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Ruth King

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Weaponizing Death Death is traumatic enough, without searching for ways to gain political traction from it.  By Victor Davis Hanson

By on May 11th, 2023

https://amgreatness.com/2023/05/10/weaponizing-death/

Recently there has been a spate of horrific murders.

The killers, whether committing mass shootings or single homicides, are hard to stereotype.

They can be clearly either mentally ill or simply innately evil. They can kill for revenge, for ideological purposes, out of hatred, for notoriety—or for no known reason at all.

They are probably left-wing and right-wing, white, black, and brown, young, and old. While their weapons of choice are semiautomatic rifles, there are plenty of killers who favor handguns and even knives.

Unfortunately, these tragedies increasingly have become politicized.

Yet our media and politicians do not apply a common standard of reporting about either the victims, the killers, or the apparent motives and circumstances of the violence.

Instead, each horror is quickly analyzed for its political usefulness. Then its details are electively downplayed or emphasized, depending upon the political agenda at work.

A sad example was the terrible murder spree at the private Christian Covenant School in Nashville. A transgender male lethally shot six people, including three 9-year-old children.

Almost immediately, three media narratives emerged.

One, semiautomatic weapons, not the killer Audrey Hale, were mostly responsible for the massacre.

Two, the shooter’s transgender identity profile played no role in the killing whatsoever.

Three, the public had no need to know of the contents of the shooter’s “manifesto.”

Why?

The media and authorities apparently assumed Hale’s written rantings tried to justify the murders because of Christianity’s supposed disapproval of transgenderism.

That censored reaction to the Tennessee shooting was quite different from another mass murder committed nearly six weeks later in Allen, Texas by a former security guard Mauricio Garcia.

Within minutes of the identification of the shooter, the media blared that Garcia wore pro-Nazi insignia and was thus a “white supremacist.”

Apparently that narrative was deemed useful to promote the idea of white supremacist terrorists using their semiautomatic “assault” weapons to kill for right-wing agendas.

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IMMIGRATION Comments turned off

Biden Applies Soros’ Open-Border Policy By Rachel Ehrenfeld

By on May 11th, 2023

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2023/05/biden_applies_soros_openborder_policy.html

If you wonder what’s behind the Biden administration’s enablement of millions of so-called “asylum seekers” from some 160 countries to flow through what used to be the U.S.-Mexico border and hundreds of thousands more through the northern border, thus diminishing the nation’s sovereignty, start with George Soros, who dedicated the last three decades and tens of billions of dollars to reshaping America to his vision, craftily termed “Open Society.”

Soros began challenging the United States’ national sovereignty in 1996. As Soros tells it, he became enraged by new federal laws signed by President Bill Clinton.

The Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act “required state professional and occupational licenses to be withheld from undocumented immigrants,” thus, restricting food stamps and Supplemental Security Income Benefits to non-citizens. Soros declared this was “a clear-cut case of injustice.”

This was followed by the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act (IIRIRA), which aimed to reduce the surge of illegal immigration to the US. The IIRIRA “increased penalties on immigrants who had violated U.S. law in some way (whether they were unauthorized immigrants who’d violated immigration law or legal immigrants who’d committed other crimes)” and required their detention and fast-tracking deportation. The Lazarus Fund, created through Soros’s Open Society Institute, believed that this kind of “open hostility” (against lawbreakers, mind you) was “antithetical to the values of an open society.”

The first U.S. naturalizing law of 1790 required that the applicant be a “free white person” with a “good moral character” who resided in the country for two years. In 1870, the law was amended to include applicants of African origin. According to the PEW Research Center, “Starting in 1875, a series of restrictions on immigration were enacted. They included bans on criminals, people with contagious diseases, polygamists, anarchists, beggars, and importers of prostitutes.” In 1965, “the landmark Immigration and Nationality Act created a new system favoring family reunification and skilled immigrants.”

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NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

The Green New Deal and ‘Chinafication’ of the United States Bringing economic ruin to America – while benefiting China and its ruling class. by Scott S. Powell

By on May 11th, 2023

https://www.frontpagemag.com/the-green-new-deal-and-chinafication-of-the-united-states/

We are living through extraordinary times, not too different from what was portrayed in The Matrix—a 1999 science fiction film that depicted humanity being unknowingly trapped in a false reality. In truth, we are being deceived on a range of important and vital matters by a deep state ruling class residing in U.S. Government, universities, media, and business corporations.

Members of this ruling class work behind the scenes to create narratives to redirect resources and power to their benefit. Programs with greatest mass appeal are often those wrapped in some moral or social justice cause, crafted with compelling catchphrases. The most captivating causes are often those that include a global vision—such as saving the earth. This explains the appeal of the Green New Deal, although common sense, history, science, and economics reveal that it is more hoax than real.

It is important to understand that many elites who push these narratives have little affection for the U.S. and identify with China and the World Economic Forum on many matters. What is different now for us—the American people—than previous times is the large number of U.S. government agencies that have fallen under the sway of narratives and collude with the technology information sector.  As a result, First Amendment laws are being violated with social media companies effectively acting as subsidiaries of government agencies carrying out those agencies’ unconstitutional directives to block or cancel those with contrary views, effectively denying them access to mainstream and social media. Thus, narratives and propaganda, however distorted or false, often advance because well-reasoned dissent from prominent experts is censored.

Great harm against the United States has been incurred recently by this information-blocking duopoly.

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NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

We Are Living in a World Made for Satire The degradation has reached levels of absurdity not found in even the best satires. by Bruce Thornton

By on May 11th, 2023

https://www.frontpagemag.com/we-are-living-in-a-world-made-for-satire/

The great Roman satirist Juvenal once said that the “monstrous city” of Rome makes it “hard not to write satire” and “fill a whole notebook” with scenes of corruption, vice, and sheer stupidity. I think of Juvenal more and more these days, as our own moral, political, social, and intellectual degradation reaches levels of absurdity not found in even the best satires.

Indeed, our culture and politics are so bizarre and surreal that the scenes we witness every day make satire redundant.

One example that would shock even a satirist like Juvenal or Jonathon Swift is the “transgender” phenomenon. Swift, in his early 18th century brilliant satire Gulliver’s Travels, describes the Academy of Projectors who carry out various preposterous experiments such as extracting sunlight from cucumbers, turning excrement back into food, and building houses from the roof down.

But our attempts to change biological males into females or biological females into males no doubt would have struck Swift as beyond satiric. Perhaps more incredible would be the credentialed  medical doctors who ignore their oath to “first do no harm,” and participate in the poisoning and irreversible mutilation of healthy, if troubled, young people and even pre-teens, including toddlers as young as two.

But that’s just the start of the absurdities. Who at the beginning of the 21st century could have imagined the military services––organizations whose members provide the serious and important service of fighting, killing, and dying for their county––wasting time and money subjecting their members to training in the protocols of made-up pronouns? Or, as Alabama Senator Tommy Tuberville wrote in the Wall Street Journal, selecting a  “non-binary” lieutenant to read a poem to the whole crew of an aircraft carrier during an “LGBTQ spoken-word night”?

And despite the warning provided by the massive drop in sales of Bud Light, after making a poncy transexual in campy drag its unofficial spokesman, the Navy “tapped another self-described nonbinary sailor to become the Navy’s first ‘Digital Ambassador,’” Tuberville writes. He adds, the “concern is that our new national obsession with sexuality, race and gender is focused on self rather than on purpose, ability or service”–– especially at a time when the Navy, like the other services, is facing record shortfalls in recruitment.

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FOREIGN POLICY Comments turned off

The Cost of Obama’s Foreign Policy By Mike Watson

By on May 11th, 2023

https://www.nationalreview.com/magazine/2023/05/15/the-cost-of-obamas-foreign-policy/?utm_source=recirc-desktop&utm_medium=homepage&utm_campaign=river&utm_content=featured-content-trending&utm_term=first

His worldview conduced to American decline

As the GOP primary season gets under way, the foreign-policy conversation in Washington has dwelt on how long Republicans will support Ukraine’s attempts to defend itself against Russian aggression. But there are too many hot spots for Ukraine to continue to dominate the news — and lawmakers’ attention — for long: China’s ongoing military buildup threatens to upset the balance of power in the Indo-Pacific. It is also making inroads in the Middle East, where Iran has nearly attained weapons-grade uranium and its terrorist allies are stepping up their rocket attacks on Israel. The United States faces the prospect of simultaneous major conflicts in several strategically important theaters.

The brewing crisis for the American-led international order is readily apparent, but its roots are more obscure. Fifteen years ago, the prospects of a major war in Europe and of the U.S. military’s losing control of the Western Pacific were remote; today, one has materialized, and the other may be close at hand. How did a country as dominant as the United States let events slip out of its control so quickly?

Much of the blame must lie with the Obama administration for initiating a series of disastrous policies and the Biden administration for continuing them. Toward the end of his presidency, Barack Obama articulated many of his foreign-policy views to Jeffrey Goldberg, the editor in chief of the Atlantic. Reexamining them now, one is struck by the many ways in which he was wrong, with great consequence.

As Obama saw it, the United States had been obsessed with the wrong issues. Unlike ISIS, which was “not an existential threat to the United States” but had nonetheless fixed the country’s attention, “climate change is a potential existential threat to the entire world if we don’t do something about it.” And Obama feared that by focusing on terrorism instead of on the plights and aspirations of young people in the developing world, the United States was “missing the boat.” At a time when rival powers were on the prowl, the White House focused on nebulous issues such as the climate and global development.

Obama partly acknowledged great-power challenges, of course. He thought “the relationship between the United States and China” was “going to be the most critical” in the ensuing years. Former defense secretary Ash Carter said Obama believed that Asia was “the part of the world of greatest consequence to the American future,” and that “no president can take his eye off of this.” Hence the signature foreign-policy slogan of Obama’s first term, the “pivot to Asia.”

This did not make him a hawk by any means. Rather, he said we had “more to fear from a weakened, threatened China than a successful, rising China.” China, Obama repeated, was “on a peaceful rise.” In Beijing, Washington could find “a partner that is growing in capability and sharing with us the burdens and responsibilities of maintaining an international order.”

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ELECTIONS Comments turned off

The 2020 Race Obsession Haunts Democrats By Noah Rothman

By on May 11th, 2023

https://www.nationalreview.com/2023/05/the-2020-race-obsession-haunts-democrats/

The ‘defund the police’ and BLM rhetoric that thrilled in 2020 has become a political albatross.

In the early summer of 2020, Americans emerged from lockdown starved for social contact, commonality, and purpose. They were provided relief when the arrest-related murder of George Floyd ignited a social movement, and some of the most aggressive enforcers of the Covid-lockdown, social-isolation regime inexplicably endorsed joining that mass movement in the streets. What followed was a campaign of occasionally violent revolutionary agitation, in the name of Black Lives Matter. In that year, the “anti-racist” ideology that drew its strength from that movement made a variety of demands on Democratic lawmakers; those elected officials often consented to the demands. Today, they’re still paying for that lapse in judgment.

For example, California’s governor, Gavin Newsom, signed a bill in September 2020 creating a commission composed of “a colloquium of scholars” to study the prospect of paying reparations to California’s black residents. Newsom contended at the time that Donald Trump’s presence in the Oval Office forced his hand. But he endorsed the measure because BLM activists demanded it, and he believed that his political prospects depended on their support. This week, the bill for Newsom’s acquiescence came due.

In its final recommendations, the California Reparations Task Force advocated direct cash payments (no grants or credits) to every black resident of California as compensation for a variety of alleged racism-related harms. Offenses for which African-American residents can seek restitution include housing discrimination, “over-policing and mass incarceration,” disparate health outcomes, and a variety of other manifestations of racial prejudice, both real and debatable. The task force imagined that little scrutiny would be applied to potential applicants for remuneration. Theoretically, the payouts could amount to well over $1 million apiece for some applicants, and satisfying the task force’s deeply unpopular demands might cost the state more than twice its total annual operating budget. It’s hardly surprising that the commission’s unrealistic proposals rapidly dampened Newsom’s enthusiasm for the project.

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EDUCATION Comments turned off

Mandatory DEI Statements At Universities: They’re Distasteful, But Are They Legal? Tom Hafer and Henry I. Miller

By on May 11th, 2023

https://issuesinsights.com/2023/05/10/mandatory-dei-statements-at-universities-theyre-distasteful-but-are-they-legal/

“So, we say to all university presidents, starting with our own, MIT President Sally Kornbluth: Tear down this wall of hypocrisy and immorality. Disavow the use of mandatory DEI statements in any aspect of hiring, promotion, or admissions.”

Many U.S. universities now require Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) statements in applications for tenure-track professorships and even for graduate students. Often, rather than demonstrated excellence or promise, it is the first filter for applicants. You may be a latter-day Einstein, but if your DEI statement says something like, “I abhor discrimination and treat all people equally, regardless of race or gender,” you will be out of luck because you’re out of step with contemporary DEI virtue signaling.

What is DEI, and what are its shortcomings as a filter? Let us start with the words themselves. Here is what Google (via Oxford Languages) says for diversity: “The practice or quality of including or involving people from a range of different social and ethnic backgrounds and of different genders, sexual orientations, etc.”  Note that the New Age definition omits any mention of a range of different ideas or viewpoints. But it is precisely new ideas that will spur progress in the arts, science, and technology, not a mix of superficial differences such as skin color and gender.

But worse than this (pseudo) Diversity is Equity. Many people mistakenly conflate equity with equality, but there is a world of difference. For example, here are the definitions used by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Mechanical Engineering Department:

The goal of equity is to ensure fair treatment. It differs from the principle of equality in that equality affords everyone the same treatment, while the principle of equity acknowledges existing inequalities and adjusts and tailors resources to afford everyone equal opportunity. … Finally, we measure equity based on outcome rather than intent. If a policy, program, activity, building or other physical structure contributes to inequities, then it is unjust and must be modified to ensure all members of the community can thrive. (Emphasis added.)

In other words, if members of a certain group perform poorly on tests, it is the fault of the test (and those who constructed it), so it must be modified by eliminating it, lowering the bar for a passing grade, or inflating the grades of the underperformers.

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NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Just 27% Back Biden On The Debt Ceiling Fight: I&I/TIPP Poll Terry Jones

By on May 11th, 2023

https://issuesinsights.com/2023/05/11/just-27-back-biden-on-the-debt-ceiling-fight-ii-tipp-poll/

There’s always a lot riding on a showdown between a president and Congress over raising the federal debt ceiling to avoid a government shutdown. But this year, as the 2024 election year looms, the stakes are particularly high. That could be bad news for President Joe Biden, the latest I&I/TIPP Poll shows, since his positions on debt, taxes and spending lack majority support even from Democratic voters.

For our May online I&I/TIPP Poll, taken May 3-5 with a margin of error of +/-2.6 percentage points, we asked 1,480 adults across the country the following question:

“At $31.5 trillion and rising, the U.S. government debt is close to its ‘ceiling,’ the legal limit before all non-essential government functions must shut down. Which of the following is closest to your position in dealing with this problem?”

Respondents were given three possible answers.

The first represents the president’s basic negotiating position, as of late April: “Congress should raise the debt ceiling with no controls on spending.”

The second response represents the negotiating position of House Speaker Kevin McCarthy and Republican lawmakers: “Congress should raise the debt ceiling by $1.5 trillion in exchange for $5 trillion in cuts over the next decade, as proposed by the House Speaker.”

The third response: “If President Biden and Congress can’t make a deal, Congress should do nothing and let nonessential parts of the government shut down.”

The breakdown of the answers showed a clear preference (46%) for the congressional proposal over Biden’s take-it-or-leave-it plan (27%).

And 28% said if the two sides can’t agree, Congress should just let the nonessential parts of the government close until a deal is struck.

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ISRAEL Comments turned off

The Real Meaning of ‘From The River To The Sea, Palestine Will Be Free’ by Bassam Tawi

By on May 11th, 2023

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/19641/palestine-river-to-sea

It is impossible to imagine that the anti-Israel activists have no idea that the chant is a common call-to-arms for those who want to destroy Israel.

The slogan reflects the wishes of Iran and its terror proxies — especially Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad and Hezbollah — to replace Israel with a 57th Islamic state – from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea.

Iranian leaders and officials have often repeated that their goal is to “wipe Israel off the map.”

By using this slogan, Iran and Hamas are saying, bluntly…that the land stretching from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea is all Muslim-owned land that cannot be given away to any non-Muslims.

Article 11 of the Hamas charter leaves no room for doubt; it is straightforwardly genocidal: “The Islamic Republic Movement (Hamas) believes that the land of Palestine is an Islamic Waqf consecrated for future Muslim generations until Judgement Day. It, or any part of it, should not be squandered; it, or any part of it, should not be given up.”

Articles 13 of the Hamas charter openly advocates the use of violence to kill Jews and eliminate Israel: “There is no solution for the Palestinian question expect through Jihad (holy war).”

Article 15 of the Hamas charter goes on to argue that “Jihad is the individual duty of every Muslim…It is necessary to instill the spirit of Jihad in the heart of the nation so that they would confront the enemies and join the ranks of the fighters.”

The anti-Israel activists who chant “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” are — whether they know it or not — endorsing the ideology of Iran’s mullahs, Hamas and other terror groups that have long worked to achieve their goal of destroying Israel.

These activists, who often describe themselves as “pro-Palestinian,” do not actually care about Palestinians or “freeing Palestine.” If they did, they would instead be calling for better opportunities for Palestinians; Palestinian governance that was less corrupt; the equal application under Palestinian leadership of the rule of law; women’s and children’s rights, and freedom of speech, assembly and the press.

The current protestors are nothing but Israel-haters — really, anti-Semites — who have aligned themselves with Muslim extremists and terrorists.

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IMMIGRATION Comments turned off

150,000 Illegal Aliens Massed at the Border, Ready to Cross When Title 42 Ends By Rick Moran

By on May 11th, 2023

There were 10,000 illegal alien encounters at the border on Sunday alone, according to the border patrol. Estimates up and down the southern border indicate that at least 150,000 illegal aliens are prepared to cross the border at midnight when the pandemic-era program Title 42 will end.

The Biden administration isn’t ready. Not by a long shot.

Orders have gone out to all border patrol sectors. If there’s no room in shelters provided by NGOs, agents are to begin a “safe” release of illegal aliens to city streets. CBP facilities to house newcomers are already bursting at the seams and with NGO shelters already strained, it’s likely that thousands of illegal aliens — perhaps more — are going to be released at bus stops, gas stations, supermarkets, and in towns and cities across the border.

Those small towns and cities aren’t ready, either.

The potential for a humanitarian disaster is right in front of us. Large numbers of desperate people all trying to cross the border at once leave little room for error.

“The dam is about to break,” one Border Patrol source said.

Fox News:

The mass releases will only happen if NGOs run out of space, but officials believe that is likely. Officials have made 26,000 apprehensions and seen over 7,000 “gotaways” in just 72 hours, according to Border Patrol. That comes ahead of the end of the Title 42 public health order on Thursday, which is expected to be accompanied by an even bigger wave of migration on top of the already overwhelming numbers authorities are seeing.

The Biden administration has put into place several policies that they hope will stem the flow of illegals. There will be restrictions on families arriving at the border and single adults will be turned back if they transited through another country before arriving at the U.S. border. But asylum seekers will, with few exceptions, still be processed and released.

The predominantly single adult migrants are expected to be encouraged by the belief they have a greater chance of being admitted into the U.S. once the order ends. The Biden administration has said that is misinformation and has warned that it is stiffening penalties for illegal entry while urging migrants to use expanded legal pathways instead. However, the prospect of mass releases into the U.S. interior of those who have illegally entered the U.S., after crossing multiple countries to do so, is likely to undercut that narrative.

But even with the new policies, there’s going to be mass confusion at the border.

Axios:

The administration’s new policy will automatically reject asylum seekers who illegally cross into the U.S. without first seeking protection in a country they traveled through.

It’s a notable change from the U.S.’s longtime policy of giving people the right to seek asylum regardless of whether they crossed the border illegally. Title 42 also prevented migrants from seeking asylum, but was tied to public health concerns.

The new policy is expected to let more migrants be rapidly deported to their home countries or Mexico — and comes with severe penalties, including a five-year ban on re-entry.

Zoom in: There are many reasons migrants from Central and South America are overwhelming border communities now — but experts and officials say smugglers and cartels are part of the problem.

They often pounce on widespread confusion about U.S. border policies to recruit and exploit customers, experts say.

There was no way to avoid this situation after Biden lifted the pandemic emergency. With no pandemic, it was hard to justify using pandemic restrictions to limit illegal crossings at the border.

Related: Mexican President Calls DeSantis Illegal Immigration Bill ‘Immoral’

There are still policies the Biden administration could implement that would improve the situation, including tightening up asylum eligibility in order to prevent those border crossers from trying to game the system. But the open borders lobby has Biden in their hip pocket and he’s not likely to change America’s liberal asylum policies — unless Congress forces him to.

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