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The Mirage hotel is closing in July, ending a 34-year run as a landmark on the Las Vegas Strip.
Hard Rock International said the hotel, which it bought in 2022, will close July 17, according to ABC.
The Hard Rock Hotel & Casino and Guitar Hotel Las Vegas will take the place of The Mirage.
“The property will be reimagined and developed into a new integrated resort featuring a nearly 700 ft. guitar-shaped hotel prominently in the center of the famous Las Vegas Strip,” the company said, noting that the new hotel is scheduled for opening in 2027.
The signature design of the new Hard Rock Las Vegas will be a 660-foot-tall hotel tower shaped as guitars, which will be built on the site of Mirage’s iconic volcano that has been a popular attraction since the hotel opened in 1989.
READ MORE: https://t.co/njOqdZkddO pic.twitter.com/vTHtfIxP3o— Las Vegas Review-Journal (@reviewjournal) May 15, 2024
“We’d like to thank the Las Vegas community and team members for warmly welcoming Hard Rock after enjoying 34 years at The Mirage,” Chairman of Hard Rock International Jim Allen said.
In April, the Strip lost another icon when The Tropicana Las Vegas closed just before its 67th anniversary. The Tropicana is supposed to be the site of a baseball stadium that will be the future home of the Oakland A’s.
END OF AN ERA: The iconic Mirage hotel-casino on the Las Vegas Strip will shut its doors this summer, the end of an era for a property credited with helping transform Sin City into an ultra-luxury resort destination. https://t.co/Xbrj2IL5XT pic.twitter.com/c3H83SrdxW
— ABC7 Eyewitness News (@ABC7) May 15, 2024
The Mirage was opened in 1989 by casino mogul Steve Wynn, according to CNN.
MGM Resorts bought the hotel from Wynn in 2000. In 2022, Hard Rock International bought the property for over $1 billion.
The closing will cost more than 3,000 people their jobs, according to the Associated Press.
The Culinary and Bartenders Union accounts for about 1,700 workers, the Los Angeles Times reported. Union members will have a choice between taking a severance package of $2,000 for every year of service plus six months of pension and health benefits or a lower payout that preserves seniority rights for new jobs in the new hotel.
“Culinary Union members at The Mirage have a strong union contract, ensuring that workers are protected, even as the property closes its doors entirely for three years from July 2024 – May 2027,” said Ted Pappageorge, Culinary Union secretary-treasurer.
The new hotel expects to hire almost 7,000 people.
Resort President Joe Lupo told the staff Wednesday about the closing, according to the Las Vegas Review-Journal.
“We really are encouraged about not only the future of Las Vegas, but how Hard Rock and Seminole Tribe can play a role in helping to develop that and grow the market,” Lupo said. The Seminole Tribe owns Hard Rock International.
“But today is a tough day for a lot of people. Our priority is the well-being of those individuals,” he said.
This article appeared originally on The Western Journal.
The post Landmark Las Vegas Casino Closing, Demolition Scheduled for This Year appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.
After her verbal lashing courtesy of Mumford & Sons banjo player Winston Marshall in April at Oxford, Rep. Nancy Pelosi is not excited about President Joe Biden’s decision to debate former President Donald Trump before the two square off in November.
In an interview with CNN‘s Manu Raju posted to X on Wednesday, Pelosi explained her disapproval of Biden’s choice to debate.
“I myself would never recommend going on stage with Donald Trump, but the president has decided that’s what he wants to do,” Pelosi began before proceeding to offer her own method for how CNN should spotlight the two candidates, albeit in a format where they aren’t in the same room.
“I think you all [CNN] should have separate townhall meetings with them. Let them, challenge them with questions about the future, and let the public make its decision.”
Nancy Pelosi on Biden-Trump debates: ‘I myself would never recommend going on stage with Donald Trump.’ pic.twitter.com/EWBBhLIlfl
— Manu Raju (@mkraju) May 15, 2024
You couldn’t blame Pelosi for her cynicism for Democrats taking the debate stage.
Just last month, Pelosi debated Marshall at Oxford University where she took the stance that “populism is a threat to democracy” and Marshall argued the contrary.
Although her side received a favorable vote of 177-68, it was Marshall who made the most memorable quotes while she appeared to babble with the usual left-wing rhetoric.
Marshall told the audience, “Mainstream media elites are part of a class who don’t just disdain populism, they disdain the people,” while Pelosi countered, that populism is “the misrepresentation of people who exploit the populist attitude of ‘I want to have my say’ and then use it to get elected and then hurt those people the most.”
Such dialogues prove that Pelosi is not equipped to handle discussions of political theory, and that the Democrats don’t really have much ground to stand on when it comes to views on democracy — considering their suppression of it.
That all being said, you can see why Pelosi would not be elated with Biden’s choice of taking the debate stage.
Putting her recent experience aside, there are two more explanations for her apprehension towards Biden’s decision.
Obviously, the president is in a state of severe cognitive decline.
He did not handle his debates with Trump in 2020 well. Four years later, his state continues to worsen as countless examples show a man who repeats easily disproven lies, slurs his words together, wanders around aimlessly, and appears lost, tired, and totally incapable of the nation’s highest office.
While even sympathetic voices would not accuse Trump of being the most eloquent speaker, his energy is even higher now for the executive officer than it was in his first re-election bid.
Trump has plenty to attack Biden for during the last four years, and the president will surely struggle to keep pace.
This leads to the other reason why Pelosi does not want a Biden-Trump debate.
Biden’s presidential record has been absolutely abysmal by every measure. The border crisis continues while rampant inflation and reckless spending hamstring the American voter. The list of Biden’s problems — the problems the Democratic party must juggle before November — seem endless.
If Democrats hope to hold their own in November, Biden must not debate. The American people are already familiar with his many shortcomings in office, but Biden trying to defend that record is only going to salt the wound.
Pelosi knows this and couldn’t be more worried about Biden’s decision.
This article appeared originally on The Western Journal.
The post Nancy Pelosi, Fresh Off Her Own Debate Humiliation, Is Not Happy with Biden’s Debate Decision appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.
After a Nashville hotel got cold feet and sought to cancel a pro-Israel event, Christian finance expert and syndicated radio host Dave Ramsey stepped in to be sure the event went on.
The Sonesta Nashville Airport hotel was scheduled to host the pro-Israel event until an anti-Israel group made noise. The group Palestine Hurra Collective Nashville claimed on Instagram that the purpose of the event was to “celebrate the death of civilians and recruit new Zionists!”
“Call relentlessly until this event is shut down!” the post urged.
The pressure worked. The hotel canceled the event.
“I think that the hotel jumped the gun and decided that they were going to just sort of dump this Israel event a week before it was going to happen, which is very unfortunate for the hotel because that’s in violation of Title II of the Civil Rights Act as well as Tennessee state law,” Hiram Sasser, executive general counsel at First Liberty Institute, said, according to Fox News.
But Ramsey, who runs Ramsey Solutions in nearby Franklin, is not among those giving in to fear.
“Dave Ramsey reached out and said, ‘You’re going to have it at my place and we’re going to take this event to a whole new level and make it 10x what it was before. All of the details have come together and the event is skyrocketing in numbers.” Joshua Waller, a host of the Israel Guys podcast said, according to The Daily Wire.
The podcast and HaYovel, a ministry that connects Christians who want to volunteer with farmers in Judea and Samaria, are among the sponsors of the event.
“Ramsey Solutions is proud to stand beside our friends from Israel by providing them a safe place to hold their event as our gift to them,” Ramsey Solutions said in a statement.
“We will move forward with this event at a different venue and show these thugs that they will not be rewarded for their unconstitutional, hateful actions,” HaYovel announced, according to the Daily Wire.
NEW: Dave Ramsey Steps In To Rescue Pro-Israel Conference After Nashville Hotel Cancels
“You’re going to have it at my place and we’re going to take this event to a whole new level”https://t.co/4vD967l8zX
— Daily Wire (@realDailyWire) May 16, 2024
“Now, more than ever, it is important that America stands unconditionally with Israel and that we publicly show that we cannot be intimidated by pro-Hamas thugs.”
A news release on the First Liberty website said the hotel told HaYovel, “We have received credible threats regarding the safety of your group, our guests and employees, our hotel and sister property, and to businesses in our neighborhood. Those threats were confirmed by law enforcement officials in the last 24 hours.”
The release said hotel officials said police told them the cancel the event.
Nashville police said that is not true, according to WZTV-TV.
“The Metropolitan Nashville Police Department did not advocate, in any shape or form, for the cancellation of the conference at the Sonesta Hotel. Any inference to the contrary is false. Equally false is the assertion in an on-line article that this police department voiced concerns about persons being in physical danger,” the statement said.
“In fact, members of the police department did, indeed, meet with hotel management at its request to talk about the conference. We let it be known that we were absolutely prepared to help the hotel create a safety and security plan, as we would with any of our city’s hotels, and offer additional support if needed.
“At the same time, I am aware that the Sonesta was receiving a number of external messages urging that it not host the event. In the end, the Sonesta Hotel made a corporate decision to cancel. This police department was in no way a party to that decision,” the statement said.
The Jewish Federation of Greater Nashville sent a statement saying “Harassment and intimidation are unacceptable and have no place in our community. We have registered our concerns and are in close contact with our law enforcement partners and continue to focus with determination and vigilance on keeping our community safe.”
This article appeared originally on The Western Journal.
The post Dave Ramsey Saves the Day When Venue Pulls the Rug Out from Under Pro-Israel Conference appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.
As the 2024 election nears and the destruction Joe Biden is visiting on the country gets worse, some who may have felt they were NeverTrumpers are now finding themselves becoming Never Bidens instead.
The first ripple in this wave of Never Bidens is of Joe Biden’s own doing, according to Eli Lake of The Free Press.
Many who may have found their way clear to vote for Biden are now reconsidering their support in the wake of his sudden turn against helping Israel in its fight against Hamas.
Last week, news broke that Biden was working quietly to prevent the shipment of planned aid and weapons that had already been approved for the Jewish nation.
With this hanging over him, many otherwise NeverTrumpers and erstwhile Biden supporters are turning against him. As Lake noted, some of these virulent NeverTrumpers are now seeing Biden as the bigger threat to both America and Israel.
Former Nikki Haley supporter Cliff Asness, the co-founder of AQR Capital Management, told the paper that things have changed. “My ‘Never Again’ is trumping my ‘Never Trump’ these days,” he said.
“Biden is a huge disappointment, really a moral outrage with this arms embargo being only the latest and greatest outrage,” he continued.
“Despite my long opposition to him, this makes me more likely, though I haven’t quite gotten there yet, to see Trump as the better of two bad alternatives.”
Democratic supporters are also turning against Biden. Democrat and hedge fund billionaire Bill Ackman, jumped to X to blast Biden’s recent CNN interview, saying, it was “crazy,” and adding, “This is one of the worst acts against an ally of a sitting president ever. Hopefully, this means he won’t be sitting for much longer.”
Crazy. This is one of the worst acts against an ally of a sitting president ever. Hopefully, this means he won’t be sitting for much longer. https://t.co/PFQXpNwjpn
— Bill Ackman (@BillAckman) May 9, 2024
Ackman donated cash to the presidential campaigns of Barack Obama and Al Gore, but Lake noted that Ackman recently reposted a message from Donald Trump, who was blasting Biden as “crooked” for helping Hamas instead of Israel. The fact that Ackman would repost anything written by Trump is notable.
Michael Granoff, a managing partner of venture capital firm Maniv, told the Free Press that he voted for Biden in 2020, but the president’s anti-Israel policies are forcing him to reconsider. “I am not voting for Biden. I’m not saying I’m voting for Trump, but it’s a nonzero chance now,” he said.
Even as far back as October, NeverTrump leader Bill Kristol noted how alarmed he was over the enthusiasm gap between the popular Trump and the floundering Biden, Breitbart News reported.
Lake quoted several other high-profile Democrats and Republican NeverTrumpers, but Lake is not the only one noting that Biden is in deep trouble only six months ahead of the election. The Washington Examiner’s Byron York noted that as things stand today, Biden’s campaign is “dead in the water.”
York added that the campaign is already entering into the stage where voters are hardening their feelings on the candidates — “particularly with respect to the economy” — and with polls still showing that Biden is in trouble on so many metrics, it is less and less likely that he will be able to regain their confidence in him.
Donald Trump should keep his nose to the grindstone on the issues that are cleaving Biden’s voters away from him. He should focus on Israel, the economy, and illegal immigration — all areas where the president is extremely vulnerable. Forget the personal vendettas for now. Stay laser focused on these issues, and he will both continue to pull voters away from Biden and maintain his own base.
If Trump can keep the campaign discipline he has shown so far, we might just be able to see him make a triumphant return to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.
This article appeared originally on The Western Journal.
The post Are NeverTrump Donors Having a Change of Heart and Becoming Never Biden Voters? appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.
Donald Trump may be in line to receive a major congressional award, and the Democrats will likely not be very happy if it comes to pass.
Florida Republican Rep. Anna Paulina Luna is hoping to give former President Donald Trump a major congressional award “in recognition of his exceptional leadership and dedication to strengthening America’s diplomatic relations during his presidency,” Fox News reported.
Rep. Luna is leading a group of other GOP representatives who want to give Trump the Congressional Gold Medal. Joining the Florida congresswoman is fellow Floridian Mike Waltz, Guy Reschenthaler of Pennsylvania, Lauren Boebert of Colorado, Andy Ogles of Tennessee, and Randy Weber of Texas.
“President Trump’s fearless leadership reestablished America as a respected and admired global power,” Luna said.
“It is time we recognize a president who put our country first and secured global peace through bold diplomacy,” she added.
“Despite the liberal media’s attempts to spread fear, America and the world were undoubtedly safer under President Donald Trump. One of our duties in Congress is to honor those who have contributed significantly to our nation, and that’s why I’m introducing this legislation,” she said.
The Presidential Medal of Freedom and the Congressional Gold Medal are the two highest civilian awards in the U.S.
Despite endorsing Ron DeSantis earlier this year, Republican and House Freedom Caucus Chairman Bob Good is also supporting Luna’s proposal.
“President Trump did more in four years on behalf of the American people than any president in my lifetime. He secured our border, achieved historic peace in the Middle East, and implemented policies that helped our economy prosper,” Good said of the medal proposal.
“The last three years of a failed Biden administration have only served as a stark contrast to President Trump’s record,” he added.
Other recipients have included the Dalai Lama, members of the Tuskegee Airmen, golfer Jack Nicklaus, and many others, Politico added.
If Trump were to be awarded the medal, he would be the first former president to receive the award since Ronald Reagan was honored in 2000, the Washington Examiner wrote.
Before Reagan, other presidents honored by the medal include George Washington, Ulysses S. Grant, Harry Truman, and Gerald Ford.
Still, it seems unlikely that Trump will receive the honor. While it is likely the House of Representatives could agree to the measure and pass it onto the Senate, it seems far less likely that the upper chamber will agree and add their imprimatur to the proposal.
GOP House members have tried a number of ways to show their support for the former president. Rep. Reschenthaler, for instance, proposed that Washington Dulles International Airport in Virginia be renamed as the Donald J. Trump International Airport.
Embattled House Speaker Mike Johnson also showed up to support Trump when he appeared in Manhattan during the former president’s corporate records trial.
Donald Trump most certainly deserves an award such as this, far more than the man currently occupying the White House. As every move Biden makes seems to make life more difficult — and even more dangerous — for Americans, Trump is trying to put America back on the right track.
This article appeared originally on The Western Journal.
The post Trump Could Get Major Award After Republican Congresswoman Introduces Huge Resolution appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.
Kansas City Chiefs kicker Harrison Butker really hit a nerve with his commencement speech for Benedictine College’s 2024 graduation.
Chronically online leftists had a bone to pick with every word in his speech besides “the” and “is,” calling him “misogynistic, “homophobic,” and “hateful” for proclaiming truths all Christians believed until about five minutes ago.
But, for the left, the most “offensive” part of the speech came in a clip shared to the social media platform X by the account Christian Nightmares.
Jesus Christ… pic.twitter.com/bY9bE2XwUm
— Christian Nightmares (@ChristnNitemare) May 14, 2024
In the clip, Butker addressed the graduating ladies of Benedictine College, congratulating them on their “amazing accomplishment.”
He directed his attention to them because “it is you, the women, who have had the most diabolical lies told to you.” He continued, saying that, while many of them were probably thinking about their potential careers, more of them were likely “most excited about your marriage and the children you will bring into this world.”
And here came the part that made leftist social media start melting in rage like the Wicked Witch of the West: “I can tell you that my beautiful wife, Isabelle, would be the first to say that her life truly started when she began living her vocation as a wife and as a mother. I’m on this stage, and able to be the man I am, because I have a wife who leans into her vocation.”
Choking up as he thought about his beloved wife, he concluded, “It cannot be overstated that all of my success is made possible because a girl I met in band class back in middle school would convert to the faith, become my wife, and embrace one of the most important titles of all: homemaker.”
Now, for most Christians, especially of a conservative bent, what he said was not only uncontroversial, but wonderfully refreshing.
But for the left, he couldn’t have provoked more rage than if he advocated for indiscriminate puppy-murder.
USA Today, reporting on the speech, decried Butker’s use of the word “vocation” as a 1950’s throwback, before castigating his views as “antiquated,” “extremist” and “Neanderthalic.”
Podcaster and former MSNBC anchor Keith Olbermann led the charge on X, disparaging Butker by saying, he “isn’t even considered an actual football player by other football players and he’s going to spew his bulls*** religion-based misogyny without consequences?”
Others quickly followed suit, with one user contending that “Colin Kaepernick was threatened, blacklisted, condemned for peacefully taking a knee in protest against racial injustice/police brutality, but Kansas City Chiefs kicker Harrison Butker gives a misogynistic, bigoted, homophobic speech and it’s fine? Racism.”
Let me understand this, Colin Kaepernick was threatened, blacklisted, condemned for peacefully taking a knee in protest against racial injustice/police brutality, but Kansas City Chiefs kicker Harrison Butker gives a misogynistic, bigoted, homophobic speech and it’s fine? Racism.
— Ricky Davila (@TheRickyDavila) May 15, 2024
Another user asked rhetorically, “So, have the @Chiefs fired this incel yet? #Boycott #Chiefs until they do. Women and LGBTQ hater —-> Chiefs kicker Harrison Butker unleashes on Pride month, Biden during commencement address.”
So, have the @Chiefs fired this incel yet? #Boycott #Chiefs until they do. Women and LGBTQ hater —-> Chiefs kicker Harrison Butker unleashes on Pride month, Biden during commencement address https://t.co/jQAm9EVEZm
— Nicole L. Augenti, Esq. (@Nicole1515) May 15, 2024
Now, one of the odd things about this extreme backlash to Butker’s words was that, for one, many forgot or never bothered to learn the context of the speech.
This was at a conservative, Catholic college — what did they expect a commencement speaker at a Catholic college to say?
For another, Butker has never made any secret regarding his faith.
At the commencement speech for Georgia Tech last year, he encouraged the young women there to marry and have children, and his social media bios proudly proclaim “Christus Regnat” (or, Christ reigns).
A quick look at his twitter feed shows him praising God and quoting a saint or Scripture with almost every picture he posts.
“The secret of happiness is to live moment by moment and to thank God for what He is sending us every day in His goodness.” – Saint Gianna Beretta Molla pic.twitter.com/MR2FeFeOPs
— Harrison Butker (@buttkicker7) November 26, 2021
And, contrary to all the haters on social media, he never said women shouldn’t pursue a career — he never once told women they should “get back in the kitchen.”
Instead, he praised the inherent goodness of a vocation denigrated by feminists and those on the left and pointed out how this important role has been demeaned by the lies that women need a career to be “fulfilled.”
But, clearly, Butker’s words hit a raw nerve, almost more so than his anti-LGBT and pro-life messages he also proclaimed at the commencement address.
Perhaps some of the left knew what he was saying was true and hated the reminder, lashing out accordingly.
Hopefully, Butker will not only stand firm in the face of all this unmerited backlash, but also continue to proclaim the truth of the Gospel and the roles of men and women, with even more fearlessness and tenacity.
This article appeared originally on The Western Journal.
The post Irate Leftists Wage War on Chiefs’ Star Kicker for Being Too Conservative appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.
Wednesday sure has been a day of unpredictable developments regarding the 2024 presidential election.
From Joe Biden finally challenging Donald Trump to a debate, to Trump accepting despite the Biden team’s stringent requirements, the day has been a whirlwind of a dizzying news cycle.
And now, Trump has issued Biden a challenge of his own.
Posting on his social media platform Truth Social, Trump told Biden, “Please let this TRUTH serve to represent that I hereby accept debating Crooked Joe Biden on FoxNews. The date will be Wednesday, October 2nd. The Hosts will be Bret Baier and Martha MacCallum.”
As reported in the The Guardian, Biden has yet to directly respond to, or accept, Trump’s invitation.
Though, considering the laundry list of demands Biden’s campaign presented before accepting any debate — including removing the audience, moving up the date historically early, and, crucially, only accepting moderators from friendly left-wing networks — it would seem only fair for Biden to join Trump for a debate on Trump-friendly territory as well.
However, Deadline noted that, while Biden himself has not answered directly, his campaign has.
Characterizing Trump’s offer as “playing games,” campaign chair Jen O’Malley Dillon declared, “No more chaos, no more debate about debates.”
“President Biden made his terms clear for two one-on-one debates, and Donald Trump accepted those terms,” she said.
Of course, why it was Biden who could create the terms and not any opponent has yet to be explained.
Typically, the only terms presidential candidates followed for debates were those set by the Commission for Presidential Debates, but the two bypassed the commission.
Why Biden has been allowed to call for all manner of historically unprecedented concessions for his degenerating health and mental state would probably be a question not even his campaign could answer.
As The Federalist noted in their story on this whole saga, Biden’s demands were “laughably transparent,” bespeaking of a man who was only agreeing to a debate under the necessity of his ghastly poll numbers and striving to minimize any possible chance of embarrassment.
Unlike Biden, Trump’s mind is clear as ever, and he has no fear of speaking or being seen in public.
Trump wants to torch Biden and has capitalized on every opportunity to take him on.
Trump is as fiery as ever.
Biden might not accept Trump’s offer of a Fox News debate, but it only serves to make Biden look bad.
At this point, the only thing Biden is better at than Trump is shooting himself in the foot.
This article appeared originally on The Western Journal.
The post Trump Dares Biden to Leave Home Turf to Debate Him, Adds New Challenge to 2024 Race appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.
According to a notice from the Federal Aviation Administration, former President Donald Trump’s Boeing 757 “clipped” an unoccupied private jet Sunday while taxiing after landing at West Palm Beach International Airport.
“AIRCRAFT TAXIING AND WINGLET STRUCK THE REAR ELEVATOR OF A PARKED VISTAJET,” the notice reads, as cited by WFLA (emphasis original).
The outlet noted that the FAA included the plane’s registration number, N757AF, which FAA records show belonging to DJT Operations I LLC.
The report indicated that any damage that might have occurred in the incident was as yet unknown, but that no one had been injured.
Also unknown was whether the former president himself was on his 757 at the time of the incident, but the FAA told the station that it was still investigating.
“A privately owned Boeing 757 landed safely at West Palm Beach International Airport around 1:20 a.m. local time on Sunday, May 12,” an FAA spokesperson told WFLA in a statement. “While taxiing, its winglet contacted a parked and unoccupied corporate jet.
“The incident occurred in an area of the airport where the FAA does not direct aircraft,” the statement added.
The news came out Tuesday amid what the Trump campaign must have seen as more positive reports of the former president’s polling ahead of November’s presidential election.
CNN, for example, Trump is leading President Joe Biden in three battleground states by such wide margins that a CNN analyst called the numbers “an absolute disaster” for Biden’s campaign.
CNN senior data reporter Harry Enten said the latest polls showed Trump beating the president in Arizona, Georgia and Nevada, and within the margin of error of polls conducted in Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.
“Frankly, for the Joe Biden campaign, these numbers are an absolute disaster,” Enten said Monday. “The smallest lead is in Arizona for Donald Trump. He’s up 6. Look at this, 9 in Georgia.”
The New York Times/Siena College polls of 4,097 registered voters were conducted in the six battleground states from April 28 to May 9. (The Philadelphia Inquirer contributed to the Pennsylvania poll, the Times noted.)
The Nevada survey had the presumptive GOP nominee over Biden by 13 points.
The CNN reporter noted that Trump’s smaller leads in Pennsylvania (3 points) and Wisconsin (1 point) were within the margin of error.
However, Biden’s 1-point lead in Michigan was also within striking range for Trump.
“My goodness gracious. … That is a huge lead,” Enten said. “No Democrat has lost that state since [former Sen.] John Kerry lost it back in 2004.”
Here’s my deal on the NYT polling out this AM. The Sun Belt battlegrounds are an abject disaster for Biden, & NYT is not the first to show that.
The Great Lakes battlegrounds are something Biden’s campaign can work with. It leaves him a (narrow) path to 270 at this point pic.twitter.com/gkM7pppR3K
— (((Harry Enten))) (@ForecasterEnten) May 13, 2024
When asked why the former president was outperforming the incumbent so dramatically, Enten said it’s because “the Trump coalition is changing” and getting more racially diverse.
He pointed out that the Republican candidate has gained ground with nonwhite voters even though he has lost some traction among white voters.
“The sense that Mr. Biden would do little to improve the nation’s fortunes has helped erode his standing among young, Black and Hispanic voters, who usually represent the foundation of any Democratic path to the presidency,” The New York Times wrote Monday of its survey.
The left-leaning Times argued that the poll results suggest that Americans perceive a nation in turmoil under the Biden administration.
“The findings reveal widespread dissatisfaction with the state of the country and serious doubts about Mr. Biden’s ability to deliver major improvements to American life,” the Times said. “Nearly 70 percent of voters say that the country’s political and economic systems need major changes — or even to be torn down entirely.”
This article appeared originally on The Western Journal.
The post Trump’s Private Jet Involved in Incident with Another Plane at Florida Airport appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.
Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell said Tuesday that his confidence has weakened that inflation is under control.
His comments made at a bankers’ conference in Amsterdam came the same day that the Labor Department reported that wholesale prices jumped 0.5 percent in April, the largest increase since April 2023.
Wholesale prices are tracked by the Producer Price Index, which measures the selling prices producers of goods and services receive.
CNBC: Wholesale inflation rose MUCH more than expected in April.
That’s Bidenomics! pic.twitter.com/NbVUyS3zVP
— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) May 14, 2024
Powell first told the bankers that the U.S. economy is performing well, seeing strong growth of just over 3 percent last year, as unemployment remains below 4 percent and inflation has come down from its peaks in 2022 and early 2023.
“Core inflation got as high as 5.6 percent and is now at 2.8 percent, so it’s down by half. That progress though really happened over the course of last year, particularly the second half of last year,” the fed chief said.
Core inflation measures the change in prices of goods and services, but does not include food and energy costs, which have gone up considerably during President Joe Biden’s time in office.
Food prices are up over 21 percent since January 2021. Meanwhile the price of gasoline averaged $2.40 per gallon that month, and is currently $3.61, or a 50.42 percent increase.
“The first quarter in the United States was notable for its lack of further progress on inflation. We had higher readings in the first quarter, and higher than we expected,” Powell conceded.
“We did not expect this to be a smooth road. But these [inflation readings] were higher than I think anybody expected,” he continued. “What that has told us is that we’ll need to be patient and let restrictive policy do its work.”
CNBC reported that the Federal Reserve has increased interest rates 11 times in recent years in its efforts to combat inflation.
The purpose of raising interest rates is to make borrowing more expensive, which is designed to slow consumer spending and business investment, lowering demand and thereby bringing prices down, according to Chase Bank.
“I expect that inflation will move back down on a monthly level, on a monthly basis to levels that were more like the lower readings we were having last year,” Powell predicted.
But he added the caveat, “I would say my confidence [in that forecast] is not as high as it was, having seen these readings in the first three months of the year.”
“We’re just going to have to see where the inflation data fall out,” Powell said.
What the fed chairman did not get into is how Biden’s and the Democrats’ big government, high spending policies are a primary driver of inflation.
Former Trump and Reagan administration economist Larry Kudlow explained in May 2022 as price spikes were hitting their highest, “Look, you had prominent Democrat economists and Republican economists a year ago predict rising inflation because of huge social spending, aggregate demand increasing, deficit financing, too much borrowing and too much money printing.”
“And then you had the war against fossil fuels at exactly the wrong time,” he added, referring to Biden’s policy of greatly restricting oil production on federal lands and offshore.
In a February 2021 opinion piece for The Washington Post, former Clinton Treasury Secretary Larry Summers wrote that passing the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan as the economy was already well on its way to recovery would “set off inflationary pressures of a kind we have not seen in a generation, with consequences for the value of the dollar and financial stability.”
After it passed the following month, Summers called it “the least responsible macroeconomic policy we’ve had in the last 40 years.”
Further, former Obama administration Treasury Department official Steven Rattner in a November 2021 article for The New York Times identified the American Rescue Plan as the “original sin” leading to the current high inflation rate.
He pointed to Summers’ warning, as well as “many others.”
“We worried that shoveling an unprecedented amount of spending into an economy already on the road to recovery would mean too much money chasing too few goods,” Rattner wrote.
The Democrats have since passed the misnamed Inflation Reduction Act, with costs on green initiatives alone expected to exceed $1 trillion, and the $1 trillion dollar infrastructure bill, pouring more Federal Reserve printed money into the economy.
Kudlow said the answer for the nation’s current fix is to implement the policy President Ronald Reagan did in the 1980s — known as supply-side economics.
In other words don’t just try to decrease demand through Fed interest rate hikes and less spending, work on increasing the supply of goods and services through pro-growth tax and regulatory polices.
“The tax hikes and the environmental restrictions [under Biden] are suppressing the supply side of the economy — not enough goods. And the spending increases the demand side of the economy — too much cash,” Kudlow said.
“If you are going to spend more than you can produce, well, prices have to go up. And the obvious solution is to spend less and produce more.”
The proof is in the pudding. Inflation dropped from 13.5 percent in 1980 before Reagan took office to 4.1 percent in 1988.
Powell of course does not have the power to make these policy changes, but the American people do by re-electing former President Donald Trump and a Republican-controlled Congress, who implemented Reagan-style economic policies in Trump’s first term and promise to do so again in his second.
This article appeared originally on The Western Journal.
The post Federal Reserve Chair Admits His Confidence Is Rattled as Wholesale Inflation Unexpectedly Surges appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.
Hospitals are changing the way they operate — no pun intended — and it’s putting some patients’ health at risk.
It used to be common practice for hospitals and other medical facilities to calculate costs and send bills to patients after they’d completed the important part, i.e. treating the patient.
That’s less true today than it used to be, according to The Wall Street Journal.
Collecting payment in advance is more and more common at medical centers, and while that saves hospitals time and money collecting on bills later, it means that some patients don’t get the care they need when they need it, because they can’t come up with the cash up front.
“Those who can’t come up with the sums have been forced to put off procedures,” the Journal reported Thursday in an article titled “Hospitals Are Refusing to Do Surgeries Unless You Pay In Full First.”
The newspaper also noted that patients are sometimes overcharged, which puts them in the position of having to “fight” a large corporate entity to get a refund of the overpayment.
“Among the procedures that hospitals and surgery centers are seeking prepayments for are knee replacements, CT scans and births,” the Journal reported.
The report also noted that federal law requires hospitals to provide medical treatment in emergency situations. Of course, what a hospital considers an emergency may differ from how the term might be defined by someone experiencing severe pain.
“We need those patients who are able to pay to do so,” Leslie Taylor, a spokeswoman for University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences, which owns one general hospital in Arkansas, told the Journal.
That hospital has in the past rescheduled some patients’ procedures until after they pay up, although they say they only do so with the approval of doctors.
Health care consulting company Kodiak Solutions told the Journal that 23 percent of patient bills are now being paid before treatment is provided, up from 20 percent only two years ago.
That may not seem like a huge increase, but considering that about half of American adults say they don’t have more than $500 available to pay for sudden medical issues, according to the Journal, it’s a trend that could cause serious problems for many.
The Journal spotlighted two cases of people affected by pay-in-advance policies, both of which had happy endings.
The first was that of Heather Miconi, whose daughter needed adenoid and tonsil surgery to help her breathe — not an emergency, but obviously important.
Miconi already works three jobs and has a high-deductible insurance policy, so she needed $2,000 to pay for the procedure in advance. She had to start a GoFundMe to raise the funds.
The good news in Miconi’s case is that the fundraiser has already brought in nearly $10,000. Miconi wrote on the site that she’ll use the extra to pay down medical bills that have been accumulating interest since her daughter’s 2021 hospitalization.
“This has lifted a huge burden from our lives and I am forever grateful,” she wrote.
The other example cited by the Journal was that of Blake Young, who needed a heart screening last November. He paid $3,600 in advance, only to find out later that he’d been overcharged by almost 200 percent, and the hospital owed him $2,546.
It took Young over six months to get his money back, and he had to involve the Better Business Bureau to do it.
The hospital, CHI Memorial Hospital in Chattanooga, Tennessee, did eventually offer Young an apology — and, eventually, a check.
This article appeared originally on The Western Journal.
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In a stunning display of irony and contradiction that borders on the absurd, an associate dean tasked with upholding gender equality at Columbia University cut off and muted a fellow professor during a faculty senate meeting earlier this month when the latter professor warned her colleagues that the Ivy League school had been infiltrated by outsiders with “known ties to terrorist organizations.”
And yes, these are groups that literally support terrorists and who are known for their oppressive attitudes towards women.
The irony of a gender equality dean silencing warnings about groups with known oppressive attitudes towards women was not lost on anyone who observed the incident, which took place via Zoom on May 3, mere hours after Hamilton Hall was overrun by a mob of Hamas-supporting students.
NEW from me
A meeting of the Columbia University faculty Senate was derailed after a professor warned that terrorists had infiltrated the campus https://t.co/GwnmeYk86m pic.twitter.com/foUlLnmhGZ
— Jon Levine (@LevineJonathan) May 11, 2024
“I do want to emphasize that there really is a need for good security on campus and it was very clear prior to Tuesday night that the university was unable to do that given the number of people from outside who were able to pass through our tight security to get onto campus,” Professor Carol Ewing Garber said.
Seconds into her remarks, Associate Dean for Gender Equity and Career Development Jeanine D’Armiento began to cut Garber off. But not before Garber was able to say, “and we do know that there are groups who are supporting terrorists,” according to coverage of the incident by the New York Post.
Instead of addressing these serious allegations, D’Armiento responded by silencing Garber, muted her microphone, dismissed her concerns, and claimed they “have no evidence” of what Garber said.
The Senate meeting then descended into chaos, reflecting deep divisions within the faculty about the handling of such sensitive issues, as other faculty members came to Garber’s defense.
Mind you, these groups that Garber was referring to, beyond their political impact, are known for practices that violently oppress women—actions that should naturally concern anyone dedicated to gender equity.
Yet, when Garber attempted to bring these legitimate security concerns to light, D’Armiento interrupted and muted her, dismissing these concerns due to an alleged lack of evidence and deemed the discussion “unfair.”
Moments after D’Armiento was shut down by fellow faculty, Garber was able to emphasize the need for a thorough investigation into these groups and to, once again, factually point out that “there is evidence that there are groups who are influencing student groups on campus in this country… to behave in certain ways. And there is evidence about those things… And many individuals feel afraid because of that.”
D’Armiento’s response to silence Garber not only raises questions about the role and effectiveness of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion positions but also starkly highlights the contradictions inherent in a gender equity dean dismissing concerns about groups known for gender-based violence.
This could potentially make her the absolutely worst “Dean of Gender Equality” in the history of education.
Furthermore, D’Armiento’s management of the meeting, where she repeatedly asserted “this is my meeting,” only added to the tumult, displaying a troubling approach to governance and dialogue within the university.
This event has ignited a broader discussion on campus about the actions of anti-Israel protesters and the response of the university’s administration, which has been seen as feeble and not doing nearly enough.
In fact, Columbia University groveled to the woke mob and even canceled its main commencement ceremony, scheduled for May 15 in New York City, due to security concerns amid ongoing anti-Israel protests.
The atmosphere at Columbia remains both charged and toxic, as evidenced by subsequent events, including a controversial campus appearance by individuals linked to the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine — a group widely recognized as a terrorist organization.
These developments have only intensified the scrutiny on Columbia’s handling of security and ideological conflicts on campus.
The Zoom incident also underscores the critical need for DEI roles to not only enforce policies but to do so in a manner that genuinely upholds the values of equity and justice they are meant to champion.
With her comments, D’Armiento revealed the truth about DEI positions like hers — they exist not to help minorities but to rigidly enforce whatever the latest leftist orthodoxy or shibboleth happens to be. After all, a genuine advocate for gender equality would not dismiss concerns about entities that perpetuate severe human rights abuses.
And they certainly wouldn’t run interference for those supporting roving packs of sexual abusers (or worse) and silence such a debate.
The Western Journal has asked D’Armiento if she believes running interference for those supporting what amounts to violent rape gang, among other things, on Oct. 7 promotes gender equality. As of publication, she has not responded to our question.
To think, this is what tuition dollars are going to support: a “Dean of Gender Equality” who runs interference for terrorists who brutally tortured women on Oct. 7 and afterward.
The irony of a gender equality dean, tasked with protecting the vulnerable, potentially disregarding the implications of hosting groups on campus that have been infiltrated by entities with oppressive ideologies towards women, should prompt a reevaluation of how DEI initiatives are implemented and perceived in academic settings.
If this pattern of neglect and complicity continues unchecked, America must confront a stark reality: The very institutions meant to foster a just and safe environment are failing in their duty.
Should this persist, unchecked by rigorous oversight and genuine commitment to upholding the principles of equity and justice, the consequences could prove dire for the safety and moral integrity of not just universities, but the nation itself.
The peril of these oversights and explicit interference lies not just in the immediate threats they present, but in the insidious decay of our nation’s foundational values, putting America’s future in grave danger for generations to come.
This article appeared originally on The Western Journal.
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Republican Sen. Tom Cotton of Arkansas on Sunday accused President Joe Biden of taking the side of Hamas in an effort to end the war in Gaza, which was started by Hamas when it slaughtered Israeli civilians on Oct. 7.
“Joe Biden’s position is de facto for Hamas victory at this point. Israel’s goal is to destroy Hamas, which committed the worst atrocity against Jews since World War II. Hamas’s goal is to survive,” Cotton said on the CBS show “Face the Nation.”
“If Israel does not go into Rafah and destroy Hamas in Rafah, Hamas will survive,” he said.
Biden has said he would go so far as deny Israel the tools of war needed to attack Rafah.
Cotton denounced the current policy comments of the Biden administration on Hamas as a “bunch of weaselly, mealy-mouthed politics.”
Comments from Secretary of State Antony Blinken that paint both sides as having done wrong are “some magic talisman to help them walk the political line they want between the pro-Hamas wing of their party and the vast pro-Israel majority of the American people.”
Cotton said despite international condemnation for bombing the terrorists of Hamas, “Israel is doing more than any military in history, in all likelihood, to prevent civilian casualties.”
“If Hamas did not hide behind and under civilians, there would no – there would not be civilian casualties. For that matter, if Hamas simply surrendered and turned over all these hostages, there would be no more civilian suffering in Gaza,” he said.
Cotton accused Biden of imposing “a de facto arms embargo on Israel and sanctions on Israelis, noting that he just said last week that he’s not going to send offensive weapons.”
“We have no idea what he’s going to withhold,” he said.
Cotton noted that if America changes presidents after the November general election, the nation’s policy toward Israel would change as well.
“President Trump said just last night that he would absolutely provide Israel with the weapons they need to finish the job. This would have never happened on President Trump- Trump’s watch, it didn’t happen on his watch,” he said.
“And if he were president, this war would have probably already been over with much less civilian suffering in Gaza because he would have backed Israel to the hilt from the beginning,” Cotton added.
A report in The Washington Post said that U.S. intelligence agencies are working with Israel to pinpoint the locations of key Hamas leaders as a way to avert a broad-based attack.
A report in the Times of Israel quoted Biden as saying if the hostages taken Oct. 7 are released, there could be a cease-fire.
“There would be a ceasefire tomorrow if Hamas would release the hostages,” Biden said at a fundraiser.
“Israel said it’s up to Hamas; if they wanted to do it, we could end it tomorrow. And the cease-fire would begin tomorrow,” Biden said.
Last week, Hamas admitted that in offering to exchange 33 hostages as part of a deal, not all the hostages exchanged would be alive, according to The New York Times.
This article appeared originally on The Western Journal.
The post Tom Cotton: Biden’s Position Is for a ‘Hamas Victory’ appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.
Staying in the middle class takes a lot of work, according to a new analysis.
A look at the numbers from the website GOBankingRates.com found that it took a nearly 42 percent increase in income to remain in the middle class from 2012, the midpoint of the Obama administration, to 2022, the middle of the Biden administration.
The site published a state-by-state listing of what it takes to be in the middle class, defining the term as people with an income no less than two-thirds of the median income and no more than double that figure.
Although the national minimum to be in the middle class was $50,099 as of 2022, the numbers vary widely. For example, a Mississippi household earning $35,323 is considered middle class. In Maryland, however, the qualifying income is $65,641, according to the site’s calculations.
The middle class is shrinking. In 1971, 61% of American households were considered to be middle class. That number has dropped to 50% three decades later, a Pew Research found.
“The creation of the middle class was based on factories and jobs.” Grant Cardone told GOBankingRates.… pic.twitter.com/uZIXcPAAEU
— Grant Cardone (@GrantCardone) March 3, 2024
Over the decade-long period, Alaska had the smallest increase in income to stay in the middle class at almost 23 percent.
In Oregon, however, the bar to call oneself in the middle class rose by over 53 percent.
A report from Investopedia published in February said the middle class is shrinking, equating middle class with middle income.
That meant annual incomes of between $30,000 and $90,000 per year for single Americans, as well as $42,430 to $127,300 for a couple and $67,100 to $201,270 for a family of four.
What? The economy has already crashed, and it has not finished crashing either. The middle class is shrinking again, as opposed to expanding during the Trump era. Biden is returning to the Obama era, in which the middle class was decimated, and growth was slowed to a crawl: pic.twitter.com/R3juAgj3yh
— Jatslo (@Jatslo) January 28, 2023
As of 2021, the report said 50 percent of Americans were in the middle class, a drop from 1971 data that put the figure at 61 percent.
A study by SmartAsset found that in a large American city, a middle-class income can fall anywhere between $52,000 and $155,000.
That analysis listed New Jersey, with a minimum middle class income of at least $64,224, as the state with the highest income needed to be in the middle class, followed by Maryland at $63,321 and Massachusetts at $62,986.
At the other end comes Mississippi, where $35,142 is required to be in the middle class. Mississippi is followed by West Virginia at $36,216 and Louisiana at $36,940 as the states with the lowest incomes necessary to be middle class.
Some cities have sky-high upper limits for placement in the middle class. For example, in Sunnyvale, California, a household earning $339,562 is at the upper bound of middle class income, followed by Fremont, California; San Mateo, California; Santa Clara, California; Bellevue, Washington and Highlands Ranch, Colorado.
On the low end, there is Detroit, where a household making $24,299 would be middle class.
This article appeared originally on The Western Journal.
The post Revealed: How Much You Have to Earn to Be ‘Middle Class’ in Your State appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.
The NBA has fined Jamal Murray $100,000 for his antics during Monday’s game against the Minnesota Timberwolves in Game 1 of the Western Conference semifinals.
Murray — a talented guard for the Denver Nuggets — received the fine for “throwing multiple objects in the direction of a game official during live play,” according to the NBA on Tuesday.
The objects in question were a towel and heat pack tossed on the court late in the second quarter as Denver was on its way to a lopsided 106-80 home loss against the Timberwolves.
Officiating crew chief Marc Davis stated post-game that officials were unaware anything was thrown from the bench, had they known, “we could have reviewed it under the hostile act trigger. The penalty would have been a technical foul.”
The incidents swiftly went viral:
Jamal Murray throws a heat pack pic.twitter.com/JDADMojQgp
— Rob Perez (@WorldWideWob) May 7, 2024
Jamal Murray threw a towel onto the court during Game 2 pic.twitter.com/luj2mKryID
— Bleacher Report (@BleacherReport) May 7, 2024
After Murray threw the heat pack, he was seen throwing the towel in Davis’s direction which landed at his heels. Luckily for Murray, fellow Nuggets guard Kentavious Caldwell-Pope retrieved the heat pack and someone else swept the towel aside before Davis noticed.
Wolves coach Chris Finch said after the game, “We tried to impress upon (the officials) that there’s probably not many fans in the building that have a heat pack. So, it probably had to come from the bench,” before further calling Murray’s actions, “inexcusable and dangerous.”
While Murray left after the game without commenting, it’s hard to disagree with Finch as there is no justification for throwing a temper tantrum, no matter how badly you are losing (if anything, that makes it even worse). These are professional athletes with the eyes of millions on them closely observing their conduct.
These types of outburst only tell fans — especially young ones — that at the height of the sport, raw outbursts towards officials are fine.
A fine of $100,000 is pocket change to Murray, whose salary — According to Sporting News — for the 2023 – 24 season amounts to $33.8 million.
Perhaps adding to the consternation, many fans and pundits expected Murray to be suspended for at least one game for his actions. Murray was not suspended, and scored 24 points in the Nuggets’ big 117-90 road win against the Timberwolves.
Additionally, there is a real worry that the young and impressionable fans who will never make it as professional athletes — the kids who will grow up and try to find actual jobs to earn a living — will still glean something from this tantrum.
In seeing that type of behavior, they’re led to believe this is what success looks like.
Don’t bother getting along with the people who make the rules. Act out when you feel slighted, take the hit, and move on.
Murray’s overall message here is blaming someone else for your shortcomings. In Denver’s loss, players should’ve look inward with a sense of responsibility, instead of lashing out like a toddler.
Murray is by no means alone. This mentality exists broadly in our culture.
To no surprise, people who think like this don’t go far in life.
Murray and the Nuggets will try to even up their second round series when they play the Timberwolves in Minnesota tonight.
This article appeared originally on The Western Journal.
The post NBA Star Learns Punishment for On-Court Tantrum appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.
It’s not quite to the point where the hashtag “OscarsSoBroke” will be trending, but the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences is passing the hat around the globe.
A $500 million fundraising campaign was launched Friday with the goal of reaching the target by the 2028 Oscars, which would mark the 100th Academy Awards.
This news comes just a few months after a generally poorly received 2024 Oscars, as well.
Although Academy officials talked about its global future in announcing the drive, it comes at a time when TV viewership of the annual awards show has been trending downward, according to an Agence-France Presse report posted on Barron’s.
The Academy’s contract with ABC to broadcast the show is up for renewal, and the show will face the reality that ratings are down from historic levels.
This year, for example, viewership of the show was about 21 million people, down from about 40 million viewers a decade ago.
The “global revenue diversification and outreach campaign” is dubbed Academy 100, according to Deadline.
“The future of the Academy is global, and Academy 100 will deepen our worldwide reach and impact,” Academy CEO Bill Kramer said.
“The Academy will soon enter its second century, and we want to ensure that we continue to be the preeminent leader of our international film community. Like all healthy organizations, the Academy needs a sustainable and diverse base of support, and we are deeply grateful to Rolex and all of our partners for helping us launch this important and forward-looking initiative.”
The Academy said it has commitments for more than $100 million from sponsors that include Rolex and Delta Air Lines.
The Academy said the money will “endow and fund programs that recognize excellence in cinematic artistry and innovation; preserve our film history; enable the creation of world-class film exhibitions, screenings, and publications; train and educate the next generation of diverse global film artists; and produce powerful digital content.”
The aim of the event, held in Rome, was to highlight the Academy’s global purpose in its campaign, according to the Associated Press.
Writing for USA Today, Kelly Lawler noted that the 2024 show “started five minutes late, and it was only downhill from there.”
“The Oscar broadcast didn’t feel like anybody’s biggest night. It felt small, unimportant, skippable. It didn’t get anywhere close to the urgency or relevancy of the nominated films,” she wrote.
Lawler opined that “90 percent of Sunday’s broadcast could have happened at any Oscars (or really, any awards show) any year. The gently jabbing jokes, the expected winners, the overlong and overwritten bits, the dull speeches − they are so generic as to be soporific.”
“For some producers and hosts, a boring Oscars is far preferable to a bad one, and especially better than a trainwreck of a ceremony with say a slap or a wrong best picture winner announced,” she wrote.
“But as ratings for awards shows dwindle, it’s worth trying just a little harder to try to persuade people to spend their Sunday nights watching the rich and famous hand each other golden trophies,” Lawler continued.
She added: ‘This is Hollywood, after all. These people are supposed to know how to put on a show. Otherwise, why are we watching?”
This article appeared originally on The Western Journal.
The post Bad News Delivered After Oscars, Motion Picture Academy Forced to Launch $500 Million Fundraising Drive appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.
The Black Lives Matter Global Network Foundation is suing progressive nonprofit the Tides Foundation for allegedly defrauding the BLMGNF and holding back around $33 million in donations, according to documents filed Monday in California Superior Court.
BLMGNF accused Tides of refusing “to honor its promises” to the network and alleged that Tides “continues to commandeer BLMGNF’s donations” in the lawsuit.
Instead, BLMGNF alleged, Tides was handing out money that was supposed to go to BLMGNF to what the New York Post called a “radical BLM breakaway group run by anti-police activist Melina Abdullah.”
Abdullah had previously lost a “frivolous lawsuit” against the BLMGNF, the Post reported.
Tides is a left-leaning donor-advised fund that disburses money from anonymous contributors to other organizations. The organization notably has received close to $14 million from billionaire George Soros and his son, Alex Soros, through their Open Society Foundations, according to the Post.
The fund reportedly functions as a clearinghouse, collecting donations on behalf of organizations that may be lacking a 501(c)(3) tax-exempt status. The organization also acts as an incubator for startup progressive groups, the Washington Examiner noted.
The organization, the Post reported, takes a cut of three to nine percent from the donations it manages on behalf of other groups.
Tides has been a major bankroller of pro-Palestinian organizations that have been instigating the pro-Palestinian riots and encampments on campuses across the country, according to the Post and the Examiner.
“Tides has engaged in deceptive business practices and has operated in a quasi-banking capacity without appropriate regulatory oversight of licenses,” the BLMGNF alleged in the lawsuit.
The organization further alleged that “Tides operates with a level of autonomy and minimal regulatory scrutiny that is starkly at odds with the regulatory framework imposed on traditional financial institutions.”
The relationship between the two non-profits dates back to 2020, according to the lawsuit, when BLMGNF began receiving millions of dollars in donations following the death of George Floyd, which sparked political activism throughout the United States.
Lacking tax-exempt status at the time, BLMGNF went to Tides, asking the organization “for support in managing and holding millions of dollars in donations based on Tides’ representations that Tides would return the donations to BLM GNF upon BLM GNF’s request.”
The lawsuit alleged that Tides even committed to paying all the money due to BLMGNF “to a particular donor.”
BLMGNF ended its relationship with Tides in 2022 upon receiving tax-exempt status, the Post reported. However, Tides, the lawsuit alleged, failed to hand over the funds — an estimated $33 million — it owed to BLMGNF, according to the news outlet.
Although the organization, on June 9, 2022, claimed to have handed $7.4 million from the collective fund to BLMGNF, it instead disbursed around $4.75 million to a BLM chapter in Oklahoma City that was not affiliated with BLMGNF, the Post reported.
“Resources in the Black Lives Matter [collective action fund] were never intended to be granted to large, well-funded national organizations like Black Lives Matter Global Network Foundation, and were always intended to be granted to local Black Lives Matter chapters,” Tides said in a statement shared with the Post. “BLMGNF’s lawsuit seeks to circumvent the intent of the Fund’s donors and deprive grassroots Black Lives Matter chapters critical resources, for its own benefit.”
“This lawsuit against the Tides Foundation is not just about financial discrepancies but the principle of rightful ownership and transparency that should govern partnerships in social justice funding,” BLMGNF’s attorney Byron McLain said Wednesday, the Post reported.
“There is an expectation for Black Lives Matter to challenge systems, break barriers and uphold the truth, no matter how uncomfortable,” BLMGNF said in a statement shared with the Examiner. “Today, that extends into non-profit operations as we call out Tides Foundation and other so-called ‘fiscal sponsors’ who exploit their role.”
This article appeared originally on The Western Journal.
The post BLM Global Network Starts a War with Pro-Palestinian Group Funding College Protests, Files $33M Lawsuit appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.
Fear-mongering climate activist Greta Thunberg has apparently expanded her disruptive protesting activities.
While most already know Thunberg as one of the first to mainstream shame people into reducing their to carbon footprints, she has apparently graduated to shaming people for not supporting a genocidal terrorist group.
Since reaching adulthood, the erstwhile climate alarmist ramped up her disruptive protesting tactics and obnoxious virtue-signaling, up to and including getting herself arrested.
Now, though, she has started using those same tactics in favor of the “Free Palestine” movement.
The 2024 Eurovision Song Contest, held this year in Malmo, Sweden, has proven the perfect place for her to publicly demonstrate her newfound commitment to terrorists.
As reported in Reuters, Eurovision has become a hotspot for more pro-Palestinian protests after they allowed Israel to compete in the contest, with 20-year-old Eden Golan representing the beleaguered nation.
While Golan was rehearsing her song “Hurricane” for the contest’s semifinal, Sky News noted that an estimated 10,000 to 12,000 marched against Golan and in favor of “Palestine.”
Complete with protesters carrying signs depicting Gazan citizens hurt in the conflict, smoke canisters in the colors of the Palestinian flag, and a Eurovision style banner with the anti-Israel smear “genocide” written on it, protesters had ample chance to signal their virtuous stance while ganging up on a lone young woman.
And among the mass of protesters was the now-21-year old Greta Thunberg, who, practically since the moment of Hamas’ brutal attack on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, has focused almost all of her efforts on radically pro-Palestinian and anti-Israel activism.
She was filmed in November of 2023 chanting “crush Zionism” at a rally, and co-wrote an op-ed in the U.K.’s The Guardian spreading lies about the death toll and proportionality of Israel’s response to Hamas, and accusing Israel of “war crimes.”
And, as reported in The Times of Israel, Thunberg has been seen carrying signs at protests reading “Stop the Holocaust” and “Jews for the liberation of Palestine.”
Of course, even though in her op-ed she insisted that this was consistent with her previous climate alarmism and environmental messaging, this move to pro-Palestinian advocacy has clearly been an attempt to keep herself relevant.
Despite Just Stop Oil and other radical climate activists continuing to make themselves public nuisances, “Palestine” has increasingly become the social justice movement of the moment.
Attendees at the Oscars this year sported pins advocating for a ceasefire in Gaza, while pro-Palestinian protesters delayed the ceremony, while other celebrities have used their platforms to spread their ill-informed opinions on a war that doesn’t concern them.
And innumerable college students have had their school year completely derailed by increasingly violent anti-Israel demonstrations, with some Jewish students being counseled to go home for their own safety.
Even the president of the United States has been attempting to appease Hamas at the expense of Israel, in a transparent attempt to pander to the radical youth among his voter base.
With as radical and, honestly, easily swayed Thunberg has been in the past, it was inevitable that she would hop on the pro-Palestinian bandwagon as soon as it began gaining traction.
It would be impossible to judge her true intentions from a distance — she might be genuinely sincere in jumping on the pro-Palestinian bandwagon.
Still, it seems that Thunberg’s newfound passion for “Palestine” has come more from a desire for attention and relevance than a sincere sense of justice.
History would suggest as much.
The real question now is, what other radical opinions will Thunberg form in the future, in the quest to maintain her dwindling relevance?
This article appeared originally on The Western Journal.
The post Greta Thunberg’s Back and This Time Her Tantrum Has Nothing to Do with Climate appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.
In the wake of the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol incursion, the Treasury Department’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, known as FinCEN, asked financial institutions to use search terms like “TRUMP” and “MAGA” to comb through customer data on purchases of items like bus tickets, books or subscriptions looking for indicators of “extremism”
FinCEN also provided slides instructing banks to flag customers making purchases at stores like Cabela’s or Dick’s Sporting Goods as “potential active shooters” or terrorists, according to The New York Post.
While the Capitol incursion happened on one day and was over in a matter of hours, the protests on college campuses have continued for weeks.
The coordination between campuses, the professionally created signs, and the matching tents show clear evidence that these protesters, unlike the ones on Jan. 6, were being funded by outside, anti-Semitic and anti-American forces.
Some 2,200 people have been arrested or detained on at least 49 college campuses in 26 different states, according to Fox News.
So, where are the FBI and the IRS now? Where is FinCEN?
A group of 15 Republican senators, led by Sen. Joni Ernst of Iowa, has sent a letter to IRS Commissioner Daniel Werfel, demanding an investigation into whether several nonprofit organizations have violated their tax-exempt status by providing financial support to groups backing Hamas, which is a designated foreign terrorist organization, according to Just The News.
Only Republican senators requested the Educational Foundation (AJP), the Tides Foundation, the Westchester Peace Action Committee Foundation (WESPAC Foundation), and “and other benefactors of NSJP” all be investigated by the IRS for funding hatred of Jews. https://t.co/clipjaXbZW
— Lance Wallnau (@lancewallnau) May 11, 2024
The letter specifically named the National Students for Justice in Palestine, the AJP Educational Foundation, the Tides Foundation, and the Westchester Peace Action Committee Foundation as entities that should be scrutinized.
“We write to demand you open an investigation to determine if the supporters of the National Students for Justice in Palestine (NSJP), including the AJP Educational Foundation, the Tides Foundation, the Westchester Peace Action Committee Foundation (WESPAC Foundation), and other benefactors of NSJP have engaged in conduct warranting revocation of their tax exempt statuses on the basis of their financial support of NSJP,” the letter said.
“It is long-established precedent that when 501(c)(3) organizations have ‘planned activities that violate laws’ or engage in activities designed ‘to induce the commission of a crime or if the accomplishment of the purpose is otherwise against public policy,’ the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) has grounds to revoke their tax-exempt status,” the senators wrote.
“We should not need to remind you of the heinous support NSJP chapters across the country have voiced for Hamas, a U.S.-designated Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO). Within 12 days after the October 7th attack, the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) documented that ‘the national leadership of Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) and many of the organization’s campus chapters explicitly endorsed the actions of Hamas [emphasis added] and their armed attacks on Israeli civilians and voiced an increasingly radical call for confronting and ‘dismantling’ Zionism on U.S. college campuses,” the letter continued.
The letter pointed out that at NSJP chapter-led demonstrations, such as those at Columbia University, protesters “were reportedly chanting “We are Hamas” and “Al-Qassam [in reference to the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades, Hamas’s military wing] you make us proud, kill another soldier now!”
“In light of this abhorrent support for an FTO, we call on you to initiate an investigation to determine whether financial supporters of NSJP, including but not limited to AJP, the WESPAC Foundation, and the Tides Foundation, have engaged in conduct warranting their tax-exempt status to be stripped,” the letter stated.
Tax-exempt nonprofits are forbidden from supporting terrorism or illegal activities. If groups like AJP, the Tides Foundation and others have been funneling money to NSJP chapters that openly embrace Hamas’s terrorist tactics and ideology, then they have violated the terms of their 501(c)(3) status.
According to The Washington Examiner, The Tides Center, one of the organizations mentioned in the letter, has been a clearinghouse for dark money donations to progressive initiatives, including anti-Israel initiatives, that has long drawn scrutiny from conservatives.
Between 2006 and 2023, the Tides Center — directly or through sub-awards — received at least $81.2 million from agencies like the U.S. Departments of Agriculture, State, Education, the Interior, and the U.S. Agency for International Development, according to The Washington Examiner.
It also has the support of far-left billionaires Bill Gates and George Soros.
In response to the reports that the Tides Foundation was supporting the pro-Hamas protesters, conservative commentator Glenn Beck posted on social media, “Wow, who could have guessed that George Soros and the Tides Foundation have been funding the pro-Palestine protests taking over colleges? It’s almost like they’re — gasp —NOT GRASSROOTS.”
Wow, who could have guessed that George Soros and the Tides Foundation have been funding the pro-Palestine protests taking over colleges? It’s almost like they’re — gasp —NOT GRASSROOTS. pic.twitter.com/VA9SbrxgVr
— Glenn Beck (@glennbeck) May 6, 2024
There cannot be two standards of justice in this country — one for protesters backing U.S.-designated terrorist groups and another for those fighting for election transparency.
It’s time that organizations which have been actively funding pro-terrorist groups not just lose their tax-exempt status, but face accountability and careful scrutiny about the money trail, both to and from the organizations.
The letter from the senators to the IRS is a good start, but it is only scratching the surface.
This article appeared originally on The Western Journal.
The post Groups Behind Protests Seizing College Campuses Get Bad News as Senators Send Letter to IRS appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.
Coming this summer to a city near you: taxpayer-funded identification cards for thousands of illegal immigrants.
Well, maybe to a city near you; Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials insist that some aspects of the plan are “pre-decisional,” and though both Atlanta and Houston have been named as possible locations, things are still subject to change.
The source who told Fox News that went unnamed in the report, but Fox called him or her “familiar with the program,” and I’m very willing to believe that the source is at least a federal government employee. Only a professional bureaucrat would use a term like “pre-decisonal.”
Fox said that ICE was able to confirm that the program was headed for a limited roll-out in “three or four locations in the U.S.” that would issue cards to about 10,000 illegals.
People have been talking about the “ICE Secure Docket Card” for a couple of years, and now the talk is slated to become reality, but ICE says the card will not be an official form of federal ID, according to Fox, and that it will “indicate it is for use by DHS agencies” on the card itself.
Again, only a government bureaucrat could claim — presumably with a straight face — that a card issued to someone by an agency of the federal government on the basis of who the individual is should not be considered “an official form of federal identification.”
To quote the philosopher Douglas Powers (more commonly known as Dr. Evil): Riiiiiiight.
That is, however, what the agency claimed, at least according to Fox.
“While the specifics of the card and pilot are under development, it is important to note the secure card will not be an official form of federal identification,” Fox quoted the agency as saying.
“The secure card will indicate it is for use by DHS agencies and would be provided only after national security background checks have been performed,” the ICE statement added.
Here’s the part that makes sense: Illegal aliens are often given documents when they’re released from custody, such as information about when to appear in court for a hearing about their immigration status. Those documents are on paper, and therefore can get damaged or lost.
ICE Secure Docket Cards can presumably get lost as well — at least, I haven’t seen anyone proposing that they be glued to the recipients’ forearms or anything — but at least they’re less likely to be damaged.
Instead of having to secure and protect their personal paperwork, cardholders will be able to use the card to access information specific to them — specific, that is, to their identity.
“Moving to a secure card will save the agency millions, free up resources and ensure information is quickly accessible to DHS officials while reducing the agency’s FOIA backlog,” the ICE spokesperson told Fox. “For provisionally released noncitizens, the digital modernization will provide ongoing access to important immigration documents through the secure card and connected portal.”
“Provisionally released noncitizens,” of course, means illegals. Just in case you’re not fluent in bureaucrat.
Guess what else the “not an official form of federal identification” cards will be used for, though, according to Fox?
“It would also allow for an easier verification of identity through DHS systems via officials,” Fox reported. But it’s not an official federal ID, oh, no. It’s just an ID used by federal officials, which, obviously, is something completely different.
You can decide for yourself how much of that double-speak you want to believe, of course, but personally, I’m withholding judgment.
I guess you could say I’m pre-decisional.
This article appeared originally on The Western Journal.
The post Biden Admin Planning to Roll Out ID Cards for Illegal Immigrants This Summer: 10,000 Cards in First-Round Issue Across US appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.
The death of a renowned outdoorsman in a Wyoming ski accident is being described as a homicide.
Teton County Coroner Brent Blue made the determination in the death of 71-year-old Peter Wuerslin, according to Fox News.
Wuerslin was mortally injured in a collision with an unidentified 34-year-old skier on the slopes of the Jackson Hole Mountain Resort last month.
Wuerslin had served as a ski instructor at the resort since 1978, according to the Jackson Hole News & Guide.
The instructor was skiing with a group of friends when the other party collided with him, according to Ski Magazine.
In a surprising—but not unheard of—determination, the Teton County Coroner ruled the death of Jackson Hole, Wyo., ski instructor Peter Wuerslin a homicide. Click below to read the full story. #SKI https://t.co/dMLu4wVB3p
— SKI Magazine (@skimagonline) May 4, 2024
The exact nature of the collision is unclear, with one source described by Ski Magazine as a member of the ski patrol saying that the younger skier “failed to maneuver” around Wuerslin on his way down a mountain slope.
Wuerslin died three days later of injuries sustained from the crash.
The other skier was released from an area hospital the same day.
Wuerslin was wearing a helmet at the time of the accident, according to Snow Brains, but the person he collided with apparently was not.
Blue described Wuerslin’s cause of death as an “intracranial hemorrhage.”
The coroner’s assessment is independent of any law enforcement investigation.
The Teton County Sheriff’s Office indicated last moth that it was investigating the collision.
Potential witnesses to the crash are being asked to call Detective Bret Bommer at 307-733-4052.
Wuerslin’s outdoor accomplishments include a six-year global bicycle ride that spanned six continents and 45,000 miles.
Friends of Wuerslin shared tributes to the ski instructor on social media, with some pointing to his extensive bicycling experience.
“We will miss Peter, who died yesterday after another skier ran into him,” Jackson, Wyoming local Angus Thuermer said of the deceased.
Jackson Hole Mountain Resort President Mary Kate Buckley described the organization as “devastated to have lost a beloved member of our community” in a statement provided to Fox.
“This is obviously very sad for the organization and the community and our heart goes out to the family.”
This article appeared originally on The Western Journal.
The post Jackson Hole, Wyoming, Icon’s Death Ruled Homicide by County Coroner appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.
On Friday, the social media director for the Miss USA organization, Claudia Michelle, stepped down, announcing her decision in a post to Instagram.
Three days later, the reigning Miss USA, Noelia Voigt, also posted on Instagram that she had resigned from the title of Miss USA 2023, citing her mental health.
Two days after that, UmaSofia Srivastava, who had been crowned Miss Teen USA 2023, also announced on Instagram that she was giving up her title.
What, one might ask, is going on at Miss USA?
According to the New York Post, a source who knows all three said they had coordinated their resignations.
“The decision was not easy. Noelia and UmaSofia are extremely dedicated people who worked incredibly hard for the pageant. The decisions were not taken lightly. They all decided to do this together,” the insider reportedly told the Post.
“They are afraid of speaking out more at this time because of the organization,” the anonymous source added. “They don’t want this to have any lasting harmful effect on their futures.”
Details about what, specifically, was at the root of the problem at Miss USA were somewhat sparse, and almost universally sourced anonymously, making their verification all but impossible.
Michelle, however, hinted at serious dysfunction at the highest levels of the organization.
Michelle, who said in her post that she had not signed a non-disclosure agreement as had Voigt and Srivastava and was therefore more free to speak openly, wrote of Voigt that she’d seen a “decline in her mental health” while working closely with her at the organization, and that she’d also “seen firsthand the disrespect towards Uma and her family.”
She said both title-holders had been “threatened” by the organization’s “social media rules and guidelines” — rules and guidelines that Michelle herself, as social media director for Miss USA, hadn’t even seen.
“I feel the way current management speaks about their titleholders is unprofessional and inappropriate; I disavow workplace toxicity and bullying of any kind,” she wrote.
“This toxic atmosphere is a serious concern,” a source close to the situation reportedly confirmed to the Post. “There is an urgent need for intervention at the leadership level.”
You can read their statements regarding their resignations below.
“How have we not prioritized mental health among title holders in light of what happened to Cheslie Kryst?” Dani Walker, a former Miss Montana and pageant coach, asked in a YouTube video posted Wednesday, speaking of a former Miss USA who committed suicide in 2022. “For me there is no valid excuse as to why Noelia should be resigning because of her mental health.”
This article appeared originally on The Western Journal.
The post Miss USA and Miss Teen USA Resign Their Titles Within Two Days of Each Other Amid Reports of ‘Toxic Atmosphere’ appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.
A competitive runner from Fountain Valley, California, was stripped of his title as the men’s winner of Saturday’s Hoag Orange County Marathon in California after he was found to have violated the race’s rules.
Esteban Prado, 24, was disqualified after he accepted water from a his dad during the race, in what has been reported as a breach of the event’s regulations, according to KABC-TV.
“I know I won,” Prado said.
Esteban Prado, who spent months training for the marathon and won it, received water from a spectator. And that’s a no-no. https://t.co/a3rglm81wH
— NBC New York (@NBCNewYork) May 7, 2024
According to the rules, marathon participants are only permitted to hydrate at official water stations.
OC Marathon’s Race Director Gary Kutschar explained that they were “forced to disqualify a participant” after it was verified that the runner received “unauthorized assistance from an individual on a bicycle, in violation of USA Track & Field rules and our race regulations.”
“We take these rules seriously to ensure fairness and the integrity of our event for all competitors,” Kutschar concluded.
Prado had reportedly trained for approximately four months for the marathon and finished, with a time of 2 hours, 24 minutes, and 54 seconds.
“About like a three- to four-month period of just 100-mile week trainings,” Prado said, according to KNBC. “Just kind of balancing that with work, and also just including that in the weekend.”
He was informed of his disqualification via a call from the race director on Sunday.
A father sees that his son is thirsty. So he hands a bottle of water to his offspring, who takes a slug.
Is that wrong?
Well, yes, it’s a rules violation during a marathon, and it resulted in Esteban Prado being disqualified as the O.C. Marathon winner.https://t.co/9p3OJxgGA9 pic.twitter.com/58N07pwiP3
— David Carrillo Peñaloza (@ByDCP) May 7, 2024
Prado did acknowledge his ignorance of the specific rule against receiving water from spectators, and following his disqualification, Jason Yang of San Pedro was declared the winner with a running time of 2 hours, 25 minutes, 11 seconds.
Prado told KABC that he has no interest in contesting the decision, emphasizing that the victory held no tangible benefit for him: “I don’t want to argue over something that’s 15 minutes away from you. You get no money or anything.”
He also stated his belief that Yang had ratted him out to the race’s administrators, telling KABC, “The only person that could see me within range was second place.”
He then took a direct shot at Yang: “You know, if he wanted that congratulations for that first place, if he really felt like he needed it, it’s just for him at the end of the day.”
California marathon winner Esteban Prado disqualified for accepting cup of water from his dad during race: ‘I know I won’ https://t.co/3CfmG6lMoO pic.twitter.com/f5W4xgcB6L
— New York Post (@nypost) May 8, 2024
Unfortunately, this disqualification means Prado cannot use his finishing time to qualify for future races, though he plans to compete again in the fall.
This time, he will be adhering to all regulations.
This article appeared originally on The Western Journal.
The post Marathon Winner Disqualified After He’s Caught Receiving ‘Unauthorized Assistance’ appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.
An Israeli businessman who also held Canadian citizenship has been murdered in Egypt.
Some media accounts said that a terrorist group that had been previously unknown claimed credit for the attack, video of which was widely shared on social media. There were also reports the incident began as a robbery.
The Times of Israel reported that Egyptian authorities had taken a man into custody.
Ziv Kipper was shot to death Tuesday in Alexandria.
His widow, Oksana Kipper, said she was told the attack took place because her husband was Jewish.
“He wasn’t robbed,” she said.
Israeli-Canadian businessman murdered in Egypt in apparent antisemitic attack https://t.co/1tofxqAsS6
— The Globe and Mail (@globeandmail) May 8, 2024
Reuters reported that an Egyptian security source claimed the incident was a robbery, not a terrorist attack.
Egypt has launched a criminal investigation into the shooting, the BBC reported.
Kipper was the CEO of the Egypt-based OK Group LLC, which exports frozen fruits and vegetables, according to the Times. The company has offices in Israel and Ukraine.
A post on Telegram from a group calling itself the Vanguard of Liberation Group for Martyr Mohamed Salah said it killed Kipper because he was a Mossad agent, according to The Jerusalem Post.
“Wait for the next,” the group said in a statement. “Shalom from the children of Gaza.”
Reuters reported that Egyptian security sources said they had nothing to share about the group.
Kipper’s death was “a step on the path of the Egyptian people’s struggle against the Zionist enemy,” the group said, according to the Times.
A group calling itself “Vanguards of Liberation – Martyr Mohammed Salah Groups” claims it murdered an Israeli “agent” in Egypt today.
Mohammed Saleh was an Egyptian police officer who murdered three IDF soldiers near the Israel-Egypt border in June 2023. pic.twitter.com/K7ucUbrLlo— Aleph א (@no_itsmyturn) May 7, 2024
Mohammed Salah Ibrahim killed three Israel Defense Forces soldiers in a June 2023 attack along the Egyptian border.
Global Affairs Canada said that it was “aware of the reports of the death of a Canadian Citizen in Egypt,” according to the Post.
This article appeared originally on The Western Journal.
The post Islamic Terror Group Says It Has Murdered Israeli-Canadian Businessman as Revenge for Gaza appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.
Nothing can shock an MSNBC analyst like the idea that the American people are paying attention.
On the leftist network on Wednesday, host Ana Cabrera brought up the findings of a poll last week that found independent voters think President Joe Biden is a bigger threat to democracy than former President Donald Trump.
Considering what Biden’s Justice Department and his political party have been up to lately, that would be a fairly easy conclusion to draw — but not so easy for Cabrera’s guest.
Cabrera cited a poll by NPR/PBS NewsHour (hotbeds of right-wing thinking) that found that 53 percent of independent voters think Biden’s re-election would “weaken our democracy.”
Only 42 percent said the same thing about Trump’s return to the White House.
“I find it shocking, honestly. I can’t make sense of that number. I wish I could,” analyst Susan Del Percio told Cabrera, appearing to be completely baffled.
[ffad_ic1]
“I wish I could have some really great insight to it, but I don’t know if it’s an outlier or not, because the other numbers with independents and Biden are going in the right direction,” she said. “So, that may be it.”
MSNBC panel in utter disbelief that more independent voters think Biden is a greater threat to democracy than Trump pic.twitter.com/x1qK9QCfCK
— Daily Caller (@DailyCaller) May 9, 2024
Now, first, it’s worth noting that Del Percio is billed as a “Republican strategist” — so Republican that she took a $160,000-a-year job as a “special advisor” to New York’s Democratic Gov. Andrew Cuomo in 2014-15, as the New York Post reported at the time. (She publicly repented of it after Cuomo’s sexual harassment problems got too big to ignore.)
Second, it’s worth reiterating that this is MSNBC, a network that has dedicated itself to attacking Trump ever since he rode down the escalator in 2015 to announce his campaign for the presidency.
This is the network of “Morning Joe” Scarborough and his Trump-hating wife; the television home of the racist Joy Reid and the rabidly anti-Trump Rachel Maddow.
So, it’s clear that lucid objectivity isn’t exactly a hiring point — not for MSNBC anchors, hosts or contributors.
Del Percio is looking for some “great insight” into the poll’s findings? Maybe this will help.
It’s fair to say that Biden himself — with the assistance of the establishment media — has made the “defense of democracy” line his biggest talking point. Virtually since taking office, his administration has claimed that Trump supporters and elected Republicans who support the “Make America Great Again” agenda are a threat to the American system of government.
It’s been a theme of coverage of the 2024 campaign in liberal media outlets since Biden’s re-election effort began in earnest in 2022, when The New York Times, for example, headlined a report “Biden Puts Defense of Democracy at Center of Agenda, at Home and Abroad.”
The hard reality, obvious to even a mildly objective observer, is that for all its talk about “saving democracy,” it’s the Biden administration that has spent three years proving it’s the real danger to American freedoms.
It’s the Biden administration that has used its ties to Big Tech to squelch dissent and that has used law enforcement powers against American citizens exercising their rights of free speech.
And it’s the Biden Justice Department and the Democratic Party that supports it that are, in real time, engaging in an unprecedented act of political persecution under cover of law in the form of trumped-up criminal charges against the country’s leading opposition figure.
Progressives who love to preach about the dangers of Russian President Vladimir Putin are doing a bang-up job following his lead when it comes to power politics.
And social media users noticed:
Maybe, just maybe, trying to stop your opponent using the court systems is the biggest threat.
— RDS (@RDS7500) May 9, 2024
They need to get their heads out of their bubble and actually do their job and find out why. Real journalists would investigate, but I think we know they aren’t real! #propagandapress
— Cathy Boote (@cboote) May 9, 2024
How are they shocked? The Biden administration has weaponized the judicial system to try and eliminate the leader of the opposition.
Trump-no wars, low inflation, secure borders
Biden-2 wars, high inflation, open borders
Americans can’t afford another 4 years of the last 4…
— TyraMuch? (@tyfavara) May 9, 2024
The absurdity of Del Percio’s point is even more evident when she ended by telling Cabrera that Trump’s ongoing criminal trial in Manhattan should be televised to increase its impact on voters.
It was an admission that the Democratic Party needs its criminal cases against the former president to win over the average American. And maybe, if Del Percio could put her thinking cap on, she might see that voters can see what’s happening, too.
What Democrats, the mainstream media and the hack leftists at MSNBC refuse to acknowledge is that when they’re prosecuting Trump, they’re persecuting his supporters, not only battling them politically — which is understandable — but bringing in the powers of federal and state governments to smother them legally.
That’s not democracy, it’s authoritarianism, and it’s a festering weed that’s growing in the rank shadows of the Biden administration.
Republican voters can see that, of course. What the poll showed is that a majority of independents can see it too.
And an MSNBC analyst is shocked?
She must not be paying attention. Americans are.
The election in November is going to prove how much.
This article appeared originally on The Western Journal.
The post MSNBC Analyst Shocked as Independent Voters Turn Biden’s Biggest Talking Point Against Him in New Poll appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.
Another day, another piece of bad election-year news for proponents of Bidenomics.
The Department of Labor on Thursday released its weekly report of seasonally adjusted data on new unemployment claims through May 4, reporting a total of 231,000 jobless claims.
That number was both up from the previous week’s 209,000 and higher than the 214,000 claims Dow Jones had anticipated, according to CNBC.
In fact, it was the highest number since August, spurring CNBC to label the report “a potential sign that an otherwise robust labor market is changing.”
Continuing jobless claims were up 17,00o from the week prior, while the four-week moving average of claims also showed an increase, up 4,750 week-to-week.
“Weekly jobless claims are one of the timeliest indicators of when the economy is starting to undergo serious deterioration, and the magnitude of new layoffs this week looks worrisome,” Christopher Rupkey, chief economist at FWDBONDS, told CNBC.
“One week does not a trend make, but we can no longer be sure that calm seas lie ahead for the US economy if today’s weekly jobless claims are any indication,” he added.
Nonfarm payrolls were expected to rise by 240,000 in April, but only increased by 175,000, the report also said — the smallest month-to-month rise since October.
Not all the news was bad, however. The unemployment rate “inched up” from 3.8 to 3.9 percent, for example, meaning that it has stayed below 4 percent for over two years — “the longest such streak since the 1960s,” according to The Associated Press.
Also, as Reuters noted, a slowing labor market makes additional interest rate cuts by the Federal Reserve somewhat more likely.
The outlet reported that a “handful of economists” expect to see the first rate cut in July, but most don’t think the Fed will act before September.
Some of the numbers should probably be taken with a grain of salt at this time of year, according to one expert who talked with Reuters.
“Given that the varied timing of school spring breaks, and holidays like Easter and Passover, makes the seasonal adjustment process very complicated, we often see volatile readings in the seasonally adjusted data around this time of year,” JP Morgan economist Daniel Silver told the outlet.
Over 10,000 of the new claims came from New York alone, prompting speculation that much of that volume could be attributed to Citigroup employees who had been laid off in January but paid 90 days of severance finally becoming eligible for unemployment insurance benefits in April.
Reuters noted that California, Illinois, Indiana and Texas also saw large increases in new unemployment claims, but only one state — Iowa — saw claims drop by more than 1,000.
Stocks initially fell after the report, but by late morning had more than rebounded. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was up nearly half a point by about 11:30.
The AP said strong consumer spending was responsible for preventing a recession and keeping American jobs “plentiful.”
This article appeared originally on The Western Journal.
The post Weekly Jobless Claims Unexpectedly Shoot Up to ‘Worrisome’ Level appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.
Big Pharma giant Pfizer confirmed on Wednesday that it will settle more than 10,000 lawsuits over allegations that the company failed to warn people about possible cancer risks caused by their Zantac product.
Zantac is the company’s once-popular anti-heartburn medication featured in a multitude of television commercials, many of which featured an animated fireman character.
But in 2020, the Food and Drug Administration warned that Zantac and its generic version, called ranitidine, should be pulled from the shelves after a cancer-causing substance called NDMA was discovered as a contaminant linked to the medication.
Now, the company has agreed to settle the thousands of cases filed in state courts all across the nation over the substance, according to Bloomberg News.
Terms of the Pfizer settlements have not been disclosed.
“Pfizer has explored and will continue to explore opportunistic settlements of certain cases if appropriate, and has settled certain cases,” the company said in a statement.
Pfizer and other companies began developing the generic version of ranitidine in 1997 once Glaxo’s patent for the ingredient expired, according to the New York Post.
“The company has not sold a Zantac product in more than 15 years and did so only for a limited period of time,” the statement from Pfizer added.
After the FDA made its recommendation to pull the product, thousands of lawsuits were filed against pharmaceutical companies such as Pfizer, GSK, Sanofi and Boehringer Ingelheim.
Sanofi already settled about 4,000 lawsuits last month.
Bloomberg reported that Sanofi will pay $100 million in its settlement, marking an average of $25,000 for each plaintiff.
But Sanofi still faces more than 20,000 lawsuits in the state of Delaware.
Indeed, there are up to 70,000 cases in Delaware courts against Sanofi and the other Big Pharma companies.
“Sanofi is settling these cases, not because we believe the claims have any merit, but rather to avoid the expense and ongoing distraction of the litigation,” the company said in a statement.
Like Sanofi, GSK has settled some of the suits leveled against the firm.
According to the Daily Mail, NDMA is a common byproduct of many industrial processes, including the making of rocket fuel.
“NDMA is a ‘‘forever chemical,’ meaning that it doesn’t degrade, or break down, naturally in our bodies and is believed to cause DNA damage,” the outlet reported.
This article appeared originally on The Western Journal.
The post Pfizer to Settle 10K Lawsuits Over Drug Linked to Cancer, Costing Company Millions appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.
Having been a university professor, I’ve been to a lot of commencement ceremonies.
With our campus in a poor, semi-rural area, it was especially moving to see students who were not only the first in their family to get a college degree, but the first to have even graduated from high school.
Sometimes it was boring, but it never got old. It was routine for me, but for some graduates and their families, it was an event of a lifetime.
Which makes what happened with the speaker at The Ohio State University’s recent spring commencement especially grievous.
You see, Chris Pan thought it was all about only him. Perhaps he hoped to promote himself as a professional speaker or guru.
Worse, Pan wrote his speech while high on the psychedelic drug ayahuasca, according to The Columbus Dispatch. He reportedly said he also sought help from ChatGPT and other artificial intelligence.
It showed.
Beginning the university’s commencement address, Pan — an OSU graduate and Harvard MBA who worked for PepsiCo and Facebook before launching a jewelry business — noted the usual things about hard work, late-night studying, achievement and such.
He led students in applauding the support of their families in their accomplishments.
I’ve heard all this before — many times. It’s standard commencement fare, but meaningful for those graduating and their loved ones.
But then the crowd at Ohio State — and the rest of us via X — heard things that were novel.
No, not novel. Bizarre. And completely inappropriate.
The worst commencement address in the history of commencement addresses.
Chris Pan, 05/05/24 | The Ohio State University pic.twitter.com/UlX16R4yuZ
— Kevin McMahon (@Kevin__McMahon) May 7, 2024
Pan called on the crowd to stand and join with him in a song, complete with prepared lyrics projected on a screen.
And hand motions. Lots of hand motions. And breathing exercises — got to have breathing exercises at graduation.
Having, he said, properly gotten everyone in the right state of mind, Pan then gave the old parable about blind men perceiving different aspects of an elephant (trunk as a snake, side as a wall, tail as rope).
No problem with that to make a point.
Then Pan said (and imagine the uproar if he did this in a Christian context) “My goal today is to share new perspectives that will lead you to financial, emotional and spiritual freedom.”
He then talked about money and government policies. In promoting Bitcoin, he called on university President Walter Carter to be his assistant, and did a magic trick, changing quarters into Bitcoin.
Ba-da-BOOM.
Pan explained his self-therapy on emotional health through singing, and talked of spiritual aspects of making one’s soul grow.
As music began to play, he led the crowd in a meditation session/TED talk about a person they might admire and how one can change one’s life.
He then told the crowd he would make a free bracelet from his company available to each of them “as an apology for listening to me talk about Bitcoin,”) the Dispatch reported.
Pan finally moved to what might be considered a traditional commencement speech, with admonitions on learning forgiveness, compassion, resilience and tolerance.
He hearkened back to the elephant parable to talk about how tolerance allows people to hold multiple perspectives, especially in gatherings among those of different cultures, and how inner peace results in world peace.
Usual commencement topics.
But then, back to the music (Pan drank from a coffee cup with the price tag still on it), more on breathing, and an encouragement to learn from others with different perspectives.
Overall, Pan provided some appropriate statements about perspective and harmony.
Despite Pan’s talents and creativity, there are some ways of presenting material that don’t fit at something like commencement. Especially if they come from being high and from using artificial intelligence.
Earlier versions of his speech posted online talked of the current conflict in the Middle East and called for him to remove his shirt. Thankfully, he did neither.
And perhaps Pan’s motive for his little production was contained in his statement that he would be willing to be your teaching assistant for life.
Followed, of course, by a slide of his contact information and website.
Meaning, it seems like Pan’s little show was really about him.
And of it, Kevin McMahon of Townhall posted on X: “The worst commencement address in the history of commencement addresses.”
This article appeared originally on The Western Journal.
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Most people have at least a vague notion of the virtue of self-sacrifice.
But considering how few people in the developed world face life-or-death situations on a daily basis, how many of us could truly embody that virtue if it came down to it?
How many people would be able to put aside their self-preservation instinct and give up their own life for the people they love?
One North Carolina father, when presented with this situation, was able to rise to that calling, sacrificing his own life when his children fell into a river.
According to local news outlet WGHP, Benny Bowers Jr., a native of Surrey County, North Carolina, was out fishing with his children on April 28 when three of his four sons fell into the Yadkin River.
WGHP reported that, although the family called 911 immediately, the strength of the current forced Bowers to make that fateful, split-second decision.
He jumped in, rescuing his struggling children, but Bowers himself never resurfaced.
Rescue crews quickly came on the scene, The Charlotte Observer noting that they searched the entire day with no success, suspending the search once it grew too dark.
They ended up finding his body around 11 a.m. on April 29, near the juncture of the Yadkin River and the Ararat River in Siloam, where he originally vanished.
Tragic as the loss of this loving father was, Bowers’ children had only glowing praise for the heroic actions of their father, who wen by the name Benji, according to the Observer.
His 10-year-old son, Benny Bowers III, told WGHP “He was a brave man. And if you wanted him to help, he would be there for you.”
Bowers’ sister, Angela Stewart, told WGHP about how much her brother loved the Lord, and Bowers’ son called his father “the greatest dad I could ever have, and he’s a hero. A real-life hero.”
Friends and family shared their own tributes on Facebook, with Bowers’ cousin, Jason Johnson, writing, “I’ve been thinking about all the things I could say about Benji Bowers. If I could put it all in one word it would be Love. To know him was to love him. Always the jokester. The life of the party. God, Family, friends and fishing were what matters most.”
And Bowers truly lived up to the praise of his son, his sister and his cousin.
While too many Christians in the secular culture of the West see their commitment to the Lord as more of a social thing, Bowers clearly took his commitment to God seriously, up to and including sacrificing himself for the sake of his children.
In doing so, Bowers personified the words of Christ, who said in John’s Gospel that “Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends.”
Every child deserves a father like Bowers, who was devoted to God first, and then put his family before everything else.
Benny Bowers Jr. was, as his son said, a real-life hero, animated by the words of Christ and his love for the Lord.
Bowers had that “greater love,” to “lay down his life” for his children. If America had more fathers like him, maybe that would be enough to turn the nihilistic, atheistic culture of the West back to God.
This article appeared originally on The Western Journal.
The post ‘A Real-Life Hero’: Father Sacrifices His Life to Save Three Children appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.
The House on Tuesday passed a bill designed to ensure that any new energy efficiency standards promulgated by the U.S. Department of Energy be based on available technology and economic reality, according to a media release from the bill’s sponsor.
Rep. Debbie Lesko’s office said that the bill passed with bi-partisan support.
“I am saddened that we would need such a bill,” Lesko said in the release. “However, as we have experienced under this administration, the Department of Energy has unleashed an avalanche of new regulations for household products, including stoves, dishwashers, washing machines, showers, toilets, water heaters, air conditioners, heat pumps, and furnaces.
“No government bureaucrat should EVER scheme to take away Americans’ appliances in the name of a radical environmental agenda, yet that is exactly what we have seen under the Biden Administration,” she added (emphasis original).
Republican Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers of Washington spoke in support of the bill from the House floor, calling the “rush to green agenda” by the Biden administration “out of touch” with the priorities of everyday Americans.
The Biden administration is waging war on American energy, and this war is making its way into Americans’ homes.
The administration is doubling down on unaffordable appliance mandates—which is why we’re leading on H.R. 6921. Watch: pic.twitter.com/Y8oYpDZNJe
— CathyMcMorrisRodgers (@cathymcmorris) May 7, 2024
The intent of the bill is to tweak the way in which the DOE creates new regulations or modifies or revokes existing ones as they apply to consumer products like household appliances, but specifically excludes vehicles, according to a summary of the bill on the official congressional website.
According to a summary of the bill, if enacted, it would grant the DOE the authority to “grant a petition to revoke or amend energy conservation standards if it finds that the standards (1) result in additional costs to consumers, (2) do not result in significant conservation of energy or water, (3) are not technologically feasible, and (4) result in a product (e.g., gas stoves) not being commercially available in the United States to all consumers.”
It also would require all new or modified regulations to be ” technologically feasible and economically justified,” according to the summary.
The website listed 10 cosponsors of the bill, all of whom are Republicans.
Interested readers can read the bill in its entirety below.
H. R. 6192 by The Western Journal on Scribd
According to the U.S. House Clerk’s Office, 205 Republicans voted to pass the bill along with seven Democrats. All 195 votes against the bill were from Democrats.
Of those listed as “Not Voting” on the bill, 11 were Democrats and 12 were Republicans.
The bill faces an uncertain future in the Senate, although passage seems unlikely given the Senate’s refusal to take up similar bills in the past, such as Lesko’s Save Our Gas Stoves Act, passed by the House in 2023.
According to an analysis by the Congressional Budget Office, the bill would require no significant additional federal government spending.
This article appeared originally on The Western Journal.
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Former President Donald Trump could break a 52-year GOP losing streak by winning the blue state of Minnesota, campaign officials said at a Republican National Committee retreat, citing internal polls.
Pollster Tony Fabrizio and senior advisers Susie Wiles and Chris LaCivita told attendees at the private donor event Saturday that they’re optimistic the 45th president could flip both Minnesota and Virginia, NBC News reported.
President Joe Biden won Minnesota by 7 percentage points in 2020, according to the outlet. The state has not voted for a Republican presidential candidate since Richard Nixon’s re-election campaign in 1972.
According to internal polls, Trump leads Biden by three points — 49 percent to 46 percent — in a head-to-head matchup in the North Star State.
In a six-way Minnesota contest with four independent candidates, including Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Trump and Biden are tied at 40 percent each.
When Kennedy is taken out of the equation, Trump leads Biden by five points, at 46 percent to 41 percent.
Trump camp poll memo: Blue states MN & VA are in play
MN: Trump & Biden are tied 40-40%
Sans RFK Jr: Trump +5
Head to head: Trump + 3VA: Biden up 40-37%
Sans RFK: Biden +1
H2H: Biden +4 pic.twitter.com/rZYw5twBpQ— Marc Caputo (@MarcACaputo) May 7, 2024
Overall, Trump campaign polls show the former president outperforming Biden in swing states.
“Fabrizio’s numbers, posted on a slide shared with NBC News, showed Trump ahead of President Joe Biden by small margins in the key swing states from 2020 — including Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, Arizona and Georgia,” the outlet reported.
LaCivita said the Biden campaign’s suggestion that he could flip Florida and North Carolina — states Trump won in 2020 — is empty bluster, while the 45th president has a realistic shot at flipping some blue states.
“I think that the Biden campaign is deliberately playing a faux game by talking about [how] they’re going to expand the map in Florida and North Carolina,” LaCivita told NBC News. “But we have a real, real opportunity in expanding the map in Virginia and Minnesota.”
Biden campaign spokeswoman Lauren Hitt scoffed at the very notion.
“While we have 150 offices open with hundreds of staff across the key battlegrounds, the RNC is closing offices and hemorrhaging money on legal fees,” Hitt said.
“Joe Biden has hit every battleground at least once, while Trump’s in the courtroom or on the golf course. We’ll see how that translates in November.”
While polls are temporary snapshots in time that can and do change, they paint an encouraging picture for Trump, who has been campaigning hard despite fighting sham lawsuits.
In contrast, his doddering Democratic rival is hardly campaigning, in a repeat of his lethargic 2020 efforts.
New: Swing State Polls with @thehill
AZ: 48% Trump, 44% Biden
GA: 47% Trump, 44% Biden
MI: 45% Trump, 44% Biden
NV: 45% Trump, 44% Biden
NC: 47% Trump, 42% Biden
PA: 47% Trump, 45% Biden
WI: 47% Trump, 45% Bidenhttps://t.co/tt6RQ0rGGP pic.twitter.com/c1xsuqa3Po— Emerson College Polling (@EmersonPolling) April 30, 2024
No matter what the polls say, it’s clear the United States is buckling under the weight of Biden’s disastrous presidency.
Americans are struggling with punishing inflation, terrifying crime and daily border invasions that are destabilizing the nation. Things cannot continue as they are.
This article appeared originally on The Western Journal.
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CNN’s Jake Tapper called out President Joe Biden’s ever-changing position on the issue of abortion.
In an interview that aired Sunday with Biden campaign co-chair Mitch Landrieu, Tapper questioned whether Biden’s shifting stance on abortion over his political career will be harmful to his campaign.
Tapper characterized Biden’s position on abortion as “all over the map” and asked whether it undermines support from him from pro-choice advocates.
“Do you think his own long, complicated history on this issue — do you think it muddies his message, and undermines the contrast with Donald Trump?” Tapper asked.
Landrieu at first criticized how Trump has handled the abortion issue, but then explained how Biden’s pro-choice stance is stronger than ever.
“Since his presidency, he has been very strong in his support of a very simple notion: that he trusts women to make decisions about their reproductive health,” Landrieu said.
To Tapper’s point, Biden’s position on abortion has been inconsistent throughout his career.
In 1974, then freshman Senator Biden said that he didn’t like the Supreme Court’s decision on abortion.
“I think it went too far. I don’t think that a woman has the sole right to say what should happen to her body,” the Washingtonian reported in 1974.
In 2006, Biden called himself “the odd man out” in the Democratic Paty on the abortion issue, according to CNN.
“I do not view abortion as a choice and a right. I think it’s always a tragedy, and I think that it should be rare and safe, and I think we should be focusing on how to limit the number of abortions.’ Biden said.
Just this year, Biden said that he’s “never been supportive of, you know, ‘It’s my body, I can do what I want with it,” the New Yorker reported.
Yet, since his inauguration in 2021, Biden has been anything but a sideline spectator on the issue.
In July 2022, just a few weeks after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, Biden signed an executive order aimed at protecting access to abortion services.
CNN reported that the “executive order attempts to safeguard access to medication abortion and emergency contraception, protect patient privacy, launch public education efforts as well as bolster the security of and the legal options available to those seeking and providing abortion services.”
In June 2023, Biden denounced abortion restrictions in Republican-governed states, arguing that the states were depriving women of “basic health care,” according to the New York Times.
“In his 50+ years in politics … Biden has been all over the map on abortion,” says CNN’s Jake Tapper.
— “In ’74, he said Roe v. Wade went too far, and that a woman should not have ‘the sole right to say what should happen to her body.'”
— “In 2006, he said, ‘I do not view… pic.twitter.com/uad5XSziwI
— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) May 5, 2024
Just this year, in his State of the Union address, Biden said, “if you, the American people, send me a Congress that supports the right to choose, I promise you I will restore Roe v. Wade as the law of the land again,” Huffpost reported.
It seems like Biden’s position on abortion corresponds to that of his base. Instead of having an independent opinion based on what he believes, he’s believing what he thinks will get him elected.
Tapper is right to bring up Biden’s tepidity on the issue. There is perhaps no issue that Biden has flipped back and forth over in his career more than abortion.
What Biden represents is an opinion that is often held on the left, particularly among left-leaning legal scholars: the idea that codified laws are living, constantly evolving instruments.
It’s in stark contrast to the position taken by the mainstream right, who take an originalist perspective on laws. They argue, according to the National Constitution Center, that laws should be interpreted with the understanding of those who wrote them, not those who are reading them.
The idea of the left is that the U.S. Constitution should change over time to accommodate how society’s view on key issues changes. This all happens without any sort of formal amendment process, and is instead implemented by enlightened members of the judiciary.
As many people are aware, the Constitution makes no mention of abortion in its text. Rather, the theory of the “living constitution” was utilized by the Supreme Court to permit them to bring the Constitution into the modern age.
David Strauss, a professor of law at the University of Chicago Law School, defined a living constitution as “one that evolves, changes over time, and adapts to new circumstances, without being formally amended.”
This idea that the Constitution can change over time and adapt to new circumstances has been the foundation of Supreme Court decisions that have written rights into the Constitution based on what the Court wants it to say.
This philosophy is concerning, to say the least.
For the left and “living constitutionalists,” no constitutional right is safe. To them, the government is the arbiter of what rights should and should not be guaranteed.
To them, the law is subject to their will. If a provision of the law is disharmonious with their will, they will simply change it.
The core issue with that philosophy is, at the end of the day, the letter of the law means nothing more than what judges think it ought to mean, irrespective of what it says.
That’s why overturning Roe v. Wade was the correct jurisprudential decision, even if it was not popular. Nothing in the Constitution guarantees anyone the right to have an abortion.
The Constitution was founded on the principle that there are some rights so sacred, so worth protecting, that citizens can only be deprived of them when afforded due process.
And no right is greater than that of the right to life. Unlike the left, many on the right believe that rights come from God, not government, and that they cannot be changed just because some judges feel like they should.
That’s why conservatives have so consistently opposed abortion. Sure, you can deprive someone of life with due process. But how can you give a baby in the womb due process?
The left and right can, and do, disagree on many issues. From immigration and taxes to welfare and energy, all of these debates have their place.
But when it comes to abortion, and the deprivation of the right to life, this is something that we really should all be able to agree on. After all, if we don’t protect the right to life of innocent children, what is worth protecting?
Does any other issue matter if we can kill our most vulnerable citizens?
This article appeared originally on The Western Journal.
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The Rev. Billy Graham, famed evangelist and minister to presidents, is set to receive a great accolade next week as a 7-foot-tall statue will be dedicated in his honor at the U.S. Capitol, according to reports.
The state of North Carolina approved a measure back in 2015 to replace its statue of former Gov. Charles Aycock in the Capitol’s Statuary Hall with one dedicated to Graham, who was born in the city of Charlotte in the Tar Heel State. But the plans have been stalled for years, The Charlotte Observer reported last year.
Graham died in 2018.
The Billy Graham Evangelistic Association told Fox News on Monday that the long-awaited statue will finally be placed in the Capitol.
“It’s a rare honor,” the organization said.
The outlet reported the statue will be unveiled on the morning of May 16.
The commanding sculpture was created by North Carolina artist Chas Fagan and portrays Graham gesturing toward an open Bible, according to Fox News.
The bronze was cast at Carolina Bronze Sculpture, a foundry in Seagrove, North Carolina, while the base was made of Salisbury granite cut from a quarry in Rowan County.
The base of the statue contains Bible verses to “highlight Graham’s lifelong commitment to sharing the Gospel,” the association said.
They include John 3:16 (“God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life”) and John 14:6 (“Jesus said to him, ‘I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one goes to the Father except through me'”), Fox News reported.
The Rev. Franklin Graham celebrated the statue being raised in his famous father’s honor.
“This isn’t just a statue of my father — it represents the One that he surrendered his life to and the message that he preached for more than 80 years, that God loves us and He sent His Son, Jesus Christ, to save us from our sins,” he told Fox News via email.
“What I appreciate most is that this is an opportunity for everyone in future generations who sees the statue to be reminded of God’s love, grace and forgiveness,” Graham continued.
“This is a great honor and my father would be humbled and grateful,” he added. “At the same time, he would not want the attention on himself but on God’s Son, the Lord Jesus Christ.”
Billy Graham, who died at 99 years of age, dedicated some 80 years of his life to his ministry and preached the Gospel to more than 215 million people across six continents — the most ever reached by a single Christian minister.
He also counseled 12 sitting U.S. presidents, starting with Harry Truman, as well as many world leaders.
“The legacy of Rev. Billy Graham is based on his simple message of forgiveness based on John 3:16,” Republican North Carolina Sen. Ted Budd told Fox News.
“He was the first private citizen from North Carolina to lie in honor in the United States Capitol and his likeness should stand in the U.S. Capitol forever,” Budd said.
Graham has received several honors from the federal government.
In 1996, he and his wife, Ruth, received a Congressional Gold Medal.
When he died in 2018, he became one of only four private citizens to be laid in state at the Capitol.
This article appeared originally on The Western Journal.
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As our country barrels heedlessly towards the uttermost bounds of depravity, even the country’s hallowed national monuments are no longer safe from those promoting this degeneracy.
From Joe Biden inviting transgender influencer Dylan Mulvaney to speak with him at the White House to inviting other transgender influencers who took off their shirts on the White House lawn, the Biden administration has ensured that nation’s capital would become a hotbed of this increasing degeneracy.
And now, members of the infamous show “RuPaul’s Drag Race All Stars” have disgraced the Washington Mall and the Lincoln Memorial by promoting the show and parading themselves in patriotic-themed, provocative outfits across these national landmarks.
Per The Hill, eight alumni of “Drag Race” took to the Washington Mall on Monday to both promote the ninth-season of the show and pose for pictures.
One of the drag queens, Angeria Paris VanMichaels, told The Hill, “It feels like progress. … In this moment, I feel very proud of my country and just the fact that we’re able to do stuff like this now. It kind of shows how far we are coming as a country — slowly but surely, we get there.”
More specifically, in addition to promoting the show, the drag queens were there to persuade people to vote in the upcoming election — for Biden, that is.
As The Hill noted, the LGBT community was instrumental in clinching Biden’s victory back in 2020.
Local news station WUSA-TV also reported on the drag queen’s underlying intentions regarding their little display, noting drag queen Shannel posted a video to Instagram encouraging people to vote, with the caption “Let your voice be heard VOTE.VOTE.VOTE.”
WARNING: The following video contains images that may be offensive to some readers.
Now, was the drag queens’ little publicity stunt directly sponsored by the Biden administration?
It appeared not. Though these drag queens would most likely be full-throated Biden supporters, the impetus for the whole endeavor seemed to come from the makers of the show and not the White House.
However, The Hill reported, the drag queens met with White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre at a “popular gay bar” following their jaunt about Washington.
Is this any surprise?
After all, career liberal Nancy Pelosi once gladly appeared on this execrable show, and Biden invited a “non-binary” drag queen who publicly advocated for defunding the police to the White House to witness him signing the “Respect for Marriage” Act in 2022, WPDE-TV reported at the time.
Biden has devoted almost his entire presidency to prompting far-left causes that would have made our forebears recoil in disgust.
Imagine what Abraham Lincoln would have said had he seen these drag queens parading around the nation’s Capitol, within sight of his own monument.
Even a mere ten years ago, such a display would have been unthinkable to any sitting president, Democrat or Republican.
Only 20 or so years ago, committed liberals like Joe Biden and Hillary Clinton publicly opposed gay marriage.
How, in such a short span of time, did men dressing like female strippers at our most important national monuments become something many people would consider “normal”?
This display from these drag queens, then, was more than an off-putting publicity stunt for a depraved reality show.
It was a sobering, and disturbing, representation of the moral decline of our nation.
What a difference a couple of decades can make.
A terrible, disheartening, difference, but a difference nonetheless.
This article appeared originally on The Western Journal.
The post Sign of the Times: Drag Queens Take Over National Mall, Create Spectacle at Lincoln Memorial and White House appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.
A state judge in New York has shot down a pro-abortion ballot measure just ahead of the November election, dealing a blow to Democrats who hoped to use the initiative as a top campaign issue this fall.
A judge in Livingston County ruled on Tuesday that Democratic legislators did not follow the constitutionally required steps to place the measure on the ballot, according to the New York Post.
State Supreme Court Justice Daniel Doyle found that they approved the measure before obtaining a legal opinion from state Attorney General Letitia James’ office, the Rochester Democrat and Chronicle reported.
New York already has some of the strongest protections for abortion and abortionists in the country, yet Democrats in the Empire State have been trying to make abortion a central issue in this year’s election with absurd claims that it is endangered in a deep-blue state that is fully controlled by Democrats.
The Democratic Party hopes to use the initiative to boost voter turnout.
“Our decades-long fight to protect equality and reproductive freedom will not be thrown off track by one extremist judge and I look forward to casting my ballot for the Equal Rights Amendment in November,” Gov. Kathy Hochul said in a statement.
Critics of the ballot measure said the language is an attack on parental rights because it would make it illegal to deny a minor’s request for an abortion — or other “health” services, such as “transgender” procedures.
The measure would ask New York voters if they support adding language to the state constitution saying that people cannot be denied rights based on their “ethnicity, national origin, age, and disability” or “sex, including sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, pregnancy, pregnancy outcomes, and reproductive healthcare and autonomy.”
Detractors said that not only would parents be prohibited from having a say in abortions for their children, but the measure also would force schools to adopt the “transgender” agenda.
“Schools would be required to permit biological males to compete on girls’ sports teams if voters approve this amendment,” the Coalition to Protect Kids said in a statement last month, according to the Post.
Critics blasted the measure as “the Parent Replacement Act,” with the Coalition to Protect Kids saying it “opens the floodgates” for government interference in families.
“This ballot initiative is written so broadly and so poorly that it could cause irreparable harm to children and families,” said Greg Garvey, New York executive director of the coalition.
Opponents — including Republican Assemblywoman Marjorie Byrnes of Livingston County — went to court to prevent the measure from being placed on the ballot.
Byrnes told the Post she was pleased with the judge’s decision to block the measure.
“While the state is controlled by one party, our constitution and our laws must be honored. I am pleased with Justice Doyle’s decision which upholds the plain meaning and integrity of the constitution of our state,” she said.
A recent poll found that a supermajority of American voters oppose abortions after the third month of pregnancy, but the New York ballot measure would go against that sentiment by approving unrestricted abortion.
New York state law currently guarantees a right to abortion up to 24 weeks — or six months — and also protects abortion until birth if the fetus is unviable or if the mother’s life is endangered by the pregnancy.
Shockingly, the law includes “mental health” as a reason for abortion up until birth.
Naturally, Democrats plan to appeal the judge’s ruling, so this measure might yet end up on the ballot.
But it all just goes to show how Democrats use abortion as a political wedge even when the “right” they claim to be worried about isn’t in danger in the least bit.
This article appeared originally on The Western Journal.
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A public health emergency has been declared in Long Beach, California, due to a tuberculosis outbreak.
A declaration from Dr. Anissa Davis, Long Beach’s health officer, said one person has died and nine people have been hospitalized, according to Live Science.
Fourteen people with active TB had been identified as of April 29. All cases have been linked to a single-room-occupancy hotel. Officials are not naming the hotel in what they said was an effort to protect patients’ privacy.
“People who were staying at the hotel at the time or could have otherwise been exposed have been or will be contacted by the Health Department,” a Health Department statement said.
“Why this city has declared a public health emergency”
Lack of medical screening for immigrants – they’re bringing in a wave of diseases we eradicated decades ago.
— Beersaint (@USMC_Razorback) May 6, 2024
“Through the course of this investigation, staff have identified approximately 170 people who have likely been exposed to TB,” the statement said.
The emergency declaration, which was issued Thursday, is expected to be ratified by the Long Beach City Council on Tuesday, according to Newsweek.
The declaration allows the Health Department to take expanded intervention efforts.
I believe the name of the hotel SHOULD BE DISCLOSED in the interest of traveler safety. OR does this mean the hotel is used to house illegal aliens invading our border? Long Beach declares public health emergency after deadly tuberculosis outbreak https://t.co/jTe7fpuR2R
— Judy Holiday (@msjudyholiday) May 3, 2024
TB has been rising in California. California’s 2023 cases were 15 percent higher than its TB caseload in 2022, according to the Los Angeles Times. That is the highest year-over-year increase since 1989, according to the state Department of Public Health.
Live Science said that the microbe that causes tuberculosis can be dormant in a person, without any symptoms. Between 5 percent and 10 percent of the people with the bacteria develop TB.
OFFICIAL STATEMENT
Click here.
— City of Long Beach (@LongBeachCity) May 2, 2024
“The outbreak is currently isolated to a distinct population,” the Health Department statement said.
“The population at risk in this outbreak has significant barriers to care, including homelessness and housing insecurity, mental illness, substance use and serious medical comorbidities,” it said.
Tuberculosis passes from person to person through airborne particles, although it usually takes extensive exposure to a person who has active TB and spreads most easily in poorly ventilated environments.
Do you know the symptoms of #TB disease?
CDC’s new “Questions and Answers About TB” booklet has helpful info on how to diagnose and treat tuberculosis disease, and is now available in English, Spanish, Tagalog, and Vietnamese: https://t.co/nLCpacw9cm. pic.twitter.com/Q4ROhwUKMu
— CDC (@CDCgov) September 27, 2021
“You can catch tuberculosis if someone is coughing or sneezing or in close contact, the bacteria from those particles gets into the air and anybody nearby will breathe that in — and that’s how they pick it up, and that’s how they catch it,” Dr. Janette Nesheiwat of New York City said, according to Fox News.
This article appeared originally on The Western Journal.
The post State Declares Public Health Emergency After Tuberculosis Outbreak: 1 Dead, 14 Infections Confirmed – 170 Likely Exposed appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.
Donald Trump’s presidential campaign released an ad Monday putting university leaders on notice that if he is re-elected his administration will not tolerate anti-Semitism on campuses.
The online ad, which dropped on Holocaust Remembrance Day, included clips from a speech Trump made as president in 2017 condemning anti-Semitism and remarks he made last fall to the Republican Jewish Coalition following the Hamas Oct. 7 attacks.
“We’ve seen anti-Semitism on university campuses, in the public square, and in threats against Jewish citizens. This is my pledge to you, we will confront anti-Semitism. We will stamp out prejudice,” Trump said. “We will condemn hatred. We will bear witness, and we will act.”
“When I get back into office, I will put every single university and college president on notice. The American taxpayer will not subsidize the creation of terrorist sympathizers on American soil,” the 45th president promised.
He concluded, “I will defend our friend and ally the state of Israel like nobody has ever defended it before. I will always stand with the Jewish people.”
Joe Biden has still refused to condemn the pro-Hamas mobs occupying college campuses across America.
President Trump took historic action to combat anti-Semitism and stamp out prejudice—and he will always stand with the Jewish people.#HolocaustRemembranceDay pic.twitter.com/woxT0sJHZl
— Team Trump (Text TRUMP to 88022) (@TeamTrump) May 6, 2024
Last week as protests were occurring on many campuses around the country from Columbia University in New York to the University of California, Los Angeles, Trump said at a campaign rally in Wisconsin, “To every college president I say remove the encampments immediately, vanquish the radicals, and take back our campuses for all of the normal students who want a safe place from which to learn.”
President Trump calls out college presidents amid nationwide campus protests:
“To every college president I say remove the encampments immediately, vanquish the radicals, and take back our campuses for all of the normal students who want a safe place from which to learn.” pic.twitter.com/LEPUTOR2BU
— Charlie Kirk (@charliekirk11) May 1, 2024
The beginning of Trump’s ad included news clips that highlight President Joe Biden’s failure to forcefully respond to the protests.
On April 22, Biden repeated a reporter’s question back to her regarding the protests, saying he does condemn “anti-Semitic protests” but added, “I also condemn those that don’t know what’s going on with the Palestinians.”
The White House had released a similar on-the-one-hand, on-the-other-hand statement the day before.
Last week, Biden addressed the campus protests more directly saying, “There’s the right to protest, but not the right to chaos.”
He noted that destroying property and shutting down campuses is against the law.
The president then employed his practice of saying he’s against anti-Semitism directed toward Jewish students, as well as “Islamophobia” and “discrimination against Arab Americans or Palestinian Americans.”
BIDEN: “There should be no place on any campus, no place in America, for antisemitism or threats of violence against Jewish students. There is no place for hate speech or violence of any kind, whether it’s antisemitism, Islamophobia, or discrimination against Arab Americans or… pic.twitter.com/I6T8cK0RHc
— Townhall.com (@townhallcom) May 2, 2024
The campus protests have primarily been anti-Israel, anti-Jewish in nature.
Last month, 27 Republican senators — including Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, Shelley Moore Capito of West Virginia, Katie Britt of Alabama, Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, Ted Cruz of Texas, Tom Cotton of Arkansas, John Kennedy of Louisiana and Marco Rubio of Florida — sent a letter to Education Secretary Miguel Cardona and Attorney General Merrick Garland urging them to use their authority to “restore order and protect Jewish students” on college campuses.
They noted multiple federal laws have been violated by the protesters, including those against discrimination and espousing support for terrorism.
This article appeared originally on The Western Journal.
The post Trump Drops Ad Putting University Presidents ‘On Notice,’ Pledges to Deal with Pro-Palestinian Protests appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.
ABC News president Kim Godwin has tendered her resignation in a move that surprised a number of mainstream media insiders.
There will undoubtedly be some who are sad to see the first black woman to lead a broadcast television news division leave the position — but former President Donald Trump is apparently not among them.
Nor are most of her former staff, according to CNN.
Trump posted to Truth Social just over an hour after The Wall Street Journal broke the story on Godwin’s departure.
“Happy to report that Kim Godwin, Head of ABC, has resigned,” Trump wrote. “Could it be the unfair reporting on EVERYTHING TRUMP? In any event, GOOD RIDDANCE!” (emphasis original).
“Hopefully somebody else will be able to control George Slopadopolous and the rest of the Fake News Thugs over at ABC? Best wishes Kim!” he added.
The former president’s hypothesis notwithstanding, Godwin was known to be a controversial figure at ABC. CNN remarked that the “embattled” Godwin’s “polarizing leadership led to plummeting employee morale,” according to unnamed staffers.
CNN also reported that her departure — or at least its timing — came as something of a surprise. Her Sunday evening memo to staff announcing what the outlet referred to as her “abrupt” resignation was said to have “rocked” the newsroom.
Last week, CNN reported that Debra OConnell, who had been put over Godwin and the news division by parent company Disney in February, was “conducting a review of her performance and had voiced dissatisfaction in private conversations with the state of affairs” at ABC News.
More than 24 staffers and “others close to the network” — who requested anonymity because they had not been authorized to speak with CNN — said Godwin had had a crushing effect on morale in the organization she led.
“Godwin, staffers told CNN, made several profound errors, including employing a hands-off approach to managing, not developing a strategic vision for the newsroom, eliminating the heads of the talent-relations division and appointing an inner-circle that alienated staffers, among a stream of other complaints,” the outlet reported.
In addition, Axios reported that it had heard from other unnamed sources that “the main sentiment felt by staff was that Godwin was more focused on promoting herself as a leader rather than invest time with ABC News’ staff and show teams.”
Godwin’s resignation was apparently effective immediately, as OConnell said she will take charge of the newsroom “for the time being,” according to The Associated Press.
For her part, Godwin claimed to have made the decision on her own to part ways not only with ABC News, but with the entire industry.
“I have decided to retire from broadcast journalism,” the 60-year-old Godwin said in an email to the ABC News staff, according to CNN.
“I have been fortunate and blessed enough to have done almost every job there is in this business,” she added. “But after considerable reflection, I’m certain it’s the right one for me as I look to the future and prioritize what’s most important for me and my family.”
This article appeared originally on The Western Journal.
The post ABC News President Suddenly Quits Amid Internal Backlash – Trump Celebrates appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.
When hearing about the woes of blue states, names like California and New York immediately come to mind, but we may need to add a new name to the list of places Democratic officials are ruining: Illinois.
The Daily Caller reported on Thursday that new data indicates the state our 16th president, Abraham Lincoln, once called home is in a downward spiral.
While California is still leading the nation with the worst unemployment rate in the country at 5.3 percent, Illionois is not far behind in fifth with 4.8 percent.
The comparisons don’t stop there. With the 8th highest tax burden and high crime rates, many Illinoisans are opting to simply leave the state for greener pastures — as Californians have been doing.
Bryce Hill, director of fiscal and economic research at the Illinois Policy Institute, told the Daily Caller News Foundation, “The Census Bureau has reported that residents are leaving the state en masse to the tune of hundreds of thousands every single year, so much so that the state’s population has actually been declining for the past 10 years.”
As of July 2023, Illinois population was 12,549,689. That number was down 32,826 from 2022. Census data showed this fall has been steady, as the population as of April 1, 2020, was 12,813,469.
Heartland Institute Senior Fellow S.T. Karnick cited a few reasons for this decline. “Opinion polls cite high taxes as the top reason people want to leave Illinois, with crime and safety second. Illinois has the fourth-most regulations among the 50 states, which raises prices and kills jobs.”
Violent crime in Chicago went up 18 percent in 2023 compared to ten years prior, with arrests dropping 33 percent over the same time.
Central to Illinois problems is its ballooning pension cost. The state pension debt currently sits at $142.3 billion. Since the 2000 fiscal year, inflation adjusted spending for pensions has gone up 584 percent.
Illinois adopted a new constitution in 1970. Article XIII, Section 5 states pension benefits cannot be “diminished or impaired.” Couple this with Senate Bill 95 in 1989, which created a 3 percent compounding benefit increase for retired Illinoisans in the pension system, and you’ve found the root of the problem.
Hill highlighted the damage in declining population and the pension problem saying, “Migrants take over $10 billion worth of income with them out of state when we lose people due to domestic migration,” but included that the pension is draining the budget and “taking up large sources of revenue.”
Democratic Gov. J.B. Pritzker attempted to take an optimistic view in his State of the State address in February. “We’ve also grown Illinois’ economy to over $1 trillion. … We attracted billions of dollars in new business investments and created tens of thousands of new jobs.”
Illinois GDP grew 2.3 percent year-over-year in the fourth quarter of 2023. This is lower than the national total of 3.4 percent in the same quarter. Numerous businesses have announced downsizing plans in recent years.
While something is clearly amiss, it is amazing how one-size-fits-all the solution is to the catastrophe that plagues blue states.
Firstly, violent crime, and all crime must be dealt with. Declining arrests and increasing crime rates make Illinoisans feel unsafe. Blue state policies invoking leniency on crime must end in Illinois.
Ballooning pensions must cease as it creates a burden on the taxpayer. Illinois has become pro-government and anti-business. Government employees retire to an out-of-control pension fund while the taxpayer foots the bill causing job loss.
Why take your business to Illinois when your taxes are going towards paying a bloated government that can’t even keep you safe?
Pritzker admitted in his SOTS address that Illinois is also being burdened by an influx of illegal immigrants. This will certainly burden the taxpayer further.
If your keeping count, that’s three basic solutions to keep Illinois from becoming another one of the left’s progressive utopias.
Illinoisans need law and order, tax cuts, and a secure border.
This article appeared originally on The Western Journal.
The post Race to the Bottom: The State Competing with California to be the ‘Left’s Progressive Utopia’ appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.
After numerous different walks to Marine One ended with President Joe Biden blundering through questions, the White House is taking extra steps to ensure it won’t happen again.
Aides now assist the president whenever he walks to his helicopter as a way to shield him from the onslaught of hungry reporters.
It makes sense when the head of state randomly snaps back at journalists trying to do their jobs — not a good look.
Additionally, measures have to be taken to cover his frail state as he’s fallen numerous times, especially while attempting to board Air Force One and other aircraft.
But with new changes, there are always speed bumps.
In a recent, awkward walk to Marine One, a Biden aide initially began the walk on the president’s left, giving reporters direct access to the president.
Crooked Joe Biden (surrounded by his handlers) ignores questions as he shuffles off to Delaware for another long weekend of rest.
He has spent 460 days — 38% of his presidency — on vacation. pic.twitter.com/DA8STIxYwI
— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) May 4, 2024
It appeared about halfway through the walk that she realized her mistake, shifting to the right side and ensuring journalists wouldn’t be able to throw questions at Biden without going through her.
While it’s subtle, it’s obviously intentional.
There’s no other reason for the aide to shift from left to right besides attempting to shield the commander-in-chief from getting into verbal tussles with journalists.
It’s quite sad that the president of the United States has to be escorted by an aide, not for security, but because he can’t manage on his own.
I’d be utterly devastated if I dedicated my career to working my way up in the political world to end up the babysitter for a senile president whose biggest enemy is stairs.
For God’s sake, if he can’t even get to a helicopter without being escorted, imagine what goes on behind closed doors.
What are the chances he’s even in charge of his own administration?
President Biden is not the strong figure we need in the Oval Office: He’s a weak old man who can’t even stand at the head of his family proudly.
We don’t need a man with one foot in the grave who has to be led around like a toddler for four more years.
Vote him out.
This article appeared originally on The Western Journal.
The post Biden’s Handler Seems to Remember Something Important Halfway to Marine One, Cameras Catch the Subtle Change appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.
“And the rocket’s red glare, the bomb bursting in air, Gave proof through the night that our flag was still there, O say does that star-spangled banner yet wave, O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave?”
When Francis Scott Key penned these words in 1814, over a dozen British warships were launching mortars and rockets in the mouth of the Baltimore Harbor.
Although no mortars or rockets were fired in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, last Tuesday, there were some familiar sounds of battle: the beat of a snare drum, the bellicose shouting of belligerents, and the whizz of not rockets but rocks and water bottles.
But Key surely would have smiled had he been present to see the small cadre of men enduring profanity, spittle, and abuse in order to keep the star-spangled banner from touching the ground.
After screaming, left-wing, pro-Hamas protesters tore down the American flag in the quadrangle at University of North Carolina Chapel Hill, raising a Palestinian flag in its stead, Chancellor Lee Roberts and several police officers restored the flag to its rightful place.
Almost immediately, foamy-mouthed protesters tried to tear it down again.
Young men of the Pi Kappa Phi fraternity rushed forward to keep their nation’s flag from touching dirt and to keep their animalistic fellow students at bay until more police could arrive.
Pi Kappa Phi brother Guillermo Estrada said, “We stood for an hour defending the flag so many fight to protect.”
His compatriot Dan Stompel said, “They’re going to have to tear me off this flag by my dead body,” according to Fox News.
He added, “[N]ice, normal, strong boys protecting America’s flag. There’s nothing more patriotic, nothing more genuine, nothing more inspiring than that.”
(Thread) Today was a sad yet empowering day at Chapel Hill. When I walked to class, I saw the Palestinian flag raised on our quad flag pole, and was immediately upset at the act that these “protestors” had made. I cannot say I am fully educated on the Israel/Palestine conflict pic.twitter.com/tZrZEOSu8a
— Guillermo Estrada (@estradguillermo) April 30, 2024
Though perhaps not so fraught as the War of 1812’s Battle of Baltimore, the episode at Chapel Hill is nonetheless indicative of a fundamental truth that secular American society has, for decades, been trying to suppress: Men must be men, for the good of the nation, for the good of families, for the good of civilization.
The feminist myth of “toxic masculinity” has cowed and emasculated generations of men, with catastrophic effects on Western civilization.
Fatherlessness has proliferated over the years; divorce is now commonplace. Young men grow up without a father to show them how to be a man; young women grow up without a father to show them how a man ought to love and respect them.
“Daddy issues” have almost become the punchline to a sick societal joke, hookup culture and pornography. Of the few men who don’t openly embrace degeneracy, many live in fear of being trampled by fascist feminism’s stormtroopers in stilettos, becoming bitter and self-centered in their isolation.
“Male loneliness” is at its peak, with men terrified of being labeled a “threat” for trying to build friendships with women and almost equally afraid of being labeled “gay” for developing brotherly bonds with other men.
Marriage and birth rates are declining; crime and lawlessness are spiking.
Not all of this societal cancer is due to feminism, of course, but to a whole host of “isms” besides.
Agnosticism, atheism, casualism, egoism, feminism, hedonism, indifferentism, liberalism and libertarianism, Marxism, materialism, narcissism, nihilism, pessimism, progressivism, and relativism have all joined forces to browbeat into simpering submission the first vanguard and final bulwark against civilizational decay: men.
For centuries, men have served as the engines of civilization, its architects and its builders. The chief roles that men have fulfilled throughout history are as provider and protector.
The very first man, Adam, was commanded by God Himself, “In pain you shall eat [the ground’s yield] all the days of your life; thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you; and you shall eat the plants of the field. By the sweat of your face you shall eat bread …” (Genesis 3:17-19).
It is the role of men to provide, to toil and labor, to give of themselves for the sake of their families first, and then their communities and nations.
When men provide, as they ought, they allow their wives to nourish and raise their children, they allow their children to live in relative comfort, and they allow their communities and nations to benefit from the fruits of that labor: Those children will themselves grow up to be mothers and fathers, they will grow up to be nurturers and providers, they will grow up to be doctors and lawyers and teachers and architects and coal miners and butchers and farmers — and the whole of the nation will benefit from the fruits of even one man’s labor.
Men are called also to be protectors. As German author and World War I veteran Ernst Jünger wisely noted, “Long periods of peace and quiet favor certain optical illusions. Among them is the assumption that the invulnerability of the home is founded upon the constitution and safeguarded by it. In reality, it rests upon the father of the family who, accompanied by his sons, appears with the ax on the threshold of his dwelling.”
When things go bump in the night, it is the role of the man to crawl out of bed, equipped with a flashlight and armed with a shotgun, a baseball bat, an ax, or some such, and go investigate.
When criminals brandish their weapons and begin to pillage and rape, it is the role of men to stand between the criminal and the vulnerable of society, women and children.
When war threatens peace, it is the role of the man to pick up a sword or a rifle and march forth to meet the enemy. When the mob is incited to riot, it is the role of the man to stand on his doorstep to ensure his wife and children and home are kept safe.
These dual responsibilities — provider and protector — have been maligned and ignored, smeared as “toxic masculinity,” as a form of misogyny, as some kind of “inequality.”
But the simple fact is that it is necessary that men fulfill these responsibilities, or else civilization will collapse.
The young men at Chapel Hill recognized this reality. Inspired by patriotism and a love of the good and the beautiful, they did not hesitate to protect their flag.
As lawlessness and animosity embed their roots ever deeper into secular American society, it is increasingly, urgently crucial that men reclaim their responsibilities as providers and protectors.
If order is to be restored to society, it must be at the hands of men, as providers and protectors.
These dual responsibilities — provider and protector — find their perfect union in the person of Christ. Through His earthly ministry, of course, Christ fulfilled the role of provider, feeding starving souls.
But in His passion and death, He united the roles of provider and protector. Through His suffering, by the sweat (and blood) of His brow, Christ provided us with forgiveness of our sins and entrance into eternal life.
He gave His life to protect us from death, the wages of sin (Romans 6:23), so that we might have eternal life. The blood of Christ is the ultimate image of both provider and protector.
If civilization is to continue, if America is to be kept from the precipice of social collapse, men must look to Christ as their inspiration.
Another World War I veteran, the author J.R.R. Tolkien, once wrote to his son of the inspiration which Christ should be for all men: “There you will find romance, glory, honor, fidelity, and the true way of all your loves on earth, and more than that: Death. By the divine paradox, that which ends life, and demands the surrender of all, and yet by the taste — or foretaste — of which alone can what you seek in your earthly relationships (love, faithfulness, joy) be maintained, or take on that complexion of reality, of eternal endurance, which every man’s heart desires.”
In an age of apathy and indifference, of degeneracy and perversion, of sterility and lifelessness, of joylessness and passionlessness, may all men look to Christ and be inspired to romance, glory, honor, fidelity, and, if demanded of them for the sake of virtue, death.
This article appeared originally on The Washington Stand.
This article appeared originally on The Western Journal.
The post The Battle of Chapel Hill: Men Are America’s Final Bulwark Against Civilizational Decay appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.
A Border Patrol agent who was hung out to dry by the Biden administration for months on false charges of whipping illegal immigrants at the southern border has now received a Border Patrol achievement award.
In September 2021, images circulated of Border Patrol agents on horseback trying to round up illegal immigrants from Haiti. The images were initially interpreted by some as showing an agent whipping the illegal immigrants.
The incident was denounced by President Joe Biden, who promised to punish the agents responsible.
However, a subsequent investigation revealed that the horses’ reins were the objects that, at the angle some images were taken, appeared to be whips. Despite that, the agents under investigation were found to have used “unnecessary” force, with one agent found to have maneuvered his horse “unsafely” and used “denigrating and inappropriate language,” according to the New York Post. Biden has never apologized to the agents.
The agent was among the many members of Customs and Border Patrol to receive an award, according to the Post.
The agent’s name has never been released, but the Post said a source it did not name at the Department of Homeland Security confirmed that the agent was among those awarded.
“I find it hilarious and ridiculous that almost three years later, a Border Patrol agent who was accused of being racist and so vilified by this Biden administration now wins an achievement award for his efforts in preventing smuggling, before he gets a public apology,” the Post quoted its DHS source it did not name as saying.
The agent was initially taken off the border and banned from working with illegal immigrants.
Instead, he was assigned to intelligence work to combat human smuggling. His work in that area led to his award, the DHS source said.
He eventually was permitted to return to working along the border and allowed to interact with illegal immigrants, according to the DHS source.
Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas was among those vilifying the agents.
However, in a 2022 report, the Heritage Foundation noted that even as agents were being condemned for what they did not do, evidence had emerged that the outcry against them was wrong.
“We got some communications that were sent to Mayorkas right before he went up and gave that really heated speech at the White House,” said Mike Howell, Director of Heritage’s Oversight Project.
Howell said the Heritage Foundation sued to get the documents that told what went on behind the scenes.
“One such communication that we found was an email from his top press staffer, a woman by the name of Marsha Espinosa. She had forwarded to Mayorkas an article. In this article was a comment from the photographer that was there, the one source that was neither border patrol or a Haitian, illegal alien. The photographer said there was no whipping, ‘I saw no whipping,’” Howell said.
“Marsha Espinosa highlighted this part for Secretary Mayorkas, and Mayorkas went up and gave his press conference and did not make use of this information that would’ve cleared the border patrol agents in light of this public outcry and these false accusations being levied at them from media, Democrat congressmen, and even the president of the United States,” he said.
This article appeared originally on The Western Journal.
The post Border Agent Biden Falsely Accused of Whipping Migrants Is Given a Major Award: Report appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.
While some say that Americans are more polarized than ever, there are certainly still points that the country is relatively united on.
One such topic is a distrust of our news media.
A poll released Wednesday conducted by the American Press Institute and The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research found that over half of Americans (53 percent) are extremely or very concerned about news organizations reporting inaccurate information during the election.
Another 30 percent of U.S. adults said it is an issue they are somewhat concerned about.
And as to having actual confidence in the information, the number is even worse.
“Most Americans follow news about presidential (77%) and local and state elections (64%) at least somewhat closely, and more report frequently receiving news about elections from nation (50%) or local (39%) than other sources such as friends or family (21%) or individuals on social media,” the poll reported.
And yet, only 14 percent of respondents “express a great deal of confidence in election-related information they receive from national sources and only 11% say the same about local media,” the poll reported.
Fourteen percent? More Americans admit they believe in astrology.
“Misinformation” was a major talking point during both the 2016 and 2020 elections as each side accused the other of reporting false information.
The biggest was in 2016 when then-presidential candidate Donald Trump was reported to be colluding with Russia, a story that was ultimately shown to be baseless, yet spurred an investigation by special counsel Robert Mueller that dogged much of Trump’s presidency.
This coming election cycle will face unique problems that previous ones have not as artificial intelligence technology has expanded since 2020.
Americans have worries over how AI can be negatively harnessed to spread misinformation as 42 percent say of respondents said they were extremely or very concerned.
Other issues, such as whether news organizations will report unverified information or that news will be biased worried 47 percent and 44 percent, respectively.
It’s hard to blame Americans for their distrust of the established media.
Whether it’s news organizations intentionally ignoring or downplaying the story of Hunter Biden’s laptop or liberal news sources constantly covering for President Joe Biden’s blunders, there’s a whole list of reasons to be skeptical of the establishment media.
But while media is as untrustworthy as ever it’s also as abundant as ever.
It is no longer the 1960s when all that most Americans had to choose from were major networks and newspapers.
Conservative media outlets — like The Western Journal — aren’t hard to find.
Before the election cycle is a perfect time to begin vetting different sources and finding which you trust and which ones don’t care about integrity.
While it’s impossible to find a source of news without a bias, as long as you know what that bias is you avoid falling into an echo chamber.
The news is important but it’s just as important that it is true.
This article appeared originally on The Western Journal.
The post Looking to Unify America? Vast Majority of Americans Distrust News Media on Every Level – Report appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.
Some Americans are merely disgusted by the idea of lab-grown meats, but many others are actually alarmed at the prospect of eating synthetic foods.
One state is now taking the lead by banning lab-grown meat from even being sold inside its borders.
Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis has signed a bill that actually outlaws the sale of lab-grown meat in Florida making the Sunshine State the first to enact such a law.
DeSantis signed Senate Bill 1084 into law on May 1 during a visit to Wauchula, Florida.
Speaking at the Hardee County Cattleman’s Arena in Wauchula, DeSantis said that Florida stands with agriculture.
“In the State of Florida, we’ve put down the marker very clearly: We stand with agriculture,” DeSantis said, according to WTVT-TV. “We stand with the cattle ranchers. We stand with our farmers. Because we understand it’s important for the backbone of the state, it’s important for the culture, it’s important for our heritage.”
The new law makes several alterations to rules from the Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services that now prohibits the manufacture, sale, holding or distribution of “cultivated meat” in Florida.
Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services Commissioner Wilton Simpson also celebrated the signing of SB 1084.
“Florida is making a tremendous step in the right direction by signing first-in-the-nation legislation banning lab-grown meat,” Simpson exclaimed. “Lab-grown meat is a disgraceful attempt to undermine our proud traditions and prosperity and is in direct opposition to authentic agriculture.”
“We must protect our incredible farmers and the integrity of American agriculture. Lab-grown meat is a disgraceful attempt to undermine our proud traditions and prosperity and is in direct opposition to authentic agriculture,” Simpson added, according to KXAN-TV.
One company that sells lab-created meat products said they were “disappointed” at the news and insisted, “We’re not going anywhere.”
“In a state that purportedly prides itself on being a land of freedom and individual liberty, its government is now telling consumers what meat they can or cannot purchase,” Good Meat said in an X post.
“The law is a setback for everyone: Floridians who deserve the right to eat whatever safe and approved meat they want; Florida’s technology sector, innovators and entrepreneurs; and all those working to stop the worst impacts of climate change,” the company added.
Some nutritionists have also sounded the alarm over products developed in labs over claims they lack essential nutrients.
Still, Florida is not the first jurisdiction to reject lab-grown meat products. In Europe, Italy has also turned against the products by banning lab-grown meats as a “health threat.”
Regardless, several large meat producers have begun investing large sums of money into the development of lab-grown food products.
And despite the wide-spread disgust many feel towards the whole idea of synthetic meat, many elites — including Bill Gates — are pushing world leaders to reduce animal-based food production and replace it with artificial products such as lab-grown meats.
This article appeared originally on The Western Journal.
The post GOP Governor Declares War on Lab-Grown Meat, Signs Law Making Distribution, Sale, Manufacture Illegal appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.
Joe Biden’s economy is having a serious negative impact all across the country and as prices on everything we need skyrocket, the dream of owning a home is slipping away.
A new study, for instance, finds that it is now cheaper to rent than it is to buy a home in the country’s 50 largest metro areas. And this is putting serious pressure on home builders and sales.
It is more cost effective to rent a place to live than to own a home, Bankrate said in a report it published at the end of April.
While the cost of rent soared over the last few years, the cost of buying and owning a home has not only caught up to that rise in rent but has eclipsed it as mortgage rates have begun rising and low home inventory have created higher prices, the report adds.
The personal finance resources company notes that owning a home now costs nearly 37 percent more than renting.
It was already so bad last year that Americans had to earn a record high annual income to be able to afford a home, as The Western Journal reported in October, but in the last year that problem has worsened.
Despite all this, 78 percent of Americans still feel that owning their own home is an integral part of the American dream, and they would like to be homeowners.
But a large number, 56 percent, also told the company that their income prevents them from fulfilling that dream, while 42 percent said home prices are too high.
Bankrate’s analysis found that in 50 metros, a mortgage for a median-priced home worth just over $400,000 costs $2,703 a month whereas rent only costs $1,979. That is a huge 36.6 percent difference.
Even worse, in 21 of those metro areas, the cost of a monthly mortgage is 50 percent higher than renting.
“Purchasing a home is a long-term commitment. Home price appreciation has slowed considerably and costs have risen dramatically since the days of 3 percent mortgage rates, so it’s going to take more time to break even on a purchase compared to renting.,” said Zillow chief economist Skylar Olsen.
It seems unlikely any of the elites at the World Economic Forum will shed a tear for the destruction of wealth this trend represents. For many families, a home is the largest investment they will make. Additionally, having the realistic potential of owning real property like a home is a cornerstone of a free society. It’s almost certain the WEF will be quite happy that Americans can’t afford the luxuries of investments and property.
That organization recently posted a video containing its “8 predictions for 2030” in which it noted that one of its top goals is to make sure the lowly common man will “own nothing” and will “be happy” about it.
The elites want to tear down the American dream, of course. The lofty ideas of ownership and controlling one’s own destiny is an impediment to their power grabbing and their authoritarian desires to rule over us all.
This article appeared originally on The Western Journal.
The post Bidenomics Is Killing the American Dream of Owning Your Own Home Nationwide – Study appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.
At least 30 sailors and Marines were injured off the Atlantic coast of Jacksonville, Florida, Wednesday when two landing hovercrafts collided.
Landing Craft Air Cushions, or LCACs, from both the multipurpose amphibious assault ship USS Wasp and the transport dock vessel USS New York crashed into each other, according to a Navy announcement.
Sailors assigned to the Wasp Amphibious Ready Group and and Marines assigned to the 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit were conducting a training exercise when the incident occurred, according to the report.
The Western Journal reached out to the U.S. Navy for an update on the incident.
Cmdr. Lara Bollinger, a Navy public information officer, said that “[b]oth LCACs involved remained afloat after the incident, and have since returned to their respective ships.”
Bollinger added that the collision “remains under investigation” and noted that the Navy will provide more information when it is available.
She said that all 30 injured personnel received medical care. “Most injuries were considered minor, and those personnel returned to full duty,” she added.
Five of the 30 servicemembers reportedly required advanced medical care and were airlifted to Savannah Memorial University Medical Center in Southern Georgia, with most having been released.
30 U.S. Navy Sailors from the USS Wasp (LHD-1) and USS New York (LPD-21) as well as Marines with the 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit were Injured on Wednesday, following an Incident off the Coast of Jacksonville, Florida which involved the Collision of 2 Landing Craft Air Cushions… pic.twitter.com/IttWXbOsI9
— OSINTdefender (@sentdefender) May 3, 2024
Bollinger said that “[o]f the five Sailors who were medically evacuated, one remains under medical care at a hospital in Savannah, Georgia. The others were treated and released to return to duty.”
“Our primary focus is on our Sailor’s health and well-being,” she added.
The vessels are currently at sea as part of the Wasp Amphibious Ready Group / Marine Expeditionary Unit 24 composite training unit exercise.
The Landing Craft, Air Cushion (LCAC) is a high-speed, over-the-beach, amphibious landing hovercraft that is built to carry a payload of up to 75 tons, according to a Navy website.
They are used to transport the weapons systems, equipment, cargo and personnel from ship to shore and across the beach.
LCAC can carry even heavy equipment such as M-1 tanks at high speeds, which provides significant benefits, the Navy site reported.
“Air cushion technology allows this vehicle to reach more than 70 percent of the world’s coastline, while only about 15 percent of that coastline is accessible by conventional landing craft.”
This article appeared originally on The Western Journal.
The post Exclusive Details: 30 US Marines and Navy Sailors Injured in Training Accident appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.
For $90,000 a year, parents of some elite school students expected more than hate.
A report in The Wall Street Journal says some parents are calling for tuition refunds and rethinking future enrollments.
“They are not getting the education they expected and paid for,” Zev Gewurz, a Boston real-estate lawyer whose daughter is a senior at New York City’s Barnard College. Barnard was founded as a women’s college adjacent to Columbia University. The cost of attendance at Barnard tops $90,000
Gewurz said Barnard gave an “inadequate response” to hate speech.
“I try to tell her that this is not her fault, and that she is living in a moment in history and needs to keep her head high,” he told the Journal.
Debra Lynn Eden, whose daughter is a junior at Princeton, complained, “It’s all a giant distraction to the students who are trying to complete their studies in a high-stress environment.”
Christopher Rim, founder and CEO of Command Education, which helps students complete applications, said parents of Columbia and University of California – Los Angeles students are calling for refunds.
“Physically blocking their child from attending class or a lecture hall is 100 percent not what they signed up for,” he said. “They are beyond upset at what’s going on.”
“I’ve had so many parents emailing, calling, asking me what they can do,” Rim told the London Times.
“There’s been protests, encampments and physical violence that has interrupted their education and they’re not happy. Fees at these sorts of schools are phenomenally high; parents want to feel like they are getting what they pay for and right now they don’t,” he said.
The lack of a commencement also galls parents.
Lana Shami’s daughter will graduate from the University of Southern California without a ceremony due to protests.
“There will be no celebration at the university where we paid an exorbitant amount of tuition for the past four years. It’s a huge letdown,” Shami said.
“This is not the experience that my freshman daughter should be having, that any of the students of any year should be having,” Amy Gallatin, whose daughter attends Barnard, said, according to Fox News.
Gallatin said her daughter took a final exam Tuesday as protests were raging.
“My daughter is also frustrated [and] understandably so,” she said. “She had a final exam yesterday at 6 o’clock that she was taking from her dorm only to have the protesters on the street banging and clanging and chanting.”
Hearing chants interpreted as seeking the death of Jews was “a very unsettling experience,” Gallatin said, and “walking through all of those people is a scary thing.”
CNN reported that one Jewish high school senior, whose name was not used, ditched Barnard due to the protests.
The student chose Brandeis University in Massachusetts, in part due to its A rating from an Anti-Defamation League list of colleges that ranked their support for Jewish students.
“Barnard was my top choice. I was so dead set on going,” the student said. “But after seeing what is happening on campuses, I feel so glad I am going to Brandeis. I feel really happy and safe knowing they got an A.”
This article appeared originally on The Western Journal.
The post Elite Universities Are Now Getting Hit with Yet Another Problem: Furious Parents appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.
A top Biden administration Justice Department official was not truthful during her Senate confirmation process in 2021 when she said she had never been arrested for an alleged violent crime.
Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Rights Division Kristen Clarke has served in her position since May 2021.
However, according to news reports, she had an arrest record that was not disclosed when she was narrowly confirmed by the Senate, which led to calls for her resignation.
Clarke’s past became an issue earlier this week when The Daily Signal reported Tuesday she had previously been arrested and accused of slicing her former husband’s finger to the bone with a knife.
The Signal unearthed a text message exchange involving Clark’s former husband, who was candid about the incident.
“I was seeing another woman,” Reginald Avery texted in a May 2021 exchange with Tom Jones of the American Accountability Foundation, which shared it in a post on social media platform X. (Warning: The text exchange contains language that some may find offensive.)
“She was angry,” Avery added of the 2006 incident at their Maryland home that led to his then-wife’s arrest, the Signal reported. “Attacked me with a knife. I instinctively grabbed it. As I said earlier, I’m not blameless.”
“That’s the story,” he concluded. “That’s what happened. She went to jail.”
After reading the reporting, Republican Sen. Mike Lee of Utah was among scores of people who called on Clarke to resign for not disclosing the arrest.
Kristen Clarke is in charge of enforcing civil rights laws.
She enforces those laws aggressively against anyone who sneezes near an abortion clinic.
And not at all against those who vandalize churches.
She lied under oath during her confirmation proceedings, and should resign. https://t.co/5tHpaG4a2W
— Mike Lee (@BasedMikeLee) May 1, 2024
She lied under oath to mask her arrest for committing a violent crime, yet she zealously prosecutes peaceful pro-life protesters.
— Mike Lee (@BasedMikeLee) May 1, 2024
Clarke acknowledged Wednesday that she was not truthful about being arrested during her marriage and said she had been a victim of domestic violence.
“Nearly 2 decades ago, I was subjected to years-long abuse and domestic violence at the hands of my ex-husband,” Clarke said in a statement to CNN.
Clarke added:
“This was a terrorizing and traumatizing period that I have sought to put behind me to promote my personal health, healing and well-being. The physical and emotional scars, the emotional abuse and exploitation, and the lying are things that no woman or mother should ever have to endure.”
Clark concluded that because of an expungement of her record, she did not feel it was necessary to reveal the incident when she was up for a top job at the DOJ.
“When given the option to speak about such traumatic incidents in my life, I have chosen not to,” she said. “I didn’t believe during my confirmation process and I don’t believe now that I was obligated to share a fully expunged matter from my past.”
When Clarke was nominated for her current role, she filled out a questionnaire from Lee in which she was asked numerous questions about her past.
One question read, “Since becoming a legal adult, have you ever been arrested for or accused of committing a violent crime against any person?”
On the form, which is available on the Senate Judiciary Committee website, Clarke answered, “No.”
Clarke celebrated in a DOJ statement in January when six pro-life activists were convicted of felonies when they peacefully blockaded the entrance to a Tennesse abortion clinic while singing hymns.
“These defendants are being held accountable for unlawfully obstructing access to reproductive health services,” Clarke said in a statement when it was announced the defendants would each face up to a decade behind bars.
This article appeared originally on The Western Journal.
The post Top Biden DOJ Official in Hot Water After Failing to Disclose Past Arrest During Senate Confirmation appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.
Prosecutors from Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s office on Thursday urged Judge Juan Merchan to slap former President Donald Trump with four contempt charges for comments Trump made about his trial on charges of falsifying business records.
Under a gag order issued by Merchan, Trump is barred from talking about the witnesses and jurors in the trial. Merchan fined Trump $9,000 earlier this week for violations of the order and mused about whether jail would need to be the answer to stop the violations.
On Thursday, a hearing took place concerning four other comments for which the prosecution wants Trump punished, according to CBS.
Two of the comments concerned Michael Cohen, who was Trump’s lawyer at the time of the 2016 payments to porn star Stormy Daniels and will be a witness. One comment concerned former National Enquirer publisher David Pecker, who testified last week. The fourth comment prosecutors cited was a remark about the jurors.
Prosecutor Christopher Conroy said Trump violated the order in commenting that Pecker was “very nice.”
“The defendant knows what he’s doing. He talks about the witness, says nice things, does it in front of cameras,” Conroy said. “The [question] he answered was about the witness who was testifying. It was deliberate and it was calculated.”
Attorney Todd Blanche, who was representing Trump, said the remark was a “very fair and neutral answer” to a question.
“When you have President Trump saying something completely neutral about the witness, that’s not a violation,” Blanche said. Merchan said he was “not terribly concerned” about the comment.
Blanche said Cohen has been “inviting and almost daring President Trump to respond to everything he has been saying” through “personal attacks, mocking him for being on trial and comments about his candidacy.
“This is not a man that needs protection from the gag order,” Blanche said.
Blanche also responded to a comment from Trump that the jury was “95% Democrats.”
The dig “absolutely, positively” did not violate the order because no single juror was cited, Blanche argued.
Merchan did not issue an order on Thursday.
As he left court, Trump vented his frustration with the trial.
“We’re seeing all of the crime that’s going on outside, and to be sitting in this courtroom is just ridiculous. It is election interference at the highest level that’s never been done before in our country. And I shouldn’t be campaigning right now,” Trump said, according to Fox News.
“He has me under an unconstitutional gag order. Nobody’s ever had that before. And we don’t like it, and it’s not fair. Other people are allowed to do whatever they want to us, and I’m not allowed as … the Republican Party nominee, and the one who’s leading Biden by a lot, I’m not allowed to talk,” Trump said,
“There’s never been an abuse like this before, this conflicted judge should get out of this case, he should not be having this case. He gives us nothing. It’s such a rigged court. So I’m not allowed to testify. Because of an unconstitutional gag order. We’re appealing the gag order,” Trump said, according to NBC.
Earlier, Trump shared his anger on Truth Social.
WE CANNOT LET THIS RADICAL LEFT, CORRUPT AND HIGHLY CONFLICTED NEW YORK DEMOCRAT JUDGE INTERFERE WITH THE PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION OF 2024 — THE MOST IMPORTANT ELECTION IN THE HISTORY OF OUR COUNTRY. THE USA IS TRULY A NATION IN DECLINE! REMOVE THE UNCONSTITUTIONAL GAG ORDER,” Trump posted.
This article appeared originally on The Western Journal.
The post Alvin Bragg’s Team Begs Judge to Pile Even More Punishment on Trump appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.
ABC News senior meteorologist Rob Marciano has been fired by the network, more than a year after he was banned from reporting inside the “Good Morning America” studio.
The ban came after Marciano allegedly made his colleagues on the set feel uncomfortable — leaving him to report from outside of the show’s New York City headquarters.
Dylan Byers of Puck News reported on Tuesday afternoon that Marciano had been axed by the network.
“Multiple staffers had made complaints about Marciano’s behavior over the years and he was at least temporarily barred from main GMA set in NYC,” Byers wrote.
SCOOP @PuckNews: Rob Marciano, the ABC News & Good Morning America meteorologist, has been fired from the network, per sources familiar. Multiple staffers had made complaints about Marciano’s behavior over the years and he was at least temporarily barred from main GMA set in NYC.
— Dylan Byers (@DylanByers) April 30, 2024
ABC News did not issue a public comment on the firing of the veteran weatherman. There were rumblings previously that Marciano displayed a temper that led to his ban from the “GMA” studio, according to Page Six.
He still worked inside the studio during weather reports for “World News Tonight” and last appeared on the network this past weekend.
Page Six reported in March that Marciano’s ban came as he was going through a divorce from his wife.
“He was found to have done something,” a person described as an ABC News insider told the outlet.
The person did not disclose what Marciano was alleged to have done, other than to call it “improper.”
“…[But] he was punished for it, and they still haven’t let him return,” the person said.
Another person close to the production of the show claimed Marciano was working through anger management issues when an incident with a female colleague escalated.
“There were times when [Marciano] was very cranky and angry,” the person claimed.
“He made people feel uncomfortable,” the source added. “There was a period where there were some issues, a number of alarming events.”
Marciano was reportedly supposed to serve out a short ban from the studio, but “GMA” executive producer Simone Swink reportedly declined to have him back.
The EP of the show reportedly likes a distraction-free environment.
Marciano confirmed to People magazine in July 2022 that he and his wife Eryn were divorcing after marrying in 2010.
“The last couple of years have been very difficult,” he said in a statement to the outlet. “I didn’t want this and tried to save the marriage, but we are sadly divorcing. My focus now is on my kids.”
Marciano joined ABC News in 2010.
This article appeared originally on The Western Journal.
The post ABC Fires Veteran Meteorologist Who Had Been Banned from Studio appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.
We’ve all heard the tales of marital woe caused by a “third wheel.” An old flame. A nosy in-law. A so-called “work spouse.” God forbid, an affair with another person.
One anonymous writer for an Australian feminist outlet has declared that an unusual “third wheel” has entered her nuptials, however. He’s bald, entertaining, half a world away and beloved by millions. Yet, he’s “ruining my marriage,” the anonymous author said.
She speaks, of course, about Joe Rogan.
In a month that produced plenty of evidence that those on the left refuse to even tolerate those not on the same page as them, much less take their arguments seriously — a theme that was played out violently on campuses across America over the war in Israel, especially at Columbia University — one of the wackier manifestations of this phenomenon came from Down Under.
On April 8, an anonymous writer published a screed on MamaMia, an online feminist outlet that describes itself as a center of “independent women’s journalism.”
This includes hard-hitting articles like “Influencers are bringing back ‘Day on a Plate.’ And it’s more toxic than ever,” in which YouTubers and TikTokkers are slammed for sharing their healthy meal plans, with the author arguing they come in under the recommended calorie intake for a day.
Also, “Calling someone your ‘girlfriend’ is officially cancelled.” It’s a thinkpiece about how Travis Kelce and Taylor Swift, among other celebrities, refer to each other if they’re dating but not married. Spoiler alert: It’s “juvenile” to use those words, and “the structure of our relationships has changed significantly over time, but our vocabulary hasn’t sufficiently extended to be inclusive of these new unions.”
This is funny enough in its own peculiarly sad way, but the cake-taker is the anonymous spouse who declared, last month, “Joe Rogan is ruining my marriage.”
The scribe began with Princess Diana of Wales’ quote, during an interview, that, “There were three of us in this marriage, so it was a bit crowded.” She was referring, of course, to the then-title-free Camilla Parker-Bowles — now Queen Camilla — who then-Prince Charles was having an affair with.
Our anonymous agonized spouse said she identifies with Princess Diana, “though the ‘third’ in my marriage is an annoying male American voice who has somehow managed to insert himself into my relationship.
“Joe Rogan, often touted as the world’s most popular podcast host, can be heard in our kitchen, bathroom, or backyard on loud speaker morning, noon and night,” she wrote. “And like the uninvited guest he is (by me anyway) he’s causing tension in my home.”
Yes, reality is now officially making satire obsolete. The Babylon Bee has nothing on this.
Now, the author admitted that both her husband and her differ politically, but had “settled into a companionable acceptance” of these differences.
“Very loosely I am more liberal and he is more conservative. There were arguments (usually around national elections) but it didn’t really interfere with our relationship,” she said.
“But since Rogan has appeared on the scene I feel like my husband’s taken a trip to right-wing-crazy-town. He’s developed a deep distrust of science and government. He stopped taking the COVID boosters early on and is skeptical about vaccinations generally. He once tried to explain to me why aliens probably built the pyramids,” she claimed in the article.
“And while I do believe in taking a critical approach to life, relentless conspiracy theories are exhausting and can leave you feeling like you’ve landed in la la land.”
The woman then brought up things she said Rogan has posited that are false, including furries demanding kitty litter in school bathrooms. However, how she would know this is beyond me, because this is what she admits in the very next paragraph:
“My husband will argue that I can’t criticize Rogan because I don’t listen to him, which is true. But what I can do is observe his influence on my husband, and this is what I see.” [Emphasis ours.]
Oh! Rogan is apparently on in her house day and night, so much so that his voice is inescapable … but she hasn’t listened to him? She just knows because now her husband is talking about things like wokeness gone amok, and we can’t have that.
According to her, the husband has gotten some wacky ideas via the “third wheel,” noting, “It appears that for Rogan and those who follow him, the political is personal. My husband will often get angry about what he calls ‘woke’ activists and how ‘they’ are going too far. When he says the word ‘feminist’ he reduces it to a dirty word.” [Emphasis again ours.]
In this paragraph, we can see exactly why Rogan irritates so many on the left, and it’s not because he gives marching orders to brainless, spineless men whose political views would otherwise be moldable by — thank ye heavens! — sensible women like our author, but who are now being warped by some podcaster.
Note the bolded phrase: “The personal is political.” It has a history, so much so that the Encyclopedia Britannica — among many other sources — has an entry on it. Spoiler alert: It didn’t originate with the right, but with radical feminists instead.
“The personal is political, political slogan expressing a common belief among feminists that the personal experiences of women are rooted in their political situation and gender inequality,” the Encyclopedia Britannica noted.
“Although the origin of the phrase ‘the personal is political’ is uncertain, it became popular following the publication in 1970 of an essay of the same name by American feminist Carol Hanisch, who argued that many personal experiences (particularly those of women) can be traced to one’s location within a system of power relationships.”
There’s no particular need for feminists to spout this phrase anymore, at least for themselves. In this arena of the culture war, they have assumed they’ve attained victory. “Toxic masculinity” and “gender roles” are phrases tossed around by liberals with the same contempt that this woman’s husband allegedly uses when he talks about “wokeness” and “feminism.” “Believe all women” isn’t just a phrase that sprouted from the #MeToo movement, it’s now become an inviolable cultural maxim in the West and similar cultures.
When men wake up and realize this is all rubbish forced upon them by a leftist monoculture, it’s blamed on that goshdarned “toxic masculinity” — in this case, embodied in the personage of Joe Rogan, a podcaster who is apparently ruining marriages.
“I know my husband is not a bigot. If a child asked him to use a certain pronoun, he absolutely would without a fuss. He has empathy. What has this harlot Rogan done to my kind, loving husband?” the writer asked.
It’s truly amazing that this woman — apparently more than willing to vocalize her opinions to her husband — is suddenly repulsed when he gets some of his own. But he couldn’t have come up with this himself, right? Blame the dude with the show on Spotify … which, admittedly, she’s never really listened to.
Before the author hit send on this, she surely must have read it again to see if she had cogently expressed her arguments. So lacking in self-awareness is this woman, apparently, that, at no point during this rereading, did it occur to her that she was telling one side of a problematic relationship, and a telling one at that.
To this writer’s husband, I imagine there’s a “third wheel,” too: the cudgel of political correctness she wields whenever he criticizes “wokeness.” Heaven forfend he ever doesn’t use the pronoun the hypothetical child asked him to, or then he’d really get a whack with it — probably in divorce court, from the sound of things.
Joe Rogan is not the one who made the political personal in this dysfunctional relationship. Instead, it’s the fact that this woman has apparently blindly swallowed whatever pap that was fed to her by progressive feminists who have succeeded in making their personal grievances political and react with unmerciful venom whenever their status quo is challenged.
This would all be quite silly — if there weren’t enough people who probably nodded along with this witless, self-deluded woman, and not given her condemnation of the “third wheel” in her marriage the mockery it so clearly deserved.
This article appeared originally on The Western Journal.
The post Writer on Feminist Website Says Her Marriage Is Being ‘Ruined’ by ‘Third Wheel’: Joe Rogan appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.
Ahmad Massoud, a prominent figure in the anti-Taliban resistance movement, the National Resistance Front of Afghanistan, and son of the revered Afghan leader Ahmad Shah Massoud, delivered a stark message to the United States: Terrorism is on the rise, and America could experience a series of attacks at any moment as it’s a prime target of radical extremists.
Massoud delivered the dire warning, which has been echoed by others who are familiar with the Middle East for several years, in an exclusive interview with the U.K.’s Daily Mail.
“An attack on U.S. or European soil is very much possible now. It is not about a matter of if, it’s a matter of when,” Massoud told the Daily Mail.
His late father, heralded as the “Lion of Panjshir,” was assassinated by Al Qaeda just two days before 9/11.
Taking up the mantle of his late father, Massoud has become well known for his relentless efforts to combat radical Islam and Taliban’s resurgence in Afghanistan.
In his memoir “In the Name of My Father,” which was released Tuesday, Massoud reportedly emphasized that the withdrawal of U.S. forces from Afghanistan in August 2021 created a dangerous vacuum.
This vacuum, he warned, is now being exploited by extremist elements, increasing the likelihood of terrorist attacks not only in America, but also in Europe.
In fact, Massoud suggested Biden’s withdrawal was the final nail in the coffin.
The United States Armed Forces concluded their departure from Afghanistan on August 30, 2021, ending a two-decade-long conflict that cost American taxpayers over $2 trillion.
This withdrawal followed the February 2020 agreement between the Trump administration and the Taliban in Doha, Qatar, which imposed combat restrictions on both the U.S. and the Taliban and secured the withdrawal of all NATO forces from Afghanistan in exchange for the Taliban’s pledges to counter terrorism.
Significantly, the deal set the stage for the collapse of the Afghan National Security Forces.
This was precipitated further by the Biden administration’s decision in April 2021 to withdraw all U.S. troops from Afghanistan by September 2021 without maintaining any residual force, thereby weakening the ANSF’s capabilities against the ongoing Taliban insurgency.
This series of events culminated in the Taliban’s swift capture of Kabul on August 15, 2021.
In his memoir, Massoud chronicled his lifelong struggle for freedom in Afghanistan and issued a solemn warning to world leaders: Ignore the plight of Afghanistan at your own peril.
Massoud is not the only one to sound the alarm about America’s national security pitfalls.
Recent pro-Palestinian and anti-Israel protests on college campuses across the United States have resurfaced a prophetic warning from United Arab Emirates Foreign Minister Abdullah bin Zayed Al Nahyan from 2017.
“There will come a day that we will see far more radical extremists and terrorists coming out of Europe because of lack of decision making, trying to be politically correct, or assuming that they know the Middle East, and they know Islam, and they know the others,” bin Zayed said. “And I’m sorry, but that’s pure ignorance.”
I told you so https://t.co/Vqg3B8WOdO
— عبدالله بن زايد (@ABZayed) April 28, 2024
Meanwhile, Massoud called on President Biden to reassess U.S. policy towards Afghanistan and cautioned him that the failure to do so could have dire consequences for the United States’ regional and global security.
“The political situation is helping the Taliban massively,” Massoud told the Daily Mail, “from Ukraine to the war on Gaza and, and many other things happening around the globe.”
He added, “It helps the fatigue (from the West) when they are busy elsewhere. There is a numbness in the West. They are forgetting about what’s happening in Afghanistan.”
Yet, despite facing formidable odds, Massoud remains undeterred in his quest to resist the Taliban’s rule and restore peace to his nation.
This article appeared originally on The Western Journal.
The post Red Alert: Anti-Taliban Leader Flips Script on Biden – Issues Chilling Warning appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.
What do conservative Americans see in viewing the protests on college campuses currently? As one of them, I see the look of ignorance and failure.
I also see the real possibility that, one day soon, one of these protests will result in lives lost. You can’t view the escalation of intensity without smelling the scent of growing violence in the air.
Nor can you watch the following video shared on X by N.D. Wilson, whose son and his friend held the door against an angry mob made up of pro-Hamas students, and not fear for the safety of the two young men. The two locked arms to help protect Jewish students who were trying to protect Hamilton Hall. Wilson stated, “Proud of my son for holding the door as long as he did, and of his friend whom the mob peeled off. Infuriated at #NYPD and @Columbia campus security who ignored his calls about vandalism and assault.”
Proud of my son for holding the door as long as he did, and of his friend whom the mob peeled off. Infuriated at #NYPD and @Columbia campus security who ignored his calls about vandalism and assault. https://t.co/fFbfASTG0f
— N.D. Wilson (@ndwilsonmutters) April 30, 2024
That boy is also the grandson of Pastor Doug Wilson, who leads Christ Church in Moscow, Idaho. If you recall, Pastor Wilson recently appeared on “The Tucker Carlson Encounter” to discuss the attack on Christianity by the left. The example he has set obviously translated well to his grandson.
N.D. Wilson shared further about the his son’s and his friends’ moxy, “Another part of my son’s evening, trying to stop a psycho building takeover. Protestors got onto campus by climbing through dorm windows and then set their sights on taking over this building. My son and his friend are students. Most of the mob did not appear to be.”
WARNING: The following video contains vulgar language some readers may find offensive.
Another part of my son’s evening, trying to stop a psycho building takeover. Protestors got onto campus by climbing through dorm windows and then set their sights on taking over this building. My son and his friend are students. Most of the mob did not appear to be. https://t.co/dTCgvQkxRk
— N.D. Wilson (@ndwilsonmutters) April 30, 2024
What is striking in the video but hardly surprising is the lack of how long these boys had to endure being at the center of this threatening situation. Columbia University is allowing these protests to continue, and when the house comes crashing down, they will be responsible as a party to these non-peaceful protests.
Neither boy should have had to navigate this moment without the help of staff or authorities. As of today, Columbia continues to pacify these pro-Hamas students, unlike many others who have cleared the encampments that have called for the annihilation of Israel.
According to NBC News, the students are going to great lengths to intimidate and destroy. It is insanity, for their ignorance is fanning the flame that seems to have nothing to do with the situation of origin and everything to do with mob mentality.
As Biden encouraged Hamas to agree to his latest ceasefire proposal offered up Monday, he couldn’t send a weaker message to pro-Hamas advocates across college campuses. According to USA Today, the U.S. worked with Egypt and Qatar to broker that deal between Israel and Hamas. And although it would “reportedly involve a six-week cease-fire in exchange for the release of 40 militant-held hostages and hundreds of Palestinian prisoners,” it would also establish precedent to negotiate with terrorists.
That is like lighting a match underneath these pro-Hamas protesters to do whatever they want to get their way. That could very well be the impetus to getting several Jewish students, or any other students standing in the way like this Wilson boy, killed.
Just as the anti-Israel mob was enraged that someone was standing in their way at Columbia University, so is Hamas with Gaza, Israel, and the Jewish people. A temporary ceasefire, if agreed to, will only allow Hamas to regroup and hit back harder while guards are down.
Plus, as former President Trump said, per the Washington Times, “The terrorist organization cannot be trusted to return hostages, who he said are likely dead.” It doesn’t matter how generous the deal is Biden places in front of them. That actually just makes everything worse.
A note needs to be taken from Pastor Wilson’s grandson and his friend. Both weren’t only extremely brave, but they demonstrated what should be done when terrorists descend. Stand tall and don’t waiver in what is right. He obviously is well-versed in history, with a stellar example in Jesus Christ.
Look how quickly the protests at University of Texas-Austin came and went. The leadership of the state translated all the way onto that campus — just as it did at the University of Florida. Before you knew it, it was over. That is how it is done. It isn’t being generous. It is being quick, decisive, and resolute.
The ignorance and failure running around on these campuses reflects that which is coming from the top. And the act of appeasing Hamas will result in many more getting killed, including students. It’s coming.
This article appeared originally on The Western Journal.
The post Watch: Famous Pastor’s Grandson Stares Down Columbia Mob, Refuses to Let Them Continue Their Mission of Destruction appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.
Former soccer star Megan Rapinoe appears to not have learned her lesson whatsoever, advocating for transgender athletes to compete in women’s sporting events even though she lost to a team of teenage boys a few years ago.
On Tuesday, Rapinoe signed a letter along with numerous other athletes that called for the NCAA to ensure men claiming to be women would be able to compete against women.
“We, the undersigned, call upon the NCAA, a governing body meant to serve athletes and our wellbeing, to ensure that the lifesaving power of sport is accessible to all athletes who compete in championship and emerging sports at and for NCAA-member institutions – including transgender athletes,” the letter’s opening paragraph reads.
It goes on to say banning men from women’s sports would “severely [limit] the capacity of your member institutions to protect and support their athletes.”
The letter largely relies on emotional appeal while making broad, bogus claims such as that “studies used to justify the exclusion of transgender athletes are methodologically flawed and misinterpreted to further discrimination.”
“We call on you to be on the right side of history and affirm that sport is truly for us all. Do not ban transgender women from NCAA women’s sports,” the letter concludes.
Taking part in such an act is nothing new for Rapinoe, a lesbian LGBT activist who has generated headlines with her left-wing political posturing.
In March, she called out Christian U.S. soccer player Korbin Albert for sharing social media posts that said homosexuality and “feeling transgender” were immoral.
But as always, while Rapinoe and her fellow leftists wish to create a world where everyone is equal and nothing is set in stone, the reality is far from that.
In 2017, while she was still on the U.S. Women’s National Team, they faced the FC Dallas under-15 boys team to prepare for a friendly match against Russia, as CBS Sports reported at the time.
They lost.
While it was far from a shutout, losing 5-2 to a team of boys who can’t even drive a car yet shows just how big of a difference sex plays in physical ability.
Imagine the score if these boys were men. That’s a reality that could come about as more and more male athletes claiming to be women are allowed into women’s sports.
It will only ruin the ability of women to compete.
It’s shameful that as Rapinoe leaves the sport, she advocates for changes that will make it harder for other women to succeed.
As swimmer and women’s sports activist Riley Gaines wrote on X, “Megan Rapinoe, in typical virtue-signaling fashion, is pulling up the ladder behind her.”
“No one would know who Megan Rapinoe is [if] it weren’t for women’s sports lol,” she said.
Megan Rapinoe, in typical virtue-signaling fashion, is pulling up the ladder behind her.
No one would know who Megan Rapinoe is it weren’t for women’s sports lol https://t.co/SuNsTENbwr
— Riley Gaines (@Riley_Gaines_) April 25, 2024
Perhaps more women in sports — and the organizations that govern them — should reject Rapinoe and her woke nonsense.
This article appeared originally on The Western Journal.
The post Megan Rapinoe Demands Trans Athletes Be Allowed to Compete Against Women – Remember When Her Team Faced Teenage Boys? appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.
As a neophyte graduate student in history in the late 1990s, I once asked a veteran professor how he managed to focus on grad school during the campus protests of the Vietnam Era. “Easy,” he replied. “You went to the library.”
In other words, the protesters might take themselves seriously, but that does not oblige you to do the same. Without wishing them harm, in fact, you might even quietly chuckle when they receive what looks like a mild comeuppance.
At Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia, on Thursday, a Georgia state trooper took down a protester with a linebacker-style form tackle that drew high praise on social media.
A 13-second clip posted to social media platform X showed the tackle once, and then again in slower motion.
Photojournalist Billy Heath III of Fox 5 Atlanta called it “one of the first takedowns of many” on the day.
PROTESTER TACKLED BY TROOPER: Video captured at the Pro-Palestine protest at Emory in Atlanta shows the moment a protester is tackled by a Georgia State Patrol trooper. This was one of the first takedowns of many, several protesters were arrested today on the campus. @FOX5Atlanta pic.twitter.com/N96Ny9yqSr
— Billy Heath III (@BillyHeathFOX5) April 25, 2024
Some X users joked that the trooper must have had a background in organized football.
Definitely played HS football, lol!
— Arithia (@Arithia3) April 26, 2024
Wow , he must have played for Alabama
— Tom (@Syloustr) April 26, 2024
That brief clip, of course, provided no context. The trooper might have had a good reason for tackling the protester. Or, the trooper might have tackled the wrong person. Anything is possible, which makes speculation pointless in this particular instance.
In a broader sense, however, the trooper and his fellow officers had plenty of good reasons for being on campus.
Thanks to a video report from Fox 5’s Eric Perry, we do have some much-needed context for the tackle.
“It was something never seen on the campus of Emory University Thursday as pro-Palestinian protesters and those against the Atlanta training facility went head-to-head with law enforcement,” Perry’s report began.
Thus, the protesters at Emory also included antifa miscreants from Atlanta’s “Stop Cop City” movement.
For further context, Michael Doudna of WSB-TV posted a video of a “peaceful” antifa protest outside Emory’s theology school.
As they crowded around law enforcement officers, pushing them against the building, the protesters maintained a chant that equated the Atlanta Police Department (APD) and the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) with the Ku Klux Klan (KKK).
“A-P-D, K-K-K, I-D-F, they’re all the same!” the protesters chanted again and again.
Protestors here at Emory are pushing in on officers near the theology school. Things are starting to escalate here. pic.twitter.com/olCbWIntZg
— Michael Doudna (@MichaelDoudna) April 26, 2024
Perry’s report also showed Emory faculty and staff being led away in handcuffs after cosplaying as activists.
According to representatives of the university, the protest did not originate with members of the Emory community. Thus, university officials called on both Atlanta Police and Georgia State Patrol to help quell the disturbances.
All of this, of course, followed a pattern of ugly recent incidents at campus protests across the country.
In other words, one need not know the identity of the tackling trooper, or the tackled protester, or the reason for the specific tackle, to understand the broader context.
Violent and narcissistic leftist protesters have caused no end of trouble. But police, if given the chance, can handle them.
In the meantime, no one has an obligation to take those narcissists as seriously as they take themselves.
As for university students who must navigate the campus chaos, take a cue from my former professor. Ignore the protesters. Go to the library.
This article appeared originally on The Western Journal.
The post Watch: Georgia State Trooper Puts NFL Pros to Shame with Ruthless Tackle on Anti-Israel Protester appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.
Joe Biden alone has already caused the price of everyday staples to soar, but there are other pressures also forcing an increased burden to fall on all Americans.
Thanks to those external pressures, this month, yet another staple food item has soared to prices that won’t come down any time soon.
Coffee is absolutely essential for millions, and many Americans claim they can’t get their day in gear if they don’t have a jolting cup of Joe, and they don’t mean Biden.
But there will soon be more financial pain going forward with your morning cup. Get ready to see your coffee prices given a jolt as supply problems, hoarding, and contract defaults are tearing through the coffee producing industry worldwide causing prices to soar. This is only adding to the skyrocketing costs of breakfast, which is at its highest point since 1979 as it is. And experts say those higher prices won’t go away any time soon, if ever.
The cost of robusta coffee beans soared more than 30 percent early in April and 50 percent now as a heat wave has settled in over Vietnam in one of the world’s top coffee growing regions, according to Bloomberg.
The price jump for robusta has also put pressure on arabica coffee, causing arabica futures to rise more than 3 percent, surpassing the $2-per pound mark for the first time since December, the outlet added.
“Weather conditions are not encouraging,” representatives of London-based importer DRWakefield said this week. “There are still concerns over a possible water shortage for irrigation, which may hurt the output of the next season.”
About 40 percent of the world’s coffee supply is made up of robusta beans whereas the arabica bean is the source of around 60 percent, according to Nespresso.
Analysts also say that some of the rise in prices of these two beans is due to buyers letting their stocks dwindle over past price hikes, but who are now panic buying for fear that crops will dry up on them.
In a more recent follow-up report, Bloomberg added that analysts and sellers are saying they have no idea if the prices will come down.
“We can’t tell when prices will peak,” said Tran Thi Lan Anh, deputy director of Vietnamese export company Vinh Hiep Co.
“We don’t have water for our farms,” said Vietnamese coffee bean farmer Nguyen The Hue. “If the drought persists, we won’t have lots of new beans to sell in the new season.”
The pressure is in full swing. Already, farmers and producers have reneged on coffee contracts as growers have been unable to fulfill contracts for upwards to 200,000 tons of beans, or about 13 percent of the expected harvest.
These failures will soon cause prices of coffee to skyrocket for consumers, Bloomberg warns.
Add this pressure to the rising prices already seen in most other food staples and it all adds up to a huge burden on Americans.
The price of eggs have been fluctuating wildly, for instance, after millions of laying hens had to be destroyed due to infections with the deadly bird flu. Millions of chickens have had to be destroyed this year thanks to the disease.
Bird flu is a growing threat to the American food supply outside of the poultry industry, too.
Farmers and ranchers are also worried because the bird flu has jumped to cattle and dairy herds, threatening dairy and meat producers.
H5N1 bird flu found at 4 more dairy farms, including 2 in Michigan, 1 in Texas and 1 in New Mexico, taking the total to 28 pic.twitter.com/SfzHQMIkYS
— BNO News (@BNOFeed) April 12, 2024
These pressures, along with the grueling effects of Bidenflation and Bidenomics, are causing Americans to put more of their income to just daily survival than they have had to for decades.
And it’s only going to get worse, especially if Biden is reelected in November.
This article appeared originally on The Western Journal.
The post Another Grocery Staple Surging to Record High – The Days of Cheap Breakfasts Are Gone appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.
The leftist legislators in California have done it again, making things more difficult for the very low-income people they claimed to be helping, this time with a law that is throwing thousands of minimum wage earners out of their jobs.
As Ronald Reagan used to say, the scariest words in the English language are “I’m from the government, and I’m here to help,” and California has once again proven that quip to be a hardbound truth.
Economics has always been a concept that liberals cannot understand. Deep-blue California’s recent passing of Assembly Bill 1228, forcing certain — but not all — fast-food restaurants to wildly raise their minimum wage by up to $4 an hour all at once, is having the unintended consequence of costing people their jobs, not enriching their lives.
As CNBC noted, the state has more than 500,000 fast-food workers, but now many of them are under threat of losing their jobs.
This month, the left coast state’s new $20-per-hour minimum wage took effect on the fast-food industry. Business owners have responded by putting in more electronic ordering devices and firing costly human employees.
The new wage hike comes on the tail of the disastrous COVID shutdowns that devastated the restaurant industry, causing profit margins to plummet. Just as restaurants in California were starting to regain their footing, the left-wing legislature weighed them down with this new wage law.
The warning by Burger King franchise owner Harsh Ghai is on target: Ghai said that the costly new wage law has forced him to put in place a plan to add electronic ordering kiosks at his 140 locations within two months, Business Insider reported.
Ghai even pointed out that prices for customers at fast-food places have gone up between eight and 10 percent in the past year, when prices usually only go up by about three percent a year. And this new wage law will make that problem worse.
“The majority of that is going to get absorbed in the inflation of our food costs,” he said of the higher costs the state is imposing on restaurants. “So we’re not even compensating for most of the labor costs that we’re going to be experiencing with this legislation.”
Ghai added that the higher prices — already in effect before the higher staffing costs began hitting business owners — are driving customers away. So, instead of raising prices further, the easiest way is to cut the number of employees.
The businessman added that he has revisited plans to roll out electronic, self-ordering kiosks over a 10-year period across his 140 locations and will now add them in a matter of months.
“[W]e are just going ahead and installing the kiosks in every single restaurant in response to the legislation to be able to balance some of these labor costs that are hitting us,” he said.
“We can’t move fast enough on this,” Ghai told Business Insider.
“We’ve done the financial analysis and it makes more sense for us to spend the capital expenditure on the technology, and obviously when you’re buying large amounts of the hardware, you obviously get it for a cheaper price as well,” he added.
“So it’s making more sense for us to just roll that across the business in its entirety,” he said.
Other restaurant chains have responded by firing hundreds of employees. A large number of pizza chains in California immediately fired their delivery drivers earlier this year after the law passed, including Pizza Hut and Southern California Pizza Co. stores in the state.
Many restaurants have even simply closed down rather than face barely scraping, by thanks to the higher costs imposed on them.
Still other restaurants are looking at plans to try locations that have no dining area and no cashiers at all. Chick-fil-A, for instance, is testing its “grab and go” locations where customers order exclusively online or via an app and pick up their order at a drive-through at a location with no cashiers and no eat-in area.
California’s left-wing legislature is causing every fast-food customer to dish out more for their food. But it is also costing tens of thousands of people their jobs. The legislature’s actions are having the exact opposite effect of what they intended.
This article appeared originally on The Western Journal.
The post Liberal Utopia: New California Law Could Terminate Up to 500,000 Jobs appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.
There’s no question LeBron James is the biggest name in NBA play today.
He’s regularly compared with Chicago Bulls legend Michael Jordan as one of the greatest of all time. His basketball career has made him a billionaire.
But after the Los Angeles Lakers’ playoff loss in Denver on Monday night, he showed he’s one of the biggest crybabies in the league, too.
In his postgame news conference, as ESPN reported, James griped about a foul call that was overturned during the game and implicitly questioned the integrity of the officials in charge of reviewing calls on the court.
“I don’t understand what’s going on in the replay center, to be honest,” he said.
“What the f*** do we have a replay center if it’s gonna go … It doesn’t make sense to me,” the NBA star said.
According to ESPN, James added, “It’s f***ing stupid,” as he got up and left the room.
WARNING: The following video contains (edited) language that might offend some viewers — especially viewers who expect adult men to act and speak like adult men even when their team loses a ball game.
“I don’t understand what’s going on in the replay center, to be honest… It makes no sense to me… Then I just saw what happened with the Sixers/Knicks game too, what are we doing?” – LeBron James pic.twitter.com/7OWLmuf8jn
— Spectrum SportsNet (@SpectrumSN) April 23, 2024
James has made news for public complaints about officiating before, but his behavior after the Nuggets’ Jamal Murray dropped a thrilling, buzzer-beating bucket to seal Denver’s win Monday bordered on bizarre.
He not only complained during his postgame news conference, but he also pursued a referee immediately after the game, arrogantly demanding an explanation for why he didn’t get a call when he thought he was fouled earlier in the game.
“Why didn’t you call that s***?” James said, according to the LegendZ account on X.
Check that out here:
See “WARNING” above.
LEAKED Video Of LeBron James Chasing A Ref After No Call:
“Why didn’t you call that sh*t? It was right in front of you” pic.twitter.com/zMCLVRRRGm
— LegendZ (@legendz_nba) April 23, 2024
It’s a moot question at this point whether James was correct in either of his complaints. Anyone who has played sports or watched them only casually understands that bad calls are as much a part of a game as great athletes. Referees are human — just like coaches, fans and even billionaire hulking giants who cry wolf about “racism” while raking in money from Chinese slavery.
Mistakes happen. Adults understand that, even if they get frustrated by it.
But adults also understand that a game needs to be won over all obstacles — and adults like James, who is pushing 40 after spending two decades playing professionally, are paid ridiculous sums of money to not only understand it but to overcome it.
Instead, James, a lightning rod for criticism under the best of circumstances, violated one of the cardinal rules of sports and sportsmanship that many children learn from their first coaches — “Don’t blame the refs.”
It was particularly egregious in James’ case on Monday since, as ESPN reported, his team at one point had a 20-point lead in the contest. An NBA playoff team that squanders a 20-point lead doesn’t deserve to win. It doesn’t deserve so much as a tie.
And the star of that team has no business blaming a loss on a call or two from officials on the floor — indulging in a vulgar temper tantrum that only tarnished his image and embarrassed the game.
No matter how big his name is.
This article appeared originally on The Western Journal.
The post LeBron James Chases Down Ref After Crushing Playoff Loss, Has Vulgar Tantrum During Press Conference appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.
Skin color, which vies with sexuality for distinction as the most tedious subject in America, has once again made headlines.
Stephen Jackson, who won the 2002-03 NBA championship with the San Antonio Spurs and who happens to be black, illustrated the modern mind’s toxic obsession with race when he denigrated black journalist Gayle King, co-host of “CBS Mornings,” for using the first-person plural pronoun “we” when referring to fans who rooted for the Iowa Hawkeyes women’s basketball team and superstar guard Caitlin Clark, who happens to be white.
“I don’t consider her black media,” Jackson said of King in a short video posted to Instagram on Saturday.
The former NBA champion cited the veteran journalist’s conduct during an interview with South Carolina Gamecocks head coach Dawn Staley, who also happens to be black.
On April 7, the Gamecocks completed an undefeated season with an 87-75 win over Iowa in the NCAA championship game.
Clark, who helped elevate the popularity of women’s basketball, finished her career as the NCAA Division I all-time scoring leader. On April 15, the Indiana Fever selected Clark with the 1st overall pick in the WNBA draft.
Jackson who played 17 NBA seasons with eight different teams, had nothing negative to say about Clark.
He did, however, betray the ugly tribalism at the root of “race” consciousness when he criticized King for not behaving as he thought a black journalist should behave.
Race, of course, has no meaning outside of human tribalism. As a biological factor, skin color matters as much as eye color or hair color — that is to say, not at all.
Nor is this a new argument. In fact, lawyers for the plaintiff made this same anti-segregation argument — in vain, as it turned out — during the infamous 1896 Plessy v. Ferguson case before the U.S. Supreme Court.
But this does not satisfy people who cling to tribalism and will not let it go.
“Y’all give her all these passes because she f*** with — she’s Oprah[‘s] friend. I don’t give a f*** whose friend she is. That don’t do nothing for nobody,” Jackson said of King.
In her interview with Staley, King said, “We were all cheering for Iowa, of course, and Caitlin Clark,” according to the New York Post.
Jackson took issue with a statement so offensive to tribalists.
“But you cannot demean Dawn Staley like that. You talkin’ to her about winning the championship, about going undefeated. And you have the nerve to get on there and say, ‘Well, we was rootin’ for Caitlin Clark, and you broke everybody hearts,'” Jackson said on Instagram.
He assumed that King, because of her darker complexion, should speak for others with a dark complexion.
“Who is ‘we’? Who is ‘we’? All the black people I know was rootin’ for Dawn Staley,” Jackson said.
Again, the former NBA champion did not attack Clark personally. But he did take issue with King celebrating Clark at what he regarded as Staley’s expense.
“We all fans of Caitlin Clark. But the way you put it? That s*** was trash,” he said.
“You just demeaned [Staley] and made it about Caitlin Clark. That’s trash — super-trash,” he later added.
Readers may view Jackson’s full comments in the video below.
WARNING: The following video contains vulgar language some readers may find offensive.
King, of course, did nothing wrong.
Nor did Staley, whose undefeated South Carolina team deserves all the accolades it gets.
Nor did Clark, whose playing style and scoring prowess attracted many thousands of new fans.
Only Jackson, who cannot let go of the shopworn tribalism we call “race,” came out of this looking boorish.
This article appeared originally on The Western Journal.
The post Watch: NBA Champ Goes on Race Rant, Says Journalist Isn’t ‘Black Media’ After Praising Caitlin Clark appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.
As the Biden administration accelerates their strategy of promoting abortion as their go-to issue ahead of the November elections, a new poll confirmed the results of numerous previous polls, showing that a supermajority of American voters oppose abortion after the third month of pregnancy — a view that is not in line with the Democratic Party’s public position of unrestricted abortion.
On Wednesday, Rasmussen Reports released the results of a poll revealing that 66 percent of American voters are opposed to late-term abortions beyond 12 weeks. These latest numbers are largely similar to polling results from the last 20 years, which show anywhere from 55 to 71 percent of Americans opposing second trimester abortions and 70 to 86 percent opposing third trimester abortions.
Notably, Democratic lawmakers in recent years have consistently refused to say if they would place any limits on abortion, even up to the moment of birth.
The current Democratic Party platform makes no reference to placing any limits on the procedure, going so far as to say that the party would work to overturn any and all pro-life protections enacted by duly elected state lawmakers, as well as any federal protections: “Democrats oppose and will fight to overturn federal and state laws that create barriers to reproductive health and rights.”
The platform goes on to state that Democrats would force taxpayers to pay for abortions by “repeal[ing] the Hyde Amendment,” a position that is opposed by 60 percent of Americans.
The platform further declares that Democrats will sweep away all state pro-life protections by “codify[ing] the right to reproductive freedom” in federal law, which the party has already attempted to do with the “Women’s Health Protection Act.”
Despite the Democratic Party’s unwillingness to show any moderation on abortion, Republicans in recent months have struggled to find their footing on how to message on the issue and have often not taken advantage of the contrast between public opinion on late-term abortion and the Democratic position.
Former Republican National Committee Chair Ronna McDaniel has urged GOPers to point out the Democrats’ extremism in recent months. “We are the pro-life, pro-woman, pro-family party, and we can win on abortion,” she said. “But that means putting Democrats on the defense and forcing them to own their own extreme positions.”
National Republican Senatorial Committee Chairman Sen. Steve Daines voiced similar sentiments, pushing candidates to “not run away from the issue.”
In comments to The Washington Stand, Director of Family Research Council Action Matt Carpenter contended that the Democratic Party is engaging in a money-centric strategy to overcome the discrepancy between their abortion extremism and public opinion.
“Across the nation, pro-abortion groups are pushing for ballot measures which would amend state constitutions to allow abortion through all stages of pregnancy, on the taxpayer dime,” he observed. “Liberal dark money groups are pouring campaign cash into these efforts, and Democrat political operatives are licking their chops at the thought of a super-charged pro-abortion turnout at the polls. Forgetting for a moment that poll after poll shows voters are concerned mostly about the cost-of-living crisis, rising crime, and the daily invasion at the southern border, the reality is voters are not supportive of second and third trimester abortions.”
Nonetheless, Carpenter went on to acknowledge that pro-life Republicans face challenges in educating voters on abortion ahead of November.
“While the pro-abortion side relies on a phalanx of pundits repeating their euphemisms, the pro-life movement has their work cut out for them to educate voters as to the extreme nature of these measures, which would prevent states from protecting unborn children from abortion in the second and third trimesters,” Carpenter said.
Mary Szoch, director of the Center for Human Dignity at Family Research Council, also acknowledged the challenges in the current political climate but encouraged GOP candidates to be unafraid of making plain the Democratic Party’s position on abortion.
“The tragedy of only 66 percent of voters opposing late-term abortion points to the prevalence of the culture of death,” Szoch told The Washington Stand. “It demonstrates that our culture has become one that values people based on what they can do or accomplish as opposed to the fact that each person is a son or daughter of God. We have a lot of work to do building a culture of life.”
Szoch concluded, “That said — 66 percent of voters is a majority of Americans who agree that killing an unborn child after viability is a grave evil. Political candidates should recognize that speaking the truth about the Democratic Party’s views on life — their desire for abortion through (and even infanticide after) birth — is out of step with the American people.”
This article appeared originally on The Washington Stand.
This article appeared originally on The Western Journal.
The post Poll: Supermajority of American Voters Oppose Abortion Past 12 Weeks appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.
The International Monetary Fund last week ripped the Biden administration’s out of control spending, calling it “out of line with what is needed for long-term fiscal stability.”
According to the New York Post, the IMF, an international organization aimed at fighting financial crises across the globe, warned that ever-growing national debt in the U.S. poses a long-term risk to the global economy.
“Something will have to give,” the IMF cautioned in foreword of the World Economic Forecast published on Tuesday.
“The exceptional recent performance of the United States is certainly impressive and a major driver of global growth,” the IMF said. “But it reflects strong demand factors as well, including a fiscal stance that is out of line with long-term fiscal sustainability.”
Unfortunately, the Biden administration has shown no intention of slowing down its spending.
Last month, the administration proposed a massive, $7.3 trillion budget for fiscal year 2025, the New York Post reported.
The Office of Management and Budget reported that the national debt would surge to $45.1 trillion by 2034 under the budget plan, according to the Post.
The IMF’s warning comes as the U.S. national debt is approaching $35 trillion, with the total rising by about $1 trillion every 100 days.
The cost the national debt is imposing on a yearly basis has also risen, as the U.S.’s debt interest payments topped $1 trillion in October, according to Business Insider.
What’s more, U.S. debt-to-GDP ratio, which measures debt as a proportion of GDP, is climbing to concerning heights. According to a report by the World Population Review, the U.S. has the ninth-highest debt-to-GDP ratio in the world at 129 percent. According to the site, a debt-to-GDP ratio of 77 percent or lower encourages domestic economic growth.
In classic Biden fashion, the White House is blaming the problem on former President Donald Trump.
“The Trump tax cuts added $2 trillion to the debt with unpaid giveaways skewed to the wealthy and big corporations, and now Congressional Republicans are proposing another $5.5 trillion in tax cuts skewed to the rich, while raising taxes on millions of middle-class families,” White House spokesman Michael Kikukawa told the Post.
And Biden’s solution to the problem? More taxes.
Biden’s budget plan proposed includes hiking the corporate tax rate to 28 percent, while raising the minimum corporate tax rate from 15 percent to 21 percent, according to the Post.
He also proposed a minimum 25 percent tax on billionaires, “defined as those with a net worth of $100 million or greater,” according to the Post.
This comes as Biden is trying to force through $7.4 billion in student-loan debt cancellation.
Biden is attempting to use a different legal justification than the cancellation plan he tried to push forward last year, which was struck down by the Supreme Court as an overstep of his authority under Article II of the Constitution.
The new round of student debt cancellation is estimated to cost taxpayers $84 billion over the next 10 years.
Biden’s actions have done anything but put the U.S. on a trajectory for economic prosperity. As the IMF noted, while we have experienced growth, the careless spending will serve to deter the nation’s long-term future.
And Americans agree that the economic situation is dire. Only 28 percent of Americans currently view our economic conditions as excellent or good, according to a Pew poll from January. Meanwhile, prices continue to rise, with inflation being 3.5 percent from March 2023 to March 2024, a higher rate than was anticipated.
What the Biden administration needs to do is decrease its spending and pull money out the economy, so that inflation can be curtailed.
But instead of decreasing government spending, Biden is hell-bent on making American taxpayers bear the burden of his progressive policies.
Inevitably, raising wealth and corporate taxes will be detrimental to growth. Increasing tax rates will cause corporations to invest elsewhere and strike a blow to the American economy.
In this instance, the government needs to do less, not more. We need to decrease government spending, not increase it.
And while his comments were aimed for a different time, Ronald Reagan’s assessment of the issues plaguing the U.S. in his 1981 inaugural address are the same issues we face today. “In this present crisis, government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem.”
And, as the IMF put it, something will have to give.
This article appeared originally on The Western Journal.
The post ‘Something Will Have to Give’: IMF Issues Dire Warning to Biden Administration appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.
Riding high after a wave of Clark-mania that accompanied the NCAA women’s basketball tournament, Caitlin Clark has signed a megabucks shoe contract with Nike.
The eight-year deal will be worth up to $28 million, The Wall Street Journal reported, citing sources it did not name. The Journal summed it up as the “most lucrative and attractive shoe deal in women’s basketball—and yet another record for her collection.”
The endorsement deal dwarfs the controversial contract Clark signed with the WNBA team the Indiana Fever, which will pay her over $330,000 over four years.
Nike had Clark under contract in a deal that expired at the end of the season, but as she was climbing the pinnacle of achievement in an unrivaled spotlight, in the shadows there was some hard bargaining taking place.
The Journal report said that on Feb. 15, after Clark poured in 49 points, her agents were raising the stakes with Nike, Adidas, Under Armour and Puma.
Country star Tim McGraw dons Caitlin Clark’s Indiana Fever jersey at concert in Indianapolis https://t.co/eIullFWi3p
— Fox News (@FoxNews) April 21, 2024
Their proposal: Nothing under $3 million a year.
“Some of the brand reps were shocked by the number. It was a huge sum for a women’s basketball player, few of whom ever receive deals worth more than six figures,” the Journal reported.
Amid the bargaining, some shoe company executives were conditioning deals on Clark staying in college another year on the grounds that as a college phenomenon, she was more attractive to consumers than as a professional, the Journal reported.
Clark is set to graduate May 14, according to CNN. However, she has an extra year of college ball eligibility under an NCAA COVID exemptions, according to The Sporting News.
But Clark changed the conversation as she soared to new levels of achievement – and ratings.
“She played herself into a position where it wasn’t even contingent on staying in college,” a source told the Journal. “People just wanted her.”
Not Puma. It dropped out.
Adidas had its turn.
“While some athletes let their agents ask the questions or wade through details, this was one more area where Clark, an honors student in marketing at Iowa’s business school, liked to have the ball in her hands. Adidas executives were surprised by how engaged, curious and well-prepared she was on the call,” the Journal wrote.
The offer clanged on the rim: $6 million for four years.
Under Armour offered $16 million over four years along with a signature shoe. Close, but not enough.
Nike started with $3.5 million per year. The deal would last through the next three Olympic Games. But it took one more piece — a signature shoe – to close the deal, the Journal reported.
Diana Taurisi, the WNBA’s all-time leading scorer, said all the hype has been fun, but it is in the past.
The Women’s NBA season begins next month, and Clark is expected to see playing time right off the bat, according to USA Today, but the game she’ll be playing could be much different from her college competitions.
“You look superhuman playing against some 18-year-olds, but you’re going to come play with some grown women that have been playing professional basketball for a long time,” Taurasi told sports columnist Jay Mariotti for a Substack post.
“There’s a period of grace that you have to give rookies when they get to the league. We’ve had some of the greats to ever play basketball, and it takes two or three years to get used to a different game (against) the best players in the world. As long as everyone has expectations that are realistic, they should be fine,” she said.
But WNBA analyst Rebecca Lobo said judging Clark by anyone else’s norms sells her short.
“There’s no comparison that I can find on the women’s side, and I’ve been in this league since the very beginning,” she said.
“We haven’t seen a player drive ticket sales like this. We haven’t seen a player drive ratings like this. Look at the ratings, the last four or five games she played. I’ve never seen anything to this degree, and to me, what’s special is that she’s staying in the Midwest and going to Indiana. It’s such a perfect fit,” she said.
This article appeared originally on The Western Journal.
The post Caitlin Clark Lands Historic Nike Shoe Deal Worth Millions Just Before Her Rookie Season Kicks Off appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.
New York City’s storefronts aren’t as alluring as they once were. The brutal statistics coming out are bad (but wholly predictable) news.
As of 2024, 11.2 percent of the city’s storefronts are sitting vacant. This is up from 6 percent in 2019. That doesn’t seem like a huge number, but that 5.2 percentage point increase translates to an 86% percent increase from 2019 to 2024. That is a massive jump.
Manhattan Councilmember and Democrat Gale Brewer said these vacancies, “are creating havoc because there is homeless, garbage and the business next door hurts.”
What’s the cause of this trend? During a New York City Council Committee on Small Business meeting on Wednesday, Calvin Brown, deputy commissioner for neighborhood development, stated the problem was due to “archaic zoning barriers.”
New York Mayor Eric Adams has advocated for changing current zoning regulations. Adams’ initiative, the “City of Yes” aims to do just that.
According to the New York City Planning Department website, “City of Yes for Economic Opportunity would remove outdated limitations on businesses and ensure that local retail streets and commercial centers across the city can remain lively places that sustain our neighborhoods.”
But are zoning restrictions really the problem that’s led to so many vacancies?
The New York Post reports shoplifting cost retailers in the state $4.4 billion in 2022. Thefts have gone up 64 percent between June 2019 and June 2023. City retail thefts are up more than 6.5 percent as of April 2024 compared to April 2023.
New York City Councilmember for Queens and Republican Vickie Paladino put it frankly. “We’ve got kids coming in on bicycles and just ransacking a store.” She continued, saying, “We can’t sugarcoat the fact that there’s rampant crime in the city that is preventing people from opening small businesses in areas that used to be nice places to go to.”
Bronx Councilmember Oswald Feliz, chair of the Committee on Small Business and a Democrat mentioned how close to home the issue was for him. “There’s a Walgreens one minute away from where I live that’s closing down due to retail theft.” Going further he stated, “Anytime I speak to a small business that is literally the very first issue they bring to us.”
Paladino mentioned theft has gotten so bad that even mundane items are locked away. “I went in to buy a tube of toothpaste. It, of course, was locked up as everything is now. But the store manager is keeping one tube of toothpaste behind the lock. It’s insanity.”
The proposed antidote to vacancies isn’t exactly stellar. Brewer is in favor of taxing landlords, suggesting owners of large retail buildings leave their properties vacant until chain stores move in.
To summarize, vacancies, whether they be because of zoning regulations or rampant theft are on the rise.
These vacancies create problems with homelessness and garbage piling up, and according to Brewer the solution is a tax?
Without the government addressing homelessness, garbage, and crime, landlords won’t be able to lease to chain stores or anyone else for that matter.
Don’t forget New York’s current tax system is among the worst. The Tax Foundation’s 2024 State Business Tax Climate Index found that New York ranked 49th out of 50 in 2024 for how well its tax system is structured.
None of this had to happen. New York City didn’t have to shut down peoples businesses, storefronts, and lives because of COVID. New York City didn’t have to go soft on crime and bail. New York City didn’t even have to tax its richest citizens into fleeing the city which in turn helped reduce the city’s coffers. But New York City voters elected a government that did just that. And now they’re enjoying the fruits of their collective electoral labor.
New Yorkers have played a stupid game, and as the old saying goes, “play stupid games, win stupid prizes.” And what prizes could be stupider than crime-ridden neighborhoods, locked up toothpaste, and piles of garbage?
This article appeared originally on The Western Journal.
The post Blue-State Paradise: Vacant NYC Storefronts ‘Creating Havoc,’ Nearly Double Since Pandemic appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.
Like reading a news story about a person getting scurvy, hearing about a modern metropolis getting beset by rat-borne illnesses almost seems like getting thrown back in time to the Dark Ages.
But, no, this time it was not a problem afflicting an impoverished medieval village, but rather one of the largest cities in the entire developed world: New York City.
While the city has been allocating resources toward prosecuting former President Donald Trump for the crime of winning the 2016 election, it has descended further and further into a state of squalor.
As reported Wednesday by CBS News, not only have rats in New York become ubiquitous in the worst way possible, but levels of rat-related sicknesses have reached their highest annual rate last year.
The New York City Health Department has been warning the populace of the increasing cases of a disease spread by contact with rat urine.
According to the department, leptospirosis is caused by bacteria in infected animals’ urine. It usually causes flu-like symptoms (aches, chills, stomach trouble) but, if left untreated, can cause kidney failure, liver failure or meningitis.
CBS News reported that Mayor Eric Adams and city health officials have been working on methods of containing the disease and the disgusting rats, including sterilizing the animals (since rat poison has been outlawed) and encouraging citizens to use gloves when handling garbage or food waste.
Still, seeing as a single rat pair could breed 15,000 descendants in one year and the city’s garbage containment plan is expected to take at least two-and-a-half years, suffice to say New Yorkers’ rat-related woes are far from over.
The reason this trashcan is so important is because diseases linked to RAT URINE (leptospirosis) are spreading in the filth that was once a great American city. There aren’t enough trashcans in the world to solve the problems that sanctuary cities have brought to America. https://t.co/qQyOD5JXBi
— Amy (Doc) CHAI, MD 4Congress CT-3 (@docchai2022) April 19, 2024
If only funds to help deal with this issue were not allocated somewhere else.
Such as the civil fraud case and criminal “hush money” prosecution against Trump.
According to NewsNation, the latter trial, which got underway this week, could cost New York City up to $2 million, with $50,000 spent on security measures alone (assuming the trial lasts a minimum of six weeks).
A six-week trial in Donald Trump’s hush money case could cost New York City as much as $2 million, one legal analyst estimates. The city could spend about $50,000 per day on safety precautions.
More: https://t.co/z3jBIoyaCd #MorningInAmerica pic.twitter.com/FkkwnpUL8l
— NewsNation (@NewsNation) April 16, 2024
Taking a former president to court requires security, road closures and many other disruptions, not to mention the mountains of cash required to maintain those precautions.
While this legal circus has gone on much longer than necessary, average New Yorkers have been living with a pest problem straight out of the Dark Ages.
City and state Democratic leaders instead have prioritized a political witch hunt against the Republican Party’s presumptive presidential nominee.
This article appeared originally on The Western Journal.
The post While NYC Dumps Resources Into ‘Getting’ Trump, Rat-Borne Disease Explodes Amid Squalid City Conditions appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.
More often than not, surveys tend to quantify what impressions have already conveyed. And when it comes to quantifying faith, those impressions might suggest few apparent reasons to hope for good news.
Nonetheless, a new “State of the Bible 2024” survey by the American Bible Society did reveal at least one piece of hopeful news: Amid an otherwise depressing set of revelations, 15 percent of respondents reported an increase in their personal Bible use from 2023 to 2024.
The Jerusalem Post called this a “resilient, albeit small, group of individuals deepening their engagement with scripture.”
Small and resilient, yes, but 15 percent represents a strong minority within a larger-yet-dwindling minority of adults who reported any meaningful Bible engagement at all.
For instance, the “State of the Bible USA 2024” survey revealed that, apart from church services, only 38 percent of American adults “engage with the Bible” as often as three or four times per year outside of church. That number marked a slight decrease from 40 percent in 2023.
Worse yet, as recently as 2011, 50 percent of respondents reported that same frequency of Bible engagement.
The most obvious explanation for that decline lies in generational priorities. As Americans born during the first half of the 20th century have passed away, their beliefs have died with them.
And if the loss of the World War II generation did not already fill us with melancholy, then the realization that Gen-Z values have begun to replace those older beliefs might make us despondent.
Indeed, the survey rated only 11 percent of Gen-Z adults as “Scripture Engaged,” based on a new Spiritual Vitality Gauge that uses nine important questions to assess respondents’ spiritual health.
Furthermore, as measured by the Scripture Vitality Gauge, the number of Americans categorized as spiritually “Ailing” rose from 21 percent to 28 percent since last year.
The decline in Bible engagement also has regional dimensions with partly historical explanations.
For instance, of all the survey’s Bible-engaged respondents, nearly twice as many hailed from the American South as from the Northeast or Midwest.
That makes sense in light of the Protestant influence in Southern history. By contrast, Northern cities in the 19th century experienced multiple waves of mass immigration from predominantly Catholic countries or regions, such as Ireland, Italy and Eastern Europe.
Catholicism, of course, offers its own kind of spiritual vitality. Historically, however, it has not encouraged believers to engage with the Bible in the same way that Protestantism has.
In light of all this, what should we make of Americans’ spiritual health in 2024?
To begin, we might borrow a phrase from prominent Canadian psychologist and political conservative Jordan Peterson.
In a 2022 appearance on “The Joe Rogan Experience” podcast, Peterson beautifully described Christ’s Passion and Resurrection.
“You look far enough into the abyss, you see the light,” Peterson said.
Readers may view a clip of those comments in the YouTube video below. Peterson began talking about the gospels around the 6:25 mark and continued for more than three minutes.
Seeing the light after staring into the abyss seems an apt description of one possible reaction to the spiritual-health survey.
Yes, things look bad, especially for Gen-Z.
On the other hand, in addition to the 15 percent who reported increased Bible engagement, another 53 percent said they wished they could read the Bible more often than they did.
That result would appear to confirm another impression derived from the recent experience of simply living in the world.
In short, as Gen Z’s woke values win cultural ascendancy, exasperated Americans know they can find an antidote in Biblical truth.
This article appeared originally on The Western Journal.
The post Hope: Polling Shows 1 Bright Spot for Christianity in America appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.
In the years after the Nazis took power in 1933, they instituted hundreds of laws and policies at the national, state and local levels to systematically remove Jews from German society. Bans were placed on Jews working as doctors and lawyers and in other professions, and quotas were set, limiting Jews in schools and universities.
By 1935 Nazi-institutionalized anti-Semitism had stripped Jews of their German citizenship and barred them from municipal hospitals, legal practice, the military and even World War I memorials, effectively excommunicating them from civic life and laying the groundwork for the Nazis’ future escalation to even more severe anti-Semitic persecution, according to the Holocaust Memorial Museum.
It’s tempting to look back at the dark days of 1930s Germany under the Nazis as a distant chapter in history when ignorance and racism fueled by hateful rhetoric were allowed to contaminate an entire society and national leadership. We want to believe that could never happen again in modern times.
But a video shared by Campaign Against Antisemitism from a pro-Palestinian march in London reveals a scene that could have been right out of the 1930s.
In the video taken during the protest in central London, an officer can be seen blocking the path of Gideon Falter, a Jewish man wearing a kippah, a religious head covering, asking him to stay in place while the protesters march, according to the BBC.
“You are quite openly Jewish. This is a pro-Palestinian march. I am not accusing you of anything, but I am worried about the reaction to your presence.”
Enough is enough. It is time for a major change.
On Saturday 27th April — the next anti-Israel march — we are asking you,… pic.twitter.com/lfJr7UZnif
— Campaign Against Antisemitism (@antisemitism) April 18, 2024
Falter, who is the chief executive of Campaign Against Antisemitism said he was simply walking around London after synagogue, according to the BBC.
“I don’t want to stay here, I want to leave,” Falter replied, after being blocked by the officer.
“In that case sir, when the crowd is gone, I will happily escort you out,” the officer responded.
When Falter tried to move past the police officer, the officer blocked his path, preventing him from leaving.
“I don’t want anybody antagonizing anybody …” the officer said as Falter protested, saying, “I just want to walk across …”
“At the moment sir, you are quite openly Jewish,” the officer responded. “This is a pro-Palestinian march. I am not accusing you of anything, but I am worried about the reaction to your presence,” the officer said.
Later in the video, another police officer attempted to defuse the situation, explaining to Falter that they were just trying to protect him.
“Do you have any idea what it’s like being a Jew in London at the moment?” Falter asked the officer.
Falter went on to explain that every Saturday, as protest routes change unpredictably through neighborhoods, being visibly Jewish means having to cross and face down “huge groups of people” in an “intimidating” atmosphere.
He said they were told repeatedly that Jews were safe in the city, “and yet,” he said, “here I find myself in this bubble. This guy has just been shouting at me and shoving me because I want to cross the road.”
Later in the video, another police officer can be seen telling Falter, “There’s a unit of people here now. You will be escorted out of this area so you can go about your business, go where you want freely, or if you choose to remain here, because you are causing a breach of peace, with all these other people, you will be arrested.”
“If I remain here, you will arrest me?” Falter asks incredulously.
“Your presence here is antagonizing a large group of people that we can’t deal with all of them if they attack you … because your presence is antagonizing them,” the officer responds.
The video also shows some people shouting “Scum” at the Jewish man. Another protester shouted “Nazi,” while yet another brazenly confronted him in front of officers, telling him, “I’m watching your movement … that’s right. We’re all going to watch your movements and record you. The police ain’t gonna help you in this scenario.”
“After months of being gaslit by the [Metropolitan Police], it’s not safe for Jews to be walking in the presence of these protests. And was there anything so crazy about what we were trying to do? Just walking around our home city on a Saturday?” Falter said in the accompanying video narrative.
“‘Is this something that we are willing to accept? That now the police have to keep Jews away? We mustn’t accept it,” he said.
“It has been six months now,” Falter said in the accompanying narrative, “six months, where every single weekend, we have to witness the streets of London awash with people, many of whom seem to have no problem at all declaring their full-throated support for Hamas, waving around anti-Semitic placards, calling for jihad, showing swastikas, waving anti-Semitic flags. It’s enough. Enough,” he said.
The police have since apologized for the officer’s choice of words, stating, “Being Jewish is not a provocation. Jewish Londoners must be able to feel safe in this city,” according to the BBC, but the incident is a clear example of a growing sentiment.
We are watching an eerie flashback of the 1930s playing right before our eyes.
And the U.S. is not far behind.
Chants of “From the river to the sea” have been heard on almost every city street and college campus, even in New York — a city that holds the largest population of Jewish people outside of Israel.
Domestic Terrorism: Today in NYC
Outside of Wall St. Today – An organized Pro HAMAS Rally takes off In New York City
– Protesters called for the Death of America and The Death Of Israe while a Nationwide protest shut down traffic, highways and bridges across the US.
This… pic.twitter.com/oxUwkNFLJO
— Asher Press (@AsherPress) April 16, 2024
The 1930s did not begin with gas chambers and concentration camps, but with the pervasive mindset that one’s religious identity alone is a provocation worthy of exclusion from society.
It doesn’t feel like we have learned anything from that dark time in history.
This article appeared originally on The Western Journal.
The post Watch: UK Police Threaten to Arrest an ‘Openly Jewish Man’ for Walking Near Palestinian Protest appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.
One day after Senate Democrats squashed the House Republican effort to remove Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas from office, GOP Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky held Mayorkas’ feet to the fire during a Senate hearing, making him squirm in his seat.
On Wednesday, Democratic senators shut down the impeachment proceedings initiated last week by the Republican-controlled House over Mayorkas’ handling of immigration and border security.
On Thursday, during a Senate Homeland Security Committee hearing, Paul masterfully laid bare the utter disregard for the law Mayorkas has shown in his time as homeland security secretary in a systematic and deliberate line of questioning without accusing or raising his voice.
The senator first asked Mayorkas what the criteria for paroling someone from detention was.
Mayorkas replied that the parole process, according to the law, involved “individualized determinations with respect to significant public benefit or an urgent humanitarian reason.”
“So for what reason was the alleged killer of Laken Riley, Jose Ibarra, paroled and allowed to come into this country?” Paul shot back.
Paul was, of course, referring to the high-profile case of a Georgia college student who was allegedly killed by an illegal immigrant.
Mayorkas refused to answer based on the fact the case is currently being prosecuted.
“You’re refusing to give any specifics about Jose Ibarra?” the senator said. “Well, I have the documentation, and the document says that the parole, the subject, the person accused of killing Laken Riley, was paroled due to detention capacity — it was full.
“So is detention capacity statutorily allowed to be used as a reasoning for parole?”
Mayorkas acknowledged that people were paroled because of a lack of beds for those encountered at the border, causing Paul to quickly retort, “You might have more beds if they remained in Mexico.”
The senator noted that the Biden administration had reversed “92 executive orders of the Trump administration which allowed them to apparently have people remain in Mexico, allowed them to have, you know, probably 90 percent less parolees than you have.”
“When you come to us and say, ‘Oh gosh, if we only had more legislation, we could do it,’ why don’t you bring back the executive orders of Donald Trump that seemed to be working? You immediately got rid of them for political purposes. The border is a disaster. Why don’t you bring back the 92 executive orders that you reversed?” he demanded.
The fiery exchange escalated as Paul listed other recent crimes allegedly perpetrated by illegal immigrants, including the killings of a Washington state trooper and a Michigan woman.
“I think a lot of people in America are going to be appalled, you know, that you refuse to answer the questions,” he said.
When asked about Ibarra’s unlawful entry, Mayorkas deflected again, saying that criminal perpetrators “need to be held accountable for their crimes.”
“Well, that’s not much consolation if you wait until after he’s murdered somebody,” Paul retorted.
The senator then went on to explain to Mayorkas the major flaws in how the Department of Homeland Security screens and processes migrants who are paroled into the United States — the most crucial of which is that DHS relies heavily on the “honor system,” i.e., just taking migrants at their word for their name and background information.
Paul pointed out that when migrants arrive at the border and claim to be from a country such as Venezuela, DHS has no real way to verify that is their true identity or country of origin because “most domestic crimes in Venezuela probably are not in any kind of international database.”
“So if you waltz into the country through your generous parole programs and say, ‘I’m John Smith from Venezuela,’ you have no way of ascertaining that,” he said. “You still let them go. So you say, ‘Well we’re going to make sure that they’re not a violent criminal.’ You have no way.”
What’s even worse, Paul pointed out that when DHS does collect biometric data such as fingerprints from paroled migrants, since their identities were not properly vetted initially, the agency is essentially just issuing them a new official identity in the United States.
“You look in some databases, maybe they’re not in the database, but you have no way of even knowing that that’s their name. Then you give them biometrics … you give them fingerprints, now they have a new name and fingerprints, they essentially have been given a new identity by your agency,” he said.
Today, I confronted Mayorkas over the damage inflicted upon America and the families who have tragically lost loved ones due to the abject failure of the Biden administration’s border policies. https://t.co/q2ejsC69NV
— Rand Paul (@RandPaul) April 18, 2024
Hearing the senator speak, I had the feeling that if a person from another country, completely unaware of our laws, saw the process, he or she would be convinced that the DHS was hoping for an attack on American soil.
To pretend to “vet” people by taking their word for who they are after they have just broken your laws by entering your country illegally is already ludicrous.
But then Mayorkas’ department takes it a step further by collecting fingerprints without first properly vetting migrants’ stated identities, effectively issuing them new official identities in the U.S. based on unverified information.
As Paul bluntly put it, the agency is just “giving a new identity” to these migrants.
It’s no wonder 90 percent of migrants are now turning themselves in to U.S. authorities instead of trying to escape them, according to Bloomberg.
It’s like the Biden administration has put up a sign: If you’re looking for a new start to get away from your criminal past, come to America. We’ll give you a new identity and a ticket to a city of your choice so that you can start all over again.
“I’m just so sickened and sad by the families of lost loved ones from this,” Paul said in conclusion. “I don’t see real remorse. I don’t see you willing to answer the questions. I mean, if it were me, I would be so upset by this, I would be doing everything possible to make sure another Jose Ibarra doesn’t get in.”
He concluded by saying, “All I can express is disappointment and bewilderment that the Democrats let you get away with it.”
Senator, you are not alone.
This article appeared originally on The Western Journal.
The post Watch: Rand Paul Holds Mayorkas’ Feet to the Fire Regarding Laken Riley’s Suspected Killer, Swats Down Excuses appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.
The cost of gasoline has skyrocketed under President Joe Biden, but he has been utterly unmindful of the burden he is putting on the American people because of his concerted war against oil, a war he proudly announced he would initiate if he won the White House.
Indeed, the war on the American energy industry is just one of the many ideological promises hurting America he made during his 2020 campaign that he has kept while in office.
As Americans suffer through Bidenomics, giving us one of the worst economies in decades, the cost of everything we need for our daily lives has soared. Gasoline has been a particular burden throughout Biden’s four years and prices have skyrocketed roughly 14 percent just over the last few months, ABC News reported.
Of the last three presidents, gas has been most expensive during Biden’s term. Forbes reported that the average price per gallon during Trump’s term was $2.57 a gallon. Obama’s was $3.12 in his first term and $2.95 in his second. By comparison, Biden’s average thus far was $3.60 as of early March.
But the price per gallon for gas is just one of the many problems Joe Biden has created for Americans with his war on the U.S. oil industry.
Biden has taken at least 200 actions to restrict or otherwise harm American energy independence since taking office, according to Just the News.
The actions were detailed in a report by the Institute for Energy Research that found that Biden has made it much harder for American companies to produce oil and gas products.
“President Biden and Democrats have a plan for American energy: make it harder to produce and more expensive to purchase,” the report said. “Since Mr. Biden took office, his administration and its allies have taken over 200 actions deliberately designed to make it harder to produce energy here in America.”
The study noted three of the more far-reaching attacks Biden has conducted on the U.S. oil and gas industry.
One of the very first things he did when he took office, for instance, was to shut down the Keystone XL pipeline, an action that eliminated thousands of American jobs. And he took that move even as he supported a pipeline being built in Russia.
He also declared that every acre of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge would be off-limits to oil and natural gas leasing activities. This took a huge field of energy resources off the table just as prices started to soar when he took office.
The third destructive move he made early in his presidency was to revoke Trump’s executive order that decreased burdensome regulations on the American energy sector.
But these three disastrous moves were far from the only ones he implemented when he entered the White House.
He also issued a series of moratoriums on new gas and oil leases on public lands, imposed a suite of onerous new regulations on the industry, and forced companies to take him to court to honor the leases they already had. And he is also threatening to slam the gasoline industry with an additional $110 billion in taxes on oil, natural gas and coal.
All of this has sent the cost of producing domestic energy soaring.
Then there has been his draining of the Strategic Petroleum Reserve , an act that has actually put our national security at risk.
“President Biden had the chance to top up the SPR when prices were still low during the pandemic, but anti-oil-and-gas ideologues within the administration couldn’t bear to do anything that would help out producers when demand was low,” said Kathleen Sgamma, president of Western Energy Alliance.
Not only that, she added, Biden then drained it “for political reasons and it’s long overdue to fill the SPR back up. Like many other politically driven decisions from this administration that distort energy markets, the government will have to spend more taxpayer money than if it had rational energy policies.”
These attacks on our energy independence make us more dependent on our enemies abroad, including Russia, Saudi Arabia and other anti-American oil-producing states. And it puts our national security at risk more than ever.
Trump had the right policy by cutting burdensome regulations, lowering taxes and inviting U.S. energy companies to explore for and drill for more oil and natural gas, thereby making us an energy-independent nation — and even a net exporter of oil — and putting us on our own two feet to ensure our national security.
Remember this when you are voting in November. A vote for Joe Biden is a vote to drive up our costs, tear down our energy industry and put us at the mercy of our enemies.
This article appeared originally on The Western Journal.
The post Revealed: Biden Has Taken 200 Actions to Increase Gas Prices – We Highlight Top 3 appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.
At some point in the last five years, we stopped merely studying history’s darkest moments and began experiencing them.
For instance, in an 11-second viral clip posted Wednesday to the social media platform X, a woman identified as Loyola Marymount University graduate student Grace Obi-Azuike effectively re-enacted a scene from Nazi Germany when she spewed venomous anti-Jewish hatred and, significantly, incurred no apparent rebuke from the younger people around her who attended an event featuring Israel Defense Forces members.
“Get the f*** out of here, all you ugly-a** little Jewish people in this b****,” the California law student appeared to say in a clip shared by the StopAntisemitism X account.
Obi-Azuike made the comment while seated and signaling in the direction of people who did not appear on camera.
Her insidious remark drew a look of astonishment but also an open-mouthed smile from an androgynous-looking person seated to her left. The male-looking person to her right wore the cloth mask of the COVID cult. His reaction, therefore — perhaps thankfully — remains a mystery.
But some attendees clapped or otherwise voiced approval.
“Oooooh, hooooo, yeah,” an unidentified female voice said.
At that point, an older, suit-wearing man walked over to Obi-Azuike and stood to her left. The camera did not capture what happened next, but he did not appear pleased as he rubbed his chin.
Readers may view the clip below:
WARNING: The following video and post contain vulgar language and racism.
Loyola University Law School – Grace Obi-Azuike appears to be caught yelling “Get the f*ck out of here all you ugly ass little Jewish people in this b*itch”.
Shockingly, she was Loyola’s Anti Racism Center Fellow for 2022-2023.
Grace Obi-Azuike graduates in a few weeks. pic.twitter.com/Bpaxo05gxg
— StopAntisemitism (@StopAntisemites) April 17, 2024
According to the Los Angeles school’s Jewish Law Students Association, the Adolf Hitler-like outburst occurred as part of a calculated effort by multiple law students to disrupt an event that featured firsthand accounts from Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza.
On Instagram, JLSA reported that “a few attendees left trembling as they made their way to their vehicles.”
As one would expect in this age of woke narcissism, the Loyola Law School boasts its own Anti-Racism Center.
The StopAntisemitism post referred to Obi-Azuike as a 2022-2023 fellow at the center — and the humor-focused, real-news site Not the Bee did likewise based on her now-deleted LinkedIn page.
Her intellectual profile certainly fits that of an anti-racist narcissist.
For instance, Obi-Azuike also belonged to the California ChangeLawyers organization.
“Our scholars and fellows are law students and recent law grads who are BIPOC, First Generation, LGBTQ+ and others whose lived experiences and identities are underrepresented in the halls of power,” the group’s scholar and fellow directory proclaimed.
As of Thursday afternoon, Obi-Azuike still appeared on the directory page. The following note appeared on her scholar profile:
“Our community has informed us of an incident that occurred earlier this week at Loyola Law School involving one of our scholarship recipients.
“ChangeLawyers exists to build a more inclusive multiracial democracy that protects and respects the humanity of all people — including our Jewish, Black, Muslim, and Women-identified communities. Any words or actions that denigrate the humanity of others flies in the face of our values. We do not condone racism or hate speech in any form, spoken or posted online.
“To all our community members: You Belong. ChangeLawyers will always be a place of compassion, empathy, and understanding.”
Obi-Azuike also appeared among the California Association of Black Lawyers‘ 2024 law student scholarship recipients.
On Feb. 2, LMU recognized Obi-Azuike among 11 graduate finalists who each received $5,000 to support research “focused on areas of diversity, equity, inclusion, and anti-racism.”
She also has served as president of the LLS Black Law Students Association. In that role, with a paean to the Juneteenth holiday, she provided a glimpse into the mind of a young narcissist.
“We comprise the generation of individuals that have the strongest ability to dismantle and end racism throughout this country,” Obi-Azuike wrote.
Predictably, she also insisted on the need to “understand the intersection between law and systemic racism.”
In other words, like many young victims of woke education and culture, Obi-Azuike sees the world primarily through skin color — and she obviously felt empowered to count herself with the “generation” that could “dismantle and end racism.”
Oh, how our schools have failed to encourage humility in such self-important crusaders.
Nonetheless, though unfortunate to have come of age in an era that validates narcissism, Obi-Azuike is no victim here.
For one thing, she reminds us that anti-racism amounts to nothing more than institutionally approved racism.
More importantly, her ugly outburst called to mind a 1998 book by historian Christopher R. Browning.
In “Ordinary Men: Reserve Police Battalion 101 and the Final Solution in Poland,” Browning explained how a group of “average middle-aged Germans” transformed into executioners during the Holocaust.
In short, it did not take much for those initially reluctant killers to become eager instruments of mass murder.
Above all, it took an atmosphere in which officials encouraged such phrases as “you ugly-a** little Jewish people.”
Not long ago, we could study the past and wonder how things could have ever turned so dark. Now, however, we wonder no more.
This article appeared originally on The Western Journal.
The post Law College ‘Anti-Racism’ Fellow Caught on Camera Piling Vicious Hatred on ‘Ugly…Little Jewish People’ appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.
The price tag of President Joe Biden’s student loan amnesty just keeps growing — and it’s not the neediest who are getting the money, either.
According to the New York Post, a new study by the University of Pennsylvania estimates that a new round of student loan cancellation programs raises the amount that taxpayers are stuck holding to $559 billion total, including $84 billion under new provisions announced last week.
The kicker? The newest provisions under the Saving on a Valuable Education, or SAVE, plan will benefit those in higher tax brackets the most.
The income-driven plan was introduced last summer, but new loan cancellations for 277,000 borrowers were announced last week.
“Today’s announcement shows — once again — that the Biden-Harris Administration is not letting up its efforts to give hardworking Americans some breathing room,” Education Secretary Miguel Cardona said in a statement, the Post reported.
“As long as there are people with overwhelming student loan debt competing with basic needs such as food and healthcare, we will remain relentless in our pursuit to bring relief to millions across the country.”
Cardona was doing the usual media rounds promoting how the plan was going to help the most vulnerable student loan recipients:
.@SecCardona breaks down who qualifies for President Biden’s new student debt relief plan.#GMA3 pic.twitter.com/BB3PVT76K4
— GMA3: What You Need To Know (@ABCGMA3) April 9, 2024
However, the University of Pennsylvania’s Penn Wharton Budget Model found that the new round of cancellations wasn’t exactly going to help those who were struggling to put food on the table — unless their diet consisted of three square meals of foie gras and Wagyu steak.
“President Biden recently announced five main provisions to provide student loan debt relief. Some of provisions are already mostly covered by President Biden’s SAVE plan introduced in 2023. Some provisions, however, are more incremental to the SAVE plan, including one provision — the forgiveness of longer-term debt — that expands eligibility to higher-income households,” read a Thursday media release of the study’s key takeaways.
“We estimate that the New Plans will cost $84 billion in addition to the $475 billion that we estimated for President Biden’s SAVE plan, for a total cost of about $559 billion across both plans.
“While the New Plans, like the SAVE plan, contain provisions to relieve debt based on individual or household income, the New Plans will also relieve some longer-term student debt for about 750,000 households making over $312,000 in average household income,” it continued.
“The main reason for this high average household income is that the SAVE plan already provides long-term debt relief to households with lower incomes.”
Of the five major components of the new plans announced on April 8, two in particular stick out as driving the relief up the income ladder.
First is the threshold for waiving accrued and capitalized interest on the loans: “Up to $20,000 in accrued and capitalized interest will be waived for borrowers with current balances above the initial balance upon entering repayment, regardless of borrower’s income,” the Wharton media release read.
“Single borrowers making less than $120,000 or couples making less than $240,000 a year will qualify for a total waiver of all current balances above the initial balance if they are enrolled in any IDR plan. Automatic relief will be applied, and so no application is needed.”
Second is the elimination of undergraduate student debt for those who have been paying it for over 20 years or gradate debt for 25 years.
“If student loan repayments started on or before July 1, 2005, all debt will be eliminated for borrowers with undergraduate loans only. (For borrowers with any graduate debt, this date is pushed back to July 1, 2000). No enrollment in IDR plans will be needed to receive the relief, but currently it’s unclear if any other application will be required from the borrowers,” the news release said.
The total cost of all the five measures is a touch over $84 billion, added to the estimated $475 billion Biden’s unilateral student loan relief has already put taxpayers on the hook for.
However, in this case, Biden is providing relief to households who are less than $100,000 away from that magical $400,000 number that he says makes you one of the wealthy that he plans to tax to pay for his spending sprees — you know, those who need to start paying their “fair share.”
To say this is ridiculous is an understatement — until, of course, you realize that 2024 is an election year and Biden’s poll numbers haven’t looked hot since the beginning of the race, despite the fact that Democrat DAs and the Department of Justice have been on a quest to tie up the presumptive Republican nominee in court until November.
As House Budget Committee chairman Rep. Jodey Arrington, a Texas Republican, noted, this wasn’t just unconstitutional, it was a “quest to buy votes.”
“In reality, his plan will shift the responsibility of paying for loans owed by high-income earners who freely incurred them onto the backs of all taxpayers, many of whom do not even have a college degree,” Arrington said via a statement.
“[Biden’s] administration is dead set on circumventing the Supreme Court, defying Congress, and saddling our country with more debt.”
And unlike he says, it’s not taking from the rich to give to the poor. It’s taking from those who didn’t take college loans or paid them off and giving relief to wealthy people who did and haven’t.
Is this what student debt relief should look like? It is when one is down badly in the polls and is grasping at straws to get suburban voters in swing states. That’s hardly good policy — but as cynical strategizing, it’s not half bad.
This article appeared originally on The Western Journal.
The post Biden’s Student Debt Cancellation Has Taxpayers Paying Over $550 Billion, Benefits Wealthier Families appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.
The quarterback considered by many to be the best player in the NFL is steering clear of partisan messaging in the wake of a shooting at a parade celebrating his team’s 2024 Super Bowl victory.
Patrick Mahomes of the Kansas City Chiefs has rebuffed calls to advocate for gun control, according to a Time magazine profile of the two-time NFL MVP published Tuesday.
“I continue to educate myself,” Mahomes told Time. “I don’t want to make a quick response to something that takes a lot of education to really learn and make a swaying comment based off that.”
“But I know we have to find a solution of some way to make this stuff stop,” he added.
The shooting at the Chiefs’ Super Bowl parade in February left one dead and 22 wounded.
On the day of the tragedy, Mahomes posted on X that he was “praying for Kansas City.”
Time reported that Mahomes and his wife Brittany also visited victims in the hospital and donated $50,000 to a fund to “aid the victims and first responders and support violence-prevention organizations.”
Mahomes took a similarly hands-off stance in the Time interview when it came to the 2024 presidential election.
“I don’t want to pressure anyone to vote for a certain president,” he said, instead urging Americans to make their own informed decision.
“I want people to use their voice, whoever they believe in. I want them to do the research.”
The three-time Super Bowl champion also addressed the longevity of his NFL career, expressing some doubt that he would play as long as all-time legend Tom Brady did.
Mahomes pointed to his desire to spend time with his family as a potential obstacle to a 20-year career.
“If I played until Tom [Brady]’s age, my daughter would be 19, 20 years old,” he said.
Patrick Mahomes talks retirement:
“I’ve looked, if I played until Tom Brady’s age, my daughter would be 19, 20 years old, I would love to play that long. At the same time, I want to be there for my daughter. if I can do that, I’ll continue to play. But if I feel like it’s taking… pic.twitter.com/Ni1kjVRIyG
— BBQ Chiefs (@BBQChiefs) April 16, 2024
“I would love to play that long. … At the same time, I want to be there for my daughter. If I can do that, I’ll continue to play. But if I feel like it’s taking away from my family time, that’s when I’ll know it’s time to go.”
This article appeared originally on The Western Journal.
The post Patrick Mahomes Refuses to Call for Gun Control After Kansas City Shooting – ‘I Continue to Educate Myself’ appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.
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