PrairiePundit

Houston Chronicle: Houston is still the No. 1 destination city in the U.S., according to U-Haul, but the city's appeal slipped a little in 2016. The number of arrivals slipped 3.4 percent last year compared with 2015, the company said Friday. It was the eighth consecutive year that Houston was the busiest U.S. market for incoming U-Haul trucks. "Houston is growing by leaps and bounds," Jerry Lunn , president of U- Haul Co. of Gulf Coast Texas , said in a news release. "In the last year, I've seen countless skyscrapers and condos being built." ... In the past, many of the U-Haul trucks have been coming from California and places like Illinois.

BBC: Egyptian forces have struck "terrorist training camps" in retaliation for an attack on Coptic Christians, President Abdul Fattah al-Sisi has said. State media say six strikes hit the town of Derna in neighbouring Libya. Gunmen earlier attacked a bus carrying worshippers in central Egypt, killing at least 28 people and wounding 25 others. President Sisi said he would "not hesitate to strike terrorist camps anywhere". Announcing the strike in a TV speech late on Friday, he promised to "protect our people from the evil". Countries supporting terrorism should be punished, he said, as he appealed to US President Donald Trump for help. Military sources told Reuters news agency that the militants targeted in Libya had been involved in the attack on Egyptian Christians earlier in the day. Although no group immediately said it was behind the attack, Islamic State (IS) militants have targeted Copts several times in recent months. ... If these terrorists were...

Eli Lake: Trump's Allies, Convicted of High Crimes Without a Trial Maybe Flynn committed treason. But so far no one has presented any evidence, just innuendo. That's not justice. I suspect this is wrapped up in their obvious hatred of President Trump and Flynn is just collateral damage in their coup attempt against the President.

NY Times: World Leaders Press Skeptical Trump to Stay in Climate Pact Negotiators for America’s partners in the Group of 7 intensified pressure on the United States not to pull out of the 2015 climate agreement. Spending trillions on dubious science that can't even rely on its own projections in order to achieve results that are nearly worthless seems to be popular among the leftist governments of the world.  Until they can demonstrate that "climate change" is not just communism by a different name, they should not expect wide acceptance of their flawed theories.

NY Post Editorial: The hunt for the terror network behind the Manchester attack is now focusing on Libya, where bomber Salman Abedi’s father and brother were arrested Thursday and from which Abedi himself had only recently returned. That’s hardly surprising: South Manchester is home to one of the world’s largest Libyan expatriate communities, which in recent years has become a prime recruiting ground for young jihadists. And Libya itself is the base for an ISIS external-operations wing tasked with plotting terrorist attacks in Europe. Indeed, since the fall of Moammar Khadafy, Libya has become a haven for Islamist terrorist groups. Such is the result of Barack Obama’s failed policy — which he so confidently announced would prove smarter than his predecessor’s mistakes in Iraq, only to be proved horribly wrong. Obama (with a huge push from then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton) effectively brought about regime change in Libya, while avoiding the kind of occupation that prove...

Washington Post: Gunmen in Egypt kill 23 in attack on bus carrying Coptic Christians It was the latest attack on the embattled Christian minority which has been increasingly targeted by militants from the Islamic State. This is not government sponsored persecution, but that of Islamic religious bigots who are intolerant of anyone who rejects their version of Islam.

Business Insider: The US is preparing to attack North Korea, according to Geopolitical Futures founder George Friedman — setting the stage for a difficult, messy war with potentially catastrophic consequences. Speaking Monday to a rapt audience at the 2017 Strategic Investment Conference in Orlando, Friedman said that while it was unlikely the US would take action before President Donald Trump returns home at the weekend, North Korea's actions appeared to have "offered the US no alternative" to a clash. According to Geopolitical Futures analysis, evidence is mounting that the enmity between the two is escalating to a point where war is inevitable. Friedman said that on May 20, the USS Carl Vinson supercarrier and USS Ronald Reagan were both within striking distance of North Korea. Additionally, more than 100 F-16 aircraft are conducting daily exercises in the area, a tactic that foreshadowed the beginning of Desert Storm in 1991. F-35 aircraft have also been d...

Daily Wire: Filmmaker Ami Horowitz has put forth a fantastic video that completely dismantles the left-wing myth of white privilege by using the Left's own words against them. The video begins with Horowitz interviewing a number of white people at a so-called "White Privilege Conference" in Kansas City, Missouri, and asking them if they believe that every white person is a beneficiary of white privilege. The white leftists say yes, with one lady saying that she feels "super guilty all the time." In fact, a number of the white leftists Horowitz interviewed claimed that all whites in America are racist. Then Horowitz asked the same people if it was "wrong to judge people collectively." They all answered yes, seemingly unaware of the obvious contradiction that Horowitz caught them in. When Horowitz proceeded to ask them how white privilege benefited them that day, none of them were able to give a coherent answer except one who said he "sat in...

Circa: Declassified memos show FBI illegally shared spy data on Americans with private parties The FBI has illegally shared raw intelligence about Americans with unauthorized third parties and violated other constitutional privacy protections, according to newly declassified government documents that undercut the bureau’s public assurances about how carefully it handles warrantless spy data to avoid abuses or leaks. ... For instance, a ruling declassified this month by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISA) chronicles nearly 10 pages listing hundreds of violations of the FBI’s privacy-protecting minimization rules that occurred on Comey’s watch. The behavior the FBI admitted to a FISA judge just last month ranged from illegally sharing raw intelligence with unauthorized third parties to accessing intercepted attorney-client privileged communications without proper oversight the bureau promised was in place years ago. ... There is much more. I suspect that thi...

Washington Times: The diplomatic flap over American officials divulging details of a British terrorism investigation lit a fire Thursday under U.S. investigators of intelligence agency leaks, an issue that had been on a back burner when the primary victim of leaks was President Trump . After British officials chided the U.S. for disclosing to The New York Times sensitive details of the deadly terrorist bombing in Manchester , Mr. Trump ordered a Justice Department investigation and lawmakers on both sides of the aisle in Congress demanded action. The U.K., one of America’s closest allies and intelligence partners, stopped sharing information with the U.S. about the investigation of the Islamic State-linked bombing, which killed 22 and injured dozens more at an Ariana Grande concert Monday. Mr. Trump called the leaks “deeply troubling.” “These leaks have been going on for a long time and my administration will get to the bottom of this,” he said in a statement while attending a NATO...

Washington Times: Republican Greg Gianforte muscled his way to victory in Montana, overcoming a challenge from Democrat Rob Quist and an election-eve scuffle with a reporter. that led to a criminal charge being filed against him. Mr. Gianforte defeated Mr. Quist less than 24 hours after he allegedly body-slammed a reporter from Britain’s Guardian newspaper and police charged him with misdemeanor assault. The Associated Press called the race for the Republican more than 2½ hours after polls closed at 8 p.m. MDT. With 83 percent of the precincts counted, Mr. Gianforte led Mr. Quist by a 50.3 percent to 43.9 percent margin. Libertarian Mark Wicks had 5.8 percent of the vote. “Tonight, Montanans are sending a wake up call to the Washington DC establishment!” Mr. Gianforte said at his election night party. “Montanans said, ‘Bernie Sanders and Nancy Pelosi can’t call the shots here in Montana.’ ... Nor can the left wing media that tried to destroy him.  This has to be a big dis...

Daily Mail: Four of the five fastest-growing cities in the US are found in Texas, as population booms across parts of the south. The US Census Bureau published a swath of new statistics on Thursday detailing population changes across the country. Conroe, Texas, a northern Houston suburb, added more residents as a percentage of population last year than any other city, with a jump of 7.8 percent from 2015 to 2016. Another Texas town came in second, with Frisco - a suburb in Dallas' north - recorded a jump of 6.2 percent. Rounding of the all-Texas top-three was McKinney - another northern Dallas suburb - with a 5.9 percent increase. South Carolina squeezed into fourth spot with Greenvile running up a 5.8 percent increase, before it was back to Texas for the fifth spot, with Georgetown - north of Austin - seeing a 5.5 percent jump. 'Overall, cities in the South continue to grow at a faster rate than any other U.S. region,' said demographer Amel Toukabri of the bu...

Telegraph: The Manchester suicide bomber may have built a second device which is now in the hands of fellow jihadists, police fear. Officers who raided the home of Salman Abedi discovered a working bomb factory with a huge stash of explosive chemicals and other components. Security sources now believe that Abedi assembled the bomb himself after learning his trade in Libya. But the amount of material in his home has led to fears that he could have built more than one device and and distributed them to other British-based extremists. A security source told the Telegraph: "The worry is there was enough to build two or three bombs and we can't rule that out." Abedi arrived back in Manchester from Libya on Thursday, travelling via Istanbul and Dusseldorf. The following day he visited the Arndale shopping centre in Manchester, where he was caught on CCTV buying a Karrimor rucksack. It is believed he then spent the weekend putting together the main components of ...

Washington Post: Trump asks for U.S. investigation into British bomb probe leaks British police investigating the Manchester attack have decided to withhold information from the United States in the wake of the leaks. British police chiefs have also criticized the leaks in a highly unusual statement. The US media has been irresponsible about leaks for sometimes and it has gotten worse because many in the media are using them to attack the President while falsely blaming him for the information they are publishing. There is no excuse for the media publishing the alleged source of intelligence against the ISIS laptop bombs.  There is also no excuse for them publishing the President's phone conversations with foreign leaders in which intelligence information is shared. They appear to be doing this on the basis of a hypocritical claim that Trump is the irresponsible one, but he did not give them the story. someone else did and they did it to attack the President...

Washington Post: Montana GOP candidate charged after allegedly body-slamming reporter A Fox News reporter who witnessed the scuffle described Republican congressional candidate Greg Gianforte throwing the reporter to the ground, grabbing his neck, striking him and exclaiming, “I’m sick and tired of this!" Candidates can usually tell when someone is out to get them and they try to find a more subtle way of dealing with them instead of body slamming them like they might like to do.  The Guardian is a left British paper with a negligible circulation in Montana.  I am sure their reporter was rooting for Gianforte's opponent was looking for a story to help the liberals in their coup attempt against Trump.  I think he was probably successful in that endeavor.

NY Times: A Clear Message About Those Who Lose in Health Bill The Congressional Budget Office’s assessment of the House’s health bill predicts deeply dysfunctional markets for about one-sixth of the population. What the CBO has unwittingly exposed is how Democrats forced people to subsidize the insurance payments of groups they favored. The biggest victims of the extortion scheme were people in the individual market who saw their premiums rise exorbitantly by forcing them into coverages they did not want or need.  And, if they did not go along with the extortion they were forced to pay a "penalty/tax" as an incentive to go along with the Democrats' scheme. This is not how insurance is supposed to work.  The mandates distorted the price structure in order to pay for the favored 23 million.

NY Times: Top Russian Officials Spoke of Ways to Sway Trump Advisers The conversations focused on Paul Manafort and Michael T. Flynn, according to three current and former American officials. The intelligence was among clues received last summer as the U.S. began examining Russian attempts to disrupt the election. I am sure this is probably true of every administration since the founding of this country.  It is what foreign governments do.  It is certainly not evidence of a crime or even a non-crime like "collusion."  It hardly warrants a special counsel to investigate or the various committees of Congress wasting time on the obvious.   It is truly remarkable how the media and the Democrats are trying to build a conspiracy theory out of normal interactions with foreign governments.  It is even crazier and more dangerous than the conspiracy theory about a murdered DNC employee and ties to Wikileaks.  This one appears to be a conspira...

Washington Times: The Obama administration knowingly let in at least 16 admitted MS-13 gang members who arrived at the U.S. as illegal immigrant teenagers in 2014, a top senator said Wednesday, citing internal documents that showed the teens were shipped to juvenile homes throughout the country. Sen. Ron Johnson, chairman of the Senate Homeland Security Committee, said a whistleblower turned over Customs and Border Protection documents from 2014 detailing the 16 people who were caught crossing the border. “CBP apprehended them, knew they were MS-13 gang members, and they processed and disbursed them into our communities,” Mr. Johnson, Wisconsin Republican, said. The gang members were part of the surge of UAC, or “unaccompanied alien children,” as the government labels them, who overwhelmed the Obama administration in 2014, leaving Homeland Security struggling to staunch the flow from Central America. Officials at the time said the children should be treated as refugees fleeing horri...

Washington Times: Republican health care plan would slash premiums but leave 23 million Americans uninsured Score should clear the path for the Senate to take up the bill using budget rules There can be only one logical reason why this is the case.  The Democrats were forcing customers in the individual market to subsidize 23 million other people's healthcare.  The high cost was in effect an additional tax on paying customers that required them to pay more than was necessary in order for them to buy the votes of other people. I am curious why the Republicans have not yet pointed this out.

Daily Caller: Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz threatened the chief of the U.S. Capitol Police with “consequences” for holding equipment that she says belongs to her in order to build a criminal case against a Pakistani staffer suspected of massive cybersecurity breaches involving funneling sensitive congressional data offsite. The Florida lawmaker used her position on the committee that sets the police force’s budget to press its chief to relinquish the piece of evidence Thursday, in what could be considered using her authority to attempt to interfere with a criminal investigation. The Capitol Police and outside agencies are pursuing Imran Awan, who has run technology for the Florida lawmaker since 2005 and was banned from the House network in February on suspicion of data breaches and theft. “My understanding is the the Capitol Police is not able to confiscate Members’ equipment when the Member is not under investigation,” Wasserman Schultz said in the annual police budget hea...