As Starmer’s Approval Circles the Drain, a Beloved Dogwalker Dies

As Starmer's Approval Circles the Drain, a Beloved Dogwalker Dies 1

This post was originally published on this site

As Starmer's Approval Circles the Drain, a Beloved Dogwalker Dies 2

A man arrived in West London in 2020 in the back of what the British call a ‘lorry.’ He was an Afghan national and was illegally in the United Kingdom.

No worries. He claimed asylum and, after a couple of years, it was granted in 2022.

Advertisement

He wasn’t staying at a migrant hotel nor one of the Houses of Multiple Occupancy (HMO) that the Labour government is shoving their overflow ‘immigrant’ problems into, as far as the Home Office knows.

What they do know is that this creature burst out of a door chasing another man in the West London suburb of Uxbridge yesterday. As they so often seem to do, he was carrying a knife as he pelted after the other guy he’d been arguing with.

But it was the 49-year-old neighborhood fellow walking his dog who said, ‘Here now, what’s this?’ at the ruckus, who was savagely attacked, again and again (The video is too ghastly to believe). And it was the dog walker who died in the street, despite all the best efforts to save him.

Another man and a fourteen-year-old boy were also slashed, but lived.

Police were captured on a home front door camera menacing the lunatic savage with a taser, which they wound up having to use because, well…lunatic savage.

It dropped him like a stone.

The only reason anyone knows anything about who did this is thanks to the absolute bollixing of the Southport murders in July of 2024. With the too-cute-by-half cat-and-mouse games they played, hiding the ethnicity of the murderer, which resulted in violent, anti-immigration protests. The government’s instantaneous condemning of all citizen outrage as right-wing driven Islamophobia and race-hate fueled the resentment fires. 

Advertisement

Upon further reflection, the virtue signalers in the Starmer authoritarian half-brain trust decided it might actually be best to get more information about the subject of an arrest out as quickly as possible, rather than let innuendo and speculation fester, only to explode in physical violence.

Hence, we know the attacker accused of so viciously and wantonly attacking innocent human beings and murdering one of them in cold blood in the street was another of the foreign invaders washing through Britain.

He just came by truck, not by boat. The murderer was welcomed like all the others who have turned once safe and welcoming neighborhoods into near warzones like the ones these supplicants were supposedly fleeing.

Strange how some cultures bring the death they’re leaving with them, isn’t it?

The Home Office says, ‘Thoughts and prayers.’

Well, let’s be honest. They’re not the praying types.

…A Home Office spokesperson said: “Our thoughts are with the family and friends of those impacted by this horrific incident.

“We are receiving regular updates from the Metropolitan Police. The priority must now be for the police to investigate so those responsible can be brought to justice.”

Police and ambulance crews were called to Midhurst Gardens in Uxbridge at around 5pm on Monday where the three victims were stabbed.

A 49-year-old man was treated at the scene but died, while another man, aged 45, suffered life-changing injuries, police said.

A 14-year-old boy was also stabbed, but his injuries are not life-threatening or changing.

The attack is not being treated as terrorism, and detectives are working to establish any relationship between the suspect and the three victims, the Metropolitan Police said.

Advertisement

Lovely gentleman, the dead man. Hard worker. Garbageman.

Met a madman walking the dog after work. A madman who shouldn’t have even been there.

…One witness told the Daily Mail: ‘The Afghan man was chasing a man and a boy around the road and a local man who was with his dog tried to stop it.

‘There was blood everywhere and the paramedics were there for at least 30 minutes trying to save his life. It was absolute carnage and very distressing to see.’

Another local added: ‘The dead man is very well known around here. He’s a lovely guy, very gentle and peaceful.’

A neighbour said the man who died was a binman who was ‘just doing the normal dog walk that he does every day’ and that he is ‘the last person on Earth that you would think somebody would go for’.

The woman has taken over some flowers for the victim’s knife, and added: ‘I still can’t get over it. If he was five or 10 minutes later taking the dog out would the same thing have happened?’

Pity.

THE COUNTRY IS GOING TO END UP IN A CIVIL WAR

Advertisement

They’re saying it now. Out loud. On British TV.

Civil war.

And Labour?

Flummoxed as ever, why no one likes them when they KNOW they’re right all the time.

Labour poll rating hits all-time low

Labour has hit its lowest-ever poll rating with YouGov in a fresh blow to Sir Keir Starmer.

The governing party has fallen to just 17 per cent of the vote, some 10 percentage points behind Reform UK and just one point ahead of the Greens.

It follows a torrid week for Sir Keir in which Labour suffered a historic defeat at the Caerphilly by-election in Wales and five grooming gang survivors withdrew from the national inquiry.

The chaos facing the Government on immigration has also been highlighted by two incidents in the past week.

Days after a Channel migrant deported to France under the “one in, one out scheme” returned to the UK on a small boat, a migrant sex offender was mistakenly released from jail.

Public concern about immigration is at its highest level for a decade. Sir Keir and his ministers have attempted to blame the previous Tory administration for the chaos in the asylum and justice systems.

And that stinker of a leader…stinks.

…The YouGov poll suggests the Government continues to hit new levels of unpopularity amid reports the Prime Minister could face a leadership challenge within months.

Labour is now polling lower under Sir Keir than the Conservatives ever did under Rishi Sunak. The lowest Tory score recorded before the last election was 18 per cent.

Advertisement

 Especially when Labour’s priority is not the British people but seeing to poor migrants who feel unsafe.

How much longer and for how many more deaths will people be content to lay flowers on sidewalks…

…and pay respects…peacefully?

The Schumer Shutdown is here. Rather than put the American people first, Chuck Schumer and the radical Democrats forced a government shutdown for healthcare for illegals. They own this.

Please help Ed, David, John, and me continue to report the truth about the Schumer Shutdown. Use promo code POTUS47 to get 74% off your VIP membership.

And thank you so much for being here with us at HotAir.

TikTok Filled With Videos of People Threatening to Loot Grocery Stores

TikTok Filled With Videos of People Threatening to Loot Grocery Stores 3

This post was originally published on this site

TikTok Filled With Videos of People Threatening to Loot Grocery Stores 4

It would be easier to empathize with these people if they were not a bunch of entitled jerks who view looting as a natural part of life. 

Instead, what we are learning is that among the 40 million people who get SNAP benefits through EBT cards, a whole lot of them are worthless, entitled people who need to get off their asses and go to work. 

Advertisement

TikTok is filled with videos of SNAP “beneficiaries,” most of whom are obese, explaining how they intend to loot grocery stores to stock up on junk food for the month of November because the government isn’t going to fill their EBT cards in the month of November. 

(Lots of NSFW content).

This trend is a variation of one that popped up a few weeks ago, with SNAP recipients doing their own version of the ridiculous “my day working at…” videos where tech employees bragged about how little work they performed during their “work” day. The lumpenproletariate version was of SNAP recipients showing their shopping carts filled with junk food, and just how much money they were scamming off the taxpayers. 

SNAP is sold to Americans as providing essential nutrition to struggling families, ensuring that nobody, especially children, is forced to go hungry when they hit a rough patch. A program that fills that genuinely necessary social purpose is one that most of us could easily support. One mark of civilization is ensuring that nobody starves in the streets, unless it’s in San Francisco or Portland. 

Advertisement

But let’s face it: SNAP, for the most part, doesn’t serve that purpose at all. Sure, it provides aid to people in need, but when 40 million people are grabbing government benefits, many of whom are able-bodied and capable of working, the program’s purpose has been hijacked. 

The argument that millions of people are going hungry in America, and the only thing that stands between mass starvation and a socialist utopia is the willingness of people to shovel money at the poors is, frankly, a lie. Instead, what we have managed to create is an underclass that has contempt for the people who work hard to support them. 

You have to love that line…”if y’all able to work, you better start working.” Said as if that is a bizarre concept, and not the bare minimum that we should expect from any able-bodied person. 

Advertisement

Decent people who can do so should help those genuinely in need, but “need” and “want” are two different things. Food, clothing, housing, goods, and services are the products of labor, and just expecting others to do labor so that you don’t have to is immoral. 

Not only immoral, but dignity-destroying. And as you can see from these videos, dignity is not something the entitled exude. 

Social insurance systems, like most societal functions, only work well when there is a basic level of social trust. The Nordic countries were seen as a model, but they were always the exception to the rule because these societies, until recently, were essentially homogeneous, and the expectation was that over one’s lifetime, everybody contributed more than they took out. Social trust was through the roof. 

But in societies where social insurance programs are seen as a good scam by many, they no longer serve a purpose people are willing to pay for. Nobody likes being taken advantage of, nor should they. 

Advertisement

Of course, if the police refuse to arrest shoplifters and courts refuse to prosecute, the scammers will do exactly what they say: take advantage of us yet again. 

Things like this can’t go on forever. At some point, the people paying the bills will rebel, or society will collapse. Already, the experience of shopping has been degraded, and in many places, basic products are behind locked cabinets—even though we throw money at these people. 

Liberals tell us that this is the price we pay to ensure that people who truly are deserving of our aid and compassion get the help they need, or that putting in place checks and balances to ensure that people on welfare aren’t unnecessarily shamed. Both of those are lies. If welfare were restricted to people in real need, few people would object or look down on the recipients. 

Advertisement

The shame attaches because we all suspect that the person using welfare is a layabout, and layabouts SHOULD be ashamed. 

There’s an implicit social contract: we’ll help you if you are willing to help yourself and contribute what you can. 

If you want to know what socialism breeds, you are looking at it. And, as with socialist countries like Cuba and Venezuela, the ultimate destination is productive people escaping, and crushing poverty for everybody else. 


Editor’s Note
: The Schumer Shutdown is here. Rather than put the American people first, Chuck Schumer and the radical Democrats forced a government shutdown for healthcare for illegals. They own this.

Help us continue to report the truth about the Schumer Shutdown. Use promo code POTUS47 to get 74% off your VIP membership.

CNN Data Guru: Schumer Shutdown May Be Making Republicans More Popular

CNN Data Guru: Schumer Shutdown May Be Making Republicans More Popular 5

This post was originally published on this site

CNN Data Guru: Schumer Shutdown May Be Making Republicans More Popular 6

As expected — more or less — Senate Democrats again refused to end the filibuster on the clean continuing resolution. The cloture vote has remained roughly the same, still eight votes short of allowing a floor vote to reopen the government. 

Advertisement

So at the moment, nothing has changed — in the Senate. Yesterday’s demand from the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE) to pass the clean CR still hasn’t quite landed, although Dick Durbin did say that it would likely have an impact on their strategy. 

What may have a larger impact on the Schumer Shutdown strategy is how much may be changing elsewhere, and how. CNN’s Harry Enten returned like Jeremiah outside of the temple again this morning to warn Democrats that the polling on the shutdown has boosted one party’s prospects for the midterms. And that party is not the Democrats:

Enten is looking at a specific poll in this data, not polling aggregates, so bear that in mind. With that said, the aggregates are not looking favorable for Democrats, either. The generic ballot average today is D+2.4, a full point lower than in September, and that is largely influenced by the recent updates from Dem-friendly pollsters such as YouGov, Morning Consult, and especiallty an outlier D+9 from Quinnipiac. Trump’s average job approval rating gap is -7, slightly larger than last month but hardly unusual for Trump — and way better than in his first term. 

Advertisement

More to the point, Democrats are slightly more than 24 points underwater on favorability in RCP’s aggregation (34.7/59). Republicans are much better situated at 41/5/53.5, a gap of -12, half that of Democrats. The direction-of-country aggregate has improved vastly over last year, although it has eroded somewhat over the summer — but it has not changed at all over the last 30 days. 

What does all this mean? Enten believes that the demo shifts are solidifying for the GOP in the midterms (transcript from Mediaite). And if that’s the case, Republicans and Trump have no reason to cut a deal to end the shutdown:

BERMAN: Now we say their position is getting better, with whom?

ENTEN: Yeah, okay, with whom? So I think it’s two groups that it’s so important to keep an eye on. All right, change in the Republican Congress’s net approval rating versus pre-shutdown. It’s rallying the base for sure. Look at this, the net approval rating up 12 points versus pre-shutdown. But it’s not just with the base, it’s also with the middle of the electorate. Look at this among independents, it’s up eight points as well! So we’ve got a situation here where Republicans with the shutdown are actually rallying their base, but it’s also something that’s not hurting them with the folks in the middle. If anything it’s helping them with folks in the middle, and this is the type of math that if you’re Republicans you like to see, right? Because something could rally the base but alienate those in the middle, or something could rally those in the middle, but alienate the base. But the truth is we’re not seeing that. What we’re seeing is the Republican brand has actually gotten better among independents and it’s also gotten better among Republicans as well that Republican brand when it comes to those in Congress. So again, what’s what’s the electoral reason that Republicans would given at this point?

Advertisement

As before, Enten focuses on the generic ballot to prophesy disaster ahead for Dems:

ENTEN: Yeah, so, I mea  look, the generic Congressional ballot, which traditionally Democrats have done really well on, and if you look at this point back when Trump was president the first time around, Democrats were up 11 points. Look at where it is now. Democrats are ahead, but they’re actually only up three points. This is, in fact, the worst position Democrats have been in on a generic ballot at this time in a midterm when there was a Republican president in the last 20 years. And this is no different from pre-shutdown. So Republicans aren’t losing on this metric either. They’ve become more popular, and they’re in a pretty good position for them historically when it comes to the generic congressional ballot.

It may be overstating the data to claim that Republicans are become more popular, but clearly Democrats are becoming less popular as the Schumer Shutdown continues. And if goes on for more than another day or two, they are about to get a lot less popular within their own constituencies

If by the end of the week this isn’t over 30, 40 million Americans, we’re not going to have food assistance

Advertisement

I suspect that Democrats right now are strategizing on which members of the Senate caucus will vote to end the filibuster while protecting others. Schumer won’t signal retreat publicly, but he’ll arrange an end to this soon, given the optics. This has been an embarrassing exercise, but it’s about to become a catastrophic mistake. Perhaps this time, everyone will learn the proper War Games lesson on shutdowns: “The only winning move is not to play.”

Editor’s Note: The Schumer Shutdown is here. Rather than put the American people first, Chuck Schumer and the radical Democrats forced a government shutdown for healthcare for illegals. They own this.

Help us continue to report the truth about the Schumer Shutdown. Use promo code POTUS47 to get 74% off your VIP membership.

It Turned Out to Be a Gangbuster Japanese Visit

It Turned Out to Be a Gangbuster Japanese Visit 7

This post was originally published on this site

It Turned Out to Be a Gangbuster Japanese Visit 8

President Trump was ready to dance as he came off Air Force One in Kuala Lumpur for the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) summit, with a little peace agreement signing planned on the side.

Advertisement

The guy’s hilarious.

The Thais and the Cambodians signed what neither side is exactly willing to call an ‘end of the war’ agreement, but representatives of both agree that none of it would have ever happened without Donald Trump sticking his nose into the middle of it.

…But what does the “Kuala Lumpur Peace Accord”, as Trump has renamed it, actually amount to?

Remember, both countries signed a ceasefire back in July.

That, too, was helped – or at least accelerated – by pressure from Trump.

…The two countries have agreed to withdraw their heavy weapons from the disputed border and to establish an interim observer team to monitor it.

They have a new procedure for clearing landmines, and will set up what they call a joint taskforce to address the proliferation of scam centres.

They will replace missing border markers with temporary ones.

This is progress – and Thai diplomats have told me they do feel Trump’s involvement may help these agreements stick.

It seemed as if the president only stuck around for a few meetings and photos, but what he did secure set the stage for his upcoming Japan leg.

While at the ASEAN summit, Trump moved potential critical mineral partners for the United States onto our side of the board to complement deals he already had in progress.

…The first stop on Trump’s first visit to Asia since returning to office was Malaysia, where he attended the Association for Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) summit. Malaysia received a trade agreement in exchange for several investment pledges to the United States and a commitment to reducing tariff barriers on U.S. goods.

Part of that agreement is a memorandum of understanding between the U.S. and Malaysian governments on critical minerals, with the two countries announcing they would work together to “open up alternative markets for critical minerals” and “help diversify global critical mineral supply chains.”

Thailand was the second ASEAN country with which Trump signed a critical minerals deal during his Asia trip, even as the two countries continue negotiations to finalize their framework trade agreement.

…Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese also used critical minerals as a fast-track into Trump’s good graces, signing a deal during his October visit to Washington that will give the United States greater access to Australia’s critical mineral reserves and infrastructure.

…In late April, months after Trump’s infamous dressing-down of Zelensky in the White House, Ukraine and the United States signed a deal for American companies to get preferential access to the 100-odd Ukrainian deposits of critical minerals such as lithium and titanium.

Pakistan delivered the first shipment of those minerals to the United States in early October. The South Asian country’s critical mineral and metal deposits are estimated to span more than 230,000 square miles—a landmass more than twice the size of the United Kingdom.

Advertisement

I left the Democratic Republic of the Congo out of the above round-up because those agreements haven’t been finalized yet, but they are in the process of being worked out.

The man and his team have been busy building a coalition.

 Trump was then off to Japan to meet the new prime minister, do some schmoozling, and polish off a couple of major diplomatic agreements there, too, before the last meeting of the journey, with China’s Xi.

The welcome he received in Japan was nothing short of warm and spectacular, and there was an immediate rapport between Trump and the new Japanese Prime Minister, Sanae Takaichi.

Praise, Nobel nominations and promises of foreign investment in the US – Japan’s newly-elected Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi rolled out the red carpet for Donald Trump on Tuesday.

Trump in turn had warm praise for Takaichi, telling her that the US would be there for “anything you want, any favours you need, anything… to help Japan”.

…The pageantry and the venue also seemed tailor-made for the US president.

A full military guard of honour and band welcomed Trump to the ornate Akasaka Palace, with its vaulted ceilings and gold-encrusted walls not unlike what the president wants in his planned White House ballroom.

Over lunch, Trump congratulated Takaichi for becoming Japan’s first female prime minister.

Notably, according to a White House readout, that lunch was “American rice and American beef, deliciously made with Japanese ingredients” – a move that will no doubt have delighted Trump, who has long demanded that Japan buy rice from the US.

Advertisement

There was business being done, as well, and the knot on the rare-earth noose Trump had started was tightened even further with yet another agreement signed by the Japanese, which also included next-gen nuclear reactors.

Japan and the United States agreed to a deal on new-generation nuclear power reactors and rare earths, as Tokyo seeks a way back to export markets for its nuclear technology and both look to reduce China’s dominance over key electronic components.

U.S. President Donald Trump and Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi signed a framework agreement on Tuesday for securing the supply of rare earths used in everything from cars to fighter jets.
They signed the documents, which included critical minerals, at the neo-Baroque-style Akasaka Palace in Tokyo, beneath three chandeliers swathed in gold ornamentation, as aides applauded.
They made no direct public mention of China, which processes more than 90% of the world’s rare earths, making it the source of each country’s concern about its mineral supply chain. Beijing has recently expanded export curbs.

…Japan and the United States would use economic policy tools and coordinated investment to speed “development of diversified, liquid, and fair markets for critical minerals and rare earths”, the White House said in a statement.

They aim to provide financial support to selected projects within the next six months, it added.

Both countries would consider a mutually complementary stockpiling arrangement and cooperate with international partners to ensure supply chain security, it said.

While China dominates global rare earth extraction, the United States and Myanmar control 12% and 8% respectively, says Eurasia Group, with Malaysia and Vietnam covering processing – where China is also the top player – of another 4% and 1% each.

Advertisement

Just to put this in perspective, a month ago, Trump had no leverage over rare earths going into discussions with Xi. In this short trip, he and his team have put together a united worldwide coalition aimed squarely at circumventing the Chinese monopoly and foiling their plans to control the spice, as it were.

…Update from the Trump travel train. He’s done it again. Yesterday, the Hill ran a story headlined, “Trump signs critical minerals deal with Japan.” The President met with Japan’s conservative new Prime Minister, Sanae Takaichi, and was showered with gifts and attention from the grateful Japanese.

It was Trump’s fourth consecutive rare earths deal, following the weekend’s agreements inked with Thailand, Cambodia, and Malaysia for processing and exporting critical minerals. As recently as Friday, the U.S. appeared to be held hostage, stymied, and hemmed in by Chinese demands to part with its so-called rare earths.

Three days later, Trump has turned it all around.

Zero analysts or reporters predicted that Trump would secure lightning deals with Thailand, Cambodia, Malaysia, and Japan for critical minerals supply mere days after China’s move to choke off the supply. Stunned reporters widely described the breakthrough as “unexpected,” stressing that the speed and scope of Trump’s diplomatic negotiations far exceeded their ability to set down their Cosmopolitans and Old Fashioneds and type prompts into their AI chatbots, equally catching by surprise industry leaders, international observers, micro-wrestlers, and most importantly China.

As the Yahoo Finance guys note, cutting into China’s rare earth dominance is a big deal.

… The rare earth deal is notable. It’s worth noting that that China controls 90% of the world’s processing of rare earth minerals. So they’re still the leader here, but he’s trying to chip into that a little bit to.

Advertisement

There were massive investment promises made with Trump confirming Japan’s tariff would be set at 15%, although he is still going to lean hard on her for more access to Japanese markets for American farm products, not just soybeans.

…Both governments released a list of projects, opens new tab in the areas of energy, artificial intelligence and critical minerals in which Japanese companies are eyeing investments of up to $400 billion in the U.S.

Tokyo pledged to provide $550 billion of strategic U.S. investments, loans and guarantees earlier this year as part of a deal to win a reprieve from Trump’s punishing import tariffs.

Those gestures may temper any Trump demands for Tokyo to spend more towards its security in the face of an increasingly assertive China, calls Takaichi sought to head off by promising to fast-track plans to increase defence spending to 2% of GDP.

Overall, it was a reaffirmation of the relationship between the two countries after the frosty period when Trump first took office and Takaichi’s predecessor was still in charge.

Takaichi gifted the president with 250 new Japanese cherry trees for the Capitol, and some golf memorabilia that spoke to his heart – a putter that had belonged to his dear friend, assassinated former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.

Then they both flew out on Marine One to visit the USS George Washington berthed in Yokosuka for a rousing evening with the crew.

Advertisement

Of course, he danced.

And the Japanese prime minister jumped for joy. What a hoot.

And the president said goodbye to excited sailors who got as many selfies as they could before the boss left the carrier.

Trump is next on his way to Korea, where he’ll meet with Xi on Thursday.

The tenor of the discussion should be a bit different from what Xi had planned on, but that’s Trump.

He knows how to hold his cards and how to deal.

The Schumer Shutdown is here. Rather than put the American people first, Chuck Schumer and the radical Democrats forced a government shutdown for healthcare for illegals. They own this.

Please help Ed, David, John, and me continue to report the truth about the Schumer Shutdown. Use promo code POTUS47 to get 74% off your VIP membership.

And thank you so much for being here with us at HotAir.

Transgender Rabbis Come Out for Mamdani

Transgender Rabbis Come Out for Mamdani 9

This post was originally published on this site

Transgender Rabbis Come Out for Mamdani 10

Babylon Bee, it’s time to close up shop. It is now impossible to out-absurd reality. 

It’s gotten so bad that the writers at the Bee have spoofed the problem. And that was three years ago, and the problem has only gotten worse. 

Advertisement

Suddenly Democrats are talking about how senile President Trump is, and remarkably claiming that Trump doesn’t have the stamina to do the job they claimed Joe Biden was so amazing at. 

Or the “nobody is above the law” party claiming, when Letitia James was caught committing the very same kind of fraud she falsely accused President Trump of committing, that “everybody does it.” 

Or making the absurd claim that biological men have no physical advantage over female athletes.

Or, perhaps, transgender rabbis endorsing Zohran Mamdani, who is out arguing that the real victims of 9/11 were Muslims like his (entirely invented) aunt who was afraid to ride the subway in a hijab. 

Yes, “Transgender Rabbis for Mamdani” is a thing. Perhaps even worse, countless New York Democrats find this sort of appeal attractive, eagerly voting to condemn their city to enduring a socialist mayor whose greatest accomplishment up until now was making forgettable rap videos in which he pretends to be a downtrodden Ugandan with roots in a third-world country that go beyond getting married in a walled compound protected by Special Forces troops. 

Advertisement

Sure, he was born in Uganda, but he is as Ugandan as Rishi Sunak is Tanzanian.

Mamdani is an upper-class product of a transnationalist culture that reveres identity politics, but “identity” is just another weapon in the arsenal intended to grasp power. But it is a very powerful weapon, because harnessing the power of the tribalism that identity politics creates allows for the aggregation of groups into a coalition that overwhelms the otherwise dominant culture. 

Divide and conquer. 

Except…to normal people the Queer Rabbi is…Queer. Just as the Queers for Palestine is bizarre. Even Queerer is that they and the Islamists are in the same coalition. 

But making sense is not the point. Building a coalition to destroy our culture is the only point. What unites all these disparate groups with opposing viewpoints is a shared commitment to destroy what exists, not just systemically by substituting freedom with Marxism, but even more importantly destroying the cultural roots that have been the moral foundation for the rise of the modern West. 

Advertisement

That means, in particular, destroying Judeo-Christian values. “Transgender Rabbis” are a thing because transing Judaism itself–creating a moral and intellectual inversion within a 3000 year-old religion is a powerful victory, just as infiltrating Churches and celebrating the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence furthers the cause. 

An entire movement is built around Mamdani and his ilk. It includes rich lesbian actresses overjoyed to Queer New York and Imams who educated the 1993 World Trade Center bombers. Hasan Piker, a Marxist Muslim who rants about killing Capitalists and AWFLs who scream at people in the streets about “kindness.”

The left is less driven by an ideological core than a united hatred of America and the West, and that motivation is shared by a broad swathe of the Democratic Party. It empowers them to gleefully lie, because it is virtuous to lie if it furthers the goal of destroying what is. 

Advertisement

A lot of liberals look at this coalition and think, “Gee, isn’t it nice that a politician can build such a diverse coalition and unify opposites. We need uniters, not dividers.”

But the reality is that the only thing that unites them is a common hatred of YOU. Islamists don’t embrace Queers, or Jews, or any of the weirdos that they ally with currently. They expect to kill them once they have power.

All of this is a product of Critical Theory—uniting the “marginalized” in revolt. It is the religion of hate, packaged in the rhetoric of love and unity. 


Editor’s Note
: The Schumer Shutdown is here. Rather than put the American people first, Chuck Schumer and the radical Democrats forced a government shutdown for healthcare for illegals. They own this.

Help us continue to report the truth about the Schumer Shutdown. Use promo code POTUS47 to get 74% off your VIP membership.

Hamas Faked the Discovery of Hostage Remains But Was Caught on Camera (Update: FAFO)

Hamas Faked the Discovery of Hostage Remains But Was Caught on Camera (Update: FAFO) 11

This post was originally published on this site

Hamas Faked the Discovery of Hostage Remains But Was Caught on Camera (Update: FAFO) 12

As part of the peace plan, Hamas was required to hand over all of the Israeli hostages, both those alive and the ones who had died in captivity. The 20 living hostages were returned but of the 28 deceased hostages, only 15 bodies have been returned.

Advertisement

This is a violation of the ceasefire agreement and both Israel and the United States believe Hamas is slow-walking this for their own purposes. On Saturday, president Trump issued a demand that Hamas comply with the deal. He suggested the delay had to do with their unwillingness to disarm and specifically said they had 48-hours to comply or else.

We have a very strong PEACE in the Middle East, and I believe it has a good chance of being EVERLASTING. Hamas is going to have to start returning the bodies of the deceased hostages, including two Americans, quickly, or the other Countries involved in this GREAT PEACE will take action. Some of the bodies are hard to reach, but others they can return now and, for some reason, they are not. Perhaps it has to do with their disarming, but when I said, “Both sides would be treated fairly,” that only applies if they comply with their obligations. Let’s see what they do over the next 48 hours. I am watching this very closely.

Trump’s message was echoed by Sec. of State Rubio who met with the American families of two deceased hostages and vowed the US would not let this slide.

Under the pressure to do something, it appears Hamas decided to put on a show.

As the 48-hour deadline neared, Hamas, accompanied by the ICRC, joined Egyptian teams authorised by Israel to search for remains beyond the line marking the Israeli military’s pullback inside Gaza. An Israeli spokesperson said the Egyptian team would use excavator machines and trucks in the search.

Footage published by Qatar’s Al Araby network appeared to show members of Hamas’s “Shadow Unit” – part of the group’s military wing tasked with guarding hostages – accompanying a Red Cross vehicle in al-Mawasi near Rafah, which lies outside Israeli military control. The news was later corroborated by Israeli and Palestinian media.

Advertisement

Hamas claimed it had found another body and promised to deliver it to Israel.

Hamas’s military wing, the al-Qassam brigades, said on Monday it would deliver the body of a deceased hostage at 9pm local time, Reuters reported. Israeli media confirmed the IDF was working with the Red Cross to receive the remains in the evening.

The partial remains were taken to Israel and identified as belonging to a hostage whose body had been recovered two years ago.

Israel’s government said Tuesday that a set of partial hostage remains returned by Hamas the previous day belonged to a deceased hostage recovered by the military around two years ago, not one of those whose remains are still missing in Gaza. The prime minister’s office called it a violation of the U.S.-brokered peace deal, and said it was considering its response.

“After completing the identification process this morning, it was found that last night remains belonging to the fallen hostage Ofir Tzarfati, who had been returned from the Gaza Strip in a military operation about two years ago, were returned,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said.

“This constitutes a clear violation of the [Gaza peace] agreement” by Hamas, Netanyahu’s office said, adding that the prime minister would meet with the heads of Israel’s defense establishment, “during which Israel’s steps in response to the violations will be discussed.”

And that’s not even the worst part. The worst part is that Hamas faked the discovery of the body. We know because the whole thing was caught on camera by an Israeli drone circling overhead.

Advertisement

A casket handed over by Hamas on Monday night to Israel contained the partial remains of Ofir Tzarfati, a hostage whose body was recovered by the military in early December 2023, Israeli officials said…

On Monday, Hamas brought the remains of Tzarfati out of a building and placed them in a hole it had dug in the ground in the Shejaiya neighborhood of Gaza City. It then covered the body in dirt and pretended to uncover it for the first time in front of the Red Cross.

The entire incident was filmed by a military drone.

The full clip is about 15 minutes long but here’s an edited version that gives the gist. Hamas can bee seen pulling the remains out of a building wrapped in a white sheet. They take it into a hole dug by an excavator and then cover it with dirt. The the excavator digs it up and as the remains are placed along the building the Red Cross is just turning up to see the discovery. Hooray for Pallywood!

So the outcome of all this is that, to the outside world, Hamas appears to be making a good faith effort to uncover bodies buried under rubble and makes some slight progress to avoid completely ignoring Trump’s deadline. That’s how it was meant to look. Unfortunately, the drone revealed it was all a charade.

Advertisement

In reality, Hamas released partial remains of a deceased hostage, remains they clearly had been holding in reserve. They faked the discovery for the witnesses and the cameras so they can continue to claim a) we’re trying and b) these bodies could be anywhere. But that’s all a lie designed to stall for time.

Israelis are furious about this. Even the families of the hostages are demanding no more progress in the ceasefire until Hamas complies with the release of the dead.

“Hamas knows exactly where every one of the deceased hostages is held. Two weeks have passed since the deadline set in the agreement for the return of all 48 hostages, yet 13 remain in Hamas captivity,” the Hostages and Missing Families Forum said.

“The families urge the Government of Israel, the United States administration and the mediators not to advance to the next phase of the agreement until Hamas fulfills all of its obligations and returns every hostage to Israel,” said the main organization representing hostages’ families.

No reaction from Trump or Rubio to the IDF video yet but you can bet they are going to see it today if they haven’t already. 

Update: Hamas F’d around and it looks like they are about to find out.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel ordered the military to conduct strikes in Gaza on Tuesday as the government accused Hamas of violating the cease-fire by firing on Israeli forces and declining to return the bodies of deceased hostages.

The decision “to immediately carry out forceful strikes in the Gaza Strip” was announced in a statement by Mr. Netanyahu’s office on Tuesday night.

“Hamas have violated the framework by not returning hostages and attacking our forces,” said David Mencer, a spokesman for Mr. Netanyahu, on Tuesday night.

Advertisement

The firing on IDF troops is another story out today. Beege sent this to me earlier.

Israeli troops stationed in southern Gaza’s Rafah came under fire by terror operatives a short while ago, The Times of Israel has learned.

Troops returned fire toward the attackers. Palestinian media reports also Israeli artillery shelling in the Rafah area.

Hamas never planned to disarm. They are looking for any excuse to avoid it including, apparently, ending the ceasefire and resuming fighting.

Editor’s Note: The Schumer Shutdown is here. Rather than put the American people first, Chuck Schumer and the radical Democrats forced a government shutdown for healthcare for illegals. They own this.

Help us continue to report the truth about the Schumer Shutdown. Use promo code POTUS47 to get 74% off your VIP membership.

House Oversight: Biden’s Autopen Pardons ‘Void,’ Urge Bondi to Act

House Oversight: Biden's Autopen Pardons 'Void,' Urge Bondi to Act 13

This post was originally published on this site

House Oversight: Biden's Autopen Pardons 'Void,' Urge Bondi to Act 14

How much is a presidential pardon worth? The Joe Biden of a decade ago might have called it “a big f***ing deal.” The Joe Biden Autopen still insists that nothing’s changed. 

Advertisement

However, the House Oversight Committee has a different valuation in mind. After spending months taking testimony from Biden White House officials and other administration figures, the committee has concluded that Biden lacked sufficient mental capacity to exercise the constitutional authority for pardons and commutations. Clemency actions signed with the autopen are therefore invalid, the committee declared today, and asked Attorney General Pam Bondi to take appropriate action to reverse their consequences:

Former President Joe Biden experienced such “cognitive decline” while in office that it remains a serious question as to whether he was aware of the substance of the various pardons and commutations signed in his name via autopen, the GOP-controlled House Oversight Committee asserted in a letter it sent to Attorney General Pam Bondi, urging her to consider whether that clemency might be invalid and to take action for potential prosecution against some of Biden’s aides.

The committee “deems void President Biden’s executive actions that were signed using the Autopen, and the committee determines that action by the Department of Justice is warranted to address the legal consequences of that determination,” it wrote to Bondi in the letter released Tuesday morning.

The letter was made public alongside a 93-page report outlining the committee’s conclusions from its months-long investigation into Biden’s use of the autopen. It alleged the committee had found “a cover-up of the president’s cognitive decline” and “no record demonstrating President Biden himself made all of the executive decisions that were attributed to him.”

Advertisement

What action does the committee recommend against Biden’s aides? To start, they want Bondi to investigate why they refused to testify by invoking the Fifth Amendment:

The letter specifically asked that the Justice Department further investigate three top Biden White House aides who invoked the Fifth Amendment and refused to testify to the committee: former White House physician Dr. Kevin O’Connor, and Biden aides Anthony Bernal and Annie Tomasini.

That might take the Department of Justice into tricky territory. The Constitution protects the right against self-incrimination, which means that silence in an investigation is not actionable. The committee could have forced the issue by providing immunity in exchange for testimony, which would have negated the Fifth Amendment in those cases and required them to testify or face contempt charges. Presumably, the DoJ would not investigate the lack of testimony per se, but rather the implication that they have knowledge of a crime and are at personal risk of prosecution. If they won’t testify due to the potential of self-incrimination, that certainly raises a reasonable suspicion of criminal activity, even if the refusal to testify can’t be used as evidence of a crime. 

As for declaring the pardons “void,” that and $5 will get you a café latté at a Starbucks knockoff. Congress has no role in the clemency process. That is (for the moment, anyway) strictly an executive power. It’s not even clear if clemencies at the federal level are justiciable; Bondi could try to reinstate convictions and return freed prisoners to detention, but the Supreme Court has made that path virtually impossible. In Connecticut Board of Pardons v. Dumschat, the court ruled in 1981 that presidential clemency actions “have not traditionally been the business of courts; as such, they are rarely, if ever, appropriate subjects for judicial review.” Even the president who issues a pardon may not have the authority to rescind it. 

Advertisement

The question presented here is whether the clemency actions were ever valid in the first place. Could a court review that issue and reverse pardons? Theoretically, maybe, but courts would likely prefer to stay out of those questions. If they did entertain a Bondi attempt to overturn the pardons as fraudulent, the evidentiary threshold for establishing that kind of fraud would be enormous. It would be nearly impossible while Biden publicly defends all of these pardons as his own work, too. Bondi might find a district court judge to go along with the idea, but given the precedents and the dispute over Biden’s cognitive function, any such voiding would almost certainly not survive on appeal. 

The House Oversight Committee has to know this. They want to establish the historical record of the Biden Regency cover-up and go after those who usurped presidential authority while using Biden as their finger-puppet. That is a worthy goal, but it doesn’t require action from the DoJ to overturn the pardons, and I suspect Bondi understands that. 

The latest episode of The Ed Morrissey Show podcast is now up! Today’s show features:

  •   A new group on the Left has just diagnosed what ails the Democrats, and … it won’t come as any surprise. 
  • Andrew Malcolm and I talk about the warning from the Welcome project that radical politics means radical losses. 
  • Are there any moderates left in the party? I’m skeptical, but Andrew thinks one man may ride to the rescue. 

Advertisement

The Ed Morrissey Show is now a fully downloadable and streamable show at  Spotify, Apple Podcasts, the TEMS Podcast YouTube channel, and on Rumble and our own in-house portal at the #TEMS page!

Editor’s Note: Help us continue to report the truth about corrupt politicians like everyone involved in the worst cover-up since Watergate, at least. 

Join Hot Air VIP, VIP Gold, or VIP Platinum, and use promo code POTUS47 to get 74% off your membership!

Will John Brennan Go to Jail?

Will John Brennan Go to Jail? 15

This post was originally published on this site

Will John Brennan Go to Jail? 16

Of all the cases being brought against Democrats under Pam Bondi, perhaps the easiest one to prove the guilt of the accused is against John Brennan. 

Advertisement

You may think that Letitia James is pretty obviously guilty, but a good lawyer might get her off, especially with a sympathetic jury. Compared to Brennan, she is pure as the driven snow, even if under that thin dusting, the snow turns yellow pretty quickly. 

Brennan, though, is indisputably guilty, and no amount of good lawyering can hide the obvious fact that he lies all the time, and did so in front of Congress multiple times under oath. As far as I know, it is only on one occasion—a deposition taken in 2023—for which he can be charged due to statutes of limitations, but there are likely to be multiple counts of perjury stemming from that testimony. 

The House Judiciary Committee referred Brennan to the Justice Department in a criminal complaint, which stems from testimony he made originally in 2017, but which he restated in a 2023 investigation regarding the use of the Steele Dossier in the intelligence community assessment of Russian interference in the 2016 election. 

Byron York gives a précis of the evidence in a Washington Examiner column, and the evidence is damning. 

Often, witnesses will leave themselves as much wiggle room as possible, trying to create a narrative that benefits them, but leaving ambiguity they can use to escape if they get caught. 

Not Brennan. He made definitive statements that are irrefutably contradicted by unambiguous facts. He didn’t merely “deceive” through omission; he lied. 

Advertisement

The dossier, as everyone knows today, was a political oppo research job. It was put together by a former British spy who was hired and paid by operatives working on behalf of the Hillary Clinton campaign. As an investigative document, it was 100% BS.

That, of course, did not stop the FBI from embracing it. The bureau accepted the dossier as a legitimate source. The FBI included material from the dossier in a secret court application to wiretap a former low-level Trump campaign aide named Carter Page. And it even briefly hired the dossier’s fabricator, Christopher Steele. 

Here was where things did not add up for Hill investigators. Given what the FBI was doing, one might have expected that the CIA would also have played some role in the whole dossier saga. But John Brennan, then the head of the CIA, swore under oath that the CIA had nothing to do with the dossier. 

A lot of the Republicans’ questions had to do with what was called the Intelligence Community Assessment, the document produced by the CIA, FBI, NSA, and other agencies describing their investigation into Russian efforts to influence the 2016 election. The assessment had famously — and controversially — concluded that Vladimir Putin “developed a clear preference” for candidate Donald Trump and “aspired” to help Trump win the election. 

GOP investigators wanted to know: Was that conclusion based on the dossier? Republicans knew the FBI wanted to include the dossier’s allegations in the Intelligence Community Assessment. But what about the CIA? Did Brennan’s agency support including the dossier in the assessment? In testimony on May 23, 2017, Brennan said absolutely not, that the dossier played no role in the CIA’s work. Brennan told lawmakers the dossier “was not in any way used as a basis for the Intelligence Community Assessment.”

Advertisement

Brennan told lawmakers that the Steele Dossier had no impact on the CIA analysis. In fact, while his underlings knew that the Dossier was a bunch of crap, Brennan insisted that they include it and rely upon the accusations to make their assessment. Not only did the CIA rely on it, but Brennan specifically ordered that it did against the objections of his underlings. 

…career CIA analysts did not want to include the dossier. The CIA’s deputy director for analysis sent Brennan an email saying that including the dossier’s information in any form would threaten “the credibility of the entire document.” That was when Brennan made the decision to overrule his experts. From the CIA’s Directorate of Analysis:

Despite these objections, Brennan showed a preference for narrative consistency over analytical soundness. When confronted with specific flaws in the dossier by the two mission center leaders — one with extensive operational experience and the other with a strong analytic background — he appeared more swayed by the dossier’s general conformity with existing theories than by legitimate tradecraft concerns. Brennan ultimately formalized his position in writing, stating that “my bottomline is that I believe that the information warrants inclusion in the report.”

Director Ratcliffe has also declassified a 2020 House Intelligence Committee report, which the CIA had kept under wraps, that outlined Brennan’s involvement in the dossier. The report, based on the committee’s interviews with CIA staff, said that “two senior CIA officers,” both with extensive Russia experience, “argued with [Brennan] that the dossier should not be included at all in the Intelligence Community Assessment, because it failed to meet basic tradecraft standards, according to a senior officer present at the meeting. The same officer said that [Brennan] refused to remove it, and when confronted with the dossier’s many flaws responded, ‘Yes, but doesn’t it ring true?’”

Taken together, these passages show that significant portions of Brennan’s congressional testimony about the dossier and the Intelligence Community Assessment were untrue. When he said the dossier “was not in any way used as a basis for the Intelligence Community Assessment” — that was untrue. When he said “I was not involved in analyzing the dossier at all” — that was untrue. When he said “the CIA was not involved at all with the dossier” — that was untrue. When he said “The CIA was very much opposed to having any reference or inclusion of the Steele dossier in the Intelligence Community Assessment” — that was untrue.

Advertisement

Brennan didn’t mislead; he said things that were untrue, and there is no credible way he can argue that he misremembered. It was he, after all, who insisted on the inclusion of the Dossier, and he had to argue to make it happen. 

It’s even in writing. 

Does this mean that Brennan, who is obviously guilty, will face the music? 

Who knows? This is Washington, Brennan is CIA and has gotten away with perjury before, including lying about spying on the US Senate in grossly illegal manners. Brennan COULD escape justice. 

But he just might face consequences. This is also Trump’s Washington, and even though the city and its environs HATE the man, he is hardly powerless. 

This case will be a test: is there any justice when it comes to Democrats (or bureaucrats?). Or does the law only apply to Republicans (and even then, the laws are made up as we go along)?


Editor’s Note
: The Schumer Shutdown is here. Rather than put the American people first, Chuck Schumer and the radical Democrats forced a government shutdown for healthcare for illegals. They own this.

Help us continue to report the truth about the Schumer Shutdown. Use promo code POTUS47 to get 74% off your VIP membership.

Dems Demanding a Whole Lotta Nuthin’ for Americans to Stop Schumer Shutdown UPDATE

Dems Demanding a Whole Lotta Nuthin' for Americans to Stop Schumer Shutdown UPDATE 17

This post was originally published on this site

Dems Demanding a Whole Lotta Nuthin' for Americans to Stop Schumer Shutdown UPDATE 18

Yesterday morning, Ed’s very first piece to start the day was about how the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE), the largest union representing federal workers, had publicly said ‘Enough.’ Even more telling, their comments were directed to Democrats, the very party that has been the beneficiary of decades of AFGE largesse and indulgences.

Advertisement

This main constituency has also been on the losing end of the Democrats’ rejection of targeted Republican efforts to at least pay essential federal workers and the military during the Schumer Shutdown.

If you’re not furloughed and at work as you should be, but not getting paid, it doesn’t matter a whit to DemocratsYou’ll notice how Politico doesn’t exactly SAY Democrats are the ones who tanked paying those essential workers – they let you figure it out through the numbers.

The Senate on Thursday rejected a plan to pay active-duty members of the military and select government workers for the duration of the federal funding lapse.

It’s the latest gambit from Republican senators to coax Democrats to the table amid the partisan shutdown standoff — and put Democrats on record against paying active-duty members of the military.

Lawmakers voted 54-45 against advancing legislation from Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.), which would keep paychecks flowing to the troops and some federal employees who are not furloughed during the shutdown. Three Democrats broke rank to support the effort: Sens. Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock of Georgia and Sen. John Fetterman of Pennsylvania.

Federal employees are guaranteed back pay once the government reopens, but Johnson’s bill would aim to ease the burden for those who are working without pay in the meantime.

Advertisement

It’s so nice how the media runs cover for Dems even as they shoot themselves in the foot with the very people the story is about.

CNN wasn’t quite as polite about what amounts to an ‘up yours’ from Dems to Americans, and all supposedly over healthcare. 

Yeah. But whose, right?

Democrats not swayed by call to end shutdown from largest federal workers’ union

Democrats appear to be unmoved by fresh demands from the largest federal employees’ union to reopen the government, a sign that the shutdown stalemate between lawmakers will continue as government workers increasingly feel the pain during the process.

It’s the latest example of how pressure points have not had the power to bring an end to the current shutdown, which is already the second longest in US history with no end in sight. Over one million federal workers are going unpaid as the impasse drags on and some are turning to food pantries.

Democrats were quick to say they care about the plight of federal workers and what the union has to say. But that doesn’t change the fact that most remain firmly dug in on the position that they won’t provide the votes to reopen the government unless their concerns over the rising costs of health care are met.

…“It has a lot of impact, and they’ve been our friends and we’ve worked with them over the years,” [Sen Dick] Durbin told reporters on Monday, adding that he has talked to representatives with the union and recognizes that they’re in “a terrible mess” representing so many federal employees who are missing paychecks and facing threats to their jobs.

Advertisement

There’s a lot of projection going on in the Democrat ranks, hoping no one pays attention.

The dumbfounded dolts are gobsmacked when called out on their claim of ‘rising costs of health care’ being their first concern.

Well, said CNBC’s Becky Quick a couple of days ago. Since y’all made this mess when you had all three branches of government, and still couldn’t pass a fix, why would you ever expect Republicans to do it on their watch? I would add, ‘especially when not one of them, not a single Republican, voted for Obamacare to begin with.’

She gets a Hakeem in the headlights stare and an argle-bargle-garble answer.

So, yeah, Dick. They’re your ‘friends’ but not as much as the illegal aliens you flooded the country with and who now need taxpayer-funded healthcare since the Big Beautiful Bill put a crimp in that scam. Nor are these federal workers, we are finding out, as dear to you as your other constituencies, like…*check notes*…you got to be jokin’ me.

Sorry, sailor and family who were lucky to have $500 in the bank, the TSA or National Weather Service employee at their station at midnight, less mind the cancer survivor who depends on SNAP benefits interviewed by the CBS Evening News last night, who has to have her son help her out.

Advertisement

Sorry, saps.

You are nowhere near as important to Democrats as teh gays and trans in far-off lands.

…”…$4 million for LGBTQI+ democracy grants in the Balkans. They want $2 million for feminist democratic principles projects in Africa.”

“WE’RE NOT DOING THAT.” 🔥

“This is motivated purely out of fear. And what do we mean by that? You saw the Democratic leader in the House, Hakeem Jeffries, endorse Zoran Mamdani for mayor of New York City on Friday. It was an illustration of what we’re facing here.”

“The Democrats right now fear the far left activists  more than they fear air traffic controllers, border patrol agents, American service members and so many others missing their paychecks!”

Republicans have brought clean bills forward to handle the most pressing issues, and Democrats have stomped them all, as this fellow says, to continue sending American money overseas and to spend it here on everyone but Americans.

Advertisement

…👉Senate Democrats blocked it yesterday.

They also introduced the Keep SNAP Funded Act to keep food benefits flowing — the White House even said it would back it. Democrats haven’t allowed a vote yet.

If you’re on SNAP, your “safety net, nanny-state” party is playing shutdown politics.

Lean on your church, your neighbors, and your food bank — because the nanny state isn’t feeding you anymore.

Chuck must think he looks exotic in a sombrero.

Because he and Hakeem sure seem stupidly, inexplicably bound and determined to keep their heads covered.

If they continue, I’d change to headgear that was a little sturdier – maybe like a combat helmet.

Trust me, guys. AOC and the radicals’ opinion of you isn’t worth what’s coming for screwing over the American people.

Beege UPDATE:  Just in case anyone’s keeping score on the number of times the Dems plunge the sword in as they attempt to commit collective seppuku, they’re now up to Lucky Thirteen.

Senate Democrats on Tuesday blocked Republicans’ 13th attempt to reopen the government after having nearly a week to mull their options — and with a series of pressure-point deadlines rapidly closing in.

On the 28th day of the shutdown, Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., tried to advance the House-passed continuing resolution (CR) and was again foiled by Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., and the Democratic caucus.

Failure to reopen the government on Tuesday came as air traffic controllers missed their first payday. The military is set to miss its first full payday on Friday. Then there is the looming cliff for federal nutrition benefits on Saturday — the same day as open enrollment begins nationwide for Obamacare.

Advertisement

Baker’s dozen losing half-baked idiots.

The Schumer Shutdown is here. Rather than put the American people first, Chuck Schumer and the radical Democrats forced a government shutdown for healthcare for illegals. They own this.

Please help Ed, David, John, and me continue to report the truth about the Schumer Shutdown. Use promo code POTUS47 to get 74% off your VIP membership.

And thank you so much for being here with us at HotAir.

‘What the F*** Did You Just Do?’: Obama Ripped Pelosi Over Kamala Endorsement

'What the F*** Did You Just Do?': Obama Ripped Pelosi Over Kamala Endorsement 19

This post was originally published on this site

'What the F*** Did You Just Do?': Obama Ripped Pelosi Over Kamala Endorsement 20

Success has a thousand fathers. Failure has at least a few dozen disgruntled sources willing to spill the tea, as long as it spills in the right direction. For Democrats struggling to explain their dire political predicament, the tea spills in one general direction — Kamala Harris.

Advertisement

But of course, that misses the mark.

According to ABC News’ Jonathan Karl and his new book, Retribution, the problems started when Nancy Pelosi rushed to endorse Harris in the immediate aftermath of Joe Biden’s withdrawal from the election. When the Obamas found out, an angry Barack Obama ripped Pelosi in a private call for reneging on a pledge of restraint:

‘The Obamas were not happy,’ a Pelosi confidant told Karl. ‘This person summed up Obama’s message to Pelosi as, essentially, “What the f*** did you just do?”‘ 

Pelosi told the former Democratic president: ‘That train has left the station.’ 

The endorsement had come as a surprise to Obama because he and Pelosi had been in ‘regular communication’ as it appeared then 81-year-old Biden was nearing the decision to drop out of the race, and ‘they agreed Harris should not simply be handed the nomination unchallenged,’ Karl wrote. 

‘Therefore, Obama and Pelosi – arguably the two most influential figures in the Democratic Party – had privately agreed to abstain from making any endorsements,’ the longtime ABC News reporter said.

First off, let’s just parse out the sourcing of this information. This could only come from one of two sources: the Obamas or Pelosi, staff inclusive. As it turns out, it looks like both sides corroborate that this argument took place. Karl’s source(s) in the Obama camp insist that this was a friendly conversation, while his Pelosi source(s) characterize Obama as at least annoyed. The latter provided Karl with the f-bomb language to characterize the tone more accurately. 

Advertisement

What about the Biden camp? The Bidens have beefs with both camps after the exposure of Biden’s cognitive impairment, feeling as though Pelosi and the Obamas gave Joe the bum’s rush. Their contribution to this conversation seems both bitter and perhaps an odd whiff of … vindication?

A senior Biden adviser, who also worked in the Obama White House, told Karl that the real reason Obama didn’t want Pelosi to endorse Harris so quickly was that the former president didn’t think the vice president could win. 

‘There’s only one Black Jesus,’ the senior Biden adviser quipped. 

Yikes. Tell us how you really feel. 

All of this is vastly amusing, of course, but largely irrelevant — except for one point, to which we’ll return in a moment. Democrats didn’t lose the 2024 election in July 2024. They lost it in 2023 when they corrupted their primary process to protect the Biden cover-up from getting exposed. That decision came from everyone in the Democrat Party. They were all complicit in the cover-up — the Obamas, Pelosi, the Bidens, the DNC, the White House, and especially Harris herself. They all went along with the Sharp As A Tack® narrative, gaslighting Americans who could clearly see that Biden was barely able to function and speak extemporaneously, right up to that moment when Obama had to guide Biden off the stage at a fundraiser hosted by Jimmy Kimmel. 

All of this “retribution” feels more like misdirection. All of these Democrats are sniping at each other to distract from the corrupt attempt to use Biden as a sort of Theoden in the grips of a Wormtongue cabal that secretly and illegally wielded executive power through a decrepit figurehead. 

Advertisement

There is one relevant point, though, and that’s Harris herself. Earlier this morning, Isaac Schorr argued at The Spectator that Harris is the default favorite for the 2028 Democrat presidential nomination. And the reason is … Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez:

She has no equal in the party’s establishment, the cohort of empty suits who would implement a diluted version of her agenda, though. This group seeks to saddle Americans with much of what they’ve already rejected – gender ideology, anti-growth climate policies, and a laissez-faire approach to border security – but without explicitly embracing the socialist label, or the language of the average Middlebury campus activist.

Those who might run in this lane all face significant headwinds. Former mayor and transportation secretary Pete Buttigieg is the most gifted, but black voters are allergic to his smug, McKinsey shtick. Governor Gavin Newsom of California can bob, weave, dip and dodge with the best of them, but his ambition and inauthenticity shines through in every syllable. Senator Cory Booker’s Spartacus act is a running gag. Senator Chris Murphy is Wonder Bread with Iranian flag packaging. Governor J.B. Pritzker of Illinois is a big nepo-baby whose case for a promotion collapses at the first mention of his state’s largest city. 

Should no one else emerge, the Democrats’ failure to build a palatable, center-left bench could lead them, by default, back to Harris. Her existing name recognition – and the months-long astroturf campaign to build her up last year – arguably sets her apart from the field; and there is precedent for coalescing around imperfect establishment candidates. Look no further than 2020, when the entire party got behind Biden to stop Sanders. 

Advertisement

My prediction: Nope. Harris can’t campaign; she can barely speak coherently. The only way she could ever get to the nomination was in the way that she did — through an anointing. The party got behind Biden to stop Sanders, but Biden at least could still speak coherently most of the time, and Biden actually represented the center of the party. To win the nomination, Harris would have to compete against more than just AOC (who Schorr overestimates anyway, in my opinion), but also against governors and senators that would outclass her almost out of the gate. Harris would be lucky to make it to Iowa before flaming out, just like she did in 2019. If Democrats plan to rally around anyone as an alternative to the hard Left, it will be Greasy Gavin, not Word Salad Harris. 

In the meantime, get ready for a lot more misdirection and gaslighting, dressed up as “retribution.”

Editor’s Note: The mainstream media continues to deflect, gaslight, spin, and lie about President Trump, his administration, and conservatives.

Help us continue to expose their left-wing bias by reading news you can trust. Join Hot Air VIP, VIP Gold, or VIP Platinum, and use promo code POTUS47 to get 74% off your membership!