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Did four black artists agree to perform at Donald Trump’s inauguration events out of a sense of non-partisan unity? Did they just decide that a paycheck is a paycheck? Or did they engage in an act of “complicity”?

Four of rap music’s biggest stars joined Trump in celebrating the start of his second term, and Essence’s Shelby Stewart was not entertained. The photojournalist made her displeasure clear by accusing Snoop Dogg, Nelly, Soulja Boy, and Rick Ross of selling out, both literally and figuratively:

Once a steadfast critic of Trump’s policies, Snoop’s presence on this stage left fans questioning whether financial incentives or a strategic rebranding motivated his change of heart.

Nelly, who is scheduled to performed at the Liberty Ball, attempted to deflect criticism by framing his decision as respect for the office of the presidency rather than the man occupying it. In a Youtube interview with Geto Boys’ Willie D, Nelly said, “I respect the office. This isn’t politics. Politics for me is over; [Trump] won, he’s the Commander-in-Chief.

The ‘Hot In Herre’ rapper went on to say, “I was born in a military base in Austin. My father served, my grandfather served, my uncle served, my auntie served. I’ve been entertaining the troops all over this world,” he added. “If these people can give their live for the office, Nelly can perform for it.”

Nelly’s defense, invoking his military background and his long-standing tradition of entertaining service members, attempted to divorce his art from the politics of the day. Yet, the question remains: is it truly possible to perform at such a politically charged event without being seen as tacitly endorsing the administration? Can an artist justify participating in an inauguration while maintaining the façade of political neutrality? …

Back in 2017, Trump’s inauguration struggled to secure top-tier performers, with many artists declining as an act of defiance. Eight years later, the landscape has shifted. Whether the motivation was financial, professional, or a misguided attempt to build bridges, the participation of Snoop Dogg, Nelly, Soulja Boy, and Rick Ross signals a pivotal moment in culture.

Interestingly, these questions never get asked in the other direction. Last night, during a lull in the day’s festivities, Fox News interviewed Lee Greenwood, the country star who made “God Bless the USA” into an anthem for patriotic Americans. Greenwood noted that he had performed for most presidents since Jimmy Carter, and indeed had performed for all who had attended the Inauguration yesterday, save one. (The impression left was that Greenwood had never performed for Joe Biden, but Greenwood didn’t explicitly state it.) And yet, no one has accused Greenwood of “selling out” for performing for Carter, Bill Clinton, or Barack Obama/Joe Biden. 

Stewart’s criticism signals a pivot, certainly, but not in the way she argues. Stewart’s accusations are more professionally and rationally argued than others, however, who took Essence’s suggestion of “complicity” and turned it into a “collaborate with the enemy” accusation against the rappers who appeared, and others who outright supported Trump during the campaign.

Collaborate with whom, wondered Charlamagne Tha God this morning. The man that Joe Biden and Barack Obama declared a Nazifasciststinkybottom, only to glad-hand him over the last several weeks?

Even before Monday’s inauguration, multiple rappers were under fire when their names were corrected with the incoming president. Rick Ross was seen performing at an event the night before; and fellow rappers Snoop Dogg and Nelly were involved in the festivities the day of the inauguration.

On Tuesday’s episode of The Breakfast Club, Charlamagne explained why he felt people were letting Democrats off the hook by focusing on the rappers.

“The hypocrisy that people display in regards to who they like and don’t like is mind-blowing to me,” Charlamagne said. “Like, there is no way you are more mad at rappers for performing at these inauguration events than you are at the elected officials who told us Trump was a ‘fascist,’ a ‘threat to democracy,’ a ‘danger to our country and the Constitution.’ They likened him to Hitler, but then folks like [Joe Biden] just welcomed him back in the White House. [Barack Obama] was sharing a good laugh with him at the funeral of President Carter.

“We know why the rappers did what they did. We know why they’re doing it. They got paid. What’s the politicians’ excuse for normalizing Trump?”

In fact, Charlamagne got angry in recounting how much Democrats did to demagogue Trump, only to tacitly acknowledge that they lied all along:

CTG: You ask me, all that smoke you have for the rappers, you should have for Obama, you should have for Biden and all the other elected officials that got us all riled up and scared, only to turn around and have tea with a man they likened to Hitler. [Laughs] Like literally, just was having tea with him yesterday.

I don’t think that Charlamagne is quite red-pilled yet. Some of the rappers certainly seem to be, and the radical Left is panicking at the loss of cultural “defiance” from influential entertainers as a result. That’s why Jess the Mess is getting dragged on social media for pointing it out, rather than having people recognize that they have been (in the famous quote from Spike Lee’s Malcolm X), hoodwinked, bamboozled, led astray, and run amuck by devious Democrat demagogues. Let’s see whether the red pills expand in the days and weeks ahead.  

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The Lava Ridge Wind project in Idaho has been a thorn in Idaho’s sides locally for quite some time. Last June, I told you all about how the Bureau of Land Management had, once the developer’s plans were approved, closed the required 90-day public comment period with a ‘thank you all for your input.’ The BLM pinkie swore to seriously consider every single one of the 11,000 or so comments submitted.

…As these things go, there were quite a few reasonable objections to Lava Ridge’s construction besides its being big, ugly, and a waste.

For one thing, the proposal snugged behemoth wind turbines damn near right up against the property line of the Minidoka National Historic Site in Jerome, Idaho. The caretakers of that place are horrified by the intrusion.

Minidoka National Historic Site in Jerome, Idaho, tells the painful stories of the unconstitutional forced removal and incarceration of Japanese Americans during World War II. Minidoka is a place to heal deep emotional trauma, educate the public about racial injustice, and commemorate our ancestors. When visiting the site, visitors experience a sense of isolation and remoteness due to the sweeping vistas of surrounding lands and distant mountains…

The state of Idaho didn’t help matters by suddenly dropping a water curtailment order on the very location where the development was planned because the wind farm was going to require copious amounts (estimated 126+M gal over the 34-yr life of the project) of the precious and all-too-rare fluid that area farmers were now going to be denied.

…In fact, at the end of May and only a week before the BLM announced their decision, the state of Idaho announced a water curtailment plan for that very Magic Valley region among 5 other districts. The state was literally going to shut the water off if those offending districts didn’t come up to snuff on their water mitigation plans in two weeks’ time.

Idaho Department of Water Resources Director Mathew Weaver issued a curtailment order Thursday afternoon that requires 6,400 junior groundwater rights holders who pump off the Eastern Snake Plain Aquifer to shut off their water…

Where there might have been boosters scattered among locals before, by the time fall rolled around, you were hard-pressed to find anyone in favor of the project, including most of the elected officials.

…From scarce groundwater to despoiling sage grouse habitat and murdering raptors, desecration of sacred sites, or potentially impacting an aquifer that runs all the way to the Yellowstone, people were pretty much united against the project.

…“You could be far right, far left, in the middle, if you live here, and you’re in the Magic Valley, southern Idaho,” Matsuoka Keegan said. “It’s brought those people together. I haven’t talked to anybody that is in favor of it.”

And that was before they found out the New York-based LLC’s wind turbines wouldn’t even be benefiting their electrical bills. 

Any power that Lava Ridge wind turbines generated? Would be going to CALIFORNIA.

The developer made some towers shorter, moved some stuff around, and promised to share a little of that juice with the local yokels, so BLM said, “Looks good. Build it.“

By September, the mad rush by the BLM and the developer to get the thing moving had run afoul of the National Advisory Council on Historic Preservation, thanks to the dogged efforts of the Minidoka Historic SIte trustees, bolstered by a letter to the Council from the entire Idaho delegation.

Frustrating as it is for the BLM, by statute, they are required to work with the NACHP on any project that impacts a historic site. The NACHP put the hammer down two days after receiving the Idaho officials’ letter, terminating their agreement to work with the BLM as they no longer could be assured the project wouldn’t cause harm to the Minndoka site.

This had the effect of halting the project, as the BLM, even though it could go ahead on its own, would now have to justify doing so without the NACHP’s blessing.

No problem for the Biden administration. ‘Going ahead’ was their thing and rules were meant for other people.

The Lava Ridge project was formally approved this December after some more cosmetic tweaking.

The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) today approved the Lava Ridge Wind Project northeast of Twin Falls, Idaho, which could power as many as 500,000 homes with clean energy, while creating hundreds of jobs and supporting local and regional economies. The project footprint reduces the area disturbed from the initial proposal by half, decreases the number of turbines from 400 to 241 (231 on BLM-managed lands and 10 on lands managed by the State of Idaho) and imposes a maximum height limit of 660 feet for turbines, consistent with extensive public and community feedback regarding the protection of sensitive natural and cultural resources.  

The BLM’s decision authorizes 231 wind turbines and related infrastructure, which are expected to disturb 992 acres within a 38,535-acre area of BLM-managed public lands in Jerome, Lincoln, and Minidoka counties. The project approval reflects a careful balance of clean energy development with the protection of natural, cultural, and socioeconomic resources on this historically significant landscape. The record of decision directs required mitigation measures to protect these values and defers future development proposals on over 212,000 acres in the area until the adequacy of the mitigation measures is assessed by the Bureau. 

…As part of the process, the BLM responded to a nomination for protection of the landscape’s importance to the Minidoka National Historic Site by enacting interim measures to limit additional development and protect cultural resources found in the former Minidoka War Relocation Center on approximately 15,000 acres of public lands. The interim measures will stay in place until the area is further considered for designation as an Area of Critical Environmental Concern during a formal planning process. 

SEE? WE SORTA FIXED IT! SHUT UP, ALREADY

The folks fighting this thing in Idaho, on the other hand, weren’t taking it so meekly. Besides, they were well aware of why the Biden administration was shoving this down their throats – a feverish run of last-minute hail Marys to get all their pet Green grifting projects approved come hell or high water before Trump was sworn in.

…”This Administration continues to disregard the valid concerns of Idahoans, farmers, ranchers, sportsmen and Minidoka survivors and descendants regarding the Lava Ridge project,” said Senator Crapo. “It is par for the course for the Biden Administration to issue a late Friday decision dump after Americans decisively rejected the course of this administration in the recent election. I look forward to engaging with the incoming Trump Administration to have this project reviewed thoughtfully and thoroughly for a just and appropriate product that reflects the overwhelming will of Idaho’s citizenry.”

Attorney General Raúl Labrador added, “Idaho has spoken very clearly in opposition to this project. The Lava Ridge project is a jewel in the Biden Administration’s Green New Deal crown and the Administration is moving ahead regardless of the damage to Idaho farms, ranches, rural communities, agricultural aviation, water supplies, wildlife, and historical sites. We will keep fighting this attempt to blatantly ignore the voice of Idahoans.”

Idaho’s persistence, determined resistance, and faith…

Biden’s Green New Deal is trying to saddle Idaho with 241 windmills on 100,000 acres. Luckily, Idaho has @realDonaldTrump and @DougBurgum on our side! Lava Ridge is living on borrowed time. pic.twitter.com/19BywhgqLm

— Jim Risch (@SenatorRisch) January 17, 2025

…paid off last night.

He has directed the Interior Secretary to temporarily pause activities under the Record of Decision issued by the BLM last month. This includes “any rights-of-way or rights of development or operation of any projects contemplated in the ROD.” 2/5

— Heather Lauer (@HeatherLauer) January 21, 2025

The U.S. Attorney General may request courts to pause or delay litigation or seek other relief until reviews and actions under this order are completed. 4/5

— Heather Lauer (@HeatherLauer) January 21, 2025

Trump even went further than Idaho – he suspended ALL wind energy permits ‘pending further review.’

ALL OF THEM

The industry headline makes me smile.

Trump Orders End to All Wind Energy Permits

The worst case scenario for the wind industry is here.

President Donald Trump has ordered the federal government to stop all permits for wind energy projects.

Trump on Monday evening issued a sweeping executive order that the government “shall not issue new or renewed approvals, rights of way, permits, leases, or loans for onshore or offshore wind projects” pending what the order describes as a “comprehensive assessment” of the industry’s myriad impacts on the economy, environment and other factors.

This affects all offshore wind development in the U.S., because all of that takes place in the Outer Continental Shelf, an ocean expanse under federal control that is leased for all kinds of energy production.

It also impacts wind projects on federal lands. Although the extent of the impact to onshore wind is unclear because some wind projects are on state lands, project developers often must get approvals under federal environmental and species protection laws, so an end to permits will be quite painful for the sector.

The new order also withdrew all waters in the Outer Continental Shelf from access to wind leasing and launched a new Interior Department review of existing wind energy leases that will identify “any legal basis” for termination or amendment based on “ecological, economic, and environmental necessity.” This opens the door to offshore wind developers potentially losing their leases.

Additionally, the order specifically bans wind energy development at the site sought after for the Lava Ridge wind project in Idaho. Lava Ridge has been contentious because of its vicinity to a historic internment camp where Japanese Americans were forced to live during World War II. The project was fully permitted days before the end of Biden’s term. But in spite of those approvals, critics of the project close to the project insisted Trump would act on his own to kill it.

It’s so funny how the article is butthurt over how the (days before XPOTATUS left) ‘fully permitted’ Lava Ridge was  ‘in spite of those approvals’  squashed while sort of sliding right over the skullduggery circumstances of that permitting job.

There are a lot of happy people right now who feel as if a boot has been lifted off their necks for at least a little while.

Trump Signs Temporary Withdrawal of All Areas on the Outer Continental Shelf from Offshore Wind Leasing and Review of the Federal Government’s Leasing and Permitting Practices for Wind Projects

This is fantastic news 👏 https://t.co/BXuWwgvV9a pic.twitter.com/VZFF6HY5xN

— ☕ Wαƙҽ Uρ NJ 🇺🇸 (@wakeupnj) January 21, 2025

Hopefully, for good.

Speaking of ‘good,’ a certain new president has been as good as his word.

What a difference a day makes.

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The Bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Washington gave an insultingly political speech that excoriated President Trump for…being President Trump, basically. 

Episcopal Bishop Mariann Edgar Budde took the opportunity to slam President Trump at the National Prayer Service, where he sat among many of the nation’s leaders. The idea of the Prayer Service is to unify the attendees and remind them that we are all one nation under God. 

It was appalling in every way, no doubt coming from a leftist who speaks endlessly about love, compassion, and unity. She implied that Trump was an enemy of gay and lesbian people, criticized him for wanting to deport illegal aliens, and basically accused Republicans of being cruel fascists bent on oppressing the fine and upstanding people who have spent years working to destroy Donald Trump. 

🚨BREAKING: Trump and JD Vance are blindsided by a weaponized political sermon at the National Prayer Service. Watch their faces when Bishop Budde starts the activism. pic.twitter.com/UwXx31hUBn

— Autism Capital 🧩 (@AutismCapital) January 21, 2025

Normally, you would expect that a National Prayer Service attended by all the mighty at the dawn of an administration would not become an occasion for a woke priestess to spew what amounts to vitriol, but then again, this sort of thing has become normalized by the virtue signalers on the left. 

What the heck is this nonsense pic.twitter.com/tkgydvpIWR

— Karli Bonne’ 🇺🇸 (@KarluskaP) January 21, 2025

Budde is apparently a leftist activist and always has been, but you would think that she could restrain herself at least one day. 

A passionate believer in the gospel of Jesus and the Episcopal Church’s particular witness, Bishop Budde is committed to the spiritual and numerical growth of congregations and developing new expressions of Christian community. She believes that Jesus calls all who follow him to strive for justice and peace, and to respect the dignity of every human being. To that end, Bishop Budde is an advocate and organizer in support of justice concerns, including racial equity, gun violence prevention, immigration reform, the full inclusion of LGBTQ+ persons, and the care of creation.

How silly of me to think that a leftist could exercise the most modest amount of self-restraint and decorum. 

The bishop who spoke at the National Prayer Service today previously said “we need to replace President Trump” in 2020.pic.twitter.com/VtOXUkKKKa

— Thomas Stevenson (@RealTStevenson) January 21, 2025

No doubt you would find that Budde is a big fan of “norms” and has a strong desire for “unity.” She is also, apparently, firmly committed to the idea Hispanics are only good for picking crops. 

Trump responds to the sermon at the National Prayer Service, that asked him to take “mercy” on those “scared” of his presidency.

“Not too exciting, was it.”

“They could do much better,” Trump says. https://t.co/Zgvb1l5ICq pic.twitter.com/50QanxBNFc

— Reagan Reese (@reaganreese_) January 21, 2025

Trump was gracious about the whole thing, which is mildly surprising. To get excoriated from the pulpit by a Bishop must not have been pleasant, and the looks on Trump’s and Vance’s faces during the political harangue were revealing. Most of all, though, Melania looked like she was staring daggers. 

🚨NEW: Trump, Melania, JD Vance, and Usha were indirectly dressed down by Bishop Budde at the National Prayer Service — instead of an uplifting sermon it was a long-winded reprimand of Trump’s actions and shaming him for his admin’s goals. It was a politically weaponized service pic.twitter.com/1FvSEz9BEj

— Autism Capital 🧩 (@AutismCapital) January 21, 2025

One does wonder why there was no discussion about the possibility that Budde would do this sort of thing. She was a very outspoken critic of Trump during his first term and accused him of holding views antithetical to Christianity, unlike people who believe that God did not actually create men and women but rather a spectrum of indefinable beings. 

I hope some wag finds a photo of Budde raising her right arm and posts it as proof that she gave a Nazi salute. Turnabout is fair play. 

I just got done listening for as long as I could to some female, Fascist Democrat, Episcopal “minister” lecturing President Trump about all the dirty jobs that only illegal immigrants are apparently able to do.

That’s when it occurred to me that that the fragile mental nature of…

— Cynical Publius (@CynicalPublius) January 21, 2025

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One of the many executive orders Trump signed yesterday continues a process that he started back in 2020. In July of that year, Trump sent notice that he planned to have the US withdraw from the World Health Organization. However, the US is required to give one year notice before leaving. After Joe Biden won the 2020 election, he rescinded Trump’s intent to withdraw on his first day in office, Jan. 20, 2021.

Now Trump is back in the Oval Office and he’s putting the WHO on notice once again. The order itself cites two reasons for the withdrawal.

The United States noticed its withdrawal from the World Health Organization (WHO) in 2020 due to the organization’s mishandling of the COVID-19 pandemic that arose out of Wuhan, China, and other global health crises, its failure to adopt urgently needed reforms, and its inability to demonstrate independence from the inappropriate political influence of WHO member states.  In addition, the WHO continues to demand unfairly onerous payments from the United States, far out of proportion with other countries’ assessed payments.  China, with a population of 1.4 billion, has 300 percent of the population of the United States, yet contributes nearly 90 percent less to the WHO. 

As far as mishandling of the pandemic, even the Associated Press doesn’t argue the point.

WHO made several costly mistakes during the pandemic, including advising people against wearing masks and asserting that COVID-19 was not airborne. The agency only officially acknowledged last year that the virus is indeed spread in the air.

During its efforts to stop COVID-19, WHO also dealt with the biggest sexual abuse scandal i n its history, when media reports revealed that dozens of Congolese women had been sexually harassed or assaulted by health responders working to contain Ebola. The AP found senior managers were informed of some instances of sexual abuse when they occurred in 2019 but did little to stop them or punish perpetrators.

We still can’t leave immediately and we have to maintain payments for the rest of the fiscal year. Also, Congress will have to weigh in before it’s final, but ultimately, this is a big problem for the WHO because America is the top contributor to their budget.

As our chart shows, the United States is indeed the largest contributor to the WHO. According to the latest figures published by the organization, the U.S. donated $1.28 billion to the WHO’s budget for the 2022-2023 biennium, including $218 million in assessed contributions, $1.02 billion in voluntary contributions and $47 million in contributions to a contingency fund for emergencies. China, in comparison, contributed a total of $157 million during the same period, including $115 million in assessed contributions.

All that to say, the WHO is not happy about the announcement. Here’s a portion of their response.

The World Health Organization regrets the announcement that the United States of America intends to withdraw from the Organization.

WHO plays a crucial role in protecting the health and security of the world’s people, including Americans, by addressing the root causes of disease, building stronger health systems, and detecting, preventing and responding to health emergencies, including disease outbreaks, often in dangerous places where others cannot go…

We hope the United States will reconsider and we look forward to engaging in constructive dialogue to maintain the partnership between the USA and WHO, for the benefit of the health and well-being of millions of people around the globe.

That all sounds nice except the WHO has not addressed the root causes of the biggest pandemic in 100 years. They eventually got a team of people into China who had to demand to be taken to Wuhan. Even then, they were not allowed into the wet market or allowed to look into China’s initial response to the virus. And of course they weren’t allowed into the labs where China was studying coronaviruses collected from bats prior to the outbreak. The WHO also went along with China’s early denials about how the virus was being transmitted, delaying the international response. Overall it was not a great reaction by the WHO except that it must have pleased China immensely.

Trump: What is this one?

“Withdrawing from the World Heath Organization”

Trump: Ohhh pic.twitter.com/kyh9I1lXyq

— Acyn (@Acyn) January 21, 2025

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Revenge? Accountability? A little bit of both?

Fifty-one former intel officials claimed in October 2020 that the New York Post’s report on Hunter Biden’s laptop likely came as a Russian intelligence operation. Their reputations, as well as their ongoing ties to the intel communities, lent a lot of credence to the efforts to suppress the story by other news agencies and social-media platforms.

The only problem was that the laptop was authentic — so authentic, in fact, that the FBI already had the data from it and had been investigating the crimes it documented. Two years later, the Department of Justice acknowledged its provenance, as did Hunter Biden in later court filings. The 51 ex-intel officials have never explained why they claimed otherwise or intervened in the political process just as voters went to the polls.

And now they won’t get the chance to work in the field, at least for the next four years:

President Donald Trump says his administration will move to revoke the security clearances of the more than four dozen former intelligence officials who signed a 2020 letter saying that the Hunter Biden laptop saga bore the hallmarks of a “Russian information operation.”

The action is an early indication of the president’s determination to exact retribution on perceived adversaries and is the latest point of tension between Trump and an intelligence community of which he has been openly disdainful. The sweeping move, announced via executive order Monday, also sets up a potential court challenge from ex-officials seeking to maintain access to sensitive government information.

Can Trump revoke these clearances? Technically speaking, yes. Clearances are mostly a plenary exercise in the executive branch, and no one is entitled to access classified material except the elected president himself. 

That doesn’t mean the effort won’t go unchallenged, especially with livelihoods potentially in the balance:

“The president has a lot of authority when it comes to security clearances. The problem the White House will run into is, if they depart from their existing procedures, they could set up a judicial appeal for these 51 people — and it will probably be a class-action suit since they’re all in alike or similar circumstances,” said Dan Meyer, a Washington lawyer who specializes in the security clearance and background check process.

Our colleagues at Twitchy have a couple of good posts on this already, so be sure to check out what arguments are floating on social media now. Mark Zaid, a well-known attorney in intelligence disputes, now represents eight of the 51 signatories and makes clear that he plans to challenge these revocations, possibly in a class action. Zaid acknowledges that the president’s power is plenary, but that it still carries some due-process obligations:

5/More importantly, by law, revoked clearances entitle individual to procedural & substantive due process. Nothing in EO overrides, or references, EO 12968, which Pres Clinton issued in 1995. Nor does EO cite applicable statutes that could relieve obligation for due process.

— Mark S. Zaid (@MarkSZaidEsq) January 21, 2025

Not to get too glib about this, but it’s why attorneys exist. Very few exercises of executive power come completely unencumbered from procedure and review, even in employment. Skipping over required steps can allow the judiciary to intervene, but only in those cases where a plaintiff has standing. If Zaid is correct that “few of the 51 even maintain current eligibility or access to classified info,” then only that few will even get a hearing in court. 

For those who lost actual access to classified info, Zaid could make a case. He misses the point a bit in these two tweets, however:

7/Btw, people should actually read the damn letter. It is typical DC letter by career intelligence professionals, to include attnys, so it both says everything & nothing at same time. Full of caveats. Doesn’t say anything conclusive as right wing claims. https://t.co/MLvjMgpFEM

— Mark S. Zaid (@MarkSZaidEsq) January 21, 2025

Zaid is engaging in a bit of misdirection. The issue that prompted the revocation wasn’t the exposure of classified material — that would be potentially prosecutable — or getting the requisite signatures. The problem was that the idea that this was an extension of “Russia collusion” was a political hit job on the New York Post and the Trump campaign, and even more so a cover-up of the Biden family’s long-range influence peddling and corruption.

That was what these 51 officials accomplished by exploiting their access to make a false political argument, even if they did dress it up with caveats as Zaid accurately notes. The legal disclaimers aside, everyone knew what they intended to argue, and they stuck to the “potential Russian disinformation operation” claim for a very long time afterward too. These are dishonest politicized actors who warped the political process through carefully crafted falsehoods that painted a sitting president as a Russian stooge while letting his political opponent off the hook from legitimate scrutiny over his own connections to foreign entities.

However, that doesn’t mean Zaid’s wrong about the due-process claim. A judge will have to review that and determine whether Trump took a shortcut, or whether he can strip officials of clearance directly. In the end, that’s not going to matter much, because Trump can certainly suspend access while pursuing whatever process is necessary for revocation. And that will amount to pretty much the same outcome, and pretty much immediately as well. 

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Donald Trump is declaring the climate hoax dead, but the Pravda Media are determined to be first responders running around with defibrillators, conducting CPR, and then reenacting the dead parrot sketch. 

It was only last year that we were fed sob stories about how man’s inhumanity to nature was depriving young children of the joys of playing in the snow. As a resident of Minnesota who woke up to -20 temperatures this morning, I could only wish for such a reality, but I can understand how people from warmer climes might like a bit of snow for a day or two each winter. 

“There is an added layer of melancholy for parents who came of age in a time and place where winter meant snow, who realize that their formative childhood experiences might not be shared by the next generation.”

On Millennial Solastalgia. via @CaitJGibson https://t.co/9dktBkXr1s

— Bsky: byerussell.com (@ByERussell) February 2, 2024

Snow, you see, used to be a welcome fact of life for the parental set, but now their children are being deprived of the joy they felt as they made angels in the snow. 

Carbon dioxide deprived this generation of all joy. Frosty the Snowman never gets made these days. 

When Celerah Hewes remembers the winters of her childhood, growing up in Albuquerque in the ’80s and ’90s, she recalls at least one or two significant snowfalls every season. She can still picture pulling back a curtain to see the world blanketed in white, then racing outside to spend a day building snow forts with neighborhood kids, or heading to the foothills of the Sandia Mountains to go sledding. She remembers those days as free, untethered from the rhythm and routine of daily life.

Hewes’s 11-year-old daughter, Evelyn, is also growing up in Albuquerque, but her experience of winter is very different from her mother’s. The last big snow came when Evelyn was just 2 years old — “too small to take advantage of it,” Hewes says. Since then, there have been only occasional dustings, an inch or two perhaps; when Evelyn flops to the ground to make a snow angel, her wing-prints reach the wet earth below. “She’ll bundle up and go outside in almost no snow, and she’ll try so hard to play, and come back muddy and disappointed,” Hewes says, “and that’s heartbreaking.” A few years ago, Evelyn asked for a sled for Christmas. It has never been used.

This past December saw snow at a record low across the country. Last month, a new study confirmed that climate change has altered snow patterns across the Northern Hemisphere, bringing certain parts of the United States closer to a “snow loss cliff,” at which point snow loss will only accelerate.

That story in the Washington Post was written less than a year ago, I’ll have you know. It was as prescient as a presidential poll of Iowans in 2024. 

These 8 Southern cities are facing down a potentially historic storm

https://t.co/hefZUZPgsq

— Mike Walker (@New_Narrative) January 21, 2025

Beege, who lives in the Florida panhandle, was whining about the cold and fearing the dump of snow that was about to hit her, and all I could think of is how it was all her fault. 

BLIZZARD WARNINGS have been issued in SE Texas and SW Louisiana… WOW! pic.twitter.com/ntsSn8HfBx

— Max Velocity (@MaxVelocityWX) January 21, 2025

The cold and snow, after all, are also due to carbon dioxide and climate change we are being told. Climate change: is there anything it can’t do?

This is part of a pattern that, perhaps, proves both that God exists and has a great sense of humor. Climate alarmists make these predictions only to be proven wrong within months. It happens all that time. 

CLIMATE ALARMISM – In 2000 the Independent proclaimed that snow was “A thing of the past” and children in the UK would never experience it.

It has snowed every single year since then.

So they deleted the article and didn’t mention it again shhh…. 🤡 pic.twitter.com/nHPzAjrAOo

— Bernie (@Artemisfornow) January 3, 2025

The potential effects of massive emissions of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere is a subject worthy of study–almost every phenomenon is to at least some extent, because study is how we learn. I am genuinely curious about how climate works, the extent to which natural and human-induced changes effect the climate and weather, and hope that we can find a way to separate science from The Science™.

But Climate Change™ as it is discussed today is pure hoax. You can trust nothing you are being told because you are being told it for political reasons. It is the current version of the ever-changing rationale for complete government control over the economy and for the shrinking of individual freedom. 

Human beings do not have nearly the understanding of how climate works, what all the variables are and how they interact, and a system as large and dynamic as the entire Earth’s climate is inherently unpredictable. 

Most of you are old enough to remember the popularity of chaos theory, and there is much to admire about it even though it was overused as a metaphor. One of the most common examples–doubtlessly exaggerated itself but repeated endlessly by many of the same people who promote climate models–is the “butterfly effect.”

Remember that one? It postulates that nature is so chaotic and unpredictable that a butterlly flapping its wings on one side of the world could influence the development of a hurricane on the other in the future. In other words, anything and everything is inherently unpredictable once you get far enough away from proximate causes. 

You know a rock falling will hit the ground, but go back far enough and you can’t discern the reason why the rock fell in the first place. The vagueries of wind, rainfall, minor shifts in the ground, techtonic plates, and so on all contributed to the eventual chain of events. 

With something as vast and complicated as the climate, conditions in 5, 10, or 100 years are so unpredictable as to make models meaningless except at the grossest level, such as predicting the sun will still rise in the east. 

None of that matters, though, to the climate alarmists. Their alarm is not about the climate, but about human beings being free. They deplore freedom, are disgusted by prosperity, and yearn for a world where John Kerry and Klaus Schwab can determine whether a family visits grandma by hopping on a plane or driving a car. 

Whether you believe that carbon dioxide is a potential problem or not, you are a fool if you take what your are being told seriously. Anthropogenic climate change may or may not be real, but anything you read in the media or hear from politicians or politicized “scientists” is merely part of a hoax. 

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God bless America. This president of ours is something. 

Yeah, he makes a lot of noise and says what seems – to a world used to the polite pablum of diplomatic argle-bargle – to be some pretty outrageous stuff. Even jarring to the ear at times, it can be so bombastic. Lord, it irritates the crap out of establishment types and horrifies the polite elements still existing in society who just want to get along with everyone.

But I find that when ‘WE’RE TAKING THE PANAMA CANAL BACK FROM CHINA’ or ‘THE PARIS ACCORDS ARE CRAP’ thunder from a podium or, now, from behind the Resolute Desk (giggity and thank God), my initial reaction isn’t the old, “Here we go again.”

It’s quite the opposite – not as if it were one of those logic puzzles. I’m terrible at those, not having a logical bone in my body.

No, it’s a puzzlement of the intuitive kind.

I wonder who the message is for.

I feel like I won a prize when I can tease out or stumble over the underlying cause or the beneficial effects of any Trumpian blast.

That happened this morning with two of his more popular Trumpisms followed by the Executive Orderpalooza last night.

Let’s take the Panama Canal. That one seems pretty simple on its face – Jimmy Carter gave it away for $1 and a vague exhortation to ‘respect the rights of the American citizens’ who still lived there.

Trump’s complaints have been that Panama is charging American ships exorbitant rates to use the canal we built and that they’ve allowed China to take it over. Panama does have succinct requirements per the Carter treaty to maintain the ‘neutrality’ of the waterway.

Trump was pretty clear yesterday that the days of ignoring that part of the agreement are over.

Trump: “We didn’t give the Panama Canal to China, so we are taking it back” pic.twitter.com/LUZmsUYBvv

— Sara Rose 🇺🇸🌹 (@saras76) January 20, 2025

It’s hard to miss the message and the president of Panama responded publicly almost immediately.

IT’S OURS, WE RUN IT AND WE DIDN’T DO NOTHING

JUST IN: President of Panama released a statement stating he rejects Trump’s calls for the US to retake control of the Panama Canal.

Here’s the translation of his statement from Grok: pic.twitter.com/IuHvAXYDT4

— Libs of TikTok (@libsoftiktok) January 20, 2025

Sounds like a stand-off, huh?

Not exactly. While the Panamanian president was busy having his secretary fire off the public paper face of defiance, he swiftly spun his action arm into an official audit against Hong Kong’s Hutchinson Ports.

…China does not control or administer the canal, but Hong Kong’s Hutchison Ports has managed two ports located near the canal’s Caribbean and Pacific entrances. In the wake of Trump’s speech yesterday, Panamanian authorities said they have initiated an audit of Hutchison Ports.

So a Chinese entity DOES ‘control’ the ports at both ends of the Panama Canal. A Chinese company – and any Chinese company is indistinguishable from the Chinese government – which, in September, was given another 25-year deal by the Panamanian government to run those ports

PPC is a subsidiary of Hutchison Ports Holdings and administers the ports of Balboa on the Pacific side and Cristobal on the Panama Canal Atlantic entrance.

Several economic sectors called for a review of the conditions of the contract with PPC prior to the renewal.

According to a government statement, PPC will make a payment of $130m in dividends, plus $20m for Social Responsibility and $14,464,491.35 in concept of tariffs (movement of containers and wharfage) totalling $164,464,491.35 “which represents the largest amount managed and received from any past administration during the term of this contract,” said the statement. However, it is not specified whether payment of dividends are advanced and up to which year.

But the United States president at the time peeped nary a word in protest. 

The incoming president has consistently made his displeasure known. Last month, even the New York Times had their fingers under their collars as they split hairs, saying, ‘Wellll. Trump’s an ass…but he kind of has a point.’

Trump’s Falsehoods Aside, China’s Influence Over Global Ports Raises Concerns

The president-elect inaccurately said that Chinese soldiers operate the Panama Canal. But China’s strategic positions in shipping worry Washington officials.

On Dec. 25, President-elect Donald J. Trump went on his social media platform, Truth Social, to wish a “Merry Christmas to all, including to the wonderful soldiers of China, who are lovingly, but illegally, operating the Panama Canal.”

Mr. Trump’s claim is false. The Panama Canal is operated by an agency of the Panamanian government, not by Chinese soldiers. In a news conference, President José Raúl Mulino of Panama disputed Mr. Trump’s statements, saying that there were “no Chinese in the canal” beyond those in transiting ships or at the visitor center.

“There is absolutely no Chinese interference or participation in anything that has to do with the Panama Canal,” Mr. Mulino said.

While Mr. Trump’s claim was inaccurate, the growing influence of Chinese companies and the Chinese government over shipping and global ports, including the Panama Canal, has become a concern for U.S. officials.

The Chinese government has invested heavily in building ports throughout the world. And given that China is the world’s biggest exporter, private Chinese companies now play a major role in shipping and port operations, giving them significant influence over the movement of global goods and strategic positions from which to monitor other countries’ activities.

Brian Hughes, a spokesman for the Trump-Vance transition team, said in a statement that “Chinese control of the Panama Canal absolutely poses a national security threat to the U.S.”

He pointed to congressional testimony last year by Gen. Laura J. Richardson, the head of U.S. Southern Command, that Chinese infrastructure investments serve as “points of future multi-domain access” for the Chinese military.

Trump is president as of yesterday, and the Panamanians responded to that first official shot across the bow by scrambling to cover their sixes. It remains to be seen if they crawl up some Chinese butt in sincerity or if their ‘audit’ is so much empty theater for the cameras, but I can guarantee you something is going to change.

You can bet Xi received the message, too.

Another revelation this morning was a benefit of Trump re-dumping the Paris Climate Accords. Sure, it means we don’t have to buy an EV or eat bugs anytime soon, and that’s cool by me.

But it turns out there’s yet another practical effect that I can’t help but believe Trump was fully aware of the worldwide trade implications, which is why he made it a point to highlight pulling the US out last night. First thing, chop-chop.

There is something called the International Maritime Organization (IMO), which is the global shipping regulator and it is not an independent international board, like you might imagine.

You’ll never guess who they are run by.

IMO – the International Maritime Organization – is the United Nations specialized agency with responsibility for the safety and security of shipping and the prevention of marine and atmospheric pollution by ships. IMO’s work supports the UN sustainable development goals.

Starting to see the problem? It gets better.

They get together to set shipping regulations and policies, and an early January committee meeting agenda gave a hint of what they would have on tap for the IMO meeting this April.

Environmental issues including the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions from ships will be at the center of the 82nd session of the International Maritime Organization’s Marine Environment Protection Committee (MEPC) meeting in London through Friday.

The global shipping regulator is pushing the industry that carries 90% of global trade to achieve zero greenhouse gas emissions by mid-century.

More unicorn fart fantasy – a worldwide zero-carbon shipping industry. Or just a really expensive one pretending to be zero-carbon by paying big bucks for offsets that are passed to…who again?

HELLO

It reconfirmed what shipping companies were saying back in October, and, again, I can’t believe Trump wasn’t aware of this in some facet or another.

According to Bloomberg, A.P. Moller-Maersk A/S expects the International Maritime Organization (IMO) to approve a charge on greenhouse gas emissions from ships as early as 2025.

This follows ongoing talks in London, where countries are negotiating new regulations to reduce emissions from the shipping sector, which currently contributes about a billion tons of carbon dioxide annually. Simon Bergulf, Maersk’s representative for Europe, told Bloomberg that while the details of the framework are still emerging, the approval of a pollution charge in 2025 seems increasingly likely.

Bloomberg also reported that the IMO’s potential new rules include a phased reduction in the greenhouse gas (GHG) intensity of energy used by ships, which could significantly cut emissions and cost the industry billions if it continues to pollute. These regulations are set to come into force in 2027, and, if implemented, the IMO would establish the first global, mandatory pricing mechanism for shipping emissions.

Figures of anywhere from $60 to $150 per ton for these ‘pollution charges’ are being debated. You can imagine what that is going to do to the price of shipping goods from Point A to Point B, particularly with the current fraught international security environment.

All in the cause of the climate cult’s pursuit of NetZero and the tenets of the Paris Accords.

Trump just negated that with the stroke of his Sharpie, so where does that leave the UN’s NetZero authoritarians?

I think the word is ‘flailing.’

…In Monday’s speech, Trump also repeated his promise to change the name of the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America while later on in the day Trump also signed an order to withdraw the US from the United Nations’ Paris climate agreement, something that augurs poorly for impending green discussions at the International Maritime Organization (IMO) where a global carbon levy on shipping is expected to be discussed in April.

When the 500 lb gorilla leaves the room, nobody is left to control the monkeys.

So, that’s the briefest sketch of what’s under two of Trump’s typically shallow-sounding, bombastic pronouncements – they all have layers like onions. 

You only have to ignore the noise and start peeling away.

This post was originally published on this site

If anyone wanted a glimpse of the incompetence and chaos in the previous administration, the FBI’s top leadership just put on a master class over the last few days.

Last month, Christopher Wray made his intention public to resign as Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Donald Trump had already announced Kash Patel as his replacement, which meant that Trump would fire Wray at the first opportunity. (Trump had repeatedly pledged to do just that.) Wray planned to resign on Sunday and leave his deputy director Paul Abbate to assume the role of Acting Director, presumably to ensure continuity until a new FBI Director could win Senate confirmation. 

Did Wray even bother to check with Abbate? It sure doesn’t look like it, because Abbate quit almost as soon as he took the reins at the FBI:

FBI’s longtime deputy director, who had been expected to temporarily replace director Christopher Wray on an acting basis during the transition into the new Trump administration, says he is retiring. Paul Abbate made the unexpected announcement in an email to senior officials Monday ahead of President Trump’s inauguration, CBS News confirmed.

“When the Director asked me to stay on past my mandatory date for a brief time, I did so to help ensure continuity and the best transition for the FBI. Now, with new leadership inbound, after nearly four years in the deputy role, I am departing the FBI today,” Abbate wrote in the letter, according to the Associated Press, which obtained a copy of the email.

Abbate had been running the FBI for only one day after Wray stepped down as director on Sunday. Wray was named by Trump during his first term and had been director for more than seven years. He announced his retirement when Trump said he wanted Kash Patel to be the director.

There’s only one way to describe this: clown show. Wray had six weeks to make these arrangements from the time he decided to resign until Sunday. Did he and Abbate ever coordinate on it at all? If Abbate didn’t want the role, Wray should have found another FBI exec to name as Acting Director, if need be by having Abbate retire first to allow the next in line to move up.

No matter, though. Trump’s transition team quickly replaced Wray and Abbate with two other well-respected FBI leaders in the field as Patel awaits a confirmation hearing in the Senate:

Brian Driscoll, who was recently named the special agent in charge of the Newark field office, will be acting director, according to a statement on the White House’s website. Robert Kissane, the top counterterrorism agent in New York, will serve as the acting deputy director. Both men are well-respected inside the F.B.I.

In an email to F.B.I. employees, Mr. Driscoll said the acting attorney general had asked Mr. Kissane to fill the deputy role. Mr. Driscoll said he looked forward to working with Mr. Kissane over the “course of the transition to ensure the F.B.I.’s critical mission to protect the American people and uphold the Constitution continues.”

The decision to elevate Mr. Driscoll and Mr. Kissane to the seventh floor of bureau headquarters where senior leadership sits signals that the Trump administration wanted a clean break after lengthy F.B.I. investigations that ensnared the president.

Kash Patel, Mr. Trump’s pick to run the F.B.I., had written that the president needed to “fire the top ranks of the F.B.I.”

Well, Patel can scratch that off the to-do list! Wray and Abbate abandoned ship before Trump had to lift a finger to remove the FBI’s “top ranks.” Assuming Patel gets confirmed, he and Trump can fill those roles with professionals rather than wanna-be politicians. And perhaps that alone will improve the strategic thinking — or at least the succession planning — at the nation’s top law-enforcement agency.

So when will Kash Patel face off against the Senate Judiciary Committee? That hearing has not yet been scheduled, likely because Pam Bondi has not yet been confirmed as Attorney General, a superior officer to the FBI Director. Bondi should get a Senate confirmation referral from Judiciary in the next day or two; the only question is whether some Democrats vote for her. If Bondi can get confirmed by the end of the week, Judiciary can take up Patel fairly soon thereafter, assuming all of his paperwork is in order. 

With Abbate and Wray out of the way, though, perhaps it’s not as time-critical as before. It appears that the FBI is cleaning house already.

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As 45 was winding down in 2020 and 2021, the Democrats invented a meme that Donald Trump was going to preemptively pardon Don Jr., Ivanka, and all the Trump family for “crimes” they never committed, and created a frenzy around the hoax. 

The point, obviously, was to continue heaping dirt on Trump and stoke up the hatred. It is what they do, and they used to do it well. 

Of course, those pardons never happened, but one useful thing happened because the Democrats decided to go down that road: the Pravda Media and the Democrats left behind a trail of damning quotes and videos in which they condemned broad preemptive pardons and argued that accepting them would be prima facia evidence that the recipient was an unindicted or unconvicted criminal. 

Incredible video of numerous Democrats and media commentators suggesting that a President granting a preemptive pardon is evidence of wrongdoing….

pic.twitter.com/gtdoaIXMla

— AG (@AGHamilton29) January 20, 2025

They insisted that any president who considered such a move was grossly abusing his power, and going down that road (which Trump did not) would be just one more gross abuse of power. Trump was said to violate the precious “norms” of America (which only apply to Republicans since Democrats abuse power solely for the good of Americans, while Republicans are Nazis who rape, pillage, and steal).

FLASHBACK: Chuck Schumer on Trump potentially issuing preemptive pardons:

“That would be a gross abuse of the presidential pardon authority”

Any comment on Biden’s preemptive pardons @SenSchumer? pic.twitter.com/kNNRYMhpkU

— Libs of TikTok (@libsoftiktok) January 20, 2025

Now that George Washington/FDR/Cincinnatus has left a trail of preemptive pardons in his wake, including for Adam Schiff, the January 6th Committee, Anthony Fauci, Mark Milley, and his entire crime family, the problem is that Republicans FORCED him to do this.

“they all got pardoned today.”

But MSNBC says that if you need a pardon, you must be a criminal. pic.twitter.com/K08c5zpbKk

— Douglas Ritz (@douglasritz) January 20, 2025

Biden’s pardons were the result of Republicans’ determination to destroy Trump’s enemies rather than some admission of genuine legal vulnerability. Trump, unlike Democrats, might prosecute his political opponents. Joe Biden, Merrick Garland, Jack Smith, and the fine upstanding citizens would never do anything so petty as to go after Trump, his allies and cabinet members, or anybody associated with Trump. 

Right?

Incredible video of numerous Democrats and media commentators suggesting that a President granting a preemptive pardon is evidence of wrongdoing….

pic.twitter.com/gtdoaIXMla

— AG (@AGHamilton29) January 20, 2025

This is, of course, beyond absurd. Still, the Pravda Media is trying to sell this nonsense to us with the idea that Democrats should be able to commit any crime because they are the good guys. At the same time, Republicans who did nothing wrong should be persecuted and tossed in jail at the first moment they can be. 

Notice Adam Schiff’s silence now that he is the lying crony receiving the pardon in the scenario and the person doing the pardoning is Joe Biden. pic.twitter.com/Z91tulef9G

— Bad Hombre (@joma_gc) January 20, 2025

Some of this they actually believe because they presume that being a Republican is prima facia evidence that you are a criminal. Being a Democrat–unless you cross the powers that be, that is–is proof of virtue. Hunter Biden, for God’s sake, was defended by the Establishment despite copious evidence that he was a corrupt human trafficking felon who filmed his own crimes. 

Cory Booker is really struggling with the mental and rhetorical gymnastics required to justify Biden’s pardons, but attack Trump’s.

Democrat brains are on overload trying to square this circle. pic.twitter.com/Gyn9BK0XJL

— Western Lensman (@WesternLensman) January 21, 2025

That was Russian disinformation. And you know Trump is a Russian spy…

Biden’s own Justice Department just argued that any January 6th defendant who accepted a pardon was admitting that they were a criminal, but this argument too applies only to Republicans. 

ICYMI:

Biden Justice Department tells court an acceptance of pardon is “a confession of guilt.” pic.twitter.com/TGCA0EUa2e

— 🇺🇸 Mike Davis 🇺🇸 (@mrddmia) January 20, 2025

I actually think that the norm prohibiting the prosecution of political people out of power for crimes committed while executing their duties is generally a good one, except for cases where power was grossly abused in an obvious way. Any marginal cases should be ignored because down that path lies Banana Republic-land. It can be frustrating, but the danger of tit-for-tat prosecutions is rarely worth the satisfaction. 

Gross abuses, of course, are a different matter. Shredding documents, cover-ups of gross crimes such as killing 20 million people (I am looking at you, Anthony Fauci), and committing treason (Mark Milley) should be prosecuted, but less serious or ambiguous crimes should be overlooked not because doing so satisfies justice, but because we live in a world where “show me the man and I’ll show you the crime” can easily become a call to action against inconvenient enemies. 

We can’t let the hypocrisy go because if it goes unpunished, it will be repeated. A few high-profile scalps–not everyone in the manner of Garland’s January 6th witch hunt–are in order. 

I nominate Milley, Mayorkas, and Fauci as candidates. Find a way around the pardons. Catch them in new perjuries. Whatever it takes. 

Them’s the rules the Democrats made. 

And remember–the Pravda Media said accepting a pardon is proof of criminality, so keep repeating that these people are guilty. 

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I for one have not yet grown tired of all the winning. And I suspect our readers have a second wind for more, too. Especially when this win means we all get to stay in the game rather than have the federal government shut us down. 

The win this time came at the Department of Homeland Security, which is days away from getting newly appointed Secretary Kristi Noem installed. Word has reached DHS that the new sheriff is in town anyway, and this one plans to put an end to government censorship via politicized “fact checks.” The acting DHS head has put an end to the last of the Ministry of Truth functions pushed by the Biden administration:

Donald Trump’s acting Homeland Security chief has ordered the dismantling of all the department’s advisory boards to guard against “misuse of resources” after the Biden administration’s disastrous attempt to create a Big Brother-style “Disinformation Governance Board,” The Post has learned.

In a memo dispatched Monday evening, Benjamine Huffman mandated the “termination of all current memberships on advisory committees with DHS, effective immediately.”

“Future committee activities will be focused solely on advancing our critical mission to protect the homeland and support DHS’s strategic priorities,” the memo went on.

Nina Jankowicz hardest hit! And don’t think for a moment that the New York Post won’t take its victory lap over the erstwhile Official Censor of the Joe Biden Administration:

Adding fuel to the firestorm as the fact that board’s director, Nina Jankowicz, had repeatedly cast doubt on The Post’s reporting about former first son Hunter Biden’s laptop.

Then-DHS Secretary Alejandro Majorkas quietly discontinued the board weeks after it was announced, leaving Jankowicz to find other employment as the head of a nonprofit that as of April 2024 was insisting that Russia had “interfered in our democracy” during the 2016 election.

In fact, some may be surprised to hear that these advisory boards still operated at all. Alejandro Mayorkas assured Congress that the Biden administration had ended its efforts to police speech through DHS, although Mark Zuckerberg would strenuously dispute that now. It raises this question: What would Biden — or whoever was behind the Weekend At Bernie’s act at the White House — have done with those boards in a second term?

Luke Rosiak provided the answer last April. The self-professed ‘Mary Poppins of Disinformation’ had set up her own censorship shop and was looking for ways to work with the federal government to continue violating the First Amendment and suppressing dissent and debate:

The Biden administration’s former “disinformation czar,” ousted after an apparent attempt to create an Orwellian ministry of truth within the Department of Defense, has launched a new nonprofit that declares criticism of “disinformation researchers” such as herself as a chief threat to the United States of America.

“The campaign against counter-disinformation work is the greatest threat to freedom of expression and academic integrity since the McCarthy era,” Nina Jankowicz said in a press release, pledging that her group would not “allow it to continue.”

“Once researchers are free to conduct their essential work, the American people will gain a better understanding of the nature and severity of the disinformation threats we face,” she said. “Disinformation knows no political party. Its ultimate victim is our democracy.”

We haven’t heard much from Jankowicz since then. One has to wonder whether her Democrat allies told her to pipe down, given the fact that Mayorkas hadn’t yet actually ended the earlier effort — and of course Joe “Sharp as a Tack” Biden was handling the “cheap fakes” PR effort at the White House. Too bad, though; that disinformation really did threaten democracy, although Jankowicz would no doubt have pushed hard to shut down any sense that Biden was cognitively suspect and far too gone to handle another four months on his own, let alone four years.

Of course, DHS wasn’t the only locus for the Joe Biden Big Brother-Big Tech Industrial Censorship Complex. Some of those efforts came out of the State Department, notably the Global Engagement Center, which Antony Blinken just tried to hide by dispersing it into the bureaucracy. Hopefully, Marco Rubio will act soon to fire not only the GEC’s Winston Smiths but also the State Department officers that tried playing hide-and-go-seek with the censorship efforts. Health and Human Services also played a big role in leveraging government power to force social media platforms to suppress debate and dissent, and Robert Kennedy Jr will have to deal with that too — assuming he wins confirmation. 

This is still a good start, and worth celebrating. But we can’t feel safe until every government agency repudiates its Big Brother boards and projects. And thanks to our VIP members, we can feel safe even while others like Jankowicz attempt to intimidate advertisers into de-platforming speech they don’t like.