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Ruth King

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Bidenomics Is Working: Deficits Are Off To A Roaring Start

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.

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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

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%.

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NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Biden ‘Saves’ Democracy by Destroying it Victor Davis Hanson

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.

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ISRAEL Comments turned off

Charging Israel with Genocide is Orwellian By Lawrence J. Haas

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.

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WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

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

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.

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IMMIGRATION Comments turned off

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

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. 

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NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

CAIRlifornia Pro-Hamas mob shuts down state Capitol, and Gov. Newsom cozies up to CAIR. by Lloyd Billingsley

By on January 11th, 2024

https://www.frontpagemag.com/cairlifornia/

Last Wednesday in Sacramento, a pro-Hamas mob crashed the state capitol and refused to leave, forcing legislators to adjourn the proceedings. Democrats had branded similar intrusions as an “insurrection,” but Gov. Gavin Newsom issued no statement. Four days later, the lead item on his press site was the link to a CNN story praising California’s gun laws. On the other hand, Gov. Newsom did take the trouble to meet with officials from the Council on American-Islamic Relations.

According to a January 4 press release, CAIR, “organized a meeting between Governor Gavin Newsom and Muslim leaders from across the state before the holiday break to discuss the ongoing humanitarian crisis in Gaza.” Attendees included representatives from the Northern California Islamic Council, Palestinian American Medical Association, West Valley Muslim Association, Muslim Students Association West, and Shura Council of Southern California. The Muslim groups requested that Newsom support “a permanent ceasefire and a continued commitment to ensure freedom of speech, particularly in universities, as students engage in rallies.”

A statement from CAIR’s California CEO Hussam Ayloush said: “We were pleased by the Governor’s commitment to ensure his Muslim, Palestinian, and Arab constituents are heard as the violent siege on Gaza continues and that CAIR-CA had the platform to request the administration be proactive in ensuring the dignity of Palestinians. In his tenure, Governor Newsom has paved the path as a champion for civil rights, and we urge him to continue to use his voice as the leader of Californians who overwhelmingly demand a ceasefire.”

As Chuck Ross noted at the Free Beacon, Gov. Newsom’s meeting with CAIR came just weeks after the group’s leader, Nihad Awad, said he was “happy to see” the October 7 attack, a comment that “even prompted condemnation from the Biden White House.”

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ANTI-SEMITISM Comments turned off

American Jews Enabling Anti-Semitism Free speech versus cost-free speech. by Kenneth Levin

By on January 11th, 2024

https://www.frontpagemag.com/american-jews-enabling-anti-semitism/

The presidents of Harvard, the University of Pennsylvania and MIT assert in a Congressional hearing that calling on campus for the genocide of the Jews is an exercise in free speech and so not a violation of university policies. The breath-taking hypocrisy of this claim, to say nothing of its immorality, was obvious to everyone who does not subscribe to the newspeak of American academia. Such a call for genocide with regard to any other group would, of course, not be tolerated. In addition, all three universities are constantly violating free speech precepts by limiting the access of conservative voices to their campuses and barring other sorts of speech that favored groups might find offensive.

The university presidents’ tolerance for campus voices advocating slaughter of the Jews was not because doing so is free speech but because doing so is cost-free. Much of the schools’ progressive and Muslim faculty and staff, as well as of their student bodies, are militantly anti-Semitic and forcefully oppose any gesture by university administrators supportive of Jews or of Israel. In contrast, university administrators typically pay no price for anti-Semitic gestures. Similarly, the haters have paid no price for aggressively exhibiting their bigotry, and they expect to pay none.

This dynamic has a long pedigree. A history of murderous anti-Semitism and its roots always entails disentangling the various, protean rationales of Jew-hatred. There is religious bias, racial and ethnic bias, class bias. And there are the many contradictory hateful indictments of Jews.  Jews are too white; Jews are not white enough. Jews are capitalists; Jews are socialists and communists. Jews are too insular; Jews are too assimilationist. Jews are globalists; Jews are nationalists. Jews are too secular; Jews are too religious. But amid the contradictory indictments, there has been one constant that has always facilitated Jew-hatred in all its forms. It has always been largely cost-free for the haters. Jews have virtually always been in no position to exact a cost. The bigots, and those in positions of authority who give them a pass, have almost never had to take into account the threat of pushback in their calculations of how far to go with their hate-mongering.

Today, Israel can push back against its genocidal neighbors. Its catastrophic failure to deter Hamas from undertaking and then executing the horrors of October 7 is at least being followed by a military campaign that has the capacity to dismantle the terror organization and deter others from attempting to emulate October 7.

The American Jewish community also has some ability to push back. It is less helpless than Diaspora communities have typically been over the last two millennia.

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ENVIRONMENT AND JUNK SCIENCE Comments turned off

The Cost Of The Climate Cabal

By on January 11th, 2024

https://issuesinsights.com/2024/01/11/the-cost-of-the-climate-cabal/

A year ago while in Davos, Switzerland, for the World Economic Forum, the administration’s climate functionary John Kerry said that “money, money, money, money, money, money, money” was needed for climate programs. That string of words actually corresponds with a sum, and it’s $150 trillion.

Go ahead, try to comprehend that number. It’s about 51/2 times the size of the U.S. economy, more than four times larger than the (always-growing) federal debt, and 150% of the world’s GDP. Or, according to Eric Worrall at the Watts Up With That? climate site, “if you spent $130 million every day since the death of Jesus Christ, just about now you would be approaching $100 trillion.”

That it will be spent over the next 26 years doesn’t mean that it’s not a significant, and economy-breaking, amount.

The immense size of the “need” matters little to the Davos crony crowd, which will meet for the 54th time next week. The gathering of the rich and powerful will spend its week schmoozing, trading favors and backslapping to become richer and more powerful. And of course talking about how much the world needs them and their special skills to solve the climate crisis they have fabricated, and how much of other people’s money they need to get the job done.

But let’s say the climate cabal gets the $150 trillion (after all, it’s only about $5 trillion a year) from taxpayers. What can we expect in return?

Economic struggles. Energy shortages. And zero impact on the climate.

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ISRAEL Comments turned off

‘Surge in illegal Arab building along Green Line a security threat’ By David Isaac

By on January 11th, 2024

https://www.jns.org/surge-in-illegal-arab-building-along-green-line-a-security-threat/

 An alarming increase in illegal Arab construction along the Judea and Samaria security barrier has come to light thanks to research by Israeli NGO Regavim.

Analyzing photography obtained through aerial reconnaissance, Regavim discovered tens of thousands of illegal structures built along the barrier, which runs roughly along the Green Line, the 1949 armistice line that followed Israel’s War of Independence.

Much of the Arab construction is new, created within the last 10 months, reports the think tank, which focuses on land and sovereignty issues.

In the first stage of its research, Regavim studied three sample clusters, in the South Hebron Hills, Judea-Etzion, and Samaria, finding 7,675 illegal structures in those clusters alone.

It next looked at illegal construction along the entire security barrier, from the northern tip of the Jordan Valley to Ein Gedi in the south. It identified 16,866 illegal structures.

They were all within 1 kilometer of Israeli communities in the Central and Coastal Plain regions.

“Some of these structures are so close to the line that you can reach your arm out from them and touch homes in Jewish communities in Kokhav Ya’ir, Rosh HaAyin and Modi’in,” Naomi Kahn, director of the International Division at Regavim, told JNS.

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