When people think about the incoming Trump-Vance administration’s plans to unleash domestic energy production, they likely start with oil and gas drilling, and policies governing fracking and clean coal. Yet nuclear energy has a critical role to play in expanding our domestic energy resources, while also protecting the environment. We shouldn’t let antiquated misperceptions about nuclear production stand in the way.

Support for nuclear energy is at an all-time high in the United States—with 56% of Americans supporting it. Yet this support is lopsided with 70% of men having a favorable opinion of nuclear energy compared to just 44% of women. Women are likely skeptical of nuclear energy due to memories of Soviet-era nuclear mishaps and the notorious Three Mile Island incident, as well as modern fearmongering from the media and radical environmentalists. But nuclear energy has come a long way since then and is now among the most promising technologies in terms of efficacy, safety, and environmental impact.

The incoming Trump administration can appeal to women’s eco sensibilities by highlighting facts about nuclear power as a reliable and environmentally friendly option. Women care deeply about clean air and water conditions, and want natural resources to be stewarded responsibly.

Nuclear energy is the most efficient power source available today. 94 nuclear reactors already supply 18.6% of current U.S. electricity generation. Nuclear, like natural gas, will be essential to meet rising global electricity demand. Unlike intermittent energy sources, like wind and solar, nuclear operates nearly 24/7. It produces near zero emissions while boasting a small environmental footprint compared to utility-scale solar and wind facilities, requiring just a mere square mile of land to accommodate a 1,000 megawatt (MW) power station operating 93% of the year. By contrast, solar and wind function at a fraction of the capacity that nuclear does and require 75 and 360 times more land, respectively, to generate the equivalent amount of electricity. In other words, nuclear power is more dependable, more efficient, requires far less land, and releases negligible carbons—far outpacing renewables on all these measures.

Understandably, women are concerned about the safety protocols and safe storage of nuclear waste (or used nuclear fuel). In the last 60 years, there have only been three significant accidents at nuclear plants worldwide. American nuclear power plants are among the safest in the world and are built to minimize accidental radiation release and meltdowns. Additionally, reactor operators undergo rigorous training and must be federally licensed to supervise these plants. Our Energy Department reports that U.S. facilities pose the least harm to people and the environment due to “safety procedures, robust training programs and stringent federal regulation.”

And while fear about nuclear waste storage is understandable, today there are new and better solutions than ever before. Today, most used nuclear fuel is stored safely at on-site dry casks, and the Trump Energy Department can continue to improve here by prioritizing permanent disposal of nuclear fuel.

When Americans envision nuclear facilities, most start with giant steaming towers like those operated by Homer Simpson. Reality is quite different. In fact, among the most promising developments is the development of small modular reactors (SMRs). These reactors aren’t simply functional; they are aesthetically pleasing and modern.

During his appearance on the Joe Rogan Experience podcast, President-elect Trump said he liked nuclear power, but claimed conventional facilities are “…too big and too complex and too expensive.” That’s where SMRs can fill the void.

There are 80 SMR prototypes currently in development. SMRs are capable of producing upwards of 300 megawatts (MW) per module. Used nuclear fuel from bigger reactors is even repurposed to power them.

Two companies are expertly combining functionality with aesthetics—a surefire way to appeal to nuclear-skeptical women. Here in the U.S., the Oklo Aurora powerhouse prototype at the Idaho National Laboratory—slated to go online in 2027—has been lauded for its sky chalet design. Incoming Energy Secretary Chris Wright is a board member for Oklo, a publicly traded nuclear SMR start-up, and can lean on his expertise to get his future boss on board. And across the pond in the United Kingdom, luxury car company Rolls-Royce—unlike competitor Jaguar—is smartly diversifying its portfolio with SMRs. Their prototypes occupy about two soccer fields and are capable of powering about one million homes.

President-elect Donald J. Trump pledged to “unleash energy production from all sources”—including nuclear energy—in a second term. The first Trump administration had 11 major accomplishments pertaining to this reliable power source, including the elevation of the first (and highly qualified) woman, Dr. Rita Baranwal, to oversee the Office of Nuclear Energy.

Women will be essential to making American nuclear energy great again. Let’s hope the incoming Trump-Vance administration taps into this constituency.

Gabriella Hoffman is director of the Center for Energy and Conservation at the Independent Women’s Forum and host of the District of Conservation podcast. Follow her on X at @Gabby_Hoffman

U.S. energy policy is in dire need of a course correction. Our nation grapples with growing energy demands and challenges, and a second Trump administration faces the daunting task of undoing an array of harmful regulations and ill-conceived decisions enacted by its predecessor. Since some of these policies won’t be quickly unraveled, the work to undo them must begin without delay.

Earlier this year, the Biden administration finalized a power plant rule requiring current coal-fired plants and new gas-fired plants to control 90% of their carbon emissions through a process called carbon capture sequestration (CCS). This technology has not been “adequately demonstrated,” a potential violation of section 111 of the Clean Air Act. In fact, CCS has failed to sufficiently perform.

These impossible standards will force numerous plants to close and make it difficult for new ones to open, leaving millions in the dark, literally. A so-called transition to intermittent wind and solar (the ultimate objective) has led to shortages and skyrocketing electricity rates for areas with ambitious renewable energy goals. This rule needs to go.

Additionally, the electric vehicle (EV) mandate—EPA and NHTSA edicts—will result in EVs comprising roughly two-thirds of all new car sales by 2032. Sales have yet to hit 10%. Only popular among certain demographics, the EV is failing to garner excitement from most motorists due to high price tags, limited range, lack of charging infrastructure, and reliability issues. Consumer surveys report that only 18% of U.S. adults are “likely” to purchase one as their next car; 63% are “unlikely or very unlikely.” Nearly half of EV owners will probably switch back to internal combustion.

EVs are piling up on car lots and manufacturers are sustaining substantial losses; Ford reported losing $132,000 per vehicle during this year’s first quarter. Over 4,000 dealers signed letters begging the administration to tap the brakes.

Consumer choice is paramount and should not be denied or influenced by government officials. The EV rule needs to be eliminated.

Another destructive EPA rule involves the National Ambient Air Quality Standards (NAAQS) for fine particulate matter (PM2.5). Traditionally reviewed every five years, the newly ushered in EPA unprecedently initiated an additional NAAQS review merely 33 days after the December 2020 one was completed and the numbers deemed perfectly adequate. The new PM2.5 standard was lowered by more than 25%.

The estimated potential loss of $270 billion in GDP and roughly 2.9 million jobs or job equivalents per year poses a serious threat to the manufacturing industry and U.S. economy. With the strictest standards in the world, companies may move overseas to less stringent environments; new investments will be deterred. This EPA action should never have taken place and must be rescinded.

In January the Biden administration stunned the energy industry by placing a pause on pending and future liquified natural gas (LNG) export projects. The politically motivated decision has only served to hurt our European allies who were forced to turn to adversarial actors like Russia for natural gas. Contrary to claims that LNG harms the environment, studies demonstrate it can reduce emissions by 40-50% by replacing dirtier forms of energy, like coal.

After becoming the No.1 LNG exporter last year, we are positioned to supply cleaner fuel all over the world and weaken Russia’s control. This mandate must be undone.

Biden leased 95% fewer acres for oil and gas in fiscal year 2023 than Trump’s highest figure in 2019, representing the lowest ever in U.S. history. Despite the drop, companies managed to produce more oil and natural gas. Estimates, however, indicate this decision will result in $33.5 billion loss in GDP by the end of Biden’s term; we could have produced so much more.

Fossil fuels have and will continue to serve 82% of our energy needs. That has not changed in the past several decades nor will it change in the coming ones. It is imperative we unleash the possibilities to meet surging demands by recommitting to oil and gas leases on public lands. Becoming a net exporter of oil was a monumental achievement in 2019; we need to keep that standing. Energy security is national security.

The use of wind and solar should be relegated to a minor portion of the overall energy portfolio. Having the lowest capacity factors of all energy forms and causing grid instability where widely adopted as a replacement for fossil fuels or nuclear, they are not meant to be a primary energy source. Nor should they be receiving massive handouts, which will require gutting the subsidy-rich Inflation Reduction Act. Our European friends have learned the hard way the folly of such a strategy. Their prioritization must end.

An unwillingness to mine and process critical minerals, used for countless technologies and energy projects, on our soil needs reexamination. China currently dominates the supply chains, keeping every other nation at their mercy. Tapping into our own vast supplies would not only enhance national security but would benefit the environment due to superior standards here. We should open our lands to more exploration.

Energy is the lifeblood of the economy and consumers deserve to have it be abundant, reliable, and affordable. With energy demand on the rise, this can only be accomplished through pragmatic and sensible solutions that maximize energy output and focus on a true all-of-the-above strategy. The disastrous Biden policies that have shackled our supplies and crippled economic prosperity must be eradicated. A course correction come January will be most welcome.

Kristen Walker is a policy analyst for the American Consumer Institute, a nonprofit education and research organization. For more information about the Institute, visit www.theamericanconsumer.org or follow us on Twitter @ConsumerPal

Topline: The third time’s the charm — unless the first two times were already perfect.

Atlanta residents already had two options for traveling between Centennial Olympic Park and the Martin Luther King Jr. Center. They could walk or take the subway.

Yet in 2010, the government spent $72 million to add streetcar service to the exact same 2.6-mile path. The money would be worth $104 million today.

That’s according to the “Wastebook” reporting published by the late U.S. Senator Dr. Tom Coburn. For years, these reports shined a white-hot spotlight on federal frauds and taxpayer abuses.

Coburn, the legendary U.S. Senator from Oklahoma, earned the nickname “Dr. No” by stopping thousands of pork-barrel projects using the Senate rules. Projects that he couldn’t stop, Coburn included in his oversight reports.

Coburn’s Wastebook 2010 included 100 examples of outrageous spending worth more than $11.5 billion, including Atlanta’s unneeded transport system.

Key facts: The project was paid for with $47.6 million of federal stimulus funds and $24.4 million from the City of Atlanta.

It’s unclear what encouraged federal officials to pick Atlanta’s grant application out of hundreds of others. City planners reviewed 40 proposed mass transit projects and ranked the streetcars dead last in half of the categories that measure impact. Not to mention that a trolley line and bus service in the same area had already been closed due to low demand.

The $72 million would have been nearly enough to clear the backlog of needed sidewalk repairs for the entire city of Atlanta, according to budget documents from the time. It also could have fixed the Metropolitan Atlanta Rapid Transit Authority’s $69 million budget deficit, which forced it to increase train wait times by five minutes.

The city claimed the streetcars would pay for themselves by raising property values in the area. Opponents interviewed by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution called the project a “government trainwreck” and an “expensive downtown pipe dream.”

Search all federal, state and local government salaries and vendor spending with the AI search bot, Benjamin, at OpenTheBooks.com. 

Summary: Today, Atlanta’s tourism website notes that most destinations near the streetcar are walkable, but it’s still fun to “hop on and off when something strikes your fancy.” That’s not enough to justify millions of dollars in spending.

The #WasteOfTheDay is brought to you by the forensic auditors at OpenTheBooks.com

The United States needs a national security strategy reset. WWII ended 79 years ago, and the U.S. has engaged in some form of conflict for roughly 61 of those 79 years. The post-WWII era has been one of almost continual conflict and to what end? Republican and Democrat Administrations alike have made a practice of rushing into conflict absent decisive strategy and without achieving decisive outcomes.

The post-WWII rules-based order (RBO), centered around the United Nations and other international institutions, is often credited with having provided greater stability and peace in the world since WWII. But this is not true. It is an illusion. The world avoided large scale violent global conflict, but small-scale conflicts in the form of civil wars, border conflicts, regional wars, and terrorism have raged since 1945.

False hopes regarding the rules-based order and its effectiveness have warped the West’s view of war and its understanding of why the Allies were able to achieve a durable victory in WWII.

The Allies won WWII because they broke the will of the Axis powers through the sheer magnitude of death and destruction dealt to their civilian populations, not just to their armies. But ever since then, the United States has so feared conflicts escalating into vicious interstate wars that—perversely—it has tried over and over to fight limited wars for limited objectives, believing that such wars can either achieve our objectives or bring diplomacy into focus.

Counterintuitively, however, limited wars fail to result in long-lasting diplomatic solutions because they are limited. The U.S. fails to make war costly enough to collapse the will of our enemies and, because the U.S. is unwilling to wage war that is sufficiently violent and destructive, war doesn’t deliver decisive outcomes.

It is time for the United States to try a different tack and, by doing so, to also put itself in the position of having to use military power less frequently. With an actual framework to help guide the application of force, the U.S. would also be able to bring greater coherence to how and when it wages war and supports allies and partners.

Anna Simons, Joe McGraw, and Duane Lauchengco published a book in 2011 called, The Sovereignty Solution, which offers a framework worthy of consideration.

The Sovereignty Solution advocates for a national security strategy based on making more, not less of sovereignty. What does this mean? It means that the U.S. responds to violations of its sovereignty forcefully and overwhelmingly in order to stop the violator from engaging in more violence. What the U.S. will not do is deploy forces to reshape or rebuild whole countries and their societies. The U.S. military exists to defend U.S. sovereignty and provide security for its people, its territories, and its national interests and treaty partners. Period. This stands in stark contrast to how the U.S. has employed its military capabilities since 9/11 or how it is addressing Iran’s near constant attacks on U.S. personnel and interests now.

The goal in taking sovereignty seriously is to foster a system of mutual respect among nations. The U.S. will refrain from interfering in, or with, other countries, but where and when U.S. sovereignty is violated, the U.S. will respond forcefully against the perpetrators—and their sponsors. We expect our allies and partners to do the same and will support them when they are true partners (as described in the book).

This approach diverges from traditional strategies by focusing on reducing U.S. combat missions overseas and by insisting instead on strong accountability by states for the actions of their citizens and not just their militaries; to include supporting or providing safe havens for terrorists. The Sovereignty Solution also promotes strengthening countries’ domestic social fabric, addressing vulnerabilities like political polarization, which adversaries can exploit.

There is no better example of how fecklessly the United States currently manages conflict than the Biden Administration’s response to Israel’s current war. The Biden Administration has been bi-polar in its approach to Israel’s conflict and unforgivably submissive towards Iran.

For instance, the Administration supports Israel’s right to defend itself but does so while demanding restraint. How does this make sense when Hamas’s attack on October 7^th of 2023 was the manifestation of Iran’s stated aim of annihilating Israel? The Biden Administration has worked overtime to reign in Israel while leaving Iran and its proxies unchallenged, which in effect protects Iran.

Clearly, President Biden, members of his administration, and many leading Democrats believe that Israel has gone too far in Gaza and is now over-reaching against Hezbollah in Lebanon. They seem to believe that Israel has more than gotten even and should now prioritize finding a diplomatic solution to end the fighting. The Administration believes that only a ceasefire and well-defined road map for achieving a two-state solution will lead to long-term stability, and that this will undermine Iran’s long-term goal of destroying Israel.

But Israel’s defense of itself is not about getting even. And it is not about the Palestinians. It is about re-securing Israel’s sovereignty.

According to a sovereignty rules framework, what happened on October 7^th is that Hamas, the de facto sovereign government of Gaza, violated Israel’s sovereignty through an act of war. Israel therefore not only had the right to reciprocate with overwhelming force, but a duty to reduce Hamas’s military capability so that it can no longer present a viable threat to Israel’s security. Israel has a similar duty vis-à-vis Hezbollah. Likewise, Israel has an obligation to its citizens to strike Iran with as much force as is needed to stop Iran’s support for Hamas, Hezbollah, the Houthis, and to halt Iran’s own direct attacks on Israel.

Israel has given peace a chance. Israel has given the two-state solution a chance. Israel has long tried trusting the rules-based order to help it protect itself. Indeed, Israel has tried everything militarily possible through overt and covert means to prevent Iran from reaching its stated goal of annihilating Israel—which is the ultimate violation of sovereignty! Yet, none of these things have been sufficient to dissuade Iran or its proxies from seeking Israel’s destruction.

Disappointingly, not only has the liberal version of the rules-based order failed to work, but the United Nations—the flagship organization for that order—has itself provided diplomatic cover for Hamas via the United Nations Relief and Works Agency, which ignored and may have abetted Hamas in militarizing its society and indoctrinating Palestinians to liquidate the Jews.  How perverse that in his remarks at the 79^th United Nations General Assembly, President Biden said that Gazans did not ask for the war that Hamas started. Clearly, my eyes must have been lying to me when I watched footage of Gazans cheering and celebrating on October 7^th.

In a further dereliction of its duty, the UN chose to not enforce Security Council Resolution 1701, which was meant to firewall southern Lebanon from Israel and Hezbollah, and thereby prevent another war after the Second Lebanon War of 2006. Instead, the UN Interim Force in Lebanon did nothing as Hezbollah infiltrated southern Lebanon and militarized it much the same way Hamas did Gaza. 1701 was made exceedingly hollower when Iran equipped Hezbollah with sophisticated indirect fires systems and drones that could range across Israel from inside Lebanon.

Another RBO shortcoming relates to how exit strategies are conceived of these days. The idea that countries that respond to violations of their sovereignty are responsible for putting everything back together again in the violator’s territory goes hand-in-hand with the West’s fantasy that it can remake whole societies through regime change. Afghanistan, Iraq, and Libya are proof that none of this works. Not only is it impossible to rebuild other people’s nations for them, but it is also a terrible waste of resources and time.

Equally wasteful is not destroying an entity that has attacked you, that has expressed its intent to destroy you, and that retains the capacity to destroy you.

Israel has no alternative but to give war a chance—to use sufficient force to break the back of Iran’s capability, which includes breaking the backs of Hamas and Hezbollah. Destroying them remains a work in progress given the scale of the problem. The human cost in Gaza and Lebanon is real; however, this war must be waged if peace is ever to have a chance.

People want to believe that modern countries can achieve their military goals without civilian casualties. People think that modern militaries with exquisite targeting capabilities, like those demonstrated by the Israeli Defense Forces, can defeat their enemies through selective targeting, but frequently this isn’t true. When an adversary’s entire society has been indoctrinated and mobilized, selective targeting is insufficient—by definition. Also, selective targeting can’t spare civilians when an enemy has burrowed into the civilian infrastructure as Hamas and Hezbollah have—with civilian complicity.

The West has yet to come to grips with the fact that few of its adversaries share the West’s sensibilities. Nor does the West seem to recognize that adversaries will mold their methods to take advantage of Western sensibilities. Case in point, Hamas and Hezbollah are both more than willing to use civilians as human shields and, even more barbarously, they set up civilians to be killed in order to make Israel look bad.

During WWII, the Allies couldn’t bomb accurately enough to avoid civilian casualties. This inadvertently worked to the allies’ advantage because it necessitated total war that exhausted Germany and Japan to the point that both countries acceded to unconditional surrender. How ironic that in an era when we can target with precision and when we have come to revile total war as an option, we not only fail to exhaust our enemies, but our enemies resort to tactics and strategies that deliberately put their own populations at risk. They do so because they know that they can offset our targeting capabilities by using our sensibilities against us.

Hamas and Hezbollah have backed Israel into an unwinnable IO war by developing strategies that make it impossible for Israel to decisively crush them and extirpate them without also killing thousands of civilians. The slaughter of civilians is the doing of Hamas and Hezbollah. The only way out of this for Israel requires that Western leaders adjust their sensibilities to this fact.

Unfortunately, another reason Israel’s campaign against Hamas has been so fraught is because crushing Hamas is impossible to square with freeing the hostages. The only way Israel can get its hostages back is by letting Hamas cut a deal for a ceasefire. But Israel cutting a deal with Hamas is antithetical to Israel’s destruction of Hamas’s ability to function as a movement that will continue to pose a long-term threat to Israel’s security.

Many have speculated that Prime Minister Netanyahu is prolonging the war in Gaza out of political self-interest. Maybe. Or perhaps Bibi Netanyahu is smart enough to recognize that Hamas is toying with the Israeli population’s emotions over the hostages to preserve its ability to live to fight another day. Many critics argue that Israel should give in and agree to a ceasefire because nothing Israel does will alter Palestinians’ animosity or lead to Hamas’s dismantlement. True, the Israelis aren’t going to be able to kill the idea behind Hamas. But they can attrit the organization and degrade its capabilities until it can no longer function as a movement.

We must remember that given the fact that Israel’s enemies are committed to Israel’s eradication, there is no accommodation to be had. Israel is fighting to restore its security now and for the future. The fact that Hamas jumped the gun before Iran was ready to join in Israel’s destruction inadvertently provides Israel a unique opportunity to confront Iran now rather than wait until Iran is better armed and better prepared in the future. We can only hope that Trump will view this moment for the opportunity that it presents.

Israel’s current fight on behalf of its sovereignty has not only exposed the Biden Administration’s strategic incoherence, but also deeper flaws in how the U.S. thinks about our national security and the security of our allies.

The U.S. says Israel has the right to defend itself, but then proceeds to try to compel Israel to do things that aren’t good for Israel. What is even crazier is that the U.S. keeps trying to urge Israel to implement methods and tactics that didn’t work for us in Afghanistan or Iraq.

Americans keep scolding the Israelis regarding their use of force, chastising them for their failure to employ a counterinsurgency strategy, and berating them for not identifying a political solution to the Palestinian problem. The Administration began calling for de-escalation and a ceasefire long before Israel had achieved any military victories against Hamas, and the Administration wanted Israel to leave Rafah untouched despite its centrality to Hamas’s smuggling infrastructure, or the fact that it was where Yahya Sinwar was hiding.

The Administration has wanted to keep the conflict from escalating regionally but has striven to do this by holding Israel to account―and not Iran. Yet, Iran is who made this a regional war by attacking Israel from Gaza, Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Yemen, and from Iran itself.

The U.S. fails to appreciate that Hamas’s attack de-synched Iran’s strategic plans, thereby providing Israel with both the opportunity and the moral justification to thwart Iran’s long-term goal of annihilating it. The U.S. keeps pressuring Israel instead to stop short, which will only leave Iran and its hateful proxies confident that eventually they will destroy Israel because they will still possess the means to do so. This really makes no sense. But nor does it make sense given our own history with Iran.

Iran has murdered approximately 900 Americans and seized dozens of American hostages since 1979. Iranian proxies have attacked American troops in Iraq, Syria, and Jordan several hundred times, killed three U.S. service members, and injured scores more since October 7^th, 2023. Iranian backed Houthis repeatedly attack commercial shipping and U.S. naval assets in the Red Sea with negligible consequences. The U.S. employs what can best be called a passive defense and only occasionally responds to attacks in Syria and Iraq, all of which adds up to a weak, never-ending game of tit-for-tat.

Adopting a Sovereignty Solution approach would handle these violations of U.S. sovereignty differently. It would also lead the U.S. to stop making Israel’s war more complicated than it needs to be. The U.S. should support the legitimacy of Israel’s response, respect its decisions, and let it fight. The U.S. should also warn Iran that the next time it attacks U.S. forces directly or by proxy, the U.S. will respond with devastating force. For instance, should the Houthis fire on a U.S.-flagged vessel again, the U.S. will regard this as the act of war that it is and respond with overwhelming might.

Critics of such an approach might contend that it is overly bellicose and risks overlooking complex global interdependencies. Or they might claim that non-state actors often operate beyond state controls. However, sovereignty and security are deeply intertwined. Each reinforces the other to sustain a country’s autonomy and stability. Non-state actors wouldn’t and couldn’t exist if governments were held to account, which they would be in a sovereignty rules world as outlined in The Sovereignty Solution.

Unfortunately, the Biden Administration’s submissiveness has only invited contempt from our adversaries and enemies―and many allies too. Worse, submissiveness invites further aggression. Somehow, we have erroneously come to believe that the answer to transgressions of sovereignty resides in forever war, sanctions, and capitulation masquerading as diplomacy. But, if we don’t like war, we need to remember that the real antidote to long drawn-out conflict is to accept the need for short, sharp, definitive military action when sovereignty is violated.

Ideally, President-elect Trump won’t just see the use of force this way but will prove to be the right leader at the right time to break with increasingly outdated dysfunctional post WWII conventions about the use of force. Ideally, he will implement a national security framework that approaches conflicts and security threats around the world with greater common sense, to include Iran’s threat to Israel.

J.B. Books is an experienced expert in the region and on military matters.

Check out the Book titled “The Sovereignty Solution.”

The author of “Laptop from Hell,” the book documenting alleged crimes by Biden family members, is now predicting the next pardons coming from Joe now that the president has excused his son Hunter, and says the listing of names likely to receive “preemptive pardons” demonstrates their guilt.

“All the people that are listed as going to get pardons, there’s sort of diplomatic immunity or Democratic immunity for crimes not even charged by Joe Biden,” author and New York Post columnist Miranda Devine told Maria Bartiromo on “Sunday Morning Futures” on the Fox News Channel, “they’re obviously guilty of something because otherwise why would they be wanting pardons.”

Among those whose names have been floated for preemptive pardons are Sen.-elect Adam Schiff, D-Calif.; former NIH Director Dr. Anthony Fauci, former U.S. Rep. Liz Cheney, R-Wyo.; and Gen. Mark Milley, former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff for “making secret phone calls to China during President-elect Trump’s first term in office, unbeknownst to the commander in chief,” Bartiromo noted.

Devine added: “I think this shows with Liz Cheney there is a lot of allegations around about her untoward behavior during the J6 committee that she was vice chair of.

“And there’s a lawyer Stefan Passantino who has made a bar complaint in the D.C. Bar against her for communicating with his client Cassidy Hutchinson without him when she was on the J6 committee and asking her to testify.”

“Wow, this is just incredible,” Bartiromo reacted.

‘Just incredible’: ‘Laptop from Hell’ author says preemptive #pardon names are ‘obviously guilty of something’

‘All the people that are listed as going to get pardons, there’s sort of diplomatic immunity or Democratic immunity for crimes not even charged’ #Biden @mariabartiromo pic.twitter.com/rrP8bwtvo1

— WorldNetDaily (@worldnetdaily) December 8, 2024

Is the news we hear every day actually broadcasting messages from God? The answer is an absolute yes! Find out how!

When asked specifically to predict who would receive a pardon next, Devine said it would likely be the president’s brother Jim.

“I think probably Jim Biden is the priority for Joe Biden because, remember, Jim was involved in a lot of the China grift with Hunter Biden and participated in the money. Also signed those checks, or his wife did, to Joe Biden, the $200,000 checks that came pretty much 10% of the Chinese money that came in a couple of times,” Devine explained.

“And that money was very strangely moved around between bank accounts, taken out in cash, put back into another account and then a check was signed by, basically, Joe Biden’s sister-in-law.

“But written on the check was loan repayment. And the White House maintained that line that it was a loan repayment and, therefore, the Republicans in the House that uncovered those checks accepted that that was, you know, we couldn’t go any further than that, they said.

“They couldn’t find any evidence to refute the idea that Joe Biden had very generously lent his brother, his ailing brother some money, and then his brother paid it back when he came into money.

“But it was interesting that it was 10% for the Big Guy exactly of the money that Jim Biden had received. And Jim Biden’s been under investigation anyway.”

Watch Miranda Devine’s full interview with Maria Bartiromo:

Follow Joe on Twitter @JoeKovacsNews

Various media outlets have followed the lead of ProPublica in sensationalizing and weaponizing the idea of “preventable” pregnancy-related deaths, focusing on individual cases that have occurred in states with laws protecting preborn children from induced abortion. These outlets, however, have targeted pro-life states and ignored similar maternal deaths occurring in pro-abortion states — deaths which were also labeled “preventable.”

In this way, they have built the false narrative that pro-life laws kill women.

However, we really should be paying attention to the ‘man behind the curtain,’ so to speak. What’s hidden behind that curtain is this fact: Regardless of the state or its abortion laws, most pregnancy-related deaths are classified as “preventable.”

At a Glance:

• The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and other sources have long known that most pregnancy-related deaths are classified as “preventable,” yet pro-abortion media is using this term for shock value in its reporting on individual deaths.
• Collectively, 80% (or four in five) of pregnancy-related deaths in the U.S. are determined to be “preventable,” says the CDC.
• Even in pro-abortion states, the vast majority of pregnancy-related deaths have been deemed “preventable.” Pro-abortion media have ignored this.
• The “leading underlying cause of pregnancy-related death,” at 23%, is “mental health conditions” (including suicides and overdoses/poisoning related to substance abuse). Pro-abortion media ignored this cause, because its goal was not to prevent more “preventable” deaths. Its goal was to find specific cases they could use in an attempt to end laws that protect the most innocent and defenseless humans in society.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) noted in 2022 that “four in five pregnancy-related deaths in the U.S. are preventable” (emphasis added) — which accounts for 80% of these deaths nationwide. And Dr. Catherine Spong at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center told Boise State Public Radio the same in 2023 — that most maternal deaths are deemed preventable by state review committees.

Both the CDC and Spong also noted the varied causes of pregnancy-related deaths. The “leading underlying causes of pregnancy-related death,” according to the CDC, include:

• Mental health conditions (including deaths to suicide and overdose/poisoning related to substance use disorder) (23%)
• Excessive bleeding (hemorrhage) (14%)
• Cardiac and coronary conditions (relating to the heart) (13%)
• Infection (9%)
• Thrombotic embolism (a type of blood clot) (9%)
• Cardiomyopathy (a disease of the heart muscle) (9%)
• Hypertensive disorders of pregnancy (relating to high blood pressure) (7%)

Yet these facts are only reported by the pro-abortion media when it suits them; when it doesn’t, the media deliberately sensationalizes preventable pregnancy-related deaths to push the deceptive narrative of the day. Currently, that narrative is that ‘pro-life laws are causing women to die.’

The false rhetoric is intended to cause a collective ‘gasp’ across the U.S. that will, if it works as intended, emotionally affect compassionate Americans so deeply that they will vote to protect the intentional killing of preborn babies, and not the babies themselves.

Preventable maternal deaths in the headlines

Amber Thurman, Candi Miller, Porsha Ngumezi, Josseli Barnica, and Nevaeh Crain all died tragic and preventable deaths in states that had previously or have since enacted pro-life laws.

Though none of their deaths were provably connected to the legality of abortion in their respective home states of Georgia and Texas, ProPublica and other media outlets presented them as such, exploiting the tragic loss of their lives.

Though these deaths in Georgia and Texas were determined (by certain individuals selected by Pro-Publica) to have been “preventable,” the claim that these women died because of pro-life laws is a spurious one based largely on assumptions. None of the doctors or medical staff involved in their care were prevented by law from providing these women with the known standard of care for the medical circumstances they each faced. Nor were they prevented from acting within their reasonable medical judgment in any given situation. And yet, it appears that in most cases, the standard of care was not followed.

Georgia defines “abortion” as follows:

“Abortion” means the act of using, prescribing, or administering any instrument, substance, device, or other means with the purpose to terminate a pregnancy with knowledge that termination will, with reasonable likelihood, cause the death of an unborn child; provided, however, that any such act shall not be considered an abortion if the act is performed with the purpose of:

• • (A) Removing a dead unborn child caused by spontaneous abortion; or

• • (B) Removing an ectopic pregnancy.

It also states, “In conducting an abortion, if the child is capable of sustained life, medical aid then available shall be rendered,” and adds that an act is not an abortion if it “results in the accidental or unintentional injury to or death of an unborn child…” (emphasis added)

Texas defines “abortion” as (emphasis added):

… the act of using or prescribing an instrument, a drug, a medicine, or any other substance, device, or means with the intent to cause the death of an unborn child of a woman known to be pregnant. The term does not include birth control devices or oral contraceptives. An act is not an abortion if the act is done with the intent to:

(A) save the life or preserve the health of an unborn child;

(B) remove a dead, unborn child whose death was caused by spontaneous abortion; or

(C) remove an ectopic pregnancy.

So why would ProPublica deceive the public about these women’s deaths? Why would it insinuate that medical professionals, who follow hospital policies, rules, as well as state and federal laws every day of their careers, are somehow incapable of understanding a state law that dictates that they cannot directly and intentionally kill children in the womb?

Perhaps the goal is to gain the compassion of millions of horrified Americans, who might be convinced that induced abortion is vital to women’s health and must be legal throughout pregnancy in order to save the lives of women facing pregnancy-related health emergencies.

Preventable pregnancy-related deaths happen everywhere… and even happened under Roe

Other than the fact that a pregnancy can end without intentionally killing a baby before delivery, there’s another glaringly obvious problem: these same preventable pregnancy-related deaths occur in every single state, including those that allow virtually unrestricted abortion.

In an example of honest journalism, the Associated Press recently admitted that women tragically die in both pro-life and pro-abortion states from causes deemed “preventable.” Preventable pregnancy deaths occurred under Roe and they are still happening in pro-abortion states today. In fact, the number of women dying in the U.S. from pregnancy-related causes more than doubled in the 20 years between 1999 and 2019 — during the reign of Roe v. Wade — according to a study published by the Journal of the American Medical Association.

The legal ability to kill preborn children existed, yet pregnancy-related deaths increased. Interestingly, pro-abortion media were not attempting to associate these deaths with the availability of legal abortion, and it is no different today.

The CDC defines a pregnancy-related death as “the death of a woman during pregnancy or within one year of the end of pregnancy from a pregnancy complication, a chain of events initiated by pregnancy, or the aggravation of an unrelated condition by the physiologic effects of pregnancy.” These complications can happen anywhere.

Most states have a Maternal Mortality Review Committee that acts to analyze the deaths of pregnant women (or women recently pregnant) to determine if the deaths were pregnancy-related and preventable. According to Connecticut’s committee, “The purpose of the Committee’s review is to determine the causes of maternal mortality … and identify both medical and non-medical interventions to improve systems of care.” These committees existed under Roe as well, regardless of the state, to analyze all pregnancy-associated deaths, to determine if they were related to the pregnancy specifically, to note the causes of those deaths, and to create recommendations to prevent future deaths.

Ignoring “preventable” deaths in pro-abortion states… and downplaying a serious problem

From 2018 to 2020, two states — pro-life Georgia and pro-abortion Illinois — saw the same number of pregnancy-related deaths: 113.

In Georgia (population 11.1 million), where the law today protects most preborn children from abortion, there were 113 pregnancy-related deaths from 2018 through 2020 — before the state’s LIFE Act was in effect. 101 of those deaths had at least some chance of being prevented. That’s 89% that the committee deemed “preventable” (without the pro-life law in place).

In Illinois (population 12.5 million), where abortion is reportedly restricted at “fetal viability” but also allowed after that point for the broad “life or health” of the mother, 113 women also died from pregnancy-related deaths between 2018 and 2020. The committee found that 91% of those deaths were “potentially preventable due to clinical, system, social, community, or patient factors.” This means about 102 of those 113 maternal deaths in Illinois from 2018 to 2020 were considered preventable.

Here we have two different states with the same number of pregnancy-related deaths — but the pro-abortion state had the higher percentage of deaths determined to be preventable.

In pro-abortion New York (population 19.4 million), there were 121 pregnancy-related deaths between 2018 and 2020, and 73.6% were deemed to be “preventable.”

In abortion-friendly New Jersey (population 9.3 million), it was determined that there were 44 pregnancy-related deaths between 2016 and 2018. Of those, 91% were deemed “preventable.”

In pro-abortion California (population 38.8 million) — a state working overtime to promote itself as an abortion destination, there were 135 pregnancy-related deaths between 2018 and 2020. Eighty percent (80%) were deemed “preventable.” Demi Dominguez was one of them. She and her baby boy died, and her family sued the California hospital, saying that their deaths were preventable. California has seen an increase in maternal deaths in recent years, and the closure of numerous labor and delivery units. But the state’s plan to reverse that increase focuses on spreading awareness about the factors that contribute to pregnancy-related deaths and helping women understand their personal risks, instead of merely promoting more abortion.

Meanwhile, in pro-life Idaho (population 1.9 million), 17 women died while pregnant or within one year of pregnancy in 2021, and 16 of them (94%) were deemed “preventable,” with only nine of them being labeled as pregnancy-related. According to the state’s maternal mortality review (emphasis added):

[The] most common contributing factor in these women’s deaths was lack of knowledge regarding importance of event. The provider or patient did not receive adequate education or lacked knowledge or understanding regarding the significance of a health event or the need for treatment/follow-up after evaluation for a health event. … The most common underlying cause of death was mental health conditions, which includes deaths related to suicide, substance use disorder, overdose/poisoning, and unintentional injuries determined … to be related to a mental health condition. This was followed by infection and amniotic fluid embolism.

The Idaho report goes so far as to say, “It is important to remember that a maternal mortality review is not: A mechanism to assign blame or responsibility for any death.”

Yet ProPublica has been quick to (wrongly) blame pro-life laws. It even obtained information about Josseli Barnica’s 2021 death and had its own selected experts analyze it before Texas’ maternal mortality review committee had even completed its review of 2021 deaths.

“Reporters scoured death data, flagging Barnica’s case for its concerning cause of death: ‘sepsis’ involving ‘products of conception.’ We tracked down her family, obtained autopsy and hospital records and enlisted a range of experts to review a summary of her care that ProPublica created in consultation with two doctors,” the outlet reported.

It is clear that ProPublica is exploiting the deaths of women to provoke shock and horror among readers. After the outlet released its reports on Thurman and Miller, who died in Georgia, Georgia fired its entire maternal mortality review committee for the confidentiality breach, and ProPublica admitted that Thurman and Miller were not the only two women who died from “preventable” pregnancy-related deaths in the state.

Substandard and negligent care unfortunately exists in every state, regardless of laws. ProPublica ignores all of the preventable deaths in pro-abortion states and failed to seek out and expose such deaths prior to the overturning of Roe v. Wade. It is clear that ProPublica’s goal was not to help women, or to prevent maternal deaths; ProPublica did indeed set out to “scour” records looking only for “preventable” deaths that it felt it could blame on pro-life laws to gain voter support for ending laws protecting preborn children.

It did not care about helping women, nor did it care to discuss the tragic deaths of other mothers from suicide or drug addiction. Instead, it has exploited women’s deaths in order to bring about more death.

[Editor’s note: This story originally was published by Live Action News.]

Donald Trump completed his comeback to become the 47th president of the United States in resounding fashion. Trump was able to sweep the seven swing states, win the popular vote, and lead the charge as the GOP took back the Senate and retained the House, all while the party holds a conservative majority on the Supreme Court. There are many positives to highlight about Trump’s win, including his gains among black male and Latino voters, but the most fascinating ingredient of his success may be his appeal to Generation Z and young males, thanks in part to the evolving media landscape and how media is now consumed.

According to NBC News exit poll data, Trump received 43% of Gen-Z voters (those between the ages of 18 and 29). Within that subset, Trump also received 42% of those aged 18 to 24. This youngest voting- eligible demographic accounts for only 14% of those who voted, but it’s fascinating to analyze how a 78-year-old Republican was able to appeal to them. He did so by making himself available where young people spend their time – on social media, following influencers, and listening to podcast hosts.

As Politico has reported, Republicans increasingly seek out alternative news sources. Only 21% of Republicans read newspapers in 2024. Just 35% watched national network news. Republicans go to websites and apps 39% of the time. Forty-six percent gather information from social media (presumably X, Truth, and Rumble). A staggering 55% consume on-demand audio and video, such as podcasts and streaming services. Trump and his campaign staff understood this.

Enter Joe Rogan.

Trump appeared on Rogan’s Spotify show and spent three hours talking with the top podcast host in the world. Trump also joined the Theo Vonn podcast. He visited other hot properties such as Aidan Ross’s gamer channel and “Bussin’ with the Boys.” These interviews had an impact on young American voters; the casual, conversational approach to politics has appealed to Gen-Z and created a connection with Trump.

“Trump’s victory isn’t a result of a failure by news outlets to sufficiently hold him accountable,” an article at Semafor explains. “The real answer is one that is a lot more uncomfortable to grapple with: The national news media is more limited in its reach and influence than ever in the modern era.”

The NBC News exit polling data for swing states reveals striking numbers for the Generation Z demographic. In Pennsylvania, Trump received 41% of the Gen Z vote. In Georgia, it was 39%. In North Carolina, Trump won almost half (forty-nine percent); in Wisconsin, he took 45%, and in Michigan, 49%.

Worth noting, too, is that Trump did better with Gen Z women than in 2020, which seems almost unfathomable when you consider that he was running against Kamala Harris, who made abortion rights a centerpiece of her campaign. Trump lost young women to Joe Biden by 35 points in 2020. In 2024, he reduced that deficit by eleven points, as Harris won by twenty-four points. Trump also made a 13-point swing in his favor with young men overall, compared to 2020, when Biden won these voters by 11 points.

Donald Trump is a generational political figure. He surrounded himself with staffers who understood the shift in electoral and communication dynamics – how to get your message out and who to get it out to. Platforms matter. Evolving is essential. Trump did so, and it proved a major factor in defeating an opponent and a party that the media portrayed as more tech savvy. They were wrong, again – and Trump has won, again.

Last week, more than 110 members of the United States Congress issued a letter calling on the Government Accountability Office (GAO) to research and report on all federal funding given over the past three years to specific abortion providers.

According to the letter, the group of U.S. senators and representatives is seeking a report for fiscal years 2022-2024 for “Federally Qualified Health Centers (FQHCs), Planned Parenthood Federation of America, International Planned Parenthood Federation, [and] MSI Reproductive Choices” and their affiliates, as well as “FPA Women’s Health, American Women’s Services, All Women’s Health Center, [and]and Whole Wom[a]n’s Health” and their affiliates.

A press release from Senator Katie Britt’s (R-Ala.) office notes,”The GAO has prepared several congressionally requested reports on federal funding for these organizations over the years. According to its most recent report, the abortion industry siphoned off nearly $2 billion in federal taxpayer dollars between fiscal years 2019-2021.”

The letter’s signers include Senators Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.), Cindy Hyde-Smith (R-Miss.), John Thune (R-S.D.), James Lankford (R-Okla.), Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), as well as Representatives Chris Smith (R-N.J.), Claudia Tenney (R-N.Y.), Robert Aderhold (R-Ala.), House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.), Katie Britt (R-Ala.), Steve Scalise (R-La.), Michelle Fischbach (R-Minn.), and approximately 100 other Members of Congress.

They are requesting that the GAO report include information from FQHCs including “Federal obligations, disbursements, and expenditures of federal funds by or to” FQHCs for each of the three years, including “anomalies such as Paycheck Protection Program loans and loan forgiveness,” as well as “data on the number of individuals served and the types of visits provided, including preventative services provided.”

The letter also requests that the report include information from Planned Parenthood Federation of America and affiliates; International Planned Parenthood Federation and affiliates’ MSI Reproductive Choices and affiliates’ and four other abortion providers and their affiliates regarding “Federal obligations, disbursements, and expenditures of federal funds by each of these organizations in each fiscal year, 2022-2024, The funding sources for federal agencies… and any programs associated with these federal funds…. ” and “How these funds were made available (such as by direct funding or pass-through funding).”

In addition to the above, the letter seeks information from Planned Parenthood Federation of America and its affiliates regarding “Reported obligations, disbursements, and expenditures by program for the top 15 U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) programs,” and “Reported obligations, disbursements, and expenditures by program from federal agencies other than HHS.”

For “International Planned Parenthood Federation (including affiliates) and MSI Reproductive Choices, formerly Marie Stopes International (including affiliates),” the letter additionally seeks to know “Reported expenditures of federal funding from USAID by funding type.”

The Members of Congress have asked the GAO to project when a report on these requests is likely to be completed, stating that the “[p]roper oversight of public funds and programs is crucial…” and “instrumental for policymakers and the public alike” when determining funding and providing transparency to American taxpayers.

[Editor’s note: This story originally was published by Live Action News.]

U.S. and European energy policies toward Russia are marked by striking inconsistencies. On the one hand, the Biden administration, flanked by its NATO counterparts, dispatches hundreds of billions of dollars in military aid to Ukraine and trumpets sanctions aimed at crippling the Russian economy. Yet, on the other hand, these same nations continue to procure Russian oil, gas, and LNG, thereby replenishing the very coffers they claim to be emptying. This hypocrisy is compounded by President Biden’s own domestic energy policies, which curtail American production at precisely the moment when Europe is floundering in its quest to disentangle itself from dependence on Russian energy.

In this context, the incoming Trump administration’s “energy dominance” agenda represents a necessary and impactful realignment. By expanding U.S. oil and gas production, Trump proposes a strategy that aligns America’s energy policy with its geopolitical imperatives. Such a framework not only enhances transatlantic energy security but also positions Trump to negotiate from strength in his pledged pursuit of a peace accord with Russia. This plan, ambitious as it is pragmatic, deserves nothing less than priority attention — both for its immediate utility and for its potential to reintroduce coherence into a realm where it has been sorely lacking.

One is struck, observing the dispensation of billions by NATO nations to Ukraine, while they simultaneously underwrite the Kremlin’s war machine through energy purchases, by the sheer absurdity of this double-dealing. This is no mere bureaucratic oversight but rather an absence of grand strategy. The sanctions ostensibly designed to hobble Russia’s economy are rendered impotent when Europe turns around and replenishes Moscow’s coffers through both direct and backdoor energy trade.

Ostensibly barred from European markets, Russian crude oil finds sanctuary in third-party nations — chiefly in Central and East Asia — where it is shuffled, refined, and, with an air of plausible deniability, sold back to Europe at an agreeable markup. Consider India: once a negligible player in Russian oil imports, now suddenly the beneficiary of nearly 40% of Moscow’s exports. Indian refiners transform this crude oil into diesel and other derivatives, only to export them back to Europe. It is, in essence, a tidy laundering operation — one that ensures a steady flow of revenue to Russia while Europe pays handsomely for its pretense of self-righteous isolation. The irony would be amusing were the stakes not so high.

Meanwhile, President Biden’s tenure has been marked by an almost doctrinaire aversion to reliable energy development in the United States, a legacy that seems less a matter of policy and more a point of pride. His intentions were made clear as early as 2020, when he campaigned under the banner of “ban fracking,” a slogan as reductive as it was revealing. On his very first day in office, Biden summarily canceled the final phase of Keystone XL pipeline project, a critical artery for North American energy connectivity. By the end of his first week, he had frozen all public land oil and gas lease applications and saddled existing leases with an additional layer of bureaucratic review.

Biden then doubled down, championing new climate legislation aimed at regulating methane emissions, a tribute to Barack Obama’s unvarnished ambition to strangle fossil fuel production via the regulatory apparatus. Perhaps most offensive to European allies seeking alternatives to Russian energy, Biden paused permitting for LNG export activities in January 2024. At a moment when American energy resources could have provided a bulwark against both economic instability and geopolitical vulnerability, Biden chose instead to indulge the ideological imperatives of his political base.

While it is true that US LNG exports to Europe surged to historic highs since the war began in 2022, it must be understood that this was a market response and happened despite, not because of, Biden’s energy policies. Biden’s priority was always to use the government to hamper natural gas development, even while European allies faced a crisis of supply curtailment and uncertainty.

The contrast between Donald Trump and Joe Biden on energy policy is a study in antitheses. Trump’s rallying cry of “drill, baby, drill,” encapsulates a vision of “energy dominance” that is unapologetically ambitious, unabashedly pro-development, and unmistakably American. In his first term, Trump fast-tracked approvals for the Keystone XL and Dakota Access pipelines, cut through the bureaucratic thicket to expedite oil and gas leases, and presided over a remarkable quadrupling of LNG exports.

Now, with billions of dollars of capital hanging precariously in limbo, the energy sector eagerly anticipates a return to this ethos of decisive action. The permitting backlog, an albatross of the Biden administration’s making, has left projects stalled for months, even years, as Washington dithers. Under Trump, the energy industry flourished not by the watchful bean-counting of the government, but by its liberation from it. With Chris Wright and Doug Burgum selected for secretaries of Energy and Interior, respectively, one can safely assume that the new administration will once again unleash the free and creative forces that drive American industry.

There are some in Europe, as well, who look forward to Trump leading in a new direction on energy and foreign policy. Friend and political ally, Viktor Orban, has stood against the European status quo in pursuit of a negotiated end of violence in Ukraine. Orban’s Hungary imports nearly 100% of their natural gas, used for home heating, power-generation, and industrial production, from Russia. Orban is roundly criticized across the West for this realpolitik approach of maintaining normal relations with the sole provider of an indispensable resource, for which his landlocked country has no current alternative. But even European Commision President Ursula Von der Leyen, who has been a vocal critic of both Trump and Orban, has recently changed her tune, expressing enthusiasm for a new Trumpian energy policy.

In the wake of Donald Trump’s election triumph, dialogue between Trump and von der Leyen turned swiftly to matters of strategic substance, including a proposal to expand the U.S. LNG exports to Europe. “LNG is one of the topics that we touched upon,” Von der Leyen remarked. “We still get a whole lot of LNG via Russia. And why not replace it with American LNG, which is cheaper and brings down our energy prices?” Politico analysis concludes this is merely postering for upcoming tariff negotiations, a face-saving suggestion to import more LNG to rebalance trade deficits that Von der Leyen can’t actually enforce. It is a completely plausible interpretation, yet there is another pending negotiation directly impacted by the topic, a Russian Ukraine peace deal.

Energy, after all, is never merely a micro-economic matter, limited to its own industry concerns; it is the sine qua non of the modern economy. As such, it is an integral factor in state security and social stability. By recalibrating Europe’s energy reliance toward American LNG, Trump wields an instrument not only of economic leverage but of geopolitical realignment, one that could prove indispensable in shaping the contours of peace. In this context, the LNG discussion is not merely transactional but emblematic of a larger, more consequential strategy.

To suggest that energy trade alone could bring Russia to heel would be to indulge unwarranted optimism. Yet, as a bargaining tool, it is not without merit. Even if Ursula von der Leyen’s proposal for increased LNG trade is little more than rhetorical flourish, it nonetheless serves a tactical purpose: it signals the kind of seriousness that compels attention and tilts the negotiation table in favor of the United States. Negotiation, after all, is an intricate ballet of feints, insinuations, and veiled threats — each calculated to unsettle the adversary and recalibrate the balance of power.

With 1 million dead or injured, Russia’s recent liberalization of nuclear doctrine, and battlefield deployment of a new nuclear-capable hypersonic missile, the stakes have never been higher nor the cause for de-escalation and peace more clear. When engaged in a proxy war against a “gas station masquerading as a country,” as John McCain famously characterized Russia, energy policy really matters. In Trump’s vision, one glimpses not merely a transactional play but a reaffirmation of the principle of strength, both economic and military, that is the linchpin of effective diplomacy.

Matthew Roy is an energy industry professional with over a decade of experience in corporate management and strategy. He is currently the Visiting Research Fellow for the Budapest Fellowship Program at the Danube Institute, focusing on energy policy. 

Topline: Many Congressmembers opposed the General Services Administration’s renovation of the Poff Federal Building in Roanoke, Virginia when it began in 2010. A $51 million price estimate seemed excessive for an office building that cost only $14 million to build in the first place.

When the project was completed in 2014 at a final cost of $80 million, it had run through “a mix of mind-bogglingly bad (and allegedly illegal) bid management, cost overruns and all-around poor planning,” according to The Roanoker magazine.

Federal workers told Congress the construction had not improved their working conditions and had actually made the building less safe, even after spending what’s the equivalent of $106.4 million in 2024 dollars.

Search all federal, state and local government salaries and vendor spending with the AI search bot, Benjamin, at OpenTheBooks.com. 

Key facts: The 14-story Poff Federal Building, built in 1972, houses office space for the General Services Administration and the Department of Veterans Affairs, law enforcement space for the U.S. Marshals and courtrooms for a federal district court.

Both Democrats and Republicans criticized the GSA’s plan to renovate the space.

Sens. Mark Warner and Jim Webb were unhappy that 400 VA employees would need to be temporarily relocated while the department was already backlogged with work.

Rep. Bob Goodlatte claimed the GSA was “whitewashing” the numbers: the project was found to be profitable only after he declared it a “boondoggle.”

“It’s a slap in the face of the taxpayers,” Goodlatte told The Roanoker.

It didn’t take long for fiscal problems to arise, resulting in a Congressional hearing in 2011.

Jennifer Smith, representing the U.S. district court, told Congress the GSA only visited the building once per month for oversight of the hired construction companies. She said that led to unsafe working conditions and employees spying on government staff to steal security codes.

Collapsing bricks and flooding during construction meant another $15 million was needed. Smith said the GSA knew the water infrastructure was faulty but prioritized repainting bathrooms instead.

When construction ended in 2014, Judge Glen Conrad told The Roanoker his courtroom was less safe than it was before.

The bulletproof door to his chamber had been replaced by glass. Security cameras were blocked by new walls. The jury’s chamber was next to a lobby filled with witnesses and others who might wish them harm.

Critical quote: “For me, the most bothersome and disturbing reality is that five years from the announcement of the Poff Stimulus Project, and after expenditure of millions of dollars, the user functionality in the court portion of the building has not been enhanced whatsoever, in any way, shape, or form,” Judge Conrad said.

Summary: With billions of dollars in needed repairs in other buildings, the federal government has no resources to waste on unnecessary construction.

The #WasteOfTheDay is brought to you by the forensic auditors at OpenTheBooks.com

In August, the nation’s second-largest school district announced a major policy shift that caused the soon-to-be-unemployed minds at the Los Angeles Times editorial board to collectively explode last month. Why?

Because in the wake of a federal civil rights complaint filed by Parents Defending Education in 2023, the U.S. Department of Education forced the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) to open up its $120 million Black Student Achievement Plan tutoring program to all students with academic need – no longer conditioning participation on skin color alone.

Read that again: a public school system – underwritten by public tax dollars – is no longer allowed to discriminate on the basis of race. In 2024.

The horror!

Just what was this program, though? Depending on a learner’s skin color, totally different courses were offered; for example, during the 2020-2021 school year, students of color were given exclusive resources including a “Black Cultural Arts Passport,” “STEM Makerspace Labs,” and “Parent Workshops and Community Fairs.” Students of other racial backgrounds, however, were left out of these learning opportunities altogether. Change black to white and this system is something the KKK would applaud.

How, exactly, was such an obviously illegal program able to take root?

Look no further than AFT/NEA affiliate the United Teachers Los Angeles, which bragged that “as part of our last contract fight, we successfully pushed the district to codify BSAP into our 2022-25 contract, winning agreements for more resources, staffing, and professional development for BSAP schools.”

To be clear, the program hasn’t been shuttered; as Superintendent Alberto Carvalho told the Times, “Our solution is one that preserves the funding, the concentration of attention and resources on the same students and same schools … We were able to reformat the program without sacrificing impact.”

Yet far too many see the end of the race-based program – which should be considered a civil rights victory –as a defeat, exposing their own support for racial discrimination in K-12 schools. Students protested at an October school board meeting, while an online campaign demanded not only the expansion of the program but also a formal apology.

Sure, excluding students from educational programming based on race is – and has been! – illegal since the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and immoral since… forever. Yes, proficiency scores for all children of all races in LAUSD are below the national average. And yes, the Supreme Court ruled in 2023’s Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard decision that “Eliminating racial discrimination means eliminating all of it.”

Man, that pesky Constitution and its insistence on “equality before the law!”

LAUSD’s revision of the race-based grant program frees up the $120 million in funding for use among needy students or those suffering from genuine socioeconomic disadvantages – of whom there are many. In 2023, more than half of California students were unable to meet grade-level reading standards, setting them up for a lifetime of failure. It would be far more beneficial to students if LAUSD’s grant was directed towards actually improving subject matter proficiency for all students – and now, it can be. This is a momentous achievement coming from LAUSD, which has an otherwise shameful track record of centering racial differences in nearly every student interaction.

Much to the chagrin of DEI activists, the program was revised in a way that brings it into compliance with federal antidiscrimination law – and not simply given a cosmetic lift, as so many similar programs receive when they are challenged outside of court.

As the saying goes, “the price of eternal liberty is vigilance” – and in Los Angeles and other cities, ensuring that the program doesn’t backslide will be an ongoing effort. In an interview with The 74, University of Southern California education professor Julie Slayton noted that “They’ll take away the language of ‘Black,’ … But it doesn’t have to change, profoundly, the way that they’re thinking about the distribution of these resources and the schools that will receive them.” Meanwhile, the much-aggrieved LA Times editorial board asserted, “There are grounds to defend the program, even in California, which bans affirmative action in the public sector. … government agencies are constitutionally allowed to use ‘race-conscious remedies’ to make up for past race-based discrimination. District leaders certainly should be able to do this.”

But remember: this complaint was resolved by a Biden Administration Office for Civil Rights – which has loudly and clearly telegraphed its support for identity politics over the past four years but still found LAUSD’s program to be a bridge too far. An incoming Trump Administration is likely to have far less tolerance for taxpayer-funded discrimination in America’s public schools. Let the administrators beware.

A sheriff whose department several years ago implemented a program to predict crime, a move that resulted in the harassment of individuals in the county, has conceded its failure, its violation of the Constitution, and promised it will never return.

The decisions are the result of a lawsuit brought by the Institute for Justice over the schemes by the sheriff in Pasco County, Florida.

According to a report from the IJ, “For more than three years, the Pasco County, Fla., sheriff vigorously resisted a federal lawsuit brought by the Institute for Justice (IJ) challenging a controversial policing program that resulted in repeated harassment of children and their families. Today, on the eve of trial, the sheriff capitulated—admitting that the program resulted in repeated constitutional violations and pledging that it will never resume. ”

The legal team explained the challenged program “has been compared to a real-life version of ‘Minority Report.’ Using a crude computer algorithm, designed to predict who would commit future crimes, the Pasco sheriff’s office identified a list of ‘prolific offenders.'”

Without evidence, people, many under 18, were placed on the list and their families “were subjected to ‘prolific offender checks,’ during which deputies looked to cite them for issues like having grass that was too long, missing house numbers, unvaccinated pets, and excessive window tint on parked cars.”

It’s now gone, the IJ confirmed.

“For years, the Pasco sheriff ran an unconstitutional program, harassing kids and their parents because a glorified Excel spreadsheet predicted they would commit future crimes,” charged IJ lawyer Rob Johnson, “Today the sheriff acknowledged that dystopian program violated the Constitution and agreed never to bring it back.”

In the agreement settling the dispute, the sheriff confirmed his program violated the Fourth Amendment because while law enforcement has an “implied license” to knock on any resident’s door, the scheme involved officers who “exceeded” that by repeatedly confronting their targets.

”Second, the sheriff admitted that the program violated the First Amendment, which protects people from being punished for their ‘intimate associations,’ like with their family members,” the IJ said.

Finally, the program violated the due process requirements of the 14th Amendment because the program interfered with the targets’ “liberty interests.”

The agreement also includes a “six-figure settlement for the plaintiffs,” the IJ reported.

“For years, the Pasco sheriff’s office treated me like it could do anything it wanted,” Darlene Deegan said. “But today proves that when ordinary people stand up for themselves, the Constitution still means what it says.”

Evidence uncovered during the development of the case found that one deputy stated as his agenda against one target, “The goal is to get them to move away or go to prison.”

Another deputy bragged about getting his targets evicted from their homes.

The institute also confirmed it found “hundreds of hours of body camera footage, vividly depicting the harassment of plaintiffs and their families. In one video, deputies walk around the back of a plaintiff’s house late at night and knock on his window, telling him to come out of the house so they can write him a code citation. In another video, a deputy expressly tells a plaintiff that they are writing her citations because her son was on their offender list. In another, one deputy tells another they are going to ‘keep on harassing them, every single day.'”

Despite the F-35 program’s hefty price tag, recent events have shown just how potent the platform is against America’s adversaries.

National and subnational actors have long looked to whether there is a US aircraft carrier in the region as a signal of Western intent or resolve. But that dynamic could be set to change. Given the F-35’s capabilities, as recently proven against Iranian ground defenses, ground-based F-35 fleets hold a similar deterrent status as their carrier-parked counterparts.

With wars raging in the Middle East and Europe, and the potential for great-power conflict this decade in Asia, one of the unmistakable signs of American power and support for allies in those regions has been the aircraft carrier.

According to the latest publicly available data, the United States Navy currently has two amphibious ready groups and an aircraft carrier stationed in the Pacific and other assets throughout the Middle East, the Atlantic, and the West Coast.

Adversaries have long looked to whether there is a U.S. aircraft carrier in the region as a signal of America’s resolve to back up allies with force if necessary.

The aircraft carrier remains a potent signal of American intentions — but it is not the only asset at the United States’ disposal to project hard power, should it be called on.

Recent events in the Middle East demonstrate that the F-35s deployed abroad are arguably just as, if not more important, than the capital ships on which they deploy.

And given the F-35’s capabilities, the aircraft’s presence alone should be interpreted as a signal of American fixity of purpose on par with that of the aircraft carrier.

Proven, Tested Capabilities
From a purely military perspective, Israel’s recent strikes against Iran were an unmitigated success.

Flying a mix of aircraft in three waves against targets in Iran, over 100 Israeli aircraft initially struck high-value air defense targets in Syria and Iraq – including the much-vaunted S-300, a Soviet-designed air defense system.

Two subsequent waves hit military targets and weapon production facilities deep inside Iranian territory, degrading Tehran’s missile production capabilities, particularly of the solid fuel needed for long-range munitions. The strikes leave Iran exposed and highly vulnerable to future strikes by Israel.

Much ink has been spilled on the Israeli operation’s details, particularly the success enjoyed by the F-35. However, one under-appreciated aspect of the operation has been what that Israeli mission’s success means for the American — and allied — F-35 presence worldwide.

Given the F-35’s recent, real-world testing and success against what were considered formidable air defense assets, F-35 groupings stationed at bases worldwide offer policymakers a unique deterrence opportunity in Asia, the Middle East, or Europe.

And, when considering the F-35 fleets of nations allied with the United States, the deterrent effect grows significantly, a factor that alters the calculus of hostile nation’s decision-making.

The China Factor
The Chinese’ steady progress vis-à-vis their anti-ship missile capabilities in recent years should not be taken lightly. And it is precisely this threat that a regional, land-based F-35 strategy would address.

Regional gangsters like Iran and its allies Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Houthis pose a significantly smaller threat to the aircraft carrier than the likes of China, which benefits from a much more robust and increasingly more sophisticated anti-ship capability.

That raises the question worth considering: how can the United States, and allies across the globe, best preserve their F-35 fleets? A partial solution may be found in a highly dispersed air-basing strategy on the ground instead of at more densely concentrated formations on aircraft carriers out at sea.

A Numbers Game
How to best preserve America’s naval airpower through a widely dispersed basing strategy or via another solution or mix of solutions is best left to those in the Navy and Pentagon with the requisite experience and expertise to take a clear-eyed view of the situation.

However, what is becoming clear from the planning and policy side of this conversation is that the F-35 stealth platform is a unique, extremely capable asset with a modest but increasingly demonstrable track record against formidable air defense assets.

The world we live in today is increasingly fractured and violent. The potential for global conflagrations to expand and envelop the United States is also rising.

It would behoove the policymakers of the United States to make serious, sustained investments in the F-35 platform, in tandem with partners and allies, to ensure that during a time of national crisis, the F-35 program can lean into the supply chains and manufacturing requirements necessary to keep production rolling rather than to allow lines to become cold.

The F-35 has a significant — and proven — technological edge that vastly outclasses every other fighter today. Let us not hubristically rely on that fact alone but invest in sustainment for a time in which the platform may be called upon to defend the interest of the United States and our allies.

Caleb Larson is a Berlin-based journalist, formerly with Politico. He has spent more than seven months reporting from Ukraine at the front and elsewhere throughout the country.

President-elect Trump’s confirmation last month of his plan to deploy military assets for immigration enforcement sparked a constitutional debate. Legal scholars and commentators quickly declared such action forbidden by long-standing prohibitions on military involvement in domestic law enforcement. But this conventional wisdom misreads both the letter and spirit of American law. A careful examination of a pair of longstanding statutes reveals military support for immigration enforcement is permissible.

The issue hinges on two 19th century laws: the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878 and the Insurrection Act of 1807. When properly understood, both allow the President to use active-duty military forces to support the deportation of illegal immigrants.

Posse Comitatus: A Firewall Between the Military and Law Enforcement
Since our nation’s founding, Americans have been wary of standing armies and their role in civilian affairs. Concerns about military involvement in domestic law enforcement dates back to colonial experiences under British rule, particularly the quartering of British troops in civilian homes and their use to enforce British law. This experience was so troubling that it influenced several key elements of the Constitution and Bill of Rights.

The Third Amendment, ratified in 1791, explicitly prohibits American soldiers from occupying private homes inside the county during peacetime. The Posse Comitatus Act of 1878, informed by a distrust of a large military force employed against its citizenry, codified the separation of military and civilian law enforcement. This act established a firewall between military force and civilian law enforcement.

The term “posse comitatus,” Latin for “power of the country,” dates back to the medieval England tradition of local sheriffs organizing citizens to assist in maintaining public order. A form of this practice made its way to the American Old West: sheriffs called for volunteers – “a posse” of the county – to chase down bandits. This power allowed sheriffs to deputize civilians to temporarily suppress lawlessness and maintain order.

The Posse Comitatus Act of 1878 derives its name from this practice with a crucial distinction: it specifically prohibits the military from acting as this civilian force. The law’s architects recognized that using soldiers instead of citizens for domestic law enforcement would fundamentally alter the relationship between military power and civil society. They sought to ensure that federal troops were kept out of local law enforcement.

Yet this legislative barrier against using military force for domestic law enforcement is not absolute. Congress regularly makes exceptions, allowing military support to civilian law enforcement for actions such as protecting federal property, conducting domestic counterterror operations, engaging in counterdrug efforts. In cases related to immigration enforcement, courts have ruled the Posse Comitatus Act only prohibits direct military involvement in law enforcement actions such as detaining citizens. Support activities, from transportation to surveillance, remain legal. This distinction between direct enforcement and support operations provides the legal basis for President-elect Trump’s proposed use of military assets in his planned deportation program.

Military Assets Against Illegal Immigration Today: U.S. Troops at the Southwest Border
The military currently provides support for immigration enforcement. Today, roughly 4,000 service members assist Customs and Border Protection along the southwest border. They operate surveillance aircraft, transport Border Patrol personnel, and maintain vehicles. These activities fall within the established legal framework for military support of immigration operations.

The incoming administration has the potential to significantly expand this support role. Military aircraft could transport detainees, military installations could provide temporary housing facilities, and military personnel could assist with administrative and logistical tasks. None of these activities would violate Posse Comitatus because they do not involve direct law enforcement actions.

The Insurrection Act: A Broad Authority for Military Force
But what about using military forces to support law enforcement and enforce the law? This is where the Insurrection Act becomes crucial.

The Insurrection Act, a composite of laws enacted between 1792 and 1807, represents a significant exception to the traditional separation of military and civilian law enforcement in the United States. The act grants presidents extraordinary power to deploy federal troops on American soil—a power that is typically forbidden but also vitally important to the success of federalism.

The act’s broad language, largely unchanged since the Civil War, allows presidents to deploy troops whenever they believe domestic unrest, rebellion, or resistance to federal law makes normal enforcement impossible. This extensive authority is rooted in Congress’s constitutional power to call forth the militia to “execute the Laws of the Union, suppress Insurrections and repel Invasions,” as described in the Constitution. The act effectively creates a presidential override of the prohibitions against using military forces for domestic law enforcement. What was initially conceived as an emergency power for a young nation now stands as a powerful tool for President-elect Trump, who might see state resistance to federal immigration enforcement as justification for military deployment.

Illegal Immigrant Safe Havens: Local Government Resistance to Federal Law
Some jurisdictions have already declared their intention to resist federal immigration enforcement. Six states have already publicly announced plans to resist President-elect Trump’s plan to deport thousands of undocumented immigrants. Under the Insurrection Act, such resistance justifies the use of military force.

The deployment of military forces by a president inside the United States to enforce the law when local governments refuse to do so is not unprecedented. This happened several times during the Civil Rights era, most famously when President Eisenhower invoked the Insurrection Act to send the 101st Airborne to Little Rock in 1957 when state officials obstructed federal desegregation orders. Nearly seven decades later, the principle remains unchanged: local authorities cannot nullify federal law. If they attempt to do so, the President has authority to direct military power to enforce it. Invocation of the Insurrection Act in such an instance would permit American troops to detain undocumented immigrants inside the United States.

The Constitution provides remedies when state and local authorities obstruct federal law enforcement. The incoming administration has legal authority to use military assets to support immigration enforcement. Those who claim otherwise misunderstand both the law and its historical context.

Patrick O’Malley is an attorney in New York and Maryland, a former Assistant District Attorney in Queens County, NY, and a retired U.S. Army Reserve Judge Adjutant General officer who taught National Security Law at the University of Baltimore School of Law.

Joe Buccino is a retired U.S. Army Colonel and the CEO of Vantage + Vox.

One of the most intimidating talking points in recent years used by transgender activists against parents who object to chemical and body mutilation procedures on their children is that they have a choice:

A transgender daughter or a dead son, through suicide.

But now even one of the main promoters of the transgender agenda is admitting that’s just wrong.

It is the Post Millennial that reported on the comments that came during this week’s Supreme Court arguments on the issue.

The ACLU and Biden administration are in a lawsuit against the state of Tennessee over its common-sense new law that forbids those procedures on children, as a way of protecting them.

During the hearing Justice Samuel Alito spoke to ACLU trans attorney Chase Strangio and the concerns about suicide.

That issue was addressed in a United Kingdom document called the Cass Report, an investigation into that nation’s treatment of gender dysphoric minors.

That showed “there was evidence that sex changes to treat gender dysphoria does not reduce incidents of suicide.”

The report noted, “That so-called trans youth are more likely to commit suicide should they not be given medical sex change treatment has been a persistent argument by trans activists who insist that drugs and surgeries must be available to children and teens who claim to be the opposite sex.”

Alito asked, “A lot of categorical statements have been made this morning in argument and in the briefs about medical questions that seem to me to be hotly disputed, and that’s a bit distressing. One of them has to do with the risk of suicide. Do you maintain that the procedures and medications in question reduce the risk of suicide?” Alito asked.

Strangio said yes, explaining, “I do Justice Alito, maintain that the medications in question reduce the risk of depression, anxiety and suicidality, which are all indicators of potential suicide.”

Is that clearly established? Alito asked. Can there be disagreement?

Again, Strangio said yes. “I think, as with all underlying questions of looking at evidence, there can be disagreement. I don’t dispute that, but here and sort of going back to questions about the Cass Review, for example, the Cass Review only looked at studies up until 2022.”

Alito pointed out, “I don’t regard the case review as necessarily as a Bible or as something that’s true in every respect. But on page 195 of the Cass Report, it says there is no evidence that gender affirmative treatments reduce suicide.”

Strangio explained that as being “no evidence in the studies.”

He said that’s because there are few “completed suicides” but claimed studies show there is a “reduction in suicidality.”

The report itself states, “Tragically deaths by suicide in trans people of all ages continue to be above the national average, but there is no evidence that gender-affirmative treatments reduce this. Such evidence as is available suggests that these deaths are related to a range of other complex psychosocial factors and to mental illness.”

Adam Schiff, one of the most devoted adherents to the false narrative created by Democrats two elections ago that then-candidate Donald Trump was colluding with Russia, and then a devotee of ex-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s failed agendas to impeach and remove him, is quitting his House seat.

He’ll be taking up a role in the U.S. Senate after November’s election,.

BREAKING: Rep. Adam Schiff has resigned as a member of the House of Representatives, effective December 8, 2024 https://t.co/019wkC8oPf

— WorldNetDaily (@worldnetdaily) December 6, 2024

The Washington Examiner said Schiff is to be sworn into the Senate next week.

The report said Schiff ends a 24-year tenure in the House “with a reputation as a chief antagonist to President-elect Donald Trump, leading the first House impeachment involving withholding aid to Ukraine in return for investigations of Hunter Biden.”

Because he “misused intelligence for political purposes,” according to then-Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy, Schiff was stripped of his position on the intelligence committee.

“In June 2023, Republicans voted to censure Schiff, and McCarthy delivered a public reprimand that said Schiff misled the public during congressional investigations into the Trump campaign’s ties to Russia. Trump this year referred to Schiff as ‘an enemy from within,’ fueling speculation that President Joe Biden should issue preemptive pardons for Schiff and others to shield them from Trump’s possible legal retribution,” the report explained.

Schiff beat Reps. Katie Porter, D-Calif., and Barbara Lee, D-Calif., in a primary and then won the election to replace the late Sen. Dianne Feinstein.

Because the position was open, Schiff is being installed before the rest of the newly elected senators, meaning he will have “seniority” over others who will be installed in January.

A few weeks ago, columnist Rachel Alexander in a commentary at WND said, “It is no secret that far-left California Democratic Rep. Adam Schiff uses sleazy tactics to go after his political opponents. While most members of Congress usually skate on ethics charges or receive light penalties, once in a great while their behavior is so overtly criminal that they end up prosecuted. Although Democrats are far more likely to use lawfare against Republicans than vice versa, when the behavior is so criminal, even Democrats – such as New Jersey Sen. Bob Menendez who is being prosecuted for bribery – can’t escape justice.

She continued, “Schiff is getting dangerously close to this stage. When he became chair of the House Intelligence Committee in 2019, he made it a personal mission to investigate Donald Trump’s supposed connections to Russia, completely separate from and in addition to Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation.

“When Mueller concluded there was no collusion between Trump and Russia, Schiff dismissively blew off the exoneration, hinting that he would continue his own investigation. ‘[T]here may be, for example, evidence of collusion or conspiracy that is clear and convincing, but not proof beyond a reasonable doubt,’ he said during an interview in February 2019.”

Schiff’s agenda has triggered complaints to the Office of Congressional Ethics, and the full House noted he “misled the public by reading a false retelling of a phone call between President Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.”

The column also noted Schiff “paid the daughter of the judge handling New York District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s prosecution of Trump $4 million to push the Russia collusion hoax. Loren Merchan’s hatred of Trump is so extreme that she used a photo of Trump behind bars as her profile picture on X. She runs a digital marketing agency that works with Democrats and progressive groups.

And he hasn’t changed, the commentary said.

“While running for the U.S. Senate, Schiff has brazenly engaged in sleazy tactics. He spent $10 million promoting his Republican opponent during the primary. Since California uses ‘top 2’ voting, which means the top two vote getters in the primary move on to the general, he wanted to ensure that Republican Steve Garvey ended up with the second-most votes instead of his two Democratic challengers. On the campaign trail, Schiff brags about his political persecution of Trump as a campaign platform.”

Previously, Schiff admitted he feared that a Trump administration might prosecute him.

A constitutional expert is issuing a warning about this being the season for a “smash-mouth Santa” after a coalition of leftists launched a promotion of merchandise that celebrates Antifa.

That’s the far left ideology that is personified in militant rioters who, following the death of George Floyd, inflicted billions of dollars in damages on America cities from coast to coast, for a political cause.

It is law professor, legal commentator and constitutional expert Jonathan Turley who cited the sales gimmick, and said right now, with tensions following the 2024 presidential election, it “is not the time to go full naughty list to celebrate a group that regularly beats reporters and others with opposing viewpoints. While this may appeal to your own special smash-mouth Santa, tis the season for political violence.”

Antifa is characterized as left-wing and anti-fascist and anti-racist, although some of its agenda points would inflict more racism in order to address the racism it sees.

It has no control center, as it involves a multitude of decentralized groups that use incivility and violence to achieve their aims.

Doxing, harassment and property damage often are associated with the “left-wing ideologies” as they are described online, and their “anti-authoritarian, anti-capitalist, and anti-state views.”

Fox News earlier documented the products, including an “ANTIFA Baby Onesie” being offered by an organization of former staffers for Barack Obama.

Fox reported, “The items can be bought via a digital merchandise store run by Crooked Media, which was co-founded in 2017 by former Obama staffers Jon Favreau, Jon Lovett and Tommy Vietor. Oftentimes referred to as the ‘Obama bros,’ the three communications professionals co-host ‘Pod Save America,’ one of the most listened-to political podcasts in the nation, per Apple Podcasts U.S. rankings.”

The report noted the violence associated with the political agenda: “‘ANTIFA’ is a common term used to refer to far-left ‘anti-fascists’ who were at the forefront of the George Floyd protests during the summer of 2020. Many of those protests devolved into violent riots, even resulting in the deaths of dozens of people and billions of dollars in property damage because of the unrest. Following that summer, ANTIFA continued to deploy violent tactics.”

Turley said, “It appears no liberal Christmas is complete without the ultimate stocking stuffer: an actual stocking to wear over your face while rioting. While not yet selling face coverings for anonymous violence, Crooked Media … is selling a line of Antifa items for liberals wanting to make a statement against any ‘Peace on Earth.'”

He explained, “There is no apparent backlash for their support of one of the most violent groups in the world, which routinely attacks journalists and anyone who holds opposing views. Imagine the media response if a conservative site started selling ‘Proud Boy’ items.”

He explained, “As discussed in my new book, ‘The Indispensable Right: Free Speech in an Age of Rage,’ I explore the history of Antifa as a movement that began in Germany:”

That is: “Antifa originated with European anarchist and Marxist groups from the 1920s, particularly Antifaschistische Aktion, a Communist group from the Weimar Republic before World War II. Its name resulted from the shortening of the German word antifaschistisch. In the United States, the modern movement emerged through the Anti- Racist Action (ARA) groups, which were dominated by anarchists and Marxists. It has an association with the anarchist organization Love and Rage, which was founded by former Trotsky and Marxist followers as well as offshoots like Mexico’s Amor Y Rabia. The oldest U.S. group is likely the Rose City Antifa (RCA) in Portland, Oregon, which would become the center of violent riots during the Trump years. The anarchist roots of the group give it the same organizational profile as such groups in the early twentieth century with uncertain leadership and undefined structures.”

He noted the movement has threats built in.

“Former Democratic National Committee deputy chair Keith Ellison, now the Minnesota attorney general, once said Antifa would ‘strike fear in the heart’ of Trump. This was after Antifa had been involved in numerous acts of violence, and its website was banned in Germany. Ellison’s son, Minneapolis City Council member Jeremiah Ellison, declared his allegiance to Antifa in the heat of the protests this summer. During a prior hearing, Democratic senators refused to clearly denounce Antifa and falsely suggested that the far right was the primary cause of recent violence. Likewise, Joe Biden has dismissed objections to Antifa as just ‘an idea.'”

Liberals, this season, “can bring a small part of that political violence into their homes for the holiday to pledge that there will be no peace or silent nights so long as opposing views are heard,” he warned.

.

After a screaming match between acting Secret Service Director Ron Rowe and Texas Rep. Pat Fallon erupted at a Thursday House hearing on the attempted assassination attempts against President-elect Donald Trump, new details are emerging about the circumstances that sparked the outburst.

Several Secret Service sources question whether Rowe has perjured himself during the explosive exchange.

The face-off occurred during the final meeting of the House Task Force on the Attempted Assassination of Trump when Fallon produced a photo of Rowe standing behind President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris at a 9/11 memorial event in New York City in September. Trump and Vice President-elect J.D. Vance appeared on the right side of the photo.

The congressman, a Texas Republican, pressed Rowe on why he had positioned himself behind Biden when normal Secret Service protocol would place the most senior member of the president’s detail in that position to provide the best protection to the president. The event took place on Sept. 11, just days before the second assassination attempt against Trump at one of the president-elect’s golf courses in Florida.

At the time, the outcome of the election was still unknown, and Rowe was trying to prove that he could quickly rehabilitate the agency’s image after the cataclysmic failures during the July 13 Butler rally that nearly led to Trump’s assassination and did result in the death of Corey Comperatore, a retired local fireman.

Fallon accused Rowe of endangering Biden’s and Harris’ lives by taking their top two agents out of position because he “wanted to be visible because you were auditioning for the job.”

Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas promoted Rowe from deputy director to interim chief of the agency in the wake of the Butler rally. The previous director, Kimberly Cheatle, had resigned after disastrous testimony before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee.

Rowe responded swiftly and angrily to Fallon’s line of questions.

“Congressman, what you’re seeing is the [Special Agent in Charge of the Detail] out of the picture’s view,” Rowe said. “And that is a day where we remember the more than 3,000 people that died on 9/11,” Rowe added. “I actually responded to Ground Zero. I was there going through the ashes of the World Trade Center. I was there at Fresh Kills,” Rowe added, referencing a Staten Island landfill where debris was taken.

Fallon quickly interjected: “I’m not asking you that.”

“I was there, congressman!” Rowe bellowed while pointing aggressively at Fallon before accusing him of acting like a “bully” and politicizing 9/11.

Rowe was already on edge from Fallon’s pointed questioning just minutes before. The congressman asked Rowe whether he knew that Trump was facing a threat from a foreign actor while the Secret Service advance team was preparing for the Butler rally, a likely reference to assassination plots by Iran against Trump’s life. If he did know, the congressman asked why he didn’t intervene to provide a counter-surveillance unit or a full Counter Assault Team, top Secret Service security assets, in addition to the counter snipers the agency provided These additional assets, Fallon asserted, could have prevented the assassination attempt from taking place.

An eyewitness to the 9/11 memorial this year tells RealClearPolitics that Rowe’s decision to take the place of the top two agents in charge of the president’s and vice president’s detail spurred resentment among the ranks. The source said there were toe marks placed on the ground with every attendee’s name and title. Rowe’s original toe mark was three rows back.

Instead of simply standing where he was designated, Rowe disregarded the arrangement and placed himself behind Biden and Harris. The leaders of those details then had to squeeze in so they could be within arm’s reach of the president and vice president if they faced any threats. The source also noted that Rowe’s wife, a longtime Secret Service employee, was the photographer for the event that day and was snapping “a ton of action shots of Ron standing in his place of prominence.”

During Thursday’s testy shouting match, Fallon demanded to know whether Rowe had a gun and radio on him during the ceremony, an apparent reference to whether he was operational and equipped to respond to a threat against Biden’s or Harris’ lives if any arose.

Rowe retorted that he did have a radio and a gun on him at the ceremony and insisted that the protective mission was not compromised by his decision to move to a more prominent position. The Secret Service press office provided a lengthy explanation of his Secret Service roles in New York City after the 9/11 attacks but didn’t respond to a follow-up question from RealClearPolitics on whether he stood by those remarks about having a gun and radio on him during the ceremony.

Rank-and-file agents were incensed over Rowe’s screaming match and said they doubted the acting director’s testimony that he had a radio during the 9/11 ceremony this year because he wasn’t wearing an earpiece to hear the intelligence chatter on a radio. They also said top Secret Service officials usually do not wear earpieces or ballistic missile vests to ceremonies like the one on 9/11 because they spend most of their time meeting with other officials, not monitoring radio traffic for threats.

After the blow-up went viral on social media, the Secret Service provided a statement clarifying Rowe’s work in the aftermath of the Sept. 11 attacks.

“Acting Director Ronald Rowe volunteered to support the U.S. Secret Service’s official response efforts in New York following 9/11,” Guglielmi said in a statement. “He was a part of the second response rotation, which occurred in mid-October 2001. As part of his duties, he worked to support recovery efforts at both Fresh Kills Landfill and Ground Zero.”

“Acting Director Rowe joined the U.S. Secret Service in 1999 and was working as a shift agent assigned to protect a visiting foreign dignitary in Washington, D.C. on the day of the 9/11 attacks,” Guglielmi added.

“In reference to your questions about the 9/11 memorial, all detail personnel were present and had complete access to their protectees during the memorial,” he concluded.

While most of the hearing recycled previous revelations about the agency’s failures during the Butler rally, Rep. Mark Green, who chairs the House Homeland Security Committee, also expressed outrage in expletive-laced questions over how the agency missed such obvious security vulnerabilities.

Green said the agency’s conduct during the July shooting seemed “lackadaisical” and slammed the agents in charge of the Butler rally, whom he said showed up to the event and “didn’t give a shit.”

The Tennessee Republican who previously served as an Army doctor argued that the Secret Service has a “command-climate” problem. “There was apathy and complacency, period, and that’s your mission,” Green told Rowe.

Rowe provided a vague response to Green’s concerns.

“So, we are reorganizing, reimagining the organization that includes making sure that we are developing leadership programs,” he said.

In his opening statement, Rowe said he spent the months since the assassination items focused on implementing reforms to ensure that the failures at Butler never happen again.

“I have reflected extensively on the agency’s substandard performance during the advance for the Butler rally,” he said. “It has been my singular focus to bring much-needed reform to the Secret Service, to be an agent of change, to challenge previous assumptions – [to ensure that] the brave men and women of the Secret Service have the resources, leadership, and assets that they need to be successful in carrying out our protective mission.”

Addressing criticism that the agents involved in the poor planning for and execution of the Butler rally, have not been held accountable, Rowe expressed frustration with the length of time it takes to provide “accountability” for the failures.

“Let me be clear: There will be accountability, and that accountability is occurring,” he said. “It is an extensive review that requires time to ensure due process and the pace of this process, quite frankly, it does frustrate me, but it is essential that we recognize the gravity of our failure.”