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Daily Caller

Opinion: The UN Has Failed

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From the Daily Caller News Foundation 

 

By Meaghan Mobbs

On the eve of the 2024 U.S. presidential election, the post-World War II global order is in disarray — and the United Nations is clearly no longer part of the solution. With former President Donald Trump now favored to return to the White House, the United States may finally be able to address a critical question: Will we continue clinging to a bloated, corrupt and impotent international institution?

Today is United Nations Day — a day meant to celebrate the founding of an organization dedicated to safeguarding peace and security. Instead, the world is reckoning with wars in Europe and the Middle East and growing instability in the Far East. The UN’s inability to adapt to the evolving threats of the 21st century — from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine to the growing influence of authoritarian regimes — has exposed its fundamental weakness.

It also demonstrates that Trump’s past critiques of the UN were not misplaced. Decades of missed opportunities, moral contradictions and structural dysfunction signify the need for significant reform — or full-on defunding. Such actions are not an outright rejection of multilateralism, but a recognition that the current system is broken — and we have seen this all play out before.

The current global turmoil, spiraling beyond the control of the very institution designed to manage it, echoes the League of Nations‘ catastrophic failure to confront fascist aggression in the 1930s. The League, established after World War I to maintain global peace, proved incapable of preventing aggression by expansionist powers like Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy and Imperial Japan. Following its collapse, the world descended into a period of widespread conflict, culminating in World War II.

Like the League of Nations, the UN has proven to be helpless against modern-day expansionism. With China backing Russia militarily and economically, the idea that the UN serves as an impartial arbiter of peace is laughable. The League of Nations failed because it lacked enforcement power and moral clarity. The United Nations has failed for the same reasons, and we are on the precipice of a third World War.

At the center of the UN’s dysfunction is the Security Council, crippled by Russia and China’s vetoes, which have made meaningful action impossible and shielded violators from accountability. Russia, an expansionist aggressor, continues to occupy a permanent seat, even as they employ Iranian drones to devastate Ukrainian cities and North Korean troops prepare to join its offensive. These failures are not isolated incidents but part of a decades-long pattern. From the massacres in Rwanda and Bosnia to Somalia’s collapse, UN peacekeeping missions have repeatedly ended in catastrophe. The UN is paralytic — a relic incapable of enforcing peace or punishing those who threaten it.

Worse still, the UN’s actions increasingly contradict its stated values. Reports indicate that UN peacekeepers in Lebanon took bribes from Hezbollah, compromising their mission by allowing surveillance against Israel. Meanwhile, the organization has awarded Saudi Arabia — a regime notorious for the brutal oppression of women — the chairmanship of the UN Commission on the Status of Women in 2025. The irony is staggering, and the hypocrisy is undeniable. Far from being a beacon of global governance, the UN now enables the authoritarian regimes it was meant to oppose, eroding trust and betraying the principles it was established to protect.

A rejection of the UN is not isolationism but a necessary confrontation with reality that the international organization has become an obstacle to peace, not a guarantor of it. This is further evidenced by Secretary-General António Guterres’ participation in the BRICS summit — an organization openly challenging the Western-led world order. Leading members of BRICS, like Russia and China, are intent on rewriting the rules of global governance with the intent to dominate.

The 2024 election will determine whether the West continues its slow descent into irrelevance or embraces the painful but necessary changes required to restore global order. The world has split along ideological lines, and the threats posed by our enemies will not be countered by resolutions or hollow declarations. Diplomacy without power is worthless. To survive, the West must act decisively by abandoning outdated institutions which no longer represent their interests and build new alliances rooted in shared values, mutual investment and military strength.

This United Nations Day, we should not celebrate a broken institution. Instead, we must confront its failures and prepare for the future. A second Trump presidency will bring the necessary pressure to tear down the obsolete structures of the past and replace them with a stronger, clearer order — one that prioritizes accountability, strength, and action. Change is no longer optional; peace demands it.

Meaghan Mobbs, PhD, is the Director of the Center for American Safety and Security at Independent Women’s Forum. 

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Automotive

Tesla Vandals Keep Running Into The Same Problem … Cameras

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From the Daily Caller News Foundation

By Hudson Crozier

People damaging Teslas in anger toward their owners and Elon Musk aren’t picking up on the fact that the vehicles have multiple cameras capable of catching them in the act.

At least nine perpetrators have been caught on video keying, writing graffiti or otherwise defacing Tesla vehicles in parking lots across the U.S. in the month of March alone. Most have led to an arrest or warrant based partly on the footage, which Tesla’s “Sentry Mode” automatically films from the side of the unattended vehicle when it detects human activity nearby.

“Smile, you’re on camera,” Tesla warned in a March 20 X post about its Sentry Mode feature. Musk’s company has been working to upgrade Sentry Mode so that the vehicles will soon blast music at full volume when vandals attack it. The camera system, however, has not stopped an increasing number of vandals from singling out Tesla owners, usually in protest of Musk’s work in the Trump administration for the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).

One incident happened on March 29, the same day leftists coordinated protests around the country for a “Global Day of Action” against Musk. That Saturday also saw alleged instances of violence at protests. The demonstrations stemmed from an online call to action by groups such as the Disruption Project, which encourages activists to foment “uprisings,” find a “target’s” home address and other confrontational tactics.

Tesla’s press team did not respond to a request for comment.

One man allegedly caught on camera keying a Tesla SUV on March 24 apologized to the owner who confronted him in a parking lot in Pennsylvania, police and media reports said. The man faces charges of criminal mischief, harassment and disorderly conduct for allegedly carving a swastika onto the vehicle.

“I have nothing against your car, and I have nothing against you,” the suspect said while the owner filmed him in the parking lot. “Obviously, I have something against Elon Musk.” The man called his own behavior “misguided.”

The defendant’s lawyer told Fox News his “client is a proud father, long-time resident, and is currently undergoing cancer treatment” and that he would not comment publicly “pending the outcome of the case.”

One of the most aggressive acts caught by Sentry Mode was in the case of a man who drove an ATV-style vehicle into a Tesla on March 25. Texas police identified the man as Demarqeyun Marquize Cox, arrested him and said he allegedly gave two other nearby Teslas the same treatment while also writing “Elon” on them. The public defender office representing Cox did not respond to a voicemail from the Daily Caller News Foundation.

Tesla cameras also caught three other people in FloridaTexas and Arizona keying and smearing bubble gum on the vehicles in March. The three suspects named by police do not have attorneys listed in county records available for contact.

Many of the vandalism cases since Trump’s return have reportedly caused thousands of dollars in damage for individual owners. For example, the bubble gum incident in Florida brought $2,623.66 in costs, while another keying incident in Minnesota brought $3,200.

Some reported attacks on Tesla vehicles and chargers have gotten the attention of federal law enforcement, including cases of alleged firebombing or shooting.

Two other suspected vandals in New York, one in Minnesota and one in Mississippi have reportedly avoided arrest for now — with one owner declining to press charges — but were all seen on the Teslas’ cameras scratching up the vehicles. Police identified the Mississippi suspect as an illegal migrant from Cuba.

One Tesla owner in North Dakota ridiculed a man who allegedly carved the letter “F” into his Cybertruck in a Costco parking lot — as seen on the Cybertruck’s camera. The defendant faces charges of criminal mischief, and county records say he is representing himself in court.

“I can’t believe this guy is potentially ruining his life to follow a political ideology,” the owner told WDAY News.

“If you’re going to vandalize these vehicles, you’re going to get caught,” the owner said.

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Daily Caller

‘Drill, Baby, Drill’ Or $50 Oil — Trump Can’t Have Both

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From the Daily Caller News Foundation

By David Blackmon

President Donald Trump has often made clear his goal of cutting prices for energy as part of his overall agenda to break the back of chronic inflation left behind by the Biden presidency. When talking about this goal, the president has placed special emphasis on lowering the price of crude oil, given its integral relationship to gas prices at the pump and transportation-related costs which go into the price of food, clothing and other consumer goods. 

“A very big thing that I’m very happy with is oil is down,” Trump said in remarks in the Oval Office on Wednesday. “We’re getting that down. When energy comes down, prices are going to be coming down with it. So, in a very short period of time, we’ve done a very good job.” 

White House advisor Peter Navarro has been quoted by The New York Times and other media outlets as saying that an average oil price of $50 per barrel would help tame inflation and set the stage for a return to a healthier economy. If that is indeed the goal, this week’s confluence of events, featuring a bigger-than-expected increase in oil production quotas from the OPEC+ oil cartel preceded less than 24 hours earlier by the president’s announced reciprocal tariffs on a wide array of countries went a long way to doing the trick. 

Just prior to Trump’s tariff announcement Wednesday afternoon, the price for West Texas Intermediate crude stood at $70/bbl. Less than 48 hours later, the price had fallen below $61, a drop of about 15%. It was the largest 2-day decline in crude prices since 2021. How much of the price decrease is due to the tariffs as opposed to the OPEC+ agreement to pour another 137,000 barrels per day onto the international market is hard to know, but there is no doubt both actions had an impact.  

As I’ve noted previously, this action to force lower prices for oil and natural gas lies directly at odds with the concurrent Trump “drill, baby, drill” objective which he sees as a key part of his American Energy Dominance agenda. The White House gave a nod to the oil refining segment in the Wednesday tariff announcement by exempting energy imports, another action at least in part aimed at lowering prices for gasoline and diesel fuel.  

But that nod to the downstream segment does little for upstream companies who have seen supply chain muck-ups and Biden-era inflation raise break-even prices above Friday’s levels. The Q1 2025 Energy Survey Report published March 26 by the Dallas Federal Reserve estimates that drillers in the Permian Basin require a $61 oil price just to break even on drilling new shale wells. The needed breakeven price rises higher in other, less prolific basins. CNN quoted independent oil analyst Andy Lipow as saying that many upstream companies require prices closer to Monday’s $71/bbl level for new shale wells. It almost goes without saying that operators will have little incentive to “drill, baby, drill” if they stand to lose money doing it. 

In an interview with Fox Business host Stu Varney on Tuesday, Energy Secretary Chris Wright, himself a former oil industry executive, said, “If your state has expensive energy, it’s because of choices made by politicians in those states to virtue signal somehow they’re on some global mission. They’re going to solve climate change by making your utility bills more expensive and your businesses want to relocate out of the states. That’s just nonsense.” He added that Trump was pursuing energy policies based on common sense, saying, “common sense will deliver more investment in our country and lower energy prices.” 

No doubt, few executives in the industry would agree that a pursuit of $50 oil prices has anything to do with common sense for their companies. If prices should drop that far and linger there for any length of time, layoffs and idled drilling rigs will become the prevailing topic of the day in oil and gas.  

So, while the White House might continue touting its “drill, baby, drill” slogan for the time being, we won’t hear it echoing through the barbecue and Tex-Mex joints in Midland, Texas, for the time being. 

David Blackmon is an energy writer and consultant based in Texas. He spent 40 years in the oil and gas business, where he specialized in public policy and communications.

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