Author Archives: Dana Pico

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The Philadelphia Inquirer gives us another fluff article about “Lia” Thomas

Leave it to the #woke editors and writers of The Philadelphia Inquirer when, in the wake of the boycott of Bud Light beer and the “leaves of absence” of two of Budweiser’s and Bud Light’s marketing supervisors, they decided to spend 867 words, exclusive of the headlines and byline, telling us how strong and brave and noble former University of Pennsylvania swimmer Will Thomas, a male who claims to be a woman and goes by the name “Lia”, is for beating out real women on the swim team:

Lia Thomas speaks on podcast about trans issues and her (sic) experience at Penn

Thomas spoke candidly to a fellow trans athlete about her (sic) experience swimming for Penn in the 2022 NCAA championships.

by Andrea Canales | Monday, April 24, 2023 | 6:44 PM EDT

Former Penn swimmer Lia Thomas spoke about her (sic) experience as a lightning rod in the topic of trans athletes on a podcast hosted by another trans athlete, Schuyler Bailar, a former swimmer at Harvard.

Regarding when 16 Penn teammates sent a letter to the school written by Nancy Hogshead-Makar that opposed her (sic) participation in championship meets, a former Olympian now campaigning for legislation to limit trans athletes, Thomas said it was hard to feel opposition coming from some teammates who she (sic) thought had her back. She (sic) pointed out the contradiction in the support they were expressing. “They’re like, ‘Oh, we respect Lia as a woman, as a trans woman, or whatever, we respect her (sic) identity; we just don’t think it’s fair.’ I think you can’t really have that sort of half support,” Thomas said on the Dear Schuyler podcast released Monday.

The adverb ‘sic’ indicates accuracy in transcription, despite errors in the original. With five such references using the incorrect pronouns in the first two paragraphs, plus two more in the headline and sub-heading, I’m tired of adding the notification. But readers may simply assume that they belong after each example of using the feminine references to Mr Thomas.

Thomas said that if she were being supported as a trans woman, then her right to compete in sport would count as much as those of any woman athlete. “You can’t sort of break me down as a person into little pieces and you’re like, ‘OK, this is OK, this is OK, that’s not.’ It’s pretending to be supportive on some level but in reality it just sort of falls flat.”

But that’s just it: that he claims to be a “trans woman” does not mean that people will accept him as a real woman. There really are differences between males and females, physical differences which make a difference in physical activities and sports.

As I predicted, by 8:48 PM EDT the Inquirer had closed all comments and deleted the existing ones. Click to enlarge.

Thomas also expressed concern over a trend of legislation around controlling bodily autonomy.“[There are] broader systems of trying to control people and control people’s bodies and exclude anybody who doesn’t fit a certain mold,” Thomas said. “A true feminist is everybody trying to come together to sort of break down these patriarchal ideals of what a woman is and who can be a woman.”

At a certain point in the discourse, it weighed on Thomas that she had become a flashpoint in the debate.

“I definitely struggled with at first, sort of like a year ago following the season, following NCAAs, of feeling almost a responsibility or maybe even a blame for some of the new rulings or rules or legislation,” Thomas said. She realized, however, “It wasn’t me personally that sparked it; it was just [trans-exclusionists] were waiting for a trans woman to be successful to go on a whole tirade against trans people and pass all sorts of legislation. So that’s helped me move past that a little bit.”

Translation: when a male, a mature, adult male, started beating real women. I’ve asked the question before: if someone was setting out to destroy acceptance of transgenderism, what would he be doing differently from what Mr Thomas has done?

Note the pullquote to the left, screen captured from the Inky original, complete with its embedded link; it references Penn swimmer Anna Kalandadze, and how she’s heading for records. We noted Miss Kalandadze previously, and how she finished second to Mr Thomas in the 1650 meter freestyle in the Zippy Invitational Event in Akron, Ohio in December of 2021. On Sunday, December 5, 2021, Mr Thomas, won the 1,650 meter freestyle with a time of 15:59:71; the second-place finisher was Miss Kalandadze, who touched at 16:37:44 in the Zippy Invitational Event in Akron, Ohio. The difference between Mr Thomas’ and Miss Kalandadze’s times is 37.73 seconds.

Now?

Kalandadze, a senior distance swimmer for Penn, won Ivy League titles in the 500-yard freestyle and the 1650 free this past February. Kalandadze’s time of 4 minutes, 38.86 seconds in the 500 free was 13th-best in the nation this year, while her 15:53.88 in the 1650 free was the sixth-fastest. Kalandadze will represent the Quakers in both events at the NCAA championships from March 15-18 in Knoxville, Tenn.

She has significantly improved her time, but she’s still almost six seconds slower than Mr Thomas time, when he was so far ahead of the field that he didn’t really need to push at the end. No one will say it, but it’s obvious that once Mr Thomas won his first NCAA championship, he deliberately backed off, so as to not totally demolish the field, and create even more anger at his unfair presence in the women’s competition. No, I can’t prove that, because he’ll never admit it, but he was so much faster than all of the real women in the Zippy Invitational that it’s extremely difficult to believe that he lost that much of his advantage in the couple of months before the Ivy League and NCAA championships.

No one would care if Will Thomas wanted to identify as “Lia,” and tell everybody that he’s a woman now, if he were not using his male athletic advantages unfairly. If he wants to be seen as a real woman, why is he doing things which so obviously set himself apart from real women?

Naturally, the Inky’s article was, supposedly, a straight sports article, but it was an obvious fluff piece, to support Mr Thomas’ claim that he’s a she now. Sports articles in the Inquirer do allow reader comments, unlike other stories in the newspaper, but once the editors saw what they were getting, they quickly deleted all comments and closed the comments section.  🙂

I knew that would happen, which is why I got the quick screen capture.

The newspaper very much supports transgenderism, using the faked names and imagined pronouns the transgendered want, and, as closing the comments section proves, the editors will brook no dissent. But the Bud Light/Dylan Mulvaney controversy pointed out the obvious: there are a whole lot of people who don’t accept that stupidity.

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Bud Light: the choice is between incompetence and stupidity Alissa Heinerscheid's Career Limiting Move has limited someone else's career as well

We have previously noted how Anheuser-Busch executives have realized that the corporation completely f(ouled) up over using ‘transgender’ parody actor Dylan Mulvaney as a spokesthing for Bud Light, and how Bud Light’s Vice President for Marketing Alissa Heinerscheid has taken a “leave of absence” over the controversy.

Well, Mrs Heinerscheid hasn’t been the only casualty. From The Wall Street Journal:

Bud Light Brewer Puts Two Executives on Leave After Uproar Over Transgender Influencer

Alissa Heinerscheid, who oversaw Bud Light marketing, and her boss Daniel Blake placed on leave

By Ginger Adams Otis, Lauren Weber, and Jennifer Maloney | Updated: Sunday, April 23, 2023 | 4:26 PM EDT

Anheuser-Busch InBev SA BUD: (%) said it had placed on leave two executives who oversaw a Bud Light collaboration with a transgender activist. Continue reading →

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Differences which make a difference

Football 365 sounds like a great site, maybe something akin to Good Morning Football or NFL Total Access on the NFL Network, on Channel 212 on DirecTV. Alas! it’s not about real football, but just soccer.

Still, the site isn’t political, despite being British. At least, I couldn’t find any real politics in this article from the site:

Leah Williamson is latest footballer to fall victim to a sport designed for men

by John Nicholson | Monday, April 24, 2023 | 9:41 AM GMT

We live in a world created by men, largely for men. A world in which male is the default, to the detriment of women. Anyone who doubts this, even though the evidence is all around us, should read Caroline Criado-Perez’s book ‘Invisible Women’, which does a brilliant job of analysing the gender data gap and how it discriminates against women in almost every aspect of everyday life.

And this isn’t just a minor irritation; it leads to dangerous outcomes for women. For example, PPE used in the pandemic was designed to fit male faces, not women’s. And crash test dummies are a standard male size which in turn leads to women being 47% more likely to be injured in a car crash.

OK, maybe it’s a little bit political. That crash dummies might be sized as an average male doesn’t change the impact of the crash. Women generally being smaller and lighter than men means that, in an accident, they have less mass to absorb the same amount of kinetic force. Continue reading →

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Solomon Jones and his very bad timing

Solomon Jones is a columnist for The Phila-delphia Inquirer, and, according to his biography blurb at the bottom of his column, “is the author of ‘Ten Lives Ten Demands: Life and Death Stories and a Black Activistʼs Blueprint for Racial Justice.’ Listen to him weekdays from 7 to 10 a.m. on WURD 900 AM.” Amusingly enough, the amazon.com blurb for his book calls it a “manifesto,” with these demands to “rectify racial injustice.” Copyrighted in 2021, I do wonder if, given the current Democratic candidates for Mayor of Philadelphia, whether he still adheres to his demand to “Defund the police and move funds to trained social workers, mental health professionals, and conflict resolution specialists.” Even Helen Gym Flaherty no longer says that, though I would not be surprised if she didn’t move in that direction if she wins.

Unfortunately for Mr Jones, his latest column is a masterpiece of lousy timing. Continue reading →

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Harvard grad enters the unemployment line

We have previously noted the idiocy of Bud Light’s Vice President for Marketing Alissa Gordon Heinerscheid’s choice to use Dylan Mulvaney, the homosexual male who claims he’s a girl, and has been using a “365 Days of Girlhood” presentation — which I refuse to link — which completely mocks stereotypes of how real girls act, as the brand’s spokesthing. Well, now the digested food appears to have hit the air circulation device:

Bud Light’s Marketing Leadership Undergoes Shakeup After Dylan Mulvaney Controversy

Alissa Heinerscheid, who has led the brand since June, takes leave of absence and is replaced by Budweiser global marketing VP Todd Allen

by Jon Springer | Friday, April 21, 2023

Anheuser-Busch InBev has changed marketing leadership for Bud Light in the wake of controversy over the brand sending a can to transgender influencer Dylan Mulvaney with her (sic) face on it.

Alissa Heinerscheid, marketing VP for the brand since June 2022, has taken a leave of absence, the brewer confirmed, and will be replaced by Todd Allen, who was most recently global marketing VP for Budweiser.

I did suggest, in the previous article, that Mrs Heinerscheid had made a “Career Limiting Mistake.” 🙂 Continue reading →

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There’s no statute of limitations on stupidity

My old Bible, using an Israeli 20 shekel note as a bookmark.

Those who know me know that I am not just Catholic in name only, but a Mass every Sunday Catholic, and occasionally attend weekday Mass as well. I have article tags for the Catholic Church and Catholic Priesthood. And the last thing I want to see are more sexual abuse cases among the priesthood revealed.

Philly archdiocese accused of covering up sex abuse complaints against priest who allegedly found a new victim in Nashville

“If there was ever a case of reckless disregard for the safety of the public and parishioners,” said lawyers representing a woman now suing church officials over an alleged cover-up, “it’s this one.”

by Jeremy Roebuck | Thursday, April 20, 2023

The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Philadelphia is facing new accusations that it covered up sexual misconduct, this time involving a former priest who allegedly forced himself on multiple women and told them the unwanted encounters were “special trials” ordained by God.

In court filings this week, a 27-year-old woman said church officials’ failure to disclose previous complaints against the Rev. Kevin Barry McGoldrick enabled abuse she endured after he was transferred from Philadelphia to Nashville in 2013.

Even after the Philadelphia archdiocese had substantiated her claims that McGoldrick had plied her with bourbon and then sexually assaulted her while he was serving as a college chaplain in Tennessee, she said, church officials here still refused to acknowledge they’d received reports years earlier of his involvement in similar misconduct.

The woman, now living in Virginia and identified in court filings only as Jane Doe, made those accusations in a lawsuit filed Tuesday that seeks hundreds of thousands of dollars in damages from church officials and McGoldrick himself in the Philadelphia Court of Common Pleas.

There’s more at the original, but the important date is that Fr McGoldrick was transferred from Philadelphia to the Diocese of Nashville in 2013. Msgr. William J. Lynn, once a secretary for Cardinal Anthony Bevilaqua, the Archbishop of Philadelphia, was convicted in June of 2012 for his role in transferring priests accused of sexual misconduct to other parishes, and though that conviction was twice overturned, the Monsignor was behind bars in 2013.

Cardinal Justin Rigali, the Archbishop of Philadelphia from 2003 to 2011, had his resignation upon reaching 75 accepted by Pope Benedict XVI, but, as The New York Times noted, his resignation was tainted by the priestly abuse scandal. The Times had also noted that the District Attorney’s office had “been investigating the archdiocese aggressively since 2002“.

So, how is it that, in 2013, with the previous Archbishop having his resignation accepted under an ethical cloud, Msgr Lynn behind bars for his role in identifying ‘problem’ priests, priests Edward Avery and Charles Engelhardt in prison for the sexual abuse of minors, as was Catholic school teacher Bernard Shero, that the Archdiocese of Philadelphia, then under Archbishop Charles Chaput, allegedly knew of Fr McGoldrick’s reported sexual abuses transferred him to Nashville?

Lawyers for the accuser say former Philadelphia Archbishop Charles J. Chaput failed to disclose earlier investigations into McGoldrick and signed off on his transfer to Nashville in 2013. That move came two years after Pope Benedict XVI had tapped Chaput to take over the Philadelphia archdiocese and oversee reform efforts after a series of damning grand jury investigations highlighted its failures in handling clergy sex abuse complaints.

Let me be clear here: there have been no criminal charges or convictions in this case: “Jane Doe” has filed a lawsuit, something which is subject to a much lower standard of proof, the “preponderance of the evidence,” and that lawsuit has not gone to trial. At the moment, Archbishop Chaput and Fr McGoldrick are neither legally guilty nor adjudicated as responsible for any wrongdoing. I’d like to believe that Miss “Doe” is making a fraudulent claim, which is certainly a possibility. Archbishop Chaput, having been appointed to the Archdiocese of Philadelphia in large part for his previous strong handling of such cases while Archbishop of Denver. It would seem improbable that he would have approved that transfer of a known sexual abuser.

However, if Miss “Doe’s” claims are valid, it might be a slightly different case. The article states that she is 27 years old now, which means she would have been 17 or 18 at the time Fr McGoldrick was transferred, and she might have been legally an adult at the time she claims she was abused by the priest.

But my wanting the claim to be false does not preclude the possibility that it could be true. And while I want it to be false, there are a lot of people out there who will be convinced that the accusations are true, because it has happened so often in the past.

If the accusation is true, it means that Archbishop Chaput and his subordinates in the Archdiocese learned absolutely nothing from not only what had happened in the past, but happened in the recent past. And our bishops have to know, and understand, this: there is exactly zero tolerance for this stuff among the public, and cover-ups just don’t work. With so many people hostile to the Church, and looking for wrongdoing, and with possible victims out there, this stuff will eventually be exposed.

There has to be zero tolerance in the Church for this, and everybody needs to know it. Actually, every priest and bishop in the Church does know it; they are all highly educated men, and they just aren’t stupid. But not being stupid overall does not mean that they can’t do stupid things, and trying to cover up for this stuff, regardless of how much they may like and respect their friends and colleagues in the priesthood, is just plain stupid.

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People are investing in nice housing in parts of Philly, but if the city doesn’t address rampant crime, such will eventually cease.

Sometimes the real news is found in sections of the newspaper — and yes, I’m a newspaper reader, even if it’s just the digital editions! — in which you don’t expect it. From the Real Estate section of The Philadelphia Inquirer:

Apartment building proposed under the El adds even more transit-accessible housing in Fishtown

The 114-apartment building with a restaurant is planned for Front Street.

by Jale Blumgart | Thursday, April 20, 2023 | 5:00 AM EDT

A 114-unit apartment project is planned immediately adjacent to the Market-Frankford Line at 1440 N. Front St. on the border between Fishtown and South Kensington.

This is the latest, and largest, project from Archive Development, a new real estate company that’s been building in the Fishtown area since 2020. The project will contain 2,000 square feet of retail space, which the company wants to go to a restaurant.

“Front is one of the only streets in Fishtown where you can truly build with high density,” said Henry Siebert, cofounder of Archive. “We’ve seen it transition from a former industrial street with warehouses to a true, viable commercial corridor. That’s what attracted us.”

Amenities include a seventh floor “sky lounge,” with a kitchenette and a roof deck. It will also include a gym, coworking spaces, a dedicated conference room, and a ground floor garden. There will be five studios, 93 one-bedroom units, and 16 two-bedroom units.

There’s more at the original, but that apartment building better have some outrageous soundproofing. Who would want the sound of the El outside their windows?

Fishtown has been gentrifying for years, enough to have attracted the attention of Forbes:

How Fishtown, Philadelphia Became America’s Hottest New Neighborhood

Peter Lane Taylor[1]I cover luxury real estate, travel, hospitality, and entrepreneurs | May 2, 2018,09:52pm EDT

Every Friday afternoon at 5:30 pm the doors of “the El­”—one of America’s oldest elevated subways—swoosh open at Girard and Berks Street stations, unleashing a stampede of Millennials, yuppies, hipsters, entrepreneurs, and empty nesters onto Front Street.

As fast as the doors close, they scatter east down a maze of narrow streets swirling with trash, bumping shoulders with the occasional heroin addict and scrappers pushing shopping carts piled high with salvaged sheet metal. Nobody blinks.

A half dozen blocks away from their newly-built, half-million dollar townhomes, the lines twist out the doors at Pizzeria Beddia and Frankford Hall, two of Philadelphia’s hottest foodie spots. Across the street, Johnny Brenda’s is already packed—hosting as they have for over a decade one of America’s hottest indie rock bands. Mothers pushing strollers window shop past Lululemon along Frankford Avenue’s buzzing retail corridor fronted with wine bars, coffee shops, couture boutiques, yoga studios, a vintage motorcycle joint, and an Argentinian tango dance school.

Visually the dichotomies are jarring. Culturally the contradictions are even more confusing. Yet when the El disgorges its “New Fish” every afternoon it epitomizes the driving forces behind Fishtown’s warp-speed transformation, and the demographics fueling America’s new urban revolution.

There’s more at the original, including this photo, which I found interesting. Captioned as “An average night at Frankford Hall,” it shows the stereotypical young urban professionals at the Frankford Hall Hofbräu München German biergarten, a full courtyard of exclusively white — from what I could see — twenty-and-thirty-somethings. Philly is, overall, a very racially and ethnically diverse — and I’ve come to hate the word ‘diverse’ — cities, but, as the Inquirer previously reported, “Among the 30 biggest cities, Philadelphia is second only to Chicago in its level of residential segregation between Black and white residents, according to data from Brown University. Between Hispanic and white residents, it’s the sixth-most segregated.” And it’s only going to get worse.

But if Fishtown is gentrifying, an up-and-coming neighborhood, it’s right up against Kensington, Philly’s worst, or at least the one with the worst reputation, one so bad that the Mexican government used video of Kensington in an anti-drug ad campaign. And the 1440 North Front Street project is just 2.1 miles from the SEPTA elevated train station at Kensington and Allegheny Avenues.

Inquirer reporter Jake Blumgart spent a fair amount of space telling readers about the mass transit opportunities in the area, with this paragraph standing out:

Archive Development’s project on Front Street comes amid a construction boom directly adjacent to the Market Frankford elevated tracks. The El has struggled with low ridership, remote work trends, and a surge in antisocial behavior following the pandemic.

LOL! A “surge in antisocial behavior”? That’s a rather mild euphemism for shootings, assaults, and rampant drug use in SEPTA stations, with stations and transit cars filled with discarded needles.

There’s a choice that Philadelphia has to take, one which will determine the path our nation’s sixth largest city will follow. Will the city opt for actual law enforcement, and clean up Kensington and the Philadelphia Badlands, to enable further gentrification, wealth, and potential integration, or will it persist in non-enforcement, in excusing crime and leniently treating criminals, further depressing the depressed neighborhoods?

References

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↑1 I cover luxury real estate, travel, hospitality, and entrepreneurs
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Danielle Outlaw isn’t just toast She's toast that has fallen on the floor, buttered side down

Even though I read The Philadelphia Inquirer every day, I don’t normally do so expecting something humorous. But this time reporters Anna Orso and Chris Palmer provided some really belly laughs!

Police commissioner Danielle Outlaw has unwittingly become a ‘political football.’ The mayor’s race could decide her future.

If history is a guide, the next mayor is likely to pick a new top cop — a decision that would shake up one of the nation’s largest police forces.

by Anna Orso and Chris Palmer | Wednesday, April 19, 2023 | 5:00 AM EDT

Philadelphia’s mayoral candidates have faced repeated questions in recent months about the fate of one city employee: Police Commissioner Danielle Outlaw.Their answers have ranged from tepid support to accusations that Outlaw has “done a bad job” amid a gun violence crisis. Most have offered noncommittal responses on whether they’d stick with her if elected.

But if history is a guide, the next mayor is likely to pick a new top cop — a decision that would shake up one of the nation’s largest police forces and influence how its 6,000 officers and employees engage with city residents.

I’m not sure how Police Commissioner Danielle Outlaw leaving her job would really “shake up one of the nation’s largest police forces,” considering she’s not actually at her desk all that much.

The last two mayors to be sworn into office have appointed new commissioners. And such turnover has also been common in other big cities: In Chicago last month, the police chief resigned the day after the mayor’s reelection bid fell apart. And New York City Mayor Eric Adams hired his own chief last year — and even considered Outlaw for the role.

An obvious point here that Mr Palmer and Miss Orso neglected to tell readers: Chicago Police Superintendent David Brown resigned after incumbent Mayor Lori Lightfoot missed out on the mayoral runoff election, coming in third with just 16%[1]Edited: I had misgoofed and typed 61%, and reader 370H55V I/me/mine caught it for me. of the vote, because not only did the two candidates who advanced to the runoff, Paul Vallas and Brandon Johnson, but all of Miss Lightfoot’s opponents “vowed to fire Brown on day one of becoming mayor.”

Interestingly enough, Mr Brown took the reins of the Chicago Police Department in April of 2020, just two months after Miss Outlaw became Police Commissioner of Philadelphia. And both have failed just as spectacularly.

Outlaw, who was appointed in 2020, has been out recently while recovering from a car accident. In an emailed statement, she said: “I do not think anyone particularly enjoys having their name positioned as a political football.”

Hey, you want to play in the big leagues, you have opened yourself up to criticism, but remember, Philly is the city in which Eagles’ fans booed Santa Claus and pelted him with snowballs. Rough crowd.

But, as we noted here, the Commissioner says that she has a back injury from an incident in which another driver struck her chauffeured vehicle, but a truly dedicated Police Commissioner, someone who has a desk job, would be working, even if it had to be from home and in a recliner, unless she was completely bed-ridden or seriously doped up on pain medication. Neither of those things has been reported to be the case.

When your city has been suffering from a 500+ a year homicide rate, a dedicated Police Commissioner wouldn’t take any days off.

While noting that ethics rules bar her from speaking to candidates about their plans, she said she’s focused on issues including crime prevention, improving clearance rates, and implementing policy reforms.

If those are the issues on which she has focused, she has clearly failed. Clearance rates have dropped. While the Philadelphia Police Department is the nation’s fourth largest, with an authorized strength of 6,500 officers and 800 civilian personnel, the department is seriously undermanned, and anticipated retirements significantly outnumber potential academy graduating classes.

In 2021, following criticism of her tenure, the Commissioner fought back:

“Am I enough? Absolutely, and some,” she said. “Do I deserve to be here? Absolutely, and some. Did I lead this department in the last year? Absolutely, and some. No police commissioner, chief, superintendent has ever had to deal with what we’ve dealt with in the past year.”

She just doesn’t get it. When your team isn’t winning, excuses don’t matter. When people are pointing out that you haven’t done your job well, then you haven’t done your job well. People who do their jobs well don’t have to tell people about it; everyone already knows.

–

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↑1 Edited: I had misgoofed and typed 61%, and reader 370H55V I/me/mine caught it for me.
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America’s disastrous Middle Eastern policies under Joe Biden.

Remember when the Democrats were telling us that the election of Joe Biden would usher in a new-found respect for the United States around the world? Remember when we were told by the credentialed media assured us that the end of Donald Trump’s wicked regime and ‘America First’ policies would bring foreign relations back to normalcy?

Yet, as we have previously reported, things have not quite gone as well as we might like. Now, from The Wall Street Journal:

Saudi Officials, Hamas Leaders Set to Meet in Jeddah to Discuss Re-Establishing Ties

A reset would mark a setback for U.S. and Israeli efforts to counter Iranian influence in the Middle East

By Summer Said, Dov Lieber, and Aaron Boxerman | Updated Sundy, April 16, 2023 | 12:55 PM EDT

Senior Saudi officials were planning to meet with leaders of the Palestinian militant and political group Hamas on Sunday to discuss renewing diplomatic ties which have been cool since 2007, part of a diplomacy spree led by Crown Prince Mohammad Bin Salman that has seen Riyadh move closer to Iran.

In other words, diplomacy at least partly aided by the younger President Bush helped to push the terrorist organization Hamas away from Saudi Arabia, while American diplomacy under President Biden has undone that, and a lot more. Mr Biden took a politically risky trip to visit the Crown Prince in October of 2022, and through either planning or simple ineptitude, managed to insult the Prime Minister in private, and later call him a liar, in public. As the de facto authoritarian ruler of Saudi Arabia, perhaps that wasn’t the wisest idea. A brief description from Wikipedia:

Mohammed rules an authoritarian government. There are no democratic institutions in Saudi Arabia, and elements of repression are evident. Islamic scholars, human rights activists, women’s rights activists, journalists, former insiders, Islamists, and other political dissidents are systematically repressed through tactics including torture and jailing, and some reports have alleged that Mohammed uses a group known as the Tiger Squad to carry out extrajudicial killings. He was personally linked to the assassination of Jamal Khashoggi, a Saudi Arabian Washington Post columnist who had criticised the Saudi government, but he has denied involvement in the killing. Mohammed was the architect of Saudi Arabian-led intervention in Yemen which has exacerbated the humanitarian crisis and famine there. His government was also involved in the escalation of the Qatar diplomatic crisis, the 2017 detention of Lebanese prime minister Saad Hariri, a 2018 diplomatic spat with Canada, the arrest of Saudi princes and billionaires in 2017, the 2018–2019 Saudi crackdown on feminists, an alleged phone hack against Amazon chairman Jeff Bezos in 2019, and treason charges against his cousin and rival Muhammad bin Nayef in 2020. Saudi Arabia’s relations with the Biden administration have been strained, especially after Mohammed’s refusal to increase oil production in the wake of the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine.

Chinese President Xi Jinping shakes hands with Saudi Crown Prince and Prime Minister Mohammed bin Salman on arriving at Al Yamamah Palace in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, on December 8. Photo: Saudi Press Agency via AP

Prince Mohammed was hardly well disposed to the United States, and the ideas of Western classical liberalism even prior to being insulted by President Biden, despite a couple of ‘liberalizing’ changes regarding the religious police and restrictions on women. But now the Crown Prince is moving in a direction which directly endangers the fragile not-exactly-peace-but-not-outright-war in the Middle East.

Re-establishing ties between Iran-backed Hamas, which is a U.S. designated terrorist group, and the Saudi kingdom would mark a setback for efforts by the U.S. and Israel to establish a military alliance between Israel and other Sunni-majority countries against Iran and its allies. They also complicate Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s goal of normalizing relations with Riyadh, with opposition to Iran as their primary shared interest.

Hamas exists, of course, solely to destroy Israel. While Hamas are also the de facto government in the Gaza Strip area of the Palestinians, an area that Israel completely evacuated under Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, their policies have been nothing but resistance and war. When Israel pulled out, in 2005, the Palestinians were given control of the area and the ability to make it into whatever they could. With fabulous beaches, the Palestinians could have turned the area into a warm-water beach resort which would have drawn Europeans, and euros, by the hundreds of thousands.

Instead, they turned it into just another Palestinian base from which to attack Israel, and Israel retains some external control over the 141 mi² territory.

Hamas was invited to the kingdom by Saudi leaders, Hamas officials said. Senior officials are expected to land in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, late Sunday, the officials said. The effort to re-establish ties is being pushed by Iran and Syria, said Saudi officials.

As part of the talks, Hamas officials hope to free scores of Palestinian prisoners held in Saudi Arabia who were imprisoned when the two sides were at odds, according to Saudi officials and a diplomat familiar with the matter.

“We seek relations with all forces in the region and the world, and we have no enmity toward anyone, except for the Zionist enemy,” tweeted Mousa Abu Marzouk, a Hamas official who will be attending the meeting on Sunday.

Jewish voters in the United States normally give around three-quarters of their votes to Democrats; this is what they’ve achieved with that.

Also see: William Teach: Yet Another Ally, Israel, Turns To China

Israel is the only real democracy in the entire area, the only one with a Western civilization culture, one which, though officially Jewish, tolerates Islam and Christianity. Yet we have previously had fairly strong and respectful relations with Saudi Arabia . . . and President Biden has managed to help torpedo that. American policy has been, for decades, the isolation of Iran, but with the Iranian nuclear deal under President Obama, and Mr Biden’s current diplomacy, American Democrats have managed to not just weaken that isolation, but help Iran to gain allies. More, in our attempts to fight Russia in Ukraine, it has pushed Iran, Saudi Arabia, and China into closer ties with Russia.

With Joe Biden as President, you can count on it: things will only get worse.
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