Posts on Friday, January 31, 2025
On January 22, in Mark Milley: pardons and mutiny, I argued a case against General Mark Milly for mutiny, which carries a penalty up to death. Of course, the argument was academic as Milley was given a blanket, preemptive pardon by Joe Biden’s handlers. (snip) Now it appears Milley may face consequences of a sort, if not exactly the consequences he arguably deserves:
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth will announce he is "immediately pulling" retired Gen. Mark Milley's personal security detail and security clearance, multiple senior administration officials tell Fox News.
I was reading one of James Howard Kunstler’s exquisite essays when I stumbled upon a hilarious conversation in his comment section. Discussing President Trump’s turbocharged criminal alien relocation efforts, a reader named Mitch observed, “People keep asking who’s going to man the grills, pick the crops, clean the houses when all the illegals get deported. We have lots of useless government-paid parasites that could fill those jobs nicely. They’re educated, speak English, and currently produce nothing but obstacles.”
Bandit replied, “But bureaucrats don’t do work.
Colombia has been forced back to the drawing board on its $40 billion climate investment plan since President Donald Trump returned to the White House earlier this month. Susana Muhamad, Colombia’s environment minister, had been frantically courting officials in Washington to secure initial funding to help transition the South American nation’s economy away from fossil fuels toward green investments. Colombia’s initial plan was to land a deal with the US while former President Joe Biden was still in office, and the country sent a delegation to Washington earlier this month to deliver on that goal. But that failed,
The military helicopter that collided with an American Airlines flight over Washington, DC, was flying nearly twice as high as it should have been — but the Black Hawk was not equipped with a new technology that would have alerted air traffic control to its dangerously deviated path, The Post can reveal.
The revelations come as questions plague the Pentagon over why the Army would allow its pilots to train in an area home to the most densely trafficked air path convergences in the country — and as the Federal Aviation Administration prohibited most helicopter traffic in the area as the deadly midair collision continues to be investigated.
Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker issued a memo on Thursday banning those convicted of offenses related to the January 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol building from holding jobs in the state government.
This move comes after President Donald Trump pardoned most of those targeted by the Department of Justice for their supposed participation in the riot. [Tweet]
In a memo to Raven DeVaughn, director of the state’s Department of Central Management Services (CMS), Pritzker noted that one of his “most important duties as Governor is protecting public safety in the State of Illinois.”
He referenced Trump’s pardons and said those who were convicted “attacked law enforcement officers
The Army announced Friday that at the request of the female pilot’s family, it is withholding the name of one of three Black Hawk helicopter crew members killed in the mid-air collision with a passenger plane over the Potomac River while the plane was on final approach Reagan National Airport near Washington, D.C., Wednesday night. The Army said the name “will not be released at this time”, leaving open the possibility of later public identification.
All 60 passengers and 4 crew members on the PSA/American Airlines flight from Wichita, Kansas were also killed in the crash. As of Friday afternoon 41 sets of remains had been recovered
Fighter jets scrambled from Alaska and
Canada as Russian warplanes spotted in
the Arctic, NORAD says replies
Canada as Russian warplanes spotted in
the Arctic, NORAD says replies
A combat air patrol of American and Canadian fighter jets was scrambled this week after multiple Russian warplanes were spotted in the Arctic, the North American Aerospace Defense Command said Thursday, marking the latest military incident to unfold in a region that is drawing increasing scrutiny. The Russian aircraft, which remained in international airspace, were not seen as a threat, but eight military planes were dispatched to monitor their activity, NORAD said. Two Canadian CF-18 fighter jets and one refueling aircraft were launched from the Canadian NORAD region, while two U.S. F-35 fighter jets and two refueling aircraft tankers were launched. The Alaskan base also dispatched one AWAC
Conservatives from all over the USA, the moment you’ve all been waiting for is here! The Trump Spending Freeze—an act of executive frugality so seismic, so chilling, that it has sent shivers down the spines of bureaucrats from Washington to the farthest corners of the federal empire.
Yes, the gravy train has hit a sudden and screeching halt, and the nation now finds itself at a once-in-a-lifetime crossroads: Do we blindly scream in horror at the halt of unchecked spending, or do we take a deep, patriotic breath and seize this as the most significant opportunity to reset our priorities before the entire federal apparatus eats itself into oblivion?
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump is taking further action against the 50 former intelligence officials who falsely suggested Hunter Biden’s laptop was “part of a Russian disinformation campaign,” instructing agencies to also ban those individuals from stepping foot in secure U.S. government facilities, according to a memo obtained by The Daily Wire.[snip]including former CIA directors John Brennan, Michael Hayden, and Leon Panetta, who also at one time served as Secretary of Defense. It also includes the former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper and John Bolton
A plane reportedly crashed on a street near the Roosevelt Mall in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Friday night, igniting nearby cars and homes in flames.
The crash happened at about 6 p.m. after a plane took off from Northeast Philadelphia Airport.
The City of Philadephia posted on X, calling the incident "major."
"Major incident near Cottman and Bustelton Avenues in Northeast Philadelphia across from Roosevelt Mall," according to the post. "Roads closed in area including parts of Roosevelt Boulevard. Avoid area."
China’s state-run Global Times on Thursday marveled at the high-tech entertainments on display for this year’s Spring Festival, praising a troupe of dancing robots as evidence the Communist nation has become the world’s leading tech power. (Video) No expense was spared on the robot dance party, which eclipsed the usual 3,000-drone aerial light show as the marquee event at the festival:n the performance directed by renowned Chinese director Zhang Yimou, 16 robots produced by Chinese robotics company Unitree, dressing in northeastern Chinese style floral padded jackets, performed together with dancers from China’s Xinjiang Art Institute.
I’ve been rather hard on the FBI in recent years, but only in response to such grossly unprofessional, and arguably illegal conduct I’ve had no choice. As I’ve so often written, I’d like to believe the majority of field agents are decent, honorable people who take seriously their oaths to uphold the law and Constitution and to serve the American people. Unfortunately with DEI rampant in that agency, and unmistakable proof of political vendettas, I can’t. Even if I did, when two agents—they usually travel in pairs—show up at my door, how can I know they’re two of the honest types?
President Trump fired the head of the FBI Washington Field Office, according to NBC News reporter Ken Dilanian.
David Sundberg is the highest ranking FBI official to be fired in Trump’s second term. Trump fired FBI Director James Comey during his first term.
Sundberg oversaw the January 6 investigation and the investigation into the so-called DNC pipe bomber.
According to NBC’s Ken Dilanian, the purge is much larger than originally reported and includes more than 20 heads of FBI Field Offices.
Acting U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia Ed Martin announced Friday that the Department of Justice has indicted a former senior adviser for the Federal Reserve on espionage charges. (X) Sixty-three-year-old John Harold Rogers of Virginia was arrested Friday and charged with conspiracy to commit economic espionage and with making false statements. Rogers allegedly conspired to steal FRB trade secrets in order to aid China.
From the DOJ website:Washington – John Harold Rogers, 63, of Vienna, Virginia, a former Senior Adviser for the Federal Reserve Board of Governors (FRB), was arrested today
Tennessee Valley Authority CEO Jeff Lyash — the highest-paid federal employee with a compensation package of $10.5 million per year — abruptly announced Friday that he was retiring 11 days after the return to office of President Trump, who during his first term slammed Lyash’s “ridiculous” pay and vowed to fire him.
“Sounds like Lyash got DOGE’d,” a senior administration official told The Post, referring to Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency initiative to rein in allegedly wasteful federal spending.
A TVA rep denied that Lyash was departing either in response to or to get ahead of pressure from Trump’s team after six years in the job.
Democrat Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) is facing blowback after calling for supporters to fight President Donald Trump’s agenda not only legislatively but “in the streets.”
“Right now, we’re going to keep focused on the need to look out for everyday New Yorkers and everyday Americans who are under assault by an extreme MAGA Republican agenda that is trying to cut taxes for billionaire donors and wealthy corporations and then stick New Yorkers and working class Americans across the country with the bill,” Jeffries said during a press conference on Friday.“That’s not acceptable. We are going to fight it legislatively. We’re going to going to fight it in the courts, and
WASHINGTON — Tennessee Valley Authority CEO Jeff Lyash — the highest-paid federal employee with a compensation package of $10.5 million per year — abruptly announced Friday that he was retiring 11 days after the return to office of President Trump, who during his first term slammed Lyash’s “ridiculous” pay and vowed to fire him.
“Sounds like Lyash got DOGE’d,” a senior administration official told The Post, referring to Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency initiative to rein in allegedly wasteful federal spending.
A TVA rep denied that Lyash was departing either in response to or to get ahead of pressure from Trump’s team after six years in the job.
FIRST ON FOX: House Republicans are rolling out a new package of election security legislation this week, with GOP lawmakers already setting eyes on 2026.
Republican Study Committee Chairman August Pfluger, R-Texas, introduced the bills this week, with four lawmakers co-sponsoring the entire package and various other members supporting specific pieces.
The three pieces of legislation are a bill to prohibit noncitizen residents of Washington, D.C., from voting in local elections, a bill to block noncitizens from helping administer elections and a constitutional amendment to prevent noncitizens from voting.
Friends of Melania Trump have their claws out for Anna Wintour’s “Condé Nasty,” they say, after Vogue dissed the first lady with a scathing fashion op-ed.
Bill White — a friend of Melania, as well as President Trump’s nominee for US ambassador to Belgium — said of the first lady, “We love and adore her. We have canceled all our subscriptions to Condé NASTY. I encourage everyone who loves America to do the same.”
Condé Nast’s fashion bible, Vogue, sneered of Melania’s official White House pic, “Trump looked more like she was guest starring on an episode of ‘The Apprentice’ than assuming the role of first lady of the United States,”
On October 7 of last year, CBS News aired an edited "60 Minutes" interview with then-Vice President Kamala Harris, the replacement Democratic nominee. Her answers, including and especially on Israel, were so bad that the network had to edit her response, though they tried to dance around the issue once they were caught. President Donald Trump sued, and there may be a new update as Paramount Global, the parent company, is reportedly looking to settle. This follows news earlier this month that they were looking to settle.
The dismal data on test scores proves
Trump and Congress must pass nationwide
school choice now replies
Trump and Congress must pass nationwide
school choice now replies
The timing couldn’t be more providential.
We celebrate Catholic Schools Week each year at the end of January, as families and neighborhoods throughout the nation highlight the importance of Catholic schools.
National School Choice Week coincides with it this year, emphasizing the importance of empowering parents and their children by allowing them to have educational options and by expanding school choice across the country.
And data released this week by the National Assessment of Educational Progress proves just how important it is to expand education freedom to all 50 states.
We know school choice is a vital means to financially enable parents to send their children to Catholic and other schools of their choosing.
Flashback: Biden’s First Pick to Lead
FAA Was a Total DEI Hire Who Knew Nothing
About Aviation replies
FAA Was a Total DEI Hire Who Knew Nothing
About Aviation replies
In the wake of the deadly midair collision at Reagan National Airport, it’s important that we reassess our nation’s aviation safety standards. President Trump said on Thursday that safety standards declined under Joe Biden, and let me tell you, he is right.
To illustrate this point, let’s look at his first nominee to lead the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), Phil Washington.
During his confirmation hearing, Washington faced significant scrutiny over his lack of knowledge of essential aviation regulations. Washington struggled to provide answers to a series of basic questions that one would expect from someone nominated for the position of FAA administrator.
Did you vote for President Trump in the 2024 presidential election? Well, if you did, ABC co-host Sunny Hostin of The View claimed you were a reason for why an American Airlines jet and an Army Blackhawk helicopter collided in midair over Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport. According to her, it was the “very telling” “result” of you wanting to “blow things up” in Washington, D.C.
Amid their outrage at President Trump for suggesting the Obama and Biden administrations’ DEI programs to have the FAA hire people with “severe intellectual disability, psychiatric disability,” Hostin huffed: “Yeah, I'm not going to dignify his remarks about DEI. I’m not going to do that.”
President Trump ordered federal employees to remove pronouns from their email signatures by 5 pm Friday, ABC News reported.
This is Trump’s latest move to torpedo toxic DEI policies that have infected the government.
Last week Trump signed an executive order declaring there only two sexes:
It is the policy of the United States to recognize two sexes, male and female. These sexes are not changeable and are grounded in fundamental and incontrovertible reality. Under my direction, the Executive Branch will enforce all sex-protective laws to promote this reality, and the following definitions shall govern all Executive interpretation of and application of Federal law and administration policy:
It’s time to clean house at the corrupt
and politicized FBI — and Kash Patel’s
the one to do it replies
and politicized FBI — and Kash Patel’s
the one to do it replies
As FBI Director-designate Kash Patel faces an utterly predictable tide of pseudo-outrage from corrupt leftist liars like Sen. Adam Schiff, it’s important to remember why — as Patel outlined in his blunt and utterly correct statement Thursday to the Senate Judiciary Committee at his confirmation hearing.
He wants to “make sure we don’t have 100,000 rapes in this country next year, make sure we don’t have 100,000 drug overdoses from Chinese fentanyl and Mexican heroin, and make sure we don’t have 17,000 homicides.
“Those numbers need to be cut in half immediately, and the public will regain trust in the FBI and law enforcement.”
President Biden’s and President Trump’s pardons have generated a lot of controversy. But there are considerable differences between the two sets of pardons, with a two-tiered system of justice unfairly biased against Jan. 6 defendants.
Last month, Biden pardoned his son, Hunter. And then, on his last day in office, Biden pardoned five family members. That same day, Trump pardoned 1,500 people who were convicted or facing trial for the Jan. 6 riot.
The media’s coverage of these pardons has been dramatically different.
It hasn’t been my intention to run a series of columns chronicling the Democrats’ long sojourn into the political wilderness, but let’s face it — these things are writing themselves.
Take, for example, the eight painful minutes that ensued when Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Pfizer), the self-styled Advocate For The People who rose to prominence as a fake Native American academic and who again and again is exposed as an utter fraud in politics, was given the microphone to examine Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as the Trump administration’s nominee to head the Department of Health and Human Services.
If you haven’t seen this, you owe it to yourself
Meta Platforms (META) is in discussions about moving its incorporation from Delaware to Texas or other states, the Wall Street Journal reported on Friday, citing people familiar with the matter.
The social media giant has talked to Texas officials about the potential changes, WSJ said, adding that the discussions predate President Donald Trump's new administration.
The paperwork change would not relocate its corporate headquarters.
Meta did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment but a company spokeperson told WSJ that there are no plans to move its corporate headquarters from California.
ATLANTA - A family with ties to Georgia is grieving after learning their loved one was one of the pilots killed in the crash between a small American Airlines plane and a military helicopter crash near Reagan National Airport on Wednesday night.[snip]Timothy Lilley, a former military helicopter pilot, confirmed that his 28-year-old son, Sam Lilley, was one of the two pilots aboard the American Airlines flight.[snip]He believes the commercial PSA jet was following proper procedures, but the military helicopter made a tragic error.
Former “Meet the Press” moderator Chuck Todd is leaving NBC News after nearly 18 years at the network.
Todd said in a memo to NBC News colleagues that Friday was his last day. He’ll continue doing his podcast and said he’s considering new projects, but offered no details.
He joined NBC News as political director in 2007 and was “Meet the Press” moderator from 2014 to 2023, before giving way to Kristen Welker. The role made him one of the more visible journalists in Washington and, as such, an occasional target of President Donald Trump and his supporters.
Todd was a leader in the on-air protest last year that scuttled the hiring
Danasia Elder was fantastic at her job. Before she died in the horrible plane crash over the Potomac, I flew with her just a couple of weeks ago. She seemed to be filled with joy. She visibly cared about doing a great job. Danasia wasn’t phoning it in. When you are on planes a lot, you notice the best flight attendants, and Danasia was one of the best.
I also recently flew with the pilot, Jonathan Campos, and Ian Epstein, the other flight attendant. I remember Ian because he was bit of a character.
My short personal interactions with these souls, refreshingly dedicated folks who seemed to care about their work,
The Trump administration has told top officials at the FBI to resign or lose their jobs, Fox News has learned.
The exact number has not been disclosed, but the ultimatum was allegedly given to senior employees promoted under former FBI Director Christopher A. Wray.
President Donald Trump’s administration took these steps as his nominee to lead the bureau, Kash Patel, said he would not begin his tenure with retribution or focus on past transgressions.
"I have no interest, no desire and will not, if confirmed, go backwards. There will be no politicization at the FBI. There will be no retributive actions taken," Patel said at the Senate Judiciary Committee.
A former adviser from the Obama administration, Rahamim Shy, has been sentenced to prison for his heinous intentions toward a child. Shy, 47, a senior adviser on Pakistan and Afghanistan in the State Department during the Obama administration, was convicted after traveling to the U.K. for the purpose of engaging in sexual acts with a nine-year-old girl.
Shy’s preparations included more than a month of communications with an undercover police officer posing as the girl's grandmother. Upon his arrival in Bedfordshire in February 2024, he was arrested with shockingly inappropriate items in his luggage, including stuffed animals and condoms.
He was sentenced to 11 and a half years in jail.
Elizabeth Warren grilled RFK Jr on drug
company money, but received over $5M from
health industry replies
company money, but received over $5M from
health industry replies
Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., pressed Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to make commitments that he would not seek to profit off of drug companies or lawsuits related to them after working in the Trump administration, if he is confirmed as Health and Human Services (HHS) secretary. However, the Massachusetts Democrat herself raked in roughly $5 million from the health industry during her presidential bid in 2020. [Snip] She was given $2,366,613 by health professionals, $1,600,888 by hospitals and nursing homes, $644,499 from miscellaneous health industries and $625,580 from the pharmaceuticals and health products industry, according to OpenSecrets.
Colombian President Gustavo Petro further buckled to President Trump’s tough new immigration policies Friday — telling his citizens still in the US illegally to “immediately” quit their jobs and return home.
Petro made the public plea for voluntary returns just days after he had tried to block deportation flights, just to quickly cave under Trump’s threats of punishing trade tariffs as high as 50%.
“I ask undocumented Colombians in the US to immediately leave their jobs in that country and return to Colombia as soon as possible,” he wrote in a post on X seen more than a million times Friday.
Illinois Democrats are trying to allow illegal aliens across the state and in the sanctuary city of Chicago to change their names to evade ICE’s deportation efforts against criminal illegals in the state.
As The Gateway Pundit reported earlier, Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson and Illinois Governor JB Pritzker, both Democrats, are reportedly blocking ICE agents from entering prisons and jails to deport hundreds of illegal aliens in the sanctuary city of Chicago. Real America’s Voice correspondent Ben Bergquam reported that there are about 300 illegal aliens in jail with ICE detainer requests, but leftist Chicago officials will not let ICE take them to be deported.
Longtime Meet the Press moderator Chuck Todd has announced he is leaving NBC News before his contract is reportedly set to expire.
'There's never a perfect time to leave a place that's been a professional home for so long, but I'm pretty excited about a few new projects,' Todd wrote in a memo sent to fellow staffers on Friday.
'So, I'm grateful for the chance to get a jump start on my next chapter during this important moment,' he went on.
A supervisor at the Reagan National Airport tower reportedly let an air traffic controller leave early from his shift shortly before Wednesday night’s deadly collision over the Potomac River.
As a result, a single controller was monitoring both the airplanes and the helicopters flying in the area, a source familiar with the investigation told NBC News. One controller is typically in charge of helicopters while another watches over airplanes. The FAA said Thursday that one air traffic controller was doing the job of two people at the time of the devastating crash.
THE BRONX - Residents in the Bronx voiced their concerns and frustration about a 2,200-bed migrant shelter being proposed without community input.With no vote or opinions from residents, the mayor's Office of Asylum seekers Operations plans to open the shelter as soon as late February.
According to officials, the seven-floor facility will have 24/7 on-site security, as well as an 11 p.m. to 6 a.m. curfew.
What they're saying:
At the heated community board meeting, concerns were raised about prioritizing single men over women and families, potential safety issues and a lack of communication from city officials.
Chuck Todd to Exit NBC News
replies
Chuck Todd, the former “Meet the Press” moderator, is leaving NBC News, he told colleagues in a memo issued Friday, a move he’s making in order to pursue ventures outside the NBCUniversal empire.
Todd had in recent weeks been meeting with other news outlets and potential employers, according to people familiar with the matter. His current contract with NBC News had been expected to lapse at some point after the 2024 election.
The Federal Aviation Administration was hit with a class action lawsuit last year alleging it had denied 1,000 would-be air traffic controllers jobs because of diversity hiring targets — as it was revealed staffing levels were “not normal” at the time of this week’s deadly midair collision.
Complaints about the FAA’s hiring policies resurfaced after the American Airlines passenger plane and a Black Hawk helicopter crashed in Washington, DC, on Wednesday, killing 67 people in the country’s deadliest aviation disaster in almost a quarter century.
Details of the litigation reemerged, too, as Andrew Brigida — the lead plaintiff in the suit — suggested the federal aviation agency’s obsession with diversity hiring
As details were pouring in about the air disaster at Reagan National Airport, there’s been a lot of speculation and horror over the mid-air collision: an American Airlines flight from Kansas crashed into a Blackhawk helicopter on approach. There are no survivors. All 67 people onboard the aircraft and the chopper perished.[snip] We’re learning that the Blackhawk helicopter might have been on an unapproved route before the crash. There was also only one controller in the tower doing the work of two people.
The FBI is stalling again. The world’s top intelligence agency is still refusing to turn over the Seth Rich records to Attorney Ty Clevenger.
Attorney Ty Clevenger is the bulldog attorney who has been working for years to get to the bottom of the Seth Rich murder. His requests continue to be denied by the FBI. Kash Patel cannot be sworn in as FBI Director soon enough!
Clevenger previously investigated who supplied the DNC and Podesta emails to Wikileaks during the 2016 election cycle. This was always the key to the Trump-Russia collusion nonsense. No proof was ever offered up by the fake news legacy media, Democrats, or the intelligence community
WASHINGTON — As the Democratic National Committee prepares to elect a new chair, its departing leader says Democrats should have stuck with Joe Biden in the 2024 race. In an interview with The Associated Press, Jaime Harrison reflected on why his party lost to Donald Trump and what might have happened had then-Vice President Kamala Harris had more time to campaign after Biden ended his reelection bid following a disastrous debate performance. He also offered advice to his eventual successor, who will be chosen Saturday. The next DNC chair, Harrison said, needs to insist that the party not be a ''rubber
WASHINGTON - The number of Americans filing new applications for unemployment benefits fell more than expected last week, pointing to low layoffs though job opportunities are becoming scarce for those who are out of work. Initial claims for state unemployment benefits dropped 16,000 to a seasonally adjusted 207,000 for the week ended Jan. 25, the Labor Department said on Thursday. Economists polled by Reuters had forecast 220,000 claims for the latest week. While claims remain at levels consistent with a labor market that continues to plod along, consumers are becoming less optimistic about their prospects of finding employment in the event
Last week Bishop Mariann Edgar Budde of the Episcopal Diocese of Washington received backlash when she injected politics into her sermon during a prayer meeting with President Trump, Vice President Vance, and their respective families in attendance.
The bishop urged President Trump to be merciful towards gay, lesbian, and transgender children and illegal aliens. Many were outraged by her casual mention of transgender children as if their condition was a natural phenomenon.
In reality, transgender children are victims of coercion and brainwashing by sinister forces and lack the maturity or life experience to make such a life-altering decision. Yet instead of protecting innocent children from this barbarity,
Another year, another disastrous National School Report card, the annual checkup on American students’ test scores. Yes, it’s bad. After predictably plunging during the COVID school-shutdown years, scores show no signs of snapping back. This is child abuse on a national level.
Our good friends at the Committee to Unleash Prosperity succinctly summed up the past five years: “The massive, unprecedented infusion of federal funds into schools under the guise of COVID recovery has abjectly failed to improve outcomes – but it has enriched the teacher unions.”
Yep. And the test scores remain abysmal, with no improvement.
What kind of people are Democrats in terms of human decency?
I blogged yesterday about about their execrable behavior to Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. at his Senate confirmation hearings for the Health and Human Services portfolio in the new Trump administration. They bellowed. They bloviated. They interrupted, while Kennedy remained the perfect gentleman in a setting no gentleman should ever have to endur.
But they only got worse after I signed off on that piece.
Here's what kind of creature Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse is as he preens on the Senate floor, piously intoning "You frighten me":
The New York Times is preparing to publish a deep state hit piece on President Donald Trump’s nominee for Director of National Intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard. The piece is purportedly based on National Security Agency (NSA) surveillance of a pair of anonymous terrorists.
Two people familiar with the matter told The Federalist the Times will accuse Gabbard, a former Democrat congresswoman from Hawaii, of meeting with then-Lebanese Hezbollah Supreme Leader Hassan Nasrallah on a Middle East trip in 2017. The paper of “all the news that’s fit to print” i
The head of the Federal Communications Commission informed NPR and PBS on Wednesday that the agency will probe whether messages aired by the taxpayer-funded broadcasters “cross the line into prohibited commercial advertisements.”
“I am concerned that NPR and PBS broadcasts could be violating federal law by airing commercials,” FCC Chairman Brendan Carr wrote in a letter to the heads of both outlets, according to NPR.
Carr, 46, explained that his specific concern is related to corporate underwriting announcements broadcast by NPR and PBS member stations, which may violate rules prohibiting public broadcasters from running commercials.
NYC ambulance response times for life-threatening
emergencies jump as EMTs see staffing crunch replies
emergencies jump as EMTs see staffing crunch replies
Ambulance response times during life-threatening emergencies jumped in the last year, according to revealed data — as the FDNY blames ongoing staffing and recruiting troubles.
Average ambulance response time to life-threatening emergencies jumped more than 34 seconds from eight minutes and 14-seconds in the 2024 fiscal year to eight minutes and 48 seconds for the first quarter of the 2025 fiscal year running from July 1 through November, according to the mayor’s management report.
Boy, Did We Dodge a Bullet ...
replies
As I watched Vice President J.D. Vance swear in our new Defense Secretary, Pete Hegseth, I couldn’t help but breathe a long sigh of relief.
At last, our military forces will be restored to its full potential to protect this great nation.
If we are looking for further proof that a higher power is watching over us, consider this one question: why haven’t our enemies taken advantage of the fact that for the past four years, America has been at its most vulnerable because the man in charge of that nuclear football has been non compos mentis since he took office? As if that wasn’t bad enough,
Internal political tensions in Ukraine have been rising in anticipation of a cease-fire that might lead to elections. This week, they burst into the open with a striking public rebuke of President Volodymyr Zelensky by the mayor of Kyiv. In a video address issued on Wednesday, the mayor of the country’s capital, Vitali Klitschko, accused the president’s office of abusing the powers of martial law, the latest salvo in a continuing dispute over the use of military rule during the nearly three-year war against Russia. In the last local elections before the invasion, the president’s party, Servant of the People, did not win a single mayoral position in Ukraine.
Democrats and the media have scoffed at Trump’s talk of acquiring Greenland for the United States, but they may not be laughing for much longer.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio was interviewed by Megyn Kelly this week and confirmed that Trump’s intentions are very real and that the acquisition of Greenland has nothing to do with gaining more land but is all about national security.
Rubio also did a great job of explaining Trump’s approach to the issue, with the mind of a strategic businessman rather than that of a politician.
President Donald Trump signed a sweeping executive order on Wednesday backing school choice and empowering parents in education.
The order states that it is the policy of the Trump administration to “support parents in choosing and directing the upbringing and education of their children,” and it directs the Department of Education to prioritize school choice programs through discretionary grants.
“Parents want and deserve the best education for their children. But too many children do not thrive in their assigned, government-run K-12 school. According to this year’s National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), 70 percent of 8th graders were below proficient in reading, and 72 percent were below proficient in math,”
President Trump zinged a reporter asking if he will visit the site of the American Airlines plane crash.
Trump signed a series of executive orders from the Oval Office on Thursday after a Blackhawk helicopter crashed into an American Airlines plane near Reagan Airport on Wednesday evening.
67 people died after the two aircraft collided over the Potomac.
First responders pulled bodies out of the icy Potomac river on Wednesday and Thursday. There were no survivors.
Ukrainian forces killed a top North Korean commander in a brutal battle in Kursk, as fierce fighting continues in the region, it's been reported. Putin has assembled an army of around 60,000 that includes some 12,000 North Koreans in the border region.
The Russians are desperately trying to drive off their territory some 20,000 Ukrainians. However, Zelensky's soldiers are putting up stiff resistance and continue to inflict huge casualties on their enemy. Ukraine's 22nd Mechanised Brigade wiped out a battalion of North Korean special forces in intense fighting around the village of Malaya Loknya in recent days.
Gabbard’s Senate Critics Are More Interested
In Protecting America’s Spy Agencies
Than Fixing Them replies
In Protecting America’s Spy Agencies
Than Fixing Them replies
President Trump’s pick to lead the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, has never been shy about sharing her criticisms of America’s surveillance state. So, it came as no surprise when some of its biggest defenders grilled her on the subject during her Thursday Senate confirmation hearing.
While testifying before the Senate Intelligence Committee, Gabbard was repeatedly pressed by senators to offer a full-throated defense of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), which intel agencies abused to spy on unsuspecting Americans and surveil Trump’s 2016 campaign.
During Bobby Kennedy Jr.’s contentious Senate confirmation hearing as HHS secretary nominee, he revealed that Medicaid costs blew up by a staggering 60% during Joe Biden’s presidency.
“Our ship is sinking. Our 60% increase in Medicaid over the past four years is the biggest budget line now, and it’s growing faster than any other.”
Biden’s border invasion is what happened over the past four years. It stands to reason that if you have an extra 10 million to 20 million new potential low-income patients, none of whom has contributed a penny in net taxes, you will get a blowup in Medicaid and Medicare costs.
This is the dirty little secret
Mexican nationals, likely cartel members, recently crossed the border and shot and wounded an American hiker. Did they assume that Joe Biden was still president, and so it was still a veritable open season on Americans without consequences? Mexico also recently balked at allowing a U.S. transport plane to land, returning its own nationals apprehended as illegal aliens.
Was its attitude that Alejandro Mayorkas was still Homeland Security Secretary and thus working with Mexico to ensure that millions of illegal aliens could stay in the U.S. indefinitely?
The nation is reeling from the Reagan National Airport disaster. There are no survivors. The American Airlines flight that collided with an Army Blackhawk helicopter last night around 9 PM spared no one. All 67 people on the aircraft and the chopper perished in what is the worst aviation accident in recent memory. For some, this was an event waiting to happen, given the congestion, the length of the runway, and variating flight patterns. (X Video) Reagan Airport has seen more than a few close calls. It doesn’t help that the air traffic control tower has one staffer doing the work of two people.
Bring On Iron Dome
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When, in March 1983 in a nationally televised speech, Ronald Reagan proposed the Strategic Defense Initiative, he asked the American “scientific community” — “those who gave us nuclear weapons” — “to turn their great talents to the cause of mankind and world peace, to give us the means of rendering these nuclear weapons impotent and obsolete.”
Reagan was proposing SDI as an alternative to the doctrine of Mutually Assured Destruction that he found personally repugnant. From the beginning, however, SDI was controversial. Opponents said it would cost too much, or lead to a renewed arms race, or scare the Soviets into striking first.
NewsNation host Chris Cuomo accused Democratic Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren on Wednesday of hypocrisy during her questioning of Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) nominee Robert F. Kennedy Jr. at his confirmation hearing. Warren pressed Kennedy to “commit” to not accepting compensation for any lawsuits against drug companies during his potential tenure at HHS and for four years after, leading to a heated exchange. Cuomo, on “CUOMO,” suggested that Warren’s record, which includes becoming substantially wealthier while in office and misrepresenting her Native American heritage, should have disqualified her from such questioning of Kennedy.
Robert F. Kennedy Jr., President Donald Trump’s nominee for Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary, said on Thursday that he will stop federal funding from going to National Institutes of Health (NIH) research using the body parts of aborted babies.
During round two of Kennedy’s confirmation hearing, Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO) asked Kennedy if he would reinstate a 2019 HHS policy from President Donald Trump’s first term barring providing taxpayer funding for NIH research programs that use human fetal tissue derived from the body parts of aborted babies. The rabidly pro-abortion Biden-Harris administration reversed Trump’s policy in 2021. Hawley said:
Trump’s FCC Chair Launching Investigation
of NPR and PBS, Taxpayer Funding Under
Increased Scrutiny replies
of NPR and PBS, Taxpayer Funding Under
Increased Scrutiny replies
Brendan Carr, the head of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) under Trump, is launching an investigation of National Public Radio (NPR) and the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS).
Both organizations are already facing the loss of taxpayer funding, but this investigation will increase pressure on lawmakers to pull that funding.
Conservative Americans have been calling for the defunding of NPR and PBS for years. There are countless examples of these organizations acting as surrogates for the Democrat party.