In a major win for Republicans and President Trump, the Supreme Court restored Texas' newly redrawn congressional map Thursday, allowing the state's controversial redistricting plan to be implemented ahead of next year's midterm elections.

The Supreme Court on Thursday handed President Donald Trump and Republicans a major political victory by clearing the way for a Texas congressional map that was drawn in the hope of flipping up to five House seats to the GOP.

A sharply divided Supreme Court said Thursday that it would allow Texas to use a new congressional map that targets five seats held by Democrats in next year's midterms.

The mystery persists. The post Who provided the mystic backing vocals for Donovan song ‘Atlantis’? first appeared on Far Out Magazine.

Talk about the law of unintended consequences. Secretary of War Pete Hegseth is being targeted as follows by Democrats. Here’s a sample headline, this one from Politico: “Lawmakers warn Hegseth may have committed war crimes following second-strike report,” with the subtitle, “Democrats and even some Republicans said Hegseth’s orders may have been illegal if a report on his commands to kill survivors of a boat attack are true.” The story reports: Lawmakers from both parties raised alarms Sunday that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth may have committed a war crime following a report that he ordered a follow-on attack to kill survivors of a boat strike in September. The Washington Post reported last week that Hegseth authorized a highly unusual strike to kill all survivors of one of the Trump administration’s attacks in recent months on boats allegedly carrying drugs in international waters. POLITICO has not independently verified the Post’s reporting. Sens. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) and Tim Kaine (D-Va.) — both of whom sit on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee — said Sunday that, if accurate, such orders would rise to the level of war crimes. “If that reporting is true, it’s a clear violation of the DOD’s own laws of war, as well as international laws about the way you treat people who are in that circumstance. And so this rises to the level of a war crime if it’s true,” Kaine said in an interview with CBS’ Nancy Cordes on “Face the Nation.” Sen. Mark Kelly (D-Ariz.) also said in a Sunday morning interview with CNN’s “State of the Union” that the order, if true, is “clearly not lawful.” And Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) responded to the article by writing on social media Saturday evening: “Pete Hegseth is a war criminal and should be fired immediately.” Well now. Talk about a lack of self-awareness. Not to mention historical ignorance. Again, the essence here is that as Secretary of War, Hegseth ordered a follow-up strike against enemies of the United States who were smuggling drugs into the U.S. (RELATED: Trump and Hegseth Defending America From Drug Traffickers) Drugs that kill Americans. Got that? Follow-up attacks on enemies conducting a war against the United States are “clearly not lawful,” and the person who orders such an attack “is a war criminal.” (RELATED: We Should Declare War on the Cancerous Cartel in Caracas) So. One of the first to understand the decided double standard on this issue was House Speaker Mike Johnson. The Hill headlined: “Johnson raises Obama drone strikes in response to Hegseth controversy.” The story reported: “I will say that, you know, it’s not an unprecedented thing,” Johnson said. “One of the things I was reminded of this morning is that under Barack Obama, President Obama, he had — I think there were 550 drone strikes on people who were targeted as enemies of the country, and nobody ever questioned it.” “Secondary strikes are not unusual,” Johnson said. “It has to happen if a mission is going to be completed.” The Harvard Political Review reported this in the day: These drone strikes make a strong case for categorizing Obama as an international war criminal. The 1949 Geneva Conventions, ratified by the United Nations, explicitly provides protections for not only the wounded, but also for medical and religious personnel, medical units, and medical transports. Article 8 of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court states that “Intentionally directing attacks against personnel, installations, material, units or vehicles involved in a humanitarian assistance or peacekeeping mission in accordance with the Charter of the United Nations” is classified as a war crime. The law also states “intentionally launching an attack in the knowledge that such attack will cause incidental loss of life or injury to civilians” also constitutes war crimes for the guilty party. Through the drone strike program and double-tap attacks, there is no question that former President Obama and his administration violated international humanitarian law. Obama’s symbolic significance cannot outshine his relationship with the imperial endeavors of the American Empire. Notably, nothing — nothing! — happened to President Obama for having “violated international humanitarian law” and committed “war crimes.” And oh yes. History records a seriously famous double-attack on an American enemy at the order of a U.S. president. History recalls that on August 6, 1945, with World War II against the Japanese still raging, President Harry Truman ordered the dropping of the first atomic bomb on the Japanese city of Hiroshima. Three days later, on Aug. 9, Truman ordered a second attack, this one on Nagasaki, Japan. Finally, the Japanese surrendered. So the obvious question? When will Senators Kelly, Kaine, and Markey demand — however late — the prosecution of former President Obama for the “war crime” of “the drone strike program and double-tap attacks…” as instituted by President Obama? And when will they sponsor a Senate resolution condemning the Truman attack on the Japanese survivors of the first attack? I’ll take a wild guess. The fact that these three Democrat Senators — with Kelly having a serious and honorable military record of his own — are silent as church mice about raising war crime charges against former President Obama for doing a bigger version of what Hegseth has done but are raising un-shirted H-E-double “L” about Secretary Hegseth tells you everything you need to know. The fact that they are silent as well about a Senate resolution condemning former President Truman for his second atomic attack on Japan, in the fashion of Hegseth’s second attack on the drug smugglers, tells observers everything you need to know. Which is to say these three Democrat Senators are playing games with the United States armed forces. Whether it is with the relatively recent Obama attacks or the long-ago history of the Truman second attack on Japan, what they are about is playing a partisan game. With Hegseth as the target. Do they care? Based on their Obama/Truman silence, the answer is obviously no. To them, the United States military is a political toy. Shocking. Not. And definitely shameful. READ MORE from Jeffrey Lord: Trump and Hegseth Defending America From Drug Traffickers Thanksgiving Is More Than Turkey Democrats for Sedition

Like an Ivy League university professor, Alexander Stubb, the president of Finland, takes to the pages of Foreign Affairs to lecture the United States about his preferred new world order. He calls it “values-based realism,” and describes it as a “new symmetry of power among the global West, East and South” where countries would cooperate in tackling the “most pressing global challenges,” like climate change, under the auspices of a reformed United Nations. The professor-president of Finland wants his country and other “small states” to have an outsized role in this new world order. Judging by his Foreign Affairs essay, the professor-president could use a “new” education on realism. President Stubb’s first sentence foreshadows the nonsense that follows. “The world,” he writes, “has changed more in the past four years than in the previous 30.” His evidence for that claim: “Our news feeds brim with strife and tragedy. Russia bombards Ukraine, the Middle East seethes, and wars rage in Africa.” Did he miss the Global War on Terror, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, Russia’s invasion of Crimea, the so-called Arab Spring chaos, tribal fighting in Africa (Rwanda, Yemen, Ethiopia)? Strife and tragedy were not absent before 2021. (RELATED: How Sweden’s Demographic Winter Turned It Into Europe’s Rape Capital) “We live in a new world of disorder,” he writes. Like many professors and readers of Foreign Affairs, President Stubb believes that since the end of World War II, the world has been living under a “rules-based international order.” That “rules-based international order” witnessed wars in Korea and Vietnam; crises in the South China Sea, Suez, Lebanon, Berlin, and Cuba; Arab-Israeli wars; Sino-Indian conflicts; Khmer Rouge genocide; Vietnamese boat people; Islamic terrorism; and many other instances of strife, tragedy, and disorder. Perhaps I can recommend additions to the professor-president’s reading list: Robert Kaplan’s Waste Land and The Tragic Mind might help here. The professor-president predicts that “the next five to ten years will determine the world order for decades to come.” Or, more likely, strife, tragedy, and disorder will continue to occur. Kaplan in Waste Land describes the current state of world affairs as a “global Weimar.” We do not live in “a world governed by a rules-based order, as polite gatherings of the global elite like to define it,” Kaplan writes. It is, instead, Kaplan continues, “a world of broad, overlapping areas of tension, raw intimidation, and military standoffs.” And as for President Stubb’s cherished United Nations, Kaplan calls it a “talk shop more important to the global elite itself than to the world at large.” (RELATED: From Orwell to Brussels: The EU’s ‘Ministry of Truth’ Arrives) In world affairs, nations pursue interests, which may or may not be consistent with their values. The professor-president also suffers from the Ivy Leaguers’ tendency for self-flagellation. “After the 9/11 terrorist attacks in 2001,” he writes, “the West turned its back on the values that it claimed to uphold. Its commitment to international law was questioned.” One can acknowledge that the nature and extent of the interventions in Afghanistan and Iraq were the result of failed policies, but where did the West violate international law? By striking back at the terrorists and their allies who attacked New York and Washington, D.C., killing more than two thousand Americans? By enforcing the professor-president’s cherished United Nations resolutions in Iraq? President Stubb writes that “values-based realism” is not a contradiction in terms. But it is. In world affairs, nations pursue interests, which may or may not be consistent with their values. In a clash between interests and values, interests should always prevail — not “interests” defined by a reformed United Nations, but interests based on a country’s geography, customs, traditions, and economic and political needs. President Stubb’s proposed new world order envisions a situation where “countries could deal with the most pressing global challenges through cooperation and dialogue among equals.” Unsurprisingly, he is critical of America’s withdrawal from the World Health Organization and the Paris climate agreement, while deriding President Trump’s “mercantilist approach to cross-border trade.” (RELATED: The Hedge-Fund Arsonist Now Campaigning as California’s Savior) President Stubb is a globalist — part of that global elite that Robert Kaplan describes in Waste Land. Globalism and a reformed U.N. would heighten Finland’s importance and role in the world. “Small states such as mine are not bystanders in the story,” he writes. But, judging by President Stubb’s Foreign Affairs essay, the world is much better off when Finland’s role equals its size and population. And President Stubb is a better fit for an Ivy League professor than the political leader of a country. READ MORE from Francis P. Sempa: Hugh Sidey: The Last Honest Chronicler of the White House Missionary Ridge and a Legacy of Courage The Liberal Crack-Up 2.0

Tuesday, December 2 marked 10 years since Syed Farook and Tashfeen Malik shot dead Robert Adams, Isaac Amianos, Bennetta Betbadal, Harry Bowman, Sierra Clayborn, Juan Espinoza, Aurora Godoy, Shannon Johnson, Larry Daniel Kaufman, Damien Meins, Tin Nguyen, Nicholas Thalasinos, Yvette Velasco, and Michael Wetzel, Farook’s co-workers at the Inland Regional Center in San Bernardino, California. Farook and Malik wounded more than 20 others before local police took them down after a car chase. The deadly anniversary had journalist Beau Yarbrough wondering, “Why did the San Bernardino Mass Shooting Happen?” The 3,332-word article comes subtitled “childhood abuse, terrorism, workplace conflict and semi-automatic weapons combined in the murders of 14 people.” The order invites a closer look. “The attack was committed by a man who had grown up in an abusive home,” writes Yarbrough, alluding to “mental health concerns such as depression, anxiety, and paranoia” on the part of Farook. He engaged in “workplace disputes,” but as the author notes, some months earlier, Farook’s co-workers held a baby shower for the couple’s newborn daughter. Co-workers also said Farook was a “typical” employee who did not stand out in any way. The disputes could not have amounted to much, but Yarborough says the attack was “both a terrorist act and a workplace shooting.” That recalls President Obama’s branding of “soldier of Allah” Nidal Hasan’s murder of 13 soldiers at Ford Hood on Nov. 5, 2009, as “workplace violence,” not terrorism or even “gun violence.” (RELATED: What Is an American?) Yarbrough profiles Syed Farook as a devout Muslim who “fantasized about committing violence of his own, inspired by terrorist groups that claimed they fought on behalf of Islam.” He read al Qaeda magazines with instructions about building radio-controlled pipe bombs. Farook and Muslim convert Enrique Marquez talked about tossing bombs into the library at Riverside City College, or onto the 91 freeway, all designed to maximize the number of casualties. Yarbrough cites testimony from then-FBI director James Comey that Farook and Malik were “speaking about jihad and martyrdom before they became engaged.” Marquez procured semi-automatic rifles for the pair, and Farook’s mother, Rafia, shredded the “attack plans” the terrorists had drawn up. (RELATED: Trivializing Religion Left Us Unprepared for Political Islam) Despite the careful planning and dedication to jihadism, Yarbrough concludes: “Childhood trauma. Online radicalization. Problems at work. None of these, alone or together, fully explains why Farook and his wife committed mass murder.” Missing in this account is the response of Kamala Harris, California’s attorney general at the time. In a Dec. 17, 2015, statement, Harris mentioned “those who lost their lives in the recent attacks in Paris and San Bernardino,” but named not a single victim. They included blacks, Hispanics, and Asians, but no mention of a hate crime. The former San Francisco district attorney also failed to name Syed Farook and Tashfeen Malik and did not openly condemn their actions. Harris repeated that performance in a statement one year later, and the attorney general failed to attend a single victim’s funeral. At this writing, on the 10th anniversary, Kamala Harris has yet to issue a statement. In 2015, Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom issued no statement, and on Dec. 2, 2025, the governor’s website contained nothing on the mass murder in San Bernardino. As Yarbrough notes, the FBI called it a terrorist attack, but that was after the fact. The FBI failed to prevent the terrorist attacks of 9/11, Fort Hood, the Boston Marathon, San Bernardino, and Orlando, all with massive loss of life, and the bureau played no role in the takedown of the terrorists. If families and friends of the San Bernardino 14 can be forgiven for believing that Farook and Malik were full-on Islamic jihadists out to maximize the number of casualties by any means necessary. If the families thought that government agencies, establishment politicians, and legacy media show little respect for the victims of terrorism, it would be hard to blame them. READ MORE from Lloyd Billingsley: State of Denial NIH Announces New Pandemic Playbook China’s New Hongqi Bridge Collapses — Could California’s Chinese Bridge Be Far Behind? Lloyd Billingsley is a policy fellow at the Independent Institute in Oakland, Calif.

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by John W. Whitehead, Rutherford Institute: “The United States boldly broke with the ancient military custom of swearing loyalty to a leader. Article VI required that American Officers thereafter swear loyalty to our basic law, the Constitution… Our American Code of Military Obedience requires that, should orders and the law ever conflict, our officers must […]