THIS PROBABLY WON'T BE THE LAST ATTEMPT TO ASSASSINATE TRUMP

Trump golf course shooter named as Ryan Wesley Routh as suspect is arrested for assassination attempt in Florida

 

By Stephen M. Lepore and Shawn Cohen 

 

Daily Mail

Sep 15, 2024

Ryan Wesley Routh, 58 is in custody after the terrifying incident at Trump International Club almost exactly two months after a separate assassination attempt against Trump during a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania

 

Ryan Wesley Routh, the man named as the suspect in a possible assassination attempt near Donald Trump's Florida golf club, was calm and emotionless when he was arrested Sunday. 

Registered Democrat Routh, 58 is in custody after the terrifying incident at Trump International Club almost exactly two months after a separate assassination attempt against Trump during a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania.

The suspect was found unarmed, as a backpack, GoPro camera and AK-47 style rifle that a gunman left behind when fleeing the scene have already been located.

Martin County Sherriff William D. Snyder said Routh 'was not displaying a lot of emotions' when police arrested him. 

Snyder added that the suspected shooter was 'relatively calm' and 'never asked' why he was being detained.

 

Routh, the man named as the suspect in a possible assassination attempt near Donald Trump 's Florida golf club, was calm and emotionless when he was arrested Sunday

 

Routh, a registered Democrat, was convicted in 2002 of possessing a weapon of mass destruction, per online North Carolina Department of Adult Correction records but could not provide details about the case.   

But a News & Record story from 2002 says a man with the same name was arrested after a three-hour standoff with police. 

According to his oft-updated X feed, Routh went from voting for Trump in 2016 to supporting Tulsi Gabbard in 2020 to demanding Nikki Haley and Vivek Ramaswamy form a unity team in 2024.

FEC filings show him donating to everyone from Gabbard to Andrew Yang to Elizabeth Warren to Tom Steyer in the 2020 Democrat primary.

During the George Floyd protests, he was preaching anti-police rhetoric but also used both 'BlackLivesMatter' and 'AllLivesMatter' as a hashtag.  

He wrote a tweet to Trump in June 2020 saying: 'While you were my choice in 2106 [sic], I and the world hoped that president Trump would be different and better than the candidate, but we all were greatly disappointment and it seems you are getting worse and devolving; are you retarded; I will be glad when you gone'.

Wesley's son, Oran Routh, said his father is not a violent person and did not even believe him to own a gun. 

He told DailyMail.com his father hates Trump as 'every reasonable person does.

 

Trump was seen later Sunday with Speaker of the House Mike Johnson

Law enforcement personnel investigate the area around Trump International Golf Club after an apparent assassination attempt

 

'I don't like Trump either,' the son added.

But he said his dad is not a violent person and couldn't believe his father would target the president. 

'He's my dad and all he's had is couple traffic tickets, as far as I know,' the son said. 'That's crazy. I know my dad and love my dad, but that's nothing like him.'

The former president was rushed to safety on Sunday after multiple shots were fired in his vicinity while he was playing golf at his club in West Palm Beach. 

Routh said his father moved to Hawaii a few years back and was living with his longtime girlfriend. He said he didn't know his father was even in Florida.

'He said he was at the beach, but I thought that meant the outer banks in Hawaii,' he said. 'I didn't ask him for more information because we've had a falling out. We've grown apart.'

He wouldn't explain the nature of their 'falling out,' but still spoke highly of his father.

'He's not a violent person,' he said. 'He's a hard worker and a great dad. He's a great dude, a nice guy and has worked his whole f**king life.'

 

Trump supporters gather around Mar-A-Lago, after Republican presidential nominee and former U.S. President Donald Trump returned from Trump International Golf Club, which was the site of a shooting

Officials said U.S. Secret Service agents spotted a rifle barrel sticking out of the bushes two holes ahead of where Trump was golfing on Sunday, prompting the agents to fire at the suspect

 

Asked whether his father owned a gun, he replied, 'Not that I know of.

'I've never known him to own a gun or known him to do anything bats*** like this,' the son added.

He said his father works as a general contractor, building small homes in Hawaii, and previously owned a roofing company.

Routh professed his support for Biden and Harris prior to Biden leaving the race in 2024, saying 'democracy is on the ballot and we cannot lose'. 

The car Routh was found in will be taken into FBI custody for further investigation, according to authorities. 

'I have a clear understanding from investigators that we actually do have the suspect that they're looking for in Palm Beach County,' Snyder said. 

Officials said U.S. Secret Service agents spotted a rifle barrel sticking out of the bushes two holes ahead of where Trump was golfing on Sunday, prompting the agents to fire at the suspect.

The individual ran into his vehicle from the trees, but was spotted by a witness who snapped a picture of his vehicle – a black Nissan – which included the license plate.

Palm Beach Sheriff Ric Bradshaw told reporters at a press conference hours after the incident that the witness was able to share the plate and later identify the suspect as the person he saw fleeing the scene. 

Bradshaw said that the Secret Service had a 'limited' ability to protect Trump at the golf course.

'The golf course is surrounded by shrubbery, so when somebody gets into the shrubbery, they're pretty much out of sight, all right, and at this level that he is at right now, he's not the sitting president,' Bradshaw said.

Trump confirmed in a statement about an hour after the shots were reported that he is 'safe and well' and didn't want rumors to 'start spiraling out of control.'

The suspect was able to get within 400-500 yards of Trump. 

The 2024 Republican nominee's bulked up Secret Service advance team, however, spotted the shooter in the tree lines just two holes from where Trump was golfing. 

Special Agent Rafael Barros explained at the press conference on Sunday that Secret Service moves with Trump and is usually surveying one or two holes ahead of him when he goes for a round of golf. 

Asked if the security has changed around Trump since the first attempt on his life earlier this summer, Barros said: 'Yes, the threat was high.'

'We have increased the amount of assets that we've supported,' he continued. 'We are living in dangerous times.'

Real estate investor and New York City landlord Steve Witkoff was Trump's golfing buddy on Sunday, sources told DailyMail.com.

The FBI released a statement two hours after the incident claiming the attack 'appears to be an attempted assassination of former President Trump.' 

The armed suspect was posted up outside the club around the 5th and 6th hole, which is confirmed to be a more 'vulnerable' area of the course because it is closest to the road. 

Sheriff Bradshaw detailed that the suspected assassin was wielding an 'AK-47 style weapon with a scope', which was recovered at the scene.

So was a backpack and GoPro camera, which Sheriff Bradshaw revealed in images of where the suspect was set-up in the bushes along the fencing of Trump's golf club.

 

An image shared by law enforcement reveals that backpack, bag, GoPro camera and AK-47 rifle with scope that a suspected would-be assassin had staged outside of Donald Trump's golf course in West Palm Beach on Sunday

When not campaigning, Trump is often found golfing at his West Palm Beach club. Pictured: Donald Trump flashes a thumbs-up as he golfs at his club in West Palm Beach on May 4, 2023

 

The area where the suspect was first spotted by his security detail was two holes ahead of where Trump was golfing at the time of gunshots, causing the individual to flee.

Undergrowth is cut back in this area every summer and is one of the parts of the course closest to the road.

The incident comes as Trump's security detail has been ramped up in the two months after the former president was shot in the ear during an assassination attempt at a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania on July 13. 

Rep. Mike Waltz (R-Fla.) is on the House Task Force on the assassination attempt and said Sunday that the latest proves the attack in Butler was not an 'isolated incident.'

'As I've said before, the July 13th assassination attempt was not an isolated incident that we can take our time investigating as domestic and foreign threats are ongoing,' Waltz wrote on X.

He added: 'As a member of the Assassination Task Force, I expect the Secret Service to brief us this week.'

Trump's golf club is just five miles from his residence at his Mar-a-Lago club in Palm Beach and is where the former president is often spotted golfing when he is not on the campaign trail. 

The Palm Beach Sheriff's Department held a press conference Sunday afternoon to provide updates on the shooting and revealed images of the suspect's backpack, GoPro camera and AK-47 rifle left at the scene. 

'Nothing will slow me down,' Trump wrote in a statement. 'I will NEVER SURRENDER!'

 

Palm Beach Sheriff's Department vehicles posted up outside Trump International Golf Club on Sunday after gunshots were reported in the vicinity of where the former president was golfing

The entrance of the Trump International Golf Club in West Palm Beach Sunday

 

President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris are aware of the shooting and 'relieved' he is not harmed.

'The President and Vice President have been briefed about the security incident at the Trump International Golf Course, where former President Trump was golfing,' according to the White House. 

'They are relieved to know that he is safe. They will be kept regularly updated by their team.'

Harris, who just met Trump for the first time in person at their debate on Tuesday, responded to the shooting with a statement sharing the platitude: 'Violence has no place in America.'

'I have been briefed on reports of gunshots fired near former President Trump and his property in Florida, and I am glad he is safe,' she wrote on X, formerly Twitter.

 

 

Ryan Wesley Routh speaking about the Russia-Ukraine War in 2022

Now-deleted Facebook profile of Ryan Routh, who allegedly tried to shoot Donald Trump at one of his Florida golf courses

 

United States Secret Service spokesman Anthony Guglielmi said in a post on X: 'The Secret Service, in conjunction with the Palm Beach County Sheriff's Office, is investigating a protective incident involving former President Donald Trump that occurred shortly before 2 p.m.'

'The former president is safe,' he assured, adding that the Palm Beach Sheriff's Office will follow up with more details about the incident.

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) said he spoke with Trump moments after news broke.

'He is one of the strongest people I've ever known,' the senator wrote on X. 'He's in good spirits and he is more resolved than ever to save our country.'

It is still unclear how many people were involved in Sunday's shooting and whether they were targeting the former president. It is also still not known if the suspect ever fired his gun or if the gunshots came from the agents who took aim at the alleged threat. 

But just the report of shots near Trump raises eyebrows as multiple investigations are ongoing into the shooting in Pennsylvania earlier this summer that left two dead, including the shooter, and two critically injured. 

 

A bullet struck Donald Trump's right ear during an assassination attempt on July 13 at a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania

Shooter Thomas Matthew Crooks, 20, was shot dead by Secret Service agents after he was able to climb onto a roof with an AR-15 just 400 feet from where Trump was speaking and take multiple shots that killed one rally goer, critically injured two others and struck the former president 

 

Trump walked away from the assassination attempt with just a bloody ear that could have been a fatal shot had it been a few millimeters different and struck his head.

But would-be assassin Thomas Matthew Crooks, 20, was shot dead by Secret Service before he was able to get in another shot at the former president.

Initial canvassing led to authorities discovering his car near the rally site in Butler with explosives and his parent's home with even more bombs.

Congressional and other local and federal investigations are ongoing to discover what led to the failures that allowed a shooter to get just a few hundred feet away from Trump with an AR-15 rifle.

IS IRAN BEING HELPED BY RUSSIA TO ACQUIRE NUCLEAR WEAPONS?

US, UK concerned Russia may be assisting Iran with nuclear weapons program — report

Concern grows after alleged shipment of ballistic missiles delivered to Russia for use against Ukraine; Tehran dismisses impact of Western sanctions, calling them a ‘failed tool’

 

The Times of Israel

Sep 15, 2024

 

 

Russian President Vladimir Putin meets with Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi at the Kremlin in Moscow, December 7, 2023. 

 

The US and UK are concerned that Russia has been helping Iran develop its nuclear weapons program in exchange for the recent delivery of ballistic missiles it was provided by Tehran for use in its war against Ukraine, according to a report Saturday that cited sources familiar with the matter.

The issue of deepening ties between Russia and Iran was a matter of concern during meetings between US President Joe Biden and UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer in Washington, DC, on Friday, as well as during talks between US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and UK Foreign Secretary David Lammy earlier in the week.

According to the Guardian newspaper, however, the two countries aren’t just focused on the ballistic missiles supplied to Russia by Iran, but are also concerned about what Russia may provide in return.

Citing British sources familiar with the high-level talks last week, the news outlet reported that the two countries believe Iran may be working with experienced Russian specialists to streamline its manufacturing process as it grows its stockpile of enriched uranium and prepares to make its own nuclear weapons.

Iran has pursued nuclear enrichment just below weapons-grade level ever since the collapse of the 2015 nuclear deal with world powers following the US’s unilateral withdrawal from the accord in 2018.

Western powers say there is no credible civilian reason for that, while Iran claims its aims are entirely peaceful despite its officials warning recently that the Islamic Republic could change its “nuclear doctrine” if it is attacked or its existence is seen as threatened by Israel.

 

Centrifuges line a hall at the Uranium Enrichment Facility in Natanz, Iran, in a still image from a video aired by the Islamic Republic Iran Broadcasting company on April 17, 2021, six days after the hall had been damaged in a mysterious attack.  

 

In August, the United Nations nuclear watchdog found that Iran had further increased its stockpile of uranium enriched to near weapons-grade level. As of August 17, Iran had 64.7 kilograms (363.1 pounds) of uranium enriched up to 60 percent, an increase of 22.6 kilograms (49.8 pounds) since the IAEA’s last report in May.

The country has continued to dismiss the impact that Western sanctions are having on the country, including those recently imposed by Britain, Germany and France due to the alleged arms exports to Russia.

Iran has repeatedly denied sending any weapons to Russia for use in its war against Ukraine and vowed to respond to the latest in the long string of Western sanctions, which Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi on Saturday dismissed as a “failed tool” to influence Tehran’s politics.

The state-owned news agency IRNA quoted Araghchi as saying: “It’s surprising that Western countries still do not know that sanctions are a failed tool and that they are unable to impose their agenda on Iran through sanctions.”

The top Iranian diplomat called sanctions “a tool of pressure and a tool of confrontation, not a tool of cooperation”.

Araghchi added, according to IRNA, that Iran has “always been open to negotiations” and “constructive dialogue” with other countries.

“But the dialogue should be based on mutual respect, not threats and pressure,” he said.

For its part, the foreign ministers of the Group of the Seven condemned on Saturday “in the strongest terms,” Iran’s export and Russia’s procurement of Iranian ballistic missiles.

The G7 is made up of Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Great Britain, and the United States.

“Iran must immediately cease all support to Russia’s illegal and unjustifiable war against Ukraine and halt such transfers of ballistic missiles, UAVs and related technology, which constitute a direct threat to the Ukrainian people as well as European and international security more broadly,” the ministers said in a statement.

Word of the alleged transfers emerged last weekend after the US and its allies warned Iran for months not to deliver ballistic missiles to Moscow.

The move was decried as an “act of escalation” by Germany, France and Britain, in a statement warning that the development was “a direct threat to European security.”

AN UNFORTUNATE HOSTAGE TRAGEDY

IDF says it accidentally killed 3 hostages in 2023

The announcement – shared with the families of Ron Sherman, Nick Beizer, and Elia Toledano – comes months after a preliminary pathological examination could not conclusively determine the cause of death for two of the hostages.

 

Israel Hayom

Sep 15, 1013

 

Left to right: Elia Toledano, Cpl. Nik Beizer and Sgt. Ron Sherman were accidentally killed as a result of IDF fire 

 

 

The IDF disclosed Sunday that the families of hostages Sergeant Ron Sherman, Corporal Nik Beizer, and Elia Toledano – who were kidnapped to the Gaza Strip on October 7 from the Nova rave – have been officially informed of the news that their loved ones were killed as a result of IDF fire, months after their bodies were found.

Military officials briefed the families on the findings of an investigation, providing the first confirmation that the hostages died due to an IDF strike.

At that time, it was reported that the pathological examination could not conclusively determine the cause of death for two of the hostages. The IDF has now presented the families with key findings from the pathological report and details surrounding the recovery of the bodies. Military officials emphasized to the bereaved families that during the operation in the underground area where the strike occurred, there was no intelligence indicating the presence of hostages at the location.

The remains of two of the deceased were retrieved from a Hamas tunnel during an IDF operation in Jabalia on December 14, 2023, alongside Toledano's body. Just two days prior, the bodies of Eden Zacharia and Staff Sergeant Ziv Dado, who fell victim to Hamas on October 7, were recovered from the same vicinity.

Initially, it was stated that the pathological examination could not definitively determine the cause of death for two of the hostages. The IDF has now presented the bereaved families with crucial findings from the pathological report and details surrounding the recovery operation. Military officials stressed to the families that during the operation in the underground area where the strike occurred, there was no intelligence suggesting the presence of hostages at the site.

In close proximity to where the bodies were discovered, the IDF had targeted a tunnel that led to the elimination of Ahmed Ghandour, the commander of the Northern Brigade of Gaza. The investigation uncovered that during the strike, the IDF had no knowledge of hostages in the area. The forces stumbled upon the bodies during tunnel searches, without any prior intelligence about their whereabouts.

The forensic report revealed no signs of physical trauma or gunshot wounds on the bodies, indicating they were not killed by direct impact from the strike. Given the condition of the remains, the precise cause of death could not be established.

WAITING FOR ISRAEL TO RETALIATE

Houthi missile explodes over central Israel

The Iranian terror proxy has launched dozens of drones and missiles at Israel in support of Hamas in Gaza since Oct. 7, 2023.

 

Israel Today 

Sep 15, 2024 

 

 

 

Houthi leader Abd al-Malek Badr al-Din al-Houthi

 

Israeli air defenses on Sunday morning intercepted fragments of a surface-to-surface missile launched from Yemen that exploded over central Israel.

The attack triggered sirens in central Israel and the Tel Aviv area at around 6:30 a.m.

According to the Magen David Adom emergency service, five individuals suffered light injuries while running for shelters. They were treated on the scene before being referred to hospitals, according to MDA.

The Israel Defense Forces confirmed the attack was launched from Yemen, after correcting an initial report that a missile had been launched from the east.

“The explosive sounds heard in the last few minutes are from the interceptors. The result of the interception is under review,” according to the IDF.

In July, a Houthi drone killed a man in central Tel Aviv, in response to which Israel struck Yemen’s Hodeidah port. The Iranian terror proxy has launched dozens of drones and missiles at Israel in support of Hamas in Gaza since Oct. 7, 2023.

Hazam al-Assad, a member of the Houthi militia’s political bureau, tweeted on Sunday morning, hours after the attack, that “whether you are in underground shelters or out of them, you must listen carefully this afternoon to what this great leader, who speaks the truth and acts with integrity, will say,” along with a picture of Houthi leader Abd al-Malek Badr al-Din al-Houthi.

He claimed that the missile was “very powerful and hypersonic,” and had ” bypassed all defenses and hit a military area in Lod near Ben Gurion Airport.”

Fragments of an IDF interceptor hit a train station in Modi’in, causing damage, with images from the scene showing shattered glass and damage to an escalator. No injuries were reported.

Other interceptor fragments reportedly fell in an agricultural field near Lod, a city just under 10 miles southeast of Tel Aviv. Four firefighting teams were working to control a blaze that broke out near Moshav Kfar Daniel as a result, which posed no immediate danger to nearby homes.

The Israeli security establishment’s initial assessment is that the missile disintegrated in the air, according to Channel 12 News. Based on the initial investigation, it appears that Israel’s Arrow defense system intercepted one of the fragments while the Iron Dome system shot down others.

The interceptor fragments fell in open areas, except for the shrapnel that hit the train station. The fragments of the Houthi missile itself landed in an open area in the Ben Shemen area.

Ben Gurion Airport was operating on a regular schedule Sunday, with 62,000 passengers expected to pass through Israel on 375 flights.

On Friday, the Hamas terrorist organization in Gaza said it had fired two rockets toward Tel Aviv. The IDF said that one of the projectiles fell in the sea, and the other did not cross into Israeli territory. Residents of the Gush Dan region of central Israel reported a loud explosion.

Hamas said it had launched “two M90 rockets” toward Tel Aviv, with a source from the terror group telling the Hezbollah-aligned Lebanese news site Al Mayadeen that the rockets were launched from Khan Yunis, where the IDF is currently operating.

DISPLACED ISRAELIS WANT HEZBOLLAH DESTROYED

As Israel prepares for Lebanon war, northern residents finally take center stage

Over 60,000 have been displaced for over 11 months. But they’re willing to wait longer if it means the destruction of Hezbollah.

 

By Ryan Jones 

 

Israel Today

Sep 15, 2024

 

The northern Israeli city of Kiryat Shmona has become a ghost town since October 

 

To say that war with Lebanon is still looming is somewhat misleading. A more serious conflict is indeed on the horizon, but for the residents of Israel’s northern border region, war has already been raging for the past 11 months.

Some 60,000 locals evacuated the region for safer areas to the south, and those who remained are subjected to daily rocket barrages resulting in sporadic casualties, severe property damage, rampant wildfires and power outages.

In short, war.

But it’s about to get worse. And the residents of the north are supportive of that fact, knowing that the only way they can return and live their lives in relative peace and security is to destroy the threat at their doorstep.

“Our homes have probably been destroyed, but that’s okay with us as long as it will lead to victory and survival,” one evacuee staying in Tel Aviv told JNS last week. She and other internal refugees from the north said they found terribly disturbing the weekly anti-government protest in Tel Aviv, which have of late been accompanied by an more “anti-war” tune.

The resident of northern Israel are frustrated by the fact that their plight elicits a less serious military reaction than a single drone striking Tel Aviv.

Their leaders have said repeatedly that the residents of the north will not return home until the Hezbollah threat is removed. A “diplomatic solution” that leave Hezbollah armed and in place is not acceptable.

So today’s news that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu intends to declare the safe return of Israel’s northern residents a formal war goal is sure to provide some belated hope.

In a statement on Friday, the Prime Minister’s Office said that the goal “is agreed upon by all Cabinet members.”

Netanyahu has stated in the past that the safe return of residents evacuated from towns and villages along Israel’s border with Lebanon due to ongoing attacks by Hezbollah is a national goal, but has not yet made it an official government policy.

With the Gaza war now in its later phases, the attention of the political and military leadership is shifting to the north.

Opposition leader Benny Gantz last week told a gathering in Washington that “the time for the north has come. …we must go to war in the north and ensure that we can return the residents to their homes.”

Netanyahu was cited by Israel’s Channel 12 on Friday as saying, “The situation in the north cannot continue. We must change the equation.”

The Biden administration is predictably desperate to prevent a full-scale war between Israel and Lebanon on the cusp of  a US presidential election. US special envoy Amos Hochstein is set to arrive in Israel on Monday with that goal in mind.

But as Israelis have been saying since the black Shabbat of October 7, 2023 – “What once was will no longer be.”

Israelis will no longer let American political considerations dictate the way they live their lives and protect their families.

THE PLO CONVINCED IGNORANT YOUNG PEOPLE WITH GUILTY CONSCIENCES THAT ZIONISM WAS A NEW NAZISM - WORSE THAN THE FIRST ONE

As Oslo turns 31, the left must abandon its hatred

The problem with politics of hate is that hate is a hard habit to break. 

 

By Caroline Glick

 

JNS

Sep 15, 2024

The signing of the Oslo Accords between PLO leader Yaseer Arafat and Israeli PM Yitzak Rabin with Bill Clinton as facilitator and witness on September 13, 1993

 

Sept. 13, 1993 was the day Israel’s ruling class abandoned Zionism. That day, when then prime minister Yitzhak Rabin stood in the White House Rose Garden and officially recognized the Palestine Liberation Organization—to the rapturous applause of his supporters back home—was the moment Israel’s elite collectively abandoned their attachment to their nation.

The PLO was many things. It was a terrorist organization. It was the architect of modern terrorism, including airline hijacking, kidnapping, the murder of families, the mass murder of children, the assassination of diplomats.

The PLO trained everyone from Khomeini’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps to the Japanese Red Army, the Baader Meinhof Gang and the Black Panthers. It brought terrorists from every ideological line together and forged them into a revolutionary conglomerate united in their desire to destroy the United States, the West, the Jews and their state, Israel.

The PLO was a political warfare group. It brought genocidal Jew hatred to the West’s radical left. It used the media to romanticize barbarous acts of mass murder and brutal torture as it carried them out.

Through its Western lackies, barely 20 years after the Holocaust the PLO was able to reinstate Jew hatred as a tool for political mobilization and a major cultural force. Through its propaganda operations, the PLO convinced ignorant young people with guilty consciences that their Nazi parents were really victims. Zionism was demonized as a new Nazism—worse than the first one. And in 1975, 30 years after the liberation of Auschwitz, the U.N. General Assembly passed Resolution 3374, which designated Zionism a form of racism.

Zionism is often defined as the Jewish national liberation movement. And that is true enough, but that definition obfuscates more than it reveals. Zionism is simply Judaism.

Judaism has three foundations—the Torah, the nation of Israel and the land of Israel. There have been centuries of campaigns to forcibly convert the Jews to other faiths, replete with mass burnings of sacred books aimed at wiping out the Torah and annihilating Jews by physically destroying their sacred texts and spiritually capturing them through forced renunciation of their faith.

Campaigns to annihilate the Jewish people—whether through genocide, mass expulsions, the Napoleonic code or Communist dictates that required Jews to renounce their national attachment to one another—aimed at disappearing the Jews by either physically destroying them or forcing them to reject the relevance of their own identity.

Zionism predated both the Torah and the people of Israel. Judaism began the moment that God told Abraham to leave the land of his fathers and move to the land of Israel where he would become a nation, organized around the laws God prescribed. The Jewish nation was born in the land of Israel. And the faith of Israel was born there. Neither the law nor the people make sense without the land of Israel.

And that’s the thing—each of the three foundations of the Jews are inextricably linked to the others.

The PLO had three founders—Yasser Arafat, Egyptian president Gamal Abdel Nasser and the KGB. For Arafat, the PLO was a means to inherit the mantle of the founder of Palestinian nationalism, Nazi agent Haj Amin el Husseini. Husseini spearheaded the modern jihad against the Jews and the British throughout the Arab world. And he used antisemitism as a means to persuade the British and others to support his efforts against the Jews even as he directed his followers to wage war against Britain.

With the help of his Soviet sponsors, Arafat carried out a similar political operation among Western radicals. And like Husseini, Arafat also sought to solidify pan-Arab support for the annihilation of Israel over the long term.

The PLO served Nasser’s purpose in two ways. When he founded the terror group in 1964, Nasser envisioned that the terror group would reinforce his position as the undisputed head of the Arab world. After his stunning defeat in the Six-Day War three years later, he viewed the PLO as a proxy force that would serve as the avant-garde of the pan-Arab war to annihilate Israel and keep it in the headlines while the Arabs rebuilt their forces and organized for a new round of war.

For the Soviets, the PLO was a means to undermine the U.S.-led West’s sense of the morality. The Jewish state was the paradigmatic foundation of the Western nation state. The U.S. founding fathers aspired to build a new Jerusalem in the New World, based on God’s law and a belief in man’s inherent fallibility.

The PLO, which asserted that Israel was a racist, colonialist outpost, was a tool to delegitimize Israel and through it the United States and the Western world. If Israel was born in sin, then the Bible was a lie and the United States itself had been founded on immoral belief in nothing more than racist, European supremacism.

As far as Israel was concerned, the PLO’s dual terrorism and political warfare operations were geared toward Balkanizing Israeli society. PLO surrogates and sympathizers assiduously courted first leftist American Jews and then leftist Israeli activists to peel them away from the vast majority of American Jews and Israelis who recognized the insidiousness of the PLO’s political actions and the pure evil of its terrorism. The idea was to convince them that “peace” would reign if Israel would simply accept the legitimacy of the PLO.

These activists in turn began campaigns in the American Jewish community, and within Israel, to demonize Israelis who rejected the PLO as atavistic warmongers. Over time, their efforts paid off. As the Israeli right rose to power for the first time in 1977 with the support of religious and working class, overwhelmingly Sephardic Israelis, legitimizing the PLO increasingly became the means to unify the left into a cohesive opposition and social class.

Given the nature, goal and modus operandi of the PLO, at its foundation, accepting the legitimacy of the PLO meant rejecting the legitimacy of Zionism, or of the state of the Jews. For Israelis and Jews in the Diaspora, that translated into social and political activism geared toward legitimizing hatred of the Israeli communities whose members refused to attenuate their attachment to Judaism. This was the case whether that attachment was to the traditional Judaism of the Sephardic Jews, the ultra-Orthodoxy of the haredim or the attachment to the land of Israel, particularly Judea and Samaria, of the national religious community in Israel.

Rabin’s decision to accept the legitimacy of the PLO at the White House on Sept. 13, 1993 transformed this hateful, anti-Jewish approach to the people of Israel and their national identity into the national strategy of the Israeli government.

In the event, it failed completely.

It failed completely for two reasons. First, the PLO’s goal was never peace. It was always the annihilation of Israel—all of Israel. So it could never be a true partner to any Israeli, no matter how far to the left, who wasn’t convinced that Israel should disappear completely. And even those had a problem. Because it turned out that the PLO was just a gateway drug to Hamas, which wouldn’t even pay lip service to the distinction between post-Zionist and Zionist Jews.

The second reason it failed is because the narrative of Israeli criminality and immorality was never true, and most Israelis never bought it. Most Israelis also never accepted the distinction between “good” and “bad” Jews. They never agreed that there was something morally depraved about Zionism, or the Torah or the people of Israel. No matter how hard the left tried, it could never get a majority of Israelis to agree with the fundamental principle that guided its policies and actions.

Sure, Israelis want peace. But they don’t think they are the reason peace has eluded the Jewish state and people. They refuse to blame themselves for the aggression and hatred directed against their people and country.

The problem with politics of hate is that hate is a hard habit to break. If you have been conditioned to believe that your future is dependent on defeating the object of your hate, the only way your opinion is likely to change is if you stop hating. Since 1993, the PLO proved over and over that it is Israel’s enemy, not its peace partner. But accepting the truth meant accepting that the left had brought disaster on the country, and the objects of its hatred—the Jews who refused to renounce any aspect of their identity—had been right all along.

In other words, accepting failure required them to either redefine their class identity or abandon it. The left opted to reinvent itself. It embraced the concept of “Start-Up Nation” as a way to secure its economic and cultural power while maintaining its detachment from the rest of society. By seizing control over the new elixir of high-tech, the left joined the global elite, with its capitals in Davos and Silicon Valley.

But you have to pay to enter the realm of the new globalist elite. The overlords aspire to a post-nationalist, internationalist form of governance. Their ideological roots are not American capitalism. Rather, schooled in elite universities drenched in Soviet-rooted anti-Westernism, the leaders of the new global ruling class are post-nationalist and fully on board with the Soviet view that Zionism, the apotheosis of nationalist aspirations, is illegitimate. To join their club, Israel’s tech titans have been required to disavow their allegiance to their “violent settler” and “ultra-Orthodox” countrymen.

In other words, even when they tried to walk away from the PLO elixir that brought about the disaster of the Palestinian terror state in Israel’s heartland, they were faced with the same choice.

It worked, more or less, until Oct. 7. On that day, two things happened. First, Palestinian terrorists, with their paragliders, Toyota pick-up trucks, RPGs and sadistic blood lust exploded the myth that technology will free Israel of our need to defend ourselves with the brothers the left desperately hoped to abandon. All the military applications of the Start-Up Nation—the high-tech sensors, signals intelligence, the smart fence, the air force—failed completely on Oct. 7. The only thing that worked that day was the raw heroism and patriotism of the Jews—civilian and security forces who rushed to the south unbidden to save the families and communities being overrun.

The second thing that happened is that the international jet set, the global elite, dropped all distinction between “good” and “bad” Jews. The photos of the hostages from Be’eri and Kfar Azza were torn down with the same hatred that had long been directed toward “violent settlers” or “identifiable Jews” alone. The Jew haters on campuses no longer felt the need to pretend that some Israelis were acceptable.

For the past 11 months, members of the post-Zionist sector have been struggling to get their heads around the shattering of their delusions. Their leaders are trying to double down. But their insistence that the problems lay with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, or the haredim, or messianic settlers, or imbecile yokels who get teary-eyed at songs about Am Yisrael, has fewer and fewer takers. Every protest fizzles after a few days. The thrill is gone. With no “peace” or “Start Up Nation” fig leaves to hide behind, the hatred is all that is left.

Thirty-one years since the left embraced the PLO and hate, it must finally abandon it. Israel’s survival depends on it.

ALTHOUGH HEZBOLLAH HAS BEEN DAILY FIRING A BARRAGE OF MISSILES AND DRONES ON ISRAEL, BIDEN-HARRIS DO NOT WANT ISRAEL TO START AN ALL-OUT WAR AGAINST THE TERRORISTS

Hochstein and Hezbollah

If there’s one thing Kamala Harris doesn’t want before the Nov. 5 election, it’s another war against an Iranian proxy bent on Israel’s destruction—particularly on the anniversary of the Trump-brokered Abraham Accords. 

 

By Ruthie Blum

 

JNS

Sep 15, 2024

 

 

Amos Hochstein (C) is a holdover from the Obama administration

Amos Hochstein, deputy assistant to the U.S. president and senior adviser for energy and investment, is scheduled to arrive in Israel on Monday, in yet another attempt to block Israel from defending itself against Hezbollah in Lebanon. That’s not how his boss in Washington—whoever that actually is at this point—would characterize the special envoy’s visit, of course.

No, the American administration, now led by out-of-commission figurehead Joe Biden, refers to Hochstein’s efforts as necessary to prevent an “escalation” of tensions between Hezbollah and Israel, and to keep the latter from opening up another front in the current war.

Right.

As though the dominant Iran-backed terrorists in Lebanon didn’t already declare war on Israel on Oct. 8, the day after Hamas launched an assault on the Jewish state the likes of which haven’t been seen since the Holocaust.

As if Hezbollah hasn’t been daily firing dozens of missiles and drones since then on northern Israel, large swaths of which have been evacuated of their imperiled residents.

Golan and Galilee denizens weren’t the only ones bombarded over the weekend by hostile projectiles, however. Early Sunday morning, Israelis all over the center of the country awoke to sirens and loud booms. It emerged that a surface-to-surface ballistic missile from Yemen had hit in an open area, sparking a fire in the Ben Shemen Forest, a few miles from Ben-Gurion Airport.

Naturally, the above was the subject of the weekly Cabinet meeting, which took place mere hours after the Houthis took credit for the assault, and ahead of Hochstein’s latest pointless diplomatic trip.

“We are engaged in a multi-front campaign against the axis of evil led by Iran, which seeks our destruction,” said Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the start of the ministerial gathering. “This morning, the Houthis fired a surface-to-surface missile from Yemen into our territory. They should already have known that we exact a heavy price for any attempt to harm us.”

He went on to clarify, “Anyone needing a reminder in this regard is invited to visit the port of Hudeidah.”

He then vowed, “Anyone who attacks us will not escape our wrath. Hamas is already learning this through our resolute actions that will lead to its destruction and the release of all our hostages.”

On the other hand, he stopped short of announcing outright that tackling the threat of Hezbollah was now among the government’s official war goals—despite this having been widely reported in the Hebrew press on Saturday night. And the only reason that it didn’t cause a major stir was that the repeated warnings and threats from Jerusalem about a more serious attack in Lebanon than the ongoing volleys of attrition between Hezbollah and the Israel Defense Forces have caused most Israelis to shrug.

Public sentiment has come to alternate between “We’ll believe it when we see it” and “Don’t talk: shoot already.”

“I visited the north,” Netanyahu continued. “I am attentive to the residents of the north. I am talking to them and with local authorities in the north. I see the distress. I hear the cries. The current situation will not continue. It requires a change in the balance of power at our northern border. We will do whatever is necessary to safely return our residents to their homes. I am committed to this. The government is committed to this. And we will not settle for less.”

This will be achieved, he said, “thanks to the bravery of our fighters and from the unity within us, as a united people rising against our enemies to ensure our future.”

One encouraging sign was the report in the Lebanese media that the Israeli Air Force dropped leaflets over Wazani, near the border, urging villagers to evacuate the area by 4 p.m., because “Hezbollah is firing from your area.” Though the IDF subsequently stated that the fliers hadn’t been approved by the top brass—but were the initiative of Battalion 769—the move would suggest that Israel really is gearing up for the very conflict that Hochstein fears, certainly before the Nov. 5 U.S. presidential election.

Indeed, if there’s one thing that Vice President (and Democratic candidate) Kamala Harris doesn’t want before voters go to the polls in seven weeks, it’s another full-fledged war against an Iranian proxy bent on Israel’s destruction—particularly on the fourth anniversary of the Abraham Accords, historic peace treaties between Israel and its anti-Islamic Republic Arab neighbors, brokered by Biden’s predecessor and possible successor.

Whether the uptick in rocket-and-drone fire from every direction will cause Hochstein to stay home remains to be seen. Even he ought to realize that his shuttling is an exercise in futility, since whatever he has to say about “de-escalation” can be conveyed over the phone.

IRAN AND QATAR ARE THE GODFATHERS OF HAMAS

To stop Hamas, confront Qatar and Iran

U.S. cowardice in the face of tyranny has only allowed Iran and its proxies to grow bolder, unleashing more terror and destruction upon innocent civilians. 

 

By Majid Rafizadeh

 

JNS

Sep 15, 2024

 

 

Iran's Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi (R) greets Qatar's Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim Al Thaniin in Tehran on August 26, 2024

 

It is almost unimaginable that in the 21st century such horrors could still take place. The brutal acts of Hamas remind us of the darkest periods in history, such as the atrocities committed by Hitler’s Germany. Yet, the Iranian regime and its proxies—particularly terrorist groups like Hamas—continue to bring new levels of barbarity into the modern world.

The recent recovery of six executed Israeli hostages, including Israeli-American Hersh Goldberg-Polin, from a tunnel in Rafah highlights the extent of this cruelty. These hostages, four of whom were scheduled to be released in a draft ceasefire deal, were murdered by Hamas before Israeli Defense Forces could reach them—a reminder of the inhumanity and savagery of Hamas, emboldened by their Iranian backers.

The Biden-Harris administration’s lifting of sanctions is what enabled Iran to profit to the tune of an estimated $100 billion, used for waging terror against Israel, the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia—and the United States. Since October alone, Iran and its terror proxies and militias have attacked U.S. troops in the Middle East more than 160 times, killing three and wounding more than 120—all while President Joe Biden falsely claimed that under his watch, no U.S. troops were killed. That does not even include the 13 American troops who were murdered in Kabul while the Biden-Harris administration surrendered to the Taliban terrorist group.

Anyone with a soul must be devastated beyond words at the loss of six innocent lives, whose only crime was being caught in Hamas’s terror tunnels. Each of these individuals had a life, family and dreams, only to be murdered by Hamas, which is supported by Iran, with funding enabled by the Biden-Harris team.

All of this started with Hamas’s invasion of Israel on Oct. 7, 2023. The barbaric invaders from Gaza murdered more than 1,200 people in Israel, including at least 32 Americans. These terrorists tortured and wounded thousands, and abducted 251 people, dragging them back to Gaza as hostages—among them U.S. citizens.

Most infuriating is the inaction of the Biden-Harris administration. Their failure to confront Hamas, Iran and Qatar—the other godfather of Hamas and all other Islamic terror groups and poisoner-in-chief of the minds of students in U.S. universities, to which it has donated more than $6 billion—has emboldened these forces of terror. By turning a blind eye to the actions of the Iranian regime’s while releasing roughly $100 billion to the treasury of the mullahs, the Biden-Harris administration is responsible for empowering these entities.

This cowardice in the face of tyranny has only allowed Hamas, Hezbollah, the Houthis and Iran to grow bolder, unleashing more terror and destruction upon innocent civilians.

Last week in Gaza, more deaths were reported after Israel took out a Hamas command center embedded in what used to function as a school, in a “humanitarian zone.” If Hamas cares about the Palestinians and does not want them killed, why does it deliberately put its terrorist command centers in the middle of crowded “humanitarian zones”?

The world cannot just stand by as these atrocities continue to unfold. What is urgently needed are decisive economic and military measures against Iran. Both Iran and Qatar must be made to pay a price for promoting and sponsoring terror. This means targeting Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, striking Iran’s oil refineries, strictly enforcing sanctions against the Islamic Republic, countering its nuclear weapons program and moving U.S. forces out of Qatar’s Al Udaid Air Base, headquarters of the U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM).

On Jan. 1, Secretary of State Antony Blinken fecklessly extended the lease on Al Udaid for another 10 years. This must be immediately rescinded. The enormous airbase is doubtless thought of by Qatar’s ruling Al Thani family as its own private U.S. protection program.

Countries that choose to violate U.S. sanctions should be held accountable as well. So far, shamefully, the Biden-Harris administration has allowed them to, even while Iranian forces were killing and wounding the service members of its benefactor. I do not blame them, I blame us.

Only through strong and resolute action can we hope to cut off the lifeline of support that fuels Hamas and its barbarity—and especially the imminent Iranian nuclear jihad.

As U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham stated, referring to murdered U.S.-Israeli hostage Hersh Goldberg-Polin:

“He was murdered by Hamas…. And if you want the hostages home, which we all do, you have to increase the cost to Iran…. Iran is the Great Satan here. Hamas is the junior partner…. They [could not] care less about the Palestinian people.”

It is a clear call for the Biden-Harris administration to hold Iran accountable for the remaining hostages, and to target Iran’s oil refineries if the hostages are not immediately released.

So long as the U.S. government continues to sit on the sidelines, the brutality and savagery of Hamas and their Iranian benefactors will only escalate. It is high time to confront Iran’s regime head-on and stop its spread of barbarity before more innocent lives are lost—above all, before the world’s “leading state sponsor of terrorism” produces nuclear weapons.

 

Originally published by the Gatestone Institute.

THOSANDS OF WARRANTS ..... I DON'T THINK THE JUDGE IS 'UNHINGED' BECAUSE HELL WILL FREEZE OVER BEFORE THE OVERWHELMING MAJORITY OF THESE WARRANTS WILL EVER BE SERVED

Unhinged Houston judge decides to recall all misdemeanor warrants in his district

 

by: Pat Droney

 

Law Enforcement Today

Sep 14, 2024

 

Judge Steven Duble

 

HOUSTON, TX - An unhinged Houston judge has taken it upon himself to recall all outstanding warrants in his court, Fox 26 in Houston reports. The cases involve thousands of traffic citations, evictions, and other misdemeanors. Fortunately, it doesn’t appear felony cases are affected. 

Judge Steven Duble, who became Harris County Justice of the Peace Precinct 1 in 2023, made the bizarre decision last month, completely confusing reporters and political figures alike. 

“I’ve never seen this happen in the 37 years I’ve been doing this,” said Fox 26 Senior Legal Analyst Chris Tritico. 

“My reaction was, this is nuts,” said State Sen. Paul Bettencourt. 

“It’s exactly what shouldn’t happen by a judge in the 21st Century,” Bettencourt said. 

Duble’s decision has been called “unprecedented” and could result in no fines or jail time for thousands of defendants charged with Class C misdemeanors, traffic citations, and evictions. 

On August 22, Duble drafted a letter to Precinct 1 Constable Alan Rosen’s staff, writing, “After extensive research and thoughtful consideration, I have decided to recall each and every outstanding warrant from this court.” 

“It’s strange that you have a situation where a judge is issuing a blanket order that affects every warrant in his court with no explanation,” Tritico said. “They may all have cases pending in there that have now been let go.” 

Under Texas law, judges are permitted to recall warrants, however, Duble’s action appears to be unprecedented, and for one, Bettencourt doesn’t believe he is legally allowed to do so. 

“The law may not be as clear because no one’s been quite frankly crazy enough to do this until now,” Bettencourt said. 

Fox 26 received a statement in response to Duble’s action:

“We only recently were made aware of Judge Duble’s inexplicable decision to grant fugitives a free pass in his courtroom. This decision can endanger the lives of the public and of our law enforcement officers. Accountability is fundamental to justice, and without it, the public loses faith in our entire judicial system.” 

In attempting to justify his decision, Duble cited an advisory from the Biden/Harris Department of Justice that “cautioned against discriminatory enforcement of fines and fees, and detailed obligations to comply with federal statutory prohibitions against discrimination in the imposition and collection of fines and fees by conducting an ability to pay determination prior to imposing any period of incarceration.” 

With that in mind, Duble said that after “extensive research on these issues,” he would recall “all outstanding class C misdemeanor arrest warrants issued by Justice of the Peace Court, Precinct 1, Place 2.” Duble claimed that “the recall of arrest warrants does not dismiss any charges.” 

Duble claimed “the cost to taxpayers of having officers arrest, transport, and process someone at the Harris County jail on a warrant arising from a class C misdemeanor, only to have them released hours later with the fine and court costs written off as ‘satisfied by jail credit’ is far more than the unpaid fine itself.” He further asserted that “the recall was ordered to comply with the Constitution,” which is absurd. 

Hopefully, a higher court occupied by judges with a remote understanding of our legal system and how the Constitution works will overturn this decision.

AND YOU THOUGHT YOUR HUSBAND WAS AN ASSHOLE

By Bob Walsh

 

Left: Drew Garnier. Right: the suspect and a pregnant Samantha Garnier

 

On the evening of September 4th Draw Garnier, 32, had some sort of a beef with his pregnant wife.  Whatever was going on that evening did not turn out well.  Garnier stabbed his pregnant wife to death and attempted to murder their two daughters, age 6 and 9.  He screwed that up, both girls survived.  

He is currently a guest of Delaware County, being held without bail.  Besides murder and attempted murder he is facing various possession of illegal firearms charges.

The wife, Samantha, was two weeks short of her 30th birthday.   The girls are now living with relatives. 

MORE EVIDENCE THAT MOTHER NATURE IS A NASTY BITCH

By Bob Walsh

 

 

A few days ago an unnamed mother and small child were attacked by a river otter at the Bremerton Marina in Washington state.  

The otter grabbed the child and pulled her off the dock and into the water.  The mother managed to retrieve her crumb snatcher and beat feet.  The otter pursued the pair onto dry ground and continued to attack.  There has been what is described as an "infestation" of river otters in the marina.

Fish and game caught and killed the suspect otter.  It is being checked for rabies.  It is not uncommon for river otters to be aggressive in the protection of what they regard as their territory. 

AN EXPLAATION OF WHY MELANIA CONTINUES TO BE A NO-SHOW

Trump's squeeze helped him prepare for the debate ..... It must have been between the sheets

 

By Howie Katz 

That's not Melania, it's Trump's squeeze

 

Laura Loomer is a conspiracy theorist who has worked as a reporter for Alex Jones's InfoWars. She has called 9/11 an "Inside Job."

Recently she made some vile racist comments about Kamala Harris which even got flaky Marjorie Taylor Greene to blast her. 

Loomer has been seen with Trump almost daily for the past several weeks, while Melania has been nowhere in sight.

The following pictures lead me to believe that what's going on between Trump and Loomer is more than just a friendship.

 

 

 

Loomer helped Trump prepare for the debate. Considering how that turned out, her help must have been between the sheets.

Trump visited the 9/11 memorial in New York City Wednesday to commemorate the 23rd anniversary of the September 11, 2001, attacks. Guess who accompanied Trump ... hint, it wasn't Melania.

 

Loomer has worn a T-shirt that reads, "Donald Trump did nothing wrong!" I don't think Melania would agree with that.

Their relationship convinces me that Loomer is Trump's squeeze. And that would explain why Melania continues to be a no-show.

WALZ IS A NUTJOB

EXCLUSIVE   Psychologists explain why Tim Walz - Kamala Harris' VP pick - tells so many tall tales

 

By Cassidy Morrison 

Daily Mail

Sep 14, 2024

Democratic Vice Presidential nominee Gov Tim Walz has been accused in recent weeks of repeatedly misstating the facts and lying about his record

 

Democrats have painted Kamala Harris' vice presidential pick Tim Walz as a squeaky clean military veteran, small-town teacher and well-loved football coach.  

But as media scrutiny of the Democratic nominee ramps up, fact-checkers are increasingly poking holes in his public image. 

Mr Walz, governor of Minnesota and a less practiced politician on the national stage, has been accused of distorting the truth about his military record, his son's birth, his time as a football coach, and a DUI arrest after doing 100mph in a 55mph zone.

Psychologists have suggested his string of mistruths represent a worrisome pattern of dishonesty. 

According to Linda Diaz-Murphy, a New Jersey-based licensed professional counselor: 'These are lies and what’s more concerning is Walz has no remorse or sense of responsibility.'

Walz has come under fire recently for appearing to misrepresent his military career. 

While lobbying for restrictions on assault weapons in 2018, he said the guns were the same ones he had carried 'in war.'

On a different occasion, when he was running for Congress in 2006 and expressing support for restricting assault weapons, he said he ‘carried a weapon of war in war.’ 

However, Mr Walz, who spent 24 years in the National Guard stateside, was never deployed in combat overseas when he would have carried weapons designed for warfare.

When asked whether Mr Walz's fabulist claims were a sign of a problem with habitual lying or just a product of inexperience on a national stage, psychologist Craig Polsfuss told DailyMail.com: 'It could be both and I suspect it is.'

Mr Polsfuss said in his experience, politicians tend to be a dystopian combination of 'self-serving' and 'self-justifying.'

Walz has often alluded to the idea that he was involved in the US military's Operation Enduring Freedom, the name for the combat mission in Afghanistan starting in October 2001 through 2014. 

He deployed in August 2003 to Vicenza, Italy, to assist in security missions and returned to Minnesota a year later. 

In early 2005, Walz's unit - the 1st Battalion, 125th Field Artillery of the Minnesota Army National Guard - was slated to go to Iraq. 

But he retired that year shortly before his unit was informed of their imminent deployment, sparking ire among Republicans and some veterans led by Republican VP pick JD Vance. 

National Guard records show that his squad received an alert order regarding impending deployment two months after Walz retired from service. 

JD Vance, an Iraq war veteran and Donald Trump's 2024 running mate, said recently: 'When Tim Walz was asked by his country to go to Iraq, you know what he did? He dropped out of the Army and allowed his unit to go without him — a fact that he's been criticized for aggressively by a lot of the people he served with.' 

Adam Luke, a licensed therapist based in Tennessee, told DailyMail.com he has seen firsthand how Mr Walz's statements about his military career can be distressing for potential voters who have actually served in active combat. 

He said: 'I think the military community would have been perfectly fine if he had said [more generally] I had this military career. 

'But then when you start talking about deployments, you start talking about experiences that he didn't have, there's a lot of veterans that I serve every week who watch their friends die, they have lost limbs, and you no longer get to call yourself a membership of that club when you didn't have that experience.' 

 

Walz has been accused of skipping out on his National Guard unit in 2005 to begin his political career just before it deployed to Iraq. He served 24 years after enlisting at the age of 17

Walz, joined on stage by daughter Hope and son Gus, said that he and his wife used IVF to have their children when they actually used intrauterine insemination (IUI)

 

Another apparent fib occurred when Walz claimed he and his wife used IVF to have their children.

But this wasn’t exactly true.

The couple actually used a different method, intrauterine insemination, or IUI. The difference is substantial.

While IVF involves creating a human embryo in a lab, IUI involves inserting sperm directly into the uterus to increase the chances of pregnancy.

Mr Luke, who works closely with families and couples, said: 'The IVF thing is frustrating for me, because I can go down that pathway with him as well, where me and my wife had difficulties conceiving. But I can't say that we did IVF or we did IUI, I can't say that. 

'But I can definitely say we had to change our whole lifestyle so that we could have our 16 month old. And that would have resonated with voters just as well. 

'He should have been honest. You just don't say, "I had that treatment."' 

Gov Walz has every motive to try as hard as possible to relate to the everyday voter; it's a candidate's main job. 

But in his pursuit of public approval, Gov Walz may have trapped himself in a cycle of insecurity that leads him to stretch the truth to appeal to a wider swathe of people. 

Mr Luke said: 'If he doesn't win us over, he potentially loses his job, right? And when you get stuck in the sort of reinforcing loop, all of a sudden, an innocent slip of the tongue starts to become more of a habitual act. 

'It's not about necessarily maintaining the relationship between he and I. He's trying to maintain the narrative of who he is as an individual.' 

 

Gov Walz is shown discussing his family's journey of using fertility treatments to have their two children, Hope and Gus

 

Walz also came under fire for his campaign’s attempted coverup of a 1995 DUI arrest.

Walz was stopped while driving over 95 miles per hour in a 55 mph zone and had been drinking. 

But in 2006, when he was running for a congressional seat, staffers said he had never gotten a DUI nor was he booked in the county jail.

In fact, staffers said he experienced hearing loss during his time in the Army National Guard, which caused him to repeatedly misunderstand the police officer's instructions—both when signaled to pull over and during the sobriety test.

Dr Drew Westen, a psychologist and political consultant at Emory University, said: ‘He does present as an honest, honest farm boy from Nebraska, a teacher, etc. And so lying would not fit that story well. 

'A DUI would not fit that story well. It's not something that you would expect from someone who's got his squeaky clean background.’

Also in 2006, Walz got a letter from the Nebraska Chamber of Commerce shortly after he claimed that he was named Outstanding Young Nebraskan by the Chamber for his service as a teacher and a member of the military. 

'We researched this matter and can confirm that you have not been the recipient of any award from the Nebraska Chamber of Commerce,' the chamber said in a letter to Walz. 

The Walz campaign was quick to make a necessary correction, saying his award was granted by the Nebraska Junior Chamber of Commerce. 

And Republicans have targeted Walz for inflating his stint as a high school football coach. 

He has touted his record as a coach when it won a state championship in 1999 at Alliance High School in Nebraska. 

Social media exploded with skepticism, with several posts on X pointing out that Gov Walz was never 'head coach' of the football team.

Mr Walz, meanwhile, never claimed to be head coach but rather part of a team of coaches. 

He served in a paid position and resigned from his post following his DUI arrest. Critics claim though that he was fired, despite court documents saying that he voluntarily resigned from his post. 

He and his wife Gwen moved to Minnesota for a fresh start where Walz served as a defensive coordinator. 

Some have argued that Gov Walz allowed the embellishment to become a rallying cry for supporters, who have since begun referring to him as 'Coach' without correcting them.  

Mr Luke said: 'He's desiring to build rapport by bending the truth to get there and that is something that's that starts the pathway of being malicious because I am presenting this information in a way that someone could feel, that I better align with them, or I'm a better representative for them, when in reality, I don't have the experience or the awareness of what they've actually been through.' 

 

Tim Walz's 2006 congressional campaign falsely gave details about his 1995 arrest for drunk driving

 

Many political psychologists and scientists quickly added that Walz’s mistruths pale compared to those told by former President Trump, who they argue has set the latest blueprint for competing in national politics.

Dr Jon Krosnick, a psychologist who studies political behavior at Stanford University, told DailyMail.com that Trump’s tendency to spout mistruths has transformed how politicians communicate and try to woo voters. 

It signals to other politicians that stretching the truth is a viable way of currying favor with voters and, ultimately, winning the post as the most powerful person in the world.

He said: ‘His perspective is, as long as I say stuff that convinces people to continue to support me, that might move some undecided people in the direction of supporting me. It doesn't matter whether it's true or not, just if it's effectively persuasive.

‘Tim Walz, that if you take that example of misstating just a couple words, "in war," I don't know what he thought he was accomplishing by that, if that was intentional or if it was an accident… That was an early utterance on that topic for him, and it may have been a slip because, frankly, I just don't see a lot of benefits from claiming that he was in war when he wasn't.’

Still, many of Walz's critics say these fabrications are less innocuous than Democrats argue. 

Jordan Schachtel, a foreign policy analyst at the American Institute for Economic Research, said: 'Governor Walz has felt a compulsion to lie when telling the truth would have benefited him just fine.

'Tim Walz lies when there is no point in lying. He simply can’t help himself. I am no Jordan Peterson and make no claim of psychological expertise, but Tim Walz sure seems to fit the mold of a compulsive, pathological liar.' 

At the same time, Ryan Waite, vice president of public affairs and political scientist at the corporate marketing firm Think Big, told DailyMail.com that the mistruths are likely a product of not having been fully vetted or tested before hitting the national stage. 

He said: 'Typically at the upper levels of campaigns, there is a vetting process that helps to straighten all of this out ahead of time, but given the truncated timeline and rush to consolidate the ticket, they may not have had time to get all their ducks in a row and now it is spilling out into the public square.' 

He added: 'Since former President Trump makes outlandish statements and promises, other politicians feel it is only fair to fight fire with fire and fudge the truth a bit to even the scales.’

It’s no secret that politicians obfuscate the truth to preserve their political reputations: Richard Nixon denied his involvement in the Watergate break-in. Harry Truman lied to the public about Hiroshima, the target of one of the atomic bombs, when he said the city was an army base, not a home to 350,000 civilians. And Barack Obama falsely promised that under his healthcare plan, ‘If you like your doctor, you will keep your doctor.’

It’s not clear whether Gov Walz’s mistruths or opponents’ attacks against him will have a measurable effect on the electorate and his support. 

Political psychologists say they likely will not, given the stakes of this election and the looming threat of oppressive policies.

Dr Westen said: ‘I think people are people are tuning out a lot of stuff about their own side because they are hell-bent on voting for it, and they don't want to know the blemishes.

‘I do think in this election, we're seeing a lot more leeway for the Democratic ticket on things like that because the alternative is that we may not have another election.

'And I think people are aware of that, and it's making them much more forgiving because something like a DUI that you didn't tell the truth about would have been, might have been pretty damaging in the past.’