Prosecutors in the Diddy case have just released images of ecstasy pills shaped like President Obama that were found in his possession. This shit is getting seriously bizarre!! Follow ? Vincent Kennedy

Late Wednesday night — actually early Thursday morning — H.R. 1 finally cleared its final hurdles and scraped through to passage in the House of Representatives by a 215-214 vote. This is the Big Beautiful Bill you’ve heard so much about. And it’s certainly big — over 1,100 pages. Is it beautiful? Not really. But it is the bill. And it isn’t all that useful to complain about the thing. Some of the people out there screeching over its passage need a bit of a reality check. Let’s start with the complaint that has been utterly ubiquitous on the Right over the past month or so, which is that we’ve got a do-nothing Congress. They’ve been on vacation — or rather, they’ve been back in their districts — more than normal, is the basis of that complaint. And because of that, since President Trump’s inauguration, they’ve passed fewer legislation in terms of the number of bills than previous congresses have. Except that’s not a function of laziness, a lack of ideas, or legislative torpor. It’s a strategic decision. It’s irritating to have to bring this up, but the Republicans have a 220-215 majority in the House and a 53-47 majority in the Senate which isn’t really 53 votes given that Lisa Murkowski, Susan Collins, Thom Tillis, Mitch McConnell, Bill Cassidy and a few others seem to do everything they can to torpedo the conservative agenda. For the most part, they’re ineffective in that respect, because none of them are all that willing to be the one vote that kills a bill or a nomination. They know there will be consequences for that, and they don’t have the courage to face those. Nevertheless, that 53? It plays like 51. And the 220 plays like 215; luckily, 215 was all the Big Beautiful Bill needed on Thursday morning. This matters, because there isn’t a big majority to work with here, and Mike Johnson, the House Speaker everybody loves to hate (which makes him no different than every other House speaker since Newt Gingrich, though Johnson has already posted more wins than any of those guys in less than two years in his current job), has a near-impossible job. Look, I’m a personal friend of Johnson’s. I’ve known him for more than a decade — before he even got into politics. I can say I know him better than a lot of his critics on the Right, and I can attest he’s with the movement. But that isn’t going to convince most of them. I get that. The fact that he’s a confidant of Trump doesn’t even move the needle. Fine. But Mike Johnson is literally the best you will get in the speaker’s chair of this Congress, and I would argue that he proved it by dragging the Big Beautiful Bill over the finish line. And I’ll win that argument for no other reason than that nobody better than Johnson wanted the job, much less could get enough votes to be speaker. Mike Johnson couldn’t send a clean, stripped-down budget bill through the House, though that would have been easier, and the budget aspects of the bill might have been better. Know why? Because codifying Trump’s agenda through legislation in 2025 means everything has to be attached to a must-pass bill. As in, budget reconciliation. You have to force the agenda through an omnibus bill if you want to pass it, because Democrats will reflexively filibuster everything the rules allow them to. In the past, that was less doable because both parties had faithless members. The Democrats have none, and you’d need seven of them to overcome a filibuster. The closest thing to a faithless Democrat in the Senate right now is John Fetterman, whom his party has turned on because he’s made various statements coming off the left-wing reservation. How much of that has translated into friendly votes for Republican agenda items? None of it. He’s a lockstep vote for his party on anything that isn’t a total consensus item. So they will filibuster all of Trump’s core agenda in the Senate, and none of them in the House will vote for virtually anything. That meant to pass Trump’s agenda, Johnson had to pack all of it into one giant budget bill, and he wouldn’t get a single Democrat vote in the House. Given the scant majority he has to work with, Johnson then had to secure a virtually unanimous vote from his own caucus. It doesn’t appear that Johnson’s critics recognize how damned hard that is. As I noted in a column a couple of weeks ago, Johnson had to overcome three members of the caucus who didn’t even want to defund Planned Parenthood, for crying out loud. Those three ultimately came around, in a couple of cases because the leadership had to essentially buy them off by giving massive SALT deductions to wealthy people in blue states (SALT deductions allow you to write your state income taxes off on your federal returns, which is objectively horrible policy; it essentially means that low-tax state taxpayers are going to be subsidizing taxpayers in high-tax states). (RELATED: These Are Morons If This Story Is True) Is that a shitty compromise Mike Johnson had to make? Of course it was. But he has 220 votes. If he had 240 votes, he could have told the blue state RINO reps, “Hey, vote no if you want. We can pass this anyway, and if anybody complains, you can run for cover.” But he doesn’t have that ability. And then there’s the House Freedom Caucus, which I would argue are the true good guys on Capitol Hill. I think Johnson would give the Freedom Caucus everything they want, or at least most of it, if he could. The problem is, he can’t. The Freedom Caucus is generally the top 25 percent or so of the Republican caucus, but for the most part, they’re going to get you maybe two-thirds of the way to a majority on the House floor in terms of getting others to vote for them on a particular weighty item. They’re right, but they can’t make a majority for the big stuff. So even if Johnson is going to start with the Freedom Caucus’ agenda and try to work outward from there, parts of that agenda would have to be sacrificed on the way to a successful final vote. That’s too damned bad. It really is. If you let the Freedom Caucus control the budget it would get pretty close to balanced, the results would be skyrocketing economic growth and a vibrant culture and private sector and probably a lot happier populace outside of a more intensely miserable Left (which, as I’ve argued, is something we want and need for our national survival). (RELATED: Five Quick Things: America Needs Despondent Democrats, and We Have Them) But we don’t have that kind of Congress. Johnson had to put Trump’s whole agenda into a budget bill and pass it through a pretty disparate House GOP caucus with no margin for error and no grace from any outlying Democrats. Honestly, it’s a historic feat that he pulled off Thursday morning. Coming on the heels of Johnson managing to pass a continuing resolution on the budget that got us to this point, which nailed Chuck Schumer to the wall earlier this spring and essentially destroyed Schumer as a viable political force within his party, Johnson is actually having an all-pro year so far. (RELATED: Five Quick Things: The Well-Deserved Disgust of the American People) Is this budget getting us to smaller deficits and a paydown on the national debt? Hell, no. At least not by the scoring of the Congressional Budget Office. But here’s something to recognize — the CBO’s forecasts generally suck. They don’t understand that lower taxes usually increase government revenue, particularly after a couple of years for those lower tax rates to have an effect on the private-sector economy. They make static forecasts, so any time you lower taxes by X amount, the CBO will tell you it’s a permanent loss of X to the federal treasury. When if this bill and the tax relief in it helps to grow the economy, which the CBO has ridiculously claimed will not happen, that’s going to mean a flood of dollars into the federal treasury. Certainly, though, we need hard budget cuts if we’re going to climb out of the hole we’re in. Trump’s Office of Management and Budget director, Russ Vought, is probably the most aggressive budget hawk in America. Here’s what Vought thinks of the Big Beautiful Bill… OMB Director @russvought: “This bill will help debt and deficits… this is a nearly $2T mandatory savers. We haven’t seen anything like this. It’s history.” pic.twitter.com/lRcX23KroV — Rapid Response 47 (@RapidResponse47) May 22, 2025 That’s a hell of a good recommendation. And let’s remember that we aren’t done with the budget. This bill has to get through the Senate, and it’s very likely to pick up some fleas when it’s there. It’s doubtful it’ll be improved from a fiscally sound, small government perspective — though we can always hope. But when this thing finally goes to Trump’s desk, there are two levers that can be pulled to make the budget situation better. The first is a presidential impoundment. Everybody knows this is coming. Impoundment, in case you aren’t familiar with it — and don’t be ashamed if you aren’t, because it hasn’t happened in half a century — is the process of the president refusing to spend all or part of an appropriation of funds made by Congress. The Impoundment Control Act of 1974, which Vought and pretty much everybody else in the Trump administration believes was unconstitutional, essentially takes impoundment off the table. But based on the work DOGE has done and some of the other budget analysis Vought’s office has been working on, there are a whole lot more savings still to be identified. DOGE’s final report to OMB isn’t in yet, and OMB and all of the agencies are still working on where they can cut. The “mandatory savers” in the Big Beautiful Bill are not the final word here. The impoundment, which probably gets announced a few weeks after the Big Beautiful Bill goes to Trump’s desk, isn’t even the final word. What will happen after Trump announces that he’s impounding part of the budget and then outlines where the money may have been appropriated but doesn’t need to be spent is that a lawsuit will be filed by one of the usual Marc Elias-Norm Eisen Stalin Youth gang, in some venue-shopped federal court, and some ridiculously unqualified and suspiciously connected Obama or Biden judge will call the impoundment illegal under the Impoundment Control Act, and then there will be an injunction that purports to force Trump to spend the entire appropriation. (RELATED: Dictatorship of Obama Judges) The optics of that aren’t great for the Democrats, by the way: “You must grow the national debt by this amount even though the executive branch says they don’t have to spend that money.” It’s idiotic, but they’ll do it. Team Trump wants them to, in fact, because that’s the vehicle by which the Supreme Court can find the Impoundment Control Act unconstitutional — and even though this is a disappointingly unreliable Supreme Court, there is still good reason to think they’ll do exactly that. What an impoundment does, moreover, is to reset the spending baseline for future budgets. As our readers know, despite the desperate need for Congress to go to zero-based budgeting; that is, to start from the assumption in each budget year that no spending is necessary and then adjust that assumption upwards as it reviews the government’s operations and obligations, the way we currently budget is to start from this year’s budget and base next year’s budget on that. So if you’re impounding $200 billion from this year’s budget, let’s say, then you can take that off next year’s budget as something you know you don’t need. And you can do this even if the impoundment is tied up in the courts. Why isn’t all of this work in the Big Beautiful Bill? Because Trump has only been in office for four months. You’re going to have to let Vought and DOGE cook for a little longer than that. We’re talking about the U.S. federal government, for Pete’s sake; you can’t find a larger fiscal entity on Planet Earth with more moving parts than the leviathan in Washington. And then there’s a rescission, which may or may not be part of the budget mix. The guess here is that if Trump has a big impoundment and it either survives the courts or it’s incorporated into next year’s budget, which will be worked on all summer and much of the fall, there might not be a need for a rescission. What’s a rescission? It’s a bill which rescinds, rather than appropriates, money. A rescission bill would, for example, incorporate DOGE’s suggestions to cut the federal budget by eliminating waste and fraud. Interestingly, there is no filibuster available for a rescission bill. You might ask how such a bill could pass if the items in it couldn’t get into the Big Beautiful Bill, and that’s a valid question. But let’s see. The point is that while this thing could have been quite a bit leaner from a budget perspective, assuming it gets through the Senate and Trump signs it, Congress will have then codified the bulk of Trump’s agenda by the middle of the summer and there won’t be all that much to do for the rest of the year other than to shrink the federal government. Which isn’t a bad place to be in. And if you can’t understand why Vought would be so sanguine about the bill even though it doesn’t seem to be very aggressive in chopping down on federal spending, this is likely why. Some of this is speculative, I’ll grant. But again, this is an ongoing process. And we are dealing in the world of what is possible with the Congress we have. Within that world, this is a win. Sure, it’s probably not a beautiful win. It’s a 50-yard field goal with one second left to eke out a victory, and the team didn’t cover the spread. But given where we are, it’ll do. So, try to be happy about it, and let’s keep playing. There’s another game coming up soon. READ MORE from Scott McKay: A Bonfire of the Vanities at the White House The Cancerous Lies of the Corporate Joe Biden Five Quick Things: America Needs Despondent Democrats, and We Have Them The post Take the Win on the Big Beautiful Bill appeared first on The American Spectator | USA News and Politics.

It was as plain as it was horrific. Over there at Newsmax (where, full disclosure, I am a contributor) was this headline: “Cops Probe Manifesto Linked to D.C. Shooting Suspect.” Over at Fox, this was the banner, written following the daily presser held by White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt: “Trump ‘outraged’ over deadly DC shooting of two Israeli embassy staffers, Leavitt says.” The Fox story reported: President Donald Trump is “saddened and outraged” over the “brutal murder” of two Israeli embassy staff members who were leaving an event at the Capital Jewish Museum in Washington, D.C., on Wednesday night, the White House said Thursday. White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt remembered the victims, Yaron Lischinsky and Sarah Milgrim, a couple who were set to be engaged during a press briefing. “The evil of anti-Semitism must be eradicated from our society,” Leavitt said, adding that the Department of Justice will prosecute the perpetrator “to the fullest extent of the law.” The suspect has been identified as 30-year-old Elias Rodriguez, of Chicago, authorities have said. He has been taken into custody. Leavitt continued: “Hatred has no place in the United States of America under President Donald Trump. Everyone here at the white House is praying for the victims, friends and families during this unimaginable time.” In fact, similar headlines were to be found all over the American media, with more in various foreign outlets as well. But make no mistake. While the shooting was outside the Capital Jewish Museum in Washington, the real target in all this was not just Israel — it was America. The hard fact here is that if Israel did not exist, the target would still be America. America: The real “Great Satan” in the eyes of anti-Western zealots. (RELATED: Political Zealotry, Like Psychopathy, Can Allow One to Murder Without Qualm) From the moment of 9/11 until this day, as you read this, America, and the larger Western world along with it, are the real targets behind all the “Free Palestine” obsession. (RELATED: ‘Pro-Palestine’ Is a Cover for Anti-American) The obsessed followers of this movement can be found anywhere around the globe. This time around, the suspected attacker is one Elias Rodriguez from, yes, America’s very own Chicago. The Fox headline reports: “Suspect Elias Rodriguez allegedly told witness ‘I did this for Gaza’ before shouting pro-Palestinian slogans.” Newsmax reported this of the aforementioned manifesto: The FBI is aware of and police are investigating, the authenticity of an anti-Israel manifesto that preceded the shooting deaths of two Israeli Embassy staffers in Washington, D.C., on Wednesday night, the New York Post reported. The suspect in the murders, Elias Rodriguez, allegedly blasted out the 900-word manifesto bearing his name online, according to the report. It was dated May 20. In short, the hatred for Israel is not limited to Israel. Without question, America itself is the real target that looms over Israel and the decidedly antisemitic war on Jews that is now to be found infecting, among other places, no less than the college campuses of America’s once honorable universities. (RELATED: Trump Is the Only One Taking Antisemitism Seriously) Without question, one can believe that a majority of Americans do not support what happened this week in Washington, any more than they supported 9/11. The real problem now is what to do about all of this? How is it to be stopped? How is this vile antisemitism to be kept from infecting various sectors of American life, not to mention the antisemitic poison instigating violence on American shores, like that we have just witnessed? And witnessed this time on no less than the streets of our nation’s capital. In the long ago of America’s initial travels into space, when the American mission to the moon — Apollo 13 — had an explosion on board the Apollo capsule, history records the pilot of the command module radioed back to NASA headquarters in Houston: “Ah, Houston, we’ve had a problem.” The seriously popular film of the episode — Apollo 13 — slightly misquoted the line, re-making it as: “Houston, we have a problem.” The line caught on in American culture and became synonymous with meaning an unforeseen and serious problem has suddenly emerged. With this latest antisemitic event involving the outright murder of two Israeli Embassy staffers on a street in Washington, it is safe to say: “America, we have a problem.” We do. The question now is what to do about it? READ MORE from Jeffrey Lord: Hillary: Handmaiden to the Patriarchs of the Left Hillary Accepted Foreign Gifts Trump Wins Hostage Edan Alexander’s Release The post The Washington Shooting appeared first on The American Spectator | USA News and Politics.

The thing about Donald Trump’s presidency that saddens me most is that he has less than four (or eight) years left in the White House. That’s it. There never will be another like him, certainly not in the near future. Possibly never. It took an Obama to give us a Trump, just as it took a doddering, lost Biden, in slow motion, to give him back to us, just as it took a completely failed Jimmy Carter to give us a Reagan. That’s how it works. America will not elect such an unabashed, authentic leader from the right side of the aisle unless it has reached a level of such despair from the left side that the public realizes it must balance the extreme leftward tilt, or the entire national enterprise is over. Pack up the flag, the framed photo of Washington, the bust of Jackson, and a can of Coke and skidaddle to somewhere safe: Viktor Orban’s Hungary, maybe. That is Obama’s and Biden’s legacies: they both left Independents convinced there was no choice but Trump. Merely another Bush, McCain, or Romney would be too little, too late. (RELATED: Lessons for Trump from Orbán, Hungary’s ‘Comeback’ Prime Minister) I love this guy. I love him. Even when he is dead wrong — and he is, a bit too often (as reflected each time he backs down a day or week after a boo-boo) — he is still the GOAT, the Greatest Of All Time. Realistically, Trump learned from his first term that he has no time to weigh and analyze and be sure he is making no mistakes. No time for safe cabinet picks like Rex Tillerson and Jeff Sessions, or taking advice from Paul Ryan. Four years fly by too quickly to lose even a day. And if he ultimately loses the House — if we do — he now has less than two years before the impeachments start and MAGA sinks. In any event, anything he does gets tied up by local Obama–Biden judges, mandating a one- or two-year thumb-twirling wait until the Supreme Court gets to each thing and reverses the Obama–Biden judges by a 5-4 or 6-3 vote. So he has to act fast, take some counsel, but accept that he will make what mistakes he will, and if he errs along the way, he can always reverse himself later. (RELATED: Dictatorship of Obama Judges) The thing is, the stuff he does is so crazy — often great, the good kind of crazy — that there is kind of no precedent to know whether he is allowed to do it. Either no one ever did it before, so maybe he can do it, but maybe not, and there is no time to be sure. Or no one ever even thought of doing it before. So… who knows? Maybe it’s OK. You know that the Obama judges will knock it down anyway, but they will knock down anything he does, as will Sotomayor and Ketanji. The last two are not honest players — Ketanji does not know what a woman is, except when she sings it on Broadway? — and the others are hacks. So, if any idea strikes his fancy, and it passes muster with the MAGA A-Team he has assembled, the knee-jerk approach that seems to guide his presidency seems to be: “Oh, may as well. And if we get away with it, I love it when a plan comes together.” So he does crazy stuff that is beyond brilliant. For example, Biden let in 10 million Illegals. We all know that: the woke know it, their left-wing media and academia know it, the right wing know it. The only one whom we now understand, perhaps never knew it, was Biden himself, who entered from a basement and soon descended into a Twilight Zone. But — bottom line — 10 million got in. So Trump campaigns on a pledge to throw them out, and America — even all seven swing states’ populations — unite to give Trump that authority: yes, become our president and throw them out. Correspondingly, he ascends the Oval Office, issues the executive orders he promised his voters to issue, and then the Obama–Biden judges tie him up. Suddenly, unelected district judges become self-anointed autocrats and emperors who rule from their local courtrooms, which all of America must bow to. What does Trump do? To the best of his ability, without defying the courts so brazenly that he borders on the autocratic, he throws out whomever he can anyway. But how to get rid of 10 million in four years — even without Obama–Biden judges in the way? How? Do the math: Four years, at 365 days each, an aggregate of 1,460. Add one more for the leap year. Ten Million divided by 1461 = 9,998.539… call it Ten Thousand deportations per day for four years. How in the world can that be done logistically, to deport 10,000 Illegals each and every day for four years? You gotta find them, catch them, book them, fingerprint and mugshot them, fit them for orange jump suits, put them in front of judges, get them into Ubers or Lyfts, and scoot them off to an airport, load them in planes. How do you do it to 10,000 Illegals a day? Ultimately, you need to motivate a bunch of them to help out, to self-deport. But how? Why should they? Why not wait, hiding in the homes of Democrat judges, until Ocasio gets elected president with David Hogg as Veep? (RELATED: Trump’s Cash-for-Departure Plan: A New Approach to Immigration?) You start motivating self-deportations by telling them that, if they follow the law and leave of their own accord, they will have clean records and then may apply to come back legally. But, c’mon. “Illegal” does not mean “stupid.” They know they will never get back in. So they are not motivated that way. OK, you offer them $1,000 a head to leave on their own. But, again, they are smart. This is not the $1,000 of the days of Ben Cartwright and Bonanza in Virginia City. Today, $1,000 buys what? A dozen eggs? So, how to get them out in mega numbers, with mass self-deporting? How to motivate them en masse? (RELATED: Bribing Illegals to Self-Deport Might Be the Only Real Solution Available to Trump) Only a Trump would come up with the idea of “Let’s publicize that anyone who waits for us to do the deporting will end up in an El Salvador lock-up with thousands of shaved mongrels with tattoos on their faces that say ‘I kill you if you can read this tattoo.’” Or they will be drop-shipped to Libya, where they will be sold as slaves to Arab Muslims throughout Araby as Libyans have been doing since time immemorial, lost forever in Middle Eastern slavery in some harem or sheikhdom, unable ever to find a way out or be found again. Or, if lucky, just to Alcatraz. Suddenly, self-deporting makes sense, with or without the dozen eggs. These are great Trump Days. Everyone sensible knew where he was going with those tariffs. When the market collapsed on “Liberation Day,” the April 2 day when he imposed tariffs of a Billion Percent per country, and he had the chart, left over from Butler, Pennsylvania, so he could write all his tariffs on the other side, every experienced financial advisor and investment professional knew not to sell amid the market crash. Let the fools who listen to CBS, NBC, ABC, and MSNBC panic and sell at major losses. “Trump is causing a depression!” The pros knew to wait two weeks, and the market would be right back in bull territory because that is Trump 101: make everyone around you crazy, set new nightmare expectations, then return to normal but with your negotiating opponent aware you are crazy and, if he could do it once, he could do it again, so suddenly they all thank Trump for increasing all their tariffs by “only” 10 percent. With anyone else, the process would have started as a 10 percent tariff, and everyone would be protesting it to this day. Instead, they thank him for it. He is just crazy enough. Can you imagine Putin dealing with Biden? With the Cackling Fool who followed? Instead, even Putin has to be careful with Trump. His latest antic was so beautiful. We all remember the Oval Office “disaster” with Zelenskyy. The thing is, most people only know the four-minute clip they saw on the news, with Vance and Trump picking on poor Volodymyr. However, if you actually take the time to watch the full 49 minutes, you see a very different picture. Trump started off very nicely, a warm, sweet darling. Welcomed him enthusiastically. Then Zelenskyy broke protocol. So Vance jumped in because, really, Zelenskyy put Trump on the spot, unexpectedly from outta left field, in Trump’s own home office. Therefore, Vance did what Trump could not quite do. In the end, Zelenskyy gets thrown out (equivalent to a Billion Percent tariff). A few weeks later, they make nice in Europe (equivalent to dropping the tariffs back to where they were). Trump walks away with the precious earth minerals he wanted, which protects Ukraine from Putin, because now America has a financial stake in a non-Putin Kyiv. (RELATED: The Mendacious Media Coverage of Zelensky’s Stunt) Moreover, it is now evident that the wild Zelenskyy event placed a bug in Trump’s crazy head that opened a door for him to do something amazing when the head of racist, anti-white, genocidal South Africa came to visit. (RELATED: South African President Ramaphosa to the White House) Circumstances brought the president of South Africa to the Oval Office. South Africa is a despicable regime, so racist and genocidal against their targeted minority — white farmers, in particular — that, in this crazy upside-down world, they were the perfect goons to bring a case to the International “Court of Justice” accusing Israel of racism and genocide. The pot calling the pan — well, you finish the expression. So the same racist, genocidal South Africa that projected its own sins onto Israel now came to America. And Trump ambushed the guy. A sight to behold. (RELATED: South Africa’s Refugees Expose the Left) In the midst of their meeting in front of world media, Trump pulled out a stack of photocopied news articles, each reporting another case of a white South African farmer and family slaughtered and butchered by South African blacks aiming to steal and occupy their land. Get it? Genocidal South Africans occupying other people’s lands — those are the ones accusing Israel of genocide and occupation. Predictably, the South African leader said he had never heard of any of this stuff. News to him. Racism against whites? Seizing white farmers’ lands? Who? Us? (RELATED: A Bonfire of the Vanities at the White House) So Trump ambushed him with an actual video presentation — “Let’s turn down the lights, please” — and he literally screened the film of South African racist, murderous, genocidal speeches, threats of murdering white farmers, and mad, raging South African mobs chanting death to white farmers. As Trump and the media kept watching, the South African president stopped watching and looked away, squirming. (RELATED: The Plight of the Afrikaners Is a Clarifying Moment for Western Civilization) It was a beautiful moment. Never would have happened with Bush, McCain, or Romney. Not even with Reagan. Only maniacal Trump. Only irrepressible, crazy Trump would call out the head of South Africa in the Oval Office with a film blaring in his face showing the genocide against white farmers over which that hypocrite knowingly presides. Subscribe to Rav Fischer’s YouTube channel here at bit.ly/3REFTbk and follow him on X (Twitter) at @DovFischerRabbi to find his latest classes, interviews, speeches, and observations. To be invited to attend his three weekly Zoom classes, send a request to rabbi@yioc.org. READ MORE from Dov Fischer: Bill Belichick, Crossing the Jordon, and My Morning Croissant On Humanitarian Aid to Gaza Trump, Polls, Baby Formula, and Kamala The post Mr. Trump Ambushes the South African Genocide Apologist appeared first on The American Spectator | USA News and Politics.

A strange new tactic is taking on a central role in the pro-abortion world. Abortion, says this newly prevailing strategy, is not just a choice someone should be free to make so as to live out their chosen lifestyle. No, abortion is a moral good, an act of the highest love and selflessness. This approach takes the pro-life rallying cry to love both the mother and child and says, Yes, we are in total agreement. Love the mother and love the child — but love the child by killing the child. Yes, really. Consider what an abortion doctor, Jamila Perritt, said on the matter earlier this year in Ms. Magazine. “The foundation of the work I do as an abortion provider has always been, and will always be, love,” said Perritt. “I know that abortion care is an act of love.” Perritt said this encompasses “Love for our communities. Love for our families. Love for ourselves.” Perritt is the president and CEO of Physicians for Reproductive Health, meaning that she has a prominent role in leading the discourse on abortion within the pro-choice movement. How have we gotten to this point? How have we reached a situation where abortion — that is, the killing of human beings — is being justified based on love? (RELATED: America’s Abortion Blind Spot: How Liberals Convinced Americans to Ignore the Fetus) A first place to look is a 2018 book titled Scarlet A: The Ethics, Law, and Politics of Ordinary Abortion. The author, Katie Watson, was on the frontlines of declaring that abortion should not be looked down upon as a difficult choice but rather should be celebrated as beneficial for society. In one interview, Watson stated, “I refuse to stop talking about abortion and stressing that it is a moral, political, and social good.” In 2019, I attended a lecture by Watson (to report on it). She spoke of “abortion beneficiaries,” that is, all of the people who have supposedly benefitted from abortion. Watson claimed this included everyone in the room. Of special benefit, she asserted, were those whose siblings had been aborted, thus leaving their parents with more financial resources. (RELATED: Why Trump Should Act Against Abortion) Watson’s ideas followed the #ShoutYourAbortion movement of 2015, in which thousands of women spoke positively in social media posts about abortions they had procured and all the “benefits” those abortions had on their lives. The inaugural tweet of the moment, by abortion activist Lindy West, said, “My abortion was in ’10 & the career I’ve built since then fulfills me & makes me better able to care for kids I have now #ShoutYourAbortion.” Figures like Scarlet A author Katie Watson, as well as the #ShoutYourAbortion movement, remained at the level of arguing that abortion was a great benefit to society in terms of safety and resources. Yet, at this time, other members of the pro-abortion movement began to push the narrative, arguing that abortion, more than being societally beneficial, was a loving act. In November 2019, a blog post published by the National Women’s Law Center asserted that “abortion is love” in the strongest terms possible. “The media often paints abortion as a divisive political issue,” said the author, “but here’s the truth: abortion actually is an act of love, an act of compassion, an act of healing, and an act of selflessness.” The author was, she said, “sick and tired of having to justify why we need to be able to get an abortion.” The essay captured well the emerging new argument. The following year, in 2020, a podcast named Abortion, With Love was launched. In the inaugural episode, the show’s host, Camila Ochoa Mendoza, says: “I hope that through these conversations, we can reshape the story of abortion to be a story about love.” Abortion, With Love published numerous audio letters from women who framed their abortions in terms of love. The letters can only be described as disturbing. In one letter, titled “Dear Seedling,” a woman writes to the unborn child she aborted. The woman asserts to her child that killing him or her was a gift. She writes, “You have returned to the magical dust of the universe perhaps part of an ancient wise tree or a droplet in the sea … This was an abortion with love and I thank the ancestral feminine that has always held this wisdom. And I thank you for being with me and the teachings you offered.” Shocking, in particular, is the way in which this writer recognizes the humanity of her baby and yet still thinks that killing the child is loving. Evidently, the writer believed the baby would be better off as a “droplet in the sea” — i.e. dead — than as an unwanted baby, and felt empowered to act on that belief. It sounds eerily similar to the way people are discussing euthanasia as a “loving” way to “release” people from suffering. (“Euthanasia is an act of love towards individuals who are suffering and wanting to die,” asserted David San Filippo in 2013. “Euthanasia is an act of love and kindness, a final gift we can give our little loved ones when their quality of life has deteriorated beyond repair,” wrote Louise Feaheny earlier this year.) (RELATED: The Horrific Assisted Suicide Boom in Canada) In another essay, this time published in 2020 in Brevity magazine, a woman named Amie Whittemore listed 55 reasons that “This Abortion is an Act of Love.” Among those reasons were “my hips,” “my cats,” “silence,” “trees,” “Sumatran rhinos,” “organic farms,” “coral,” and “whales” — these things supposedly benefited from the death of the child. The new mantra “abortion is love” caught on. In 2021, the Avow Foundation for Abortion Access launched with the goal of “unapologetic abortion advocacy.” It began selling T-shirts that said “Abortion is love.” The organization explained its shirts by saying, “For the vast majority of people, accessing abortion care is about love. Love for the families they already have, love for the children they want to have in the future when the timing is right, love for themselves and their dreams.” This “abortion is love” claim reached disturbing new heights in a 2023 essay by Daniela Kent titled “My Abortion Was an Act of Love.” What makes this essay so terrifying is the extent to which Kent recognizes the life and humanity of her unborn baby and is still happy to kill him or her anyway. When she became pregnant, Kent writes, she immediately felt overwhelming motherly love toward her child. “It was love, though, a very specific kind of love,” she writes. “A kind of love I had never felt before and haven’t felt since.” Kent said that her “heart wanted to continue the pregnancy.” And yet, in large part because her boyfriend wasn’t enthusiastic about the child, Kent decided to get an abortion, knowing it would give her unbearable pain because of the love she had for her unborn child. “I knew [the abortion] was going to hurt like nothing had ever hurt before,” Kent writes. “I knew this, because the love I was feeling for this little being was more than anything I had ever felt before.” And yet, Kent believes that aborting this child was “the most loving choice I have ever made.” She justifies this on the basis of her belief that her unborn baby “deserved” to have a father who was “ready.” Bafflingly, Kent wrote that her abortion “taught [her] that even when love is hard, it is always the right choice.” A difficult part of responding to the “abortion is love” argument is the fact that its proponents are, in many circumstances, happy to admit that the unborn child is a human person. They simply believe that a woman should be able to “lovingly” decide whether that child lives or dies. It is as though the woman is a god and, whether she chooses to preserve or extinguish life, she is exercising a special creative power. It is as though she alone possesses a special knowledge about whether it would be better for that child to be raised by her or to be “returned to the magical dust of the universe.” Whatever choice the woman makes, it is made out of “love” for that child, herself, and her broader community. The only real answer to these people’s insanity and depravity is true love. This argument was put forward earlier this year in an essay by Amber Roseboom, the president of Right to Life of Michigan. In her essay, titled “Abortion is Not Love,” she writes: “Love isn’t about satisfying a need for ourselves. It is about seeking the good for the other person.” Roseboom asserts that, in contrast to this, the pro-abortion movement “twists love into something destructive.” Roseboom speaks practically about how this true, “self-sacrificing love” can counter this twisted destruction. This true love includes, she says, “expanding prenatal and postnatal care,” telling the truth about abortion, showing compassion to unexpectedly pregnant women, and connecting pregnant women with local pregnancy resource centers. ***** These “abortion is love” people may seem so far lost that conversion to reality is impossible. But the idea that murdering one’s own children is a loving act is so inherently false and evil that it can only be held up for so long before it shrinks in the face of the truth. In fact, Daniela Kent, who wrote the essay “My Abortion Was an Act of Love,” went on to describe how, after her abortion, she “fell into a depression” and “wasn’t okay for about a year and a half.” Kent’s experience suggests that those who take the pro-abortion stance to its logical conclusion — and believe that they should be able to “lovingly” kill — will eventually be confronted with the disturbing reality of what is, in fact, murder. READ MORE from Ellie Gardey Holmes: Newsom Can’t Memory-Hole What He Did to California Americans Revel in Connection to Pope Leo XIV A Miracle Baby Is Surviving His Mother’s Brain Death, and the Left Is Outraged The post The Messed-Up World of People Who Believe Abortion Is Love appeared first on The American Spectator | USA News and Politics.

by Vigilant Fox, The Gateway Pundit: The “safe and effective” narrative collapsed on camera during Senator Ron Johnson’s explosive Senate hearing on COVID-19 vaccine injuries Wednesday afternoon. Senator Ron Johnson brought the receipts, exposing how the Biden administration DELIBERATELY hid vaccine harms from the public. Then Dr. James Thorp (OB-GYN) revealed miscarriage data so disturbing, it left […]

by Joseph P. Farrell, Giza Death Star: If you read last Monday’s blog  about all the carney going on in Mr. Carnage’s New People’s Republic of Canada and the fact that some in that country are seriously considering a home equity tax as the “fair solution” to “Canada’s housing crisis”, then do not for a […]

Asian recipes often incorporate sesame oil in sauces, dressings, and quick stir fry dishes. It’s a pantry ingredient that adds fragrant aroma and depth of flavor. It can be used in Chinese, Japanese, Korean recipes, and more. Sesame oil can be found either toasted or non-toasted. WHAT IS SESAME SEED OIL? Sesame seed oil is an oil that’s made from pure sesame seeds. It can be toasted or non-toasted, and there are distinct differences between the two varieties. Toasted sesame oil is darker in color and boasts a rich, nutty, and toasted flavor. Non-toasted, raw sesame oil has a light color and has neutral flavor.  TOASTED SESAME OIL VS. NON-TOASTED You’ll be able to tell the difference between toasted and un-toasted sesame oils from the color. Dark, caramel-colored sesame oil is toasted, while the light golden-colored variety is not. When you see a recipe that calls for toasted sesame oil, you know that it’s being used to add a more earthy and nutty flavor to whatever you’re cooking. Remember: the two are generally not interchangeable.  In addition, there are even lightly toasted sesame oils to choose from. These will boast a milder toasted flavor and are still considered different from non-toasted.  Most Asian-inspired recipes will call for toasted sesame oil. It can quickly change the taste of your dishes and give them a recognizable sesame flavor which is synonymous with Asian cooking!  What Does Sesame Oil Taste Like? Toasted sesame oil has a wonderfully aromatic, deep, nutty flavor that is classic in Asian dressings and sauces. Regular, un-toasted sesame oil is mild, light, and non-distinct in taste. SESAME OIL VS. OLIVE OIL The sesame oil vs. olive oil debate comes up often in cooking as they are both considered on the healthier side. However, they aren’t that similar. It’s no secret that sesame seed oil is made from sesame seeds and olive oil is made from olives. There is indeed a huge difference in flavor. Sesame oil is nutty and earthy and olive oil is fruity and slightly bitter.  Toasted sesame oil has a much stronger flavor than olive oil and can quickly overtake a dish if you’re not careful about the quantity you use.  You can use both olive oil and sesame oil as a seasoning in salads and sauces. In terms of other uses, olive oil is more versatile than sesame. It can be used as cooking oil, as a seasoning, and in baking. There are also many more varieties of olive oil than sesame. That said, in your Asian-inspired recipes, toasted sesame oil is always preferred!  SESAME OIL USES It’s important to think of toasted sesame oil as a seasoning instead of cooking oil. It can add a finishing touch to many different recipes and should be added in the last cooking stage. Toasted sesame oil is better used in marinades, salad dressings, or sauces. It works wonderfully in balancing out other flavors like spices or vinegar. You don’t need to add a lot to get that nutty flavor you’re after, so use it sparingly. Un-toasted sesame seed oil is sometimes used on hair and skin, like olive oil. You can also use it for cooking as you would any other type of light vegetable oil. SESAME OIL BENEFITS Sesame oil benefits are many! It is high in healthy-for-your-heart fats and contains vitamins E and K. It also contains good fatty acids like omega-3, omega-6, and omega-9. These things are shown to improve your heart health when combined with a healthy diet and exercise.  You can also use non-toasted sesame seed oil to nourish your skin and your hair, thanks to vitamin E.  SESAME OIL SMOKE POINT Non-toasted Sesame oil has a smoke point of 410°F, which is a high smoke point compared to other oils. It’s a practical choice for cooking, stir frying, and sautéeing. It’s not recommended that you cook with toasted sesame oil. It has a lower smoke point of about 350°F, so it burns more easily. Save it for seasoning! How Long Does Sesame Oil Keep? Like all oils, sesame oil can become less fresh and rancid over time. Shelf life: About 6–12 months after opening any type of sesame oil. Storage: Keep it in a cool, dark place, or refrigerate to extend shelf life. SESAME OIL SUBSTITUTionsd Replace untoasted sesame oil with: Peanut oil Canola oil Sunflower seed oil Olive oil Replace toasted Asian sesame oil with: Chinese sesame paste – this will be stronger in flavor than the oil, so use less of it than you would the oil. Tahini – this is made with ground sesame seeds, with outer hull removed. Roasted peanut oil – though this has a different flavor profile, it can be used as a substitution if needed. Keep in mind that peanut oil is not nearly as fragrant as Asian sesame oil is. Toasted sesame seeds – if you don’t have sesame oil yet still want sesame flavor, feel free to sprinkle in plenty of sesame seeds in place of the oil. However, you’ll still want to use another oil replacement if you’re using it for cooking, sauces, or dressings. Recipes That Use Sesame Oil Sesame oil recipes are endless! As mentioned, the different varieties can be used in a variety of ways. Here are some sesame oil recipes that you can try at home: Lo mein noodles (easy meal prep) Hawaiian BBQ grilled chicken Asian cold sesame noodles (nut free)  Spicy Thai peanut noodles 15-minute ginger soy Asian steamed fish Pot stickers (Asian dumplings) Healthy poke bowls (with Sriracha mayo) Can I Substitute Toasted Sesame Oil for Un-toasted Sesame Oil? Because untoasted sesame oil has a much higher smoke point than toasted, they can’t be easily substituted for one another. Toasted sesame oil will burn if you try to use it as a cooking oil. You can use both varieties as a finisher for sauces or salads, but keep in mind that toasted has a much more distinct sesame flavor and is highly aromatic. Can I Use Coconut Oil Instead of Sesame Oil? While coconut oil isn’t the number one sesame oil substitute option, they can be subbed in for each other. That said, this is only for recipes that call for untoasted sesame oil. And, it’s also important to note that coconut oil will give your recipes a slight coconut flavor.  What Is The Best Oil For Stir-Fry? Canola oil one of the most common choices of oil to use for stir-fries. Nonetheless, you can opt to use un-toasted sesame oil instead. It will lend a very slight sesame taste to whatever you’re cooking. When you add toasted varieties as a finishing touch, can add much to your Asian-inspired dishes. MORE Asian Recipes To Try Chinese Chicken Salad – a fresh homemade take on a restaurant favorite. Marinated Seared Ahi Tuna – a flavorful, refreshing, and unique appetizer or side dish option. Hurts So Good Chicken Recipe – you’ll want to eat this crunchy chicken recipe until it hurts! Garlic Soy Braised Chicken – filling and hearty comfort food at its best! The post Sesame Oil Uses and Substitutions appeared first on Chew Out Loud.

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