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America First News
15 May 2023
#immigration
Daily Wire: San Diego Official Slams Biden After Afghan National On Terror Watchlist Illegally Entered U.S. At Border
A terrorist on the FBI watchlist crossed the border from Mexico to California. San Diego official Jim Desmond blamed President Biden and the federal government for allowing terrorists, traffickers, and fentanyl into the country with an open border policy. Rep. Darrell Issa confirmed the individual was a wanted terrorist, claiming that Biden’s policies are reckless and invite the world’s most wanted terrorists into America.
Red State: Mayorkas Brags About '50 Percent Drop' in Illegal Entry, Bill Melugin Drops Facts on Him
Department of Homeland Security head, Alejandro Mayorkas, claims there has been a 50% drop in the number of border encounters since Title 42 ended, although he acknowledged that it was too early to tell whether the migrant surge had peaked. However, this claim may be misleading since it is based on the highest number ever recorded earlier in the week. There are other factors that may have contributed to the decrease, such as more enforcement from Mexican authorities and Texas Department of Public Safety blocking border entry. Even with these factors, the Biden administration's handling of the border crisis is being criticized.
Discern Report: America Is Being Invaded
The Biden administration has released almost 5 million illegal immigrants into the US, with most disappearing into communities without showing up for their court dates. The end of Title 42 is expected to make things worse, as it allowed officials to turn away migrants at the border for health concerns. The Alternatives to Detention program requires illegal immigrants to check in on a mobile app until given a court date, and many are given taxpayer-funded cell phones for free. Some are even given court dates as far ahead as 2030 or later, while others are being released without any court date at all. With over 400,000 migrants expected to arrive each month, it's a full-blown invasion of the US border.
#politics
Newsbusters: Rick Wilson: Trump Will Tear DeSantis's Head Off, 'Kick It Around Like a Soccer Ball'
Rick Wilson of the Lincoln Project attacked Ron DeSantis, calling him unpleasant and having a mean streak. Wilson made comparisons between DeSantis and Trump, praising the latter's charisma and energy while predicting that Trump would defeat DeSantis in a debate and "tear his head off and kick it around like a soccer ball." Wilson is known for his violent fantasies about Republicans and has been accused of catering to the Trump/GOP-hating left. Some speculate that Wilson is trying to tear down DeSantis as he is seen as the biggest threat to Biden.
#foreignaffairs
The American Spectator: Henry Kissinger Turns 100
Henry Kissinger, a German Jew who fled Nazi Germany in 1938, has been both a brilliant academic and a prudent policymaker, known for his patriotism towards America. After serving with the 84th Infantry Division in World War II, he used the G.I. Bill to attend Harvard, where his senior thesis foreshadowed his approach to international relations. He criticized Eisenhower's "massive retaliation" policy in his book Nuclear Weapons and Foreign Policy and advocated for a policy of "flexible response" to Soviet aggression. He later became a consultant for President Kennedy and continued to advise Republican Nelson Rockefeller while playing a "double game" in the 1968 presidential election. After Nixon's victory, Kissinger was named National Security Adviser and helped devise "triangular diplomacy" and "peace with honor" in Vietnam. He praised Nixon for his patriotism and his courage and blamed America's failure in Vietnam on a Democratic Congress, a guilt-ridden foreign policy establishment, and hardcore anti-war activists who viewed America as "evil." Kissinger continued to advise presidents and founded his business consultancy, Kissinger Associates. He expressed his admiration for Reagan's victory in the Cold War, which was made possible by Nixon's opening to China, and continued to be grateful to America for providing refuge for him and his family.
#economy
National Review: Electric Vehicles: A Warning from Volkswagen
China's shift toward electric vehicles is threatening German automakers and their position in the global market. Chinese companies dominate the supply chain and pose a clear threat to German automakers in their home market and, specifically, the EV sector. German auto production employs approximately 800,000 people, while individual manufacturers such as Volkswagen may face job loss and a significant decline in their market share within the EV sector. This, coupled with China's current dominance in the manufacture of EV battery technology, places German automakers' future earnings in China in jeopardy, leaving them vulnerable to Chinese influence and blackmail.
#other
The Imaginative Conservative: The Shattered Image of the Thirteenth Century
We did not discard most of the image of reality from the Middle Ages. The lovely whole image was smashed like stained glass under the hammer of zealots, but later people recovered fragments and used them to create the world in which we live.
C.S. Lewis wrote a book of profound scholarship, The Discarded Image, describing how people in the Middle Ages viewed reality. The book is valuable if only in showing that there was no “dark age” during this time. More disturbing, Lewis proves that even the most settled ideas can be overturned or discarded by humans. Lewis’ metaphor of the philosophy of the Middle Ages, the discarded image, is valuable, but I prefer a different one: the shattered image.
We did not discard most of the image of reality from the Middle Ages. The lovely whole image was smashed like stained glass under the hammer of zealots, but later people recovered fragments and used them to create the world in which we live. We did not discard thirteenth century ideas—Western people use them today—but nobody has the whole.
We live with pieces of a shattered image: a worldview that worked, but was destroyed. Ideas from that philosophy were embraced by different people who used them to build beautiful art, great scientific advances, and new institutions that have enriched humankind. The difference is that the ideas are embedded in disparate views of reality that do not agree with each other.
We are all thirteenth century people in part, but without the wholeness of a coherent view of reality.
If you are a scientist, you owe your career to developments in the thirteenth century that made the scientific revolution nearly inevitable. Sadly, many scientists now assert a philosophical materialism that would have made the scientific advances of long ago unlikely.
If you believe there are standards of morality that are more than what the government says is legal, then the thirteenth century gave you a firm basis for that argument. Yet proponents of this international law too often act as if these universal standards come from the subjective perspective of an elite.
Most of the good things of our times are products of an industrial revolution that gave the rest of us what only kings could afford while also creating new goods and services that the richest man in the world could not have purchased before this change. The thirteenth century made this inevitable, but many industrialists forget the communitarianism that enabled their existence and could head off the discontent that leads to revolution.
There was a moment when Athens and Jerusalem made peace in the West and the possibility of head and heart living in harmony was realized: the thirteenth century. Sadly, most churches in the West do not even realize that this is a possibility, instead making the false choice between reason and revelation.
What Happened and Who Did It
The thirteenth century did not begin on New Years 1201 from nothing. For centuries, men and women laid foundations for the flowering that would come. In 1301, the good that was done did not die immediately (and the problems that would shatter the image came to some places later than others, if they came at all). People like Bernard of Clairvaux were men who made the thirteenth century, and a figure like G.K. Chesterton could still linger there through his capacious imagination as late the twentieth.
It is good, however, to point to a few key names (out of many) to make the point that scientific, industrial, and international revolutions were made probable by a period that most of us have forgotten.
The “Renaissance” is more recent, and had self-esteem enough to claim to be a rebirth of culture; but for all the splendor of its art, the Renaissance was the wayward child of the thirteenth century. In many ways, it was a regression in ideas, worshiping ancient learning and ignoring the more recent scholarship of the Middle Ages. (Bacon is always good, but Roger Bacon was fundamental while Francis Bacon is witty, but derivative.)
Bernard and Francis: Forerunners of Love
The Middle Ages were the great age of love and of the hope that love inspires. By today’s standards, things were tough for the overwhelming majority of the population, but there was hope for tomorrow here and in the world to come.
Nobody was afraid of love as a motive, friendships were celebrated as much as marriage, and theology was awash in images of beauty. Look at cathedrals and imagine them new: splendid, first-rate artistic triumphs open to every person in the area. They are products of an entire community and triumphs of desire. A cathedral of the High Middle Ages is a unified whole, but has room for eccentric parts and personal touches built in over the decades it took to complete such masterpieces.
A great thinker and churchman like Bernard of Clairvaux picked up on clues in Plato and the Bible and produced a theology of love. God was the center because God was goodness, truth, and beauty. He was worthy of worship and our worship included thought. Holy men like Francis were motivated by the love of God and the love of the church to reform abuses. They were harsh on popes, prelates, and people, yet they were fundamentally moved by love.
Correction from a lover is different than from a tyrant. As philosophy developed all over Europe, the love of God pushed and prodded it toward a care for the community, the church, and individuals. It is no accident that Thomas Aquinas wrote beautiful worship as well as careful philosophy.
Roger Bacon, A Philosophy of Science that Made the Scientific Revolution Certain
Many cultures contributed to the rise of science and the necessary mathematics from ancient history. However, after a certain point each culture, including most Christian societies, would stagnate. Math, the language of science, would fade in importance, or the society would lose interest in experiments (such as those of Aristotle). Dogmatism would quash free exchange of ideas before critical ideas could be formulated.
Thank God that during the Christian Middle Ages there was no great central political power. If inside the church, as most people were, there was more often a tolerance of odd ideas if they were couched respectfully. The combination of Platonism—with a high respect for mathematics—and the Christian incarnation motivated and sustained investigation of the natural world. By the thirteenth century, men like Roger Bacon and his teacher Robert Grosseteste were moving towards scientific methods that would multiply learning.
Every intellectual is tempted to live in a world of ideas, disconnected from the natural world or politics. Grosseteste never lost interest in the abstract, the natural, and the political. Later, his student Roger Bacon warned against ignoring uncomfortable facts or being hasty to dismiss them.
All over Europe, men like these two were investigating, arguing with each other, working in international centers of learning, and developing new ways of thinking.
Thomas Aquinas: A Possible Synthesis
The greatest Western thinker of the thirteenth century, and one of the most original minds in human history, was Thomas Aquinas. This Christian and philosopher took up the ideas of Islam, Ancient Greece, and Christianity and weighed them, afraid of nothing. He considered, he debated, he synthesized, and when he was done Thomas had produced massive works of scholarship that made sense of everything known at the time. He might not be the best commentary on Aristotle if you wish to know what the historical Aristotle thought, but Thomas is often more interesting than the historical Aristotle!
Thomas showed that no idea, no philosophy, regardless of source, need be feared. All could be digested and slowly, carefully, reconciled with other truths. Nothing good, beautiful, or true was lost to Thomas. He made it all part of his system, one so powerful that since his death his ideas have never ceased to be developed. Modern forms of this thought may be much refined, but still are recognizably Thomist. In philosophy, his ideas remain a powerful option to consider on any important question.
Thomas cannot be the last word for any Orthodox Christian, but he does point to a splendid possibility by his very existence. Thomas is so in love with Truth that he is unafraid of examining any idea to find his Beloved!
Dante: The University
Imagine a poet who knew the best science of his day, was an expert in theology, was a faithful Christian and a critic of abuses in the church. He existed: While creating modern Italian with his sublime poetry, Dante also personified the birth of the Western university. He was interested in everything, and this reflected the expansive interests of the schools rising around great thinkers in places like Italy and France. Born in the middle of the thirteenth century, he died in the fourteenth and his death as good as anything marks the end of this time of hope and possibility.
If you think the Renaissance was a “rebirth,” of art and culture, read Dante. The Renaissance finally got around to painting what Dante had done in literature earlier.
Louis IX: The Saint as King
Like any ruler, Louis is hard for a modern person to love, even one who lives in his namesake Saint Louis! Political wisdom keeps moving forward and we are able to judge Saint Louis, because we had first benefited from Saint Louis.
Still, this knight of the High Middle Ages had the three hallmarks of a great Christian king. He loved the poor and was charitable. He handed out just rulings by the standard of his time, showing no favor to the rich or his friends. If you like the presumption of innocence in a trial, thank King Saint Louis who made it so. He also loved knowledge, learning, and art. This was a King who sponsored world-class architecture, cultivated the other arts, and had Thomas Aquinas come to dinner.
He would die trying to check the threat he saw in expansionist Islam by taking the fight to previously Christian lands, such as Egypt, that still had significant Christian populations. If he failed to conquer any such lands, France remained free to follow her destiny. Who knows what the result would have been if Louis and others had not fought? The greater effort required by Islamic powers to crush the Crusader states Louis had strengthened was not spent on Europe. Christians still must wish that the money spent on fortifications in Palestine had gone to another Holy Chapel, or illuminated Bible, since the splendor of what is left to us of what Saint Louis did do is awesome.
Louis strengthened France, but also acted as a peaceful arbiter in Europe. Regions had their own rule, but Saint Louis acted as a model for what might be. The Church and rulers like Saint Louis went far toward establishing the idea that there was an international law, just not local power.
What Went Wrong: The Black Death
The plague came and one out of every three or (God help us!) as many as two out of every three people died. The death toll was highest in urban areas. One suspects it was highest among the good religious people who stayed to comfort the dying and less severe in the corrupt who fled. People react badly under severe pressure, which the Black Death surely was. There was a rise in all the worst features of the Middle Ages. Jewish people had always been at risk in a Christian commonwealth, and now they were blamed for the deaths, and the evils done grew greater. In addition to old problems never resolved, people in fear of death turned to superstition, folk magic, and the occult. Church restrictions against vile practices were overwhelmed in a world where death was common. The world grew macabre.
In the end, death did bring a rise in wages for those who survived, but the harms had been done. The more relaxed, sunny Greco-Roman-Christian fusion of the thirteenth century died in the black plague.
Cut Off From The East and The Crusades
If the internal shock was not bad enough, the thirteenth century had continued the defensive wars against the expansion of Islam. The Christian majority of Palestine and the embattled Eastern Roman Empire had called for help in the eleventh century, but by the time of good King Louis, the religious estrangement between East and West had been worsened by political and military quarrels. The Crusaders set up their own petty Kingdoms and the Eastern Christian populations were no better off under their rule. Soon, the Crusaders were a greater threat to the survival of the Eastern Roman Empire than Islam.
This was fatal to both sides: Eastern Christians did not need a new foe, and Western Christians lost an opportunity to jump-start positive cultural development. Imagine the infusion of texts, Greek language, and new ideas that could have come from the Eastern Roman Empire if both Christian groups had united. If Christian areas of the Middle East had been given to the Eastern Roman Empire, they might have formed a sustained buffer between Christian areas and the Islamic world. There might be entire regions of Palestine, Syria, and modern Turkey that would have maintained Christian majorities as Lebanon did well into the twentieth century. As it was, the Crusades put off the reckoning with Islam, but left the Christian Roman buffer weaker. It would not be long in historic terms until Muslims would be battering the gates of Vienna.
Ossified by Success Just When Technology Sped Up Discussions
Sometimes success brings failure if we set up a shrine and worship old goods. After the failures and problems of the fourteenth century, too often intellectual activity in establishment circles ossified. If the West had always been too quick to declare dogmas, now it became too dogmatic. Who can blame them? However, intellectual activity that the good ideas set in motion kept going. Scientific advances (like gunpowder) that Roger Bacon and his kind had pioneered in Europe kept coming, and the changes kept accelerating. The invention of the printing press enabled ideas that once spread at the speed of a copyist to multiply as fast as they could be cranked out. Old mechanisms of dialog were overwhelmed. The Western Church had been able to absorb and adapt to the critical and visionary message of Saint Francis, but it lacked the time and the intellectual dexterity to listen to Luther, who was not good at listening in any case!
Obviously, the old unity had always had internal intellectual problems. Just being cut off from the Eastern church meant that the thirteenth century could not see the entirety of Christendom. The Western cathedrals were glorious, but they soon would be old technology. The philosophy of science had been fundamental, but science still had to be developed. Too much reverence for the Greek and Roman past had to be purged if progress was to continue. The community lacked good methods of dealing with dissent (though so did the rest of the world).
What might have been if the Crusaders had been less narrow-minded? What if the intellectual liveliness had not vanished in the dance of death that marked too much of the fourteenth century?
We cannot know, but if we marvel at what the thirteenth century and the centuries just prior to the thirteenth century did, what ground was tilled, and what ideas made advance probable despite the brutal problems, we can only dream.
The old unities had died in the fourteenth century, and the fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries simply buried what was left. The unified vision was lost, but none of the good ideas were. The philosophy of science kept developing, and the rise in wages and the “discovery” of the Western hemisphere brought new economic opportunities. If the whole had not turned out as splendidly as Louis IX might have imagined when the stained glass was newly formed in the great cathedrals of Europe, even the fragments were enough to fire the imagination. This modern world has so much more than existed in Louis’s imagination, but less than might have existed in the capacious brain of Thomas Aquinas.
The temptation is to grumble. That does no good. Worse are the ideologies, from reactionary forms of religion to Utopian socialism, that have attempted to restore the shattered vision without any of the authenticity, humility, or genius. That day is gone and much is no longer possible for us: yet we have new powers and greater hopes. Christians, lay and clerical, can now talk and have our ideas transmitted at the speed of the Internet. Tyranny is harder. Good ideas cannot be shut down so easily, old ideas are out there to be read in Project Gutenberg and so are not forgotten, but must compete with new ideas. We do not have to forget the past, but we are not apt to worship it either. There is hope. Modern methods, ancient ideas, Eastern and Western Orthodox thought might once again be made whole, though perhaps now in a mosaic. Let us pick up the pieces of the shattered image, made more beautiful with age, and in our young century we may form a pattern that is whole.
Republished with gracious permission from The Saint Constantine School (January 2018).
This essay was first published here in March 2018.
The Imaginative Conservative applies the principle of appreciation to the discussion of culture and politics—we approach dialogue with magnanimity rather than with mere civility. Will you help us remain a refreshing oasis in the increasingly contentious arena of modern discourse? Please consider donating now.
The featured image is “Saint Arethas” (anonymous, 10th century), and is in the public domain, courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.
Breitbart: Trans Disc Golfer Booted from Women's Tournament Amid Lawsuit
The Disc Golf Pro Tour (DGPT) has won an appeal to keep in place rules that restrict transgender athletes after trans “female” competitor Natalie Ryan filed a discrimination suit from which he was given a temporary right to compete in the woman’s category in the organization’s tournament in California this weekend.
Ryan had sued the Professional Disc Golf Association (PDGA) after the organization had tightened rules for trans members that maintain that trans “women” may only compete if they had undergone transition surgery before 12 years of age or have maintained a testosterone level under 2nmol/L for two years. These rules essentially made Ryan ineligible to compete.
However, on Thursday, ahead of the DGPT’s OTB Open this weekend, U.S. District Judge Troy L. Nunley ruled in California that the organization was required to allow Ryan to compete as his lawsuit winds its way through the courts. Nunley claimed that some of the PDGA’s new restrictions could be seen as discriminatory, and he ruled that the group could not enforce its rules that exclude Ryan until the lawsuit settles the issue.
Mihajlo Maricic/Getty Images
“It appears there was an intentional act, the creation of a policy, that excludes individuals based on their protected status as transgender women,” Nunley wrote in his decision, according to a copy of the filing reported by Ultiworld Disc Golf. “The Court makes no determinations as to whether this is sufficient to actually establish intentional discrimination, but it raises serious questions.”
Still, despite Judge Nunley’s decision, the DGPT filed an emergency appeal on the decision to force it to allow Ryan to play. On Friday, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals agreed with the organization and allowed it to enforce its ban on Ryan.
The Ninth Circuit did not rule on the merits of the ban but ruled instead on the fact that both Ryan and another member of the tour were citizens of the Commonwealth of Virginia, and federal rules would only allow a court in California to interject itself into the incident if all members before the court were from different states.
The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals granted a stay to the lower court’s ruling, asserting that the Court lacked jurisdiction in the case. “It appears that the district court lacks diversity jurisdiction over the [Disc Golf Pro] Tour because Plaintiff and at least one member of the Tour are citizens of Virginia,” wrote the Ninth Circuit, according to a separate report by Ultiworld Disc Golf.
Bag of multi-colored flying discs used for disc golf on green grass. (Getty Images)
“This order restores the DGPT’s ability to enforce its current policy on Gender Eligibility,” the DGPT said in a statement. “The DGPT will follow the court’s ruling and enforce its Gender Eligibility Policy which will disallow Ms. Ryan from continuing competition in the OTB Open.”
For his part, Ryan had already started the tournament and had landed in fifth place before being told he could not complete the weekend’s games.
In an Instagram post, Ryan vowed that he wouldn’t back down.
“I will not be threatened, I will not be intimidated, I will not be erased. It is a breath of fresh air to be competing where I belong,” he wrote. “To all the trans folks out there that love this sport as much as I do, I’m here for you, we all deserve better.”
Ryan soon pulled that threatening post down and replaced it with one saying, “The DGPT and the PDGA are afraid of metaphor, so I’ve taken down my previous post. Instead, I’m going to make that posts message incredibly clear. My removal for OTB was targeted just as the new policy was. The DGPT is now enforcing rules that is has not place to. They have only done this to hurt me. I will continue to litigate until justice is achieved. I will use this pan to make sure nobody else has to experience it.”
Follow Warner Todd Huston on Facebook at: facebook.com/Warner.Todd.Huston, or Truth Social @WarnerToddHuston
The American Spectator: Biden’s Border Disorder and Debt Ceiling Mess
Joe Biden only major accomplishments so far have resulted in the military going woke, the country going broke, and his open border policy has made our national security a joke.
As I’ve written often (see, e.g., my column last week on Biden’s drag queen navy) our military is vastly weakened by Biden’s military “leaders” forcing wokeness into the military. It continues unabated.
With the end of the Trump era Title 42 restrictions last Thursday, a huge number of illegal aliens from all over the world are jamming entry points into the U.S. Those illegals are being bused and put on aircraft to ferry them around the country.
The dollar has been the reserve currency of choice since World War II because it has been solid and stable. It won’t be if we default. More and more nations will change to yuan reserves and the dollar will be worth much less as a result.
Nobody knows how many will now enter the U.S. About 6.3 million illegals have come into the U.S. since Biden became president. The “gotaways” — criminals, smugglers, terrorists, Chinese spies, and the like — are the ones that have evaded the Border Patrol and slipped into the country almost unnoticed. They number in excess of 500,000.
Hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants were reportedly waiting in Mexico for the end of the Title 42 restrictions. I’ve seen estimates that range from 600,000 to 1.2 million. Biden had planned to admit them all, and release a great number without them having even been given a court date on which to appear to have their claim to political asylum judged.
A federal judge enjoined that plan and said that the Justice Department’s emergency motion to delay the injunction was borderline frivolous. DOJ is reportedly appealing the ruling to the Eleventh Circuit. Before that ruling came down, the Border Patrol reportedly released at least 6,000 into the U.S. without knowing who they are.
Only about 15 percent qualify for asylum and fewer still are deported. Many or most of those deported re-enter the country.
There is chaos at the border, akin to the chaos Biden created in withdrawing from Afghanistan. When Rep. Pete Sessions (R-TX) compared the two, National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said:
I think it’s just incorrigible to compare what we’re trying to do with safe and effective pathways coming in through the border to what happened with Afghanistan. It is not at all the same situation. And the footage that you just showed demonstrates that it’s not chaos down there at the border, at least not right now.
“Safe and effective pathways.” Not any attempt to block what can only be described as an invasion.
Cities — including the “sanctuary cities” such as New York and Chicago that proclaimed they’d welcome illegals with open arms — are now whining that they can’t handle more. But you can always count on the liberals who run our big cities to make do with what they have.
In New York the city is reportedly throwing homeless veterans out of shelters to make room for illegals. Liberals believe that someone who risked his life for our country shouldn’t be given preference over another who entered the U.S. illegally.
That would pretty much sum up the week for President Biden were it not for the debt ceiling crisis he has refused to solve.
White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre is not the sharpest knife in the drawer. She has taken to insisting that Congress should deal with the debt ceiling through “regular order.” She apparently doesn’t know what “regular order” means.
In “regular order” the House passes a bill, the Senate comes up with its own version (or vice versa) and the two get together to compromise, and the result is passed by both houses and sent to the president who can sign or veto it.
The House passed its bill raising the debt ceiling and including some major spending cuts in it. The Senate, which is following Biden’s (or whoever-is-in-control’s) orders, has not taken up the question. Instead, Biden has only this week begun some “negotiations” with House Speaker Kevin McCarthy.
And he’s not negotiating in good faith.
Biden has made cuts to much of his spending “off limits” to Republican cuts, including the massive spending on climate change nonsense that is contained in his “Inflation Reduction Act” which, of course, had nothing to do with reducing inflation. He’s also refused to cut back his student loan forgiveness program (which the Supreme Court will soon likely overrule) and other items such as Medicare cuts.
Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen has said the debt ceiling has to be raised by June 1 or the United States won’t be able to pay its debts. The Congressional Budget Office said that the debt ceiling may not be reached until July 1.
If the debt ceiling is reached and any U.S. debt goes unpaid, there will be severe effects around the country and the world.
Inflation would spike to some unknowable high. Any default would trigger a severe recession that could last for years.
Social Security checks, Medicare and Medicaid, and any other benefits couldn’t be paid, neither could salaries of government workers including the military. The stock market would suffer extreme losses and possibly crash. And there’s more.
Countries such as Argentina and Lebanon have defaulted on their debts in recent years. Ukraine has also defaulted and won’t — as a result of Russian destruction of its infrastructure — recover for years, perhaps decades. Their economies are in shambles.
Many nations have been bailed out of their debt crises by the World Bank. There will be no World Bank bailout if the U.S. defaults.
Our country’s credit ratings would be reduced. That means any further borrowing, when the debt ceiling is finally raised, would be at higher interest rates.
China has been trying to replace the dollar with its yuan as the “reserve currency” around the world. The dollar has been the reserve currency of choice since World War II because it has been solid and stable. It won’t be if we default. More and more nations will change to yuan reserves and the dollar will be worth much less as a result.
The United States has never defaulted on its debt. Biden may cause the first default. He apparently will take the negotiations to the last moment, seeing how much Republicans will buckle. They will and, in truth, they have to.
Biden and his media pals will ensure that the Republicans are blamed for the default and everything that results from it. If it actually occurs, the default will be a major campaign issue for 2024.
The only solution to the debt ceiling mess — and everything else — is for the Republicans to elect a new president, keep control of the House, and win the Senate in 2024. If they do, they can slash Biden’s reckless spending, remove “wokeness” from the military, cut inflation, and return the country to something resembling normalcy. If they don’t, our nation may never recover.
The American Spectator: Eurovision: A (Dubious?) American Triumph
Amidst a troubled America, Eurovision Week in Europe showcased the continued cultural influence of the United States through the prevalence of American music genres and the English language in the contest. Eurovision began in 1956 as a postwar effort highlighting native tuneage without English or French influence; however, pop, disco, R&B, and more U.S. and UK genres grew to dominate the contest, as did lyrics in English. Today, roughly three-quarters of Eurovision songs are in English, and the proceedings ditched French.
Despite anti-Americanism in Europe, the continued influence of American culture confirms the nation's "soft power" resilience even as "hard power" is on the decline. During the past Eurovision week, many songs addressed pressing issues such as the ongoing conflict in Ukraine, with a notable absence of anti-American sentiment. Moreover, the 1945 American classic "You'll Never Walk Alone" was sung as Eurovision's best number, revealing Liverpool's cultural influence on the world as a city whose "anthem" is entirely American.