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NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION

50 STATES AND DC, CONGRESS AND THE PRESIDENT

Who’s Hungry For The Truth About Food Stamps? (Hint: Not Journalists)

https://issuesinsights.com/2025/07/11/just-how-dumb-are-todays-journalists/

A headline in Axios over the weekend carried this scary warning: “An increasing share of American adults are going hungry.”

Look at what has happened since Trump has been in office. It’s back down to where it was nearly two years ago and appears to be moving sideways.

Axios is hardly the only news site to claim that the One Big Beautiful Bill “slashes” food stamps – which now goes under the euphemism Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program – and will cause millions to go hungry.

As The Guardian put it, “the cuts amount to the largest in the program’s history. They come at a time when food insecurity is already on the rise in all 50 states.”

The Guardian apparently got its talking points from the leftist Center for American Progress, which makes the same point. “Moreover, this legislation comes at a time when food insecurity is rising across all 50 states, reaching levels not seen since 2014.”

But look at the sources that the Center for American Progress (CAP) – a favorite “think tank” for many journalists – links to in its screed about the horrors of the OBBB.

The “shocking data point” comes, the story says, “at a time when the stock market is hitting record highs and President Donald Trump just signed a bill slashing food benefits.”

But take a look at the chart Axios published in that tear-jerking story, which is based on data from Morning Consult. Notice anything?

The Culture War Goes to Court Three recently decided SCOTUS cases were family-friendly. By Larry Sand

https://amgreatness.com/2025/07/11/the-culture-war-goes-to-court/

June 1 marked the 100th anniversary of Pierce v. Society of Sisters. This landmark U.S. Supreme Court decision struck down an Oregon law that prohibited parents from educating their children in private and religious schools and required public school attendance.

Justice James McReynolds wrote, “The child is not the mere creature of the state,” which summed up the majority opinion in the decision.

A century later, however, the battle continues. On June 27, SCOTUS ruled 6–3 that Maryland parents who have religious objections can pull their children from public school lessons using “LGBTQ+ inclusive” storybooks. The Mahmoud v. Taylor decision maintains that parents have a fundamental right to direct their children’s moral and religious upbringing and that parental rights don’t end at the classroom door.

Children aged 5-11 were required to read or listen to stories such as Prince & Knight, about two male knights who marry each other; Love Violet, about two young girls falling in love; and Born Ready: The True Story of a Boy Named Penelope, about a biological girl transitioning to a boy.

It’s important to note that the dissenting parents didn’t challenge the curriculum or demand that the district banish the controversial books. They simply wanted to be notified and have the opportunity to opt their children out of inappropriate and objectionable indoctrination provided at government-run schools. They did not advocate for schools to teach a specific religion or beliefs, but rather, they only asked that schools respect parents’ constitutional right to guide their children’s moral development.

Justices Jackson, Sotomayor, and Kagan dissented. In her opinion, Sotomayor incoherently argued that the majority was trying to allow parents to separate their children from experiences that are “critical to our nation’s civic vitality” and would sow “chaos” in public schools across the United States.

Kudos to Trump for mentioning the USAF mechanics Ruthie Blum

https://www.jns.org/kudos-to-trump-for-mentioning-the-usaf-mechanics/

An impromptu press conference took place on Monday evening, just as U.S. President Donald Trump, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and functionaries from both administrations were sitting down to their much-touted working dinner at the White House. It would be the first of several meetings this week between American officials and the Israeli leader to discuss several pressing issues. Among these was the joint defanging of the Islamic Republic’s ballistic-missile and nuclear capabilities.

Asked by a reporter about the U.S. military’s June 22 airstrikes on Fordow, Isfahan and Natanz, Trump paused to give credit to the men and women of the U.S. Air Force who carried out the spectacular surprise operation.

“We had the pilots here yesterday, as you know, and they were incredible,” he said. “And we also had the mechanics. There were, I think, 170 people, a lot of people, that had to do with that incredible journey—a journey that could have been horrible. You remember what happened with Jimmy Carter, with the helicopters and all, and ultimately hostages. We had the exact opposite. It went perfectly.”

Trump’s mention of the mechanics went unnoticed, though the people responsible for the literal nuts and bolts of the mission must have been pleased to be acknowledged. After all, it is due to their skill and their diligence that the aircraft performed properly and that all the pilots were able to return home safely.

Trump’s Cabinet Meeting a Tour de Force, Ignored by Mainstream Media by Liz Peek

https://lizpeek.com/daily-rant/trumps-cabinet-meeting-a-tour-de-force-ignored-by-mainstream-media/?utm_source=newsletter.lizpeek.com&utm_

The Democrat-friendly media mostly ignored yesterday’s cabinet meeting hosted by President Trump, and who can blame them? Comparisons with similar gatherings held by his incapable predecessor Joe Biden do not help their cause. After an hour and a half of newsworthy updates on the activities of this energized and aligned White House, the media focused on one question – about Jeffrey Epstein.

There is ongoing rumor-mongering about possible links between Trump and Epstein, even though the most widely-reported political connection is with Bill Clinton. Can you imagine that political opponents who were willing to fabricate the Steele Dossier to discredit Trump would blanche at exposing his ties to the dreadful Epstein? Good grief. Trump is tired of the inquiries, and said so. Enough!

Of course, Biden barely met with his cabinet, either as a group or, according to reporting in The Original Sin, even individually. During his four years in office, Joe Biden held 9 cabinet meetings; in his first term, President Trump hosted 25. Six months into his second term, he has already held 6.

Not only does Trump invite the press in for a photo op, which presidents typically do, but he also takes – and encourages his cabinet members to take — questions from the press. You would think the press corps would appreciate being given this kind of access, after four years of being iced out by the clandestine Biden team. (No, I know better.)

Those Marxist Democrats The party on the left is leaving the American political spectrum.

https://issuesinsights.com/2025/07/10/those-marxist-democrats/

They are amateur Marxists who live like barons  untouched by the depredations of real communists….rsk
What will the Democratic Party’s 2028 platform look like? The way things are going, no one should be surprised if it looks like a manifesto written by a couple of bitter, revolutionary 19th century Germans.

Marxism is no longer on the Democratic Party fringe. It is taking it over.

We see this in the unpleasantness of Zohran Mamdani, the recent winner of the New York City mayoral primary.

The callow Mamdani describes himself as a “Democratic Socialist.” Fact-checkers, who seem to never fact check the incessant claims by the media and Democratic politicians and operatives that President Donald Trump and other Republicans are fascists, say he’s no communist.

While he might not be a card-carrying member of the Communist Party, several of his known positions are inarguably in line with Marxism.

Like Karl Marx, the privileged Mamdani, who calls himself a “BMW Bolshevik,” sees the world through the lens of class struggle. The platform of the Democratic Socialists of America, of which he is a member, “fights” for “the abolition of capitalism” as well as the “social ownership of all major industry and infrastructure,” two Marxist principles that Mamdani supports.

Mamdani is also promising “free stuff” for New Yorkers, from bus trips to child care; proposes to freeze rents (to stick it to those greedy capitalist landlords, no doubt); wishes to “shift the tax burden … to more expensive homes in richer and whiter neighborhoods“; and says there should be no billionaires, though he hasn’t said what he’d do with the 123 who live New York City.

There has been some light pushback from within the party. A few Jewish Democrats in Congress have been “raising concerns about” him, says The Hill. But many in the party are aligning themselves with Mamdani, even Bill Clinton, whose “third way” policies melded ideas from both the left and right, and by today’s standards was an ultra-conservative Democrat.

The Roots of Leftist Rage Unmoored from power and panicked by Trump’s momentum, the left lashes out—from Congress to campus to the street—with rage born of fear and fading influence. By Victor Davis Hanson

https://amgreatness.com/2025/07/10/the-roots-of-leftist-rage/

Across the political left, from orthodox Democrats to Antifa in the streets, the opposition to Trump has lost its collective mind.

The House minority leader and now self-styled tough guy, Rep. Hakeem Jeffries, poses with a baseball bat to show how dangerous he is in opposing Trump’s budget bill.

Jeffries harangued Congress for eight hours; Sen. Cory Booker went on for 25—both to no effect.

Bernie Sanders and AOC hit the rally trail in private jets to rail about oligarchs, omitting that the ultra-rich are not only mostly leftists but also the funders of the Democratic Party.

Sometimes the Democrats in Congress make bizarre videos, featuring profanity like f**k or s**t. On other occasions, they scream and interrupt Congress.

Some representatives now confess that they’re being pressured by their constituents to take a bullet for the cause.

The racialist Rep. Jasmine Crockett—sometimes playing the prep-school prima donna, sometimes modulating her accent to pass as the authentic inner-city activist—gains headlines for monotonously ranting about old white men.

On left-wing social media, the assassin Luigi Mangione remains a heartthrob for murdering a health-care executive, replacing the Tsarnaev brothers as the hot new left-wing killer.

He, too, might soon end up with a cover photo on Rolling Stone.

The left-wing internet mob grotesquely claims that children lost to the recent flash flood in Texas deserved their fate.

They even advance three sick reasons for their ghoulishness. Texas Christians supported the MAGA agenda and thus met a just fate. Or, as red-state Texans, they were deservedly collateral damage to DOGE’s bureaucratic reductions. Or, as climate denialists would say, the flash flood took righteous revenge on children for their supposed ignorance.

Add it all up, and there is a sizable leftist “base” that is completely amoral.

Burnt Offerings on the Altar of Multiculturalism’ Revisited, For the Heck of It Diana West

https://dianawest.substack.com/subscribe?utm_source=email&utm_campaign=email-subscribe&r=

Mark Steyn’s explanation for why he no longer takes note of the milestones of Jihad against the West marks them perfectly as the nullities they became. His reason: “Because we dishonoured the dead: we were summoned to a great societal challenge and could not muster the will to rise to it.”

Yes, the powers arrayed against Graeco-Roman-Judeo-Christian civilization were already too strong, and that was quite clear from the moment George W. Bush declared Islam was peace and apologized for saying the word “crusade.” Thus began that era of dueling adjectives and suffixes — “Islamofascism,” “Islamism,” and, of course, “violent extremism,” and the like, all invented to protect “Islam” from the light of scrutiny and — for lovers of life and liberty — revilement in public debate, international affairs, academia. That’s all over, which should strike us with terror anew. now, nearly a quarter-century after 9/11, and twenty years after 7/7. Islam is not even a topic of debate, however truncated and one-sided. I tried to explain the ramifications of this silence — perfect dhimmitude — in an interview yesterday with Coffee and a Mike, under the assumption that most viewers would have no understanding of what I was talking about, the Islamic slate having been wiped clean in perfect accord with Islamic blasphemy laws prohibiting criticism of Islam.

And so the cat chases its tail.

From July 10, 2005: “Burnt Offerings on the Altar of Multiculturalism”:

Only one faith on Earth may be more messianic than Islam: multiculturalism. Without it — without its fanatics who believe all civilizations are the same — the engine that projects Islam into the unprotected heart of Western civilization would stall and fail.

Azealia Banks Gives the World a Piece of Her Mind A rapper with integrity. by Hugh Fitzgerald

https://www.frontpagemag.com/azealia-banks-gives-the-world-a-piece-of-her-mind/

Azealia Banks is a rapper who doesn’t like being pressured by the anti-Israel bully-boys running music festivals in Great Britain to denounce Israel and join the chorus of those who want to destroy it. She’s just given the world a piece of her mind. It’s worth reading, here: “Rapper pulls out of music festivals alleging they wanted her to make ‘free Palestine’ statements onstage,” by Gabriel Hays, Fox News, June 28, 2025:

Musician Azealia Banks said on Wednesday she canceled her performances at two upcoming U.K. festivals because they asked her to make anti-Israel statements on stage.

The rapper and singer took to X earlier this week to announce that she was pulling out of the Maiden Voyage Festival in London, as well as the Boomtown Festival in Hampshire. She alleged that event promoters said she needed to push pro-Palestinian slogans during her performances.

“So guys, I am cancelling Boomtown and Maiden Voyage, the promoters have been stressing me out for weeks trying to force me to say free Palestine and threatening to cut me from the bill because I won’t say free Palestine and I’m not dealing with the threats and I’m not putting on a f—— hijab,” she wrote.

The “Luxury” singer’s lengthy post continued. She alleged that both events threatened to cut her acts if she didn’t comply with the requests, and noted that she went ahead and pulled out first because she didn’t agree with the demands.

“They’re both basically trying to extort me – by insinuating that I need to say I support Palestine or they will drop me from the gig BUT I would much rather drop them and not associate with anything that has cheap group think b——- attached to it.”

Still, Banks wasn’t finished.

She continued, “If they want to allow some no-name DJs to bully them into desecrating the nature of this music ecosystem and make ME the issue – whilst there being absolutely no ethical consumption under capitalism. Then that’s fine.”

Christopher F. Rufo The Identity Thieves Zohran Mamdani and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez feign oppression for personal advantage.

https://www.city-journal.org/article/zohran-mamdani-alexandria-ocasio-cortez-identity-political-gain

Zohran Mamdani and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez—two of America’s most prominent socialist politicians—have committed identity theft. No, they did not pilfer a Social Security number or swipe the digits of someone else’s credit card. They have done something more subtle: stealing the image of the oppressed for personal and political gain.

It’s an old trick. Just as Elizabeth Warren claimed Native American heritage as she ascended the ranks of academia, Mamdani and Ocasio-Cortez adopted the identities of the poor and downtrodden as they ascended the ranks of politics. Both built their political personas on a small kernel of truth: Mamdani claimed on his college application to be black because he was born in Uganda, despite being the son of two famous, affluent, and educated Indians; Ocasio-Cortez claimed to be a “Bronx girl” because she lived in the borough until age five, when she moved to a tony corner of Westchester County. Both have structured their identities around grand narratives of oppressor and oppressed, which they hope to convert into power and prestige.

The truth is that both Mamdani and Ocasio-Cortez belong to groups—Indians and Latinos, respectively—that do not fit neatly into America’s deepest historical binary, that between white and black, colonist and slave. Though both could doubtlessly point toward some personal slight or past injustice against their ethnic group, neither Mamdani nor Ocasio-Cortez can lay a real claim to historical oppression. Indian Americans are among the most educated and affluent groups in America, and the vast majority of Latinos arrived in the United States after desegregation and the Civil Rights Act. The very fact that millions of people uprooted themselves from India and Latin America to try their luck in this country indicates that they considered America a land of opportunity, rather than injustice.

For Mamdani and Ocasio-Cortez, however, the myth of post-Civil Rights Act discrimination must be maintained at all costs. Both use their privilege—Mamdani, graduate of Bowdoin and son of a professor; Ocasio-Cortez, graduate of Boston University and daughter of an architect—to advance their narrative of oppression.

Iran and 9/11 The Islamic Republic played a little-known but unmistakable role in the biggest jihad attack on U.S. soil. by Robert Spencer

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm-plus/iran-and-9-11/

As Steve Witkoff prepares to begin a new round of negotiations with the Islamic Republic of Iran, it’s important to remember that the Islamic Republic has been at war with the U.S., as well as Israel, for years. In fact, Iran even played a role in 9/11.

On Dec. 22, 2011, U.S. District Judge George B. Daniels ruled in Havlish, et al. v. bin Laden, et al., that Iran and Hizballah were liable for damages to be paid to relatives of the victims of the Sept. 11, 2001 jihad attacks in New York and Washington, as both the Islamic Republic and its Lebanese proxy had actively aided al-Qaeda in planning and executing those attacks.

Daniels found that Iran and Hizballah had cooperated and collaborated with al-Qaeda before 9/11 and continued to do so after the attacks.

Before 9/11, Iran and Hizballah were implicated in efforts to train al-Qaeda members to blow up large buildings—resulting in the bombings of the Khobar Towers in Saudi Arabia in 1996, the bombings of the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998, and the attack on the USS Cole in 2000.

Former MOIS operative Abolghasem Mesbahi, a defector from Iran, testified that during the summer of 2001, he received messages from Iranian government officials regarding a plan for unconventional warfare against the U.S., entitled Shaitan dar Atash (“Satan in Flames”).

“Satan in Flames” was the elaborate plot to hijack three passenger jets, each packed full of people, and crash them into American landmarks: the World Trade Center, which jihadis took to be the center of American commerce; the Pentagon, the center of America’s military apparatus; and the White House.