ELECTIONS Comments turned off

The Trump-Cuomo Covid Bromance The once mortal enemies unite to distort Florida’s success.

Posted By on June 1st, 2023

https://www.wsj.com/articles/donald-trump-andrew-cuomo-covid-lockdowns-ron-desantis-florida-anthony-fauci-fef4dd6c?mod=opinion_lead_pos2

The 2024 presidential race is already wild, and the strangest moment so far may be the mutual Covid admiration society of Donald Trump and former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo. In 2020 they were mortal political enemies, but now they’re uniting to praise their performance in order to trash the far better Covid judgment and governance of Ron DeSantis in Florida.

Mr. Trump will say anything to hurt the Sunshine State Governor now running against him for President. Last week he said in a video posted on Truth Social: “How about the fact that he had the third most deaths of any state having to do with the China virus or Covid? Even Cuomo did better, he was number four.”

Mr. Cuomo returned the compliment on Tuesday from his political exile, tweeting that “Donald Trump tells the truth, finally. New York got hit first and worst but New Yorkers acted responsibly. Florida’s policy of denial allowed Covid to spread and that’s why they had a very large second wave.”

Where to begin? The media feted Mr. Cuomo for his handling of Covid in 2020, but his harsh lockdowns continue to have baleful effects on the state’s economy as its recovery lags. We also know Mr. Cuomo made a literally fatal March 2020 decision to admit Covid patients to nursing homes. His administration then tried to fudge the number of nursing-home deaths from Covid.

ENVIRONMENT AND JUNK SCIENCE Comments turned off

Biden’s ‘clean and green’ push will result in blackouts and bankruptcy for America Governor Rick Perry

Posted By on June 1st, 2023

https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/biden-clean-green-blackouts-bankruptcy-america

Rick Perry is the former governor of Texas and 14th secretary of energy.

From the beginning, President Joe Biden has made it clear his administration will focus on a “clean” and “green” future, including an aggressive move toward electric vehicles (EVs).

Unfortunately, his administration continues to overestimate electric vehicle market trends and force a massive volume of EVs into a power grid that simply isn’t prepared. Their latest move comes from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), whose proposed new tailpipe emissions standards for light- and heavy-duty vehicles are so strict the administration predicts a shocking two-thirds of new vehicles sold in 2032 would be electric vehicles.

The goal of this proposal is not just about cleaner cars, but a broader plan by Biden and the environmental lobby to force the extinction of internal combustion engine vehicles and reach zero emissions by 2050. While decreasing emissions is certainly a laudable goal, the path the administration and its agencies are using to get us there is not a realistic one and will create problems and huge costs for the American public.

As one outlet noted, “The new rules would require nothing short of a revolution in the U.S. auto industry, a moment in some ways as significant as the June morning in 1896 when Henry Ford took his ‘horseless carriage’ for a test run and changed American life and industry.”

The rule will certainly change the auto industry, but in this instance, the revolutionary change will only exacerbate serious challenges we face, not conquer them.

First take our nation’s power grid. Where do you think that electricity is coming from when you plug your car into a charger? Growing demand for electricity is already straining our aging power grid and a flood of new demand from EVs will only strain it more. 

The Electric Power Supply Association recently pointed to National Renewable Energy Laboratory calculations in 2021 finding that electrifying the economy could increase electric demand by as much as 81% in 2050 – a calculation made without the EPA’s new rule. Heading into the summer, The North American Electric Reliability Corp. (NERC) warned our nation’s power grid is already in precarious shape with renewed risks for outages due to rising temperatures and intense storms. The EPA should heed this warning before moving forward with their proposed rule.

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

How To Defund The IRS? Top 10 Reasons For A National Sales Tax Bob Maistros

Posted By on June 1st, 2023

https://issuesinsights.com/2023/06/01/how-to-defund-the-irs-top-10-reasons-for-a-national-sales-tax/

Let’s pick up where our IRS-defunding I&I editorial board brethren lately left off: “There is … a better way to fund federal operations. Move to a single-rate income tax paid monthly with no deductions and no withholding, or implement a national sales tax.”

This commentator chooses National Sales Tax for several trillion dollars, Alex. While he has engaged in many exercises to explain why that levy solves a whole range of problems, here are some highlights in Lettermanesque fashion – the Top 10 Reasons for a National Sales Tax:

10. Keep it simple, stupid! Flat tax or no, the biggest problem with an income tax: it’s on income. The complexity and intrusion relates to determining what is and isn’t, and tracking, income.

Uncle Sam gets to snoop on hundreds of millions of taxpayers to make sure you’re not hiding income. Admittedly, for most taxpayers calculations get simpler without deductions, exemptions and the like. But eliminating withholding would only increase demands for government to stick its nose into your business to ensure you’re not getting money under the table. Especially for the self-employed.

Even many employees get income from multiple sources, including savings and investments. The revenooers want all those records, plus taxpayers will also have to pay monthly to account for non-payroll sources. Who’s going to tell them how much? Certainly not the IRS. Citizens will overpay to be safe, still being stuck with near-compulsory overcharges.

Moreover, what about the corporate income tax? Twenty-seven million private companies generate billions of calculations and pages of required record-keeping. Will that tax also be flat? Gucci Gulch is guffawing.

A sales tax? One number for companies: percentage of sales. For consumers? No record-keeping, filing, or engaging professional help to pay a bill for a service. And no spying on individuals or companies other than sales income.

9.  Jobs, jobs, jobs. The second reason taxing income (and payrolls) stinks: your government taxes work and hiring. While paying people not to work. Madness.

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

The Debt-Ceiling ‘Crisis’ Might Be Over, But The Debt Crisis Has Just Begun

Posted By on June 1st, 2023

https://issuesinsights.com/2023/06/01/the-debt-ceiling-crisis-might-be-over-but-the-debt-crisis-has-just-begun/

Late Wednesday, the House passed an agreement to raise the debt ceiling in exchange for a few micro changes in spending. But despite all the (wildly exaggerated) warnings about a default, complaints from both sides about the terms of the deal, and what no doubt will be celebrations in the White House for getting a deal done – this fight has always been a sideshow. It’s the debt itself that poses the real and immediate crisis. And this debt ceiling bill does absolutely nothing to address that.

In other words, it’s business as usual in Washington, and anyone celebrating this agreement should be run out of town on a rail.

Here’s what the country faces today.

Interest payments are exploding: Thanks to unprecedented spending during COVID, not only does the government owe interest on $3 trillion more debt than it did when Joe Biden took office, interest rates are going up thanks to the inflation that all that reckless spending sparked. The chart below shows the shocking trend. In just the past year, quarterly federal interest payments shot up 54%.

WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

China’s CCP: World’s Most Dangerous Transnational Criminal Organization by Gordon G. Chang

Posted By on June 1st, 2023

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/19685/china-transnational-crime

What is the world’s largest transnational criminal organization? At 96.7 million members, it is the Communist Party of China.

Beijing’s primary goal is rule — not domination — of Planet Earth and the near parts of the solar system.

This expansive Chinese view has many implications, but one of them is that China’s regime does not believe it is bound by the laws of the international community. China’s regime, with this mentality, thinks that whatever it does by definition is within its right and therefore not criminal.

There are in China, for instance, over 700 million surveillance cameras in its SkyNet system, about one camera for every two residents. Those devices are being connected to one centrally controlled system as the regime stitches together a nationwide social credit system to monitor every person in the People’s Republic.

Taxis and other vehicles also have government-installed cameras. The CCP has thought of everything. As a result, China is fast becoming totalitarian and a total surveillance state.

The Communist Party cannot run such a state and claim it does not know what is going on.

This means the CCP is responsible for the tens of thousands of Americans annually killed by fentanyl…. The result, Vanda Felbab-Brown of the Brookings Institution wrote, is “the deadliest drug epidemic in U.S. history.”

TikTok… which Beijing effectively controls, glamorizes drug use. Yes, the wildly popular app has community guidelines prohibiting videos promoting drug use, but you can find clips with millions of views teaching kids how to take illegal drugs.

The Chinese gangs use burner phones and Chinese banking apps to move vast sums quickly, quietly, and securely through the Chinese state banking system. The Communist Party of China tightly controls all Chinese banks, and no one could transfer sums through their networks without the cooperation of the regime.

“At its core, the People’s Republic of China is focused on gaining geopolitical leverage over countries in Central and South America to be used in an eventual conflict with the United States.” — Joseph Humire of the Center for a Secure Free Society to Gatestone, May 2023

These are just a few of China’s crimes as detailed in Frank Gaffney’s new book, The Indictment: Prosecuting the Chinese Communist Party & Friends for Crimes Against America, China, and the World. Unfortunately, American law enforcement prosecutes individuals when it should be prosecuting the Communist Party of China instead.

China’s regime is trafficking illegal drugs, protected wildlife, and humans. It is laundering cash and participating in ransomware attacks. It steals intellectual property. The ruling group, as a matter of state policy, murders people for their organs.

The Chinese state is not only a dangerous international actor, it is also a common criminal. Perhaps we should say it is an uncommon or state criminal, the most powerful and insidious kind.

ISRAEL Comments turned off

Mahmoud Abbas’s Two-Palestinian-State Solution by Bassam Tawil

Posted By on May 31st, 2023

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/19682/abbas-two-palestinian-states

The “right of return” is not actually a “right,” especially if you are the party who started the war and then lost it, as took place in 1948.

The “right of return” is, rather, a demand: that all the Palestinians who fled their homes during the war of 1948 – and all their descendants – be allowed to return to what is currently the State of Israel.

Thousands of wealthy Arabs left their homes in anticipation of a war, thousands more responded to Arab leaders’ calls to get out of the way of the advancing Arab armies. A handful were expelled, but most simply fled to avoid being caught in the crossfire as the Arabs waged war in response to the establishment of Israel.

“There is a limit to how far Abbas should go to appease Israel.” — Saudi commentator, mepc.org, 2012.

[A]n extensive letter to Abbas, signed by 78 Palestinian organizations, contained a semi-veiled death threat.

It has now become clear that when Abbas says he supports the two-state solution, he is actually talking about one Palestinian state in the West Bank, Gaza Strip and east Jerusalem, and another one that would replace Israel.

In Israel, there are currently about seven million Jews and two million Arabs. An influx of untold millions of Palestinians would mean, literally, the end of Israel. This appears to be exactly what Abbas and other Palestinians are hoping to achieve.

In pursuing this hardline push for the “right of return,” Abbas desires a two-state solution: two Palestinian states, one in the West Bank and Gaza, and the other in all of Israel.

[Abbas’s] time is running out and his people are thoroughly angered and disappointed by his lack of tangible results, either in displacing Israel or in bettering their lives.

Addressing Abbas, the comment reads: “We, the Palestinian people, Mahmoud Abbas, want all of Palestine… 67 and 48, all the land, water, sky, air… and the Jews do not exist with us…. Let history write your name. You admitted that the negotiations with the Zionists were a mistake and a sin… Mr. President. Safed is home and you want to go back to your country…Palestine has tens of millions of owners of the land, and you have been repeating the same mistake for 20 years. The Palestinian people, are tens of millions. We will return. We will expel them [Jews] and displace them. Even their graves, Mr. President, will not remain under our soil… we will kill them.”

WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

To The West: Brace for Another Tumultuous Five Years with Erdoğan by Burak Bekdil

Posted By on May 31st, 2023

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/19683/erdogan-another-five-years

Erdoğan, as he has always done since coming to power in 2002, did all that he could to use state resources and the media he controls to manipulate the voters both before the May 14 vote and before the second round.

State officials who are bound by the constitution to stay neutral in politics joined Erdoğan’s campaign, while blocking every opposition effort.

When a journalist asked Erdoğan “How was this video recorded?” Erdoğan admitted that the video shown was fabricated, but still alleged PKK complicity in the Kılıçdaroğlu campaign…. In fact, the PKK circulated its own, original version; militants dancing and chanting and so on. At the election rally, Erdoğan showed a fabricated version showing Kılıçdaroğlu dancing and chanting with PKK militants.

While Erdoğan will try to maintain a balanced policy between Russia and the West, he will be inclined to favor Russia to the point where he fears that Western sanctions will hammer Turkey’s ailing economy.

Putin will keep on drinking his champagne while rooting for his Turkish Trojan Horse in NATO. Turkey’s relations with the EU, however, will remain in the deep freeze, where they have been for the past several years, with virtually no chance of reviving Turkey’s process for EU membership.

What will happen after [Erdoğan] has left the political stage? The Turks will most likely quickly elect another opportunistic Islamist leader — another Erdoğan.

The second round of Turkey’s consequential presidential election on May 28 did not produce a surprise. Turkey’s Islamist president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, now in his third decade in power, won 52% of the national vote against 48% by Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu, the opposition leader. In the first round on May 14, Erdoğan and Kılıçdaroğlu had won 49.5% and 45% of the vote, respectively.

ANTI-SEMITISM Comments turned off

Asking the wrong question about Biden’s flawed antisemitism plan Jonathan Tobin

Posted By on May 31st, 2023

https://www.jns.org/jns/antisemitism/23/5/30/291450/?utm_source=brevo&utm_campaign=Daily%20Syndicate%20Tues%20May%2030%202023&utm_medium=em

Cheers from failing Jewish leaders enabled the administration to pose as a defender of the Jews even as its policies enable a toxic ideology that spreads Jew-hatred.

You’ve got to hand it to the current occupants of the West Wing. President Joe Biden’s administration has shown itself to be weak and confused about a lot of important issues. But when it comes to manipulating American Jews, they know exactly what they’re doing.

After teasing it for weeks, the White House’s unveiling of the “U.S. National Strategy to Counter Antisemitism,” last week was a public-relations triumph in more ways than one. It was released just hours before the Jewish holiday of Shavuot and the Memorial Day weekend. Much like the traditional DC Friday-afternoon news dump in which officials release something just as everyone stops paying attention to headlines, this helped the White House manage reactions. With the Jewish world about to be shut down for two days—and then everyone else for two days after that—administration shills succeeded in dominating the conversation about the document.

More than that, the unveiling was a textbook example of how exceeding low expectations can generate positive spin. It also led to a discussion that avoided the most important question that should have been raised. Instead, the Jews were debating how happy they should be about Biden’s gesture.

For weeks, Jewish groups had feared that the document would not be rooted in the working definition of antisemitism established by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA). Among other points, this definition states that denying Jews the right to self-determination and claiming that Israel is a racist endeavor are antisemitic.

ELECTIONS Comments turned off

The Pregame Is Over for Trump vs. DeSantis Byron York

Posted By on May 31st, 2023

https://townhall.com/columnists/byronyork/2023/05/31/the-pregame-is-over-for-trump-vs-desantis-n2623864

There’s been a huge amount of commentary on former President Donald Trump’s big lead over Gov. Ron DeSantis in national polls. In the current RealClearPolitics average of polls, Trump has a 30.8-point lead — 53.2% to DeSantis’ 22.4%. That lead, while enormous, has been shrinking in the last week; on May 20, it was 36.9 points. Now, it’s six points smaller. That is something to watch in the days ahead.

But the Republican presidential nomination will not be awarded on the basis of national polls. It is, instead, a series of state contests that begins with the Iowa caucuses, moves on to the New Hampshire primary, then the South Carolina primary, then Nevada, and on from there. The early contests are incredibly important; by the time the race leaves South Carolina, the ultimate winner is usually pretty clear.

So what is the situation in Iowa? Does Trump have a huge lead there, too? Or are Iowa Republicans spreading their support among the growing field — DeSantis, Nikki Haley, Tim Scott, Mike Pence, Vivek Ramaswamy and others? A new poll from Iowa suggests the answer is the former — Trump appears to be very, very strong in the first state that will vote in 2024.

The poll, conducted May 19-22 by Emerson College Polling, found Trump with 61.7% support, followed by DeSantis with 20.1%. Pence and Haley were tied at 4.5%, with Scott at 2.1% and Ramaswamy at 2.1%.

“Trump’s lead in the caucus reflects his numbers in Emerson’s March New Hampshire primary poll, where he held a 41-point lead over DeSantis,” said Spencer Kimball, executive director of the poll, in a press release. “The former president’s base continues to be voters under 35, 75% of whom support Trump, and voters without a college degree: 70% support Trump. DeSantis’ support is higher among voters with a postgraduate degree, with 29% support, still trailing Trump’s 37% with this group.”

ISRAEL, MEDIA Comments turned off

CNN: apologists for terror By Robyn Dolgin

Posted By on May 31st, 2023

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2023/05/cnn_apologists_for_terror.html

CNN’s Christiane Amanpour appeared tone deaf to the public outcry over her “news analysis” involving a mother and her two young daughters left for dead by three Palestinian terrorists in Northern Samaria.

She used the blatantly false term “shootout” to describe the cold-blooded murder of Lucy Dee and her two daughters, Maia, 20 and Rina, 15, as if suggesting an exchange of gunfire had taken place at the time the terrorists sprayed bullets into the Dee family vehicle. The Dee family was unarmed and en route to a holiday at the seaside.

Amanpour’s fanciful imagination at painting a “moral equivalency” between the two groups was not lost on Rabbi Leo Dee, husband and father to the victims. He astutely described the reportage as representing a new age of “terror journalism.”

“Christiane’s false reporting caused my family unimaginable pain and suffering at a time when we could least bear it,” Rabbi Dee said in the Jerusalem Post. “This type of terror journalism perpetuates the conflict in the Middle East… The real cycle of violence is a comment like this followed by a terrorist atrocity and them more of the same.”

This sort of impassioned commentary is something Amanpour has become accustomed to hearing as a virulently anti-Israel commentator. But she’s less accustomed to looking down the barrel of a $1.3 billion lawsuit proposed by a grieving family member against her personally and her news organization, CNN. Rabbi Dee is consulting with legal experts and has made his intention clear of expressing his concerns to David Zaslav, CEO of CNN. He has requested a meeting with Zaslav.

The rabbi’s attempt to right a wrong appears to have motivated Amanpour to emerge from behind her wall of silence and issue an apology. “I referred to the murders of an Israeli family: Lucy, Maia and Rina Dee, the wife and daughter of Rabbi Leo Dee. I misspoke and said they were killed in a ‘shootout’ instead of a shooting,” Amanpour offered. “I have written to Rabbi Leo Dee to apologize and make sure the he knows that we apologize for any further pain that may have caused him.”

Rabbi Dee publicly accepted Amanpour’s apology, but his grander vision of holding CNN accountable goes beyond acknowledging a two-paragraph apology. He wants to change the network’s “cycle of false reporting:” His intention is to hold the global network accountable for news reporting that just doesn’t obfuscate the truth, but repackages the facts to the extent that viewers fail to learn the most essential truths.

In this case, CNN viewers would never know from Amanpour and her Israel-bashing colleagues, that the Dee family was murdered at close range, the matriarch had donated her organs for the benefit of others, and among the recipients would be an Arab citizen, as well as Rabbi Dee expressing his sentiment that the “vast majority of Palestinians are good people.”