Passport bros and Middle Eastern thugs: Tales from Thailand’s 'Sin City'



I’m currently in Thailand, immersed in the rather brutal world of Muay Thai.

For those unfamiliar, Muay Thai is a form of martial arts that requires discipline, endurance, and lots of ice to offset the daily bruisings. Training here with seasoned Thai fighters is an experience unlike any other. These athletes, many of whom have been practicing the sport for decades, are absolute animals. They embody a relentless work ethic that can make even the most seasoned foreign fighter feel like a novice.

Beyond the usual crowds of Western tourists and expats, there has been a notable influx of visitors from the Middle East, a fact that hasn’t gone unnoticed by the locals.

However, there’s much more to Thailand than its legendary martial arts tradition. The country is often seen as a paradise of sun, sea, sand, and inordinate amounts of sin. Forgive me, Father!

Shoes, shirt, and self-respect optional

When we hear the words “Sin City,” Las Vegas automatically springs to mind. But what about Pattaya, Thailand’s own version of Las Vegas? Less than 100 miles from Bangkok, this popular beach city takes the concept of sin to an entirely different level.

In short, it has become a magnet for those seeking pleasures of a more sordid nature. While Las Vegas teases visitors with its neon-lit casinos and high-end shows, Pattaya offers something far less polished. It's a city where the temptations are brazenly out in the open, a place where anything seems possible, and often, it is. Welcome to the devil’s playground.

I spent several weeks in Pattaya while continuing my Muay Thai training. The contrast between the discipline of the gym and the chaos of the streets couldn’t have been more stark. The city is overrun with delinquents, many of whom seem to represent the worst of human nature.

Most of these individuals are foreigners, and the vast majority of them are from the U.S. and the U.K. It’s as if Pattaya attracts people who have given up on any semblance of order or moral restraint, choosing instead to wallow in the excesses that the city so freely offers.

Beer for breakfast, legalized weed for lunch, and only God knows what for dinner. The concept of wearing a shirt in public, no matter how out of shape one may be, is much like the offenders themselves: distinctly foreign.

That said, it isn’t all bad. Among the sea of lost souls, I encountered a few genuinely good people, including some elderly U.S. veterans who now make Pattaya their home. These men, who once served their country with honor, now find themselves in a city that feels worlds apart from the values they once defended.

When I inquired about their presence there, even they struggled to provide a coherent answer. After some polite pressing, they spoke kindly about the affordability, the pleasant climate, and the camaraderie they’ve found amidst the city's constant chaos.

Rising tensions

During my time in Pattaya, I saw a side of the city that has shifted dramatically in recent years. Beyond the usual crowds of Western tourists and expats, there has been a notable influx of visitors from the Middle East, a fact that hasn’t gone unnoticed by the locals.

This new wave of tourists has sparked rising tensions, and it's essential to address it without falling into oversimplified labels or accusations of prejudice. The frustration among locals is palpable, and it has little to do with race or religion. Rather, it has to do with behavior — thuggery and outright disrespect toward the people who make this country so welcoming.

Although obnoxious tourists are nothing new, the issues caused by this influx of Middle Eastern visitors are not confined to Pattaya. The nation’s capital has also been feeling the effects, with reports of criminal behavior increasing in certain districts. Scam artists, often operating in sophisticated networks, have been running riot, exploiting both tourists and locals alike. These scams range from simple cons to highly organized operations that leave many victims financially devastated.

It’s worth emphasizing that on the whole, you’d be hard-pressed to find kinder or more accommodating people than the Thai. They embody a grace and warmth that’s rare in such a tourist-heavy country. But even the most patient individuals have their limits. I personally witnessed how some of these newer visitors treated the locals — hotel staff, gym instructors, taxi drivers, and waitresses — with blatant disrespect. At times, it bordered on open contempt, as though the basic decency expected in any social interaction no longer applied.

For a country that prides itself on hospitality, such behavior is deeply unsettling, and the resentment among locals is beginning to simmer. You can sense it in the conversations among the Thai people — who, despite their calm demeanor, are growing increasingly fed up with the lack of courtesy and respect shown by certain foreign visitors. The contrast is sharp; while Thai culture places a strong emphasis on respect, politeness, and humility, the actions of some of these recent arrivals seem to openly defy those values.

The gravity of the situation becomes even more apparent when you consider the fact that these are people who have seen it all.

In a place like Pattaya, where spring break seems to be happening every single day of the year, the boundaries of acceptable behavior are constantly pushed. In many ways, the locals have become desensitized to the usual transgressions that might shock elsewhere.

They’ve witnessed or heard about every conceivable excess — drunken brawls, public indecency, streaking septuagenarians. Yet the fact that many of them are now genuinely up in arms over the behavior of this recent influx of visitors is telling.

They are also growing tired of the “Sin City” label. There were actual protests in the streets just two months ago, with many residents voicing their frustration over Pattaya’s international reputation as a hub of iniquity. This local pushback reveals a desire for change, a demand for the city to be seen as more than just the home of hedonism.

However, Pattaya is undeniably the mecca for those seeking the darker side. It’s a destination for men attracted to the city’s infamous ladyboy culture — though, personally, most definitely not my cup of tea. For those inclined, Pattaya offers an abundance of nightlife catering to every taste imaginable, from go-go bars to the infamous Walking Street, where ladies and men who want to be ladies eye every foreigner with an intensity that's nothing short of theatrical.

Final thoughts

Of course, Pattaya isn't all bad. In fact, it has its own unique charm. The beaches, for instance, remain one of its redeeming features. While not the pristine, postcard-perfect stretches of sand found in other parts of Thailand, Pattaya Beach and nearby Jomtien Beach still offer stunning views and warm waters. And most importantly, they offer a place to escape from the thousands of ladyboys who patrol the streets with a militaristic precision.

There's certainly a quieter side of Pattaya that doesn’t get nearly as much attention. Hidden within the city are pockets of authentic Thai culture — the temples, markets, and the local street food scene that thrives away from the tourist spots. Places like the Sanctuary of Truth, a massive wooden structure filled with exquisite carvings, stand as reminders of the city’s deeper cultural heritage.

The city is, on the whole, a mixed bag. Much like Amsterdam and Prague, it’s full of indecency, but it also offers more, shall we say, respectable options, if you know where to look.

It’s this juxtaposition — between vice and virtue — that makes Pattaya so fascinating yet frustrating for those who call it home. The locals want to reclaim their city from the stereotypes, but given Pattaya’s entrenched reputation, that’s easier said than done.

Death-cult Democrats are killing their own future



The Washington Post covered the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee last month with a story full of contempt for the rich. It vilified the corporate bigwigs flocking to town to rub shoulders with Donald Trump.

Twenty years ago, Wall Street and big business may have been in the pocket of the Republicans, but that’s no longer the case. All the large corporations belong to the World Economic Forum and the global public-private partnership that Joe Biden and Kamala Harris have been pushing.

You will own nothing and be happy. You will raise no one and be happy.

During the Republican gathering, the Post described oil and gas executives, crypto packers, and powerful Republican politicians engaging in hushed conversations in luxury suites about prospective tax breaks. The piece claimed Donald Trump would only serve America’s wealthiest. It painted a picture of greedy, evil businessmen making deals in dimly lit rooms. After all, as the Post likes to remind us, “democracy dies in darkness.”

Even if the Post’s portrayal of the Republican convention’s attendees was entirely accurate, I would still prefer rich CEOs over the groups invading the Democratic National Convention in Chicago this week. Unsurprisingly, the Post and others have failed to scrutinize them with the same intensity.

According to the Capitol Research Center, 279 extremist groups were on the streets of Chicago as a part of a coalition to march on the convention Monday. Of that number, 147 have expressed support for or have ties to terrorist groups, such as Hamas, or terrorist attacks, including deadly attacks on Israel in October. The Hamas-allied and Iran-backed Marxist-Leninist group called the Popular Front for Liberation of Palestine is also on the ground, openly planning to replicate the violent 1968 Democratic National Convention.

Is anyone on the left going to cover these people?

Abortion, anti-family, anti-life

It's very hard to make Planned Parenthood look good, but these groups are giving them a run for their money. One is calling for Jewish blood, and the other is calling for baby blood. This is a blood death cult.

Planned Parenthood was parked outside the convention with vans, offering free vasectomies and abortions for those who are lucky enough to sign up before all the spots were filled.

Conservative media reacted to the news with shock and disgust. Libs of TikTok called Planned Parenthood’s efforts “demonic.” It is. The pro-life group Students for Life says this proves the far left is “the party of death.” That is true. But free abortions really shouldn’t be all that shocking. After all, pro-abortion groups like Aid Access, run by a team of European doctors, have been mailing abortion pills to women in all 50 states for as low as $100 for years.

Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, the Democratic Party’s vice presidential candidate, signed a bill into law last year that removed the requirement for doctors to use all reasonable measures to preserve the life and health of a baby who survives an abortion attempt. He signed a bill enabling doctors to let babies die in the hospital room after they’ve been born.

Moreover, the nominee for the president, Kamala Harris, made what I think is a slip of the tongue when she said: “When we invest in clean energy and electric vehicles and reduced population, more of our children can breathe clean air and drink clean water.”

Maybe it was a mistake for the prompter, but maybe she accidentally said the quiet part out loud. I’m sure the prompter said, “reduce pollution.” But I'm also sure reducing the population is a part of the deal. Bill Gates and other WEF pundits have been promoting population control for decades, a remnant of eugenics that is being ushered into the 21st-century Democratic platform.

This is a death cult.

Return of the DINKs

The left has revealed it’s no longer just the party of killing babies. It's also the party of eliminating the possibility of having them at all. JD Vance received immense backlash from the left, recently calling out the “childless cat ladies” running the Democratic Party. He’s right. Democratic voters are more likely to not have children by choice. They aren’t childless due to medical reasons or the inability to conceive, but by choice, more than their Republican counterparts.

There was a University of Chicago poll that was conducted in 2022 that found 38% of Democrats had no children compared to 26% of those on the right. Like Planned Parenthood’s free abortions, it shouldn’t be surprising. This has been an ongoing movement pushed by the left for decades.

William A. Burly argued in a New York Times op-ed in 1990 that having “fewer children mean[s] a better life and a healthier environment.” He went on to say, “This truth should be taught to our kids," which, unfortunately, he was in the perfect position to do as the principal of an elementary school in New Milford, Connecticut, teaching yesterday’s Millennials, who are now reproducing today at staggeringly low levels. It’s no wonder since they were taught that having kids is a death sentence for personal freedom.

Thirty-four years after Burly’s op-ed appeared, Timothy Carney in the Washington Examiner wrote that New Milford has suffered such a decline in birthrate that it closed its community birthing center. Student population at the high school dropped so much that the JV and varsity football teams had to combine.

This is happening all throughout the country.

Why fight the fight when you can just eliminate the children?

In 2023, the term “DINK” resurfaced on TikTok after a long hibernation from the late 1980s. It stands for “dual income, no kids.” DINK videos of child-free couples bragging about the ample time and money they have to travel and eat at nice restaurants surpassed 33 million views last year. Social media’s glamorization of refusing to “reproduce” may push thousands of potential parents, who are grappling with the decision of whether to go “child-free,” over the edge. How different would fertility rates look today if TikTok videos romanticized parenthood instead?

Surely, a political party starving for power and control would realize that it needs a future populace to carry the torch, but it's aborting its own future voters. That party also stands directly alongside globalists who want “freedom thinkers” to have as little power as possible.

But having kids gives you just that.

Having kids makes you a free thinker because it gives you something to live for beyond yourself. It requires you to reflect on the future and the kind of country you want for your kids. It forces you to reflect on what citizenship means and how to teach that to the next generation. It gives you a reason to fight. It gives you the kind of autonomous power that globalist governments do not want citizens to have in any shape or form. Whether it’s financial freedom in owning a home or the intellectual freedom in knowing that my kid is mine, you can’t force me to teach them the dark principles and beliefs of the far left.

Ultimately, the far left knows that the much bigger and tougher battle is indoctrinating the sacred home where parents have complete control over the lessons and the principles that they choose to shape their kids.

So why fight the fight when you can just eliminate the children? You will own nothing and be happy. You will raise no one and be happy — like the DINK couple. You’ll have extra money to spend on gifts and lavish trips around the world, the freedom to stay up late, the freedom to live for “yourself.”

Will Trump hatred win?

But like so much of what the far left believes, the opposite is true.

I don’t know what will convince people of the lies that they’re buying into. The first night of the Democratic National Convention was filled with stunning, provable lies. Democrats are counting on their voters to be stupid, and they’ve laid the groundwork to deceive the rest.

They need you to hate Donald Trump more than you worry about your personal finances. They need you to hate Donald Trump more than their open borders. They need you to hate Donald Trump more than fentanyl and drugs on our streets and our children being killed by illegal aliens. They need you to hate Donald Trump more than exploiting your taxpayer dollars to house illegal immigrants in hotel rooms while veterans are on the streets. They need you to hate Donald Trump more than you notice the people who are strung out on drugs in our cities and suburbs. They need you to hate Donald Trump more than communism or the possibility of nuclear war. They need you to hate Donald Trump more than their cult of death.

When we get into the voting booth, do Americans actually hate Donald Trump more than what’s in their own best interest? Will you buy what they’re selling?

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Kamala’s extreme makeover: Don’t buy the moderate act



The progressive-socialist-globalist cabal has selected Kamala Harris as its puppet of choice to usher in the new world order, and the elites are trying everything in their power to convince you that she’s a moderate. Do not fall for it.

This is the same Kamala Harris who did so terribly in the 2020 presidential race that she had to drop out a month before the Iowa caucuses without ever earning a single pledged delegate. But in their current pecking order, it’s her turn. She has the proper left-wing extremist record, and more importantly, she’s a compliant team player with the cabal.

In the aftermath of the 2020 George Floyd riots, Harris used every possible euphemism for “defunding the police” without saying the word “defund.”

The Democratic Party’s showrunners know they’ve got time to figure out how to spin Kamala’s extremism because the mainstream media is doing all the smoke and mirrors work for them. White House officials recently told Politico that Harris’ reputation as a far-left-wing crusader is an unfair holdover from positions she took when she ran for president in 2019. They say those positions don’t really represent who she is. One senior White House official said, “That [2020] primary was a distorting experience for a lot of people.”

Politico just accepted that and moved on instead of asking the obvious question: Does this mean Harris was simply lying about everything during that campaign?

During those debates and primaries four years ago, Harris clearly favored decriminalizing border crossings and even providing illegal aliens with taxpayer-funded health care.

She sponsored the No Ban Act, which would have limited the president’s ability to keep specific immigrants from entering the United States. It’s clear that Harris had a very left-wing position on immigration that would have essentially established complete open borders.

Then she became vice president and Biden dumped the job on her that no one wanted: trying to figure out what to do about the border. She royally failed that assignment. That’s not my assessment — though I agree with it. That was the official assessment of Numbers USA, a Washington, D.C.-based organization that monitors border security policies and grades members of Congress on their immigration voting. They gave Harris an F-minus.

It has now been two and a half years since Harris’ last visit to the border. During the Biden-Harris administration, at least 7.3 million illegal immigrants have been allowed into the country. Meanwhile, according to a recent House Judiciary Committee report:

Under the Biden-Harris administration, of the more than 250 illegal aliens on the terrorist watch list who were encountered by Border Patrol at the southwest border between fiscal years 2021 and 2023, DHS has released into American communities at least 99, with at least 34 others in DHS custody but not yet removed from the United States.

The report found that Border Patrol has encountered migrants on the terror watch list from 36 different countries, including Afghanistan, Iraq, Lebanon, Pakistan, Somalia, Syria, and Yemen, but soon as Harris took over Biden’s campaign, the media went into damage control mode for her on the border issue — to the point of trying to convince us she was never really Biden’s border czar. It is such blatant gaslighting because it’s so easy to disprove, yet the media did it anyway.

Nowhere near the center

Of course, running interference for Kamala Harris is not new. The media did the same thing in 2020 when Joe Biden announced Harris as his running mate. George Stephanopoulos said, “Harris comes from the middle of the road.” The Los Angeles Times called her “centrist.” The New York Times called her a “pragmatic moderate.” But the Washington Post took the cake, calling her a “small-c conservative.”

Here are Kamala Harris’ true colors. According to GovTrack, Harris’ Senate record was to the left of socialist Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.). GovTrack also found that Harris joined bipartisan bills the least often compared to other Senate Democrats. Harris and the media may not want you to know what her positions and agenda truly are, but there is the historical record.

She was the first senator to co-sponsor Bernie Sanders’ Medicare for All bill to end private health insurance. In the aftermath of the 2020 George Floyd riots, Harris used every possible euphemism for “defunding the police” without saying the word defund, but everyone knew what she meant. Harris went on to co-sponsor the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act of 2020, which would have limited legal protections for police officers.

In 2004, when Harris was district attorney of San Francisco, she refused to pursue the death penalty against the man who murdered a San Francisco police officer. At the officer’s funeral, then-Senator Dianne Feinstein gave a eulogy during which she criticized Harris, who was in attendance, and hundreds of police officers gave a standing ovation in agreement. You must be an extremist when Dianne Feinstein of all people slaps you for being too far left on an issue.

Harris was a “proud” original co-sponsor of the Green New Deal in the Senate, the most authoritarian legislation in U.S. history. She co-sponsored a bill to ban oil exploration across 1.5 million acres of federal land. She has made “environmental justice” a central part of her climate plans for America. She sponsored legislation to set up a committee exploring reparation payments for black Americans. She is against voter ID requirements. She wants to pack the Supreme Court and eliminate the Senate filibuster.

She bragged about gaining access to gender reassignment surgeries for California prison inmates when she was the state attorney general. She champions the Equality Act, which would allow men to compete in women’s sports.

Abortion-obsessed

And she is borderline obsessed with abortion. She has attacked crisis pregnancy centers as vice president, calling the free help they offer women “predatory practices.” As a senator, she voted twice against the Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act. In March, she became the first sitting vice president to visit and celebrate a Planned Parenthood abortion clinic as part of her “Fight for Reproductive Freedoms” tour.

According to new reporting by the Daily Signal, when Harris was California’s attorney general, she had the home of pro-life journalist David Daleiden raided by state Justice Department agents who seized video evidence that potentially incriminated employees of Planned Parenthood. Why? Because Daleiden had recorded undercover conversations with these employees in which they allegedly discussed selling body parts of aborted babies. According to this Daily Signal report, the raid on Daleiden’s home happened just two weeks after Planned Parenthood officials had a meeting with Harris. Daleiden’s attorney, Steve Cooley, said:

There’s no doubt in my mind that Kamala Harris, as attorney general, personally ordered the raid on David Daleiden’s home. This was an effort to seize the videotapes that Mr. Daleiden had made during the course of his investigation. That was the primary purpose of that raid, to basically suppress his activities with respect to exposing the illegal sale of fetal body parts.

He later added, “I think a Kamala Harris presidency would be incredibly dangerous for civil rights.”

Kamala Harris is no moderate. The spin specialists in her campaign and in the media are working overtime to convince America that she is moderate and relatable to regular Americans. They’re trying to convince you that she’s “just like you.” She is not. You find out who politicians really are by what they do, how they vote, what legislation they support. You find out what their real priorities are by who they spend time with and the places they visit.

Harris’ record could not be clearer. She has never called herself a socialist, as far as my research team can find, but her record screams socialist. This is who she is. She has been immersed in America’s far-left subculture, an identity she fully embraces.

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Kamala’s very own basement campaign



Vice President Kamala Harris didn’t show up to the National Association of Black Journalists’ convention on Wednesday. You might have missed that buried in all the pearl-clutching over former President Donald Trump’s cracks on her. About half the people I spoke to in Washington Thursday thought they’d seen her there or that maybe she’d Zoomed in for a video interview. Nope.

She cited several reasons, including the funeral of Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (D-Texas) and an otherwise busy schedule, but it’s not just this one event. Harris hasn’t done a single real interview since her unceremonious coronation 12 days ago. She’s given some speeches and read off a couple of teleprompters, but no actual interviews.

Polling shows Harris narrowing Trump’s lead, with some even showing her overtaking him in swing states where he was leading Biden previously.

It can be hard to remember amid the frantic pace of American politics, but as recently as 13 days ago, we were told the most important thing a presidential candidate can do is take hard questions in an unscripted environment. That’s true, by the way. You get a far better idea of who a candidate actually is when you get past the scripted speeches and quotes from anonymous aides.

But never mind that now. Those were the rules for when America’s newsmen wanted a different candidate to beat Trump. Now the aim is simply to beat Trump.

We’ve seen this all before, when the phrase “basement campaign” was introduced to describe Joe Biden’s commitment to dodging journalists and even supporters in 2020. That year, we saw the nominee beam into our living rooms from his literal basement and even accept the nomination in an empty auditorium. His friends in the media covered for him, blaming COVID while relentlessly attacking Trump — and it worked.

There can be no blaming COVID now. It's not age, dementia, or a “stutter” either. This time, we’re faced with a press corps that knows Harris is so bad on the fly that even a sit-down with NBC’s Lester Holt can generate years of bad headlines.

And so far, it’s working. Polling shows Harris narrowing Trump’s lead, with some even showing her overtaking him in swing states where he was leading Biden previously. She sits back and gives carefully coordinated speeches while her media pals heap on calling Trump Hitler, this time for saying Harris advertised her Indian heritage when she first entered politics (“I respect either one, but she obviously doesn’t”).

How long can she go on hiding? She's got one more week of Olympics coverage, complemented by a renewal of the “honeymoon” when she announces her running mate. And then it’s the Democratic National Convention, which is threatened by an increasingly volatile war in the Middle East but still wraps the candidate in a carefully choreographed cocoon.

And then it’s September.

Abigail Shrier: Republicans are going after Kamala all wrong

New York Times:Pro-Palestinian groups seek to thwart Josh Shapiro’s chances for Harris’s V.P.

Blaze News: Kamala Harris (and Shapiro’s) long, anti-Catholic history

Daily Caller: Shapiro targeted counselors who didn’t gender-transition kids

Glenn Beck: The media’s new strategy

Blaze News: Harris Faulkner 'so disappointed’ in convention interview’s tone

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The fire rises: City Journal: It’s not about ‘cat ladies’

Women from Jennifer Aniston on down have gone on record publicly lamenting having “put their career before their family” or “having waited too long.” Over and over again, you hear good people say they wished someone had warned them. It’s easy to forget amidst the wailing and gnashing at JD Vance’s joke that the United States has a birth-rate problem, and at its root, the problem is cultural. Of course, you’ll never get a thoughtful conversation when there’s an opportunity to “YASS QUEEN” and dunk on Republicans. Lexi Boccuzzi writes:

The most uncomfortable topics are often the most important. Young people’s lack of desire to build families suggests a lack of hope for the future — an alien sentiment in the United States.

I saw this firsthand as an undergraduate at the University of Pennsylvania, home to many childless, soon-to-be elites. I wrote columns in our school paper expressing my concerns about hookup culture, transactional relationships, and the lack of prioritization of dating. These columns often received the most pushback. In a pre-professional culture like Penn’s, claiming that marriage and family were our greatest contributions to society was often taboo, particularly for women. But why?

Democrats’ strange obsession with drafting your daughters



The Senate adjourned Thursday and won’t be back in the office for another two weeks, leaving the issue of drafting women unresolved over the July 4 break.

That’s a pretty big deal, at least in broader America. In D.C., it’s just business as usual and is explained matter-of-factly. The House of Representatives passed its version of the National Defense Authorization Act on Friday, June 14, with no requirement to enroll women in the Selective Service System (the system used in a draft). The next week, the Senate Armed Services Committee passed its version of the bill but slipped the infrastructure for drafting women into the mix. Now, the bills go “to conference,” where the committees and staff from the House and Senate will work out their differences.

‘This is an issue where voters — regardless of what part of the country they come from or what party they belong to — are not OK with this.’

The move “has raised some hackles among members of the far-right,” a particularly inept New York Post reporter claimed Thursday, but it appears the Democrats’ strange compulsion to draft women is creating discomfort more broadly than that.

And it is a Democratic project. While the committee process is classified, Blaze News has learned multiple Senate Democrats have introduced the idea in committee before along partisan lines without GOP support.

Their Democratic colleagues outside the committee who are up for re-election sang a less enthusiastic tune when reporters caught up with them. Sens. Sherrod Brown (Ohio) and Bob Casey (Penn.) claimed to be unfamiliar with the proposal. Sen. Jon Tester (D-Mont.), who is in a particularly close race against Republican Tim Sheehy, told the Washington Examiner he would “have to take a look at it.”

“It’s basic human instinct,” Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) told Blaze News. “You don’t send women to fight so long as able-bodied men exist to fight. It's a fundamental notion. You don’t even have to get to a moral question on this; it's a survival question. This isn't what human beings want to do when you want to survive.”

And while no Republicans on the Senate Armed Services Commitee were reportedly “in favor,” it passed out of committee 22-3, with one of the nays from the Democratic chairman, who said he opposed breaking budget-cap limits. The markup is classified, but members can say how they voted and will when they want to score political points.

“You’ve got a number of Republicans who are opposed to this,” Lee told Blaze News, “but some of those Republicans who have expressed opposition to it also voted to advance it out of committee, so the question is how much fight will you see out of them between now and when it hits the floor?"

And not all Republicans are even opposed to the idea. Sen. Marsha Blackburn (Tenn.) said drafting women is about “opportunity.”

"This is not about combat,” she told reporters. "It is about their opportunity to serve.”

Defenders of the system say it isn’t technically a draft, and that’s true — the United States hasn’t had a draft since the Vietnam War, and reinstating it would require an additional act of Congress. But it’s only true until the United States decides it’s time to draft people again. Then the promises of not drafting women become a promise not to draft women into combat roles, which becomes simply drafting women into combat roles. It’s creating the infrastructure for doing exactly what politicians claim they won’t do. Unlikely, to say the least.

When “it’s the law,” Lee said, “we create the expectation that women will be drafted. It will lead to a draft of women next time we have a draft.”

After July 4, Republicans are going to have to figure out how hard they’re willing to fight a whole lot of modern feminist tropes too many politicians accept unthinkingly. On the other side, Democrats are going to have to decide just how important it is to them to draft women and whether it’s worth putting vulnerable colleagues like Brown and Tester in the hot seat.

And even once vacation is over, the summer timeline isn’t long. While committee staffers will be hard at work throughout, the actual House and Senate committees are only scheduled to be in session a combined 11 days before breaking for the long August recess.

That leaves time for those against drafting women to get their message out there. "Once public attention gets put on it, things change,” Lee told Blaze News, “because people realize the juice isn't worth the squeeze when people are upset. ... This is an issue where voters — regardless of what part of the country they come from or what party they belong to — are not OK with this.”

Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas), who led the resistance three years ago when Congress last proposed drafting women, was a little blunter. “If Republicans even think about drafting women,” he told Blaze News, “every ounce of my being will be directed at destroying what’s left of the party."

Washington Examiner:Senate Democrats dodge whether to expand draft to women

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The fire rises: The Weekly Dish: My problem with IVF — and ours

Blogger Andrew Sullivan was arguably the most influential journalist in America’s long slide toward gay marriage. That makes it all the more interesting when he comes out against IVF:

And that’s the rub for me. In many cases, you’re creating new lives only to destroy them as waste. In many others, you don’t destroy them; you merely use them to beat the odds. They are quite simply a means to an end, violating a basic norm of inviolable human dignity. And these “means” are your own offspring. IVF literally requires a mother to play Sophie’s Choice several times over.

And it’s harder to put these discarded humans out of your mind the way you can recover from an abortion, once the fetus has been dispensed with. Because they are still alive! By freezing them, you are conceding that they can one day change from a human being to a human person, with all the profound ramifications of that. And you may already have in front of you a growing IVF-created child who now has several siblings alive, just frozen in perpetual darkness.

That’s what brings it home to me. There are now more than 600,000 future human beings sitting in “cryogenic nurseries” waiting for the light to come on — millions of brothers and sisters, sons and daughters, consigned indefinitely to living in vitro. Yes, the embryo has no memory, no sentience when frozen, no mind or will yet. There is no suffering. But the lack of suffering does not mean there is no sadness. Or no humanity.

Florida school failed to address 'ticking time bomb' teen who brutally beat his teacher over a Nintendo Switch



A large autistic Florida teenager who violently beat his teacher's aid unconscious over a video game was reportedly a "ticking time bomb," the boy's attorneys said in a petition filed against the student's school earlier this week.

Brendan Depa's legal team blamed the Flagler County School District for not meeting the boy's needs before the attack, which took place in February 2023, according to the New York Post. The brutal attack left paraprofessional Joan Naydich with five broken ribs, a severe concussion, and hearing loss.

As a consequence, Depa now faces up to 30 years in prison after pleading no contest to the beatdown that was caught on camera inside the school building. However, the boy's attorneys claim that the incident only happened because the district committed a series of violations resulting in "significant harm" to the teen.

“The district should be held to account for its failures which have forever changed the trajectory of this young man’s life,” the petition states, which was obtained by Flagler Live.

Not only did the attorneys blame the school district, but they also suggested that Naydich asked for her own beating after she reprimanded Depa in front of his classmates. She proceeded to threaten to take away his Nintendo Switch that ultimately turned into a verbal fight.

Afterward, Depa spit on Naydich. The paraprofessional left the classroom to report him for assault, prompting him to follow her and launch the horrific attack.

“The school did not seem to have any control over B.D. and B.D. was allowed to do whatever he wanted with little to no intervention or consequences,” the petition stated, adding that the school had a responsibility to intervene.

“To allow B.D. to continue to escalate only led to the incident where the paraprofessional was harmed and B.D. was arrested,” the petition went on.

“Had these issues been addressed in real time, B.D. would not have harmed the paraprofessional and would not have been arrested and facing significant time incarcerated.”

“B.D. was a ticking time bomb,” the petition added.

Depa's legal team — who also said the teen failed to receive education while he was behind bars — is requesting "compensatory education" and payment for his admittance into a behavioral therapeutic school for students with disorders.

Depa is set to appear in court on Wednesday for sentencing.

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Nicaraguan regime bans Christian activities during Holy Week, organizes fashion shows instead



Nicaragua's Marxist-Leninist regime has once again banned public Christian activities associated with Holy Week and Easter.

Instead of communal displays of Christian faith, Rosario Murillo, the power-mad wife of Nicaraguan dictator Daniel Ortega, has ensured that only festivities favorable to the regime will be permitted to take over the streets.

The regime's decision to continue its brutal repression of Christians, most notably Catholics, comes amid new U.S. sanctions targeting Nicaraguan Attorney General Wendy Carolina Morales Urbina for her role in executing the "regime's unjust persecution of political prisoners and civil society within the country."

The U.S. State Department also announced new arms restrictions against Nicaragua on March 14, citing concerns "about continuing brutal repression by Ortega-Murillo authorities against the people of Nicaragua."

Background

The Catholic Church in Nicaragua had a fleeting flirtation with the Sandinistas in the 20th century. However, in the 1980s, Pope John Paul II cleaned house, suspending clergymen who supported revolutionary Marxism. The former Roman pontiff also promoted a steadfast critic of the Sandinistas, then-Archbishop Miguel Obano y Bravo, to cardinal in 1985.

The church's revived defiance of leftism in Managua and frequent alliance with Nicaraguan conservatives made it an easy target for persecution. The church became an even bigger target when it supported critics of the regime during the 2018 protests, which Ortega turned bloody.

Blaze News previously reported that at the outset of his fourth term in office in 2018, Ortega's paramilitaries sent a clear message, shooting up a church. Ortega suggested that Catholics critical of the regime or sympathetic to critics of the regime were "terrorists."

Now in his fifth term, the leftist dictator's attacks on Catholics have worsened. The regime routinely targets Catholics with arbitrary raids, beatings, disappearances, deportations, church burnings, and asset seizures. Additionally, Ortega's regime has shuttered thousands of church-affiliated organizations and services in recent years.

The Associated Press indicated that despite support for the regime among several evangelical leaders, the regime has also begun extending its persecution to other Christian groups, closing or dissolving more than 256 associations linked to the Protestant or evangelical church since 2021.

This persecution has prompted an estimated 80% of the country's clergy and religious to flee.

Frederick Davie, the vice chair of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom, said earlier this year, "USCIRF is outraged that the Nicaraguan government has chosen to continue its brutal crackdown on members of the Catholic Church for speaking out about the religious freedom and human rights violations occurring in the country."

"It has become increasingly clear that President Daniel Ortega and Vice President Rosario Murillo are intent on silencing the voice of any individual peacefully following the dictates of their conscience," added Davie.

Holy week in the shadow of the regime

Last year, the regime banned public Holy Week events, processions, and outdoor masses. Murillo blasted those who dared complain, claiming they "do not know how to be respectful or show solidarity."

The Associated Press reported that extra to shutting down religious activities, authorities also picked up and deported clergymen.

The regime has doubled down this year.

Martha Patricia Molina, a Nicaraguan lawyer who authored the Spanish language report "Nicaragua: A Persecuted Church?" noted on Facebook that the regime had banned "4,800 processions for Lent/Holy Week 2024[.] This figure includes the processions that took place/will take place on the 4 Fridays of Lent, Palm Sunday and those that took place directly in the Major Week itself."

Molina indicated that parishes have or will hold religious activities indoors, but that state officials may interfere with those as well, reported the Catholic News Agency.

"Some processions have been allowed around the block where the church is, but at the last minute a National Police officer shows up and gives a counter-order so the people can’t come out (of the church for the procession), under threat of being imprisoned," wrote Molina.

Molina told a Spanish-language news outfit, "Nicaragua is a country very given, as a Catholic people, to popular piety."

As a result, various townships and municipalities will attempt to hold Holy Week activities even if the Catholic Church is officially barred from doing so.

The Christian Post reported that Murillo, the dictator's wife, has indicated that this year, officials will swap out religious processions with "popular processions." These processions, organized by the regime's Institute of Tourism, will emphasize the Sandinistas' radical ideology throughout Holy Week.

Rather than prayerful reflection, the Ortega-Murillo regime has reportedly opted for fashion shows, beauty contests, and other materialistic distractions. While the regime insists that its approved message floods the streets, it also promotes anti-Christian hatred on television and the radio.

A new human rights report from the United Nations indicated that "led by the President and the Vice-President, hate speech inciting to violence and discrimination against the Catholic Church has been disseminated through pro-government media."

Republican Sens. Rick Scott (Fla.), Ted Cruz (Texas), Tommy Tuberville (Ala.), and Katie Britt (Ala.) implored President Joe Biden last week to sanction Nicaragua for its "repeated violations of religious freedom in Nicaragua."

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The China crisis is bigger than Biden's blunders



Contrary to what Joe Biden says, Russia is not the biggest threat facing the United States. The biggest national threat that we’re not talking about is the Chinese Communist Party.

The corporate media and our political leaders are too often stuck on Russia and alleged Russian disinformation. Not that Russia isn’t a problem or a threat. It certainly is both. But Russia’s efforts are almost amateur compared to the sophistication of the Chinese Communist Party in its escalating war against the United States. Our leaders and our media are obsessed with the wrong enemy.

The Chinese Communist Party must be in awe of how easy we’re making it for them.

Sure, individual incidents involving China get reported and discussed, but there is nowhere near the urgent, sustained focus that this threat requires. Every day now, China is probing and exploiting American vulnerabilities — vulnerabilities that are frequently the direct result of left-wing policies and leadership. And that’s absolutely what we’re engaged with. This is what Sun Tzu meant when he said that “the supreme art of war is to subdue the enemy without fighting.” They are rotting us from the inside.

Probing weaknesses

Consider how China exploits our open borders. The Chinese are in business with the drug cartels. They are actually the “big dog” in the illicit drug industry, and the Mexican drug cartels are the second in line. Most of the drugs that are coming over our border, particularly fentanyl, have been manufactured through ingredients and supplies that come from China.

The Chinese sell the equipment to press fentanyl into pills under the guise of Adderall or any other prescription drug so people will be fooled by it. Then the drug cartels are using this equipment to press pills of death that they send over our borders at the expense of our children’s lives. Why is nobody talking about that?

The same reason we must talk about that spy balloon. Remember the Chinese spy balloon last year? It was spotted by a reporter in Montana on February 1, then it was allowed to drift across the United States for three more days, soaring over major cities and military bases, before it was finally shot down by the U.S. Air Force off the coast of South Carolina. In December, U.S. intelligence officials revealed that the balloon used a U.S.-based internet service provider to navigate and send high-bandwidth collections of data back to China while it made its way across American airspace.

Last month, a Freedom of Information Act request by the Heritage Foundation’s Oversight Project found 14 instances since 2018 of Chinese nationals attempting to enter the U.S. military base at Pearl Harbor while also conducting surveillance, including flying drones over the base. In September, a Chinese man and woman were found taking photos and video near a Pearl Harbor security entrance before fleeing in a car with unidentified plates. There have been 100 similar incidents in recent years of Chinese nationals, often posing as tourists, who have tried to access military bases across the country.

Thanks to the Biden administration’s wide-open border policy, China has a much easier way to get these potential spies inside the United States. During Biden’s three years in office, more than 133,000 Chinese nationals have been encountered at the border, almost 30,000 of those just since last October. There are now more Chinese nationals crossing the border in San Diego than Mexican nationals.

Just last week, three Chinese nationals were arrested trying to cross the border into Maine from Canada in the middle of the night. A fourth, who was driving a car, was arrested on suspicion of attempting to assist the others. Last year, a Border Patrol memo identified 270 suspected properties in rural Maine that are used for illegal marijuana growing and operated by Chinese nationals. The massive profits are funneled back to China or used to finance other illegal activities, including drug and human trafficking.

Self-inflicted wounds

In San Francisco, U.S. sovereignty is being undermined in absurd ways, like a law passed in 2020 that eliminates the requirement to be a U.S. citizen to hold seats on city boards. San Francisco’s Board of Supervisors last month unanimously appointed Kelly Wong to the city’s Elections Commission. Wong is not an American citizen. She’s been in the United States since 2019 and is an immigrant rights activist from Hong Kong.

Wong may have absolutely nothing to do with the Chinese Communist Party. But what if someone in that position did? San Francisco now has someone who is not a U.S. citizen, and cannot legally vote, in charge of supervising its elections.

Regardless where Wong’s national loyalties lie, her political loyalty is apparently left-wing because she works for a group called Chinese for Affirmative Action. According to its most recently published annual report, it is funded by the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, Google, and the Tides Foundation, among many other far-left groups.

And then there is one of the most immediately pressing threats to Americans – the Chinese government’s hacking operation.

Last year, the Chinese military hacked into around two dozen U.S. power and water utilities and communications and transportation systems. They breached a water utility in Hawaii, a major port on the West Coast, an oil and gas pipeline, and attempted to hack into the Texas power grid operator.

Despite these urgent threats, in 2022 the Biden administration shut down the “China Initiative” at the Department of Justice. It was a program started in 2018 to prosecute economic espionage and stop the stealing of intellectual property by Chinese government agents. Why did they shut it down? Because left-wing activists said the program allowed the FBI to target Asian Americans unfairly.

A bipartisan affliction

The CCP must be in awe of how easy we’re making it for them. China is flooding the U.S. with such a wide spectrum of attacks that they tend to blend into the background noise of our national chaos. Too few of these attacks get the sustained attention they deserve from our media and leaders.

Why is our administration not doing anything about the border? Why is California Governor Gavin Newsom visiting China and not talking about fentanyl? I believe these people have surrounded themselves with Chinese operatives and Chinese money. I don’t think these people want to answer any questions because their own corruption would be exposed.

So, what does all this mean? At the very minimum, it means that impeachment is probably not enough for this crime. But it’s not just the Democrats, and it’s not just the Bidens. It's the Republicans, too. No one is pointing the finger at China because it would land on their own complicity. Don’t be convinced that China is a lesser threat to America due to the media and political leaders’ inaction and lack of coverage. China is the greatest threat facing our country, and our leaders’ inaction speaks for itself.

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Sheriff gives punks bad news about 88 cars towed and impounded after major street-takeover bust: 'No need to keep calling'



The sheriff of California's San Joaquin County shared some bad news with the owners of 88 cars that were towed and impounded after a major street-takeover bust last Friday in Stockton.

Seems the little angels in the illegal "sideshow" — which consisted of meeting at a predetermined intersection, blocking it off, and doing endless donuts and other dangerous stuff while a big crowd gawked and recorded it on video — had been calling the sheriff's office and wanting their rides back.

Sheriff Patrick Withrow, however, has a very different plan in mind — and he bluntly told them on video, "No need to keep calling."

First off, authorities are holding on to all the impounded cars "indefinitely until they are processed, and the District Attorney advises they are no longer needed for prosecution," he said. But even worse for the street-takeover connoisseurs was Withrow's promise that "we will be looking into the merits of seeking a destruction order for any vehicle deemed to be a public menace." Ouch.

Check out the sheriff's message below:

What's the background?

KXTV-TV reported that last Friday night's street takeover at the intersection of Country Club Boulevard and Pershing Avenue "ended with crowds of people detained and law enforcement in riot gear."

"It was just an unreal scene from when I got there," Michael Garcia, who lives near Stockton's American Legion Park, told KXTV in regard to the sideshow bust. He added to the station that "people were there sitting down, detained."

Image source: KXTV-TV video screenshot

KXTV said law enforcement stopped nearly all sideshow drivers and participants, which resulted in more than 150 people detained and 88 cars towed away.

Withrow told the station his department used a new tactic to stop the street takeover in its tracks: "They're becoming more and more violent, and so we feel that this is the best way to contain it. We were able to find out ... where it was going to occur and fairly quickly get people in place and then swoop in on all sides of that intersection there."

What's more, Withrow told KXTV that "we've already found guns, firearms, and stuff like that from some of the vehicles at the scene — and from our video evidence, we know that we're going to find a lot more."

As you might guess, not everyone was on board with the street-takeover bust. Meet one guy the station identified as "Nicholas," a sideshow spectator who gave the sheriff and his deputies a piece of his mind: "I think it was a little excessive, to be honest. I don't think it should be this much just for kids sliding around in some cars."

Image source: KXTV-TV video screenshot

Nicholas added to KXTV, "Y'all want the kids to stay out of trouble, y'all want money for the city? Give us a legal pit. We wouldn't be outside if we had a legal pit for real."

The station said deputies seized so many cars that they had to store them outside the sheriff's office's headquarters, which necessitated staff to work overtime in order to prevent anyone from getting to the cars.

Withrow remained unmoved by complaints and doubled down, telling KXTV that street takeovers are "irresponsible, it's criminal, and you're going to be held accountable for it. If you don't want to be held accountable, if you don't want to lose your vehicle, if you don't want to go through all the costs of defending yourself in court, then don't attend these sideshows."

(H/T: The Auto Wire)

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