in a letter to the Columbia community, “We need a reset,” adding that she felt sadness about how the university’s bonds had been severely tested in recent weeks. She urged students who do not live on campus not to travel there.

[
]

In the coming days, a working group of deans, university administrators and faculty members will work to bring the crisis to a resolution, Dr. Shafik said.

“That includes continuing discussions with the student protesters and identifying actions we can take as a community to enable us to peacefully complete the term and return to respectful engagement with each other,” she said.

There are competing claims here, with leaders of the pro-Palestine student protests claiming that the calls for violence against Jews are coming from other pro-Palestine activists unaffiliated with the university. And there are Jewish students who are part of the former.

It’s possible, likely even, that Buechler sees highlighting the dangers here as politically advantageous, as association with antisemitism serves to delegitimize the protests. But it’s clear that a significant number of Columbia’s Jewish student population (which reportedly numbers 5000, roughly 23% of the undergraduate population and 16% of the graduate student body) feel unsafe.

Granted that, almost by definition, student protestors are young and immature, the whole thing is just bizarre. I understand why people who would be outraged at the actions of the Israeli government in Gaza, where noncombatants are dying and suffering at an alarming rate. I even understand why they would be angry at the Biden administration for backing the Israeli war effort. But, surely, Jewish students at Columbia are not responsible for either set of policies.

Calls for divestiture of whatever investments the Columbia endowment has in Israel is, I suppose, a reasonable demand and grounds for protest. But that would be a hell of a lot more sympathetic without antisemitic rhetoric.

UPDATE: There is some skepticism in the comments about the nature of the threats to Jewish students. An article in the Columbia Spectator (“Rabbi advises Jewish students to ‘return home as soon as possible’ following reports of ‘extreme antisemitism’ on and around campus“) provides additional context.

Pro-Israel counterprotesters stood on the Sundial on Saturday evening waving Israeli and U.S. flags and playing Israeli and Jewish music and the U.S. national anthem from a loudspeaker. In front of the Sundial, an individual held a sign reading “Al-Qasam’s Next Targets” with an arrow pointing at the protesters. Al-Qassam is the military wing of Hamas.

Other individuals at the Sundial referred to the Israeli flags as “Nazi flags,” according to another video.

“What’s funny about Hamas killing Jews? What’s funny about it?” Rachel Freilich, CC ’27, one of the students on the Sundial, asked a student who was laughing and taking pictures or recording on his phone, according to another video.

“It had me wondering if someone on my campus not only is just going to glorify and justify Hamas’ terror attacks, call on them to come and kill me next, and then laugh about it, like why should I stay here, at a place that seems to be failing to protect me and calling on terrorists to come into the University and kill me?” Freilich told Spectator.

In another video from Saturday night, individuals at the Sundial shouted at the pro-Israel protesters, “Go back to Europe” and “All you do is colonize.”

[
]

According to a video taken Saturday reviewed by Spectator, a pro-Palestinian protester on campus near the 116th Street and Amsterdam Avenue gates tried to burn an Israeli flag, and another individual appeared to throw an object at the head of Jonathan Lederer, CC ’26, who was part of a group of counterprotesters.

“You have blood on your hands,” one person shouted. “You’re a genocidal maniac,” another said.

Lederer said in an interview with Spectator that “there was no Public Safety to be seen while I was absolutely assaulted.”

“Two people threw some heavy-weighted bag at my face, and I felt totally vulnerable in that moment,” Lederer said. “I assumed that at a protest like that there would be Public Safety standing around, NYPD standing around. No one could be seen.”

As the students were exiting campus from the 116th Street and Amsterdam Avenue gates on Saturday night, there were calls from individuals outside of campus of “Yehudim [Jews], yehudi [Jew], fuck you,” “Stop killing children,” and “Go back to Poland, go back to Belarus,” according to a video reviewed by Spectator.

David Lederer, SEAS ’26, told Spectator he felt “unsafe.”

“For the last six months, they’ve been chanting, ‘We don’t want no Zionists here.’ Now they’re openly saying, ‘Go back to the gas chambers,’” Lederer said.

He said that when the group left campus, they asked both Public Safety to escort them back to their dorms and the New York Police Department to check on their safety, but that neither did.

On Broadway near the 116th Street subway station, protesters chanted, “We say justice, you say how? Burn Tel Aviv to the ground,” according to a video posted by Students Supporting Israel President Eden Yadegar, GS/JTS ’25, on Instagram on Saturday night.

One Columbia College senior, who spoke on condition of anonymity citing safety concerns, said that while she was walking with a friend while wearing a Star of David necklace on Saturday evening on campus near Earl Hall, someone turned to them and said, “Fuck you.”

The student said she left campus “as soon as I could” because of the experience.

Parker De DekĂ©r, CC ’27, told Spectator that on Wednesday night, when he was walking by Lerner Hall wearing a yarmulke, someone sitting at the tables outside of Lerner shouted, “You keep on testifying, you fucking Jew.” When he exited campus, he removed his yarmulke.

“That was an emotional thing because I never would consider having to take off my religious symbolism as a means of safety,” De DekĂ©r said.

De DekĂ©r continued that as he was helping a friend move his luggage through Lerner Hall on Thursday evening while wearing a yarmulke, one individual said, “We are so happy that you Zionists are finally leaving campus,” and another said, “You wouldn’t have to leave if you weren’t a supporter of genocide.”

On Friday afternoon, De DekĂ©r said that while leaving campus and getting into an Uber, an individual on Amsterdam Avenue shouted an antisemitic slur at him, telling him to “Keep on walking.” De DekĂ©r has since decided to leave campus for the time being and is staying with a friend outside of New York state.

De Dekér said that he does not classify the encampment itself as antisemitism.

“Them sitting there and sharing their rights to free speech and advocating for peace in the Middle East is not antisemitism. I want to make that very clear,” he said. “What is antisemitism, though, is the numerous experiences of which I have had experience.”

[
]

On Thursday afternoon, during a protest of the NYPD encampment sweep at South Lawn, one onlooker outside Butler Library held up a sign that read, “Google ‘Dancing Israelis,’” which refers to a conspiracy theory that the Israeli intelligence agency Mossad orchestrated the attacks on the Twin Towers on Sept. 11, 2001.

“‘Dancing Israelis?’ That’s antisemitic,” someone said, according to a video. “I support Palestine. That’s antisemitic. Get that shit out of here.”

“I speak for myself,” the protester later said. “So fuck yourself. The fact that someone gets offended by something doesn’t make it not true.”

Elisha Baker, CC ’26, said in an interview with Spectator that the poster “falls into a pattern, an age-old pattern of antisemitism being manifested as Jew haters blaming the Jews for the world’s problems.”

As three Jewish students were speaking to the NYPD outside the campus gates at 116th Street and Amsterdam Avenue on Thursday night, someone shouted, “Remember the seventh of October,” according to a video reviewed by Spectator. Another added, “Never forget the seventh of October.”

“That will happen not one more time, not five more times, not 10 more times, not 100 more times, not 1,000 more times, but 10,000 times,” someone shouted.

“The seventh of October is about to be every day,” another person shouted.

Protesters then chanted, “Nazi bitches.”

Apes spotted on horseback at San Francisco beach for ‘Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes’ promotional shoot

by | Apr 25, 2024 | Fox News

San Francisco tourists and locals were in for a shock on Wednesday, April 24, when they spotted apes riding horseback. 

Not real apes, of course, but actors dressed up as ones, which looked pretty realistic. 

This spectacle was at Crissy Field in San Francisco, where three actors dressed as apes rode along the beach on horses with a small camera crew following alongside them. 

THOUGHT-PROVOKING AND CLIMACTIC SPACE-RELATED MOVIES THAT WILL CAPTIVATE YOU THROUGH BOUNDLESS JOURNEYS

The three apes on horseback were being filmed, with the Golden Gate Bridge as a stunning backdrop, for a commercial promoting “Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes,” according to the San Francisco Chronicle. The movie is set to hit theaters next month. 

Those passing by marveled at the interesting scene playing out before them, but they were not the first. The horse-riding apes were also spotted early in the week in Los Angeles, riding along Venice Beach, according to the source. 

So, if you’re in California, keep your eyes peeled, as the marketing tactic could continue at another location. 

‘IF’, ‘THE KARATE KID’, ‘DEADPOOL 3’ AND OTHER HIGHLY ANTICIPATED FILMS OF 2024

“Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes” is the 10th overall film in the franchise and the fourth since the 2011 reboot “Rise of the Planet of the Apes.” 

This franchise dates way back to the 1960s, when the first movie, “Planet of the Apes” came out in 1968. “Beneath the Planet of the Apes” followed in 1970, with “Escape From the Planet of the Apes” releasing the next year. 

The following year, 1972, brought “Conquest of the Planet of the Apes” and “Battle for the Planet of the Apes” came out in 1973. 

It was not until 2001 that a remake hit theaters. “Planet of the Apes” was directed by Tim Burton and starred Mark Wahlberg, Tim Roth and Helena Bonham Carter. 

Then, in 2011, a new saga began, with the reboot “Rise of the Planet of the Apes.” In 2014, “Dawn of the Planet of the Apes” was released, with “War of the Planet of the Apes” following in 2017. Andy Serkis played Caesar, the main ape in the films. 

The newest movie, “Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes,” stars a new cast, with Freya Allan playing the main human character, Mae, and Owen Teague playing Noa, one of the leading apes of the story. Kevin Durand and Peter Macon also star in the film. 

This film takes place 300 years after the last movie. The general premise of the sci-fi series explores a futuristic world where humans and apes are at odds for power. 

Click here to see original article

Radical NPR chief Katherine Maher’s top secret agenda

by | Apr 25, 2024 | Fox News

Editor’s note: The following column was first published in City Journal .

The Color Revolution is restless. Beginning in the former Soviet republics in the early 2000s, it moved along the coast of North Africa with the so-called Arab Spring in the 2010s, and, into the current decade, has spread further.

The ostensible purpose of Color Revolutions—named after the Rose Revolution, Orange Revolution, and Tulip Revolution in Georgia, Ukraine, and Kyrgyzstan, respectively—is to replace authoritarian regimes with Western liberal democracies. American and European intelligence services are often heavily involved in these revolutions, with ambitions not only to spread modern ideologies but also to undermine geopolitical opponents.

The West’s favored methods of supporting Color Revolutions include fomenting dissent, organizing activists through social media, promoting student movements, and unleashing domestic unrest on the streets. Americans hold varying opinions on such efforts, but what many don’t realize is that they occur not only overseas but also here in the United States. The summer of rioting following the death of George Floyd , which ushered in the new DEI regime, was in many ways a domestic Color Revolution, advanced by progressive NGOs, media entities, and political actors.

SUSPENDED NPR WHISTLEBLOWER BLASTS CEO KATHERINE MAHER: LACKS PERSPECTIVE ON WHAT AMERICA ‘IS ALL ABOUT’

A minor figure in these movements, a woman named Katherine Maher , has recently come to greater prominence. Maher was involved in the wave of Color Revolutions that took place in North Africa in the 2010s, and she supported the post-George Floyd upheavals in the United States in the 2020s. She was also the CEO of the Wikimedia Foundation, which runs the online encyclopedia Wikipedia, and was just recently named the new CEO of National Public Radio.

At NPR, Maher has already been embroiled in controversy. Longtime editor Uri Berliner, who has now resigned, accused her of left-wing bias and suppressing dissent. Following these accusations, I did extensive reporting demonstrating that Maher has a troubling history of arguing against the notion of objective truth and supporting censorship in the name of democracy.

Now I have gathered additional facts that raise new questions about Maher’s role as a regime-change agent, both foreign and domestic. She has brought the Color Revolution home to America.

In the first part of her career, Maher seemed to follow the wave of U.S.-backed revolutions through the Middle East and North Africa.

KATHERINE MAHER’S PAST POLITICAL ACTIVITY FLIES IN THE FACE OF NPR’S ETHICS HANDBOOK

She had the perfect background for this kind of work. She held  a degree in Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies from New York University and had studied in Cairo and Damascus. And, at every step, she had managed to connect with powerful institutions, repeating their slogans and climbing their ranks. (Maher did not respond to request for comment.)

During the volatile Arab Spring period, under a constantly rotating series of NGO affiliations, Maher went to multiple countries that were undergoing U.S.-backed regime change. Beginning in 2011, for example, she traveled  multiple times to Tunisia, working with regime-change activists and government officials. In 2012, she traveled  to a strategic city on the Turkey-Syria border, which had become  a base for Western-backed opposition to Bashar al-Assad. That same year, she traveled  to Libya, where the U.S. had just overthrown strongman Muammar Gaddafi.

During much of 2011, Maher worked for the National Democratic Institute, a government-funded NGO with deep connections to U.S. intelligence and the Democratic Party’s foreign policy machine. The organization was “set up to do independently what CIA had done covertly worldwide,” says national security analyst J. Michael Waller. While initially some distance supposedly existed between NDI and the intelligence services, that relationship has devolved back to “the gray zone,” per Waller, and it appears that they often work in concert. “NDI is an instrument of Samantha Power and the global revolution elements of the Obama team,” Waller explains. “It has gone along with, and been significant parts of, color revolutions around the world. It is very much a regime-change actor.”

American adversaries such as China agree with this sentiment and have accused NDI of being a “second CIA.” Some nations, fearing American interference, have banned  NDI from operating in their territories. In 2012, for example, Egypt accused  NDI and other organizations of serving as unregistered foreign agents and working “in coordination” with U.S. intelligence to subvert the Egyptian state.

NEW NPR CEO’S SOCIAL MEDIA POSTS SHOW PROGRESSIVE VIEWS, SUPPORT FOR CLINTON, BIDEN

During her time at NDI, Katherine Maher was “part of a revolutionary vanguard movement,” says Waller.

I have obtained access to several now-deleted blog posts written by Maher during this period, which support Waller’s thesis and shed additional light on her work at NDI. In August 2011, Maher wrote a post  about NDI’s work in Libya, which was then in the midst of its revolution: Gaddafi was still alive and U.S.-backed rebels had set up a headquarters in the city of Benghazi. During the conflict, Maher wrote, “a member of the NDI Middle East team walked into our office and asked how difficult it would be to wire downtown Benghazi” for Internet communications.

This was not mere democratic institution-building but a plan to provide communications to Libya’s political and military opposition, in the middle of a civil war. Maher seemed to suggest that restoring connectivity was essential to overthrowing Gaddafi’s government. (NDI did not end up executing the plan, according to Maher; Internet was restored through other means.)

The Internet, Maher learned , was a key asset on the new battlefield. The primary lesson of the Arab Spring was that Western technology—social media, encrypted messaging, mobile connectivity—had become a powerful tool of regime change. Twitter, in particular, was an asset for dissidents  in Egypt, Tunisia, and elsewhere.

Over time, however, some of those dissidents grew skeptical of Maher, who seemed to be using the same platforms to penetrate activist and opposition circles. In 2016, after Maher became the CEO of the Wikimedia Foundation—to the puzzlement of some observers—one of her Tunisia contacts accused her of working with the CIA. “Katherine Maher is probably a CIA agent,” said  Slim Amamou, a digital activist and cabinet minister in Tunisia’s transition government, who had spent a significant amount of time with her. “[S]he was constantly trying  to get introduced in the activist social network.”

5 THINGS VETERAN NPR EDITOR EXPOSED IN STUNNING CRITICISM OF OWN EMPLOYER’S LIBERAL BIAS

Maher responded defensively, shaming Amamou for supposedly turning against her, and denying the charge. “I’m not any sort of agent,” she said . “Don’t defame me.”

There is no way to discern whether Maher was an agent, asset, or otherwise connected with the CIA. But her official status, however interesting it may be to speculate about, is irrelevant. In practice, Maher was undoubtedly advancing the agenda of the national security apparatus and working to advance the agenda of the Color Revolution.

The promotion of “democracy,” however, does not stop overseas. A Color Revolution has now arrived on American shores, too.

Maher’s rĂ©sumĂ© provides us with a map of modern power, connecting political revolutions overseas with the cultural revolution here at home. She has been affiliated with key foreign policy and intelligence institutions: the Atlantic Council, World Economic Forum, State Department, World Bank, and Council on Foreign Relations. More recently, she has obtained power at several key strategic assets for the flow of information within the United States: CEO of the Wikimedia Foundation, CEO of National Public Radio, and chairman of the board of the encrypted-messaging application Signal.

NPR SUSPENDS VETERAN EDITOR WHO BLEW WHISTLE ON LIBERAL BIAS AT ORGANIZATION

When Maher was selected as CEO of the Wikimedia Foundation , many members of the Wikipedia community expressed surprise. But seen through the prism of the Color Revolution, the online encyclopedia is a key strategic way station. The site defines the terms, shapes the narrative, and launders mostly left-wing political ideologies into the discourse, under the guise of “neutral knowledge.” Additionally, in recent years, it has served as training data for artificial intelligence, which then incorporates Wikipedia’s biases into its outputs.

Some suspect that intelligence services have used Wikipedia as a tool in the information war. “The bias of Wikipedia, the fact that certain points of view have been systematically silenced, is nothing new,” co-founder Larry Sanger told  me in an interview. But he suspects more is at play, noting that research as far back as 2007 suggests  that the CIA may be manipulating the site’s entries. “We know that there is a lot of backchannel communication and I think it has to be the case that the Wikimedia Foundation now, probably governments, probably the CIA, have accounts that they control, in which they actually exert their influence.”

GOP SENATOR EYES LEGISLATION TO DEFUND ‘PROPAGANDIST’ NPR AFTER SUSPENSION OF WHISTLEBLOWER

Maher, for her part, was not shy about her political agenda. As I have reported , during her tenure as CEO of the Wikimedia Foundation, she advanced a policy of censorship under the pretense of fighting “disinformation.” I wrote:

In a speech to the Atlantic Council, an organization with extensive ties to U.S. intelligence services, she explained that she “took a very active approach to disinformation,” coordinated censorship “through conversations with government,” and suppressed dissenting opinions related to the pandemic and the 2020 election.

In that same speech, Maher said that, in relation to the fight against disinformation, the “the number one challenge here that we see is, of course, the First Amendment in the United States.” These speech protections, Maher continued, make it “a little bit tricky” to suppress “bad information” and “the influence peddlers who have made a real market economy around it.”

Maher’s general policy at Wikipedia, she tweeted, was to support efforts to “eliminate racist, misogynist, transphobic, and other forms of discriminatory content”—which, under current left-wing definitions, could include almost anything to the right of Joe Biden.

Wikipedia is important because it shapes perception and closes the circle of information production. Wikipedia replicates left-wing news reporting, news reporting replicates left-wing Wikipedia entries, and artificial intelligence replicates both. It’s a closed loop that operates surreptitiously, using its reputation for unbiased knowledge as a cover for its own disinformation.

How does NPR fit into what we might call the American Color Revolution? It is another key component in our domestic culture war. NPR has formative power in many culture-shaping institutions and increasingly represents the voice  of blue elites. It is state radio, in the Soviet sense: it produces propaganda to advance its own cultural power and move the nation toward a desired end-state.

NPR SUSPENDS VETERAN EDITOR WHO BLEW WHISTLE ON LIBERAL BIAS AT ORGANIZATION

Maher understood the power of media—and radio, in particular—early in her career. In 2010, according to a now-deleted blog post that I have obtained , Maher speculated that seizing control of radio could be a way to “Govern a Country.” The specific context of the post was the U.S.-supported revolution in the African nation of Cote d’Ivoire , where the incumbent president had refused to concede to a Western-backed candidate, sparking a civil war. Eventually, the opposition prevailed, took control of communications, and rules the country to this day. “Control over the flow of information in a closed society can be tantamount to control over the state,” Maher wrote.

While Maher was more descriptive than prescriptive in this 2010 blog post, the implication of what she described seems clear enough: control the narrative, control the regime. The production of media works in Cote d’Ivoire as it does in America; the difference is only a matter of scale and complexity.

The same principles of Color Revolution apply to the encrypted-messaging application Signal, where Maher currently serves as chairman of the board. Signal was originally funded , in part, by the government-backed Open Technology Fund, where  Maher sits on the advisory council and which has deep connections with technologies used for regime change. According to some analysts, Signal’s purpose is to provide overseas activists with secure communications; it is, in the positive sense, a way to promote dissent and spread controversial political opinion.

On the surface, this appears to be a contradiction. Maher backed dissent abroad but suppressed it at home. She not only censored content at Wikipedia but also supported deplatforming then-President Donald Trump , who opposed the domestic revolution following the death of George Floyd. “Must be satisfying to deplatform fascists,” Maher wrote on Twitter, after Trump was effectively removed from social media. “Even more satisfying? Not platforming them in the first place.”

This is not hypocrisy; it is the politics of friend and enemy. For Maher, “democracy” means the advancement  of left-wing race and gender ideology all over the world. This requires elevating progressive dissidents overseas, while suppressing conservative dissidents at home. For partisans of Color Revolution, dissent and censorship are not in contradiction—they are two sides of the same coin.

It’s easy to understand Katherine Maher as a curriculum vitae—she has collected affiliations and positions, traversing the hierarchy of progressive culture—but it is harder to understand her as a human being.

Public information offers a likely clue. Maher grew up in an affluent , nearly all-white Connecticut town. Her father worked at the most prestigious firms on Wall Street and, according to family lore, her grandfather had  been a spy in Europe. Her mother is a Democratic state senator in Connecticut and dutifully follows the party line; she supported  Hillary Clinton for president, stands with Planned Parenthood, and donates to the ACLU.

CLICK HERE FOR MORE FOX NEWS OPINION

I spoke with some of the people in Maher’s personal orbit, who have a further impression. Maher, in their telling, anyway, is immensely ambitious, calculating, and cold. She rose through the ranks of power and built a network of influential patrons, but never maintained close relationships, with some wondering whether she had any friends at all. She traveled constantly, built her Rolodex, and spoke alongside  establishment players, such as former CIA director Michael Hayden, but her personal life was reportedly chaotic.

She had been through a series of relationships, apparently, and always disguised her ambition in the language of ideology—a means to power, rather than an authentic commitment. “That’s Katherine in a nutshell: the privileged white girl with a savior complex,” said one contact with knowledge of Maher’s personal life.

For the better part of her thirties, Maher had her sights on powerful men in the tech sector—a high-tech entrepreneur; an early Facebook employee—but also considered finding someone lesser as she approached 40. “I was advised by a more senior female exec that as a woman, I ought to seek a husband who wouldn’t mind being supported,” Maher wrote  in 2020. “An artist, perhaps. Someone with co-equal ambition would be a drag on my career, make me less competitive.”

When Maher did get married, to corporate lawyer Ashutosh Upreti in 2023, she earned coverage in the New York Times, but it was hardly flattering. She had mistaken her first date for a job interview. “I thought he was more interested in being my general counsel than my date,” Maher told  the newspaper. She had refused to answer his proposal for five weeks, before relenting. They eventually settled down and adopted a designer dog.

Maher, in public and in private, then, appears to be a vessel for power, with few original thoughts. But she has a charismatic appeal and is willing to do what it takes to turn power into more power—to the delight of the institutions that have orbited around her for the past 20 years. As Wikipedia co-founder Larry Sanger told  me: “It is getting to the point where you can’t accuse people like Katherine Maher of hypocrisy anymore, because they’re not being hypocritical. They’re actually saying it out loud: ‘We don’t really believe in this freedom stuff anyway.’”

Sanger, perhaps, is being naïve. The American Color Revolution does not exist to advance principles but to accumulate power and entrench ideologies. Freedom is a tool: sometimes it is helpful to the cause; sometimes it is an impediment. The evidence certainly suggests that this is how Katherine Maher sees the world.  

CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM CHRISTOPHER RUFO

Click here to see original article

Congress poised to pass $95bn foreign aid package for Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan

by | Apr 25, 2024 | The Moderate Voice

It looks as if it may finally happen.

With support from Democrats, the House of Representatives is now poised to approve aid to Ukraine, which many experts contend could lose its defensive war against Russia because ammo and funds are running low. And, in a twist that most pundits didn’t forsee, Speaker of the House Mike Johnson has put his speakership on the line by going to bat for the aid despite hard-liners angrily threatening his political career if he passes it.

The Guardian:

The US House pushed ahead on Friday with a $95bn foreign aid package for Ukraine, Israel, Taiwan and humanitarian support after Democrats came to the rescue of Mike Johnson, the Republican speaker.

A coalition of lawmakers helped the legislation clear a procedural hurdle to reach final votes this weekend, as Friday morning’s vote followed a rare move late on Thursday for a House committee that normally votes along party lines.

The dramatic action took place on Capitol Hill on Thursday night in order to save the Ukraine aid legislation from rightwing rebels.

On Friday morning Antony Blinken, the secretary of state, warned that if US aid was further delayed for Ukraine “there is a real risk it will arrive too late” to help the grinding resistance to Russia’s invasion.

Then the House voted on the procedure agreed the night before, again producing a seldom-seen outcome in the typically hyper-partisan chamber, with Democrats helping Johnson’s plan advance by 316 votes to 94.

Johnson now looks set to push forward this weekend on the package for Kyiv, Israel, Taiwan and other allies, which had stalled in the House after passing the Senate. This despite a firestorm of protest from hardline Republicans that could lead to an attempt to oust him.

The House is expected to vote on Saturday on the aid legislation that provides $61bn for the conflict in Ukraine, including $23bn to replenish US weapons, $26bn for Israel, including $9.1bn for humanitarian needs, and $8.12bn for the Indo-Pacific. If passed, it would then go back to the Senate.

The aid legislation is the latest in a series of must-pass bipartisan measures that Johnson has helped shepherd through Congress, including two huge spending bills and a controversial reauthorization of federal surveillance programs.

Republicans hold a narrow House majority, 218-213 , a margin so scant that Mike Gallagher is postponing his mid-session retirement, originally set for Friday, so the Republican representative can be present to vote for the bill.

On Thursday night, the four Democrats on the House rules committee voted with five Republicans to advance the aid package that Johnson has devised, agreeing procedures.

One of the bigggest political dramas in recent weeks has been whether Johnson would allow for a vote on Ukraine aid. As bad news about Ukraine’s situation was emerging publically and in intelligence briefings to Johnson and other political leaders, suspense reached a crescendo since the consensus was that if Ukraine didn’t get aid ASAP it would be on its last leg – and those that nixed aid would be to blamed for its fall politically and in the eyes of history and their own children.

In a piece titled “How Johnson and Biden locked arms on Ukraine” Politico details how the upcoming “vote on a foreign aid package is validation of a White House strategy to court the speaker behind the scenes while letting him find his own path.”

Speaker Mike Johnson’s sudden bid to deliver aid to Ukraine came days after fresh intelligence described the U.S. ally at a true make-or-break moment in its war with Russia.

It was exactly the kind of dire assessment that President Joe Biden and the White House had spent months privately warning Johnson was inevitable.

The House GOP leader is embracing $60.8 billion in assistance to Ukraine in a push to prevent deep losses on the battlefield, amid warnings that Ukrainians are badly outgunned and losing faith in the U.S. following months of delay in providing new funds.

The intelligence, shown to lawmakers last week and described by two members who have seen it, built on weeks of reports that have alarmed members of Congress and Biden administration officials. On Thursday, CIA Director William Burns warned that, barring more U.S. aid, Ukraine “could lose on the battlefield by the end of 2024.”

It heightened the sense of urgency surrounding a White House effort to convince Johnson to hold a public vote on Ukraine aid that has dragged on behind the scenes since the day he became speaker. Johnson had resisted for months in the face of growing threats to his speakership if he sided with Biden and allowed the vote.

Since the last time Congress approved aid to Ukraine in late 2022, conservative skepticism of sending U.S. weapons and dollars to the country has grown, threatening Johnson’s speakership as well as Biden’s foreign policy agenda.

But he has now effectively locked arms with the president: Johnson’s alignment with Biden this week has extended at times even to deploying similar talking points in favor of funding Ukraine, and comes in defiance of efforts by conservatives like Sen. J.D. Vance (R-Ohio) to rally a rebellion.

“He realizes that he can’t put it off any longer,” one lawmaker said of Johnson, granted anonymity to discuss private conversations. “We’ve been working with him for months to try to get him there.”

The lawmaker characterized the Ukraine intel now circulating as “pretty stark compared to where we were a few months ago.

So far three MAGA Repbublican House members have said they’ll pursue a motion to vacate against Johnson. However, many analysts predict that if that happens many Democrats would vote to keep Johnson where he is. The reason: Johnson doesn’t have all the political baggage with Democrats that former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy had. McCarthy would not only switch positions but he had years of attacking Democrats under his belt. If Democrats provide the votes – which would enfuriate many far-right House Republicans even more – Johnson Jcould hold onto his speakership through November, Politico reports.

Graphic: Dreamstime

For more discussion of this issue GO HERE.

The post Congress poised to pass $95bn foreign aid package for Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan appeared first on The Moderate Voice .