PrairiePundit

 PJ Media: Last summer, Turkish authorities transformed Hagia Sophia (“Holy Wisdom”) — which was originally built, and for a millennium functioned, as one of Christendom’s greatest cathedrals — into a mosque (again).  On that Friday, July 24, 2020 (which for millions of Eastern Christians is now deemed a “ day of mourning “), Muslims met inside the desecrated church, where they were led in prayer by a sword-waving imam, to spasmodic cries of “Allahu akbar.” The Turks, beginning with their president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, have been presenting this bit of cultural appropriation as their “right.”  Imam Ali Erbas, Turkey’s president of religious affairs, has gone one farther, recently  claiming  that “the goal is for all our mosques and especially Hagia Sophia to become centers of knowledge about Islam.” So be it.  As the anniversary of the Turkish conquest of Constantinople and its Hagia Sophia recently passed (May 29, 1453), let us revisit what...

 Red States: Democrats have officially thrown a hissy fit in response to Texas’ prospective election security law. They stormed off the Texas House floor, denying a vote on the measure last night. The move also ends the current legislative session. Of course, if you were to ask your average Democrat what is so objectionable about the law, they’d have no answer because it’s not objectionable. Its main factors include things like standardizing mail-in and drive-through voting procedures that were adopted during the pandemic. Democrats oppose doing that because they apparently believe living in a perpetual state of emergency when it comes to voting measures benefits them electorally. This is another in a line of voting reform laws in Republican-held states that have drawn the irrational ire of the left. Georgia has been the most talked-about even though the law was relatively mundane and actually expanded voting opportunities compared to pre-pandemic measures. Other states like Flor...

 NY Post: Former President Donald Trump blasted President Biden on his handling of China, the Middle East and the crisis at the southern border, saying his successor is “destroying our country.” “All he had to do is nothing,” the former president said on Newsmax’s “Dick Morris Democracy” on Saturday. “We won’t have a country; they’re destroying our country.” Trump said his administration’s work on the Mexican border was overturned by Biden and created the situation that exists there today. “If he would have done nothing, we would have had right now the strongest border in history,” Trump told Dick Morris. “I had everything worked out with the other countries, whether it’s Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador, Mexico,” Trump said. “And even Mexico, stay in Mexico. In other words, these people ought to stay in Mexico, and they couldn’t get into our country.” “And he ended that. It’s just crazy what they did,” the former president said. Biden reversed a number of Trump’s immigration progr...

  Daily Mail: The great restaurant price hike: Eateries across the country are raising prices after soaring inflation sees ingredients costs DOUBLE in just one year A perfect storm of rising oil costs, supply chain issues and labor shortages is driving some restaurants to put prices up Alan Natkiel, owner of New Hampshire restaurant Georgia's Northside, said costs had spiked in the last 3 months, forcing him to put up prices He said the cost of brisket has gone up 185%, chicken breast is up 70%, and fryer oil costs have doubled in the past three months  National chains such as IHOP and Applebee's say their costs have also shot up, and may be forced to pass that on to consumers   Inflation rose 4.2% in the last 12 months, its highest rate since 2008 You can see the inflation at the grocery stores too. How much of it is relate3d to the cost of liberal lockdowns and how much is attritutable to Biden's extravagent spending is not known, but both appear to have a negative...

  Jerusalem Post: 10 serious COVID patients given Israeli drug, leave hospital in one day   The data showed a 40% decrease in lung inflammation from treatment – from 55% to 15%, as seen in chest X-rays * Rambam Health Care Campus doctor: ‘Results extremely impressive’ The drug appears effective at treating respiratory symptoms of the disease. 

 Post Millenial: On Sunday, the Texas Senate passed a voter roll maintenance bill that looks to purge non-citizens and non-residents from the state's voter rolls. Senate Bill 155, according to the Texas Scorecard , "adds the Texas attorney general to the list of officials receiving information about voters who identify themselves as not meeting citizenship or residency qualifications for jury service. This means they are also ineligible to be registered to vote in the county in which they were called to serve on a jury—or, in the case of non-citizens, at all." After prosecutors with the Attorney General’s office confirmed to lawmakers back in 2018 that non-citizens were registering to vote and voting in Texas elections, although it is already considered illegal to do so, the Republican Party of Texas made election integrity its top priority during the 2021 session. ... SB 155, as well as its House companion HB 2339, were identified by the Texas GOP as meeting its election...

 Washington Examiner: Former  National Security Agency  chief  Keith Alexander  warned that the United States is "not ready" to combat against a potential flurry of cyberattacks from Russia and  China . On Sunday, Alexander said hacks from the two nations are "more blatant than" any he's ever seen throughout his "whole career." The former NSA boss said President  Joe Biden 's  March 12 executive order , which was intended to bolster the country's response to cyberattacks through coordination with the private sector, is a step in the right direction, adding that more needs to be done. “Both  Russia  and China are challenging us in this space, and it’s shown that we’re not ready," he told ABC's Martha Raddatz. "I think the executive order has some part of it, [but] we have to go faster. In my experience, the private sector is ready, they’re pushing forward.” DHS IMPLEMENTS HOST OF CYBERSECURITY REQUIREMENTS FOR PIPELINES FOLLOWING C...

  Epoch Times: 117 Employees File Lawsuit Against Texas Hospital for Requiring COVID-19 Vaccine I think it is a reasonable requirement.  The hospital was in charge of distributing the vaccine in the Houston, Harris County area.  It is where I and my wife were vaccinated and neither of us has had any ill effects from the shots.   I suspect the concern of the hospital is to protect their patients many of whom are in the vulnerable population.  They have a reasonable concern that staff that is not vaccinated could get the virus and infect patients.   If someone does not want to get the shot they should consider employment elsewhere. BTW, I have been a patient in the Methodist Hospital system in the past.

 i24: The planning office was twice visited by Esmail Ghaani, commander of the IRGC’s overseas Quds Force Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and Hezbollah coordinated with and supported Hamas’ war efforts during the Gazan group’s recent round of fighting with Israel, the editor-in-chief of a Lebanese daily paper has said.  Ibrahim Al-Amine, editor of the Hezbollah-affiliated Lebanese daily  Al-Akhbar , told Hezbollah’s  Al-Manar  network that during the violence personnel from the IRGC, Hezbollah and Hamas established a joint military operations room in Beirut. During its operation, the planning office was twice visited by Esmail Ghaani, commander of the IRGC’s overseas Quds Force, Al-Amine said. The editor also claimed Hezbollah resupplied Hamas with weapons and ammunition, provided it with intelligence on Israeli movements, and moved Palestinian fighters out of the Strip during the hostilities.  His comments come several days after Yahya Sinwar, the...

  Epoch Times: Virginia Teacher Placed on Leave After Saying He Won’t Call Students by Their Preferred Pronouns There should be no requirement to pander to this insanity.  Be honest with the kids and use regular pronouns that reflect their sex. 

  Daily Mail: EXCLUSIVE: COVID-19 'has NO credible natural ancestor' and WAS created by Chinese scientists who then tried to cover their tracks with 'retro-engineering' to make it seem like it naturally arose from bats, explosive new study claims An explosive new study claims researchers found 'unique fingerprints' in COVID-19 samples that they say could only have arisen from manipulation in a laboratory DailyMail.com exclusively obtained the new 22-page paper authored by British Professor Angus Dalgleish and Norwegian scientist Dr. Birger Sørensen set to be published in the Quarterly Review of Biophysics Discovery The study showed there's evidence to suggest Chinese scientists created the virus while working on a Gain of Function project in a Wuhan lab  Gain of Function research, which was temporarily outlawed in the US, involves altering naturally-occurring viruses to make them more infectious in order to study their potential effects on humans  According ...

 Nick Arama: ... But the Washington Post’s fact-checker Glenn Kessler really went over the slide  in his “fact check” of her statement. Kessler claims that the Nazis weren’t socialist and gave her four Pinocchios for saying they were. He even called her “ahistorical.” Now, it seems farcical that anyone would argue that, given it’s in the very name of their party – the National Socialist German Worker’s Party, (Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei) or NSDAP -but it’s a common argument on the left. Perhaps it’s understandable that they don’t want to get tagged with that as part of leftist history. Given how common Kessler’s thesis is and how the American left is continually revising the meaning of words (the video in Kessler’s fact-check is titled, “What does socialism even mean anymore?”), I believe the tactic deserves some firm rebutting. Let’s start with dissecting what’s wrong in Kessler’s article and how indeed, it’s Kessler’s piece that is “ahistorical” and frank...

 Washington Examiner: Republican Sen. Tom Cotton and Rep. Dan Crenshaw are launching a new initiative to locate and eliminate “woke” training programs in the U.S. military. “Enough is enough,” Crenshaw, a retired lieutenant commander with the United States Navy and a Navy SEAL, said in a tweet. “We won’t let our military fall to woke ideology.” The duo added a feature to their own congressional websites that allows military service members to submit anonymous reports of instances or pieces of training that are perceived as “woke.” “We have just launched a whistleblower webpage where you can submit your story. Your complaint will be legally protected, and go to my office and @SenTomCotton,” the Texas Republican tweeted. ... Crenshaw said his goal is simple: Allow military members “to tell the country what’s happening” inside the U.S. military and to “expose” those in leadership who are pushing “progressive” agendas. “With written permission, we will anonymously publish egregious com...

 Red States: We reported last week about how desperate many in the media were to avoid giving credit to former President Trump and other prominent Republicans who speculated on the issue of a possible Wuhan coronavirus lab leak a number of times last year but who were repeatedly dismissed as wacko conspiracy theorists by our intellectual betters on the left and in the MSM (but I repeat myself). The theory, which others in the media recently admitted was downplayed at the time primarily because it was Republicans arguing the point, is now being treated as credible by leftists, reporters, and social media platforms who want people to all of a sudden believe they were on the right side of the issue the whole time if only they’d been able to connect the dots. But while Associated Press White House reporter Jonathan Lemire huffed to MSNBC “Morning Joe” co-host Willie Geist a few days ago about how Trump and Republicans supposedly “taking a victory lap” on the left’s/media’s about-...

 I was assigned to the 3rd Marine Division Communication Center when I got orders to go to Vietnam.  I became the Asst. Commander of the center which received and routed all messages to the various commanders in the division.  It was an interesting job and included a top-secret mission to Khe Sanh shortly after the siege was lifted. I later got orders to join Mike Company 3/3 as Executive Officer.  On the day I rode a chopper to join the company in Northern I Corps I saw a stack of bodies that were to be taken out by the chopper I rode in on.  The evening before I joined the unit there was an unusual fire-fight.  The company was marching up to a hill where they planned to spend the night and Marines maneuvered platoons to set up a perimeter.  At the same time, an NVA force was marching across the hilltop.  A firefight ensued and there were heavy casualties on both sides.  I think about those Marines who gave all on days like this.  ...

 Fox News: President Biden and his allies raked in campaign cash from a top Russia lobbyist in 2020, just months before his administration’s decision to scrap sanctions on a controversial firm building a Russian oil pipeline to Germany. Richard Burt, a managing partner at McLarty Associates and a former U.S. ambassador to Germany during the Reagan administration, ponied up $4,000 for Joe Biden in October 2020 and dropped another $10,000 in the lefty-aligned political action committee Unite The County in March 2020, FEC records show. In addition to violating Biden’s own campaign pledge not to take lobbyist cash, the money from Burt is particularly noteworthy as he is currently directly engaged in lobbying activities for Nord Stream 2 AG. "When Richard Burt donated to Biden Victory Fund, he failed to acknowledge that he was a registered foreign agent and was therefore ineligible to contribute," a Democratic National Committee spokesman told The Post. "Because Burt also...

The Hill: President Biden on Saturday blasted a new bill being considered in Texas that would restrict voting in the Lone Star State, panning it as “un-American.” “Today, Texas legislators put forth a bill that joins Georgia and Florida in advancing a state law that attacks the sacred right to vote. It’s part of an assault on democracy that we’ve seen far too often this year—and often disproportionately targeting Black and Brown Americans,” Biden said in a statement. “It’s wrong and un-American. In the 21st century, we should be making it easier, not harder, for every eligible voter to vote,” he added. The president’s statement is just the latest rebuke from Democrats over a string of bills being mulled in GOP-led states that look to impose new restrictions on voting. The Texas bill, which was finalized Saturday , would limit early voting hours and local voting options, ban 24-hour voting and curtail the use of ballot drop boxes, among other provisions. Biden’s statement comes as Re...

 Monica Showalter: For all its claims to being public spirited, the press is doing a remarkably execrable job of reporting the more relevant realities about illegal immigration, now that the U.S. border is open and a surge has followed. Start with the entry of criminals. The press likes to feature single moms on the go with cute toddlers, or illegal immigrants reuniting with their illegally shipped kids in tear-jerking news segments. What they don't feature are people with far more incentive to come into the U.S, now that the border is open: Criminals. People so tainted by lawbreaking with such records of harm to others that they can't come here legally even if they tried. An open border? From their own perspective, they'd be fools not to. So here are a couple of stories about how Joe Biden's open border policies are set to hit Americans and how much of the press is keeping that out of the news: According to  Fox News  (hat tip:  Re...

 Andrea Widburg: The CDC finally said that vaccinated people can ditch the masks.  Where I live (in a free red state), a lot of people promptly did.  Now, at stores, nobody asks whether those without masks are vaccinated.  We trust them to make their own decisions.  However, a lot of people are still wearing those skimpy, often dirty rags on their faces.  It turns out that they should ditch them, too, because a new, comprehensive study found that masks made no difference to the Wuhan virus's spread. Because I'd come from California, with its many wildfires, I had N95 masks on hand when the virus started.  We wore them, and they may well have stopped a few virus particles from passing through.  Of course, the fact that my limited supply meant that we also re-wore them and, about once a week, washed them with liquid detergent suggests that their protection was dubious at best. Compared to our fellow Americans, we w...

 Instapundit: YOU F*CKED UP, YOU TRUSTED US:  Then: Biden campaign tells miners it supports domestic production of EV metals. Now:  Exclusive: Biden looks abroad for electric vehicle metals, in blow to U.S. miners. They join the pipefitters union who worked on the Keystone XL pipeline as people Democrats no longer care about as their push their radical anti-energy agenda. The miners' jobs are going to China.  I think the rank and file in the unions get what is happening.  The union bosses are still collecting their paychecks. See, also: Breaching Promises to Miners, Biden Looks Overseas for Electric Vehicle Metals   Just last month, Miners’ union backed shift from coal in exchange for promises of green-energy materials-based jobs.

 Washington Examiner: T here is something ghoulish about the Left’s obsession with forcing people to pay for the abortions of others. Now, President  Joe Biden  is going full-ghoul while trying to jettison what for 45 years has been both his own position and U.S. policy. At issue is the Hyde Amendment, the provision in budget bills which since 1976 has forbidden the use of federal funds for abortions (except in cases of rape or incest or to save the mother’s life). As did many Democrats, Biden himself consistently voted for the Hyde Amendment throughout his time in the U.S. Senate. On Friday, though, in the first full budget proposal he has presented as president, Biden excluded the Hyde Amendment. Biden’s pro-abortion policy would end decades of bipartisan agreement that, no matter what one’s position on the  legality  of abortion, at least it is enough of a morally fraught issue that the money of anti-abortion taxpayers should not be confiscated to pay for the...

B.J. Thomas recently died at age 78.  This is the story of his first big hit which was a Hank Wiliams song.  No one has ever done it better than Thomas. Here is the Houston Chronicle obit,

  Epoch Times: At University, Ideological Dissent Is Not Welcome Ideological diversity is not appreciated by the leftists who dominate the education establishment.  I think that is one of the reasons Critical Race Theory has been pushed to extremes in many institutions. 

 Stacey Lennox: ... The U.S. isolating the Iranian regime economically and politically reinforced Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu’s willingness to speak out fiercely against the Iran Deal during the Obama administration. In some ways, the Obama administration’s approach to the region had consolidated the feeling among the Sunni Arab nations that Iran was a more significant existential threat than Israel. When the Accords were signed, Levine provided insight into the attractiveness of economic and technological exchange in the region. Appealing to economic ties and going around the Palestinians was a different approach but not unheard of in global politics. The European Union was formed partly as a mechanism to prioritize economic cooperation and prosperity rather than the regional and political differences that had led to two world wars. One of the most effective barriers to war and revolution is a prosperous and content middle class. Israel has highly sophisticated water desalinatio...

 Washington Examiner: The good news is our economic recovery from the pandemic is finally underway. The bad news is that it’s going a lot slower in blue states than red states — thanks to foolish big-government policies. This is the inescapable conclusion revealed by the latest jobs and unemployment data. “The unemployment rate in April nationwide was 6.1%, but this obscures giant variations in the states,” the  Wall Street Journal  reports . “With some exceptions, those run by Democrats such as California (8.3%) and New York (8.2%) continued to suffer significantly higher unemployment than those led by Republicans such as South Dakota (2.8%) and Montana (3.7%).” The difference really is unusually glaring. Of the top 10 states with the lowest unemployment rates in April, nine have Republican governors. What’s behind this destructive discrepancy? Economist Dan Mitchell looked at these figures and  concluded  that there’s “a clear relationship between joblessness ...