Christopher F. Rufo The “No Kings” Protest Is Pure Fantasy The underlying theory is that Donald Trump is an authoritarian leader on the cusp of becoming king.

https://www.city-journal.org/article/no-kings-protest-anti-trump

I spent Father’s Day weekend in Hood River, Oregon, and stumbled upon the local “No Kings” anti-Trump protest. The crowd was populated mostly by Baby Boomers, who appeared to be living out a political fantasy, in which they could “stop fascism” by reenacting the protest movements of their youth. One sign, typical of the genre, derided Trump as a “felon, rapist, con man”; another riffed on Mary Poppins, reading “super callous, fragile, racist, sexist, Nazi POTUS.”

The underlying theory of this protest, which reportedly drew upward of 5 million demonstrators nationwide, is that Donald Trump is an authoritarian leader on the cusp of becoming king. The only way to stop him is to flood the streets and persuade the American people that Trump is a rotten character with despotic ambitions.

The theory, of course, is nonsense. Trump is a duly elected president. He is working with Congress on the budget. His deportation policy, which lent momentum to the weekend’s demonstrations, is predicated on enforcing existing law. Though President Trump contested the results of his first reelection campaign, he ultimately relented and peacefully transferred power to President Joe Biden—hardly the behavior of a tyrant.

Yet the protests are not without utility for the Left. They are not intended to grapple with the reality of the Trump presidency but to submerge reality in fantasy. The first step in entrenching the Left’s fictions in the public mind is to cultivate a sense of hysteria. In the president’s first term, crowds wore vagina-shaped hats and marched in the bitter cold. The tone of the “No Kings” protest was no less absurd, with women in Handmaid’s Tale costumes warning that Trump would reduce them to sex slaves.

University Abuse of Taxpayers Must End Why private colleges should become part of the marketplace. by Larry Sand

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm-plus/university-abuse-of-taxpayers-must-end/

When perusing the news these days, you can’t escape the onslaught of stories about Harvard. The once venerable institution, with its current involvement with Jew-hatred—which the school fosters or disregards—has become emblematic of the degradation of our nation’s higher education system.

Alan Garber, Harvard’s president, has repeatedly acknowledged an epidemic of antisemitism at the university. “It is present on our campus. I have experienced antisemitism directly, even while serving as president, and I know how damaging it can be to a student who has come to learn and make friends at a college or university.”

Harvard, however, is hardly a one-off.

The nation’s colleges are hotbeds of Jew-hatred. StopAnti-Semitism, an advocacy group, issued a report card in late 2024 that details how 25 colleges across the country treat Jewish students.

In the introduction, the group states, “Since last year’s staggering 1,500% increase in antisemitic submissions, StopAntisemitism has been forced to triple the size of our team just to manage the deluge of reports. This year alone, we’ve seen a jaw-dropping 3,000% rise in antisemitic tips and submissions, as universities across the country fail to protect their Jewish students in the wake of violent antisemitic uprisings.”

The findings are quite disturbing:

55% of Jewish students have personally been victims of antisemitism at their schools.
43% did not feel safe enough to report the incidents.
Of those who did report, 87% believe their school failed to investigate properly.
43% hide their Jewish identity from their classmates out of fear.
72% feel unwelcome in certain spaces on campus simply for being Jewish.
67% say Jews are entirely excluded from their school’s DEI initiatives.
69% are blamed for the actions of Israel—actions they have no control over.
67% feel their university did not take sufficient action to protect Jewish students in the wake of the 10/7 massacre.
43% would not recommend their school to fellow Jewish students.

What If The Foundation Of The Climate Scare Was A Calculated Lie?

https://issuesinsights.com/2025/06/18/what-if-the-foundation-of-the-climate-scare-was-a-calculated-lie/

Carbon dioxide, we’ve been told over and again, is the enemy that must be subdued if we are to avoid catastrophic global warming. It is, however, a faulty premise. Physics, not politics, tells us that man’s CO2 emissions will not cause catastrophic climate change nor an increase in extreme weather.

“The common belief that CO2 is the main driver of climate change and the EPA Endangerment Finding assertion that ‘elevated concentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere may reasonably be anticipated’ to endanger the public health and welfare are scientifically false,” conclude the authors of a new paper.

Richard Lindzen and William Happer are not political hacks. They are serious researchers with extensive experience and robust academic backgrounds. Lindzen is emeritus professor of earth, atmospheric and planetary sciences at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Happer a Princeton University emeritus physics professor. What they have to say is important in a world that is sodden with climate-related myths and folk tales.

While Democrats and their leftist counterparts in other advanced nations have gone to war on carbon dioxide, Lindzen and Happer argue that cutting CO2 and other greenhouse gas emissions to net zero by 2050 and eliminating fossil fuel use “will have a trivial effect on temperature.”

How can they say this? After all, don’t 97% of scientists agree that humanity’s use of fossil fuels is causing our world to overheat? (They don’t, more on that later.)

Lindzen and Happer confidently make those statements because “unscientific evidence is the fundamental basis” behind the rush to net zero GHG emissions as well as the EPA’s claim that “elevated concentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere may reasonably be anticipated to endanger the public health and to endanger the public welfare of current and future generations.”

Israel Acted for All of Us Special Thanks to President Donald Trump, Prime Minister Netanyahu and the Great IDF by Amin Sharifi

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/21690/israel-acted-for-all-of-us

Often lost in the media frenzy is that Iran, unprovoked, initiated hostilities against Israel.

The seeming dispute was not about territory, policy or any disagreement that states normally have. It was about ideology. For nearly five decades, Iran and its proxies have waged a war against Israel and the United States, calling for their destruction. From their point of view, neither country, as “disbelievers,” has a right to exist. Full stop.

No other issue, domestic or foreign, was as consistent, prioritized, or systematically pursued as Tehran’s hostility toward Israel, the country blocking its way to destroying the United States. To that end Iran for decades had been preparing “forward bases” in South America, especially Venezuela.

The JCPOA failed to address the fundamental nuclear threat, focused on temporary technical limits while ignoring the regime’s long-term ambitions, and actually agreeing to a “sunset clause” that would have allowed Iran’s regime legitimately to have as many nuclear weapons as it liked — starting this October.

The Biden administration unfortunately repeated Obama’s errors, perhaps under the illusion that if it were nice to Iran, Iran would be nice back. Instead, Iran seized on its good luck to escalate its uranium enrichment to 60% by April 2021 and near weapons-grade (83.7%) in 2023.

President Trump wisely pulled the U.S. out of Obama’s deal – which, it turned out, had not only been fraudulent but totally illegitmate.

Does the world really want a terrorist state to have nuclear weapons? If you look at the damage Iran has been doing without nuclear weapons, you image the damage it could do with them…. Right now, Israel is on the front line doing what others –whose lives and countries Israel is saving — criticize it for doing. Israel’s actions are not about starting a war; they are about stopping a war that has been underway for 46 years before the theocratic tyranny that initiated it enlarge it even further.

Best of all, China, Russia and North Korea are looking on. …Netanyahu’s and Trump’s resolve is not only creating the opportunity for a new, golden age for the Middle East but possibly also providing a deterrent — remember them? — to other enemies of the West that have expressed wishes for its demise.

President Donald J. Trump’s Churchillian defence of the Free World and the West will place him at the forefront of history. Both he and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu – ans well as the extraordinary Israel Defence Forces — deserve the Nobel Peace Prize for rescuing the world from one of the most toxic regimes since the Third Reich and the Former Soviet Union. Failure by the Norwegian Committee to do so will probably tell us more about them than about one of the greatest triumphs of all time.

Often lost in the media frenzy is that Iran, unprovoked, initiated hostilities against Israel. The seeming dispute was not about territory, policy or any disagreement that states normally have. It was about ideology. For nearly five decades, Iran and its proxies have waged a war against Israel and the United States, calling for their destruction. From their point of view, neither country, as “disbelievers,” has a right to exist. Full stop.

‘I Will Not Abandon This Post’: Mike Huckabee Texts Trump Saying He Has Biggest Choice Since Truman In 1945 by Derek VanBuskirk

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/opinion/i-will-not-abandon-this-post-mike-huckabee-texts-trump-saying-he-has-biggest-choice-since-truman-in-1945/ar-

President Donald Trump shared a motivational text Tuesday from U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee reaffirming his support of the president and addressing the potential significance of the Israel-Iran war in the Middle East.

Huckabee said he trusted Trump’s “instincts” and implied that the situation was perhaps the most significant a U.S. president has faced in decades.

“I am your appointed servant in this land and am available for you but I do not try to get in your presence often because I trust your instincts. No president in my lifetime has been in a position like yours. Not since Truman in 1945,” Huckabee said, possibly referring to Truman’s decision to use the atomic bomb to end World War II.

Huckabee told the president that many will offer him advice but said the decision was up to to Trump himself.

As a former Baptist minister, Huckabee told Trump that God spared his life in Butler, Pennsylvania, so that he could be “the most consequential president in a century — maybe ever.” He invited Trump to listen to God’s voice above all others.

“I believe you will hear from heaven, and that voice is far more important than mine or ANYONE else’s,” Huckabee said.

The ambassador finished his message to Trump by reaffirming his allegiance to the president and to the U.S. “You sent me to Israel to be your eyes, ears, and voice and to make sure our flag flies above our embassy. My job is to be the last one to leave,” he said.

“I will not abandon this post. Our flag will NOT come down!” Huckabee said.

Trump has faced heavy criticism from many on the right regarding his response to Iran and Israel’s ongoing conflict in the days since the latter attacked nuclear facilities of the former. The Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) said they struck Iranian “nuclear targets” and is believed to have killed multiple senior Iranian officials and nuclear scientists.

Opinion | Iran’s Target Isn’t Just Israel. It’s Us. Israel’s strike against Iran isn’t just self-defense — it’s the front line in a broader clash of freedom versus tyranny. Mathias Döpfner

When a society can no longer distinguish between good and evil, between victim and perpetrator, it gives up.

This dynamic is one of the great constants of human history. It is a lesson people in free societies — and people in totalitarian societies who yearn to be free — should keep in mind during the climactic showdown underway in the Middle East. Israel has struck a blow to prevent Iran from developing nuclear bombs — weapons that it might credibly use toward its stated goal of removing Israel from the planet. Make no mistake: This is not simply a matter of regional security. Nor should it be a proxy for whether one supports or opposes the current Israeli government’s policy on Gaza or other subjects. This conflict is a central front in a global contest in which the forces of tyranny and violence in recent years have been gaining ground against the forces of freedom, which too often are demoralized and divided.

In a world full of bad actors, Iran is the most aggressive and dangerous totalitarian force of our time. Its leaders seek to weaken and destroy free society, democracy and human rights with Russian and Chinese support. In Iran, women are systematically oppressed and abused. Homosexuals are murdered. Those who think differently are imprisoned and tortured. In Tehran, the cynical abuse of the civilian population in Gaza as human shields is also cold-bloodedly conceived and financed.

According to official state doctrine, the primary goal of the mullahs in Tehran is the annihilation of the State of Israel. Ayatollah Khamenei has described Israel as a “cancerous tumor.” And clocks in the streets of Tehran celebrate countdowns to the “destruction of Israel.”

But Israel is only the first target. Once Israel falls, Europe and America will be the focus. Radical Sunni and Shiite Islamism has been preparing for this for decades. The fatwa against Salman Rushdie, 9/11, the attacks in Paris, the caliphate of ISIS — each event was a warning sign. Only those who did not want to see the signs are surprised today. The attacks are directed against our values, our way of life.

It is therefore surprising that Israel is not being celebrated worldwide for its historic, extremely precise and necessary strike against Iranian nuclear weapons facilities and for the targeted killing of leading terrorists, but that the public response is dominated by anti-Israel propaganda. The intelligence and precision of Israel’s actions are not admired but are instead used here and there to perpetuate blatantly antisemitic stereotypes. This attitude is characterized not only by racist undertones, but also by a strange self-forgetfulness.

If the perpetrator-victim reversal that has been repeatedly observed since Oct. 7 applies even in the most obvious case — Iran — then this can only be interpreted to mean that we are in the process of losing the culture war, which in reality has long since become a war of civilizations. And we seem to have no problem with that. It is what Michel Houellebecq called “submission” in his visionary novel 10 years ago.

As someone who has 40 years’ experience as a journalist and publishing executive, I believe every government should be questioned critically about all the details of its policies — above all on matters of war and its consequences. But those details should not be allowed to obscure larger historical truths. Perhaps a German of my generation has a useful vantage point. Born in 1963, I grew up in a country and continent still shadowed by World War II and its crimes, including an effort by Germany to eradicate Jews across Europe. The first half of my journalism career saw freedom on the march. The Soviet Union collapsed, authoritarian governments across Eastern Europe were routed, Germany was reunited under democracy. The second half of my career, however, has seen authoritarianism on the rise in all directions — with governments hostile to the very idea of journalism, as well as democracy, pluralism, rule of law and basic standards of decency. These unwelcome developments highlighted how fragile the triumphs of the late 20th century may be in the 21st. The contest between free societies and murderous tyrants is enduring.

Leftists for the ayatollah? Too many so-called progressives have instinctively sided with the brutal Iranian regime. Nick Tyrone

https://www.spiked-online.com/2025/06/17/leftists-for-the-ayatollah/

A new item has now been added to the left’s ‘omnicause’ – the list of views you have to hold to be a truly ‘progressive’ activist. Alongside trans rights and opposition to Israel, you are now expected to show support for the Iranian theocracy. Yes, those lovely, fuzzy mullahs who like to publicly execute homosexuals and spend an inordinate amount of time and energy oppressing women. It seems some on the left have now decided that those fellas are the good guys.

From the left’s perspective, it makes a warped kind of sense. The Israelis are the bad guys, in their view, and Iran is Israel’s enemy. Therefore, the Iranians must logically be the good guys. This thinking was demonstrated on Saturday, following Israel’s strikes on military targets in Iran. Pro-Iran chants and signs could be seen and heard on one of the ubiquitous pro-Palestine marches in London.

This is such a childish view of the world that it is difficult to fathom how grown adults can buy into it. The Iranian theocracy is one of the least liberal governments on Earth. It is a regime that imposes the death penalty hundreds of times a year – not just for homosexuality, but also for all manner of other things we wouldn’t even consider crimes in the West. It runs a ruthless authoritarian state that hammers away at any internal opposition in the most brutal ways imaginable.

Some on the left will claim that they aren’t sticking up for the regime – they are simply saying that Iran was attacked in an ‘unprovoked’ manner by Israel. But you have to either be ignorant of the facts or be taking the mickey to adopt this position. The Iranian theocracy has funded both Hamas and Hezbollah to a huge degree, providing them with intelligence along the way. Hamas was, of course, responsible for the pogrom on 7 October 2023, which started the Gaza war. And Hezbollah has been bombing northern Israel since 8 October. Both have also helped keep alive the myth that if the Palestinians just give it one more push then, from the river to the sea, the ‘Zionist entity’ will be no more. This has resulted in more Palestinian suffering than can be imagined.

The hilarious collapse of the cult of the keffiyeh From Greta’s ship to the Global March to Gaza, the white saviours of the ‘pro-Palestine’ set have never looked so silly. Brendan O’Neill

https://www.spiked-online.com/2025/06/16/the-hilarious-collapse-of-the-cult-of-the-keffiyeh/

Don’t you just hate it when brown people reject your white saviourism? So rude! Such mannerless ingratitude greeted the Global March to Gaza last week. These valiant few from the US, the UK, Ireland and elsewhere had planned to trek to Rafah in Gaza to save poor, hungry Palestinians from Evil Israel. But they came unstuck in Egypt, where instead of welcoming these fearless foreign liberators of the benighted Arabs, local folk ridiculed them, pelted them with plastic bottles and roundly told them to fuck off. Wait, you people don’t want to be saved by a plummy white lady from London in a keffyeh?

I know there’s a lot going on in the world right now, but can we please not overlook how unbelievably hilarious it is that the Global March to Gaza has been thwarted by angry Arabs. That this swarm of pompous gits who fantasised that they would shield the Arabs of Gaza from the ‘genocidal lunacy’ of the Jewish State were instead roughed up by the Arabs of Egypt who don’t want their nation used as a stage for moral masturbation by every puffed-up Palestine fetishist of the West. That instead of getting bottles of water to Gaza, these people had bottles of water lobbed at their own heads by pissed-off Egyptians. The mirth of it all might just get me through the rest of this year.

The Global March to Gaza consisted of 4,000 people from 54 countries. They had planned to walk to the Rafah border crossing between Egypt and Gaza where they would have ‘demand[ed] that Israel re-open the border [and] create a humanitarian corridor’. How the Jewish State would have trembled before this mighty delegation that included a gaggle of anoraks from Welsh CND, a British art curator called Tasmin and a bald politician from Ireland! Honestly, one doesn’t know whether to laugh or cry at the unworldly vanity of this dishevelled army of weak-chinned Westerners who really thought they could finger-wag a war out of existence.

Some of the marchers were from North Africa. Others were from the West. Like the self-styled ‘empathetic human’ from the UK who said ‘I endeavour to do what our governments have failed [to do]’ and ‘mobilise [my] passion and humanity’. Or the Brit who lamented her ‘privilege’ of being a ‘white, north European living in relative peace’ and promised to do something worthy for once, like ‘lend my presence to this cause’. Or the Canadian who said ‘I can’t ignore my conscience’. All I’m hearing is I, me, mine. Was it really Gaza they wanted to liberate or their own morbidly obese egos?

Sadly, by which I mean hilariously, their cloying pity for Arabs crashed against the reality of Arab self-respect. I am still not recovered from the sight of these self-loving midwits in their culturally appropriated keffiyehs being shouted down by Egyptians in real keffiyehs. On the road to Ismailia in northern Egypt, the marchers were stopped by security forces. So they gathered in a square by the mosque and chanted ‘Free, free Palestine!’. Locals weren’t best pleased. Well, would you be if a gang of pious pricks from afar rocked up in your town and started yelling political shit near your place of worship? The locals shouted at the ‘empathetic humans’. They threw plastic bottles at them. White Saviour card, declined!

Tim Walz: Only China Has the ‘Moral Authority’ to Pursue Peace in the Middle East By Jim Geraghty ???!!!

https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/tim-walz-only-china-has-the-moral-authority-to-pursue-peace-in-the-middle-east/

Oh, come on. Minnesota Governor Tim Walz lived down to the worst caricature of him in his remarks at the Center for American Progress today, weighing in on the Israeli airstrikes against Iran, and concluding that only the People’s Republic of China has the “moral authority” to negotiate an agreement in the Middle East.

Here we are, with the Middle East back on fire in a way that has now expanded. With, I don’t — Iran has to retaliate, in their mind, I’m sure. And now, who is the voice in the world that can negotiate some type of agreement in this? Who holds the moral authority? Who holds the ability to do that? Because we are not seen as a neutral actor. And we maybe never were, I don’t want to tell anybody that. I think there’s a lot of people who would say ‘you always lean one way in this.’ But I think there was at least an attempt to be somewhat of the arbitrator in this. We saw President Carter do it with Begin and Sadat. We’ve had certain wins along the way that were actually mutually beneficial both ways. Now I ask, who that is. And consistently, over and over again, we’re going to have to face the reality of it might be the Chinese. And, and, that goes against everything they say they’re trying to do in terms of the balance of powers. I would just have to say, my heart goes out for this. Ukraine continues to go on. Gaza continues to be a humanitarian disaster, and now it’s expanded even further.

Lest you doubt that I am accurately transcribing Walz’s remarks, he begins this portion of his comments at 30:50 in the video below.

Now, a lot of people will look back to Walz’s extensive and longstanding ties to China — at least 30 visits, one funded by the Chinese government, status as a visiting fellow at the Macao Polytechnic University, a Chinese state-run institution of higher education, etc. — and conclude that he’s a “Manchurian candidate,” somehow brainwashed by the Chinese government to repeat their talking points and propaganda to American citizens I think that accusation is nonsense; if the Chinese government had brainwashed him, surely they would have programmed to not look like a deer in headlights during a vice-presidential debate. (Note that Jonathan Allen and Amie Parnes’s new book, Fight: Inside the Wildest Battle for the White House, reveals that in the weeks leading up to the debate, Walz was so nervous that he couldn’t sleep at night and his aides had to remind him to eat.)

L.A. Riots: Just One More Symptom Of Far-Left California’s Sad Decline

https://issuesinsights.com/2025/06/17/l-a-riots-just-one-more-symptom-of-far-left-californias-sad-decline/

In recent years, blue states have blundered repeatedly, taxing and regulating too much, pushing woke education on their failing schools, and driving productive citizens out with their reckless policies, as our exclusive report recently pointed out. California, led by its largest and wealthiest city, Los Angeles, is perhaps the prime example. But while some blue states are at least trying to correct course, no turnaround is in sight for the Golden State.

With recent disasters revealing the incompetence, greed and extreme politicization of its so-called leaders, California careens from crisis to calamity. The Los Angeles riots, entering a second week, are only the latest manifestation of the state’s steady decline, a symptom, not a cause.

We’re not new to this story. We’ve been writing about California’s decline since the early 2000s. But it’s growing worse, as two incisive critics of California’s political class and its insane “progressive” policies, Joel Kotkin and Victor Davis Hanson, separately have written. California is on the road to ruin, if not already there.

“Rather than a model for the future, Los Angeles today offers a masterclass in urban dysfunction,” Kotkin wrote last week in “Los Angeles has fallen.” “Drive through the streets of the South Side or along Central Avenue – historically black L.A.’s main thoroughfare, now predominantly Hispanic – and the ambience increasingly resembles that of Mexico City or Mumbai: cracked pavements, dilapidated buildings, outdoor swap-meet markets and food stalls serving customers, much as one would see in the developing world.”

Remember: This is the city slated to host both the World Cup (2026) and the Olympic Games (2028) over the next few years. What will visitors see?