Important Takeaways:
- America has gone ‘over a cliff’ with Trump’s conviction, Judge Jeanine says: ‘All smoke and mirrors’
- Fox News host Jeanine Pirro said Thursday that America has “gone over a cliff” after former President Trump was found guilty on all counts, making him the first former President of the United States to be convicted of a crime.
- “I want to believe that Americans believe in justice, and I think that in their gut, they realized that there is something that is very wrong here. We have gone over a cliff in America,” Pirro said on-air, moments after the jury found Trump guilty of falsifying business records on all counts, concluding his historic and unprecedented criminal trial. Trump pleaded not guilty to all counts.
- “This verdict is a verdict of someone who was forced to fight a 1,000-pound gorilla with both hands tied behind his back. This was a defendant for whom crimes were created, against whom a judge…was handpicked for this defendant, who denied him the ability to fight the way he needed to fight, who brought in crimes that we have never heard of in New York before, where they had dead misdemeanors that they resurrected into felonies based upon non-unanimous verdicts of crimes that are federal over which no state court or no state judge or prosecutor has jurisdiction,” Pirro said.
- “And in the end, with all this smoke and mirrors, at 34 counts, and a hooker, and a guy, [who] according to a federal judge is a serial perjurer, we have convicted a former President of the United States of America,” she continued.
- Democrats have set a dangerous precedent by doing this. They may not like life under the new rules they have created.
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Important Takeaways:
- Line between housed and homeless growing thinner across America
- On April 22, the U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments in City of Grants Pass, Oregon v. Johnson—a case which aims to determine whether local governments can make it a crime for someone to live outside and unsheltered if they have no home.
- Proponents argue that criminalizing public camping is a necessary measure for cities seeking to deal with unsafe and unsanitary homeless encampments. Opponents argue that criminalizing the involuntarily homeless only compounds injustice and inequality.
- The hotly contested case is the latest eruption of a long-simmering problem that is rapidly becoming a full-blown crisis in communities around the country. And regardless of what the Supreme Court decides, a stubborn fact remains: Neither strict nor lenient laws will end homelessness. But a systematic and community-wide focus on homelessness prevention measures just might.
- A January 25 report from Harvard’s Joint Center for Housing Studies estimated that over 650,000 Americans experienced homelessness in 2023—up almost 50% from 2015. Costs of renting and home ownership have skyrocketed while wages largely stagnate. The Harvard report found that half of U.S. households are “cost-burdened” (meaning that 30-50% of monthly income goes to housing), and 12 million people are “severely cost-burdened.” These Americans stand one accident, health setback, or employment disruption away from eviction.
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Important Takeaways:
- The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) monitors’ mental health and substance abuse through the Youth Mental Health Survey, a poll of high school students collected as questionnaires every two years since 2011. The most recent data, from 2021, was stunning: 42% “experienced persistent feelings of sadness or hopelessness,” up from 28% in 2011. And 22% “seriously considered attempting suicide,” up from 16% in 2011. While the 2021 data might reflect some of the most difficult months of the pandemic, the trends were apparent before 2021.
- Historically, youth have had low rates of suicide mortality, but that began changing about a decade ago. Today, youth and young adults (ages 10-24) account for 15% of all suicides, an increase of 52.2% since 2000. Suicide has become the second-leading cause of death for this age group, accounting for 7,126 deaths. The highest rates are found among non-Hispanic American Indian or Alaska Native youth, with a suicide rate three times greater than the general population. Youth who identified as sexual minorities (LGBTQ+) had a fivefold higher rate of attempting suicide.
- Substance use disorder
- Addiction is not a new problem in America, but it has become a crisis largely because of its new lethality. The advent of powerful opiates, especially fentanyl, has driven mortality rates to unprecedented levels. The CDC reported 105,452 drug overdose deaths for 2022, more than a fivefold increase from 2002 and double the number from 2015. The highest death rates are in males ages 35-44. For context, there were roughly 43,000 auto fatalities in 2022. Lung and bronchial cancers, which cause the most deaths of any form of cancer, accounted for 127,070 deaths in 2022, mostly people over age 50.
- The crisis is indeed personal, not political. There are, in fact, only two kinds of families in America: families struggling with a mental illness and those not struggling with a mental illness yet. The prevalence is that high—50% of us will be affected at some point.
- Anxiety and depression have become a new public health threat for Americans of all ages, but we have the tools to resolve this crisis through better engagement, quality care, and a focus on people and recovery
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Important Takeaways:
- A24’s chilling ‘Civil War’ trailer sees America tearing itself apart
- …director Alex Garland examines an America tearing itself apart in Civil War, and honestly, the trailer feels deeply uncomfortable to watch.
- A24 dropped a chilling first look at the upcoming film which sees a “near-future” U.S. descending into brutal conflict. We’re introduced to Nick Offerman as the president overseeing a dominant U.S. military suppressing state by state. He’s accused of using air strikes against his own citizens, while armed forces take over the streets of New York and Washington DC. Then, the Lincoln Memorial is blown up. It’s a grim picture.
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Important Takeaways:
- Russia Says Risk of Nuclear, Chemical, Biological War Increasing, Blames America
- The United States’ foreign policy is wrecking global security, bankrupting Europe, and risks the outbreak of nuclear war, Russia said in a series of finger-pointing statements while failing to address its own role in the same
- Russian Security Council Nikolai Patrushev said the deterioration of global security is the “natural consequence [of]… irresponsible” U.S. foreign policy. Referring to Israel, the Russian politician accused America of exacerbating conflicts and more broadly accused the United States of “stimulating the growth of common threats and challenges, including terrorism, drug trafficking, and transnational organized crime”.
- Patrushev went on to say, per Russia’s state news service that: “The risk of using nuclear, chemical and biological weapons is increasing.” The U.S. bears special culpability in the risk of biological threats, he said, because America has been engaged in “dangerous biological experiments” in Ukraine.
- Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov, who confirmed the rant was an official statement of the Kremlin.
- Russia’s remarks on Wednesday amount to a degree of saber-rattling and finger pointing, but come just days after Russia withdrew from the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT), and months after it suspended the ‘New START’ (reduction of strategic offensive arms) treaty. The United States decried the latest move as an irresponsible “significant step in the wrong direction” which sets back confidence in international arms control.
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Important Takeaways:
- America is tired of Joe and Hunter Biden ‘weaponizing addiction’ as a get-out-of-jail-free card
- People have been sympathetic and indulgent toward Hunter Biden all his life — and maybe that’s part of his problem.
- But at 53, it’s time to grow up.
- Hunter’s self-pitying op-ed in USA Today was ridiculous.
- “What troubles me is the demonization of addiction, of human frailty, using me as its avatar and the devastating consequences it has for the millions struggling with addiction, desperate for a way out and being bombarded by the denigrating and near-constant coverage of me and my addiction on Fox News … and in the New York Post,” he wrote.
- But our coverage is of corruption, not addiction.
- It worked for Joe in the final debate of the 2020 election when he responded to pointed questions from Donald Trump about the millions Hunter had vacuumed up from China.
- He claimed Hunter’s abandoned laptop, which he knew very well was Hunter’s, was a “Russian plant” and “a bunch of garbage” and cited the Dirty 51 letter penned by 51 former intelligence officials that he knew was cooked up by senior adviser, now hapless Secretary of State, Antony Blinken.
- He feigned ignorance of the Chinese deals he helped Hunter secure, saying, “My son has not made money in terms of this thing about, what are you talking about, China.”
- Really? The Big Guy was slated to take 10% of just one Chinese deal Hunter had with Chinese Communist Party-linked energy company CEFC, and Joe met Tony Bobulinski twice in LA to vet him as CEO of the joint venture between the Bidens and China.
- Hunter’s first China deal came a few days after VP Joe flew with him on Air Force Two to Beijing and shook hands with his partner. Please.
- But the icing on the cake was the addiction defense. Joe looked directly at the camera and told the folks at home: “My son, like a lot of people at home, had a drug problem. He’s overtaking it. He’s fixed it. He’s worked on it. And I’m proud of him.”
- The appeal looks even more cynical today as evidence of corruption keeps piling up.
- Comer last week released bank documents showing that $40,000 “in laundered Chinese money landed in Joe Biden’s bank account in the form of a personal check” from his brother Jim Biden.
- Comer says that once he gets the latest tranche of bank records, he will issue two dozen subpoenas for Biden family members and associates: “It’s going to be a big week.
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Important Takeaways:
- Iran’s chilling threat to America over Israel: Islamic regime says the US will be ‘hit hard’ if no Gaza ceasefire is implemented – after Tehran-backed Hezbollah terrorists warned of escalation on Lebanon border
- Mohammad-Reza Ashtiani, Iran’s Minister of Defense, emphasized the urgency, stating: ‘Our advice to the Americans is to immediately halt the war in Gaza and implement a ceasefire, otherwise they will be hit hard.’
- But Mr. Blinken rejected a ceasefire, insisting it would only give Iranian-backed Hamas a chance to regroup following its horrific attack on Israel.
- Instead Mr. Blinken pressed for ‘pauses’ in the fighting to allow civilians to evacuate from the battleground of Gaza City and the northern part of the enclave
- The uncompromising tone was echoed by Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who pledged at an air force base: ‘There will be no ceasefire without the return of our hostages, we say this to both our enemies and our friends. We will continue until we beat them.’
- Yemeni proxy, the Houthis, have already been sending missiles towards Israel, intercepted by Israel, the US and Saudi Arabia.
- Meanwhile, on Israel’s borders, attacks from its proxies in Syria and Lebanon continue to ramp up, with action also seen from its militia in Iraq.
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Important Takeaways:
- FBI Director Wray warns terror threat to Americans at ‘whole other level’ amid Hamas-Israel conflict
- FBI Director Christopher Wray on Tuesday warned
- “The reality is that the terrorism threat has been elevated throughout 2023, but the ongoing war in the Middle East has raised the threat of an attack against Americans in the United States to a whole other level,” Wray told lawmakers on the Senate Homeland Security Committee.
- “We assess that the actions of Hamas and its allies will serve as an inspiration, the likes of which we haven’t seen since ISIS launched its so-called caliphate several years ago,” Wray said. “In just the past few weeks, multiple foreign terrorist organizations have called for attacks against Americans and the West.”
- Wray warned that the most immediate concern is that individuals or small groups will draw inspiration from the events to attack Americans, including homegrown violent extremists who are inspired by foreign terrorist organizations, or by domestic violent extremists who are targeting Muslim or Jewish targets.
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Important Takeaways:
- Our Response to China Must Be Overwhelming, Not ‘Proportional’
- Biden meeting Xi at this time would be a mistake…. Anything Beijing wants cannot, by definition, be good for America.
- How, exactly, can Biden “stabilize relations” with a militant regime that has declared America to be its enemy?
- Worse, China’s regime thinks it is already at war with the U.S.
- Now, therefore, is the time to use all the resources of the federal government. The Secretary of the Treasury, for instance, can designate, pursuant to Section 311 of the USA PATRIOT Act, Chinese banks to be of “primary money laundering concern.” Designated banks can no longer clear dollar transactions through New York, where every dollar transaction clears.
- Such designations would put the large state banks out of business everywhere outside China. If large state banks were to fail, so would China’s state-dominated banking system. The failure of the banking system would undoubtedly mean the end of the Chinese economy and financial system. The end of the political system would soon follow.
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Important Takeaways:
- The survey asked people if they have a “great deal” or “quite a lot” of confidence in a long list of prominent institutions, and these were the results…
- Small business: 65 percent
- The military: 60 percent
- The police: 43 percent
- The medical system: 34 percent
- The church or organized religion: 32 percent
- The U.S. Supreme Court: 27 percent
- Banks: 26 percent
- The public schools: 26 percent
- The presidency: 26 percent
- Large technology companies: 26 percent
- Organized labor: 25 percent
- Newspapers: 18 percent
- The criminal justice system: 17 percent
- Television news: 14 percent
- Big business: 14 percent
- Congress: 8 percent
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