Given the last days of momentum and growing pressure coming from some NATO countries, this was perhaps inevitable: the United States has now greenlighted Ukraine’s use of American-supplied weapons against Russian territory in a huge escalation which takes the world a big step closer to WW3 and nuclear-armed confrontation.

Politico is reporting Thursday afternoon, “The Biden administration has quietly given Ukraine permission to strike inside Russia — solely near the area of Kharkiv — using U.S.-provided weapons, two U.S. officials and two other people familiar with the move said Thursday, a major reversal that will help Ukraine to better defend its second-largest city.”

An anonymous US official was cited a saying, “The president recently directed his team to ensure that Ukraine is able to use U.S. weapons for counter-fire purposes in Kharkiv so Ukraine can hit back at Russian forces hitting them or preparing to hit them.”

The same official stipulated that the policy of not allowing long-range strikes inside Russia “has not changed.” However, this is surely going to be a distinction without substance or meaning from Russia’s point of view, as it makes attacking Russia’s sovereign territory with US weaponry ‘allowable’ for the first time. According to more details of what are expected to be the immediate implications: 

In effect, Ukraine can now use American-provided weapons, such as rockets and rocket launchers, to shoot down launched Russian missiles heading toward Kharkiv, at troops massing just over the Russian border near the city, or Russian bombers launching bombs toward Ukrainian territory. But the official said Ukraine cannot use those weapons to hit civilian infrastructure or launch long-range missiles, such as the Army Tactical Missile System, to hit military targets deep inside Russia.

It’s a stunning shift the administration initially said would escalate the war by more directly involving the U.S. in the fight. But worsening conditions for Ukraine on the battlefield –– namely Russia’s advances and improved position in Kharkiv –– led the president to change his mind.

Ukraine has been complaining that all restrictions need to be taken off if it is to defend against Russia’s recent major offensive in Kharkiv, which was launched from across the border. For example, Russian artillery is able to fire from rear positions within the Belgorod region near the border. It meanwhile remains part of Moscow’s stated aim to push the border deeper into Ukraine to create a ‘buffer zone’ – making it harder for pro-Kiev forces to shell Russian towns and villages.

Politico’s fresh reporting is consistent with something Secretary of State Antony Blinken said on Wednesday. While visiting Moldova – itself feeling the pressure of the war right next door – Blinken laid out that the US does not “encourage or enable” Ukrainian attacks inside Russia – but he then moved the goalpost by stressing the US would “adapt and adjust” this position based on developing battlefield needs.

A reporter followed up by asking if he meant the White House will now support Ukrainian attacks inside Russia. Blinken responded with: “Adapt and adjust means exactly that.”

On a covert level this was likely already happening all along…

The Biden administration gave a non-Ukrainian foreign intelligence service permission to strike inside Russia using sleeper cells 48 hours prior to the invasion. https://t.co/Kdnn2EgJfJ

— Jack Murphy (@JackMurphyRGR) May 30, 2024

Russian President Vladimir Putin warned earlier this week there will be “major consequences” if NATO countries support long-range strikes on Russian territory. While it’s long been clear that US, UK, French, and other West-supplied weaponry has been used against Crimea, this has yet to be the case when it comes to Russia proper. Or at least any such attack has not been made public yet.

This significant shift underscores the desperation of Western allies as Ukrainian forces have been getting rolled back in the Kharkiv region. It seems Washington, London, Paris, and Brussels simply cannot stomach a Ukrainian loss – but this desperation is leading to deepened and highly dangerous Western deepening involvement in the conflict. 

Meanwhile…

Has anyone noticed that the means by which Trump may or may not have transmitted a payment to a pornstar has been receiving vastly more coverage, commentary, and debate, than the US clearly lurching toward open approval of direct strikes on the world’s largest nuclear superpower pic.twitter.com/aQ6hJk4i46

— Michael Tracey (@mtracey) May 30, 2024

Insane. pic.twitter.com/9ZiT0NzoWo

— David Sacks (@DavidSacks) May 30, 2024

Via Middle East Eye

Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman is close to becoming king as the health of his elderly father, King Salman, deteriorates; he was recently treated for a lung infection. While Mohammed bin Salman’s succession to the throne may seem inevitable and straightforward, he will face two challenging decisions: appointing a crown prince and designating a deputy crown prince.

When appointing a future crown prince, he theoretically needs to consult Saudi Arabia’s 1992 basic law of governance, which stipulates that rulers are drawn from the male descendants of Ibn Saud, with the “most upright among them” selected for the role. 

But a 2017 amendment by King Salman notes that after the sons of Ibn Saud, there should be “no king and crown prince belonging to the same branch of the founder king’s descendants.”

In practice, as king, Mohammed bin Salman would have enough power to ignore the amendment and appoint one of his brothers as crown prince – but this would not be without consequences. He would appear even more ruthless in excluding other branches of the House of Saud. 

Such a move would further alienate the large pool of cousins belonging to important branches, such as al-Fahd and al-Sultan, neither of which has been humiliated like al-Nayef and al-Abdullah. So far, despite rumors about who Mohammed bin Salman may select as crown prince, the decision has been kept secret.  

It is also uncertain as to whether the future monarch would follow the path of King Abdullah, who created the role of deputy crown prince in 2014 (before dying the following year), fearing a power vacuum if he and his crown prince both died within a short period of time. But the post of deputy crown prince has been vacant since 2017, the year Mohammed bin Salman ascended to the role of crown prince.

Establishing power

King Salman never appointed a deputy crown prince, for two reasons. First, the young age of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, who was in his early thirties in 2017, made it unlikely that he would die any time soon and require a deputy to step in.

Second, and more importantly, King Salman would have struggled to find a suitable deputy crown prince, as he and his son antagonized several branches of al-Saud lineage, namely Nayef and Abdullah.

Former Crown Prince Mohammed bin Nayef received the most humiliating blow when he was sidelined after decades of holding highly sensitive and important positions in the interior ministry and intelligence services. He was put under house arrest and has since disappeared from public life.

King Abdullah’s son Mutaib, the former chief of the Saudi Arabian National Guard, was equally humiliated when he was sacked from his military role; he has also disappeared from public life following allegations of corruption.

King Salman and his son have not endeared themselves to these two branches of the royal family and their descendants. The king could still have chosen a deputy crown prince from the other remaining important branches, but he didn’t.

Perhaps King Salman wanted his own son to have time to establish his power base without the patronage of older senior princes, most of whom had held senior positions in government as ministers or military commanders. 

Royal prerogatives

Over the last seven years, Mohammed bin Salman has been a solo crown prince. He effectively became the state, amassing tremendous power over every aspect of government and life in Saudi Arabia, from the military to entertainment.

Mohammed bin Salman has been an absolute ruler, listening only to his close friends, foreign advisers, consultants and coterie. His domestic and foreign policies reflect his own desires, rather than consultation with a large group of senior and more experienced princes. A deputy crown prince would have been a nuisance, to say the least.

In addition, the majority of eligible candidates for the positions of crown and deputy crown prince are still haunted by the memory of the Riyadh Ritz Carlton, which doubled as a detention center after Mohammed bin Salman launched a wide-ranging “anti-corruption” crackdown against powerful officials in 2017. He later released them after they paid billions of dollars to the state.

As future king, Mohammed bin Salman will face the challenge of appointing an eligible crown prince and a deputy, both of whom must not challenge him or appear stronger than he is due to experience, age or aura. He will have to choose less powerful and more docile princes, so that they do not undermine his authority and single-mindedness.

No doubt, Saudi society will be irrelevant to the process, as these decisions are strictly royal prerogatives. The future of the leadership is beyond a disenfranchised society that lacks pressure groups or civil organizations. Religious scholars, merchants and tribal groups will have no say in the matter; they will simply be summoned to the palace to pledge allegiance to whomever Mohammed bin Salman chooses.

This is how a repressive absolute monarchy works. It does not consult – let alone share power – with its own royals, not to mention elites and notables.    

The stablecoin sector is gaining momentum after a new Bloomberg report revealed that Russian commodities firms have adopted fiat-pegged digital currencies to execute cross-border transactions with Chinese counterparts. 

Russian commodities firms, trading anything from base metals to timber, have started using Tether Holdings Ltd.’s stablecoin to settle cross-border transactions with Chinese customers and suppliers. These settlements are being routed through Hong Kong. 

The appeal of stablecoins comes as the US Treasury Department has unleashed endless rounds of sanctions on Chinese and Russian companies for various reasons, ranging from a trade war between Washington and Beijing to a hot war in Eastern Europe. 

The increased utilization of stablecoins comes more than two years after Russia invaded Ukraine and highlights how Moscow has adapted to a changing economic environment where seven Russian banks were banned from the SWIFT messaging system. 

The lasting effect of Western sanctions on Russia’s economy only makes stablecoins more useful, including for cross-border transactions. It also helps mitigate the risk of frozen overseas bank accounts—something the Russians found out after they invaded Ukraine. Even unsanctioned Russian companies have found stablecoins a safer alternative to the traditional Western banking system. 

“With stablecoins, the transfer may take just 5-15 seconds and cost a few cents, making such transactions pretty efficient when the sender already has an asset base in stablecoins,” said Ivan Kozlov, co-founder of Resolve Labs. 

Kozlov continued, “In countries that are facing dollar liquidity issues and capital controls, cross-border settlements through cryptocurrencies and, specifically, dollar-linked stablecoins, are a relatively common practice, and not only in commodities.” 

The growing adoption of stablecoins in Russia’s global trade reveals that Western sanctions have failed to implode the Russian economy. There’s even been news of the Russian Central Bank experimenting with crypto payments for international transactions. 

About a year ago, Rosbank, one of Russia’s major banks, launched a facility that enabled importers to settle transactions using crypto. Since then, additional banks have started offering similar services. 

The stablecoin trend doesn’t end with Russia. Venezuela’s state-run oil company, PDVSA, has slowly moved oil sales to USDT after the US recently imposed sanctions on the country. 

Even as these developments show cryptocurrencies have use cases, President of the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis, Neel Kashkari, stated in April, “[Bitcoin has] no actual utility in the economy, other than being a nice toy that some people enjoy owning and trading.” 

Boston’s 39-year-old Mayor, Michelle Wu, wants to follow in the footsteps of San Francisco, Philadelphia, Seattle, Denver, New York, and other liberal strongholds – where property crimes, including grand larceny and motor vehicle theft, have seen a sharp increase in recent years.

As the Daily Mail reports, Wu wants to make crimes including shoplifting and disorderly conduct off-limits to prosecution. She also wants to include certain categories of breaking and entering, wanton and malicious property destruction, larceny under $250, and trespassing as non-prosecutable crimes. She did toss in drug possession – which is fine as long as crimes like disorderly conduct and disturbing the peace are enforced.

Those who commit such wanton crimes would receive little more than a slap on the wrist.

The offenses are all on a ‘do-not-prosecute’ list that was created by former Suffolk County District Attorney Rachael Rollins.

Rollins, who later joined the Biden administration but resigned amid ethical violations, had advocated for the non-prosecution of more ‘low-level’ offenses. 

During her 2021 campaign, Wu was asked by left-wing nonprofit Progressive Massachusetts whether she supports Rollins’ list, to which she responded “Yes.” When asked if she supported closing the Boston Police gang database, she also said yes. She also supports firing any Boston PD employees involved in the January 6th protest in Washington DC.

The Police gang database notably played a critical role in the federal bust of 40 individuals allegedly connected to a violent street gang which had operated for years out of a Boston housing project.

Wu, the city’s first female and Asian American Mayor, has promised to reallocate police funds to other city priorities, and believes in ‘demilitarizing’ law enforcement by eliminating the use of tear gas, rubber bullets and police dogs. Further, Wu wants police records on use-of-force to be made public, which critics say could endanger officers’ safety.

So, embolden criminals and de-fang cops. Right.

Boston about to get San Franciscoed https://t.co/bp5fcP9B0w

— zerohedge (@zerohedge) May 29, 2024

Libs’ Big Ideas:

“1. Let’s treat criminals as law-abiding citizens.”

“2. Let’s treat law-abiding citizens as criminals.” https://t.co/jInNfRKelS

— Mike Lee (@BasedMikeLee) May 29, 2024

Israeli war cabinet minister Benny Gantz is mounting a new challenge against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the coalition government, on Thursday announcing his centrist party is proposing holding a parliamentary vote on dissolving the Knesset.

“The head of the National Union Party, Pnina Tamano-Shata, has put forward a bill to dissolve the 25th Knesset. This follows the request of party leader Minister Benny Gantz to move forward in broad agreement to an election before October, a year since the massacre,” the fresh statement from Gantz’s party said.

Gantz had already previously verbalized a plan to hold new elections by October, and two weeks ago he demanded in a provocative ultimatum that Netanyahu has until June 8 to present a clear strategic plan for the Gaza war.

Below is the outline that Gantz previously articulated while lambasting the lack of a clear plan from Netanyahu:

”Bring our hostages home, topple the Hamas regime, strip the Gaza Strip, and ensure Israeli security control. Alongside maintaining Israeli security control, establish an American-European-Arab-Palestinian administration to civilly manage the Strip and lay the foundation for a future alternative to Hamas and Abbas, return the residents of the north to their homes by September 1, and rehabilitate the Western Negev, promote normalization with Saudi Arabia as part of an overall move that will create an alliance with the free world and the Arab world against Iran and adopt a service plan that will lead to all Israelis serving the state and contributing to the supreme national effort.”

Gantz had continued in that prior statement: “The people of Israel are watching you. You must choose between Zionism and cynicism, between unity and division, between responsibility and neglect – and between victory and disaster.”

Huge anti-Netanyahu protests have continued in Tel Aviv and in front of government buildings and even Netanyahu’s residence, and have been led by hostage victims’ families. They are outraged there’s been lack of clarity or prioritization of getting the rest of the hostages home, also as truce negotiations with Hamas have all but collapsed.

It is anything but clear if Gantz has the votes to dissolve Knesset, but Netanyahu’s Likud party quickly shot back on Thursday with a terse statement: “The dissolution of the unity government is a reward for [Hamas leader Yahya] Sinwar, a capitulation to international pressure and a fatal blow to efforts to free our hostages.”

But Gantz Tamano-Shata party reasoned that “The 7th of October is a disaster that requires us to go back in order to receive the public’s trust, to establish a broad and stable unity government that can lead us safely in the face of the enormous challenges in security, the economy and, above all, in Israeli society. Submitting the bill now will allow us to bring it up in the current session.”

❗🔥🇮🇱 – As Netanyahu prepares his interview tonight in France and speaks in French:

“Our victory is your victory!” it is the victory of Judeo-Christian civilization against barbarism. It’s France’s victory!

Benny Gantz’s party presents a proposal to dissolve the Knesset and… pic.twitter.com/Fo2MV5GaZ3

— 🔥🗞The Informant (@theinformant_x) May 30, 2024

To review, Gantz joined Netanyahu’s government soon on the heels of the Oct.7 terror attack last year. “Gantz’s centrist bloc split up in March and his party does not on its own control enough seats in parliament to bring down the ruling coalition,” Reuters notes.

Critics of Netanyahu say he will use his role as a wartime leader to hold onto power as long as possible. As it stands, and assuming no opposition-led intervention succeeds, there is no election scheduled before the final quarter of 2026.

Authored by Naveen Athrappully via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

The conservative advocacy group America First Legal (AFL) filed a complaint with the Pennsylvania Department of State, seeking to end a directive that allows noncitizens to vote in state and federal elections.

The Help America Vote Act (HAVA) of 2002 requires that an individual applying to vote must mention a current and valid driver’s license and the last four digits of their Social Security number on the voter application form.

HAVA mandates that local election officials confirm the numbers are valid and current by using available databases.

“However, the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania maintains a voter registration system that blatantly violates this federal law,” the May 21 complaint alleges.

HAVA prohibits a state from accepting or processing a voter application registration that does not fulfill its identity proof provisions.

In 2018, the Secretary of the Commonwealth issued a “HAVA Matching Directive” which states that a voter registration application “may not be rejected” solely based on the fact that an applicant’s driver’s license and Social Security number do not match any database.

Under the directive, the Secretary of the Commonwealth asked “all 67 county boards of election to ignore HAVA’s verification mandate and to register any applicant” to vote even if the individual does not fulfill identification requirements.

“This lawless directive does not just violate federal law; it creates a regime where an untold number of ineligible voters, including non-citizens, can register to vote in all state and federal elections in the Commonwealth,” the lawsuit said.

In the HAVA directive, the Pennsylvania Department of State cited a previous case to argue that HAVA’s data comparison process was intended only for storing and managing the official list of registered voters. HAVA was not supposed to be used as “a restriction on voter eligibility,” it stated.

The department asked counties to ensure their procedures “comply with state and federal law” while implementing the HAVA directive.

This meant that if there are “no independent grounds” to reject a voter application other than a non-match of identification, the application cannot be rejected and should be “processed like all other applications.”

AFL asked to repeal the HAVA Matching Directive and replace it with a regulation in compliance with HAVA.

Gene Hamilton, America First Legal executive director, pointed out that Americans across the nation have “legitimate concerns” about the security of elections.

And yet, he said, Pennsylvania adopted and maintained a voter registration process that “clearly and unambiguously violates basic federal law intended to provide a minimum baseline of security.”

He called on the Secretary of State to abandon the “unlawful practice” and comply with the federal rules to ensure fraud doesn’t occur.

The Pennsylvania State Department responded in an emailed statement to The Epoch Times: “All voters in Pennsylvania must be United States citizens in order to register to vote, and no directive or guidance from the Department says otherwise. Residents seeking to register to vote must prove their citizenship.”

Noncitizen Voting Issue

According to the Public Interest Legal Foundation (PILF), foreign nationals registering to vote in U.S. election races is not uncommon.

PILF data show that Pima County, Arizona, canceled 186 voter registrations due to citizenship issues between 2021 and 2023, with seven having voting histories.

Similarly, 222 voter registrations in Maricopa County, Arizona, were canceled between 2015 and 2023 for similar issues, with nine people having a history of casting votes.

“The National Voter Registration Act of 1993 (Motor Voter) provides the most common pathway for foreign nationals to get registered to vote. The 24 states plus D.C. which automate Motor Voter, not giving the immigrant the chance to decline registration, exacerbate the problem,” PILF said.

On May 8, Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) and Rep. Chip Roy (R-Tex.) introduced the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) Act, or S.4292, which seeks to ensure that only American citizens take part in federal elections.

The Act requires proof of citizenship during voter registration, outlining acceptable documentation to prove citizenship. States are required to set up alternative verification processes for citizens who do not have standard documents.

The legislation also mandates that states purge noncitizens from their voter rolls. Penalties would be instituted for knowingly registering noncitizens as voters.

Sen. Lee pointed out that illegal immigrants and other noncitizens are being improperly registered as voters, allowing them to cast votes in federal elections.

This “foreign election interference” must be stopped, especially since trust in the voting process is now more important than ever, he said.

“Voting is both a sacred right and responsibility of American citizenship, and allowing the people of other nations access to our elections is a grave blow to our security and self-governance.”

Multiple left-leaning groups like the American Civil Liberties Union, American Humanist Association, Democracy Matters, National Action Network, and Stand Up America oppose the SAVE Act.

In a May 16 letter to Rep. Bryan Steil (R-Wis.) and Rep. Joe Morelle (D-N.Y.), members of the Committee on House Administration, the organizations called the SAVE Act a “dangerous departure” from ensuring that all Americans have the freedom to vote.

Requiring documentation of American citizenship is aimed at “fear-mongering and divisive rhetoric,” they claimed.

Voters in every state are already required to verify their citizenship status when registering to vote, they said. As such, the SAVE Act is “unnecessary and dangerous.” The purpose of the Act was to make voting “more difficult, particularly for voters of color.”

A congressional hearing on noncitizen voting was held on May 16. Rep. Joe Morelle (D-N.Y.) said there was no proof of noncitizens voting in elections and that there should be a focus on “MAGA Republicans howling about this nonissue.”

Rep. Bryan Steil (R-Wis.) pointed out that 100 noncitizens were recently identified in voter rolls in Ohio. He called for strict policies to ensure that only Americans vote in elections considering that 7 million illegal immigrants have entered the United States under the Biden administration.

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad is in Tehran on Thursday for a rare state as part of a condolence message in the wake of the death of President Ebrahim Raisi in a helicopter crash earlier this month.

Assad met with Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei as well as the Islamic Republic’s acting President Mohammad Mokhber. Assad expressed condolences also for the death of Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian and other officials who went down in the May 19th crash in a mountainous region near Azerbaijan.

The trip also comes amid the backdrop of the Gaza war, as well as daily exchanges of fire between Israel and Hezbolllah, also amid recent Israeli attacks on Syria. Ayatollah Khamenei hailed Syria as central to the ‘resistance’. He told the Syrian president “Syria’s special position in the region is distinguished because of this identity, and this important feature must be preserved.”

“This identity has always contributed to the national unity of Syria,” he added, describing that Damascus’ resistance to Western hegemony was initially forged by Assad’s father, the late Hafez. Khamenei said, “everyone should see the special privilege of the Syrian government, that is, resistance, in front of their eyes.”

According to more from state media, Iran’s Supreme Leader spoke on the last decade of Western-Gulf-Israeli efforts to overthrow the Syrian government: 

Ayatollah Khamenei said the Westerners and their acolytes in the region tried to overthrow Syria’s political system and remove it from the regional equations through the war they waged against the country, but they did not succeed. 

“Now they want to use other methods, including promises that they never fulfill, in order to take Syria out of the regional equations,” he added.

Among these current methods includes sanctions that aim to starve and choke Syria and its population, as well as the ongoing US occupation of northeast Syria, where the country’s vital supplies of oil and gas are located. Officials in Baghdad, Tehran, Damascus, and Moscow have long charged Washington with plundering Syria’s natural resources.

Though not religiously aligned (Iran is a Shia religious state while Syria has a largely Baathist secular identity), Damascus and Tehran have since 2011 forged deeper ties. That’s when Western and Gulf states began pouring massive supplies of weaponry and money into jihadist rebel forces in a large-scale covert campaign to topple Assad.

Out of the West-backed insurgency came ISIS, Syrian al-Qaeda, and an array of Sunni terrorist groups. Israel also covertly supported this Sunni terror insurgency aimed at rolling back ‘Iranian influence’ and the so-called ‘Shia axis’.

Islamic State Leader Omar al-Shishani Fought Under U.S. Umbrella as Late as 2013. @BradRHoff https://t.co/yrjtCP6tUv

— Kevork Almassian🇸🇾🇦🇲 (@KevorkAlmassian) August 3, 2023

In response, Iran deepened its military presence throughout Syria at the invitation of the Assad government. In 2015, Russia also intervened as an ally of the Syrian government, and at its request. This is part of the ‘resistance’ that Iran’s leaders speak of, which also includes Lebanese Hezbollah.

Without Syria, Iran, Russia, and Hezbollah pushing back against Western/Gulf regime change efforts, there’s a big likelihood that an al-Qaeda aligned entity would be in control of Damascus today. It might be an uncomfortable truth for many, but it is a historical fact nonetheless. 

Authored by Victor Davis Hanson via American Greatness,

Sometimes unexpected but dramatic events tear off the thin veneer of respectability and convention. What follows is the exposure and repudiation of long-existing but previously covered-up pathologies.

Events like the destruction of the southern border over the last three years, the October 7 massacre and ensuing Gaza war, the campus protests, the COVID-19 epidemic and lockdown, and the systematic efforts to weaponize our bureaucracies and courts have all led to radical reappraisals of American culture and civilization.

Since the 1960s, universities have always been hotbeds of left-wing protests, sometimes violently so.

But the post-October 7 campus eruptions marked a watershed difference.

Masked left-wing protestors were unashamedly and virulently anti-Semitic. Students on elite campuses especially showed contempt for both middle-class police officers tasked with preventing their violence and vandalism and the maintenance workers who had to clean up their garbage.

Mobs took over buildings, assaulted Jewish students, called for the destruction of Israel, and defaced American monuments and commentaries.

When pressed by journalists to explain their protests, most students knew nothing of the politics or geography of Palestine, for which they were protesting.

The public concluded that the more elite the campus, the more ignorant, arrogant, and hateful the students seemed.

The Biden administration destroyed the southern border. Ten million illegal aliens swarmed into the U.S. without audit. Almost daily, news accounts detail violent acts committed by illegal aliens or their surreal demands for more free lodging and support.

Simultaneously, thousands of Middle Eastern students, invited by universities on student visas, block traffic, occupy bridges, disrupt graduations, and generally show contempt for the laws of their American hosts.

The net result is that Americans are reappraising their entire attitude toward immigration. Expect the border to be closed soon and immigration to become mostly meritocratic, smaller, and legal, with zero tolerance for immigrants and resident visitors who break the laws of their hosts.

Americans are also reappraising their attitudes toward time-honored bureaucracies, the courts, and government agencies.

The public still cannot digest the truth that the once respected FBI partnered with social media to suppress news stories, to surveil parents at school board meetings, and to conduct performance art swat raids on the homes of supposed political opponents.

After the attempts of the Department of Justice to go easy on the miscreant Hunter Biden but to hound ex-president Donald Trump for supposedly removing files illegally in the same fashion as current President Biden, the public lost confidence not just in Attorney General Merrick Garland but in American jurisprudence itself.

The shenanigans of prosecutors like Fani Willis, Letitia James, and Alvin Bragg, along with overtly biased judges like Juan Merchant and Arthur Engoron, only reinforced the reality that the American legal system has descended into third-world-like tit-for-tat vendettas.

The same politicization has nearly discredited the Pentagon. Its investigations of “white” rage and white supremacy found no such organized cabals in the ranks. But these unicorn hunts likely helped cause a 45,000-recruitment shortfall among precisely the demographic that died at twice their numbers in the general population in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Add in the humiliating flight from Kabul, the abandonment of $50 billion in weapons to the Taliban terrorists, the recent embarrassment of the failed Gaza pier, and the litany of political invective from retired generals and admirals. The result is that the armed forces have an enormous task to restore public faith. They will have to return to meritocracy and emphasize battle efficacy, enforce the uniform code of military justice, and start either winning wars or avoiding those that cannot be won.

Finally, we are witnessing a radical inversion in our two political parties.

The old populist Democratic Party that championed lunch-bucket workers has turned into a shrill union of the very rich and subsidized poor. Its support of open borders, illegal immigration, the war on fossil fuels, transgenderism, critical legal and race theories, and the woke agenda are causing the party to lose support.

The Republican Party is likewise rebranding itself from a once-stereotyped brand of aristocratic and corporate grandees to one anchored in the middle class.

Even more radically, the new populist Republicans are beginning to appeal to voters on shared class and cultural concerns rather than on racial and tribal interests.

The results of all these revolutions will shake up the U.S. for decades to come.

Soon we may see a Georgia Tech or Purdue degree as far better proof of an educated and civic-minded citizen than a Harvard or Stanford brand.

We will likely jettison the failed salad bowl approach to immigration and return to the melting pot as immigration becomes exclusively legal, meritocratic, and manageable.

To avoid further loss of public confidence, institutions like the FBI, the CIA, the Pentagon, and the DOJ will have to re-earn rather than just assume the public’s confidence.

And we may soon accept the reality that Democrats reflect the values of Silicon Valley plutocrats, university presidents, and blue-city mayors, while Republicans become the home of an ecumenical black, Hispanic, Asian, and white middle class.

A new law in Louisiana makes it illegal to approach a police officer within 25 feet in certain situations, ostensibly the state’s way of keeping officers executing their duties free from swarms of woke camera-wielding liberals offering up their scholarly legal takes in the midst of official business. 

Critics argue that the new law, criminalizing approaching a police officer within 25 feet under certain conditions could restrict the public’s ability to film police, a key method for ensuring accountability.

The law, which takes effect on August 1, imposes penalties of up to $500 and/or 60 days in jail for those convicted of knowingly or intentionally nearing an officer after being told to stop. Although the law does not explicitly mention filming, opponents contend it could interfere with observational rights and potentially violate First Amendment freedoms.

Those advocating for the law say it would “create a buffer-zone to help ensure the safety of officers and that bystanders would still be close enough to film police interactions,” according to AP.

AP notes that cellphone videos by bystanders, notably in cases like George Floyd’s 2020 death, have been pivotal in highlighting police misconduct and prompting discussions on police transparency.

Similar legislative efforts to restrict filming distances have been seen, such as a 2022 Arizona law that tried to ban filming police within 8 feet upon request, which was blocked by a federal judge as unconstitutional after challenges from media groups and the ACLU. This ruling underscored the established right to film police in action.

The author of the measure, State Rep. Bryan Fontenot, said: “At 25 feet, that person can’t spit in my face when I’m making an arrest. The chances of him hitting me in the back of the head with a beer bottle at 25 feet — it sure is a lot more difficult than if he’s sitting right here.”

Gov. John Bel Edwards, a Democrat, has spoken out against the law: “Each of us has a constitutional right to freely observe public servants as they function in public and within the course and scope of their official duties.”

He added: “Observations of law enforcement, whether by witnesses to an incident with officers, individuals interacting with officers, or members of the press, are invaluable in promoting transparency.”

Authored by James Rickards via DailyReckoning.com,

We all know about the non-stop lawfare attacks on Donald Trump. You might like Trump or hate him, but it shouldn’t matter. Every American who cares about justice and the rule of law should be concerned about them.

It corrodes the system of justice that’s long been a source of national pride.

Besides being a financial analyst, I’m also an attorney with a deep understanding of constitutional law. And what they’re trying to do to Trump is unconstitutional in many cases, and in some instances egregiously so.

I’m not a fan of Joe Biden to put it mildly. But I’d be equally appalled if Republicans used the same type of lawfare against him based on specious legal grounds. It shouldn’t happen in the United States, period, regardless of political orientation. It shouldn’t be a partisan issue.

But unfortunately, Democrats have chosen to open Pandora’s box. Beyond the current lawfare, Democrats moved against Trump from the very beginning, in cooperation with the deep state.

Get Trump at Any Cost

It began with the Russian collusion hoax orchestrated by Hillary Clinton in 2016 followed by Operation Crossfire Hurricane run by the FBI and CIA that tied the Trump administration in knots (as intended) from 2017–2019.

This was followed by two impeachments (2019 and 2021) on bogus charges, then the Jan. 6 setup where Trump urged a peaceful demonstration at the Capitol, but Nancy Pelosi refused to deploy the National Guard (as Trump requested) or to notify the Capitol Police (standard operating procedure) in order to precipitate the riot helped along by lots of undercover FBI agents egging the protesters on.

Once Trump decided to enter the 2024 presidential race, he was hit with an “insurrectionist” label to kick him off state ballots in Maine and Colorado, then with the Jan. 6 case in Washington; the classified documents case in Palm Beach; the RICO conspiracy charge in Fulton County, Georgia; and most ridiculous of all, the loan application and “hush money” cases in New York City that threaten to bankrupt Trump or put him in jail.

That’s quite a list but the lawfare freaks have a few more tricks up their sleeves between now and the next election.

Serve Trump, Pay the Price

What’s not as well-known are the other targets of Democratic lawfare, including Trump-affiliated lawyers and advisers.

These include the 73-year-old Harvard-trained economist Peter Navarro, who is now in federal prison; former Trump campaign manager and adviser Steve Bannon, who is now awaiting imprisonment on federal charges; former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, who was hit with a summons at his 80th birthday party; and John Eastman, a prominent lawyer and constitutional scholar who was arrested in Arizona on 2020 election charges despite having had no involvement in contesting the Arizona election results.

Lawfare is being used against candidates, advisers, members of Congress, judges and others who in any way support Trump or his policies

The purpose of this is clear. Lawfare fanatics not only want to disable Trump, but they also want to disable his advisers and intimidate any other qualified professionals from helping Trump. This is not just lawfare; it’s warfare.

Even if the charges are completely bogus, which is almost always the case, you have to hire attorneys to defend you in court. That could potentially cost hundreds of thousands of dollars — or more in Trump’s case.

Donald Trump might be able to afford to hire all these expensive lawyers to defend him. But most others can’t. So lawfare is designed to ruin them financially. And that’s the point. Even if you win in court, you still lose because you’ve been ruined financially, or at least badly damaged.

Anyone on Team Trump who doesn’t understand the stakes will get run over or worse. But is it really new?

Nixon and Watergate

Lawfare is a good way to understand what happened to Richard Nixon during the Watergate scandal in 1972–1974 that resulted in his being driven from office. First, some context is required.

Nixon was elected in a close election in 1968 and then reelected in one of the greatest landslides in U.S. history in 1972. (Nixon carried 49 of the 50 states. Nixon’s opponent George McGovern carried only Massachusetts and Washington, D.C.).

It should be noted that Nixon had an impactful presidency. He opened relations with China after a 25-year freeze, ended the Vietnam War (started by John F. Kennedy and escalated by Lyndon Johnson) after 10 years of combat and over 50,000 Americans killed, created the Environmental Protection Agency (for better or worse) and was president when the first men landed on the moon. Nixon also negotiated the first nuclear arms limitation treaty with the Soviet Union.

To this day, there is no evidence that Nixon knew about the Watergate break-in in advance or had any hand in authorizing it. But as is often said, the cover-up is worse than the crime.

The Long Knives Were out for Nixon

Once the break-in participants were arrested, the White House went into damage-control mode. There’s no doubt Nixon broke the law by authorizing payments to the burglars and their families. He was also aware of perjury by some of his aides. Still, these were not momentous crimes relative to what almost all of his predecessors had done.

Nixon’s acts could arguably be viewed as in the national interest to preserve what had been a successful administration in both domestic and foreign policy. The scandal could have ended with some criminal trials of both campaign officials and some White House officials involved in the cover-up.

But the FBI, liberal media and Democrats were out for blood. Using leaks from Mark Felt (deputy director of the FBI also known as Deep Throat), friendly media outlets like The New York Times and The Washington Post and hearings in the Democrat-controlled Senate (summer of 1973) and House (summer of 1974), Nixon’s enemies raised the temperature and, in the end, made Nixon’s resignation almost inevitable due to the threat of impeachment.

Donald Trump has been through this and more; he’s been impeached twice. The point is Trump should study the Watergate playbook to avoid some of Nixon’s mistakes and for guidance on how to stand up to the wolf pack behavior of the progressive media.

He’s going to need all the help he can get.