Daily News Roundup

Estimated Reading Time: 24 minutes

NOTABLE QUOTES

Andrea Widburg contributor to American Thinker: Kamala has COVID and it is, allegedly, a light, asymptomatic case. However, she’s being treated with heavy-duty medicine.

Mary Margaret Olohan contributor to The Daily Wire reported President Biden’s speech to a group of teachers visiting the White House: “You have heard me say it many times about our children, but it is true, they’re all our children. And the reason you are the teachers of the year is because you recognize that,” he said. “They’re not somebody else’s children. They’re like yours when they’re in the classroom.”

American Principles project in a tweet stated unequivocally: Joe Biden says to teachers about their students “they are not somebody else’s children. They’re yours when you’re in the classroom.” No, Joe, they are not “somebody else’s children.” They are OUR children.

Daniel Greenfield contributor to Frontpage Magazine : While a growing share of U.S. adults are religiously unaffiliated, there is one belief that appears to unite a significant share of them: astrology. YouGov’s latest poll finds that a little more than one-quarter of Americans (27%) – including 37% of adults under 30 – say that they believe in astrology, or that the position of the stars and planets influences people’s lives.

Laura J. Wellington contributor to American Thinker: When was it that those who serve us became the ones who dictated to us what we can and can’t do with regards to our children and their health? It used to be that healthcare and even health insurance companies supported parents in the raising of their kids — “used to be,” that is. I don’t know what the current system we have in place is but it definitely doesn’t aspire to help parents parent rather help parents fail their kids.

Kurt Schlichter contributor to TownHall: You can’t betray us anymore and survive. W did. Mitt did. McCain did. The cons have one thing in common with Felonia Milhous von Pantsuit – they’ve been cheated on a zillion times, but unlike that lumpy harpy (who recently, and utterly predictably, came out foursquare in favor of censorship, as losers often do) modern conservatives are refusing to tolerate adultery, in our case of an ideological nature.

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McMurray: President Trump Shares Powerful Letter To Congress From 58-Yr-Old former Democrat: “Many of us, more than 73 million, do not believe this was a free and fair election”

Dear Senator/Representative, I am sending this letter to all Senators and Representatives and will wait to see which office staff or intern passes this along to the intended recipient. And I will await responses from the people who realize they work for US, the people! As a 58-year-old former Democrat, this is the first time in my life I feel compelled to write as I feel helpless about the state of our country. Never involved in politics before, President Trump has awakened many of us. As a retired teacher from a family of former Democrats, Union workers, immigrants, and military service, I always loved and took great pride in this country. My grandparents came here legally, and I still have my grandmother’s documents from Ellis Island. She was brought here at 9 years of age by her 16-year-old brother. You see, my family had to come a few at a time. The fathers came first, learned the language, obtained employment, and saved money to bring the rest of the family over a few at a time. No food stamps, no housing assistance, no free healthcare. They worked their tails off and then worked to give back to this great country. Both my father and father-in-law served in the Army.

Bois: Donald Trump Endorses Sheriff Joe Lombardo for Nevada Governor

Trump hailed Lombardo for his past military service and his devotion to populist issues in his enthusiastic backing. “Sheriff Joe Lombardo is running for Governor of the Great State of Nevada. A U.S. Army and Nevada National Guard veteran, Joe joined the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department in 1988 and has bravely served and protected the people of Nevada for the past 34 years,” Trump wrote.

DURHAM INVESTIGATION

Reyes: Judge refuses to allow Hillary Clinton’s tweets claiming Trump colluded with Russia to be admitted as evidence in trial of her 2016 campaign lawyer for ‘lying to feds’

A U.S. District Court judge said Hillary Clinton‘s tweets claiming former President Donald Trump colluded with Russia will not be admitted as evidence in the trial against her 2016 campaign lawyer. Judge Christopher Cooper on Wednesday denied Special Counsel John Durham’s request to allow the tweets in the Michael Sussmann upcoming trial for lying to the FBI. He ruled that Clinton’s tweets would be excluded as hearsay and that it would be ‘duplicative of other evidence,’ the Washington Examiner reported. The two tweets come from October 31, 2016, when Clinton highlighted a Slate article uncovering the Trump Organization’s alleged communications with the Kremlin-tied Alfa Bank, allegations that have since been heavily scrutinized by the FBI yielding to no further action by authorities.

2022 ELECTION

Bialosky: The Coming Campaign Deception

I gravely dislike our constant campaign mode democracy. As soon as we finish a presidential election talk begins about the opposition party’s candidate four years hence. As soon as a member of Congress gets installed, they start raising money for the next election cycle. Incumbent senators squirrel away millions significantly in advance of their six-year term ending. Often this leads to deceptions. This 2022 campaign is unique in that it will be filled with deceptions that have been made public and intentional. Every campaign has its deceptions. The last presidential election was chock full of them. Opponents of Donald Trump believe nothing he says. On the other hand, the prime deception in 2020 centered around the Hunter Biden laptop. Fifty-one “intelligence community experts” were touted by Joe Biden to state that the evidence was “Russian disinformation.” Sixteen months later the New York Times fessed up that its fellow New York paper – The Post –was accurate in reporting the Hunter Biden story that likely would have turned the election. This round of elections is distinct.

FEDERAL CENSORSHIP ENFORCEMENT ON THE HORIZON

Deep State Response, Dept of Homeland Security Will Establish Disinformation Board with Obvious Agenda

I think we are now seeing the outlines of how the Fourth Branch of Government are planning to keep control over information, specifically public discussion on Big Tech platforms, even as Elon Musk moves to open the valves of information from the social media platform Twitter. […] Today, however, we are seeing the architecture of how they plan to organize the tools. (POLITICO) – “DHS is standing up a new Disinformation Governance Board to coordinate countering misinformation related to homeland security, focused specifically on irregular migration and Russia. Nina Jankowicz will head the board as executive director. She previously was a disinformation fellow at the Wilson Center, advised the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry as part of the Fulbright Public Policy Fellowship and oversaw Russia and Belarus programs at the National Democratic Institute.” (link) […] The bigger picture issue is that DHS will now work around any independence of social media, vis-a-vis Twitter as a free speech platform, by defining the parameters of allowed conversation. A bureaucratic board within DHS will now serve as the group who defines what can and cannot be discussed. […] It doesn’t take a deep thinker to see exactly where this is going.

Johnson: SPEAKING OF “DISINFORMATION”

The Axelrod/Atlantic conference on “Disinformation and the erosion of democracy” held at the University of Chicago earlier this month included a rogue’s gallery of purveyors of disinformation. We covered the conference in some detail as renegade students at the Chicago Thinker “staged a media regime takedown,” as the editors put it. The Axelrod/Atlantic conference on “disinformation” was followed by Barack Obama’s April 21 contribution at Stanford University. Obama gave his speech the title “Disinformation is a threat to our democracy.” Is there an echo in here? Obama captured his theme in the subhead of the linked text: “Tech platforms need to recognize that their decisions have an impact on every aspect of society.” On the assumption that you can concentrate on Obama’s text, the reading time should run 28 minutes. C-SPAN clocks the video at over 1:13:49. On a feels-like basis, it’s about two days. However, C-SPAN mercifully provides this précis: . . . […] If Biden’s Disinformation Governance Board prompts you to recall Orwell’s Ministry of Truth, you won’t be alone. The Axelrod/Atlantic conference and Obama speeches set the stage. What we have here seems to be a prime example of what the Nazis called Gleichschaltung (“Coordination”).

Fox News: Joe Concha on DHS starting a ‘disinformation board’

Fox News contributor Joe Concha slams the Biden administration for starting a disinformation board and Twitter employees overwhelmingly donating to Democrats.

Start the video at the 1: 43 minute mark: https://video.foxnews.com/v/6305312573112?playlist_id=938973798001#sp=show-clip

A WINDOW INTO THE US STATE DEPARTMENT

Nollet: How I Almost Became a State Department Foreign Service Officer

But fortunately, it didn’t quite work out for me — and thank God for that, for had I become a State Department Foreign Service Officer (FSO), I almost literally could have gained the whole world, but in the process probably would have sacrificed my immortal soul. And as the gospels and then later Thomas More (in the marvelous A Man for All Seasons) told us — that’s a bad bargain. Here is the story of my near-successful application to join the FSO. I tell it here because it reveals a lot about how the State Department functions and how powerful it is. Becoming an FSO is the dream of many college-educated Americans. It’s one of the greatest jobs one can aspire to. In the first place, it enables one to see the whole world, and at taxpayer expense. Who doesn’t want a literally all-expenses-paid trip to anywhere in the world? Secondly, FS officers wield real power. And if one rises through the ranks, one might eventually become a master diplomat rivalling Talleyrand or Nesselrode. One can become an ambassador. Or better yet, maybe even another Anthony Blinken or John Kerry or Madeline Albright. A real mover and shaker. “Many are called but few are chosen.” In this case, many present themselves for service, but few make it through the various levels of testing and examination. The first level of testing was a written examination.

TWITTER 2.0

VDH: Tearing Down the Silicon Valley Wall

Are the recent Netflix implosion, the CNN+ disaster, the Disney debacle, the Virginia statewide and San Francisco school board elections, the polls showing massive defections of Latinos from the Left, and the grass-roots pushback against government-imposed mask wearing, and explicit transgender education in the k-3 grades—also symptoms of a reckoning on the horizon? The country is ready for a revolution. And Musk believes he can lead it with his Silicon-Valley sledgehammer. So, as the Left says, “Bring it on.”

Fox News: Charlie Kirk: ‘The empire is going to strike back’

urning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk discusses the impact Elon Musk’s Twitter purchase could have on free speech.

Watch the 1:10 minute interview: https://video.foxnews.com/v/6305312321112?playlist_id=938973798001#sp=show-clips

Silverio: Elon Musk Banned From Criticizing Twitter In Buyout Agreement

The agreement, finalized Monday, states that Musk “shall be permitted to issue Tweets about the Merger or the transactions contemplated hereby so long as such Tweets do not disparage the Company or its Representatives,” according to the filing. The SEC filing refers to Musk as the “equity investor.”

Revolver.news: A Look Back at the Deranged Twitter Board Members Who Nearly Murdered the Company

Twitter’s board consisted of people whose careers peaked a decade ago and who hung around the company thanks to inertia or boredom. And fittingly, for 2022, it had its own fair share of few diversity hires. Here’s a look back at the incompetents, ne’er-do-wells, and over-credentialed dweebs who nearly ran Twitter into the ground. Parag Agrawal Twitter’s CEO of the past five months, Parag Agrawal, however, most definitely deserves the boot. Agrawal’s rise to the top job likely precipitated the current showdown with Musk, as he ushered in a new era of Twitter even more censorious than ever before. […] Mimi Alemayehou is Twitter’s mandatory diversity hire, brought to you by George Floyd. She was added in 2021 after certain news events you may have heard about. Alemayehou’s ownership stake in Twitter is virtually (or perhaps literally) non-existent. Quite plausibly, you own more of Twitter than she does. Unlike many board members, though, . . . […] Martha Lane Fox, Baroness Lane-Fox of Soho Yes, Twitter actually has a member of the British House of Lords on its board. Martha Lane Fox co-founded . . . […] Robert Zoellick Believe it or not, Twitter has a former Republican politician on its board! No worries, he’s exactly as useful as you’d expect such a Republican to be. Robert Zoellick was U.S. Trade Representative and deputy secretary of state for George W. Bush, . . . […] Jack Dorsey The founder himself, and the only other board member with a large stake of Twitter. Dorsey is probably the board’s best member, so naturally he was leaving at the end of May anyway. While Dorsey did vote in favor of the anti-Musk “poison pill” (or at least abstained from the vote), one person close to him told the Wall Street Journal he believes Dorsey was rooting for Musk.

JUDICIARY

Walsh: New York high court throws out redistricting map in blow to Democrats

The New York State Court of Appeals said the three maps violated the state’s Constitution by creating political bias. The maps were “procedurally unconstitutional, and the congressional map is also substantively unconstitutional as drawn with impermissible partisan purpose,” the court said.

Petitioners argued the Democratic-controlled legislature’s decision to draw its own maps, when the New York State Independent Redistricting Commission failed to reach agreement, was unconstitutional.

THE DEMOCRAT LED WAR ON CHILDREN & WOMEN

Flood: Teacher: Students should learn eggs come from ovaries, not women, to support transgender, non-binary kids

The Department of Education is under fire after a viral video showed a biology teacher claiming children should be taught that ovaries, as opposed to women, produce eggs in order to support transgender and non-binary students. The popular Twitter account Libs of TikTok posted a video of what it said is a Department of Education a training session for teachers to learn how to be inclusive of transgender and non-binary K-12 students. […] Radio host Mike Mason wrote, “This video should be entitled: “reasons to homeschool your child, volume one.'” […] Many others offered less-friendly feedback, with multiple critics pointing out that only women have ovaries and some declaring the Department of Education needs to be broken up.

Read more/Watch the 1:41 minute video: https://www.foxnews.com/media/libs-of-tiktok-teacher

Clark: New Jersey Middle Schoolers Shown Video Endorsing Hormone Therapy

Middle schoolers at Pearl R. Miller Middle School in Kinnelon, New Jersey, learned about transgender rights activist Aydian Dowling during social studies class, according to a presentation unearthed by Parents Defending Education. The lesson included two videos, one that specifically endorsed Dowling’s use of hormone therapy. A PowerPoint presentation shown to students defined words like “gender,” “sexual orientation,” and “non-binary.” The presentation was part of the school’s “Studies Of Adversity & Resilience” (SOAR) programming. Within the first two minutes of a video reportedly shown to students, Dowling — a biological female — is seen injecting testosterone.

GOP

Bradford: Too Many Republicans Want Endless War In Ukraine

Former President Donald Trump issued a plea for peace last week. “It doesn’t make sense that Russia and Ukraine aren’t sitting down and working out some kind of an agreement,” Trump said in a statement on the war in Ukraine. “If they don’t do it soon, there will be nothing left but death, destruction, and carnage,” he added. “This is a war that never should have happened, but it did. The solution can never be as good as it would have been before the shooting started, but there is a solution, and it should be figured out now—not later—when everyone will be DEAD!” It’s not unusual for prominent American figures to call for peace in an ongoing war. But few politicians dare to do so when it comes to the Ukraine war. Most politicians want the war to continue, even expand. Many demand a no-fly zone that could provoke World War III. Others want to send as much hardware as possible to Ukraine. And the consensus among the political elite is that the Ukrainian government should make no deal with the Russians. They need to fight until “victory” is achieved. Trump’s comments are out of sync with what most Republicans say about the conflict. […] With the exception of Trump, Thomas Massie (R-Ky.), Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.), and a few others, the GOP is in war hawk mode.

Ginsberg: ‘Not What Leaders Do’: Matt Gaetz Reacts To Meeting With Steve Scalise

Republican Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz spoke with Fox News host and Daily Caller co-founder Tucker Carlson about his Wednesday evening meeting with House Minority Whip Steve Scalise over leaked comments in which Scalise and Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy said Gaetz was potentially inciting violence.

Read more/Watch the 3:54 minute interview: https://dailycaller.com/2022/04/27/matt-gaetz-reacts-steve-scalise-meeting-tucker-carlson/

Schlichter: Conservatives Are Not Giving Spineless Leaders Any Second Chances

Okay, you have every right to expect that, by now, anyone purporting to be a conservative thought leader – ugh, what a lame term – will be conservative woke, sometimes known as “based,” by now. There’s no excuse for still living in a Mitt Romney/Candy Crowley gimp cellar of crippling principles and principled failure. If you presume to lead us, you need to understand that we are in a life-or-death struggle to preserve our lives and liberty against a Marxist offensive unlike anything we’ve ever experienced before, and that we need to fight back and win or go down in defeat. We’ve lost patience with the softcons, the surrendercons, and the sissycons who demonstrate that they do not. Just ask Kristi Noem, who waffled and lost her shot forever. This is all coming to a head again with the DeSantis-Disney war and the fight in conservatism over tactics and strategy. Let’s be clear before we proceed – we absolutely have to have a real debate about the new aggression that the vast majority of us believe is absolutely necessary to win this cultural war and preserve our liberty.

Scher: Kyrsten Sinema Boasts of Charming GOP Colleagues With ‘Cleavage,’ Book Claims

Arizona’s Democratic senator Kyrsten Sinema likes to brag that her “cleavage” has an “extraordinary persuasive effect” on some of her Republican colleagues, according to a new book from New York Times reporters Jonathan Martin and Alexander Burns. Sinema, who has emerged as an obstacle to the most radical parts of President Joe Biden’s legislative agenda, boasts to colleagues and aides of using her looks to get her way with Republicans, Martin and Burns write in This Will Not Pass, which the Free Beacon retrieved from a local dumpster. Sinema, they say, “joked with Democrats about how easy it was for her to charm Republican men” and “boasted knowingly to colleagues and aides that her cleavage had an extraordinary persuasive effect on the uptight men of the GOP.”

CLIMATE EMERGENCY: IT’S POLITICAL

Miller: They’re Paneling Paradise to Put Up Solar — a Lot

The pathway to a green future involves taking millions of acres of pristine wilderness and turning them into fields of windmills and hot expanses of glistening panels. The Biden administration’s goal of supplying 40% of the nation’s energy from the sun by 2035 means covering millions of acres of forest and desert habitat with vast solar panel installations fenced off like prisons. It would require 8,800 square miles of land, or 5.6 million acres, to generate that power (leaving out small installations on buildings and the like) — about the size of Rhode Island and Massachusetts combined. But the push to convert that land from pastoral to energy-productive is galvanizing a new environmental movement, one led by citizen groups and small non-profits rather than the monied green interests arrayed against them — ones ironically accustomed to casting the fossil fuel industry in the role of the ecological heavy. […] Critics see hypocrisy and a dangerous inconsistency in the Biden administration’s acceptance of solar’s potential negative impacts when it’s contrasted with its efforts to curb fossil fuels. The administration halted Trump-era moves to open up the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska to gas and oil exploration, even though it would be limited to a relatively small area with proven safeguards in place. In addition, while approximately 1,200 to 1,500 people visit the National Wildlife Refuge each year, according to the Fish and Wildlife Service, an average of 664,000 visitors a year visit the Mojave Desert where several large solar power plants have already been constructed and more are in the works.

FAUCI’S VIRUS: IT’S POLITICAL

Anderson: Johns Hopkins professor mocks Fauci for refusing to go to White House correspondents’ dinner despite being vaccinated FOUR times and points out that COVID tsar is actually rheumatology expert

‘Dr. Fauci has been vaccinated four times and he still says he’s not comfortable going to the white house correspondents’ dinner this Saturday night,’ Johns Hopkins professor Dr. Marty Makary told Fox News host Tucker Carlson Wednesday night. ‘That is the person that is behind all the covid policies in the United States.’ Makary questioned Fauci’s credibility, noting he is ‘not an infectious diseases doctor’ and has been ‘using the wrong data the entire pandemic’. ‘Dr. Fauci is allowed to have an opinion. I think he has experience and should weigh in but let’s be honest – he is not an infectious diseases doctor,’ the surgeon argued. ‘He never did an infectious diseases fellowship. He did a rheumatology fellowship.’ Rheumatology is the study of diseases of muscles, bones, joints, tendons and ligaments. While Fauci initially specialized in that area of medicine, he has been director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases since 1984.

CHINA: AMERICA’S MORTAL ENEMY

Bergman: China and Russia’s ‘Space War’: Where Is The US?

“Evidence of both nations’ intent to undercut the United States and allied leadership in the space domain can be seen in the growth of combined in-orbit assets of China and Russia, which grew approximately 70% in just two years.” — Kevin Ryder, senior analyst at the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) for space and counterspace, Air Force Magazine April 12, 2022. Space has already become the scene of an ongoing “shadow war” in which China and Russia conduct attacks against U.S. satellites with lasers, radiofrequency jammers, and cyber-attacks every day, according to General David Thompson, the U.S. Space Force’s first vice chief of space operations.

Sorman: China’s Impossible Dream of Order

Since November 2021, Lithuania has been China’s enemy Number One. How did a country with 2 million inhabitants manage to provoke Chinese leaders to the point of ending diplomatic and commercial relations? The Lithuanian government dared to allow Taiwan to open a representative office in Vilnius, the capital, using the name Taiwan, instead of Taipei, the term that China prefers. Taipei is a city whose existence the Chinese regime cannot deny; Taiwan is a dissident republic that isn’t supposed to exist. The Lithuanians, fiercely anti-Communist after enduring Soviet Union occupation, acted deliberately. Perhaps they underestimated Beijing’s aggressive reaction—but then the West sometimes has difficulty grasping what appears to be Chinese paranoia. In trying to understand China, Henry Kissinger observed—and he practiced this advice—one should put oneself in its place. Chinese leaders, haunted by a desire for international recognition, perceive the slightest breach in diplomatic protocol as a resurrection of imperialism. China was once the world’s greatest power, but it was late to recognize the West’s rise, as well as the importance of science and industry in fueling that rise. This blindness led to China’s effective colonization in the nineteenth century—by Europeans, Americans, and, in a supreme humiliation, the Japanese. Over the course of the nineteenth century, Chinese emperors had to sign treaties of surrender in bunches and to surrender territory, before the Empire collapsed totally in 1911.

Then followed a half-century of violent struggle between warlords, until the victory of the Communist army, led by Mao Zedong and supported by the Soviets, which put the Communist Party in power. The real reason Mao and his successors found acceptance among the various peoples of China was not due to the new leaders’ Marxism; it was because they ended the civil wars. They replaced the wars with the eradication of the middle class, totalitarian constraints on private life, the destruction of ancient customs, and the crushing of religions—but for the Chinese, anything was better than the horror of ceaseless civil strife.

BIDEN/HARRIS/OBAMA REGIME: TRANSFORMING FOREIGN POLICY

Pleasance: Russia warns Europe to take threats of ‘a response’ seriously and accuses the West of inciting Ukrainian attacks – a day after Putin hinted that he WILL use nukes

The West is encouraging Ukraine to strike Russia and should take Putin‘s threat to respond ‘seriously’, the country’s foreign ministry spokesman has said today. Maria Zakharova told a weekly briefing in Moscow that the West is ‘openly calling on Ukraine to attack Russia using weapons received from NATO countries’ while warning: ‘We do not recommend testing our patience’. She was speaking after UK defence minister Ben Wallace said Ukraine has the ‘right’ to strike military targets inside Russia, while armed forces minister James Heappey said it would be ‘legitimate’ to use donated Western weapons for such attacks. Her comments also came after Vladimir Putin said yesterday that any country deemed to be ‘interfering’ in Ukraine would meet with a ‘lightning-fast’ response using weapons ‘no one else can boast of’ – thought to be a reference to nukes.

BIDEN/HARRIS/OBAMA REGIME: TRANSFORMING AMERICA

Boyd: Democrats Have Been Making Open War On Free Speech Since The Obama Era

With approval ratings at dangerous lows, suppressing speech seems to be the only way that Democrats believe they can win elections. […] It’s clear that censorship and control are now a fundamental part of Democrats’ political platform, which is why they’ve been openly at war with the First Amendment since Barack Obama was in office.

Brown: First Quarter GDP Shocks Economists As Recession Looms

The U.S. economy shrunk by 1.4 percent in the first quarter of 2022, shocking economists who predicted around one percent growth in America’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP). […] The data from the U.S. Department of Commerce’s Bureau of Economic Analysis paints a bleak picture of the impacts Biden’s “Build Back Better” promises and policies have had on the United States over the last 15 months.

Sundance: The Man Who Abuses Power Daily, Decries The Abuse of Power

I know Joe Biden would like to believe we do not remember the past year plus of unilateral dictatorship he carried out while hiding behind the shield of “emergency authorization,” but the American people are fully aware of the brutal reality. Does he really think we have forgotten how he never once asked our representative government for authorization before triggering his unilateral fiats from CDC, FDA, TSA and OSHA?

Kunstler: From COVID, to Globalism, To Russiagate: The Left’s War On America’s Psyche

None of these shocks can be postponed anymore. The Left’s war on America’s psyche is over…. There is something about being detached from reality that makes it hard to go about your everyday business. In the quaint asylums of yore, it was understood that a few shocks to the system could bring lunatics out of a fugue state of derangement — a cold water plunge… an insulin hot-shot to induce convulsions… some electrodes placed artfully on select regions of the brain…. It looks like America is about to be treated to some shocks. Will they break the mass formation psychosis that styles itself unironically as “progressive politics?” The first shock will be the painful recognition that Ukraine is not prevailing against Russia’s Operation Z, despite the combined efforts of the US news media and the Intel Community to put over that narrative. True, it took Russia more than a few days to overcome Ukraine’s NATO-fortified defenses, but now most of that has been neutralized, and we’re into the final weeks heading towards resolution — which will be a Ukraine that is unable to make any more trouble in that corner of the world. That’s right, hard as it is to accept, Operation Z came down on Ukraine because it misbehaved badly, egged-on by delusional war-gamers in Washington, who could only pretend to support Ukraine once the real action started. No amount of chanting Putin-Putin-Putin availed to stop the grinding Russian advance. State’s Antony Blinken and DoD’s General Austin were in Kiev over the weekend on a face-saving mission. My guess: they tried to persuade Mr. Zelenskyy to throw in the towel. He may be too desperate and crazy to listen, but it’s truly game-over. The Russians will treat him with kid gloves, perhaps give him leave to settle in Miami and enjoy the American dream with the fortune he has squirreled away. There will be changes in the map. Ukraine will sink back into peaceful obscurity while the US and Europe have to struggle with the impoverishing blowback from wrecking the global trade settlement system. The next shock will be . . .

Sundance: Representative Clay Higgins Questions DHS Secretary Mayorkas About Southern Border Crisis

Today Louisiana Representative Clay Higgins (CD-03) asked Dept of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Majorkas to define border failure, if that is not what we have currently underway.

Duggan: ‘I Can’t Believe You’ve Been Nominated’: Sen Hawley Grills Biden Judicial Nominee Over Her Work For Southern Poverty Law Center

Republican Missouri Sen. Josh Hawley grilled Biden’s judicial nominee for the Eleventh Circuit for her involvement with the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) during her nomination hearing Wednesday. “I have to tell you, I find your answers absolutely extraordinary,” Hawley said to Nancy Abudu at the hearing. “Absolutely extraordinary. I can’t believe you’ve been nominated for this position. I can’t believe that the president of the United States would nominate someone from this organization with this record, and I can’t believe that you would sit here today and refuse to condemn this hateful, frankly, violent rhetoric.” Abudu, the strategic litigation director at SPLC, said she joined the organization in February 2019.

Cunningham: Don’t Look Now, but Did Biden’s Postmaster General Set up an Illegal Bank?

There’s an awful lot of news that is more attention-grabbing than this, but it should really be pointed out that it looks like President Biden could have another scandal on his hands. Especially if Republicans retake Congress as expected next year. It appears that the U.S. Postal Service, under Biden’s Postmaster General, Louis DeJoy, violated federal law by trying to get the Postal Service into the check-cashing business. For years, it’s been something the postal workers union and progressive activists have long desired. House Republicans on the Financial Services Committee recently called DeJoy out for the scheme in an April 20 letter. […] DeJoy, by the way, seems to be guilty of more than just setting up an illegal bank in the post offices.

Justice: FLASHBACK: Hardworking Iowa Dad Explains Why Making Taxpayers Pay Off Student Loans Is Unfair

resident Joe Biden signaled willingness this week to force taxpayers to pay off student loans once the pandemic-era pause on payments expires on Aug. 31 after more than two years and multiple extensions. In January 2020, one working-class father went viral for reminding voters why debt forgiveness was unfair. At a Monday meeting with the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, Biden reportedly told lawmakers an executive order to unilaterally sign off on a massive private debt bailout is potentially in the works, according to members in attendance who spoke to the Washington Post. White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki confirmed the president was considering forcing taxpayers to pay off student loan debt, telling reporters Monday Biden “would make a decision about any cancellation of student debt before the conclusion of the pause on student loans.” […] While running for the Democratic presidential nomination in Iowa, a snarky Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren, who made student debt bailouts a hallmark of her campaign, appeared shocked when asked by a voter whether her plans would offer compensation for the responsible families who worked overtime to pay off their own student loans.

THE BIG GUY’S SON

Campanile, Nelson, Miller & Golding: Here’s the 5 laptop reveals the GOP will want Joe and Hunter Biden to explain

The minority members of the House Committee on Oversight and Reform are laying the groundwork for a probe that would get underway if the GOP gains subpoena power by wresting control from Democrats in the November elections, as many political experts expect.

Topping the list are the first son’s controversial overseas business dealings — some of which involved the state-controlled Bank of China and other companies tied to the Chinese government — and their potential impact on national security, a spokesperson said. The Republicans also want to know if President Biden stood to make any “financial gain” or had a role in his son’s business affairs, as alleged by former Hunter Biden business associate Tony Bobulinski. […] Other fields of inquiry would include . . . […] In addition, the committee plans to explore the punishment imposed by Twitter and Facebook against The Post . . .[…] Committee member Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) said he’s also “very concerned” about the open letter signed by 51 former US intelligence officials who said the release of the emails had “all the classic earmarks of a Russian information operation.”

BOOK REVIEWS

Bawer: Robert Spencer’s The Critical Qur’an: Explained from Key Islamic Commentaries and Contemporary Historical Research

The Critical Qur’an is coming out May 3. It has zoomed to the top: #1 bestselling Qur’an in the U.S. The fate of the Western world has been bound up with Islam ever since that religion was founded – but its impact has been especially dire during the last few decades of mass immigration and large-scale terrorism. It’s obviously important, then, for people in the West to know as much as possible about Islamic values and beliefs. But where to find the facts, and how to know that they really are the facts? The Islamic Studies departments of universities, which are staffed almost entirely with devout believers and other apologists, won’t give you the real dope. Neither will most online resources or the overwhelming majority of the books on the subject issued by the large corporate publishers. One might assume that the solution lies in reading the Qur’an – but the English-language editions aimed primarily at non-Muslim readers are notoriously unreliable: the most problematic passages are routinely translated in such a way as to minimize the problems, and the editors, in their introductions, footnotes, and other apparatus, systematically put the most benign interpretations on everything. Which is why the brilliant, prolific Robert Spencer’s newest book, The Critical Qu’ran: Explained from Key Islamic Commentaries and Contemporary Historical Research, is so immensely valuable. As Spencer himself writes in his introduction: “The Critical Qur’an is designed to equip the English-speaking reader with a knowledge of the Qur’an and how it is interpreted in Islam, and to see how mainstream Islamic commentators understand the text, particularly its passages that are most problematic for non-Muslim readers: the exhortations to jihad warfare, the Sharia provisions that call for the denial of various rights to women, and the like. In numerous other editions of the Qur’an, these are obscured with apologetic intent. Here, they are explained in full.” […] Have I made it clear what a remarkable accomplishment The Critical Qu’ran is? Breathtaking in its ambition and achievement, it’s a monumental contribution to the effort to educate Western readers about the bellicose ideology that masquerades as a Religion of Peace. Line by footnoted line, it brings a desperately needed level of clarity and candor to a field of study that’s awash in deceit, deception, and duplicity. The only question now is how many readers will avail themselves of the wisdom that this book holds out to them – and that may well mean, for them, the difference between submission and survival.

Greenfield: Dr. Deborah Birx’s Silent Invasion

It’s hard to think of a book more poorly timed than this one. Even as the COVID health security state is being dismantled, one of its more irritating promoters wants you to listen to her one more time. But, at least this time you get to decide if you’re paying for the privilege. “In the book, I expose the true cost of mistakes that were made at all levels of the federal government,” Birx claims. Just not the ones involving Fauci. “This is not a book about Donald Trump alone,” she assures readers in her preface, but he’s there in the subtitle and always on the tip of her tongue during her latest batch of media hits.

Mostly though it’s a book about the awesomeness of being Debbie Birx. “My back is against the wall. Literally,” is how she begins the description of her first meeting with President Trump. Like most of her book and her career, it amounts to nothing. It’s hard to think of another crisis memoir by a government official in which copious amounts of space are dedicated to what they read and watched online. Or how little of a clue they had about it. […] Birx’s memoir is full of tributes to Fauci, to the CDC’s Robert R. Redfield, and to other familiar players. It’s a view of the disaster from the perspective of organization men and women and all it has to offer is a blinkered recital of pointless procedures and high-level office politics. Reading “Silent Invasion” is revealing, not for what it says, but for what it doesn’t.

EDUCATION

O’Reilly: A Map of the Dark

Theologians have studied evil for centuries but curiously enough, there seems to be no discipline outside of theology that studies evil academically, or as a separate discipline within the Humanities. Many philosophers and theologians have described evil as a deficit of “the good” and we will examine this idea. Using an assortment of intellectual tools from the past, coupled with modern wisdom, a map of the darkness caused by evil can be charted. […] Lobaczewski spent his early adulthood suffering under the Nazi occupation of Poland, closely followed by the brutality of Soviet occupation after the war. His experience of these horrors led Lobaczewski to develop the concept of Ponerology (from the Greek word poneros meaning evil). Ponerology is the study of evil, particularly from a political, social, and psychological perspective, rather than a religious judgment. His book, Political Ponerology: The Science of Evil, Psychopathy, and the Origins of Totalitarianism, describes the genesis of political and social evil. He describes the origin of what he calls macrosocial evil, which tends to come about when psychopaths and sociopaths, under various political systems, take charge of governance and create pathocracies. Joseph Heller described one extreme aspect of this ponerogenic process in his book, Catch-22: . . . […] “In ponerogenic processes, [notes Lobaczewski] moral deficiencies, intellectual failings, and pathological factors intersect in a time-space causative network to give rise to individual and national suffering.” We see this ponerogenic process at work today in Ukraine, Russia, and the United States. The half-truths and lies that Lobaczewski defines as paralogical, meaning they have the appearance but not the substance of logic and reason, have become endemic in almost all modern societies.