WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

U.S., U.K. Launch Air Strikes against Houthi Rebels in Response to Attacks on Ships in Red Sea By Brittany Bernstein

Posted By on January 12th, 2024

https://www.nationalreview.com/news/u-s-u-k-launch-air-strikes-against-houthi-rebels-in-response-to-attacks-on-ships-in-red-sea/

The U.S. and Britain launched air strikes in Yemen on Thursday in response to the Iran-backed Houthis’ recent attacks against vessels in the Red Sea.

The strikes came hours after White House national-security spokesman John Kirby called on the Houthis to “stop these attacks” and warned that the group would “bear the consequences for any failure to do so.”

The militants have launched 27 attacks on vessels in the Red Sea since November 19, the U.S. military said earlier on Thursday. The group says the attacks are in protest of the Israel–Hamas war.

The retaliatory strikes targeted a source of the group’s attacks, Bloomberg News reported, noting that heavy explosions were seen in the Yemeni capital of Sanaa and the port city of Al Hudaydah. The attacks were carried out with support from Australia, the Netherlands, Bahrain, and Canada, while the U.K. contributed aircraft.

President Biden confirmed the strikes in a statement on Thursday evening, explaining that the action was “in direct response to unprecedented Houthi attacks against international maritime vessels in the Red Sea — including the use of anti-ship ballistic missiles for the first time in history.”

ANTI-SEMITISM, EDUCATION Comments turned off

Harvard Students Sue University over Failure to Address ‘Severe and Pervasive’ Antisemitic Harassment on Campus By Brittany Bernstein

Posted By on January 12th, 2024

https://www.nationalreview.com/news/harvard-students-sue-university-over-failure-to-address-severe-and-pervasive-antisemitic-harassment-on-campus/

Harvard University students filed a lawsuit against university officials on Wednesday, claiming they have failed to protect Jewish students from “severe and pervasive” antisemitic harassment sparked by the Israel-Hamas war.

In a 79-page federal civil complaint, six Harvard graduate and law students who are members of Students Against Antisemitism say the university “has become a bastion of rampant anti-Jewish hatred and harassment.”

The suit says pro-Palestinian protests on campus have been rife with “vile” bigotry against Jews and Israel.

”Mobs of pro-Hamas students and faculty have marched by the hundreds through Harvard’s campus, shouting vile antisemitic slogans and calling for death to Jews and Israel,” the suit said. “Those mobs have occupied buildings, classrooms, libraries, student lounges, plazas, and study halls, often for days or weeks at a time, promoting violence against Jews and harassing and assaulting them on campus.”

Jewish students have also been met with antisemitic attacks online and in classes where faculty members have allegedly “promulgated antisemitism.”

“Harvard permits students and faculty to advocate, without consequence, the murder of Jews and the destruction of Israel, the only Jewish country in the world,” the complaint says. “Meanwhile, Harvard requires students to take a training class that warns that they will be disciplined if they engage in sizeism, fatphobia, racism, transphobia, or other disfavored behavior.”

The suit comes after Harvard president Claudine Gay resigned earlier this month amid mounting pressure over scandals involving her comments at a Congressional hearing on antisemitism on college campuses and over allegations that she had plagiarized in her past academic works.

ELECTIONS Comments turned off

Winner of the DeSantis-Haley Debate By Tom Bevan

Posted By on January 12th, 2024

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2024/01/11/winner_of_the_desantis-haley_debate_150313.html

After two hours of going at each other with hammer and tong, there was a clear winner at the debate between Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley at Drake University last night sponsored by CNN. But he wasn’t in the building.

Instead, Donald Trump was across town, speaking at a town hall hosted by a different cable network, floating the tantalizing claim that he has already chosen his running mate.

If it seems brazen to make an announcement before the first primary season votes have been cast, there’s a reason: With less than a week before the Iowa caucuses, Trump maintains a sizeable – possibly insurmountable – lead over his nearest rivals. A big victory for Trump next Monday night would put him in a position to run the table of early states and cruise toward the nomination – notwithstanding his mounting legal difficulties.

And, as has been the case so often through the primary process, the bickering and infighting among his main challengers that took place on the debate stage in Des Moines last night only served to help the former president’s campaign.

They didn’t waste any time on niceties, either.

In his opening statement, DeSantis rehashed Haley’s recent remarks in New Hampshire where she seemed to acknowledge Trump’s looming victory in Iowa by telling New Hampshire voters that they can “correct” Iowa’s caucus results.

“We don’t need another mealy-mouthed politician who just tells you what she thinks you want to hear just to try to get your vote, then to get into office and to do her donors’ bidding,” DeSantis said. 

HOMELAND SECURITY Comments turned off

Second Largest U.S. Land Owner Is a CCP Member

Posted By on January 12th, 2024

https://townhall.com/tipsheet/saraharnold/2024/01/11/second-largest-us-land-owner-is-a-ccp-member-n2633516

The second-largest foreign landowner in the United States is a member of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). 

According to a report reviewed by the Daily Caller, Chen Tianqiao— founder, chairman, and CEO of global investment firm Shanda Group, owns nearly 200,000 acres of land in Oregon. 

The Chinese national made billions from online gaming, making him one of the most significant non-American landholders in the U.S. In only five years, Tianqiao became one of China’s largest Internet companies, producing some of today’s most popular games, such as, “The Word of Legend,” “Dungeons & Dragons Online,” and “Final Fantasy XIV.”

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Bidenomics Is Working: Deficits Are Off To A Roaring Start

Posted By on January 12th, 2024

https://issuesinsights.com/2024/01/12/bidenomics-is-working-deficits-are-off-to-a-roaring-start/

“We the Democrats are the ones that are fiscally responsible. Let’s get that straight now.” — Joe Biden, October 2022

Just three months into the new fiscal year and the federal deficit already tops $500 billion. How’s that for being “fiscally responsible”?

The latest report from the Treasury Department shows that the federal deficit for October, November, and December of last year (which mark the first quarter of the government’s 2024 fiscal year), had already hit $509.9 billion.

That’s a 21% increase over the prior year. And if this pace holds true, we’re looking at $2 trillion deficits this year. (Biden’s own Treasury Department currently projects it to hit $1.9 trillion.)

The current surge is entirely driven by out-of-control spending. Revenues are so far coming in slightly above last year’s, but spending in the first quarter ballooned by $170 billion.

Spending on entitlement programs is up a relatively modest 4%. Defense spending is up 11%. Discretionary spending, however, is 23% higher so far this year than last – thanks in large part to Biden’s spending sprees.

ELECTIONS Comments turned off

Will Trump’s Rising Support From Minority Voters Put Him Back Into The White House? I&I/TIPP Poll Terry Jones

Posted By on January 12th, 2024

https://issuesinsights.com/2024/01/12/will-trumps-rising-support-from-minority-voters-put-him-back-into-the-white-house-ii-tipp-poll/

As 2023 has ended and a new year begun, those looking for a big change in the presidential polls for either major party may be disappointed. The I&I/TIPP Poll taken in early January shows that both President Joe Biden (69% support) and former President Donald Trump (65%) have big leads currently in the primaries for their respective parties.

With little competition so far from others, what about the head-to-head competition between Biden vs. Trump?

I&I/TIPP’s national online I&I/TIPP Poll of 1,247 registered voters taken Jan. 3-5 shows that Trump holds a slender 1 percentage-point lead over Biden if the election were held today. The actual numbers are 41% Trump, 40% Biden, a virtual statistical tossup given the poll’s +/-2.8 percentage point margin of error.
However, significant problems lurk for both candidates, but mainly for Biden, the data show.

Biden runs strongly in urban areas, taking 55% of that vote to Trump’s 31%. But the suburbs favor Trump 44% to Biden’s 38%, while Trump’s lead in rural areas is even larger: 49% Trump, 27% Biden. Urban voters in the I&I/TIPP survey make up just about 30% of all voters.

An even larger problem looms for Biden when it comes to minority voters, in particular blacks and Hispanics. In 2020, according to a Roper Survey exit poll of voters, Biden took an estimated 87% of the black vote and 65% of the Hispanic vote running against Trump, who received an estimated 12% of the black vote and 32% of the Hispanic tally.

This time around might be a surprise for the Democrats, who have long held a tight lock on the votes of the country’s two-largest minorities. Current I&I/TIPP data show Trump getting a near-identical level of Hispanic support as in 2020, 31%, but Biden’s backing has plunged from more than 60% to just 53%.

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Biden ‘Saves’ Democracy by Destroying it Victor Davis Hanson

Posted By on January 12th, 2024

https://victorhanson.com/biden-saves-democracy-by-destroying-it/

When faced with the possible return of President Donald Trump, the current agenda of the Democratic Party is summed up simply as “We had to destroy democracy to save it.”

The effort shares a common theme: any means necessary are justified to prevent the people from choosing their own president, given the fear that a majority might vote to elect Donald Trump.

Sometimes the anti-democratic paranoia has been outsourced to state and local officials and prosecutors to erase Trump from the primary and likely general election ballots as well.

One unelected official in Maine, Secretary of State Shenna Bellows, is a Democrat, an official never elected by the people, and a non-lawyer rendering a legal edict. Yet she has judged Trump guilty of “insurrection.”

And presto, she erased his name from the state’s ballot.

Yet Trump was never charged, much less convicted, of “insurrection.”

The statute Bellows cites is a post-Civil War clause of the 14th Amendment. It was passed over a century and a half ago. It was never intended to be used in an election year by an opposition party to disbar a rival presidential candidate.

In the earlier case of Colorado, the all-Democrat Supreme Court, in a 4-3 vote, took Trump off the ballot.

In sum, just five officials in two states have taken away the rights of some 7 million Americans to vote for the president of their choice.

ISRAEL Comments turned off

Charging Israel with Genocide is Orwellian By Lawrence J. Haas

Posted By on January 12th, 2024

https://nationalinterest.org/feature/charging-israel-genocide-orwellian-208514

Three months after a genocidal, anti-semitic terrorist group slaughtered 1,200 of its citizens in a barbaric fashion, Israel sits in the docket of the International Court of Justice, accused of committing genocide because it hasn’t defended itself from future attack as pristinely as the world demands.

The court is holding hearings this week on an application that South Africa filed in late December, asking the court to begin proceedings against Israel for committing genocide against Palestinians in Gaza.

“Acts and omissions by Israel,” South Africa wrote, “… are genocidal in character, as they are committed with the requisite specific intent… to destroy Palestinians in Gaza as a part of the broader Palestinian national, racial and ethnical group,” putting Israel “in violation of its obligations under the Genocide Convention.”

It is a quintessentially Orwellian affair, a spectacle of the victim as the perpetrator, and it fits within a longstanding pattern of the global community holding the singular Jewish state to a singular human rights standard. No one should buy it.

In its “Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide,” the United Nations General Assembly defined genocide as action “committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group.”

Ironically, it is Hamas, created in 1987 as the Palestinian branch of the Muslim Brotherhood movement, which has set out to commit that very crime—against Israel and the Jewish people.

WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Is Qatar, That Built Hamas’s Empire of Terrorism, An Honest Broker? by Bassam Tawil

Posted By on January 11th, 2024

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/20297/qatar-built-hamas-terrorism

If the ruler of Qatar really wanted to end the hostage saga, all he has to do is issue an ultimatum to Hamas that if the hostages are not released within, say, 48 hours, he will expel all the Hamas leaders who are still in Qatar and stop funding and providing political support to the group. Arab dictators are not known to be merciful toward those who defy them.

Apparently, Qatar does not feel that it is under any pressure from the Biden administration to end the ordeal of the hostages.

If Hamas released the hostages and laid down its weapons, the war would end tomorrow. However, with Biden and Blinken handling both Iran and Hamas’s patrons in Qatar with kid gloves, Doha and Tehran have no reason whatever to stop it.

The Biden administration is evidently continuing to pretend that Qatar, the Gulf state that funds and sponsors Hamas, is an honest broker in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Qatar, in addition to the billions of dollars it has been pouring on Hamas, is still hosting several leaders of Hamas, the Palestinian Islamist terror group, whose members, on October 7, 2023, beheaded, raped, tortured, burned alive more than 1,200 Israelis and kidnapped hundreds more.

Not only is Qatar far from being a neutral mediator, it is massively biased in favor of Hamas and other Islamist terror groups, including Hezbollah in Lebanon, the Houthis in Yemen, and Shiite militias in Iraq and Syria.

IMMIGRATION Comments turned off

Biden Admin Has Allowed 5 Million Illegal Aliens Into the Nation — Outpacing Yearly U.S. Births Sarah Arnold Sarah Arnold

Posted By on January 11th, 2024

https://townhall.com/tipsheet/saraharnold/2024/01/10/biden-admin-has-allowed-5-million-illegal-aliens-into-the-nation-outpacing-yearly-us-births-n2633466

Rep. Mark Green (R-TN) is blaming Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas for releasing at least 85 percent of illegal aliens into the U.S. without vetting them due to the administration’s Catch and Release program. Most of these immigrants will be given work permits— taking away vital work opportunities for American citizens. 

“All told, DHS numbers indicate that well over three million inadmissible aliens have been released into our country on Secretary Mayorkas’s watch. Factor in the 1.8 million known gotaways, and that’s roughly the population of the state of South Carolina,” Green said, suggesting that Mayorkas has allowed more illegal migrants into the nation from 2021 through 2023 than the number of babies born annually in the U.S.— which is fewer than four million.

“In Fiscal Year 2013, according to [the] DHS’s own numbers, the Obama administration detained 82 percent of illegal aliens from the moment they were encountered until their case was decided, and another nine percent were held for at least some portion of that time,” Green continued. “In Secretary Mayorkas’ first year on the job, that 82 percent number dropped to just ten percent. Illegal aliens not detained at all jumped from nine percent in FY 2013 to 64 percent in FY 2021.”

Green’s comments come as billionaire Elon Musk issued a warning to New York City residents after students were forced to attend remote classes as their school was used to house illegal migrants. 

In a tweet, Musk warned Americans that illegal aliens will soon come for American homes as schools, shelters, and hotel rooms become overwhelmed. 

“This is what happens when you run out of hotel rooms. Soon, cities will run out of schools to vacate. Then they will come for your homes,” Musk wrote.