Today is the first anniversary of the horrific Hamas attack on Israel that killed more Jewish civilians than any event since the Nazi holocaust. At least 30 Americans were among the dead. Israel could take out much or all of Iran’s cyberwar capability if it chose to. It was an attack beyond our imagination. Hamas murdered whole families in their homes, burning babies and raping hundreds of Israeli women. Many were killed because they were attending a music festival. About 240 people, including as many as 20 Americans, were taken hostage, some of them — including three or four Americans — are believed to be alive and still held by Hamas. The whole world hasn’t changed, but the Middle East has. French President Emmanuel Macron, in the hallowed tradition of France, always picks the wrong side. He said the other day that all arms shipments to Israel should be embargoed. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has called him “a disgrace,” which he is. (READ MORE from Jed Babbin: Iran Stokes Endless War, US Does Nothing) We have learned that some of our so-called allies in the region are nothing of the sort. Egypt has permitted Hamas to build dozens of tunnels between it and the Gaza strip, through which tons of war supplies have been smuggled to the terrorists, probably including much from Iran. Qatar has enabled Hamas leaders to stay in luxury hotels in its capital city, Doha, probably exercising whatever command and control authority that remains to them from there. Our — and Israel’s — principal enemy in the region, Iran, has directly attacked Israel twice, once on April 13 and again on October 1. The October attack was supposedly in response to Israel’s killing of Ismail Haniyeh, the top Hamas leader, in Tehran. Both attacks failed because Israeli, U.S. and — and this time Jordanian — missiles managed to down almost all of the attacking missiles and drones. Meanwhile, Hizballah — Iran’s proxy in Lebanon — has fired at least eight thousand missiles at Israeli civilians since October 2023. Most of them have also failed to penetrate Israeli defenses. The Hamas terrorist network — which has governed the Gaza Strip since 2006 — could have taken the billions in funds sent by misguided Europeans, Russians, and Americans and made the Gaza Strip into something akin to Las Vegas without the booze. Instead, they amassed arms, communications equipment, and dug tunnels to attack Israel. The Biden-Harris crew is still helping Israel’s enemies. Harris announced last week that they were sending $150 million to Lebanon to aid in its supposed humanitarian crisis. None of that money will ever help Lebanese civilians. It will all be seized by Hizballah and used to fund more terrorism. (Biden-Harris, in contrast, is sending $100 million for aid to U.S. citizens in North Carolina. Biden has said that the money will run out before the end of the year. Having Funneled Emergency Money to Aliens, there’s supposedly none left for our own citizens.) The Israelis fight every war as if their lives depended on victory, which they do. Since last October 7, they have managed to kill terrorist leaders in Tehran, in Beirut, in Gaza and several other places. And they have fought a multi-front war from Gaza to Syria to Lebanon to Iran and Iraq. Those of us of advancing age remember when President Lyndon Johnson and his Secretary of Defense, Robert McNamara, “helped” the professionals fight the Vietnam war by personally choosing the targets to be bombed and the routes the aircrews would fly. That resulted in the loss of too many American flyers who were killed or shot down and imprisoned in hell holes such as the “Hanoi Hilton.” How To Strike Iran Now President Biden is trying to do the same. Last week he told the press that America wouldn’t support an Israeli counterstrike to the October 1 attack on Iranian nuclear facilities. He hinted that we might support an attack on Iranian oil facilities instead. The Israelis can be counted on to ignore Biden. And they should. Unlike the Iranians, the Israelis will attack only military targets, of which there is a bountiful list. The list ranges from killing Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, to bombing Iran’s nuclear and oil facilities. It includes bombing Iran’s parliament. Nevertheless, the Israelis have to calibrate their counterstrike carefully and can be expected to do something no one expects. Bombing Iran’s oil export facilities could weaken China which, according to a Reuters report, gets about 15 percent of its oil, over one million barrels a day, from Iran. That would be a strategic effect high on our list. Bombing Iran’s nuclear facilities must be even higher on Israel’s list. The Israelis know that, despite Biden’s effort to protect Iran’s nuclear sites, Iran is close to deploying nuclear-armed missiles. Iran will, sooner rather than later, attack Israel with those weapons. Any attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities could delay Iran’s plans. Israel’s intelligence about Iran is, of necessity, better than ours. Israel could take out much or all of Iran’s cyberwar capability if it chose to. Iran, like China and Russia and possibly North Korea, is trying to interfere in our November election through cyberwar and social media. Any Israeli attack on Iran’s cyberwar capabilities — or its oil or nuclear facilities, or all of these targets — should be welcomed, not condemned, by Biden. America is too self-absorbed over the November election to pay much attention to Israel or Ukraine. Just last Thursday, Kamala Harris’s running mate, Gov. Tim Walz, promised that Muslims would have a role in a Harris administration, a “side-by-side” relationship. Israel will be shunned by Harris despite all of her assurances to the contrary. (READ MORE: The World, Israel, and Our Diplomacy of Dunces) Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is a very tough guy. Years ago, he served as a member of Israel’s Sayaret Maktal, one of its special forces groups. He understands the threat Iran poses and the threat Kamala Harris, if she’s elected, will pose. He and his war cabinet must choose to strike at Iran decisively. Whatever the Israelis decide to do, they cannot count on support from Mr. Biden or Ms. Harris. Election politics, in their minds, outweighs any strategic consideration. The post One Year Since Oct. 7, Iran Is in Israel’s Crosshairs appeared first on The American Spectator | USA News and Politics.

Iran’s proxies plunged the Middle East back into bloody chaos on October 7, 2023 when 6,000 psychopaths scrambled across the Gazan border into Israel and murdered, maimed, raped, and kidnaped over 2,000 innocent Israeli citizens and visiting foreign nationals. Today Gaza is in ruins and Hamas decimated. Either way, if Israel can resist the Biden administration’s attempts to slow and stall it’s counteroffensive, the fat lady has sung.   Incredibly, after witnessing the utter desolation of Gaza, Iran’s Hezbollah surrogates owned a piece of the action by launching thousands of rockets toward Israeli civilian populations. Today, the upper echelon of Hezbollah military leadership has been killed, and Israel is launching a ground invasion into Lebanon. (READ MORE from Mike Howard: Elon Musk for President?) Even more incredibly, with Hamas and Hezbollah on their heels, and the Houthis in Israel’s crosshairs, Iran has repeatedly engaged Israel with hundreds of ballistic missiles and vowed to “crush” Israel if they dare even think about any counterstrikes. Seriously? “Crush” Israel? With what? The 60 percent enhanced weapons-grade uranium production that Iran has fast-tracked to terrify Western proponents of appeasement? Iran may have enough weapons-grade material to build three nuclear weapons. Given time.  Neither the Biden/Harris administration nor Israel will tell you, and you won’t learn this from mainstream media, but Israel already has a nuclear capability  —  and has for decades. Conservative estimates credit Israel’s nuclear arsenal with a minimum of over 90 plutonium-based nuclear warheads, with enough plutonium to arm over 200 weapons. It’s not so much a secret —  as a taboo topic.  Of course, all the nuclear weapons in the world aren’t much of a threat without a delivery system, a system like Israel’s squadrons of U.S.-made F-15s (with a range of over 3,500 kilometers), F-16s (1,600 kilometers), and F-35 stealth aircraft (2,200 kilometers)  —  all capable of in-air refueling, and all capable of nuclear roles. Or systems such as Israel’s Jericho II nuclear-capable surface-to-surface ballistic missiles (1,500 kilometer range) or their Jericho IIIs (4,000 kilometer range). Or like Israel’s half-dozen Dolphin-class submarines, each capable of launching 16 nuclear-tipped 200 kiloton cruise missiles literally anywhere in the Middle East. The German-built Dolphin-class diesel-electric subs guarantee Israel a second-strike retaliatory capability, no matter what happens to their homeland. With Hamas defanged and Gaza in rubble, with Hezbollah degraded and leaderless and Lebanon at risk of ground pacification, the Houthis can be dismissed as so many irritating gnats. Suddenly, the risk of a three-front war by Iran’s proxy “warriors” is gone. Iran’s “buffer” of useful idiots has evaporated into battlefield smoke. Iran’s “Supreme Leader” Seyyed Ali Hosseini Khamenei is in hiding, and his “Islamic Revolutionary Guard” is disavowing any desire for an expansion of hostilities. Yeah, right. I suspect that it is too late for that. Way too late.  Israel Turning Toward Iran Israel is now prioritizing pre-selected targets for the coup de grâce: Iran’s oil fields, launch sites, missile production, and nuclear “research” centers. The oil fields, launch sites, and missile production sites are vulnerable. Blazing infernos waiting to happen. The “research” centers are hardened sites dug into mountainsides and housed in vast underground facilities  —  but nothing that a few well-placed “bunker-busters” can’t handle. Or if worse comes to worse? A couple of well-placed Jericho missiles. If Hosseini is smart  —  and he’s shown no evidence of that over the course of this last year  —  he’ll take the losses and orchestrate the immediate release of all surviving hostages and the respectful return of the remains of those who were killed in captivity. Either way, if Israel can resist the Biden administration’s attempts to slow and stall it’s counteroffensive, the fat lady has sung. (READ MORE: Israel Forced to Live Beyond Hollywood’s Imagination) The “existential threat” paradigm has shifted. Irretrievably. And this time, when the sand has settled  —  there may actually be a chance for peace in the Middle East. The post By Triggering Israel, Terrorists Made Peace a Possibility appeared first on The American Spectator | USA News and Politics.

October has arrived, and with it the final month of what has seemed like an interminable election season. As a sometime political commentator, I should be filled with excitement, eager to follow the twists and turns of the days to come, the October surprises if such occur, the campaign events as they unfold, the building suspense culminating on election night, the tipping points in each critical state. And, with so much riding on this election, perhaps more than any in recent memory, I will certainly have observations to make in the weeks to come. I wish that you could take away the message of hope that I and the other American attendees drew from this event. Just now, however, before giving in to election fever, I want to take a moment to reflect on a recent experience, one that offers encouragement that, whatever happens on November 5th, our country can find a path to a brighter future. We’ve done it before, and I remain convinced that we can do it again. But finding that path requires a backward glance, a brief look at the country we once were, with the hope that, in the fulness of time, we can become that country once again. (READ MORE from James H. McGee: Female Superheroes Not Needed at the Secret Service)  France Honors Brave Americans Several weeks ago, I participated in an event commemorating the 80th anniversary of the WWII liberation of eastern France from the Germans. The event centered on the brutal battles for a bridgehead across the Moselle River near Metz. I’ve written of these battles before, of how they shaped my father’s life and, through him, my own. I’ve also written of the several French groups who’ve done so much over the years to keep the memory of these battles alive, “Thanks GIs” and “The Friends of Fort Driant,” among many others. I’ve interacted with these groups for the better part of a decade, and I’m consistently astonished at their dedication, whether in helping to identify MIAs or, more generally, in promoting an appreciation of American sacrifice in the cause of freedom. Here in the U.S., such sacrifice seems largely forgotten, but not along the banks of the Moselle, where the locals are pleased to refer to the fight for a river crossing as “Omaha Beach in Lorraine.” And without taking away from the enormity of Omaha Beach, the comparisons are at least suggestive, not least in terms of the casualties suffered: some 2,000 killed, wounded, and missing before the bridgehead was secured in the face of fanatical SS troops, repeated tank attacks, and bombardment from German fortifications impervious to virtually every weapon in the U.S. artillery arsenal. Winning the bridgeheads was, above all, an infantry battle, one where the usual American advantages were lacking, one in which grit and determination won the day. The anniversary celebration, frankly, was astonishing. It centered upon the dedication of a huge monument to the American soldier, a roughly 50 by 30 foot concrete rectangle, displaying, on one side ten soldiers paddling one of the tiny wooden assault boats used in the crossing, on the reverse some 945 stars, one for each of the KIAs, WIAs, and MIAs lost in the first of the two bridgehead battles (the thousand plus lost in the second battle still await a similar display). At the base of the memorial wall are the words, in French and in English “They gave their tomorrow to give us our today. The wall is surmounted by a large “Red Diamond,” the symbol of the 5th Infantry Division, which bore the brunt of the bridgehead battles. It’s quite the remarkable display, all the more so when one considers that it’s construction relied in large part on local donations. The dedication ceremony included an immense French honor guard, an American honor guard from an Air Force base just across the border in Germany, speeches by a host of French dignitaries, both civilian and military, and by the U.S. Consul-General. My French is less than perfect, but I was consistently impressed by the thoughtfulness and passion that the French officials brought to this special moment. A highlight was when the band played “Amazing Grace,” followed by “Taps” and the French equivalent “Aux Morts,” or “To the Dead.” The crowd — and it was truly a crowd — in attendance greeted these moments with the utmost respect. My daughter and I were fortunate enough to be placed with a group of “honored American guests,” honored not because of anything we’d done, but rather as representatives of our fathers or uncles or grandfathers. I found myself seated next to the nephews of one of my boyhood heroes, whose uncle, Dale B. Rex, had earned a Distinguished Service Cross only a few hundred yards from where we sat that afternoon. The ceremony culminated with a moving display presented by a small team of young French military re-enactors, who emerged from the opposite river bank amidst a massive fireworks display, paddling a tiny assault boat, a direct copy of the ones used 80 years ago.  They crossed precisely in the place where the Americans fought their way across the river — a football field-wide expanse of water — under machine gun , mortar, and cannon fire. Landing on the near bank, the re-enactors took on board a beautifully crafted American flag floral display and paddling back to mid-stream, floated it out upon the water, a special tribute to the many soldiers who drowned in the crossing. And that moment, there were few dry eyes among the hundreds who lined the river bank. For everyone who happens to read this, I can only say that I wish you could have been there. More, I wish that you could take away the message of hope that I and the other American attendees drew from this event. For the last few years, and particularly as we reach the end stage of a bitterly contested election season, it’s easy to focus on all that divides us, and easy, too, to wonder if the U.S. still can produce young men of the caliber of those who won the Moselle bridgeheads, and who prevailed in hundreds of similar battles until the war was won. It’s easy to wonder if we even understand any more how wars are won, what victory looks like, or even to believe in a country worth fighting for. Americans Have Done This Before So where, then, do I find even a modicum of hope? Simply this. If one attends, honestly, to the history of the years prior to WW II, one is reminded over and over again of how bitterly divided our country had become in those years. We all heartily sing-along to “This Land is Your Land” these days, without every recalling that it’s author, Woodie Guthrie, was a Communist sympathizer, and that from the bread lines to the highest reaches of the Roosevelt administration, there were many who firmly believed that the great American experiment had been proven a failure.  Defending the country was widely derided as a “sucker’s game,” and then, as now, American intellectuals, and leading lights in the media, were willing to look elsewhere — chiefly to the Soviet Union — for their political inspiration. Even as our future security hung in the balance, even as, belatedly, we began to rebuild our military in the face of a world filled with contempt for all that we stood for, our Congress, in 1941, could only sustain this buildup by the margin of a single vote. Unity only came with the shock of Pearl Harbor, a unity born of fury, but maintained through the experience of common purpose for years after the Axis had been defeated. (READ MORE: The Paris Olympics Aren’t Representative of the France I Know) I hope that it won’t take another Pearl Harbor or a 9/11 to enable us to recover our faith in each other as Americans and to work together across our various differences. Reading the headlines each day, I find, sadly, that optimism seems a fool’s enterprise, that hopes arise only to be dashed to pieces. And yet I still hope, inspired by moments like the ceremony I just attended, by the remembrance of courage and common purpose, by appreciation for the fact that there are others, a continent away, who still honor what we once were and, God willing, will be again. James H. McGee retired in 2018 after nearly four decades as a national security and counter-terrorism professional, working primarily in the nuclear security field. Since retiring, he’s begun a second career as a thriller writer. His recent novel, Letter of Reprisal, tells the tale of a desperate mission to destroy a Chinese bioweapon facility hidden in the heart of the central African conflict region. A forthcoming sequel finds the Reprisal team fighting against terrorists who’ve infiltrated our southern border in a conspiracy that ranges across the globe. You can find Letter of Reprisal on Amazon in both Kindle and paperback editions, and on Kindle Unlimited. The post Americans Can See Hope in Remembrance appeared first on The American Spectator | USA News and Politics.

When one thinks about the major causes of death for industrialized countries, a familiar number of ailments come to mind — cancer and heart disease, for instance. In the past few years, COVID has also ranked high in some countries’ mortality tables. But Canada has a new leading cause of death that is both shocking and surprising: death by doctor. While courts and lawmakers created the assisted suicide regime … individual citizens must stand up for the rights of individuals to live with dignity. That’s one of the major conclusions from a recent study that examined our neighbor to the north’s medical aid in dying laws and their grisly consequences. According to the study, assisted suicide now ranks alongside cardiovascular disease as Canada’s fifth leading cause of death. The number of assisted suicides rose thirteenfold from 2016 to 2022, to over 13,000 — this in a country with a population roughly one-tenth the size of the United States. And because some provinces do not report assisted suicide as the cause of death, the data actually under-estimates the impact of assisted suicide on Canadian mortality. (READ MORE: Assisted Suicide Surges in California) These results flow from decisions taken by policymakers to promote assisted suicide. Legislative expansions of a “right” first created by courts — i.e., the right to take one’s own life — have allowed for same-day suicide, and made conditions like vision and hearing loss eligible for aid in dying. The report illustrates how an outcome once alleged to be rare has become shockingly routine. While a 2020 journal article predicted 2,000 assisted suicides that year, the actual outcome exceeded that prediction by nearly threefold, a number that nearly doubled again from 2020 to 2022. Even the head of the commission that monitors assisted suicide in Quebec had to admit that in the province, “we’re now no longer dealing with an exceptional treatment, but a treatment that is very frequent.” Why Is Assisted Suicide Growing? Why has Canada’s regime grown at the fastest rate of all the assisted suicide programs in the Western world? Along with the frequent eligibility expansions, one has to point to the country’s single-payer system of socialized medicine. Persistent under-funding means that over 1.2 million Canadians are waiting for various treatments — some for more than a year. With obtaining appropriate medical treatment difficult due to government rationing, some Canadian patients may lose hope and turn to assisted suicide in the absence of an alternative. In some cases, physicians may try to promote this outcome by persuading patients of the futility of their cause. Talk about a macabre — not to mention immoral — way to lower health care costs. The way that Canada has devalued life is horrifying and disgusting. The fact that some states like California and Washington state have also gone down the road of assisted suicide makes me fear that our culture does not stand up for the least among us. In promoting assisted suicide, we are sending a very clear message to those with disabilities or in pain that their lives have little meaning and are not “worth it.” (READ MORE: Trans Individuals Seek Euthanasia After ‘Gender-Affirming Care’) While courts and lawmakers created the assisted suicide regime in Canada, and in some states here, individual citizens must stand up for the rights of individuals to live with dignity, without feeling bullied or influenced into taking one’s own life. Let us work to build a culture that values all human life, from conception to natural death, to promote the inherent worth of all Americans. Mary Vought is a Senior Fellow at the Independent Women’s Forum. You can follow her on X @MaryVought.     The post The Horrific Assisted Suicide Boom in Canada appeared first on The American Spectator | USA News and Politics.

Volkswagen made headlines recently as its leaders expressed concern about the company’s prospects, suggesting that they may have to close their operations in Germany, the birthplace of the company and its home for almost 90 years. And they should be a warning sign for us. VW is suffering from bad economic, environmental, and industrial policies in Germany — policies that are dangerously being embraced by both sides of the political aisle in the United States.  While the turmoil at VW is worrying for Germany … it should also unsettle Americans. German Labor Problems Volkswagen’s top problem involves its German workforce. Since 1972 and the passage of the Works Constitution Act, German law has required all medium and large German companies to have significant labor representation on their boards as well as favorable rules regarding labor unions.  These rules have made it nearly impossible for VW to trim or restructure its labor force to cut costs and remain competitive. As a result, they may have to shut down some of their German operations entirely — which would clearly be a much worse outcome for German workers than a restructuring. The Supply Chain Act that went into effect in 2023 exports these onerous German labor rules to German-owned factories around the world. Democrats have been friendly toward organized labor throughout the 20th century. Labor unions, especially large public sector unions, give far more heavily to Democrats than Republicans. But despite extensive evidence that labor unions and labor restrictions make companies less effective and less profitable, an increasing number of Republican senators from Marco Rubio to Josh Hawley to JD Vance have said they want to revitalize labor unions.(READ MORE: Why We Shouldn’t Expect a Return to the Trump Economy)   In fact, Teamsters President Sean O’Brien spoke at the Republican national convention this year — the first time a labor union leader has done so. German Energy Problems VW also suffers from skyrocketing energy costs in Germany. Although the Russia-Ukraine war and the destruction of the Nord Stream pipeline has exacerbated the problem, energy prices in Germany have been increasing for decades as the political elite became enamored of “net-zero” policy while simultaneously shuttering German nuclear power plants. The result has been a strained energy grid and increasingly expensive electricity. Other environmental restrictions on emissions and the use of fossil fuels have made matters worse. This policy of forced energy starvation has long been championed by the left, now with increasing urgency. Vice President Harris’ historical opposition to fracking, the Biden administration’s ban on the development of new liquid natural gas (LNG) export facilities, the EPA’s increasingly strict requirements for coal power plants and for combustion engine vehicles, and Biden’s revoking of the permit for the Keystone pipeline project all illustrate the left’s hostility toward reliable, cheap, abundant energy. German Resource Problems VW faces a third problem with the high cost of its inputs: steel, semiconductors, rare earth metals, etc. Unfortunately, both political parties in the U. S. have proposed policies that will make this problem worse in America. Democrats champion extremely costly environmental regulations that make it nearly impossible to create or expand mining operations in the U. S. While Republicans want to ease many of those environmental regulations, they advocate tariffs that will vitiate the benefits of these changes. Tariffs on steel raise the domestic price of the commodity thereby increasing the cost of building cars, farm equipment, and many other products. Tariffs on semiconductors and imported raw materials similarly raise the domestic price of these resources, eating into the profitability and competitiveness of U. S. manufacturers. Heavily subsidizing struggling companies, as some in Germany have suggested doing for Volkswagen, is not a good road to follow. The electric vehicle craze was fueled by government subsidies and tax credits in the first place. Now that governments are pulling back, companies in the EV space like Volvo and Northvolt are left scrambling and backpedaling. Similarly, although Chinese car companies seem to benefit from significant government subsidies, appearances can be deceiving.  Many Chinese EV manufacturers have seen their vehicles pile up in inventory. Their long-run profitability is questionable and Chinese taxpayers are on the hook to lose billions that the government poured into over-building EV production. Industrial policies like subsidies, tax breaks, and protection from international competition merely transfer the problems of struggling companies onto the general public. (READ MORE: The Real Relationship Between Trump-Style Tariffs and Economic Growth) While the turmoil at VW is worrying for Germany, especially for German VW employees, it should also unsettle Americans. Both Democrats and Republicans seem ready and eager to replicate the labor, environmental, energy, and resource problems in Germany — and in the EU more broadly — reducing their competitiveness. Whether or not you like GTIs or Jettas, we would be better off importing German cars than importing bad German policies. The post Import Germany’s Cars, Not Its Policies appeared first on The American Spectator | USA News and Politics.

I have been marooned without electricity for almost a week (thank you – not! – Helene) and yet somehow the word reached me that Pete Rose, professional baseball’s all-time hits leader, passed away on September 30 at age 83. Rose’s passing triggered a ton of memories from this longtime baseball fan. Never during his playing career was Rose’s intense competitive nature more pronounced than in the 1970 All-Star game. I recall finding his rookie baseball card in a package of bubblegum in 1963. Pete won the National League Rookie of the Year Award that year, so there was already a buzz around him. Alas, the shoebox stuffed full with my baseball card collection was thrown out while I was away at college. I saw Rose play dozens of times on television — All-star games, playoffs, World Series — and finally saw him play in person in 1979 when I was teaching in St. Louis and Pete was playing with the Phillies. He was mesmerizing to watch. If there was one definitive characteristic to the way Pete Rose played baseball, it was his intensity. If he drew a walk, he ran, not trotted, to first base. Baseball fans dubbed him “Charlie Hustle.” Every time he went to the plate, his enthusiasm and concentration were palpable. You could tell that he relished the one-on-one battle between pitcher and batter, and he was going to do his utmost to win that competition: 4,256 times, Pete won that competition by getting a base hit. The immortal Ty Cobb was the only other major league baseball player to exceed 4,000 hits. Cobb has 4,191 hits, which he was able to accumulate while batting 2,787 times fewer than Rose. Cobb, of course, holds the record for highest career batting average — .367. That is a truly incredible feat, for there have been only 117 individual single season records of .367 or higher (14 of them by Cobb himself) in the last 124 seasons, and yet Cobb averaged .367 over a span of 24 seasons. The highest batting average Pete ever had in a single season was .348, and his career average was .303. That was excellent for the era in which he played, and he won three batting titles during his career. He also had a 44-consecutive game hitting streak in 1978 — a streak so unusual that it was getting headlines in newspapers in Mexico City, where I happened to be at the time. Pete Rose’s 4,256 hits is a staggering achievement when you put it in perspective. Getting at least 200 hits in a season is considered a great achievement. Babe Ruth did it three times, Willie Mays once, and the great Ted Williams never. Cobb did it nine times, and Pete Rose and Ichiro Suzuki share the record of ten such seasons.  Ringing up 4,256 hits is the equivalent of hitting at least 200 hits in a season 21 times. That’s mind-boggling. It surely was made possible only by Rose’s tenacity and intensity. He simply loved baseball and loved to compete, and he excelled at it for more than two decades. Rose the Competitor Never during his playing career was Rose’s intense competitive nature more pronounced than in the 1970 All-Star game. Pete scored the winning run for the National League in extra innings by barreling into catcher Ray Fosse so hard that Fosse never hit for power again and ended up retiring young a couple of years later. On the one hand, it seemed like such a waste — after all, an All-Star game is an exhibition game — but to Pete Rose, a game is a game, and the only way to play it is to go all-out to win. Rose, by the way, was elected to be a starter in the All-Star game at five different positions — first, second, and third bases, and left and right fields. And it wasn’t because Rose was a weak fielder and his manager had to find a place to put him in the field so that he could get Pete’s bat into the lineup. Rose won a couple of Gold Gloves for fielding excellence during his career. No other major leaguer has shown such masterful versatility to be named an All-Star at five positions. Rose’s competitive nature had a darker aspect. There may be a variety of opinions about the psychology of a compulsive gambler, but my theory is that Pete was so obsessed with competition that he gambled on baseball games to find another way to beat the person on the other side. It was his gambling habit, of course, that got Pete banned from baseball for life, and that explains why major league baseball’s all-time hits leader is not in the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, NY. Now it is time to bid farewell to an American sports legend. Pete Rose will forever occupy a special spot in this history of baseball as a tragic hero — a man whose competitive nature both propelled him to the top and then brought him down. RIP, Pete. READ MORE from Mark W. Hendrickson: Shohei Ohtani: Major League Baseball’s Supernova How Trump Can Win (Or Lose) The post Pete Rose: A Baseball Icon With Feet of Clay appeared first on The American Spectator | USA News and Politics.

from Stew Peters Network: TRUTH LIVES on at https://sgtreport.tv/

by Martin Armstrong, Armstrong Economics: I have often been asked why the media never runs a story on our computer, the ONLY Artificial Intelligence computer with a real track record of over 40 years that has called every major shift in the world economy and correctly forecasted wars to the point of even targeting Ukraine years in […]

Everything Harris has said is a LIE!!! This is a local lady heading up the volunteers in North Carolina talking about what they've had to go through with FEMA.?? It was so bad that their Sheriff, Bill Beam, ended up kicking FEMA out of his county and taking it over himself. In… pic.twitter.com/eJx6IH3SJS — SaltyGoat […]

#AlexJonesShow Sunday Bombshell Broadcast! Top Poll Has Trump Surging to 14-Point Lead in Pennsylvania as Mass Awakening to the New World Order's Death Cult Agenda Accelerates to Light-Speed https://t.co/ULIY1Fb6EW — Alex Jones (@RealAlexJones) October 6, 2024