That Christianity gives joy and breadth is also a thread that runs through my whole life. Ultimately someone who is always only in opposition could not endure life at all.
Distinction Matter - Subscribed Feeds
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Site: Crisis Magazine
A long time ago, we hired a team of carpenters and plumbers to renovate a bathroom. Moe, Larry, and Curly were not masters of their craft. I should have fired them as soon as I saw what they had done to one of the doorways, removing the support for one of the uprights and turning what had been a rectangle into a quadrilateral in three dimensions, with no two angles alike. But I thought…
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Site: Mises InstitutePolish professor of political theory Łukasz Dominiak joins us to talk about how Poland embraced a market economy after the Cold War ended. We discuss some of the factors behind Poland's rise from poverty.
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Site: Mises InstituteThis brief historical sketch brings us to how the American and Israeli militaries of today have adopted a nineteenth-century-style war of extermination against what they consider to be another “lesser race.”
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Site: Crisis Magazine
If this were day one in a course on the Theology of Christ, the first order of business would be to issue the following disclaimer, which is that not even the least glimpse into the mystery of Jesus is possible without first answering one very big question. Leave it out and the whole inquiry regarding who He was and the work He came into this world to do would simply implode on the launching pad.
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Site: Zero HedgeMerkel's Back, Warns Europe Could Be 'Destroyed' Without More Open-BordersTyler Durden Thu, 05/29/2025 - 04:15
Former German Chancellor Angela Merkel is back with a message; Europe could be 'destroyed' unless they continue to allow millions of 'non-Europeans' to flood the bloc.
Sean Gallup/EFE via EPA
Criticizing Chancellor Friedrich Merz's migration policy, Merkel told Southwestern Press Forum in Neu-Ulm last week that efforts to secure borders could have catastrophic consequences.
"I do not believe we can decisively combat illegal migration at the German-Austrian or German-Polish border… I have always advocated European solutions," she said when asked about Merz's latest measures adopted by his cabinet - which include a prohibition on asylum applications at all German land borders, with exceptions for pregnant woman, children and other vulnerable individuals - a sharp reversal from Merkel's 2015 open-border policy.
"Otherwise, we could see Europe destroyed," she continued.
Critics have called Merkel's open-border policy "disastrous" after over a million migrants flooded into Germany during the peak of the 2015-2016 refugee crisis, while Germany continues to be the top destination for asylum seekers - 'welcoming' over 237,000 applicants in 2023, roughly 25% of the bloc's total, according to EU stats.
Merz promised to crack down on migration his 'first day' in office in the run-up to Germany's snap election on Feb. 23. Less than 24 hours after being sworn in, Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt announced sweeping border controls that would prohibit migrants from entering Germany, including those seeking asylum.
Merkel's criticism of Merz is her second this year - as she previously slammed his decision to rely on 'far-right' politicians to help pass an anti-immigration motion in parliament.
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Site: Zero HedgeMerkel's Back, Warns Europe Could Be 'Destroyed' Without More Open-BordersTyler Durden Thu, 05/29/2025 - 04:15
Former German Chancellor Angela Merkel is back with a message; Europe could be 'destroyed' unless they continue to allow millions of 'non-Europeans' to flood the bloc.
Sean Gallup/EFE via EPA
Criticizing Chancellor Friedrich Merz's migration policy, Merkel told Southwestern Press Forum in Neu-Ulm last week that efforts to secure borders could have catastrophic consequences.
"I do not believe we can decisively combat illegal migration at the German-Austrian or German-Polish border… I have always advocated European solutions," she said when asked about Merz's latest measures adopted by his cabinet - which include a prohibition on asylum applications at all German land borders, with exceptions for pregnant woman, children and other vulnerable individuals - a sharp reversal from Merkel's 2015 open-border policy.
"Otherwise, we could see Europe destroyed," she continued.
Critics have called Merkel's open-border policy "disastrous" after over a million migrants flooded into Germany during the peak of the 2015-2016 refugee crisis, while Germany continues to be the top destination for asylum seekers - 'welcoming' over 237,000 applicants in 2023, roughly 25% of the bloc's total, according to EU stats.
Merz promised to crack down on migration his 'first day' in office in the run-up to Germany's snap election on Feb. 23. Less than 24 hours after being sworn in, Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt announced sweeping border controls that would prohibit migrants from entering Germany, including those seeking asylum.
Merkel's criticism of Merz is her second this year - as she previously slammed his decision to rely on 'far-right' politicians to help pass an anti-immigration motion in parliament.
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Site: Mises InstituteMAGA wants a single man to be able to raise taxes without any checks on this power. Fortunately, the courts disagreed.
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Site: AsiaNews.itToday's Headlines:US Secretary of State Rubio announces 'aggressive' action to revoke Chinese students' visas. Beijing launches space mission to explore an asteroid. Proposal for Iran's uranium enrichment to be monitored by Arab countries and the IAEA in talks with Washington. Vietnam seizes copies ofThe Economistfeaturing To Lam on the cover.
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Site: AsiaNews.itTwo months after the reopening of the border, both countries are still waiting for cross-border customers to return to their local markets in frontier areas. Mutual distrust and suspicion remain palpable, but both some traders and local authorities believe that the economy will soon take a turn for the better.
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Site: Zero HedgeUS Lawmakers Demand Answers From Brussels Over Alleged Foreign Interference In Polish Election CampaignTyler Durden Thu, 05/29/2025 - 03:30
Authored by Thomas Brooke via Remix news,
Several senior members of the U.S. House of Representatives have written to European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen demanding answers over what they describe as possible foreign interference in Poland’s presidential election campaign.
The letter, led by Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Brian Mast, calls on the European Commission to investigate a wave of political advertisements that allegedly violated Polish election law by promoting opposition candidate Rafał Trzaskowski and discrediting his rivals, PiS-backed Karol Nawrocki and Confederation-backed Sławomir Mentzen.
The letter was also signed by Keith Self, chairman of the House Subcommittee on Europe, and five other Republican lawmakers. The group cites investigative reporting by Wirtualna Polska, which linked the online ads to Estratos, an Austrian company reportedly backed by Americans with ties to the Democratic Party, as well as a Polish NGO that has received funding from “organizations funded by U.S. Democratic Party megadonor George Soros’ Open Society Foundations.”
“Estratos is the same organization that reportedly played a key role backing the anti-Viktor Orban opposition in Hungary’s 2022 elections,” the letter adds.
According to the Polish media outlet, the Facebook pages “Wiesz Jak Nie Jest” (You Know How It Is Not) and “Stół Dorosłych” (Adult Table) spent more on ads than any official election committee. These ads, appearing just before the second round of voting, encouraged support for Trzaskowski while attacking right-wing candidates Karol Nawrocki and Sławomir Mentzen.
The ads’ origin has raised alarm because, under Polish electoral law, only official committees and voters are allowed to conduct campaign activity — foreign-funded organizations and companies are strictly barred. Wirtualna Polska reports that 80 percent of Estratos is owned by “Higher Ground Labs, a U.S. fund operated by major Democratic Party operatives who helped run the U.S. presidential campaigns of Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, and Kamala Harris.”
The remaining 20 percent is controlled by Hungarian liberals — a key figure in the company is Ádám Ficsor, who once served as Hungary’s minister for special services under former Prime Minister Gordon Bajnai.
The letter claims that “approximately 420,000 PLN ($105,000)” has been spent in “allegedly ‘illegal political ads’ posted by the Polish NGO on Facebook since April 10, 2025, in support of Trzaskowski.”
“The integrity of democratic processes may have been undermined,” it adds.
The congressmen also criticize what they see as political bias in the treatment of Poland’s governing Law and Justice (PiS) party.
“Equally disturbing are reports of the Tusk government’s monthslong refusal to release tens of millions of dollars in public campaign funding that PiS is legally entitled to receive, defying a ruling by the Supervisory Chamber of Poland’s Supreme Court, a payment demand from Poland’s National Electoral Commission, and an opinion by Poland’s Ombudsman (Human Rights Commissioner) Marcin Wiące to release the money,” it reads.
As a result, U.S. lawmakers are demanding answers to the following questions from the European Commission, which it claims is potentially guilty of “double standards” in its crackdown on alleged rule of law violations under the previous conservative government, yet turning a blind eye to those conducted by organizations favorable to the liberal Prime Minister Donald Tusk, a former president of the European Council and leader of the European People’s Party:
1. What entities provided the $105,000 (420,000 PLN) used for the Facebook advertisements promoting Rafał Trzaskowski, and did any of these funds originate from foreign sources in violation of Polish electoral law?
2. What role, if any, did Estratos Digital GmbH and its U.S.-based owner, Higher Ground Labs, play in coordinating or financing these advertisements, and to what extent were U.S. Democratic Party operatives directly involved?
3. How does the Commission justify its failure to address the Tusk government’s refusal to release millions of dollars in court-ordered funding to PiS, given its prior sanctions against the prior PiS government for rule-of-law violations?
4. Why has the Commission remained silent on Finance Minister Andrzej Domański’s defiance of Poland’s Supreme Court, National Electoral Commission, and Ombudsman rulings, given its previous vocal criticism and aggressive actions against the PiS government?
5. What oversight mechanisms, if any, has the Commission implemented to prevent foreign-funded NGOs, such as those linked to George Soros’ Open Society Foundations, from influencing Poland’s 2025 presidential election?
The signatories urged von der Leyen to launch a full investigation.
The second round of the Polish presidential election is scheduled to take place on June 1, with a run-off between the liberal Warsaw mayor Rafał Trzaskowski and conservative Karol Nawrocki.
The latest polling suggests the vote is on a knife-edge, with Trzaskowski ahead by one percentage point, but well within the margin of error.
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Site: Zero HedgeUS Lawmakers Demand Answers From Brussels Over Alleged Foreign Interference In Polish Election CampaignTyler Durden Thu, 05/29/2025 - 03:30
Authored by Thomas Brooke via Remix news,
Several senior members of the U.S. House of Representatives have written to European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen demanding answers over what they describe as possible foreign interference in Poland’s presidential election campaign.
The letter, led by Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Brian Mast, calls on the European Commission to investigate a wave of political advertisements that allegedly violated Polish election law by promoting opposition candidate Rafał Trzaskowski and discrediting his rivals, PiS-backed Karol Nawrocki and Confederation-backed Sławomir Mentzen.
The letter was also signed by Keith Self, chairman of the House Subcommittee on Europe, and five other Republican lawmakers. The group cites investigative reporting by Wirtualna Polska, which linked the online ads to Estratos, an Austrian company reportedly backed by Americans with ties to the Democratic Party, as well as a Polish NGO that has received funding from “organizations funded by U.S. Democratic Party megadonor George Soros’ Open Society Foundations.”
“Estratos is the same organization that reportedly played a key role backing the anti-Viktor Orban opposition in Hungary’s 2022 elections,” the letter adds.
According to the Polish media outlet, the Facebook pages “Wiesz Jak Nie Jest” (You Know How It Is Not) and “Stół Dorosłych” (Adult Table) spent more on ads than any official election committee. These ads, appearing just before the second round of voting, encouraged support for Trzaskowski while attacking right-wing candidates Karol Nawrocki and Sławomir Mentzen.
The ads’ origin has raised alarm because, under Polish electoral law, only official committees and voters are allowed to conduct campaign activity — foreign-funded organizations and companies are strictly barred. Wirtualna Polska reports that 80 percent of Estratos is owned by “Higher Ground Labs, a U.S. fund operated by major Democratic Party operatives who helped run the U.S. presidential campaigns of Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, and Kamala Harris.”
The remaining 20 percent is controlled by Hungarian liberals — a key figure in the company is Ádám Ficsor, who once served as Hungary’s minister for special services under former Prime Minister Gordon Bajnai.
The letter claims that “approximately 420,000 PLN ($105,000)” has been spent in “allegedly ‘illegal political ads’ posted by the Polish NGO on Facebook since April 10, 2025, in support of Trzaskowski.”
“The integrity of democratic processes may have been undermined,” it adds.
The congressmen also criticize what they see as political bias in the treatment of Poland’s governing Law and Justice (PiS) party.
“Equally disturbing are reports of the Tusk government’s monthslong refusal to release tens of millions of dollars in public campaign funding that PiS is legally entitled to receive, defying a ruling by the Supervisory Chamber of Poland’s Supreme Court, a payment demand from Poland’s National Electoral Commission, and an opinion by Poland’s Ombudsman (Human Rights Commissioner) Marcin Wiące to release the money,” it reads.
As a result, U.S. lawmakers are demanding answers to the following questions from the European Commission, which it claims is potentially guilty of “double standards” in its crackdown on alleged rule of law violations under the previous conservative government, yet turning a blind eye to those conducted by organizations favorable to the liberal Prime Minister Donald Tusk, a former president of the European Council and leader of the European People’s Party:
1. What entities provided the $105,000 (420,000 PLN) used for the Facebook advertisements promoting Rafał Trzaskowski, and did any of these funds originate from foreign sources in violation of Polish electoral law?
2. What role, if any, did Estratos Digital GmbH and its U.S.-based owner, Higher Ground Labs, play in coordinating or financing these advertisements, and to what extent were U.S. Democratic Party operatives directly involved?
3. How does the Commission justify its failure to address the Tusk government’s refusal to release millions of dollars in court-ordered funding to PiS, given its prior sanctions against the prior PiS government for rule-of-law violations?
4. Why has the Commission remained silent on Finance Minister Andrzej Domański’s defiance of Poland’s Supreme Court, National Electoral Commission, and Ombudsman rulings, given its previous vocal criticism and aggressive actions against the PiS government?
5. What oversight mechanisms, if any, has the Commission implemented to prevent foreign-funded NGOs, such as those linked to George Soros’ Open Society Foundations, from influencing Poland’s 2025 presidential election?
The signatories urged von der Leyen to launch a full investigation.
The second round of the Polish presidential election is scheduled to take place on June 1, with a run-off between the liberal Warsaw mayor Rafał Trzaskowski and conservative Karol Nawrocki.
The latest polling suggests the vote is on a knife-edge, with Trzaskowski ahead by one percentage point, but well within the margin of error.
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Site: Mises InstituteThe free market replaces the struggle for survival found in the animal world with social cooperation in which everybody benefits. Capitalism is a system of peace, not war.
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Site: Mises InstituteThis brief historical sketch brings us to how the American and Israeli militaries of today have adopted a nineteenth-century-style war of extermination against what they consider to be another “lesser race.”
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Site: Zero HedgeWhich Types Of Government Rule The World?Tyler Durden Thu, 05/29/2025 - 02:45
In 2024, there were a record-breaking number of elections. Over two billion people voted for political leaders in 40 countries. What does the balance of power look like now?
In this graphic, in collaboration with Inigo, Visual Capitalist's Jenna Ross shows a breakdown of the types of government in proportion to the global population.
Imagining a Global Parliament
Data for this chart comes from Arden Strategies’ Global Parliament Index. The index assumes there is a hypothetical global parliament with 1,000 seats, each representing about eight million people.
To determine the political alignment of each government, Arden Strategies considered many factors including the government’s affiliations, policies, manifestos, and record in power. Where a governing party has complex or multiple identities, the team of experts used their judgment.
The below shows how the types of government break down in 2025.
*Includes Populist or Authoritarian Left, Centrist Authoritarian, and Populist or Authoritarian Right
Autocratic or powerful monarchic systems rule the most people. For instance, China, Russia, Egypt, and Iran all have autocratic systems.
Shifts in Types of Government
Many populations had declining support for leaders amid struggles like inflation, leading to some shifts in political power.
For example, the U.S. shifted from center-left to center-right with President Donald Trump’s victory. Trump has since issued a record number of executive orders in his first 100 days.
The UK and France, historical allies of the U.S., shifted left in 2025.
As more people are governed by non-centrist governments, we are reaching a global crossroads in geopolitical stability.
In the face of global change, today’s data can help form the foundation of tomorrow’s resilience. -
Site: Zero HedgeWhich Types Of Government Rule The World?Tyler Durden Thu, 05/29/2025 - 02:45
In 2024, there were a record-breaking number of elections. Over two billion people voted for political leaders in 40 countries. What does the balance of power look like now?
In this graphic, in collaboration with Inigo, Visual Capitalist's Jenna Ross shows a breakdown of the types of government in proportion to the global population.
Imagining a Global Parliament
Data for this chart comes from Arden Strategies’ Global Parliament Index. The index assumes there is a hypothetical global parliament with 1,000 seats, each representing about eight million people.
To determine the political alignment of each government, Arden Strategies considered many factors including the government’s affiliations, policies, manifestos, and record in power. Where a governing party has complex or multiple identities, the team of experts used their judgment.
The below shows how the types of government break down in 2025.
*Includes Populist or Authoritarian Left, Centrist Authoritarian, and Populist or Authoritarian Right
Autocratic or powerful monarchic systems rule the most people. For instance, China, Russia, Egypt, and Iran all have autocratic systems.
Shifts in Types of Government
Many populations had declining support for leaders amid struggles like inflation, leading to some shifts in political power.
For example, the U.S. shifted from center-left to center-right with President Donald Trump’s victory. Trump has since issued a record number of executive orders in his first 100 days.
The UK and France, historical allies of the U.S., shifted left in 2025.
As more people are governed by non-centrist governments, we are reaching a global crossroads in geopolitical stability.
In the face of global change, today’s data can help form the foundation of tomorrow’s resilience. -
Site: The Unz ReviewOne of the biggest stories to emerge from the last election cycle was the elevation of Robert Kennedy Jr. as an ally of Donald Trump, one of the true surprises in the American political(and cultural) landscape, along with the saga of Tulsi Gabbard. Part of the reason is the utter corruption of the Democratic Party...
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Site: Zero HedgeWilders Threatens Collapse Of Dutch Coalition If Asylum Freeze Is Not Implemented Within WeeksTyler Durden Thu, 05/29/2025 - 02:00
By Thomas Brooke of Remix News,
Dutch right-wing leader Geert Wilders has issued a stark ultimatum to the country’s ruling coalition, threatening to withdraw support from the government within weeks if it does not impose a strict asylum freeze.
“Otherwise we will get out,” the Party for Freedom (PVV) leader declared at a press conference on Monday, during which he presented a hardline 10-point plan aimed at radically curbing migration and dismantling existing asylum policies.
Wilders’ proposals include closing the borders to all asylum seekers, deploying the military to enforce border controls, halting family reunification for recognized refugees, and deporting tens of thousands of Syrians with temporary protection status. He also called for the closure of asylum seekers’ centers, the fast repeal of the Dispersion Act, which distributes asylum seekers across municipalities, and the withdrawal of housing priority for status holders.
“Our patience has run out now,” said Wilders, claiming his party has been “very reasonable and very patient” over the past year while waiting for tougher migration policies. He invoked Article 72 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU), which allows member states to act unilaterally on matters of internal security, to justify a total border closure for asylum seekers.
“My limit, and the limit of a lot of Dutch people, has been reached,” he told journalists, as cited by TPO. “Holland must become Holland again. The PVV will wait no longer.”
One of the more radical proposals is the forced return of around 60,000 Syrians to what Wilders claims are now “safe” areas of Syria following the fall of deposed former Syrian president Bashar al-Assad. “The EU and the U.S. recently lifted the sanctions on Syria. So, it’s time to go back!” he said.
The plan further demands the immediate deportation of asylum seekers and dual nationals convicted of violent or sexual crimes. For dual citizens, Wilders proposes stripping them of Dutch nationality and removing them from the country, even if this means unilaterally exiting the European Convention on Nationality.
He also criticized Dutch police leadership and local authorities for what he sees as a failure to maintain order during public unrest. Citing riots in Scheveningen and pro-Palestinian demonstrations, Wilders demanded tougher police intervention and said mayors who stand in the way should be suspended. “If a mayor fails to let the police do their job, and when necessary use violence, they should pack their bags,” he said.
Wilders’ ultimatum puts further strain on the fragile four-party coalition government, led by independent Prime Minister Dick Schoof. Although the PVV achieved a historic victory in the 2023 parliamentary elections to become the largest party in the Netherlands, Wilders was blocked from becoming prime minister by New Social Contract (NSC) former leader Pieter Omtzigt and VVD leader Dilan Yeşilgöz.
“Omtzigt and Dilan did not allow me to become prime minister, so there was a Schoof I cabinet,” Wilders said. “But if that cabinet behaves like Rutte V, and does not change or does not change sufficiently, we are gone.”
The NSC, one of the coalition parties, downplayed Wilders’ threats and emphasized that the coalition agreement already contains robust migration measures awaiting implementation by parliament.
As reported by VRT, Opposition parties also dismissed Wilders’ plan, describing it as a “political show” and a “diversionary tactic.” The Dutch defense union VBM criticized the call to deploy the military at borders, stating this is the responsibility of the Royal Netherlands Marechaussee, which already lacks sufficient personnel to monitor all 840 border crossings.
Despite criticism, Wilders insists that the PVV is simply demanding that the government act on what voters mandated in the 2023 election. “The streetscape of our cities and neighborhoods has changed beyond recognition due to mass migration and Islamization,” he said. “We have too many foreigners, too much Islam, there is a lack of respect for our culture and our people.”
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Site: Zero HedgeWilders Threatens Collapse Of Dutch Coalition If Asylum Freeze Is Not Implemented Within WeeksTyler Durden Thu, 05/29/2025 - 02:00
By Thomas Brooke of Remix News,
Dutch right-wing leader Geert Wilders has issued a stark ultimatum to the country’s ruling coalition, threatening to withdraw support from the government within weeks if it does not impose a strict asylum freeze.
“Otherwise we will get out,” the Party for Freedom (PVV) leader declared at a press conference on Monday, during which he presented a hardline 10-point plan aimed at radically curbing migration and dismantling existing asylum policies.
Wilders’ proposals include closing the borders to all asylum seekers, deploying the military to enforce border controls, halting family reunification for recognized refugees, and deporting tens of thousands of Syrians with temporary protection status. He also called for the closure of asylum seekers’ centers, the fast repeal of the Dispersion Act, which distributes asylum seekers across municipalities, and the withdrawal of housing priority for status holders.
“Our patience has run out now,” said Wilders, claiming his party has been “very reasonable and very patient” over the past year while waiting for tougher migration policies. He invoked Article 72 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU), which allows member states to act unilaterally on matters of internal security, to justify a total border closure for asylum seekers.
“My limit, and the limit of a lot of Dutch people, has been reached,” he told journalists, as cited by TPO. “Holland must become Holland again. The PVV will wait no longer.”
One of the more radical proposals is the forced return of around 60,000 Syrians to what Wilders claims are now “safe” areas of Syria following the fall of deposed former Syrian president Bashar al-Assad. “The EU and the U.S. recently lifted the sanctions on Syria. So, it’s time to go back!” he said.
The plan further demands the immediate deportation of asylum seekers and dual nationals convicted of violent or sexual crimes. For dual citizens, Wilders proposes stripping them of Dutch nationality and removing them from the country, even if this means unilaterally exiting the European Convention on Nationality.
He also criticized Dutch police leadership and local authorities for what he sees as a failure to maintain order during public unrest. Citing riots in Scheveningen and pro-Palestinian demonstrations, Wilders demanded tougher police intervention and said mayors who stand in the way should be suspended. “If a mayor fails to let the police do their job, and when necessary use violence, they should pack their bags,” he said.
Wilders’ ultimatum puts further strain on the fragile four-party coalition government, led by independent Prime Minister Dick Schoof. Although the PVV achieved a historic victory in the 2023 parliamentary elections to become the largest party in the Netherlands, Wilders was blocked from becoming prime minister by New Social Contract (NSC) former leader Pieter Omtzigt and VVD leader Dilan Yeşilgöz.
“Omtzigt and Dilan did not allow me to become prime minister, so there was a Schoof I cabinet,” Wilders said. “But if that cabinet behaves like Rutte V, and does not change or does not change sufficiently, we are gone.”
The NSC, one of the coalition parties, downplayed Wilders’ threats and emphasized that the coalition agreement already contains robust migration measures awaiting implementation by parliament.
As reported by VRT, Opposition parties also dismissed Wilders’ plan, describing it as a “political show” and a “diversionary tactic.” The Dutch defense union VBM criticized the call to deploy the military at borders, stating this is the responsibility of the Royal Netherlands Marechaussee, which already lacks sufficient personnel to monitor all 840 border crossings.
Despite criticism, Wilders insists that the PVV is simply demanding that the government act on what voters mandated in the 2023 election. “The streetscape of our cities and neighborhoods has changed beyond recognition due to mass migration and Islamization,” he said. “We have too many foreigners, too much Islam, there is a lack of respect for our culture and our people.”
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Site: The Unz ReviewThe very successful Fourth Awakening conference took place on May 24 on the outskirts of Helsinki, Finland. It was organized by the dedicated and capable leader of the Finnish-nationalist Blue-and-Black Movement, activist Tuukka Kuru, who has sponsored previous Awakening events. Like the recent Remigration Summit, it attracted participants and speakers from all over Europe as...
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Site: The Unz Reviewsource: @SecretaryTurner on X HUD (Department of Housing and Urban Development) Secretary, Scott Turner, and Department of the Interior Secretary, Doug Burgum formed a task force, linked to the DOGE agenda. This task force would identify underutilized federal lands to sell off or use for affordable housing. HUD Secretary Turner posted a video on YouTube,...
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Site: The Unz ReviewElon Musk expressed his disappointment in the Trump administrations bill, passed by the House, that avoided an automatic tax increase that would have occurred at the conclusion of 2025 by making permeant the 2017 tax reductions and which increased spending on defense and US border security. Musk mistakenly thinks that this bill undermines his and...
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Site: AntiWar.comOn May 21st a 30-year-old Chicago resident named Elias Rodriguez (allegedly) murdered two young Israeli Embassy staffers named Yaron Lischinsky and Sarah Milgram as they were leaving the Jewish Museum in Washington DC. As he was arrested, he was recorded shouting, “Free Palestine.” According to a short manifesto believed to be from the shooter published … Continue reading "Lone Assassins Never Achieve Their Political Goals"
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Site: The Unz ReviewO.K, the Gulf of Mexico will remain so named, and the Government Publishing Office on North Capitol Street in Washington can stand down: The “Gulf of America” idea is no longer much of a kick. In the same line, Greenland will remain a Danish possession. Canada will still be called Canada, and Canadians can continue...
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Site: The Unz ReviewPerhaps Merz might consider a negotiated end to the conflict, rather than more empty sabre-rattling that he cannot deliver upon. Russia has established escalation dominance in Ukraine in November 2024 by raising the bar on the military capabilities that it is willing to use. Merz’s comments on western cruise missile use haven’t changed that calculus...
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Site: AntiWar.comPeace talks between Russia and Ukraine have been rare since the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Part of the blame falls on Europe and the mainstream media for attempting to suffocate diplomacy. When the first bilateral talks occurred in the early weeks of the war, the West, led by the United States, Britain and Poland discouraged … Continue reading "Does No One Want Peace in Ukraine?"
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Site: AntiWar.comAll attempts by the government to evaluate the content of speech and deter or punish what the government and its benefactors hate or fear is un-American, unconstitutional and unlawful; and if not stopped, will reduce the American people to serfdom. During the past three months, the Trump administration has sought to withhold the delivery of … Continue reading "Punishing Freedom: Trump’s Attack on the First Amendment"
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Site: The Unz ReviewWe are aware that we live in a technocracy, but we don’t necessarily understand what that means. What is a technocrat, and how does he or, increasingly, she function? A key text to understanding this relatively new style of governance is James Burnham’s 1941 book, The Managerial Revolution. Writing during World War 2, Burnham finds...
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Site: OnePeterFive
From the Roman office of the feast. ℣. Grant, Lord, a blessing. Benediction. May God the Father Omnipotent, be to us merciful and clement. ℟. Amen. Reading 4 From the Sermons of Pope St. Leo the Great 1st on the Lords Ascension After the blessed and glorious Resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ, wherein the Divine Power raised up in three days the true Temple of God Which the iniquity…
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Site: Zero HedgeThe Third World Is Forever Chasing The White ManTyler Durden Wed, 05/28/2025 - 23:25
Authored by Brandon Smith via Alt-Market.us
This week I was researching the history of the modern African economy as well as the financial effects of “colonialism”, largely in an effort to discern if Africa is actually better off with or without western influence. One can of course argue that racial divisions like Apartheid in South Africa or segregation in Rhodesia have their own oppressive social effects beyond the financial. There’s also the argument that only “white colonists” ever benefited from the infrastructure they built (which is actually untrue, wherever white colonists were established, everything from water access to roads to medical care improved for everyone).
However, I think it’s fair to ask if these nations were experiencing growth and prosperity under white governance, or if things were relatively the same. We’re not supposed to talk about it – We’re only supposed to say “colonialism bad”. I don’t care about that, I just want to know what the realities are.
In the process I came across an interesting video featuring a black South African man who presented the race issue and the South Africa issue in a way that was simple but it brought impressive clarity. In summary he said:
“Africans are forever chasing the white man.”
What he means is, African culture, some elements of black culture, the third world in general, all of them are constantly trying to co-opt what white western culture builds. He argues that wherever the white population in Africa shrinks or migrates away, the country “becomes a shithole”. So, Africans chase white people.
When white people in Africa relocate to Australia, or Canada, or the US or Europe, the Africans try to follow. Instead of building up their own communities and nations they use and then eventually tear down the infrastructure that whites already built. They never replace it with anything else. Then they immigrate overseas to where the white people are because their own countries are in disarray. Eventually, they start tearing down those countries.
Leftists will call this a “racist” argument rooted in “white supremacy”, but this is a black South African making the point. It’s not racist, it’s just an observation of concrete fact. When Rhodesia became Zimbabwe and the whites were ethnically cleansed, the country collapsed and the black people starved to death.
South Africa systematically oppresses (or kills) the white citizenry because they want the land the whites own (they chase the white men). The Afrikaners are 7% of the population but make up around 70% of all agriculture and food production. Instead of seeing the white populace as a valuable asset to the country, they treat them as a foreign enemy. And so, the country falls deeper into economic despair and they are now on the verge of their own collapse.
When Matamela Ramaphosa, President of South Africa, sauntered into the White House with his big grin and his large entourage, he was there to get money. He wasn’t there to explain how he was going to improve conditions in his country. And, he certainly wasn’t there to debate the finer details of the ethnic cleansing of whites in his country or the government confiscation of their land. No, he was a black African leader petitioning a white US President for handouts.
In this case he believes his country is entitled to that money, so it doesn’t come off as begging so much as it comes off as arrogant conceit. If his country could build on its own, it would. If they had the ability to construct and innovate and maintain on their own, they would. Instead, they travel halfway across the world to the US. They chase the white man.
They’ve had over 30 years to get their system to work, and instead everything is broken. They can’t even keep their electrical grid and water functioning. And it’s not just South Africa, this is true for much of the third world. In Europe the populace is far more familiar with Africans chasing them, but we see a similar trend with Central and South Americans chasing whites in the US.
Wherever the west builds and creates and improves, the third world demands a piece. They arrive in vast caravans that stretch for miles. They arrive in boats on beaches in the night. They slip across borders and enter illegally like invaders because they see the west as something to be pillaged. They do not want to build their own thing. They don’t even know where to begin. They simply see what we have and they want to take it. They chase us wherever we go because they can’t emulate, they can only confiscate.
In progressive literature white people overall are elevated to the status of ultimate villains – The great oppressors that enslave and destroy. Yet, if this was true, why is it that the third world chases after us so much? You would think they would stay as far away from whites as possible, but they INSIST on immigrating to the west. Or they bitch and moan about our capitalist ways, but they never leave.
By extension, leftists will claim that white people are the “real invaders” that exploit and steal from the third world. In other words, we are “chasing the brown man”. But, if this was the case, then why aren’t white people rushing to migrate to Africa? Why is the western industrial presence in Africa in steep decline? Even black Africans leave Africa in droves when they get the chance to do so. No one is chasing the brown man. This is not a thing. No one covets what a beggar society has.
Now, I see this not as a race issue but as a cultural issue (I’m sure there are people who will debate that sentiment). If you look at countries like Japan or South Korea, they don’t chase white people. They build their own societies and fuel their own progress for the most part. They don’t need white culture or western culture to feed off of (China does, but that’s a whole separate article).
There are societies in the Middle East that remain relatively self sufficient, while others in the Middle East view the west as a target for conquest. The difference is in the culture, not the skin color. And what do most third world cultures have in common? This first thing is an oversupply of AK-47s, the second thing is they tend to be socialist or communist. These are beggar cultures with a beggar mentality.
In the US we can see this same mentality bleeding into parts of our own society. Every time leftist black American’s demand reparations or special privileges in employment and schooling or handouts through DEI programs, they are, in essence, chasing the white man. They want what the white man has and they’re not really shy about saying it. They didn’t build it or earn it but they want it, and if they can’t have it they will just as happily tear it all down.
The phrase “black fatigue” comes to mind, but again, it’s far more about culture than skin color. It’s something that white people like me aren’t supposed discuss.
Frankly, I find race divisions to be a distraction from the bigger problem, which is elitism and the sabotage of the west from within by wealthy oligarchs so that they can replace it with an authoritarian socialist “Utopia”. That said, I cannot ignore the fact that certain minorities in the US tend to lean majority far left, or that most third world migrants hold socialist ideals.
To be sure, there are millions of white woke liberals helping to fuel this fire, but again, most of the black community is happy to be used. These people become the enemy because they have allowed themselves to be weaponized in the hopes of getting a piece of the western pie before whole thing is ransacked. They don’t want to build for themselves, so, they voluntarily become the barbarians at the gate.
My advice to these people is to stop. Stop chasing the white man. Stop trying to feed off the western world. Put in the effort to construct your own great societies with your own accomplishments. No one is stopping you except yourselves. You are being duped into acting as a battering ram for globalism and multiculturalism; you are a tool for deconstructing the west.
By extension, stop coveting what white people have built within your own communities and start seeing such people as valuable allies in creating something better.
If you try to take from them they will eventually retaliate and it will not be a pretty sight. But, the interesting thing about white people (at least the conservative types) is that they will often help you if you ask nicely. Instead of threatening them, maybe try learning from them? Most white people I know love to improve their communities in any way they can, and they enjoy helping people who want to help themselves.
Instead of seeing white people as the enemy because of historic “crimes” which every single ethnic group has been guilty of, why not look to the future? Of course, this would require people in the third world to abandon their socialist leanings. Far left ideology is a poison that makes nations and cultures weak. It makes them perpetual beggars. To improve one’s future, one must aspire to create, not steal.
Why not stop chasing the white man and work with him instead?
* * *
Views expressed in this article are opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of ZeroHedge.
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Site: Zero HedgeUS To Start Revoking Visas Of Chinese Students: RubioTyler Durden Wed, 05/28/2025 - 22:35
Authored by T.J. Muscaro via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),
Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced on May 28 that the United States would begin revoking visas of Chinese students, including those with connections to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).
“The U.S. will begin revoking visas of Chinese students, including those with connections to the Chinese Communist Party or studying in critical fields,” Rubio wrote on X.
The State Department confirmed the action in a short press release, stating that it will work with the Department of Homeland Security to “aggressively revoke” the visas. It will also revise the visa criteria and “enhance scrutiny of all future visa applications” from China and Hong Kong.
The Epoch Times reached out to the State Department for further comment on the matter.
According to the State Department, the Chinese regime monitors Chinese students, mobilizing them through the Chinese Students and Scholars Association (CSSA). Some CSSA branches in the United States have openly admitted that they are directed, supported, or financed by Chinese consulates. These students have been known to attempt forced cancellation of events or speeches hosted by overseas dissident groups at U.S. schools.
The FBI warns on its website that the CCP uses its post-graduate students and post-doctorate researchers in fields like engineering, science, and mathematics to “operate as non-traditional collectors of intellectual property.”
“China is the world’s principal infringer of intellectual property. The annual cost to the U.S. economy of counterfeit goods, pirated software, and theft of trade secrets is between $225 billion and $600 billion,” the FBI states.
Rubio’s announcement comes two months after House Republicans raised the issue of Chinese student visas on March 14.
Introduced, in part, by Rep. Riley Moore (R-W. Va.), the “Stop Chinese Communist Prying by Vindicating Intellectual Safeguards in Academia Act of 2025,” or “Stop CCP VISAs Act of 2025,” would ban Chinese citizens from obtaining student visas, citing CCP-related national security concerns.
“Every year we allow nearly 300,000 Chinese nationals to come to the U.S. on student visas. We’ve literally invited the CCP to spy on our military, steal our intellectual property, and threaten national security,” Moore said in a statement to The Epoch Times.
The bill was co-sponsored by Reps. Brandon Gill (R-Texas), Scott Perry (R-Pa.), Addison McDowell (R-N.C.), Andrew Ogles (R-Tenn.), Troy Nehls (R-Texas), Owens Burgess (R-Utah), and Mary Miller (R-Ill.)
“The Chinese Communist Party is fundamentally opposed to our American values, and yet we have handed out hundreds of thousands of student visas to Chinese nationals, many of whom are state-sponsored spies,” Gill said in a statement to The Epoch Times.
Recent Cases
Some Chinese nationals who have gained access to the United States under student visas have also been at the center of legal matters concerning national security.
In 2020, Ye Yanqin, a lieutenant in the People’s Liberation Army, who attended Boston University from October 2017 to April 2019 on an exchange program, was charged by federal prosecutors with allegedly concealing her continued military service on her visa application. She allegedly completed “numerous assignments” for the Chinese military, including sending U.S. documents to China and retrieving U.S. military intelligence.
In October 2024, five Chinese nationals who were students at the University of Michigan as part of a joint program with the China-based Shanghai Jiao Tong University were indicted after being accused of misleading investigators about their trip to a remote military site in-state and conspiring to delete photo evidence from their cell phones.
In December 2024, Wen Shenghua, a Chinese national, was arrested in California for allegedly making military shipments to North Korea. Shengua had also overstayed his student visa.
More Visa Changes
The news also comes one day after a senior State Department official confirmed to The Epoch Times that an internal cable was sent to American embassies around the world, pausing student visa interviews effective May 27.
That suspension, according to the cable, which prohibits consular sections from adding any appointment slots for student and exchange visitor visas “until further guidance is issued,” was part of an effort to strengthen the vetting process of visa applicants, specifically regarding social media screenings.
“There is no right to a student visa,” Rubio told reporters in March. “We can cancel a student visa under the law just the same way that we can deny a student visa under the law. And we will do so in cases we find appropriate.”
This announcement also comes hours after Rubio announced new visa restrictions for foreign nationals found to be involved with censoring the free speech of U.S. citizens.
“For too long, Americans have been fined, harassed, and even charged by foreign authorities for exercising their free speech rights,” Rubio announced in a post on X.
“Today, I am announcing a new visa restriction policy that will apply to foreign officials and persons who are complicit in censoring Americans. Free speech is essential to the American way of life—a birthright over which foreign governments have no authority.”
Ryan Morgan, Emel Aken, Frank Fang, and Eva Fu contributed to this report.
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Site: Zero HedgeUS To Start Revoking Visas Of Chinese Students: RubioTyler Durden Wed, 05/28/2025 - 22:35
Authored by T.J. Muscaro via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),
Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced on May 28 that the United States would begin revoking visas of Chinese students, including those with connections to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).
“The U.S. will begin revoking visas of Chinese students, including those with connections to the Chinese Communist Party or studying in critical fields,” Rubio wrote on X.
The State Department confirmed the action in a short press release, stating that it will work with the Department of Homeland Security to “aggressively revoke” the visas. It will also revise the visa criteria and “enhance scrutiny of all future visa applications” from China and Hong Kong.
The Epoch Times reached out to the State Department for further comment on the matter.
According to the State Department, the Chinese regime monitors Chinese students, mobilizing them through the Chinese Students and Scholars Association (CSSA). Some CSSA branches in the United States have openly admitted that they are directed, supported, or financed by Chinese consulates. These students have been known to attempt forced cancellation of events or speeches hosted by overseas dissident groups at U.S. schools.
The FBI warns on its website that the CCP uses its post-graduate students and post-doctorate researchers in fields like engineering, science, and mathematics to “operate as non-traditional collectors of intellectual property.”
“China is the world’s principal infringer of intellectual property. The annual cost to the U.S. economy of counterfeit goods, pirated software, and theft of trade secrets is between $225 billion and $600 billion,” the FBI states.
Rubio’s announcement comes two months after House Republicans raised the issue of Chinese student visas on March 14.
Introduced, in part, by Rep. Riley Moore (R-W. Va.), the “Stop Chinese Communist Prying by Vindicating Intellectual Safeguards in Academia Act of 2025,” or “Stop CCP VISAs Act of 2025,” would ban Chinese citizens from obtaining student visas, citing CCP-related national security concerns.
“Every year we allow nearly 300,000 Chinese nationals to come to the U.S. on student visas. We’ve literally invited the CCP to spy on our military, steal our intellectual property, and threaten national security,” Moore said in a statement to The Epoch Times.
The bill was co-sponsored by Reps. Brandon Gill (R-Texas), Scott Perry (R-Pa.), Addison McDowell (R-N.C.), Andrew Ogles (R-Tenn.), Troy Nehls (R-Texas), Owens Burgess (R-Utah), and Mary Miller (R-Ill.)
“The Chinese Communist Party is fundamentally opposed to our American values, and yet we have handed out hundreds of thousands of student visas to Chinese nationals, many of whom are state-sponsored spies,” Gill said in a statement to The Epoch Times.
Recent Cases
Some Chinese nationals who have gained access to the United States under student visas have also been at the center of legal matters concerning national security.
In 2020, Ye Yanqin, a lieutenant in the People’s Liberation Army, who attended Boston University from October 2017 to April 2019 on an exchange program, was charged by federal prosecutors with allegedly concealing her continued military service on her visa application. She allegedly completed “numerous assignments” for the Chinese military, including sending U.S. documents to China and retrieving U.S. military intelligence.
In October 2024, five Chinese nationals who were students at the University of Michigan as part of a joint program with the China-based Shanghai Jiao Tong University were indicted after being accused of misleading investigators about their trip to a remote military site in-state and conspiring to delete photo evidence from their cell phones.
In December 2024, Wen Shenghua, a Chinese national, was arrested in California for allegedly making military shipments to North Korea. Shengua had also overstayed his student visa.
More Visa Changes
The news also comes one day after a senior State Department official confirmed to The Epoch Times that an internal cable was sent to American embassies around the world, pausing student visa interviews effective May 27.
That suspension, according to the cable, which prohibits consular sections from adding any appointment slots for student and exchange visitor visas “until further guidance is issued,” was part of an effort to strengthen the vetting process of visa applicants, specifically regarding social media screenings.
“There is no right to a student visa,” Rubio told reporters in March. “We can cancel a student visa under the law just the same way that we can deny a student visa under the law. And we will do so in cases we find appropriate.”
This announcement also comes hours after Rubio announced new visa restrictions for foreign nationals found to be involved with censoring the free speech of U.S. citizens.
“For too long, Americans have been fined, harassed, and even charged by foreign authorities for exercising their free speech rights,” Rubio announced in a post on X.
“Today, I am announcing a new visa restriction policy that will apply to foreign officials and persons who are complicit in censoring Americans. Free speech is essential to the American way of life—a birthright over which foreign governments have no authority.”
Ryan Morgan, Emel Aken, Frank Fang, and Eva Fu contributed to this report.
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Site: Zero HedgeVictoria's Secret Exposed In 'Security Incident' As Site Goes Offline For Days, Shares Down 6.9%Tyler Durden Wed, 05/28/2025 - 22:10
Fashion giant Victoria's Secret & Co. has halted certain office operations and told employees to avoid using company technology amid a "security incident" that has caused the company to take their e-commerce and some store services offline.
Employees were locked out of email accounts on Wednesday, a 'person familiar with the situation' told Bloomberg Thursday. Shares of the company fell 6.9% (Beavis) on Wednesday.
"Recovery is going to take awhile," said CEO Hillary Super in a note seen by Bloomberg, which adds that customer care operations and some distribution center operations had been halted.
also...
The incident comes on the heels of yet another retailer - Adidas AG - which said that customer data was stolen by a third-party service provider, which included the contact information of anyone who had emailed the German company's customer service help desk.
One sec...
As Bloomberg continues;
In addition, several UK retailers announced breaches in recent weeks. Marks & Spencer Plc said it is facing a £300 million ($403 million) hit to operating profit from a cyberattack that disrupted sales and operations. The hackers were able to breach M&S’s systems via human error at a third party, the company said. The UK supermarket chain Co-op said intruders were able to access and extract customer data during a recent cyberattack, while luxury department store Harrods Ltd. disclosed that it had suffered attempts to compromise its systems.
A hacking group called DragonForce claimed responsibility for the UK attacks - which came after investor BBRC International Pte Limited increased its stake in Victoria's Secret - causing the company to adopt a poison pill strategy.
We hope they can pull this off!
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Site: Zero HedgeVictoria's Secret Exposed In 'Security Incident' As Site Goes Offline For Days, Shares Down 6.9%Tyler Durden Wed, 05/28/2025 - 22:10
Fashion giant Victoria's Secret & Co. has halted certain office operations and told employees to avoid using company technology amid a "security incident" that has caused the company to take their e-commerce and some store services offline.
Employees were locked out of email accounts on Wednesday, a 'person familiar with the situation' told Bloomberg Thursday. Shares of the company fell 6.9% (Beavis) on Wednesday.
"Recovery is going to take awhile," said CEO Hillary Super in a note seen by Bloomberg, which adds that customer care operations and some distribution center operations had been halted.
also...
The incident comes on the heels of yet another retailer - Adidas AG - which said that customer data was stolen by a third-party service provider, which included the contact information of anyone who had emailed the German company's customer service help desk.
One sec...
As Bloomberg continues;
In addition, several UK retailers announced breaches in recent weeks. Marks & Spencer Plc said it is facing a £300 million ($403 million) hit to operating profit from a cyberattack that disrupted sales and operations. The hackers were able to breach M&S’s systems via human error at a third party, the company said. The UK supermarket chain Co-op said intruders were able to access and extract customer data during a recent cyberattack, while luxury department store Harrods Ltd. disclosed that it had suffered attempts to compromise its systems.
A hacking group called DragonForce claimed responsibility for the UK attacks - which came after investor BBRC International Pte Limited increased its stake in Victoria's Secret - causing the company to adopt a poison pill strategy.
We hope they can pull this off!
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Site: Zero HedgeHow California Has Destroyed Its Middle ClassTyler Durden Wed, 05/28/2025 - 21:45
Authored by Edward Ring via American Greatness,
California has declared war on its middle class, and the special interests controlling the state are doing everything they can to impose this punitive economic model on the rest of America. It’s a quasi-feudal system, with the entire population divided into aristocrats and serfs. The means to destroy the middle class is to engineer an unaffordable cost of living for households, and a regulatory environment that only huge corporations can afford to navigate. The moral justification for this destruction is to cope with the “climate emergency” and to achieve social “equity.”
While the Trump interregnum has slowed the march of neo-feudalism in the rest of America, in California, the plan continues to move relentlessly forward. If you’re extremely wealthy, California’s abusive cost of living is not a big concern, and you stay for the scenic beauty and abundant sunshine. If you’re extremely poor, you stay because California’s taxpayer-funded assistance programs—financial aid, food assistance, healthcare, and other support services—offer a lifestyle orders of magnitude better than what you may have previously endured in the barrios of Tegucigalpa or the suburbios of Maputo.
But if you’re not rich, and you’re not poor, but just work, pay taxes, and pay for everything you need with after-tax earnings and without government assistance, California is a hostile environment. The numbers on out-migration are unequivocal. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, an astonishing 8.5 million people have moved out of California since 2010. In 2023 alone, the last full year for which estimates are available, 690,000 people left. In 2022, 818,000; in 2021, 841,000. No other state has sustained anywhere near this 15 years of unrelenting mass exodus.
These people aren’t just leaving. By the millions, they’re being driven out. The latest reported cost of a home in California averages nearly $788,000 compared to $361,000 in the rest of the U.S. The price for a gallon of gasoline in California is roughly $5.00 compared to $3.00 nationwide. With refineries quitting production in California thanks to ridiculous and escalating regulatory harassment by state agencies, the price of gasoline is only going to rise. As for residential electricity rates, consumers in California have to pay around $0.30 per kilowatt-hour, a rate that is twice the national average.
This isn’t news. It costs a lot to live in California due to restrictions placed on housing and pretty much any enabling energy or water infrastructure by extreme environmentalists and the special interests that support them. It’s simple math. Homes cost twice as much. Gasoline costs nearly 60 percent more. Electricity costs twice as much. Double the cost of real estate and energy, and you double the cost of everything that needs real estate and energy to be produced.
And to ameliorate the problems they caused, California’s state legislature has indulged in a spending spree designed to shower benefits onto residents who can’t afford the overpriced necessities. It’s a good trick. Deny people the ability to make a living, blame a scapegoat (climate change, greedy corporations, billionaires, racism), and then distribute free stuff from the government in exchange for votes.
But massive government benefits are expensive for the state to maintain, with costs going into hyperdrive in the 21st century. Between 2010 and 2020, the per capita state government spending in California, adjusting for inflation, more than doubled. Since then, it’s continued to grow, with Newsom’s proposed 2025-26 state budget of $322 billion equating to $8,173 per resident. Back in 2011, in 2024 dollars, total state spending was only $4,696 per resident. Did anything get better? Schools? Crime rates? Homelessness? Affordability?
Meanwhile, the middle class pays. Not only via the cost of living, which they pay for in full since they’re not poor enough to qualify for free stuff from the government. They also pay higher taxes to support the swollen state. A lot more taxes.
Suppose a person works as an independent contractor in California and makes $100,000 per year in their regular job. They then work nights and weekends to make enough money to support their family. Let’s assume that second job doesn’t pay enough for their total annual income to exceed $176,100, which is the ceiling beyond which workers don’t have to contribute any further to Social Security (Medicare withholding has no limit). Here’s how bad these taxes get:
The marginal withholding rate for the State of California on income over $141,212 is 9.3 percent. Anything over $111,732 is taxed at 8.0 percent. Then there is federal tax of 22 percent on any income over $94,300, with Social Security and Medicare (for which an independent contractor pays the employee and the employer share) adding another whopping 15.3 percent. In all, the government taxes 46.6 percent of those last hard-earned dollars.
That’s how the State of California thanks an independent contractor who is working nights and weekends to make some extra money. Sure, the federal government takes most of it, and the federal government wastes trillions instead of merely wasting hundreds of billions. But other states don’t have California’s punitive cost of living, and in states with low or minimal state income taxes, the hit for federal income tax and Social Security/Medicare would be 37 percent, little more than a third of marginal earnings instead of nearly half.
And it doesn’t end there. Let’s have a look at sales taxes in Los Angeles County, where 9.7 million people live, 25 percent of the entire state’s population. The combined state and local sales tax rate is 9.75 percent, which means if the household in our example spent $2,000 per month on retail purchases, they’d be out another $2,340 annually. The average home in Los Angeles County costs $900,000, which means California’s supposedly low property tax rate of 1.0 percent still equates to another $9,000 per year in property taxes.
Most people in California haven’t mustered the degree of hard work and good luck it takes to make a six-figure income. The average annual salary in California is $68,917. For people making that amount of money, owning a home is an impossible dream. Just paying for gasoline and electricity is a hardship.
The betrayal that California’s state and local politicians have inflicted on the people living there is unforgivable. The state is run by a coalition of public sector unions, allied with environmentalist billionaires and the nonprofit advocacy groups they fund, and the monopolistic corporations that thrive in over-regulated environments that smaller competitors can’t survive. These aligned special interests pour billions into backing politicians who do what they’re told. The result is a bloated public sector and “green” industries profiting off of high prices and a captive market. And the established media—increasingly populated with indoctrinated youths straight out of union-controlled universities—marches in lockstep with this corrupt establishment, saying all the right things and controlling the narrative.
It’s easy enough to blame California’s voters for the predicament they’re in. Except that 40 percent of the electorate routinely votes against the one-party Democratic machine candidates. And the rest of them, certainly enough to swing the result away from Democrats, have been thoroughly indoctrinated by what is probably the most powerful political machine in America. They spend literally billions to foment nonstop fear of boiling oceans, burning forests, and genocidal Nazis lurking in every shadow. They hire the best behavioral scientists on earth to foment this paranoia. And it works. Never mind the price of gas; we have to save the planet and end racism.
California is a failed state. The only people of modest income who can possibly afford to live there are people who purchased their homes decades ago or people who inherited those homes from their parents and grandparents. Everyone else just works, all the time, and barely survives, or they give up and get government handouts.
Americans in the rest of the country need to thoroughly recognize the threat coming from California, because it is not obvious. The special interests running the state don’t merely deflect accountability by blaming the hardship they’ve engineered on climate and racism. They’ve also successfully conned voters into thinking that these special interests fight against each other, when in fact they are united. Public sector unions, billionaire-backed NGOs, and monopolistic corporations are not antagonists. These aligned groups share the same agenda, and they work together. To serve each of their varied interests, they intend to destroy the middle class in this country.
In California, they’ve succeeded in doing exactly that.
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Site: Zero HedgeHarvard Fires Star Professor Who Fabricated Data For 'Dishonesty' StudiesTyler Durden Wed, 05/28/2025 - 21:25
A celebrated Harvard professor who researched why people are dishonest was fired and stripped of tenure after a probe found she fabricated data on multiple studies.
Francesca Gino, a star behavioral scientist at Harvard Business School whose work focused on why people cheat, was found to have manipulated observations in four studies so that their findings supported her hypotheses - according to a 1,300-page report detailing the university's months-long investigation.
Of note, Harvard hasn't revoked a professor's tenure since the 1940s - when the American Association of University Professors formalized termination rules, the Harvard Crimson reports.
"The committee concludes that Professor Gino has engaged in multiple instances of research misconduct, across all four studies at issue in these allegations," according to the report.
Gino, a star academic who had authored over 140 academic papers and snagged numerous awards, came under fire last year after a trio of behavioral scientists published a series of explosive posts on their blog Data Colada, writing four academic papers published between 2012 and 2020 that the Harvard professor had co-authored “contained fraudulent data.”
The university report detailed that Harvard began a preliminary investigation of Gino’s work in October 2021 after the Data Colada researchers brought their concerns about the papers’ sketchy data to the school. -NY Post
The university launched a preliminary investigation into Gino's work after red flags emerged in a study she co-authored that claimed requiring people to sign an honesty pledge at the beginning of a form vs. the end significantly boosts honest responses. The study was retracted in 2021 due to "evidence" of data fabrication relying on three separate lab experiments to support its findings, the Post reports.
The 'Data Colada' scientists then found three more studies in the same paper which appeared to rely on manipulated data, prompting a full probe into the allegations which was conducted in 2022 and 2023, in which people who worked with Gino on the papers were interviewed and Harvard Business School faculty analyzed her data, emails, and the papers' manuscripts.
An outside forensics firm was also hired to assist in the analysis.
When asked, Gino insisted that issued with her work may stem from errors by her or her research assistants - or (Joe Reid is that you?) someone with "malicious intentions" who may have tampered with her work.
Investigators saw right through that and provided their findings to HBS Dean Datar in March of 2023, after which Gino was placed on unpaid leave.
Gino took to her blog to defend herself - insisting "There is one thing I know for sure: I did not commit academic fraud. I did not manipulate data to produce a particular result," adding "I did not falsify data to bolster any result. I did not commit the offense I am accused of. Period."
She then sued Harvard, Harvard Business School Dean Srikant Datar, and the Data Colada bloggers, claiming reputational damage and loss of income and career opportunities due to the investigation and placing her on administrative leave beginning in June 2023.
"Harvard shared their case. And while my lawyers have discouraged me from speaking out, I just need to say that I did not — ever — engage in academic fraud," she wrote on her website in March 2024. "Once I have the opportunity to prove this in the court of law, with the support of experts I was denied through Harvard’s investigation process, you’ll see why their case is so weak and that these are bogus allegations."
Except, a Boston judge dismissed her defamation claims against both Harvard and the Data Colada bloggers last September, ruling that her work can be scrutinized under the First Amendment due to her status as a public figure.
* * *
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Site: Zero Hedge$13 Billion In Renewable Projects At Risk In Vietnam Due To Subsidy CutsTyler Durden Wed, 05/28/2025 - 21:20
Over 40 investors in Vietnam’s solar and wind energy sector are warning they may default unless the government honors its original pricing commitments, according to Nikkei Asia.
Vietnam had initially offered feed-in tariffs ranging from 7.09 to 9.35 U.S. cents per kWh for solar energy, valid for 20 years, to attract investment and support the country's shift to renewable energy. However, the government now wants to pay in local currency at a rate equal to 4.7 U.S. cents per kWh—a cut of 34% to 50%, depending on the exchange rate.
Most affected projects are solar farms, and many investors have reported delayed or reduced payments from the state utility Electricity Vietnam (EVN). These delays stem from a government review claiming that key documentation—the construction completion acceptance (CCA)—was missing, despite not being required at the time.
Investors argue that most projects have since secured the document and paid related penalties.
In a letter sent on May 16 to top leaders including Communist Party chief To Lam and Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh, the investors urged the government to protect what they described as Vietnam’s “contractual integrity, regulatory consistency, and the credibility” of its investment environment. They also warned that the dispute “poses serious and immediate risks to investor confidence, financial stability, and Vietnam’s long-term energy and climate objectives.”
Concerns have grown over EVN’s proposal to retroactively change terms, which could require investors to return past payments. One Vietnamese investor noted that while the rules have shifted, most developers are now in compliance.
The Nikkei report says that the letter—signed by more than 40 foreign and local investors representing a combined 6.38 gigawatts of capacity—also noted that over $13 billion in equity is at risk, including about $4 billion from foreign-led projects.
Signatories include Japan’s Fujiwara Energy and Toho Gas, Thailand’s B.Grimm Renewable and Super Energy, the Philippines’ ACEN, Portugal’s Sunseap, and the Netherlands’ SEP. The group warned that they are breaching loan agreements and face growing risks of default. According to the letter, the situation has led to cash flow problems affecting “plant maintenance, repairs, and operations,” threatening project sustainability and business operations overall.
Vietnam’s export-driven economy relies heavily on foreign capital and competitive energy prices. With growth expected to hit 8% this year and even higher in the coming years, the country is facing rising energy demand. Power outages in 2023 already rattled manufacturers and residents in the north.
EVN posted nearly $1 billion in losses last year, following an $800 million shortfall in 2022. Although it was still in deficit in the first half of 2024, price hikes eventually helped the utility return to profit by year’s end.
Authorities have so far maintained that only projects meeting all formal requirements are eligible for the favorable pricing.
Dominic Scriven, chairman of Dragon Capital, whose firm has 123 megawatts of solar affected by the changes, said the lack of clarity is already hurting both investor confidence and the stability of ongoing projects. He added that he hopes the government will act constructively to resolve the dispute.
Even companies without current feed-in-tariff projects are watching closely. Kengo Nagaki, deputy chief representative of Tokyo Gas in Vietnam, said that while his firm’s projects are not affected, “if this were to happen, it would be a concern for foreign investors.”
He emphasized that the government cannot meet its renewable energy targets without international investment.
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Site: Zero Hedge$13 Billion In Renewable Projects At Risk In Vietnam Due To Subsidy CutsTyler Durden Wed, 05/28/2025 - 21:20
Over 40 investors in Vietnam’s solar and wind energy sector are warning they may default unless the government honors its original pricing commitments, according to Nikkei Asia.
Vietnam had initially offered feed-in tariffs ranging from 7.09 to 9.35 U.S. cents per kWh for solar energy, valid for 20 years, to attract investment and support the country's shift to renewable energy. However, the government now wants to pay in local currency at a rate equal to 4.7 U.S. cents per kWh—a cut of 34% to 50%, depending on the exchange rate.
Most affected projects are solar farms, and many investors have reported delayed or reduced payments from the state utility Electricity Vietnam (EVN). These delays stem from a government review claiming that key documentation—the construction completion acceptance (CCA)—was missing, despite not being required at the time.
Investors argue that most projects have since secured the document and paid related penalties.
In a letter sent on May 16 to top leaders including Communist Party chief To Lam and Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh, the investors urged the government to protect what they described as Vietnam’s “contractual integrity, regulatory consistency, and the credibility” of its investment environment. They also warned that the dispute “poses serious and immediate risks to investor confidence, financial stability, and Vietnam’s long-term energy and climate objectives.”
Concerns have grown over EVN’s proposal to retroactively change terms, which could require investors to return past payments. One Vietnamese investor noted that while the rules have shifted, most developers are now in compliance.
The Nikkei report says that the letter—signed by more than 40 foreign and local investors representing a combined 6.38 gigawatts of capacity—also noted that over $13 billion in equity is at risk, including about $4 billion from foreign-led projects.
Signatories include Japan’s Fujiwara Energy and Toho Gas, Thailand’s B.Grimm Renewable and Super Energy, the Philippines’ ACEN, Portugal’s Sunseap, and the Netherlands’ SEP. The group warned that they are breaching loan agreements and face growing risks of default. According to the letter, the situation has led to cash flow problems affecting “plant maintenance, repairs, and operations,” threatening project sustainability and business operations overall.
Vietnam’s export-driven economy relies heavily on foreign capital and competitive energy prices. With growth expected to hit 8% this year and even higher in the coming years, the country is facing rising energy demand. Power outages in 2023 already rattled manufacturers and residents in the north.
EVN posted nearly $1 billion in losses last year, following an $800 million shortfall in 2022. Although it was still in deficit in the first half of 2024, price hikes eventually helped the utility return to profit by year’s end.
Authorities have so far maintained that only projects meeting all formal requirements are eligible for the favorable pricing.
Dominic Scriven, chairman of Dragon Capital, whose firm has 123 megawatts of solar affected by the changes, said the lack of clarity is already hurting both investor confidence and the stability of ongoing projects. He added that he hopes the government will act constructively to resolve the dispute.
Even companies without current feed-in-tariff projects are watching closely. Kengo Nagaki, deputy chief representative of Tokyo Gas in Vietnam, said that while his firm’s projects are not affected, “if this were to happen, it would be a concern for foreign investors.”
He emphasized that the government cannot meet its renewable energy targets without international investment.
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Site: Zero HedgeVenezuela's Shadow War Over Oil-Rich Essequibo Is EscalatingTyler Durden Wed, 05/28/2025 - 20:55
Authored by Charles Kennedy via OilPrice.com,
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Following ExxonMobil’s massive 2017 oil discovery offshore Guyana, Venezuela has revived and intensified its claim over the Essequibo region.
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A series of cross-border attacks on Guyanese troops, including three on May 15, points to a potential Venezuelan strategy of deniable, Russia-style hybrid warfare.
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The U.S. has warned Venezuela that any attack on Guyana or ExxonMobil would carry serious consequences.
A quiet frontier in South America is rapidly becoming one of the world’s most volatile energy flashpoints.
The disputed region of Essequibo, a sparsely populated expanse administered by Guyana but claimed by Venezuela, has seen tensions simmer for years. But a combination of geopolitical ambition, economic desperation, and energy opportunity is now threatening to tip the standoff into open conflict.
At stake is one of the most valuable stretches of territory in the world—an area that, until recently, few outside the region had heard of.
Essequibo, which comprises nearly two-thirds of Guyana’s landmass, was thrust into the global spotlight after ExxonMobil’s 2017 discovery of the Stabroek Block offshore reserves, estimated at over 11 billion barrels of recoverable oil.
For Guyana the find transformed the country from economic backwater to a regional energy giant almost overnight.
The newfound wealth has also revived Venezuela’s long-standing claim to the region, a grievance dating back to colonial arbitration rulings of the late 19th century. Caracas has never fully relinquished its claim, but it was only after the oil discovery that Venezuela began actively pressing the issue. Since 2022, under President Nicolás Maduro, Venezuela has dramatically escalated its rhetoric and actions—announcing referenda, redrawing maps, and even moving military assets toward the border.
Most alarmingly, Venezuela has begun to mimic the playbook of its closest geopolitical ally—Russia. Much like Russia’s 2014 annexation of Crimea using unmarked “little green men,” Venezuela appears to be laying the groundwork for a slow, deniable incursion into Essequibo. The playbook combines official rhetoric with irregular warfare tactics, allowing for plausible deniability while steadily undermining Guyana’s control.
The first major signal of this new phase came last year when Maduro’s government held a referendum to “reclaim” Essequibo. Despite international condemnation, the vote passed and led to the formal creation of a new Venezuelan “state” encompassing the territory. Venezuela began offering citizenship to Essequibo’s residents and launched efforts to organize elections in the region.
In March 2025, a Venezuelan naval gunboat intercepted ExxonMobil operations in Guyanese waters, accusing the U.S. oil major of encroaching on Venezuelan territory.
The incident was widely seen as a warning shot—not just to Exxon, but to any foreign investors backing Guyana’s energy future.
But the most ominous sign yet came on May 15, when Guyana’s military reported three armed attacks in a single day on its patrols along the Cuyuni River, a critical stretch of the Guyana–Venezuela border. According to the Guyana Defence Force, unidentified gunmen in civilian clothing opened fire on soldiers in three separate engagements. No casualties were reported, and the Guyanese military responded with what it described as “measured force.”
The attacks were chilling in their timing and coordination. While the assailants were not officially identified, officials in Georgetown and most international observers believe they were Venezuelan operatives or proxies acting on Caracas’s behalf. The region is not known for organized crime or guerrilla activity, and no local insurgency has taken root—at least not yet.
This wasn’t the first time violence erupted in the contested zone. In February, another attack left two Guyanese soldiers critically injured. That incident, too, was blamed on Venezuela-linked forces.
While the skirmishes may seem minor in isolation, taken together they mark a dangerous pattern of escalation. What’s emerging is a shadow conflict—gray-zone warfare that avoids the threshold of open war while steadily eroding Guyana’s control over Essequibo. The danger, analysts warn, is that this slow-motion campaign could culminate in a de facto annexation, much like Crimea, before the international community has time to respond.
The Guyana Defence Force fields just over 3,000 active personnel with limited air, land, and naval capabilities. Venezuela, by contrast, commands over 100,000 troops, around 200 tanks, dozens of combat aircraft, and a sizable paramilitary force—making any conventional war a one-sided affair.
However, during a visit to Georgetown in March, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio cautioned that any Venezuelan attack on Guyana or ExxonMobil would mark “a very bad day” for Caracas, hinting at serious consequences. Venezuela swiftly condemned the remarks.
The real question now is how the international community, and especially the United States, will respond. ExxonMobil’s deep involvement gives Washington both an interest and a stake in the dispute. But the broader issue goes beyond oil. A successful Venezuelan land grab would further erode the already fragile post-Cold War order. It would also send a message to authoritarian regimes worldwide: territorial revisionism is back—and it works.
Guyana has vowed to defend its sovereignty and is seeking stronger security partnerships.
But unless it receives military support or any other type of real security guarantee from the U.S., Georgetown will struggle to hold the line alone.
For now, Essequibo remains under Guyana’s flag. But the shadow of Caracas is growing—and so is the risk that South America’s next war may erupt in one of its least known, but most strategically vital, regions.
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Site: Zero HedgeSix Mexican Soldiers Killed By Cartel Roadside BombTyler Durden Wed, 05/28/2025 - 20:30
At least six Mexican soldiers were killed when a homemade explosive detonated on a roadway at the Michoacán-Jalisco border—territory controlled by the Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG), according to one of Mexico's top newspapers.
El Universal reported that the incident occurred as Mexican troops were conducting an operation to dismantle CJNG operations and a training center in Santa María del Oro, located in eastern Michoacán near the Jalisco border.
Sources said at least one cartel member was armed with a "Minigun machine gun at that location, along with an arsenal and hitmen."
The report from El Universal continued:
"Sources told El Universal that an operation entered that area through the neighboring municipality of Jilotlán, reaching Santa María del Oro, where they clashed with the criminal cells. But as the military convoy was traveling through a gap, the criminal group detonated an explosive."
And noted:
"Six Texas aircraft and four helicopters were dispatched to the scene to provide support to the ground force."
Alleged image from the incident area:
Sin perdon, ni olvido!, QEPD, Seis Elementos de las Fuerzas Especiales de Reacción e Intervención FERI del Ejercito Mexicano murieron y dos resultaron heridos, por la explosión de una mina cuando circulaban en un Sand Cat blindado en la comunidad de El Santuario de Los Reyes,… pic.twitter.com/M4CEp8stQJ
— Blog del Narco México (@blogdelnarcomex) May 28, 2025There has been no official clarification from U.S. authorities regarding the newspaper's mention of "six Texas aircraft and four helicopters." However, as previously reported, the U.S. has deployed signals reconnaissance aircraft and drones across Mexico—likely in preparation for operations like this one, aimed at disrupting the command-and-control structures of major drug cartels.
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Site: Zero HedgeSmotrich Calls For 'Rebuilding Temple' During Jerusalem Day Celebrations
Far-right Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich has called for the rebuilding of a Jewish temple on the site of Al-Aqsa Mosque and for the expansion of Israel’s borders and Jewish settlements in Gaza.
In speech addressing crowds at a Jerusalem Day rally on Monday, which celebrates Israel’s occupation of the old city of Jerusalem, Smotrich also called for "complete redemption" and reconstruction of "the Temple here," referring to Al-Aqsa Mosque, which settlers had raided earlier.
Reuters: Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich walks to visit the Damascus Gate in Jerusalem's Old City, as Israelis mark Jerusalem Day, 26 May 2025
“We are conquering the Land of Israel, liberating Gaza, settling Gaza and defeating the enemy,” Smotrich said to crowds that had chanted “death to Arabs” as they marched through Jerusalem’s Old City and attacked Palestinians.
“With God’s help, we will expand Israel’s borders, bring about complete redemption, and rebuild the Temple here,” he said.
Smotrich also reiterated his calls for Jewish settlement in Gaza, declaring that “Israel is not afraid of the word occupation”.
“Some people are afraid of victory. We are not afraid of victory,” he said. “Lets give strength to our brave and heroic fighters”.
Several attacks and brawls were caught on film during Jerusalem Day marches...
Right-wing Israelis storm Al-Aqsa compound in occupied East Jerusalem, attacking Palestinians and chanting anti-Muslim slogans on “Jerusalem Day,” which marks Israel’s 1967 occupation of the city. pic.twitter.com/XFNTjW2yEN
— Al Jazeera English (@AJEnglish) May 26, 2025“Are we afraid of victory? Are we afraid of the word occupation?” Smotrich demanded, to which the crowd responded with a resounding “no”.
Smotrich has long advocated for extending Israeli sovereignty over the occupied West Bank and Gaza, and across the Middle East as part of his vision of a “Greater Israel”.
Earlier this month, Smotrich vowed that “Gaza will be entirely destroyed” and its Palestinian population will “leave in great numbers to third countries”.
He also declared that Israel would “apply sovereignty” in the occupied West Bank before the next Israeli general elections in October 2026.
On Jerusalem Day, Israeli women chanted ‘May your village burn!’ as they marched through the Armenian Quarter in the Old City of Jerusalem. pic.twitter.com/AtbTK6S9nv
— Kegham Balian (@kbalian90) May 28, 2025“Within a few months, we will be able to declare that we have won. Gaza will be totally destroyed,” Smotrich said. “In another six months, Hamas won’t exist as a functioning entity.”
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Site: Ron Paul Institute for Peace And Prosperity
Elon Musk, the leader of the Department of Government Efficiency in Donald Trump’s presidential administration, has expressed in a new interview his disappointment in Trump’s “Big Beautiful Bill,” which the United States House of Representatives approved last week.
Jeff Cox reported Wednesday at CNBC regarding Musk’s interview:
In an interview to be aired June 1 on ‘“’CBS Sunday Morning,’ the richest person in the world and the head of the Department of Government Efficiency advisory board said the ‘big, beautiful bill’ will not help the nation’s finances.
‘I was, like, disappointed to see the massive spending bill, frankly, which increases the budget deficit, not just decrease it, and undermines the work that the DOGE team is doing,’ Musk said in a clip the program shared on social media platform X.
DOGE says it has saved $170 billion in taxpayer money since it began in January, targeting areas of government waste and redundancy in sometimes-controversial ways.Unfortunately for advocates of reducing US government spending, this situation is what I suggested would arise in my April 4 article “The DOGE Switcheroo.” In the article, I noted that, despite DOGE efforts at cost cutting, “the trajectory of US government size and power will continue upward and onward.” This is due in part, I noted, to the fact that “Congress has, with President Donald Trump’s strong support, kept spending on autopilot based on the course established in the previous presidential administration.”
Three months earlier, in my article “Downsized DOGE,” I had suggested that Musk, who had already reduced his goal for DOGE derived government spending reductions from two trillion to one trillion dollars annually, may, in a year, have given up on asserting DOGE would reduce overall spending and have instead settled for just “talking about how DOGE can limit the increasing of US government spending.” That situation came to pass in less than half a year.
As far as cutting overall government spending goes, DOGE appears to have failed.
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Site: Public Discourse
As a homeschooling mother, I sometimes encounter people who are shocked that I spend all day with my children. Several months ago, a neighbor—who is a lovely woman— told me something along the lines of: “I just don’t know how you do it.” She has children herself but found it hard to envision what she would do if they were home all day, rather than off at school or at other extracurricular activities. I sympathize! Before I became a homeschooling mom, I worked as an attorney and my kids went to daycare and regular school. I remember well the feeling of desperation when school closed unexpectedly, and I suddenly had to find something to do all day with my highly energetic and inquisitive little boys. What on earth would I do with them all day?
I know now that it becomes easier to deal with your kids all day . . . if you do it every day. Parenting is a skill, and you can develop certain aspects of that skill through repetition. To be clear, all parents engage in parenting. Whether they work full-time, part-time, or not at all, every parent is tasked with the critical work of raising their kids. This role is irreplaceable, and the full-time working mom is just as important a parent as a stay-at-home mom. But for the mom or dad at home, the math simply is that they spend more hours each day caring “hands on” for their kids than parents with full-time jobs. This occupation, especially in the little years, is remarkably physical. There are toddlers to feed, diapers to change, groceries to carry in, floors to mop . . . the list goes on. It also requires significant mental discernment: When to intervene in a toddler tantrum? Should a child with a tough math problem be pushed to finish or allowed to leave it until tomorrow? How to make the family budget stretch to cover extracurriculars for several kids? Our society seems reluctant to believe that this physical and mental effort is skilled work. This leads to an important question: How might society change if it understood the care of children and home to be a skill one might seek to improve through deliberate practice aimed at achieving expertise?
Before delving into that question, I want to note one terminological difference. There is a tendency, especially among those on the left-of-center, to call all care of children “care work,” and to make no distinction between care by parents and care by others. While I have the deepest respect for those who work in daycares and preschools, and I believe they are doing needed and valuable work, care by a daycare worker is different from care by a parent. Daycare workers can excel at providing safe, nurturing environments for young children, but their relationship with their charges is inherently limited, in contrast to the hopefully life–long relationship between parent and child. Group care is also different from home care. As any parent who has been stumped by their wild toddler’s sudden docility in a group setting (or vice versa!) can tell you, it is simply different to put a child with a large group of same-aged children and a single authority figure rather than to have that child at home in a family. This is not to say one is better or worse—or that children don’t benefit from group care. But the classroom management techniques used by a teacher are simply not identical to the strategies a parent might use to run a household, even if there are some similarities.
To the main question: How might our society change if we understood parenting as a skilled occupation? Most millennials (my generation) are familiar with the “10,000 hours rule.” Popularized by Malcom Gladwell in his bestselling book Outliers, the central thesis of the book is that the more often you practice a skill, the better you get at it. Put another way per Gladwell, “Practice isn’t the thing you do once you’re good. It’s the thing you do that makes you good.” Consider a surgeon as she works at her chosen craft. Surgery is, of course, a highly technical skill. It involves physical dexterity, good judgment, and expertise. It should surprise no one that the more surgery a surgeon does, the better she is at it. For example, should you need knee surgery, studies repeatedly find that you have the best chances of a good outcome by finding a surgeon with a high-volume knee surgery practice. Similarly, patients of older surgeons often have a lower mortality rate. Young doctors may be more energetic and familiar with cutting-edge technology, but when it comes to routine surgery, older is actually wiser. We don’t accord the same respect to the skills displayed by competent mothers and fathers at home as we do to surgeons, but perhaps we should. Child development experts tell us that no relationship is more formative, or has more of an impact on childhood outcomes, than that between a child and parent. What would it mean for us to face the somewhat uncomfortable fact that parenting is a skill that can, like all skills, be developed by time and effort?
First, if we understand parenting and homemaking as skills, it should not be surprising when one person in a couple chooses to specialize in developing that skill set. Claudia Goldin, the renowned Harvard economist, has famously argued that the pay gap between men and women is largely due to “greedy jobs,” or jobs where those putting in “overtime, weekend time or evening time will earn a lot more.” Thus, Goldin argues, families with kids will economically benefit from some specialization, as one parent works less to manage the home front of children and house, freeing up the other parent to pursue the gold ring of law firm partnership, the corporate C-suite, etc. However, we might see a corollary principle here. What if one spouse takes on the duties of earning the family’s daily bread in order to free up the other spouse to develop the expertise needed to skillfully raise their children and manage their home life? I remember watching a mother of ten deal with a temper tantrum by her youngest child, and being in awe of her matter-of-fact approach. She simply knew things I did not,; hard-won knowledge that had been won by many years in the trenches of parenting. The fact that parenting is a skill set might even lower the marginal cost of having another child. If much of the steep hill of learning how to parent is done with the first child, it’s easy to see some economies of scale in having each subsequent child. It also helps explain why the first baby is so exhausting. For many parents, the sleep deprivation and pregnancy recovery are paired with the mental exhaustion of learning a new skill.
Second, once we accept that parents at home are doing something difficult and mentally challenging, society might be more willing to support them. Unfortunately, we still think of taking care of kids and family as unskilled labor; something daycare workers and cleaning ladies are paid pitifully little to tackle. But how much the workplace pays someone to do a job is not the full measure of how valuable it is! Despite our emphasis on GDP and economic growth in determining which jobs are socially useful, the unpaid—yet skilled—work of the home remains a crucial part of society. If we recognize that fact, we might be more willing to hire homemaker parents who want to rejoin the paid workforce. Recognizing that parents at home have been doing something demanding and important means recognizing their “résumé gap” is not a gap at all, but rather time spent honing skills—such as project management, multitasking, and emotional intelligence—that translate to the paid workforce. Likewise, there might be more pressure on policymakers to support these important men and women, including through helping to ensure that they have generous social safety net benefits. We need not return to the nineteenth century’s cult of domesticity and its “glorification of motherhood,” as historian Christopher Lasch pointed out, to value the work of the home. As he wrote in his essay “The Sexual Division of Labor,” modern feminists often argue that equality for women can only be achieved when mothers work full-time just like men. Lasch disagrees, claiming instead that a “feminism worthy of the name . . . [i]nstead of acquiescing in the family’s subordination to the workplace would seek to remodel the workplace around the needs of the family.”
Third, if we understand caring for children and home to be skilled and demanding work, this helps to make clear that those who do it need time off lest they risk burnout and exhaustion. Surgeons are famously prone to burnout. Major risk factors include the number of hours worked and time spent working on overnight shifts. What if we looked at these same factors with respect to parents? This might indicate to us that a mother or father who is waking at night with a baby or toddler, but also spending all day caring for the rest of the family, is at significant risk of burnout. A surgeon who dedicates serious time and effort to her craft will probably become a better surgeon for it. A surgeon who dedicates all her time and effort to surgery will run the risk of medical malpractice due to exhaustion. The same is true for parents, especially those with young children and/or large families, for whom the mental and physical demands are likely to be the most intense. Ensuring that a hard-working parent has some regular time away from family demands is a difficult but vital task. Medical professionals often encourage moms to engage in “self-care.” A list by the Mayo Clinic, for example, tells moms to schedule “me time” like “coffee with a good book.” The Mayo Clinic cautions, however, that “taking 10 minutes a day to focus on deep breathing, meditation or positive affirmations may be all that is realistic at this time.” In no other occupation are workers told to limit their realistic expectations of rest time to “10 minutes a day to focus on deep breathing!” Parents who do the skilled work of the home are doing real work, and those around them should do their best to ensure that they are receiving sufficient protected time to rest in order that they may continue ably carrying out their obligations.
Fourth, once we understand homemaking as skilled labor, we must also accept that there are many for whom this occupation is not a good fit or whose natural gifts better suit them for other occupations. I could not be a surgeon. This is not because I don’t think the surgeon’s craft is valuable—of course I do. But I lack whatever gift gives someone the courage and ability to slice into another person’s unconscious body in hopes of helping them. I’m much happier at home with my kids. When Betty Friedan wrote of “the problem with no name,” I hypothesize it resonated so deeply because she was speaking on behalf of the many women who were simply unhappy at home in the 1950s and 1960s and saw a calling elsewhere. Homemaking often becomes a political flashpoint because of those who insist that only women should do it, and because of those who insist that no woman should do it. One author wrote, for example, that “When women choose to stay home full-time, abandon career and earning, in the name of better mothering, life balance, or commitment to family, we all lose, most especially women.” This absolutist argumentation (on either side) does not make sense. It would obviously be folly to argue all men over 6’5″ should be basketball players. Ditto that all women should be homemakers, or no men should be: circumstances, natural gifts, and inclination all help determine what role one is best suited to fill in society.
I don’t know how the surgeon does it. But I’m glad she does. As she saves lives, I’ll work at my own chosen profession, trying every day to get a little better at educating my children, getting dinner on the table, and the babies in bed on time. I’m certainly not perfect, but I’m working hard at improving. We both—the surgeon and the homemaker—have something special to offer the rest of society. It remains to be seen if one day the wider world will realize it.
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Site: LifeNews
I was privileged to know Mother Teresa of Calcutta and to consult with her extensively during the last three years of her life, which coincided with the first three years of my fulltime leadership of Priests for Life.
In a visit with her in Calcutta in June of 1994, I discussed with her the bill that President Bill Clinton had signed into law just the previous month: The Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act.
This law came into prominence again over the last couple of years as Joe Biden’s DOJ used it to prosecute pro-life activists who were peacefully intervening to save lives at abortion facilities. President Trump, understanding the injustice of this law, pardoned those activists in the first days of his second term, as promised.
I will have a discussion with several of them tonight at 8pm ET in a live broadcast on my EndAbortion.TV program.
Click Like if you are pro-life to like the LifeNews Facebook page!
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One of the stories I will tell is what Mother Teresa said to me after I explained that this law punishes peaceful behavior of citizens who — convinced, as both science and morality show, that abortion kills a baby — therefore intervene to save that baby’s life. They may approach a woman entering the facility, in the hopes of persuading her to turn around and take the help the pro-life movement offers.
Or they may peacefully block the entrance to the clinic, trespassing indeed, but in the same way that any of us would willingly ignore a “No Trespassing” sign to save a child drowning in someone’s swimming pool.
Bill Clinton and the abortion lobby weren’t satisfied with the fact that state and local laws already punish trespassing and physical violence against people or property.
No, that wasn’t enough.
They were intent, while saying they were protecting abortion clients from intimidation, to impose that same intimidation on peaceful pro-life activists who wanted to lead those women away from those places of death.
Here were Mother Teresa’s exact words to me: ”Fr. Frank, if we had that law here in India, I would have been thrown in jail many times – because I go to the places where the abortions are done, and I take the women by the arm, and I pull them away from that place. I tell them to come with me, because our sisters and I will help them and their baby.”
Those who have been prosecuted under FACE, both under Biden and previously, should be proud. They stand with a saint revered by all the world, Catholic or not.
The FACE law is regarded by many, myself included, as both superfluous and unconstitutional. Efforts have been introduced in the 119th Congress to repeal this law, and those efforts should be supported. President Trump has already, by executive order, modified the enforcement of it to make sure people are not discriminated against because of their religious and pro-life convictions.
Now it’s time to get the law off the books altogether.
Shortly after the law was passed, I was offering brochures to mothers entering abortion facilities to invite them to choose alternatives to abortion. The pro-abortion protestors accused me of violating FACE, because they said that I was clearly intimidating them.
That’s just one simple example of how FACE lends itself so easily to vague and arbitrary interpretation, and to reverse intimidation of peaceful, pro-life people.
But more egregiously, the law seeks to put a cap on our love. It doesn’t require anyone to abort their baby, but it tries to limit how much we love the baby. Love has to be practical. We need to intervene to save the lives of the vulnerable. This law tells us we can love them from afar, but if we get too close to their bodies or to the instruments about to dismember those bodies, we are the ones who must be stopped.
We say no. There is no cap on love. We will be peaceful, but we will intervene. We will respect everybody, but we will abandon nobody.
Children are being killed, and laws that make it a crime to save them have no place in our country.
LifeNews Note: Prolife Leader Frank Pavone is the National Director of Priests for Life and President of Prolife Vote. This originally appeared at Gateway Pundit.
The post Mother Teresa Said She’d Break This Law to Save Babies From Abortions appeared first on LifeNews.com.
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Site: Zero HedgeWhy Ending The War In Ukraine Is So Difficult NowTyler Durden Wed, 05/28/2025 - 18:25
Authored by Connor O'Keefe via The Mises Institute,
As President Trump wrestles to deliver on his campaign promise to end the war on Ukraine by helping to bring about a negotiated peace deal, the effort has, in part, been undermined by an escalating exchange of kamikaze drones by both sides.
The last week especially saw a sharp escalation, with Ukraine launching thousands of drones deep into Russia—most of which the Russians claim to have intercepted—and Russia, in turn, stepping up its drone attacks in Ukraine. The Russian strikes over the weekend got a lot of coverage in the American media, especially an aerial assault on Saturday night where parts of some of the largest drone swarms launched in the war so far hit residential buildings around the Ukrainian armament factories Russia claimed to be targeting.
That series of strikes led Trump to issue his sharpest rebuke of Vladamir Putin to date. He called the Russian president crazy and voiced frustration with how Putin has changed since their phone call together—after which Trump had characterized Putin as reasonable and interested in a ceasefire.
The establishment press gleefully seized on Trump’s comments to argue that even he is now waking up to what they’ve been saying this whole time: that Putin is an unhinged maniac who cannot be reasoned with because he is motivated solely by bloodlust and delusions of conquering Europe. They then, predictably, bring it back to their broader argument that Trump’s “naïve” effort to “appease” Putin with a peace agreement and then “retreat from Europe” to usher in a new age of American isolationism is futile and dangerous and that he ought to instead recommit to the establishment’s preferred strategy of heavy-handed interventionism.
It is true that the Trump administration’s attempt to kickstart negotiations to end the war in Ukraine has run into difficulties that make it unlikely a ceasefire will be reached soon. But that is not an argument in favor of the political establishment’s interventionism, as that is the very thing that brought about this difficult situation in the first place.
Much has been written on the decades between the collapse of the USSR and the rise of the Western-friendly Russian Federation and the eventual return of Cold War conditions encapsulated by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. There is plenty of debate about the details and consequences of decisions made along the way. But nobody with any real credibility is even trying to argue that this period was characterized by a lack of US meddling in Eastern Europe.
Washington was heavily involved in the region from the beginning. At first, it was all under the friendly guise of helping with the transition from communism to capitalism. But as that process was botched by a combination of statist Western economists—who thought free markets had to be organized and managed in a top-down fashion—and outright corruption by officials on all sides, the respect, admiration, and trust the American government enjoyed in much of the region began to fade away.
That was accelerated when US presidents began working to expand NATO, the anti-Soviet military alliance, up to Russia’s border. For Russia’s entire history, the lack of natural barriers between Moscow and the rest of Europe has been a source of tremendous anxiety for Russian leaders. No mountains or major waterways blocked the armies of Napoleon and, later, Hitler from marching directly into the Russian heartland. The only factor that doomed both of those invasions was distance.
Even in the age of nuclear weapons, when long infantry supply chains are less relevant, the greater the distance a ballistic missile needs to travel to reach Russian cities, the more time the Russian regime has to detect, assess, and respond. Distance is still a factor in their defense strategy.
US officials knew this and still chose to help NATO expand closer and closer to Moscow. They were even told explicitly by the US ambassador to Russia that working to bring Ukraine, specifically, into NATO would almost certainly cause Russia to invade Ukraine.
Virtually every major American Cold War strategist was vocally against NATO expansion because they saw it as a surefire way to unnecessarily restart the US-Russia conflict that had just miraculously ended without nuclear annihilation. But they were out-lobbied and out-maneuvered by the weapons companies that produce all the military hardware that new NATO countries are required to buy.
So NATO expanded, American military hardware moved east, and anti-government protests in countries aligned with Russia received funding and support from the American government.
Even if we accept the establishment’s argument that Putin doesn’t actually care if the US pours weapons into and arranges security guarantees with the countries right on his border and is only using those actions as an excuse to further his imperial ambitions, US officials still handed Putin an easy way to get the Russian public onboard with an invasion of Ukraine for no real reason whatsoever.
Then, tragically, after the invasion happened, US officials and their allies in Western European governments like the UK convinced the Ukrainians to abandon an early peace agreement that would have resulted in Russian forces pulling back to pre-invasion boundaries. In the years since, Russia has laid permanent claim to much of the eastern Ukrainian territory they had earlier agreed to relinquish. And the Ukrainian government has continuously lost leverage over its Russian occupiers as they tried and failed to drive them out by force.
Last summer, Ukraine made the surprising decision to draw soldiers and resources away from the front lines to conduct a small invasion in Russia’s Kursk region on Ukraine’s northern border. That operation may have been an attempt to regain some leverage in future negotiations. But it did not accomplish much, and Russia has since retaken virtually all the territory they lost. The transfer of Ukrainian troops and resources has now given the Russians momentum on the rest of the front.
That is why it is unlikely that a peace agreement will be reached in the near future. Because it appears that Russia can achieve more if it continues fighting than through negotiations. And, importantly, that is not because the US and its European allies have held back and avoided giving the Ukrainians what they needed to fight the Russians. It’s because the officials who recognized the West’s leverage in future negotiations would only get worse lost out to those who thought the war should be prolonged anyway because it was a good way to “weaken Russia” without risking American lives.
There is no easy path out of this mess. It’s not as if NATO governments have some special weapons system they haven’t sent to Ukraine yet that could begin to turn the tide of the war. If they had, they would have sent it already. Short of sending American troops into combat with the Russians, there is little more that can be done to prop up Ukrainian forces. And, as Scott Horton noted in his recent talk here at the Mises Institute, even if Trump genuinely tried to reverse course and repair relations between Washington and Moscow, the Russians would probably just assume, understandably, that any progress he made would be undone by the next Democrat to win the presidency.
That’s why, if we’re ever going to see a true end to this unnecessary second Cold War with Russia, it requires that more Americans understand how it truly came about in the first place. It needs to be widely understood that if our government’s priority were really keeping us safe, they would have done everything in their power to avoid kickstarting a new conflict with the most heavily nuclear-armed government in the world. And yet, they seemed to have done the precise opposite.
What the path out certainly does not involve is doubling down on the same exact policies that both created this mess in the first place and that are being championed by those who want to see this war drag on indefinitely in a vile attempt to use Ukrainians to weaken Russia a little bit more.
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Site: LifeNews
“And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength. The second is this, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.” – Mark 12:30-31.
Is your neighbor just the person who lives next door to you or the person who lives across the street?
In Luke 10, a lawyer asked Jesus, “Who is my neighbor?”
Jesus answered with the parable of the Good Samaritan. Jesus explained that a Levite and a Priest traveling down a road both saw a man in need in a ditch and just passed him by, not offering any help. Then a Samaritan saw him and helped him. The Samaritan loved his neighbor as himself, even though there was animosity between Jews and Samaritans.
Who is our neighbor? I would say anyone in our path who is in need is our neighbor. If we see a homeless man and we give him food, we are loving our neighbor, even if this man does not live next door to us.
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How would I want someone to love me if I were in danger? If my life was in danger and my neighbor knew about it, wouldn’t I want him to help me? Would I expect someone to speak up for me if I were sentenced to death unjustly? Of course. I would expect others to live by this command to love their neighbor as themselves.
I have heard this verse thousands of times in my life, taught in church and at youth groups and many other places. It is a perfect teaching verse.
But sadly, so many Christians ignore this verse when it comes to children in the womb who have been unjustly sentenced to death by abortion. It’s not hard to get people to volunteer for things like feeding the homeless or donating to worthy causes but when I have talked to others about standing up for our neighbors in the womb, the comment I get so often is “I am not called to that.” I wonder, did the Good Samaritan stop and ask God if he was called to a ditch ministry? Does this verse say love your neighbor if you are called to meet that particular need?
Every day in this country, thousands of our neighbors face a horrific and unjust death. Every day thousands of our neighbors are lying in a ditch, so to speak, with no one willing to stop and help them. Or do they? I say, they do have someone who can stop to help but they just won’t stop.
Is there an abortion mill close to you? Do you pass one on your way to work every day? Do you ever stop to think what is really going on in that building? Inside that building, your neighbor is about to brutally butchered. For the most part we do not want to think about this because it makes us sick. We would never want to actually see what goes on in that building because it is too disturbing. So we just pass by thinking “what a shame”?
What if it was you in that building and some man or woman was about to tear you limb from limb? What if your neighbors were passing by and knew what was going on but didn’t stop because they were too busy or did not want to think about what was going to happen to you? That seems ridiculous to think about. Or what if it was a daycare center and we saw a man walking with a butcher knife, heading toward kids on the playground? I would bet money you would stop and do whatever you could to prevent him from reaching those innocent children.
Unfortunately, the children entering into the abortion mill are not seen and we don’t get that emotional bond that we would if we saw them playing on a playground. The fact is that abortion has become so political that so many of us are able to pretend we don’t know what is really going on in that building. If we truly saw abortion for what it actually is, I do not believe it would still be legal anywhere.
So I ask you, who is your neighbor? Are you willing to love your neighbor as yourself? Are you willing to live by what Christ taught us in this parable of the Good Samaritan?
LifeNews Note: Bryan Kemper is the youth outreach and street activism director for Priests for Life and the founder of its youth outreach Stand True.
The post Jesus Said Love Your Neighbor, Which Includes Unborn Babies appeared first on LifeNews.com.
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Site: Zero HedgeTrump: I Warned Netanyahu Against Iran StrikeTyler Durden Wed, 05/28/2025 - 18:00
President Donald Trump said Wednesday that he has told Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to not attack Iran, or at least to hold off any preemptive action to give more time for Washington and Tehran to forge a nuclear agreement.
“Well, I’d like to be honest. Yes, I did. Next question, please?”...and also: "I told him this would be inappropriate to do right now because we're very close to a solution," Trump told reporters at the White House when asked about the issue.
Q: "On Iran, did you warn Prime Minister Netanyahu against taking some sort of actions that could disrupt the talks there in a phone call last week?"
— CSPAN (@cspan) May 28, 2025
President Trump: "Well, I'd like to be honest. Yes I did." pic.twitter.com/yoXB3t90SZ"It’s not a warning," Trump added. "I said, ‘I don’t think it’s appropriate.’ I just said I don’t think it’s appropriate. We’re having very good discussions with them, and I don’t think it’s appropriate right now."
The question to Trump was prompted by an Axios report published the day prior:
President Trump cautioned Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in a phone call last week not to take any action that could jeopardize negotiations between the U.S. and Iran on a new nuclear deal, a White House official and a source familiar with the details tell Axios.
Trump's message was "he doesn't want him to antagonize at a time when he is trying to solve problems," the official said.
Trump also repeated his tone optimism on the talks, telling reporters, “We’re doing very well with Iran.”
The White House's messaging to Israel has been to say "stay united and let this process play out" - and that the process needs some time. Of course, Trump has still warned that "other options" are on the table should Tehran refuse to make progress.
The Iranians have said they are willing to guarantee (and allow monitoring) that uranium enrichment is only for peaceful nuclear energy production, and will pledge no development of nukes. Critics of Trump point that this was essentially the 2015 JCPOA nuclear which the first Trump administration pulled out of in April 2018.
Plenty of indirect 'threats' were peppered into Trump's Wednesday Iran comments:
He seems to suggest that his conditions for a deal with Iran include the US being allowed to come in and “take whatever we want, we can blow up whatever we want.” Seems unlikely that Iran would consent for the US to come in and “blow up” its infrastructure pic.twitter.com/jxHUM8oljw
— Michael Tracey (@mtracey) May 28, 2025Also on Wednesday, the head of the United Nations' atomic watchdog, the IAEA's Rafael Mariano Grossi, said that "the jury is still out" on negotiations. "For the moment, the jury is still out. We don't know whether there's going to be an agreement or not," Grossi told journalists in Vienna.
"I think that is an indication of a willingness to come to an agreement. And I think that, in and by itself, is something possible," he added of ongoing meetings.
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Site: LifeNews
The Texas House failed to pass the Woman and Child Protection Act (SB 2880/HB 5510) on Tuesday, leaving preborn children prey to mail-order abortion pills for the foreseeable future. The bill died after Chairman Ken King (R–Canadian) slow-walked the measure for nearly a month, despite pressure from hundreds of Pro-Life Texans.
The Woman and Child Protection Act ranked as the top Pro-Life bill of 2025, as it would have stopped the biggest threat to preborn children: abortion pills sent to Texas from other states and countries. Instead of brick-and-mortar clinics, abortion groups sell these deadly pills online or sneak them over the border.
Yet King ignored the danger, delaying a vote on the Pro-Life bill in his committee for weeks. Only when the legislative clock was about to run out did he move the Woman and Child Protection Act forward—far too late. The bill then stalled between King’s State Affairs Committee and the Calendars Committee. King’s apathy meant the Pro-Life policy never reached the House floor for a vote.
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Without the Woman and Child Protection Act, 19,000 babies may die by abortion pills per year in Texas unless the governor intervenes. At the same time, these drugs pose serious risks to mothers—sending nearly 1 in 9 women to the emergency room.
The Woman and Child Protection Act would have made Texas the first state to effectively combat the growing threat of illegal chemical abortions by:
- Allowing Texans to sue abortion pill manufacturers and distributors;
- Giving women and families the right to sue for wrongful deaths or injuries caused by these drugs; and
- Empowering the attorney general to prosecute abortion pill traffickers directly.
Despite overwhelming grassroots and institutional support—including from Republican lawmakers, Human Coalition, Students for Life of America, Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America, Right to Life Across Texas, and the Texas GOP—House leadership let the bill die.
If nothing is done, an estimated 38,000 abortion pills will be trafficked into Texas between now and the next regular legislative session in 2027—killing babies and endangering their mothers.
The only way Texas lawmakers could save children from chemical abortions before 2027 is if Governor Abbott calls a special session for the Woman and Child Protection Act.
This opportunity must not be ignored while lives are on the line.
The post Texas House Kills Bill That Could Have Saved 19,000 Babies a Year appeared first on LifeNews.com.
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Site: Zero HedgeFBI Probing Allegations Of 'Targeted Violence' Against Religious Groups in Seattle: OfficialTyler Durden Wed, 05/28/2025 - 17:40
Authored by Zachary Stieber via The Epoch Times,
The FBI is investigating after officials said a religious event in Seattle was disrupted by violence, a top FBI official said on May 27.
“We have asked our team to fully investigate allegations of targeted violence against religious groups at the Seattle concert,” Dan Bongino, the FBI’s deputy director, said on social media platform X. “Freedom of religion isn’t a suggestion.”
The office of Seattle Mayor Bruce Harrell did not respond to a request for comment by publication time.
Organizers said the May 24 event was held at Cal Anderson Park in support of “the sanctity of human life, the sacrality of biological gender, the importance of the nuclear family, and the right to freedom of speech and religion.”
They said the movement organizing the event stands against indoctrination of children “by a liberal, political, and sexual agenda that seeks to destroy their God-given identities.”
Counterprotesters, including the Freedom Socialist Party, said their demonstration was meant to “keep your bibles off our bodies.”
Clashes at the event resulted in 23 arrests, the Seattle Police Department said. One juvenile was released. The rest of those arrested were charged with assault and obstruction.
The White House Faith Office said in a statement on Tuesday that it condemned “the violent disruption of Seattle’s MayDay USA worship event.”
“We affirm the fundamental rights to free speech and religious freedom for all Americans, as protected by federal law. Public officials must protect the inalienable rights of all citizens, regardless of their faith or religious beliefs. We urge the City of Seattle to uphold these rights at all faith-based events, safeguarding the ability of people of faith to gather and express their beliefs without fear of harassment or violence,” the office said.
After the event, Harrell, a Democrat, called it a “far-right rally” that he said was meant “to provoke a reaction by promoting beliefs that are inherently opposed to our city’s values, in the heart of Seattle’s most prominent LGBTQ+ neighborhood.”
He said that anarchists infiltrated counterprotesters and “inspired violence,” which led to officers making arrests and asking organizers to end the event early. The request was accepted.
Organizers said in a statement to news outlets that “under Mayor Harrell’s leadership, the city of Seattle has continued its spiral into lawlessness and dysfunction while the First Amendment rights of citizens to peacefully assemble has been disregarded.”
The Seattle mayor’s office later released statements from some faith leaders that offered support for Harrell and criticized the event organizers.
Russell Johnson, the lead pastor at Pursuit NW, said on X that Harrell should apologize to Christians in the state “for his bigoted remarks after folks who were holding a peaceful worship event at Cal Anderson Park were violently assaulted for the high crime of expressing their deeply held religious beliefs in the form of a permitted worship event on city property.”
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Site: LifeNews
Missouri Right to Life welcomes the Missouri Supreme Court Decision on Tuesday, ordering a Jackson County judge to vacate the preliminary injunctions that she had entered earlier this year in which she declared the Missouri abortion ban and all of Missouri’s health and safety regulations unconstitutional under Amendment 3.
This decision will save lives of preborn babies and the health and safety of Missouri Women.
Among the regulations that the judge had declared unconstitutional included requirements that:
- Only doctors perform abortions.
- Surgical instruments be sterilized before use.
- Doctors examine the mother to determine the gestational age of the unborn child and to identify any medical risk before performing an abortion.
- Ultrasounds only be performed by licensed medical professionals.
- Abortion clinics have emergency trays and emergency supplies.
- Doctors obtain informed consent prior to performing an abortion.
HELP LIFENEWS SAVE BABIES FROM ABORTION! Please help LifeNews.com with a donation!
The Missouri Supreme Court’s ruling came as a result of an appeal filed by Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey, utilizing the authority granted by the Missouri Right to Life backed Senate Bill 22, in which the Attorney General challenged the Jackson County preliminary injunctions.
The Missouri Supreme Court sent the case back to the Jackson County court with instructions to reevaluate Planned Parenthood’s request for preliminary injunction based on several criteria, including if Planned Parenthood would suffer irreparable harm without the injunction and also to balance that harm with any injury that an injunction would inflict on other interested parties.
Planned Parenthood had previously stated in court filings that they could not comply with the health and safety standards listed above and after the ruling stated they were cancelling abortion appointments and would cease abortions, the killing of innocent unborn children, until further order of the court.
This is a great victory for life!
LifeNews Note: Steve Rupp is President of Missouri Right to Life.
The post Missouri Babies are Safe From Abortion Again Thanks to State Supreme Court appeared first on LifeNews.com.
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Site: Zero HedgeZelensky Proposes 3-Way Meeting With Trump, Putin As US Rejects More Anti-Moscow SanctionsTyler Durden Wed, 05/28/2025 - 17:20
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has called for a three-way summit with Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin at a moment aerial strikes between the warring sides have been escalating for several consecutive days. "If Putin is not comfortable with a bilateral meeting, or if everyone wants it to be a trilateral meeting, I don't mind. I am ready for any format," Zelensky said Tuesday, in comments which were published Wednesday.
Zelensky said he's ready for a "Trump-Putin-me" meeting, but simultaneously called for Washington to slap more sanctions on the Kremlin. "We are waiting for sanctions from the United States of America," the Ukrainian leader said. And Trump's response?... "If I think I’m close to getting a [peace] deal, I don’t wanna screw it up by doing that," he told reporters at the White House.
Reporter: What’s stopping you from imposing sanctions on Russia?
Trump: If I think I’m close to a deal, I don’t want to screw it up. Let me tell you: I’m much tougher than those you’re talking about. You have to know when to use it. I think it would hurt the deal.
‘I don’t want to screw it up’ – Trump explains why he won’t impose sanctions
— Zlatti71 (@Zlatti_71) May 28, 2025
– What’s stopping you from imposing sanctions on Russia?
– If I think I’m close to a deal, I don’t want to screw it up. Let me tell you: I’m much tougher than those you’re talking about. You have to… pic.twitter.com/WgSutLzcTbMainstream media and pundits have also of late been pressuring the White House to escalate the economic war against Russia, despite some seventeen waves of sanctions since the conflict began not doing much if anything to change the actual course of the war.
Zelensky had also said in his comments, "Trump confirmed that if Russia does not stop, sanctions will be imposed. We discussed two main aspects with him – energy and the banking system. Will the U.S. be able to impose sanctions on these two sectors? I would very much like that."
The Ukrainian leader is at the same time alleging that Russia is surging more troops to the battlefield:
On the battlefield, Zelenskyy said Russia was "amassing" more than 50,000 troops on the front line around the northeastern Sumy border region, where Moscow's army has captured a number of settlements as it seeks to establish what Putin has called a "buffer zone" inside Ukrainian territory.
NATO appears to be 'answering' with a build-up of its own, per Reuters on Wednesday:
NATO will ask Germany to provide seven more brigades, or some 40,000 troops, for the alliance's defencs, three sources told Reuters, under new targets for weapons and troop numbers that its members' defence ministers are set to agree on next week.
The alliance is dramatically increasing its military capability targets as it views Russia as a much greater threat since its 2022 full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
So Trump's instincts to avoid sanctions, seeking to prevent further uncontrollable escalation at this sensitive point, are correct - at least from the perspective of avoiding action which would unnecessarily sabotage the chance for peace.
After all, there's little the United States can do and each option is a 'bad' option, given Russia is in control on the ground in the Donbass. However, the US can lean on Kiev to make territorial concessions, given this is likely the only realistic option for permanent peace.
Meanwhile, Kremlin officials have been saying this week that they are concerned that the intelligence being provided to Trump is highly skewed in a hawkish direction. Lavrov has asserted that info given to the US Commander-in-Chief is likely "filtered" - and that he doesn't have the full picture on the intensity of ongoing Ukrainian attacks on Russian territory.
VERY interesting.
— Clandestine (@WarClandestine) May 28, 2025
Lavrov alleges that Trump is not being fully briefed on everything regarding the situation in Ukraine, and that bad actors are giving him information “through a filter” in order to coerce the Trump admin into supporting Ukraine.
pic.twitter.com/Z7N6m6EeDKAs an example of these kinds of recent attacks, the below shows a major strike on a site dubbed Russia's "Silicon Valley"....
Moments ago, Ukrainian attack drones hit a major Russian cruise missile manufacturer north of Moscow, the Dubna Machine-Building Plant.
— OSINTtechnical (@Osinttechnical) May 28, 2025
At least one drone slammed into the complex that produces long-range cruise missiles used to strike Ukraine. pic.twitter.com/V7iHp4N11e"A major Ukrainian drone assault targeted the city of Zelenograd, known as Russia’s 'Silicon Valley,' as well as a machine-building plant north of Moscow, Russian media and Ukrainian officials reported Wednesday," a regional source reported.
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