Why is French President Emmanuel Macron cozying up to China while trashing his oldest ally, the United States?
Why is there suddenly talk of discarding the dollar as the global currency?
Why are Japan and India shrugging that they cannot follow the United States’ lead in boycotting Russian oil?
Why is the president of Brazil traveling to China to pursue what he calls a “beautiful relationship”?
h/t XC
The former Biden administration official accused in two separate stolen-luggage cases in different states was ordered to pay one of their victims back — but given no jail time — Tuesday after they pleaded no contest to the bizarre theft.
Samuel Brinton, who is nonbinary and uses they/them pronouns, was given a 180-day suspended jail sentence for lifting a woman’s suitcase from Las Vegas‘ Harry Reid International Airport in July 2022, according to court records obtained by Fox 5.
As part of the plea deal, Brinton was charged with a misdemeanor instead of a felony.
America’s cultural cancer manifests itself in many ways, but no symptom is more telling than our low military recruitment. Last year the Army hit only 75% of its recruiting target, while other services had to scramble to meet theirs. This year looks to be worse. The all-volunteer force, formed 50 years ago, is in peril and threatens our ability to defend ourselves in a dangerous world. What does this say about America?
And the racist pro-crime Left wants more.
Over the last decade, BLM, and assorted leftist and libertarian groups dismantled our criminal justice system. Police forces were defunded, pro-crime prosecutors refused to lock up criminals, federal and state prison systems released tens of thousands of them, and a wave of legislative decriminalization legalized everything from shoplifting, to drug dealing and mugging.
The Pierre Elliott Trudeau Foundation has asked the Auditor-General to investigate a controversial donation from two wealthy Chinese businessmen, who were acting at the behest of the government of China.
A foundation official said the chair of the foundation, Ted Johnson, wrote to Auditor-General Karen Hogan on Friday to request a formal audit of the non-profit organization, which was set up with a $125-million endowment from the Liberal government of Jean Chrétien in 2002. The Globe and Mail is not naming the official, because they were not authorized to speak publicly.
Reparations Task Force Members Blast Media For Focusing On $800 Billion Estimate
Members of the California Reparations Task Force criticized the media this week for focusing on the $800 billion proposed estimate of reparations, calling the monetary figure the “least important” part of the proposal.
Since the Task Force was first put together in late 2020, following Gov. Gavin Newsom signing AB 3121 by then-assemblywoman Shirley Weber (D-San Diego), they have considered and recommended reparations, monetary or otherwise, for African-Americans living in California, for discriminatory practices and slavery of the past, despite that California was never a slave state. While initially encompassing all people of African descent, the group of those qualified to receive reparations was significantly narrowed in March 2022 when the task force voted to limit the possible reparations to those who are an African American descendant of an enslaved person or free Black person living in the US prior to the end of the 19th century.
Katie Telford wanted to be very clear, she could neither confirm nor deny any allegations about China’s election interference.
Telford, chief of staff to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau since he was first elected in 2015, was testifying before a Commons committee on Friday.
Trans activist says not giving kids puberty blockers is a form of mutilation pic.twitter.com/VCBpOueoBx
— Libs of TikTok (@libsoftiktok) April 14, 2023
Inside the assault on meritocracy
In the pre-modern world positions in society were largely inherited. Some people were born with saddles on their backs and others booted and spurred to ride them — “The rich man in his castle / The poor man at his gate / God made them high or lowly / And ordered their estate,” in the words of the Victorian hymn. The meritocratic idea was the dynamite which blew up this view of the world and provided the materials for the modern era. But its reign is threatened as never before.
President Joe Biden is set to “transform” and “remake” the entire auto industry — “first with carrots, now with sticks” — notes the Washington Post, as if dictating the output of a major industry is within the governing purview of the executive branch. The Environmental Protection Agency is proposing draconian emissions limits for vehicles, ensuring that 67% of all new passenger cars and trucks produced within nine years will be electric. This is state coercion. It is undemocratic. We are not governed; we are managed.
Oceanographers working off the coast of Oregon have made a potentially alarming discovery. They’ve found a vent in the ocean floor that is pushing out warm water. On the surface, that may not sound all that remarkable or dangerous, but the chemical composition of the water suggests that it’s coming up from a deep vent and it’s located on top of the Cascadia Subduction Zone.
The US justice department has charged 28 members of Mexico’s powerful Sinaloa cartel, including sons of notorious drug lord Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán, in a sprawling fentanyl-trafficking investigation.
The attorney general, Merrick Garland, announced the charges on Friday alongside the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) chief, Anne Milgram, and other top federal prosecutors. The charges were filed against cartel leaders, as well alleged chemical suppliers, lab managers, fentanyl traffickers, security leaders, financiers and weapons traffickers.
Since 1992 and the Earth Summit in Rio, the West has been living under the spell of a “climate emergency” that is repeatedly renewed but never happened. Since then, the West – and only the West — has set itself the main goal of reducing CO2 emissions (and other greenhouse gases, implied in the rest of this article).
It is now 2023, time for a review …
ABC’s Jimmy Kimmel took time out of his Wednesday monologue to attack a college student who attended a recent Mike Pence speech at the University of Alabama for daring to be fearful that Democrats were redefining what it meant to be a woman. For Kimmel, the concern highlights why universities should “have another look at the minimum GPA required” for admission.
Closing the Canada-U.S. border to asylum seekers is projected to cost Canadian taxpayers at least $60 million over 10 years. But that analysis doesn’t include costs for the Mounties to beef up “challenging” enforcement efforts.
In March, Ottawa and Washington expanded a bilateral agreement to turn back irregular migrants trying to cross into the other country for protection, but a cost-benefit analysis has only been recently published in the Canada Gazette.
