The Houthis Humiliate the Biden-Harris Administration
Plus, how the Massachusetts millionaire tax killed Boston’s sports dominance
Back in December, Secretary of Defense Austin announced Operation Prosperity Guardian, “an important new multinational security initiative” aimed at ensuring freedom of navigation in the Red Sea.
“The problem was, it didn’t work,” Tom Sharpe writes in the Telegraph under the provocative headline “The Houthis have defeated the U.S. Navy.”
Suez Canal traffic is down about 70 percent, notwithstanding the Navy’s efforts.
Maybe a more accurate headline would have been “the Houthis defeat the Biden-Harris administration.”
Rear Admiral Marc Miguez, who oversaw the recent deployment of the USS Eisenhower Carrier Strike Group in the Middle East, told Ward Carroll that the Navy proposed “more aggressive” measures against the Houthis and their Iranian sponsors, but the politicians nixed them.
“There are definite strategies that were put forward, but our national command authority decided that those, what I would call more aggressive postures, and more aggressive strikes, was not something that we wanted to challenge,” Miguez said. “Moving forward, we are going to have to continued to deal with this, and it will be up to our national command authority to be more aggressive with our strike groups and all of our assets, not just Navy.”
The State Department spokesman, Matthew Miller, issued a statement over the weekend: “The United States is gravely concerned by the Houthis’ attacks against the oil tanker MT DELTA SOUNION. The Houthis’ continued attacks threaten to spill a million barrels of oil into the Red Sea, an amount four times the size of the Exxon Valdez disaster. While the crew has been evacuated, the Houthis appear determined to sink the ship and its cargo into the sea.”
“Through these attacks, the Houthis have made clear they are willing to destroy the fishing industry and regional ecosystems that Yemenis and other communities in the region rely on for their livelihoods, just as they have undermined the delivery of vital humanitarian aid to the region through their reckless attacks. We call on the Houthis to cease these actions immediately and urge other nations to step forward to help avert this environmental disaster,” the statement said.
If it takes an “environmental disaster” to rouse the Biden-Harris administration to authorize stronger measures against the Houthis and their Iranian sponsors, it’d be an improvement, I guess. But in an administration more serious about American national security and global leadership, it wouldn’t require an environmental catastrophe to summon a decisive response to an Iranian proxy nearly closing the Suez Canal. At the moment, it’s an American humiliation—not for lack of military muscle, but for lack of political will.
Pope rejects Zelensky’s outlawing Orthodox Church: Pope Francis is rebuking President Zelensky for signing a law banning religious organizations linked to the Russian Orthodox Church from operating in Ukraine.
Said Francis, on Sunday August 25: “in thinking about the laws recently adopted in Ukraine, I fear for the freedom of those who pray, because those who truly pray always pray for all. A person does not commit evil because of praying. If someone commits evil against his people, he will be guilty for it, but he cannot have committed evil because he prayed. So let those who want to pray be allowed to pray in what they consider their Church. Please, let no Christian Church be abolished directly or indirectly. Churches are not to be touched!”
The Religion News Service, which has been pretty good on the issue, observes that the law “is seen even by some supporters of Ukraine as an overstep in the name of national security, a violation of religious freedom and a potential risk to continued foreign military aid.”
River Valley Co-Op resists demand to remove Israeli products: The River Valley Co-Op, which operates stores in Northampton and Easthampton, Massachusetts, is rejecting demands by anti-Israel activists that it cease selling Israeli products.
The Daily Hampshire Gazette reports that a petition to remove the products from the store’s shelve attracted signatures from 315 of the store’s 16,000 member-owners, or less than two percent.
The full petition makes clear how extreme are the claims and demands of the Israel-haters. “Since October, the Israeli government has killed 186,000 people in Gaza,” the petition claims. That goes beyond even the Hamas-controlled Gaza health ministry, which claims 40,000; Israel says those numbers are unverified and that it has killed more than 17,000 terrorists in Gaza. The petition demands also a full right of return for all Palestinian “refugees” (that group now also includes not only the original refugees but also descendants of those who fled) to Israel, which would effectively eliminate the Jewish state.
The Gazette article quotes advocates of boycotting Israel framing their demand as antiracist and somehow also related to the fight against economic inequality. A “raging granny,” Ellen Graves, told the paper, “Those issues where the rich get richer and the poor get poorer, where there’s racism, we’re there…I think we as white people need to be aware of that racism.”
The unasked obvious follow-up went unasked: “if you’re sincerely against bigotry, why are you publicly campaigning to get the Jewish state’s products off grocery-store shelves?”
What’s encouraging is that even in Massachusetts, a left-leaning state, and even in this particular corner of Massachusetts, where the big industry is higher education, the campaign isn’t getting much traction. The newspaper’s quotes the co-op’s general manager, Rochelle Prunty, as saying, “We’re not in the business of trying to exclude certain things — we try to provide choices.” A statement from the co-op also notes it “has never banned products from a specific country before.”
How the Massachusetts millionaire tax killed Boston’s sports dominance: The Red Sox, after winning the World Series in 2004, 2007, 2013, and 2018, came in last in the American League East the past two years and have been stinking it up since this year’s all-star break. The Patriots, after winning the Super Bowl in 2002, 2004, 2005, 2015, 2017, and 2019, won 4 games and lost 13 in the most recent season. Even the owners of the NBA champion Boston Celtics have announced they want to sell the team.
Former Patriots coach Bill Belichick may have part of the explanation. In an appearance on the Pat McAfee show, explained, “That’s Taxachusetts, yeah. Virtually every player, even the practice squad, well the minimum players, are pretty close to a million dollars, so once you hit that million-dollar threshold then you pay more state tax in Massachusetts. Just another thing you’ve got to contend with in negotiations up here, it’s not like Tennessee, or Florida, or Nevada, or some of these teams that have no state income tax. You get hit pretty hard on that with the agents, they’ll come and sledgehammer you down about the types of taxes they’re paying…”
Paul Gangi of the Massachusetts Fiscal Alliance observed, “This is just another concrete example of how the income surtax amendment punishes excellence and makes it difficult for the state to recruit top tier talent. …these same conversations are taking place in industries across the state. How can our businesses and industries recruit top tier talent at such a competitive disadvantage?”
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I know an aunt of NHL player Noah Hanifin who signed with Las Vegas. All Star defenseman. Local Bostonian. I asked why he doesn’t sign with Bruins. He saved millions on taxes signing with Las Vegas. Would never sign with Boston for tax reasons.
Massachusetts was middle of the pack for high income earners until the millionaire's tax which took effect in 2023. The Patriots were terrible in 2022 and 2023 chiefly due to the Coach's poor drafting and staffing of his assistants. The Red Sox have consistently bounced around .500 since 2019 and the Bruins and Celtics both had good '23-24 seasons including an NBA title for the team in the sport with the highest median salary. Focusing on the NBA where salaries are highest Toronto and the Lakers have won titles in recent years despite much higher tax rates than Massachusetts. Tennessee has the lowest income tax burden. Let me know the next duckboat parade held for any of that state's 3 pro sports teams.