A Reminder About The Risk of COVID

COVID has fallen out of the news lately, and people aren't paying much attention. Here's a reminder from Mayo Clinic about who is at higher risk for serious COVID.

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COVID-19: Who's at higher risk of serious symptoms?

Advanced age and some health conditions can raise the risk of serious COVID-19 illness.

 

By Mayo Clinic Staff, June 23, 2026

Many people with COVID-19, also called coronavirus disease 2019, recover at home. But for some, the illness can lead to hospital care, treatment in the intensive care unit or death.

Not every risk factor for serious COVID-19 illness is known, but some are clear. Age and having chronic health conditions both raise your risk, for example. Other factors may include where you live, work or learn. Access to medical care also may affect risk. Having more than one risk factor makes the risk of serious illness even higher.

If any of these risk factors apply to you, and you have symptoms of COVID-19, act quickly and talk with your healthcare team about treatment options. Medicine to treat the illness works best if started right away.

Age and COVID-19 risk

People age 65 and older and babies younger than 6 months have a higher than average risk of serious COVID-19 illness. Those age groups have the highest risk of needing hospital care for COVID-19.

Babies younger than 6 months aren't eligible for the COVID-19 vaccine, which adds to their risk. Older people may be more at risk because the immune system may be less able to clear out germs. Medical conditions that raise the risk of serious COVID-19 also become more likely with age.

How age and health conditions affect COVID-19 risk

Serious COVID-19 illness is more likely for people who have other health issues.

Some common health conditions linked to aging are:

• Heart disease. Examples are heart failure or coronary artery disease.
• Diabetes. The risk is higher for both type 1 and type 2.
• Chronic lung diseases. This includes conditions that damage lung tissue.
• Overweight or obesity. The risk goes up with overweight or obesity measured by body mass index, also called BMI.
• Chronic kidney disease. This is especially true if you are on dialysis.

These conditions become more common as people age. But they can affect people of any age. The risk of serious COVID-19 illness is linked to having one or more underlying medical conditions.

Lung diseases and COVID-19 risk

The risk of serious COVID-19 illness is higher if you have lung disease. Examples include tuberculosis, cystic fibrosis, interstitial lung disease, bronchiectasis and COPD, which stands for chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. Other lung conditions, such as a history of pulmonary hypertension, affect a person's risk of serious illness after COVID-19.

Cancer and COVID-19 risk

In general, having cancer can raise the risk of serious COVID-19 illness. People who have blood cancer may have a higher risk of being sick for longer, or getting sicker, with COVID-19 than people with solid tumors. This also is true of people who had blood cancer in the past.

Cancer treatment also may affect how well your COVID-19 vaccine works. Ask your care team about getting vaccinated after treatments that affect some immune cells.

Other conditions that raise the risk of severe COVID-19

If an organ or body system is already weakened by disease, infection with the COVID-19 virus can cause further damage. In other cases, medicine for another condition can lower the immune system's response to the virus that causes COVID-19.

Many different diseases can raise the risk of severe COVID-19 illness.

• Brain and nervous system diseases, such as stroke.
• Chronic liver disease, specifically cirrhosis, metabolic dysfunction-associated liver disease (MASLD) and autoimmune hepatitis.
• HIV that is not well managed with medicine.
• Heart disease, including congenital heart disease and cardiomyopathies.
• Mood disorders or schizophrenia.
• An organ or stem cell transplant.
• Blood disorders such as sickle cell anemia and thalassemia.

Other risk factors for severe COVID-19 are:

• Smoking.
• Pregnancy or having recently given birth.
• Use of medicines that lower the immune system's ability to respond to germs.

Also, as a general group, people with complex medical needs may be at higher risk. Examples include people with cerebral palsy and people with genetic or metabolic syndromes.

These are not the only conditions that increase the risk of severe COVID-19. Talk with your care team if you have questions about your risk.

COVID-19 vaccines and serious illness

The COVID-19 vaccine can lower the risk of death or serious illness caused by COVID-19. Your healthcare team may suggest added doses of COVID-19 vaccine if you have a moderately or seriously weakened immune system.

How else can you lower the risk of severe COVID-19?

Besides vaccination, there are other ways to stop the spread of the virus that causes COVID-19.

In addition to COVID-19 vaccination, make it a habit to:

• Test for COVID-19, especially if you have symptoms. Also, test five days after coming into contact with the virus even if you do not have symptoms.
• Try to spread out in crowded public areas. This is especially important in places with poor airflow and if you have a higher risk of serious illness. If possible, try to keep air flowing when you're inside.
• Wear a mask when you're inside a crowded place with poor airflow. This is most important when many people in the area are sick with COVID-19. Masks are most effective if they fit the face closely.
• Stay apart from people who have symptoms or who are sick. Avoid close contact with anyone who is sick or has symptoms, if possible.
• Wash your hands often and wash them well with soap and water for at least 20 seconds. Or use an alcohol-based hand sanitizer with at least 60% alcohol.
• Cover your coughs and sneezes. Cough or sneeze into a tissue or your elbow. Then wash your hands.
• Clean and disinfect high-touch surfaces. For example, clean doorknobs, light switches, electronics and counters regularly.

These basic actions are even more important for people who have weakened immune systems and their caregivers.

There is one medicine that may be used to prevent COVID-19 in people with weakened immune systems. It is a monoclonal antibody called pemivibart (Pemgarda). But this medicine does not treat an active infection.

People can take other actions based on their risk factors.

• If you're at a higher risk of serious illness, ask your care team about ways to protect yourself. Know what to do if you get sick so you can quickly start treatment.
• Lower your risk of COVID-19 complications by making sure that any health issues are well managed. This includes staying on track with managing medical conditions, going to all medical appointments and planning ahead to avoid running out of medicine. Keep taking medicines as suggested by your healthcare team.
• Stay up to date on vaccines. This includes vaccines for flu, pneumonia and respiratory syncytial virus (RSV). These vaccines won't prevent COVID-19. But becoming ill with a respiratory illness may worsen your outcome if you also catch COVID-19.

Also, consider making a care plan. Write down your medical conditions, medicines, special food or diet needs, care team members, and emergency contacts.

Two Columns By Melanie Phillips

Here are two columns by the great Melanie Philllips. One is on blatant Democrat & DSA antisemitism; the other is on Mamdani making it easier for Islamic enemies to destroy New York like they've destroyed London. And meanwhile, the moderate-by-comparison Democrats remain silent. 

It will soon be the 25th anniversary of Al Qaeda's  September 11 terrorist attacks. Like these Dem Socialists, they also hated Jews, capitalism, and America.  Let's hope that the Republican Party takes full advantage of this to talk about what America will turn into if these despicable Jew-hating Socialists somehow take over our country and destroy it the way the Twin Towers were destroyed.

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Alarm bells go off in New York

Anti-Zionism is turning the Democratic Party into a mortal enemy of America.

 

Melanie Phillips, (June 25, 2026 / JNS)

Extreme socialism is now on the march in America, with the demonization of Israel as the principal weapon in its arsenal.

Claire Valdez, Brad Lander and Darializa Avila Chevalier, three extremists backed by New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani, emerged victorious this week from their Democratic primaries in New York City’s 7th, 10th and 17th congressional districts.

Valdez and Chevalier are affiliated with the ultra-left, anti-American Democratic Socialists of America.

On social media, Valdez has boasted of having “wiped my hand on the American flag.”

Chevalier, a convert to Islam, has called for the abolition of police, prisons and the country’s borders. She also co-founded Columbia University Apartheid Divest, a Muslim Brotherhood front group whose goals are the “full eradication of Western civilization” and the cultivation of “unrest and violence in America.”

If elections to New York’s legislature are included, seven out of eight DSA-affiliated candidates won victory this week.

The support of Mamdani, who actively campaigned for these candidates, was critical to this alarming advance for extremism.

Yet the commentator and “Morning Joe” host Joe Scarborough declared that the person most responsible for this march of extremism in New York City wasn’t Mamdani, but the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

What was shaping views now, he said, were images that Israel had brutalized children and women in Gaza “with bombing that looks indiscriminate on TV day in and day out for years” and would be “able to level half of Lebanon.”

Scarborough did not draw the reasonable conclusion that these images had persuaded millions of people to believe libelous falsehoods that had been propagated to delegitimize the State of Israel as a prelude to its destruction.

Instead, he suggested that these lies were true, and so he was holding Netanyahu responsible for the anti-Zionism which had powered those election campaigns.

A moment’s thought shows how ludicrous this is. Hatred of the Jewish homeland not only long predated Netanyahu’s first period as prime minister but predated the establishment of the State of Israel itself.

It’s true, however, that anti-Zionism was a driving force in these elections. All three House candidates ran campaigns that focused on ending U.S. support for Israel.

All three of them used the “genocide” libel against the Jewish state. Chevalier doubled down on the support she had voiced for Hamas the day after the terrorist group led the attack against Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.

A hijab-wearing Palestinian Arab, Aber Kawas, who won the primary for the New York State Senate, has written extensively on her blog about her support for “imprisoned heroes,” including the “Holy Land Five” (convicted of terrorism financing) and Ahmed Ferhani, an Algerian man who pleaded guilty in 2012 to planning a mass shooting at a Manhattan synagogue.

For his part, Mamdani referred last week to the pro-Israel lobby group AIPAC and its supporters as “monsters,” channeling the key antisemitic conspiracy theory that accuses the Jews of controlling America in the pursuit of diabolical goals.

The true monsters are surely the Iranian regime, Hamas, Hezbollah—and Mamdani himself, who works for Israel’s destruction and hugely increases the physical danger to Jews living in and visiting New York.

These New York election results have demonstrated that anti-Zionism has become the principal driver of Democratic Party politics, just as it has of progressive culture in general.

The elections demonstrated the menacing alliance between Islamism and ultra-leftism—embodied by Mamdani—that has the whole of America in its sights.

Islamists and leftists are united in the two things that drive them: their desire to end America and the West, and their deranged loathing of Israel and the Jewish people.

This loathing isn’t just the glue binding these two otherwise opposing groups together. It’s the Islamists’ key weapon against America itself.

The “Jewish question” is now turning into the driver of Democratic Party politics. Hatred of Israel is a Trojan horse for the agenda of Islamisation, the process of conquering America and the West for Islam.

Tragically, however, many American Jews whose support for the Democrats is tribal and unshakeable continue to back Mamdani even now.

Brad Lander, a former New York City comptroller who is Jewish and who defeated Rep. Dan Goldman (D-N.Y.) in the primary for New York’s 10th Congressional District, is a close ally of the mayor. He declared that he would be “one of the Jewish members of Congress most willing to stand up for Palestinian human rights,” and that he would “stand firmly against bigotry aimed at Jews.”

This was humbug.

Last month, Lander went to the Al-Khoei Foundation, an Islamic center in Queens, N.Y., identified by American security agencies as allied to the Iranian regime.

There, he accused Israel of a “desecration” of Judaism by committing genocide in Gaza and potentially also in Lebanon. He said he hoped to partner with Reps. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) and Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.)—two members of the Israel-hating “Squad” in the U.S. House of Representatives—just as he had with Mamdani.

He even recited in Arabic a verse from the Quran that said: “He is Allah who is one, Allah the eternal refuge … nor is there to him any equivalent.” Following his remarks, the Imam at the mosque prayed to the Mahdi—the Shia Muslim messiah—to kill infidels with his sword.

The anti-Israel group IfNotNow celebrated Lander’s win as “a blueprint for the future for both the Jewish community and the Democratic Party.”

“He ran a bold, unapologetically Jewish campaign that rejected pro-war lobbies like AIPAC and the endless flow of U.S. weapons to Israel,” stated the group’s executive director, Morriah Kaplan.

But Lander is actively running interference for Islamists determined to kill Jews, exterminate Israel and conquer the West.

Defaming and delegitimizing Israel and Zionism is not only deeply unjust. It’s a direct onslaught on Judaism and leads inexorably to attacks on Jews.

After Lander’s opponent, Goldman, visited a coffee shop in Brooklyn, N.Y., with his 7-year-old daughter, the cafe subsequently posted the message: “We don’t serve racists fascists homophobes genocide enablers or anyone in between. Too bad we didn’t recognize you right away, or we would have turned you away.”

A journalist on Fox & Friends had reported that people in line for a food bank in New York City had been talking to her, too, about AIPAC. As a studio presenter said, “They believe that the United States is taking the money that could go to them and is donating it to Israel.”

Many wonder why the interests of so many Americans have become identified with events taking place thousands of miles away. Back in 2023, a Harvard-Harris poll found that two-thirds of Americans between the ages of 18 and 24 agreed that “Jews as a class are oppressors and should be treated as oppressors.”

Most New York voters, who may assume that all the libels they are fed about Israel are true, nevertheless almost certainly don’t put Israel at the top of their concerns above the cost of living.

But Israel now stands proxy for something else: a nation state that’s supposedly grinding the faces of the poor and disadvantaged. So a vote for those who hate “oppressor” Israel is a vote for the “oppressed” everywhere.

Tragically, many liberal American Jews sign up to this warped, perverse and hateful mindset because this is now the dominant thinking in the Democratic Party.

Anti-Zionism, which shockingly has now framed the demonization of Israel as conscience itself, has driven liberals off their moral compass. As a result, they are pawns in a far bigger game being played: to conquer America and the West for Islam.

The Democrats are turning into an extremist party posing an increasingly acute danger to America. And Jews who still support it are debauching Judaism, betraying the Jewish people and aiding the mortal enemies of the West.

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Welcome to Mamdanistan

Islamists are using the Democratic party as a beachhead to conquer America

 

Melanie Phillips, Jun 26, 2026 

On Tuesday night, America’s most important city became a beachhead for the black-red alliance. This is the combination of Islamism and ultra-leftism, embodied by New York’s mayor, Zohran Mamdani, that has the whole of America in its sights.

Three Mamdani-backed extremists defeated establishment candidates in New York’s Democratic House primary.

Two of them, Claire Valdez and Daraliza Avila Chevalier, are affiliated to the ultra-left, anti-American Democratic Socialists of America. If elections to New York’s legislature are included, seven out of eight DSA-affiliated candidates won victory this week.

In addition, Rep. Dan Goldman was beaten in the city’s 10th Congressional district by his fellow Jew Brad Lander, a slavish Mamdani ally who has groveled to Islamists while demonizing Israel.

On social media, Chevalier has boasted of having “wiped my hand on the American flag.”

Chevalier, a convert to Islam, has called for the abolition of police, prisons and the country’s borders. She also co-founded Columbia University Apartheid Divest, a Muslim Brotherhood front group whose goals are the “full eradication of Western civilization” and the cultivation of “unrest and violence in America.”

All three candidates made ending American support for Israel a centerpiece of their campaigns. All three used the “genocide” libel against the Jewish state. Chevalier has doubled down on the support she voiced for Hamas the day after the terrorist group led the attack against Israel on Oct. 7.

For his part, Mamdani referred last week to the pro-Israel lobby group AIPAC and its supporters as “monsters,” channeling the key antisemitic conspiracy theory that accuses the Jews of controlling America in the pursuit of diabolical goals.

The ultra-conservative Islamists and the ultra-progressive leftists are united in two main things that drive them: their desire to end America and the west, and their deranged loathing of Israel and the Jewish people.

This loathing isn’t just the glue binding them together. It’s the Islamists’ key weapon against America itself.

The “Jewish question” is now turning into the driver of Democratic party politics. Hatred of Israel is a Trojan horse for the agenda of Islamization, the process of conquering America and the west for Islam.

For decades, we’ve watched this story playing out in Britain, where it’s rapidly reaching the point of no return.

Although many British Muslims sign up to the country’s core values, a huge number demand instead that Britain adapts to Islam.

Following the Muslim Brotherhood playbook, Islamic radicals have patiently infiltrated and subverted British politics and culture.

Although Muslims officially account for only about six percent of the population, they’ve achieved critical mass in certain cities and towns. This has enabled them to make disproportionate inroads through the democratic process for a specifically Islamic agenda.

Accordingly, Britain is now gazing aghast at the emergence of a rapidly growing sectarian Islamic caucus, with MPs and other public officials standing on a platform of “Gaza first” and with the issues of Israel and Zionism now absurdly driving British politics.

And close behind that is the demand that core western values, such as freedom of speech, must give way to the demands of Islam.

A similar process is under way in America. New York’s Muslims are now equal in number to the city’s Jews.

Red-black extremists are now threatening establishment candidates in Colorado, Michigan and Wisconsin, while another radical leftist is poised to become mayor of Washington DC.

This process will metastasize even further very fast. Galvanized by the October 7 attacks and the way western elites subsequently turned against Israel, the Islamists believe they’re on the cusp of victory over America and its allies.

While their motivation has gone through the roof, their useful idiots in the West’s liberal establishment are refusing to see what’s staring them in the face. Instead, they’re obsessively sticking pins into effigies of Donald Trump, while acting as an echo chamber for the Islamists’ lies painting Israel as a demonic force in the world.

Although New York’s voters may nod along to these lies, most of them hardly rank Israel as of greater concern than things like the cost of living.

But Israel stands proxy for something else: a state that the public believe is grinding the faces of the poor and disadvantaged. Just like them. So a vote for those who hate “oppressive” Israel appears to them as a vote for the “oppressed” everywhere.

The Democrats imagine that they’re using the Islamists to promote left-wing policies. The truth is that the Islamists are using the Democratic party to turn the US into Ameristan.

People don’t take this seriously because they can’t believe it could ever happen to mighty America.

Look at Britain and believe it. This is how the western frog is being boiled slowly in the pot.

Democratic Socialists Are Dangerous. We Need To Stop Them.

These people are dangerous. They hate America, they hate capitalism, they hate Israel, they hate the Jews, they hate Trump. What could go wrong?

If the "normal" Democrats won't do anything to stop them, then it's up to Republican voters to stop them and keep this disease from spreading. Every Republican ad should show them in their own vicious words 

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The DSA Is a Hate Group, and What It Hates Is America

Noah Rothman at National Review, 6-24-26

"As it was becoming clear on Tuesday night that the Democratic primary voters were eagerly handing their party’s reins over to Democratic Socialists, New Jersey Senator Cory Booker (D.) made his peace with his new Marxist overlords.

"When asked to respond to Pennsylvania Senator John Fetterman’s observation that those who once described themselves as the “dirtbag left” are on the ascendancy, Booker chastised his Democratic colleague for “picking fights” with the insurgents already at war with Democratic establishmentarians. “One of the things that makes the Democratic Party great is it’s a big tent party,” Booker contended. “We need to stay that way.”

"Implicit in Booker’s capitulatory remarks is that, moving forward, the Democratic Party will have a lot of dirtbags in it.

"He’s not the only Democrat making accommodations with the socialist left. Senator Chris Murphy, for example, dissented from onetime Democratic National Committee Chairman Jamie Harrison’s request that those who “hate the Democratic Party” refrain from attempts to hijack it. “Who is ‘the Democratic Party’ if it’s not the voters?” Murphy squeaked impotently. The voters have spoken, he added, “and right now they are demanding our party be bolder.”

"The revolution depends on figures like these: the spineless, the cowed, and the enervated. They may manage to be eaten last, but the Democratic Socialists of America are coming for Murphy and Booker, too.

"The DSA cannot be coopted, mollified, and incorporated into a broader political coalition. It is not a constituency. It is a hate group. And the object of its hatred isn’t the “Zionists” as they increasingly euphemistically refer to Jews, or the capitalist enterprise. It is America itself. For a while, though, casual observers could be forgiven for thinking that this rabid sect just had a pathological contempt for Israel.

"Even as Hamas terrorists were still at large inside Israel — raping, torturing, and massacring any Jew in their line of sight — the DSA held an “anti-Israel” rally in “solidarity” with the terrorists, who were “not unprovoked.”

"They kept up the pace in the weeks that followed. Almost 140 people were arrested during a nighttime march through New York City — a menacing, destructive outburst in which marchers held signs that read, “I do not condemn Hamas,” and chanted, “There is only one solution. Intifada. Revolution.” On October 28, 2023, thousands attended a DSA rally, which they called “Flood Brooklyn for Gaza” in a direct reference to the October 7 operation that Hamas called “al-Aqsa Flood,” throttling traffic on roads and bridges and harassing Jews.

"Antisocial? Yes. Bigoted? Sure. Criminally malicious? Definitely. But anti-American? Democrats could still tell themselves that was a bridge too far.

"By November, the Democratic Party should have noticed that it was the target of this insurrectionary movement. On November 16, DSA activists descended upon the Democratic National Committee’s headquarters in Washington, D.C., on a night when they knew that the party’s lawmakers would be on the premises. They were met by Capitol Police in riot gear, and the two forces clashed violently as the insurgents tried to secure access to the building. “We were rescued by armed officers who did not know the protestors’ intent,” Representative Sean Casten confessed. “I’m also keenly aware that it could have been much worse.”

"If Democrats were going to display something approximating an instinct toward self-preservation, this would have been the time to do it. But the Democrats did nothing. And things have only gotten worse.

"Throughout 2024, DSA-sponsored events — particularly those on American college campuses — contributed to the air of menace the socialist left cultivates around itself. In April of that year, the DSA’s International Committee issued a statement affirming “Iran’s right to self-defense” in response to an Israeli airstrike on what Jerusalem maintained was a Quds Force installation. That July, the DSA’s International Committee also expressed support for Yemen’s Houthis in their effort to close the Red Sea to international shipping and regretted the neutralization of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh inside a safehouse in Tehran.

"The fever didn’t break in 2025. That September, at the second annual People’s Conference for Palestine in Detroit, the DSA-backed mayor of Richmond, Calif. — Eduardo Martinez — “drew cheers” when he defended Hamas’s actions on October 7. So, too, did the members of U.S.-designated terrorist groups like al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades and Palestinian Islamic Jihad who addressed the convention.

“We all know who they are, whether they are in Israel, in Tel Aviv, in Washington, in Germany, in Europe,” said Michigan-based Dr. Nidal Jboor at the conference that was also attended by the likes of Representative Rashida Tlaib. “They need to be locked up, they need to be taken out, they need to be neutralized, to save children.”

"It was a revealing slip. So, too, was the chant that broke out among DSA activists in San Francisco this February. They started out saying “Tax Israel,” but eventually dropped the pretense in favor of “Tax the Jews.”

"Yes, Tuesday night was a great electoral night for the DSA’s chosen candidates. But whom did the Democratic Party’s primary voters endorse? Unreconstructed versions of the militant activists who have tormented the party for years.

"Darializa Avila Chevalier is one. She defeated the sitting chairman of the Democratic Party’s Hispanic Caucus in the House on Tuesday in a race in which voters discounted her very recent endorsement of the abolition of prisons in America. After all, how can there be prisons in a country without justice? They ignored her contempt for American property rights captured in her support for “seiz[ing] all properties from landlords.”

"The voters in her district cared little for her contempt for the American flag, her endorsement of political violence (Chevalier attended that October 8 rally in support of Hamas’s actions), and her refusal to even attempt to lie about how her views have evolved. Those views, as expressed by the group she founded, Columbia University Apartheid Divest (CUAD), include support for efforts to “undermine and eradicate America” by translating “resistance in Gaza to unrest and violence in America.”

"Aber Kawas is another. She earned the Democratic nomination to a New York State Senate seat despite her contention that the city she will represent in Albany deserved the 9/11 attacks, in which thousands of her fellow New Yorkers perished.

“The idea that we have to apologize for, like, a terror attack that, like, a couple people did, and then there’s no apologies or reparations for genocides and for slavery, et cetera, is something that I kind of find, like, reprehensible,” she said, combining a Valley Girl affect with radical Islamist rhetoric. No one asked Kawas to apologize for anything. Perhaps she felt tacitly compelled to do so by virtue of the associations and affinities in her own head.

“For decades, we have been sold a lie: that the U.S. empire defends freedom, advances democracy, and protects human rights,” read the literature produced by Claire Valdez’s victorious campaign. Rather, in her view, the American project is an exercise in imperialism. Indeed, from the Middle East to Latin America, the U.S. is responsible for indiscriminate violence and enslavement to the capitalist project. She even went so far as to revive an ancient Soviet campaign to radicalize Puerto Ricans and agitate for San Juan’s independence.

"They will join Chris Rabb in the new Democratic establishment. He is likely headed to Congress next year after he won his race despite blaming the Bondi Beach massacre of Australian Jews on “Zionists.” So, too, is Adam Hamawy — the nominee for Congress in New Jersey’s twelfth district — who laid out his platform at an event sponsored by the Young Democratic Socialists of America. There, he articulated his opposition to “genocide,” expansively defined, but he subsequently defended his longtime association with the architect of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing.

"What tethers these candidates is not their shared hatred of the Jews or the banks or the moneyed and propertied classes. They hate America and the West.

"At least, they hate it as it is presently constituted, which is pretty much how it has been constituted for decades. Today, the manifestations of that hatred are particularly frightening for America’s Jewish minority, but the DSA won’t stop there.

"Marxian revolutionaries do not stop. They must consume continually, find new enemies to demonize and scapegoat, and channel their militant vanguard’s hatreds toward productive ends (lest the vanguard come for them, too).

"There is no doubt that Democratic Socialism is on the march. We know exactly in which direction it is headed. It is a hate group masquerading as a political movement, and it would be recognized as such if its policy preferences were right of center. But American institutions have turned a blind eye to the threat, and there may be no stopping it now."

What's It All About, Algae?

I just love The Babylon Bee! And the Dems are probably jealous they hadn't thought of this idea first!

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In Powerful Act Of Protest, Liberals Begin Adding Algae To Drinking Water

Lifestyle · Jun 24, 2026 · BabylonBee.com

"U.S. — In a powerful showing of solidarity with the algae discoloring the newly-renovated Reflecting Pool, liberals across the nation have begun adding green pond scum to their drinking water.

"Democrats are proudly guzzling the verdant potable, a small act of daily rebellion against the tyranny of President Trump. The trend gained momentum after activists began posting videos of themselves drinking murky green water under the hashtag #StandWithTheScum. Influencers competed to demonstrate their commitment by consuming increasingly opaque beverages.

"Take that, Donald," said local liberal woman Amy Gunther as she videoed herself gulping down another glass of algae. "Team green all the way."

"Restaurants in several liberal enclaves have also begun offering drinks filled with various types of algae. "We're selling Algae-tinis like crazy," said local bar manager Dean McIntosh. "They're super simple to make. I just get a little algae out of the stagnant pond out back, throw it in a glass with ice, and add gin. The libs love it."

"At publishing time, liberals had begun also adding chips of blue paint to their drinks."

A Good Editorial On The Strait of Hormuz

You would think this is a given. The Strait of Hormuz doesn't belong to Iran or any other country. It's an international waterway, and every country that uses the Strait should be fighting to keep it that way.

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Iran can't get ANY control over the Strait of Hormuz— period

NY Post Editorial Board, 6-23-26

"Whatever else comes out of the negotiations with Iran, the United States cannot allow Iran to set any kind of toll or “user fee” on ships passing the Strait of Hormuz.

"President Donald Trump couldn’t send any worse signal of weakness to the rest of the world, both our allies and our enemies.

"Even the “insurance” racket (protection money) version would devastate Western shipping, slamming the US economy far more than the disruptions from Iran’s recent temporary closure.

"It’s just madness, abandoning a bedrock American principle going back to when President Thomas Jefferson sent the Navy and Marines to the shores of Tripoli, one vital to our national interests.

"No nation can have any rights or sovereignty whatsoever over the Strait of Hormuz, which has always been and must remain exclusively international waters.

"Let this pass, and the Houthis will soon charge for the nearby Bab al Mandab; next someone will hold the Strait of Malacca hostage.

"Heck, Britain and France need cash; why shouldn’t they toll the English Channel?

"Spain and Morocco, the Strait of Gibraltar.

"Freedom of navigation is real, longstanding international law, far different from all the piffle modern lefties try to add.

"The hint in Point No. 5 of the Memorandum of Understanding is bad enough: Iran and Oman will “define the future administration and maritime services in the Strait of Hormuz, in discussions with other Persian Gulf Littoral States.”

"Vice President JD Vance seems to think it’s fine that those nations “will figure out a proper security framework for the straits.”

"Nuts to that!

"However much the Iranians demand it, just tell them no: It’s not like they’ve put anything hard and real on the table, anyway.

"Even President Barack Obama and his idiots never tried a giveaway on this scale.

"Yet here’s a joint statement from Oman and Iran claiming “sovereignty and sovereign rights” over the Strait, supposedly their “territorial waters,” vowing to work out “the future administration of navigation” and “the services that will be provided in this regard and the costs associated with them.”

"Iran’s already telling all ships to register with its newly created Persian Gulf Strait Authority to ensure safe passage and to sign up to buy Iranian “insurance” for when the 60-day cease-fire expires.

"This is a Mafia-style protection racket, pure and simple.

"The only “security” ships would conceivably need in the Gulf is from Iranian attacks, and that’s why we have the US Navy and Marines.

"On Tuesday, Secretary of State Marco Rubio insisted “no country is allowed to charge tolls or fees on an international waterway.”

"Well, if so, why did the Secretary of State allow negotiators to give Iran and Oman a say at all?

"Has the president gotten his secretaries of Commerce, Energy, Transportation and Treasury to weigh in here?

"Whoever is selling the idea in the Oval Offfice that it’s OK to even consider sacrificing free passage in the strait should be barred from the White House.

"Trump claims Iran wants a peace accord more than the United States.

"Then his team should act like it, set the terms — and ensure the Strait of Hormuz remains as open and free as it’s always been."

This NY Post Photo of Jew-Hating Socialists Is The New Face of New York.

This is today's New York Post front cover.  It tells you everything about the despicable state into which the Democrats have devolved.

After their wins, the appalling Chevalier and Valdez led their supporters in "Free Palestine" chants. 

I haven't heard a word from Senator Schumer, who after this "win" is certainly no longer a shomer (protector).

Democrats: The Party of Hate

None of these horrible people should be allowed to have any part in the 25th anniversary commemorations for the September 11 terrorist attacks.  They hate our country and our people as much as Al Qaeda did. They also hate Israel, Jews, I.C.E., capitalism, success, wealth, the police, and stopping crime.

I'm glad that my grandfather -- a lifelong New York resident after landing at Ellis Island from Eastern Europe with his family as a child -- isn't alive to see this. 

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Mamdani and his alleged ‘Hamas slate’ of local House hopefuls cozy up to terror-group sympathizer: ‘World is turned upside down".

"Mayor Zohran Mamdani and his so-called “Hamas slate’’ of local congressional candidates were interviewed last week by a terror-group sympathizer in a get-out-the-vote effort for Tuesday’s primary election.

"Accused hater Bartley Blakeley — who has several hundred thousand online followers across various platforms — posted her chats on Instagram with the far-left mayor and three House candidates he has endorsed: Brad Lander, Claire Valdez and Darializa Avila Chevalier.

“I call it the Hamas slate. Unfortunately, there’s a lot of support for the Hamas slate,” said Dov Hikind, a former Brooklyn state assemblyman who is founder of Americans Against Antisemitism.

“The world is turned upside down,” Hikind said. “To be part of the ‘in’ crowd, you have to support Hamas, Iran, Hezbollah, and the Houthis.”

"In October 2024, Blakeley released a video on X with the hashtag “#sinwar’’ — comparing murderous slain Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar to Martin Luther King Jr. and Nelson Mandela.

“You know who else they called a terrorist? Nelson Mandela and also said that Martin Luther King Jr wasn’t popular when he was alive,” Blakeley said.

“You guys always wanna praise the freedom fighters long after they’re dead but cry “terrorist’ when one fights in your lifetime. #sinwar #freepalestine.”

"The self-described “trash belly ring enthusiast” and “nonbinary lefty” wrote a few months earlier that she doesn’t condemn or blame Hamas for the Oct. 7, 2023, massacre of 1,200 mostly civilians in Israel.

“No I don’t. I did at first after Oct. 7 and then the more that I have learned I take that back. I do not condemn them. Thanks for asking. Hope that helps,” Blakeley said on Jan. 6, 2024.

"Blakeley also amplified a conspiracy theory that ISIS and al-Qaeda are controlled by Israel’s intelligence forces, writing, “Is this why they won’t let us see the 9/11 files?” in response to a post.

"During Friday’s interviews, Blakeley asked the candidates what bill would they collectively push if elected to Congress.

"Mamdani volunteered that they all support the “block the bombs act” that would bar the United States from delivering arms to Israel without congressional approval and in accordance with federal and international law.

"Lander, the former city comptroller and ex-city councilman who is Jewish and has described himself as a progressive Zionist, said, “Democratic voters need to get the message that voters are fed up using taxpayer dollars being used for genocide.”

"Blakeley said she was thrilled with the “comrade energy.

“I asked Mayor Mamdani’s @nycmayor endorsed slate what’s a bill they can prioritize collectively once in Congress? They’ve all committed to co-sponsoring the Block the Bombs Act, which is a great start!,” Blakely posted after the meeting.

"The provocateur had previously replied angrily to an April 2025 video that called Hamas a terrorist organization, as it is overwhelmingly considered across the world.

“Hamas is a terrorist organization according to who? The west. They wouldn’t exist if it weren’t for the brutal Israeli occupation and you fuc***g know it,’’ the influencer raged.

"In another post from January 2026, in response to Democratic New York Attorney General Tish James calling Hamas a terrorist organization, Blakeley wrote, “America is the biggest terrorist org in the world.”

"In January 2024, after X took Hamas’ page offline, Blakely demanded it be immediately reinstated.

 "The anti-Israel advocate also claimed the Sept 11, 2001, terrorist attacks occurred because of America’s support for Israel.

“People do realize that Americans are going to be at risk of harm bc of what the Israeli regime has done, right? Remember that 9/11 was done in part, bc of America doing Israelis bidding & then protecting them,” Blakeley said.

“And our “leaders” don’t care. Because they hate you. And they don’t care about this country, either.”

"The congressional candidates she interviewed last week got what they wanted.

“You can early vote all weekend and Election Day is June 23rd! Vote for Claire Valdez in NY-07 @claireforny Darializa Vila @darializaforny Chavelier in NY-13, and Brad Lander @brad.lander in NY-10. #vote #nyc #ny13 #ny10 #ny07,” Blakeley said.

"Mamdani, Lander, Valdez and Chevalier — who has ridiculed white women as “ugly colonizer women” and black and “Arab’’ men for “fetishizing them — had no comment.

"But detractors had plenty to say about the group, claiming their cozying up to a Hamas sympathizer is just another example of peddling Jew hatred.

“This is just another step forward in the demonization and isolation of Jews under the guise of antizionism, aligning with the absolute worst people supporting violence and terrorism,” said EqualProtect.org founder and Cornell University law professor William Jacobson.

“They can hide all they want, but everybody knows what they are doing. It is the first step in a very ugly administration.”

The COVID Vaccine Works

Despite all the attempts to gaslight us about the effectiveness of the COVID vaccine, the results are clear. Why people still won't take advantage of this vaccine is a mystery to me. It doesn't work unless you get a shot!

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By Laine Bergeson at CIDRAP, 6-23-26

Study suggests 2025-26 COVID vaccine cuts emergency, urgent care visits by half
Laine Bergeson

"A new study suggests that the 2025-26 COVID-19 vaccine helps protect against serious illness by reducing the risk of hospitalization and emergency department/urgent care (ED/UC) visits, adding protection for a population with significant existing immunity from previous infections and vaccinations. 

"The study, published today in JAMA Network Open, found that adults who received the updated vaccine were about 50% less likely to require ED/UC treatment for COVID and 55% less likely to be hospitalized than those who did not receive the vaccine.

Booster augments previous immunity

"For the study, researchers led by a team from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) analyzed data from more than 111,000 adults across 253 EU/UCs and 179 hospitals in seven states from September through December 2025. They compared patients who tested positive for COVID with those who tested negative and identified whether they had received the 2025-26 vaccine.

"Overall, vaccine effectiveness (VE) against COVID-related ED/UC visits was estimated at 50%. Protection against hospitalization was 55%.

"Among adults ages 65 and older, VE was 48% against ED/UC visits and 53% against hospitalization. Older adults face the highest risk of severe outcomes from COVID.

"While hospitalization rates during the first part of the 2025-26 respiratory virus season were lower than in previous years, COVID-related severe illness remains a significant issue. There were an estimated 390,000 to 550,000 COVID-related hospitalizations in the United States from October 2024 to September 2025, with the highest hospitalization rate reported among adults 65 and older. 

"The protective benefits of the 2025-26 booster bolstered previous immunity. “The findings in this study demonstrate the added benefit of 2025-2026 COVID-19 vaccination irrespective of protection conferred by previous COVID-19 vaccination or SARS-CoV-2 infection,” the authors write.

59% lower risk of medically attended illness

"The findings align with a separate study conducted in France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, and Spain by the Vaccine Effectiveness, Burden and Impact Studies (VEBIS) Primary Care Vaccine Effectiveness Group. 

"For the study, published last week in JAMA Network Open, researchers examined the effectiveness of 2025-26 COVID vaccines in older adults who sought care for respiratory illnesses from September 2025 to January 2026. 

"The findings suggest that vaccination reduced the risk of symptomatic COVID infection that required a healthcare visit by 59%, although with uncertainty (95% confidence interval [CI], 14% to 83%), among older adults during the first two months after vaccination. 

"Protection waned slightly over time—VE was 64% (95% CI, 8% to 89%) 14 to 41 days after vaccination and 52% (95% CI, −39% to 89%) 42 to 83 days after vaccination, again with uncertainty. 

Vaccine uptake low in both studies

"In both studies, vaccine uptake was low. In the study led by the CDC, only 11% of patients included in the analysis received a 2025-26 booster, and only 6% of patients who tested positive for COVID in the European study had been vaccinated, compared with 19% of those who tested negative. 

“The low uptake of vaccines, which showed substantial short-term effectiveness, suggests missed opportunities for preventing symptomatic COVID-19 among unvaccinated vulnerable groups,” write the authors of the European study." 

Melanie Phillips' Speech About Israel, "The Heroic Warrior Nation"

The heroic warrior nation defending the civilised world: My speech at the JNS security conference

Melanie Phillips, Jun 22, 2026

I gave a speech last night at the opening of the JNS security conference in Jerusalem. The text of what I said follows below.

"This past week has been a shocking one.

"President Trump produced a ceasefire agreement that seemed to have been dictated by Tehran. He and JD Vance lashed out viciously at Israel, America’s close and indispensable ally in this war.

"Now, Donald Trump is the only American president ever to have waged war on the Iranian regime. He and Israel had it on the ropes. Their achievements in drastically weakening the Iranian regime have been absolutely astonishing.

"So why did he suddenly release the pressure, throw away his advantage and hand Iran the power to dictate events?

"Well, I suggest the answer to that puzzle links America, Britain and Europe. None of them properly understands the war being waged against them all.

"This is an unprecedented and seismic moment in history. The onslaught upon Israel and the Jewish world is coming at us from all sides.

"The barbarities of October 7 presented the west with a challenge. Would it choose civilisation or barbarism?

"Much of the west, we now see, alas, has turned its back on civilisation.

"Instead of supporting Israel against genocidal attack, it’s turned instead against Israel and the Jewish people in an unprecedented loss of reason and moral compass.

"What we’re seeing is first and foremost an Islamist war against the west being waged through an onslaught against Israel and the Jews. The Islamists have always told us: first we are coming for the Jews, and then we are coming for the Christians.

"Much of the west, alas, doesn’t understand this. It’s not joining up the dots. As a result, in Britain, Europe and America, there’s a refusal to do what it takes to defend itself.

"President Trump has turned on a dime to escape from a trap. This trap is because, in his words, an imminent global economic disaster caused by Iran taking hostage the Strait of Hormuz cannot be tolerated by him.

"But we have to ask, how in the world is mighty America unable to defeat a massively weakened Iran? The short answer is that to do so probably requires American boots on the ground. And that’s something the president will not commit himself to do. Because the American people wouldn’t wear it.

"Why is that? It’s because they don’t think the war with Iran has anything to do with their interests. That’s astonishing, given the hundreds of Americans attacked and killed by Iran over the past four decades as it’s pursued its war cry “Death to America”.

"What this initiative in the MoU means is that everyone can now see America is not prepared to make the sacrifices necessary to defend itself. And that will have emboldened evil forces threatening the west from around the world.

"Britain and Europe, meanwhile, are unwilling to go to war at all. They dance to the tune of kumbaya liberal universalism, which means they say all conflict must be ended by negotiation and compromise. Even with genocidal fanatics.

"They say nothing has ever been solved by war. What do they think was going on between 1939 and 1945, one wonders?

"Their belief in the “brotherhood of man” means that at home they’ve embraced multiculturalism and mass immigration. They’ve told themselves it’s racist to uphold their own historic culture over anyone else’s because the west was born in the original sins of colonialism and whiteness.

"So they allowed in millions of Muslim immigrants. And now their societies are well on the way to Islamisation. Now let’s be clear: many, many Muslims in Britain and Europe pose no threat to anyone. They want to enjoy the benefits of western society. But huge numbers of them do pose a threat, either through terrorism or their agenda to Islamise the culture.

"But the political and cultural elites in the west won’t even admit this is happening, denouncing instead anyone who sounds the alarm as Islamophobic, racist or fascist.

"In Britain, the result of this has been, for example, a refusal to deal with the infamous mainly Muslim rape and grooming gangs you’ve read about. There’s a wilful blindness towards jihadi preachers in mosques, inciting murderous hatred against the west and against the Jews. And the rise of sectarian Islamic Gaza first politics, with more and more politicians nervously doing the bidding of Muslims determined to make Britain adapt to Islam.

"The result of all this and more is that Britain and parts of Europe are just like the frog being boiled slowly in the pot. And I’m afraid parts of America — I’m thinking of New York — show signs of following suit.

"Since October 7, ecstatic Islamists who, like the Iranian regime, believe that the final defeat of Israel and the west is now at hand, have been spearheading an onslaught on diaspora Jews.

"But they’re being supported by many non-Muslims. What’s been so shocking is not just the demonstrations with their chants to murder Jews and destroy Israel. It’s that verbal and physical attacks on Jews have redoubled even after Jewish people have been viciously assaulted or even murdered in Britain and other western countries.

"We’re seeing that violence against Jews just excites the bloodlust. No-one wants to know about Jewish victimisation. No-one wants to hear about antisemitism.

"All the guardrails against Jew-hatred have come down. There’s an attempt within the west not just to get rid of Israel but to get rid of the Jews from their heads, their conscience and their world.

"It’s emerged as anti-Zionism because wall-to-wall falsehoods about Israel’s behaviour, parroted by the universities, the media and the global humanitarian establishment, have framed Zionism as evil and Israel as diabolically monstrous. Appallingly, these blood libels have been framed as conscience itself.

"In Britain and increasingly in America too, courage now consists of supporting the Jewish people and the State of Israel.

"So is it all over? Absolutely not. Much can be done against these enemies of civilisation but only if one crucial thing is understood.

"These evil forces are strong only because their victims, in Britain, Europe and America, are weak. And they’re weak because they will not do what it takes to defend themselves.

"Iran is not strong. But America’s many powerful weapons count for nothing if it won’t use them. If America won’t commit itself to take the pain involved in fighting for its way of life, then Iran wins.

"America won’t defend itself properly because it doesn’t understand that, when it has an enemy as with the Iranian regime that believes God is instructing it to destroy America and the Jews, any negotiation is viewed as weakness and a way to manipulate America into surrender.

"To defeat Iran, America needs to end all negotiation and fight, through blockades or kinetic war or boots on the ground wherever necessary.

"Britain and Europe could themselves fight back by ending immigration from the most troubling areas in the Muslim world, banning the Muslim Brotherhood and sharia courts, and jailing or deporting hate preachers in mosques.

"Diaspora Jews should be able fight back by first stopping going on about antisemitism. They should instead start telling essential truths that are never told. For example, that Palestinian identity is a scam that was invented purely to exterminate Israel and steal the Jews’ own history in the land from them.

"They should be telling the west that everything Israel does is in accordance with international law. They should be saying it is the Palestinian Arabs who are the would-be colonisers, and that Zionism was the greatest anti-colonialism movement of the 20th century.

"And they should also start telling Americans in terms that the war against Iran is a war to defend the west, and that they all in America depend on Israel to keep them safe — in America.

"Since October 7, Israel has fought like a lion.

"Its soldiers do so because they are fighting for their people, which they love. Because they are bound in blood and tears to their history, to their culture, and to the generations who came before them and fought and died to keep the Jewish people alive.

"Israel pays the heaviest possible price of defending itself because its people are determined to keep their nation alive. Their identity, their love of their culture, their history and their people gives them idealism, courage and hope.

"Since October 7, the Israelis have returned to their historic Jewish destiny as a heroic warrior nation. Diaspora Jews themselves need to identify as part of that warrior nation, or else they will largely disappear.

"Britain and Europe will not survive their cultural death-wish. This week, I was horrified to see, America moved alarmingly to join them.

"President Trump has not escaped the Iranian trap, as I think some of his comments today indicate he is well aware. Either he fights to defeat the regime or America is finished as a force to defend civilisation.

"Israel will not allow Iran to get the bomb. If necessary, it will fight Iran alone.

"We Jews believe our historic mission is to be a light unto the nations. Israel now can be that light by showing America, Britain and Europe how to fight, what it takes to fight and therefore how to survive and to live.

I"srael will survive because Israel will do whatever to takes to defend itself: the heroic warrior nation defending the whole civilised world. This is the Jewish moment. Am yisroel chai (the people of Israel lives)."