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A brief history of the US presidency
By Mark C. Ross
After George Washington, things got kind of dicey. Jefferson verses Adams happened twice. The first time, Adams won, and the next time, Jefferson won. Sound familiar? The election of 1800 showcased the introduction of the ticket — the coupling of president and vice president — rather than making the electoral runner-up vice president...since, under the old rule, both were likely to be bitter rivals. The ratification of the 12th Amendment in 1804 formalized this process.
Partially due to the limits of early 19th-century medical ability, presidents had a tendency to die in office. Between Andrew Jackson and Abraham Lincoln, no president was ever inaugurated for a second term — eight presidents over a period of 28 years — though some of these results may have also reflected the opinions of the voters. Lincoln was the first president to be murdered while in office, and the practice continued with Garfield and McKinley shortly thereafter. Kennedy’s murder didn’t happen until over 60 years after McKinley’s, the delay possibly being due to more sophisticated security...until...
A most interesting story concerns John Tyler, who, as vice president, succeeded William Henry Harrison, when Harrison managed to catch cold at his inauguration and die 30 days later. In 1843, aboard the USS Princeton on a “pleasure” cruise down the Potomac, Tyler was below deck when a topside gun exploded while firing a salute. The U.S. secretaries of state and the Navy were killed. The Navy secretary’s daughter was down below with Tyler, and they married soon thereafter. Almost sounds like pulp fiction.
Oftentimes, when the vice president would ascend to the presidency on the death of the president, no new vice president would be selected to fill the void. Also, presidents seeking a second term would often change their running mate. Lincoln’s first veep was Hannibal Hamlin...what a great name. FDR had three vice presidents.
Speaking of FDR, no overview of the U.S. presidency would be anywhere near complete without including the exceptional three-plus terms of Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Not only is he the only person ever to serve more than two full terms — a feat that cannot now be repeated because of the 22nd Amendment — but such also occurred during some of the most critical years of American and world history. He was also the only paraplegic to ever be president, even though only one photograph of him in a wheelchair was ever taken, and that was probably by accident.
The election campaign of 1932 has been seriously mischaracterized. Writers, especially of the left, make the Depression the main issue, with FDR being considered better able to deal with it than stodgy old Herbert Hoover. However, Prohibition was the real dominant issue — this according to Paul Johnson in Modern Times. I posed this to my mother, since that was the first election in which she ever voted. She slapped her face and said, “That’s right! Roosevelt was a ‘Wet,’ and Hoover was a ‘Dry.’”
Soon after the election was concluded, another financial panic began, taking the form of a run on the nation’s banks. Hoover implored the incoming FDR to make a speech so as to calm things down, but FDR declined. And so, from November 8, 1932 to FDR’s inauguration on March 4, 1933, the United States endured a run on the banks that has not since been repeated in its severity. When FDR took office, he closed the banks and boasted to the American public that he had a list of every person who recently withdrew gold from a bank and, if all of them didn’t put it right back, they’d be sorry. When the banks re-opened, things calmed back down. Shortly thereafter, the Constitution was amended to move the inauguration up a month and a half to January 20. This is known as the “Lame Duck” Amendment.
A particularly intimate biography of FDR was written by the well known political columnists Joseph and Stewart Alsop. They just happened to be FDR’s cousins, and thus knew him quite well. As a schoolboy at Groton, FDR was known as the “Feather Duster” because he was such a superficial lightweight. Some speculators say he eventually became a serious person because of his polio, but the Alsops say that his love affair with Eleanor’s private secretary caused the tension in his life that forced him into serious adulthood. Ultimately, he died in the arms of the same mistress.
Thaddeus Russel, in A Renegade History of the United States, devotes an entire chapter to expressing the similarities between FDR’s New Deal and Hitler’s Third Reich. The immense concentration of authority in the head of the government and its consequences is the most obvious of these similarities. Though, with more subtlety than Hitler’s racist rantings, the New Deal also endorsed eugenics, the forced sterilization of individuals who were deemed “unfit” to reproduce. Both FDR and Hitler considered such genetic “culling of the herd” a profound benefit for the destiny of the human race.
Unmentioned by Russel is that both FDR and Hitler pioneered the exploitation of modern technology for political gain. Hitler used loudspeakers to enhance his communication to the masses at outdoor rallies. FDR did him one better and became a broadcast radio personality, and thus a familiar presence in many of America’s living rooms.
In the years following the New Deal, much of the power concentrated in the Executive continued to remain intact. Some political scientists say the three branches of our federal government are not really co-equal — with Congress being on top due to its control of the purse strings. The presidency, however, is but one person and is thus not subject to the wrangling and compromises needed to achieve a majority. And the Judiciary, though it is the final arbiter of what our laws actually mean, has no direct ability to enforce its rulings.
An odd aspect of the presidency has to do with the names that we know some of them by. Ulysses S. Grant’s real first name was Hiram, but U.S. Grant was politically more appealing. Woodrow Wilson’s real first name was Thomas...so ordinary. Harry S. Truman inserted the “S” for a better cadence, since he had no middle name.
https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2024/03/a_brief_history_of_the_us_presidency.html
‘Informed Consent’ officially nixed as long as there is only ‘minimal risk’ to the patient
By Olivia Murray
Newsom caught with hand in cookie jar again, exempts more 'friends' from $20/hour fast-food wage law
By Monica Showalter
Not too long ago, Gavin Newsom got caught with his hand in the cookie jar of political cronyism.
In response to a draconian law passed raising fast-food worker wages to $20 an hour, known as A.B. 1228, Newsom carved out a little exemption for his friends at Panera Bread on the laughable grounds that these establishments bake bread on the premises. In reality, the owner of several Panera establishments was a high school buddy who was a really good donor to his campaigns.
Once caught, Newsom backed off, but right when he thought no one was looking, he went right back to the cookie jar again to carve out more little exemptions for his friends who donated well, as if word had gotten around, signing off on a "cleaned-up" bill known as A.B. 610.
According to the California Globe:
California Governor Gavin Newsom just signed Assembly Bill 610 into law, which is the “clean up bill” granting exemptions for the $20 fast food minimum wage for fast food restaurants. Because as the Globe reported, Newsom’s PaneraGate scandal is admission that California’s arbitrary minimum wage laws hurt all businesses, but especially small to medium sized businesses.
It’s pretty clear now that the sole purpose of the law, given the specific exempted restaurants, is all part of the destruction of the middle class.
The bill language says: “This bill would exempt additional restaurants from the definition of “fast food restaurant,” including such restaurants in airports, hotels, event centers, theme parks, museums, and certain other locations.”
AB 610 will exempt fast food restaurants in airports, hotels, event centers, theme parks, museums, gambling establishments, corporate campus cafeterias, and Publicly owned lands including ports, piers, beaches and parks concessions – not just from the $20 an hour minimum wage starting April 2024, but also from regulation by Gov. Newsom’s creepy new Fast Food Council, which the Globe has reported on as government expansion and control.
So now casinos, airports, museums, theme parks, corporate cafeterias and the like which sell fast food are specially exempt from that draconian minimum wage that is crushing California's businesses. The big corporate company that can bring in a fast-food establishment for its employees as a perk can pay a sub-minimum wage law, but the little guy who sells tacos from a truck, or the struggling franchise owner in the inner city has to pay his employees full fare, driving up his entire operational cost.
The Globe notes that as a result of this lunatic law, which goes into effect April 1, businesses are fleeing the state, and hiring fewer workers. Some are automating services. What's more, fast-food employment has already dropped about 1.3% since the start of this punitive cost hike on fast-food establishments, significantly higher than the 0.2% job losses overall in the private sector in the state, with the Globe citing a report from the Wall Street Journal as its source.
If saving cronies is the aim here, as Newsom demonstrated with his exemptions, why not save all businesses instead? Do airport and casino fast food workers not need their "dignified" wages as much as other fast food workers? Why should they be making less?
Even more important, why should fast-food workers be making $20 an hour? Why not cleaning ladies, why not dog walkers, too? Normally, a high wage corresponds to a higher value in work, but this turns that idea onto its head, and ends up making everyone poorer, including those who really do have $20/an hour skills, because job formation no longer happens.
The clowns in Sacramento are all about push-pull influence-peddling, particularly for unions. This measure is toxic, not just for its arbitrary higher costs on business, but because corruption has become a part of it. Like the old Soviet Nomenklatura, we are starting to see a nomenklatura form in California where socialism and the state have become ever bigger and more obtrusive. Every last socialist hellhole has a nomenklatura where the rich live the lives of idle rich while the poor get ever poorer in the name of 'equality.' It's disgusting stuff, and Gavin Newsom is advancing that model right along in California.
https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2024/03/newsom_caught_with_hand_in_cookie_jar_again_exempts_more_friends_from_20_hour_fast_food_wage_law.html
Climate change and solar fields don’t mix
By Pete Colan
I just ran across a news story about a massive solar “farm” in Texas destroyed by hail. I will use the word “farm” only twice in this article in association with solar panels because that’s what everyone likes to call it, but putting solar panels on a vacant field is an insult to “farming,” so I’m going to call it a solar field instead.
I then internet-searched “hailstorm destroys solar farm” (that’s the last time I’m using those two words together) and clicked on “Images.” Stunning is the only word that comes to mind. This is not the first time delicate solar fields have been destroyed by nature -- it’s happening all over.
But wait! “Anthropogenic climate change” causes more frequent and more harsh hailstorms according to published studies like this one:
Hailstorms are dangerous and costly phenomena that are expected to change in response to a warming climate. In this Review, we summarize current knowledge of climate change effects on hailstorms. As a result of anthropogenic warming, it is generally anticipated that low-level moisture and convective instability will increase, raising hailstorm likelihood and enabling the formation of larger hailstones; the melting height will rise, enhancing hail melt and increasing the average size of surviving hailstones; and vertical wind shear will decrease overall, with limited influence on the overall hailstorm activity, owing to a predominance of other factors.
All those broken pieces of solar panels scattered all over the ground now creates the possibility of groundwater contamination, since solar panels can leach toxic materials
“…solar panels contain toxic materials like lead that can leach out as they break down, landfilling also creates new environmental hazards.”
I live in Northern Indiana, and we have hail frequently. We also have a new solar field just a stone’s throw away from my shop. The effect of a hailstorm on that field crossed my mind, but now it’s front-and-center since we also rely on groundwater here. I do not want to depend on this thing if bad weather, a normal occurrence, can simply knock it out and when it does, my clean groundwater is now threatened. No thank you, I’ll take my chances with reliable hydroelectric, coal, and nuclear.
https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2024/03/climate_change_and_solar_fields_don_t_mix.html
Being non compos mentis, Biden is unfit to vote
By Noel S. Williams
Non compos mentis translates to, “of unsound mind.” In some respects, we have an unsound electoral system: an idiot can run for our highest public office, but be unfit to vote for himself.
Joe Biden is de facto unfit to vote. After Special Counsel Robert K. Hur’s report in the Joe Biden classified documents case, it should be easy to establish that Biden is also de jure unfit to vote.
Thirty nine states have laws that permit judges to disenfranchise people with varying stages of mental disorder, like idiocy. Since Biden is the village idiot in Wilmington, Delaware, let’s look at their law that restricts the voting rights of people with mental disabilities:
No person adjudged mentally incompetent... shall be a qualified voter. For purposes of this chapter, the term "adjudged mentally incompetent" refers to a specific finding in a judicial guardianship or equivalent proceeding, based on clear and convincing evidence that the individual has a severe cognitive impairment which precludes exercise of basic voting judgment. 15 DEL. CODE ANN. § 1701.
Joe hasn’t yet -- yet -- undergone a judicial guardianship proceeding, though there’s “clear and convincing” evidence of his cognitive impairment. It’s also clear that Jill and his handlers are guarding him. After all, part of what constitutes grounds for guardianship is inability to make or communicate, “Sound decisions… or has become susceptible to fraud or undue influence.”
As for “equivalent proceeding,” only a court can decide if someone is unfit to vote. However, legal grounds have been established by special counsel Hur’s report. Indeed, many are perplexed by the quandary that Biden serves as president (albeit in an imbecilic, figurehead fashion) but is not fit to stand trial, per Hur.
The obvious reason, substantiated by Hur in congressional testimony (and corroborated by transcripts of his report), that Biden is unfit is his mental disability. In his testimony before the House Judiciary Committee, Hur staunchly reiterated his view that Biden is simply incompetent to stand trial. In fact, transcripts not only demonstrated Biden’s mental deterioration, but showed that he lied about who initially broached the uncomfortable subject of his son’s death.
If such testimony in one of our three august branches of federal government does not constitute an “equivalent proceeding,” then I don’t know what does. Maybe a court of law? If so, the groundwork has been laid.
While his de jure incompetence determination is pending, the de facto case gets stronger that, with each botched appearance, Joe Biden is non compos mentis. And that’s not just prima facie (at first sight), but with every unsightly sight of him.
And so are many of his supporters. As Pew Research recently pointed out, more than half of leftist women between the ages of 18 and 29 are literally insane. That’s interesting because some state voter incompetency laws actually contain the word “insane.” So, not only is Biden unfit to vote for himself, but many of his supporters are unfit to vote.
Our suffrage may be too broad, as we have to suffer fools, including mentally-disturbed leftists; and, if they have their way, a ragtag mob of illegal aliens. In the Dem’s desperate quest to cling to power, they concoct imaginary allegations of “voter suppression,” while undermining voting integrity. They have cobbled together an unsound electoral system run by people non compos mentis.
https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2024/03/being_em_non_compos_mentis_em_biden_is_unfit_to_vote.html
Why Were Americans Not Informed of the Difference Between FDA-Approved and Emergency Use Authorization?
By Mark A. Hewitt
Some internet trolls highlight the fact that Donald Trump signed the Operation Warp Speed bill that authorized the development of COVID “vaccines.” While that is true, the rest of the story that they conveniently ignore is truly illuminating.
To fully understand the dynamics of the COVID response from the White House, you have to begin with the Right to Try Act that President Trump signed into law on May 30, 2018.
The Right to Try act “authorize[s] the use of unapproved medical products by patients diagnosed with a terminal illness….” This indicates, and the subsequent text makes clear, that this act does not apply to drugs which are already on the market for any indication, as these would no longer be “investigational” or “unapproved,” and that patients with a potentially curable condition would not be eligible patients for consideration of treatment under this act.
From a National Institute of Health article:
Cancer patients who have exhausted standard treatments often seek access to investigational drugs. Often, however, such access is unavailable, due to either the unavailability of a trial, lack of an open recruiting spot on the trial, even when the trial itself is open, or the inability of the patient to meet one or more trial eligibility criteria. In such settings patients often seek access to investigational agents outside of a trial. The federal ‘Right to Try’ legislation was passed to create an additional avenue, different from the FDA’s Expanded Access, or ‘Compassionate Use’ Program, through which patients might obtain access to investigational drugs.
From the FDA website:
The FDA uses its Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) authority, under section 564 of the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act (FD&C Act), to allow the use of unapproved medical products, or unapproved uses of approved medical products, to diagnose, treat, or prevent serious or life-threatening diseases when certain criteria are met, including that there are no adequate, approved, and available alternatives.
What the internet trolls and the corrupt left never tell you is that the unapproved medical products, under the Right to Try Act, only received EUA, and just like Operation Warp Speed, COVID 19 “vaccines” were only authorized for use (i.e., not FDA-approved) under the FDA’s Emergency Use Authorization authority.
Terminal patients were allowed access to experimental drugs, which received EUA, under Right to Try; after COVID-19 appeared, all were allowed access to experimental drugs (mislabeled, but marketed as a “vaccine”), which received EUA, under Operation Warp Speed. Of course, one could not sue the pharmaceutical companies if the EUA drugs (COVID 19 vaccines) failed.
With Dr. Fauci as the White House’s primary spokesperson, the message to everyone was the salvation of the COVID shot. Remember: “Get the jab!”
So what is the difference between FDA approval and Emergency Use Authorization?
FDA Approval … is an independent, scientifically reviewed approval for medical products, drugs and vaccines. Approval is based on substantial clinical data and evidence, the product is deemed safe, effective and able to be produced within federal quality standards.
…
Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) is a mechanism used by the FDA to facilitate making products available quickly during a public health emergency, when there is no other adequate and approved medical product available.
In my American Thinker article, It Was Anthony Fauci’s Fault, I provide the documented references to the development timelines for potential vaccines against what was then widely referred to as the “novel coronavirus.”
A January 22, 2020 Newsweek article on SARS-CoV2 finds Dr. Fauci quoted: “NIAID was partnering with Moderna to develop an mRNA vaccine.”
On January 31, 2020, President Trump Declares Coronavirus A Public Health Emergency And Restricts Travel From China.
Per an LA Times article, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. said this to Joe Rogan:
Because there’s a federal law, the emergency use authorization statute, says you cannot issue an emergency use authorization to a vaccine if there’s an existing medication that has been approved for any purpose that is demonstrated effective against the target illness. So, they had to destroy ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine.”
(This is a declaration Kennedy has repeated on multiple occasions.)
And once that tidbit of news was injected into the corrupt media, outlets went into overdrive to destroy Kennedy; he was a “dangerous” disinformation king.
So why did the FDA suddenly proscribe and prohibit the use of proven coronavirus therapeutics and prophylaxes immediately after President Trump extolled the virtues of off-label medicines like hydroxychloroquine—see Fauci’s 2005 paper—and before any EUA “vaccines” became available?
Didn’t the left go into disinformation overdrive when it was learned that there were Texas doctors with COVID patients—some of whom were on their deathbed—and that they were being cured by, or responded to FDA-approved therapeutics after Trump asked about hydroxychloroquine? The FDA went nuts; Fauci was apoplectic. The “Nobel prize-honored” ivermectin became “horse paste.”
When the “vaccines” became available, immediately after Trump left office, a timely political statement, wasn’t it supposed to be Joe Biden’s leadership and mandate that would save the world?
Didn’t Trump only become the “pandemic” bad guy (he signed Operation Warp Speed) when the untested, unproven, experimental, and often mandated “vaccines” were found to be an unmitigated failure?
Didn’t Trump take the recommendations of his staff and authorize the funds to Big Pharma to develop COVID “vaccines” under Operation Warp Speed? Yes, COVID “vaccines” would be made available, just like terminal patients seeking experimental drugs under Right to Try.
“Coronavirus,” defined in medical dictionaries (prior to 2020) as a head cold or flu, largely “escap[ed] neutralization by vaccine-induced humoral immunity”; that is, coronavirus is not a vaccine-preventable illness. (Technical jargon for a virus that mutates and degrades over 2–3 years; see SARS and MERS.)
So what happened? The sheep on the left and other oblivious masses lined up for the jab and assumed Emergency Use Authorization was the same as FDA Approval.
Real vaccines go through rigorous testing, including multiple phases of clinical trials to determine their safety and efficacy, before being reviewed and authorized by regulators. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration must license (approve) a vaccine before it can be used in the United States and FDA regulations for the development of vaccines (ostensibly) ensure their safety, purity, potency, and effectiveness.
Fauci himself even told Trump it takes five years or more to develop a tested vaccine—but given Fauci’s true allegiances and political power, we can imagine he exploited Trump’s trust in him, selling mRNA experiments as “safe.”
EUA “vaccines” could have been anything, and hysterical people made crazy by the left’s propaganda got an armful of experimental something; millions against their will. One day we might know if the EUA concoctions were Wuhan wet market sewer water or something else.
I think the record reflects that Donald Trump did what a president is supposed to do—make a strategic decision based on the advice of his staff. I think the record also reflects now that Fauci was a deep state asset for the Democrat party who had the knowledge, training, and experience to make the correct decision on how to respond to a pandemic. But he didn’t, and his decision to slip mRNA technology into the pandemic response equation before any consideration to use FDA-approved therapeutics was grossly wrong; if/when Congress finally gets their act together, Fauci’s actions before, during, and after Operation Warp Speed should land him in jail.
https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2024/03/why_were_americans_not_informed_of_the_difference_between_fda_approved_and_emergency_use_authorization.html
Why Are So Many Pushing for America to Have a Hot War with Russia?
By Al Bienenfeld
The mistakes of the Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan wars appear lost on many. Today, we hear stirring calls to arms against Russia from a totally corrupt and dangerous media supporting a rogue American regime. Unfortunately, several establishment Republicans stand in support. Senators Mitch McConnell and Lindsey Graham are at the forefront of the Republican establishment’s support for confronting Russia. I would include Senators John Cornyn and John Thune in the mix, along with House members like Dan Crenshaw and, certainly, former House member Liz Cheney.
Even if the United States were to win such a war on the battlefield, we would lose. At best, it would be a Pyrrhic victory. (A Pyrrhic victory is one that inflicts such a devastating toll on the victor that it is tantamount to a defeat. The phrase originates with the Greek King Pyrrhus of Epirus’s invasion against Italy. His triumph against the Romans in the Battle of Asculum in 279 BC destroyed so much of his army that it ended the campaign.) Pyrrhus said, “If I achieve such a victory again, I shall return to Epirus without any soldier.”
In a war with Russia, American soldiers will be forced to fight with horrendous casualties. When this happens, Americans will relive the Vietnam War.
Also, as our Afghan withdrawal displayed, we have no Pentagon leadership. That leadership will also direct a war against Russia. Moreover, today’s woke military will not fare well against battle-hardened Russian troops. Many fighters have been forced out because of their Judeo-Christian values. Others are gone for refusing to surrender their right not to take an experimental vaccine that has unknown efficacy and side effects. Woke troops will not get the job done.
The wokeness insanity is a big reason why our military is unable to meet recruitment goals. The situation is so dire that the Pentagon dropped its requirement for a high school diploma. Even someone with a criminal record has a chance of joining the armed forces.
Add to this our current inability to produce munitions needed for a land war of this magnitude and our failure to consistently update our naval forces due to lack of resources and it all spells massive trouble. Senator J.D. Vance (R-Ohio) has argued that sending more aid to Ukraine will cripple our defense stock:
The West doesn’t make enough munitions to support an indefinite war. Ukraine doesn’t have enough manpower to support an indefinite war.
The media are so desperate to start a true American war that they consistently accuse Vladimir Putin and his people of threatening nuclear warfare when this is not the case. What the Russians are observing is our willingness to start a deadly war that could easily spin out of nuclear control. They see this as an almost certainty and are preparing by expanding their military and addressing their ability to produce munitions and drones. They are working with other nation-state suppliers, such as North Korea and Iran.
South Korean Defense Minister Shin Won-sik has estimated that North Korea has shipped about 7,000 containers filled with munitions and other military equipment to Russia over the last year. Russia has received hundreds of attack drones from Iran, and the two nations enjoy an active trade in weapons such as missiles, fighter jets, attack helicopters, radar, etc.
Iran is our enemy and has been since 1979, when it seized our embassy and held 52 Americans hostage for 444 days. The Iranians and North Korea are now in bed with Russia and are profiting handsomely from our failure in Ukraine. Iran should not be the beneficiary of sanctions relief for tens of billions of dollars. This enables them to fund Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Houthis and to build weapons for Russia to use against us. In a conventional war, Russia will have a supply advantage because of the Biden Administration.
Here is a sampling of recent media headlining pro-war propaganda masquerading as journalism:
Russia Dismisses U.S. Space Nuke Warnings As Malicious Fabrication. 2/15/24
WWIII Watch: Macron Floats Troops In Ukraine For First Time, Moscow Warns Of ‘Inevitable’ War With NATO. 2/27/24
Putin Issues [Another] WWIII Warning: Put Western Troops In Ukraine and Get Global Nuclear War In Return. 2/29/24
VLAD’S RED BUTTON Putin threatens to Nuke the West after accusing NATO of planning to strike Russia in rambling speech. 2/29/24
The worst are from the Murdoch-owned Sun. The Murdoch clan operates Fox News, The Wall Street Journal, and The New York Post, to name three. Under that last listed “RED BUTTON” headline was the following:
DERANGED despot Vladimir Putin warned the West is in danger of being nuked as he ranted for more than two hours at Russian elites.
The term “deranged despot” would be more appropriately applied to Joe Biden. Calling Putin deranged minimizes a dangerous adversary. He is far from deranged.
In addition, the Poles still hate the Russians, not seeing any difference between Russia today and the former Soviet Union, so they’ve been pushing for war with hyperbolic allegations of missile attacks, violation of airspace, etc. The other day, their foreign minister joined with the French in calling for NATO troops to support Ukraine’s war effort, contrary to the prime minister’s position. That the foreign minister is willing to publicly go against the Polish head of state indicates how volatile the situation is. The French and the Poles have been the loudest voices pushing for war with Russia.
The United States now has soldiers in the Ukraine. No one knows how many because the Pentagon and White House refuse to tell us. Air National Guardsman Jack Teixeira was sentenced to 16 years in prison for leaking classified documents that revealed in 2023 the presence of U.S. and British special forces in Ukraine. What happens when one of these soldiers (probably inevitably) is killed? Will that be the “Russian act of aggression” that starts WWIII?
In a recent interview, Blackwater founder Erik Prince argued for ending the Ukraine War: “An ugly peace is better than whatever their idea of an ideal war is.” Prince is a former Navy Seal and successful private security company operator. He also said, “The Western defense base is pathetic. And you’re not going to out-conventional war the Russian Bear.”
The United States cannot finance such a war, nor can our current military lead us to victory. Our manpower is woefully deficient, and we lack the industrial base to manufacture weapons in sufficient quantities to meet the needs of a war of this magnitude.
Moreover, a war with Russia would be worse than the Vietnam quagmire. People alive then remember that the war so badly damaged our nation’s society that all faith in government and the inherent belief in the moral fiber of our society was wiped out for almost 20 years. President Reagan restored it. Now, the Democrat party, joined this time by the Republican establishment, is again destroying American society. Like many American Thinker readers, I hope and pray for a Trump victory in November as that is the only avenue to restoring our once great Republic.
https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2024/03/why_are_so_many_pushing_for_america_to_have_a_hot_war_with_russia.html
Biden Losing Minorities
By S. Hodges
In his recent State of the Union, Joe Biden told Black Americans, "I have your back." The 2020 presidential election showed that this statement is not unreasonable -- according to polls, the Democrat candidate was supported by about 87% of black voters, as well as 67% and 63% of citizens with Asian and Hispanic roots, respectively. These are very serious figures -- at the moment, people of color make up 25% of the entire U.S. population.
That group of voters is expected to be critical to Biden's potential success on Nov. 5. It is easy to predict that most of the minority population is likely to vote for the incumbent. However, at the moment, the Biden administration has faced a tangible problem -- the level of support for the Democrat president among the above-mentioned groups is steadily decreasing.
According to FiveThirtyEight, in January 2021, Black Americans approved of Biden's work most actively -- at that time, the figure was 86%. After three years of his term, it can be concluded that his work with minorities failed -- approval ratings among Blacks dropped to 59%, and among Hispanics and Asians dropped below 50%.
A 30% decrease in support among a population (with a national indicator of 15%) initially predisposed to you is a heavy blow for Biden. It is necessary to understand the reasons why the most loyal group of voters trusts him less and less.
Initially, Biden's level of support among minorities was unimaginably high as well as the level of expectations from his presidency. It was assumed that the U.S. president would solve such painful problems as, for example, the migration crisis and the economy shaken due to the Covid-19 pandemic. And this is the case when the new administration crosses out the achievements of the previous one.
The transition of power from Donald Trump to Joe Biden in 2021 entailed rejecting strict migration policies, shutting down the Remain in Mexico program, and ceasing the construction of a wall on the border with Mexico. The result was that, over the past three years, 7.2 million migrants illegally entered the United States.
Biden is well aware of the problems on the border, but he and his government are not taking any significant measures to stabilize the situation. At the same time, White House press secretary Karin Jean-Pierre says that "the president has done more to secure the border and to deal with the issue of immigration than anybody else," spreading deliberately false information.
Biden himself is not very honest in his attitude towards migrants and asylum seekers in the United States. In his State of the Union, he used the term "illegal" instead of "undocumented person." Biden subsequently had to make excuses and confess that he regretted it.
It is probably worth recalling that such statements by Joe are echoes of his past, when in 1975, as a senator from Delaware, he spoke out sharply against "busing." During the Democrat primary in 2020, Kamala Harris recalled this fact to him, saying that she suffered from decisions promoted by Biden, in response to which he took a comfortable position, saying that local authorities were to blame and refused to recognize that he indirectly adhered to segregation policies.
In 2007, Biden made another resonant statement about Senator Barack Obama: "I mean, you got the first sort of mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy." Imagine if he said that today. Oh yes, nothing would have changed -- the Democrat media would not have written anything about it anyway because it was not Donald Trump who said it.
It is not less difficult for Biden to solve economic issues. The peak of inflation was passed in 2022; in February 2024, the figure was 3.2%, which is still higher than during the Trump presidency. Despite this, prices for basic goods that rose sharply in 2022 are not decreasing, and there are no trends toward changing the situation.
According to a 2020 Harvard poll, high prices and inflation hit Black Americans most painfully. Thus, 55% of them stated that they had serious financial problems, and 32% could not afford to buy a sufficient number of products. The increase in prices, rents, and the difficulties of doing business in conditions of high inflation led to the fact that people began to lose their money.
At the same time, Joe Biden presents as a great success of his presidential term the fact that the difference in the welfare of Whites and Blacks is now at the lowest level in the last 20 years. I wonder what the point is when the real standard of living stands in stark contrast to the president's statements.
No less acute is Joe's mental health. If you look, for example, at the pre-election debate between Trump and Biden in 2020, you can see that the latter at that time was almost able to express himself sensibly and explain his thoughts. If you look at him now, you can only see an old person who cannot do or say anything without prompting from his assistants.
The president either "doesn't want to answer questions," or "technically shouldn't be here,” or "oh, what I'm doing here" (just look at his hands at this point). Biden is not mentally healthy, no matter how much he claims otherwise. This is also evidenced by the large number of vacation weekends that he has taken since the beginning of his term (resting 40% of days -- something an ordinary man cannot dream of), and the small number of public appearances, and the quality of his performances in these rare moments.
That is not what we want to see when looking at the President of the United States.
The above problems certainly resonate not only with Blacks and other minorities. Joe Biden, losing the support of his loyal electorate, reduces his chances of winning in November. And, in fairness, his election defeat is likely to pave the way for a truly better future for the United States.
https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2024/03/biden_losing_minorities.html
Scammer Jackpot: Migrants Nab Legal Entry to US for $5,000
Biden administration parole program is rife with corruption.
by Joe Schaeffer | Mar 28, 2024
They’re coming every month in massive numbers from four of the most dangerous countries in the Americas, and the Biden White House migrants program that allows them legal entry is reportedly rife with corruption. “Unauthorized migrants are being sold access to the Biden administration’s ‘parole’ program for as little as $5,000 in Nicaragua,” The Washington Times stated in a shocking March 18 report.
“The scammers charge would-be migrants $1,000 upfront, which buys them contact with an American willing to fill out the forms promising financial support. Once the Department of Homeland Security approves the sponsor, the migrants pay the other $4,000 to the scammers and head to the US,” the paper related.
The result: A criminal operation that defrauds the United States is thriving inside a country ruled by an authoritarian neo-Marxist regime with a longstanding antipathy for the USA. The Biden administration is positively inviting another Fidel Castro Mariel Boatlift-like exodus of the worst elements of Nicaragua’s population into the United States.
“Parole is being sold on the open market,” a source “who saw the scam in operation in Nicaragua” told The Times.
‘Safe and Orderly Way to Reach’ US
The Biden administration rejoiced March 8 when a federal judge allowed the controversial program to continue. “We are pleased that today’s court ruling means that the parole processes for individuals from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua, and Venezuela will continue. These processes – a safe and orderly way to reach the United States – have resulted in a significant reduction in the number of these individuals encountered at our southern border,” an official Biden Homeland Security Department statement crowed.
New Banner Illegal ImmigrationThe numbers are staggering when one considers the dangerous origins of the new arrivals and the marked hostility of their home governments.
“Since the program was launched in fall 2022, more than 357,000 people from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela have been granted parole and allowed to enter the country through January,” the Associated Press reports. “Haitians have been [by far] the biggest group to use the program with 138,000 people from that country arriving, followed by 86,000 Venezuelans, 74,000 Cubans and 58,000 Nicaraguans.”
The overall migrant parole count, including from other war-torn nations, since Biden entered the White House in January 2021 is significantly greater.
“More than one million people have been allowed to enter the US under Biden administration programs based on the immigration parole authority,” CBS News reported in January.
“Since President Biden took office in 2021, his administration has used immigration parole at a historic scale, invoking the decades-old law to welcome hundreds of thousands of foreigners fleeing armed conflicts in Afghanistan and Ukraine, or political and economic crises in countries like Haiti and Venezuela.”
Remembering the Migrants Disaster of 1980
As Phillip Linderman at the Center for Immigration Studies pointed out in January, this has allowed the door to be flung wide open for a national security “nightmare” with the potential to dwarf Castro’s nefarious actions in 1980.
“In [Homeland Secretary Alejandro] Mayorkas’s parolee-migration programs, the ‘partner’ countries are, in some cases, enemy regimes (Cuba, Nicaragua, and Venezuela) or in other cases dysfunctional states (Haiti). In any event, these governments have neither the goodwill nor the capacity to share sensitive information with DHS on their domestic criminals or terrorists,” Linderman wrote.
He then emphasized the frightening parallels with Castro:
“In fact, with Cuba, Nicaragua, and Venezuela, the governments in those hostile countries now have a golden opportunity to offload as many unwanted criminals, anti-US troublemakers, and deep-cover spies as they can. The US government will have almost none of these excludable foreign suspects on its watchlists. Past experience with Cuba should send up red flares. Of some 125,000 Cubans that Castro permitted to sail to the US in the infamous 1980 Mariel boatlift, some 20,000 turned out to have serious mental illnesses or criminal issues that would have made them ineligible for an immigrant visa.”
The social and financial cost to South Florida was enormous.
“On any given day, there are 350 to 400 Mariel Cubans in Dade County jails, according to a recent report by the Dade-Miami Criminal Justice Council,” The South Florida Sun Sentinel reported in 1985, five years after the event. “This year alone, the county will spend more than $6 million to house those criminals. The state Department of Corrections will shell out another $6 million to house Mariels convicted of felonies in Dade, the report revealed.”
“Mariel criminals in Florida jails have an average of nine years of prison time left, bringing the cost to state taxpayers to nearly $72 million by the time they are released, the report says.”
Assuming the 20,000 figure is correct, this means some 16% of Cubans sent to the US by Castro were hardened criminals or suffering from mental illness. If that same percentage is applied to the mass importations of Cubans, Nicaraguans, Haitians, and Venezuelans by the Biden administration today, that could mean some 57,000 unstable and potentially dangerous foreigners have been dropped into American neighborhoods since the fall of 2022 (going by the 357,000 figure stated above).
The dire consequences are as tragic as they are predictable: more citizen lives put in mortal danger, more overburdened police and social welfare programs, and more disintegration of the quality of life in America today.
And this is but one program the Biden administration is using to import aliens into the United States.
https://www.libertynation.com/scammer-jackpot-migrants-nab-legal-entry-to-us-for-5000/
Is the Biden Campaign Strategy Fatally Flawed?
The argument for a second term is missing a key component.
by Mark Angelides | Mar 28, 2024
When one’s political opponent is tied up in both federal and state court facing dozens of felony charges that could amount to more than 100 years in prison, the notion that you could be on a losing streak with the electorate might seem entirely unrealistic. And yet, this is precisely where President Joe Biden now finds himself – on a downward trajectory facing defeat at the ballot box. How is it that the incumbent commander-in-chief is struggling to break away from Donald Trump? And why is his campaign failing to gain traction?
Biden Versus the Polls
Of the 62 major polls conducted since the beginning of 2024, President Biden has only topped the charts 13 times (he tied with Trump in six of them), meaning the public has indicated its preference for former President Trump in 43 surveys. According to Real Clear Politics, the 45th president is leading by an average of 1.4% nationally – a stature he failed to achieve when he won in 2016 and when he narrowly lost in 2020. But it gets more worrisome for Team Biden when we delve into the battleground numbers.
The November election will not be determined by what happens in the majority of states. As Liberty Nation calculated in a February report:
There are a number of states regarded as safe for each party – think California and New York for the Democrats and West Virginia and Wyoming for the Republicans. If these are calculated, President Joe Biden can expect to start the Nov. 5 presidential election with 191 [electoral college] votes safely in hand and another 35 either likely or leaning Democrat – giving a total of 226 votes, just 44 shy of a second term. The Republican contender – presently polled as Donald Trump – has a steeper hill to climb. The 19 states considered safe for Republicans add up to 121 votes, with likely or leaning locales adding a further 98, for a total of 219. That’s 51 short of a majority.
Polling data for the seven major swing states indicate that Trump has an average 3.2% lead. In fact, in at least four out of the seven (Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, and North Carolina), his lead is outside of the margin of error. If the election were held today, this would herald the return of Trump to the White House. How did it all go so wrong for Joe Biden?
Words Over Actions
There has been a major push from the White House to explain to the American people that they are – reflecting Ronald Reagan’s famous question – better off now than they were four years ago. The president’s X account even posed this question to its followers. It seems that the bulk of the electorate is answering in the negative.
Recent polling by Harvard/HarrisX reiterates the sweeping ratio delivered on social media. The survey offers a few key data points that are at odds with the White House message on the economy:
58% say the economy is on the wrong track (just 34% say it is on the right track).
56% say the economy is weak.
47% say their personal financial situation is getting worse (just 27% say it is getting better).
Inflation is the top issue affecting voters personally.
Democrats and their media allies have been touting economic improvements on last year, and while there are some bright lights on the horizon, Americans’ experience appears to be directly at odds with the message. But what of the “top issue facing the country”?
Immigration is the latest high-profile topic with which most Americas appear concerned, according to the Hill/HarrisX poll. Biden has just a 36% approval of his handling of the ongoing crisis.
Illegal immigration has dominated the headlines for the last year – with once-boastful sanctuary cities now back-pedalling on their promise of refuge and safe haven. Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, the man responsible for implementing and refining the administration’s policies on the border, was even impeached to almost no outrage from the Biden-friendly Fourth Estate. And yet, in the eyes of the electorate, the president has failed to act in a way that alleviates pressures or deals with fears.
Notably, in this polling, 55% now approve of the job Donald Trump did as president – and that figure includes 29% of Democrats and 48% of independents. Digging deeper, black voters approve at a rate of 40%, Asians at 44%, and Hispanics at a whopping 60%.
Competence Deficit
So, we see a scattershot approach to messaging, which could easily be confused with attempting an all things to all people approach. But what appears to be lacking is public trust that the Biden administration and DC fixtures are capable of delivering positive results with anything that approaches competence.
Team Biden took over the White House with a claim that the adults were back in charge. Such boasts come with certain responsibilities. And yet, despite the strongly worded guarantees of an end to Trump’s alleged chaos, disorder has been the hallmark of this administration. From the disastrous Afghanistan withdrawal to a cumulative inflation burden of more than 18%, it seems the president has a reverse Midas touch.
Politicians can get away with being many things, but incompetence – or at least the appearance of incompetence – is the ultimate sin.
https://www.libertynation.com/is-the-biden-campaign-strategy-fatally-flawed/
In Bold Speech, Biden Calls On Ships To Stop Crashing Into Bridges
U.S. — After a cargo ship collided with Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore causing the structure to collapse, President Biden gave a fiery speech in which he unequivocally called on ships everywhere to stop crashing into bridges.
"I mean it, folks! It's gotta stop!" said Biden to a small group of adoring fans in the press. "Ships have to stop with all the bumping into bridges and whatnot. If you're a ship and you're thinking about smashing a bridge, you'd better change your mind right now. I won't stand for it. That goes for trains, too. No more bridge crashing."
Biden then fell asleep standing up, as it had been over 2 hours since his last snooze.
Transportation Secretary Buttigieg also issued a statement from a private chateau where he is spending additional maternity leave with his adopted twins. "What we really need to determine here is if there was racism involved," he said. "Wherever you see large cargo vessels careening into bridges, you can bet that white supremacy is behind it. I promise to address this as soon as I'm back from my maternity leave."
Biden later awoke from his snooze to issue one last dire warning to ships everywhere, and offer hope to the American people. "This essential piece of transportation infrastructure will be built back better," he said. "After spending $300 billion and 32 years, we'll have that ol' bridge back as good as new! Except this time we'll name it after a black hero, such as George Floyd."
At publishing time, Biden was forced to double-down on his bold rhetoric after the Goodyear Blimp collided with the Brooklyn Bridge.
https://babylonbee.com/news/in-bold-speech-biden-calls-on-ships-to-stop-crashing-into-bridges
NYC Mayor Assures Migrants That If They Run Out Of Prepaid Debit Cards They Can Just Rob Americans Directly
NEW YORK, NY — Along with the announcement of a program that will provide illegal immigrants with pre-loaded credit cards, New York City Mayor Eric Adams assured migrants that if they run out of money on their prepaid debit cards, they can just rob an American citizen in person.
The announcement came as a relief to the tens of thousands of migrants who were concerned about what may happen if they burned through their taxpayer-funded free money, as they were promised by Mayor Adams that they could conveniently personally rob or burglarize Americans to replenish their funds.
"I don't want the migrants to worry," Mayor Adams said at a press conference. "These prepaid debit cards are not just a one-time payout. Once they spend all of the money loaded on their cards, they can simply resort to assaulting and holding up innocent Americans to get whatever money they need. We're cutting out the middleman and passing the opportunity to rob Americans of their hard-earned money onto you!"
One migrant reached for comment expressed tremendous gratitude. "Gracias, Senior Adams," said Miguel Rodriguez. "I was wondering how I would be able to pay my living expenses when my card loaded with money from Americans runs out, but now I know I can just find the nearest American and take their money myself! Thank you, Joe Biden!"
Mayor Adams's office declined to comment when asked if giving migrants the green light to rob Americans in person might add to the city's already significant spike in crime.
At publishing time, New York's illegal gun dealers announced they would now proudly accept prepaid debit card payments.
https://babylonbee.com/news/nyc-mayor-assures-migrants-that-if-they-run-out-of-prepaid-debit-cards-they-can-just-rob-americans-directly
Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg Holds Emergency Press Conference To Announce He Is Taking 3 More Months Maternity Leave
WASHINGTON, D.C. — In the morning after a tragic cargo ship accident and bridge collapse in Baltimore, Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg called an emergency press conference to announce he is taking three more months of maternity leave.
"It has come to my attention that the twin babies I purchased at the baby store require more undivided attention," said Buttigieg. "I will be taking some much-needed time off to care for my children, and that is in no way related to the tragic bridge collapse that apparently happened somewhere. Right now, I need to be a mother to my children. Please respect my family's privacy during this time."
Buttigieg then refused to take questions before jumping into a waiting helicopter and flying out of sight.
According to sources, Buttigieg still has 38 months of paid maternity leave available should he need it.
At publishing time, Buttigieg had issued an update, saying he would be extending his leave through the end of December.
https://babylonbee.com/news/pete-buttigieg-holds-emergency-press-conference-to-announce-he-is-taking-3-more-months-maternity-leave
The Great Trumpdini strikes again!
By Frank Friday
Was there ever any doubt Donald Trump would somehow escape the clutches of his nasty, yet so incompetent enemies? Martha Raddatz can start tearing up again, and MSNBC hosts can dejectedly trudge away from their camera positions outside Trump Tower or Trump National Golf Course. There will be no sheriff’s deputies coming with padlocks.
Mr. Trump got his appeal bond reduced, and he can cover the smaller amount. Oh, and for good measure, he picks up another $3 billion in stocks next week as his Truth Social platform goes public.
The rest of us just sit here in slack-jawed wonder to imagine what this guy will do next. I haven’t seen somebody pull out so many aces from his sleeve since the Great Cardini.
Letitia James will pound the table that “this changes nothing” — Trump still owes all the money from the verdict — but she is wrong. Trump will have about two years now to go through all the New York appeals, and then probably the SCOTUS as well, to cut that judgment down to size. I don’t think the New York appeals court would be giving Trump a break here if they didn’t think that much of Judge Engoron’s decision is weak or downright ridiculous.
The big-shot insurance executives were pretty confident Trump would overturn, or at least greatly reduce, the judgments against him. CNBC even reported last week that Chubb Group was considering fronting Trump the whole half-billion for the second appeal bond, before they got lots of political static, probably including from New York State’s insurance regulators.
No matter. Now it’s on to the Stormy Daniels/“hush money trial” next month. The main witness against Trump will be Michael Cohen, a repulsive liar and former lawyer for Trump, who was convicted of crimes unrelated to anything he did for the Trump family. It was Cohen who set up the whole nondisclosure payment scheme to Daniels in 2016, which, like it or not, was not illegal. It’s quite possible, in a twelve-juror NYC criminal trial, that at least one or two “good men and true” will see through Alvin Bragg’s pathetic case.
Even if Trump were convicted on this nonsense, after Fani Willis and her escapades, most voters, at least the non-rabid partisans, must be reaching the breaking point, where all the lawfare looks absurdly unfair and they tune it out.
In any kind of fair fight in November, between the unsinkable Donald Trump and the cadaverous Joe Biden, my money is on Trump. Let’s just hope he has a few more tricks up his sleeve for the second term.
https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2024/03/the_great_trumpdini_strikes_again.html
Another COVID-19 legacy
By Keith R. Jackson, M.D.
We are currently experiencing another “unforeseen” consequence of COVID lockdowns. Every day, in medical practices across our country, doctors are treating patients with viral injuries to the body’s nervous system at a level of virulence not seen in recent memory. Not only are continuously mutating strains of COVID to blame, but viruses other than COVID also seem to be more toxic to our nervous systems.
It may not be “War of the Worlds,” with alien invaders decimated by common viral pathogens on Earth, but it’s a B-movie spin-off with a less lethal plot. Fortunately, if we can manage to avoid future ill designed lockdowns, regaining collective immunity should help us get over this problem.
Physicians assign, usually by default, viral illness as the most likely etiology in the sudden onset of cranial nerve injuries. Sudden loss of smell and taste, a change in the mobility of the eye muscles, loss of hearing with or without new-onset vertigo, loss of facial muscle mobility, movement disorders of the tongue or throat, and sudden breathiness of the voice are examples of damage done to different cranial nerves.
The seed of this epidemic in more virulent virus-induced nerve damage germinated during our forced lockdowns in response to COVID-19. While we were not going to work or school and avoiding crowds, our exposure to viruses plummeted. For example, that first year, the U.S. basically had no “flu season.” Viruses continued to mutate, however, becoming more communicable and virulent while our immune systems were not being exposed. When we ultimately did, the viruses caused worse damage to our bodies. Our immunity hadn’t kept up. We had an “Immunity Debt.”
One of the unfortunate issues related to loss of cranial nerve function, well documented in the loss of smell, taste, and hearing, is an increased rate of earlier-onset dementia. Most people recovered their ability to smell and taste after the virus, but many didn’t. Significant percentages of those who lost their ability to hear by viral injury didn’t recover, either. The long-term consequences are worrisome.
We all learned through experience that forced isolation poured gasoline on the fire of decline in patients already suffering from dementia. COVID and other viruses may have been directly responsible for brain injury resulting in decline in cognition, too. While many victims tested positive for COVID when losing their nerve function, many did not. Our issue with immunity debt means that viruses other than COVID could be to blame.
It would be difficult to exclude the possibility of viral injury to parts of the nervous system other than those involving the cranial nerves. Indeed, the probability is high. As an example, many people have issues related to their alimentary tract after COVID, with food seeming to go right through them when they eat. A percentage of patients who suffer from this problem still haven’t improved many months after their illness, losing weight and vitality, sometimes to a frightening degree. We might blame the flora of the gut for this illness, but viral effect on the autonomic nervous system is possible.
Like this postulated problem, many bizarre effects from these more aggressive, virulent strains of virus are likely to be discovered with time. The lesson we’ve learned is that not having exposure to evolving viral strains has consequences for our immunity. Our immune systems do better when we keep up.
https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2024/03/another_covid_19_legacy.html
Our Rashida Tlaib foreign policy
By Silvio Canto, Jr.
Over at the United Nations, the U.S. showed the world that President Biden is weak.
We abstained from a UN vote and threw Israel under the bus because too many voters in Michigan voted uncommitted in the primary.
What a travesty.
Here is the story:
The Biden administration declined to veto a United Nations Security Council resolution on Monday that aims to limit Israel’s ability to win its war against Hamas. Washington’s action is short-sighted and counterproductive.
The resolution calls for a “ceasefire” in Gaza. Four members of the U.N. Security Council voted in favor of the resolution, while the United States abstained. Israel responded by scrapping plans to send a delegation to Washington. This was the fourth attempt in recent days to pass the resolution, with members of the Security Council haggling over its language.
Counterproductive?
How about stabbing a friend in the back? Shame on the Biden administration or whoever is writing all of these speeches that the president reads.
The real problem is that our allies are wondering and our enemies are planning their next move. The message is that Biden can be pushed around: Just listen to the Mexican president on 60 Minutes from this past Sunday!
Or watch Iran finance their clients interrupting international trade. The big guy is asleep, so the bad guys are on the loose.
What makes our "abstaining" so pathetic is that Israel is defending itself. They were attacked on October 7th. Young women were raped at a music festival. Families were shot at their homes. How is Israel going to negotiate with people like that?
So Rashida Tlaib is now running our Middle East policy? The first Tuesday of November can't get here soon enough.
https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2024/03/our_rashida_tlaib_foreign_policy.html
The red pill of Obamacare
By Monica Showalter
Joe Biden is flailing in the polls, trailing President Trump in all the swing states, and likely to lose in November.
Inflation, illegals, crime and wokesterism are among the best-known reasons for the shift.
But how many are aware that the nightmare of Obamacare is still with us, too, and likely driving Biden's poll numbers down?
As the man in this video below notes, the soaring cost and inflexibility of the mandate has made him say 'goodbye' to voting Democrat:
This is THE BEST RED PILLED video you will ever see.
🔥🔥🔥 pic.twitter.com/B07EYfF8oP
— I Meme Therefore I Am 🇺🇸 (@ImMeme0) March 25, 2024
According to RealClearPolitics, which has the beginning transcript of the video, the man lays out his personal situation and how bad it is because of Obamacare:
VOTER: I thought I would share why I am no longer a Democrat... I was a two-time bone cancer survivor, still am. That's how I lost my arm. Having healthcare was extremely important to me. I heard all the talking points of "if you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor," "if you like your plan, you can keep your plan, "the average family is going to save $1,500 a year," "it's not a tax." All of this stuff makes sense to me, how this was being pushed. And then the Democrats were saying Republicans don't want you to have health insurance if you have pre-existing conditions. Well I was a walking pre-existing condition having cancer twice.
My insurance was $185/month with a $1,000 deductible. That was for a family of 5. So I voted for Obama-Biden in 2008 based on Obamacare. Now fast forward to 2010 when Obamacare was implemented. Everything that they said was not true. The Supreme Court ruled that it was a tax if you didn't have insurance, that penalty. So that was a lie. Insurance premiums went up instead of down. That was a lie. The insurance policy that I had specifically that I had going through 2 bouts of cancer -- chemotherapy, amputation, all of this stuff. It was great insurance. The insurance company canceled it because under the new Obamacare guidelines that policy wasn't good enough so they no longer offered it. They came up with a new offer and said this is what your new plan will be or you can go through the marketplace. And when I looked at it, the cheapest insurance I could find to replace that one was $1,200 a month with a $6,000 deductible.
Remember, $185/month with a $1,000 deductible is now $1,200/month with a $6,000 deductible. No additional income. So I had to make a choice. Do I keep a roof over my children's head or do I get health insurance and struggle? And I choose to just keep a roof over my children's head. And then I was penalized every year. I didn't have insurance for 10 years after that. I couldn't afford it.
For ten years I was penalized every single year because I could no longer afford the insurance that I was required to get through law through Obamacare. I voted for that shit. And it did nothing but hurt me and my family.
It's not just the inflation, which is nightmarish enough. It's the sense of being gaslit, lied to, and deceived, and there's no way out.
After that intro, he grows intense and passionate, attempting to persuade young people through reason to vote responsibly, based on their own personal situations in this coming election, as he is in his. He points out the lies and the constant unfairness of Obamacare -- penalizing the middle class voters who cannot afford Obamacare, whose costs keep rising in a death spiral that he believes has "destroyed" the middle class.
A look at actual statistics on health care indicates that he's not wrong.
According to an article in SHRM, a trade journal for those in the corporate human resources field, published late last year:
A pair of new surveys finds that U.S. health costs will jump in the new year, which may have significant implications for organizations.
According to WTW’s Global Medical Trends Survey, the cost of medical care benefits in the U.S. is projected to increase about 8.9 percent in 2024, compared with 8.2 percent in 2023. Globally, though, the cost increase will ease slightly to 9.9 percent after hitting a record high of 10.7 percent in 2023, although analysts predict it will increase again in the coming few years. Nearly three-fifths of insurers (58 percent) anticipate higher or significantly higher increases over the subsequent three years following 2024.
Meanwhile, a survey of nearly 100 health insurers and health plan administrators by benefits consulting firm Buck also found that medical costs for employer-sponsored plans continue to outpace inflation, rising on average between 6.8 percent and 7.3 percent. That’s up from Bucks’s previous survey in May 2023, when insurers found medical trend factors were averaging 6.2 percent to 6.8 percent.
The costs rise in corporate health insurance for those with jobs, and certainly in the individual exchanges for those who buy health care individually, and those rises are for big expenses and they outpace inflation. An 8% rise for a $1,000 monthly cost is going to be a lot bigger an amount in absolute terms than an 8% rise on a bunch of carrots, which in any case isn't happening. Health care costs are rising higher than other kinds of inflation, meaning, those who pay for health care costs and cannot get out of it, are socked hard by inflation.
The Washington Examiner, citing research from health care expert Sally Pipes, explained why this was happening.
A big driver of costs, under Obamacare as a whole and due to Biden’s regulations, is the nearly indiscriminate use of government subsidies. Biden keeps trying to force unnecessary coverage onto people who don’t want or need it, such as requiring elderly men to buy insurance that covers pregnancy services. Both Obama and Biden ration the supply of care by deterring innovation that otherwise would occur through research and development.
Meanwhile, Biden is pushing rules changes, reversing President Donald Trump’s, that make things even worse. Using a “government knows best” approach, Biden wants to outlaw inexpensive plans that young, healthier people choose, on the theory that ordinary people don’t know what’s good for them.
So instead of just garden-variety inflation hitting ordinary people, including the man in the video, voters are getting socked with supercharged Obamacare inflation which is rising much faster than other kinds of inflation.
And like the man in the video, I suspect a lot of voters are looking at this and asking the biggest question in politics, which is whether or not they are better off under Joe Biden. With Obamacare still being touted by Joe Biden instead of thrown onto the scrap heap where it belongs, it's pretty obvious that nothing is going to be done about it to lower costs.
And that has to have a lot of voters worried. How that couldn't be affecting the voting decisions of many of them seems impossible. So while the left touts Obamacare as the law of the land and Joe Biden throws out this or that dog biscuit supposedly lowering costs for some special interest group, the nightmare looms large for the battered middle class. Inflation may be bad but Obamacare inflation is super-bad. And the man in the video shows that it's so bad it might just be changing how people vote.
https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2024/03/the_red_pill_of_obamacare.html
Banning TikTok empowers censors
By David Rand
While I share the widely publicized concern that banning TikTok will enrich Meta, Google, and Snap Inc., the real winners of this maneuver haven’t been mentioned, and empowering them would limit viewpoint diversity and freedom of speech, making it harder for content creators like me to find an audience.
I host a small political podcast on which I and my colleagues frequently critique the government. As a small outfit with no big names, we rely on social media algorithms to connect us to audiences interested in our content. We have found that not all platforms are equal in this regard: TikTok, in our experience, has been the best at that job, YouTube is okay, but Instagram is a disaster. If lawmakers ban TikTok, the only platforms left will be those that are 1) worse at helping small creators find an audience and 2) more likely to play ball with the Censorship Industrial Complex (CIC).
Originally defined by American author and journalist Micheal Shellenberger, the CIC is an informal network of government, non-profit organizations, and big tech companies collaborating to censor social media and drive a collective understanding of politics conducive to their interests. According to Mike Benz, former cyber security specialist at the State Department, the arrangement for the CIC was created to fight the war on terror, used to encourage the Arab Spring, then turned on the West in the aftermath of Brexit and the 2016 election of Donald Trump. Their work culminated with the arrangement to suppress the Biden Laptop story.
It’s this hidden censorship regime, the one that in 2020 suppressed the Biden laptop story and encouraged Facebook to suppress truthful but inconvenient COVID19 information on Facebook, that stands to win the most from a TikTok ban. Removing a platform that at times challenges the accepted narrative would give even more power to that group of government actors (and their private counterparts) to decide what content gets promoted -- and what content gets buried by the algorithm.
Most recently, TikTok failed to follow the line on suppressing anti-Israel speech enough for the powers that be. However, perhaps even more concerning for the CIC was when TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew testified before Congress, making TikTok’s point of view and danger clear: They would resist any government censorship of the platform.
Senator Marsha Blackburn mentioned these thought crimes in her PR for the ban. “It would not be surprising that the Chinese-owned TikTok is pushing pro-Hamas content,” she said. “The CCP benefits by destabilizing the Middle East and pushing the United States to put more manpower back into the region.”
But proponents of the ban have not proven that this TikTok content is an intentional move to undermine the American public’s faith in their institutions or to inspire viewers to campaign for Hamas. It’s just as likely that these videos do better because they appeal to the user base, and the algorithm is simply giving viewers the videos they want to see.
It should always raise your tyranny antenna when a politician claims that speech by Americans to other Americans is divisive and being amplified (without any evidence) with the malicious intent to undermine our foreign policy somehow. Perhaps the youth just disagree with you, Senator, and these videos get the views the do because Bytedance wants to make more money keeping people on the app and seeing ads?
In a republic like ours, U.S. foreign policy should be up for debate -- without the government selectively pushing narratives on us. Shutting down a side of debate by having companies “demote” posts or rerouting links to government approved outlets is censorship and destructive.
I’m not idealizing TikTok or Bytedance. They have their own issues of censorship, telling users to “Get info on US Elections” and “Get the facts about COVID” on some videos. But we need multiple social media platforms to ensure competition and limit the ease of censorship. Our goal shouldn’t be to mimic Chinese censorship but to champion freedom of expression.
Rather than killing off an entire media platform, Congress should go after censors themselves. Congress should ban the executive branch’s misuse of third parties for opinion manipulation and reform the intelligence agencies responsible. Defund the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency and the Atlantic Council. We have the guideposts for it; we’ve done it before. Simply restore the point of the Church Committee reform and clarify: Intel agencies can’t operate in the U.S. to manipulate public opinion.
In our fight for freedom of speech and specifically tolerance for speech critical of the government, surrendering the digital public square to a clandestine censorship cartel is a forfeiture of our liberty.
https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2024/03/banning_tiktok_empowers_censors.html
Watch your back, Mr. President
By Pete Colan
Call me a crazy conspiracy theorist, but these days every conspiracy theory seems to come true, and then some.
Consider the incredible planning that went into the 2020 election theft. Massive amounts of planning in multiple states, and executed simultaneously. We all concluded going to bed that evening that this was Trump’s win… and then in the morning it wasn’t. We all saw videos of ballots appearing out of nowhere in the voting centers. Ballot counting centers were shut down and poll watchers told to leave while vote counting still took place. We all either watched or are fully aware of the incredible discoveries revealed in Dinesh D’Souza’s “2000 Mules” that filled ballot boxes with suspicious ballots.
Yet it happened. And we could do nothing about it. Biden is serving his fourth year.
Then, only a few months later, we witnessed J6. If anyone had hypothesized on January 5 that the FBI and Capitol Police planned to agitate the crowd gathered at the Capitol, then opened the doors for members of the rally to peacefully enter the building, being respectful, taking selfies, and staying behind the ropes, yet many of them would eventually be arrested and held in prison for months and years, or hypothesized that Democrats in Congress enabled and/or orchestrated the event by turning down the National Guard requested by Donald Trump, or even that a government agency planted two pipe bombs as “plan B” in case “plan A” didn’t work, they’d be set in the corner with a tinfoil hat.
But that’s what happened. And we could do nothing about it as many innocent prisoners rot in jail, with some having lost hope and taken their own lives.
The lesson learned is that the Left will stop at nothing to stop Donald Trump no matter who or how many get hurt, and that’s been obvious with all the sham indictments and trials of Donald Trump for crimes he did not commit. Are they trying to break him? Well, that didn’t work. He comes out stronger each time swinging. Are they trying to disillusion his supporters? BACKFIRE! Are they trying to bankrupt his campaign? Remember… this is DJT, with more financial tricks up his sleeve than Wile E. Coyote.
However, just as Dinesh D’Souza has revealed, I believe “it’s always the patterns, stupid.” We all saw the patterns the day after election day, and it was plainly obvious to all of us who have even a modicum of statistical talent that the election was stolen. We all also quickly saw the patterns of J6, the timeline, the lack of real violence, DJT’s insistence on “peacefully and patriotically”, and we immediately questioned how this could possibly be called an “insurrection?”
It therefore begs the question: what are the patterns that should be obvious today? Well, in a normal campaign it is the candidate (or their committee) who plan where and when the candidate travels. If someone wanted to plan something nefarious against the candidate (who has 24/7 protection by Secret Service) it would be hard to make any plans with uncertain venues.
Enter the multiple court appearances that are planned well ahead in large cities, not by the candidate in question, but by the government in control of those cities. If one wanted to plan anything nefarious, this is exactly how it’s done. Maybe I’ve watched too many movies of bank heists and other crimes that have meticulous planning… or maybe I’ve just witnessed the Democrats doing just that for the last four years.
Watch your back, Mr. President.
https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2024/03/watch_your_back_mr_president.html
The New Racism is Poisoning America
By Janet Levy
The idea that past racism can be undone with more racism is ludicrous. Affirmative action, established in the 1960s, emphasized equality of opportunity. But it has transmogrified — through the politics of DEI, sexual orientation, and gender identity — into a new form of racism emphasizing equality of outcome.
Unconstitutional quotas deny college admissions and government jobs to whites and non-black, non-Latino, non-Native groups. The worst is the recent invasion of healthcare by DEI-driven policies. Belonging to a DEI-privileged group outweighs need. White patients may have to wait longer than blacks or Hispanics for cardiac care or kidney transplants. All in the name of “health equity” and righting past wrongs done to those groups.
This column will look at four recent lawsuits — among the many — that have been brought against such policies. It will also show how, over the last few years, a retribution-focused movement to embed racial preferences in medical treatment has gained traction in the healthcare industry.
The first case is from Montana, where in 1991, the 52nd legislature enacted and codified House Bill 424 (originally House Joint Resolution 28) as Montana § 2-15-108, MCA. The law aimed to “take positive action to attain gender balance and proportional representation of minorities” in state boards, commissions, committees, and councils. The alleged cause of the imbalance was “bias.”
In September 2023, two vacancies opened for the 12-member Board of Medical Examiners, but the governor has been unable to make appointments since the appointments must adhere to DEI. Do No Harm, an organization representing physicians and healthcare workers countering DEI in medicine, has filed a suit in U.S. District Court for the District of Montana (Helena Division), saying Montana § 2-15-108 violates the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
The DNH lawsuit says one of its members (identified as Member A) has 31 years’ practice as a dermatologist, is qualified for the post, and is willing to serve — but gender and race mandates stand in the way of her appointment. The Pacific Legal Foundation (PLF) is representing DNH pro bono.
The PLF has also filed a similar case on behalf of DNH in Louisiana. Here, the lawsuit challenges the state’s La. Statute § 37: 1263 (B) as violative of the equal protection clause. The statute governs appointments to the state’s 10-member medical board. Of its eight subsections, four say “every other member appointed” under those provisions shall belong to a minority and nothing therein precludes consecutive appointments of minority members.
DNH says it has members qualified and willing to serve as physician and consumer members of the board, but the statute prevents their appointment. Louisiana has similar quotas for other boards and commissions, such as those for barbers, optometry examiners, embalmers, and funeral directors.
The third case, filed on March 12 this year, is a federal lawsuit against the City of San Diego. The city’s housing commission has a loan program to assist first-time home buyers who are black, indigenous, or people of color (BIPOC). It offers $40,000 for down payment and closing costs. The Californians for Equal Rights Foundation, represented by PLF, has challenged the program as unconstitutional. For the Constitution bars discrimination based on race or color — no matter what race or color.
The fourth lawsuit, in which a battle was won, was from Arkansas. It related to appointment to the state’s Social Work Licensing Board. In June 2022, Stephen Haile, a devoted foster care parent with over 300 home placements and extensive experience in child custody issues, sought appointment to the board as a representative of the elderly. Haile was excluded from consideration as he is white and the board is required to have at least two black members.
Represented by PLF, he challenged Arkansas’s quota law in January 2023. But by March that year, the state legislature abolished the law, and Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders signed legislation to favor board appointments based solely on individual qualifications. Haile then withdrew his lawsuit.
Such quota systems are rampant now. Researchers for the PLF found that at least 25 states have gender or race quotas for public board membership. Fifteen states have race- or sex-conscious eligibility mandates for nearly every public board. Public Service Denied, a PLF report, details how widespread these discriminatory practices are. It lists sixty-three race- and sex-conscious mandates.
Meanwhile, the National Academy for State Health Policy (NASHP), buttressed by the federal Executive Order 13985 of 2021, is working to infect healthcare with DEI ideologies. Training “leaders of color,” increasing BIPOC participation in the healthcare workforce, mandating diversity training in medical settings — these are the priorities on which it focuses.
In parallel, the Association of American Medical Colleges has required member colleges to implement DEI standards. A move is also afoot to inject race politics into the Hippocratic Oath by rewording or replacing it. The American Medical Association, too, has adopted an “anti-racism” orientation.
The ostensible aim of such initiatives is to eliminate disparities in quality of, and access to, healthcare. The trouble, though, is that requiring doctors and other medical professionals to take time off from clinical responsibilities to prioritize racial impact makes no sense. Also, alleged systemic racism has nothing to do with illness, for which metabolic and behavioral risk factors carry more weight.
This movement, away from unbiased, need-based care to downright favoring of certain races, is unethical. Sometimes, it is taken to foolish extremes: WhiteCoats4BlackLives (WC4BL), for example, said that “policing is incompatible with health” and persuaded hundreds of state and local governments to declare racism a public health issue. But sadly, the effects of DEI ideology are in evidence in many areas of public health and healthcare.
It was seen, most egregiously perhaps, during the COVID pandemic, when 1,200 medical professionals signed an open letter saying they “do not condemn” riots organized by Black Lives Matter as risky, prioritizing “opposition to racism as vital to public health.” When vaccines became available, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said black senior citizens were the highest risk group and concluded that race should be prioritized over age!
The Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Boston, has a program that gives preference to black and Latino patients with heart failure, ostensibly to make up for past less attentive care. However, the program is based on a flawed 2019 study (itself based on others) that claimed to demonstrate “the presence of structural racism in admission service for heart failure patients.”
A similar policy prioritizing DEI-privileged groups has delayed the treatment of more than 10 million non-black nephrology patients, some of whom require kidney transplants. A new qualifications system adopted by the United Network for Organ Sharing (UNOS), a non-profit managing organ transplants in the U.S., prioritizes black patients for treatment.
Whether it is appointments to boards, medical care, college admissions, jobs or other benefits, unfair considerations of race now predominate. Policies discriminating against whites and other groups — Asians, for example — are falsely hailed as reparative for targeted minorities.
The process began in the 1960s, with the slow abandonment of the constitutional ideal forbidding any form of racial distinction. Then, DEI and social justice, and later, sexual orientation (in 1998) and gender identity (in 2014), became pervasive. This new racism violates the basic tenets of our constitutional republic. It should not be allowed to stand.
https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2024/03/the_new_racism_is_poisoning_america.html
It Looks as Though Biden Has Big Plans for Red Flag Laws
DOJ sets up a new center to promote Extreme Risk Protection Orders.
by Graham J Noble | Mar 27, 2024
The Biden administration has cranked up its war on Second Amendment rights several more notches with the creation of a new “resource center” dedicated to bolstering the enforcement of state-level so-called red flag laws. Vice President Kamala Harris announced the creation of this new Department of Justice (DOJ) office on March 23, during a visit to Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, FL – the scene of a 2018 mass shooting in which 17 people died.
Red flag laws allow courts to issue Extreme Risk Protection Orders (ERPO) that prohibit individuals considered to be a danger to themselves or others from possessing firearms. The DOJ’s new National Extreme Risk Protection Order Resource Center aims to essentially promote the use of red flag laws by providing information, resources, and assistance to local jurisdictions.
According to a DOJ press release, “ERPO laws … create a civil process allowing law enforcement, family members (in most states), and medical professionals or other groups (in some states) to petition a court to temporarily prohibit someone at risk of harming themselves or others from purchasing and possessing firearms for the duration of the order.” Considering the hostility with which government at all levels have often viewed the private ownership of firearms, such laws are, of course, ripe for potential abuse.
Acting Associate Attorney General Benjamin C. Mizer said, “In addition to other resources leveraged across the Justice Department, this Center will provide communities with new tools and technical assistance to help them implement effective crisis intervention strategies and reduce gun violence.” Nineteen states and the District of Columbia have so far enacted red flag laws.
Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY) was quick to blast the creation of the new office, writing on the X social media platform, “What the hell is this evil? A Federal Red Flag center; We did not authorize this. Announced, of course, just hours after the omnibus passes.” Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) also weighed in, writing, “Merrick Garland just announced a massive Red Flag Operation that the DOJ will be running by using EVERY spy tool the US government has in order to violate American’s Second Amendment!! This comes right after Johnson fully funded Biden’s weaponized DOJ!”
Greene has launched an effort to oust House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) after he shepherded a $1.2 trillion omnibus spending package through the lower chamber.
Uncertain Effects of Red Flag Laws
The anti-gun lobby was likely hopeful that red flag laws would facilitate a sort of slow-moving gun-confiscation program, but media investigations have shown that such laws are, in fact, rarely used – hence the creation of this new resource center, one can assume. According to the Associated Press, only four ERPOs were enforced in Chicago between 2020 and 2022, while there were 8,500 shootings resulting in 1,800 deaths during the same period. Red flag laws were used eight times in New Mexico over the same two years – the state had 600 gun homicides. Massachusetts used red flag laws 12 times and had about 300 fatal shootings.
A total of 15,049 people across all the red flag law states had their firearms taken away during this time, the AP analysis showed – but how can anyone know whether any lives were saved as a result?
It remains to be seen whether the DOJ’s new resource center will spark a notable uptick in the enforcement of red flag laws across the country. Still, the Biden administration has had a contentious relationship with constitutional rights in general- as evidenced by a number of Supreme Court losses – and with Second Amendment rights in particular. One might assume, then, that the very purpose of this new entity is to push states into disarming a great many more Americans, using red flag laws as cover.
https://www.libertynation.com/it-looks-as-though-biden-has-big-plans-for-red-flag-laws/
Is President Biden’s Political Posturing Endangering Israel?
Shifting allegiances midstream is always a dangerous game.
by Dave Patterson | Mar 27, 2024
Is the Biden administration qualified to advise any nation on how to defeat a terrorist state? Whatever your answer, the US commander-in-chief has summoned representatives from Israel to assure his administration that innocent Palestinians will be protected when the Israel Defense Force (IDF) enters Rafah, the last major stronghold of Hamas, in southern Gaza. Team Biden seems to want Israel to pledge that it will eliminate the terrorist organization while not killing anyone. A tall order.
Biden’s foreign policy and national security teams have been pushing Israel to slow down in its self-defense operations to destroy Hamas. However, such curtailment has consequences. In his recent article, “Biden insults Israel, supports Hamas in his Bizarro World,” Jed Babbin, Washington Times national security and foreign affairs correspondent, described what Biden’s wobbly support for Israel has wrought. Liberty Nation had an exclusive discussion with Babbin about the fissures widening in the US-Israel relationship.
Jed Babbin on Future of Israel
Liberty Nation: Jed, you wrote an article recently revealing the perverse duplicity of the Biden administration in its flagging support for Israel. How do you see Biden’s foreign policy team’s weakening affirmation for Israel playing out?
Jed Babbin: Biden reversed our policy toward Israel. It can no longer rely on us as an ally. Israel will invade southern Gaza and destroy Hamas without US support and possibly a denial of crucial military assistance on which Israel depends. Donald Trump was an avid ally of Israel. But the November election – and Trump’s possible January 2025 inauguration – is a long way off. Israel will have to go it alone until then. If Biden is re-elected, Israel will be very much alone, isolated, and friendless.
LN: In your article, you revealed that the Biden administration has just lifted a sanction allowing Iraq to buy $10 billion more of Iranian energy. You draw attention to the perversity of the United States allowing funding to flow to Iran, which supports its proxy Hamas that is holding more than 100 Israeli and American hostages, while counseling Israel’s Defense Minister Benny Gantz to be less aggressive in defeating Hamas. Where does this disingenuous thinking come from?
JB: I can’t read what little is left of Biden’s mind. His advisers have a bizarre worldview. They think we’re a lone superpower (which we are no longer) that can manipulate nations easily, the way Woodrow Wilson did after World War I. (See Margaret MacMillan’s Paris 1919.) There are too many other superpowers – China and Russia – and regional powers – Iran, North Korea, India, and Pakistan – which have to be handled, both diplomatically and with the implied threat of military force. Our military isn’t credible enough to deter even the Houthis, who have taken to firing missiles at Israel. The mailed fist in the velvet glove is what’s needed. It’s too much for Biden and his advisers to comprehend. There will be more wars before Biden leaves office.
Domestic Political Consequences
Babbin paints a grim portrait of what America faces on the path Biden has chosen. And the White House’s foreign policy team, seemingly unaware of the attending consequences of its posture, have charted a rocky course for the near-term US-Israel future. It seems the president was unaware that his strong stand with Israel after the murderous Oct. 7 Hamas terrorist attack would result in massive pro-Hamas and Palestinian university protests. Another political shock occurred when 13%, or 101,623, of Michigan Democratic primary voters – many of of Middle Eastern backgrounds – chose “Uncommitted” over the incumbent president in the early March primary.
Both of these events seem to have caused Biden to ease away from his initial resolute position to support Israel. So why does the White House fear the pro-Hamas and Palestinian voters in the United States when they represent a relatively small demographic? Is it perhaps because political momentum, even though small, beats loyalty to America’s strongest ally in the Middle East? Additionally, the State Department and National Security Council are dismayed that Israel is not cowed and is reluctant to be bullied by Biden’s apparent turnabout.
PM Netanyahu Determined to Destroy Hamas
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has made it abundantly clear that he would not detour from the objective of destroying Hamas. In a recent television address, Netanyahu told the audience he had met with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken:
“I told him that I greatly appreciate the fact that for five months we have been standing together in the war against Hamas … [W]e recognize the need to evacuate the civilian population from the combat zones and, of course, also see to the humanitarian needs, and we are working to this end … [W]e have no way to defeat Hamas without entering Rafah and eliminating the remnant of the battalions there. I told him that I hope we would do this with US support, but if necessary – we will do it alone.”
Blinken and his foreign policy team should recognize this level of resolve from Israel. Nevertheless, Netanyahu agreed “to send a team of officials to Washington to discuss alternatives to a promised Israeli invasion of Rafah, the city that has become the last refuge for roughly half of Gaza’s population, according to Mr. Biden’s national security adviser, Jake Sullivan,” The New York Times reported. However, the Israeli leader scrapped this plan as the Biden administration became increasingly hostile to Israel’s push to destroy Hamas.
Letting Israel carry out its stated objective against the terrorist group might be the best course of action for Biden’s team. Not having Hamas to spread terror in the Middle East would also rid the world of one more Iran proxy.
https://www.libertynation.com/bidens-meddling-endangers-israel/
Man Wishes There Were A Radical Progressive Journalist Nearby To Tell Him Whether This Post Is Misinformation
ST PAUL, MO — A local man is feeling frustrated, as he has come upon an interesting post on the internet, and there are no radical progressive journalists nearby to tell him whether the post is misinformation or not.
"This internet post is interesting, but alas, there are no militant lesbian feminist Communist members of the trusted media around to verify its accuracy! What will I ever do?" lamented the man, throwing up his hands. "I am lost in a sea of internet lies with no possible way of discerning fact from fiction! Woe is me!"
The man went outside to look for a woman driving by in a Subaru, or a recent college graduate with blue hair, or anyone else who would be able to assist him in his plight. Unfortunately, he was unable to find anyone and had to go the rest of the day without knowing whether the post he saw was true or false.
Experts say this is a growing problem for internet users. "We find that at least 80% of people go online without any Marxists, queer activists, or game journalists to guide them with their wisdom and keep them on the path of truth," said misinformation expert and queer Marxist game journalist Thad Dorgins to reporters. "If this problem isn't fixed, we might lose our democracy."
At publishing time, the frustrated man decided to abandon the internet altogether and tune into ABC News so trusted sources could tell him what to think.
https://babylonbee.com/news/man-wishes-there-were-a-radical-progressive-journalist-nearby-to-tell-him-whether-this-post-is-misinformation
Kamala Warns Israel Not To Violate San Francisco City Council’s Ceasefire Decree
U.S. — As conflicting reports indicated a possible offensive to rescue hostages held in Rafah, Vice President Kamala Harris issued a stern warning to Israel not to violate the San Francisco City Council's existing ceasefire decree.
Harris, while attempting to speak about something, reminded Israel that refusal to end all military operations against Hamas in Gaza would be in direct opposition to the binding ceasefire resolution adopted by San Francisco's City Council back in January.
"Let me be clear," Harris said. "A ceasefire means to cease your firing. And if firing does not cease, then it is not a ceasefire. If firing continues, then it has not ceased. You have not ceased to fire and therefore have not agreed to a ceasefire. War is firing. Peace is not firing. If you do not fire, you will have peace, and peace is the absence of war."
When questioned about whether San Francisco and other American cities have the authority to call for a ceasefire in a foreign war, Harris offered further explanation. "Authority is what it is, and what it has always been. Cities are many things. Cities are strong. Cities are powerful. A city council can vote to do things. And it is by voting to do things that things are done. That is what should be focused on here. We have been clear on this since the beginning."
Sources confirmed that, upon being asked for comment about Vice President Harris's warning, Israeli military command responded by asking, "Who?"
At publishing time, Harris stressed that reluctance to agree to a ceasefire would result in additional American cities passing resolutions until Israel is forced to comply.
https://babylonbee.com/news/kamala-warns-israel-not-to-violate-san-francisco-city-councils-ceasefire-decree
Letitia James Prosecuted For Grossly Overvaluing Trump's Fine
NEW YORK, NY — A Governor-appointed special counsel is prosecuting Attorney General Letitia James for fraudulently overestimating the amount of the fine in Trump's fraud case.
"All this time, we thought the fine would be $454 million, and it turned out to be only $175 million. That's off by at least a million," said New York Governor Kathy Hochul. "We thought we would bankrupt Trump's campaign, but now it looks like we won't be able to. I have appointed a special counsel to hold Letitia James accountable for this dereliction of duty."
James says she did her best to estimate the proper amount for the fine, and ultimately went with $454 million, as a family friend told her that was a big number. In a statement to the press, James asked: "I chose a big number to show how much I hate Trump and how bad he is. I hate him very much, and he is so bad. So, did we get Trump yet? Law and order!"
At publishing time, the charges had been dropped after an appeals judge reinstated Trump's original $454 million fine to show everyone how bad Trump is.
https://babylonbee.com/news/letitia-james-prosecuted-for-grossly-overvaluing-trumps-fine
Survey Says: It’s Time to Leave New York
The latest Resident Survey doesn’t bode well for the Big Apple.
by Kelli Ballard | Mar 26, 2024
Things are tough all over in New York, and a recent citizens survey describes just how dissatisfied residents are with their homes and neighborhoods. Between the soaring crime, soaring illegal immigration, infestation of rats, and astronomical cost of living, the Big Apple just doesn’t seem as appetizing as it once was. In fact, according to the poll, half of those surveyed said they will be moving out of the city.
Leaving New York
The Citizens Budget Commission (CBC) conducted the 2023 Resident Survey, then compared the results to those of similar polls from 2008 to 2017. It found that, overall, residents were not happy with the quality of life in New York. What a shocker. The poll looks at how life is now after the pandemic and found that only 30% of responders said they’re happy in their homes while 50% said they don’t plan to stay in the area over the next five years.
“People are fed up with the quality of life,” Queens Councilman Robert Holden told the New York Post. “There’s a general sense of lawlessness. You go into the CVS and there’s shoplifting. People’s cars get vandalized.” He added, “There’s general disrespect for the police. We moved away from broken windows policing that brought this city back.” He opined that people who can afford to move out of the area “can’t wait to get out of here.”
Tome Grech, president and CEO of Queens Chamber of Commerce, agreed with Holden regarding the crime. “In general, it’s pretty ugly out there,” he remarked. “There’s a free for all mentality over there the last couple of years. There’s a little sense of things spiraling out of control. We’ve got to get back to basics.”
One-third of New Yorkers rate the quality of life as poor, the survey demonstrated. In the 2017 poll, 50% of respondents rated public safety in their neighborhoods as excellent or good, but only 37% feel that way now.
NYC and the Migrant Crisis
CBC’s survey did not include any questions regarding the migrant crisis; however, that has been a huge issue among citizens. As Mayor Eric Adams struggles to find housing and financial aid for the illegal immigrants, residents have complained about the rise in crime, how their tax dollars are being spent, and the sheltering choices. Recently, Liberty Nation reported on the mayor’s debit card program which would provide loaded cards for migrants to use, causing a huge outcry among politicians and citizens alike.
Although it is not indicated in the survey that the flood of migrants into the city has added to poll takers’ dissatisfaction, the complaints by residents would indicate it was a huge factor. Even Adams suggested something similar, saying: “People have a right to be angry over what has happened with the migrants and asylum seeker crises and how it has impacted the quality of life for migrants and asylum seekers and on everyday New Yorkers. I know New Yorkers are feeling a certain way right now.”
The quality of life in the Big Apple has dwindled since 2017, according to the survey. Kathryn Wylde, CEO of the New York City Partnership, said: “CBC’s survey reflects the loss of confidence that New Yorkers feel in the aftermath of the pandemic.” It seems no longer in dispute that the Big Apple has lost its luster. One could easily change the iconic John Kander/Fred Ebb ode to the city: If I can’t make it there, I can make it anywhere else.
https://www.libertynation.com/survey-says-its-time-to-leave-new-york/
Ted Cruz Blasts Biden Intel Office Over Diversity Newsletter: ‘Worse Than Silly. It’s Dangerous’
March 26, 2024
Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) blasted the Biden administration’s top intelligence office in response to a diversity newsletter it sent out instructed intelligence agents to avoid using “problematic language” when discussing Islamic terrorism and celebrating crossdressing in its ranks.
““On one level you say, ‘okay, this sort of language political correctness stuff, it’s silly’. But in this instance, it’s much worse than silly. It is dangerous,” Cruz said on his podcast, referencing a Daily Wire investigation that revealed the contents of an official Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) diversity newsletter called “The Dive.”
The newsletter was sent to the NSA, FBI, CIA, and components within each branch of the military and it specifically stated that the terms “Jihadist” and “radical Islam” should be avoided because of their “hurtful” nature.
Cruz warned that the ODNI’s insistence on using sensitive language when discussing counter terrorism threatens to endanger Americans.
“If the intelligence community … refuses to acknowledge what is actually happening, it means they will be utterly ineffective in fighting against it and keeping Americans and our allies safe.”
The intelligence community’s embrace of the diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) agenda under the Biden administration comes as the Democrat president has worked to institutionalize the leftwing dogma throughout all agencies within the executive branch.
Cruz went on to point out that the ODNI document marks a continuation of an Obama era effort to advance political correctness even when it undermines our national security.
“This is continuing the path of putting politics above national security that we saw when Barack Obama was president,” Sen. Cruz contended. “When Barack Obama was president, I actually chaired a hearing that examined the purge, that the Obama White House insisted DHS to remove from their records any reference to radical Islamic terrorism, or Islam, or Muslim, or jihadist.”
“October 7 was carried out by Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad,” Cruz reminded before adding “Apparently, that is an inconvenient fact to the language, commissars, who I presume want to edit out the word Islamic from the name of the terrorist group, Palestinian Islamic Jihad.”
While much of the document focused on avoiding “problematic phrases” when discussing Islamic terrorism, it also sought to police language used by intelligence agents more broadly. The newsletter’s theme was “words matter,” and the opening article boasted that “IC employee resource groups advocating for Asian and Pacific Islander heritage have been particularly successful in creating a new framework and language guidelines for how we talk about the People’s Republic of China.”
The same ODNI document also featured an article from an anonymous intelligence agent who claimed that crossdressing makes him a “better intelligence officer,” citing his newfound ability to relate to women and his capacity as an ally for “LGBTQIA+” individuals.
Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR), a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee and U.S. Army veteran who fought in Afghanistan, also condemned the newsletter and warned that the prioritization of DEI could have serious national security consequences. “
The Biden administration putting DEI above national security concerns is a tragedy waiting to happen,” Cotton told The Daily Wire after reviewing the newsletter. “Our intelligence agencies should spend their time finding terrorists, not worrying about whether they will offend them.”
Rep. Mike Waltz (R-FL), a member of the House Select Committee on Intelligence and U.S. Army veteran who fought in the elite Green Berets, also called out the ODNI document as a return to Obama-era directives. “It is a return to the same Obama Administration head-in-the-sand approach to Islamic extremism that led to Obama calling ISIS the JV team,” Waltz argued. “The same people are now running the Biden Administration, so it is no surprise they are making the same mistakes.”
The ODNI is not the only facet of the intelligence community that’s pushed far-left dogmas on race and gender in the name of DEI. The National Security Agency (NSA) published an internal DEI glossary, exclusively obtained by The Daily Wire, that included terms like “white fragility,” “transmisogyny,” “settler colonialism,” and even the gender neutral pronouns of “ze” and “zir.”
The DEI agenda has spread throughout the federal government largely thanks to executive orders from Biden that sought to institutionalize extreme ideologies into the operations of the federal bureaucracy. Former President Donald Trump has signaled that he may gut the federal bureaucracy through an executive order called Schedule F, which would remove civil services protections from thousands of bureaucrats who threaten to undermine his agenda.
Others are preparing to fill in the gap left by outgoing officials, assembling a personnel database of those who might serve in the next administration through the Project 2025 Presidential Transition Project, an initiative from the Heritage Foundation that seeks to “pave the way for an effective conservative Administration.”
https://www.yourdestinationnow.com/2024/03/ted-cruz-blasts-biden-intel-office-over.html
Massachusetts Burning $75 Million A Month On Shelters, May Soon Run Out Of Cash Amid Migrant Crisis
Women System March 26, 2024
Massachusetts is spending about $75 million a month on shelters and is reportedly on track to run out of cash next month as officials struggle to contend with a migrant crisis.
Democrat Governor Maura Healey’s administration has not revealed exactly when the money is slated to run out, but it is expected to be sometime in early or mid-April, according to the Boston Herald.
“We don’t have any further updates at this time. We are encouraged by the progress the Legislature has made and look forward to working with them to finalize the supplemental budget as soon as possible,” Matt Murphy, spokesman for the administration’s Executive Office for Administration & Finance, told the news outlet.
Massachusetts has seen an influx of thousands of migrants in recent months that has strained the state’s shelter system as well as its finances.
About 7,500 families are currently living in emergency assistance shelters, and another 240 families are currently living at state overflow sites. Those numbers do not take into account the thousands more single migrants and homeless Americans housed in the shelters.
The state legislature is currently negotiating a new spending plan with lawmakers working to add hundreds of millions of dollars to the state’s budget to fund the government’s response to the migrant crisis.
“I’m hopeful that once we get into this discussion with our counterparts that we’ll be able to produce something with time to spare in terms of any funding running out,” House Ways and Means Chairman Aaron Michlewitz, a Democrat, told the outlet.
Massachusetts will soon start requiring migrants at the shelters to start showing they are attempting to obtain work or housing, the Healey administration announced Monday.
Healey warned in October that the state could no longer guarantee shelter for migrant families as the shelter system reached capacity due to a flood of illegal migrants.
“We are entering a new phase of this challenge — we can no longer guarantee shelter placement for families who are sent here,” Healey said at the time.
In August, Healey declared a state of emergency over the migrant issue and activated 250 state National Guard members to aid shelters and hotels that are housing migrants.
Since then, Healey has urged the Biden administration to provide federal aid to Massachusetts for the crisis, as well as to speed up the work visa approval process for migrants.
Other states and cities are also struggling with a huge influx of illegal migrants who have arrived in recent months.
New York City has a similar shelter crisis with more than 183,000 migrants arriving since spring of 2022. Chicago has seen more than 37,000 migrants arrive since the summer of 2022.
https://www.womensystems.com/2024/03/massachusetts-burning-75-million-month.html
James Carville Says Viewing Biden’s Poll Numbers Is ‘Like Walking In On Your Grandma Naked’
Women System March 26, 2024
Veteran Democratic political consultant James Carville says President Joe Biden’s sagging poll numbers are “like walking in on your grandma naked.”
Carville offered the bawdy metaphor to The New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd in an interview that addressed the current state of the Democratic Party. Polls lately have reflected that Biden, in particular, is in a tough spot with voters as he seeks re-election.
“When I look at these polling numbers, it’s like walking in on your grandma naked. You can’t get the image out of your mind,” Carville told the columnist.
Biden trails his presumptive Republican opponent, former President Donald Trump, in all seven battleground states, according to the RealClearPolitics polling averages of voters in Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin.
Biden’s age and consistent gaffes have especially taken a toll on his public image, according to Carville. Compared to Trump, the 81-year-old Biden appears slower, weaker, and more a victim of old age than his 77-year-old competitor.
“If you do a focus group,” Carville said, “the first thing out of anybody’s mouth is ‘Old,’ so how do you say we’re going to act like this doesn’t exist?”
“Now don’t tell me that Biden has more energy or cognition than Trump because it’s evident that, yeah, Trump’s got word salads, but he projects energy,” Carville continued. “He’s insane. He’s a criminal of the first order. But he does have a little timing and a little sense of humor and knows how to move from one story to the other.”
In an NBC News poll from early February, three-quarters of voters, including half of Democrats, expressed concerns about the octogenarian president’s mental and physical health as he campaigns for another four years in office. Voters have expressed concerns about Trump as well, though not to the same degree.
Asked about how Biden can blunt or reverse course and bolster his polling numbers, Carville suggested that staying the course was the president’s only option.
“I don’t think he can do much more than soldier on and let the Democratic groups kick in,” the longtime Democratic strategist said.
https://www.womensystems.com/2024/03/james-carville-says-viewing-bidens-poll.html
Living in NYC has become crazy. You can't even walk down the street without getting punched in the head for no reason.
Living in NYC has become crazy. You can't even walk down the street without getting punched in the head for no reason. pic.twitter.com/xPRHeavbIz
— I Meme Therefore I Am 🇺🇸 (@ImMeme0) March 25, 2024