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Oh, let's not always see the same hands ...
Actually, the question isn't directed at Hot Air readers, as we have been discussing Graham Platner's red flags since October of last year. Herr Totenkopf even began appearing in Final Word posts that same month. The question arising from the Wall Street Journal's belated look at Der Oysterführer's Red Flag Parade reflects on the multitudinous failures by American media to report honestly on a candidate manufactured out of whole cloth by socialist activists:
The red flag that led to Graham Platner’s collapse was hiding in plain sight.
Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney said Wednesday that President Donald Trump has "won the argument" on NATO defense spending, crediting years of U.S. pressure with prompting Canada and European allies to take on a greater share of the alliance's security burden.
Speaking at the NATO summit in Ankara, Turkey, Carney said he spoke with Trump before the gathering and told him that NATO members increasingly recognize the need to boost military spending amid continued security threats from Russia.
"It's not just that he's winning the argument — he's won the argument," Carney told reporters. "Countries realize they need to take more responsibility. They see the direct threats."
The Trump administration started a major investigation into H-1B and PERM foreign labor visas, the Labor Department’s Inspector General Anthony P. D’Esposito announced Wednesday.
The investigation aims to take the “most aggressive action against foreign labor fraud by an Inspector General this administration” to further President Trump’s goal to end foreign violence on American soil and return jobs to the American people, D’Esposito told Fox Business.
UniParty Senators and Mike Turner Take
Trip to Turkey NATO Summit to Coordinate
with Zelenskyy replies
Trip to Turkey NATO Summit to Coordinate
with Zelenskyy replies
Senators Lindsey Graham, Mike Rounds, Jeanne Shaheen, Dick Durban and Chris Coons, together with previously removed House Intelligence Committee Chair, Representative Mike Turner, use taxpayer funds for a trip to Ankara, Turkey, to poke their nose in the latest NATO gathering and coordinate with Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. WATCH: (video)The pontificating Congressional Delegation (CODEL) are visiting the NATO summit on behalf of their paymasters within the military industrial complex who have advocated along with the Europeans for expanded military hardware.
Both Raytheon and Lockheed Martin are positioned to gain billions
The key question is not who sits in ministerial offices in the Gaza Strip. The key question is who holds the guns.
Nothing essential has changed.
Hamas is not dismantling its military wing. It is not surrendering its weapons. It is not disbanding its security apparatus. It is not ending its command structure. Thousands of Hamas employees and loyalists will also remain embedded in the Gaza Strip's institutions.
"Hamas's apparent willingness to make room for a technocratic government is designed to prevent its own disarmament.... [A]s long as Hamas retains its weapons, any civilian government will of course operate as Hamas dictates." — Israel's Foreign Minister Gideon Sa'ar,
There’s a new agency in California that promises to “protect consumers, support honest businesses, and advance affordability for Californians.” If Vegas were to give odds, they would be heavily against any of those ever occurring.
It’s called the California Business and Consumer Services Agency, and it’s a cabinet-level department headed by Rohit Chopra, who was sworn in on July 1. It already has a bureaucratic acronym: BCSA. Catchy, isn’t it?
Chopra promises his office “will sharpen and accelerate work to promote economic growth and protect the public from abuses.”
A democratic socialist in Wisconsin tests
how far left voters want to go in a battleground state replies
how far left voters want to go in a battleground state replies
MADISON, Wis. — Over the last month, Democratic socialists have notched victories in the liberal strongholds of New York City, Washington, D.C., and Denver. Now Francesca Hong, a single mother who has worked as a dishwasher and line cook, is trying to do the same with her campaign for governor in Wisconsin, a swing state known for razor-thin election margins where winning over moderate, independent voters is crucial. Hong’s candidacy has turned the Democratic primary on Aug. 11 into the latest test of just how far left voters are willing to go in the November midterms. “We do this in
US resumes Iran war with air, sea, ground-ready
troops in place, confident about munitions supply replies
troops in place, confident about munitions supply replies
President Donald Trump vowing Wednesday to intensify air strikes against Iran – after the sides traded attacks the day before and him declaring the countries' roughly three-week ceasefire "over" – has the U.S. appearing to be returning to war footing.
"We're gonna hit 'em hard tonight," Trump said at the NATO summit in Ankara, Turkey, after conceding to reporters hours earlier about the ceasefire, "To me, I think it's over. I don't want to deal with them."
The return, as expected, has raised immediate concerns from economic – like will gas prices skyrocket again? – to military ones such as: Does the U.S. have enough air, sea and ground-
New York City, like so many other big, blue cities, serves as an excellent model for how spending overwhelming amounts of taxpayer money can get so much less than underwhelming results.
A recent report created a damning picture of New York City public schools as mass factories of educational failure.
New York Success Academy, a charter school network in New York, dug through public data to show “New Yorkers how deep this failure runs” and how long it has been running.
The results are both sad and infuriating.
The study found that 906 schools in the city, roughly half of the total number, “had fewer than half their students passing math,
The party of Me Too has shown its true face in the rolling Graham Platner scandal.
Now that a liberal woman has credibly accused him of rape, the rats have deserted the sinking ship and the Democrat-endorsed US Senate candidate for Maine has dropped out.
But it’s “Me Too” late to save face.
Conservatives always knew the left’s effort to assert moral superiority on matters of sex, race and ideology were play-acting but now it’s undeniable for even their most blinkered supporters.
The Democratic Party’s defense of Platner to the bitter end against an avalanche of rape and sexual abuse allegations, not to mention his Nazi tattoo, has left them exposed as hypocrites.
It started back in 2019 with an article by Thomas Lifson, co-founder of American Thinker. Lifson highlighted stunning revelations from former U.S. Attorney Joe DiGenova (DC District) about RICO and the Russia Hoax. That piece crystallized what so many sensed: powerful players were bending rules, narratives, and investigations to protect themselves while targeting threats to the status quo.
I wrote to Lifson framing it as evidence of a silent coup—a RICO-style criminal enterprise. He encouraged me to explore using RICO against the Clinton Foundation as a criminal enterprise.
Just three weeks after it was signed, the Memorandum of Understanding between the United States and Iran is on life support.
Tehran’s promise to keep the Strait of Hormuz open for international shipping turned out to be about as trustworthy as every other major promise the Islamic Republic has ever made.
As the regime was busy staging the lavish funeral for its recently eliminated Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iranian forces went ahead and attacked three commercial vessels transiting the strait.
The United States struck nearly 100 military targets across Iran in response.
Watch: Not Even a Media Friendly Was Willing
to Put Up With This Whopper From Abdul El-Sayed replies
to Put Up With This Whopper From Abdul El-Sayed replies
As RedState reported, the Michigan Democrat Senate primary has had some interesting developments over the last week, with perhaps the most notable one being that one of the three candidates, state Sen. Mallory McMorrow, suspended her campaign.
She didn't endorse either of the remaining two, Rep. Haley Stevens (MI-11) and former Wayne County health director Abdul El-Sayed, stating that "Whoever wins this primary on Aug. 4 will have my full support."
Another notable moment came when CNN, of all places, fact-checked a wildly false claim El-Sayed made about how he did not support defunding the police,
It's been exactly two weeks since two major earthquakes struck Venezuela, leaving portions of the country devastated. The death toll is over 3,600 as of Wednesday afternoon, with tens of thousands of people still missing. Here's a new video of some of the damage.
International response has been huge. As I've written many times, Nayib Bukele and El Salvador were on the ground almost immediately with machinery, supplies, and rescue teams, saving lives. Right now, a team from Israel is in Venezuela working on plans to help with rebuilding.
Of course, the biggest response has been from the United States and rightfully so. As Donald Trump likes to jokingly say,
The Arizona Supreme Court on Tuesday delivered a crushing blow to the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors when it ended a Court of Appeals stay and reinstated a superior court’s injunctions, with modifications, that returned election-administration responsibilities of the county’s elections back to the County Recorder, Justin Heap.
The Arizona Supreme Court vacated the Court of Appeals stay from June and reinstated with modifications the “superior court injunctions governing the allocation of election-administration responsibilities between the Maricopa County Recorder and the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors.”
A bitter battle is brewing along California’s Central Coast as an Indigenous tribe pushes to create a protected ocean zone that could sharply limit fishing — sparking fears among local fishermen that their livelihoods are on the line. The Santa Ynez Band of Chumash Indians has filed a proposal to create a new Marine Protected Area (MPA) stretching from Morro Rock to the local dog beach near Morro Bay. The proposal was among 20 Marine Protected Area petitions submitted to the California Fish and Game Commission. The original petition would have allowed some recreational fishing, but the tribe requested an amendment that would reserve fishing access only for Chumash members.
The official X for Christopher Nolan’s upcoming adaptation of The Odyssey has restricted comments on its posts as the film faces criticism over several casting decisions.
The Odyssey premiered in London on Monday and is scheduled for release in theaters in the United States and the United Kingdom on July 17. However, users attempting to comment on the film’s official X posts now see the message: “Only some accounts can reply.”
President Trump on Wednesday kindled a significant thaw in relations with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky when the two met on the sidelines of the NATO summit in Turkey, as Ukraine seizes the initiative in its more than four-year war against Russia.
Trump announced the U.S. would buy Ukrainian drones and, even more importantly, gave a green light for Ukraine to co-produce Patriot interceptors, a move that could significantly improve its air defenses in the years ahead.
The Trump-Zelensky bonhomie signaled the latest shift in a historically fraught relationship. Trump has railed against U.S. funds provided to Ukraine throughout the Biden administration and has put pressure on Zelensky in private and public
President Trump on Wednesday said the U.S. is granting Ukraine the ability to co-produce key air-defense weapons, the Patriot missiles, which are critical to defending against Russian ballistic weapon attacks hammering the country.
Trump made the remarks alongside Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky from a NATO summit in Turkey following an intensive lobbying campaign by Ukraine for permission to co-produce the Patriots.
“Just a little birdie told me this, about the fact that we’ll give them the right to make Patriots, we’ll show them how to do it,” Trump said.
“It’s very complex, actually, but it’s — you’ll figure out the complexity quickly.”
Graham Platner, the Democratic nominee for US Senate in Maine, is suspending his campaign following a sexual assault allegation.
Platner announced his decision in a video posted to social media on Wednesday evening.
The oyster farmer and marine veteran – whose populist platform packed town halls, raised millions early in the race and built enough momentum to force his primary challenger, Governor Janet Mills, to suspend her bid – has been dogged by controversy since entering the Senate contest last year.
Former Wisconsin Judge Hannah Dugan was spared from prison Wednesday for ushering a Mexican defendant through her jury room door as U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents sought to arrest him in a courthouse hallway.
U.S. District Judge Lynn Adelman fined her $5,000, describing the case as a situation where an otherwise good person, upset by immigration policies in this country, made a bad decision in the moment.
Disgraced Former Milwaukee Judge Hannah
Dugan Was Sentenced Today, and It's a
Miscarriage of Justice replies
Dugan Was Sentenced Today, and It's a
Miscarriage of Justice replies
Disgraced former Milwaukee County Judge Hannah was found guilty in December of one charge of felony obstruction for her role in aiding an illegal alien named Eduardo Flores-Ruiz with evading ICE after Flores-Ruiz appeared in Dugan's courtroom on domestic violence charges.
Before her trial, Dugan had argued she enjoyed judicial immunity for her acts. But after she was convicted, her defense team tried to get the verdict thrown out, then they argued she deserved another trial or a dismissal of the guilty verdict. Federal Judge Lynn Adelmann denied both of those motions, but rescheduled Dugan's June 3 sentencing to today.
California may have the fourth-largest economy in the world, but even within that state, rising through the political ranks, the scrutiny a candidate gets is not remotely comparable to what a candidate for president is subjected to.
State politics tends to be insular, with political machines shepherding their favorites while destroying or buying off the people who challenge them. California's machine is, if anything, better tuned and more greased than most because there is so much money involved and so much back-scratching that outcomes can usually be pre-determined by choices made months or even years prior to their coming to fruition.
Gavin Newsom is a perfect example of this
MAINE — According to an email from Maine Democratic Party Chairman Charlie Dingman that was obtained from a source by Maine's Total Coverage, an emergency meeting of the state Democratic State Committee is being held on Wednesday at 4:30 p.m. That meeting is being held virtually and is scheduled for 90 minutes. Platner, the Democratic nominee challenging Republican Sen. Susan Collins, has faced growing calls to drop out following sexual assault allegations, which he has denied. The controversy has prompted Democrats in Maine and nationally to urge him to withdraw so the party can move forward with another candidate. “While