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Daily Broadside | The UniParty Passes Unconstitutional Legislation Banning Speech Protected Under the First Amendment

A noble cause—outlawing antisemitism—produces one of the worst pieces of legislation ever written.

The House of Representatives passed a major antisemitism bill on Wednesday, which would crack down on antisemitism on college campuses as protests rage nationwide.

The bill, introduced by New York Republican Rep. Mike Lawler passed in a bipartisan 320-91 vote, per The Hill, and will now go to the Senate. The legislation was opposed by 21 Republicans, and 70 Democrats.

The legislation seeks to make the Department of Education adopt the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s definition of antisemitism when enforcing the 1964 Civil Rights Act on college campuses.

The bipartisan legislation is called the “Antisemitism Awareness Act.” But there are a lot of problems with the law as written, including the fact that the definition is not even included in legislation, but outsourced to an international body that has no legal standing to tell us what we can or cannot say. Matt Walsh makes this point in his blog post on Thursday.

In addition, the legislation just passed by the House with the majority of Republican and Democrats supporting it, says that the examples given by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance are also to be considered part of this law.

Do you know what one of the “examples” of antisemitism is given by the IHRA?

Personally, I believe that all of us, Jew and Gentile, killed Jesus, but this is insane. If I were to stand up in a church and read John 19:7, I could conceivably be arrested under this “hate speech” law.

The Jewish leaders insisted, “We have a law, and according to that law he must die, because he claimed to be the Son of God.”

I detest antisemitism, but this bill is unconstitutional on its face. It also directly attacks the First Amendment which protects all speech, including speech we find detestable.

Not only that, but what if the IHRA decides to change their definition of antisemitism? Or to add examples that target the Christian church even more directly? Worse, does the U.S. law automatically get updated with the revised definition and examples? Is it a “living and breathing” bill that can change based on the whims of people in other countries, including Israel?

We should all oppose this bill, like Thomas Massie, who posted a thread worth reading on X.

We are living in very dangerous times, my friends, because we have a bunch of morons running the country who have no understanding of the First Amendment or of the constitution they swore to protect, defend, and uphold.

Have a good weekend.

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Daily Broadside | Brandon Wants to Import Palestinians Into US On Top Of the Millions of Foreigners He’s Already Forced On Us

Is there no limit to the destructive ends of this lawless “administration”?

White House considers accepting some Palestinians from Gaza as refugees amid Israel-Hamas war

People from Gaza who pass a series of eligibility, medical and security screenings would qualify to fly to the US with refugee status

The Biden administration is considering welcoming certain Palestinians to the U.S. as refugees as they seek to escape war-torn Gaza amid the ongoing war in the Middle East between Israel and Hamas.

Senior officials across several federal U.S. agencies have discussed in recent weeks the details of potential options to accept Palestinians from Gaza who have immediate family members who are American citizens or permanent U.S. residents, internal federal government documents show, according to CBS News.

One proposal involves using the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program to bring Palestinians with U.S. connections who have escaped Gaza and entered neighboring Egypt, the documents reveal.

U.S. officials have also considered welcoming additional Palestinians out of Gaza and are processing them as refugees if they have American relatives, according to the documents. This proposal would have to rely on coordination with Egypt, which has thus far been reluctant to welcome large numbers of people from Gaza.

Say, has anyone asked Egypt why they are “thus far reluctant” to take in Gazans?

Never mind, I’ll tell you. It’s because more than 70 percent of Palestinians believe the October 7, 2023 Hamas attack on Israel was justified. Egypt sure as heck doesn’t want any terrorist sympathizers in their country.

But the hacks running our country know that bringing them here fits perfectly with their plan to undermine our stability and freedoms. I mean, just look at the Pax Americana currently being expressed at our universities in mostly peaceful anti-semitic protests!

Yes, please, more of that!

Oh, and get a look at more of the lawless population displacement this completely treasonous junta is conducting.

The DHS data shows that during an 8 month stretch from January through August 2023, roughly 200,000 migrants flew into the U.S. via the program, with 80% of them, (161,562) arriving in the state of Florida in four cities: Miami, Ft. Lauderdale, Orlando, & Tampa.

The top 15 cities migrants flew into, & the numbers during this 8 month window, are below. 1) Miami, FL: 91,821 2) Ft. Lauderdale, FL: 60,461 3) New York City, NY: 14,827 4) Houston, TX: 7,923 5) Orlando, FL: 6,043 6) Los Angeles, CA: 3,271 7) Tampa, FL: 3,237 8) Dallas, TX: 2,256 9) San Francisco, CA: 2,052 10) Atlanta, GA: 1,796 11) Newark, NJ: 1,498 12) Washington, D.C.: 1,472 13) Chicago, IL: 496 14) Las Vegas, NV: 483 15) Austin, TX: 171

I’ve attached the raw DHS data provided in the subpoena response showing all of the locations the migrants flew into during these 8 months in the chart below.

DHS also revealed in the subpoena response that as of October 2023, there was a backlog about 1.6 million applicants waiting for DHS approval to fly to the U.S. via the parole program.

Why do you think they’ve flown the trespassing foreigners into these cities?

No, wait, I’ll tell you. It’s because they 1) will be hard to find and deport, 2) will turn the cities blue and bluer, and 3) will further stress our economy and welfare system. It’s all designed to break us down.

We’re experiencing the overthrow of our constitutional republic in real time.

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Daily Broadside |  250-Year-Old Glass Bottles Filled With Cherry Preserves at Mount Vernon and the Usual Suspects Make Sure to Mention Slavery

Not my typical fare but I call your attention to it because woke institutions need to poison everything. First, though, from the Mount Vernon Ladies’ Association, which doesn’t appear to have been infiltrated by the cultural Marxists (yet).

As part of the landmark privately funded $40 million Mansion Revitalization Project at George Washington’s Mount Vernon, archaeologists have made a significant discovery of two intact European-manufactured bottles in the Mansion cellar. The dark green glass bottles were found upright and sealed, each containing liquid. The bottle shapes are characteristic of styles from the 1740s – 1750s and were recovered from a pit where they may have been forgotten and eventually buried beneath a brick floor laid in the 1770s.

[…]

“As we conduct a historic preservation effort at the iconic home of America’s first President and revolutionary hero, we have been deliberate and intentional about carefully excavating areas of potential disruption,” said Mount Vernon President & CEO Doug Bradburn. “Consequently, we have made a number of useful discoveries including this blockbuster find of two fully intact glass bottles containing liquid that have not been seen since before the war for American independence.”

The dark green bottles are described as containing whole cherries, pits, stems and a “gooey residue,” accompanied by the scent of cherry blossoms. I know what you’re thinking: could these be the cherries from the tree that the young rapscallion George Washington chopped down, but could not lie about having done so? Wouldn’t that be the find of the century?

I hate to burst your cherry-colored bubble, but no.

“As the bottles are shipped off for a complete scientific analysis, we want to share our findings and next steps for this historic archaeological and preservation initiative at Mount Vernon. This discovery comes at the beginning of an exciting and transformational project to strengthen and restore the home of the nation’s first president so that it will be stronger than ever when we celebrate America’s 250th birthday in 2026. This historic preservation project is our birthday gift to America,” Bradburn said.

Don’t forget to mark your calendars. If the country is still standing on July 4, 2026, under a second Trump administration, you may be able to find a celebration unmarred by LGTBQWERTY+ and Palestinian flags where you can gather with friends around your white supremacist grill.

Of course, it’s not enough to just enjoy finding a couple of intact 250-year-old bottles of cherry preserves in the basement of our first president’s house. The enablers in the Leftist press have to throw in some reference to his sins. Can’t let you honor a man who is dishonorable.

Smithsonian Magazine (referencing WaPo): “The cherries weren’t picked by Washington, but by one of the hundreds of enslaved individuals living at Mount Vernon at the time, according to the Washington Post.”

Fox News: “Historians believe that the discovery will not only shed light on how food was preserved at Mount Vernon, but may also reveal new details about slavery on the plantation.”

The Guardian: “The bottles had been imported from England during the colonial era and the fruit could very well have been picked by enslaved people on the estate, the Washington family’s grand mansion overlooking the Potomac River near Washington DC.”

Yahoo News: “The liquid and cherries in the two bottles already discovered has been poured out. It’ll be examined and studied, as historians aim to study everything from food preservation to how enslaved people worked at Mount Vernon.”

USA Today: “‘We’re the first people to touch these objects since they were put in the ground by an enslaved person,’ Boroughs said.”

Someone without an agenda would simply say in that last example, “We’re the first people to touch these objects since they were first buried.”

Exciting find. Garbage media.

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Daily Broadside | Trump’s 2020 Lawyer Is Suspended But Won’t Back Down

John Eastman represented president Donald Trump in the wake of the 2020 election, challenging the election’s integrity. It’s wound up costing him personally, and The Epoch Times just published a feature about his experience. (If you have a subscription, you can read it here; otherwise I think it’s paywalled.)

Last summer, the State Bar charged Mr. Eastman, the former Dean of Chapman University Law School, with 11 counts of misconduct related to his role in representing former President Donald Trump after the 2020 presidential election.

But, Mr. Eastman told The Epoch Times in an exclusive interview on April 5, he has no regrets about representing President Trump nor for alleging fraud and questioning the election results.

“No. Absolutely not,” he said bluntly. “What I saw at the time raised real serious questions in my mind about the validity of the election.”

Since then, Mr. Eastman said his investigation has confirmed his suspicions “tenfold.”

Funny how, given enough time, anyone who looks at the evidence with an open mind comes away convinced that there are serious questions about how Brandon won that election.

Mr. Eastman, who was accused of not having the evidence to back up those allegations, said he will appeal Judge Yvette Roland’s March 27 ruling recommending disbarment, but in the meantime his law license has been suspended on “involuntary inactive enrollment,” which means he can’t practice law in California.

[…]

Democrat-appointed Judge Roland ruled that Mr. Eastman broke ethics rules by advancing President Trump’s challenges to the integrity of the 2020 election.

The judge stated in her ruling that “despite compelling evidence against him … Eastman remains defiant, refusing to acknowledge any impropriety whatsoever in his actions surrounding his efforts to dispute the 2020 presidential election results.”

“His lack of insight into the wrongfulness of his misconduct is deeply troubling,” she wrote.

“Eastman continues to hold the view that his statements were factually and legally justified. He demonstrated disdain for these proceedings by characterizing them as a political persecution, claiming that the disciplinary charges against him contained false and misleading statements, and that those who brought them should themselves be disbarred,” Judge Roland wrote in her ruling.

His “complete denial of wrongdoing, coupled with his attempts to discredit legitimate disciplinary proceedings are concerning,” she wrote.

We don’t live in a free society anymore. The Marxists are going after the professional classes who represent the opposition. When they’re either jailed, disbarred or otherwise removed, they can more easily go after the armchair opinionists (like me).

Did Eastman have any compelling evidence?

Mr. Eastman drew from evidence provided by Garland Favorito, a retired information technology professional and founder of VoterGA, a nonpartisan, nonprofit election integrity group.

Mr. Favorito, is the lead plaintiff in a lawsuit filed on Dec. 23, 2020, that challenged the authenticity of 147,000 absentee ballots cast in Georgia’s Fulton County.

“He’s an independent, and he is an expert on election integrity issues, who discovered “thousands of ballots that were duplicated and counted multiple times,” in deep blue areas of Atlanta in violation of state law, Mr. Eastman said.

“We also had Michael Gableman, former Supreme Court justice of Wisconsin … who was retained by the legislature to conduct an investigation, and they discovered hundreds of thousands of illegal ballots,” he said.

Mr. Gableman uncovered alleged nursing home fraud, which Mr. Eastman said accounts for much more than the 20,000-vote margin of victory for Joe Biden, and voter turnout rates in nursing homes went from 20 to 30 percent historically to nearly 100 percent, including from within memory care wings.

“Many of the ballots are in the same handwriting, so the illegality opened the door for fraud, which Gableman proved … and it affected way more than 20,000 ballots,” he said.

“There’s no question Wisconsin was stolen. To this day, there are 120,000 more ballots than voters in Pennsylvania, a state where the margin was 80,000.”

Americans used to go to a local polling place such as a neighborhood community room at the library or the local church to vote, but in 2020 mail-in ballots were counted in much larger facilities in big cities such as Atlanta, Detroit, and Philadelphia where it would be “much easier to sneak in a pallet of ballots,” he said.

I believe that the 2020 election was stolen and that Joe Biden’s “presidency” is fraudulent. It’s the greatest fraud ever perpetrated on the American people, even beyond the presidency of B. Hussein Obama.

It will take all of us hanging together in refusing to concede that the election was stolen. The evidence is there—you’re just not allowed to see that it is. Noticing is verboten.

Have a good weekend.

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Daily Broadside | I’m Just Gonna Leave These Two Clips Right Here

We’re being “led” by a complete moron.

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Daily Broadside | Breeding “Low Emission Cattle” Is Apparently A Thing And I Can’t Even

When low wattage House Representative AOC (D-Marxist) first suggested getting rid of flatulent cows to combat “climate change” back in 2019, she was dragged by conservatives and back-pedaled from the non-binding resolution that was the precursor of the Green New Deal.

Now a group from the Curtin University Sustainability Policy Institute in Australia has published a study that suggests breeding less gaseous bovines can “permanently reduce methane production.”

New research suggests that breeding dairy cows to fart less — and, therefore, release less methane — could cut down on greenhouse gases.

The team from Curtin University Sustainability Policy Institute in Australia combed through 27 reports, drawing conclusions about various ways to curb methane emissions in the dairy and beef sectors in the country.

If I’m reading that right, this isn’t even original research. The Aussies studied other people’s studies to reach their conclusions.

Food production is one of the leading causes of climate change — livestock farming accounts for about 10% of greenhouse gas emissions — with one 2020 study finding that burps and farts from cattle, as well as manure management, are a significant contributor to global warming.

The latest study, published in the journal Climate this month and the first of its kind, suggests that transforming farmland into forest or wetland would be most effective at reducing methane, but breeding less gassy cows may also be an avenue worth exploring.

OK, first of all, cows have been been burping and farting for thousands of years and the climate has been just fine. Any change has come from the rise of technology and the internal combustible engine. It’s not the cows—but these eco-warriors just can’t help themselves from meddling with the ecosystem that God arranged.

Second, it’s not the farts that are the problem, it’s the burping.

He says he was dismayed to see Ocasio-Cortez blaming “cow farts” for greenhouse gas emissions. Technically, she’s right: As cattle digest food, they release nitrous oxide and ammonia in their manure, gases that have planet-warming potential. But the more abundant greenhouse gas, methane, comes out mostly through their burps, which makes them a more significant driver of climate change. None of this is funny to Mitloehner, by the way, whose research involves putting cows in air-tight tents to measure the content of their “eruptions.”

I mean, if you’re going to mess with the biological makeup of a cow, at least target the right end of the digestive tract.

Third, do you realize that the amount of CO2 (the other main “greenhouse gas” alongside methane and nitrous oxide) in our atmosphere is incredibly small? Rep. Doug LaMalfa (R-CA) asked a panel of “witnesses” during a House Transportation Committee meeting in March 2023, “What percent of our atmosphere is CO2, carbon dioxide?”

None of them knew. They just guessed, anywhere from 5 percent to 8 percent. LaMalfa then dropped the mic: “The answer is point-zero-four percent [0.04%]. Not 1 percent, not a half of a percent, point-zero-four percent. And it’s gone up from point-zero-three over the last couple of decades … It’s this tiny change in CO2. If we get below point-zero-two, plant life starts dying off.”

In other words, our CO2 levels are just barely above what our trees, shrubs and flowers need to survive. If anything, doesn’t it seem like we should increase our CO2 levels?

If we were to take LaMalfa’s point-zero-four percent and turn it into a number, this is what we’re talking about: 0.0004 or “four ten-thousandths.” Expressed as a fraction, 1/2500. Hardly something to be alarmed about.

Now, how much methane do you think is in the atmosphere? More than the amount of CO2? Here’s what NASA says:

Methane is an important trace gas in Earth’s atmosphere. Even though it only makes up 0.00017% (1.7 parts per million by volume) of the the atmosphere, methane traps a significant amount of heat, helping the planet remain warm and habitable. The amount of methane in the atmosphere is the result of a balance between production on the surface and destruction in the atmosphere. Methane forms when organic matter decomposes in oxygen-poor environments, such as marshes, rice paddies, or the digestive systems of cattle. It also comes from combustion (burning) of carbon-based fuels.

Oh. So “methane is an important trace gas in the Earth’s atmosphere” that keeps us warm. And it makes up even less of the atmosphere than CO2 (which, I note, is not produced by flatulent bovines). Maybe we don’t want to “permanently reduce methane production.”

Logically, shouldn’t the climate change heroes be focusing on CO2, especially since we only have (according to AOC) ten five years to save the planet?

Nope. Self-appointed busy-bodies who think they’re following “the science” are going to engineer a less farty cow to save the planet.

Frankly, I’d like them to figure out how to breed less farty people.

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Daily Broadside | If Your Kids Are Using TikTok They Are Probably Exposed to Chinese Influence Operations

So you know that I strongly oppose any more aid to Ukraine and am deeply unhappy with the $95 billion slush fund that was just passed by the U.S. House on Saturday. If I had to find a silver lining it would be this:

After weeks of being bogged down, legislation that could lead to a ban on TikTok is being fast-tracked by Congress.

The US House on Saturday approved a bill that would require the popular social media platform’s Chinese owner, ByteDance, to sell TikTok to a buyer deemed fit by US officials. The measure, which was attached to an aid package for Ukraine and Israel, now moves to the Senate.

While some oppose forcing a sale or an outright ban, there seems to be some evidence that the Chinese are using it for psychological warfare against the U.S., and particularly teens and young adults.

The bill is aimed at forcing ByteDance to sell TikTok to a buyer that American officials are OK with, as well as guaranteeing that ByteDance no longer has access to US user data or control over the TikTok algorithm that decides what videos American users see. 

TikTok is the international version of Douyin, the short-form video platform introduced in 2016 and owned by Beijing-based ByteDance. More than 150 million Americans—almost half the U.S. population—use the app. But there’s evidence that TikTok (in particular, but part of the larger impact of social media) is having a corrosive effect on the mental state of younger generations.

Concerns about the hugely popular Chinese-owned video app have been bubbling for years. Besides its effects on young people’s mental health, lawmakers, security officials, and experts have sounded the alarm that the app’s data can be accessed by Beijing and that the communist regime could use the app to run influence campaigns and spread disinformation.

[…]

Geoffrey Cain, a journalist and technologist, said the mental health of Generation Z in the United States is suffering, and a great deal of that stems from an addiction to TikTok.

By comparing the content exposure of a fake 13-year-old with parental control settings across various social media platforms, his research discovered that such users had the easiest access to harmful content on TikTok.

However, his team’s tests showed that the same harmful content available to 13-year-old American TikTok users isn’t accessible by 13-year-olds who use Douyin, China’s version. Instead, Chinese users see a Ministry of Public Security warning of inappropriateness when they try to view the same videos.

“So, clearly, the Chinese government knows that this is extremely harmful content,” Mr. Cain told The Epoch Times. “Considering that they essentially control ByteDance, why do they allow TikTok to show this in America, whereas, in China, this same material is all banned?

“They know that it has a horrible effect on kids, yet they’re okay with it being shown here.”

No. I refuse to believe it! I shan’t! The same country that’s facilitating the U.S. fentanyl crisis is intentionally dumping psychologically damaging video content on Americans, too? Tell me it ain’t so!

At a Senate hearing earlier this year, FBI Director Christopher Wray affirmed that ByteDance owns TikTok’s algorithm and that the only way the algorithm could work is if ByteDance also has access to the data collected by TikTok.

TikTok has repeatedly maintained that it is independent from its Chinese parent company. According to TikTok, its U.S. customer data are stored in Virginia and backed up in Singapore, and it has never, and will never, share its U.S. data with the Chinese regime.

However, leaked audio of internal TikTok meetings held in September 2021 mentioned a Beijing-based engineer as a “Master Admin” with access to all data, according to a BuzzFeed report. A recent article in Fortune said that a senior data scientist at TikTok reported to a ByteDance executive in Beijing in 2022.

Oh. Never mind.

It seems that TikTok could actually be a nefarious influnce operation aimed at undermining our society.

In March 2023, the Chinese regime’s Ministry of Commerce spokesperson strongly objected to any sale, citing a technology export issue. Recently, Chinese authorities also signaled to ByteDance that Beijing would choose a ban in the United States over a forced sale, according to The Wall Street Journal. Reuters reported that the CCP took a similar stance in 2020.

All this suggests that the CCP treats the algorithm like a “state secret,” according to Peter Schweizer, president of the Government Accountability Institute, a think tank.

“To me, that’s indicative of what their true interests are here. It’s not to provide a platform for commercial activity; it is to create a platform as an influence operation,” he recently told The Epoch Times.

Lots more at the link including a section on “Cognitive Warfare.”

Know what your kids are absorbing on social media because it’s possible it’s wrecking their minds.

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Daily Broadside | No Matter How Much You Hate Your Government, It’s Not Enough

On Saturday the Republican-led U.S. House of Representatives (cite) voted to pass a $95 billion aid package providing security assistance to Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan. Notably absent was any “aid” for securing our southern border from the foreign invasion taking place there.

WASHINGTON, April 20 (Reuters) – The U.S. House of Representatives on Saturday with broad bipartisan support passed a $95 billion legislative package providing security assistance to Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan, over bitter objections from Republican hardliners.

The legislation now proceeds to the Democratic-majority Senate, which passed a similar measure more than two months ago. U.S. leaders from Democratic President Joe Biden to top Senate Republican Mitch McConnell had been urging embattled Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson to bring it up for a vote.

The Senate is set to begin considering the House-passed bill on Tuesday, with some preliminary votes that afternoon. Final passage was expected sometime next week, which would clear the way for Biden to sign it into law.

The bills provide $60.84 billion to address the conflict in Ukraine, including $23 billion to replenish U.S. weapons, stocks and facilities; $26 billion for Israel, including $9.1 billion for humanitarian needs, and $8.12 billion for the Indo-Pacific, including Taiwan.

On top of loading even more debt onto the backs of the American middle class, the Democrats showed how craven and insular they are by waving the Ukrainian national flag while cheering and chanting, “Ukraine! Ukraine! Ukraine!” on the U.S. House floor.

Disgusting.

The only thing I disagree with Clay Travis about is that “our taxpayer money” doesn’t exist; it will have to be printed, just like all the other multi-billion dollar grifts they’ve passed into law. Apparently inflation is here to stay.

The vote was 311-112 with “only” 101 Republicans in support. 101 traitors to the American experiment. Democrats don’t count because we already know they are anti-American.

Marjorie Taylor Green (MTG) sponsored an amendment to the bill that would immediately defund it. Needless to say, it was voted down. But she made her point.

This is your government “at work.” They sit around on their fat butts coming up with ludicrous spending ideas, stand up and make stupid and emotional arguments in favor of the spending—unsupported by facts—then vote to spend that money they don’t have because it doesn’t have any affect on them or their families, even though it will eventually have to be paid by you and your family, and that money they voted to give away eventually makes its way into their pockets or the pockets of their benefactors.

And to think that the Boston Tea Party in 1773 was sparked by a tax of 3 pennies on every pound of tea. We literally need a modern-day Samuel Adams to lead a new Sons of Liberty movement.

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Daily Broadside | Israel Retaliates Against Iran—Sort Of

Who had the start of World War III on their 2024 bingo card?

Israel carried out limited strikes in Iran early Friday in retaliation for Tehran firing a barrage of missiles and drones at Israel late Saturday. 

Fox News Digital has confirmed there have been explosions in Isfahan province where Natanz is located though it is not clear whether it has been hit. Natanz is the site of one of Iran’s nuclear facilities, though state television has described all sites in the area as “fully safe.” 

A well-placed military source has told Fox that the strike was “limited.” Sources familiar said the U.S. was not involved and there was pre-notification to the U.S. from the Israelis. 

Pentagon officials have not confirmed the strike. The White House and the National Security Council (NSC) have declined to comment on the unfolding situation. 

The attack was “limited” by the United States, no doubt, who accepted a few missiles lobbed into the interior of Iran. But this administration has been trying to manage both sides of this conflict, apparently green-lighting Iran’s first-ever direct attack on Israel over the weekend, and now urging Israel not to retaliate but *wink, wink* approving of a “limited” strike.

Israel no doubt has the capacity and the will to destroy any of its neighbors should it choose to. Iran’s weak attack did almost no damage and looked pathetic in the face of Israel’s multi-layered defensive systems.

This newly opened direct front in the Middle East between Israel and Iran is pulling Israeli attention away from the unfinished job in Gaza, where they still have to deliver the final blow to the Hamas terrorists who attacked Israel back on October 7.

Be praying that this tit-for-tat doesn’t escalate into a full blown war.

Israel had said it would retaliate against Iran’s weekend attack, which involved hundreds of drones and missiles, in response to a suspected Israeli strike on its embassy compound in Syria. Most of the Iranian drones and missiles were downed before reaching Israeli territory.

Analysts and observers have raised concerns about the risks of the Israel-Gaza war spreading into the rest of the region.

Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi had warned Israel before Friday’s strike that Tehran would deliver a “severe response” to any attack on its territory.

Iran told the United Nations Security Council on Thursday that Israel “must be compelled to stop any further military adventurism against our interests” as the U.N. secretary-general warned that the Middle East was in a “moment of maximum peril.”

Have a good weekend.

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Daily Broadside | Time to Dump Mike Johnson

I’m calling your attention to a rather long article because when Mike Johnson was selected as House Speaker after Kevin McCarthy’s ouster last year, I was impressed and thought he looked like a good (though surprising!) choice.

In retrospect, I got taken. We all did.

Johnson professes to be a conservative Christian whose worldview is based on the Bible (i.e. Judeo-Christian values), he used to work for the Alliance Defending Freedom (lots of work on freedom of religion cases), and one of the first things he did was ask the Republican caucus to pray with him.

All encouraging, but in the time he’s been Speaker he’s been indistinguishable from a Democrat when it comes to political will. He’s proven to be a major disappointment to conservatives and like-minded Republicans (and some Democrats) and, frankly, I’m embarrassed that I was so easily lured by his Christian credentials and my dutiful assumption they would translate into a wise and Christ-centered use of power.

I had to learn (again!) that it may look like a duck, talk like a duck and walk like a duck, but that doesn’t mean it’s going to govern like a duck.

Now Johnson is being told he should resign before he’s forced out, as reported in this exclusive Breitbart story.

Exclusive – MTG on Mike Johnson Speakership: ‘It’s Over – He’s Just the Only One Who Hasn’t Acknowledged It’

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) told Breitbart News exclusively that she is prepared to force House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) out of his position with a vote to vacate the chair if the Speaker does not willingly resign the position.

“Yes, I am willing to force it,” Greene told Breitbart News in a lengthy exclusive interview on Tuesday afternoon where she explained her plan to remove Johnson and get a real Republican Speaker in his place. “The reality for Mike Johnson that he just is not accepting or refusing to accept, publicly at least, is whether it happens two weeks from now, two months from now, or in the next majority, he will not be Speaker. He just will not be. There may be only two of us public right now. But he does not have the support of the conference at all. There may be people who might not vote to vacate him right now, but they will never vote for him to be Speaker next Congress. There are two large factions in the conference against his speakership.”

Lots of people see MTG as a nuisance, a political gadfly. She’s a huge Trump supporter and supported Kevin McLuntz before he was removed as Speaker. But I’m with her on this one.

A major development on Tuesday was that Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY), an influential conservative who sits on the powerful House Rules Committee, publicly joined Greene’s effort, saying he is cosponsoring her motion to vacate the chair. During a closed-door Republican conference meeting, Massie told Johnson to his face — in front of the entire House GOP conference — that he must resign or face the same fate his predecessor, now former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, did last year with a motion to vacate vote. Massie told Johnson, and later told reporters, that if Johnson does not agree to resign willingly he will likely lose even more votes than McCarthy did if and when the motion to vacate is called. Johnson responded to Massie in conference, and then later at a press conference, saying he will not resign — echoing what his spokesman Raj Shah told Breitbart News late last week when pressure began severely ramping up after Johnson was the deciding vote to kill an amendment to the renewal of section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) that would have required the federal government obtain a warrant to engage in surveillance of American citizens. Johnson’s FISA ploy did provide such warrant protections only for members of Congress — protections that Johnson did not deem necessary for hundreds of millions of Americans not currently serving in the United States Congress.

I can’t reproduce the entire article for you, so I encourage you to go read the whole thing. Here’s what I’ll leave you with:

“From what I understand people were kind of down about it, or just ‘uh, not again’ because that three-and-a-half weeks was so painful for our conference and a lot of these Republicans don’t ever want to rock the boat or change the status quo,” Greene said. “That’s the whole problem. That’s why the Democrats keep winning and the Republicans keep losing, because Republicans never fight, because it’s uncomfortable, and Republicans never want to rock the boat. They just want to show up here in Washington and do their committee hearings and pass their legislation that they can hopefully get signed into law and hang it on their wall and then go back to their district and do whatever they do. But no one is ever taking the important and strategic steps to save our country. I’ll give you some examples. Out on social media today, there was an explosive report about an NGO that is passing out flyers to illegals encouraging them to vote for Joe Biden in the election. Everyone here, at the NRCC, our Republican conference, and many others, they’re busy practically measuring the drapes for the White House right now and totally convinced that Trump is going to win the election and ‘Marjorie, that’s when we’ll fix everything. We’ll do it then.’ But I’m going to tell you right now, I think that’s the worst possible mindset to be in. The Democrats are going to do everything possible to try to stop President Trump. They’re trying to put him in jail for the rest of his life right now. They’re going to do anything they can to make sure he does not win. So why in the world would our side just go along assuming that we’re going to win the White House and that’s when we’re going to stop all the millions of people invading our country and the terrorists coming across and the cartels bringing drugs and murdering our people and Americans being raped and murdered and killed, and the list goes on, and Americans being spied on through FISA? How do we sit there and look at ourselves in the mirror if we go ‘oh we’ll fix it when Trump comes back’? I don’t even think we deserve Republican voters voting for us if that’s our attitude. Here’s my biggest argument: If this is the state of mind of Republicans and Republican leaders, excluding President Trump, President Trump’s only on the ballot one more time — in November. Whether he wins or loses, what will the state of the Republican Party be after Trump? I’m going to argue strongly that Republicans in Congress and Republican leaders have not done anything to earn Republican votes for us to ever control the Republican majority ever again in the future. The only reason people will be voting for Republicans going forward is because they’re voting against Democrats. That is a very bad position to be in in the future.”

She’s right.

Time to dump Johnson.