On Monday, something peculiar happened.  The president of Iran, an evil human being nicknamed the Butcher of Tehran, died in a helicopter accident on Sunday. One of the worst people on earth, he presided as a member of the Iranian pseudo-judiciary over the deaths of thousands of innocent people. He presided over the crushing of all dissent from women and people who do not believe in Sharia law in Iran. He presided over the deaths of thousands of American troops and attacks on American allies. His proxy groups around the region have been involved in the deaths of thousands of human beings, including, of course, the 1,200 Israelis murdered on October 7 with the tacit permission and support of Iran via Hamas. Then, on Monday, after he died in this helicopter accident, the immediate reception of the West was to lament his death. This was unprecedented in modern history. For example, when Pol Pot, the genocidal dictator of Cambodia, died, Bill Clinton issued a statement ripping into Pol Pot. He stated: The death of Khmer Rouge leader Pol Pot has again brought to international attention one of the most tragic chapters of inhumanity in the twentieth century. Between 1975 and 1979, Pol Pot and his Khmer Rouge followers transformed Cambodia into the killing fields, causing the death of an estimated 2 million of their countrymen in a brutal attempt to transform Cambodian society. Bill Clinton was a Democrat, a moderate member of the Left, and he used the opportunity of Pol Pot’s death to point out his evils and the human rights atrocities that he had committed. Historically, this has been the way we treat evil dictators and people associated with evil dictatorships; when they die, the world becomes a better place. In 2023, when speaking at the United Nations, Raisi fully explained his intentions for the world, which was the domination of a radical form of Islam. He explained to the whole world that the era of the West was over, and the era of the Islamist was here: The equation attributed to the hegemony of the West no longer resonates with the diverse realities of today’s world. Old powers will keep their current downward trajectory. They are the past, and we are the future. I repeat once again, they represent the past and we represent the future. We are the future. We do believe that according to divine will, just as divine prophets have promised, justice and fairness will overtake the world and the rule of the sincere people, those who truly followed the path of the Omnipotent, will reverberate throughout the world. A world that rejects ignorance. The world awaits the day in which the old paths will come to an end.  Raisi was talking about the messianic beliefs of Shia Islam. He gave a speech in February 2024 in which he ripped into the United States as millions of people turned out in rallies chanting, “Death to Israel, Death to America.” WATCH: The Ben Shapiro Show So what is the explanation for the reaction of the West? The U.N. Security Council held a moment of silence for Ebrahim Raisi. The entire U.N. Security Council stood up for him, which is vile and disgusting. The Senate chaplain, Rear Admiral Barry Black held a moment of prayer for the Iranian dictator, intoning, “Lord, we pray for the Iranian people who mourn the death of their president. We pray in your loving name. Amen.” The State Department put out a statement that was beyond parody, saying, “The United States expresses its official condolences for the death of Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi, Foreign Minister Amir-Abdollahian, and other members of their delegation in a helicopter crash in northwest Iran. As Iran selects a new president, we reaffirm our support for the Iranian people and their struggle for human rights and fundamental freedoms.” Do you see how far we’ve moved? Pol Pot dies and Bill Clinton, a moderate Democrat, gives a statement about his human rights abuses and why it should remind us to fight human rights abuses in places like Cambodia. Ebrahim Raisi is president in a regime that presides over terrorism across the world, and the State Department of the United States government puts out a statement with condolences for his death.  The EU did the same. Charles Michel, who is the president of the European Council, put out a statement which read, “The EU expresses its sincere condolences for the death of President Raisi and Foreign Minister Abdollahian, as well as other members of their delegation and crew in a helicopter accident. Our thoughts go to the families.” How about the families of the people who have been slain in protests against the Iranian dictatorship? How about thoughts for the families of the people who are living in repression and poverty, thanks to those dictators? NATO, which is oriented against aggression by foreign powers, stated, “Our condolences to the people of Iran for the death of President Raisi, Foreign Minister Amir-Abdollahian and others who perished in the helicopter crash.” The people of Iran don’t need your condolences. The people of Iran deserve your condolences for having to live under the terroristic auspices of this evil regime. This is insanity. The entire West could have just stayed silent. They could have said nothing. Instead, they all came to the “moment of silence.” There was no moment of silence in the UN Security Council for the victims of October 7. They did not stand up and pay homage to the 1,200 people who were slaughtered and 250 who were taken hostage by the terrorist group Hamas. But they did stand to pay homage to a terrorist dictator who supported October 7 and proxy terror groups from Yemen to Lebanon to Syria to Iraq to Hamas. What is going on in the West that Western leaders feel the necessity to give condolences on the death of an evil enemy? There is an error in thinking that has become extraordinarily common in the West that leads to so many bad results. This error in thinking was made clear yesterday by Pope Francis. In his 60 Minutes interview, when asked what gave him hope, he said: Everything. You see tragedies, but you also see so many beautiful things. You see heroic mothers, heroic men, men who have hopes and dreams. Women who look to the future. That gives me a lot of hope. People want to live. People forge ahead and people are fundamentally good. We are all fundamentally good. Yes, there are some rogues and sinners, but the heart itself is good. There are three ways of reading human nature. The traditional Judaic way of reading human nature is that human beings are not inherently good. Human beings have an internal battle. That battle is between what we call the yetzer ha-tov, the good desire, and the yetzer ha-ra, the bad desire. These two things are fighting with each other all the time, and it is up to us to try to cultivate the good desire at the expense of the bad desire. If you do it well, presumably you can even turn the bad desires toward the good. Then there is the Catholic perspective, as stated by St. Thomas Aquinas, which is that human beings are inherently good in the sense they were made in God’s image, but through Original Sin, human beings were then cursed with the capacity for sin. That capacity for sin is dominant and powerful, and Original Sin could only be expunged with the death of Jesus. The secularist idea is that human beings are inherently good, and not only are they inherently good, most human beings are not even sinful. That is at odds with both the Judaic and the traditionally Christian view of human nature. The traditionally Christian worldview on human nature is that while the human heart might be made in the image of God — meaning that on a fundamental soul level, the soul of human beings is good — the Bible is replete with statements about how sinful human beings are. But whether you’re talking about the book of Mark, where Jesus said no one is good except God alone; Romans where he said none are good, no, not one; Jeremiah, where the prophet says the heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked; or Psalms 51:5 which says, “Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin my mother conceived me,” the traditionally religious view, at the very least, is that the human capacity for sin is extraordinarily strong — and that means all people are inherently sinners. The solution to that differs between Judaism and Christianity. The solution to that for Judaism is to perform the mitzvot and act in virtuous ways, and you will become more virtuous and you will dominate over sin. As God says to Cain at the beginning of the book of Genesis, sin crouches at your door, but if you’re strong, you can rule over it. The Christian perspective is: Only through the grace of Christ can you expunge that Original Sin, giving you the capacity for a free will so that you can conquer sinful nature. Then, there’s the secularist point of view, which is different from both of these and is a mis-read of Judeo-Christian tradition. The basic idea is that human beings are not only inherently good — not only is the heart inherently good — but sin is also not something internal to human beings. It’s not even a force that human beings fight on an individual level. Sin only exists in systems, not in individual human beings. There’s no such thing as sin. Human beings have a nature, and that nature is inherently good. And if you consider something sinful, it’s probably because you are the problem. You see this in secular society all the time. If two people love each other, how can it be a sin? If you do something bad to another person, that’s just relativistic. It’s relativistic in morality. Who are you to judge? All of that is a misreading of traditional Judeo-Christian doctrine. All of it. CLICK HERE TO GET THE DAILY WIRE APP But that widespread secular perception — that human beings are inherently good and that the only problem with human beings is the systems above them — leads to two incredibly false conclusions. The first fundamental assumption is: Human beings generally agree on right and wrong. This is a lie. It is not true. It is fundamentally false. Human beings do not agree on right and wrong. There are very few things most human beings agree on (for example, murder is wrong), and, traditionally, even that has to be bounded by the tribe because it turns out that people and tribes are pretty open about being fine with murdering people who are in other tribes. Human beings do not, at a fundamental level, agree on wide aspects of right and wrong — at least not once it comes to outside the tribe. The second fundamental assumption that arises from the idea that human beings are good is: All it requires is better human institutions and an organizing effort to effectuate right over wrong. Progress is the effectuation of this attempt. That is the basic Left-wing theology when it comes to curing the sin of the world, considering sin does not abide at the level of the individual; sin only abides at the level of the society. It is the Marxist materialist idea that the only reason people are bad is because the systems under which they live are inherently bad and corrupt, and therefore, if we can cure those systems, then humanity will be magically and absolutely transformed. This is written in the Communist Manifesto. What people mistake about Marxism is that it’s not an economic philosophy so much as it is a religious philosophy as to how the sin of the world can be cured by curing the systems at the top level. When put into the language of international politics, this leads to a bizarre belief in international order that is just a lie. This is why the West is paying homage to Ebrahim Raisi. They feel in the West, if they are nice enough to Raisi and if they change the systems enough, then people like Raisi, his followers, and the mullahs in Iran will become inherently good. In other words, they’ll become inherently good if we change the international order because human beings are naturally good. This is absolute trash. It is nonsense. It is garbage. And it is going to create more violence in the world. If you believe all you have to do is massage your enemies and suddenly they will be your friends, you will be used by your enemies. And that is what we are seeing right now.

The star was involved in a 3-car collision at the time of her arrest

EXCLUSIVE: 'Seriously Depressing Place' -- Trump's Top Allies, VP Contenders Describe Sights & Sounds Of NY Courtroom

'That could very well determine the outcome in this case'

Officials in Washington, D.C., have cleared out numerous homeless encampments in the nation’s capital ahead of Washington’s summer tourist season.   The National Park Service and the city government cleared tents and other makeshift housing materials from six sections of land in the Northwest section of Washington last week. The Office of the Deputy Mayor for Health and Human Services plans to clear an encampment in Southeast Washington on Wednesday.   “The District’s Encampment Response Team was activated to protect residents on District property after dangerous circumstances arose, including fires, danger of traffic collisions, multiple assaults, and growing rodent issues,” Deputy Mayor for Health and Human Services Wayne Turnage told The Daily Signal in a prepared statement. “Closing encampments is not a part of the District’s strategy to reduce homelessness,” Turnage said. “Instead, encampment engagements happen when there is a threat to public health or safety. The District continues to make investments in affordable housing, housing supports and economic supports, which are all elements of our strategy to reduce homelessness.” The homeless in the camps were given two weeks’ notice ahead of the encampment dismantling.   The clearing of the encampments began about three weeks after D.C. resident and Heritage Foundation staffer S.R. Hankinson sent a letter to D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser questioning the city’s decision to allow the tent communities in the city. (Heritage founded The Daily Signal in 2014.)  “City-provided trash cans, not intended for residential waste, are not able to absorb the domestic trash of all the camp inhabitants—even should they choose to use them, as many evidently do not,” Hankinson wrote to Bowser. “Rats are as common as squirrels in the camp areas.”    In the letter to Bowser, which Hankinson shared with The Daily Signal, he argued that if it was the city’s policy to “allow individuals and groups to sleep, cook, and live on city-controlled grassy areas,” then D.C. officials should also “announce this opportunity to both American and foreign visitors so that they can enjoy the experience and savings as well.”  The land that was once filled with tents now sits empty, some of it fenced off.   Before and after the clearing of the homeless encampment at the intersection of Virginia Avenue and 22nd Street Northwest in Washington, D.C. (Photo: S.R. Hankinson) Before and after the clearing of a homeless encampment near the Kennedy Center in Northwest Washington, D.C. (Photo: S.R. Hankinson) “The National Park Service has done its duty to restore national property in Washington to its proper purpose,” Hankinson told The Daily Signal on Tuesday. “Let’s hope that the D.C. government, and other big cities across the country, do their part to return public property to its intended use, while taking care of the indigent in more suitable circumstances.”  The post Several Homeless Encampments Cleared in DC appeared first on The Daily Signal.

Sens. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, and Katie Britt, R-Ala., announced Monday that they are introducing a bill that would ensure access to in vitro fertilization by amending the Social Security Act. Under their IVF Protection Act, any state that bans in vitro fertilization no longer will be eligible for federal Medicaid funding. Cruz and Britt announced in an op-ed in The Wall Street Journal that their legislation would “protect both life and IVF.” This is a popular rhetorical stance from the Republican Party as state and federal lawmakers scramble to prop up the fertility industry after the Alabama Supreme Court found a Mobile facility to be at fault for the wrongful deaths of five human embryos. Is IVF Pro-Life? Every life deserves to be protected and valued from the moment of fertilization. Circumstances of conception cannot and never will change that. The child conceived in the loving embrace of their married parents, the child conceived in an unhealthy relationship, the child conceived in assault, and the child conceived in a lab are all of equal value. I write that as someone with people in my life who were conceived in each of those scenarios. Each one of them is priceless, irreplaceable, and worthy of life. Every life created by the fertility industry deserves to be protected. The fertility industry isn’t in the business of doing so. Instead, this industry is in the business of creating lives outside the only environment where they can survive. Those lives are in peril from the moment they come into existence until they are safely transferred to their mother’s womb and given a chance at successful implantation. The tragedy of the fertility industry is that a small minority gets that chance. Only about 2.3% of IVF embryos result in a live birth; research in the U.K. found that only 7% of embryos created via IVF are implanted. An American fertility doctor reported similar findings to the American Society of Reproductive Medicine. This means that over 90% of the lives created by the fertility industry are discarded as waste, frozen and left indefinitely in storage, or experimented on and destroyed. Not only that, but the genetic screenings offered by the fertility industry allow couples to choose not to implant an embryo based on possible disability, or having the “wrong” sex, hair color, or eye color. This is lethal discrimination of the same kind as the abortion industry’s ableist and sexist abortion practices. If Cruz and Britt are serious about being pro-life, they must be willing to give an answer—do they believe that life begins at fertilization? If so, we must either assume that they are unaware of the reality of the fertility industry or that they are simply unwilling to provide equal protection to all human lives. Is IVF Pro-Child? Something isn’t pro-child simply because a child was born, nor even because a child was born to two individuals with a sincere desire to become parents. It is good and natural to desire parenthood, but that doesn’t justify every choice made to achieve it.   Is in vitro fertilization pro-child for the 1.5 million human lives being cryogenically stored in the United States, with little to no hope of ever being implanted? Is IVF pro-child for the children who lose one or both genetic parents in the process? Each one of us, regardless of the home life in which we were raised, has a biological mother and father. According to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, out of 326,468 cycles—from ovarian stimulation to embryo transfer—24,040 relied on donor gametes. That means 7.4% of IVF embryos lose access to one or both genetic parents. Another 4.7% of IVF cycles rely on a surrogate mother to carry the embryo. The children born of these arrangements suffer the trauma of maternal separation for the sake of the adults involved. This is not “pro-child.” Is IVF Pro-Family? An important but overlooked fact in much of the conversation about in vitro fertilization since the Alabama ruling is that the court sided with the parents whose embryos were destroyed because of the lax practices of an unregulated industry. Due to the negligence of the Center for Reproductive Medicine in the Mobile Infirmary, a patient was able to wander into what should have been a secure area, remove several embryos, and accidentally destroy them by dropping them. Ordinarily, we would look at a court ruling in which the judges sided with the injured party and say that justice had been done. Yet lawmakers on both sides of the aisle have tripped over themselves to praise and protect the industry that was at fault. The negligence on display in the Alabama IVF case isn’t the only instance of the fertility industry’s directly or indirectly causing the deaths of embryos entrusted to it by parents. It is generous beyond reason to call an industry that causes this kind of heartache and disappointment “pro-family” and propose legislation that offers unconditional cover for self-regulated clinics. Is IVF Pro-Woman? Infertility is a tragedy and the heartache that it causes is felt by several million couples in the United States. It is a grief that is often invisible, silent, and misunderstood. The conditions that lead to infertility are often painful and significantly affect quality of life. Unfortunately, many women who pursue fertility care get little help in addressing the root cause of their concerns. Instead, they are offered a risky procedure that doesn’t guarantee a pregnancy or a healthy live birth.  Is it really pro-woman to offer them a procedure that circumvents, rather than addresses, their health? What About ‘Good’ IVF? It is true that not every couple who pursues in vitro fertilization creates more embryos than the couple expects to be able to use or discards embryos based on genetic screening results. Yet it is important to remember that in the wake of the Alabama ruling, the board president of the American Society for Reproductive Medicine said that no health care provider would be willing to perform IVF under this court decision. In other words, the leader of the fertility industry expressed an unwillingness to continue in the practice if she had to be responsible for protecting the lives of the embryos she creates. Pro-life, pro-child individuals who wish to engage in IVF must seriously consider their willingness to participate in an industry that relies on the destruction of human life. Pro-life lawmakers such as Cruz and Britt need to reorder their priorities. The starting point for pro-life lawmakers isn’t to defend—and certainly not to subsidize—an industry that recklessly creates and destroys lives without regulation or accountability. The fertility industry must be regulated. And if it can’t operate when regulated by laws and rules that respect children’s rights and dignity from the moment of fertilization, then the industry doesn’t deserve to be defended. The Daily Signal publishes a variety of perspectives. Nothing written here is to be construed as representing the views of The Heritage Foundation. The post What Ted Cruz, Katie Britt Get Wrong About IVF appeared first on The Daily Signal.

Biden's Gut-Wrenching Verbal Gaffe in Front of Hostage's Mother

Department of Defense press secretary Maj. Gen. Patrick Ryder revealed on Tuesday in the department's estimation, none of the over 500 metric tons of aid from the U.S.-built pier has made it to the people of Gaza.The U.S. pier was authorized by President Joe Biden's administration in an attempt to distribute more aid within the war zone, in addition to aid brought in through border crossings and through air drops. The pier was built off the coast near Nuseirat in central Gaza.[The pier] has run into other severe problems before it started operating.Ryder said he did not believe any of the aid brought through the pier had gotten to the people of Gaza, resulting in the U.S., Israel, and the United Nations having discussions for "alternative routes" in order for the safe passage of the trucks. — (@) — (@) The pier cost the U.S. over $320 million to build and has run into other severe problems before it started operating. While it was being constructed in April, the pier came under fire from mortar shells. While workers were forced to find cover, no one was injured, according to the Associated Press. None of the terrorist groups in Gaza took credit for the attack.Aid going into Gaza and getting to those who need it the most has been a constant issue since the war began. Once trucks enter Gaza, they often come under attack from civilians who loot the trucks before getting to their final destination, or members of Hamas take control of the aid and horde it for themselves. Hamas also sells the aid back to civilians at higher costs when it is not meant to be sold. Truck drivers have also been killed by mobs attacking the deliveries. Hamas took credit for attacking the Kerem Shalom border crossing, a vital crossing point for humanitarian aid to enter the southern end of the Gaza Strip. The attacks have resulted in the crossing point being closed for different periods of time, delaying aid going inside.Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!

"Real Time" host Bill Maher appeared as a guest on Tuesday's episode of "The View" and offered a powerful argument for Israel's right to defend itself against terror group Hamas.Maher's incisive speech left each of the show's co-hosts speechless — but after several moments of awkward silence, most of them applauded.'Hamas needs to be destroyed because they are a terrorist organization who say openly that they want to commit genocide on the Jewish people, on the state of Israel. That's what 'from the river to the sea' means.'The segment began with a disagreement about how the word "woke" should be used, after which Maher — as he often does — skewered the "super far left" for their un-liberal ideology. Maher then deadpanned, "Don't tell me that the left hasn't changed. I mean, I'm old enough to remember when it was the conservatives who hated the Jews."The quiet from the crowd communicated that they either didn't like — or didn't get — his joke, but Maher made a better point by noting how disturbed he's been, "watching people protest for a terrorist organization like Hamas." Maher soon added that "it's astounding to me" that pro-Palestinian protesters on college campuses "can't tell the good guys from the bad guys. I mean, just morally ... let me tell you, if you're for Hamas, just live in Gaza for a day. And I'm not talking about while the war is on; I mean before the war. Trust me, you would go running and screaming and begging to live in Tel Aviv. A place that has your values."Maher added that "women have no rights" in Gaza or "in a lot of majority-Muslim countries around the world. I mean, there's no equal rights as far as speech, dress, opportunities for education, reproductive rights, freedom from sexual violence, freedom from sexual harassment." He also said that while pro-Palestinian protesters "throw around the word 'apartheid,' there's a gender apartheid in a lot of the world where women are second-class citizens, at best."With that, co-host Sunny Hostin invoked a popular left-wing "what-about-ism," asking Maher if he's at all concerned about "innocent civilians" in Gaza who've been "punished and murdered, largely children and women."Maher soon shot back that "it's a war," and Israel was "attacked, and they're defending themselves." He then asked Hostin if she believes Hamas "needs to be destroyed." She replied, "Yes."Maher then hit "The View" co-hosts with the following argument for Israel's right to defend itself:Hamas needs to be destroyed because they are a terrorist organization who say openly that they want to commit genocide on the Jewish people, on the state of Israel. That's what 'from the river to the sea' means. ... They've attacked Israel five times and started five wars since they were given that land back. They could have chosen to turn [Gaza] into any place they wanted ... and they took a lot of money ... from the international community, and they spent it on bombs and guns and building tunnels. So if they need to be destroyed, how do we do that? It's a war. I don't know how to do that, and you don't know how to do that. ... Here's a way to stop that: Stop attacking Israel.The co-hosts around the table sat in total silence for what seemed like forever — as did the audience — but after the three seconds with no mouths moving, most of the co-hosts applauded, along with the crowd. Bill Maher On 'Woke' Policies and College Campus Protests | The View youtu.be Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!

According to Polish legend, an 18th-century conman named Anthony Jaczewicz accumulated a vast fortune by convincing visitors to his hermitage that he was blessed with divine healing abilities. Now, amateur historians may have uncovered his trove of silver and gold coins. The post Centuries-Old Treasure Linked To An Infamous Conman Found In The Mountains Of Poland appeared first on All That's Interesting.