The Biden 10-Step Plan for Global Chaos Our enemies do not fear us, our allies judge us unreliable, and neutrals assume America is in descent and too dangerous to join. By Victor Davis Hanson

https://amgreatness.com/2023/04/12/the-biden-10-step-plan-for-global-chaos/

Why is French President Emmanuel Macron cozying up to China while trashing his oldest ally, the United States?

Why is there suddenly talk of discarding the dollar as the global currency?

Why are Japan and India shrugging that they cannot follow the United States’ lead in boycotting Russian oil?

Why is the president of Brazil traveling to China to pursue what he calls a “beautiful relationship”?

Why is Israel suddenly facing attacks from its enemies in all directions?

What happened to Turkey? Why is it threatening fellow NATO member Greece? Is it still a NATO ally, a mere neutral, or a de facto enemy?

 Why are there suddenly nonstop Chinese threats toward Taiwan?

Why did Saudi Arabia conclude a new pact with Iran, its former archenemy?

Why is Egypt sending rockets to Russia to be used in Ukraine?

Since when did the Russians talk nonstop about the potential use of a tactical nuclear weapon?

Why is Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador bragging that millions of Mexicans have entered the United States, most of them illegally? And why is he interfering in U.S. elections by urging his expatriates to vote for Democrats?

Why and how, in just two years, have ad confused and often incoherent Joe Biden and his team created such global chaos?

Let us answer by listing 10 ways by which America lost all deterrence.

1) Joe Biden abruptly pulled all U.S. troops from Afghanistan. He left behind to the Taliban hundreds of Americans and thousands of pro-American Afghans. Biden abandoned billions of dollars in U.S. equipment, the largest air base in central Asia—recently retrofitted at a cost of $300 million—and a $1 billion embassy. Our government called such a debacle a success. The world disagreed and saw only humiliation.

If They Are Not Calling You a Fascist, You’re Too Damn Soft They scream loudest when it hurts the most. by Kurt Schlichter

https://www.frontpagemag.com/if-they-are-not-calling-you-a-fascist-youre-too-damn-soft/

Look, they are always going to call you a fascist, but if they are not screaming about what you are doing as loud as their high-pitched voices can go, you are not going against the left anywhere near hard enough. They will insist that any use of conservative power – whether by a Florida governor elected with a 20-point margin or a Tennessee 3-1 supermajority – is illegitimate authoritarianism in their Marxist narrative. This is why we conservatives, instead of caring about the lies that we are “fascist” or “authoritarian” or – of course – “racist,” should use the volume of their howling solely as a metric of our success.

They scream loudest when it hurts the most.

When we take away their ability to groom kids in schools.

When we cut off the power of their corporate co-conspirators.

When we use the judicial system to stop their (actual) fascist power grabs.

When we buy guns and ammunition to protect our lives and liberty.

When we hold them to their own rules and toss out insurrectionist representatives who obstruct legislative proceedings.

That last one, from Tennessee last week, is instructive. A trio of Marxist mutants marched into the well of the legislature straight from commie central casting with a bullhorn to co-opt the session and demand disarmament of normal people in the wake of some trans weirdo murdering six Christians.

A Tale of Two Online Giants Wales’ Wikipedia vs. Elon’s Twitter. by Bruce Bawer

https://www.frontpagemag.com/a-tale-of-two-online-giants/

There are few more elaborate examples of the contemporary leftist capture of institutions than the metamorphosis of Wikipedia, the most comprehensive and influential encyclopedia in human history and the seventh most frequently consulted website on earth, from a relatively objective source of information into a massive assemblage of progressive agitprop. When it was founded in 2001 by two self-styled libertarians, Jimmy Wales and Larry Sanger, Wikipedia – which is currently based at 120 Kearny Street, San Francisco, just off Market Street – was a self-consciously noble enterprise, conceived as a benign collaboration among unpaid volunteers and solemnly committed to truth and neutrality. In a 2021 interview, Sanger recalled that during its first few years, Wikipedia’s articles, even on the most controversial politicians and issues, were models of balance.

No more. “Especially over the last five years or so,” lamented Sanger, “Wikipedia has changed” although theoretically anyone can rewrite a Wikipedia entry to eliminate bias, left-wing administrators and editors labor endlessly to prevent and undo such changes. Sanger noted that the entry for Joe Biden, for example, mentions “very little by way of the concerns that the Republicans have had about him”; although there’s a paragraph about the Ukraine scandal, it “reads like a defense counsel’s brief.”

But don’t dare to call Wikipedia biased. To do so is “incorrect.” Wikipedia itself says so, in an emphatic little essay that lays down its party line on this question. It’s not possible for Wikipedia to be biased, you see, because it draws “only on reliable sources” – a “methodology” that ensures it will contain only “knowledge that is verifiable.” And what are those “reliable sources”? Well, on Wikipedia you can find an exhaustive list of sources in which it meticulously separates the sheep from the goats. And to peruse that list is to see news outlets being judged not, as Wikipedia would have you believe, by journalistic professionalism, but rather by the degree to which they can be relied upon to put a progressive spin on the facts.

What Is Really Happening at Jerusalem’s Holy Sites? by Bassam Tawil

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/19579/jerusalem-holy-sites

[T]ens of thousands of Muslims from Israel and the West Bank were able to attend prayers at the mosque, especially on Fridays, in the first two weeks of Ramadan. That is until a group of extremist Muslims decided to turn the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound into a scene of anarchy and lawlessness, violating the sanctity of the holy site and endangering the lives of the remaining peaceful worshippers who came to the holy site with the sole purpose of praying and not engaging in any acts of violence.

These extremists, some wearing masks, seemingly did not come to pray. They came, on the face of it, with the aim of rioting and causing disorder. They came with stones, fireworks, wood planks and iron rods. That is not what Muslim worshippers usually bring to a mosque. They prevented worshippers from leaving the mosque. Their intention was, to all appearances, to create a violent riot against Jewish visitors and the police. In addition, they desecrated the mosque by smuggling fireworks, clubs and stones into the mosque and barricading themselves inside it using iron rods and furniture among other objects.

When the Israeli police moved to evict the agitators, Israel found itself under attack from a number of countries, as well as many in the Western mainstream media, for “assaulting peaceful worshippers” and sending its troops to “storm” one of Islam’s holiest sites.

Ironically, Israel is being accused of “obstructing” Muslims’ access to the mosque at a time when — thanks to Israel’s hundreds of cost-free coaches that bus Muslims to Jerusalem during Ramadan from all over Israel — a record number of 200,000 worshippers attended the most recent Friday prayer.

These figures were not provided by the Israeli authorities, but by the Jordanian-controlled Islamic Waqf Department, which oversees the Islamic holy sites in Jerusalem.

The latest tensions began when a few hundred extremists barricaded themselves inside the Al-Aqsa Mosque after evening prayers. The instigators claimed that they had decided to spend the night inside the mosque to prevent Jews from “storming” the compound. This claim was totally false: no Jew was planning to set foot inside the mosque.

Jews have, for the past few years, been conducting peaceful outdoor tours of the Temple Mount compound, which is also the holiest site for Jews.

There is no law prohibiting non-Muslims, including Jews, from touring the site. In fact, the Islamic religious authorities have long welcomed non-Muslims as visitors at the al-Aqsa Mosque compound.

[Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud] Abbas and other Muslim figures, such as his prime minister, Mohammad Shtayyeh, continue to deny any Jewish religious and historical connection to Jerusalem in particular and Israel in general, despite massive archeological and archival evidence to the contrary. This includes the Bible, the Dead Sea Scrolls, Josephus Flavius, and even the Qur’an, which mentions the presence of the Jews and Moses in the “Holy Land” multiple times (eg: 17:104; 2:47-48; 9:30; 2:83; 3:110; 3:199; 7:159; 2:62; 22:40; 5:5; 7:145).

Since Abbas’s false — actually, slanderous – accusation [“The Al-Aqsa Mosque and the Church of the Holy Sepulcher are ours. They are all ours, and they (Jews) have no right to defile them with their filthy feet. We salute every drop spilled for the sake of Jerusalem.”], dozens of Jews have been murdered in various terror attacks, including stabbings, car-rammings, shootings and bombings, under the pretext of defending the Al-Aqsa Mosque from Jewish “aggression.”

If there is any violence at the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound, it comes from Muslims who resort to verbal and physical abuse against the Jewish visitors and police officers accompanying them. The Muslims have even set up groups of men and women called Murabitun (“defenders of the faith”) as part of an effort to harass and intimidate Jews who visit the Temple Mount.

The full responsibility for the latest tensions between Israel and the Palestinians lies solely on the Muslims who hijacked Ramadan, evidently to incite violence and spew hatred against Israel and Jews.

By allowing these violent extremists to barricade themselves inside the mosque, the Islamic Waqf Department is acting against its own instructions. On March 21, the Islamic Waqf Department issued a directive in which it stated that Muslims should not stay overnight at the Al-Aqsa Mosque. This was agreed to during the recent Aqaba and Sharm el-Sheikh summits between Israel and the Palestinians, as well as by Jordan and Egypt….

Those who are desecrating the mosque are the people hiding inside it and attacking police officers with fireworks and rocks. Those who are desecrating the mosque are the people who damaged the interior of the mosque by using fireworks as weapons.

By initiating the latest tensions at the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound, the Palestinian extremists are seeking to rally the world against Israel by depicting it as an oppressive state that has no respect for Islamic holy sites. These instigators are hoping to drag Israel into a military confrontation with other Arabs and Muslims, especially in neighboring Syria and Lebanon, from where Palestinians have fired rockets at Israel in the past few days.

These extremists do not hide their affiliation with Hamas and other Iran terror proxies such as Hezbollah and Palestinian Islamic Jihad. Iran’s mullahs say they want to see Israel “wiped off the map.” So do Iran’s proxies in the Gaza Strip, Lebanon, Syria, Yemen and Iraq.

The Palestinians who are desecrating the Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem are inspired and empowered by Iran’s mullahs. The Iranian regime does not care if the mosque is vandalized or burned down by Palestinian terrorists: it knows that many in the international community will continue to blame Israel, and exonerate those who declare Jihad (holy war) on Israel and the Jews.

The mainstream media in the West — who spout misinformation and outright lies about what is really taking place at the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound — are fully complicit in this naked Jihad to wipe out the Jews.

Intelligence Leaks and the Consequences of Israel’s Resistance Coup by Jonathan S. Tobin

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/19575/intelligence-leaks-israel-coup

What the demonstrators are attempting is — despite their virtue-signaling about their devotion to democracy, and venting their fears about Netanyahu and his allies installing a dictatorship — nothing less than an anti-democratic coup of their own.

President Joe Biden is supporting their efforts for reasons of his own, which have to do with Washington’s desire for a weaker Israeli government that won’t make trouble about appeasing Iran.

The truth is that those… who are cheerleading for the protests, are not primarily interested in preserving the unchecked power of the judicial establishment that is essentially anti-democratic. What they want is to overturn the results of the last election, and somehow ensure that the nationalist and religious voters who gave Netanyahu a clear Knesset majority are essentially disenfranchised.

Israel’s liberal establishment fears that the leftist parties that represent its interests can never win another election, and so they have done everything they can to undermine Netanyahu with protests akin to the color revolutions that sought regime change in the former Soviet Union.

Having succeeded in creating chaos, they now have the chutzpah to blame Netanyahu for the dangers they have brought about that are undoubtedly harming Israel’s security as well as sowing dissension with its allies.

Having convinced themselves that the lies about Netanyahu threatening democracy are true, the Israeli left and its foreign enablers may have rendered themselves insensible to the potentially catastrophic repercussions of their efforts.

Israel’s government was doing damage control this past weekend and, for a change, it wasn’t about its losing battle to pass judicial reform, dissension over the surge in Palestinian terrorism or the threat from Iran. Or at least, not directly. Instead, it was put in the unenviable position of having to deny a report published in The New York Times and widely reported elsewhere about leaks from secret Pentagon documents detailing the U.S. intelligence activity.

What were they thinking at Bud Light? By Pete Colan

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2023/04/what_were_they_thinking_at_bud_light.html

Something about the sudden shift in marketing strategy for Bud Light doesn’t pass the smell test.

An iconic brand that, based on some of the best commercials you’ll ever see, never ceased to hit the target of its intended customers has, overnight, decided to abandon those customers and dollars are “fratty and out of touch,” and go after… What exactly?  We do not really know.

Thomas Lifson showed us the video of Alissa Heinerscheid, vice president of marketing for the Bud Light brand, try to explain her strategy.  I am sorry, but when explaining a marketing strategy for beer it seems both intentional as well as awkward and discomforting to see her children’s artwork posted behind her.  Beer and children just do not mix. 

The result of that strategy should not have been unexpected.  Bud Light sales are in the toilet.  Overnight.  A viral video shows Bud Light sitting untouched in a store’s cooler.   🤣 This is real! I went to my local store, and she said they haven’t sold a 12-pack or 30-pack of Bud Light this whole week! #BudLightWentWoke #budlight

I contend, therefore, this was not the biggest blunder in corporate marketing history.  Anyone could have seen what was going to happen.  To believe this strategy wasn’t market-tested before going full steam ahead is like believing Russia helped Trump win an election, or something like that.

As fast as Bud Light sales tanked, it didn’t take long for Chasten Buttigieg to criticize everyone who boycotted the brand.  His tweet:  “If you’re upset about a beer company supporting civil rights, you might want to start bottling your tears. LGBTQ people drink water, too. Gonna boycott that next? 11:59 AM · Apr 8, 2023”

Death to the Suburbs! By Rael Jean Isaac

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2023/04/death_to_the_suburbs.html

The indomitable Betsy McCaughey has called out the latest ugly manifestation of “diversity, inclusion, and equity” the drive to destroy the suburbs.  The Biden administration and Democrat-controlled legislatures in several states have taken the lead in this effort.  In New York State, Governor Kathy Hochul, as part of the state budget, has advanced a so-called Housing Compact that would eliminate local control and single family zoning. 

Hochul’s plan would require that high-rise “affordable” (read: low-income, taxpayer-subsidized) housing be constructed close to each sleepy village train station — mostly a few miles apart — on Metro North and the Long Island Railroad.  If the affected communities fail to do so “voluntarily,” the state will have the power to override local zoning.  Those who fail to applaud this combined coup by warriors for social justice and real estate interests are, you guessed it, racist.

Suburban homeowners, Democrats as well as Republicans, are beginning to awaken to the deadly threat these proposals pose to their way of life.  What is largely overlooked is that this is a repeat of a similar effort in 1972 about which I wrote at the time (“Housing Controversy in Westchester,” Congress Biweekly, November 10, 1972 and December 22, 1972).  Believe it or not, the effort to overthrow zoning was then spearheaded by Republicans — with New York’s Westchester County selected to pioneer the program.

On June 20, 1972, the New York State Urban Development Corporation announced that it was overriding local zoning to create a variety of low- and moderate-income housing developments in nine, for the most part rural, Westchester communities.  Reminiscent of the emotional reaction to the death of George Floyd, the UDC had been given zoning override power by a hitherto balky state Legislature the day after the murder of Martin Luther King.  Republican governor Nelson Rockefeller, in a burst of virtue-signaling, argued that this was the best tribute the Legislature could give the slain civil rights leader.  When rationality returned, efforts by the state Legislature to take away the override power were vetoed by Rockefeller.

‘Pay No Attention to That Jihadi at the Mexican Border…’ By Stephen Kruiser

https://pjmedia.com/columns/stephen-kruiser/2023/04/13/the-morning-briefing-pay-no-attention-to-that-jihadi-at-the-mexican-border-n1686724

Don’t look know, but something is amiss down at the Mexican border. Shocking, right? According to the open borders fetish Democrats, nothing but sugar and spice and everything nice make their way up from our neighbor to the south.

When Donald Trump announced his candidacy for the presidency in the summer of 2015, the Democrats and their flying monkeys in the mainstream media referred to his remarks about the kinds of people who make their way illegally across the Mexican border as “controversial.” I was a huge Trump skeptic at the time. I have, however, spent my life living near the Mexican border and found it quite refreshing that someone with a national audience was talking about the criminal element that flows northward from Mexico into the United States.

Robert wrote a post yesterday about an updated version of an old border problem:

We’re used to seeing the establishment media cheerlead for Democrat administrations, but Bloomberg went above and beyond on Wednesday with an article that was condescendingly entitled “Terrorists Crossing the US Border? Rising Encounters Explained.” Gather round, you rubes, and let your moral and intellectual superiors explain away what your lying eyes are showing you! “Skyrocketing terrorist watch list hits at US borders are fueling fear and condemnation of Biden immigration policies,” the Bloomberg article said, but don’t worry: there isn’t any reason to lose confidence in Old Joe and his henchmen: “border buffs dispute whether the numbers indicate a serious threat.” Oh, well then!

When the media starts running spurious explainers of this kind, it’s a sign that they’re feeling the heat. People are noticing how terrorists are taking advantage of the Biden regime’s nonexistent Southern border, and so the “experts” must be called in to reassure everyone that the Left has things completely under control.

LA, Chicago, Other Major “Blue Cities” Suffer the Biggest Population Loss in the U.S.A. in 2022 Other Blue State Counties Are Close Behind by Warner Todd Huston

https://lidblog.com/biggest-population-loss-in-us/

Democrat residents are fleeing two of the nation’s largest counties — Cook County, home to Chicago, Illinois, and L.A. County, home to Los Angeles, California — in record numbers. Last year, those locals led the nation in population shrinkage.

Of the two, Los Angeles County led the nation by losing the most citizens to outbound migration by losing a whopping 90,704 citizens, according to U.S. Census Bureau records.

Right behind LA  was Cook County, the home of the Windy City, which lost 68,314 people from July 2021 to July of last year.

Despite the loss, the two counties were still the most populous in America, according to Just the News:

Los Angeles County was still the most populous county in the U.S. That was followed by Cook County in Illinois at 5,109,292, which declined by 68,314 from the prior year. Rounding out the top five were Harris County, Texas (4,780,913); Maricopa County, Arizona (4,551,524); and San Diego County, California (3,276,208).

Eight of the top 10 most populous counties in the U.S. were located in the South and West. The two exceptions were Cook County in Illinois and Kings County [Brooklyn] in New York.

“Reflecting longstanding regional population shifts, the nation’s most populous counties are increasingly located in the South and West,” the bureau reported. “In 2022, 63 of the country’s 100 most populous counties were located in the South and West, up from 61 in the prior year.”

Millions Have Voted For Trump Since 2020 — With Their Feet

https://issuesinsights.com/2023/04/13/millions-have-voted-for-trump-since-2020-with-their-feet/

Over the past two years, vast numbers of Americans picked up and moved. In a mobile society like ours, that’s not news. What is news is where they are moving from, and where they are going to.

Turns out, there’s a mass exodus underway, with people leaving Biden strongholds and heading to MAGA country.

New Census data show that, from 2021 to 2022, more than 2 million people moved out of urban areas that are largely controlled by Democrats and relocated to exurbs and more rural areas that largely voted for Donald Trump.

Los Angeles County, for example, had a net ex-migration of more than 363,000 over the past two years. Cook County, Illinois, lost 200,000. In New York, New York County lost 109,000, Queens County, 158,000, and Kings County, 187,000. Philadelphia County sank 52,000.

In Texas, a state where Trump beat Joe Biden 52%-46%, the two counties that saw the largest ex-migration – Dallas and Harris – both went heavily for Biden. Combined they had a net loss of 130,000 people.

The two biggest gainers in Texas – Collin and Denton counties – went for Trump. They had a net gain of 120,000. Another big gainer – Montgomery County – voted 71% for Trump.

Salt Lake County, Utah, (which went for Biden 58%-39% in a state Trump carried 58%-38%), lost 20,000 people.

The counties in Virginia that saw the biggest outflow of people are all ones that went heavily for Biden.

Still not convinced? Take a look at these two maps in the gallery below. One, produced by the Census Department, shows net migration from 2021 to 2022. The other (click on the arrow) shows the 2020 election results by county. Notice how, across the country, the places losing population almost all voted for Biden, and the ones gaining are almost all Trump counties.