At a recent campaign event, President Joe Biden described key U.S. ally Japan and partner India as “xenophobic” nations and equated them to Russia and China.  Biden appeared to make the comment off the cuff at a fundraising event, at which he claimed that the American economy was thriving and that that was due to immigration. The president said: Why? Because we welcome immigrants. Look, think about it. Why is China stalling so badly economically? Why is Japan having trouble? Why is Russia? Why is India? Because they’re xenophobic. They don’t want immigrants. Days later, both Japan and India rejected Biden’s description of them as “xenophobic.”   A Japanese government official, who declined to be identified due to the sensitivity of the issue, said that Biden’s statements were unfortunate and not based on an accurate understanding of Japanese policies. Indian External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar rebutted the comment and defended India as a democracy:  I haven’t seen such an open, pluralistic, and diverse society anywhere in the world. We are actually not just not xenophobic, we are the most open, most pluralistic, and in many ways, the most understanding society in the world. Jaishankar is right, and Biden is wrong. What’s more, Japan and India enjoy two of the largest economies and defense budgets on the planet, integral to any U.S. plan to deter Chinese aggression in the Indo-Pacific. In April, Biden and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida issued a joint statement and celebrated a new era of U.S.-Japan strategic cooperation and pledged the continuation of “tireless work, together, and with our partners, to realize a free and open Indo-Pacific and world.” Forged after World War II, the U.S.-Japanese alliance was created as the cornerstone of U.S. security interests in Asia. Based on shared interests and values, the U.S. and Japan have worked closely with each other as allies for more than six decades. Japan remains a valuable member of the “Quad,” a multilateral grouping comprising the U.S., Australia, India, and Japan. The four partners have expressed shared interests and shared concerns in the Indo-Pacific, as China has grown increasingly aggressive in the region. Just last year, Biden and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi issued a joint statement declaring the U.S. and India as “among the closest partners in the world” through the U.S.-India Comprehensive Global and Strategic Partnership and the Quad. The partnership is driven by shared democratic values and convergence of strategic interests, with both sides committed to building a “free, open, inclusive, and resilient Indo-Pacific.”  Supporters of Biden—in the media and elsewhere—have repeatedly criticized former President Donald Trump for having been critical of U.S. allies in Europe. In his first foreign policy address, Biden promised to repair America’s alliances from the poor shape he and his administration claimed they were in under the Trump administration, insisting that “diplomacy is back.” If denigrating U.S. allies and partners with ludicrous allegations counts as a return of “diplomacy,” we were better off without it. The post Biden Insults Partner, Ally Critical to US’ Indo-Pacific Strategy appeared first on The Daily Signal.

The Supreme Court issued a ruling Wednesday that was disappointing news to many in the pro-life movement. The high court ruled unanimously that pro-life doctors do not have legal grounds to challenge the Food and Drug Administration for removing safety restrictions on abortion drugs. Sarah Parshall Perry, Heritage Foundation senior legal fellow, joined “The Daily Signal Podcast” afternoon edition to explain more. Listen to the podcast below or read the lightly edited transcript: Virginia Allen: Sarah, several years ago, the Food and Drug Administration relaxed its regulatory requirements for the abortion pill known as mifepristone. And in response, a group of pro-life doctors and organizations sued the Food and Drug Administration. What grounds did those pro-life doctors and organizations sue the FDA on? Sarah Parshall Perry: So, they brought, essentially, a challenge saying that the FDA had exceeded its statutory authority under something called the Administrative Procedure Act. And the APA guides every executive agency in the federal government when it makes determinations on law, when it acts within the capacity of sort of its own authority, but kind of gets over its skis issues, a determination that could be arbitrary, capricious, or not financially sound, or not supported by underlying law. And what the doctors and the pro-life medical organization here had argued was that specifically when they removed safety protocols on this particular drug in 2016 and 2019, they exceeded their statutory authority. The science demonstrated that the abortion pill is dangerous, results and complications 25% of the time. And then when they expanded the use of the abortion pill from seven weeks, which was the original approval, all the way up to 10 weeks, they said that is an exceeding amount of change that you didn’t follow the appropriate resolution for. It’s not supported by the science and it’s not supported by the law. Allen: So, the case rose all the way to the Supreme Court. And what did we hear from the Supreme Court today? Parshall Perry: Well, the Supreme Court didn’t even address the merits of the FDA’s decisions in 2016 and 2019. It didn’t make any comment on abortion itself. It simply made a procedural determination. And in fact, the entirety of the case opinion, both the concurrence from Justice [Clarence] Thomas and the majority opinion—and this was a 9-to-0 unanimous ruling—was no more than 38 pages long. So, for people who I think were hoping for a real strong statement about the nature of the dangerous chemicals, the dangerous use of the abortion pill, the Supreme Court didn’t address that in the least. It only addressed the issue of standing. And basically, that is a doctrine, a legal doctrine that’s been recognized for decades, that requires an individual plaintiff or an organization to demonstrate an actual injury that is traceable to the defendant that can be addressed by a court. And here, both sets of petitioners lacked the first element, which is necessary for the rest of standing. They could not trace the FDA’s decisions to any particular injury that either the doctors or the pro-life organization had suffered. Allen: So, then what does this mean for the case? Is it dead in the water or is there going to be future legal action, do you think? Parshall Perry: I would anticipate we see future legal action. In fact, one of the statements that came out during oral arguments was essentially from the conservative justices. It can’t be that the FDA is above the law. There has to be a party withstanding to bring these particular claims to challenge its regulatory authority. And what they did, I believe, is open up the door now to states, for example, who may want to sue when their citizens are injured by the abortion pill, or to individual women who suffer injuries on the abortion pill. But in the end, the Supreme Court made sure that these particular doctors and the pro-life medical organization could not actually bring those cases in the first place. I think what we’re going to see going forward is essentially more litigation, fleshing out some of the standing theories, but still challenging the abortion pill regulation. The post Supreme Court Rules Abortion Pill Case Does Not Have Standing. What Happens Now? appeared first on The Daily Signal.

First Time Ever? 90 Actresses Turn Down Roles in Play Attacking J.K. Rowling

Joe Biden can’t seem to catch a break when it comes to people making fun of his goof ups. Sara Gonzales certainly isn’t going to give him a break, especially after seeing his painful conduct at the White House’s Juneteenth event. “Joe Biden was looking rather vigorous last night at his Juneteenth celebration,” she says sarcastically. In the footage from the event, Biden has what Sara calls “a Mitch McConnell reboot moment” where he seemed totally frozen while guests danced happily around him. Later, as guests were clapping along in sync to a song, poor Joe tried to keep up, but his clapping was always off beat. Biden “doesn't just [lack] rhythm; he doesn't have memory,” sighs BlazeTV contributor Jaco Booyens. “He does have poop in his diaper probably,” laughs Sara, hinting at the recent rumor that Biden pooped his pants at the 80th anniversary of the D-Day invasion in Normandy. All jokes aside, the reality is Joe Biden — a man in serious cognitive decline — is running for another four-year term. “Worst case scenario he wins, there's no way he's going through those four years,” says Rippaverse Comics founder Eric July — a valid point considering Biden could barely get through his Juneteenth speech, during which he slurred his words incoherently. “[Playing] a vinyl backwards” is how Booyens describes Biden’s muddled words. See for yourself in the clip below. Want more from Sara Gonzales?To enjoy more of Sara's no-holds-barred take to news and culture, subscribe to BlazeTV — the largest multi-platform network of voices who love America, defend the Constitution, and live the American dream.

Former President Donald Trump floated the idea of nixing income taxes and instead relying on tariffs, GOP Reps. Thomas Massie of Kentucky and Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia indicated in posts on X."Most intriguing policy idea from the GOP meeting at the Capitol Hill Club this morning: Trump briefly floated the concept of eliminating the income tax and replacing it with tariffs," Massie wrote.'This will really help struggling Americans get back on their feet after 4 bad years of Bidenomics.'Trump, the presumptive 2024 Republican presidential nominee, met with House Republicans at the Capitol Hill Club on Thursday and later met with Senate Republicans at the National Republican Senatorial Committee headquarters."I was thrilled to hear President Trump suggest we raise tariffs and reduce the income tax for Americans to zero as a new tax policy after the tax plan expires this year. This will really help struggling Americans get back on their feet after 4 bad years of Bidenomics," Greene tweeted.Massie and Greene unsuccessfully advocated to oust House Speaker Mike Johnson from the speakership earlier this year. But Johnson indicated after the meeting on Thursday that Trump had said that he is doing a good job."We had a great meeting with President Trump and Senate Republicans. President Trump had good energy, and he was very positive and gracious," GOP Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina stated in a tweet. "In the meeting, President Trump stressed that the problems we face today are enormous, but they can be fixed. He said Republicans can work together to turn this country around quickly and make it stronger than ever. Great team-building exercise." — (@) Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!

The Atlantic: ‘Biden May Gaffe, But He Lives in Reality’

REEEEEEEE: Konstantin Kisin Posts Clip from 'An Irreverent Feminist Manifesto' and We Are DYING

WATCH: Fed Chief Powell Drops Biden Economics Team in a Sly Remark on May Jobs Report

Are Aliens Living Among Us? Probably Not, but That Won't Stop Researchers From Wasting Time Looking.

As intrigued as we were by OpenAI's Sora text-to-video AI model, we couldn't actually try it out ourselves. That's not the case for Luma's new Dream Machine video generator, which debuted this week and is currently available for anyone to test out. As Luma explains on its blog, Dream Machine was built on "a scalable, efficient, and multimodal transformer architecture" and trained on videos. You can provide Luma's Dream Machine with a text prompt along with an image to generate videos, which Luma claims will feature "physically accurate, consistent and action-packed scenes." https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zb3tffmBPRE I had limited success creating my own action-packed videos with simple prompts, but others are showing off just how capable Luma's Dream Machine really is. You'll find plenty of mind-blowing examples on X (formerly Twitter), and here are a few of my favorites: https://x.com/next_on_now/status/1800926650110271527 https://x.com/cfryant/status/1800923904439136267 https://x.com/KakuDrop/status/1800928377693687890 As with any of these AI video makers, detailed prompts are vital, and you might have to iterate a few times to get the result you want. That said, the fact that this is freely available to everyone is remarkable and will certainly tempt more people to try it. Aside from the impressive video samples above, one of the model's best features is turning your photos into videos. It's similar to Apple's Live Photos, but you can have the subject of a photo do virtually anything, instead of watching what actually happened. https://twitter.com/RufatAbas/status/1801300760489058527 If you want to try Dream Machine, head to Luma's website, log in with a Google account, and type your prompt into the text box. Once you are done, tap the arrow on the right side and your request will enter a queue. On average, my videos took about three or four minutes to generate. Just keep in mind that you can only generate 30 free videos per month. If you want to make any more videos after that, you're going to have to pay up. Don't Miss: Apple AI: Apple Intelligence, features, research, and supported devices The post People are losing their minds over Luma’s Dream Machine AI video maker appeared first on BGR. Today's Top Deals Best Apple deals for June 2024 Best Apple Watch deals for June 2024 Today’s deals: $20 Amazon credit, $79 AirPods, $20 Echo Pop, $899 M3 MacBook Air, $289 iScooter, more Today’s deals: $30 Thermacell mosquito repeller, $189 AirPods Pro, free LED smart bulb, $349 Dyson, more