The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation continued aid distribution in Gaza on Thursday, less than 24 hours after at least eight workers with the group were killed in a Hamas attack.  “This has been a painful day but our team made the decision that the best way to honor the memory of our local Palestinian colleagues was to press on, proceeding with food distribution today, as planned,” Rev. Johnnie Moore, American evangelical leader and the executive chairman of the humanitarian aid group, wrote on X Thursday morning.  “We provided food for 2.6 million meals today,” he added.  This has been a painful day but our team made the decision that the best way to honor the memory of our local Palestinian colleagues was to press on, proceeding with food distribution today, as planned. We provided food for 2.6 million meals TODAY. GHF OPERATIONAL UPDATE –… pic.twitter.com/sAQ65ZhLuc— Rev. Johnnie Moore ? (@JohnnieM) June 12, 2025 In addition to the eight Palestinian Gaza Humanitarian Foundation workers who were killed, some were injured, and some are believed to have been taken hostage. “We are still collecting more information on the deadly and unprovoked attack on our dedicated local team members and volunteers,” John Acree, interim executive director of the foundation said Thursday. “We will not be deterred from our mission towards providing food security for the Palestinian people in Gaza,” Acree added.   Moore, who was just named the executive chairman of the humanitarian aid group at the start of June, shared a statement from the organization, explaining Hamas targeted, “a bus carrying more than two-dozen members of the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation team, local Palestinians working side-by-side with the U.S.”  “Fathers, brothers, sons, and friends,” are among those who were attacked, according to the group. “Our hearts are broken and our thoughts and prayers are with every victim, every family, and every person still unaccounted for.”  Moore recently met with the U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee in Jerusalem. Huckabee shared a photo with Moore Thursday morning and expressed his sorrow over the news of the attack.  “Sadly Hamas murdered several Palestinians who were helping distribute food, which shows Hamas will starve and murder their own people to stay in power,” Huckabee wrote on X.  Met @JohnnieM at @usembassyjlm and discussed his taking lead of GHF humanitarian aid to Gaza. Sadly Hamas murdered several Palestinians who were helping distribute food which shows Hamas will starve & murder their own people to stay in power. pic.twitter.com/tnJDhRM0T5— Ambassador Mike Huckabee (@GovMikeHuckabee) June 12, 2025 The humanitarian group has distributed 19 million means since it launched operations on May 26.  “All [Gaza Humanitarian Foundation] wants to do is feed people. That’s literally all,” Moore recently said.  The group has received criticism from the United Nations following reports of violence at aid distribution sites that reportedly left some dead.  “The controversial new aid initiative run by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation bypasses the work of UN aid agencies which have repeatedly appealed for unimpeded access to Gaza in order to bring in thousands of tonnes of supplies,” United Nations News wrote on June 3.  Moore condemned the U.N. on Thursday for not condemning “Hamas calls for violence” against the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, adding, the “UN—worse, much worse, than silence they continue their vicious slander against our mission. A mission with one goal: FEED GAZA!”  “The principle of impartiality does not mean neutrality,” Moore wrote on X. “There is good and evil in this world. What we are doing is good and what Hamas did to these Gazans is absolute evil.” The U.N. did not immediately respond to The Daily Signal’s request for comment. The post Gaza Humanitarian Foundation Continues Work Follow Deadly Hamas Attack appeared first on The Daily Signal.

Faith and sports go hand in hand. Quarterbacks quote Bible verses in interviews, and today’s top NBA players, from Golden State Warrior standout Stephen Curry (verses of scripture adorn his sneakers) to Indiana Pacer sensation Tyrese Halliburton (he cites church as “a big part of my success and my sanity”), count themselves as two of the 62% of Americans who call ourselves Christians. As sports fans nationwide watch the drama of the 79thth NBA Finals unfold, it’s worth telling the story of basketball’s Christian roots. Indeed, Christianity was the driving force behind the game’s origin story. “I want to take you back to the first game of basketball in Springfield, Massachusetts in 1891,” Paul Putz, author of “The Spirit of the Game: American Christianity and Big-Time Sports,” told Our American Stories. “Eighteen grown men, most in their mid-twenties—walked into the gym at the International Young Men’s Christian Association Training School, where they were students. There were two peach baskets tacked to banisters on opposite sides of the gym, ten feet off the ground. There was a soccer ball too, and thirteen rules for a new game their instructor, James Naismith, explained to them.” Putz described that first game. “They divided into two teams of nine: No dribbling, no jump shots, no dunking. Instead, they passed the soccer ball back and forth, trying to keep it away from their opponents while angling for a chance to throw it into the basket.” There was no template for what a shot might look like, Putz explained. As the players positioned the ball at the top of their heads to toss it toward the basket, a defender would swoop in and grab it away. “If you’ve ever tried to coach second graders, it was probably a scene like that—except with big players and beards,” Putz said. When the game ended, just one person made a shot. The final score: 1 to 0. To the students—and Naismith—it was a success. The students loved the challenge and possibilities of the game. Naismith loved those things, too. But he loved what the game represented, and why he was at the YMCA Training School in the first place. On his application, he was asked to describe the role for which he was training, and wrote: “To win men for the Master through the gym.” Naismith’s idea was simple, but revolutionary: He believed sports could shape Christian character in ways mere study could not. So who was this man who created one of America’s great homegrown sports? “He grew up in rural Canada,” Putz noted. “His parents died of illness when he was nine, and his uncle, a deeply religious man, took him in. When Naismith was fifteen, he dropped out of school, working as a lumberjack, but returned to high school at the age of twenty and entered college with the goal of becoming a minister.” Most Christians in Naismith’s day viewed sports as, at best, a distraction: others saw sports as a tool of the devil. “But Naismith was coming of age during the rise of a new movement called ‘Muscular Christianity,’” Putz said. “It pushed back against the dualism that separated the spiritual and physical,” Putz explained. “The body itself had sacred value, they believed, and human beings should be understood holistically—mind, body, and soul intertwined.” For Naismith, this idea came home in an epiphany playing football as a seminary student. During a game, a teammate lost his temper and let out a stream of curse words. During a break, he turned to Naismith and said sheepishly, “I beg your pardon—I forgot you were there.” Naismith never spoke out against profanity, but his teammate felt compelled to apologize because—in Naismith’s words—“I played the game with all my might, yet held myself under control.” His teammate was responding to Naismith’s character on and off the field. Soon after that encounter, Naismith heard about the YMCA Training School in Springfield, a new college dedicated to connecting physical activity and Christian formation. And away he went to America to invent the game we know and love. “Naismith believed strongly in individual expression, and wanted basketball players to have space to create,” Putz explained. “He celebrated inventive moves—like the dribble and the hook shot—and expressed awe as players pushed the limits of what was possible.” But Naismith also understood that with freedom came constraints. “Basketball is personal combat without personal contact,” Naismith would often say. Players can move anywhere at any time, and get close to their opponents, but can’t overpower them physically, Putz explained. The only way to make the game work is by consistently applying the rules. Which is why Naismith’s favorite role wasn’t  player or coach but referee.  Naismith would become a pioneer on more than one front. In the 1930s, while a professor at the University of Kansas, a young African American student named John McLendon enrolled,” Putz explained. “He wanted to join the basketball team—but Kansas didn’t allow Black players.” Naismith took the young man under his wing, and McLendon would later become one of the most important basketball coaches of the 20th century. Basketball was influenced by Americans of all stripes. “In 1892, Senda Berenson, a Jewish instructor at a women’s college, saw basketball as a rare opportunity for women to participate in sports,” Putz said. “She adapted the rules and helped make it the most important women’s team sport of the 20th century.” The Jewish community embraced the game early, producing many of its first stars and innovators. So did Catholics and Latter-day Saints. Basketball also crossed racial and ethnic lines. Though the YMCA was segregated, Black Americans created their own spaces—often through churches—and built thriving basketball cultures, especially in cities like New York and Washington, D.C. It didn’t take long for Naismith’s creation to became a pluralistic and collaborative force—a gift to the world, developed and shaped by many hands, Putz added. “One of my favorite Naismith stories comes from the 1920s,” Putz concluded. “He dropped by a small college gym in Iowa, and a pickup game was about to begin. The players needed a referee and spotted the old man in the bleachers. One ran over to ask if he’d officiate—but before Naismith could respond, another player interrupted: ‘That old man? He doesn’t know anything about basketball.’ The players walked off to find someone else. Naismith just smiled.” The fact is basketball would not be the game we know and love today if it hadn’t been for Naismith’s Christian vision. “I’m sure,” Naismith wrote near the end of his life, “that no man can derive more pleasure from money or power than I do from seeing a pair of basketball goals in some out of the way place—deep in the Wisconsin woods an old barrel hoop nailed to a tree, or a weather-beaten shed on the Mexican border with a rusty iron hoop nailed to one end.” Naismith’s story is worth celebrating as we watch the Knicks and Pacers battle for the 79th NBA title. Originally published in Newsweek We publish a variety of perspectives. Nothing written here is to be construed as representing the views of The Daily Signal. The post The Christian Roots of the NBA – From Naismith to This Year’s 79th NBA Finals appeared first on The Daily Signal.

Upping the Ante: Iran Declared 'In Breach' of Non-Proliferation Duties

YGBFKM: Gutless Gavin Hides 'First Amendment' Speech Behind Copyright Claims to Shut Down Critics

Answer me, shark.

A dash of color is always a good choice when one sports a monochromatic look.

Wednesday morning, The Situation Room aired CNN political analyst and Bloomberg opinion writer, Ron Brownstein, in order to talk about the ongoing situation in Los Angeles, California. Brownstein tried his best to create clear division between parties while downplaying the events of the riots and made President Trump the aggressor attempting to “subdue blue jurisdictions” by using the military. As read by co-host Wolf Blitzer, Brownstein wrote this in a Bloomberg piece, “Trump is governing as a wartime president, with blue America, rather than any foreign adversary, as the enemy. He is trying to use national power for factional ends: to impose the priorities of red America onto blue states and cities that have rejected them.” When asked about it, he doubled down with rhetoric meant to stoke fear of a military takeover by Trump: Then we’ve seen them arresting a mayor in Newark, a U.S. representative in New Jersey, a judge in Milwaukee, now a labor leader in California. And now we have kind of the next step, which is kind of the militarization of immigration enforcement. It’s really important to understand that what the administration is now not only asserting, but doing. Posting themselves yesterday, is they are not only using the National Guard and Marines, potentially, to protect federal buildings downtown, which is the image we’ve seen. They are using them to provide perimeter defense on ICE raid in neighborhoods in U.S. cities, in Los Angeles, and presumably establishing a template that they will use elsewhere. So, what we are seeing is an extraordinary attempt to use national power to basically compel compliance with blue states. And as I wrote in that same piece, he is clearly viewing blue states. The governor of California, the mayor of Los Angeles, not as partners in governing, but as hostile territory to be subdued.     Brownstein tried to set the tone by bringing up examples of Trump’s “unprecedented efforts” to treat “blue America…as the enemy.” He cited four examples of Democratic figures who impeded and obstructed federal agents from conducting lawful operations. With one of them even on video leading an illegal immigrant out of a court house through a non-public entrance in an attempt for him to escape from ICE agents. It’s unclear if Brownstein did research on these cases or is strictly going off of CNN talking points.  Brownstein stated that the National Guard use of perimeters around ICE agents so they can do their job without obstruction was “an extraordinary attempt to use national power to basically compel compliance with blue states.” As Brownstein so obviously failed to see, protestors in L.A. had been assaulting officers, destroying vehicles, and blocking ICE agents and vehicles. According to Brownstein, the National Guard should have just let the protestors overwhelm and attack ICE agents as they attempted to conduct their lawful arrests.  Brownstein didn’t stop there. When he spoke of the riots, he suggested Americans would be appalled to see the National Guard and the Marines protecting ICE and federal facilities (Click “expand”): Well – look – I mean – it’s interesting, you know, public opinion I think can seem complex on this, but I actually think there’s a very clear through line. Americans don’t like disorder, they don’t like chaos, so when they see images of cars burning in downtown L.A., even though it is a very, you know, limited area and a very small part of this overall protest. Not surprisingly, in the polling that’s come out this week by YouGov, most Americans say they oppose the protests.  I think it was like 46-38, but roughly almost exactly the same number say they oppose the deployment of the National Guard to L.A.. Even larger pluralities say they oppose the deployment of the Marines, and that’s for protection of dealing with the riot, I mean, I think we’re going to get polling in the next few days. I can’t imagine Americans are going to be comfortable with the images that ICE itself was posting yesterday of National Guard, heavily armed National Guard troops, providing a perimeter to ICE enforcement. Presumably in a civilian neighborhood with their guns pointed at, you know, basically civilians.  In an attempt to downplay the riots Brownstein called them small and limited, then he went on to say that the American public generally disagreed with the protests. To call multiple cars being burned, looting, and assaults to officers “small” was delusional.  Brownstein ended the interview with this following Blitzer’s question about how personal the riots are for him because he lives in L.A. (Click “expand”): Well look – I mean — you know, restoring — maintaining public order and public safety is the prime responsibility for any level of government. For the mayor, for the governor, for the president, but just think about how dysfunctional it is that they are trading arguments in a courtroom and not strategizing together in a conference room about how to ensure safety.  The last time, as you know, the president federalized the National Guard over an objection of a governor was during the civil rights era when southern governors were actively impeding the enforcement of federal law. Nothing like that has happened in California. This is about, I think, much more sending a signal like the arrests we’ve seen of elected officials. that they are going to use any means necessary to, as I said, subdue blue jurisdictions and try to compel them to fall in line behind an agenda that they reject.  Brownstein said that maintaining public order and safety was the prime responsibility of the government, including the governor. Here’s California Governor Gavin Newsom saying he was refusing to work with Trump. The transcript is below. Click "expand" to view. CNN’s The Situation Room 10:30:40 AM EST June, 11th, 2025 WOLF BLITZER: Joining us now, right here in The Situation Room, CNN senior political analyst Ron Brownstein, he’s also an opinion columnist for Bloomberg. Ron, thanks very much for being here, I want to share with you something with our viewers, something you wrote in Bloomberg.  You wrote this quote, “Trump is governing as a wartime president, with blue America, rather than any foreign adversary, as the enemy. He is trying to use national power for factional ends: to impose the priorities of red America onto blue states and cities that have rejected them.” What is the president's long term game here?   RON BROWNSTEIN: Yeah, that is becoming, I think, more literal every day. Look, I mean, the president you’ve seen from the beginning of the administration, unprecedented efforts to compel blue states to adopt social policies that they had rejected. On things like LGTBQ rights, or classroom teaching of race and gender, or diversity, by threatening to cut off their federal funding? In fact, just before all this happened, the stories in CNN last Friday was the administration was planning a wide scale termination of federal grants to California. Then we’ve seen them arresting a mayor in Newark, a U.S. representative in New Jersey, a judge in Milwaukee, now a labor leader in California. And now we have kind of the next step, which is kind of the militarization of immigration enforcement. It’s really important to understand that what the administration is now not only asserting, but doing. Posting themselves yesterday, is they are not only using the National Guard and Marines, potentially, to protect federal buildings downtown, which is the image we’ve seen. They are using them to provide perimeter defense on ICE raid in neighborhoods in U.S. cities, in Los Angeles, and presumably establishing a template that they will use elsewhere. So, what we are seeing is an extraordinary attempt to use national power to basically compel compliance with blue states. And as I wrote in that same piece, he is clearly viewing blue states. The governor of California, the mayor of Los Angeles, not as partners in governing, but as hostile territory to be subdued. BLITZER: It's hard to believe what's going on. (...) 10:33:15 AM EST BROWNSTEIN: Well – look – I mean – it’s interesting, you know, public opinion I think can seem complex on this, but I actually think there’s a very clear through line. Americans don’t like disorder, they don’t like chaos, so when they see images of cars burning in downtown L.A., even though it is a very, you know, limited area and a very small part of this overall protest. Not surprisingly, in the polling that’s come out this week by YouGov, most Americans say they oppose the protests.  I think it was like 46-38, but roughly almost exactly the same number say they oppose the deployment of the National Guard to L.A.. Even larger pluralities say they oppose the deployment of the Marines, and that’s for protection of dealing with the riot, I mean, I think we’re going to get polling in the next few days. I can’t imagine Americans are going to be comfortable with the images that ICE itself was posting yesterday of National Guard, heavily armed National Guard troops, providing a perimeter to ICE enforcement. Presumably in a civilian neighborhood with their guns pointed at, you know, basically civilians.  (...) 10:34:46 AM EST BLITZER: And you understand what's going on in L.A.? BROWNSTEIN: I do. BLITZER: You live in Los Angeles. So this is very personal for you as well. BROWNSTEIN: Well look – I mean — you know, restoring — maintaining public order and public safety is the prime responsibility for any level of government. For the mayor, for the governor, for the president, but just think about how dysfunctional it is that they are trading arguments in a courtroom and not strategizing together in a conference room about how to ensure safety.  The last time, as you know, the president federalized the National Guard over an objection of a governor was during the civil rights era when southern governors were actively impeding the enforcement of federal law. Nothing like that has happened in California. This is about, I think, much more sending a signal like the arrests we’ve seen of elected officials. that they are going to use any means necessary to, as I said, subdue blue jurisdictions and try to compel them to fall in line behind an agenda that they reject.  (...)

Wednesday afternoon’s White House press briefing was a fun one as Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt wasn’t having it with liberal journalists at Agence France-Presse (AFP), The New York Times, NOTUS, and Reuters trying to trap the Trump administration with questions about President Trump’s ironclad commitment to restoring law and order in Los Angeles following riots last weekend. Reuters’s Nandita Bose wondered aloud whether the President’s decision to send in the National Guard and Marines to the city of angels wasn’t to restore order, but a distraction from last week’s verbal tussle with Elon Musk: Moments later, AFP’s Danny Kemp was curious/incredulous that Trump would suggest some in the crowd would be paid to cause chaos: The clip most circulated moment on the interwebs after the briefing was this from NOTUS’s Jasmine Wright asking if Trump finds any kind of protest “acceptable.” Leavitt ripped this line of questioning, exclaiming “what a stupid question’ at the end of her answer: However, the dumbest line of questioning was from Deep State reporter David Sanger of The Times with the ludicrous wonderment about where in Trump’s First Amendment “hierarchy of interests” does he place “protect[ing]...peaceful protesters” compared to “stopping violence” (and the implicit thought being the left views the former as paramount to the latter): Sanger followed up and thus gave Leavitt the chance to ask him if he thinks rioting is “appropriate behavior” (click “expand”): SANGER: You’re saying the majority have not been peaceful? The majority have been. LEAVITT: I just read for you the arrest numbers. We’ve arrested nearly 400 illegal aliens alone, just illegal aliens who have been arrested in these riots since June 6 — SANGER: But the balance of people on the streets — LEAVITT: — yeah and we’ve had hundreds of people who have assaulted law enforcement officers. Are you saying that that’s not — that’s appropriate behavior? Are you saying — SANGER: No, I’m saying that at all. LEAVITT: — the President shouldn’t take action? SANGER: I’m just trying to figure out — yeah. LEAVITT: The Democrat — the Democrat governor and the Democrat mayor of Los Angeles have failed their citizens and the majority of Americans, the majority of Californians, do not want to see law enforcement officers being assaulted in the streets. And thankfully, the President took action and stepped in to protect our federal law enforcement agents, to protect federal buildings, to protect the federal mission of deporting illegal criminals off our streets, and that mission will continue every day as far as we’re concerned. Earlier, Alexandria Hoff was in the Fox News seat: In today’s example of how many conservative reporters aren’t there to simply roll over and lob softballs, EWTN’s Owen Jensen brought up the plight of Jimmy Lai, a Hong Kong media executive and wrongfully imprisoned by the Chinese Communist Party: On a much more positive note, our friends at the Daily Signal were in the “new media” seat: To see the relevant transcript from the June 11 briefing, click here.

Protesters blocked roadways in New York City this week in an apparent attempt to disrupt daily life for citizens and bring awareness to their anti-immigration enforcement messaging.Activists blocked traffic in response to ongoing raids by Immigration and Customs Enforcement in major cities, where agents have continually apprehended illegal aliens. Signs at the protest included, "No one is illegal except Trump," and "F**k ICE," for example.According to the New York Post, at least 80 demonstrators were arrested on Tuesday night as protests spiraled out of control and activists refused to disperse.'These people are having their children taken away.'A male and female protester were captured in one video on Tuesday morning, standing in front of four lanes of backed-up cars using a bicycle to shield themselves. A second woman is seen trying to reason with the activists, asking them to move so she can get to work in order to care for her child."I have a kid!" the woman pleaded.The short-haired female protester then replied, "I know, and these people are having their children taken away."The mother did not see that as a valid reason to block citizens and asked, "What about my kid?""I can't help you," the female protester declared.RELATED: It’s not a riot, it’s an invasion Photo by Adam Gray/Getty Images The pair of protesters represented an ongoing issue with activists believing their cause is worthy of disruptions in city centers; in particular, the New York protesters argued that their protest was a valid and peaceful demonstration. The mother retorted that it is not peaceful to block traffic.In an attempt to play their own politics against them, Turning Point USA reporter Savanah Hernandez — who filmed the video — asked the protesters:"How do y'all as white people feel about stopping a black woman from going to work?""Oh no, not work," the male protester said sarcastically. "I care so much," he joked, mocking the mother to her face.A masked woman soon appeared to confront the mother, who continued to complain about the protesters blocking the road.RELATED: Are Californians finally fed up enough to do the impossible? A line of NYPD officers pushes back a group of demonstrators trying to block an ICE transport van during a protest outside 26 Federal Plaza in New York USA on June 7, 2025. Photo by MADISON SWART/Hans Lucas/AFP via Getty Images The masked woman was later identified by Hernandez and reporter Andy Ngo as a "morbidly obese reporter" named Talia Jane Ben-Ora.Ben-Ora posted her own video that evening, labeling Hernandez a "far-right provocateur" who was "following the march and riling people up" as the demonstration moved through Manhattan.The masked reporter then claimed Hernandez's reporting was "propaganda" as traffic was allegedly stopped for only five minutes.Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!

People didn’t write songs like this. It may be the most introspective song in all of rock and roll history. The post To Be Brian Wilson (ooh, still dig those sounds): A Tribute appeared first on Best Classic Bands.