Posts on Monday, May 29, 2023
Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva met his Venezuelan counterpart Nicolas Maduro on Monday and called out US sanctions against Venezuela as "extremely exaggerated."
Maduro, who is seen as a controversial leader internationally, met Lula on his visit to Brazil. Maduro was greeted by Lula with a hug and back-slap in the presidential palace of Brasilia. The Venezuelan leader was invited by Lula to attend a South American leaders' summit that will be held on Tuesday to discuss the revival of the Union of South American Nations (UNASUR).
Lula criticized the US for denying legitimacy to Maduro's socialist government, which is viewed by Washington as authoritarian for alleged human rights violations.
U.S. Senator Tim Scott, R-SC, is running for president of the United States. "Love, unconditional love, binds hearts together," he declared Monday, May 22. While Democrats not surprisingly oppose Scott on most issues, they refuse to acknowledge that his announcement’s warm reception among Republicans shows that Black Americans have overcome or, at least, are overcoming.
Citing "systemic racism," Joy Behar of "The View" said that Scott "doesn’t get it. Neither does Clarence [Thomas], and that’s why they’re Republicans."
PARACHUTE, Colo. — A Colorado student barred from wearing a sash representing the flags of Mexico and the United States to her high school graduation did so anyway, partially covering it with another sash representing her participation in a service organization. “Always stand up for what you believe in,” Grand Valley High School graduate Naomi Peña Villasano told the Post Independent of Glenwood Springs, Colorado, after receiving her diploma on Saturday in the west-central Colorado town of Parachute. Peña Villasano's case is the latest dispute in the U.S. about what kind of cultural graduation attire is allowed at commencement ceremonies.
The idea that polluters should pay reparations for climate change is gaining steam among advocates. Some environmentalists and academics argue the companies or states that are most significantly contributing to the climate crisis should be made to compensate the people bearing the brunt of its impacts. Advocates have been calling for such reparations for years, especially since evidence emerged that fossil fuel companies were aware of the impact of carbon emissions. But the idea is now more practically achievable due to scientific advances, said Adrien Salazar, policy director at the nonprofit Grassroots Global Justice. He pointed to the increased sophistication
Former President Donald Trump posted a Memorial Day message on Monday honoring those who gave the ultimate sacrifice.
The message was posted to his social media platform, Truth Social.
The leading contender for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination posted, in all caps:
“HAPPY MEMORIAL DAY TO ALL, BUT ESPECIALLY TO THOSE WHO GAVE THE ULTIMATE SACRIFICE FOR THE COUNTRY THEY LOVE, AND TO THOSE IN LINE OF A VERY DIFFERENT, BUT EQUALLY DANGEROUS FIRE, STOPPING THE THREATS OF THE TERRORISTS, MISFITS AND LUNATIC THUGS WHO ARE WORKING FEVERISHLY FROM WITHIN TO OVERTURN AND DESTROY OUR ONCE GREAT COUNTRY,
The highly-anticipated debt ceiling package House Republicans and President Biden announced on Sunday includes a provision fast-tracking a massive 303-mile West Virginia-to-Virginia natural gas pipeline project for approval.
The unexpected carveout green-lighting the billion-dollar Mountain Valley Pipeline — which is 94% complete, but has been mired in a lengthy permitting process for years — was immediately cheered by West Virginia lawmakers who have touted the project's expected economic benefits for years. The pipeline is projected to create 2,500 construction jobs, $40 million in new tax revenue for West Virginia, $10 million in new tax revenue for Virginia and up to $250 million in royalties for West Virginia landowners.
Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-WA) sure has remained bold on the debt ceiling. Last week, the chair of the House Progressive Caucus warned of "a huge backlash" not just among the "entire House, you know, Democratic Caucus," especially progressives, but "in the streets." During Sunday's edition of "State of the Union" on CNN, Jayapal warned Democrats do "have to worry" about getting support from progressives when it comes to the deal struck between President Joe Biden and House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA).
The FBI has one day to turn over an internal document that Republicans claim shows President Joe Biden was involved in a $5 million 'criminal' scheme with a foreign national or else contempt of Congress proceedings will begin.
The internal unclassified FD-1023 form apparently details an 'arrangement' for an exchange of money for policy decisions, the Republicans have said and issued a subpoena for last month.
FBI Director Chris Wray was given a hard deadline of May 30 to hand over the unclassified FD-1023 document, or the House Oversight Committee led by Rep. James Comer said it will 'initiate contempt of Congress proceedings.'
US says China declined request for defence
chief Li Shangfu to meet Pentagon head
Lloyd Austin replies
chief Li Shangfu to meet Pentagon head
Lloyd Austin replies
China declined a US request for Secretary of Defence Lloyd Austin to meet his counterpart Li Shangfu in Singapore this week, part of what the Pentagon called a “concerning unwillingness” to engage in military discussions.
The US defence department “believes strongly in the importance of maintaining open lines of military-to-military communication between Washington and Beijing to ensure that competition does not veer into conflict”, Pentagon Press Secretary Brigadier General Pat Ryder said in a statement on Monday.
The US had proposed in May that the two defence officials meet at the Shangri-La Dialogue that is set to take place in Singapore.
WASHINGTON — President Biden acknowledged Monday at a Memorial Day event that his late son Beau died from brain cancer and not while at war — 11 days after he wrongly told US troops in Japan that his son died “in Iraq.”
Biden told the grieving families of war dead at Arlington National Cemetery that his son didn’t die on the “battlefield” but that he believes his cancer may have been caused by exposure to toxic fumes from “burn pits” during a nearly yearlong deployment.
“Our losses are not the same. He didn’t perish in the battlefield. It was cancer that stole him from us a year after being deployed
SAVANNAH, Ga.— Soldiers of the 9th Infantry Regiment made a desperate retreat as North Korean troops closed in around them. A wounded, 18-year-old Army Pfc. Luther Herschel Story feared his injuries would slow down his company, so he stayed behind to cover their withdrawal.
Story’s actions in the Korean War on Sept. 1, 1950, would ensure he was remembered. He was awarded the Medal of Honor, the nation’s highest military honor, which is now displayed alongside his portrait at the National Infantry Museum, an hour’s drive from his hometown of Americus, Georgia.
But Story was never seen alive again, and his resting place long remained a mystery.
“In my family, we always believed
Two parents are sounding the alarm after their teenage daughter suffered a horrible death while attempting a deadly social media trend.
Paul Haynes told the Herald Sun he and his wife want to warn other children not to make the same mistake.
We want to help other children not fall into the silly trap of doing this silly thing. It’s unquestionable that this will be our crusade. “No matter how much you lead a horse to water, anyone can drag them away.
It’s not something she would have done on her own. The ripple effect is that this is absolutely devastating.
Freedom Corner started on August 1, 2022, when Micki Witthoeft, the mother of Ashli Babbitt, started holding the nightly vigil from 7 until 9 pm each night.
Ashli Babbitt was murdered by Lt. Michael Byrd of the United States Capitol Police, on January 6, 2021, in cold blood when he shot her without warning inside the US Capitol.
This Memorial Day is the first Ashli Babbitt Memorial Day Freedom March.
Supporters of the January 6th detainees at the D.C. Gulag will be marching in support of the political prisoners there, many of whom have had extensive military service. The march will start around 5 PM at Freedom Monument at the US Capitol
A Target Corporation senior executive in the marketing department maintains a position with a controversial K-12 advocacy organization called GLSEN – Target's Pride Month partner – which is focused on integrating gender ideology at all levels of K-12 schools, from curriculum to district policy.
Carlos Saavedra is a vice president of brand marketing at Target and a treasurer at GLSEN. GLSEN focuses on getting districts to adopt policies that will keep parents in the dark on their child's in-school gender transition, providing sexually explicit books to schools for free, and integrating gender ideology at all levels of curriculum in public schools.
Arrest of Chicago ‘Peacekeeper’ police
substitute demonstrates the folly of ‘defund
the police’ replies
substitute demonstrates the folly of ‘defund
the police’ replies
A man wearing the vest of the new “Peacekeeper” corps deployed over the Memorial Day weekend to stem the mayhem on a holiday weekend that has become an opportunity for murder tallies to soar, was arrested for a violent attack. [snip]
A man in a neon “peacekeepers” vest beat up and robbed a man in Little Village on Friday night, police said, as dozens of violence prevention workers fanned out across Chicago over the Memorial Day weekend.
Oscar Montes, 31, was in a group of seven or eight people that pulled a man from a car and punched and kicked him
The Nanny State Stains a Deck
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When candidates run for public office — local, state, or federal — they campaign on some careful blend of their résumés, their personalities, and their political issues.
Thus it has always been, and thus it will always be, in a republic. "Vote for me because I have the experience to do it well," or "Vote for me because I'm so much like you, I'll represent your interests," or "Vote for me because we agree on these twenty or thirty specific issues."
[snip] it's become blatant only for the past decade or so, and that's the growth of a regulatory state
2,600 people at $15/hr is $39,000 per hour. Anticipating 1,000 hrs per campaign worker, that’s $39 million. At $25/hr that’s $65 million. At $40/hr that’s $104 million.
This is the scale of spending that Ken Cuccinelli and Jeff Roe have for the Never Back Down SuperPAC to support Governor Ron DeSantis in Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina and Nevada on behalf of the Sea Island billionaires who want to manipulate the 2024 election. That’s just payroll for new hires.Overall, the New York Times is reporting a campaign support spending plan of more than $200 million. (snip)The context of the New York Times report sounds accurate.
California Democrats, ostensibly “pro-choice,” want to restrict the choices provided by anti-abortion pregnancy crisis centers but have not succeeded in regulating them out of existence, despite many efforts to do so. (snip) Some of California’s past attempts to regulate pregnancy crisis centers have been ruled unconstitutional. In the case of National Institute of Family and Life Advocates (NIFLA) v. Becerra in 2018, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down a California law requiring the pregnancy centers to post information about where to obtain abortions. The Court, in a 5-4 decision, found the law violated the First Amendment by compelling speech.
The criticisms that some conservative critics of President Trump have is that he had too much "baggage."
The "baggage" is Trump's confrontational style, his "mean" social media posts, and the myriad "scandals" during his administration. They complain that Trump's "baggage" makes him impossible to defend. They complain that Trump often invites trouble.
In Governor Ron DeSantis of Florida, they think they have their ideal candidate: someone who purportedly stands for the MAGA agenda but is devoid of "baggage."
So does the "baggage" make Trump a target?
State Farm will no longer take new homeowner insurance applications in California, a move the state government is blaming on climate change.
The insurance company cited the high cost of construction in the state and the growing threat of catastrophes including wildfires in its Friday announcement. The California Department of Insurance (CDI) told Axios climate change was driving the issue, making it beyond the state’s control.
Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) was confused by the sight of Vice President Kamala Harris presiding over the upper chamber last year to cast a tie-breaking vote, according to a report touching on the difficulties the ailing lawmaker faces as she seeks to continue discharging her duties.
The New York Times piece comes as the California Democrat struggles on her return to D.C. after bouts of shingles and encephalitis and she seeks to reassert herself in her job.According to Times White House reporter Annie Karnie, Feinstein expressed confusion to her colleagues when she saw Harris appear in the Senate in one of a host of tiebreaking votes
A lawyer representing a man suing Avianca airlines for negligence admitted to briefly using ChatGPT to produce evidence that turned out to be fake, according to CNN.
Robert Mata sued Avianca for injuries allegedly sustained from an airline serving cart in 2019, according to the CNN report. Steven Schwartz, an experienced lawyer with New York law firm Levidow, Levidow and Oberman, represented Mata.
At least six cases that Schwartz submitted as research for a brief, however, “appear[ed] to be bogus judicial decisions with bogus quotes and bogus internal citations,” Judge Kevin Castel of the Southern District of New York said in a May 4 order, per CNN.
Retail stalwart Old Navy is set to shutter its flagship store in downtown San Francisco, becoming the latest chain to exit the crime-ridden city.
The Market Street location has been open for three decades but will close for good on July 1 when its lease expires.
Dozens of retailers have vacated downtown San Francisco in recent months, citing high theft rates in the area.A spokesman for parent company Gap Inc., which is headquartered just three miles away from the closing store, told the New York Post: 'Old Navy is always evaluating its real estate portfolio to ensure a healthy fleet of stores that can provide the best possible experience
A professor at Polk State College has allegedly failed a humanities student after she refused to concede that Jesus is a “myth” or that Christianity oppresses women during a series of mandatory assignments at the Florida college.
According to a press release from the Liberty Counsel, a non-profit public interest law firm, Humanities Professor Lance "Lj" Russum gave a student a “zero” on four separate papers because the 16-year-old did not “conform to his personal worldviews of Marxism, Atheism, Feminism, and homosexuality.” The law firm has called for a full, private investigation of the professor and the course curriculum.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis joined a group of congressional conservatives who are ripping a new deal to raise the debt limit and curb spending for two years – saying it keeps the nation on a path toward 'bankruptcy.'
DeSantis, who last week formally announced his campaign for the White House, weighed in two days after President Joe Biden and House Speaker Kevin McCarthy announced the deal, which would suspend the federal debt limit through January 2025.
Asked for his assessment, DeSantis told Fox News: 'Well, prior to this deal ... our country was careening towards bankruptcy. And after this deal our country will still be careening towards bankruptcy.'
CHICAGO, Ill. — Nine people have been killed and 34 wounded — including 3 teenagers and 2 toddlers — over the Memorial Day Weekend so far, according to police. Chicago Police reported the two 2-year-old children were shot in separate incidents on Saturday, according to WGN. The violence began Friday night at North Avenue Beach. It continued throughout the weekend, despite Mayor Brandon Johnson’s new anti-crime initiatives, which included dispersing a team of “Peacekeepers” throughout the city. The Peacekeeper program is funded by the Reimagine Public Safety Act, a $250 million anti-violence initiative created as a reaction to the murder
A NYC law graduate has used her commencement speech to claim that laws are 'white supremacy' as she attacked American institutions for being 'fascist.'
Fatima Mousa Mohammed was chosen by City University of New York's law school to speak at the graduation ceremony on May 12 - but the controversial clip has inflamed people on social media after it was posted online.
In her speech, Mohammed blasted the NYPD and the US military as 'fascists' and called on her peers to continue to 'revolution' against capitalism and racism across the country. The future lawyer claimed that black and brown prisoners are murdered daily in US jails
School official laments electric buses
cost ‘5X more’ and are riddled with
‘performance issues’ replies
cost ‘5X more’ and are riddled with
‘performance issues’ replies
One Michigan school official admitted his district’s move to using electric buses was less than the government has touted it to be. Emile Lauzzana, the environmental sustainability director of Michigan’s fourth-largest school district, recently told the Ann Arbor Public Schools Board of Education that the district’s electric bus fleet has had “a lot of downtime and performance issues.” It’s been a tough 2 1/2 years with this program,” Lauzzana said. “We’ve been learning a lot about this technology,” Lauzzana also said. “Electric buses are approximately five times more expensive than regular buses, and the electrical infrastructure, which was originally estimated
The agreement reached Saturday night between Speaker Kevin McCarthy and President Joe Biden is an historic first step toward shifting government back toward common sense and conservatism. It is a step toward creating a smaller government, lower taxes, less regulation, economic growth, prosperity, and more take home pay. All of this will also strengthen Social Security and Medicare.
I emphasize it’s a first step because that is what I lived through in 1995 in our first year as a Republican House majority (the first in 40 years). Step by step, we got budget changes, moved from welfare to work, cut taxes, and reduced bureaucratic regulatory overkill.
Dying Social Justice™ outlet Vice, apparently pathologically incapable of reform, is hastening its self-destruction by introducing a cringe segment called “Queer Sports.” The panel for this episode included a frumpy, non-binary Huffington Post columnist called Lyndsey D’Arcangelo (they/them). By visual clues alone, not to mention her own admission, this person doesn’t play sports — but whatever because none of this is about sports anyway; it’s just a vehicle to inject more LGBTQ+++™ propaganda into popular culture by hijacking sports.
The non-binary non-athlete’s main gripe is that “pride” events hosted by nearly every major professional sports franchise are too “performative,” which is ironic given that performative
Happy Monday, dear Kruiser Morning Briefing friends. (Snip) This past year there has been a whole lot of finding out that those of us over here in Crazy Rightwing Nutjob Land were correct about pretty much everything that the lefties told us we were wrong about during COVID. We knew that all along, of course, as did the false narrative pimps who kept telling us to shut up BECAUSE FOLLOW THE SCIENCE, RETHUGLICANS.
The petty tyrants and their lies have been so thoroughly exposed that they are now in full consequence avoidance mode. The first thing that leftists like to do when ducking responsibility is to rewrite history
A remarkable study highlights a barely known exception to the generally accepted truism that black Americans’ poverty and unemployment rates are considerably higher than those of whites.
(Snip)
The black experience in Idaho clearly differs from the national narrative. Compare the astounding 30% earnings differential for blacks compared with elsewhere in the United States, where blacks overall earn only three-quarters of whites’ income.
Long-term trends, their study says, include “fewer barriers to land ownership, smaller populations, well-knit communities, men’s involvement in the family, and a relatively less hostile [social and regulatory] environment than prevailed in other states.”
Claudia Rosett's wonderful life
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The death Saturday of Claudia Rosett takes not only a treasured friend and colleague but also one of her generation’s greatest journalists. She came up through the editorial pages of the Wall Street Journal, served a tour as its Moscow bureau chief and another as editorial page editor of its edition in Asia, where she covered, among other things, the Communist Chinese massacre at Tiananmen Square.
One of the things that made Claudia Rosett such a strong journalist — aside from her brilliance and passion for principles — was her mastery of political economy. She’d imbibed this at the knee of her father, Richard,
Rise of the War on White People
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We are accustomed to defining racism as discrimination aimed exclusively at black people and other minorities. The definition must be expanded to include discrimination against whites, which is just as bad as discrimination against blacks or anyone else. What the political left calls “anti-racism” is really code language for racism against white people. An anti-white racial inquisition is poisoning America by contributing to an already divided nation. According to Gallup, the percentage of Americans who agree that black-white relations are good is at a 20-year low. A noted black college professor said, “We have to exterminate white people off the face of the planet.”
Joe Biden Sunday evening delivered remarks on his final agreement with Speaker McCarthy on the debt ceiling.
House Speaker Kevin McCarthy and Joe Biden on Sunday reached a final agreement on the debt limit to avert a government default.
Congress must now approve of the final bill before the June 5 deadline. Conservative House lawmakers were not happy about McCarthy’s $4 trillion debt ceiling increase with some spending caps.
As Banks Fail and Americans Scramble to Protect Retirement Accounts With Physical Gold and Silver, A Faith-Based Company Shows Them How
The deal raises the debt limit for 2 years so it won’t have to be addressed again until after the next presidential election!
New York City residents and tourists are in for a treat this Memorial Day as the phenomenon known as Manhattanhenge is set to appear for the first time this year in the city.
Manhattanhenge, first coined by astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson in 1997, only occurs four times a year – twice in May and twice in July. The spectacle occurs when the sun lines up with Manhattan's grid streets, creating a perfectly aligned sunset.
"It’s insanely popular," American Museum of Natural History astrophysicist Jackie Faherty told USA TODAY in 2020. "People plan their vacations around coming to NYC to see it."
A new video exposes Maricopa County’s secret machine tampering, where they reprogrammed the voting machines on October 14th, 17th, and 18th so that 59% of them would fail when Republican voters came in to vote on Election Day in 2022.
As The Gateway Pundit recently reported, newly available records show that Maricopa County began “secret” Logic and Accuracy testing on October 14th, after the statutorily required October 11th test, and the legally required public notice was not given.
Under the guise of good social medicine, liberals and leftists have poisoned the culture with the colossal lie that “whiteness” is the culprit behind a “400-year pandemic of foundational racism” that’s keeping America sick. It’s being perpetrated by whites through “antiquated systems of oppression.”
Whiteness, the creation of white people of European descent, they say, is a lopsided “system of privileges and advantages” that favors whites at the expense of people of color “through government policies, media portrayal, decision-making power with our corporations, schools, judicial systems, etc.”
There’s a popular meme that only two defining forces have offered to die for you - Jesus Christ for your soul and the American soldier for your freedom. There is no man who can ever compare with Christ but there is a kernel of truth to this meme.
Shortly before his crucifixion, Jesus told his disciples, “This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. Greater love has no one more than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends.” This is what military volunteers are prepared to do.
A very dear friend and a former Heritage Foundation associate responded to my last column on American Thinker with the following:
Happy to tell you in a private email why the GOP needs to dump Trump (for whom I voted twice), but it requires too many bad words that would cause my dear late mother to go for the soap for use in a public forum. For starters, let's just say he's a thin-skinned, immature, undisciplined **shole who is ignorant by choice, erratic in his behavior, and disloyal. And those are some of his better points. Do I hate him? No. But I hate his type.
The father of a high school girl who lost a skiing competition to a boy claiming to be a transgender girl is speaking out.
Male-born student June Watterson won a ski competition and ranked number one in the High School State Champions women’s slalom race on March 6 at the California-Nevada Interscholastic Ski & Snowboard Federation (CNISSF) state finals. But one father was not at all happy about the big win.
Watterson, a sophomore at Davis Senior High School, won first place in the women’s heat with a combined result of 1:08.29 – beating Carlie Chandler, who came second, by 17 seconds, according to the Daily Mail.
As a Marine with four years to go until retirement in 1994, I disembarked with others from the USS Belleau Wood (LHA-3) onto a landing craft waiting to take our group about a half-mile north across the Pacific Ocean toward the Island Iwo Jima. We were there to commemorate the 50th Anniversary of the Battle of Leyte Gulf.
As we made our way through the Pacific toward the southern edge of the island, it was all but impossible to grasp the fact that we were taking the same route, in a similar landing craft, that American troops took during the Battle of Iwo Jima.
It is possible each of the 300,000 graves at Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia now have a flower on its headstone as Americans observe Memorial Day.When donors and the floral industry heard more flowers were needed for the special day, they quickly stepped up to help, Stars and Stripes reported Friday.In addition, the Memorial Day Flowers Foundation asked this week for volunteers to help place them because they had more flowers than people to accomplish the task, according to the Military Times.
The outlet said Friday that the organization previously announced donations of flowers were at 80,000, a far cry from its 300,000 goal. However, t
Every month, bodies with female sex organs prepare for pregnancy,” says a 22-page booklet, entitled “Puberty and Confidence Guide for Everyone” published by the manufacturer of feminine hygiene products Always.
Throughout the booklet, the manufacturer refuses to mention the actual target audience of information: girls and women. Instead, Always substitutes the phrase “bodies with female sex organs.” [Tweet]
This isn’t the first time that Always has genuflected to the woke mob. In 2019, the company removed the “Venus” symbol from its products, and you’re not going to believe the rationale they used.
Now that Ron DeSantis has entered the race for the GOP presidential nomination, former President Trump and many of his supporters have accused the Florida governor of disloyalty. Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, for example, has suggested that DeSantis’ political ambitions have caused him to lose sight of “values like loyalty.” The basis for this claim is that DeSantis somehow owes Trump a 21st century version of feudal fealty because the latter endorsed him during Florida’s 2018 gubernatorial race. This kind of nonsense plays into the hands of the Democrats.