Friday, December 29, 2023

DeSantis’s Campaign Is Irrelevant if the GOP Voters Want Trump


The GOP primaries and caucuses have not actually started, but Donald Trump appears from the polling to be way ahead. I prefer Ron DeSantis, but if you are betting, you would probably put your money on Donald Trump being nominated again. So be it. That’s what primaries are for—to find out what the base wants and to do that. And if that’s what the base wants, that’s what it should get. I’m going to support the nominee whether it is Ron DeSantis or Donald Trump or… well, it’s going to be one of those two. And I am still going to continue to support the nominee even if it is Donald Trump and he picks Nikki Haley as his vice presidential running mate, which I totally see him doing. I am a Republican, and my party winning is what matters first.

An upset victory by Ron DeSantis in Iowa would probably end all the ridiculous commentary about how Ron DeSantis is somehow running a terrible campaign. The idea his campaign is somehow bad is nonsense. Ron DeSantis is running the only campaign he could possibly run in this situation, and he’s running it just fine. Is it perfect? No. Every campaign has ups and downs and problems. But the breathless critiques of his campaign accusing it of somehow being terrible are just plain silly. This is especially prevalent on social media, where you have people announcing that they have never seen a campaign so bad, which might be true since they only got into politics about one or two cycles ago. His campaign is not bad. His path to the nomination is just incredibly narrow and difficult. Plus, Democrat election interference in the form of disgraceful, bogus lawfare rallies Trump’s supporters and focuses attention on Trump.

The reality is that Ron DeSantis has a real challenge in this election in the form of a popular, at least among Republican voters, ex-president who is running again. Republicans like Donald Trump. No one else does. Independents don’t like him, and Democrats positively loathe him to the extent that he would generate huge turnout numbers even for the senile, desiccated old pervert he will be running against (unless they trade Crusty out for Governor Hairstyle). The only path for Ron DeSantis is to somehow get around the fact that Republicans still like Donald Trump. And they should still like Donald Trump. He can be very annoying, but he was also a pretty good president overall and would probably be perfectly acceptable if he won reelection. 

Still, a challenger has to get around the voters (many of them new voters) who will never vote for anyone else and those who are open to it in theory but will stick with Trump in practice. You’re either going to overcome the Trump obstacle or you’re not, and a lot of that’s out of your control if you’re challenging him. The only way to do that is to win the argument on electability—the case is that Donald Trump is going to have a very difficult time winning in November because about 53 percent of Americans unreasonably hate him. You’re not going to change the voters’ minds on policy because the two are very similar, though I think Ron DeSantis would be stronger on policy because he’s more ideological and a more focused leader. The only differentiator is electability. Ron DeSantis essentially has to win with the argument that you should go with him because he is more likely to win in November than Donald Trump for a variety of reasons. Of course, the risk is that the voters shrug and say, “We like this guy enough that we’re going to take our chances.” 

Which is what the polls, if you believe them, appear to say.

But that’s not the fault of the campaign. Nor does it have much to do with Ron DeSantis. First of all, it’s not necessarily a reflection of the voters’ feelings toward RDS. The polling shows that they like Ron DeSantis just fine, but they prefer Donald Trump this year for various reasons. None of those reasons have anything to do with Ron DeSantis. He remains the second choice of most voters. 

The theory that Ron DeSantis is running a bad campaign fails because no one can actually point to something that Ron DeSantis did or did not do that made voters prefer Donald Trump. There’s no “one weird trick” that he could have made people who are inclined to support Donald Trump stop supporting Donald Trump. What RDS always had to do was demonstrate that he is a viable and effective potential president, which he has done – he keeps winning the debates. And then he has to show that he can beat Donald Trump by beating him in Iowa, which he is still looking to do, and maybe he will pull off. But he’s got to pull it off.

The hits on Ron DeSantis’s campaign are incoherent and kind of ridiculous—most of them sound like talking points from the Trump campaign. That’s not a criticism – if your talking points are out there, you are doing your job, but do not confuse the narrative with objective reality. You can’t blame Donald Trump for running a primary and trying to win. You can blame someone for accepting talking points uncritically. 

The talking points serve less to convince people to vote for Trump than to provide a rationale for pretending to be mad at the most successful conservative governor in America. There is the disloyalty claim that somehow Ron DeSantis owed it to Donald Trump not to run in 2024. Leaving aside that no one owes a politician anything, this argument is never going to switch a single vote. Anyone buying it is already going to vote for Donald Trump come hell or high water. 

Then there are the claims that somehow Ron DeSantis is weird or off-putting. That’s just silly. He’s perfectly fine. Again, no one is going to look at Ron DeSantis and his track record of achievement and say, “Well, his posture’s a little wacky, so I’m going to go with Donald Trump,” unless that person was always going to go with Donald Trump.

Next, there are the people who accuse Ron DeSantis of being some sort of Soros/Ryan/Rove plant, but this is so stupid that you almost have to be willfully dumb or disingenuous to buy it. Hell, Trump’s likely to select as VP the lady Paul Ryan backs. Again, someone who believes this nonsense was never going to vote for him anyway.

Another hit is that DeSantis has failed to spend his time and effort focused on election shenanigans and the unjust prosecution of Trump. RDS actually fixed his state’s election system and has regularly criticized the fascist persecutions. The argument is that he did not do so enough, somehow. But who is the voter who is so mad at DeSantis for not sufficiently addressing these injustices who would have switched to DeSantis if DeSantis had made those grievances the centerpiece of his campaign? None. No one. It’s crazy talk to think that his campaign has made a mistake by not making its central message “My opponent is getting jerked around. Vote for me.”

My new favorite is that somehow Ron DeSantis’s online influencers – by which they mean people who like Ron DeSantis and talk about him positively on Twitter – are so horrible and evil that they have driven away scores of potential Ron DeSantis voters. Boloney. First, maybe 5 percent of the electorate cares what happens on Twitter, and most of them are unlikely to be influenced in any way by the social media fireworks between @GatorRonFan2024 and @FatMAGADeadbeatDad69. Second, it’s kind of difficult to believe that if you were a Trump fan, you are somehow so scandalized by mean tweets that it is going to determine who you vote for in an election. Who is the person who says, “Yeah, I was totally going to vote for Ron DeSantis, but some people who support him had some mean tweets, so I’m going to vote for… Donald Trump instead?” 

Now, there are plenty of people who are quite reasonable about why they support Trump. They think Donald Trump did a good job. They think Donald Trump is likely to win next year. They think it’s important to vote for Donald Trump to show the damn Communists that they don’t get to win. You can agree or disagree with those positions, but those are rational positions. There’s no need for mental gymnastics to try to justify not voting for a great candidate like Ron DeSantis. You have the right to vote for who you want and why. But it’s just silly to make up excuses for it.

Ron DeSantis has run about the best campaign you could run in this situation. I am sure he would change some things if he has to do it over in 2028; no campaign is perfect, and the key is to learn and improve. He had no choice but to run in 2024 – this was his time to strike. Some people disagree with that but regardless, if he was going to run this year, he needed to run the way he did. He could not and did not make his whole campaign about trashing Donald Trump. That would be intellectually incoherent because he agrees with almost everything Donald Trump did with some differences that he has pointed out. He had to make it about electability, and at some point, the voters have to decide whether they want to roll the dice with Trump 2.0 or go with what I and many others believe is the more likely candidate to win. We will know soon, starting in Iowa, what the voters choose. And then we should all support the winner.



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Our Razor’s Edge ~ VDH

For weeks, the American people have been relatively 
silent as they digested these ongoing catastrophes. 
But at some point, their patience will run out.


At the end of the year, we are on the razor’s edge of many things that soon may blow up.

Americans are far beyond President Joe Biden’s serial untruths of some eight years that he never discussed Hunter Biden’s various get-rich-quick schemes.

All were predicated on the perception of foreign interests purchasing from the Biden family the influence of then-senator, vice president, and possibly soon-to-be President Joe Biden.

The Bidens now risk exposure to criminal charges of multimillion-dollar tax fraud, perjury, influence selling, and bribery as congressional committees and a special prosecutor unravel years of tangled-up quid pro quos. 

A newly indicted Hunter remains reckless and unpredictable. He continues to publicly blame his mounting legal problems on everyone and everything other than his own selfish excesses.

Hunter deliberately involves his family and may even bring down his own father. His tax lawyers have previously threatened to call President Joe Biden to testify on his behalf under oath. 

He continues to court public scandal by hawking amateurish “representational” paintings to the quid-pro-quo wealthy and wannabes wishing clout with the White House. 

His laptop messages reveal a prodigal son angry that his bagman services were never fully appreciated by his familial beneficiaries.

Hunter’s wayward laptop is a felonious trove of drug-addled, illicit Petronian excess and sex, interspliced with his self-incriminating family communications on the distributions of pay-for-play payoffs. 

Hunter’s business aides will be called back to elaborate on their already incriminating testimonies. 

The contents of Joe Biden’s various alias emails will soon see new scrutiny.

Given Biden’s physical and ethical frailties, age, and bad polling, the left-wing media and Democratic hierarchy may cease circling the wagons around him. Instead, some may fuel the effort to sandbag a 2024 Biden candidacy by releasing or even leaking incriminating evidence.

Harvard President Claudine Gay’s tenure is even more tenuous than Biden’s. Harvard can either claim to be the nation’s preeminent academic institution or continue to protect a plagiarist as president—not both. 

It can profess to be at the center of academia’s moral and intellectual universe, but not if its president cannot punish those on campus who daily call for the destruction of Israel and the genocide of the Jewish people. Gay cannot lie to Congress that Harvard in the past has also allowed “hate speech” against entire groups the way it now allows against Jews. 

Nor is it sustainable for Gay to fob off calls for her resignation as “racist.” In fact, the more the public learns about her academic career, the more she seems to be a lifetime beneficiary, not a victim of racially-weighted policies.

Since the October 7 Hamas massacre of 1,200 Jews, anti-Israeli/pro-Hamas protests, often violent, have swept the Western world, particularly in the big cities and on campuses of America. 

Protestors no longer distinguish being anti-Israeli from being anti-Jewish. Now they just openly mouth anti-Semitic chants and harass individual Jews.

Almost every hallowed monument—from the Lincoln Memorial to the White House gates, nearly every cherished national icon from the famed Christmas tree in New York’s Rockefeller Center to New York’s Naivety scene, and our most famous infrastructure from the Manhattan Bridge to the Golden Gate Bridge—has either been swarmed, defaced, or disrupted by pro-Hamas demonstrators.

Americans are growing weary of these escalating protests for a variety of reasons. Most remember that the October 7 war started not with Israeli preemptive attacks on an independent Gaza, but only after Hamas killers launched a sneak attack to commit atrocities against Jews residing in Israel. 

The current war is waged between a constitutional state of free elections and a cruel, autocratic terrorist clique. 

Indeed, Hamas has refused negotiations over a ceasefire that would have led to internationally conducted free elections for the people of Gaza—something forbidden by enriched Hamas kingpins ensconced in luxury abroad.

Many of the loudest and most violent anti-Jewish protestors in the U.S. are immigrants, green card holders, or on student visas. That fact is confusing to Americans. 

Why would those who have fled despotic regimes in the Middle East to study, work, or reside in a free America, once safely here, rally for the very dictatorships they left behind and apparently do not wish to return to?

Why trash the very foundation and values of their American hosts that ensure their newfound freedoms?

For weeks, the American people have been relatively silent as they digested these ongoing catastrophes. But at some point, their patience will run out.

Americans will then collectively conclude that Joe Biden has never been truthful about vast ill-gotten funds that have enriched his family; that Harvard is no longer preeminent or even prestigious; and that people who do not like us, our laws, and our values should try cheering on the work of Hamas from their own homes.



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Denmark to send frigate to U.S.-led task force in Red Sea

 

COPENHAGEN, Dec 29 (Reuters) - Denmark will send a frigate to participate in the U.S.-led Red Sea operation next month, the Danish Defence Minister said on Friday.

Several countries, led by the United States, on Dec. 19 agreed to patrol the southern Red Sea and Gulf of Aden to safeguard commercial shipping against attacks by Yemen's Houthi rebels in the area.

"We are concerned about the serious situation unfolding in the Red Sea, where unprovoked attacks against civilian shipping continue," Defense Minister Troels Lund Poulsen said in a statement.

 

 

https://www.reuters.com/world/denmark-send-frigate-us-led-task-force-red-sea-2023-12-29/   




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Jack Smith goes full Soviet, demands to micromanage President Trump's defense


As questions arise as to whether Jack Smith was even legally appointed as President Trump's special prosecutor, and a judge messes up Smith's Super Tuesday timetable for Trump's trial, Smith is showing signs of desperation now.

He's asked the court to wipe out President Trump's defense of himself from insurrection-related charges, and wants his court to allow Trump to defend himself only as Smith wants him to defend himself.

What does Smith not want the even the stacked, favorable D.C. jury to hear about? 

Undercover agents -- doing the things agents provocateurs do, which is to provoke. There are probably a lot of deep-staters in that jury pool who know all about this:

Haven't there been a few cases in Michigan where juries ruled that undercover agents provocateurs lured people into commiting crimes they would never otherwise commit and acquitted the defendants?

Such as this case, and this case?

Seems like a credible pattern to any reasonable juror to consider actually, and once the facts and discovery are out on Trump's case, it's possible that even a stacked jury would rule to acquit Trump.

Smith can't take that chance. He's a fanatic with a political agenda, so now he's wheeling out the Alice in Wonderland tactics, going Soviet. This explains the extremism of his tactics, his insistence on winning despite having a case that is steadily falling apart.

Now he's getting mean and crazy and surreal, like the old Soviet show trial prosecutor, Andrey Vyshinsky.

That's despite his having a favorable judge, a friendly jury, a stacked court district brimming with Washington swamp things, and an unlimited federal budget.

This isn't a valid appointment, which is supposed to be about justice. This is about a political show trial -- of the party, by the party, for the party, and nothing outside the party, as the Bolsheviks in various ways used to say.

Smith is showing himself an outrageous practitioner of show trials, and sentence first, trial later. He's the ultimate kangaroo court king, deciding what each side is going to say.

It's time for Congress or the courts to declare his appointment illegal and throw this clown out. Or if it has to be, the voters will decide on Election Day.



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The Evolving Media Landscape Is Already Having an Impact


The findings of a recent poll analyzing the political makeup of the American media industry won’t surprise you at all.

Given the state of the establishment media landscape, it is apparent that most mainstream journalists are leftward leaning in their political viewpoints. This bias has remained consistent in how the press reports on the news of the day.

But this poll, conducted by Syracuse University’s Newhouse School of Public Communications starkly illustrates how far this trend has persisted, and how the media environment has evolved as a result. As negative as this paradigm might seem at the moment, there are signs that we could see a balancing of views in the media landscape in the not-so-distant future. RedState’s Brad Slager reported on the survey:

While traditionally it has been that journalists lean Democratic, it has been a recent trend that Republicans are evaporating from the news industry. Some 50 years ago there was a semblance of equality, at least in those occupying cubicles, if not the content on the page. In the 1972 survey the split between journalists who were Dems/GOP/Independent ran 35%/25%/32%. In this latest poll the number of Republicans is a miniscule 3.2%

The result of this is seen in the polls showing the public perception of the press. Pew research has shown that while public trust in the media is declining, there is a widening between parties, as Republican voters are plunging in this measure with the number of those declaring they trust the press being slashed in half in just a five year span.

What is odd here is that many within the industry recognize there is a serious problem, and yet by their inactivity we see little in the way of addressing the issue. Another question from the Syracuse pollsters asked for perceptions from within the industry, with the overwhelming majority (60 percent) declaring journalism was going in the wrong direction. They were also asked what they consider the most important problem in journalism, and the top response was that decline in public trust. Yet trends over the years show the industry only embracing the actions leading to these results.

Slager nailed it on that last point. Despite plummeting trust in the establishment media, news outlets continue displaying a brazen bias in favor of Democrats and progressive causes, while taking a more antagonistic tone toward the right. If declining trust isn’t enough to persuade the once-vaunted Fourth Estate to change course, nothing will, which means most traditional media outlets are little more than propaganda mills for Democrats.

At this point, the die is cast and there is no going back. There is absolutely no way that the press will ever even come close to resembling something with balance. CNN’s attempted rebranding efforts prove this.

The ideological homogenization we are seeing in traditional media carries some profound implications for the future of news consumption. The establishment has already alienated half of the country by catering only to one point of view instead of focusing on various angles.

However, this does not mean that right-leaning voices are not being heard. Indeed, with the advent of digital media, I would argue that conservative and libertarian voices are experiencing a revolution that has not been seen since talk radio provided an outlet for those who aren’t leftists. The landscape is steadily evolving, which has provided fertile ground for new voices that are not shackled by the gatekeepers in the media establishment.

Platforms ranging from independent news websites, podcasts, video channels, blogs, and social media networks have offered alternatives that are becoming even more popular than traditional sources, especially among younger consumers, who increasingly favor digital media.

This shift has brought concerns about people becoming even further ensconced in their echo chambers with folks gravitating toward media outlets whose political views align with theirs. These folks will be less likely to hear differing viewpoints unless they actively seek them out.

However, this has already been the case for years, even before alternative media became a thing. The difference is that established outlets would clearly favor one side while only giving lip service to including other voices. The rise of digital media does not change this, but it certainly amplifies it, given that it gives voices to numerous viewpoints.

In the end, it will be on the consumer to ensure they are not falling into the echo chamber trap. The market will have to dictate that those disseminating information and opinions are promoting diversity of thought in their content creation. Some content creators will present both sides equally. Others won’t. The difference is that regardless of the political viewpoint a particular outlet favors, the consumer will know what they are getting. We could be looking forward to a more divided, but more honest media environment. For better or worse, times are a-changing for American media.



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Bates College Faculty Subjected To ‘Toxic’ DEI Struggle Sessions By Administrators

Faculty said they felt trapped in an ‘alternate reality’ when trying to navigate the college’s ‘toxic’ DEI environment.



College students attending universities with restrictive speech codes are used to walking on eggshells and keeping their heads down on campus out of fear of committing social suicide or experiencing violence. In the disordered world of contemporary higher education, Jewish students receive limited, if any, support from school administrators amid explicit calls for violence against them, while other students face punishment for banal infractions like rolling a “free speech ball” around campus.

But if you are shocked at how students are subject to hypocritical double standards and draconian speech codes, what goes on behind the closed doors of faculty lounges and administrative offices will surely horrify you. Militant students can restrict the speech of other students, but often, faculty find themselves subjected to even stricter rules that embolden this militancy in the first place.

This has proven true at Bates College, my alma mater, ranked 213 out of 250 schools nationwide for free speech. Emails obtained from several former Bates College professors show just how limited faculty freedoms are. In the past, faculty were reported to the Office of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) for questioning students’ assertions in class or asking students to think more critically. The environment created by this policy has left some professors fearful that a student will use a simple classroom lecture or assignment to terminate their jobs.

In the wake of Bates’ latest round of antisemitic controversy — where a swastika was drawn in a dormitory bathroom amid a bevy of pro-Hamas activity at Bates — I reached out to several former and current professors at Bates to see if this DEI reporting system was still in place. After communicating with members of Bates faculty, staff, and former students, it’s clear that not only is the DEI reporting system still in operation, but it has been used to intimidate faculty into maintaining leftist orthodoxy in their classrooms.

This policy bared its teeth in the firing of Keith Taylor, a lecturer in Bates’ geology department. Taylor was fired earlier this year for asking a student to provide examples defending their assertion that Bates College was a bastion of white supremacy. Taylor was browbeaten by Dean of Faculty Malcolm Hill and ordered to apologize to his class for his supposed racial insensitivity, but instead, he denounced the school. One student recorded the exchange and shared it with me at the time. 

Taylor provided several emails from a fellow professor, Loring Danforth, who feared for his termination. Danforth expressed fear at Taylor’s firing, saying he felt “trapped in an alternate reality” due to his fear of being targeted by students for speaking on race, a topic he studied, wrote, and lectured on for several decades at Bates and other institutions.

This nightmarish “alternate reality” soon became real for Danforth. A classroom discussion quickly became a struggle session after a student asserted Bates College was on stolen Penobscot land. Danforth, being a seasoned teacher, asked the student to explain what she meant. “Do you mean legally? Technically? Morally? Historically? Traditionally?” Danforth asked. In an attempt to further discussion, he followed up with the question: “Do Native Americans own the land your parents’ house in Connecticut is on, or do your parents own it?”

But instead of engaging in the discussion or thinking critically about her assertion, the student reported Danforth to the DEI office for opposing Native American land claims. That led to another reprimand by the DEI office and the dean of faculty. Ironically, Danforth is a proud supporter of Native Americans, as was shown in his email with Keith Taylor; “I’d argue it’s my right to oppose them [Native American land claims]. But in fact I support them.” Professor Danforth refused to provide comment.

That same email between Taylor and Danforth described an incident over text where Dean of Faculty Malcolm Hill reprimanded Danforth for supposedly perpetuating racism on campus. That was after Danforth was again reported to the DEI office for stating that “race was a social construction” to the offense of a black staff member. As a result, Danforth, who correctly pointed out that the social construction of race is “a fundamental concept and expression” in anthropology, was again reprimanded by Hill. Only after Bates President Clayton Spencer stepped in did Hill back down and apologize to Danforth.

Over a series of emails and text messages, several professors discussed potential punishments for DEI infractions, including being forced to “absorb literature about racism” or even be subjected to mandatory sensitivity training, which, if refused, could lead to further punishment.

Bates’s DEI reporting system has significantly cowed professors in the liberal arts. Several students I interviewed believe free speech at Bates was already nonexistent but think professors are largely responsible for allowing this toxic culture to take its current form.

One such student, a 2018 Bates graduate, James Erwin, recalled portions of emails that appeared scripted when professors corresponded with students about “sensitive” topics. “After Trump was elected in 2016, there were demonstrations around campus,” Erwin explained. “All the faculty emails for my classes and campus resources contained the same ‘I understand and support you,’ directed towards students who wanted to skip class to protest the election.”

Erwin also suggested professors had only themselves to blame for the campus climate, saying, “Many Bates professors can’t speak up because this is the bed they made … they teach this performative emotional fragility in class, so, of course, they can’t object to it now that the outrage is directed at them.”

An email I have had since my own time at Bates proves James correct. One economics professor expressed doubts that teachers at Bates could adequately instruct students, only to refuse to elaborate on his comments. Economics professor Paul Shea said, “Things like this make me fear for the future of Bates. More and more departments seem comfortable infusing their curricula with specific forms of activism and ideology and those that do not are met with hostility or, in some cases, a loss of resources. It is hard for me to see how this fits with the mission of the college.” 

Shea refused to comment when asked to elaborate on the “hostility” or “loss of resources” and departures from the economics department.

Taylor’s emails and the various professors with whom I spoke expressed the same feeling: Bates no longer resembles an academic institution committed to free speech. T. Glen Lawson, who taught in the Bates Chemistry Department for over 30 years and is now retired, said, “It is true that the [Bates] environment is toxic and freedom of expression and academic freedom have both been suppressed in the past few years, so I was happy to leave. I don’t really care about what goes on there now.” Jenna Berens, a 2023 graduate of Bates, agreed. “The culture is definitely toxic in the context of the classroom. I can imagine that culture extends to the faculty, too.” 

Bates’s DEI system has successfully made almost every professor at the college terrified of his or her own students. With fees to attend Bates set at over $81,000 for the 2023-2024 academic year, parents and students are footing the bill for DEI enforcers alongside the collaborating programs within the college that act as speech police and reporting systems.

It is obvious that antisemitic students control Harvard University’s campus, and they have the freedom to spew their poison with no accountability from the administration. It took a congressional hearing, alums withdrawing millions of dollars, and leading companies pledging not to hire Harvard graduates for the school even to notice its antisemitism problem. Legacy institutions with larger budgets often overshadow Bates. However, the toxic, illiberal behavior that has consumed Bates is a glimpse of higher education’s future. Across the country, there are thousands of smaller colleges like Bates, where free speech has been destroyed and its defenders driven underground.

Bates and its faculty preach the college’s commitment to academic excellence, egalitarianism, and freedom. Those words ring hollow when the academics tasked with passing those values on cannot defend them.



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Poland says ‘everything indicates’ Russian missile briefly crossed country’s airspace

 

WARSAW, Poland (AP) — Poland’s defense forces said an unknown object entered the country’s airspace Friday morning from the direction of Ukraine and then vanished off radars, and that all indications pointed to it being a Russian missile.

“Everything indicates that a Russian missile intruded in Poland’s airspace. It was monitored by us on radars and left the airspace. We have confirmation of this on radars and from allies” in NATO, said Poland’s defense chief, Gen. Wiesław Kukuła  


Poland’s defense forces said the object penetrated about 40 kilometers (24 miles) into its airspace and left it after less than three minutes. The defense forces said both its radar and NATO radar confirmed that the object left Polish airspace.

Kukula said steps were being taken to verify those findings and eliminate the possibility of a technical error.

There was no comment from Russian officials.  


NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said on X, formerly Twitter, that he had spoken with Poland’s president about the “missile incident” and said NATO was vigilant and monitoring the situation “as the facts are established.”

It was not immediately clear where the object disappeared from radar or in which direction it had been going. Troops were mobilized to identify and find it. There were no immediate reports of any explosion or casualties.

The governor of Lublin province in eastern Poland, Krzysztof Komorski, told the Onet news portal that the object appeared on radars near the town of Hrubieszow, where a border crossing with Ukraine is located. Komorski said he had no information to indicate it landed in Lublin province.  


Poland’s border with Ukraine is also the European Union and NATO border with Ukraine.

Prime Minister Donald Tusk convened a meeting with the defense minister, military commanders and heads of national security bodies, followed by a meeting of the National Security Bureau with President Andrzej Duda, the supreme commander of Poland’s armed forces.

Duda said through an aide that there was “no threat at the moment” and nothing to suggest that ”anything bad” should be expected.

“The most important is that no one was hurt,” said the aide, Grazyna Ignaczak-Bandych.  


On Friday, Ukrainian officials said Russia launched more than 100 missiles and dozens of drones against Ukrainian targets overnight in what an air force official called the biggest aerial barrage since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.  


It was not clear whether the object that Poland reported was related to the barrage.

“As a result of such massive attacks, this can happen. The enemy is attacking our border territories, including in the west. This is another signal for our partners to strengthen the Ukrainian air defense,” Yurii Ihnat, spokesperson for Ukraine’s Air Force, said on national television about the incident.

Poland has been supporting Ukraine with military, humanitarian and political assistance.

This is not the first time an unauthorized object has entered Poland’s airspace from the direction of Ukraine since Russia’s full-scale invasion. In November 2022, two men were killed when a missile struck the village of Przewodow, a few kilometers from the border. Western officials said they believed a Ukrainian air defense missile went astray.  



https://www.pbs.org/newshour/world/poland-says-everything-indicates-russian-missile-briefly-crossed-countrys-airspace   





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North Korea's Kim Jong Un, Once More Feeling His Oats


Ward Clark reporting for RedState 

North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un, a stunted little gargoyle with bad hair from a long line of stunted little gargoyles with bad hair, is once more ordering provocative moves on the part of the repressive Stalinist state's military.

North Korea leader Kim Jong Un has ordered his country's military, munitions industry and nuclear weapons sector to accelerate war preparations to counter what he called unprecedented confrontational moves by the U.S., state media said on Thursday.

Speaking on the policy directions for the new year at a key meeting of the country's ruling party on Wednesday, Kim also said Pyongyang would expand strategic cooperation with "anti-imperialist independent" countries, news agency KCNA reported.

North Korea has been expanding ties with Russia, among others, as Washington accuses Pyongyang of supplying military equipment to Moscow for use in its war with Ukraine, while Russia provides technical support to help the North advance its military capabilities.

South Korea's President was quick to reply.

On Thursday, South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol visited a frontline military unit in the eastern county of Yeoncheon to inspect its defence posture and called for an immediate retaliation if there was any provocation from North Korea.

"I urge you to immediately and firmly crush the enemy's will for a provocation on the spot," Yoon told troops.

North Korea could indeed, if it chose, make things pretty hot for South Korea for a while. The southern country's capital, Seoul, is within artillery and missile range of the Stalinist northern state. The North has nearly two million active and reserve troops; were they to simply give each a rifle and order them to start walking south, they could cause a lot of trouble. In recent months, though, North Korea has been moving closer to Vladimir Putin's Russia, which has some Pacific powers aside from South Korea concerned. North Korea also has an unknown number of nuclear devices, although their delivery capacity is suspect. It is important to note, however, that nuclear technology and, more importantly, targeting and delivery systems, are precisely the things Russia could assist North Korea with. In September, North Korea launched a new submarine, reportedly with the capacity to carry nuclear-tipped missiles; while North Korea has little experience as a maritime power, Russia has ample experience building missile submarines.

The new North Korean sub, though, is based on a Romeo-class Soviet boat, which was manufactured from 1957 to 1961. That's not exactly state-of-the-art. Even at present, the U.S. or Japanese navies have Anti-Submarine Warfare (ASW) tech that would quickly reduce the North Korean sub to a radioactive junk pile on the ocean floor.

At some level, even the dictator of the Stalinist state must realize that any major offensive action would result in the suicide of North Korea. Kim Jong Un — who essentially is North Korea — has a long history of making threatening moves and statements, then backing down after receiving some concession or other — generally over their chronic inability to feed the North Korean people. This may well be another case of the same, Russian aid notwithstanding. 

Either this or Kim Jong Un may be well having his mouth write checks his butt can't cash.



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Arizona Rancher Gives Warning About Illegal Immigration: Cartels Are in Control of Everything


Duke reporting for RedState 

So it looks like 2023 is going to end as a full-fledged disaster with illegal immigrants pouring across the border — and 2024 is in store for more of the same.

I know there's hope that the recent meeting between American and Mexican officials will produce some sort of relief, but I have to tell you I don't think any of us should be that confident of that. I was one of the people that back in late 2019 or 2020 was telling people that Joe Biden was much worse than most people were advertising. However, I do have to acknowledge that Biden is much worse than anything I could have ever dreamed up or imagined.

Scranton Joe has devolved into scrambled Joe and the nation is much worse off for it.

So as I was scrolling the platform formally known as Twitter a little while ago, I came across a tweet from my friend and Townhall columnist extraordinaire Kurt Schlichter promoting a book he mentioned to me a month ago that he was writing called "The Attack." 

Kurt works fast.

Right on the heels of that tweet, I came across a story about an Arizona rancher who's at the border of Mexico, and is concerned about illegals coming over here and possibly committing terrorist acts on United States soil. 

A fifth-generation Arizona rancher said an influx of illegal migrants crossing his land in recent years has increased his fear that terrorists are successfully sneaking into America. 

"It's really a serious issue," Jim Chilton, owner of the Chilton Ranch, told Fox News. "We have no security on our ranch nor in most places along the border anymore. It's not good. It's not better in any sense. It's still outrageous."

Outrageous indeed.

The article continued.

The ongoing crisis at the southern border is breaking records as illegal migrant entries skyrocket, according to U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) data. The first week of December saw a record-setting 18,900 migrant apprehensions in Arizona's Tucson Sector alone, the section's Chief Border Patrol Agent John Modlin said.

By comparison, that's about 2,000 more encounters than all of December 2021 for that sector, according to CBP data. Daily encounters also reached a new record-high across the southern border earlier this month, with more than 12,000 migrants flooding in on Dec. 4.

"It's a national security issue," Chilton said. "I'm very concerned that terrorists are coming across the border."

Terrorists coming over the border, you say?

Who would have thought it?

A whole lot of attention has been given to Texas and the absolute disaster that is going on in the Lone Star State as a result of illegal immigrants flowing across the border — and rightfully so. However, not as much attention in my opinion has been given to Arizona for a number of reasons that I won't go into right here. My colleagues here at RedState have covered the issue, but nationally, Arizona has gone by the wayside and it is a huge deal there also.

AZ Gov Demands $512M From Federal Government for 'Failure to Secure Our Border'

Whether elected officials on either side of the aisle want to admit it or not, this nation is in crisis because of the open-door policy of the Biden administration and we have most likely dug a hole that will take decades for this nation to dig its way out of.

If it can ever be dug out of.

Writing Is on the Wall: America Likely to Be Hit Because of the Invasion From Mexico.

I don't say this to be an alarmist but to state things that are just based on reality.

In the 9-11 attacks, it took less than 20 people who came here legally and overstayed their visas to attack New York, Washington D.C., and have their plot thwarted in Shanksville, Pennsylvania. Currently, we have hundreds of thousands of people swarming over the border in record numbers and we have no idea who any of these people are.

I know common sense is not required much anymore but just take a deep breath and think this one out even if you do it quietly. The premise of Kurt Schlichter's new book is close to becoming non-fiction rather than fiction and the warning that comes out of ranchers in Arizona and border agents in Texas is your wake-up call.

Heed it.



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You’d Be Surprised Which States Persecute Religious Schools and Charities

States throughout the country, including some red states, are breaking the law by persecuting religious schools and charities.



Attempts to sideline religion from American public life are not new, but whereas conservatives typically think that this type of discrimination is endemic to blue states, the reality is much more complex. In fact, in a new Manhattan Institute report, Notre Dame Law Professor Nicole Stelle Garnett and I discover that states throughout the country are breaking the law by persecuting religious schools and charities.

The Supreme Court, in last year’s Carson v. Makin, clarified that states cannot exclude religious organizations because they are religious or force such organizations to secularize their offerings. Despite the clarity of the court’s First Amendment jurisprudence, many states, including some that one would expect to embrace religious freedom, continue to discriminate against religious organizations unfairly.

Here are nine of the most unexpected offenders.

1. Virginia

Disabled students suffer because of Virginia’s violation of the First Amendment. Virginia’s school districts and local governments can contract with any “public or private nonsectarian school, agency, institution,” or “nonsectarian child-day programs” to provide special education services. If the nearest option or best fit for your student happens to have a religious affiliation, your child will have to attend a further or worse option to receive funding.

Historically black colleges and universities and other nonprofit institutions of higher education are unconstitutionally prevented from using state funds for facilities or programs related to “sectarian instruction.” Virginia singles out religious institutions for worse treatment under industrial development powers and in eligibility for historic preservation consideration and grants, and excludes them from receiving funds to provide social services. Egregiously, this latter provision specifically singles out some religious organizations — the YMCA, YWCA, Habitat for Humanity, and the Salvation Army — for special treatment.

Virginia provides a tax rebate for fuel used in school buses but excludes buses used to take students to religious schools. 

2. Montana

Montana similarly provides funding for day education of students in private institutions so long as they are at “private, non-sectarian schools.” Like Virginia, Montana excludes religious schools from its school bus fuel tax rebate.

Montana’s work-study program allows students to work in construction and building maintenance but excludes from eligibility any building “used or to be used for sectarian instruction or as a place of worship.”

Religious health care providers face restrictions on how they can use funds under a Montana low-cost capital scheme for new buildings. And while Montana offers a permissive array of nonprofit-themed specialty license plates, including plates celebrating a soccer club, a shooting club, and a group that feeds animals, religious nonprofits are explicitly excluded from the plate program.

3. Georgia

Georgia does not allow pre-kindergarten providers to give any religious instruction. It specifies that this rule extends even to programs that have both approved secular and religious versions and notes that no funds may be spent on religious instruction.

Religious organizations are excluded from the state’s rural loan guarantee program. Suppose a church in Georgia wants to use taxpayer funds to feed the hungry, house the homeless, or provide health care. In that case, it must fastidiously maintain a separate budget for its welfare ministries. This paperwork nightmare means many churches offer fewer services than they otherwise might.

Georgia even imposes restrictions on the generosity of its employees, empowering them to contribute to nonprofits but excluding any “religious organization.”

4. Alabama

Though in better shape than Georgia, Alabama still falls well short of Carson’s requirements. The state allows a moment of silence during the pre-K school day but forbids religious instruction. Any religious activities must take place “outside of … the school day.”

In much the same way, Alabama theoretically allows students to use its higher education grants at religious colleges but requires that schools accepting the grants use them only for “essentially secular education functions” and “carefully segregate funds to ensure that this rule is enforced.” The law would presumably exclude from funding those students who are pursuing careers as clergy, religious school teachers, and faith-based counselors.

Alabama places restrictions on funding structures used for religious purposes, restricts the content of services at family resource centers and municipal special health care facilities, and excludes faith-based organizations from the state’s employees’ combined charitable campaign.

Perhaps most amusingly, Alabama does not allow religious nonprofits to enjoy proceeds from greyhound racing days.

5. Arkansas

Arkansas similarly restricts pre-K content to be “secular and neutral with respect to religion.” It also requires that distance-learning providers be nonsectarian.

Arkansas subjects its citizens to a lifetime of unconstitutional forced secularism. A family of a child under 2 will find that Arkansas’ Life Choices Lifeline Program permits only nonsectarian content. Arkansawyers in programs receiving youth development grants cannot participate in religious instruction, services, or programming. Elders in the Arkansas Older Workers Community Service Employment Program cannot build or maintain any facilities used for religious instruction or worship.  

Despite the state’s proud history as the buckle of America’s Bible Belt, its Small Museum Grant Program excludes any religious projects. Local waterworks commissions can make donations to community chests but not to any sectarian nonprofits.

6. Oregon

While other states place unconstitutional restrictions on the activities of faith-based pre-K providers, Oregon goes an egregious step further, outright banning religious organizations from its universal pre-K program.

Oregon violates Carson in later education too. High school students can enroll in college classes through the state’s Expanded Options Program but may only select courses that are “nonsectarian.” Similarly, while the state can contract with private institutions, courses must be “nonsectarian educational services” or “nonsectarian subjects completed by undergraduate students.”

7. Florida

Florida has provided grants to faith-based, in-person education providers through its Family Empowerment Scholarship program. But its laws, while conforming to abandoned Supreme Court precedent, must comply with the demands of the First Amendment as clarified in Carson.

At present, Florida does not allow sectarian organizations to participate in its remote learning program. It operates two separate scholarship programs that exclude religious schools and refuse funding to students pursuing degrees in “theology or divinity.”

Perhaps most concerningly, Florida places restrictions on the content of programming provided to victims of domestic violence. Its Batterer Intervention program excludes any study of “faith-based ideology,” even when such content would be helpful to victims. 

8. Missouri

Missouri has been at the center of recent caselaw clarifying the First Amendment since the Supreme Court found that Missouri violated the free exercise clause by excluding a faith-based preschool from a state program that provided recycled tires for playground surfacing. While Missouri has improved its laws, work remains to be done.

Juniors and seniors in private Missouri colleges can get state loans for tuition. But those loans cannot be used for any “sectarian” instruction. Missouri’s Health and Educational Facilities Authority Act provides loans for educational facilities except for “property used or to be used for sectarian instruction or study.”

More concerningly, Missouri does not allow support services for high-risk students to be offered at private, religious schools. This means a struggling student at a St. Louis Catholic high school or Lutheran middle school would have to leave campus to receive the services they need to be successful. This burden can make much-needed services inaccessible for the students most in need of the rigor and structure afforded by parochial schools.

9. Indiana

Under Indiana’s work-study program, students cannot be paid for “sectarian” work. The state’s Division of Family Resources must exclude any sectarian work from its contracts with nonprofits. If a county wants to support its local nonprofit hospital, it can only do so if the hospital’s board is “nonsectarian.” This provision excludes struggling faith-based community hospitals from support despite their essential services and, in many cases, decades as community anchors.

An Indiana historic preservation grant applicant must have “no affiliation with religion.” Most disturbingly, Indiana regulates the religious expression of the dead, with a law stating that a memorial corporation cannot “promote the interests or teachings of a specific church, sect, school, or creed.”

The Path Forward

American conservatives often think of themselves as the defenders of the First Amendment and religious liberty in particular. Many are probably shocked to see their states among the worst violators of the Carson principle.

Fortunately, red states should be able to act quickly to remedy these violations by amending laws or having their state attorneys general issue opinion letters committing to the state’s conformity to the First Amendment.

For states that refuse to meet their constitutional obligations, lawyers from the Becket Fund, law school religious liberty clinics, and think tanks stand ready to vindicate infringed religious liberties.



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