Posts on Sunday, January 8, 2023

In the midst of the battle over Kevin McCarthy becoming Speaker of the House, Rep. Mike Rogers set newsrooms ablaze by “lunging” at Rep. Matt Gaetz. At the time, Gaetz and others had just finished securing major concessions from McCarthy, and one ballot later, the deal would finally be sealed. On the prior ballot, though, Rogers, who is set to chair the Armed Services Committee, was apparently angered by Gaetz voting present and chose to lash out. Because Gaetz was on the receiving end of the rage, the press largely took Rogers’ side, exuding a “serves him right” attitude about the ordeal. That’s not a shock given the press

During the Trump administration, a ban on bump stocks was passed in the wake of the 2017 mass shooting in Las Vegas. That law has been the target of multiple challenges, almost all from gun rights groups. On Friday, a federal appeals court in Louisiana struck down the law, finding that under the plain language of the Gun Control Act and National Firearms Act, a bump stock “is excluded from the technical definition of ‘machinegun’ as defined” in those statutes. The BATFE and the Biden administration disagree and are fighting to keep the ban in place. This ruling does not mean that the ban is now lifted.

More than 50 employees of Cook County Clerk of Court Iris Martinez are suspected of defrauding a federal program intended to help small businesses struggling during the COVID-19 pandemic, a spokesman said Friday. The clerk’s inspector general is working with Cook County’s inspector general’s office, which is conducting a separate investigation of employees who work for Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle (Snip) Most of the court clerk’s employees who are under investigation had gotten PPP loans of about $20,000 by saying they had made at least $100,000 from an outside business in the year before they filed their applications, Murphy-Aguilú said. Some employees received about $40,000 in loans, he said.

The true enemy of a constitutional republic are the Mitch McConnell’s and Nancy Mace’s of the professional political class who build systems to undermine the will of the people under the pretense of representing them. These are the abusers, the professional abusers, the psychologically Machiavellian and inherently evil people within the system of power who operate on false pretense. They are smiley-faced fascists and liars, period. “A nation can survive its fools, and even the ambitious. But it cannot survive treason from within. An enemy at the gates is less formidable, for he is known and carries his banner openly. But the traitor moves amongst those within the gate

On Sunday's Meet the Press, moderator, and Democrat activist Chuck Todd whined to House Oversight Committee chairman James Comer that the necessary oversight that Comer and his committee will be conducting will look "more partisan than professional." Comer proceeded to take Todd to school about how that is far from the case.  "You're going to do a lot of oversight, a lot of subpoenas, many people look at what you're doing, and they see that it looks more partisan than professional," Todd asked Comer.

Journalist Paul Sperry is not going quietly into the night — as we reported, he’s been calling out the effort by Rep. Adam Schiff’s office to silence him, to get him suspended from Twitter as well as to shut down his reporting about things that Schiff didn’t want to be exposed. In articles for RealClearInvestigations, I outed his anonymous “whistleblower” from the first impeachment of President Trump. It was Eric Ciaramella, a Democrat who had worked in the Trump White House as an Obama holdover. I also exposed Ciaramella’s prior relationship with one of Schiff’s top staffers on the impeachment committee, Sean Misko.

A shocking report from the Chicago Public Schools (CPS) Office of the Inspector General (OIG) has revealed hundreds of cases of teachers sexually grooming and assaulting CPS students in 2022 and earlier. The report, released last week, details disturbing encounters between staff and students, including one CPS teacher who “groomed and sexually assaulted” a 17-year-old girl on multiple occasions. In a move that will feel familiar to parents already sounding the alarm about school officials encouraging students to be open about sexual issues with teachers while hiding it from parents, the girl told investigators “she began to think of him as her friend and therapist.”

Stop the pearl-clutching, my fellow Republicans. This drama over the House speakership is the best thing that could have happened. Well, maybe not the best thing: that would have been a 30-vote Republican majority in the House. That would have stopped the Democrats' big spending, radical leftist agenda dead in its tracks. That would have let the speaker of the House to tell Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., to pound sand. But the supermajority didn’t happen. So, House Republicans need to change tactics. Schumer is no longer Speaker McCarthy’s biggest obstacle. It’s now his Republican counterpart on the other side of the Capitol–Senate Minority Leader and profligate spender

It was all supposed to be so well-scripted and harmonious. Joe Biden would visit the border at the politically safe, Democrat-led El Paso entry point, make a speech about how well he's doing on his migrant surge crisis, and off camera, someone would clean up the migrant mess in the vicinity to give Joe the backdrop to spin to the public that all was quiet and under control at the border Ummm... but in much chaos, it's really not working out the way he thought it would work out. It's bad. Start with the street cleanup effort, which has led to before-and-after tweets making the rounds on the Internet here.

Rio de Janeiro - Supporters of former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro who refuse to accept his electoral defeat stormed Congress, the Supreme Court and presidential palace in the capital Sunday, just a week after the inauguration of his leftist rival, President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. Thousands of demonstrators bypassed security barricades, climbed on the roofs, broke windows and invaded all three buildings, which are connected through the vast Three Powers square in Brasilia. Some are calling for a military intervention to restore the far-right Bolsonaro to power. Images on TV channel Globo News showed protesters roaming the presidential palace, many of them wearing green and yellow

Democratic Colorado Gov. Jared Polis will stop sending migrants to New York City, Chicago and other major Democrat-run cities after mayors expressed outrage at the plan in recent weeks. Polis had agreed to work with local authorities in Denver to help send migrants to their final destinations. While Colorado is not a border state, it has seen a major influx of migrants seeking passage to elsewhere in the country. Mayors Eric Adams of New York City and Lori Lightfoot of Chicago called on Polis to end his assistance last week as their cities also struggle with a surge in migrants.

Critics took aim at President Biden for comparing asylum-seeking immigrants to Jews fleeing Nazi Germany during the Holocaust. "What a disgusting and awful statement from this ignoramus, and the corrupt media are silent," conservative commentator Mark Levin said on Twitter Friday in reaction to Biden's remarks. Biden's comments came in response to a reporter Thursday, who asked the president whether he believed migration is a human right. "Well, I think it is a human right if your family is being persecuted," Biden responded. "I thought it was a human right for, you know, Jews in Germany to be able to go — to get to escape

The ascendance of Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) as the 55th Speaker of the United States House of Representatives may have come with all of the spontaneity of a shotgun wedding — but it finally came. McCarthy deserved better than a tortuous three-day floor fight but, then again, he is now second in line to the presidency. Many of us have great sympathy for McCarthy, who looked like a guy caught in a feedback loop stepping on the same rake over and over again. (For the record, I opposed the floor fight, given the overwhelming support for McCarthy.) However, as is often the case in Washington, the narrative opposing these holdouts allowed

Patti Davis, actress and youngest daughter of the late President Reagan gave Prince Harry some sage yet unsolicited advice ahead of the release of his memoir, "Spare." In an OpEd written for the New York Times, Davis, 70 cautioned the Duke of Sussex to be judicious with his candor. "My justification in writing a book I now wish I hadn’t written…was very similar to what I understand to be Harry’s reasoning. I wanted to tell the truth, I wanted to set the record straight. Naïvely, I thought if I put my own feelings and my own truth out there for the world to read, my family might also come to understand

A pro-life pregnancy center network is taking matters into its own hands and hiring private investigators to find pro-abortion terrorists who attacked its medical office, claiming that the FBI is “slow-walking” its probe, which has not resulted in any arrests. CompassCare is partnering with the Thomas More Society, a nonprofit law firm fighting for religious liberty, to hire private investigators to find the perpetrators on its own terms and timeline. “After talking with our investigators so far, they’ve already provided very valuable insight that we didn’t know. And they do have a track record of identifying terrorists both internationally and domestically,”

An 82-year-old Navy veteran working at a Maryland Walmart has retired thanks to an interaction with a customer that went viral on social media. Butch Marion officially retired from his job on Wednesday weeks after a Walmart customer walked into the store and filmed the 82-year-old veteran ringing up items in the checkout line and posted the video on TikTok, which raised over $100,000 for Marion, WTTG-TV reported. That customer, bug extermination business owner Rory McCarty, had seen a previous TikTok video where a woman went into a Walmart and filmed an elderly employee bagging groceries and raised money for that employee by posting the video online.

There are certain moments when partisanship is put aside and the ceremony is respected. It’s what decent human beings do – they put animosity and disagreement aside for the moment and focus on the moment. You see it in applauding the entrance of the President of the United States to deliver the State of the Union Address. Do you think everyone wants to stand and applaud? (Snip)Leave it to Democrats to, well, be Democrats and be the complete guttersnipes they are (Snip) I’m speaking about the election of Kevin McCarthy as Speaker of the House and the garbage person Democrats elected to be their leader, Hakeem Jeffries,

Gov. Kristi Noem (R-S.D.) is demanding answers after her Social Security Number was leaked by the federal government in a document related to the House Select Committee’s investigation of the Jan. 6 protests.  In a letter addressed to Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-MS), Noem’s lawyers condemned the security breach, asking to know how the agencies plan to combat the high-risk issue. “Gov. Noem and her family are now at very high risk of identity theft and being personally compromised due to the failure to redact the social security numbers and make the same available to the public,” the letter reads.

The majestic structures of ancient Rome have survived for millennia — a testament to the ingenuity of Roman engineers, who perfected the use of concrete. But how did their construction materials help keep colossal buildings like the Pantheon (which has the world's largest unreinforced dome) and the Colosseum standing for more than 2,000 years? Roman concrete, in many cases, has proven to be longer-lasting than its modern equivalent, which can deteriorate within decades. Now, scientists behind a new study say they have uncovered the mystery ingredient that allowed the Romans to make their construction material so durable and build elaborate structures in challenging places such as docks, sewers and earthquake zones.

You could see it operating yesterday. The once hopeful, now useless Dan Crenshaw, used it against his own party, “terrorists”, “seditionists”. It’s so basic as to be nauseating, insulting to your intelligence. Political enemy? “Terrorist”. “Insurrectionist”. “Saboteur”. They all use the process I am about to describe. Invented in some behaviourist hell-hole at a multinational and consecrated by Klaus and Justin and all the evil little Ivy League demons in government, it is used against their bosses, their employers, the people. This is how it happened.

Much has been made of the fact that it took 15 votes until Republican Kevin McCarthy finally secured the Speakership of the House. Powerline Blog has rounded up a series of the internet cartoons and memes about the long fight. With their salaries on the line, I never imagined the fight would continue much longer. It would appear that the extended debate may at last result in Congress more skillfully playing the role designed for it in the Constitution and a much-needed return to the regular order of business in the House. Many emphasized that the fight represented a disastrous split in the party whose hold on the House is

Last week, Pope Benedict XVI was laid to rest. The world media were forced to cover the event, barely containing the vitriol they always had for the man. Why was such a kindly and humble scholar always the subject of such scorn? Most of it, I think, was that worldly commentators so hated his predecessor, but St. John Paul II's charisma simply washed over everyone, like a tidal wave. So they took it out on his successor. There is also a lot of academic jealousy by insiders.

The gleaming promise of new technology and its uses blinded us to the insidious extent imperiled elitists would go to protect their unmerited power, wealth, and status. We were naïve. Yet, even if one could have foreseen the metastasizing tyranny brought about by the digital age, it would have strained credulity to watch Americans—especially the young—not merely acquiescing to it, but embracing it. Though we are now inured to its novelty, it bears recollecting that from the late 20th century to the present, we have lived through a worldwide communications revolution. Profoundly affecting the individual and society, the full impact of this revolution remains unclear.

A 16-year-old girl collapsed and died after suffering a medical emergency during a high school flag football game in Las Vegas, Nevada. Sophomore Ashari Hughes, 16, who played for Desert Oasis High School, collapsed around 7:30 p.m. Thursday after a home game against Valley High School, the Las Vegas Review-Journal reported. She was hospitalized and died later that night, the paper said. The tragic episode unfolded just three days after Buffalo Bills safety Damar Hamlin collapsed after suffering cardiac arrest during a “Monday Night Football” match-up against the Cincinnati Bengals that was witnessed by millions.

Sometimes, these articles almost write themselves. Or, due to hypocrisy, dishonesty, or unintentional humor, many stories beg to be covered. This is one of them, and the cast is perfect: an ex-Republican congressman, MSNBC, and the Democrat-weaponized FBI — with the CIA tossed in as a bonus. Our tale begins with Kentucky Republican Rep. Thomas Massie’s revelation that now-House Speaker Kevin McCarthy agreed, as part of a deal with GOP lawmakers opposed to his speakership bid, to the formation of a committee modeled after the 1975 Senate Select Committee, formed by Senator Frank Church, which investigated abuses by the CIA, FBI, National Security Agency, and the IRS,

More than a dozen House Republicans praised President Joe Biden for making time ahead of his international trip to visit the U.S.-Mexico border but sent him off with a long list of expectations. Led by first-term Texas border Rep. Monica De La Cruz, the 14 Texas Republicans urged Biden to make demands during his meeting with Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador in Mexico City this week based on what he learns in El Paso, Texas, on Sunday. “We congratulate you on visiting the U.S.-Mexico border for the first time,” the lawmakers wrote in a letter sent Friday and shared exclusively with the Washington Examiner.

During an interview with CBS’ “The Takeout” podcast recorded on Thursday and released on Friday, former NIAID Director Dr. Anthony Fauci claimed that the term “is such a nebulous, generic term” and “we don’t even use the word gain-of-function.” CBS News Chief Washington Correspondent Major Garrett said, “There are acolytes of Elon Musk who say when you read gain-of-function, you should just translate that to bioweapon.” Fauci responded, “That’s absolutely incorrect. For example — the reason we don’t even use the word gain-of-function. We use the word what kind of guardrails do you need to put on a proposed experiment,

Elon Musk claims he can’t get a fair trial in San Francisco and wants the trial for a shareholder’s lawsuit over a series of 2018 tweets moved out of the Bay Area, according to a report. The Tesla mogul wants the lawsuit — accusing him of causing volatility in Twitter’s share price after he claimed he had enough financing to take the company private — heard in West Texas, which includes the state capital of Austin, where he moved Tesla’s headquarters in 2021.  If not, the trial should be delayed until the negative media coverage surrounding Musk’s $44 billion acquisition of Twitter calms down.

NBC executives are reportedly regretting renewing Jimmy Fallon’s $80 million contract, now that Greg Gutfeld of FOX News is the ratings king of late night TV. Gutfeld regularly beats many if not all of the network late shows in ratings while people ignore has-beens like Jimmy Fallon. The late night schedule will probably look very different in a year or so. From Radar Online, via MSN: NBC Execs Regret Paying Jimmy Fallon $80 Million Contract Extension As Fox News’ Greg Gutfeld Beats ‘Tonight Show’ In Ratings: Sources

South Sudan’s President Salva Kiir has been in office since the country became independent in 2011. The 71-year-old had been rumored to be in ill health for months, but during a photo-op in December, Kiir was shown standing during the nation’s national anthem and wetting himself in a most embarrassing way. [Video] Six staffers for the national broadcasting company in South Sudan were arrested by the security service. There were immediate complaints from the trade union representing the staffers that the law, which gives the government the power to hold someone for 24 hours before taking them before a judge, is being violated.

When President Joe Biden makes his first visit to the border with Mexico on Sunday, he will hear from aid workers helping manage the immigration crisis and from local officials desperate for more support. What he won't see are the miserable makeshift camps dotted around El Paso that triggered headlines last month about migrants taking over the streets. On Tuesday and Wednesday law enforcement teams moved through the downtown area, picking up migrants who had entered the country illegally. As a result, he may get a view of the border but not of the crisis, say infuriated border agents

Lia Thomas did it, so why can’t Iszac Henig? Lia is the University of Pennsylvania swimmer who performed indifferently on the men’s team and then proclaimed that he was a woman. Competing on the women’s team, lo and behold, suddenly he became a championship swimmer, breaking records left and right and winning an NCAA swimming championship. It was the strength he got from being transgender and enduring bigotry and hate, right? So we should expect that Iszac Henig, who used to be a female swimmer and now says she is a male, would perform at the same stellar level, right? Well, it didn’t quite turn out that way.

HOUSTON, Texas — A customer at a taqueria on the southwest side of Houston shot and killed a would-be armed robber, according to video released by the Houston Police Department. The customer reportedly gathered the money taken by the robbery suspect and distributed it back to the victims before leaving the restaurant. Houston Police Department investigators are wanting to talk to a man seen in a security video shooting a robbery at a taqueria located in the 6800 block of South Gessner Road, according to a report by Fox 26 Houston. A video released by police investigators shows a robbery in progress. [Video]