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Rescue group issues warning to Jews, Americans over potential terrorist threats

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From The Center Square

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“We strongly urge Jewish communities across the United States to remain vigilant and aware of potential threats during this period, particularly from October 2nd to October 12th.”

Approaching the one-year anniversary of the Oct. 7 terrorist attack against Israel, a group responsible for numerous rescue missions, including evacuating hundreds of Americans from Israel, has issued a warning about antisemitism-related threats in the U.S.

“We are deeply alarmed by the rising tide of open and brazen protests against Jews and Jewish communities over the past year – acts that have reached a scale unseen since World War II. These demonstrations have fostered an environment of heightened vulnerability for Jewish communities across the United States,” Project Dynamo, a group of former soldiers, military officers, national security officials, and intelligence officers, said in an advisory.

“History teaches us that terrorist organizations, including those that inspire groups like Hamas, often select significant dates and anniversaries as opportune moments for attacks, seeking to amplify their visibility and influence among their followers. The upcoming one-year anniversary of the October 7th attacks by Hamas, occurring between the Jewish High Holidays of Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, represents precisely the kind of symbolic timing that such groups are likely to exploit.

“We strongly urge Jewish communities across the United States to remain vigilant and aware of potential threats during this period, particularly from October 2nd to October 12th.”

The veteran-led, Tampa-based Project Dynamo helped rescue hundreds of Americans from Israel, working with Gov. Ron DeSantis. The state of Florida helped fund hundreds of flights for evacuees.

Within days of the attack, DeSantis declared a state of emergency and directed the Division of Emergency Management to execute a “Comprehensive Emergency Management Plan and other response, recovery, and mitigation plans necessary to cope with the emergency, including any logistical, rescue, or evacuation operations to bring Americans home who were stranded in Israel.”

Within a few weeks, Florida helped bring home nearly 700 Americans stranded in Israel, The Center Square reported.

“Unlike the governments of other countries, the Biden Administration has failed to launch any form of rescue or evacuation operations for Americans, including Floridians, who are stranded in the region, and has failed to provide information requested by the State of Florida about any plans for such operations,” DeSantis said at the time.

The Florida legislature also convened for a special legislative session to expand state sanctions on Iran.

In the absence of the federal government issuing a National Terrorism Advisory System Bulletin related to terrorist threats, Project Dynamo issued its own advisory.

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security has not issued a NTAS bulletin since May 2023. The NTAS was “designed to communicate information about terrorist threats by providing timely, detailed information to the American public. All Americans share responsibility for the nation’s security, and should always be aware of the heightened risk of terrorist attack in the United States and what they should do,” DHS says.

A congressional coalition led by U.S. Rep. Andy Biggs, R-AZ, called on DHS to issue one in July, asking why it hasn’t done so. When The Center Square asked DHS why it hadn’t issued one in over 15 months, DHS did not respond.

DHS has still not issued an NATS bulletin after President Joe Biden extended a national emergency due to terrorism threats.

Retired FAA special agent Brian Sullivan told The Center Square Americans need to be vigilant as the Oct. 7 attack anniversary approaches and during the Jewish holidays. “Despite the warnings coming from security experts, (like Project Dynamo),” he’s asked why the Biden-Harris administration hasn’t sent out an NATS bulletin “to encourage awareness and vigilance amongst the American public.”

Project Dynamo also points to the border crisis as a cause for heightened awareness saying that actions taken by international criminal organizations and criminal groups “involving illegal immigrants within our borders signify a troubling escalation of violence and a blatant disregard for U.S. laws and the American way of life.”

“Given the confirmed connections between Transnational Criminal Organizations – including cartels and gangs – and Islamic terrorism, coupled with the increasing hostility of both state and non-state actors towards the United States, this period of vigilance should extend beyond the general elections and well into the inauguration day in January 2025.

“There have already been arrests of suspected terrorist planning attacks on high profile locations. There are other non-specific threats and enough reporting to indicate a widespread likelihood that enemies of the Jewish people will attempt activities to gain notoriety on 7 October, inside the United States, and likely around the world.”

Project Dynamo lists actions the Jewish community and Americans can take to better protect themselves.

“Now is the time to stand together and ensure that our communities are well-prepared,” it says. “We encourage you to take these threats seriously and to act with the appropriate level of caution during this sensitive time.”

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Brownstone Institute

First Amendment Blues

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From the Brownstone Institute

By Philip DaviesPhilip Davies 

You might think these are quite rare but not a bit of it; 13,200 of these were recorded in the last 12 months, and that’s around 36 a day, and they go on your record and sometimes mean you end up with no job. They also have new laws planned to control misinformation and disinformation, something not just confined to the UK. Similar laws are planned for Ireland, Australia, Canada, and the EU.

I’m envious. The US has something the UK doesn’t have, namely a First Amendment. Yes I know there are those who wish the US didn’t have it either, including, I understand, John Kerry and that woman who still thinks she beat Trump the first time around. Kerry kind of wishes that the First Amendment wasn’t quite so obstructive to his plans. But from where I stand, you should be thankful for it.

Not only does the UK not have a First Amendment, it doesn’t have a constitution either, and that makes for worrying times right now. Free speech has little currency with Gen Z and the way it looks, even less with the new UK Labour government. Even Elon Musk, who takes a surprising interest in our little country, has recently declared the UK a police state.

It’s not surprising. Take for instance the case of Alison Pearson, who had the police knocking on her door this Remembrance Sunday. They had come to warn her they were investigating a tweet she had posted a whole year ago which someone had complained about. They were investigating whether it constituted a Non-Crime Hate Incident or NCHI. Yes, you heard me right, a ‘non-crime’ hate incident and no, this is not something out of Orwell, it’s straight out of the College of Policing’s playbook.

If you haven’t heard of them, you can thank your First Amendment. In the UK you can get a police record for something you posted on X that someone else didn’t like and you haven’t even committed a crime. NCHIs are a way they have of getting around the law in the same way John Kerry would like to get around the First Amendment, except it’s real where I live.

Alison Pearson is a reporter for the Daily Telegraph, but that doesn’t mean she can write what she likes. When she asked the police what the tweet was which was objected to, she was told they couldn’t tell her that. When she asked who the complainant was, they said they couldn’t tell her that either. They added, that she shouldn’t call them a complainant, they were officially the victim. That’s what due process is like when you don’t have a First Amendment or a constitution. Victims of NCHI in the UK are decided without a trial or a defense. They asked, very politely, if Pearson would like to come voluntarily to the police station for a friendly interview. If she didn’t want to come voluntarily, they would put her on a wanted list and she would eventually be arrested. Nice choice.

It’s true that there has been a public ruckus over this particular case, but the police are unapologetic and have doubled down. Stung into action by unwanted publicity, they are now saying they have raised the matter from an NCHI to an actual crime investigation. Which means they think she can be arrested and put in prison for expressing her opinion on X. And of course they are right. In the UK that’s where we are right now. Pearson tried to point out the irony of two police officers turning up on her door to complain about her free speech on Remembrance Day of all days, when we recall the thousands who died to keep this a free country, but irony is lost on those who have no memory of what totalitarianism means.

The way things are looking I would say things can only get worse. The new Labour government has made it clear that it wants to beef up the reporting of NCHIs and make them an effective tool for clamping down on hurtful speech. You might think these are quite rare but not a bit of it; 13,200 of these were recorded in the last 12 months, and that’s around 36 a day, and they go on your record and sometimes mean you end up with no job. They also have new laws planned to control misinformation and disinformation, something not just confined to the UK. Similar laws are planned for Ireland, Australia, Canada, and the EU. Germany in particular is keen to remove all misinformation from the internet, I understand.

Whenever I see the word ‘misinformation’ these days I automatically translate it in my head to what it really means, which is ‘dissent.’ Western countries, former champions of free speech, the bedrock of liberty and individual choice, en masse it seems, now want to outlaw dissent. What is coordinating this attack on free expression, I don’t know, but it’s real and it’s upon us. We are slowly being intellectually suffocated into not expressing any opinion that others might find objectionable or that might contradict what the government said. If you had told me that would happen in my lifetime, I would have called you a liar.

I live in the UK, the home of the Bill of Rights and the Magna Carta, and the mother of parliamentary democracy. I was proud that we produced men like John Milton, John Stuart Mill, and Thomas Paine, that we understood the importance of the Areopagitica, the Rights of Man, and incorporated On Liberty into our social thinking. But those days seem long gone when police knock on your door to arrest you for an X post.

So I’m glad someone somewhere has a First Amendment even if we don’t. It may be your last defense in that republic of yours, if you can keep it.

Author

Philip Davies

Philip Davies is Visiting Fellow at Bournemouth University, UK. He gained a PhD in Quantum Mechanics at the University of London and has been an academic for over 30 years teaching Masters students how to think for themselves. He is now retired and has the luxury of thinking for himself. He fills in his spare time with a small YouTube channel where he interviews amazing academics and indulges in writing books and articles.

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DEI gone?: GOP lawmakers prep to clean house in federal government

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From The Center Square

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Many of Trump’s cabinet picks so far have also pledged to remove DEI programs from the federal government. These policies can range from training federal employees on “white privilege” to using medical research funds to study racism to awarding federal funds to recipients only as long as they toe the line on DEI orthodoxy.

President-elect Donald Trump’s win and his subsequent creation of a Department of Government Efficiency have galvanized lawmakers to pave the way for legislation to clean out diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) policies, staff and programs that have ballooned under the Biden-Harris administration.

The Center Square was given advance copy of two bills filed Thursday by U.S. Rep. Bob Good, R-La., to end DEI practices at the Department of Housing and Urban Development

The first bill, the Flexibility in Housing Act of 2024, would block a Biden-Harris administration rule at HUD. That rule is about to be finalized and would require HUD grant recipients to implement “equity-driven housing plans.”

The newly introduced bill, however, would block that rule and give power to states and local governments to decide how best to spend the funds.

The second bill, the “No Discrimination in Housing Act,” would prevent large corporations from using DEI programs to get federal tax credits in buying up single family American homes, something many economists say is driving up the cost of homeownership for Americans.

The new bill “would prohibit any entity with a DEI initiative from receiving the Low-Income Housing Tax Credit – thereby ensuring the tax credit is distributed based on merit – not for the advancement of the radical DEI ideology.”

“The Biden-Harris Administration’s radicalization of housing policy prioritizes woke DEI corporations, yet does nothing that will actually drive down the cost of a home in an economy destroyed by Bidenflation,” Good told The Center Square. “My bills aim to restore Trump-era housing flexibility and eliminate the DEI housing policies that prohibit families from pursuing the American dream.”

These two bills, first obtained by The Center Square, are in line with Republicans’ renewed push to eliminate the hard left turn toward DEI policies taken in the last few years of the Biden-Harris administration.

Those policies have been under the microscope for years, but Trump’s win gives Republicans hope they can be undone.

Many of Trump’s cabinet picks so far have also pledged to remove DEI programs from the federal government. These policies can range from training federal employees on “white privilege” to using medical research funds to study racism to awarding federal funds to recipients only as long as they toe the line on DEI orthodoxy.

The latest high-profile examples of controversial DEI spending involves the Federal Emergency Management Administration. Amid the scandal of its handling of Hurricane Helene and Hurricane Milton, reporting has shown that FEMA lists DEI and equity as it number one priority.

U.S. Rep. Michael Cloud, R-Texas, introduced the Dismantle DEI Act, which advanced out of the House Oversight Committee, which would eliminate DEI programs in the federal government and return to a “colorblind” approach.

“Diversity, equity, and inclusion – these are words that, on the surface, seem to represent ideals we can all support,” Cloud said. But when these principles are redefined and implemented as an ideology within our federal government, they take on a meaning that diverges from their original intent.”

A recent report from Do No Harm documented about 500 examples of DEI programs across many agencies choosing to reward some Americans over others.

“Under the guise of progress, this ideology seeks to categorize individuals based on immutable characteristics rather than valuing the content of their character or their individual achievements,” Cloud continued.

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