Many fans took to social media to bash the NFL’s Halftime Show featuring Puerto Rican rapper Bad Bunny for being mostly in Spanish and even for being “boring.” The show was bound to be controversial…

[View Article at Source]The president has repeatedly attacked the libertarian Republican, but none of his blows seem to land. The post Trump’s Attacks Never Appear to Hurt Massie appeared first on The…

[View Article at Source]We can’t allow left-wing foreign governments to determine what Americans can say online. The post Europe, South Korea, and Brazil Attack U.S. Tech Over Free Speech appeared first…

[View Article at Source]Ending the existing arrangement could result in even more extensive forms of involvement. The post Is Nixing Aid to Israel a Poison Chalice? appeared first on The American Conservative.…

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Politics Trump’s Attacks Never Appear to Hurt Massie The president has repeatedly attacked the libertarian Republican, but none of his blows seem to land. Credit: Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images At the National Prayer Breakfast on Thursday, President Donald Trump called Republican Congressman Thomas Massie a “moron.” This is not remotely new for Trump. The president has called Massie a “grandstander” for holding up the $2 trillion Covid relief bill in March 2020. Trump has called for Massie to be thrown out of the Republican Party multiple times. He chose a Republican primary challenger to oust Massie in the mid-terms. This month the president even went after Massie’s wife. I’m missing some. There have been a lot. But the results of these attacks? It took only three weeks for Massie to be proven right about the wastefulness of the Covid relief spending six years ago, almost instantly vindicating him. Betting markets show Massie as twice as likely to win his Kentucky primary than his closest competitor, the Trump-backed candidate and neoconservative Lindsey Graham donor Ed Gallrein. While Gallrein has benefitted from $1.8 million in spending from pro-Israel lobbying groups, it is well known that Massie has received $0 from AIPAC. Massie claims AIPAC hires paid influencers to attack him online. Massie has received money from over 17,000 small donors nationwide in this campaign and reported a haul of over $300,000 in just online donations in January alone—a good look for the libertarian agrarian. Massie is also a popular figure in right-wing media among major populist and conservative personalities like Tucker Carlson, who remains friendly with the president. “Of all the members of Congress that I know, Massie is the most principled,” Carlson said in October to Marjorie Taylor Greene, then still a GOP member of Congress. All of this positivity while the MAGA president is constantly going after Massie. Not too shabby. Trump’s “moron” quip this week against Massie also comes as the president’s approval numbers have reached new lows and also on the eve of a possible war with Iran. Massie has been steadfast in opposing the administration starting a U.S. war with Iran and also sending any American foreign aid to Israel. These are not unpopular positions with millions of Republican voters, including in Kentucky. A Quinnipiac poll from mid-January showed that 70 percent of American voters, including 53 percent of Republicans—a simple majority—oppose U.S. military action against Iran over the protests. Most of the time Trump gets angry with Massie for being one of the few Republicans who votes against massive spending and other kinds of questionable bills that the libertarian Republican congressman believes betrays his constituents. Massie always explains his votes. Sometimes he even answers Trump’s barbs. He did this on Thursday, responding on X, “The President of the United States called me a moron at the National Prayer Breakfast this morning because I’m still fighting for what he promised the American people: Reduce big spending, DOGE, no new wars, end foreign aid, defend 1A 2A 4A, prolife, and expose sex traffickers.” Massie responses are typically calm and collected, sometimes comically but also truthfully exposing hypocrisy in the administration. After Trump attacked Massie’s wife, whom he characterized as a “Radical Left ‘Flamethrower’” (which is not true), the congressman replied, “So now he’s attacking my wife who voted for him three times. Maybe someone told him she’s actually the one who suggested I ask Pam Bondi in person at a dinner when we would get Phase 2 of the Epstein files. Bondi said there were no more files. As they say, the rest is history.” Millions of the Epstein files that the administration long downplayed were recently released due in no small part to the leadership efforts of Massie. Massie might be constantly under fire. So far, he has been bulletproof. The White House attacks never seem to diminish his profile or popularity in his district or even nationally. Part of this could be due to this not being a case of a genuinely MAGA-principled Trump singling out some dissident moderate Republican. No, their dynamic is as Massie described: a contrast between the president with the Kentuckian who still focuses on reducing spending, free-speech rights, gun and privacy protections, defending the unborn, and exposing the people involved with the late convicted felon and sexual abuser, Jeffrey Epstein. These were issues Trump once campaigned on and now seems to pretend he never did. Massie is a constant reminder. That has to annoy the president. At a minimum. Carlson said of Massie in October, “I don’t think there are many people in the country who live out Donald Trump’s own stated principles more precisely than Thomas Massie does.” That’s high praise and a fair point. Trump said of Massie on Thursday, “There’s something wrong with him,” Trump added. “We call him Rand Paul Jr. They love voting no.” Massie’s fellow Kentucky Republican, Senator Rand Paul, also often votes no on legislation Trump favors, almost always for the same reasons and against the bulk of their party. Trump is fed up with both of them; Massie receives the bulk of his fire these days. And no one really seems to care. The post Trump’s Attacks Never Appear to Hurt Massie appeared first on The American Conservative.

Foreign Affairs Europe, South Korea, and Brazil Attack U.S. Tech Over Free Speech We can’t allow left-wing foreign governments to determine what Americans can say online. (Matt Cardy/Getty Images) French authorities raided X’s Paris office this week as part of a criminal probe into the platform’s alleged “biased algorithms.” X owner Elon Musk denounced the police action as a “political attack.” It marks the latest escalation in Europe’s struggle against American tech companies. The European Union has ramped up enforcement of its tech regulations to ensure social media platforms censor more and comply with byzantine business rules. This prompted the ire of the Trump administration, which sees the EU’s efforts as intentionally anti-American and anti-free speech. Unfortunately, the EU isn’t alone in this crusade against American tech. South Korea and Brazil are also waging their own wars on Silicon Valley giants to ensure they suppress free speech and abide by draconian regulations that favor obedient, non-American competitors.  It’s a major problem for our country, as well as for conservatives all over the world who want to preserve free speech. Big Tech was once an ally for globalists in suppressing dissenting voices and imposing liberal groupthink. Thanks to figures like Musk, it’s changed over the last few years to allow more speech and different views. That’s a problem for liberals here in America and abroad. Foreign governments now hope that their draconian rules can force Big Tech back to its old state of following left-wing dictates. Europe’s efforts in this regard are well-known. The UK and the EU have both considered shutting down X in their domains in order to erase this bastion of free speech. British Prime Minister Keir Starmer vowed last month to take away the platform’s ability to regulate itself if it can’t control Grok AI and “hate speech.” Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez announced this week that his government would impose criminal penalties on social media platforms that allow “hate speech” and “misinformation.” The country would also ban teenagers from using these platforms.  Musk and other prominent figures have drawn attention to these moves coming from Europe. What’s less well-known is South Korea’s efforts to curb American tech.  The House Judiciary Committee recently announced a formal investigation into South Korean regulators targeting American tech companies. According to the committee, the Korean Fair Trade Commission and other official bodies have slammed U.S. firms with “punitive obligations, excessive fines, and discriminatory enforcement practices.” These harmful actions are all done for the purpose of benefiting Korean companies, the committee argues.  The House committee has subpoenaed U.S. e-commerce company Coupang, which has been specifically targeted by South Korea’s harsh laws. Lawmakers warn that South Korea’s laws don’t merely impact its own citizens—they also directly harm American innovation and our own citizens. South Korea has been turning to Europe for inspiration over its tech laws, particularly over how to go about censorship. In December, the country’s left-wing National Assembly passed a sweeping bill to restrict speech on the internet. Ostensibly aimed at curbing “illegal information,” critics say the bill will lead to significant levels of censorship. One civic group claimed,  By maintaining or even expanding a system of state-led administrative reviews while granting even private platform companies sweeping powers to delete content and block accounts, the law is likely to result in the blanket suppression of controversial expression. Even journalist groups, which seem to cheer on tech censorship in the U.S. and in Europe, criticized the bill. They argued its broad scope could harm the ability to report the news and pushed for it to be revised.  This matter has caused a rift between the U.S. and South Korea. Trump announced at the end of the last month that he would raise tariffs on the Asian state over its failure to enact the “historic” trade deal between the two countries. One of the stipulations of that deal was that South Korea would not try to punish American tech companies for frivolous reasons. Clearly, the nation’s liberal government has failed to follow that agreement. Brazil is also making moves to suppress American tech. Influenced by Europe’s own strict regulations, the Latin American country wants to censor social media and forces American companies to follow onerous dictates. One of the most notable examples of Brazilian interference with American tech came in 2024 when Alexandre de Moraes, a Supreme Court justice, ordered X blocked from the country. Moraes made this demand in response to Musk’s refusal to follow court orders to ban certain accounts and speech on the platform.  The Brazilian jurist has tried to make himself the tyrant of the internet, a fact even the New York Times acknowledges: He has jailed people without trial for threats they made online, blocked news outlets from posting content critical of politicians and ordered the removal of popular social media accounts, while refusing to explain how they threatened democracy. The worst part about all this is that these rules could impact tech policy in our own country. If the rest of the world forces our companies to comply with their restrictive speech policies, they could make them universal. This would allow petty left-wing despots, such as Justice Moraes, to shape our own elections and politics. We can’t allow that to happen. If we want to keep free speech alive, we must combat foreign attempts to snuff it out on the internet. The administration must contest these efforts wherever they may arise. We cannot allow the European Union and South Korea’s ruling left-wing party to decide how Americans talk on the internet. The post Europe, South Korea, and Brazil Attack U.S. Tech Over Free Speech appeared first on The American Conservative.