Vaunce News

Smartest Thing a Liberal Said Last Week

By: Steven Hayward — March 24^th 2024 at 11:29

(Steven Hayward)

The Biden Administration’s diplomacy with Israel over its war against Hamas has reached the Animal House “double-secret probation” stage, with Secretary of State Antony Blinken warning Israel that it may find itself diplomatically “isolated” in the world if it attacks Rafah. Is it possible for Israel to be any more “isolated” than it already is in the joke that is called “the diplomatic community”? Dean Wormer could hardly have done it better, though, to be fair to Faber College, Dean Wormer would make a better secretary of state than Blinken.

Sen. John Fetterman (D-Hoodie) is having none of it:

I’m starting to think that instead of banning hoodies on the Senate floor, maybe we should require them. At least for Democrats.

Chaser—I’m finding it harder to dislike this guy for his otherwise liberal views:

dibs on your parking space https://t.co/o9QUhIbKyF

— Senator John Fetterman (@SenFettermanPA) March 21, 2024

Chaser—Fetterman does have some competition this week, from the Ragin’ Cajun himself, James Carville: “A suspicion of mine is that there are too many preachy females [dominating the culture of the Democratic Party].”

Dumbest Thing A Liberal Said Last Week

By: Steven Hayward — March 24^th 2024 at 10:54

(Steven Hayward)

Robert “Beto” O’Rourke—remember him?—appeared on Bill Maher’s comedy show Friday night, and accused Big Retail—”the Walmarts, the Amazons, the Krogers of the world” of price gouging. But it is O’Rourke’s explanation that earns him an entire feature display in the Museum of Leftist Stupidity:

“They were jacking prices in the middle of inflation and blaming it on the economy.”

Imagine! Raising prices during inflation! Who ever heard of such a thing? I’m sure his solution will be government price controls, because when you are this dumb, it is too much to expect even a minimal grasp of economics.

Here it is in all it’s full glory:

Bill Maher is convinced Biden is going to lose the 2024 election because of food inflation.
Beto O'Rourke's spin:
"The FTC just yesterday released a report and said they're price gouging. These are the Walmarts, the Amazons, the Krogers of the world. They were jacking prices in… pic.twitter.com/kM31tDJTSC

— Eric Abbenante (@EricAbbenante) March 23, 2024

What’s wrong with this picture?

By: Scott Johnson — March 24^th 2024 at 09:26

(Scott Johnson)

The Times of Israel provides updates on Palestinian casualties according to Gaza’s Ministry of Health, but suggests that skepticism is warranted. Indeed, the Ministry of Health is best understood as the functional equivalent of the Ministry of Truth (“Minitrue”) conceived by George Orwell in 1984, i.e., the ministry of propaganda.

In its update on Palestinian casualties in Gaza today, the Times of Israel states the numbers of dead and wounded according to “the Hamas-run health ministry,” but adds: “The terror group’s figures are unverified, don’t differentiate between civilians and combatants, and list all the fatalities as caused by Israel — even those believed to have been caused by hundreds of misfired rockets or otherwise by Palestinian fire.”

These are obvious points, yet the numbers are taken (or repeated) at face value by President Biden and others. Here is Biden performing his Big Brother shtick earlier this month: “You can’t have another 30,000 Palestinians dead as a consequence of going after [Hamas]. There are other ways to deal with Hamas.”

In his invaluable March 6 Tablet column, Professor Abraham Wyner explains “How the Gaza Ministry of Health Fakes Casualty Numbers” and even Biden must “know” this. It’s yet another sign of Biden’s turn against Israel and/or support for Hamas.

Let me add today’s sign, per Vice President Kamala Harris: “We have been clear in multiple conversations and in every way that any major military operation in Rafah would be a huge mistake. Let me tell you, I have studied the maps — there is nowhere for those folks to go. So we’ve been very clear that it would be a mistake to move into Rafah with any kind of military operation.”

VP Kamala Harris takes a tougher line against Israel (re: going after remaining Hamas battalions in Rafah) on ABC’s “This Week”:

“We have been clear in multiple conversations and in every way that any major military operation in Rafah would be a huge mistake. Let me tell you, I…

— Josh Kraushaar (@JoshKraushaar) March 24, 2024

Is Biden’s Re-Election Campaign Driving US Foreign Policy?

By: John Hinderaker — March 23^rd 2024 at 21:28

(John Hinderaker)

It is widely believed that Joe Biden’s anti-Israel, pro-Hamas policy is driven by his desperate need to carry Michigan if he is to have any hope of re-election. That seems like a reasonable assumption, although, to be fair, it is also possible that he shares his old boss’s anti-Israel animus. But here is another one:

Scoop: The US has urged Ukraine to halt attacks on Russia’s energy infrastructure, warning senior SBU and GUR officials that drone strikes risk driving up global oil prices and provoking retaliation.
w/ @hallbenjamin @felschwartz @mylesmccormick_ https://t.co/DRussu4cAs via @FT

— Christopher Miller (@ChristopherJM) March 22, 2024

Biden’s team knows that Americans have had about all the Bidenflation they can stand, and a spike in energy prices between now and November could well doom Joe’s chances. Would Biden be willing to throw the Ukrainians under the bus, along with the Israelis, to improve his odds? I think we all know the answer to that one.

Used Ford Giveaway

By: Lloyd Billingsley — March 23^rd 2024 at 20:38

(Lloyd Billingsley)

“My guest is Christine Blasey Ford,” said NPR’s Terry Gross on her March 19 “Fresh Air” show. “She testified at Brett Kavanaugh’s confirmation hearing that he sexually assaulted her.” Blasey Ford has a new book, One Way Back, and in the lengthy interview the author explains:

I did retraumatize myself, having to go back through everything and relive it. And I tried to write a book a couple of years after the testimony and just really wasn’t able to engage in the material. And when I looked at what I had written, I didn’t think it was something that would be very useful anyway. So I abandoned that project for a while and then took it back up once I felt a lot better five years later.

I expected a little bit of pushback in the hearing. And the hearing itself wasn’t particularly difficult. I mean, it was the difficulty that I expected it to be. Some of the questions towards the end started to get sort of off topic and confusing, but, other than that, I actually left the room feeling like I did a good enough job and I would be OK, and I would go back to California, and we would figure out our hotel life and move forward.

And the main thing is I just didn’t want to be on TV. That was my biggest fear at the time – was I don’t want to be – I was picturing the 1991 hearing and thinking, there’s just no way I could…

Well, I guess the main regret is that I didn’t know that that was the only time I would ever speak to them. I thought, well, of course they’re going to have follow-up questions and want to know more details and maybe look at the therapy records or talk to the friends or talk to people. I just didn’t think that was, you know, the only opportunity to speak.

I was definitely grieving – not over the outcome. The outcome is something I had to detach from before I even testified, that the outcome is going to be whatever it is. But the process was so difficult, especially with the DARVO [Deny, Attack and Reverse Victim Offender] and the smear attacks. I had a really difficult time with the social media comments and the memes and all of that. It was very hard to get through.

And so on, in classic style. Based on Blasey Ford’s testimony in 2018, people have a right to wonder what her 911 call might have been like.

When Dag and Kurt Met Idi

By: Lloyd Billingsley — March 23^rd 2024 at 16:21

(Lloyd Billingsley)

Employees of UNRWA, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency, participated in the October 7 attack on Israel, raping, torturing and murdering Jews in tandem with Hamas jihadists and taking Israelis and Americans hostage. Such deadly collaboration should come as no surprise. As Paul Johnson showed in his masterful Modern Times, the United Nations has always been hostile to the West in general and the USA and Israel in particular.

“The notion that Israel was created by imperialism is not only wrong but the reverse of the truth,” writes Johnson. “Everywhere in the West, the foreign offices, defense ministries and big business were against the Zionists.” United Nations Secretary General Dag Hammarskjold, the worst possible choice for the post according to Johnson, “treated Israel not as a small and vulnerable nation but as an outpost of imperialism.”

The UN boss demonstrated “the way in which the UN could be used to marshal and express hatred of the West.” That emerged in the Algerian conflict of the late 1950s, with a dynamic that went back to Muhammed Amin al-Husseini, Mufti of Jerusalem. He “outrivaled Hitler in his hatred for Jews” and “organized the systematic destruction of Arab moderates.”

In March of 1962, Johnson recalls, “a Muslim mob sacked the Great Synagogue in the heart of the Casbah, gutting it, ripping the Torah scrolls, killing the Jewish officials and chalking on the wall ‘Death to the Jews’ and other Nazi slogans.” Muslims who had sided with French were “made to dig their own tombs and swallow their military decorations before being killed; some were burned alive, castrated, dragged behind trucks, fed to the dogs; there were cases where entire families, including tiny children, were murdered together.” Decolonization of Africa brought similar horrors.

Johnson charts the atrocities of Bokassa, Mobutu, Sekou Toure et al, but “the most instructive case” was Uganda’s Idi Amin, who became a Muslim at age 16. In 1970, Libya’s Col. Gaddafi and the PLO’s Yasser Arafat pressured Amin to mount a coup against Milton Obote. Amin toppled Obote in early 1971 and quickly showed his true colors.

“Amin’s was a racist regime, operated in the Muslim-Arab League from the start,” Johnson notes, “since he began the massacres of the Langi and Achili tribes within weeks of taking over.” The dead soon included “any public figure who in any way criticized or obstructed Amin.” The victims included two cabinet ministers beaten to death by Amin himself. The Ugandan Muslim was a “ritual cannibal” who kept selected organs in his refrigerator.

Amin deployed the deadly State Research Center (SRC), operated “on the advice of Palestinians and Libyans.” Amin’s terror, “was a Muslim-Arab phenomenon” and his regime “was in many ways a foreign one, run by Nubians, Palestinians and Libyans.” The UN did nothing to stop it and “the only government to emerge with credit was Israel’s which acted vigorously to save lives when Amin and the Palestinians hijacked an airliner at Entebbe in 1976.”

As Johnson sees it, “Hammarskjold and his school were responsible for prolonging the Amin regime by six terrible years.” This was “the consequence of the morally relativistic principle introduced by Hammarskjold that killing among Africans was not the UN’s business; and Amin could be forgiven for thinking the UN had given him a license for mass-murder, even genocide.”

The Organization of African Unity (OAU) elected Amin as its chairman but the worst was yet to come. On October 1, 1975, Amin addressed UN General Assembly and called for “the expulsion of Israel from the United Nations and the extinction of Israel as a state, so that the territorial integrity of Palestine may be ensured and upheld.”

As Johnson notes, such extinction amounts to “genocide,” but the Assembly gave the Muslim cannibal a standing ovation. The UN Secretary General at the time was Nazi war criminal Kurt Waldheim, who remained in the office until 1981. Waldheimer’s Disease makes people forget the UN boss was a Nazi.

Amin found sanctuary in Saudi Arabia, where he died in 2003 many decades too late. The UN continued to ignore Communist dictatorships and jihadist states such as Iran. That made the events of October 2023 entirely predictable.

The small, vulnerable nation of Israel is again targeted as an imperialist “settler state,” as Johnson noted, a reversal of the truth. Like Idi Amin’s Uganda, Gaza is basically run by Iran through Hamas. Calls to free Palestine “from the river to the sea” echo Amin’s demands for Israel’s extinction, which amounts to genocide. The UN does nothing to prevent the 10/7 attack, and UNRWA employees take part in the slaughter, the worst massacre of Jews since the Holocaust, with Israelis and Americans alike taken hostage.

The revelations prompted some countries to withhold aid for UNRWA. That move, though fully justified, falls short. The United Nations is an enemy of peace and freedom around the world. The time has come for mass withdrawal, with the United States of America leading the way.

In Mind of the Time

By: Lloyd Billingsley — March 23^rd 2024 at 14:17

(Lloyd Billingsley)

Joe Biden turning against Israel puts Scott “in mind of the time when England stood alone against a genocidal maniac.” That was the time when Hitler’s National Socialist regime was allied with Stalin’s Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. They signed their Pact on August 23, 1939, and Stalin began handing Jews directly to the Gestapo. In September, 1939, both powers invaded Poland, effectively starting World War II.

In November, 1939, Stalin invaded Finland and in April of 1940 Hitler invaded Denmark and Norway. On May 10, 1940, Hitler invaded France, Belgium, Luxembourg and the Netherlands. The genocidal maniac then turned his sights on England, standing alone during the Stalin-Hitler Pact. The American Communists, then collaborating with the pro-Nazi German-American Bund, picketed the White House to keep America out of the conflict, and fomented strikes in defense industries.

In the Battle of Britain (July 10, 1940 – October 31, 1940), England got some help from unofficial sources. Fliers from New Zealand, Australia, Canada, South Africa, Rhodesia, Belgium, France, Poland, Czechoslovakia, and even the USA, threw in with the Royal Air Force. As the Imperial War Museum explains:

Germany’s failure to defeat the RAF and secure control of the skies over southern England made invasion all but impossible. British victory in the Battle of Britain was decisive, but ultimately defensive in nature – in avoiding defeat, Britain secured one of its most significant victories of the Second World War. It was able to stay in the war and lived to fight another day.

In the style of John Lennon, “imagine” if the American president had been sending millions of dollars in cash to the Nazi regime. Imagine if the American president told Churchill to back off his military campaigns. Imagine if the American president and prominent senators had called for an election to remove Winston Churchill, and so on. Had such moves taken place, England might not have lived on to fight another day. The parallels are lost on Joe Biden, who in a 2020 debate said “Hitler invaded Europe,” like something from the drunk at the end of the bar.

As Scott notes, Biden and his brain trust “support the survival of Hamas,” genocidal maniacs pushing for a second Holocaust. The History of Jihad author Robert Spencer has thoughts on what this might mean for America:

What do Biden regime apparatchiks think will happen if Hamas defeats Israel and survives this war? Do they think that the jihadis will be so overflowing with gratitude to the U.S. that they won’t ever strike Americans or U.S. interests? They’re in for a rude surprise.

Podcast: The 3WHH—With a Twist!

By: Steven Hayward — March 23^rd 2024 at 10:28

(Steven Hayward)

This week’s episode could be mistaken for the Three Martini Happy Hour, because this week’s installment comes with a tangy twist. John Yoo is away this week, so we brought in a ringer to take his place: Prof. Hadley Arkes! Thus this episode become a Positivism-Free Zone, in which we review the deepest ground of the natural law unencumbered by John’s usual alarums, excursions, and errors.

The episode comes in three parts: Hadley made some news yesterday, celebrating the retirement of the noted Notre Dame Law professor Gerard V. Bradley, who will be joining Hadley at the James Wilson Institute on Natural Law and the American Founding.

Gerard V. Bradley

From there Hadley proceeds to answering the question that we’ve been kicking around ever since the Dobbs decision, namely, just how should pro-life politicians break out of their self-imposed muteness about abortion. Hadley has the strategy.

Finally, we spend some time toward the end getting down some of Hadley’s “origin story” that brought him to Leo Strauss’s classroom at the University of Chicago back in the 1960s, and key friendships made along the way—especially our late friend and unsung hero Michael Uhlmann.

Note: We had some internet glitches while recording this episode that weren’t easily edited or smoothed over, so we ask listeners’ indulgence with these hiccups, in return for which we’re presenting this installment ad-free.

As usual, listen here, or at our hosts at Ricochet when it goes live there.

The incredible shrinking majority

By: Scott Johnson — March 23^rd 2024 at 08:58

(Scott Johnson)

John and I found the protracted humiliation of Kevin McCarthy in connection with his election to be Speaker of the House a clown show. By contrast, Steve Hayward looked mostly on the bright side in “In re: Speaker McCarthy — dissents and concurrences.”

It is at least worth noting that the GOP majority is dissipating. The clown show set the stage for the shrinking of the small GOP House majority to a number asymptotically approaching zero.

It empowered Matt Gaetz to trigger the chain of events leading to McCarthy’s ouster from the Speaker’s chair. I decried that development in “Gaetz of Eden.” Has anyone asked Gaetz what good he did in sacking McCarthy?

McCarthy was deposed this past October. It seems like ancient history. McCarthy subsequently resigned his House seat effective December 31.

I have here in my hand a list of names. According to the list, among the Republicans getting out of Dodge with McCarthy are Reps. Bill Johnson (effective January 21), Ken Buck (effective yesterday), Mike Gallagher (effective April 19), and George Santos, whose departure was involuntary.

“Normally they’re trying to talk people out of [retiring],” one House Republican told Axios. “Now we’re at a point where we’re trying to talk them out of leaving early.” It may or may not be a portent of trouble for Speaker Johnson and it may or may not be a portent of the coming Democratic majority, but it’s not good.

Tools of jihad, then and now

By: Scott Johnson — March 23^rd 2024 at 07:21

(Scott Johnson)

Robert Satloff is executive director of the Washington Institute. He took issue with the December 2 Washington Post story “Israel’s assault forced a nurse to leave babies behind. They were found decomposing.” Satloff deconstructed the Post story in the 5,000-word critique “Once Again, a ‘Palestinian Babies Story Merits a Washington Post Apology.”

Satloff’s critique elicited a response from Post executive editor Sally Buzbee. She stands by the Post’s story and demands that Satloff clean up his critique. Satloff publishes Buzbee’s response in his disappointed postscript “Sadly, WaPost Admits No Error in Story Filled with Them.”

This episode had me thinking back to my own examination of the Post’s reporting in this vein on Israel’s 2012 Operation Pillar of Defense. Mr. Satloff, I see your 5,000 words and raise you 5,000 words. I wrote several posts and well over 5,000 words on the story featuring the aptly named Jihad Masharawi. Forgive me for saying that those posts have stood the test of time! As the song goes, “same as it ever was.” I have retrieved this March 11, 2013 post from our archives.

* * * * *

I wrote about the photograph of BBC Arabic editor Jihad Masharawi holding the shrouded body of his 11-month-old son, Omar, in posts here, here, here and here. The photograph depicted Masharawi outside Shifa Hospital in Gaza City early in Israel’s Operation Pillar of Defense. The young Masharawi’s death was attributed to an Israeli airstrike.

The photograph went viral on the second day of the conflict between Hamas and Israel, being featured on the Web and in newspapers around the world. One such among many was the Washington Post, which ran it at the top of page one. The photo is below.

Washington Post ombdudsman Patrick Pexton devoted a column to complaints about the photograph. Paul Mirengoff explicated the manifest animus in Pexton’s column.

Everything Pexton asserted directly or indirectly as a matter of fact was wrong. When a major newspaper ombudsman is this utterly clueless, who ya gonna call? Not Ghostbusters. Power Line, I guess.

Paul Danahar is the BBC Middle East Bureau Chief and Masharawi’s colleague. He spent much of the day at Masharawi’s house on the day on the day Masharawi’s son was killed, tweeting a photo of the hole in the roof of Masharawi’s house. The house wasn’t bombed, Pexton to the contrary notwithstanding. Danahar described the munition that did the damage as a “shell.”

I tweeted Danahar to ask him on what basis he identified the munition as Israeli. I wrote at the time on Power Line that I doubted it was. I thought it was more likely to have been a Hamas rocket that failed to hit its intended target in Israel. (As I recall, something like 10 percent of the Hamas rockets landed in Gaza.) Danahar failed to respond to my tweet, although he relentlessly propagated the line that Israeli forces had killed Masharawi’s son.

Everything about the photograph looked phony to me. Was Masharawi sobbing? His face doesn’t even look like he has shed tears. Masharawi looks like he’s enacting grief. I understand that Masharawi in fact lost his son as a result of the munition that hit his house, but I found the photo odd (as I did the other photos in the series of Masharawi parading around for the cameras).

I thought that Masharawi was engaging in an opportunistic bit of Terrorist Theater, the kind I wrote about in the Weekly Standard article “He didn’t give at the office.” The article demonstrates how news service stringers in Gaza work as an arm of the terrorist authorities on whom they purport to report. By the way, the staged photos of Arafat that I wrote about in the Standard article were the work of an AP stringer. The photo of Masharawi that the Post ran was credited to the AP.

Terrorist Theater is a function of the sinister authority wielded by terrorist forces in the areas where they hold sway. Gaza is of course under the thumb of Hamas, one such terrorist power.

We held that the death of Masharawi’s son was a tragedy and offered our condolences to Masharawi on the loss of his son. We acknowledged that we didn’t know to a certainty what had happened or who is responsible for the death, and therefore asked readers to keep an open mind.

I hope you will forgive me for rehearsing what must seem like ancient history, but it really is necessary to put this report in context, as they say: “UN clears Israel of charge it killed baby in Gaza.” The Times of Israel has the story, based on this UN report:

United Nations report cleared Israel in the death of the infant son of a BBC employee during Operation Pillar of Defense in November, instead fingering a misfired Palestinian rocket for the tragedy.

The November 14 strike left 11-month-old Omar Jihad al-Mishrawi and Hiba Aadel Fadel al-Mishrawi, 19, dead. The death of Omar, the son of BBC Arabic journalist Jihad al-Mishrawi, garnered more than usual media attention and focused anger for the death on Israel, which was initially blamed for the death.

Rather, the report suggests, a 19-year-old woman and a baby were hit by shrapnel from a rocket fired by Palestinians that was aimed at Israel, but missed its mark.

Omar is dead, and Hamas killed him, but both Jihad and jihad live, and the BBC and the Washington Post among others are their willing tools.

The Week in Pictures: Bloodbath Edition

By: Steven Hayward — March 23^rd 2024 at 06:07

(Steven Hayward)

Has there ever been a greater example of media malpractice and malevolence than the way Trump’s mention of a “bloodbath” for the auto industry under Biden (analysis: completely true!) was turned into some kind of MAGA Kristallnacht? I suspect Joe Biden’s new clown shoes are an ironic tribute to this in-kind campaign contribution.

Headlines of the week:

No. Just no.

So glad the Biden regime is protecting us from broken ice cream machines.

Wut?

And finally. . .

French Students Terrorized by Jihadists [Updated]

By: John Hinderaker — March 22^nd 2024 at 20:08

(John Hinderaker)

In France, at least two teachers have been murdered by Muslim students, one of them beheaded. The French press reports that “death threats and threats of rape have become common among pupils.” Those threats are directed toward both teachers and fellow students.

Now, students at dozens of French schools have been sent “threatening messages and beheading videos” by Islamic radicals. The story is hard to parse out, and more is, perhaps, being concealed than revealed:

At least 30 schools in the Paris region have this week received threatening messages accompanied by “shocking” footage of beheadings, the education ministry said on Thursday.

That effort is being made in support of Islamic terrorism:

The establishments – mainly secondary schools – have received “serious threats” containing “justification of and incitement to terrorism,” a representative of the education ministry told AFP.

The Muslims apparently made use of software that France uses to connect students and teachers. Reportedly, they “‘hacked a student’s email address’ in order to distribute the message and a beheading video.” They also have been making bomb threats:

In the department of Seine-et-Marne, to the east of the French capital, a secondary school received a message saying that explosives had been hidden throughout the establishment “in the name of Allah”, a police source said.

The latest threats follow a flurry of false bomb alerts targeted schools, airport and tourist sites in autumn 2023.

All of this is due to France’s feckless immigration policies. But, to be fair, their policies are a lot better than Joe Biden’s.

UPDATE: Of course, it could be worse. You could be in Russia.

The Daily Chart: Offshore and Out of Mind

By: Steven Hayward — March 22^nd 2024 at 18:57

(Steven Hayward)

We always hear a lot about the expense and difficulty of decommissioning nuclear power plants, but we seldom hear about the cost and difficulty of decommissioning wind mills, which only last half as long (if that much) as nuclear plants. Especially offshore wind, which is much more expensive to begin with. Here’s one estimate of the future problem:

JOHN adds: Offshore wind is possibly the stupidest way to generate electricity that has ever been devised. Someone should do the math, but I suspect it would make more sense to hire 10,000 men to walk on a treadmill. And liberals don’t clean up their own messes. There are already rotting hulks of wind turbines littering the landscape, often having been installed by now-defunct companies whose owners, long gone, have made off with the profits. Don’t hold your breath waiting for the billionaires who have gotten rich on government-mandated wind turbines to take down and dispose of offshore installations that have outlived their insanely brief useful lives. “Green” energy is, in multiple ways, the great scandal of our time.

Enemies of the People

By: John Hinderaker — March 22^nd 2024 at 18:44

(John Hinderaker)

When we started this site, exposing mainstream media bias was a big part of our mission. Using the then-new internet, we and many others held liberal outlets (i.e., virtually all of them) accountable in a way that hadn’t happened before. The effect of that effort was not that the liberal press became more accurate or more objective. Rather, they came out of the closet. For the most part, they no longer make any serious pretense of neutrality. Whether that is an improvement or not is debatable.

But, in any event, it no longer makes sense to criticize, say, the New York Times or the Washington Post for being biased. That would be like, if you were a soldier in World War II and a Panzer division was approaching, you were to say, “Those Germans are biased against us!” It isn’t a question of bias. They are just the enemy.

Donald Trump was perhaps the first major Republican politician to abandon the effort to curry favor with the press establishment. He famously denounced the fake news press (sometimes abbreviated to the press in general) as enemies of the people. The good news is, most Americans agree with him.

Rasmussen finds that Trump’s characterization is the majority view:

60% of Likely U.S. Voters agree that the media are “truly the enemy of the people,” as Trump said in 2019, including 30% who Strongly Agree. Thirty-six percent (36%) disagree, including 21% who Strongly Disagree.

That is an extraordinary finding. Respondents were asked this question:

Do you agree or disagree with this statement: The media are “truly the enemy of the people”?

And a clear majority said that they agree. The press has utterly squandered whatever respect it once enjoyed.

The Rasmussen survey also asked about the Democrats’ “bloodbath” hoax:

Former President Donald Trump recently said that it would be a “bloodbath” if he didn’t win in November. Which is more likely, that he was talking about auto workers losing jobs or that he was talking about widespread political violence by his supporters?

The result:

Forty-nine percent (49%) of voters believe Trump was talking about auto workers losing jobs when he warned of a “bloodbath,” while 40% think Trump was talking about widespread political violence by his supporters if he did not win the election. Eleven percent (11%) are not sure.

Basically, Democrats follow the Democratic Party press and swallow the Democrats’ talking points:

Among voters who Strongly Approve of Biden’s job performance as president, 78% believe Trump’s “bloodbath” comment was about widespread political violence by his supporters if he did not win the election. By contrast, among voters who Strongly Disapprove of Biden’s performance, 84% think Trump was referring to auto workers losing jobs.

But again, returning to good news, most voters believe that the media’s coverage is driven by the Biden administration’s talking points:

Among all Likely Voters, 63% believe it is likely that the major news media’s political coverage is dictated by talking points from the Biden campaign, including 42% who say it’s Very Likely. Twenty-nine percent (29%) don’t think it’s likely media coverage is dictated by the Biden campaign, including 11% who say it’s Not At All Likely.

Majorities of every political category – 78% of Republicans, 50% of Democrats and 61% of unaffiliated voters – believe it’s at least somewhat likely that the major news media’s political coverage is dictated by talking points from the Biden campaign.

So even half of Democrats admit that the New York Times, the Washington Post and the Associated Press are servants of the Democratic Party. The bottom line is that the liberal press serves certain functions on behalf of the Democratic Party: it reinforces Democrats’ talking points and keeps Democratic voters riled up. Those are valuable contributions, to be sure. But the days when the liberal media could actually drive public opinion are long gone.

World’s Dumbest NCAA Bracket

By: John Hinderaker — March 22^nd 2024 at 13:09

(John Hinderaker)

It was Scott who first referred to the sacramental view of abortion, some years ago now. Abortion (much like slavery over the course of the 19th century) went from being a regrettable but sometimes unavoidable evil to being a positive good–indeed, these days, the noblest good to which political life can aspire.

To see this perverse attitude in full flower, you almost have to live in Minnesota. Minnesota’s lieutenant governor, Peggy Flanagan, is a far-left Indian activist despite being, to all appearances, Irish-American. (To be fair, she has much more Indian heritage than, say, Elizabeth Warren.) Flanagan actually tweeted this:

I filled out my brackets based on whether those schools are located in a state that protects access to abortion care.

By this measurement, it’s only fair that Minnesota didn’t make the tournament because they’d have been a favorite for the title. pic.twitter.com/nFQ5FKwFHG

— Lt. Governor Peggy Flanagan (@LtGovFlanagan) March 21, 2024

So she had UConn facing Gonzaga in the final. Who wants to be the first to tell her?

One more thing–Minnesota’s governor, Tim Walz, liked Flanagan’s bracket tweet.

From Gaza to California

By: Lloyd Billingsley — March 22^nd 2024 at 12:26

(Lloyd Billingsley)

On March 20, the Sacramento City Council passed Resolution 2024, which:

Calls for an immediate and permanent bilateral ceasefire to urgently end the current violence; a true and effective bilateral ceasefire must include four key simultaneous elements. (1) Hamas must cease all military operations directed against Israel, (2) the immediate unconditional release of all Israeli hostages held by Hamas in the Gaza Strip, (3) Israel must stop the bombing and military action inside the Gaza Strip and the West Bank and (4) the elimination of all offensive weapons by Israel and Hamas directed at one another.

The Muslim and Arab-American communities are experiencing the terrible rise in Islamophobia and anti-Arab rhetoric, the acceptance of hate speech on college campuses and elsewhere against Muslims and Arabs, and the refusal of some to condemn Islamophobia and anti-Arab prejudice without qualifications as a shocking reminder of historic reality. Islamophobia and anti-Arab hate are centuries old prejudices that never go away. An independent Palestinian state remains the hope that Palestinians can live safely and freely and never again face threats to their very existence;

And so on, all backed the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR). True to form, “Islamophobia” appears four times and anti-Semitism three times. Resolution 2024 was the project of Sacramento mayor Darrell Steinberg. As Sir Bedevire (Terry Jones) might say, who is this who is so wise in the ways of diplomacy?

Steinberg served as an attorney for the California State Employees Association, which gained a faithful friend in the state Senate. In 2004, the Sacramento Democrat sponsored Proposition 63, the Mental Health Services Act, which backers claimed would get the homeless off the street and keep people out of prison.

Promises Still to Keep: A Decade of the Mental Health Services Act, from California’s Little Hoover Commission, was unable to determine whether the money fulfilled any of the Act’s proclaimed intentions. The Sacramento Bee wondered if the money had been “shoved down a rat hole” with questionable uses “such as yoga, horseback riding, gardening, the purchase of iPads,” and so forth. On the other hand, the measure did give $7.5 million to the UC Davis Behavioral Health Center of Excellence, where Steinberg became director of policy and advocacy.

In 2012, voters faced four measures on taxes and spending. The Senate Governance and Finance Committee held hearings but Steinberg blocked citizens’ access by killing the live broadcast on the California Channel. When this came to light, Steinberg proclaimed, “I pride myself on being open and transparent.” Steinberg now backs Resolution 2024 which claims, “Sacramento is such a special place to live for many reasons.” That is true, but not the way Steinberg spins it.

Twenty years after Proposition 63, the homeless problem is worse than ever. As in San Francisco, dogs run the risk of stepping in human waste. Sacramento has been dubbed “Excremento,” and Steinberg’s Resolution 2024 piles it higher and deeper. As Katy Grimes of the California Globe explains, “it was likely a move to cover and distract from his $66 million budget deficit – and would serve to elevate his political image as Steinberg has his hopes set on a move up to the California Attorney General’s office.”

Bobbing along

By: Scott Johnson — March 22^nd 2024 at 08:43

(Scott Johnson)

In his opening statement to the House Oversight Committee earlier this week, the glorious Mr. Tony Bobulinski torched Reps. Dan Goldman and Jamie Raskin:

We keep hearing from certain corners that our “democracy is at risk” and that “democracy is on the ballot in 2024,” yet the same people preaching this mantra, who know better, continue to lie directly to the American people without hesitation or remorse. Representatives Dan Goldman and Jamie Raskin, both lawyers, and Mr. Goldman a former prosecutor with the Southern District of New York, will continue to lie today in this hearing and then go straight to the media to tell more lies.

Mr. B., long may you run.

Professor Jonathan Turley takes it from there in the (highly recommended) Fox News column that he has now posted at his personal site: “The Dripping Away of the Democratic Party: Sir Thomas More and the Biden Corruption Scandal.” In the introduction to the column posted on his site, Professor Turley writes (links omitted): “Various members misrepresented my earlier testimony during the hearing on the basis for the impeachment inquiry. Members like Rep. Jamie Raskin (D., Md.) stated that I joined other witnesses in saying that there was nothing that could remotely be impeachable in these allegations. That is demonstrably untrue. My testimony stated the opposite.”

What about Goldman? You can’t leave him out:

Rep. Dan Goldman, D., N.Y., captured the problem for Democrats in even addressing any of the mounting evidence contradicting the president. Yet, Goldman has long shown a willingness to rush in where angels fear to tread.

In previous attacks, Goldman repeatedly hit the Bidens with friendly fire when eliciting damaging answers from witnesses. Goldman has a habit of raising the worst evidence that his colleagues have avoided. In one hearing, he stumbled badly in raising the WhatsApp message where Hunter told a Chinese businessman that his father was sitting next to him and would not be pleased unless he sent him money. On another occasion, he prompted an IRS whistleblower to note that an email Goldman read into the record was actually a direct contradiction of the denials of the president.

In the latest misstep, Goldman pressed former Biden partner Tony Bobulinski on a proposal shared with Hunter and others to reserve 10% for “the Big Guy.” In other emails, Bobulinski was told to use such codes to avoid mentioning Joe Biden’s name. He was expressly identified as “the Big Guy.” Video

Goldman snapped at Bobulinski, “Did anyone ever respond to that email?”

Bobulinski responded “Yes, they did numerous times. Hunter himself did.”

Goldman blurted out “you’re right” before angrily reclaiming his time to cut him off.

The video below excerpts Bobulinski’s anticipation of the Raskin/Goldman defense of the Biden family business.

House Oversight Committee hearing goes off the rails when Hunter Biden's former business partner Tony Bobulinski calls out Reps. Jamie Raskin and Dan Goldman for lying on behalf of the Biden Crime Family. pic.twitter.com/Xny4VTbhVc

— Greg Price (@greg_price11) March 20, 2024

Ramirez speaks

By: Scott Johnson — March 22^nd 2024 at 07:24

(Scott Johnson)

The Pulitzer Prize-winning cartoonist Michael Ramirez posts his daily cartoons on Substack at the Michael Ramirez Newsletter. He is a conservative whose genius cannot be denied. Thus the Pulitzer. Readers can subscribe here.

Michael has also been writing weekly essays for his newsletter that I have posted in our Picks as each one was made freely accessible. Today Michael has posted an 18-minute video essay that is keyed to his recent cartoons on the Academy Awards. I found his remarks entertaining, interesting, and inspiring. He tells some inside stories and he talks about joining the protest at Columbia when he received his Pulitzer. He wraps up with a statement of his his core beliefs.

His is the voice of a free mind and a free man. I thought some readers might want to listen up.

Return to Shifa

By: Scott Johnson — March 22^nd 2024 at 07:00

(Scott Johnson)

President Biden has turned on Israel. He and his brain trust support the survival of Hamas. It’s a big-time sell-out. The cover of the current issue of England’s Economist depicts Israel Alone (cover story here behind the Economist paywall). It reminded me of the time when England stood alone against a genocidal maniac — alone against “the insane tyrant,” as Leo Strauss referred to Hitler in his tribute to Churchill — though the thought appears not to have crossed the mind of the Economist.

The IDF has yet to complete its mission in Gaza. Yesterday IDF spokesman Daniel Hagari conducted a briefing on the IDF’s return to Shifa Hospital to root out a large band of terrorists that had come to think of the place as home. Hagari conducted the briefing in Hebrew, but the video below superimposes the English translation, which the IDF has also posted here. This is the text per the IDF:

Good evening.

The operation at the Shifa Hospital continues. This is the operation with the largest aggregation of terrorists we have apprehended since the beginning of the war. So far, we have apprehended over 500 suspects, 358 of which are Hamas and Islamic Jihad terrorists.
They are surrendering, we are interrogating them, and they are providing us with very valuable and important intelligence.

We apprehended the chain of command of the Islamic Jihad, including:
1. Muhammad Jundia – Commander of the Shejaiya Battalion of the Islamic Jihad and the Deputy Commander of the terrorist organization’s Northern Brigade
2. Samir Ziad Abd Abu Odeh – Commander of the Al-Shati sector in the rocket unit of the Islamic Jihad.
3. Ahmad Samara – responsible for tunnels and underground terror infrastructure of the Islamic Jihad in the Northern Gaza Strip.

We apprehended senior Hamas figures, including:
1. Hamdallah Ali and Omar Azida– Azida, a senior official in the West Bank Headquarters, responsible for directing Hamas terrorist activity in the area of Nablus. Ali, who advanced Hamas activity in the Qalqilya area. The two are senior officials in the West Bank Headquarters of Hamas, they acted within their roles to advance terrorist attacks from Judea and Samaria, directed the transfer of weapons and funds to terrorists. This group operated under Saleh al-Arouri.
2. Mahmoud Kwasma – an operative in the Hamas West Bank Headquarters, planned and financed the kidnapping and murder of three Israeli teenagers in 2014, Naftali Fraenkel, Gilad Shaer and Eyal Yifrach, may their memory be a blessing.

In addition, we apprehended additional senior officials in Hamas’ Internal Security forces. Many terrorists in Shifa, especially from the Islamic Jihad, surrendered to our forces. This is a very hard blow to the Islamic Jihad – many of its operatives in the north, who are the majority of its significant operatives, either surrendered or were eliminated in the operation so far. With a number of them, we exchanged fire until they surrender or are eliminated.

During the last 24 hours, we entered the Qatari Building [in the Shifa compound]. This is a building that we also operated in during the previous operation in Shifa. This time, terrorists were hiding there. Shayetet 13 searched the building. During the scans on the basement floor, they encountered a terrorist cell. Our soldiers eliminated the terrorists without our forces being harmed. In another battle, another terrorist surrendered; after these battles, several terrorists surrendered. Among them are very senior officials – I still cannot publish their identities because they hold significant intelligence – after we finish interrogating them and find the intelligence with them, we will publish the identities of these terrorists. Senior Hamas officials understand well the significance of the operation and as the picture of the apprehended and of the eliminated terrorists becomes clearer – the pressure on them will increase.

At the beginning of the war, we destroyed the underground infrastructure dug under the hospital, and we confiscated military equipment and weapons hidden in it. The terrorists’ command center at the Shifa Hospital was dealt with then. The terrorists fled in the previous operation when we called to evacuate the compound.

This time we operated differently. This time we operated by surprise. We raided the compound by surprise. The operation, led by the 162nd Division and carried out by special forces units led by Shayetet 13, in full cooperation on the ground, shoulder to shoulder with the ISA and Unit 504 for intelligence extraction in the field. We used deception tactics in this operation, and it was this that led to the success and apprehension of all 358 terrorists and there are more still inside this compound who haven’t managed to escape. This led to Hamas and the Islamic Jihad being severely damaged as a result of the operation. Those who did not surrender to our forces fought against our forces and were eliminated. Among them also the head of the Special Operations Directorate of Hamas’ General Security – who chose to fight against our forces openly and our forces eliminated him.

The fighting continues inside the hospital buildings – inside the buildings at the hospital. There are Hamas and Islamic Jihad terrorists who decided to barricade themselves – they are currently barricading themselves in the area of the emergency room. At this stage, we are evacuating the patients – there are about 220 patients there – to another building. We are creating infrastructure for them, with appropriate medical equipment so that all the patients and doctors can be safe. For the past 24 hours, we continue to call upon the terrorists in the building to surrender, those who surrender will stay alive, those who do not we will fight against until we eliminate them.

Even at these hours, our soldiers are scanning the buildings, evacuating the wounded, and continuing to operate in the compound. There will be more ongoing combat here – there will be several more days to this operation.

Last night, when we visited the soldiers in the field during the operation, from all the special units – as I said, the Commander of Shayetet 13 briefed us, but there was also the ISA, also Unit 504 and also the senior command that came with us to the field. They told us something very very important – they emphasized to us, the soldiers and the commanders, that they will do everything necessary in this operation or another in order to bring about the release of the hostages. They emphasized – this is the most important thing to us.

We do not forget that in Gaza there are 134 hostages. It is our duty to continue and make every operational and intelligence effort, and also in negotiations, in order to bring them back home. This is what we are doing, and this is what we will continue to do. This is our responsibility.

I want to also send encouragement this evening to the families of the hostages. You and your loved ones are with us all the time.

Hagari’s remarks convey a seriousness and dignity in the face of a barbarous enemy. It is a seriousness and dignity that is conspicuous by its absence in the Biden administration.

IDF Spokesman Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari delivered a speech in which he confirmed 600 arrested and over 140 terrorists killed in the Al-Shifa operation pic.twitter.com/g2RDbl8qcH

— i24NEWS English (@i24NEWS_EN) March 21, 2024

Thoughts from the ammo line

By: Scott Johnson — March 22^nd 2024 at 06:30

(Scott Johnson)

Ammo Grrrll looks into the future: I THINK THAT I SHALL NEVER SEE…quite a few things!

Joyce Kilmer, author of the beloved and universally known American poem “Trees,” declared that he thought that he would “never see / A poem as lovely as a tree.”

Soon I shall list some things that we cannot BELIEVE we HAVE seen. And then several things that, like Mr. Kilmer, we will never see. No, not ever. But first an important word about Mr. Kilmer.

“Trees” is a short, sweet, simple religious poem and Kilmer was a devout Catholic. So, of course, the work has been much mocked and parodied by what passes for the intelligentsia in this great land. I feel duty-bound to mention that Alfred Joyce Kilmer was a poet, yes, but he was also a soldier. As a wealthy married man with five children, he surely could have avoided service in the meat grinder that was World War I, but he enlisted in 1917 and was tragically killed in 1918 by a sniper while scouting for a German machine-gun nest in the company of Wild Bill Donovan in the Second Battle of the Marne. He was 31.

So put THAT in your pipes and smoke it, arrogant, ignorant modern critics! I’m sure the obscene bleatings of a junkie are much to be prized over a dead soldier who liked trees.

Anyway, here are a few things that we HAVE seen that I never would have believed even 10 years ago, to say nothing of when I was young.

I’m sure students of history know that in the battle for women’s suffrage, one of the arguments in FAVOR of it was that women were the kinder, gentler, more nurturing sex and would bring those sensibilities to the body politic.

So imagine my shock and awe when for thousands of women, the main issue – and one which will be harped upon in ads running every 10 minutes until the merciful Chinese EMP attack – is the right to kill their babies up to the moment of birth. My former state, Minnesota, is a “Multi-Sanctuary” state where you can travel to kill your baby when the labor pains are three minutes apart — OR wait just a few years until a three-year-old plays dress-up with a dress and then declare that the little boy is actually a girl and have him castrated. Your choice. Because it’s a “woman’s right to choose.”

What else? We have seen a mostly-peaceful, interracial mob of thugs come together in Minneapolis to burn a police station to the ground while everyone in authority just let it happen. The daughter of the wretched Governor (Polka? Waltz? Chaha? Something…) even informed those thugs that the National Guard would not be on hand. That was a first for me.

Here’s another: A pathological liar in a TV series who met the police at his door with a “noose” around his neck went on television while an otherwise intelligent person like Robin Roberts watched Jussie, an ACTOR, cry on cue. He choked back tears as he spoke about the Bad MAGA Men who had been out shlepping around rope and bleach on spec in below zero weather – just IN CASE they ran across a gay black man. Did anyone else call “Poppycock” (or words to that effect) the MINUTE they heard that preposterous tale?

Nobody asked why the MAGA dudes didn’t actually hang him. Nobody asked why they let him keep his cellphone and even call people on it during the “assault.” Nobody asked what HE was doing out and about in frigid weather. Nobody asked why he had not a scratch on him from slapping at the potential lynchers, one-handed, while his sammich never left his other hand. Not one word of his pasture patty story made any sense. And that was BEFORE the authorities found the store cam stuff the paid black “assassins” bought. With a check.

He is not serving his sentence, and to my knowledge, has never repaid the poor Chicago Police Department for the hours of overtime they spent chasing phantom MAGA guys. Also, if Robin Roberts, or Kamala, or Spartacus has ever said publicly, “Boy, that’s one on us – we made some unwarranted racist assumptions and some hysterical statements, and we’re kinda sorta sorry,” I haven’t heard about that either.

There was a months-long crisis in the shipping pipeline while the Secretary of Transportation, a Howdy Doody clone who had once been a boy mayor of a potholed municipality, but mostly was just GAY as a criterion for his high-paying job, declared he was taking maternity time off. He sat in a bed with his husband pretending that the two of them had actually birthed the babies they held. I never saw that coming. It made my skin crawl. Not that two gay guys had “acquired” babies – whatever — but that they were pretending to chest feed and lying in bed as though they had just been through the 18 hours of labor (to pick a random number) that women (okay, I) had been through. Talk about stolen valor!

Truth to tell, I have rarely been very impressed with the miscreants who inhabit Congress. But even someone as cynical as I am could never have anticipated several brain-dead losers of various colors in Congress billing themselves as The Squad being unable to say a mumblin’ word against rape, baby-beheading, immolation of children, or taking civilian hostages. Oh, I’m sorry – they DID say a word – they said it was “justified.”

So these are things we HAVE seen. Is there ANYTHING that we will NEVER see? Like in the late Mr. Kilmer’s poem? Why yes, yes, there is! A Partial List:

*Obama’s Passport history. Ditto, Obama’s Academic Coursework and Grades

*Ghislaine Maxwell’s little black book of clients (that’s how we know that DJT is not in it.)

*A non-white mother of a criminal being held legally responsible for his or her criminality.

*The murderous trans girl’s manifesto

*A forensic audit of BLM

*A transcript of what the pukes in the Biden Administration have told Israel – apart from these few words we know were said: “Die, Jews! Just Lose! We’ve got the Michigan blues!”

*An audit of any city run by a black woman mayor. Heck, ANY big city mayor.

*The complete security tapes from the January 6th walkabout in the Capitol.

*A complete list of the payouts to victims of sexual harassment by members of Congress

*How many FBI agents attended the January 6th “insurrection” as provocateurs.

*What red states and towns the illegal alien criminal invaders have been sent to.

*A non-racist and logical explanation of why black people cannot find a picture I.D.

*An abject apology from the 51 “agents” who certified that the Hunter Laptop was just Russian disinformation. And the subsequent firing of those liars and election inteferers.

I’m waiting…how ‘bout you?

“Migrants” on parade

By: Scott Johnson — March 21^st 2024 at 18:34

(Scott Johnson)

Here we have the video of the day. It depicts a horde of illegal aliens breaking through the razor wire (mounted, I assume, by Texas authorities) and overrunning Texas National Guard soldiers seeking to resist them in El Paso. The video raises many questions, among them how many many “migrants” does it take to mount used to be known as an “invasion”?

We have now entered year four President Biden’s open borders program. Why does Biden refuse to see that the law is faithfully executed? Why does he support the invasion of the United States? When do we get to defend ourselves? How long can this go on?

This is the moment when TX National Guard became overrun by migrants rioting to get across the border here in El Paso today

We were there and saw it all happen. Absolute chaos here. pic.twitter.com/VN6Kf663ie

— Jennie Taer (@JennieSTaer) March 21, 2024

Doesn’t know Schumer from Shinola

By: Scott Johnson — March 15^th 2024 at 07:01

(Scott Johnson)

In a long speech on the floor yesterday Senate Majority Chuck Schumer called for the replacement of the current Israeli government under Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The Times of Israel has posted the full text of Schumer’s remarks here. According to Schumer, Netanyahu is an obstacle to peace, the two-state final solution, and the Big Rock Candy Mountain. We must popularize the phrase “He doesn’t know Schumer from Shinola.”

Jonathan Tobin places Schumer in the context of his career to date: “He’s been in public office continuously since the age of 25, and the 73-year-old Senate Majority Leader has spent his adult life grandstanding for the cameras and the press while always seeking some momentary political advantage as he schemed, back-stabbed and bloviated his way to the top of his profession.”

We can infer that Schumer now approves of foreign interference in another country’s elections. Only yesterday that was a big no-no for purported thought leaders toeing the Democrat Party line.

In this case the government Schumer seeks the replacement of a government that was democratically elected and formed by a close American ally fighting for its life under extremely difficult circumstances. That’s no way to treat a friend.

Schumer pretends that the relevant policies of the Netanyahu government are peculiar to Netanyahu and his coalition. That does not seem to be the case.

Schumer gives aid and comfort to Hamas and its friends in the Democratic Party. We can infer that the obstacle posed by Netanyahu is to the political objectives of the Democratic Party as conceived by President Biden.

Biden has just renewed his sanctions waiver on $10 billion held for the genocidaires of Iran. See Richard Goldberg’s New York Post column “Biden continues Iran’s access to $10 billion just weeks after its proxy killed three American soldiers.” Biden — he doesn’t know Schumer from Shinola.

One has to wonder about the impact of Schumer’s speech in Israel. It can’t help but demoralize Israelis fighting for their lives. However, they are unlikely to think they need Schumer’s help to assess their own best interests. In articulating and pursuing Israel’s war aims, Netanyahu speaks for the people of Israel. They do not support surrender to Hamas or adoption of the two-state final solution.

Senator Tom Cotton has posted a statement responding to Schumer. Senator Cotton sees the unstated obstacle Schumer is addressing: “[T]he main elections that worry Chuck Schumer aren’t Israel’s but our elections because the rampant antisemitism that the Democratic Party has allowed to fester in its ranks is massively unpopular with the pro-Israel American public.” Senator Cotton adds this “come to Jesus” element to his statement for Schumer’s benefit: “Chuck Schumer should remove the log in his own party’s eye before he whines about the speck in Israel’s eye.”

A personal note on the Ides of March

By: Scott Johnson — March 15^th 2024 at 06:02

(Scott Johnson)

I ask readers to forgive me for repeating this personal note from last year. It is meant to pay tribute to my high school, my high school teachers — Latin teachers Lyman Hawbaker (who also taught ancient history) and Dave Sims in particular — and to my classmates. In the course of our high school years we were required to study Latin and dip our toes into Caesars’s Gallic Wars, among other things. We learned something about grammar, rhetoric, Rome, and English in the process. In English we read Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar and (I think) Thornton Wilder’s The Ides of March.

I was a member of the St. Paul Academy High School Bowl team during my junior and senior years. By unanimous consent Chuck Berde was captain of the team. Chuck went on to get M.D./Ph.D. degrees from Stanford and more or less invent the medical specialty of pediatric pain relief. Chuck is Senior Associate in Perioperative Anesthesia and Pain Medicine, Department of Anesthesia, Critical Care and Pain Medicine at Boston Children’s and Professor of Anesthesia (Pediatrics) at Harvard Medical School. In high school Chuck was also a good athlete and musician who somehow found time to play in a rock band with Steve Greenberg. Steve went on to write and produce “Funkytown,” the record that reached number 1 on charts around the world in 1980.

John Fitzpatrick and Jim Vose were the other members of the team. John is the Director Emeritus of the Cornell Lab of Ornithology. Jim is a retired Minneapolis attorney. We were all friends. Below is a photo of us in our final appearance on the High School Bowl program. University of Minnesota Professor of Classical and Near Eastern Studies Robert Sonkowsky was the High School Bowl referee. He had to cool things down in case fights broke out. That is Professor Sonkowsky with his hand on my shoulder. I would like to say I was so much older then, but will leave it to Bob Dylan at this point.

In our last go-round during our senior year we won three weeks in a row and retired undefeated. In the third week we faced off against Hopkins High School. Chuck was good at everything, but he excelled in math and science. One of the questions our last week required knowledge of several scientific numbers and the performance of arithmetic operations on them to produce another number. What famous event occurred in that year? Without missing a beat, and I mean instantly, Chuck answered: “The assassination of Julius Caesar.”

Thoughts from the ammo line

By: Scott Johnson — March 15^th 2024 at 05:01

(Scott Johnson)

Ammo Grrrll has seasonal thoughts on WHAT WE CAN LEARN FROM PROFESSIONAL SPORTS – especially BASEBALL. She wants commenters to know that she “will be slightly less interactive today as her son is here and we will be at a Spring Training game. It is just a coincidence (honest!) that this column was next up in the pipeline.” She writes:

Unless you are very lucky, the first thing you learn about professional sports is that their sole purpose is to break your heart. Your team is not going to make the playoffs. And if it does, it will be annihilated by the New York Yankees in the first round. Your football team is never going to win the Super Bowl, even with four bites at the apple. But at least you won’t have to sit through the Satanic Half-time Ritual with the Mandatory Wardrobe Malfunction because, with your team, the game has traditionally been over before half-time.

So, yeah, bitter disappointment is the norm no matter how hard you root for your team. How loyal a Vikings fan was I back in the day when all the players stood for the National Anthem because Bud Grant never would have allowed them to kneel?

Well, once I was approached by a New York ad agency to star in a commercial in which I would have to pretend to be a Packers fan – and I TURNED IT DOWN. Now, that’s commitment. Or economic insanity. Potato, Potahto.

It is an altogether good thing to learn early on that MUCH of life is going to be a vast surging disappointment. And still you will survive and even thrive!

You are probably not going to make the Cheerleading Squad. (I didn’t, and it broke my heart). You are probably not going to be a Homecoming Queen. (I wasn’t, but I knew THAT wasn’t in the cards!) You may not get into the college of your choice. (I did because back in the Pleistocene Age, you got into college with good grades and excellent test scores – isn’t that a quaint and backward notion?) You are probably not going to think up something like Amazon, Space X, or TurboTax. (I didn’t.) You are more likely to spend your time thinking up funny names for the harridans on The View and it doesn’t pay nearly as well.

In other words, the chances are excellent that you are going to be an Ordinary Person who works hard at an unexciting job for 55 years, lives and loves and procreates and enjoys grandchildren, Sudoku, and Pickleball. And you will realize at the end that that was much more important than being a cheerleader. Though I sure wish I would have thought up Amazon.

But, but, but, once in a great while, when the stars align, a miracle can happen. Always be on the lookout for miracles.

Else, what can we say about the 1987 and 1991 World Series wins for the Minnesota Twins? Or one of the greatest sports feats of all time, the 2004 ALCS series against the Yankees with the Red Sawx down 3 games to naught and behind in the 9th inning of Game Four to boot.

And God, who had been wearing his noise-cancelling headphones because he was so tired of listening to Bostonians whine in that particularly annoying accent, suddenly heard their prayers and declared: “Okay, Okay. It’s possible I have punished Boston enough.” And He smiled on Big Papi and decreed that a miracle would occur. And He saw that it was good.

The scruffy, scrappy Red Sox came back and won Game Four and the next seven straight games to make the World Series an anti-climactic bore, mostly because the usually excellent Cardinals decided not show up for some reason. I have long advocated that that ALCS Series be shown to cancer patients for never-give-up inspiration.

Today, with the emphasis on year-round fitness, and especially weight-training, baseball players look more like every other professional athlete than they used to. Time was a young fella could hope to be a baseball player even if he wasn’t 6’10” or didn’t weigh 300 lbs.

If a kid was gifted with some sort of bizarre, one-in-a-million people coordination, or the eyesight of Ted Williams, and was willing to practice, practice, practice, he had at least a prayer of making the majors. There was “Little” Freddy Patek, who must have got darn tired of hearing announcers call him that. There were a whole bunch of slender, muscular, HUNGRY players from the Dominican Republic. And, of course, Babe Ruth himself, who nobody would have guessed was a professional athlete if he had been a contestant on “What’s My Line?”

In professional football and basketball, because players are usually only seen with other enormous teammates and ex-player interviewers, it’s not always clear just how DIFFERENT they are from ordinary male mortals.

I was once in an elevator in a hotel in Atlanta when the Celtics were in town to play the Hawks and who should walk into my elevator but Kevin McHale and two teammates. I had always been a Celtics fan and blurted out to Mr. McHale that I was a Minnesotan and had been following his career from high school on. They were all polite and friendly. But, Good Golly Miss Molly, they were YUGE! I felt like a little Arizona barrel cactus amongst the California Redwoods.

We had a similar experience when Joe did some minor legal favor for Joey Browner of the Vikings and he invited us to a little party with a few other Vikings and their lovely ladies. Mr. Browner is a soft-spoken and classy man who often helped opponents he had just flattened to get up when they probably would have preferred to remain on the ground to take a short nap. He was only an inch taller than our Joe/Max, but outweighed him by 50 lbs. of solid muscle. Looking at Joe and Joey side by side a person would say, “One of these guys is a slender, fit, nice-looking attorney. And one of these guys is a safety on the Vikings who has been selected for four Pro Bowls.” And everybody would get it right in one.

One of the greatest things we learn from baseball, perhaps more than any other sport, is that as a batter if you succeed in getting a hit one out of three times, you are a virtual superstar! For Ted Williams and (oh so close .388) our beloved Minnesota Twin Rod Carew, they pushed that to 4/10 and it has never been equaled in 75 years!

Now that’s not a good lesson for a surgeon, an airline pilot, or even a programmer, as they have to get as close to 100 percent success as is humanly possible. But for non-life-threatening human endeavors, it is good to know that you don’t have to be perfect to be a success.

In one interview after his retirement — I am quoting from memory here, so give me a break… — the sportscaster asked Williams what he thought his batting average would be in the current era. Williams said, “I don’t know, probably about .220.” The sportscaster was incredulous. “You had a lifetime average of .344, and you think you would only hit .220 today? Why? Because of the way managers use several pitchers a game?”

“No,” replied Williams. “Because I am 70 years old.”

A New Plan for Voter Fraud

By: Lloyd Billingsley — March 15^th 2024 at 04:16

(Lloyd Billingsley)

Sen. Alex Padilla, the California Democrat appointed to fill Kamala Harris’s Senate seat after she became vice president, wants Americans to be more certain to register to vote by linking it with free tax preparation. Padilla is leading a push for the U.S. Treasury Department to provide voter registration services at federally funded centers that prepare taxes for low- to moderate-income people, disabled people and people with limited English at no cost to them.

“Limited English,” like “undocumented” or “migrant,” is code for those illegally present in the United States. Federal law bars illegals from voting but Sen. Padilla helps them violate the law. As California’s secretary of state he deployed the “motor voter” plan that registers illegals to vote when they get their driver’s license.

After the 2016 election, Padilla refused to cooperate with a federal probe of voter fraud, and he wouldn’t say how many illegals voted in 2018 or 2020. That year Gov. Gavin Newsom tapped “election chief” Padilla for the U.S. Senate. The senator nobody voted for wants false-documented illegals registered to vote when the government does their taxes “at no cost to them.” It’s motor voter at a whole new level.

Biden has brought in more than seven million illegals, with no background checks, health records, English skills and so forth. Add Padilla’s plan to Biden’s “most extensive and inclusive voter fraud organization in the history of American politics.” The mail ballots, the 2000 Mules, the squads of politiqueros, and so forth, all remain in place.

By these means, the citizens of a constitutional republic become fundamentally transformed into subjects of a woke junta, headed by a wax-works effigy of a president. Ask yourself how you like it so far.

Don’t RIP, Karl

By: John Hinderaker — March 14^th 2024 at 20:04

(John Hinderaker)

Via InstaPundit, I learn that Karl Marx died on this day in 1883. I concur with Glenn Reynolds’ suggestion that March 14 should therefore be a holiday:

Marx performed the difficult feat of being wrong about everything. Most people are right about some things and wrong about others; the law of averages sets in. But if you are an ideologue, like Marx, and if your ideology is stupid, you can be wrong across the board. Marx’s historical analyses were either recycled conventional wisdom or wildly off the mark. He knew nothing about economics, which is why his labor theory of value–the lynchpin of his entire philosophy–is absurd. (Even Marx recognized that; he never finished the key section of Capital, leaving that inglorious task to Engels.) And he pontificated endlessly about workers and the means of production, without even once, as far as is known, setting foot in a factory.

Marx survives in historical memory for two reasons. First, hardly anyone has actually read Capital or his lesser works. Even a person of moderate intelligence could hardly do so without recognizing their foolishness. Second, Marx’s philosophy has served as a pretext for sadists to seize control of governments around the globe. Which is exactly what Marx intended.

Marx was a bad man, equally so in his private and public lives. He should be remembered only as an exemplar of how much damage a single-minded and hate-filled man can do.

Living the Luxe Life

By: John Hinderaker — March 14^th 2024 at 17:32

(John Hinderaker)

I am so old, I can remember when “public servants” used to earn less money than they could have expected in the private sector. But those days are long gone. Now, government employees have the rest of us by the throat. Our tax dollars are enriching them, on the average, far beyond what they could earn anywhere else.

This is from Stephen Moore’s Committee to Unleash Prosperity:

The average cost for a government employee in December was $60 per hour, or 40.5% more than his or her private sector counterpart.

Benefits to government employees cost 80.3% more.

This chart shows the numbers:

I would think that if we looked at federal employees, the discrepancy would be even greater. And government employees pretty much can’t be fired, either, so they have these sweet gigs forever.

One interpretation of these numbers is that the rest of us are just serfs on the government’s plantation.

Election Interference

By: John Hinderaker — March 14^th 2024 at 14:17

(John Hinderaker)

For years, the Democrats have been yammering about “election interference” by Russia that turned out to be either de minimis or entirely fabricated. Now, in a stunning display of hypocrisy, they are aggressively interfering in Israel’s internal politics.

Scott wrote here about the fact that the Biden Administration “obviously seeks to depose the government of Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu.” The administration has gone so far as to make public an alleged intelligence community assessment to the effect that Netanyahu is unpopular and his government is likely to fall.

Today, Chuck Schumer got into the act:

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer on Thursday called for new elections in Israel to replace Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

This is absolutely stunning. Since when is it the role of the Senate Majority Leader to tell another country–an ally–that they need to replace their government?

Netanyahu has “lost his way,” Schumer continued, “by allowing his political survival to take precedence over the best interests of Israel” and by indicating he isn’t interested in the formation of an independent Palestinian state, which has been a U.S. goal for decades.

But it is not a goal of Israel, not if it can’t be done without threatening Israeli security, which is certainly the case today. One might think that the Israeli people are the best judges of their security needs, not an American senator.

Schumer said that Netanyahu has aligned himself with “far-right extremists” like Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich and National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, who he said are “pushing support for Israel worldwide to historic lows.”

There is some truth in that last comment, as anti-Semitism, in the transparent guise of anti-Zionism, has erupted across the Western world. One might therefore think that this is a good time for American leaders to express support for Israel, not try to bring about the overthrow of its government.

But we are not living in normal times.

The Israeli response has been restrained, no doubt in the interest of trying to hold the alliance together:

Israel is a sovereign democracy. It is unhelpful, all the more so as Israel is at war against the genocidal terror organization Hamas, to comment on the domestic political scene of a democratic ally. It is counterproductive to our common goals.

— Ambassador Michael Herzog (@AmbHerzog) March 14, 2024

Let’s hope we have a more sensible administration in place as of January 2025.

The Daily Chart: Framing Air Frames

By: Steven Hayward — March 14^th 2024 at 13:14

(Steven Hayward)

Right now it seems the airlines (and especially Boeing aircraft) are suffering an epidemic of equipment failures and mishaps. Count me somewhat skeptical. I suspect the Alaska Air door frame blow out a few weeks ago, along with the tire falling off a United 777 the other day, has put the media on high alert, and now many episodes of mishaps and irregularities that might have gone unnoticed or unreported in the general media (the specialty aerospace press is a different matter—Aviation Week and Space Technology was a staple of my household’s magazine subscription pile when I was growing up, and it had lots of neat stories about aircraft problems) and are a source of headlines. (There is a second possibility: that standards for maintenance and manufacturing crews have been eroded on account of diversity mandates. . .)

Here’s the long-term data for mortality from airplane airframe-related accidents:

A Hundred Billion Here . . .

By: Steven Hayward — March 14^th 2024 at 12:25

(Steven Hayward)

Everett Dirksen, the Republican Senate leader back in the 1960s, is famous for saying, “A billion here and a billion there and pretty soon you’re talking about real money. . .”

That was in the days before multi-trillion dollar deficits. A billion dollars is hardly a rounding error in a federal program these days, and $1 billion is usually considered the entry fee for any proposed new program. A program that only costs $750 million is almost an insult at this point.

And Dirksen also never could have anticipated the utility of high speed-rail spending. If he was alive today, he’d likely modify his statement as follows: “A hundred billion here, a hundred billion there, and maybe someday you’ll have a high-speed rail line in California.”

To no one’s surprise, this is in the “news” this week:

California bullet train project needs another $100 billion to complete route from San Francisco to Los Angeles

As the state faces economic headwinds, California’s mega high-speed rail project between San Francisco to Los Angeles also faces major funding hurdles, the project’s CEO Brian Kelly told state lawmakers Tuesday.

Kelly testified in front of the State Senate’s Transportation Committee on the High-Speed Rail Authority’s updated draft business plan. In Tuesday’s hearing, Kelly told lawmakers the project has $28 billion dollars on hand, but noted it was still a few billion dollars short to complete the Central Valley segment between Merced and Bakersfield. Depending on how long the segment takes to finish, it could cost between $32 Billion to $35 Billion. Kelly said the project is hoping to fill the gap with federal funds. That segment of the project is expected to be fully operational between 2030 and 2033, Kelly said.

Project leaders estimate it will still need an additional $100 billion to finish what voters were originally pitched in 2008: a bullet train that runs between San Francisco and Los Angeles. A timeline on its completion has not been set as the authority waits for environmental clearances for those segments.

Bold emphasis added. Because everyone knows federal money is free, or grows on trees or something. But with a state deficit now likely to be over $70 billion this year, there’s little chance California can pay for the completion of the rail line itself. And there’s no timeline set because everyone with a brain understand the high speed rail line will never be fully completed. The “environmental clearances” make that certain.

After last week

By: Scott Johnson — March 14^th 2024 at 09:41

(Scott Johnson)

Last week the mainstream press ranked President Biden’s State of the Union address up there with the Sermon on the Mount. I reviewed it in detail and found it to be “The SOTU from hell,” but then I wasn’t the target audience. My assessment might have been unreliable.

In my comments I asked to whom the speech was addressed. That wasn’t clear to me. I guess it was addressed to all the Democrats who’d loved him before. He didn’t want them to walk out on him.

Taking a look at the polls after one week, the Hill reports that, ahead of the State of the Union, Biden’s approval rating in a Yahoo News/YouGov poll was 40 percent. In a new survey released on Tuesday by the same team Biden’s approval rating had fallen to 39 percent.

That does not appear to be an outlier: “Other polls also show the president failed to moved the needle following his address to Congress. FiveThirtyEight’s calculation of Biden’s approval rating showed him with just more than 37 percent Tuesday. On March 6, the day before the State of the Union, he had just under a 38 percent approval rating from the ABC News pollster.”

Trump and Biden have each secured his party’s respective nomination and are running neck and neck. The lack of excitement is almost palpable. It is same as it ever was before Joe got hopped up last week to shout into the void.

Via Rich Lowry/NRO.

Ms. Yellen regrets

By: Scott Johnson — March 14^th 2024 at 08:47

(Scott Johnson)

In Cole Porter’s “Miss Otis Regrets,” the heroine announces that she’s unable to lunch today. Why? She has a good excuse — because she was strung up by a mob for killing “the man who had led her so far astray.”

Now Ms. Yellen regrets. Janet Yellen holds the venerable office of Secretary of the Treasury. Former chairman of the Federal Reserve, Yellen is well qualified for the job and an ostensibly serious person. Yet she has proved unfit for the office, regurgitating administration talking points with an utter lack of seriousness. Inflation — she declared in 2021 that it was “transitory.” Abortion — restricting it would be “very damaging” to the economy. By contrast, she supports the administration’s gusher of “green” spending as constructive. ‘S wonderful.

Ms. Yellen regrets she has revealed herself to be a political hack. “I regret saying [inflation] was transitory,” Yellen said in a March 13 interview on Fox News. “It has come down. But I think transitory means a few weeks or months to most people.” Three years later, it might be worth asking what “transitory” means to her and who suggested she use the term in coordination with the other occupants of the Biden administration clown car.

When Yellen adopted the administration line on inflation being “transitory,” nobody had led Yellen astray. She killed her own reputation. However, she is also able to lunch today. Why anyone should even believe anything she says is not exactly a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma. No one should.

The trouble with Dennis Ross

By: Scott Johnson — March 14^th 2024 at 07:47

(Scott Johnson)

Dennis Ross is a scholar and diplomat of unmatched experience in the vagaries of “the peace process.” His 2005 memoir The Missing Peace: Inside Story of the Fight for Middle East Peace runs to 880 closely printed pages. He served in both the Bush (41) and Clinton administrations. He also served as special assistant to President Obama and worked on National Security Council in both the Reagan and Obama administrations. He currently serves as a distinguished fellow on the U.S.-Israel strategic relationship at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. His impressive Washington Institute profile is posted here.

On a personal note, I would like to add this. When I was working on the 2007 Weekly Standard article “How Arafat got away with murder,” I caught Ambassador Ross by telephone in his office late on a Friday afternoon. He was on his way out the door and didn’t know me from Adam, yet he took my question and responded as quoted in the article. He seemed to me a straightforward and decent gentleman.

Ross was invited by the MIT Jewish Alumni Alliance to speak at MIT’s “Standing Together Against Hate” program launched in the aftermath of the the October 7 massacre. MIT president Sally Kornbluth trumpeted the program as an effort aimed at “community building.” She put MIT chancellor Melissa Nobles in charge.

A Hamas apologist is scheduled to speak at MIT as part of the program on March 18. Jewish alumni reached out to Ross and confirmed his willingness to participate in the program’s speaker series. When attempts were made to move forward, however, program planners informed the alumni that Ross is not an appropriate speaker because they deem him “a politician.” The alumni group has posted its March 12 open letter to Kornbluth here.

The Washington Free Beacon’s Jessica Costescu now takes a deep dive into the story under the headline “MIT Refused To Host Dennis Ross. It Invited a Hamas Apologist Instead.” Subhead: “Dalia Mogahed, who described Hamas terrorism as legal ‘resistance,’ slated to speak as a part of MIT’s ‘Standing Against Hate’ Initiative.”

What’s the trouble with Dennis Ross? It’s not that he is a politician. He has never run for office:

Like Ross, Mogahed has served as a presidential adviser, albeit to fewer presidents and in more junior roles. She served as an adviser to former president Barack Obama in the White House Office of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships.

For Matthew Handel and Lori Ullman, two Jewish Alumni Alliance members, MIT’s refusal to host Ross—and its excuse for excluding him—are insulting.

“It’s already patronizing for anyone to say we’re at MIT, so we think we’re smarter than you,” Handel, who co-founded the group, told the Free Beacon. “It’s beyond arrogant that they would say, ‘We work at MIT, so as MIT alums, we’re smarter than you; MIT students, we’re smarter than you; Congress, we’re smarter than you.'”

Costescu gives the reader everything he might need to understand the story and the actual trouble with Ross, including this valuable note: “MIT did not return a request for comment.”

Willfully yours

By: Scott Johnson — March 14^th 2024 at 06:53

(Scott Johnson)

Special Counsel Robert Hur found that President Biden willfully mishandled documents subject to the Espionage Act provision set forth in 28 U.S.C. § 793(e). However, Hur clouded the “willfulness” element of the offense by resting his non-prosecution recommendation in part on Biden’s present senility. Hur presents his analysis of the element of “willfulness” under section 793 in Chapter Nine of his report.

The relevant question is whether Biden committed the acts “willfully” at the relevant time. Hur had a smoking gun or two to prove the “willfulness” element of the offense. Among other things, however, he suggested that a jury would be reluctant to convict someone as out of it as Biden is and imputed the jury’s likely reluctance to Biden’s present inability to act “willfully” beyond a reasonable doubt. See, for example, Chapters Eleven and Twelve of the report.

Just to give an idea of the evidence Hur compiled, the Wall Street Journal’s James Freeman highlights a few passages from Hur’s report. Freeman quotes this from Chapter Twelve:

As with the classified Afghanistan documents [discussed in Chapter Eleven], there is evidence that Mr. Biden kept his notebooks after his vice presidency knowing they were classified and he was not allowed to have them.

The evidence shows convincingly that Mr. Biden knew the notebooks, as a whole, contained classified information. For eight years, he wrote in his notebooks about classified information during classified meetings in the White House Situation Room and elsewhere. He was familiar with the notebooks’ contents, which included obviously classified information. When reviewing the notebooks with [Biden ghostwriter Mark] Zwonitzer, Mr. Biden sometimes read aloud classified notes verbatim, but he also sometimes appeared to skip over classified information, and he warned Zwonitzer that the material in the notebooks could be classified. Mr. Biden also stored the notebooks in a classified safe in the White House for a time as vice president because the notebooks were classified.

In Mr. Biden’s written answers to questions from our office, he called into question whether he knew the information in his notebooks was classified. In those answers, Mr. Biden explained that when he described material in his notebooks to Zwonitzer as “classified’’ he did not actually mean “classified.” According to Mr. Biden, “I may have used the word ‘classified’ with Mr. Zwonitzer in a generic sense, to refer not to the formal classification of national security information, but to sensitive or private topics to ensure that Mr. Zwonitzer would not write about them.” Mr. Biden qualified this answer by explaining, “I do not recall the specific conversations you reference with Mr. Zwonitzer, which took place more than six years ago.”

This explanation-that “classified” does not mean “classified”-is not credible. At the time Mr. Biden met with Zwonitzer, Mr. Biden had nearly fifty years of experience dealing with classified information, including as a member of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, a member and Chairman of the Senate Committee on the Judiciary, a member and Chairman of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, and Vice President of the United States. It is not plausible that a person of his knowledge and experience used the term “classified” in this context as a euphemism for “private.”

Hur discusses the existence of grounds for reasonable doubt regarding Biden’s willfulness at the time of the acts (i.e., evidence that Biden thought the notebooks were his personal property), but falls back on Biden’s subsequent incompetence (my word, not Hur’s). If Biden thought they were his personal property, why did he lie about the meaning of “classified”? As I wrote yesterday, Hur’s analysis has the quality of a student working backward from the known answer to a question. Hur thus concludes Chapter Twelve:

Given the intelligence and military officials present and the topics discussed at the meetings Mr. Biden recounted for Zwonitzer, Mr. Biden should have realized that his notes did or were likely to contain classified information. But taken as a whole, the evidence will likely leave jurors with reasonable doubts about whether Mr. Biden knew he was sharing classified information with Zwonitzer and intended to do so. For these jurors, Mr. Biden’s apparent lapses and failures in February and April 2017 will likely appear consistent with the diminished faculties and faulty memory he showed in Zwonitzer’s interview recordings and in our interview of him. Therefore, we conclude that the evidence does not establish that Mr. Biden willfully disclosed national defense information to Zwonitzer.

I thought someone would press Hur on the “willfulness” issue at the hearing. Rep. Ken Buck, who declared he’s outta here next week, came the closest to getting at it toward the tail end of the five-hour hearing (video below). Even within the five-minutes limiting each round of questions — Buck could have omitted his introductory remarks and gotten to the point — Buck almost got there, but this ain’t horseshoes.

Important Voting Problems

By: Lloyd Billingsley — March 14^th 2024 at 00:41

(Lloyd Billingsley)

As John notes, blue collar workers or minorities voting for policies that actually help them is an important trend, and a complement to Steve’s post about the border problem. As he showed, “immigration” helped to flip California from red to blue in presidential elections, so Democrats seek to repeat that trend “across the entire country.” That’s why Biden has brought in millions, and that’s a problem.

The possibility of becoming a public charge can cancel the prospect of legal immigrants becoming legitimate American citizens. On the other hand, for many illegals becoming a public charge is the goal. The ideal set-up is to get on welfare and work under the table for cash. That’s what enables the transfer of more than $63 billion to Mexico in 2023, a seven-percent hike from the previous year. In effect, the USA subsidizes the Mexican government.

Those on welfare have a problem becoming U.S. citizens and that’s what California attorney general Xavier Becerra was on about when he cited 10 million “immigrants” in California alone. It is illegal for foreign nationals and even registered aliens to vote, but California’s “motor voter” program registers false-documented illegals to vote when they get their driver’s license. Squads of politiqueros bribe, coerce and threaten the illegals to vote “a certain way,” code for Democrats.

Absent an independent investigation, citizens can have more than a reasonable doubt on ballot propositions to legitimize crime (Proposition 47), the recall vote for Newsom, and his reelection in 2022. Citizens may also have reasonable doubt on the 2020 presidential vote.

Stumbling Joe Biden, who campaigned from his basement, is a wax-works effigy of a president. On the other hand, with an eye on California, he has imported an electorate by the millions. As David Horowitz has often noted, Democrats are good at voter fraud and Republicans are poor at preventing it. So the nation could get four more years of Joe Biden, or someone even worse. All things have limits, except human stupidity and malevolence.

Exploding the Myths of “Green” Energy

By: John Hinderaker — March 13^th 2024 at 18:29

(John Hinderaker)

American Experiment’s Isaac Orr and Mitch Rolling tell you what you need to know to respond to ill-informed advocates for “green” energy. There is much more at the link, but here is an overview:

1. Renewables can’t survive on their own

The renewable energy industry is a subsidy-based industry, as wind and solar are largely dependent on lucrative state and federal subsidies. However, renewable advocates justify these perpetual subsidies by claiming thermal generators receive more subsidies than wind and solar. This assertion is not based on reality….
***
In 2022, wind and solar generators received three and eighteen times more subsidies per MWh, respectively, than natural gas, coal, and nuclear generators combined. Solar is the clear leader, receiving anywhere from $50 to $80 per MWh over the last five years, whereas wind is a distant second at $8 to $10 per MWh.

Poor solar energy! No matter how many billions the government pours down the solar rathole, no one has figured out a way to generate solar power after the sun goes down.

2. Renewables increase the cost of electricity

Renewable advocates often claim that the adoption of more wind and solar will lead to lower electricity costs, but the opposite is true. In a previous Substack, we wrote in detail about how utility companies with the largest rate increase requests in the country admit the energy transition is a major reason behind increasing electricity prices for families and businesses.

“Green” advocates fake the numbers for wind and solar by the simple expedient of only counting a fraction of their costs. This chart shows the actual cost of the various energy systems if all costs are included:

3. More wind and solar means more blackouts

Advocates of renewable energy also don’t want to account for one of the most damning facts about policies that favor wind and solar energy at the expense of dispatchable generators: that they have led to electricity blackouts in more than one region.

Greenies are full of bogus reasons why increased use of wind and solar are not to blame for blackouts, but they can’t answer the simple question: why is that we didn’t have blackouts before spending hundreds of billions on wind and solar, but now we do have blackouts?

Isaac and Mitch conclude:

Despite claiming to be ardent followers of “tHe ScIEncE,” wind and solar advocates live in their own universe of alternative facts that deny the basic physics and economics of the electric grid. Hopefully, this piece is useful for you the next time a wind or solar stan is arguing with you in the comments section.

One more “green” myth remains to be exploded: the claim that wind and solar are better for the environment than natural gas, nuclear and coal-fired electricity. That myth will be addressed in an upcoming report.

Why he was fired from Harvard

By: Scott Johnson — March 13^th 2024 at 15:45

(Scott Johnson)

The great Dr. Jay Bhattacharya hosts the Illusion of Consensus podcast. I have embedded his most recent episode below via X. In this episode he speaks with Martin Kulldorff. Please check it out in its native habitat here and help Dr. Bhattacharya extend his reach to other platforms.

Dr. Bhattacharya’s introduction to the podcast notes that “in this critical conversation we discuss a number of hot topics, most crucially Martin’s firing from Harvard for his opposition to vaccine mandates. He has broken the silence on this tragic issue and we are happy to host his first public conversation on the matter. We also discuss Martin’s firing from the CDC over the J&J vaccine and Harvard’s generally unscientific response to the pandemic. The conversation concludes with a discussion on decentralizing and reforming the scientific community.”

Drs. Bhattacharya and Kulldorff are are two-thirds of the team that hatched the Great Barrington Declaration. With any luck, they will be recognized in next year’s Samizadat Prize.

New Illusion of Consensus podcast with @martinkulldorff. Martin tells the story of his career in public health, his advocacy for the basic principles of public health in the covid era, and his departure from Harvard.

(The link to the podcast is in my bio. Please subscribe!) pic.twitter.com/K3GOZupBlQ

— Jay Bhattacharya (@DrJBhattacharya) March 12, 2024

The required reading for the Illusion of Consensus podcast is of course Martin Kulldorff’s March 11 City Journal column “Harvard tramples the truth.” Dr. Kulldorff also discusses his experience in the excellent City Journal podcast with John Tierney below (City Journal transcript here).

The Daily Chart: Haiti—Less Violent Than Chicago?

By: Steven Hayward — March 13^th 2024 at 13:00

(Steven Hayward)

So Haiti is back in the news. As I mentioned yesterday, I thought the Clinton Foundation had fixed the place! Or Colin Powell in the 1990s. Or something. How soon until Biden sends in American troops? Or lets 500,000 Haitians come to America?

Anyway, Haiti is in the state of nature right now, with gangs and mobs rampaging. And yet, as a smart left-leaning friend of mine (I do have a few of those—opposition research) points out, the murder rate in Haiti is lower than many American cities:

Netanyahu’s negation

By: Scott Johnson — March 13^th 2024 at 10:27

(Scott Johnson)

The Biden administration obviously seeks to depose the government of Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu. The administration has released our intelligence community’s assessment that Netanyahu’s “viability as a leader” is “in jeopardy,” according to the annual report on the national security threats facing the United States that was presented to Congress on Monday. I assess that the wish is father to the thought.

The assessment provides: “Distrust of Netanyahu’s ability to rule has deepened and broadened across the public from its already high levels before the war, and we expect large protests demanding his resignation and new elections,” according to the report. “A different, more moderate government is a possibility.” I assess that the wish is father to the thought and that the assessment bears the trademark of “Our Democracy.”

Netanyahyu’s voice can be heard in the response attributed to a “very senior” Israeli official in a statement issued to the media: “Those who elect the prime minister of Israel are the citizens of Israel and no one else. Israel is not a protectorate of the US but an independent and democratic country whose citizens are the ones who elect the government. We expect our friends to act to overthrow the terror regime of Hamas and not the elected government in Israel.”

The intelligence community could not be reached for comment.

Hymn to Hur

By: Scott Johnson — March 13^th 2024 at 06:03

(Scott Johnson)

Special Counsel Robert Hur testified for some five hours before the House Judiciary Committee yesterday on his investigation into President Biden’s mishandling of classified documents over his too long career in public life. I have posted the Washington Post’s YouTube video of the hearing at the bottom. At the same time, transcripts of Hur’s interview of Biden in the investigation were released: October 8 (99 pages) and October 9 (157 pages).

Mr. Techno Fog provided his hot take on the transcripts here (“confusion, evasion, and outright lies”). David Harsanyi cut to the chase in the Federalist column “Turns out Biden lied.” The Free Beacon’s Andrew Kerr reviews both Hur’s testimony and the Biden transcripts in “Interview Transcript, Congressional Testimony Shed Light on Biden’s Memory Lapses During Classified Doc Investigation.”

Hur confined his testimony to the four corners of the lengthy report he submitted to Attorney General Merrick Garland. Whenever he was asked about the facts of the case, he referred to the report’s findings. He demonstrated perfect poise and complete mastery of the case as set forth in his report.

It should go without saying that Hur knew his case, but contrast Hur’s grasp of the case with Robert Mueller’s failure to launch at the comparable hearing held following his Russiagate investigation. To put it charitably, Mueller appeared to be a figurehead who performed at best as an innocent bystander to an investigation run and conducted by others (e.g., Andrew Weissmann). Trump fans who harbor lingering animosity against Attorney General William Barr don’t understand that Mueller’s investigation would still be alive if it weren’t for Barr.

The House Democrats sought to impute a finding of “complete exoneration” of Biden to Hur. Hur begged to disagree. Hur was admirably noncompliant in the face of the Democrats’ efforts to put words in his mouth. The Free Beacon’s video of highlights (below) shows that “complete exoneration” misses the mark. As Hur put it in his opening statement, Hur “identified evidence that the President willfully retained classified materials after the end of his vice presidency, when he was a private citizen.” This evidence contradicted everything Biden himself has said in public about the case, although lying to the public is not a crime. It is standard operating procedure.

Hur was criticized for resting his recommendation of non-prosecution on Biden’s senility. Hur explained that he was required to “show [his] work” supporting his recommendation of non-prosecution. Hur reminded me of how I showed my work in solving high school physics problems. I began with the answer and worked back from there.

In Hur’s case, the answer was non-prosecution. A voice in his head from the film Network must have counseled caution: “Don’t do it, buddy! You’re a young man! You got your whole life ahead of you!” Hur’s explanation of the difficulty of obtaining a guilty verdict in the case was little more than absurd (as was his distinction of the Biden case from the Trump case).

In the course of his overlong political career, Biden has been a serial violator of the national security law. He is heedless to it. His misconduct is egregious. And he is a senescent dolt with the possible reservation that in some instances he may be senile like a fox. I don’t recall when “I don’t recall” was ever so plausible.

I would like to include one positive observation in these remarks. I was impressed by the demeanor of two congressmen whose names I had not even heard before. I don’t know anything else about them except what I saw yesterday. I am referring to Republican Ben Cline of Virginia and Democrat Glenn Ivey of Maryland.

However, yesterday’s hearing was incredibly depressing. It represents the dire condition of our politics. We have clownish Democrats volubly insisting on the things which are not. We have the exhibition of the two-tiered system of justice that Democrats have fashioned to resolve the problem of Donald Trump and other annoyances. We have the continuing exposure of the mental incompetence of the president of the United States. We have the mainstream press acting as the Democrats’ public relations arm.

British Muslims Seek to Ban Blasphemy

By: John Hinderaker — March 12^th 2024 at 20:42

(John Hinderaker)

This long piece in the London Times describes the efforts of some British Muslims to prohibit blasphemy, either through legal action or through mob violence:

Britain faces an alarming rise in intimidation and threats of violence against those perceived to have insulted Islam, a new report will warn.

Protests condemning acts of apparent blasphemy have become more frequent and radicalised, according to independent research commissioned by the government’s counterextremism chief.

The report, seen by The Times, exposes links between activists at the forefront of recent protests in the UK and an extremist Islamist political party in Pakistan whose members have regularly called for blasphemers to be beheaded.

It has been a long time since anyone was beheaded in Britain on religious grounds.

Robin Simcox, the government’s counterextremism tsar, commissioned the research after three blasphemy flashpoints in the UK: the 2021 protests against a teacher in Batley, West Yorkshire, who received death threats and is still in hiding…

Still in hiding, three years later–a teacher in West Yorkshire.

…after showing pupils a cartoon of the prophet Mohammed; Birmingham protests the following year over the screening of the film The Lady in Heaven, which depicted Mohammed’s daughter; and last year’s controversy in Wakefield, also in West Yorkshire, after a copy of the Quran was slightly damaged at a high school.

Some of the anti-blasphemy initiative is coming from Pakistan:

It described as “most alarming” the emergence of a UK wing of Tehreek-e-Labbaik Pakistan (TLP), a political party that was temporarily banned there because of violent rallies and its support for mob executions of perceived blasphemers. British mosques have hosted speakers who are supportive of TLP and each of the protests in Batley, Wakefield and Birmingham involved activists with links.

The report warned that such rhetoric “has the potential to radicalise their audience around the issue of blasphemy” and that this in turn “may increase the likelihood of sectarian violence and terrorism in the UK”.

The report stresses that most UK-based blasphemy activists have rejected violence and condemn terrorist acts such as the 2015 shooting attack in Paris on the offices of Charlie Hebdo, the satirical magazine, in which 17 people died.

However, it says many are calling for stricter laws in the UK against blasphemy and seek to criminalise insults against Islam, which they present as part of a wider war on the faith by so-called enemies of Islam in the West.

Britain has admitted large numbers of Muslims from Commonwealth countries, and they now constitute a substantial political bloc. In recent months, they have repeatedly taken over large swaths of the city of London with kill-the-Jews rallies. While British authorities deplore these demonstrations, they seem to have been cowed by the implicit threat of violence that they manifest.

Who Needs DEI?

By: John Hinderaker — March 12^th 2024 at 18:35

(John Hinderaker)

Black college athletes do, according to the NAACP. The NAACP is urging black athletes not to go to college in Florida:

The NAACP asked Black student-athletes to reconsider their decisions to attend public colleges and universities in the state of Florida, in response to the University of Florida and other state schools recently eliminating their diversity, equity and inclusion programs.

In a letter sent to NCAA president Charlie Baker and addressed to current and prospective student-athletes Monday, NAACP president and CEO Derrick Johnson wrote, “This is not about politics. It’s about the protection of our community, the progression of our culture, and most of all, it’s about your education, and your future.”

The idea that black athletes at major sports schools like Florida and Florida State need DEI departments to…what? Prevent them from being discriminated against? The idea is laughable, as is the NCAAP’s apparent suggestion that DEI bureaucrats are somehow helpful to a student’s education.

My guess is that not a single black athlete who otherwise wants to play for Florida, Florida State or any other public Florida college will be deterred by the NCAAP’s advice. What this episode really shows is how useless the once-relevant NCAAP has become. And also, how Florida has taken the lead in adopting common-sense policies that have put the state in the Left’s cross-hairs.

He won’t back down

By: Scott Johnson — March 12^th 2024 at 15:12

(Scott Johnson)

President Biden is reportedly “thinking” about imposing conditions on military aid to Israel if the IDF assault on Hamas’s redoubt in Rafah proceeds as planned. Prime Minister Netanyahu spoke by video to AIPAC’s annual policy conference in Washington. Netanyahu’s office has posted the video clip below on X and a six-minute video here on YouTube (with an echo for the first minute).

The Prime Minister’s Office has posted Netanyahu’s text here along with these further remarks in a Churchillian vein:

Some people would make you believe that the people of Israel are disunited. In fact, some people would have you believe there is the prime minister and then there is the people of Israel.

The truth of the matter is that the people of Israel overwhelmingly support the policies set forth by myself and my government. They overwhelmingly support the need for total victory. Overwhelmingly. They overwhelmingly oppose the idea of having a Palestinian state rammed down our throat.

We just had a vote in the Knesset, to illustrate the point I just made, 99 to 9 supporting this position. And you know what? It’s not irrational. It’s because they think that giving now a Palestinian state after the October 7th massacre will be the greatest reward for terrorism in modern times.

They overwhelmingly reject the idea that we should implant, after we’ve destroyed Hamas in Gaza, the PA that still inculcates its children towards terrorism and the annihilation of Israel. They want a future of peace, a future of security that is purchased by a resounding victory.

And as I say, the possibilities for this victory, the possibilities that are opened up are immense but they require that one word: victory. And I will repeat it again, victory, victory, victory. No substitute for that and we will achieve it together.

Netanyahu knows he represents the consensus of Israeli popular opinion on this point and he gives no sign of backing down.

We will finish the job. Watch my speech at the AIPAC policy conference >> pic.twitter.com/QvPEyzfQvc

— Benjamin Netanyahu – בנימין נתניהו (@netanyahu) March 12, 2024

The Daily Chart: A Different Kind of Femme Fatale

By: Steven Hayward — March 12^th 2024 at 13:07

(Steven Hayward)

Our pal Mark Perry reminds is that today, March 12, is “Equal Pay Day” that falsely assumes how far into 2024 the typical woman has to work to earn what her alleged male counterpart earned in 2023. Funny how feminists never consider something like “Equal Job Safety” or “Job Risk” day (Mark proposes “Occupational Fatality Day”), because the data looks like this and the “gap” would take years, not months, to close:

Men are 11 times more likely to die on the job than women. A rather different kind of femme fatale.

Chaser, FWIW (also from Mark):

Him or Hur?

By: Scott Johnson — March 12^th 2024 at 07:03

(Scott Johnson)

Politico Playbook previews the testimony later this morning of Special Counsel Robert Hur before the House Judiciary Committee. Hur is to testify on the report of his investigation of Joe Biden’s mishandling of classified documents (i.e., the report submitted to Attorney General Merrick Garland). The Playbookers have obtained and posted Hur’s opening statement here. These are the operative paragraphs:

My report reflects my best effort to explain why I declined to recommend charging President Biden. I analyzed the evidence as prosecutors routinely do: by assessing its strengths and weaknesses, including by anticipating the ways in which the President’s defense lawyers might poke holes in the government’s case if there were a trial and seek to persuade jurors that the government could not prove his guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.

There has been a lot of attention paid to language in the report about the President’s memory, so let me say a few words about that. My task was to determine whether the President retained or disclosed national defense information “willfully”—meaning, knowingly and with the intent to do something the law forbids.

I could not make that determination without assessing the President’s state of mind. For that reason, I had to consider the President’s memory and overall mental state, and how a jury likely would perceive his memory and mental state in a criminal trial. These are the types of issues prosecutors analyze every day. And because these issues were important to my ultimate decision, I had to include a discussion of them in my report to the Attorney General.

The evidence and the President himself put his memory squarely at issue. We interviewed the President and asked him about his recorded statement, “I just found all the classified stuff downstairs.” He told us that he didn’t remember saying that to his ghostwriter. He also said he didn’t remember finding any classified material in his home after his vice presidency. And he didn’t remember anything about how classified documents about Afghanistan made their way into his garage.

My assessment in the report about the relevance of the President’s memory was necessary and accurate and fair. Most importantly, what I wrote is what I believe the evidence shows, and what I expect jurors would perceive and believe. I did not sanitize my explanation. Nor did I disparage the President unfairly. I explained to the Attorney General my decision and the reasons for it. That’s what I was required to do.

This is confused and confusing. Did Hur base his non-prosecution decision on his putative inability to prove the mental element of the possible offenses? Hur implies it is “willfulness,” although “gross negligence” would have sufficed to prove the offense under 28 U.S.C § 793. Or did he base his non-prosecution decision on a jury’s anticipated pity for a senile dolt? I trust that some members of the committee will home in on this issue this morning.

— February 21^st 2024 at 20:05

Jam Master Jay, the DJ of the groundbreaking hip hop group Run-DMC, was fatally shot in 2002 in a case that was unsolved for nearly two decades. As a trial for his killing came to a close, his double life involving drugs that ran alongside his musical career was revealed.

— February 21^st 2024 at 20:05

After three miscarriages, Alabama resident Gabrielle Goidel and her husband decided to start the process of IVF. But with the Alabama Supreme Court's ruling that frozen embyros are children, her future plans are now uncertain.

— February 21^st 2024 at 16:50

Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas speaks with Christiane Amanpour about the GOP-led House vote to impeach him over his handling of migrants crossing the US-Mexico border.

Atlanta Courthouse Shootings Fast Facts

— February 21^st 2024 at 16:50

View CNN's Fast Facts about Brian Nichols and the Atlanta courthouse shootings of March 2005.

— February 21^st 2024 at 16:50

CNN's Pete Muntean breaks down the scary moment in the skies.

Daytona 500 Fast Facts

— February 21^st 2024 at 16:50

Read CNN's Fast Facts about the Daytona 500, the first race of the racing season for NASCAR.

Want Cash Out of Your Home? Here Are Your Best Options

— February 21^st 2024 at 16:50

Alan Greenspan Fast Facts

— February 21^st 2024 at 16:50

Read CNN's Fast Facts about Alan Greenspan and learn more about the former Federal Reserve Chairman.

It's official: now avoid credit card interest into 2024

— February 21^st 2024 at 16:50

Experts: this is the best cash back card of 2022

— February 21^st 2024 at 16:50

— February 21^st 2024 at 16:50

New York Governor Kathy Hochul is apologizing for remarks she made about the Israel-Hamas war. Polo Sandoval reports from New York.

Justin Bieber Fast Facts

— February 21^st 2024 at 16:50

Do you have "Bieber Fever?" Read CNN's Fast Facts about Grammy Award-winning singer Justin Bieber.

1965 Selma to Montgomery March Fast Facts

— February 21^st 2024 at 16:50

Read CNN's Fast Facts on the 1965 Selma to Montgomery march in Alabama, a pivotal event in the civil rights movement

— February 21^st 2024 at 16:50

CNN's Jake Tapper travels to Los Angeles to speak with Mayor Karen Bass on her efforts to build and provide housing for homeless people.

Dream Big with a Home Equity Loan

— February 21^st 2024 at 16:50

— February 21^st 2024 at 16:50

Two police officers and a firefighter were fatally shot and another officer was injured after responding to a domestic incident early Sunday morning in Burnsville, Minnesota, according to local authorities. CNN's Camila Bernal reports on the details, including the names of the three individuals who were killed.

Turn Your Rising Home Equity Into Cash You Can Use

— February 21^st 2024 at 16:50

0% intro APR until 2024 is 100% insane

— February 21^st 2024 at 16:50

— February 21^st 2024 at 16:50

Polk County Sheriff Byron Lyons announced that the body of Audrii Cunningham, an 11-year-old girl who disappeared while on her way to school in Texas, was found in the Trinity River. Polk County District Attorney Shelly Sitton said they are in the process of preparing arrest warrants for Don Steven McDougal, adding they believe a capital murder charge will be appropriate. CNN has attempted to find attorney information for McDougal and has also reached out to his family for comment. CNN's Rosa Flores reports with more.

— February 21^st 2024 at 16:50

Alabama's Supreme Court ruled that frozen embryos are children, and would be protected under the state's Wrongful Death of a Minor Act. Barbara Collura, president and CEO of RESOLVE: The National Infertility Association, joins CNN to discuss the unprecedented ruling.

— February 21^st 2024 at 16:50

Joe Walsh and Fred Guttenberg speak with CNN's Jake Tapper

— February 21^st 2024 at 16:50

The former FBI informant charged with lying about the Bidens' dealings in Ukraine told investigators after his arrest that Russian intelligence officials were involved in passing information to him about Hunter Biden. CNN's Evan Perez has the story.

— February 21^st 2024 at 16:50

Reparations into his own hands: As the two remaining survivors of the 1921 Tulsa race massacre await their day in court, philanthropist Ed Mitzen, who gifted $3 million to their families, reflects on why the wealthy White community needs to "step up."

— February 21^st 2024 at 16:50

In the next 10 years, space will hold more than three times the amount of trash than what it currently has had in the last 70 years. CNN's Bill Weir talks to NOAA and researchers who are looking for solutions to solve the space junk problem.

— February 21^st 2024 at 16:50

A person in police custody on unrelated charges is suspected of involvement in the case of 11-year-old Audrii Cunningham who went missing in Livingston, Texas, according to local authorities. CNN Rosa Flores reports from the area where police are searching.

— February 21^st 2024 at 16:50

State Rep. Justin Jones speaks with CNN's Abby Phillip on witnessing neo-Nazis appearing in Nashville after he left a Black history event.

— February 21^st 2024 at 16:50

A stolen tow truck wreaked havoc on the rush hour traffic in Maryland on Friday, leading to a wild car pursuit by the state police that lasted for over an hour.

— February 21^st 2024 at 16:50

After being ordered to pay hundreds of millions of dollars by a New York judge, former U.S. President Donald Trump is ranting against the U.S. legal system. CNN's Senior Political Analyst Ron Brownstein says Trump's behavior mirrors autocratic leaders.

— February 21^st 2024 at 16:50

"Black farmers are an endangered species," says 5th generation Black farmer, P.J. Haynie. He and his family have continued to fight racism through the generations, and now, they're making farming history.

— February 21^st 2024 at 16:50

CNN's Jake Tapper spoke with Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass

Top News

— February 20^th 2024 at 20:09

'-30-': An Ending, But Not the End, by Michelle Malkin

By: Michelle Malkin — October 24^th 2022 at 23:00

When I first started writing newspaper editorials and columns for the Los Angeles Daily News in November 1992, I learned that "-30-" (pronounced "dash thirty dash") was the journalist's code for letting an editor know where your copy ended. Most media historians believe the typesetting mark originated when news was filed by telegraph. Western Union's...

Fists of Furry, by Michelle Malkin

By: Michelle Malkin — October 17^th 2022 at 23:00

Don't believe the pervert media. Reuters, NBC News, entertainer John Oliver and Denver 9News zealot Kyle Clark all want you to believe that parents nationwide are simply imagining an infestation of "furries" (children dressing up and identifying as animals) in their public schools. The gaslighting campaign is so toxically incandescent that you can see the...

In Support of a Young America First Scapegoat, by Michelle Malkin

By: Michelle Malkin — October 10^th 2022 at 23:00

Next week, a young college student will face a federal judge in Washington, D.C., at a sentencing hearing over his nonviolent participation in the Jan. 6 Capitol rally. UCLA undergrad Christian Secor was arrested last February and spent more than a month in solitary confinement. Think about that. Unlike the weekly parade of repeat violent...

The Great Parental Replacement, by Michelle Malkin

By: Michelle Malkin — October 3^rd 2022 at 23:00

It's happening. It's been happening. Parents, you are being replaced. Where? Right under your noses, in your neighborhoods, in your public and private schools, and in your local children's hospitals. How? Under the guise of health, safety, compassion, tolerance, diversity, intellectual superiority and, of course, the public good. By whom? Woke educators, radical school counselors,...

Our UN-American 'Justice' System, by Michelle Malkin

By: Michelle Malkin — September 26^th 2022 at 23:00

Not all open-borders subversives hide behind black bandanas and hurl Molotov cocktails. Sometimes, they wear three-piece suits or silk dresses. Most insidiously, the saboteurs of American justice wear black robes, wield gavels and enlist other officers of the court to help them perpetrate crimes instead of punish them. Nothing shocks me anymore after 30 years...

They're All Open-Borders Hypocrites, by Michelle Malkin

By: Michelle Malkin — September 19^th 2022 at 23:00

All the world's a stage, especially two heated months before Election Day. So you'll have to forgive me for not joining the theatrical media frenzy over Martha's Vineyard being overrun by illegal aliens. It's just another naked open-borders exhibition by both political parties that makes a miserable mockery of our country's immigration policies. Yes, I...

Exposing the Woke School Counselor Cabal, by Michelle Malkin

By: Michelle Malkin — September 14^th 2022 at 06:10

Back in the day, guidance counselors were those helpful (but not unduly intrusive) high school officials who dispensed vocational and career advice, reminded you of college application deadlines, and made sure your transcripts and letters of recommendations got where they needed to go. But like so much else in the 1960s and 1970s, traditional roles...

Whiny Media McWhiner of the Month, by Michelle Malkin

By: Michelle Malkin — September 5^th 2022 at 23:00

September has barely begun, but I'm confident no one will top my Whiny Media McWhiner of the Month nominee. This diaper-wetting award winner really takes the cake. With unhinged cowards like the San Francisco Chronicle's editorial board editor Matthew Fleischer occupying lofty perches of influence, it's no wonder public confidence in American newspaper and television...

Stop Mental Health Data Mining of Our Kids, by Michelle Malkin

By: Michelle Malkin — August 29^th 2022 at 23:00

Attention readers: The following column was originally published in 2019 and is being republished in light of back-to-school season. No, no, no. Hell, no! That's my response to the latest trial balloon floated by the White House to join with Silicon Valley on a creepy program monitoring Americans' "neurobehavioral signs" to (purportedly) prevent gun violence....

Lie Down with McChao and You'll Get Bit, by Michelle Malkin

By: Michelle Malkin — August 22^nd 2022 at 23:00

Here's the thing about Mitch McConnell and Elaine Chao. The granddaddy of Republican Beltway barnacles has inhabited the nation's capital in one form or another since 1968, when he worked as a Senate legislative aide. His wife, the daughter of a Beijing-kowtowing shipping mogul, snagged her first job in 1983 as a White House fellow...

Beware of Big Bathroom Brother, by Michelle Malkin

By: Michelle Malkin — August 15^th 2022 at 23:00

Nine years ago, I warned readers about "eyelock biometric readers" adopted by Florida schools to track them on buses. Under the guise of fighting guns and vaping, countless schools this year are now installing surveillance sensors in bathrooms that can spy and record students' alleged "aggression" and red-flag "spoken key words." Eight years ago, I...

FBI: Feds Behaving Incorrigibly, by Michelle Malkin

By: Michelle Malkin — August 8^th 2022 at 23:00

The FBI's raid on former president Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago estate — ever so conveniently timed as the White House occupant's approval numbers sink, the Swamp prepares to shovel a whopping $5.5 billion in foreign and military aid down the bottomless Ukrainian black hole and the American economy keels over like Biden on a bike —...

Nick Kristof's Shamhill Clown Show, by Michelle Malkin

By: Michelle Malkin — August 1^st 2022 at 23:00

Maybe there's a small glimmer of hope for the Left Coast after all. First, San Francisco voters recalled George Soros-funded district attorney and crime-enabler Chesa Boudin. Now, even liberal Oregonians have kicked an East Coast media elitist to the curb and slapped "return to sender" on the carefully crafted package of Nicholas Kristof's self-serving phony...

The Commie Colonization of America, by Michelle Malkin

By: Michelle Malkin — July 25^th 2022 at 23:00

From California to the New York island, from the Redwood Forest to the Gulf stream waters, the land that used to belong to Americans has been milked and bilked by investors and paid government agents of the People's Republic of China. The National Association of Realtors reported last week that wealthy Chinese spent $6.1 billion...

A Transplant Miracle That Defied COVID Tyranny (Plus Full Video Interview), by Michelle Malkin

By: Michelle Malkin — July 18^th 2022 at 23:00

DALLAS — Leilani Lutali and Jaimee Fougner are alive, giggling and ready to fight for truth, justice and faith. I visited them this weekend at Baylor University Medical Center's aptly named post-kidney transplant surgery center called the Twice Blessed House. If not for their stubborn resistance and persistence, Leilani most likely would not have...

Why Some of Us Can't Dine in Peace, by Michelle Malkin

By: Michelle Malkin — July 11^th 2022 at 23:00

Fifteen years ago, when I still lived in the D.C. swamp, I took my elementary school-daughter and toddler son out for one of our regular weekend breakfasts at IHOP. But we couldn't be left alone to enjoy our meal. As my kids dug into their funny-face pancakes, a fuming-faced liberal marched to our booth and...

America, the Globalist Grift, by Michelle Malkin

By: Michelle Malkin — July 4^th 2022 at 23:00

I hate to snuff out any post-Independence Day fervor that you still might be enjoying. Oh, well. "Wet Blanket" is my middle name. All the annual Old Glory-waving rituals and public displays of patriotic affection can't change this bitter fact: Our once-sovereign nation has become nothing more than a morbidly obese cash cow for what...

The Cowardly American Corporation, by Michelle Malkin

By: Michelle Malkin — June 27^th 2022 at 23:00

I no longer bubble with rage when a new outbreak of corporate wokeness erupts across our fruited plain. It's just another day in the pathetic life of the Land of the Greedy and the Home of the Enslaved. To wit: this week's parade of U.S. companies ostentatiously trumpeting "health care coverage" for employees who want...

Red-Flagging Red-Flag Law Abuse, by Michelle Malkin

By: Michelle Malkin — June 20^th 2022 at 23:00

Here we go again. The Beltway Swamp's ineluctable impulse to (Pretend To) Do Something in the wake of a mass school shooting committed by a homicidal maniac has put America on the brink of greenlighting untold civil liberties abuses in the name of "safety." The grandstanding gun-grabbing reflex is a hard habit to break. Shamefully,...

What Really Happened to Justin Bieber?, by Michelle Malkin

By: Michelle Malkin — June 13^th 2022 at 23:00

Everyone with a phone or computer has seen the mega-viral videos and photos of 28-year-old pop star Justin Bieber. "As you can see, this eye is not blinking," he told his whopping 241 million Instagram followers last weekend. Bieber's handsome face is drooping and lopsided; he "can't smile," his "nostril will not move," and "there's...

Goofus and Gallant Go Woke, by Michelle Malkin

By: Michelle Malkin — June 6^th 2022 at 23:00

Do you remember Highlights, the ubiquitous children's magazine that you'd devour at the dentist's office? If you were lucky, you'd wait for the mailman to deliver a fresh edition to your home at the beginning of every month. It was a treasure. The venerable American publication was established in 1946 by an enterprising married couple...

20 Years: The Murder of Los Angeles County Sheriff's Deputy David March, by Michelle Malkin

By: Michelle Malkin — May 30^th 2022 at 23:00

Two decades ago this spring, I was furiously pounding out the manuscript to "Invasion," my very first book on the systemic failures of immigration enforcement in America. On April 29, 2002, as if to underscore the bloody consequences of open borders that I had been compiling, a violent illegal alien repeat criminal offender named Jorge...

Sabotaging America's Military from Within, by Michelle Malkin

By: Michelle Malkin — May 23^rd 2022 at 23:00

USAFA Class of 2022 cadet and COVID-vaccine objector Nathan Suess A year ago this month, a comparison of military recruitment ads from China, Russia and the U.S. went viral on social media. Our foreign competitors wooed their potential enlistees with muscular appeals to national pride and protection of the traditional nuclear family. A U.S. Army...

The Prosecution of Idaho Mom Sara Brady, by Michelle Malkin

By: Michelle Malkin — May 16^th 2022 at 23:00

UPDATE: Scroll down to read full motion to dismiss on constitutional grounds, memorandum in support of motion to dismiss, and stipuation of undisputed facts. MERIDIAN, IDAHO — Kleiner Park is an all-American, family-friendly gathering place west of Boise with 60 acres of greenery, trails, ponds, outdoor performance facilities, picnic shelters, and children's swings and slides....

The Hunting of Texas Campus Conservative Kelly Neidert, by Michelle Malkin

By: Michelle Malkin — May 9^th 2022 at 23:00

Most graduating college seniors in America are in high spirits this month as they prepare for cap-and-gown ceremonies and extended family celebrations. But for Kelly Neidert, a firebrand campus conservative and marketing major at the University of North Texas in Denton, commencement is no ordinary rite of passage filled with joy and laughter. Having faced...

An inmate used the chain of his handcuffs to choke an Indiana sheriff's deputy who later died at hospital, affidavit says

— July 12^th 2023 at 12:55

An inmate in Indianapolis allegedly used the chain of his handcuffs to choke a sheriff's deputy who died shortly after, court documents obtained by a local station show.

Two brothers, aged 3 and 6, are among 4 people wounded by a shooter on a scooter at a crowded New York park, police say

— July 12^th 2023 at 12:55

A 3-year-old and his 6-year-old brother were among four people shot and wounded when shots were fired at a crowd outside a Bronx park Tuesday evening, the New York Police Department said.

— July 12^th 2023 at 12:55

California has spent $17.5 billion trying to combat homelessness over four years. In the same time, from 2018 to 2022, the state's homeless population grew. CNN's Nick Watt reports.

Ed Sheeran fans hospitalized during Pittsburgh show

— July 12^th 2023 at 12:55

A total of 17 people were transported to the hospital with various health emergencies during an Ed Sheeran concert in Pittsburgh on Saturday night, the Pittsburgh Bureau of EMS said in a news release.

— July 12^th 2023 at 12:55

A jury hearing arguments surrounding Aretha Franklin's estate determined a 2014 version of her will should stand as the document of record.

Pennsylvania inmate escaped through prison roof and shimmied down a rope of sheets, court documents say

— July 12^th 2023 at 12:55

Escapee Michael Burham is likely still in the area around a northwestern Pennsylvania jail and is probably getting help as he seeks to evade 200 law enforcement officers looking for him, Pennsylvania State Police Lt. Col. George Bivens said at a news conference Tuesday.

Free-solo climber dies after falling hundreds of feet from ridge in Colorado's Rocky Mountain National Park

— July 12^th 2023 at 12:55

A 26-year-old woman from Boulder, Colorado, died after falling approximately 500 feet while free-solo climbing a ridge in the state's Rocky Mountain National Park on Sunday, the park said.

— July 12^th 2023 at 12:55

Leslie Van Houten, a former Charles Manson follower, and convicted murderer, was released from a California prison on Tuesday, a prison spokesperson told CNN. Anthony DiMaria, nephew of Jay Sebring, murdered by the Manson family, speaks to CNN's Laura Coates.

Manson Family Murders Fast Facts

— July 12^th 2023 at 12:55

Read CNN's Fast Facts about Charles Manson and the 1969 murders committed by his followers.

Residents evacuated as homes slide down Los Angeles County hillside following 'significant land movement'

— July 12^th 2023 at 12:55

More than a dozen homes have been evacuated in Rolling Hills Estates, California, after the ground shifted, causing extensive damage, city and Los Angeles County officials said.

Kansas City Chiefs superfan who became a fugitive after bank robbery charge has been caught in California, feds say

— July 12^th 2023 at 12:55

A Kansas man who gained attention for dressing in a full wolf's costume at Kansas City Chiefs games and who allegedly removed his ankle monitor while he was out on bail on a bank robbery charge has been arrested in California, according to a news release from federal authorities.

25-year-old arrested in connection with Cleveland shooting that left 9 wounded over the weekend

— July 12^th 2023 at 12:55

US marshals on Tuesday arrested a 25-year-old man in connection with Sunday's mass shooting in Cleveland that left nine people wounded, Cleveland's police chief said.

California has spent billions to fight homelessness. The problem has gotten worse

— July 12^th 2023 at 12:55

Getting people off the street is a priority for Gov. Gavin Newsom. But even with massive funding and new data on who is homeless and why, the state is struggling to see change.

How has your life changed since the Roe v. Wade reversal?

— July 12^th 2023 at 12:55

What impact has the Roe v. Wade reversal had on you and your family in ways big and small? Share your stories with CNN.

Rescues still underway in flood-ravaged Vermont as New England braces for more rain

— July 12^th 2023 at 12:55

As rescues continue and Vermont begins what could be a yearslong recovery process from the devastating flooding that hit the Northeast this week, another round of rainfall is headed for the region -- and it could bring more flash floods.

Former Manson family member Leslie Van Houten released from California prison, official says

— July 12^th 2023 at 12:55

Leslie Van Houten, a former Charles Manson follower and convicted murderer, was released from a California prison on Tuesday, a prison spokesperson told CNN.

At least 3 dead and 14 injured after crash involving Greyhound bus and other vehicles in Illinois

— July 12^th 2023 at 12:55

At least three people are dead and 14 injured after a crash involving a Greyhound bus and three other vehicles early Wednesday in southern Illinois, a release from state police said.

Several shark species are facing extinction. Here's how you can help

— July 12^th 2023 at 12:55

Older than dinosaurs and trees, sharks have endured a lot throughout their 450 million years on Earth. They've even survived five mass extinctions, including the asteroid that wiped out 75% of life on the planet. But many species of these aquatic apex predators are now in danger of dying out forever.

No jackpot winner in Tuesday's Mega Millions drawing, new jackpot is estimated at $560 million

— July 12^th 2023 at 12:55

There was no jackpot winner in Tuesday night's Mega Millions drawing according to the lottery's website, prompting another drawing scheduled for Friday at 11 p.m. ET.

GOP prepared to block vote to replace Feinstein on Senate Judiciary

— April 18^th 2023 at 15:12

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said on Tuesday that he hopes to replace Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein on the Senate Judiciary Committee with Sen. Ben Cardin of Maryland and aims to set up a floor vote on the issue this afternoon, which Republicans are expected to block.

Anti-abortion doctors urge Supreme Court to keep mifepristone restrictions in place

— April 18^th 2023 at 11:35

A group of doctors opposed to abortion asked the Supreme Court Tuesday to restrict access to a key medication abortion drug while other legal challenges play out, as Wednesday night's deadline for the court to act approaches.

Supreme Court seems sympathetic to postal worker who didn't work Sundays in dispute over religious accommodations

— April 18^th 2023 at 12:37

The Supreme Court seemed to side with a former mail carrier, an evangelical Christian, who says the US Postal Service failed to accommodate his request to not work on Sundays.

Fulton County, Georgia, jail leadership resigns after inmate's death and accusations of unsanitary conditions

— April 18^th 2023 at 10:08

Three officials at the Fulton County, Georgia, jail have stepped down amid an investigation into the death of an inmate whose family said was housed in a filthy, bug-infested cell that "was not fit for a diseased animal."

McCarthy makes plea for Republicans to back debt ceiling plan

— April 18^th 2023 at 10:17

Speaker Kevin McCarthy made a plea to House Republicans during a closed-door meeting Tuesday morning to back his debt ceiling plan, telling them that although it doesn't have to include everything they want, it will help get him to the negotiating table with President Joe Biden.

5th grader raises $2,000 for grieving teacher

— April 18^th 2023 at 01:05

China's economy is off to a solid start, rising 4.5% in Q1 2023

— April 17^th 2023 at 21:10

China's economy is off to a solid start in 2023 following its emergence from three years of strict pandemic restrictions.

He was free for 2 years. Now Crosley Green is back in prison for a crime he says he didn't commit

— April 17^th 2023 at 17:45

A Florida man who served three decades behind bars for a murder he says he didn't commit returned to prison Monday after spending the past two years building a life outside prison walls.

Family of victim and survivors of Indianapolis FedEx mass shooting file lawsuit against gun magazine manufacturer and distributors

— April 17^th 2023 at 13:54

The family of a victim and several survivors of a mass shooting at a FedEx facility in Indianapolis filed a lawsuit against companies involved in the manufacturing, marketing and sale of the high capacity magazine used by the gunman who killed 8 people and injured several others in 2021.

Tennessee Air National Guardsman applied to be a hitman online, the FBI says. It was a spoof website and now he's facing charges

— April 17^th 2023 at 04:06

A Tennessee Air National Guardsman is facing charges after applying to be a hitman on a spoof "rent-a-hitman" website, according to the Department of Justice.

Google-parent stock drops on fears it could lose search market share to AI-powered rivals

— April 17^th 2023 at 10:52

Shares of Google-parent Alphabet fell more than 3% in early trading Monday after a report sparked concerns that its core search engine could lose market share to AI-powered rivals, including Microsoft's Bing.

McDonald's is upgrading its burgers

— April 17^th 2023 at 07:03

McDonald's, which has been focusing on upgrading its core items to boost sales, is rolling out a series of changes designed to improve its signature burgers.

Even when wives make as much as husbands, they still do more at home

— April 16^th 2023 at 12:29

• Four out of the five US metro areas with the lowest unemployment are in Florida. Here's why • Opinion: The overlooked problem with raising the retirement age for Social Security

Afghanistan: Taliban bans ‘things in contradiction with Islam,’ including music cassettes and foreign dramas

By: Robert Spencer — April 13^th 2023 at 11:00

“‘Imran bin Husain narrated that the Messenger of Allah(s.a.w) said: ‘In this Ummah there shall be collapsing of the earth, transformation and Qadhf.’ A man among the Muslims said: ‘O Messenger of Allah! When is that?’ He said: ‘When singing slave-girls, music, and drinking intoxicants spread.’” (Jami` at-Tirmidhi 2212) “It was narrated from Abu Malik […]

Ramadan in India: Muslims leave iftar party, attack Hindu temple

By: Robert Spencer — April 13^th 2023 at 10:00

“Make ready for them all that you can of force and of warhorses, so that by them you may strike terror in the enemy of Allah and your enemy…” (Qur’an 8:60) “‘Masked mob coming out of Iftar party targeted temple’: VHP over clashes in Jamshedpur, accuses the administration of inaction against accused,” OpIndia, April 10, […]

The New York Times Gets Israel Wrong – Again

By: Hugh Fitzgerald — April 13^th 2023 at 09:00

The New York Times, doing its imitation of the Palestinian news agency Wafa, has yet again misrepresented the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians who would, if only they could, cheerfully destroy the Jewish state. The Times provides what it calls a “news analysis” – more rigorous, presumably, than a mere report of facts — of the current […]

Ramadan in Nigeria: Army troops invade Christian areas, burn markets, loot shops during Western Easter celebrations

By: Robert Spencer — April 13^th 2023 at 08:00

Just in case there was any doubt about where the Nigerian government stands regarding the ongoing jihad in that country. “EXCLUSIVE: Nigerian Army Personnel Resume Invasion Of Communities In Imo State, Burn Markets, Loot Several Shops During Easter,” Sahara Reporters, April 11, 2023: SaharaReporters reliably gathered that troops of the Nigerian military on Sunday, during […]

Islamic countries are buying out UN agencies to promote Sharia globally

By: Christine Douglass-Williams — April 13^th 2023 at 07:00

Giulio Meotti warns in Israel National News that after the European Parliament, “the UN is easy prey. Funding has allowed Islamic countries to form the most powerful bloc in UNESCO.” Money equals power, and the UN is virtually being bought out by Islamic countries which are promoting the Sharia. Take, for instance, the United Nations […]

Biden’s DOJ Goes Easy on Trans Lunatic Who Vandalized Church

By: Robert Spencer — April 13^th 2023 at 06:00

New in PJ Media: While the FBI has been sending spies into Catholic churches, hunting for “domestic terrorism,” Old Joe Biden’s laughably named “Justice” Department has just offered what Fox News calls a “sweetheart plea deal” to a woman who claims to be a man and who smashed doors, destroyed a statue of the Virgin Mary, assaulted […]

Glazov Gang: Who Killed DHS Whistleblower Phil Haney?

By: Jamie Glazov — April 13^th 2023 at 02:00

This new Glazov Gang episode features Leo Hohmann, a veteran investigative reporter and author whose book Stealth Invasion is now banned by Amazon. Order it at BarnesAndNoble.com. Visit Leo at LeoHohmann.com. Leo discusses Who Killed DHS Whistleblower Phil Haney?, reflecting on the question: Will there ever be a real investigation? [See the whole interview: HERE […]

Terrorists Are Crossing the Border, But Relax: ‘Experts’ Say It’s Nothing to Worry About

By: Robert Spencer — April 13^th 2023 at 05:00

New in PJ Media: We’re used to seeing the establishment media cheerlead for Democrat administrations, but Bloomberg went above and beyond on Wednesday with an article that was condescendingly entitled “Terrorists Crossing the US Border? Rising Encounters Explained.” Gather round, you rubes, and let your moral and intellectual superiors explain away what your lying eyes are showing […]

Even the Washington Post Isn’t Buying Biden Blaming Trump for Afghanistan Debacle

By: Robert Spencer — April 13^th 2023 at 04:00

New in PJ Media: When you’re a Leftist politician and you’ve lost the Washington Post, what’s left? The Post editorial board chided Old Joe Biden and his henchmen on Tuesday for blaming their catastrophically botched withdrawal from Afghanistan on their all-purpose whipping boy, Donald Trump. “Instead of admitting errors,” the Post wrote about the White House assessment of the withdrawal, “the […]

Today’s Trans Madness Isn’t New. It’s Rooted in an Ancient Belief That’s Combated in the New Testament.

By: Robert Spencer — April 13^th 2023 at 03:00

New in PJ Media: “There is nothing new under the sun,” says the Book of Ecclesiastes (1:9), and that includes today’s fashionable trans madness. While men mutilating themselves and taking hormones and calling themselves women may be a new aspect of this phenomenon, men have been donning dresses and prancing around pretending to be women […]

Woke AI Means the End of a Free Internet

By: Daniel Greenfield — April 12^th 2023 at 16:00

Giving up freedom of thought for convenience. Big Tech has a great big dream of destroying the internet. And it’s mostly a reality. The vision of the internet was an open universe while Big Tech’s vision is the internet reduced to the feed on a few proprietary apps preloaded on your locked phone. Trying to […]

Bangladesh: Muslim cleric and three others arrested for ordering a woman to be caned and stoned for adultery

By: Robert Spencer — April 12^th 2023 at 15:00

“Bangladesh has a secular legal system and applying Sharia in criminal cases is illegal.” The stoning was certainly in accord with Sharia. Stoning adulterers is not “extremist”; it is Islamic law. The caliph Umar, one of Muhammad’s closest companions, even maintained that it was originally in the Qur’an: ‘Umar said, “I am afraid that after […]

Iran: Women will be prosecuted and businesses could be shut for failing to observe the country’s hijab rules

By: Robert Spencer — April 12^th 2023 at 14:00

The Islamic Republic continues to try to frighten people into submission. This is the only tool they’ve got, as per the Qur’an: “Make ready for them all that you can of force and of warhorses, so that by them you may strike terror in the enemy of Allah and your enemy…” (Qur’an 8:60) “Iran Vows […]

Former Islamic State commander says the jihad group was financed from Pakistan

By: Robert Spencer — April 12^th 2023 at 13:00

This wouldn’t be in the least surprising. There are many in Pakistan, even in the government, who share the same outlook and goals as those of the Islamic State. “Former Islamic State Commander Says Terrorist Group Financed from Pakistan,” by Massimo Introvigne, Bitter Winter, March 23, 2023: A former senior Islamic State leader has publicly […]

UK: 19 suspected jihadis, including five linked to ISIS, living in taxpayer-funded hotels after crossing the Channel

By: Robert Spencer — April 12^th 2023 at 12:00

“But the Government is powerless to remove any of the 19, because they face a risk of torture or ill-treatment in their home countries.” This is a nation in its death throes. When it is more concerned about the rights and safety of people in other countries than of its own people, what future can […]

Northern Ireland: ‘Very religious’ Afghan Muslim migrant accused of murder demands bail so he can observe Ramadan

By: Robert Spencer — April 12^th 2023 at 11:00

The defense lawyer is banking on the general concern in Western countries for the well-being of the perpetrators, rather than for that of the victims, coming through for Habib Shamel in this case. And he is probably right. “Afghan migrant accused of brutal murder in Ireland wanted bail as prison service may not allow him […]

Quebec Muslim leaders ‘outraged’ over school prayer room ban as part of province’s secularism policy

By: Christine Douglass-Williams — April 12^th 2023 at 10:00

Quebec’s education minister has declared prayer rooms forbidden in the province’s schools, since they are not compatible with Quebec’s official policy of secularism. Education Minister Bernard Drainville stated: There are all kinds of ways to pray…I can’t ban prayer. I ban prayer in classrooms. Now, if someone wants to pray silently, that’s their basic right. […]

Iranian President Raisi: Zionist State Is Collapsing

By: Hugh Fitzgerald — April 12^th 2023 at 09:00

Ebrahim Raisi, the president of Iran known best for his bloody past as a hanging judge, responsible for the deaths of thousands of Iranian dissidents, recently spoke by telephone to the Butcher of Damascus, President Bashar Al-Assad. More on the conversation can be found here: “Global Winds Blowing Away from ‘Arrogance, Zionism,’ Raisi Tells Assad,” […]

UK: King Charles clashes with Church of England over ‘inclusive’ coronation, ‘commitment to multiple religions’

By: Christine Douglass-Williams — April 12^th 2023 at 08:00

King Charles is in a row with Church of England leaders “over the role of non-Christian faiths” in his upcoming May 6th coronation ceremony. Charles is insisting on a ceremony “to better reflect the modern monarchy,” as opposed to celebrating the history of Britain. So he has insisted on the participation of representatives of the […]

Macron warns EU ‘must reduce’ dependence on U.S. dollar to avoid conflict with China

By: Christine Douglass-Williams — April 12^th 2023 at 07:00

French President Emmanuel Macron doesn’t want to “follow America” into a war with China over Taiwan, and has said that “Europe needs its ‘strategic autonomy’ from the United States, including potentially its dependence on the dollar.” Of course, Macron is looking out for himself, but even so, France would benefit from his proposals. This is […]

So Is the Public Flocking to Buy Bud Light Because of Fake Woman Dylan Mulvaney? Well…

By: Robert Spencer — April 12^th 2023 at 06:00

New in PJ Media: It has now been nearly two weeks since Dylan Mulvaney, a dude who claims to be a woman and demands that we all play along, became the face of Bud Light solely because of his delusions and fantasies. Bud Light Vice President Alissa Heinerscheid has explained that she took this advertising […]

Okay, You’ll Never Believe Which City Is Hosting the 2024 Democratic Convention

By: Robert Spencer — April 12^th 2023 at 05:00

New in PJ Media: Imagine you’re a Democrat. That’s right: if you’re a man, start imagining that you’re really a woman, or vice versa, and imagine actually believing that Old Joe Biden is a competent, capable president and not a dementia-ridden kleptocratic figurehead. You want to put the party’s best face forward for 2024, and […]

Story of ‘Islamophobic’ Attack on New Jersey Imam Takes a Surprising Twist

By: Robert Spencer — April 12^th 2023 at 04:00

New in PJ Media: It happened early on Sunday morning. The imam Sayed Elnakib was leading the pre-sunrise fajr prayer at Omar Mosque in South Paterson, N.J., when suddenly everything went tragically wrong. According to a Sunday CNN report, mosque spokesperson Abdul Hamdan recounted that in the middle of the prayers, a man “lunged forward with a knife […]

Canada brings back four Islamic State brides and their ten children from Syria

By: Robert Spencer — April 11^th 2023 at 16:00

What could possibly go wrong? Well, many of these Islamic State women were just as convinced jihadis as their husbands. Many shared in their crimes. Do woke Canadian authorities have any idea what to look for in trying to determine if any of the people they’re bringing back are jihadis or will raise their children […]

Ramadan in Pakistan: Police destroy minarets and dome of local Ahmadiyya mosque

By: Robert Spencer — April 11^th 2023 at 15:00

Ahmadis are considered heretics; they aren’t even allowed by law to call themselves Muslims in Pakistan. So while Bitter Winter is shocked that this sort of thing would happen in Ramadan, from the point of view of the perpetrators it’s actually a quintessential Ramadan, purifying the community as one is supposed to purify one’s soul […]

‘Death to Israel’ – The Iranian Plan to Attack Israel

By: Mordechai Kedar — April 11^th 2023 at 14:00

I hesitated quite a bit whether to publish the things that appear below because of the panic they might cause in Israel. However, in the Middle East environment and particularly in Iraq, these things are known and serve as a topic of open discussion among quite a few, so it is unthinkable that the Israeli […]

Muslim Attacks Imam Over Islam. Media Blames Islamophobia.

By: Daniel Greenfield — April 11^th 2023 at 13:00

“In our religion, you should not wear a tie.” For several days, the media kept pushing the story of an Imam who was stabbed in his mosque, tying it to someone scribbling over a name that had Allah in it at that mosque and implying that this involved Islamphobia. National stories at CNN and the […]

Hamas-linked CAIR again conflates blasphemy and a ‘hate crime’

By: Daniel Greenfield — April 11^th 2023 at 12:00

“The smearing of the word ‘Allah’ in Dr. Awadallah’s name is apparently intentional.” The Hamas-linked Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), like other Muslim Brotherhood groups, is an Islamist organization masquerading as a civil rights community group. The Islamist mission is not to protect any ethnic or even religious group, but to impose Islamic law. CAIR-MN […]

Pennsylvania: Restaurant asks waitress to remove hijab, restaurant is inundated with death threats

By: Larry Estavan — April 11^th 2023 at 11:00

Michael’s Family Restaurant in Glenside, Pennsylvania has been receiving death threats all day. Hundreds of threatening phone calls have reduced the owner’s mother to tears, and the restaurant is pleading for people to see reason. This all stems from a manager who sent a waitress home when she would not remove her hijab. Michael’s Family […]

Iran installs cameras to crack down on women not wearing hijab

By: Christine Douglass-Williams — April 11^th 2023 at 10:00

Last month, Iran’s judiciary chief reiterated that “removing one’s hijab is equivalent to showing enmity to the Islamic Republic,” and then instituted a new law to fine women 2.5 billion rials ($60,000) for flouting hijab rules. It’s all part of the Islamic Republic’s adherence to the Sharia, as it ramps up efforts even further to counter protests: […]

Jordan Claims That Holiest Site In Judaism Must Be Free of Jews

By: Hugh Fitzgerald — April 11^th 2023 at 09:00

The Temple Mount (for the Muslims, Haram al-Sharif) is the holiest site in Judaism, the place where both the First and Second Temples were built and then destroyed, the first in 586 B.C. by the Babylonians, and the second by the Romans in 70 A.D. It is also the third holiest site in Islam, after […]

Australia: First Muslim minister of New South Wales, Jihad Deb, takes oath on Qur’an

By: Christine Douglass-Williams — April 11^th 2023 at 08:00

Australia’s first Muslim Minister of New South Wales is Jihad Deb. Although he grew up in Australia, he decided to swear in on the Qur’an in honor of his faith. We have seen a similar trend in America, where Keith Ellison and then Rashida Tlaib and Ilhan Omar took their oath of office for the […]

Iran, Syria, Hamas, Hizballah talk further ‘resistance’ against Israel

By: Christine Douglass-Williams — April 11^th 2023 at 07:00

With the exception of the willfully blind, most people understand that the Palestinian “resistance” is a euphemism for efforts to obliterate of Israel from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea. This is also clear from the repeated chants: “From the River to the Sea, Palestine will be free.” Now that Israel is undergoing internal […]

Steven Van Zandt Is Bruce Springsteen’s Guitarist. He Hates You. He Wants You Dead.

By: Robert Spencer — April 11^th 2023 at 06:00

New in PJ Media: Steven Van Zandt is a longtime guitarist with Bruce Springsteen’s E Street Band. He also played Silvio Dante in The Sopranos, as well as a number of other mobsters. Apparently, he has taken both Springsteen’s fanatical and unreflective Leftism and mob thuggishness deeply to heart and combined the two together; on Sunday, […]

Washington State Democrats Plan to Confiscate Your Money if They Think You’re Making Too Much

By: Robert Spencer — April 11^th 2023 at 05:00

New in PJ Media: The time is coming, if Leftists get their way, when a government official can decide that you’re making too much money and confiscate all except what he, she, or xe decides you need. This is already happening, in effect, with federal, state, and municipal income taxes, but a new bill in […]

CONFIRMED: The FBI Has Spies in Catholic Churches to Hunt for ‘Domestic Terrorism’

By: Robert Spencer — April 11^th 2023 at 04:00

New in PJ Media: A few weeks ago, Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) asked Gestapo chief Merrick Garland, “Are you cultivating sources and spies in Latin Mass parishes and other Catholic parishes around the country?” Garland pleaded innocent, insisting, “No, the Justice Department does not do that and does not, uh, um, do investigations based on religion.” But […]

Afghan Muslim migrants in US directed ‘racism, sexism’ at aid workers, were angry at inferior housing

By: Robert Spencer — April 10^th 2023 at 16:00

Anyone who finds this surprising knows nothing of Afghan and Islamic culture, and its attitudes toward non-Muslims and women. It’s unlikely that anyone in these NGOs knows anything about the Islamic understanding of the Infidel obligation to support Muslims financially, either. NGOs would have dismissed any warnings about all this as “Islamophobic.” But although they’ll […]

UK: Former minister cleared of ‘Islamophobia’ charges after investigation

By: Robert Spencer — April 10^th 2023 at 15:00

Nusrat Ghani said: “The impact of being told this was devastating and my motivation in pursuing the complaint was to ensure it wasn’t buried, but that it ended with me so that no other colleague would have to endure anything similar.” Oh, no worries, Ms. Ghani! Even though Mark Spencer was cleared, the purpose this […]

Iran’s Supremo: ‘I said that Israel will not get to see the next 25 years, but they seem to be in a hurry’

By: Robert Spencer — April 10^th 2023 at 14:00

Khamenei sees the end of Israel in its political instability. Actually, whatever else it is, that instability is a manifestation of general confidence and the lessening of the idea among Israelis that the country is in imminent danger of being destroyed. There is no doubt, however, that the instability is also encouraging and emboldening Israel’s […]

Ramadan in Nigeria: Muslims raid displaced persons camp, murder 38 people, injure 51 others

By: Robert Spencer — April 10^th 2023 at 13:00

This is reminiscent of the Khaybar raid. According to Islamic tradition. Muhammad exiled two of the three Jewish tribes of Medina, the Banu Qaynuqa and Banu Nadir, to Khaybar. Then later, he raided Khaybar and massacred those he had previously exiled. In this case, these people were in the displaced persons camp after previous jihad […]

Ramadan in Nigeria: Muslims abduct 80 children in Zamfara state

By: Robert Spencer — April 10^th 2023 at 12:00

My contact in Nigeria informs me that the “bandits” in this case are Fulani herdsmen, who are dedicated to Islamic jihad activity in order to establish a caliphate in West Africa. The taking of hostages is primarily for money-making purposes, though some captives may be enslaved. “As for the captives, the amir [ruler] has the […]

France: Muslim migrant writes to colleges, synagogue: ‘I’m going to make you like Samuel Paty. I will behead you.’

By: Robert Spencer — April 10^th 2023 at 11:00

Diversity is our strength! “‘I will make you like Samuel Paty’: an individual sentenced to five years in prison for letters threatening and apologizing for terrorism,” translated from ““Je vais vous faire comme Samuel Paty” : un individu condamné à cinq ans de prison pour des lettres de menaces et d’apologie du terrorisme,” Valeurs Actuelles, […]

Hate crime fizzle: NJ man who stabbed imam in back during prayers at mosque turns out to be another Muslim

By: Robert Spencer — April 10^th 2023 at 10:00

Serif Zorba’s motive is unclear but he was “not a regular member of the mosque’s congregation,” although “he has been seen there before.” The name “Serif” is a variant of “Sharif,” which means “eminent” in Arabic and is used in some areas to refer to people who claim to be descendants of Muhammad. Thus Islamic […]

Turks Recoil At Their Very Own ‘Little Aisha’

By: Hugh Fitzgerald — April 10^th 2023 at 09:00

At the age of six, a Turkish girl — identified only by her initials HKG — was married off to 29-year-old Kadir Istekli, a friend of her family, by her father. Why at the age of six? That was the age at which little Aisha was called in from playing on her swing to be […]

France: Muslim repeatedly screams ‘Allahu akbar’ on city street, is arrested ‘with great difficulty’

By: Robert Spencer — April 10^th 2023 at 08:00

Police received twenty reports about this fellow before he was arrested. Why was anyone concerned? The establishment media a few years ago made a full-court press to convince Americans that “Allahu akbar” was a benign phrase that only greasy Islamophobes could possibly be concerned about. In the New York Daily News, Zainab Chaudry of the Hamas-linked […]

France: Teen Muslima threatens to shoot officials, ‘I swear on the Qur’an!’

By: Robert Spencer — April 10^th 2023 at 07:00

Not that this has anything to do with… “Carcassonne. ‘I swear on the Koran and the baby I lost because of you!,'” translated from “Carcassonne. “Je vous jure sur le Coran et le bébé que j’ai perdu à cause de vous !”,” La Depeche, April 7, 2023 (thanks to Medforth): Yesterday afternoon, an 18-year-old young […]

University That Let Trans Fascists Menace Women’s Sports Advocate Now Goes After Prof for Muhammad Art

By: Robert Spencer — April 10^th 2023 at 06:00

My latest in PJ Media is a VIP article. I am happy to be able to offer you a 5% discount on becoming a VIP member at PJ Media. Just enter the code SPENCER when you sign up here. San Francisco State University (SFSU) was just in the headlines for allowing fascist proponents of trans madness to chase and […]

SFSU Claims Pro-Insanity Protest Against Women’s Sports Advocate Was Peaceful, But She Says ‘I Was Assaulted’

By: Robert Spencer — April 10^th 2023 at 05:00

New in PJ Media: As PJM’s Rick Moran reported Friday, “the scene at San Francisco State University [SFSU] was surreal. A champion female athlete speaking about maintaining the integrity of women’s sports was shouted down, assaulted, and chased from a speaking engagement sponsored by Turning Point USA.” But that was just the beginning of the surrealism. After […]

Buyer’s Remorse? Bud Light Goes Quiet, Hasn’t Posted on Social Media Since Making Dylan Mulvaney Its Spokestrans

By: Robert Spencer — April 10^th 2023 at 04:00

New in PJ Media: Cat got your tongue, Bud Light? The giant beer corporation has been silent for over a week, ever since it came to light that pretend woman Dylan Mulvaney was the pretend beer’s new spokesman. Since then, silence. Gee, Bud Light, aren’t you proud of your front guy? Bud Light operates one […]

Glazov Gang: “My Book ‘Stealth Invasion’ Has Been Banned by Amazon”

By: Jamie Glazov — April 10^th 2023 at 03:00

This new Glazov Gang episode features Leo Hohmann, a veteran investigative reporter and author whose book Stealth Invasion is now banned by Amazon. Order it at BarnesAndNoble.com. Visit Leo at LeoHohmann.com. Leo discuss “My Book ‘Stealth Invasion’ Has Been Banned by Amazon,” revealing how his book has run into a problem with Amazon’s KGB Dept. […]

Islamic scholar claims Muslim migrants only accepted in Europe if they say they’re Communists, have sex with women

By: Robert Spencer — April 9^th 2023 at 16:00

In reality, all manner of Sharia-adherent Muslims are coming to Europe, and Europeans are bending over backwards to accommodate them. “Afghan Islamic Scholar Khalifa Deen Mohammad: Muslim Refugees In Europe Are Only Granted Asylum If They Conceal Their Faith, Have Sex With Women Sent By The Government To Test Them,” MEMRI, March 23, 2023: Afghan […]

Sweden: Police dispute court’s ruling allowing for Qur’an burning, want such burnings banned

By: Robert Spencer — April 9^th 2023 at 15:00

I’m no fan of book burnings, but they are a matter of free expression. If the police prevail in this and Qur’an-burning is banned, the door will be opened to all manner of violent intimidation in other areas. Jihadis will have seen that it worked, and be encouraged to employ the tactic more liberally. “The […]

Austria: Government financed ‘Islamist associations’ with COVID aid money

By: Robert Spencer — April 9^th 2023 at 14:00

Lenin said, “The capitalists will sell us the rope with which we will hang them.” “FPÖ criticizes: Five million euros in Corona aid money went to Islamist associations,” translated from “FPÖ kritisiert: Fünf Millionen Euro an Corona-Hilfsgeldern flossen an islamistische Vereine,” Exxpress, April 5, 2023 (thanks to Medforth): During the corona pandemic, the state spent […]

Erdogan to Raisi: ‘Islamic world should be united against Israel’s attacks in Palestine’

By: Robert Spencer — April 9^th 2023 at 13:00

One would think that in light of the constant Islamic rhetoric relating to the Israeli/Palestinian conflict, that there would be an office in the State Department dedicated to understanding Islam and how Islamic teaching relates to the Muslim animus against Israel. One would think wrong. There isn’t even one person in the State Department who […]

Ramadan in Israel: Hamas calls jihad murder of two sisters ‘an act of heroism’

By: Robert Spencer — April 9^th 2023 at 12:00

In any war between the civilized man and the savage, support the civilized man. Support Israel. Defeat jihad. An update on this story. “Hamas, Islamic Jihad praise Jordan Valley shooting,” Israel National News, April 7, 2023: Abdel-Latif al-Kanou, a spokesman for the Hamas movement, calls the shooting attack in the Jordan Valley, in which two […]

Ramadan in Israel: Muslim murders Italian tourist and injures seven other people in vehicular jihad attack

By: Robert Spencer — April 9^th 2023 at 11:00

A billboard in Nazareth actually called for attacks of this kind. “Moderate” Fatah also called for such attacks. And the Islamic State issued this call in September 2014: So O muwahhid, do not let this battle pass you by wherever you may be. You must strike the soldiers, patrons, and troops of the tawaghit. Strike their police, security, and […]

Ramadan in DR Congo: Muslims murder over 30 people in jihad massacres in northeast

By: Robert Spencer — April 9^th 2023 at 10:00

Ramadan is “the month of jihad.” “DRC: UN says more than 30 killed in new ADF attacks,” Africa News, April 7, 2023: The United Nations said on Thursday that more than 30 people had been killed in new killings attributed to the ADF, a rebel group affiliated with the Islamic State group, in Ituri in […]

At an Austrian School, an Easter Tradition is Banned

By: Hugh Fitzgerald — April 9^th 2023 at 09:00

At a school in Austria, a teacher did as she had always done during Holy Week: she put a small handful of palm fronds in her classroom, of the kind that are given out in churches on Palm Sunday. And she took her students to visit an Easter Market, which, despite its name, has very […]

Biden’s Israel Coup Covered Another Iran Deal Scheme

By: Daniel Greenfield — April 9^th 2023 at 08:00

“Dangerous territory that could trigger an Israeli military strike” When lefty administrations go after conservative Israeli governments, it’s often because they’re carrying out a preemptive strike on policy that the Israelis would otherwise oppose. The ‘New Middle East’ and the Iran Deal were class examples. Now the Iran Deal that refuses to die, no matter […]

Afghanistan: ‘The Taliban are offering money for Afghans to turn in any Christians they know’

By: Robert Spencer — April 9^th 2023 at 07:00

Building a Sharia paradise through terror. And why not? Muhammad is depicted in a hadith as having said: “I have been made victorious through terror” (Bukhari 4:52.220). “Taliban puts bounty on Afghan Christians,” Mission Network News, April 3, 2023: Afghanistan (MNN) — Famine fears loom in Afghanistan. Multibillion-dollar aid packages have kept 20 million Afghans alive – […]

Floridians Incurs Left’s Wrath by Resisting Anne Frank P0rn

By: Robert Spencer — April 9^th 2023 at 06:00

New in PJ Media: Leftists will tell you: patriots are a bunch of book-burning neo-Nazis who are busy even now trying to control what people think by taking books out of the hands of our young people who are thirsting for knowledge. And so the headline of the Wednesday report from Tampa Bay’s WFLA was downright ominous: […]

REVEALED: The Real Reason Why Fake Woman Dylan Mulvaney Is Suddenly Everywhere

By: Robert Spencer — April 9^th 2023 at 05:00

New in PJ Media: At last we know why the corporate world has fallen in love with pretend woman Dylan Mulvaney. As I noted Thursday, he seems to be everywhere all at once, and it seems unlikely that corporate giants are suddenly so taken with Dylan’s charm and wit that they are spontaneously all at once falling […]

Prosecutors Think Colorado Supermarket Shooter Is Faking the Crazy

By: Robert Spencer — April 9^th 2023 at 04:00

New in PJ Media: Back in March 2021, a man named Ahmad Al Issa walked into a King Soopers supermarket in Boulder, Colo., and murdered ten people. Ever since then, he has been in a mental hospital, having been judged incompetent to stand trial. Now, however, prosecutors are planning to make the case that Al […]

France: ‘Transgender’ threats force halt to symposium defending Afghan and Iranian women

By: Robert Spencer — April 8^th 2023 at 16:00

You cannot defend Afghan and Iranian women from Islamic misogyny unless you agree to pretend that men can become women and vice versa. Otherwise, you may be murdered by “transgender” activists. If they don’t get you, their Islamic jihadi friends will get you for standing for Afghan and Iranian women against the suffering they must […]

India: Muslims plotted to set off nuclear bomb in a town after evacuating Muslims from the area

By: Robert Spencer — April 8^th 2023 at 15:00

This is reminiscent of other incidents, including when a Muslim in Minnesota in 2016 asked mall shoppers if they were Muslim and then stabbed non-Muslims. In April 2022 in Nigeria, Muslims stormed a brothel, telling people to recite the Qur’an, and murdering ten people who could not do. Also in Nigeria, in January 2022, a man recounted that Fulani jihadis […]