Source: CBS News
“Spanish police said Thursday they had [stolen] 1.8 tons of crystal meth that Mexico’s Sinaloa Cartel was trying to sell in Europe, the country’s ‘biggest-ever seizure’ of the narcotic. Police arrested five people during the raid in the eastern Alicante province, one of them a Mexican running the cartel’s Spanish operation, a statement said. ‘This is the biggest-ever seizure of crystal meth in Spain and the second largest in Europe,’ Antonio Martinez Duarte, head of the police’s drug trafficking and organized crime unit, told reporters. ‘Among those arrested is a Mexican citizen linked to the Sinaloa Cartel,’ he added.” (05/16/24)
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/spain-biggest-ever-seizure-crystal-meth-mexico-sinaloa-cartel/
Source: Fountainhead Forum
“Miguel Duranti on Javier Milei’s rise in Argentina.” (05/15/24)
https://rumble.com/v4vfjph-ff-181-miguel-duranti-on-javier-mileis-rise-in-argentina.html
Source: The American Conservative
by Doug Bandow
“Many of the claims of failed deterrence reflect the belief that victory or at least steadfastness in other, usually modest fights of modest importance, will prevent major powers from acting to advance important if not vital objectives. The assumption seems to be that America must be constantly at war to prevent constant war. Yet this contention makes little sense.” (05/16/24)
https://www.theamericanconservative.com/the-u-s-failed-to-restore-deterrence-with-iran-but-thats-not-its-job/
Source: Town Hall
by Larry Elder
“People often ask, ‘How do you handle mean, vicious people when out in public?’ The truth is I rarely encounter nastiness. It does happen, but thankfully, it is pretty rare. In general, when people don’t like me, they possess the maturity to restrain themselves from verbal road rage. I conduct myself the same way when I run into someone whose views I don’t care for. At a restaurant, I said hello to a host of a left-wing cable show, and he politely returned the gesture. After all, I dislike Hamas, the Taliban and drivers who fail to use their turn signals much more. Nor does it particularly bother me that there are some people who say unkind things.” (05/16/24)
https://townhall.com/columnists/larryelder/2024/05/16/another-big-lie-liberals-are-more-caring-than-conservatives-n2639122
Source: SFGate
“Vice President Kamala Harris has accepted an invitation from CBS News to debate former President Donald Trump’s vice presidential pick this summer, the Biden campaign said Thursday, as the Republican said he might wait until his party’s convention in July to announce his selection. Harris’ team told the network she would debate in-studio on Tuesday, July 23, or Tuesday, August 13, and encouraged the Trump campaign to agree to one of the dates for his eventual vice presidential pick. The Trump campaign didn’t immediately comment on the debate invite. Trump, in an interview with TMJ4 taped from New York, said there was ‘a pretty good chance’ he would announce his vice presidential pick at the GOP convention in Milwaukee, which begins on July 15, rather than before. ‘I don’t say anything is 100%, but you’re getting pretty close,’ he was quoted saying. ‘I’ll be doing it in Milwaukee. We’re going to have a great time.'” (05/16/24)
https://www.sfgate.com/news/politics/article/harris-accepts-debate-invite-from-cbs-news-to-19461656.php
Source: Time
“Rare but deadly blood clots tied to Johnson & Johnson and AstraZeneca Plc’s Covid-19 shots were caused by an autoimmune reaction that some people are predisposed to, researchers found, a discovery that they say will shape development of future vaccines. Adenovirus-based vaccines, like the J&J and AstraZeneca shots that were later pulled from the market, contain a component that, in genetically susceptible people, can trigger the production of unusually structured antibodies against a protein involved in blood clotting, scientists said Wednesday in a letter to the New England Journal of Medicine. Researchers plan to identify the culprit and then try to remove it using genetic engineering.” (05/16/24)
https://time.com/6978677/covid-vaccines-blood-clots-genetics/
Source: Freakonomics
“Confessions of a Black Conservative.” (05/15/24)
https://freakonomics.com/podcast/confessions-of-a-black-conservative/
Source: Law & Liberty
by George Hawley
“The summer of 2020, when George Floyd’s murder inspired America’s ‘racial reckoning,’ seems a distant memory. Although talk of a right-wing backlash is often overstated, we have witnessed some effective pushback against left-wing identity politics from the right. ‘Wokeness,’ as it is sometimes called, is not defeated, but it has faced meaningful headwinds in recent years. At times, this has gone too far. In response to the left’s recent excesses, many on the right seem eager to embrace their own forms of identity politics. Some elements of conservative media have turned towards a harder-edged right-wing vision, and this development is worth watching closely. Other voices, however, maintain a principled opposition to our race-obsessed political culture, holding firm to individualist and meritocratic principles.” (05/16/24)
https://lawliberty.org/book-review/beyond-grievance-politics/
Source: Beat The Press
by Dean Baker
“In the wake of the release of the 2024 Social Security Trustees Report we have seen a wave of columns and news articles telling us that we won’t have enough workers to support a growing population of retirees. The story is that all of us baby boomer types are now retiring, and the later generations are not having enough kids, so we will see a fall in the ratio of workers to retirees. While the major media outlets love to push this line as a horror story, fans of arithmetic know it’s just ungodly silly. I’m tempted to turn this one over to ChatGPT, but I will write it myself again, this time.” (05/15/24)
https://cepr.net/productivity-growth-and-the-scary-stories-about-rising-retiree-to-worker-ratios/
Source: CBC News [Canadian state media]
“Police on Wednesday took back a lecture hall from pro-Palestinian protesters who for hours occupied the building at the University of California, Irvine, then cleared a student encampment that stood for more than two weeks, witnesses said. Officers from about 10 nearby law-enforcement agencies converged on the campus after university officials requested help because protesters had occupied the lecture hall, leading the school to declare it a ‘violent protest,’ police and university officials said. About four hours later, police had ejected the protesters from both the lecture hall and the plaza that had been the site of the encampment, according to the university and Reuters witnesses.” (05/16/24)
https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/uc-irvine-police-protest-1.7205710
