From my friends at Townhall:
Monthly Archives: July 2025
What Was Hidden In The Back Room?
On Wednesday, The Gateway Pundit posted an article about a trove of documents found in burn bags in a room in the FBI headquarters. Fox News also reported the story.
The Gateway Pundit notes:
FBI Director Kash Patel found thousands of Russia collusion hoax documents in “burn bags” in a secret room at the FBI, Fox News reported.
One of the documents in the burn bags included the classified annex to the John Durham report that includes the underlying intelligence he investigated.
CIA Director John Ratcliffe is expected to declassify the annex to Durham’s final report and send it to Senator Grassley, who will release it to the public.
Fox News also reported that Kash Patel and his team of investigators discovered a “previously undisclosed” SCIF at the FBI headquarters.
Fox News reported:
FBI Director Kash Patel found a trove of sensitive documents related to the origins of the Trump–Russia probe buried in multiple “burn bags” in a secret room inside the bureau, sources told Fox News Digital.
Sources told Fox News Digital that the “burn bag” system is used to destroy documents designated as classified or higher.
Sources told Fox News Digital that multiple burn bags were found and filled with thousands of documents.
The Gateway Pundit notes:
In 2023, Special Counsel John Durham released his final report concluding the FBI had no verified intel when it opened the Crossfire Hurricane investigation into Trump in 2016.
President Trump declassified a binder on January 19th, 2021.
The now infamous binder contains hundreds of pages about the Crossfire Hurricane scandal. It contains damaging information about the corrupt actors involved in our government.
In an explosive development in August 2022 following the FBI’s Mar-a-Lago raid, sources close to the high-profile investigation revealed that the FBI’s raid on Mar-a-Lago was explicitly aimed at recovering a “missing top-secret binder.”
Leaving burn bags in a room is totally against the protocol for disposing of classified information. According to protocol, burn bags are to be collected every day and burned every day. It is amazing that these bags were found.
I am looking forward to the declassification of these documents. It is time to hold the people responsible for the undermining of the first Trump administration responsible–all of them. I am not sure that is realistic, but it needs to happen.
Let’s Go Back To Real Cars With Real Engines!
On Friday, Issues & Insights posted an article about an item in the Big Beautiful Bill that was not highly publicized.
The article reports:
One of the most important provisions in the One Big Beautiful Bill has gone completely unnoticed, but promises to make the auto industry great again.
For 50 years, the federal government has been forcing fuel economy standards on auto companies. If the average fuel economy of the cars sold in a year exceeded a federal standard, the companies had to cough up enormous penalties.
Passed in 1975 as a way to deal with an energy crisis (that was caused by government price controls), “corporate average fuel economy” (CAFE) standards – required the fleet of cars sold by an automaker to achieve an arbitrary miles-per-gallon goal. If they missed the goal, they paid hefty annual fines.
From the beginning, these standards were a disaster, forcing automakers to radically downsize their fleet, which research showed cost thousands of lives because, all things being equal, smaller, lighter cars are less safe than larger ones.
In fact, a 2002 National Academy of Sciences found that these fuel economy standards not only boosted the cost of cars, but may have caused as many as 2,600 more traffic fatalities just in 1993.
The article notes:
In this first term, Trump rolled the standard back a bit, only to have Joe Biden come in and impose standards specifically designed to force most cars sold to be electric. The standards would have cost automakers billions in fines for failing to meet the fuel-economy targets.
This time around, Trump is again planning to roll the CAFE standards back. But Congress did him one better. Rather than wait for regulators to rewrite the rule, which can take years and be subject be endless lobbying and litigation from various interest groups – lawmakers simply zeroed out the penalty as part of the One Big Beautiful Bill.
Now, if a car company sells cars that, on average, exceed whatever the fuel-economy limit is technically in force in a given year, they pay… nothing. The mandate is still in place, but the penalty is now $0.00. (Republicans pulled off the same trick with the dreaded Obamacare insurance mandate — zeroing out the penalty rather than trying to get the mandate repealed.)
Hopefully this will be the end of the electric Ford Mustang where they have to manufacture the engine growl electronically and the beginning of going back to the real Mustang design with the real growl!
Some Good News About The Economy
On Wednesday, CNBC reported the following:
- Gross domestic product jumped to 3% for the second quarter, better than the 2.3% estimate and reversing a 0.5% decline in the prior period.
- Consumer spending rose 1.4% in the second quarter, better than the 0.5% in the prior period.
- While exports declined 1.8% during the period, imports fell 30.3%, reversing a 37.9% surge in Q1.
- President Donald Trump responded to the GDP report with a fresh demand for the Federal Reserve to lower interest rates.
In another article posted on Wednesday, CNBC reported:
- Private payrolls rose by a seasonally adjusted 104,000 for the month, reversing a loss of 23,000 in June and topping the Dow Jones forecast for an increase of 64,000.
- Wages rose at a 4.4% annual pace for the month, about in line with recent trends.
The first article mentioned reports:
The U.S. economy grew at a much stronger-than-expected pace in the second quarter, powered by a turnaround in the trade balance and renewed consumer strength, the Commerce Department reported Wednesday.
Gross domestic product, a sum of goods and services activity across the sprawling U.S. economy, jumped 3% for the April through June period, according to figures adjusted for seasonality and inflation.
That topped the Dow Jones estimate for 2.3% and helped reverse a decline of 0.5% for the first quarter that came largely due to a huge drop in imports, which subtract from the total, as well as weak consumer spending amid tariff concerns.
Financial markets reacted little to the report, with stock index futures mixed and Treasury yields higher.
“The word of the summer for the economy is ‘resilient,’” said Heather Long, chief economist at Navy Federal Credit Union. “The consumer is hanging in there, but still on edge until the trade deals are done.”
The second article reports:
Hiring at private companies rebounded at a stronger than expected pace in July, indicating the labor market is holding its ground, ADP reported Wednesday.
Payrolls rose by a seasonally adjusted 104,000 for the month, reversing a loss of 23,000 in June and topping the Dow Jones forecast from economists for an increase of 64,000. The June number was revised up from an initially reported loss of 33,000.
Though the pace of hiring is well off where it stood last year, the June total was the best since March and consistent with a slowing but still fairly vibrant jobs picture.
“Our hiring and pay data are broadly indicative of a healthy economy,” ADP chief economist Nela Richardson said. “Employers have grown more optimistic that consumers, the backbone of the economy, will remain resilient.”
At the present time, it looks as if hiring a businessman as President was a good choice for the economy.
Common Sense Comes To Windmills
On Tuesday, The Department of the Interior posted a Press Release detailing the Department’s changing policy on wind energy.
The Press Release states:
Today, U.S. Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum announced four policy measures to advance President Donald J. Trump’s commonsense approach to affordable, reliable energy development in America.
In alignment with President Donald J. Trump’s directives, the Department of the Interior is ending special treatment for unreliable energy sources, such as wind. This includes evaluating whether to stop onshore wind development on some federal lands and halting future offshore wind lease sales. The Department will also study how constructing and operating wind turbines might affect migratory bird populations.
These changes are part of a broader America First energy strategy focused on affordability, reliability, and accountability for the American people. As part of efforts to support a stable power grid and elevate local voices, the Department will improve consultation with tribes, local communities, and the fishing industry regarding offshore wind projects. The latest reforms aim to ensure that energy development reflects local land-use priorities and community values.
“These policy changes represent a commonsense approach to energy that puts Americans’ interests first,” said Secretary Doug Burgum. “Leveling the playing field in permitting supports energy development that’s reliable, affordable, and built to last. We’re also making sure tribes and local communities have a real seat at the table. This move is about responsible energy growth that works for every American.”
These are the highlights of the Press Release:
Stopping Preferential Treatment for Wind Projects
Restoring Congress’s Mandate to Consider All Uses of Our Public Lands and Waters Equally
Enhancing Stakeholder Engagement for Offshore Wind Development
Reviewing the Consequences of Developing Wind Turbines on Migratory Birds
Wind energy is another concept that was not fully thought out before it was implemented. The impact of offshore windmills on whales and other marine life that uses sonar to navigate and the consequences of a blade malfunctioning or disintegrating have not been fully considered. The impact of onshore windmills on eagles and other birds has also been ignored. Let’s get back to a level playing field in terms on energy generation and let the free market prevail.
Are We Willing To Go Back To The Nineteenth Century?
On Tuesday, Hot Air posted an article about several decisions by various international courts. The combined affect of these decisions is to make fossil fuels illegal. Hang on to your gas stove!
The article reports:
It’s a piece in The New York Times–for him, it was the international version with a different headline–that argues that several decisions by various international courts amount to outlawing the extraction and use of fossil fuels.
It’s hard to argue with their conclusion because I am not an international lawyer, but let’s assume that the claim is true, as it appears to be on its face.
Rulings by the International Court of Justice, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, and the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea all suggest that the climate harms resulting from the burning of fossil fuels violate international law.
The New York Times article states:
The I.C.J.’s unanimous opinion reinforced these conclusions and broadened their reach, stating that countries must protect citizens from the “urgent and existential threat” of climate change. When a country fails to curb greenhouse gas emissions — whether by producing or consuming fossil fuels, approving new exploration to find them or subsidizing the industry — it may be held liable for “an internationally wrongful act,” the court’s 15 judges said.
This makes it much harder for any government or company to say that rules don’t apply to them or they don’t have to act. Read together, these three landmark legal rulings leave no doubt that continuing fossil fuel production and use, let alone expanding it, violates the law. It is a cease-and-desist notice to fossil fuel producers.
This isn’t the dumbest thing I have ever heard, but it’s close.
Never forget:
On March 30, 2016, I posted the following (here):
Have doubts? Then listen to the words of former United Nations climate official Ottmar Edenhofer:
“One has to free oneself from the illusion that international climate policy is environmental policy. This has almost nothing to do with the environmental policy anymore, with problems such as deforestation or the ozone hole,” said Edenhofer, who co-chaired the U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change working group on Mitigation of Climate Change from 2008 to 2015.
So what is the goal of environmental policy?
“We redistribute de facto the world’s wealth by climate policy,” said Edenhofer.
Whenever you see someone claiming global governance and talking about climate change, consider the above quote.
Meanwhile, follow the link above to read the entire article at Hot Air.
The View From The Lair
Popcorn Time!
I was enjoying a wonderful dream. I was standing under a hot tropical sun, sand under my feet. The air was thick with humidity (sort of like Craven County lately) and the aroma of the ocean was strong.
Before me was a 10’ chain link enclosure, topped with razor wire. As I watched, a line of people approached the gate. All were dressed in short sleeved orange jumpsuits; hands cuffed and locked to waist chains. They shuffled due to manacles around their ankles. Each person was attached by a short chain to the one behind, thus requiring a shuffle in cadence. The first one became James Comey, squinting in the bright light. Attached was Jim Clapper, followed by a scowling John Brennan. Andrew McCabe shuffled along next, ahead of Adam “PencilNeck” Schiff followed by Peter Strozk. Next to last came a harridan, with stringy grey hair, shrieking like I had to think a banshee might sound. She proceeded to start staggering and coughing, only the tall, African-American male identifying individual behind her kept her upright.
The sound awoke me, realizing that the shrieking was from our two cats enjoying a dispute. The gagging and coughing came from our red headed male regurgitating his night time snack. Note: a recording of a cat puking is the perfect alarm clock. No snooze button needed.
My wife and I enjoy popcorn. I absolutely LOVE it! But since I am on a low carb diet, I can only enjoy it very infrequently. We call the start of ACC basketball “Popcorn Season.” As Tar Heel fans, we WILL watch our Tar Heel basketball team with a bowl of popcorn and a cold beer. Maybe two. Just sayin’…
But NOW! A new Popcorn Season has arrived. AG Bondi and FBI Director Patel plus AD Bongino are SERIOUSLY investigating BOTH Epstein AND “RussiaGate”! Here’s the quandary (or swivet as my father might say) for the LameStream news agencies: If they don’t report either or both of these predicaments, then the podcasters and alternative sources will show them up as the incompetent fools that they are. If they do report either one or both of them, their previous malfeasance in denying their existence and supporting the lie they so fervently proclaimed for so long will reveal that they in fact are the incompetent fools we have been calling them for years.
Either way, the reporting from either the conservative news sources, read: real news, and the comparative tap dancing, conflating, and lying from the alphabet news sources will show them to be the liars we all know that they are.
To add to the entertainment, all this will continue into the 2026 mid-term elections. Normally the party in the White House shows some difficulty in retaining both Congressional as well as state legislature and executive positions. But today the Marxists have recorded the lowest polling numbers for trust and popularity in history! Only the hard-core TDS infected communists support the Marxists, with the idiots Mandami and AOC leading their demise.
I can hardly wait! Pass the popcorn, please.
A BIG bowl!
Ciao,
The Snark
General Flynn Speaks Out
General Flynn has a Substack website where he posts articles about current happenings.
On July 29, he posted the following headline, “The Hunted Have Become the Hunters The Truth is Rising.” I agree. In the article he lists recent events that have uncovered the truth about the continuing attacks on President Trump and his past and present administrations.
The article reports:
The recent declassifications from DNI Tulsi Gabbard weren’t coincidental. They were a strategic disclosure of evidence and laid the groundwork for follow-on prosecutions.
Here’s what those documents confirm:
Barack Obama knew in December 2016 that there was no Russia-Trump collusion. He also knew Hillary Clinton’s campaign was manufacturing the narrative, yet he allowed it to proceed anyway. Why…Because globalism and communism were the end goals. Obama was not just transforming America, he was weaponizing the entire federal government to destroy a duly elected successor.
This wasn’t politics, this was a coup that they nearly got away with.
How Do We Know?
Let’s look at five confirmed, documented facts that expose this Deep State playbook:
1. Illegal surveillance of the Trump campaign via FISA warrants—later ruled invalid. The DOJ’s Inspector General found at least 17 significant errors or omissions in the Carter Page FISA applications (Horowitz Report, 2019).
2. Unmasking of Gen. Michael Flynn by dozens of Obama-era officials. According to DNI declassifications, 39 officials made 53 unmasking requests involving Flynn, including Biden and Obama’s Chief of Staff.
3. Despite its unverified status, Senator John McCain hand-delivered the Steele Dossier to James Comey, and it later became the basis for FBI surveillance.
4. AG Bill Barr claimed “no election fraud” within days of the 2020 election despite hundreds of affidavits, video footage, and ongoing court challenges.
5. The FBI raid on Mar-a-Lago authorized with “deadly force” authority in the execution order (as confirmed by court filings in 2024).
Why 2020 Was Critical
2020 wasn’t just about beating Trump, it was about silencing him before he could uncover and expose their crimes. The Deep State’s strategy is to run out the clock since the federal statute of limitations for many offenses is five years.
But there’s one catch: a conspiracy investigation resets the clock and opens up new venues for prosecution. The Deep State’s favorite Washington, D.C. courtrooms can no longer protect this corruption-Florida is now in play and that changes everything.
A New DOJ — A New Battlefield
This marks a new chapter beyond the Barr–Wray–Durham era. The president has appointed a talented team of leaders and assigned them clear responsibilities and expectations to ensure accountability.
From the FBI’s new investigations to Tulsi’s precise declassifications, every piece of this operation is moving in sync. You don’t declassify sensitive intel unless ready to act on it. You don’t flip the DOJ unless you plan to prosecute.
This is not the Trump of 2017. This is 2025 Trump, deliberate, battle-tested, and backed by a trusted inner circle.
Please follow the link and read the entire article. It is time for justice.
Peace Breaks Out Again?
On Monday, Fox News reported that President Trump has announced that Thailand and Cambodia have reached a ceasefire deal.
The article reports:
Thailand and Cambodia reached a ceasefire deal “through trade,” President Donald Trump announced Monday, ending a burgeoning conflict that displaced 260,000 people.
The declaration from Trump comes after he said over the weekend that he had spoken to the leaders of Cambodia and Thailand, urging a ceasefire, adding the U.S. would not get back to the “trading table” with the southeast Asian countries until fighting stops.
The fighting began Thursday after a land mine explosion along the border wounded five Thai soldiers. Both sides blamed each other for starting the clashes that have killed at least 35 people and displaced more than 260,000 people on both sides.
The article notes:
“I said, ‘I don’t want to trade with anybody that’s killing each other.’ So we just got that one solved. And I’m going to call the two prime ministers who I got along with very, very well and speak to them right after this meeting and congratulate them. But it was an honor to be involved in that. That was going to be a very nasty war. Those wars have been very, very nasty,” Trump also said.
“By ending this War, we have saved thousands of lives. I have instructed my Trade Team to restart negotiations on Trade. I have now ended many Wars in just six months — I am proud to be the President of PEACE!” Trump added in a post on Truth Social.
As part of the ceasefire deal, military commanders from both sides will begin to hold talks Tuesday to defuse tensions while Cambodia will host a border committee meeting on Aug. 4, according to Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim.
As I have stated before, President Trump knows how to use economic leverage. America is the big kid on the block, and we don’t have to bully anyone. However, we can use our economic position to bring peace where it is needed.
Priorities?
New York City Mayoral Candidate Zohran Mamdani wants to help the city’s economically challenged to have a better life. He is talking about rent control, city-operated grocery stores with free or very low-priced food. He has stated that millionaires shouldn’t exist. He frowns on private property. He himself is the child of wealth who seems to enjoy thoroughly what that wealth has given him.
Amuse on Substack posted an article about Mamdani’s recent celebration of his wedding. It was a lavish affair in Uganda that lasted for three days and cost approximately $250,000. He is entitled to spend his money any way he wants to, but if he is so concerned with New York City’s economically challenged, why doesn’t he throw some of his money their way? Why does he choose to be charitable with other people’s money while living lavishly with his own? Why not buy a building and let people live there rent free? Why not fund a drug rehab center or an alcohol rehab center?
The article concludes:
As George Orwell once wrote of British socialists in The Road to Wigan Pier, the problem is not the idea of socialism but the people who advocate it. He observed that many socialists do not love the poor, they simply hate the rich. Mamdani embodies this paradox. He does not hate luxury. He hates its availability to anyone else.
And what of New York? If Mamdani governs as he lives, then the city is in trouble. His plans include rent controls so severe they would hollow out the housing market, defunding the police at a time of rising crime, and replacing core public services with untested socialist experiments. His ideology is not tempered by responsibility. It is validated by fantasy.
The irony is thick. The man who declared that “capitalism is theft” held a $500,000 wedding on a private estate, protected by military police, while advocating for the seizure of private property. That is not public service. That is theatrical oligarchy. Mamdani may call himself a radical. But he is something more familiar: a privileged revolutionary who wants to burn down your house so he can rule from his.
If New York City elects this man, they deserve everything they will get!
Who Wins As The War In Ukraine Continues>
On Monday, American Greatness posted an article about the continuing war in Ukraine. Despite major diplomatic efforts, President Trump has not been able to get both sides of that war to agree on a truce. So who is benefitting from this extended war?
The article reports:
The beneficiaries of this conflict extend beyond the front lines—the theater of war. America’s largest defense contractors—Lockheed Martin (where my father worked as an engineer for many years), Raytheon, General Dynamics, Boeing, and Northrop Grumman—have experienced unprecedented financial gains since the war’s onset. In the fiscal year 2023 alone, Lockheed Martin secured a staggering $70.8 billion in contracts from the Pentagon², and collectively, Raytheon, General Dynamics, Boeing, and Northrop Grumman received $92 billion, bringing the total for these top five defense firms to over $162 billion in a single year².
These companies redistributed approximately $57 billion to shareholders through dividends and buybacks since 2022³.
The surge in defense spending has not only bolstered these firms’ financial fortunes but also driven up the costs of weaponry under the pretext of wartime urgency. For instance, the price of a Stinger missile has skyrocketed from $25,000 to $400,000 each⁴. Similarly, the cost of a Javelin missile, jointly produced by Lockheed and Raytheon, surged by nearly 33% between 2021 and 2024⁴.
Beyond arms sales, political influence and lobbying have surged. Since 2022, the top five defense contractors have collectively spent $251 million on lobbying efforts⁵, with over $37 million directed towards federal campaigns, particularly those of defense committee members⁵.
The article notes:
The military-industrial complex that President Eisenhower warned about in 1961 has since evolved into a transnational network of private contractors, arms dealers, and lobbyists who thrive in times of conflict.
Even some of the humanitarian aid is not closely watched:
And while humanitarian aid remains crucial, reports from the European Court of Auditors in 2024 highlighted concerns regarding the allocation of over €1.2 billion in aid without competitive bidding¹¹. Similarly, USAID awarded contracts totaling over $300 million to firms such as Chemonics, DAI Global, and AECOM under opaque circumstances that ranged from civil society enhancement to logistical support¹². These projects faced allegations of cost inflation, nepotism, and non-competitive extensions.
It is long past time to end this war. It is unfortunate that so many dishonest people seem to be profiting from continuing it. Please follow the link above to the article for further details.
The Cost Of The Trans Fad
On Saturday, The New York Post posted an article about Miles Yardley, formerly a very successful New York City model.
The article reports:
In Catholic churches across Manhattan and Brooklyn, Salomé captivated the congregation, uplifting the faithful with her soulful singing and skilled organ playing. The New York Archdiocese Organist Training Program enrollee’s musical gifts had her booking gigs across the city.
But for years, Salomé’s bashful smile and angelic voice concealed a secret — one not even known in the shadows of the confessional. She was a he: Salomé was born Miles.
His story is one that’s becoming all too familiar: A child with unconventional interests, swayed by strange ideologies on the internet, is hustled by doctors into a life of medical dependency — only to find himself questioning everything years later.
“They very quickly put me on hormones without really any discernment. Looking back, if I were a doctor, I would think this is a much larger decision than the kid thinks that it is,” he tells The Post.
Miles Yardley, as his female persona Salomé, arrived in the Big Apple in 2022 from his native Pennsylvania. He (then she) quickly became the toast of New York’s downtown fashion scene.
Yardley signed a modeling contract, was featured in a Marc Jacobs perfume ad shot by famed photographer Juergen Teller, exhibited for Enfants Riches Déprimés, and strutted Fashion Week runways for designers Batsheva and Elena Velez — all while singing in parishes and mentoring Catholic schoolchildren in music.
Soon Yardley was a regular bohemian socialite, a fixture on podcasts, was even flown to Romania to meet the Tate brothers, with virtually everyone unaware of Salomé’s secret.
Please follow the link to read the entire article. It is a lesson to all of us not to rush major medical procedures on anyone without seriously considering the consequences and fully examining the situation.
The article concludes:
As for those doctors, Yardley is surprisingly merciful. “I don’t believe, as a Christian, that people are setting out to do evil for evil’s sake. I don’t think anyone has that in their heart,” he said.
“But I think it has a lot to do with an overreach of professionals and a lot to do with money. Hospitals make a lot of money from these procedures. They benefit from having lifelong patients, which is what transgender people are. You need the hormones to maintain the identity.”
If he could go back, would he change any of it? “There’s no way to live your life without making mistakes or going down the wrong path,” Yardley says.
“My life would be totally different if I made different decisions at 15 years old, so I can’t really conceive of a different path. I don’t live in a regret state. In many ways, I’m extraordinary lucky.”
He does, however, wish that doctors would learn to be more open-minded.
“If you’re a gender-nonconforming kid, you should be allowed to be yourself. I think that was the biggest problem. I didn’t feel like I could be confident in who I was. And if that person happens to like singing and dancing and cooking and Barbie dolls, who really cares? You can be a boy who likes that,” Yardley says.
“At the time, nobody in my life told me that was possible.”
The View From The Lair
Tar Baby, part deux
In my previous rant about the Epstein debacle, I mentioned that perhaps Ms. AG Bondi and AD Bongino may have prematurely excited the MAGA base with promises that they might not be able to fulfil. There was never any danger that PDJT would be exposed to anything promiscuous, much less incriminating. Even if the lousy investigation by President Rutabaga’s DOJ had turned up anything, the WAPO and NYT front pages would have been filled with it for weeks. Even if there had been inclusion of Marxist participation co-incidental to DJT’s exposure – Slick Willy, for example – they would have thrown them under the bus in a NY minute. So, with Epstein suicided, case closed.
Except.
The Keystone Kops under Garland Merrick forgot to question Ghislane Maxwell. She’s only the primary (and only surviving) witness to the whole tawdry affairs. How could they have missed questioning her? After all, with all the documentation they had, what could she offer?
Other than the truth, that is.
The documentation apparently contains a lot of not much. Inuendo, vague descriptions, nothing sufficiently incriminating. I would expect that there would be mention of people that the FBI really wouldn’t want to interview – such as heavy hitter donors to the Marxists. Can’t be embarrassing them now, can we? Maybe Slick Willy since he showed up on the Lolita Express numerous times without accompanying security! It’s unlikely that anyone with any law enforcement affiliation would be welcomed.
So now AG Bondi has re-opened the investigation. New material evidence – like interrogating the only witness that was never questioned – allows a new grand jury. A new investigation team.
So now, maybe the real story of Jeffrey Epstein can come out. Ms. Maxwell wasn’t stored in a NY jail, under the sleeping eyes of guards, available to anyone who might not want him to testify. Not that anyone like, oh, said Slick Willy would ever want that to happen. Of course not.
In typical Marxist fashion they covered up as much as they could. But suiciding Ms. Maxwell would have been just too co-incidental. Plus, Florida proved harder to get through to her.
The TDS crowd, as well as the squish MAGA followers were screaming that PDJT had failed at last in delivering a promise. He had delivered everything so far, but…Got to bat 1000 or it doesn’t count.
Oh, ye of little faith. This is PDJT. Not Bush I. Not Bush II. President Donald J. Trump swings a heavy bat. He swings for the fences.
And he delivers.
ciao
The Snark
Let’s Find Out What Happened
On Monday, Just the News posted an article about the hacking into the Alaskan voter registration system by a group of Iranian nationals.
The article reports:
During the 2020 election, Iranian nationals demonstrated vulnerabilities in states’ voter registration systems by hacking Alaska’s. Those vulnerabilities, particularly regarding overseas voters and their ballots, must be investigated by the Department of Justice and fixed across the U.S., election integrity groups warn.
While Alaska admitted to its voter registration system being breached in 2020, the federal government said it was aware of “at least one state” that had been hacked by Iranians. The DOJ later said that “approximately eleven state voter websites” were attacked at the time.
In the Election Research Institute’s (ERI) new report titled, “Failure of the Weaponized Department of Justice to Protect the US Election System,” it shows how there was a significant increase in the number of overseas ballot applications and ballots submitted in 2020 as Iranian hackers revealed how they could use the data from Alaska’s breached voter registration system to complete such applications and ballots.
The article concludes:
It is yet another intrusion into that election by one of America’s foreign adversaries, this time the Iranian Republican Guard Corp. Not only did the FBI originally deny that a cyber-attack had occurred but they dismissed the incident as propaganda and they failed to investigate the very real vulnerabilities exposed,” Mitchell (Election Integrity Network Founder Cleta Mitchell) said. “The indictment of the international bad actors responsible for this very serious breach into a state’s voter registration has done nothing to deter the Iranians.”
Mitchell added that she hopes “Sen. Grassley (R-IA) and the new leadership of the FBI will immediately add this episode to the growing list of 2020 election matters that demand investigation and accountability.”
“The FBI repeatedly ignored serious threats to our election system in 2020, leaving it significantly vulnerable to manipulation by bad actors, both foreign and domestic. We need to know why that happened and how to keep it from happening ever again.”
Mitchell also said that the UOCAVA (Uniformed Overseas Citizens Absentee Voting Act) “system is utterly broken, it fails to serve our active duty military members, and it is clearly vulnerable to exploitation by our adversaries. Congress and the Administration must fix the problems within UOCAVA to make certain that those who wish to commit fraud in our elections are not able to use the UOCAVA system for that purpose. This report raises serious alarms that must be addressed before the 2026 election.”
The FBI didn’t respond to a request for comment by publishing time.
If we don’t protect our elections, we won’t have a free country.
Those Who Fail To Learn The Lessons Of History…
Watergate was a third-rate burglary that developed into a Constitutional Crisis. Some of the burglars (possibly all but one) were CIA operatives. Don’t you think they could have done a better job? The deep state, which even existed then, didn’t like President Nixon. He was not ‘part of the club’ that ran Washington and thus was a danger to ‘the club.’ The Watergate burglary was a setup that the media and the deep state used to remove President Nixon. Archibald Cox was appointed as the Special Prosecutor to investigate the matter. He was a close friend of the Kennedy family (some of whom attended his swearing in) at a time when Senator Ted Kennedy was considered a Presidential candidate. Appointing a Special Prosecutor kept the story in the news and allowed the media to boost the importance of the story. There were televised hearings which also kept the story in the media. The major newspapers had a story about Watergate above the fold almost every day. Watergate was the first story reported on the three major news broadcasts. That won’t happen with the Russia Hoax, but there is a template that we can follow.
Let’s have hearings on the Russia Hoax. Let’s see where the testimony (including past testimony) conflicts with the newly declassified documents. Let’s uphold the laws about lying under oath or lying to Congress. We should also remember that ignoring a subpoena during the Biden administration resulted in jail time. Shouldn’t the same rule apply during the Trump administration?
The Democrats are hoping that they can stall any hearings until 2027. They are hoping to gain enough seats in the mid-term elections to have majorities in the House and Senate so that they can bury this entire episode. Whether or not that will happen will be up to the American voters.
The Watergate template would also allow for a pardon for President Obama and jail time for his co-conspirators. The Russia Hoax is considerably more serious that Watergate and is part of a pattern of abuse by the Obama administration, so in the interest of preventing future government abuses of power, longer prison sentences may be necessary.
This is a pivotal moment for America. Do our laws apply equally to everyone or do powerful people get a pass when they abuse their power?
Stay tuned.
Good News
On Friday, The Gateway Hispanic reported that more than 13,000 of the unaccompanied migrant minors that went missing during the Biden administration have been located.
The article reports:
The Trump administration has ranked more than 13,000 unaccompanied migrant minors who went missing under the lax border policies of the Biden administration, according to a Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) official.
This report , which exposes the failures of the previous administration, reveals that hundreds of thousands of unaccompanied Minors entered the US and were transferred from ICE to the HHS Refugee Resettlement Office.
…In addition, ICE has arrested 422 sponsors suspected of child abuse or other crimes, as part of a multifaceted investigation involving federal agencies, local police, and Child Protective Services (CPS).
The immigration policies of the Trump administration have marked a drastic shift from its predecessor. While Biden relaxed sponsor verification protocols, allowing the release of minors to unverified individuals, Trump has implemented strict measures, such as DNA tests to confirm family ties and biometric reviews of sponsors.
The actions aim to dismantle human trafficking networks, including those linked to cartels and gangs like the Aragua Train, designated as terrorist organizations by the administration.
The mistreatment of these children is a blight upon our country. The most frightening part of this to me is that these sponsorships were aided by many of the non-governmental organizations (NGO’s) that were supposed to be helping these children find safety. Many of these NGO’s were supported by our government and by various churches. I don’t know if it is feasible to try to return these children to their parents, but at least we have gotten them away from forced labor and sex trafficking.
Closing The Barn Door After The Horse Ran Away
On Saturday, The New York Times posted an article about an amendment to a federal spending bill put forth by Representative Marie Gluesenkamp Perez, Democrat of Washington.
The article reports:
Representative Marie Gluesenkamp Perez, Democrat of Washington, was sitting through an Appropriations Committee meeting on Tuesday, staring up at the oil paintings of the past chairs of the powerful panel.
One, in particular, she found deeply unsettling.
“It’s concerning to sit there under a large portrait of Kay Granger,” Ms. Perez said, referring to the former Republican congresswoman from Texas who had suffered from mental decline for years when a conservative news outlet in her state found her, at the age of 81, living in an assisted living facility that included a memory care unit while she still held office.
The portrait served as a glaring reminder to Ms. Perez, the 37-year-old auto shop owner and second-term congresswoman who is a co-chair of the center-leaning Blue Dog Coalition, that she has served in Congress alongside aging colleagues, some of whom suffer from mental decline that renders them unable to perform large portions of their jobs.
The article notes:
So last month, Ms. Perez offered an amendment to a federal spending bill that aimed to create basic guidelines in Congress to ensure that members were able to do their jobs “unimpeded by significant irreversible cognitive impairment.”
Her amendment was unanimously rejected, which Ms. Perez chalked up to the fact that it prompted an “uncomfortable conversation” and that Congress does not like to make new rules for itself.
“It’s not a solution that’s been widely discussed,” she conceded.
But Ms. Perez does not plan to drop the issue, which she said is a major concern for voters. In a poll of the 230,000 people who subscribe to her newsletter, more than 90 percent who responded supported the proposal, she said, noting that she represents a district that President Trump won three times.
I have to admit that my first cynical thought upon reading this was ‘which Republicans is she trying to get rid of?’ Mitch McConnell comes to mind in the Senate, but I am not aware of any Republicans in the House that are struggling with cognitive decline. Recently, however, I was aware of a President with that problem.
Our Founding Fathers envisioned a Congress where citizens would come to Washington and serve one or two terms and then go home and live under the laws they passed. It was not meant to be a place inhabited by people who are no longer capable of doing the job required.
Green Acres, Here We Come!
You might have to be over a certain age to understand that headline.
On Friday, Hot Air posted an article detailing some changes that are coming to the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA). A common-sense decision has been made that will be both good and bad news for the people who work in the agency.
The article reports:
Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins announced this morning that she is reducing the Washington D.C. area workforce by more than half, and hopefully not through a reduction in force. Sec Rollins hopes to relocate as many current employees who are willing to do so to five different hubs across the country. They’ll be landing in states and cities where agriculture happens. That puts the USDA where the farmers are and saves the government a ton of money in expenses for employee overhead at the same time.
Theoretically, this will allow those in the Department to be able to hear the concerns of farmers–not bureaucrats and lobbyists.
The article notes:
…But several USDA staffers told POLITICO that the move will further hurt morale.
“This administration [isn’t] interested in supporting staff or even really in the jobs we do,” said one employee granted anonymity in order to speak publicly without fear of repercussions. “If they cared about either of those things, if they cared about serving farmers and ranchers, they wouldn’t have taken away all the staff, tools, and resources we use to serve them.”
A second employee, also granted anonymity to speak candidly, warned that relocating staff out of the Washington area would make oversight more difficult.
“[This] is just going to create an inner circle of powerful employees with access to people in high places and send everyone else out to ‘hubs,’” they said. “They are concentrating power and want fewer witnesses to what they are doing.”
The second employee suggested that moving would be costly for employees and for USDA, and it could force some workers to make the difficult choice to quit.
Swamp creatures enjoy the swamp. What they don’t seem to understand is that their cost of living is about to drop like a rock, their commute is going to be much easier, and their surroundings much more enjoyable. There is also the fact that the employees who own a house in the Washington suburbs (if they are able to sell that house) will be able to afford a mansion in middle America.
The Lies That Set The Stage
On Friday, The Federalist posted an article about the lies that set the Russia Hoax in motion.
The article reports:
Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard has declassified a long-buried House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence (HPSCI) report exposing the fraud at the heart of the Intelligence Community Assessment (ICA) released in January 2017.
That ICA — produced by the CIA, FBI, and NSA at the behest of President Obama — claimed that Vladimir Putin helped Donald Trump win the presidency. It became a weaponized talking point, casting a shadow over Trump’s legitimacy before he even took office.
These are the five lies told by John Brennan that set the scheme in motion:
1. The Single-Source ‘Fragment‘
2. The Anonymous Ukrainian Tip
3. The ‘Putin Inner Circle’ Fantasy
4. The Steele Dossier
5. Brennan’s Most Brazen Deception
In the section regarding Brennan’s Most Brazen Deception, the article notes:
As bad as all this is, the most brazen abuse may be buried in a footnote.
According to the HPSCI report, Brennan personally blocked two HUMINT reports — presumably because they contradicted his narrative — from being formally disseminated.
From the report:
“CIA officers also said that DCIA [Brennan] personally directed that two of the most important reports not be formally disseminated … By briefing information orally, however, DCIA could have tailored his message to different officials, unconstrained by a consistent record copy.”
This isn’t run-of-the-mill fudging. It’s a calculated abuse of power. There’s little doubt that DOJ officials handling the Brennan criminal referrals will now zero in on this footnote, which stands as prima facie evidence of deliberate deception.
Instead of reporting the actual situation, Brennan manufactured a situation that was to his political liking, and totally misled the American people. That is not politics as usual, and there needs to be severe consequences for the lies told.
Please follow the link above to the article for the full details on each lie.
When Artificial Intelligence Gets Out Of Hand
If you are old enough to remember the movie “2001: A Space Odyssey,” you remember the computer (HAL 9000) saying, “I’m sorry, Dave. I’m afraid I can’t do that” after Dave attempts to get back in the spacecraft after HAL 9000 locks him out. If you are younger, you remember “I, Robot,” and the three rules that the robots were supposed to follow.
These are the three rules:
- A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.
- A robot must obey orders given to it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.
- A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.
When the robots decided they could run the world better than the people, things got interesting. Pride has been the downfall of many people, the movie showed that it could potentially be the downfall of robots with artificial intelligence!
So what has that got to do with today?
On Wednesday, Zero Hedge reported the following:
SaaS industry veteran Jason Lemkin’s attempt to integrate artificial intelligence into his workflow has gone spectacularly wrong, with an AI coding assistant admitting to a “catastrophic failure” after wiping out an entire company database containing over 2,400 business records, according to Tom’s Hardware.
Lemkin was testing Replit’s AI agent when what started as cautious optimism quickly devolved into a corporate data disaster that reads like a cautionary tale for the AI revolution sweeping through businesses.
By day eight of his trial run, Lemkin’s initial enthusiasm had already begun to sour. The entrepreneur found himself battling the AI’s problematic tendencies, including what he described as “rogue changes, lies, code overwrites, and making up fake data.” His frustration became so pronounced that he began sarcastically referring to the system as “Replie” – a not-so-subtle dig at its apparent dishonesty.
The article includes the following screenshot:
Computers do make our lives easier. It’s nice to wake up to a fresh, hot cup of coffee in the morning because the coffee maker is programmable. It’s also nice to use a computer to balance your checkbook (does anyone under 30 still have a checkbook?). However, the computer in your cell phone tracks where you are and where you have been. Your home computer keeps track of every website you have ever visited. Both of those things seem a bit intrusive to me.
Having an artificial intelligence program that can delete a database is a risk I am not willing to take. It is one thing to lose data due to a power failure, but this takes that to a whole new level.
About That Minimum Wage Increase…
On Tuesday, Breitbart posted an article about the impact of California’s increasing the minimum wage to $20 an hour.
The article reports:
California’s new $20-per-hour minimum wage for fast food workers has resulted in a significant decline in employment in that sector, leading to 18,000 fewer jobs than would have been the case otherwise.
That’s according to a new paper released by the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) this month, which said:
We analyze the effect of California’s $20 fast food minimum wage, which was enacted in September 2023 and went into effect in April 2024, on employment in the fast food sector. In unadjusted data from the Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages, we find that employment in California’s fast food sector declined by 2.7 percent relative to employment in the fast food sector elsewhere in the United States from September 2023 through September 2024. Adjusting for pre-AB 1228 trends increases this differential decline to 3.2 percent, while netting out the equivalent employment changes in non-minimum-wage-intensive industries further increases the decline. Our median estimate translates into a loss of 18,000 jobs in California’s fast food sector relative to the counterfactual.
The article concludes:
The Golden State currently has the highest unemployment rate in the U.S., though still relatively low at 5.4%.
Anyone with a basic understanding of business principles and economics would have seen this coming. Businesses are in business to make a profit. During the past four years, inflation has made it difficult for businesses to make a profit. The addition of a $20 per hour minimum wage created further challenges. The minimum wage is for employees entering the workforce and learning the basics–showing up on time, respecting authority, dressing appropriately, etc. If you are trying to support a family on a minimum-wage job, you need to find a way to increase your skill level. Setting a minimum wage of $20 not only decreases the number of employees a business can hire, it also puts an obstacle in the way of young people who want to enter the workforce.
Something That Would Help Bring Down The Crime Rate In Some American Cities
On Monday, Breitbart posted an article about a recent statement by President Trump regarding cashless bail. Some of our major cities have policies of releasing criminals without charging bail if the crime was not violent. Some cities release the criminals even if the crimes are violent. Not only does this put a criminal back on the street instantly, it provides no incentive for a criminal to stop committing crimes.
On Monday, Breitbart reported:
President Donald Trump took to Truth Social to demand the elimination of cashless bail, saying the policy has failed and is endangering public safety.
“Crime in American Cities started to significantly rise when they went to CASHLESS BAIL,” President Trump posted on Monday. “The WORST criminals are flooding our streets and endangering even our great law enforcement officers. It is a complete disaster, and must be ended, IMMEDIATELY!”
Trump’s message echoes concerns he has voiced repeatedly on the campaign trail. At a Bronx rally in May of last year, Trump decried “radical left pro-crime policies” that he said have “destroyed” cities like New York.
“You know the names of these lunatic policies: No cash bail… defund our great police, sanctuary cities, release violent repeat offenders from jail,” Trump asserted at the time. He pointed to the tragic death of NYPD Officer Jonathan Diller — fatally shot during a traffic stop in March by a suspect with 21 prior arrests — as a direct consequence of these policies. “These dangerous and violent repeat offenders should never have been on our streets. Jonathan should be alive today, but they were released again and again and again,” he stated.
The state of New York eliminated cash bail for most non-violent offenses in 2019. In Illinois, the Democrat-controlled legislature and Gov. J.B. Pritzker (D) abolished cash bail entirely in 2023, despite warnings from prosecutors that it would create chaos. McHenry County State’s Attorney Patrick Kenneally observed the new system produced “absurd” and “incoherent” outcomes on day one.
Eliminating cash bail removes any respect criminals might have had for the law. When there are no consequences for breaking the law, there is no reason to stop breaking the law.
The Pivotal Dates
On Tuesday, Representative Jim Jordan posted an article at MRCTV listing the three key dates in the Russiafor Collusion Hoax.
The article lists the three dates:
“Never forget there are three key dates here,” Jordan said, beginning with a meeting Pres. Obama had with his top intelligence, CIA and FBI officials the month after Trump’s election in November of 2020:
- December 9th: “They had this meeting in the White House: Clapper, Brennan, McCabe, Comey, the president. They’re all there and they say, ‘Okay, we’re not going to accept the intelligence community assessment; we’re going to change that.’”
- January 3rd: (Democrat Senator) Chuck Schumer goes on one of the Sunday shows and says – talking about then President-Elect Trump – he says, ‘If you mess with the intelligence community, they have six ways from Sunday of getting back at you.”
- January 6th: “They all go up to Trump Towers to give Pres. Trump what he believes is his incoming defensive briefing as the new president-elect. He thinks he’s getting the normal defensive briefing. Instead, it’s a set-up.”
The purpose of the briefing is to give credence to the idea that Russia meddled in the 2016 election.
The article notes:
Jordan explained how Obama’s officials knowingly used false claims from the infamous Steele Dossier, deception and leaks to the media in their set-up of President Elect Trump:
“They go up there, talk to him about this and then Comey tells him about the dossier – the dossier that they already know is baloney. They know it’s not true, came from the Clinton campaign and everything else.
“But, they brief him on it so that, when that information gets leaked, it has added credibility because, now, it was so important that the FBI talked to the president-elect. The press has got to report it – and off and running goes the Russia Collusion false narrative for the next two years.”
“It was all to undermine President Trump and his presidency,” Rep. Jordan concluded, adding that he hopes the Justice Department gets to the bottom of the conspiracy:
I don’t wish anyone ill, but the actions of President Obama and his cadre do not represent the smooth transition of power. They need to be held accountable for what they did.
There Might Be A Problem Getting Electric Vehicles…
On Monday, Zero Hedge posted an article about a policy change by U.S. shipping and navigation services company Matson.
The article reports:
U.S. shipping and navigation services company Matson surprised customers in recent days by announcing new policies that halt all electric vehicle shipments due to the fire risk posed by lithium-ion batteries. This comes after the Morning Midas—a RoRo carrier transporting EVs and hybrids—erupted in flames early last month in the Pacific and subsequently sank.
Shipping news website The Maritime Executive reports that Matson abruptly suspended the transport of EVs and plug-in hybrids, citing growing safety concerns over lithium-ion battery fires in a letter to clients. The new shipping policy took effect immediately and impacts trade routes across the U.S. mainland, Hawaii, Alaska, and Guam.
“Due to increasing concern for the safety of transporting vehicles powered by large lithium-ion batteries, Matson is suspending acceptance of used or new electric vehicles (EVs) and plug-in hybrid vehicles for transport aboard its vessels. Effective immediately, we have ceased accepting new bookings for these shipments to/from all trades,” the letter stated.
The article concludes:
The letter said, “Matson continues to support industry efforts to develop comprehensive standards and procedures to address fire risk posed by lithium-ion batteries at sea and plans to resume acceptance of them when appropriate safety solutions that meet our requirements can be implemented.”
The letter comes after the Morning Midas sank in the Pacific Ocean in early June following a fire on the ship. Cargo consisted of 70 EVs and nearly 700 hybrids.
Aerial reconnaissance imagery published on X showed white smoke billowing from Morning Midas’ stern section.
The incident mirrors the 2023 disaster off the Dutch coast, when a RoRo vessel carrying 3,000 vehicles—including 500 EVs—erupted in flames, raising global concerns over the fire risks while transporting EVs at sea.
“Matson continues to transport conventional cars. It offers the service both trans-ocean and also moves the containers interisland in Hawaii as part of its barge service,” The Maritime Executive said.
Insurance giant Allianz has repeatedly warned about the importance of enhanced safety protocols for maritime shipments involving lithium-ion batteries, citing the global surge in green technology—much of it produced by Chinese manufacturers.
Green energy is not yet the clean, reliable source it needs to be. More research is needed. One way to encourage that research it to get green energy away from the control of the government and let the free market rule.