President Donald Trump is back. He has brought along the common sense and optimism that were sorely missing during Joe Biden's failed tenure.

On Monday, Trump returned to the White House. It's the comeback story of the century — too implausible to be fiction. He went from political newcomer to president. He lost re-election during a pandemic. Social media companies silenced him. The Biden administration and leftist prosecutors attacked him with unprecedented lawfare. God spared his life from an assassin's bullet.

The contrast between Biden and Trump is striking. Start with their appearance. Biden dropped his presidential bid after a debate revealed to the world the extent of his cognitive decline. He looks frail and weak. Trump is full of energy and exuberance. He gave an inaugural speeall hch and then went to a rally where he spoke and signed executive orders. Ever the showman, he tossed pens into the crowd. Then he returned to the White House and signed more executive orders while bantering with the press.

But there are much deeper differences. Democrats and the propaganda press spent years claiming that Trump was a thoroughly corrupt figure who would use his political office to enrich and protect his family. Right before he left office, Biden pardoned five members of his family. That's after he pardoned his son Hunter Biden, who was facing jail time for tax and gun crimes. If you remember, Democrats impeached Trump for asking Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to look into Biden's corruption. These pardons are a de facto admission of familial guilt.

Biden and former Vice President Kamala Harris repeatedly claimed Trump was a threat to the country. "Donald Trump and the MAGA Republicans represent an extremism that threatens the very foundations of our republic," Biden said in a dark 2022 speech.

But just days before leaving office, Biden declared the U.S. Constitution has a new amendment. It doesn't, because the self-imposed deadline to pass it came and went decades ago.

"I affirm what I believe and what three-fourths of the states have ratified: the 28th Amendment is the law of the land," he said in a statement. A president trying to amend the Constitution by tweet is a pretty big affront to the "very foundations of our republic." Yet, it was Biden doing this, not Trump.

There's a trend here. So much of what the left accuses Trump of is projection.

Trump's "extremism" looks a lot like common sense to a majority of Americans. The border is now closed. ICE is deporting illegal immigrants. Trump is "unleashing American energy." The federal government will stop pretending that men can become women. Discrimination in the name of DEI is out. The president even wants to put "people over fish" and get more water to California. No wonder most Americans feel good about the next four years.

Trump's most controversial action was pardoning most Jan. 6 prisoners. Don't expect the public to care especially after Biden's pardon-fest and weaponization of the Justice Department.

Biden was supposed to put the adults back in charge. Instead, his incompetence and the failure of liberal policies left the American public longing for the normalcy of another Trump term.

Reprinted with permission from the Las Vegas Review-Journal.

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Kamala Harris supports Israel like Barack Obama supported traditional marriage in 2008. Just enough to win the election.

On the surface, Obama claimed to support traditional marriage in 2008. "I believe that marriage is the union between a man and a woman," he told pastor Rick Warren at the time.

That was a lie. In 2015, his political adviser David Axelrod admitted that Obama was in favor of gay marriage the whole time. He lied to advance his political career. "Opposition to gay marriage was particularly strong in the Black church, and as he ran for higher office, he grudgingly accepted the counsel of more pragmatic folks like me," Mr. Axelrod wrote in his book with the unintentionally ironic title of "Believer."

See if you can spot the parallels.

Harris claims to support Israel. In a March speech, she said, "I have said repeatedly since Oct. 7, Israel has a right to defend itself."

Jewish voters have overwhelmingly supported Democrats for decades. In 2020, surveys showed they favored Joe Biden by around 40 points over Donald Trump. That margin matters in swing states with sizable Jewish populations such as Pennsylvania and Nevada.

Harris needs strong support from Jewish voters. Many of them care deeply about stopping antisemitism domestically and maintaining U.S. support for Israel as it fights Hamas. But if you look beneath the surface, Harris' disdain for Israel is obvious.

For one, she reflexively validates Hamas propaganda. Last weekend, the Israeli Air Force killed 31 terrorists who had gathered at a compound with a school and mosque. The IDF said it proceeded only after its intelligence confirmed there were no women or children in the targeted building. Hamas officials, however, quickly claimed Israel killed more than 90 people, including civilians.

There are plenty of reasons to trust Israel's military. It's our ally. It has a democratically elected government and a free press. Hamas is a terrorist group that frequently exaggerates casualty numbers knowing they'll be parroted by gullible Western leftists.

That group includes Harris. In response to a question on the incident, she said, "Yet again, there are far too many civilians who have been killed." She added Israel has "an important responsibility to avoid civilian casualties."

Harris puts Israel in a double bind. Hamas puts its military infrastructure in and around civilian buildings. When Israel exercises its "right to defend itself," it can inadvertently kill civilians. Instead of blasting Hamas for its cowardly actions, Harris smacks Israel. The pressure she puts on Israel is an example of why Hamas uses human shields.

There are more clues Harris will undermine Israel. In June, she boycotted a congressional speech by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. This month, she met with leftists in Michigan who want an arms embargo on Israel. Her new Jewish liaison, Ilan Goldenberg, spent the past several months working to impose sanctions on Israelis.

Harris won't even stand up vigorously to antisemites on the left despite her husband being Jewish. Hamas sympathizers pressured her not to pick Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro as her running mate. He's Jewish. She picked Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, who has praised imam Asad Zaman as a "master teacher." Zaman once promoted a pro-Hitler video and declared "solidarity with Palestinians" after the Oct. 7 massacre. This summer, Harris said, "I understand the emotion behind" antisemitic protests on college campuses. In July, pro-Hamas rioters in Washington, D.C., burned the American flag to protest Netanyahu's visit. Harris waited until the next day to condemn them.

If you can't see where Harris is headed, Obama probably duped you on marriage in 2008.

Trump was the most pro-Israel president in American history. Harris would be the most pro-Hamas.

This article was first published in the Las Vegas Review-Journal.

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Even a quarter of a million dollars in tuition won't get Columbia University students a better history lesson than I just had at my kitchen table. My mom and aunt visited recently. My aunt told stories from her childhood and shared one I hadn't heard before. When she was young, her family moved from Idaho to Canada. Her mom, dad, and seven children lived in a house that she said was smaller than my normal-sized kitchen and dining room. My aunt, who was 5 at the time, shared a room with her three sisters. It had two bunk beds. There wasn't space for a dresser, so they stored their clothes in boxes under their beds.

Her parents shared a room with her two brothers. My mom, who had just been born, slept in the front room. They ate on orange crates in the tiny kitchen. They didn't have running water. They used an outhouse and cleaned up with pages torn from catalogs. They heated their home with coal. They bathed by heating water on the stove in a large bucket.

They hung their clothes out to dry but had to be careful in the winter. If they were left on the line when it was windy, their clothes would freeze and snap in half. My mom and aunt are remarkable women, but in one sense their story isn't. If you go back far enough – and likely not that far – in your family tree, you'll find something similar. Historically, grinding poverty isn't an outlier. It was the norm throughout human history.

In many parts of the world, such poverty still exists. The World Bank estimates that "around 700 million people live on less than $2.15 per day, the extreme poverty line." Most Americans today, including my mom and aunt, enjoy items that would have seemed like impossible luxuries less than a century ago. Think about cellphones, ubiquitous air conditioning, and modern medicine. What changed? The university students and professional agitators tearing down American flags would say that the wealth of America and the West came primarily from exploiting other countries through colonialism. You can acknowledge the West has historic sins – as does every civilization – and see the error of this hypothesis. For one, America's post-World War II dominance corresponded with a stunning drop in the global poverty rate. So much for exploitation. Plus, my mom and aunt didn't exactly grow up in luxury.

The big-picture difference is that the expansion of capitalism and free trade have greatly increased global wealth. The free market creates wealth, benefiting those throughout the income scale. That includes the world's poorest people. On an individual level, choices matter. My mom and aunt studied worked hard and lived frugally. Thousands of little decisions turned into habits that helped them and their families get ahead.

If you understand the past, it's hard not to be grateful for the wealth and luxuries almost every American enjoys today. But too many of today's college students are immersed in propaganda that leaves them ignorant and entitled.

Reprinted with permission from the Las Vegas Review-Journal

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Caitlin Clark's magical run through the women's NCAA basketball tournament wouldn't have happened if she had to compete against male players.

Sunday's NCAA women's championship game set viewing records, averaging an audience of 18.7 million people. Outside of football and the Olympics, it was the most-watched sporting event since 2019. At local casinos, the game set a number of betting records.

It's not hard to figure out what – or rather who – drew the public's interest. It was Clark, the dominant Iowa point guard who consistently left audiences dazzled. She set a slew of records throughout her career. That included the NCAA's Division I scoring record and single-season three-point record.

Clark garnered a massive audience. In the semifinals, Clark's game drew double the viewership of the game without Iowa. But something threatens Clark's brilliance – and women's basketball more broadly.

Dawn Staley is the coach of the South Carolina women's team, which beat Iowa in the championship. Before the game, a reporter asked if men who pretend they're women should be allowed to play women's sports.

"If you consider yourself a woman and you want to play sports or vice versa, you should be able to play," she said.

Her attitude reflects current leftist dogma. Deviating from that illogical orthodoxy will earn you the scorn of cultural elites and could threaten your job. But it's essential for preserving the opportunities for Clark and other women athletes.

That's because there are biological differences between men and women. I can't believe this has to be spelled out, but men are taller, stronger, and faster than women. As such, the best male athletes outperform their female counterparts. Sports such as basketball allow athletes to compound those advantages, widening male advantages.

The breathtaking step-back threes Clark drains over defenders might get stuffed in her face by an elite high school male defender. A WNBA player dunking a basketball is a major event. It's unremarkable when a high school boy does it.

Per Staley's logic, a mediocre male Division I basketball player could become a top women's player simply by claiming he's a woman. That's not a hypothetical. At various levels, it's already happened in many sports, including swimming, skiing, cycling, weightlifting and track.

It's even happened here in Nevada. Last year, The Blaze reported on a boy who said he's a girl running track for North Valleys High School in Reno. He ran on two state championship-winning relay teams.

There are welcome signs of sanity. On Monday, the NAIA, a group of small colleges, banned men from competing in women's sports. Former top-ranked women's tennis player Martina Navratilova has spoken out against the practice. The Independent Council on Women's Sports, known as ICONS, is suing the NCAA for allowing men to compete against women. They argue it violates Title IX.

As skilled as she is, Clark can't compete successfully against elite male basketball players. Nor should she and other women have to.

Reprinted with permission from the Las Vegas Review-Journal.

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Apple's newest gadget makes a powerful case for God's existence.

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You can now buy an Apple Vision Pro. It's an expensive headset worn over your eyes that combines altered and virtual reality. Apple markets it as a "revolutionary spatial computer." Instead of seeing them on a desktop or phone screen, apps float in front of you. Forget using a traditional mouse. You can control and manipulate programs using your eyes, hands and voice.

"Built upon decades of Apple innovation, Vision Pro is years ahead and unlike anything created before – with a revolutionary new input system and thousands of groundbreaking innovations," Apple CEO Tim Cook said.

The theme of invention comes up repeatedly in Apple's marketing. The Vision Pro uses a "revolutionary operating system" and boasts "unrivaled innovation in hardware."

Set aside your thoughts on this technology, although put me in the "terrified it will entertain people into isolation and misery" category. Putting 23 million pixels into a headset doesn't happen by accident. Its cameras, sensors and microphones are engineering marvels. Transforming purified silicon into a computer chip is a long and delicate process. Something this detailed and functional could only be designed.

Yet many people believe that's the origin story of something much more complex – human beings. However impressed you are with any modern technology, you should be more impressed by the human body. Adults have an estimated 28 trillion to 36 trillion cells. DNA contains biological information that directs physical development. The brain has 100 billion neurons that make 100 trillion connections.

Perhaps most amazingly of all, humans reproduce. A fertilized egg grows and develops based on information contained in a baby's unique DNA. This would be like your cellphone mating with your spouse's cellphone and producing a tiny third cellphone that grows over time. Despite decades of innovation by millions of people, that level of technology isn't close to existing.

Even some evolutionists acknowledge organisms such as plants and people couldn't come about by accident. "Chance is not a solution, given the high levels of improbability we see in living organisms, and no sane biologist ever suggested that it was," atheist Richard Dawkins wrote in his book "The God Delusion."

He argues that the alternative to design is natural selection. That does occur within species. But evolutionists want to claim it's the undirected mechanism that moved life from single-celled organisms to humans.

Natural selection "breaks the problem of improbability up into small pieces," he wrote. "Each of the small pieces is slightly improbable, but not prohibitively so."

Consider two problems. First, Dawkins doesn't dismiss the issue of apparent design. He transfers it to something even more complex. An analogy. Say your friend argues that computer chips came about without a designer. You point out their incredible complexity. His counter is to note it came from a chip factory. That doesn't dismiss design as a cause. It obligates him to describe why the entire factory wasn't designed. That's harder than explaining away design in a single chip.

Second, the likelihood of those "small pieces" happening is prohibitively improbable. As Stephen Meyer details in "Signature in the Cell," what happens at the cellular level isn't like building with Legos. What goes on with amino acids and proteins is detailed and precise.

The chance "of producing the suite of proteins necessary to service a minimally complex cell by chance alone … completely dwarfs the probabilistic resources of the whole universe," Meyer found.

Yes, that's prohibitive.

Whether you're wearing the Vision Pro or not, you should see the conclusion. Both the creation of complex machines and human beings require a designer.

Reprinted with permission from the Las Vegas Review-Journal.

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Joe Biden's "peace through weakness" strategy isn't effective in deterring Iranian aggression.

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On Sunday, three American soldiers stationed in Jordan died in a drone attack. Another 30 were injured, some seriously. U.S. officials say the drone came from an Iran-backed militant group inside Syria. The base had a drone defense system, but it's possible soldiers mistakenly thought it was a returning U.S. drone.

"We know it was carried out by radical Iran-backed militant groups operating in Syria and Iraq," Biden said.

The Houthis, another Iranian-backed group, have been attacking ships in the Red Sea since November, too. That's a huge deal because around 12 percent of global trade floats through there each year. Last Friday, the Houthis even fired a missile at the USS Carney, which shot it down.

Look at what Biden has done. He inherited a relatively peaceful Middle East from Donald Trump. Through the Abraham Accords, an alliance of Arab countries and Israel was banding together to stand against Iran and its aggression.

To the surprise of no one but the foreign policy "experts," appeasing terrorists didn't make them embrace the United States. It emboldened them. They view America and Biden as feeble and vulnerable.

Telling your enemy that you're uninterested in escalation makes it more likely they will continue to escalate.

Think of it this way. A 90-pound teenager hates a 200-pound MMA champion. The teen knows he would be crushed in a real fight, so he looks for chances to harass him. One evening, the MMA fighter is dressed up in a tuxedo for an awards show. It's raining and muddy when he steps outside. The teen is considering throwing rocks at the fighter.

Iranian leaders appear to believe that Biden is too feckless and incompetent to defend America or even her soldiers. Sadly, Biden has yet to prove them wrong.

Reprinted with permission from the Las Vegas Review-Journal.

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Whatever your thoughts on Israel and Hamas, President Joe Biden wants you to know something important. He agrees with you.

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The Democratic Party is deeply divided on Israel. What follows is the case for both sides using the words of two prominent Democratic politicians. You can decide who's the most convincing.

Politician A wants an end to the fighting. "Hamas unleashed a terrorist attack because they fear nothing more than Israelis and Palestinians living side by side in peace," Politician A wrote on X Tuesday. "To continue down the path of terror, violence, killing, and war is to give Hamas what they seek. We can't do that."

But Politician B believes "Israel has every right to defend itself from an active terrorist threat. We have seen Hamas officials say publicly that they want to try to commit the atrocities of Oct. 7 again and again," according to a spokesman.

Politician A is very worried about Israel committing atrocities in its fight against Hamas. "I caution the government of Israel not to be blinded by rage," he said a couple of weeks after Hamas slaughtered around 1,200 people in Israel. The terrorists raped or kidnapped hundreds more. Politician A said there's a "critical need for Israel to operate by the laws of war. That means protecting civilians in combat as best as they can."

In contrast, Politician B wants funding to "sharpen Israel's qualitative military edge" and to "make sure other hostile actors in the region know that Israel's stronger than ever and prevent this conflict from spreading."

"A two-state solution is the only way to guarantee the long-term security of both the Israeli and the Palestinian people," Politicians A tweeted Monday.

Politician B has a different priority. "My commitment to Israel's security and the safety of Jewish people is unshakable," he wrote in October. "The United States has Israel's back."

Before I reveal the speakers, take a moment to think about who you found more convincing. Ready?

Some readers may have picked up on my trick. Both speakers are Biden. He or his spokesman made each of those statements. Even for a politician, being able to debate yourself is a jarring amount of doublespeak.

Politics explains why he's talking out of both sides of his mouth. While support for Israel has broad public backing, vocal parts of his coalition either hate Israel or are openly antisemitic. That includes members of his own administration. He's trying to placate them. It's possible that Biden simply doesn't have the mental capacity or physical vigor to stand up to his own aides.

Pro-Israel Democrats need to call him on this. But voices who freely accuse Republicans of being crazy, racist and un-American are noticeably restrained when Biden winks at antisemites.

Biden's waffling may have deadly consequences. To start, it emboldens Hamas, which has been very open about its desire to keep murdering Jews. On Thursday, Hamas members shot and killed three people at a Jerusalem bus stop. That was during a supposed "pause" in the fighting.

Worse, his rhetoric encourages those who want Western governments to pressure Israel to not destroy Hamas. Israel's allies going wobbly is Hamas' best hope of survival. Biden flip-flopping suggests U.S. support for Israel will wane over time.

It also projects weakness and uncertainty to the world, especially China. Biden either can't make up his mind or doesn't have the courage to stick to his guns. Neither is a great message to send as China eyes down Taiwan.

Biden needs to stop waffling and emphasis this truth: Israel has the moral right and duty to destroy Hamas.

Reprinted with permission from the Las Vegas Review-Journal.

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Ancient Rome may have fallen, but at least its citizens recognized they were under attack. Today, many ignore the enemies of Western civilization who march openly in the streets.

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On Friday, thousands of people gathered in New York City to protest Israel defending itself from Hamas's horrific Oct. 7 terror attack. The crowd chanted, "It is right to rebel. Israel, go to hell!" and, "We don't want a Jewish state. We want '48!" That's a call for eliminating the modern state of Israel, which was established in May 1948.

Protesters tore down signs showing kidnapped Israelis. One called a reporter a "Zionist pig" in between hurling obscenities. Another burned an Israeli flag. Presumably, not every protester is antisemitic. But few there seem concerned with the antisemitism that surrounded them.

Similar scenes have been repeated throughout major cities, such as Washington, D.C., Boston, and San Francisco. A huge banner at a Chicago march read, "Palestine will be free from the river to the sea." That's a call to wipe out Israel, which would inevitably result in the murder of millions of Jews.

These protests aren't just filled with antisemitic slogans. They also include attacks on America. At that New York rally Friday, a man climbed a pole and tore down American flags. Vandals with the protest placed stickers on the door of a Dior store. One read, "From the US to Palestine, abolish the settler state."

Earlier this month, anti-Israel protesters vandalized a gate outside the White House with red paint. Others tried to climb the gates. Protesters covered a nearby statue of General Marquis de Lafayette with Palestinian flags and graffiti.

There's something noticeable missing in pictures of these anti-Israel marches, which are often massive. It's very rare to see an American flag, excluding those being torn down.

In contrast, pro-Israel marches often include many American flags.

Protests such as these aren't just happening in America. Around the world, antisemites have rallied against Israel and Western civilization more broadly. On Saturday, a crowd of 300,000 gathered in London. They chanted antisemitic slogans and held antisemitic signs.

Former British Home Secretary Suella Braverman wrote last week that the marches are "an assertion of primacy by certain groups — particularly Islamists." She noted reports linked march organizers to terror groups, such as Hamas.

For noting facts inconvenient to the left's critical race theory worldview, British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak fired her.

Hatred for Israel, the United States, and Western civilization comes naturally to CRT proponents and those on college campuses who've been indoctrinated in it. This Marxist worldview arbitrarily divides people into groups. The supposedly powerful are successful only because they've oppressed the supposedly powerless. To achieve justice, the powerless must overthrow the powerful and tear down their institutions.

Last month, Georgetown students had a vigil for Hamas terrorists. One sign said, "Do you support decolonization as an abstract academic theory? Or as a tangible event?"

That's not a rhetorical question. Western civilization won't last if its leaders and citizens aren't willing to defend it from those who openly seek its destruction.

Reprinted with permission from the Las Vegas Review-Journal

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If you're like most people, you didn't spend any time this week worrying about someone murdering you. Don't take it for granted.

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The peace we enjoy in the United States is far from inevitable. People have been killing each other throughout recorded history. One of the first stories in the Bible is Cain murdering his brother Abel. Many of the major events in ancient history are wars and battles. Alexander the Great is famous, because he subdued his enemies. The Aztecs subjected their captives to human sacrifice and cannibalism.

So what explains our safety from foreign enemies?

Perhaps human nature has changed over time. But the 20th century was the bloodiest in human history. World War II and Germany's atrocities were only a small part of that. It's estimated that communist regimes murdered more than 165 million people. There are currently wars raging around the globe. This is all evidence that the human heart remains evil and depraved.

Technological advancements haven't made safety an inevitability. If anything, war is deadlier because countries, armies, and terrorists can kill more efficiently than ever.

Progressives likes to talk about being the right side of history. Have the world's 8+ billion people come to a universal agreement on the importance of respecting human rights? The barbaric Hamas attack on Israel, which included beheading babies and raping girls and women, should disabuse anyone of that notion.

No, the reason you live in safety is much simpler – violence. The US military defeated our enemies. They won those battles with bullets, bombs and blood, not platitudes and peace signs.

The world is filled with people who hate you. The Houthis are a rebel group in Yemen that's backed by Iran. Its motto is "Death to America, death to Israel, curse the Jews and victory to Islam." Iranian political leaders have chanted "Death to America." In 2022, Dmitry Medvedev, deputy secretary of Russia's Security Council, said, "Russia has the might to put all of our brash enemies in their place."

The threat of violence is why those people don't attack us. Our enemies know the US military would crush them if they launched a direct assault on this country. Against many enemies, strength is the only effective deterrent.

No, this violence, even though morally justified, isn't pleasant. It's horrible and repulsive. But it's necessary because the alternative – the death and torture of our fellow citizens – is even more horrible and repulsive.

Violence is the foundation of the peace you enjoy today.

That's why it's so wrong for Democrats such as President Joe Biden to demand Israel stop attacking Hamas. This assumes leftists are acting in good faith and not just trying to disguise their antisemitism. In some cases, that's not accurate.

On Wednesday, Biden called for a "pause" in the fighting. Sen. Bernie Sanders went further: "We must urge an immediate cease-fire," he wrote on X. "The killing of Palestinians and Israelis must end."

If you can overlook the slaughter of 1,400 people in Israel – which you shouldn't – there's a surface-level appeal to this. If both sides stopped fighting, fewer people would die right now. But Hamas remains committed to killing Jews.

"Israel is a country that has no place on our land," Hamas official Ghazi Hamad said on TV recently, as translated by the Middle East Media Research Institute. "We must remove that country."

Asked if that meant the annihilation of Israel, he replied, "Yes, of course." He continued, "Therefore, nobody should blame us for the things we do."

Hamas doesn't want a cease-fire. It wants a chance to regroup and rearm before attacking Israel again.

Violence – directed against terrorists such as Hamas wherever they hide – is the only path to peace in the Middle East.

Reprinted with permission from the Las Vegas Review-Journal.

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Hamas terrorists slaughtering hundreds of Jews has made Democrats concerned about Islamophobia. That sounds like a Babylon Bee headline, but it's not.

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President Joe Biden has made a number of strong statements condemning antisemitism. They're often followed by warnings to avoid "Islamophobia."

"We must, without equivocation, denounce antisemitism," he tweeted on Wednesday. In the very next line, he wrote, "We must, without equivocation, denounce Islamophobia."

He's not the only one. Vice President Kamala Harris wrote on X recently, "Anti-Semitism, Islamophobia, and hate of any kind must be condemned unequivocally."

In a remarkable exchange Monday, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre was asked if there was any concern about increasing antisemitism. Muslims, she responded, "have endured a disproportionate number of hate-fueled attacks." The response was so tone-deaf that she later claimed to have misheard the question. Doubtful.

Regardless, there's a pattern of Democrats linking antisemitism and Islamophobia. The Left doesn't do this in other tragedies. For instance, on Friday, Biden released a statement about Thursday's mass shooting in Maine. He expressed sympathy for the victims but offered no call to respect the 75 million law-abiding gun owners. Instead, he used the tragedy to demand Republicans pass more gun control.

Here's the difference. Democrats despise law-abiding gun owners. A large majority of Democrats want to ban some firearms. But Democrats are much more sympathetic to members of their coalition who support Hamas terrorists. Some Democrats, such as Rep. Rashida Tlaib and Rep. Ilhan Omar, barely try to hide their support of Hamas. Others, such as Biden and Harris, understand they must appeal to that faction while also supporting Israel. Hence, the double-talk.

This is wrong and dangerous. First, it brings confusion instead of clarity. Linking these two things suggests both are equal threats — both domestically and in the Middle East.

That's not true. After Hamas' murderous rampage, rallies throughout the United States and the world openly cheered the terror group. Students and faculty at elite colleges blamed Israel. At a recent rally at MIT, hundreds of students chanted "one solution, intifada." Intifada is a call for violent attacks on Israelis.

There is no comparable effort to demonize Muslims. All Democrats can point to are horrific, but isolated, instances, such as an Illinois landlord allegedly murdering a 6-year-old and stabbing his mother over their Muslim faith.

The opacity opens the door to moral equivalence between Hamas and Israel. Most Democrats acknowledge Hamas' hideousness. But warnings of "Islamophobia" imply Israel and its supporters have done or are preparing to do something just as evil. Biden reinforced this when he said, "I cautioned the government of Israel not to be blinded by rage" and talks about protecting civilians in the Gaza Strip.

His insinuation is that Israel's military would commit war crimes if the United States didn't hold it back. He's undermining a U.S. ally that's fighting a terrorist group that uses civilians as human shields. The moral responsibility for deaths in the Gaza Strip lies with Hamas.

Biden's both-sides rhetoric is a de facto wink of approval to members of his intersectional coalition that say Israel is responsible for Hamas' terrorism. Critical race theory adherents blame Israel, the supposed oppressor, for Hamas, the supposed oppressed, butchering Israeli babies. Calls for "decolonization" run along the same lines. This dangerous line of thinking is ubiquitous in public education. No wonder nearly half of young adults side with Hamas over Israel. That's a crisis in the making.

Those, like Biden, who link antisemitism and Islamophobia aren't necessarily antisemitic. But they're emboldening those who are.

Reprinted with permission from the Las Vegas Review-Journal.

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