Authored by Tom Ozimek via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

The U.S. Supreme Court has declined to hear a legal challenge to a Texas law that requires voters under the age of 65 to provide justification to vote by mail, meaning that the Democrat-aligned attempt to sharply expand “no-excuse” mail-in ballots in the Lone Star state has failed, with implications for other states.

According to an April 22 order list, the high court denied petition for a writ of cetriorari in a case that stems from a federal lawsuit filed in 2020 on behalf of the Texas Democratic Party and several voters who requested that Texas lift its age-based limitations on no-excuse mail-in voting.

Texas law only allows individuals to vote by mail without a qualifying excuse, like sickness, if they are 65 years or older. In their original complaint, which made its way through a number of lower courts before ending up before the Supreme Court, the petitioners alleged that the Texas voting law violates the 26th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, which prohibits denying the right to vote due to age.

The Supreme Court’s refusal to hear the appeal means that the Texas law stays in place, delivering a win to election integrity advocates who argue that no-excuse mail-in voting is prone to fraud and makes elections less secure.

At the same time, the high court’s decision to deny certiorari is a setback for groups who see laws like Texas’s age-based limits on no-excuse mail-in ballots as “voter suppression” or an unfair attempt to impose barriers to voting for certain groups, in this case younger voters.

The high court’s decision not to hear the appeal has broader implications, however, since six other states–Indiana, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, South Carolina, and Tennessee–have similar laws on the books that let older voters to request absentee ballot without having to provide any justification.

Public opinion in Texas over the issue of no-excuse mail-in voting is split, according to some polls.

More Details

In their initial petition filed in 2020 on behalf of the Texas Democratic Party and a group of voters amids the COVID-19 pandemic, the plaintiffs requested that Texas lift its age-based restrictions to no-excuse mail-in voting, citing public health risks related to the outbreak.

A district court judge sided with the plaintiffs in May 2020, temporarily blocking the Texas law.

Led by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, Texas officials then filed an appeal with the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which paused the district court’s ruling while the appeal played out.

The plaintiffs then asked the U.S. Supreme Court to reimpose the district court’s decision to freeze enforcement of the age-based limits to no-excuse mail-in voting, or to take the case up for review, but the high court rejected both requests.

Ultimately, the 5th Circuit voided the lower court’s May 2020 order in full. This led the plaintiffs to file an amended complaint in the district court, this time asserting other claims, including ones of racial discrimination under Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act and arguing that the age limitations on mail-in ballots violated the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th and 26th Amendments.

In a July 2022 order, the district court judge dismissed all of the plaintiffs’ claims, leading to another appeal before the 5th Circuit, which ultimately affirmed the district court’s decision to dismiss.

The plaintiffs filed a petition for a writ of certiorari in the U.S. Supreme Court in December 2023, asking the high court to declare Texas’s age-based voting law unconstitutional.

The court declined to review the plaintiffs’ appeal, leaving Texas’s age restrictions in place and denying a bid to expand no-excuse mail-in voting in the Lone Star state.

The Epoch Times has reached out to counsel for both petitioners and respondents with a request for comment on the high court’s decision.

Election Integrity or Voter Suppression?

The Supreme Court ruling comes amid a broader fight between those who see election integrity efforts as “voter suppression” and those who believe that the security of U.S. elections is too lax and should be tightened.

According to a running tally by the left-leaning Brennan Center for Justice, expansive voting laws far outpaced restrictive ones in 2023.

At least 53 expansive voting laws were introduced last year in at least 23 states, compared to 17 restrictive laws being passed in 14 states, suggesting that the election integrity movement is falling behind.

Amid concerns over voter fraud, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich recently suggested that to win the presidential election in November, Republicans need to outvote Democrats by a significant margin.

“Everybody who wants an honest election should know that in the long run, we need the French model: Everybody votes on the same day, everybody has a photo ID, everybody’s accounted as a person,” Mr. Gingrich said in a February interview on Fox News.

“But until we get to that, if Republicans want to win this year, under the rules that exist this year, they need to outvote the Democrats by about 5 percent, which is a margin big enough that it can’t be stolen,” he said.

Elsewhere, an election integrity monitor laid out over a dozen “critical” reforms that it believes are necessary in order to secure voter integrity in the 2024 election, including outlawing ranked choice voting and non-citizen voting, consolidating election dates, requiring voter ID, and safeguarding vulnerable mail ballots.

By Tsvetana Paraskova of OilPrice.com

U.S. President Joe Biden is announcing on Monday $7 billion in grants to help more than 900,000 low-income households install residential solar power, the White House said.

President Biden will mark today’s Earth Day by traveling to Prince William Forest Park in Triangle, Virginia, and is expected to highlight the Administration’s progress “in tackling the climate crisis, cutting costs for everyday Americans, and creating good-paying jobs,” the White House said.

The $7 billion in grants will come from the Environmental Protection Agency’s Solar for All grant competition, a key component of the Inflation Reduction Act’s $27 billion Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund.  

The selectees under the competition are expected to deliver residential power to more than 900,000 households in low-income and disadvantaged communities, saving households more than $350 million in electricity costs annually, or about $400 per household, according to the White House.

The rooftop solar program will also help avoid more than 30 million metric tons of carbon pollution over the next 25 years.

EPA has received 150 applications, and 60 applicants were selected through a robust multistage review, Environmental Protection Agency Deputy Administrator Janet McCabe said in a call with reporters.

U.S. solar installations surged in 2023, as solar accounted for over 50% of new electricity capacity added to the grid, for the first time in history, the annual solar market review of the Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA) and Wood Mackenzie showed earlier this year.

However…

…the biggest residential solar market in the U.S., California, has seen major policy changes in the way the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) will compensate rooftop solar customers for the excess energy they generate.

This decision moved the state from retail rate “net metering” to a new “net billing” structure that cuts the value of rooftop solar credits by about 75%.  

This, according to SEIA and WoodMac, is expected to crash California’s residential solar market in 2024, contributing to a projected 36% decline across all segments in the state.

BlackRock chief executive Larry Fink’s efforts to push ‘wokesim’ or environmental, social, and governance policies across corporate America have been in reverse in recent years amid the backlash from Republican lawmakers on Capitol Hill and 19 state attorneys general in conservative states, including Arizona and Texas, who have been fed up with ESG-related policies hurting the economy. 

Supposedly, the backlash by anti-woke activists has forced BlackRock to triple Fink’s home security spending. Financial Times says the CEO has become “a target for anti-woke activists and conspiracy theorists.” 

According to FT’s numbers, the $10.5 trillion money manager spent $563,513 to “upgrade the home security systems” at Fink’s residences during 2023, on top of $216,837 for bodyguards. 

The ESG movement has been highly politicized. Vivek Ramaswamy, one of the Republican party’s presidential candidates before Donald Trump was nominated, called Fink “the king of the woke industrial complex [and] the ESG movement.”

In December, Fink said his firm was unfairly targeted by candidates in the fourth Republican presidential debate, calling it a “sad commentary on the state of American politics.”

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis has called BlackRock the “economic power” to instill a “left-wing agenda.” 

Besides conservative lawmakers revolting against the world’s largest woke money manager at the state level and on Capitol Hill, UBS bankers on Wall Street are becoming increasingly frustrated with unrealistic climate goals. Here’s the note, “ESG Frustration And Backlash In The Banking Sector Continues.”

It should be no surprise to our readers: we have been pointing out the demise of ESG for more than a year now. Earlier in March, we wrote how Exxon’s CEO had all but declared victory over the “woke” ESG lobby. 

 We noted that CEOs were ditching ESG lingo on conference calls in February. For some context, peak ESG and related synonyms, such as “climate change” and “clean energy” and green energy” and net zero,” among other terms, peaked at 28,000 mentions in the first quarter of 2022. Ever since, the number of mentions has plunged. 

Fink’s beefing up security is a sign that the political ideology pushed by the asset manager does not align with actual investors and most Americans. 

Authored by Monica O’Shea via The Epoch Times,

Elon Musk’s X is facing strong criticism from both the centre-left Labor Party and the centre-right Liberal-National Coalition in Australia amid a legal challenge against the country’s online content tsar.

Mr. Musk labelled Australia’s eSafety Commissioner Julie Inman Grant (a former Twitter employee), the “Australian censorship commissar,” after she issued an order to X to take down videos related to the alleged stabbing of a Christian bishop.

X says it had removed all posts domestically, but the commissioner’s order calls for the removal of content around the world.

X is planning to challenge this in court, and said the posts did not violate its rules on “violent speech” – content that incites or glorifies violence.

Shadow Minister Says Musk Being ‘Irresponsible’

However, the Liberal Party’s Shadow Foreign Minister Simon Birmingham called X’s contention a “completely ridiculous and preposterous argument.”

“The type of standards that we expect in everyday life that we expect in other forms of media should be able to be applied to the online world as well,” Mr. Birmingham said on ABC News Breakfast on April 22.

“The idea that it is censorship to say that imagery of a terrorist attack, of a stabbing incident should not be able to be broadcast in an unfiltered way for all to see—children to access and otherwise—is an insulting and offensive argument.”

The senator also argued Mr. Musk’s argument was “irresponsible” given the impact of the social media posts on potential terrorists.

“It is also an irresponsible one when you consider the implications that can have for inspiring potentially future terrorists, for creating discord and disharmony in communities, and driving people further apart when such images are manipulated or used with propaganda or other information,” he said.

The Australian censorship commissar is demanding *global* content bans! https://t.co/CRLglUYYIG

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) April 19, 2024

Labor Government Paints Musk As ‘Bully’

This comes after Labor’s Health Minister Mark Butler said the government would not be “bullied” by Mr. Musk.

“And can I say this: Australia is not going to be bullied by Elon Musk, or any other tech billionaire, in our commitment to making sure that social media is a safe space,” Mr. Butler said during a press conference.

Mr. Butler said if Mr. Musk wanted to fight the fine in court, the government was up for it because they were determined to keep “social media safe.”

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said he found it “extraordinary X chose not to comply.”

“We know, I think overwhelmingly, Australians want misinformation and disinformation to stop. This isn’t about freedom of expression,” he told reporters.

“This is about the dangerous implications that can occur when things that are simply not true, that everyone knows is not true, are replicated and weaponised in order to cause division, and in this case, to promote negative statements.”

Environment Minister Tanya Plibersek called Mr. Musk an “egotistical billionaire.”

“It’s more important for him to have his way than to respect the victims of the crimes that are being shown on social media and to protect our Australian community from the harmful impact of showing this terrible stuff on social media,” she said on Sunrise.

“We need to keep Australians safe from this terrible stuff on social media. And Elon Musk doesn’t dictate to the Australian government what we are doing here domestically with our laws.”

I’d like to take a moment to thank the PM for informing the public that this platform is the only truthful one https://t.co/EM0lF6n7SC

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) April 22, 2024

Opposition Switches Gears, Will Back ‘Misinformation’ Laws

Meanwhile, Opposition Leader Peter Dutton agreed there was a case for “tougher action” against social media companies during an interview with ABC Insiders on April 22.

“No question at all, and I think there’s a bipartisan position in relation to this. We know that the companies—and we’ve seen some of the comments from Elon Musk overnight—they see themselves above the law,” Mr. Dutton claimed.

“The Australian law here should apply equally in the real world as it does online.”

Mr. Dutton pointed out social media companies turnover billions of dollars of revenue in the Australian economy and indicated the laws should apply to them within the country.

“I think there’s a red herring in a sense here. When Elon Musk says that there’s not extraterritorial reach—that is the Australian law can’t apply to other parts of the world—I’m sure that’s the case. But in terms of the content, which is displayed here, or broadcast here, well the Australian law does apply,” Mr. Dutton said.

Mr. Dutton also indicated the Opposition would support Labor’s misinformation and disinformation laws, despite the Shadow Communications Minister David Coleman being very critical of the law in September.

“Yeah, we are, and happy to have a look at anything the government puts forward, as we’ve said over the last week, with the horrendous scenes that we’ve seen.”

Don’t take my word for it, just ask the Australian PM! pic.twitter.com/ZJBKrstStQ

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) April 22, 2024

What Did X Do?

X received a global takedown order from Australia’s eSafety commissioner to remove posts following the knife attack on a Christian bishop during a livestream service.

However, X says the posts did not violate the platform’s rules on “violent speech,” and revealed it had received a demand from the eSafety commissioner to remove all posts globally—or face a daily fine of $785,000 (US$506,000).

“X believes that eSafety’s order was not within the scope of Australian law and we complied with the directive pending a legal challenge,” the platform posted.

“While X respects the right of a country to enforce its laws within its jurisdiction, the eSafety commissioner does not have the authority to dictate what content X’s users can see globally. We will robustly challenge this unlawful and dangerous approach in court.”

The recent attacks in Australia are a horrific assault on free society. Our condolences go out to those who have been affected, and we stand with the Australian people in calling for those responsible to be brought to justice.

Following these events, the Australian eSafety…

— Global Government Affairs (@GlobalAffairs) April 19, 2024

On April 16, the eSafety commissioner confirmed it had issued legal notices to X and Meta to remove material within 24 hours.

The commissioner said notices related to material that depicted “gratuitous or offence violence with a high degree of impact or detail.”

“While the majority of mainstream social media platforms have engaged with us, I am not satisfied enough is being done to protect Australians from this most extreme and gratuitous violent material circulating online,” Ms. Inman Grant said.

“That is why I am exercising my powers under the Online Safety Act to formally compel them to remove it.”

A viral video on X shows a person going full ‘Donkey Kong’ on an autonomous Waymo vehicle in the crime-ridden downtown area of San Francisco over the weekend. This plays into a much larger trend of people lashing out against self-driving cars. 

Local media outlet KRON4 said the fully autonomous Jaguar I-Pace was near Market and Dolores streets when a person jumped on the hood and started “stomping the front windshield in an attempt to break it open.” 

Californian vs Waymo…

Another Day, Another Crimepic.twitter.com/jnNgxKswfs

— Mario Nawfal (@MarioNawfal) April 22, 2024

This isn’t the first time driverless vehicles have been targeted. A video from earlier this year shows a crowd in Chinatown torching a Waymo Jaguar on Jackson Street, between Stockton and Grant. 

BREAKING: An autonomous Waymo vehicle is intentionally set on fire in Chinatown, according to SF Fire. Firefighters said they got reports around 10 people were involved.

Waymo said “a crowd surrounded and vandalized the vehicle, breaking the window and throwing a firework … pic.twitter.com/6QN2jTppRu

— Gia Vang (@Gia_Vang) February 11, 2024

A video late last year shows another robotaxi being attacked by a person with a hammer. 

Someone seen destroying a RoboTaxi in San Francisco this weekend.

What do you think, hero or villain?

🎥: @caterywta on IG pic.twitter.com/KTdwGKrgWF

— (((BrokeAssStuart))) (@BrokeAssStuart) September 11, 2023

Last summer, we pointed out that members of Safe Street Rebels, a group that says these cars are “polluting, dangerous & murderous,” were coning driverless cars across the city. 

Week of Cone – Night One was a hit! Keep sending in your coning submissions 🦄 pic.twitter.com/c4KZLbFvhy

— Safe Street Rebel (@SafeStreetRebel) July 6, 2023

We have cited some X users who believe “The AI crusades have begun.” 

 Why would people rise up against machines? As Goldman explained a little over a year ago, “AI Will Lead To 300 Million Layoffs In The US And Europe.“

Via The Cradle

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad told the Foreign Minister of the south Caucasus republic Abkhazia during an interview published on 21 April that Damascus holds dialogue with Washington “from time to time.” In response to a question from Abkhazian Foreign Minister Inal Ardzinba on whether there has been an opportunity for Syria to “restore dialogue with the collective west,” Assad said: “America is currently illegally occupying part of our land, financing terrorism, and supporting Israel, which also occupies our land.”

“But we meet with them from time to time, although these meetings do not lead us to anything,” the Syrian president said, adding, however, that “everything will change.”

As part of regime change efforts against Damascus in 2011, Washington, along with Turkey, Gulf states, and several other countries, sponsored extremist groups with the aim of overthrowing the Syrian government. 

With the help of Russia, Iran, and Lebanon’s Hezbollah, Damascus has regained control over large swathes of Syria, which were under the control of ISIS and other US-backed groups. 

Under the pretext of fighting ISIS, the US army occupied Syrian oilfields in the north of the country in 2015 in coordination with its Kurdish proxy, the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) – one year after the launching of an international military coalition in Iraq and Syria. 

In May 2023, a senior diplomatic official in the Arab League revealed exclusively to The Cradle that Washington and Damascus were holding secret, direct negotiations in the Omani capital of Muscat. 

During the talks, Syrian officials mainly pressed for the complete withdrawal of US occupation troops from the country.

The diplomat added that “secret talks took place in previous years between Damascus and Washington, but most of them were through mediators, such as the former director general of the Lebanese General Security, Abbas Ibrahim. Direct meetings also took place between the two countries, one of which was in the Syrian capital, Damascus.” However, the number of direct meetings remained limited.

The secret talks in Muscat also touched on Austin Tice, a US citizen who entered Syria illegally via the Turkish border in 2012. Not long after, Tice disappeared in the territory of armed opposition groups that were fighting the Syrian government.

“There is always hope: even when we know there will be no results we must try,” he said when asked about the possibility of mending ties with the West. — Times of Israel

In response to the question about the possibility of mending ties with the West, Syrian President Assad said in a meeting, “There is always hope. Even when we know there will be no results, we must try”https://t.co/lCiAcGqhiC

— Middle East Eye (@MiddleEastEye) April 22, 2024

During the Muscat talks, the source stressed that “the American envoy repeatedly confirmed that he has information that Austin Tice is alive and in a Syrian army detention center. However, the Syrian delegation insisted that it had no information about Tice, with Damascus expressing its readiness to make all possible efforts to reveal his fate.”

From coast to coast, radical prosecutors and progressive politicians have been pushing illogical criminal justice policies that not only have backfired but transformed many once-safe Democrat-controlled cities into crime-ridden hellholes.

Go down the list of cities. Whether it’s New York City, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Washington, DC, Chicago, or San Francisco, and the list goes on and on – these metros are plagued with violent crime, out-of-control youth, carjackings, murders, drug crises, the homelessness crisis, theft waves, and unvetted migrants.

The latest sign some of the bluest American cities continue their transformation into ‘war zone’-like conditions while progressive lawmakers ignore law and order is an illegal “teen takeover” event in Democratic-controlled Memphis, Tennessee. 

On Saturday evening, Memphis police initially reported 16 people were shot during a block party in the 2400 block of Carnes Avenue in the Orange Mound neighborhood. It was later reported that five victims had gunshot wounds – two males were pronounced dead at the scene, and three others were taken to the hospital in critical condition. 

X video shows the moment when a Chevrolet Corvette was burning out in the middle of the street. Gunfire erupted, and everyone ducked for cover. 

🇺🇸🚨 Sixteen people just got shot at a “teen takeover” in Memphis! pic.twitter.com/YOxh8uwCQE

— Lord Bebo (@MyLordBebo) April 21, 2024

“Our cities turn into war zones every night and weekend, but the media refuses to even talk about it,” X user End Wokeness said. 

X user SaltyGoat said, “I’m willing to bet if there was a red MAGA hat anywhere in the crowd, it’d be all over the news.” 

The explosion of illegal teen takeover events nationwide is happening at a time when the youth is not respecting the law – thank Democrats for this phenomenon. 

According to Bloomberg data, there has been a surge in “teen takeover” news stories in corporate media since the start of 2023. 

Last night, Elon Musk said on X, “My politics are (I think) fairly moderate anyway.” 

He told X users he just wants safer cities and secured borders, among other common-sense points that Democrats are failing to deliver. 

My politics are (I think) fairly moderate anyway.

– Safe cities
– Secure borders
– Neutral judiciary
– Sensible spending
– Pro environment

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) April 21, 2024

Most Americans agree that safer cities and secured borders are critical to the nation. However, Democrats are oddly failing on this – and one has to wonder if there’s a secret agenda at play. 

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

Abortions conducted by Planned Parenthood are a leading cause of death in the United States, with the organization recommending the procedure to pregnant clients 97 percent of the time, according to Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America group.

Planned Parenthood, the country’s largest abortion provider, released its 2022–2023 annual report revealing the organization conducted 392,715 abortions during the period. “This puts abortions performed by Planned Parenthood in the top four leading causes of death in the United States, after heart disease, cancer, and COVID-19,” said Marjorie Dannenfelser, the president of Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America group.

According to data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), over 695,000 Americans died from heart disease in 2021, with 605,000 dying from cancer, 416,000 from COVID-19, and nearly 225,000 from accidents.

“Once again, pregnant women who walk into Planned Parenthood are sold an abortion 97 percent of the time, rather than helped to keep their child or make an adoption plan. Meanwhile, they saw 80,000 fewer patients, provided 60,000 fewer pap tests and breast exams, and even gave out less contraception, she said.

Ms. Dannenfelser blamed Democrats in Washington and several other states for backing Planned Parenthood abortions by sending them almost $700 million in taxpayer funds. This amount made up a third of the organization’s revenue, with Planned Parenthood ending the fiscal year with $2.5 billion in net assets, she noted.

Around 60 percent of women who have had an abortion “would rather have kept their babies if they just had more emotional or financial support,” Ms. Dannenfelser stated. “Democrats’ response? They demonize and strip funding from pregnancy resource centers that serve women and their children.”

Michael New, a social scientist and senior associate scholar at Charlotte Lozier Institute, pointed out that Planned Parenthood’s abortion number was a record for the organization, representing around 40 percent of total abortions performed in the United States.

While boosting its abortion numbers, Planned Parenthood also “continues to cut back on several health services,” he said. “Between 2022 and 2023, preventive-care visits fell by 31.0 percent, pap tests fell by 13.5 percent, cancer screenings fell by 1.4 percent, and adoption referrals fell by 4.5 percent.”

“In the past ten years, the number of abortions performed by Planned Parenthood has increased by 20 percent. Meanwhile, cancer screenings fell by more than 58 percent, and prenatal services declined by more than 67 percent.”

Despite cutting back on several healthcare services in 2022, Planned Parenthood continues to see an increase in government funding, Mr. New noted.

Funding, Election Issue

Republican lawmakers have been trying to cut back government funding for Planned Parenthood. In January last year, Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.) proposed a draft bill to defund the organization by instituting a one-year moratorium on federal funding for the organization.

“The nation’s largest abortion provider has no business receiving taxpayer dollars,” she said at the time. “Planned Parenthood claims these funds go to healthcare for women, but last year, Planned Parenthood performed a record number of abortions while also reducing the number of well-woman exams and breast cancer screenings it performed.”

In a Dec. 12 press release, Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.) questioned the funding provided to Planned Parenthood, citing a report by the U.S. Government Accountability (GAO) to point out that the organization received $1.78 billion in federal taxpayer funding in fiscal years 2019–2021.

The amount included $90.4 million the group allegedly “illegally siphoned” from the Paycheck Protection Program, a COVID-19 loan program aimed at assisting small businesses affected by the pandemic.

“While small businesses struggled to make ends meet during the pandemic, Planned Parenthood illegally siphoned over $90 million from the Paycheck Protection Program, specifically designed to help our mom-and-pop shops keep their doors open,” Ms. Blackburn said.

Commenting on the report, Rep. Chris Smith (R-N.J.), co-chair of the House Pro-Life Caucus, said that federal taxpayer funds “should not be funneled to big abortion corporations like Planned Parenthood, which has killed over 9.3 million unborn children since 1970, including 1.11 million between 2019-2021.”

The Planned Parenthood annual report comes as abortion is one of the key themes in the upcoming presidential race. Democrats are pushing abortion as a central issue, running ballot initiatives in battleground states.

In Arizona, a ballot measure seeks to amend the state’s constitution to ensure that abortion is a “fundamental right,” even up to the point where a baby can survive outside the womb, which typically happens around 24 weeks. Nevada, Colorado, and Maryland also have abortion amendments planned out.

“The Democrats’ strategy heading into this election cycle was to put these measures on the ballot in every big swing state,” Republican strategist Marcus Dell’Artino told The Epoch Times.

Former President Donald Trump, who is running for his second term in the 2024 elections, has stopped short of echoing other Republicans’ calls for a national abortion ban, saying that the matter is best left to the states.

“My view is now that we have abortion where everyone wanted it from a legal standpoint, the states will determine by vote or legislation or perhaps both. And whatever they decide must be the law of the land. In this case, the law of the state,” he said in a recent video posted on Truth Social.

“Many states will be different. Many will have a different number of weeks, or some will have more conservative than others, and that’s what they will be. At the end of the day, this is all about the will of the people.”

The prior period of constant attacks on US bases in Iraq and Syria which corresponded with the opening first half of Israel’s operations in Gaza could soon resume, after a Sunday incident saw at least five rockets fired on an American base in northeastern Syria. 

The Iraqi militant group Kataib Hezbollah – which has close ties with Iran claimed responsibility, and more importantly announced that it is resuming attacks on US bases in the region.

Reuters described that “Two security sources and a senior army officer said a rocket launcher fixed on the back of a small truck had been parked in Zummar border town with Syria.” 

“The military official said the truck caught fire with an explosion from unfired rockets at the same time as warplanes were in the sky,” the report continued. There were no casualties, according to regional correspondents.

The military official subsequently said: “We can’t confirm that the truck was bombed by US warplanes unless we investigate it”—strongly suggesting the Pentagon’s response was almost immediate, and that air power was deployed.

Crucially, Sunday’s incident marked the first such attack on a US base since early February. At that time Iranian militia leaders ordered their fighters to temporarily stand down. That order held, given there hasn’t been any notable attack in two months before this weekend.

NEW: Following reports of a rocket attack on a U.S. base in Syria a U.S. official tells Fox News 5+ rockets were fired from Iraq into Syria near a U.S. base. No U.S. service members were killed or injured & there was no damage to the base. It is unclear if the base was the target

— Liz Friden (@Liz_Friden) April 21, 2024

The Guardian notes further of the timing of this fresh attack:

It comes one day after Iraq’s prime minister, Mohammed Shia al-Sudani, returned from a visit to the United States and met with Joe Biden at the White House.

Iraq’s Kataib Hezbollah said Iraqi armed groups had decided to resume attacks on the US presence in the country after seeing little progress on talks to achieve the exit of American troops during al-Sudani’s visit to Washington.

“What happened a short while ago is the beginning,” the group said.

On Monday, following Sunday’s brief rocket attack on the US base near the Iraq-Syria border, there was another assault – on the Iraqi side of the border.

“Another attack on US forces in the region in the last hours, now on Al Assad base in Iraq,” according to Walla News, as cited in news wires. There are unverified reports of US military helicopters airborne over the area and that a response is ongoing.

During the three to four months following the Oct.7 Hamas terror attack, there were an estimated over 150 drone and rocket attacks against US bases in Iraq and Syria. Among these was the attack which killed three Americans and wounded 40 others at an outpost along the Jordan-Syria border.

President Biden had in the wake of the Jordan outpost attack ordered airstrikes on Iran-linked militia positions, and following the tit-for-tat, Kataib Hezbollah’s stood down. However, events of this weekend strongly suggest things are about to ramp up again, also as Iraqi and Syrian government officials have long sought to see Pentagon troops finally expelled from their sovereign territories.

Authored by John Haughey via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

Across a six-decade career, beginning as a 16-year-old ambulance driver to his ascension as America’s most renowned lawman, Grady Judd has made one thing clear.

He’s that guy, that old-school sheriff whose tough-talking press conferences garner national attention, but he’s also a lifelong student of integrating new-school techniques with emerging technologies, a pioneering innovator in administration, and a conscientious mentor who lives as he leads.

And so, on this April afternoon, Mr. Judd, 70, is looking back on 54 years in public service by doing what he’s always done, looking forward.

He’s prioritizing goals for his sixth term as sheriff of Polk County, a 2,000-square-mile sprawl of Central Florida sawgrass savannah between Orlando and Tampa that’s doubled in population in a decade.

His new term officially begins in January but it actually began the February day he filed to run, instantly clinching his third-straight unopposed re-election.

There’s plenty of time to talk about the past but, right now, he told The Epoch Times, “There’s plenty of work to do over the next four years in keeping crime down.”

Mr. Judd said the 1,800-employee Polk County Sheriff’s Office (PCSO), which includes 1,100 deputies, 1,330 vehicles, and a 2,500-bed jail with a $236 million budget, will be busy doing just that every day, all day, while taking on two initiatives.

He is launching a program to help keep the mentally ill out of jail, a chronic national urgency that defies easy solutions, while training a unit to combat the next great global crime challenge: artificial intelligence (AI).

“Right now, AI is capable of emulating voices. Right? So we’re going to have to protect the community from false AI allegations and keep evil parasites from attacking us from within as well as internationally,” he said, noting it’s the first such unit created by a local law enforcement agency in the United States.

A pressing focus everywhere, he said, is to “reduce the need” for first-responders to be roadside therapists in protecting the mentally ill from themselves and others, and to find alternatives to using jails as primary—and often only—sources of medication for many with mental health issues.

As a newly-minted deputy in 1974, he recalls, those arrested exhibiting mental problems were housed in a regional hospital where inmate patients were treated.

“Fast-forward to today” and his deputies don’t have that option, Mr. Judd said.

“The state and federal government did away with mental hospitals. So where did those mentally ill end up? They ended up in prison, in county jail lockups. They ended up underneath overpasses, sleeping behind buildings, out in the woods.”

Institutional options narrowed as pharmaceutical solutions expanded, he said. Advocates for the mentally ill argued, “They have a constitutional right not to be incarcerated’ and, ‘Oh, we have these new medicines. They just have to take the medicines.’”

Good concept, Mr. Judd said, bad plan.

“Where do we find them to give them their medicines? And, oh, you’re not going to provide medicines? How’re they going to afford it? It’s very expensive” especially for mentally ill people living “out in the woods,” he said.

So he has a plan—and $1 million in seed money from Polk County commissioners to provide court-mandated medications for itinerant offenders.

“We’re in the infant stages of that. We’ve gotten total cooperation from everyone,” Mr. Judd said of a coalescing coalition that includes providers, the courts, state attorney’s office, public defenders, and advocates for the mentally ill. “That’s pretty remarkable that everybody says, ‘Yes, let’s do this.’ It’s a win-win for everyone.”

In an age of polarity, a “win-win for everyone” is a rare air that Grady Judd exudes.

He’s doing what he’s wanted to do since he was 4, what he believes God put him here to do, to protect the place where he was born, raised, and lived his whole life, where he married his high school sweetheart and raised two sons, where he pioneered crime-fighting tactics in a changing world while never wavering from fundamental truths such as right from wrong, good from bad.

In exchange, Polk County got the right sheriff at the right time, a leader to meet the challenges posed by growth as it evolved into an urbanizing I-4 corridor where 100,000 new people have arrived each of the last three years.

And yet, unincorporated Polk County’s 2023 crime rate of 1.06—one per 100 residents—is less than half the state’s rate and lowest since the metric was created in 1971, lower than when it had three times fewer people and 88 percent less than when it had half as many people.

A “win-win” for all—except criminals.

“I’m blessed to live God’s mission for me,” Mr. Judd said. ”All I’ve ever wanted to be was sheriff—the sheriff of Polk County.”

Sheriff-in-Waiting

Raised in a Lakeland subdivision of cinder block homes without air conditioning, Mr. Judd shows office visitors a black-and-white 1954 photo of him sitting on an uncle’s lap. His uncle was White County, Tenn., Sheriff Joe McCoy, but it was Grady Judd wearing the sheriff’s star.

He was the cop when playing ‘cops and robbers’ with childhood friends, grew up watching TV shows such as ‘Dragnet’ and ‘The Andy Griffith Show,’ and was scanning police radio frequencies and mastering codes at 12.

As he told The Epoch Times in November 2023, his father, a Cadillac dealership service-manager, was a church deacon. “I was raised in the church,” he said. “We were sometimes the first to arrive and the last to leave.”

Faith, his “guiding light,” compelled him to be a relentless teenager in informing the sheriffs office he’d be joining them soon and someday be the boss.

As a high school junior in 1970, he was hired as a $1.65-an-hour ambulance attendant in Winter Haven. He helped deliver a baby at 16 and at 17, convinced the notoriously recalcitrant musician George Jones, in a drunken rage, to get into his ambulance, later admitting he had no idea who the world-famous country star was.

After going to high school by day, finishing his ambulance shift at night, Mr. Judd hung out at the sheriff’s office, effectively forcing them to hire him two months after graduation as a dispatcher despite a minimum-age requirement of 21.

He remembers July 21, 1972, a humid, storm-stirred Friday night, his first shift at Bartow’s Hall of Justice, which “housed the entire justice system” and “one teletype computer.”

Richard Nixon was president, Reuben Askew was governor of Florida, gas was 34 cents a gallon, ‘The Godfather’ was a box office hit, Bill Withers’ ‘Lean On Me’ topped the charts.

Two months later, Mr. Judd married his fiancé, Marisa, also 18 and also newly hired at a municipal finance department. They lived on combined salaries of $550 a month. They’ve been together since.

When legislators waived the 21-year-old requirement to be a law enforcement officer. Mr. Judd convinced Sheriff Brannen—the icon of his youth—to send him to the state’s police academy. Just before he turned 20, he was sworn in as the first-ever PCSO deputy under 21.

He hit the road as a 19-year-old deputy in February 1974 in a green-and-white Ford Galaxy and a pistol his father had to buy because state law precluded him from doing so. Nevertheless, as Mr. Judd says, “The rest is history.”

Read more here…