The Israeli and American hostages of Hamas are in the Palestinians' own homes and apartments in Gaza

 This one was a so-called journalist for Al-Jazeera and the US-based Palestinian Chronicle.

Beltway Republican David Winston for Roll Call wants 2016 to have been about the economy when it was about illegal immigration

 

This slight-of-hand reasoning is how Trump got co-opted by the GOP in 2017 in the first place, and it's how they're going to co-opt him again should he win. Beltway Republicans love, love, love immigration, so the top issue cannot, must not, be that.

 In 2016, the economy was the top issue, just as today . . ..

Here.

Trump's controversial 2015-2016 message was immigration, immigration, immigration for 14 straight months, until Steve Bannon and Kellyanne Conway got a hold of him in August 2016.

Trump barely won.

Trump's unfavorables were indeed high, but not because Hillary drove them there as Winston says. People forget that Trump did that all by himself. He ended up underperforming John McCain 2008 in 12 states and DC.

Trump was an insurgent candidate who exploited division within the GOP to capture the nomination. The 2016 primary popular vote for Cruz, Rubio, and Kasich exceeded Trump's 13.3 million.

That division has subsided, but it has never gone away, and Winston is one of the other side's smooth operators who still want to change the subject to anything else but the issue staring everyone in the face, from working class Americans now competing with 8 million new illegals for wages to upper class suburban denizens of Massachusetts being told to cope with hordes of new students in public schools they never designed to accommodate this flood.

That's the issue confronting voters, not Trump's Kangaroo Kourt Konviction, about which David wrings his hands.

If there's any vengeance in American politics about which we should be upset in 2024, Joe Biden's open southern border is surely it.

On Senility

 "You can tell it's still a completely male-dominated society because no one today ever speaks of anility."

-- Imam John

Operation Arnon

 

The Tennessee Star has obtained some pages written by Audrey Hale which her victims' families had sought to keep private

 The story is here.

Everyone thinks this is hilarious except for the deranged public officials of Spokane, Washington who arrested those kids on felony charges for scuffing up a gay street mural

 

IDF doing the job Joe Biden won't do

 

There was a big drop in the Oceanic Nino Index reading for March-April-May 2024

 From 1.2 to 0.8.

The current El Nino has persisted for twelve consecutive measuring periods, averaging an anomaly of 1.358, a moderate event according to the scale (1.0-1.4).

There are two periods left in the current 2023-2024 season.

Native born Americans aren't getting the jobs over the last five years, foreign born workers are

 Native born employment is up 0.97 million in 5 years in May 2024, foreign born employment up 3.21 million.

 

Full time employment appears to have stalled in May 2024

 Full time as a percentage of civilian population appears to have stalled in May 2024 at 49.73.

Jan-May average 49.43, lowest since 2021.

Level is 2.46 million down from Jun 2023 peak.

 

The moment when you realize you gave the president too much fentanyl

 

Yeah no

 

Chicago Tribune Editorial Board wrings its hands over 450k Illinoisans with concealed carry permits now firing back, calls the right to self-defense "taking the law into your own hands"

 Worryingly, we’re seeing more signs of that phenomenon in Chicago, with three separate episodes over the last weekend in which would-be victims proved to be both armed and willing to fire at their assailants. Four people who police said were attacking these concealed carry holders were shot and wounded, all of them critically, according to a report by Block Club Chicago.

More.

Yeah, citizens doing the job the cops and the courts won't do is horrible.

Hey, concealed carry holders, go back to the range and improve your aim, will ya?

Dwight David Eisenhower: Peak America on this day in 1944, and Peak $SPX Return in 1969 when he died

 America also landed on the moon in 1969.

Bork got borked, Trump got chipmunked

 

Breaking from AP Hamas: Biden to slow illegal immigration to 1 million a year from 2 million by executive order!

 

 The only true sentence in this story from AP Hamas:

Biden’s order is aimed at trying to head off any potential spike in border encounters that could happen later this year, closer to the November elections. 

Biden's scores of executive orders on Day One of his administration created this catastrophe of 10 million illegal aliens in the first place, as even AP Obama knows but won't say:

Administration lawyers have been planning to tap executive powers outlined in Section 212(f) of the Immigration and Nationality Act, which gives a president broad authority to block entry of certain immigrants into the U.S. if it is deemed “detrimental” to the national interest. It is the same legal rationale used by Trump to take some of his toughest actions on migration as president.

 

Nate Cohn of New York Times/Siena College Poll: This time around, Joe Biden has become the broadly unlikeable one

  

 Donald Trump has never been popular. He’s still not popular. His unfavorability rating is just as high today as it was heading into Election Day 2020. This group of disengaged voters doesn’t like Donald Trump, and never did. What’s changed, to my mind, is that Joe Biden went from being a broadly appealing person — they didn’t necessarily love him, they didn’t necessarily even like him, but he was acceptable — to someone who many voters do not find acceptable anymore.

More.

Greek historian Victor Davis Hanson, born in 1953, flips his lid, laughably blames every single problem in America today on the Baby Boomers in a wildly insane rant, my favorite being . . .

 

 . . . the Baby Boomers destroyed the southern border . . ..

Here.

Immigration policy in the United States was forever radically altered in 1965, by no one born in the Baby Boom.

The average age of a US Representative in 1965 was 51.4, the Congress of which overwhelmingly passed the destructive reform 320-70, which ended the American commitment to social homogeneity prevailing from the 1920s.

This was an act of American hubris, born of victory in WWII. One would think Hanson would know about that.

Their average birth year puts them in 1914, children of the mentally-ill Progressive Era (1896–1917) which gave us the income tax (1909), popular election of senators (1913), prohibition of alcohol (1919), and women's suffrage (1920), all of which were sufferable as long as their was social stability. Well, except for the prohibition.

The biggest problem affecting Baby Boomers is a lazy attention to our own history, and perhaps self-hatred.

LA Times editorial board lol: You’re not alone if it seems like your electric bill is getting too damn high

From the story here, slightly edited for clarity:

State greenhouse gas reduction Fascist government policies are pushing forcing residents to adopt electric cars and appliances that will only increase their electricity consumption.

Pure fascism: Utility sector is profiteering off the federally subsidized green energy push

 Utility stocks are on fire — here are Wall Street analysts' top picks :

The S&P 500 Utilities ETF (XLU) is up more than 12% year to date in a reversal from last year when investors soured on the sector due to expensive projects and high interest rates. ...

Constellation Energy (CEG) is the largest owner of nuclear plants in the US. The Baltimore-based company has been a beneficiary of the government's push to transition to green energies and growing power demand from data centers. Constellation shares are up more than 85% year to date as the company forecasts base earnings to grow by at least 10% annually through the decade. ... The analyst highlights that Constellation produces power at roughly $25 per megawatt hour, while the government's Inflation Reduction Act allows for a selling price floor of $45 per megawatt hour, providing a minimum of $20 margin per megawatt hour. ... Constellation has been operating as a standalone energy provider since 2022 after a spin-off from utility giant Exelon (EXC). The company has been buying back shares and recently upped its dividend ahead of its earnings due on Thursday. ...

NextEra Energy (NEE): The $147-billion-market-cap company is one of the largest electric power generators in the country. While NextEra owns a regulated utility in Florida, investors are more interested in its non-regulated part of the business, NextEra Energy Resources, which involves developing renewable energy in the US. ... "The re-domestication of industry in the US supported by public policy will drive the need for more electricity," CEO John Ketchum told analysts in April. The stock is up about 20% year to date. ...

Among the regulated utilities, Southern Company (SO) is one of the best performers inside the Utility sector year to date, with shares up more than 10%.

It's great to be a Democrat.