OPINION, WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Heather Mac Donald The Blatant Lie of Germany’s Elite Parties opposed to the Alternative for Deutschland (AfD) continue to block it from exercising its rights—all in the name of stopping “fascism.”

Posted By on May 28th, 2025

https://www.city-journal.org/article/germany-alternative-for-deutschland-afd-party-committee-chairmanships

Germany’s self-proclaimed democracy defenders are at it again: blocking a law-abiding party from exercising its rights—all in the name of protecting democracy.

The Alternative for Deutschland (AfD), a pro-free market, anti-EU, anti-mass migration party, placed second in Germany’s recent parliamentary elections, earning nearly 21 percent of the vote to the top vote-getter’s, the Christian Democratic Union’s, 28 percent. The AfD placed well ahead of the once-dominant Social Democratic Party (16 percent) and the Greens (11 percent).

By longstanding tradition, the AfD should have been allotted committee chairmanships and vice chairmanships based on its February vote share. Doing so would have meant that the powerful budget, interior, and finance committees, along with three other committees, would have been under AfD direction, giving it the possibility of shaping legislation. But in a reversal of what is normally an automatic affirmation, on Wednesday, May 21, the other parties in Parliament voted down the AfD chairmanships and put those six committees in the control of other, often less popular, parties. The far-left Die Linke (the Left) party, which had garnered just 9 percent of the parliamentary vote, was awarded two chairs.

The rationale given for this anti-democratic coup is a recent designation of the AfD as a right-wing extremist party. On May 2, 2025, four days before parliamentary power was to change hands, outgoing Interior Minister Nancy Faeser from the Social Democratic Party announced that Germany’s domestic spy agency (the BfV) had slapped that label on the AfD, based on a 1,000-page secret dossier. According to press leaks, the dossier appeared to consist of public statements by AfD leaders, many already chewed over endlessly by the party’s opponents, relating to Germany’s mass migration problem.

AfD representatives have asserted, for example, that Germans have a cultural history tied to their ethnic and national identity; that this history and identity deserve protection; and that unchecked illegal migration threatens national cohesion.

IMMIGRATION Comments turned off

Paul Dreyer New York’s Next Mayor Should Help Deport Criminal Aliens Undoing the city’s expansive sanctuary regime would be popular and help cut crime.

Posted By on May 28th, 2025

https://www.city-journal.org/article/new-york-city-mayor-crime-immigration-deport-sanctuary

New York City voters consistently rank crime among their top concerns, with migrant-related offenses drawing particular ire. Yet a progressive city council and entrenched bureaucratic resistance continue to block cooperation with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. The next mayor should break this impasse by facilitating the deportation of unlawful immigrants convicted of crimes.

To do so, the mayor would have to roll back the Bill de Blasio-era bans on ICE cooperation. Local Law 58 prohibits federal immigration authorities from keeping an office on Rikers Island, the city jail. Local Law 228 prevents city agencies from honoring federal immigration detainers without a judicial warrant for certain serious crimes. Intro 486 and Intro 487 restrict the Department of Correction and the New York Police Department, respectively, in cooperating with a federal detainer. The agencies may honor a detainer request only for an alien convicted of certain serious or violent crimes who is eligible for release from custody, and in response to a judicial warrant.

These laws have the effect of codifying the city’s sanctuary status. The next mayor should push for their repeal or modification.

For de Blasio, such virtue-signaling may have been good politics. But these laws are unsuited for the circumstances of the city’s ongoing migrant crisis. In December, an intoxicated migrant immolated Debrina Kawam on the subway. This February, two convicted Tren de Aragua gang members from Venezuela were released bail-free, despite pending felony gun and drug charges.

The next mayor need not pursue the wholesale deportation of all illegal aliens in the city. Instead, city policy should clearly distinguish between those who have been charged with crimes and those who haven’t.

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

The American Way of Life Is Under Threat By John Fonte

Posted By on May 28th, 2025

https://tomklingenstein.com/the-american-way-of-life-is-under-threat/

Let us begin by listening to the progressive vision of America. 

The late Todd Gitlin, a leading student activist of the 1960s New Left who went on to a career in academia, declares that America is the fulfillment of the Enlightenment. But, Gitlin writes, “the point is not to celebrate some accomplished Enlightenment with its Declaration of Independence…its Federalist Papers and Constitutional debates,” but to see the American project as “an aspiration, an invitation, a commitment to a process that seriously aims to bring about understandings that do not yet exist.”

Michael Walzer, another major left-wing intellectual of Gitlin’s generation, writes that America is “a radically unfinished society.” The late Richard Rorty, one of the most influential public philosophers of the second half of the twentieth century, described the American project as the utopian dream of Walt Whitman and John Dewey. Rorty declares that Whitman and Dewey, influenced by Hegel’s concept of progressive evolution, “wanted…utopian America to replace God as the unconditional object of desire. They wanted the struggle for social justice to be the country’s animating principle.” 

This is the shared vision of the progressive  political coalition that includes both the hard Left, with its neo-Marxist oppressor vs. oppressed framework, and the mainstream of the Democratic party.  These forces represent progressive fusionism, its constituent parts working in tandem just as the twentieth-century conservative fusionist coalition worked together politically, despite philosophical differences.

Different elements of the progressive coalition emphasize distinct yet complementary visions of America. All find our nation deeply flawed and in need of transformation. 

The hard left tells us that America is (and always has been) an oppressive society.For example, the Organization of American Historians praises the 1619 Project and declares America is “a nation built on slavery, exploitation, and exclusion. Critical race theory provides a lens through which we can examine and understand systemic racism and its many consequences.”

The narrative of the mainstream Democratic party must be more political.  Their argument runs as follows:

America’s past is deeply problematic. But we have great ideals. The core of those ideals is the continuing expansion of social justice to those previously “oppressed” groups: blacks, women, gays, undocumented immigrants and as President Biden noted “transgender rights are the civil rights issue of our time.”

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Media Covered Up Biden’s Health Issues — Angry Voters Want Them To Answer For It: I&I/TIPP Poll Terry Jones

Posted By on May 28th, 2025

https://issuesinsights.com/2025/05/28/media-covered-up-bidens-health-issues-angry-voters-want-them-to-answer-for-it-ii-tipp-poll/

By 2-to-1, Americans agree that the media covered up former President Joe Biden’s mental infirmities, and an even-larger share believe it’s “important” to hold media outlets accountable for failing to inform the public about the former president’s health problems, the latest I&I/TIPP Poll shows. The poll was taken before the former president was diagnosed with stage 4 prostate cancer on May 16.

In the national online I&I/TIPP Poll of 1,400 adults taken in late April and early May, Americans were asked: “To what extent do you agree or disagree that the media covered up Joe Biden’s mental decline?”

It wasn’t close, with 56% saying they agreed either “strongly” (33%) or “somewhat” (23%), while just half that — 28% — disagreed either strongly (13%) or somewhat (15%). Another 16% were not sure. The poll has a margin of error of +/-2.7 percentage points.

It is again an issue on which there are sharp divisions among key demographics.

Politically, differences were especially sharp, with majorities of Republicans (79% agree, 15% disagree) and independents (53% agree, 30% disagree) taking the hardest line. Just 38% of Democrats agreed, while 43% disagreed.

Men and women are another big split. Men agree (64%) far more than they disagree (25%) that the media covered up Biden’s mental issues. Women are less inclined to think the media covered up Biden’s issues: 49% agree, 31% disagree.

ISRAEL Comments turned off

America’s wars and the war in Gaza America’s wars provide an interesting perspective, and perhaps even a relevant paradigm for Israel. Take Texas, for example. Dr. Moshe Dann

Posted By on May 27th, 2025

https://www.israelnationalnews.com/news/409027

Although wars are destructive, they are also often unavoidable and even necessary; in addition, they are also sources of new technologies, innovations, and, of course, political changes.

As a result of wars between Britain and the American colonies in 1776 and 1812, for example, the groundwork was laid for a new nation and a new political identity.

Similarly, the Mexican-American War of 1847-1849 was the basis for America’s continental expansion and it reaffirmed its national identity, as well as its economic, military and technological power.

The American Civil War (1861-65) ended the institution of slavery and opened a massive expansion westward with newly-formed states. America became coast-to-coast.

In 1898, when Spain attacked American ships, it led to the Spanish-American War. As a result, the United States conquered the islands of Puerto Rico; the territory has been under U.S. sovereignty ever since. Although not a state, its inhabitants were given US citizenship.

The First and Second World Wars confirmed America’s dominant position. As a result of these wars, the USA became the greatest democracy in the world.

For Israel, and for Hamas/Palestinian Arabs, the war in Gaza is also definitional. It is a way of clarifying who the sides are and what they represent. In that sense, Israel’s war against terrorism, and the war in Gaza are existential.

The nation-state of Israel has been fighting for its survival since its establishment in 1948. It won its War of Independence against five Arab countries in 1949, and against some of them again in 1956, 1967, and 1973. However, because many countries and organizations support Palestinianism and Palestinian Arab terrorist groups, that war and the current war in Gaza continue.

ISRAEL Comments turned off

Hamas Is on the Ropes—Will “the West” Save It? P. David Hornik

Posted By on May 27th, 2025

https://pdavidhornik.substack.com/subscribe?utm_source=email&utm_campaign=email-subscribe&r=8t06w&next=https%3A%2F%2Fpdavidhornik.substack.com%2Fp%2Fhamas-is-on-the-ropeswill-the-west&utm_medium=email

A “senior official” of the Israel Defense Forces says Israel is on the way to a “decisive victory” in Gaza.

Military plans indicate that in two months Hamas will control only about 30% of Gaza, down from 40% in recent days. [In the current phase,] the IDF is destroying infrastructure both above and below ground.

The IDF assesses that Hamas

is in severe distress both militarily and civilian-wise. It has lost its command chain and is in a deadlock. Cracks are forming in the population’s dependency on the group, and pressure is mounting—but a full breakdown has not yet occurred. That collapse, they believe, may come through intensified military pressure and control over aid delivery.

Some say Israel can’t afford to keep fighting in Gaza because the situation of the twenty-or-so remaining live hostages is too dire, and Israel urgently has to make a deal for their release. The problem is that according to reports from Doha, Hamas—despite its own dismal situation—keeps stonewalling such a deal.

US envoy Steve Witkoff, who has been pushing hard for a deal in Doha, says: “What I have seen from Hamas is disappointing and completely unacceptable.”

Some in the Israeli security establishment have been saying all along that the hostages are so precious to Hamas as leverage over Israel that Hamas will never agree—unless compelled—to give all of them up.

As the above-quoted senior IDF official put it:

“Hamas will not return all the hostages at once—they’ll play a game and always keep some in their hands…. What drives Hamas to a deal is military pressure— that’s what has brought hostages back so far.”

… Asked what a military victory over Hamas would look like, the official outlined the following phases: destruction of Hamas’s military wing, dismantling of its governing capabilities, capture and retention of territory, and control over humanitarian aid while cutting Hamas off from it.

Hamas is in dire financial straits, too—“the worst…in its history, with government employees in Gaza receiving just 900 shekels (approximately $250) a month for the past four months.”

ISRAEL Comments turned off

Yechiel Leiter’s refreshing ‘undiplomatic’ candor Ruthie Blum

Posted By on May 27th, 2025

https://www.jns.org/yechiel-leiters-refreshing-undiplomatic-candor/

The Foreign Ministry announced on Sunday that its director general, Eden Bar Tal, was summoning Israeli Ambassador to the United States Yechiel Leiter for a hearing, in accordance with “the directive of the senior director of the disciplinary division at the Civil Service Commission.”  

The anticipated wrist-slapping is over remarks that Leiter made in an interview last week on the conservative PragerU podcast, “Real Talk with Marissa Streit.”

During the course of the one-on-one—an articulate and comprehensive discussion about the war in Gaza; the death of his son, Moshe, who was killed last year fighting Hamas; U.S.-Israel relations; normalization with Saudi Arabia; the Iranian nuclear threat; and predictions for the future of the Middle East—Leiter committed what the Foreign Ministry considers a diplomatic faux pas.

This consisted of his spending six out of the 66-minute tete-a-tete defending Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu against demonization. The passage in question begins with his referring to the “accusations on the international stage to call our prime minister a war criminal?! What is that? That’s insane.”

He goes on to point out that “there’s no way you can really fight antisemitism until you remove the stain of Cain” from Netanyahu. Because, he explains, “if you call the Number One Jew in the world a war criminal, well, Jews are responsible; they’re like their prime minister. They’re war criminals, right? Jews who identify with Israel identify with a war criminal. So, why shouldn’t there be antisemitism?”

Yet then he’s asked by Streit about the claim—“made not just by antisemites; also by Israelis”—that Netanyahu is prolonging the war in Gaza in order to “keep him[self] out of political trouble or from going to jail.”

And here’s the section that spurred the ostensible need to “discipline” the relatively new diplomat, who’s been in his post for a mere four months: “Political opposition sometimes is a horrible thing, but they go too far. There is nothing more malicious and malevolent than to level such charges at the prime minister. I know the prime minister for 40 years. He’s a sensitive man who cares about people. Prolong a war? What kind of insanity is that? How dare they say something as malicious as that?

WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

‘Tyranny in Disguise’: Will Democracy Survive in Europe? by Guy Millière

Posted By on May 27th, 2025

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/21652/democracy-tyranny-europe

In 2022, the European Union adopted the Digital Services Act (DSA), which is supposed to “protect the rights of social media users” and “provide a safer online environment” by “limiting the spread of illegal and harmful content.” What constitutes “illegal and harmful content” was not defined and could be anything the European Commission defines as such, along with the right to impose fines and shut the websites down.

The reason given by Germany’s domestic intelligence agency for designating AfD an “extremist organization” is neither fascism nor racism. In fact, not a single AfD leader advocates fascist or racist positions, and, what actually may be objectionable to many Europeans, is that AfD is “the most pro-Israel and philo-Semitic” party in Germany.

This anti-democratic drift has taken hold in several European countries. Politicians and parties who disagree with the worldview of the officials in power are increasingly being excluded from any possibility of running for an official position…

In France, Marine Le Pen, who polls show is in first place for the 2027 presidential election, was sentenced to five years of election ineligibility and four years in prison for allegedly embezzling public funds.

Le Pen did not embezzle public funds…. The Democratic Movement, a centrist party led by French Prime Minister François Bayrou, did exactly the same thing as the National Rally with its MEPs’ assistants, but Bayrou was acquitted by a judge.

Most European leaders today refer to the parties and politicians they wish to exclude as “far right.” The term is used to refer to racist, xenophobic and authoritarian parties. None of the parties mentioned above shows the slightest tendency toward racism, xenophobia and authoritarianism half as much as their opponents do.

Many European leaders today appear blind to the consequences of ever-increasing immigration, and a growing Muslim presence in Europe. They are dismissive of the Muslims’ continuing mass-migration, enthusiastic birthrate, and they remain stubbornly deaf to the concerns shouted by their non-Muslim citizenry.

European leaders and governments have moved away from what once bound Europe and the United States, such as freedom of speech and free and fair elections, the results of which are actually enacted. Can the anti-democratic drift that has gripped several large European countries be stopped? (Images source: iStock)

Instead, he says that the most worrying threat today is “the threat from within, the retreat of Europe from some of its most fundamental values.” He adds that European countries and institutions are undermining democracy and freedom of speech — and gives examples.

“A former European commissioner,” Vance states, “went on television recently and sounded delighted that the Romanian government had just annulled an entire election.”

WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

China’s Covert Pursuit of Global Dominance By Janet Levy

Posted By on May 27th, 2025

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2025/05/china_s_covert_pursuit_of_global_dominance.html

China’s global ambitions are rooted in the allure of an ancient concept for the Chinese people—the Middle Kingdom, envisioning China as a divinely appointed ruling nation that is central and superior to others. In the Art of War, Sun Tzu crystallized this idea into the ideal of a benevolent Chinese emperor conquering the entire world—Tianxia, or All-Under-Heaven—without violence or destruction.

But trust the communists to twist the very antithesis of Marxism — a God-based, imperialistic idea — to serve their own designs. Xi Jinping, general secretary of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), positions himself as central to a Chinese world order “that will surpass and supplant the Westphalian system” by 2049. Therefore, his actions must be viewed in light of Tianxia.

A year after he came to power in 2012, he launched the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), an ambitious investment in infrastructure aimed at connecting East Asia and Europe. This initiative has since expanded to Africa, Oceania, and Latin America. The BRI must be recognized for what it is: a covert, long-term operation for military expansion and strategic presence.

Through BRI’s extensive loans and assistance in building ports and highways, China has gained significant economic and political influence in nearly 150 of the 193 U.N. member countries. The U.S. and its allies must prepare for China transforming such vast influence into military advantages, as it has already done in many areas. In confronting the dragon, we must remain wary of its winding tail.

China’s influence-mongering is ideology-agnostic. If a country aligns with China’s strategy to displace the U.S. as a global power, the type of regime—whether fascist, authoritarian, Islamist, or communist—matters little. In fact, writes Col. John Mills (Ret.), China has primarily partnered with countries where regimes are insecure and individual rights are non-existent—much like in China.

He claims that Russia, North Korea, Iran, Venezuela, Zimbabwe, Cuba, Pakistan, and South Africa are all now “de facto colonies of China.” At the same time, he points out that China aims to dominate the U.N. and other international organizations. In this struggle, he argues that the efforts of those advocating for a free world have been undermined by globalist elites who pander to China when it benefits them.

China’s strategic activities in Africa and the Middle East over the last two and a half decades serve as a case study of how the dragon operates. The advantages China has gained now threaten U.S. interests in the Horn of Africa, which includes Somalia, Djibouti, Ethiopia, and Eritrea, and provides significant control over the Gulf of Aden, the Red Sea, and the Indian Ocean.

ENVIRONMENT AND JUNK SCIENCE Comments turned off

When the Ice Cracks: Michael Mann’s Legal Defeat and the Climate of Accountability David Manney

Posted By on May 27th, 2025

https://pjmedia.com/david-manney/2025/05/24/when-the-ice-cracks-michael-manns-legal-defeat-and-the-climate-of-accountability-n4940123

There was a time, not so long ago, when climate scientist Michael Mann could bully critics into silence with the mere threat of a lawsuit. He was the face behind the infamous “hockey stick” graph, a man lauded by progressives, featured in Al Gore’s documentary, and embraced by a media eager to label skeptics as dangerous deniers. But the courtroom, as it turns out, is no place for manufactured myths or moral grandstanding.

A Washington, D.C. court just handed Mann a bruising legal defeat. After more than a decade of litigation, he has been ordered to pay over $1 million in attorney’s fees to the very people he accused of defamation: National Review, the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI), and writer Rand Simberg, a former PJM contributor.

Even more humiliating, the court revealed that Mann grossly misrepresented his financial damages. Once celebrated as a martyr for the climate cause, he now stands exposed as a fabricator, not just of projections, but of personal injury.

The Graph That Launched a Thousand Grants

Mann’s rise to prominence began with a temperature reconstruction graph published in 1998. It erased historical warming periods such as the Medieval Warm Period and the Little Ice Age in favor of a dramatic 20th-century spike. To the casual observer, it looked like mankind had shoved the planet off a climate cliff.

The media ran with it. The United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) elevated the hockey stick to icon status. Schools taught it. Politicians cited it. Al Gore plastered it in “An Inconvenient Truth,” like a gospel.

But critics soon noticed that something wasn’t right. Canadian researchers Steve McIntyre and Ross McKitrick uncovered glaring flaws in Mann’s methodology, showing that his algorithm could produce a hockey stick shape even when fed with random data. This wasn’t just bad science; it was political theater dressed in lab coats.

From Researcher to Legal Enforcer

Rather than engage in honest debate, Mann chose litigation as his cudgel. In 2012, he sued National Review and CEI after their writers criticized his work and compared how Penn State handled their investigations of Mann after the East Anglia emails leak, and of Penn State’s disgraced football coach, Jerry Sandusky.

This was not a matter of protecting one’s reputation from slander. This was a climate scientist declaring war on dissent. And for a while, it worked. The lawsuits dragged on for over ten years. Many media outlets pulled back from covering the criticisms, not out of agreement, but out of fear.

The recent rulings, however, dismantle Mann’s claims. The D.C. court awarded National Review $530,820.21 in legal fees. CEI and Simberg will receive $472,000. These were not sympathy payouts. They were direct rebukes of a man who tried to game the legal system as thoroughly as he gamed climate projections.

A Courtroom Beatdown

In one of the ruling’s most scathing parts, the court found that Mann and his attorneys misled the jury about the damages he suffered. He testified he lost grants, suffered financially, and had speaking engagements canceled because of the defamation.

But evidence showed the opposite. Mann’s career flourished during the litigation. His speaking fees increased, and his public profile soared. His hardship claim was a mirage, and the court wasn’t buying it.