Provocations: Russian, Chinese Military Aircraft Intercepted Off Alaskan Coast

It was there all along.

Protesters calling for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s arrest lowered and then burned U.S. flags blocks from the U.S. Capitol, raising smaller Palestinian flags in their place, after the divisive leader’s fiery address to Congress on Wednesday. Protesters said they briefly scuffled with police on one side of Columbus Circle, apparently prompting U.S. Park Police to revoke the permit for the protest and order protesters to leave the area shortly after 4 p.m. The crowd mostly...

Thousands of anti-Israel protesters flooded Washington, DC, on Wednesday, dying the city’s fountains blood red – and even unleashing maggots and other creepy crawlers at a hotel where some of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s delegation stayed. A video posted to X by the Palestinian Youth Movement showed moving critters scattered across a table flanked by Israeli and American flags. “Palestine protestors (sic) manufactured chaos at the Watergate Hotel last night so that...

Thousands of protesters demonstrated around Capitol Hill voicing opposition to Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, who addressed a joint session of the US Congress on Wednesday. With tensions over Israel’s nine-and-half-month war on Gaza running high, police mounted a huge security operation to seal off the US Capitol from protesters. Streets in Washington’s downtown area were closed to traffic, while officers experienced in dealing with mass protests were...

At just four years old. The post The Beatles performance Tenacious D’s Kyle Gass says “changed my life” first appeared on Far Out Magazine.

Obama elevated Biden to presidential prominence; only he could remove Biden from it. Biden’s leftward policies had created a political deficit that his June 27 debate performance proved he could not communicate his way out of. Democrat elite’s efforts to prod Biden off the ticket had not succeeded. With time running short, push came to shove, but to succeed, that shove could not come from them alone. Despite Biden having spent more terms in the Senate (six) than Obama spent years (four), the latter raised the former to presidential level by making him his vice president. Exact opposites in every respect, Obama had finally done for Biden what Biden couldn’t do for himself in two short-lived, ill-fated presidential runs (1988 and 2008). Even in Biden’s 2020 run, he nearly lost it. Trying to run as a moderate establishmentarian, he was lambasted by Kamala Harris in a 2019 debate. Early in 2020, Biden finished dismally in Iowa and New Hampshire, his campaign being resurrected only at the last instance in South Carolina. Despite COVID, lockdowns, and their economic devastation, massive civil unrest, and a divisive opponent, Biden still came within just 77,000 votes (spread across four states) of losing to Trump. The Left’s demand of Biden was that he govern their way. Biden complied and compiled a leftist record that left him with a huge political deficit. For 2024’s first six months, Biden tried to extricate himself from his policy-generated political sinkhole: his SOTU, administration surrogates, liberal use of incumbency’s executive tools, massive campaign spending, and establishment media aircover — nothing worked. Out of options, Biden’s campaign gambled on a debate with Trump. It lost badly. With time running out and patience having run out, Democrat elite pivoted instantly; declaring almost before Biden had exited the debate stage that he should also exit the race. These clearly coordinated calls came from commentators, establishment media, and elected Democrats. The sensitive serenade of “I love Joe Biden, but…” and tepid leadership support churned on for two weeks. Then came the July 13 assassination attempt of Donald Trump in Butler, Pennsylvania. Suddenly there was no oxygen for Democrat elite’s departure drumbeat. Biden got a reprieve. Democrat elite got desperate. During the hiatus, Democrat elite realized how badly they had miscalculated throughout 2024’s first six months. Prior to the debate fiasco, they had not thought that Biden’s policy deficit was so stubbornly large. They had also thought this deficit could be removed by a concerted communication campaign. Then they had thought that sufficient pressure could be slowly, subtly applied through their entreaties and that Biden would see their implicit threat: that Democrat elite could — and would — create the crisis they had once worked so hard to keep from public view. They had not thought that Biden wouldn’t take the hint, that he would so adamantly insist on remaining. And they had not anticipated the reluctance within their own ranks: that the presidency creates its own gravitational forces that buoy Biden (his influence over the DNC for example) and Members’ hesitancy that comes from the knowing that “the hand that wields the knife shall never wear the crown” — and that their futures could be as comprised as Biden’s already was. Finally, they had certainly not thought that an event could transpire that would make Trump appear heroic to so many Americans — and sympathetic to even more. That this near tragedy would further undercut their message that Trump was a threat to democracy. In the wake of their own six squandered months and a week’s uninterrupted streak of Trump momentum, Democrat elite returned to their effort to remove Biden from the ticket — this time, sans subtlety and the slower pace. It no longer mattered that the now unmistakable effort to forcibly oust their duly elected leader directly and blatantly contradicted their campaign message that they were fighting to save democracy. They had barely three months left. Their earlier half measures to oust Biden had only wounded him, not dispatched him. It was not just their messenger who was in jeopardy but their message: vilifying Trump to raise his negatives above their own. All this brought Democrat elite back to Obama. Just as only Obama could make Biden presidential, only Obama could unmake Biden — could take the presidency from him. And they knew he would. After all, he had done so before. In 2016, Obama passed over Biden for Hillary Clinton. It was Obama who had warned in 2020 “Don’t underestimate Joe’s ability to f**k things up.” No other Democrat had Obama’s standing within the party. It bordered on being above politics. And therein lay the problem: the job Democrat elite wanted done was the most political of jobs. Obama alone could commit and provide cover for the regicide the Democrat elite sought. If Obama hadn’t blessed removal, Biden could stay. Biden had been clear he intended to remain. Obama had been clear that he did not want to appear involved in Biden’s removal. If both remained so, Biden stayed. That Biden finally withdrew adds also a final clarity. It is one that rises above even Obama’s role in it, Democrats’ hypocrisy of negating their entire primary process, their lying about Biden for months (if not years), and their message that Trump is a threat to democracy and they are the vehicle for saving it. It is that the Democrat Party, the party of America’s elite, is thoroughly ruled by its own elite — and that they will use whatever means they must to get their way. J.T. Young was a professional staffer in the House and Senate from 1987-2000, served in the Department of Treasury and Office of Management and Budget from 2001-2004, and was director of government relations for a Fortune 20 company from 2004-2023. The post Obama Decided Biden’s Fate, and Democratic Elite Got Their Way appeared first on The American Spectator | USA News and Politics.

Only a liberal academic or loyal Democratic Party hack could characterize Joe Biden’s presidency as “extraordinarily successful and a blessing for our country.” Timothy Naftali, a scholar at Columbia University’s Institute of Global Politics and the author of a biography of George H. W. Bush, in an interview published on the Foreign Affairs website, told Foreign Affairs’ senior editor Hugh Eakin that Biden’s dropping out of the presidential election was “the most important thing that he can do at this point to Trump-proof the United States, in terms of our national security.” Trump Derangement Syndrome is alive and well in the halls of academia. This is the same “presidential historian” who infamously concluded on the basis of one brief phone conversation about African leaders that Ronald Reagan and Richard Nixon were “racists that enabled each other.” The same Timothy Naftali, in reviewing a biography of President Jimmy Carter, praised Carter’s “many achievements,” especially in foreign policy. I suppose that anyone who can find “many achievements” in the Carter presidency can also view the Biden presidency — which is coming to an end in a humiliating acknowledgment of his serious cognitive impairment — as “extraordinary successful” and a “blessing to our country.” One of the successes noted by Naftali is the Ukraine war — a war that the Biden administration disastrously failed to deter and seems determined to expand, dangerously risking a conflict between NATO and a nuclear-armed Russia for no vital American national security interest. On Biden’s watch, Russia invaded Ukraine, Hamas attacked Israel, Iran is closer to obtaining nuclear weapons, China and Russia are closer than at anytime since the early 1950s, and China increasingly threatens the independence of Taiwan. And, of course, there was the humiliating withdrawal from Afghanistan, which left Americans dead, millions of dollars of military hardware abandoned, and brought the Taliban back to power. If this is “extraordinary” success, what constitutes failure? Naftali concludes that Biden “restored America’s role in the world.” And in Naftali’s “world,” in which Jimmy Carter had “many achievements,” I guess that makes some sort of sense. Many of us can agree that Biden was as “successful” as Jimmy Carter. Then, unmentioned by Naftali, is the crisis at our southern border, where as many as 10-15 million illegal immigrants have entered the United States during the Biden presidency. The lack of a southern border is not only a domestic crisis, but a national security crisis of the highest order, as many of the illegal entrants are young Chinese men and others are from terrorist havens in the Middle East. Naftali writes that “Biden’s one-term presidency is destined to be viewed very positively.” Especially if academics like Naftali are the ones viewing it. Biden, he writes, “brought us out of Trumpian chaos.” But during that Trumpian chaos, Russia didn’t invade Ukraine or any other country. The Middle East was at peace. The Taliban remained out of power in Afghanistan. Trump shifted American foreign policy and its resources toward Asia, recognizing that China posed the greatest threat to our national security. Naftali calls Trump and Republicans who support him “isolationists” as distinguished from Biden and the “internationalists.” But there was nothing “isolationist” about Trump’s foreign policy. He didn’t withdraw from NATO, but like some past presidents insisted that the NATO countries provide more for their own defense. He established good relations with Japan and India — allies that in the 21st century are more important to our security than the nations of Western Europe. He negotiated or renegotiated favorable (to America) trade deals. Trump certainly put “America First” in his foreign policy decisions, but so, too, did George Washington, John Quincy Adams, Abraham Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt, Dwight Eisenhower, and Ronald Reagan. Perhaps, in Naftali’s world, Biden and Carter were better than those presidents, too. READ MORE: Kamala Harris, Conservative Statesman The Secret Service Isn’t What Hollywood Promised Us It Was The post Dear Academia: Biden Didn’t Save Us From ‘Trumpian Chaos’ appeared first on The American Spectator | USA News and Politics.

Members of the new right wing of the Republican Party have proclaimed themselves the champions of the working class. I am sure they mean it, despite many of them being among the elite of the elite. And because so many are lawyers — including those like vice presidential nominee JD Vance who come from elite Ivy League schools — we can forgive them for failing to understand that their economic policies would hurt, not help, the working class. Part of the shift is because Republicans don’t believe they should continue as the so-called party of big business. They are correct. It’s a sad fact that traditional Republican politicians have often confused being for free markets with propping up and protecting big banks and other companies with subsidies and other handouts. The fact that Democrats do the same doesn’t excuse Republicans’ behavior. A first essential step to earning the moniker of the party of the people is ending all subsidies, bailouts, tax breaks, and other government-granted privileges to big corporations. That will undue much of the bias toward businesses while allowing markets to do their jobs and raise all economic boats. I doubt the new populists will do it. Instead, expect more counterproductive “pro-worker” policies like raising the corporate income tax. Taxes are paid only by flesh-and-blood people, and corporations, well, are not people. In other words, corporations don’t really pay taxes. For instance, they pass the corporate income tax on to workers in the form of lower wages, to consumers in the form of higher prices, and to shareholders in the form of lower dividends and share valuations (which can mean reduced values of workers’ pensions). It’s like a game of hot potato, except the potato is on fire and always lands in the laps of those at the end of the line — the very people faux populists claim to be helping. Imagine workers’ surprise when they find wages stagnating faster than a politician’s principles during election season. “At least we stuck it to the corporations!” the politicians will say as workers tighten their belts another notch. Calls for industrial policy suffer from the same flaws. On the right, these arguments are usually about propping up industries said to be crucial for national security and a desire to bring manufacturing jobs back to the U.S., particularly regions hit hard by deindustrialization. Even ignoring the fact that America’s industrial base is doing well — capacity is at an all-time high — industrial policy inevitably involves the government providing subsidies, tax credits, tariffs, and other special privileges to a few large, well-connected corporations. This cronyism is of no benefit to most ordinary workers; it’s a boondoggle for the politically powerful. It will hurt working-class taxpayers. Just look at President Joe Biden’s industrial policy. It was meant to ensure U.S. self-sufficiency in critical sectors like semiconductors, pharmaceuticals, and advanced technologies. The cost has been between $1.2 and $2.1 trillion in domestic subsidies for preferred manufacturers. While the administration likes to claim the subsidies will ultimately benefit workers. Companies, often big and rich ones, are reaping taxpayer dollars for projects they would have likely undertaken anyway. For instance, about half of all Inflation Reduction Act projects were announced before the IRA was passed, and the private green market was booming even before the subsidies. In Washington, D.C., apparently, nothing says “power to the people” quite like funneling taxpayer money to large corporations. But let’s not forget the piece de resistance: tariffs. How better to help ordinary Americans than by raising their cost of living? Watch as prices rise further on goods and services affected by tariffs. Reduced competition in the marketplace leads to a world where workers pay more for less. Unfortunately, these price hikes will hit lower-income families hardest. It’s like a regressive tax but with a populist bow on top. Then, as other countries retaliate with their own tariffs on American products, we get to play everyone’s favorite game of trade war. American exporters will struggle, and productivity and economic growth will slow. By all means, make America great again … but what does that have to do with making everything more expensive for American producers, workers and consumers alike? The new right talks a good game about being the new workers’ party, but its marquee policies would bring higher prices and cronyism under a misleading banner of populism. Veronique de Rugy is the George Gibbs Chair in Political Economy and a senior research fellow at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University. To find out more about Veronique de Rugy and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate webpage at www.creators.com. COPYRIGHT 2024 CREATORS.COM READ MORE: How to Pay for Trump’s Tax Cuts The Dollar Is Still Essential Make America Affordable Again The post What a Real ‘Pro-Worker’ GOP Would Look Like appeared first on The American Spectator | USA News and Politics.