Your First Look at Today's Top Stories

Having trouble viewing this email? View the web version.

Sponsored By

DaybreakInsider.com

Monday, May 20, 2024

Iranian President and Foreign Minister Killed in Helicopter Crash

New York Times: President Ebrahim Raisi of Iran was killed along with the country’s foreign minister in a helicopter crash on Sunday in the country’s mountainous northwest, state news media reported on Monday, leaving the country without two of its most influential figures at a time of heightened foreign tensions and domestic discontent. The death of Mr. Raisi, a conservative who violently crushed dissent and was widely viewed as a possible successor to Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, comes during a particularly tumultuous period for Iran (New York Times). Though the deaths will surely be tumultuous, little is expected to change in Iran. The power is held by the Supreme Leader. Still: “it would be hard to find someone worse,” former IDF intelligence chief Maj.-Gen. (res.) Tamir Hayman told The Jerusalem Post on Sunday. In terms of the impact on the ongoing Iran-Israel conflict, Hayman, who is currently the Executive Director of the Institute of National Security Studies (INSS), said, “It would have no strategic impact, just that it would be less of a headache in choosing the next president” (JPost).

Israel Reveals Some 50 Tunnels Connecting Rafah to Egypt

Jewish Press: The IDF revealed about 50 tunnels leading from Egypt to Rafah, Kan 11 News reported Saturday night. Locating and destroying these tunnels is important to preventing the smuggling of weapons, money, and terrorists from Egypt to the Gaza Strip (Jewish Press). The total labyrinth of the terror tunnel network is astonishing: The Israel Defense Forces said they discovered nearly 700 tunnel shafts in Rafah, with some crossing into Egypt. Israeli Deputy Attorney General Gilad Noam explained the findings at the International Court of Justice (Just the News).

Elise Stefanik (R-NY) Before the Knesset: “Let me repeat: America is firmly behind Israel and the Jewish people.

In her visit to Israel, the chair of the House Republican Conference was unflinching in her criticism of the Biden administration and her support for the Jewish state: “I have been clear at home and I will be clear here: There is no excuse for an American president to block aid to Israel—aid that was duly passed by the Congress,” Stefanik said. “There is no excuse to ease sanctions on Iran, paying a $6 billion ransom to the world’s leading state sponsor of terror, or to dither and hide while our friends fight for their lives. No excuse. Full stop…. Those [anti-Israel] views, though given airtime by some radical Democrat members of Congress, those views do not reflect the views of the American people,” Stefanik said. “And we’re already seeing the majority in the body in which I serve, the United States Congress, fight back and turn the tide. Let me repeat: America is firmly behind Israel and the Jewish people” (Free Beacon).

Donald Trump’s Multiracial Populism Is Getting Attention … and Threatening Democrats

Tom Slater: For all the cries of ‘racist’, Trump is attracting more black and Hispanic voters than ever before…. Yes, Democrats retained an overwhelming majority of black voters and a solid majority of Hispanics at the last presidential election, but the trend is undeniable, and perhaps even accelerating. The latest set of New York Times / Siena polls shows Trump and Biden tied among Hispanics and Trump claiming a striking 20 per cent of black voters. If replicated in November, the latter stat would represent the highest level of black support for any Republican presidential hopeful since the passing of the Civil Rights Act in 1964 (Spiked).

New Study Reveals Lethal Impact of “Gender-Affirming” Surgery: 12 Times the Rate of Attempted Suicide

From the Study: Individuals who underwent gender-affirming surgery had a 12.12-fold higher suicide attempt risk than those who did not (NIH). Jordan Peterson: The butchers and liars were murderously wrong,” Peterson wrote on X. “The Cass report indicated this. Canada and the US are still enabling this. That’s you @POTUS and @JustinTrudeau and it is utterly barbarous and inexcusable. Putting children to the knife. ‘Follow the science,’ gentlemen” (Daily Wire). As recent as August last year, the American Academy of Pediatrics Reaffirmed its support of child “gender transition”: The American Academy of Pediatrics decided to “reaffirm” its stance on pushing child gender transition operations but ordered a “systematic review” amid a growing number of states outlawing the practice (Washinton Examiner).

Joe Biden’s Title IX Rule Is a Disaster for Women

Kristen Waggoner: The administration says women’s sports aren’t addressed by this rule, but that is an election-year ploy. The logic of the rule demands that schools allow boys who identify as girls to participate in girls’ sports. And the administration has already stated in a lawsuit ADF is litigating that Title IX requires schools to let boys who identify as girls compete in women’s sports. If Mr. Biden wins in November, expect this mandate to be made official across the nation (Wall Street Journal). Will it be part of the 2024 election? Yes. Donald Trump: … it actually is very demeaning to women. It’s a very demeaning thing to women. It’s hard to believe. I mean, sure, a centerpiece, yes. But I’d hate to put it as a centerpiece, because it’s so ridiculous. It’s like open borders. I say there’s things that they do. I call them the no common sense things. Men should not be allowed to play in women’s sports, and women don’t want them. You know, I’ve yet to find people that really want this other than far left lunatics…. (Hugh Hewitt).

Sponsored

Communist China Controls Your Mind Through Hollywood

A New Documentary EVERY American Must See

Click Here to Watch 10 Minutes FREE

Don’t miss “Hollywood Takeover: China’s Control in the Film Industry”, a new NTD Original Documentary that pulls back the curtain on how deeply Hollywood is infiltrated by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and is helping to further a global adversary’s agenda. The film follows Chris Fenton, a former Hollywood executive, and Tiffany Meier, an investigative reporter, through their journey of discovering a must-tell story behind Hollywood and China’s lucrative union. Featuring Kevin Sorbo, Sam Sorbo and other industry experts, this film explores the question “Why does China want to control Hollywood?”

Joe Biden’s Problem Real Problem Is the People in the Pews

Salena Zito and Brad Todd: It’s the starkest divide in the electorate – and one that political journalists rarely mention, perhaps because, as a profession, journalists are more removed from religion than the average American.Trump’s advantage with white evangelical Protestants is widely understood, but he also leads Biden by healthy margins among less politically conservative Christians… Political realignment works like the tectonic plates in the earth’s crust. The masses of land, or of voters, tend to keep moving, even if that movement is only noticed when it results in an earthquake. Smart political geologists will be watching how believers vote in this election (Real Clear Politics).

If U.S.-China Is Cold War 2, Questions Emerge Over Whether or Not We Can Afford It

Niall Ferguson: … suppose they gave a cold war and you couldn’t afford it? Half a century later, that is the question the US needs to ask itself…. Last week, Bridgewater Associates LP founder Ray Dalio gave a good interview. “I am … concerned about Treasury bonds because of the high debt levels, which high interest rates are adding to,” he said. “I’m also concerned about the softening demand to meet supply, particularly from international buyers worried about the US debt picture and possible sanctions.” Me too, Ray. Not many people were saying this kind of thing about Britain in 1789. The problems with being a broke paymaster are obvious. First, you have less money to throw around than you really need. Second, everyone knows it. The perfect illustration is the complete inability of President Joe Biden’s administration to get the government of Israel to do what it wants, namely stop killing Palestinian civilians caught in the crossfire of its efforts to eliminate Hamas in Gaza (Bloomberg).

Taiwan Inaugurates New Pro-Democracy President

AP: Taiwan inaugurated Lai Ching-te as its new president Monday, installing a relative moderate who will continue the self-governing island democracy’s policy of de facto independence while seeking to bolster its defenses against China…. Lai, also known by his English name William, has vowed to continue his predecessor’s push to to maintain stability between the sides while beefing up Taiwan’s security through imports of advanced fighters and other technology from close partner the U.S…. (AP). Comparing Ching-te to his predecessor: It’s a much more fraught international environment for Lai in 2024 than Tsai in 2016,” said Kharis Templeman, a research fellow at the Hoover Institution, a think tank at Stanford University, who studies Taiwanese politics. “The war in Ukraine, China’s turn toward even greater domestic repression, the deterioration in U.S.-China relations, and the last eight years of cross-strait hostility put Lai in a more difficult position.” Beijing has already made plain that it loathes Mr. Lai more than it did Ms. Tsai (NYTimes).

10.

Our Campus Jihad: “Well funded and impressively organized”

Abe Greenwald: In the first decade of the 21st century, the United States was attacked by jihadists who drew the country into a yearslong, multifront war. At the start of the third decade, we were attacked in a far different fashion, from within. Left-wing radicals embarked on a violent campaign to upend the cultural and political order of the nation. Both attacks changed us in significant ways, but neither one broke us. In 2023, seizing on Hamas’s October 7 massacre of Israelis, the jihadists and the left-wing radicals explicitly joined forces. They first launched a street campaign against Israel and in support of jihadist terror. Then they occupied university campuses, where they began harassing Jewish students, continued calling for death to Israel and America, and amplified their praise for jihad. All, naturally, in the name of peace. We don’t know what this hybrid enemy of the West will do next. But we know that it won’t stop soon, as it is well funded and impressively organized. Moreover, its two halves enjoy a valuable symbiotic relationship. They need each other (Commentary).