NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

The Downside of the Debt Deal Is a Weaker Military The already stretched armed forces will absorb a real cut after inflation.

Posted By on June 3rd, 2023

https://www.wsj.com/articles/debt-ceiling-bill-budget-military-spending-biden-kevin-mccarthy-senate-pentagon-45db6323?mod=opinion_lead_pos1

The debt-ceiling bill passed the Senate on Thursday evening with 63 votes, though not before several Senators warned about its cuts to military spending. They have a point that will have to be addressed.

Republicans succeeded in reducing domestic discretionary spending, but the political price was agreeing to President Biden’s defense budget request of $886 billion for 2024 and $895 billion in 2025. That’s a 3% nominal increase in 2024, and it at least breaks the Democratic Party’s long-time demand that every defense dollar be matched with one for social welfare.

But Mr. Biden’s number is a real cut in defense after inflation. The deal means U.S. spending on the military could fall below 3% of the economy for the first time since the height of the post-Cold War peace dividend in the late 1990s.

No one thinks the world is more tranquil today than in 1999, as Vladimir Putin prosecutes the first European land war in 80 years. The Biden budget shrinks the U.S. Navy to 286 ships by 2025—as China ramps up to a 400-strong fleet designed to subdue Taiwan.

BOOKS Comments turned off

Book Review by Mark Durie: Kidnapped in Iraq: A Christian Humanitarian Tells His Story

Posted By on June 2nd, 2023

https://markdurie.substack.com/p/book-review-by-mark-durie-kidnapped?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email

Iranian-French humanitarian worker Goodarzy recounts his experiences in Syria and Iraq in Kidnapped in Iraq. He weaves together three strands.

The first tells about Goodarzy’s kidnapping in Iraq by a Shiite militia and how four captives found comfort in their Catholic faith while being shuffled from one place of imprisonment to another. Remarkably, the Covid-19 pandemic brought their release.

The second, which makes a majority of the book, recounts Goodarzy’s work in 2014-19 for the humanitarian organization SOS Chrétiens d’Orient. He travelled extensively for it throughout Syria and gives eyewitness testimony of a story rarely told: the struggle of Syria’s Christians to survive. He stresses that most of the parties involved attacked or betrayed Christians. While Sunni groups—ISIS, Jabhat al-Nusra (al-Qaeda in Syria), Turkish forces, and the Free Syrian Army—did the greatest damage, Kurds were also no friends to Christians. As one old man said, “The Sunnites slit our throats for the caliphate. The Kurds hand us over to the same swine for their Kurdistan.” The only party which protected Christians was Assad’s Syrian Army, supported by Russian, Iranian, and Hezbollah allies.

The third strand contains a lament for France, which Goodarzy believes has become rootless, “incoherent,” “stagnant,” and a country “suited more and more to its retirees than to its rising generations.” When Goodarzy received news of the Bataclan nightclub massacre in Paris, he recalled the words of Syrian Christians, “What is affecting us here at home today will strike you tomorrow!” He found the French response deeply disappointing:

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

NYC Law Promotes ‘Fat Pride’ and ‘Size Freedom’ By Janet Levy

Posted By on June 2nd, 2023

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

In his works on rhetoric, Aristotle said that a speaker can hope to persuade his audience only if the message is underpinned by logos, an appeal to reason; pathos, an appeal to emotions; and, above all, ethos, the appeal that derives from the speaker’s own character and credibility. On that last, vital count, Mayor Eric Adams of New York City (NYC) failed miserably last week as he signed legislation (Intro. 209-2022 A) banning discrimination by weight and height in employment, housing, and public accommodations.

But before we get to Adams’s hypocrisy, let us look at the grievance of size discrimination per se. Manufactured and overblown by ‘woke’ activists, it stands on shaky ground. Body-positive activism denies the fact that being overweight is unhealthy and upends attempts by healthcare professionals to drive home the message that there is a strong connection between obesity and a host of conditions such as hypertension, high LDL cholesterol levels, diabetes, coronary heart disease, stroke, gallbladder disease, kidney failure, and cancer. The Center for Disease Control (CDC) says there is a well-established connection between obesity and morbidity and mortality.

By blaming society for the misery felt by outliers in weight, height, or other physical traits, body-positive activism diverts them from the hard work of changing what can be changed and accepting what cannot. With faddish references to “fat pride” and “size freedom” and spurious charges of “fat shaming,” many people choose to reject a rather obvious salubrious solution: adopting a healthier lifestyle.

Fortunately, the new law permits height and weight standards to be used in situations in which job performance necessitates certain physical traits.  For example, law enforcement, firefighters and defense forces constitute categories with requirements that would be exempt from the strictures of Intro. 209-2022A.  Similarly, the bill permits operators of public accommodations to consider height and weight criteria as part of what is reasonably necessary for normal operations.  With these broad-brush exemptions, it’s hard to discern what purpose the law serves.

Now for Adams and his compromised ethos. The mayor, a former police officer who has been a crusader for healthy eating and fitness, ended up making a statement of questionable veracity while announcing the new law: “Science has showed (sic) that body type is not a connection to if you’re healthy or unhealthy. I think that’s a misnomer (sic) that we are really dispelling.”

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

George Soros and the New York City Subway Tragedy Soros wants Daniel Penny to be the last hero. We can save our cities and our country by making sure he is just the first.  By Maurice Richards

Posted By on June 2nd, 2023

https://amgreatness.com/2023/06/01/george-soros-and-the-new-york-city-subway-tragedy/

The tragic death of Jordan Neely and the despicable legal lynching of Daniel Penny are not random events.

Democrats have instituted globalist-inspired programs and policies, transforming major cities like New York into dystopian hellscapes. Public safety has been abandoned. Predatory criminals, the drug addicted, and the violently mentally ill roam the streets and subways with impunity. Police are either absent or passive spectators. States attorneys protect criminals instead of their victims.

The result is law-abiding citizens have been left to survive on their own. And when heroes like Daniel Penny stand up to protect their lives and those of their fellow citizens—they are crushed.

The Common Thread of Evil 

The common thread of evil which runs through every social catastrophe in America can be traced to George Soros—the dark soul of the Democratic Party.

Every Soros-financed initiative is designed to facilitate the destruction of the roots of Western culture and the foundation of American civilization. His objective is to tear down society by unraveling our culture, values, and traditions. That twisted vision is now the platform of the Democratic Party. 

Here are some items from Soros’ globalist playbook that are already destroying America with links to the front organizations he finances to implement it. 

Open borders.
Subverting the rule of law by financing the election of pro-criminal states attorneys.
Drug legalization.
Normalizing mass homelessness, untreated mental illness, and drug addiction.
Defunding the police.
Perpetuating the big lie of “systemic police racism.”
Prison abolition.
Institutionalizing the antiwhite racism and perpetual black victimhood of critical race theory.
Spreading transgender ideology and the depraved genital mutilation and castration of children.
Unlimited abortion in America and globally.
Global legalization of prostitution.
Euthanasia.

IMMIGRATION Comments turned off

Bidenites quietly drop DNA requirement for illegal border crossers claiming to be ‘families’ By Monica Showalter

Posted By on June 2nd, 2023

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2023/06/bidenites_quietly_drop_dna_requirement_for_illegal_border_crossers_claiming_to_be_families.html

If the recent scandal of migrant child labor in the U.S. ever bothered the Bidenites, you wouldn’t know it from their latest idiocy on admission of illegal border crossers into the U.S.

According to the Immigration Reform Law Institute’s Brian Lonergan, writing for American Greatness:

 … as of May 31, the federal government ended familial DNA testing at the southern border. Don’t expect to hear about this on the news, but it is a move that will have tragic consequences while also revealing the galling cruelty and hypocrisy of the Biden Administration.

Lonergan explained what’s been going on that prompted a need for it:

 Because recent U.S. immigration policy has favored family units over individuals crossing illegally, cartels have begun to “rent” children to their migrant customers looking to enter the United States. Once the migrants successfully cross the border, the children are then recycled back to Mexico and assigned to another client.

Along the way, these “rentals” are often subjected to violence and sexual abuse. Breaker boys, children who worked in coal mines in late 19th century America, faced an easier predicament by comparison.

In other words, the cartels are running a rent-a-kid operation in order to get illegal border crossers into the interior of the country as a “family unit” which the Biden administration is still allowing, despite its claims about running a tougher border operation after the end of Title 42.

The kids are used as fodder to get an illegal migrant into the U.S., and then recycled back to Mexico to “serve” as another phony parent’s kid, and abused horribly in the process. For some, when they get too recognizable to Border Patrol agents, they are eventually shipped into the states as “unaccompanied children.”

ELECTIONS Comments turned off

Pence and Christie to Team Up and Help Trump Secure GOP Nomination By Stephen Kruiser

Posted By on June 2nd, 2023

https://pjmedia.com/columns/stephen-kruiser/2023/06/02/pence-and-christie-to-team-up-and-help-trump-secure-gop-nomination-n1699523

“The consensus among Republicans who would prefer that Trump not be the nominee is that he can’t win the general election. I don’t believe that, although the more erratic he becomes, the more my doubts grow. If those who are running against him truly believe that, however, then they shouldn’t run against him. Again, Ron DeSantis is the only Republican alive on planet Earth right now who has even a prayer of beating Trump for the nomination. Their presence in the race divides the non-Trump primary votes and all but guarantees a Trump nomination.”

The field for the race to derail Donald Trump and win the Republican nomination is about to get a couple of familiar — some would say worn out — names added to it. Over at Townhall, my colleague Leah Barkoukis writes that former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie is going to jump in the race next week in New Hampshire. Also at Townhall, Spencer Brown has the story about former Vice President Mike Pence making his announcement in Iowa next Wednesday.

Politically, both Christie and Pence are so far beyond their expiration dates that their campaigns will be accompanied by the smell of sour milk.

And I’m sure that the internet is already flooded with variations on “Christie will really make the field crowded.” I apologize for nothing.

IMMIGRATION Comments turned off

The Morning Briefing: No Pity for Sanctuary Cities That Are Forced to Put Up or Shut Up By Stephen Kruiser

Posted By on June 2nd, 2023

https://pjmedia.com/columns/stephen-kruiser/2023/06/02/the-morning-briefing-no-pity-for-sanctuary-cities-that-are-forced-to-put-up-or-shut-up-n1699741

We have discussed many times the fact that, whenever one awful Democrat is removed from power, a worse one will step in and fill the void. The current prime example of that is the city of Chicago, which gave commie mayor Lori Lightfoot the boot after one term, only to replace her with Brandon Johnson, a teachers’ union puppet.

Johnson is now having to deal with what the Dems like to call a migrant problem. I’m an old-fashioned guy who has spent his life living in border states so I would refer to it as an illegal alien problem.

Catherine has the details of the latest from the Windy City:

In the latest example of how Democrats care more about illegal aliens breaking America’s laws than about American citizens, the Chicago City Council just approved $51 million in aid to illegal migrants, a sum expected to last for a single month. And the residents of the city are not happy, to put it mildly.

The new funding is on top of $102 million already spent on migrants since January, Fox32 Chicago reported. Aldermen voted 34-13 to pass the new funding Wednesday, and Democrat Mayor Brandon Johnson said in a statement, “Chicago is facing a humanitarian crisis as individuals and families continue to be sent here and other Democratic-led cities across the country without regard for their well-being.” Chicago is a sanctuary city but seemed surprised when expected to behave as a sanctuary city.

ENVIRONMENT AND JUNK SCIENCE Comments turned off

Hanoi Jane Blames White Men for the Climate Crisis “We have to arrest and jail those men.” by Joseph Klein

Posted By on June 2nd, 2023

https://www.frontpagemag.com/hanoi-jane-blames-white-men-for-the-climate-crisis/

Jane Fonda used her appearance at this year’s Cannes Film Festival to charge that racism and patriarchy are the causes of climate change. Jane Fonda is still the left-wing extremist she was during the Vietnam War when she was photographed on a North Vietnamese 37mm gun mount and served as a shill for the enemy back then.

“It’s good for us all to realize, there would be no climate crisis if there was no racism,” Hanoi Jane proclaimed at the film festival. “There would be no climate crisis if there was no patriarchy. A mindset that sees things in a hierarchical way. White men are the things that matter and then everything else [is] at the bottom.”

“We have to arrest and jail those men,” Fonda demanded.

What about the women (biological and trans) and people of color who drive or take public transportation, fly, use electricity, and heat their homes – all with fossil fuels? Do they have immunity from punishment under Hanoi Jane’s rules because they belong to politically correct identity groups? And how do the cows that produce methane gas emitted into the atmosphere fit in with her racism-patriarchy paradigm?

How does Jane Fonda justify her own large carbon footprints left from maintaining her former Beverly Hills mansion and the 6,679-square-foot townhouse that she reportedly bought recently for $5.45 million? Or the carbon footprints left from all the flights that Fonda has taken to attend climate change protests and get herself arrested while acting the part of a revolutionary with her celebrity friends? This hypocrite even agreed to accept, in her words, “quite a bit of money” from 90-year-old Austrian building tycoon Richard Lugner for accompanying him to the Vienna Opera Ball sponsored by Austrian oil and gas company OMV.

ISRAEL, MEDIA Comments turned off

CNN Provides Forum for Representative of Hamas-Linked Groups No challenge from host, who allowed CAIR’s Wilfredo Ruiz to distort reality about Israel. Joe Kaufman

Posted By on June 2nd, 2023

https://www.frontpagemag.com/cnn-provides-forum-for-representative-of-hamas-linked-groups/

On May 15th, the United Nations (UN) held an event to commemorate the 75th Anniversary of the Nakba or Catastrophe, the Palestinian term condemning the creation of Israel. In holding this event, the UN, which played a large role in recognizing Israel as a nation, over seven decades ago, has now denounced Israel’s existence. To showcase and distort the true nature of this obscene occasion, CNN en Español, CNN’s Spanish language channel, interviewed Wilfredo Amr Ruiz, a representative of groups tied to Hamas and someone who has previously vilified the Jewish religion. Ruiz’s propaganda and lies went unchallenged by the host.

Wilfredo Ruiz, a ‘prized’ convert, is a pillar of the radical Muslim community, as he speaks fluent Spanish, while proficiently communicating Palestinian and general Islamist talking points. When members of the Hispanic media look for a Muslim figure to discuss subjects about the religion of Islam or Islamic affairs, many times, Ruiz (misguidedly) becomes their ‘go to’ guy by default.

CNN en Español has frequently invited Ruiz to appear on its shows to comment on a number of subjects. The channel’s latest issue featuring Ruiz was the recent commemoration of the 75th anniversary of the Nakba, held at UN Headquarters in New York City, which included an address made by Palestinian Authority (PA) President Mahmoud Abbas and music performed by a 25-piece orchestra. This was an especially egregious issue to involve Ruiz in, as he is an active participant in a variety of organizations that have documented ties to the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas.

Ruiz is the Communications Director for the Florida chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR). The CAIR logo hovered behind him, throughout the CNN interview. CAIR was founded, in 1994, as part of the American Palestine Committee, headed by then-global leader of Hamas, Mousa Abu Marzook. In 2007 and 2008, CAIR was named by the US government, a party to the financing of Hamas, during federal trials concerning fellow Palestine Committee member, the Holy Land Foundation (HLF). In July 2014, Ruiz’s own CAIR-Florida co-sponsored a pro-Hamas rally in downtown Miami, where rally goers repeatedly chanted, “We are Hamas.”

ELECTIONS Comments turned off

Has Anyone Noticed Trump Sounds Like A Liberal Democrat These Days?

Posted By on June 2nd, 2023

https://issuesinsights.com/2023/06/02/has-anyone-noticed-trump-sounds-like-a-liberal-democrat-these-days/

As Donald Trump ramps up his attacks on Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, a strange trend is emerging. Most of his attacks are coming from the left.

In his speeches, posts on Truth Social, and comments to the press, Trump has been shouting things like: DeSantis wants to cut Social Security and Medicare! DeSantis did a worse job on COVID than New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo! DeSantis’ attack on Disney “is all so unnecessary, a political STUNT!”

In one recent post, Trump said that “I strongly defended and backed Ethanol, Ron ‘DeSaster’ has ALWAYS been strongly against Ethanol, just like he voted 3 times to cut Social Security (and raise the minimum age to 70!), obliterate MediCare, and charge everyone a National Sales Tax of 23%.”

Let’s start with that last one, which an ad sponsored by a pro-Trump PAC describes as a huge tax hike that would result in the middle class paying more in taxes.

The truth is that sales tax idea that DeSantis co-sponsored while in Congress – and that Trump himself supported in the past – would get rid of the federal income tax, capital gains tax, corporate income tax, payroll taxes, estate and gift taxes, and replaced them all with a national sales tax. It would include a substantial rebate to make it more progressive. It would also abolish the IRS. (Read our recent guest commentary about it – “How To Defund The IRS? Top 10 Reasons For A National Sales Tax.”)