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dispatch from Berlin
Germany is not, in the first place, suffering from an economic crisis, an energy crisis, a migration crisis, or a crisis of state. Germany is suffering, chiefly, from a crisis of its elites. More precisely, Germany is suffering from a crisis brought on by that milieu which regards itself as the country’s morally, intellectually, and administratively legitimate leadership class but which has, for years, sustained a regime of reality-avoidance, self-congratulation, and rhetorical substitutes for genuine action.
The misery of our situation is not that mistakes have been made. Mistakes are part of politics.
Last month, the Guardian’s star climate and Net Zero headbanger George Monbiot was singing the praises of solar power, stating that along with wind it is “the cheapest component of our energy supply”. Alas, Our George, a posher person’s version of the down-market climate comedy clown Jim Dale, has not always been so effusive in promoting sunbeams as the answer to running a modern industrial economy. In June 2013, he noted that solar worked well at lower latitudes where peak electricity demand coincided with peak sunlight, but “less well” in places like the UK where peak winter demand occurs between 5pm to 7pm. After “initial enthusiasm”,
This week there was yet another terrible story about small boat criminals in the news. Three asylum seekers (two from Egypt and one from Iran) were found guilty of gang raping a vulnerable young woman on Brighton beach. One of the men had already been convicted of murder in his native country, Egypt, despite lodging an asylum claim here in 2024. It seems almost every week we are subjected to a similar story, mostly involving girls and women being seriously hurt. How do these crimes keep happening? As I have previously written for the Daily Sceptic,
Nebraska is a weird state politically, in part because they have only one chamber to their legislature. Everyone else has two, which is strange.
They're also a heavily rural state, with a strong history of voting Republican, a supermajority in their one legislative chamber, and a strong base of support for the Second Amendment among most residents there. Just the same, they voted to ban guns from the state capitol. It's bizarre and dumb, but they did it anyway.
In the process, they limited entrance to the Capitol to just one point of entry. This is likely a security thing,
They want everyone to learn Islam, and... there are those who refuse, and they get killed." — A survivor, persecution.org, January 22, 2026, Democratic Republic of the Congo.
"How can we understand that fighters have been operating freely for over two weeks in the same area, attacking village after village, without any effective response from the security forces?... The population feels abandoned to its fate, exposed to massacres while official speeches multiply without any visible action on the ground." — barnabasaid.org, January 27, 2026, Democratic Republic of the Congo.
"The night I was abducted, they killed my mother and kidnapped my older sister and me. The slightest mistakes are severely punished.
Tucker Carlson is “tormented.” Not by a policy failure, not by a domestic crisis — by the fact, he said this week, that President Donald Trump backed Israel in a war against Iran. It’s in line with a grievance the podcaster and former Fox News host has nursed for months. [snip] But to be fair to Von and those who rightfully question US foreign aid, the idea of giving $3.8 billion a year to a country of 10 million on the other side of the world while Americans struggle at home is genuinely puzzling. It deserves a real answer. Here’s the truth: It’s the best investment the US government makes.
Accused White House Correspondents’ Dinner gunman Cole Allen sent a sprawling, crazed manifesto to family members 10 minutes before Saturday’s attack, sources told The Post.
In the 1,052-word missive obtained by The Post Sunday morning — signed Cole ‘coldForce’ ‘Friendly Federal Assassin’ Allen” — and outlined his “rules of engagement” for the shooting and stated he believed it was his righteous duty to target administration officials.
Cole Allen’s manifesto in full:
Hello everybody!
So I may have given a lot of people a surprise today. Let me start off by apologizing to everyone whose trust I abused.
I apologize to my parents for saying I had an interview without specifying it was
It appears that the crazy California teacher who tried to assassinate President Donald Trump and members of his administration at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner on Saturday might have donated to Kamala Harris‘s presidential campaign in 2024.
The Federal Election Commission (FEC) individual contributor database shows that an individual identified as “ALLEN, COLE” who lived in Torrance, California, donated $25 through ActBlue in October 2024, “EARMARKED FOR HARRIS FOR PRESIDENT.” I confirmed the donation data on the FEC site. It is important to note that we do not have official confirmation this is the same Cole Thomas living in Torrance, California,
The man suspected of discharging firearms during the White House Correspondents' Dinner has been identified Cole Tomas Allen, 31, from Torrance, California.(snip)A LinkedIn profile bearing Allen's name and image describes him as a “mechanical engineer and computer scientist by degree, independent game developer by experience, teacher by birth.”
He earned a bachelor's degree in mechanical engineering in 2017 from the California Institute of Technology, followed by a master's degree in computer science in 2025 from California State University at Dominguez Hills, (snip)
he is employed as a part-time educator at C2 Education, a private company specializing in test preparation and tutoring, while also working as a self-employed game developer.
TORRANCE, California — The FBI raided the home of suspected White House Correspondents’ Dinner gunman Cole Allen late Saturday after swarming the property in the quiet Los Angeles suburbs.
Allen, a 31-year-old CalTech mechanical engineering grad, was subdued after he rushed a security checkpoint and opened fire with a shotgun inside the Washington Hilton during the annual White House Correspondents’ Dinner on Saturday evening, according to law enforcement sources.
An FBI convoy, including armored trucks and agents clad in camouflage tactical gear, descended onto Allen’s home in Torrance, Calif. late Saturday night — hours after The Post arrived on the scene. observed that occupants briefly interacted with federal agents
Nine people were wounded in a mass shooting near the campus of Indiana University in Bloomington early Sunday morning.
Gunfire erupted as crowds of revelers were celebrating the famed “Little 500” college cycling race on the popular strip of Kirkwood Avenue just after midnight, WTHR reported.
Police responded to the 400 block of East Kirkwood – a block from Indiana University – where they found “multiple wounded individuals.”[snip]
“Two women fighting… I didn’t think too much of it,” a witness told the outlet.
“I figured the police would get to it. But then I saw a girl reach toward her pants leg and start firing.
The suspected White House Correspondents' Association Dinner shooter, Cole Tomas Allen, signal boosted posts on the left-wing social media platform Bluesky arguing that President Donald Trump should be "immediately removed from office and tried for high crimes" and criticizing a "Freedom of the Press" pocket square that many journalists donned at last night’s dinner as "a white flag that no one can read unless you pull it out and wave it in defeat," a Washington Free Beacon review found, suggesting he thought a stronger message of opposition to the president was called for.
"the president of the united states is personally looting the treasury to the tune of
Trump’s DC beautification push wins
rare Dem praise as president snaps landmarks
back to life replies
rare Dem praise as president snaps landmarks
back to life replies
Democrats are offering rare praise to President Donald Trump as his push to revitalize Washington, D.C., ahead of the semiquincentennial brings neglected landmarks back to life through various restoration projects. "Cannot believe it's taken this long, but this truly makes me so incredibly happy to see," wrote ActBlue communications strategist Carter Christensen on X in reaction to the Meridian Hill Park fountain flowing once again after years of neglect – one of a handful of social media messages celebrating the update.
Construction and landscaping projects across Washington, D.C., have accelerated in recent months as the nation prepares to celebrate its 250th birthday in July,
Suspected White House Correspondents' Dinner shooter Cole Tomas Allen is facing at least three charges, authorities said.
Allen, 31, is accused of opening fire as the President gathered with senior cabinet members and thousands of journalists for the annual event on Saturday night.
The dinner at the Washington Hilton was barely underway when the Secret Service was forced to leap into action after a series of shots rang out. They managed to apprehend the suspect after he breached a security checkpoint and exchanged gunfire with law enforcement, authorities said.
The alleged shooter has since been identified as Allen, a teacher from Torrance, California.
Federal prosecutors have moved quickly and already
Saturday, following reports of an apparent assassination attempt on President Donald Trump at the White House Correspondents’ Association dinner, CNN’s Van Jones raised the possibility of the suspect being made into “some sort of hero.”
The left-leaning Jones cited efforts to lionize Luigi Mangione, and he urged all to condemn political violence.
Jones said, “I’m starting to worry about something, though, which is that the shooter survived, which means on Monday he’s going to court, which means there is a danger that people try to make him some sort of hero. You watch what happened with Luigi [Mangione], who shot a CEO to death and somehow became a hero.
Prominent voices on the left have been branding their opponents as Nazis, “literally Hitler,” pedophiles, or “a threat to democracy.” This inflammatory language dehumanizes entire groups, paints targets on people’s backs, erodes civil discourse, and creates a climate where violence is viewed as justifiable.
When rhetoric escalates to open calls for harm, the consequences are deadly: attempted assassinations of President Trump, the 2017 shooting of Republican congressmen at baseball practice, the murder of Charlie Kirk, and assaults on pro-life activists. Leftists are normalizing the violence against Republicans.
President Trump attended the White House Correspondents’ Dinner at the Washington Hilton last evening—
Both President Donald Trump and Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass came out of meetings in April expressing optimism that the federal government will come to the aid of the feckless and duplicitous mayor and attempt to help further jumpstart the recovery of the Palisades after the devastating 2025 fire wiped out just about everything.
According to NBC Los Angeles, Bass said “that she feels optimistic that the Trump administration will send more resources the city needs to recover from the 2025 Palisades Fire after meeting with him and his key advisors in the Oval Office.”
Chekhov’s Lesson for Tehran
replies
famous saying of Anton Chekhov’s has been making the rounds. “If you say in the first chapter that there is a rifle hanging on the wall,” Chekhov advised, “in the second or third chapter it absolutely must go off. If it’s not going to be fired, it shouldn’t be hanging there.”
I wonder if the thugs and theocrats who have been plundering Iran for the last 47 years have read Chekhov. If so, I conclude that they are slow learners. In January, the Iranian authorities slaughtered more than 40,000 protesters—
President Trump has called off sending a US delegation to Pakistan Saturday for peace talks with Iran – nixing a trip he said would be a waste of time.
Trump, who told a Post reporter in Islamabad to “come home” shortly after he made the announcement, said his team was wasting too much time on traveling.
“I just cancelled the trip of my representatives going [to] Islamabad, Pakistan, to meet with the Iranians,” the president posted on Truth Social Saturday afternoon. “Too much time wasted on traveling, too much work! Besides which, there is tremendous infighting and confusion within their ‘leadership.’
President Donald Trump called on Americans to “recommit” to resolve their differences peacefully after a shooter disrupted the White House Correspondents Dinner Saturday evening.
The Secret Service took a gunman into custody after he ran past a security checkpoint at the Washington Hilton. The gunman shot a Secret Service agent, but did not wound him, before law enforcement subdued him and took him into custody.
“As you know, this is not the first time in the past couple of years that our republic has been attacked by a would-be assassin who sought to kill,” the president said in a press conference after announcing that law enforcement had apprehended the shooter.
Mississippi Governor Tate Reeves, a Republican, is launching a redistricting effort in the state.
"I’m calling a special session. During the recently completed regular session, the Legislature discussed drawing new maps to comply with a decision from a federal judge from the Northern District of Mississippi - a decision that has been appealed to the 5th Circuit and the appeal has been heretofore stayed pending future U.S. Supreme Court decisions," Reeves wrote on X on Friday.
"The entire world knows the Callais decision has not yet been handed down by the U.S. Supreme Court. It is a decision that could (and in my view should)—
Trump urges America to settle differences
peacefully after gunman targets another
of his events replies
peacefully after gunman targets another
of his events replies
President Donald Trump on Saturday night shrugged off another shooting incident targeting an event he was attending, imploring Americans to settle their differences peacefully after a lone gunman disrupted the annual White House correspondent's dinner where the nation's leaders were in attendance,
Still dressed in his tuxedo from the event, Trump said he would not be deterred from attending the dinner when it is rescheduled and praised law enforcement from stopping the lone gunman from California before he could cause others harm.
UPDATE: US Secret Service Releases Statement
After 'Shooting Incident' at WHCD; Agent Injured replies
After 'Shooting Incident' at WHCD; Agent Injured replies
original story
Earlier on Saturday evening, there were reports of gunfire during the White House Correspondents' Dinner being held in Washington, D.C. As RedState wrote, President Trump and others at the head table were evacuated to another room, as the incident was investigated and the safety of those present was assured:Shooting Incident At White House Correspondents Dinner
The U.S. Secret Service, in coordination with the Metropolitan Police Department, is investigating a shooting incident near the main magnometer screening area at the White House Correspondents' Dinner. The president and the first lady are safe along [with] all protectees. One individual is in custody.
The DC Metropolitan Police announced during a press conference on Saturday night that the armed gunman who opened fire inside the White House Correspondents’ Dinner was a registered guest at the Washington Hilton hotel, the venue hosting the high-profile black-tie event attended by President Donald Trump.
Speaking after the event, interim DC Police Chief Jeffery Carroll confirmed the suspect, 31-year-old Cole Tomas Allen of Torrance, California, had checked into the hotel as a guest before the chaos erupted.