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Ruth King

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Diana West: An Iconic Conservative Voice William Marshall

By on April 28th, 2025

https://townhall.com/columnists/williammarshall/2025/04/26/diana-west-an-iconic-conservative-voice-n2656031

American conservatives have an excellent new book to enjoy when they want to tune out the cacophony of lunatic leftists to which they’re subjected endlessly in the Age of Trump. 

It is Diana West’s Wake Up and Smell the Culture and Other Selected Essays – a must-read collection of writings from one of America’s more gifted conservative thinkers, who has been fighting in America’s culture wars for decades.

Ms. West reminds me very much of another eloquent Yale-educated conservative iconoclast – the late William F. Buckley. They both offer insightful commentary on American culture from a 30,000 foot perspective. But Ms. West’s appeal to me also lies in her deep dives into the political intrigues of Washington. More below. 

Ms. West has published a series of landmark books in her long and storied career as a journalist, social critic, columnist and book author. She began her writing career as an editor of the Yale Political Monthly while an undergraduate at Yale. She would go on to become a reporter for the Washington Times. She then became a syndicated columnist from 1998 to 2014, with her columns appearing in 120 newspapers and news sites.  She has continued to write columns in various forums in the years since. 

She wrote her seminal first book, The Death of the Grownup: How America’s Arrested Development Is Bringing Down Western Civilization, in 2007. It was a frank and refreshing assessment of an American culture in decline, in which adults lived in a perpetual state of adolescence, refusing to confront the hard realities of 21st century life. That book has not only aged well, but has become more relevant than ever, as many Americans in their 30s continue to live with their parents and refuse to grow up.

One of Ms. West’s greatest gifts is her ability to conduct intensive archival research, deeply trace the backgrounds of public figures, and then present her findings in a most compelling way for her readers. She did that in her last book, The Red Thread: A Search for Ideological Drivers Inside the Anti-Trump Conspiracy, in which Ms. West teased out, through painstaking research, the very curious backgrounds of the central players who tried to take down Donald Trump before and during his first presidency. You remember them: Bruce and Nellie Ohr, James Comey, Christopher Steele, Andrew McCabe, Peter Strzok and the Rest of the Treasonous Gang. 

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NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Trump, Tariffs, Trade—and a Taboo? Trump’s trade strategy aims to slash the U.S. deficit by forcing fairer deals with key partners—pushing reciprocity, not profiteering, to regain economic balance. By Victor Davis Hanson

By on April 28th, 2025

https://amgreatness.com/2025/04/28/trump-tariffs-trade-and-a-taboo/

After only a hundred days, the Trump counterrevolution has made quite miraculous progress on the border, illegal immigration, cost-cutting, curbing the DEI/woke revolution, and a historic Ukrainian War settlement.

The pushback to this multifront effort from the left has been formidable, if not hysterical. The greatest fury mostly centers around Trump’s efforts to force U.S. trading partners to adopt either reciprocal or no tariffs while obeying international trading norms—an effort aimed at vastly reducing the U.S. trade deficit.

If Trump could cut a proverbial deal in the next 100 days that, say, cut the annual $1.2 trillion trade deficit in half, coupled with multitrillion-dollar foreign investments, then stocks and bonds would settle down.

Wall Street would go back to its traditional platitudes that the trade deficit then would be no higher than the 3-percent-of-GDP red line.

Stocks would then soar in anticipation of the other news of a continuation of tax cuts, more budgetary reductions, robust energy development, and further deregulation.

The U.S. has run a half-century of trade deficits. And now the red ink has climbed to nearly $1.2 trillion, the largest in history. Yet for all practical purposes, only a few entities account for most of an astronomical sum. And they all have corollary concerns to the U.S. that make their surpluses part of larger problems.

The administration can accurately talk about “70 nations wanting to deal.” But, in truth, if Trump were to settle with just China, Mexico, Canada, the EU, and the ten-nation Southeast Asian trading bloc (ASEAN), then the so-called trade wars would be over.

Start with our North American partners Mexico ($171.9 trillion surplus) and Canada ($63 trillion surplus) that alone account for over 20 percent of the U.S. trade deficit.

Canada’s surplus is almost entirely attributable to its vast oil and gas sales to the U.S. Almost all its daily oil exports go to the U.S., some four million barrels—as well as half its natural gas shipments.

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MEDIA Comments turned off

Brace Yourself: New Trump Scandal Could Be the Biggest of Them All! Robert Spencer

By on April 28th, 2025

https://pjmedia.com/robert-spencer/2025/04/27/brace-yourself-new-trump-scandal-could-be-the-biggest-of-them-all-n4939286

President Trump wore a blue suit, and this is very, very bad. If you take your cues from the establishment media, you should be outraged. 

The evil man wore the evil suit at the pope’s funeral, where the Vatican’s dress code “requires men to wear a dark suit with a long black tie.” Trump wore a blue suit with a blue tie. The Vatican didn’t complain, and even the New York Times admitted Saturday that Trump’s attire “did not grossly violate the dress code for the event.” 

Nonetheless, the outrage mill went into high gear over the weekend. Fortune ran a story entitled “The Vatican asked Pope Francis funeral attendees to wear all black. Trump wore a blue suit.” The Independent went with “Trump accused of Pope Francis funeral faux pas after ‘breaking dress code’ then leaving early.” The Wrap: “Donald Trump Roundly Criticized for Wearing Blue Suit to Pope Francis’ Funeral.” Despite its fifth-paragraph admission that Trump’s suit was within the bounds of acceptable attire, the New York Times still thought it worthy of a story: “Trump’s Blue Suit at Pope’s Funeral Draws Attention.” 

Man, Trump was wearing one bad suit! Yet establishment media rules on suits are often complicated. Sometimes suits are innocuous. For years, media propagandists liked to spread the claim that Obama’s tan suit was the “only scandal” of his interminable and catastrophic presidency. The implication was that those stupid Republicans were so partisan, so racist, so unfair and so mean-spirited, but had so little for which they could actually criticize Obama, that they tried to stir up a controversy over his poor fashion sense. (Actually, he looked quite natty in the tan suit.) 

But suits aren’t always symbols of mountains being made out of molehills. Sometimes they’re actual mountains being made out of molehills. The same leftist media that laughed at patriots over their alleged consternation at Obama’s tan suit is enraged beyond measure over Trump’s blue suit. Yet there are a few facts that are inconvenient for the Trump-is-an-insensitive-clod-who-wore-a-blue-suit-to-the-pope’s-funeral narrative. 

One is that Fortune, the New York Times and other outlets that ran with the evil blue suit narrative included photos with their stories that gave the impression that Trump was the only guy at the funeral who had been insensitive enough to wear a blue suit. These photos, however, were carefully cropped so that readers could not see that many, many other men at the funeral were wearing blue suits, including Prince William and Old Joe Biden. Volodymyr Zelensky was dressed once again as if Vladimir Putin might appear from behind a hedge at any minute, Kalashnikov blazing, and the plucky Ukrainian president would have to spring into combat mode. 

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MEDIA Comments turned off

Media Attacks Republican Women as Ugly — and Why It’s About to Get So Much Worse Scott Pinsker

By on April 28th, 2025

https://pjmedia.com/scott-pinsker/2025/04/27/shameful-media-attacks-republican-women-as-ugly-and-why-its-about-to-get-so-much-worse-n4939280

EXCERPT:

The first telltale sign is when the media outlets at the top of the hierarchy all begin publishing the same stories. The media industry is a top-down ecosystem; the minnows take their cues from the whales. Even today, you’d be surprised how many small market news directors will religiously tear through The New York Times before assigning any stories.

Why?

Because that’s how they were trained. 

As a practical matter, it empowers the larger media outlets to set the national agenda, because this ecosystem gives their stories legs: First The New York Times will report on it; then the mid-tier and low-tier ones echo it; then The Times will circle back with a follow-up story about how this is a huge deal in the heartland — citing those mid- and low-tier outlets’ stories a few days later.

It’s incestuous, self-serving, and won’t work indefinitely, but it guarantees a story will stay in circulation for at least a week — and with just a little luck, much longer than that. 

Either way, in today’s 24/7 media culture, a week is an eternity. You can do a lot of damage in a week.

The second sign is when the same stories all echo the same themes. When a mainstream media thought leader, like The New York Times, NBC News, or The Atlantic gives a story their “seal of approval,” it’s kind of like the phenomenon with the ugly dude and the hot girlfriend: That editorial “spin” has already won the support of their industry’s A-Listers.

If you’re a low-rung journalist with ambition, it’s awfully tempting to hop aboard that bandwagon and cry “One of us!” — and so, lots of ‘em do. (Hey, they wanna work at The New York Times one day, too.)

When three or more A-Listers in the mainstream media release the same story with the same theme, it means you’ll be hearing about it for no less than a week. If the story fails, it’ll go away.

But conservatives don’t get to decide if a story fails! 

That takes us to the third sign: Stories that animate liberals will always be elevated. This usually means that liberal causes, politicians, and policies will be promoted and conservative ones trashed, but not always. Sometimes, liberals like to read about doom-and-gloom — that “The End Is Nigh!” (They’re pessimistic by nature and enjoy doom-scrolling.)

But no matter what, the stories and spin will always reflect a VERY leftwing worldview.

Why?

Because the media is VERY liberal and they’re primarily concerned with impressing each other. 

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IMMIGRATION Comments turned off

The Real Crisis Slithering Through Our Southern Border The deliberate and strategic entry of Sharia-followers into the United States. by Aynaz Anni Cyrus

By on April 28th, 2025

https://www.frontpagemag.com/the-real-crisis-slithering-through-our-southern-border/

While the media drowns in humanitarian headlines and border numbers, the real threat crossing our southern border isn’t families fleeing hardship—it’s trained, ideological operatives with a mission: infiltrate, embed, and one day, execute. You won’t hear this from CNN. But if you’ve been watching closely, you already know what’s happening. FBI and DHS whistleblowers have confirmed that individuals tied to Islamist extremist groups—like Hezbollah and al-Shabaab—have already been apprehended at the southern border. These aren’t anomalies. They’re waves. And for every one caught, how many have slipped through undetected? Border Patrol agents have encountered individuals on the terror watchlist, while others have been flagged through encrypted communications, suspicious financial transfers, and travel patterns consistent with jihadist activity. Behind every name on a list are likely dozens more who entered unnoticed—blending into migrant caravans, using fake documents, and crossing through overwhelmed checkpoints.

But it doesn’t stop at entry. Once inside the United States, these Islamists don’t immediately turn to violence. They embed. They build communities, establish networks, infiltrate cultural spaces, and slowly worm their way into education systems, activist circles, and even local politics. This isn’t speculation—it’s strategy. This is classic sleeper cell methodology: stay quiet, stay legal, wait, then act. It’s what we saw before 9/11, and it’s what we’re seeing again. The hijackers didn’t sneak in under the cover of night—they came through the front door, legally, and waited until the moment was right.

Today, with a wide-open border and vetting protocols gutted in the name of political correctness, we’re facing the perfect storm for Islamist infiltration. These aren’t war refugees. They’re ideological foot soldiers exploiting our broken asylum system and progressive sanctuary policies to get inside. They don’t just want to live here—they want to change us from within. Through courts, classrooms, policy manipulation, and, eventually, through acts of terror.

These actors are highly trained. They know how to play the system, how to cloak their intentions in victimhood, how to mobilize identity politics, and how to silence critics with accusations of “Islamophobia.” But this isn’t about faith—it’s about conquest. This isn’t religious persecution—it’s a coordinated campaign of national subversion. Once inside, they’re not hiding in caves—they’re attending mosques, starting businesses, joining local boards, and laying the groundwork for something far darker. They don’t need to rush. Time is on their side.

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NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Americans’ Love-Hate Relationship With Elon Musk, Tesla, DOGE: I&I/TIPP Poll Terry Jones

By on April 28th, 2025

https://issuesinsights.com/2025/04/28/americans-love-hate-relationship-with-elon-musk-tesla-doge-ii-tipp-poll/

For some, it’s hard to imagine an unpaid civil servant doing an important job for the government could be treated worse than Elon Musk. The government cost-cutting head of DOGE has been rewarded for his service by a boycott of Tesla and its stock, by death threats, insults, and violent attacks on Tesla dealers and owners. And now, according to the latest I&I/TIPP Poll, a surprisingly large share of the population backs this behavior.

The national online I&I/TIPP poll was taken by 1,452 adults from March 26 to March 28. It has a margin of error of +/-2.6 percentage points. The poll was intended to look at the anti-Musk phenomenon, and how average people view anti-Musk protesters.

Respondents were asked three questions, the first being: “Do you support or oppose the Tesla Takedown movement’s call to protest Elon Musk by selling Tesla vehicles and stock?”

A clear plurality of 43% say they either support it “strongly” (27%) or “somewhat” (16%), while a smaller 32% oppose it either “strongly” (23%) or “somewhat” (9%). Another 14% said they were “not familiar with the movement,” while 11% described themselves as “not sure.”

Not surprisingly, Democrats back the selling of Tesla vehicles and stock by 53% “support” to 26% “oppose,” while independents give the boycott 40% support to 29% opposition.

But perhaps most surprising are Republicans, who support the call to protest Musk by 40% but oppose it by an equal 40%.

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ENVIRONMENT AND JUNK SCIENCE Comments turned off

Updates On The Collapse Of The Climate Scam Francis Menton

By on April 28th, 2025

https://www.manhattancontrarian.com/blog/2025-4-26-updates-on-the-collapse-of-the-climate-scam

On April 14 I recorded a podcast with Tom Nelson. He has since posted a slightly edited version on his YouTube site. Go to this link if you would like to watch it — about an hour long. The main subject is the sordid history of EPA’s Endangerment Finding and efforts of people including myself to get it rescinded.

The good news on the Endangerment Finding front is that EPA under new Administrator Lee Zeldin is very much on the job of eliminating the EF. Of course, once it has been rescinded it will face a blizzard of legal challenges. I hope and expect that Zeldin and his team are up to the job of carrying out a rescission that will stick. I offered my suggestions for how to do a rescission that will stand up to challenge in this post from January 26.

Separately, Nelson has made a thing out of compiling a growing list of “Signs That The Climate Scam Is Collapsing.” That list is now up to some 33 items and counting. The current version can be found here. Readers of this blog are likely already familiar with many of the items on Tom’s list. However, today I would like to feature a couple of items from Tom’s list that are important but may be less well known.

Item 3 on Tom’s list is that the funding of something called “NASA GISS” is likely to be terminated as part of the DOGE cost-cutting efforts. GISS is the Goddard Institute for Space Studies. For some unknown reason, GISS is part of NASA, and is located, of all place, in Manhattan, in an office building on upper Broadway near Columbia University. GISS is mainly known for producing a world temperature time series known as GISTEMP, which is systematically massaged and altered in ways to enhance the narrative of climate alarm. For more details than you will ever want to know about the data tampering, go to my 30+ part series “The Greatest Scientific Fraud Of All Time.”

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WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

China Just ‘Folded’ in the Trade War by Gordon G. Chang

By on April 27th, 2025

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/21576/china-trade-war

Xi Jinping’s regime simply cannot admit it is not able to stand up to Washington.

[O]n April 24 about a dozen Chinese officials, including a “high-ranking official from the Chinese Ministry of Finance,” were seen entering the U.S. Treasury’s main building in Washington at 7:00 in the morning as Chinese security officials attempted to prevent photographers from recording the entry.

“In fact, the tariff waivers underscore that not only does Beijing need access to the American market far more than Americans need the China market but also that the United States makes vital products that simply aren’t Made in China, and won’t be for years at best.” — Alan Tonelson, trade expert at RealityChek, to Gatestone, April 25, 2025.

When Trump has to raise the temperature, Beijing has just shown him which U.S. products China believes it cannot do without.

Beijing has ordered its airlines not to take delivery of Boeing aircraft, and the plane maker has now flown back, from China to the U.S., three 737 Max aircraft that were about to be delivered. Due to the long order backlogs at both Boeing and Airbus, this punishment imposes, as a practical matter, almost no cost on Boeing. Yet if Trump were to order Boeing not to deliver parts or provide services to Chinese airlines, China would soon have to ground a large number of its airliners.

China is making significant trade concessions without saying it is making concessions. Xi Jinping’s regime simply cannot admit it is not able to stand up to Washington. When Trump has to raise the temperature, Beijing has just shown him which U.S. products China believes it cannot do without

China, according to Reuters and Financial Times reporting on April 25, is not uniformly imposing its new 125% across-the-board tariff on American goods. In short, certain imports from the U.S. are in fact coming in tariff-free. Beijing’s new policy has not been announced and is not official.

“Companies in sectors including aviation and industrial chemicals said that some of their products had already been granted a reprieve, while local media reported that some semiconductors had been spared tariffs,” the Financial Times noted.

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ISRAEL Comments turned off

POSITIVE NEWS FROM ISRAEL FROM MICHAEL ORDMAN

By on April 27th, 2025

https://verygoodnewsisrael.blogspot.com/

Following World War II, the global Jewish population was estimated to be around 11 million with approximately two-thirds of European Jews killed during the Holocaust.

Today, in a modern miracle of rebirth the Jewish population of the world has climbed to 15.8 million out of a total world population of 8 billion. This represents .02% of the global population.

Approximately 7.2 million Jews live in Israel and enjoy freedom, democracy, arts and theater and cafes and restaurants.

This tiny nation contributes more to  the science, medicine, agricultural and water conservation technologies, per capita, than any other nation in the world.

Michael Ordman details and proves this in every posting of positive news from Israel. Read it all.

rsk

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FOREIGN POLICY, WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Here’s the Most Remarkable Thing About the Trump/Zelensky Sit-Down at the Pope’s Funeral Robert Spencer

By on April 27th, 2025

https://pjmedia.com/robert-spencer/2025/04/26/heres-the-most-remarkable-thing-about-the-trumpzelensky-private-sit-down-at-the-popes-funeral-n4939262

In their first tête-à-tête since the fireworks in the Oval Office on Feb. 28, President Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky sat down for a remarkable fifteen-minute meeting at the Vatican Saturday, where both heads of state were attending the funeral of Pope Francis. The Saturday meeting was striking for several reasons, not least because it was just Trump and Zelensky talking things out alone. No aides or translators were present, and while photographers some terrific photos of the two leaders in intense discussion, reporters were not buzzing around performing their usual act of asking questions designed to show the world what an awful person Donald Trump is.

The privateness of the Trump-Zelensky confab is what makes it most remarkable. We just had four years of a president who not only couldn’t make the most insignificant of moves without a cheat sheet telling exactly what to do and when and how to do it. Now even Old Joe Biden’s top aides are admitting that the senescent corruptocrat simply wasn’t there, and that his dementia had advanced to the point that Old Joe knew nothing whatsoever about the policies his autopen was signing into law. What he appeared to know about the war in Ukraine, and everything else, was just an illusion created by his reading words off a teleprompter with reasonable competency.

Even before the misrule of Old Joe’s autopen, we have gotten used to seeing presidents surrounded by clouds of aides, and clearly those aides often did the real spadework in international diplomacy and other areas. Trump, however, is in this, as in so many ways, a sharp departure from what has become the norm for the chief executive. He is entirely capable of handling the negotiations with Zelensky (and others) without any input from aides, and even without their presence.

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