Hello again and welcome to this week's edition of Laura's Links and what a week it was!
Obviously, the highlight of the week was watching the inauguration of President Trump for his second term, the greatest political comeback in history. This is the best American blockbuster of all time. Plus, it has been particularly gratifying to watch and hear of all of the Executive Orders and new and immediate policy directions and directives.
A more street smart, hardened and mature President Trump started using his power even before entering the White House and has hit the ground running. Remember how Mark always talks about Republicans being in office and Democrats being in power? Well, at least to me, it seems that, finally, there is a Republican president who is bucking that trend and I'm all here for it. There's so much to say about it all, and I feel kind of funny as a mere uppity Jewish mother from Canada assuming that any of my observations or analysis have any great or even moderate significance. But hey, when has that ever stopped me before?
There's a lot of great stuff in the ether even in these first few days, like the stake Trump put right through the heart of gender ideology, the rapid fire assault on the federal DEI infrastructure, pardoning the J6 political prisoners, and so, so, SO much more i.e MELANIA's hat and outfits. I mean PUH-LEASE. Is it extremely shallow of me to celebrate the stylishness and gorgeousness of the Trump women and also of Usha Vance?
I am actually delighted that they were wearing Oscar de la Renta, and I hope more haute couture designers come on board. Much more beauty and style and femininity is needed in our world (for women of course, duh) and seriously Melania's hat was so gangster. I saw a meme that was something like 'the look when they raided your underwear, shot at your husband and called your son retarded'. Ivanka also looked gorgeous in her gowns. Can we please start celebrating beauty once again, instead of how all the fancy people have been trying to convince us pretending that actually ugly, fugly fugly things and people are beautiful?
I am also celebrating the public inclusion of children in regular life in North America, that is a beautiful thing.
I also like the holistic approach that Team Trump has taken to reclaiming assets, particularly like the White House web site and I really like the official portrait of Trump. It all screams "we mean business".
OK I'll stop now. More to come, definitely as we move through the first few weeks of this American blockbuster.
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The other big thing of course, was the hostage deal, which I don't think is a great deal and I feel entitled to be simultaneously overjoyed with three of the hostages being returned home but also very upset and completely dismayed and worried by the terms. Again, you can have whatever opinion you want about Israel and Jews, but there are definitely differences between the nature of who the Palestinians want released to them (murderers and rapists) and who the Israelis want returned. And it is also telling that most of the repulsive legacy media are trying to make a moral equivalence between the hostages and Palestinian terrorist murderers. It's not a prisoner exchange. Having said that, I still cannot really understand it, and am not reassured by this deal. I wonder if the idea was something like Trump imposing the deal on Netanyahu in exchange for a green light to get to the head of the snake (Iran). At least, finally, the IDF Chief of Staff resigned as he should have long ago.
I think I'm in the camp of Israeli investigative journalist Zvi Yechezkeli, who is fluent in Arabic and has done a lot of undercover journalism in Muslim Europe and regular Arab affairs journalism in Israel. He put out a brief reel in which he was speaking directly to Gazans and Hamas and the jist of it was: 'if this deal marks the end of the war, then you won, but if it doesn't, then we win'. Time will tell.
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Lastly, there's lots of chatter here in Canada about who the next leader of the Libranos will be... YAWN. Spoiler alert: it will for sure be Mark Carney, former Bank of Canada and Bank of England governor and a repulsive, rich elitist putz. But thanks to Canadian heroine Tamara Lich of the Trucker Convoy, we have a great reminder of the character of someone else who wants the job. Yes, it's the twitchy, spastic chick herself: Chrystia Freeland.
Here is an excellent reminder of what a disgusting, horrific, totalitarian shrew she is and how this wretched, rotten soul should never be in charge of anything ever, ever again.
I'll certainly never forget and I'll never forgive her and the rest of the Librano crime syndicate for what they did to all of us specifically during Covid and more generally, for absolutely destroying Canada during their near decade of power under Justin Trudeau.
And on that note, I'll wish you a good weekend and I'll see you in the comments.
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North America:
We don't want the thieves to feel bad, obviously.
LA firefighters' perspective on the fires.
"This is how much the number of Mohammad's has increased in America since 9/
"I'm reading Trump's executive order (EO) on gender ideology. It's brilliant, legally and rhetorically. The intro doesn't mince words.
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The Great Walkbackening, Reckoning and Accounting
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Israel and Jews:
"With the hostage deal, Netanyahu is going all in on Trump.
More on the hostage deal from the perspective of a terror survivor.
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Jewish Wisdom:
"Can our thoughts create reality?"
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The Formerly Great Britain:
Tommy Robinson and the Chilling Echoes of the Dreyfus Affair (n.b: Elon Musk is apparently funding Tommy's legal battle now).
Just in case everyone has moved on from this story, a little reminder of pure evil: "UK teen pleads guilty to murder of three girls at Taylor Swift themed party.
"Axel Rudakubana was referred to the counter-extremism scheme PREVENT three times".
AND LASTLY:
"The media versus the mugshot.
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Europe:
Irony, the cruelest mistress.
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Free Speech:
Charlie Hebdo 10 Years On: We Must Speak Without Fear
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Human Grace:
"A subtle tribute to the American dream.
Not safe for work but I love it. Forgive the language, it's just too funny not to post.
"Dementia Gave Me A Different View of the Torah", this is an absolutely magnificent personal essay from David Talmor at Tablet. I was going to excerpt a small bit but I don't think any excerpt would do justice to the beautiful cadence and lessons of this piece. Do read it all.
Yes. Basically don't be an *sshole. Only broken people and bad people behave this way. Broken, tormented souls.
It's open thread time! Log into SteynOnline and let Laura know what you think of these stories or other happenings from week that was. Commenting privileges are among the many perks of membership in The Mark Steyn Club. While going off topic is permitted on Laura's Links, do stick to the other rules as you engage: no URLs, no profanity, and no ad hominem attacks.