(FAITHWIRE) -- The attorney for an Ohio pastor who reportedly faces criminal charges for housing the poor is accusing City of Bryan officials of “unlawful harassment” and waging “lawfare.” Ryan…

Do you know what kind of guns your neighbors have? Do you care?If you're like a lot of gun owners, not really, except in regards to possibly getting to shoot it at the range someday.  Advertisement…

I'm generally not a big fan of ballot initiatives. Direct democracy was something our Founding Fathers felt we should avoid at all costs, and for good reason. The moment the masses figure out they can…

The Little Rock Police Department is searching for a runaway 13-year-old girl who was last seen on May 4, 2024.

Throughout his term, President Joe Biden’s administration has actively worked to curtail domestic energy production, forcing American reliance on foreign energy. China, in particular, stands to benefit from a global green revolution. Under the traditional model of fossil fuel–based energy production, the United States is one of the largest energy producers in the world. By comparison, China is the world’s largest energy importer. To gain a competitive advantage, China has worked to change the terms of the industry. For years, the CCP has encouraged a global transition to renewable energy — a transition that will turn nations into clients of Chinese industry.  Biden’s energy regulations require a transition to Chinese-manufactured infrastructure, such as solar panels, wind turbines, and batteries for electric vehicles. Biden, like Barack Obama before him, has failed to recognize the dangers of forced reliance on China’s “green” energy materials, even amid growing tensions between the U.S. and the PRC. China’s dominance in green energy materials is no accident. In the recently published paper “Chinese Handcuffs: How China Exploits America’s Climate Agenda,” Heritage Foundation scholars Erin Walsh and Andrew J. Harding explain the recent history of Chinese energy policy, illuminating the decades-long project of establishing dominance in components needed to produce renewable energy.  While the American environmentalist movement gained momentum in the mid-20th century, Chairman Deng Xiaoping sought to attract foreign investment in China through his “open door” policy. Throughout the 1990s, trade and investment reforms brought new foreign investment to China, dramatically increasing the nation’s demand for energy. As Walsh and Harding explain, “The high energy demands of China’s industrial economy left it increasingly reliant on imported fossil-based energy, which left the country vulnerable to both supply and price fluctuations.”  To increase energy security, General Secretary Hu Jintao began building China’s capacity for renewable energy. Communist Party spokesmen touted China’s climate commitments at international gatherings, working to advance the nation’s interests through global climate diplomacy.  Building off Hu’s legacy, CCP General Secretary Xi Jinping continues to pursue Chinese energy independence and works to “mold[] the global climate order to serve the interests of the CCP.” With legislation like the Inflation Reduction Act — which didn’t so much reduce inflation as slash America’s domestic energy industry — Biden and the Democrats are playing into Xi’s hands.  As Biden administration officials dream about transforming America into a “fossil fuel free” nation, China stands to profit from such a transition. Xi has overseen Chinese growth in the green energy sector, and China has invested heavily in building the capacity to manufacture solar panels, lithium-ion batteries, and electric vehicles (EVs). As the world’s foremost producer of solar panels, China controls 80 percent of the solar supply chain. The nation also dominates in lithium-ion battery production, supplying 80 percent of the world’s battery cells. And, perhaps even more concerning, China is the largest producer of rare earth elements used in defense systems and platforms worldwide.  China manufactures the materials needed to reconfigure America’s energy infrastructure as Biden’s administration desires, but the CCP also commits human rights abuses left and right. Increasing American reliance on Chinese products — and supply chains controlled largely by China — strengthens the CCP and weakens the United States.  The disastrous effects of American reliance on China have been illustrated in recent years after Congress implemented the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act, which prevents the importation of goods produced in the Xinjiang province unless it can be proved that the materials were not produced by slave labor. According to Reuters, following the implementation of this act, solar energy components began “pil[ing] up at U.S. ports,” threatening to slow “the Biden administration’s efforts to decarbonize the U.S. power sector to fight climate change.” As it turns out, Chinese solar panels are cheaper than those made elsewhere — in part because a number of Chinese companies rely on Uyghur laborers who work under threat of reeducation and internment.  As Sen. Marco Rubio wrote Thursday in the American Conservative:  China is also trying to flood the U.S. economy with cheap solar panels, lithium-ion batteries, wind turbines, steel, aluminum, textiles, and more…. Beijing’s goal in all this isn’t to turn a profit; it’s to create and reinforce dependencies. That spells trouble for the United States, because dependence on Chinese goods gives power to our chief geopolitical adversary.  Given America’s significant entanglement with the Chinese economy, regaining U.S. independence is easier said than done. But ending American reliance on Chinese-made solar panels and EVs would be a good place to start. The transition away from fossil fuels isn’t helping Americans — just ask oil and gas producers or auto workers. Instead, Biden is sacrificing America’s national interest for cheap imports and China’s profit.  Mary Frances Myler is a contributing editor at The American Spectator. She graduated from the University of Notre Dame in 2022.  READ MORE by Mary Frances Myler:  Biden’s Plan to Reschedule Marijuana Is Half-Baked It’s Apparently ‘Racist’ to Protect Children From Parental Drug Use Gov. Whitmer Pays Migrants Who Move to Michigan The post Biden’s Green Energy Policies Help China, Not America appeared first on The American Spectator | USA News and Politics.

Americans don’t like an open southern border. Both that and the fear of terrorism (one thinks those two items are not unrelated) rank as two of the most important issues to American voters in the coming election cycle, according to a Gallup poll back in March. But Americans aren’t the only ones concerned about the millions of migrants and refugees flooding their country. This past week, thousands of Irishmen descended upon Dublin to protest the Irish government’s immigration policy, chanting, among other slogans, “Ireland Is Full.” They have good reason to be frustrated. Ireland has been facing a housing and cost-of-living crisis for a while (sound familiar?), but that hasn’t stopped the government from welcoming in hundreds of thousands of migrants and asylum seekers, sometimes offloaded by England, from countries like Nigeria, Georgia, Algeria, Afghanistan, Somalia, and, of course, Ukraine. (RELATED: Western Civilization Is Not Just a Data Point) For context, according to Ireland’s latest census data, the country is home to 5.3 million people. In 2022 (the most recent numbers available), there were 141,600 immigrants. That means that in 2022 Ireland added over 2 percent of its population. The government has been busy trying to house all of its new migrants. It has converted hotels around the country into immigrant housing and refugee camps have sprung up in Dublin. That should also sound familiar to Americans. One can’t exactly blame the Irish grandmother who spoke to Dublin MEP candidate Philip Dwyer for her sentiments: “I’m here for my children, and I’m here for my grandchildren, and I’m here to keep Ireland’s Ireland for the Irish, and our Celtic race, and our culture, and our traditions, and our Christian, Catholic religion,” she said. “And I do not want Ireland to become an Islam stronghold.” Irish grandmother speaks the truth at today’s national protest in Dublin “I'm here for my children…my grandchildren…..our Celtic race..our culture, our traditions, and our Christian catholic religions, and I don't want Ireland to become an Islam stronghold" She spoke… pic.twitter.com/1yYJxiz6oD — TheLiberal.ie (@TheLiberal_ie) May 6, 2024 Probably without intending to, this anonymous grandmother captured exactly what many people in the West feel and think about massive immigration more broadly — that it’s a threat to their traditions, their culture, and their nation. That opinion, of course, doesn’t sit well with the Left. The New York Times claimed that the phrase “Ireland Is Full” is a mantra of far-right internet types, never mind that Ireland is one of the most liberal nations in the European Union. Ireland’s Ireland for the Irish It’s unfair to chalk up Ireland’s anti-immigration movement to the far-right — Ireland, after all, is one of the most liberal countries in the European Union — but the New York Times is not entirely wrong in recognizing the conservative trend of the argument in the most literal sense of that word. What these Irish protesters (and many Americans) want to conserve is the nation, complete with its history, its traditions, and its culture. To call them “anti-immigrant” is to ignore the essence of the problem. Americans aren’t really against immigration or offering asylum to the refugees of war, and it seems safe to assume that the same is true of the Irish. In the case of our Irish grandmother, she is pro-Irish culture and, in a broader sense, pro-Western culture. These Irish protesters find themselves holding on to the quaint hope that their children and grandchildren will grow up drinking in Irish pubs, dancing Irish dances, and attending Catholic churches. Similarly, the 48 percent of Americans who told Gallup that immigration is the single most important issue for them in the 2024 election are not anti-immigrant. They are simply concerned that the millions of immigrants flooding our country don’t share our values and have no desire to assimilate into our society. And that seems a perfectly reasonable thing to be concerned about. The post ‘Ireland Is Full’ Say Thousands in Dublin appeared first on The American Spectator | USA News and Politics.

The race is on. That would be the race to carry Pennsylvania for former President Donald Trump, win a key Senate race, and win the rest of the down ballot races. And the Citizens Alliance in Pennsylvania (CAP) is on the case. CAP founder, businessman, and former state legislator John Kennedy has brought in well-known “door knocking guru” Cliff Maloney to carry the flag for Trump supporters, and it’s safe to say Maloney is decidedly at work. I sat down with Maloney this week and talked about what has become known as “The Pennsylvania Chase.” Maloney began by describing the problem at hand. Pennsylvania’s COVID laws “changed the Pennsylvania election rules to 50 days of no-excuse mail-in ballots,” he said. That, in turn, has led to “Republicans averaging only 20 percent of mail-in ballots.” Here are the stats: 2020 Mail-In Ballots Democrat: 1,995, 691 / 77 percent Republican: 595, 538/23 percent 2022 Mail-In Ballots Democrat: 960,405 / 80 percent Republican 234,371 / 20 percent Maloney provides the solution to this decidedly serious problem. “The Pennsylvania Chase will knock on 500,000 doors to chase GOP ballots.” “To win in Pennsylvania in 2024 Republicans must receive 33 percent of all mail in ballots.” “How do we use the Left’s tactics of using grass roots tactics, of going door-to-door?” That is the question Maloney kept coming back to as time has moved on from the last couple of election cycles. His has been a national effort. But Pennsylvania is his home state — he hails from Delaware County, one of the Big Four suburban counties that ring Democratic Philadelphia. His “Chase” colleagues are all Pennsylvanians as well. Maloney is a former math teacher who worked on Sen. Rand Paul’s presidential campaign. In his role as the national “door knocking guru,” Maloney has scored 300 election wins, created 2,000 jobs, and had 6 million doors knocked. Eventually he crossed paths with and linked up with Kennedy, who is the driving force behind the Citizens Alliance. Kennedy and CAP have been discussed in this space before. (READ THE PIECE: Pennsylvania’s Capitalist Revolt) Now Kennedy and Maloney have joined forces with a laser-style focus on carrying Pennsylvania in 2024 for Trump and the GOP. “In 2020 they changed the rules” in Pennsylvania, Maloney says. Maloney says that in 2021, Republicans more or less complained about what was done. “They cheated” was the sentiment among Pennsylvania Republicans (not to mention with the former president himself). In 2022, the sentiment was “we need to litigate.” That in turn led to the belief that “we need to fix this.” Maloney notes that with mail-in votes alone, the U.S. Senate race came down to 20 percent for the GOP’s Dr. Mehmet Oz, with 80 percent for Democrat John Fetterman. Mulroney notes the obvious: “There’s no way to win an election when you are down by 60 percent.” What to do? Maloney says he got a call from Charlie Kirk’s team. Kirk, of course, is the head of Turning Point USA. The concern was that both the national and state GOP had “not stepped up.” Maloney is quick to not cast blame on either but to note instead how the rules had been changed. When dividing up the various states with Kirk’s group, it was decided that Maloney would partner Pennsylvania Chase with Kennedy’s Citizen Alliance for 2024. The first task: From Jan. 1 to Sept. 1, get those “low propensity voters” to request a mail-in ballot. Then, from Sept. 1 to the election, knock on doors to get voters to cast their ballots. “Charlie’s team has been great,” Maloney says. He notes the Pennsylvania races involved — Trump’s White House run and the hot U.S. Senate race with the GOP’s Dave McCormick versus Democrat Sen. Bob Casey Jr. — and also emphasizes the race with my own Rep. Scott Perry, a decided Democrat target. “I couldn’t believe this at first, but there’s roughly a million Republican voters” in the state who have only voted “two or fewer times,” Maloney says. One of the first steps, of course, is to create an app — in this case, “The Pennsylvania Chase.” It is filled with the details of the task ahead, The goal: to get the GOP share of mail-in ballots from 20 percent to 33 percent. And the starting point: “Knocking on 120 doors a day.” There was more, but the basics were clear. The fight is already on to carry Pennsylvania for the GOP in 2024. It has been done before. And Kennedy and Maloney believe it can be done again. They will be hiring ballot chasers and paying them. Not to mention, they’ll be tending to the always required basics — training, housing, supplies, and more. They are on the job. All of which is to say, the Pennsylvania Chase is on. Stay tuned. The post The Pennsylvania Chase Is On: An Interview With Cliff Maloney appeared first on The American Spectator | USA News and Politics.

Joe Biden Is Selling Out Israel to the Antisemitic Mob