Authored by Darlene McCormick Sanchez via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

Republicans on the House Homeland Security subcommittee expressed concern as the surge of illegal Chinese migrants hit an all-time high in April after the Biden administration relaxed vetting rules last year.

House Homeland Security Subcommittee on Oversight, Investigations, and Accountability Chairman Dan Bishop (R-N.C.) held the hearing on May 16 to address the “unprecedented flow of Chinese nationals” illegally crossing the U.S. southern border, which has topped 27,000 since Oct. 1.

The latest CBP numbers show that 3,324 Chinese nationals crossed the southwest border in April alone—more than the total crossings for the entire 2022 fiscal year.

This year’s total tops 27,000 encounters, surpassing the 24,000 illegal southwest border crossings during the entire 2023 fiscal year.

That’s a massive jump from recent years. In 2022, the number of Chinese migrant encounters was slightly more than  2,000 at the U.S. southern border. In 2021, that number was 450.

Nationwide encounters of Chinese migrants entering unlawfully are even higher.

When looking at encounters across the country this fiscal year, CBP data shows more than 48,000 encounters so far with illegal Chinese migrants, which includes migrants coming through ports of entry.

Mr. Bishop said during the hearing he is concerned that the vetting process, which has been decreased from 40 to five questions for Chinese migrants, does little to protect America’s national security. 

“As the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) continues its quest for geopolitical dominance and threatens our sovereignty, we must examine the risks presented by releasing ever-increasing numbers of minimally vetted Chinese nationals into our communities,” Mr. Bishop said in a statement.

The Democrats’ Homeland Security website dismissed those concerns, characterizing it as “another Republican Border ‘hearing’ with invasion rhetoric and fear-mongering.”

Mr. Bishop said Chinese migrants crossing illegally into the U.S. could have “nefarious motives,” noting federal indictments in North Carolina last month showed partnerships between Mexican drug cartels and Chinese transnational criminal organizations engaged in money laundering operations throughout the United States. 

Experts invited to testify indicated that the vetting process was unlikely to find any criminal background information on Chinese nationals who have never been in the United States because China does not readily share that information with American authorities. Border Patrol officers must rely on foreign nationals to answer questions truthfully.

Simon Hankinson, senior research fellow with the Heritage Foundation’s Border Security and Immigration Center, told the committee that the vetting process was insufficient.

“At best, this is a mockery of U.S. immigration law and sovereignty, and at worst, it is a huge national security and community safety risk. In addition to many Chinese with connections to the Communist Party, People’s Liberation Army, and other state entities, it is statistically probable that [Department of Homeland Security] DHS is releasing people with criminal records,” he said.

Todd Bensman, a national security fellow with the Center for Immigration Studies, brought along passports and identification cards he found near the border. The stamps inside the passports prove their holders traveled through safe countries that would have granted protection, therefore disqualifying them for U.S. asylum, he said.

While most Chinese nationals were likely coming to work, Mr. Bensman said there was little doubt that “Beijing spymasters” also noticed a new opportunity at the wide open U.S. southern border.

However, Meredith Owen, an associate history professor at the University of Maryland, testified that most Chinese are coming to the United States to flee oppression and find jobs.

She highlighted past actions by the U.S. government targeting Chinese immigrants, which had dire consequences. The Chinese became the first and only nation to be singled out by U.S. immigration law with the 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act, she said.

The anti-Chinese movement that drove the creation of the act cited Chinese migration as a unique threat to the United States, she said.

“These fears led to extreme violence against Chinese immigrants, including mob violence and the burning of Chinatowns,” she said.

Committee member Yvette Clarke (D-N.Y.) said during the hearing she is concerned about how to fix America’s “broken“ immigration system and implied racism was the reason behind opposition to migration.

“We’re here today because Republicans are demagoguing and exploiting the xenophobic and white supremacist ideologies that are fueling the immigration debate in this nation,“ she said.

Since President Joe Biden took office, there have been more than 9 million encounters nationwide and some 7.6 million encounters at the southwest border alone.

House Republicans blame Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorka’s policies under the Biden administration for the border crisis. 

The House voted Feb. 13 to impeach the secretary for “willful and systemic refusal to comply with the law“ and for the “breach of public trust.”

However, the Democrat-controlled Senate dismissed impeachment charges against him before holding a trial, leaving Mr. Mayorkas in office.

Democrats have pointed out that America was built on immigrants and benefits from their labor.

Jerry Nadler (D-N.Y.) said during an immigration subcommittee hearing in January that “many illegal immigrants“ were needed for agriculture production or “our vegetables would rot in the ground.”

Republicans, however, question the surge of Chinese nationals coming across the U.S. southern border.

In April 2023, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) instructed Border Patrol agents to reduce the number of questions they asked Chinese migrants.

At the time, agents were facing a record number of illegal crossings from all nationalities.

The hearing became contentious at times, with committee member Delia Ramirez (D-Ill.) saying Mr. Bensman’s organization had been labeled as a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center. 

This leftwing group has listed many conservative organizations as “hate” groups, such as parental rights groups headed by moms.

Ms. Ramirez accused Mr. Bensman of “uplifting the same invasion rhetoric central to the white nationalist and antisemitic Great Replacement conspiracy theory” on social media.

“There is no hateful antisemitic speech in my Twitter [now called X] feed,“ Mr. Bensman responded. “I am Jewish, and we don’t really get with white nationalists; that’s not our thing, so get your facts straight.”

Mr. Bensman also suggested she read a book titled, “Making Hate Pay: The Corruption of the Southern Poverty Law Center.” 

In 2023, Republican senators led by Roger Marshall (R-Kansas) wrote to Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorka, suggesting some Chinese migrants entering the U.S. illegally may be tied to the CCP.

“There have been numerous documented instances of Chinese nationals, at the direction of the CCP, engaging in espionage, stealing military and economic secrets,“ according to the letter.

 The letter also noted that China is a significant source of drugs such as fentanyl being trafficked across the U.S. southern border.

South Park creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone have been master craftsmen at flawlessly capturing and satirizing society’s absurdities since the first episode of the animated comedy series debuted on Comedy Central in August 1997.

As of May, and 330 episodes later, Parker and Stone are preparing to debut the next exclusive streaming event, “The End of Obesity.” 

“The advent of new weight loss drugs has a huge impact on everyone in South Park. When Cartman is denied access to the life-changing medicine, the kids jump into action,” South Park’s official X account wrote. 

In the teaser trailer, Eric Cartman visits a doctor about his obesity. The doctor says,  “It’s time for some drastic measures to bring down his weight.” The doctor then asks Cartman, “Have you ever heard of Semaglutides … Ozempic, Mounjaro?” 

However, Cartman is denied access to Semaglutides and then asks his friends Kyle, Stan, Butters, and Kenny for help. 

Kyle Broflovski, Cartman’s friend, says these drugs “could be dangerous.” 

And, of course, Cartman ignores the warnings and says, “Let’s do it!” 

Leopold “Butters” Stotch, another friend of Cartman’s, says: “We’ve been out navigating the American healthcare system … and I almost died.” 

The advent of new weight loss drugs has a huge impact on everyone in South Park. When Cartman is denied access to the life-changing medicine, the kids jump into action.

The new exclusive event SOUTH PARK: THE END OF OBESITY premieres May 24, 2024 on Paramount+! #SouthPark… pic.twitter.com/7A5rQB8q7x

— South Park (@SouthPark) May 15, 2024

What’s troubling, and likely, Parker and Stone have captured this theme in the upcoming episode, set to debut on May 24, is how America’s healthcare system, a combination of big government and big pharma, is doing very little to promote healthy diets and exercise – which by the way would help solve the obesity crisis – instead have chosen the dangerous pathway of over medicating Americans with even more drugs. 

• Address Metabolic Crisis At Its Root, Don’t Hook Obese Americans On Gov’t-Funded Ozempic
• Five Simple Policies To Reset America’s “Rigged” Health System

South Park has released six other streaming events: “South Park: Post COVID,” “South Park: Post COVID: The Return of COVID,” “South Park: The Streaming Wars,” “South Park: The Streaming Wars Part 2,” “South Park: Joining the Panderverse” and the recently released “South Park (Not Suitable For Children).”

I’m looking forward to this 😂 https://t.co/LGqGlOTiuU

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 18, 2024

Authored by Jack Phillips via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

The U.S. Department of State on Friday issued a “worldwide caution” alert for U.S. citizens to remain alert for possible terrorist attacks or other violent actions against Americans.

In a “security alert” posted on its website, the agency said the warning was sent because of the “potential for terrorist attacks, demonstrations, or violent actions against U.S. citizens and interests.” Americans who are overseas, it added, are encouraged to use “increased caution.”

The Department of State said it is also “aware of the increased potential for foreign terrorist organization-inspired violence against” LGBT people, echoing a statement issued by the FBI and Department of Homeland Security earlier this week that terrorist groups such as ISIS could target “Pride” month-related events in June.

“Stay alert in locations frequented by tourists, including Pride celebrations and venues frequented” by those individuals, the bulletin added. It did not provide any specific details about any alleged or reported terrorist plots.

Late last year, the State Department issued a similar worldwide alert for Americans following the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas-led attack in Israel that triggered the ongoing conflict in Gaza.

About a week ago, the agency issued a statement to U.S. citizens in the Middle East, cautioning them to heed a travel advisory for Israel, Gaza, and the West Bank because of active military operations in the area.

“Terrorist groups, lone-actor terrorists and other violent extremists continue plotting possible attacks in Israel, the West Bank, and Gaza,” it said. “Terrorists and violent extremists may attack with little or no warning, targeting tourist locations, transportation hubs, markets [or] shopping malls, and local government facilities.”

The Israel-Hamas conflict has led to a “complex situation” that could have implications for U.S. citizens’ safety, the department said, adding that the Israel Defense Forces currently has control over the Gaza side of Rafah Crossing.

Israel has said that about 100 hostages are still captive in Gaza, along with the bodies of about 30 more. Military officials and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Friday said that its forces found the bodies of three Israeli hostages killed by Hamas during its Oct. 7 attack, including German-Israeli Shani Louk.

Mr. Netanyahu called the deaths “heartbreaking,” saying in a statement, “We will return all of our hostages, both the living and the dead.”

Hamas-led terrorists killed about 1,200 people, mainly civilians, and abducted about 250 others in the Oct. 7 attack. About half of those hostages have since been freed, most in swaps for Palestinian prisoners held by Israel during a weeklong cease-fire in November.

FBI and DHS Warning

In a separate bulletin, both the FBI and DHS said that groups such as ISIS, or Islamic State, might “seek to exploit increased gatherings associated” with “Pride”-related events. The terrorist threats could come via the mail, in person, or online, the agencies stated without elaborating or providing specific details.

The bulletin noted that June 12 is the eighth anniversary of the mass shooting at the Pulse Nightclub in Orlando in which 49 people died. After the incident, pro-ISIS groups “praised this attack as one of the high-profile attacks in Western countries” and “supporters celebrated it,” according to the FBI and DHS.

Both agencies also noted that in February 2023, an ISIS-related message board had included “rhetoric and rallied against the growth and promotion” of LGBT groups.

The two agencies revealed “possible indicators” of what they called “potential threat activity,” which includes “unusual surveillance or interest in buildings, gatherings, or events” as well as “unusual or prolonged testing or probing of security measures at events or venues,” violent threats made online or in person, and photography of security related equipment or personnel.

In April, the FBI announced that it had arrested an 18-year-old Idaho man for allegedly plotting to carry out a terrorist attack targeting local churches. The man, identified in court documents as Alexander Mercurio, is accused of telling an FBI informant about his alleged plans and that he wanted to carry out an attack on April 7, but he was thwarted by officials.

Meanwhile, Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) earlier this week warned that an ISIS-linked human smuggling network was discovered at the U.S.-Mexico border, adding that the FBI told him about ISIS-linked “individuals who are facilitating the passage of migrants across the U.S.–Mexican border into the United States.”

Mr. Cornyn, who was speaking at a congressional hearing, added that he believes that it is only a matter of “when” and not “if” a terrorist attack is carried out on U.S. soil.

Several weeks ago, FBI Director Chris Wray said foreign terrorist groups are again looking to attack the United States in an “increasingly concerning” way, noting that his agency is attempting to prevent an attack on U.S. soil via terrorist groups such as ISIS-K, a regional branch of ISIS mainly in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

“Foreign terrorists, including ISIS, al-Qaeda, and their adherents, have renewed calls for attacks against Jewish communities here in the United States and across the West in statements and propaganda,” Mr. Wray said in April.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

While global coverage of the Gaza crisis has focused on the Israeli offensive in the southern city of Raffah of late, fierce battles have erupted in the north of the Strip over the last several days, especially in Jabalia, where the IDF military is in a fierce anti-insurgent style battle set amid narrow alleyways.

The city which lies 2.5 miles north of Gaza City saw a ‘return’ of Hamas fighters after the IDF months ago conquered it. It has long been deemed among the Strip’s permanent refugee camps. There are reports that Israeli armor has smashed deep into the heart of the camp and city.

Hamas also appears to have stepped-up its attacks on Israeli forces in various locations, and Al Jazeera reports at least 40 Palestinian deaths over the course of the last day.

“Tanks and planes are wiping out residential districts and markets, shops, restaurants, everything. It is all happening before the one-eyed world,” a resident of Jabalia identified as Ayman Rajab told a regional outlet.

The same outlet observed that this intensifying fighting is occurring in the same northern region as the US Army-built humanitarian aid pier:

“People are terrified and they’re trying to get away,” Jens Laerke, UN humanitarian office spokesperson, said in Geneva, adding that most were following orders to move north toward the coast but that there were no safe routes or destinations.

As the fighting raged, the US military said trucks started moving aid ashore from a temporary pier, the first to reach the besieged enclave by sea in weeks.

The situation is heating up even as famine is said to be present in this northern area. “To stave off the horrors of famine, we must use the fastest and most obvious route to reach the people of Gaza – and for that, we need access by land now,” deputy UN spokesperson Farhan Haq announced in a statement, even as initial US aid deliveries via the pier get underway from nearby Cyprus.

This of course creates the potential that expanded fighting could occur close to the vicinity where American troops are overseeing pier operations just off the coast.

The Pentagon previously made it clear that if US troops come under fire, they are authorized to defend themselves and fire back. However, the IDF has also said it is providing security on land, and there are at least two Israeli bases established nearby.

Israel has said of the intense Jabalia fight:

The Israel Defense Forces said troops killed more than 60 militants in Jabalia in recent days and located a weapons warehouse in a “divisional-level offensive.”

A divisional operation would typically involve several brigades of thousands of troops each, making it one of the biggest of the war. “The 7th Brigade’s fire control center directed dozens of airstrikes, eliminated terrorists and destroyed terrorist infrastructure,” the IDF said.

Again, this is all potential recipe for a looming disaster which could suck the Pentagon directly into the chaos of northern Gaza fighting. Some Congressional leaders have recently sought to address this possibility in hearings:

After the catastrophic withdrawal from Afghanistan, Biden is putting troops in harm’s way with a half baked plan to construct a pier in Gaza.

Watch me question Biden admin officials, @CENTCOM Commander, and @USAfricaCommand Commander during today’s @HASCRepublicans hearing ⬇️ pic.twitter.com/hS5AW54wXS

— Rep. Rob Wittman (@RobWittman) March 21, 2024

As for Hamas, its armed wing is openly advertising that it is pouring its members into the fight. Via its Telegram channel the group said that its fighters:

• shot an Israeli soldier with sniper fire east of Jabalia
• attacked a group of 15 soldiers with anti-personnel devices and then used light weapons and hand grenades while they were inside a house in al-Tanour neighbourhood, east of Rafah
• targeted a Merkava tank with a Yassin-105 rocket in the same neighbourhood
• shelled Rafah crossing
• targeted an “Apache” Israeli military helicopter with an anti-aircraft surface-to-air missile (SAM-7)
• blew up an Israeli military bulldozer east of Rafah

There further remains the possibility that Palestinian militants could send drones against the pier, which is something both the Pentagon and IDF appear to have prepared for.

🛰 Several Coyote Block 2 Anti-UAS/UAV deployed on US-built floating pier( also known as JLOTS costs $326 million)
Threat Perception/Kamikaze UAV- UAS https://t.co/7EYscUvYtn pic.twitter.com/zxHW94CKO7

— Hurşit Dingil (@hursitdingil) May 18, 2024

How will this all end? Things look to continue to get worse, and there’s still no sign of positive momentum toward a ceasefire on the horizon.

Authored by Ray McGovern via Consortium News

Chinese President Xi Jinping’s extremely warm reception of President Vladimir Putin yesterday in Beijing sealed the increasingly formidable Russia-China strategic relationship. It amounts to a tectonic shift in the world balance of power. 

The Russia-China entente also sounds the death knell for attempts by U.S. foreign policy neophytes to drive a wedge between the two countries. The triangular relationship has become two-against-one, with serious implications, particularly for the war in Ukraine. If US President Joe Biden’s foreign policy geniuses remain in denial, escalation is almost certain.

In a pre-visit interview with Xinhua, Putin noted the “unprecedented level of strategic partnership between our countries.” He and Xi have met more than 40 times in person or virtually. In June 2018, Xi described Putin as “an old friend of the Chinese people” and, personally, his “best friend.”

For his part, Putin noted Thursday that he and Xi are “in constant contact to keep personal control over all pressing issues on the Russian-Chinese and international agenda.” Putin brought along Defense Minister Andrey Belousov as well as veterans like Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and key business leaders.

Joint Statements Matter

Xi and Putin signed a strong joint statement Thursday, similar to the extraordinary one the two issued on Feb. 4, 2022, in Beijing. It portrayed their relationship as “superior to political and military alliances of the Cold War era. Friendship between the two States has no limits, there are no ‘forbidden’ areas of cooperation…”

The full import of that statement did not hit home until Putin launched the Special Military Operation into the Donbass three weeks later. China’s muted reaction shocked most analysts, who had dismissed the possibility that Xi would give “best friend” Putin, in effect, a waiver on China’s bedrock policy of non-interference abroad.

In the following weeks, official Chinese statements made clear that the principles of Westphalia had taken a back seat to “the need for every country to defend its core interests” and to judge each situation “on its own merits.”

Nuclear War

Thursday’s statement expressed concern over “increased strategic risks between nuclear powers” — referring to continued escalation of the war between NATO-supported Ukraine and Russia.

It condemns “the expansion of military alliances and creation of military bridgeheads close to the borders of other nuclear powers, particularly with the advanced deployment of nuclear weapons and their means of delivery, as well as other items.”

Putin has undoubtedly briefed Xi on the U.S. missile sites already in Romania and Poland that can launch what Russians call “offensive strike missiles” with flight time to Moscow of less than 10 minutes. Putin surely has told Xi about the inconsistencies in U.S. statements regarding intermediate-range nuclear missiles.

For example, Xi is aware — just as surely as consumers of Western media are unaware — that during a Dec. 30, 2021, telephone conversation, Biden assured Putin that “Washington had no intention of deploying offensive strike weapons in Ukraine.”

There was rejoicing in the Kremlin that New Years’ Eve, since Biden’s assurance was the first sign that Washington might acknowledge Russia’s security concerns. Indeed, Biden addressed a key issue in at least five of the eight articles of the Russian draft treaty given to the U.S. on Dec. 17, 2021. Russian rejoicing, however, was short-lived.

There has remained much speculation over whether the two leaders’ respective translators were actually also carrying the ‘nuclear footballs’ while in Harbin:

Putin and Xi have been shadowed the entire visit by their respective guys presumably lugging their nuclear footballs. I think this is a new look for Russia and China. The message sent is about as heavy as it gets. https://t.co/adSDnSMoJy

— Jeff Wells (@JeffWellsRigInt) May 16, 2024

Foreign Minister Lavrov revealed last month that when he met Antony Blinken in Geneva in January 2022, the U.S. secretary of state pretended he’d not heard of Biden’s undertaking to Putin on Dec. 30, 2021. Rather, Blinken insisted that U.S. medium-range missiles could be deployed in Ukraine, and only that the U.S. might be willing to limit their number, Lavrov said.

The Mother of All Miscalculations

When Biden took office in 2021, his advisers assured him that he could play on Russia’s fear (sic) of China and drive a wedge between them. This became embarrassingly clear when Biden indicated what he had told Putin during their Geneva summit on June 16, 2021.

That meeting gave Putin confirmation that Biden and his advisers were stuck in a woefully outdated appraisal of Russia-China relations.

Read the rest at Consortium News

90s Democrat Bill Maher has come to the defense of Kansas City Chiefs kicker Harrison Butker over a recent graduation speech in which he said that one of the “most important” jobs a woman can have is being a homemaker.

“How many of you are sitting here now, about to cross this stage, and are thinking about all the promotions and titles you are going to get in your career? Some of you may go on to lead successful careers in the world. But I would venture to guess that the majority of you are most excited about your marriage and the children you will bring into this world,” Butker told graduates at Benedictine College last weekend.

The NFL just condemned this speech by Super Bowl champion Harrison Butker.

They 𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐥𝐥𝐲 don’t want people to hear it.

It would be a shame if you make it viral. pic.twitter.com/gKy7wJsqpu

— End Wokeness (@EndWokeness) May 16, 2024

Butker’s speech resulted in a collective gasp from the left, which has spent decades programming young women to believe that becoming a housewife is tantamount to failure, and that real women become titans of industry – delegating the raising of children to others, or hitting peak girlboss and simply not reproducing (and definitely not grappling with deep regret as their eggs expire).

For example, these assholes:

And so, coming to Butker’s defense is “Real Time” host Bill Maher, who says he doesn’t see “what the big crime is.”

During a Friday night panel discussion, Maher mocked Butker’s critics for trying to make him out to be “history’s greatest monster.”

“I can’t express how much this guy is not like me,” said Maher. “He’s religious. He loves marriage. He loves kids… And he’s now history’s greatest monster.”

“Again, I don’t agree with much with this guy, but I don’t get the thing. He said… ‘Some of you may go on to lead successful careers in the world.’ Ok, that seems fairly, like, modern. ‘But I would venture to guess that the majority of you are most excited about your marriage and the children you will bring into this world.’ I don’t see what the big crime is. I really don’t,” Maher continued.

“And I think this is part of the problem people have with the left is that lots of people in this country are like this. Like he’s saying some of you may go on to lead successful careers, but a lot of you are excited about this other way that people- everybody used to be. And now can’t that be a choice too?“

“And I feel like they feel very put upon, like there’s only one way to be a good person and that’s to get an advanced degree from one of those a– h–e factories like Harvard,” Maher continued.

Watch:

Bill Maher Drops Unexpected Bomb on Left’s Outrage for Harrison Butker’s Speech

“I don’t see what the big crime is.”

“I really don’t. And I think this is part of the problem people have with the left is… pic.twitter.com/d43KlyZJZC

— The Vigilant Fox 🦊 (@VigilantFox) May 18, 2024

Basically…

Presented without comment. pic.twitter.com/9J8aeArVc2

— Mollie (@MZHemingway) May 17, 2024

Authored by Ann Wright via CommonDreams.org,

Instead of U.S. President Joe Biden marking a red line in the sand demanding that Israel allow aid into Gaza via ground transportation, his inept diplomatic team sent out a plea for help to the U.S. military.

While in the U.S. Army and Army Reserves for 29 years, I thought I had seen some pretty stupid things the military was told by politicians to do. It always begins with politicians deciding the easiest, most sensible solution to a problem would have too much political baggage and cost them votes in the next election. So, they look for a politically expedient solution, one that is invariably very expensive and convoluted.

Attempting a Military Solution for a Political or Diplomat Problem—AGAIN!!!

In this vein, all too often, politicians turn to the U.S. military for a solution to a non-military problem. Then some A-type personality in the military presents a hair-brained idea to the politicians, probably never thinking that the idea would be accepted. Then it is accepted to get the politicians out of a jam, and the next thing you know is that the Rube Goldberg, crazy idea is being funded.

This unbelievable scenario is what has happened with getting humanitarian aid into Gaza for the starving survivors of the Israeli genocide of Gaza. Instead of U.S. President Joe Biden marking a red line in the Israel/Gaza/Egypt sand demanding that Israel allow into Gaza the miles of tractor-trailer loads of food and medicine that have been stalled for months at the Rafah border crossing, Biden’s inept diplomatic team sent out a plea for help to the U.S. military.

Palestinians in Gaza and citizens around the world will not forget that miles of supplies are just feet away from Gaza at the Rafah crossing and the U.S. will not use its pressure on Israel to open the gates at Rafah.

And the U.S. military, always looking for validation of its immense “capabilities,” seized the opportunity to use one of its little-known assets—the Army’s Joint Logistics Over the Shore, or JLOTS, system that provides bridging and water access capabilities—to help out the failed U.S. diplomatic efforts to get the U.S.’s “strongest ally in the Middle East” to end the starvation of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians in Gaza by letting the massive truck convoys filled with food and medicines into Gaza.

Normally used to move military equipment across rivers where bridges have been blown up—many times by the U.S. military itself—and sometimes to transfer military equipment from a ship onto shore, the U.S. Army’s small navy swung into action and began sailing to the Mediterranean in U.S. Army ships filled with barges that can be locked together to form landing docks and causeways.

Rube Goldberg Complex of Construction and Transportation Ideas

In a Rube Goldberg complex of construction and transportation ideas, the U.S. military anchored to the sea floor three miles off the northern coast of Gaza a floating dock system onto which large cargo ships can dock.

Cargo ships will off-load pallets and possibly container loads of humanitarian assistance—long-life packaged food and medical supplies—on the three-mile off-shore dock. This cargo will have undergone inspection by Israeli authorities in the port of Larnaca, Cyprus, 200 miles from Gaza.

The inspection process involves Cypriot customs, Israeli teams, the U.S., and the United Nations Office for Project Services. The U.S. Agency for International Development has set up a coordination cell in Cyprus.

Two-thousand trucks to offload ONE ship driving 1,800 feet on a causeway that will be dangerously affected by tides, winds, and waves is a recipe for disaster.

From the cargo ships, food and medical supplies will be transferred into the backs of U.S. Army trucks (probably 2.5-ton trucks) that have arrived on the floating pier brought there by two types of smaller Army boats—Logistic Support Vessels, or LSVs, and Landing Craft Utility boats (LCUs). LSVs can hold 15 trucks each and the LCUs about five.

The loaded 2.5-ton trucks will be driven back onto the LSVs and motored three miles to the second floating pier system constructed by the U.S. military.

The trucks will then be driven off the LSVs onto the second pier and down a two-lane, 1,800-foot (six U.S. football fields long) causeway anchored onto Gaza land by the Israeli military. The causeway will be anchored onto Gaza shores by the Israeli military because the U.S. military is forbidden to have “boots on the ground” in Gaza.

The truckloads of food and medical supplies will then be driven somewhere… and supplies distributed by some organization… yet to be determined according to the latest news reports.

The empty trucks will then be driven back along the two-lane, 1,800-foot causeway to the floating pier where they will be driven into the small LSVs, and the LSVs then sailed back three miles to the larger off-shore pier and the process begun again. The long causeway should be a cause of alarm for drivers, as the winds and waves so dramatically affected the construction of the causeway that most of the causeway was put together in the calm waters of Ashdod, an Israeli harbor, after winds and waves made construction of the causeway in place off Gaza impossible. Parts of the causeway are now being towed 20 miles from Ashdod harbor to northern Gaza to be linked into place.

While Thousands of Truck Loads of Cargo Wait at the Rafah Border Crossing, It Will Take 2,000 Truck Loads to Empty Each 5,000 Ton Cargo Ship  

if a large cargo ship has 5,000 tons of food and medical supplies to be off-loaded, and if each truck can hold 2.5 tons of cargo, it will take 2,000 trucks to take the cargo from one ship. If there are 15 trucks on each LSV, then the LSVs will have to make 133 trips to get the trucks to the 1,800 foot causeway.

If the LCUs that hold only five trucks are mostly used, then it would take 400 trips to get the cargo to shore.

Two-thousand trucks to offload ONE ship driving 1,800 feet on a causeway that will be dangerously affected by tides, winds, and waves is a recipe for disaster.

A graphic, not to scale, showing how the aid delivery system will work. (Photo: Department of Defense)

Will Israel Bomb the Docks, Piers, and Causeway? Remember the USS Liberty!

The possibility of probability is high that Israeli military jets, drones, and artillery may “mistakenly” target the pier complex… or Hamas or other militant groups may decide that the U.S. complicity in the genocide of over 35,000 Palestinians in Gaza outweighs the meager food and medical supplies the U.S. is bringing into Gaza, which presents another aspect of the recipe for disaster for the U.S. Rube Goldberg pier.

U.S. military personnel should remember the Israeli attack on a U.S. military ship, the USS Liberty. In 1967, the Israeli military bombed and torpedoed a U.S. ship off Gaza, killing 34 and wounding 171, and almost sunk the ship. The U.S. cover-up for its ally Israel’s brutal, lethal attack on a U.S. military ship continues to this day, as does the U.S. complicity in the Israeli genocide of Gaza.

The World Will Not Forget

Palestinians in Gaza and citizens around the world will not forget that miles of supplies are just feet away from Gaza at the Rafah crossing and the U.S. will not use its pressure on Israel to open the gates at Rafah, instead offering an expensive, idiotic solution to an easily solvable problem.

Starwood Real Estate Income Trust (SREIT), a $10 billion non-traded REIT ranked second-largest behind Blackstone’s struggling BREIT, faces a severe liquidity crunch as investor redemptions soar amid concerns ‘higher for longer’ interest rates will worsen the commercial real estate storm. 

The Financial Times reported at the end of last week that SREIT is “running low on liquidity as investors demand their money back” and tapped $1.3 billion of its $1.55 billion credit facility since the start of 2023.

Redemptions have jumped among concerned investors. In the first quarter, SREIT investors requested $1.3 billion of their cash back. However, the fund only returned $500 million of the requests in the quarter because of a 5% redemption cap. 

Now, Barry Sternlicht’s SREIT is in dire straits. The current pace of redemptions suggests the fund will run out of cash in the second half of the year unless it disposes of properties or expands its credit facility. The filing from last week shows the fund has $225 million left to draw down. 

The outflows are similar to what happened to Blackstone’s BREIT over the last few years. At least now, BREIT has been able to meet 100% of its redemption requests for the first time since 2022, according to a notice issued by Blackstone to investors on March 1. 

“Liquidity isn’t something that people think about on the way up, but it can become a concern suddenly,” Phil Bak, chief executive of Armada Investors, which invests in listed REITs. 

Bak said, “When it comes to private REITs, liquidity concerns have been dismissed, and they will become paramount again.”

FT spoke with an individual close to SREIT who said ‘greater liquidity’ is expected soon after asset sales. They said, “Starwood could sell other assets to raise cash.” 

The REIT industry has been under severe pressure since Fed chair Powell began raising interest rates in early 2022. Tighter monetary conditions and higher interest rates for the medium term as inflation remains elevated have pressured CRE values of office towers. This has led to a 16% decline in SREIT’s declared net asset value from its peak in September 2022 at nearly $10 billion. 

For the CRE industry, Goldman’s Lotfi Karoui outlined days ago that the highest share of CRE loans on record will hit maturity walls in the next two years. 

Almost a trillion of CRE mortgages must be paid down, refinanced, or extended by the end of 2024.

The problem is that the Fed’s rate cut cycle has been pushed out to at least the fall. Interest-rate swaps on Friday showed traders pricing about two quarter-point rate cuts by year-end, with about an 80% chance the first one will come in September. 

Between SREIT and BREIT, the smart money has been panic-running for the exit door. Redemption caps have saved these non-traded REITs from totally imploding. 

Nickel prices on the London Metal Exchange just had their best week in nearly a year and a half. The surge comes as social unrest rocks New Caledonia. A new report highlighted last week about surging demand for base metals driven by the clean energy push, as well as central bankers hinting at interest rate cuts. This has fueled an upswing in nickel prices and commodity prices. 

Let’s begin with the unrest and riots that have gripped the French Pacific territory of New Caledonia. Additional French troops, including elite security forces, are en route to help authorities restore order. We outlined the latest on the riots in a note titled “France Blames Deadly New Caledonia Uprising On TikTok” on Friday morning. 

This note will be commodity-centric and focus mainly on the nickel market. Last year, New Caledonia was the world’s third-biggest producer of the battery metal. The tiny Pacific island accounted for 6% of global output, according to the US Geological Survey.

So far, French miner Eramet SA’s output in the country has been disrupted, and it is currently operating at minimum capacity. This news helped propel nickel futures trading on the London Metal Exchange to its best trading week since early December 2022, rising a little more than 11%. 

Nickel futures are trading at $20,880 a ton, or about the highest level since September 2023. 

“We have seen these riots . . . If New Caledonia has an ongoing problem, then it is going to make a difference,” Dan Smith, an analyst at Amalgamated Metal Trading, a brokerage, told the Financial Times. He noted that traders had been”downbeat” on the nickel market in terms of being oversupplied and that this sudden price spike had caught traders off guard. 

However, Smith said the “overwhelming consensus” among traders was that the nickel market was “badly oversupplied,” suggesting that the current rally would not last. “Demand is good for nickel [at the moment] but supply is even stronger,” he added.

Ending the week was a report by the International Energy Agency that forecasted strong demand for nickel and other base metals critical for the transition to cleaner power grids as the powering up America and Europe theme takes off (read: “the Next AI Trade“). 

“The world’s appetite for technologies such as solar panels, electric cars and batteries is growing fast . . . but we cannot satisfy it without reliable and expanding supplies of critical minerals,” said IEA executive director Fatih Birol.

Rising nickel prices come as a massive dislocation of physical copper has sparked a squeeze in prices in New York. 

The Bloomberg Industrial Metal Subindex has soared. 

Spot commodity prices tracked by Bloomberg are also surging. 

Jeff Currie might be right about an emerging commodity supercycle. And, of course, high commodity prices are bad news for Fed Powell’s inflation fight. 

All of this chaos is happening as the world splinters into a multi-polar state, an indication commodity prices will remain elevated. 

Authored by Susan Crabtree via RealClearPolitics.com,

For President Biden and congressional Democrats, the fierce party division over the campus protests and the war in Gaza is full of warning signs during the 2024 election year. The unrest is unlikely to stop when universities break for the summer; protesters are pledging to disrupt the August Democratic National Convention planned to be held in Chicago. 

Most House Democrats have been reticent on the antisemitic protests and encampments roiling college graduations this month, while a handful have vocally defended or even celebrated the student protests as displays of protected free speech. 

Rep. Ilhan Omar, a Minnesota Democrat, said she was proud of her daughter, a Barnard College student who was suspended for participating in illegal protests and who was among 100 people arrested after demonstrations at Columbia University in April. Throughout the months of campus protests, members of the progressive “squad,” Reps. Rashida Tlaib of Michigan and Cori Bush of Missouri have applauded “courageous” anti-Israel student protestors while condemning efforts by university administrators and police to dismantle the encampments. 

A RealClearPolitics analysis of Federal Election Commission data shows one possible reason most Democrats are trying to avoid the campus fray: House Democrats’ reelection campaigns have accepted $6.5 million from three major political families, which have helped bankroll several student groups participating in the protests. The family members cut most of those checks over the last two years, although some of the donations to longstanding House members came over the last decade.

The names are well-known among Democratic funding circles: Soros, Rockefeller, and Pritzker. Yet before the anti-Jewish protests swept college campuses over the last few months, their financial ties to the student groups were not widely known. Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker, a member of the same wealthy Pritzker family, is not among the donors. 

Several investigative media reports over the last month have uncovered the extensive financial ties between these families and student groups involved in organizing anti-Israel protests and activism across the country predating the Oct. 7 Hamas terrorist attacks on Israel and in its aftermath and during Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza. 

The donors to student groups include George Soros, a billionaire philanthropist and Democratic campaign contributor who helms the Open Society Foundation and his family members; the Pritzkers, the owners of Hyatt Hotels Corporation; and members of the famed Rockefeller family, including relatives of the wealthy American Banker and philanthropist David Rockefeller. The donations have either gone directly to student groups involved in campus demonstrations or to umbrella foundations and organizations, which have, in turn, channeled the funds to the protestors. 

The House Democratic Congressional Committee and the House Majority PAC, which was founded by former Speaker Nancy Pelosi and is directly affiliated with the House Democratic leadership, collected most of those funds, nearly $5.5 million by those two Democratic campaign entities alone, FEC records show. 

Meanwhile, 30 House Democrats, including Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries and other members of the leadership, received a combined total of $856,858 from the Soros, Pritzker, and Rockefeller families, while a dozen Democratic candidates in competitive races received a total of $139,000. RCP did not examine Senate recipients. 

The House members in competitive races who received funds from at least one of the three families include Reps. Mary Peltola of Alaska, Mike Levin of California, Yadira Caraveo of Colorado, Johana Hayes of Connecticut, Eric Sorensen of Illinois, Frank Mrvan of Indiana, Sharice Davids, Jared Golden, Hillary Scholten, Angie Craig of Minnesota, Don Davis, Chris Pappas of New Hampshire, Gabe Vasquez, of New Mexico, Susie Lee of Nevada, Steven Horsford of Nevada, Paty Ryan of New York, Marcy Kaptur of Ohio, Andrea Salinas of Oregon, Susan Wild of Pennsylvania, and Matt Cartwright of Pennsylvania. 

Craig’s campaigns have received the most of any other House member from the three families: $96,490 since 2018. Lee’s campaign received the second most: $75,000 since 2017. 

The Democratic candidates who accepted donations from at least one of the three families include Kirsten Engel in Arizona; Adam Gray, Rudy Salas, George Whitesides, and Will Rollins in California; Lanon Baccam in Iowa; Tony Vargas in Nebraska; Lauren Gillen, Mondaire Jones, and Josh Riley in New York; Ashley Ehasz in Pennsylvania; and Michelle Vallejo in Texas.

Neither the DCCC nor any of the House members and candidates responded to RealClearPolitics’ questions about whether they had any concerns about the financial ties between the Soros, Pritzker, and Rockefeller families to these student groups. 

Several organizations have played key roles in pro-Palestinian student activism and protests and have received donations from Soros, Pritzker, and Rockefeller family members. The U.S. Campaign for Palestinian Rights, a pro-Palestinian advocacy group, has received at least $700,000 in Open Society Foundation grants since 2018 and $355,000 from the Rockefeller Brothers since 2019. 

In 2023, the USCPR had three fellows – Nidaa Lafi, Craig Birckhead-Morton, and Malak Afaneh – all of whom have figured prominently in the nationwide protests, the New York Post reported in late April. The group provides up to $7,800 for its community-based fellows and between $2,880 and $3,660 for its campus-based fellows for spending at least eight hours a week organizing campaigns led by Palestinian organizations.

While all were involved in student protests over the last several months, the University of California at Berkeley’s Afanah, co-president of Law Students for Justice in Palestine, made the most headlines. Afanah commandeered a microphone during a graduation dinner at the law school dean’s home to speak out against Israel’s war in Gaza. She claimed a First Amendment right to disrupt the gathering and then accused the dean’s wife of assaulting her when she forcefully asked her to leave. 

The Open Society Foundations defended its funding of these groups and their right to “peacefully protest” in an April 26 X.com post. 

“We have a long history of fighting antisemitism, Islamophobia, and all forms of racism and hate, and have advocated for the rights of Palestinians and Israelis and for peaceful resolution to the conflict in Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories,” the Foundations said. 

“Our funding is a matter of public record, disclosed on our website, fully compliant with U.S. laws, and is part of our commitment to continuing open debate that is ultimately the only hope for peace in the region,” the organization asserted. 

Jewish Voice for Peace and IfNotNow are two additional organizations deeply involved in the student protests and backed by the Tides Foundations, which is Soros-funded. Jewish Voice for Peace, which openly describes itself as anti-Zionist, has also received $500,000 in funds from the Rockefeller Brothers Fund over the last five years. David Rockefeller Jr. sits on the Rockefeller Brothers’ board. The group has separately provided grants to both the Tides Foundation and the Tides Center, as Politico reported in early May. 

The Pritzkers founded the Libra Foundation, which seeds smaller nonprofits, many of which have participated in pro-Palestinian marches, according to the same Politico report. One of them is the Climate Justice Alliance, which has labeled President Biden “Genocide Joe” for his handling of Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza. 

Others benefitting from Pritzker largesse include Black Organizing for Leadership and Dignity, which has helped promote anti-Israel protests, and the Immigrant Defense Project, which participated in a protest in D.C. earlier this year in which police arrested a number of participants. The Pritzkers also help financially support the Tides Foundation, which funds other small left-wing groups, including Adalah Justice Project, a prominent participant in the Columbia University protests and encampment, which police disbanded in early May. 

House Republicans have launched multiple investigations into the funding of the campus protests and encampments. Earlier this week, the chairs of two GOP-led House committees, the Education and the Workforce and the House Oversight and Accountability panels, sent Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen a letter requesting all suspicious activity reports, or SARs, connected to 20 organizations that have reportedly led, financed, and participated in the antisemitic protests on college campuses. SARs are documents that financial institutions and other professionals file with the Treasury’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network to flag law enforcement to potential instances of money laundering or terrorist financing. 

“It’s no coincidence that the day after the October 7 Hamas terrorist attack, antisemitic mobs began springing up on college campuses across the country,” Rep. Virginia Foxx, who chairs the Education and the Workforce Committee, said in a statement.

 “These protests have been coordinated and well-organized, indicating that outside groups or influences may be at play. American education is under attack. It’s critical that Congress investigates how these groups, who are tearing apart our institutions, are being funded before it’s too late.” 

House Oversight Chairman James Comer pledged that his committee would follow the money trail and stressed that the antisemitism “thriving” on many college campuses “must not go unchecked.” 

Topping the list that Foxx and Comer sent Yellen is Students for Justice in Palestine, or SJP, which has close ties to several anti-Israel organizations. After the Oct. 7 attacks, Students for Justice in Palestine’s national steering committee distributed a “tool kit” for activists that proclaimed, “glory to our resistance” and included a template for an advertisement showing protesters beneath a Palestinian flag. The image contained a paraglider, an apparent tribute to Hamas’ use of paragliders who slaughtered 360 youthful concert-goers, raped others, and took 44 people hostage during the Oct. 7 attack. That tool kit drew criticism from the Anti-Defamation League, which accused it of “celebrating terrorism.” 

Students for Palestine has since been banned or suspended by Brandeis, Columbia, and George Washington University, among other colleges and universities. During his presidential campaign, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis banned the group from state campuses, referring to their alleged ties to Hamas.

“We had a group of Students for Justice in Palestine,” DeSantis said. 

“They claimed solidarity with Hamas. We deactivated them. We were not going to use tax dollars to fund jihad.”

A 2016 report from the Cohen Center for Modern Jewish Studies at Brandeis stated that having a chapter on campus is “one of the strongest predictors of perceiving a hostile climate toward Israel and Jews.” 

The Foundation for Defense of Democracies’ Jonathan Schanzer, a former Treasury official responsible for designating numerous terrorist financiers, said his organization has been watching the financial network behind Students for Justice in Palestine for several years. The group, he said, has an umbrella organization known as Americans Muslims for Palestine, or AMP, a nonprofit that was previously based in Chicago but more recently moved to Falls Church, Virginia. For the last several years, AMP has been embroiled in litigation, accusing it of being an “alter-ego” or shell organization for the Islamic Association for Palestine, or IAP, a disbanded organization linked to Hamas. 

In 2023, Schanzer testified before the House Ways and Means Committee that IAP had received numerous checks and deposited them into Hamas’ bank account, information uncovered during the litigation. In some cases, the deposits included the memo line “for Palestinian martyrs only,” Schanzer noted. 

Hatem Bazian, AMP’s founder, was a frequent speaker at IAP forums, and Osama Abuirshaid, who edited IAP’s newspaper, is now AMP’s executive director, Schanzer said. In addition, Abuirshaid has published articles in English and Arabic praising Hamas, noting in them that he has communicated with Hamas leader Mousa Abu Marzook. 

AMP created Students for Justice in Palestine, which started with just a handful of schools and has now expanded to 200 U.S. campuses with chapters. The group is a loosely connected network of autonomous chapters with no named leader. The structure allows it to avoid registering as a nonprofit and filing tax documents. Bazian, who founded the first chapter 30 years ago at the University of California at Berkeley, has described the student organization as “a symbolic franchise without a franchise fee.” 

Bazian, who is now the chairman of American Muslims for Palestine’s board and a lecturer at Berkeley, has downplayed its ties to the student organization. He says AMP has only provided printed materials and offered grants for students to attend conferences or host speakers but has no supervisory role or control over the Students for Justice in Palestine. 

Schanzer, however, strongly disagrees. While he stresses that FDD has not produced any evidence of present criminal wrongdoing implicating AMP, he argues that AMP and its organizers deserve intense scrutiny from members of Congress. AMP, he said, has, over the last two decades, provided checks to students at Northwestern, DePaul, and Loyola universities, among others. 

Last year, Bazian curiously criticized CNN’s Jake Tapper’s “racist” coverage of Rep. Tlaib, arguing in a post from his own X.com account that, “As Jews who believe in human rights and justice, we demand you do better.” Schanzer notes that Bazian is Muslim, not Jewish, and the tweet has led to suspicion that Bazian thought he was logged into Jewish Voice for Peace’s account but mistakenly tweeted from his personal account. 

Nine Americans and Israeli survivors and victims of the Oct. 7 Hamas attacks are suing AMP and Students for Justice in Palestine, alleging that groups collaborated with Hamas to legitimize the Hamas attacks and provide public relations services for the terrorist organization. Meanwhile, the University of Florida chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine sued the state, challenging the Chancellor of the State University System’s order to state universities to deactivate the student group.