An image shared on X claims to show Iranian President Ibrahim Raisi’s funeral.  West says Raisi was unpopular in Iran. I saw millions of people at his funeral. pic.twitter.com/kY6E3bfFvB — ?? ?? zainab…72 (@zehrazainab72) May 22, 2024 Verdict: False The image shows Iranian general Qassem Soleimani’s coffin in January 2020. Fact Check: The Iranian president and […]

'We can stop the question right now'

Swing voters are so hard to peg down precisely because their politics hinge on the broader culture

The original image shows Hanks wearing a jersey representing the U.S. women’s national soccer team.

Will and Adam are exploring the high flying stunts of The Fall Guy from 1981, but can’t help themselves from gushing about other 80’s adventure shows, especially Knight Rider. Plus, you’ll learn about their favorite CONTINUE READING... The post Remember That Show? Ep. 14: The Fall Guy appeared first on The Retro Network.

The bipartisan border bill failed in the U.S. Senate Thursday, even losing the support of two key negotiators who helped craft the legislation. This marked the second time the Senate voted against moving forward with the bill. The vote on the border bill “is not an effort to actually make law, it is an effort to do political messaging,” Sen. James Lankford, R-Okla., said Thursday ahead of the vote. Lankford worked to negotiate the bill with Sens. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., and Kyrsten Sinema, I-Ariz., but he and Sinema voted against the bill Thursday, criticizing the reintroduction of the bill as being politically motivated.   Sen. Lankford helped to craft the border bill, but voted against it today. "Everyone sees this for what it is. It is not an effort to actually make law, it is an effort to do political messaging." pic.twitter.com/0Ab0M2l2fe— Virginia Allen (@Virginia_Allen5) May 23, 2024 The bill, which needed 60 votes to pass, failed with 50 senators voting against it and 43 voting in favor. The vote broke largely along party lines with Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska being the only Republican to vote for the bill. Six Democrats joined Republicans in voting against the bill. WATCH: Border bill fails in the Senate a second time. pic.twitter.com/bM9PfY3UZl— Virginia Allen (@Virginia_Allen5) May 23, 2024 During the first vote in February, Lankford voted in favor of advancing the border bill, along with Murkowski, Susan Collins of Maine, and Mitt Romney of Utah.  Analysts expected the latest vote on the bill to fail following Republicans’ outspoken criticism of the measure.   The bill “spends $20 billion to not secure the border, but to more efficiently encounter, process, and disperse illegal migrants,” Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., said during a news conference Wednesday.   Johnson and other GOP senators bashed the bill for allowing up to 5,000 illegal aliens to enter daily in a seven-day period.   The bill directs the Department of Homeland Security to close the southern border “during a period of seven consecutive calendar days, [if] there is an average of 5,000 or more aliens who are encountered each day.” Over 1.8 million illegal aliens a year still would be permitted to enter the United States under the now twice failed legislation.   Republicans bashed the bill as an election year stunt.   Sen. Cynthia Lummis, R-Wyo., said Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and the Democrats are promoting the bill because “poll numbers are showing [Democrats] that, after months and months of throwing the border open to anyone who wants to come in, that the public doesn’t like the policy.”   Gallup reports that immigration is the No. 1 issue not specifically related to the economy on the minds of American voters right now.    “And now, all of a sudden, six months before an election, Chuck Schumer and the Democrats have got religion on border security,” Sen. J.D. Vance, R-Ohio., said ahead of the vote.    Under the Biden administration, Customs and Border Protection has encountered over 9.5 million illegal aliens on America’s border and at ports of entry. With five months remaining in fiscal year 2024, CBP encounters of illegal immigrants under President Joe Biden’s leadership are expected to far surpass 10 million before the start of the new fiscal year.   An additional nearly 1.8 million illegal aliens have crossed the border managing to evade Border Patrol. Authorities refer to them as “known gotaways.” It is impossible to know how many unknown gotaways have entered the country in recent years.  Senate Republicans continue to advocate for the passage of the border security bill known as H.R. 2, which the House passed in May 2023. If passed into law, H.R. 2 would end “catch and release,” restart construction of the border wall, and reinstate the Trump-era “Remain in Mexico” policy, among other things.  “The Democrats don’t want border security,” Sen Ted Cruz, R-Texas, said in a statement. “Every single Democrat in the Senate supports these open borders. And I can say that because every single time we push to implement real border security to stop this invasion—to stop Joe Biden from releasing criminal illegal aliens that are threatening our families—every single Democrat votes no.” On Tuesday night, Sen. Roger Marshall, R-Kan., and Cruz, spoke on the Senate floor and called for the Senate to pass H.R. 2 by unanimous consent. Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin, D-Ill., reserved the right to object and blocked the bill.    The post Border Bill Goes Down in Flames on Senate Floor appeared first on The Daily Signal.

A new study has revealed that roughly 10% to 27% of noncitizens living in the U.S. are illicitly registered to vote, which could result in up to 2.7 million illegal votes being cast in the November elections. Experts say the significant amount of potential illegal votes could be enough to alter election results. The study, released last week by the research institute Just Facts, notes that the 2022 U.S. census recorded approximately 19 million adult noncitizens living in the country. “Given their voter registration rates, this means that about 2 million to 5 million of them are illegally registered to vote,” the report observes. “These figures are potentially high enough to overturn the will of the American people in major elections, including congressional seats and the presidency.” On Tuesday, James Agresti, president of Just Facts, joined “Washington Watch” to discuss the scope of noncitizens casting ballots and the implications of the study’s findings. “[T]here are very broad openings for noncitizens to vote,” he explained, adding: In no state in the nation are they required to provide proof of U.S. citizenship in order to register to vote. Now, a couple of states like Arizona tried to enact that requirement, but they were blocked by a court ruling supported by the Obama administration. And if you look at the federal voter-registration form, it says you can submit all different forms of ID to register. That could be a Social Security number; it could be a driver’s license number; or it could just be a utility bill. I mean, these are things that anyone can get by living here. They do not prove you’re a U.S. citizen. And more than that, a lot of noncitizens have faked Social Security numbers, especially illegal immigrants. That’s what they do to work. A recent estimate by the Social Security Administration tallied 2.5 million noncitizens who had Social Security numbers gained by using fake birth certificates or stealing those numbers from somebody else. Hans von Spakovsky, a senior legal fellow at The Heritage Foundation and board member of the Public Interest Legal Foundation, concurred. (Heritage founded The Daily Signal in 2014.) “[T]he problem is, states aren’t doing very much to verify citizenship, so it’s extremely easy for someone who’s not a citizen to register to vote and to vote in elections,” he remarked during Monday’s edition of “Washington Watch.” “And when that is discovered, oftentimes nothing is done about it.” Agresti went on to point out the effect that lax enforcement of citizen verification could have in November. “[B]ased on the latest available data, approximately 1 million to 2.7 million noncitizens are going to vote in the upcoming presidential election unless something changes. And that is more than enough to tip the results of congressional races, Senate races, and yes, the U.S. presidency.” Von Spakovsky echoed Agresti’s concerns. “[I]t doesn’t matter whether they’re black or white, Asian or Hispanic. It doesn’t matter which political party they support. Every time an alien illegally votes, that alien is voiding, negating the vote of a citizen, no matter which political party they support,” he contended. “And the Democrats just don’t seem to want to understand that or to basically ignore it.” Agresti further reflected on the motivations behind the Democrats’ opposition to efforts to improve election integrity. “[I]t’s always hard to read people’s minds, but I can tell you this: The vast bulk of these noncitizens are voting for Democrats. According to the best data we have, about 80% of them will vote for Democrats when they vote illegally. And Democrats are fighting tooth and nail to prevent any kind of checking of people’s citizenship. It does benefit them. Is that their reasoning? It’s an obvious incentive, but I can’t read their minds.” Earlier this month, House Republicans attempted to address the issue by introducing a bill that would require proof of citizenship to register to vote and would remove noncitizens from existing voter rolls. But Agresti expressed doubt about the bill’s chances of passage. “My guess is it will move in the House and die in the Senate, but that’s just an educated guess. And again, even if somehow it got through the Senate, there’s no way [President] Joe Biden’s signing that bill.” “However,” he added, “I do think in the aftermath of the election, and we hate to have a repeat of 2020, that there should be some accountability, some lawsuits that demand proof that people are who they say they are in tight races. None of that was secured in the last round of election lawsuits, and it needs to be there.” Agresti concluded by urging candidates involved in tight elections to demand verification that only citizens voted. “A candidate has to make a plea and say, ‘Hey, I want this data to prove that these people who are registered and voted actually are citizens.’” Originally published at the WashingtonStand.com The post Up to 2.7 Million Noncitizens Could Vote Illegally in November, Study Warns appeared first on The Daily Signal.

It took far longer for Americans to build a floating pier on the Gazan coast to deliver aid for civilians caught in the Israel-Hamas war than for the aid to be looted. President Joe Biden announced the pier project during his State of the Union address March 7. After delays, the pier was in place by May 7. However, due to “high winds and high sea swells,” as deputy Pentagon press secretary Sabrina Singh described it, no aid could be delivered immediately. The first 10 truckloads of food aid were landed on the floating pier last Friday and were subsequently delivered to a warehouse for the U.N. World Food Programme eight miles away. On Saturday, 16 more trucks landed with aid. However, “11 of those trucks never made it to the warehouse,” said Stéphane Dujarric, spokesman for the U.N. secretary-general. “Crowds had stopped the trucks at various points along the way. The Associated Press reported gunfire erupting at the scene, leaving at least one man dead. “There was, you know, what I think I would refer to as ‘self-distribution,’” Dujarric said. In response to the looting, the U.S. military halted further aid deliveries Sunday. Due to a lack of specific reporting, it’s not clear who was responsible for plundering the aid caravan. U.N. officials planted the suggestion that the aid was looted by Palestinian civilians, brought to the brink of starvation by Israel’s blockade in its war with Hamas, the terrorist organization that governs the Gaza Strip and massacred some 1,200 civilians Oct. 7 in Israel. Following this lead, most media reports have attributed the “self-distribution” simply to “crowds.” However, it would be strange if civilian crowds in Gaza had enough firearms to cause a shootout over aid. This is Gaza, not Chicago. Since its bloody coup in 2007, Hamas has governed the territory with an iron fist, brutally eliminating any perceived threat to its control. It’s hard to believe that any Palestinian in the Gaza Strip has firearms besides Hamas and its allied terrorist groups. Perhaps the U.S. military drew the same conclusion. Perhaps it suspected the supplies plundered from aid trucks eventually wound up in the hands of terrorists—even if the terrorists happily used crowds of hungry civilians to stop the caravan initially. Perhaps that’s why the U.S. military halted further aid deliveries. Meanwhile, of the food aid that made it through to the U.N. warehouse, U.S. officials say they believe none has been distributed to those in need. When asked Tuesday whether aid had reached Gaza residents, Pentagon press secretary Maj. Gen. Pat Ryder responded: “I do not believe so.” That makes two problems with the American military’s Gaza food delivery mission. First, international and nongovernmental aid organizations on the ground aren’t effective at distributing aid to those in need. Second, once aid enters Gaza, it’s hard to prevent it from falling into the hands of nefarious actors. Any U.S. aid delivery strategy that fails to account for these two problems is doomed to misfire. Biden promised no U.S. military “boots on the ground” in Gaza (are boots on a floating pier anchored to the ground much different?). This means the U.S. must, at some point, hand off the aid to groups already handling it so ineffectively and insecurely. When asked Tuesday “who was responsible for security” of the looted aid trucks, the U.N.’s Dujarric admitted, “There is no—we don’t have any armed security.” The current U.S. plan to get the pier’s terminal up and running again is for the aid convoys to travel to the World Food Programme warehouse by “new routes.” This, obviously, solves none of the problems. This new plan is likely to last only as long as it takes for the same “crowds” to ambush a convoy on its new route. If the crowd still has guns and the men in the trucks don’t, it’s hard to imagine any other outcome but more looting. Neither problem should have surprised the Biden administration, if officials were willing to listen to America’s close friend and ally, Israel. Israel has known all along that Hamas commandeers confiscate aid shipments and that Gazan aid organizations are ineffective. As of Tuesday, Israeli border guards had outworked international aid agencies to the point that “650 truckloads [were] waiting for collection and distribution … on the Gazan side of the crossings,” according to an Israeli agency, Coordination of Government Activities in the Territories. “Crossings” is plural because Israel worked to open a second border crossing to aid trucks May 1, after Hamas damaged the crossing in its Oct. 7 terrorist attacks in southern Israel. Meanwhile, Hamas stole the first convoy of aid to enter the Gaza Strip through the newly restored crossing under the coordination of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees. In February, a U.S. diplomat denied that Hamas seized any aid shipments into Gaza, but he also acknowledged that Hamas could “shape where and to whom assistance goes.” America’s difficulties delivering aid to the Gaza Strip underscore who is the villain and who is the hero in this story. Reporting from international and mainstream media outlets would convince you that Israel is out to maximize the suffering of people in Gaza, including by starving them to death. The International Criminal Court recently issued “preposterous” indictments against Israeli leaders, “saying that Israel has starved Gazans to death,” as Eugene Kontorovich, director of the Center for Middle East and International Law at George Mason University’s Scalia Law School, said on “Washington Watch.” “It’s not clear that anyone has starved in Gaza,” Kontorovich said. But, he added, “to the extent there’s a problem with food supplies there, it is well known that Hamas steals and plunders all the civilian, all the humanitarian supplies that are coming in. So it’s not clear why it’s Israel rather than Hamas that is being accused of this.” The International Criminal Court has no official jurisdiction, so it “can’t really do anything directly against Israel,” Kontorovich said. The charges nevertheless are “blood libel against the Jews,” he said, a classic example of antisemitism that will be used “in a further diplomatic campaign to delegitimize Israel.” But the claim that Israel is trying to starve Palestinian civilians by not allowing aid into Gaza is simply false. Since the beginning of the war, Israel has allowed 19,981 truckloads of food, 1,752 truckloads of water, 4,213 truckloads of shelter equipment, 2,002 truckloads of medical supplies, and 1,784 truckloads of mixed supplies into Gaza, as well as 297 tanks of fuel and 541 tanks of cooking gas. That adds up to 572,300 tons of humanitarian aid on 29,746 trucks. (Meanwhile, Gaza’s other neighbor, Egypt, has closed its border crossing and is allowing no aid into the strip.) Israel has done this, even though they know much of the aid will end up in their enemy’s hands, to alleviate the suffering of Gazan civilians. The Israelis have delivered thousands of leaflets, broadcast their targets in advance, and otherwise sacrificed operational efficiency in countless ways to spare Palestinian lives. Israel has done all this, and then the international community blames them when Hamas, a terrorist organization, steals humanitarian aid from civilians and uses those civilians as human shields. No country in the world is doing more to help the people of Gaza than the nation of Israel. Yet Biden’s decision to build a floating pier on the Gaza coast was essentially a rebuke to our ally, a declaration that Israel isn’t doing enough. It took only two days of real-world interactions for the Biden administration to discover that Gaza aid delivered through an American port of entry faces all the same barriers as aid delivered through an Israeli port of entry—none of which are Israel’s fault. Biden’s floating pier is an inefficient, costly alternative to Israeli border crossings. U.S. officials claimed the pier initially could handle 90 trucks per day, possibly up to 150 trucks. Yet only a couple dozen trucks have left the pier since its completion two weeks ago. For comparison, 403 aid-bearing trucks entered Gaza on Monday alone, nearly all through Israel. The floating pier involved the labor of 1,000 U.S. servicemembers and a price tag of $320 million, Reuters reported. “The administration got what it wanted” out of the pier, speculated National Review’s senior political correspondent, Jim Geraghty, “which was a couple of ‘U.S. military starts delivering aid to Gaza through floating pier’ headlines this past weekend.” But for the civilians of Gaza, the Biden administration has delivered next to nothing. Originally published by The Washington Stand The post Gaza Aid Promptly Looted After Landing at US-Built Floating Pier appeared first on The Daily Signal.

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