The Associated Press argued for keeping its Oval Office and Air Force One access before a Washington, D.C. appeals panel Monday, after riling President Donald Trump over the news outlet’s insistence using the phrase “Gulf of Mexico.”  “The First Amendment does not stop at the Oval Office door,” AP attorney Charles Tobin argued before the three-judge panel of the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals.  He argued that the White House press pool system has long allowed the AP to attend almost every presidential event. He noted that some form of the White House press pool goes back to the White House of President James Garfield, and was more formalized under President Dwight Eisenhower. “Your honor, they are not his personal space, with all due respect, those are the paid-for-by-the-taxpayer, people’s offices that the government is conducting government actions for the people,” Tobin said said of the Oval Office and other limited-space venues in the White House where a relatively small number of reporters are allowed access to the president. In January, Trump signed an executive order renaming the Gulf of Mexico the Gulf of America. However, the AP continued referring to the body of water as the Gulf of Mexico. The wire service, with client news outlets around the world, argued it reports for a global audience, and some of its international clients and audience do not recognize Trump’s executive order. In response, the Trump White House barred the AP from access to the Oval Office events as well as Air Force One.  This is not a First Amendment matter, argued Yaakov Roth, the principal deputy assistant attorney general. He said journalists and others are effectively invited to the Oval Office, which makes it different from the other larger White House areas where journalists routinely cover presidential events.  “When the president invites reporters into the Oval Office, is he creating a First Amendment forum? I think the answer to that is clearly not, because they are not being invited to engage in private speech,” Roth told the judges. “That makes it unlike all of the forum cases, including the non-public forum cases that the AP relies on, and because it is highly selective, the White House is inviting particular outlets into the Oval Office—it is not a situation, again, like all the non-public forum cases.” The White House press pool system is for events in the Oval Office, the Cabinet Room, and other smaller spaces that can’t accommodate all of the media covering the White House. Generally, one print reporter, one TV reporter, one radio reporter, and one new media reporter are allowed. While the pool spots rotated among reporters, the AP—which reaches a broad audience—has also had access to the limited-space pool events for decades. The AP is still allowed access to the White House events and press conferences in the James S. Brady Press Briefing Room, the East Room, and the Rose Garden.  Two Trump appeals court appointees, Judges Gregory Katsas and Neomi Rao, and one Barack Obama appointee, Judge Cornelia Pillard, heard the arguments Monday.  In April, U.S. District Judge Trevor McFadden, a Trump appointee, ruled the White House acted against the First Amendment by blocking the AP’s access for not using “Gulf of America.” The post After Clash With White House on Gulf Name, AP Argues for Oval Office, Air Force One Access appeared first on The Daily Signal.

GLP-1s are helping Americans live better, but Washington has major work to do on safety. A lot has been happening this fall with the rocket ship rise of GLP-1 weight loss drugs. In September, the Food and Drug Administration announced a “green list” to stop the importation of counterfeit GLP-1 active pharmaceutical ingredients into the U.S., and then came news of Costco partnering with Novo Nordisk on a discount for uninsured members of the popular warehouse retailer. All this led up to the blockbuster White House announcement of a deal on discounted doses for Medicaid and Medicare recipients. As we head into the holidays and Americans eat and spend at extraordinary rates, there’s a growing case for optimism about GLP-1s, and for the government to do more to keep consumers safe. Most Americans have witnessed the Ozempic boom firsthand; one in eight people say they’ve taken a GLP-1 drug at some point, and even more know someone taking the treatment. Weight loss tactics have changed fast, so much so that Weight Watchers filed for bankruptcy, and dieting influencers have been flocking to this new frontier. Skeptics of these treatments have pointed to unanswered questions about who can prescribe them, the very real problem of counterfeit versions easily found online, and ethical concerns about weight-loss drugs disincentivizing behavioral changes that contribute to obesity in the first place. In fact, the most recent research shows that GLP-1 users eat less and save more money, as their grocery budgets drop by about 11%. Household budgets then shift toward new, slimmer apparel and fitness-wellness spending. Gym memberships are up, even after the initial enthusiasm fades for people shifting toward a healthier lifestyle. Far from being a drug that promotes gluttony or enables binge eating behaviors, GLP-1s are freeing patients from a hamster wheel of weight gain and poor health outcomes. With the hopelessness factor reduced or removed altogether for obese individuals, the data show a turn toward exercise, eating out at full-service restaurants, and spending more time with people. When obese Americans aren’t snacking all day and wrestling with a cycle of shame related to weight, they’re out in the world investing in relationships and quality meals. It’s hard to argue against the positive nature of these trendlines, even as questions remain about advances in oral dosage and which biological factors contribute to the best results. Getting hung up on philosophical debates about willpower and the virtue of self-control doesn’t do anything to improve people’s lives. As Matthew Haug at the College of William & Mary has pointed out, we’re now confronted with an opportunity to totally rethink “appetite” and how it can be managed. Impulse control can be sharpened in early childhood, and that should be prioritized, but medical innovation can and already is filling in the gaps. Harm reduction advocate Maia Szalavitz wrote for the New York Times about how GLP-1s have been working in select cases to curb hard drug addiction in recovery patients. The threat for consumers is, of course, the illicit “gray market” online for cheap knockoffs from overseas. Consumers are grabbing these for the suspiciously lower prices, and health officials, as well as lawmakers, need to stem that flow. Counterfeit products can be quite harmful, totally inactive, or contain the wrong dosages. This has resulted in adverse events for a segment of users. Large-scale seizures of counterfeit weight-loss drugs by Customs and Border Protection are welcome news. 16,740 unapproved weight loss medications not on the FDA’s green list were taken out of circulation in Ohio, but much more has to be done as the popularity of GLP-1s increases. Roughly 8% of Americans are using GLP-1s as of this year, and nearly 35% are considering it. The market is going to grow even more, very rapidly. The responsibility of U.S. regulators and lawmakers is to protect consumers as that unfolds, and work with pharmaceutical firms on policies that expand access to safe, accountable weight-loss medications. We publish a variety of perspectives. Nothing written here is to be construed as representing the views of The Daily Signal. The post GLP-1s Are a Miracle, Let’s Not Ruin It appeared first on The Daily Signal.

New: Federal Judge Tosses Comey, James Charges (Updated)

Remember how the media were adamant that the U.S. was due for a climate change-caused deluge of catastrophic hurricanes this year? Well, as the Al Gore effect goes: it never happened. Axios reported November 23 that the 2025 hurricane season is ending without a “single” U.S. landfall for the first time in 10 years. Of course, the liberal outlet couldn’t resist trying to drum up fears despite the catastrophic predictions from months ago going kaput: “That's welcome news for hurricane-prone states, but doesn't mean future years will be equally calm — especially as climate change continues to warm the oceans, essentially creating hurricane fuel.” Well, that “hurricane fuel” sputtered into a whole lot of nothing this year for U.S. states, further emphasizing why climate change fanatics masquerading as experts know as much about predicting hurricanes as it does about tomorrow’s weather: Not much. The latest tally for this year’s hurricane season amounted to 13 tropical storms and five hurricanes with no American landfall, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). Not exactly breathtaking.  Taking a trip down the media memory lane illustrates why no one should be taking these sensationalized crystal ball climate prophecies seriously.  In August, CNN meteorologist Briana Waxman scare-mongered that “Primetime hurricane season is here, and the Atlantic is a powder keg.” Waxman, acting like some sort of eco-seer, claimed that “There are signs tropical development will pick up in earnest over the next one to two weeks as the Atlantic is loaded with potential.” New York Times reporter Judson Jones harped on a similar note in August, “A Fairly Quiet Hurricane Season May Be About to Ramp Up.”  Earlier in the year, Times reporters Jones, Patricia Mazzei, Christopher Flavelle, Emily Cochrane and Jennifer Reed wielded the climate scareporn to attack President Donald Trump’s efforts to gut overbloated government: “States and Cities Fear a Disaster Season Full of Unknowns Amid Federal Cuts.” The agitprop concocted by the five authors was like somebody reading the script of disaster flick 2012 (2009): States and cities along ​t​he Atlantic and Gulf coasts are ​heading into hurricane season​ with an extraordinary level of uncertainty, unable to ​g​auge how significant cuts at vital federal agencies will affect weather forecasts, emergency response and long-term recovery.  CBS News investigative reporter Mahsa Saeidi (who was an angry contestant on Trump's reality show The Apprentice) exploited the predictions of above average hurricane activity in July to cause homeowners to have a conniption over their finances: “With above average hurricane season predicted, here's how Tri-State Area homeowners can save money now.” Saeidi argued that “With an above average hurricane season in the forecast for 2025, insurance experts warn property insurance premiums will climb even higher than they already are.” Derp. In May, CBS Evening News co-anchor John Dickerson sounded the alarm on how "forecasters are saying [the 2025 hurricane season] could be one of the busiest in years." Yeah, not really John. In July, The Washington Post even went as far as to take advantage of the catastrophe wrought by Hurricane Helene in 2024 to make end-of-the-world predictions about the future because of climate change: “A new era of floods has arrived. America isn’t prepared.”  Does this mean that states shouldn’t invest in building disaster-ready infrastructure? Of course not. But there’s a difference between pragmatic preparation and kowtowing to the persistent flood of climate change Armageddon inaccuracy emanating from leftist media hacks.

David Bozell, president of the Media Research Center, is warning liberals to be careful what they wish for when it comes to the release of the Epstein files. Last Friday on WMAL, Bozell told afternoon drive host Derek Hunter that despite the elitist media’s obsession with the fake news narrative that the files implicate President Donald Trump, the files could be bad news for liberals. Bozell also noted the media have given House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries a pass on his Epstein scandal. If Speaker Johnson had solicited a contribution from Jeffrey Epstein after he had been arrested for child sex and rape, every single member of the Washington DC press corps would be camped outside his office until he resigned, every single one. The fact that Jeffries is caught red handed doing exactly that, and no one says ‘boo’ about getting him to step down as leader of the Democratic Party in the House, is another example of just how one-sided this has become and how everything is about get Trump, get Trump, get Trump. The networks unleashed on the American public over 800 minutes on Epstein since July on the broadcast networks in an effort to get Trump. He's down in the polls, largely because of this. We've got to fight even harder to get our message out that this has nothing to do with him, and hopefully the releases will prove that. And I think the Democrats are going to have to be careful what they wish for. Listen to the full interview here.  

A WNBA player just may have put a tired debate to rest for good.Indiana Fever guard Sophie Cunningham responded to comments made by a panel of male basketball players last week, and her willingness to agree with them might land her in hot water with gender activists.'Men are just stronger, bigger, athletic; they just are a different build.'On Tuesday, NBA players Michael Porter Jr. and Lonzo Ball and former pro LiAngelo Ball shot down claims from WNBA star Paige Bueckers, who said she could beat NBA player Josh Hart one-on-one. The panel also denied former NBA player Pat Beverley's claim that the WNBA champions could beat an NBA team.By Thursday, Cunningham said dozens of people had sent her the remarks looking for her reaction."This is my personal opinion, but if you are a professional football player, basketball player ... if you're in that elite-level group, yeah, you should be able to beat the girls," she explained. "Like, I'm not surprised by that."The 29-year-old then delivered a blunt message to her peers: "I just don't get why it's continuing to get brought up. And like, if women are saying that, like, he couldn't beat them, yeah, he could. Any NBA star or player could beat a female in high school," she said.Cunningham's co-host on the "Show Me Something" podcast, West Wilson, had a different approach to Porter's comments. He put forward the notion that Porter has some sort of issue with women that caused him to bring up the topic.RELATED: NBA players finally drop brutal truth bombs on WNBA stars: 'It should be common sense' Wilson said Porter has been "talking about true women" for the last two years, adding that he believes the Brooklyn Nets player is "weirdly insecure about women being around him" and their "reflection of him."The co-host was silenced when he read the contextual argument made by Porter. However, he omitted the portion of Porter's remarks in which he said he had played against Cunningham when he was in the eighth grade and easily defeated her."My sisters went to University of Missouri, and I was still a young dude, and they had me playing on the scout team," Porter said last week. "And they had a few WNBA players on their team, like Sophie Cunningham and a couple others. I think I was in seventh or eighth grade." Cunningham then brought her co-host back down to earth with her next comments, admitting that a team of elite eighth-graders could indeed handle adult women on the court.RELATED: WNBA player complains chartered planes are too small: 'We are grateful, but there's still work to be done' - YouTube "If they're future pros," she prefaced, "... it's probably true."Cunningham continued, stating the obviously biological differences."I don't want to be unrealistic or delusional, like, men are just stronger, bigger, athletic; they just are a different build. And so if you put them up against females, well, yeah, they're gonna win. Duh," she said.Wilson asked if any WNBA players thought they could beat a group of high-school boys, and Cunningham was more than willing to put a nail in the coffin."Dude, there's no way. ... If you put their best high-school [players] against the best WNBA ... the male and female are just so different. I just don't think that's a fair matchup," she admitted.Interestingly, the duo went on to discuss Cunningham's basketball history, which included discussions of playing with Porter's older sisters.Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!

A federal judge dismissed the cases against former FBI Director James Comey and New York Attorney General Letitia James Monday. Senior U.S. District Judge Cameron Currie dismissed the two indictments, ruling that President Donald Trump's former personal lawyer Lindsey Halligan was invalidly appointed to her position. 'No one is above the law.'Currie said that "all actions flowing from Ms. Halligan's defective appointment" to serve as interim U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia "were unlawful exercises of executive power and hereby set aside." Prosecutors who work alongside Halligan said U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi has the authority to choose whom to appoint to the position and that the 120-day period interim U.S. attorneys serve operates as a temporary check-in system for appointees. RELATED: Eric Swalwell offers melodramatic response to Trump DOJ probe: 'I refuse to live in fear' Photo by Al Drago/Getty Images“The implications of a contrary conclusion are extraordinary,” Currie said of Halligan's appointment. “It would mean the government could send any private citizen off the street — attorney or not — into the grand jury room to secure an indictment so long as the Attorney General gives her approval after the fact. That cannot be the law."Currie dismissed the cases without prejudice, keeping the door open for the cases to be refiled, though whether they will be remains unclear. The Department of Justice may also opt to appeal Currie's decision. Blaze News reached out to Bondi's office for comment.Comey was indicted in September for "serious crimes related to the disclosure of sensitive information," with the Department of Justice alleging that the former director lied to Congress.“No one is above the law,” Bondi said in a statement following the indictment. “Today’s indictment reflects this Department of Justice’s commitment to holding those who abuse positions of power accountable for misleading the American people. We will follow the facts in this case.” RELATED: Letitia James gives unhinged rant after court hearing for bank fraud allegations: 'This is not about me!' Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty ImagesJames was indicted shortly after Comey in October over allegations of bank fraud and providing false statements to a financial institution. If James had been convicted, she would have faced up to 30 years in prison and up to $1 million in fines on each count. "The charges as alleged in this case represent intentional, criminal acts and tremendous breaches of the public’s trust," Halligan said in a statement following the indictment. “The facts and the law in this case are clear, and we will continue following them to ensure that justice is served.”Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!

The Department of War issued a statement Monday announcing an investigation into Democratic Sen. Mark Kelly of Arizona after he made comments advising military members against carrying out allegedly unlawful orders from the president.Several Democrats participated in a video calling on U.S. military members to refuse to follow unlawful orders, and the president slammed them Saturday in a post on social media. Kelly is a retired Navy captain.'It was sedition at the highest level, and sedition is a major crime. There can be no other interpretation of what they said!'"The traitors that told the military to disobey my orders should be in jail right now, not roaming the fake news networks trying to explain what they said was OK," President Donald Trump wrote in all caps."It was sedition at the highest level, and sedition is a major crime. There can be no other interpretation of what they said!" he added.He also suggested that they should be hanged for their "seditious behavior," but the White House walked back those comments.On Monday, the Pentagon said Kelly was under investigation."The Department of War has received serious allegations of misconduct against Captain Mark Kelly, USN (Ret.). In accordance with the Uniform Code of Military Justice, 10 U.S.C. § 688, and other applicable regulations, a thorough review of these allegations has been initiated to determine further actions, which may include recall to active duty for court-martial proceedings or administrative measures," the statement reads."All servicemembers are reminded that they have a legal obligation under the UCMJ to obey lawful orders and that orders are presumed to be lawful. A servicemember’s personal philosophy does not justify or excuse the disobedience of an otherwise lawful order," the DOW statement added.Sen. Elissa Slotkin of Michigan, one of the Democrats who participated in the video, said police responded to her home over a bomb threat. She said she was not at home at the time. Kelly responded on social media to the Pentagon statement. "If this is meant to intimidate me and other members of Congress from doing our jobs and holding this administration accountable, it won't work," he wrote. "I've given too much to this country to be silenced by bullies who care more about their own power than protecting the Constitution." RELATED: Marjorie Taylor Greene says she has received violent threats — and blames Trump A Blaze News request for comment to Kelly's office was not immediately answered."This matter will be handled in compliance with military law, ensuring due process and impartiality," the statement from the Pentagon continued. "Further official comments will be limited, to preserve the integrity of the proceedings."Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!

Just Got REAL: Mark Kelly Has Reached the FIND OUT Stage of FAFO for Urging Military to DISOBEY Orders

OH DAMN! LOL! Kurt Schlichter ENDS 'DUMBA** Dem' Dan Goldman and His Claims About Ice 'Crossing a Line'