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Monday, May 5, 2025

Houthi Strike on Ben Gurion International Airport in Tel Aviv

The airport was closed entirely for an hour and many international carriers have suspended flights. Joel Pollak: A ballistic missile fired by the Iranian-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen struck the ground inside the perimeter of Israel’s Ben Gurion Airport on Sunday…. The missile struck “a grove adjacent to an access road, inside the airport’s perimeter,” the Times of Israel noted, after triggering sirens across central Israel and evading Israel Defense Forces (IDF) missile defenses (Breitbart). Mark Dubowitz of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies: Since March 18, the Houthis have launched some 26 missiles and several drones at Israel—about two every three days. Just weeks ago, President Donald Trump warned that every Houthi shot would be treated as an Iranian shot. Three days ago, U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth vowed that there would be consequences for continued attacks. The Houthis keep firing. U.S. credibility is now being tested in real time” (FDD). Footage: (YNET, X).

Netanyahu, Israel Consider Response

Defense Minister Katz: “He who harms us is harmed sevenfold” (X). Jonathan Conricus—former IDF soldier—explains the challenge: The Houthis are far from Israel and entrenched in the rural mountainside, and Israel still lacks deep and live intel and strike capabilities to deal decisive blows. Eli Lake: Israel should respond inside Iran (X). Again, Conricus: The INDIRECT APPROACH would entail strikes on Iranian targets of significant economic, regime or military value in Iran to influence Iranian and Houthis calculations of benefit/cost ratio. Netanyahu’s statements may indicate that Israel has finally decided to get serious with the Iranian regime and put a real price tag on its indirect aggression against Israel. Since the Iranian regime has caused significant economic disruption and damage in Israel, Israel would be totally justified to return in kind. And unlike with the Houthis, in Iran the Israeli establishment has an abundance of high value targets in its repository (X).

Israelis Stranded Abroad as Airlines Halt Service to Ben Gurion

YNET: Around 20 foreign airlines have paused flights to Israel, Transport Ministry says; Minister Regev warns Israeli carriers not to raise prices and urges stranded Israelis to contact Foreign Ministry’s emergency center for assistance. Transportation Minister Miri Regev said Sunday evening that the government is working “around the clock” with foreign airlines and aviation authorities to restore international flight service, after a Houthi missile launched from Yemen landed near Ben Gurion Airport and triggered a wave of flight cancellations (YNET).

Crucial Week for House as Congress Pushes Towards Budget Reconciliation; Trump Proposing Deep Cuts Domestically, “coupled with hefty increases for defense and border security”

The Hill: House Republicans are barreling into a crucial week in their effort to pass President Trump’s legislative agenda, with key policy hang-ups threatening to upend leadership’s timeline for approving the sprawling package. Those disagreements have already prompted delays as lawmakers haggle over how to address contentious issues while meeting deficit reduction targets…. “Reconciliation is being negotiated as we speak,” Rep. Mike Lawler (R-NY) told reporters on Thursday. “Everything is being negotiated, it’s being worked on, and I suspect we’ll have progress in short order” (The Hill). On the Trump administration’s roll: President Donald Trump is proposing steep cuts to domestic and foreign aid spending for the fiscal year that begins Oct. 1 coupled with hefty increases for defense and border security, with the help of GOP lawmakers already writing separate legislation outside of the annual appropriations process. The “skinny” version of the White House’s budget blueprint released Friday envisions a more than 13 percent increase to defense and related spending, topping $1 trillion in that category for the first time. That $119 billion increase, which includes $6 billion for the Energy Department’s nuclear programs, would come entirely through the “big, beautiful” budget reconciliation package Republicans have begun drafting (Roll Call).

Trump Announces 100 Percent Tariff on Movies Made Overseas

WE WANT MOVIES MADE IN AMERICA, AGAIN!” Hollywood execs OUGHT to love this. Los Angeles Times: Looking to boost the production of Hollywood movies in the U.S., President Trump on Sunday announced a new 100% tariff applied on films produced overseas. For more than two decades, major studios have shifted movie production to cheaper countries, including Canada, U.K., Bulgaria, New Zealand, Australia and other countries that offer generous tax benefits to build their local economies, luring films away from Hollywood. The migration of high-paying jobs has become a critical issue for Los Angeles, which has seen a dramatic loss in film production and jobs in recent years. “I am authorizing the Department of Commerce, and the United States Trade Representative, to immediately begin the process of instituting a 100% Tariff on any and all Movies coming into our Country that are produced in Foreign Lands,” Trump said late Sunday in a post on his Truth Social platform. “WE WANT MOVIES MADE IN AMERICA, AGAIN!” (Los Angeles Times).

Secretary of State Rubio Sends Warning to Germany

Rubio: Germany just gave its spy agency new powers to surveil the opposition. That’s not democracy—it’s tyranny in disguise. What is truly extremist is not the popular AfD—which took second in the recent election—but rather the establishment’s deadly open border immigration policies that the AfD opposes. Germany should reverse course (X). Rubio has taken on a an outsized role in Trump’s second administration: Secretary of State, acting National Security Advisor, acting USAID administrator, interim leader of the National Archives. How did he come to be so trusted? Trump explains: “When I have a problem, he has answers. He can fix things,” Trump said of Rubio, according to an adviser. How did this latest—the NSA appointment—come to be?: When Trump began considering replacements for then-National Security Adviser Mike Waltz after Signalgate, he was hesitant to make any changes because he didn’t want to give his critics a win. But inside the White House, the wheels were in motion to replace Waltz…. “Go figure it out,” he instructed his top aides. Chief of Staff Susie Wiles “eventually came back with Marco’s name, and Trump loved the idea,” said one official involved in the talks (Axios).

Following Through: Trump Ends Funding for NPR, PBS

And the Corporation for Public Broadcasting—which is the funding arm for both. From the Executive Order: The CPB Board shall cease direct funding to NPR and PBS, consistent with my Administration’s policy to ensure that Federal funding does not support biased and partisan news coverage. The CPB Board shall cancel existing direct funding to the maximum extent allowed by law and shall decline to provide future funding. (b) The CPB Board shall cease indirect funding to NPR and PBS…. Instructions to Other Agencies. (a) The heads of all agencies shall identify and terminate, to the maximum extent consistent with applicable law, any direct or indirect funding of NPR and PBS (White House). Hugh Hewitt: the government should not be engaged in funding domestic political speech from either the left or the right. Both media organizations will flourish absent taxpayer subsidy. And every other media platform will then be competing on a level playing field with what are presently federal wards of the state, and very left wing wards at that. Some excellent product from both. Much ridiculous hysteria and left wing propaganda. Long, long overdue (X). And all the right people are angry. NPR CEO: “The President’s order is an affront to the First Amendment rights of NPR and locally owned and operated stations throughout America….” (NPR). Chris Rufo: I’m confused by the NPR CEO’s statement. I reread the First Amendment and didn’t find any language about a permanent public subsidy for NPR (X).

Treasury Secretary Bessent Makes Case for Trump Economic Agenda

In the Wall Street Journal: it’s Main Street’s turn to share in the prosperity…. First, renegotiating global trade. Tariffs are an effective tool for balancing international commerce…. Second, making the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act permanent…. Third, deregulating the economy. America must build again…. Part and parcel of the deregulation agenda is establishing energy dominance…. The engine is already starting. For the second month in a row, Friday’s nonfarm payrolls report beat expectations, with 177,000 jobs added in April. More than half a million private-sector jobs have been added since January. Add to this falling inflation and the first decline in consumer prices since Covid. This is just the cylinder firing….This is how we make America great again for all Americans (WSJ).

Yes: They Are Trying to Normalize Pedoph***a

Don’t be fooled by the nomenclature of Minor-Attracted Persons or MAPs. A conference this past weekend in Ohio held the group B4U-ACT urged clients to, “train mental-health providers in “affirmative MAP therapy,” which seeks to help clients accept their “age of attraction” as an intrinsic and valid part of their identity.” City Journal: The organization discourages clinicians from diagnosing clients with Pedoph***c Disorder and instead claims that pedoph***a is a “sexual age orientation….” B4U-ACT repeatedly compares pedoph***a with homosexuality, likening the stigma gay people once faced to the “oppression” experienced by pedoph***s. This is a misleading comparison: unlike adults in same-sex relationships, children can never consent to sex with adults. Equating these fundamentally different forms of sexual conduct erases the moral and legal distinction between adult relationships and child victimization. The group nevertheless casts pedoph***a in a sympathetic light. Its materials describe pedoph**ic feelings as a form of “romantic affection” and a “desire for friendship,” and claim that pedoph**es often seek to “protect children and make them happy….” under the influence of progressive activism, groups like B4U-ACT are recasting pedoph***c attraction as something to be accepted rather than contained. In doing so, they risk collapsing critical moral distinctions and shifting the focus away from the safety and well-being of children—the population most in need of protection. (City Journal).

10.

Trump to Make Alcatraz Great Again: “a symbol of Law, Order, and JUSTICE.”

Trump: “I am directing the Bureau of Prisons, together with the Department of Justice, FBI, and Homeland Security, to reopen a substantially enlarged and rebuilt ALCATRAZ, to house America’s most ruthless and violent Offenders,” he wrote, adding: “The reopening of ALCATRAZ will serve as a symbol of Law, Order, and JUSTICE.” U.S News: President Donald Trump says he is directing his government to reopen and expand Alcatraz, the notorious former prison on a hard-to-reach California island that has been closed for more than 60 years. In a post on his Truth Social site Sunday evening, Trump wrote that, “For too long, America has been plagued by vicious, violent, and repeat Criminal Offenders, the dregs of society, who will never contribute anything other than Misery and Suffering. When we were a more serious Nation, in times past, we did not hesitate to lock up the most dangerous criminals, and keep them far away from anyone they could harm. That’s the way it’s supposed to be” (U.S. News).

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