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NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION

50 STATES AND DC, CONGRESS AND THE PRESIDENT

The Jordan Neely Dilemma: Stay Seated and Do Nothing? When self-defense becomes vigilantism and racism. by Thom Nickels

https://www.frontpagemag.com/the-case-of-jordan-neely-stay-seated-and-do-nothing/

Imagine, for a moment, a different scenario in the Jordan Neely case.

Let’s say that Neely, a homeless individual and part-time Michael Jackson impersonator with a record of 40-plus arrests, had not been apprehended and put into a choke-hold by 24-year-old Marine vet Daniel Penny on the Manhattan-bound F-train on May 1, 2023.

Let’s also imagine that Neely’s mental breakdown rant on that same subway train went from threatening violence – “I’ll hurt anyone on this train” – to actual violence in which he attacked several passengers.

Imagine Neely turning on passengers by pushing, shoving, punching and kicking – as Daniel Penny observed the mayhem from the sidelines.

Imagine the press coverage after this fact.

“Passengers watch as homeless man terrorizes train and injures many. Who was there to defend the 80-year-old woman who died of a heart attack as Neely threw kicks and punches?”

The article would give an overview of the able-bodied passengers on the train who could have done something but didn’t.

“On board was a 24-year-old Marine vet who sat and observed as 80-year-old Mrs. O’Rielly fell to the floor and died” – one can envision news stations proclaiming.

The Jordan Neely incident could have easily gone this way.

Why We Need Behavioral Vigilantes This ongoing noise contamination of the public sphere must end. by Jason D. Hill

https://www.frontpagemag.com/why-we-need-behavioral-vigilantes/

Jordan Neely’s death on May 1, 2023 by a Marine veteran who placed him in a chokehold after the 30-year-old, homeless African-American appeared on a New York subway train allegedly hurling garbage and verbal abuse at passengers is one extreme end of a social malady plaguing our society today: individuals who treat the public sphere as an extension of their private sphere (or lack thereof), and who subject others to their obtrusive behaviors.

Neely had been arrested over 40 times previously for various crimes ranging from lewd behavior to assaulting senior citizens. As one commentator noted: This guy has been arrested dozens of times and he is back on the subway causing people to be scared for their safety; either get some law enforcement on the subway or give citizens authority to protect themselves without recourse.

Other recent incidents include two women blasting music from their phones on a plane in flight (pictured above). The women gave the middle finger to annoyed fellow passengers. As the article points out, one of the alarming trends in travel is the rise of people using personal speakers in public and carrying on loud phone conversations without using headphones.

Another recent article describes a woman voted off a Frontier Jet for lobbing a barrage of vulgar expletives in an argument she started with a couple seated rows in front of her.

People who use their phones as personal speakers are polluting every pocket of the public sphere; their boisterous behavior indicates they believe they are entitled to treat shared public space as their own private space—indeed, as an extension of their disheveled bedrooms.

Why is it that so many people have no understanding of their responsibility not to dominate the public sphere, monopolize it, or even make themselves highly conspicuous and obtrusive in it?

DA Bragg to Charge Marine Hero Who Defended Passengers Against Subway Monster The only remaining crime in New York is self-defense.Daniel Greenfield

https://www.frontpagemag.com/da-bragg-to-charge-marine-hero-who-defended-passengers-against-subway-monster/

DA Alvin Bragg came into office with a ‘day day memo’ promising not to prosecute the worst criminals.

His office will halt prosecution of several non-violent crimes including fare-beating, trespassing, resisting arrest and interfering with cops, unless they are part of a larger, felony case.

Prosecutors were also instructed to downgrade felonies to misdemeanors in certain cases. For instance, suspects initially charged with armed robbery of a store would get hit with petit larceny instead, a misdemeanor, provided no victims were seriously injured and there was no “genuine risk of physical harm,” the memo states.

When Jordan Neely assaulted a 67-year-old woman, breaking her nose and causing injuries to her head, the system colluded to set the deranged monster loose.

In November 2021, Mr. Neely’s aggression seemed to peak, when he punched a 67-year-old woman in the street on the Lower East Side, the police said. The woman suffered severe facial injuries, including a broken nose, according to court documents. He was charged with assault and, awaiting the resolution of his case, spent 15 months in jail, the police said, though his family said the stint was shorter.

He pleaded guilty on Feb. 9 of this year, in a carefully planned strategy between the city and his lawyers to allow him to get treatment and stay out of prison.

Jordan Neely had threatened to kill his grandfather, so his own grandparents wouldn’t let him in the house.

Biden And His Party Are Trying To Kill Humanity’s Last Best Hope

https://issuesinsights.com/2023/05/12/biden-and-his-party-are-trying-to-kill-humanitys-last-best-hope/

The president hates America. No? Then why is he, and his Democratic Party, systematically taking down this nation? Leaders who love their country don’t try to leave it on the ash heap of history.

Konstantin Kisin, a Russian-British satirist, recently said on Bill Maher’s show that “people in other parts of the world are not teaching their young children to hate their own country.” Maher, a man of the left, agreed. “This country,” he said, “is better off than a lot of people who are native to it” are willing to admit.

It cannot be argued that there is not an element, loud and strident, in this country that actively agitates against it and doesn’t miss a chance to weaken it. Its ever-outraged members are always found on the political left, and if they’re not Democrats, they caucus with them because they’re more closely aligned with that party’s agenda.

This faction denies America’s superior goodness relative to every other nation that exists or has existed. It rails against our market economy, which has produced far more prosperity than any system that’s ever been tried. Educators teach Marxism not as history but as guideline, twist past events to vilify this nation’s cornerstones, pervert objective math and science into subjective fields of study, undermine our national identity by pushing global citizenship, and tear away at the fabric of society through critical race theory instruction. The left mourns America’s founding, is at war with free speech, is perpetually in conflict with the Judeo-Christian heritage that has molded a nation like no other in history, and misses no chance to further divide an already polarized people. The moral code of the West has been shattered.

Speaker Kevin McCarthy Forbids Rashida Tlaib from Hosting Anti-Israel Event at the Capitol By Eric Lendrum

https://amgreatness.com/2023/05/10/speaker-kevin-mccarthy-forbids-rashia-tlaib-from-hosting-anti-israel-event-at-the-capitol/

On Tuesday, Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) sabotaged efforts by Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) to host an anti-Israel event at the U.S. Capitol, featuring anti-Semitic rhetoric by pro-Palestine groups.

According to the New York Post, Tlaib originally planned to host at least nine anti-Israel groups for an event titled “Nakba 75 and the Palestinian People,” which would be held at the Capitol Visitor Center. But McCarthy announced in a tweet that he was shutting down the event, simply saying “this event in the US Capitol is canceled.”

“Instead,” McCarthy continued, “I will host a bipartisan discussion to honor the 75th anniversary of the US-Israel relationship.”

“Nakba,” the word featured prominently in the title of Tlaib’s canceled event, is the Arabic word for “catastrophe,” which aligns with the planned speeches by Tlaib’s groups that would have described the founding of the state of Israel as a “catastrophe.”

“May 15th marks 75 years since the beginning of the Nakba, which means ‘catastrophe,’” the description for the now-cancelled event read. “Seventy-five years ago, Zionist militias and the new Israeli military violently expelled approximately three-quarters of all Palestinians from their homes and homeland in what became the state of Israel.”

At least one group that was supposed to attend, Jewish Voice for Peace, is documented as having openly praised terrorists, with the Anti-Defamation League describing it as a “radical anti-Israel activist group that advocates for a complete economic, cultural and academic boycott of the state of Israel,” and a group that “celebrates figures who have been convicted of engaging in terrorism.”

“It’s wrong for members of Congress to traffic in anti-Semitic tropes about Israel,” said McCarthy in a later statement to the press. “As long as I’m Speaker, we are going to support Israel’s right to self-determination and self-defense, unequivocally and in a bipartisan fashion.”

Israel first declared its independence on May 14th, 1948, and was ultimately admitted to the United Nations nearly one year later, on May 11th, 1949.

Weaponizing Death Death is traumatic enough, without searching for ways to gain political traction from it.  By Victor Davis Hanson

https://amgreatness.com/2023/05/10/weaponizing-death/

Recently there has been a spate of horrific murders.

The killers, whether committing mass shootings or single homicides, are hard to stereotype.

They can be clearly either mentally ill or simply innately evil. They can kill for revenge, for ideological purposes, out of hatred, for notoriety—or for no known reason at all.

They are probably left-wing and right-wing, white, black, and brown, young, and old. While their weapons of choice are semiautomatic rifles, there are plenty of killers who favor handguns and even knives.

Unfortunately, these tragedies increasingly have become politicized.

Yet our media and politicians do not apply a common standard of reporting about either the victims, the killers, or the apparent motives and circumstances of the violence.

Instead, each horror is quickly analyzed for its political usefulness. Then its details are electively downplayed or emphasized, depending upon the political agenda at work.

A sad example was the terrible murder spree at the private Christian Covenant School in Nashville. A transgender male lethally shot six people, including three 9-year-old children.

Almost immediately, three media narratives emerged.

One, semiautomatic weapons, not the killer Audrey Hale, were mostly responsible for the massacre.

Two, the shooter’s transgender identity profile played no role in the killing whatsoever.

Three, the public had no need to know of the contents of the shooter’s “manifesto.”

Why?

The media and authorities apparently assumed Hale’s written rantings tried to justify the murders because of Christianity’s supposed disapproval of transgenderism.

That censored reaction to the Tennessee shooting was quite different from another mass murder committed nearly six weeks later in Allen, Texas by a former security guard Mauricio Garcia.

Within minutes of the identification of the shooter, the media blared that Garcia wore pro-Nazi insignia and was thus a “white supremacist.”

Apparently that narrative was deemed useful to promote the idea of white supremacist terrorists using their semiautomatic “assault” weapons to kill for right-wing agendas.

The Green New Deal and ‘Chinafication’ of the United States Bringing economic ruin to America – while benefiting China and its ruling class. by Scott S. Powell

https://www.frontpagemag.com/the-green-new-deal-and-chinafication-of-the-united-states/

We are living through extraordinary times, not too different from what was portrayed in The Matrix—a 1999 science fiction film that depicted humanity being unknowingly trapped in a false reality. In truth, we are being deceived on a range of important and vital matters by a deep state ruling class residing in U.S. Government, universities, media, and business corporations.

Members of this ruling class work behind the scenes to create narratives to redirect resources and power to their benefit. Programs with greatest mass appeal are often those wrapped in some moral or social justice cause, crafted with compelling catchphrases. The most captivating causes are often those that include a global vision—such as saving the earth. This explains the appeal of the Green New Deal, although common sense, history, science, and economics reveal that it is more hoax than real.

It is important to understand that many elites who push these narratives have little affection for the U.S. and identify with China and the World Economic Forum on many matters. What is different now for us—the American people—than previous times is the large number of U.S. government agencies that have fallen under the sway of narratives and collude with the technology information sector.  As a result, First Amendment laws are being violated with social media companies effectively acting as subsidiaries of government agencies carrying out those agencies’ unconstitutional directives to block or cancel those with contrary views, effectively denying them access to mainstream and social media. Thus, narratives and propaganda, however distorted or false, often advance because well-reasoned dissent from prominent experts is censored.

Great harm against the United States has been incurred recently by this information-blocking duopoly.

We Are Living in a World Made for Satire The degradation has reached levels of absurdity not found in even the best satires. by Bruce Thornton

https://www.frontpagemag.com/we-are-living-in-a-world-made-for-satire/

The great Roman satirist Juvenal once said that the “monstrous city” of Rome makes it “hard not to write satire” and “fill a whole notebook” with scenes of corruption, vice, and sheer stupidity. I think of Juvenal more and more these days, as our own moral, political, social, and intellectual degradation reaches levels of absurdity not found in even the best satires.

Indeed, our culture and politics are so bizarre and surreal that the scenes we witness every day make satire redundant.

One example that would shock even a satirist like Juvenal or Jonathon Swift is the “transgender” phenomenon. Swift, in his early 18th century brilliant satire Gulliver’s Travels, describes the Academy of Projectors who carry out various preposterous experiments such as extracting sunlight from cucumbers, turning excrement back into food, and building houses from the roof down.

But our attempts to change biological males into females or biological females into males no doubt would have struck Swift as beyond satiric. Perhaps more incredible would be the credentialed  medical doctors who ignore their oath to “first do no harm,” and participate in the poisoning and irreversible mutilation of healthy, if troubled, young people and even pre-teens, including toddlers as young as two.

But that’s just the start of the absurdities. Who at the beginning of the 21st century could have imagined the military services––organizations whose members provide the serious and important service of fighting, killing, and dying for their county––wasting time and money subjecting their members to training in the protocols of made-up pronouns? Or, as Alabama Senator Tommy Tuberville wrote in the Wall Street Journal, selecting a  “non-binary” lieutenant to read a poem to the whole crew of an aircraft carrier during an “LGBTQ spoken-word night”?

And despite the warning provided by the massive drop in sales of Bud Light, after making a poncy transexual in campy drag its unofficial spokesman, the Navy “tapped another self-described nonbinary sailor to become the Navy’s first ‘Digital Ambassador,’” Tuberville writes. He adds, the “concern is that our new national obsession with sexuality, race and gender is focused on self rather than on purpose, ability or service”–– especially at a time when the Navy, like the other services, is facing record shortfalls in recruitment.

Just 27% Back Biden On The Debt Ceiling Fight: I&I/TIPP Poll Terry Jones

https://issuesinsights.com/2023/05/11/just-27-back-biden-on-the-debt-ceiling-fight-ii-tipp-poll/

There’s always a lot riding on a showdown between a president and Congress over raising the federal debt ceiling to avoid a government shutdown. But this year, as the 2024 election year looms, the stakes are particularly high. That could be bad news for President Joe Biden, the latest I&I/TIPP Poll shows, since his positions on debt, taxes and spending lack majority support even from Democratic voters.

For our May online I&I/TIPP Poll, taken May 3-5 with a margin of error of +/-2.6 percentage points, we asked 1,480 adults across the country the following question:

“At $31.5 trillion and rising, the U.S. government debt is close to its ‘ceiling,’ the legal limit before all non-essential government functions must shut down. Which of the following is closest to your position in dealing with this problem?”

Respondents were given three possible answers.

The first represents the president’s basic negotiating position, as of late April: “Congress should raise the debt ceiling with no controls on spending.”

The second response represents the negotiating position of House Speaker Kevin McCarthy and Republican lawmakers: “Congress should raise the debt ceiling by $1.5 trillion in exchange for $5 trillion in cuts over the next decade, as proposed by the House Speaker.”

The third response: “If President Biden and Congress can’t make a deal, Congress should do nothing and let nonessential parts of the government shut down.”

The breakdown of the answers showed a clear preference (46%) for the congressional proposal over Biden’s take-it-or-leave-it plan (27%).

And 28% said if the two sides can’t agree, Congress should just let the nonessential parts of the government close until a deal is struck.

E. Jean Carroll’s Original Claims About Trump Were Absurd, But That Didn’t Stop The Media From Amplifying Them By: Eddie Scarry

https://thefederalist.com/2023/05/09/e-jean-carrolls-original-claims-about-trump-were-absurd-but-that-didnt-stop-the-media-from-amplifying-them/

It’s a good time to reflect on just how ridiculous her claim was when she originally made it in 2019.

But more critical than the 79-year-old magazine writer’s allegation that Trump assaulted her in a fitting room after the two noisily galavanted throughout a popular department store — a claim she made to promote a new book — is the absolute nonsense she said immediately after.

It’s pretty stunning to accuse a sitting president of rape but then not want to call it rape, which is exactly what Carroll did at the time. In an interview with The New York Times, “It was an episode. It was an action. It was a fight. It was not a crime. It was, I had a struggle with a guy.” She added in the same interview, “I am not — I have not been raped. Something has not been done to me. I fought. That’s the thing.”

If it were just some kind of coping mechanism, a self-empowerment move to omit the word from her vocabulary, it might make sense. But when asked in a separate interview on MSNBC whether she would consider attempting to press criminal charges against Trump, her answer was even more bizarre. She flatly said no, and when asked why, she said, “I would find it disrespectful to the women who are down on the border who are being raped around the clock down there without any protection … It would just be really disrespectful.”

If you’re not following, that’s okay. Carroll was simply saying that she wouldn’t seek charges against the man who allegedly raped her because she had too much compassion for illegal immigrants. Understand?

Further minimizing the traumatic event she supposedly went through, Carroll said, “Mine was three minutes, I’m a mature woman. I can handle it. I can keep going. You know, my life has gone on. I’m a happy woman.”