We often hear about the exciting times that a fan runs into a celebrity they love. But you know what we don’t hear about as often? A celebrity casually coming across a fan enjoying their own art. But that’s exactly what happened to Walker Hayes recently. The beloved country singer and songwriter was on a flight when the wholesome moment took place. As fate would have it, someone in the row in front of him was a fan. But how did Hayes figure that out? From the fan’s perspective, they were listening to one of Hayes’ hit songs, Fancy Like, through their headphones. In reality, though, the headphones weren’t fully connected. In turn, Hayes was able to hear his music a bit. As you can imagine, it didn’t take long for him to realize that the song was familiar for a very good reason! You can catch his wholesome reaction in the video below. @walkerhayesofficial I mean what are the odds #fancylike ♬ original sound – Walker Hayes “I’m right here,” Hayes quietly says at the end of the video, adding in the caption, “I mean what are the odds.” Although it seems the two of them never interacted, how great would it be if he happens to come across Hayes’ video!? Either way, other fans are certainly loving this moment. Walker Hayes’ Fan Has No Idea the Country Singer is Behind Him on a Flight “Please tell me you got up and danced for him,” one fan writes, referring to the original dance him and his teen, Lela, shared on TikTok. “I’d die if that were me and you were behind me.” “I would have asked him to plug in his headphones and then asked if he knew who sang it,” another jokes. “What an honor to hear your music comforting someone as they fly,” someone else sweetly points out. You can find the source of this story’s featured image here! The post “What Are The Odds,” Musician Has Gleeful Reaction To Hearing Stranger Playing His Song On Flight appeared first on InspireMore.

'He was told he was not free to leave'

A post shared on X claims 2024 presumptive Republican nominee and former President Donald Trump purportedly threatened a New York City probation officer during his recent at-home pre-sentencing video interview. President Trump Thrashes NYC Probation Officer During Video Conference June 11, 2024  U.S. Army Cyber Command (ARCYBER) installed military-grade encryption software on the computer […]

Born in Cleveland, Ohio, in 1962, Gilby Clarke came of age during an era when the Mid-West was the key to all things rock. From a young age, Clarke dug on bands like Kiss, Led Zeppelin, and ZZ Top, all of which would shape him later. But Clarke also lived glam rock, with British groups like T. Rex and The Sweet playing critical roles in his development, as did David Bowie, and, of course, the Beatles and the Stones. But it wasn’t until The Clash entered the chat that Clarke’s full sensibilities as a guitarist came to the forefront, and The post Gilby Clarke, formerly of Guns N’ Roses: 10 Records That Changed My Life appeared first on ClassicRockHistory.com.

This weekend, we’re having a midsummer sale! Every product on our learning site, Self-Reliance and Survival, is on sale for the lowest prices ever offered. All PDF books: $3 All Printables: $1 All Full-length Courses: $25 All Webinars: $10 The 2024 USB: $100 Your purchase helps to support The OP website, our writers, and our mission to help everyone get more prepared, regardless of your personal situation. Thank you so much for your business! The post Every Book, Course, & Webinar at the Lowest Prices EVER appeared first on The Organic Prepper.

Wear 'Em Out: Mexico's New Strategy to Stop Immigration to the United States

Luis Elizondo for Medium: Today, much of our government’s business is conducted behind closed doors, and mostly for good reason. There are numerous secret programs, secret agencies, secret committees of Congress, secret laws, and even a secret courtroom. Secrecy allows our government to collect and share information, and even make decisions that otherwise could fall into enemy hands or be exploited. Ultimately, the purpose of keeping things secret in the government is to protect sources and methods and ensure the flow and integrity of information is maintained so decision-makers can make decisions with the very best data available. It’s no surprise that governments will go to great lengths to protect the information they consider sensitive. In fact, the more sensitive information is perceived, the more it is protected. Nowhere is this more true than the shadowy world of intelligence and espionage. A famous example of secretive programs was once run by a colleague of mine, Dr. Harold Puthoff. The Stargate Program was a secret intelligence collection effort straight out of science fiction books. Established by the Central Intelligence Agency under a different name, and later adopted by the Defense Intelligence Agency, the purpose of Stargate was to train intelligence collectors in advanced human cognitive capabilities and use them to collect information. Better known as the psychic spies, these elite individuals utilized the not very well-understood phenomena of precognition and “remote viewing” to conduct espionage against our adversaries. Many in the scientific community were initially dismissive of the idea but were later mesmerized by the fidelity and accuracy of the data collected. Was the U.S. Government really tapping into things like witchcraft as some had proposed, or was there a more scientific explanation? Perhaps one of the more controversial programs in U.S. history, it certainly wasn’t the first or the last to explore the weird world of quantum physics for the purposes of intelligence and information gathering. Some of the most “out there” research happening in the government right now is in the world of quantum physics. Quantum mechanics is a physics theory that studies the behavior of matter and energy at the atomic and subatomic level — and now, it’s helping to shed light on some of the most mysterious areas of science. Areas including teleportation, quantum entanglement, and zero-point energy are providing new insights into the very fabric of our reality and space-time. Ideas popularized by sci-fi shows like StarTrek are proving more real than you might think. Most people would be surprised to learn that we have been teleporting objects such as electrons for over a decade, and most recently, the Micius satellite confirmed successful teleportation of a quantum object from Earth to orbit, smashing the previous record. Yes, teleportation is real. Another example of government involvement in the weird world of quantum mechanics is the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO). A partnership between Caltech, MIT, and the National Science Foundation, LIGO’s job is to detect small fluctuations in gravitational waves that are caused by stellar black holes colliding millions and billions of light years away. Until recently, the idea that gravity waves even existed, let alone compress and stretch space-time like a Slinky was only theoretical. Why are gravitational waves important? Because they prove that the very space and time we live in is, in fact, flexible, and sometimes very flexible. If you’re scratching your head right now, you probably aren’t alone. Our recent understanding of these weird quantum properties was only made possible because at some point, the U.S. Government decided it was worth pursuing and became involved. The mystery surrounding Unidentified Aerial Phenomena (UAP) may seem whimsical; after all, other efforts including the now famous “Project Blue Book” looked at the same fanciful phenomena, along with several other previous efforts and came up with nothing…or did they? When I headed the Pentagon’s Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program (AATIP), we were doing exactly the same thing others before us were doing. But AATIP had an advantage its predecessors didn’t — a better understanding of the quantum world. Only recently have we made advancements enough in our understanding of science that for the first time, many of the perplexing behaviors of UAP — such as instantaneous acceleration, hypersonic velocities, low observability, trans-medium travel, and even anti-gravity — can now be explained by quantum physics and not voodoo science. Finally, we were at the point where the physics had caught up with the observations, the electro-optical data, and other hard data. We now had a glimpse into better understanding how these things behave and perform. Books written by Harvard professors and renowned scientists at MIT, Stanford, Cambridge, and Oxford are shedding new light on the mathematics involved with this super boutique field of science. No longer is the quantum world a scientific field of theory, it is now a practical field of reality. It may explain the very behavior of the universe and everything in it. It might even help demystify the conundrum of “faster than light travel,” or frankly speaking, the ability to bend space-time in a way where you can go across great distances in an instant and still not break any laws of physics. Eureka! Laws are meant to be broken Perhaps in traffic court, it’s best not to tell the judge that. But in physics, we’re learning that some laws can be bent. Let’s look at quantum entanglement as an example. For two particles to be “entangled,” when one particle is acted upon, the other reacts. This holds true whether the particles are separated by an inch, a foot, a mile, or much, much further. Here’s a much-oversimplified demonstration of what it looks like: Say I’m holding two pens, one in each hand. I take the pen in my left hand and throw it left, to the farthest reaches of our visible universe, 13.5 billion light years over the horizon. Then I take the pen in my right hand and send that pen to the farthest point of the visible universe to the right, in the opposite direction of the first pen. Now we have approximately 27 billion light years in distance between each pen, right? This means it takes light (the fastest thing in the known universe) 27 billion years to travel from the first pen to the second. Yet, if my two pens are quantum entangled, as I act on one pen, the other will immediately respond. Somehow, the two pens have managed to instantly communicate an action that takes light more than 27 billion years to reach. Confused? That’s okay. Albert Einstein was so beguiled by quantum entanglement, he called it “spooky action at a distance.” So how is this possible if light is supposedly the fastest thing in the universe? It’s possible that quantum communication has found a shortcut. Maybe the communication that occurs at the quantum level doesn’t recognize distance the same way we do, or even the way light does. Perhaps, in the quantum world, distance isn’t even a consideration. Some have proposed that space is like a giant sponge or swiss cheese, with tiny holes that allow you to zip from one point to another without having to traverse over or around the actual sponge or cheese itself. Imagine if we had the technology to exploit these tiny holes. Another possibility is that at the quantum level, communication occurs by connecting two areas of space-time at a single point. Similar to placing a pencil smudge on the edge of a sheet of paper, then folding together opposite ends of the paper together so the pencil smudge on one end rubs off on the other side of the paper. Scientists now believe that there are other things can indeed move faster than the speed of light. Recent observations supporting “Inflation Theory” propose that space itself can expand faster than the speed of light. In essence, space between two objects can expand so rapidly, that even though the objects themselves are not moving faster than light, the space between the two objects certainly does. The one thing we realize is that, as strange as the quantum world may be, it is indeed real. Quantum physics helps us explain the behavior of UAP All the reports of UAP have something in common: the weird and erratic way the unfamiliar crafts move through the sky. The first report of a “flying saucer” dates back to 1947 when a pilot saw nine objects resembling boomerangs in the sky, each moving “like a saucer if you skip it across the water.” In 2003, a New Zealand eyewitness described seeing a “disc-shaped silver UFO with erratic vertical and horizontal movements.” Thousands of reports by military and civilians from around the world have continued to report similar characteristics. Then, in December 2017, the Department of Defense released its first “official footage” of UFO encounters with the military. In the videos, the trained military pilots — who know exactly what both foreign and domestic aircraft look like when flying — are completely stumped by what they’re witnessing. The craft dart to one side, then zip across the screen to another point, seemingly defying the laws of science. How are they able to maneuver this way? UAP don’t seem to be bound by the same limitations and interpretations we have of space-time. They’re here one moment, gone the next. We can safely assume that whatever technology is being used, it’s likely far superior to ours. It’s time for a paradigm change Back in the 1800s, the director of the U.S. Patent Trademark Office predicted that in 20 years, there would no longer be a need for patents because everything would have already been invented. Pretty short-sighted, right? But a similar thing happened with UAP. With Project Blue Book, the U.S. Air Force compiled reports of tens of thousands of UFO sightings over 17 years. But in 1966, another Air Force committee published the Condon Report, which concluded that most of the sightings examined were explainable. Then the 2017 DoD disclosure occurred, directly contradicting the findings in the Condon Report. We realized we had not discovered all there was to discover — not by a long shot. AATIP succeeded where others failed simply because our understanding of the physics finally caught up to our observations. Now, equipped with more information than ever before, we’re on the precipice of some serious revelations and discoveries about our place in the universe. Author: Luis Elizondo, former U.S. Army Counterintelligence Special Agent, source Medium The post Quantum Mechanics: What Subatomic Particles Mean for UAP Study appeared first on Anomalien.com.

Joy Reid hosted a panel of clowns on Wednesday’s episode of MSNBC’s The ReidOut to denounce local news stations questioning President Biden’s mental acuity. The panel of lefties condemned the Sinclair Broadcast Group for broadcasting a Wall Street Journal (WSJ) report on the president’s age as it affects the election. They also portrayed the group as an insidious promoter of propaganda intending to deceive unsuspecting voters. Turning to former CNN host turned Vanity Fair special correspondent Brian Stelter, Reid displayed the different TV stations owned by Sinclair and bemoaned their significant reach, claiming that “they’re pretending and masked as a normal news station” because they ran reports about President Biden’s mental state. Stelter exaggerated the supposed challenges faced by journalists working at Sinclair stations, who were forced to report on talking points mandated by an apparently tyrannical group.  He also insisted that the WSJ report was notably flawed, even though it specifically called into question the acuity of both candidates and mentioned Trump’s blunders as well as Biden’s.      Reid played another recording of when Sinclair “got caught…reading the same script on all these different stations that got busted,” misrepresenting it as a rare phenomenon exclusive to the broadcasting group.  MSNBC contributor Molly Jong-Fast decried it as a “nefarious” product of the “conservative echo chamber” and Rupert Murdoch, owner of Fox News, The Wall Street Journal, and The New York Post. She dramatized him as a mastermind with “a vested interest in right-wing propaganda,” preying on vulnerable grandmas.  Kind of sounds like when the liberal media were singing from the same sheet music that Hunter Biden’s laptop was a “disinformation campaign” and “foreign intelligence operation.” Fake Republican Matthew Dowd regurgitated Jong-Fast’s raving contribution, arguing that Sinclair was “far more dangerous” than Fox News because it exploited the established trust in local news stations. Naturally, everybody at MSNBC is completely confident that the network covers the truth and makes no attempt to deceive its viewers. Reid compared the incident to Hillary Clinton’s emails and widespread coverage of that story, wisely deducing that “the media does have the power to make people do–to, you know, shape people's opinions.” She also surprisingly admitted that “Joe Biden is old–let's just be clear–and he looks old, he sounds old, he walks old. He looks–you know, you see he’s a senior citizen.” To her, the primary difference between the candidates was that Biden “still sounds like he’s in touch with reality,” which NewsBusters proved was ridiculously false.  The panel excused Biden as a well-meaning senior citizen while Trump, in Dowd’s words, “is a unique combination of both mentally unstable and incredibly corrupt.” Stelter hilariously suggested that Biden voters demanded a higher standard while Republicans blindly accepted Trump’s words: Why are so many Trump voters holding Trump to such a low standard? I would argue that most Biden voters hold Biden to a higher standard. Why is it that many Trump voters accept the word vomit–or, or the word salad that comes out of his mouth? Kind of like the high standards Stelter had on his CNN show, Reliable Sources, when he failed to push back on a guest who claimed Trump was going to kill more people than Hitler, Stalin, and Mao. Towards the end of the discussion, Reid and Jong-Fast exchanged theories on what Republicans really wanted, concluding that “there aren’t any” policies they support and they “don’t seem to want anything.” An intriguing change in tune for Reid who devoted significant portions of earlier episodes to fretting over the consequences of a possible second Trump presidency. The transcript is below. Click "expand" to read: MSNBC’s The ReidOut 6/12/2024 07:01:13 JOY REID: But we begin tonight with the power of choice. As all of you faithful readers tuning in right now have made a choice to watch this program, you know what you want, and we are very thankful that you’ve decided to tune in. On the other hand, there are people who choose to watch Fox, which they are perfectly entitled to do, and those viewers are doing so knowing that they're going to get a heaping dose of right-wing talking points and Trump cheerleading. They’re choosing that because that's what they want.  But when, say, your grandma tunes into her local news station for traffic, weather, and sports–maybe it's an NBC affiliate or an ABC or CBS–she's probably not looking for a very specific right-wing narrative from the media conglomerate who just so happens to own that station. In fact, she probably doesn't even know what's happening.  But it is, at scores of local stations owned by the Sinclair Broadcast Group, which owns or operates 185 local television stations across the country. New reporting by Aaron Rupar of Public Notice and Judg–Judd Legum of Popular Information highlights how Sinclair has inserted one specific right-wing narrative about President Biden’s age into local broadcasts nationwide. Local anchors teed-up a segment based on a recent dubious Wall Street Journal report about the president’s acuity and the election, all with a virtually identical script. (...) REID: Joining me now is Molly Jong-Fast, Vanity Fair special correspondent and MSNBC contributor, Matthew Dowd, former Republican strategist and MSNBC senior political analyst, and Brian Stelter, Vanity Fair special correspondent and author of Network of Lies. Brian, I’m gonna go to you first ‘cause you are our media guy. I mean, this is how broad–I wanna put up this map. This is how much coverage Sinclair has across the United States. You can see that all over the country and the thing that's important to note is that, yes, 51 of them are Fox affiliates–and I–my first job was as a–for a Fox affiliate, they’re not necessarily exactly like Fox–51 are Fox, ABC is 39, CBS 30, NBC 25, Univision eight. So, they’re pretending and masked as a normal news station. BRIAN STELTER: Yes, and instead of putting just a thumb on this scale, the s–the actual reach of Sinclair means they put an entire hand on the scale. They are having, uh, a-a-a-a profound influence and frankly, uh, uh, a disproportionate influence compared to other local TV stations. You know, Joy, I’m glad you’re talking about this story ‘cause local TV is really powerful. REID: Yes. STELTER: And there’s a lot of local journalists who are outstanding. My wife’s a local TV anchor. Her colleagues do outstanding work. But, here’s the problem with Sinclair in particular. Unlike all of those other networks, unlike all of those other owners, Sinclair does try to put a spin on the news. And I know a lot of the local journalists who work for Sinclair stations don't want anything to do with it. They don’t like it. They don't like reading the talking points but they have to. And here’s the biggest problem of all, Joy. That Wall Street Journal story had a lot of flaws, as you said. But Sinclair, they didn't do any original reporting. They didn’t follow up. They didn’t do any work. They didn't do any of their own work at all. They just ate it up and then they regurgitated what The Wall Street Journal said. That's the worst form of so-called journalism out there. It's not really news at all. REID: Yeah. STELTER: And that’s my biggest complaint about this. REID: Right and they–and they’ve done this before, Molly. This isn't the first time. Let me play the previous one that where they got caught. And this was reading the same script on all these different stations that got busted. Uh, take a look.  [Cuts to video] [Many speaking at once] [Cuts back to live] REID: And this was a must-run editorial and it echoed Donald Trump's attacks on the media using phrases like “false news” and “fake stories.” MOLLY JONG-FAST: Well, what we see is this conservative echo chamber, how they find a story and you see it. It starts in The New York Post, maybe it starts in the Gateway Pundit. I mean, there are, you know, dubious news sources all throughout the conservative spectrum. The New York Post often goes to The Wall Street Journal, both owned by Rupert Murdoch who has a vested interest in right-wing propaganda, also–who also owns Fox News. It goes to Fox and then it sort of trickles down. So, Sinclair, it's not so surprising that they do this, I mean, we’ve seen that they do this. But the fact that they’re using local news… REID: Right. JONG-FAST: …to get this propaganda into the minds of people who are just trying to figure out the weather and the traffic seems particularly nefarious. REID: Yeah, absolutely. And Matthew, I mean, from a campaign perspective, it's a powerful ally to have because this isn't people who are, sort of, self–you know, they’re choosing to go to Fox because they want that. These are people who are just sitting back, as Molly said, just listening to the news and the sports and they are getting a propaganda narrative, while at the same time they’re constantly being fed the idea that Trump is vigorous and brilliant, because let’s just face it. As Nicolle Wallace has pointed out numerous times, Fox isn't even playing him live anymore because he has become more and more demented sounding. They won’t go live to him anymore, we don’t go live to him, almost no one plays his speeches, so what you’re left with in just your local news world is the idea that it’s Biden that’s daffy, not Trump. MATTHEW DOWD: Yeah, I mean, I'm glad we're having this conversation because I have come to the conclusion that what Sinclair is doing is far more dangerous than what Fox News has been doing.  REID: For sure. DOWD: Far more dangerous because we all see, and most Americans see, Fox News–whether you watch it or not, or hate it or not–we all know it's the same l–we all kinda generally know it’s the same lens–they’re gonna be right-wing, it’s gonna be that–and so we filter it through that or people–many people filter it through that and then accept it, whether you’re part of that cult or not. The problem with Sinclair is, people don't have that filter on when they watch their traffic, they watch the weather, they watch local sports and all of that. And tha–when you look at the level of trust for news organizations, local news is trusted far more than other news, in the course of this. And I remember in 2004, Joy, that what I would say is show me what's getting reported on the local news and show me what's in the local paper in Phoenix or Detroit or Grand Rapids or whatever else. That to me is what's most important. That was before this Sinclair and now we have this. And that, to me, is far more pernicious than Fox News. REID: Absolutely, Brian. I mean, the reality is, what took–what made Donald Trump unre-electable was not so much what necessarily we were saying here, because his voters wouldn't have watched it. It was all the stories of people dying that people were seeing on local news. And I remember saying that on this show is that Donald Trump, what he cannot overcome is that people dying in your community ends up on your local station. And those deaths are in A block, they’re in the top of that broadcast because it's a local tragedy and he can't get around that. Well, thanks to Sinclair, yeah, he can. STELTER: Mmm. You’re–you are–yeah, that is true to some degree. It's not true as, uh, as a overall because, as you said, even some Fox affiliates are not the same as Fox News, right? There is a lot of great work out there but I am gonna be paying attention as this election goes on to how much Sinclair continues to put that entire fist on the scale, how much these local anchors are forced to read national scripts. Because as that anchor kept saying–all those anchors said the same thing, right, they’re reading the same words. REID: Yeah. STELTER: They said, “This could be an election decider, Joe Biden's age.” Well, that's true if the media obsesses over it and ignores Trump's faults. That will be true if the media puts its fists on the scale. REID: It’s Hillary’s emails… JONG-FAST: Right. REID: …because the media literally only did one story the minute those emails–Russia grabbed those emails and hacked the DNC. There literally was no other story that anyone had any interest in. And so, the media does have the power to make people do–to, you know, shape people's opinions. JONG-FAST: Absolutely true. And remember, they tried to impeach Joe Biden. The Republicans in the House, they tried to weaponize the government against him and they couldn't find anything and then their main witness ended up in jail.  REID: (Laughs). JONG-FAST: Soooo, you know, this is all they have is that Joe Biden is three years older than Donald Trump.  REID: Right. JONG-FAST: It's not like he’s 20 years or even 10 years. They guy is three years older. REID: Right, and also three years older and his brain don’t work good. I mean, if we’re just being honest, I mean, he stands up there and he gives these incohere–and we have this, you know–and Matthew I’ll go to you on this because we do have this debate on our show–all of the shows on this network have the debate of whether to play him. Because, part of me says, you should, because I don't think people understand how much he has declined. Joe Biden is old–let's just be clear–and he looks old, he sounds old, he walks old. He looks–y-y-you know, you see he’s a senior citizen. But he still sounds like he’s in touch with reality. Donald Trump does not. An-an-and so the question becomes, I think for the media, do we show more of him being himself? Because that's the only way people can necessarily–naw I’ve heard other people say, “Just show it to focus groups,” ‘cause I think a lot of Americans have forgotten how he sounds. DOWD: Well, I'm all, for one, for being as transparent as possible and wha–who is running in this campaign and showing them who they are. Showing–just basically lay it out to the American public and say, “This is the par–these are the people. This is Joe Biden. This is Donald Trump. And here you have it. And here’s him in his own words. And here’s Joe Biden in his own words. The funny–the interesting thing about me–about Donald Trump, is that he is a unique combination of both mentally unstable and incredibly corrupt. Right? He’s–he’s both–he’s a combination of both of those things. And so, he’s nefarious in how he operates in all those things but he’s also I–in my view, in my–Matthew Dowd’s view–mentally unstable in so many ways. And a lot of people have a hard time putting those two things together, that somebody can be both corrupt and-and do all sorts of nasty things while simultaneously being mentally unstable. But that's Donald Trump. REID: Yeah. And, I mean, Brian…go, please. STELTER: I think what we need to interrogate, then, is why are so many voters accepting that, right? Why are so many Trump voters holding Trump to such a low standard? I would argue that most Biden voters hold Biden to a higher standard.  REID: For sure. STELTER: Why is it that many Trump voters accept the word vomit–or, or the word salad that comes out of his mouth? That actually is the harder question, I think, to answer. I don't claim to have the answer.  REID: Yeah.  STELTER: But, Joy, that’s why you mentioned focus groups. Focus groups help us get to that answer. REID: Absolutely! And, I mean, Molly, this is the challenge because, I think, Democratic voters tend to be much harder on their–on Democratic presidents, Democratic candidates, Democratic members of congress, like, they want things.  JONG-FAST: Right. REID: But, the thing that's disconnected in our politics is that Republicans don't seem to want anything. They don't want bridges or jobs in their community. They just want theater.  JONG-FAST: Right. REID: And so–they–because they are having a low standard as voters, they’re saying, “Just entertain me by owning the libs and then we don't care if you don't deliver us anything.” And, that's the problem. JONG-FAST: Well, Republicans don't really want democracy anymore. REID: Well, they want tax cuts. (Laughs). JONG-FAST: Right, they want ta–very rich Republicans want tax cuts and they don’t care. Right. But a lot of these people just want authoritarianism. I mean, they like that. But if you ask–I mean, what I think is so fascinating about Republicans right now is they’re not really for anything besides tax cuts.  REID: Right. JONG-FAST: Right? I mean, they don’t–if you tried to list the policies that they are for.. REID: There aren’t any. Yeah. JONG-FAST: Right, I mean, you know, it was infrastructure week a lot of times, but there never was any infrastructure…you know? So, that kind of thing is–you know, they want to give Trump more power.  REID: Yeah.  JONG-FAST: But to do what, exactly? REID: And then that–that's the other piece. This is a media challenge because I don't think that we’re communicating to the audience always exactly what Donald Trump is going to do. Project 2025 isn't what he’s going to do. While he’s out there playing in traffic and talking about electrocution and sharks, the super-rich are gonna get–be–just glopping up tax cuts, and glopping up deregulation that is all for them. None of it’s for regular people. 

Donald Trump was on Capitol Hill Wednesday, meeting with congressional Republicans en route to the real reason for his trip: the Business Roundtable. It was the former president’s first trip to D.C. since leaving office, and it was less a chance for substantive discussions than an opportunity to get the band back together. Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) attended. The Senate Republican leader notably delivered one of the most fiery addresses of his career against Trump after the January 6 Capitol riot, and the two reportedly haven’t spoken since. Nothing like a family reunion. The Republican Party’s friendship with Big Business hasn’t been reciprocated for decades now, but for Trump it never existed. That wasn’t the only unspoken tension, of course. Republican leaders are eager for Trump’s sign-off on their plan to pass an omnibus spending bill this fall, covering into 2025. They’re selling it as “clearing the deck” for a potential Trump presidency, so he won’t have to deal with all the nasty bits of negotiations and can get right down to the business of governing. This isn’t so simple, of course, since so much of a first year of governing would be decided in this omnibus. Democrats would be able to slip traps and poison pills into all aspects of the 2025 agenda, from border security to foreign policy. And that latter bit — foreign policy — is where D.C. Republicans get excited. A fall omnibus means more money for Ukraine, dear to many Republicans. While Congress has ceded most of its power to the executive over the past 40 years, members take money they appropriate for war seriously. If Trump were to touch a hair on its head in the name of the president’s prerogative to shape foreign policy, he’d be walking into an impeachment trap. He shouldn’t fall for it, and some conservatives are keen to make sure he doesn’t. These policy planners are hoping for a “clean” continuing resolution instead. Republicans, they argue, can spend the fall working out the intense negotiations any major spending package would entail and in the meantime kick back the deadline to winter 2025 by maintaining (but neither increasing nor decreasing) government funding until then. The reality of appropriations is complicated and messy, and it’s unclear how many congressmen really know what they’re doing. As one Republican committee staffer told Blaze News, “It’s like planning your wedding and your retirement at the same time.” But Trump wasn’t there to talk to substantive policy, either. The real purpose of his visit was meeting with American business leaders in the hopes of raising money for his campaign to return to the White House. Democrats were keen to stop this, of course. Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) released a statement fitting “insurrection,” “scene of the crime,” “Nazi,” “Confederate,” “death, injury and trauma,” “dictator,” “revenge,” “crime against the Constitution” and “dismantling our democracy” into just six sentences. Joe Biden’s re-election campaign was slightly less dramatic, releasing an ad claiming Trump wants “to burn it all down.” But that didn’t stop some of America’s top executives from taking the meeting, including (reportedly) the CEOs of Apple, Nasdaq, Citigroup, Wells Fargo, American Express, JPMorgan Chase, American Express, and Bank of America. The Republican Party’s friendship with Big Business hasn’t been reciprocated for decades now, but for Trump it never existed. His talk of trade tariffs at his earlier meetings with his party’s legislators would very likely come up in conversation. Still, there is some fatigue from the antics of Biden and the Democrats. “I wish the Democrats would think a little more carefully when they talk about MAGA,” JP Morgan Chase's celebrity CEO, Jamie Dimon, told Davos attendees in January. “Just take a step back and be honest: He was kind of right about NATO. He was kind of right about immigration. He grew the economy quite well. Tax reform worked. ... I don’t like how he said things about Mexico, but he wasn’t wrong about some of these critical issues, and that’s why they’re voting for him.” Sign up for Bedford’s newsletter Sign up to get Blaze Media senior politics editor Christopher Bedford's newsletter. IN OTHER NEWS The next steps on Senate opposition to Biden’s lawfare Republican Sens. J.D. Vance (Ohio), Mike Lee (Utah), Bill Hagerty (Tenn.), Roger Marshall (Kan.), Tommy Tuberville (Ala.) and Eric Schmitt (Mo.) signed on to a letter Wednesday declaring their intent to block the fast-tracking of any of White House judicial and attorney general nominees, as well as any others who have supported Democrats’ lawfare and censorship through donations, through membership or affiliation with supportive organizations, or through public or social media comments. Objecting to the fast-tracking of nominations is a big headache for the U.S. Senate, which maintains a roughly three-day work week through barely contested voice votes and unanimous consent. Any senator has a right to object when a colleague tries to call for “unanimous consent,” and when somebody does, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) needs to devote somewhere between two and 30 hours of floor time (depending on the post) to allow his colleagues to speak on the nomination before voting. There aren’t many days left on the Senate calendar in the first place, so Schumer won’t want to do that. Judges matter a good deal to him, so you’ll likely see some fireworks there, but those loyal partisans hoping to pad their résumés with Senate-confirmed positions are very likely out of luck. Of course, these things take dedication. The signers need to be on hand to object — and willing to take the slings and arrows and snipes from their colleagues and the press, à la Tuberville. As with Lee’s broader but similar coalition, the more who join, the merrier (and the more trouble they can cause). The fire rises: Autoweek: Why Ford’s billion-dollar restoration of Michigan Central Station is more than just a model refresh (photos) The world of architecture is rarely the source of good news. The expert class is committed to ugliness, claims beauty is too expensive anyway, and tells all us plebs we’d appreciate it all if only we were more cultured. This is completely wrong, of course, and all around us we see beautiful buildings decay while soulless glass and plastic replace them. Ford Motor Company is apparently an exception to this sad reality, and this summer Henry Ford’s great-grandson's commitment to beauty, craftsmanship, and his home city has delivered an incredible feat: the restoration of the 110-year-old Beaux-Arts Michigan Central Station. Tom Murphy reports: Those of us who have spent our lives in Metro Detroit have been waiting many, many years for the day when the Michigan Central Station, a massive train depot that opened in 1913 and later was abandoned and became a symbol of everything that was wrong with Detroit, would someday find new life. Miraculously, that day has come, thanks to the passion of William Clay Ford Jr., who decided this eyesore — with more than a little work and polish — could become a technology incubator and research hub for his family company, the Ford Motor Co. The executive chairman — great-grandson of company founder, Henry Ford — committed $90 million to buy the three-story Beaux Arts train depot and 18-story tower in 2018, then another $1 billion to rebuild it and restore its old-world grandeur.

Thomas Massie Destroys Trump Verdict AND Congress With Some Brutal Truths About 'Hush Money'