A recent article in the Washington Post  caught my eye. It outlined the astounding loss of over 3 million birds among breeding adults — 30 percent of the adult population — in the last half century (waterfowl are an exception due to wetlands protection). The article goes on to discuss possible causes. Not surprisingly loss of habitat was among them. Then, of course, the leading usual suspect was rounded up; that being climate change.  The Post — being the Post — did not dare to bring up solar and wind farms as culprits. That is the third rail of the Green-Industrial Complex and the Post, New York Times, and NPR dare not touch it for fear of offending their elite progressive base; or are birds and butterflies sacrifices on the altar of climate change? If Green energy is ever forced to survive on market demand rather than government funding, it will likely collapse within five years. I am not a birder, but I keep feeders and a couple of Milkweed and Wildflower gardens in my yard to attract other pollinators. I recognize  the value of their contribution and have followed with interest for several decades the decline of bird and butterfly species. It strikes me that these rapid declines have coincided with the progressive rise of wind and solar generation farms beginning during the Carter Administration four and a half decades ago. The death of many birds nation-wide has been attributed directly to wind farms. However, we hear very little about their impact in the mainstream media. I suspect that the baleful influence of the Green Industrial-Academic Complex has much to to with it.  In the Upstate New York county where I live, many residents complain bitterly about the amount of arable land lost to wind and solar farms, They are generally written off by the Democratic state government which tells them it is for their own good and the good of the planet. Unlike the Military-Industrial complex before it, which was driven by a real need to compete militarily with the Soviets, the Green Industrial-Academic complex is fueled by a threat that is ridiculously overhyped. Rarely a day goes by when the Washington Post, NPR, or CNN does not blame climate change for something. There is even one group of loons that claims increasing earthquakes and volcanic activity are linked to climate change. The philosophy here is based on Joseph Goebbels “Big Lie” theory. If a lie is repeated often enough, it becomes the truth. Today, the Big Lie on climate change has become conventional wisdom among a large segment of the population. Fortunately ,however, if the last election is any indication, a majority of Americans have not yet drunk the Kool Aid.  The climate change cult has many acolytes, and some are sincere believers. But too many are far-left fanatics who want to eliminate carbon based power entirely whatever the economic impact. Still others are academic charlatans producing reams of suspect studies and computer models. Worse are the scam artists who are making billions sucking from the government teat.  If Green energy is ever forced to survive on market demand rather than government funding, it will likely collapse within five years So far, the Trump Administration has done a good job of trying to kill this parasitic vampire, and I hope the efforts succeed. However, like Count Dracula, if a stake is not driven through its heart finally and forever, it will rise from the dead, the next time the Democrats control Congress. Like most zany progressive schemes, the climate change cult has tremendous potential to create unintended consequences along with the stated objective of eliminating carbon based power sources. I just hope we are not destroying the environment in an attempt to save it.  READ MORE from Gary Anderson: It’s Time for Trump to Wield the Stick Against Putin Some Generals Should Be Fired. Start With Eric Smith. Gary Anderson Lectures on Alternative Analysis at the George Washington University’s Elliott School of International Affairs. The post Is Climate Change Destroying the Environment? appeared first on The American Spectator | USA News and Politics.

An assailant or assailants shot Colombian Senator Miguel Uribe, thought of as a likely presidential candidate in the 2026 election, in the head at a rally in the nation’s capital over the weekend. Authorities arrested a 15-year-old in possession of a pistol at the scene. Distinguishing between politicians and criminals struck Uribe as an increasingly difficult task. His age comes as a convenience. In Colombia, minors — those under 16 — face a maximum of seven years of incarceration for crimes such as murder. Those 16 and older may face trial as an adult. The country’s left-wing president noted this but reminded that “the laws and norms oblige us to protect the child for being a child.” President Gustavo Petro promised to find the true “intellectual authors” of the assassination attempt. To some, the promise sounded like O.J. Simpson’s vow to find the “real killers.” A month ago, voters almost anticipated such an outcome in their responses to an AtlasIntel poll. When asked about the top concern, they named corruption. At 79 percent, that issue received more than double the share of responses than the next highest concern. When asked about the likelihood of Colombia facing certain challenges in the next six months, corruption again ranked as the top answer, with “increase in attacks or murders related to criminal factions” coming in second. Though Mr. Uribe polled in the middle of the pack among various figures discussed as a possible next president, 44 percent said they preferred an opposition candidate to just 31 percent who wanted one supported by President Gustavo Petro, who cannot run for reelection because of constitutional term limits. The assassination attempt on the conservative politician feels disturbingly familiar, and not just because Pablo Escobar’s forces kidnapped Uribe’s mother, who lost her life in the attempt to rescue her in 1991, three days before her son’s fifth birthday. Leftists increasingly revert to bullets when ballots do not go their way. Consider the recent assassination of two Israeli embassy employees in Washington, D.C., allegedly by a left-wing activist, last year’s murder of the chief executive officer of UnitedHealthcare in Manhattan allegedly by another such kook, and the attempt on Donald Trump’s life allegedly by a small-dollar Democratic Party donor bearing a Kamala Harris bumper sticker on his vehicle. More commonly, the organized Left sics the law upon politicians they regard as threatening to their designs. In neighboring Brazil, one court barred former President Jair Bolsonaro from seeking office while another seeks to try him on charges to include the abolition of the democratic rule of law (rich!). In Romania, where opposition candidate Călin Georgescu led in the presidential polls by a 2-to-1 margin, the government ironically banned him earlier this year from ballots on the grounds that he did not “respect the Constitution and defend democracy.” In France, where Marine Le Pen led in presidential polls by double digits, a court earlier this spring sentenced her to four years in prison and banned her from running for office for five years because it claimed she used European Union aides for political purposes. Donald Trump, of course, faced 717.5 years in prison on various trumped-up charges before a jury of the American people found his pursuers guilty last November. Unlike Bolsonaro, Le Pen, Trump, and Georgescu, Uribe looked like a long shot to win the presidency of his country. So, possibly a criminal rather than a political outfit sought to murder him because of his various positions that stand athwart their interests. Distinguishing between politicians and criminals struck Uribe as an increasingly difficult task. “Every day Petro is in power,” he tweeted earlier this year. “Colombia bleeds. [Western Colombian administrative department] Chocó today is experiencing the consequences of Petro’s complicity with the bandits.” Was Petro complicit with Saturday’s bandits? “No resource should be spared,” President Petro vows, “not a single peso or a single moment of energy, to find the mastermind.” Phew. READ MORE from Daniel J. Flynn: Uncle Sam Just Conducted Its Final April 15th Pledge Drive for PBS and NPR The People Who Came for Your Plastic Bag and Straw Now Want Your Dog The post Assassination Attempt on Colombian Politician Looks Familiar appeared first on The American Spectator | USA News and Politics.

Surprises and upsets are the normal fare at sporting events, but do they determine outcomes? Usually not: this year’s French Open, which concluded yesterday, pitted the no.’s 1 and 2 seeds against each other in both the women’s and men’s singles draws, and the most successful Italian in the sport ever, Sara Errani, won in the doubles, with Jasmine Paolini and the mixed, with Andrea Vavassori. Miss Gauff’s laser focus and discipline did it, say what Miss Sabalenka will about this being the worst final she ever played. Stronger, better players tend to win.  This is not a judgmental statement, but a factual one. You may see in the underdog the more inspiring story line and the more likeable character, but the hard power is real. Miss Errani and Jasmine Paolini are charming and tenacious, and five-five and five-four, respectively, so there. You can argue about hard power, sure. How many divisions does the Pope have, Stalin famously — or infamously — asked toward the end of World War II. No one warned him a seminarian named Karol Wojtyla heard it, and also heard a higher power telling him faith was stronger than a hundred divisions. Then again, the cost of all those decades. However, this is tennis, not Western civilization. The beauty of the men’s draw at Rolland Garros this year was that you could not help but like both finalists and recognize that we cannot say yet who is going to prove better, stronger, more durable, and improvable over the next years during which their rivalry promises to be central to the sport. The streaming film shows Carlos Alcaraz, fresh off his win over Jannik Sinner at the Italian Open in Rome, saving three match points in the fourth set, having lost the first two and won the third! Epic match, going into four hours! It has been quite a show.  Three American men got as far as the quarters, best in a quarter century in this tournament, where the last American winner was Andre Agassi in 1999. Well, the French have not done better on their home court, last of theirs was Yannik Noah in 1983.  Happily this year, they had a Cinderella with a wild card named Lois Boisson, ranked in the mid-300’s yet able to beat Buffalo’s own Jessica Pegula (world no.3) to make it all the way to the semis, where she ran into Coco Gaff. Who went on to win the Coupe Suzanne Lenglen, first American since Serena Williams in 2015.  She came back from a set down to beat world no. 1 Aryna Sabalenka, who had got to the final by beating the defending champion, Iga Swiatek. Miss Gauff’s laser focus and discipline did it, say what Miss Sabalenka will about this being the worst final she ever played.  What I say is if you play awful, it is surely in large part because your opponent is beating you, disrupting your game, as the mighty Bill Tilden used to say. However, sour grapes or whatever, they surely will meet again, and Miss Gauff as usual was generous in victory (her second Slam, having beaten the same Miss Sabalenka at the U.S. Open in 2023), and thanked her parents and the Lord. It usually ends this way, the best against the best. Carlos Alcaraz, as we were noting on the basis of watching from a great distance thanks to marvelous technology, we were saying — yes, with a fantastic effort, using every shot in his book, survives what seemed like a Sinner clinch and takes the match to a deciding fifth set. The rest is history.  Or sports stats. Or it just got to where I figured to let it be, I can watch the reruns and meanwhile I can go and hit a few in between an intermittent drizzle. But before that I owe my readers a serious correction. An error in the previous column on this tournament stated that James Gordon Bennett, Jr., fled to Paris to escape his father’s wrath following some scandalous behavior that wrecked his engagement to a high society lass.  No, the elder Bennett was gone by then. Also, his great paper, The New York Herald, did indeed report the fracas. This was in the late 1870s. James Jr., who in the previous decade served with distinction in the U.S. Navy during the Civil War, did well in France, launching a Paris edition of the Herald (eventually to become the Paris Herald Tribune), and promoting sporting events. He was in Paris during the Great War and was taken away by the flu as the Allies, led by Americans including the 369th New York, the Harlem Hellfighters, were on their way to the Rhine. Sports were mainly amateur affairs back then, but you could place bets: Bennett Jr won one of these in the first transatlantic yacht race.  In tennis today, the money is pretty reasonable, you get almost $3 million if you win the French Open (women and men the same). However, you get under 90 thousand if you lose in the first round. So clearly there is an incentive to keep getting more better. READ MORE from Roger Kaplan: Americans Advance at French Open Italian Open Tennis: Faith and Racquets in Rome The post Coco Gauff Triumphs at Roland-Garros appeared first on The American Spectator | USA News and Politics.

While mainstream news outlets, cable networks and social media obsess over Elon Musk’s latest antics, they have neglected a far more important story — the Trump administration is accumulating a significant catalogue of appeals court and SCOTUS victories. Last Friday alone three more wins were added to the list. The D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the White House may exclude AP from its press pool while SCOTUS stayed a district court order requiring DOGE to heed a Freedom of Information Act  request and ruled that it can access Social Security Administration records. The Supreme Court will rule on Trump v. CASA before the end of June, and it’s a good bet that the Trump administration will be able to chalk it up as a win. These rulings follow a spate of similar wins last month. On May 30, the Supreme Court stayed a district court ruling that DHS Secretary Kristi Noem couldn’t revoke former President Biden’s parole of 532,000 non-citizens. On May 29, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit stayed a U.S. Trade Court ruling that President Trump’s tariffs are somehow unlawful. On May 22, SCOTUS stayed a district court order reinstating two Biden administration officials fired by Trump. On May 19, SCOTUS stayed a district court ruling that Secretary Noem does not possess the legal authority to terminate the temporary protected status of 350,000 Venezuelan non-citizens. The seven cases noted above do not exhaust the list of the Trump administration’s wins. During April the administration won three Supreme Court cases. On April 17, Justice Elena Kagan declined to stay a deportation order involving four Mexican nationals without referring the case to the full court. On April 8, SCOTUS stayed a district court order to reinstate 16,000 fired federal employees. On April 7, the Court vacated a district court order blocking deportations pursuant to the Alien Enemies Act. This particular ruling, combined with two others, led the editors of the Wall Street Journal to conclude that the Supreme Court was sending a message to the district courts: President Trump is exercising executive power in aggressive and often novel ways, and opponents are suing to stop him. But in a trio of recent orders, the Supreme Court has sent lower-court judges an important reminder that they must still respect judicial rules and procedures. A 5-4 majority handed Mr. Trump a partial victory Monday by allowing his Administration to continue deporting Venezuelans believed to be members of the Tren de Aragua gang under the Alien Enemies Act. This last ruling turned out to be a Pyrrhic victory for the Trump administration, however. On May 16, the Court effectively reversed itself — prompting Justice Samuel Alito to issue this blistering dissent: “In sum, literally in the middle of the night, the Court issued unprecedented and legally questionable relief without giving the lower courts a chance to rule, without hearing from the opposing party, within eight hours of receiving the application.” The good news, on the other hand, is that there are six additional cases on the Supreme Court’s “Emergency Docket,” half of which invite definitive rulings concerning nationwide injunctions issued by district courts. Trump’s EO on Birthright Citizenship Forces the Court’s Hand The most obvious vehicle for such a ruling is Trump v. CASA, which revolves around the following issue: “Whether the Supreme Court should stay the district courts’ nationwide preliminary injunctions on the Trump administration’s Jan. 20 executive order ending birthright citizenship except as to the individual plaintiffs and identified members of the organizational plaintiffs or states.” In order to get to birthright citizenship, the Court must first deal with the proliferation of nationwide injunctions. The following exchange between Justice Clarence Thomas and Solicitor General D. John Sauer during oral arguments reveals why this metastasis matters so much: JUSTICE THOMAS: So we survived until the 1960s without universal injunctions? GENERAL SAUER: That’s exactly correct. And, in fact, those were very limited — very rare even in the 1960s. It really exploded in 2007 in our cert petition in Summers against Earth Island Institute. We pointed out that the Ninth Circuit had started doing this in a whole bunch of cases involving environmental claims. Justice Thomas, exercising his gift for cutting through the red herrings, straw men and false dichotomies that constitute the stock and trade of Democrat lawyers, put his finger on a core problem facing the Court in Trump v. CASA. And he is by no means the only sitting justice who has genuine reservations about universal injunctions. Justice Elena Kagan has publicly expressed her concerns as follows: “It just can’t be right that one district judge can stop a nationwide policy in its tracks and leave it stopped for the years that it takes to go through the normal process.” She was right in 2022, when she said that. It will be quite difficult to reverse herself in 2025. The Supreme Court will rule on Trump v. CASA before the end of June, and it’s a good bet that the Trump administration will be able to chalk it up as a win — and a big one. If so, the judicial insurrection that we have been watching will have been effectively put down. That certainly doesn’t mean the Democrats and their accomplices in the corporate media will end their assault on the Trump administration and the Constitution. Nonetheless, they will have lost one of the most powerful weapons in their political arsenal. Perhaps, by that time, even Elon Musk will have at last divined the difference between big money and genuine power on the world stage. READ MORE from David Catron: Tapper and Thompson Continue Dangerous Cover-Up Trump’s Poll Numbers Rise, Resistance 2.0 Flops The post Trump Is Racking Up Court Victories appeared first on The American Spectator | USA News and Politics.

Like most conservatives, I was disheartened by the warp speed break in the partnership of Elon Musk and Donald Trump, the two men who saved America. Trump by leading the movement to reclaim the nation’s destiny, Musk by freeing the movers’ speech from the veil of censorship and identifying government waste. For some time, both repelled the dark, violent forces that sought to stop them — Musk the torching of his revolutionary cars, Trump a bullet to the head. But unlike Trump, Musk couldn’t go the distance. The Mr. Hyde Virus infected him. He could have discreetly made his sound point about the flaws in the Big Beautiful Bill to the leader who’d welcomed and repeatedly celebrated him. Apart from the disruptive geopolitical consequences to the world, I had a selfish reason to lament the Trump-Musk severance — my screenwriting career. At the urging of a major producer friend, I wrote a seven-page treatment for a film about the SpaceX rescue of the two astronauts marooned on the International Space Station. Rocket Man is the sort of spectacular true story Hollywood once loved yet today will never touch. Not because of, but despite its most thrilling elements: a faulty spacecraft built by an DEI-ridden company (Boeing), mortal danger, Christian faith and heroism (astronaut Butch Wilmore’s), White House callousness, and patriotism. Hollywoke won’t make the movie for the same reason the Biden people left the astronauts stranded in space for nine months. My fictional Musk identifies the reason while confronting a Biden official. “Starliner’s stuck up there. I could have those two astronauts back on Earth by next month. Politics. That’s it, isn’t it? I just endorsed Trump. The White House can’t afford to let me be a hero — and by extension Trump.” Rocket Man was free money on the table just waiting for a smart investor to pick it up, and me along with it. Traditional and MAGA audiences would have made us both a success. Until Musk went nuts last week. He could have discreetly made his sound point about the flaws in the Big Beautiful Bill to the leader who’d welcomed and repeatedly celebrated him. Trump may even agree with Musk while dealing with political reality — a bare majority in Congress — over economic purity. Only that’s not how the Mr. Hyde Bug works. Musk went rabid, going so far as to call Trump an Epstein crimes participant. But Trump was right, and Musk was wrong, as the party that goes off the rails always is. Not Only Trump I was saddened but not surprised by Musk’s 180-degree turn, having experienced the same thing in my far less prominent life. Friends turning viciously against me. I’ve written here about my former Hollywood mates, with whom I’d shared laughs and groans, success and failure. How my support for Trump in 2015 made me a pariah even on their social media. But I was right, and they were wrong, and now they’re dead to the clueless DEI Girl Bosses they helped install. While I — other than the failure to launch of Rocket Man — am doing all right careerwise. The best aspect of the Mr. Hyde Bug is how fully it works in revealing the hidden vile persona. It did on Elon Musk last week — and ABC reporter Terry Moran late Saturday. As an ABC News senior national correspondent, Moran long played the old mainstream news game of trying to fool viewers into thinking he’s an unbiased reporter. But around midnight Saturday, the Mr. Hyde Moran exploded on X in an unhinged tweet about White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller. The thing about Stephen Miller is not that he is the brains behind Trumpism. Yes, he is one of the people who conceptualizes the impulses of the Trumpist movement and translates them into policy. But that’s not what’s interesting about Miller. It’s not brains. It’s bile. Miller is a man who is richly endowed with the capacity for hatred. He’s a world-class hater. You can see this just by looking at him because you can see that his hatreds are his spiritual nourishment. He eats his hate and so does his boss, who is also a world-class hater. But for Trump hatred is a means to his end: self-glorification. The Dr. Jekyll Moran reemerged to delete the devastating — to the author and his employer, not Stephen Miller — tweet. ABC News had recently been forced to pay Trump $16 million in a defamation lawsuit. But it was too late for Moran, who was instantly suspended. An ABC News spokesperson issued a mockable statement: “ABC News stands for objectivity and impartiality in its news coverage (cue laugh track) and does not condone subjective personal attacks on others. The post does not reflect the views of ABC News and violated our standards. As a result, Terry Moran has been suspended pending further evaluation.” I had one more encounter with the Mr. Hyde Bug last week on X, in my area of expertise, the narrative arts. A movie critic I’d been friendly with for years, let’s call him Mr. Moto, posted a gushing review of the new action film, From the World of John Wick: Ballerina, starring the gorgeous Ana de Armas.  I responded, “It’s another chick beating up men like ‘trans’ boxers are doing to top women. Waste of Ana. I’m out.” Moto’s response: “You shouldn’t make assumptions moron.” Somehow, he’d gone straight into personal insult territory, with someone whose opinions he’d recently valued. Recognizing the signs, I knew where this would end, but I had to see it through, posting, “She doesn’t beat up men in unarmed combat?” Instead of answering, Moto babbled the obvious point about not judging without seeing, getting increasingly hostile. Finally, he admitted Ana’s fighting prowess was built into the plot. When I ribbed Ballerina as the Citizen Kane of girl beating up men movies, Moto called me a f___ing moron and blocked me. I saw Moto’s post predicting a $40-million number one opening weekend, but I knew From the World of John Wick: Ballerina would be a dud like Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga, despite a desperate cameo by Keanu Reeves as John Wick. I was right and Moto was wrong. The $90-million Ballerina limped to a $25-million opening, coming a distant second to Lilo & Stitch in its third week. Hollywoke can’t force guys to watch a female action lead they’d rather make love to than thrash. But I have a great true story they would love to see. READ MORE from Lou Aguilar: Revenge of the Real Men This Memorial Day, New Respect for the Military The post Trump Encounters the Mr. Hyde Virus … And So Did I appeared first on The American Spectator | USA News and Politics.

There are not many air raids or even battles that have a strategic effect. The Ukrainian strike on Russian air bases, some thousands of miles from Ukraine, may have been one. The Russian raid on Kyiv was a paltry response but everyone must assume that Russia is not done retaliating, far less done with the war. NATO’s concern is that if Putin is allowed to conquer Ukraine he will attack one or more of the NATO members. That concern is entirely valid. The June 1 Ukrainian attack was ingenious and daring. It hit four Russian airbases. Two were within usual range of Ukrainian attack forces but two — Olenya and Belaya — were respectively 1,000 miles and 3,000 miles from Kyiv. According to a Wall Street Journal report, Ukraine claimed to have damaged or destroyed 41 Russian combat aircraft worth about $7 billion with more than a hundred drones that cost about $2,000 each. Ukraine almost certainly exaggerated the extent of the damage their attack caused to Russian aircraft. Nevertheless, they have clearly damaged or destroyed many Tupolev Tu-95 “Bear” bombers, which are prominent in several Tom Clancy novels. The “Bears” are very old propeller-driven aircraft but have been effective in Ukraine. In addition, Ukraine reportedly damaged several Russian supersonic bombers, (roughly equivalent to our B-1s) and at least one Russian A-50 aircraft, which is roughly the same as our AWACS — Airborne Warning and Control aircraft — which direct air operations and warn of approaching enemy aircraft. According to a German assessment of the raid, the Ukrainian attack destroyed or crippled about 10 percent of Russia’s bomber fleet. Two days later the Ukrainians also attacked and partially destroyed the bridge between mainland Russia and the Crimean Peninsula over the Kerch Strait. Russia will be able to repair the bridge sooner than it will be able to replace the aircraft Ukraine destroyed. The raid, as described by Ukraine’s government and media, took18 months to plan. It was accomplished by smuggling trucks laden with drones (or drone parts) into Russia and then used in a coordinated attack on the bases which hosted the bombers. Those bombers had been used frequently by Russia to bomb and launch missiles against Ukraine. On June 5 Russia launched its response comprised of about 40 missiles and 400 drones. Targeting civilians intentionally (repeating their war crimes) Russians reportedly killed at least four people and injured about twenty in Kyiv and other areas of Ukraine. The Russians have also hit Kharkiv, in Ukraine’s northeast, with a very heavy attack. More retaliation is certain to follow. Russian President Putin can’t be happy about the results of these attacks. Russia lacks the facilities and manpower to replace the bombers Ukraine managed to destroy. The repairs to the Kerch bridge will take a short time (it’s already supposedly back in service) and won’t result in any inability of Russia to resupply its forces in Crimea. So where does Russia’s war against Ukraine go from here? Clearly, no peace agreement is possible at this point or at any time in the near future. Russia remains confident of victory or at least Putin does. But he has to have doubts about his ability to sustain the war which is now in its fourth year. A few heads will be lopped off — or some generals sent to the Gulag — but Putin’s determination to conquer Ukraine remains. As this column has often written, Putin has said that the fall of the Soviet empire was the greatest tragedy of the twentieth century and his ideological guide — Alexander Dugin — has written that unless Ukraine is conquered, Putin may as well not bother with the rest. The Russian war on Ukraine will go on as long as Putin is alive. At the age of 72 Putin is still able to conduct the war but not to his satisfaction. He has already survived the not-quite-coup against him by Yevgeny Proghozin, leader of the Wagner Group of mercenaries who were fighting in Ukraine. They may have returned to the battlefield. It is easy to say that Ukraine is Europe’s problem and they should have to deal with it. But it may all come down to whether the U.S. will continue to supply arms and other materiel to Ukraine. The Ukrainian forces are reportedly going to run out of missiles and other air defense weapons in July. President Trump has never made it clear whether he will continue to supply Ukraine’s needs. Vice President Vance, while he was in the senate, was the strongest opponent of any further aid to Ukraine. The question remains open amid the Hamas war on Israel, the fuss over Elon Musk, Trump’s concerns over his “One Big Beautiful Bill,” his so far unsuccessful negotiations with Iran, and the budget reconciliation on which Trump’s agenda depends. The president isn’t likely to have Ukraine on the top of his concerns. The NATO nations, which for the most part, are indistinguishable from the members of the European Union, cannot and certainly will not continue to meet Ukraine’s needs. But NATO’s concern is that if Putin is allowed to conquer Ukraine he will attack one or more of the NATO members. That concern is entirely valid. The Russian people, aside from Putin’s inner circle, have no voice in the continuation of the war. But if Trump abandons Ukraine, Putin will have a huge victory that will embolden him to attack NATO. That cannot be allowed to happen. U.S. troops should never be sent to fight for Ukraine. Nevertheless, we can’t stop supplying them with the tools of war they need. And let’s not forget the problem the Ukraine raid presents for every Western nation. Their vulnerability to smuggled drone strikes may not be as great as Russia’s but it is there. It’s another urgent problem that Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth need to deal with. READ MORE from Jed Babbin: Israel Back to War Mr. Trump’s Threats Hurt US Credibility The post Ukraine’s Drone Attack on Russian Bases appeared first on The American Spectator | USA News and Politics.

Over two years ago, the nation’s top law enforcement agency landed in hot water when a memo leaked detailing plans to infiltrate and illegally spy on certain Catholic parishes and classifying American Catholics devoted to the Tridentine Mass as “Radical-Traditionalist Catholics” and “Racially or Ethnically Motivated Violent Extremists.” The memo, drafted and approved by the FBI’s Richmond field office, caused outrage and initiated a series of congressional hearings, during which then-FBI director Christopher Wray attested, under oath, that the Richmond field office had acted alone in drafting the memo, which was never circulated or meant to be circulated to the FBI more broadly. Wray lied. In at least one instance, an FBI agent actually went undercover and infiltrated a Catholic parish, and other agents interrogated sacristans and organists. In a letter to current FBI director Kash Patel, Senator Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) and the Senate Judiciary Committee requested further documents related to the FBI’s targeting of American Catholics, in addition to revealing that the agency’s anti-Catholic animus spread far beyond the Richmond office. Grassley wrote that, contrary to Wray’s testimony, the anti-Catholic memo “had been widely distributed to FBI field offices across the country.” In fact, the memo reportedly reached at least 1,000 FBI employees in multiple field offices across the country. Grassley noted that the Richmond memo served as the basis for a much broader-reaching second intelligence product being drafted when the initial memo was leaked. “Director Wray’s testimony was inaccurate not only because it failed to reveal the scope of the memo’s production and dissemination, but also because it failed to reveal the existence of a second, draft product on the same topic intended for external distribution to the whole FBI,” the senator wrote. He said that the second draft “was clearly a separate product, since it involved a different planned distribution to the whole Bureau, and a different chain of review, through the Counterterrorism Division.” Furthermore, other FBI field offices prepared to act on the contents of the memo and likely “placed [Catholic] groups in their areas of responsibility under suspicion based on reporting from the deeply-biased sources used in the memo.” The FBI’s field office in Buffalo, New York, for example, identified two Catholic groups labeled “Radical-Traditionalist Catholics” and possible “Racially or Ethnically Motivated Violent Extremists” within its jurisdiction. Once the anti-Catholic Richmond memo was leaked to the public, Grassley found, the FBI hastily tried to gather internal information to get ahead of the impending P.R. nightmare and found at least “13 documents and 5 attachments” which used such biased terminology as “radical traditionalist Catholic.” When Grassley and other senators grilled Wray in 2023 over the anti-Catholic memo, the then-director pledged that the FBI was currently investigating how the memo came into being and who thought it was a good idea to target American Catholics. He refused to provide further information to Congress because the investigation was still “ongoing.” But according to Grassley, the FBI had concluded its internal investigation in April of 2023, several days before Wray testified before the Senate. Months later, testifying before the House Judiciary Committee in July, Wray continued to claim that the internal review was still “ongoing.” The FBI began hurriedly deleting documents related to the anti-Catholic memo and its production once the memo itself was leaked. In fact, according to Grassley, then-FBI deputy director Paul Abbate ordered the memo and related documents to be deleted the very day that the memo became public. “This led to the reported permanent loss of records related to the production of the memo. While the FBI last year told my staff they believed they could recover deleted files, no such files were ever produced,” Grassley wrote. The veteran senator affirmed that he will “continue to investigate [the] Richmond memo and the culture at the FBI that allowed it to be produced and approved.” Of course, it became fairly obvious fairly quickly, back in 2023, that Wray and his cohorts were fibbing. The scope of Grassley’s subsequent findings over the past two years, however, are alarming, to say the least. This was not, as Wray swore under oath, a “single product by a single field office,” but appears to have been rather a symptom of a far more pervasive ideological animus infecting the FBI at nearly all levels. Multiple field offices — in Virginia, Wisconsin, and Oregon, at the very least — collaborated on the anti-Catholic memo. In at least one instance, an FBI agent actually went undercover and infiltrated a Catholic parish, and other agents interrogated sacristans and organists. Yet the FBI referenced “radical traditionalist Catholics” in over a dozen other documents and was actively preparing a second document to coordinate an agency-wide effort to target American Catholics as terrorist threats. The “radical traditionalist Catholic” terminology was borrowed directly from the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), a far-left hatemongering group that places American Catholics in the same category as neo-Nazis, White Supremacist Skinheads, and the Ku Klux Klan. Other contributors to the anti-Catholic animus included the anti-Catholic magazines The Atlantic and Salon. Over two years after the anti-Catholic Richmond memo became public, several startling questions remain: How often does the FBI rely on anti-Catholic sources and biased misinformation? How pervasive is anti-Catholicism in the FBI? How many times has the FBI targeted American Catholics in the past and subsequently lied about it? How close was the FBI to doing that again in 2023? Hopefully, with President Donald Trump now in office, Grassley and others may actually find some answers to these questions. The post Christopher Wray Lied: The FBI Was Targeting American Catholics appeared first on The American Spectator | USA News and Politics.

Former White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre will release a book titled Independent: A Look Inside a Broken White House, Outside the Party Lines on Oct. 21, detailing her time in the Biden White House. The American Spectator has obtained an exclusive excerpt. “You’re gonna make history, kid,” President Biden told me on May 16, 2022, when I became the first African-American immigrant lesbian with curly hair to serve as White House press secretary. “Thank you, Mr. President. I am a truly historic figure. Just ask me,” I modestly replied. “I knew you would make a great vice president when I picked you based on merit and not race or gender.” “I’m not Kamala Harris,” I told a president who was on top of his intellectual and physical game. “I also enjoy your CNN show, but why do you wear a suit and have a lower voice and shorter hair from 10 p.m. to midnight?” he said. “I’m not Don Lemon, either,” I replied. Unable to keep up with him running mental rings around me, I knew we had to get down to the day’s business. “Mr. President. We have a jam-packed schedule,” I said. “I have a Vogue photo shoot at noon, a Vanity Fair sit-down at 1 p.m., and The New York Times wants to interview me about my history-making debut at 2 p.m.” “Can I go with you?” “No, Mr. President. You have a schedule to keep, too. The Columbo marathon starts at 9 a.m. on TBS, and your morning tapioca pudding cup arrives at 10 a.m. (CNN personality) Jake Tapper gives you a sponge bath at 11 a.m. You nap from noon to 6 p.m., and then it’s bedtime.” “Oh.” The president stared out of the Oval Office, steeped in reflection, or at least he would have been had a window existed before him and not a bare spot on the wall. “Anyway.” “Mr. President, my publicist, Gilda Squire, will escort you to a safe place where you won’t have to say or do anything.” I gave my boss a helpful nudge so he could shuffle off with Gilda, and I could go about my day battling misinformation and speaking truth to the nation based on whatever it said in my binder. A press secretary’s job is to convince the American people that they don’t see what is clearly in front of their faces. Take the millions of migrants who strolled across the southern border during the Biden-Harris administration. “We agree that the border is secure, but there is still more work to be done,” I said at the time. Videos of migrant caravans swamping the Texas border? Cheap fakes. (I can’t believe the media bought our cheap fake narrative. Actually, I can.) Following the president’s June 27, 2024, presidential debate hiccup, I blamed, in part, jet lag for his poor performance, even though the plane had landed a week earlier. “He’s as sharp as ever,” I told Real Clear Politics reporter Philip Wegmann in response to his ridiculous question about the president slowing down. Everyone knew that behind closed doors, President Biden balanced spinning plates on a stick on his nose while riding a unicycle around the Resolute Desk. I could barely keep up with him! Press secretaries must have a solid grip on the facts, and I demonstrated this when a suspected Chinese spy balloon drifted over North America in early 2023. Impartial journalist Jonathan Capehart asked me why a U.S. fighter jet shot it down over our neighbors to the north. “Because it’s part of, uh, NORAD,” I replied. “There’s — uh — the NORAD is part of like a — part of — It’s a, it’s a, what you call a coalition — a consortium. A pact.… We did it clearly in step with Canadia.” Such brilliance can inform the public and potentially land you a job on The View, where I would be the most intelligent panelist should ABC hire me when my star shines bright enough. And for the record, I disagree with those who say being the smartest co-host on The View is like being the hunchback with the best posture. Naturally, my historic success drew some detractors, including former Biden official Tim Wu, who posted (and later deleted) on X: “From WH policy staff perspective, the real problem with Karine Jean-Pierre was that she was kinda dumb. No interest in understanding harder topics. Just gave random, incoherent answers on policy.” Hatred of marginalized groups leads people to say hurtful things, including one former Biden official telling Politico, “Everyone thinks this is a grift,” regarding this book serving as a shameless cash grab by an unqualified, self-promoting political hack. I’m an Independent now, there’s nothing political or egotistical about me. And if you believe that, I’ve got a book to sell you. READ MORE from Matt Manochio: Goldberg Wasn’t the Only Outsider on That Message Chain Test Your Knowledge of Government Efficiency The post Karine Jean-Pierre: A Day With the President appeared first on The American Spectator | USA News and Politics.

There’s something poetic perhaps even prophetic about watching the Trump–Musk bromance go up in flames. For those of us paying close attention, this fracture wasn’t a surprise. It was a slow-motion collision between two titans who were never built to coexist. I predicted this moment in a previous piece months ago: when ego meets ego, when populist power collides with techno-utopian ambition, sparks are bound to fly and one of them will get burned. It’s not just about Trump vs. Musk. It’s about populism vs. technocracy. Nationalism vs. globalism. Faith and family vs. algorithms and avatars. Now it’s happening. The very public fallout between Donald Trump, the 47th President of the United States, and Elon Musk, the self-proclaimed free-speech absolutist, is dominating headlines. But what the mainstream media won’t admit, and what conservatives must now recognize, is that this isn’t just a personal feud. It’s a defining fracture in the coalition of power, wealth, and influence that shaped the modern right. And it matters. Deeply. It started with flirtation. Trump praised Musk’s entrepreneurial brilliance, while Musk applauded Trump’s deregulatory approach and First Amendment bluster. In a political landscape craving disruptors, both men styled themselves as alpha outsiders: Trump, the blue-collar billionaire; Musk, the digital-age messiah. They dined together at Mar-a-Lago. Musk publicly considered voting Republican. Trump even mused about bringing Musk into a second-term administration. But underneath the bromantic tweets and photo ops, deep ideological fault lines were forming. Elon Musk doesn’t like to be controlled. Neither does Donald Trump. And there is only room for one gravitational center in the right-wing galaxy. The unraveling began subtly. Musk reinstated Trump’s Twitter account, only for Trump to ghost the platform in favor of his own Truth Social. Then came subtle jabs: Musk praising Ron DeSantis during the primaries, Trump mocking Musk as a “bull artist.” But now the gloves are off. In his latest Truth Social posts, Trump accused Musk of being “disloyal,” “overrated,” and “desperate for relevance.” Musk, for his part, has begun cozying up to Trump critics and making thinly veiled digs about “old men who won’t let go of power.” Let’s be clear: this was always inevitable. Musk’s vision of world libertarian tech dominance powered by AI, Mars colonies, and robotaxis is fundamentally incompatible with Trump’s America First populism. Musk wants to sell electric cars to the Chinese Communist Party. Trump wants tariffs. Musk wants to be seen as above politics. Trump is politics incarnate. Musk profits from globalism. Trump wages war against it. But the real split came over control of the cultural narrative. Musk wants to be the symbol of digital freedom. That’s why he bought Twitter and rebranded it as X. But Trump already owns the “free speech warrior” crown among the base. Musk’s attempt to edge him out of that spotlight was always going to fail and Trump doesn’t take betrayal lightly. What does this mean for conservatives? First, conservatives must realize that their movement cannot be outsourced to billionaires. Neither Musk nor Trump built their wealth serving the working class. Both are media manipulators. Both shape-shift to suit their interests. But only one has consistently stood by the forgotten men and women of America: factory workers, coal miners, truck drivers, veterans, those who get nothing from the electric future Musk is building. Second, this feud reveals a deeper civil war within conservatism. It’s not just about Trump vs. Musk. It’s about populism vs. technocracy. Nationalism vs. globalism. Faith and family vs. algorithms and avatars. The right must decide: do we want a country rooted in community, history, and sovereignty? Or a transhumanist playground for tech elites who build rockets while America burns? Why Trump Survives This Clash For all his faults, Trump’s compass points toward real people. He talks like them. He fights like them. Musk, by contrast, speaks in riddles and retreats into labs when things get hard. He champions “free speech,” but when X becomes unprofitable, he’ll sell it to the highest bidder, censorship be damned. Let the record show: Trump will survive this feud. Musk, despite his legions of simps online, may not. Because movements aren’t built in space they’re built on dirt. On faith. On sacrifice. On the blood and sweat of patriots who don’t care how many Teslas you’ve sold or whether you’re verified on X. This feud is not a distraction. It’s a revelation. It shows us who’s truly in the fight and who just wants to be adored by all. There’s no room for fence-sitters in 2025. Not with open borders, weaponized justice, and war at our doorstep. So let the feud continue. Let Musk tweet. Let Trump roar. In the end, we’ll find out whose voice actually moves the people. Spoiler: it won’t be Elon Musk’s. READ MORE: Extremism on the Left Has Institutional Support No, Elon, Americans Elected Trump — Not You Joshua Chronicles is a political analyst and cultural commentator whose work explores the intersection of faith, governance, and public discourse.  The post Trump-Musk: Why This Feud Was in the Cards appeared first on The American Spectator | USA News and Politics.

The British Labour government is facing backlash after nearly 1,200 migrants crossed the English Channel in a single day, prompting ministers to propose linking immigration enforcement to a new digital ID system […] The post Mass immigration is being used to roll out the Globalists’ agenda, including digital IDs first appeared on The Expose.