Category: Opinion

Republican Sen. Ted Cruz voiced his opinion on President Biden’s lack of action this week, criticizing the POTUS on his “weakness” to Hamas and accusing him of having “emboldened” the terror group amid violence with Israel.

Cruz, R-Texas, toured Israel’s Iron Dome rocket defense system and viewed damage in Ashkelon on Monday, just days after the fighting between Israel and Hamas came to a stop.

Cruz slammed the president while warning of the danger of U.S. humanitarian aid to Palestinians flowing to the militant group.

“The longer Joe Biden shows weakness to Hamas or Hezbollah or Iran, the more you’re going to see terrorist attacks escalating,” Cruz told The Associated Press on Monday.

Israel announced a cease-fire, which took effect on May 21. It was negotiated with the help of Egypt, the neighboring country that for decades has served as a mediator in conflicts in the region.

Before the cease-fire took effect, Hamas had fired over 4,000 rockets toward Israeli cities, while Israeli warplanes struck some 1,000 targets in Gaza. More than 250 people were killed, the vast majority of them Palestinians living in the seaside enclave ruled by Hamas. Israel blames Hamas for the heavy civilian casualties because Hamas launches attacks from residential areas.

Throughout the fighting, though, Biden maintained Israel’s right to defend itself while emphasizing that Hamas is a nationally recognized terrorist organization.

“The United States fully supports Israel’s right to defend itself against indiscriminate rocket attacks from Hamas and other Gaza-based terrorist groups that have taken the lives of innocent civilians in Israel,” Biden said.

“I believe the Palestinians and Israelis equally deserve to live safely and securely and enjoy equal measures of freedom, prosperity, and democracy,” he said. “My administration will continue our quiet and relentless diplomacy.”

Biden vowed to help Israel replenish its Iron Dome system and to work with the Palestinian Authority to rebuild Gaza.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

A similar case of an eastern China man has reportedly contracted what is now believed to be the first human case of H10N3 bird flu. The official statement from the Chinese government claims that the “risk of large-scale spread is low.”

This story should remind a lot of Americans of reports coming out of China during the early months of 2020.

“The 41-year-old man in Jiangsu province, northwest of Shanghai, was hospitalized April 28 and is in stable condition, the National Health Commission said on its website,” according to The Associated Press. “No human case of H10N3 has been reported elsewhere, the commission said.”

“This infection is an accidental cross-species transmission,” the statement from the Chinese Communist Party’s National Health Commission said. “The risk of large-scale transmission is low.”

“The man was stable and ready to be discharged from hospital,” reported Reuters. “Medical observation of his close contacts had not found any other cases.”

Reuters also added that “There have been no significant numbers of human infections with bird flu since the H7N9 strain killed around 300 people during 2016-2017.”

One form of bird flu, which according to some documentation, has a mortality rate for humans who contract it is 60%. That virus subtype is H5N1. It was first documented in its first transmission in 1997 in Hong Kong. Over 60% of human cases ended with death.

News of the first human case of H10N3 in China comes as the communist regime is already under scrutiny for its role in the outbreak and spread of COVID-19.

On Saturday, Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) explained to Fox News’ Jeanine Pirro that he was “very worried” that U.S. government funding was still being used by the Chinese communist regime to research and develop biological weapons.

“I’m very worried that this stuff still goes on and that the U.S. government been funding it,” Paul told Pirro.

“We’re creating Frankenstein super-viruses that, if they leak out of the lab, accidentally or on purpose, could devastate the world. The SARS virus is 15 times more deadly. If that one gets out, and we enhance its ability to be transmitted, that could kill 50, 100 million people,” said Paul. “This shouldn’t be a partisan issue. This should be debated.”

Member of the House China Task Force, Representative Guy Reschenthaler accused Dr. Anthony Fauci of being “wrong” over and over again, as GOP lawmakers demand to have him fired after he made statements defending $600,000 in subgrant money being handed over to the Wuhan Institute of Virology.

GUY RESCHENTHALER: I was skeptical of Dr. Fauci from the very beginning of this—and remember Fauci has been wrong over and over again. Early on back in January, he said America has nothing to worry about regarding this virus. He then criticized President Trump for the travel ban from China and then he said that decision by President Trump actually saved lives.

He blatantly lied to Congress about masks and the American people saying they don’t help and then he said oh no I was lying so we could hoard PPE. He’s been wrong this entire time and when Tom Cotton and myself were saying that this virus probably originated in a lab in Wuhan—the lab where they were doing gain-of-function research on zoonotic bat-born diseases, he was the one saying that it was a conspiracy theory. He was the one pushing the real conspiracy theory that this virus originated in nature.

The entire interview can be seen in the video here.

Some people can do some amazing things when their loved ones are in trouble and for some people, their fur babies are loved like family.

Over Memorial Day weekend, a video from a security camera popped up on social media showing a mama bear and her two cubs climbing over a fence into a house’s back yard while several pet dogs swarm to attack and protect their owner’s property. Fortunately, a brave and quick-thinking woman ran up to the brown bear and shoved it off of the fence then scooped up a small dog and ran away.

A TikTok user named Brenda, who posts under the username Bakedlikepie, posted the video. Since it appeared on the social media network over the holiday weekend, it has been viewed over 39.4 million times.

According to the post, the footage was filmed by home security cameras at the California home of Brenda’s cousin, Hailey.

In the video, a brown bear can be seen climbing over a fence into the house’s garden. Several cubs also appear to be with the larger animal, suggesting that it’s a mother bear. Multiple dogs appear and start barking at the bear. One of the larger dogs runs up to the bear and is struck in the face several times by the larger animal.

Then, Hailey comes running into the frame and pushes the bear off the fence. While the bear quickly climbed back onto the fence, this gave Hailey enough time to gather the dogs and get them out of the area.

According to Brenda, all of her dogs were fine although one did suffer from some minor scratches.

In a later video, Hailey explains that she lives in the mountains and bears aren’t an uncommon sight this time of the year. Luckily Hailey walked away with just a sprained finger from the encounter.

An intoxicated 19-year-old woke up to find himself in handcuffs after breaking into a Milwaukee Airbnb occupied by several Montana sheriff’s deputies who were visiting from out of town for special law enforcement training.

The deputies were asleep at the time the drunken teen made his way into the home. When officers woke up, they spotted the back door ajar and the intruder sleeping soundly upstairs. The officers posted a TikTok video online over the weekend explaining how the situation came to pass.

“This silly guy found the one Airbnb in all of downtown Milwaukee, Wisconsin, loaded with cops,” deputy Charles Pesola said adding that the teen was lucky there wasn’t a trigger-happy family sleeping in the home.

“What if that dude stumbled into a bed with a kid or my wife? I mean, it could have been a different morning, right? So, wrong place, wrong time [but] lucky place, lucky time, that there’s dudes that actually know how to handle that,” he said, according to the news outlet.

The deputies said the teen was drunk and had no idea where he was or where he came from.

“This is a first for that, I’ve woken up in random places,” the teen says in the video.

“Cops have a hard time right now,” he explained. “And when they can see we’re still having fun and still real people and we’re good, it’s a good thing.”

https://youtu.be/mW4jX9W-3Jg

The lawmen called 911 and reported the break-in to local law enforcement. The teen was taken into custody by Milwaukee Police but he allegedly was released with just a slap on the wrist.

The teen said that he made the TikTok video in an effort to represent a different side of police officers not often seen by the public.

After speaking with Chinese President Xi Jinping for the first time since becoming president, Joe Biden seemed to contradict some of his statements made on the campaign trail by saying that China will “eat our lunch.”

“Last night I was on the phone with for two straight hours with Xi Jinping,” said Biden from the Oval Office. “It was a good conversation, I know him well, we spent a lot of time together over the years I was vice president, but if we don’t get moving, they’re going to eat our lunch. They have major, major new initiatives on rail, they already have rail that goes 325 miles per hour with ease. They are working very hard to do what I think we’re gonna have to do.”

“The auto industry is already there. So is labor. They’re working very hard to try to move in a position where they end up being the source of a new way in which to power automobiles, which they’re going to invest a lot of money,” Biden continued. “They’re investing billions of dollars in dealing with a whole range of issues that relate to transportation and the environment … so we just have to step up.”

President Biden on China: "Last night I was on the phone for two straight hours with Xi Jinping…if we don't get moving they're going to eat our lunch." pic.twitter.com/Slog8wdyyr

— CSPAN (@cspan) February 11, 2021

The president’s comments after his conversation with Jinping seemed in direct opposition to his past position.

During a rally in 2019, Biden said, “China is going to eat our lunch? Come on, man!”

He was even highly critical of former President Donald Trump’s tariff battle with China.

“The president has done nothing but increase the tariffs, the debt and the trade deficit. The way we have to proceed is we have to have our allies with us. It’s not just us. We have to keep the world together,” Biden said at the time.

The White House stated that Biden “shared his greetings and well wishes with the Chinese people on the occasion of Lunar New Year.”

“President Biden affirmed his priorities of protecting the American people’s security, prosperity, health and way of life, and preserving a free and open Indo-Pacific,” the White House said. “President Biden underscored his fundamental concerns about Beijing’s coercive and unfair economic practices, crackdown in Hong Kong, human rights abuses in Xinjiang, and increasingly assertive actions in the region, including toward Taiwan.”

An Australian woman, Maria Doris Axiak, 58, poured boiling water over her husband while he slept all over his face and torso. His only crime? He asked that evening for a separation after telling her he was unhappy.

He said he would sleep in the guest bedroom so that she could sleep in the master bedroom, and after he fell asleep, Axiak smoked a cigarette before disconnecting the landline so that he could not call for help. She then boiled a pot of water and poured it over him as he slept.

“She then drove out of the house, taking the (victim’s) mobile phone and car keys with her,” a police summary of the case said.

Her husband had to drag his body to his neighbor’s house to seek help. After arriving at the hospital, he had to be put into an induced coma to receive skin grafts due to the burns covering more than 12% of his body.

After leaving the house, Axiak drove to her daughter’s home and told her “he deserves it.”

“Out of 20 years of misery, I want him to look in the mirror every day …” she reportedly said. “I took his keys and phone and I don’t give a f***.”

She later sent her daughter a “thumbs up” and “clapping hands” emojis to show excitement. She also wrote, “I hope they keep him there (in hospital) for at least a month.”

Axiak told police she did it because she was tired of her husband’s drinking and claimed he kept “spoiling her weekends.” She later claimed to the court that she “felt abused and controlled” by her husband.

“When he looks in the mirror he can see I’ve been hurt too,” she told police, adding she hoped he had blisters on his skin.

The court was also told, according to Newswire, that Axiak “has major depression, bipolar, and PTSD, having undergone treatments including electroconvulsive therapy and had multiple voluntary and involuntary hospital admissions for mental health, the court heard.”

For this, Axiak was spared jail time for her attack, which left her husband with a perforated eardrum and burns to his head, right arm, shoulder, and torso.

“I am satisfied on the balance of probabilities that your impaired mental functioning from PTSD is causally linked to the commission of the offence and that it substantially and materially reduces your culpability,” Judge Quin reportedly said.

It is truly the end of an era after Kenny Mayne closed out his final “SportsCenter” episode with an unforgettable moment with Packers QB Aaron Rodgers.

The ESPN broadcaster had his final episode Monday night. During the last segment of the show, he brought on the Green Bay Packers quarterback to discuss several different topics. Usually, that is the end of the episode.

However, the legendary Mayne had something else up his sleeve that had people talking and laughing through this past week.

“Last time we did the interview together, you told me to go heavy on the crypto-currency game. I did. We’re down 40 percent, then I lost my job. Gretchen just wants a new comforter. F**k you, Aaron Rodgers,” Mayne said right before walking off of the set.

Watch the hilarious moment unfold below.

Only @Kenny_Mayne could end his interview with @AaronRodgers12 this way. pic.twitter.com/Aw09nrT4Eq

— Adam Schefter (@AdamSchefter) May 25, 2021

If you’re going to end your career on ESPN, then you might as well end it like that. That was an epic way to sign off with Aaron Rodgers.

Obviously, there was no malice in his voice at all. The two love each other, but Rodgers apparently caused Mayne to lose a bunch of money on crypto.

It’s also truly the end of an era over at ESPN with Mayne being shown the exit after he refused to take a pay cut.

I am leaving ESPN.
Salary cap casualty.
Thanks for the opportunity Vince Doria & Al Jaffe & for taking my solicitations
Herman/Stinton/Lynch.

I will miss the people.
I will miss the vending machine set up over by the old Van Pelt joint.
We had everything.

IntoTheGreatWideOpen#

— Kenny Mayne (@Kenny_Mayne) May 10, 2021

Mayne, who has been with ESPN since 1994, was a SportsCenter mainstay for many years before branching out and hosting his own shows and other events across their networks.

“We could not come to an agreement to keep me working there,” said Mayne regarding why he will no longer be working for ESPN. “They made an offer and I wasn’t exactly flattered and decided to reject it.”

“It was a significant pay cut. It was a big pay cut to do essentially the same job. It was a 14 percent reduction in time worked and a 61 percent reduction in money earned. I thought the variance was too much. I’m not asking anyone to feel sorry for me. It’s my choice to stay or not stay. It was still a good amount of money in the real world. I’m not trying to frame this as woe for me. Nothing like that. I just think I can do better elsewhere. So I told them that I feel like you’ve got a certain over-under on my worth and I’m going to go play the over. They did not seem to care that I made that choice.”

As Mayne tells it, it sounds like ESPN knew what it was doing with its offer and fully expected him to walk away rather than remain at the company.

New York Times editor Lauren Wolfe has been forced to deactivate her Twitter account after being heavily ridiculed for hyping the arrival of President-elect Joe Biden at Joint Base Andrews the day before the inauguration.

While watching CNN’s coverage of Joe Biden’s plane landing on the tarmac Wolfe tweeted out her dramatic reaction.

“Biden landing at Joint Base Andrews now,” Wolfe wrote. “I have chills.”

The editor then took a jab at the Trump administration for not furnishing a military airplane to transport Biden from Delaware.

“The pettiness of the Trump admin not sending a military plane to bring him to D.C. as is tradition is mortifying,” she wrote, adding the insult, “Childish.”

Critics pounced on the Times editor, many of them referring to former MSNBC host Chris Matthew’s infamous comment about President Obama when he said, “I felt this thrill going up my leg.”

Editor at the @nytimes.

Prepare for four years of this from the media. https://t.co/McJafOkNp5

— Media Research Center (@theMRC) January 19, 2021

Journos getting thrills up their legs again

This is what the next 4 years are gonna be like https://t.co/Gg6s11QN1y

— Comfortably Smug (@ComfortablySmug) January 19, 2021

Female version of Chris Matthews🙄 https://t.co/uzQU9kRvwS

— Amy Kremer (@AmyKremer) January 19, 2021

Wolfe quickly deleted the tweet of her attacking the Trump administration after critics fact-checked her comment citing reports of the Biden team being offered a military plane but choosing to fly private.

After appearing as a glittering full moon on Tuesday, the moon appeared tinged with a reddish glow in the early hours of Wednesday. The super “Blood Moon” captured the attention of viewers across the world.

According to NASA, the Blood Moon occurs during a total lunar eclipse when the Earth aligns itself between the moon and the sun.

🌓🌏🌞 The supermoon eclipse is underway! If it's visible where you are, you'll see the full Moon enter Earth’s shadow, with totality peaking at 4:18am PT (11:18 UT).

If you're not in the path, you can see a visualization through the eyes of @NASAJPL: https://t.co/HT9M4S8icV pic.twitter.com/nbdpApQiTa

— NASA (@NASA) May 26, 2021

“When this happens, the only light that reaches the moon’s surface is from the edges of the Earth’s atmosphere. The air molecules from Earth’s atmosphere scatter out most of the blue light. The remaining light reflects onto the moon’s surface with a red glow, making the moon appear red in the night sky,” the agency explained on its website.

A supermoon occurs when the side of the moon facing Earth is fully illuminated by the sun and is at the closest point in its orbit around Earth. Notably, this Blood Moon is a combination of a total lunar eclipse and May’s full Flower Moon, which is classified as a supermoon.

The totality of the Blood Moon lunar eclipse would last for around 14 minutes and 30 seconds and the moon.

While the super Blood Moon and its total eclipse phase is distinctly visible over eastern Asia, the Pacific Ocean, and parts of the western U.S., most of the East Coast and central U.S. gets the short end of the stick as the moon is below the horizon at the time of the full eclipse.

In a Monday blog post, NASA’s Gordon Johnston said that explained that while East Coast viewers would only witness the “barely-detectable start of the eclipse as the moon sets,” Americans lucky enough to have both clear skies and a clear view of the horizon would be able to really understand their place in the alignment.

“You can see the sunrise, then turn 180 degrees to see the curved shadow of the round Earth starting to fall across the edge of the moon as the moon sets,” he instructed.

The supermoon would pass through the full shadow of the Earth at approximately 5:45 a.m. ET.

The next supermoon – the super “Strawberry Moon” will be visible on the East Coast on June 24 and there are three more eclipses scheduled to take place before 2022.

However, the next total lunar eclipse won’t happen over North America until May 2022.