Displaying the most recent of 91521 posts written by

Ruth King

NATIONAL SECURITY AND DEFENSE Comments turned off

Why the Secrecy around the Foreign Source of the Springfield Hoax Bomb Threats?By Jim Geraghty

By on September 19th, 2024

https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/why-the-secrecy-around-the-foreign-source-of-the-springfield-hoax-bomb-threats/

The office of Ohio governor Mike DeWine is not disclosing which country is responsible for some of the bomb-threat hoaxes called into Springfield schools. The aim is to “discourage further threats to the schools and other buildings.”

This is more than a little frustrating because the general public already has a short suspect list. The FBI has already publicly discussed the desire of Russia, China, and Iran to influence the 2024 election and how “sowing discord and undermining democracy is consistent across the board.” Earlier this month, an official with the Office of the Director of National Intelligence told reporters:

The big three foreign influence actors, Russia, Iran, and China are all trying by some measure to exacerbate divisions in U.S. society for their own benefit, and see election periods as moments of vulnerability. These actors most likely judge that amplifying controversial issues and rhetoric that seeks to divide Americans can serve their interests by making the U.S. and its democratic system look weak, and by keeping the U.S. Government distracted with internal issues instead of pushing back on their hostile behavior globally.

…The IC continues to assess that Russia is the pre-eminent and most active foreign influence threat to this year’s U.S. elections. Russia is looking to amplify divisive rhetoric and influence electoral outcomes, which both speak to Moscow’s broader foreign policy goals of weakening the United States and undermining Washington’s support for Ukraine.

Continue reading →
ISRAEL Comments turned off

Israel’s Critics Will Only Be Satisfied If It Loses Jeffrey Blehar The nation is held to impossible standards of moral perfection in combat, even when launching a preemptive strike that ultimately saves civilian lives Jeffrey Blehar

By on September 19th, 2024

https://www.nationalreview.com/2024/09/israels-critics-will-only-be-satisfied-if-it-loses/

Once again, the nation is held to impossible standards of moral perfection, even when launching a daring preemptive strike that ultimately saves civilian lives in the long run.

In June of this year, when Israel rescued four hostages alive and unharmed from Hamas captivity, I well recall the perversity of the mainstream-media coverage of the event. Instead of celebrating the audacity and bravery of an impossibly complicated mission that freed innocent civilians from the clutches of murderous terrorists, the media narrative instead became about the “collateral damage” the bloodthirsty Israelis had caused.

Fake casualty numbers were immediately announced by Hamas, to be instantly and unquestioningly spread by journalists whose credulity verged on complicity. Israel was castigated for such things as the cruel and senseless murder of Palestine Chronicle journalist Abdallah Aljamal, who happened to be holding three of the Israeli hostages in his own home when the IDF found him. It was then that I concluded that the game was rigged, and that in terms of narrative framing, Israel would forever only be able to do wrong in the eyes of the media. And I am reminded of that sobering conclusion by the emergent reaction to Israel’s latest intelligence coup, which — though more muted — tracks closely along those same lines, with the same complaints levied by precisely the same suspects.

To catch up all those folks who have been out of the loop and away from their communications devices over the past day and a half, let me start by saying: If yours didn’t explode, then congratulations! You are likely not a member of Hezbollah! Because pretty much all of theirs just did: Yesterday, the encrypted pagers of Hezbollah personnel across Lebanon simultaneously exploded, and just a few hours ago, their entire supply of walkie-talkies went up in an even larger series of remote detonations. Several people died outright, and many others have been brutally maimed in an area particularly sensitive to the pride of military-aged jihadists. These explosions were remotely triggered by Israel, of course, which has been fighting an all but declared war with Iran against its proxies Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in southern Lebanon, on Israel’s northern border, ever since the October 7 massacre.

Continue reading →
NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

State Dept Officials Colluded to Protect Iran Envoy Under FBI Investigation “The State Department never reported Malley’s suspension to the OIG, in violation of federal law” by Daniel Greenfield

By on September 19th, 2024

https://www.frontpagemag.com/state-dept-officials-colluded-to-protect-iran-envoy-under-fbi-investigation/

Classified information is a very serious matter. Except 99% of the time when it’s not. About the only time that classified information is really a serious issue is when it can be used to raid a certain Florida venue.

The rest of the time it just doesn’t matter. Just ask Rob Malley and an entire administration that covered for him.

The Harris-Biden administration’s suspended Iran envoy Robert Malley may have taken part in a “classified White House-organized” call after his top secret security clearance was frozen over allegations of misconduct, according to the State Department’s internal watchdog.

The watchdog report politely describes this as deviating from normal standards. Much like Al Capone was deviating from normal negotiating procedures.

An official at the heart of the Iran outreach program had multiple State Department officials cover for him, lie on his behalf to Congress and to foreign governments to cover up the fact that he was under FBI investigation.

And it got worse from there.

On April 22, 2023, the State Department notified Malley of his clearance suspension and barred him from accessing the department’s “Sensitive But Unclassified [SBU] information system.”

However, days later, under pressure from senior officials, Malley’s access to sensitive information was restored, as was his access to his State Department email account.

Continue reading →
BOOKS Comments turned off

American Leviathan A new book explains how to break the bloated DC bureaucracy and restore the Founding Fathers’ vision. by Mark Tapson

By on September 19th, 2024

https://www.frontpagemag.com/american-leviathan/

Conservatives have been complaining for a long time – at least as far back as the Reagan era – about reducing the bloated sea monster of our government bureaucracy, but not only does the state never get any smaller, it just keeps expanding, aggrandizing more power, and extending more tentacles grasping for our freedoms. What would the Founding Fathers think of what we have allowed to become of the limited-power, Constitutional Republic they left us?

Ned Ryun addresses this question in his new book American Leviathan, and traces the history of the progressive movement to undermine that Republic and replace it with an all-powerful state. Subtitled “The Birth of the Administrative State and Progressive Authoritarianism,” American Leviathan explores how our current government has little if anything in common with the free American Republic that was intended by the Founding Fathers and shaped by the original intent of the Constitution and Bill of Rights. Ryun then asks, “What is the right size and scope of government for us today?” and proceeds to lay out a blueprint for rolling back this gargantuan, increasingly authoritarian bureaucracy.

Continue reading →
ELECTIONS, NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

The Lilliputian Dems Still Struggling to Keep Trump Bound You can’t beat something with nothing. by Bruce Thornton

By on September 19th, 2024

https://www.frontpagemag.com/the-lilliputian-dems-still-struggling-to-keep-trump-bound/

Ganging up with the debate moderators, Kamala Harris still hasn’t immobilized Donald Trump. The Dems thought their fellow Lilliputian press agents masquerading as “journalists” and “moderators,” along with some mean-girl snark from Harris, could bait Trump enough to make him hang himself, and so distract millions of voters from noticing that Harris is still dodging questions about her complicity with Biden’s disastrous term, his cognitive decline, and the far-left policy proposals that have marked her entire political career.

Despite the post-debate crowing about Harris’s victory, their ropes still aren’t tight enough to keep Trump down. For eight years, the progressive Democrats have labored to restrain Trump, but he keeps loosening his bonds. Let’s hope that the Dems don’t catch on that you can’t beat something with nothing.

Trump’s term was still young when federal agencies began trying to tie Trump down. The Russia, Russia, Russia hoax; turning an unexceptional phone call with Ukraine’s president Zelensky into a flimsy impeachable offense; Trump’s private conversation in 2005 Access Hollywood leaked that turned some sexual braggadocio into evidence for a sexual assaults; numerous statements by Trump distorted with selective editing, like the “very fine people” comment edited to hide’s Trump’s exclusion of neo-Nazis and white supremacists; and the Big Lie that on January 6 Trump instigated an “insurrection” when he told attendees at a rally to march “patriotically and peacefully” to protest at the capital. And don’t forget the multiple indictments by four Dem prosecutors, all based on creative if not duplicitous reading of the laws.

All those efforts and hundreds more failed to end Trump’s political career and clear the decks for a Democrat president. In fact, they’ve increased the size of his support. So now the lies are proliferating beyond those fed to a compliant media–– just like Harris, the moderators, and the media flacks during the debate every time they opened their mouths. But what else do they have to convince voters? They can’t run on the Biden and Harris record in the White House, which is as useless as Jimmy Carter’s record was in 1980.

Continue reading →
ELECTIONS, MEDICINE AND HEALTH Comments turned off

Biden-Harris Price Controls Causing Senior Drug Prices to Skyrocket A recent analysis warns that drug price controls scheduled to begin in 2026 will likely lead to higher costs for millions of seniors and disabled Americans who rely on Medicare Part D. Martin Hoyt

By on September 19th, 2024

https://amgreatness.com/2024/09/19/biden-harris-price-controls-causing-senior-drug-prices-to-skyrocket/

If there’s one axiom, we all know about Washington, D.C., is that it’s full of well-intentioned policies and unintended (read: harmful) consequences. A recent reminder of unintended policy consequences is the so-called Inflation Reduction Act (IRA). The IRA was passed in August 2022, and according to its champions in Congress and the White House, it was intended to reduce the federal government budget deficit, make investments in renewable energy, lower drug prices, and fight inflation.

Two years later, we’ve unfortunately re-learned that noble intentions don’t necessarily produce good policy. The IRA has failed to achieve its objectives in many ways. One significant problem involves the introduction of drug price controls, which take effect in 2026. Due to the IRA, the federal government now has wide-ranging authority to set the price of drugs through what’s known as the Medicare Drug Price Negotiation Program.

A recent analysis warns that these pricing provisions will likely lead to higher costs for millions of seniors and disabled Americans who rely on Medicare Part D. This shouldn’t come as a surprise – price controls simply don’t work, and when they’re implemented, someone will eventually have to pick up the tab.  Nor should it be surprising that government spending doesn’t reduce inflation. History shows quite the opposite.

The first group of impacted drugs includes ten medicines that have been selected to have a “maximum fair price” (MFP) set under the IRA. In 2024, Medicare beneficiaries typically pay fixed copays for most of these drugs. For millions of these beneficiaries, artificially fixed-drug costs will slow their progression toward their Part D out-of-pocket limit, making them pay more in out-of-pocket costs.

Continue reading →
ELECTIONS, NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Trump Didn’t Start The Fire

By on September 19th, 2024

https://issuesinsights.com/2024/09/19/trump-didnt-start-the-fire/

Could Trump tone down his rhetoric? Sure. But why should he go first?

For the second time in as many months, an assassin targeted Donald Trump, and the left blamed … Donald Trump. It’s his violent rhetoric, you see, that is poisoning the body politic and causing everyone to go crazy. Or something like that.

Never mind that the second would-be assassin, Ryan Routh, had written a book in which he called on Iran to assassinate Trump, gave money to Democrats, and posted on X in April using the exact same language Democrats have been pushing for years – “DEMOCRACY is on the ballot and we cannot lose. We cannot afford to fail. The world is counting on us to show the way.”

David Frum, who we called scum in this space after he wrote in immediate wake of the last assassination attempt that Trump reaped what he sowed, was back at it again. “For a decade, this dangerous political environment has been uniquely inflamed by Trump’s hate-filled rhetoric,” he wrote this week. Plus, he said, Trump supports gun rights. Implication? Trump had it coming.

Others, such as the Cincinnati Enquirer, put it more plainly: “Donald Trump brings a lot of this stuff on himself.”

Continue reading →
ANTI-SEMITISM Comments turned off

The Tradition of Jew-Hate by Nils A. Haug

By on September 19th, 2024

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/20946/tradition-of-jew-hate

If the demonstrators really cared about Palestinians, as the Muslim Arab journalist Bassam Tawil points out, “they would be speaking out against the repressive measures and human rights violations perpetrated by Hamas in the Gaza Strip…. instead of improving the living conditions of their people, Hamas and PIJ leaders are imposing new taxes and leading comfortable lives in Qatar, Lebanon and other countries. Instead of bringing democracy and freedom of speech to their people, the terror groups are arresting and intimidating journalists, human rights activists and political opponents.”

“Racial hatred and hysteria seemed to have taken complete hold of otherwise decent people,” said an eyewitness. “I saw fashionably dressed women clapping their hands and screaming with glee, while respectable middle-class mothers held up their babies to see the ‘fun.'” — Eyewitness to the November 9, 1938 Kristallnacht.

Jihadist media efforts, and especially massive donations to universities from Qatar and other oil-rich Islamic countries, have been so successful that many academics and students in Western tertiary educational institutions have been captivated by the narrow ideology of Jew-hate.

“The Palestinian people does not exist. The creation of a Palestinian state is only a means for continuing our struggle against the state of Israel for our Arab unity. In reality today there is no difference between Jordanians, Palestinians, Syrians and Lebanese. Only for political and tactical reasons do we speak today about the existence of a Palestinian people, since Arab national interests demand that we posit the existence of a distinct ‘Palestinian people’ to oppose Zionism.” — Zuheir Mohsen, PLO official, Trouw, March 1977.

In the jihadist view, Islam is the one true faith and therefore Christians, Jews, Hindus, and all other “disbelievers” are following a false religion and therefore can be righteously killed as apostates.

“[T]he Crusaders conquered Eretz Israel, reaching Jerusalem in 1099. Once there, they gathered all the Jews of Jerusalem into the central synagogue and set it afire. Other Jews, who had climbed to the roof of Al-Aksa mosque on the Temple Mount, were caught and beheaded.” — ‘The First Crusade,’ chabad.org

Continue reading →
NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION, WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

A Blanket Of Darkness Is Falling Over The West Armando Simón

By on September 19th, 2024

https://issuesinsights.com/2024/09/19/a-blanket-of-darkness-is-falling-over-the-west/

From Sweden and Germany, to Australia and New Zealand, to France and Finland, to America and Canada, to Armenia and Italy, to Britain and Ireland, a network of censorship has been developing and steadily solidifying. Censorship has even been imposed on scientists. Ironically, this blanket of darkness has occurred in those countries with the longest tradition of freedom, specifically of freedom of speech, assembly and of writing. Soon, the peoples of those countries will have to resort to samizdat.

When Musk took over Twitter and exposed the systematic censorship apparatus within the organization, he also revealed that part of the censorship was being carried out at the request of the Biden regime (Facebook likewise agreed to impose censorship). By doing so, he opened the window to what was, in fact, a governmental conspiracy to establish censorship, thereby ironically putting an end to the automatic dismissal of “conspiracy theories” for those persons who could not, or would not, connect the dots.

He also fired the vermin who were carrying out the censorship.

Leftists in the Biden regime were not happy. The White House is “keeping an eye” on Musk and X, and pseudo-President Biden has spoken out against Musk. In retaliation, the FTC was ordered to harass Musk. One would expect that the American media would support Musk, but the reverse is the case. Except for one.

By exposing to the light of day the existence this conspiratorial censorship and allowing X to become a truly free speech zone, he infuriated the totalitarian elites.

Continue reading →
ISRAEL Comments turned off

Israel turns the pager on terror with ruthless psychological masterstroke against Hezbollah Miranda Devine

By on September 19th, 2024

https://nypost.com/2024/09/18/opinion/israel-turns-the-pager-on-terror-with-ruthless-psychological-masterstroke-against-hezbollah/

Nobody likes to see humans writhing in agony, but Israel’s daring operation to simultaneously explode pagers in the pockets of Hezbollah terrorists and their associates this week was a ruthless tactical masterstroke. 

In bloody scenes captured on video on social media, men could be seen shopping or sitting on a motorbike one minute and on the ground moaning and covered in blood the next.

At least 12 people were killed and nearly 3,000 people were injured in Lebanon Tuesday, and a similar detonation of Hezbollah walkie-talkies the next day killed another 20 people and injured 450. 

In Hezbollah’s macho culture, the psychological blow of their warriors and officials getting their genitalia blown up is acute, and so is the signal sent to Iran, that no communications devices are safe after Israel managed to kill Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh under the noses of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps in Tehran by tracking his whereabouts via his cellphone.

Hence the terrorists’ migration to more primitive devices like pagers.  The ingenious “Paging Hezbollah” operation was about as surgical a strike on terrorists as you could get, although Lebanese authorities claimed two innocent children were killed in Tuesday’s attack, more tragic victims of a pointless war that Hamas started on Oct. 7 last year.

Dem sympathizers 

Of course, the Hamas sympathizers in the Democratic Party like Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez immediately condemned Israel with a passion that seems to evade them when Israeli civilians are raped and murdered.

There are no circumstances in which Israel is allowed to defend itself.

Continue reading →