A simply superb paragraph by Sam Harris.

Beautiful day marching up Fifth Avenue with @MikeBloomberg for the annual Israel Day Parade. The NYPD was not messing around with security: this was the most extensive security plan that the NYPD has ever put together for this event so that everyone could celebrate safely. Thank you to every member of the NYPD who was out today protecting our city.

In 2005, Israel gave Palestinians exactly what the world demanded: “Land for Peace.” They unilaterally withdrew from the entire Gaza Strip, but got no peace. The IDF forcibly removed every last Jew — even digging up Jewish graves. Gaza was made completely Jew-free, exactly as Palestinians demanded. Israel handed over thriving communities, farms, and hundreds of millions in infrastructure — including productive greenhouses that could have become an economic engine for a Palestinian state. What did the Palestinians do with this gift? They destroyed it. Mobs looted and burned the greenhouses. They ransacked and demolished synagogues. They celebrated with Hamas flags and gunfire. Then, in January 2006, they voted Hamas — a genocidal terrorist organization whose charter calls for the destruction of Israel and the murder of Jews — into power. By 2007, Hamas completed a bloody coup, threw Fatah members off rooftops, and seized total control of Gaza. The result? - Tens of thousands of rockets fired at Israeli civilians - More than 500 miles of underground terror tunnels - Billions in international aid stolen for war, not welfare - Gaza transformed into a fortified Islamic terror enclave Land for peace was tried — and violently rejected. Everything Israel gave away in 2005 became the launchpad for the October 7 Massacre. This is the ultimate proof: the Palestinian movement has never wanted a state living next to Israel. Its goal has always been the destruction of the Jewish state — in any part of the Land. Important note: The blockade only came after Hamas seized power in 2007 and turned Gaza into a launchpad for war. And when that happened, Egypt joined it too. Disengagement didn’t bring peace. It brought the worst massacre of Jews since the Holocaust.

People say the left and the right can’t agree on anything these days. But there is this one thing:

Higher fuel prices are affecting small business financing, with some businesses delaying investment & some lenders more cautious with certain industries. @GasBuddyGuy I'd be curious to combine this view with localized price change %s across the U.S.

I am left of center, though the left today obviously no longer represents me, having devolved into a sickening morass of third-worldist racism and totalitarian mob behavior. I support gay rights, women's rights, and trans rights. I believe climate change is real and will pose a major challenge to human societies. I support a social welfare state compatible with economic prosperity and personal freedom. I support the rights of immigrants, and a reasonable immigration policy that keeps out criminals, Jew-haters, and terrorists. But my experience after October 7th taught me that antizionism is itself a form of discrimination and oppression. I was discriminated against, purged, harassed, and threatened with violence by antizionists. In the wake of that experience, I studied its history and analyzed its content. Antizionism is a hate movement. And if the Democratic Party wants any hope of maintaining an authentic commitment to human rights and equality, it must oppose it. It must reject the colonizer, apartheid, and genocide libels. It must recognize that Israel is an oppressed state on the regional and global stage. It must continue to fund the Iron Dome. It ought to continue supporting Israel regardless of its current government. And it must hold the true culprits — antizionists — accountable for the suffering of so many people across the Middle East.

.@mlevchin: "Socialism sucks." "Take it from somebody who spent his first 16 years under the 'warm embrace of collectivism' as a certain mayor recently put it—socialism sucks." "The only people who do well in redistribution of wealth are the ones doing redistribution." "It's fundamentally corrupt. There's not enough bad things I can say about socialism."

I am the granddaughter of Holocaust survivors. My grandmother, Rifka, was married with four children when the Nazis murdered her husband. Alone with children to raise, her young son Avrumi, 12 years old, took her shift working so that she could prepare for Passover with her other children, sister and sister’s children. When shouts of “Yudenrein!” “Jew round up” rang through the streets, Rifka took the children to the empty space below the floor boards to hide. As she was closing the hatch, Avrumi ran into the house. “Come! Come!,” she called frantically. “I can’t,” he said. “The Germans saw me, if I don't come out, they will know there is a hiding place. I just came to say goodbye.” When the Nazis barged in, Rifka listened through the floorboards as her son told them he had run into the house in a random search for food. She would never see him again. Two more of her children as well as her sister, nieces and nephews were killed in subsequent round ups. Her brother had been killed earlier in the war. Rifka was left with one son, Shlomo. 14 years old. They worked and hid in farms, in hay stacks and behind false doors. Exposed in the fields one day, they ran together, chased like animals by the Nazi’s. Shlomo told his mother, “If you don't let go of my hand, we will both die.” He let go. Shlomo went one way, Rifka went the other. The Nazis shot him in the back. With no husband or children to live for, Rifka joined the Partisans in the woods. After the war, she lay sick in bed with no will to live. Shlomo, meanwhile, had survived the gunshot. After the war as he searched for family, he heard a woman singing a familiar song. “Where did you hear that song?” he asked her. She told him a woman who lay dying had been humming it. “Is she still alive? Please, bring me to her.” And so Shlomo was reunited with his mother. In a displaced persons camp in Germany, Rifka married a man named Zalman whom she had met in the partisans. Zalman had lost his wife and three children to the Nazis but had one surviving son, Al. Together, Rifka and Zalman had two more children. Shep, born in the DP camp and Fayge (my mother) born in Bolivia where they moved after being sponsored by cousins. Zalman fell ill and the family moved to NY for treatment. Unfortunately he died when my mother was 2.5 years old. Left alone with children to raise, Rifka bought a farm in NJ. Back then, being a single parent meant your children could be taken from you. She needed a husband fast. A man named Berche, also a survivor, whose wife and two children were murdered, remarried after the war and had a daughter. His second wife, Dubye, died on the boat to America. A widower with a daughter to raise, he needed a wife to keep his daughter from a state run orphanage. Someone introduced Berche to Rifka and they married. I was raised with their memories. Their tears and their fears. There was no Sabbath when my grandfather didn’t cry, no day my grandmother didn’t stare silently into a past I could not accompany her to. Each spoke 4- 5 languages. Each had rebuilt their lives over and over again...But despite their pain, they were full of love. Their pride in their families, their belief in goodness...I cannot imagine the depth of their loss and how much strength it took to simply continue breathing. Believing. Hoping. And loving. I grew up with a family of half, whole and step siblings. A grandfather with whom I shared no blood but with whom I shared a heart. Cousins who drove me nuts but drove hours to see me. Aunts who were crazy and who I was crazy about. Uncles who slobbered me with kisses and showered me with love. I grew up in a family that understood love and loss, the value of sacrifice and the vital importance of loyalty. I love them all for who they are and who they are to me. They are all part of the story and part of who I am. #YomHashoa

Chag Pesach Sameach to all my Jewish friends and constituents. Passover is a celebration of liberation, a timeless message that resonates as powerfully today as it did millennia ago. In the face of rising antisemitism, may this Passover renew our commitment to the safety and dignity of the Jewish people and to the enduring fight for freedom everywhere.

“Next year in Jerusalem” has been said at Passover seders by Jews across the world for generations. I’m dedicated to protecting Israel as the Jewish homeland. Happy Passover.

Mayor Mamdani began his term highlighting his commitment to creating an inclusive New York. 

This is an important moment for Mayor Mamdani to live up to his own rhetoric and reaffirm his commitment to confronting antisemitism and keeping every New Yorker safe. Read more. ⬇️

When I was a law student in Ottawa, the local Chabad ran Friday night dinners out of a rabbi’s living room. Students everywhere. Total chaos. Total warmth. I wasn’t religious. They didn’t care. They just welcomed me. Years later, Lindsay and I helped build a Chabad center on that campus. Chabad shows up for Jews everywhere. With love. With pride. With zero judgment. No matter where you are in the world, if you’re Jewish, there’s a Chabad rabbi and rebbetzin opening their home for you. That is extraordinary. And I’ll always be grateful.

Iranian Americans in New York and across this country are cheering the United States for finally confronting the savage regime that has tortured, murdered, and terrorized their families for nearly half a century. The ones screaming in protest are the usual political fanatics on the far left and far right, people so blinded by ideology that they will defend a regime that whips women for showing their hair, executes LGBTQ people from cranes, bankrolls terrorism, and openly calls for America’s destruction. If you are running interference for that regime, you are not “anti-war.” You are morally hollow. You are choosing tyrants over victims. New Yorkers stand proudly and unapologetically with the men and women confronting this evil, defending our country and the entire free world.

Prayers to our soldiers and pilots, Israelis and Palestinians in harm’s way, and courageous anti-regime Iranians. And prayers for the end of a 47-year reign of terror and misery, and a peaceful future to citizens of the Middle East.

New @TheFP editorial on the lies of Kristi Noem. thefp.com/p/kristi-noems-rec…

Free Palestine has been violently protesting for two years over Gaza, claiming “it’s the worst massacre of our time.” Meanwhile, Tehran’s regime murdered around 20,000 Iranians in just two days — probably the largest massacre in modern history. So where’s their outrage now?

There was so much talk about the protests in Iran – but they drowned in blood. The world has not helped enough the Iranian people, it has stood aside. What will Iran become after this bloodshed? If the regime survives, it sends a clear signal to every bully – kill enough people, and you stay in power.

One thing lost from the US debate on Israel is the background on how the vast majority of Israel's physical neighbors want to destroy it (and have tried). Not "Canadians don't like Americans" style but more... "we hope to kill every single one of you and remove your country from existence" style hate. Iran, Syria, Egypt, Yemen, southern Lebanon, Palestinian Authority in the West Bank, most of Northern Africa oh and nuclear Pakistan. Imagine if Mexico, Canada, every Caribbean country and the Atlantic ocean wanted Americans dead. And America was the size of Vermont. And for decades was sending suicide bombers and firing missiles into America. We can debate Israel's aggressive response, but lost is the day to day situation Israel finds itself in for the last 50 years.

This report is extremely distressing. When vetted by the White House for my position as Special Envoy, I was not asked anything akin to this. Had I been, I would have responded that the question is an example of why an Envoy is necessary. It is classic antisemitism.