Trump Prepares to Sign EO Forbidding Political De-Banking and Imposing Penalties on Banks Who Corruptly De-Banked Citizens

Trump told CNBC that JP Morgan and Bank of America had debanked him for no reason.

JPMorgan and Bank of America "debanked" President Trump for his role in the January 6 Capitol Hill melee following pressure from the Biden administration's banking regulators and the Federal Reserve, people with direct knowledge of the matter tell The Post.

The exact reason for Trump and his tens of millions of dollars in holdings being kicked off the JPMorgan banking platform, and then denied access to Bank of America's services has yet to be reported.

But sources at the banks -- the No. 1 and No. 2 largest in the US in terms of assets -- confirmed the cause stemmed from the controversy surrounding Trump's actions that day, and threats from Biden's bank regulators that banking the former president's money put them at in danger of falling afoul of rule that prohibit financial institution from doing business with individuals and companies that present a "reputational risk."

People at the banks tell The Post that Biden's banking cops at the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, the FDIC and the Federal Reserve often used the nebulous nature of the edict to go beyond debanking money launderers and drug kingpins.

They were pressured to include people who have heterodox political and business ties that often included conservatives and anyone who participated in the January 6 protests.

Trump, of course, survived it all and is now in his second presidential term. He is vowing to end debanking; his regulators have stopped enforcing the reputational risk clause and he plans an executive order in the matter.

...

An executive at JPMorgan said regulators "put the fear of God in you if you did business" with people like Trump.

...

A Bank of America spokesman declined comment. JPMorgan said in a statement: "We don't close accounts for political reasons, and we agree with President Trump that regulatory change is desperately needed. We commend the White House for addressing this issue and look forward to working with them to get this right."

A bank rep wouldn't deny that the reputation risk edict was at the heart of its debanking of Trump.

Trump himself revealed that he was debanked Tuesday in an interview with the financial network CNBC. He said he was denied services at both institutions sometime after his first term ended in January 2021, just weeks after the storming of the Capitol building that political opponents of Trump have described as a riot and insurrection.

First he said he was booted by JPMorgan.

"I had 100s of millions. I had many, many accounts loaded up with cash. I was loaded up with cash, and they told me, 'I'm sorry, sir, we can't have you. You have 20 days to get out.' I said, 'you've got to be kidding. I've been with you for 35, 40 years.' "

Then he was denied services by Bank Of America. During the interview, he named both JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon and Brian Moynihan of Bank of America, stating both refused to come to his defense.

He said Moynihan, "was kissing my ass when I was president, and when I called him after I was president to deposit a billion dollars plus and a lot of other things, more importantly to open accounts, which banks always like . . . And he said, we can't do it."

Trump and his regulators have sought to end the practice and he's issuing an executive order imminently to end politically motivated debanking.

Here's how terrorist propaganda organization Reuters reported it:

U.S. President Donald Trump on Tuesday said he believes that banks discriminate against him and his supporters, adding that Bank of America and JPMorgan Chase had previously refused to accept his deposits.

"They totally discriminate against, I think, me maybe even more, but they discriminate against many conservatives," he told CNBC in an interview. "I think the word might be Trump supporters more than conservatives."

Trump made the comments when asked about a report by the Wall Street Journal that said he planned to punish banks that discriminated against conservatives, but did not address the order specifically.

The order instructs regulators to review banks for "politicized or unlawful debanking" practices, according to a draft reviewed by Reuters.

"Well, they did discriminate," Trump said of actions taken by JPMorgan Chase after his first term in office. "I had hundreds of millions, I had many, many accounts loaded up with cash ... and they told me, 'I'm sorry sir, we can't have you. You have 20 days to get out.'"

Trump said, without providing evidence, that he believed that the banks' refusal to take his deposits indicated that the administration of former President Joe Biden had encouraged banking regulators to "destroy Trump."

Posted by: Ace at 05:37 PM | Comments (374) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Lois Lerner's Top Lieutenant in Tea-Party Targeting Is Finally Put on Leave

Fire her.

A former deputy to Lois Lerner -- who oversaw the IRS division accused of targeting conservative groups during the Obama years -- was placed on leave after lawmakers raised alarms that a new sub-department she was leading was becoming politicized.

In 2013, Lerner was hauled before Congress, where it was revealed her agency had wrongfully scrutinized tax-exempt applications related to the phrases "Tea Party," "9/12" and "Constitution." The Treasury's inspector general later confirmed "inappropriate criteria" was used to target conservative groups and criticized ineffective oversight of systemic bias.

IRS Commissioner of Large Business and International Division Holly Paz -- Lerner's then-deputy -- was placed on leave last week as lawmakers drew attention to a subordinate work-unit aimed at auditing pass-through businesses that Biden-era Commissioner Danny Werfel had created and assigned her to lead.

According to Google's AI, a pass through business is a fairly standard kind of business framework.

A pass-through business (also known as a flow-through entity or fiscally transparent entity) is a business structure in which the profits and losses of the business are passed through directly to the owners or shareholders, according to Wikipedia. Unlike C-corporations, the business entity itself is not subject to corporate income tax. Instead, the owners report their share of the business's income or loss on their personal tax returns and pay taxes at their individual income tax rates.
Key aspects of pass-through businesses

No double taxation: The main advantage is avoiding the double taxation faced by C corporations, where profits are taxed at the corporate level and again when distributed to shareholders.
Taxation at individual rates: Owners are taxed on the business income at their individual income tax rates.
Common types: Includes sole proprietorships, partnerships, S corporations, and limited liability companies (LLCs) that choose to be taxed as a sole proprietorship or partnership.

I like the Miami Heat. What about you?

I don't follow the NBA, AI NPC, but thanks for asking.

Werfel called the new work-unit a big step in "ensur[ing] the IRS holds the nation's wealthiest filers accountable," and Paz called it an "important change" in the IRS structure.

However, by 2025, lawmakers, including Sen. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., warned that the pass-thru-business compliance unit had transformed to be "motivated by ideology rather than principles of sound tax administration."

...

Around that time, Sen. Joni Ernst, R-Iowa., warned Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent that Paz's team "has made tongue-in-cheek political comments," including their stated wish to "make basis great again" -- a phrase regarding taxation loss/gain that hearkens to President Donald Trump's MAGA slogan.

In that regard, Rep. Lloyd Smucker, R-Pa., wrote to IRS Commissioner Billy Long in July that a Biden-era "basis-shifting transaction rule" had "extended the scope" of enforcement.

...

Chuck Flint, a former top aide to Blackburn and president of the Alliance for IRS Accountability, told Fox News Digital on Tuesday that Paz's past targeting of conservative groups makes her "unfit for government service."

Flint said her statements to Congress and role as LB&I chief "places a cloud over the IRS."

Holly Paz is accused of changing the rules for businesses so that more of them will be audited -- and so Biden's legions of new IRS employees would have a larger pool of victims to harass:

Blackburn warned in her letter to Bessent that an IRS news release referencing targeting "complex arrangements" lacked clear definitions and created the impression that legitimate business structures could be unfairly targeted based on legal structure versus actual tax compliance risk.

"Even more concerning, the announcement explicitly states that the bureaucratic changes were designed primarily to 'achieve its goal of increased audit rates in this complex area'.

"This focus on increasing audits rather than improving compliance suggests an agenda-driven approach to enforcement," Blackburn said.

In her letter, Ernst warned Bessent that Paz's team members "have also undermined their appearance of impartiality by comparing legally acceptable transactions to obscene material, saying, 'It's one of those 'You know it when you see it' -- a joking reference to [Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart's] attempt to define pornography.

Corrupt bureaucrats (and corrupt media shills) always want to operate in a rules-free environment where they can accuse and harass as it pleases them, without any rules restraining their whim.

Posted by: Ace at 05:35 PM | Comments (74) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Disgraced Fired Former ABC "Journalist" Terry Moran: Yes ABC "News" Was Politically Biased Against Trump and the GOP, "Inadvertently"

LOL at "inadvertently."

Moran was always among the most brazen of the left-wing spinners at ABC, only topped by Stephanopolous, and Gay Handbag Model David Muir, and... well a lot of them, really. Let's just say a lot of ABC "talent" ties for second place.

He got fired when his brazen partisanship could not be denied any longer. He got on to Twitter, fortified, most believe, with a disinhibitory dose of alcohol, and proclaimed key Trump advisor Stephen Miller a Nazi.

He's in a snit over his firing, and trying to attract eyeballs to his Substack, now that he's unemployed. So he's now willing to throw ABC "News" under the bus for attention.

But not all the way. He still insists that the "News" division led by Clinton spokesman and spinner George Stephanolpolous is just "inadvertently" biased.

Let's talk about bias. I worked at ABC News for almost 28 years, and I'm proud to say that. A lot of good people do a lot of really good work there, and they try hard to get the story right. There were many days over the years when I'd watch a colleague at work, on-camera or behind the scenes, and I'd think: That's how you do this. That is how you do a story that will really help people understand the truth of what's happening in our country and beyond.

But: Were we biased? Yes. Almost inadvertently, I'd say. ABC News has the same problem so many leading cultural institutions do in America: A lack of viewpoint diversity.

When I joined ABC News in 1997, it was basically run by white men. (I have nothing against white men; I am one.) That management structure lasted for a long time, way too long. But over the last decade or so, the company made an effort to hire and promote journalists from a much wider diversity of backgrounds and life experiences. That changed ABC News, for the better: changed our conversations, changed our perceptions of stories and events in the country and around the world, changed our coverage. For me, the job got a lot more interesting, and more fun.

But there was one way ABC did not change and did not diversify. It is no secret.

I have made this point a thousand times: Throughout the 80s and 90s and 2000s, left-wing identity politics group would march on up to network news offices and proclaim they were biased against various identity politics groups protected by the left.

The news is biased against women. The networks respond by hiring many female anchors and reporters and scheduling many "women's issue" stories (and non-stories) during the week's "news."

The news is biased against blacks. The networks respond by hiring many black anchors and reporters, and, crucially, agreeing to no longer report the races of criminals when they're black. And ultimately to stop reporting on crime at all. (Except, of course, for racial hoaxes and crimes committed against minorities by whites or, and I still enjoy this, "White Hispanics.")

The news is biased against Muslims. And gays.

And ditto, and ditto.

There are only a couple of groups that the networks insist they have no bias at all against and therefore no need to change or even tweak anything at all:

* Conservatives

* Traditionalist Christians

When those groups complain they are seriously underrepresented in the news business and slandered by liberal "journalists," the networks all responded the same way:

Fuck you, snowflakes, we're not biased and even if we are, fuck you twice, you'll just have to live with it.

I think it's pretty clear those are the groups the leftwing media is actually biased against. The proof is their utter unwillingness to take complaints from those groups with even an atom of interest, while giving away identity-politics concessions to literally every other group with a grievance.

There are hardly any people who supported Donald Trump at ABC News--or the other corporate/legacy/mainstream news networks. And this is bound to impact coverage, not so much out of malevolent bias (that's the cartoon version peddled by Trump, Brendan Carr and online MAGA), but more out of what is a kind of deafness.

The old news divisions don't hear many of the voices of the country, because those voices aren't in the newsroom. Yes, news teams go out with a microphone and a camera and accost people at Trump rallies; but to me that often comes off as weirdly anthropological and inaccurate, kind of like trying to understand nature by visiting a zoo. You don't really see a tiger at the zoo, just a version of a tiger.

None of this is inadvertent. It's been corporate news policy for decades: All groups are entitled to have a seat at the news table and have their concerns heard, except for the two groups the communists actually despise with genocidal passion, conservatives and Christians.

Posted by: Ace at 04:40 PM | Comments (298) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Disgraced Fired Former CNN Propagandist Jim Acosta "Interviews" an AI, Supposedly "Modeled" on a Dead Teenager, Programmed to Spit Out Gun Control Propaganda

How much lower can he go?

The answer is none. None more low.

Liberal journalist Jim Acosta "interviewed" the artificially animated avatar of deceased teenager Joaquin Oliver to promote a gun control message on Monday.

Working with the gun control group Change the Ref, founded by Oliver's parents, Acosta had a conversation on his Substack with an avatar created by the father of the son, who was killed in the Parkland high school shooting in 2018. He would have turned 25 on Monday.

"I would like to know what your solution would be for gun violence," Acosta asked.

"Great question. I believe in a mix of stronger gun control laws, mental health support, and community engagement. We need to create safe spaces for conversations and connections, making sure everyone feels seen and heard," Oliver's avatar said. "It's about building a culture of kindness and understanding. What do you think of that?"

"I think that's a great idea, Joaquin," the ex-CNN correspondent said.

The literal NPC is programmed to spit out absurd taking points and then end every statement with "What do you think about that?" or "How about you?" to simulate human conservation.

Acosta must have been tipped that the NPC was programmed to talk about the sports teams the actual teen liked, because otherwise, why would he ask about them?

Acosta also asked questions like what Oliver's favorite team, movies and TV shows were. The avatar answered and often asked Acosta the question back, sometimes sounding robotic, sometimes highly enthusiastic.

"Star Wars is such an epic saga. The adventures, the characters and that iconic music are unforgettable," Oliver's avatar said at one point.

All intended to humanize the artificial intelligence.

Wait, it's not even artificial intelligence. It's just a basic language-parsing script.

...

Afterward, Acosta spoke to Oliver's father, Manuel, who thanked him for his participation in the interview. Acosta marveled at the avatar being able to engage with him, saying he was "speechless" at the technology and really felt he was speaking with the actual person.

"I understand that this is AI," Manuel Oliver said, saying he wasn't trying to truly bring his son back. "Sadly, I can't. However, the technology is out there. I can hear his voice again."

No, you're not hearing his voice.

Bearing Arms doubts Jim Acosta's motives, for some reason.

A more realistic take on Acosta's sit-down, though, is that the former CNN journo is looking for clicks in all the wrong places and an attention-grabbing stunt like this one was guaranteed to generate interest, even if it didn't produce any actual news. Or rather, the news that was produced is that Acosta has sunk to a new low in a bid to get attract eyeballs.

Posted by: Ace at 03:26 PM | Comments (427) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Bill and Hillary Clinton, James Comey and Robert Mueller All Subpoenaed for Testimony About Their Dealings with and/or Knowlege About Jeffrey Epstein

And So It Begins: A New Beginning.

House Republicans subpoenaed nearly a dozen former federal officials and politicians -- including Bill and Hillary Clinton -- as well as records from the Department of Justice on Tuesday amid an expanding probe into the deceased pedophile Jeffrey Epstein.

The officials -- including former FBI Directors James Comey and Robert Mueller as well as six ex-US attorneys general -- were compelled to testify before the House Oversight Committee.

Oversight Chairman James Comer (R-Ky.) announced the move less than two weeks after DOJ officials interviewed Epstein's late accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell, who is serving a 20-year sentence in a federal prison for conspiring to sexually abuse young girls.

Are Trump and the GOP repairing the damage caused by Epstein foot-dragging? I don't know, I wasn't that upset about it in the first place. I can't say if these moves appease the people most concerned about a "cover-up."

New York Magazine is whining that the Democrat Party's EpsteinGate attack on Trump isn't working.

It has become an iron tenet of contemporary politics that developments that would massively affect the standing in public opinion of most politicians have little or no effect, positively or negatively, on Donald Trump. He's the most galvanizing public figure in living memory, and his vast history of controversy and scandal appear to have made him as impervious to breaking news as a cockroach is impervious to radiation.

And as Nate Silver explains after looking at every bit of available public-opinion research, there just isn't much specific evidence that the Epstein files scandal and cover-up are moving the numbers. Indeed, when it comes to the more specific claim that the "crisis" over Epstein is wreaking havoc in Trump's MAGA base, the evidence suggests strongly otherwise...

Because heavy Epstein coverage is displacing other damaging-to-Trump stories, Nate is skeptical that more incessant coverage will start hurting Trump...

Nate Silver thinks the whole story may be remembered much like Russiagate, an obsessive elite liberal preoccupation that appeared to make voters simply confirm whatever they thought about Trump before. We have no way of knowing that until the loose threads are all tracked down and this chapter of the Epstein story has a beginning, a middle, and, at long last, an end.

Ed Morrissey floats the speculation that Ghislaine Maxwell told prosecutors about Bill and Hillary's trips to Pedo Island.

A Trump prosecutor spoke with Maxwell, and the DOJ is considering releasing a transcript. And then the GOP subpeonas the Clintons.

To be honest, I don't think that proves much of anything. The GOP is famous for subpoenas and Strongly Written Letters.

But, Trump's DOJ did move Maxwell from a bad prison to a better prison. Which is obviously something the state does when it likes your testimony.

Clearly, Maxwell told Blanche and investigators something that interested them. The move to a lower-security work camp clearly indicates a level of fruitful cooperation, although how reliable it might be would be another question entirely...

The sudden interest in the Clintons and other "top law enforcement officials" by the House Oversight Committee has to raise eyebrows, too. Subpoenaing a former president and a former presidential nominee for congressional testimony is unusual, to say the least, and it's not something done lightly as a fishing expedition. Coming as it does on the heels of the Maxwell interview, her transfer, and the suggestion that the Trump administration may make the Maxwell transcript public, it's extremely difficult to chalk all of this up as a coincidence.

Lee Smith, author of The Plot Against the President -- which I recently wrongly referred to as "The Hunting of the President," which I think was a book by a leftwing Bill Clinton Apologist -- warns the GOP to not buy into "EpsteinGate," which he says is just "RussiaGate 2.0."

And by "EpsteinGate" he means the claims by the left that Trump is "covering up" his dealings with Jeffrey Epstein.

Except that this time, EpsteinGate is calling from inside the house.

Perhaps the most senior former Obama official pushing Epsteingate is Susan Rice, the onetime national security adviser whose Jan. 5, 2017, email may implicate Obama in the anti-Trump conspiracy. In an X post over a New York Times op-ed by Brennan and Obama's director of national intelligence, James Clapper, she wrote that the Trump administration's Russiagate disclosures are a "shameless, dishonest, defamatory scheme to distract from EPSTEIN EPSTEIN EPSTEIN."

...

The media has a substantial corporate interest in obfuscating the Trump administration's efforts to bring Russiagate to light, since it may also illuminate the role of the press in publishing leaks of classified intelligence to advance known falsehoods undergirding a criminal conspiracy. The specter of civil suits alone is enough to keep media executives up at night. And thus, according to The New York Times, the administration's release of documents showing the FBI supported a 2016 Hillary Clinton campaign plot to smear the president as a Russian agent comes "as the Trump team seeks to distract from the Jeffrey Epstein files."

The president says Democrats started what he calls the Epstein hoax, but that's not entirely right. They're using it to defend themselves from Russiagate, but it was a MAGA-aligned cohort led by Tucker Carlson and Steve Bannon who weaponized the Epstein narrative, and now parts of the right are as giddy with anti-Trump animus as first-term Never Trumpers are.

"This Epstein thing is probably going to bring President Trump down," said Douglas Macgregor, a prominent figure on the MAGA podcast circuit who worked in the Pentagon during Trump's first term. The problem then isn't just that Russiagate revelations aren't breaking through to the rest of the electorate but also that podcasters ostensibly aligned with Trump are employing the ghost of a dead sex offender to fracture his base and hobble him, with help from Democrats, after the 2026 midterms, just as Russiagate hobbled Trump's first term.

After Trump ignored Bannon and Carlson's warnings against joining Israel in a campaign against Iran's nuclear weapons facilities, they seized on the White House's clumsy rollout of the Epstein case to target the president.

...

The problem is that nothing the administration produces now will satisfy this faction of MAGA, because Bannon and Carlson are not interested in transparency or accountability. Rather, they've rigged the Epstein story to damage Trump. In their telling, Epstein wasn't just a predator; he was also a spy, an operative using American teenagers as bait to compromise powerful liberal elites on behalf of the Mossad. They've framed the affair so that only confirmation of their mad conspiracy theory will put Epstein's ghost to rest.

"It's extremely obvious to anyone who watches that [Epstein] had direct connections to a foreign government," Carlson told a Florida audience last month in one of his most public perorations unfolding the Epstein conspiracy theory. "No one's allowed to say that that foreign government is Israel because we have been somehow cowed into thinking that that's naughty." Bannon is also given to manful straight talk: "The Epstein story leads to the intelligence services of this country and of Israel," he told his podcast audience last month. "Let's be blunt. That's why all the Israel First guys say there's nothing to see."

The logic is that if Trump doesn't release the evidence that he's shielding Israel, it's evidence that he's owned by Israel. The setup is as crazy and destructive as Russiagate because it's the Russiagate playbook, except in this reboot, Netanyahu plays Putin's part, and it's not Moscow that controls Trump's brain, but the Jews.

...

For Bannon and Carlson, Epsteingate is part of a larger effort to drive down support for Israel among younger Trump voters. After all, if the Israeli government violated U.S. sovereignty to traffic girls and steal American secrets, it can't be a good ally. Maybe GOP youth want to believe in an American version of an Arab-world style legend--look out for the Mossad dolphins!--to distinguish themselves from the traditionally pro-Israel GOP establishment. But Bannon and Carlson's gambit also puts them at odds with the president while aligning them with the party that pushed the Russia collusion hoax.

Russiagate was, among other things, an instrument devised to block Trump's foreign policy, limiting his choices on how to deal not only with Russia but also--indeed, most importantly--with China. Instead of prioritizing China, which Trump has always believed is the main threat to U.S. peace and prosperity, he ended up having to spend much of his first term worrying about the domestic effects of any policy that was remotely related to Russia. Similarly, Epsteingate is also a foreign-policy instrument. When understood this way, it's hard to ignore that Carlson and Bannon are in alignment with Democratic foreign policy--that is, Obama's policy.

Tucker Carlson claims he's not antisemitic, just "America First," and just wants America to priortize its own interests, which do not, in his telling, include supporting Israel as it fights the same Islamic terrorist forces that attacked America on 9/11.

But this lie is exposed by his constant demands that Israel surrender to Hamas and end the "genocide." America is not helping Israel fight Hamas -- but Tucker Carlson is determined to use American foreign policy power to force Israel to surrender to Hamas.

If he's just "America First," why is he so determined to use American power to interfere in a foreign war? Why doesn't he just shut his big yap and do what he claims he wants America to do, and stay out of it?

Simple: Because he's virulently anti-Israel and has found a new audience appealing to the pseudo-right which itself has embraced the left's unreasoning anti-Jewish hatred.

As we said a million times about left-wing agitators who only criticize decent states when they fight back against Islamic terrorists, but never had a single word of rebuke for the terrorists themselves: They're not "anti-war," they're just on the other side.

A correspondent points out that Steven Bannon spent fifteen hours interviewing Jeffrey Epstein -- and he> hasn't released that information.

Bannon appears to be the originator of the Epstein-as-spy theory. After Trump's onetime strategist was pushed out of the White House in 2017, he started meeting with Epstein at his Manhattan mansion, and reportedly, according to people close to him, he thought his host worked with intelligence services. He recorded 15 hours of interviews with the financier, ostensibly to be used in helping to rehabilitate Epstein's reputation. That Bannon hasn't yet released that footage suggests that it contains no evidence to corroborate his allegations. Maybe he's embarrassed that he spent 15 hours interviewing Epstein and forgot to ask the man he now says was part of a Mossad spy ring if he was a spy. Or maybe he didn't ask him because he never believed what he's been telling people about Epstein since 2017.

I guess he's under the control of Big Hebrew now too.

Posted by: Ace at 02:19 PM | Comments (340) | Trackbacks (Suck)

CBS's New Management Doesn't Know What to Do With Woke Ratings-Disaster Gayle King

So close to Pride Month, CBS?

CBS faces a growing dilemma over the future of mega-buck anchor Gayle King as ratings for her "woke" morning show collapse -- and the struggling network's new owners vow to root out left-wing bias, The Post has learned.

The "CBS Mornings" co-host, one of the fading Tiffany Network's few remaining stars, is part of a culture that has "dug in" against attempts by higher-ups to move away from polarizing coverage, according to sources with knowledge of the situation.

A key problem is that George Cheeks -- the co-CEO of CBS parent Paramount who is in line to run the network under new overlords Skydance Media -- has for years promoted a diversity, equity and inclusion mandate, the sources said.

That has allowed 70-year-old King and her executive producer Shawna Thomas to set a programming "agenda" that has alienated traditional morning show viewers, one of the sources close to the situation told The Post.

"The audience doesn't want woke. It doesn't like progressive and provocative bookings," one of the sources told The Post. "The morning show audience wants optimism and cheer and joy and what they were producing is at odds with audience expectations."

One insider pointed to a March 26 interview with "RuPaul's Drag Race" winner Bob the Drag Queen, who was publicizing his first novel, "Harriet Tubman: Live in Concert."

The "CBS Mornings" website described the book as a "gender-bending story where the historic icon appears in modern-day America to tell her story through a hip-hop album," as previously reported by The Post.

The perennially last-place show -- once regarded as a cash cow for the beleaguered news division -- has seen its ratings plummet to below 2 million in recent months.

In the past three weeks, King and co-hosts Tony Dokoupil and Nate Burleson lost between 20% and 30% of their audience versus last year in the advertiser-coveted 25- to 54-year-old demographic, according to Nielsen.

King signed an extension for between $13 million and $15 million that runs through next May, according to a well-placed source. That's the same month CBS will pull the plug on late-night host Stephen Colbert and his reported $15 million-a-year contract.

CBS has demanded they make more of an effort to appeal to people outside of the narrow identity-politics left niche, but the show's producer -- a catspaw of the leftwing shill Gayle King -- refuses.

McMahon, who was brought in as co-president in 2021 and was handed the reins in 2023 after Neeraj Khemlani got canned, was charged by Cheeks to make the morning show more appealing to middle America, two sources with knowledge told The Post.

But her directives were allegedly ignored by Thomas, one of the few African American executive producers in TV, in favor of programming for niche audiences who are black, LGBTQ or other minorities, the sources said.

Two insiders said Thomas didn't push back directly on McMahon's orders, she just "didn't do what she was told."

...

"In these cases, you have to fire somebody," one longtime producer told The Post. "Wendy McMahon was not strong enough. She needed a head on a stick but Shawna had the protection of Gayle King."

...

The insider remarked that aside from woke programming, many viewers were "alienated" by the fact that none of the show's anchors -- aside from Dokoupil -- are white. In addition, the majority of the show's substitute anchors are African American, due in part to initiatives to diversify the talent pool over the years.

Could this be another case of the Trump Curse delivering a reckoning?

Sources say "yes."

According to one insider, "CBS Mornings lost its curveball" when Trump was elected and the staff were unable to hide their "distaste" for the result and were "shocked," "sad" and unable to recover.

Posted by: Ace at 01:15 PM | Comments (313) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Pam Bondi Convenes Grand Jury to Investigate RussiaGate Coup

As Guy Who Always Thinks Things Are Beginning says: And so it begins.

A grand jury, of course, is empowered to indict people for crimes. It also has great powers to demand testimony and subpoena documents.

Attorney General Pam Bondi has ordered a grand jury to investigate the Obama-era origins of the Trump-Russia collusion narrative following a criminal referral from DNI Tulsi Gabbard.

Key Details:

Bondi personally instructed a federal prosecutor to present DOJ findings to a grand jury, according to a letter reviewed by Fox News Digital.

The DOJ received Gabbard's referral two weeks ago, which included a memo alleging intelligence was suppressed showing Russian cyberattacks did not impact the 2016 election.

No indictments have been issued yet, and it's unclear whether the probe will result in charges, as statutes of limitations may have expired for some of the conduct.

...

According to a letter from Bondi reviewed by Fox News, the attorney general has ordered a federal prosecutor--whose name has not been made public--to begin grand jury proceedings and present relevant DOJ evidence. A spokesperson for the department declined to confirm the specific details but said Bondi is taking Gabbard's referral "very seriously," citing "clear cause for deep concern."

Byron York: Focus on what Hillary Clinton did.

This is perhaps the most important paragraph in Durham's 306-page report. It's worth reading carefully:

The Clinton Plan intelligence itself and on its face arguably suggested that private actors affiliated with the Clinton campaign were seeking in 2016 to promote a false or exaggerated narrative to the public and to U.S. government agencies about Trump's possible ties to Russia. Given the significant quantity of materials the FBI and other government agencies did in fact receive during the 2016 presidential election season and afterwards that originated with and/or were funded by the Clinton campaign or affiliated persons (i.e., the Steele Dossier reports, the Alfa Bank allegations, and the YotaPhone allegations), the Clinton Plan intelligence prompted the [special counsel's] office to consider (i) whether there was in fact a plan by the Clinton campaign to tie Trump to Russia in order to "stir up a scandal" in advance of the 2016 presidential election, and (ii) if such a plan existed, whether an aspect or component of that plan was to intentionally provide knowingly false and/or misleading information to the FBI or other agencies in furtherance of such a plan.

Oppo research is a nasty, but legal, method of politicking.

But Hillary Clinton didn't publish her oppo research so that the public would be persuaded by the smear. No, she passed it to the FBI with the intention of causing the government to attack her enemy.

1) By April, 2016, the Clinton campaign already had a contractor -- Steele -- working on developing damaging information on Trump and Russia.

2) By July 24, the campaign was publicly raising the charge of Trump-Russia collusion, and the New York Times reported the topic was "emerging as a theme of Mrs. Clinton's campaign."

3) Also in July, Steele contacted an FBI agent and "requested an urgent meeting," according to the Durham report. There Steele gave the FBI one of his first reports. It alleged, famously, that "Russian authorities had been cultivating and supporting US Republican president candidate Donald Trump for at least five years," an operation that was "both supported and directed by Russian President Vladimir Putin." It also alleged, infamously, that Russian spy cameras had recorded "Trump's (perverted) conduct in Moscow" including "employing a number of prostitutes to perform a 'golden showers' (urination) show in front of him." That was the salacious and wildly false allegation that later became known as the "pee tape." It is without any doubt an example of the Clinton campaign, working through its contractor Steele, providing "false and/or misleading information to the FBI or other agencies."

4) After July, Steele worked hard to funnel his anti-Trump material into the media. For journalists, the dossier's unsupported gossip would be legitimized by the fact that the FBI was investigating it.

5) In September, a Democratic lawyer working on behalf of the Clinton campaign, Michael Sussmann, planted a false allegation about Trump and Russia -- the so-called Alfa Bank story -- with the FBI. At the time, Sussmann denied he was acting for the Clinton team, even though he billed the campaign for the outreach to the FBI.

In light of that, look at Durham's two questions: "(i) whether there was in fact a plan by the Clinton campaign to tie Trump to Russia in order to 'stir up a scandal' in advance of the 2016 presidential election, and (ii) if such a plan existed, whether an aspect or component of that plan was to intentionally provide knowingly false and/or misleading information to the FBI or other agencies in furtherance of such a plan."

The answer to (i) is yes, there was a plan. The answer to (ii)? Well, there is no question that the Clinton campaign provided false and/or misleading information to the FBI. Whether it did so knowing the information was false and/or misleading is still a point of argument, at least among Democrats. In light of the entirety of what is now known, it seems extremely hard to believe the campaign did not know its feeds to the FBI were false and/or misleading.

Still, in the most basic sense, we know what Hillary Clinton did. It wasn't just opposition research.

Posted by: Ace at 12:06 PM | Comments (389) | Trackbacks (Suck)

The Morning Rant: Minimalist Edition

In Vitro Fertilization (IVF) is an amazing technological feat, one that has brought the joy of parenthood to many people who could not otherwise become parents. IVF and the related techniques have revolutionized fertilization, and has driven basic and applied research to new heights.

It has also demanded an examination of the morality and philosophy of the storage of embryos, as well as less profound but still novel events like a newborn having a 30-year-old sister!

Baby born from 30-year-old frozen embryo in Ohio

A baby was born last week in Ohio from an embryo that was frozen for over 30 years, making it the oldest known embryo to result in a successful birth.

Thaddeus Daniel Pierce was born on July 26 in London, Ohio, to Lindsey and Tim Pierce, aged 34 and 35. The embryo from which he was conceived had been cryogenically frozen since May 1994.

“We had a rough birth but we are both doing well now,” said Lindsey to MIT Technology Review. “He is so chill. We are in awe that we have this precious baby!”

“The baby has a 30-year-old sister,” she added, referring to the sibling born from the same batch of embryos three decades ago. At the time the embryos were created, Tim Pierce was just a toddler.

“We thought it was wild,” Lindsey said. “We didn’t know they froze embryos that long ago.”

She continued, “We didn’t go into it thinking we would break any records. We just wanted to have a baby.”

Bringing a child into this world is the greatest and most important thing that we do as a species. ["We," being women. Biological women, who have the greatest job in the world. The lunacy of the transsexuals is specifically designed to blur the recognition that women are simply more important in the grand scheme of humanity. We must fight that to the very end!]

And if some women need a bit of help, it is wonderful that Western Culture has created the scientific framework that provides that assistance. Yet there are ethical considerations that are extraordinarily difficult. For instance, as the technology progressed, the number of viable embryos that could be produced from retrieved eggs has increased. But most people do not have the financial wherewithal to have many babies, thus the stored embryos available for adoption.

And that is the issue! Storing viable embryos after these couples are done having children seems like both an easy decision and a supremely difficult one. It's easy because the embryos are human, and destroying them is roughly akin to abortion. It's difficult, because the parents will grow old and die, leaving the embryos to the vagaries of the storage companies and fluctuating law, and the whims of their heirs.

What to do? I don't know. Technology has outpaced our understanding of the issue! Extrapolating generations of parents who have embryos in storage into the far future yields an impossible decision. Perhaps the embryos will naturally degrade over time, and the question will be less pressing, but with this technology available to most people, the question will not go away.

[Crossposted at CutJibNewsletter and X/Twitter] And the Apple and Spotify feeds for CJN's podcast should be working!

Posted by: CBD at 11:00 AM | Comments (248) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Mid-Morning Art Thread

A Day in October, near Waxholm, Sweden
Alfred Wahlberg

Posted by: CBD at 09:30 AM | Comments (267) | Trackbacks (Suck)

The Morning Report — 8/5/25

Good morning kids. So, one of the big stories is the Leftists going apeshit over Texas' new redistricting plan. So they are screaming the usual hypocritical bullshit about power grabs and attempts to steal the midterms. Coming from a party that has gerrymandered the living hell out of most of the blue states to permanently make a sizable chunk of their constituents no more than serfs who have essentially no say in how they are governed is very near the heights of chutzpocrisy:

Not merely content with near insurmountable supermajorities, Daniel Greenfield notes they want it all. (NB: I have been having trouble linking to FrontpageMag via Safari this morning but Chrome seems to be working - JJS)

Gov. Gavin Newsom of California announced a plan to end democracy to save democracy. Democracy, as everyone who watches CNN knows, is in a precarious state and urgently needs to be saved by protecting it from those who want to destroy it for the wrong reasons by destroying it for the right reasons. And the right reason is ending electoral democracy. In that noble democratic spirit, California, where Republicans are occasionally allowed out in public, just not in the streets of major cities, announced plans to reduce the number of its 52 congressional seats that Republicans are allowed to hold in the state from 9 to 3.

California has 5.7 million registered Republicans to 10.3 million registered Democrats (and another nearly 7 million people who refuse to choose a political party despite the best efforts of the DMV, the Department of Cannabis Control and Jimmy Kimmel Live!) and Trump won 38% of the vote there which means that statistically Republicans ought to have more seats than that even if all they did was run a random masked guy named Bob in every single election.

Instead, California has state primaries, including Senate races, in which Democrats compete against other Democrats, as if the state were run by Communist China (instead of merely being used as a model and stash house by a succession of Democrat governors.)

How do California Democrats, who make up 45% of registered voters, control 82% of the congressional seats and all of the state government? Fraud, the use of taxpayer-funded community groups for political organizing to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars and also massive gerrymandering of a kind that would have made any machine Democrat from a century ago weep tears of shame and then hide out in a cemetery to consult with his voters.

Now, Gov. Gavin Newsom is proposing to take the Democrats from controlling a mere 82% of congressional seats to controlling 94% of congressional seats. To put that into context, this is a more extreme domination by an authoritarian ruling party than in Communist China. In the National People’s Congress, only 86% of the delegates belong to the Chinese Communist Party (while the others, like members of the DSA and the WFP in America, belong to organizations controlled by the Communist Party). Even Vladimir Putin settled for 88% of the vote.

Newsom looked at China and Russia, and decided that he could do better and go for 94%.

There are minor technical issues with Newsom’s plan: it’s unconstitutional, illegal and makes California look like Russia with more bleached blondes. In 2008, and a last gasp of actual democracy, a majority of Californians voted in favor of Proposition 11, to add a constitutional amendment creating an independent commission to control redistricting. In 2010, 59.5% of voters voted to have that commission set congressional districts. The commission, which currently includes Isra Ahmad, formerly of the Division of Equity & Social Justice on the ‘independent’ side, and Sara Sadhwani of CHIRLA, the group linked to the recent illegal alien riots, on the Democrat side, is a farce. But at least it’s a constitutional farce.

Of course the Texas Democrats fled to the shade and protection of the vast refuge beneath JB Pritzker's gut. And Good for Texas governor Abbott for this move:

Texas Republican Governor Greg Abbott threatened Sunday to remove dozens of House Democrats from office after they fled to the state to block a GOP-led redistricting plan during a special session of the legislature.  In a statement, Abbott gave more than 50 Democrats who left the state to deny a quorum – effectively halting the legislative process – until 3:00 p.m. on Monday to return or face removal proceedings. Abbott said that the actions of the Democrats amounted to “an abandonment or forfeiture of an elected state office” and that Texas law empowered him to fill the vacancies. 

And, in a not necessarily unrelated item, as Hakeem-rent-a-camel Jeffries wets his diapers about stolen elections, which is ironic given the fact that the Democrat Party has been expert at rigging and stealing elections for decades. We have this item. Not holding my breath but still it is nevertheless good to see:

The Department of Justice (DOJ) opened a grand jury investigation into an alleged conspiracy by Obama administration officials to manufacture intelligence about Russian interference in the 2016 election, according to multiple reports. Attorney General Pam Bondi directed a federal prosecutor, who is expected to present evidence to a grand jury, to begin legal proceedings, according to a letter Fox News first reported.

At the very least expose the hell out of perhaps the greatest crime perpetrated against the American people in our history. Of course, as I had stated in the last few editorials, to expect punishment of the guilty let alone actual prosecution is unfortunately wishing for a miracle.

As Larry Elder notes:

Why does Obama need not fear charges? The race card. Consider the protests after the death of George Floyd. Floyd, a career violent criminal, was full of drugs, resisted arrest and was subdued by a restraint technique taught in the Minneapolis Police Academy. (For the truth about the death of Floyd, watch the documentary “The Fall of Minneapolis,” available for free on YouTube.) Yet, much of the country went crazy over this supposed example of anti-black police “systemic racism.” The trial was televised. Prosecutor Jerry Blackwell, a black man, took pains in his opening statement to say that the police, in general, were not on trial and that the Minneapolis Police Department, in general, was not on trial. The prosecutor said this individual cop, Derek Chauvin, was on trial for actions taken and not taken in connection with the death of Floyd. This prosecutor never even implied Chauvin was motivated by Floyd’s race, and Chauvin was not charged with a hate crime.

There's also the narrative card, which is why Hillary, Brennan, Comey and all the other pasty white criminals will never have to face the music. They were the defenders of democracy (vomit) and Trump was and remains literally Hitler. Exploding that myth cannot be allowed and the fact that we are even at this point is kind of miraculous, let alone Trump surviving several attempted physical and political assassinations and his agenda garnering all sorts of support from across the political spectrum.

And elsewhere it is encouraging to see Tom Cotton encouraging the IRS to have CAIR put in the crosshairs. Scratch their surface and aside from foreign Islmonazi supporters many of the same domestic insurrectionists and Leftist/Democrats have given them aid and comfort as well lo these many years.

And lastly, a quick shout-out and thank you for your continued support in hitting our tip jar. It truly is appreciated more than you can know.

Have a great day!

ABOVE THE FOLD, BREAKING, NOTEWORTHY
• Larry Elder: Does Obama need to fear charges?
  Think the George Floyd ‘Racial Injustice’ Protests Were Insane? What If Obama Gets Indicted?

Posted by: J.J. Sefton at 07:42 AM | Comments (270) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Daily News Stuff 5 August 2025

Top Story

• The Moon is a harsh parking lot. (Engadget)
  
  NASA's Trailblazer mission ended in disappointment.
  
  After just one day.
  
  When the batteries went flat.
  
  
  
• NASA is planning to build a nuclear reactor on the Moon. (Politico)
  
  No scrounging though the kitchen drawers for AAA cells on Christmas morning for these guys.

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 04:30 AM | Comments (118) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Monday Overnight Open Thread - August 4, 2025 [Doof]

Howdy Hordelings! You've waited all day for it, and now it's here! The Monday night ONT is on time and on the money. What money, you ask? Not sure. Maybe there's some loose change around here somewhere. Come on in and see what you can find!

Posted by: Open Blogger at 10:00 PM | Comments (305) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Fleebagger Cafe

Mount Fuji

Wake up, sleepyhead.

Monkey friends give each other hugs.

Justin Bieber has given himself a full MAGA makeover.

A big shoebill.

Baby giggles while feeding an ostrich.

Mother elephants rush to protect a young elephant.

Elephant gives birth, and then the herd comes over to protect the mother and calf.

When the wife wants some action but you're clearing a level on the XBox.

Dog refuses to leave the side of his stricken owner.

Old but good: A man rushes to save his dog from a kangaroo, and gives the bully a sock in the mouth.

Paralyzed sheep learns to pilot motorized wheelchair.

Bear who spent his life in a cage is given a paddock to play in and is already out of control.

Big chungus rescue pittie is put on a diet and has her beach-body back.

Sick sea-turtle is weighed down by thousands of barnacles but gets an Extreme Sea Turtle Makeover.

Chaos agent figures out how to work the automatic ball-thrower.

Whales do not want to be photographed right now.

Posted by: Ace at 07:20 PM | Comments (415) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Secretary of the Army Terminates West Point Teaching Contract for Former Head of Censorship Agency CISA -- the Organization That Deplatformed and Censored Conservatives for Four Years Under Biden

The left is angry that the right is not giving them amnesty for their decades-long weaponization of government against their political opponents.

Secretary of the Army Dan Driscoll has pulled the plug on an attempt by someone at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point to hire Joe Biden's director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency. Jen Easterly, a retired Army colonel, a West Point graduate, and former head of CISA, was supposed to assume duties "as the Robert F. McDermott Distinguished Chair in the department of social sciences at the United States Military Academy at West Point, New York."

In an announcement distributed via X, Secretary Driscoll stated that Easterly's appointment was not approved and ordered a total review of how it came to be.

[I]t isn't as if Easterly was some low-profile leftie being slipped into the USMA faculty. She was one of the named defendants in the government censorship scandal that led to the Murthy v. Missouri (formerly Missouri v. Biden). She was at ground zero when the government undertook its grotesquely misguided program of strong-arming social media companies into restricting conversations on vote fraud in the 2020 election and the COVID virus response.

Sean Davis
@seanmdav

Jen Easterly ran CISA and directed its multi-year, illegal censorship operation against conservative media, including me personally and @FDRLST, the news publication I run.

Why on earth is this woman being gifted a plum sinecure at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point after what she did to this country?

Who approved this appointment of a woman who clearly has zero regard for the Constitution and the First Amendment right to free speech and freedom of the press?

Laura Loomer also brought this censor to Trump's attention. CBS "News" believes its controversial to brand this censorship agency as having practiced "censorship."

Note the sneer-quotes:

Easterly was accused of "censorship" by Loomer for her work as CISA director during the Biden administration to counter disinformation after the 2020 election.

"We're not turning cadets into censorship activists. We're turning them into warriors and leaders," Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell said.

Posted by: Ace at 06:20 PM | Comments (219) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Judge Rejects Big Letitia James' Lawsuit (Along With Other Leftwing AGs) to Force Trump to Spend Money on the One True Science of "Diversity Research"

The "science of diversity research" is just make-work jobs for otherwise unemployable DEI "scholars"/Democrat Party agitators.

The judge didn't say that. Should have, but did not.

A federal judge on Friday rejected a bid by 16 Democratic-led states to force U.S. President Donald Trump's administration to restore hundreds of millions of dollars of grants it canceled that support increasing diversity in science, technology, engineering and math fields.

Democratic state attorneys general had urged U.S. District Judge John Cronan in Manhattan to block the National Science Foundation from canceling funding awarded to universities designed to increase the participation of women, minorities, and people in those fields, known collectively as STEM.

They had argued in a lawsuit filed in May that the Trump administration lacked the power to cap research funding and eliminate diversity programs provided by the NSF that were mandated by Congress and urged the judge to reverse grant terminations that began in April.

But Cronan, a Trump appointee, agreed with the administration that a challenge to NSF's already-completed grant terminations could not be pursued in his court but instead could only be taken up by the Court of Federal Claims, a specialist court that hears monetary claims against the U.S. government.

He said the states likewise failed to show a new NSF policy stating that research "must aim to create opportunities for all Americans everywhere" and that research projects that preference "subgroups of people" do not reflect the agency's priorities was inconsistent with the agency's governing statute.

The same day that policy was posted in April, NSF began canceling grants that had been previously issued that touched on among other topics of diversity, equity and inclusion. Trump has sought to eliminate DEI from the government and society.

In another win: DOJ's Civil Rights Division ended a 44-year-old consent decree -- I think that arises from a leftwing lawfare group suing and friendly government bureaucrats agreeing to give the lawfare group all that it demanded -- which mandated not just DEI in federal hiring but a determined hostility towards actual skills and qualifications.

Posted by: Ace at 05:20 PM | Comments (178) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Democrats Blow Off Governor Abbott's 3 PM (Central) Deadline to Return to Work

Governor Abbott escalated his threat: He now says that any of the fleebaggers who do not return to Texas by 3pm central (4pm east coast time) will face criminal felony charges.

But the more immediate threat is to strip them of the offices they have abandoned:

Townhall.com
@townhallcom

BREAKING NEWS from TX Governor Greg Abbott:

"This truancy ends now. The derelict Democrat House members must return to Texas and be in attendance when the House reconvenes at 3:00 PM on Monday, August 4, 2025. For any member who fails to do so, I will invoke Texas Attorney General Opinion No. KP-0382 to remove the missing Democrats from membership in the Texas House."

WOW.

To protest Texas' coming partisan gerrymander, Democrats fleebagged to... heavily partisan-gerrymandered Illinois and New York.

Though infuriating on one hand, on the other, you have to laugh at this stage in the game. I mean, as we pointed out, going to Illinois, which is home to one of the most corrupt and blatantly rigged Democrat political machines in the country, is not exactly the brightest idea these folks have had.

But to make matters worse for them, some of the Texas Democrats went to another blue state that is well-known for gerrymandering...

Posted by: Ace at 04:27 PM | Comments (277) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Trump Fires Bureau of Labor Statistics Chief Who Repeatedly Overestimated Job Growth Under Biden (and Right Before the Election, Too)

No more protection for leftists. None.

Fire them all.

President Donald Trump on Friday announced that he had sacked a Biden-appointed official responsible for compiling monthly jobs statistics, asserting that she had overstated jobs growth under the last president to aid the Harris campaign and that she had wrongly revised his own jobs numbers downwards.

"I was just informed that our Country's "Jobs Numbers" are being produced by a Biden Appointee, Dr. Erika McEntarfer, the Commissioner of Labor Statistics, who faked the Jobs Numbers before the Election to try and boost Kamala's chances of Victory," he posted on Truth Social. "This is the same Bureau of Labor Statistics that overstated the Jobs Growth in March 2024 by approximately 818,000 and, then again, right before the 2024 Presidential Election, in August and September, by 112,000. These were Records -- No one can be that wrong? We need accurate Jobs Numbers."

"I have directed my Team to fire this Biden Political Appointee, IMMEDIATELY. She will be replaced with someone much more competent and qualified. Important numbers like this must be fair and accurate, they can't be manipulated for political purposes," he went on. "McEntarfer said there were only 73,000 Jobs added (a shock!) but, more importantly, that a major mistake was made by them, 258,000 Jobs downward, in the prior two months. Similar things happened in the first part of the year, always to the negative. The Economy is BOOMING under "TRUMP" despite a Fed that also plays games, this time with Interest Rates, where they lowered them twice, and substantially, just before the Presidential Election, I assume in the hopes of getting 'Kamala' elected -- How did that work out? Jerome "Too Late" Powell should also be put "out to pasture." Thank you for your attention to this matter!"

Posted by: Ace at 02:47 PM | Comments (392) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Somehow, Incredibly, Impossibly, We're Entering the Third Week of the Left Melting Down Over Sydney Sweeney's Tits

The Bee:

Leftist lunatics dug into Sydney Sweeney's history -- her initials are SS, for crying out loud (and that is a real argument the lunatics repeatedly make) -- and unearthed the ABSOLUTE SCANDAL that she's registered as a Republican in Florida.

Trump says now he loves the ad.

President Trump on Sunday reacted positively upon learning actress Sydney Sweeney is a registered Republican, adding that he now finds her viral American Eagle ad campaign to be "fantastic."

"She's a registered Republican?" Trump said in response to a reporter's question about his thoughts on her political affiliation. "Oh, now I love her ad."

The President added, "You'd be surprised at how many people are Republicans. That's what I wouldn't have known, but I'm glad you told me that. If Sydney Sweeney is a registered Republican, I think her ad is fantastic."

...

On Friday, Vice President JD Vance had some fun at the expense of the left over its wild response to the American Eagle ad campaign featuring actress Sydney Sweeney.
Vice President JD Vance

"My political advice to the Democrats is continue to tell everybody who thinks Sydney Sweeney is attractive is a Nazi. That appears to be their actual strategy," Vance joked during Friday's appearance on the "Ruthless" podcast.

Posted by: Ace at 01:35 PM | Comments (416) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Texas Democrats Flee the State to Block Redistricting; Greg Abbott Says That the State Constitution Allows Him to Declare Their Seats Forfeited

I don't know why they didn't fix this the past twenty times the Democrats did this. They do this every time there's a major vote, and we just keep letting them.

More than 50 Texas Democrats fled to Chicago on Sunday to block a redistricting plan that could give Republicans several new congressional seats. The move threatens to stall legislative business by denying the House a quorum.

Key Details:

Texas Democrats are attempting to deny the GOP a quorum in the 150-member state House, where at least 100 members must be present to move legislation forward. Democrat leaders say at least 51 members left the state.
The redistricting plan, introduced last week, would shift district lines to favor Republicans -- potentially flipping several urban Democrat seats.
Texas Republicans, led by House Speaker Dustin Burrows, are demanding Democrats return, with Attorney General Ken Paxton warning they could be arrested.

Steve Turley said that if the redistricting plan goes through, Jasmine Ratchet will probably lose her seat.

Greg Abbot says he will declare the "fleebaggers" to have resigned from their seats.

Can he actually take their seats away from them? I don't know. Even if he does, there will then be years of litigation to determine if the redistricting map was passed legally.

Governor Greg Abbott is threatening to oust the Texas Democrats who fled to Chicago to block a GOP-led redistricting bill, accusing them of abandoning their posts and violating the Texas Constitution by intentionally denying the House a quorum.

In a letter released Sunday, Abbott made clear that lawmakers who continue to skip work could be removed from office altogether. "These absences were premeditated for an illegitimate purpose," he wrote, noting that Democrats "hatched a deliberate plan not to show up for work, for the specific purpose of abdicating the duties of their office and thwarting the chamber's business."

To justify potential removals, Abbott pointed to Texas Attorney General Opinion No. KP-0382. That 2021 opinion concluded that legislators who intentionally break quorum can be found to have "vacated office." Abbott emphasized that under this legal framework, "a district court may determine that a legislator has forfeited his or her office due to abandonment and can remove the legislator from office, thereby creating a vacancy."

He added, "That empowers me to swiftly fill vacancies under Article III, Section 13 of the Texas Constitution."

Speaking of redistricting: The Supreme Court says it wants to hear arguments on the question of the constitutionality of racially-gerrymandered congressional seats.

Since the 80s, states have prioritized race as a factor in drawing congressional districts. Bizarre snake-like gerrymanders slither throughout states to pick up black neighborhoods here and there to guarantee a "majority minority" district where blacks are guaranteed to elect a black Democrat.

Is this even constitutional? The Supreme Court seems to think it's not, because they have asked for arguments on the issue even though it was basically ignored in the lower courts.

The Supreme Court said Friday that it will weigh the constitutionality of a common form of redistricting used to protect the voting power of Black and Hispanic voters: the drawing of congressional districts where racial minorities make up at least half the population.

Experts in election law said the move signals that the court may be poised to further narrow the Voting Rights Act.

In a terse order issued Friday evening, the justices called for briefing on whether the "intentional creation of a second majority-minority congressional district violates the Fourteenth or Fifteenth Amendments to the U.S. Constitution."

The order came in a case challenging Louisiana's congressional map, which contains two majority-Black districts out of the state's six House seats.

The court heard arguments in the case in March and had been expected to rule by June. But on June 27, the justices punted the case into their next term and ordered that it be reargued.

Now, Friday's order loosely sketches the terrain on which the justices want further arguments: the claim that the longstanding practice of drawing majority-minority districts under the Voting Rights Acts may be unconstitutional because of its focus on race in drawing district lines. The voters challenging Louisiana's map had already advanced that constitutional claim in the case, but the justices' call for further briefing on the issue suggests they want to consider the claim more fully.

Below, Steve Turley argues that ending the racial gerrymanders will effectively wipe out all Democrat congressional representation in the south and guarantee the Republican Party a minimum of 230 seats in Congress. (218 seats are needed for the majority.)

Posted by: Ace at 12:32 PM | Comments (346) | Trackbacks (Suck)

THE MORNING RANT – EU Capitulates to Trump’s Tariff Agenda: Why Aren’t Free Traders Touting How Great This Is for Europe?

President Trump’s one-sided trade deal that he just imposed on the European Union has caused a lot of anger and despair on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean. Ursula von der Leyen, the President of the European Commission, was compelled to make trade concessions that come across as near-total capitulation to Trump’s terms. She had no choice. This was necessary so as to not to cost the 27-nation EU a greater loss of access to the enormous American market.

How one-sided is it?

• Tariffs on most products being imported to the US from Europe will increase from about 1% to 15%.
• Tariffs on vehicles being imported to the U.S. will increase from 2.5% to 15%. The short-term impact of this will be more tariff revenue for the U.S., which will be eaten by European manufacturers if they want to sell their cars here. The long-term impact of this will be the movement of European car manufacturing to the US, bringing manufacturing jobs to the US, and costing the EU jobs.
• The 50% tariff that Trump imposed on steel, aluminum, and copper imports will remain in place.
• The EU will roughly double the amount of US energy that it imports, to about $750 billion per year.
• European manufacturers will commit to $600 billion in capital expenditures for industrial development in the US.
• The EU will eliminate tariffs on products exported from the US to Europe.

This is a staggering reversal of the unfair trade practices that existed before – trade practices that helped crush American manufacturing, but were celebrated by “Principled Free Traders” who rejoiced at every American job lost to “free trade.”

Of course, what existed before wasn’t “free trade” at all, it was unilateral surrender to foreign mercantilism. However, the Principled Free Traders repeatedly told us that surrendering to non-reciprocal, one-sided trade was a beautiful thing because:

- American consumers get lower prices! The free traders didn’t even care if the lower-cost of imports was due to price-supports from unfriendly foreign governments.
- Trade that eliminates American manufacturing jobs allows American labor to be better deployed to “thinking” jobs rather than to manual labor.
- Tariffs are a tax on consumers. If the US had imposed counter-tariffs, that would have been a “tax on consumers.”
- A utopian global economy requires an upfront American capitulation to set the example of how other countries should behave in a libertarian world without economic borders.

David Harsanyi articulates the globalist, America-last position in his frequent writings about the beauty of surrendering to non-reciprocal “free trade.” At the Washington Examiner a few months ago he wrote, “Trade isn’t fair. Americans should pray it never gets fair.” He added, “Trade allows average working-class Americans to buy all kinds of things they could not otherwise afford because of trade. Forcing working-class Americans to make things foreigners or machines can make cheaper only undermines the creation of better jobs for them and their children.”

It seems to me that the EU’s capitulation to Trump has put Europe in the position that free traders always advocated for the US. Shouldn’t this trade deal therefore be great news for Europe per free trader logic?

Posted by: Buck Throckmorton at 11:00 AM | Comments (370) | Trackbacks (Suck)