[Note by JW – Damon Linker is on the Left, but has the integrity to report real news even if it disappoints him]

Don't be fooled by misleading stories about Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's disappointing showing in Tuesday's (4/09) election in Israel.

Even if the centrist Blue and White alliance of former military chief Benny Gantz had eked out a very narrow victory over Netanyahu's right-wing Likud Party, the story of this election is not at all about the retreat of the right. (Gantz conceded yesterday 4/10.)

On the contrary, the most far-reaching consequence of the 2019 Israeli election may well be that it verified, beyond any reasonable doubt, that there is functionally no Left left in Israel. It has become a country with a center, a right, and a far right, but no electorally viable Left to speak of.

An astonishing example.  The Labor Party – viewed as the equivalent of the US Democrat Party – performed so badly it may be on te verge of extinction.

Like lots of millennials who have catapulted to fame, May Golan got her start on the internet, blogging about life in her South Tel Aviv neighborhood. From there she gained a platform as a social activist, with 25,000 followers on Facebook and 16,300 on Twitter.

On Tuesday (4/09), hours before she won a seat in Israel’s Knesset, she reached out to voters in one last Facebook video, wearing a T-shirt with the words “Netanyahu. Right-wing. Strong. Successful.” emblazoned in blue and white block letters.  She is 32.

In other words, Golan is staunchly right wing. She’s also a lot like many Israeli Jews of her generation.

While American millennials have a reputation for liberal politics, young Israeli Jews have gone the opposite direction over time. For at least the past 10 years, these voters have identified as right wing at much higher levels than their parents.

On Sunday (4/07), the New York Times reported: “US Military Pulls Out of Libyan Capital As Rival Militias Battle.”

Here’s the background, and what the Times doesn’t understand: that this is an ambush of Putin’s Russia on NATO and the US.

The meeting of 29 foreign ministers from member countries of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), in Washington, DC, last week (April 3–4), marking the 70th anniversary of the North Atlantic Alliance, was not a joyful occasion for Russia.

During the celebration, Russia was duly identified as the main disruptor of regional security. The allies asserted unity in deterring Moscow’s provocative behavior and confirmed their resolve to increase defense expenditures accordingly.

Moscow’s urge to spoil the “hostile” celebrations of NATO’s lasting success was irresistible, but the readiness to directly challenge the security of the Alliance’s frontline states or even partners was clearly absent.  So Putin found a near-perfect place for an ambush in Libya.

The irony of the entire Russian collusion hoax is that accusers who cried the loudest about leaking, collusion, lying, and obstruction are themselves soon very likely to be accused of just those crimes.

Now that Robert Mueller’s 674-day, $30 million investigation is over and has failed to find the original goal of its mandate—evidence of a criminal conspiracy between the Trump presidential campaign and the Russian government to sway the 2016 election.

And now that thousands of once-sealed government documents will likely be released in unredacted form, those who eagerly assumed the role of the hunters may become the hunted, due to their own zealous violation of the nation’s trust and its laws.

Let’s take Lying Under Oath, Foreign Collusion, Leaking, Obstruction of Justice, Conflict of Interest, and see how James Comey, Andrew McCabe, James Clapper, John Brennan, Samantha Power, Susan Rice, Loretta Lynch, Rod Rosenstein and others including Robert Mueller participated.

There was a superb column at The Federalist recently (3/13) by George S. Bardmesser: "Every Time Democrats Talk, I Want to Vote for Trump Twice."

It is as hilarious as it is frightening.  It is also a courageous confession, especially for a lawyer who lives in D.C.  Let's hope he has personal security.

I am betting there are millions of us, many more millions than voted for Trump in 2016, who agree with the man.  He was a reluctant Trump-voter but is now completely on board the Trump train.  Why?

Because the current crop of Democrat candidates are moonbats all.  Each of them is a thorough socialist nutjob.  Each of them is trying to out-fanaticalize the others.   Each of them is absolutely clueless about the American people outside the far-left bubbles all of them inhabit.

Every one of them.

As quite a few TTPers know, Cryptohippie has moved to routers for our services. What they may not know is why, and that’s simply because the surveillance arms race requires it.

Things have gotten much worse and we can’t provide serious protection without this upgrade. I’d like you to understand why.

Sauron Is On Steroids

I suspect that almost all of us are familiar with the Eye of Sauron from the Lord of The Rings Trilogy. In one place Tolkien called it, “the Eye piercing all shadows.” It makes a wonderful metaphor for mass surveillance systems, which now see through almost any shadow to surveil the billions of us at once.

The truth about mass surveillance is that it’s far worse than people understand.

“After a 200-year hiatus—since the Qing dynasty began to weaken, in the early nineteenth century—China is returning to the world stage as a great power,” wrote Robert Kaplan in the Atlantic. “That may be usual for China, but it is unusual for the West.”

Kaplan, in his piece titled “China: A World Power Again,” maintained that the period of Chinese weakness was an aberration, merely an interlude between natural eras of tianchao—Celestial Kingdom—grandeur.

There are many contemporary reasons—contracting economy, collapsing demography, crumbling politics—why Kaplan is wrong and why Beijing’s challenge to America and the international system will almost surely fall short.

But history also suggests China’s path to glory is impassable. As an initial matter, the popular conception of China rests on a gross misreading of the past. The country, in short, has never been dominant on “the world stage,” as Kaplan and others put it. And it won’t be anytime soon.