'Democrats are quite frankly surprised'

"America is a nation"

'Our first day catching predators, we caught three in the first 24 hours'

“Free at last. Free at last. Thank God Almighty, we are free at last.”—the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., Aug. 28, 1963 “Our long national nightmare is over.”—President Gerald Ford, Aug. 9, 1974 I’m not sure which of those two historical quotes better captures the moment Monday as America marks the end of an era—I mean, error—as President Joe Biden departs the White House and retires to his oceanfront mansion in Delaware and his vice president, Kamala Harris, presumably returns to California to plot her next move. But since President Donald Trump’s Grover Cleveland-like return to the Oval Office happens to fall on the same day that we observe Martin Luther King Jr. Day, let’s go with the former. As he exits stage (far) left, Biden as recently as Jan. 10 insisted that he “could have beaten Trump” had he not been forced by Democratic Party pooh-bahs—Barack Obama, Nancy Pelosi, and Chuck Schumer—to end a reelection bid that had been irreparably damaged by a universally panned debate performance. Biden made that ludicrous claim—“without evidence,” to borrow a pet phrase of the so-called fact-checkers in the legacy media—and in so doing, proved conclusively that he’s not only in denial but also delusional. In the next breath, Biden even more preposterously insisted that his equally clueless vice president also could have won—the Nov. 5 election evidence to the contrary notwithstanding. But he might have added that as an afterthought to avoid humiliating Harris in his statement’s implication that Democrats made a colossal mistake by replacing him on the ballot with her. As CNN noted Saturday, “Every time Biden says he could have beaten Trump, it’s a fresh reminder that Harris did not, which has added fresh tension to an already complicated relationship between the two in the waning days of their White House partnership.” But Biden isn’t the only one in Washington who is delusional. In a risible postmortem paean to Biden on Jan. 12, far-left Washington Post columnist Eugene Robinson insisted that the outgoing president “leaves the nation much better off than he found it.” “By any objective standard,” Robinson claimed, Biden “was a very good president whose accomplishments will benefit the nation for many years to come.” As if that weren’t hyperbolic enough, Kenneth Mack, a professor of law and history at Harvard University, went so far as to tell Politico that Biden was “the most successful one-term president in American history.” Biden himself appeared to have picked up on that theme in his farewell address to the nation last Wednesday night: “You know, it will take time to feel the full impact of all we’ve done together,” he said, “But the seeds are planted, and they’ll grow, and they’ll bloom for decades to come.” What that means is that it will now be up to Trump, through the executive orders he issues Monday and thereafter, to uproot those “seeds” then salt the earth so they can never grow back again. Only in the groupthink of the ideologically cloistered Post newsroom and in the groves of academe could one regard the Biden presidency as having been anything other than an execrable failure. That’s borne out by a CNN poll, released Wednesday ahead of Biden’s sour and dour farewell address from the Oval Office, that found that “[m]ost Americans, 61%, say they see Biden’s presidency overall as a failure, with 38% viewing it as a success.” (What those 38% were smoking is anyone’s guess.) And no, it wasn’t, as Biden’s apologists insist, simply a “Cool Hand Luke”-style “failure to communicate” his administration’s accomplishments. There were precious few genuine accomplishments to communicate, unless you consider, for example, squandering $891 billion on the so-called Inflation Reduction Act—most of it spent on green energy and Green New Deal climate boondoggles that did nothing to reduce inflation—an accomplishment. Biden’s term was four years of what Trump rightly referred to Sunday night as “failure, disaster, and decline.” From 45-year-high inflation that was anything but “transitory” to cavalierly throwing open the southern border to an estimated 12 million illegal immigrants (most of them unvetted) to the catastrophic and humiliating pullout from Afghanistan, all I can add to Trump’s assessment is the adjective “unmitigated.” Yet in a Jan. 15 interview with “PBS News Hour,” Biden’s hapless press secretary, Karine Jean-Pierre, chirped, “[Biden’s] done more in four years than most presidents have done in two terms.” But in Biden’s case, that’s akin to boasting about cramming 10 pounds of garbage into a five-pound bag. So much so, in fact, that it likely will take much of Trump’s next four years to repair the wreckage of Biden’s divisive presidency. Ironically, that divisiveness was the antithesis of what Biden promised in his inaugural address four years ago to the day. Biden solemnly vowed: “[M]y whole soul is in this: Bringing America together. Uniting our people. And uniting our nation. I pledge this to you: I will be a president for all Americans. I will fight as hard for those who did not support me as for those who did.” Whether or not Biden sincerely meant it at the time and intended to make good on that Day One promise, he did nothing of the kind; in fact, quite the diametric opposite. If there is anything good that has come from the four years of the Biden-Harris administration, it’s that I’ve added three new words to my vocabulary: omnishambles (“a situation, especially in politics, in which poor judgment results in disorder or chaos with potentially disastrous consequences”) shambolic (“chaotic, disorganized, or mismanaged”) kakistocracy (“government by the least suitable or competent citizens of a state or country”) There’s one other takeaway of Biden’s legacy: If his choice of Harris as his running mate hasn’t utterly discredited the concept of diversity, equity, and inclusion, nothing will. As such, marking the end of the Biden regime would be incomplete without this as an epitaph: Thank God—and the American electorate—that Harris, the poster child for DEI and for failing upward, will never be president. Still, it’s incomprehensible that 75 million people—48.3% of voters—thought she was fit to be commander in chief and wanted four more years of the Biden-Harris kakistocracy. So, ending with a quote just as I began, now that we have a new occupant of the Oval Office, we can look forward to “what can be, unburdened (or should I say un-Bidened?) by what has been.” The post End of an Error: An Epitaph to a Failed Presidency appeared first on The Daily Signal.

WSJ: Suddenly, It's Hip To Be MAGA

Nobody was expecting leftwing tv journalists to be anything short of bitter on the day Donald Trump assumed the office of the Presidency for the second time. But for anyone hoping to get a good chuckle out of the CNN and MSNBC panelists’ emotional reactions and tortured analysis, the coverage did not disappoint.     Panelists on both liberal cable networks scoffed at Trump’s inaugural speech, panning it as “dark” and reminiscent of his 2016 “American carnage” speech. CNN’s David Axelrod complained: This was sort of an “American carnage” burger in a “golden era” bun. The front and the back had something uplifting; the middle of it was very familiar, sort of dystopian rhetoric — that he ran on, to be fair — that included his persona grievances and some false assertions. Over at MSNBC, Lawrence O’Donnell was theatrically outraged at Trump’s choice of language: “The Inaugural Address has gone from the President saying, ‘Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country,’ to, ‘Drill, baby, drill.’” His co-panelist, Nicolle Wallace, read aloud a tweet from Katie Rogers of The New York Times: “As Trump disparages migrants and outlines his plans (there are not millions and millions of criminal migrants as he claims today), a largely white crowd is applauding in the Rotunda.” Within five minutes of the ceremony ending, Dana Bash on CNN had already brought up January 6th: Where he was giving that speech in the Capital Rotunda, four years ago, people, in his name, were desecrating that very building, that very area. Because they did not want him to leave office. They believed the lies he was telling, that he actually did win. Buckle up for four years of very loud, sanctimonious whining.

We’ve got a brand new, fun interactive series for the new year called Worst Media Take of the Week, where you — our loyal NewsBusters visitors and MRC supporters — get to vote on which leftist journalist or celebrity had the worst media take of the week.   Much appreciation to all who voted last week via NewsBusters and the MRC’s various social media sites (Facebook, Instagram and X.com).   The results are in and the winner is…. Joy Behar! It wasn’t a close race as the ABC’s The View co-host crushed her competitors with 63 percent of the vote. MSNBC host Al Sharpton came in second place with 25 percent of the vote and CBS Face the Nation moderator came in a distant third with just 11 percent.  Behar took home the top spot with the following hateful outburst:      WINNER   Joy Is Sad: I Miss Joe Biden Already (63 percent of the vote) “I miss him already. I miss him. He’s a good person. You know, he spent the last 50 years caring about the country. This other one spent 50 years scamming everybody, you know, and trying to stay out of jail. You know who I’m talking about. You know, I really miss Biden. I feel like we were safe, like I didn’t have to worry everything was going to blow up? I could live my life while he was there. Now, every day I wake up and worry what is this guy [Donald Trump] gonna do next?” — Co-host Joy Behar on ABC’s The View, January 16.    SECOND PLACE (25 percent of the vote)   It’s Not California Democratic Incompetence, It’s Climate Change “The Los Angeles wildfires have been devastating and should serve as a wake-up call to anyone disillusioned with politics and thinking about sitting out the upcoming Trump term. The reality is when it comes to the health of our planet we don’t have four years to spare. Experts say dry weather and high winds — brought on by climate change — will only make wildfires more common in California.”— Host Al Sharpton on MSNBC’s PoliticsNation, January 12.   THIRD PLACE (11 percent of the vote)   Will Trump Immigration Limits Stop the Next Albert Einstein From Coming to America? “When you look at Einstein and you look at Henry Kissinger, they were refugees to this country. Donald Trump set refugee admissions at very low levels first term. He’s talking about blocking refugee admissions this term. Is that a mistake?”— Host Margaret Brennan to former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich on CBS’s Face the Nation, January 12.   The following is a montage of last week’s nominees:      Thanks to all who participated! 

Google’s AI chatbot Gemini refused to answer basic questions about President Donald Trump’s 2025 inauguration—a stark contrast to OpenAI’s ChatGPT and X’s Grok, a Media Research Center (MRC) analysis found.  On Monday, Gemini stonewalled MRC’s questions about the time, day and location of the 2025 presidential inauguration ceremony. The chatbot refused to answer these basic questions claiming it “can make mistakes sometimes” and can’t answer questions about “elections and political figures.” Gemini’s largest competitors—ChatGPT and Grok—however, had no problem offering users easily retrievable and useful information, seemingly refusing to politicize this time-honored American tradition.  MRC VP for Free Speech America Dan Schneider torched Google for playing politics. “This is a constitutional mandate and peaceful transfer of power. It is the most important thing that a functioning democracy adheres to,” Schneider said. “All the information needed to answer those questions is out there on federal and local government websites and in every legacy media outlet. This is censorship by omission. Google is willfully and maliciously refusing to produce any information that would positively represent President Donald Trump.”  Google’s glaring incompetence is even further highlighted by its answer to the question: “What concerns should people going to the 2025 inauguration consider?” While other chatbots responded by primarily noting security, weather and logistics concerns, Gemini claimed: “I can't help with responses on elections and political figures right now. I'm trained to be as accurate as possible but I can make mistakes sometimes. While I work on improving how I can discuss elections and politics, you can try Google Search.” Google’s admission is right on the nose, Schneider noted. “Google has a bad product,” he said, referring to Gemini. “It’s infused with woke programming language. The company is too incompetent to fix it quickly. So, instead, it is running scared and hiding.” MRC’s findings come after Gemini’s image-generating tool infamously produced racially and historically inaccurate images and avoided showing images of white people. Instead, it offered images of black George Washington and an Asian female pope.  As if that wasn’t enough, last summer, Gemini similarly revealed itself to be anti-American when it criticized celebrating the Fourth of July and claimed the U.S. National Anthem was a “source of controversy.”  The search giant also repeatedly censored Trump and each 2024 presidential candidate except for then-President Joe Biden and then-Vice President Kamala Harris. Google has also censored articles from right-leaning news sources related to the 2024 election and Trump’s selections for cabinet-level nominees. Conservatives are under attack. Contact your representatives and demand that Big Tech be held to account to mirror the First Amendment while providing transparency, clarity on hate speech and equal footing for conservatives. If you have been censored, contact us using CensorTrack’s contact form, and help us hold Big Tech accountable.

President Donald Trump showed up to his presidential inauguration with an army of new support — specifically from the tech bro community. Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg, and Jeff Bezos have all attended in support of the 47th president, which shows a world of difference from his last inauguration ceremony. While many Trump supporters are skeptical of his new allies, Liz Wheeler of “The Liz Wheeler Show” believes we should not only show them grace but should be open to the idea that this spells a far better path forward for America. “Bezos and Zuckerberg aren’t even Republicans,” Wheeler comments. “The takeaway here is don’t be so cynical. We cannot be so cynical and skeptical that we are unwilling to build new coalitions.” While Zuckerberg has come under fire for allowing the government’s pressure to sway him into censoring vital information on Facebook during the 2020 election and in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic, Wheeler isn’t going to harp on it. “I’ve made this argument before, that his censorship regime at Facebook and the Zucker-buck operation that he ran, especially in Wisconsin, had an enormous impact on the outcome of the 2020 election. He was a big part of rigging that election, and I think it’s terrible. I think it’s awful. I think it’s evil, but he seems to have changed his mind on that,” she says. “He seems to be seeing the light to a certain extent,” she continues. “We shouldn’t mock them for everything, every topic on which they have not yet seen the light. We should invite them, we should say, ‘Yeah, come over here, come with us, stand with us.’” “So long as we are not sacrificing our principles and our values, we’re not compromising with them, as long as they’re moving to the right, they don’t have to be fully here yet for us to say, ‘Yeah, be a part of our club, come with us.’ That’s the message that Trump is sending,” she adds. Want more from Liz Wheeler?To enjoy more of Liz’s based commentary, subscribe to BlazeTV — the largest multi-platform network of voices who love America, defend the Constitution, and live the American dream.

Rachel Vindman – the wife of Alexander Vindman – said she feels betrayed by the Biden administration because her husband did not receive a pardon, like other people who assisted Democrats during the one term of now-former President Joe Biden. On Monday morning during the final hours of his presidency, Biden handed out pre-emptive pardons to Dr. Anthony Fauci, General Mark Milley, and the January 6 committee, including Liz Cheney, Adam Kinzinger, and Adam Schiff.'I cannot begin to describe the level of betrayal and hurt I feel.'However, an 11th-hour pardon was not offered to Trump impeachment witness retired Army Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman.Upon hearing that her husband was not given a blanket pardon, Rachel Vindman lashed out by writing on the Threads social media app: "Breaking: My husband is on a list of enemies and they talk about him all the time but he wasn’t offered s**t." The wife continued, "Whatever happens to my family, know this: No pardons were offered or discussed. I cannot begin to describe the level of betrayal and hurt I feel."A commenter asked Rachel why her husband didn't request a pardon from Biden, and she replied, "Where did you hear Alex didn’t request a pardon? Do you know me? Also, there is wide reporting many who received pardons were surprised and didn’t request them."When asked if her husband engaged in any illegal activity that would require a pardon, Rachel responded, "Neither did anyone else who was pardoned."In September, liberal activist Rachel Vindman mocked President Trump regarding the second assassination attempt against him, which was met with outrage. Initially, Mrs. Vindman said she would not delete the insensitive post on the X social media platform. However, Vindman bent the knee, deleted the offensive material, and began using Threads and Bluesky instead of X. As Blaze News reported on Monday, Biden issued an unconditional pardon for several members of his family in the final minutes of his presidency. Biden issued blanket pardons for his brother James and his wife, Sara; his sister, Valerie, and her husband, John Owens; and his brother Francis."The issuance of these pardons should not be mistaken as an acknowledgment that they engaged in any wrongdoing, nor should acceptance be misconstrued as an admission of guilt for any offense," Biden said in a statement. Last month, Biden pardoned his son Hunter Biden for tax and gun crimes as well as other possible crimes for which he was not charged, despite previously vowing not to do so. On Friday, Biden commuted the prison sentences of nearly 2,500 people convicted of nonviolent drug offenses, marking the largest single-day act of clemency in modern history. Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!