We observed two anniversaries this past week. The eight month anniversary of the Hamas attack on Israel and the 80th anniversary of D-Day.
On June 6, 1944, the allies stormed ashore in Normandy, France, on beaches code-named Utah, Omaha, Gold, Juno and Sword.
If you’ve seen Band of Brothers, you know of their heroism. If you’ve been to Normandy, to the American cemetery, you know of their sacrifice.
The brave young men who streamed out of their Higgins boats on that fateful Tuesday, knew the enemy and its repugnant ideology had to be totally defeated. There could be no compromise because there was no choice.
There was right and there was wrong. There was virtue and there was evil.
On October 7th, 2023, Israel was attacked by a Nazi-like evil. I don’t have to re-describe the horrors of that day.
The brave young men and women of the Israel Defense Forces who reported to their units after that day, also knew the enemy and its repugnant ideology had to be totally defeated. There could be no compromise because there was no choice.
Do you remember the words of President Joe Biden on the very day the worst slaughter of Jews took place since World War Two and the Holocaust?
President Biden said, referring to the slaughter of Jews in Europe, The world watched then and knew and the world did nothing…Hamas committed atrocities that recalled the worst ravages of Isis unleashing pure, unadulterated evil upon the world. There’s no rationalizing it, there’s no excusing it. Period. Biden said, Israel has the right to defend itself and its people. Full stop.
Eight decades have passed and we still rightfully honor the band of brothers that bravely battled the Nazi malevolence on the coast of France.
Eight months have passed and now too many wrongly castigate the band of brothers and sisters of the IDF who bravely battle evil in Gaza.
Once upon a time there was right and there was wrong. There was virtue and there was evil.
Now, a murderous group that has unleashed pure, unadulterated evil upon the world that cannot be rationalized or excused, is being rationalized and excused.
We’re told by its cohorts in the US and in the West that it’s all part of the legitimate resistance to the colonizers and their apartheid, illegitimate state. In fact, we’re told, the atrocities of 10/7 didn’t really happen. And if they did, it’s retribution for Israeli troops raping Arab women.
We’re told that of course, Israel has a right to defend itself, but that thing about full stop? Nope. No full stop, just stop, stop.
We’re told the war won’t end because Israel’s bloodthirsty prime minister doesn’t want to compromise. Yet the bloodshed continues because of Hamas’ refusal to surrender and to release the women, children and men they’ve abducted, and to save their own people from further suffering.
There was a time when there was right and there was wrong.
Eight decades ago, the Nazi ideology was defeated and its perpetrators put on trial at Nuremberg.
Eight months after October 7th and Israel is now told the Hamas ideology cannot be defeated and Israel is now put on trial in the world’s corrupt, kangaroo courts.
Eight decades ago with the destruction of the Third Reich and the establishment of the State of Israel, we believed we had seen the end to the danger of Jewish annihilation.
Eight months after October 7th, do we feel like we have?
Each year on June 6th, we honor the heroes of D-Day for the sacrifices they made for our freedoms. They were brave beyond belief and they were from a magnificent generation.
We also honor a time when the mission was clear, when there was right and there was wrong. When the virtuous world, the world that had moral clarity, was united against evil.
Full stop, for real.
One Last Thing
If there’s one thing that bugs me more than a politician that makes a stupid decision, it’s a politician that makes a stupid decision and then doesn’t stand behind it.
That’s what happened this past week in New York.
Just three weeks before the nation’s first and only congestion pricing plan was to go into effect, Governor Kathy Hochul said, whoa! I didn’t realize what a $15-$36 dollar fee would do to New York’s fragile economy and the hardship it would cause to people who must drive their cars into Manhattan below 60th Street. So I’m putting it on indefinite hold and I’ll figure out another way for the money-bleeding Metropolitan Transportation Authority to come up with a billion bucks a year to fix its decrepit system.
Nonsense.
She knew full well what the ramifications would be to implement this scheme that former Governor Andrew Cuomo approved and was decades in the making. She knew it was a regressive tax that would have added another economic burden on individuals and businesses that could afford it the least.
Here’s the real reason she put the brakes on congestion pricing. Political pressure. Not from the Republicans, but from the leaders of her own party.
Hochul was getting lots of heat from the New York Democratic congressional delegation, including House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries and possibly the big guy himself. It’s curious she changed her stance on congestion pricing after a meeting at the White House this past Tuesday.
After the 2022 elections where New York lost three congressional districts to the Republicans, the state’s Democrat leaders are in full panic mode. Congestion pricing was so hated by suburbanites they feared they would lose even more seats to the GOP this November.
So they pressured Hochul into taking that arrow out of the Republican campaign quiver in the hopes of holding onto their seats.
Look, I’ve always criticized congestion pricing. I believe there should be a thorough, top to bottom audit of the MTA to find out just why it overspends on virtually everything, before already overtaxed New Yorkers are forced to pay even more to fund it. And there should be a real crackdown on fare beaters that cost the system, by its own estimation, around $690 million bucks a year.
But if Kathy Hochul and the Democrats think that her backpedaling won’t be seen as a blatant attempt at preserving their political power, then they must think New York voters have the word putz plastered on their foreheads.