On Monday, outside of the Manhattan courthouse where ex-Marine Daniel Penny was acquitted of manslaughter in the death of drug-addled psychotic and career criminal Jordan Neely, a host of perpetually aggrieved individuals howled for vengeance disguised as “justice” against Penny. “And people who keep asking, ‘Are we going to riot? Are we going to protest?’” said an unidentified woman who claimed she was the co-founder of the New York chapter of Black Lives Matter. “Is that what’s needed? Do glass have to break? Do cars have to burn for a black man to get justice in America?’ We can show out with peace. We can show out with facts. We can show with evidence and witness after witness. You give us nothing, and then you ask us to love this country.” Another even nastier activist going by the name Hawk Newsome was even more vitriolic… We need some black vigilantes. People wanna jump up and choke us and kill us for being loud? How about we do the same when they attempt to oppress us? What brought on this avalanche of threats and recriminations? You already know. Neely, a homeless drug addict who had either a fatal or near-fatal dose of fentanyl in his system and who had made a practice of assaulting and harassing subway riders in New York — with over 40 arrests on his record — was up to his usual tricks using a subway car as a stage but in the wrong place at the wrong time. He announced that he was prepared to kill someone if he wasn’t supplied with a modicum of money from his fellow riders, and that jail was hardly a deterrent to his demands. So Penny confronted him and after a short struggle, he held him in a chokehold until Neely finally calmed down. But by then, given the drugs in his system and his inability to demonstrate he was no longer a threat to his fellow riders, Neely expired. Nobody wanted Jordan Neely to die unless it was Neely, who led an awful, squalid, disgraceful life and left the world as a pristine example of how not to exist within it. But by any reasonable interpretation, Daniel Penny did the right thing in intervening and protecting his fellow man in that subway car, and Neely’s death was accidental. If he had calmed down sooner, something it seems he couldn’t do because of the drugs in his system, Penny could have let him go and he’d still be alive. But he didn’t. And the Black Lives Matter of the world saw an opportunity in Jordan Neely’s death. So they raised hell and demanded “justice” for a drug-addled psychopath who lived a life in the gutter as a threat to everyone around him. Daniel Penny was branded a Klansman, a racist, a Nazi, and a villain, and New York City’s utterly embarrassing District Attorney Alvin Bragg put him on trial for Neely’s death. That case finally fell apart when it got to the jury. Despite a chorus of threats, both explicit and implied, the jurors refused to buckle to the BLM mob and set Penny free. And that touched off the unrest of the mob. But do you know what else it touched off? A wave of joy across the country. Most Americans understand that had Daniel Penny been convicted of protecting his fellow subway riders, the effect would have been to turn the American commons over to street criminals and other lowlifes. And rather than a Daniel Penny stepping forward to protect the innocent from a chaotic threat in the person of a man no longer possessing reason or behavioral discipline, the new standard would become those Philadelphia residents who, faced with a group of thugs gang-raping a woman on a SEPTA train, merely took out their cell phones to film the incident. The latter incident horrified many. Why wouldn’t anyone help that poor woman in Philadelphia? The Penny case was why. Given that Larry Krasner, the district attorney in Philadelphia, hails from the same George Soros/Defund The Police school that Bragg does, it’s entirely reasonable to process a threat like the one Neely posed and say that it’s better not to get involved. This is what the “Civil Rights” era has come to. And this is why the “Civil Rights” era is over. When you are somehow akin to James Earl Ray for standing up to street criminals on subways, we are no longer in a place where “justice” is being sought. There is a reason the BLM crowd kept saying of George Floyd that he should rest not in peace, but in power. Power was what the entire Black Lives Matter movement was all about. These aren’t people trying to redeem America. They’re hell-bent on destroying it. And not just America, by the way, but the entire concept of Western civilization, from its moral code to its culture to its economics and especially to its politics. Black Lives Matter is the end stage of the civil rights movement. It’s what you get when all the real battles against racism have been fought and won. When the “civil rights” crowd features grifters like Ibram X. Kendi who openly calls for “discrimination” as the answer for past discrimination, the shark has been jumped. Is New York a racist city? Almost certainly the answer is yes, but the racists are the Hawk Newsomes. What Daniel Penny did was not a racist act, it was an act of love for his fellow man. It was an act of protection. And, the argument for his imprisonment is that Penny should have pulled out his phone and recorded Neely as he assaulted, battered, or killed the people he was threatening. Because that’s what a post-Western civilization in New York looks like, and it’s the dystopian hellscape the “civil rights” crusaders of Black Lives Matter prefer to the declining status quo. Not surprisingly, that argument convinced no one. So instead Hawk Newsome called for violence. Because violence is the necessary harbinger of the end of civilization. There is no defending this. There is only a step — or several steps, if not a marathon — back from the brink. I’m going to say that while there will be other cases, whether like Penny’s ordeal or that of Kyle Rittenhouse or Derek Chauvin, the Minneapolis cop unlucky enough to be in contact with George Floyd as he expired from his own fentanyl overdose (in a fair trial, rather than the mob-inspired kangaroo court Chauvin was subjected to, he would also have been acquitted in Floyd’s death), the terror of Black Lives Matter and the grift of the “civil rights” figures who came before them will not recover from this. America has had it with the nonstop racial pyromania of people whose bad faith is unquestionable. The Al Sharptons, the Benjamin Crumps, the Kendis, and the Hawk Newsomes have had their day, and that grift is over. An expanding number of black people, particularly black men, are becoming Republicans very largely as a repudiation of their antics. And an expanding number of people of other races are making it plain that they will not be cowed by threats and name-calling. Finally, we’re coming to a place of reason. The “civil rights” era, which has perfectly encapsulated the old Eric Hoffer quote that “every great cause begins as a movement, becomes a business, and eventually degenerates into a racket,” is now obviously a racket. And a shabby one at that. We can celebrate its legitimate triumphs and the ways it made our country more equitable and just. But now we can also recognize its obsolescence and abuses. Daniel Penny is free, as he should be free. And we are free to be equal citizens under the law without fear of the mob. It’s a new dawn in America, one which is long overdue. READ MORE from Scott McKay: The Old Game Continues Among the Worst GOP Senators Robert Reich’s Ravings Against Musk Are Pure Lunacy Well, Then, by All Means, Let’s Put Hunter Under Oath Now The post The ‘Civil Rights’ Era Is Over. Good Riddance To It. appeared first on The American Spectator | USA News and Politics.

The long nightmare of the Assad family dictatorship has come to a sudden end. Hafez al-Assad seized power in Damascus in a 1970 coup, and now, 54 years later, his son Bashar has fled to Moscow for refuge. Scenes of celebration across Syria testify to widespread hostility toward the regime and collective elation at its collapse. What sort of governance will emerge in Damascus remains unclear. Ideally, a constitutional process and elections could lead to a legitimate and effective administration capable of addressing the misery the Assads bequeathed to their long-suffering country. Alternatively, civil conflict and sectarian strife might ensue, or Syria could become a battlefield for regional powers like Turkey and Iran. Instability in Syria can rapidly escalate into a regional and international security challenge — but also a set of opportunities. (RELATED: Approach Syria With a Tragic Mind) Impact on Russia One of the biggest losers in this dramatic turn of events is Russia. Syria served as Moscow’s gateway back into the Middle East after it lost its connection to Egypt in the 1970s. Syria became a de facto client state, hosting Russia’s naval facility at Tartus on the Mediterranean coast. Although the significance of Tartus waned after the Cold War, its importance surged during Syria’s civil war, especially after 2013, when President Obama failed to enforce his “red line” threat. At that juncture, Moscow emerged as Damascus’s chief supporter. However, preoccupied now with its costly war in Ukraine, Russia could not come to Assad’s aid. Russia has not only lost a client but has also signaled to the world that it is willing to abandon allies. Memo to BRICS countries: Don’t count on Putin to save your skin. Any Russian loss is a potential gain for the West. Washington should seize this opportunity to maximize Russia’s defeat, potentially ending its Mediterranean presence altogether. Unfortunately, the Biden administration appears unprepared, as surprised by the fall of Damascus as it was by last year’s Hamas attack. What is lacking is an American strategy to capitalize on Russia’s loss. Impact on Iran The other major loser is Iran and its proxy Hezbollah, which served as Assad’s co-patrons. Like Russia, they failed to come to his rescue. Hezbollah had already been significantly weakened by Israeli strikes, while Iran faced its own domestic legitimacy crisis. The inability to shape developments in Syria exposes the so-called “axis of resistance” as ineffective. This moment demands a decisive American strategy to address Iran: stricter, effective sanctions coupled with back-channel diplomacy offering reconciliation, contingent on Tehran accepting longstanding U.S. goals — ending its nuclear ambitions and terminating regional destabilization activities. The collapse of the Assad regime is a profound blow to Iran’s regional strategy. This is a pivotal moment for clear-eyed diplomacy to reshape the Middle East. Washington must not squander this opportunity, though the current administration’s track record suggests it might. History calls for bold leadership. Jan. 20 cannot come soon enough. Impact on the Middle East and Europe There is, of course, a risk that victorious forces in Syria may take an Islamist turn, leading to a new catastrophe akin to the Taliban’s rise in Afghanistan. This worst-case scenario could destabilize Iraq and Jordan and threaten Israel’s border. While this outcome cannot be ruled out, it is not inevitable: Syria is not Afghanistan, and its revolution need not take an Islamist direction. Another consequence could ripple further afield, potentially impacting Western political cohesion. With the end of Assad’s brutal dictatorship, the legal basis for many Syrian refugees to claim asylum in Europe has evaporated, prompting calls for their return. Anti-immigration parties such as Germany’s Alternative for Germany (AfD) and France’s Rassemblement National will likely intensify demands for large-scale repatriation. This could provoke controversial debates and bitter political divides. Radicalization within key Atlantic allies does not serve American interests, and similar pressures may arise in Turkey, Jordan, and Lebanon. What just transpired in Syria is far from a purely local matter. These tectonic shifts in the region carry global ramifications. The fall of Assad offers a potentially significant win for the U.S. and the West, but only if Washington crafts a foreign policy capable of securing that victory. READ MORE: Approach Syria With a Tragic Mind Ukraine and Syria: Biden’s Leftover Wars Ukraine Policy: the Big Win The post The End of the Assad Dictatorship: What This Means for Western Security appeared first on The American Spectator | USA News and Politics.

In democratic countries, one would expect that incompetent and corrupt politicians actively involved in scandals, deadly disasters, or other catastrophes would get voted out of office, fired, prosecuted, or at least retired into obscurity. But if they are pitching for Net Zero, the European Union promotes them. Spain’s Socialist minister of Ecological Transition and Demographic Challenge, Teresa Ribera, who the Spanish Congress is investigating for neglecting to strengthen dams, drainage canals, warning systems, and responses that would have mitigated the deadly consequences of the recent floods that devastated the province of Valencia — killing hundreds of people and destroying thousands of homes — has just been appointed to the European Commission. The president of the European Commission (the EU’s ruling body), Ursula von der Leyen, has quite a bit in common with the Spanish Climate Czar. When von der Leyen was German defense minister, she hollowed out the military with defense cuts while shuttering Germany’s coal plants and nuclear reactors. Her government made Germany dependent on Russian gas as part of the “Green Energy transition,” weakening Europe while filling Vladimir Putin’s war chest and emboldening him to invade Ukraine. Von der Leyen is herself under investigation by the European Public Prosecutor’s Office and the Belgian government on corruption allegations involving the purchase of over $2 billion in COVID vaccines, most of which were never used. She is being probed for “interference in public functions, destruction of evidence, corruption and conflict of interest,” according to the Belgian prosecutor’s office in Liège. It’s alleged that her husband, Heiko, is a lobbyist for Pfizer. Despite losing support among European conservatives who were her original base, von der Leyen narrowly clinched her reappointment to a new five-year term last month by a coalition of Socialists and Greens rallying to her cry for “massive investment in renewables.” Meanwhile, Ribera, who shows devotion to the climate cult by riding a bicycle to cabinet meetings — from her parked limo a block away — has been a key apparatchik in the pharaonic Net Zero programs pushed by von der Leyen. Asleep at the switch while 300 Valencians drowned in the mud, she has been instrumental in tearing up Spain’s countryside to install massive solar and windmill farms to save the world by 2050. Along the fertile agricultural valleys, rolling hills, and pasturelands off Spain’s southern coast where the country’s legendary prize bulls and Andalusian stallions have bred for centuries, thousands of acres are being expropriated to install solar panels arriving from China. “This could be catastrophic for the local economy,” says Jose Garcia Cea, who heads Plataforma SOS, a local group fighting the project. He fears that the damage to agriculture and tourism would turn thriving local communities into “ghost towns.” The communist mayor of Jimena de la Frontera, a picturesque town with a population of 7,000, says that the solar parks will create new “Green jobs.” But these would mainly consist of low-wage temporary work during the few months of installation. African migrants landing daily in the nearby port of Algeciras and housed in local hostels at EU expense could provide the labor. According to Garcia, projects currently up for building permission have been submitted by shell companies with hidden owners presenting inadequate environmental impact studies. He points to a map indicating how a solar farm is planned for a low-lying valley on an estuary near the sea, an area highly vulnerable to flash floods. The solar panels are powered by a dangerously toxic sulfuric gas that could poison the atmosphere through accidental leaks. Fifteen lobbyists for renewable companies have offices in the same building that houses the European Commission’s headquarters in Brussels. They have pushed for subsidies exceeding well over $100 billion to boost solar and wind, distorting the energy market and depressing Europe’s largest economies. A third of Europe’s electricity now relies on unstable sources. There is little sunshine in northern Europe during much of the year and the North Sea wind blows so hard at times that windmill farms have to be shut down as they overload the grid, costing a billion dollars each time. “Germany is buckling under the weight of ballooning renewable energy subsidies,” according to Bloomberg. GDP growth in what was Europe’s economic powerhouse has dropped to small decimals and major firms like Volkswagen are announcing mass layoffs and plant closures. They cite rising energy costs and stifling regulations designed to boost demand for electric vehicles (EVs) — which China produces more cheaply. The EU’s current tariff on Chinese EVs is 10 percent and while they are thinking of raising it to 35 percent, Spain’s Socialists have a captive market. They are offering subsidies to the owners of the 120,000 cars that got washed away in Valencia if they replace them with EVs. There is a further catch: The flood struck areas that won’t have the necessary electricity to charge them for months and there are no charging stations in the 70 worst-hit villages and towns. Brexit should have unshackled the U.K. to pursue rational energy policies. Instead, it’s competing with the EU for net-zero targets. North Sea oil exploration has been virtually stopped, with gas wells being capped using methods that prevent their ever reopening. Among the most controversial Green measures being introduced is forcing homeowners into strapping debt by requiring them to replace their gas boilers with electrically powered heat pumps whose cost can exceed $70,000 per unit. Record tax hikes unveiled last month in the new Labour government’s budget are going to finance the Green agenda even as Britain’s social services are collapsing and average living standards drop. Former conservative Prime Minister Rishi Sunak tried to scale back the draconian climate measures and impossible target dates introduced by his predecessor, Boris Johnson. Aware of their unpopularity, Labour’s new prime minister, Keir Starmer, initially spoke of reallocating $35 billion earmarked for net zero. But then, Special U.N. Envoy for Climate Action and Finance and former Bank of England governor, Mark Carney, flew into London on a private jet from his home in Canada to meet with Starmer and Chancellor of the Exchequer Rachel Reeves. Carney is also vice-chairman of Brookfield Management, a hedge fund heavily invested in renewables, whose holdings include Britain’s main producer of heat pumps. Carney’s Stalinist approach to saving the world is explained on his U.N. website: “Those who invest in achieving net zero … who are part of the solution, will be rewarded. Those who are lagging behind and are still part of the problem will be punished.” (RELATED: The Real Climate Change Disaster) His book Value(s), Building a Better World for All, in which he makes ample reference to the teachings of Marx and Lenin, envisions a Net Zero world in which “Assets will be stranded, used gasoline powered cars will be unsaleable, inefficient properties will be unrentable,” and the broken middle classes are “climate road kills.” (RELATED: Climate Change Socialism on the Attack) Ben Habib, deputy leader of Nigel Farage’s surging Reform party which gained parliamentary representation in the last British elections, told The American Spectator that “enforcing unpopular climate policies will inevitably result in growing restrictions on civil liberties.” Carney’s partner on the trusteeship board of the World Economic Forum, Klaus Schwab, has openly called for “Climate Lockdowns.” In a recent speech, the usually measured von der Leyen made a passionate appeal for censorship or “pre-bunking”: “We need to build societal immunity to information manipulation because research has shown that pre-bunking is much more effective than de-bunking,” declared the EU president who has led efforts to ban X and other social media platforms. Spain’s Socialists are trying to push measures that would place the country’s main television channels under virtual one-party control. Support for Green parties is otherwise vanishing. Greens are polling at 10 percent in Germany, five percentage points less than their vote in the 2021 elections. In Ireland, Belgium, and other countries, they have lost all parliamentary representation and have 12 seats left in the European parliament. EU mandarins are increasingly resorting to lawfare against critics of climate policies. Germany’s collapsing coalition government of Socialists and Greens has been trying to proscribe the surging right-wing Alternative for Germany which has made dramatic gains in recent elections. Repressive measures have reached the point that police raided the home of a pensioner at 4 a.m. to arrest him for calling the local Green party gauleiter an “idiot.” Ex-BBC star presenter Jeremy Clarkson has been arrested on charges of inciting public unrest after speaking at a farmers’ protest outside Parliament. A young environmentalist in Spain was slapped with a $35,000 fine for hanging a poster on the road to a hilltop castle protesting the construction of a mega solar farm nearby. Carney might offer advice in this regard. Some years ago, he played a key role in Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s repression of a Canadian truckers’ strike over COVID mandates. He called for “following the money” in an open letter to Toronto’s Globe and Mail, to cut the truckers’ sources of funding, which led to the government freezing of individual bank accounts. Every tyranny needs a dynasty and Europe has them ready-made. King Charles III of England led the Green charge at a climate conference in Glasgow, where he called for a military-style campaign to mobilize the world for climate action. A close relative of Spain’s King Felipe holds a job at the U.N.’s climate office in New York, which a Spanish diplomat who held senior positions at the U.N. described to The American Spectator as a “front.” Spanish royals need to placate radical leftists in the government who are pushing for a referendum on the monarchy. In the last Cold War, Russia’s KGB activated extensive operations to penetrate European labor unions and sponsor terrorist groups to sabotage Western Europe’s energy. Europeans are doing it themselves this time around and saving Russia the work even as they lean on the U.S. to risk nuclear war to save them from Putin. Donald Trump must hold his promise to pull out of the Paris climate accords and expose the global “climate scam.” Americans should furthermore lock arms with the growing majority of Europeans fighting for their civil rights, cheap energy, and food security. READ MORE from Martin Arostegui: Kursk Is Not Worth a Nuclear War North Korea Is in the Fight Has Latin America Become a Base for Iran’s Terrorism? The post Climate ‘Changists’ Cashing In, European-Style appeared first on The American Spectator | USA News and Politics.

Amazing. The flurry of statistics pertaining to President-elect Trump’s historic victory is not only amazing but telling. Let’s do the deep dive. The Trump campaign has posted a “Post-Election TikTok Overview.” The statistics, which include both post-election and election numbers, speak exactly to the reason that, against the odds, Donald J. Trump became President-elect Trump in 2024. Let’s take a look. Here are the account figures by specific accounts. The figures for the @realdonaldtrump handle are: 14.6 Million Followers 1.5 million followers added since Election Day (+11 percent) 1.4 Billion Views 225 million views added since Election Day (+19 percent) The figures for the @teamtrump handle are: 8.1 Million Followers 2.9 million followers added since Election Day (+57 percent) 2.4 Billion Views 703 million views added since Election Day (+42 percent) The @realdonaldtrump and @teamtrump handles combined are: 22.7 Million Followers 4.4 million followers added since Election Day (+24 percent) 3.8 Billion Views 928 million views added since Election Day (+32 percent) Recall the liberal media criticism and head shaking by Democrats when Trump showed up in person at a McDonald’s to flip French fries? Here’s this: McDonald’s Content Performance:  There have been 174 million views across 30,000 TikTok videos referencing President Trump’s McDonald’s visit. The McDonald’s visit videos posted directly by the campaign (@realdonaldtrump + @teamtrump) generated 5.5 times more views on TikTok (155 million) than Instagram Reels (28 million). Garbage Truck Content Performance: There have been 148 million views across 3,600 TikTok videos referencing President Trump’s garbage truck event. The garbage truck event videos posted directly by the campaign (@realdonaldtrump + @teamtrump) generated 5 times more views on TikTok (83 million) than Instagram Reels (17 million). Top Trump Hashtag Performance Hashtag Total Views Election Day #trump 34.5 billion 8 billion (+30 percent) #donaldtrump 14.1 billion 3 billion (+27 percent) #trump2024 9.7 billion 2 billion (+26 percent) #trump2024 5.7 billion 2.1 billion (+58 percent) #trumprally 1.4 billion 66 million (+5 percent) 49 billion* 12 billion* (+32 percent) *Note: This is less than the sum of the five because it counts UNIQUE VIDEO VIEWS. Some videos have more than one hashtag from this list and would otherwise be double-counted. So what do we have here? What we have is a 21st-century-style record of just how the considerable support for candidate Trump manifested itself in TikTok videos — as opposed to Instagram videos — during the election. As the future rolls on, obviously there will be other elections. Already the political elites of both parties are musing about their potential candidates in the post-Trump era election that will be 2028. Vice President JD Vance for the GOP? Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro for the Democrats?  Who knows. But without a doubt, 2028 campaign gurus will be looking at the kind of TikTok statistics listed above for then-candidate Donald Trump in 2024 to measure the popularity of whomever the candidates for 2028 turn out to be. Stay tuned. READ MORE from Jeffrey Lord: The Borking of Pete Hegseth The Biden Corruption Draining the D.C. Swamp Picks Up Steam The post The Trump TikTok Post-Election Data appeared first on The American Spectator | USA News and Politics.

from WND: ‘All the people that are listed as going to get pardons, there’s sort of diplomatic immunity or Democratic immunity for crimes not even charged’ The author of “Laptop from Hell,” the book documenting alleged crimes by Biden family members, is now predicting the next pardons coming from Joe now that the president has excused his […]

by Joe Martino, The Pulse: I will come clean right off the top: I believe in a world where humans maintain their humanity deeply while working with technology (not embedded) to help make our world a better place. I see a big place for AI, automation, and technology in our future. Not to increase economic […]

The Phil Collins documentary Drummer First will premiere later this month