There are two ways to be fooled. One is to believe what isn’t true; the other is to refuse to believe what is true. —Soren Kierkegaard. "…truth is true even if nobody believes it, and falsehood is false even if everybody believes it. That is why truth does not yield to opinion, fashion, numbers, office, or sincerity–it is simply true and that is the end of it" – Os Guinness, Time for Truth, pg.39. “He that takes truth for his guide, and duty for his end, may safely trust to God’s providence to lead him aright.” – Blaise Pascal. "There is but one straight course, and that is to seek truth and pursue it steadily" – George Washington letter to Edmund Randolph — 1795. We live in a “post-truth” world. According to the dictionary, “post-truth” means, “relating to or denoting circumstances in which objective facts are less influential in shaping public opinion than appeals to emotion and personal belief.” Simply put, we now live in a culture that seems to value experience and emotion more than truth. Truth will never go away no matter how hard one might wish. Going beyond the MSM idealogical opinion/bias and their low information tabloid reality show news with a distractional superficial focus on entertainment, sensationalism, emotionalism and activist reporting – this blogs goal is to, in some small way, put a plug in the broken dam of truth and save as many as possible from the consequences—temporal and eternal. "The further a society drifts from truth, the more it will hate those who speak it." – George Orwell “There are two ways to be fooled. One is to believe what isn’t true; the other is to refuse to believe what is true.” ― Soren Kierkegaard
According to the documents released earlier this year, the FBI and DOJ weaponized their power to target President Trump, former Vice President Mike Pence, and their allies through a probe dubbed “Arctic Frost.”
“Operation Arctic Frost” was a taxpayer-funded witch hunt launched in April 2022 that seized government-issued cell phones belonging to Trump and Pence while conducting a barrage of interviews across the country.
The 2020 Trump alternate electors prompted the Biden DOJ to open the Arctic Frost investigation into Trump and more than 100 other individuals.
On Tuesday, the Republican-led House Judiciary Committee released new Arctic Frost documents, which revealed the investigation was much more widespread than previously known.
More than 100 individuals were under investigation including Steven Bannon, Rudy Giuliani, Ed Martin, Dr. Peter Navarro and others.
Per the GOP-led Judiciary Committee:
-Arctic Frost investigators utilized FBI field offices from across the country to conduct its investigation.
-Arctic Frost investigators requested $16,600 to travel to conduct more than 40 interviews.
-45 individuals including, Steve Bannon, Scott Perry, Rudolph Giuliani, Jeffrey Clark, John Eastman, and Mark Meadows were potentially under investigation.
-Another 111 individuals including Peter Navarro, Dan Scavino, Jeff Rosen, and Ed Martin were also potentially under investigation.
🚨 #BREAKING: New Arctic Frost documents reveal even further wide ranging investigation by Biden's DOJ to take down President Trump and his supporters.
HIGHLIGHTS:
-Arctic Frost investigators utilized FBI field offices from across the country to conduct its investigation.…
Republican Senators Chuck Grassley and Ron Johnson earlier this year released new records detailing the FBI and DOJ’s sweeping investigation that formed the basis of Jack Smith’s DC case against President Trump.
Grassley and Johnson previously blew the lid off another sham investigation orchestrated by Biden’s corrupt Department of Justice and compromised FBI.
It was recently reported that Joe Biden’s FBI – and later Jack Smith – spied on eight Republican Senators during the ‘Arctic Frost’ investigation into January 6.
“Opening of this full investigation is governed by the DOJ Memo. The DOJ Memo requires written notification to and consultation with the Assistant Attorney General and U.S. Attorney with jurisdiction over the matter and written approval of the Attorney General, through the Deputy Attorney General, prior the opening of any investigation of a declared candidate for president or vice president, a presidential campaign, or a senior presidential campaign staff member or advisor,” the document read.
“It is assessed that the pool of potential subjects may include individuals who fall into one or more of these categories. Although members of the 45th Presidential administration are no longer in office, the DOJ Memo states that the scope of this policy should be broadly construed to ensure that Department leadership is made aware of the opening of matters that could potentially be disruptive to the democratic process if publicly disclosed prior to an election, encouraging the FBI to err on the side of caution or seeking approval if there could be any question as to whether such actions are required under this policy,” the document read.
Jack Smith also tracked private phone calls of eight GOP Senators.
Here’s the list:
FBI, Jack Smith spied on Republican Senators and tracked their calls
Americans want arrests but the pile of Deep State crimes may be much larger than expected.
The actions of the Deep State against President Trump, the truth tellers and all of America were dark and sinister. Americans want justice NOW but it appears wherever they look some new significant criminal act is uncovered.
Despite what is done, the far-left will criticize the FBI and DOJ for partaking in retribution – trying to get back at Biden, Obama and Hillary for their sinister crimes.
President Trump’s son Eric outlined to Chris Cuomo the difference between the actions of the current DOJ/FBI and the actions of Obama’s Deep State DOJ/FBI.
Eric Trump just left Chris Cuomo in a state of SHOCK after Cuomo tried to downplay the government’s weaponization against his father.
It started when @EricTrump called Cuomo out for “playing coy” about what was really happening.
That’s when Cuomo snapped.
CUOMO: “What did you just say that you think I’m doing? I’m asking you questions about whether or not if something is wrong, is it also wrong to do the same thing when you get back in power?”
Eric let him have it with both barrels, unleashing a blistering barrage of truth:
TRUMP: “Did we raid Biden’s home?”
“Did we try to bankrupt Biden?”
“Did we weaponize every AG and DA against Biden?”
“Did we do that against Hunter Biden — who had a laptop from hell, with pictures of cocaine, illicit drug use, prostitution? Did we do that?”
“Did we make up a dirty dossier about Biden? Did they try and destroy Biden’s marriage?”
“Did we make up stories that Biden had secret servers in his basement, communicating with Russia?”
“Did we strip Biden off the ballot of multiple states?”
“Did we take Biden off Twitter, Instagram, Facebook — and silence his voice?”
“Did we put Biden in a courtroom every single day, 91 felony counts, just to keep him off the campaign trail and destroy his life?”
“Did we do any of that?”
“The answer is no.”
By the end, Cuomo didn’t have a word left.
Eric Trump just left Chris Cuomo in a state of SHOCK after Cuomo tried to downplay the government’s weaponization against his father.
It started when @EricTrump called Cuomo out for “playing coy” about what was really happening.
Attorney Mike Davis shared a summary of the crimes that were committed by corrupt Democrats utilizing weaponized Deep State Intel Agencies. He’s happy to see GOP Senators wake up to the horror used against all Americans after yesterday’s report that they too were spied on by the Deep State.
Over the last 8 years, Democrats illegally:
– spied on presidential candidate and even President Trump
– weaponized intel agencies and law enforcement to hobble his presidency
– impeached him twice for nothing
– tried to bankrupt him for non-fraud
– attempted to imprison him 4 times for non-crimes
– threw his top aides and supporters in prison
– threw him off the ballot in several states
– nearly assassinated him twice
– now have activist judges sabotaging his second presidency.
Most Senate Republicans are finally angry after they learned the FBI spied on 8 of them.
Welcome to the fight, Senate Republicans.
Some of you have been in this fight all along.
Most of you have not.
Better late than never, I guess.
Over the last 8 years, Democrats illegally:
– spied on presidential candidate and even President Trump
– weaponized intel agencies and law enforcement to hobble his presidency
Kash Patel gives an example of the corrupt and criminal acts that were hidden by the Deep State that he is finding. Americans don’t seem to care, they wish he would go faster.
“WE’RE JUST SCRATCHING THE SURFACE HERE BUT ACCOUNTABILITY IS COMING.”
Kash Patel just joined Hannity and ensured the American people that accountability is coming for the Deep State.
“When I got in as the FBI Director, from my experience with Russiagate, I knew where to look and what rooms to open and what doors to kick down. And that’s what we did…
So we’re just scratching the surface here but accountability is coming…
We’re just warming up, but we are running investigations to the ground. We are finding every single person involved. We will not leave a single room locked… and we will find the material and show the American public… to bring accountability to the American people…
The American public sees what we’re doing to unseal the vault and show the world how the deep state actually operated… This is what Donald Trump was put in place to do, and I’m honored to be his FBI Director to lead this charge…”
“WE’RE JUST SCRATCHING THE SURFACE HERE BUT ACCOUNTABILITY IS COMING.”
Kash Patel just joined Hannity and ensured the American people that accountability is coming for the Deep State.
“When I got in as the FBI Director, from my experience with Russiagate, I knew where to… pic.twitter.com/zEcV8O9i6r
Eight years ago we kept hearing tik tok. Is this tic tok two or are arrests coming? At this pace and after the Bill Barr’s actions to protect the Deep State, American have the right to be upset with lack of arrests.
FBI Director Chris Wray admits to Congress that the FBI is not investigating why President Trump was allowed on stage with a suspect on a roof with a gun was identified at the rally. – photo from congressional testimony
On Monday, Just the News broke the news that a Democrat whistleblower told the FBI in 2017 that Adam Schiff okayed leaking classified documents with the intent to harm President Trump.
This same Democrat whistleblower told the FBI agents from the agency’s St. Louis office again in 2023 that he personally attended a meeting at which Schiff authorized leaking classified information.
The FBI brass did nothing. Chris Wray did nothing. The FBI under Chris Wray allowed these criminal acts to take place.
Chris Wray has a long record of allowing the bureau to engage in criminal acts under his direction.
Here are a few of Chris Wray’s notable lawless acts as FBI Chief.
FBI Director Kash Patel and FBI Deputy Director Dan Bongino joined Fox News host Maria Bartiromo on Sunday to discuss their efforts to clean up the bureau after decades of corruption and politicization.
Recall that Kash Patel was former House Intel Chairman Devin Nunes’ top deputy for years and helped blow the Spygate and Russiagate stories wide open.
Nobody knows the Comey-McCabe-Brennan-Clapper-Spygate scandal better than Kash Patel.
On Sunday Kash Patel announced the bureau has uncovered a trove of hidden Russiagate documents. He said the documents will be released soon.
“I was the lead Russiagate investigator for the House Intelligence Committee…I’m telling you and the American public that we have found material and information and people who wanted to hide it from the world since we got in these seats,” Kash Patel said on “Sunday Morning Futures.”
WATCH:
🚨BREAKING: Kash Patel announces new evidence linked to the Russiagate hoax has been found:
“I’m telling you and the American public.. We have found material, information, and people who wanted to hide it from the world since we got in these seats.” pic.twitter.com/JF80Sy6WA4
Kash Patel and Dan Bongino ripped into former FBI Director James Comey and former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe for “lying to federal courts,” hiding evidence and weaponizing the FBI against political opponents.
“As much as we know about Crossfire Hurricane, he and I just found out more last week,” Kash Patel said. “We’re about to see a wave of transparency. Just give us about a week or two.”
Director Patel said Comey, McCabe, Peter Strzok and others committed multiple crimes including intentionally lying to a federal court, rigging a presidential election, using taxpayer dollars likely illegally to fund their operation and hiding documents from Congress.
WATCH:
BREAKING: In a bombshell joint interview on Sunday Morning Futures, FBI Director Kash Patel and Deputy Director Dan Bongino tore into the Bureau’s former leadership, accusing James Comey, Andrew McCabe, and others of “lying to federal courts,” hiding evidence, and weaponizing the… pic.twitter.com/Ui8r8pmZHZ
In July of 2016, then-FBI special agent Peter Strzok opened a counterintel investigation into Trump’s camp dubbed “Crossfire Hurricane” on suspicions (based on no evidence) that the Russians had infiltrated Trump’s circle.
For years the DOJ and FBI resisted the release of the “electronic communication” used to launch the scam investigation because it revealed the entire spying operation was a scam.
The “electronic communication” that launched Crossfire Hurricane was written by Peter Strzok and obtained by Judicial Watch as the result of a FOIA lawsuit.
The document was previously declassified and released with redactions.
The EC revealed Peter Strzok opened Crossfire Hurricane based on third-hand information that the Russian government “had been seeking prominent members of the Donald Trump campaign in which to engage to prepare for potential post-election relations should Trump be elected U.S. President.”
In 2023, Special Counsel John Durham released his final report concluding the FBI had no verified intel when it opened the Crossfire Hurricane investigation into Trump in 2016.
The now infamous binder contains hundreds of pages about the Crossfire Hurricane scandal. It contains damaging information about the corrupt actors involved in our government.
In an explosive development in August 2022 following the FBI’s Mar-a-Lago raid, sources close to the high-profile investigation revealed that the FBI’s raid on Mar-a-Lago was explicitly aimed at recovering a “missing top-secret binder.”
This document is rumored to contain damning evidence of former President Barack Obama’s CIA and FBI involvement in initiating the Russia collusion narrative against President Trump.
The binder allegedly has intercepted transcripts made by the FBI on various Trump staff. It has the tasking orders and debriefings of Christopher Steele and Stefan Halper, the FBI’s main human sources in the Crossfire Hurricane scandal. There is a copy of the final FISA warrant approved by an intelligence court. It also contains details about Fiona Hill, who introduced Steele to the FBI, and much more.
The FBI has wanted these files hidden from the public and even raided Mar-a-Lago to prevent the information from getting to the masses.
Attorney General Pam Bondi revealed in a bombshell interview with Sean Hannity on Monday that Kash Patel’s FBI has finally received a truckload of previously withheld Jeffrey Epstein documents from the Southern District of New York (SDNY).
Bondi had hyped the release on Fox News with Jesse Watters the night before, promising “flight logs, names, and a lot of information” about Epstein’s depraved criminal network.
Conservatives braced for a bombshell that would finally unmask the elite swamp creatures tied to the notorious pedophile. Instead, they got a dud.
Appearing on Life, Liberty & Levin with Mark Levin, Bondi dropped the hammer: she’d been misled.
“I was assured 120 pages was all there was,” she told Levin. “I kept saying, ‘There has to be more.’ Kash Patel asked the same thing and got the same line. Then a whistleblower tipped me off—SDNY was sitting on thousands of pages.”
The FBI initially handed over only a few hundred pages, far less than expected. However, a whistleblower alerted Bondi that the bulk of the Epstein files were actually sitting in SDNY. Bondi set a firm deadline: Friday at 8 a.m. for all remaining documents to be turned over.
In an explosive interview with Fox News’ Sean Hannity, Bondi revealed that the FBI has now received a truckload of Epstein-related documents from the SDNY.
Bondi also revealed that she has assigned FBI Director Kash Patel to lead a thorough investigation into why these critical documents were withheld.
Sean Hannity: Let me start with the Epstein case because there was an expectation that this was going to be bigger. You had the same expectation.
Pam Bondi: We all did. And the FBI handed over a couple hundred pages of documents. But, you know, Sean, I gave them a deadline of Friday at 8 a.m. to get us everything.
A source had told me where the documents were being kept—Southern District of New York. Shock! So we got them all—hopefully all of them—Friday at 8 a.m. Thousands of pages of documents.
I have the FBI going through them, and Kash is also… Now that we have Kash here, it’s a game changer, of course. Director Patel is going to get us a detailed report as to why the FBI withheld all of those documents.
Sean Hannity: I want to be clear because I think people got frustrated. They were expecting more. You were expecting more, and then less than 24 hours before the release, you got a whistleblower that confirmed there were way more documents that they were supposed to turn over. And then you found out just before that?
Pam Bondi: Well, sure. And you’re looking at these documents going, “These aren’t all the Epstein files.” You know, there were flight logs. There were names, victims’ names. And we’re going, “Where’s the rest of the stuff?” And that’s what the FBI had turned over to us.
Then a source said, “Whoa, all this evidence is sitting in the Southern District of New York.” So based on that, I gave them the deadline—Friday at 8 a.m. A truckload of evidence arrived. It’s now in the possession of the FBI.
Kash is going to get me—and himself, really—a detailed report as to why all these documents and evidence had been withheld.
And, you know, we’re going to go through it as fast as we can, but also very cautiously to protect all the victims of Epstein, because there are a lot of victims.
Bondi also made it clear that victims’ identities and grand jury information would be protected, but the public has every right to see who was involved in Epstein’s sickening network.
Sean Hannity: Well, you had identified in phase one over 200—254, okay? Now, is that the only thing that would be redacted? Will everything else be made public once you get it in your possession?
Pam Bondi: Yeah. The FBI obviously hasn’t had time to look at the thousands of pages of documents they just received Friday. But Kash has a team going through them. It’s always about protecting the victims. But you know what? We believe in transparency, and America has the right to know.
The Biden administration sat on these documents. No one did anything with them. And why were they sitting in the Southern District of New York? I want a full report on that. You know, sadly, these people don’t believe in transparency. But I think, more unfortunately, a lot of them don’t believe in honesty.
And it’s a new day.
Sean Hannity: It’s a new administration, and everything’s going to come out to the public. The public has a right to know. Americans have a right to know.
Sean Hannity: And that goes the same with the JFK files?
Pam Bondi: JFK files, Martin Luther King—yep, absolutely.
Sean Hannity: Some people might not understand the need to redact certain information. In the case of a victim, that should be pretty obvious. But what are the other things that might need to be redacted?
Pam Bondi: Of course—national security. Some grand jury information, which is always going to be confidential. But we’ll see. Let’s go through them as fast as we can and get them out to the American people. The American people have a right to know—not only about this, but also about Kennedy, Martin Luther King, and all these cases that the Biden administration has just sat on for years.
It’s not just sad. It’s infuriating that these people thought they could sit on this information. But they can’t. It’s a new day, and we believe in transparency. It’s going to come out.
And when we redact things, Sean, we’re not just going to pull pages out like they used to do. If something’s redacted, you’ll know the line, and you’ll know why it’s redacted—like a victim’s name or identifying information.
WATCH:
Meanwhile, James Dennehy, the head of the FBI’s New York office, threw in the towel just days after his office was revealed to have been hiding thousands of Epstein documents.
“Late Friday, I was informed that I needed to put my retirement papers in today, which I just did,” Dennehy wrote in an email obtained by NBC. “I was not given a reason for this decision.”
Two sources confirmed to NBC that Dennehy was given the choice between getting fired or resigning. He chose the latter.
Douglas Andrews, Thomas Gallatin, & Jordan Candler
Patel hearings: “The erosion of trust is evident: Only 40% of Americans hold a favorable view of the FBI.” So said Kash Patel in a Wall Street Journal op-ed one day ahead of yesterday’s Senate Judiciary Committee confirmation hearings. Democrats fear the prospect of Patel, Donald Trump’s nominee for FBI director, deweaponizing the bureau so that it faithfully adheres to a single tier of justice — rather than spying on presidential campaigns, rigging elections, stifling free speech, and targeting concerned parents, peaceful pro-lifers, and “radical-traditionalist Catholics.” The Democrats tried everything from COVID to J6, but Patel hit back hard: “Any accusations … that I would somehow put political bias before the Constitution are grotesquely unfair,” he said. Did they lay a glove on him? Not according to left-leaning Politico’s glum headline: “Kash Patel’s hearing, expected to produce fireworks, was mostly a dud.” Look for him to be confirmed by the Senate next week.
Gabbard hearings: Tulsi Gabbard, Donald Trump’s pick for director of national intelligence, sat before the Senate Intelligence Committee for her confirmation hearing on Thursday. Gabbard faced questions and criticism regarding her past meeting with then-Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad. She also was repeatedly pressed to identify CIA leaker Edward Snowden as a “traitor.” Having praised him in the past, she refused to while vowing that she was committed to speaking “truth to power.” Gabbard, who was formerly a Democrat and even ran in the 2016 Democrat presidential primary, recently switched to the Republican Party, becoming a staunch advocate for Trump’s agenda of eliminating the deep state within Washington. She faces a razor-thin margin for confirmation.
Humor: Democrat senators oppose diversity for one day only (Babylon Bee)
Trump’s buyout offer roils the federal workforce: “If people aren’t coming to work, if they’re not going to come into the office and report [by February 6], then they’re going to be terminated,” said Donald Trump in reiterating his directive to work-from-home federal workers. Asked whether he’s worried that his proposed buyout might create a shortage in the federal workforce, he replied, “Then they’ll be replaced with very competent people. We have a lot of very competent people in this country.” This was all too much for NBC News, which reported, “Fear, anger and confusion have swept across federal agencies as workers grapple with a deluge of orders from President Donald Trump that they see as an effort to ‘scare’ them out of their jobs.” Trump intends to fix a broken system, and his generous buyout offer gives federal workers a choice. Aren’t Democrats all about “choice”?
Humor: Federal workers concerned that returning to office will interfere with them not working (Babylon Bee)
Trump issues a school choice EO: There are few initiatives that Democrats hate more than school choice. That’s because they’ve got the teachers unions in their electoral pockets and because they know that the competition that school choice entails is very bad for their white-knuckle grip on American educational power. On Wednesday, Donald Trump continued his shock-and-awe approach by issuing an executive order prioritizing federal funding for school choice programs. In addition, the order gives the Education and Labor Departments 90 days in which to review their discretionary grant programs and submit plans for how to expand school choice. It also directs the Department of Defense to submit a plan to facilitate the use of DOD funds by military families for sending their kids to the schools of their choice. Here again, the Left objects to the people having a choice.
Watchdog claims DOJ broke law removing J6 database: The leftist organization Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) accused the Trump administration of violating the law after the Justice Department erased a government database listing the names of January 6 defendants from the web. “The DOJ’s removal of this database is squarely in line with President Trump’s ongoing efforts to rewrite or erase the insurrection and likely violates federal law,” CREW alleged. Following Donald Trump’s blanket pardon of some 1,500 J6 defendants, the online government database listing their names was removed. The National Archives and Records Administration rejected the charge that removing the database runs afoul of the law, noting, “Databases and other web content may be removed from public access while being preserved in accordance with the law.”
FCC opens probe into NPR, PBS over commercials: New Federal Communications Commission Chairman Brendan Carr has opened up an investigation into National Public Radio and Public Broadcasting Service over concerns that member stations of the taxpayer-funded public media organizations have run commercials in violation of federal law. In a letter to NPR and PBS, Carr wrote, “It is possible that NPR and PBS member stations are broadcasting underwriting announcements that cross the line into prohibited commercial advertisements.” Republicans have long called for the elimination of taxpayer funding for NPR and PBS due to their blatant leftist bias. The organizations’ presidents responded by saying they were confident that the outfits had not violated any laws.
The Democrats’ profound polling woes: Imagine a brand so badly damaged that it has to look up to see lowly Bud Light. Welcome to today’s leaderless and rudderless Democrat Party, which, according to a new Quinnipiac poll, attracts a favorable opinion from just 31% of voters while 57% have an unfavorable opinion. This is the worst number the poll has produced for the Democrats since Quinnipiac began asking the question. Ouch. Adding insult to injury, the poll shows Donald Trump’s approval rating is 10 points higher than when he began his first presidential term. These numbers support another finding from Quinnipiac — that people are more confident in their future now that Trump is in office: 54% say they’re generally optimistic about the next four years, while just 42% are generally pessimistic.
Race hustler Ibram X. Kendi leaves BU: After just 16 months, Ibram X. Kendi has shuttered his infamously unproductive Center for Anti-Racism at Boston University and is moving his race-hustling outfit to the more welcoming venue of Howard University. This will be Kendi’s third school, where he plans to open another “anti-racism” center yet again to ply his racial-grievance grift. It would seem that after burning through $50 million at BU in just three years, resulting in him having to lay off half his staff, he reasoned the gig was up and it was time to move his grift elsewhere. That said, Howard appears to be just the place for Kendi, as it is also home to other fellow race-hucksters like Nikole Hannah-Jones and Ta-Nehisi Coates.
The utterly insidious result of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) is that it politicizes virtually every staffing decision and leaves Americans arguing over racial divisions, even when tragedy strikes. Democrats believe this benefits them politically, which is why they’ve focused on race for as long as there’s been a Democrat Party.
“You have to be a slave because of your skin color.” —Democrats, 1828-1865
“You can’t do this job because of your skin color.” —Democrats, 1866-1964
“Employers have to hire you because of your skin color.” —Democrats, 1965-present
That’s a gross oversimplification, perhaps, but it illustrates the racial obsession that has been a fundamental part of Democrat politics for 200 years.
The race hustlers are also horribly inconsistent. On the one hand, they insist that some people must be hired based on skin color. On the other hand, they argue that minorities must be removed from sports logos and food packaging because of their skin color.
With that setup, let’s consider the tragic accident in Washington, DC, Wednesday evening that claimed the lives of 67 people. Three U.S. Army personnel aboard a Blackhawk helicopter collided with American Eagle Flight 5342, bearing 64 passengers and crew, just moments from landing at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport.
Investigators are trying to determine the precise cause of the accident, and authorities are still pulling bodies from the Potomac River, but that hasn’t stopped armchair pilots from expressing dogged certainty about what happened and why.
Frankly, that includes President Donald Trump. “We do not know what led to this crash, but we have some very strong opinions and ideas,” he said. “And I think we’ll probably state those opinions now because over the years, I’ve watched as things like this happen, and they say, ‘Well, we’re always investigating.’” He went on to blame DEI.
The president would have done better to hold on a minute before doing his typical bull-in-a-china-shop thing. He’s the Great Disrupter. It’s what he does. But sometimes it’s tiresome.
My interest here is the role DEI played not in the accident but in the argument about it.
What do we know about the pilots involved or the Air Traffic Control (ATC) personnel on duty that night? We know the ATC personnel were overtasked — two people were doing the jobs of four. Was that because DEI protocols reduced staffing?
We know that there was nearly a similar crash the night before, as Republic Airways Flight 4514 diverted from its landing descent to avoid another helicopter. We also know that there’s a class-action lawsuit by nearly a thousand Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) trainees who allege they were turned away from ATC positions because they weren’t racially diverse enough.
According to the FAA’s revised authorization under Joe Biden, “The FAA is fully committed to ensuring equal employment opportunity while maintaining the highest safety standards as outlined in the agency’s Diversity and Inclusion Strategic Plan 2021-2025.”
Yes, that includes the requisite promise about “maintaining the highest safety standards,” but race-based hiring restrictions could create staffing and morale issues in ATC. From a broader standpoint, that’s precisely the problem: DEI staffing issues are both real and perceived.
The ideal way to choose employees is to be color-blind and merit-based. While it’s not necessarily wrong to allow personal connections to play a role, the immutable characteristic of race should not. Sex is also unchangeable, though I’d argue it can sometimes factor into appropriate roles. It does not in this case, so I’ll leave it at that.
Trump did get this right, saying, “We have to have our smartest people. It doesn’t matter what they look like, how they speak, who they are.”
He signed an executive order yesterday ordering Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy and the FAA administrator to “review all hiring decisions and changes to safety protocols made during the prior 4 years, and to take such corrective action as necessary to achieve uncompromised aviation safety, including the replacement of any individuals who do not meet qualification standards.”
The danger of DEI has nothing to do with whether people of any skin color can do a particular job. The problem is choosing people based on their color instead of their competence. That priority means DEI lowers standards for minorities, in some cases making them actually less qualified; they don’t need to be to land many positions.
For the countless minorities who do work hard and are highly skilled, they still face unfair perceptions that they didn’t earn their job. Reasonable people have to battle that perception in their own minds. I’m not supposed to think that, but it could be true. The result is, at a minimum, racial suspicion and division.
Next time you wrestle with that, thank the Democrats.
Time and investigators will tell what happened Wednesday in DC. Regardless, American aviation has a remarkable track record of safety. “Since the last crash in 2009 more than 10 billion passengers have flown in the U.S., on more than 150 million flights, that spent more than 225 million hours in the air,” notes Charles C.W. Cooke. “What happened [Wednesday] was a terrible tragedy, but it was an aberration.”
The objective ought to be to keep it that way by making every hire color-blind and merit-based.
Emmy Griffin: Leftmedia Rags’ Project 2025 Freakout — The decades-old “Mandate for Leadership” is yet again being trotted out by the Democrats as a bogeyman.
Douglas Andrews: Iron Dome Is a Big Deal — Donald Trump’s next-generation missile defense initiative is something Joe Biden and his fellow Democrats could never have imagined.
Mark Alexander: Profiles of Valor: SSG George J. Hall — “His determined fighting spirit, and his prodigious combat skill exemplify the heroic tradition of the American infantryman.”
Ron Helle: I Know What You Did! — All too often we are living in our own personal horror movie with an enemy relentless in his condemnation.
John Kennedy Questions Kash Patel — At a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing, John Kennedy questions Kash Patel, President Trump’s nominee for FBI director.
Get Me Kash Patel — Despite Patel’s extensive background, his role in the Nunes memo and association with Donald Trump have stirred significant opposition from the Left.
Five-Hole Diplomacy — Trump did in five holes of golf what the Biden administration would not have been able to accomplish in five months of old-school diplomacy.
PopCon #81: Inauguration — On January 20, your Pop Culture Contrarian team traveled to Washington, DC, in hopes of viewing the inauguration of Donald Trump. Almost nothing went to plan.
SHORT CUTS
Non Compos Mentis
“I can’t wait until American women can’t get blueberries for their smoothies. I cannot wait until there is a full crackdown on all small businesses, as if that’s going to be the solution to the immigration problem.” —Democrat strategist Jenna Arnold
Shot/Chaser
“If you’re concerned about trans women playing women’s sports because they’ve been through male puberty, then have I got good news for you about puberty blockers.” —gender-confused “Jeopardy” champion Amy Schneider
“If you’re worried about men beating the [crap] out of your daughters in their sports, we can always castrate them when they’re little boys to purposefully make them weaker!” —detransitioner Chloe Cole
For the Record
“lt’s not up to me to cut Medicaid. It would be up to Congress.” —RFK Jr. responding to an idiotic question from Democrat Senator Ben Ray Lujan about whether he’d cut Medicaid if Donald Trump told him to (Lujan then whined about audience members laughing at him.)
“Who, me?” —RFK Jr. responding to a question from Elizabeth Warren about not accepting money from any drug company for at least four years after leaving office
“I was targeted with racism and threats. I was called a ‘detestable sand n**ger who had no right being in this country… You belong with your terrorist friends.’ But that’s nothing compared to what the men and women in law enforcement face everyday.” —FBI director nominee Kash Patel
Upright
“Due process must be provided without bias to all Americans, and if we cannot provide due process to the worst, then there can be no due process for anyone, and our Constitutional Republic fails.” —Kash Patel
“The only thing that will matter if confirmed is a deweaponized, depoliticized system of law enforcement, completely devoted to rigorous obedience to the Constitution and a singular standard of justice.” —Kash Patel
“One of the dumbest phrases in military history is ‘our diversity is our strength.’ Our diversity is not our strength — our unity and our shared purpose is our strength.” —Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth
Observations
“Trump’s decision to end birthright citizenship via executive order, regardless of its legal fate, sends a clear message: The United States cannot continue incentivizing illegal entry.” —Armstrong Williams
“It’s not only the speed with which Trump is addressing these issues — and polls indicate a majority approve — it’s the feeling that something positive is finally being accomplished in Washington, which for too long has seemed stagnant and unable (or unwilling) to change things that don’t work in favor of what does.” —Cal Thomas
“It remains to be seen just how revolutionary DeepSeek’s development was. China has a bad habit of both stealing intellectual property and lying about its own technological development. Suffice it to say, however, that China has demonstrated once again that America exists in a competitive world.” —Ben Shapiro
Belly Laughs of the Day
“If we had discovered life on Mars, [Biden] would have sent it money.” —Senator John Kennedy
“I wouldn’t put James Comey in charge of a ham sandwich.” —John Kennedy
And Last…
“Why are you crying? It’s not your government; it’s not your country! … This is a wake-up call for you to say, ‘Okay, what are we going to do to help ourselves?’” —former president of Kenya Uhuru Kenyatta in response to Trump’s freezing of foreign aid
WASHINGTON, D.C. — In an electrifying several hours on Capitol Hill, a nominee for the nation’s top criminal justice position was interviewed by the nation’s top criminals.
Kash Patel, Trump’s pick to lead the FBI, fielded questions from America’s lowest and most despicable lawbreakers ahead of his confirmation vote in the Senate.
“I have serious concerns about your character, Mr. Patel,” said Senator Whitehouse, a notorious DC criminal. “Based on things you’ve said in the past, it seems you want to turn the FBI into a law enforcement agency to be weaponized against criminals. I find this unsettling and deeply disqualifying.”
Sources say Patel simply responded with a silent, unblinking stare.
Senator Amy Klobuchar, another dangerous lawbreaker who has thus far evaded capture by police, expressed similar concerns. “EEEEEEEEEEEE!” said Klobuchar in a forceful monologue during the hearing. “EEEEEEEEEEK EEEEEEEEKKKK!”
The rest of Klobuchar’s statement was not recorded as technicians mercifully turned her microphone off.
At publishing time, Patel’s fate was still up in the air as the gang of criminals deliberated on whether to confirm him.
Travis is back on his mission to interview everyone. Next on the list is celebrity chef and restaurateur Andrew Gruel.
I supported Ron DeSantis in the GOP primary because he has a record of going up against woke corporations like Disney. I just don’t see the same seriousness about the threat posed by leftist corporations from Trump, who strikes me as a bit too moderate. In Trump’s first term, he did nothing about the leftist bias of Big Tech corporations. Will that change in his second term?
Here’s an article from the Media Research Center showing how badly Google needs to be reined in by the Trump administration:
Google stacked search results for Trump nominees with legacy and leftist media sources for the fourth straight week. In fact, the search giant went above and beyond to push outlets that encourage hatred of several of President-elect Donald Trump’s choices.
[…]For the news tab search results, Google provided 176 left-leaning articles compared to only 31 U.S.-based “lean right” or “right” articles. The general search results included a paltry 12 “lean right” or “right” articles, badly outnumbered by the 96 leftist articles in the results. Furthermore, Google failed to show a single U.S.-based “lean right” or “right” article for over 65 percent of nominees that the search giant provided articles for in general search.
And they have specific searches. One of my favorite nominees is Kash Patel, so I looked up what they did to him first:
Google truly distinguished itself by pushing outlets that stoke hatred against nominees like Kash Patel, Trump’s FBI director nominee. Google filled Patel’s general search results with attacks and elevated a fearmongering Slate article with the headline “We’ve Seen Kash Patel’s Enemies List. It’s Terrifying” at the top of the page. Other articles by leftist outlets such as NPR, CNN, The Guardian, The Daily Mail and NBC News spread fear about Patel.
In the news tab search result for “Kash Patel,” Google included the Slate article second from the top, while also elevating a Mother Jones article calling Patel a “useful idiot for Putin,” a CNN article implying Patel was paranoid and an NPR article accusing him of feeding “conspiracy theories” to children.
Another area where Trump might like to act more like DeSantis could be in how he handles the corporate news media. In Trump’s first term, the corporate news media got a pass. They were not targeted by the Trump administration at all, and in fact Trump continues to participate in interviews and debates with members of the far-left coporate news media.
Another article from the Media Research Center explains how far left the corporate news media really are:
MRC analysts examined all coverage of Trump’s cabinet appointees on ABC, CBS, and NBC’s evening newscasts from December 1 through December 14.
[…]Across all three networks, the coverage of Gabbard, Patel, and the handful of other nominees mentioned was entirely negative. Only Pete Hegseth, who received the lion’s share of the airtime, enjoyed a scant four positive evaluative statements, all of which cited his mother describing him as “redeemed” and “a changed man.”
To reiterate: the only positive commentary any Trump nominee received on the broadcast networks was from his own mother.
What could Trump do to address this situation? Well, one thing he could is just shut the corporate news media out of White House Press briefings completely. Or, at least seat them at the back of the room, and prioritize taking questions from large-audience podcasts and conservative news sources like the Washington Times, the Washington Examiner, the Washington Free Beacon, Daily Caller, Daily Signal, Daily Wire, The Federalist, Just The News, Breitbart, Epoch Times, American Spectator, The Blaze, etc.
Kash Patel has promised that, if he becomes head of the FBI, he will reveal the secrets it’s unlawfully hidden, call to account the FBI employees (from the top down) who have violated the law, and end illegal FBI activities.
Deep State operatives and their friends in the media and academia call this a form of impermissible loyalty to Donald Trump. Americans, however, call this laudable loyalty to the American people and the rule of law. It’s to be hoped that Republicans in the Senate listen to the American people and not to the siren song of the Swamp.
One of the Deep Staters who seems very worried that the FBI will be forced onto the straight and narrow is William Webster, one of the deepest of the Deep Staters.
Webster started working for the federal government in the early 1950s and retired only 70 years later, in 2020. Over the course of his career, this centenarian has been a US Attorney in Missouri, a district court judge in Missouri, an appellate judge in Missouri, the director of the FBI, the director of the CIA, and the chair of the Homeland Security Advisory Council. I do not consider this a glowing resume. I consider it a terrifying one and wouldn’t trust Webster as far as I could throw him.
A former head of the FBI and CIA is raising objections over whether Kash Patel and Tulsi Gabbard, President-elect Donald Trump’s picks to be directors of the FBI and national intelligence, respectively, are qualified to serve in the Cabinet.
In a letter to senators on Thursday, William Webster, the only person to lead both the FBI and CIA, wrote that neither nominee meets the demands of top intelligence jobs.
Webster, who is 100 years old, praised Patel’s patriotism but wrote that his allegiance to Trump was concerning.
“His record of executing the president’s directives suggest a loyalty to individuals rather than the rule of law – a dangerous precedent for an agency tasked with impartial enforcement of justice,” he said.
Now, maybe I missed it, but I don’t recall a squeak from Webster about the FBI’s heinous abuses under Obama or Biden, or when they were ostensibly reporting to Trump while trying to destroy.
As best as I can tell, Webster was silent when Obama spied on congresspeople and journalists.
He then maintained that silence about the Russia Hoax, the Ukraine hoax, the framing of the half-witted “Whitmer kidnapping” defendants, the attacks on parents speaking out at school board meetings, the spying on traditional Catholics, the all-out war against the January 6ers (something that stands in complete contrast to the pass that the FBI routinely gave leftist protestors), the way the FBI consistently protected Biden and his whole family, and the vicious persecution of pro-life activists…just to name a few examples of blatant FBI partisanship.
Webster’s photos show a nice-looking old man, but when I imagine this government insider terrified of a clean broom coming into the FBI and forcing it to abide by the law, my mind’s eye summons up a very different image.
The panic about a new broom at the FBI also showed up in ludicrous fashion at The New Yorker, which chose to publish an academic’s essay putting J. Edgar Hoover up on a pedestal as a model of virtuous non-partisanship compared to Patel. I’m not exaggerating. This is how Beverly Gage’s essay opens:
Since President-elect Donald Trump announced his intention of appointing his political loyalist Kash Patel as the director of the F.B.I., critics have warned that we’re heading back to the bad old days of J. Edgar Hoover. The F.B.I. should be so lucky.
Hoover, for all his many faults and abuses of power, was nevertheless an institution builder; he believed in the F.B.I.’s nonpartisan independence.
The essay goes on from there, a perfect hagiography of a virtuous man who cross-dressed, hid his homosexual relationships, and tried to destroy Civil Rights activists.
What’s so funny about this is that, as I vividly recall from my youth, the left despised Hoover because they believed that he was the ultimate partisan, using his vast, mostly self-acquired power to destroy communists and anyone else he didn’t like.
Gage’s claim to write with such authority about the wonders of Hoover’s FBI tenure is that she is a Yale professor who wrote a Pulitzer Prize-winning biography about Hoover. (Nowadays, the Pulitzer Prize is like a rattlesnake warning that a book or article is a leftist wet dream.) What’s so fascinating about her love affair with Hoover is how it differs from a two-year-old interview that Gage did with The Jacobin. There, she explains how the left rightly despised Hoover because of his blatant, noxious, dangerous partisanship.
Mary McCarthy famously said of the communist Lillian Hellman that “everything she says is a lie, including ‘and’ and ‘the.’”
That could be written on the tombstones of America’s media, political insiders, and academics.
As I said at the start of this essay, unless the Senators have nasty secrets that only the FBI knows, they will serve the American people best if they affirm the Kash Patel nomination.
U.S. — To the delight of millions, President-Elect Trump has announced that future FBI Director Kash Patel and DOGE co-leader Vivek Ramaswamy will celebrate the inauguration with an epic Bollywood ceremony.
“Vivek and Kash will crush the Deep State, but before that, they will perform the most special and incredible Indian dance the world has ever seen,” said Trump to cheering fans. “There will be eagles and tigers and elephants and dancing women, and they will even make that cool dance move where it looks like they’re trying to screw in a lightbulb. It will be almost as cool as my dance moves, but not quite, let’s be honest.”
Patel and Ramaswamy seemed caught off guard by the announcement. “I’m an American from Ohio,” said Ramaswamy. “I know the Electric Slide and Cotton Eye Joe. I’m not even that good at dancing. There must be some mistake.”
Sources within the administration say they will pull out all the stops to make this event one to remember. “We’re going to have them dance to the tune of such classic Bollywood hits as ‘Chaiyya Chaiyya’ and ‘Ae Dil Hai Muskil’ while elephants descend upon the National Mall under the rain of confetti fired from a thousand cannons,” said the source. “There will be so many explosions, and we’ll get to see Kash Patel break out the mesmerizing dance moves of his native land.”
“Seriously, guys, I’m from New York,” said Patel. “I can’t dance to save my life. Please don’t make me do this.”
Trump has confirmed the pair have set aside their duties as part of Trump’s transition team to devote all of their attention to what is sure to be the Bollywood ceremony to end all Bollywood ceremonies.
At publishing time, the Trump transition team had also recruited JD Vance’s wife for the performance.
Truth2Freedom's Blog 