Dear Weekend Jolter,
Who’s up for a round of armchair sociology?
Say the world is struck by a calamity unprecedented in the modern age, and, in response, good citizens are instructed to work from home if possible and keep their children home from school; college grads are allowed to pause student-loan payments; and landlords are told not to evict tenants for falling behind on rent.
The ascent of Iran’s nuclear program under the watch of the Biden administration stands as a grim illustration of its failure and inadequacy. Iran’s mullahs appear to have been tacitly handed an alarming green light to pursue their nuclear ambitions with impunity. The bleak reality is that time is rapidly running out for concerted action to stop Iran’s march towards acquiring nuclear weapons capability. The Biden administration’s response, however, has been marked by silence, massive funding of Iran and a conspicuous absence of intervention.
Downtown Los Angeles has been described as ‘third world’ after shocking footage revealed a homeless encampment with open fires in the street and trash-covered sidewalks.
The startling video, posted to X by Fox News reporter Bill Melugin, shows dozens of homeless people sitting and standing on filthy sidewalks on the corner of San Pedro Street and 6th Street in the Skid Row neighborhood of LA.
Some are seen standing around an open fire in the street, just moments away from the Midnight Mission, a $17 million center for the homeless.
Good morning from downtown LA… pic.twitter.com/8vxnaD9moO
— Bill Melugin (@BillMelugin_) March 19, 2024
The Biden administration in recent days quietly authorized the transfer of billions of dollars in bombs and fighter jets to Israel despite Washington’s concerns about an anticipated military offensive in southern Gaza that could threaten the lives of hundreds of thousands of Palestinian civilians.
The new arms packages include more than 1,800 MK84 2,000-pound bombs and 500 MK82 500-pound bombs, according to Pentagon and State Department officials familiar with the matter. The 2,000 pound bombs have been linked to previous mass-casualty events throughout Israel’s military campaign in Gaza. These officials, like some others, spoke to The Washington Post on the condition of anonymity because recent authorizations have not been disclosed publicly.
“… Khamenei believes that the US has lost all influence in the region, and that it “is now left with no option but to withdraw” altogether. With Joe Biden in the White House, Khamenei isn’t far off regarding America’s loss of influence. And as for withdrawing from the region, America isn’t adequately standing up for Israel nor even against its own enemies, so it has a weak presence.
It’s hard to avoid the impression that Joe Biden’s plan to deploy the U.S. military to construct a humanitarian pier in Gaza wasn’t that well thought out.
The pier proposal, which the president revealed during this year’s State of the Union Address, conflicts with his desire to limit America’s direct involvement in Israel’s defensive war against Hamas. Soon after the announcement, independent reports indicated that the project would take two months to complete and involve 1,100 U.S. service personnel. According to Israel’s Channel 14, the Biden administration has sought the services of a Qatar-based firm to build the thing — “a company controlled and sponsored by Hamas,” according to correspondent Baruch Yedid. Counterproductive though that might have been, it would preserve Biden’s objective of ensuring that no U.S. troops make landfall on the Gaza Strip.
Ohio Republicans have a new candidate for US Senator: Bernie Moreno, who was endorsed by Donald Trump over establishment-backed Matt Dolan. With Moreno’s victory in last week’s hotly contested primary, the party’s MAGA faction has further entrenched its hold on this pivotal Midwestern state, with its large share of factory towns and labour voters. And should Moreno prevail over the Democratic incumbent Sherrod Brown in November, he would go on to join Ohio’s sitting Junior Senator J.D. Vance, probably the most intellectually sophisticated champion of America First nationalism in Congress.
At the request of the Biden administration, Qatar has agreed to take charge of operating and financing a temporary pier in the Gaza Strip. Qatar agreed to run the port on condition that the construction work go to a company controlled and sponsored by Hamas, according to Israel’s Channel 14.
The Biden administration’s decision to involve Qatar, Hamas’s major funder and ally, in the project is akin to putting the fox in charge of the chicken coop. This is a big, deliberate finger from the Biden administration not just in the in the eye of Israel but also in the eyes of America’s allies in the Gulf who do not support terrorists, as well as for US national security.
As I noted on Tuesday, Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s selection of entrepreneur Nicole Shanahan as his running mate was bad news for Joe Biden. Rather than pick a centrist or even a moderate conservative to establish a formidable unity ticket, he chose a radical leftist. The choice further solidifies the ticket’s progressive bona fides, which is likely to turn off conservatives who’d been flirting with supporting Kennedy in November because they don’t like Donald Trump.
The leading advocates of mandatory electrification evince a profound hostility toward cars and the people who like them.
Like many Americans, I have all manner of problems with the Biden administration’s ongoing attempt to coerce us into electric vehicles over the next decade. I object to the federal government presuming that its role in our lives includes telling us what we may drive; I am unpersuaded that the law the White House is using accords Washington, D.C., the power to remake the car industry; and I am bothered by the false assumption that, because upper-middle-class people seem to like Teslas, the average citizen is yearning for his Ford Explorer or Toyota Corolla to be converted into a glorified golf cart. But, in addition to all of these more reasoned explanations for my opposition, I have another: I like cars.
It happened in Israel, and it happened in Moscow, and it’s going to happen here in America – again, and exponentially worse. The jihadis’ merciless war against the West – the Muslim fanatics are not so finicky as we are about our distinctions between the Jewish state, Russia, and us, the Great Satan – did not end when the regime media started covering other things. We may have fled Afghanistan and Libya and largely pulled out of Iraq, but that war is still going on. It’s going to go on until we decisively win it. But unfortunately, our ruling class refuses to decisively win it. In fact, our ruling class actively undermines attempts to win it. And it refuses to prepare for what’s coming.
h/t Mauser
If there is one thing FBI Director Christopher Wray has been consistent on, it is the threat of Communist China across a wide range of fronts. At an unprecedented event on July 6, 2022, Wray and his British counterpart, MI5 Director General Ken McCallum, held a joint public appearance – the first ever — to discuss the growing security challenge posed by China. Evidently, they saw the matter as urgent.
After failing to prevent the U.N. Security Council’s ceasefire resolution from passing, the White House doubled down by accusing Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of trying to manufacture a crisis in Israel-U.S. relations after he canceled a delegation to the White House.
A Monday United Nations resolution, largely dictated by America, demands a two-week cease-fire in the Israel-Hamas war start immediately while all 134 Israeli hostages are released. America abstained from voting on the resolution, and even as Hamas refuses to accept a cease-fire, the Biden administration is putting increasing pressures on Israel to end major military operations in Gaza, as the rift between the countries widens.
The US government has released images of seven alleged Chinese hackers wanted on charges of infiltrating the communications of targets in Britain and America over a 14-year period.
In a newly unsealed indictment, the Department of Justice (DoJ) accused the men of taking part in a state-sponsored hacking ring, known to US authorities as APT 31 or by the codename “Violet Typhoon”.
The documents lay bare the scale of China’s illicit incursion into Western public life, through the use of malicious emails designed to harvest data on their targets.
