For those that need to hear this… alarm bells should go off if Luke Bryan texts you asking for your bank information. Though Luke Bryan is having to take a bit of a break from performing as of right now, I can assure you that he doesn’t have enough free time to go around texting random people to offer them up money. Sadly, one Nebraska man found that out the hard way. According to the Lancaster County Sheriff’s Office, a 59-year-old Bennet man was on the wrong end of a scam this past week. The older individual got a text from someone claiming to be Luke Bryan. Eventually, the scammer asked for the man to send over his savings account information. The Nebraska man did that after “Luke Bryan” said that he’d put $300 in his savings account. When the man went to check to see if the money had come through, his savings account had been wiped clean. The good news, if you can call it that, is that the Nebraska man only lost $600 in total. We’ve seen plenty of worse instances of scamming, like when a woman sent over $60,000 to a scammer who was posing as Kevin Costner. $600 is nothing to sneeze at, but it’s still a loss of money that could have easily been avoided. Here’s the Lancaster County Sherriff’s Office’s official statement on the matter: “On June 17th, a 59-year-old Bennet man received a text from an individual he thought was Luke Bryan. On the 17th, this individual who was posing as Luke Bryan asked for the gentleman’s saving account number, which he did give. The reason why is because he knew Luke Bryan is a country singer and is a good guy, so he did give that information out. When he went and checked, he was supposed to get $300. When he checked his account, it was down to $2.42. His loss was $600. We have not heard of this one, but if anyone is texting Luke Bryan, it’s a scam.” The moral of the story here is to stay vigilant when it comes scammers in this day and age, and especially keep an eye out on behalf of some of our older loved ones. Scammers often single out lonely people, so if you know someone vulnerable in your life that also happens to be a fan of Luke Bryan, keep a close eye on them. And remember that celebrities aren’t ever going to ask regular people for money, or offer up money with no strings attached.  And if you think this doesn’t happen often, you’d be wrong. Back in July of 2024, a story about a Massachusetts woman sending a fake Vince Gill over $350,000 was shared. In an attempt to get ahead of some of these scams, the Federal Trade Commission put out this release back in 2018 warning people to stay alert when being asked to transfer money online: “They’re asking fans to send money for all kinds of supposed reasons – like claiming a prize, donating to a charity, or giving help of some kind. Some celebs do raise money for legitimate causes. But you want to be sure the cause – and the person asking you to support it – are real. Imposter scams come in many varieties, but they all work the same way: a scammer pretends to be someone you trust to convince you to send them money. And that’s exactly what these celebrity imposters are trying to do.” Luke Bryan has a song called “Most People Are Good,” and I do truly believe that… but it’s always good to keep an eye out for those bad apple out there.The post Nebraska Man Gave His Savings Account Information To Someone Who Claimed To Be Luke Bryan… & Got Scammed first appeared on Whiskey Riff.

Too tragic to revisit.

I’ve got four predictions about serious things (and one about something not quite that serious) that I’ll throw your way in this 5QT entry. That’s all the introduction you’re going to get. It’s all you need. 1. CNN Isn’t Going To Make It I don’t know exactly when or how it’ll end, but at some point in the relatively near future, CNN will close its doors and either disappear from the cable dial altogether or it’ll be re-branded as something else. (RELATED: CNN’s Credibility? Totally Obliterated!) The Origami Channel. Or the Yoga Network. Maybe Pokémon Central. What it won’t be is CNN. Because CNN isn’t operable anymore. I’m saying CNN is inoperable, because that’s the word Israel’s Atomic Energy Commission used to describe what the bomb damage from U.S. airstrikes on the Iranian nuclear facility at Fordo has done. CNN’s Natasha Bertrand attempted to paint a different picture this week. Bertrand ran with a story based on a leaked Defense Intelligence Agency assessment, rated “low confidence” (otherwise known as garbage), which said the bombs hadn’t really done much harm. The leak was politically driven, and the leaker or leakers were the usual Deep State clowns who’ve put their own politics over U.S. interests for the last 20 years. It shouldn’t have been considered newsworthy, as there is no corroboration of this “report,” but Bertrand put CNN’s credibility on the line in running with this report, and the suits at CNN let her do it. That happened, and then this happened… .@PressSec: “We have seen this playbook run before… leaked bits and pieces of an intel assessment to push a false narrative. And it’s to the same reporter, I will add — @NatashaBertrand of @CNN — who has done this in the past. In 2020, it was Natasha Bertrand who had 51… pic.twitter.com/Dwy75y3HoE — Rapid Response 47 (@RapidResponse47) June 26, 2025 Bye, Natasha. Bye, CNN. There’s no recovering from a Massive Ordinance Penetrator like that. You’ve already heard that Warner Bros. Discovery is spinning CNN off as part of its new “Global Networks” island-of-unwanted-toys company. Global Networks is being built to die. It can only survive on a shoestring, because there isn’t enough viewership in the bad cable channels in its collection to bring in real advertising dollars, and the days of raking in a piece of cable subscribership dollars as part of basic cable packages are rapidly coming to a close. If anybody respected CNN’s news coverage, it might be able to survive as an online news outlet. That’s also coming to a close. There’s no way this thing survives another 10 years. I give it maybe three. 2. Zohran Mamdani Will Be an Albatross so Heavy Around the Democrats’ Necks as to Cause a Schism You might have seen this video. It’s from an NRCC tracker who’s harassing New York Democrat Congressman Tom Suozzi, and it’s a little on the obnoxious side. I’m showing it to you not as an own-the-libs thing but rather as an exposition of just how uncomfortable establishment Democrats are over what happened on Tuesday. Here’s a meltdown… My last column was on Mamdani and what he’ll do to New York if he gets elected. But this is an indication of what he’s already doing to the Democrats. (RELATED: The Fourth Era Comes to the Big Rotten Apple) And it’s obviously not just Mamdani. The fruited plain is crawling with insane, lunatic radical progressives who are ascendant within that party as it loses ground among the American people. Suozzi is no conservative. He’s pretty nondescript as liberal-to-socialist establishment Dems go. But backed Andrew Cuomo against Mamdani, and he doesn’t want to answer the tracker’s question about the Adams-Mamdani matchup because there is no winning answer. Adams isn’t exactly a centrist; he’s more your run-of-the-mill urban black Democrat who’s perhaps socially centrist and economically illiterate. But compared to Mamdani, whose defining quote is “Queer liberation means defund the police,” Adams might as well be Alphonse D’Amato. Which makes for an ugly choice if you’re Tom Suozzi. Back Adams and you now infuriate the Far Left who increasingly run your party, and you’ll be lucky if you don’t draw some wannabe Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez neocommunist in a primary. But back Mamdani and you own whatever destruction he brings to the Big Apple, and who knows what next year’s midterms will bring. That’s George Santos’s district, you know. Suozzi only won it with 51.8 percent of the vote last November. And now he’s going to get sandwiched between two very high-profile, bad options. And he isn’t going to be alone. There are a lot of Tom Suozzis out there who are going to watch their political fortunes unravel over the leftward lurch of the Democrat Party. Before this is over, you might well see the Democrats break apart. When your party’s orthodoxy becomes the 20 percent position in every 80-20 issue, you can’t hold very many politicians to it. 3. The Pro-Palestine Thing Has Peaked, and Its Decline Will Be Swift I’ll just give you one data point among many on this, and then we can discuss it. Have you ever heard of the rapper Azealia Banks? She’s kind of a big deal. And she was booked to play two sizable music festivals in the U.K. — Maiden Voyage and Boomtown — but just pulled out of both. Why? Because she wouldn’t toe the promoters’ line… So guys, I am cancelling Boomtown and Maiden Voyage, the promoters have been stressing me out for weeks trying to force me to say free Palestine and threatening to cut me from the bill because I won’t say free Palestine and I’m not dealing with the threats and I’m not putting on… — Azealia Banks (@azealiaslacewig) June 25, 2025 Her screed has some NSFW language in it, and not everything she says in the X thread that follows the announcement is particularly brilliant, but if you manage your standards at a realistic level, what you’ll take from this is a couple of things. First, Banks is making a definitive allegation that music promoters are essentially extorting political messages out of the acts, which is pretty ugly stuff. It’s one thing to tell an artist you’re promoting that, for marketing purposes, maybe taking controversial political positions isn’t a good idea; that’s not what this is. This is an affirmative demand, if she’s telling the truth, that she throw in behind a specific stance. Which, second, is a little window into just how organic the dumb leftism you get from music acts, actors, and other pop culture celebs really is. Astroturfing the pro-Palestine position among music acts is completely unsurprising. Banks blowing the whistle on it makes this a suspicion proved true, and you’re going to see a notable backlash and a petering-out of the pro-Hamas boomlet. Besides, Hamas is a bunch of losers. Who really wants to identify with them? When you understand that most of the leaders of the “pro-Palestinian” movement are paid or extorted shills, the cool factor drops to zero pretty quickly. 4. Tim Walz Is Going To Come To Grief Over His Past No, this isn’t about Vance Boelter and his rather amusing accusation that Tim Walz, who appointed him to Minnesota’s state workforce commission, had directed him to assassinate Amy Klobuchar so her Senate seat would open and give Walz a chance to fill it. Instead, it’s this… ?? GOV. TIM WALZ ACCUSED OF LEAKING U.S. MILITARY SECRETS TO CHINA?! Reports say men who served with Tim Walz in the National Guard went to the FBI with serious concerns — they believed he leaked classified tank designs to the Chinese government ?️‍♂️??. And not long after? China… — Idgius Alpha (@IdgiusAlpha) June 26, 2025 I’m not saying that allegation is any more credible than Boelter’s. Well, yes, I am. Walz’s affinity for China is unmistakable and well-documented. The fact that he and his wife ran a kooky business consisting of bringing school kids to China for “educational purposes” is enough to make it obvious he’s a ChiCom asset. We’re also finding out that the FBI has been covering up Chinese meddling in American politics, like, for example, with respect to fostering illegal votes in the 2020 election… NEW: In a letter today to FBI Director Kash Patel, Sen Grassley asks for more documents related to China’s interference in 2020 election. New info disclosed by Patel confirms CCP mass produced fake driver’s licenses to obtain absentee ballots to vote for Joe Biden. An August… pic.twitter.com/37mrwlKgxY — Julie Kelly ?? (@julie_kelly2) June 17, 2025 Remember when the Chinese consulate in Houston staged such a bonfire of its files before that facility was shut down that the fire department had to be called? At issue, at least in part, was China’s involvement in promoting the Black Lives Matter riots that suspiciously sprang up all over the country, starting in… Minneapolis. So there would seem to be a lot out there, and who knows how deep the rabbit hole goes? Anyway, this is a suspicion and a prediction: we’re going to find out some things about Tim Walz in the next weeks and months that he would very much not like us to learn. And then we can ask exactly how Kamala Harris came to the conclusion Walz was fit to be her vice presidential nominee. 5. College Baseball’s New Dynasty Has Begun I’m noticing that more and more Americans are paying attention to college baseball, though it appears, based on the limited numbers available so far, that the College World Series might have had slightly less viewership this year than last. But changes in the sport portend that it’s going to be a major growth item in future years, now that the NIL and revenue-sharing rules are being implemented. It’s more and more frequent that top-flight high school players are choosing to head to college rather than turn pro right away, for the obvious reason that they don’t have to forego a six-figure revenue deal while in school. The days of enforced poverty and partial scholarships for college baseball players have ended, and the quality of play is rising — and along with that, the interest in the sport seems to be ascending. So I’m not completely out of line in noting that LSU, which is the most prominent program in the sport, just won its eighth national championship with a 5-3 victory over Coastal Carolina last Sunday. That was head coach Jay Johnson’s second College World Series title in three years. Johnson has made four CWS appearances in the last 10 years, going back to his previous head coaching job at Arizona, and he’s put his team in the final weekend’s championship series three times in that four. Interestingly, the first of those appearances was in 2016, and it was Coastal Carolina who bested Johnson’s team. LSU won that title with pitching and defense. The Tigers’ double aces, Kade Anderson and Anthony Eyanson, are both future major leaguers and likely first-round picks, with Anderson very likely to be the first pick in next month’s Major League draft. Reliever Chase Shores, who sports a virtually unhittable 101 mph fastball, will go before the second round is over. Shores was utterly dominant throughout this year’s festivities in Omaha. And it’s interesting that this was how LSU won, because the program’s brand is Gorilla Ball; a lineup full of mashers who bash homeruns on their way to championships. Johnson is known, also, as a great hitting coach. But this year’s team was more athletic and better in the field, and so they won with timely hitting and run prevention. Being able to win different ways with different rosters is the mark of a great coach, and Johnson is taking on just such a look. One way to describe him would be that he’s the Nick Saban of college baseball coaches, especially if you consider LSU’s first recognized master of college baseball, Skip Bertman, as the Bear Bryant of the sport. Neither Johnson nor LSU is going anywhere. And LSU fans are certainly feeling their oats right about now. College baseball might be a relatively small niche, but it is tightly wrapped in purple and gold as of today. READ MORE from Scott McKay: The Fourth Era Comes to the Big Rotten Apple So Far, So Good ‘Bill Cassidy Sucks’ The post Five Quick Things: The Coming State of Being appeared first on The American Spectator | USA News and Politics.

Gideon Jacobs has lived a life of the land. Farm-to-table was never a long sojourn for the barrel-chested Afrikaner, whose accent carries the history of his people. A base of Dutch, dashes of English, Malay, and a dozen more tongues built a language as uniquely native to South African soil as the people who claimed it as their own.  Less than 100 Dutch pioneers began the saga of Afrikanderdom in 1652, a century before Zulu expansionism brought that nation to fame. Former South African President Jacob Zuma, whose rule was a turning point in the post-apartheid era from rainbow nation to black nationalism, called the landing “the start of the trouble for this country.” Yet, even Zuma, for all his diatribes, had to begrudgingly dub the Afrikaners “truly African.” The nation is at its nadir. Thirty-three years after the 43-year tragedy of Apartheid, South Africa now has over a hundred pieces of racial legislation. This time, the aim is squarely on the Afrikaners. Brutal attacks hit Afrikaner farms in wave after wave, even as the state threatens to seize those farms without compensation. (RELATED: The Plight of the Afrikaners Is a Clarifying Moment for Western Civilization) In the face of crisis, Afrikaners have turned away from the state in ways unseen for a century. For an increasing number, this has meant immigration to the United States. Under the Trump administration, channels were opened to welcome Afrikaners as refugees for the first time, despite a vitriolic reaction from many progressives. (RELATED: Refugee Agency Forced to Fire Worker Who Disparaged Afrikaners) Gideon Jacobs has been a part-time American since 2016. A proud Afrikaner born in 1982 amidst the death throes of Apartheid, he and his son, Nico, traveled to D.C., the capital of the republic that might become a new home. They were joined by Corné Mulder, leader of the Afrikaner political party Freedom Front, and other Afrikaner leaders to plead their case inside the beltway.  Gideon sat down with The American Spectator to discuss the designation of Afrikaners as refugees and the struggle for survival in their African homeland. Gideon’s great insight was into the internal struggle many Afrikaners face over whether to abandon the fields on which their ancestors worked to build a secure future for their children.   Gideon and Nico have come to the United States for part of the year to work under the H-2A temporary agricultural worker program. They have found themselves in Alabama, also the point of relocation for many of the newly arriving Afrikaner refugees, whom they count as friends.  Gideon is well read and Nico, still in high school, inherited his father’s intelligence. It is a talent he is dedicated to putting toward the farming life his forebears have led in Africa for centuries. As things go, though, he may have no choice but to live that life in Alabama. Gideon proudly declares that “he’s still in school,” but “we’re working.” They were gratified to see Trump confront South African President Jacob Zuma in the White House with videos of Julius Malema, leader of the Marxist party Economic Freedom Fighters, singing “Kill the Boer” alongside tens of thousands of supporters. (RELATED: Mr. Trump Ambushes the South African Genocide Apologist) Gideon wishes more understood how complicit Ramaphosa has been in Afrikaner oppression. Although “the real change started with Zuma, Ramaphosa was his deputy,” Jacobs said. His pronunciation of Ramaphosa’s name in the cadence of the Venda language flashes his Africanness. One wonders how any could question his roots. Trump’s interaction with Ramaphosa “had to be shown,” he said. Contrary to reports of it being an ambush, Jacobs says, “that wasn’t really humiliation like the left media made it out to…Trump could have really humiliated him.” Showing only the chanting of the song advocating violence meant that “Trump showed a tenth of what people are living through back home.” (RELATED: A Bonfire of the Vanities at the White House) Gideon pointed out that “Ramaphosa and [coalition partner] Steenhuisen, they lied to Trump in his face” when they claimed Malema was not in government. Despite not being part of the national government, “Julius Malema is in coalition with the [ruling] African National Congress in provincial government and in municipalities.” The popularity of the anti-Afrikaner song, which courts denied was hate speech, has been at the center of South Africa’s turmoil. Gideon told The American Spectator that he still has hope, regardless, citing a poll showing that even most of those who vote for Malema “do not agree with the singing of [kill the Boer].” In Gideon’s view, Malema’s bellicose persona has been “losing power” after a decade in the public square. At this point, Gideon thinks “incitement is the only way [Malema] can keep hanging on to it,” especially when his voters are “destroying themselves.” Heritage Lost “Apartheid had to end. Period.” Gideon has fond memories of the days when democracy came to South Africa. The nation was united, “70 percent of the [Whites] voted to get rid of apartheid.” International sanctions were lifted, and the economy prospered. With Nelson Mandela at the helm, “everybody was looking forward to the future.” Jacobs doesn’t think the structure of the new government was perfect, saying that “they could have run it more like a federal system to protect the rights of every group.” Mandela led the success of abolishing Apartheid, but to Jacobs, “he kind of created a system in his party where it allowed it for the destruction of the country as well.” Nonetheless, South Africa was on the path to success in his view until a program deceptively labeled “Black Economic Empowerment” was enacted at the forefront of a vast system of new racial laws that Gideon sees as taking “from Peter to give to Paul.”  At an event at the Hudson Institute on Monday, Corné Mulder noted that the program has circulated wealth while leaving the average black South African as poor as ever. Gideon said to The American Spectator that it was obvious the program was failing early on, but the African National Congress government “doubled down on it when they saw it’s not working.” Gideon was 10 when Apartheid fell. His son never saw the system. Yet, both are considered accountable for it by the South African government. Gideon spoke with bewilderment when he asked The American Spectator, “What does a guy that was born in the 2000s have to do with anything Apartheid?”  Despite the litany of racial laws justified on that basis, “the majority of citizens in South Africa have been born after Apartheid,” so “are we going to blame everybody for the rest of our lives for anything that happened 30, 40, 50 years ago? How far is it going to go?” Nonetheless, Gideon laments, “I don’t think the mentality is going to change on that at all.”  Nor was Nico taught their history in school. Gideon notes that after their defeat in the Anglo-Boer War, “Boers built up the country” through the Helpmekaar Movement of economic self-sufficiency.  Nico had to be taught this at home, as school curricula focused on Apartheid. Afrikaners preserved their culture through “self-sufficiency … parents are teaching their children … trying to destroy one history to create a new history.” To Gideon, “that’s the saddest part.” Hanging On He has tried to remain. A group of farmers he was a part of made several appeals to John Steenhuisen, leader of the Democratic Alliance. In theory, South Africa’s premier centrist opposition party has since joined a government led by the African National Congress. Steenhuisen was not helpful. Publicly, “he made promises, but nothing happened.” As progress in dealing with farm attacks stalled, he refused to meet with them.  Afrikaners were being murdered, events covered even across the media, and Gideon told The American Spectator that he felt that “the world stood by noticing it but not doing anything.” The whole situation “caused a feeling of loss.” In contrast, Freedom Front offered a listening ear. A conservative party, it is focused on South Africa’s minority groups, although Corné Mulder told The American Spectator that an increasing portion of its membership is drawn from the country’s black majority. While Steenuisen stonewalled them, Mulder was “willing and eager to listen.”  When asked how Americans could stand with Afrikaner refugees, Gideon told The American Spectator that his first suggestion would be to support the AFRIKANER Act recently introduced in the House of Representatives. The act would legislatively cement the protections given to Afrikaner refugees by the Trump administration.  In general, however, he thought Americans’ priority ought to be “listening to everybody,” and he believes “that’s what Trump basically achieved.” Carrying his people’s self-sufficient pride, he adds, “I don’t think anybody is asking for finances, just a little bit of recognition. If you recognize a group and give your support to it, that’s a lot.”  Gideon has no interest in proposals for an Afrikaner separatist community. If South Africa is lost, it will be America for him. Orange or Red, White, and Blue Gideon loves the stars and stripes. “Originally,” he admits, “I was just supposed to come for a few years.” It was an opportunity to make some extra money when his own nation experienced water shortages and rolling blackouts. He pauses, considering his words, and adds:“[Y]ou kind of get addicted to … going about your life [without being bothered].” It is a profound statement. In South Africa, being left alone was a luxury.  As many as 10,000 South Africans come to the U.S. for work annually. Gideon thinks that although the initial refugee program for Afrikaners has been small, many of these refugees could eventually want to apply for the refugee program. The foreign policy debate of the Middle East raging today found its way into the conversation, as it seems to in most conversations today. Gideon experienced the first decade of his life under Apartheid. It did not take him long to conclude that “I don’t think Israel is an apartheid state.” He thinks that the American handling of the situation is a demonstration of our morality.  In contrast, the African National Congress has ties to communist and terrorist groups across the world. Gideon was shocked that “no media outlet reported that people in the ANC phoned Hamas members to congratulate them.” “Wherever you see smoke, there’s usually a fire,” said Gideon, but he told The American Spectator that he believes the media are intentionally “ignoring it.” Internal Struggle Among Afrikaners, Gideon told The American Spectator that there are two main groups. These are “the one group that don’t see any hope and the group that says we’re going to stay until the end and try to build the country.” Gideon is in the second group, but not without worry. He says he “can’t judge anybody currently that wants to leave permanently.” He knows many in that group, including many refugees now joining him full-time as Americans in Alabama.  Gideon told The American Spectator that he thinks “most of them have lost either hope,” but “maybe they’re seeing something I’m not able to see.” He understands their point of view, adding, “I know for a fact that some of them were attacked on farms. If you’ve lived through it, it’s something different.” All Afrikaners treasure their past, but for those taking the leap to be refugees, it’s about the future. Gideon tells us that “my friends that apply for the refugee system, mostly, they’re doing it for a future for their kids.” Some of them “made up their minds a while ago that if they ever have the chance to move permanently somewhere, they’re going to move.” The two great factors for Afrikaners seeking refugee status that Gideon tells us of are “fear of crime and fear of no future for their children.” The latter eclipses the former by far; he holds strongly that “the biggest contributing factor is the kids.” Gideon says his refugee friends were not discouraged by the reaction from the left. Some farmers in Alabama are “interested in hiring some of the refugees.” In that area, he says, “I haven’t really met anybody that’s negative.” Nonetheless, he knows it’s there. On X, he often engages with critics. The wall of melancholy broke as mirth came forth, as, with a laugh, Gideon recounted to us that “I’ve made the offer to a whole bunch of people on the left to take them to a farm in South Africa and let them experience what everyday people have to experience there.”  Out of all of them, “no one has taken me up on the offer.” “Not,” he adds, “even the senator that went to drink margaritas with that guy in El Salvador … I wanted to take him on a nice holiday.” He recognizes, nonetheless, that most leftist critics are simply ignorant rather than malicious. Gideon told The American Spectator that he believes “the hatred toward the South Africans is more based on the hatred that the left has for Trump.” After all, “none of them actually experienced what some of the guys that’s coming on the refugee program experienced” and “you can’t judge people when you haven’t walked in their shoes.” Hope Gideon longs for his home. His first priority remains to “build our country and put it back on track.” He maintains that “I still have hope for South Africa … I don’t think it’s totally destroyed yet.” Although the “politicians [keep] inflaming the division” and “want to live in the past,” he thinks that “on the ground, most of the guys are happy-go-lucky.”  This ability to put people before politics keeps Gideon going.  The American Spectator asked Gideon if he sees himself joining his friends permanently in the United States as refugees. With a sad pause, he admitted that “if anything changes in the next three or four years, yes.” The red line would be “if they start taking the farms, then it’s done.”  He thinks thousands of Afrikaners feel similarly that “everybody still hopes,” but “if they carry on with the destruction,” then many will “definitely” flee to America. Looking forward to the next South African election, he says to give it “another three years” before we see the level of Afrikaner emigration.  If the days of Afrikaners are numbered, however, he and thousands of others know American arms are open. READ MORE from Shiv Parihar: Nearly Half Dead in Luxury Apartments Given to Utah Homeless New Biography Paints Rainbow Over Charles Sumner Exclusive: Anti-Regime Iranians Speak Out, Discuss Widespread Discontent With the Mullahs’ Rule The post An Afrikaner in America Laments for His Homeland appeared first on The American Spectator | USA News and Politics.

One would think that Jen Psaki, coming as she does from the more establishment side of the Democratic machine, would proceed with caution on Zohran Mamdani, the socialist who is the presumptive Democratic nominee in New York’s mayoral race. But on Wednesday night, Psaki was practically jumping out of her seat in excitement over how joyful and authentic Mamdani’s campaign was, how his love for New York was just so contagious, and how seismic his victory was. “This race is what makes politics joyful and inspiring,” she said. “Someone who everyone underestimated, someone who was doubted and questioned and attacked with racist mailers and attack ads, someone who the gray hairs in the party said was too young … overcame all of that.” She repeatedly portrayed Mamdani’s victory as the beginning of a new political era for the Democratic Party. “Rarely,” she said, “at least in my recollection, have there been the seismic type of events like last night’s New York primary.” Mamdani, Psaki said, had “set off what I would call a political earthquake.” In explaining the reasons for Mamdani’s victory, Psaki cited “his contagious love for New York City, whether it was eating an egg and cheese at a bodega or riding the Staten Island ferry”; his “optimistic,” “hopeful,” and “aspirational” campaign in which he “said what he thought, not necessarily always what was politically popular”; as well as his ability to speak to the “core economic struggles of millions of people in the city.” Psaki played a 40-second-long montage of various social media videos released by Mamdani before expounding on how much she loved the clips: “They were joyful,” she said. “They were authentic and funny.” Psaki went on to call the democratic socialist’s victory a reminder that politics is supposed to be about “how you make people feel” and “inviting people in.” Psaki claimed that there is “no question” that Mamdani has a “huge gift” for doing so. Psaki, 46, avoided getting into the weeds of the 33-year-old’s radical politics and kept her focus on how she loves him as a person and candidate. She suggested that, at least when it comes to the running of campaigns, the Democratic Party should head in Mamdani’s direction, as the conventional political playbook “is tired” and “no longer works.” But her enthusiasm for him was flirting with unreserved excitement over the possibility of a more radical direction for the Democratic Party. She even gushingly told him that a lot of people on her team’s show, which is based in New York City, had stayed up late to watch his victory speech. Any criticism she had of him was tempered. She kept it to saying that he would face “tough questions” as he works to “build on [his] coalition.” Mamdani, she said, would need to find “a way to address the concerns of some voters who disagree with his views on Israel.” Those “concerns,” of course, are that Mamdani has accused Israel of committing a genocide, defended the chant “globalize the intifada,” pledged to arrest Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and said that he considers himself to be an “anti-Zionist.” When Hamas attacked Israeli civilians in 2023, killing 1,200, Mamdani’s response was not to denounce the attacks but rather to call on Israel to not respond and to accuse it of engaging in “apartheid.” In fact, he titled his statement after the Hamas attack, “Zohran Mamdani On Ongoing Violence in Israel and Palestine.” Of course, Psaki’s plastering over of this insanity is predictable given that the Democratic Party writ large has chosen to accommodate its radical wing’s antisemitism. ***** Psaki’s full embrace of Mamdani without a shred of caution for his socialism suggests an emerging mood among the Democratic Party that the response to the party’s foundering after Kamala Harris’s defeat should be to push further to the left. That would seem to contradict the initial conclusions the party drew from its defeat, which seemed to be that its radicalism on gender ideology and critical race theory had gone too far and that it had drifted away from pocketbook issues to its detriment. Nevertheless, it seems some Democrats are increasingly concluding that backing away from advertising its most extreme social positions so prominently does not preclude the party from pursuing a radical agenda when it comes to the economy. READ MORE from Ellie Gardey Holmes: Hallow Prayer App Reaches 1 Billion Prayers — 7 Years to the Day After Incorporating Leftist IVF Doctor Gushes Over Trump Abortion Supporters Unleash Torrent of Hatred Against 1-Pound Baby Chance The post Jen Psaki Fawns Over Zohran Mamdani appeared first on The American Spectator | USA News and Politics.

In February 1976, 19-year-old U.S. Army Pvt. David Lewis died at Fort Dix, New Jersey, from a respiratory illness. Testing revealed infection with a novel influenza strain similar to the 1918 Spanish flu, which had killed millions. Thirteen other recruits were infected, but none of them died. The strain, designated as “swine flu” due to its similarity to a virus found in pigs, raised fears of a 1918-like pandemic. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) warned of a potentially catastrophic global outbreak. Consequently, on March 24, 1976, President Gerald Ford announced a $135 million plan to vaccinate “every man, woman, and child” in America by the end of the year. Four drug manufacturers quickly produced a “swine flu” vaccine, which, after trials on 5,000 volunteers, was deemed safe and ready for use. The National Influenza Immunization Program began on October 1, 1976. And, by mid-December, 40 million doses had been administered to approximately 25 percent of the U.S. population. It was the largest mass vaccination in U.S. history up to that time. But, from the very beginning, there were reports of vaccine recipients developing Guillain-Barre Syndrome (GBS), a rare neurological disorder causing muscle weakness, paralysis, and death. Analysis by the CDC and the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare linked roughly 500 GBS cases and 32 deaths to the vaccine. These findings led to intense media scrutiny and public distrust, which compelled the Ford administration to halt the vaccination program. (RELATED: The Wages of COVID — Part One) This was not the first nor would it be the last time distribution of a new vaccine or drug was halted after post-marketing surveillance and analysis indicated possible adverse side effects. In 1961, Thalidomide, a treatment for morning sickness in pregnant women, was withdrawn from the market after it was statistically linked to an increased risk of severe birth defects. In 2000, Rezulin, a treatment for type 2 diabetes, was withdrawn after 90+ cases of liver failure were reported. Vioxx, a non-steroidal anti-inflammatory (NSAID) for arthritis pain relief, was withdrawn in 2004 after post-marketing analysis showed it increased the risk of heart attacks and stroke. And, the following year, Bextra, an NSAID for arthritis and menstrual pain, was taken off the market due to increased cardiovascular risk. And so on for Darvon, Seldane, and Propulsid (heart rhythm abnormalities); Zantac and Belviq (increased risk of cancer), Redux/Fen-Phen (risk of heart valve damage and hypertension), Acomplia (risk of depression and suicidal ideation) and over 130 other drugs which the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) had tested and approved yet withdrew prior to the 2021 roll out of the mRNA COVID vaccines. So it was that, based on this bitter history, by the January 2021 launch of the COVID vaccination program, many Americans were reluctant to be injected with innovative mRNA vaccines that had been hurriedly developed by the government’s Operation Warp Speed. (READ MORE: The Wages of COVID — Part Two) COVID Vaccine Reticence According to a May 2021 study by the International Monetary Fund, approximately 45 percent of Americans were “vaccine hesitant,” with many outright refusing vaccination. The study concluded that the reasons for this reluctance typically involved “concerns about efficacy and unforeseeable side effects, often fueled by misinformation and/or lack of trust in government and medical systems.” But, as it turned out, that skepticism and distrust of the government and its affiliated medical establishment were fully justified. Recently, the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations (PSI) released its Majority Staff Report titled “Failure to Warn: How Federal Health Agencies Downplayed the Risk of Myocarditis and Other Adverse Events Following COVID-19 Vaccination,” which sets forth the following timeline of events. In January 2021, within days of the first mRNA COVID vaccinations, 28 cases of myocarditis, pericarditis, and myopericarditis (inflammation of the heart and the membrane surrounding the heart) were reported to the CDC’s Vaccine Event Reporting System (VAERS). And, in February 2021, 64 similar cases (including two deaths) were reported to VAERS. In late February 2021, the Israeli Ministry of Health notified CDC officials of “large reports of myocarditis, particularly in young people, following administration of the Pfizer vaccine.” This coincided with the Defense Department’s advisories to the CDC regarding myocarditis and myopericarditis following COVID vaccination of military personnel. In May 2021, the CDC received even more VAERS reports of myopericarditis in vaccine recipients between 16 and 24 years of age. Faced with these alarming data, from January through June 2021, officials of the CDC, the FDA, the National Institutes of Health (NIH), and other federal agencies conducted protracted and “confidential” closed-door discussions about possibly issuing a nationwide warning through the CDC’s Health Alert Network (HAN). According to the CDC’s website, HAN is its “primary method of sharing cleared information about urgent public health incidents with public information officers; federal, state, territorial, tribal, and local public health practitioners; clinicians; and public health laboratories.” (Emphasis added) But even though the reports of adverse events continued to pour in, the CDC never issued a HAN warning. Instead, in a telling move, CDC, FDA, and NIH officials provided regular reports on the content and status of their secret HAN discussions to Pfizer and Moderna, manufacturers of the two leading mRNA COVID vaccines. In other words, these officials kept the vaccine manufacturers informed about their products’ injurious effects even as they kept the American people, who were at increased risk of harm, in the dark. As the PSI report puts it, “Even though CDC and FDA officials were well aware of the risk of myocarditis following COVID-19 vaccination, the Biden administration opted to withhold issuing a formal warning to the public for months about the safety concerns, jeopardizing the health of young Americans.” Which raises this question: if the data regarding these adverse events were significant enough to share with the vaccine manufacturers, why weren’t they disclosed to the public? Or, put another way, why was the government more protective of the vaccine manufacturers’ interests than those of the public it purportedly served? While this cover-up was underway, Sen. Ron Johnson (R, WI), then a minority member of the PSI, sent 70 oversight letters to health officials seeking information about vaccine-related injuries. But, as stated in the PSI report, these officials either “completely ignored or inadequately addressed” Johnson’s requests. On June 28, 2021, a frustrated Sen. Johnson held a press conference at the Milwaukee federal courthouse to highlight his concerns about COVID vaccine safety. He stated that approximately 384,270 adverse events and 4,812 deaths following COVID vaccination had been reported to VAERS. The media event also featured individuals who described devastating neurological, gastrointestinal, and cardiac injuries following vaccination. (In this latter regard, it should be noted that subsequent medical and statistical studies have substantiated adverse effects similar to those claimed by these individuals, and cite data indicating that the mRNA COVID vaccines pose a substantial increased risk of sudden cardiac death, pulmonary embolism, cerebral hemorrhage, leukemia, and lymphoblastic lymphoma.) But through it all, the federal health establishment continued to hide the facts from the public while insisting that all was well and that any challenges to the safety and efficacy of the mRNA COVID vaccines were nothing more than the irresponsible ravings of medical apostates and charlatans who refused to “follow the science.” (RELATED: Travis Kelce, COVID ‘Variants,’ and the CDC Vaccine Machine) In short, the government’s message to the public boiled down to “Nothing to see here. Nothing to fear. All is well. Now shut up, get in line, and take the jab.” Nevertheless, public distrust and “vaccine hesitancy” remained at all-time high levels. And that well-earned distrust remained as newly re-elected President Donald Trump appointed Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., Secretary of Health and Human Services. Post-COVID Making America Healthy Again Since taking office, Kennedy has been attempting a radical transformation of the American healthcare system. And, in the course of doing so, he has exposed the motivations behind the government’s shameful handling of the COVID vaccination program. On June 9, 2025, under the headline “RFK Jr.: HHS Moves to Restore Public Trust in Vaccines,” the Wall Street Journal published a letter by Kennedy explaining his initiative to reform the federal government’s vaccine regulatory apparatus. He begins with this: Vaccines have become a divisive issue in American politics, but there is one thing all parties can agree on: the U.S. faces a crisis of public trust. Whether toward health agencies, pharmaceutical companies or vaccines themselves, public confidence is waning. Some would try to explain this away by blaming misinformation or antiscience attitudes. To do so, however, ignores a history of conflicts of interest, persecution of dissidents, a lack of curiosity, and skewed science that has plagued the vaccine regulatory apparatus for decades. That is why, under my direction, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services is putting the restoration of public trust above any pro- or antivaccine agenda. The public must know that unbiased science guides the recommendations from our health agencies. This will ensure the American people receive the safest vaccines possible. Kennedy then announced the forced “retirement” of all 17 members of the Advisory Committee for Immunization Practices (ACIP). (RELATED: ‘A Clean Sweep’: RFK Jr. Fires 17 Members of the Advisory Committee for Immunization Practices) “ACIP,” Kennedy explained, “evaluates the safety, efficacy, and clinical need of the nation’s vaccines and passes its findings to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The committee has been plagued with persistent conflicts of interest and has become little more than a rubber stamp for any vaccine. It has never recommended against a vaccine — even those later withdrawn for safety reasons. It has failed to scrutinize vaccine products given to babies and pregnant women. To make matters worse, the groups that inform ACIP meet behind closed doors, violating the legal and ethical principle of transparency crucial to maintaining public trust.” Citing clear conflicts of interest, Kennedy averred that “[m]ost of ACIP’s members have received substantial funding from pharmaceutical companies, including those marketing vaccines …. The new [ACIP] members won’t directly work for the vaccine industry. They will exercise independent judgment, refuse to serve as a rubber stamp, and foster a culture of critical inquiry — unafraid to ask hard questions. “A clean sweep is needed to reestablish public confidence and vaccine science. In the 1960s, the world sought guidance from America’s health regulators, who had a reputation for integrity, scientific impartiality, and zealous defense of patient welfare. Public trust has since collapsed, but we will earn it back.” Whoa. Like the old joke about a busload of lawyers going off a cliff, this is a good start, and I fervently hope that Kennedy achieves his goal. But, even if he accomplishes nothing else, his swift, Patton-like restructuring of the ACIP has highlighted the pharmaceutical industry’s quiet capture and neutering of the federal government’s healthcare regulatory system. This series has covered a lot of ground, and it’s time to call a halt for now. But, as Kennedy and his colleagues continue to follow the money and upend the medical-industrial complex, I expect that there will be more to come. So stay tuned. George Parry is a former federal and state prosecutor. He blogs at knowledgeisgood.net. READ MORE from George Parry: The Wages of COVID — Part Two The Wages of COVID — Part One James Comey’s Riddle in the Sand The post The Wages of COVID — Part Three appeared first on The American Spectator | USA News and Politics.

The headline from our friends at the Wall Street Journal could not be more blunt. It read: “Mediator Proposes $20 Million Settlement in Trump’s CBS Suit: Potential package would include a donation, legal costs, and public service announcements.” (RELATED: FCC Pulls a ‘60 Minutes’ on ‘60 Minutes’) The story said, among other things, this: A mediator has proposed that President Trump and Paramount Global settle his lawsuit over a CBS News “60 Minutes” interview with former Vice President Kamala Harris for $20 million, according to people familiar with the matter. The proposal would include a $17 million donation to Trump’s presidential foundation or museum, the people said. It would also include millions more in legal fees and public service announcements on Paramount-owned networks to fight antisemitism, the people said. Notably — say again, notably — the WSJ reported this: Trump’s team has said it wants an apology — something Paramount isn’t prepared to do, according to people familiar with the situation. It couldn’t be learned whether Trump’s team is still seeking an apology. Settlement talks are still fluid and an agreement might not be reached. And right there is the age-old, been-there-done-that problem seemingly eternally encountered by public officials when they make a mistake. Namely, journalists refuse both to own up to their mistake, and then, having made that refusal, go on to refuse to apologize for it. (RELATED: The Agony Of 60 Minutes’ Scott Pelley) For those looking elsewhere, the essence here is also described by the WSJ: Trump alleged in October that the network committed election interference by deceitfully editing a “60 Minutes” interview with Democratic presidential candidate Harris, making her sound better. The lawsuit ultimately sought $20 billion in damages. CBS has said it didn’t doctor her comments, but rather aired a more succinct version of her response. Note well that last sentence. Again, it reads: “CBS has said it didn’t doctor her comments, but rather aired a more succinct version of her response.” Got that? Editing a TV interview to make your candidate look good is nothing more than having “aired a more succinct version of her response.” Right. The real problem here is that American journalism has slowly transformed itself from, to borrow from that old (very old!) TV police drama classic Dragnet, “the facts, just the facts” …. to, bluntly put, a “what can this or that theoretically neutral news outlet do that will best help the campaign and candidate at issue.” The fact that there are media outlets that take a side in politics is neither new nor crazy. Indeed, this very publication that you are reading, The American Spectator, was created, quite openly and deliberately, in support of conservatism by our founder, R. Emmett Tyrrell Jr. He was not alone, either, as the earlier creation of National Review by his friend William F. Buckley, Jr. illustrates. And there were more of these media outlets, both print and eventually radio and TV, that carried the day for conservative or liberal points of view. Whether Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity and the advent of talk radio both nationally and locally, or Rupert Murdoch and later Chris Ruddy creating Fox News and Newsmax (in the latter case, full disclosure, where I am a contributor), political media has been around for a long, very long time. But what all of those people and outlets have in common is that they make no pretense about their politics. The problem, as noted, is when a media outlet pretends to be “just the facts” journalism and reporting; “just the facts” is the last thing they are about. (Hello? Can you say New York Times?) All of which brings us back to President Trump’s apparent looming success in his suit against CBS-Paramount. Again, note well that paragraph from the Journal story. It read: “CBS has said it didn’t doctor her comments, but rather aired a more succinct version of her response.” Got that? CBS wasn’t about doctoring Vice President Harris’s comments. No, the network was really about airing “a more succinct version of her response.” Right. Which is to say, the news behind the suit is that in the Trump view, CBS was about airing a more palatable sound byte that would please its mostly liberal audience. The larger — much larger — problem here is that American journalism in general is loaded with “journalists” who, in fact, are really “political activists.” And their “journalism” reflects this problem routinely. Shocking. Not. READ MORE from Jeffrey Lord: Anti-American Iran Will Not Go Away Iran’s Khamenei v. Trump — And the World Trump: The Success of the Outsider President The post Trump’s Potential CBS-Paramount Suit Win appeared first on The American Spectator | USA News and Politics.

If anything has dominated Gen Z’s political experience more than the ascendance of President Donald Trump, it’s been the prominence of LGBTQ issues in every aspect of culture over the past decade.  In the first instance, public opinion came first. President Trump’s victory in 2016 was a popular referendum on Obama-era progressivism that promised hope and change but delivered government overreach and overregulation. That Trump won the Republican nomination in the first place was a repudiation of the party’s neoconservative leanings. And nearly a decade after his entrance onto the political scene, American voters once again sent Trump back to the White House with an electoral mandate.  But where Trump’s dominance in the past decade of American politics was a reflection of public opinion, LGBTQ issues were injected into the nation’s politics. Public opinion swung to the left afterward.  A Decade of Obergefell  Ten years ago this week, the Supreme Court handed down the narrow 5–4 decision legalizing same-sex unions. It’s hard to overstate how consequential it was in shaping public opinion on LGBTQ issues — and in shaping the political consciousness of Gen Z.  Gen Z — which includes individuals born between 1997 and 2012 — doesn’t really remember a world before Obergefell. It’s almost unimaginable that, when its older members were born around the turn of the century, only 35 percent of the country believed that same-sex unions should be recognized as marriages. Even in 2008 and 2009, support for same-sex unions hovered around 40 percent.   In 2015, when Obergefell was decided, 60 percent of Americans told Gallup that they believed same-sex unions should be recognized as marriages. Support only grew in the following years, topping off at 71 percent in 2022 and 2023.  Over the past decade, progressives have aggressively wielded LGBTQ issues as a bludgeon against the Right, conflating opposition with bigotry. Where sexual orientation was previously a private issue, the mid-2010s mainstreamed sexual politics and brought LGBTQ ideology into classrooms, corporate boardrooms, and churches. A Divided Generation Unlike past generations, Gen Z was raised with a hyper-focus on sexuality and gender identity. It’s no surprise, then, that such a large portion of Gen Z identifies as LGBTQ. Polling shows that “almost one in four (23 percent) Gen Z adults … identify as gay, lesbian, bisexual, or something else.” There’s a sizable gender gap in the statistic, though: 31 percent of Gen Z women and 16 percent of Gen Z men identify as LGBTQ. By comparison, the same polling shows 10 percent of overall Americans identifying as LGBTQ.   Despite the higher prevalence of LGBTQ identity among younger Americans, Gen Z support for same-sex unions tracks with broader public opinion, which has diminished slightly since 2023. In fact, support for “LGBTQ rights among 18 to 29-year-olds” has declined in recent years, correlated with drops in support among Republicans. (RELATED: The Youngest Voters Are Trending Conservative) It’s no surprise that support for the fruits of Obergefell has stalled after “equality” started meaning drag queen story hour, men competing in women’s sports, and double mastectomies for middle-school girls. The Left has overplayed its hand in recent years with its full-throated insistence that transgender ideology, even in its most obviously problematic iterations, should be celebrated by all.  Questioning the Redefinition of Marriage In line with the polarization between young progressive and conservative voters, members of Gen Z feel either that the nation is not sufficiently liberal or that earlier generations squandered the America they were supposed to inherit.  Writing in First Things, Matthew Schmitz commented on the decline of support for same-sex unions blessed by Obergefell:  The number of those who reject same-sex marriage is increasing today, especially among the young. Perhaps that’s because they have come of age in a society that promotes individual autonomy to such a degree that it undermines all forms of permanence, especially marriage. They probably do not regard Obergefell as having caused the decline of marriage. But they may suspect that the redefinition of marriage is part of a larger project that claims to enlarge their freedom while making their lives less noble and dignity more difficult to obtain.  Exemplified by the “Kamala is for they/them, President Trump is for you” tagline, the most extreme elements of the LGBTQ agenda were rejected at the ballot box in November. While it’s unlikely that the rest of the ideology is going anywhere anytime soon, it’s at least heartening that young Americans are starting to realize that Obergefell’s purported redefinition of marriage was a lie — even if they aren’t old enough to remember a pre-Obergefell nation. READ MORE from Mary Frances Devlin: Harvard’s Sacred Cash Cows I Read Dylan Mulvaney’s Memoir So You Don’t Have To Battleground Michigan Is Up for Grabs Again in 2026 The post Gen Z: The <i>Obergefell</i> Generation appeared first on The American Spectator | USA News and Politics.

by Matt Agorist, The Free Thought Project: (Brownstone Institute) If you don’t think Washington is in the maws of a Fiscal Doomsday Machine, think again. And the place to start is with the 30-year CBO projections, expressed as the dollar increase from the current $29 trillion level of publicly held US Treasury debt. If Washington […]