The Week in Woke
—Ace
Adi @Adi13Human rights lawyer Amal Clooney [George's wretched wife], you passionately called for the International Criminal Court to issue arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant over alleged 'genocide in Gaza.' Yet, curiously, as the daughter of a Syrian Druze father, you've remained silent while over 1,000 Syrian Druze have been massacred, amid reports of rape, abduction, and other atrocities. But since Jews aren't involved, the story seems to attract far less attention.
House Judiciary Committee: Biden's FBI smeared Catholics as terrorists.
The 51-page report comes after the FBI under former director Christopher Wray circulated an internal memo dubbed the Richmond Memorandum, created by the Richmond field office in 2023, which labeled traditional Catholics as "racially or ethnically motivated violent extremists."The report accuses the bureau of creating a "manufactured narrative to insert federal law-enforcement agents into places of worship." The report includes revelations that the FBI allegedly spied on a priest because he refused to discuss a private conversation that he had with a parishioner.
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"There appeared to be no legitimate law-enforcement purpose for investigating this priest," the report determined. "This new information suggests that the FBI's religious liberty abuses were more widespread than the FBI initially admitted and led the public to believe."
The report also found that the Richmond memorandum was not an isolated incident as previously believed, and that terms like "Radical Traditionalist Catholic" were used in 13 documents between 2009 and 2023.
"These new findings make it apparent that the FBI under President Biden and Director Wray withheld key information responsive to the Committee's oversight," the report reads. "The Committee remains committed to conducting oversight of the Biden-Harris Administration's abuse of federal law-enforcement resources against Catholic Americans."
New York ended four years of litigation by Christian wedding photographer Emilee Carpenter by paying her $225,000 in legal fees and promising not to enforce several laws that infringe Carpenter's First Amendment rights, leaving her free to avoid photographing same-sex weddings.The consent decree between Attorney General Letitia James and Carpenter's lawyers at the Alliance Defending Freedom follows a May ruling by U.S. District Judge Frank Geraci, nominated by President Obama, that it was "beyond debate" the Empire State cannot apply public accommodations laws to "expressive activity to compel speech."
The Democrat Party has endorsed Minneapolis Mayor Jonathan Frey's socialist Somali challenger.
From KSTP:
Minneapolis DFL Chair John Maraist confirmed to 5 EYEWITNESS NEWS that State Sen. Omar Fateh won the party's endorsement through a show of badges on Saturday night.An endorsement of Fateh, who is running as a Democratic Socialist, would create a unique moment for the city's DFL Party, possibly signaling a further shift for the party.
"People are starting to accept, you know, some more socialist and more, you know, to the left politics, which, in my view, is a good thing. It's a progressive thing," said Colton Baldus, a delegate in support of Fateh.
Current Mayor Jacob Frey's campaign manager released the following statement:
"This election should be decided by the entire city rather than the small group of people who became delegates, particularly in light of the extremely flawed and irregular conduct of this convention. Voters will now have a clear choice between the records and leadership of Sen. Fateh and Mayor Frey. We look forward to taking our vision to the voters in November."
I saw someone point out that Frey kneeled and cried for George Floyd. But he just wasn't woke enough for today's Democrat Communist Party.
They want to be promoted after only a few months, treat the office like their bedroom, show up in sweats or skimpy office-siren fits, FaceTime friends from their desks, and ghost their managers.This is the gist of employer complaints about Gen Z workers, who seem to be having a uniquely hard time getting along in the office -- much worse, managers say, than the generations before them. In a December 2024 survey of 1,000 employers by Intelligent.com, 12.5% said a Gen Z candidate had brought Mom or Dad to a job interview. The bosses are fed up.
Gen Zers, meanwhile, see things differently: From their perspective, millennial and Gen X managers have no work-life balance.
In other words: they work at work.
The generational divide has become starker in the past few months, as return-to-office policies have brought in Gen Zers for the first time -- in many cases after years of working and attending school remotely. In the Bay Area, the culture clash has led employers to a new solution: hiring etiquette experts to train young employees in basic workplace manners.Rosalinda Randall, a Marin-based etiquette coach, said inquiries have risen 50% over the last two months. The requests come from tech campus managers, winery execs, and even country clubs. All are a variation on the same complaint: Gen Z employees are treating the office like an extension of their homes.
Netflix will not be renewing their eye-popping $100 million deal with Prince Harry and Meghan Markle.The Duke and Duchess of Sussex signed the lucrative deal in 2020 to earn some cash after quitting royal life and moving to the US.
However, the couple still have other plans for the future.
"There are more TV projects coming soon with both the duke and duchess," a source told Page Six. They also are set to sign a first-look deal with the streamer when their exclusive deal ends this year.
Ugh. I think a first-look deal is just a kind of option. You're selling the option to someone to have the first chance to buy a show. It's much, much cheaper than buying a show. Like an option to produce a screenplay might cost $10,000, but if the screenplay is actually produced, you'd get $100,000.
So I don't think this is a big payday for the unemployed losers but still Netflix is paying them for something. Why? Do they literally just want to spend themselves into unprofitability? After three years of wretched duds that no one likes, what is left of the Markles that you'd need a "first look" contract for?
Where are the lefties screaming about this? The Markles are woke AF, too. Shouldn't they be guaranteed lifetime media contracts like Stephen Colbert?
Woke is officially dead. Celebrities are now denouncing wokeness without fear of cancellation.
Legendary musician Billy Joel told Bill Maher he doesn't care if the far left complains about his statements or music anymore.During the latest episode of Maher's "Club Random" podcast released Monday, the two discussed the "woke" left's reaction to anything it disagrees with, with Joel admitting he is over being concerned about what that group thinks of him.
"At this point... I'm inured to it," Joel said in reply to Maher asking if he doesn't care if woke people criticize him any longer.
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The host continued, noting how mad leftists get when people don't declare, "'Trump's the worst.'"...
"And you don't care what they say about you -- the woke?" Maher asked.
"At this point, no," the musician replied, though he noted how he tries to understand the point of view of people who disagree with him.
In the UK, students were told to wear clothing advertising their cultures and ethnic identities.
A native-born British girl wore a Union Jack dress. She was kicked out of school and could not return until she changed. Turns out the school only meant "burkas." Anyone celebrating their British identity is a racist.
The UK needs their own Trump:
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Ninth Circuit Panel: No, You Can't Discriminate Against Christians Just Because They Refuse To Say They'd Support Transing Their Children
—Ace
Oregon attempted to block a Christian woman from adopting a child because she refused to say she'd support genital mutilation for the child if the child hypothetically decided to be "Trans."
The Ninth Circuit Court of appeals overturned Oregon's decision and rebuked them for blatant invidious discrimination.
Judges nominated by presidents Trump, Clinton and George W. Bush walk into a First Amendment case about compelled affirmation of gender identity and facilitation of medicalized transitions as a condition of adoption. The punchline may surprise you.The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on Thursday blocked Oregon's Department of Human Services from denying Jessica Bates' application to adopt the siblings she is fostering based on her refusal to honor the asserted gender identity of "hypothetical adopted children" in speech or actions, with the Trump and Clinton nominees overruling the Bush nominee.
U.S District Judge Adrienne Nelson, nominated by President Biden, denied a preliminary injunction for the widowed Christian mother of five in 2023, arguing the failure to "respect a child's LGBTQ+ identity imposes collateral harm on the child's development, safety, and physical well-being."
Of course. Note that is the lowly district court judge making the original lawless ruling. The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, acting through a three-judge panel, then overruled this woke cow.
Oregon has "training materials" for prospective adoptive parents, called "RAFT." One of the "guidances" this woke manual demands is fealty to the trans cause for all adoptive parents.
"Oregon only initiated its investigation into Bates's beliefs after she expressed disagreement with the RAFT training," which it said defines its "expectation" for adhering to the regulation that adoption applicants "respect, accept and support" the gender identity of adoptive children, said the opinion by Judge Daniel Bress, joined by Judge Michael Hawkins."In the context of raising children, such respect and support inevitably both restricts and compels speech," as Judge Nelson found, they said, dinging Bush nominee Judge Richard Clifton's dissent for botching the factual record and hence the correct review standards.
"The situation would be no different if the state had restricted parental speech favoring more 'progressive' views of sexuality and gender identity, while compelling speech along the lines of Bates's more traditional understanding," according to the opinion.
The duo said a "state's general conception of the child's best interest does not create a force field against the valid operation of other constitutional rights," such that it could deny adoption based on the "political view, race, or religious affiliations" of prospective parents.
This is unbelievable: Oregon will refuse you an adoption if you won't take your children to "pride" sexual kink events and fetish parades.
Oregon deems as unfit prospective parents who won't take young children "to events like pride parades," as ODHS explicitly demanded of Bates, which is "false and incredibly dangerous," Bates's lawyer Jonathan Scruggs of the Alliance Defending Freedom said in celebrating the ruling."The 9th Circuit was right to remind Oregon that the foster and adoption system is supposed to serve the best interests of children, not the state's ideological crusade," he said.
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Oregon's RAFT training is far-reaching even by the standards of gender affirmation, resembling a Canadian gender studies course more than American adoption requirements.
The Bress opinion recounts its distinctives, referring to children by the LGBTQ variant "LGBTQI2-S," which is common in Canada and whose last abbreviation means "two-spirit," a modern indigenous term of disputed authenticity.
RAFT claims "an infinite number of pronouns" exist and that prospective parents must always ask for them first. Regardless of whether their children identify as LGBTQ, parents should display "symbols indicating an LGBTQ-affirming environment" and provide books and media that celebrate LGBTQ people such as "transgender women in history."
The materials take aim at religion, claiming "faith-based communities" can be sources of "prejudice and rejection" and instructing parents not to force youth to attend religious activities "openly hostile or unsupportive of people with diverse" sexual orientation, gender identity and gender expression.
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Adoptive parents must give children "the ability to discuss, provide, and obtain authorization for medically necessary, transition-related treatment, if desired," referring to puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones and surgeries to resemble the opposite sex that allegedly improve mental health and reduce suicides, a claim with little rigorous evidence.
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The majority repeatedly cites RAFT examples as both strong suggestions and mandates, "broadly reflective of a particular viewpoint on sexual orientation and gender identity, which parents must actively promote under Oregon's policy."
The state's claim that it's regulating speech only "incidental to conduct" would have been "much stronger" if it "simply outlawed harassment or denigration of LGBTQ children --which Bates strongly avers she would not do," but its speech regulation "predominates," they said.
That's not the only big win this week.
Due to Trump's E.O. demanding that women's sports be reserved for -- now here's a twist -- women, the Olympic and Paralympic Committees have banned men from participating in women's sports.
Trump is rolling back Woke like Reagan rolled back the Soviet Union.
From the NYT:
The United States Olympic & Paralympic Committee quietly changed its eligibility rules on Monday to bar transgender women from competing in Olympic women's sports, and now will comply with President Trump's executive order on the issue, according to a post on the organization's website.The new policy, expressed in a short, vaguely worded paragraph, is tucked under the category of "USOPC Athlete Safety Policy" on the site, and does not include details of how the ban will work. Nor does the new policy include the word "transgender" or the title of Mr. Trump's executive order, "Keeping Men Out of Women's Sports," referring to it instead as "Executive Order 14201." ...
The committee's new policy means that the national governing bodies of sports federations in the United States -- which oversee sporting events for all ages, from youth to masters' competitions -- now must follow the U.S.O.P.C.'s lead, according to several chief executives of sports within the Olympic movement.
The Olympic Committee is so afraid to make this change that they basically hid it and refuse to comment further on it. But apparently their hand was forced by Trump's E.O.
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NPR's Top Editor Resigns After Propaganda Network Loses $500 Million in Federal Funding, Claims Her Resignation Has Nothing to Do With the Cuts
—Ace
NPR's top editor has tendered her resignation days after the radio station lost $500million in federal funding for an alleged bias against conservatives.Edith Chapin, who serves as editor-in-chief and acting chief content officer at National Public Radio, announced her departure on Tuesday.
Chapin told an NPR reporter she quit rather than being fired and that she was not leaving due to the funding cuts.
I mean...
She also said she handed in her notice two weeks ago ahead of the cuts, which Trump repeatedly promised on the campaign trail....
Supporters of the cuts to federal funding - which also affected PBS - said it was unfair to expect all Americans to subsidize a network with such an isolated worldview.
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'I have had two big executive jobs for two years and I want to take a break. I want to make sure my performance is always top-notch for the company,' she said, after joining NPR from CNN in 2012 as chief international editor.
'It's not a good time to do it, but it's never a good time.'
'I needed to pick a date and share my decision.'
'The best thing we can do is do the best work possible every day,' she said as debate continues over whether the company really engaged in systemic bias as the administration claims.
'We need to hear from all kinds of people - and that is our job.
'And we need to be as clear and transparent as we possibly can, and our audiences can decide how useful we are for them.'
'One of the things that was attractive when I came here was this philosophy of all things considered,' she continued.
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Maher also addressed statistics that showed the broadcaster having 87 registered Democrats on-staff this time last year and not a single Republican.
The disparity, Maher conceded, was 'concerning - if true.' She insisted NPR does not track such affiliations.
Apparently this editor was hired to review stories for "fairness and balance."
Crackerjack job.
I don't know what's going on here, but here's my speculation: This woman was hired as a fig-leaf concession. NPR had been exposed as hopelessly leftwing by Uri Berliner, who they then suspended and forced out, and they needed to placate Congress by pretending they cared about balance.
But the moment Congress cancelled their funding, they decided they were all done with this very weak effort at pretending, so they had no further use of their "fairness and balance" fig-leaf editor.
NPR's batty wine-aunt CEO says that Republicans cancelled funding for her perverse propaganda network just because they don't want people of marginalized communities to have voices.
"This argument about public media being 'biased' is a stalking horse. We report on soybean farmers and LGBTQ activism. We report on coal miners and eco-warriors," she continued. "Having non-White voices and perspectives on air does not make us woke. Covering the existence of disagreement and difference in our country does not make us biased. It makes us reflective of the complex, diverse nation we serve."Maher said NPR would "take a moment to mourn" and ultimately move forward.
Ex-NPR editor Uri Berliner roasted the outlet last year over its biased coverage on such issues as COVID-19, Hunter Biden's laptop and the Russiagate saga. He soon after resigned and joined The Free Press.
Woke white CEOs are very eager to deny job opportunities to white men to give the jobs to "diverse, marginalized people." Strangely, they never give up their own jobs, despite being whiter than Bjork's thighs in winter.
And now: a former NPR CEO says that maybe we don't need state media at all.
What a concept!
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Alligator Alcatraz Airlines Begins Sending Illegals Back Home; Vance Predicts We May See Net Negative Immigration In the Next Year
—Ace
DeSantis is flying the illegals out.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) said Friday that the Department of Homeland Security has started flying illegal immigrants out of his state's "Alligator Alcatraz" detention facility."I'm pleased to report that those flights out of Alligator Alcatraz by DHS have begun," DeSantis said, Fox News reported. "The cadence is increasing. We've already had a number of flights, in the last few days, we've had hundreds of illegals [that] have been removed from here."
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"The whole purpose is to make this be a place that can facilitate increased frequency and numbers of deportations of illegal aliens, and that is the goal. And one of the reasons why this was a sensible spot is because you have this runway that's right here. You don't have to drive them an hour to an airport. You go a couple thousand feet and they can be on a plane and out of here," DeSantis also said.
Vice President Vance thinks that we may see net negative migration -- outward migration -- this year.
Vice President JD Vance defended the Trump administration's immigration policies in a speech Wednesday, predicting that the United States was on the cusp of "net negative immigration."Speaking at an artificial intelligence summit hosted by the All In Podcast and the Hill and Valley Forum in Washington, the vice president addressed conservative critics who claim the White House is not doing enough to fight illegal immigration.
Noting that the Trump administration has faced legal and practical struggles while pursuing its goal of 1 million deportations this year, Vance nevertheless said that if you consider the "net number" of deportations, the Trump administration has been "wildly successful."
"In 2025 we will have the first net negative immigration number in about 50 or 60 years in the United States," Vance said.
He also responded to a claim that Biden, get this, deported more illegals than Trump. He called that a "totally fake statistic," noting that Biden counted simple turn-arounds at the border as "deportations." That is, if you're turned away at the border, you're "deported."
We have never before counted simple turn-aways as "deportations."
This is the same fakery Obama perpetuated, in order to laughingly call himself "the Deporter In Chief" while flooding the country with illegals.
The left continues agitating for its antifa street militias to kill ICE by pushing hoaxes about people being "disappeared" by ICE.
That article recounts the Guatamalan liar who claimed her grandfather -- who had died peacefully of natural causes in 2019 -- had been "disappeared" by ICE two weeks ago.
It then cites a couple of other recent "disappearing" hoaxes:
In another hoax, Yuriana Julia "Juli" Pelaez Calderon, a 41-year-old illegal immigrant, was charged with conspiracy and making false statements for orchestrating a fake kidnapping by supposed ICE agents to scam donations and discredit federal law enforcement.On June 30, her family and attorneys claimed she was ambushed at a Los Angeles Jack in the Box, taken to San Ysidro, and pressured to self-deport, sparking a GoFundMe campaign that raised $80 before being shut down. The family and their attorneys held press conferences, where their claims were eagerly repeated by local media.
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) denied the kidnapping claims, and surveillance footage and phone records confirmed the story was a hoax, showing Calderon freely leaving the restaurant.
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In another disturbing incident of disinformation, in a TikTok post with over 800,000 views, a woman says, "They're throwing the deportees out of the planes and into the ocean. [...] they're shackling people, flying out into open ocean and throwing them out. The flight patterns, there is people tracking them on this app, the flights going out with the deportees. Watching them go out to the open ocean and circle back. A family in Italy saw five shackled bodies wash up on the shore."
These claims have surged on social media since the original posting, and got millions of views before others posted comments noting that the claims were wholly unsubstantiated.
These hoaxes are spread to drive up leftwing enthusiasm and also to encourage the left's street assassins to start killing people. They intend to use hoaxes to win either by the ballot or the bullet.
Note that the leftwing media is not pushing back against this dangerous misinformation, offered WITHOUT EVIDENCE, at all, just like they never push back on any of the left's misinformation.
And speaking of the left encouraging its various foreign assassins and domestic terrorists to kill American police: One of the thugs who shot the off-duty CPB officer was cleared for entry into the country via a Zoom call.
AThe illegal immigrant accused of shooting an off-duty border officer in a Manhattan park was only vetted using Zoom before being released into the US under the Biden administration, The Post has learned.Dominican Republic national Miguel Francisco Mora Nunez, 21, waltzed across the US-Mexico border into Arizona in April 2023 -- during the raging migrant crisis that saw federal agents take drastic measures in an attempt to free up resources.
That month alone, the US saw a wave of more than 183,000 migrants come across the southern border.
"The whole system was overwhelmed by what the Biden administration was allowing," Charles Marino, former senior law enforcement adviser to DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano, told The Post.
"The endgame was to facilitate the processing of as many illegals into the country as possible," Marino said.
They've all been vetted, doncha know.
How Obama Took Hillary Clinton's Dirty OppoDump Cocaine and Cooked Off the Impurities to Turn It Into Clean, Healthy Psyops Crack
—Ace
The DOJ announced that it is forming a "strike force" to investigate and potentially prosecute Obama and his co-conspirators in the anti-Trump Putsch:
GRAHAM, CORNYN CALL FOR SPECIAL PROSECUTOR: Sens. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) and John Cornyn (R-Texas) are jointly calling for Attorney General Pam Bondi to appoint a Special Prosecutor to assess evidence former President Barack Obama managed the Russia-gate effort to undermine Donald Trump during his first term in the Oval Office.
-- Mark Tapscott at Instapundit
UPDATE (FROM GLENN): Special prosecutors don't seem that good at getting to the bottom of things.
Yeah, he's right, special prosecutors seem to mostly pursue political ends, and the end here is to bury the story, because it's too big. Once you give a matter to a special prosecutor, his office is a black box from which no information flows until, one day, many years from now, he emerges from his office to declare "No intent."
The Obama intelligence community's claim that Russian President Vladimir Putin authorized dirty tricks to try and help Donald Trump win the 2016 election was based on "one scant, unclear and unverifiable fragment of a sentence from one of the substandard [intelligence] reports," according to a just-declassified report that had been locked away in a CIA vault.Nevertheless, former CIA Director John Brennan ordered agency analysts to use the claim in the Intelligence Community Assessment issued during the Obama administration's final days -- even though the ICA itself noted that how the information on Putin's plans was obtained was "not explicitly clear."
A 46-page report by the House of Representatives released Wednesday found that the source of the claim about Putin -- reportedly a Russian defector living in Northern Virginia described as "anti-Trump" -- merely speculated to Brennan about something he had been told by somebody else: namely, that Putin was "counting on" Trump winning.
I thought this was Iggy Danchenko, the permanent floating employee of various Democrat grifter operations who wanted a position in the would-be Hillary Clinton administration. But Sperry thinks it's someone else.
ICA participants interpreted the informant's phrase "counting on" several different ways, the report said. Many NSA and CIA officials viewed "counting on" as meaning the same thing as "expected," which is much different than the language -- Putin "preferred" Trump -- Brennan's five handpicked drafters used in the ICA.The congressional review determined that "the ICA did not cite any [classified] report where Putin directly indicated helping Trump win was the objective." (Emphasis added.)
No Corroborating Intelligence
The report then drops a bombshell: "The ICA judgment on Putin's thoughts about helping candidate Trump does not stand if [Brennan's] single interpretation of the fragment [from the tip that Putin was 'counting on' Trump winning] is wrong, because there is no other intelligence corroborating it."
The 2019 report, which investigated the spycraft that went into the highly classified and restricted version of the ICA, found that the Obama intelligence community's assessment of Russia's intentions changed sharply after Trump's surprising victory.
On the eve of the 2016 election, Brennan sent a "Fusion Cell" memo to Obama summarizing all the most secret, compartmented intel gathered on Trump and Russia. According to the House report declassified and released by DNI Tulsi Gabbard on Wednesday, that memo " made no mention of Putin 'aspiring' for a Trump victory." Although the Russian defector had shared his thoughts about Putin with Brennan in July, the CIA director's Nov. 6 memo concluded, "Putin expected [Clinton] to win."
But then in early December, after Obama ordered a new assessment, Brennan dusted off the informant's second-hand hearsay, which had been shelved as unreliable. The CIA director, who had previously worked for Obama in the White House, suddenly insisted it underpin the new conclusion about Putin's motives.
"The major 'high confidence' judgment of the ICA rests on one opinion about a text fragment with uncertain meaning," the House report found. "This text -- which would not have been published without [Brennan's] orders to do so -- is cited using only one interpretation of its meaning and without considering alternative interpretations," in violation of Intelligence Community Directive 203. One alternative was that Putin was "counting on" Trump winning the primary and nomination at the GOP Convention that July, just two weeks after the informant provided the tip, not the general election in November 2106.
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Brennan, who could not be reached for comment, has strongly defended his work. Requests for comment from Comey and his attorney went unanswered.
Harvey and other investigators spent hundreds of hours inside a highly secure room called a SCIF at CIA headquarters poring over the raw intelligence materials that supposedly backstopped the ICA's conclusions. In an exclusive interview with RealClearInvestigations, he said it became clear, after closer inspection, that the raw information the informant provided lacked credibility. "There really was no evidence that Putin supported Trump," Harvey said.
Even so, Brennan as well as Comey, who also handled the informant, pushed to include his tip in the ICA to back the judgment Putin worked to help Trump win the election, all the while concealing their star source's identity, background and reliability from most of the participants involved in the crafting of the ICA.
"They knew he was not reliable and they tried to hide access to him," Harvey said. "They knew he had bad sources. This stuff was weak."
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Brennan's informant is believed to be Oleg Smolenkov, who previously worked in the Russian Embassy in Washington and later as a government foreign policy adviser in Moscow, before moving back to the D.C. area in early 2017.
Brennan said his source could not be revealed because Putin might have him executed. However, reporters easily found Smolenkov living in a six-bedroom home in Stafford, Va., listed in his and his wife's real names.
It's not known if Smolenkov was paid for his information. The CIA and FBI declined to comment.
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Explaining why NSA dissented from the key Putin conclusion, former NSA Director Adm. Mike Rogers argued the human source it was based on "did not have direct access" to insider information about Putin. Also, he added, "I didn't see multiple sources."
Foreign press outlets have noted that Smolenkov "would not have direct access to secret information at either the Russian Embassy in the U.S. or while working for the presidential administration in Moscow."
Mollie Hemingway has a fresh report about all of the professional, career intelligence analysts -- the ones we're supposed to always trust above political appointees like John Brennan -- who objected to Brennan's dirty oppo file cocaine and did not believe it could be cooked into pure, healthy Organic Crack with probiotis and anti-inflammatory riboflavin.
Senior intelligence officials strenuously fought the demands of former FBI Director James Comey and other Obama intelligence chiefs to include the false and unverified Steele dossier in an official assessment of Russian activities ordered by President Barack Obama in the closing weeks of his presidency, records reviewed exclusively by The Federalist show. The records, which are related to ongoing criminal investigations into Comey and other top intelligence officials for their roles in launching the Russia collusion hoax, provide damning evidence of Obama intelligence chiefs' malfeasance beyond the explosive information released Wednesday by Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard.Previous government investigations into the Russia collusion hoax dryly described the opposition merely as officials having "expressed concern" about using the infamous Steele dossier because it was "not completely vetted." But records reviewed by The Federalist reveal career intelligence officials expressed outright shock at the poor quality of the reporting that the FBI repeatedly insisted be included in the Intelligence Community Assessment (ICA) -- and objected to any reference to the dodgy dossier.
"Based solely on what we DO know now, my bottom line is this -- unless FBI is prepared to provide much better sourcing -- I believe this should NOT be included in the paper," one official wrote, caps and all. Noting that the document had not been formally issued as an FBI product, the official stressed it suffered from "POOR SOURCE TRADECRAFT," had "extremely sketchy" sourcing, and "simply does not meet normal [intelligence community] standards."
The Steele dossier, a product of the Hillary Clinton presidential campaign, was a collection of salacious and unverified stories about rival presidential candidate Donald Trump supposedly colluding with Russia. Clinton secretly funded the information operation and the group she hired to create the dossier spread the false information it contained to reporters, politicians, and the FBI.
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Former FBI Director James Comey's demand the ICA include the Steele dossier helped Brennan develop the false but explosive narrative that Russia interfered in the 2016 election in order to help Trump. Intelligence officials immediately pushed back on including the dossier in the ICA, with one senior official recorded as saying, in materials reviewed exclusively by The Federalist, that the fact that the source was paid at first by an "anti-Trump Republican, and later a different Democrat client" meant the author knew what his clients wanted. He "clearly had a motive to pass along info, however poorly sourced, since it generated revenue," the official warned.
Intelligence officials also worried that Steele had relied on sub-sources whose identity and credibility were unknown to the FBI. The concern was validated in January 2017 when interviews with the primary subsource, Igor Danchenko, showed the document's scurrilous allegations lacked credibility. Rather than admit their error, FBI officials continued to defend their use of the dossier for years and hid Danchenko's identity from congressional scrutiny by hiring him as an informant.
FBI officials insisted to the officials working on the ICA that the information in the dossier was good. One intelligence official wondered why, if the information was as good as the FBI claimed, Democrats did not deploy it against Trump during the campaign, the records stated.
The FBI countered that Steele was a credible source whose reporting had, at least somewhat, been corroborated. The intelligence officials were skeptical.
"If, as we have been told, FBI has some corroborating material from an ongoing investigation, can that be used? I thought they never do that? If they feel this overrides the investigation, some of the corroborating reporting must be included in the paper. If not, I would argue for dropping the page," the official said, explaining in detail "Why we should oppose inclusion of the FBI material."
The previously unreported records reviewed by The Federalist also showed the FBI stressing that since the Steele dossier was already "out there," it should be included in the body of the ICA.
A senior intelligence official eviscerated the argument, responding: "Just how 'out there' is it? All we know for sure is that much of the content of the document appeared in [Mother Jones] in October and a copy of something is in Sen. McCain's hands." The senior official added that including the dossier in the ICA would essentially confirm the salacious reporting, punctuating his point by comparing the Steele reporting to a December 12, 2016 National Enquirer story headlined, "MUSLIM SPIES IN OBAMA'S CIA!" That article included quotes from sources alleging that the agency had 55 double agents, so the analyst asked rhetorically if that detail should be included in an intelligence assessment as well.
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Biden's Former Top Aide Ron Klain Testifies, Sticking to the Party Line That Biden Was Not "Politically Viable" But Still Was Totally Competent to Remain President
Hunter Biden: Hot Damn, Crack Is My Jam!!!
—Ace
This is the line Nancy Pelosi created to push Biden out of the race while keeping him in office. (Because Biden never, ever would have agreed to step down as president.)
The Democrats kept insisting that he wasn't "viable" as a candidate, while denying he was incapacitated to serve as president.
But why was he not "viable"? Because, of course, the country had seen that he was not mentally fit to continue on as president.
But they don't concede that part. They just say "The polls showed him losing, despite being the most successful president of the modern era."
Well if he's the most successful president of the modern era -- spoiler, he was not -- then why are the polls showing he can't win?
Because, of course, the country had seen that he was not mentally fit to continue on as president.
But they keep pretending these two questions -- about his political viability and about his mental fitness -- are entirely unrelated.
Because only by separating the two questions could they get the stubborn senile Biden to back out of the race.
This is the blatant lie that Ron Klain stuck to.
Former White House chief of staff Ron Klain revealed Thursday that former President Joe Biden wasn't seen as "politically viable" by either his national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, or by ex-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton during his final year in office, a source told The Post.Klain -- a member of a purported "Politburo" that made high-level decisions as Biden grew less clear-headed during his term -- made the stunning claims to the House Oversight Committee in response to accusations that senior aides shielded the 46th president's physical and mental infirmity.
In the sitdown, Klain denied that Biden, now 82, lacked the cognitive acuity to govern or that he was too old to run for re-election in 2024, according to a source familiar with his remarks.
But the longtime adviser admitted his boss was "less energetic," had a poorer memory and frequently mixed up names -- a problem that worsened with time, the source added.
Sullivan confided to Klain that Biden was also "less effective" in 2024 than in 2022, the source said.
Adrienne Watson, a spokeswoman for Sullivan, told The Post Thursday night that "Jake did not have a conversation with Ron about Joe Biden running for president before the [June 27] debate."
Elsewhere in his interview, Klain divulged that he'd donated $5,000 for then-first son Hunter Biden's legal defense fund at the behest of attorney Abbe Lowell, who repped the younger Biden.
"Evidence emerges on a daily basis that would suggest Joe Biden wasn't mentally fit to be president," Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer (R-Ky.) told reporters, citing claims that the former chief executive was put on "mind-altering" sleeping pills before his debate flop against former President Donald Trump.
Klain told the Oversight panel he was not aware Biden was taking Ambien ahead of the performance, a claim Hunter Biden made in a Monday interview with YouTube personality Andrew Callaghan.
...
Former Biden White House aides weren't surprised that Klain would be answering questions -- noting that he's had a rocky relationship with his former boss over his willingness to be quoted in tell-all books like Chris Whipple's tome "Uncharted."
"Ron Klain taking the opportunity to speak is so classic -- always yapping," said one former official.
Ed Morrissey quotes passages from Uncharted which certainly suggest that Biden was mentally unfit (which then made him "politically unviable.")
And those passages are based on Klain's admissions.
From the Free Beacon:
Klain, the White House chief of staff from 2021 to 2023, was "startled" by Biden's declining mental and physical state when he went back to work for the octogenarian president in June 2024, according to excerpts from Chris Whipple's upcoming book Uncharted published in the Guardian.Klain had "never seen [Biden] so exhausted and out of it," Whipple writes. "Biden was unaware of what was happening in his own campaign. Halfway through the session, the president excused himself and went off to sit by the pool." ...
Klain had to cut short the two mock debates he had organized for Biden.
"The first was scheduled to last 90 minutes but Klain called it off after 45. The president's voice was shot and so was his grasp of the subject," Whipple writes. Less than 30 minutes into the second mock debate, Biden went off to bed, saying he was "just too tired to continue," according to Whipple.
Morrissey points out that Hunter Biden's new "Ambien Defense" -- of course the drug addict fabricates a drug-related defense -- makes no sense. Taking an Ambien the night before would not continue affecting Biden at 9pm the following night. And besides, Biden was also flailing, failing, and floundering in his debate prep.
This was not a one-night thing.
Speaking of Hunter Biden -- I said he was running for office, but I thought he'd be running for a House seat.
David Strom may be trolling me but he figures that Biden, Inc. is going to need a bigger office to continue grifting from. You can't support a big Crime Family on the minor ducats you can collect as a congresscrackhead.
Strom says Hunter's taking over Beau's mission -- running for president.
Again, boy, I sure hope he's trolling.
Or do I?
Hunter for President. He's done it once; he can do it again. If you liked Joe Biden's presidency, elect the man who helped run the autopen.I am only half joking, folks. Hunter Biden might be running for President of the United States. He's already mused about what he would do as president, and he is on a tour of the podcasts to defend the Joe Biden administration.
He could be running for president.
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Democrats Post Graph To Show Prices Are At the Highest Ever, But There's a Problem
Update: The US Loses $200 Billion Per Year in Foreign Remittances
—Ace
The graph showed that the monster inflation occurred solely under Biden. Yes, prices continue to be high -- we never actually deflate prices, the best we do is not inflate them further -- but the graph plainly showed that Biden, not Trump, was responsible for all of the inflation.
And the Democrats, who are super-smart you guys, thought this chart was an Own.
After it was pointed out that the chart was an Own but a Self-Own, they deleted it.
The Democratic Party on Thursday deleted a questionable social media post that appeared to try to blame President Donald Trump for "record high" grocery prices.The post on X shared a graph that showed grocery prices in all major food categories going up over the past four years due to inflation, but did not include a spot for 2025. However, a caption on the graph claimed the prices were higher now than in July of 2024.
The original post included the caption "Trump's America." Just The News has verified that the post existed and has since been deleted. The Trump administration has also shared the post.
The party has not commented on why the post was removed, but the post was ratio'd with 9,500 comments, compared to 6,200 likes and 4,700 reposts.
Trump's Rapid Response account reposted the chart, this time showing Biden's term in comparison with the price hikes.
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THE MORNING RANT: The EV De-Transition Is Accelerating– 7/25/2025
—Buck Throckmorton
The electric vehicle era has brought forth a terrifying new hazard on the open seas – unextinguishable fires on automobile transport ships as the EVs on board produce a cascade of runaway thermal lithium fires. Several ships have been lost in recent years, most recently the Morning Midas, which ultimately sank. As I documented a couple weeks ago, ”The next big conversation needs to be on where these explosive ordnance vehicles are allowed and not allowed. Following the Morning Midas’ sinking, it may become tougher for cargo lines to obtain insurance for ships carrying EVs. Insurers would also be well within their rights to deny coverage to buildings with parking garages put at structural risk by EV fires.
Pacific Ocean carrier Matson has come up with a real simple solution. It just announced that it is not going to transport EVs any longer. This prohibition also applies to plug-in hybrid vehicles and stand-alone lithium-ion phosphate batteries.
Transportation services company Matson has suspended shipments of electric vehicles (EVs) and lithium iron phosphate (LFP) batteries – a subtype of lithium-ion battery chemistry commonly used in EVs – over concerns related to fire risks during transit.
More carriers will likely follow, especially when insurance becomes too expensive, or completely unattainable.
[h/t to Scampydog for sending me this story.]
Team EV tried to use the power of government to deny me the right to buy an internal combustion (“ICE” ) vehicle, making EVs my only legal option. Thanks to Donald Trump, Lee Zeldin, and the Republican Congress, EV mandates are being rolled back and the $7,500 federal incentive for EV purchases goes away in a few weeks. But the EV bros and their eco-communist allies will never give up on trying to force you and me into their lithium-laden external combustion vehicles. Team EV will just sit tight until the next Democrat is elected President, and then try to once again outlaw ICE vehicles
At this point, I am receptive to an “ICE mandate” in retaliation for the EV mandate they tried to impose on me. Team EV needs to suffer a total defeat in the EV battles, not just a setback. As I wrote at The Pipeline a year ago,”They came after us and we repelled their first assault, but simply repelling an adversary’s attack only sets the stage for their next assault. They must suffer a loss, and they must put all their energy into not suffering any more losses, to ensure that they don’t get the opportunity to come after our gasoline-powered cars again.”
Which brings me to this big, beautiful, tariff-related attack on the EV market:
“U.S. Set to Impose 93.5% Tariff on Graphite from China” [Bloomberg – 7/17/2025]
It is not possible to manufacture EV batteries without graphite, which is almost exclusively sourced from China. EV fanboys are panicking, because this will make EVs much more expensive, further killing off what little demand actually exists without federal subsidies. Spencer Hakimian lamented on Twitter, ”How are we supposed to build electric cars then?” To which our own Comrade Arthur replied, ”That’s the neat thing. You don’t.”
This is effectively an ICE vehicle mandate! When Joe Biden’s EPA mandated unachievable emissions results from automakers, it may not have been labeled an “EV mandate,” but it served that purpose. This is much the same. There will be nothing stopping manufacturers from building and selling all the EVs they want, they just need battery suppliers to mine the graphite domestically or pay the 93% tariff.
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The Morning Report — 7/25/25
—J.J. Sefton
Good morning kids, as I have written about, or at the least have attempted to write about in my tenure as your personal envoy/sherpa of the news, the differentiation and identification of the disease from merely the symptoms of societal rot and dissolution.
A or at least the shining example that is coming to the fore, despite the media's shameless and desperate attempts to obfuscate and distort if not completely bury it is Obamagate, which Tulsi Gabbard to her credit has revealed what we all knew or at the barest of minimums suspected, was that Barack Obama either orchestrated or at the very least knew about and/or approved ofthe Intel community's combined operation with Hillary Clinton to manufacture a case that Donald Trump colluded with Vladimir Putin to somehow sabotage the 2016 election. And then afterward, use this manufactured case of treason to destroy his presidency if not him personally by tarring and feathering him as a traitor. Dear Lord, you talk about projection, especially given the background of Obama himself.
But as I stated how is it that institutions that are in place which are intended to safeguard our freedoms and society at large turn out to be the greatest threat to both of those things? Where is the failing? Well, as Shakespeare wrote "The fault lies not in our stars but in ourselves."
As President Trump though so accurately observed, they're not out to get me, they're out to get you! I'm just standing in the way. So terribly true as we have learned and seen with our own eyes despite the attempts by the Propagandists to convince us otherwise. As horrendous a crime as this was, and remains a stain on our society, so long as the perpetrators are left unpunished which the corruption being as dark and deep as it is I sadly have to assume will forever be the case. Regardless of the culpability of the perpetrators, the lack of resolve (so far Gabbard notwithstanding) of those to attempt to right his most horrendous of wrongs is just as bad. Yes, fear of both political and personal retribution if not the justified fear for personal safety of oneself and one's families surely are factors. But that said, if you cannot take the heat, then get out of the kitchen. The crime is bad enough, lack of resolve to preserve, protect and defend the Republic has just as deleterious consequences going forward.
Psaki-Psircling back to Trump's observations about who the criminals are after, we have this:
The House Judiciary Committee has released an interim staff report showing that the Biden administration and the FBI manufactured a false narrative of Catholic Americans as violent extremists.New documents obtained by the Committee show that the 2023 Richmond memorandum from former FBI Director Christopher Wray that described traditional Catholics as “racially or ethnically motivated violent extremists,” wasn’t an isolated incident.
Commenting on Report: How the Biden-Wray FBI Manufactured a False Narrative of Catholic Americans as Violent Extremists,” Congressman Jim Jordan (R-OH), Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, said, “we now know that the Biden Admin’s targeting of Catholics was worse than we thought.”
Yes indeed, they're after us and they always will be. And as I noted yesterday and in days past, it begins and ends in the schools where future generations of our tormenters are "groomed" so to speak as our supposed elites/superiors and the rest are conitioned to believe that monstrous fiction and that we must believe and obey them for our own betterment.
Some continuing good news on the economic front, with unfortunately the continuing corruption of hack-in-black judges on the immigration front. Oh well. . .
And lastly, a quick shout-out and thank you for your continued support in hitting our tip jar. It truly is appreciated more than you can know.
Have a great weekend!
- ABOVE THE FOLD, BREAKING, NOTEWORTHY
- Revelations about the Russia collusion hoax confirm our intel agencies are incompatible with democratic self-government and the rule of law.
The Intelligence Community Needs To Be Dismantled
- All those illegal aliens provide cheap, and sometimes illicit, services for the ruling classes.
They’re Not Sanctuary Cities; They’re Slavery Cities
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Daily Tech News 25 July 2025
—Pixy Misa
Top Story- Intel plans to lay off up to 30% of its employees. (WCCFTech)
Things are bad.
- And to cancel processes beyond 18A (1.8nm) unless it can find a major external customer. (Tom's Hardware)
Very bad.
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You Only Get An ONT On Days That End In Y
—WeirdDave
Howdy folks! How is everyone tonight?
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Insert Title Here Cafe
—Ace
Odda, Norway
Dog is happy that his master is home.
Failed service dog dropped out of service dog school. He's supposed to "boop" you with your nose when he detects stress or anxiety. Instead he just boops you when he wants something. TBH that's how I'd play it, too.
Before Atari, there was Telstar.
Sea otters washing up.
This evil river otter is just trying to trick you with his false cuteness.
I don't even want to know what's going on in this polymorphously perverse sex pile.
A cat reenacts his favorite part of Fight Club.
A toddler girl, a tricycle, and a teddy-bear dog.
This is how I've felt every day this week.
Snake demonstrates the proper technique for climbing the gym rope.
ICYMI: Senior dachshund stays active.
Evil river otter interferes with the gardening.
Hedgehog and her babies.
The cat relies on skill and speed. The dog relies on pure mass.
Steve Inman:
Solid citizen gets some Edison Medicine.
A Person, Place, or Thing brings a gun to a car fight.
Porch Pirate encounters his nemesis, Stoop Vigilante.
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Three House Committees Combine to Subpoena the Democrats' Illegal Foreign Contribution Money-Laundering Arm, Act Blue
—Ace
Finally, we are taking out their illegal fundraising schemes one by one, from money laundered through "nonprofit NGOs" to Act Blue, which falsely files illegal foreign donations as coming from Americans (who then report, "I never donated to a Democrat in my life!")
Three House committees are banding together to subpoena Democratic fundraising giant ActBlue on Tuesday, accusing the platform of having accepted "fraudulent or illegal" donations for left-wing candidates."In light of allegations that online fundraising platforms that serve as conduits for political donations have accepted fraudulent donations from domestic and foreign sources, the Committees are conducting oversight to inform potential legislative reforms," House investigators' letter to ActBlue read.
"To further our oversight and legislative reform efforts, on April 2, 2025, the Committees requested documents and communications related to internal misconduct and whistleblower retaliation at ActBlue. Although ActBlue initially provided documents voluntarily, it has since suspended its cooperation with the Committees. Therefore, the Committee on House Administration must resort to compulsory process to obtain the requested materials."
...
Their letter said ActBlue had initially appeared to work with the House committees in April and May before having "abruptly changed course" in June.
"ActBlue did not provide a legitimate legal basis for refusing future cooperation with the Committees, and instead made baseless and untrue allegations about the Committees' motives," the lawmakers said.
...
At the time, Steil accused ActBlue of failing to properly account for private citizens' security by not requiring a CVV number for credit card donations. That has since changed, however, and ActBlue does currently require that information.
...
The subpoena gives ActBlue a deadline of Aug. 12 to turn over documents lawmakers are seeking.
They're subpoenaeing ActBlue's CEO.
Three House committees on Tuesday subpoenaed ActBlue CEO Regina Wallace-Jones for documents in the panels' probe of the online fundraising platform used for Democratic campaigns....
"In light of allegations that online fundraising platforms that serve as conduits for political donations have accepted fraudulent donations from domestic and foreign sources, the Committees are conducting oversight to inform potential legislative reforms," the chairmen wrote....
After initially handing over documents to the committees, ActBlue informed the panels last month "that it would not make further voluntary productions until the Committees provided 'more information' about our oversight," according to the chairmen.
In other words: Tell us what crimes you suspect before we answer your questions.
That is, obviously, not how this works.
"ActBlue did not provide a legitimate legal basis for refusing future cooperation with the Committees, and instead made baseless and untrue allegations about the Committees' motives."
SkyDance Media Promises to Strip the Bias Out of CBS in Both "News" and "Entertainment"
—Ace
This is a real changing of the (old, ancien) guard.
Is it possible that one legacy network actually realizes that as people cut the cords and abandon TV at accelerating rates it becomes even more crucial to appeal to the entire potential audience, not just the 15% of hard-left Timeline Witch Lunatics they'd rather appeal to?
Could might be!
Skydance Media has made a series of new commitments to eliminate bias in news and entertainment programming at CBS and its parent company, Paramount, when its planned acquisition of the companies is complete. Skydance is also confirming the "elimination" of all "Diversity, Equity and Inclusion" policies and initiatives at Paramount, which had been one of the most aggressive proponents of DEI in the entertainment business.Should the Trump administration, as expected, approve the transaction, Skydance now says it will launch a "comprehensive review of CBS" focused on bias, as well as appoint an "ombudsman" to "evaluate complaints of bias or other concerns involving CBS," and eliminate Paramount's controversial Office of Global Inclusion.
"When it comes to the legacy national news media, change is long overdue," Federal Communications Commission chairman Brendan Carr told the Washington Free Beacon.
Meanwhile:
As you know, Jeff Bezos is attempting to change the Washington Post into an actual newspaper instead of a Democrat/Communist Party communications shop. His new regime at the Post sent out emails telling all of its woke ideologues that if they could not "align" themselves with the Post's new mission of being an actual newspaper -- and promoting fascist agenda items like free speech -- they should take the paper's voluntary buy-out package because otherwise they'll just be terminated with no large severance packages.
Essentially management asked employees to accurately classify themselves as either actual journalists or woke DEI hires and professional antifa propagandists, and make a sound prediction about what their future employment opportunities would be.
On Monday, it was reported that black DEI hire and professional homosexual Jonathan Capehart had correctly assessed himself as being likely to receive a pinkslip and so he self-deported.
From Instapundit, quoting The Wrap:
Washington Post columnist Jonathan Capehart is the latest prominent writer to leave the paper after owner Jeff Bezos revamped the opinion section, with the Pulitzer-winning commentator and frequent Trump critic reportedly accepting a buyout on Monday.Capehart's buyout was first reported by Axios. He will remain the co-host of MSNBC's "The Weekend" and will still be a panelist on PBS "NewsHour" after leaving WaPo, where he has been since 2007.
And yesterday, Catherine Rampell, a smug communist grifter who looks like the ugly girl in The Last of Us who claims she's a "data-driven journalist" and whose "data-driven" deep dives into issues somehow always result in the conclusion that everything the left-wing Democrat Party tells you is 100% true, announced that she, too, understands that she's a DEI hire and so took the cowardly way out.
Catherine Rampell
@crampellSome professional news: After 11 years of columnizing at WaPo, I'm taking the buyout.
This is my last column. It is my advice to any other lucky pundits who land a perch like this--11 principles I've aspired to, even if I haven't always achieved them...
Below: Catherine Rampell sniffs to Scott Jennings -- who of course she rushes to contradict using her "data-driven journalism" of just checking the DNC's talking points -- that she's "not a Democrat, [she's] a journalist."
Sure, Brunette Jan.
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80s Pro Wrestling Legend Terry "Hulk Hogan" Bollea Dies
Chuck Mangione, RIP
—Ace
Trump tributed him as a "great friend" and "MAGA all the way."
Apparently he died of a heart attack. He was 71.
President Donald Trump has joined the masses mourning the loss of WWE legend Hulk Hogan.Trump, who had a strong relationship with Hogan for years, which included the wrestling great speaking at the Republican National Convention last year, wrote a tribute on Truth Social for the "Hulkster."
"We lost a great friend today, the "Hulkster." Hulk Hogan was MAGA all the way -- Strong, tough, smart, but with the biggest heart," Trump wrote. "He gave an absolutely electric speech at the Republican National Convention, that was one of the highlights of the entire week. He entertained fans from all over the World, and the cultural impact he had was massive.
"To his wife, Sky, and family, we give our warmest best wishes and love. Hulk Hogan will be greatly missed!"
As many are commenting, a lot of GenX pop culture icons are dying. (As I sadly mentioned, the deaths of 70s pop icons are due to really start ramping up.)
Terry Bollea's greatest victory came not over The Undertaker or the Iron Sheik or even Jake "The Snake" Roberts but over the grotesque Venture Defamation startup Gawker.
Gawker published a revenge-porn sex tape of Bollea's, and the Hulkster -- backed by manager/trainer Peter "The Tech Avenger" Thiel -- pile-drived Gawker into actual bankruptcy.
Bollea's star had diminished considerably by 2012, when blog-era media giant Gawker published a brief clip from a stealthily recorded sex tape of Hogan and Heather Clem, then-wife of Bollea's then-best friend, radio personality Bubba the Love Sponge. The clip was featured in a post by former Gawker editor in chief AJ Daulerio, a meditation on celebrity sex tapes. Just days after the sex tape's publication, Hogan sued for emotional distress and invasion of privacy. For its part, Gawker defended its inclusion of the clip by arguing that the footage was newsworthy, considering Hogan's celebrity status and past comments on his sex life.In March 2016, a Florida jury found in favor of Hogan, awarding him $115 million in compensatory damages and $25 million in punitive damages. The verdict ultimately bankrupted Gawker, hastening an end to digital media's freewheeling blog era. (The website was revived in 2021 under owner Bryan Goldberg, but shuttered again just two years later.)
Perhaps more shocking than the verdict itself, however, was the revelation of who paid for the lawsuit in the first place: Two months after the smoke cleared, Forbes reported that tech billionaire Peter Thiel had been bankrolling Bollea. The former Paypal Mafia member spent roughly $10 million on the lawsuit, apparently with the aim of destroying Gawker, as revenge for outing him as gay in a 2007 post.
Hulk Hogan was, I have it on good faith, a Real American.
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New Jersey Courts Set Aside Trump's Chosen US Attorney for NJ, Alina Habba, Preferring Her Assistant, So Pam Bondi Fires the Assistant
—Ace
Lowly district court judges are tyrants.
Federal judges in New Jersey on Tuesday chose not to keep President Donald Trump's ally Alina Habba as the interim U.S. attorney for the state, choosing to replace her with a deputy until a permanent U.S. attorney is confirmed by the Senate.New Jersey's 17 U.S. District Court judges made the decision as Habba's 120-day term winds down. Habba has been serving in the post on an interim basis since the end of March, but has been nominated to serve in the post permanently.
Chief Judge for the District of New Jersey Renée Marie Bumb ruled Desiree Leigh Grace has been named U.S. attorney for New Jersey, meaning the judges declined to extend Habba's role, which expired Tuesday. However, Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche claimed Habba's interim role ends on Friday instead.
"The district court judges in NJ are trying to force out [Habba] before her term expires at 11:59 p.m. Friday," Blanche wrote on X. "Their rush reveals what this was always about: a left-wing agenda, not the rule of law. When judges act like activists, they undermine confidence in our justice system. Alina is President Trump's choice to lead--and no partisan bench can override that."
Pam Bondi overruled the lowly district court judges.
Attorney General Pam Bondi on Tuesday night announced that the court-selected interim U.S. Attorney for New Jersey has been removed, indicating she was prepared to fight for former interim U.S. Attorney Alina Habba to keep her role.The move comes after New Jersey's 17 U.S. District Court judges chose to replace Habba earlier Tuesday with her First Assistant U.S. Attorney, Desiree Leigh Grace. The vote to replace Habba instead of extending her role occurred as her 120-day term winds down.
The Justice Department, led by Bondi, has blasted the move as a partisan attack on Habba, who is an ally of President Donald Trump. The attorney general indicated Habba deserves to keep the role while she awaits Senate confirmation.
...
It was not immediately clear what the removal means, but a source told the New York Times that Grace has been fired.
The two Democratic New Jersey senators, Cory Booker and Andy Kim, slammed the Justice Department for intervening in the court decision, claiming it was another example of the Trump administration not respecting the separation of powers.
"This administration may not like the law, but they are not above it," the lawmakers said in a joint statement. "The people of New Jersey deserve a U.S. attorney who will enforce the law and pursue justice for the people of our state without partisanship or politics."
Note: Alina Habba brought an indictment against a black female Democrat congresswoman for hitting an ICE agent.
As Jesse Watters suggest: They're taking her out for challenging the Regime.
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LA Prosecutors Seek 37 Counts of Attempted Murder Against Lifelong Violent Criminal Who Rammed His Car Into a Crowd Outside a Nightclub
—Ace
This attack occurred over the weekend. A man had been thrown out of a nightclub twice for fighting and being violently drunk. He then came back a third time, this time in his car, and plowed through the throng of people outside the club's doors.
Los Angeles prosecutors on Tuesday announced charges against a suspect believed to be responsible for injuring at least 37 people over the weekend, after he allegedly drove his car through a crowd in East Hollywood on Saturday.
The Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) alleged the driver rammed his vehicle into a crowd of people, mostly female, while they were waiting to enter a nightclub called Vermont on Santa Monica Boulevard.
LA County District Attorney Nathan Hochman identified the suspect as 29-year-old Fernando Ramirez, and charged him with 37 counts of attempted murder and 37 counts of assault with a deadly weapon, according to the Associated Press.
Ramirez was allegedly shot by a bystander during the incident, where he also collided with several food carts, but survived.
"This was an unprovoked act of violence that injured 36 people, some critically," Los Angeles Police Chief Jim McDonnell said. "It's truly a miracle that no one was killed that day."
Hochman said the suspect also committed the crime while he was out on bail for a domestic violence case in Orange County. He is being held without bail on the new charges and will be arraigned Wednesday.
Huh, he was out on bail, huh?
Why was he out on bail?
Would it surprise you to learn that this Fernandez maniac was a lifelong violent felon who was repeatedly arrested for attacking innocent civilians and just as repeatedly set free by LA's and California's antifa prosecutors?
I know you're shocked.
A 29-year-old man accused of plowing his car into a crowd outside an East Hollywood nightclub on Saturday morning, injuring more than 30 people, has an extensive criminal history in neighboring Orange County, including a previous conviction for an unprovoked attack on a Laguna Beach grocery store employee that he told an officer was driven by racial hatred.
...At least 36 people were injured in the crash, including some who were struck by the vehicle and some who were briefly trapped underneath the car. The injuries ranged from minor pain to serious fractures and lacerations, police said. At least seven people were initially listed in critical condition.
...Orange County prosecutors confirmed on Monday that Ramirez has an extensive criminal background, including several criminal cases filed against him since 2014.
On June 15, 2019, Ramirez ran up behind a 26-year-old African American grocery store employee and sucker punched him, breaking the employee's nose and damaging two of his front teeth. A couple witnessed the attack at a Laguna Beach store and called 911.
Speaking to an officer in a recorded conversation as he was being driven to a police station, Ramirez admitted in explicit terms laced with racial epithets that he punched the employee because he was Black and that he hated Black people.
That recording led a jury to convict Ramirez of a hate crime on top of felony battery. But an appellate court found that Ramirez's comments to the officer about his racial motivation for the attack on the grocery store employee were improperly obtained by police after Ramirez had received his Miranda advisement and invoked his right to an attorney. The appellate judges threw out the civil rights conviction and hate crime enhancement. What had been a six-year prison sentence was reduced to four years.
Since then, Ramirez has been arrested multiple times for domestic violence, assault and DUI related allegations.
In 2021, court records show, Ramirez assaulted a woman who was found by deputies lying face up in extreme pain in the Ola Vista and Avenida Rosa intersection in San Clemente. A witness described Ramirez grabbing the woman by her hair, throwing her head first into a cinderblock wall, then dragging her into the street by her hair and throwing her down. A deputy later testified that Ramirez resisted arrest by ignoring police commands, flailing about and being unable or unwilling to walk on his own.
As part of a plea deal, Ramirez's jail sentence for the assault case was stayed and he was ordered to spend a year on probation and to take part in a batterers' treatment program and community service. A misdemeanor domestic violence case, also in 2021, led to a 234-day jail sentence, court records show.
Ramirez still has two open court cases in Orange County, records show. One stems from a DUI arrest in Fountain Valley in August 2024. The other is another domestic violence case from January 2022.
From Beege Wellborne's post, quoting the Orange County Register:
An Orange County prosecutor in a sentencing report filed in 2020-- before many of the more recent cases were filed against Ramirez -- described an arrest history that included "assaults while in custody, domestic violence, child endangerment, gang-related activity and racial tension in custody. Ramirez, the prosecutor wrote, "has proved to be violent to strangers and family alike and clearly has a lack of concern for the safety of others."
So why did California repeatedly let this monster out of jail?
It was clear this man was only not yet a murderer by sheer happenstance. (Maybe we'll find out he did murder people.)
Is this California's rule? You can assault and attack people so long as you don't actually put them in a grave?
Shutdown Man @ShutdownManFernando Ramirez is the suspect who rammed his vehicle into several people after getting kicked out of an Hollywood nightclub early Saturday morning. Media outlets are refusing to report on whether he’s an illegal or not. Karen Bass calls it an "heartbreaking tragedy".
Is it a "tragedy"? Or was that your Joker Chaos Agent plan all along, Communist?
You probably noticed that he was shot. Yeah, that happened after his mass casualty attack. He got some righteous Street Justice after driving over a crowd of women and literally running them over so that they were trapped under the car.
They should have simply ripped his limbs off. Because California is going to let this evil terrorist out of jail in a couple of years.
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Biden, Inc. Scores Its Last Major Grift: Biden Inks Deal to "Write" "His" "Memoirs" For Ten Million Dollars
—Ace
Endless, fathomless corruption.
They're paying $10 million to an autopen.
I have repeatedly urged a law barring any politician or ex-politician (within five years of serving in a federal office) from accepting any "advance" for a book. They should be paid just by actual royalties-- a percentage of each book actually sold.
If you don't know, an advance is just literally an advance against future expected royalties. If you get an advance of $50,000, you don't get your first $50,000 in royalty payments, because you were already paid them, in advance. After you hit $50,000 in royalties, you'd start collecting royalty checks for royalties in excess of your advance.
For fifty years, hard-left publishing companies, all of which are part of gigantic media conglomerates with business constantly in front of the US government, have been bribing (Democrat) politicians with absurdly high "advances" that are nothing of the sort. The ten million dollar payment to Biden is a straight-up bribe, like so many other bribes he's collected. There is no way to characterize this as a reasonable guess as to what his projected future royalties will be. He will not make ten million in royalties. He will not even make one million in royalties.
He will make maybe $100,000-200,000 in royalties. Who would be the audience? Conservatives despise this child-sniffing criminal and Democrats want him to disappear.
A law requiring royalties paid to politicians to be actual royalties would stop media companies from engaging in barely-disguised bribery to Democrats, while still making sure that authors receive the real, actual royalties that "their" books earn.
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Antisemetic Terrorist Finishing School Columbia University Agrees to Pay Jewish Students $220 Million for Letting Foreign Muslim Agents Terrorize Them for a Year
—Ace
The left is very, very opposed to racism, you know.
Just a couple of days ago we heard that Columbia had finally punished the foreign terrorist agitators who had taken over their library while screaming Hitlerian chants.
That wasn't their own decision -- that was part of the settlement with the Trump Administration, which actually walks the walk when it comes to shutting down racism and antisemitism.
The Trump administration has won unprecedented concessions from Columbia University in a sweeping settlement -- with the Ivy League university paying more than $220 million and pledging to reverse racially discriminatory practices and resolve civil rights violations against Jewish students, The Post can exclusively reveal.The settlement, under which Columbia will agree to submit to independent monitoring to ensure it is complying with merit-based hiring and admissions requirements, is likely to put pressure on other schools -- like Harvard -- that have crossed the White House over tolerance of extreme Jew-hatred on campus since the Oct. 7, 2023, attack by Hamas against Israel.
The resolution comes after just four months of negotiations between Columbia and Trump, striking a stark contrast with Harvard, which decided to drag the administration into court for stripping the school of $2.6 billion in grants and other funding.
In addition to paying the feds $200 million to settle their discrimination claims, Columbia will also fork over more than $20 million to Jewish employees who were discriminated against amid fierce antisemitic demonstrations that followed the Hamas attack.
The Trump administration is touting the employees' sum as the largest public settlement of its kind in nearly 20 years and the highest for any victim who's lodged a Title VI complaint.
The Ivy League school has also agreed to end all programming that discriminated against faculty or students -- bringing it into full compliance with the Supreme Court's 2023 decision banning race-based affirmative action -- and create some yet-to-be-announced faculty positions in the name of broadening intellectual diversity.
The settlement further calls for Columbia to maintain a trained security force blocking demonstrations in academic spaces and coordinate with the NYPD to prevent a repeat of the takeover of Hamilton Hall by anti-Israel rioters in the spring of 2024 -- while the university will impose a complete ban on masked protests.
Disciplinary rules will no longer be governed by the faculty senate but, rather, by the Office of the Provost. On Tuesday, Columbia announced that dozens of students were going to be suspended or penalized -- and a handful expelled -- for a recent disruptive library demonstration and anti-Israel tent encampment that engulfed the campus last year.
The university's admissions office will step up vetting for foreign applicants, quiz potential students about their reasons for wanting to study in the US and share that data with the feds, while Columbia's reliance on international enrollment will be cut back.
As part of its participation in the federal Student and Exchange Visitor (SEVIS) Program, the school will now be expected to report any disciplinary actions for those holding visas -- including suspensions, expulsions or arrests.
Experts are also supposed to consult with administrators to prevent the threat of terrorist financing or other illicit funds flowing to the school.
Regional programs -- specifically the Center for Palestine Studies; the Institute for Israel and Jewish Studies; Middle Eastern, South Asian and African Studies; the Middle East Institute; and learning hubs in Tel Aviv, Israel, and Amman, Jordan -- will come under strict review from the senior vice provost to ensure they are "comprehensive and balanced."
Additionally, the Morningside Heights school will comply with Title IX and no longer force women to compete with biological men in sports or use their locker rooms, housing or other facilities.
Good heavens, it's a total victory on almost every point.
Trump did agree to return most of the $400 million in funding he suspended. Not loving that.
There is a hitch: William Jacobsen of Legal Insurrection declared "Columbia won -- ask any academic why." I'm sure he's referring to wiggle room in the settlement which will allow Columbia to keep breaking the law with impunity.
When he posts about this, I'll note his objections.
Below: Trump's announcement on Truth Social.
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