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Ruth King

FOREIGN POLICY Comments turned off

The Trump foreign-policy team’s real problem The Yemen attack leak was a bad mistake. But a clueless Steve Witkoff’s embrace of Qatar and rationalization of Hamas betray the president’s realist agenda. Jonathan Tobin

By on March 27th, 2025

https://www.jns.org/the-trump-foreign-policy-teams-real-problem/?utm_campaign=

It was the gaffe that critics of the Trump administration have been praying for. However it happened, the inclusion of Atlantic  editor Jeffrey Goldberg in a group chat on the Signal App among the administration’s leading defense policymakers about an impending attack on the Houthis in Yemen, was a gob-smacking blunder of epic proportions.

It not only embarrassed participants in the conversion, like Vice President JD Vance, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, National Security Advisor Michael Waltz and Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard. It called into question the competence of President Donald Trump’s national-security team and the process by which it communicates and shares information at the highest level.

If, as appears to be the case, it was Waltz’s office that  was responsible for connecting Goldberg to the chat, it’s something he’ll never entirely live down, even if Trump is prepared to forgive him.

But as much as Goldberg’s unwitting scoop deserved the headlines and the endless discussions it generated, it was actually not the most troubling news event of the week for Trump’s national-security team.

The worst administration blunder didn’t involve the group chat about Yemen or any other issue that the president’s critics are obsessed with. Instead, it was the comments of Steve Witkoff, his special envoy to the Middle East, on “The Tucker Carlson Show” podcast. The interview made clear that the person Trump has tasked with conducting negotiations about the war in Gaza and the release of the hostages taken on Oct. 7, 2023, is utterly clueless about malign actors like Qatar, Iran and its terrorist proxies.

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NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Yes, Let’s Give An America ‘Without A Meaningful Government’ A Try

By on March 27th, 2025

https://issuesinsights.com/2025/03/27/yes-lets-give-an-america-without-a-meaningful-government-a-try/

Quite a few in this country are madly in love with government. They cannot conceive of life in which we are free agents, liberated from the chains of reckless lawmaking, imperious regulating and stifling bureaucracy. It’s a distorted world view.

And it’s one held by a couple of university academics, who claim “the U.S. government is attempting to dismantle itself,” with the Trump administration setting out “to create an America its people have never experienced – one without a meaningful government.”

Sidney Shapiro, Wake Forest University, and Joseph P. Tomain, University of Cincinnati, who last year wrote the book “How Government Built America,” summarize their thoughts in The Conversation. They write like apologists for statism, a nasty ideology that relies on coercion and interventionism and is the factory setting for those who wish to rule rather than govern within constitutional limits. It’s founded on the belief that says “government knows better than you, in regards to important matters,” and is poisonous to civil society.

The pair complain that President Donald Trump’s “aim to eliminate government could result in” a country “in which free-market economic forces operate without any accountability to the public.” Do they have any idea how far off they are?

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FOREIGN POLICY, NATIONAL SECURITY AND DEFENSE Comments turned off

The Houthi group-chat leak reveals some truly unserious people The Trump administration has too many chuckleheads and too few people of substance. Tim Black

By on March 26th, 2025

It is a security cock-up of monumental proportions.

We now know that a dozen senior Trump administration officials, including national-security adviser Michael Waltz, vice-president JD Vance and defence secretary Pete Hegseth, were using Signal, a commercial messaging service, to discuss the plan to launch airstrikes on Yemen’s Houthi rebels earlier this month. This in itself ought to set alarm bells ringing. To talk about highly sensitive, top-secret military plans, officials are required to use approved government equipment in a compartmented information facility, not a slightly flashier form of WhatsApp. For obvious reasons.

The reason we know about any of this is even more worrying. Earlier this month, Waltz – the guy charged with maintaining national security, no less – accidentally invited Jeffrey Goldberg, the editor-in-chief of the Trump-hating Atlantic, into this ‘Houthi PC small group’. It beggars belief. Waltz effectively gave a journalist diametrically opposed to the current administration a full view of the Trump White House’s military planning. Goldberg saw all the operational details of the then forthcoming strikes on Yemen. He saw which weapons were to be deployed, the identity of the targets and the sequencing of the attacks. He saw information that could have easily been used to harm US military and intelligence personnel in the Middle East. That it wasn’t is solely down to the fact that Goldberg has been careful about when and how he revealed what had happened, taking special care to withhold and redact key details.

So incredible was this security lapse that Goldberg didn’t believe it at first. He thought he was being entrapped. It was only when the US actually carried out the airstrikes on the Houthis on the day and time that had been discussed in the group that Goldberg finally accepted it was real. Waltz had genuinely given him a front-row seat into the innermost sanctum of the Trump administration. ‘Everyone in the White House can agree on one thing: Mike Waltz is a fucking idiot’, a source told Politico on Tuesday. They’re not wrong.

Of course this is not the first time US officials have used their own private emails or messaging apps to talk policy and share plans. As Goldberg himself notes, national-security officials do communicate on messaging apps like Signal, although they usually confine their chats to routine work matters, rather than top-secret plans to bomb militias in the Middle East.

It’s also a little rich watching Democrats and their media cheerleaders gorging themselves on this security fiasco. They really shouldn’t be chucking rocks, given the dilapidated state of their own glass house. In 2016, it emerged that state department official Jake Sullivan, later the national security adviser to Joe Biden, had been sending messages to Hillary Clinton’s infamous private email account, brimful with highly classified information.

Still, the lack of seriousness on show here is something to behold. These people occupy the most senior offices of state in America. Yet here they were chatting away about launching lethal airstrikes in Yemen on a messaging app, as if they were arranging a night out.

Vice-president Vance complained about ‘bailing Europe out again’, on the grounds that the Red Sea shipping route menaced by the Houthis is used more by European freight than American. To be fair, this is nothing Vance wouldn’t say to European leaders’ faces. But it does capture something of the incoherence of American First foreign policy – a nation at once determined to bend the world to its interests, while being reluctant to protect a shipping lane used by US tankers. The response of defence secretary Hegseth is even more telling for its caps-locked shrillness: ‘I share your loathing of European free-loading. It’s PATHETIC.’

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ANTI-SEMITISM, EDUCATION Comments turned off

Christopher F. Rufo Exporting the Columbia Prototype The Trump administration should leverage its successful approach to the troubled Ivy League university to fight anti-Semitism and racialism elsewhere.

By on March 26th, 2025

https://www.city-journal.org/article/exporting-the-columbia-prototype

Last week, the Trump administration won a high-stakes showdown with Columbia University. Following the October 7 terrorist attack against Israel, Columbia has been ground zero for pro-Hamas agitation on America’s campuses. It has seen marches, occupations, vandalism, and violence. In response, the White House threatened to withhold $400 million in public funding unless the university enacted meaningful reforms.

The administration’s hardball approach paid off: Columbia has now acceded to virtually all the administration’s demands. The university has banned masked protests, boosted campus security, and established administrative oversight over its radical “post-colonial” academic departments, which have been hotbeds of anti-Semitism and anti-Israel activism. The relationship between the White House and American universities now enters a new phase, and the Columbia episode could serve as a prototype for the administration’s approach going forward.

The administration should understand that anti-Semitism is just part of the Left’s ideological nesting doll. For campus activists, the Jews are the Middle East’s oppressors, while the Palestinians are the oppressed and are therefore justified in violent revolution. The narrative is attractive because it can be scaled symbolically: in the progressive imagination, Israel is to the Palestinians as white America is to black America and as Western society is to the Third World. Anti-Semitism is a stand-in for anti-whiteness and, ultimately, for anti-Western ideologies.

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NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Mahmoud Khalil and the Red-Green Assault on American Sovereignty The “public face of protest against Israel.” by Josh Hammer

By on March 26th, 2025

https://www.frontpagemag.com/mahmoud-khalil-and-the-red-green-assault-on-american-sovereignty/

The stock market of late has been on a veritable roller coaster, Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency continues to ruffle feathers, Iran marches ever harrowingly closer to a nuclear weapon, and Russia and Ukraine get tantalizingly close to a ceasefire. But the national political conversation this week has curiously tended to focus not on any of that but instead on the uncertain fate of a lone noncitizen and former Columbia University graduate student, Mahmoud Khalil.

Talk about a misplacement of priorities. Most American media consumers care a great deal about their pocketbooks and retirement accounts. They likely also care about stability on the world stage — a subdued China, a relatively calm Middle East and a long-overdue peace deal to end the bloodshed in Eastern Europe.

By contrast, here is one thing media consumers probably don’t care a lot about: whether a Syrian national and Algerian citizen who was the face of last year’s violent pro-Hamas Columbia University campus riots gets deported. You would never know that, of course, from the media’s incessant focus on the Khalil saga. Is it any wonder that only 31% of Americans told Gallup last fall they have a “great deal” or “fair amount” of confidence in the media?

In any event, Khalil is, by any metric, a wildly unsympathetic figure. The New York Times described him as the “public face of protest against Israel” at Columbia. He was the spokesman of a pro-Hamas student group called Columbia University Apartheid Divest. CUAD has referred to the Oct. 7 slaughter of Israelis as a “moral, military, and political victory” and asserted that it is fighting for nothing less than the “total eradication of Western civilization.” Khalil personally distributed propaganda pamphlets titled “Our Narrative — Operation Al-Aqsa Flood,” borrowing Hamas’s code name for Oct. 7.

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POLITICS Comments turned off

Rep. Jasmine Crockett mocks Texas’s wheelchair-bound governor Abbott as ‘Gov. Hot Wheels,’ then keeps digging By Monica Showalter

By on March 26th, 2025

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2025/03/rep_jasmine_crockett_mocks_texas_s_wheelchair_bound_governor_abbott_as_gov_hot_wheels_then_keeps_digging.html

Rep. Jasmine Crockett of Texas is fairly new on the job in the House, but already being touted as the Democrats’ great presidential hope for 2028.

She’s young, she’s pretty, she offends Republicans, much as Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, lately seen sporting mom jeans stuffed over her increasingly stout figure, once did in her heyday.

The New York Times has been particularly solicitous of this Hollywood-style big buildup, calling Crockett “an influential surrogate of the Kamala Harris campaign,” and cited her “stardom,” and claiming she’s “one of the party’s most effective communicators.”

Others have called her “the unquestioned leader of her party.”

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ENVIRONMENT AND JUNK SCIENCE Comments turned off

Challenging the Climate Crisis Narrative The climate crisis narrative ignores real issues like poor infrastructure and overpopulation, pushing costly policies that hurt economies while failing to improve resilience. By Edward Ring

By on March 26th, 2025

https://amgreatness.com/2025/03/26/challenging-the-climate-crisis-narrative/

According to the United Nations, “Climate change is a global emergency that goes beyond national borders.” From the World Economic Forum, “Urgent global action must be taken to reduce emissions and safeguard human health from the multi-pronged negative impacts of climate change globally.”

From every multinational institution in the world, we hear the same message. From the World Bank, “The world is battling a perfect storm of climate, conflict, economic, and nature crises.” From the World Health Organization, “Between 2030 and 2050, climate change is expected to cause approximately 250,000 additional deaths per year from malnutrition, malaria, diarrhea, and heat.”

A major problem with all this unanimity over this “emergency” is the fact that for at least half of all people living in Western nations in 2025, the UN, WEF, WHO, and World Bank have no credibility. We don’t want to “own nothing and be happy” as our middle class is crushed. We don’t want the only politically acceptable way to maintain national economic growth to rely on population replacement. And with only the slightest numeracy, we see apocalyptic proclamations as lacking substance.

For example, while 250,000 “additional deaths per year” is tragic, worldwide estimates of total deaths are not quite 70 million per year. These “additional deaths” constitute a 0.36 percent increase over that baseline, just over one-third of one percent. Not even a rounding error.

Similarly, an alarmist prediction from NASA is that “Antarctica is losing ice mass (melting) at an average rate of about 150 billion tons per year, and Greenland is losing about 270 billion tons per year, adding to sea level rise.” Let’s unpack that a bit. A billion tons is a gigaton, equivalent in volume to one cubic kilometer. So Antarctica is losing 150 cubic kilometers of ice per year. But Antarctica has an estimated total ice mass of 30 million cubic kilometers. Which means Antarctica is losing about one twenty-thousandth of one percent of its total ice mass per year. That is well below the accuracy of measurement. It is an estimate, and the conclusion it suggests is of no significance.

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MEDIA, NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

How Are The Media Treating Trump In His Second Term? (Hint: It’s Not Better): I&I/TIPP Poll Terry Jones

By on March 26th, 2025

https://issuesinsights.com/2025/03/26/how-are-the-media-treating-trump-in-his-second-term-hint-its-not-better-ii-tipp-poll/

President Donald Trump had a rough ride with the media during his first term. Big media and smaller social media alike often treated Trump with open scorn, and peppered him with insulting epithets, calling him “fascist” or even “Hitler.” Is it better this time? Not much: A majority in the latest I&I/TIPP Poll say he’s still being treated the same or worse as back then.

There’s little doubt, even among those on the left, that Trump is deeply reviled by the mostly left-leaning media. His braggadocio, his aggressive leadership style, his creatively unorthodox policies, his personal fearlessness and his overall popularity have kept Trump a media target.

The national online I&I/TIPP Poll of 1,434 adults, taken Feb. 26-28, asked this simple question: “Compared to his first term, how is the press treating Donald Trump?” The possible responses included “Better,” “Worse,” “The same,” and “Not sure.”

A plurality, 40%, said Trump was being treated about the same as the last go-round, while 16% said things had gotten worse. A sizable 31% felt his treatment by the media was better this time, while 12% weren’t sure. The poll’s margin of error is +/-2.6 percentage points.

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FOREIGN POLICY, WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Iran Apparently Planning to Outwit or Outwait Trump, Not Relinquish Its Nuclear Programme by Con Coughlin

By on March 26th, 2025

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/21505/iran-plans-outwit-outwait-trump

“Something’s going to happen one way or the other. I hope that Iran — and I’ve written him a letter, saying, ‘I hope you’re going to negotiate.’ Because if we have to go in militarily, it’s going to be a terrible thing — for them.” — US President Donald J. Trump, interview with Fox News, March 7, 2025.

So long as the Islamic Republic of Iran indulges in its usual tactic of prevarication in the hope that, by engaging in delaying tactics, it can buy more time to achieve its nuclear ambitions, the credibility of the Trump administration taking direct action against Tehran needs to increase.

Iran’s demand, for example, that it might consider opening negotiations with Washington if the Trump administration first agreed to lift punitive economic sanctions, is a classic exercise in the regime’s attempts to play for time.

Iran’s refusal to accept US President Donald Trump’s demand that it completely dismantle its controversial nuclear programme, which Western intelligence officials are convinced is ultimately designed to build nuclear weapons, raises the very real risk of the US launching direct military action to destroy the programme.

Trump’s initial offer to negotiate an end to Iran’s nuclear programme was contained in a letter he wrote to the ayatollahs on March 7, in which he indicated he was willing to engage in talks concerning Iran’s nuclear activities. But the letter also contained an explicit warning that any failure by Tehran to respond positively to his overture could lead to direct military action.

The Trump administration’s determination to end the threat posed by Iran’s nuclear ambitions once and for all was confirmed by the recent revelation by the Axios news website which, quoting a US official and other sources, said the American president had set a “two-month deadline for reaching a new nuclear deal.”

The new administration’s focus on Iran was confirmed by Steve Witkoff, Trump’s envoy, who confirmed in an interview with Fox News that Trump’s personal approach to Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, was aimed at avoiding direct military action.

“We don’t need to solve everything militarily… Our signal… to Iran is ‘Let’s sit down and see if we can, through dialogue, through diplomacy, get to the right place’. If we can, we are prepared to do that. And if we can’t, the alternative is not a great alternative.”

Meanwhile, US National Security Advisor Mike Waltz has warned that Iran needs to “hand over and give up” all elements of its nuclear programme including missiles, weaponization and enrichment of uranium “or they can face a whole series of other consequences,” adding that “Iran has been offered a way out of this.”

The latest comments made by Witkoff and Waltz reflect a deepening resolve with the Trump administration to end Iran’s long-running nuclear plans. As Trump himself remarked after announcing his initial overture to Iran, “You can’t let them have a nuclear weapon.”

“The time is coming up. Something’s going to happen one way or the other. I hope that Iran — and I’ve written him a letter, saying, ‘I hope you’re going to negotiate.’ Because if we have to go in militarily, it’s going to be a terrible thing — for them.”

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ISRAEL Comments turned off

No Difference Between Hamas ‘Politicians’ And Terrorists by Khaled Abu Toameh

By on March 25th, 2025

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/21506/hamas-politicians-terrorists

“They [Hamas] need to demilitarize, and then they might be politically involved in Gaza.” —US Special Envoy to the Middle East Steve Witkoff, interview with Tucker Carlson, March 21, 2025.

“I thought we had an acceptable deal. I even thought we had an approval from Hamas. Maybe that’s just me getting duped.” — Steve Witkoff, about a ceasefire extension he thought he had just finished negotiating, Fox News, March 23, 2023.

Duped is putting it mildly. Witkoff, who doubtless has the best intentions, is sadly proving the perfect mark.

Hamas is an offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood, an organization that needs to be designated by the US as a terrorist group. Hamas is Muslim Brotherhood, and Muslim Brotherhood is Hamas.

[Hamas’s] politicians devise the strategy and set the goals, while its armed wing is entrusted with following them. The political leadership of Hamas ruled that Israel must be eliminated, and the group’s military wing has carried out countless terrorist attacks to achieve that goal.

The political leaders need the military wing to control the Palestinians of the Gaza Strip, as they have been doing since their violent coup there in 2007.

Hamas, which has brought death and destruction upon both Israelis and Palestinians, has no right to exist, either as a political or a military entity. Did it ever occur to anyone to allow the political leaders of ISIS or Al-Qaeda to play any role in Syria and Iraq?

If Hamas is permitted to continue its political activities in the Gaza Strip, it will comfortably continue its jihad against Israel. The group’s political leaders will undoubtedly continue to call – in Arabic — for the annihilation of Israel and encourage Palestinians to launch terrorist attacks against it.

Witkoff’s talk about a possible political role for Hamas is dangerous, mainly because it implies that the US continues to view the terror group as a legitimate player in the Palestinian arena. If the US envoy wants to see stability and security in the Middle East, he must insist on the complete and permanent removal of Hamas – all of its “wings.” Destroying “much” of Hamas’s military capabilities or disarming it is totally worthless.

US President Donald Trump’s envoy to the Middle East, Steve Witkoff, said last week that he does not rule out the possibility that the Iran-backed Palestinian terror group Hamas could be politically active in the Gaza Strip after it disarms. “They [Hamas] need to demilitarize, and then they might be politically involved in Gaza,” Witkoff said in an interview with Tucker Carlson that was aired on March 21.

Witkoff — who, thanks to his excruciating lack of familiarity with Arab assumptions apart from real estate deals, is increasingly becoming a major embarrassment to Trump — appears to draw a distinction between Hamas’s political and military leaderships. He also seems naïve enough to believe that Hamas would ever agree to lay down its weapons or halt its terrorist attacks against Israel.

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