In France, Muslim Mayhem and (Attempted) Murder Muslim migrants repay the French for their tolerance and inclusion. by Hugh Fitzgerald

https://www.frontpagemag.com/in-france-muslim-mayhem-and-attempted-murder/

To hear his friends tell it, and of course his mother, Nahel Merzouk, the 17-year-old Algerian-French young man who was shot by the police, was a splendid fellow, never in any trouble, so why did the police have to go and do what they did? But it turns out that, having nearly run over a bicyclist and a pedestrian, Nahel was finally forced to stop by two police officers. As one of them leaned over to talk to him, his pistol aimed downward into the car, Nahel suddenly accelerated the car with that policeman still leaning into, but not in it. As the car’s sudden movement forward knocked the officer off-kilter, in a split-second attempt to halt the driver, the policeman shot at what he thought was Nahel’s leg, which was where his gun had been pointed. But it no longer was, and the bullet instead hit Nahel’s chest.

The maghrébins all over France went on the rampage. Frenzied mobs in Paris, Marseille, and Bordeaux and hundreds of other cities and towns, pillaged and destroyed stores, choosing judiciously to hit the luxury-goods emporia on the rue de Rivoli, as well as Apple stores, the famed department store La Samaritaine, and high-end sneakers stores, making off everywhere with armfuls of loot. In one southern city, the Swarovski store was emptied, with everything smashed or stolen. So, too, was the optician’s store on the same block, where thousands of pairs of glasses were taken or destroyed, and next to it, a computer-and-phone store emptied of everything. And so on, store after store, destroyed and its merchandise stolen or smashed, all to express “the rage” of young Muslims over the death of the “angelic” Nahel Merzouk. By Sunday, Muslim mobs have torched many thousands of cars, and hundreds of buses all over the country. They tried to burn down the largest library in Marseille, the Alcazar, and as they did in so many other places, those mobs shouted “Allahu akbar.”

Are the French police too aggressive with drivers during traffic stops? Hardly. In the three years since 2020, there have been 21 fatalities among drivers. That comes to seven drivers a year who are shot. In the U.S., in the five years between 2017 and the beginning of 2022, there were a total of 600 fatalities, or 120 a year. 120 a year in the U.S., 7 a year in France.

Flood at the Border Sinks Biden 200,000 people from all over the world crossed illegally last month. by John and Andy Schlafly

https://www.frontpagemag.com/flood-at-the-border-sinks-biden/

President Biden avoids and keeps far away from our nation’s wide-open southern border, where 200,000 people from all over the world crossed illegally last month and every month since Biden took office almost 30 months ago. But his chief Democrat rival, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., went to the border town of Yuma, Arizona on June 6, and had some choice words for Biden’s failed policy.

“It was like a dystopian nightmare,” Kennedy said, “with all of these desperate people flooding across the wall, in a situation that clearly could have been prevented. People from all over the world, from Africa, from Uzbekistan, from Senegal, from Pakistan, Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, Nepal, Tibet, India, Bangladesh, Peru, Colombia, we saw all of these people, these hundreds and hundreds of people coming across.

“We’ve watched about 150 people come across in the last hour,” Kennedy continued. “Altogether, people have come across right here from 117 nations in the last couple of years. In 3 years, in total, 7 million people have come across the border illegally into our country.

“And from here, they’re put on these buses, and they’re brought to the border patrol station where they’re processed. After four or five days, they’re released on their own recognizance into our country, and most of them are never seen or heard from again.”

Where did all these millions of foreigners go after they were turned loose by the Biden administration? A clue is provided by a shocking new study from the Center for Immigration Studies, which finds that students from immigrant-led households comprise 23% of public school enrollment nationwide, and in many regions the proportion is more than 65%.

California Dems Trash America’s Gay Hero Senate Dems walk out on Ric Grenell, America’s first openly gay presidential cabinet member. by Lloyd Billingsley

https://www.frontpagemag.com/california-dems-trash-americas-gay-hero/

“As Pride month nears an end,” Katy Grimes of the California Globe reports, “Republican lawmakers announced they were honoring Ambassador Grenell, the first openly gay presidential cabinet member, for his accomplishments and stellar career in service to the country.”

As Bruce Bawer noted in 2020, Grenell is “America’s gay hero,” with distinguished service as US ambassador to Germany and director of national intelligence. It was acting DNI Grenell who “declassified the list of Obama Administration officials who, in the interval between the 2016 election and the Trump inaugural, requested the ‘unmasking’ of Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, Trump’s choice for National Security Advisor, so they could listen in on his phone calls.” That service cut no slack with California Democrats.

Cheers rang out in the California Senate, Grimes explains,  “until five Senators walked out during Republican Senator Brian Jones’ introduction of Grenell.” The walkout followed a “nasty Tweet” on June 26 from San Francisco Democrat Sen. Scott Wiener:

“This is their way of celebrating Pride, by bringing in a guy who is truly a self-hating gay man, who takes tons of anti-LGBTQ positions  There are plenty of gay Republicans who don’t do the unhinged things that [Grenell] does. I’m not lumping all gay Republicans together – he is a particularly vile person.”

This rush to electric cars is a colossal mistake Only China and the rich will benefit from this hasty transition to an all-electric future. Joel Kotkin

https://www.spiked-online.com/2023/07/03/this-rush-to-electric-cars-is-a-colossal-mistake/

We may soon regret the radical and absolutist embrace of electric vehicles (EVs). Governments across the world are planning to ban sales of new petrol and diesel cars, and to take older, gas-guzzling vehicles off the road. The Biden administration is proposing strict new pollution limits, as well as vast state subsidies, to accelerate the US’s transition to EVs.

Replacing the massive $3 trillion global car industry is an extremely high-risk economic gamble, particularly for the West. It could also threaten the mobility of all but the richest among us. And all this is being risked for environmental benefits that may prove far less robust than is often claimed. This is not to say that EVs won’t help us to reduce CO2 emissions or to clean the air. The problem is that, at least in the immediate future, they should not be the only option available to consumers.

Toyota, for instance, has argued that there are other, more affordable and quicker ways to reduce emissions than transitioning exclusively to EVs. While Toyota is investing in electric batteries, it also hopes to continue offering hybrid and hydrogen-powered cars in the coming decades. For stating this openly, it has come under fire from green lobbyists and politicians. New York City’s comptroller, Brad Lander, has even decided to restrict the city’s pension fund’s investments in the Japanese car company, due to its unwillingness to faithfully follow the green party line.

RFK Jr vs the Democratic elites The more the Democrats try to censor him, the more voters want to hear from him. Sean Collins

https://www.spiked-online.com/2023/07/04/rfk-jr-vs-the-democratic-elites/

He still bears the name of the US Democratic Party’s most famous and revered family. But that hasn’t stopped the Democratic elites and liberal media from relentlessly attacking Robert F Kennedy Jr.

Since RFK Jr – son of Robert F Kennedy and nephew of President John F Kennedy – announced his candidacy for the Democratic presidential nomination in April, he has principally been attacked for his anti-vaccine views, including his belief in the long-discredited idea that the MMR vaccine causes autism.

As a result, Kennedy has been called a conspiracy theorist, a spreader of disinformation and a kook. The New York Times says he is ‘shaking Americans’ faith in science’. A Democratic representative and adviser to Joe Biden’s re-election campaign has called Kennedy’s views ‘dangerous’. The condemnation has been relentless.

Last month, a vaccine expert, Dr Peter Hotez, declined an invitation to debate Kennedy on Joe Rogan’s podcast. He said that it would be fruitless to debate a committed anti-vaxxer like RFK Jr. The liberal media have generally sided with Hotez. As one pundit put it, ‘vaccine science isn’t up for debate’.

Some outlets have gone as far as censoring Kennedy’s views. In a recent interview, ABC News cut out his comments about the Covid vaccines. Last month, YouTube removed his interview with Jordan Peterson, citing its ‘vaccine misinformation policy’.

US intelligence warns Americans, U.S. companies in China about new espionage law “Any documents, data, materials, or items could be considered relevant to PRC national security due to ambiguities in the law,” the U.S. counterintelligence agency said. By Madeleine Hubbard

https://justthenews.com/government/security/director-national-intelligence-warns-americans-us-companies-china-about-new

The U.S. National Counterintelligence and Security Center is warning American citizens and U.S. companies in China about an expanded counterespionage law that appears to allow its ruling Chinese Community Party greater access and control of their information.

The intelligence agency warned before the law went into effect Saturday that the government has “expanded legal grounds for accessing and controlling data held by U.S. firms in China.”

The agency also warned in a bulletin issued Friday: “U.S. companies and individuals in China could also face penalties for traditional business activities that Beijing deems acts of espionage or for actions that Beijing believes assist foreign sanctions against China.”

Additionally, the law may force Chinese nationals at U.S. firms to assist Beijing’s intelligence efforts, U.S. officials said.

The law appear to add to the grown rift between China and the United States, largely over concerns about China’s demand for information from foreigners who do business with or within the country.

In recent months and years, U.S. lawmakers and other Americans have raised national security concerns about  TikTok, the immensely popular, short-form video app whose parent company, ByteDance, is located in China and purportedly has close ties to the Chinese government.

TikTok’s owners and users are subject to Chinese Communist Party’s requests for user data, regardless of where the users are located, says FBI Director Christopher Wray.

Concerns about China spying on the U.S. and its citizens came to head earlier this year when a suspected Chinese surveillance balloon was spotted flying over the United States, then shot down over the Atlantic.

In an American first, cocaine was found in the White House By Andrea Widburg

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2023/07/in_an_american_first_cocaine_was_found_in_the_white_house.html

At first, it was scary: A bag of white powder was found in the White House’s West Wing, causing the Secret Service to do a partial evacuation. However, once it became known that the white powder in the White House was cocaine, that opened the way to some interesting questions. Is there a Biden staffer (or more than one) who uses cocaine while working for a person who is theoretically the most powerful man in the world? Or has Hunter Biden, an acknowledged serious drug addict who’s allegedly “clean” and who’s been hanging around the White House lately, relapsed?

Patriotism Under Siege But we still have much to celebrate by Bruce Thornton

https://www.frontpagemag.com/patriotism-under-siege/

This year’s Fourth of July arrives at a time of doubt and even disdain for our nation’s birth and foundational principles. For most of our history this day has celebrated the bold, epochal Declaration of Independence that staked a claim to self-government and freedom from the world’s most powerful empire. The nation that followed after eight years of war went on to become, and still is, the freest, most prosperous, and, for all its all-too-human betrayals of those principles, the most generous great power in all of history.

The heart of our affection does not come from blood and soil, but from truly revolutionary ideals expressed in the Declaration’s preamble: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.” The new nation was created to “secure these rights,” not to bestow or create them, and it “derives [its] just powers from the consent of the governed.”­­

Such obvious truths, however, have been for decades contested by some of our country’s most privileged beneficiaries, and the patriotism that expresses our country’s goodness disparaged and mocked. In its place a fashionable oikophobia­­––the hatred of one’s country, principles, virtues, history, and the fellow citizens who still believe in our civic ideals and their goodness––preens morally and embraces the impossible utopias that such oikophobes promote.

Patriotism, the beating heart of our “unum” that binds the “pluribus,” is besieged at a time when we face dangerous developments like enormous debt, open borders, and assaults on our Constitutional order and Bill of Rights at home, and abroad totalitarian rivals “filled with passionate intensity” to supplant our global power, and diminish our freedom.

Equality/Inequality? – Focus on Mobility Sydney Williams

http://www.swtotd.bllogspot.com

Of all the canards foisted on the American public, one of the lamest is the assertion that outcomes should be equal. Equality of outcomes (something that can never be) should not be confused with the fact that we are all, as Lincoln said at Gettysburg in 1863, created equal (something that we are) – equal in the eyes of God and equal under the laws of the United States, or at least we all have been since the 14th Amendment was ratified in 1868. Equality of outcomes should also not be confused with the idea that we should all have equal opportunities to succeed in our chosen fields, something we do not have. There are other false tales told the American public: that the Earth will self-destruct if we do not reduce fossil fuel consumption, or the assertion that one’s sex is a social construct, that fairness requires the forgiveness of student loans, and the demeaning implication that affirmative action is necessary for Blacks to achieve parity with whites.

George Orwell’s Animal Farm was published in August 1945, while the Soviet Union was still a World War II ally. It was written as an allegory on how the inequalities of Tsarist Russia became replicated in the inequalities of Stalin’s Communist Soviet Union. In the 1930s and through the early 1950s, many intelligent people responded to the siren call of the “Communist utopian state.” However, the promise of state-directed equal outcomes was a lie. In fact, wealth inequality worsened. In 1900, Russian per capita GDP was roughly 30% of the United States’. Under Putin’s Russia, a hundred and twenty years later, Russian per capita GDP had shrunk to about 17% of that in the U.S. In spite of that discrepancy (or perhaps because of it), Putin is considered to be the richest world leader, with a net worth of $200 billion

Here at home, the promise of equal outcomes is, of course, a political ruse, meant to detract from promises unfulfilled. Merit has been subsumed by calls for diversity. While we are all, as the Declaration of Independence states, endowed by our Creator “with certain unalienable rights,” people have never been equal; they are not now, and they never will be. We are unique individuals. Some are tall, others short. Some are artistic, others athletic, and still others musical. Some have a talent for liberal arts; others for mathematics. Some are intellectually brilliant; others must study to keep up. Some are born wealthy; others are born poor. Some are born to two-parent households, others to single mothers. Some are born in small towns, while others are born in cities or suburbs. A few have the benefit of private schools; most rely on public schools. A few are born with physical, mental, or emotional challenges; others live charmed lives. Some are aspirant, others content to be followers. Yet, we are equal under the law. As citizens, we have equal rights to vote. As humans, we should expect to be treated with equal measures of respect and dignity.

A Battle for Cultural Survival In the face of the Left’s hyper-aggressive transgender ideology, conservatives must reassert the legitimacy of bourgeois norms. Heather Mac Donald

https://www.city-journal.org/article/a-battle-for-cultural-survival

Anyone with even a glancing exposure to the media over the past several years knows that conservatives are waging a “culture war.” Republicans have been advocating and all too often implementing hurtful changes to settled social arrangements, proclaim the New York Times, Washington Post, and other outlets on a near-daily basis. This culture war arises primarily out of “hate and fear,” according to President Joe Biden, but pecuniary motives play a role as well, as GOP operatives try to stir up the base and shake it down for donations.

Coverage of this alleged culture war demonstrates the Left’s most important power: the ability to set the default. The Left engineers disruption after disruption to longstanding social practices, each more sweeping than the last. And as soon as those changes are in place, they become the norm, treated as having existed from time immemorial. Questioning that new default is painted as churlish and radical. The Left never has to meet a burden of proof to implement its changes; the burden falls exclusively on conservatives seeking to restore a once-uncontroversial tradition. Though conservatives are portrayed as the aggressors, in reality they are always on the defensive, fighting a rearguard action.

Default-setting shows up across the cultural landscape, whether regarding the requirement that college faculty swear fealty to racial preferences (a.k.a. “diversity”) as a condition of employment, or regarding the introduction of politicized concepts such as “intersectionality” and white privilege into the K-12 curriculum. Its most stunning instantiation, however, is transgender ideology.

The trans revolution has unfolded in a micro percentage of a nanosecond in the context of millions of years of human development. It has introduced ideas that would have been incomprehensible to every previous generation of humanity, whether they found themselves on the African, Asian, American, or European continents. As recently as the 1980s, “trans issues” had not surfaced even among gender theorists themselves, according to the field’s progenitor, Judith Butler.

But now that academic gender theorists have managed to infiltrate their startling creed into virtually every mainstream American institution, contradicting millennia of human experience and centuries of scientific confirmation of that experience, any dissent from the new default is portrayed as a war against the natural order of things, branding the dissenters as hateful and even homicidal.