HAPPY JUNETEENTH!
June 19, 2026
THE CORBYNIZATION OF THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY CONTINUES APACE: How Vermont Became Ground Zero for the Anti-Israel Movement.
Rachel Feldman, who co-founded pro-Israel group Shalom Alliance, told me Vermont was particularly vulnerable to a campaign like AFSC.
“It’s a Trojan horse,” Birong told me. “They’re just wedging the door open a little bit with words that sound ‘peaceful’ and ‘anti-war.’ And that is the ever-evolving nature of antisemitism.”
In most towns, the pledge under consideration comes from American Friends Service Committee (AFSC), a tax-exempt Quaker organization that launched the so-called Apartheid-Free Communities network in spring 2023. It states that their goal is “not necessarily” to push towns toward boycotting and divesting from Israel—just toward any actions against “Israeli apartheid.”
“How to do that is up to your community and your context, and many can choose to engage in boycott or divestment actions.”
Late last year, Israel announced that AFSC—along with 36 other international organizations—could no longer operate in Gaza after failing to turn in a list of their Palestinian employees, along with their addresses and contact information. AFSC, which has been working in Gaza since 1948, called the new regulations a “part of a systematic effort” to “inflict further harm on Gaza’s civilian population.”
Just look at Senator Bernie Sanders, she said.
Polls consistently show that Sanders, a Jew and frequent critic of Israel who has called the country’s war against Hamas a “genocide,” is the most popular senator in America. All three members of the state’s congressional delegation are critics of Israel and boycotted Netanyahu’s 2024 address to Congress, including Rep. Becca Balint, who has described herself as “Jew-ish” and said that her “spiritual life is an amalgamation of Judaism, Quakerism, and Buddhism.”
When Sanders “walks through Montpelier, it’s like he’s a rock star,” Feldman said, calling him a “folk icon.”
“People want someone to look up to, and Bernie is that person for a lot of Vermonters.”
Vermont is a state of liberal superlatives. It is among the whitest, most elderly, and most progressive states in the country. It “takes seriously the concepts of institutionalized racism. We were fertile ground to be convinced that Jews are the oppressors,” Feldman told me. More than 80 percent of Vermonters live in towns that have adopted a Declaration of Inclusion, a pledge that “condemns racism” and is intended for “everyone to feel safe and welcome in our community.” No state voted more heavily for Kamala Harris in the most recent presidential election. And unlike the anti-Israel movement on college campuses and in major cities like New York, the activists driving this campaign are often boomers—retirees with a long track record of anti-war activism and nothing but time to kill. Catherine Bock, a 77-year-old Burlington resident, falls into that camp.
Vermont stalwart Howard Dean has also fallen in line with the left’s current hatred of Israel:
● Shot: Dean defends Middle East remarks.
Under fire for saying that the United States should be even-handed in the Israeli-Palestinian dispute, 2004 Democratic presidential front-runner Howard Dean Wednesday said he would not abandon the long-standing policy of strong U.S. support for Israel.
The former Vermont governor said criticism of his remarks by presidential rival Sen. Joseph Lieberman was a “despicable” attempt to divide the Democratic Party, which has long enjoyed the support of many Jewish voters.
“We do have a special relationship with Israel. We would defend Israel if necessary. I think that is well-known,” he told CNN. “However, we are also the only country capable of bringing peace to the Middle East, and when we sit at the negotiating table, we do have to have the trust of both sides or we will never succeed.”
—CNN, September 10th, 2003.
● Chaser: Former Vermont Governor calls Israel an Apartheid state.
—The Jerusalem Post, October 3rd, 2021.
In 2003, Jonah Goldberg wrote about revisiting David Brooks’ “Latte Town” image of Burlington, Vermont during the Clinton-era 1990s:
In his Weekly Standard article, entitled “The Rise of the Latte Town,” Brooks highlighted Burlington, Vermont as Exhibit A in what he identified as a profound transformation of American liberalism and American society in general. Brooks declared, “One of the striking things about Burlington is that it is relatively apolitical.” He noted how the bookstores downplayed overtly partisan books in favor of tomes which explained how individual citizens could help the homeless. “Bulletin boards are everywhere,” he reported, “but most of the fliers advertise rock bands, not rallies.” He saw only three political bumper stickers there: two simply said “Bernie” (a reference to Vermont’s only congressman, an Independent in the House and a socialist in his heart) and the third was a sticker for Rush–which he found on the outskirts of town on a pickup truck, so maybe the owner was an out-of-towner making a delivery.
All in all, Brooks discovered, Leftists didn’t care much about national or international politics. They wanted to be left with their expensive-but-necessary homes, cars, and clothes. “So these upscale liberals have retreated from national and urban politics and instead concentrated their energies on the local politics and small-scale activism to be found in the Latte Towns.” Moreover, while this retreat may be literal for those who voted with their feet and moved to Burlington, Austin, Texas, and Portland, Oregon, there has been a broader psychological retreat by the Left in general. “In this sense, Latte Towns represent a fundamental transformation in the American Left, the shift from the adversary culture to the alternative culture.”
Visiting Burlington in 2003 one discovers a very different Latte Town, and not just because Brooks seemed not to notice all of the drug addicts and facially pierced ne’er-do-wells. Oh, by the way, Latte Towns (Alan Ehrenhalt coined the term) are exactly what you’d think. I describe them in my forthcoming NRODT piece as one of those clever, crunchy, condescending college burgs crammed with students–and professors–with open-toed shoes and closed minds. The kids can name 50 different espresso drinks but not one reason to cut a tax, a tree, or their hair.
Anyway, Burlington is hardly the “apolitical” hamlet Brooks encountered. These days the bookstores front a lot more Noam Chomsky and Al Franken. You can still find flyers for bands–if you’re willing to peel off the ones advertising trips to Cuba. Political bumper stickers are everywhere. “Impeach Bush” is particularly popular, but my favorite was one I saw while driving along the campus of the University of Vermont: “The Road to Hell is Paved with Republicans.” You can also find it for sale at the “Peace & Justice Center & Store” on Church street in the heart of downtown Burlington.
Fast-forward to Latte Town in 2026:
Correlation of HATE HAS NO HOME HERE lawn signs to anti-Semitism remains undefeated https://t.co/mppRYcZqkg
— Seth Mandel (@SethAMandel) June 18, 2026
MOU UPDATE: Kurdish dissident group reports Iranian attack despite war-end deal with US. “Iran has launched a new strike on a Kurdish opposition group’s camp near Erbil, the group said on Tuesday, marking the first such attack by Tehran since it reached a war-end agreement with Washington. The assault is fueling concern that the truce does not include a halt to strikes against Kurdish opposition groups in the Kurdistan Region.”
A NEW LOW SO FAR: The SPLC Hits An All New Low With Cringe Sex Scandal.
TRANQUILITY BASE HERE, THE EGO HAS LANDED:
Obama has been, and always will be, a monumentally arrogant douchebag. https://t.co/hHzoU5ypC4
— Ned Ryun (@nedryun) June 19, 2026
LIMITED PRIME DEAL: Amazon Kindle Scribe Premium Pen. #CommissionEarned
TO BE SURE, THERE ARE FAR WORSE THINGS IRAN COULD BE DOING DURING PRIDE MONTH:
Referring to someone as a nation's "disfigured and probably gay supreme leader" is diabolical lmao. https://t.co/UGGbGSZSKn
— Autism Capital 🧩 (@AutismCapital) June 19, 2026
COME SEE THE VIOLENCE INHERENT IN THE LEFTISM: ‘Unofficial’ CU student group cheers for Boulder firebomber.
“He took direct action against the Zionist death cult festering in our city,” the site says. “He struck against the colonist procession that gathers weekly to celebrate the pretext for ongoing genocide.”
Calling it a “case of the chickens coming home to roost,” the group states:
“The colonists present at the Run for Their Lives procession each week carry posters celebrating war criminals who have served as the pretext for the systematic extermination of the Palestinian people since Operation Al-Aqsa Flood,” the site reads. “When community members confronted those … with cries of ‘Stop killing kids,’ the marchers responded with proud declarations that they wished death upon every child in Gaza. … Mohamed chose the only sane response available to a rational human being confronted with the normalization of genocide. He refused the comfortable position of the grateful immigrant and the role of obedient subject, choosing confrontation with a violent system over passive proximity to the comfort of the empire.”
The group’s official designation was revoked over multiple campus violations, including disrupting a career fair, amplifying sound, and a member being arrested for theft and harassment on campus, to name a few. Campus groups are banned from any activities that disrupt the university’s mission.
The group’s latest antics caused CU to issue a strong admonition of the group and its purpose.
But no expulsions?
EVERY LEFTY SLOGAN HAS AN EXPIRATION DATE:
The Left: “Believe All Women!”
British Women: “250,000+ of us were systematically raped and tortured by mostly Pakistani men from the 1950s to now with help from our police, social workers, NHS staff and politicians.”
The Left: “Yea, not you.”
— Alice Smith (@TheAliceSmith) June 18, 2026
OCEANIA HAS ALWAYS BEEN IN FAVOR OF SECURE BORDERS:
Europe just experienced one of the fastest religious conversions in political history.
For years they called basic border enforcement “fascism.” They called deportation “cruel.” They called any suggestion of returning people who had no right to be there “far-right extremism.”…
— Flopping Aces (@FloppingAces) June 18, 2026
HEADLINE OF THE DAY — AND IT’S ONLY 7 A.M.: The Banality of Keir Starmer: Chestless Bureaucrats and the Betrayal of Britain’s Daughters.
BOB GRABOYES: Lessons from the Tuskegee Study (Redux): There will never be another Tuskegee. There will always be another Tuskegee.
Ethical breaches associated with Bell’s imperatives for the Deaf, eugenic sterilization, the Tuskegee Experiment, various HeLa experiments, and similar efforts shared a common characteristic—a view that collective good (however defined) outweighed the sanctity of individual lives. In 1910, the American Medical Association’s Flexner Report, which reconfigured the structure of medical education, anticipated traditional medicine’s focus on individual patients giving way to public health’s concern with collective good. The author, Abraham Flexner, saw the physician as a “social instrument… whose function is fast becoming social and preventive, rather than individual and curative.” . . .
Paul Lombardo, a scholar on the history of eugenics, wrote,
“The expansive reach of public health law is justified by the government’s ‘police power,’ the inherent authority to adopt laws to protect health, welfare, and morals, and an exception to the usual expectation that states should not interfere with the property rights or the liberty and bodily integrity of citizens.”
Public health’s enthusiasm for social engineering, Lombardo notes, led to the public health sector’s enforcement roles in preventing marriage between persons with epilepsy, prohibiting interracial marriages, rounding up citizens for sterilization, investigating individuals’ racial ancestry, barring immigrants, as well as the Tuskegee Experiment.
The other common thread in many of these ethical breaches in biomedical research and policy was an illiberal suppression of information flows. Eugenics maintained its respected position longer than otherwise might have been the case, thanks to the stifling of academic dissent.
Superiority complexes lead to morally inferior behavior.
FROM DENTON SALLE Sailing the Clouds of Morning: Avatar Wizard Book 7 (The Avatar Wizard.)
The sorcerer shook himself and glared at Jeremy. “You challenge me to a duel, boy?”
He flared his nimbus, so a sphere of greenish-black power surrounded him.
“I’ll drink your life, and your body will be my puppet.”Once, the volkh ruled the world like gods. Then, the Dark arose and the war shattered the world. The northern Empire finally triumphed and survived at great cost, losing its golden capital and many of its people. The southern empire, Fabled Sheba, fell and lies in ruins to this day. Mighty relics and artifacts remain there, lost in the destruction caused by the last queen’s final spell.
Jeremy and his companions, with Gerasim’s sister Nataliia and the volkva Tanya, must first travel to the ruins of the City, then to Sheba to fulfill the quest laid upon him. In addition to recovering the rod of power, he needs to return the crown of Sheba to Master Eyasu, lest the tensions in the Sheban diaspora erupt into civil war.
Fly with him in the rebuilt Hawk Ship as they travel south to a city ruined by the desperate acts of opening a hellgate. Then cross the Inland Sea with its wonders to an ancient land, destroyed by a desperate spell. A spell so powerful that, while crushing the Dark’s southern hosts, the land remains cursed to this day. Join with them as they risk their lives and very souls in a dead city, and then risk more dangers to find the secrets hidden in the City of Bees.
Meanwhile, unable to go with him, Galena has to cope alone with her mother’s plots to prevent her marriage to Jeremy. Which may mean reaching out to the scariest person she knows. The lily of the volkhvy, the mightiest sorceress in the world, Vasilia Still-heart.
Click now to return to Jeremy’s world and travel with him on the Hawk ship to the ruins of the City and beyond, where heroic deeds and wonders wait.
ATTEMPTS AT REWRITING THE PAST REVOLT ME: Memory Hole.
FEAR? THEY KNOW IRAN WON’T: Israeli Officials Fear Terrorist State Iran Will Not Live Up To Deal With America.
… they already aren’t. Same as always.
SHOCKED, SHOCKED, SHOCKED: ‘Rogue Employee’ Linked to Unauthorized Radiological Cache at US Navy Shipyard.
THE LEFT IS THE PARTY OF ENVY: A trillion here, a trillion there…
GREAT BRITAIN HAS LOST ITS WAY: To suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous governance.
THINGS WE SHOULD INDEED BE ASKING: What is the penalty for smuggling weapons to the British Isles?
